The Dragon Conspiracy Read online

  “You asked for it. A good agent is always careful what they ask for—spoken or unspoken.” A trace of a grin quirked his lips. “You never know what you’re going to get.”

  Like my normally by-the-book partner being coaxed into mixing a little fun into our business this evening.

  “Everything’s a teaching opportunity, isn’t it.” I didn’t ask it as a question; I already knew the answer.

  “It is until you learn everything.”

  “Which means my future’s gonna be chock-full of teaching.”

  Even I couldn’t deny it. The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know. My bullets were getting closer to the centers of our shooting range’s paper targets, but human silhouettes were only one kind of target that I practiced on. Some of them were so big you’d think I couldn’t miss them. Wrong. In my defense, when multiple targets popped up either at the same time or one right after the other, it was hard to remember where to shoot. Some of the things we came up against didn’t have hearts in the same places as humans. Heck, some didn’t have hearts at all.

  The rest of my training was going even slower, though it’d help if Ian wasn’t the ultimate commando-ninja-badass monster fighter. Him being so good made me look even worse. However, if someday I found myself backed into a dead-end alley facing a wendigo with a hankering for a late-night snack, I knew I’d be glad that I’d been taught by the best. Ian hadn’t deemed me competent enough to progress past what looked to me like Nerf knives, and I still couldn’t last more than fifteen seconds on the sparring mat without Ian pinning me. If he wouldn’t throw me quite so hard, at least that part would be fun, though I think that was why he did it; that and to be a constant reminder that any encounter I had on the job with a supernatural critter wasn’t going to feel like fun and games.

  Ian and I had spent a lot of time together since he’d been assigned as my partner/bodyguard/babysitter. SPI’s seers didn’t get combat training, but since my three predecessors had met with fatal accidents that might not have been so accidental, SPI’s management had taken steps to protect their personnel investment. That would be me. Ian Byrne was that protection. To Ian, a big part of that protection was teaching me to fend for myself. I couldn’t have agreed more, and was doing my best to learn everything he had to teach. However, I think Ian was feeling a whole lot like Henry Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle.

  During that time, my training had extended to time off the clock. Though it was more like an educational series of “Let’s have a beer after work, and I’ll tell you how to tell normal sewer sludge from the mucus trail of a giant demon slug.” Let me tell you, nothing puts you off your bar-food nachos quicker than a lecture on the color and consistency of slug secretions.

  But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun, because between the lectures on monster bodily fluids, Ian would tell me about past missions. Purely from an instructional viewpoint, of course. At least that was what Ian wanted me to believe. I could tell he enjoyed the telling as much as I did the hearing. It must have been the Irish storyteller in him.

  Ian began maneuvering us toward the center of the dance floor. One spin was so sudden I nearly fell off my heels. Though any heel height was too high for me. I was the only person I knew of who could fall off a pair of flip-flops.

  “Easy there, partner. What’s the rush?”

  Ian lowered his head to my ear while still steering us toward the center, showing his usual impressive coordination. I displayed my usual lack.

  “I want you to get a look at Viktor Kain’s date,” he said. “Human or not human?”

  I stiffened, and if Ian’s hand hadn’t been firmly at the small of my back, I would have stumbled.

  Ian knew my reason wasn’t due to clumsiness.

  “Relax,” Ian told me. “He’s just dancing.”

  Well, if Nero had fiddled while Rome had burned, it stood to reason that mass murderers could dance, but that didn’t mean I wanted to dance anywhere near one.

  Viktor Kain had loaned art to the Met for the exhibit—art that was the main reason we were here—and Ian had spotted him before I had.

  Way to be a watchful agent, Mac.

  I was glad Ian had seen him first. If my partner had swung me around and I’d suddenly gotten a gander of the Russian, I’d have probably freaked out, which would have blown our cover, at least with Viktor Kain. Though if the people around us had known what the Russian businessman really was, they not only wouldn’t have blamed me one bit, they’d have run like hell.

  Viktor Kain was a dragon.

  That wasn’t my problem with him. Far from it. I knew a few dragons. Heck, our boss was a dragon. Once you got past the whole humans-occasionally-on-the-menu thing, dragons could be nice people.

  No, my problem with Viktor Kain was that he was the head of an international crime syndicate. He had personally killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people over his long criminal career and even longer life, and he’d ordered the deaths and ruin of even more—and he’d enjoyed every last minute of it.

  Ostensibly, the Russian was here in New York because he’d loaned several items to the museum for the exhibition. SPI strongly suspected that wasn’t the only reason. Viktor Kain had brought more than art with him; he’d brought trouble, not just for SPI, but for every human on this island and probably beyond.

  The Russian’s very presence on East Coast soil was a slap in the face to every rule of dragon etiquette, and two skips away from a declaration of supernatural war. No dragon would dare set claw on another’s territory without an invitation. I’d put enough agency rumor and innuendo together to know that Vivienne Sagadraco and Viktor Kain had crossed each other’s paths in the past, and as a result of those encounters, each barely tolerated the existence of the other on the planet. So if Viktor Kain the dragon wanted to come to New York, he knew better than to ask for an invitation. It wasn’t gonna happen, in this century or any other.

  Local and federal law enforcement knew that Viktor Kain the Russian mobster was here, but until he broke any laws, watch was all they could do.

  We couldn’t do anything, either.

  Though before the night was over, karma might just kick Viktor Kain in the teeth. In all probability, one of the items he’d brought was the one that was going to be stolen.

  The betting had started early among our agents on what the thief would go after. The odds were leaning heavily toward the Dragon Eggs—a massive ruby cut in the shape of a coiled dragon surrounded by seven of the world’s rarest, egg-shaped, colored diamonds, all contained in an intricately woven solid-gold nest.

  The Dragon Eggs were being shown for the first time outside of Russia since they’d been given to the Empress Alexandra. Yes, that Alexandra. Wife of Tsar Nicholas, and mother to Anastasia, et al. The separate stones had blood-soaked histories that’d turn your hair white, but collectively they were said to be cursed. The curse rumor definitely picked up a couple extra believability points when in July of 1918, only months after the empress received the diamonds, the Bolsheviks wiped out the Russian imperial family. The Dragon Eggs had vanished after the Romanov family was murdered, and the diamonds had only come together again within the past few months in the collection of Viktor Kain.

  I wasn’t normally the superstitious type, but you couldn’t pay me enough to touch the things, let alone own them.

  But there were a lot of obscenely wealthy people, or their representatives, here tonight who wanted to do just that—touch and own. They were using tonight’s gala as an auction preview. Whether due to the curse or a need for cash, Viktor Kain was selling the Dragon Eggs; however, for a reason known only to him, he’d let it be known that he could be persuaded to sell them separately rather than together. Maybe he thought he could get more money that way.

  I got a good look at the white-gowned, willowy blonde in Viktor Kain’s arms. I didn’t have to look long to determine that she was s
tunning. The men around her had arrived at the same conclusion, but apparently they felt the need to keep stealing glances at her in case their opinions changed.

  While the woman was inhumanly beautiful, human was all that she was.

  “Just human,” I told Ian. “Though try convincing any guy here that she’s not a goddess.”

  Viktor Kain saw the stir his date was causing, and the oily smile on his face told me that it amused him.

  The Russian had a face like the business end of a hatchet, sharp and cold. He was a couple inches taller than Ian, probably pushing six four. His date was only an inch or two shorter, but thanks to the slit in her gown combined with a particularly impressive dance move, I got a look at a pair of what had to be five-inch heels.

  Beneath Viktor Kain’s human glamour was a monstrous dragon the color of dried blood. While Vivienne Sagadraco was a dragon of incredible beauty with her peacock blue and green iridescent scales, and immaculate wings that held a similar jewel-like glow, many of Viktor Kain’s red scales were edged in black as if burnt, or missing altogether, revealing rubbery, bat-like skin below. His wings folded crooked over his back, and had been torn in more than a few places, their healing marked by thickened scar tissue.

  The Russian looked like a dragon that’d fought many times, and since he was here, he’d apparently met and defeated every challenger. I knew the boss wouldn’t back down from a fight, and I’d seen her in two of them, but she’d either had fewer than Kain, or was so good that she’d never been seriously injured. In a dragon fight, size took a backseat to speed and agility. Viktor Kain was bigger than Vivienne Sagadraco, but I’d seen firsthand how agile the boss was in the air. I got the impression the Russian probably lacked in that area. He looked like more of a use-brute-strength-to-set-an-example kind of guy. Rumor had it he used fire to rid himself of inconvenient business associates. Not with a blowtorch or a flamethrower, but with his own exhaled breath.

  Viktor Kain had hidden his true identity over the centuries by assuming a human form; only a small and fanatically devoted circle of associates knew his true nature. I guess he needed a few people to get rid of any crispy critter that used to be an employee whose performance had disappointed him. Though you had to wonder what Viktor’s underlings who weren’t in his inner circle thought when a live man walked in to see their boss, but a human-shaped charcoal briquette got carried out. Most of them probably didn’t want to know how that happened. Keep your head down, don’t ask stupid questions, and live to resperate another day.

  Our agency briefing had touched on why Viktor Kain had chosen St. Petersburg as his territory. A city of history, palaces, museums, and art. He fancied himself a patron of the arts, and true to his draconic nature, he was an avid collector. He’d been known to pay an astronomical sum to have the Hermitage closed to the public and the alarms turned off so he could walk the galleries alone, admiring and touching the priceless works of art.

  A dragon communing with his hoard.

  Ian and I stayed on the dance floor for one more song, and then entered the exhibit. I was glad to leave the dragon and his date to their samba.

  The art and artifacts were arranged mostly by subject or time period, and what could only be called theater sets had been designed and lit for maximum effect. The exhibit representing the Delphic oracle was located in what looked like a real cave. Hollywood—or since this was New York, a Broadway set designer—couldn’t have done a better job.

  It was spooky as hell; but I had to admit, it was effective.

  There were paintings, sculptures, tapestries, artifacts, armor, weapons, jewelry and huge stained glass windows illustrating dragons, furies, demons, sea monsters, vampires, gryphons, giants, fae, gods, and more fantastical creatures from myth and legend—all perfectly lit to maximize their beauty and impact.

  Ian paused by the oracle’s cave, getting a report from Edward Laughlin, a security consultant SPI often called upon when the valuables (or the hopeful thief of said valuables) were paranormal in nature. Eddie also had a profitable sideline business as an acquirer of antiquities with a paranormal provenance, making him kind of like Indiana Jones, minus the whip and fedora.

  Eddie was also half elf and half goblin, and as such was looked down on by many of both races. Your average elf or goblin on the street was fine with the whole mixed-race thing, but any pure-blood aristocrats of either race here tonight (and there were quite a few) would rather spit on him than look at him. Needless to say, Eddie was rocking a serious glamour this evening that no one short of a mage was gonna see through. And he’d recently added some ubercool sunglasses to his disguise, due to an infection he’d gotten courtesy of an irritated temple-monkey demon that actually had managed to spit on him—right in the eyes. Though if you had to get something that was the supernatural second cousin of pink eye, cover it up in style. Between the super-sized glamour, the shades, and a thick film over his usual aura courtesy of the nasty magic–infused monkey spit, no one—including myself—could tell what he really was, making it perfectly safe for him to walk around among the upper crust of both of his races.

  Ian nodded to me, indicating that I should continue; he’d catch up. I did.

  The pieces featured in the exhibit came from a mix of loans from private collections and other museums. I saw a few that I recognized, like the Pre-Raphaelite painting of Pandora by John William Waterhouse. His subject may have been romanticized, but the box she was shown opening was very real. Some of the evils and diseases that had originally escaped from the box had been captured, or contained and re-imprisoned. Agency rumor had it that one of the diseases presently in the box could wipe out the entire human race in a matter of days. Pandora’s box and its remaining contents were now securely sealed in a vault deep beneath SPI’s Berlin office.

  Nearby was a Greek wine jar on loan from the British Museum featuring Perseus having just cut off Medusa’s head, with the goddess Athena looking on in approval. Nice lady.

  Gold flickered out of the corner of my eye. Vivienne Sagadraco wasn’t the only one who liked things that went glitter in the night. I strolled over, and the closer I got, the more familiar it looked. A Viking sword. Not just any Viking sword, but the blade reputed to be the source of the legend of Gram—the sword that the Norse hero Sigurd used to kill the dragon Fafnir.

  I chuckled. I had news for the Oslo museum it’d been loaned from: there didn’t need to be a source for Gram’s legend. The real thing existed, and Sigurd hadn’t been a myth, which meant that Fafnir had probably been the real McCoy as well.

  I’d seen Gram up close and met Sigurd’s descendant personally last New Year’s Eve. We’d had a problem with the descendant of another Scandinavian. Grendel. Sigurd’s multi-great-grandson was a SPI commando from our Oslo office named Rolf Haagen. He’d brought the sword with him when a team of Nordic monster hunters had jumped across the pond to give us a hand. Rolf killed one of the grendels, but he hadn’t used Gram to do it. The crazy Viking had goaded the monster into grabbing him, and then shoved a grenade down the thing’s throat.

  That’d been messy.

  Next to the reputed source for Gram’s legend were more swords.

  We’d been warned in our pre-mission briefing that there were a few items in the exhibition that were more than what they appeared. The usual arrangement was that people used objects. A couple of the objects in the Mythos exhibition had the reputation of using people.

  Between me and the room with the Dragon Eggs was an Egyptian mural of Anubis, a cursed and bloodthirsty Japanese sword that a pair of our agents were keeping a close eye on, gold Incan temple artifacts used in human sacrifices (likewise getting some special SPI protection), and the obligatory statue of St. George and the Dragon. I was betting the boss wouldn’t be a fan of that particular piece.

  The lighting got even more dramatic with more than its fair share of reds and oranges. Fire. The art in this section depicted evil
in its various mythical forms. Everything from a statue of the classic horned representation of the devil, to the black-winged concept of the fallen Lucifer in a more modern—and, quite frankly, hot—painting. I had news: when you caught a real demon, their veils dropped and you got a good look at what you really had on the end of your hook. Kind of like going fishing and coming up with a water moccasin. Believe me, that wasn’t something you want sharing an itty-bitty boat with you.

  A life-sized painting of Hades had been roped off, not for the safety of the painting, but for the safety of female guests, especially those who resembled the daughter of Demeter. Per Demeter’s agreement with the god of the underworld, Persephone was supposed to spend summers with her mom. However, Hades had been known to have occasional bouts of amnesia on that part of the contract. A certain Italian Renaissance artist had traded his soul to Hades for talent with a brush. In return, Hades had added a nifty portal feature to the newly completed painting; a painting that could give you a direct flight straight to Hell. While Hades wanted Persephone, there’d been enough incidents over the centuries of girls disappearing into the painting to prove that any petite blond, blue-eyed beauty with long, shampoo-commercial hair would work in a pinch.

  I was petite, but my eyes were green, not blue. And while my hair was blond, it wasn’t long. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances and gave the painting a wide berth. Even though I wasn’t exactly his type, I could swear the painting’s eyes followed me.

  I guess it didn’t make a hill of beans’ worth of difference if you were the king of the underworld, or the managing editor of the bottom-of-the-journalistic-barrel tabloid I’d worked for when I’d first come to town; a lecherous sleazebag was a lecherous sleazebag.

  A hand on my shoulder nearly made me jump out of my skin.

  Ian. Not Hades.

  “The boss called. She wants us on egg watch,” he told me.

  Showtime.

  2

  THE path through the exhibit ended in the Met’s Sackler Wing at the Temple of Dendur. It was one of my favorite rooms in the museum; its sloped glass wall gave a marvelous view of Central Park. It was also one of the rooms famous for being used for parties and receptions when wealthy New Yorkers wanted to do it big. Nothing said impressive like having a two-thousand-year-old Egyptian temple as your party’s focal point.