The Eldritch Conspiracy

15

If I hadn’t been friends with Rizzoli it would’ve been worse. If Dom Rizzoli was more of an ass and less of a professional, it would’ve taken longer. After all, there were injured agents, an injured civilian (Bruno had a cracked rib and needed some stitches where he’d been hit by a piece of flying debris), a missing witness, and an escaped villain—to say nothing of considerable property damage. Not a banner day for the feds or the agent in charge.

But it wasn’t my fault, except for the small matter of showing up at the college. I specifically hadn’t followed Rizzoli. I wasn’t lying about that and he said he understood. So my questioning was friendly and relatively short, particularly when compared to what had happened at the police station the previous day. I was even able to clean up a little after the session so I didn’t look quite so much like the sole survivor in a disaster movie.

I sat in the lobby of the federal building, waiting for my ride and thinking.

The lobby of the federal building is beautiful. The floors are marble, the atrium area stretches up three stories. A mural stretches along two walls, depicting scenes from the beginning of the Bureau to the present. The entrance doors and reception desk take up the third wall. The fourth is unpolished black stone and nearly covered with two-inch brass plates with the name, rank, and date of death of agents who have died in the line of duty. It’s a grim reminder of the price paid to keep the public safe.

No new plates would be put on the wall because of this morning’s fiasco. I was glad. We’d been lucky. I was lucky they’d arrived in time. The feds were fortunate in that Bruno had managed a partial shield when the blast hit.

That had been one hell of a spell. It wasn’t the work of a student. Not even a graduate student. It was the kind of spell used by trained combat mages in military operations. You do something like that without a team behind you, you’re going to be wiped out for a week or more. Good news for the feds and all of the others out hunting Jan. They’d still have to contend with any traps he’d set for them. But he wouldn’t be doing any new magic for a few days at least.

“Wow, that’s grim.” Dawna came up beside me. She stared up at row after row of little brass plates.

“It’s supposed to be.” I turned to her. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“No problema. Ron’s in court all afternoon. It was just going to be me and the crickets.” She tried to sound lighthearted, but her smile didn’t light up her face the way it usually did. As always, she looked lovely enough to be garnering a fair number of stares, but she didn’t even notice. That was so not Dawna. Her suit today was a deep crimson. The jacket had an embroidered collar and a little peplum that drew attention to her tiny waist. The knee-length pencil skirt was just long enough to be modest, showing off a terrific set of legs. Her dark hair was loose, hanging in a sleek, shining curtain down her back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s not important.”

I didn’t believe her, but I also knew that pushing was pointless. She’d tell me when she was ready. But she would tell me. Dawna’s the kind who needs to talk things through. Still, it might not be the kind of problem you’d want to discuss in a public place that had both video and audio surveillance.

We exited into bright sunshine and I immediately felt my skin starting to burn.

“I hope you’re parked close. My sunscreen’s worn off.”

“Crap, they don’t let anyone park within a block of the building. Get in the shade and wait,” she ordered. “I’ll come get you.”

It made sense, so I was happy to agree. I ducked into the shadow of the building and felt the painful heat of my skin ease almost immediately. I closed my eyes for a second in blissful relief.

Most of the time I’m okay with the “new me.” Some of the siren stuff is actually cool. The vampire healing is great. But if a genie gave me three wishes, my very first one would be to go back to being a normal human.

I waited, expecting Dawna to come around the corner in her little Chevy hybrid. Instead I saw das Humvee pull to the curb.

I say “das Humvee” because this wasn’t any old Hummer. No, this was a macho man’s wet dream—the full military-sized model, completely customized. It was huge, glossy black, and ostentatious, with lots and lots of chrome that glared blindingly in the afternoon sunlight.

“Holy crap.”

The passenger door swung open. “Get in.”

“What the hell?”

She gave an impatient gesture. I dashed across the sidewalk and hefted myself inside.

It wasn’t easy. I’m a tall woman, but this thing was big. I couldn’t imagine how Dawna had managed it, especially in a skirt and heels. I especially couldn’t figure out how she reached the pedals or how she’d managed to lean across the length of the front seat to open my door.

As soon as I had my seatbelt fastened, she pulled away from the curb, traffic parting in her path like the Red Sea parting for Moses.

Sitting there, I couldn’t quite see to the next county but I could certainly see over all the other cars into the next block. I drive an old Miata, an itty-bitty sports car that’s slung low to the ground. Riding in the Humvee was a totally different experience.

“I hate this damned thing,” Dawna muttered. “It’s so freaking huge. It’s impossible to find a place to park.”

Yeah, that would be a problem—assuming you weren’t willing to crush the lesser vehicles that dared get in your way. But damn, the interior was nice. Unlike military models used in the field, this had real leather, real wood, lots of gadgets. It even had the after-market button with shielding spells. How cool was that?

“Then why are you driving it?”

“Chris insisted.” She said it bitterly, not a good sign. “He said that if I was going to be spending the day with you, this was the closest thing we had to a tank. And I shouldn’t hesitate to use the shielding spell, either. And see that blue button over there?” She pointed to a button that, like the shielding spell trigger, was after-market, but—also like the shielding spell trigger—very well installed. “That’s a panic button. We press that and the Company descends on us for a rescue.”

“Really? No kidding?” Okay, that was freaking cool. John Creede had a disk like that, which he carried around in case of emergency. But to have it built into a car? Awesome. No, I don’t like the Company. They’re one of those private mercenary and magical contractors that do all sorts of Soldier-of-Fortuney things that countries don’t want to get their hands dirty handling. But a panic button to save one of their people? That appealed to the gadget geek in me in a big way. It was cool. It just was. The moment I got “people,” I was going to have one.

“No kidding.” She smiled in spite of herself. “Chris isn’t just a medic, he’s got an actual healing gift. That’s really rare. And last year he bought into the Company. He’s a junior partner now.”

I didn’t know what to think about that, let alone what to say. “Um, wow. How do you feel about that?”

We were at a stop light, so she gave me a long, level look. “About as happy as he feels about my working for you. I mean, he likes you and everything. But he says being around you is like riding out a hurricane, a coup, and a bomb attack simultaneously.”

Uh-oh. Not good. “Crap.”

The light changed, and we surged forward. “Don’t worry. I’m not quitting.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Oh good. Because I’ve been thinking about doing something, and I was kind of counting on your help.”

“What?” She didn’t say “what now” but her tone of voice implied it.

I winced but plowed on. “I’ve become too high profile to get many bodyguarding jobs as an individual.” There was no escaping the fact that business has been down. I hadn’t taken the Mexico job just as a courtesy.

She nodded in agreement, but kept her eyes on the road. Apparently driving something this much bigger than she was used to took quite a bit of attention.

“And subcontracting the help I needed for a bigger job didn’t work.” Understatement of the decade. I started drumming my fingers on the armrest nervously. Why was talking to Dawna making me nervous? Because what I was about to say was big, and I wanted her to agree. It should have occurred to me before now that she might say no, but it hadn’t. Just like it hadn’t occurred to me that Chris, who was my friend, damn it, wouldn’t want his bride-to-be hanging out with me.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m expanding the business. I’ll hire my own people, send them out on individual jobs, work with them running the bigger ones.” I took a deep breath. “I was hoping you’d want to go in with me. I can’t meet with female clients because of the whole siren thing.” Sirens make normal, fertile women irrationally angry and jealous. It’s biological. “You’re better with people than anyone else I know.”

“So, a glorified receptionist.”

“No. A partner. Seventy-thirty. You handle the office end and the computer research. I handle the staffing and action.”

She was so startled she hit the brakes, hard. We were lucky not to be rear-ended. Amazingly, nobody hit us. Hell, nobody even laid on the horn. They just adjusted, driving around. Being behind a car that obviously costs six figures or more tends to make drivers more nimble. I know it does me.

“A partner?” She looked at me, wide-eyed. But when she spoke again, her voice was only a little bit higher pitched and breathy than usual. “Why not fifty-fifty?”

“Because I’m putting up the building and the money. This is going to take a lot of cash to pull off.”

She started the vehicle moving forward again, keeping her eyes on the road. “Then it’s probably a good thing I deposited the check from your aunt, for protecting Adriana. It’ll make a good start. And hey, if she makes it up the aisle safely, you’ll earn the bonus. That should give us more than enough to get started.”

Us. She’d said us. I found myself grinning hugely. And a check from my aunt! I’d have to remind Dawna to send her a contract—though, knowing Dawna, she already had.

“But I’m not taking less than sixty-forty. You need me. Your people skills … well, they sort of suck.” She pulled smoothly into the right turn lane, all shock gone, her expression growing almost smug, dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

I knew that look but wasn’t sure where she was going with it. “What?”

Smugness grew into a grin. “I can’t wait to tell Ron.”