Читать книгу Legion - Julie Kagawa - Страница 16

EMBER

“Give me that, Firebrand,” Riley muttered, quickly stepping forward and taking the bag from my hands. It vanished into his suit pocket as he glanced around warily. “No point in giving the humans any more hints that dragons are real. Or at least that something very unnatural went down.” He eyed a human wandering by who looked like a scientist, then lowered his voice again. “Regardless, I think we’ve seen all we need to see here.”

“I agree,” Jade said, nodding. “From the evidence, it is safe to assume that dragons attacked this town in their true form, and that Talon is at least partially responsible. Unfortunately, that theory creates more questions than it answers. Why would they attack this community? Especially since, as Riley pointed out, the entire point of the organization is to hide the existence of dragons from the human population. Why risk that now?”

Riley shook his head. “I have no clue, but I get the feeling we’re not going to like the answer.”

Abruptly, Garret stalked back, his gaze intense as he swept between us. “The woman you described is approaching this location,” he said in a low voice, making Riley jerk up.

“Hell. Miranda is coming? Come on, we can’t be seen by her.”

We fast-walked toward the end of the room, passing more humans and looking for a way out as we went deeper into the tent. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a back exit, and the open room offered very few hiding spots.

“There,” Riley said, nodding toward a corner of the tent that had been sectioned off. Plastic flaps hung to the floor, and the area beyond was dark. With Riley leading and Garret watching our backs, we hurried across the room and ducked through the plastic walls.

My stomach recoiled. The room beyond the flaps was dim and cold, and the sickly smell of death lingered on the air, masked by chemicals and disinfectant. A pair of stainless-steel tables stood in the center of the room, and atop the farthest counter was something long and suspiciously body shaped, covered with a sheet.

I drew in a slow breath to quiet my heartbeat and nudged Garret, who was still peering through the flaps to watch for the Chameleon. He glanced at me with a puzzled frown, but it quickly faded when he realized what I was staring at.

“There she is,” Riley growled softly, not taking his eyes from the room beyond. “Hello, Miranda. What are you doing here? Covering up for the organization again?”

I tore my eyes from what was obviously a dead body and peeked through the plastic flaps again, seeing a dark-haired, smartly dressed woman enter the tent, followed by what looked like an assistant of some kind. The woman, or dragon, really, wasn’t tall or intimidating—not like Lilith, who could walk into a room and freeze you in place with a glare. But everything about this woman radiated charisma, charm and confidence, much like another Chameleon I used to know.

As a certain traitorous brother entered my thoughts, I swallowed the brief pang and forced myself to concentrate on the Talon agent at the end of the other room. She spoke briskly to the assistant and pointed to several boxes along the wall. The human bobbed his head in mute agreement, and the Chameleon smiled, then spun and exited the tent as suddenly as she had appeared.

“All right,” Riley mused, straightening and drawing back from the flap. “So Talon sent an agent to help with the cover-up, but also to make sure certain evidence just...disappears. Sounds like them.” He nodded. “I think we’re going to have to pay a visit to a certain hotel room in town.”

I frowned at him. “How did you get all that? They were clear across the room.”

He smirked down at me. “I was a Basilisk, Firebrand. Among my many enviable talents are picking locks, hiding in plain sight...and reading lips.” His grin widened at my surprised look before he sobered and glanced through the flaps again. “Seems that our lovely Talon agent is staying at a hotel not far from here,” he muttered, watching the human gather up a couple crates and leave the tent. “Those boxes of evidence are likely headed there now. If anyone knows what Talon was doing here, it will be Miranda. And if they’re planning anything else like this, I’d kinda like to know when and why.”

“I agree,” came Garret’s grave voice from behind us. I turned to find him standing next to the counter I’d pointed to earlier, only he had pulled back a corner of the sheet, revealing a truly hideous sight. The corpse lying on the table was barely recognizable as human, as shriveled and burned as it was. It looked more like a piece of charred wood than anything that had once been alive. My stomach heaved, and I had to look away, feeling bile rise to my throat. Was that what my victims looked like, after I’d blasted them with dragonfire? I’d killed both Talon servants and soldiers of St. George in battle. Had they all ended up like that withered corpse? Blackened skeletons of what had once been human?

“If Talon is planning another attack,” Garret continued in that same somber voice, though his steely eyes glinted in the darkness, “we need to stop it before this happens again.”

* * *

We followed the Chameleon from the “crash site,” tailing her white sedan until it pulled into a normal, innocuous-looking hotel, not the Ritz but not a Motel 6, either. From across the lot, we watched the Chameleon walk briskly into the hotel followed by two large men I assumed were bodyguards. Left behind, her poor assistant hauled several boxes out of the trunk and staggered after them.

I looked at Riley as the human vanished through the hotel doors. “So, how are we going to do this?” I asked. “Wait to sneak in tonight?”

He shook his head. “No time for that, Firebrand. She could be leaving today and taking all the evidence with her. If we want to see what Talon is up to, we need to get in there now.” He frowned and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Problem is, I can take care of Miranda and get us into the room, but if she leaves any of her guards behind, that’s going to make things difficult. If she comes back and finds an unconscious human lying on her floor, she’s going to guess someone was there and warn the organization.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jade said, surprising us all. “You just concentrate on getting the Talon woman away from the vicinity and finding her room. I will take care of the guards.”

He eyed her, raising a brow. “And how are you going to do that exactly? Eat them?”

“Please. I would very likely get food poisoning.” She wrinkled her nose and sniffed in clear disgust. “Do not worry. As I once told our soldier friend, a shen-lung has her ways. You get the Talon agent out of the building and find where her room is located. Leave any guards to me.”

Riley stared at her a moment longer, then shrugged. “You’re awfully certain about that,” he muttered, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket. “But as we’re a little short on time, I guess I’ll have to trust you know what you’re doing. Hang on a second.” He pressed a button on his phone, then put it to his ear. “Wes. We’re at the Wingate Hotel, about ten miles from the crash site. I need you to find which room Miranda’s staying in.” A pause, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course we’re going to sneak in, what do you think?... I don’t know, the Eastern dragon thinks she can get past the guards.” He sighed. “Don’t argue, Wes. Just do it.”

A couple minutes passed, and he nodded. “Three-eighteen. Got it. I’ll call you if there’s trouble.” He frowned. “Thank you, Wesley, your votes of confidence are always so inspiring.”

“Okay,” I said as Riley lowered his arm. “One problem down—we know what room she’s in. How are we going to get her to leave long enough to search it?”

“Don’t worry, Firebrand.” Riley gave a wicked smile. “King of BS right here, remember? Watch and learn.”

Pressing in a number, he held the phone to his ear and waited a few moments as it rang. “Hello, front desk?... Yes, could you please connect me to Miranda Kent’s room? I believe she’s staying there tonight.” A pause, and he grinned. “Thank you.”

I held my breath, watching Riley and counting the number of imaginary rings in my head. At three rings, he raised his head. “Ms. Kent? This is Director Smith, from the crash site? Sorry to bother you, but we recently found something of an anomaly near one of the victims, and thought you might want to see it.”

As he spoke, his other hand reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the plastic bag, holding it up with narrowed eyes. “Well, we’re not entirely sure. We’ve never seen such a thing before—it looks like some kind of reptile scale. But far bigger than any species in known existence—” He stopped, as if the voice on the other end had cut him off, and the gleam in his eyes grew brighter. “All right, then. We won’t do anything until you get here. Thank you.”

“Clever,” Jade remarked as he lowered the phone. Riley snorted.

“I just know how Talon works, is all.” He stuffed the phone and the scale into his pocket again and leaned back in smug satisfaction. “If Miranda’s job is to cover this up and make all evidence of dragons disappear, something like this is going to light a fire under her tail like nothing else. She’ll be desperate to get to that evidence before Talon hears about it. We should see her anytime now. Like a bat out of hell.”

Less than two minutes later, the hotel doors opened and the Chameleon and a single guard strode across the lot, setting an even brisker pace toward the car, the assistant scrambling along in their wake. The woman’s normally smiling face was taut as she entered the passenger side and slammed the door shut. As the guard opened the driver’s side, the assistant nearly tripped over himself getting into the car. The sedan backed hastily out of the parking spot, barely missing the hood of a truck as it did, and peeled out of the lot.

Riley snickered and straightened in his seat again. “And that,” he remarked, watching the sedan turn onto the road, cutting off a van as it merged into traffic, “is how you freak out a Chameleon. But we do need to hurry, before she realizes ‘Mr. Smith’ is no longer at the crash site.”

“One of her guards wasn’t with her,” Garret observed. Riley nodded.

“Yep. Which means he’ll be in her room, just like I thought.” He turned to Jade, who seemed perfectly calm and serene, even as my heart was pounding with nerves and anticipation. “All right, O great and mysterious shen-lung,” he stated, and waved his hand at the hotel. “It’s all yours.”

Jade nodded. Taking off the suit jacket, she laid it over the back of her seat. Her heels followed, and then her earrings, being placed carefully in the cup holders as we looked on in bewilderment. “How long will you need to be in the room?” she asked, unbuttoning the cuffs of her white shirt. Riley blinked.

“Uh, not long,” he said, watching her finish with the sleeves and unbutton the top. “Five minutes, at most.”

The Eastern dragon nodded. “Give me ten minutes,” she said, and left the car. We watched her walk barefooted across the parking lot, pulling the tie from her bun as she did, and enter the hotel through the front doors. Riley shook his head and glanced back at Garret.

“If this goes spectacularly to hell,” he told him, “I’m blaming you. You realize that.”

The soldier just smiled grimly.

Ten long, tense minutes later, Riley blew out an explosive breath and reached for the door handle. “Okay,” he announced far too brightly. “Let’s go see if our Eastern princess has managed to eat anyone.”

We cautiously entered the hotel and made our way through the long aisles toward room 318. Along the way, a maid stepped out of one of the rooms, pushing a cart, and Riley quite literally ran into it. He tumbled to the floor with a yelp, and the poor maid began a string of rapid apologies, rushing over and asking if he was all right, while Garret and I looked on in confusion. Riley, picking himself up off the floor, suddenly switched to perfect, fluent Spanish, making soothing motions with his hands and, from what I could tell, assuring her he was fine. He said something that made her laugh, and then she thanked him and walked away, pushing the cart down the hall again. I stared after her, then at the rogue, who seemed very pleased with himself.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded. “I’ve seen you move, and there’s no way that was an accident. You ran into her on purpose, didn’t you?”

Riley grinned, dusted off his pants and then held up a card between two fingers.

“I was going to say I left my key card in the room and could she please open the door for me,” he admitted as we quickly moved toward the elevators. “That’s always worked in the past. But I figured this might be faster.”

“Risky,” Garret remarked. “What if you couldn’t lift it without getting caught?” Riley smirked.

“I don’t get caught, St. George. Now, let’s get to Miranda’s room before anything else happens.”

We took the elevator to the third floor and easily found room 318. The hallway was silent, and no sounds or light came from the room beyond the door. Riley cast furtive glances over his shoulder, making sure no one was around, and raised the card he took from the maid.

“All right,” he said in a low voice. “Here goes. Let’s see if that Eastern dragon actually did what she said she could.”

He slid the key into the slot. It beeped green, and we pushed the door open.

The room beyond was empty.

Riley let out a breath, and beside me, Garret relaxed. I slumped in relief, letting muscles that had tensed up for a fight uncoil. “Okay.” The rogue nodded, shutting the door behind us. “I don’t know how she did it, but I’m not complaining. Let’s find that evidence and see if we can discover what Talon is up to. But remember,” he warned as we stepped farther inside. “Try not to disturb anything. We don’t want Miranda knowing we were here. Let’s find what we’re looking for and get the hell out.”

That sounded like a good idea. The hotel room wasn’t large, and we did a sweep of the place fairly quickly. There was nothing in the main room or the bathroom, but when Riley pulled open the closet door...

“Dammit,” he muttered, gazing at several cardboard boxes stacked neatly in the corner. They were taped, sealed shut, with shipping labels stuck to the sides. “Well, here’s the evidence, but we can’t get inside to look at it. Not without Miranda knowing we were here. Where are they sending these? I wonder.” He pulled one of the boxes toward him and looked at the address on top. “NewTech,” he growled, and shook his head. “Son of a bitch, there’s another lab. Firebrand, grab me a piece of paper or something, would you? Looks like we to need to check this place out. Maybe Wes can find something on them.”

I hurried to the desk in the corner and reached for the complimentary notepad sitting beside the phone, then hesitated. The Chameleon’s laptop lay open and dark on the surface of the desk, a mug of coffee cooling beside it. As if she might have been working on something and had to rush off before she could complete it.

I reached for the touchpad and jiggled the screen to life, bringing up a page with an unsent email across the surface.

Mr. Hill, the top line read.

My stomach turned to ice. I sank into the chair, scanning the rest of the message as the cold spread to every part of my body.

I have arrived on scene, the email read. Per Talon’s orders, all evidence at the “crash site” has been gathered and logged accordingly. The human officials are all too willing to accept the cover story, as they have no idea what they are dealing with. They know something unnatural happened, but so far their posited explanations range from the mundane to the absurd. I believe the organization to be in no danger of discovery. As you requested, the first boxes of evidence we have taken from the site will be sent to the specified location today. Expect their arrival in no less than twenty-four hours.

Ut ominous sergimus.

Miranda Kent.

“Ember?” Garret’s voice echoed softly across the room, wrenching me out of my daze. I might’ve gone a little pale, because his gray eyes were worried as they met mine. “What’s wrong?”

“Dante,” I whispered, and both he and Riley jerked up at the name. “Dante is part of this. He’s behind the cover-up. This message is to him.”

Both boys came to my side immediately, peering over my shoulders at the laptop screen. “Well, shit,” Riley growled in my ear. “Then we definitely need to visit this ‘specified location’ and see what the hell is going on.”

I stared at the screen, seeing only my brother’s name, standing out from the rest. Dante. All the feelings I thought I’d repressed—hurt, dismay, anger, betrayal—surged up again, making my stomach turn. Why are you involved in this? What the hell are you doing?

The words on-screen seemed to mock me. I was vaguely aware of Riley grabbing a scrap of paper and scribbling something down. “All right, that’s it,” he announced, straightening quickly. “I think we’ve found everything we can. Let’s get out of here before her guards come back.”

I shook myself, following Riley to the door with Garret close at my back. Now was not the time to dwell on traitorous siblings. I would think about my brother, and his role in this whole sordid mess, later. When we were away from the hotel and shady Talon agents who could return at any moment.

But as Riley opened the door and peered out, voices echoed down the corridor, making him jerk back. Through the frame, I saw two people walking toward us down the hall. One was a large man with a thick neck and chest, one of the guards we’d seen with Miranda. The other, walking beside him, was a small, slender woman with long black hair...

...dressed only in a towel.

For a second, my brain stuttered. It was Jade, I could see that, but the woman walking toward us with the guard was as different from the poised, elegant Eastern dragon as a swan was to a chicken. Snatches of conversation drifted to us, with Jade thanking the guard for escorting her back to her room, and how silly she felt for locking herself out. Her voice was high-pitched, giggly and slightly slurred, and she swayed a bit when she walked, as if very drunk. Of course, the guard wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings, being distracted by the beautiful Asian woman in nothing but a towel. But we were still trapped. They were still coming toward us, and if we tried to leave now, the man would definitely see us.

Jade looked up, and for a moment, her eyes met mine through the crack in the door. Slowing, she reached out and snagged the guard’s sleeve, tugging him to a halt in the middle of the corridor. The guard turned, frowning, as Jade rambled on, asking him questions and talking so quickly it was hard to understand her.

Now’s our chance. I nudged Riley and he nodded, silently pulling open the door. But as we stepped into the hall, the guard, apologizing to Jade, started to turn back toward the room. For a second, my heart lurched, knowing he was going to see us. There was nowhere we could hide.

Jade dropped the towel.

My eyes bulged. Riley froze. The guard turned back instantly, his attention definitely not in danger of landing on us anymore. As Jade’s high-pitched giggles rang out in the stunned silence, Garret, his cheeks as red as a tomato, immediately took advantage of the distraction and began walking away. I glanced at Riley, saw him staring wide-eyed at the scene in the center of the hall and punched his arm. Hard.

He jerked, giving me a sheepish grin, and we fled the floor, ducking into the elevators and out of sight.

* * *

Jade rejoined us in the parking lot fifteen minutes later, fully clothed, sliding into the passenger seat as if nothing had happened. Her serene expression remained unchanged as she shut the door and began putting on her shoes and earrings, not noticing, or choosing to ignore, the stunned silence from the rest of us.

“Well?” she said, finally turning around. “I trust you found what you were looking for, yes?” As she glanced at Riley, her lips curled in a faint, defiant smile. “Please tell me you were able to acquire what you needed from the Talon agent’s room. I would hate to have given you a show for nothing.”

Riley gave a bark of laughter, as if he couldn’t help himself, and shook his head. “I think I’ve been dethroned.” He chuckled as the Eastern dragon raised a brow at him. “The king of BS is dead. Long live the queen.”