I didn’t immediately move, remaining locked in Azriel’s embrace as I breathed deep, tasting the various scents in the air, searching for any sign or smell of the Razan. Or anyone else, for that matter.
All I smelled was death.
“That is because the Razan lie dead in this place.”
I stepped back, my gaze sweeping the room. We’d reappeared in the small but tidy kitchen. There were dishes piled up on the drainer and ants crawling all over the small bag of rubbish that was sitting on the counter. It’d been neatly tied, as if ready for someone to pick it up and take it to the bin. Outside, in the small paved courtyard, water sprayed high into the air, splattering both the pond and its surrounds and making the water lilies dance about. The two cuneiform-etched stones that had stood in the middle of the pond were gone.
“That is not surprising,” Azriel said. “Our sorceress would not want them found.”
“I’m not sure why she’d bother. I mean, they only led to her place on the Gold Coast, and it wasn’t like anyone other than an Aedh could use them.”
“The Razan could use them – the one who set the hellhounds on you in that tunnel wore a device on his wrist, remember. And Lauren would not have wasted energy on such devices without being able to use them herself.” He pressed a hand against my spine and ushered me forward. “The bodies lie in the bedrooms.”
Fabulous not, as my sword would say. I blew out a breath and hoped like hell my stomach would behave itself if their deaths were mucky. As it turned out, they weren’t.
We found one body in the first of three bedrooms off the hall. Just as he had been the last time I’d come here, the Razan was sprawled stomach down on the bed. The blankets were twisted around his legs, leaving part of his butt and his back uncovered. He was muscular and thickset – the body of a wrestler rather than a sprinter – and his skin lightly tanned. He had two tattoos on the upper part of his shoulders – one of a dragon with two swords crossed above it and the other a ring of barbed wire. Lucian’s mark, and probably my father’s.
He looked for all the world like he was asleep, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing. And he was beginning to smell.
My stomach stirred and I stopped. Azriel walked over to the Razan and lightly pressed his fingertips to either side of the man’s temples. Energy whisked around me, fierce and bright, but no images rose from the Razan’s mind.
“He died when Lucian died,” Azriel said grimly. “There is nothing left in his mind to help. The resonance of his memories has faded.”
“He probably wouldn’t have been able to help us much anyway. Lucian would have ensured his Razan would never betray him.”
“Him, yes, but it is questionable whether he would have offered the same sort of protection to Lauren. Or anyone else who might have used the cuneiform stones.”
“True.” I turned and headed down the hall to check the other bedrooms. One contained the second body and the other was empty. The cuneiform stones that had stood in the third bedroom had disappeared as completely as their kin in the courtyard. “I wonder where the other Razan are?”
“Undoubtedly lying dead somewhere,” Azriel said. “And if we’re very lucky, perhaps those misbegotten shifters that have attacked us both times we attempted to get the keys have suffered the same fate.”
I shot him a glance. “Why would they? It was dark magic that created them, not Aedh.”
Amusement briefly touched his lips. “I did say if we were lucky.” He held out a hand. “There is nothing more we can do here. Shall we move on to Stane’s?”
“I think we should search the place first. Maybe we’ll find something helpful.”
“I very much doubt it.”
But he helped me search regardless, and we found exactly what he’d expected – nothing.
This time, when he held out a hand, I allowed him to tug me into his embrace. I suppose I should have called the Directorate – or at least Uncle Rhoan – to report these deaths, but I really wasn’t up to facing all the questions that would undoubtedly follow. Besides, it would take far too much time, and we didn’t have enough of that left as it was.
We appeared inside Stane’s electronics shop in Clifton Hill. The camera above us immediately buzzed into action, swinging around to track our movements. Not that we could go far – the shimmer of light surrounding the small entrance was warning enough that a containment shield was in action. Azriel could – and had, in the past – delivered us upstairs, where Stane’s computer “bridge” and living quarters were, but Stane had just about had a heart attack at our sudden appearance.
“Hey, Stane, it’s Risa and Azriel.” I smiled up at the camera. “Turn off the shield so we can come up.”
“Your wish is my command.” His warm tones had a tinny sound as it echoed from the small speaker near the camera. The shimmer surrounding us flared briefly, then died. “And thank you for the case of champagne you sent. It makes late night gaming all that much more enjoyable.”
I snorted softly and headed for the stairs at the rear of his overcrowded, dusty shop. “I would have thought alcohol and serious gaming didn’t mix.”
“Depends on who you’re playing with.” He appeared at the top of the stairs, his grin wide. “And if there’s a bet involving sexual games on the line. Letting her win wouldn’t be a bad thing in this particular case.”
I laughed, bounded up the steps, and kissed his cheek. Stane looked a lot like his building – a slender, unholy mess. I’m actually surprised he didn’t carry a layer of dust over his clothes like the building itself – although it was only the street level portion of the building that had that particular problem, and it didn’t really matter, because the computer shop itself was little more than a front for his black marketeering. And that equipment, like his computer bridge, was kept upstairs in pristine condition.
“Don’t tell me the lovely Holly was brave enough to challenge you to a game?”
Holly was a werewolf Stane had reluctantly met at the insistence of his mother – and hers. And, to everyone’s surprise but their respective mothers, fireworks had apparently happened.
“Not only that, but she’s been here, and she didn’t try to dust the place.” He stepped back and ushered us through to his living area. “I think I’m in love.”
“Certainly sounds like you’re smitten,” I said. “But is she aware that you don’t wash or iron?”
“I wash most days,” he said, expression offended but amusement dancing across his lips. “It’s only when I’m deep in a game that I don’t – something she’d understand because she’s a gamer herself. I tell you, she’s perfect.”
I grinned. “So your mom was right, after all.”
He grunted as he sat down in front of the curving sweep of light screens. “Something I am not going to tell her until I absolutely have to. The gloating will be horrendous. What can I do for you?”
“Did you and your friend in Brisbane happen to get the surveillance up and running on Lauren Macintyre’s Gold Coast place?”
“Certainly did.” He grinned, swung around in his chair, and lightly swiped several icons on the screen directly in front of him. Boxed images tiled onto the screen to his left. “Nothing much actually happens until this one.”
He leant sideways and flicked one of the small boxes over to another screen. Lauren Macintyre jumped into view, impeccably dressed in what had to be a designer dress and shoes. She stood in the middle of the bedroom, and barked out orders to the half-dozen men moving a steady stream of boxes piled high with her designer dresses and shoes out of the wardrobe, taking them god knows where.
“When was this recorded?” I narrowed my eyes and leaned closer to the screen. There was something not quite right with those men…
“Four days ago now,” Stane replied.
So she’d packed up and left before Lucian had died.
Suggesting, Azriel commented, that she somehow discovered your intrusion into her house. Perhaps that is why the storage place was also destroyed.
Yes. The bitch had been covering her tracks and finding a new hole to hide in – although undoubtedly it was a luxurious hole. She didn’t seem the three-star type, that was for sure.
“Have you tried to identify any of the men?” I asked Stane.
“I’ve done a run through VicRoads’s databases,” he said, “but couldn’t come up with a license match for any of them. I’m currently hacking into police files to see if I can find a match there somewhere.”
One of the men on the screen turned to face the camera and shock coursed through me. It was one of the half-human, half-animal beings that had attacked us at the Military Fair when the second key had been stolen from under our noses.
And if Lauren was using them, then she was more tied up with the dark sorcerer than we’d figured.
“Fuck it all to hell,” I muttered.
“To put it politely.” Azriel’s voice was grim. “Perhaps she is the reason the beings of those men are so twisted and unnatural. It would take a great deal of dark magic to so alter flesh and soul. More, perhaps, than one person – however strong a sorcerer – has.”
I shot him a glance. “Could not the same be said for the ley-line gate? Perhaps it took all three of them to create it.” I hesitated. “If that is the case, would Lucian’s death have altered their ability to use it?”
“I am no expert on magic,” Azriel said. “But I suspect it would not. The ley-line gate might have been created by a coalition, but I have no doubt they would have ensured it drew its power from the ley intersection itself. No human could create – even through black magic – enough magic to keep a portal onto the fields active for long.”
“Damn.” So much for the hope that Lucian’s death might have some benefit other than just permanently getting the bastard out of my life.