Chapter 2
Christophe soared
through the air in mist form, circling the Tower of London as he
had many times before, but this time with the goal of finding a way
inside, instead of admiring the exterior. He recognized the irony
of planning to steal William the Conqueror’s sword, famously and
prophetically named Vanquish, from the tower whose construction old
Will had first begun. Technically, he didn’t need the sword, and
Prince Conlan probably wouldn’t like it if he took it—interfering
with sovereign possessions and so forth—but just taking the Siren
from the sword’s jeweled hilt seemed like a waste of
opportunity.
Not that he had much
need for what rumor claimed was a ceremonial-only, badly balanced
sword. His own, left in Atlantis this trip, was utilitarian,
simple, and deadly; undecorated except for the single emerald on
its pommel. A line from an old nursery tale flitted through his
mind, though perhaps in a different form than he’d heard as a
child.
The better to fight evil with, my
dear.
But, after all, why
not? Calculating the ways and means of how he might remove the
entire sword from one of the most fortified locations in the world
made for an amusing way to pass the time. An endeavor that didn’t
bore him.
Passing over the main
gate and the long-unused moat, he floated over the bridge where
millions of tourists crossed into the Tower grounds every year. He
could have taken the easy route and made his way in as a tourist
during the day, except first, he didn’t like crowds of smelly
humans, and second, when had he ever done things the easy way? Not
to mention that asking himself rhetorical questions was probably
one of the unpaved steps on the road to insanity. Not far up from
talking to pigeons.
The pale yellow brick
glowed in the night air, resonating with the quiet dignity of walls
that had stood sentinel, indifferent and stoic, as the tempests of
humans had ebbed and flowed over the centuries. If walls could
talk, as the old saying went, these would offer a history lesson on
power—or a cautionary tale for those in search of it.
Somewhat like the
ancient tales of Atlantis herself.
Floating over the
spot where the Duke of Wellington’s statue had been before somebody
decided to banish it to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich—ha, the fleeting nature of fame, Duke, old boy—he
examined the exterior windows of the Waterloo Barracks, opposite to
the scaffolding and white stone of the White Tower. A flicker of
light glinted off a gargoyle as it . . . moved.
Damn. Either
imagination or adrenaline was working overtime, because Christophe
was sure that the gargoyle had moved an inch or two. He approached
it, still suspended as mist, only to find exactly what he should
have expected: there was no way the gargoyle had moved since
somebody put its butt-ugly self there in the first
place.
He must be having
hallucinations.
It was adrenaline.
The excitement of doing something different for a change, instead
of the same old same old. He’d had enough of killing vampires and
smiting shape-shifters to last a lifetime. And Atlantis was no
better. It was getting crowded in the palace, with all of his
fellow warriors finding women. Not temporary women, either. No,
these were keeper women, the long-term,
asphyxiate-a-guy kind of women.
No, thank you. Not
for him. He was going to steal the Siren, the enormous aquamarine
that graced Vanquish’s hilt, and take it back to Atlantis so it
could be reattached to Poseidon’s Trident, where it belonged. Hand
that sucker straight over to Alaric. Or better yet, instead of to
the high priest in person, to one of his minions, so there would be
no repeat of Alaric’s most recent lecture: Why
Christophe Was Wasting His Magical Abilities by Refusing to Join
the Priesthood, Part 784.
He didn’t want to be
a priest. He wanted some fun. Like this job. It was a heist, pure
and simple. Fun.
The jewels were
housed on the first floor, with nobody but the Tower Guard, various
electronic devices, and the Yeomen Warders to protect them. Of the
three, only the Yeomen Warders concerned him at all. The
shape-shifters in that group were rumored to be pretty damn tough,
and no few of them claimed to be descended from the shape-shifters
who’d been among the original Warders back in 1485.
Of course, back then,
shifters weren’t roaming around in broad daylight, with everybody
knowing who and what they were. Vamps, either, for that matter, but
the past decade-plus had brought big changes to the
world.
Mostly for the
worse.
The Tower Guard was
part of the Queen’s Guard, according to the handy tour guide a
tourist had conveniently left on a bench for Christophe to find.
They didn’t live in the Tower, but the Warders still did,
unfortunately. If only everybody trusted their electronics these
days. Atlantean magic wreaked holy hells on electricity.
The thought of
powerful Brennan, locked in that electric cage with Tiernan,
flashed through his mind, and his mood soured. Sometimes the
electricity won.
Christophe eyed a
tiny crack in the casement of a third-floor window on the tower,
just to the left of the main doors. Not even a large insect could
fit through that crack.
Mist, however, could
get in just fine.
Fiona had timed out
the midnight-to-eight A.M. shift patterns of the Tower Guard and
the Yeoman Warders on multiple occasions over the past several
weeks. One thing was certain: the men and women, human and shifter
alike, who guarded the Jewel House, were serious, dedicated
professionals. No mere thief would get anywhere near those jewels.
Good thing she was no
mere thief. She was world
class.
Stealing onto the
grounds had been child’s play, but breaching the Waterloo Barracks
and the Jewel House would be a little trickier. She knew her . . .
talent would keep them from seeing her,
but shadowing only completely fooled living eyes and cameras.
Motion detectors made for trickier adventures.
From her position
leaning against a tree in the courtyard at an angle to the main
doors, she saw the team of two stride around the corner of the
building exactly on time. Two A.M. on the dot; one could set her
clock on the punctuality of the guards. These were two enormous,
burly men, probably shifters, having a lovely conversation about
rugby or something else vital to England’s national
stature.
She slowly leaned
farther back into the rough bark of the tree, concentrating
fiercely. Shifters were tougher to hide from than humans—she’d have
to bend air as well as light, and the shifters’ minds were not as
easily amenable to clouding.
Ribbons of silken
moonlight danced through the air surrounding Fiona and the tree,
circling her with nearly imperceptible shadings of dappled light. A
spill of liquid darkness spread over her—through her—so gradually that only the keenest
observer would have felt even a tingle of awareness. Light and the
very air itself bent to her will as Fiona focused on dispersing her
scent and disappearing from view.
The shorter of the
guards stopped suddenly, his body tensing and leaning forward in
the unmistakable sign of alert. He held up a hand, and his partner
whirled to face the direction from which they’d come and settled
into the same wary crouch. Precision back-to-back stance; these
were no decorative guards put in place to amuse and delight
tourists with their furry hats. These were the guardians of the
dark hours between dusk and dawn, and their honor stood guard with
them. For a shifter to lose face over the theft of a jewel under
his care would be a gut-wrenching, soul-deadening
failure.
For an instant
sympathy encouraged hesitation in her mind, but she forced herself
to visualize the rebuilding of Wolf Hall as a headquarters for the
United Kingdom shifters. More than one hundred
million euros of public money had been thrown into the
project thus far, with much more to come. Now that the family of
Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, were rumored to have
been shifters, the press were tantalized, and even Hollywood had
come to call. Anyone who questioned the extravagant expenditure was
drowned out in the usual British religion of celeb
worship.
Shape-shifters with
ties to royalty: the new rock stars.
Fiona clamped down on
her mental wanderings when indignation made her focus waver for a
split second. The taller guard lifted his nose into the wind and
leaned forward, staring into the shadows around her tree. His sense
of smell wouldn’t be nearly as keen in this form as when he was a
wolf, but still better than that of any human.
Deeper. She sent her mental command arrowing ever
more deeply into her own brain, until she felt the almost audible
click that signaled total control of her Gift. Air and light bent
to her will in the space surrounding her. The scent of her body
dispersed into the vestigial odors of the millions of tourists who
crossed this courtyard. Her image vanished, hidden by the shadows
caressing her. Even the sound of her heartbeat and breath floated
away, broken up and scattered with the obedient winds. To any of
the guards’ five senses, she simply did not exist, so long as she
didn’t get close enough to touch.
Damn the luck,
though. Her Gift had no control over the sixth. Intuition. Hunches.
The peripheral senses of shifters who trusted their own
instincts—they’d come near to unveiling her more than once in the
past. Her lips quirked at the idea of how unhappy Hopkins would be
if her outrageous streak of good fortune chose now to desert
her.
She caught her breath
and tightened her hand on the grip of her tranq gun as the shifter
took a step toward her. There was no possible way she could outrun
a wolf, not even one in human guise. It was the matter of a moment,
anyway, for the more powerful shifters to transform, and these
looked anything but weak.
The guard with his
back to her glanced over his shoulder at his partner. “What is
it?”
“I don’t know,” the
one with the nose said. “Nothing. Something. Maybe.”
The first one snorted
out a laugh. “Thanks for clearing that
up.”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is—”
The sharp sound of
pebbles clattering to the ground interrupted him, and Fiona and the
guards all turned their attention to the sky. Or, more
specifically, to the roof of the building, from where the pebble
shower had originated.
“Maybe a
bird?”
“That was no bird.”
The guard lowered his gaze and aimed one long last stare at the
tree where Fiona stood—perfectly still, perfectly silent—with her
gun at the ready. “But maybe what I thought I sensed over by the
tree was.”
“Or maybe we’ve got
vamps playing games,” the other one snarled, as he turned sharply
on his heel and started running back the way they’d come. “I warned
those freaks the last time they tried to hang out
here—”
“Bloodsuckers don’t
listen to warnings.”
Neither do ninjas, Fiona added silently, as the
pair vanished behind the building, presumably making for the
particular side door that was the guards’ preferred entrance. But
with just a bit of luck, they’d call in for replacements who might
choose a different door. The main entrance not thirty feet away
from her, for example.
It took her fewer
than ten seconds to make her way to the side of the double wooden
doors and plaster her body up against the wall. Another ten seconds
and the sound of pounding feet approached, and the doors swung
open, spilling out a new pair of guards. This time, they were both
human, but their reflexes were almost shifter-quick.
Fiona wasted no time
in ducking under the arm of one guard to enter the building,
seconds before he yanked the door closed. Still shadowed, she
slowly stood, careful not to move until she’d scanned the area for
further guards, either human or shifter. Glowing carriage lamps
with modern bulbs lit up the dark hallway, their illumination
dimmed for night but still bright enough for their light to pounce
on any unwanted visitor.
It was a familiar
sight and one she’d toured often enough, usually with guests from
elsewhere. A left turn would take her to the Hall of Monarchs with
its various and sundry thrones and coats of arms. Glorious, but not
really what she was after tonight. Nor was the cinema room with its
video of Elizabeth II’s coronation, or Processional Way, with its
walls of shining maces, or even the Temporal Sword of Justice. No,
Fiona wanted a jewel from a quite different sword and it was in the
Treasury. The jewel part of the Crown
Jewels.
One jewel in
particular.
And all she had to do
was liberate William the Conqueror’s sword to take it.
No
worries.