Chapter Eleven #2
Marius looked pained. From what I’d heard, he’d managed to make quite a few. Enough to have put a major monkey wrench in his recent trip to London with Mina — the deadliest kind.
“Enemies, yes. But no one organized enough to pull all this off. No one but Celeste.”
“What about you? Any lovely lady vampires who might take offense to you being here?” Bene asked Henrik.
I thought of poor Delphine, his human lover, and the woman whose pendant he’d given me for safekeeping.
Henrik scoffed, then went very, very still.
“Uh-oh,” Bene murmured.
My heart rate spiked. Now what? Was it not enough to have a conniving succubus like Celeste after us? Was there someone else? A ruthless siren, maybe? A vampire-naga cross?
“Leonora,” Henrik whispered.
I pictured a shape shifting Catwoman-lookalike in a tight leather outfit and a lot of feline sass.
Roux groaned. “Leonora? Let’s hope not.”
“Who?” I demanded. God, I hated being the newest kid on the block.
“A woman Henrik turned without coven permission,” Bene supplied.
When Henrik gave him an icy look, Bene backpedaled. “I mean, unauthorized conversion.”
“She begged me to.” Henrik shrugged.
I stared.
Mina sighed into my mind. Told you we have to watch ourselves around these guys.
Yes, I was catching on to that. Fast.
But if Leonora begged him, why would she be his enemy? I asked Mina privately.
She shot me a look. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. And whatever you do, don’t ask.
I didn’t plan to.
Henrik mulled over the possibilities a while longer, suggesting a very long list of candidates. Finally, he shook his head. “Celeste is the most likely culprit.”
The room was so quiet, I could hear the splash as he topped up on the hard stuff — eighty-proof ?ubrówka.
Bene was the first to speak up. “Hey, Mina. Do you have your phone on?”
“Yes,” she said. “Why?”
“I’m half expecting Gordon to call. He always seems to when bad things go down.”
Mina pulled her phone out of her pocket, then shook her head. No calls, apparently. Or, not yet?
When she laid it gingerly on the coffee table, everyone stared at it in anticipation.
“What are you implying?” I demanded, taking offense.
Gordon was my caring and generous godfather. He might be involved in a few off-the-books deals, but I couldn’t believe things were as dire as Mina made them sound.
Bene shrugged. “Just observing that Gordon calls at the damnedest times.”
Roux rubbed this chin. “Apropos Gordon… When Gen visited him, he mentioned sending a replacement crew here.”
“Yeah — the guys he brings in to bump us off because we know too much,” Bene joked.
I huffed. These guys saw conspiracies everywhere.
Struck by a brilliant thought, I pulled out my phone and hit speed dial.
“Why not take the initiative and call him, then?” I put my phone on speaker setting, letting the beeps of Gordon’s number echo through the room.
Mina practically jumped off the couch. “Don’t!”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Let’s get it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“But—” she started.
“All??” Gordon came on the line.
Everyone leaned back like it was a grenade instead of a phone.
“Hello. It’s me, Gen,” I said cheerily, ready to disprove their unfounded paranoia once and for all.
“Oh, Gen. What a coincidence. I was about to call you.”
My jaw dropped, and Mina shot me a look that screamed, I told you so!
“Oh? What about?” I managed, hoping it would be something innocent. An offer to host Thanksgiving dinner, maybe, or questions about what I wanted for Christmas.
“Unfortunately, it’s a rather urgent and perplexing matter,” he said.
As urgent and perplexing as Claudette’s death? Mina’s dubious look asked.
“I have just returned home from an evening out to find my home broken in to.”
I gasped. Gordon was a powerful and respected warlock. Maybe even powerful and feared. He also had a bear-shifter doorman to watch over things.
So, who would be audacious — or crazy — enough to break in to his apartment? Who had even a remote chance of succeeding?
Celeste, Marius mouthed to Mina.
“That’s terrible,” was all I could say. “What about Fabian?”
“It was his night off, and the power to my alarm system was cut,” Gordon grumbled.
Two obstacles Celeste would have known how to circumvent, I realized.
“Was anything taken?” I asked.
“Part of my art collection is missing. Perhaps more.”
First, the nagas. Then, Claudette. Now, this?
“I will need Messieurs Anand, Aecher, Velchynsky, and Bembridge to travel to Paris immediately to investigate,” Gordon continued.
Everyone tensed. We’d been expecting Gordon to assign them one last task, but yikes. No one had imagined a case regarding Gordon personally.
I looked nervously at Roux. “I’ll pass on the message. Any way I can help?”
Everyone in the room shook their heads vehemently.
Don’t even think about it! Mina hollered in my mind.
“As a matter of fact, I was going to request your help, and your sister’s,” Gordon said.
Everyone stared in shock.
“Oh?” I peeped.
“I’m afraid so. Something very precious to me has been taken. Something precious to you as well.”
Mina shook her head. No way. No matter what it is, you and I are not getting involved.
But I was definitely hooked. Precious? To me?
“Your father’s painting of the chateau,” Gordon finally said.
Mina’s jaw dropped. Mine too.
“The one painted that Easter?” I squeaked.
“I’m afraid so.”
His second afraid. Well, I was afraid too, because Gordon’s fury was obvious, even over the phone. Fury and…something else. Deep concern — too deep to be warranted by the painting’s sentimental value. What, then?
On the periphery of my vision, I saw Roux, Bene, Marius, and Henrik shaking their heads. No. Do not risk getting mixed up with Gordon again.
But I kept my eyes locked on Mina’s, and a moment later, she nodded, resolute.
Marius groaned, and Roux muttered.
“What did you say?” Gordon asked.
I gulped and spoke up. “We’ll leave for Paris first thing in the morning.”