With reluctance, I punched in the phone number the blackmailer had given.
‘‘What?’’ a gruff male voice answered.
‘‘This is Cyrene Northcott’s twin. I understand you wished to speak with me.’’
‘‘Oh, the doppelganger.’’ The man’s voice had a harsh midwestern U.S. twang to it. ‘‘About time you called. There’s a job I want you to do for me. Something I want you to steal.’’
I was no stranger to bluntness, so I ignored everything but what was important-I needed to make sure that he didn’t know I was also Mei Ling. ‘‘What makes you think I’m going to condone an illegal act?’’
The man grunted. ‘‘Saw you at that oracle’s with your hand up his ass, didn’t I? You were there for the same thing I was-the arcanum.’’
‘‘I would hardly refer to being in the oracle’s book room as having my hand up his ass, but we’ll let that go.’’
‘‘You’re a doppelganger. I looked that up-you can go invisible and get into places normal people can’t. So don’t come over all high and mighty on me.’’
I bit back any number of responses, relieved that he hadn’t mentioned anything about Mei Ling. The arcanum I was sent to get wasn’t particularly valuable- Magoth simply had a desire to see it-and it certainly wasn’t of the same quality of items that the infamous Mei Ling had previously stolen, so it was entirely within reason that this person didn’t connect a shadow-walking doppelganger named May with a Chinese cat burglar. ‘‘What is it you want acquired?’’
‘‘Not going to deny it, eh?’’ The man chuckled, his laugh just as unpleasant as his voice. ‘‘Smart girl. There’s a piece here in London, a small golden amulet. It’s well protected, so you’ll need to use your wits to get it. You got a pencil? Here’s the address.’’
I took down the information, wondering what the amulet was, and how I was going to get out of stealing it. For now, I’d let the blackmailer think he had me by the short and curlies, but I would not commit myself to stealing something about which I knew nothing. Perhaps if I knew a little more about who he was working for, I’d be able to assess what it was he wanted stolen. ‘‘All right, I have that. My twin said you were working for a dreadlord. Which one?’’
‘‘Who I work for is none of your business,’’ he said sharply, on a quick intake of breath.
‘‘Well then, who owns this amulet you want stolen?’’
The silence that followed was rife with suspicion.
‘‘Look, I don’t know what you think doppelgangers can do, but we can’t turn invisible, and we can’t walk through walls. We’re flesh and blood just like anyone else… more or less… and we can trigger alarms and set off security systems. The more I know about the person who has this amulet, the better I can protect myself and ensure success.’’
‘‘Just steal the damned thing. You don’t need to shove your nose into anything else. Get in, get it, and get out. Call me when you’ve got it.’’
‘‘I’m not a miracle worker-’’ I started to protest.
‘‘If you’re caught, he’ll kill you,’’ the man interrupted. ‘‘So don’t get caught.’’
‘‘But who-’’
He hung up before I could finish asking him who it was he intended for me to rob. I sighed and slumped back into the chair, staring blindly at the piece of paper I held. I had a bad feeling about this whole thing, but I wasn’t in much of a position to do anything. I’d just have to go to the target’s house and assess the situation there.
It wasn’t until I was in my room, donning my working outfit, that I realized something odd about the address he’d given me.
‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ I said a few minutes later as I looked at the card Aisling had given me. One side of it had her address in London, and on the back, she’d written the location of Kostya’s lair.
It was the same address the blackmailer had given me.
An hour and a half later I slipped out of the back door of Gabriel’s house, casting an eye upward to the window of the room Cyrene had claimed. A faint light flickered through a gap in the curtains, indicating Cyrene was happily tucked into bed, yakking on the phone to one or another local naiad while she watched late-night TV. I hadn’t told her my plans lest she wish to accompany me… and where I was going, she definitely couldn’t follow.
Why was the blackmailer trying to steal something from a dragon? No wonder he didn’t want to tell me whom I was supposed to steal from-no one in their right mind would ever try to get something out of a dragon’s lair.
‘‘More intriguingly, who is he working for?’’ I murmured aloud to myself. ‘‘And does this have anything to do with that phylactery Gabriel wants?’’
‘‘What’s that?’’
I came to myself with a start as the taxi driver pulled up outside a dark and rather grimy warehouse. ‘‘Sorry, just talking to myself. Is this it?’’
‘‘It is. That’ll be five pounds.’’
I paid the man, hesitating for a moment as I glanced at the warehouse. I wasn’t normally a fearful person, but I had to admit there was something about the hulking black building that left me feeling a bit twitchy. ‘‘I don’t suppose you’d like to wait for me?’’
‘‘Here?’’ He shoved my change in my hands. ‘‘Not for five times that. Good luck.’’
He sped off into the darkness without even a backward glance. ‘‘Talk about your foreshadowing,’’ I muttered as I slipped into the shadows.
The lock on the door to the warehouse posed no problem to me. I smiled as I laid my fingers across the front, gently urging the tumblers within it to turn until the lock obligingly clicked open. I’ve never been sure why, exactly, doppelgangers had the inherent ability to open locks, but it was such a useful talent, I figured it was best not to question it. As the door opened, I shadowed and made my way cautiously into the lower level of the empty warehouse. A small amount of dim light from the buildings on either side filtered through the high, grimy windows, giving me enough light to make out a couple of large boxes in an otherwise empty room.
‘‘Kostya lives in an abandoned building near Greenwich,’’ Aisling had told me earlier in the day, when Gabriel and Drake were off looking for the two missing bodyguards.
‘‘Does he?’’ I’d asked, a little bit surprised by the sudden change in what had been up to that point innocuous conversation.
‘‘Yes. I’m telling you now because if Gabriel is anything like Drake, he’s not going to want you to do anything on your own. Dragons are like that: very protective, and the wyverns especially so-it’s sweet, really, but they just don’t realize that we are professionals, and sometimes, we need to be given some space to do our own thing.’’
I nodded. I had a suspicion I was being kept out of the way, which was already rankling.
‘‘You have quite a reputation as being able to take… well, just about anything, I guess. I mean, anyone who can break into Dr. Kostich’s house and take something valuable has got to be pretty good at what she does.’’
I squirmed a little in the chair, my eyes on the figure of Cyrene and the demon dog Jim as they wandered around the garden. ‘‘Er… thank you. I think.’’
‘‘Oh, that was a compliment,’’ Aisling said, laughing. ‘‘I have nothing but respect for strong women who go after what they want. But that’s neither here nor there-I’ll write down Kostya’s address for you. If you’re going back to London tonight, you’ll want to have a look around his place to see just what’s what.’’
I slid her a curious glance. ‘‘Do you think Kostya is lying about the phylactery, and Maata and Tipene?’’
‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said after a moment of thought. ‘‘It’s hard for me to read Kostya. In some ways, he’s very much like Drake, but in others, he’s a complete stranger. His emotions are so volatile. My uncle believes that stems from a prisoner-of-war mentality, but I am starting to believe that it’s just his personality. Either way, I know you’ll want to look around at his place, and figured I’d give you what information we have.’’
I made a mental note to thank Aisling again for her help. I hated to think what I might have done if I’d been forced to rely on just the blackmailer’s information.
The amulet was bound to be with the rest of Kostya’s valuables, which meant I needed to go to a small room on the second floor that Drake-the only one besides Kostya who had actually seen it-had told Aisling was protected pretty heavily by a variety of electronic alarms and locks.
‘‘Nothing like killing two birds with one stone, I guess,’’ I said to myself.
There was a sort of mezzanine in the warehouse, a flight of rickety stairs leading upward to what probably had been administrative offices. I walked carefully down the narrow hallway, avoiding both the rats, which couldn’t see me when I shadow walked, and the broken office furniture, which had been piled along the inner wall. A faint red
