be running a vacuum over the plush white couches, arranged just as I recalled in the center of a room made even more elaborate by white satin curtains and marble floors with rich pink veins. In the back corner of the room, a lovely ivory dining set with six high-backed cushioned chairs completed the mood.
Raoul had been standing by the bar when I walked into the room. “How was your trip?” he asked politely. “Any problems?”
“No. Should there have been?”
He smirked. “With you, I’m never sure. May I take your coat?”
“Please.” I shucked the awful thing, watched him hang it on the elaborately curved black wall rack by the door. “That’s one depressing piece of clothing,” I told him. “Makes me feel like a mortician.”
“Well, I think I know just how to lift your spirits.”
He led me past the bar and the dining table toward a door I assumed led to the bedroom. It didn’t. It was a hall. A long one that, as we walked it, branched into several others, making me wonder just how big Raoul’s penthouse really was. The door we finally stopped at looked no different from any of the others. Rimmed with elaborate white molding it held the kind of lock you expect to see in a hotel. But Raoul didn’t slide a card into the slot. He leaned down, pulled a knife out of his boot, and quickly slashed his forearm. Gathering a generous amount of blood on the blade, he then transferred it to the lock, letting it drip the whole length of the slot. When the light turned green, he opened the door.
“That’s some security system you’ve got there. I’m guessing you don’t access this room very often.”
He sent me a smile over his shoulder. “Since I met you I’m doing all kinds of things I haven’t done for years.”
He was right about the room cheering me up. When you’re in my biz and you walk into an arsenal, something inside you springs to its feet and starts yelling, “Yipee!” The place could’ve come straight out of a medieval castle. Swords, axes, lances, spears, anything that could hold a blade and prove fatal graced three and a half walls of a room roughly the size of Raoul’s living space. The last half held built-in drawers, which I soon discovered held armor. But this was modern. Stuff you could wear under your day clothes, probably even move comfortably in. And yet I imagined it outperformed even Bergman’s famous dragon armor, which, since we’d rescued it from its kidnappers on our last mission, was still undergoing testing at White Sands.
The armory’s floor space had been kept completely clear. For sparring? I kind of thought I was about to find out. Raoul strode across the battered wooden floor to one corner of the room, lifted from its moorings a sheath holding a curved blade similar to the one I’d been clutching in my dream. Prophetic, huh?
“This shamshir was forged by an Amanha Szeya,” he told me as he pulled it free and handed me a shining silver blade that felt like it had been made for my hand. As I marveled at the balance he said, “That means it can kill a
nefralim
.”
He moved to the drawers next, taking from them a suit of black body armor. It weighed almost nothing. But Raoul assured me it could stop a bullet, though the force of the impact would still throw me to the ground. “Not that you have to worry about that from the Magistrate. It’s the cut of his whip from which the suit will protect you. I fear, however, you may still feel its sting.”
I could’ve said something cocky at that moment like, “I’m no stranger to pain.” While true, it just seemed stupid to throw fastballs at karma, knowing how much she enjoyed shooting them right back at you. So I just nodded my thanks.
“How good are you at swordplay?” Raoul asked as he took a blade similar to mine off the wall.
“Better than I used to be.” Having nearly lost major body parts to Desmond Yale, I’d spent the time I could spare between missions honing my skills. That meant two hours a day with the best coach I could find.
Vayl was a patient teacher, but a strict one. By the end of week one I was sick of hearing “Watch your form.”
“Vayl,” I said once, wiping sweat out of my eyes in exasperation. “What the hell? I’m not training for the Olympics here!” Here was the gym a retired agent owned and allowed us to rent during his off-hours.
When I saw red spark in his eyes, I realized I’d pissed him off. But I didn’t much care at that point. I was hot, sweaty, and, yeah, frustrated that it wasn’t for any of the fun reasons. Never mind that it had been my choice. And that I should respect Vayl for giving me the space I thought I needed.
Having no idea as to the real source of my unspoken frustrations, Vayl addressed my vocalized ones. “Correct form allows you to find the balance you need to fight. It keeps you from tiring too quickly. And it prevents you from telegraphing your moves long before you make them.”
“Oh.”
Vayl and I had never fought with curved blades, but I figured the basics he’d taught me would still serve me well. I stood en garde and moments later Raoul and I were hard at it. Every minute or so he’d stop. Say something like, “Look, if you’d turned the blade this way you could have disarmed me on that swing.” He showed me some moves unique to the blade, and within half an hour I felt like I’d been born with it in my hand.
“You’re a fast learner,” Raoul said when he finally called for a stop.
“It’s more of a defense mechanism than anything else,” I replied as I sheathed the blade. “Since my parents were my first teachers, and things always escalated to yelling if we didn’t catch on fast, we figured out quick how to listen and learn.”
I saw the thought on Raoul’s face, though he was kind enough not to say it out loud.
No wonder your mother’s in hell
. Yeah. And he didn’t even know the half of it.
“Get your armor,” he said. “I have one more item to give you before you go.” I grabbed my goodies and followed him to the Charm room.
