“Feelds,” I said with a slight nod, looking around and not seeing George. “Where’s Rott?”
“He’ll be here shortly,” Douglas replied, staring at Monty. “This is the mage?”
“The mage? No, he is a mage,” I said, motioning to Monty. “Douglas, Tristan. Tristan, Douglas.”
Monty nodded, but remained silent. Douglas did the same until he saw Peaches.
“What kind of dog is that?” Douglas asked. “His breed doesn’t match anything in our databases.”
His statement had revealed a few things: they were watching me, which I figured, and their database wasn’t extensive enough to explain what breed Peaches was. It meant they had holes in their information—holes I could exploit.
“He’s a very rare breed,” I said. “Tell me, why am I here, Douglas? I’m guessing it has nothing to do with my hound.”
Douglas stood and pointed to a map on the conference table.
“First of all, thank you for coming.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice,” I said, looking at the map. “I still haven’t agreed to this mission.”
“You’re here,” Douglas said, confident. “We have a mutual goal in this.”
“I have a mutual goal with Shadow Company? You must be kidding.”
Douglas hardened his expression.
“It wasn’t too long ago that you shared the vision,” Douglas said, his voice gentle, but dangerous. “That you were one of us.”
“I was, right up until you felt that any losses were acceptable to achieve the mission,” I said, matching the threat in his voice. “That’s the day I realized your vision had blinded you.”
“I’ve learned from my mistakes. You could say I’ve seen the light. So has Rott.”
“Ever since Cassandra, his focus has been dragons.”
“His focus is our focus,” Douglas said. “We seek out the source instead of going after branches. Now we seek to uproot the entire tree.”
“By confronting dragons?” I asked. “That way lies madness.”
“Only to the unprepared,” Douglas said. “Eliminating dragons means eliminating most of the magical issues in this city. They have their hands in everything. We can remove them from the equation and secure the city—two birds, one fist.”
My brain called BS. Men like Douglas were too set in their ways to change. He would disguise and justify his reasoning, rationalizing it was for the greater good, but it always came down to the same thing—power.
“I see you haven’t lost your ability for inspirational speeches,” I said, giving him a cold stare. “I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid. Tell me, why am I here?”
I saw the anger flit across his face before he got it under control, replacing it with a disingenuous smile.
“I need your help. Shadow Company needs your particular…skill.”
“Plenty of other shooters in this city.”
“Exactly what I told Rott, but he asked for you specifically.”
“Since when do you take suggestions from Rott, or anyone?”
“Our purposes align,” Douglas said. “He made a cogent argument that you were the best at what you did and I’d prefer we keep this op in-house.”
“What is the op?”
He smiled, thinking my curiosity had gotten the better of me. Part of me did want to know how they would attempt to take down a dragon; the other part of me just wanted to put a bullet in his smug face and call it a night. I opted for listening to the op.
“We need to destabilize the balance between the two major dragon enclaves in this city,” Douglas said. “We have an opportunity to weaken an enclave, with one mission. It’s elegant and simple.”
“Nothing is ever simple,” I said. “What will weakening an enclave do? You still have the other to deal with.”
“A weakened enclave would be the perfect catalyst for a dragon civil war,” Douglas said. “We light the match and watch them burn each other to ash.”
“A civil war?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that cause collateral damage? Serious collateral damage?”
“In order to excise a tumor, an incision must be made,” Douglas said turning the map and pointing to a location. “This is our incision. The target is the tumor.”
“Who exactly is this target?”
“The dragon enclave leader, Magnus M. Balfour.”
TWENTY
“You’re insane,” I said, looking at the map. He was pointing to the location of the TINY. “He’s a dragon enclave leader. How would you even get close to him?”
Douglas looked at me, glanced at Monty, and then looked at me again.
“We have reason to believe Balfour will be vulnerable tomorrow night,” Douglas said. “Tomorrow, he will be at this location to pick up a vehicle.” He pointed to the map again. “We will arrange the transfer and eliminate the target.”
They somehow knew about Balfour picking up the Duezy, which either meant Cecil had a leak, or they had an insider in the Balfour Enclave. Both seemed unlikely, but Douglas appeared confident, which meant his intel was solid. This was bad. I did my best to keep my face impassive.
“How could you possibly know that?” I asked. “I would imagine information like that isn’t exactly common knowledge.”
“We have an inside man,” Douglas said with a tight smile. “Someone you know.”
“You managed to turn a dragon to help you?” I asked. “I find that unlikely. Dragons can’t stand humans, much less want to help them.”
“No, not a dragon. Something better.”
“Something better? What are you…?”
I felt the strange energy signature. It caused both Monty and me to turn at the presence entering the situation room.
“Hello, Simon,” the unfamiliar man said with George Rott’s voice. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Rott?” I asked. “That you?”
The voice was definitely George Rott’s, but the rest wasn’t. This man was young and well-built, where I remembered Rott being older and heavyset. Rott had graying black hair, and this person was bald. The real difference was in the face and eyes. Rott had normal human eyes. The eyes I looked into appeared reptilian for a few seconds before shifting to human.
I was staring at a stranger. A much younger and stronger stranger.
“Mostly me, with some upgrades,” George said with arms outstretched. “It takes some getting used to.” He
