“I was wrong: our choices are horrific or monstrous.”
“I have no doubt that Rott is deranged enough in his newfound cause to order the execution of everyone in Haven.”
“Rott wants his justice—at any cost—and Magnus must uphold tradition,” I said. “It’s all there, but I’m missing something. There’s a piece missing, and I can’t see it.”
“We have a day to figure out what that is,” Monty said. “I’m still not seeing Douglas’ motivation. He doesn’t strike me as one to act out of loyalty to Rott. He’s using him to further his agenda, whatever that may be.”
“Agreed,” I admitted reluctantly. “I’m not buying the ‘safer city’ line. This is about something else.”
I parked the Dark Goat in our spot and we bypassed the lobby, heading directly upstairs through the new personal parking level elevator Olga had recently installed. I think she was tired of Peaches scaring Andrei and anyone else we came across in the lobby. She had announced the new elevator as a building upgrade and renovation, making sure to give us the keycards that allowed its use.
In the short time we had been using it, I never saw anyone else inside. I was beginning to get the distinct feeling Olga was trying to isolate us from the rest of the building.
“I need to make a few calls,” Monty said. “We need contingency plans in place when this all goes south. I have no faith in Rott’s goodwill. He just threatened Roxanne and an entire hospital to get me to cooperate. He has no intention of letting us walk away from this. You’d better inform your friend in the NYTF.”
“Rott said not to—”
“Your phone, please.”
“Do not explode my phone, Monty.”
He gestured over the phone and pressed some of the buttons on the screen. A soft golden rune pulsed on the back of my phone for a few seconds before fading from sight. He handed me the phone and nodded.
“There you go.”
“That’s new,” I said, examining my phone. “Since when could you do—whatever it is you just did?”
“Since I nearly lost my mind going through a schism,” Monty said. “It’s a simple matter of scrambling frequencies, and everything operates on frequencies.”
“You scrambled what?” I asked. “Did you destroy my phone?”
“I re-encrypted your device with new runes,” Monty said, walking away. “If they are monitoring your phone, and we have to assume they are, they’ll know you made a call, but won’t know who you called. I’d refrain from trying Haven or the Dark Council. The security on their ends is virtually non-existent.”
“Who are you calling? Dex? The Ten?”
“We need a scalpel for this, not several bricks of C4,” Monty said. “My uncle and the Ten are best used sparingly.”
“Sparingly, like when the end of the world as we know it is near?”
“Precisely,” Monty said, stepping out of sight. “ I need to make some calls. I’ll be right back.”
I dialed a number as Monty headed to the conference room. I made sure of the encryption before I made the call.
“Strong,” Ramirez growled. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Did I wake you?”
“Do you really think I sleep knowing you, your mage, and that hound of yours freely roam the streets of my city?” Ramirez said. “How much damage?”
“What?”
“How much damage have you caused?” Ramirez asked. “Do I need to call EMTes? How extensive is the demolition?”
“Does something have to be destroyed for me to call you?” I asked, mocking offense. “Maybe I just wanted to check up on how my favorite NYTF Director is doing?”
“Cut the shit, Strong. We only speak when the shit has hit the fan or is about to. Since my radio is relatively quiet, I’m going to assume the shit is incoming. How bad?”
“It has the potential to be pretty bad.”
“Shit,” Angel said. “Casualties? Where?”
“Nothing, yet,” I said. “Tomorrow there’s going to be some activity downtown, in Tribeca—West Broadway all the way to Murray Street, to be specific. You want to take your time getting there. That will keep any collateral damage to a minimum.”
“What are we dealing with? Ogres, werewolves, wereogres?”
“I don’t think wereogres are a thing,” I said, thinking back to Grohn with a shudder. “At least I hope not. What do you know about dragons?”
“Rare, large, dangerous, breathe fire, impossible to kill, that sort of thing,” Ramirez said, alert now, all signs of grogginess gone from his voice. “The NYTF isn’t equipped to deal with dragons. It would be sending my men to slaughter.”
“I know, which is why you need to give us some room tomorrow night,” I said. “Once things are relatively safe, I’ll give you the all clear.”
“You, the mage, and your creature are going to face off against a dragon?” Ramirez said slowly. “Just you three?”
I looked down at my voracious hellhound who was carrying his bowl in his jaws and padding toward me. He plopped the titanium bowl at my feet, nearly breaking one of my toes in the process.
“I really hope we don’t have to,” I said with a short sigh. “Can’t say more than that. I’ll give you a call as soon as I can.”
“Understood,” Ramirez said. “Try not to get yourself dead.”
TWENTY-THREE
Monty returned a few minutes later.
“Where did you go?” I asked. “I thought you were in the conference room?”
“I used Dex’s room,” Monty said. “One of the calls necessitated a face-to-face meeting.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll explain later,” Monty said. “Do you still have that emulator Gant gave you?”
“I do,” I said, fishing out the small crystal from my jacket pocket. “Why?”
“May I see it?” Monty asked, outstretching a hand. I passed him the crystal. “Thank you.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, concerned. “Is that not an emulator?”
“It is,” Monty said, examining the crystal. “It’s also the way Rell is going to find you.”
I looked at the crystal as if it were radioactive.
“Gant’s in on this too?” I asked. “I thought he was looking out for my hellhound?”
Monty gave me a look
