Across the fourth floor hall, Adrian’s apartment had been cordoned off with some kind of strange, shimmering gold boundary. People of numerous sorts came and went from his rooms between the massive Dragon guardian statues. Wearing sleek white silk Twilight Realm versions of hazmat suits and investigative gloves, they all carried golden tablets to record notes on or spoke into golden smartphones for dictation. As Layla stepped out of the Madame’s apartment, she saw an immense, burly-shouldered man standing near the gold perimeter turn her way, then tap a lean man standing next to him.
The one who turned first was tall, broad like a shield through the shoulders, strongly built with brush-cut black hair. His square jaw could have cracked skulls, his irises a vivid, luminous silver. Wearing black-buckled leathers with an immense broadsword angled over his shoulder and a harness of assorted knives, his leather breastplate had an ornate silver star set into the leather above his heart. His waist was strong and his leather-clad thighs enormous – clearly he had never skipped leg day.
The other man who turned was as slender as the first man was burly. Though as tall as his partner, he was lean in a heroin-chic way, but his florid beauty didn’t saydrug addict. Piercing Layla with all-white irises and black pupils that could have been the beauty of an angel or the darkness of a demon, he wasn’t a Siren; his beauty precise rather than alluring, sharp like a blazing sword. Wearing the same leather gear as the first, he had two slender swords crossed at his back rather than one large one. His cheekbones were high and his features perfectly sculpted; beautiful and dangerous.A thick cable of sleek white-silver hair was braided over one shoulder, all the way down to his waist.
Though his features were masculine, they were the sort of perfection that was so intense it was otherworldly, and his lips held no smile of any kind. Layla saw his eyes were also silver as he neared, though far more pale than the dark-haired man’s stunning gaze. Both had skin that was almost luminous, giving each man a breathtaking appearance as they neared. The only description that came to Layla’s stunned mind and she watched them approach, wasbattle angel.
“Layla Price?” The big man asked in a rumbling basso voice as they arrived before her.
She nodded, her mouth dry. Both men were insanely attractive, but their impressive armor and commanding presences weren’t to be ogled. Their demeanors screamedcops– and more than that,military cops.As they stopped before her, their twin power made her skin crawl, her Dragon hissing inside her on high alert. A fierce citrus-bourbon scent boiled off Layla’s skin, and the slender silver-haired man lifted a straight eyebrow.
“Control your Dragon, girl,” he murmured, in a voice that was smooth as silk and cutting as blades. “Or we will control it for you.”
“I can’t,” Layla swallowed, more intimidated by these two men than by any police she’d ever met. “It’s not really under my control yet, and I don’t have a talisman any longer.”
The two investigators exchanged a look. Narrowing his eyes, the lean man stepped forward, gazing down from his exquisite height into her eyes, intently. Layla realized he was nearly seven feet tall as she felt something sweep though her, like silver wings of light; searching, evaluating. The sensation breathed through her with a haunting movement, as if reading every inch of Layla’s soul.
At last, the man’s pale lips quirked. He raised a straight eyebrow with a slightly amused look as his magics sighed away. “The Royal Dragon Bind. They weren’t lying when they said you were on fire. So new to your magics that you have no concept of how they work yet.” Lifting a long-fingered hand, he gave her a look that brokered no resistance. “This won’t hurt. Hold still.”
Layla held still as the man set his hand over her heart. Closing his eyes, he drew a deep breath, and Layla had the strangest sensation like he raised seven sets of enormous silver-white wings from his back, though she saw nothing disturb the air. Raising his chin, he siphoned all that power though his palm and into her chest, though it wasn’t a terrible sensation. Like a flood of evening starlight, it flowed into her body, warming her and cooling her at the same time – and causing her Dragon to curl right up inside her and take a very good nap.
Layla’s heat calmed instantly. She was left blinking at the man as he opened his pale silver eyes.
“Come.” He spoke. “The effect on your Dragon will eventually wear off, but that gives us enough time to digest your situation. This way.” With an effete gesture that was also somehow battle-hardened, the lean man with silver-white hair motioned for Layla to step to a cordoned-off area in one of the hall’s alcoves. She did, stepping over the golden boundary on the floor.
And instantly felt herself whisked away – right out of the Hotel altogether.
Disorientation swept Layla, a moment of blinding white light. And then she was standing in a white room with the two men, in the middle of which was a silver table and three chairs. Motioning to the single chair on one side of the table, the lean man claimed one of the two chairs opposite. The burly fellow didn’t sit, just stood behind the final chair, crossing his enormous arms over his chest and watching Layla with his intense silver eyes.
Fidgeting, Layla took the indicated seat. Gazing around, she saw the all-white walls shimmered with a golden grid, sigils and strange script set inside every grid-box. The grid itself was made from a golden script that actually flowed as she watched, as if the incantations written there were somehow breathing, or alive. The roughly twenty-by-twenty space had no windows and no door, though everything was softly bright. Looking up and down, Layla saw the same sigils and script running through the ceiling and floor.
“Ms. Layla Price, Royal Dragon Bind of the Desert Dragons of Morocco and the Mediterranean.” The slender silver-haired man spoke, leaning back in his chair and interlacing his long fingers in his lap. “My name is Heathren Merkami, and this is Insinio Brandfort. We are Intercessoria Judiciary investigators, and have come to settle the case of Sylvania Eroganis’ death. Which we are finding more and more complex with every testimony, unfortunately. Let us start with your name, for the record. And tell us how you have come to know Adrian Rhakvir.”
All around the room, Layla watched the script and sigils brighten in a cascading wave, as if they were ready to record her testimony. Swallowing hard, she firmed her courage, knowing that only the truth would free Adrian of accusation.
“My name is Layla Price,” she spoke in a strong voice. “And I first met Adrian Rhakvir in Seattle, at an art gallery. At least, that’s when I can first recall meeting him.”
The silver-haired man Heathren Merkami nodded peaceably, gesturing for her to continue.
Layla did. Her story came pouring out, everything that had happened since she’d first met Adrian back in August. Bleary, exhausted, she felt like she’d been awake thirty-six hours as she talked on and on. Nothing changed inside the white room except the slow scrawl of sigils across the walls and floor, writing themselves over and over in slowly-flowing waves of gold. Listening intently and interrupting now and then to ask clarifying questions, Heathren Merkami held an attentive patience, staring at her with his silver-white eyes. Still standing though he shifted occasionally, Insinio Brandfort listened just as attentively, though his questions were less frequent.
Layla tried to start her description of her association with Adrian with the art gallery. But when she mentioned her strange desert-scape dreams of him, Heathren’s straight dark brows narrowed, and he asked Layla to go into an account of her childhood. That conversation led to Mimi, to Layla having been born at Adrian’s home in Morocco, and the Rhakvir family’s earliest awareness of Hunter.
By the time Layla got back to present day, Heathren was scowling with a dark, pensive silence, the big burly Insinio doing no less behind him. Heathren let her complete her tale of how she’d come to the Hotel, how Adrian was trying to protect her from the void-shadow, and everything that had gone down when Adam had shown himself for who he truly was. Layla finished with a brief account of her current situation training her magics under Reginald, and her relationships with Dusk and Adrian.
As she spoke, Heathren sat back in his chair. Crossing his arms over his chest, he tipped his chair back on two legs, crossing one long leg at his knee. His black leather boots had knife sheaths on the sides, occupied by daggers with silver hilts, and Heathren adjusted so the knife handle didn’t press into his kneecap. His brows still knit, he regarded Layla with a quiet intensity as she finished. She was so bleary, she had a feeling she’d left something important out – though for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what. Still standing, Insinio was a burlier echo of Heathren’s intensity, his bright silver eyes narrowed though his strong posture seemed relaxed.
There was no good cop bad cop here. Just quiet cop and quieter cop, which made Layla squirm with discomfort more than a bad cop could have.
At last, Heathren drew a deep breath. Settling his chair back to the floor, he regarded Layla with a fierce directness. “Your tale makes a number of strange cases over the years become plain, Layla Price. The odd disappearance of Mimi Zakir, famous Royal Dragon Bind chanteuse. The sudden death of Juliette Rhakvir at her family home, still an unsolved murder to this day, though some would call it closed. The problem of Adam Rhakvir’s magical imprint on official records changing after his sixth birthday, ever-so-slightly, from his recorded magical birth print. It was officially written off as due to severe trauma from when his family were assassinated in Italy, though I’ve never believed it.”
“So… what does that mean?” Layla breathed, curious and also wary.
“It means,” Heathren exchanged a glance with Insinio, and some accord passed between the two investigators, “that I am very seriously weighing the testimonies I have heard about thisHuntercharacter. No record exists of this man; no magical birth-documents. Only tales like the wind which I have compiled over millennia. Tales of fear and darkness, death and tragedy. But he is like a ghost in the dark. The entire Intercessoria have no concrete proof of him. We didn’t even have a name for this creature until now. Until it broke its own code of shadow and stealth to make itself known to you. Which could prove useful.”
Heathren and his partner exchanged another glance, before Heathren’s gaze retuned to Layla. “In any case, Adrian Rhakvir is not off the hook. He remains our prime suspect in this murder investigation until evidence proves otherwise. While we’ve been speaking, he has been taken into custody. Where he will remain until any new evidence frees him. I’m sorry.”
Layla’s throat became tight, shock flooding her that they’d already arrested Adrian. Her eyes stung, thinking of her last touch with him – holding his hand in the Madame’s apartment. “But he’s not guilty. He didn’t kill Sylvania!”
