I’m relieved to find the others are already here. Remus doesn’t get up from where he’s tipping his chair onto its back legs at the table, but he waves two tattooed fingers in the air like a sloppy salute. I reflect his greeting back at him and add a warm, “Remus.” Although he’s naturally charming and articulate, he’s also as clever as they come, and in his case, that manifests in economizing his words. When Remus speaks, you listen, because he probably has something important to say. It’s a personality type that serves him well at the tattoo parlor he owns, where being a good listener and confidant is popular with influential clients.
“Brother.” Ellison stands from his seat, extending one manicured hand toward me. I shake it formally, noticing the Cancer-sign has his laptop in tow. If there is one person on this earth who works harder than I do, it’s Ellison. He’s a partner at a law firm, which comes in handy now and then in our fight against the Order. But he’s also the overly cautious and sometimes pessimistic type. He’s never the first to jump at a solution, but once he commits, he’s as reliable as it gets.
“Glad you could make it.” I grasp Ellison by the shoulder.
Just then, the sound of a door opening turns me toward what I assume is the bathroom. Lucas Oliver, the Leo member of the brotherhood, strides out, still smoothing his hair. I haven’t seen the actor turned director since he left for Singapore to film his latest movie, but I catch my jaw tightening.
“If you’re done primping, Lucas, maybe we can begin.”
He gives me an arrogant smile and delivers a warmhearted hug that I return, because we are brothers, after all, even if he annoys the hell out of me.
“If you had hair this good, you’d keep it looking its best too,” he says through a perfect smile.
I groan. The truth is, the dragon does have perfect golden-brown hair that, along with his gleaming, straight smile, makes him a charm factory guaranteed to woo any woman he chooses. I’m no slouch in the looks department, but I’ve always been more interested in getting the job done than being flashy or outgoing. Basically, the opposite of Lucas the Leo.
His ability to put others at ease would make even the most confident dragon envious. People tend to find me intimidating, especially when I know I’m right. Which is most of the time.
Lucas takes a seat next to Ellison, and I sit down at the head of the table. “So, where should we start?” I ask. “What do you know about the bombing?”
Ellison leans forward. “The host of the baby shower was a woman named Maggie Freely, the wife of a Peter Freely, who runs a little independent bookstore in Maryland. Maggie worked as an accountant. Both were extremely careful with their dragon identities. Peter told us that Maggie had shopped at Honey Cakes, a local bakery, for at least seven years and never had a problem. She ordered the cake for the shower in person, the same way she always did. But when she went to pick it up that morning, it was missing from the cooler. The owner of Honey Cakes says he still doesn’t know what happened to it. He’s grilled all of his employees and searched the store. While it’s possible the cake was given to another customer, it’s highly unlikely because there wasn’t a cake left in the cooler at the end of the day.”
“Right. If the orders had been switched, the customer who took the wrong cake would have left behind the right one.”
“Exactly. So this guy, Frank Honey, he made Maggie a replacement cake, but he doesn’t normally do deliveries, so he hired a DashCab delivery person to take her the cake. A man with DashCab identification came and got the cake, and by the time it was delivered to Maggie, there was a bomb in it. But get this, Mr. Honey says a second DashCab delivery driver came to Honey Cakes after the first one and was confused that the cake was already gone. Mr. Honey chalked it up to a mix-up at DashCab, but now, after authorities told him what happened, he is distraught that he might have given the order to someone targeting Maggie.”
“So, it’s fair to say that an Order member somehow discovered that Maggie or Peter was a dragon, stole the original cake, and used the circumstances to deliver the bomb. Anyone get a description of this delivery driver?” Anger throbs in my veins. I desperately want to disembowel whoever is responsible for this.
“Frank described him as a Santa Claus look-alike. White hair and beard with a big belly. Was wearing a black leather vest over a white T-shirt and jeans.”
“Do we have anyone on the list who fits that description?” I ask Ellison. We have a long list of people, mostly billionaires and politicians, who we know are in the Order. For years, under the accord, Saint’s Order members were supposed to register their properties so that dragons could avoid them. But now that the accord’s been broken, who knows how complete it is. It’s possible one of them would pose as a delivery driver to pull this off, but the conservative billionaires who end up in the Order usually have a penchant for designer suits, gold watches, and oversized yachts. They don’t tend to look like Santa.
Ellison shakes his head. “No one. It was either a new recruit, or someone hired this out.”
Remus shakes his head. “New recruit. I analyzed the security footage from the camera at the front door. He was wearing an Order ring.”
“Fuck!” I slam my palms down on the counter. This situation is so far out of my comfort zone, if it were a line of music, it wouldn’t even be in the same song.
“Can anyone take the lead on going to Maryland and trying to track down Santa Claus?” I ask.
Lucas raises his hand. “I’m shopping for filming locations for my latest project. It’s a great excuse to nose around the area. I’ll run this asshole down.”
“Thanks. If they’re hunting us again, and they could randomly target someone like Maggie, anyone could be next. It’s like the deaths of Roman and Stephen haven’t created so much as a speed bump in the Order’s plans.” I rub a hand over my face while the implications soak in.
Ellison rubs a finger across his chin. “If anything, Donovan’s death, by dissolving the accord, untied their hands.”
I look to Connor for some words of wisdom. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet this entire time. Beside him, Fiona looks just as grave. Mates don’t usually participate in these things, but at this point, I’m open to ideas from anyone who wants to give them. “So, what do you think we should do? Do we take this to the Oracle?”
Connor shakes his head. “Already have, brother. She said our future lies in the gifts of the past.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask.
He rubs his jaw. “I can’t say for sure. But we think it has to do with the Saint’s Order ring Reagan’s father left us when he committed suicide. I brought it tonight to pass on to you for safekeeping.”
“Gee, thanks.” I scowl.
“We’ve learned something about the ring, something we need to show you before we hand it off. Something we didn’t see coming. Fiona, would you do the honors?”
She stands and moves toward a credenza across the room, where a jewelry box waits beside a set of barbecue tongs. “Technically, I can touch this because I’m human, but Connor would prefer I use these.” She clicks the tongs together a few times. Carefully, she pops open the wooden box and plucks a heavy silver ring from inside with the tongs. It looks like a men’s high school class ring, except there’s a St. George Cross engraved on the face of the heavy platinum. Although the font is too small for me to read from this distance, all of us know that the cross is surrounded by an inscription: Astra inclinant, sed non obligant, meaning the stars incline us, they do not bind us. The Latin quote is a way to poke fun at dragons who hold tightly to the guidance of the stars and were made by the creator out of the celestial cloth. This ring is an abomination to my kind.
