The Wicked (3 page)

“You have three days to make the crossover and start the removal process. If for any reason you fail to do so within that time frame, my petition becomes null and void, and I lose all legal claim to my library. It is Sebastian’s job to see that this does not happen, and that you depart for the island well within that deadline.”

The Vampyre paused to look at each one of them before she continued. “You’re all excellent at your jobs, and that didn’t happen by accident. I have been collecting that library for thousands of years. There are many items that are old, fragile, dangerous and valuable. Before I was forced to leave, I destroyed some of the darkest items, but I did not have time to safely contain or destroy everything. Stay on top of your game, be careful and work as a team. It’s the responsibility of Sebastian and his team to safeguard both you and the contents of the library. Good journey and good luck.”

With those final words, Carling strode out of the room, and Sebastian Hale faced the group alone.

“Dendera and I have already been thoroughly briefed,” he said. His voice was as striking as the rest of him, strong and deep and rich. “I won’t add anything else right now. We have several hours on the plane where we can get acquainted with each other and run through details of the expedition, so for now, get your luggage and make your way downstairs. There’s transportation waiting to take us to the airport.”

Phaedra pushed away from the wall. She looked bored again. She said in a curt voice to Sebastian, “I will see you in San Francisco after your flight.”

Sebastian’s hard face turned to the Djinn. “No, you won’t. You will travel on the plane along with every other member of this crew.”

Phaedra’s expression turned edgy and unpredictable. “That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s the rule,” said Sebastian. “You travel with us and attend the meeting, or you’re off the team. In fact, you do everything I say, or you’re off the team.”

The Djinn’s expression turned deadly. “Don’t push me, Wyr.”

“Or you’ll do what?” asked Sebastian, his voice flat. He tilted his head.

He looked unimpressed. Unafraid.

Which meant he believed he could face down a Djinn and win the confrontation.

Olivia was reluctantly impressed.

She also knew that Phaedra had already given her word to her father that she would see this assignment through successfully to its conclusion, so she was not quite as taken in by the scene as everyone else in the room.

She walked around the end of the table, collected her luggage and said to Phaedra, “Quit making an ass of yourself if you possibly can.”

Then without waiting around for any more drama, she walked to the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.

One by one, other people joined her at the elevators. Olivia kept her head down and eyes to the floor. When the elevator doors opened, people filed in with their luggage. They rode down to the ground floor in silence.

Outside the main entrance, two black Cadillac Escalades idled at the curb. With a minimum of conversation, the group loaded into the vehicles. Olivia managed to score the front passenger seat of one Escalade. Thankfully neither Sebastian nor Phaedra joined the group in her SUV. During the trip to the airport, she listened to the others’ desultory conversation from the back seat, but she didn’t join in.

The driver took them to a smaller, more business-oriented airport than Miami International Airport, where Olivia had originally flown in. They met up with the group from the other Escalade, and in short order a uniformed flight crew took their luggage out to a corporate-sized Boeing parked on the tarmac. Soon after, the group filed into the sunshine to board the plane.

Sebastian went first. Olivia watched him run up the airstairs. It was such a simple, ordinary feat, running up stairs. But his body in movement was mesmerizing, full of grace and power, and so effortless he seemed to float. When he stopped in the doorway of the plane, she could hardly believe what she had seen. Watching him for those few seconds had taken her breath away.

He remained by the door, turning to watch the others as they boarded. When it came to her turn, she ducked her head as she climbed toward him and pretended she was invisible.

“You,” he said when she reached the top.

Resigned, she lifted her head. She had been right about his height. He stood just a few inches taller than she did. His compact body was proportioned remarkably well, his shoulders not too wide, and his lean legs not too long. Exposed by the short sleeves of his gray T-shirt, his arms were cut with lean muscle.

Combined with his lack of expression, those sunglasses of his were truly unnerving. Up close, she felt the force of his presence as a palpable thing. As he turned his head to glance down the stairs at the others, she also saw that he was not as young as she had first thought. Lines bracketed his hard mouth and fanned out from the corners of his eyes. She couldn’t tell if the white that flecked his sable brown hair so strikingly was from age, or if it was a characteristic of his kind of Wyr.

Groping for some measure of composure, she reminded him, “My name is Olivia Sutton.”

“I know who you are,” said Sebastian. He did not make that sound like a good thing. “Take one of the seats at the first table. You will sit with me.”

Her entire body pulsed in reaction. Surprise, and something else, something quite out of the ordinary. All she knew was that her response was completely involuntary, and by the small tilt of his head, she realized he had sensed it. Damn those ultra-sensitive Wyr senses.

All the while, his expression remained as revealing as a stone wall.

She refused to feel as if she were back in grade school and summoned to the principal’s office. With as much composure as she could muster, she said, “Certainly, if you wish it.”

Without another word, he turned to the next person in line, and she knew that, at least for the moment, she had been dismissed.

Sebastian knew exactly when things had gotten interesting, and it hadn’t been when he had accepted the contract for the job that Carling had offered and decided to head the team himself.

In fact, Bailey, his vice president and the second in command of his security company, had questioned that very decision at their home office in Jamaica.

“You’re not cleared for work,” she said, leaning her tall frame against the doorway of his office. Her sleek, Light Fae build was corded with muscle, and she kept her curling blonde hair cut short in a careless, charming tousle. “In fact, you’re getting worse, not better. Why did you take this job?”

“There’s no major, life-altering reason,” he said without turning away from his desk. The morning had already turned sultry, and a ceiling fan pushed the hot air around the room. He had already discarded his shirt and wore cutoff jeans. He had promised himself a long, cool swim as soon as he had finished some necessary paperwork. “Carling is an old friend, and we bartered an exchange of services, that’s all. And there’s no point in me remaining holed up in this office, sitting on my ass while I wait for our research teams to bring me news of something that may or may not be of use to me. This way I can spend a few weeks keeping busy, while the time slippage will give them a few months to try to find answers.”

Not that there was any real hope that any of their research teams would bring back something that could help him. He had not yet told Bailey what Carling had told him, gently, when he had consulted with her. He hadn’t told anybody yet.

Bailey studied his expression. She didn’t appear to like what she saw. “You sound so bored.”

“I am bored,” he told her. “I’ve been bored for a long time.”

That had no doubt played a major factor in his getting injured during the last job, if “injured” was even the right word for what had happened to him. What was continuing to happen to him. He had made a huge mistake by underestimating the danger of the situation they had been in. He had been bored, and he hadn’t been paying enough attention. He knew it, and Bailey knew it. Neither one of them said it aloud.

Instead, she said in a light tone of voice, “C’mon, it’s an ancient, magical library on a deserted island that houses a mysterious sentient species. Aren’t you the slightest bit interested in that?”

“Three months ago, I was protecting an archaeological party from a tribal chieftain who was in possession of a shrunken head that uttered curses against one’s enemies.” He shifted his sunglasses to rub his aching eyes. Another headache began to pulse in his frontal lobe. It would soon force him away from his desk, but he refused to give in to it just yet. “Five months before that, I was locating stolen gold treasure and transporting it back to the Thailand government, its rightful owner. Last year I was escorting a runaway Dark Fae heir back to his family in the Unseelie Court in Ireland.”

He’d had decades of exotic experiences. He was drowning in exotic experiences. They all ran together in his mind like a never-ending banquet of highly seasoned, complex delicacies, and his palate had turned jaded.

When he had been a younger man, he could barely stay in one geographical location long enough to do the necessary paperwork to start a business. Now that he was no longer young, he was not interested in yet another astonishing adventure. He needed the good, solid nutrition of…something, but he didn’t know what that something was.

“Then let me take care of the job with the magical library,” Bailey said. “Carling didn’t say that you had to be the one to do it personally, did she?”

He didn’t reply, because actually Carling hadn’t. She had just asked that his security company take on the contract.

Bailey read the answer in his silence. “Why don’t you stay home? Better yet, take a vacation. Get laid, for God’s sake. In fact, get laid a lot, and get drunk too. A lot. It would improve your disposition exponentially.”

“Fuck off,” he said.

“You fuck off.”

He slammed both hands on his desk. “I’m not having a discussion with you about this. I’ve taken the job. I’m going. Deal with it and shut up.”

He might not be interested in astonishing adventure, but he still had to keep moving, had to keep working. He couldn’t give in to what was happening to him. If he gave in to it, it might kill him. Hell, it would probably kill him anyway.

On his last job, the tribal chieftain had died during the course of the struggle to gain control of the shrunken head, but not before he had used the head to utter one last curse against Sebastian.

According to Carling, the magic that had been unleashed had been precise and specific. The only way to free Sebastian from what was happening to him was if the chieftain who had cast the original spell used the shrunken head to lift the curse.

And that was impossible, because the bastard was dead. He glared at the shrunken head on his desk, currently being used as a paperweight, which was just about all it was good for, since neither he nor any of his company would ever use it to throw a curse.

He couldn’t get rid of it. He needed it in case they found a way to break the curse without the chieftain’s help. But as soon as he could, he was going to have it destroyed so nobody could use it again, and the poor, long dead bastard it belonged to would get some kind of final burial at last.

Bailey declared, “Well, if you’re going on this job, I am too.”

She knew as well as he did that they would make a lot more money if they each headed a crew and took separate assignments. Bailey was the very definition of mercenary, so if she volunteered to make less money and come along on the same job with him, it meant she was concerned. She wanted to watch his back, and that irritated him to no end.

He snapped, “I don’t give a shit what you do.”

“Keep it that way, asshole,” she told him.

It was their little way of expressing affection for each other. He and Bailey had worked together for a very long time.

And the job remained just as he thought it would, mind numbingly routine.

Right up to the moment a human witch—a
librarian
—appeared in a whirlwind of Power and called a Djinn a dimwit.

Witnessing that little scene was like having a switch thrown in his head. Just like that, after five years of a dangerous, growing ennui, he came back online, sharper and clearer than he had ever been. Engaged again. Interested.

Perhaps even amused, although he wasn’t at all sure about that. After all, he had been stalled in a strange, restless kind of boredom for a long time.

Standing in the early afternoon Miami sunshine, he watched as the last of the group boarded the plane. Only then did he step inside himself. Leaving the crew to close and seal the plane door, he walked into the cabin.

The Boeing could seat up to eighteen people, so their crew had plenty of room to spread out. There were two couches set on either side of the cabin. Wide, comfortable chairs, all covered in elegant pale leather, were positioned in sets of four around tables. At the back of the plane, a complete, high-end galley could produce gourmet meals on long trips.

As soon as they were airborne and the plane had leveled out, everyone would be served their choice of filet mignon or grilled Dover sole, a fresh salad of mixed melon balls, balsamic braised asparagus, French rolls, and either chocolate mousse or a cheese plate with coffee for dessert.