Chapter 5
When the bedroom light went out, Zane nodded to Tyr, and his brother put his hand on the lock of the balcony door.
It snicked open. With telekinesis, who needed lockpicks?
There was a security system as well as protective wards, but they didn’t worry about any of it. They could cloak themselves from any security system, and nearly any spell. Become, essentially, invisible and undetectable.
Being as quiet as possible, they slipped through the workroom. Tyr headed straight for the far door, but Zane lingered by the table, running his fingertips over the polished surface as if it would tell him why his image had been conjured there.
He got nothing—just the faint tingle of the magical residue from the spell. Shaking his head, he stepped toward the door—and noticed the Tarot card Blaze had dropped on the floor. The one that had burst into flames in her hand. Zane stooped and picked it up.
The card was whole and unharmed. It was the Knight of Flames, a handsome man with golden hair.
And he was riding a dragon.
Zane ran his fingers over the card. He’d seen it burn, hadn’t he? The image of the cardboard blackening and curling in the flames was clear in his mind. And yet here it was—whole and perfect. Untouched by fire.
Zane? What the fuck are you doing? Sightseeing? Tyr was standing in the doorway, looking impatient.
Nothing. He hesitated, then tucked the card in his pocket and went to burgle a vault.
Leaving Tyr on watch near the curving central stairway, Zane stole down the hallway towards Blaze’s gallery. According to Thorne’s intel, this was where she kept all her valuable pieces, and where she met with buyers.
The place Thorne most wanted to get into, though Blaze had ignored all his phone calls and emails.
Zane should have been focusing on his surroundings, but his attention was distracted by the woman in the bedroom above him. It was like he could sense her, drifting off to sleep, her breathing slowing, her thoughts fragmenting as they slid into a dream.
She should have been warm and relaxed, but he kept picking up fear—cold as ice and sharp as glass, tearing her dreams to shreds.
He found himself wanting to go up there and comfort her.
Which was crazy. They needed to get this done. In. Out. Get the hell home and have some chocolate lava cake to top off the evening.
And then kick back and wait for the apocalypse, because he had the sinking feeling they were wasting their time trying to avert it. This trinket they were after probably wasn’t even the Dragonfly Seal. Hell, none of Thorne’s leads had ever panned out. Why should this be different?
As saviors of humankind, they were the B-team, at best. Probably more like C or D or Q. The Pacific Coast A-team—full-fledged Draken Guardians—hadn’t even been able to handle the Mount St. Helen’s disaster, forty years ago, when another Draken Lord had broken free. Hell, it had wiped them out. If Thorne was right, Vyrkos would be worse. And the Greystone brothers weren’t a team of Draken Guardians. Not even close.
They weren’t even full Draken. Just three Wild Dragons. Hybrids, with limited powers and not nearly enough firepower to take on a Draken Lord.
Yet here he was. He’d let down the humans and shifters under his care once. He’d seen their village destroyed greed and cruelty, the bodies left in the ashes.
His family, who he could have saved, if he’d gotten there in time.
He’d vowed on their graves that he would never let such a thing happen again.
He was approaching the display gallery now. He knew from the blueprints Thorne had managed to get that it was an interior room with no windows. An office opened off it, leading to an eight by eight vault that held the most valuable, most dangerous treasures.
If the Seal was here, that’s where it would be.
The door to the gallery was just barely ajar. That stopped Zane in his tracks; even believing she was the only person in the house, no way Blaze would leave it open. It was a crazy breach of security.
He examined the outside of the door. The security system was on; he could feel it. The door being open should have set it off, but somehow it hadn’t. The electric current felt as though it hadn’t been interrupted at all.
He’d thought only he and his brothers could do that.
Unease curled in the pit of his stomach. There was something wrong here.
Slowly, carefully, he pushed the metal door with his fingertips. It slid smoothly open without a sound, making a space just wide enough for him to slip through.
Concentrating, he pulled the electrical field over him like a cloak, moving through the opening without interrupting the current and setting off the alarm.
Once inside the gallery, he could see the door to the office was open as well. On the far wall of the office was the door to the vault, and standing in front of it was a dim figure dressed entirely in black.
A woman.
She had an electronic device hooked up to the outside of the vault door, running combination codes. The digital readout continually moved, changing faster than the eye could follow. The thief was running her fingers across the front of the vault, almost like she was caressing a lover.
Damn it all to hell. Someone had nearly beaten him to the Seal.
Rebel waited for her expensive electronic gadget to find the vault combination, nostalgic for the good old days she’d never known, where top safecrackers cracked the best vaults in the world through sound and feel.
Electronic locks had ruined all that.
Normally she would have spent the time wandering through the gallery, feet sinking into the plush midnight-blue carpet, admiring all the juicy treasures in their fancy glass cases and figuring out how she might pocket one or two.
But knowing those other guys were outside was making her antsy. This vault was tougher than she’d been led to believe, and it was taking too long to breach it. She had to get out before they found her.
Finally the gadget did its electronic magic, and there was a soft metallic ‘thunk’ as the locking mechanisms disengaged. Rebel pulled the gadget away from the vault lock and stowed it in her vest, then opened the door and stepped into the vault.
The vault, like the gallery, was full of tantalizing goodies, but Rebel was a professional. She also didn’t want to waste time and get caught. She blocked all that out and concentrated on the picture she’d memorized. A lead-lined box of ancient wood, about six by eight inches, with two open eyes carved on the lid.
She scanned the shelves quickly with her penlight. There.
She pulled the box off the shelf. It tingled under her fingers, as if it were charged with electricity. Open the box, she heard in her mind. Make sure the item is really inside.
Her hand hesitated on the lid of the box. Surely opening it wasn’t a good idea?
Open the box.
That’s right, she thought. Those were the instructions. She was sure of it. You must open the box. You must take the item out.
She put her hand on the lid of the box and cracked it open.