CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The suite was massive, more suitable for an honored guest than a dishonored prisoner. He paced from one end to the other, looking for something—anything—that would aid his escape, but he might as well have been locked up in an Alcatraz cell. There was no other door or window, no phone, no vent, no sign of the outside world or ability to signal to it. He was probably deep in the earth, near the center of his father’s vast fortress. Above him would be the garden. He might even be directly under the pool where Vincent idled away so many hours.
At least Detective Tandy knew where he was. If anybody should miss him or wonder about his disappearance, at least Tandy could tell them his last known whereabouts. He was really only thinking about what would happen if Mary tried to reach him and he never responded—just the thought of her potentially being worried about him raised his spirits considerably. It never occurred to him that Tandy might show up to rescue him. How would he ever get past the front door, much less find his way into the belly of the labyrinth? How would he ever compel Damian or overpower his will? It couldn’t be done and he had no expectation that Tandy would try.
Hours after his incarceration began, the door slid open and Vincent stepped inside.
“So, I was saying to the old man that we need to tie up all the loose ends. The girl. The detective. You. And he said, no, he doesn’t want to kill his ‘idiot son.’ He still has sentiment for you, I guess. I’m trying to tell him to look at the bigger picture, and what do I find sitting right there on the desk?” He revealed Jason’s phone—considerably more cracked and broken than the last time Jason saw it. “In the middle of a call. A long call. It had already been going on for like six hours. Now your father doesn’t feel so sentimental.”
“So, you’ve been sent to kill me? You’re my friend, Vincent.”
“Friend? Friend? After I find this, you have the audacity to call yourself my friend? You came here today to try to make me incriminate myself and that’s what you say to me?”
“I was trying to exonerate you!”
“Exonerate me? The police wouldn’t even know to look my direction if you hadn’t told them. What part of secret society do you not understand? It’s for our own benefit! For the safety of our kind.”
“I’m not the one who put our kind at risk. You are the one who indulged in that old man’s fantasies. You are the one who made him life-like replicas of dragons. And you’re the one who killed him. As a dragon! Good god, man, if you had to murder him, why not shoot him? Or poison him? Or anything but going at him in full-on dragon attack mode!”
Vincent bowed his head slightly. “Point taken. You’re right. I made an error in judgement. It was not premeditated. I didn’t go to his house with the intention of killing the man. I did consider him a friend.”
“Then what happened?”
“Neil had a very...irritating personality flaw. He couldn’t leave well enough alone. Perhaps I had been too indulgent with him over the years. I thought I was just humoring the fancy of a delightful old eccentric. But he got it in his head that maybe I knew more than I let on. Maybe I was even a dragon myself. And maybe he could get a glimpse of the truth if he tried hard enough.”
“What did he do? Goad you into turning and killing him?”
“I could withstand his words. What I could not withstand was the Dragon’s Tongue he put in my tea. Did you know at large enough quantities, it really does reveal a dragon? I don’t know if he knew it would work. He seemed quite shocked. Hell, I always thought that was a myth, myself.”
“And you just killed him right there?”
“Well, I had to, didn’t I? After all, not only did he have irrefutable proof of our existence, but he’d finally figured out the dosage to force us to reveal ourselves. Who knows how many times he attempted to poison me before he finally hit on the amount that would make me shift. At least he figured that out before he found the lethal dosage. But oh, you couldn’t do it, could you?”
“Kill a man in cold blood? No, I couldn’t.”
“It wasn’t cold blood,” Vincent snapped. “That’s the point. My blood was running hot and I reacted on instinct. The very instinct that has preserved our kind for thousands of years. The instinct you lack. Imagine if everybody were like you. We’d all be dead.”
“Do you really think that our friends, neighbors and coworkers would want to kill us all without exception?” Jason shook his head. “Look, I’m not saying we should hold a press conference, but you might as well call one if you go ahead with this plan. Killing me is not going to make all of this go away.”
“You’re right. It only starts with you,” he said, pulling a gun from his jacket pocket.
“Oh, right. The girl and the detective,” Jason spat. “You think Mary won’t be missed? You think a detective who mysteriously disappears during a high-profile case won’t be noticed? It’s a vicious cycle, Vincent, and it won’t end well for you. Think about it. You’re a loose end, too.”
His impassive mask flickered, and Jason realized he was getting through to the other man for the first time. Of course. He should have appealed to Vincent’s immediate self-interest from the start.
“The ultimate loose end,” Jason continued. “Not only the man guilty of the original crime, but the one who very nearly allowed a human to destroy my father’s entire empire. You let Simmons get that close to you, revealed our secrets, and left an actual scale at the scene of the crime. Hell, compared to you, I’m a fucking hero. And knowing my father, he’s already figured this out.”
“I guess you’re not such an idiot after all,” Damian said, stepping into the room, the gun in his hand pointed at Vincent’s head. “Put down your gun, Vincent.”
“What are you talking about?” Vincent shouted, his eyes darting around the room, his face flushing with anger. “We had a deal.”
“We had a deal for my son’s life? You must be delusional.” As Damian spoke, Jason slipped past him and into the hallway. “Stay here, Vincent. Think about your future.”
“If you think I’m going to let you hand me over to that cop—”
“No one is going to hand you over. You’ll be subject to the Ancient Law.”
Maybe Vincent was too enraged to hear Damian’s promise. Maybe he didn’t believe him or didn’t care to be subject to the primal court. Maybe he’d already made up his mind before Damian said a word. Jason sensed his intention to move before he saw it and shouted his warning, darting forward in an unconscious effort to put his body between his father and the inevitable bullet.
Both guns fired, the reports instantaneous. It was the last thing Jason heard before everything went black.