Playing With Fire - Katie MacAlister [59]
‘‘Not going to deny it, eh?’’ The man chuckled, his laugh just as unpleasant as his voice. ‘‘Smart girl. There’s a piece here in London, a small golden amulet. It’s well protected, so you’ll need to use your wits to get it. You got a pencil? Here’s the address.’’
I took down the information, wondering what the amulet was, and how I was going to get out of stealing it. For now, I’d let the blackmailer think he had me by the short and curlies, but I would not commit myself to stealing something about which I knew nothing. Perhaps if I knew a little more about who he was working for, I’d be able to assess what it was he wanted stolen. ‘‘All right, I have that. My twin said you were working for a dreadlord. Which one?’’
‘‘Who I work for is none of your business,’’ he said sharply, on a quick intake of breath.
‘‘Well then, who owns this amulet you want stolen?’’
The silence that followed was rife with suspicion.
‘‘Look, I don’t know what you think doppelgangers can do, but we can’t turn invisible, and we can’t walk through walls. We’re flesh and blood just like anyone else . . . more or less . . . and we can trigger alarms and set off security systems. The more I know about the person who has this amulet, the better I can protect myself and ensure success.’’
‘‘Just steal the damned thing. You don’t need to shove your nose into anything else. Get in, get it, and get out. Call me when you’ve got it.’’
‘‘I’m not a miracle worker—’’ I started to protest.
‘‘If you’re caught, he’ll kill you,’’ the man interrupted. ‘‘So don’t get caught.’’
‘‘But who—’’
He hung up before I could finish asking him who it was he intended for me to rob. I sighed and slumped back into the chair, staring blindly at the piece of paper I held. I had a bad feeling about this whole thing, but I wasn’t in much of a position to do anything. I’d just have to go to the target’s house and assess the situation there.
It wasn’t until I was in my room, donning my working outfit, that I realized something odd about the address he’d given me.
‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ I said a few minutes later as I looked at the card Aisling had given me. One side of it had her address in London, and on the back, she’d written the location of Kostya’s lair.
It was the same address the blackmailer had given me.
An hour and a half later I slipped out of the back door of Gabriel’s house, casting an eye upward to the window of the room Cyrene had claimed. A faint light flickered through a gap in the curtains, indicating Cyrene was happily tucked into bed, yakking on the phone to one or another local naiad while she watched late-night TV. I hadn’t told her my plans lest she wish to accompany me . . . and where I was going, she definitely couldn’t follow.
Why was the blackmailer trying to steal something from a dragon? No wonder he didn’t want to tell me whom I was supposed to steal from—no one in their right mind would ever try to get something out of a dragon’s lair.
‘‘More intriguingly, who is he working for?’’ I murmured aloud to myself. ‘‘And does this have anything to do with that phylactery Gabriel wants?’’
‘‘What’s that?’’
I came to myself with a start as the taxi driver pulled up outside a dark and rather grimy warehouse. ‘‘Sorry, just talking to myself. Is this it?’’
‘‘It is. That’ll be five pounds.’’
I paid the man, hesitating for a moment as I glanced at the warehouse. I wasn’t normally a fearful person, but I had to admit there was something about the hulking black building that left me feeling a bit twitchy. ‘‘I don’t suppose you’d like to wait for me?’’
‘‘Here?’’ He shoved my change in my hands. ‘‘Not for five times that. Good luck.’’
He sped off into the darkness without even a backward glance. ‘‘Talk about your foreshadowing,’’ I muttered as I slipped into the shadows.
The lock on the door to the warehouse posed no problem to me. I smiled as I laid my fingers across the front, gently