6

Casimir - Six Weeks Later

"The last I heard, one of the Valentis had it. Some no-name wannabe mob boss with a chip on his shoulder and more money than sense."

I nod, idly flipping through a manila folder filled with notes and reports and half-speculated rumors.

"You're still set on having it?"

Looking up, I meet Serra's questioning gaze. Ten years we've been working together, and the nymph is no doubt confused why exactly it is I want my hands on this particular piece. I've got no buyer, no plans to use it for leverage in some other deal. No obvious reason it means so much to me.

"I'm still set on having it."

She shrugs, her raven hair falling over one shoulder and a bit of lingering confusion in her vivid green eyes. "Well, that's all I've got. Maybe Alexandrina will know more."

"Perhaps," I allow, a thread of exasperation nettling its way into the back of my mind as I consider calling the woman.

A mafia princess who might have the information I need, yes, but who's never been anything but a pain in the ass to deal with.

"Enough for today," I say with a sigh, standing from my desk and running a hand through my hair. "I'll decide how I want to handle Alexandrina, and we can pick back up tomorrow."

"Great," Serra says with a grin, standing as well, "I've got a hot date with a basilisk who owes me answers about the Grecian scrolls I've been trying to hunt down."

We say our goodnights, and she departs a few minutes later through the front door of the warehouse where we run our operations, no doubt off to work her magick with said basilisk or anyone else who stands between her and the treasure she's after.

Boundless, her energy and enthusiasm.

It's what recommended her to me in the first place, after we met during a gathering of buyers for a collection of golden adornments rumored to be from 9th century Scandinavia. The jewelry was counterfeit, but after that meeting Serra quickly became an apprentice of sorts, though our arrangement hardly has enough formality around it to warrant use of the term. She helps with the clients and cases I take, and I provide her a leg up into the work I've been doing for centuries.

It's an advantageous arrangement for us both, and not a career one finds themselves in through any kind of formal education or training.

I've been called a treasure hunter, a spy, a thief, and those are the titles which don't contain epithets or obscenities.

Truthfully, I'm not sure a word exists for exactly what it is I do.

It began with nothing more than the desire to amuse myself, a way to make enough money to get from one place to the next after the life I was created into was over. But I had a talent for it, a cold, callous sort of charm that served me well in opening doors and bending others to my will through sheer force of charisma and determination.

There was a time it meant more to me, this wheeling and dealing I've done for centuries. Trading in art and jewels and secrets. Earning more money than I could hope to spend in ten lifetimes.

But today it sits heavy on my shoulders, even this painting I'm after hardly breaks through the static that's taken up residence in my brain ever since that day at the Bureau.

I haven't seen Ophelia since Seattle.

I've been back in the city for over a month, and I haven't heard a peep from her. Whatever it is she's been doing here in Boston, she's kept her head down and she hasn't reached out. Not that I expected her to.

She made it clear enough she's here to work alone.

Wherever she is, I hope she's had more luck than I have.

Blair communicated a few more details about the case, and about Mayor Haverstad's potential involvement in it, but the mayor's office has been buttoned up tight enough that if he is involved, no hint of it has leaked. Besides the typical, bottom-feeding corruption and shady dealings I might have expected from a career politician, I haven't been able to dig up any additional evidence to tie him to these supposed attacks.

With another sigh, I grab my suit jacket from where it's resting on the back of my office chair and sling it over my shoulders, ready to call it a night.

After setting the security system and turning off the lights, I make my way to the back door leading into the lot shared by the industrial park's tenants.

Only to find a vampire waiting for me on the other side.

He's of average height and build. Brown hair, a forgettable face, though he holds himself straight and serious, hands clasped behind his back like some kind of soldier.

"Casimir," he says in a voice that sounds affected, somehow. Like he's trying to make it deeper or more graveled than his natural tone. "Good to see you again."

Idly, I wonder how long he's been waiting. It's well into the evening, and I keep no regular schedule.

He looks vaguely familiar, and a dim memory surfaces of him being some low-level associate my sometimes-friends—more often adversaries—Philippe and Marcus keep on their payroll, though I'll be damned if I can remember his name.

"Vernon?" I guess.

He frowns. "Vincent. We met last year when—"

"Vincent," I say coolly, not breaking my stride toward my car. "I was just on my way out."

He doggedly follows me through the empty lot. "Any interesting business lately?"

"None that concerns you."

A low chuckle. "Fine. But I have some that may concern you."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"You might reconsider when I tell you it also concerns that human you used to mess with. Ophelia, wasn't it?"

I come to an abrupt stop, turning to face him. He stops walking, too, and can't quite hide the flash of fear that breaks over his face at whatever it is he sees on mine.

He clears his throat and gathers his courage. "Tell her to back off. We have no interest in her or the Bureau poking around our affairs, especially now that her sister's the one running the show."

It was a shocking bit of news to hear Blair had stepped down as Director. Though perhaps less so when I'd finally gotten through to him a few days later to talk about it.

He'd sounded lighter than he's been in years, and I'd caught a brief, deeply contented murmur as he'd pulled away from the phone to answer something asked of him by a laughing, feminine voice.

A voice I strongly suspect belongs to a human with a scent like orange and ginger.

And now that Cleo's taken command of the Bureau, it appears things are about to get very complicated for Ophelia here in Boston.

I look Vincent up and down. "Who are you to be handing out orders?"

He puffs his chest out, a poor imitation of the vampires I'm sure he thinks he can emulate. "I speak with Philippe and Marcus's authority."

Ah. That would explain the arrogance.

Give them a bit of power, these up-and-comers, and they run wild with it.

But Philippe's always been good at illusions, and apparently he's still as convincing as ever if he's made this fool believe it was anywhere near his best interests to come and speak with me tonight.

I'm not in the mood to entertain any disrespect from my former brother's coven, even if the fact that this idiot is here, issuing orders, confirms at least some of Blair's suspicions about the role the covens might play in all of this—Philippe's especially, with Cassandra's warning to Cleo considered.

It's my turn to chuckle, though there's not an ounce of humor in the sound. "I very much doubt you do. Tell them if they have something to say to me, or Ophelia, they can say it themselves. Not send some lackey to do their bidding."

He opens his mouth to continue arguing the point, but I have no patience for it. I have no patience for anything right at the moment, not with my irritation reaching its limit and the faintest stirrings of dread just beginning to unspool in my gut over the idea of Ophelia having found herself on the coven's radar.

"Our conversation is at its end," I tell Vincent, letting every bit of threat and authority I've made for myself these four hundred years seep into my voice. "I would suggest you accept that and leave."

Another pulse of gratifying fear in his arrogant expression.

I don't wait to see if he'll make the sensible choice to heed that suggestion before turning and closing the distance to my car. I don't even look at him as I slide into the driver's seat and turn the ignition, peeling out of the lot.

I don't spare him a single thought more, since mine are all currently occupied.

With a dull, humming sort of static clouding my good sense, I connect my phone to the car's speaker system.

"Cas?"

"Change of plans," I tell Serra. "I have something I need you to help me with tonight."

I can almost hear her frown on the other end of the line. "Oh yeah, and what would that something be?"

"Perhaps I misspoke. Rather, there's some one I need you to help me find."