“You’re squashing my hope here.”
“Have you felt any different since Saturday night?”
“I had a couple of dizzy spells, but I chalked that up to getting sucked inside Viktor Kain’s head for a stroll down his World War II Memory Lane. Though the trip inside Kain’s head felt more like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”
“Can anyone in your family see portals?”
“No. At least not that I’m aware of. I can see through wards and glamours on living things. To the best of my knowledge, portals aren’t living things.” I thought back to the pulsing wall—and what had stood waiting on the other side. “Or are they?”
“No, they’re not. And what keeps anyone—except the person who created it—from seeing a portal isn’t a ward, it’s the nature of portals. The magic used in their creation is specific to that person on a DNA level. Otherwise they couldn’t pass through.”
“And I can’t create portals, so there’s no good reason that I should be able to see one.”
“Creating one takes a level of magical skill and training that you haven’t had. That being said, there aren’t many people who took a direct hit from a ley line convergence.”
I knew about ley lines. We had one running through the mountain near where I grew up.
Ley lines were narrow, intersecting energy streams that magnified magical and paranormal powers. There were a number of them near Manhattan. One ley line ran north and south roughly along the East River. Another ran more east to west. The east/west ley line ran directly beneath the SPI complex. It was one of the reasons why Vivienne Sagadraco chose this location for SPI’s world headquarters.
Those possessing earth magic could tap a microscopic amount of power from ley lines, but they would be unable to use the lines to magnify and spread their magic. Diamonds, like ley lines, are of and from the earth. Rare diamonds—like the Dragon Eggs from our most recent big case last Saturday night—that are imbued with power can tap directly into ley lines to carry and spread the power they contain like an underground river.
The results of that connection had nearly been catastrophic.
I’d been woozy, dizzy, and faintly nauseated after experiencing just a fraction of that power, though I’d chalked it up to an involuntary psychic link to a psychotic Russian dragon/crime lord.
Maybe my dizziness then had more to do with coming so close to a convergence of major ley lines that’d been kicked awake by the power of the activated Dragon Eggs.
No one else had picked up any additional mojo.
Or had they?
Caera Filarion didn’t have any magical talent to speak of. Was that still the case?
And Ben Sadler probably wouldn’t know if he had picked up any extra power. He was still getting used to his gem mage powers waking up.
Crap.
What about Rake Danescu?
He wouldn’t tell us how he was involved in what we were standing knee deep in. Why would I think he’d tell us he’d picked up an extra magical talent or two that night?
“Ian?”
“Yes?”
“If my being able to see portals is somehow connected to what happened on North Brother Island . . . I wasn’t even touching the Dragon Eggs, and now I can see portals. What about Ben and Caera?” I paused. “And what about Rake?”
Ian ran his hand over his face.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And fat chance of his telling us if he did pick up a ‘little something extra.’ Ben and possibly even Caera could have gotten a boost. Though if Rake did get one of his talents supersized, at least he’d know how to control and use it. That could be good, or it could be cause for a whole mess of concern.”
“You got it.”
The cafeteria doors opened, and there stood Vivienne Sagadraco and Alain Moreau.
Our quiet meal was about to turn into a serious meeting.
8
WHEN SPI’s top necromancer tried to link with a murder victim and got zapped with a demonic booby trap, you knew there was gonna be a meeting. If it was strong enough to put Bert in a psychic headlock, it was serious enough to earn a visit from the occupants of the fifth floor—SPI’s executive suite.
And when one of the agents who witnessed said zapping had also developed an inexplicable talent for seeing portals, the bigwigs would quickly bring that meeting to you.
Entirely too many of my cases ended up with me explaining myself to Vivienne Sagadraco. Only once had I been in real trouble, but that time hadn’t been my fault. A doppelganger had been impersonating me to plant grendel eggs in headquarters with the intent of slaughtering—and eating—as many of our agents as they could. When I’d seen me on that surveillance camera, for a minute there, I’d almost believed I was guilty, too.
Ian and cookies had saved me from a fate worse than firing. My doppelganger had been dressed exactly like me. My distinguishing characteristic that day had been powdered sugar sprinkled down the front of my sweater. I’d been eating cookies that a coworker had brought in and left in the break room.
My doppelganger had not. No cookies consumed. No powdered sugar to show for it.
Saved by my sweet tooth.
My sweet tooth wasn’t going to help any of us today.
Vivienne Sagadraco stood five foot and some change. Back when she was born—actually hatched—that had probably been quite tall. That had been a little over two thousand years ago. The founder and CEO of SPI was a dragon—a three-story-tall, iridescent blue and green dragon. In her human form, she reminded me of 007’s M as played by Judi Dench.