EMBER
“Give me that, Firebrand,” Riley muttered, quickly stepping forward and taking the bag from my hands. It vanished into his suit pocket as he glanced around warily. “No point in giving the humans any more hints that dragons are real. Or at least that something very unnatural went down.” He eyed a human wandering by who looked like a scientist, then lowered his voice again. “Regardless, I think we’ve seen all we need to see here.”
“I agree,” Jade said, nodding. “From the evidence, it is safe to assume that dragons attacked this town in their true form, and that Talon is at least partially responsible. Unfortunately, that theory creates more questions than it answers. Why would they attack this community? Especially since, as Riley pointed out, the entire point of the organization is to hide the existence of dragons from the human population. Why risk that now?”
Riley shook his head. “I have no clue, but I get the feeling we’re not going to like the answer.”
Abruptly, Garret stalked back, his gaze intense as he swept between us. “The woman you described is approaching this location,” he said in a low voice, making Riley jerk up.
“Hell. Miranda is coming? Come on, we can’t be seen by her.”
We fast-walked toward the end of the room, passing more humans and looking for a way out as we went deeper into the tent. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a back exit, and the open room offered very few hiding spots.
“There,” Riley said, nodding toward a corner of the tent that had been sectioned off. Plastic flaps hung to the floor, and the area beyond was dark. With Riley leading and Garret watching our backs, we hurried across the room and ducked through the plastic walls.
My stomach recoiled. The room beyond the flaps was dim and cold, and the sickly smell of death lingered on the air, masked by chemicals and disinfectant. A pair of stainless-steel tables stood in the center of the room, and atop the farthest counter was something long and suspiciously body shaped, covered with a sheet.
I drew in a slow breath to quiet my heartbeat and nudged Garret, who was still peering through the flaps to watch for the Chameleon. He glanced at me with a puzzled frown, but it quickly faded when he realized what I was staring at.
“There she is,” Riley growled softly, not taking his eyes from the room beyond. “Hello, Miranda. What are you doing here? Covering up for the organization again?”
I tore my eyes from what was obviously a dead body and peeked through the plastic flaps again, seeing a dark-haired, smartly dressed woman enter the tent, followed by what looked like an assistant of some kind. The woman, or dragon, really, wasn’t tall or intimidating—not like Lilith, who could walk into a room and freeze you in place with a glare. But everything about this woman radiated charisma, charm and confidence, much like another Chameleon I used to know.
As a certain traitorous brother entered my thoughts, I swallowed the brief pang and forced myself to concentrate on the Talon agent at the end of the other room. She spoke briskly to the assistant and pointed to several boxes along the wall. The human bobbed his head in mute agreement, and the Chameleon smiled, then spun and exited the tent as suddenly as she had appeared.
“All right,” Riley mused, straightening and drawing back from the flap. “So Talon sent an agent to help with the cover-up, but also to make sure certain evidence just...disappears. Sounds like them.” He nodded. “I think we’re going to have to pay a visit to a certain hotel room in town.”
I frowned at him. “How did you get all that? They were clear across the room.”
He smirked down at me. “I was a Basilisk, Firebrand. Among my many enviable talents are picking locks, hiding in plain sight...and reading lips.” His grin widened at my surprised look before he sobered and glanced through the flaps again. “Seems that our lovely Talon agent is staying at a hotel not far from here,” he muttered, watching the human gather up a couple crates and leave the tent. “Those boxes of evidence are likely headed there now. If anyone knows what Talon was doing here, it will be Miranda. And if they’re planning anything else like this, I’d kinda like to know when and why.”
“I agree,” came Garret’s grave voice from behind us. I turned to find him standing next to the counter I’d pointed to earlier, only he had pulled back a corner of the sheet, revealing a truly hideous sight. The corpse lying on the table was barely recognizable as human, as shriveled and burned as it was. It looked more like a piece of charred wood than anything that had once been alive. My stomach heaved, and I had to look away, feeling bile rise to my throat. Was that what my victims looked like, after I’d blasted them with dragonfire? I’d killed both Talon servants and soldiers of St. George in battle. Had they all ended up like that withered corpse? Blackened skeletons of what had once been human?
“If Talon is planning another attack,” Garret continued in that same somber voice, though his steely eyes glinted in the darkness, “we need to stop it before this happens again.”
* * *
We followed the Chameleon from the “crash site,” tailing her white sedan until it pulled into a normal, innocuous-looking hotel, not the Ritz but not a Motel 6, either. From across the lot, we watched the Chameleon walk briskly into the hotel followed by two large men I assumed were bodyguards. Left behind, her poor assistant hauled several boxes out of the trunk and staggered after them.
I looked at Riley as the human vanished through the hotel doors. “So, how are we going to do this?” I asked. “Wait to sneak in tonight?”
He shook his head. “No time for that, Firebrand. She could be leaving today and taking all the evidence with her. If we want to see what Talon is up to, we need to get in there now.” He frowned and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Problem is, I can take care of Miranda and get us into the room, but if she leaves any of her guards behind, that’s going to make things difficult. If she comes back and finds an unconscious human lying on her floor, she’s going to guess someone was there and warn the organization.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jade said, surprising us all. “You just concentrate on getting the Talon woman away from the vicinity and finding her room. I will take care of the guards.”
He eyed her, raising a brow. “And how are you going to do that exactly? Eat them?”
“Please. I would very likely get food poisoning.” She wrinkled her nose and sniffed in clear disgust. “Do not worry. As I once told our soldier friend, a shen-lung has her ways. You get the Talon agent out of the building and find where her room is located. Leave any guards to me.”
Riley stared at her a moment longer, then shrugged. “You’re awfully certain about that,” he muttered, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket. “But as we’re a little short on time, I guess I’ll have to trust you know what you’re doing. Hang on a second.” He pressed a button on his phone, then put it to his ear. “Wes. We’re at the Wingate Hotel, about ten miles from the crash site. I need you to find which room Miranda’s staying in.” A pause, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course we’re going to sneak in, what do you think?... I don’t know, the Eastern dragon thinks she can get past the guards.” He sighed. “Don’t argue, Wes. Just do it.”
A couple minutes passed, and he nodded. “Three-eighteen. Got it. I’ll call you if there’s trouble.” He frowned. “Thank you, Wesley, your votes of confidence are always so inspiring.”
“Okay,”
