By sheer luck, due to a combination of topography and aggressive gardening, there was one bedroom on the top floor of the lawyer’s mansion that had a direct line of sight to the premises of Ddraig Goch’s home. And this was our base of operations. The room enabled us to maintain a constant surveillance on the mansion’s personnel, slowly figuring out the shift changes of the security guards, what time the gardeners showed up and left, the exact path of the patrol routes… anything that might be important.
Through the twin lenses of my binoculars, I looked at Ddraig Goch’s home for the first time, making small notes on the blueprints that were spread on the king-size bed by my side. The bed was inviting, the bedsheets tightly spread and clean, the mattress possessing that perfect balance between soft and firm.
Sinead and Isabel had taken the night shift, and now it was my turn, with Kane as my shift partner. I’d showed up at six in the morning to relieve my friends, who were blurry-eyed and cranky, as expected. I’d asked Kane to show up at seven-thirty. I felt a bit tense about spending a long day with him, and I wanted to have a bit of time to myself before he arrived, to settle into the relaxed atmosphere of a long, eventless day.
As I waited, I practiced breathing steadily, and relaxing the different muscles of my body. I had to be able to control my emotions by the time we broke into the dragon’s mansion. I couldn’t let the entire job be blown because my hands suddenly decided to combust.
When does a house stop being a house and become a mansion? Is it a simple matter of number of rooms? Six rooms means it’s a house, eighteen means it’s a mansion? Or maybe it’s the size. If it takes a few minutes to cross from one side to the other, it’s definitely a mansion. Or it could be style—the expensiveness of the furniture, the intricate carvings framing the doors and windows, the serving staff roaming the halls.
Ddraig Goch’s mansion had left those distinctions far behind. It was one-hundred-percent mansion, and inching its way toward being a palace.
The front lawn was immense, a bright green carpet of carefully mowed grass. At the edges grew enormous red maple trees, their leaves creating an explosion of orange, red, and pink. Towering above the garden was the mansion itself, a light-brown three-story structure spotted with arches and ancient-looking windows and terraces. An enormous porch, large enough to contain my entire apartment, protruded from the third floor. A greenhouse sat on the roof of the mansion, its glass panes clean and translucent, a myriad of strange plants growing inside.
I had stared at the blueprints of the mansion for hours and knew the layout well, but the place still took my breath away.
The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs made me lower the binoculars and glance at the time. Twenty past seven. He was early. A second later, Kane appeared in the doorway, a smile on his face, holding a Starbucks bag.
He set the Starbucks bag on a tasteless mahogany dresser that stood against the wall by the door. “It’s the first time I spend a whole day with a woman in a bedroom, and all she wants to do is peep at the neighbors.”
“How long did it take you to think of that quip?” I asked, raising the binoculars again and looking through them.
“About ten minutes. My quick wit doesn’t really show up until noon.” I heard the bag rustle as he rummaged through it. “I didn’t know how you drink yours, but you struck me as someone who likes her coffee strong.”
“You were right,” I said. I still held the binoculars to my eyes, but I heard his soft steps on the carpet and smelled the strong scent of coffee. I lowered the binoculars and took the cup from him. “Thanks.”
“I also got us some muffins.” He sat on the edge of the bed, moving aside the blueprints, and his leg brushed against mine accidentally. He had taken off the trench coat. Underneath he wore a white T-shirt that accentuated the width of his shoulders. His face was lit by the sunlight filtering through the window, and his grass-green eyes seemed to shine. It took me a few seconds to realize I was staring at him, almost mesmerized, and I pulled my eyes away, doing my best not to blush.
“See anything interesting?” he asked.
I blinked, my tongue suddenly tied. Oh—he was talking about the mansion, not about his face.
“Uh… nothing we didn’t know about beforehand. Take a look.” I removed the binoculars’ strap from my neck, handing them to him. He leaned forward to look out the window, and I shifted my chair slightly to give him some space.
“Oh, wow,” he muttered. “That’s a big-ass mansion.”
I sipped from my coffee, and determined that Kane had pegged my taste perfectly. Black coffee, strong, bitter, perfect. I felt almost tearful with gratitude.
“What else do you see?” I asked, my voice flat and innocent. I needed to know this guy was the real thing. Was he an actual sorcerer, or was he just a guy who thought it was cool to mutter in Latin?
He took a few seconds to answer, and when he did, his voice had an edge. “There’s an aura of magic shimmering from all the windows. It’s well hidden; whoever cast it was a master. I assume it’s some sort of ward.”
I nodded with satisfaction. I couldn’t see the aura myself, but I knew it was there. It had been mentioned in Breadknife’s notes. The fact that Kane could see it indicated he had a sharp third eye, a good sign of his powers.
“The windows are all warded against intruders,” I said. “Anyone who tries to enter or leave through them dies. Anyone who breaks them dies.”
“Dies of what?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just professional interest. Is it a heart attack? Does it make your brain explode? Does it make you combust? Turn you into a toad?”
“Turning into a toad isn’t dying.”
“Fine. Do you turn into a dead toad? I just want to know how powerful the magic is.”
“I don’t know. It’s a ward that kills you,” I said testily. “Maybe it disintegrates you, maybe you die of sniffles. The point is, it’s terminal. You die. Cease to be. Can you break the spell?”
“It depends.” He kept looking through the binoculars in concentration. “Maybe. Yes, I think so. With enough time. But whoever cast the spell would instantly know it’s been broken.”
“That’s not good. We don’t want to alert anyone.”
“Then we’re not entering through the windows.” He lowered the binoculars and glanced at me. “There’s no spell on the front door.”
“There’s no spell on the back door either.” I leaned toward him and took the binoculars from him. His eyes lingered on mine for a moment, and I met them, my gaze steady. Then I drew back, and put the binoculars back to my eyes, looking at the doors. “The problem is, there’s always guards stationed by the doors. No one enters or leaves without their permission.”
“We’ll have to take care of that.”
I shook my head unhappily. He was right, of course, but I preferred to avoid it if possible. I could think of a myriad of ways to take care of the guards, and all of them posed risks I didn’t want to take.
Kane got up and fetched the muffins. They were still warm, and I snagged the chocolate chunk one, leaving the walnut muffin for Kane. In this world’s vicious food chain, I am chocolate’s natural predator. We ate our muffins in silence, and then Kane pulled out his strange cigarette pack. He put a cigarette in his mouth, but I quickly leaned forward and plucked it out.
“No smoking here.”