The younger Wyr laughed a little under his breath, and his skin darkened.
Watching them, Graydon’s sense of discouragement turned to hope. If anybody looked mismatched at first glance, it had to be Luis and Claudia, yet they appeared to have found a solution that allowed them to be together in the best way possible.
Maybe he and Bel really could find a way to be together. Of course, they might not, but at least it looked more possible than it had earlier at Ruby’s Diner.
“I want to have a meeting on this sometime later tonight,” he told them. “I would like for you both to attend, if you would.”
“Of course,” Claudia said. “Rune and Carling are in town, and they wanted to be kept updated. Is it all right if they attend too?”
“I would prefer it.” Rune was one of the most formidable fighters Graydon had ever known, and as a Powerful witch and Vampyre, Carling had once fought in a war against a first-generation Djinn—and won. Her input would be invaluable.
“I’ll let them know,” Claudia promised.
Luis led him to the dining table and logged him onto a laptop. Once Graydon had taken a seat, Luis handed him something square and black. It was an external hard drive.
“The laptop’s Wi-Fi capability has been disabled,” Luis told him. “The only record of the files is on that hard drive. This is as secure as we could possibly make it.”
“That’s terrific.”
Plugging in the drive, Graydon explored the contents.
The files were massive. Neatly labeled, each folder contained copies of financial records, photos, and extensive notes, each document logged with the date and time. There were also interviews in audio files.
The other two left him to his reading. It took him several hours, but he reviewed each file thoroughly. He worked through lunch.
Silently, without interrupting him, Luis set a plate stacked with roast beef sandwiches beside his elbow. Graydon nodded his thanks and, without taking a break from reading, plowed through the food.
Finally he closed the hard drive, unplugged it from the laptop and slipped it into his pocket. Looking for Claudia and Luis, he followed the sound of a TV and found them in one of the bedrooms.
They hadn’t bothered to close the bedroom door. On one side of the bed, Claudia had propped her back against some pillows. She was reading a thriller. Luis lounged beside her, watching ESPN. They looked relaxed, like a dangerous pair of cougars stretched out after a long hunt, and just about as domestic.
“Damn fine, meticulous work,” Graydon told them. “I’d offer you a job—I can match or beat whatever dollar amount Carling and Rune are paying you—except I can’t help you with the Vampyre attendant issue.”
Both Claudia and Luis’s expressions lightened with pleasure at his praise. “Thank you,” Luis said. “Is there anything else you want us to do before this evening’s meeting?”
“Can’t think of a thing,” Graydon said. “Get some rest. I’m going to go home, shower and take a nap myself.” He hefted the external hard drive in one hand. “Again, you’ve done a great job, and it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’m gonna keep this with me now.”
“Sounds good,” Claudia said. She swung her legs off the edge of the bed, stood and walked with him to the door of the suite.
“Until tonight, then,” he said. He met her gaze. “Be careful. Lay low.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry about us. We’re good at laying low.”
He returned her smile, but it died quickly as he stepped into the hall.
They were good. They appeared to be competent warriors, and were some of the best investigators he had worked with in a long time, but going to war against a first-generation Djinn was one of the most dangerous things anyone could do. The casualty count was invariably high.
People were going to die due to the decisions he made over the next several hours. One way or another, he had been in command of other soldiers for a very long time, so he was no stranger to seeing it happen. He had experienced that particular kind of loss before.
That never made it any easier.
TWELVE
After Graydon left the hotel, he shapeshifted and flew back to Cuelebre Tower.
It had stopped snowing, but the snow hadn’t yet lost its newness. The city looked pristine and sugarcoated. Even in the daylight, Christmas and masque lights twinkled along the streets.
He arrived at Cuelebre Tower quickly enough. His apartment was on the seventy-eighth floor of one of the most stringently guarded buildings in the city, so he never bothered to lock his balcony doors. That meant he could come and go with a decent amount of freedom.
Aiming carefully, he executed his shapeshift as he landed, with a sense of timing built on years of experience. Once he strode inside, he went into his bedroom, stripped and stepped into the shower.
Call him obsessive, but he set the portable hard drive on the bathroom sink where he could keep a visual on it, and he stayed under the jet of the showerhead for a long time, letting the hot water ease cold, tired muscles.
A sound came from his living room. He lifted his head out of the jetspray. He had company.
Grabbing a towel as he stepped out, he took a quick swipe at his dripping hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist and went to see who had invaded his apartment.
As he entered the living room, Constantine closed his refrigerator door. The other gryphon looked a little windblown, and his color was high underneath his tanned skin. His handsome face wore lines of tiredness.
All four gryphons were some version of tawny and brawny. Rune and Constantine were the two most handsome, and while Bayne had a certain ruggedness to his good looks, Graydon had always been comfortably aware that he would only be considered handsome through the gaze of someone who looked at him with true love.
Constantine said, “You’ve got no food in your fridge. What’s the matter with you?”
Graydon suppressed a sigh. Leaving his balcony door unlocked meant, of course, that other avian Wyr who had security clearance could enter his apartment too.
He replied, “Since I didn’t know when I would be coming or going over the next few days, I threw things out. What are you doing here, Con? I’ve been up all night and I’m tired.”
“I’ve been up all night too.” The other gryphon inspected the Keurig on Graydon’s counter, selected a cup and started the machine. After giving Graydon a quick once-over, Constantine said, “From the look of things, I probably had more fun with my night than you did with yours.”
“I’m not available to talk about work stuff. You’ll have heard I’m on leave right now.”
“Why, yes. I did hear that. I thought it was interesting, since you never ask for a leave of absence. I mean, sure, you take your vacations when it’s your turn, but you don’t ask for time off. Like, literally almost never, which makes it memorable when you do.”
He stared pointedly at the mug Constantine pulled from the machine. Not that Constantine chose to pick up on it.
The other man blew on the hot liquid in his mug. Then he took the bottle of scotch Graydon had left on the counter and splashed some liquor into his drink. “In fact,” Con said, “I’m pretty sure this is the first time you’ve asked for a leave in, oh, let me think . . .”
Graydon watched the other man without moving. Damn him, Constantine was sharp as a whip, stubborn as a bulldog, and he had a memory like a computer—he just wouldn’t give up or stop piecing things together. His personal life was a mess. He catted around compulsively, and he was always wrecked and hungover, but he was a vicious, talented fighter, and his mind never, ever shut off.
Constantine gave him a gentle smile. “If memory serves, wasn’t the last time you took a leave of absence when we went to London all those years ago? And wasn’t that right after you’d had a private conversation with the Lady of the Elven demesne, at the Vauxhall masque?”