Julie Kagawa - Legion

“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,” I said as Riley lowered his arm. “One problem down—we know what room she’s in. How are we going to get her to leave long enough to search it?”

“Don’t worry, Firebrand.” Riley gave a wicked smile. “King of BS right here, remember? Watch and learn.”

Pressing in a number, he held the phone to his ear and waited a few moments as it rang. “Hello, front desk?... Yes, could you please connect me to Miranda Kent’s room? I believe she’s staying there tonight.” A pause, and he grinned. “Thank you.”

I held my breath, watching Riley and counting the number of imaginary rings in my head. At three rings, he raised his head. “Ms. Kent? This is Director Smith, from the crash site? Sorry to bother you, but we recently found something of an anomaly near one of the victims, and thought you might want to see it.”

As he spoke, his other hand reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the plastic bag, holding it up with narrowed eyes. “Well, we’re not entirely sure. We’ve never seen such a thing before—it looks like some kind of reptile scale. But far bigger than any species in known existence—” He stopped, as if the voice on the other end had cut him off, and the gleam in his eyes grew brighter. “All right, then. We won’t do anything until you get here. Thank you.”

“Clever,” Jade remarked as he lowered the phone. Riley snorted.

“I just know how Talon works, is all.” He stuffed the phone and the scale into his pocket again and leaned back in smug satisfaction. “If Miranda’s job is to cover this up and make all evidence of dragons disappear, something like this is going to light a fire under her tail like nothing else. She’ll be desperate to get to that evidence before Talon hears about it. We should see her anytime now. Like a bat out of hell.”

Less than two minutes later, the hotel doors opened and the Chameleon and a single guard strode across the lot, setting an even brisker pace toward the car, the assistant scrambling along in their wake. The woman’s normally smiling face was taut as she entered the passenger side and slammed the door shut. As the guard opened the driver’s side, the assistant nearly tripped over himself getting into the car. The sedan backed hastily out of the parking spot, barely missing the hood of a truck as it did, and peeled out of the lot.

Riley snickered and straightened in his seat again. “And that,” he remarked, watching the sedan turn onto the road, cutting off a van as it merged into traffic, “is how you freak out a Chameleon. But we do need to hurry, before she realizes ‘Mr. Smith’ is no longer at the crash site.”

“One of her guards wasn’t with her,” Garret observed. Riley nodded.

“Yep. Which means he’ll be in her room, just like I thought.” He turned to Jade, who seemed perfectly calm and serene, even as my heart was pounding with nerves and anticipation. “All right, O great and mysterious shen-lung,” he stated, and waved his hand at the hotel. “It’s all yours.”

Jade nodded. Taking off the suit jacket, she laid it over the back of her seat. Her heels followed, and then her earrings, being placed carefully in the cup holders as we looked on in bewilderment. “How long will you need to be in the room?” she asked, unbuttoning the cuffs of her white shirt. Riley blinked.

“Uh, not long,” he said, watching her finish with the sleeves and unbutton the top. “Five minutes, at most.”

The Eastern dragon nodded. “Give me ten minutes,” she said, and left the car. We watched her walk barefooted across the parking lot, pulling the tie from her bun as she did, and enter the hotel through the front doors. Riley shook his head and glanced back at Garret.

“If this goes spectacularly to hell,” he told him, “I’m blaming you. You realize that.”

The soldier just smiled grimly.

Ten long, tense minutes later, Riley blew out an explosive breath and reached for the door handle. “Okay,” he announced far too brightly. “Let’s go see if our Eastern princess has managed to eat anyone.”

We cautiously entered the hotel and made our way through the long aisles toward room 318. Along the way, a maid stepped out of one of the rooms, pushing a cart, and Riley quite literally ran into it. He tumbled to the floor with a yelp, and the poor maid began a string of rapid apologies, rushing over and asking if he was all right, while Garret and I looked on in confusion. Riley, picking himself up off the floor, suddenly switched to perfect, fluent Spanish, making soothing motions with his hands and, from what I could tell, assuring her he was fine. He said something that made her laugh, and then she thanked him and walked away, pushing the cart down the hall again. I stared after her, then at the rogue, who seemed very pleased with himself.

“What the hell was that?” I demanded. “I’ve seen you move, and there’s no way that was an accident. You ran into her on purpose, didn’t you?”

Riley grinned, dusted off his pants and then held up a card between two fingers.

“I was going to say I left my key card in the room and could she please open the door for me,” he admitted as we quickly moved toward the elevators. “That’s always worked in the past. But I figured this might be faster.”

“Risky,” Garret remarked. “What if you couldn’t lift it without getting caught?” Riley smirked.

“I don’t get caught, St. George. Now, let’s get to Miranda’s room before anything else happens.”

We took the elevator to the third floor and easily found room 318. The hallway was silent, and no sounds or light came from the room beyond the door. Riley cast furtive glances over his shoulder, making sure no one was around, and raised the card he took from the maid.

“All right,” he said in a low voice. “Here goes. Let’s see if that Eastern dragon actually did what she said she could.”

He slid the key into the slot. It beeped green, and we pushed the door open.

The room beyond was empty.

Riley let out a breath, and beside me, Garret relaxed. I slumped in relief, letting muscles that had tensed up for a fight uncoil. “Okay.” The rogue nodded, shutting the door behind us. “I don’t know how she did it, but I’m not complaining. Let’s find that evidence and see if we can discover what Talon is up to. But remember,” he warned as we stepped farther inside. “Try not to disturb anything. We don’t want Miranda knowing we were here. Let’s find what we’re looking for and get the hell out.”