Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy 5)

Arabella drew back. He’d managed to put air quotes around kung fu without ever raising his hands.

“You never know,” Leon said.

Brilliant.

Stephen ignored him. “No. I don’t do martial arts. I don’t run around on rooftops with a sword fighting assassins in black. I’m responsible for four hundred million dollars in assets. You know what I do?” He pointed to the phone. “I make phone calls. I answer emails. I look for suppliers and shipping companies. I analyze market projections. That’s what I do.”

Good that he mentioned that. “Did you analyze the Pit project?”

Stephen’s face shut down. “Reclamation of the Pit would provide long-term benefits to the entire Houston metro area. House Jiang recognizes its civic duty to our city and its people.”

“Did you memorize that?” Arabella asked.

“One more word,” I warned.

Stephen nodded at me. “Younger sister?”

“Yes.”

“I have one too.” He’d sank a world of meaning into it. “Let me simplify things. What do you need from me?”

“Honest, direct answers. I need to be able to speak with Stephen Jiang, the Prime and Pit Reclamation board member, not Stephen Jiang, the eldest son of House Jiang.”

Stephen sighed. “Fine.”

“Did you kill Felix?”

“No.”

“What was your opinion of the man?”

“I found him annoying.”

“In what way?”

“In that charming, be-my-friend way.”

“I’m not sure I completely understand,” I told him.

“Felix wanted everybody to like him. He was one of those people who try too hard. He wanted to share drinks and kept making inconvenient invitations to play golf together so we could all pretend to be a happy business family. I didn’t want to play golf with him. My plate is full. I wanted to finish this project, divide the profits, and move on.”

“What about Marat?”

Stephen grimaced. “The man has no manners, but he works hard and he’s sincere. There’s no artifice there. He’s driven by the need to take care of his family.”

“Tatyana?”

“A bull in a china shop. Fire is the solution to every problem, and if fire doesn’t work, try more fire. Elemental mages like us tend to approach all problems through the lens of their own magic, but she carries it to the extreme.”

“Cheryl?” I saved the most important for last.

Stephen frowned. “You watched the drama. Do you remember Han Min’s stepmother, the one who had the reputation as the living Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, but kept torturing her in private?”

“Do you think Cheryl secretly tortures people?”

“No, but I think there is an ulterior motive behind every action that woman takes. She’s a manipulative human being. When you criticize her strategy, she often makes you feel as if you are a bully, which isn’t a quality I look for in a business partner. Business requires a clear head and honest discussions of pros and cons.”

“Then why did you agree to this project?”

“That decision was made above me,” he said.

Cheryl had talked his parents into it.

“Cheryl and Felix were the driving forces behind the Pit Reclamation Project,” Stephen continued. “Felix brought in Marat and Tatyana. Cheryl invited my House. I was the last to join the board. Still, given the choice to walk into the swamp with one of them, I would take any of them over Cheryl.”

Clear enough.

“I have honored your request,” Stephen said. “You got honest direct answers. Now I would like one. What is the thing in the Pit?”

“You felt it?” I asked him.

“No, I felt the amount of water it displaced when I went to look for Felix the day after he died. It was a very significant amount.”

“It’s a Saito construct.”

He didn’t blink. He didn’t say anything. He simply stopped moving.

“It’s aware. It regenerates and expands. It’s enlarging the Pit to suit its purposes and it’s telepathically monitoring the humans on the site.”

A dangerous shadow darkened Stephen’s eyes. “Thank you for your candor, Prime Baylor.”

“I told you,” Arabella sang out as we walked out of the Jiang Tower. “I told you, I told you, I told you, and you didn’t believe me.”

“Yes, yes,” Leon muttered. “You’re so great.”

“I am great!”

He nodded. “And so humble.”

“Humble is for losers. I am a winner.”

Across the street, a flittering wall of glass that was the 2 Riverway Tower housing IBM, law offices, and the attached multilevel parking garage gleamed with reflected sunlight. A short driveway led to the garage, branching off from Riverway Drive. At the mouth of the driveway, leaning on his silver Spider, stood Alessandro Sagredo.

I released a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Alive and in one piece.

Alessandro raised his head. Our eyes connected. He smiled.

Adrenaline rushed through me in a hot wave, prickling my fingertips.

“And here comes the Count,” Leon drawled.

I slowed slightly. “Leon?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not Alessandro.” He wore the right clothes, he had the right build and the correct face, and he stood the right way. But he wasn’t Alessandro.

“Are you sure?” Leon’s voice went cold.

When Alessandro looked at me, it was as if his world stopped. This man looked at me as if I were a pretty girl he’d like to screw.

“I’m sure.”

Leon faced the fake Alessandro. “Hey, dickhead. Your illusion needs work.”

The fake Alessandro jerked his hand up. The sun caught the stainless-steel barrel of a large caliber handgun.

Leon’s hands came up in a blur. The SIG and Glock firearms barked in unison, spitting bullets. The fake Alessandro collapsed.

Gunfire erupted, coming from all around us. Bullets scored the pavement. I grabbed Arabella’s hand and pulled her behind a black Mercedes parked on the street.

In the middle of the road Leon spun like a dervish, firing without taking aim.

Guns popped like firecrackers. A hoarse scream tore through the gunfire. Bullets punched the Mercedes and the sidewalk behind us. Arabella tried to rise to look over the hood and I yanked her back down. Leon’s guns fired in twin bursts. A man cried out, his fear-soaked shriek full of pain.

And then everything went quiet. The sudden silence was deafening.

I straightened.

Bodies littered the street, painting the ground with red, their guns next to them. At least half a dozen. No, more. The man to our left must have fallen from the roof, because his legs jutted at odd angles from his body, shattered. The woman to his left was missing a face. Nobody moved.

In the middle of the road, Leon watched as the illusion mage, still wearing Alessandro’s body, dragged himself down the driveway toward the parking garage. Two long red bloodstains painted the road in his wake.

Holy crap.

Leon methodically reloaded the Glock, then the SIG.

The illusion mage was still pulling himself away from the carnage, moaning as he slowly shifted his body forward.

Arabella counted the bodies with her finger. “Nine.”

The one-man SWAT team that was my baby cousin started forward. The mage heard him and frantically tried to crawl faster. A quiet desperate mutter came from him. “No, no, no . . .”

Leon reached him and kicked the mage over onto his back. The fake Alessandro squirmed. His body shimmered, melting, and snapped into Audrey. She looked at Leon with huge blue eyes, her heart-shaped, delicate face stained with tears.

Oh you scumbag. If Leon didn’t kill the mage, I would strangle that asshole myself.

Arabella clenched her teeth, her hands curled into fists, and started forward, then stopped. This belonged to Leon.

My cousin studied the petite girl on the ground.

“Please,” the mage pleaded in Audrey’s voice. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Leon raised the Glock and slowly took aim.

Audrey cried out, “You don’t have to do this. I have information, I can—”

Leon squeezed the trigger. The bullet bit between Audrey’s eyes. Her body melted into a large dark-skinned man in his fifties. The expression on Leon’s face made my stomach churn.

I pressed the car keys into my sister’s hand. “Get the car and call Sabrian, please.”

There were probably a dozen security cameras around us. I wouldn’t be surprised if Munoz was already on his way.

Arabella nodded and ran down the driveway into the parking garage where we had parked Rhino.

I crossed the distance to Leon. His tan face gained a green tint. He stared, unblinking, his eyes hollow. He looked dead. His arm was still raised, aiming at the corpse.

I put my hand on his forearm and gently pushed his arm down. “It’s over.”

He looked at me, his eyes glassy. “She’s still dead.”

“Yes. But he won’t hurt anybody else. None of them will hurt anyone ever again.”

He turned away from me and looked at the bodies as if seeing them for the first time.

Taking a life always hurt. It never went away, no matter how justified the kill was. It still cost you a piece of your soul and it hurt when that piece died.