Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,103

put both his arms around her.

Her heart thudded and she felt a little dizzy. She had to lock her knees to keep her legs from trembling.

Nice plan—

“Guys?” Muirin said from the doorway.

Burke didn’t let go of Spirit for a good long moment. “We’re all here,” Addie replied. “Glad you could make it.”

“Are you?” came the uncertain reply.

“Yes!” Spirit said firmly, before anyone else could speak—and so that it wouldn’t sound as if they were hesitant. The others chimed in just as firmly.

“Okay then … ’cause I think if you aren’t sitting down, you’d better. Or, wait.” Spirit heard the shuffling of feet as Muirin worked her way along a wall. “Yeah, here, I thought I remembered right. There’s a closet here under the platform, sometimes people use it for making out. Let’s all get in there so I can make a light. Follow my voice.”

Now Burke let Spirit go, but kept a firm grip on her gloved hand as he led her toward Muirin. They all crowded into the closet, which was low-ceilinged, but bigger than Spirit would have thought. The door closed, and Muirin muttered something. Spirit winced away as a ball of light that was way too bright after the darkness of the station flared up in Muirin’s hand. The room was about six by ten and completely empty.

“So?” Burke said, once they were settled.

Muirin looked away from him uneasily. “Uh … I’m not sure where to start,” she said, finally, and sighed. “Okay, look. I’ve been hanging out with Anastus, not Dylan. I mean, come on, he’s Russian, he’s hot, and it’s a kick to be with an older guy, okay? So I knew that tonight was going to be ‘recruit the kids’ night for the Breakthrough peeps.”

“And you didn’t—” Loch began, then shrugged. “Yeah, no point in warning us, it’s not like we could have done anything about it.”

“Well … something happened today with Anastus.” She swallowed. “He met me after dinner and we went out in his car, but all we did was sit in the driveway with the heat on while he drank. My God, I thought Step could put it away!” she added, aghast. “I mean, straight vodka, right out of the bottle, like it was soda!”

“He’s Russian,” Loch said, as if that explained everything.

“Whatever! Anyway, I think he was trying to get me drunk, but he was so mad he didn’t notice when I just kept passing the bottle back to him, and pretty soon … he was talking. A lot.” Her voice took on an edge. “So that’s when I found out I’m second string to Madison so far as he’s concerned. I heard all about Madison and how bad he wants to get into her pants. And how since I’m her sestra, which I guess means sister, I’ll do until he gets a shot at her.”

There was awkward silence for a moment. “Well,” Addie said judiciously, “that’s not the sort of thing I want to hear out of a guy, but—”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Muirin interrupted. “Okay, that was bad enough, because I don’t like being anyone’s substitute mama, but then he started telling me about his family. Only I mean Family, with a capital “F.” He’s Bratva.”

“Holy crap,” Loch swore. “Russkaya Mafiya. Maf. Russian Mafia. Now a whole lot of stuff starts to make sense.”

“Yeah,” Muirin said bitterly. “He told me all about his connections. His father is supposed to be pretty big stuff; specializes in murder-for-hire and he’s a high-dollar smuggler. Which is how Dr. Ambrosius met him and then met Anastus, and Dr. Ambrosius persuaded the old man to let Anastus come to Oakhurst.”

There was a shocked silence when Muirin stopped talking. “You mean—” Addie said in a small voice.

“Yes, I do. I don’t know that Ambrosius ever used him as a contract killer, but he’s been using him to get stuff into the country he wouldn’t be able to get legally.”

“Like?” Addie prompted.

“Magical stuff that also happens to be stolen artifacts.”

“Okay,” Loch said warily. “Well … I can kind of see the need, but that’s dancing really close to the fire. Look, you do not have friends in the Russian Mafia. You have people you’ve killed, people you haven’t killed yet, clients you might have to kill, superiors whose job you are gunning for, and your thug-puppets.” He paused. “My father ran an international financing cartel—Spearhead Venture Partners—and even though we weren’t close, there was just no way I couldn’t absorb a bunch of this