Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,104

allies behind, I stepped into the elevator. They couldn’t follow me up into that realm of silver and iron without it shattering their disguises and their strength. However much monster I had in me, I was still that much human.

As the door slid closed, the guard patted me over from shoulders to feet. She rifled through my purse too, but I’d emptied that of anything unusual. Finally, she motioned for me to open my mouth and peered into it. Satisfied I wasn’t carrying weapons anywhere accessible on my person, she wiped her hands together and pressed the control button.

A faint vibration ran through the polished floor as the elevator whisked us upward. Its doors whispered apart, and I found myself face-to-face with Isaac, last name unknown, grandmaster over the North American Company of Light.

From the guard’s description, I’d expected his jaw to be a little squarer, his buzzcut a little more severe. The man of fifty-something years who was staring at me somewhat blearily could have passed for a college professor easier than the military general I’d pictured him as. The clearly hastily-thrown-on button-up and slacks, rumpled where he’d stuffed the former into the waist of the latter, didn’t help.

But then, as he looked me up and down with a tightening of that jaw, I caught a steely vibe that removed any doubts about this guy’s claim to authority.

One of the most important things he’d have been watching for was how I reacted to entering his condo. The sheets of silver and iron I knew were built into his walls didn’t affect me at all, as he could no doubt observe.

I hugged myself as if nervous for totally normal human reasons, still clutching my sign. Isaac’s gaze dropped to it, and his shoulders went even more rigid. He’d worked very hard to keep so much of himself private from his employees. That worked in our favor now too. What did he want to protect more: his identity and the details of his past, or his current presence from whatever threat he thought some shivering stranger might pose.

“You checked her over?” Isaac asked the guard standing next to me. Another, a middle-aged man, stood behind his boss in the entry hall.

The woman gave a brisk nod. “I wouldn’t have let her up if I found anything to be concerned about.”

“All right. Retire to the surveillance room—both of you. If she comes any closer to me or I move to leave the hall without first giving you the okay signal, intervene. Otherwise, leave us be.”

The man looked startled. “Sir?”

“You heard me. This is a matter I need to handle on my own.” A hint of a sneer curled his lips as he looked me over again. “And I think I should have no trouble handling her at all.”

Was that so? He was lucky he wasn’t meeting my cat burglar, pyromaniac self just yet.

The guards left without another word. Obedient sorts, obviously. No doubt he’d picked them with that criteria in mind. One more choice that would no longer work in his favor.

I’d gotten the hook down his gullet. All that was left was to reel him in.

The boss man waited several seconds after his lackeys had vanished to give them time to get out of earshot. Then he said, low and curt, “Who are you?”

“A friend of Carmen’s,” I said.

A muscle in his cheek twitched. “That’s impossible.”

I let the words spill out as if in an anxious rush. “You thought she was dead. They wanted you to think that, the horrible creatures. Some of them can cast illusions—you know that, don’t you? Ones that can fool all sorts of people for ages. That’s all it was.”

“And how would you know this? How did you know to come here? What is it you want?”

I gazed at him from beneath my fake black waves with widened eyes. “They had me too. She told me everything. How much she wished she could find her way back to you. The bond she still felt must have mingled with their magic somehow—she started having visions; she saw this building. We managed to break free and come here, but she’s ill. I’m afraid to try and move her, so I told her I’d come get you.”

“Then she’s here? She’s waiting—” He shook himself, and his tone hardened again. “No. It can’t be. I buried her.”

“You buried an illusion. I swear it. She needs you, now.” I held out my hand, showing him the ring. “She gave me this