Page 14 of Licence To Howl
‘None of them are supes,’ Devereau pointed out.
‘I’m a vamp, not a wolf.’
‘Are you suggesting,’ he asked with only the faintest hint of a tease, ‘that werewolves and vampires aren’t capable of mixing?’
‘Maybe,’ Scarlett said quietly, ‘I am.’ She appeared downbeat for a moment. Then she tilted her chin upwards. ‘You’re really not here for me, are you?’
Devereau ran his tongue over his lips. ‘No. I’m not. I genuinely didn’t know you would be here.’
She looked away. Was she disappointed? He couldn’t tell.
‘That can only mean one thing then,’ Scarlett said flatly. ‘You’re here for the ring. You were planning to steal right from under my nose.’
‘Yep.’ He held out his palm.
Scarlett laughed suddenly, genuinely amused. ‘You don’t seriously think I’m just going to hand it over?’
‘All I want to do is borrow it for a few days. You’ll get it back. I promise.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘A few days? It won’t be Winter Solstice for another two weeks.’
Devereau stared at her. ‘Are you talking in code? The eagle flies at midnight. The red fox enjoys the forest.’
She hesitated. ‘Devereau,’ she asked slowly, ‘why exactly do you want the Ring Of All Seasons?’
Er… he’d never actually disclosed to Scarlett that he’d been approached by MI5. ‘There’s a gang,’ he hedged, ‘run by a bloke called Christopher Solentino that I’m trying to infilitrate. He wants the ring and I want him.’
She watched him. ‘Why do you want him?’
‘Because I don’t think he’s a good guy. You remember Dominic Phillips,’ he said quietly, referring to the horrific excuse for a human who’d enslaved Martina and who both he and Scarlett had helped to bring down.
‘This Solentino is like Phillips?’ Scarlett asked darkly.
‘Possibly. I don’t know yet. But Solentino wants the ring so I was planning to steal it and bring it to him as a way to ingratiate myself with him.’
She frowned. ‘Why? Why would you involve yourself with a man such as this?’
He looked away. ‘It’s a long story.’
Scarlett sighed. ‘With you it always is. If he’s such a bad guy and you know where he is, why don’t you bring him down? Why all the cloak and dagger shit?’
‘He’s not working alone. I need to know what his group are planning to do so that I can prevent it from happening. Solentino’s death or imprisonment might not stop whatever’s already in play.’ Devereau paused and met her eyes. ‘Anyway, why doyouwant the ring? You paid five million euros for it, Scarlett. Fivemillion.’
‘It’s not for me,’ she said absently. ‘It’s not my money. Lord Horvath asked me to procure it.’
‘Why? I saw it at the auction. It’s not pretty and it’s not valuable. Not on the face of it. It’s only a damned moonstone. And what does the Winter Solstice had to do with it?’
Indecision flickered across her face. Then she gave her head a minute shake, apparently coming to a decision. ‘It’s a supe ring,’ she explained finally. ‘Rooted in superstition. Legend says that if you wear it at the stroke of midnight on the night of the Summer Solstice, it will give you images from your past.’
Unease trickled through Devereau. ‘And if you wear it on the Winter Solstice?’
‘It will gift you with images from your future.’ She held up both hands. ‘I’m not saying that’s what really happens but that’s what legend says will happen.’
It sounded barely credible – but Devereau knew from his own experience that stranger things had happened. ‘So Lord Horvath decided that the legend is believable enough to warrant the cost,’ he said.
‘Yes. I was sent here to get the ring and bring it back to London.’
‘Why did you send a proxy to the auction then? Why didn’t you go in person yourself?’
