"What do I look like, the world"s stupidest person?" I asked, trying to bravado my way out of the situation. He reached for me, but I backed away, toward the road. "You think I"m going to go meekly with you so you can shoot me again? Think again."
"Mr. Green wishes to see you," Pilar said, gesturing with one hand. He must have had a taxi waiting, because one obediently pulled up directly behind me.
Beppo watched it all from his perch on Pilar"s shoulder, his tail wrapped securely around the man"s throat.
"Caspar Green? You know him?" I said, instinctively reaching out my mind for Paen. I stopped just before the words formed, flinching at the pain the action caused. It felt so wrong to not share something with him, but he"d made it perfectly clear that ours was a casual relationship at best. I was completely on my own-not a hideously comforting thought.
"He wishes to see you," Pilar said again, opening the door to the taxi, making like he was going to shove me in. I had a moment in which I could have resisted him and made an escape, but in the end, I allowed him to have his way. My curiosity got the better of me, and I figured so long as we were in a public venue, I"d be safe from any attempts he made on my life.
Public like a parking lot? my inner self asked. "Fine, but just so you know, I"m armed," I said, clutching my purse in a manner I hoped indicated some serious firepower.
He merely pulled back one side of his coat to reveal a smaller version of the crossbow he shot me with, and gave me a sardonic smile.
"You didn"t have much luck with that earlier." I ignored the faint pull of pain in my shoulder. "Both Paen and I are still alive and kicking."
"I don"t know what you"re talking about," Pilar said, his eyes flat and black with denial.
I gawked at him for a moment, glancing at the cab-driver before saying in a low voice, "You"re not going to try to make me believe you didn"t shoot me a few hours ago, right? Not to mention shoot a few holes into my cousin a day ago? Because there"s no way I"m going to believe it wasn"t you who shot Clare-not that many people walk around Edinburgh with a spider monkey on their shoulder-and I know you were on the other end of that crossbow earlier today."
"You must have me confused with someone else," was all he said, and sat back, refusing to answer any of the other questions I pelted him with on the ride to c.o.c.kburn Street. Beppo tried to make friends with me, but I was too upset and confused to do more than shake his hand when he offered it to me.
Pilar was all but glued to my side as we walked upstairs to apartment 12-C, the building as elegantly quiet as I remembered from my previous visit. The cold that seeped from him was so great, however, I made sure to put as much distance as possible between us.
Caspar opened the door with the same polite smile he had when I last left him. "Good afternoon, Miss Cosse. How nice to see you again."
"Thanks," I said, entering the apartment when he waved me in, Pilar and Beppo hot on my heels. "If it"s not too rude of me to ask, why are you trying to have my cousin and a friend killed?"
Caspar looked genuinely astonished, I"ll give him that. Either he was a h.e.l.l of an actor, or he hadn"t asked Pilar to shoot Clare and Paen full of holes. For a brief moment I wondered if I"d seen my attacker correctly, but one glance at Pilar reaffirmed that he was the man I"d recently stared down at the other end of a crossbow.
"Miss Cosse, I must humbly beg your indulgence. Am I to understand there has been a murder attempt on your life?" Caspar asked, taking my coat.
"Um... yeah. Something like that," I said, deciding not to say anything about Pilar. If he was acting on Caspar"s request, then I wouldn"t be telling him anything new. And if Pilar wasn"t working with Caspar... well, that meant he had his own purpose in wanting us dead, and I"d have to find out just what that was. "I had no idea you and Pilar were... acquainted."
Caspar ignored the slight emphasis. "Ah, yes, Pilar and I go back many years. I"ve found it beneficial to employ him from time to time."
"Do you always hire someone to bring people to see you? I"d think a simple phone call and invitation would be less of a drain on the old expense sheet." I took the seat he indicated. The room was just as sunny as it had been earlier, but something in it was still rubbing my warning system the wrong way.
"Indeed, no. But I thought it expedient to have Pilar bring you himself. I know you are a busy woman, and what I have to say to you is of the utmost importance."
"Shoot," I said, then flinched. Pilar smiled a particularly unpleasant smile. The temperature in the room dropped a good ten degrees as he took a seat on a chair against the wall. Beppo jumped off onto a bookcase, and started examining a leafy spider fern. I pulled my eyes from the two of them to the pleasantly smiling man who was busy at a sideboard. "Er... go ahead."
"Might I offer you an aperitif first? Sherry?"
"That would be lovely," I said, matching his polite tone despite the fact that I"d more or less been hustled there by a murderous hired thug.
He handed me a tiny gla.s.s containing a few sips of dark sherry. "You"re a plain-speaking woman, Miss Cosse. I like that. A toast to plain speaking and congenial understanding."
I clinked my gla.s.s against his, taking a sip of the sherry. I"m not a big sherry drinker, but this stuff was downright nasty. I wondered for a moment if it could have been drugged, then put that wild thought down to having watched too many old black and white movies.
"You"re also a minimalist when it comes to conversation," Caspar said, taking a few sips of his sherry.
"Not really. My mother taught me it was rude to chatter on about nothing when someone has something important to say."
"Forthright, and understandably so, given your heritage."I raised an eyebrow. It was true my eyes had an elf tilt to them, but I hadn"t thought my genetic background was so evident. I pa.s.sed as purebred mortal just about everywhere.
Caspar continued without pause. "I admire a woman who knows the value of a conversation that does not include unimportant chatter. There are many arts that have been lost over the years; decent conversation is, to my mind, the most lamentable of them."
"Indeed," I said, smiling politely and wondering when he would get to the point. I decided to help things along a smidgen. "What is it you"d like to talk about?"
"I wish to talk to you about a statue," he said smoothly, sipping at his sherry.
He got full marks for taking me by surprise, but lost a few in technique. "A statue? A statue of a falcon, perhaps?"
"No. The statue I refer to is of a monkey. A black monkey."
"You wouldn"t by any chance be referring to the Jilin G.o.d?" I asked, deliberately keeping my eyes on his. Caspar wasn"t a fool.
He would notice if my gaze suddenly shifted at the mention of the statue.
"You see?" He smiled as he sat back, his face full of satisfaction. "You are a woman after my own heart. You know of what I speak, and rather than wasting both our time with unnecessary denials, you come right out and put the subject on the table. Yes, my dear, I do in fact refer to the Jilin G.o.d. Am I correct in a.s.suming that you represent the interest of an individual in the statue?"
"I have many clients," I said, well aware that I was exaggerating slightly. "Their interests are varied, but you can, for the sake of this conversation, a.s.sume that I am also interested in the statue."
"That is a curious choice of words," Caspar said, crossing his legs. "You say "interested in," but not seeking. May I deduce that you have possession of the statue?"
"You can deduce anything you like, but that won"t necessarily make it true."
Caspar sipped at his sherry. "You dislike lying outright, I see. Another admirable quality. I dislike being lied to. I a.s.sume from your non-denial that you do, in fact, have possession of the statue, or at least you know where it is."
"I don"t have it on me, no. But I might know where it is." That wasn"t exactly a lie, I told my conscience-I did know it was in a tomb of some sort. I just didn"t know where that tomb was.
He laughed. "You have the statue-pardon me, know where it is-but you have not yet handed it over to your client, Mr. Paen Scott? Excellent. We progress. I take it you have no other interested persons in the statue?"
"That"s not necessarily true," I answered, wondering how he knew about Paen. I didn"t look at Pilar, but I felt the heat from my body being sucked out as the cold that surrounded him leached the surroundings of all warmth.
"Is it not?" Caspar set down his gla.s.s to consider me. "Who else might you represent?"
"Well, for one, there"s me," I said, smiling.
"Well done, my dear. The mercenary streak does you proud." I almost rolled my eyes at that, but managed to keep my face a polite mask of interest. "I do like a woman who isn"t afraid to take care of herself before others."
I let my smile widen. It couldn"t hurt for him to think I"d be willing to sell out Paen. He might be more forthcoming with his role in the whole mess if he thought I could be swayed to find the statue for him.
"Why don"t you tell me a little about the statue," I suggested, settling back in the chair.He pursed his lips and I thought for a moment he was going to refuse, but he made a conceding gesture and said, "I suspect you know as much about it as I do, but if it pleases you to pretend ignorance, I shall indulge you. The Jilin G.o.d statue is approximately so big"-he held out his hands about six inches apart-"made of ebony, commissioned from Gu Kaizhi, one of the leading artists of the fourth century. It was later given to Marco Polo upon his arrival in Peking by the emperor himself, but mysteriously was not included in the inventory Polo had conducted when he left China."
"Was it stolen?" I asked, pondering the coincidence of both the Coda and the statue having their origins with Marco Polo.
"Perhaps. The statue reappeared briefly in Venice in the early eighteenth century, and then pa.s.sed through private families for several generations. It was known to be in Paris and the American colonies, but then it disappeared from sight altogether."
"Hmm. Why is it called the Jilin G.o.d?"
"The origins of the name are shrouded, but the statue itself depicts the monkey G.o.d Sun Wukong. Are you familiar with the legend?"
I shook my head. "I"m afraid my knowledge of Chinese history is pretty pathetic."
"Ah. That, too, is lamentable. Sun Wukong was the G.o.d of monkeys who escaped capture by Yan Luow.a.n.g, the G.o.d of death.
Sun Wukong not only escaped death, he also destroyed the books of the dead. He was called to heaven for judgment, and wreaked havoc there as well; his reign of terror finally ended when Buddha imprisoned him."
"Wow. So he represents, what, the ability to overcome death?"
Caspar nodded, looking pleased. "You picked that up quickly. Yes, the monkey G.o.d is a representation of the origins of many of the immortal races-he overcame death and imprisonment to end up a warrior against demons and evil spirits. Yan Luow.a.n.g is said to have created the statue to hold Sun Wukong prisoner, but was unsuccessful. It is rumored that instead, he placed within its safe confines the secrets of the immortal races."
"Secrets like what?"
His shoulders rose in a slight shrug. "Just what secrets it contains is unknown."
"Hmm. But because of this, the statue is highly desirable?"
His eyelids veiled, the long fingers of his hand toying with the sherry gla.s.s that sat on a small table next to him. "It is treasured first for its artwork, second for the historical importance, and third and most importantly for the secrets said to be contained within it, yes."
"How much is it worth?" I asked, wondering why a demon lord would want the statue. Perhaps because it was valuable?
"Let us say that I am willing to offer you twenty-five thousand pounds for it, a fraction of its true worth."
I tried not to look stunned. Twenty-five thousand pounds! "What sort of fraction?"
"Its true value has never been calculated," Caspar said with a slight shrug. "But I can a.s.sure you that there are many who would pay almost anything to get it."
"And you?" I asked, relishing my role as double agent. "How much would you pay to get it?"
"I said I would pay you twenty-five thousand pounds."
I smiled and waited. He didn"t disappoint me. "Naturally that could be considered a retainer. I would be willing to pay another twenty-five thousand upon delivery.""I see. Well, thank you for the information," I said, gathering my things as I stood. "I will be in touch, I"m sure."
Caspar frowned. It wasn"t a nice expression. "You have not said whether you were taking the job or not."
"Haven"t I?" I tried my best to look innocent. "I"m sorry for the confusion-I"ve already been hired to find the statue for someone else."
"But I will pay you much more than he will-"
"That doesn"t matter," I said, starting for the door. "I don"t betray my clients" confidences like that, not for any amount of money.
Thanks for the sherry and the conversation. You"re right-it is a lost art."
"Pilar-" Caspar nodded toward me. His henchman leaped to his feet and started toward me.
"I wouldn"t be so trusting of your little bullyboy," I tossed over my shoulder as I reached for the door. "Earlier, he-"
I didn"t see it coming, didn"t even have an inkling. My elf senses, usually so sharp (if not accurate) didn"t warn me at all. Pilar grabbed me just as I was opening the door. One moment I was there about to tattle on Pilar to his boss, the next a ma.s.sive wave of energy slammed into me, so powerful it knocked me clear out of reality.
Chapter 13.
Um... Paen?... Paen?... h.e.l.loooo?
Sam?
Oh, good, I was hoping you didn"t have your mental voice mail turned on.
My what?
Nothing. Little joke.
Very little.
Yeah, well, you try making a joke when you"re caught between realities, and see how well you do.
A pause filled my head. You"re caught between realities?
Yes. I seem to be stuck here. I was wondering if there was something you could do to help me out?
His silence was telling. Where are you?
I don"t think I"m anywhere, to be honest. I seem to be nowhere, caught in some sort of a web between reality and the beyond.
Then how do you expect me to help you?
We have to pa.s.s through this to get to the beyond. I was hoping you"d merge with me, and that would pull me out. Kind of a reverse of what I did with you earlier.
Or it might just pull me in.
True. I hesitated, hating to ask him for anything, but not seeing any other choice. I"d been stuck here for the last couple of hours as I tried everything I knew to get out, to no avail. Can you help me, please?
He didn"t answer, but I knew the moment he merged with me, the two of us like separate pools of mercury forming into one glorious ent.i.ty. Joined as we were, I could feel everything he felt, and what it was he was thinking.
And he could do likewise.
He had to know I was trying to avoid confronting the emotions that swirled around in me, a vortex of love and anger and pain.
But he said nothing as the merging pulled me back into reality, separating us into two people again.