“Good. Caught the bloke as he was leaving the bank.”
“That’s convenient.” Claire was a Fire Mage with a dash of Hearth Witch, hence the coffee shop. By day, she was a mercenary. Magical organizations hired her to handle problems. She kicked ass but had an unquenchable desire to make excellent coffee and pastries. Connor hadn’t inherited any of his mother’s Fire Mage powers and was all Hearth Witch, so he ran their shop most of the time. He was wickedly good at potions, which lent itself to preparing the enchanted coffees they offered.
“Yeah, it was an easy job. You want the usual?” Claire asked, her dark eyes alight with the same who-is-this-dude look that the others had sent my way.
Everyone thought it was weird as hell that I was hanging out with one of the wealthiest, most powerful guys in the world. I agreed.
“Uh, no thanks. A latte?” PBR was my drink of choice in the evenings, even though everyone made fun of me for drinking the beer of hipsters and hillbillies. I didn’t drink a lot, but I was picky about it when I did. But if I was going to be chatting with Aidan about the scroll—or anything really—I needed to be on my game.
“Sure thing,” Claire said.
“How’d it go today?” Connor asked from behind the counter as he crafted my latte. He had the same dark hair as Claire and also favored her P & P uniform of jeans and a t-shirt topped with an apron.
“Ah, good,” I said, glancing awkwardly at Aidan. Connor liked to hear about the enchantments and demons in each tomb or temple that I raided, but now wasn’t the time for a play-by-play. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Cool.” He brought my coffee over.
“Thanks.” I dug into the pasties.
“I’m headed out,” Nix said. “Good to meet you, Aidan.”
“See you later,” I said, grateful she was getting away from Aidan. She and the others might have approved of him, but he was still too much of an unknown for me to be comfortable trusting him around the people I loved.
I turned to Aidan and really looked at him for the first time since entering P & P. I’d never seen a guy make a gray t-shirt look so good. It was a dark gray, the same color as his eyes. I’d thought they were brown.
“Have you eaten?” I asked, trying to distract myself from his eyes. He had a pint of some kind of dark beer in front of him.
“Yes. The pasties were excellent.”
“So, tell me more about this scroll,” I said between bites. “But quietly, I don’t want to drag Connor or Claire into this.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What else is written in it? I’ve never heard of it before, but it sounds pretty valuable.”
“It is. It contains information about all the most powerful species of supernaturals. Strengths and weaknesses. I don’t have many weaknesses, but I don’t want anyone knowing them.”
“Don’t blame you.” I popped the last bite of pasty into my mouth.
“And according to a reference I just found in an old text, it’s a prophetic scroll. It contains a list of the names and descriptions of individuals who belong to all the most powerful species. Past and present.”
I choked on my pasty. Names and descriptions? Past and present?
That meant me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Aidan passed me a glass of water as I coughed, trying to clear the pasty from my throat.
Okay, this had suddenly gotten a hell of a lot worse. My mind raced like a hamster in a wheel. The scroll might not actually exist. Or it might not have the information he said it had.
But if it did, it would include my name under the heading FireSoul, subheading To Be Killed On Sight. Or, alternate, To Be Imprisoned For Life.
Oh, this was bad.
“Are you all right?” Aidan asked, concern in his dark eyes.
“Fine, totally fine. Just swallowed wrong.” I nodded, trying to look normal and knowing I’d failed. Was there any way I could do this job without him? Steal it and destroy it before he saw it?
Unless he told me some really key details about the scroll, no. I didn’t have enough to go on. For my tracking ability to work, I needed a couple things. First, somebody needed to really want whatever I was looking for. My dragon sense was based on covetousness. That was no problem. I wanted that scroll. Bad.
But I also needed to know at least one or two intimate details about the object or person I sought. More was better. Images were the best, but knowledge of who made it or something like that would help. Just enough for my magic to latch on and take me there.
He’d have to give me that information. Then I’d get it and have Nix make a copy that omitted our information.
“So, this scroll sounds pretty interesting,” I said. “I’ll take the job. Half price because I broke into your tomb.” I’d do it for free, but I didn’t want him thinking I was too eager.
“Excellent. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
What the heck? That wasn’t part of my plan. “We? I work alone.”
“I’ll help you. It could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous is my day job,” I said. I winced, realizing I sounded like a jacked-up meathead from an action movie. But for magic’s sake, I walked around with daggers strapped to my thighs. You’d think it’d be obvious that I could handle myself. “I’ll take care of it. You don’t need to worry.”
“I know you can take care of yourself,” he said, his dark eyes serious. “But I want this scroll. Badly. And I don’t trust anyone else with it. I’ll come along.”