Cinda Williams Chima - The Wizard Heir

The Wizard Heir

Book 2 of the HeirSeries

Cinda Williams Chima

[v0.9 Scanned and Spellchecked bythe_usual from dt]

CONTENTS

For Rod, who changed everything.

Their target was a run-down three-story building in anarea of the City of London that had not yet been gentrified. The surroundingstreets had been emptied of people and traffic, and the filthy pavementperspired in the thick air. Magical barriers overlaid the soot-blackened brick,beautiful as spun glass. It might have been an ice sculpture, or a fairy castlethat hid the menace within.

For once the Dragon had stayed online long enough forthem to pinpoint his location. Perhaps he'd thought it safe to emerge in thesmall hours of the morning.

Six wizards came through the front door like wraiths,shields fixed in place, knowing the Dragon would attack when cornered. It tookthem less than a minute to discover there was no one in the apartment to kill.

D'Orsay followed them in. The flat was shabby andsmall. The furnishings looked to be castoffs accumulated over several decades.Layers of grime ground into the carpet made it impossible to guess at itsoriginal color. He passed through a front room, a kitchen, into the bedroom inthe back. The keyboard and monitor were still there, a harness linked into atangle of cables, but only a faint outline in the dust of the desk surfacerevealed where the laptop had been.

An inside staircase at the back of the flat led to theroof. The apartment would have been chosen for that reason, and not for thedecorating. They stormed up the steps to find the roof occupied only by cats.D'Orsay scanned the grid of streets surrounding the building. There was nomovement anywhere.

Something had spooked him. Perhaps the use of magichad given them away. Somehow he'd sensed they were backtracking through the Netto find him, crawling past all the online blind alleys and mail drops he'd setup to mislead them.

Or someone had tipped him off. The Dragon's spy networkwas legendary, his operatives astonishingly loyal. For months, D'Orsay had beensearching for the flaw in it, the loose end that when pulled would unravel theweb.

A loose end. Someone he could carry to the dungeon inRaven's Ghyll and torture into spilling the Dragon's secrets.

But nothing. Even worse, it was possible D'Orsay's ownorganization had been compromised.

The newly minted Wizard Council was struggling toovercome the centuries-old blood feud between the Wizard Houses of the Red andthe White Rose so it could deal with the recent rebellion of the servantguilds. Ending the feud would be difficult under the best of circumstances, butit was nearly impossible with the Dragon fanning the flames of old rivalries,spreading rumors, and posting confidential correspondence to the Internet.

It was particularly galling to someone like D'Orsay,who had so much to hide.

Wizards were murdering each other in the backstreetsof London, in castles in Scotland, and in the glittering nightspots of HongKong. Magical artifacts were disappearing from vaults and safe-deposit boxesand wine cellars. Traditionally submissive, sorcerers, seers, and enchanterswere fleeing their wizard masters. And the Dragon's hand was in all of it.

This was the third near miss since the tournament atRaven's Ghyll. Six weeks ago, they were sure they had the Dragon cornered in aghetto in Sao Paulo. Then they'd blundered into a magical quagmire, a networkof diabolical traps that had decimated D'Orsay's team of assassins and left theCouncil empty-handed. Three wizards dead, and they were no closer to findinghim than before.

D'Orsay recognized his handiwork, the elegantsimplicity of the charms and devices. The wizard might as well have scrawledhis signature all over it.

Most recently, the Dragon had freed a dozen sorcerersfrom a stronghold in Wales. That had been triply infuriating because it hadbeen D'Orsay's own project. D'Orsay had hoped that, given enough pressure, thesorcerers might rediscover some of the secrets of the magical weapons of thepast.

They found no photographs in the flat, no personalitems that might have provided a clue to who the tenant had been.

D'Orsay was disappointed, though not surprised. He wasconfident he knew the Dragon's identity. In any case, he wasn't fussy aboutbeing right. But this was no rat to be caught in an ordinary trap. D'Orsay wasuncomfortable with this kind of operation anyway. He was a strategist, not anassassin. He was present only because of the power of their adversary and theneed for discretion. It was what you might call an unauthorized operation,outside of the purview of the council.

Why would a wizard involve himself in a rebellion ofthe lesser magical guilds? What could he possibly have to gain?

Twenty minutes later, Whitehead returned to thekitchen carrying a manila folder. "I found this between the filing cabinetand the wall." She handed it to D'Orsay. "He probably didn't realizeit was back there."

D'Orsay paged through the contents of the folderletters and copies of e-mails to and from a law firm in London, relating to theguardianship of a minor. There was also correspondence with a private school inScotland regarding housing, tuition, and financial arrangements for the same.All of it was at least two years old.

The student's name was Joseph McCauley. D'Orsayfrowned. The name didn't bring to mind any of the Dragon's known or suspectedassociates. He couldn't relate it to any of the Weir families, either, thoughit would be more reliable to check the databases. Through the centuries,genealogy had enabled the Wizard Houses to find warriors when they needed them,to hunt those who carried the gift and didn't know it. Computers only made theprocess more efficient.

What could be the connection between this boy and theDragon? Possibly none, but D'Orsay's instincts told him different. What elsewould explain the presence of material so personal in the midst of the enemycamp? And why was a law firm handling this kind of routine correspondence?Unless the intent was to hide a relationship that might prove to be avulnerability. D'Orsay smiled. That would be too good to be true.

This was worth spending a little time on. By now, theothers were returning to the kitchen. He finished his cider and handed thefolder to Whitehead.

"Find this boy for me, Nora. Contact the schoolmentioned in the letters and find out if he's still there. See if you can getany information from the law firm about who engaged them." He thought amoment, stroking his chin. "Check with the General Register Office also.Look for a birth registry, baptismal papers, anything at all. If you don't findany British records, try overseas. See if he's in any of the Weir databases.But be discreet."

They left the building a half hour after they hadarrived, leaving a few traps behind in the unlikely event the Dragon returned.At least they may have driven the Dragon underground for a time. Any delay wasto their benefit. By the time he got back into business, it might be too latefor him.

Perhaps by then, they would have another card to play.

The August heat had persisted deep into the night.Thunder growled out over Lake Ontario, threatening a downpour. When Seph walkedinto the warehouse a little after 2 a.m., it felt like he had blundered into anurban rain forest. He sucked in the stink and heat of hundreds of bodies inmotion and squinted his eyes against the smoke that layered the room.

It was his habit to arrive late for parties.

Seph smiled and nodded to the bouncer at the door. Theman was there to intercept the underaged, but he just smiled back at Seph andwaved him on. Access was never a problem.

Music throbbed from high-tech speakers wired to thestruts of the warehouse ceiling. Sweat dripped onto the scarred wooden planksas the crowd thrashed across the dance floor. The black lights painted thefaces of the dancers while leaving the perimeter of the room unviolated. Anillegal bar was doing a brisk business in one corner, and the usual customerswere already trashed.