Department 57: Rubies of Fire Read Online Free Page A

like designer wear to the discriminating door attendant once she’d messed with his mind a little, and the gold card she showed him allowed her into any area she chose. He opened the door for her. She even got a smile.
    Inside, she was as out of place as a demon in heaven. The fancy nightclubs she visited with her friends were livelier, even at this early time of night. No sign of the elaborate cocktails with paper umbrellas and fruit that the more ebullient crowd favored, no chalked list of cocktails with dubious names by the bar. Instead, she saw dimly lit tables with couples and threesomes sitting absorbed in anything but each other. They occasionally glanced around to see who had come in and who was heading for the roped-off area at the end, where the VIPs mingled with a purposeful air the main room lacked.
    Except for one couple right at the end—two men totally involved in their conversation, leaning across the little table toward each other like lovers at a secret tryst. Roz hastily turned aside and found a place to sit, sliding into a seat as far away from the single, low spotlight as possible. They hadn’t seen her, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
    Andreas Constant sat with his back to her. Facing her, though not looking at her, his features highlighted by the candle flickering on the table between them, was a face she recognized from the pictures from the briefing this morning. Classically beautiful, his blue eyes dazzling despite the dim lighting of the nightclub, Fabrice Germain stood out even here, in this place where beautiful people gathered. A Talent for sure, but what kind of Talent?
    Cautiously she projected her senses. Just enough to eavesdrop. Blocking out the gossip around her took a moment, and then she honed in on the couple at the end table.
    Her first shock came when she realized they were speaking telepathically. Her second when she realized she could “hear” them. They’d be speaking at a deeper level than the everyday, but that encounter in the elevator… She’d really gotten to Andreas. He’d let her in far more than either of them had realized at the time.
    “There’s a mole in the Department.”
    “What?” Germain sounded rattled.
    “I’m supposed to act as go-between for Roz Templeton and the DIB. They’re sending her into the Department.”
    “We expected something like that. We’ll let her in.”
    “I know. What you don’t know is that you, Anushka, Wyvern, and Takasc are specifically targeted. Knox briefed us this morning.”
    A moment of shock, then, “That could be from surveillance. Watching people coming and going, even if they use the back way.”
    “They can identify most of the team from the San Francisco job, and they know too damned much. There’s a mole.”
    She saw Germain’s slight shrug, the way his silk T-shirt moved like a second skin over his muscular shoulders.
    “I think you’re imagining things, bro, but there’s no harm doing a second sweep.”
    “Yeah. You do that. I’m moving to Roz’s apartment. Knox wants me to play the lover.”
    She saw the chuckle, echoed in Germain’s mind.
    “That shouldn’t bother you none. She’s a good-looking female.”
    “I thought your kind weren’t supposed to notice that?”
    Another chuckle.
    “We notice just fine. We just don’t act on it.”
    Fuck . Fabrice Germain was a Sorcerer. Even worse, if he chose to stay a virgin, that meant he was the most powerful of their kind. Fabrice would make her in a minute.
    They had to know she sat here, listening in. That was why she’d tracked Constant so easily. He’d let her. Their encounter in the elevator didn’t have anything to do with it. He’d picked up her presence back at his apartment and let her in to see what she would do. Let her follow him, let her in on their conversation, so the Sorcerer could latch on to her and perhaps even read her. They wouldn’t let her go. If  Germain wanted it, he could kill her with a thought.
    Roz