Page 14 of A Heist for Filthy Rivals (Mythic Holidays #3)

I turn off the sound before Ravager’s bomb explodes, and I don’t stay to watch him blast a trench to reroute the lava.

I’m fairly sure the moat is deeper than he thinks, and that his strategy is going to be far more complex, time-consuming, and dangerous than he anticipates.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll blow himself up, along with his men.

While they were navigating the lightning-filled chasm, I set a number of traps throughout the keep, on both the first and second floors.

But it didn’t feel like enough, so I came back up to the observation room to look for a list or record of the artifacts that are stored in this place.

I need more weapons and obstacles to help me hold off Ravager’s gang once they reach the keep.

After several minutes of knocking on the walls for hidden panels and rummaging through the cabinet, I discover that the long table has a concealed interior cavity.

Its surface is actually a lid that, when lifted, reveals a shallow rectangular compartment.

Inside is a detailed map of Annordun with four distinct sections—the basement and the three main floors.

Some areas are marked with glowing red lines or circles and lots of brilliant dots.

Through experimentation I determine that the glowing red lines and circles represent shields, either across doors or around artifacts.

The bright dots are the Fae orbs of light that provide illumination throughout the fortress.

With a touch I can deactivate or activate the shields, and I can dispel the little light orbs, though the orbs don’t return once they’re eliminated.

Most of the doors on the upper floors of the fortress don’t have active shields across them, but more of them are lit up in the subterranean level.

I’ve never seen any technology like this. It goes beyond the usual style of Fae spellwork that I’m familiar with through Maven. How does it work? What type of energy source powers it?

My curiosity is so strong that I actually crawl beneath the table and look up at the underside—which, to my astonishment, is a mass of multicolored crystals with tiny black vines and roots threading around them.

There are moonstone mushrooms, too, and bright red jewels.

The aesthetic is rather like the Doras álainn, which doesn’t make sense.

The Doras álainn was supposedly crafted by Fae-Hunters.

Why would there be a control device of a similar style here in Annordun?

Unless everything I know about the Doras álainn is wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t made by the Fae-Hunters at all.

Weeks before Wringer told me about Annordun, he gave me the tip about the Fae-Hunters and their hiding spot. That same day, he also gave me a book for Maven, at the back of which were several pasted-in pictures of artifacts, including the Doras álainn.

He’s been unusually helpful for the past couple months, giving me valuable data without raising his prices. He has always claimed he doesn’t like danger, and that’s why he doesn’t go after treasures himself. He prefers to deal in secrets and rumors.

Lately Wringer has also been more polite in the way he addresses me—almost courtly, in fact—and I began to wonder if he has developed a romantic liking for me, despite the fact that he’s two decades older than I am.

So I didn’t question why he gave me such juicy information without demanding a bigger cut.

In hindsight, though, it’s all rather suspicious.

When I get back to Belgate, I’m going down to South Hive to have a talk with him and find out exactly where he’s been getting his latest bits of gossip.

It’s odd that it has been so Faerie-focused.

Could he have a Fae friend who is selling him secrets?

Is this entire scenario part of something bigger, a conspiracy that I don’t understand?

Is someone using the Javelins to accomplish a secret purpose?

The idea unnerves me. I don’t mind running jobs for people, but I like to be hired, fair and square, with clear terms set up front. I like to have all the information, and I hate feeling like a pawn.

But I don’t have the luxury of worrying about conspiracy theories at the moment. I need to slow down Ravager and his crew, and to do that, I’ll need to set up more traps.

On my way out the door of the observation room, I pass one of the lower pedestals and spot the monster from the subterranean level. It’s prowling past the room that contains Drosselmeyer’s collection.

Cautiously I twist the top of that globe. I stay perfectly silent so the monster doesn’t hear me, and I listen to its ponderous footfalls, its loud breathing.

Without warning, it opens its mouth and shrieks in a voice that sounds horrifyingly human.

I stumble back, and my elbow hits one of the pedestals. The globe on top of it wobbles, and I steady it with a whispered “Shit, not again!”

When I glance back, the monster has frozen in its tracks. It’s looking up, probably at the eyes in the hallway where it’s standing, but it feels like it’s looking straight at me.

Its triple jaws open, saliva stretching between them. They open so wide that I can see into the creature’s throat—except it isn’t a throat, really, it’s a void. A black hole. A vast, hollow space far larger than the hideous body containing it.

A woman’s voice comes from between those jagged, dripping teeth. “Don’t hurt me. Please, don’t hurt me.”

The cry rises to a bloodcurdling scream, and then another voice takes over—a man shouting, “No! No! No!” over and over.

The voice changes again, a younger man begging for mercy.

More voices babble and gibber and scream from the monster’s gullet while it stands still, its jaws stretched wide, unmoving.

Without being told, I know that those are the voices of its victims. What I’m hearing is the creature’s prey, the way they cried out in their final moments. It’s terrifying, and it’s…

It’s exactly what I need.

I run over to the globe where I last saw Ravager and his group. They’re arguing over something, probably debating the best strategy for expanding their lava canal, which doesn’t seem to have gotten very far yet.

I activate the sound on that sphere, then run back to the one with the monster.

By twisting that ornament farther, I can make the beast’s voices louder.

I’m hoping the sound will transfer from one globe to the other and that the screams will blast out into the area where my rival stands with his men.

“No! No, don’t kill me! Please, please, I’m begging you!” shrieks a voice from the beast’s throat. A second voice joins in. “Stop, stop, oh gods, not like this. Not like this!”

“What the ever-loving fuck!” exclaims one of Ravager’s men. I think he’s called Needle. He seems to be their version of Maven, an expert on magical devices.

His terrified exclamation echoes back through both orbs, infuriating the monster. Stamping its six feet, it opens its jaws wider and releases more desperate pleas and screams of agony.

I retreat a few paces, pressing one hand over my mouth, both horrified and pleased at the success of my trick.

Needle crouches down, covering his ears, while a second man, the one they called Grisly, starts to yell panicked curses.

The third man, whose thief name is Slaughter, remains calm, listening to the screams with an expression of hideous interest on his face.

Ravager is the only one of the four who hasn’t unmasked yet, despite the heat. I’m not sure why. He knows I’ve seen his face before, at the Puzzled Coin, even though I don’t really remember it. Maybe he doesn’t trust his own men with his true face.

If that’s the case, I can’t say that I blame him.

I’ve heard of the Vexxan cousins, Slaughter and Grisly.

They used to be enforcers for one of the hessen lords, but according to rumors circulated in the Night Goose, they were too violent.

Couldn’t follow orders. Couldn’t stop themselves from raping people or beating them to a pulp, even when that wasn’t their directive.

Anyone who’s too brutal to be employed by a hessen lord is truly a despicable piece of shit.

I’m not familiar with Needle, but if his name is anything to go by, he might be an expert in poisons as well as magical artifacts.

For years, there have been rashes of unexplained, apparently random deaths in Belgate, suspected poisonings, most of them never resolved.

He could be responsible for some of them, or for many.

Who is Ravager, really, and why is he working with men like these?

Impulsively I move closer to the sphere again and peer into it, like I’m trying to see through the mask and discern his reaction to the monster’s terrible sounds.

All I can tell is that he isn’t smiling.

He stands rigid, holding another bomb in his hand, looking from the lava moat to the hole he blasted in the wall.

He’s pretending to strategize, but I suspect he’s more distracted and unnerved than he’s letting on.

I let the cacophony of shrieks and desperation play for a few more minutes, and then I shut off the sound from the beast’s globe. I approach the sphere overlooking the moat, eager to hear what my rival and his people have to say.

“What the hell was that?” snaps the one they call Grisly. “What’s going on in there?”

“There’s more than just her in that place,” says Slaughter. “She’s got a whole gang, and they’re torturing folks. What are you not telling us, Rav?”

“I’m not keeping anything from you,” Ravager replies.

“Then how do you explain what we just heard?”

“Maybe the Fae showed up,” suggests Grisly. “Maybe they caught the girl and her gang, and they’re killing ’em.”

“If the Fae are here, I’m out,” says Needle. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”