all right, then.

"you should probably talk to maintenance about that light."

creede stood in the open door to my suite looking much spiffier than the last time i'd seen him. he was wearing gray dress slacks and a black ralph lauren polo shirt. a black leather belt and matching dress shoes completed the outfit. i had to admit, he certainly did clean up nice. really nice.

"you went shopping."

"yeah. i needed a few things. i picked up some items for king dahlmar while i was at it. thank god for credit cards." he smiled. "mind if i come in?"

"sure, why not?"

he strolled through the room to take the seat directly across from me. leaning back, he crossed his legs, the perfect picture of comfort.

"so, i hear you managed to get yourself into some more trouble while the king and i were otherwise occupied. you okay?"

"better now that i've eaten and rested." i sipped my drink, which was, thanks to ivy, quite nicely chilled. "what have you been up to besides shopping?"

"hey, don't knock it." creede pointed a finger at me in mock warning. "it was hard enough on dahlmar, begging queen lopaka for assistance, without making him do it in a mickey mouse t-shirt."

i could see where that would've been gratuitously humiliating. it would also make it harder for him to be taken seriously. appearances matter more than most people are willing to admit.

"and how did the negotiations go?" i was going to switch from fruit juice to broth but decided against it. cold broth. ick.

"well, we have a plan."

i thought about saying something sarcastic like, "gee, john, you sound so excited, tell me more," but he was obviously frustrated, so i decided to opt for diplomatic silence.

"queen lopaka doesn't completely agree that there's a siren involved, but she's willing to give him limited assistance to help him take back his throne."

i raised an eyebrow and took a long pull on my coffee as i waited for the other shoe to drop. "how limited?"

"one plane, one pilot, and a dozen elite troops: their equivalent to the navy seals."

my eyes widened and my mouth opened. "she thinks that's enough to put him back in power?" crap. that wasn't a plan, that was assisted suicide.

"adriana is a clairvoyant; she saw a potential weakness in kristoff's plan that we might be able to exploit even with limited resources."

creede leaned forward in his seat. his expression was intent. "from what we've been able to find out, from the clairvoyants and through magical means, kristoff is going to announce his brother's death from a 'tragic accident' this afternoon. the faux dahlmar will immediately fly back from the peace talks in greece. somewhere over the aegean the plane will go down, with all hands lost, leaving kristoff to take the throne."

just like dahlmar predicted. i wondered if the king had more going for him than just a charismatic personality.

yes, that plan would make kristoff a mourning successor rather than an evil usurper in the minds of the people. not a bad idea, really. sadly, not all that hard to pull off, either. one of the reasons i hate flying is one well-placed curse and it's all over but the crying.

"if king dahlmar takes queen lopaka up on her offer, we're going to fly to an island in the aegean where the necessary modifications will be made to our plane to make a switch possible. the clairvoyants have given us a time and place and the identification information for the plane kristoff is crashing-"

"they're going to try a switch?" i couldn't believe it. i mean, yeah, i believed it. but oh, crap, there were so many things that could go wrong.

"princess adriana gave it an eighty percent chance of success."

"eighty?" she had to be being optimistic. i wouldn't even have gone as high as fifty-fifty.

"she seemed to think there was the possibility of betrayal." he said it totally deadpan, but there was a twist to his lips that spoke of wry humor. "she was more than a little concerned about it since she's going to be the pilot."

and then i put two and two together. an island in the aegean.

"what?" creede read my face like an open book.

"would the island we're using just happen to be ruled by stefania?"

okay, there's desperate and there's stupid, and i was beginning to think this plan leaned more toward the latter than the former. i might have opened my mouth to say something, but the king himself appeared at my doorway at that moment. he was dressed in a gray suit, off the-rack but nice, with a crisp white shirt and conservative tie. but the shoulders beneath the jacket were hunched, as if the blows he'd received these past few days were finally starting to catch up with him.

"i have no choice. i have no military. i am not willing to reveal my circumstances to any other country's leaders. my hope was that the queen of the sirens would support me in order to clean her own house. this is not a perfect plan, perhaps not even a good plan. but it is the plan we have with the resources available."

he appeared calm, but i suspected the appearance was deceptive. still, you don't go into a tricky military operation with a sense of defeat. it's too likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. "it would be easier to walk away. but i cannot. whether my son is being manipulated or has betrayed all i hold dear, he is not fit to rule. i cannot leave my people to suffer at his hands." sorrowful but determined, he continued, "i will be leaving here at seven this evening. you may choose for yourselves whether you will join me." with that, he left.

well, hell.

"i did some research. he's a very good king," creede said softly.

"from what i understand, his son's an idiot."

"so we go?"

i sighed. "i just wish it wasn't stefania's island."

"why?"

i hesitated for a long moment but finally told him: about the curse, the fact that someone had to have summoned the demon. stefania had one hell of a motive to make sure we didn't survive the attempt.

creede surprised me when he shook his head. "it couldn't have been stefania who called the demon today."

"why not?"

"she was in the meeting with dahlmar, lopaka, and adriana. i was outside the doors. none of them left the room until after your meeting with the seer went south. and i checked them myself to ensure nobody was a demon in disguise."

well, hell. that sort of messed with my theory. "so, she's responsible for the curse but not the rest of it?"

a shrug. he didn't disbelieve what i saw in the crystal bowl, which was something at least. "it's possible."

i snorted at his carefully blank expression. "you don't believe that any more than i do."

he rose with a sigh. "no, i don't. but i pray you're wrong. because dahlmar's determined to do this. and if you're right, everyone on that plane is going to be dead meat."

"get some rest," i told him. "i'm going to go talk to my aunt."

20

i hate flying. big plane, small plane, private, public, it really doesn't matter. i hate it. this time i hated it more than usual when i found out that stefania and ren had teleported ahead to "get things ready" and wouldn't be flying with us. i'd have felt more secure having stefania right here where i could both keep an eye on her and have her as sort of a hostage to good behavior.

still, i couldn't fault the jet. it was midsized and very nice. even nicer than creede's car, which was saying something. adriana was rightfully proud of it. i just hoped it wasn't going to be a really nice coffin.

the plan had changed slightly. britain is an island and the british have very old, very secret, ties to the sirens. queen lopaka had called in a favor from that other queen. the switch would take place on a military airstrip. no one on our side knew, other than the family: queen lopaka, adriana, and me. it felt really weird, but i had to admit i was glad to be included. we would keep it that way until the last possible moment, so we could watch all parties for signs of trouble.

the head of the task force, harry thompson, had introduced himself and his men to those of us civilians who were coming along. while he hadn't said a word against us, his approach had somehow made it abundantly clear that he wasn't happy to be joined by a bunch of amateurs, however well armed, and that we'd damned well better stay out of his people's way. he'd then disembarked and made a nose-to-tail inspection of the aircraft. creede had already checked for magical problems, but that didn't stop thompson and his men from checking again.

the task force's mage was at least equal to creede and just shy of bruno's talent. at first the two men had watched each other with skepticism that bordered on hostility. then they'd started crafting, and their hostility turned first to grudging acceptance of each other's talent and then to open admiration.

everything else that could be done was being done. still, i found myself squirming in my seat, wishing i were anywhere but here.

i didn't have to do this. i could get up, walk out, leave king dahlmar and the others to whatever fate awaited them. thompson would be thrilled to see me go. one less civilian to worry about. i'm a bodyguard, not a magician, and not-i repeat not-an elite ops soldier. i could even justify it by saying that the death curse on me put everyone in more danger. nobody would argue, nobody would blame me.

nobody but me.

if i walked out now and everything went to hell-literally-i'd spend the rest of my life trying to live with the guilt. i'm still dealing with two deaths like that: ivy and bob johnson. every day i wake up i still wonder-what if i'd done this, or hadn't done that. i might not be able to make this mission a success, but i could protect king dahlmar with my life.

somewhere in the course of gathering my courage i'd closed my eyes. i opened them at the sound of a soft cough to find hiwahiwa standing in front of me, wearing a more casual version of the lavalava in green with a leaf pattern. even without makeup she had an undeniable beauty. she looked excruciatingly uncomfortable and hesitant to interrupt, but frankly, i was glad for the distraction. now that i'd made up my mind to stay, i needed something to keep me from thinking too much.