Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(64)

“I’m cloaking us,” Rune replied. “I should have done it as soon as I took to the air, but I was distracted. SFO’s air traffic control is probably having a conniption right now.”

She raised a hand and looked at it. She could still see herself but she was blurred as if she were looking through an antique window. She studied Rune. He was blurred as well, but perfectly visible. “Are you sure it’s working properly?”

He chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“I can still see us,” she said.

“That’s because we’re both inside the cloak. Other people can’t see us, which is the main point.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, squinting skeptically at her hand again. “It’s a nifty trick, if you’re not pulling my leg.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” murmured the gryphon. “Where is your town house?”

Carling looked down at the ground as she gave him directions. They were just flying over the Presidio at the northern tip of San Francisco. Originally a Spanish fort, it had been a military installation for almost two hundred years. Now it was a public park. Wreathed in the mist that had rolled off the ocean, the aged, well-tended trees looked vaporous, the ground indistinct underneath.

She sighed. “I would say we should just stay at my town house, except I’m almost certain someone on the staff is a spy and I would rather Julian not be apprised of our every move. He’s not going to be happy as it is when I call to tell him I’ve come back to the city. We had decided my condition was too dangerous for me to be around very many people right now.”

“Fuck Julian,” said Rune. “I don’t care if he’s happy or not.”

Carling sighed heavily again. “I’ve handled him many times before when he’s chosen to be unpleasant, and I will handle him again if I have to, but we have more important things to focus on than clashing with Julian right now.”

Rune paused for a moment. He continued in a softer, more serious voice. “You’re right, of course. We don’t have to rub your presence in Julian’s face. Since I didn’t know what to expect when I got here, I arranged to have a suite available at the Fairmont Hotel for whenever I might need it. After we drop Rasputin off, we can go there. No doubt there’ll be spies there too but it won’t be the same as it happening in the intimacy of your own home.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she muttered. “I don’t care where we go.”

“Then the hotel it is,” said Rune. He climbed steeply in the air, soaring over the tops of buildings, and plummeted to the street corner near her house. The town houses were luxurious, and Carling’s home was mere blocks from Market Street. He realized her house would be an easy walk to the Turner and Braeburn offices, and the Bureau of Nightkind Immigration. That seemed too convenient to be a coincidence.

He landed lightly on his feet and after Carling had slid to the pavement, he shimmered into a shapeshift. Only then did he relax the cloaking around them. “See?” he said. “No one saw us.”

She looked around and laughed. Traffic was all around but by some trick of chance, there weren’t any vehicles passing by them at the moment, and the nearest pedestrians were a half a block away and walking in the other direction from them. The fog was not terribly heavy, but it did give everything a sense of space and privacy that might not otherwise have been present in the full light of sunshine. “No one saw us, my dear genius gryphon, because there’s no one around to pay attention.”

He looked around, his eyes narrowed. “All right, I can see that you’ll take some convincing. Here, give me that.” He took the container from her.

She strode down the street with Rasputin in her arms, and Rune fell back a few steps so he could watch her. She moved with her characteristic imperiousness. She was barefoot and bedraggled, her hair a tangled mess down her back, her awful caftan a ragtag, crumpled mess. And there was no doubt in his mind—there could be no doubt in the mind of anyone who saw her—that she was royalty. Goddamn, that was smoking hot.

She led him up the steps of an elegant four-story Mediterranean Revival home. Loosely based on Italian palazzo architecture, the facade was simple, an elegant pale ochre, with arched black wrought-iron windows. She took hold of the doorknob, spoke a Power-filled word, and Rune heard the small click as the lock turned. Hell of a handy trick, that. She never had to worry about losing a key and locking herself out.

Rune followed her into a spacious front hall, with gleaming oak floors and a simple antique hall table that was so beautifully constructed, Sotheby’s would have drooled over it. A vase filled with fresh lilies provided the only adornment. Carling gestured to a doorway on the right. “Make yourself at home,” she told Rune as she strode down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okey-dokey,” he said. He strolled into a room that was as elegant as everything else he had seen of her home. She had continued with the Mediterranean theme in the interior decor. The room had textured walls, thirteenth-century Florentine tapestries and artwork, and leather burgundy furniture. Way to be all-over classy, Carling.

As he opened up the container to pull out his duffle and Carling’s leather bag, he heard the sound of rapid footsteps approaching. They were much heavier than Carling’s soft, almost imperceptible tread, no doubt belonging to a male. “Councillor!” Yep, it was a male. “What a surprise! What may I do for you? Would you like for me to wake the others?”