‘‘Look, I don’t know what you think doppelgangers can do, but we can’t turn invisible, and we can’t walk through walls. We’re flesh and blood just like anyone else… more or less… and we can trigger alarms and set off security systems. The more I know about the person who has this amulet, the better I can protect myself and ensure success.’’

‘‘Just steal the damned thing. You don’t need to shove your nose into anything else. Get in, get it, and get out. Call me when you’ve got it.’’

‘‘I’m not a miracle worker-’’ I started to protest.

‘‘If you’re caught, he’ll kill you,’’ the man interrupted. ‘‘So don’t get caught.’’

‘‘But who-’’

He hung up before I could finish asking him who it was he intended for me to rob. I sighed and slumped back into the chair, staring blindly at the piece of paper I held. I had a bad feeling about this whole thing, but I wasn’t in much of a position to do anything. I’d just have to go to the target’s house and assess the situation there.

It wasn’t until I was in my room, donning my working outfit, that I realized something odd about the address he’d given me.

‘‘I’ll be damned,’’ I said a few minutes later as I looked at the card Aisling had given me. One side of it had her address in London, and on the back, she’d written the location of Kostya’s lair.

It was the same address the blackmailer had given me.

An hour and a half later I slipped out of the back door of Gabriel’s house, casting an eye upward to the window of the room Cyrene had claimed. A faint light flickered through a gap in the curtains, indicating Cyrene was happily tucked into bed, yakking on the phone to one or another local naiad while she watched late-night TV. I hadn’t told her my plans lest she wish to accompany me… and where I was going, she definitely couldn’t follow.

Why was the blackmailer trying to steal something from a dragon? No wonder he didn’t want to tell me whom I was supposed to steal from-no one in their right mind would ever try to get something out of a dragon’s lair.

‘‘More intriguingly, who is he working for?’’ I murmured aloud to myself. ‘‘And does this have anything to do with that phylactery Gabriel wants?’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

I came to myself with a start as the taxi driver pulled up outside a dark and rather grimy warehouse. ‘‘Sorry, just talking to myself. Is this it?’’

‘‘It is. That’ll be five pounds.’’

I paid the man, hesitating for a moment as I glanced at the warehouse. I wasn’t normally a fearful person, but I had to admit there was something about the hulking black building that left me feeling a bit twitchy. ‘‘I don’t suppose you’d like to wait for me?’’

‘‘Here?’’ He shoved my change in my hands. ‘‘Not for five times that. Good luck.’’

He sped off into the darkness without even a backward glance. ‘‘Talk about your foreshadowing,’’ I muttered as I slipped into the shadows.

The lock on the door to the warehouse posed no problem to me. I smiled as I laid my fingers across the front, gently urging the tumblers within it to turn until the lock obligingly clicked open. I’ve never been sure why, exactly, doppelgangers had the inherent ability to open locks, but it was such a useful talent, I figured it was best not to question it. As the door opened, I shadowed and made my way cautiously into the lower level of the empty warehouse. A small amount of dim light from the buildings on either side filtered through the high, grimy windows, giving me enough light to make out a couple of large boxes in an otherwise empty room.

‘‘Kostya lives in an abandoned building near Greenwich,’’ Aisling had told me earlier in the day, when Gabriel and Drake were off looking for the two missing bodyguards.

‘‘Does he?’’ I’d asked, a little bit surprised by the sudden change in what had been up to that point innocuous conversation.

‘‘Yes. I’m telling you now because if Gabriel is anything like Drake, he’s not going to want you to do anything on your own. Dragons are like that: very protective, and the wyverns especially so-it’s sweet, really, but they just don’t realize that we are professionals, and sometimes, we need to be given some space to do our own thing.’’

I nodded. I had a suspicion I was being kept out of the way, which was already rankling.

‘‘You have quite a reputation as being able to take… well, just about anything, I guess. I mean, anyone who can break into Dr. Kostich’s house and take something valuable has got to be pretty good at what she does.’’

I squirmed a little in the chair, my eyes on the figure of Cyrene and the demon dog Jim as they wandered around the garden. ‘‘Er… thank you. I think.’’

‘‘Oh, that was a compliment,’’ Aisling said, laughing. ‘‘I have nothing but respect for strong women who go after what they want. But that’s neither here nor there-I’ll write down Kostya’s address for you. If you’re going back to London tonight, you’ll want to have a look around his place to see just what’s what.’’

I slid her a curious glance. ‘‘Do you think Kostya is lying about the phylactery, and Maata and Tipene?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she said after a moment of thought. ‘‘It’s hard for me to read Kostya. In some ways, he’s very much like Drake, but in others, he’s a complete stranger. His emotions are so volatile. My uncle believes that stems from a prisoner-of-war mentality, but I am starting to believe that it’s just his personality. Either way, I know you’ll want to look around at his place, and figured I’d give you what information we have.’’

I made a mental note to thank Aisling again for her help. I hated to think what I might have done if I’d been forced to rely on just the blackmailer’s information.

The amulet was bound to be with the rest of Kostya’s valuables, which meant I needed to go to a small room on the second floor that Drake-the only one besides Kostya who had actually seen it-had told Aisling was protected pretty heavily by a variety of electronic alarms and locks.

‘‘Nothing like killing two birds with one stone, I guess,’’ I said to myself.

There was a sort of mezzanine in the warehouse, a flight of rickety stairs leading upward to what probably had been administrative offices. I walked carefully down the narrow hallway, avoiding both the rats, which couldn’t see me when I shadow walked, and the broken office furniture, which had been piled along the inner wall. A faint red blinking light high up near the ceiling warned of a security camera. I paused in front of the door to the last office, eyeing it carefully. I knew that to normal eyes it would look like a perfectly normal wooden door, equipped with an electronic lock linked to a retina-scan unit attached to the wall next to it. But the door bore things that the casual observer might have missed, such as the illegible words that were apparently etched into the door’s surface.

‘‘Dragon’s bane,’’ I said softly, looking at it carefully from different angles. I’d never seen one before, Magoth (wisely) never having demanded I burgle a dragon, but Aisling had warned me that any treasure Kostya held might be guarded by a bane.

This one looked powerful, glowing gold against the dark wooden door. I sighed, trying to remember what else Aisling had said about it.

‘‘They’re really tricky, and can be deadly if you don’t know what you’re doing,’’ I recalled her saying, leaning close and speaking quickly as Cyrene and Jim approached. ‘‘I went through four demons breaking Fiat’s bane, but honestly, I wouldn’t advise you to mess with anything Kostya has protected with a bane. It’s just bound to be too dangerous.’’

Those words came back to me now as I examined the door for signs of any weakness. There were none. A quick look at the other rooms, locked by conventional means, yielded nothing as well. I climbed out of the window of the room next to the sealed one, moving carefully along the narrow six-inch stone ledge. I had serious doubts that Kostya would be stupid enough to ignore any entrance into his lair, but figured it couldn’t hurt to check.