I hate every single one of you, you mewling, pathetic, misogynistic prigs.
Valosterla Roshanikov has been repeating that in her head at the company meeting, on the twelfth floor of the Magitech Industries Corporate Building, and for good reason. Terry is busy prattling on about projected growth for the next quarter. Matthews is eyeballing her shirt and arcane-enhanced business suit again in an extremely unsubtle way. And while her figure is divine, he is completely, utterly below her.
He'd have more luck finding his way into a coffin first than into her bed. A single glare at him left him a lot less brave, and he turns his head to face the corporate meeting. It’s easier than facing the glare of a 180-centimeter woman with all the right curves in all the right places, bright red hair with black highlights, smooth pale white skin that has all the quality of a porcelain doll, and the piercing glare of her blue eyes.
Beautiful ruby-red eyes, she thinks, but they don't know that. Her contacts are standard policy per the Conclave to not have dragons stand out, so blue will have to suffice for now. She could just use a glamor to change her appearance, but why leave a point of failure in maintaining a guise?
If he ogles her again, he will become a corpse. In the meantime, everyone's attention is to the windfall of cash coming their way on the presentation, and organic growth and realized gains.
She's otherwise busy with items far more worthy of her attention than this utter drivel. Such as reviewing the footage from the disaster at Mount Syren. Every Talons operative's camera feed from her ordered scuttling of the mine to bury evidence has been utterly useless in identifying the culprits. Most of them had been turned off or the quality was too terrible for effective use during the torch and burn. The one that did work had been damaged mid-way through an engagement with three teenagers and four of Crosomer's men. That had been interesting to figure out.
Meaning, every one of them failed to identify the upstart youths who had put several of her soldiers into the medical wing, and Crosomer had swiped all of them afterward, and had them transferred to his controlling division, or King’s.
Trying to rip one of their legs off with her bare hands might have been a bit…excessive, in retrospect. I do need to watch my temper a bit. You’d think that wouldn't be a problem after 1200 years of life. Stupid psycho bitch mom, even though you're dead and buried because I put you there, you left me with some bad habits that I have to force myself to not fall into.
Not that she didn't utterly relish the violence of the battlefield.
Or in bed. She allows a single poisonous grin to emerge on her face for a few seconds at that thought. She glances down at the tablet again. That male, in the mines. The video is too blurry to make out a face, but those azure and silver wings are…familiar.
Why is he familiar? An old enemy? No, he is just Awakening, he's a newcomer. The other two females also showed some aptitude, too. Too far away to make out details, but the raven-haired girl had been a deadly aim, overwhelming spell barriers with concentrated fire.
Who are they? Crosomer had hand waved some explanation, saying he had it handled. Just a couple of children who had been out of their depth.
So, she's sure they're dead now. Crosomer might have been locked away for seven centuries, but he had re-trained rapidly after getting out of the resilient sphere, and is now back up to fighting form.
And he is methodical to a fault. He doesn't leave things to chance.
But why does she have a nagging feeling that this isn't taken care of? They found nothing of value. The equipment was already stripped, at least, the items that mattered. Nothing that could connect to Magitech Industries. And certainly not to me.
She’ll have to make sure King ties up any potential loose ends. He's good with that, though she despises his reluctance to make corpses in the process.
Witnesses might be unreliable, but they're still living evidence that needs to be buried.
“Val, can you comment on the arms sales for next year?” Bernice asks politely, all business and no pleasure for her with her bouncy golden locks and green eyes. She's a sweetie, and Val might relish taking her home, but some boundaries do need to be maintained.
She's not running this place yet. Though that's in the cards. She stands and towers over the boardroom. She'd tower over it more if she could take her true form now, sleek black and midnight blue scales and feathers, with that lovely crimson feather mane, but reasons meant she couldn't.
She needs them to love her for making them money. And not see how much she's been skimming, funneling money to her private army of the Onyx Talons. Not a single one of them has a clue.
“Thank you, Bernice,” Valosterla says sweetly before gesturing to the presentation. “As you can see, our military division has been making considerable year-over-year growth in the sub-divisions of small arms manufacturing, military arms conversion to augment existing weapons platforms, and new armor prototypes. We are also diversifying into Arcanist communications with enhanced encryption, and decreased lag time on transmission with our new line of products.”
This continues for a few minutes as she details the sales, expected contracts with SAF, and additional contract options with several government liaisons who had expressed interest in clandestine, low-visibility Magitech that could be passed off as conventional technology. Essentially, hiding their involvement in the development. The numbers please almost everyone in the room, and there are smiles. And a flushed look from Bernice when Val smiles at her at the end.
Oh you are curious, aren't you? Careful, dear. I’m the delicious poisoned red apple that killed Snow White, and a lot of other adversaries who thought they could bed me. She might have to risk this delicious little Goldilocks, she isn't lacking in personality, just confidence. Probably had been rejected more than once by terrible men or a demanding girlfriend, she theorizes. She's good at figuring that angle.
Usually.
“I want the numbers for our military division broken down by customers. We've been getting complaints that our contracts have been anti-competitive.”
She's usually exceptional at also figuring out which upstart is going to call out a discrepancy, and today it's Bennett. He's been sitting there the whole meeting, like he had a stick up his backside. And he thinks he can pull it out and smack people on the nose with it. She addresses him with her planned counterplay.
“Seventy percent to SAF, fifteen percent to PMCs such as the Valkyries, and the remaining fifteen percent to normal government actors,” she assures him.
“No. I want to know why we're charging so much for our small arms. We could lose the contracts if we keep these prices high. Or the Conclave might go over to Gruber,” Bennett says with a sneer.
Those prices are carefully layered fraud of about fifteen billion over five years, and no one even knew a dime was missing, because they were making so much money. Of course, she could just rely on the trillion-dollar worth of her personal mine and base of operations, but getting that much magicite out into the market without drawing attention is a problem she hasn't gotten a solution in position for. Yet. To say nothing of the adamantine in that mine. That's worth even more.
Bennett must have been checking the books. Damn it. No one has ever bothered to audit them, even though the fraud would be virtually impossible to see. “We have expenditures and engineering time baked into the price point, I can provide the detailed contracts and the terms, though you might want to specify one or two.” She smiles at him, and he just sneers further.
Bennett Magia. The company founder's son. A sniveling little weasel looking to protect his future throne, and accusations of nepotism would be quite accurate here. He's been on her list of obstacles to running this place.
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And she dealt with problems one of two ways. Persuading them that there was much to gain…
Or burying them. She's leaning towards the latter on this one. She even has a theoretical plan, and a false trail of evidence ready. It involves him choking on that thousand-dollar-a-case wine he indulges in. All it would take is a few drops into the bottle, and his insides would start dissolving slowly enough for him to realize he stood no chance. The forensics will, of course, determine that the wine was part of a bad batch of fermented firefruit, and merely cast blame on that unfortunate winery for lack of process controls.
King really does think of everything, even if she had ninety percent of the plan already in position. He also suggested the scorned wife that Bennett had been beating behind the scenes as a backup plan.
She hates an accidental serving of justice. But Bennett has been prying too hard for any rational actor now. He continues to chew on her answer. “If we can charge less, we charge less. We retain customers that way, or they go to Gruber, or they go to Merlin Firetech. Get expenses down."
She knows she can't. Not without cutting corners he knows can't be cut without causing problems. “Aren't we supposed to maximize shareholder profit? Something that your father believes?” she asks sweetly. Poisonously sweet.
“I don't like what you do with all our military contracts, even with our margins this high. I think we get better margins on power systems. Magitech reactors are selling like hotcakes, we need to step up there. There's no new war to fight with mages. That money tap will shut off someday,” he warns her.
But he's not trying to fight her, he's trying to convince the rest of the board. And she's spent time making them money, killing rivals a couple of times, and partnering with the rest to build her influence beyond her station as a senior VP of military sales. She's worked on some of the weapons herself, in person.
She loves new ways of destroying her victims. She smiles as he finishes, but not for the reason he thinks is the case. The meeting is concluding, and he stands to rise, with one last command--he dares to command her? “I want numbers on my desk Monday on how we cut expenditures. We need to get our parasitic costs down ten percent.”
She grins, even at the impossible task. He isn't going to be going to Daddy Dearest to get what he wants this time. He won't be going to anyone soon enough.
"Consider it done," she says with enthusiasm.
I'm going to devour you, Bennett. And I'll start with the little bits of you that you don't need to keep you alive.
Those habits do seem hard to kick, she thinks.
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Valosterla thought that her setbacks couldn't get more severe, but King is on an emergency call now, and has forcibly removed her ability to screen the call on her end. So, she ended up as a semi-unwilling participant while her assistant Melissa Zelinski set up the conference on a secure Arcanlink.
This is not a way to start this week. Melissa is all wavy black hair, leaf green eyes, and a business skirt and blouse, showing just enough to exude confidence, but not enough to entice lecherous eyes. She's deeper skinned than Valosterla, more lithe, and a little less divine. As a Hinterland green, she is an exceptional member of the species. And quite competent in assisting in a wide variety of technically complex problems.
Val didn't like using her for wet work. Melissa can carry out such tasks, but reluctantly. She is indeed worth the pittance she paid to make paperwork disappear from a quiet Ukrainian orphanage ten years ago–after the little clever girl had pickpocketed her on a business routine with some arms dealer for more armaments for the Talons.
Later, after Val caught up to her and threatened to tear her apart one limb at a time, the sneaky girl pointed out her flaws in her personal defense enchantment, and blind spots on her route. She even pointed out the shroud enchantment that she had used to approach so closely without being detected. No optical camo gear required.
And she had picked Val specifically for the challenge. For the first time in ages, her murderous mood had been soothed by calm, collected words.
She took in the upstart young dragon on the spot, and trained the teenage girl to be something more than just a clever thief. It was nice to have someone competent she sort of considered an errant daughter.
Unlike her son, who her now ex-lover had shuffled away and tried to get him to focus on business, and not eviscerating his enemies. She allows herself a single growl of annoyance.
“Problem, Val?” Melissa asks in a soft, unwavering voice with hints of honey.
“I just like to have the bad news at the early hours of the day, so I can have problems resolved or dead by lunchtime,” she says with a soft huff. “King, what is so important that you have to bother me at my work?”
“We have a problem. SAF is now aware of our efforts in Opechea Falls. Even despite my best efforts to redirect and otherwise get them to prioritize lesser efforts, higher-ups are aware of the Mount Syren Mine operation. They're sending a team to survey the site and extract evidence. With the minehead collapsed, they'll have their work cut out for them.”
“So kill them,” Valosterla growls.
“Val, you know as well as I do that killing our way to solutions is not practical, and will earn more attention. Our best move is to do nothing, in this case. By the time they find anything, it'll be weeks-old evidence, and nothing to indicate our current activities. Robespierre informed me that all critical data and personnel,” he adds with the slightest hint of irritation, “are now at our secure facility after taking inventory.”
“So what's the problem?”
“I have reason to believe they may discover other activities. We should begin packing up our clandestine lab. And I want to make it clear that burying problems isn't a solution this time, given its…location.” That's the first time King has ever explicitly ruled out violence. “I need a few days of distractions to draw their attention, and reprioritize personnel.”
“Oh?” He's making a request of her--he's going to owe her, and she knows he hates asking her, and prefers self-sufficiency. He must be in a tight bind.
“I still need some items from Gruber Arms Company. Make some noise. A lot of noise.” Even though he's as professional as they come, he can still sneak in an errant bit of humor that most others wouldn't get away with. “We can be packed up and dismantled in four days.”
“Three,” Valosterla counters. “I still have a business to run, you know. I'm busy working my way to the top, and by this time next year, you’ll be greeting the new CEO of Magitech Industries, and then I don't have to keep up the guise to that fat bastard, Bennett senior.”
She can't wait to see that old fogey die in his bed. She does want to make that one...intimate. She licks her lips in anticipation of the deed. King frowns even as she relishes the thought.
“Priorities, Val. Your day job is essential to our efforts, but this is a delicate dance. A misstep will be costly, and cooler heads must prevail.” It's almost as if he can read her mind.
“Oh, I trust you, King. But patience is not infinite,” she states with a sneer. “If I get you three days, will you be done?”
“Three days. You have my word. We’ll be in touch.” He disconnects the call after she gives him a single nod. She taps her nails on the desk, and Melissa clears her throat. “Your thoughts?” she asks her in an implied permission to speak freely.
“King’s up to something. He is working on this, but he's up to some secondary task,” she assesses. “They don't call him the Kingmaker for nothing.”
“It's delightful to know that even as mortally weak as he is, he is still exceptionally good at securing his importance,” Valosterla purrs. She likes that in a man. He didn't let his weaknesses stop him, few as they were. “We’ll keep an eye on him. Though, I suspect he's also planned for that.”
“Awakening two point one million dragons, tearing down the Conclave, setting up a new government, and giving guidance to the rest of the world? He's got contingencies to contingencies,” Melissa grouses with a toss of her hair. “I still don't trust him.”
“Well, I didn't trust you either, when you successfully stole my brooch,” Valosterla retorts with a light smile. “Let's get back to tearing down this institution first, before I become the first dragon CEO, shall we?”
“I get Bennett Junior's office. If he ever smacks my ass again, I won't wait for you to dispose of him,” Melissa snarls. “I even have a plan for an unfortunate industrial accident down in weapons testing. It'll be quite tragic. And fitting. He's still beating his wife weekly, and that's one score I want to see corrected,” she adds with a grim smile.
“See, that's what I love about you Melissa. Initiative,” Valosterla grins. “I guess we’ll have to reset the ‘working days since an accident’ counter soon, won't we?”
“Indeed,” Melissa adds with a light smile. "Well, this is no singing and dancing gig, but it's fun in its own ways."
"Hmm, don't I know it. Still say I could have the world to my dance and tune as a singer, but Friday nights will have to scratch that itch," she says with a contented sigh.
All in a day's work.