Pia paused and looked back at the other woman.
The witch held her gaze. “If you’re personally involved with the man that is intended for, I’m here to tell you, honey, he isn’t worth it.”
A harsh laugh escaped her. She hefted the backpack higher onto one shoulder. “If only my problems were that simple.”
Something moved under the surface of the other woman’s lovely dark eyes. The shift of thought looked calculating, but that could have been a trick of the late-afternoon light. In the next moment her beautiful face wore an indifferent mask, as if she had already mentally moved on to other things.
“Luck, then, chica,” the witch said. “You need to buy something else, come back anytime.”
Pia swallowed and said past a dry throat, “Thanks.”
The witch shut her door and Pia loped to the end of the block, then moved into the sidewalk traffic.
Pia hadn’t shared her name. After the first rebuff, the witch knew not to ask and she hadn’t offered. She wondered if she had TROUBLE tattooed on her forehead. Or maybe it was in her sweat. Desperation had a certain smell to it.
Her fingers brushed the front pocket of her jeans where she’d slipped the oath binding, wrapped in a plain white handkerchief. A strong magical glow emanated through the distressed denim and made her hand tingle. Maybe after she met with the shithead and concluded their transaction, she could take her first deep breath in days. She supposed she should be grateful the witch hadn’t been more of a shark.
Then Pia heard the most terrible sound of her life. It started low like a vibration, but one so deep in power it shook her bones. She slowed to a stop along with the other pedestrians. People shaded their eyes and looked around as the vibration grew into a roar that swept through the streets and rattled the buildings.
The roar was a hundred freight trains, tornadoes, Mount Olympus exploding in a rain of fire and flood.
Pia fell to her knees and threw her arms over her head. Others screamed and did the same. Still others looked around wildeyed, trying to spot the disaster. Some ran panicked down the street. The nearby intersections were dotted with car accidents as frightened drivers lost control and slammed into one another.
Then the roar died away. Buildings settled. The cloudless sky was serene, but New York City most certainly was not.
Alrighty.
She pushed upright on unsteady legs and mopped her sweat-dampened face, oblivious to the chaos churning around her.
She knew what—who—had made that unholy sound and why. The knowledge made her guts go watery.
If she were in a race for her life, that roar was the starter pistol. If God were the referee, He had just shouted Go.
He had been born along with the solar system. Give or take.
He remembered a transcendent light and an immense wind. Modern science called it a solar wind. He recalled a sensation of endless flight, an eternal basking in light and magic so piercing and young and pure it rang like the trumpeting of thousands of angels.
His massive bones and flesh must have been formed along with the planets. He became bound to Earth. He knew hunger and learned to hunt and eat. Hunger taught him concepts such as before and after, and danger and pain and pleasure.
He began to have opinions. He liked the gush of blood as he gorged on flesh. He liked drowsing on a baked rock in the sun. He adored launching into the air, taking wing and riding thermals high above the ground, so like that first endless-seeming ecstasy of flight.
After hunger, he discovered curiosity. New species burgeoned. There were the Wyrkind, Elves, both Light and Dark Fae, tall bright-eyed beings and squat mushroom-colored creatures, winged nightmares and shy things that puttered in foliage and hid whenever he appeared. What came to be known as the Elder Races tended to cluster in or around magic-filled dimensional pockets of Other land, where time and space had buckled when the earth was formed and the sun shone with a different light.
Magic had a flavor like blood, only it was golden and warm like sunlight. It was good to gulp down with red flesh.
He learned language by listening in secret to the Elder Races. He practiced on his own when he took flight, mulling over each word and its meaning. The Elder Races had several words for him.
Wyrm, they called him. Monster. Evil. The Great Beast.
Dragua.
Thus he was named.
He didn’t notice at first when the first modern Homo sapiens began to proliferate in Africa. Of all species, he wouldn’t have guessed they would flourish. They were weak, had short life spans, no natural armor, and were easy to kill.
He kept an eye on them and learned their languages. Just as other Wyrkind did, he developed the skill of shapeshifting so he could walk among them. They dug up the things of Earth he liked, gold and silver, sparkling crystals and precious gems, which they shaped into creations of beauty. Acquisitive by nature, he collected what caught his eye.
This new species spread across the world, so he created secret lairs in underground caverns where he gathered his possessions.
His hoard included works of the Elves, the Fae and the Wyr, as well as human creations such as gold and silver and copper plates, goblets, religious artifacts and coinage of all sorts. Money, now, there was a concept that intrigued him, attached as it was to so many other interesting concepts like trade, politics, war and greed. There were also cascades of loose crystals and precious gems and crafted jewelry of all sorts. His hoard grew to include writings from all Elder Races and from humankind, as books were an invention he (only sometimes) thought was more precious than any other treasure.
Along with his interest in history, mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, alchemy and magic, he became intrigued with modern science. He traveled to England to have a conversation on the origin of species with a famous scientist in the nineteenth century. They had gotten drunk together—the Englishman with rather more desperation than he—and had talked through the witching hours until the night mist had been burned to vapor by the sun.
He remembered telling the clever drunken scientist that he and humankind civilization had a lot in common. The difference was his experience was couched in a single entity, one set of memories. In a way, that meant he embodied all stages of evolution at once—beast and predator, magician and aristocrat, violence and intellectualism. He was not so sure he had acquired humanlike emotions. He had certainly not acquired their morality. Perhaps his greatest achievement was law.
Humans in different cultures also had many words for him. Ryu, they called him. Wyvern. Naga. To the Aztecs he was the winged serpent Quetzalcoatl whom they called God.
Dragos.
When he discovered the theft, Dragos Cuelebre exploded into the sky with long thrusts from a wingspan approaching that of an eight-seater Cessna jet.
Modern life had gotten complicated. His usual habit was to focus Power on averting aircraft when he flew or, simpler yet, just file a flight plan with the local air traffic control. With his outrageous wealth and position as one of the eldest and most powerful of the Wyr, life scrambled to arrange itself to his liking.
He wasn’t so polite this time. This was more a get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way kind of flight. He was blinded with rage, violent with incredulity. Lava flowed through ancient veins and his lungs worked like bellows. As he approached the zenith of his climb, his long head snapped back and forth, and he roared again. The sound ripped the air as his razor claws mauled an imaginary foe.
All of his claws except for those on one front foot held a tiny scrap of something fragile and, to be frank, inconceivable. This tiny scrap was as ludicrous and as nonsensical to him as a hot fudge sundae topping an ostrich’s head. The cherry on the hot fudge sundae was the elusive whiff of scent that clung to the scrap. It teased his senses into a frenzy as it reminded him of something so long ago that he couldn’t quite remember what it was—
His mind went white-hot and slipped from its mooring in time. Existing in his wrath he flew until he came to himself and beg
an to think again.
Then Rune said in his head, My lord? Are you well?
Dragos cocked his head, for the first time coming aware that his First flew behind him at a discreet distance. It was a measure of his rage that he hadn’t noticed. Any other time Dragos was aware of everything that happened within his vicinity.
Dragos noted that Rune’s telepathic voice was as calm and neutral as the other male’s physical voice would have been had he spoken the words aloud.
There were many reasons why Dragos had made Rune his First in his Court. Those reasons were why Rune had thrived in his service for so long. The other male was seasoned, mature and dominant enough to hold authority in a sometimes unruly Wyr society. He was intelligent with a capacity for cunning and violence that came close to Dragos’s own.
Most of all, Rune had a gift for diplomacy that Dragos had never achieved. That talent made the younger male useful when treating with the other Elder Courts. It also helped him to navigate rocky weather when Dragos was in a rage.
Dragos’s jaw clenched and he ground massive teeth shaped for maximum carnage. After a moment, he answered, I am well.
How may I be of service? his First asked.
His mind threatened to seize again in sheer incredulity of what he had found. He snarled, There has been a theft.
A pause. Rune asked, My lord?
For once his First’s legendary coolness had been shaken. It gave him a grim sense of satisfaction. A THIEF, Rune. He bit at each word. A THIEF has broken into my hoard and taken something of mine.
Rune took several moments to absorb his words. Dragos let him have the time.
The crime was impossible. It had never happened, not in all the millennia of his existence. Yet it had happened now. First someone had somehow found his hoard, which was an incredible feat in itself. An elaborate fake setup complete with state-of-the-art security was located below the basement levels of Cuelebre Tower, but no one knew the location of Dragos’s actual hoard except himself.
His actual hoard was protected by powerful cloaking and aversion spells older than the pharaoh tombs of Egypt and as subtle as tasteless poison on the tongue. But after locating his secret lair, the thief had managed to slip past all of Dragos’s physical and magical locks, like a knife slicing through butter. Even worse, the thief managed to slip out again the same way.
The only warning Dragos had received was a nagging unease that had plagued him all afternoon. His unease had increased to the point where he couldn’t settle down until he went to check on his property.
He had known his lair had been infiltrated as soon as he had set foot near the hidden entrance to the underground cavern. Still, he couldn’t believe it, even after he had torn inside to discover the indisputable evidence of the theft, along with something else that trumped all other inconceivability.
He looked down at his clenched right foot. He wheeled in an abrupt motion to set a return path to the city. Rune followed and settled smoothly into place behind him, his rear right wingman.
You are to locate this thief. Do everything possible, Dragos said. Everything, you understand. Use all magical and non-magical means. Nothing else exists for you. No other tasks, no other diversions. Pass all of your current duties on to Aryal or Grym.
I understand, my lord, Rune said, keeping his mental voice quiet.
Dragos sensed other conversations in the air, although no one dared direct contact with him. He suspected his First had begun giving orders to transfer duties to the others.
He said, Be very clear about something, Rune. I do not want this thief harmed or killed by anyone but myself. You are not to allow it. You should be sure of the people you use on this hunt.
I will.
It will be on your head if something goes wrong, Dragos told him. He couldn’t have articulated even to himself why he pressed the matter with this creature who for centuries had been as steady and reliable as a metronome. His claws clenched on his implausible scrap of evidence. Understood?
Understood, my lord, Rune replied, calm as ever.
Good enough, he growled.
Dragos noticed they had returned over the city. The sky around them was clear of all air traffic. He soared in a wide circle to settle on the spacious landing pad atop Cuelebre Tower. As soon as he settled he shifted into his human shape, a massive six-foot-eight dark-haired male with dark bronze skin and gold raptor’s eyes.
Dragos turned to watch Rune land. The gryphon’s majestic wings shone in the fading afternoon sun until the other male also shifted into his human form, a tawny-haired male almost as massive as Dragos himself.
Rune lowered his head to Dragos in a brief bow of respect before loping to the roof doors. After the other male had left, Dragos unclenched his right fist in which he held a crumbled scrap of paper.
Why had he not told Rune about it? Why was he not even now calling the gryphon back to tell him? He didn’t know. He just obeyed the impulse to secrecy.
Dragos held the paper to his nose and inhaled. A scent still clung to the paper, which had absorbed oil from the thief’s hand. It was a feminine scent that smelled like wild sunshine and it was familiar in a way that pulled at all of Dragos’s deepest instincts.
He stood immobile, eyes closed as he concentrated on inhaling that wild feminine sunshine in deep breaths. There was something about it, something from a long time ago. If only he could remember. He had lived for so long, his memory was a vast and convoluted tangle. It could take him weeks to locate the memory.
He strained harder for that elusive time with a younger sun, a deep green forest and a celestial scent that drove him crashing through the underbrush—
The fragile memory thread broke. A low growl of frustration rumbled through his chest. He opened his eyes and willed himself not to shred the paper he held with such tense care.
It occurred to Dragos that Rune had forgotten to ask what the thief had stolen.
His underground lair was enormous by necessity, with cavern upon cavern filled with a hoard the likes of which the world had never seen. The treasure of empires filled the caves.
Astonishing works of beauty graced rough cavern walls. Items of magic, miniature portraits, tinkling crystal earrings that threw rainbows in the lamplight. Art masterpieces packed to protect them from the environment. Rubies and emeralds and diamonds the size of goose eggs, and loops upon loops of pearls. Egyptian scarabs, cartouches and pendants. Greek gold, Syrian statues, Persian gems, Chinese jade, Spanish treasure from sunken ships. He even kept a modern coin collection he had started several years ago and added to in a haphazard way whenever he remembered.
On the ostrich’s head was a hot fudge sundae. . . .
His obsessive attention to detail, an immaculate memory of each and every piece in that gigantic treasure, a trail of scent like wild sunshine, and instinct had all led Dragos to the right place. He discovered the thief had taken a U.S.-minted 1962 copper penny from a jar of coins he had not yet bothered to put into a coin collecting book.
. . . and on the hot fudge sundae atop that ostrich’s head perched a cherry. . . .
The thief had left something for him in place of what she had taken. She had perched it with care on top of the coin jar. It was a message written on a scrap of paper in a spidery, unsteady hand. The message was wrapped around an offering.
I’m sorry, the message said.
The theft was a violation of privacy. It was an unbelievable act of impudence and disrespect. Not only that, it was—baffling. He was murderous, incandescent with fury. He was older than sin and could not remember when he had last been in such a rage.
He looked at the paper again.
I’m sorry I had to take your penny. Here’s another to replace it.
Yep, that’s what it said.
One corner of his mouth twitched. He gave himself a deep shock when he burst into an explosive guffaw.
TWO
Pia spent the next hour trekking across town. She witnessed how the city transformed
after that unholy sound, as if it were a painting some artist smeared with sinister streaks of dark colors. Stress carved itself into the expressions of the people she passed on the street. Anger erupted in shouted confrontations, and clumps of uniformed policemen appeared. Pedestrians moved with greater urgency. Smaller shops and kiosks put out CLOSED signs and locked their doors.
In normal circumstances she would have taken the subway, but as ugly as the mood had turned on the streets, she wasn’t about to risk getting trapped underground. At last she stood in front of the shithead’s door.
The tenement where he lived was in miserable condition. She breathed through her mouth and tried to ignore the used condom on the floor of the stairwell and the baby squalling two apartments down. After she did this one last thing and she stopped by work to say good-bye to Quentin, she was so out of here.
The door yanked open. Her fist was moving before she had fully laid eyes on him. He doubled over as she punched him in the stomach.
He wheezed and coughed. “Fuck, bitch!”
“Ow!” She shook open her fist. Thumb outside, not inside, dummy.
He straightened and glared at her as he rubbed his abdomen. Then he started to smile. “You did it, didn’t you? You actually, really did it.”
“Like you gave me a choice,” she snapped. She shoved at his shoulder. It knocked him back enough so she could stalk inside and slam the door shut.
His smile turned into a gleeful laugh. He fist-pumped the air. “Yes!”
Pia regarded him, her gaze bitter. Shithead, aka Keith Hollins, had amiable good looks with shaggy dishwater blond hair and a surfer’s body. His cocky grin had women flocking to him like flies to honey.
She had been one of those flies once. Then disillusionment had set in. She had thought him kind when he was charming. She had taken his caressing manner for real affection and called him boyish when the truth was he was selfish to the bone. He was Captain Fantastic in his own mind. He created the fiction that he was a risk taker when in reality he was a gambling addict.