“I told you that you’d need me,” I said smugly as I dusted off my hands and admired my handiwork. I’d drawn five summoning circles, each completed just enough to generate the vile black smoke that billowed out of the floor and filled the corridors.
Kostya snorted, but looked rather surprised at how well the smoke covered our presence. We waited until it obscured us enough to slip past the video cameras, and hurried downstairs before someone could hit the panic button.
Drake caught the two blue dragons who were patrolling their way up the stairs by surprise, handily disabling them. Although he didn’t flinch at inflicting violence when he had to, he preferred a bloodless lifestyle. I smiled with approval when Pál whipped out a syringe gun and knocked out the two struggling dragons the other men were holding. Two more men stationed in the lower hall were likewise dealt with, Pál wielding his anesthetic with great aplomb.
“How long will they be out?” I asked Pál as Drake pulled a sleeping dragon to the room where we were storing them.
“Two hours minimum. They’ll wake up with a hell of a headache, too,” he answered, grinning.
It took a while for us to work through the more populated ground floors, but with István manning the electronics, Drake and Kostya taking down the guards as we found them, and Pál knocking them out, we cleared all the rooms but the most promising one.
The door to the basement was warded and bore an electronic lock.
“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked.
Drake rubbed his chin while examining the lock. “Possibly. It’s the same sort of lock I have. They are supposed to be the ultimate in security, although in this case, I have to hope the claim is overly confident.”
Jim and I sat down and waited while the boys discussed the situation, pulling out a number of gadgets to try on the lock.
Nothing seemed to work. I was just indulging in a big yawn when Drake growled an oath as he slammed the last electronic gizmo down.
“What about Aisling?” Kostya asked, nodding at me.
I stopped yawning and tried to look perky and attentive. “Hello!”
“She’s a Guardian—maybe she can break the lock.”
“Hmm.” Drake gave me a speculative look and held out his hand for me.
I toddled over and prodded the keypad of the lock a couple of times. “I’m afraid I don’t know a ward for unlocking things, not that I’m sure such a thing exists.”
“Perhaps there is something else you can do to it,” Drake said, frustration evident in his voice.
I knew how important this was to him, so I didn’t answer that Guardians were never meant to be housebreakers, and instead, gave the lock a quick once-over. It was housed in stainless steel, but the main components of it were plastic.
“Is it fireproof?” I asked, thinking maybe the combined dragon fire from four dragons might melt the sucker.
“Not the insides, but the outer casing is. We couldn’t do enough damage to it to get to the sensitive parts.”
“Hmm.” I reached out to poke at it again, but the dry, cold environment caused me to get a static shock when I touched the metal housing. I jumped back, laughing.
“You’ve thought of something?” Drake asked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s a computer at the heart of the lock, right?”
He nodded.
“And what do computers hate?”
The four men just looked at me.
I smiled. “Watch this.”
The little door in my mind swung open as I closed my eyes for a moment and used my enhanced vision to see all the possibilities. Static electricity was thick in the room—I simply gathered it together between my hands, shaping it as I would dragon fire.
“Uh…Ash?”
“Shh. I’m concentrating.”
“Yeah, I can tell. Someone want to put that out before the alarm goes off?”
“Huh?” I opened my eyes and swung around, a glowing blue ball of electricity hovering between my hands. Behind me, the kitchen table that sat in the middle of the room was on fire. “I didn’t do that! I can’t use Drake’s fire anymore, remember? It must be Kostya. He has horrible control over his fire.”
“I do not! I am very controlled!” Kostya fumed as Pál and István used dish towels to slap out the fire.
“Uh-huh. Then why were you setting Drake’s secret room alight earlier today?”
“That wasn’t me! Someone else must have done it.”
I shook my head. “Everyone here can control their fire. Well, except me, but like I said, ever since I became Fiat’s mate, I haven’t been able to use Drake’s fire at all.” I didn’t tell them how profoundly sad I was over that, missing the way we’d share his fire in moments of great intimacy.
Drake looked thoughtful for a moment before walking over to stand in front of me. “Kiss me.”
“What?” I glanced at the others. “I thought you didn’t like me doing that in front of sept members.”
“It’s not a matter of like or dislike, it’s a matter of respect, but that point is moot at this moment. Kiss me.”
He put his hands on my arms and would have pulled me to his body, but I still held the ball of electricity. I dispersed it, shaking my hands to lose the tingling feeling that came from holding energy. “OK, but you asked for it.”
Drake stood passive while I nibbled on his lips, my tongue teasing his mouth until it parted for me. I tasted and nipped and squirmed against him in a silent attempt to make him give me what I wanted, but he wouldn’t.
“Fire!” I finally said, pulling back just long enough to speak. “Give me your fire.”
His lips were as hot as ever as I kissed him again, his fire building within him until it spilled over into me, roaring through me with the velocity of a bullet. It fired my blood, scorched every cell in my body, setting alight not just my physical being, but my soul as well. I flung open the mental doorway and sent the fire back to him.
“Anyone got some hot dogs or marshmallows?”
I ripped my mouth from Drake’s, joy welling inside me as I realized that Drake and I stood together, flames licking up our legs. “It’s back!” I said, unable to contain myself as I did a little fire dance. “I have your fire again! But…how?”
His eyes glittered like backlit emeralds on black velvet. “I do not know, but I can guess. You are my mate again, kincsem. That is all that matters.”
“Woohoo!” I screamed, and leaped on him. He let me kiss his adorable face for a few seconds before patting my butt and reminding me of the job at hand.
“Later, we will investigate this miracle in fuller detail,” he said, his eyes promising all sorts of wicked acts.
“Boinksville, here we come,” Jim said as I stamped out the flames around us.
It took three balls of electricity slammed into it point-blank before the lock gave up the ghost. After that, the subsequent locks on the three inner doors were a piece of cake, and in no time at all, we were deep underground, in a labyrinth of dirt-floored tunnels that stretched out into darkness.
Drake, with the unerring instinct of dragons, led us down one of the tunnels until we arrived at an ancient stone door. We were in a section that was lit by yellow lamps clamped to either side of the passage. I trailed along after the dragons, trying to count the number of doors as we passed them, but lost track by the time we entered a natural cavern with a ceiling a couple of stories high that framed a gigantic stone door.
Just as Drake announced, “This is the entrance to Fiat’s lair. It will be heavily protected. Aisling?” I noticed something peculiar.
“Yeah, it looks nasty. Hey, come have a look at this.”
He frowned as I indicated a door set into the side wall of the cavern. “We do not have time to explore. I wish for you to look at this door now.”
“I’ll make a deal with you—I’ll look at your door if you look at mine.”
His lips thinned. “We do not have much time remaining to us.”
“Fine. But you have
to look at mine next.” I stood in front of the giant stone door and took a good long look at it. Surprisingly, there were no locks on it. There were a whole lot of other things, however. “There are three…no, four wards on it. One curse, one prohibition, and something I’ve never seen before. It’s like words scratched into the surface of the stone.”
“That would be Fiat’s bane.”
“Bane?”
“A dragon’s bane is like a curse. It is unique to each dragon and used to protect their treasure from thieves. It can cause grievous injury and most likely death if disturbed. It will be the most difficult element for us to overcome.”
“Lovely. Now come look at my door.” I took his hand and started to pull him toward the door on the side wall.
“Mate, we do not have time—”
“I think you need to make time for this,” I answered with a meaningful look.
Kostya gave an exasperated sigh. “Drake! It will take at least an hour to break this door, possibly two. We must start on it now, not give in to your woman’s curiosity.”
“I’m so glad I met you first,” I told Drake. “If I’d known only Kostya, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet his brother.”
His expression was grave as I stopped in front of the door. “I trust you have a very good reason for this.”
“Yup. Take a look at that.” I gestured toward the small wooden door. It was made up of planks, bound together with bands of iron, and looked like something out of a medieval castle.
He looked. Behind us, Pál and István approached. Jim squinted at the door, saw what I saw, and raised both brows.
“It is a wall,” Drake said. “What’s special about it?”
I traced the outline of a simple ward. “It’s not just a wall, it’s a door, and it’s warded. You can’t see it because you didn’t draw it, but it is warded—with a perdu ward.”
That got everyone’s attention. I smiled to myself as the men crowded around the door. Perdu wards, as I have mentioned, are only used when someone wishes to obscure the entrance to somewhere. The fact that no one had noticed the door but me was of minor interest. That it was warded to be hidden indicated that something of importance was behind it.
“Can you open it?” Drake asked, fumbling around blindly until his hands closed on the curved door handle. He tried turning it but it was locked.
“No, but there are no other wards on the door. It’s wooden, so I think you should be able to break it down.”
All four dragons focused on the door. It didn’t so much burn as explode, bits of hot, twisted metal flying every where, a hail of scorched wood drifting down after it.
I had been ordered to the other side of the cavern, something I was grateful for as I picked my way through the debris. Drake held out a hand for me, following as Kostya led the way into the now-opened room.
“Now this is creepy,” I said, looking around the brightly lit room with a sense of something seriously awry. The walls were stuccoed a pale beige. Lights built into the ceiling beamed cheerfully down on a tasteful living room suite of blue tweed. A flat screen TV was attached to one wall, while bookcases lined two other walls. Behind us, a small dining room table sat with four chairs. An entrance led to what I assumed was a small kitchen.
“This is…someone’s apartment?” I asked, noting the signs of occupancy. A large ashtray on a coffee table bore several cigar stubs. A glass of whisky sat next to an oversized chair, a book resting on the arm of the chair, as if its owner had set it down for a moment.
“That’s what it looks like,” Drake said, opening a door and flipping on a light. A large bed dominated the inner room. “The question is, who lives here?”
Kostya picked up the book, flipping through it. “Whoever it is, he reads Latin. Not a very pleasant reading choice, either.”
I peered over his shoulder to read the title. He handed me the book as he went to scan the bookcase. “Huh. He’s reading a grimoire. I haven’t seen this one before. It looks like it was just printed. I wonder who the publisher is.”
Drake and his men opened the two other doors of the apartment, not finding anything of interest. I flipped the book open to the title page. “Ah. Bookplate. Uh…Drake? I think you need to see this.”
“Let me have it,” Kostya said, taking the book without so much as a “please” slipping past his lips.
He stared at the embossed plate on the inner front of the book, a pallor washing over his face.
Jim put its front legs on the chair and peered over Kostya’s arm. “Oh, man.”
“Who does it belong to?” Drake asked, shuffling through a stack of papers on a small mahogany desk.
“There’s just one name,” I said, pulling the book from Kostya’s bloodless fingers. His eyes were wide and staring, looking inward at something only he could see.
Jim backed away, its expression wary.
“Yes? What name?”
I held the book out to Drake. “Baltic.”
22
“Tell me again why we’re doing this if I can share your fire? Doesn’t that mean I’m not Fiat’s mate, and we don’t have to worry about him any longer?”
“The circumstances lead me to believe that is so, but until I know for certain that Fiat has no claim over you, we will proceed.”
I sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have something we can use to ensure his good behavior.”
It had been a long two hours. Dealing with the door to Fiat’s lair would have been tough enough without having four dragons in denial as we worked to break through the intricate protections Fiat had used to safeguard his hoard.
“Fiat must have come by some of Baltic’s library,” Drake insisted, pacing behind where I sat as the four demons I had summoned worked on unmaking the last of the wards. Demons can’t, as a rule, unmake a ward, unless the wards drawn were of a demonic nature, which surprisingly these were. The prohibition—a weakish sort of curse—had already been lifted, as well as the curse proper; those required a creature of dark being to create them, and thus, assuming you had the capability of summoning and commanding demons, were easily destroyed. “There can be no other rational explanation. Baltic is dead. I saw him die. He was cleaved in two. Not even a dragon can survive that.”
“Yeah, well, Gabriel thinks he’s alive. Maybe he wasn’t cleaved all the way through?” I said, watching the demons as they unmade the last ward.
Drake whirled around to face me, Kostya leaping up from where he’d been sitting on a rock. “What did you say?”
“I said Gabriel thinks Baltic is alive. I told you on the way down from that aerie about the conversation I had with him.”
Drake rubbed his eyes for a moment. “I was tired and not listening as well as I ought. Are you sure he said Baltic was alive?”
“Well…he didn’t say that in so many words, but he spoke of Baltic in the present tense. I got the distinct feeling the guy was still alive and kicking.”
Drake and Kostya exchanged glances.
“You both were there when you saw him die?” I asked, momentarily distracted from the puzzle of Fiat’s lair door.
“Yes,” Drake answered, looking away.
“Oh, like that’s not a red flag she’s gonna pounce on?” Jim asked from where it lay on my feet. It shook its big furry head.
I crossed my arms. “Go on. You know I’m not going to leave it alone until you tell me about it.”
“This is none of your business,” Kostya said firmly, marching over to glare at the demons.
Drake pinched his lip.
“Sweetie?” I asked, waiting for him to spill.
“Technically, he’s right. It has nothing to do with the green dragons—”
I stopped him. “If it includes you, it’s my business.”
He was silent.
“Oh, go on and tell us,” Jim urged. “You know Princess Nosy isn’t going to be happy until you spill, and I gotta admit, I’m a bit curious, too. We never got news of dragon stuff in Abaddon. E
xcept the plagues, of course, which ticked off the lords because they thought you guys were encroaching on demon territory. But other than that—nada.”
“You know I hate to agree with Jim on the sheer principle of the thing, and I won’t soon forget that Princess Nosy comment, but what did happen to Baltic?”
Drake was silent for a handful of seconds, then said simply, “Kostya killed him.”
I thought my eyes were going to bug right out of my head. “Kostya killed Baltic? Your brother Kostya, not some strange Kostya I don’t know about?”
He nodded.
I looked at the man pacing back and forth behind the demons as they worked. “But…he’s a black dragon! Baltic was his wyvern! You can kill your own wyverns? Isn’t that, like, really bad?”
“Yes. It is not something that is done often, and it’s not a subject I am prepared to discuss with you at this time. You wished to possess the facts, and now you do. Explanations will have to wait.”
“Do you seriously think you can drop a bombshell like that on me and not answer the hundred or so questions I have about it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said in his most quelling manner.
I opened my mouth to protest, but the glint in his eye was one I didn’t particularly wish to mess with.
“Will wonders never cease? You got her to shut up. That’s gotta be a first.”
I pointed at the large stone door. “Right, Mr. Mouthy. Go work on the bane.”
Jim’s eyes widened. “Me?” it squeaked. “Those things are dangerous! I could get killed!”
“You can’t be kil—”
“My fabulous form could be destroyed!”
“Is the bane really that dangerous?” I asked Drake.
“It could destroy whoever tries to break it if it is not handled properly,” he answered grimly.
“Oh, lovely.” What constituted handled properly? I wondered.
Was that a little inner monologue? Dare I point out that the answer to all your questions is at your fingertips?
“That is why you will have the demons and your steward break it. I will not risk the chance of harm coming to you,” Drake added.