"Oh," I said, more than a little relieved that he hadn't browsed through my mind pulling out bits of whatever information interested him. I hadn't forgotten Ophelia's warning that the blue dragons were noted for their psychic abilities. "I suppose it does make sense, then."
"Also," Fiat said with the Italian version of the Gallic shrug, "I browsed through your mind pulling out bits of information that interested me."
"Stop that!" I yelled, jumping up to my feet. "Stop barging into my head! You're not allowed to do that."
"But, cam," he protested, pulling me back onto the couch next to him, his arm draped casually over the back in the first position of that ole-time move guys have. "It was so easy! You did not-have even one mind guard up to keep me from your thoughts. I assumed you must want me to read them."
"What's a mind guard?" I asked suspiciously, slumping away from his arm.
He shrugged again. "It is the barriers someone such as yourself puts up to keep people from her mind."
Instantly I envisioned a high brick wall surrounding me, a brick wall without doors.
"No," Fiat shook his head as he took my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. His hands were so cool, they seemed to leach the heat from mine. "I can still get in because you have not sealed your mind from me."
Rats. He was right. The walls were open above. I rearranged my mental picture to form a tall tower with shuttered windows that I could open or shut. I shut them all, and immediately I was aware of the brush of his mind against mine as he tested my new barriers.
"It was not wise of me to say anything," he smiled a bit ruefully, his ringers still rubbing over mine. "Now I have done myself out of the pleasure of visiting such a charming mind, but these things, they are best not done so easily."
I said nothing, too worried that if I dragged my attention from keeping the shutters in my mind closed, he'd be able to breach my defenses.
Fiat leaned forward, his fingers a cool whisper as they danced along my cheek. "It is the thrill of the chase, you understand, cara. If the quarry gives up too easily, there is no pleasure in the hunt."
I mentally arranged iron bars to hold the shutters closed, pulling my hand from Fiat's as I said, "I don't suppose we could do this without all the sexual innuendo and hunter double-talk, could we? Because I've had a long day, and my demon is outside peeing on who knows what, so if we could skip all the seduction bit, I'd be grateful."
He laughed and withdrew his fingers from my face, leaning back against the pillows with an almost feline grace. It was then I noticed he was also dressed in blue, but a blue that had an intricate black pattern swirled through both the shirt and matching pants. "I hope Drake appreciates the mate he has been granted."
"I doubt he does, but that's neither here nor there. Um ... do you think someone could let Jim—that's my dog—in?"
Fiat's eyes narrowed. He pushed briefly at my mind. "Why do you need your demon?"
I smiled. 'Trust me, I don't need it, it's a big pain in the—it's a big pain."
He pushed at my mind again. "Then why do you want it to be allowed into my home?"
I broadened my smile until it positively radiated innocence. "Not for any nefarious purpose. It's just that it's forever getting itself into trouble, and I don't like the thought of what it's up to out on the streets without me."
Fiat watched me silently for a few seconds. "Very well, it is done. Now, what payment will you give me for granting your request?"
My smile faded. "Boy, you dragons really do know how to drive a bargain. I offer you my gratitude, Fiat. I appreciate you allowing Jim into your home. If that will satisfy you—" His face was an unmoving mask, but he didn't say no. "—then can we get to business? I wanted to speak to you about a business proposition."
His heavy blond eyebrows rose in surprise as he waved a languid hand toward me. "Business? Cara, I am intrigued. Please proceed."
I had to watch my step here, or else I might not find myself leaving the dragon's lair at the end of our meeting. "I know of the location of an object that Drake covets. It's bound in gold," I added, just to make sure I had his attention. I needn't have worried, his eyes were glittering with avidity. They dropped to my breasts. His nose twitched. I heaved a mental sigh and pulled up the gold chain, exposing the jade dragon. Fiat's eyes darkened at the sight of it. "This isn't the object I'm talking about, this is a talisman given to me. As you can see, it's not very valuable, not worth stealing."
"Drake might not have thought so, but I do not agree," Fiat murmured. I quickly tucked the talisman away, a little worry of fear skittering down my back at the dangerously flat tone in his voice.
"Regardless, the object I have in mind is worth a great deal more. It's priceless, you might almost say."
"What is it?" he asked, his voice sharp even though his body was relaxed.
I shook my head. "I can't tell you what it is, only that Drake is desperate to have it, and I'm the only one who knows where to find it."
"Why are you offering me such a prize?" Fiat asked, his fingers lazily tracing a serpentine pattern on a pillow. "Why do you wish to keep an item of worth from your mate?"
"I'm offering it to you because you're the only other wyvern in the area." Fiat stiffened at that. I hurried to smooth over the insulted look that flashed through his eyes. "But more important, I want the object to be safe, to be in the possession of someone who is strong enough to keep Drake from getting it, and from everything I've heard, you are."
His body relaxed as he inclined his head in a graceful gesture of acknowledgment, his fingers stroking the velvet pillow in a way that was extremely sensual. "It is true, what you say. I am very powerful. But I still do not understand why you don't want your mate to have this mysterious object, and since you have withdrawn access to your thoughts—" I felt him brush against my mind again, but my shutters held tight. "—I must ask you to explain."
I stood up, taking a little stroll around the room and admiring the objects Fiat had chosen to display on the occasional tables and walls. There was less gold scattered about than at Drake's house, and more of an emphasis on very old paintings, but still, the furnishings and artwork screamed serious collector. "My reason-for keeping it from Drake is my own. I just want reassurance that if I tell you where to find the object, it will be safe in your lair where Drake can't steal it back."
Before I could blink, he was there in front of me, one extremely pissed-off wyvern. I took a step back as he leaned toward me, his eyes black, his voice a low hiss. "You insult me. Guardian. My lair is safe from all intruders, no matter how powerful they might be. I am il drago blu. No one takes what I hold!"
"My apologies," I said, adopting what I hoped was a submissive, nonconfrontational pose. The last thing I needed was to piss off the probably only person in Paris who could keep the Eye safe from Drake. "I meant no insult. I just needed to be sure. You've convinced me that whatever I give into your safekeeping you will keep safe."
Fiat straightened a small icon on a marble shelf. "And what it is you want in exchange?"
I smiled, pleased we were to the bargaining point with me in such a strong position. "Once I tell you where to locate the item, I will need your help to leave Paris... to leave France. The police have my passport and other things, and although I fully expect that they will see the error in their thinking, it could take some time. In exchange for you taking the item into your custody—and giving me your word you will never allow anyone else to have it—you will get my passport and things back, and help me get out of the country."
A calculating look filled his eyes as he leaned one elbow on the shelf. "I am no thief. For that you would do better to ask your mate."
I took a deep breath. "Does that mean you can't help me get out of the country?"
Fiat considered me for a moment. "The matter is insignificant. It is within my power to see to your escape. I am curious, though, why you ask so little for an object you claim is priceless."
<
br /> I shrugged. "That's all I need."
His lips narrowed. "So you say, but I think that you are not telling me the entire truth. I do not like to be fooled, cara, not even by a woman I would enjoy taking. You come here presenting to me the grand explanation, but you shield your mind from mine, you insist on your demon being present, and you refuse to tell me much about this object. I was not born yesterday."
Jim chose that moment to stroll into the room, its leash trailing behind it. "Hey, nice digs! Is that Ming dynasty?"
"Jim," I said warningly as it put its paws onto an ebony table to examine a graceful Chinese vase.
Fiat stepped toward me, and my early-warning system went into immediate Red Alert mode. In a moment between two breaths, things had changed, going from me having the upper hand to Fiat posing a very tangible threat to me.
"Maybe you just need a little time to think about it," I said, sidling around him toward Jim. "There's no hurry. I can give you until... uh ... tomorrow at lunchtime. I'll just be on my way now so you can think it over."
"You will give me as long as I care to take," he answered, all male arrogance and power seething just below the surface. Dragons! Unreasonable, every last one of 'em. "As for your leaving, that is quite out of the question, cara. You are here, in my house and in my power. Drake might have been foolish enough to let you slip out of his grasp, but I assure you I will not. You will oblige me first by handing over the talisman you wear."
It was worse than I thought. The hard look to Fiat's eyes told me that the time for negotiation was over. "Jim?" I asked quietly, backing up toward him.
Jim sighed. "I suppose you want me to do my trusty sidekick thing again?"
"If it's not too much trouble," I answered.
"Cara—," Fiat said, shaking his head, starting toward me.
"When?" Jim asked.
"Now!" I yelled, whipping around to grab the Ming vase, throwing it to the left of Fiat. He lunged toward it with a shriek while Jim and I dashed to the right, out of the room and down the hall toward the door. The blond behemoth named Renaldo who dragged me there stumbled out of a side room. Jim flung itself on him. I continued, yelling Jim's name as I threw open the door and ran out of the apartment, racing down a wide stone spiral staircase. Voices shouted after me, but I didn't wait around to see what they wanted. I leaped down the steps, my heart pounding, my breath caught in my throat. A black shape lunged past me as I threw myself toward the street door.
"You . . . have ... the ... stupidest . . . ideas . . . sometimes," Jim panted as we jumped down the front stairs, running pell-mell into the busy street.
"No ... argument," I gasped, pausing for a minute to find a likely hiding area. A glance over my shoulder confirmed my fear—three men, Renaldo included, were dashing out of the apartment after me.
"This way," Jim shouted, running toward a small building that bore a blue and white sign that read visite DES EGOUTES DE PARIS.
"What is it?" I managed to ask as I ran toward the building.
"Sewers," Jim yelled, running under a barrier meant to keep people from entering without paying. I ran up to the turnstile, grabbing a wad of euros and thrusting them at the attendant, scattering apologies behind me as I vaulted over the metal bar. I sprinted into the building after Jim, just barely stopping myself when his cry of "Stairs!" warned me of the staircase just inside the door. I pounded down the metal stairs after him, well aware of the sounds of yelling behind me. No doubt Fiat's dragon squad had bypassed the ticket-seller, too.
"Why the sewers?" I yelled down a dimly lit staircase. As I turned on each landing, I could see Jim's black shape hurtling down the stairs in front of me.
I tossed another apology over my shoulder as I passed a family of four who were taking the stairs at a more sedate rate, the whole family looking in surprise as Jim yelled back, "Water! The blue dragon element is the air. They hate water!"
The smell hit me as I cleared the last steps and lunged through the heavy metal door at the bottom. We were in a huge stone tunnel lit by weak lights that glowed out of the curved ceiling, a long vista of tunnels opening before us. The smell was awful—don't let anyone tell you the Paris sewers don't smell like a sewer, because they do— but I didn't have time to do more than wrinkle my nose before Jim's voice called back to me from a tunnel to the left. I ran after him down a stone-lined tunnel. Above me, lights were set into the stone at regular intervals. Down the center of the curved ceiling ran a huge blue water pipe, while several smaller pipes snaked next to it down the length of the tunnel. I kept to one side as I ran after Jim, the center of the floor consisting of a steel grate that sat over a roaring river of water. Sewer water.
"Really? Why do they hate water?"
"It's opposite them—water and air, earth and fire. One cancels the other. The dragon septs each claim an element," Jim called back to me.
"Fascinating. I can't believe I'm doing this," I grumbled as I turned a corner, glancing behind me as I did so. At the far end of the tunnel one of Fiat's men appeared, spotted me, and yelled something over his shoulders.
"What the heck?" I stopped as I turned around. The antechamber we were in held huge black wooden balls ... and I do mean huge. One of them was seated up against the opening of a tunnel, the ball almost completely filling it. Other balls of lessening sizes were chained to the walls, the smallest probably about four feet high, the biggest about sixteen.
"Come on, we don't have time to admire the sewer's balls," Jim snapped as it took off down another round passage.
"What are they?" I yelled, one hand clutching at the stitch in my side.
As I passed a narrow opening in the side of the tunnel, something jerked me sideways. "They clean the sewer of debris. If you want me to play tour guide, I can," Jim said as it spat out the hem of my dress it had used to pull me after it. "Or we can escape the blue dragons. Choice is yours."
"Escape," I said. We ran. And ran. And ran. It felt like we ran down miles and miles of sewer, passed open waterfalls of sewer water pouring into another channel, past numerous huge pieces of machinery used to keep the sewers clear, down narrow stone paths littered with dead leaves and empty plastic bottles that had been caught in the sewers screens.
We came to another juncture. Jim leaped over a metal railing intended to keep people out of a tunnel. I lurched (less gracefully) after the demon, almost falling with surprise as I landed on a narrow stone ledge. Unlike the other tunnels open to the public, this one had no grating over the water mat rushed through it at a tremendous rate. Behind me, a man yelled.
"Faster!" Jim cried as it raced across a wooden plank about four inches wide that had been set across the open channel.
"You're kidding me! I'm not crossing that!" I came to a screeching halt at the flimsy bridge, glancing behind me. Renaldo might be bulky, but I'll give it to him—he had a sprinter's speed.
"Merde!" I yelled as I shuffled across it, my lower lip caught between my teeth in an effort to keep from screaming. Renaldo was almost upon me when I stepped off onto the other ledge. Jim was clawing at the plank even as I spun around to help it throw the bridge into the water. Renaldo screamed what sounded like an Italian obscenity as he lunged toward the plank.
He missed it by inches. I stood, panting, my back against the curved wall of the tunnel, staring across nine feet of open, torrential water to where Renaldo stood pacing back and forth, glaring at me. He wasn't even breathing hard, damn him!
"What's wrong, afraid you'll get wet?" I taunted him, feeling a little payback was in order.
Renaldo growled something and looked for all the world like he was going to try to vault over the open water, but each time he got near the edge, he'd back up again.
"Didn't your mother teach you anything?" Jim asked as he turned toward the far exit. "It's not smart to bait a dragon."
Renaldo kept pace with us as we ran down the tunnel, snarling and swearing threats at us when we dashed off into a side tunnel that he couldn't
reach.
We ran down more tunnels, some open, some with grates, until I lost any and all sense of direction.
Not to mention ray breath.
"Jim, I have to stop," I gasped as we entered yet another junction that held machinery. Some sort of engine with big red gears sat atop what looked like a small railway handcar, behind which a sharp-sided black tender was attached. Both had metal wheels shaped to move along metal tracks.
"Can't stop unless you want them to get us," Jim said as it crawled underneath the coupling of the two cars. I sat on the coupling mechanism, swinging my exhausted legs over it, pausing for a moment to suck air into my lungs. "I don't care. They can have me. I just want to stop. My heart's going to burst."
"Just a little farther," Jim urged me as it scrambled over a railing marked with a red warning sign mat read: danger! interdit au PUBLFC. I didn't need to understand French to know what that meant.
Just as I opened my mouth, I heard two men calling to each other in the tunnel we had just come from. I slammed my mouth closed and hauled myself over the waist-high railing, stifling a scream of surprise as I fell about four feet. We were in a small well, evidently some sort of unused overflow valve if the red metal cap beneath our feet was anything to go by.
I didn't need to be warned to be quiet as we crouched down, making ourselves as flat as possible. Because of the machine cars standing in front of us, unless Fiat's men were right next to us peering down into the well, they wouldn't see us. I sat with my arms around Jim, my mouth pressed up against its heavy coat to muffle the sound of my gasping wheeze for air. A moment later the men entered the tunnel intersection, calling to Renaldo. I didn't risk standing up so I could peer out at them, but even though I didn't understand a word of what they were saying—the blue dragons seemed predominately Italian in origin—the angry tones of their voices left me in no doubt they were not happy campers. After a consultation lasting about a minute, they left, each taking a different tunnel out of the area.