One Good Dragon Deserves Another

by Rachel Aaron

  That set her off all over again. But just as Marci was curling back into a ball for sobs round two, something cold and soft bumped into her back.

  Her head snapped up in alarm, and she looked over just in time to see Ghost jump through the wall of boxes. He landed on the cement floor beside her, giving his fluffy, semi-transparent body a shake before turning to greet her with a slow blink of his glowing blue eyes.

  It was a sign of just how miserable her life had become that this scrap of affection from her undead cat actually made Marci feel better. “Hello to you, too,” she croaked, holding out her hand. “Where have you been?”

  Ghost meowed silently, bumping his head against her hand. Marci smiled back, ignoring the grave-like chill of his fur as she scratched behind his ears. “You know, for a bound spirit, you sure do vanish a lot. Where do you go, anyway? Undead mouse hunting?”

  Instead of answering, Ghost butted his head demandingly against her scratching hand, causing his transparent ears to pass right through her fingers. A few weeks ago, that would have creeped her out. Now, Marci thought it was kind of cute.

  “Well, wherever you went, I’m glad your day seems to have gone better than mine,” she said sadly. “Not that that would be hard. I’m pretty sure you didn’t humiliate yourself in front of the most powerful dragon in the Americas.” He bumped her hand again, and Marci obediently scratched harder, closing her eyes against the institutional white glare of the post office’s high-efficiency halogen lamps. “Why am I such an idiot, Ghost?”

  It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but the semi-transparent cat purred in her mind.

  Human.

  “Tell me about it,” she grumbled, pulling her cold-stiffened fingers back to tap on the cardboard box containing all that was left of her dad. “I’m just full of reminders of my mortality today. It’s not like I mind being human, but…I wish they wouldn’t treat me like I was worthless, you know? It’s not our fault we die, or that we lost all our knowledge of magic. There was no magic for a thousand years. Now that it’s back, we’re having to reinvent everything from scratch, and it’s so freaking pointless. Look at my dad. He was part of the first generation of mages, and they had no idea what they were doing. There was no one to teach them, and that’s just so stupid when you think about the fact that there are immortal creatures waddling around who could explain everything if they could stop looking down their snouts for three seconds and answer some basic questions!”

  Her hands were clenched into fists by the time she finished. She hadn’t even realized how angry she was about this until it all came spilling out. The more she thought about it, though, the angrier she got.

  “It’s just so wasteful!” she cried. “My Theoretical Thaumaturgy professor back at UNLV was the best in his field. Not because he was anything special, but because there was no one else. We’ve only had magic for sixty years. That’s not enough time to develop any sort of real understanding. We still don’t know why magic works or where it comes from, we don’t even know why there are spirits. Maybe we did once, but if that information existed, it’s long gone. Now we’re back to fumbling around in the dark for whatever we can find, and all the spirits and dragons are sitting around watching us with their fingers on the light switch, but they won’t flip it on because they’re all a bunch of stingy, egotistical bastards!”

  She turned to give Ghost an Am I right? look, but the cat was cleaning his paws, utterly uninterested.

  Marci flopped back against the wall of PO boxes with a sigh. Served her right for ranting at a cat, she guessed, but it had still felt good. Anything was better than crying like a baby over things she couldn’t change.

  “I just wish I could make them talk,” she said wistfully. “There are legends of ancient wizards who shot dragons out of the skies like clay pigeons, but there’s no evidence that the pre-drought mages were more powerful than us. The only difference between then and now is knowledge. If we got that again, not even Bethesda the Heartstriker could look down on us.”

  Now there was a satisfying thought. Too bad it was a pipe dream. If there was one thing the immortals of the world seemed to actually agree on, it was that humans should be kept in the dark. Marci supposed that made sense when you considered the whole ‘shooting dragons out of the skies like skeet’ thing, but it still sucked. But what could she do? Nothing. For all she knew, Bethesda wasn’t even bringing Julius back.

  “Come on,” she said, pushing herself up. “Other people need to use their boxes, and I think I’ve done enough crying for one night. I need to get Daddy home and into a proper urn.”

  She tucked the cardboard box containing her father into her shoulder bag and started down the hall. But when she looked back to make sure Ghost was following, that cat was just sitting there, staring at her with unblinking eyes.

  Want to know?

  “Excuse me?”

  Magic, he said in her mind. Power. Do you want it?

  Marci shifted uneasily. That was one of the most complete sentences she’d ever heard Ghost speak, which would have been great if it hadn’t sounded so much like a deal with the devil. “Of course I want to know about magic,” she said cautiously. “And who doesn’t want power? But—”

  I have, Ghost said casually. Can share.

  Okay, now he was just making fun of her. “Likely story. We’re directly connected, remember? If you had power, I think I’d know.”

  Can share. Ghost said again, ignoring her sarcasm. Help me.

  And then he vanished back into the wall.

  “Wait!” Marci cried, slamming her hand against the postbox he’d just passed through. “Where are you—”

  Follow, Ghost purred in her mind. Downstairs. Quickly.

  Marci swore under her breath and bolted for the stairs, blowing past a pair of curious, off-duty Algonquin security officers who’d clearly been eavesdropping from the next aisle over. Her cheeks burned at the thought of someone overhearing her emotional breakdown, but she didn’t have time to stop or anything she could say to explain, so she just kept going, taking the stairs down two at a time until she spotted Ghost sitting on the ground floor landing.

  He stayed still just long enough for her to catch up before slipping through the fire exit.

  Follow.

  “But I’ll set off the alarm,” she panted.

  Ghost’s voice grew irritated. Hurry.

  Marci was not about to get fined for what was probably a wild goose chase, but she couldn’t let Ghost go, either. In the end, she compromised, running through the lobby to the post office’s front door and then around the building until she reached the back alley where the emergency fire door let out.

  Like most places in the DFZ Underground, the area around the post office was a confusing patchwork of money and abject poverty. The buildings facing the main streets were as bright and jangly as the tourist traps she’d led Julius past the night they met. Once you stepped away from the high traffic areas, though, the lights faded after only a few feet, giving way to an interior network of narrow, pitch black alleys lined with tiny shops and massage parlors that served a seedier, much more desperate segment of the population.

  As a whole, the back alley slums of the DFZ weren’t quite as bad as the movies made them out to be, but a few could be worse. From what Marci could see of the tiny crack of an alley that ran behind the massive, windowless post office, Ghost had led her right into one of the latter. “What are you doing?” she hissed, sucking magic out of the moist, polluted air into her bracelets as she hurried after her glowing cat. “Are you trying to get me mugged?”

  Ghost didn’t answer. He just kept going, trotting around a corner into a second, even smaller crevice between buildings that looked like the sort of place where people got stabbed for their organs. With a last, longing glance at the bright, crowded street behind her, Marci followed, using her glowing bracelets as a lantern as she picked her way around potholes that could have swallowed a full-grown cow.

  In the end,
the only nice thing she could say about it was that she didn’t have to go far. Barely thirty feet after it began, the tiny alley dead-ended into the back of a run-down convenience store. Ghost was waiting for her on the edge of one of the shop’s rusted dumpsters, his tail lashing back and forth as he waited for Marci to join him.

  “Okay,” she said when she’d finally made it safely around all the pot holes and mysterious black puddles to the end of dumpster alley. “I’m here. Now, will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  Ghost gave her the cat equivalent of an extremely unamused glare and tapped his paw down on the dumpster’s closed lid. Help.

  Marci blinked in surprise. In the month since she’d bound him, Ghost had never asked her for anything. She wasn’t even aware he had things he needed help with. But he was pawing the dumpster lid with increasing urgency, and so she grabbed it with her finger tips, touching as little of the filthy metal as possible as she flipped it open. Naturally, the lid passed right through Ghost, leaving him standing in the empty air above the dumpster’s open bin. But before Marci could ask why he hadn’t just phased through the thing in the first place, she saw what was inside, illuminated by Ghost’s soft, white light.

  She jumped back with a yelp, slapping her hands over her mouth. There was a person lying in the trash at the bottom of the dumpster. Almost as soon as that thought crossed her mind, though, her brain rejected it. The curled over shape was far too still for a person, which meant she’d just discovered a corpse.

  That was infinitely worse. Marci edged forward again, peeking over the dumpster’s edge to make absolutely certain she wasn’t seeing things. Sadly, she wasn’t. Between the glowing spellwork on her bracelets and Ghost’s pale light, she could clearly make out the body of a teenage boy. A very thin teenage boy with ribs clearly visible where his filthy, oversized shirt hung down from his slender neck. Malnourished as he obviously was, though, hunger wasn’t what had killed him. The cause of death was a wound on the top of his head—a long, caved-in gash that matched the sharp metal support bar that ran across the dumpster’s base.

  As soon as she saw that, Marci’s fear turned to overwhelming sadness. “Poor kid,” she whispered. “He must have been looking for food and fallen in, or fainted.”

  Either way, it was a tragedy, and not an uncommon one. People slipped through the cracks all the time in the DFZ. Stuff like this didn’t even make the news. Still. “We need to report this.”

  Why? Ghost looked down at the boy. Still dead.

  “That’s not the point,” Marci said angrily. “He has family somewhere, people who care about him. They’ll want to know.”

  No. No one.

  “How do you know that?”

  The cat looked back up at her. Calls to me. Help.

  “What do you mean, calls to you?” Marci asked. “Was he a mage or—”

  Not mage, Ghost said firmly. Dead. His eyes flicked to her glowing bracelets. Give.

  Before she could ask what he meant by that, Ghost pulled on the connection between them, his cold presence reaching in to tug on the magic she’d gathered for self-protection.

  “No way,” Marci said, grabbing the magic tight. “You’re not getting a drop until you tell me what you’re doing.”

  Ghost flicked his tail. Helping. You help, I help. Together, power.

  Marci glared at him suspiciously. Then again, though, if anyone could help the dead, it would probably be a death spirit. Ghost was so creepy sometimes it was easy to think of him as evil, but everything Marci had learned about spirits suggested they didn’t function along simple lines of morality. Or, at least, not human morality. They were more like forces of nature, and naturally speaking, death was just another part of life. Not that she felt that way at the moment, clutching the box that held her father’s ashes, but Ghost was looking at her desperately now, and it wasn’t like he could make the boy’s situation worse.

  “You won’t hurt him?”

  She knew how silly that question sounded even before the words were out of her mouth, but she couldn’t help herself. He might be dead, but he’d still been human. Thankfully, Ghost answered her straight. No, he said solemnly. Help. He tugged on the gathered magic again. Help.

  Marci blew out a long breath. Then, slowly, she unclenched her mental fist. “All right,” she said. “But just a—”

  She didn’t get to finish. The moment she let go, Ghost snatched the magic she’d pushed out to her bracelets and yanked it back. As always, the power burned coming back in, but it only hurt for a second before Ghost sucked it down, drinking the magic into himself and leaving only the bitter cold of the grave behind.

  She was half-frozen by the time he finished. Ghost, on the other hand, was glowing brighter than ever. He dropped into the dumpster, landing on the boy’s chest as magic began to hum the air. Not her magic, either, but something else. Something dark and heavy. Marci was trying to get a better feel for it when Ghost threw back his head in a silent yowl, and the entire alley began to move.

  All around them, shadows began to creep inward. When they entered the circle of Ghost’s blue-white light, though, she saw they weren’t shadows at all. They were cats. Hungry strays, their eyes shining with Ghost’s reflected light, poured out of the dark alley and into the dumpster. It was just like when they’d come for Oslo when he’d attacked her and Julius at her house last month. Back then, she’d been delighted. This time, all Marci felt was horror.

  “What did you do?” she cried, jumping away from the tide of cats running past her legs. “You said you were going to help him! How is being eaten by cats helpful?”

  Ghost looked surprised by her outburst. It is helpful to the cats.

  Marci supposed that was true, but she was too busy staring at Ghost to say so. The spirit had jumped back up on the edge of the dumpster as he’d spoken, and while his light was dimmer than it had been when he’d taken her magic, it was still much brighter than usual. His voice in her head was stronger, too, the words louder and clearer than she’d ever heard them.

  He was forgotten, Ghost said, swishing his tail, which was slightly less transparent than before. Now his flesh returns to the cycle while his soul is remembered. He gave her a slow blink. Very helpful, yes?

  Marci didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to face her spirit. The one she was now very certain was not a death spirit for cats.

  “What are you?”

  Ghost gave her a Cheshire Cat smile. Names are expensive. Make me more, and I’ll tell you mine. We can be very powerful together.

  He leaned on their link as he said this, and Marci realized she could feel him much more strongly than before. Whatever had just happened, it had changed something fundamental in their bond, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

  “All right,” she said, crossing her arms tight to ward off the cold shiver that had just run down her spine. “This is officially too creepy. I’m not doing anything else until I know more about…whatever this is.” She pointed at the cats that were still jumping into the dumpster.

  I told you already, Ghost said irritably. He called, I helped.

  “But why?” she said. “How does a dead body call, and why you? And how did you even know he was back here? Can you explain that?”

  Ghost shifted uncomfortably. No.

  She scowled. “Why not?”

  The cat’s expression turned belligerent. But then, just when Marci was about to start grilling him again, he said, I don’t know.

  “How do you not know?”

  Because I don’t, he grumbled, looking away. I don’t know how I do these things or why, just that I have to. I don’t know my name, either.

  That struck Marci as incredibly sad. “How don’t you know your own name?”

  Ghost flicked his ears. Like I said, names are expensive. When I woke, I had nothing. Just cats and death. Then you. He looked up. I thought you could help me, so I accepted your binding. But you won’t help.

  “I never said that,
” Marci said quickly. “I’m completely willing to help you with whatever you need. I just want to know what’s going on first, maybe run a few tests. Once I’m convinced I’m not going to be doing something I’ll regret, we’ll take it from there. Is that an acceptable compromise?”

  Sufficient, Ghost said, hopping down from the dumpster. But not right now. He yawned. Tired.

  “Then why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” she said, trying not to sound too eager. Her fingers were already itching to start researching what could cause a spirit to make such an obvious jump in intelligence, or at least talkativeness, and that would be a lot less awkward if he wasn’t looking over her shoulder. Fortunately, Ghost didn’t seem to mind being sent away. He was already fading, taking his light with him. Unfortunately, this left Marci alone, in the dark, with the cats.

  The sound of their eating was even worse now that she couldn’t see. Trying not to gag, Marci stumbled away, tripping over the uneven pavement as she rushed out of the alley. She didn’t slow down until she was back in the underground parking deck. Even then, she was so happy to finally be back somewhere with light and no dead bodies, she didn’t even notice the man in the navy blue Algonquin security uniform waiting by her car until he said her name.

  “Marci Novalli?”