“Sometimes the bad idea breeds the best results,” Raissa said. “For now, let’s try and get Henry through this.”
Aaron looked at the door at the back of the office. “It seems like it should work, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Niko said.
“And that’s why I don’t trust it,” Max groused.
“None of us do,” Amy said. “That’s why it’s going to be me. I’m the dragonmate and dreamwalker. If the power drains away from me, I can keep myself safe.”
“But shouldn’t we wait for Lola? To be on the safe side?” Raissa asked.
“We need to get this thing out before it damages everyone’s abilities,” Amy said.
“We’re all suffering,” Max agreed. “We are all scared to use our magic, to shift. Brindy doesn’t leave the house now. She’s too frightened someone will see her harpy.”
Aaron shook his head. “You’re sure you want your mate to do this?”
“Not his choice.” Amy shook her head.
“I don’t,” he said. “But. She’s her own person, and even as my mate, I won’t hold her back.”
Niko glanced as his watch and nodded. “Raissa, you need to go down and unlock the vault. Amy will need a straight shot in and out, as fast as she can.” He motioned Aaron out of the backroom. “Let’s go. It’s bad enough that Max won’t leave the damn office. I don’t want to be around if this goes bad.”
“Did you pay the insurance on the place?” Aaron asked.
“Of course, I did,” Niko answered, but looked at Max as he pulled the door closed. “But I don’t think pissed off dragons are covered.”
“Next time, get the extended coverage,” Aaron mumbled as the door shut.
Raissa shook her head. “I’ll be downstairs. I don’t want to try and guess what’s going to happen so close to the hoard.” She grabbed Amy’s arm. “Don’t go in to the dream world, Aims. Don’t do it. Do it all in the physical plane. Betsy could control Niko in the dream for you. I…don’t think that…”
Max lifted an eyebrow. “Raissa? Oh, that’s why you’ve been going to Chicago so often.” He chuckled.
She blushed, nearly as deep a red as her hair, but there was no giddy smile on her face. He knew he had always looked like he had schoolboy crush when he talked about Amy. Which wasn’t far from the truth, because he was a giddy schoolboy around her.
Raissa turned before he could ask her anything and pulled the door to the basement open. “I’ll be waiting. If the pulse is strong enough, I’ll probably be passed out.”
Amy nodded and watched the door close before turning to him. “What was that? She’s seeing someone and she’s not happy about it?”
“She’s been more private than the rest of us,” Max answered. “Even when she and Niko were dating, he didn’t know much about her.”
“She and Niko dated?”
“In high school, beginning of college, yes.” Max grinned. “But he always told me she was mysterious, and he thought it was because of her family.” He pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “This has been a fuck of a week, mój cenny. Are you sure that you’re okay with doing this?”
“I think that besides Lola, I’m the only one who might be able to.”
He cocked his head. “Are you sure you don’t want to ask your mother?”
“She’s not ready for this, Max. Dad was hard enough for her, and now she’s going to be completely surrounded by magic. I love her, but she’s not ready. It’s going to take a while. Also, remember—you dragons are touchy. You wouldn’t even let me in your vault in your dream, and I had to be your mate. Do you think that my non-blooded mother would even have a chance, even without magic?”
“No, I guess not.” He nodded. “Why Lola then?”
“Niko’s blood.”
Max nodded. “That makes sense.”
His mate smiled at him. “I think I know more about magic than you do, Max. I’ve been studying it my whole life, tracking it, following it, documenting it. Blood has a lot to do with it. More than most people suspect.”
Studying the contours of her face, he sighed. “How are you? You didn’t sleep well last night, and there’s a lot going on in just the last week, never mind the weeks before.”
Walking her fingers up his chest, she grinned. “We haven’t had a real chance to do anything but sleep. If one of us isn’t exhausted, the other is.” She tapped his nose once.
“I owe you a proper chance to stay in bed naked for a week, mój cenny.”
“That sounds wonderful.” She sighed, leaning against his chest. “We have so much to do yet, though. It’s going to be a long time before…”
“Nope. We need time. You and me. I will clear it with Carl, but I need you in my bed to show you how much you mean to me.”
“Max…”
“I hope you don’t regret mating me.”
“No! God, no. I thought I was sacrificing something for the greater good, but I love being mated to you. I love the ebb and flow between us. I feel…like I am so much more me. And you there on the edge of my mind always is a comfort.”
He couldn’t help himself. Max leaned down and captured her lips with his. I owe you so much time.
You owe me nothing but more of these kisses. Even the quiet voice in his head was smiling. Max, we have to stop…things are going to happen.
Reluctantly, he pulled back from her lips, peppering her with sweet, little kisses. “Mm. I am not sorry.”
“I am”—Amy grinned—“that we don’t have more time right now because filthy ideas are filtering through my head.”
“Best keep those to yourself, mate.” Max coughed and shifted his pants to make himself more comfortable. There was no mistaking the dirty smirk on Amy’s face. He popped her on the butt playfully, but her response was anything but playful.
Max cleared his throat. “Never mind that, Amy. We can’t do anything about it right now.”
Their phones beeped with the interval and both of them stepped apart. Max pulled out his phone and sat in the chair there. “I don’t want to pass out on you.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She rolled her eyes, but dropped a kiss on his forehead softly. “We’ll get through all this. I swear it, Max.”
He grabbed her hand. “I know. I know we will.”
With the doors open, the pulse ripped through him, and Max didn’t stand a chance against it.
It was agony to hear his scream inside her head as his human side was magically ripping from his dragon. It was such a part of him, and the separation was unnatural.
Anyone who claimed magic wasn’t natural had no place in her world anymore. It was as natural as breathing, as grass, as the cycle of life. To rip it away from someone born to it was akin to cutting the spine of a healthy, happy child.
His agony was still there and she wanted to soothe it away, but she had to get that damn rock out of the hoard. With a quick kiss to the top of Max’s head, she ran down the stairs and down the next set of stairs, as fast as she could into the cavern below. Heading straight for the vault, she spotted Raissa on the ground, a trickle of blood from her nose.
The blast had been that strong. They were only getting stronger.
She ran for the vault. As promised, it was wide-open. She could see the offending stone and for the first time, got a really good look at it.
It was radically different from the dream version she had seen.
It was sitting on a pedestal and had a bowl of water above. The water slowly crept through a tube on the side, forming a water droplet at the other end. The whole thing was seated on a mechanical device that she couldn’t figure out the purpose of.
Until the water dripped down to the stone.
The water hit the stone and bright sparks flew off the stone. She was close enough that she felt the ripple of power through the dreamworld and cringed. There had never been a ripple back into the waking world, ever.
When her eyes recovered from the flash, s
he saw the mechanism underneath whirring and spinning and resettling just a bit of a turn from where it had been.
There was a line of pock marks all the way around the stone.
“Oh my God…” she whispered.
This wasn’t even the full force of the stone yet. Not even close. Amy ran for the contraption to grab the stone—
A slash of heat crossed her body, tossing her back hard. The cavern floor was unforgiving, and it took her a minute to stand back up. She could still see the rock through the door and this time, approached more cautiously.
The hot whipping sensation hit again and she was tossed back, one more time.
Raissa growled. There was a feeling that she was trying to fight the darkness. Amy pursed her lips and crawled over to the woman lying there.
“Raissa, it’s me. You have to let me into your vault.”
[She will not let you in.]
Amy whipped around to the vault.
There was a ghost of a form flowing around the frame, flames licking the metal and rock there.
“I have to get in,” she whispered.
[I will not let you in.]
It took her a moment, but she realized that this was Raissa’s dragon, ripped out of her being by the stone and desperately clinging to the hoard to make sure that not one piece was taken.
“You will lose your human form forever,” Amy said. “You will be trapped here, at this vault. Please. Let me grab that rock and I will take nothing else.”
[You are dragonmate. You will steal.]
“You can follow me. You can cut me off and burn me if I touch anything other than that rock.”
[Dragonmates grow hoards for their dragons. You will not take ours.]
“What will it take to convince you to let me in?”
[Nothing. You will not enter.]
This was not good. At all. “Shit. Who! Who will you allow in?”
[No one. This is my hoard. I will keep it.]
Amy sat, staring at the dancing ghost of a dragon. They had to get the stone out of there, but she didn’t know how. And if the dragon wouldn’t let her in, how did the rock get in there, anyway.
She was using the dreamworld way more than she even thought she would. With just those few breaths, she dropped off—
And the cavern came alive around her. Raissa was nowhere to be found, but the dragon was fully formed, guarding the door. She narrowed her eyes at Amy and let out a small gout of flame.
Watching him move around the door, Amy realized how little she and the Sectorum, and hell, the magical community at large, really knew about magic.
There was a roar behind her, and with a glance over her shoulder she found Max’s dragon—massive, threatening, older and wiser than Raissa’s—sitting in front of their vault. Though the flame from his throat was blinding, it didn’t actually touch her. It flowed around her, hot but a gentle caress at the same time.
Their vault? That was a different thought. Though on some level she understood that it was their vault, she hadn’t even thought about calling it that—until that moment. When her dragon realized there was to be more inside, an urge to move all of her vaults from France shot through her, and she smirked.
Yes, Max. We will move the vault here soon.
The dragon rumbled, pleased, and offered up another puff of flame for her.
Raissa’s dragon backed up a bit, again. She clearly didn’t want the two of them near her vault, but she also had a sense of seniority and deference to the older dragon.
Amy smiled as an idea flickered to life in her mind. They could get the stone out, as soon as Lola got back.
“I am really super extra glad that none of us had tried to touch that rock before now,” Carl said, flopping a book open on the nearest jewelry case. “Really really truly glad.”
Max raised an eyebrow as he saw Niko cringe.
“Hey, Carl. Be careful. These are brand-new cases. I’m still fighting the insurance fight.”
“Oh, crap, sorry, kid.” Carl lifted up the book and checked the glass. Thankfully, Max could see the spine was old, old leather and wouldn’t have done much if any damage.
“So, what did you find?” Amy asked, leaning over.
“Balagancizk’s Rock, the Death Stone,” Carl said. “Also called a Deadening Stone, it was a stone created in about twelve hundred years before Christ by a priest in Egypt. He sought to separate magic from the wielder so they could gather and control it. But, instead of just removing it, it killed any wielder who touched it, and could permanently separate the magic from the person if exposed long enough.”
“What’s long enough?” Raissa asked.
“Doesn’t say,” Carl answered. “As soon as the Pharaoh heard about it, he had the priest executed and the stone was encased in granite. It still had negative powers, so he sent it to a village with people who were not magical to protect it. It was moved through the world for twenty-one hundred years, trying to keep it away from the magical folk of the world.” He looked up. “Apparently there were always people who understood that magic is real and natural.”
“I can guarantee that was the prevailing attitude for most of history.” Max nodded.
“And I’d agree,” Carl said. “So our Deadening Stone here landed in the hands of some mystics in—”
“Odessa, Russia,” Raissa cut in smoothly.
Everyone turned and looked at her.
She shrugged. “Balagancizk’s Rock was a part of my great-grandfather’s hoard, though he kept it and the mystics away from him and his family.”
“So you know about this?”
“I hadn’t realized it was the same mystical rock. I didn’t want to say anything until I talked to…my father about it.”
Max cringed. “Raissa…”
“Nope. No. Don’t start. It was a perfectly cordial exchange and he handed me off as soon as he could to my cousin Willa.” She took a deep breath. “Willa is the history keeper of the clan and she emailed me everything she had on Balagancizk’s Rock.”
Tapping a few buttons on her phone screen, Carl’s pocket pinged a moment later and he pulled it out.
“And now you have everything that the Zharkov Clan had about the rock.”
Carl’s eyebrow went up. “That’s incredibly generous of you, Raissa. Is there a price for this?”
“No, it’s been paid.” She smirked. “Anything that sticks in my father’s gullet is worth it.”
I chuckled. “Handing over Zharkov history? That definitely would.”
Folding her arms and leaning back, she smiled. “Yes, it would. So it’s yours. But I knew most of it already. Balagancizk was a wizard, in the Church’s eyes. He wasn’t really. Didn’t have a lick of magic. He couldn’t have without killing himself with that stone. The Church wanted that stone so that it could destroy magic. Balagancizk wasn’t letting it go. Within the stone box, he encased it in glass. The glass helped to lessen the effects of it. Then, the whole thing was buried in salt.”
“Salt?” Aaron asked.
“Salt has often been used to keep evil at bay,” Amy answered. “You don’t want cross a salt circle if you can help it.”
“It was incased in Egyptian granite, salt, and glass, and it finally didn’t send out the pulses stripping the powers?” Niko asked.
“No. It still did, but it limited the distance.” Carl picked up the story. “The Church chased him. And his son, and his great-several times over grandson. Through all of those generations, until finally one of them got smart enough to bury the thing.”
Raissa nodded. “They buried it in the clay and mud on a Siberian island that was only unfrozen for three months of year. The four people who helped Radek bury it committed suicide to keep the location secret.”
“And it was passed down through a single person in each generation of the Balagancizk family until just a hundred and fifty years ago, when the Church finally gained the Balagancizk heir in their ranks,” Carl explained.
“He turned traitor to my fa
ther,” Raissa said, “and the stubborn ass wouldn’t ask for help eliminating the threat. So instead, it went into the hands of the Sectorum Esse in Europe.”
“And instead of being safely ensconced in the dark mud of the Arctic, it’s sitting in your vault,” Carl concluded.
“But what the hell is that contraption it’s in?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know,” Raissa answered.
“It’s very steampunk looking, like some Victorian engineer went off on opium and was trying to do something.”
Carl held up his phone. “It’s in here, in the information that Raissa sent. I’m reading as fast as I can, but it looks like whoever had it last wanted to control its ability to leach magic to a greater degree. The stone isn’t actually what you see, but it is tucked inside a casting.” He looked up. “Of sodium. Pure casted sodium.”
Niko nodded. “That explains the flare you saw when the water hit it. Sodium and water don’t mix at all. It’s explosive.”
Max stood up from where he was leaning on the counter. “So every time the water hits the sodium, we get a ripple from the stone because the field that the metal creates is warped and reduced.”
It was silent in the store as the six of them passed looks between themselves. The implications of what he had just said were shocking.
“How strong is that rock?” Amy asked quietly.
Carl shook his head. “According to this information from Raissa, there’s a chance that it can actually injure a non-magical person as well as killing a magical. I don’t even know we have a scale for this, if there’s a way to measure how much damage it can do.”
The door to the shop jingled, and everyone looked toward the front.
Lola and Sia stood there and waited just a moment to walk into the store.
Max watched Lola, amused. He remembered Dolores as an old woman, and in the past year of dating a vampire, she wasn’t anymore.
Niko rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. He loved his grandmother, but he’d always known her as human—she almost wasn’t anymore. If Rigel had his way, she wouldn’t be much longer. And Niko was going to have to get used to eternity with his mate—and grandmother.
Skydance Page 24
