Me and My Shadow

by Katie MacAlister

  The sun was out, shining brightly on the front of the house. Although there weren’t a lot of people out, I didn’t particularly want one of the noontime passersby to see me disappear into nothing. Gabriel and Maata moved immediately to block my view of the street, allowing me to slip into the shadow world unnoticed.

  The street where we lived looked more or less the same in the shadow world, although angles were slightly off, giving the buildings a somewhat skewed appearance. Other than that obvious difference, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary . . . until I glanced down. “Oh, we are in so much trouble.”

  “What is it?” Gabriel asked when I bent to touch a spot on the sidewalk, his shadowy image standing next to me.

  I smiled as I stood up and showed him my hand. “I’m so glad your mother taught you how to access the shadow world, even if you’re incorporeal here. It’s arcane residue.”

  “Arcane? From a mage?”

  “Possibly. Dragons shed dragon scales, elemental beings leave traces of their primary element, demons leave little splotches of demon smoke, and theurgists leave arcane residue.” I glanced around a wider area, my eyes searching for any other signs.

  “Which means it could be anyone who uses arcane power. A mage?”

  “It could be a mage, yes. Other theurgists use arcane power, too—oracles and diviners, for instance. Goetists like necromancers and summoners can tap into arcane power, as well. It could be any of them.”

  “And dragon scales?” Gabriel asked as I followed the arcane residue down the street.

  “Lots of them, but they’re a few hours old, so I assume they’re from the silver dragons. I don’t see any fresh ones, if that’s what you’re asking. Damn.” I stood up from the crouch I’d adopted to follow the fading residue trail. “It’s gone already. Elementals and theurgists are the hardest beings to track because their traces fade so quickly. I’m sorry, Gabriel. I can’t tell you anything other than—”

  “May, come back to me.”

  I glanced over to where Gabriel stood next to me. His voice, although somewhat muffled by the projection of himself into the shadow world, held a distinct note of command, a circumstance that was unusual enough for me to take notice. “What?”

  “Come back to me.” His eyes glittered like mercury against black velvet. “Come back to where my body is.”

  “We’re just a couple of blocks from home, and I’d like to look around some more.” I waved toward the sidewalk. “There’s a slight chance that not all of the residue has disappeared.”

  His image faded before my eyes, his voice an echo on the air. “There is another dragon in the Dreaming.”

  I spun around, instantly reaching for the dagger I wore strapped to my ankle, even though I knew the weapon would do nothing against the only dragon known to be able to enter and exit the shadow world at will. “Baltic?”

  A distant voice, tinged with amusement, drifted over to me. Judging by the somewhat ethereal nature of the sound, I gathered the very dangerous former wyvern, once thought dead, but evidently very much alive, was at some distance from me. “Ah, it is the silver mate who speaks. A doppelganger, my assistant tells me, which explains how your wyvern got around the curse. How very clever of Gabriel to think of mating himself to a woman who was not technically born.”

  “Annoyed that you hadn’t thought of that eventuality when you cursed the silver dragons never to have a mate born to them?”

  I felt a familiar presence next to me, but separated by realities. Gabriel’s voice was distant, however, when he demanded I return to the real world.

  “You have a quick tongue, I see,” Baltic answered, his voice somewhat nearer now. I knew it was folly to keep bandying wits with him, but I didn’t want to lose this opportunity to find out what I could about the mysterious dragon who seemed to be responsible for so many problems plaguing us. “Perhaps Gabriel tolerates such, but I will not.”

  A mist passed in front of me, resolving itself into the form of an angry man. He paused just long enough to shoot me a look that promised retribution later before he took up a protective stance before me. “Threatening my mate again, Baltic? You didn’t succeed in taking her from me last time; I don’t know why you believe you will fare any better now.”

  There was a moment of startled silence before the mysterious dragon answered, “Your shaman mother must be indebting herself greatly to manage repeatedly buying you an entrance into the beyond, Gabriel.” Neither one of us corrected Baltic’s false impression that Gabriel was present in a physical form. “Nonetheless, the time will come when you cannot cling to her for help.”

  Beside me, Gabriel stiffened at the insult, but said only, “Your bait is insufficient. Did you have something more, or was that your sole offering?”

  Baltic’s laugh echoed down the shadow world’s empty street. I was more than a little interested to note that he sounded no closer. Obviously, he had thought twice about tangling with Gabriel and me together. “You have almost as sharp a tongue as your mate. It is regretful that both will be silenced when I retrieve my shard.”

  Gabriel made a low, growling noise that warned he was about to lose his temper.

  “Your shard?” I called out, hoping to distract him. “You gave it to Kostya. I think that relinquishes any claim you might have on it.”

  “I would not give mud from my boots to that murderous whoreson,” the voice snarled. “That fool thief taker thought he could blackmail me.”

  “Savian?” I asked, confused for a moment before I remembered the dead thief taker Gabriel and I had found a few months before. “Or Porter?”

  “Do not think that because you found a way around the curse, you will succeed,” Baltic said in a now almost inaudible voice. “For you will not. The days are numbered, wyvern. I intend to have your mate and the shard she bears. Enjoy both while you still possess them.”

  “Is he gone?” I asked in a whisper a moment later.

  The shadowy form of Gabriel nodded. “It was not wise to engage him, little bird.”

  “I knew you were only a couple of blocks away, and it was obvious he wasn’t close. Besides, I’m tired of guessing. It’s time we got a few answers to the hundred or so questions we have about him. I didn’t get to ask him outright if he was Baltic, though.”

  Gabriel disappeared, and I ducked into what was an alley in the real world, returning to our reality without anyone but him seeing me; I took the hand he offered, hurrying homeward with a thousand questions buzzing through my brain.

  “He didn’t deny either his identity or being the source of the curse, though.”

  I glanced at him as we ran up the front stairs, avoiding the spilled blood. “You don’t think he’s Baltic? Just because he took the form of a white dragon when you came to save me in Abaddon?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “I think it’s clear who he is. But that is less important than what he is. He’s far more powerful than he should be, and that leaves me concerned for your safety, especially now, when you bear the shard. I do not want you to meet him alone.”

  “You’re cute when you go protective and Drake-like on me, but I assure you it’s not necessary. I can hold my own against him.”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said as he opened the door to one of the spare rooms. “That’s just what I’m afraid of.”

  An hour later, I did my duty as a wyvern’s mate.

  “Hello, beautiful. I take it I’m not in the underworld?”

  The man before me looked like he’d taken a beating. His face was bruised and still swollen, although the spot where his cheek had been torn open was now closed, and healing. His voice was hoarse and cracked, his lips red and rough, but his eyes held a sort of wary amusement that told me Savian must be feeling a whole lot better.

  “I haven’t been there, but I would imagine it looks something like Abaddon, and not at all like the best guest room in a large house in the middle of London,” I answered.

  He tried to smile, grimaced at the pain, and settled for ju
st one side of his mouth quirking up. “I gather you healed me?”

  I shook my head, nodding toward the man on the other side of the bed. “Gabriel did, thanks to his magic silver dragon healing saliva.”

  Savian groaned and closed his eyes for a moment. “Please tell me he didn’t lick me.”

  Gabriel laughed.

  “Don’t get me wrong—I’m very grateful you didn’t let me die—but the thought of being licked by anyone but a naked, supple woman sitting astride me . . .”

  “You needn’t get yourself into a dither,” I said lightly. “If it makes you feel better, Gabriel used a salve as opposed to going to the source. What happened to you? You look like you were hit by a Mack truck.”

  “I feel like it,” he answered, struggling to pull himself to an upright position.

  Gabriel moved quickly to help him while I adjusted pillows behind him. He sighed with pleasure as he leaned back.

  “It’s not a what that hit me, but a who. Now I know why they told us at the thief taker’s academy not to tangle with goetists.”

  “Who?” Gabriel asked.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle the thief taker too much.

  Savian didn’t answer immediately, giving Gabriel an odd look.

  “Go ahead,” the latter told him, to my surprise. “She would have found out soon anyway.”

  “She being me, I suppose. What would I have found out? And just why are you keeping secrets from me?” I asked, wondering if I should be outraged.

  “I don’t know the woman’s name, although I suspect she’s the one they call Thala.”

  “Thala?” I searched my memory but came up blank, turning to Gabriel to see if he knew it.

  He shook his head. “I do not recognize the name, either.”

  “She’s pretty. Very pretty. Deceptively so,” Savian said, frowning and wincing at the same time. “No woman ought to look as pretty and frail as she did and be able to take me down without even breathing hard.”

  “What did she look like?” I asked.

  “Little taller than you, not so petite, stacked. Brown eyes, and the most glorious red hair I’ve ever seen.”

  “Red hair?” I glanced at Gabriel. “The woman with Baltic who Cyrene and Maata and I saw at Fiat’s house had red hair, and the rest of the description fits her. I thought she was a dragon, but Maata said she was of mixed blood.”

  Gabriel looked thoughtful for a moment. “How was she connected with the one you sought?” he asked Savian.

  “Companion. Bodyguard. Lover, wife, girlfriend—I have no idea. She was there where you said I’d find him, so I gather she has some sort of a close relationship with him. All I know for sure is she doesn’t like being surprised, she knows more ways to disable a man than a mortal could, and she had more than a passing familiarity with arcane power,” he answered, gently touching his face. “I think she tried to blow my head off with some sort of a spell, and when that didn’t work, she settled for taking a two-by-four to me.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t subdue her,” I said, thinking of the time he hauled me to Paris to stand trial.

  He made another half grimace, half smile. “It’s all I could do to keep her from killing me. Where she had her training is beyond my conception, but I sure as hell wouldn’t mind spending a couple of years there, myself.”

  “A spell,” Gabriel said slowly. “Was she a mage?”

  “I doubt it. Her power felt . . . different. Not pure. The half-dragon thing fits, if she’s the woman May saw. She certainly had strength beyond what’s normal for mortals.”

  “If the woman I saw is this Thala, then that means you were doing a job involving Baltic.” I gave Gabriel my blandest look. “Care to explain?”

  He grinned, blast his delicious hide. Although I tried very hard not to let him know just how affected I was by the sight of his dimples, somehow he knew, and I had no doubt he was using them deliberately to weaken me. The dragon shard knew, too, but it cared even less than I did. It demanded I jump his bones right then and there. “You knew I had to find that last shard.”

  “Yes, but I expected that we’d try to find it together,” I answered, laying emphasis on the last word. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have been taking lessons from Drake on how to be an annoying wyvern. Spill.”

  Gabriel’s grin took a wry twist as he nodded again at Savian. “Her every wish is my every command. Spill.”

  “All right, but I’d prefer not having anyone angry at me.” Savian paused for a moment; then he, too, grinned at me. “Unless there’s a chance it’ll tick you off enough that you dump the boyfriend and hook up with me?”

  Gabriel’s quicksilver eyes narrowed with deadly intent.

  The dragon shard considered Savian’s question. I told it to knock it off, and simply gave him a look that warned him he should know better.

  “Can’t blame a man for trying,” Savian said with a mock sigh as he readjusted his position.

  “Oh, I believe I can,” Gabriel said softly.

  The threat just made Savian smile for a moment before he rearranged his expression to be one of businesslike focus. “Here follows my report for the past week. Per your instructions, I checked locations in Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Riga. There were no signs of activity by the individual in question in any of the cities but the last one.”

  “Riga,” I mused, digging through my brain for any information on the location of the city. “Russia?”

  “Latvia,” Savian corrected.

  “I think I know where that is,” I said, nodding. “But why are you trying to hide the identity of the person Gabriel sent you to find? I assume that’s what all this is leading to—that you were sent to track down Baltic?”

  Savian looked uncomfortably at Gabriel, who made a little gesture of unhappiness. “We both know how important it is to find the shard. I just took the most expedient method of doing so.”

  I eyed him for a moment, ignoring the shard’s demand that I do inappropriate things to him with scarlet-tipped claws, and a decidedly unforked tongue. “Agreed, but why did you feel it necessary to pursue this without involving me?”

  “You are involved, little bird. You are more involved than just about anyone else I could name,” Gabriel said dryly. “I simply asked the thief taker to locate the missing shard.”

  “Which led him to Baltic.”

  Gabriel pursed his lips, obviously about to add the usual rider he felt was necessary whenever I named the mysterious dragon.

  “You said it was clear who he was, Gabriel. I think the time has come to move past any remaining identity questions. He is Baltic.”

  To my surprise, he nodded. “I agree. I have not yet fathomed how he was resurrected—dragons are not like mortals, easily returned to life, and wyverns more so. As a rule, once we are dead, we stay dead—but it was not that statement I wish to dispute. We have no proof that Baltic still holds a shard. It’s my belief it is no longer in his possession, and was given to Kostya. Or rather, its location was made known to him.”

  “Why do you believe that?” I asked, intrigued enough to be sidetracked momentarily from Savian’s report. “You know how Kostya is about the shard we took from him—he was ready to wipe out all the silver dragons to get it back, and I can’t see him acting like that, risking all-out war with not only us but the green and blue dragons, as well, if he already had a shard tucked away.”

  “I do not mean he possesses the Modana Phylactery already. Baltic, as he himself stated, was not the type to give up something so valuable to a mere heir. But Kostya was recognized by him as being such, and that means Baltic must have entrusted to him the location of his lair, and given him the means to access it.”

  “An interesting thought,” I said slowly. “It makes you wonder why Kostya didn’t go after Baltic’s lair when Baltic was killed. Assuming he actually was killed, and later resurrected by some means, and not just gravely wounded.”

  “What makes you think
he didn’t?” Gabriel asked.

  Savian’s head had been swiveling back and forth between us, as if he were watching a tennis match. He interrupted, rubbing his head as he did so. “I wish you would both stand on one side. I’m getting motion sickness.”

  We both ignored that complaint.

  “You think Kostya got into Baltic’s lair?” I asked.

  “Makes sense to me,” Savian grumbled. “A visit to my boss’s lair would certainly be number one on my list of things to do once I took over as head dragon.”

  “But Kostya was imprisoned for a century in the aerie in Nepal.” I thought for a moment, trying to remember what Aisling had told me of Kostya’s spotted history. “Gabriel, didn’t you say he was nearly dead when you found him?”

  “Emaciated and wounded, but not as close to death as you think. I told you before, little bird, it takes a concerted effort to kill a dragon, especially a wyvern. But that is not the point—Kostya retreated to the aerie after the fall of Baltic in order to lick his wounds and dream darkly of a return to power. He was not imprisoned until recently, a few years ago at the most.”

  “By Baltic,” I said, trying to get the facts straight in my woefully confused mind.

  Gabriel gave me an odd look.“If Kostya had breached his lair, do you think Baltic would have contented himself with simply confining Kostya?”

  “He’d have been toast,” Savian said, nodding.

  “Point taken. So you sent Savian after what, then? The location of the lair? The shard? Or Baltic himself?”

  “All three if possible,” Savian answered, rubbing the back of his head again. I felt guilty enough to move to the other side of the bed, perching on the foot of it. “But it was the lair I was to find at all costs.”

  “And you found it in Latvia?”

  “I found where it used to be, yes. That is, I found Baltic’s stronghold. The one he held before he . . . er . . . was toppled.”

  “Dauva,” Gabriel said, a distracted expression on his face. “You found Dauva. Many have sought it, but all traces of it have long since disappeared.”