by Jane Kindred
Though she knew it wasn’t his fault, the words felt like another betrayal.
Ione tried to keep her voice light. “I’m not planning to use magic against her.” She dialed Phoebe’s number. “Not yet, anyway. Just gathering evidence.”
Phoebe answered before Dev could say any more, and Ione stepped into the bathroom and launched into an account of her trip to Flagstaff, hoping Dev would take the hint.
It didn’t stop her from feeling like shit when he did. By the time she came out, Dev was gone.
Chapter 20
The temperature had fallen as Dev drove back to his hotel, and he lit a fire when he arrived. Sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, holding his hands out to it, he felt like he couldn’t get warm. He should never have brought up his feelings—and certainly not in the context of the demon’s. Why had he even broached the subject of familiars with her? It was like a security door had banged shut between them.
Inside him, Kur was restless and irritable once more. It was clear the demon already felt more loyalty for Ione than he did for Dev. Not that the symbiotic relationship he shared with the demon could be called loyalty in any but the loosest sense. Once he’d managed to cage the demon, he’d kept it on a tight leash, only indulging the demon when he needed to borrow its power.
Kur’s disapproval of him notwithstanding, Dev was troubled by Ione’s insistence on pursuing the investigation into Laurel Carpenter’s activities. He’d known instinctively that if he’d stayed to argue with her about it after she’d finished speaking to her sister, the thickness of the metaphorical steel door between them would only have increased.
He couldn’t blame her for being angry about the situation with the Covent. It was preposterous that Carter Hamilton should be given even the slightest consideration. He ought to have been expelled the instant he’d confessed to his crimes. But the fact remained that if Carter Hamilton wanted to he could file a complaint against Ione for interfering with his apprentice. Dev hoped she’d only been blowing smoke when she’d alluded to using magic against the girl.
Seeing Hamilton in action had solidified Dev’s gut feeling with regard to the investigation. When it was completed, he was certain he’d find Ione innocent of any wrongdoing in taking action against the necromancer. She would have been fully within her rights to put a stop to his reign of terror by any means possible. But he couldn’t very well sit back and watch her use magic against Laurel out of a thirst for revenge.
Of course...there was nothing to stop Dev pursuing further surveillance of the girl as part of his own investigation. And, technically, nothing stopping him using magic to do it, since he wasn’t under investigation. If he could get the answers Ione wanted before she got into trouble trying to get them herself, it would hasten the Conclave’s decision. And the conclusion of his report, he hoped, would lead them to the right one. He could also take care of those despicable sods and their ride-alongs with a bit of help from Kur. He’d sneaked a peek at Ione’s mobile while she was in the bathroom on her house phone and snagged the address for the party.
But first he needed to find the source of Hamilton’s necromantic power. Staring into the flames had given him an idea of how to go about it.
“All right, demon. You want to help your mistress? Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is.”
Rather than risk setting the hotel room on fire, Dev headed to the temple to conduct his experiment just after dark. He’d told Ione that the sigil kept Kur contained, but he hadn’t told her he could let the demon out himself. It was how he’d accessed the demon’s magic for the cloaking spell. Releasing Kur on a metaphysical choke chain allowed him to reel the demon back in without the detrimental consequences of Kur’s accidental release through Ione’s blood.
After stripping down before the temple altar, Dev set the stage for the ritual that would provisionally unlock the warding magic of the tattoo. The power of fire required fire—sympathetic magic. Reciting the invocations of the four cardinal directions, Dev began with the east and moved counterclockwise to end at south, the quarter aligned with the element of fire.
Dev lifted the candle from the altar and held it above his head. “Welcome Shapash and Arinitti, Ishum and Ra, rulers of the fires of the sun. Welcome Hephaestus, god of the furnace and the forge, Vulcan, god of flame and master of the eternal fires within the belly of the earth. Welcome Hestia and Vesta, goddesses of the hearth fires and the home. Welcome Agni, purifier and bringer of lightning, devourer of sacrifice, and he who commends the spirits of the dead to the netherworld. Lend me your power that I may pass safely through it.”
He tilted the candle and let the wax drip down onto his abdomen, the first spatter of hot liquid making him flinch as it struck the topmost point of the star. With careful precision, he traced the symbol with drippings of wax, down to the left and up to the right, and across and down, and once more returning to the topmost point before slowly moving about the whole of the circle surrounding it.
“With the element of fire, I call you, Kur.” He felt the ground shudder beneath his feet as though the dragon’s weight had shifted within him. “With fire I call your fire.” Heat rushed upward through his veins and collected at his heart until it felt like it might stop beating before the heat began flowing downward, centered once more on the tattoo.
Dev held the candle aloft. “Your power is my power. My limbs are your limbs. Your breath my breath. We move forward as one, the body of the man and the power of the dragon.” Dev set the candle back on the altar as dragonfire moved through him like a tide ebbing and flowing, heat radiating from his skin.
“So,” he said conversationally, “let’s find this corpse that’s causing our Ione so much trouble.” He gathered his clothes from the bench, prepared to dress and head out to use the dragonfire as a sort of divining rod, when the dragon’s sense turned him swiftly toward the door that led to the basement. Here? It couldn’t possibly be here. Kur must be picking up on something else. But with his heightened senses, he could smell the faint reek of decomposition, the same scent he’d noticed the night he’d found the dog’s corpse hanging over the entrance to the temple. Probably just a mouse in a trap, but he ought to check it out.
Dev set down the clothes and grabbed one of the candles kept safely burning in the wall sconces with a perpetuity spell and headed for the stairs. As soon as he opened the door, it was clear this was no decomposing rodent. The smell he was breathing in with the dragon’s sense was mixed with the moldering odor of damp soil. Grave dirt. Someone or something had been unearthed.
The scent grew stronger and overwhelming as he descended, appealing to the demon and repelling the man. He paused at the bottom, lifting the candle to illuminate the shadowy corners of the basement. There were the gardening supplies he’d used that night: shears and bin bags...and a long-handled shovel he hadn’t seen before.
Dev approached the shelf where the shovel stood propped and crouched to examine it. Dirt was crusted around the base of the blade. Someone had used it and put it back without cleaning it off. Concentrating the dragonfire into his palm, he held out his hand and the flesh began to glow. Heat radiated into the metal of the shovel, enhancing the scent of the components of the dirt. The demon reared inside him as if it were tossing its head and stomping its feet like a warhorse on the battlefield, ready for action. It was definitely grave dirt.
A creak on the stairs made him whirl around, but a breeze rushed in from above and the candle went out, leaving him temporarily blind. As Dev straightened, something struck him in the back of the head and he stumbled onto one knee. In the darkness, it seemed as though the shovel itself had sprung from its place to crack his skull.
“What the blazes?” He put his hand to his head and felt something warm and sticky. The blood sent Kur into a rage and Dev found himself on his feet, lunging at whoever was messing with him in the dark, his human mind
too rattled to control the demon’s impulses.
Someone was there. Dev—or Kur—could smell her. Kur lashed out with the heat of his fire as Dev grabbed for her, and his assailant let out a sharp cry of surprise as his hand closed around her arm.
“Kur,” he managed to growl in warning, trying to temper the demon’s rage. He was burning her. But before he could calm the demon, the woman stepped in close to him and something stinging and sharp pierced his abdomen at the center of the tattoo. Dev let go of her arm and she scrambled back, taking with her whatever she’d stabbed him with. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. She backed away from him, her eyes wide, and a syringe dropped from her hand.
“Miss Kelley?” Those were the words he meant to say but his voice had gone low and gravelly, and the utterance wasn’t human. “What did you do?” But that had come out as a demon snarl. Beneath him, his limbs were stretching and breaking, remodeling themselves into forelegs and hind legs, and his center of gravity was changing—as well as his vantage point. The basement suddenly seemed much smaller. Dev snarled and darted his head around—in a manner a human head oughtn’t to be able to turn—to see the skin on his back boiling and rippling, sparkling with the emerging scales of the dragon.
* * *
Though she’d pushed him away, Ione had secretly hoped Dev would come back and allay her fears, swaying her once more with the charm he exuded when he wasn’t playing the role of the straitlaced-but-awkward assayer. Or at least call, wanting to hear her voice before bed.
She groaned at the thought. What was the matter with her? It wasn’t as if they were in a relationship. She prided herself on being independent and self-sufficient, yet here she was mooning over a guy like a teenager, just because he happened to be able to curl her toes with the sound of his voice.
Annoyed with herself, she decided to turn in early after a Samhain blessing at her altar. With everything that was going on, the coven’s usual ritual had been canceled. She’d asked them all to practice solo this evening to raise energy individually for the good of the coven.
Before heading to bed, Ione called in her anonymous tip. Rather than getting into the magical component, she told them the attendees at the party were trafficking underage girls. Which probably wasn’t untrue.
As she climbed into bed to read a bit before going to sleep, her skin suddenly prickled with apprehension and her heart began to race. Ione sat up, her chest feeling tight, like she couldn’t catch her breath. What the hell was this? She’d never had a panic attack, but this sure felt like every description of one she’d ever heard. Maybe it was another attack from Carter through his precious apprentice.
Her amulet, set aside while she was changing for bed, lay on the nightstand. Ione slipped it over her head and tucked it into her pajamas, but the rush of adrenaline in her veins didn’t slow. There was something urgent and familiar about this feeling.
Ione lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes, trying to still the sense of alarm, and nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone shrilled beside her.
She didn’t recognize the number.
“Ione, thank Goddess you picked up. I didn’t know who to call.” The rushed voice seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
“Sorry, who is this?”
“It’s Margot. Margot Kelley. There’s something going on at the temple.”
“At the temple? What do you mean? What’s happening?” Visions of the Conclave dousing the perpetual flames and shuttering the doors flashed through her mind. Or a Halloween attack by some ultra-right religious group who’d managed to see through the glamour.
“I saw something—or someone—Gods, I don’t know what I saw. Something’s inside the temple and I’m really freaked out.”
“Where are you now?” Ione rose and started pulling on clothes one-handed. “Are you still at the temple?”
“No, I’m in my car. I had to get out of there.”
As she zipped up her pants, the clock on her bedside table flipped to ten thirty.
Ione paused. “Margot, what were you doing there this late at night? Did you decide to do a Samhain ritual, after all?”
There was silence for a moment on the other end and then a horn honked and Margot swore softly. “Sorry. I have to go.”
“Wait. Margot.” But the line had gone dead.
Ione finished buttoning her waistband and shoved her feet into a pair of boots, not bothering to change the frayed and faded red T-shirt she’d worn to bed as she threw on her leather jacket. Twisting her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, she hurried down to the garage and shoved her helmet on, not even thinking twice about taking the bike.
* * *
The parking lot of the temple held a single car—Dev’s rental. As she passed it on the way inside, she noticed the remnants of the nail-polish graffiti Dev had told her about. Margot had been here when that had happened, and now this. What was going on?
Inside, the place seemed deserted, the usual muted glow of the magical candlelight throwing soft shadows against the stained glass, though an altar candle had been lit by someone, and incense was still burning. Dev’s clothes were folded on one of the benches nearest the dais.
“Dev?” Her voice echoed through the empty sanctuary. “Are you here?”
The initial response was more silence. And then the silence was pierced by an inhuman bellow from beneath her feet that sent chills up her spine. Crashing sounds followed from the basement. Crashing sounds that were ominously familiar.
Ione went to the open door and peered down the stairs into the darkness. “Kur?”
The bellow came again, ear-piercing and accompanied by a jet of flame. She just managed to get out of the way before the dragon barreled up the stairs and burst into the sacristy, tearing the door from its hinges, and crashed into the altar. If dragons could be drunk, this one seemed to be.
“Kur, it’s me.” Ione held out the back of her hand as though presenting it to a strange dog to be sniffed.
The dragon whipped its head slowly back and forth, its eyes unfocused as though it couldn’t see her, but its nostrils flared, and it made a snorting sound as if it were scenting the wind. It turned toward Ione, its movements jerky and lumbering, and she saw something orange and fuzzy bobbing at its shoulder—the end of a tranquilizer dart.
She stepped closer, holding out her hands in a pacifying gesture. “It’s okay. You’re safe with me. Let me get that out of you.”
With glazed eyes, the dragon exhaled with heavy, warm gusts but made no move to resist her—until she closed her hand around the tranquilizer dart to pull it out. And then it bolted, madly, letting out a roar of what could only be furious indignation, and leaped through the double doors into the atrium, scattering benches and candlesticks in its wake.
“Son of a—” Ione took off after the dragon as it broke off one of the outer doors and bounded into the parking lot. How was it able to move so quickly when it was obviously half-unconscious? She hoped to God the tranquilizer was still working its way through the dragon’s system and would slow the creature down soon.
She shouted after the dragon as it scrabbled onto the top of the rental car, buckling the metal. It skittered and turned briefly, and then Ione’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as the dragon leaped into the air and spread its massive webbed wings and flew away.
Stupidly, she watched it for several seconds as it wove and careened through the air—a caged bird suddenly free and unused to its wings—before she thought to hop on her bike and try to keep up with it.
Like a small plane with an engine problem, the dragon soared overhead, diving and climbing several times in succession while Ione sped among the hills through clouds of red dust. Kur was heading toward the rugged saddle points of Cathedral Rock. With the full moon overhead, she could see the dragon’s silhouette as it neare
d the formation and appeared to alight on one of the lower spires. Ione rode in as far as she could get and parked her bike at the Back O’ Beyond trailhead.
The full moon provided reasonably decent visibility at first, but deeper into the trail, sight was becoming impossible. Ione considered calling Phoebe to bring help. As she took her phone from her pocket, it dawned on her that it had a flashlight built into it.
Steering clear of night fauna as much as possible, she made her way as swiftly as she could to the spot where she’d last seen Kur’s silhouette. But more than half an hour had passed by the time she reached the signature saddle of the rock formation. She climbed in deeper, despairing of finding him, and then stumbled onto the dark, hulking shape of a motionless dragon camouflaged by the rocks except for its glowing gusts of breath.
“Kur. Thank God.” Ione scrambled up the hill to where the dragon lay curled at the base of the spire. The dragon watched her out of one baleful eye, like a great beached whale wondering what the puny human beside it was about to do next. What the hell was she going to do next? It hadn’t been her doing that had brought the dragon forth. Could the same method she’d tried before put it back?
But she didn’t have a blade. Ione searched the ground for a sharp enough rock, but picking up a piece of sandstone told her instantly that even if she managed to scrape away at her own flesh to make a deep enough cut, it would never pierce the thick scales of the dragon. She was going to need Phoebe and Rafe, after all. But the button on the phone yielded only the fruitless click of a drained battery.
“Crap.”
Kur made a mournful sound like a dog moaning in its sleep and lowered his head to the ground. Ione was out of options. She sank to the ground next to the dragon. The desert night was chilly, but Kur’s body emitted a comforting heat.
Now that she had time to sit and think, Ione tried to piece together what had happened. Dev had gone to the temple—perhaps called there by Margot?—and had performed some kind of ritual. He’d undressed, so he’d probably been alone at that point. He didn’t seem like the type to be comfortable with casual nudity. In fact, he seemed pretty fond of keeping his clothes on even while engaged in not-so-casual sexual activity. She suspected it wasn’t entirely down to his particular proclivities. The brand he’d thought of as a mass of scar tissue at his back was something he was always careful to keep out of view. But thinking of Dev in the buff wasn’t getting her anywhere—at least not anywhere she needed to be at the moment.
