by Tanya Huff
Charlie had the whole band playing along.
David sketched a circle in the air. It flared out and in again, enclosing all three Dragon Lords in Gale power.
Blue Eyes staggered to his feet, one of the men in the booth helping him out with a kick in the ass. Copper Eyes stood slowly, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. Red Eyes took off his glasses. His eyes were blazing.
Literally.
Allie could feel their combined power beating against the enclosure.
It wasn’t going to hold.
This place had to have a back door. She should have just told Michael to run for it the moment the Dragon Lords strutted in through the front.
She reached farther, but even with Roland digging deep, she couldn’t get more.
Red Eyes smiled as flame engulfed him.
Just a little farther…
Copper Eyes disappeared in fire.
She knew there was more power out there. If Charlie were closer. If Roland could hold them both.
Blue Eyes laughed and burned.
Then Allie sank into a touch that anchored her farther from her center than she’d ever been. Allowed her to reach farther than she ever had. The power surge brought her up on her toes, grinding back against Roland’s body. She could feel Charlie fighting to control it, but they needed more. More family. More than one third circle, one second circle, her and David.
“What scares the old fools most about David is that they have no idea of his limits.” Gran’s voice in memory.
Allie threw the power to her brother, wild and unshaped and trusted him to control it.
David tossed his head, horns scoring the ceiling, the amount of power he was handling pulling them further into the physical. Into the actual. He raised his hands and closed them into fists.
The power around the Dragon Lords slammed inward.
The fires went out.
David smiled and said, “You have a count of five to get out of here.”
Red Eyes stared down at his hands with their very human fingernails in disbelief. “This isn’t possible!”
“One.”
Blue Eyes ran.
“Two.”
Copper Eyes grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “Viktor, come on!”
“Two and a half.”
Viktor stretched out a hand and his sunglasses slapped up into his palm. “This isn’t over, Gale!”
“Three.”
“Viktor!”
Viktor snarled but ran for the door.
“Four.”
It hit him on the ass on the way out.
Probably Charlie.
Allie let one final pulse spread out over the bar, easing the hysterical and the only mildly impressed alike into sleep; everyone not a Gale, or Michael, or a leprechaun…
“Joe!”
“Full-blood Fey,” Roland laughed in her ear as Joe was suddenly sitting at the table again. “No one sees him if he doesn’t want them to.”
Joe blushed.
“Now that’s what I call power chords.” Charlie unplugged her guitar and jumped off the stage trailing two broken strings. “Good thing I was using a pick, or I’d have trashed my fingers. What’d you do to my audience?”
“They’ll wake up in about five minutes and have forgotten the whole thing.”
“A little high-handed,” Michael pointed out as he crawled out from under the table, looked down at the stains on his knees and sighed. “I don’t even want to know.”
“Gale girls become aunties,” Roland reminded him. “And it’s…”
Michael raised a hand and stopped him. “Told you. Don’t want to know.”
Allie could feel Roland’s arousal; it should have been answered by her own. It wasn’t… quite. Part of her felt almost as though it were still somewhere else. The other part-well, that part was on board with seeing things through. As soon as they got somewhere a little more private, they’d finish the ritual.
“David, Charlie can…”
He shook his head. “Lines are too close. Not risking it with you crossing and this much power.” He fumbled the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to her. “Take the car. I’ll try and be back by morning.”
He was at the door, ducking to clear the spreading tines of his rack, when Michael started moving. “I’ll go with him.”
Allie grabbed his arm and hauled him to a halt. Here and now, the size difference was no difference at all. “We’re in a bad neighborhood in a big city. He’ll find someone.”
“What, a hooker?”
“It has to be a woman, Michael, you know that. Charlie?”
“I’m good for now.” Her fingers caressed the full curve of the dreadnought. “When she’s plugged in and played that hard, she vibrates.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Trust me, Allie-cat…” Her kiss was sweet and wound Allie’s responses up tighter. “… I got into the music. Besides, someone needs to be here when this lot wakes up.”
“But the Dragon Lords…”
“Won’t be back tonight. They’ve scurried off with their tails between their legs.”
“There’s nine more,” Allie reminded her.
“And you worry too much.” Charlie took the keys out of Allie’s hand and gave them to Michael. “You drive.”
Allie nearly missed the look he shot her, a little preoccupied with Roland’s teeth in the edge of her ear. Nearly. “Oh, give me a break, Michael. It’s not your first ritual. Joe, we’d all feel better if you slept at the apartment tonight.”
“I don’t…”
“You won’t win, so don’t even try,” Michael sighed, heading for the door. “And you’re riding shotgun. Voice of experience; don’t look in the backseat.”
Shoulder blades pressed hard against the wall between the men’s and women’s washroom, Graham opened his eyes, stared up at the grimy stucco on the hall ceiling, and tried to catch his breath. He’d been on his way into the bar when he’d felt…
Allie.
Her touch sank past the surface and wrapped around what it meant to be Graham Buchanan. Were he a thirteen-year-old girl, he’d describe it as a perfect synergy of souls. As he wasn’t, the best description he could manage involved a gasped, “Oh, my fucking God!” as his knees nearly gave out, and, about three minutes later, after being caught up in a surge of sensation, a spreading damp spot on the front of his jeans. Only years of experience had kept him from dropping his weapon as his release slammed through him.
The sudden sound of a snare drum crashing to the floor brought him out of his post what-the-hell-just-happened fastest-response-time-of-his-life lassitude, giving him the energy to stagger the final two meters and shove open the door to the bar.
“About time, dude.”
The blue-haired woman he’d seen out on Beaconsfield and as he’d left that morning-Cousin Charlie-was now a red-haired woman, although the red was not a shade usually associated with hair. She was up on the stage bending over the drummer who seemed to have fallen off his stool and taken the snare with him as he headed for the floor.
Which was when Graham realized the rest of the band was also on the floor.
And the four groups of bar patrons seemed to be…
The elderly woman slumped over at the bar snarled in a lungful of air and snorted it out, her volume impressive.
… sleeping.
He could see neither Gales nor Dragon Lords, but the air stank of sulfur and hot beer.
“Hey! Don’t just stand there like a damp bump on a log; give me a hand.”
She seemed to be trying to get the drummer back on his stool.
She had the drummer suspended in the air, unfortunately between her and the stool.
Graham tucked his weapon away and stepped over the keyboard player and around behind the drum kit. He stood the stool upright, then held it steady as she settled the drummer down on it.
“I’m Charlie, by the way.” She picked up the drummer’s sticks and folded his fingers around them. “We
were never actually introduced.” A charm on both hands held the sticks in place. “You’re the moron who made the wrong choice.”
“Graham.”
“That’s what I said.” Straightening, she pushed her hair back off her face and headed toward the door he’d just come through. “All right, let’s get out of sight before this lot starts waking up and wonders what the hell you’re doing on the stage.”
Following her seemed like the easiest option. “I’d think my presence would be the least of their concerns.”
“They won’t ever know they were out.”
“Some of them are on the floor.”
She flashed a grin over one shoulder as she stepped out into the hall, looking so much like Allie for a moment his chest ached. “Yeah, but they’re in the band.”
“What happened?” he asked as the door closed behind him.
“We kicked Dragon Lord ass.”
“How many?”
“Three. If the eye-to-scale thing holds: blue, copper, and red.”
“Trent, Delsin, and Viktor.” Kalynchuk had names for them all, although Graham wasn’t entirely positive that they weren’t names but merely convenient labels. “And, from what I’ve heard, Viktor’s a nasty son of a bitch.” He was talking mostly to give himself time to absorb the information that, with even odds, the Gales had beaten three Dragon Lords. Wait… “Who was the other man with Allie?”
“Jealous?”
“No.”
“Liar. But don’t worry. That was David, her big brother. Oh wait, maybe you should worry, all things considered.”
Four Gales. But only two women; that wasn’t the way the family worked. Or it wasn’t the way his boss thought the family worked.
Charlie waved a hand in front of his face. “Don’t zone out on me. I need to know what the hell you were thinking.”
“This morning?”
“No, when you got that haircut.” Leaning back against the wall, she folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “Yes, this morning.”
“I don’t want you to go, but if that’s your choice, I won’t stop you.”
“That’s my choice.”
“I was angry. Allie’d told Roland to keep me in the apartment. I felt…”
“Like you’d been de-balled? Yeah, we get that a lot. Know that we’re prone to it going in and realize that’s not our intent. And you’re not blameless in this, boyo; when she asked, you told her you understood when clearly you didn’t.”
“Clearly?”
“You’re here. And that mess in your pants tells me you’re still connected. And that you’ve been keeping your fluid levels up. Good for you. Hydration’s important.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “What?”
“When she reached out, she found you. Now that might have had to do with this…” One finger flicked at the charm on his forehead. “… but I doubt it. In fact…” That same finger flicked him again. Harder. “Well, well, well. Isn’t that interesting.”
“Isn’t what interesting?”
“Not my place to say.” Her smile had edges. “But that does explain why your touch let her reach so much farther. And considering how much juice she pulled, I can’t wait to see what’ll happen when you two crazy kids actually get your act together. Doubt that’s going to be a ritual my guitar can cover.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Just tell me what you’re doing lurking around here before I have to get back to three chords and the truth.”
“The Dragon Lords…”
“You followed them?”
“No, I was here already. I came to see you.”
“Me?”
“I didn’t think Allie’d talk to me.”
One brow went up. “Good call.”
“I thought you might.”
“Might talk to you?” Arms folded, she shifted her weight to the other hip. “And tell you what?”
His mouth was dry. He swallowed and wet his lips. “If there was a chance of making another choice.”
Her eyes were the exact same shade as Allie’s. After a long moment, she sighed again. “If you’d had a chance to talk to Allie tonight-which would probably have happened after David pounded on you for a while-what would you have said?”
“That I… That we could… It isn’t as simple as…”
It wasn’t simple, that was the problem. Not given what she was and what he did. Wanting her wasn’t enough to cut through the tangle.
The other brow rose.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“An honest man.” He could see the family resemblance even more strongly when Charlie smiled. “When you figure out what you want to say, I’ll make you sure you get a chance to say it.” Grabbing his wrist, she pulled a sharpie from her pocket and scrawled a string of numbers on the back of his hand. “If you don’t get through at first, keep calling. Sometimes I leave my phone in the freezer. And now…” She cocked her head. “Sounds like people are waking up. I need to get back in there.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“That I went to see a man about a horse.” Hand on the door, she turned and grinned. “I’m getting the hang of the cowboy talk.”
TEN
Reluctant to leave the warmth, Allie rolled away from Roland’s side and peered at the clock. Seven twenty. The good news was, her body no longer thought it was two hours earlier. The bad news; she could tell she wasn’t going to get back to sleep, and it was significantly earlier than she needed to get up.
She had two options. Get up. Or don’t. Well, technically three, but she really didn’t much feel like waking Roland up. If it had been Graham…
The floor was freezing. In cold weather she’d charm it warm before she got out of bed, but it hadn’t seemed worth it in May. She really had to start remembering she was in Alberta.
A night-sight charm on one eyelid allowed her to dress quickly and find her phone. Holding her shoes, she pulled open the bedroom door and slipped out into the living room.
Michael had sprawled out over one sofa bed on his stomach, facing the bedroom with one arm tucked up under his head and the other dangling off the edge, his knuckles resting on the floor. He had the blankets pulled high around his shoulders, leaving both feet uncovered and only actually on the mattress because he was stretched diagonally across it. Leaning over, she gently kissed the top of his head without waking him and smiled when he did.
Joe hadn’t bothered opening the other sofa bed and lay cocooned in blankets on the couch-although Allie had to strain to see him. Her charm seemed to have no effect on his ability to disappear. Her first inclination was to do something about that, arrange it so she could see him, at least, but as it seemed to be the only ability of his blood he’d kept, she decided to leave things as they were. For the immediate future anyway.
Neither Charlie nor David had come home.
Charlie did that sometimes. Better to believe she’d done it again than believe she’d been eaten by Dragon Lords. Still…
On her way to the door she sent a quick Where r u?
Out on the landing, as she bent to put her shoes on, her pocket vibrated.
Home soon!
Allie sighed and thought about calling. Wherever she was, Charlie was awake and in no danger. Or at the very least, still in possession of one thumb. And would have called her rather than texting back had she anything to say that she was willing to say over the phone.
Okay, then. Time to worry about David.
David didn’t wander off.
Not ever.
She wasn’t particularly worried about him being eaten by Dragon Lords-given the amount of power he’d needed to ground, the odds were better he’d have been doing the eating. She wasn’t at all worried that whoever he’d found to ground off with had been more than he could handle-in any of the many ways that phrase applied. She wasn’t worried about anything in particular except that he wasn’t home and that was worrying. Just because.
The sun had been u
p for almost two hours, but the sky was so overcast that very little light made it into the back hall. If it hadn’t been for the light reflected off the mirror…
Allie frowned at her reflection. She was holding the baby again, a scaly tail emerging from the swaddling to lash against her leg. As far as she could remember, this was the first time the mirror had repeated an image. Well, except for showing Michael naked every single time he passed but, in all honesty, given the chance who wouldn’t?
“Are you warning me against the youngest Dragon Lord?” Allie asked quietly, rubbing the frame with her thumb. “Is Ryan going to try something?”
Her reflection suddenly sported a dunce cap.
“Well, excuse me for not getting it,” she sighed. “I need a coffee. We’ll try again later.”
She glanced out the window as she passed. The courtyard was empty, the tiny shrubbery slightly disheveled. Given that at some point yesterday afternoon Michael had moved the old staircase to the loft out into the courtyard and leaned it against the wall, that was hardly surprising. Slightly more surprising that the shrubbery was intact at all given the size of Michael’s boots.
The store was strangely quiet.
Given their sales, it was quiet a fair bit of the time, but this was different. This was the kind of quiet that suggested she’d just missed something. Quiet after the fact.
The glow-in-the-dark yoyos were glowing slightly.
Allie blew a charm into the air in front of her, just to make sure she was alone in the store. She was.
The cashbox was in place behind the counter.
The cash was in it.
She’d moved the monkey’s paw yesterday, and none of the other artifacts were likely to be recognized by someone without power. Half of them she couldn’t recognize until she actually came in contact with them.
Empty store. Unburgled.
The reaction of a box of phosphorescent children’s toys was not enough to stop her from going next door and getting a coffee.
There was an unexpected line at the counter, which actually shouldn’t have been unexpected Allie realized, given the trucks parked out front. Not that waiting was going to be a problem since David sat at one of the tiny tables, talking on the phone, two red mugs and an empty plate in front of him. She could just barely make out the reflection of horn in the window. Considering he’d probably been up all night, he looked good. Rakishly stub-bled and very well grounded. Of course, given that last burst of power he’d handled, he could likely stay up for three or four nights with no ill effects.
