by Tanya Huff
“It’s easy to get lost in here, I’d better go with you.”
No, you would only slow me. I cannot get lost as long as I have your scent.
“You saying I smell?”
The enormous eyes blinked once.
“Never mind.” She waved a hand. “Have fun, I’ll be here when you need to go home.”
She could feel the shadow’s presence to the left, down where the trees began to grow farther apart, their heavy crowns blocking the light. Apparently, so did Ryan because he rose into the air-much more easily than he had out in the world-and sped off toward it. Either his size was flexible here or he could adjust the landscape more precisely than she could or those trees were farther apart than she’d thought because he slipped between them with sinuous grace and disappeared.
Time passed because Charlie played her heartbeat on her base strings. Without that to ground her, she would have had no grasp of when to emerge. Time moved differently in the Wood, if and when it moved at all and, for all the time she’d spent traveling, she’d never sat still and allowed the Wood to move around her before. Usually they danced as partners. She found it interesting that no matter how much the surrounding landscape changed, the log she sat on and the gap Ryan had used to get in among the older trees stayed the same.
One heck of a lot of heartbeats later, she caught a glimpse of the shadow. It came to the edge of the trees, skidded along a gully, flowed over a dry riverbed, its movement almost familiar. It wasn’t moving in the Wood, it was moving through the Wood, becoming the fixed point.
“Ryan! It’s trying…”
It slammed into her, knocking her over. She twisted to protect her guitar and landed hard on a rock.
And it was gone.
“Trying to get out,” she finished as Ryan dropped out of the sky and landed beside her, burning and changing as his feet touched down.
“I almost had it,” he panted. “It is old and canny, but I have its scent now and I will find it and I will rend it!”
“Well, come on, then,” she told him, rising carefully to her feet. “If we hurry, maybe we can catch it on the other side.”
“You can follow it through?”
“I’m just that good. And it went through about two meters that way.” The end of a song she nearly recognized still rang in her ears. They could slip out on the same notes.
Except they came out where they came in, deep in the park.
“It is the site of power, on the top of the hill,” Ryan sighed. “It is too strong and it has pulled us here and I have no scent of the shadow.”
Charlie’s stomach growled.
“Your body is angry?”
“Hungry.”
“Mine, too.”
“Well, the shadow’s out of the Wood and I know the song now to get you in, so I say we call the night a win. How about we go get ourselves the best pizza ever?”
“I don’t…”
“I do. Come on, kid.”
“So, we went to Chicago…”
“Wait.” David held up a hand. “You took a Dragon Lord for pizza in Chicago.”
“Yeah, there’s this place I know, best pizza in the world. Ryan ate six, so he seemed to agree.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He ate six pizzas,” Charlie reminded them. “With essentially a human mouth. We didn’t have time to talk about much.”
“Who paid?” Roland wondered.
“Ryan.”
“With money?”
“Adam made sure he had walking around money for when he was in skin, not scales. And speaking of Adam, he was waiting when we got back to the car. Which was an easy trip because of the draw of the hill.” Charlie yawned and ran both hands back through her hair. “You know, Allie, if I’d aimed for the hill instead of for you, I don’t think the shadow could have pushed me out. I could have skipped the whole ass in a plane thing.”
“Builds character,” Allie pointed out.
“Got lots, thanks.”
“Was he mad?” Joe wondered. “Adam?”
“Not at me. Wasn’t thrilled Ryan had gone off-line for a while, though.” Faced with a circle of blank expressions, she explained. “They have this whole telepathy thing going. Kind of Emma Frost with scales. Anyway, while Ryan was in the Wood, Adam couldn’t hear him and then we left for Chicago before he arrived. He didn’t have the fast pass, so he waited by the car. The scorch on the jacket-bit of Adam showing temper. They flame a bit when they yell. Sorry, Allie, I’ll replace it. And this…” Reaching into her pocket she pulled out an emerald green scale about as big around as a loonie and slightly concave. “… this was on the ground when they took off. But it’s all good,” she added as David took the scale. “After he finished pulling the older brother shit, Adam seemed happy Ryan had found something to do now Allie won’t let them burn down buildings.”
“I just asked them not to,” Allie protested, putting a fresh pot of coffee down on the table. “It’s not like I said they weren’t allowed.”
“He could probably smell you were crossing and didn’t want to mess with you.” Charlie slid her mug over closer to the pot and looked sad. Allie sighed, poured, and slid it back. “I got the impression that motherhood is kind of fucking scary in their family.”
“Kind of?” Michael snorted. “They eat their young.”
“Only in the egg. Mostly only. Anyway, once Adam and Ryan left, I fell asleep in the car until Allie woke me. Then I came home.” She spread her hands. “Ta-dah.”
David passed the scale to Roland and scratched at his jaw, the soft shook, shook of his fingernails against the stubble the only sound for a moment. “The youngest is coming through,” he said at last. “Some of the Dragon Lords are here to stop it. Some are here to assist it. They don’t know how the numbers break down, but hopefully it’ll be six of one/half a dozen of the other so they can fight themselves to a standstill.”
“The youngest is another Dragon Lord, their nephew,” Allie continued. “But their sister had to be careful while she was sitting, so maybe she only had one in the clutch and that distilled his Dragon Lordness, making him like you.”
“Super Dragon Lord! I’m not saying David’s a super Dragon Lord,” Michael amended hurriedly, “just that this new guy probably is. If there was only one.”
“I suspect Adam and those supporting his position want to stop the super Dragon Lord…”
Michael grinned.
“… to protect their own interests and that he’ll be at his most vulnerable when he first emerges,” Roland said thoughtfully. “The super Dragon Lord is dangerous enough to him, to them, that it was worth the risk of antagonizing the Courts to arrive at a place where he could be destroyed.”
“Or she.” They all turned to look at Joe, who blushed. “Ryan seemed scared of the females, is all.”
“Smart of him,” Michael muttered.
Allie smacked the back of his head. “Don’t you have deliveries to supervise?”
“I do.” He stood and stretched, T-shirt riding up to show a line of tanned muscle above the waistband of his jeans. “David, if you’ve got a minute, I could use your help finishing off those stairs before the furniture comes.”
“I could…” Roland began, but David cut him off.
“Rol, last time you held a hammer, you nailed my boot to your mother’s back porch. I’ve got it.”
“You nailed his boot to the porch?”
Setting the scale down, Roland pushed his chair back. “I missed his foot,” he muttered, heading for the bathroom and answering his phone as he moved. “Hi, baby girl! Does Mommy know you’re calling?”
“I should go open the store,” Joe murmured. He went to push his sleeves up his arms, realized he was in a sweater that actually fit, and all but ran for the apartment door when he saw that at some point Charlie had sketched a charm on his forearm.
When only Allie and Charlie remained at the table, Allie raised a speculative eyebrow at her cousin. “Well?”
/> Charlie didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “I thought about it, more than I did while lusting over Adam actually-Ryan’s young enough to be a little more equal opportunity-but the package was so pretty I figured I’d be too distracted to protect myself against the inevitable third-degree burns.”
“Safe sex is important.”
“There’s hot and then there’s too hot to handle.”
“No hazmat suit, no love.”
“You’re reaching.”
“I know.” Allie leaned over and kissed her gently. “Go have a shower, and I’ll be in to charm those bruises for you before I head downstairs.”
“Sounds good.” Charlie paused just outside the bathroom door. “You should call Graham. Share information if nothing else.”
“Nothing else.”
“Allie…”
“He chose, Charlie.”
She stared across the room for a long moment then shook her head. “If you say so.”
“Hey! Knock first!” Roland yelled as Charlie pushed the bathroom door open.
“Dude, like I haven’t seen it before.”
Allie pulled out her phone. Opened it. Closed it again.
Graham might not know exactly what was coming through, but Kalynchuk certainly did. She didn’t know what he’d done while in the UnderRealm to piss off the youngest of the Dragon Lords although, since the youngest in any family spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove themselves, it was possible he hadn’t done much.
Either way, speculation wouldn’t help Graham.
Before the imminent arrival of the Dragon Lords had driven him into hiding, Stanley Kalynchuk had lived in Upper Mount Royal. Big house, extensive grounds, a few too many rich American neighbors for Graham’s liking, but he kept his opinion of that to himself. Many of the odds and ends scattered through the house were objects of power, artifacts displayed like they were nothing more than a rich man’s knickknacks, and half of the enormous basement had been turned into a workshop.
Spinning the white shell around on the desk with the point of the letter opener, Graham waited to be called into the inner chamber that had become living space and workroom in one. Cramped, but he suspected Kalynchuk missed the ostentatious displays of power more than the square footage. He’d loved to show off his collection of weird.
“And this,” Kalynchuk paused in front of a corner cabinet and indicated a brass hourglass about ten centimeters tall.“This contains the sand of time.”
“Because it’s an hourglass.”
“No, the actual sand of time. Turn the glass and while the sand runs out, time stops for everyone but the one whose hand is on the glass.”
There wasn’t that much sand.“How long does it take.”
“Two and a half seconds.”
Graham’d had a little trouble seeing the point, but he’d made a polite noise and the tour had continued.
“This is a cross-section of the thighbone of the last True Hero.”
That had been just a bit creepy. When Kalynchuk had moved to the more defensible position in what had been his office closet, both hourglass and thighbone had been locked into the vault by the workroom with about half of the visible artifacts. The rest, and the basics from the workshop, had been brought here.
Graham flicked the shell around again and wondered how much longer he’d be kept waiting. He’d had his ritual bath and now he could really use a ritual cup of coffee as well as a few ritual hours on his computer clearing up some ritual bills for the newspaper. The Western Star went to the boxes on Wednesdays, so Thursdays were light, but he still had work to do.
For his other job.
Maybe he’d start writing up that piece on the Emporium. He’d gone over a few of the items for sale with Catherine Gale, but he could certainly use Alysha Gale’s take on them-they’d done nothing in the store itself.
His mind wandered off to the sorts of things they could have been doing in the store had they still been doing things.
“Thinking of that Gale girl?”
Startled, Graham jerked back and knocked the shell off the desk. Paper clips went flying. The shell bounced twice and came to rest, spinning slowly by his boss’ left foot.
“Sorry, I’ll just…”
“Get your head in the game,” Kalynchuk snarled, the shell suddenly back on the desk, the paper clips back in the shell. “If these are the lingering effects, you’re better off without her.” He stepped back, indicating Graham should enter. “Are you able to remember the rules, or should I go over them again?”
“Don’t touch anything, do exactly as I’m told; it’s not rocket science, Boss.”
“In your current state it could be,” he muttered as Graham brushed past. “Stand there, on the right side of the table, facing the table.”
The table was about a meter and a half long and no more than half a meter wide. On it was a cast iron pot with a pouring lip suspended on an iron cradle over a scorch mark on the table. In the pot, a small ingot of lead as well as shavings of a number of different metals not usually used for alloying. Next to it, a single cavity bullet mold.
“They call this Dragon’s Fuel,” Kalynchuk said as he set a sugar-cube-sized piece of what looked like black honeycomb down under the pot. “Ironic, isn’t it. This is almost the last of the supply I brought back from the UnderRealm. When we’ve dealt with the threat, I may finally be able to go back and get more.”
The knife he chose was the smallest on the rack, about six centimeters long and made of silver. Graham had always thought that for a man who kept a hired gun, his boss was just a little too enthusiastic about sharp objects.
“Hold your hand out over the pot. The blood must join the mixture at the moment the metals liquefy.”
“And you need my blood because?” He’d given blood in these kind of rituals before, but he drew the line at bleeding without knowing why.
“To aid your aim.”
“I don’t miss.”
“This time, you can’t miss.”
“And your blood is in there for?”
Kalynchuk paused, sleeves pushed up, old burn scars on his forearms looking shiny under the overhead fluorescent lights. Graham thought he might not answer; he didn’t always, but in the end, something one of Graham’s journalism profs had told him usually held true-people liked to share how clever they were.
“My blood combined with the power I’ll bind to this bullet is what gives us a chance to kill the creature.You will be the system of delivery, but I will strike the final blow. From here on in, don’t interrupt.”
A short chant in words that sounded painful to pronounce ignited the fuel. It burned white hot, too bright to look at directly. Hand held out over the pot, Graham could feel the heat pulling the skin on the inside of his arm tight and he wondered if his boss’ scars had come from learning to control the freaky stuff. But that he knew better than to ask.
The knife was sharp enough; he barely felt the point go in and watched in fascination as two drops of blood fell toward the metal. He’d had reason to cast silver bullets in the past, and he knew that liquid and molten metal was a bad combination.
“Step back!” Kalynchuk barked as the blood made contact.
Graham jumped back as a column of black smoke rose up and spread along the ceiling. After the first time he’d emptied the building, Kalynchuk had ordered Graham to strip the offices of all fire alarms. Graham hadn’t been happy about it, not with the way his boss preferred to work, but he did as he was told.
Watching the smoke, he thought he could hear screaming. His mother’s voice calling his name. His father calling for her. One of his uncles had told him the house had burned so hot and so fast that everyone had to have died instantly. That they hadn’t suffered. The rubble had smoked for three days before the rains put the last of it out. They all said it was a miracle the whole town hadn’t gone up. He rubbed at his forehead, trying to rub the memories away.
He never thought about the fire.
“No
point in dwelling on the past.” Kalynchuk’s voice in his head merged with Kalynchuk’s voice chanting what he assumed were words of power regardless of how made up and vaguely ridiculous they sounded.
When the smoke and the chanting died down, the sorcerer picked up a ladle.
“You need to flux the metal,” Graham pointed out. Generally, he wouldn’t have said anything, but generally Kalynchuk wasn’t working within his area of expertise.
“The blood has purified it.”
Not in the real world, but from what he’d seen, sorcery was at least one step left of reality anyway, so Graham let it go.
Kalynchuk brought the mold horizontally to the nozzle on the ladle, then rotated it to vertical, lifted it far enough to allow a small puddle to form on the sprue plate, then set the ladle back into the…
Empty pot.
So he’d literally only get one shot.
A carved wooden dowel to break off the excess metal, then the bullet fell out of the open mold onto a Holstein-patterned potholder. It looked like any other hand cast bullet Graham had ever seen.
“I’d like to see your Alysha Gale cook this,” Kalynchuk sneered.
Last night Allie and her family had taken down three Dragon Lords, in a bar, with no chanting or fire or bloodshed. Well, none of their blood anyway. Graham just realized he hadn’t told his boss about that.
Wasn’t going to.
Wasn’t sure why.
What would he say to her given the chance?
I’ve got your back.
“So, Graham Buchannan.”
Charlie looked up from feeding a new A string through the tuning peg. “What about him?”
“Do I need to have a few words with him?” David spun a chair around and settled across the table, arms folded across the chair’s high back, disconcertingly dark gaze locked on her face. “Or have you got it covered?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He was there last night.”
She should have known David had sensed Graham’s presence. “I’ve got it covered.”
