by Tanya Huff
“Allie didn’t notice him.”
“Allie had her feelings hurt,” Charlie snorted, crimping the string.
“He makes her…”
She glanced over when David’s voice trailed off.
He shrugged. “Her crazy plan with the sorcerer, whatever the hell she’s up to with the Dragon Lords-since she met him, she hasn’t been thinking straight.”
“Hand me those wire cutters, would you? Allie used to be happy just being one of the girls,” she continued as he slid them across the table into her hand. “She was a cheerleader, she was on the field hockey team, she went to a university close enough she could come home every weekend. She got a job she didn’t hate and maybe she’d be chosen and maybe she’d meet someone outside the family, but either way it didn’t really matter if she didn’t because she had that whole Michael broke her heart thing to fall back on. And me.” Charlie plucked the new string, tightened it a little further, and plucked it again. “Since she came to Calgary, Allie’s started thinking for herself, she’s started doing things. There’s a fuck of a lot of Gale girls out there, David, but this, whatever the hell this turns out to be, this is Allie’s chance to be something more.”
“And when you say this, you mean Graham?”
“No, dumbass, I mean all of it. Graham, the sorcerer, the Dragon Lords, you.” Charlie sighed and lifted her guitar off the table and onto her lap, running her fingers lightly over the new strings. “Gale girls get lazy, complacent, but Allie faced down a roomful of aunties when she was thirteen, so there’s always been more in her. She just needed a kick in the ass to bring it out.”
“And Graham?”
“Ritual needs an auntie present to be binding.”
“That’s not,” David began. Paused. “That’s exactly what an auntie would say.”
Charlie grinned, picking out the first two bars of “Avalon.” “And I’ll say it to Allie when I think she’ll listen. Like I said, I’ve got it covered.” The sound he made next was speculative enough she rolled her eyes. “What?”
“So you and Graham?”
She didn’t bother pretending to misunderstand. “He’s Allie’s choice. I’m willing to share.”
“It looks great, Michael.” Allie linked her arm through his and leaned into his shoulder. “Hard to believe that less than a week ago this was a big empty space.”
The loft now had a finished kitchen along one end, complete with a breakfast bar and two stools, as well as a bathroom with a corner shower. The larger area was carpeted in a dark brown Berber and held a green-patterned sofa, two matching chairs, a coffee table, and a queen-sized Murphy bed up against the opposite wall.
Michael leaned sideways and kissed the top of her head. “Yeah, well, if I don’t make it as an architect, it looks like I have a future in general contracting.”
“What do you mean if you don’t make it?”
“I’ve got time to put in with Brian’s father before I can get my license and, after I walked away, well, I doubt he’ll want me back.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“To the job?”
“Michael…”
She felt him shrug. “The job, Brian, they’re tangled together.”
“You need to talk to him.”
“Unmarried marriage counselor talking there, Allie.”
And she knew that was as close as he’d come to saying, You screwed up your love life-what makes you think you know best about mine. “Then I need to talk to him.”
“I think you’ve got enough going on here. And speaking of here, who are you planning to move in?”
Behind the smile and the dimples, he looked so miserable that she let the change of subject stand. He was right; she had enough going on in Calgary to keep her from hunting Brian down and demanding an explanation, but later, when it was over, Michael was top on her “to do” list. “I was thinking Joe needed a place, but, for now, I want him in the apartment. I want everyone in the apartment. With the new furniture in the second bedroom, we can sleep ten. Well, nine…” Her finger bounced off the muscles sheathing his torso. “… considering one of them’s you.”
“Are you saying I hog the bed?”
“I’m saying you’re probably distantly related to the Jolly Green Giant. Face it, Michael, you’re large.”
“And proportional.”
“I hate you.”
He twisted out of her grip, grabbed her ears, and kissed the top of her head again. “You love me.”
She did. She didn’t know exactly when loving him had stopped gouging a constant and Promethean hole in her heart, but all that remained was a memory of pain and a comforting presence she knew would always be there loving her, supporting her. She dug her fingers into the ticklish spot high on his side to get him to release her ears, and when she had him on the floor, shrieking in laughter, she drew another charm just below his right ear.
Rolling off him, avoiding his flailing limbs with the ease of long practice, Allie held out her hand. “It’s getting late, I should check on Joe.You coming.”
His fingers were warm when they wrapped around hers. “What’s it say?”
There was no reason to either deny or lie. “It’s just something visible to let the Dragon Lords know you’re under our protection.”
Michael snorted as he stood. “Referring to yourself in the third person now?”
“The family’s protection.”
“It says mine, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
The front door was swinging closed as they came into the back of the store and, just for a moment, framed in her Gran’s clear-sight charm, Allie saw glossy black wings, highlights an iridescent purple under the streetlamps. Then there was a woman, tall and angular, striding away.
“Was that one of the corbae?”
“Yeah.” Joe’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “She came for her mail. Allie…” He gestured behind him at the empty cubicles. “… they’ve all come for their mail.”
“So they got used to us. Is that bad?” Some of the boxes had been pretty full. The Fey had a fondness for mail order catalogs.
“It’s not good.” He wet his lips. “I think it’s tonight.”
“Mail call?” Michael asked from behind her.
Joe shot him an exasperated look that seemed to steady his nerves. “No, it. It’s the best reason I can think of for them to be clearing out. This lot doesn’t like to be seen as picking sides.”
“Picking sides? That’s… Oh.” Heart pounding, she stared at Joe, suddenly realizing what he meant. “It’s tonight.”
ELEVEN
“Tonight? Now?”
“Maybe not right now,” Joe allowed. “But given the way everyone’s hun kering down, real soon. Tonight some time.”
Good enough for her. “Where?” Allie asked.
He shrugged, hands spread. “I don’t know.”
“No one said anything?”
“No.” His brows drew in. “I sold a yoyo while you were gone, but that’s probably nothing.”
“Probably?”
He shrugged again.
“Okay, close and come upstairs. We need to have a war council.”
Joe’s freckles stood out in high relief. “We’re going to war?”
“Well, no,” Allie admitted. “But it sounds better than we need to sit around and rehash what we know and figure out what the hell we’re going to do when we get out there.”
“So we’ll be going out there, then?”
She shot a quick glance over at Michael. “Not all of us.”
“Okay, the youngest Dragon Lord is breaking out in Calgary. There’s a dozen Dragon Lords already here-some of them want to stop him, some of them don’t, and we have no idea of how the numbers split or what their reasons are or if we agree with any of them. We have a sorcerer who considers this Dragon Lord his enemy and is going to use a…” Hand waving didn’t give her the word. “… use Graham to stop him. Those Dragon Lords who do
n’t want him stopped are going to object. We know…” She pointed at Charlie. “… that they need a place of power to come through. That he’s not coming through at a gate but trying to slip through unnoticed. We know where there’s a place of power in the city.”
Charlie grinned. “Nose Hill.”
Allie nodded. “Nose Hill.” She paced over to the window and looked up at the sky, but all she could see was the lights of the city reflecting off the low cloud cover. Here be dragons. Or, technically, there be dragons. Dragon Lords. She sighed. Never mind. “We need to be there to make sure the various factions don’t burn the city down. Did I miss anything?”
“We need to be there to keep Graham from getting his ass eaten,” Charlie put in.
“Graham is… isn’t…” Taking a deep breath, she spun around on one heel, the rubber shrieking against the floor, and folded her arms. “Anything else?”
“What exactly do you plan on having us do?” David asked.
“Just what I said; we make sure the city doesn’t burn down.”
“And we don’t interfere in the family business of the Dragon Lords.”
Although David had made more of a statement than asked a question, Allie answered him. “Not unless we need to in order to keep the city from burning down.”
“And if this family business includes eating the sorcerer?” Roland wondered.
“As long as they don’t cook him first over the coals of the city, we don’t interfere.”
“And Graham?”
Allie turned to look at her cousin. “Graham…” When Charlie’s brows rose, she sighed. “Can we just play Graham by ear?”
“Sweetie, we can play him by whatever body part you like.”
“Thank you.” She ignored all the eye rolling. “Michael, Joe-you’ll stay here.”
“We could help!” Michael protested.
Joe shot him a disbelieving look. “Speak for yourself.”
“Okay, I could help.”
“How?”
He frowned. “You don’t even know if you’re going to do anything. I can do nothing as well as any Gale. And I can duck and cover when the shit starts hitting the fan.”
“No.”
“Allie…”
She crossed the room to stand beside his chair. “Michael, if you’re there, you’ll split my focus.”
“I was there in the bar.”
And she’d never been able to forget it, but whatever they were walking into on the hill, it wasn’t going to be anything as simple as a bar fight. She laid her on his shoulder and squeezed. “I can’t risk it. I can’t risk you. Please.”
He looked down at her hand and sighed. “All right.”
“I’ll leave you my phone,” Charlie told him, tossing it into his lap. “You’ll be connected. If we need you, we’ll call.”
“We’ll take my car,” David added. “You’ll have the Beetle if you need wheels.”
“Strange his phone isn’t here yet,” Roland mused, shrugging into his jacket. “It’s been over a week.”
“I’m guessing Brian’s keeping it close. Hoping he’ll come home for it.”
“Brian can kiss my ass,” Michael muttered.
“See,” Charlie leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You’ve started to forgive him.”
Graham parked his truck on Beaconsfield just down from where the two Dragon Lords had landed the night he’d…
The night he’d complicated his life. And for fucksake, he provided protection for a sorcerer; it wasn’t like his life had been uncomplicated before Allie walked into it and began tossing the metaphorical room. Okay, technically, he’d walked into hers, but that was…
He took a deep breath.
Head in the game.
The game came with fire and claws and certain death if he didn’t get his shit together.
He doubted very much the Dragon Lords would notice another vehicle on a residential road where even they might spot a single car in the park’s parking lot. The one that called itself Adam had definitely spent time here in the past.
The Dragon Lords were still circling wide, unwilling to start anything yet, but they were all up there, attention focused on the top of the hill. There was no ambient light, no moon, no stars, but by the time he jogged through the darkest of the available shadows and reached the path he’d marked earlier as maintaining cover for most of the distance he had to travel, his eyes had adjusted enough he could pick up speed. He had night vision goggles with him, but he preferred using his own senses as much as he could.
Although, thanks to Allie, they’d been less dependable of late.
Another deep breath.
Stop thinking about your fucked-up love life.
Given that nothing much overlooked that open hilltop, he was going to have to get a lot closer to the target than he’d like. At least that made the boss happy; he wanted him right on top of things.
Just before he reached the crest, he slipped off the path to the tallest of the surrounding trees, climbing it quickly and, for lack of a decent sized branch at this height, securing a sling to the trunk. Line of sight wasn’t as high as he’d have liked, but it was the best the site offered given that he had no safe way to reach the small copse of trees actually on the summit. The scattering of glacial boulders offered fuck all protection from an aerial attack. That the trees were barely budding was a good news/bad news thing. It made him more dependent on the glyphs for camouflage but reduced the chance of a sudden wind screwing things up.
He raised his M24 and glanced through the scope.
Still no sign of the target. Just a brown expanse of dead grass and a few exposed rocks.
He had the special round in the chamber and a magazine of Blessed rounds as well as half a dozen more loaded up with full metal jackets ready to load as soon as he took his shot. Hopefully, once shit and fan impacted, the Dragon Lords would be too busy fighting each other to notice him.
“Are you in place?” Kalynchuk’s voice rumbled out of the earpiece.
“I am.”
“Remember, you’re to keep me fully informed of everything that’s occurring, no matter how apparently insignificant.You have no way of knowing what small piece of information may be relevant. Is there any sign of the creature emerging?”
“No.” Kalynchuk had been unwilling to allow him to carry even a small camera, convinced his enemies could track him through the signal. Hell, maybe they could. How big a step was it from large, flying, fire-breathing lizards who turned into something that looked like men to large, flying, fire-breathing lizards who turned into something that looked like men and could surf video signals?
“Have you seen any sign of the Dragon Lords?”
“They’re keeping their distance.”
The sorcerer snorted. “So far. Remember, we don’t know which of them will be acting in my best interests, so you have to get that shot off before the first of them makes their move.”
“I know.You’re sure Allie… the Gales are unaware we have a go?”
“They don’t, as a family, seek knowledge. By the time they discover the emergence is occurring, it will be too late for them to interfere.”
Then it would be too late for Allie to be in danger.
He took another look through the scope.
Still nothing.
“There’s a man up a tree at the edge of the hill,” David said quietly.
Allie glanced over at Charlie, who made several exaggerated expressions all essentially boiling down to “Gee, I wonder who it is?” and while it was unlikely Kalynchuk had climbed a tree… “Is it Graham?”
“Steel and gunpowder seems to suggest it is.”
Graham.
“Can he see us?”
She could hear the smile in David’s voice as she ducked under a low branch. “Not if I don’t want him to. Tidier if I took him out, though.”
“No. We’re here as impartial observers…”
“Like UN peacekeepers,” Roland offered.
Ch
arlie snorted. “Who keep getting their asses shot off because they can’t shoot back.”
“Not like UN peacekeepers, then,” Allie amended.
“So we can shoot back?”
“Back, but not first. No matter what Han Solo did,” she added pointedly to Roland.
“So we just let Graham blow away Junior when he shows up?” Charlie wondered.
Allie wanted to say no if only because they’d had proof the Dragon Lords could trace the shot and, by taking it, Graham would put himself in danger, but Graham was not her concern. If Kalynchuk had been telling the truth and this emerging, youngest Dragon Lord was more than a personal danger, but also a danger to the city and beyond, then allowing Graham to try and remove that threat was the smart thing to do. If he failed, they could act as backup.
“See, Auntie Jane, we can work with sorcery. We don’t need to destroy it.”
“You can work with a man with a gun. The sorcerer had his ass tucked safely behind a wall of hexes.”
“But David was out here, helping to save the city.”
“And you think that David allowing you to stop a Dragon Lord without any of the first circle present is a good thing? Because that amount of power will corrupt!”
“Allie?”
Wonderful. Even in her head, Auntie Jane got in the last word.
“Just thinking.”
“Nice change. Do we know where exactly the shit’s hitting the fan?” Charlie muttered as they peered out across an empty hilltop. “Because there’s a fair chunk of real estate out there.”
David shifted to settle the weight of his rack, and pointed. “About six meters out.”
“How the hell do…?” Allie glanced up, picked a leaf off one prong, and crushed it between trembling fingers. Even though he wasn’t channeling power, David was manifesting physically. She’d thought only Granddad could do that. But they were very close to the sacred site and that proximity could easily be causing strange effects. “Never mind.”
She let her gaze drift out along the direction David had indicated and, suddenly, concern about her brother was no longer front and center in her thoughts. She couldn’t say if it was six meters or ten, but something grabbed her attention and held it. Groping behind her for Roland’s hand, she gouged a quick charm into the dirt, anchored herself, and reached out for more information.
