by Tanya Huff
None of the aunties wore rain gear, but only the aunties who didn’t mind were getting wet.
“This isn’t enough,” she heard David say gesturing at the sky.
“We’ll take care of it when we’re airborne,” Auntie Jane told him.
“Do we have to?” Auntie Meredith sighed. “I haven’t taken down a chopper since 1968.”
“Glory days,” Roland muttered in her ear and Allie snickered as they ran toward the path to the summit.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing here,” Katie called out following close behind them. “This isn’t a third circle thing.”
“You could always cross over,” Roland threw back.
“Bite me.”
“You’re here to pick up the pieces when it’s over,” Allie shouted, barely able to hear herself over the scream of rage bouncing off the inside of her skull. “Even if this works…”
“Oh, joy, sex in the rain. And if it doesn’t work, you’re talking literally pieces!”
“So call Charlie. Jack can help. And don’t let him eat the aunties. I actually like the kid.”
“Very funny.”
Whistling in the dark, banter in the dark-It all meant the same thing, Allie knew, as they jogged out to a stop on the top of the hill and she had to clutch at Roland’s arm to keep from falling. If she had this to do over, she’d…
Oh, who was she kidding. She’d probably do exactly the same things, and they’d still be standing in wet grass waiting for the world to end. The whole thing, from the moment she’d read Gran’s will, had had a certain inevitability about it.
Up above the cloud cover, something screamed.
Well, not exactly something, Allie admitted silently, gouging a charm in the wet ground with the heel of her shoe. The Dragon Lords were waiting.
And they weren’t going to be waiting long.
“I can’t stop her from breaking free!” Stepping into the center of the charm felt like stepping into the fire. Or quicksand. Or burning quicksand. Becoming as much a part of the hill as Jack’s mother. “She’s too big, and she has too much momentum.”
“You knew that.”
“I’d hoped once we were right on top of her…” Allie let her voice trail off as twelve figures rose out of the woods ringing the top of the hill. They swooped once over the summit, dangling feet an advertisement for sensible shoes-although Auntie Gwen’s Chucks appeared to have skulls painted on them-and then began to fly the circle widdershins. Once. Twice. Three times.
The clouds pushed back, piled higher over the city, thunder boomed and lightning cracked and the rain turned to a deluge. Over the hill, in a perfect circle, the sky all but gleamed, clear and blue.
The blue took Allie a bit by surprise; she kept forgetting it wasn’t the middle of the night.
David stood across from her, grounding the lines from the twelve in the sky, the last of the rain glistening on bare skin. Roland’s arms went around her, hands splayed over her belly, protecting her from the pull. Allie grabbed his wrists and reached for power as the ground erupted.
Jack’s blood had pulled him into Human shape as he emerged.
Jack’s mother had no such incentive.
Shimmering white, she rose and rose and rose. Ten meters. Twenty. Thirty.
As Allie fed power up to the aunties and they wrapped it around her, using the moment of not my world to help snap her back home, the Dragon Lords came out of the clouds.
She could hear the aunties cackling and then she had no attention to spare.
“Father?”
Tucked just inside the edge of the wood, Graham dragged his gaze off the dogfight going on overhead to see Jack pushing his way to the edge of the summit through the underbrush, looking wet, bedraggled, and more than a little pissed off. “Kid, get out of here!”
“Stop calling me kid!” Apparently, the enormous white dragon in the center of the hill held no interest for him. No reason why she should; he’d known her his whole life. He pushed past Graham, shoved his hair back out of his eyes, and stared at Kalynchuk, raking a disdainful golden gaze from head to toe and back again. “You’re my father?”
Kalynchuk smiled. “Graham, punch him in the nose.”
Trapped in his own flesh once again, Graham let the M24 drop on the strap so it rested against his back. Shifting his weight, he grabbed Jack’s shoulder, spun him around, and swung. He felt the bone crack and then warmth against his knuckles just before something slammed into his chest and he flew about three meters, landing hard. He dragged the sniper rifle around and flopped over on his back, gasping for breath.
Jack peered at him over the top of the hand cupping his nose, his upper lip red. “That hurt!”
“Life is pain,” Kalynchuk muttered holding a hand down to Graham.
Without thinking, a little too winded to think, Graham reached up only to have the sorcerer wipe the blood off his knuckles and onto the silver letter opener he pulled from his jacket.
“Jack, come here.” He gestured with the blade. “Stand beside me.”
Graham recognized the look on Jack’s face as the kid began to move-he’d felt it on his own.
“It’s minimal control and it won’t last long,” Kalynchuk admitted as Graham got to his feet, “but now, unless I’m forced to kill you myself, I may be able to bargain with your mother.”
Charlie came out of the Wood at full speed, aiming for Jack, hoping that the amount of power the family had started flinging around would be enough to get his enormous teenage ass moving. She didn’t catch all of what the sorcerer had to say but it didn’t sound good, and there, beside him, stood Graham with a gun. With a split-second to make a decision, she shifted slightly left and wrapped an arm around Graham’s waist. Momentum pushed him stumbling back-one step, two-and they were gone.
Allie had never been so far open and it wasn’t enough. Any farther and Roland wouldn’t be able to hold her. Any farther and they wouldn’t be controlling the power; it would control them. Sweep them away. Destroy them. But if she couldn’t find a way to go farther…
The Dragon Queen shrieked in triumph and began to twist free.
Then Allie sank into a touch she remembered from the bar. Felt Roland yanked aside and Graham’s arms wrap around her.
Heard a whiskey-rough voice by her ear.
“Charlie says let go!”
But Graham wasn’t family. How could he hold?
“She says I’ve got you!”
With no time to question whether she trusted Charlie or not, Allie let go.
If not for Graham’s arms, the rush of power would have lifted her off her feet. She was the hill, the park and every living thing that made it up. Grinding back against him, she poured the power up toward the aunties, felt them shape it.
The Dragon Queen shrieked again, held in place.
It was more power than Allie had ever felt, even in a full working, even with the entire family around and it still…
… wasn’t…
… going…
… to be…
… enough.
She could feel the rush of air as the Dragon Queen filled her lungs.
And a familiar voice yelled, “What the hell is going on here?”
And then a still more familiar voice, twisted with fear. “Brian!”
What were they doing here? Allie fought for focus, saw Michael racing across the hill toward Brian, oblivious to the Dragon Queen pointing her muzzle toward him and opening her mouth.
Time stopped.
Or she stopped it, Allie wasn’t entirely sure.
“Allie?”
Graham. Wherever she was, he was there with her.
She turned in his arms.
Graham had barely registered Charlie charging out of nowhere when her arm hooked around his waist, he’d stumbled back two steps-maybe three-and suddenly found himself in an ancient wood.
“What the…?”
“No time!” Charlie cut him off. She adjusted her grip but kep
t them moving.
None of the three Gale girls he’d met were exactly delicate, but if he’d wanted to break Charlie’s hold, he should have been able to do it without even breaking a sweat. Not a chance in hell.
“This,” she said, flashing him a grin that had depths so hidden they scared the piss out of him, “is where you need to know what you want to say.”
And then they were on the hill again and in a complicated move he missed at least half of, Charlie spun Roland away from Allie’s back and slammed Graham into his place.
“Tell her it’s okay, that you’ve got her.” A encouraging squeeze on one bare shoulder and it might as well have been just him and Allie on the hilltop.
He had no idea when he’d lost his shirt.
Okay, him, Allie, and one fuck of a big white dragon. Dragoness? Dragon Queen.
“Charlie says, let go!”
Allie didn’t seem to be buying it.
“She says, I’ve got you!”
Then it was the feeling from outside the bar only ramped up so high it burned that memory away. If, at the bar, Allie’d wrapped herself around what it was to be Graham Buchanan, this time she didn’t go around so much as through. He could feel every cell of his body attempting to spin away from the overstimulation and his spine bowed as he fought to hold them both together, his heart slamming up against his ribs so violently he could feel it bruising. His face buried in her hair, he breathed her in, every sense filled with her.
So when she stopped for a moment, he stopped with her.
“Allie?”
She turned in his arms, her eyes a dark and stormy gray.
This, he realized, with a clarity that pushed the air from his lungs, this was the choice the Gale men made. To throw themselves into the storm and trust to love to bring them safely out the other side.
“This is where you need to know what you want to say.”
Turned out, it was easier than he’d thought it would be.
“Yes,” he said. And let go.
Allie could feel it all. Every blade of grass. Every drop of water. Every grain of sand. And everywhere she went, Graham, her anchor to the world.
Although, right now, the world was just a little more than she needed.
She pulled back until she touched the edges of the seven hundred and twenty-one square kilometers that made up the city of Calgary. Until she touched the one million, forty-two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two souls. No, ninety-three as Jamal Badawi took her first breath. This was enough. This would be home.
She gathered it all, held it cupped in her hands, and…
One of the aunties fell.
The circle broke.
As fire began to blossom between the serrated rows of the Dragon Queen’s teeth, Allie wrapped the power around her and whispered, “There isn’t room for you here. Go home.”
Then she opened a gate.
The sky over the park lit up. Even before the afterimages faded, Jack’s mother was gone. As one of the Dragon Lords screamed, Allie reached out again, gathered up the rest of the family, and sent them home after her. She could sort them out on the other side. Twelve smaller stars crashed to earth.
When both sky and hill were empty, the power grounded out through the only safe path.
“What scares the old fools most about David, is that they have no idea of his limits.”
Allie knew. Here and now, she knew with painful clarity exactly what his limits were.
But all she could see was the blue of Graham’s eyes and all she could feel was the warmth of his mouth on hers and all she could hear was an auntie shrieking, “Look out!”
They hit the ground together, rolled, and came up onto their knees like they’d rehearsed the move. All around them, she could hear the soft thuds and mild profanity of the aunties landing.
“Don’t even try it!” About ninety degrees around the hill, Jonathon Samuel Gale came out of the trees holding a fistful of Jack’s hair and a gleaming knife at the boy’s throat. “Everyone just backs off, or he dies.”
“Well, that’s not much of a thre…” Auntie Jane began.
Allie absently reached out and shut her up.
“I could make the shot,” Graham muttered.
“Would this help?” Joe asked, fading in beside them. He held out the marked bullet.
“Clever, love,” Auntie Gwen murmured and the tips of Joe’s ears flushed scarlet.
Graham rolled the bullet between thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know where…”
“This went?”
Allie took the rifle from Charlie and handed it to him. Her city. Her decision. “Do it,” she said.
Graham’s blood to help the bullet fly true.
Jonathon Samuel Gale’s blood to kill a sorcerer.
The shot wasn’t as loud as Allie’d thought it would be.
They saw the sorcerer fall. Then Jack stepped back, wiping the blood from his face and roared.
“You were right.” Allie laced her fingers through Graham’s. “It was his father blocking the dragon shape.”
“He’s very… hungry,” Charlie observed as the gold dragon ripped another bite from his lunch.
Allie shrugged, moved closer to Graham, and smoothed out the disturbance in the center of the hill before moving her attention out and around the family.
Auntie Bea had a broken leg, easy enough to heal.
Auntie Ellen and Auntie Christie had been burned. Not as easy to heal but doable.
Auntie Meredith was waving a length of… tail. Not her problem.
Tucked up in the completely inadequate shelter of a rock outcropping, Michael had his hands wrapped around Brian’s face, their mouths locked together, their bodies so close it left no room for questions between them.
David was gone.
“What took you so long?”
Brian blushed, throwing the scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks into sharp relief. “I was… I mean, because I’d… I don’t know why I did it, Allie, you have to believe me. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t even want to, but…”
“You did.”
“Yeah. I did. I hung onto the phone and I kept hoping Michael would call and we could talk. I couldn’t go running after him. I didn’t know what to say.”
“I’m sorry?”
“How could that be enough?”
Allie glanced over at Michael, but he seemed willing to let Brian do the talking. The bruised look had left his eyes, and he watched Brian as though he was the most amazing, impossible thing he’d ever seen. She wondered what had been said. Or, if in the heat of the moment, words had been unnecessary. Didn’t matter. Like she’d told the aunties, it was none of her business. It was between Brian and Michael. “If you hadn’t been there, if Michael hadn’t been in danger, I would never have…” She waved a hand because she wasn’t entirely certain language was up to what she’d done. What she and Graham had done. “But the question still remains, why were you there?”
Fingers laced through Michael’s, Brian shrugged. “I got a call from one of your aunties. She said Michael needed me. That I had to meet him at the summit of Nose Hill Park.” He chewed a little on his lower lip, as though trying to decide how much to add. “She didn’t mention anything about dragons,” he said at last.
“Yeah, well, they tend to edit.” Allie rubbed her hand along Graham’s thigh until he caught her fingers and gave them a warning squeeze. Even six hours later, the aftereffects were still wearing off, and it didn’t take much for need to take over. From the way both Michael and Brian were shifting, they seem to have gotten caught up in it, too. Or maybe that was just a normal result of their reunion. She didn’t want to speculate. Much. “You guys were set up.”
“On the hill?”
“On the hill,” Allie agreed, “because if Michael hadn’t been in danger, I might not have pushed that little bit further. But before that. In Vancouver. When Brian…”
Michael’s free hand rose and cut her off. “You’re saying
the aunties arranged that?” His voice had dropped about half an octave into what Charlie had once labeled the danger zone.
“One of them, yeah.”
“Allie…”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“He looks like you, you know.”
Allie lifted herself up on one elbow and stared down at Graham. The darkness in the room was no longer able to put a barrier between them. Walls were barely a barrier. “Who?”
“Brian. Blond hair, gray eyes, little sprinkle of freckles.”
“Penis.”
Graham grinned. “I’m not saying there aren’t differences.”
“He’s a what?”
“A seventh son of a seventh son,” Auntie Jane told her, watching her with the same wariness all the aunties had exhibited for the last twenty-four hours. Allie figured it’d get old eventually, but for now she was definitely enjoying it. “You didn’t wonder about the strength of the attraction?”
Gale girls were attracted to power.
She squirmed around in Graham’s arms until she could look up at him. “Is this true?”
Graham looked a little confused. “Well, yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I spent the last thirteen years not thinking about my family, Allie. But yeah, I had six older brothers…” He shoved a hand into his pocket and Allie knew he was rolling the bullet. Jack had returned it, after he’d finished eating. “… and so did my father. But…”
“But nothing,” Auntie Christie snorted. “The mere fact you’re a seventh son of a seventh son is the only reason that stunt worked.”
Auntie Muriel’s knitting needles clicked an agreement. “Who ever heard of a non-Gale anchoring a ritual?”
Charlie had to have known, Allie realized. Charlie’d pushed them together on the hill. When Charlie got back from wherever Charlie had wandered off to, Charlie was going to have some explaining to do!
“Still…” Auntie Meredith took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “Just think what a seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son who is a Gale might be capable of.”
Gale girls had mostly daughters. Allie did the math. “No.”
