Nash stood in the middle of the room, arms folded over his gray polo shirt. Maya slumped on a sofa behind him, her legs dangling elegantly over its arm. Titus the dragon sat in a chair near the window, silhouetted by the bright lights outside, one pristine trousered leg crossed over the other. Gabrielle …
I struggled to sit up, alarmed. “Where’s Gabrielle?”
I tried to remember what happened. We’d watched the demons dive for the worlds below, and Gabrielle had been right next to me. A voice had told me to jump with the demons, not to Beneath, but into the Earth itself. It had started to grab at Mick too, as though it sensed the incredible Earth magic within him and wanted to embrace it. Then Nash had pushed Gabrielle aside and seized me.
Had the vortex called out to Gabrielle? In my mind’s eye, I saw her spread her arms and laugh in delight as she leapt from the edge.
“She took off,” Maya said in a groggy voice. “Titus tried to stop her, but she fought him and went.”
“You should have kept hold of her,” Nash growled at Titus. “She’s too dangerous to be out there on her own.”
“That is obvious.” Titus brought his fingertips together. His clothes were as impeccable as ever, as though a shield had kept them clean from the dust and chaos of an exploding hotel full of demons. “I thought the Stormwalker more important to save.”
Mick put a hand on my shoulder, more magic snaking in to find my hurts and ease them. “Don’t worry too much, Janet. I have friends out looking for her, with strict instructions to report to me.”
My eyes widened. “Friends? What friends?”
“Men and … non-humans I call on when I need a little assist,” Mick said, at his most reassuring. “They arrived swiftly to my summons.”
I fixed my wavering gaze on Nash. “What are you doing here? I’m guessing you were who Maya was talking to on the phone, but there’s no way you could have made it here so fast from Flat Mesa.”
“That’s because I wasn’t in Flat Mesa.” Nash’s cool eyes held no judgment. “I was already in Las Vegas, on business.”
“He means he was keeping tabs on us,” Maya said. She didn’t sound surprised or annoyed, only resigned. “He knows how much trouble I’m sucked into whenever I’m with you and decided to make sure he was on hand to get us out of it.”
I couldn’t argue with Nash’s logic. He’d pulled Maya and me out of wreckage in Las Vegas before.
“Thanks,” I said with sincerity.
Nash gave me an acknowledging nod. “Titus and Mick were explaining to me how there was an illegal fighting ring set up in the basement of this hotel.”
I let out a short laugh. Leave it to Nash to hang a label like illegal fighting ring on supernatural gladiatorial games involving demon-kind.
I turned to study Titus, the details of the fight returning to my brain. “When we were in the basement, you said you were as bound as the demons, and if you let them go, you’d die.”
“I did.” Titus didn’t change expression—all dragons have a tendency toward understatement and ambiguous answers.
“Why? I thought you were running the games.”
“He is,” Mick said. “But at the behest of another. He was as compelled to obey as I.”
When Mick becomes dragon serious, his speech grows archaic. The bad boys in the novels I read talk all kinds of grunge, but Mick, the baddest bad boy I’ve ever met, says things like at the behest of, or arrived swiftly to my summons.
“I hope you’re going to explain that,” I said.
“I’d be interested myself,” Nash added.
Titus rose. He was a large man in his human form, like Mick, and looked comfortable in the well-tailored suit I suspected had cost thousands. Mick was more at home in biker clothes, but dragons chose their looks and stuck to them. Colby had opted for Yakuza style tattoos, and Drake, like Titus, dressed in designer suits, usually black cashmere with black silk shirts.
Titus straightened his iridescent tie with careful fingers. “Mick and I are bound by a promise made centuries ago,” he said. “Exacted from us by a dragon slayer.”
Nash’s derisive huff rang through the room. “A dragon slayer? Are they anything like those Nightwalker slayers that came through Hopi County this summer? You and Mick couldn’t fight off a few obnoxious humans with crossbows?”
Titus didn’t laugh, and neither did Mick.
I remembered Mick mentioning a dragon slayer when we’d been protecting Ansel, our Nightwalker friend, from being killed by vampire hunters. I’d thought Mick joking at first, but he’d given me a dead serious look and said dragon slayers were real, and very dangerous. He hadn’t elaborated after that, and I’d forgotten about it amid more pressing business.
“Dragon slayers are nothing like Nightwalker slayers,” Titus said in his dragon-deep voice. “They’re the most dangerous things in the universe—they have to be, in order to defeat dragons. There are no unsuccessful dragon slayers.”
“No live ones, he means,” Mick said. “The unsuccessful ones became dragon fodder.”
“If there is anything left of them to eat.” Titus spoke matter-of-factly.
“Ew,” Maya said, her face wrinkling. “You eat people?”
“Dragon slayers aren’t people,” Titus said.
“He means that literally,” Mick broke in as Maya drew a breath to object. “They are powerful mages, or demons, or some combination of the two. The dragon slayer who made the contract with us began as a human then became a mage and segued into demon as the power consumed him over the years. I told you I fought him, to save another. He was determined to bring me down and he nearly did. I had to beg for my life. He offered it to me, for a price.”
“Yes,” Titus said. “I was there. The one Mick fought so hard to save was me. But I was near to death, and Mick could not prevail against him. The slayer made us both promise to fight in these games, with me to host them, choosing the combatants that would be hardest for Mick to beat. He enjoys such irony. The slayer wishes to rid the world of dragons and demons, and this way he gets entertainment from it. And money. Much money from those who will pay to watch and wager.”
“Really?” Maya said. “But you both must have grown stronger since then. Mick, you said you were only a young dragon at the time. Why didn’t you find him and confront him again?”
Titus looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “We signed an agreement,” he said, sounding almost shocked.
Of course. Dragons and their damned honor. They’d abide by the contract if it killed them—which this one had a good chance to.
“Was he there at the fight?” I asked. “Why didn’t he try to stop you? And Gabrielle?”
Mick shook his head. “He doesn’t always attend. He enjoys watching from afar. But he is deadly, and he is determined,” he continued grimly. “And now that we’ve released all the demons and broken free of the games, he won’t stop until he finds us and makes us pay.”
* * *
Gabrielle
While big-sister Janet was snuggling with her boyfriend and confabbing with Nash and Titus, I went out looking for the dragon slayer.
How did I know about the dragon slayer? The demon told me. Not so much told me as conveyed it through flashes of thought, anger, and fear. This dragon slayer hadn’t confined himself to dragons, according to her, but turned his attention to all large monsters who might be a threat to humankind.
Since Janet was pretty beat up after that show of magic, I considered it my duty to go find the slayer and put him down.
Janet had been amazing, I admitted. She doesn’t give herself credit for all she can do—she’s been brainwashed into thinking she can’t use her power to kick serious ass. The people holding her back are all afraid of her and want to control her. Afraid she’ll kick their asses, so they put these weird restrictions on her, and now even she believes those restrictions are right. I sympathize—same thing happens to me.
Whenever she does tell everyone to fuck off and lets loose,
she is one powerful magic chick, and I love her for that.
The patrons of the casino had applauded after we’d sent the demons back to their hells and the lights had come on—I guess they thought it was a performance, maybe a taste of what they’d see in the hotel’s theatre. Humans can be so oblivious.
I figured this dragon slayer must be somewhere nearby—he’d keep tabs on how his gladiatorial games were going, right? Someone like that wasn’t going to trust that everything would go well without him.
Ergo, as Mick would say, he must be around here somewhere.
I started with the hotel. I’m good at sensing auras, like Janet is, so I opened myself up to them as I wandered through the casino.
That was a mistake, because all those auras came crushing down on me. None were anything but human, but humans can be complicated. They ran the gamut of emotions—excited, depressed, scared, worried, elated, angry, frustrated, or bright with sexual satisfaction. I almost fell to my knees under it all, and had to stumble outside and lean against a marble pillar by the door to catch my breath.
Nowhere had I sensed a being gloating because he’d captured all those demons plus a dragon or two, or fury because Janet and I had set them free.
“Get you a cab, ma’am?” The doorman, decked out in a tailcoat and top hat, gestured at a queue of taxis.
I was surprised to see taxis, because these days so many people use those services where you summon ordinary citizens and they drive you around in their family car. I think that’s weird, but I didn’t want to get into the back of a dirty cab either. The one that had brought us back from the male strip show had smelled like vomit.
“How about a limo?” I asked on impulse.
“Sure thing.” The man held up his hand and whistled, the sound cutting the night. In a few moments, a sleek black car pulled up to the curb.
It wasn’t a stretch limo, or one of those Hummer ones with a bar and dance space, but it was a lovely car. I slid onto soft cushions in the back seat, and told the driver to charge the fare to Janet Begay in room 1589.
“I don’t work for the hotel,” the driver said. He was good looking, in his twenties, dark hair, blue eyes. He could have danced at the strip club.
I sat forward, resting my arms on the back of his seat. His picture ID on the dashboard said his name was Amos. “It’s all right. Janet’s good for it. She’s my big sister, and will do anything for me.”
I sent a trickle of magic down the seat and into his shoulder, not enough to hurt him, but enough to make him see things my way. Amos shot me a smile, which made him even more pretty.
“Where does your sister want me to take you?” he asked.
I thought a moment, pretending I wasn’t winging this. “What’s the most luxurious hotel in Vegas?”
“That would be the C,” he answered without hesitation.
“Is that like the one in Los Angeles?” Cassandra, Janet’s hotel manager, had worked for the C, the ultimate in decadence and personal attention. Too personal, she’d decided.
“Same guy owns both. This one just opened up a few months ago.”
“Sounds interesting.” I flopped back onto my seat, figuring a heavy hitter like the dragon slayer would pick the most opulent place in Vegas in which to hang out. “Take me there.”
“You got it.”
Amos put the car in gear and rolled out of the driveway.
Chapter Six
Gabrielle
I loved this, I thought, as the car slid smoothly into traffic. I expressed my wish, and it was granted.
No one scolding me, telling me to calm down and be quiet—Do what everyone says, Gabrielle, because you’re too crazy to be trusted. Ha. Being out on my own was already so much better.
The night was warm beyond the darkened windows of the limo and full of light, the power outage caused when Janet and I had opened the vortex already forgotten. I gazed at the tall buildings we passed, all flashing and waving and trying to grab my attention. Come inside, they said. Delights await. Food, drink, money, sex. Whatever you want.
I didn’t believe the promises of the signs, dancing lights, and jetting fountains—people will say anything to take your money. I’d lived in Las Vegas right after I’d left home, though I’d worked at a grocery store in Henderson, trying to be “normal.” I’d given that up pretty fast. I’d rarely come down to the Strip to sample its enticements, but in those days I’d only had vengeance on my mind. No time for enjoyment.
Amos chatted to me as we went. He was from California, and had been driving here a couple of years. He told me he had a girlfriend he was trying to save up to marry, an ex-girlfriend who was kind of stalkery, and brothers he partied with whenever he went back to California.
I listened with interest, enjoying Amos going on about his ordinary life, which sounded so much more peaceful than mine.
Traffic was dense and it took a while to move down the Strip, but finally, Amos pulled into a long circular driveway that rose steeply to the front door of the C.
Unlike most of the other hotels, this one didn’t have a skyscraper attached. A gigantic fountain display in front of the entrance spewed light instead of water. A massive garden identical to the one at Versailles—so said Amos—lay behind it.
The hotel was in the style of a French chateau, like Versailles itself or maybe the Louvre—I’d never been to either place, but I’d seen pictures. Janet and Mick really needed to take me to Paris.
A doorman, even more smartly dressed than the one at the hotel I’d left, opened the car’s door for me.
“Here you go,” Amos said, sounding regretful. “Have a good time.”
I considered. “Why don’t you wait for me? I’ll hire you for the whole night. I might need to check out some other places.”
Amos brightened. “That would be cool.”
“Wait then. Janet’s good for it.”
Amos gave me his most handsome smile. “Your big sis must love you a lot.”
I leaned forward and patted his arm. “Oh, she does.”
At least, I hoped so. She’d be bitching at me for running out on her, but she’d be plenty happy if I caught the dragon slayer for her.
I blew Amos a kiss and slid out the back door, thanking the doorman. Two bellmen leapt to open the hotel’s front door for me and I smiled at them as I sailed inside. Everyone was so courteous.
I stepped into unbelievable opulence. Yep, if I were an all-powerful dragon slayer, I’d stay here.
The casino took up most of the floor, but this one had fewer slot machines and more card tables than the other hotels we’d visited tonight. People around these tables weren’t the comfortably dressed tourists and retirees I’d seen elsewhere but wore high-fashion clothes—slinky dresses for the ladies and suits or at least coats and natty shirts for the men.
The casino’s lofty ceiling was soft white, resembling a Mediterranean building decorated for the very rich of the past. A cool breeze blew through it, as though suggesting that the ocean was right outside.
I noticed most of the women had men with them, the kind who touched his lady’s back when escorting her across the room. The women put slender hands on their men’s arms, wrists dripping with diamonds.
These beautiful people sat at baccarat tables that were partitioned off from the other card games, each table with its own crystal chandelier and tuxedoed dealer.
“May I help you, ma’am?”
A suited man with a Bluetooth in his ear had approached me and now gave me a look of stern scrutiny. I noted there were others like him stationed about the casino, making sure the wrong element didn’t enter their fancy hotel.
I was still in my glittery blue party dress, but I was a mess from rescuing all those demons. Riding the female snake demon had scared the shit out of me and also been the most fun I’d had in a long time.
I’d connected with it. I’d felt the demon’s terror and fury, the kind that had raged through me whenever my so-called dad had gone on a drunken rampage aga
inst me and my stepmom.
Thinking about my parents led to some very bad memories, which I shoved swiftly away. I couldn’t focus on my mission if I wallowed in the past.
“Where’s the ladies’ room, sweetie?” I asked the well-dressed security guard. “I need to freshen up.”
He pointed the way. I saw him discreetly motion to another guard, telling him to keep an eye on me.
I waved at the second guard as I sashayed into the bathroom. A look into the mirror told me things weren’t as bad as I’d feared, but I needed to rinse my face, comb my hair, and fix a rip in one side of my dress.
The tear I repaired with magic, my hair with a little water and my fingers. I didn’t have a purse—that was smashed somewhere under our hotel—so I’d have to live without a comb until I could hit a store.
I ducked into a stall to do my business, and heard two women come in and linger in the lounge portion of the bathroom.
“Honey, are you sure?” one asked in concern.
The second’s answer had tears in it. “He’s on the phone all the time, and never talks to me anymore. I saw his texts to her one day, and he …” The young woman drifted into sobs. “And tonight he’s acting like everything’s fine.”
“Oh, honey.” True sympathy oozed from the first woman. “Do you want me to have Ron talk to him?”
“No.” Panicked. “I don’t want him to know.”
I flushed and burst out of the stall, heading to wash my hands at the sink. The two women jerked around to stare at me, but the poor thing in tears couldn’t stop crying.
Both ladies wore satiny, expensive dresses, and jewels that could feed a small family for a year. Their skin was far too pale for the hot Nevada sunshine, and their hair had been cut, highlighted, and styled in an upscale salon, probably the same one for both.
The woman comforting her friend gave me a look of embarrassment tinged with hostility—but hey, they should have checked whether they were alone before they went off about their problems.
Dragon Bites: Stormwalker, Book 6 Page 5
