Nice Dragons Finish Last

by Rachel Aaron

  After the horrors of the last twenty minutes, it took Julius several seconds to figure out what Marci was talking about. By the time he remembered, she’d already blazed ahead.

  “My actions were completely out of line,” she said, folding her hands in front of her. “I breached the bounds of a professional relationship, and I sincerely apologize. My only excuse is that I was exhausted and making bad decisions, but I’m feeling much better now, and I promise I’ll never put you in that position ever again. So, if it’s okay with you, I’d like it if we could just forget about the whole thing and move on with our business together. ”

  Julius stepped forward, mouth already opening to tell her she had nothing to apologize for. That what had happened in her room was the actually the best thing that had happened to him in years, and he wouldn’t forget it for the world. In the end, though, he just looked away again with a bitter sigh, because while she had the why of it all wrong, Marci was still absolutely right.

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  She’d been the one to kiss him, but Julius had had no business enjoying it. She was human, and—as his conversation with his mother had so pointedly reminded him—he was most likely a dead dragon. Even if he did somehow manage to survive, he liked Marci too much to drag her into the snake pit that was dragon politics. He really should go ahead and tell her goodbye right now, before he got her into any more trouble, but he didn’t feel right leaving her alone while Bixby was still at large.

  That was grasping at straws and he knew it, but Julius grasped gladly. His mother’s call had turned a fire hose on the new spark of confidence he’d been nurturing all morning, and Chelsie’s follow-up had stomped on the ashes. If he lost Marci, too, he might go out entirely.

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” he said finally, grabbing his new shirt and pulling it over his head so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes. “Consider it forgotten. ”

  “Oh. ” He couldn’t see her expression, but Marci’s voice sounded surprised and a little disappointed, though that last part might have been Julius’s imagination. “Well, that’s settled then. So what’s the job for today?”

  “Same as yesterday: find Katya. ” And fast, he added to himself, checking his phone again on the off chance he’d missed something in all the chaos, but he had no more messages than he’d had this morning. Frustrated, he sent a quick inquiry to his contact and got a near instant reply. Everything was working; there was just nothing to report.

  “Julius?” He looked up to see Marci watching him, her face worried. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he breathed, determined to make sure that wasn’t a lie. He would be okay, he decided. He would be calm and rational and figure out how to make Ian’s courtship of Svena an unquestionable success with absolutely no need for a scapegoat, because if he didn’t, he’d be dead.

  That thought filled him with just as much dread as always. This time, though, he managed to get through it a little better, sliding his phone back into his pocket as he turned to Marci. “Do you have anything you need to do today?”

  She blinked. “I thought you were in a hurry?”

  “I will be once the trace comes back, but until she actually uses her phone, we’re stuck in limbo. ” And if he had to sit around waiting with nothing to do, the worry would destroy him. “Can I help you with something in the meanwhile?”

  Marci still looked pretty skeptical, but she nodded anyway. “I’d like to swing back by my house, if that’s okay. I didn’t exactly pack for a long trip last night, and I need to grab some stuff. ” She paused, her face suddenly brightening. “All of it, actually. Now that I have some money, I’m never spending a night there again. ”

  She sounded so excited at the idea of finally getting out of her cat-infested basement that Julius couldn’t help smiling back. Helping Marci move actually sounded like exactly the sort of steady, mindless work he needed to calm back down to a functional level while he waited for Katya to make a move, and who knew? Maybe if he chilled out, he could come up with the sort of brilliant, outside-the-box plan he needed to save his life.

  “Let’s go, then,” he said, tapping over to his phone account to leave a large tip in the room’s AR for the maids who’d have to deal with the fallout of his water-catching practice. “I’m ready when you are. ”

  Marci ran back to her room. “Just give me a moment to pack!”

  Julius nodded and shut the connecting door behind her. When he was alone again, he grabbed Svena’s silver chain from where he’d hidden it inside the nightstand and slipped it into his pocket.

  ***

  It was a truly glorious afternoon. The late summer sunshine was bright and clear, and the DFZ skyways were crowded with beautiful people out enjoying the fine weather. Even Marci’s car was running better thanks to a complementary battery charge and software update from the hotel’s valet system. Marci seemed recharged as well, keeping up a steady stream of conversation as she touched up the marker on the inside of her chunky spellworked bracelets.

  Julius said nothing. Even though they’d agreed it was forgotten, it was painfully obvious that Marci was covering up her discomfort over what had happened in her hotel room with an impenetrable shellac of cheerfulness. He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to pretend, but he had no right to call out her deception and nothing to offer her even if she did admit she was hurt. He could only handle so many crises at a time, anyway, and so though it made him feel like a coward, he took the out she offered and pretended along with her, nodding where appropriate as the car took them down the ramps from the rich Upper City and into the desolation that was the DFZ’s north side.

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  The sunlight dimmed noticeably when they drove into the old University District. It had been dark the last time they’d driven through, so while Julius had noticed the dilapidated buildings, strange magic, and giant fence that marked the edge of Algonquin’s spirit land, he hadn’t been able to see the haze that hung over the old neighborhood like a greasy film. Just trying to read the street signs through that muck gave him an instant headache, but what really got him was the strange feeling of being watched that only seemed to get worse as the streets got emptier. No wonder no one wanted to live out here. This place was creepier than the Underground.

  His feelings of foreboding only got worse when Marci took over the car and turned them off the main road into the hoarded mansion’s driveway. This struck him as odd, because the brick house’s wildly overgrown garden and sagging overhangs actually looked much less scary in the bright afternoon than they had at night. But the intense sunlight did nothing to stop the chill that crept up Julius’s spine as the car pulled them around to the back of the house.

  He squinted up at the sagging eaves as they rolled to a stop in front of the collapsing garage, trying figure out what was making him so uneasy, but he saw nothing. There was no movement at all, actually. Even the vines that covered the rear of the house like a parasitic colony were still, but it wasn’t until he looked through the equally quite, dust-caked windows that he realized he hadn’t seen a single cat.

  Fear shot through him like a spear, and he whipped back to Marci, who was already getting out of the car. He’d already sucked in a breath to tell her to stop when he saw it. There, in the wall of privet that separated the yard from the next one over, the sunlight was glinting off the long, silenced barrel of a pistol.

  After that, he didn’t bother with a warning. Even if he could have yelled something that made sense, Marci wouldn’t be able to react fast enough. But Julius had been practicing being fast all morning, and he moved before he could think, launching over the driver’s seat to tackle Marci around the waist just as the shot went off.

  Chapter 11

  The bullet passed so close, Julius felt the heat of it on his back as he tackled Marci to the ground. They landed together in the overgrown grass hard enough to knock Marci’s breath out. He was moving again before she caught it, yanking her back toward the car. But just a
s he grabbed the edge of the driver’s seat to haul them both inside, a second gun barrel poked through the tangled wall of vines and bushes on the other side of the car.

  The moment Julius saw it, instinct took over completely. He rolled without thinking, whirling with obviously inhuman speed as he dropped them back to the ground. Just in time, too. They’d barely hit the dirt before the next shot shattered the passenger window, cutting through the stuffing of the driver’s seat to lodge in the steel frame of the front wheel well not a half inch from Julius’s shoulder.

  By this point, Marci had recovered from her shock enough to realize what was happening. The stifled whiff of the second silenced shot was still fading when she grabbed Julius’s hand and took off for the house, dragging him behind her as a third shot whizzed over their heads to blast a chunk off the sagging mansion’s brick foundation.

  Marci jumped down the basement stairs and hit the ward on the rickety old door with both hands. The magic flashed, and then the basement door flew open as they both ran inside. As soon as they were over the threshold, the ward snapped back into place, covering the doorway in a glowing barrier while the door itself hung open, listing on its rusty hinges. Since the wood was half rotted anyway, Julius didn’t even bother kicking it shut. He simply spun to the side and slammed his back against the bare stretch of wall between the open door and the wardrobe in the corner. Marci followed suit, plastering herself against the house’s foundation as she gasped for breath.

  “What is going on?” she panted.

  “Not sure,” Julius said, arching his neck back in an attempt to look through one of the little ground-level windows that pierced the wall above them. “I think—”

  What he thought was cut off by an explosion of gunfire. Apparently, whoever was attacking had completely given up on subtlety. Bullets began hitting the house like hail, shattering the window above their heads and shredding the basement door to splinters.

  “I thought this place was warded!” Julius cried, pressing himself even tighter against the brick wall as bullets flew through the empty doorway to land in the piles of trash that filled the far end of the basement.

  “Against living things!” Marci yelled back, covering her head with her arms. “Not bullets! Why would I ward against bullets?”

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  As though in answer, a second rain of shots came in from the side of the house, shattering the single ground-level window on their left. But while the bullets were quickly making powder of Marci’s couch and mini-fridge, nothing hit them, and Julius realized that they’d taken refuge in the one spot that wasn’t in line of sight for any of the basement windows. Before he could celebrate this fantastic stroke of good luck, though, someone outside yelled an order, and the gunfire stopped.

  In the sudden silence, Julius could hear heavy shoes rustling through the undergrowth as their attackers checked the windows. One man even walked down to the door to push on the ward and got zapped for his trouble. Marci looked a little smug about that, but it didn’t last long, because while the ward kept the enemy out, it also kept the two of them in.

  “Is there another exit?”

  Marci nodded and pointed at the sea of trash that filled the non-warded half of the basement. “There’s a stairway up to the main house somewhere over there. ”

  Julius grimaced. Even if they could battle their way through all the debris, they’d expose their backs to the open door. Not a valid option. “What did you do to Bixby, anyway?” he grumbled, leaning out as far as he dared in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the driveway.

  “Oh, no, this can’t be Bixby,” she said, shaking her head frantically. “I mean, yeah, he wants me dead, but there’s no way he’d send an army like this all the way to Det—”

  “Novalli!”

  Marci froze, her eyes going wider with stark, naked terror as the deep, booming voice bellowed her name. “Come on out, sweetheart,” the man continued. “We’ve got you surrounded, and this time we know you’re in there. Don’t make us torch the place. ”

  Marci threw her head back, squeezing her eyes shut as she mouthed a string of silent curses.

  “Do you know that guy?”

  “It’s Oslo. He’s Bixby’s freaking second. What is he doing up here?”

  Julius had no idea, but at least that answered the Bixby question. “See if you can stall them,” he whispered, pulling out his phone.

  “Why?” Marci whispered back. “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the cops. They’ll run when they hear sirens. ” And so would he and Marci, but she was already shaking her head.

  “That won’t do any good. This is the DFZ, remember? The police are all contractors. Even if we paid their fees in advance, it would take a riot to get them to take a job this close to the Reclamation Zone. ”

  Julius rolled his eyes. Of course. Why should he expect anything else from this capitalist dystopia of a city? He supposed he could call Justin, but his brother would have to fly to get out here fast enough to save them, and there was no way anyone could miss a dragon flying over the DFZ during the day. With his brother out of the picture, though, Julius was rapidly running out of ideas, and Oslo seemed to be running out of patience.

  “Last chance, Novalli!” Bixby’s second yelled. “The boss gave orders that you weren’t to be killed, but he didn’t say anything about you not being shot. We even brought along a medic, just in case. Of course, that means we can be as rough as we want and you’ll still pull through, and my boys and I are mighty pissed about having to come all this way on short notice. So if you want to keep your limbs intact, you should stop wasting my time and get out here now. ”

  The color had completely drained from Marci’s face by the time he finished, but her jaw was set as stubbornly as ever. “You’re pissed?” she shouted at the open door. “I’m pissed you idiots can’t take a hint and shove off! But feel free to keep yelling at my ward. I’ve already called the cops. We should be hearing helicopters any second!”

  Julius stared questioningly at her, and Marci shrugged. “What? If you didn’t know, they might not either. ”

  Oslo, however, did not seem to take the threat the way it was intended, because his reply was, “Break it down. ”

  The order had barely finished when the glowing wall of Marci’s ward flashed bright as the sun. Marci gasped at the same time, doubling over like someone had just punched her in the gut. “They have a mage,” she whispered through clenched teeth when Julius reached out to steady her. “They’re going to brute force the ward. ”

  He grimaced. “How long have we got?”

  “Don’t know,” she said, her face pained. “Whoever they hired has some serious weight behind him. Bastard must be pulling off a small fortune in magical materials. ” Another blow landed, making Marci’s whole body clench so hard it took her several seconds before she could speak again. “If I keep holding it up like this, I’d say two, maybe three minutes?”

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  Julius shook his head. Even if he’d had a plan, three minutes wouldn’t be enough to pull it off. His eyes darted over the trash, looking for something he could use when the time came—a gun, a shovel, even a baseball bat would be better than nothing. He was debating the weapon potential of the rusty rake in the corner when he felt something soft and freezing cold brush against his leg.

  He looked down with a start to see Ghost sitting beside him, twitching his semi-transparent tail back and forth across the glass-strewn cement floor. Considering their situation, the sight of a death spirit, even one for cats, was enough to thoroughly creep Julius out. Marci, however, looked delighted.

  “Ghost!” she cried. “Perfect! Get out there and do your thing. Jump on them! Eat their souls!”

  The transparent cat gave her a look of absolute disgust and started bathing its paw.

  “Oh, come on,” she pleaded as another hit landed on her ward. “You’re my death spirit. Go be scary!” Ghost started washing his other paw, and Marci slu
mped against the wall, defeated. “I don’t get it. I thought bound spirits had to obey their masters. ”

  “Well, he is still a cat,” Julius pointed out. “‘Obey’ isn’t exactly in his vocabulary. ” Still, Ghost’s appearance had given him an idea. He actually liked it less than the attack-gunmen-with-a-rake plan, but at least this one had a chance of actually working. “Marci,” he said quietly. “If you had a strong source of magic to pull off, could you beat these guys?”

  “If you mean Ghost, it won’t work. Bound spirits are at equilibrium with their masters. He can pull on my magic just as hard as I pull on his, so the net return—”

  “I’m not talking about Ghost,” Julius interrupted. When she gave him a funny look, he took a deep breath. “What if you used me?”

  Marci’s face went blank in surprise. “You?”

  Julius nodded grimly. This wasn’t how he’d wanted her to find out the truth, but he didn’t have much choice. If they didn’t do something, they were going to die in a hoarded cat house to a bunch of human thugs, and after everything he’d survived since being dumped in this city, that end was too pathetic to stomach. “Do it,” he said, putting out his hand just as Bixby’s mage hit her ward again, sending sparks flying. “Quickly. ”

  “No!” she cried, horrified. “I can’t do that!”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. “Why not? You pulled on those lampreys last night just fine. ”

  “Those were animals,” Marci said, her voice frantic. “Drawing off another human’s soul is blood magic! It’s the mage equivalent of cannibalism, and it’s illegal even in the DFZ. Also, that stuff taints you for life. My magic would be ruined forever!”

  Considering they were in a life-or-death situation, Julius thought that sounded like an acceptable price. Since he wasn’t human, though, it was also an irrelevant one. “Marci,” he said gently. “It won’t be blood magic. Trust me. ”

  Her panic faded as she stared at his face, and then her expression shifted to something he couldn’t quite put a name on. Cracks were already appearing in her ward above them, but Julius didn’t try to rush her. It wasn’t like he could force her to take his magic, anyway. All he could do was sit and hope that the trust that had allowed her to fall asleep beside him was still there.