The Dragon Master

by Allyson James

  If Sying had arrived in his territory after Seth had been freed, Seth would have immediately flamed him to keep from being enslaved again. Perhaps if he ever got free of Carol, he'd regard her with the same hatred.

  Seth couldn't envision this, but he couldn't reassure her, or himself, so he said nothing. He brushed her cheek, feeling the fire within her. It had grown.

  "I'm not giving up," Carol said with that determination he found so beautiful. "I want to get rid of the Order or take away their power or whatever we can do, but I won't do it at the expense of your life."

  Her voice rang with sincerity, and her eyes shone with it. She leaned over and kissed him, brushing her chest enticingly over his, then she got up and started to be efficient, chattering about setting up meetings with Lisa and Axel and ideas for how to proceed.

  Seth lay back and watched her, seeing the fire flicker every time she moved. He couldn't tell her what he was thinking: that he'd die for her if it was the only way to keep her safe.

  Sying kept his hand over the crack in his prison, loving the feel of real air on his skin. A week had passed as people reckoned time in this era, and the crack had not grown, nor had the demon behind him figured out how to use it.

  He was huge, the demon-god, both in his corporeal form and his spirit form. It was his corporeal form that was trapped in the column, so it was not about to escape through a tiny crack.

  The demon-god's magic had seeped out somewhat, though. Sying sensed it snaking from his black thoughts to touch the members of the Order of the Black Lotus. He was giving them power, drawing them back to him.

  The Order could not come into the building because of the marks the fire dragon and the strange Japanese god had made, but eventually, they would grow enough in power to be able to breach the marks. Then they'd let out the demon-god, and hell would truly break loose.

  Even the incubi the Order had created didn't want this to happen. The poor things scrambled to help the fire dragon, fearing the demon-god might mean their destruction.

  Sying had been trapped in corporeal form, too, the magic putting him in a bubble of nonreality, keeping him from aging or dying while the rest of the world moved on. He couldn't escape through the small crack, but when the demon-god slept, he could push his thought threads through.

  He caressed the marks of the fire dragon, learning them well. The dragon had given himself a human name: Seth.

  Sying sensed that Seth was confused, unsure of his very non-dragon attraction to the human woman. Perhaps as a reward for helping him, he'd teach Carol, his however-many-great granddaughter, how to use Seth's fire.

  She was complicated, this Carol. Sying felt her in the marks the dragon had left, her threads inextricably tied now with his. She longed to love, but she didn't know how. She thought in terms of material things�wanting to repay the kindness of her family by making them wealthy.

  She had so much to learn, and he itched to teach her.

  But first, he had to get out of here and convince Carol that he was worth saving.

  He glided his thoughts across the city of San Francisco, unerringly finding his way to the house on the hill also marked by the fire dragon. He slid in under the marks and touched Seth sleeping in the female Dragon Master's bed.

  Seth, he whispered, making the word a caress. Come to me.

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Carol woke, Seth was gone.

  He'd been sound asleep when she'd finally come to bed, and she'd left him alone, wanting him to heal. She'd talked to Lisa and Axel on the phone, taking comfort in making plans. Neither of them had been hopeful that Carol's ideas would work, but she felt the need to organize herself.

  Seth wasn't in the bathroom or the kitchen, and the apartment felt empty.

  "Seth?"

  He didn't answer. She pulled at the threads and felt them still binding him to her, but he didn't respond.

  Seth? Are you all right?

  Yes, came the answer, then silence.

  Carol gnawed on her lip. He wanted her to leave him alone, whatever he was doing. If he needed help, wouldn't he say so?

  What are you doing?

  Busy, he snapped and then the connection closed again.

  She told herself not to be a nag. She let the bond slack a bit, but she felt uneasy.

  She showered and dressed, then rummaged on the top shelf of her very organized closet for a mahjong set. She dumped the tiles on the top of her dining room table, turned them all facedown and shuffled them.

  She built the wall as though she were preparing for a game, and drew her tiles.

  Most of them again were dragons. She sorted them: four red, four black, and four�silver. She stared at the pieces, fairly certain that the dragons in her mahjong set hadn't been silver before.

  She had no idea what kind of sedative Zhen had mixed for her the last time, but she went into her kitchen and brewed herself a pot of oolong tea.

  Sipping slowly, she carried the cup of tea back into the living room and laid all her dragon tiles facedown.

  One by one. she turned the silver dragon tiles up again. She studied the outlines, focusing on them and concentrating on shutting out everything else around her.

  It took a long time. She'd been able to coalesce the black and golden dragons' names in her mind fairly quickly, but the silver was elusive, slipping from her like a fish in a roiling stream.

  Carol concentrated, reaching out to close her hand around the slippery flash of silver.

  The notes of the silver dragon's name came to her like sparkling wind chimes. They were hideously complex, but rich and vibrant. The sounds spun around in Carol's brain, and she chased after them, feeling both triumphant and dizzy.

  Lisa.

  She felt a sharp push, the rage of a being thousands of years old but never trapped in her life. Silver-white fire flickered across Carol's mind, burning like a whiplash.

  Lisa, it's only me.

  Foul expletives poured into her brain as the silver dragon fought for her life. Carol hadn't been aware Lisa even knew those words.

  Carol started to laugh, and the Dragon Master in her laughed with her. I have caught the silver dragon.

  Let me go, damn you!

  Through the name, Carol felt Lisa's incredible bond to Caleb and the fierce joy that was Lisa's love for her children. Carol touched the enmeshed threads in envy, but also gladness for her old friend's happiness.

  She also sensed a baby dragon, Lisa's daughter, start to cry.

  Carol caressed the bond, trying to convey she meant no harm, then she turned the tiles over one at a time and released the silver dragon's name. The Dragon Master in her snarled in disappointment, but she remained firm.

  After a few more sips of tea, she peeked at the underside of the tiles she'd just turned facedown, but they were blank. She felt no residual energy from Lisa's anger�she'd truly let her go.

  Carol set down the teacup, placed her hands on the table, and drew a breath. She'd grown stronger and more in control. If she hadn't, she'd never have been able to reach the silver dragon, let alone release her.

  Her fingers shook as she reached out and turned the red dragon tiles over.

  Seth's outline blazed like fire, and the drawing squirmed on the tiles as though trying to break free. It was easy to reach out and sing his name, because she sang it almost continuously now.

  Seth responded in a wash of fire, the flame running along the threads between them. They were so bright she was amazed that all of San Francisco didn't see them.

  Seth.

  She caressed his name and wished with all her strength that he was with her so she could touch him. What she was about to do scared her, and what frightened her the most was that she'd be left alone.

  She'd always thought of herself as alone, but in truth she had Ming Ue and Shaiming, her cousin Lumi, her best friend Lisa, and now Caleb, Malcolm, Saba, and Axel. Zhen the Junk Man was also part of her world, and had even saved her life, though s
he'd grown up not knowing that. If not for Zhen she'd have died in that accident or at the hand of the Order.

  But Seth had filled every corner of her existence since he'd come into it. He'd taught her about carnal pleasure, both gentle and wild. He'd taught her that her cold focus on her business blinded her to the colorful side of life, to a world where dragons and magic were real.

  Most of all, he'd taught her that she had the capacity to fall in love.

  Too bad I had to fall in love with a man who could turn into fire or a dragon, she thought wryly. He'd prefer basking in the middle of a vast desert to hanging out in coffee houses, but she'd be ever grateful to him for teaching her that she had it in her to love.

  Seth, she whispered again. I love you.

  She felt him start, jerked from whatever he was doing.

  Before he could send his thoughts to her, she grabbed his name, clenching her fists as though she held it physically, then she let it go.

  The dragons on the tiles squirmed and spun, the Dragon Master in her fighting her will. Fire seared into her brain, and she felt Seth's vast surprise.

  Then, one by one, the red dragon vanished from the tiles, and she turned them over. Click, click, click.

  The fourth tile remained in her hand for a long time, and then she made herself slowly turn it facedown on the table. Click.

  The last notes of Seth's name faded like faint chimes on the wind, and then the music in her head went still for the first time in many days.

  The threads between them untangled and drifted away. She tentatively reached for one and found nothing.

  Seth was free, and Carol was alone.

  She buried her face in her hands and cried.

  Seth stood still in wonderment as Carol's voice ceased, as the bright music in his head died. He reached for the threads that had bound them and saw his fire-red ones fall empty to the ground.

  She'd let him go.

  The fire dragon in him roared. The basement of the cold building shook with it, and he felt the other Dragon Master gasp.

  Sying was still shut fast inside the column, but he'd managed to penetrate Seth's dreams through the tiny crack in the bottom. He hadn't attempted to snare Seth with his name, being too weak to fight Carol.

  Now the Dragon Master tried to pick up Seth's name, but he was still too weak, and Seth easily shook him off.

  He was free. This cold world and the humans who crawled its surface no longer bound him. Seth turned instantly to flame, watching the clothes that chafed his skin fall harmlessly to the floor.

  He was dragon, he was powerful, and he was free again. He owed nothing to Sying the Dragon Master, who'd enslaved him in the first place, nothing to this world. Let the demon-god escape and wreak havoc on them.

  Seth thought briefly of the other dragons here, the golden, the black, the silver, bound here by their love for their mates, human mates. Their own fault. They were dragons, and dragons should be bound to no one.

  He circled the confining space, then flowed up out of the hole and out into the morning. He flew high, soaring over the city that had forced him to walk slowly along its streets, tearing through the fog that had clogged his lungs.

  He indulged himself in flying over the ocean, changing to pure dragon once he'd gone far enough over the Pacific. The fog broke up offshore, and sunlight glittered on the water far below. If he wanted, he could fly higher than the highest vehicle that humans had invented and not come down for days.

  But came down, because he wanted to go home.

  In the old days, he'd simply burn a hole between Dragonspace and this world, but that was no longer possible. He needed the silver dragon's magic to do that, or the magic of the witchling called Saba.

  He had to make the decision of violating either the black dragon's territory or the golden's in order to return home. He chose the golden's, because while golden dragons could put up a hell of a fight, once it was done, they forgot about it. Black dragons could hold a grudge for eons.

  Enjoying the flight, Seth soared in toward the city again, changing to fire when he reached the Golden Gate bridge. He had a fondness for the bridge now, but he bypassed it to fly over the green smudge of the Presidio and down to the house that bore the shimmer of the gold and silver dragons.

  He flew right in through the open balcony door, flinching at the golden dragon wards all over the house. Then he flowed for the last time into his human form.

  Caleb and Lisa looked up at him in shock, each of them holding a baby that they were trying to soothe. Both children stared at Seth, their tears ceasing, and the male one suddenly popped into the shape of a tiny golden dragon.

  "Send me back," Seth grated to Lisa.

  Lisa rose from the couch, followed closely by Caleb.

  Lisa pushed both babies into Caleb's arms, but the golden looked no less belligerent.

  "Send me back," Seth repeated.

  Lisa studied him, her eyes widening. "She freed you."

  "Open the way to Dragonspace," Seth said. "I want to go back. I need to."

  "What about Carol?"

  Something stirred deep inside him among the complex human emotions that had taken him over. He pushed it aside. "Let me through before the Dragon Master calls me again." He paused, not sure what was swirling through his mind. "Tell her thank you."

  That didn't seem to be what he wanted to say, but he was too keyed up to think it through. He wanted to go home.

  Lisa nodded. "All right."

  She opened the door that led to her children's bedroom and pointed at the air. The little girl behind her watched carefully as a black tear began to form.

  Before it was even a foot wide, Seth flowed into a string of fire and dove through. The gap snicked shut behind him, and he was slip-sliding through the wilds of his home, until desert wind greeted him like the warmth of Carol's arms.

  Carol didn't know how long she sat at the table with her head in her hands, but a knock at the door finally roused her. She knew who it was even before she opened it, easily feeling the auras of her friends through the walnut.

  Caleb came in first, his scowl dying as soon as he got a look at her face. Lisa set her children on the sofa and her bag on the floor, and came to enfold Carol in a hug. Carol was too raw for more weeping, but she laid her head on her best friend's shoulder.

  "He went back to Dragonspace," Lisa said, her hands comforting on Carol's back. "He asked me to let him through."

  Carol wiped her eyes. "Thank you for not stopping him."

  "He has to make the choice. As you do."

  "I did make my choice. I let him go because what he wanted to do would have killed him."

  Caleb laid his hand on Carol's shoulder, his touch dragon-warm. He liked to play the irritated warrior, but now his blue eyes held understanding. "He'll come back. I can't think why he wouldn't."

  Carol gave a faint laugh. "You're nice to say that, Caleb. But he never wanted to be here in the first place."

  "Neither did I," Caleb said. "But when I saw Lisa, I never wanted to leave."

  Carol's heart squeezed. "The circumstances were different. It doesn't matter now�he'll either want to see me again or he won't. I took the chance."

  She went to the sofa and lifted little Li Na into her arms. She saw the silver dragon aura in the baby, who regarded her with curiosity.

  Holding Li Na made Carol remember what Seth had said about giving Carol a child. If she was pregnant, what would she tell her baby about his or her father? He lives far away in a magical land and can turn into fire.

  But no, she couldn't be. She couldn't even think about it.

  "We still have the problem with the Dragon Master and the demon-god," Carol said, pretending to become matter-of-fact. "Seth was right that we can't let the Order free it."

  "He was right that we can't let them try to use you to free it." Lisa corrected her. "I think Seth wanted to do it himself to spare you."

  "The Order will find way. They can coerce incubi. The spell they used i
n that house in Twin Peaks was pretty strong."

  Lisa and Caleb exchanged a glance, and she sensed the shift in the music they shared. "It's dangerous, Carol," Lisa said. "Let me take care of it, like I offered to before. It's a dragon problem."

  "Lisa, I've felt this evil�you haven't. The demon-god is strong, maybe even stronger than you. The Dragon Master needed Seth and four other dragons to conquer it before, and then he only trapped it. I want to see if I can at least talk to this Dragon Master and find out how he did it. He altered Seth's mind, so Seth can't remember. I think that's what Seth was doing before I freed him�trying to communicate with the Dragon Master."

  "You're not going down there alone," Lisa said.

  "Are all dragons hard of hearing?" Carol snapped. "Dragon Master, Lisa. I learned how to call you, so it can be done. Caleb and Malcolm I scooped up like that." She snapped her fingers.

  "Don't rub it in," Caleb snarled.

  "Besides, this Dragon Master is related to me in a bizarre way. He might talk to me."

  "I can't let you go alone."

  Carol gave Lisa a patient look. "Who said anything about going alone? I'll take Axel with me. He's proved he can teleport me out of there, although he should have told me first that he'd never done it before."

  "Why?" Caleb asked with a grin. "You wouldn't have let him."

  Carol ignored him and bounced Li Na in her arms. "You have children to look after. I don't want you to endanger yourself."

  Lisa gave her a steady look, then shook her head. "You were always so much more determined than me. I was a dreamer and you were a planner. I got my heart broken, and you succeeded where I failed. I've always admired you for that�and envied you."

  "Your dreams let you believe in dragons," Carol said. She glanced at Caleb. "And brought you happiness."

  Carol felt the music between them again, tender, loving, and full of laughter. A hollowness settled in her chest.