Shattered Spirits

by C. I. Black

Diablo’s eyes flashed wide, more light seeping from his whites. “That can’t happen. I have to get Capri and deal with this before it gets bigger than she can handle.”

  Footsteps crunched outside, toward the front door.

  “I have to stop him before he starts.” Diablo vanished with a whoosh of air.

  The footsteps crunched up the front steps. Diablo whooshed back beside Ryan and grabbed his arm.

  “Not Pimm?” Ryan asked. If it had been Pimm, Ryan doubted Diablo would have returned without attacking first.

  “No, Cooper.”

  “Detective Cooper?”

  “And he can’t see you. I don’t know if he can tell the difference between a mage or a drake, but Raven says you’re a natural, so I’m not risking it.”

  “Cooper is a dragon?”

  The world wrenched around Ryan. Darkness swarmed over his senses, then his foot hit floor and he stumbled into Raven’s foyer.

  “Detective Cooper is a dragon?” Ryan grabbed the large table in the center of the foyer to steady himself. “I suppose the name should have been a giveaway.”

  “What’s wrong with his name?” Diablo asked.

  “Gee, Capri, Raven, Diablo, Cooper? Are there any dragons named Bob or Eddie?”

  “Well, no.”

  Raven rushed down the hall toward them. “What happened?”

  “Cooper showed up. Makes sense. It is his case.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Of course not.” Diablo pulled out his phone. “But we’ve got a bigger problem. It looks like Tyler’s dad did kill Andy and is now planning to kill Barna and reveal dragons to the world.”

  “Capri needs to be in on this.”

  “Already dialed.” He flashed Raven a fierce smile.

  “If you dialed her cell, that number won’t work. It was blown up with her house last night. Why do you think I’m here asking for a way to get in touch with her?” Ryan still couldn’t believe Cooper was a dragon. Although if he really thought about it, Cooper gave off the same predatory vibe that Capri, Diablo, and—now that he was paying attention—Raven did.

  “Fine.” Diablo dialed a different number and someone growled into the phone after the first ring. “Hello to you, too. I got a line on a big mess that’s going to need your attention.”

  The voice growled something and Diablo frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t find Jones?… Yes, I’d heard her house blew up, but I know she’s fine… How do I know?”

  “Grey,” Ryan hissed.

  “Her silver drake friend, Grey. You better grab Gig and get to Barna’s. There’s going to be trouble… Fine, don’t believe me, but you and I both know Capri’s magic can’t influence a whole city. If there’s even a chance that dragon-kind will be revealed, you need to be there. This needs to be contained… I’ll find Capri… Yeah, I know. Consider this my one and only caring moment this century.”

  Diablo hung up and dialed again.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

  Diablo held up a finger to silence him. “Hey, Grey… no, actually. I need to find Capri… She what—? God damn it. Well, that will make it difficult for her human to find her.”

  That didn’t sound good. “What’s going on?”

  “What do I know about her human?” Diablo asked, ignoring Ryan. “That it’s a mess that’s at least found its way to Raven’s doorstep.”

  Air whooshed through the hall, the front door turned into a black vortex, and Capri’s friend Grey stepped through. His gaze jumped from Diablo to Ryan and narrowed.

  Yeah, this was a mess. Ryan wasn’t going to deny it. But it could be fixed. All he had to do was talk to Capri.

  “The human doesn’t need both of us. Someone needs to help Capri.” Diablo pocketed his phone.

  “Tobias is more likely to listen to you. I promised Capri I’d find her human.”

  “For the love of God! I’m standing right here and I have a name,” Ryan said. “And what’s going on with Capri?”

  “Who says I’m going to bother the Big Man?” Diablo flashed a wicked grin. “Don’t go anywhere and don’t do anything,” he said to Ryan.

  “What are you going to do and where the hell is Capri?”

  Grey growled. “Don’t make this worse for her. Tobias will understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter if he understands or not,” Diablo said. “I need to get her to Barna’s gala before Pimm puts all of us in jeopardy.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ryan said. They were not leaving him out of this.

  “No, you’re not.” Diablo’s gaze jumped to Raven then Grey. “Keep him here.” Then Diablo vanished.

  “What the hell is going on?” Ryan asked.

  “I don’t know. But Diablo is right. You need to stay here,” Raven said.

  “Capri is in a little hot water with her boss,” Grey said.

  “Would that be the Chamberlain or the Prince?” Ryan could prove he wasn’t an idiot. Capri had given him the gift of knowledge and he would use all of it to ensure her safety—even if it put his sanity in jeopardy.

  “How do you—?” Grey asked.

  Ryan tapped his temple. “Got the fast track of drake knowledge.”

  “Which couldn’t be good,” Raven said.

  “I’m fine enough to help Capri. So who is it? Chamberlain or Prince?” If it was the Chamberlain, Capri’s knowledge said he was fair and would listen to reason. Prince Regis, however, was another story.

  Grey sighed. His gaze darted up to the right—he was about to lie. “The Chamberlain.”

  “So, it’s really the Prince. You’d think with all your extra life, you’d be better liars.”

  “Diablo will take care of it.” Raven gestured to the hall, an invitation to further enter her house. And an invitation to sit on his hands and let someone else deal with it.

  Yeah, not his style. He was a cop. He was capable of taking action. At the very least, he could help bring Pimm to justice—even if that might just be human justice. That, and his future flash hadn’t gone away. He was a death augur, damn it. Which meant Capri was still in danger.

  As if thinking about it gave it strength, the foyer rippled around him. Grey and Raven gasped, their gazes jerking to the space just beside him. His aura must have flared.

  “I need to get to Capri. If Diablo is going to get her to the gala, then that’s where I need to be.” He fought to control the vision and not let it overwhelm him.

  Raven crossed her arms. “You can’t go. The place will be crawling with drakes. If they figure out what you are, they’ll kill you.”

  “They won’t figure out I’m a mage,” Ryan said.

  The air in the foyer rippled again. Ryan shoved at the vision. He’d seen it before. He didn’t need to see it again. But it surged, flooding over him. The fire door banged open and Raven’s foyer vanished with the noise.

  Blood stained Capri’s side and was smeared across her cheek.

  Ryan fought to return to the foyer. He couldn’t help her while caught in a vision.

  The future flash spun, wrenching him around. Capri ran down the dark hall. Gunfire exploded and someone screamed.

  Ryan’s pulse raced. It felt so real. But it wasn’t. Not yet.

  More gunfire from the darkness. He tensed and reached for his sidearm, but he didn’t have it. Panic swept through him.

  He fought to calm down. Focus. It was just a flash. Capri couldn’t be killed.

  She was all right. She—

  Bang. Another gunshot. Details of the hall flooded around him, incomplete construction, naked girders above him, an unfinished concrete floor. Where the hell was he? This wasn’t the hall he’d seen before, was it?

  The vision lurched, wrenching him with dizzying swiftness.

  The security door flew open again, and a man raced into the hall, holding a bloody sword. It wasn’t Howard Pimm. Ryan had never seen this man before. Tall, Caucasian, short-cropped dark hair. He radiated the feral ferocity Capri and Diablo did. Light flicke
red from the man’s eyes. He was a dragon and he knew how to kill one of his kind.

  The man glanced toward Ryan, but his gaze slid through him, then turned toward the hall.

  The future flash burst apart, throwing Ryan back into the foyer. He fought to catch his breath. “Capri is in real danger.”

  “Diablo will take care of it,” Grey said.

  “No. He won’t. I—” God, he was going to tell two more people about his curse. This was becoming a bad habit. “I see things. Diablo said I was a death augur. I know who’s going to kill Capri.”

  “You have to stay here,” Raven said. “If a drake sees you—”

  “He’ll think I’m just another drake. There are only a few who can tell the difference between a mage and a drake.”

  “You’re not supposed to be using Capri’s memories to justify putting yourself in danger,” she said.

  “Describe the guy and I’ll stop him,” Grey said.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Tall, white, dark hair. Definitely a dragon.”

  Grey frowned. “That could be a lot of people.”

  “Yeah, why do you think I didn’t suggest that in the first place?” That and Ryan wasn’t going to sit around while he knew Capri was in danger. He might not have saved anyone before, but he wasn’t going to give up now when it really mattered. “Yes, it’s dangerous. Yes, I need to avoid Cooper. And no, I’m not going to sit here while Capri is in trouble. You’re either going to help me or not, but I’m going.”

  Grey growled. “Fine. Mother damned, stubborn humans.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Diablo gated to the Greater Promenade outside the Chamberlain’s office. There wasn’t a drake in sight, not even inside the maze of cubicles and filing cabinets. For a second, he feared Tobias wouldn’t be in his office and he’d be forced to choose between searching for the Chamberlain or heading straight to the dungeon and Capri. But a man-sized shadow passed behind the closed blinds. Tobias was pacing.

  That wasn’t good.

  Diablo gated to Tobias’s door and knocked.

  “What?” Tobias barked from the other side.

  Diablo opened the door and leaned on the frame, feigning a casualness he didn’t feel. He was on the verge of catching Andy’s killer and dragon politics was getting in the way. “Hi.”

  “What do you want?” The Chamberlain jerked to his desk and sat, sliding his hands over the open folders before him.

  If Diablo hadn’t known the folders were part of the Chamberlain’s hoard, he wouldn’t have noticed the action. But he did know and the movement revealed just how stressed Tobias was. Diablo hadn’t seen him this upset since Regis took the throne from his father in 1521.

  “I need Jones.” Maybe if Diablo kept the conversation to business it would remain civil.

  Tobias rolled his eyes and growled.

  Okay, so Jones was probably part of the stress and this particular business wasn’t going to avoid the problem.

  “Listen,” Diablo said.” I know there are issues.”

  Tobias snorted. “Jones is indisposed.”

  “Jones was arrested. Let’s not mince words.”

  “She broke the law.”

  Diablo jerked away from the frame. “Did she?”

  Admittedly, Diablo knew she’d broken the law, but he doubted anyone else—even her team—knew that.

  “She was working a case she hadn’t been assigned with a human.”

  “We both know there isn’t a law against that.”

  “It was all over the news. Her relationship with the human—a disgraced cop—and their investigation into the decapitations.”

  “You’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.” Diablo bit back the urge to grab Tobias and shake him.

  Tobias sighed and stroked the folders again. “I can’t go against my prince.”

  Diablo cocked an eyebrow. Tobias went against Regis all the time. It was mostly little things to keep the peace between the doyens or to ensure dragon safety when Regis did something thoughtless—kind of like locking up the leader of the North American Clean Team.

  Tobias met Diablo’s gaze. The drake looked exhausted. Something else was going on. It was a dangerous time to be a drake in the Royal Coterie. Probably even more dangerous to be employed in such a visible position.

  “Release her for this. Special circumstances and all that. We’ve got a human who plans to reveal drakes to the world.”

  “Talk to the Dugga. This is business for the Asar Nergal.”

  “Actually, it isn’t. The man hasn’t made the Dugga’s awareness, so he isn’t a mage.” Truth. The Dugga of the Asar Nergal had magic that made him aware of mages. But if a mage wasn’t strong enough to endanger dragon-kind, the Dugga’s magic didn’t acknowledge the mage. It was a shame, since Howard Pimm—while only having aura sight—didn’t register as a threat and clearly was.

  “I can’t release Capri,” Tobias said, his tone saying he wished he could.

  Footsteps clattered behind Diablo and he stepped into the office, clearing the doorway. Swipe and Gig rushed up.

  “For the love of—” Tobias crumpled a paper under his hand.

  “We need Jones,” Swipe said. “There’s a situation.”

  “Let me guess. A mage who isn’t a mage is threatening to expose dragon-kind,” Tobias said.

  “No. What?” Swipe glanced at Diablo.

  “My problem,” Diablo said.

  “Really?” Swipe asked.

  Diablo shrugged. “Yep.”

  “Well, I need her first. We’ve recovered a text message from the damaged cell phone. Someone has hired Zenobia’s mages to assassinate Barna at the gala tonight.”

  Tobias threw his hands up. “You’re certain of this?”

  Swipe stiffened. “This is not some ploy to get Jones out of prison. This is big. Gig has already associated half a dozen phones with the mages and they’re already at the gala. It’s happening right now.”

  “Fine.” Tobias yanked out a notepad and scribbled on it. He stamped it with his signet ring and held it out for Swipe. “Don’t fuck up.”

  Swipe flashed his teeth in aggression. “Have I ever?”

  Tobias glared at him, and he—with Gig at his heels—rushed out of the office.

  “There’s more going on, isn’t there?” Diablo asked. It was a dangerous question. Tobias wasn’t likely to open up, and suggesting any kind of trouble could put Diablo in a cell beside Capri if Regis got wind of it.

  “Do your damned job, drake.”

  Oh, yeah. There was a lot of trouble going on. He and Raven were going to need to keep their heads down if they were going to protect their kids. He could only pray whatever was going on would blow over soon.

  * * *

  Capri fought to breathe past the agony searing through her. She sat in the corner of her tiny cell, pressing as much of her aching body to the cool stone wall as she could, but it did little to ease the pain. Nothing could. Mother of All, it burned from the inside out. She’d never imagined Odyne’s earth magic, searing touch, was so powerful. Sure, she’d heard stories and watched Zenobia’s sentencing, but Mother!

  A wave of agony skittered along every nerve. She had to find a way past it and get out of here. Ryan was likely soul sick, lost in insanity, and it was all her fault. She shouldn’t have shown him the truth. She should have wiped herself from his memory, prayed whatever earth magic he’d developed wasn’t too noticeable, and let him live his normal human life.

  Except she hadn’t wanted to let him go. Her soul had picked him, for the rest of her life, and she was selfish. She wanted to give in to that, be with him.

  Another wave of agony seared through her, stealing her breath. How long was this going to go on? Odyne wasn’t even in the cell anymore. The guards had held her while Odyne had gathered her magic, growling her power word over and over again. Capri had felt the energy building, snapping through the air, then the guards had released her, Odyne had grabbed her face, and agony had consumed her.r />
  That had been… She couldn’t remember when that had been. It could have been minutes or hours ago, bookended by blackness and agony. The only thing still clear had been Odyne’s eyes. Hard, black. She would never forget those eyes.

  The memory of Odyne’s eyes bled into Ryan’s pale green ones. They radiated light, as if he were a dragon. No, not a dragon, a mage. She hadn’t been mistaken when she’d seen his power that night while they’d been hiding from Diablo in the snow. She’d seen a glimpse of his earth magic. She didn’t understand how he could possibly have magic. Human souls weren’t strong enough to ignite the connection; only a dragon’s soul could. But his flickering aura was real. She hadn’t imagined it. And after being in his head, even if it was only for a brief moment, she knew he hadn’t shared his body with another drake.

  A shiver, not of pain but desire, slid through her at the thought of sharing his body. But sorrow quickly followed. She wanted to share bodies again, like they had in her greenhouse, wanted the intimacy of lovers, of being with her inamorator. But that wasn’t what was best for him. Her world was dangerous for humans. Mother of All, her world was dangerous for drakes.

  She was done with her service to Regis. She didn’t know what her people would do about keeping dragon-kind’s secret if she quit. A part of her didn’t want to care anymore if humans found out about dragons, but that kind of revelation could have disastrous effects. How many humans would become soul sick, unable to accept that magic was real? No, she couldn’t abandon her team, but then she couldn’t ask Swipe or Gig to renounce their service to the Royal Coterie.

  She shifted so her other cheek pressed against the cool wall. This was a mess, and she was sure if the pain just stopped she’d be able to think it through.

  Footsteps rushed down the hall. Odyne and the soldiers were returning. Guess it had been closer to hours than minutes since their last visit.

  Capri drew breath to will herself to stand and face what was coming like a drake. Pain screamed through her. She clung to the wall and struggled to her feet.

  Hot and cold swept over her in waves. Sweat slicked her hands and face, and down her back. Her breath cut out of her lungs and through her throat as if the air was laced with razorblades.