The Thorndyke Trilogy 2: Dancing at Midnight

by Lynne Connolly

  He let Stuart follow, and as he made a fuss of stepping through the door, he managed to leave the kid behind. He freed a hand, holding Kristen one-armed, and deliberately closed the door, trapping Stuart inside. The door was only fastened with an old-fashioned lock, but the snick told him Stuart would be safe long enough for him to do what he needed.

  Three men stood outside. Not nearly enough to stop him. Nathan shape-shifted. First his body and legs, then his head, giving himself the power he needed. But he kept his arms human, folding her close to his body. He didn’t need his wings yet.

  Shouts of alarm reached his ears, and he would have grinned if he could have. He wasn’t done yet. Although his next act couldn’t be as devastating as he’d wanted, he’d make his mark.

  Taking care not to hurt Kristen with the added heat his next action necessarily brought to his body, he opened his jaws and roared.

  Tongues of flame shot from his mouth, taking out one of the men and searing the wall on the other side of the large room. Around the shot, hotter than the hottest blowtorch, soot formed, black ringing the devastation. His next flame destroyed the sofas ranged against the wall. He targeted them deliberately because they looked old, which meant they would emit poison gas when they caught fire. They wouldn’t hurt him in this form, and he’d ensure the fumes didn’t get to Kristen. Then he flamed a few other things for good measure. The wooden chairs.

  Something beat against his side. They’d shot at him, but with his tough hide, they had no chance of penetrating more than a tiny bit. His dragon hide was as good as a bulletproof vest. Better because it was self-healing.

  He turned his attention to the man who’d shot at him, but he kept De’Ath in his sights. After a yell, the man had raced across the room. Nathan had to admire his cursing; it was, at the least, inventive. He truly had believed Nathan was a vampire.

  The stink of burning filled the room, and the black smoke made even Nathan cough. Time to go. Without looking, he turned his back to the smoke to shield the woman in his arms, stepped backward, and kept going. Right out the big window he’d seen when he came in.

  The shards of glass didn’t bother him in the least, but the extra draft fed the fire, and the flames burned brighter.

  As he left, the other dragon swept in. A matte-black dragon, deadly, her eyes red fire, her mouth open and slavering.

  But Nathan was already falling. He and Dalton had practiced this move over the years until they could do it with their eyes closed. Dalton stood below, his legs braced, ready to receive the precious burden. When he was no more than six feet from the hard ground, Nathan dropped her and shifted his arms into wings, finishing his move with a breathtaking high swoop.

  “I have her. I’m taking her back to the apartment,” Nathan said.

  “No, the club. I want her out of this trance as soon as possible, and the club’s nearer.”

  “Sure.”

  Already the screams of the emergency service vehicles were getting closer. Dalton had actually called them before Nathan flamed the club, just to make sure. As he looped around to return, the other dragon emerged from the window, Stuart dangling from a sling she wore around her neck. If Nathan had taken one of those in with him, he’d have given the game away. Someone might have recognized it for what it was. So far their plan was working, but they had to get De’Ath out of there. Nathan moved in, transmitting to Dalton that he should stay where he was and guard Kristen. Dalton sent an acknowledgment. As Nathan fought the flames, half closed his eyes, and flew back through the shattered window, a crash deafened him. First an ominous creak, then wood, cement, and glass all rolled into one cataclysmic sound, and then nothing.

  Debris struck him, but Nathan ignored it. His heart pounding, he flew around the room, or what used to be a room. The floor had fallen in, smashing down to the club below. Shit. Oh, shit.

  He spied a dark shadow, partly covered with a huge timber beam. Never had he willed harder for an evil man to live. Just long enough, and then Nathan would kill him. But he had to live now.

  De’Ath’s long hair straggled around him, caught in the wood. The flames, forced back by the crash, found force again and roared around him, renewed by the extra fuel from the dance floor. Fuck. Soon the contents of the bar area would start popping.

  Nathan shifted the beam easily and went to scoop De’Ath up before he saw it. A shard, a huge splinter of wood sticking out of the man’s side. A death wound, if Nathan removed the splinter.

  Swiftly, he severed the piece of wood from whatever was holding it, ignoring De’Ath’s groans of pain. “Fuck. Don’t you know when you’re beaten?”

  Nathan spoke directly in the man’s mind while hell broke out all around them. “You have a job to do before you die. You don’t have my permission to do it yet.”

  De’Ath laughed in his face. “I don’t need your permission. You can watch your woman breathe her life away. She’ll never know you now.” He winced but continued with his poison. “Rescue me or not, I won’t do it.”

  Oh yes he would. Nathan knew people who made his telepathy look like child’s play, terrifying beings who possessed psi qualities so strong they could rule the world if they wanted to. They’d do this. He wouldn’t set them on Kristen because sometimes, their methods resulted in destroying the mind they were trying to save. They never gave any guarantees. But he’d have no compunction in setting them on this piece of worthless shit, as long as they made him free Kristen from her thrall before they did their worst.

  De’Ath must have read some of that, because his eyes widened, and he opened his mouth, no doubt to say something else foul. Nathan had had enough. And if they stayed here much longer, the heat might get bad enough to burn even his hide. Only the phoenix thrived in fire.

  He shape-shifted his wings long enough to throw De’Ath on to his back, and then he returned to his dragon form. He’d have to do a lot of damage control about this incident, but he’d do it. Dragons could look amazingly like shadows at times or not be there at all. They could send out a pulse, a vibe that persuaded people they weren’t seeing what was in front of their eyes. A report fed to the news of a publicity stunt by someone would take care of most rumors.

  Fuck that. If anyone realized what they’d seen, he’d ignore them. It had happened plenty of times before, and people dismissed it as the ravings of a nut.

  With De’Ath securely on his back, Nathan rose up. The roof was still in place, but not for long. Yells echoed over the flames—men and women. The fire officers and paramedics Dalton had called, shouting to each other over the sounds of the vehicles and the radios.

  Time to go. He took care not to dislodge his unwilling passenger and kept his mind firmly in De’Ath’s, refusing to let the man die.

  Once out of the window, he breathed more freely, despite the choking smoke and the flames that surged around them. The black poisonous smoke made by the foam in the old sofas wouldn’t affect him, other than making him cough, but it would hurt De’Ath. Nathan despised the man, hated that he had to rescue him.

  He soared up and then turned, planning to land on the roof of Maskerade, and then he heard De’Ath’s voice in his head. Shit, the man had picked up that skill fast. “I’m dying. I know it; you know it. I’m bleeding internally. And a vampire doesn’t like dead meat. I know now you’re not one, but your new girl, Diana, is, isn’t she? She was the one I picked up in the first place. The one my colleague told me about.” He paused, and his body moved as he gasped. “I’m not going to be food for vampires.”

  Before Nathan could stop him, he rolled to one side and off, plummeting to the ground below.

  De’Ath was nothing more than jelly on the pavement, and Kristen was a zombie. No sentience, all locked away deep in her mind.

  Nathan had never known such despair.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The night after the fire, Nathan was ready to give up and follow Kristen to wherever she’d gone. When they brought food to him, he ate it. When they told him the customers
wanted to see the amazing dance, he just swore at them. Apparently Steve had sorted something out. Good old Steve. The clubs that had meant so much to Nathan a decade ago now meant nothing at all, turned to ashes with the ruins of Vampire Heaven.

  A doctor had reattached her finger, but he said it might be too late. That was the least of Nathan’s worries right now. The big bandage mocked him, reminded him of his failure in taking care of her.

  He barely glanced up when Dalton came in.

  “Hey.”

  Nathan kept his attention on Kristen. “She’s not waking up, is she?”

  “Not on her own, buddy. We’ve tried everything we know. Short of finding a Sorcerer to snap her out of it, that’s it.”

  Nathan appreciated his friend’s honesty. He sighed and turned to him. Dalton’s face was drawn, lines furrowing his handsome features. His usual snappy appearance was crumpled. He’d taken a turn sitting with Kristen when Nathan had to visit the bathroom, and he’d promised to come if she so much as breathed differently. All the time he’d showered off the blood and filth of Vampire Heaven, Nathan prayed and kept his mind firmly in hers. He’d pleaded with her, begged her to come back, ordered her, but nothing had worked. He couldn’t reach that spark that was Kristen, the essence that was locked away in a tiny corner of her mind. He didn’t have the key or the means to break the lock. And the knowledge was killing him.

  He’d brought her back to his apartment. There would be no quick solution. De’Ath had been dead before he hit the ground, it turned out. He’d broken his back in the first fall when the ceiling had come down, and any movement would have killed him. It was likely that he knew that and provoked Nathan to throw him on to his back. De’Ath gained revenge any way possible—by his own death.

  Nathan wished the bastard’s soul to join Judas Iscariot in the deepest level of hell. But that wouldn’t bring Kristen back.

  “How’s Stuart?”

  “Recovering,” Dalton said. “His thrall wasn’t hard to break. He was interested in the theory, anyway. Once I told him Talents do exist and showed him proof, he got excited about that. We could hardly keep the truth from him since a dragon flew him out of there. It just needed persuasion to get him to work from the inside, and with me on the outside, we shattered the thrall.”

  “Good. Kristen would be pleased. I want everything for the boy. Give him what he needs to get his degree, or if he needs to retake a year, make it possible for him.”

  Dalton nodded. “But you’ll be there to do it yourself.”

  Nathan shook his head. “Not necessarily. There’s one more thing I can try,” he said softly.

  Dalton cocked his head and frowned. “What?”

  “I can convert her.”

  Shock made his friend’s face blank for a split second, and then he regained his mask of smooth urbanity. “That’s a risk, to say the least.”

  “I’m willing to take it on.”

  “So what, you can join her?” Dalton demanded.

  Since he didn’t want to go on without her, that prospect didn’t matter to Nathan. Either way, he’d be with her. “If necessary.”

  “And what about the ethics?”

  Nathan paused. “That’s what stopped me before. I haven’t asked her, and I don’t know how she feels about conversion. Sure, she loves dragons, she says, but it’s one thing to have a dragon pin and another to actually become one. Her whole lifestyle will change. It drives some people insane, the turning and the consequences.”

  Dalton nodded. “I’ve seen it too. But you’re lucky in one way. The only way I can convert someone is if I die doing it. Still, will you take the risk? She might hate you forever, or she might go insane.” Put so plainly, it didn’t seem too bad.

  “Then we’ll both go mad.” He fixed Dalton with a straight stare. He needed his friend to help like he had never before. “That’s where you come in. You’re the only person I can trust to do this. If the worst happens, if we both go into some kind of stasis, then kill us both. Just do it, Dalton. If the conversion drives her insane, what of that?” Getting to his feet, he started pacing. “If it does, then I can make sure we both go to sleep and never wake up.”

  “So it’s both or none?” Dalton could have said I told you so, or he could have reminded Nathan of his determination not to allow a woman to bring him down. But he didn’t, and Nathan was grateful for that, although he’d eat all the humble pie in the world if Dalton would agree to help him.

  “Yes, it is.” Without Kristen, Nathan didn’t want to go on. He refused to put himself through the hell of losing the woman he loved. And he loved her with everything he was. He was ready to bond with her. That was the only way he could get deep enough to wake her, and he had to convert her to do it. Sometimes Talents could reach the deepest places without taking that step, but he’d tried. And he didn’t want to watch anyone else doing it. A Sorcerer would burn his way through, put a mental blowtorch in her mind, and he couldn’t allow that.

  So it was this or nothing. The only thing De’Ath had been good at was hypnotism. He was probably better than he’d thought he was.

  The fire department had declared it an accident waiting to happen. The place was falling apart, the electrical wiring was dangerous, the timber rotten. Dalton, Vella, and the dragon had rescued as many of the people inside as they could and fuzzed the memories of the observers where necessary.

  Nathan smiled grimly, pausing in his pacing. “So you’ll do it?”

  Dalton spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I can’t do anything else. I know what happens when a dragon loses a mate. And I do think she’s your mate. Your reactions right from the start were so extreme, I can’t see it being anything else.”

  Nathan gave a resigned shrug. “Last week I’d have fought you to the death if you’d said that. Now I know for sure you’re right. But what if she doesn’t want me that way? Mortals have problems with bonding. You are never alone again, and you can’t hide from your bondmate. I’m told you can force a separation, but if she wanted that, it would kill me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “But I thought of that, and I don’t care. If she doesn’t want me, so be it. At least she’ll be alive. I can’t bear this.”

  “Then do it. I’ll be your proxy.”

  Without Nathan having to ask, Dalton had agreed to act as Kristen’s substitute in this procedure. Nathan could only think of one other person he’d consider asking, and he was on his honeymoon.

  Without another word, Dalton began to strip.

  Vampires were more protective of their nudity. Shape-shifters, who had to get naked when they changed form or lose their clothes as they shredded during the shift, weren’t particularly concerned.

  Nathan shed his clothes without a second thought. His heart was filled with gratitude for his friend. Dalton would act as Kristen’s proxy, for the parts of the shift she couldn’t accomplish in her present state. He’d take on the task of killing them if the bond went wrong.

  If she woke up and rejected him, Dalton would kill Nathan because he’d broken all edicts concerning bonding. That was what his friend had taken on. To adjudicate and to ensure the bonding took place properly. Post-conversion agreement was acceptable. If she didn’t consent, Dalton would have to kill one of his oldest and closest friends. Nathan would submit to nobody else.

  Tearing a loving, bonded pair apart, on the other hand, often resulted in the deaths of both partners.

  She’d said she loved him. Without that, he’d never have considered this drastic step. The soul-deep bond they’d established instinctively as they’d grown closer would be deepened and enriched. They’d never be alone again, and some humans couldn’t stand the thought of that happening to them.

  Kristen had the right to reject Nathan, and if she did, he’d take the consequences gladly. At least he’d have done something to compensate for putting her in danger.

  Now that he’d set his final plan in motion, he felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted. Eager to get on with it,
he shape-shifted, the large bedroom suddenly smaller once it was forced to contain his dragon form. He had to curl his tail around a few pieces of furniture to get it to fit and to give Dalton access to him.

  Dalton approached. He could have done this clothed, but Nathan appreciated his wish to bare himself, symbolically as well as in reality.

  Dalton closed his eyes, and Nathan waited, his body tensing. Then Dalton dipped one hand under Nathan’s wing and pulled a scale away. It hurt like a bitch. Nathan rejoiced. Normally losing a scale would not hurt at all, or only a little. The moment of needle-sharp pain told him Dalton had chosen well. That scale mattered, because it carried part of his essence.

  The job done, Nathan shifted back to human form. He nodded his thanks to Dalton and went to the bed, where Kristen lay in her De’Ath-imposed trance. He held out his hand. Dalton placed the scale in it. It gleamed at him, its iridescence mocking his bright ambitions. Nathan closed his hand around it, as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Right now, it was.

  At this point, a proxy might leave, but Nathan wanted a witness and someone to take immediate action if this went wrong, so Dalton stayed. He pulled on his pants and went to sit in a chair by the door.

  Nathan lay down next to Kristen and placed the scale on his sigil. It heated the little symbol, another good sign. He brought the scale-plated sigil to her flesh and pressed his body against hers. His sigil was on his upper thigh, on the outside. Kristen was lying on her back, so she would have one in the same place. If this worked.

  The heat of the scale increased until it became a burn. Sometimes couples would bind themselves together, and now Nathan knew why. It hurt. Every branch of every vein, every tiny capillary boiled. He lay there, forcing himself to stillness.

  Kristen reacted, winced, and tried to move away. Nathan held her thigh firmly. He’d leave a bruise and probably a burn. Another sin for his collection, but they must not separate their bodies during this process. That would almost certainly mean failure.