by Lauren Esker
Not for the first time, she wished telepathy was one of the gifts that went along with being a shifter. Futilely she beamed her thoughts at him. Don't push the panic button. Not yet. Trust me to know what I'm doing.
She wished they had more versatile codes for passing information back from the field while having all their communications intercepted. It just didn't come up much; with burner phones and email, they rarely dealt with situations in which an agent was out of touch for days without managing to find an opportunity for an unmonitored moment or two. She could call Avery at the dry cleaner's line again, but all she could tell him was that she was still fine. Also, how many times could a person reasonably be expected to call their dry cleaner while on vacation?
Even a consummate mother hen like Avery wouldn't call out the Coast Guard if he didn't hear from her for a day or two, surely? Jen couldn't be sure, as she wasn't a natural worrier herself.
Speaking of not being a natural worrier ... she was not at all worried about how Lucky was doing in the game. Not in the slightest. Since he hadn't come back to the room, that meant he was still playing, right?
But it forced her to think about the fact that she was letting a lot ride on Lucky proceeding to the next level of the game in order to get her closer to the Dragon's Tears dealers.
I should probably have a plan B just in case he does lose.
She peeked out the window, not for the first time that afternoon. A number of people were strolling about the atrium—losers in the game, probably.
So what happens to them now? Do we stop at the next port so they can leave? Or does this Lux guy just push them overboard ...?
There was a loud thump at the door. Jen jumped and turned away from the window.
"Hello?"
No answer. It hadn't exactly been a knock. Something rattled at the doorknob; then that stopped, too.
Someone trying to get into the room?
She looked around for a weapon and picked up a large, heavy vase of artificial flowers. Grasping this in both hands, she padded quietly to the door and looked out the peephole.
The corridor appeared to be empty. Stretching on tiptoe, she was able to make out something at the bottom edge of the peephole's field of vision. Someone kneeling in front of the door, perhaps? And that looked like the same bright emerald green as Lucky's ridiculous jacket.
Jen sighed and set the flower vase on the floor. "What did you do," she asked as she opened the door, "get so drunk at the game that you forgot Roxy has the key?"
Lucky fell on her. He'd been slumped with his weight on the door, and now he toppled against her legs. Jen staggered sideways. The door hit the wall with a crash.
"You are drunk!" she exclaimed, shocked. He was practically limp with it. A half-empty glass of whiskey had slipped from his fingers when he fell through the door; its contents were now soaking into the carpet. "Lucky, you utter idiot! What did you do, lose and drown your sorrows? If you were going to do that, couldn't you at least have the decency to come back and do it here?"
The door across the hall opened, and Roxy Molina stuck her head out. "Now what's going on over there?"
"Your champion appears to be falling-down drunk at four-thirty in the afternoon, that's what." Jen tried to get an arm under Lucky's shoulders. He made weak, uncoordinated attempts to help her, which only threatened to pull both of them down to the floor. He was trying to say something, but it was so slurred she couldn't understand him.
Roxy stepped out into the hall. "Lucado! What the hell are you doing?"
"Don't just stand there, help me drag him into the room before everyone comes to stare at us."
Between the two of them, they got him inside. Lucky was still mumbling, his eyes glassy and unfocused.
"Bedroom?" Roxy asked.
"If he's this drunk, I suggest bathroom instead."
"Glass," Lucky managed to say.
"If you're asking for more booze, Lucado—" Jen began.
"No. Glass. It ..." He swallowed hard, which accelerated the women's efforts to deposit him on the bathroom floor. "Check the glass."
"I have no idea what you're mumbling about." Jen stripped off his jacket, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. Funny ... for someone who was sloppy drunk, he didn't smell that drunk. She could smell alcohol on him, lightly, but he mainly had a sour, sweaty scent, like someone who was sick.
Roxy stepped back with a look of distaste. "I suggest putting him in the shower."
Lucky turned his head against Jen's shoulder, looking up at her. His pupils, she saw with a shock, were so blown out that she could only make out a faint rim of green around the black. "Glass," he said again.
"Roxy ..." Jen gave up on struggling to get Lucky's arm out of his jacket sleeve, and looked up at the mobster who had retreated to the bathroom door. "I'm not sure if he's actually drunk. I think he might have been roofied."
"What?" Roxy snapped.
"He had a glass with some bourbon or something in it. I think it's in that." Jen gave him a little shake. "Lucky, talk to me. What did they give you? What's in it?"
"Poison," Lucky said indistinctly.
Jen's strong, visceral reaction to that word came as a shock to her. It was a blend of fear and anger—fear for Lucky, and incoherent fury at whoever had done this to him. "How bad? What kind of poison? Lucky, talk to me!"
"Don't know. Bad." He swallowed with an effort. His breathing was rapid and labored.
Roxy knelt beside them. She seized Lucky's chin in a hard grip, tilting his head back and making him look at her. "Did you ingest it by mouth? Have you emptied your stomach?"
"Threw up downstairs," he panted.
"Make him drink some water," Roxy ordered.
Jen stood up and filled a glass with hands that trembled slightly. "There must be doctors on this ship, right?"
"No," Lucky panted. "No doctors."
For any shifter, medical treatment carried a risk of discovery. The sicker you were, the more likely you'd involuntarily shift, or have something scientifically implausible turn up on a diagnostic test. But, with Roxy there, she couldn't reassure him. "It's all right," she tried, crouching and holding the glass to his lips. Most of the water spilled out of the corners of his mouth, dripping off his chin. "We'll be cautious. But you need to get medical help right away."
"No." He pushed her hand away so he could speak, trying to form each word as clearly as possible. "Poison—I think Angel ... Angel might have ..."
"Angels?" Jen repeated, baffled. "What angels?"
"He's delirious," Roxy said. "I'm calling the ship's operator and having a doctor brought to your suite."
"No!" With a surge of strength, Lucky lurched up and grabbed her wrist. "Lux ... might be involved. Doctors ... can't trust."
Roxy stared down at him, as he lost the strength to hold on and his fingers slowly uncurled from her wrist. "Lux had you poisoned?"
As the implications sank in, Jen's mouth opened in dismay. "Everyone on this ship works for Lux. All the staff and crew."
"Don't trust—" Lucky began, and then doubled over in a dry heave. Roxy took a few quick steps backward.
Jen stared down at the tousled black mop of his hair. Normally smoothed back, with every lock in place, it had fallen apart in disarray ... like Lucky himself. Lucky, who was apparently dying on her bathroom floor.
There was only one option that came to mind.
"Stay with him!" Jen gasped. As Roxy snapped a question at her back, she sprang to her feet and fled from the bathroom. She seized the flower vase on the way through the main room of the suite.
Dragon's Tears was supposed to have powerful healing properties. She didn't know if it could heal this, but it was the only thing she could think of to try—the only chance Lucky might have.
She pounded on Marius's door, wishing she had a gun instead of a foot-tall ceramic flower vase to use for a weapon. After several rounds of frantic pounding, the door cracked open. Through the two-inch gap, she glimpsed Marius in his shirt sleev
es, his right hand low and held at an upward angle; she could just see the edge of a light-colored plastic device under the edge of his sleeve, the dart thrower he'd used on her earlier. It was pointed at her throat.
"You," he said in disbelief. "What do you want?"
She held the vase in front of her neck, trying to block the dart thrower's assumed trajectory, and stuck her knee in the door. "I need your help," she babbled breathlessly over the top of the vase. "My boyfriend's dying. He's been poisoned. I know you have Dragon's Tears—"
Marius's mouth thinned. "You searched my room, you sneaky little—"
"He's dying!" she snapped. "It's the only thing that might be able to help him."
"And you want me to, what? Just give it to you?"
"Win the game and you can have a lifetime supply. Whole suitcases full. I swear we'll pay for it, pay you back, just let me—"
"That was your boyfriend at breakfast, wasn't it? You must be crazy if you think I'd help one of—"
Jen threw her weight against the door, snapping the chain and slamming the door into him. He cursed, stumbling backward. The dart sped past her ear and thunked into the ceiling.
She swung the vase at his head, but he flung up an arm to block it, much faster than she was expecting. Jen lashed out a foot to hook his ankle and glanced off the side of his shin as he tried a similar move on her.
He was good. This might be a problem.
He'd hooked his fingers over the top of the vase, catching it; for an instant they were locked together. Marius yanked the vase down to pull her off balance and simultaneously brought his hand up, palm flat, in a move that was intended to snap her head back, possibly with the side effect of breaking her neck. She let go of the vase and ducked under his arms—damn, he was fast—and rammed him in the stomach for all she was worth. He was clearly expecting a parry, or at least an attack with more finesse, but Jen's attack style was largely based on "punch hard and run". Her weight plowed him into the couch and they fell together, with Jen on top. She headbutted him in the face, hard enough to make her ears ring.
"Sorry!" she panted, as she kneed him in the groin. "I tried to do this nicely, I swear!"
She rolled off him, leaving him doubled up on the couch, and dashed into the bathroom. The curtain rod was lightweight plastic and came off with a hard tug. She dumped the vial of Dragon's Tears into her palm.
The bathroom door slammed shut.
"Oh no you don't!" Jen snarled.
With the vial fisted in one hand, she took hold of the doorknob and pulled. It rattled a little, but didn't turn. She knew the interior doors didn't lock, so he must be holding it on the other side.
"What are you going to do, just stand there keeping me in?" she demanded. "All I want is your damn drug! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Could have fooled me," his strained voice came through the door.
"Fine," Jen muttered. She looked up at the ceiling. Bathroom vent. It'd have to do.
She couldn't believe she was leaving another set of clothes in Marius's room. This was ridiculous.
She tucked the vial into her mouth, under her tongue, and jumped as she shifted. Her clothes collapsed behind her, and she hit the wall as a gecko and scurried hastily up to the vent.
Without her weight against it, the bathroom door came open with a jolt. Jen's 360-degree gecko-vision provided a glimpse of Marius stumbling inside. He skidded to a halt at her pile of abandoned clothing, looking hastily around. Then she was inside the vent.
He was limping, she was pleased to note.
Maybe I won't put this in my report.
Any of this.
As she'd hoped, the bathroom vents for all the rooms in the corridor were connected. She'd been worried about what kind of unpleasantness she might encounter up here, but with the entire ship almost brand new and the rooms comparatively unused, the vents were squeaky clean. The only part that slowed her down was fighting her way past a couple of air filters. She counted vents to the unused bathroom in their suite and took a quick peek to make sure the coast was clear before leaping to the curtain rod. She shifted as she jumped off, hitting the floor with a smack to the soles of her bare feet.
She spit the vial into her hand and dashed out to the main room of the suite—
—just as Marius burst in.
Shit, right, she'd accidentally given him a skeleton key. Bastard must have seen which window she went into earlier.
"You!" he snapped. His lip was bleeding.
"Not now! Jesus! Hit me later, I don't care. I'm busy."
Roxy was holding down Lucky on the floor of the bathroom while he jerked in the grip of a seizure. She looked up sharply. "Why are you naked?"
"Long story, tell you later. Please do me a favor and keep this man away from us. He's dangerous."
"I'm dangerous?" Marius shouted in aggrieved disbelief.
Jen knelt beside Lucky on the bathroom floor. Marius skidded to a halt in the doorway and stared at Lucky, at both of them, with anger giving way slowly to horror and pity.
"I don't care who you are, but if you hurt me or my people, you won't live to regret it," Roxy told him in a mild tone. She moved back to give Jen room. "Is that Dragon's Tears?"
"It is." Jen uncorked it and raised Lucky's head with her other hand. "Lucky. Here. This can heal you." At the risk of unpleasant side effects, from what she'd heard, but it was better than seizing to death on a bathroom floor.
"Don't," Lucky gasped, pushing the vial away from his mouth.
"I know it's dangerous, but it will help you." She wrestled with him, trying to regain control. "Lucky, stop fighting me. Drink it."
"Don't waste it on me."
Her heart turned over. "It's not a waste. You're worth it. Open your mouth."
"No, I mean ..." He looked up at her. His face was greenish pale, his eyes blown so wide they no longer looked human. "It won't work on me. Won't do anything."
"What? Why not?"
Whatever he was going to say was cut off with a strangled cry. His spine arched and he jerked in the throes of a spasm.
"Drink it!" Jen wailed, but Lucky's flailing almost knocked her down. She had to cork the vial again to keep from spilling it.
Lucky's hands curled into fists, and she saw with alarm that his nails no longer looked human; they'd grown crooked and long. Oh God. He can't control his shifts. The green tinge to his face wasn't just illness. He was starting to change.
"Leave!" she shouted at the others.
Neither of them moved. Marius was staring at Lucky in horrified fascination. Roxy just looked mulish.
"Get out!" Jen snapped. She didn't want to let go of Lucky, clinging to him as if her hands could force him to stay in his human form. It wouldn't work, of course. His eyes blinked open again, and this time they were lizard eyes, green-gold with slitted pupils.
The shift was instantaneous for most people, but she'd never seen someone fighting it before. It looked agonizing. His hands opened and closed, the claws raking her arm and drawing blood.
"Here, let me help," Roxy said, starting to lean over her.
"Go away!" Jen thrust out an elbow fiercely, catching her in the thigh and making her stumble back.
She had expected Lucky to shrink, collapsing into his smaller lizard shape. Instead he seemed to be ... growing? Was this a side effect of the poison? His head arched back—and just kept going, his neck extending impossibly far until his head was bent almost a hundred and eighty degrees backward.
Roxy gave a choked cry.
And Jen just stared. She no longer knew what was happening. Instead of dwindling to a tiny lizard, Lucky was bursting out of his clothes. His fingers spread and lengthened. Sudden loops of tail sprawled around the room. A flush of scales, green and gold and black, rippled across his body. Horns erupted from his temples, not the tiny horns of the lizard she'd met before, but horns that looked like an antelope's, at least two feet long. They were glossy black with a gold stripe spiraling up each one.
Luc
ky's bulk crowded Jen up against the side of the bathroom. She wasn't sure she could get out now even if she wanted to. For a tense moment she was afraid he might accidentally crush her, but his convulsions were easing as he reached his full size—or what she hoped was his full size, since he covered the entire bathroom floor, with his back legs sprawling into the tub and his tail wound around the room. Through his warm, scaly hide, she could feel his tense muscles starting to relax.
You're not a lizard at all, she thought, reaching out hesitantly to touch the scaly ridges on the side of his face. When he was small, she hadn't seen it—or simply hadn't been willing to admit what she saw. But now that he was the size of a semi truck, there was no denying it.
Roxy's strangled voice came from the doorway. "Is that a—a—" She had to mouth the word several times before she could bring herself to say it. "A dragon?"
At Roxy's shoulder, Marius had gone faintly greenish himself. He crossed himself and took a step back.
"I thought he was a lizard," Jen murmured. "For the record." She carefully gathered Lucky's enormous, horned head into her lap. His jaws were parted, tongue lolling as he panted. A third eyelid, like a cat's, had rolled partway across his half-closed eyes. She couldn't tell if his relaxed state was because he felt better, or because he was finally succumbing to the poison, but his breathing seemed to be easier now, if a little rapid for her liking. But maybe that was normal for dragons; who knew?
"I don't understand," Roxy said faintly.
"What's to understand?" Marius demanded. "Now you see what kind of creatures they really are." He pointed accusingly at Jen. "She's one too."
Roxy's shell-shocked gaze swung to Jen. "You're a ... dragon?"
"No." Jen bit her lip as a lifetime's instincts screamed at her to stay silent, but Marius had seen her shift; the secret was out. "You met me already, as a gecko."
"Lucky ... gecko," Roxy mumbled. "I need a drink." She wobbled in the direction of the minibar.
Marius, Jen noted, had the arm with the dart thrower raised hesitantly in her direction. Like that would help against an enormous, armor-plated lizard.
