Tempt the Dragon

by A. C. Arthur

  Crime scene photos flashed rapidly. Ones from the apothecary and then from the other two places where witches were found dead. When the ones from the Royal Blood headquarters popped up all eyes fell on him.

  “Remind me again, was that part of our plan?”

  Before this was all over Aiken was gonna have to kick Reese’s ass.

  “In Aiken’s defense, Montoy really was poking at the sleeping beast.” All eyes flashed to Mel. It was a quick shift, one which had Theo’s brow raising. “What? It’s true. The guy never planned to give us any real answers. He just sat there on that ugly ass chair tossing his own questions and hollow assumptions back at us. It was infuriating.”

  “I can imagine,” Theo chimed in just as Reese had opened his mouth to speak. Saving the Drakon’s life, no doubt.

  “It wasn’t my intent to do a lot of damage, just to shut the bastard up.” If the wall of fire he’d created so they could get away safely had managed to kill the Chief Lord in the process, he wouldn’t have been torn up about it at all. “And Mel’s right, he wasn’t giving us any answers.”

  “What about Enes? You mentioned when we first returned that she was there.” What Steele was really asking was if Enes had acted as if she were going to protect the Chief Lord or was she still on their side.

  Aiken shrugged. “She didn’t say much and truthfully I didn’t pay that much attention to her.”

  “I did,” Mel spoke up. “I don’t think she wanted to be there any more than we did. When she walked out, she didn’t have that same swagger the other vamps did. And the answers she gave, like Montoy’s, didn’t really tell us anything.”

  “Do you think she knows where Duncan is and just isn’t telling us?” Magnum asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mel replied. “She just didn’t seem forthcoming, but that could’ve been part of the plan. Or it could’ve been because she intended to give the important information to Ziva when they were alone. I just can’t say since I don’t know her all that well.” But she’d done exactly as Aiken had instructed her, she’d paid attention to everything that was going on in that room. She hadn’t liked him instructing her, he knew that without a doubt, but she’d taken what he’d said and applied it during an assignment. That made the beast within smile.

  Another picture flashed on the screen behind Theo. It was Riya Merriwell’s house.

  “Shit! What happened? Is Riya alright?” he asked and felt the waves of worry rolling off Mel.

  “Someone burned her house down?” Mel asked, her voice tight with mounting emotion.

  “Detective Milton Posner paid us a little visit at the Tower tonight. He had lots of questions about you two. Nothing we couldn’t handle, but the most interesting part of the meeting was when the detective informed us that a truck that resembles one of our vehicles was spotted leaving the Royal Blood headquarters right after the fire started. That same truck was also identified as being at all three of the witches’ places of business before their deaths were called in to the enforcers.” Theo paused, as if to let all that sink in.

  Aiken lowered a hand, reaching between the chairs to grab Mel’s where it rested on her lap. She immediately latched on, squeezing as her heart thumped.

  “That’s straight bullshit!” she snapped.

  “Riya Merriwell was found burned to death. The three Legion guards we had stationed at her house were also killed. Bleu managed to hack into the medical examiner’s database and put in a request for an autopsy for all four of them.” Theo kept his tone level, but the flicker of bright color in his eyes said he was barely holding on to his irritation, as well.

  Aiken cursed, his beast filling with rage and bringing Mel’s along for the ride. “They’re trying to set us up.” It was the only reason for this meeting and for Posner going to the Tower. “If they can point the enforcers in our direction, we’ll be so preoccupied trying to prove our innocence we won’t see what they do next.”

  “But we’re gonna play this one step ahead of them,” Bleu interjected. “We’re going to multitask. Proving your innocence will take second seat to getting to that burial site first. Once we take care of one thing, the other will take care of itself.”

  “Unless the otherworldly has been exposed,” Mel said. “Remember, Posner asked if I believed in witches? He knows there’s another element at play here.”

  “He knows only what we confirm,” Magnum stated coldly. “If we don’t play into his hands, he won’t have any more proof. Whatever he’s thinking will be all he knows, but he won’t go to his superiors with a hunch about witches. They’ll laugh him off the job, because while there are some humans who believe in the preternatural, there are far many more who don’t.”

  “But if he knew about them then we could just explain about the vampire army and maybe get his help stopping Montoy instead of keeping everyone in the dark,” Aiken said, knowing that now was definitely not the time or place to have this conversation about them coming out to all the world. To piggyback off what Mag had just said, there were some humans who might find it easy to believe somebody’s practicing witchcraft, but accepting a living breathing dragon walking in their city was a whole different story. Theo’s frown echoed Aiken’s thoughts.

  “What’s the play?” Reese asked, and for once Aiken was glad he’d spoken.

  “Like Bleu said, we get to that burial site and dispatch their efforts to bring those vampires back to life,” Theo said.

  Mel sat up straight, her hand still in his, but her full attention was on Theo and whatever plan he was about to roll out. She was ready for battle and it was a lovely sight to see, but for that small hint of dread he’d been carrying since their earlier fly together.

  “And how are we supposed to do that? We don’t know where the burial site is, nor do we know how to stop vampires from coming onto the scene and digging their ancients up from the ground. If that’s even how they plan to do it. We just don’t have enough information to do any of these things right now. And we don’t have a whole lot of time to keep chasing Duncan around Burgess.” Steele sounded exasperated, and right.

  “We know how to do it.” All attention went to the doorway where Shola and Ravyn walked in.

  The two went to the front of the room, going directly to Bleu and his screen. Ravyn gave him a microchip and Bleu plugged it into the side controls of the screen. In seconds, the pictures changed from the burned remains of Riya’s house, to what looked like an abandoned piece of land amidst a dark mountain backdrop.

  “It’s here, just outside the Molongi village in the Congo. The Schenek witches have guarded it for centuries,” Shola spoke. “And just like Enes said, Lava Lake is just a few miles from the village. It’s an actual lake of lava that forms whenever the volcano in that mountain erupts.”

  “How’d you manage to find it and how do we know for a fact the ancients are buried there? Is there some type of sign that says Vamps Sleep Here?” Reese was dead serious about this question even though his comment earned him a warning gaze from Theo.

  “I’m sure because I felt it.” Shola’s voice was different as she spoke, deeper, more powerful. As a demigoddess blessed with the forces of the powerful Orisha Goddess Oya, she didn’t shift like the Drakon, but there was no doubting the magick that vibrated throughout her body. “It took a long time, but when I channeled all my energy to the one place that could provide answers—the earth—it came to me. My Creator is the sentinel between the realm of life and death, and stepping through the door that opened in my mind the moment I placed my palms on the ground outside shook me to the core, but it led me to where we needed to be. The Congo.”

  “Did you see the graves?” Magnum asked Shola.

  Gazing at Magnum, Shola shook her head. “I saw the billows of death in that area. It’s too strong to be an ordinary cemetery such as the one where we battled Temptra a few months ago.”

  “The vibrations almo
st knocked her unconscious,” Ravyn added.

  Theo immediately stood to grab Shola by the shoulders. “What the hell? You did all that when I wasn’t here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You gave us the assignment of figuring out where the burial site was and how we could stop the uprising. That’s what we were doing.” Shola’s tone remained level but there was no doubting the edge that loomed after each word. Theo apparently felt it too, because he loosened his grip on her, rubbing his hands down her arms instead.

  “That’s before I knew you were gonna channel the Goddess to help you send energy vibrations into the earth to find them.” He looked stressed as hell and in that moment Aiken’s beast wavered as if it were once again being knocked off balance.

  “So we can get to the burial site, but what do we do once we get there?” Steele directed his question to Ravyn as if already knowing she had the answer.

  Another picture appeared on the screen. This one was a close-up of a group of huts.

  “This was captured long ago on the night of the Blood Moon. It’s the one night where the veils between the realms are lifted and magick goes wonky. Each one of these huts are protected by magick, so while on this night they looked like normal huts to the human eye, they’re really links in the chain of a powerful spell that for centuries has been binding the ancients to the ground.” Ravyn’s eyes glittered with the excitement of her find.

  “But wait, the first picture you showed was of something that looked like abandoned land. Is this the same location where these huts are?” Mag asked.

  Ravyn nodded. “It is and that’s why the huts are only seen on magickal nights like the total eclipse or something like the summer solstice, I believe. Their spell is so powerful it also renders the huts invisible at all other times, which makes the village even harder to locate. That spell is the reason the ancients have been so hard to raise. And while they’re buried deep in the earth, they’re feeding off the power being used to keep them there, so that once they come aboveground they’ll be virtually unstoppable.” Ravyn had come to stand beside Steele while she talked and he reached a hand up to clasp hers.

  Teamwork. Partnership. A selected couple. Aiken’s thoughts shifted but immediately focused on Mel the moment she spoke.

  “That’s what they want,” Mel said. “It’s the power they’ve been searching for, the power the Collectors’ client wanted on his side, that’s why he put such a high bounty on Duncan’s head.”

  “Then the client must be a vampire, as well, else how would they have even known what Duncan was or how he could be beneficial?” Reese asked.

  “Clients are usually higher-ups on the preternatural radar. Species leaders, or captains of rogue teams, Spirit Realm demonics, they all have a stake in getting their hands on some of the targets before human authorities or other preternatural protectors like us.” Rubbing a hand over his chin, remembering the Fratelli brothers who’d worked for the company for years and were always the reason the team Aiken was on won the annual company softball game, Aiken knew the stakes had just been raised. “Whatever ability Duncan has to bring these vamps aboveground, it’s valuable.”

  “So valuable that Montoy’s partnered with him,” Magnum added.

  “I can stop it.” Ravyn spoke into the silence that fell after Magnum’s words. “I consulted some of the others that used to be in my great-grandmother’s coven and I believe I’ve come up with a potion that will keep them bound for eternity.”

  “You’ve developed a potion that the Schenek witches hadn’t thought of in the hundreds of years they’ve been guarding that burial site? You’ve been a half witch for all of six months, how is that possible?” Reese asked.

  The way Steele looked at Reese guaranteed that Drakon’s ass kicking was coming in the very near future.

  “Yes. I have and you can chalk that up to my wiccan heritage or the three years of advanced chemistry in high school,” Ravyn snapped back with a “fuck you” grin.

  Reese held his hands up as if in defeat, but Steele’s gaze was still hot as he glared at him.

  “The potion will need to be poured into the ground over any one of the graves. It’s meant to spread around the perimeter of extreme energy, binding it so that it can’t be raised, no matter what Duncan or any other vampire does.” Ravyn held up what looked like a soda bottle full of a red substance.

  “I’ll take it,” Mel said before standing. “I’ll take it to the burial ground and pour it over one of the graves.”

  Aiken was speechless.

  “We were actually hoping you’d say that,” Shola said.

  “Really?” Magnum asked.

  “Yes,” Shola said with a quick shake of her head. “The Scheneks’ spells guard the site from intruders, but only ones that can be seen. Members of Ravyn’s great-grandmother’s coven said they only allow delivery trucks with supplies close to the land. So we were thinking that if Mel could use her chameleon power to be on that truck when it’s allowed onto the land, she can then slip out and pour the potion before being discovered.”

  “And then what?” Aiken asked, the heat of his angry beast causing a virtual inferno in the pit of his stomach. “What happens when the witches catch her there, when there are no huts or vehicles or anything there that’ll cloak her? How does she get out?”

  “I’ll shift,” Mel said, the look on her face conveying she was in full agreement with this plan.

  The erratic patter of Aiken’s heart said he was not. This was dangerous. If he couldn’t get on that land to save her, what would happen if trouble broke out? Because those were the types of things that needed to be considered.

  “Wait a minute, you’ve only been shifting for two days.” And in those two days she’d done a better job at learning about being a Drakon than some of the others he’d seen on the Far Realm who had been born knowing exactly who and what they were.

  “I thought you were all about taking care of this situation?” Mel asked when she turned to stare at him. “Ever since you interrupted my assignment in that townhouse you’ve done nothing but talk about how important it is for the vamps to be stopped from bringing their ancients aboveground. So, okay, I’m now totally on board with that.”

  “No.” He couldn’t say that one word emphatically enough. “You can’t. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know enough about this potion or these witches. What if something goes wrong?” It would, he could feel it in his gut, and his gut was never wrong. “We should think about this a little more. Figure out a way to break the witches’ spell and then a few of us will go. We can drop the potion and fly away before the witches know what hit them.”

  “You’ll never break through their spells,” Ravyn said. “The magick is too strong there. It’s fueled by the land and the fires that burn fast and hot in the volcano that also guards the forest. My ancestors weren’t even strong enough to break it.”

  “You don’t know the power of Drakon magick,” he countered.

  “And neither do you,” Theo interrupted. “At least not in the terms of what it can do in this area when up against not only those witches but the vampires that are undoubtedly going to be headed there, as well.”

  “How would they know where to find it? We only just found out,” he countered.

  “Temptra,” Ziva said when she walked in looking a little worse for wear. “Enes said she’s alive and kicking and just as she wanted that dagger Ravyn had to raise the dead, she did something to Duncan to make him able to get onto the burial site.”

  So that’s why Duncan had been able to turn into a bat when he wasn’t a Lord.

  Ziva continued while taking her seat, “But she knew he’d need backup and that’s why she sent him to Montoy. They want his manpower to accompany Duncan to the burial site to protect him while he gets onto the land and provides the tainted vampire blood running through his veins that’ll wake the dead ancients.”
>
  Nobody said it, but everyone was thinking it. Fuck!

  Mel took the bottle from Ravyn. “I’m going. Are you with me?”

  For endless moments Aiken sat there in a trance. What the hell kind of question was that? How could he not be with her? They were a part of each other, selected and now joined together in a bond that hadn’t broken in eighty years. He’d be damned if he let some wiccan spells and thousands of dead vampires break it now.

  Standing and ignoring the gaze of the other Drakon in the room, he looked directly at Mel. “When do we leave?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  He couldn’t wait until they were alone, so the second they were outside the conference room he reached for her arm, pulling her to a stop.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” He really wanted to ask if she was out of her mind, volunteering for such a dangerous job, but he knew that wasn’t going to go over well with her.

  “I’m doing what you’ve been telling me all along I should do.” The blatant accuracy of her response slapped him like a splash of cold water and he dropped her hand before taking a step back.

  “I didn’t know it would lead to this.” Which sounded super weak and borderline ridiculous. Of course he’d known they’d end up at the burial site, that’s what this entire operation was about. He just hadn’t considered Mel would be such an integral part in the plan.

  She looked energized and ready to take on the world, but just when she was about to respond to him again, her phone rang. On a sigh she grabbed it out of the pocket of the shorts she’d worn for their training and stared down at the screen. When she looked up at him again it was with a frown. “I’ve uh, gotta take this.”

  He nodded, not sure where this conversation with her was going anyway. Leaning against the wall while she walked away, he closed his eyes to the pressure that had begun to rest in the center of his chest. What was happening? One minute he’d been elated watching her transformation to a Drakon, flying high with the wind against his scales and a beautiful yellow dragon at his side. The next he was listening to the woman he loved volunteer to go solo onto grounds where powerful witches and lethal vampires resided. His temples began to throb with what he knew was going to be a hell of a headache, because he wasn’t sure how to wrap his mind around all these quick changes.