by Beth Dranoff
Sandor was going to be so pissed that his security system had failed. Some death whisperer (for some reason, they made the best security technicians) was going to get another year or more added to their life over this when Sandor was through with them.
The mist figures were already reforming, their mouths elongating to reveal rows upon rows of teeth, nestling into each other like Russian stacking dolls—although maybe, upon reflection, not quite as child-friendly. Celandra kept muttering and weaving, lifting her arms and dropping them again. Getting longer, shinier. Her mouth seemed larger, and she showed off some pretty impressive pointy teeth of her own.
From over her partially shifted shoulder, she looked directly at me and beckoned me closer. Then looked at my weapons. Sure, right, weapons—use them. Okay. Any ideas on how? I watched Celandra, the misty ice demons, and Sam, who wasn’t going anywhere at the moment. Don’t think about that. Alive. Had to be. Swallowing down that lump in my throat, counting backwards from ten, reminding myself to slow my breathing and feel the linoleum beneath my feet while focusing on the immediate need. Fire, for instance.
Wait. What exactly was Celandra shifting into anyway? Was that a...?
I knew exactly what I had to do next.
Chapter Nineteen
I shrieked like a banshee, diving into the fray and waving around my mallet with crazed glee—every bit the manic nut bar that Celandra was playing at. My dancing and waving broke up the smoke for a moment, even though it was drifting farther out and trying to re-form just out of reach. I didn’t care. I was a loon with a mission.
While I was distracting the bad guys, Celandra was progressing further into her shift. It felt like it was taking forever, scales rolling over her whole body in groups of five to ten at a time. At this rate, it was going to be a very long night.
“Hey Celandra,” I muttered as I danced past her ear, “do you think maybe you could speed it up a bit?”
I wasn’t sure she’d heard me, but she gave a little shake and then her back arched and rolled, popping with exfoliate and spiny plates. Her mouth extended even as a long tail sprouted and trailed out the back of her layers of clothing. She was shimmering, blue-green scales catching on the starlight that shone through the high windows of the Swan’s interior.
Meanwhile, the watchful mists were tracking me. Not a great feeling. But still I shook and shimmied, waving around my arms and my hammer, dancing in and out of range of the smoky ice demons. They were dissolving and reforming at an ever-faster rate. I glanced back at Celandra. She was more scales than skin at this point, which was a good sign as far as I was concerned.
But I shouldn’t have looked away. A large mouth of toothy layers gaped at me, a hairsbreadth in front of my nose. I jumped back and whacked it on the head with my mallet.
Nothing happened. Fortunately, I was now at least a foot or more away from that particular set of teeth. But then another set snapped at my left ear. Shit. This was going nowhere good fast. I snatched the knife from the back of my pants and slashed down at the ear sniffer, making sure the blade ran the cross-section of the thing’s head and through its throat. It was a good knife, but I wouldn’t have expected it to cut through bone as easily as it did. Or was it bone?
The blade came away easily, edged with bumps of frosty hoar, a bit of translucent green goo streaked across the flat of the shiny metal. The toothy bastard looked at me, dead-on, and gave me a slow wink and a grin.
Uh oh.
I had these snaky freaks writhing around me from all sides. No matter where I dodged, no matter where I waved and weaved, there was another asshole there to replace the previous one. Taunting, tickling, snapping at me.
“Celandra!” I yelled, hoping that she hadn’t changed her mind, leaving me to this frosty creeping fate. I couldn’t see beyond the opaque mist that surrounded me now, but there was no question the temperature was dropping. That now-familiar tingle in the tips of my fingers started, as claws sprouted and fur rippled up my arms to my shoulders, layering me against the chill and buying me another few precious moments of fight. Which there was no question I was going to lose if Celandra didn’t do something, and quick.
Behind me there was a roar and a blast of heat. The mist around me shimmered for a moment before reforming, although maybe it was a bit thinner than before. I tested it out with a swat of my paw and saw the scarred surface of the bar’s countertop come into clearer view. Neat.
I began to dance and bob and slash with renewed vigor. Hoping. Hopeful. I’d lost both mallet and knife during the paw shift, but I took a precious second or two of a strategic time-out to locate the knife, scooping it back up to hold it, blade forward, between my teeth. I writhed some more, periodically poking at an ephemeral attacker with a combination head butt, chin tilt then a jab forward with the teeth-clenched blade. It didn’t change the odds particularly but it did buy me a bit more space to move around.
Another roar, another wall of heat, stronger than the last. I slipped and almost fell on my ass as the heel of my boot found a puddle that hadn’t been there before. The demons were definitely starting to smell now, a mix of salt and char, and their attention shifted abruptly away from me and towards the source of the blast. Scorching flames this time, as crispy bits of smoke made flesh started to rain around me in blackened chunks. They plopped down in water that was turning more into a small stream than a puddle at this point. My vision cleared and I saw flaming shards all around me, snuffed by the water rising now to mid-calf. I heard screams and sizzles and pops. The smell clogged my nose. All I could do was stand there and sneeze, five times in succession.
Then, silence.
Thank you, Celandra.
Let’s hear it for friendly dragons. An appreciation the frost demons might have gained had Celandra not just flamed them into melted puddles of gelatinous mush.
I looked around, trying to locate the chunk of ice that was Sam. There. The berg was almost completely melted. Celandra the dragon sat there, gently blowing puffs of heat. Forgetting my partially changed form, I bounded over to the chunk of ice and started clawing at it desperately. I could see Sam, wide-eyed and wriggling. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get to him. No. I had to get to him.
“Celandra!” I shrieked out her name. I didn’t know what he was to me yet but I knew I didn’t want him to die. She looked over at me and nodded her big head, the size of a small minivan now, then raised a bejeweled paw and whacked the top of the ice chunk, once, shattering it.
Sam sat there partially naked, mostly blue, with icy dandruff hanging off his hair and covering his chest. Shivering. I jumped into his arms and wrapped my warmth around him. After a moment, he lifted his arms to wrap them around me right back. Dragon Celandra just sat there, picking her teeth with an orange claw, watching us. I looked up, briefly, catching her eye and hoping there was more human in there than beast right now.
“Celandra, thank you,” I said. She nodded. “Sam? We need to get you warm. Then we have to let Anshell know what happened here tonight.”
His voice was hoarse and it took a couple of tries but finally, gravelly, he said, “Okay.”
* * *
After a warm shower for both of us, another change of clothes and phone calls to Sandor and Anshell, we found ourselves back in the kitchen—this time boiling water. I was literally at the end of my clothing stash, and I’d had to find some old sweats and a promotional T-shirt that read “Swan Song Saturdays: because there ain’t no rest for the wicked” in slashes of red lettering on a black background for Sam. I wasn’t sure who the sweats had belonged to, and everything smelled like grease and kitchen fryer, but at least it was warmer than bare, recently frozen skin.
Sandor showed up first. His warty mouth pressed into a thin line as he took in the evidence of the breach in his supposedly impassable security. Sandor had a pad of paper and a well-chewed pencil and was listi
ng out all of the things that needed to be fixed before the Swan could re-open for business. Water damage to the floor—check. Solid steel magicked door blessed by the most holy of the undead—check. Rewiring the security system to make it functional—check. Finding out how this happened and resetting the wards so they actually worked? Priceless. His gaze settled on me a moment before it flitted over to Sam, and then Sam’s T-shirt.
“That’ll be 20 bucks,” Sandor said.
“Put it on my tab,” Sam replied, deadpan. Sandor grunted and moved off to start rummaging in the fridge.
Celandra came padding in next, rheumy-eyed, her hair even wilder than before. Thankfully, she was dressed. Naked Celandra was not a vision I wanted lodged in my consciousness anytime soon. She looked at Sandor and nodded; after a moment, he smiled and nodded back.
“Hey Celandra,” he said. “How’s it shaking?”
She laughed, a girlish innocent laugh like a three-year-old who’d just had a great time splashing in the wading pool with her friends. It was jarring coming from the weathered face of someone who now seemed older than time.
“Celandra and the kitty cats had a great time playing with the fire and smoke and teeth. Celandra tried to drink up all the bad bad water for Sandor so he wouldn’t have to clean so much, but Celandra couldn’t drink up all the blood. Ice demon blood tastes bad and Celandra couldn’t do it, even for her old friend Sandor of the yummy yummy food.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Sandor, grinning at the dragon lady with an affection that said they shared a bucket of steamed fish heads and marmalade now and again. “I just appreciate you showing up and helping out my friend Dana here.”
“Ah yes, the newest kitty in the brood.” She nodded. “You have to take better care of your pets, Sandor,” she said. “Bad men want to come and play with her,” at this she nodded to Sam who just stared at her, “and bad bad ones want to make her cry before she begs for mercy and then dies. You can’t be letting her go out and play in the streets by herself, you know. Not now.”
“I kind of figured that,” said Sandor. “But this bad man didn’t come to hurt her. Right?” Sandor leveled a steely gaze at Sam now. Sam grunted in acknowledgement. “He’s a playmate of hers.” This time Sandor raised an eyebrow at me for confirmation. I nodded.
Perfect timing. In strode Anshell, followed by a couple of giant-sized flunkies, followed by Jon. Jon. Oh shit. I kept forgetting Anshell and Jon knew each other.
If Jon noticed something was up between me and Sam, he didn’t say anything. Not immediately, anyway. Jon was behind me and in front of me and around me, all at once, a smudge of cool where he touched. Edgy. Worried about me. My guilt flashed in my eyes and a moment later Jon’s nostrils flared. He looked at me then Sam, then back to me again. Well. Shit on a stick.
“You were going to protect her,” Jon said. To Anshell. “And this place was supposed to be safe.” This time to Sandor. Jon certainly knew how to smear the guilt around, softened butter on the toast of Celandra-charred responsibility. Speaking of... “Thank you,” he said to the dragon in human form.
“Pretty kitty helped take care of her pretty kitty self,” Celandra replied, her mouth full of food and lips stretching into something that could have been a smile. A glob of something blue and veiny landed on her chin, wobbling in gelatinous opalescence before leaving a line of thinning mucous that trailed even lower. Ick. “She has claws so sharp that when she dances, she shreds the air.” Celandra’s voice went higher, a sing-song of words vaguely based in some alternate form of reality. “Kitty the key / that no one can see / because so pretty / she makes you pity.”
“Celandra...” Sandor tried to disrupt her flow.
“Kitty cat in time and space / draws attention to the race / there is the door and there the key / pretty kitty needs to flee.”
“Celandra!” Sandor was louder this time, poking her gently with a single curved nail. Mandarin orange. Not hard enough to break the skin or get scales caught underneath the cartilage; enough to focus her. I wondered what color dragons bled. Hoped I never found out. “Make sense. Please.” He waited until she was looking directly at him. “Why is Dana in danger?”
“Danger danger stranger danger,” Celandra muttered, tucking back into her food as though none of her oracular ravings had just happened. Sandor sighed and turned away from her again.
“Sorry,” he said. “Girl,” turning to me, “we need to find a way to keep you safe already.”
“No kidding.” Because no argument there.
“There’s room at the house,” Sam said, glancing at Anshell until he gave his approval nod. “Safest place for someone with Pack affiliations.”
“I never said I’d join.” Even shaken, I could still think ahead.
“True,” Anshell said. “And you do have to prove you can change form on demand. Full moon is almost here. We can give you a line of credit on that protection until then.”
“And if I don’t shift? By the last night of the full moon?”
“Then you’re on your own,” Anshell said.
* * *
There was still one last thing to deal with before we left.
“Dana, can I speak with you a moment?” No point in avoiding the conversation. I nodded and beckoned Jon into the depths of the darkened, blood-splattered bar, where I pulled up a chair and sat.
“So,” Jon said, spinning the double-looped wooden chair back opposite me before settling into it. He crossed his arms, leaning against the top of the chair with his legs spread, one foot planted on either side. “Decided to even the score?”
I met his eyes—blue-green ice—but lost my words as my chest clenched and I swallowed down a pain that might otherwise have been tears. Fuck. What could I say? Why should I have to say anything? I managed a noncommittal grunt.
“Be straight with me,” he said. “I deserve that much.” Jon’s voice was level, any visible emotion drained away through a sieve of self-control.
I looked down. Didn’t want to see what was in his eyes. Was surprised by the compassion I found there when I stopped being a chicken shit and looked back up.
“Okay fine,” I said to the understanding that greeted me. “Yes, I slept with Sam. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I have anything to apologize for.” Still, I had to look away before I could say those next words. So softly, maybe only someone with super-sensitive hearing might catch them. “Do you hate me now?”
Only the briefest of hesitations before responding.
“I’ve lived a long time,” he said. “Done a lot of things, some of them to you. Am I happy about the situation? No. But do I have any right to be upset after what I’ve put you through? Probably not. I deserved it.”
“You think I fucked Sam to get back at you?” My laugh felt harsh on a throat still rough from smoke inhalation. “Ego much?”
Jon fixed me with those gorgeous eyes and I swam in the depths of them. Longing. Loss. Waves of melancholy squeezing my chest tight with unshed tears. How could I lie to him? I wanted him, I needed him, I hated him—just a bit—for making me share. So, yes, he had to share as well.
“You did deserve it,” I said finally. “But that’s not why it happened. I don’t know what you and I are to each other at this point. Sam is...interesting. The whole shifter thing is different than what you and I have.” I sighed. “You know how I feel about you.”
“And I you.” He leaned forward to envelop the heat of my hands between the chill of his.
“But,” I said, distracted by the sensation of his skin on mine. “But we’re obviously not 100 physically committed to each other, right?” Jon nodded. “So where does that leave us? Can you play nice and share?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted reluctantly. At least he took a whole ten seconds to think about it. Yes. I counted.
“Then can yo
u tell me you’ll be with me and only me for as long as we’re together? Exclusively?”
This one Jon thought about even longer, maybe a full minute, before responding. “I don’t know about that either.”
“Then we’re at an impasse,” I said.
“So it would appear,” he replied.
Chapter Twenty
“You slept with Sam?” Lynna was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, looking up at me expectantly. Me, I’d curled up in the overstuffed armchair occupying the corner of the room we’d be sharing for the night. Or at least until I found a place where I could keep myself and the people I cared about from being attacked. “Hot or not?”
I laughed. “Hot. Definitely hot.”
Lynna wiggled around a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position for her sore bits. Although her physical condition didn’t seem to dampen her interest in the latest gossip relating to my love life. Or sex life.
“So, spill. How does he stack up against Dead Boy?”
“His body temperature’s a lot hotter than Jon’s,” I said slowly, ignoring the jab at the vampire’s mortality status. “And there’s that whole shifter thing. When I’m near him physically, it feels like my fur—my inner cat—is trying to claw its way past my skin to get to him. It’s electricity.”
I thought back to earlier that night—was it really the same night?—and my breath hitched at the sense memory. Hot didn’t even begin to describe it.
“So, what now?” Lynna looked at me expectantly. “Gonna drop Dead Boy for Mr. Alive and Shifting?”
“Unknown,” I replied. “Wish I could have my undead cake and eat this live one too.”
Lynna laughed. ”C’mon,” she said. “You know this thing with Jon can’t last. Try it with someone else for a while. Seriously. You never know—you might like it better. Besides,” she grinned, her lips twitching as though Sam was stretched out on the bed in front of her in all his muscled, naked glory. “Hot damn but Sam is fine. You said so yourself.”
