by Rachel Aaron
Marci nodded and turned around, her steps picking up as she starting back down the alley. “Let’s get going, then.”
Thanks to Katya’s headlights, it was much brighter inside the crumbling building than it had been out in the alley now that the dust had settled. Marci was already on her hands and knees beside the upside-down car by the time Julius came in, her head stuck through the shattered driver’s window.
It was the only place she could have stuck her head in, Julius realized with a lurch. The passenger side of Katya’s car was completely crushed where the van had struck it, leaving the roof of the upside down car strewn with glass and the tattered remains of the deflated airbags. Only the driver’s side was still intact, though there was a bloody dent on the dash where Katya must have knocked herself unconscious. The driver’s side seatbelt was still neatly in its place, clearly unused, which only made Julius even more certain that his brother had been behind this.
That thought made him angry all over again. He didn’t want to scare Marci, though, so he took a deep, calming breath. Unfortunately, this actually made things worse.
Now that the initial rush of panic had faded, the smell of the wreck was overwhelming. The stench of burning rubber and plastic mixed with the reek of fresh blood was nauseating. There was quite a lot of blood, actually, which was strange. Other than the splatter on the dash, he hadn’t though Katya was so injured. It smelled odd, too, not like dragon blood at all. It wasn’t until Marci ducked back out of the shattered window, though, that he realized the truth.
Marci’s shirt was soaked in blood. There was so much, he thought she must have been stabbed at first. On the second look, he saw the blood was actually coming from her neck, not that that was any better. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
He didn’t realize how sharp his voice was until she winced. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, but Julius was already reaching for her. When he examined her neck, though, he saw she was right.
Though the bloody stain down the front of her shirt had made it look like she was dying, the cut on Marci’s neck wasn’t actually that deep. It was more long than anything else, a shallow slice that ran from just below her right ear down to the soft skin covering her trachea. Minor as it was, the cut had still bled like a faucet, which accounted for her horror-movie appearance. But while her face looked deathly pale in the glare of Katya’s halogen headlights, she was clearly alive and functional, a fact that helped Julius drag his panic back down to a more or less functional level.
“How did this happen?” he said, tearing a strip off the bottom of his shirt. “You seemed fine before.”
“I am fine,” she protested, wincing as he pressed the cloth against her wound. “I keep telling you, it’s just a cut. I didn’t even know I was bleeding until I noticed my shirt was wet. Really, though, I’m okay. It doesn’t even hurt that much.”
She clearly meant this to make him feel better, but Julius barely heard it. Now that he’d seen her wound, all he could think about was how close she’d come to having her throat cut. If the slice had been just a little deeper, or a bit farther to the left, it would have gone through her windpipe. A few centimeters’ difference, that was all it would have taken, and Marci wouldn’t be here complaining about his fussing. She would be dead.
His body began to shake, though whether it from was fear or anger, Julius couldn’t say. He tried to keep calm by focusing on the rise and fall of Marci’s breath under his fingers, the undeniable proof that the worst hadn’t happened, but it didn’t work. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, Julius couldn’t shake the feeling that, unlike the rest of this ridiculous situation, Marci’s survival had been luck. She was only human, and to dragons, human meant disposable. Bob probably hadn’t even considered her a factor. Her death would have been a throwaway, a meaningless detail in the larger draconic scheme, and that made him angriest of all.
“Julius?”
He blinked and glanced up to see Marci watching him with a worried frown. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
“It’s really not that bad. I was going to bandage it up, but I wanted to secure a material link before the trail got too cold. See?”
She held up her hand, and Julius saw three of Katya’s gleaming, white-gold hairs pinched between her fingers. That was what she’d been doing inside the wrecked car, he realized. She must have pulled them off the headrest.
“I can’t claim to be an expert tracker,” she said, winding the long hairs around her fingers. “But any idiot can follow a trail this hot. Unless that van is warded, this should be more than enough to take us right to her, especially since she’s a dragon. Not that I’ve tracked dragons before, of course, but you guys are so magical I could probably follow you from space.”
Julius froze. “You knew Katya was a dragon?”
Marci gave him an oh, come on look. “It was kind of obvious. Humans don’t look like that.”
“Like what?” Because he’d thought Katya had looked remarkably undraconic.
She ducked her head, and he was relieved to see a bit of color come back to her cheeks. “Never mind. Just let me go so I can start on the tracing spell.”
Julius stilled her with a firm push. “Not until I’m done.”
Marci froze, but it wasn’t until he saw how wide her eyes had gotten that he realized he was growling deep in his throat. He stopped at once, keeping his attention on his work as he carefully wiped the blood from Marci’s neck. Still, it was hard to keep his hands steady. He was just so angry, angrier than he could ever remember being, and he didn’t know how to handle it. But there was nothing he could do while Marci was bleeding, so he poured himself into the present, tearing off another piece of his shirt to bandage the cut. He was trying to think of the quickest way to get her to a real, sterile bandage when he heard the faint rumble of a car on the road outside.
He stilled, bracing for fight or flight. Since it was unlikely their enemy would be returning to the scene of the crime so soon, he was betting on flight. This might be a nearly abandoned section of a terrible neighborhood in the Underground, but the wreck had been loud. That sort of thing was sure to draw human attention. Not cops, of course, this was still the DFZ, but nosy humans of any sort were the last thing Julius wanted, and when he saw an ancient Crown Victoria drift to a stop behind Marci’s totaled sedan, he knew it was time to go.
“Do you need anything from your car?”
Marci stared at him like he was stupid. “Of course I need the stuff in my car. Do you have any idea how expensive casting markers are?”
“I’ll buy you new ones,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Come on, we have to—”
The blare of a horn cut him off. In the street, the Crown Victoria’s driver was beeping out a Shave and a Haircut pattern, and Julius’s poor stomach clenched again. He turned around, watching in stunned silence as the antique car’s tinted window rolled down to reveal the smiling, too-handsome face he really should have been expecting all along.
“Hello, little brother! I had an inkling you could use a ride.”
When Julius didn’t answer, Bob climbed out of the car. “What? No hello for the loving brother who came all this way just to offer his assistance?”
He was never able to say later what part of that had been the last straw. He couldn’t even explain his thought process, most likely because he hadn’t been thinking at all. He was furious and frightened and the smell of Marci’s blood was all over him. Bob, on the other hand, was standing there grinning like this was all a hilarious joke, and something inside Julius just snapped.
Before he knew he was moving, before he realized he’d even made the decision, Julius was standing right in front of his brother with his hands fisted in the seer’s midnight blue jacket. “You,” he snarled. “I know you did this!”
Bob didn’t answer, just stared down at his little brother with his all-knowing green eyes, and in the sile
nce, the magnitude of what he’d just done hit Julius in a rush. He’d grabbed his brother, his eldest brother, a dragon nearly forty times his age who could swat him like a fly.
This dawning realization must have been plain on his face, because Bob’s lips pulled into a smug smile. “Ah, there it is,” he whispered. “There’s the fear. I was beginning to worry I’d lost my touch.”
By this point, Julius’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely grip, but he still didn’t let go of his brother’s coat. He was in for it now, he reasoned. The hammer of retribution was going to fall no matter what, so he might as well speak his piece.
“I don’t know why you did this,” he said. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to gain from using me or stirring up trouble between the clans, but whatever convoluted mess of a game you’re playing, you had no right to drag others into it.”
“Others?” Bob’s bright green eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “How interesting. Why don’t I believe you’re talking about the tragically kidnapped Katya?”
His narrowed gaze slid pointedly over Julius’s shoulder to where Marci was standing across the street, but he needn’t have bothered with the dramatics. Julius knew perfectly well that he’d revealed his hand, he just was too angry to care. “Marci is not your pawn,” he growled. “I can’t stop you from using me, but you leave her out of this or I swear I’ll do everything in my power to wreck any of your plans I can reach.”
As threats went, it was a pretty weak one. For all Julius knew, that was exactly the response Bob wanted. It was the only retaliation he had, though, and at that moment, Julius fully intended to follow through however he could. But his brother was looking at him strangely, sagging against his hold in a way that forced Julius to support his weight as the silence stretched thinner and thinner.
Julius’s nervousness stretched with it. The longer his brother went without answering, the more certain Julius was that those rash words would be his last. But then, after almost thirty seconds of horrible, empty quiet, Bob’s face broke into a wide smile.
“I think that little speech might just be the most draconic thing that’s ever left your mouth,” he said, easily breaking out of Julius’s hold. “Territoriality, possessiveness, aggression, threats of reprisal…” He shook his head in wonder. “Why, baby Julius, could you be growing into your fangs at last?”
Julius had no idea how to respond to that, or how to react when Bob reached down to slap him on the back.
“Don’t get your feathers in a fluff,” he chided. “I’m here to help! I can’t let you have all the fun, can I?”
Julius gaped at him. “What’s fun about almost dying?”
“But that’s the best sort of fun,” Bob replied. “The kind you can look back on centuries later and laugh about. Of course, since I’m always centuries ahead, I can laugh about it right now.”
And then he did, loudly.
Julius watched with growing apprehension, reminding himself not to read too much into Bob’s antics. Seers were famously mad, after all, and he’d always suspected Bob had a bit more fun with that than he really should. Since his brother showed no signs of pulling himself together anytime soon, he looked around for Marci instead, spotting her poking through the ruins of her car. He was about to go help her when Bob’s arm suddenly wrapped around his shoulders.
“Don’t bother her yet,” he warned, his laughter gone as quickly as it had come. “She’s about to get a phone call.”
Julius attempted to tug out of Bob’s grip only to find that he couldn’t. “What phone call?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a jangly electronic tune rang out across the street. Marci jumped at the sound, her hands flying for her shoulder bag, which had never left her shoulder and had gotten rather bloody as a result. She fumbled with one of the wet front pouches before pulling out the phone he’d given her. Rather than answer, though, she looked at Julius. “Should I take it? No one has this number.”
“That’s never stopped me,” Bob said before Julius could open his mouth. “Just answer it already. The suspense is almost as obnoxious as your ringtone.”
Marci shot Bob a surprisingly nasty look, but she touched the screen to accept the call all the same, putting it on speaker. It wasn’t much of a speaker since Julius had been forced to get her one of the cheaper models, but the result was still plenty loud enough for dragons to hear from several feet away.
“I’ve got your girl.”
Julius had never heard that deep, angry voice before, but Marci clearly had, because her whole face flushed with rage. “Bixby,” she spat.
“Hello, Miss Novalli,” Bixby crooned. “Long time no see.”
If Marci had been a dragon, Julius would have expected her to start breathing smoke at this point. “What do you want?”
“You know exactly what I want,” Bixby said, his voice so smug Julius could actually hear the sneer that must have been on his face. “I want my property, and you’re going to bring it to me. And before you get any ideas, let me say right off that I know exactly what sort of company you’re keeping these days, so if you don’t want the Lady of the Lakes to add a pretty blond dragon head to her collection, you’ll shut up and do exactly what I say.”
There was a pause while Bixby waited for Marci to protest. When she didn’t, he continued.
“In one hour, I’m going to send you an address. You come alone with the Kosmolabe, and I’ll let your little friend slither off none the worse for wear. You don’t show, or you decide to bring along that new boyfriend I hear you’ve picked up, and we’ll toss Sleeping Beauty into the lake faster than you can say ‘I miss my daddy.’”
The sound that came out of Marci when he said that last part was closest thing to a growl Julius had ever heard from a human. Bixby must have heard it too, because he sounded smugger than ever. “Good to know we have an understanding. See you in an hour.”
The call had barely cut off before Marci grabbed the screen like she was going to crush it between her palms. “That, that, ooooh.”
Julius swooped in just in time to rescue her phone. He plucked it out of her straining hands and hit the icon to trace the number. Naturally, the results came back blank, and Julius made a mental note to talk to his hacker about putting real tracing programs on their phones, because he was getting mighty sick of this Unknown Caller nonsense. He huffed in annoyance and turned to hand the phone back to Marci only to find her staring at him, her face stricken.
“Julius,” she said, voice shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault. I never meant to get you involved in my drama, and now I’ve messed everything up. You were right, I should have left that stupid golden softball in the desert. I—”
Julius put a hand on her shoulder. With gentle but firm pressure, he steered her farther down the street, away from his brother. Real privacy was impossible when a seer was involved, of course, but that didn’t mean he wanted a live audience for this.
“Marci,” he said when they were more or less alone. “You have nothing to apologize for. This trap was not your fault, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to get my hands on Bixby.”
She shook her head. “But—”
“But nothing,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “We’re going to handle this together. You help me, I help you. That’s what makes us a team, right?”
She stared at him for a long time after that, biting her lip in a way that made him worried she was going to cry again. Thankfully, she didn’t, but he could hear her heart in her throat when she whispered, “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed,” Julius said, but he coveted her words all the same, hoarding them in his memory like precious stones. If she kept this up, it was going to take more fingers than he had to count all the times someone had thanked him and meant it. He liked that idea very much indeed, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face as they walked back to her car to salvage what was left of her stuff.
Sadly, it didn’t tak
e long. The wreck had crushed her trunk, destroying everything breakable and burying everything that wasn’t inside a twisted mass of metal. Ghost, being non-corporeal, was the only survivor, if a death spirit could be said to have survived anything. He seemed to be giving Marci a piece of his mind, though, so Julius left her arguing with her cat and returned to Bob, who was watching from the hood of his car like this was the best show ever.
He smiled as Julius approached, patting the spot beside him on the freshly waxed hood, which his weight was already denting. Julius ignored the invitation and leaned on the bumper instead. “So how long have you been playing Bixby?”
Bob’s eyes widened, and then his hands flew up to grip to his chest like he was having a heart attack.
“What?” Julius cried. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Bob said, dropping his hands. “It’s just the shock of seeing you acting so stern and dragon-esque. If I’d known getting you kicked out of the mountain would have such immediate positive returns, I’d have told Mother to do it years ago.” He paused. “Oh wait, I did know! Must have been a timing thing. That’s the problem with being all-knowing but not all-remembering. After a while, you just can’t keep up.” He frowned and started fumbling with his pockets. “I really should start leaving myself notes.”
He did leave himself notes. They were hidden all over the mountain, sometimes for years. Finding them was a favorite game for young Heartstrikers, but Julius had no time or patience for his brother’s antics right now. “Wait a second. You’re the reason I was sealed?”
Bob rolled his eyes. “As I pointed out to your human earlier, the seal was Mother’s idea. She’d been fretting over who to use as a scapegoat for this Ian situation for months. I merely gave her a nudge in your direction.”
