Part-Time Gods
Page 1
Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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About the Author
Part-Time Gods
DFZ Book 2
Rachel Aaron
Life in the magical mess of the Detroit Free Zone is never easy. When you’re laboring under the curse of a certain prideful, overbearing dragon, it can be down right impossible.
My name is Opal Yong-ae, and I’m a Cleaner. At least, I used to be. Thanks to the supernatural bad luck that turns everything I do against me, these days I’m more of a walking disaster. Getting rid of this curse is the only way to get my life back. Unfortunately, dragon magic is every bit as sneaky and deadly the monsters behind it, and just as hard to beat.
But I’ve never been one to take her doom at face value. Cornered doesn’t mean defeated, and in an awakened city that rules herself, dragons are no longer the biggest powers around.
Author’s Note: This is the second in a new series set in the same universe as my Heartstrikers books and contains very mild spoilers for that series. That said, you don’t need to have read the Heartstriker novels to enjoy this one. Opal’s story was written to stand by itself, so if you haven’t read my other books, don’t worry! I wrote this with you in mind. Please enjoy, and thank you as always for reading!
- Rachel
Prologue
Seoul, Unified Korea, 21 years ago
In the Palace of the Great Dragon, on the fiftieth floor behind the seven layers of security that separated the family wing from the more public parts of the Dragon of Korea’s stronghold, a five-year-old girl wearing a dress worth more than most ball gowns stood in the middle of a magical circle, staring down a line of dark-green kabocha pumpkins placed on the marble floor in front of her like a soldier on a battlefield.
“All right,” her tutor said, nervously pushing his round glasses farther up his wrinkled nose as he finished adjusting the last pumpkin and resumed his position at the edge of the circle. “Do it like I showed you this time. Draw in magic to fill the circle, and then move the magic through the spellwork.” He tapped his shoe against the magical equation he’d written in huge, child-friendly characters around the magic circle’s edge. “The spell will tell the magic how to move the pumpkins. You don’t have to touch them. Just focus on the circle. Understand?”
The little girl nodded rapidly, sending her wispy black hair flying, and the old tutor gave her a smile so forced it was almost a grimace.
“Begin.”
The girl stuck her chubby little hands straight out in front of her and closed her eyes. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then magic filled the room like a whipcrack. It came on so fast that the tutor barely had time to hit the safety corollary he’d written into the spellwork with his foot, releasing the magic before it overloaded the circle and exploded. But while he made it in time to spare them from magical backlash, he was too late to stop the spell entirely. The surge of power had already raced through the spellwork, scorching the symbols into the stone floor before jumping to the pumpkins, which promptly exploded, showering the entire room in bright orange, steaming-hot squash guts.
“Ah!” cried the tutor, throwing up his arms to protect his face as the wave of wet, freshly boiled gourd splattered over him. The little girl wasn’t nearly so quick. The flying pumpkin hit her full across the face, coating her from hair to feet in a layer of piping-hot goo.
“No!” the tutor shouted, flinging pumpkin off his hands as he whirled to yell at his failure of a pupil. “How many times do I have to tell you: not that hard! You almost—”
The rest of his tirade was drowned out as the little girl threw back her head and began to wail. Her nanny—who’d been safely out of range against the large, elegant room’s far wall—ran forward at once, followed by a fleet of maids carrying towels.
“It’s all right,” the nanny said, her cheerful voice tinged with desperation. “You can try again.”
The little girl shook her head and screamed louder, covering her pumpkin-splattered face with her hands. The move forced the maid who’d been wiping her chubby little cheeks to stop, and the nanny’s eyes grew frantic. “Please stop,” she begged the child. “He’ll hear you.”
But the girl did not stop. She just kept crying and crying until her face was bright crimson. She cried with her entire body in the way only children can, completely ignoring the adults’ frantic attempts to shush her. They were still trying when the room’s double doors opened with a bang.
The sound made everyone except the girl jump. The child kept on crying, oblivious, but the rest of the room went perfectly still, frozen like startled deer in a field as a tall, dark figure stepped in from the doorway.
He was shaped like a man, but he was obviously not a man. No human brought the feeling of claws with him as he entered, or smelled that strongly of smoke. Even the wet reek of cooked pumpkin was overpowered by the scent of ash as he walked into the room, sending the mortals scuttling out of his way as he approached the still-wailing child.
He paused when his shadow fell over her, waiting for the realization to hit. Waiting for the fear. But the little girl was too upset for instinct to reach. She didn’t even look at him. She just kept right on screaming and screaming until, at last, even the dragon couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why are you making that infernal sound?”
“Because I can’t do it!” the girl wailed.
“Can’t do what?”
Instead of answering like a sensible creature, she flopped down face-first on the sticky floor and started kicking her legs. The dragon watched for a few seconds in exasperation, and then he turned to the circle of helpless adults who were supposed to be managing this. “What is she doing?”
Her nanny looked rightfully ashamed. Beside her, the prestigious professor of Thaumaturgy he was paying through the nose to teach this noisy creature magic cleared his throat. “If you please, great dragon, the young lady is having a bit of a…control issue.”
“Then teach her to fix it,” the Great Yong said sharply.
“I’m trying, sir,” the tutor said testily. “But it is very difficult to—”
“How can it be difficult?” the dragon demanded, pointing at the child throwing a tantrum on the floor. “She has the best genes money can buy. This should be easy for her.”
“Yes, well, she is very young,” the tutor reminded him gently. “Most children don’t even know they’re magical yet at this age. It could be that her brain is simply not developed enough to exert the necessary level of concentration required for—”
“I don’t want excuses,” the dragon growled. “My daughter is supposed to be a magical prodigy. Train her to be one, or I’ll find another university to fund.”
“Yes, great dragon,” the professor said meekly, lowering his head.
Yong nodded and turned back to the little girl, who was still kicking her legs as if she were trying to ru
n straight into the floor. “Stop that at once.”
The child jerked at his voice, and the kicking stopped. The crying, however, did not.
“What did I say?”
“I’m trying,” she sobbed, her voice almost unintelligible. “But I…I…”
The words dissolved into wails again, and her nanny rushed in to take her away, but the dragon raised his hand.
“Where is her mother?”
The woman bowed low. “Your consort was here until just a few minutes ago, great dragon. She had to leave to take an emergency phone call from your house in Los Angeles about the ongoing labor dispute.”
Yong frowned. He hadn’t known there was a labor dispute at his California property, but that was the joy of having a competent First Mortal. She took such good care of all the messy little details that he never even heard about them. But then, his consort was perfect in every regard: a legendary beauty of impeccable intelligence, taste, grace, and tact that surpassed even his high standards. Her offspring, though…
He scowled back down at the little creature sobbing on the floor. Her mother kept insisting that the child’s beauty would blossom as she grew, but Yong had presided over uncountable generations of humans. He knew there was no saving the unfortunate squareness of the girl’s jaw or the dull brown of her eyes, which were nothing at all like the rare shade of honey-tinted hazel the geneticists had promised. Her enhanced magical ability should have been her saving grace, but even that seemed beyond her stumpy grasp. While her numbers always tested off the charts, she seemed unable to comprehend even the simplest concepts of human magic.
Maybe that ineptitude would improve in time, but Yong wasn’t hopeful. So far, his human daughter was a disappointment on every measurable level. A loud, dirty, stubborn, overly emotional little animal with a face that, while not technically ugly, would never achieve the beauty necessary to be worthy of a dragon. Sometimes he wondered why he kept pouring resources into such an obvious failure.
And yet…
Following what he’d seen human males do with their young, Yong leaned down to scoop the crying child off the floor. She latched on the moment his arms touched her, clinging to his chest like a monkey. This, naturally, got sticky pumpkin all over his suit front, but at least the wailing stopped. Yong sighed in relief at the blessed silence and looked down at the ridiculous little creature burrowing into his shirt front.
“Are you done howling, little dog girl?”
As always, the nickname made her laugh. The unexpected mirth drove the last of her tears away. Yong didn’t see how it was possible to change emotions so quickly, but she’d always been a dramatic, changeable animal even by human standards. He was just happy she wasn’t crying anymore. He couldn’t think with all that noise. He was about to hand her back to the nanny when the little girl pushed back and looked at him, her face pulling into a smile that made his breath catch.
Ah, there it was.
His daughter smiled with the same intensity as she cried. The expression suffused her entire body, lighting her up from the inside until Yong felt like he was holding thirty-five pounds of pure sunshine, and all of it was for him. Not even the mortals who owed him their lives looked on him with such perfect trust, such guileless, fearless adoration. When she beamed at him like that, it didn’t matter that her features were unfortunate or her eyes were the wrong color or that she was still covered in pumpkin. That look made all the mountains of trouble she caused him seem trivial. It made him feel beloved. Made him feel like a god.
And he treasured it.
“I think you’ve made enough mess today,” he said, turning away from the nanny who’d been waiting to take her. “Why don’t we leave the servants to clean up, and you can come with me until your mother’s done.”
It was an expensive gift to offer. Today was not a good day for playing with mortals. But any inconvenience he’d just created for himself was worth it for her gasp of unmitigated delight.
“Really?”
“I do not lie,” he told her, insulted.
“Can we go look at your treasure?” she asked in a rush, bouncing in his arms.
He smiled indulgently at her excitement. Before he could reply, though, a knock sounded on the door behind them.
Scowling at the interruption, Yong turned to see his senior clerk standing in the doorway with a terrified look on his face. “Great dragon,” the old human said, voice shaking. “She is here.”
Yong’s good mood went up in smoke. His clerk didn’t even have to say who was here. Yong could already smell her: an acrid, bitter scent that filled his house and set his teeth on edge.
“Should I tell her to leave?”
“No,” the dragon growled. “Turning someone away when they show up uninvited implies that you are afraid of them. I will give her no such advantage.” He thought a moment, then nodded sharply. “Send her to the throne room. I’ll deal with her there.”
“Yes, great dragon,” the old man said, bowing low before scurrying back down the hall to carry out his dragon’s wishes.
When he was gone, Yong turned to hand the girl back to her nanny, for this was no business for a child, but the girl howled in protest. “You promised!” she cried, clinging to his neck. “You said I could go with you!”
Yong paused. He had said that, hadn’t he? Not that he was bound to keep his word to such a lowly creature, but she was looking at him with those huge, hurt eyes, lip quivering as if she might start crying again at any second…
The dragon sighed in defeat. “Let it never be said that the Great Yong does not keep his word. You may come with me, but only if you promise to stay silent.”
The little girl nodded frantically and pressed her mouth tight shut. When he was satisfied it would stay that way, Yong carried her out of the room and into the hall toward the elevators.
A throne room was a necessity for any ruling dragon. Typically, they were decorated with great weapons or the heads of defeated enemies, but Yong found such gratuitous displays distasteful and a sign of deep insecurity. His seat of power was filled with examples of his wealth and magnanimity, including a huge window overlooking the Han River whose banks he’d personally paid to reinforce against rising sea levels as a gift to the people of Korea. The other walls were covered with museum-worthy displays of his most impressive treasures, including several paintings by Renaissance masters, a seven-panel-long carving inlaid with gold showing a dragon stirring up a typhoon carved in the traditional mokjogakjang woodworking style, and a full wall of abacuses that was the best collection of historical counting devices anywhere in the world.
The abacuses were his daughter’s current favorite. She started eying the shelves full of counting beads on wires the moment they entered the room, so Yong took her over and let her pick one out. She chose a golden frame with five racks of bone counting beads that had once belonged to a Chinese dragon who, in his human guise, had ruled as three different Tang Dynasty emperors. Naturally, it was the most valuable one on the wall, but he didn’t mind letting her play with it. Unlike some young creatures who took every new object as a challenge in destruction, his daughter respected beautiful things. At the very least, clicking the bone beads back and forth kept her busy as Yong settled them down in the throne that gave the room its name, a towering chair hewn from dragon bones and crowned with rows of teeth.
It was a truly macabre sight, and one Yong no longer found pleasing. He’d had it made in his youth when such symbols were necessary. He’d often considered replacing it with something more fitting to his current style of rule, but today he was glad he hadn’t. Sitting on the old bones felt very appropriate as he took off his ruined jacket and spread it over his lap so his daughter wouldn’t get pumpkin on his pants as well. When she was settled, he lifted his chin and commanded, “Enter.”
The word was barely out of his mouth before iron doors at the far end of the chamber burst open, and a dragoness swept into the room. As usual, she was dressed like a queen, wearing what a
ppeared to be a modern designer’s take on a traditional hanbok and an elaborate hairstyle that added nearly a foot to her height. Yong found the whole thing distastefully excessive, but his sister had never been one for subtlety, or for wise decisions.
“Honored elder brother,” she said, sweeping into an elaborate bow so low her ridiculous hair brushed the floor. “It is a privilege to be allowed into your glorious presence once again.”
“White Snake,” Yong replied, acknowledging her existence. And nothing else.
His sister’s jaw tightened at the cold reception. Then she was all smiles again, waving her flutter-sleeve-covered hands at the teams of perfectly matched human males bringing enormous trays covered with silk sheets into the room behind her.
“What are those?”
“Gifts,” his sister replied innocently as the humans kneeled before his throne to offer up their trays. “It would be an insult to come before the richest dragon in all Asia without suitable tribute.”
“You must want something very badly if you’re leading with bribery,” Yong replied, tapping his finger thoughtfully on the ancient bone that formed the arm of his chair. “Very well. Tell your chattel to leave the offerings and go. The affairs of dragons are no place for humans.”
White Snake shot a pointed look at the mortal child on his lap. Yong responded by placing a possessive hand on his daughter’s still slightly sticky hair, petting the girl like a cat while looking his sister dead in the eye.
“But of course,” she said at last, clapping her hands. At the command, her human servants bowed and left, closing the doors behind them to give the dragons their privacy.
“You have one minute to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” Yong said the moment they were alone.
“Is that any way to treat your only family?” White Snake replied, lifting her chin haughtily as she abandoned her put-on innocence.
“The only thing you are to me is a trespasser. I banished you from my lands eight hundred years ago. I didn’t let you back in the last ten times you petitioned. What makes you think I’ve changed my mind now?”