Dragon’s Claw

  “Okay, look, I know this is weird—”

  “Hey, Dory,” Ray called, from below.

  “—but I need your help. You know how to cure anything, right?”

  “Cure?” Claire’s voice went up an octave. “Oh my God, what did they do to you?”

  “Do to me?”

  “The Irin! Did they curse you?”

  “What? No. Look—”

  “Hey, Dory,” Ray said louder. “Got a problem here.”

  “Hang on a minute, Claire.”

  “Hang on? Hang on? What’s hap—”

  I put the phone down and peered over the railing. “Is he waking up again?”

  “Naw, naw, you belted him good. It’s the thing. I can’t find it.”

  Ray was kneeling by the mage, whose t-shirt he’d ripped off for some reason.

  Guy liked the gym, I thought, noting a physique that most mages didn’t bother with, since they didn’t need it. “What thing?”

  “That circle thing. You know.” Ray flipped him face down.

  “You could be a little more—What are you doing?” I asked, because Ray had started tugging on the guy’s jeans.

  He stopped and looked up impatiently. “We gotta find out if he’s a war mage.”

  “Why would he be a war mage?”

  “’Cause he just took a crap ton of magic to the face and didn’t even blink? Normal mages would be a shiny spot on the floor right now. So, ten to one, he’s got a silver circle tat somewhere on his body—”

  “Who cares?”

  “—or a black, depending on which group he’s with.”

  “And again, we care about this because?”

  “Well, for one thing, if he’s silver, we probably shouldn’t kill him, us being allies and all—”

  “I wasn’t planning on killing him.” Well, barring necessity. It wasn’t like I had a surplus of witnesses here. “And will you stop trying to take his pants off?”

  The phone was making unhappy noises. I picked it up. “Gimme a minute,” I told Claire.

  “Dory! Dory, don’t you dare—”

  I put the phone down again.

  “Ray! Cut it out!”

  He’d just popped out a butt cheek, and I didn’t want to find out how the mage was going to react when he woke up and found himself being molested. I also didn’t see the point. “What the hell is the point?”

  “—and for another, he might know what to do about our black-haired boy up there.”

  I’d been about to say something, but at that, I shut my mouth. “And if he’s a dark mage?”

  “Oh, well, then we can kill him,” Ray said cheerfully.

  It concerned me that I felt Dorina nod.

  I repressed a sigh. “So how do we find out?”

  “I told you—they all got a tat.”

  “On his ass?”

  “It’s usually on one of the arms somewhere, so they can recognize each other easy, you know? But maybe he wanted it someplace else.”

  “For what?”

  “I dunno.” Ray looked up. “Maybe he’s a special agent or something.”

  “Why would that make him put it there?”

  “Well, who would check there?”

  “You’re checking there!”

  “Because I’m smarter than the average Joe,” Ray said, and pulled the guy’s pants down. “Hey, that’s nice.” He eyed the ass on display. “Bet he does a lot of squats—”

  “Dory? Dory you answer this phone right now!”

  Claire’s less than dulcet tones managed to reach my ears, despite the phone being on the

  ground between my knees. Until I accidentally kicked it with one of them and it slid over behind the Irin. I went after it.

  “One second—”

  “No! No more seconds! If you’ve been spelled, time is of the essence—”

  “I haven’t been spelled.”

  “You wouldn’t necessarily know it if you had!” Claire told me furiously. “That’s what

  I’m trying to tell you! Do you feel numb anywhere?”

  Just my ear, I thought, wincing.

  “Claire—"

  “Hey, Dory—” That was Ray.

  “Ray! Just put his butt back where you found it and get up here! We’ve got to—

  I broke off because I’d grabbed the phone and turned around, just in time to see Ray being dangled in front of my eyes on the other side of the railing. Where an extremely pissed off possible war mage was holding him by the back of the neck, like a wayward puppy.

  Well, crap.

  * * *

  Claire’s hair was frizzy, all right, but she was up and dressed, in an old blue bathrobe she refused to get rid of, despite the fact that the cuffs were frayed and she’d long ago lost the belt. I knew this because I was looking at her. The mage—who, it seemed, was of the war variety, despite not having a tattooed ass—had enchanted a mirror Ray had found and lugged up the ladder, giving us a decent Skype substitute.

  It wasn’t helping.

  I knew that not only because of Claire’s worried face, and the phone she was holding to her ear while having a desperate conference call with two other healers, but because of the Irin’s left arm.

  Which wasn’t there anymore.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I could still see it a little, and that was with my eyes, not Dorina’s. But it was getting dimmer all the time, to the point that I could see the balcony floor through his flesh, despite the fact that it had been hidden a moment ago.

  I cleared my throat. “Claire. You, uh, might want to hurry.”

  “I know that!” My roommate had green eyes, too, and right now, they were brighter than the mage’s. His were hooded and closed off, like the arms he’d folded in front of him. He looked a little problematic for a war mage to me, although maybe that was the bare chest under the long, leather coat, or the bandolier of odd looking potions he’d retrieved and stretched across the pecs, or the fuck ton of weapons he was carrying, all of which combined to make him look a little feral.

  Or, no, that was probably the expression.

  Introductions had been brief, but from what I understood, the Silver Circle had been attacked in a way that sounded suspiciously like what had happened to Cheung’s guys—some sort of mind control. He’d been deputed to find out what was going on, and had traced the spell to Hong Kong. And that was it; that’s all he’d told us.

  I strongly suspected there was more to the story, but he wasn’t coming out with it. Probably because he didn’t trust us. He’d overheard Ray’s comment about us being allies, which had avoided World War III, but he’d also found a pile of bodies in the back just before we arrived. A pile that, I assumed, had met our golden boy here before he succumbed to whatever he was succumbing to.

  But the war mage—John something—hadn’t found him yet, so when I came in doing my ninja routine, he’d assumed I’d had something to do with it. Or so he said. But he’d also said he’d been trying to keep me alive for questioning, despite the fact that that attack would have killed a human and a lot of other things.

  Apparently, he was having trouble with his power levels for some reason he also didn’t provide.

  So, yeah. I didn’t trust him, either. But right now, I had bigger problems.

  Like my only witness literally fading away.

  “Claire—”

  “I know; I’m trying!” And she was. Claire had a fierce temper, but she hated like hell to see anyone suffering—or anything. We’d had a tiny chipmunk running around the house for the past three days, complete with tinier splint on its back leg, because it had gotten mauled by one of the neighborhood cats. I’d seen Claire tear up when it gave a tiny sound while she was working on it, like it was in pain.

  So Irin or not, she was genuinely trying to help him.

  It just wasn’t working.

  He’s dying, Dorina told me, completely unnecessarily at this point.

  I know.

  Not fast enough.

  ?
??What?”

  “Dory,” that was Claire. “Can you stop the bleeding?”

  “I—no.”

  “What do you mean, no? You have to have something you can use for bandages—”

  “Claire, he’s not—” I looked down at him helplessly. “He doesn’t have blood. Just some glow-y gold stuff I can’t even feel!”

  Like I couldn’t feel the rest of him, not really. It was weird; I could see him, touch him, hear him breathing. But my fingers didn’t register contact with his body the way they should have, the way they had in New York when we went for an impromptu flight over the city that had definitely saved my life. They kept wanting to slide off, or maybe to slide in, disappearing past the golden sheen of his skin into . . . nothing.

  Dorina was wrong: he was dying plenty fast enough.

  No, she told me again. I will fix.

  And the next thing I knew, I had a knife in my hand.

  “What—no—put that down!” I said, and it was out loud, because that’s what you do when the invisible twin you share body space with is about to murder someone. “I mean it! Cut it out!”

  “Are you talking . . . to your hand?” the mage said, looking pointedly at my right hand, which was currently clenched around the knife, and was being held down by my left.

  I ignored him. “Dorina—”

  “I will fix,” she told me again, only this time, it was out loud.

  And the sound of a very different voice coming from my throat didn’t seem to reassure the man any.

  “What was that?” he snapped, suddenly going into full beast mode again. “Who is Dorina?”

  “Calm down!” I told him. “I got this!”

  “Do you?” Ray asked, looking pointedly at my hand, which was slowly inching toward the body.

  Goddamnit!

  Ray grabbed on to help, but it didn’t much. And the mage just stood there, looking at me like I had a haunted hand—which, okay. And Claire’s eyes got big, but not because of me.

  But because of what she was hearing on the phone.

  “Yes!” She said. “Yes, thank you!”

  “Yes, what?” I demanded, panting. Because Dorina was freaking strong.

  “Yes, let her do it!”

  “What?” I stared at her.

  But Claire was back to talking to someone and didn’t answer, and it was about to be a moot point anyway. “Some help here!” I told the mage, who was eyeing me like he didn’t know what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

  But I guess he didn’t want our witness dead, either, and the next second, he was putting all those muscles to work.

  Uselessly.

  “What . . . are you?” he demanded, straining.

  “Dhampir.”

  “Dham—they’re myths!”

  “Well, a myth is about to kill our only witness of you don’t put your back into it!” I snapped, and he muttered an expletive and then what sounded like a spell, which—yeah. Okay, yeah, I thought, easing up gratefully.

  And almost giving Dorina the win, because she’d slacked off deliberately, just so she could take a lunge.

  “We need . . . to work . . . on our . . . communication!” I gritted out, after catching the knife a scant inch before it plunged into the Irin’s chest.

  “No, Dory, listen,” Claire said hurriedly. “You have to let go—”

  “I let go and she’ll kill him!”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Claire said. “He’s dying anyway. By the time they start fading, it’s usually too late—”

  “So we let Dorina shish kebab him? Because I’m not getting how that helps—”

  “Well you would if you’d listen!” Claire said, angrily shoving hair out of her eyes. “The Irin aren’t like us; they’re spirit beings who manifest a body when in our world so they can interact with us. But that physical form takes a lot of power to maintain—power he desperately needs right now. But he’s unconscious and can’t collapse the body, so it’s continuing to drain him. If it goes on much longer, it’ll use up all his energy and—

  Poof, Dorina said, cutting across my thoughts.

  “Poof?” I almost went cross-eyed trying to see her. “Poof? You couldn’t have told me this five minutes ago?”

  She gave a mental shrug. She talks better. And you should trust me.

  “Oh, well, of course! Forgive me for having trust issues with the person whose killing sprees are freaking legendary, and traumatized the hell out of me for five centuries—”

  “Can you two work on your issues later?” Ray yelled. “We got an angel to kill here!”

  He wasn’t wrong. The Irin’s other arm had faded now, too, and his legs were fast following suit. Only the glowing golden torso remained relatively solid, and the head, which looked as angelic as ever.

  He still looked like he was sleeping. How was I supposed to kill somebody who was sleeping? And somebody who’d saved my life, at that. I couldn’t just—

  And I didn’t. Because the next time I blinked, a knife was sticking out of the golden torso, but it wasn’t mine. “There,” the mage said, jerking his blade back. “Now maybe we’ll see—”

  And then we did.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A stream of light tore out of the Irin’s chest, so bright and so sudden that it had Claire giving a cry, Ray almost falling down the stairs, and me scrambling back—

  Into the mage, who hadn’t budged.

  I regained my composure just in time to see the light reform itself into the shape of a man, standing in what would have been the middle of his body if he’d still had one. He didn’t; it had vanished completely now, with nothing to show where he’d lain, not even the golden puddle on the floor. I guessed it had been reabsorbed into what was left of his power.

  It looked like Claire had been right: his body had been trapping him, not helping him. But now he was free, and looking from Ray to Claire to the mage, until finally, his eyes came to rest on me. He smiled.

  “Still getting in over your head, I see.”

  “You know each other?” The mage asked sharply.

  Guess he hadn’t been awake for that part.

  “A little,” I said, still staring. “You’ve, uh, you’ve lost your wings,” I gestured awkwardly.

  The Irin’s smile grew. “I’ll have them back soon enough.” He picked up my hand, I’m not sure how, since he didn’t technically have one of his own anymore. But while I couldn’t feel his skin—exactly—there was some kind of bulk there. Eerie, ethereal, almost more like a weight in the mind than the body.

  My own hand was still clenched around the knife, but he kissed it anyway. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “That is for what you will do.”

  Okay, that didn’t sound ominous at all, I thought, and tried to think of a comeback. But it’s hard to concentrate when you’re staring at an eight-foot-tall, glowing ghost who, even sans wings, was pretty damned intimidating. Fortunately, nothing intimidates Dorina.

  “And what have you been doing?” she asked, her voice causing the mage to flinch behind us.

  But the Irin’s smile never wavered, although the effect was dimmed by the way his eyes changed, the pupils shifting position slightly, refocusing. As if he could see the second person inside my skin. “Look and see,” he told her, and moved aside, making an elegant gesture at something behind him.

  The walls up here had a bunch of little drawers set into them, like post office boxes if they were made out of wood. Although judging by the reek, they held some kind of medicinal herbs instead of letters. There was also a set of doors forming a cabinet, directly behind the Irin. It was locked but not warded, as if no one had expected visitors.

  Careless, I thought, and broke it open, my heartbeat speeding up at the thought of what I might find. Like a supernatural weapons cache. Or a bunch of exotic stolen goods. Or, considering who’d been on the hunt, maybe some next level demon magic I’d never heard of but could really use, since
my latest stash had just gone to—

  Shit, I thought, as a bunch of weird, smelly flowers burst out and hit me in the face.

  Okay.

  Hadn’t seen that one coming.

  And they kept coming, more and more of them, like Tribbles on that old Star Trek episode, because they’d just been shoved in there. The strangely heavy things bonked me on the head and spilled out onto the floor. A few fell over the railing and were weighty enough to make a sound when they hit the junk downstairs. The rest piled up around my knees, and when I tried to step back, I accidentally crushed one—

  “Oh, God!” Ray gagged. “What is that?”

  I had no idea. The flowers smelled like feet, if the feet in question had a bad case of trench foot and were about to fall off. Looks wise, they were thick like succulents, a brilliant, sunny yellow, with weird, gnarled, sharp ended petals that moved slightly under their own power, sluggishly curling and uncurling, and then suddenly lunging at you.

  I’d never seen anything like them.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked the Irin, holding one up, but it was Claire who answered.

  “Dragon’s Claw,” she told me. “They grow in some of the deeper valleys in Faerie. The fey call them that because of the shape—”

  No shit, I thought, as the one I was gingerly holding by the stem flexed and stabbed.

  “—and use them in medicines, lotions, perfumes—”

  “Perfumes? But they smell like—”

  “Ass,” Ray said, still gagging. “The word you’re looking for is ass.”

  “They’re a fixative,” Claire said, frowning at him. “Ambergris doesn’t smell very good, either, Dory.”

  I didn’t argue; I didn’t know a lot about perfumes. Wearing something that lets every vamp in an area track you doesn’t make a lot of sense in my line of work. My former line of work, I corrected myself, not that I was seeing a lot of difference these days.

  Except that the jobs were weirder and I didn’t get paid.

  “This is what you were after?” I asked the Irin, expecting him to say no and to direct me to another cabinet.

  Wrong again.

  “Dragon’s Claw has another use,” he informed me. “One long since forgotten by the few who knew of it. But someone, it seems, has rediscovered the old alchemy.”