Rafferty focused on his low song, the same chant he had repeated when the tooth that had become Nikolas was planted. He sang to the teeth; he murmured to them of the challenges ahead of the Pyr; he beseeched them to fulfill their destinies. He sang until he was hoarse and then he sang some more. The three worked together, and by midafternoon the task was done.
“Now what?” Thorolf asked, wiping the soil from his hands.
Rafferty smiled. “Now I teach you about patience.”
The new recruit looked exasperated. “Does that mean I can finally sleep?”
“For the moment,” Rafferty said. “But do not sleep deeply.”
Niall inhaled deeply and shimmered slightly around his perimeter. “No. There’s change in the wind.”
“More than change,” Rafferty said. “Possibility.” His gaze slid between the other two and he changed to old-speak. He recounted the old prophecy, watching the newly found Pyr’s eyes widen. “Danger,” he concluded.
Niall nodded agreement and returned to the kitchen.
Thorolf shoved his hand through his hair. “Like there hasn’t been enough of that going around lately,” he complained.
Rafferty laid a hand on the young Pyr’s shoulder and guided him back into the house. He was in a mood to celebrate and unconcerned by the new recruit’s frustration. “Once a burden becomes familiar, it seems lighter,” he counseled.
Thorolf sighed and nodded. “I just need some Zs.”
Rafferty smiled. “Then take them. There is a spare bedroom over the kitchen that you’re welcome to use.” He wasn’t surprised that the young Pyr headed straight there, nor was he surprised to hear the sound of his slow and regular breathing fill the house shortly afterward.
“Amateur,” Niall said with a shake of his head.
Rafferty smiled and opened a good bottle of wine. “But stronger than he guesses. You’ll see.” He poured two glasses and toasted Niall, then the Dragon’s Teeth in the garden.
Rafferty Powell was relieved and didn’t care who knew it.
“How convenient to find you all at home,” Magnus said, his tone silky. He loitered at the top of the fire escape, one hand held casually behind his back. The snow fell more thickly, but it didn’t obscure either Magnus or his malice.
Erik wasn’t surprised to see the old Slayer. He had known it would be only a matter of time before Magnus tried to bargain for the Dragon’s Teeth, especially after the others had told him about Delaney. All the same, he eased Eileen behind his back.
Magnus’s smile broadened and he sauntered across the roof, heading straight for Erik. En route, he pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a stoppered vial.
It was filled with opaque red liquid.
“What’s that?” Erik asked, even though he knew.
“A present from me to you.” Magnus offered the vial to Erik. “Or perhaps a last chance.”
Sloane took a cautious step back. Quinn and Donovan held their ground, but slid their mates behind them. Erik knew that Magnus hadn’t come alone, but he couldn’t sense the presence of any other Slayers.
But then, Magnus knew how to disguise his scent. There could be an entire Slayer army lurking just out of sight. Erik braced himself for a surprise and knew that the Pyr took their cue from him. All of them shimmered slightly, on the cusp of change.
“That’s no present,” Sloane said.
“Isn’t it?” Magnus asked, feigning surprise. “I would say it’s the richest gift possible.”
“Would you.” Erik folded his arms across his chest.
Magnus considered the Pyr, each in turn. “You’re not interested in the most potent substance of all time? You would spurn such a generous gift as immortal life?”
“You’ll want something in exchange,” Donovan said.
Magnus’s smile faded. “I want the Dragon’s Teeth. I want them all and I want them now.”
“That’s all?” Erik asked.
Magnus watched him warily. “You said you had them.”
“Maybe I did.” Erik shrugged. “Maybe I lied.”
“No! You did not lie.” Magnus scanned the company, his gaze locking on Eileen. “You had them and you hid them from me.”
“Guilty as charged,” Eileen said.
Magnus seemed to grit his teeth, then turned his attention again upon Erik. “I come to negotiate with you. I offer this.” He held up the vial. “And I would trade it for the Dragon’s Teeth. Immortality in exchange for a few old bones.” His eyes widened slightly and he took a step closer as he smiled. “You could be prepared for your mate to reincarnate, forever. You could have all of eternity together, one lifetime after another, in endless succession.”
“And what’s the alternative?” Donovan demanded.
“That I slaughter you all,” Magnus said smoothly. “Eternal life or immediate death.”
“Why offer a choice at all?” Sloane asked.
“We are always seeking new recruits.” Magnus smiled coldly. “I will have the Dragon’s Teeth one way or another. For the sake of old times, I’m offering you the chance to survive. It is incredibly generous of me, in case you aren’t sure.”
Erik kept his expression impassive, wanting Magnus to think that he found the idea appealing. He knew that there had to be a trick, but he chose to let Magnus think that he was considering the offer. “Eternal life,” he mused, knowing that none of the Pyr would accept Magnus’s proposition.
“But you’d never have sons,” Donovan said.
“Your blood would turn black,” Sloane added.
“You would be banishing the divine spark of the Great Wyvern,” Quinn said flatly, his certainty of what Erik would do more than clear. “Turning from the light to the shadow.”
“Erik would never do that,” Donovan agreed.
“Wouldn’t he?” Magnus moved closer, confidence in his every step. “Not even for an eternal love? Not even for the surety of finding his destined partner, time and time again?” He smiled at Eileen and she took a wary step back. “Think of the many futures you could have together. Think of how much more potent it would be to find each other over and over again.”
Erik took the vial, cupping its bulb in his palm. It was warm, its contents having heated the glass in a way that was not pleasant to the touch. The liquid swirled inside the glass almost as if it concealed a dark secret in its depths. He intuitively disliked it, just as his father would have disliked it, and stifled his urge to shudder.
He wondered what the source of the Elixir was. He could feel its wickedness emanating into his palm. He thought of what had happened to Delaney, how Magnus had planted a charm deep in his thoughts, and wondered whether the Elixir had been part of the strategy.
He wondered how much Magnus would tell him.
“Ours could be a powerful union,” Magnus whispered, perhaps believing that Erik was tempted. “An undeniable force for change. You could do anything, risk anything, confident in your own ability to survive. The world would be ours to command.”
“Ours?”
“Ours.” Magnus smiled. “The burden of leadership is great, as you know. We could rule together; we could be unrivaled.”
Erik removed the stopper from the vial. It had a musty scent, earthy and yet repulsive. “And all I have to do is drink?” he asked, seeking more confessions from his opponent.
Magnus’s eyes gleamed. “Yes!” He took a step closer and touched his fingertips to the bottom of the vial. “One sip will give you eternal life!”
Erik smiled as if his decision were made. He felt the Pyr watching him, and knew they had no doubt of his choice. There was no way he would ingest this vile substance and no way he would ever turn Slayer. Only Magnus, so ensnared in the grasp of his own greed and ambition, could imagine otherwise.
Erik took Eileen’s hand in his. “I do this for us,” he said softly. She watched him, her eyes filled with a conviction that he would make the right decision. She had no doubt in him. She had no need to give him advice.
She trusted him.
And he would prove that she was right to do so.
Rafferty awakened to a rumble in his garden in Hampstead Heath. It sounded like an earthquake, but one at close proximity.
“The teeth!” He leapt out of bed at the realization and took the stairs four at a time. He flung himself through his kitchen and hauled open the garden door.
Warriors were springing from the soil. They were muscled and determined, naked except for their tans. They looked virile and powerful. Before his very eyes, each one shifted to a dark dragon. They were indistinguishable from Nikolas in dragon form, all anthracite and ancient power.
An army of Pyr.
Ninety-nine soldiers.
One stood on the lip of Rafferty’s patio, giving clearance to pairs of Pyr to take flight. At his crisp nod, each pair ascended into the dark sky with precision and purpose. Their wings even beat in unison, and their form was so perfect that they might have been mirror images of each other.
Rafferty understood. They were trained to work together, to follow a system, to be a greater force in sum than individually. Their discipline and order left Rafferty in awe as he watched the silhouettes of paired dragons form a straight line to the northwest.
He wondered their destination for only a moment before he guessed. They would respond like this only to a command they respected, to the summons of one whom they knew.
An earthy expletive alerted Rafferty to the fact that he wasn’t alone. He turned to find Thorolf, half-naked and wide-eyed, standing behind him and staring into the garden. Niall was beside him in the shadowed kitchen.
“Where are they going?” Niall asked softly.
“I don’t know,” Rafferty guessed. “It’s as if they’ve been summoned.”
“We should go with them,” Niall suggested, and Rafferty nodded.
“If they’ll allow it.”
“Am I supposed to understand all of this?” Thorolf demanded.
“No. But you can come anyway.” Rafferty moved with authority. He locked up the house, shifted shape, and revealed his presence in his own garden.
Rafferty was coldly assessed by the Pyr who stood at the end of his patio. That soldier’s gaze slid past Rafferty, moving up and down to study Niall and Thorolf. The survey took long enough that Rafferty feared they would be denied permission to accompany the force.
“I retrieved you,” he explained in old-speak. “I planted you and I awakened you.” Then he began to hum the tune he had sung to the earth while he planted them.
The ancient Pyr smiled ever so slightly. “You are the one who saved us, but only our fellow can awaken us.”
Rafferty understood that Nikolas had made the summons, and he was more determined to go along.
To his relief, the sentinel inclined his head formally. “We would be honored by your joining our company.”
At his crisp nod, the next ancient Pyr and the sentinel took flight simultaneously. They hovered for a beat above the roof of the house until Rafferty joined them, then closed on his flanks.
Like a ceremonial escort.
Niall and Thorolf took flight immediately after Rafferty, and two ancient Pyr flanked them as well. That foursome flew ahead of Rafferty and his two honor guards, ending the long line of warriors that ascended into the sky.
Why had Nikolas called them?
Something horrible must have happened.
Given that he didn’t know their destination, much less what they would confront there, Rafferty was good with the escort.
Nikolas knew what Sophie would do and it terrified him. He couldn’t catch her, though, even though he pushed himself to his full speed. She remained just ahead of him, elusive and beautiful, a glimpse of perfection that he’d briefly possessed.
Having tasted her sweetness, he wanted only to be with her.
They streaked through the sky, black after white, leaving a spiraling vortex in their wake. She crossed the country with alarming speed, tireless in her determination. She finally dove toward the ocean, targeting a barricaded opening to a half-forgotten tunnel. She speared through the wooden barricade, shattering it with the force of her impact, and plunged into the darkness beyond. Nikolas was right behind her, her long white feathers streaming just beyond his grasp. She flew deep and fast, guided unerringly by her sense of destiny.
The air chilled and he smelled dampness. He guessed that the tunnel had gone under the ocean, and spied water in side tunnels. He smelled coal and saw rotten timbers that had once braced the mine shaft. The rock had fallen in, but Sophie found spaces and gaps to slip through in her quest. He didn’t like the place at all. He snatched at Sophie time and again, but caught only one silky white feather in his talons.
It became persistently darker within the tunnel, the smell of coal dust as omnipresent as that of men and machinery. Nikolas felt confined in the space, claustrophobic as he seldom was. He was painfully aware of the weight of water above them, pressing down. The earth had been torn open and ravaged, her wounds abandoned to heal themselves. Men had died in these tunnels, and he knew that if he slowed down, he would see their lost remains.
He gritted his teeth and followed Sophie as she flew ever deeper. He would have lost her in the darkness if she hadn’t been so resplendently white, if she hadn’t gleamed like a beacon beckoning him onward.
He feared that she was leading him to their mutual destruction.
The tunnel terminated in a long crack, one with jagged edges and a whiff of wickedness emanating from it. Sophie didn’t hesitate, although Nikolas would have preferred to have turned back.
He wouldn’t go without her, though. He leapt after her, his muscles screaming at the exertion. The path beyond was more tortuous, framed by so many broken rocks that Nikolas feared it led nowhere. He had time to panic before they rounded a corner and emerged abruptly in a cavern.
Nikolas saw the bolted doors ahead. Red light pulsed in the small space beneath the massive doors, reflecting in the water that was pooled on the floor of the cavern.
Sophie landed in front of the doors, raised a hand, and knocked. “Open to me!” she cried, and Nikolas was sure her quest had come to a failed end. If this was the dark academy of Magnus, the Wyvern would never be admitted. He was going to scoff at her demand, but the doors swung open.
Sophie cast him one last glance and he saw the magnificent turquoise of her eyes. She blew him a kiss, crossed the threshold, and the doors closed behind her.
Nikolas fell upon them; he shouted and he raged, but the doors didn’t budge. They had locked against him, keeping Sophie captive inside. With closer proximity, he heard the wails of Pyr locked within the academy and the clatter of chains.
He heard Sophie scream and his rage redoubled. If they wouldn’t admit him, he’d take the place apart.
He wasn’t leaving without Sophie.
Erik lifted the vial toward his mouth. He saw Magnus’s smile broaden, saw the Slayer shimmer around the edges of his body. Erik took a deep breath, easing toward the transition himself. He felt Eileen’s pulse accelerate and saw the glimmer of his fellows in his peripheral vision. He lifted his hand, bringing the vial to his lips. Magnus seemed to hold his breath. Erik smelled new arrivals and knew who hovered just out of sight.
It was time.
In the last moment before the vial touched his lips, Erik spun. He flung the glass vial at the brick wall of the next building.
Magnus bellowed in outrage.
Erik shifted shape, and roared, “Now!” in old-speak.
The Pyr shifted with him and the roof was filled with dragons breathing fire. Magnus shouted and shifted shape as well. Slayers erupted from the fire escape to the street. Erik saw Jorge and the two other Slayers who had been with Magnus in London.
“Frenchie,” Eileen muttered with disgust.
Shadow dragons leapt out the clouds, their stares empty and cold. They had no scent because they were not alive. Erik recognized two that hadn’t been defeated before, Niall’s
twin and one of Quinn’s brothers, before flames erupted on all sides.
The Pyr instinctively fought back-to-back to protect the three women sheltered behind them. Donovan began to sing the ancient chant of the Warrior, and the falling snow turned to missiles of ice, slanting out of the sky and spearing those it struck. Within moments, the roof had turned into a war zone.
Erik was determined to ensure Eileen’s survival, no matter the cost. If he died in her defense—and that of his unborn child—he would count his life a victory.
He would much rather live.
He saw a flash of red and looked in time to see a red salamander leap from Jorge’s grasp. The golden dragon had been darting across the roof, but swore and turned to seek the salamander.
The salamander was headed directly for the spilled Elixir with a determination that told Erik exactly who he was.
Erik smiled. The time to settle the blood duel, once and for all, had arrived.
Erik dove after Boris.
Rafferty was awed.
The Dragon’s Teeth warriors streamed through the tunnel, so fixed on their destination that they were indifferent to the damage made en route. Rafferty saw that rocks were falling, that gaps were broadened, that timbers fell with their passage. He felt the surge of the ocean, sensed the chill of the water filling the spaces made available. The water was up to their knees when they burst into the cavern that housed the academy, swirling as it flooded the space.
It might have been a tide coming in. Rafferty was afraid they would be trapped beneath the ocean, prey to Gaia’s whims when her mood was destructive; then he gaped at the dark academy.
This was the locus of Magnus’s vile practice of turning dead Pyr into shadow dragons. This was the nexus of wickedness. He had never thought to see it himself, and he only hoped that he was witness to its destruction.
Was that what the Dragon’s Teeth warriors would do?
A pair of dark doors stood in a wall of stone, their steel buttressed with iron bands. They arched high, filling a portal carved of stone. There was only this wall, the rest of the academy buried within the earth.