“Ysooolde,” Magoth drawled, bowing over my hand and kissing my knuckles, his tongue snaking out to lick between two of my fingers before I snatched my hand back. “Would you like to see my curse?”
“Say no,” May advised.
“No,” I told him, then asked her, “Is there a reason you felt it necessary to bring a demon lord with you?”
“Magoth is a former demon lord,” she corrected. “He’s without about ninety-seven percent of his power, so he’s mostly safe to be around. Although he has a libido the size of Montana.”
“So kind of you to say, sweet May. Now,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “where do we start?”
“Gabriel says we need a demon lord for the lifting of the curse; although he only has three percent of working abilities, they should be enough.”
“Ah. I thought Aisling could do that since she’s a demon lord, as well.”
“Yes, but she’s a good demon lord, and she can’t be used for this purpose because it’ll proscribe her again. Thus, Magoth. He’s the only demon lord we can deal with safely, now that Abaddon is in uproar over recent happenings.”
“What recent happenings?” I asked.
May waved away the question. “Bael was overthrown. It doesn’t really matter to us now, except in so much as all the demon lords are fighting for ascendancy. Magoth is our best shot.”
“In so many ways,” he said, waggling his hips at me. “Would you like me to show you three or four of them?”
“I’d like to give you a big old whack upside the head, but I suppose that wouldn’t fly,” I told him.
To my horror, his eyes lit up with sexual interest. “Oooh, you like it rough, too? Excellent. Perhaps you and I can get together a little later on and compare our favorites list, hmm?”
“You know, you make me appreciate just how non-creepy Constantine is,” I told the former demon lord. “I’m going to have to thank him for that, later.”
“Did I hear my name invoked?”
My shoulders slumped as Constantine shimmered into view.
“What do you have to tell me, my adorable little squab?”
I turned to face him. “Squab, Constantine? Really? Squab?”
He grinned. “They’re cute. And I like to bite them.”
“Do you really?” Magoth said, giving Constantine a once-over. “I suppose it would be preferable to bats, as that one rock star was known to do, but I myself prefer a nice, poisonous tree frog if I’m going to bite off the head of any animal. The tang of the poison as it courses through one’s blood nicely counterpoints the robust, earthier flavor of the frog. There are some salamanders that are almost as nice, but not quite the same sort of a rush, if you know what I mean.”
Constantine blinked at Magoth. May groaned, and turned, suddenly realizing her mate wasn’t with her. “Gabriel? Where are you? What are you doing in there?” She reentered the portal office.
“I don’t bite the heads off anything, let alone a frog,” Constantine corrected. “Who the devil are you, anyway?”
I made the introductions, providing brief explanations of who each of them was before watching as May led Gabriel from the portal office.
“I didn’t know dreadlocks could stand on end,” I commented as she fussed over him, straightening his shirt and his eyebrows, then handing him one shoe, which evidently had come off during the portalling. “It’s a good look, though. Where are Maata and Tipene?”
“In Australia, where any sane dragon should be,” he answered, feeling his hair, and smoothing it down to its normal state. “When they found out we’d have to take a portal to reach here, they refused to join us, although they send their regards to you, and compliments to Pavel.”
“This is going to sound horribly rude, and I don’t for a second mean it to be taken that way, but why are you here?” I asked as Baltic, his eyes narrowed on Gabriel, approached, the air bristling with electricity.
“Aisling said you—” May stopped at the sight of Baltic, shooting me a questioning glance. I shook my head just enough to warn her against finishing the sentence.
“Look who’s here,” I told Baltic as he stopped beside me. “It’s May and Gabriel and May’s former demon lord, Magoth.”
“Ah, the dread wyvern we’ve heard so much about,” Magoth said, giving Baltic a quick visual examination. “Any time you and the so-luscious Ysolde wish to join me in a quick orgy, just say the word.”
Baltic rolled his eyes, but Constantine said, “Orgies? We’re having an orgy? What sort of an orgy? A bondage orgy? Or just a regular one?”
“I vote bondage,” Magoth said, waggling his eyebrows at May.
“Seconded,” Constantine said.
“No one is having an orgy, bondage or otherwise,” I said firmly, trying desperately to reclaim control of the conversation. “I do have to say I’m a bit surprised to see you here, May.”
“Aisling said you were going to need some help, so we thought we’d pop over to Russia and see if we could be of assistance.”
Gabriel looked in surprise at her but said nothing.
Baltic’s favorite scowl was firmly in place as he faced Gabriel. “We do not need the help of silver dragons.”
I rounded on him, slapping my hand on his chest hard enough to make him look down in surprise. “That is enough!”
“Mate, you—”
“Oooh, she does like rough play,” Magoth said sotto voce. “I like her.”
“You can’t have her,” Constantine said somewhat prosaically. “If she leaves Baltic, I have a claim on her. She was my mate for about five minutes before he challenged me for her.”
“So she plays around, then, hmm?”
I ignored the comedy team to focus on Baltic. “No! It’s enough, do you hear me? Far and away beyond enough. There will be no more slurs made against silver dragons—do you understand? No more! It’s through, Baltic. This war between the black and silver dragons is done, finished, ended once and for all.”
“I will not forget what they did to us,” Baltic snapped, his fingers tightening.
“Well, you’d just better learn to live with it, because I have had enough! We are all going to get along if it kills us. Do you hear?”
“It killed me,” Constantine quipped.
“They probably can hear you; we could hear you two blocks away, and we had the car windows closed.”
I spun around to see Aisling climbing out of a car, Drake at her side. I was about to greet them when Aisling added, “Oh no, not you again.”
Magoth turned to her and to my absolute surprise, leered. “If it isn’t the delectable little Guardian. No longer pregnant? Pity. I like fecund women.”
Drake snarled something extremely obscene as he took a step toward the man.
“Is your lovely and inventive mother here?” Magoth asked Drake, rubbing his hands together in a manner that made my flesh crawl.
Drake shuddered. “Fortunately, she is well out of your grasp.”
“Do I want to know why he’s here?” Aisling asked May, gesturing at Magoth.
“Not really,” May said with a weak smile.
“Well, I’m glad you guys got here in time, nonetheless,” Aisling said before greeting Gabriel. “At least I hope we’re in time. Are we?”
“Yes. We’ve been here for half an hour, but it took that long for some of us to get over the effects of portalling.”
Drake gave Baltic and Pavel scathing looks. “Portals are not pleasant, but they are not that disorienting.”
“They are if you’ve been forced to take three of them in four days,” Baltic replied, sending the scathing look back to Drake.
“Three times?” Drake looked incredulous. Gabriel appeared to be sick at the thought. “I withdraw my statement, and offer, instead, my congratulations on surviving with all your limbs intact.”
“I feel guilty enough; you really don’t need to drive the point home,” I told Drake with a thin-lipped expression I’ve found works well. “The answer t
o the question is yes, you’re all in time. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Dr. Kostich.”
“What is this?” a male voice asked behind me. “Why do you concern yourself with my hair? Why are you and that behemoth of a dragon lurking in wait outside the portalling office? And what are they doing here, too?”
I turned around slowly, slapping a pleasant smile on my face. “Hello, Dr. Kostich.”
Dr. Kostich’s expression, lit by the soft yellow glow of sodium lights, was grim to start with, but it became even grimmer on beholding me. “I might have known I’d find you here. No doubt you intend on getting in my way.”
“Hey now,” I said, about to tell him a thing or two, but then I remembered that he was probably quite worried about Violet. There was a strained look about his pale blue eyes that hinted at emotions not evident on the surface. Instead of protesting his slur, I simply said, “We’re here to help you. As a matter of fact, we’ve gone to considerable expense, and quite a bit of personal discomfort, in order to do that—something you would do well to remember when you start calling Baltic’s dragon form fat. Which it isn’t, but I know you have an issue differentiating between a really buff dragon form and Jabba the Hut.”
Dr. Kostich’s eyes narrowed as he looked from Baltic and me to the others. “You’re not here to help me,” he said slowly, his head whipping around until he could pin me back with a glare that came close to stripping my eyebrows right off my head. “You’re here to steal the von Endres blade!”
“Now why would you think that?” I asked, trying to force an innocent expression to my face.
He pointed at Drake. “The green wyvern is here, the only being who has ever been able to break into the L’au-dela vault until last year, when my misbenighted granddaughter and her band of lunatic dragons repeated the act.”
Drake pursed his lips. “Someone else broke into the vault?”
“In a manner of speaking. Maura bribed a guard to allow her and her band of thugs into it.” Dr. Kostich looked about to explode at the memory.
Aisling patted Drake’s hand and said softly, “It’s all right, Drake. Your record still stands. You can stop thinking about new ways to top Maura’s break-in.”
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes, well, we have more important things to focus on right now,” I said, taking Baltic’s wrist to look at his watch. “When do you expect Thala to arrive?”
Dr. Kostich looked at me as if I had suddenly turned into a tiny pink elephant.
“Look, we know you’re here to trap her at the sepulcher. We also know you must have given her the information about its whereabouts. We’re here to help you make sure that you do, in fact, capture her. Er…just for curiosity’s sake, how did you get the information about the location of the sepulcher to her?”
“That is my business, Tully Sullivan. Do not try to deny that you are here so that you can pretend to assist me in rescuing Violet, but secretly plan to steal the von Endres sword,” Kostich countered.
“We promised Maura to help, and by the saints, we are going to do so.”
Dr. Kostich’s gaze shifted to Baltic, who was looking somewhat bored. “You planned this, didn’t you? You planned it when I took the sword away from you months ago. Don’t deny you had a hand in this—it was your lieutenant who kidnapped my daughter. You swore to have the sword back, and this is your way of achieving that goal, isn’t it?”
“It’s a way, yes,” Baltic said.
I looked at him in outright surprise. “You didn’t tell Thala to kidnap Violet, did you?”
“No. I thought simply to rob the sepulcher to reclaim my sword. But so long as Thala did kidnap the archimage’s daughter, we might as well take advantage of it.” He turned back to Dr. Kostich, his gaze shrewd. “As my mate has said, we will help you capture Thala, and force her to return your daughter…for a price—my sword.”
Gabriel made an unhappy little noise. I shot him a warning glance, which was fortunately enough to keep him from speaking up.
Kostich was silent for a few seconds, but after some general seething, finally said, “I would not risk my own daughter’s life for something so trivial as a sword. But neither will I give it up to a dragon. It belongs to a mage, and you are not one. I refuse your offer.”
“What?” I cried as he pushed past me, and with a quick glare at Savian, strode past him toward a car that had just pulled up. “You can’t refuse. We’re talking about Violet. Even now, Maura is on her way to the aerie where Violet’s being held, so she can release her and bring her back home.”
“What I can’t do is stop my granddaughter from consorting with dragons any more than I could stop her from involvement with the ouroboros tribe she insisted on joining, more’s the pity. I can, however, draw a line at what I will and will not countenance, and turning a blind eye to the true purpose of that insane necromancer is simply not acceptable. I will take care of the matter myself, without the assistance of you or any other dragons.”
“You have really got a chip on your shoulder about us, don’t you?” I couldn’t stop from saying. “Does Violet really matter so little to you? Is your pride so overbearing that you really believe you can take Thala on by yourself and beat her?”
“I have called up the local members of the watch,” he told me as he opened the car door. “We will deal with this dragon just as we’ve dealt with everything else—the right way.”
“You are the most obnoxious mage I’ve ever met,” I said, wanting to set him alight with my dragon fire. “Even considering the stress you’re under.”
“And you are the most objectionable dragon I’ve met. Next to your husky mate, that is.”
“Objectionable!” Aisling said at the same time that I asked of Baltic, “If we all worked together, do you think we could bring Dr. Kostich to his knees?”
“Dominatrix,” Magoth said, nodding. “I approve.”
Dr. Kostich’s fingers twitched as he glared at me, but when Baltic moved protectively in front of me, he simply raised an eyebrow at us.
“I know I could,” Aisling said softly.
Dr. Kostich’s gaze flickered her way, making her take a step backward, and causing Drake to move in front of her in the same gesture of warning as Baltic had just made.
“Your threats do nothing but waste my time,” Dr. Kostich said with a grim note of finality. He climbed into the car without another look back at us.
“Now what?” Aisling asked as the car pulled away and disappeared into the night.
“Now we find the sepulcher,” Savian said, grinning as he cracked his knuckles.
“I thought you knew where it was,” Aisling said.
“Er…not really. Savian’s been trying to find it but hasn’t had much luck. He says it could be one of four places, and he just didn’t have time to investigate the possibilities before this business with Violet happened. That’s about to change, though, right, Savian?”
“Yes. I’ll take the first car,” he said, heading for that vehicle.
“Call when you know where he’s going,” I yelled after him.
He waggled his hand as he got into the car.
“But how—” Aisling started to say. Drake murmured something in her ear. “He can? Really? I thought May was the one who could track people.”
“I can,” May said, and with a secretive smile, disappeared from sight, her voice distant and muffled as she said, “I’ll follow Dr. Kostich’s traces in the shadow world while Savian follows him here. One way or another, we’ll find him. Gabriel?”
“Would someone mind if my body accompanied them in their car?” Gabriel asked. “I can walk in the shadow world with May, but only in incorporeal form.”
“Been there, done that—hate it when it happens during a challenge,” Constantine’s voice said, his body having faded from view several minutes before. “I shall ride with Ysolde.”
“Like hell, you will,” Baltic grumbled as he pushed me toward the first car. “You can ride with Gabriel.” br />
“I still don’t understand how we expect to save Maura’s mom and take the sword if Dr. Kostich gets to the sepulcher first,” Aisling said as Drake opened a door to his car so Gabriel could get in and, assumedly, take his consciousness off to the beyond, that alternate version of reality mages and the fey inhabited.
“We won’t be able to take the sword from him without a fight,” I agreed as Baltic held a swift consultation with Pavel. “That’s why we’re going to try to get there first. Once Savian knows which of the four locations Dr. Kostich is headed, we’ll head straight there.”
“But Dr. Kostich,” Aisling said as Drake tried to push her into their car.
I smiled. “Savian will see to it that he’s delayed. He’s a very good tracker, Aisling. And he’s dating Dr. Kostich’s granddaughter, so he’ll be very interested in making himself look good in Maura’s eyes. And what better way to do that than to be on the winning team? Anyone need a potty break before we head out? We should probably be ready to go the second we hear which location is the target.”
A squabble broke out between Constantine and Magoth over who got to ride with whom, but in the end, everyone squeezed into one of the two remaining cars present and waited for Savian’s call.
Chapter Sixteen
“So this is the famed sepulcher,” a male voice said behind me.
I smiled as Savian appeared around the edge of a clump of tall fir trees. It was then I noticed his condition.
“What happened to you?” I asked, walking in a circle around him. He was shirtless, his jeans tattered, revealing rather surprising tiger-striped underwear in a few spots, his chest and arms covered in soot. His face was as black as his chest, with fingers of lighter color fanning out along his laugh lines. A little blood leaked out from under a strip of material that had been bound around one of his upper arms, and he appeared to have lost both of his eyebrows.
“Dr. Kostich,” he said, twitching slightly.
“Oh dear. Do you need a healer?”