Dragon Storm

  Amalie stood up. “Indeed? Well, you must know best, but I will say that I have not heard that there is more than one type of dragon fire. However, I am far from an expert on such things.” She straightened a stack of small leather-bound journals on the counter. “Can I assist you in anything else?”

  “No, thank you. And I apologize for us using your store as a snogging parlor. I don’t normally indulge in public displays like that, especially not with dragons, and double especially when the dragon in question is maddeningly obstinate.” Sad, I moved toward the door. “I guess I’ll just have to do the job on my own.”

  “Perhaps your friend would help you if you asked him,” Amalie suggested.

  I shook my head and pushed open the door, allowing sunlight and the noises of the street to stream into the quiet little shop. “He’s made it quite clear that he has no further interest in breaking the curse. Well, thank you again. I hope to see you another time soon.”

  Amalie returned the compliment, and I left the comforting confines of the shop and emerged into the late afternoon sun of Paris. There was no sign of Constantine on the street, which for some reason made my heart sink to the bottoms of my feet.

  Three hours later, I was escorted into a pleasant living room of a large house in a high-income section of Paris, and was welcomed by a woman with a genuine smile, and a large black dog.

  “You must be Bee. I’m Aisling Grey. Kostya says that you are looking for a demon?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I have to find Bael, and since he’s slipped away from the dragons’ watching eyes, I had an idea that perhaps a demon could track him down where you guys couldn’t.”

  “Hmm,” Aisling said, considering that. “It’s possible, I guess. Although I haven’t heard of it being done before.”

  “Sometimes you have to make your own fate rather than waiting for others to do it for you,” I said, trying to look wise. “I figured it’s worth a try since you were in Paris, and my only other option is to hire a tracker to find him.”

  “Drake tried that,” she said, speaking about her dragon mate. “He said the trackers lost Bael almost immediately. But a demon… hmm.” She glanced at the dog sitting at her feet. “Jim, you may speak now.”

  “Whew!” the dog said on a whoosh of breath, leaving me momentarily surprised to find that he was obviously not what he appeared. “Hiya. Name’s Jim. You have dragon scales on you. Been necking with a dragon?”

  “What? No!” I glanced down at the front of my shirt and brushed off a few of the translucent, minute scales that dragons seemed to exude like a fine pollen. “I just kissed him, nothing more. Not that it’s here or there.”

  “Dragon mate,” Jim said, nodding, and got up to sniff at my shoes. “Which sept?”

  “I have no idea, and I’m not a mate.”

  “No, of course you’re not,” Aisling said with a nudge to the dog’s backside. “If you were, the curse would make sure we wouldn’t be able to talk. Jim, stop being so nosy.”

  The dog narrowed his eyes in thought. “Man, it’s a familiar scent… at least I think it is, but I just can’t place it. Gotta be that memory loss I suffered earlier. Okay, I give. Who’s the dragon?”

  “That’s none of our business, Jim,” Aisling said primly, then ruined that impression by adding, “although I am human enough that I have to admit I’d like to know. Not just for the sake of knowing—there’re very few mortal women who dare date a dragon, since their fire can be deadly.”

  “I’m not dating Constantine—”

  “Constantine Norka?” Aisling interrupted, her eyes big. “Wow. I didn’t think—that is, he’s a ghost, so I didn’t imagine he could… er… perhaps we’d just best let that whole subject go.”

  “Perhaps we should.” I squashed the irritation that rose every time I thought of Constantine walking out on me. “Can you help me summon a demon so I can find Bael?”

  “Yes, but I should warn you that this plan is pretty dangerous.”

  I shrugged. “I have no problem with that.”

  She watched me thoughtfully for the count of eight before continuing. “You know, Constantine might be a good solution to the problem. He’s a ghost, and he can slip in and out of our reality.”

  “Not anymore he can’t.” I gave Aisling a brief explanation of the bête noire. “Now he’s stuck in the world with the rest of us.”

  “Hmm.” Aisling gave me an unreadable look. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried to break a bête noire. I could try, but it could be that Constantine is happier the way things are. He was always running out of energy at the most inopportune moments…”

  “I don’t know what he wants.” For a moment or two, I was beset with an odd emotion: part frustration, part protectiveness. I knew exactly what Aisling had been subtly hinting, and while the idea of Constantine in a permanently corporeal form was pleasant, less so was the idea that he might use that fact to engage in sexual acts with other women.

  Dammit, I did not want to get involved with him. Not romantically. I wanted a nice, normal man, one who wasn’t complicated, and who wouldn’t drive me crazy.

  “Perhaps we could ask him to find Bael anyway,” Aisling said, following her own train of thought. “He’s still a ghost even if he’s in physical form, so he can’t be killed if he is caught again. And if we locate Bael, he could steal the talisman you need.”

  I laughed a short, harsh, and very bitter laugh. “Oh, that’s been tried, and failed pretty spectacularly, let me tell you. When I asked Constantine about getting Bael’s talisman, he just turned into a block of ice and then stomped out.”

  “A block of ice? Constantine?” Aisling shook her head. “I don’t know him very well, but I find that unlikely.”

  “Regardless, it’s true. I don’t mean to rush you, but can we get to the demon summoning? I’d like to get this over before the night is gone.”

  Aisling thought for a moment, then stood up. “We don’t have to summon a demon. I’ll have Jim do the job. It’s much safer than any other demon I could summon.”

  “Jim is a demon?” I watched him a bit warily.

  “Fifth class,” Jim said with pride.

  “Yes, it is. It belongs to me, so there won’t be any risk of a demon two-timing you, although I’m not sure one could if I summoned it for the express purpose of following your commands.”

  I was reminded that most people referred to demons by gender-neutral terms, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I patted the dog on his head while he gave me a once-over: both visually, and with his nose. “Cool,” he said after a few seconds’ silence. “I can try, although I’m going to need food to do any sort of tracking. Lots and lots of food.”

  “You’ve had lunch, and we won’t have dinner for another few hours,” Aisling said. “Effrijim, I command thee to aid and assist Bee Dakar by any means necessary. There, that ought to do it. May I offer you a beverage, Bee? Some tea? Coffee? Dragon’s blood?”

  I stared at her in horror for a few seconds before I remembered the dark red, heavily spiced wine that no one but dragons drank, commonly referred to as dragon’s blood. I stood up and slung my bag across my chest. “No, thank you. I’d like to get started, since I hope to find Bael by morning. I’ll bring Jim back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Oh, it won’t be going with you,” Aisling said, smiling benignly. Before I could ask what she meant, she muttered a few words, her hands dancing in the air as she drew two wards, after which Jim disappeared in a puff of oily black smoke that lingered in the air before slowly falling to the floor. “Jim’ll check around Abaddon to see what it can find out there about Bael.”

  “But… but I thought…”

  “Trust me, I know demon lords, and if anyone knows Bael’s location, it’s the princes of hell. Jim’ll just do a little covert sniffing around, as it were, and pick up the gossip on what Bael’s up to.”

  “If it’s that easy,” I couldn’t help but ask, wondering just what sort of people these dragons were,
“then why didn’t you locate him before now?”

  Aisling made a face. “I told Drake that we’d find Bael when we needed him. He was all, ‘let the dragons handle this, and stay out of Abaddon—we don’t need anything to do with them since they are warring with us,’ and so on.” She gave a little roll of her eyes and laughed. “You coming to me is the perfect excuse to show him that we don’t necessarily have to do everything the hard way. Luckily, he’s in the country checking on our kids, so I have tonight to help you before he comes home and finds out we fixed things without dragony intervention.”

  I smiled, not convinced, but grateful for any help I could get. “How long do you think we’ll need to wait?”

  “Hours.” She glanced at a clock. “You’re welcome to stay, but if you have other things to do, I’d suggest coming back around midnight. That will give Jim a good six hours of poking around Abaddon, and by then he ought to have an idea of whether the demons and demon lords know where Bael is, and how willing they are to talk.”

  I left agreeing to return at midnight, and slowly made my way to the arrondissement containing the hotel I stay at when I’m in Paris. The Hôtel de la Femme Sans Tête is known more for its budget nature rather than fabulous accommodations, but it was my Parisian home away from home.

  At the reception desk was a familiar face.

  “Bonjour, Luc,” I greeted the man behind the latest copy of Charlie Hebdo. He was round like an egg, with pomaded black hair, a nose ring, and alchemical symbols tattooed on each of his fingers.

  “Eh? Oh, it is you,” he grunted at me, setting down his magazine only when I asked if there were any messages for me.

  “Tch,” he said, sucking his teeth as he heaved himself out of the chair and padding over to where an old-fashioned pigeonhole arrangement housed room keys, mail, and phone messages. “There are three.”

  I waited a minute. It was a game that Luc and I played, although I had a sneaky suspicion that the game aspect was solely on my side. “Might I have them?”

  He tched again, but deigned to pluck the three sheets of pale canary paper from the pigeonhole, and slide them across the desk before resuming his seat and magazine with the air of one who has been well martyred.

  The first message was from the coordinator of the local Charmer’s chapter, reminding me of the annual conference coming up in three weeks. The second was dated two days ago, and was from Kostya informing me that a dragon had been sent to fetch the talisman.

  “Old news,” I muttered, stuffing the two messages in my pocket. The third was not dated, but I figured it had to be recent.

  Help! The message read. Connie’s stomping around muttering to himself and swearing a lot. In Latin. Also, he refuses to feed me, saying he’s too upset to eat, although he did get me a new home. It’s very fancy. Hugs and kisses, Gary. P.S. We’re staying at the Hôtel du Monde au Balcon—some sort of house of prostitution. Connie has depths to him. Dark depths. Rescue me?

  “Hôtel du Monde au Balcon… Hotel of people on a balcony?” I translated aloud.

  Luc shook his magazine, but didn’t look at me when he spoke. “It means large breasts. It is the street talk, no?”

  “Ah, gotcha.” I crumpled up the message and tossed it on top of the other two in the metal trash bin next to the reception desk. “Trust Constantine to park himself at a brothel.”

  Luc pursed his lips. “Why is it I am taking the messages of much importance if you are throwing them away? It is trouble for me, you know? First, I must answer the phone. Then I must find the paper so that I may record the message. After I have done that, I must find a pencil. And then I must arrange the message in the correct hole of pigeons.” His nose ring twitched. “This service, it is not one every hotel offers, you know. You would not get such at the Hôtel du Monde au Balcon.”

  I bit back the observation that all hotels did, in fact, take messages for their patrons, and instead smiled. “Sorry. Thank you for taking the message, but it’s not one I care about.”

  “I will remember that the next time you get a call,” Luc said with a righteous sniff.

  “Sorry,” I repeated.

  Luc retreated behind his magazine and did not answer other than rustling it in a meaningful way. I started for the elevator, made a face at the sign that announced it was “not marching” (and noting to myself that it had never been working in all the years I had stayed there), and made a beeline for the stairs. I had one foot on the bottom one, when I spun around, walked quickly to the desk, snatched the topmost message from the trash, and quickly retreated to my room on the second floor before Luc could do more than snort a triumphant “Ha!”

  “Fine, so I do care. But only because he risked his own welfare to get me out of a bad situation. So sue me.” I ran up the stairs to my second-floor room, wondering what Constantine was doing at that moment, which just made me angry with myself, because the man clearly didn’t give a damn about what I was going through.

  “I can’t believe that he just walked away after making all that fuss about being the one to get the talisman,” I said out loud, pacing the length of my hotel room. I glanced out of the windows as if I expected to see the man himself standing on the street. “He’s just a big phony, that’s all he is. One who really knows how to kiss. Hoo. Say what you will about dragons, they do that very well.”

  Guilt pricked me when I thought of his chest, that lovely warm chest with the two adorable nipples, and the soft, golden hair scattered across it. That beautiful chest was now scarred thanks to my ineptitude. Oh, sure, Aoife and her dragon were partly to blame for not keeping me up to date about the source of the curse, but I should have listened to my inner voice when it said something was wrong.

  I snatched up the phone next to the bed, pulled out Gary’s note, and had dialed the number written before I realized what I was doing.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me, Bee. How’s your chest?” The minute the words left my mouth I felt like an idiot. He was a dragon! Immortal! And he hadn’t seemed bothered by the curse searing itself into his drool-worthy chest.

  “What chest? I have a rolling suitcase that I liberated from Baltic, but I did not bring my chest of toys with me to Paris.”

  “No, not that chest—”

  “To go to all that trouble and expense would be folly,” he said dismissively. “There is a very accommodating shop here that sells many items to denizens of the Otherworld. They have a particularly fine display of nipple devices.”

  I stared at the wall in blank confusion. “They do?”

  “Yes. I particularly enjoy their nipple suction tortoises. They are not real tortoises, you understand—they simply are shaped like them. But they have quite pleasing amount of power to them.”

  “Just how many women do you use them on?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Sorry, that was rude. I just… for a man who says you are in love with another dragon’s mate, you sure seem to talk about sex toys a lot. Are you… are they for you? Or someone else?”

  “I am pleased that you are interested in them,” he said by way of a non-answer. I ground my teeth together a little over the fact that dragons seldom answered questions in a straightforward manner, especially when you really wanted to know the answer. “Would you like a set? I would be happy to accompany you to the shop so that you might pick out a set of your own.”

  I opened my mouth to correct his false impression, to tell him I wasn’t interested in kinky sex toys (even if I couldn’t help but wonder at the fact that he had an entire trunk full of them), or point out that he hadn’t answered my question, nor even to ask him if he was feeling any after-effects of the curse. What came out of my mouth, of course, was, “Sure.”

  “I will pick you up in an hour. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Hôtel de la Femme sans Tête, but Constantine, I don’t really want—”

  “Do you have sunglasses? Wear them. How big is your head?”

  “I… I… I don’t know—”

  “Nev
er mind; I’ll make a guess. I will meet you on the street outside your hotel in an hour.”

  “But—”

  The phone went silent. I banged my forehead softly on the wall, swearing at my stupid libido for being unable to resist a sexy dragon even though I knew better. “Cripes, Bee, you’d think you’d never met an attractive man before. Get a grip, girl!”

  It took a concerted effort, but I managed to avoid thinking about Constantine while I took a shower, checked with Aisling that there was no word yet from her demon, and then tackled some overdue paperwork regarding the last case of Charming I’d done a few weeks before.

  It wasn’t until I was trotting down the stairs at the appointed time that I paused and asked aloud, “How big is my head? The man is deranged,” much to the amusement of the couple slowly proceeding ahead of me.

  The street outside the hotel wasn’t busy, it being one of the smaller off-the-beaten-path streets in an area given over mostly to folks who may not be strictly mortal, but I heard the low growl long before I saw its source.

  I didn’t know what I expected other than, perhaps, one of those low-slung Italian sports cars, but when the growl—and Constantine—rounded the corner, I realized why he had inquired after my head.

  “I brought this for you,” he said, handing me a glossy black helmet. I took it, pursing my lips in a silent whistle as I eyed the motorcycle that rumbled beneath him. It was mostly black, like the helmet, but had an intricate silver dragon painted on the body, starting with a tail that coiled over the rear tire, to iridescent flames that spewed out over the handlebars.

  “That is a hell of a bike,” I said, pulling on the helmet without bothering to worry about how it would squash my hair.

  “I enjoy riding it. I was seldom able to because I was never sure when I would run out of energy, but now…” He made an indefinable gesture. “Now that is not a concern.”