I squinted at it. “You mean they can divine? I thought you had to have a soul to do that. Demons don’t have souls.”
“Newsflash: Not all demons are created equal.”
My squint turned into a pointed look. “What on earth does that mean?”
Jim’s furry shoulders shrugged.
I decided I’d had enough of arguing with it, and instead gave myself up to the bliss of coffee as it scorched its way down. “I want to marry Mr. Starbucks and bear him many children.”
“You don’t think that’s going to conflict with all the kids you and Drake will have?”
“Stop staring at my stomach,” I said, closing my eyes to allow the beverage to work its magic on my still-tired brain. “I’m not grumpy or pregnant.”
“Uh-huh. Who was the one who was telling me her boobs were hurting?”
I mulled that over for a moment. Jim was right that my breasts had been a bit more sensitive than normal, but I chalked that up to a period delayed by the stress of moving to the other side of the world. “Boobs hurt when you have your period, you who have no uterus.”
“Right, but you haven’t had that in over a month, have you? According to Cosmo, one of the seven classic signs you’re preggers is sore boobs.”
“We are not having this conversation,” I told the demon before I headed toward the bathroom. “We’ve got ten minutes before we have to leave. Go lick whatever it is you have to lick in order to be presentable in public.”
Jim’s reply was thankfully lost in news from a radio I flipped on before stepping into the bathroom to comb my hair. A few minutes later Jim and I stood on the sidewalk, waiting for our ride to the dragons’ meeting.
“So what’s this all about, anyway?” Jim asked as a black car pulled alongside us. I climbed into the car after it. “And why did you come home last night all ragged and bloody and smelling to high Abaddon?”
“We’re going to some sort of sept meeting. I don’t know exactly what it’s about, but Drake felt it was important I be there. Hi, Rene. Thanks for picking us up.”
“Bonjour, Aisling and Jim. I, too, am interested to hear the tale of your activities last night.”
I heaved a little inner sigh but was secretly warmed by both Jim’s and Rene’s apparent concern. Even if it was only a demon and a mysterious taxi driver, it was still nice to be worried about. “Someone tried to kill me last night by shoving me in front of an oncoming train,” I said quickly, pausing for their reactions.
“Who would do such a horrible thing?” Rene asked when he was through swearing. “And why would some one try? Do they know not you are a wyvern’s mate, and now immortal?”
I thought for a moment but couldn’t remember ever telling Rene that I was immortal. And yet he seemed to know that was one of the benefits of being a wyvern’s mate…just more proof that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. I filed it away under my mental evidence folder and succinctly recounted the events of the past evening.
“Mon dieu. You think it was the silver wyvern who pushed you?” Rene asked, his eyes watching me in the mirror.
I pointed at the road in front of him as he narrowly missed mowing down several pedestrians. “No, of course not. Well, possibly. Oh, I don’t know what to think! Gabriel is a friend. He wouldn’t try to kill me. It had to be someone else or an accident…and I really don’t think it was an accident.”
“Hmm,” Rene said thoughtfully as he negotiated his way across London. “That is most interesting that some one would want to kill you.”
“Yeah, it’s a barrel-full-of-monkeys sort of fun, but I could do without murder attempts right now.”
“Ah. Because of the bébé?”
My jaw dropped slightly at the last word, spoken with a delightful French accent. My head whipped around to glare at Jim. “What have you been telling him?”
To my surprise, Jim’s eyes were filled with righteous indignation. “Nothing! I didn’t tell him anything!”
“You just had to spout off about your wild theory about me being pregnant—which, I assure you, isn’t so,” I said, turning to face Rene. “If Jim didn’t tell you its silly idea, why did you say that? I don’t look pregnant, do I?”
“Non,” Rene said hurriedly as I tugged the fitted bodice of the dark green viscose dress, one of a couple I’d bought for dragon affairs. “I thought I heard someone say you were enceinte.”
“Who would say something like that about me?” I de manded to know, intending on giving the rumormonger a piece of my mind.
Rene gave me an unreadable look. I pointed a finger at him. “When I’m done with all this dragon business, you and I are going to sit down and have a long, long talk.”
“That will be very agreeable,” he said.
I ignored that. “What I meant to say earlier was that I have enough stress in my life right now without trying to figure out who’s trying to knock me off.”
“Ah,” Rene said, but I noticed his gaze flickering in the mirror to my abdomen.
“I’m not pregnant!” I practically yelled. “Honest to Pete! Don’t you two think I’d know if I was?”
Jim rolled its eyes. “Ash, sweetie, honey, babykins—you’re not the most astute person in the world.”
“No, but I’m sentient enough to know if I’m pregnant or not.”
“My wife did not know for three months with our first one,” Rene mused. “But her monthly time, it was not very stable, you know? Yours is perhaps more reliable?”
I slumped back against the seat and rubbed my head. “I can’t believe we’re having a conversation about this.”
“I’ve only been with her for a few months, but she seems to be pretty regular,” Jim said. “Every three and a half weeks she’ll come home with a big bag of potato chips and lots of chocolate, and I know the next few days will be major grouchyville.”
“I’m going to wake up now. This is a horrible dream. Right. I’m waking up.”
“It is bad for her, the time? My wife used to be much worse, but having the little ones seemed to cure her of most of the trouble,” Rene said.
I wanted to bean him on the back of the head.
“You answer that, and there will be no lunch for you,” I told Jim, who had opened its mouth to answer. It hrumphed instead and looked out the window. “Rene, will you be available this afternoon? I don’t know when the meeting will get out, but I assume it’ll include a meal, so I’m guessing three or four hours.”
“You call, and I will be here waiting for you in no more than ten minutes,” Rene said, flashing me a charming smile.
“Great. I’m sure Drake will offer us a ride home, but…”
“I will not abandon you to him, have none of the fears.”
I opened my mouth to thank him, but at that moment, a white panel van slammed into the taxi, sending us with a horrible barrage of crumpled metal, breaking glass, and screaming tires crashing directly into a cement zebracrossing barrier.
7
The screeching noise of the accident echoed in my head as I lay gasping with pain on the floor of the taxi. My first instinct was to go straight into full panic mode, but I haven’t been working on meditative exercises for nothing. Despite my brain shrieking at me to claw my way out from the twisted remains of the taxi, I kept a grip on my emotions and slowly tried to sort out my impressions.
My ribs hurt where I had fallen in front of the train, but no worse than they had earlier, which meant nothing there was broken. I was trapped under something big, heavy, and hot…which breathed, so it wasn’t the car seat, as I had thought.
“Jim?” I asked, wiggling my feet to make sure my legs weren’t broken. “Are you OK? Is anything hurt?”
“Aaaaagg,” a familiar grumpy voice groaned. “Did anyone get the number of that wrecking ball?”
I breathed a tiny sigh of relief. If Jim could crack wise, then it was all right. “Get off me if you can; you weigh a ton. Rene? Are you all right?”
“I think he’s unconscious,” Jim said
, the tremendous weight lifting off me. A shower of glass sprinkled down as the demon struggled to get out of what remained of the taxi. “There’s blood all over and he’s slumped into the steering wheel.”
I swore under my breath, flinching when I used my right hand to lever myself up off the floor. Around us, voices called out questions, horns honked, and far in the distance, an ambulance’s siren sounded. “Crapbeans. I wrenched my hand. Can someone help me?”
Hands reached in through the broken window to pull Jim out. I got to my knees and looked over the back of the front seat at Rene. Two men were trying to open the driver’s door, but it was smashed against the barrier. The door on the other side escaped the impact from the van that hit us, however, so the Good Samaritans quickly got it open and gently pulled Rene out of the car.
“Don’t move him,” I yelled as another man and a woman helped me through the broken window. I held my right hand close to my body but shrugged off the man’s request that I sit and allow him to check me over.
“Rene? Oh, god, there’s so much blood!” I crawled over to where he lay on the pavement, surrounded by our rescuers and interested bystanders. “Is anyone here a doctor?”
“I have first aid training,” a serious young man said as he handed his messenger bag to a young woman. He knelt down on the other side of Rene and did a quick examination. “He’s breathing.”
“Is anything broken? Does he look like he’s seriously hurt?” I asked, using the hem of my dress to wipe some of the blood off Rene’s face. A gash near his hairline explained the blood all over his face…but curiously, the wound wasn’t bleeding anymore.
“It’s difficult for me to tell,” the young man said, gingerly feeling Rene’s arms and legs. “But I don’t think anything’s broken. Internal injuries are beyond me, however.”
Rene’s left leg twitched. I was in the process of using an unbloodied bit of dress to put some pressure on his head wound, but instead I sat watching with stunned wonder as the wound closed itself and melted into nothing.
Two brown eyes opened to meet my astonished gaze.
I leaned close and whispered, “Who are you?”
“A friend,” he whispered back, a little twinkle flashing in his eyes. The siren of an ambulance grew louder and closer as I sat back, wondering for what seemed like the umpteenth time just who he was and why he was in my life.
I allowed the paramedics to pull me aside and check me over for injuries without one murmur of dissent. Rene, however, argued with them that he was just fine, and that the blood must have come from a slight cut in his scalp.
“Everyone knows how the wounds of the head, they bleed like the pig running around without its brain,” he told the nearest paramedic.
The woman looked a little surprised but couldn’t argue with the evidence Rene presented—he looked hale and hearty as he told everyone that he didn’t need further examination.
“I’m sorry about your cousin’s taxi,” I said a short while later, after signing a release form and getting a lecture about being checked out at the nearest hospital. I waved at the paramedics as they left. “I don’t know if it’s shock from the accident or what, but I’m not quite exactly sure what happened. All I remember was seeing a flash of white, then boom!”
Rene stood with his hands on his hips as he surveyed the wreckage of his taxi. A couple of nearby policemen were directing traffic around it, while in the distance I could see a tow truck making its way through the backup. “The car is not important. My cousin will be angry, but that is what the insurance is for, no? Do not derange yourself over it. You are certain you are not hurt?”
“Immortal, remember?” I said softly, calling out my thanks to the serious young man as he and his lady friend finished talking to another policeman. He and the girl walked over to matching motor scooters. “It takes more than a little hit-and-run to do me in.”
“Oui, but you can still be injured, as can Jim.”
Jim glared.
“Yes, you can talk,” I told the demon, “but keep it low. I don’t need any more attention from the straight guys.”
“Meh. You worry too much about what other people will think.” Jim ruined its disinterested tone by rubbing its furry head on my leg. I knelt down and gave it a big hug, tears pricking my eyes in aftershock.
“Man, a little bang up, and she goes all girly,” Jim said, giving my neck a quick swipe with its tongue. “I’ve seen bunnies fiercer than you, oh mighty demon lord.”
“I’m sorry; I’m a girl. I’m strong, professional, and capable of dealing with life on my own, but that doesn’t mean I can’t indulge in a bit of happy tears now and again. Do you think we can get another cab in this mess? I’m late already, and Drake is going to kill me if I miss this meeting.”
“It is important that you be there,” Rene said, spinning around to examine the massive traffic jam. “Non. It is not possible here, but there”—he pointed to a pedestrian mall that ran at right angles to us—“that is how you shall get out. I will arrange for it.”
I have no idea what he said to get the serious young motor-scooter guy and his friend to give Jim and me a lift, but before I could think of any one of a thousand rational reasons why I should not find myself perched on the back of a scooter, Jim crushed between me and the driver as we illegally zipped through a pedestrian-only area, we were through it and on the road again.
“Thanks again,” I told the young man a few minutes later, pushing a couple of pound coins into his hand. Jim shook itself, shot me a few looks to let me know it didn’t appreciate the mode of transportation we’d been forced to take, marched over to a nearby shrub in a big cement urn, and peed on it.
I waved off the couple with more thanks, smiled at a doorman helping an elderly woman out of a taxi, and sailed through the revolving door to the lobby of London’s famed Putnam Hotel just as if I wasn’t bloody, battered, wrinkled, and missing one sandal.
“You are late,” a man’s voice growled at me as I limped up to the reception desk.
“Hello, István. Nice to see you again. How’s life been treating you?”
The red-haired dragon who was one of Drake’s two ever-present bodyguards looked me over from the top of my head down to my one bare foot.
“Better than you. You are hurt?”
“No, this isn’t my blood.”
István nodded and turned to Jim. He said something in a language I didn’t understand. Jim bared its teeth in answer. Without another word, István turned and walked to ward the elevators.
I smiled brightly at the people nearest us, all of whom were gawking with unabashed curiosity.
“I’m a professional,” I muttered under my breath as we followed István to the bank of elevators. “I am a Guardian, and a wyvern’s mate, and a demon lord. What other people think of me walking into a nice hotel covered in dirt, blood, and powdered glass is immaterial.”
“Maybe, but I bet you’re turning a few eyes with the tear up the back of your dress. Hot pink undies, eh?” Jim said from behind me.
I hastily grabbed at the back of my dress, whirling around so my butt was toward the elevators. Which, of course, meant that I was staring out across the packed lobby.
Everyone was staring back.
“Why can’t I ever go anywhere without being embarrassed, attacked, or confronted?” I asked as I backed into the elevator.
István shrugged as he punched a button. The couple next to him took one look at Jim and me and hastily bailed out of the elevator.
“You are different from all others,” István said, folding his arms over his chest as he gave me a dark look. “You should be happy you are wyvern’s mate.”
“I would be happier if I were a wyvern’s mate who didn’t have a torn dress and a bunch of imps out for my blood,” I answered, closing my eyes and trying to get ahold of myself. I had to face Drake, and that took immense energy, even when we were in agreement about life.
“What?” István asked.
“Nothi
ng.”
We were almost to the meeting area when István let it slip that Drake had brought along clothing for me (why, I wasn’t ready to consider yet). Rather than make a fuss over him pulling his usual arrogant crap, I allowed István to take me to Drake’s suite, quickly picked a new dress from the collection that hung in one of the closets, and even sent a little mental thank-you that I wouldn’t have to go before the entire sept grubby, disheveled, and torn.
The dragons had evidently booked a small theater for their sept meeting. I had expected a few key players to show up, but I was stunned by the mass of people milling around, most streaming up and down the aisles looking for seats. At the bottom of the theater was a stage set up with two tables, each with three microphones, flanking a center podium.
“Good god. How many people are here?” I asked István as we stood in the doorway at the top of the theater. Long rows of steps led down to the stage. Most of the lower seats had been filled and more and more people pushed past us, some of whom stopped to look at us briefly before they found seats.
“There are more than two hundred here today,” István said, giving me a none-too-gentle shove toward the steps down. “You sit at bottom.”
“Hmm. Just how many green dragons are there altogether?” I asked, squeezing through clumps of people clogging the aisle.
“Two hundred and thirty-one.”
“Wow. So few. I thought there would be thousands of you. So almost everyone came to this meeting? Is it that big of a deal?”
“Yes,” István said, snarling something at a group of people that had their backs to us. They hurriedly parted and allowed us through.
“I wonder if Drake needs an MC,” Jim said, marching beside me as I made my way down the stairs. “I used to do roasts for one of my previous masters, and everyone had a great time. I was particularly known for my brilliance in mimicry. Oh, look, there’s Pál.”
I waved at the second (and much friendlier) of Drake’s two bodyguards, pausing to look at Jim. “One of your previous masters? You had a demon lord other than Amaymon?”
“Huh? Where’d you get that idea?”