I sighed and looked at Kostya, who was examining the room we’d been given. It was a standard-sized bedroom but had a nice bathroom attached. Kostya gave close scrutiny to each window before turning to the door. It opened onto a narrow passage, evidently belonging to servants of centuries gone by. Kostya went over them while Rene chatted with me about how Aisling had planned to go out to the country where her children were housed but would now delay that visit for a couple of days in order to see that all was well here.
“Does it pass muster?” I asked Kostya when he closed the bedroom door on the passage.
“Yes. I had no doubt that it would—as I said, Drake frequently has his children here, and he has a passion for security systems. There are several spells bound into the surface of the door as well, which, coupled with the wards Aisling has drawn on the windows, should keep us from invasion.”
I pursed my lips at the mention of spells and wards but didn’t want to appear ignorant in front of Rene, so I just said, “Good.”
“I have a plan I wish to discuss with Drake,” he told Rene, pulling out the paper he’d peeled off from the tablet. “You will read this to him and report back to me on his thoughts.”
“Ah, the plan of masters, eh?” Rene said, taking the sheets. “Is he to write his responses for you?”
“No. I would not be able to read them. You must take notes of what he thinks and read them to me.”
“Very well. I shall be back momentarily with your answers.” Rene bustled off, the door closing soundly behind him.
“Sounds like a lot of trouble,” I said, eyeing the bed. I had to admit that the lack of sleep was catching up with me and wondered if Kostya would be all right if I went to bed early.
“It is, but until the curse is lifted, there is little we can do.”
“Think I’m about to hit critical mass,” Jim said with a scrunched-up thoughtful look.
I stopped picturing myself snuggled into the bed. “Fine, I’ll take you out for a walk. But we are going to have a long talk about you taking yourself next time.”
Frowning, Kostya blocked my way when I was about to go out the back door. “You cannot go out.”
“It’s not my idea, trust me.” I pointed at Jim. “He needs to go for a walk, and no, evidently it can’t wait. Besides, it’s going to be dark soon, so better I get this over with now.”
“It’s not safe,” Kostya said, giving Jim a look that would have scared off a few years on anyone else. “The demon will just have to wait.”
“I’m gonna blow soon, Slick,” Jim said, doing an impatient little dance. “I have like maybe a minute at best, then blammo! You’re all going to be seriously sorry you didn’t get me outside.”
“The red dragons could have heard of our flight from Sweden,” Kostya told me when I pushed past him to the door leading into the kitchen and immediately began rustling through the drawers in search of a garbage bag, or plastic grocery sack, or something of that ilk. “They will know soon enough that we are in Paris, and they will follow.”
“Yeah, well, they can’t possibly know where we are this soon, and unless you’d like to show Jim how to use the toilet, or clean up that very nice room, one of us is going to have to walk Jim.”
“Very well,” Kostya said, grabbing Jim by the collar and dragging him to the door. “I will do so.”
“Help!” Jim yelped, and immediately started retching. Kostya released him, stepping back when the dog hacked up a spitball. “Fires of Abaddon, you can’t choke the poop out of me! Well, okay, you probably can, but it’s not going to be fun for either of us.”
“Kostya, stop!” I said at the same time, letting him see my exasperation. “There’s no need to strangle him. You stay here and deal with Rene and your brother, and I’ll pop over to the park that Rene said is a block away.”
“No,” Kostya said. “You cannot go out without protection. You are too valuable.”
I wanted to ask him if he meant me, personally, or the ring, but decided that my ego didn’t need the boost if it was the former or the blow if it was the latter. But before I could argue with him any more, there was a tap at the kitchen door as it opened, and the woman I’d seen out front put her head into the room and said something.
Her words sounded familiar but were garbled. A little chill ran down my back at the realization that I was seeing the effects of the curse in person. Which proved that I was really and truly Kostya’s mate, but like almost everything else, that wasn’t something I had time to think about.
The woman, who I assumed was Suzanne, gave us a wry smile, walked into the room, giving Kostya a wide berth, and pulled open a drawer that held a number of plastic bags. She set some on the counter and turned to call out a word.
Kostya tensed when one of the redheaded men who was at the airport in Sweden entered the room. The two of them watched each other warily, but I was relieved to see that neither of them leaped into immediate attack mode.
“That is Istvan, one of Drake’s elite guards,” Kostya said, his body language showing contained energy.
“Ah. Gotcha. Hi, Istvan,” I said, giving him a little wave.
Istvan bowed in return, then gestured toward Jim, before pointing behind him.
“Is he offering to take Jim for walkies?”
“It would appear so,” Kostya said, his stance relaxing slightly. “That would solve our problem.”
“What? You want me to go with some strange dragon? I don’t know him! I can’t poop with him watching me!”
“It doesn’t really matter who takes you, Jim,” I said, feeling slightly guilty at passing off the responsibility of Jim onto Istvan.
The demon gave me a hurt look. “It may not matter to you, but I have tender sensibilities. You’re my demon lord—if anyone has to be with me when I unload, it should be you.”
I rolled my eyes but said, “Fine, although really, I could do without the scatological honor.”
“Aoife, I just told you that it was dangerous—Rene, you are back already?” Kostya interrupted himself when Rene appeared, his manner excited. “You were not gone long. Did you not read my plans to Drake?”
“Yes, yes, and he has many things to say, not all of which I would repeat in front of Aoife, you understand, but I did as you said and made notes of the most important. Here, let me show you—”
Kostya slid a glance toward me.
“I’ll take Istvan with me for the walkies, okay?” I said, shooing Jim out the door. “We shouldn’t be gone long, since Jim is evidently about to explode.”
“Do not stray from Istvan’s side,” Kostya said, giving me a worried look, but evidently he realized that he was being overly cautious, for he accompanied Rene into the bedroom, where I could hear Rene explaining some objection or other that Drake had.
“We’re down to about thirty seconds before Poopocalypse rains down upon us,” Jim warned, his expression now pained. “Say your prayers and make your amends, because it ain’t gonna be pretty when it hits.”
“Right, let’s get you to the park,” I said, snatching the plastic bags from Suzanne’s hand and rushing Jim past Istvan, who must have realized what was up because he had the front door open even before we reached it.
Luckily, we made it to the park before Jim excused himself into a long line of rhododendron bushes.
Istvan—who stood next to me, and was doing a fairly good impression of Kostya with the way he was scanning everything and everyone around us—said something, pointed in a circle, and then gestured to the ground, which I assumed meant he wanted me to stay in the area.
“You’re going to patrol the area, gotcha,” I told him, even though he couldn’t understand me. I nodded to let him know I was with the program, and he took off at a fast walk.
I realized Jim had disappeared from view and called out to him. “Don’t go into the bushes. I have to pick up your offerings, remember, and I don’t fancy crawling around inside of a bush to do so.”
Jim stuck his head out of the
rhodie. “I’m not going to do this right out there in the open where anyone can see me! That’s unnatural!”
“A talking dog who is really a demon is unnatural,” I pointed out, shaking the plastic bags at him. “Now, get with the program and poop.”
“You’re looking at me again!” he said, emerging from the rhododendron. “I can’t poop when people look at me, and while we’re on that subject, what does it say about you that you want to watch me?”
“Sweet Samarian sandals, I don’t want to watch you! I’m simply trying to keep track of where you are so I can pick up your ploppies. Now, stop arguing and get down to business.”
He squinted his eyes at me. “You sure you don’t have some sort of dog pooping fetish?”
“Argh!” I yelled, slapping the plastic bags on my thighs. “I don’t have any fetishes whatsoever. Why the hell aren’t you pooping? You said you were about to explode!”
“It’s Abaddon, not hell,” Jim corrected with a sniff, and turned his back to me, strolling over to a patch of grass near the fence line.
“Well?” I asked after a couple of minutes and still no action. “Come on, Jim. We don’t have all day; I’m tired and I want to curl up in bed.”
“I can’t go with the sort of performance pressure you’re putting on me!” Jim snapped, glaring at me.
I looked pointedly at my watch. “Honestly, I had no idea demons were this fussy about bodily functions.”
“Me being a demon has nothing to do with it,” Jim answered, moving to another spot. I cast a look around, but Istvan had evidently just completed his check along the perimeter of the fence and was heading back our way. “It’s because I picked this magnificent form, and you can’t rush things like internal functions if you want to keep your form in nice shape.”
I stopped dead next to a small azalea. “Wait a minute—you picked your form?”
“Of course.” Jim snuffled a couple of leaves on the ground and moved on down to the next shrub.
“You wanted to be a dog? You didn’t just end up that way?”
“Demons don’t work like that. We get to pick our forms unless our demon lords order us to a different one.” He struck a pose for a few seconds. “Could you imagine anything more fabulous than this? There isn’t anything. I’ve got the pinnacle of demon forms, let me tell you.”
I followed after him deeper into the shadows as a line of trees marching alongside the fence cast inky fingers that the streetlights didn’t disperse. “Wait a second—how come you’re suddenly an expert on being a demon when a few days ago you thought you were nothing more than a dog?”
“It’s called asking questions, babe. Turns out Rene knows a lot of stuff.”
I shrugged off his explanation. “So, you could be anything you wanted, anything at all? Like a horse? Or an elephant?”
He laughed and headed for a bench that sat firmly in the shadows of a tall line of elms. “Yeah, but you really would not want to take me walkies if I was an elephant. Talk about ploppies! Hey, that spot over there smells pretty good. This area has been peed on a lot.” He set off at a fast walk across the corner of the park toward a clump of trees where a small groundskeeper’s shed sat. I stood for a minute in thought before I realized that he was almost out of view. I dashed after him, hearing Istvan shout something behind me, no doubt chastising me for getting so far from his protection.
“You annoying demon!” I said as I ran up to where Jim was smelling the door of the shed, an odd look on his face. “Right, this is ending here and now. As your demon lord, I command you to stop being a dog and instead change into a human being, the kind who can take himself to the bathroom and who doesn’t slobber all over everything, including my shoes and Kostya’s pants legs.”
“Hey, you know what this smells li—” Jim’s eyes bugged out the second the words left my lips. He spun around, his body elongating and changing as he moved. There was a little ripple in the air, and Jim the dog was gone, replaced by a man a little shorter but stockier than Kostya, with a broad chest, dark hair and eyes, and an expression of absolute astonishment. “Fires of Abaddon, Eefies! What did you do to me?”
I stared openmouthed for a second until I realized what I was doing. “You don’t have any clothes on!” I said, pointing at his crotch. “Jim, put some clothes on!”
“You made me human,” he said, putting his hands on his hips, an annoyed expression on his face as he examined himself. “Man, I can’t tell you how much this sucks. Look at my package! It’s not nearly as good as it was, and I don’t have that cute white spot on my chest anymore, and crapballs, I don’t have a tail! How am I supposed to express my emotions without a proper tail? I’m ugly and awkward, and look, I can’t even lift my leg properly.”
I spun around at the sight of Jim trying to lift his leg on the side of the shed, and rubbed my forehead, hoping the dull throb there was going to go away. “Holy testicles, Jim! You can’t do that now. And stop whining—being human isn’t that bad.”
“Yeah?” He marched around to stand in front of me. “You’re saying I can’t pee on whatever I want? Or take a dump behind that shed, like I was going to do before you got all demon lord on my butt?” He glanced over his shoulder to his backside. “Aw, man! My butt is huge now, too! There isn’t anything good about human form! I bet I can’t even lick my own—”
“Okay, new ground rules. When we are in human form, we do not mimic the behavior of dogs. We also don’t talk about the things that we can no longer do. Got that? Good. Let’s go home and you can use the bathroom there, or if you can’t make it that far, we’ll stop at the café on the corner and use their facilities.”
“Right, because the café won’t have an issue at all with me showing up starkers because you forgot to order me to have some clothes when you forced me into a new form.” Jim’s expression was oddly the same now that he was human—and a tiny little voice in my head pointed out that I actually missed Jim’s doggy form—and right now, it read sour discontent.
“Oh no, you aren’t going to make this my fault.” I turned toward the entrance of the park. “You coming naked is all… uh… Jim?”
“Yeah, that’s a red dragon,” Jim said, turning to look with interest at the two men and one woman who stood blocking the way. “I was going to tell you that the shed smelled like some dragons had been around the area, and they didn’t smell like the dudes in the house we’re at. Oh, and now thanks to you being Hasty McDemonlord, I can’t even bite them.”
I eyed the three people before me. The woman said something, gesturing toward me. The two men with her stepped forward, obviously intending to grab us. I wanted very much to avoid that, just as I wanted to avoid having any contact with the swords all three wore strapped to their respective hips. I looked around for Istvan, but he had disappeared. “Jim, I’m going to give you an order, and I want you to follow it to the letter.”
“Attack the dragons?” he asked, watching as the men suddenly rushed forward.
I stepped back, clutching my hands together, very aware of the ring sitting heavily on one of them. There wasn’t any way to escape them, no place I could run to, and no Istvan to help me. I did the only thing I could think of. “No. Go to Kostya. Right now. RUN!”
I tried to reach for that whoosh of power I’d felt back in Sweden when the dragons attacked Kostya, but there was nothing there, just a faint sense of anticipation, as if the ring were cocking its head at me and waiting for me to do something. There was no time to stop and consider what the hell the ring wanted from me—I simply yelled a Viking battle cry and threw myself at them, praying the ring would give me the oomph to get past them.
“Well, hell!” I said a few minutes later. The two dragon men didn’t topple over from the combination of myself and the awesome power that was held by my magical ring. Instead, one caught me and twisted me around while the other wrenched my right arm behind me and up into a painful hold.
“Abaddon,” came a now-familiar correction.
“Oh n
o, Jim, not you, too.” I peered over my shoulder, and sure enough, another man and woman emerged from around a clump of trees with the naked Jim in tow. I fisted my left hand and held it close to my stomach, praying that the dragons wouldn’t notice the ring on my finger. If I could just get a moment where they wouldn’t see me doing so, I’d tuck the ring into the pocket of my jeans.
The dragons said something in harsh voices that made my skin itch and shoved us forward, toward the entrance of the park. I saw no signs of Istvan, which gave me hope that he’d gone for help.
“Sorry. I would’ve been much faster as a dog.” The look of accusation in Jim’s eyes was all too clear.
“You know what? I’ve had it trying to be nice, especially when you don’t understand that I was simply trying to make both our lives easier.”
“Nice? You call forcing me into a naked human form nice?” Jim shook his head. “Why don’t you use that badass magic ring of yours to lay out these dragons the way you did in Sweden, so we can go home and I can use the unsanitary toilet that all the dragons put their butts on.”
“A toilet is far more sanitary than… oh, never mind. Where’s Istvan?” I clutched my hand to my stomach even harder, at the same time casting a glance over at the nearest dragon. “And stop mentioning the you-know-what. There’s a good chance these guys grabbed us because they know we’re connected with Kostya, not because I have the thing in question. And frankly, I’d like to keep them from finding that out.”
“They can’t understand us,” Jim said with a shrug. “That curse thing works for them as well as the other dragons.”
“We don’t know that for certain, and I’m not going to risk calling attention to it just in case they can understand us.”
“In which case you just told them that you have an object of great importance,” he pointed out.
“Stop using your logic on me!” I commanded, and was about to continue when a sudden shout from the dragon to my right had my heart sinking. As we moved around a small fountain, the sight of Istvan trying to fend off three other red dragons had me leaping forward. They were all in human form (I assume there was some unwritten rule about appearing as a dragon in public), but Istvan was outnumbered. Two of the dragons had swords, one of which was raised high in the air as a dragon was clearly about to decapitate poor Istvan.