Dragon Fall

  “Really?”

  I turned to Kostya. He looked profoundly uncomfortable.

  “So, do you?”

  “As you said, now is not the time for this discussion.” He waved a hand toward Bael, who was apparently ignoring us and was drawing symbols of his own in the air in a circle around his torso. “We have Bael to deal with.”

  “Oh, do not worry about me. I shan’t be here for long,” Bael said, not bothering to look up from his symbol-drawing.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked Kostya in a whisper, watching the demon lord with growing worry.

  “Attempting to break Aisling’s circle with banes.”

  I sighed. I had a horrible premonition that I’d never get the hang of this whole-new-world business. “And a bane is…?”

  “The opposite of a ward. Rather than protect, its intent is to do harm.”

  “Well, he can just stop that,” I said loudly, walking toward him.

  I intended on merely standing a few feet away and trying to stop him by means of the ring, but as I got close, Aisling, who had been arguing with Drake about his romantic liaisons in the past, suddenly stopped and yelled, “Aoife, don’t get close—”

  “Look,” I said at the same time, about to unload a can of magic ring whoop-ass on Bael, “this isn’t going to fly—”

  Just as the words left my mouth, Bael’s arm shot out, and he grabbed me, yanking me into the circle with him. I backpedaled wildly as Kostya yelled and lunged forward, Aisling calling out a warning for him to stay out of the circle, but it didn’t matter.

  The ring grew tight on my finger as instinctively I pulled heavily on both it and Kostya’s fire to protect myself. There was a moment of utter silence during which all life seemed to hold its breath; then a massive percussive blast sent me flying backward. I hit something hard and saw stars for a few minutes, my body not hurting, but my lungs scorched and my brain oddly numb and unable to function.

  Dimly, from a great distance away, a voice said, “Peracta vis est omnis!”

  “What’s that mean?” I heard myself ask, even though I was blind and bemused.

  The hard thing I hit shifted beneath me and groaned. “You don’t speak Latin?”

  I waited a minute until the wavy blackness that seemed to swim around me faded, and I could see. I rolled off Kostya and glared at him as best I could. “I’m a half-Senegalese, half-Irish woman who was born in America and raised in Sweden. Do you think I speak Latin?”

  “I see no obstacle to you knowing it.” Kostya groaned again as I got to my knees and started patting down his torso, putting out the fire that danced merrily on him. “The phrase translates to ‘all power is marshaled,’ and I believe it means Bael has just summoned whatever demons are in his control.”

  “Oh no. That was something I did, wasn’t it? Hell.” I waited for a moment, but there was no following “Abaddon” from Jim. Blinking, I realized that what I had taken for temporary blindness was mostly due to the air being full of dust and smoke. Around us, through the eddies of smoke, flames were visible, climbing the walls, moving across the floor, and consuming furniture that blocked its path. “Your dragon fire is everywhere. Does anything on you hurt like a broken bone or internal injuries?”

  “That is not dragon fire, and no, I have no injuries. Do you?”

  “None at all, thanks to you catching me.” As he got to his feet, I winced at the Kostya-shaped dent in the plaster wall. The poor guy had cushioned me from the blast and taken the worst of it. I took the hand he offered and got to my own feet, mentally swearing at my stupidity, coughing and wheezing a little when he lifted me over a partially burned table.

  “Kostya!” Drake’s voice called out through the smoke and dust.

  “We are here.”

  A large black shape moved in the smoke, resolving itself into Drake carrying Aisling, who he set down beside me. “You are both unharmed?”

  “Yes. And you?”

  “We’re fine, although Jim’s coat got a bit scorched,” Aisling answered for Drake, slapping his hands when he started patting her down, obviously checking her for injuries. “Stop it, Drake! I’ve already told you that you shielded me from the worst of it.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” Jim said, padding over to us. One side of his head was singed, but it was nothing to the look he turned on me. “Man, Eefies! If you were jealous of me being Aisling’s demon, you could have warned me. You didn’t have to release Bael. My coat is never going to be the same!”

  “Hush, Jim,” Aisling said, brushing herself off. Her face was tight with worry, which just made me feel a hundred times worse.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea that Bael would grab me and pull me into the circle. I didn’t know he could do such a thing. What was that explosion?”

  “My circle breaking.” Aisling looked at Drake, who shook his head and consulted quietly with Kostya. “Which is a big surprise to me, since I hadn’t the slightest idea that they could break. Not to brag, but normally, when I make a circle, they stay made until I undo them.”

  “Woot! Got me a badass Guardian as a demon lord. That’s a lot better than a clueless wyvern’s mate any way you slice it,” Jim chimed in.

  “You are beyond obnoxious,” Aisling told him. “Apologize to Aoife right now. She took excellent care of you, and God only knows what she had to put up with from you.”

  Jim looked contrite. “Sorry, Eefies. Still wuv me?”

  “Yes, not that you deserve it after kicking me when I’m down. Was it me going into your circle that made it break, Aisling?”

  “No.” Her nose scrunched up for a few seconds; then she shook her head. “No, there’s no way having an addition to the circle would cause it to break. There was some other factor involved that caused the circle to explode.”

  “It was the ring,” I said miserably, yanking a chair that wasn’t yet on fire out of the path of the nearest blaze and setting it behind Aisling so she could sit. “I had no idea it would do that. It just happened of its own accord. But what it can do, it can undo. I’ll just go find Bael and get the ring to zap him back to wherever he came from.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that easy,” Aisling said, waving a hand in front of her face. “The smoke is getting worse, which means the non-dragon fire is taking hold. Drake, we should probably get out of the building; I imagine the mortal fire department will be here soon.”

  “We can’t leave, but you certainly will,” Drake said, moving over to help Aisling. “Aoife will take you home.”

  “Why can’t you come as well?” I asked Kostya, who was looking toward the back room. “Not that I approve of running away from a building I just blew up, because my parents always taught me to take responsibility for my actions, even if it’s caused by a magic ring that I didn’t tell to blow up a mystical circle, but still. The smoke is getting worse.”

  “Drake and I cannot leave because Bael has summoned demons,” Kostya said, tossing aside a couple of tables and chairs that blocked the door to the back section. Jovana, her white suit stained black, coughed hoarsely as she crawled forward. At least I thought she was coughing until Kostya got her to her feet, and it turned out that she was swearing.

  At me.

  “Gods and goddesses all unite to smite the person responsible for this atrocity!” She panted a little, shook off Kostya’s hold on her arm, and limped over to where Aisling and I stood. “You did this!” She shook her finger at me. “You have tried to destroy the club ever since you stepped foot inside it. I will have no more of it, do you hear me? I banish you from the premises! No more will you ever darken the doorway! No more will you—Are those more demons?”

  She stopped haranguing me to shoot a glare into the smoke. A man-shaped form came through it, followed by six others, varying in sizes and shapes, and even colors, but all of them appeared to be human.

  “Oh joy. Bael summoned some friends,” Aisling said wearily, leaving a sooty mark when she rubbed her hand over her face.
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  “Can he do that?” Jovana asked, furiously punching the air toward the demons. “He is no longer in power!”

  “No, but evidently there’s still enough demon lord power in him to summon any demons who are not attached to another demon lord. Lovely. Now I have to banish them, too. Sweetie, I’m going to need help on this—”

  “You will not banish anyone. It is too dangerous,” Drake said, moving in front of her in a protective gesture.

  “Well, then, how are we going to get rid of them?”

  Kostya snatched up the nearest table, ripped off one of the legs, and passed the table on to his brother, who repeated the action.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Aisling said.

  “Man alive, dragon-on-demon action,” Jim said, sitting next to Aisling. “This should be good. Not as much fun as seeing the red dragons jump Kostya while we were in Sweden, because that was just awesome, but I do love me a good fight where demons are beaten to a pulp.”

  “You are a demon,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, but Ash here says I’m the good kind.” He grinned at me. “Don’t be jealous, babe. I said that I liked the fight with you and Slick more.”

  I rolled my eyes and dismissed him from my thoughts, returning to what was most important at that moment.

  “Kostya, you can’t possibly be serious about this.” I tugged on the back of his shirt. Drake and Kostya had taken up a protective stance in front of us, the latter’s table leg held firmly in his right hand. “Even I, with the tiny bit of knowledge that I have about the Otherworld, know you’re not going to be able to beat up a demon with a piece of wood.”

  “Destroy them!” Jovana screeched, pointing dramatically at the seven demons, who had now formed a line. They glanced behind them and, at some unseen command, leaped forward.

  A sudden spurt of fear made it feel as if my heart had been jerked into my throat. “Kostya!” I yelled, running after him.

  “Guard Aisling!” he called back to me.

  I skidded to a halt, a horrible vision rising in my mind of him lying dead on the floor while the building burned around him and the demons carried away Aisling and Jim. Panic gave me strength, sending me leaping onto the top of one of the remaining tables in a position where I could keep Aisling safe and yet monitor the situation with Kostya.

  The demons, with harsh cries that made my skin crawl, divided themselves between Drake and Kostya, the latter of whom shifted into dragon form. Fire blasted the demons, but it evidently did them little harm, because it didn’t stop their attack at all.

  Drake’s makeshift wooden sword whirled and danced in the smoky air, the thumps and cries of pain from the demons indicating that he was well versed in hand-to-hand combat. I stopped watching him, trying to pick out Kostya’s dark form in the dim light, covered as he was with four demons. They snarled and spat invectives, and twice I heard Kostya grunt in pain.

  I did an impotent dance on the table, wanting badly to go help Kostya but knowing that Aisling’s state meant she needed extra protection. I did what I could by hurling balls of Kostya’s dragon fire at the demons, but they paid absolutely no attention to it.

  Behind me, Jovana alternated between shouting orders to Guillaume, who had staggered out from the back room, and hurling abuse at me and the demons. But she kept out of the range of both the battle and me, so I paid her little mind.

  It wasn’t until Bael himself strode forward that life seemed to sputter to a halt. He stood watching Kostya—now down to just two demons on him, the other two having disappeared into the floor—when he said something I couldn’t hear, and suddenly a big-ass sword manifested itself in his hand.

  “Thank you,” he said, completely unexpectedly. His gaze was firmly fixed on me, making me feel like I was a bug pinned to a board. “You have fulfilled my expectations quite well. I will be forever grateful to you for freeing me.”

  He smiled and lifted the sword, obviously intent on killing the man I loved beyond all else.

  I tried to yell a warning to Kostya, but my mouth was choked with fear and smoke and the horrible knowledge that whatever happened was due to my own ignorance. Once again the ring grew hot and heavy on my hand, and I fisted my fingers, pulling my hands in to my chest for a second before throwing them outward in a desperate attempt to fling away all of the badness.

  The air in the club seemed to suck in to one tiny little point in the center of the building, then, with a noise that I will not soon forget, shot outward, destroying all in its path.

  As I fell, I said a little prayer to whatever deity would listen to me for Kostya’s death to be swift and painless.

  Eighteen

  It wasn’t the shouts and cries that reached me first. It wasn’t the sirens, or the rumble of the crowd, or even Kostya saying my name.

  It was the sound of his heart beating beneath my ear, strong and true, in a rhythm that seemed to exactly match my own. I turned my face toward the sound, joy at the knowledge that whatever else, we were together. Kostya’s delicious scent sank into my bones, making me feel both oddly safe and incredibly aroused.

  “You’re not dead,” a rough, cracked voice said. It occurred to me that it was me who spoke, and I put my hand up to my mouth to see if I still possessed such a thing.

  “I told you it was difficult to kill a dragon. Are you hurt, dearling?”

  I opened my eyes at that, smiling a little to myself at the sight of Kostya’s face a few inches from my own. The silver flecks in his eyes were as brilliant as polished starlight, glittering at me in a way that warmed me to the tips of my toes, which was odd considering that I was wet and cold. I reached up and moved a lock of hair that had fallen down over his forehead. “Dearling?”

  “Answer my question,” he ordered, his brows pulling together.

  “Do you know, I wouldn’t recognize you if you weren’t scowling,” I said, laughing, and tipped my head so that I could kiss him. “I’m not hurt, no, and I like the dearling. Can I call you dearling, too?”

  He looked slightly horrified. “No! It is not suitable for you to refer to your wyvern by such terms. I should not have done so in a public place, but my emotions got the better of me.”

  “Good. We’ll have to let your emotions run away with you again.” I pushed back on his chest until he moved away enough for me to sit up. I looked around, the sounds suddenly rushing in to me. Three fire engines sat a block away, water playing on the burned remains of G&T. The street between us was filled with police cars, a fire official’s car, tons of bystanders, and three ambulances, only one of which was doing any business. “What happened? Is Aisling okay? And why am I soaking wet?”

  “Aisling is fine. Drake has taken her home. You are wet because I was unconscious when the mortal fire department arrived and began spraying everything in sight with water. And as for what happened—apparently, you blew up the entire building.”

  I pulled my gaze from the milling crowd and emergency workers and turned to gawk at him in openmouthed astonishment. That’s when I noticed the gash on the far side of his face and the remains of blood that had obviously been hastily wiped up. The gash was still bleeding, but sluggishly now, and was about the size of my palm, running from his temple down to the middle of his cheek.

  “Kostya! You’re hurt! You must let the ambulance guys take care of you.”

  He gave a wry twist to his lips before answering. “It will heal of its own accord.”

  “Did you get hit with something when I—Holy frijoles, I blew up the building? Did you get hit by a flying piece of furniture? Oh, man, I feel terrible now. I was just trying to blow everything away from us, not having it backlash and hit you.”

  “This isn’t due to the explosion.” He got to his feet and helped me to mine. I wobbled for a few seconds and was quite happy to clutch him in order to steady myself. “I dragged you from the remains of the building first, then helped Drake and his bodyguards recover Jovana and her assistant. That’s when Drake and I realized the truth.??
?

  “What truth?” I ripped off a bit more of my shirt and dabbled at Kostya’s wound.

  “That we were outside the bounds of the club.” He touched the side of his head and grimaced. “Drake found the table leg I’d been using while I was ensuring you weren’t harmed.”

  My eyes just about bugged out. “He hit you? Oh! That rat bastard! I’m so going to have a few things to say to him!” I flexed my fingers and twirled the ring. “We’ll just see who takes unfair advantage of a situation.”

  To my surprise—and utter delight—Kostya gave a short bark of laughter and pulled me close in a bear hug, saying into my hair, “Dearling, you can’t use your ring against my brother. Not only is he my kin, but also Aisling would gut us both if we did anything to harm him.”

  I giggled into his neck, then gently pulled his head down so I could let my lips do a few things to his. “All right, but don’t think I’m not going to have Rene or Jim tell Aisling what he did. Were Jovana and Guillaume hurt? I don’t suppose there’s any chance that Bael was, either?”

  “Jovana was slightly injured. Her assistant has been taken away to the mortal hospital, so I do not know his status. As for Bael…”

  A little shadow passed over my mind at the last word, accompanied by a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “He is free,” Kostya finished.

  It took a second for me to process that. I blame the couple of explosions in a short period of time for the lack of brainpower. “Free? As in loose in the world?”

  “Yes.” Kostya’s eyes darkened, the silver bits dimming as he glanced over toward the blackened remains of G&T. “Do you recall what he said just before your explosion?”

  “Not really.” I frowned into the distance, trying to sort through the feelings that roiled around unhappily inside of me. There was worry in there, and anger, and something worse, something that made me sick to my stomach… guilt.

  I sucked in my breath, memory flooding my mind. “He thanked me for freeing him! He said I met his expectations.” I grabbed Kostya’s shirt with both hands and shook it. “What expectations? How did he know me? Sweet sardine sandwiches, Kostya! What did he mean?”