Me and My Shadow

  “No one,” I said quickly, but not quickly enough.

  “She’s got her panties in a bunch because Gabe is out on his own.”

  “I am not in the least bit bunched,” I told it grimly. “I just got done telling you that I trust Gabriel.”

  “Yes, but it’s not him you have to worry about,” Cyrene said, to my gut-wrenching dismay.

  “I am not jealous,” I repeated.

  “I’m not saying you are, or even that you should be. Gabriel is devoted to you. Anyone can see that.”

  “I’m glad you agree,” I said, glad the matter was closed. I told the dragon shard to go back to sleep, intent on regaining control over my errant emotions. I had a list of things I wanted to do before Gabriel returned, and now was as good a time as any to get started on them.

  “Mind you, I’m not saying that other women are going to respect that,” she continued thoughtfully. “He’s a handsome man, a very handsome man. With those eyes and those dimples and that lovely, lovely chest—”

  “I will thank you to stop ogling my mate’s chest,” I said, grinding my teeth just a smidgen.

  “Well, you can stop me from doing that, but you can’t stop the rest of the world, Mayling. And trust me, other women have noticed his chest, too.”

  My mouth dropped open a tiny bit. “Do you guys have some sort of an arrangement to suddenly try to drive me into an insane fit of jealousy over Gabriel?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly.” Cyrene made a dismissive gesture. “I’m just trying to point out that although you may trust him not to willingly betray you, the mortal women of the world may not give him that option.” She thought for a moment. “And some of the immortal women, too.”

  “On the contrary, I will be most faithful to my sweet May once she gives herself to me,” Magoth said, strolling out of the sitting room. He paused for a few seconds before admitting, “Perhaps ‘faithful’ isn’t the best word. Shall we say ‘devoted,’ instead, given all the mortal and immortal world that the delectable Cyrene so wisely realizes finds me completely irresistible?”

  “We weren’t talking about you,” Cy said with a bit of a frown that Magoth completely missed because he was too busy glaring at Jim.

  “Why do you always have that demon with you?” he asked me. “You are a demon lord’s consort, not a lord itself. It is unfitting that you should be attended by a sixth-class demon. If you wish to have a companion, you may have one of my wrath demons.”

  “Oh, yeah, like Drake’s going to allow a wrathy in his house,” Jim drawled.

  “I’m taking care of Jim while its master is busy, which you very well know, since I explained it to you earlier. Really, Magoth, is it too much trouble for you to pay attention to me when I talk to you?”

  “Yes,” he said blithely, giving Jim one last glare before turning to me. “I prefer actions to words. Let us go have sex and I assure you I will hang on to your every gesture.”

  “That’s it. I have no more patience left,” I said simply, and grabbed my purse. “I’m going home—what remains of it—per the request of the police and fire investigators. Hopefully, some of our things will have survived the blast.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Cyrene said quickly, snatching up her coat.

  “I think it would probably be better if I did this alone.”

  “Yeah,” Jim told her. “You’ll just see the puddles left by the firemen and want to splash around in them.”

  “You’re not coming, either,” I told the demon.

  “Why not?” It opened its eyes really wide. “I’ll be good! Promise!”

  “You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘good,’ ” I said acidly.

  It stuck out its lower lip. “No, but I can pretend.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun. Just the three of us,” Cy said persuasively. She took my hesitation for another denial, and added a plaintive, “I really don’t want to have to be here by myself with that rat bastard.”

  “Surely you can come up with some better insults for me than ‘rat bastard’?” Magoth asked, idly sorting through a stack of mail that sat on a small hall table. He held one up to the light. “You used to be quite inventive.”

  “Not every conversation revolves around you,” Cyrene said, making indignant little noises. “I was referring to my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. One I really don’t want to be alone with.”

  Magoth opened a letter and scanned the contents. I debated chastising him for that, but figured any truly important mail would have been given to Drake or Aisling already.

  “The house is about ready to explode with people,” I told Cyrene, feeling guilty nonetheless. “You’re hardly alone.”

  “You know what I mean. Please, Mayling.”

  “Me love you long time. You take me. Please with dog hair on top,” Jim begged.

  “Squalid little matters.” Magoth tossed the letter onto the table and looked over to where I stood, hesitating. “Where are we going?”

  “We are going nowhere. I am going to see the police. I suppose if you two wish to come, you can, but, Jim, you have to be silent around mortals,” I told Jim as I opened the door and stepped out into a gloomy drizzle. “Cyrene, you will please remember that you are a guest of Drake, and not refer to his brother as a bastard.”

  She harrumphed.

  “Let me think. . . . There is a new cockfighting arena that I have been asked to open, but that is not until this evening,” Magoth said with a glance at his watch. “And my appointment to get a Brazilian wax is early afternoon. There is a collection of circus-freak memorabilia up for private auction that I wish to peruse—so many good memories there—but I can put that off, since the owner, a deliciously wicked poltergeist, wishes me to show her how to design a truly effective iron maiden. Yes, I will be able to accompany you now, wife, although if you wish to participate in sex afterward, we will have to hurry. I refuse to be rushed when it comes to pleasures of the flesh.”

  I stared at Magoth. “You’re just one long, unending pain in the butt, aren’t you?”

  A leer touched his lips. “I would be happy to do so, although I had no idea your taste ran to that.”

  I closed my eyes for a second, battling both irritation and the dragon shard, which had been trying to force me into contact with Magoth. I had no idea why the shard was suddenly seeking power from whatever source it could find, but determination filled me. I would not yield to it. “I’m leaving now. And stop calling me wife.”

  I marched down the stairs, not caring who followed and who stayed.

  “I thought cockfights were illegal?” Cyrene’s voice drifted to my ears as I stopped at a corner for a traffic light.

  “Mortals are so uptight about things like that,” Magoth answered her. I was aware he stopped directly behind me, since the air near my spine cooled a good ten degrees. “But since they have outlawed human battles to the death, one must take one’s pleasures where one can.”

  “I take it back what I said about you when you couldn’t hear me,” Jim said softly, brushing my hand as it cast a glance backwards toward Magoth. “You’re not nearly as bad as a real demon lord.”

  The ride to the Metropolitan Police station was long and filled with my warning all three members of my little troupe to behave themselves.

  “No talking in front of anyone mortal,” I told Jim, one eye on the taxi driver. He had a small portable radio blaring out Middle Eastern music, so I doubted he’d hear.

  Jim sighed and adopted a martyred look. “Just once I’d like to go somewhere without someone telling me to shut my yap.”

  “That day will never come. And you . . .” I pushed Magoth’s hand off my thigh and fixed him with a stern, unyielding look. “. . . you remember what Gabriel said he’d do if you tried to touch me again.”

  I wanted badly to lay down the law to Magoth, but knew it would do no good. He was still technically my employer, and although I might have his powers, he was more than aware that I’d never use them.

&nbs
p; He gave me a coy look, lolling back on the seat of the taxi, taking up far more than his fair share of the seat. “And what will you do if I am good, sweet one? Will you reward me?”

  “Reward you how?” I asked cautiously.

  His eyelids dropped to half-mast. The look he gave me would have melted a lesser woman, and as it was, I had a hard time struggling with the shard to keep my hands in my lap. “I think some playtime will be in order. Say tonight? Ten o’clock? Your room? Bring your dragon scales.”

  “Ew,” Jim said, shuddering. “That’s just so wrong. A demon lord and a dragon.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen,” I told it. “Magoth will behave himself.”

  He examined a fingernail and said in a deceptively bland voice, “You have no way of ensuring I do so. I understand the mortal police take very seriously accusations of arson.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” I said, fury shoving aside the irritation that was my normal response to him.

  “No?” He raised his eyebrows and gave a long cool look. “Perhaps not. But perhaps you should reconsider my invitation for tonight. Acceptance of such is likely to satisfy me for a while.”

  I ground my teeth, annoyed at having to deal with him, but there was no way short of locking him up somewhere that I could stop him. “Fine, you want to come to my room tonight at ten so I can tail smack you around? You got it. Just bring a jumbo bottle of aspirin, because I plan on knocking you out cold for hours.”

  He shivered in delight, suddenly lunging forward to grab me, his fingers digging into my arms as he kissed me. The dragon shard roared to life, making me part my lips under the onslaught of his mouth and tongue, but even as it delighted in the contact, my heart shuddered and shrank away. The mouth moving on mine wasn’t warm and spicy. The tongue moving in a sinuous dance didn’t stir me. And the black eyes that burned down into mine held no heat. I gathered up my strength and heaved, shoving Magoth backwards.

  “Gabriel will kill you for that,” I said, wiping my mouth.

  Magoth smiled a long, slow smile. “He can try.”

  Chapter Ten

  Gabriel called while I sat in the office of the arson-investigation unit.

  “I can’t really talk right now,” I said, smiling brightly across the desk at a middle-aged, balding man as he shuffled through some paperwork. “Detective Inspector Flores is explaining to Magoth and me the results of their investigation thus far.”

  Gabriel swore. “What is he doing there?”

  I pulled my hand back from where Magoth had been caressing it. “Oh, you know Magoth. Whither does he wander, and all that.”

  “My wife must be speaking with her lover,” Magoth told the police inspector, who shot me a startled look.

  “Erm . . . is she?” he said.

  I smiled again, trying not to strangle Magoth on the spot. “Ignore him,” I told the inspector. “He found a few mushrooms in the park this morning and ate them. We’re hoping his hallucinations fade soon.”

  Gabriel muttered a few choice words under his breath that I wholeheartedly agreed with. “Can you not get rid of him? Is he making things difficult for you?”

  “No, and of course, but I’m coping. Magoth was most interested to hear, as was I, that it was a faulty gas line that blew up the house, and wasn’t arson at all, as we thought.”

  “Most interested,” Magoth said, grabbing my chair and hauling it closer to him so he could drape an arm over my shoulders. “My darling one, sit closer to me. I cherish the nearness of your lush, ripe body.”

  The inspector pursed his lips and looked from Magoth to me, speculation rife in his eyes.

  “Ah, so it was a faulty gas line?” Gabriel asked, his voice amused for a moment. Clearly he hadn’t heard Magoth in the background. “I am relieved to hear it was that, and not something more worrisome, such as a murderous dragon bent on our destruction.”

  “Yes, I thought you’d be happy to hear that.”

  “Our relationship is complicated,” Magoth told the inspector in a confidential tone, his fingers trailing down the back of my neck. I gritted my teeth against the touch, not wanting to protest lest Gabriel hear. “She has one lover; I have thousands. But we share a love of the same things: violent foreplay, the torture of minions, threatening to disembowel those who cross us—and it’s that sort of bond that truly makes a relationship last, isn’t it?”

  “Sign there? Certainly.” Hastily, I scribbled out a signature on a release that would relieve the Metropolitan Police from any responsibility for our welfare should we insist on examining the remains of the house. At that point, I would do anything to escape from the inspector’s office.

  “Are the mortal police giving you much trouble?” Gabriel asked.

  “Not much. I should be through here in a few minutes.”

  “That’s not to say that my sweet May and I obtain sexual fulfillment from the same sorts of things. Not at all. Nor would I want us to—similar sexual proclivities are not something you should seek in a sexual partner,” Magoth continued to enlighten the by-now-wild-eyed policeman. “How are you going to truly enjoy tying down your partner to a Catherine wheel and tormenting her if you know she secretly enjoys it? You may take my word that such a thing takes all the fun out of the experience.”

  “How are things going for you? Have you found what you were looking for?” I asked Gabriel, hoping he wouldn’t hear the desperate note in my voice as I glared at Magoth.

  “Not exactly.”

  The police inspector stared openmouthed at Magoth. “You’re a wack job, you know that?”

  “I am a connoisseur of sex,” Magoth said simply with a nonchalant little shrug. “It is more or less the same thing.”

  I smiled another tooth-laden smile at the policeman, and swiveled slightly in my chair as he gave Magoth one last long look before entering some information into his computer. “How do you mean? You didn’t find him?”

  “Is Kostya there, too?”

  I frowned at the question. Although Gabriel sometimes exhibited the dragon trait of answering a question with a question, he was normally forthcoming with information when I asked. “Not with us, if that’s what you mean, but yes, he’s back from Latvia. He . . . er . . . had a little accident with his house, too.”

  To my surprise Gabriel wasn’t the slightest bit interested in that. “Stay away from him, little bird.”

  “That’s going to be a bit on the difficult side, since he’s staying in the same house as us,” I said cautiously.

  “Kostya is at Drake’s house?” Gabriel’s voice was sharp with irritation. “Why is he there?”

  I covered my cell phone’s mouthpiece for a moment, speaking to the detective. “I’m sorry. My ma—um—partner is having a little family issue. I really need to take this call. I won’t be long.”

  “No doubt they wish to indulge in phone sex,” Magoth said, picking up a file from the inspector’s desk and flipping through it. “They are always having sex.”

  The inspector snatched the file away from Magoth, saying, as I got to my feet, “We will need a statement from Mr. Tauhou, as well.”

  I nodded and wound my way through a dozen or so other desks to the hallway.

  “My love to the beast master,” Magoth called after me.

  I growled to myself as I hurried out of the office and down a hallway to a distant stairwell. Luckily, it was empty. “Sorry, Gabriel. I was in too public a place to talk. What in the name of midnight is going on? What do you mean, you didn’t exactly find Fiat? And why should we stay away from Kostya? Does this have something to do with his trip to Paris?”

  Gabriel’s voice, when he finally spoke, was guarded and tense. “Did he tell you he went to Paris?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t answer me when I asked him that, but Jim said he’d been there. What’s happened?”

  “We missed Fiat by what must have been minutes, but a calling card was left for us.”

  Fear poked irrationally at my
gut. The silver dragons had no bone to pick with Fiat, and yet I had a premonition that boded ill. I cleared my throat a couple of times before I could ask, “What sort of calling card?”

  Silence answered me for the count of eight. “There are sixty-eight dead blue dragons in France.”

  “Agathos daimon,” I whispered, horror creeping up my flesh. “He killed his own sept members?”

  “No. The dragons killed were those who followed Bastian, not Fiat.”

  “He’s insane,” I said, my mind not able to get past the idea of such a horrible slaughter.

  “There is no one who will disagree with that.” His voice sounded weary, and my heart went out to him. Gabriel was a wyvern, strong and arrogant, but he was also a healer, and I knew he took that role very seriously. Facing such a wholesale slaughter of innocent people would wound him grievously on a deeply personal level. “It will take me another day before I can return home to you, but until that time, I must know that you are safe.”

  “I don’t understand what Fiat going on a murderous rampage has to do with Kostya. How are the two connected?”

  Again, silence answered my question for a few moments. “Fiat could not have acted alone. There are too many deaths for the small band of ouroboros dragons who follow him,” he said slowly, and I could feel the regret that surrounded him. “I suspect he left the actual killing to his accomplice.”

  “Who is that? You don’t mean Kostya, do you? That doesn’t make sense, Gabriel. He’s keeping his nose clean right now because of the sárkány.”

  “There will be no sárkány today. Chuan Ren and I must see to things here before we can return to England for the meeting.”

  “I understand that, but you haven’t explained why you think Kostya is involved. Gabriel . . .” I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to say what I wanted. “There have been grave problems between you and him, but even so, I don’t see him eliminating half of Bastian’s sept for Fiat. He might be a little out of line where it concerns the silver dragons, but he’s not outright insane. He would know that if he supported Fiat, the weyr would not recognize his sept, or his right to lead it, and he wants that above all else. He wouldn’t endanger that.”