Reluctant to leave the warmth, Allie rolled away from Roland's side and peered at the clock. Seven twenty. The good news was, her body no longer thought it was two hours earlier. The bad news; she could tell she wasn't going to get back to sleep, and it was significantly earlier than she needed to get up.
She had two options. Get up. Or don't. Well, technically three, but she really didn't much feel like waking Roland up. If it had been Graham...
The floor was freezing. In cold weather she'd charm it warm before she got out of bed, but it hadn't seemed worth it in May. She really had to start remembering she was in Alberta.
A night-sight charm on one eyelid allowed her to dress quickly and find her phone. Holding her shoes, she pulled open the bedroom door and slipped out into the living room.
Michael had sprawled out over one sofa bed on his stomach, facing the bedroom with one arm tucked up under his head and the other dangling off the edge, his knuckles resting on the floor. He had the blankets pulled high around his shoulders, leaving both feet uncovered and only actually on the mattress because he was stretched diagonally across it. Leaning over, she gently kissed the top of his head without waking him and smiled when he did.
Joe hadn't bothered opening the other sofa bed and lay cocooned in blankets on the couch-although Allie had to strain to see him. Her charm seemed to have no effect on his ability to disappear. Her first inclination was to do something about that, arrange it so she could see him, at least, but as it seemed to be the only ability of his blood he'd kept, she decided to leave things as they were. For the immediate future anyway.
Neither Charlie nor David had come home.
Charlie did that sometimes. Better to believe she'd done it again than believe she'd been eaten by Dragon Lords. Still...
On her way to the door she sent a quick Where r u?
Out on the landing, as she bent to put her shoes on, her pocket vibrated.
Home soon!
Allie sighed and thought about calling. Wherever she was, Charlie was awake and in no danger. Or at the very least, still in possession of one thumb. And would have called her rather than texting back had she anything to say that she was willing to say over the phone.
Okay, then. Time to worry about David.
David didn't wander off.
Not ever.
She wasn't particularly worried about him being eaten by Dragon Lords-given the amount of power he'd needed to ground, the odds were better he'd have been doing the eating. She wasn't at all worried that whoever he'd found to ground off with had been more than he could handle-in any of the many ways that phrase applied. She wasn't worried about anything in particular except that he wasn't home and that was worrying. Just because.
The sun had been up for almost two hours, but the sky was so overcast that very little light made it into the back hall. If it hadn't been for the light reflected off the mirror...
Allie frowned at her reflection. She was holding the baby again, a scaly tail emerging from the swaddling to lash against her leg. As far as she could remember, this was the first time the mirror had repeated an image. Well, except for showing Michael naked every single time he passed but, in all honesty, given the chance who wouldn't?
"Are you warning me against the youngest Dragon Lord?" Allie asked quietly, rubbing the frame with her thumb. "Is Ryan going to try something?"
Her reflection suddenly sported a dunce cap.
"Well, excuse me for not getting it," she sighed. "I need a coffee. We'll try again later."
She glanced out the window as she passed. The courtyard was empty, the tiny shrubbery slightly disheveled. Given that at some point yesterday afternoon Michael had moved the old staircase to the loft out into the courtyard and leaned it against the wall, that was hardly surprising. Slightly more surprising that the shrubbery was intact at all given the size of Michael's boots.
The store was strangely quiet.
Given their sales, it was quiet a fair bit of the time, but this was different. This was the kind of quiet that suggested she'd just missed something. Quiet after the fact.
The glow-in-the-dark yoyos were glowing slightly.
Allie blew a charm into the air in front of her, just to make sure she was alone in the store. She was.
The cashbox was in place behind the counter.
The cash was in it.
She'd moved the monkey's paw yesterday, and none of the other artifacts were likely to be recognized by someone without power. Half of them she couldn't recognize until she actually came in contact with them.
Empty store. Unburgled.
The reaction of a box of phosphorescent children's toys was not enough to stop her from going next door and getting a coffee.
There was an unexpected line at the counter, which actually shouldn't have been unexpected Allie realized, given the trucks parked out front. Not that waiting was going to be a problem since David sat at one of the tiny tables, talking on the phone, two red mugs and an empty plate in front of him. She could just barely make out the reflection of horn in the window. Considering he'd probably been up all night, he looked good. Rakishly stub-bled and very well grounded. Of course, given that last burst of power he'd handled, he could likely stay up for three or four nights with no ill effects.
Allie slid into the other chair and picked up the second mug.
"Yes, that's possible."
Black. When she mouthed a silent mine at her brother, he nodded.
"I'll deal with that if it happens."
The coffee couldn't have been sitting there for long; it was still at the perfect almost too hot too swallow but cool enough to enjoy temperature.
"Good-bye, Auntie Jane." David closed his phone and sighed. "They can't call you, so they're calling me."
"About?"
"Last night.You know they felt the working."
She knew but not on a conscious level. In all honesty, she hadn't given the aunties a thought. "Are they mad?"
"You've shut them out, Allie. What do you think?"
"They're mad."
"They're curious."
Curious aunties often ended up wondering why the object of their curiosity had stopped moving. Curious was often worse than mad.
"What did you tell them?" Because it was always them; that was the whole point of the aunties.
"I told them there was a bar fight. And that we won."
"But you didn't mention..." She flapped her hands.
David's brows went up, and he was clearly considering a facetious comment about the motion, but after a moment he decided to play along. "I didn't.You were right.You're moving into second circle... and I'm not. This is your play, Allie. I'll back it as long as I can."
"And when you can't?"
"Then I hope you'll take my advice." He took a long swallow of his own coffee. "Not that you have in the past."
"Hey! I got a job with that art history degree!"
"Don't have it now."
"If I was still at the ROM, I couldn't have come out here. All for the best, it's the Gale way. Now, what happened to you last night? No, wait," she added before he could answer. "Were you just in the store?"
"No. Why?"
She shrugged. "Just a feeling. And something set the yoyos off."
"The yoyos?"
"They're sensitive. Who knew." When he started to rise, she leaned forward and gripped his arm, pulling him back down. "Who or whatever it was is gone now. I checked. Back to what happened to you."
"Not really any of your business, little sister."
Allie gave him a level look over the edge of her mug. She was aiming for their mother-lite and figured she hit it when he paled slightly.
"Don't do that."
"Don't do what?"
"You know what." When she raised her brows the tiniest bit, he sighed. "I took care of it. But if you're going to make a habit of antagonizing Dragon Lords, we need more family out here."
"If they thought it would get them anywhere, the aunties would send your entire list out here in a heartbeat, hot on breeding your abilities back in before they lose them. Except they're not going to lose them." Allie reached out and wrapped a hand around his wrist. "You're not going anywhere."
He half smiled. "You won't allow it?"
Allie didn't smile back. "No. I won't."
His pulse beat hard and fast under the soft pressure of her thumb and his pupils had dilated. "You looked like Gran for a moment."
"Good." Touching him had been a necessary risk. She let him go before things escalated. "Because they're a little afraid of her."
David turned his hand over and studied the new charm. "Allie..."
"I mean it. They'll have to go through me."
"They're not," he began. Then he sighed again. "All right. Thank you. Now, breakfast? I'm starved."
When Allie took the empty cups back to the counter, Kenny looked past her at David, waiting by the door, and said, "Your brother." Then he returned his attention back to the customer he'd been serving. She waited until he finished, but it seemed he'd said all he had to say.
As they stepped into the store, as the front door closed and locked, Allie heard the back door open. The muscular arm holding her in place against the glass suggested David had heard it, too. When she glanced up at his face, he mouthed: Stay.
So the second circle/third circle thing hadn't killed the older brother dynamic.
Allie shrugged and indicated he should get to it.
For a big man, David could move quickly and quietly when he wanted to-although since he was starting to show horn, the quietly probably had a bit of an assist.
"Glad to see you, too." Charlie's voice sounded a little muffled. "Now put me the fuck down!"
Allie crossed the store almost as fast and considerably less quietly than her brother had, to find David carefully setting Charlie back onto her feet. She heard a noise, suspected she'd made it, and flung her arms around her cousin hard enough to throw them both back against the inside of the back door.
"I was worried."
"Got that," Charlie gasped. "And, ow."
"Ow?" Allie pulled back. Charlie had shadows under her eyes, a shallow scratch on one cheek, and a scorch mark across the front of her borrowed lime-green corduroy jacket. She smelled of sulfur and the Wood.
"Just a couple of bruises. I had an interesting night."
Sulfur and the Wood and meat lover's pizza? "So spill."
"Upstairs." She bent and picked up her guitar case, left arm pressed against her side, sucking air through her teeth. Before she finished straightening, Allie'd taken it from her. Charlie shot her a grateful smile and added, "I only want to tell this story once so... Holy crap, David. Do you have Batman tucked in those tights with you or are you that happy to see me?"
Allie turned to see that the mirror had dressed David's reflection in a Superman suit.
"Man of power," she explained and gave serious thought to taking a picture. Threatening to spread the image among the younger members of the family would give her blackmail material for years. Charlie's reflection had acquired dragon wings, and Allie was holding the lizard baby again. "It keeps showing me that," she murmured, as they started up the stairs. "I wonder what it means."
"Babies... second circle." Charlie snorted. "Seems obvious to me."
"Allie, you didn't..."
She rolled her eyes and shoved David to get him moving again. "Don't worry. I like Roland and all, but we didn't make a baby. Give me credit for a little control." If it had been Graham, her answer might have been different. It seemed she'd had very little control around him right from the beginning.
The thought must've shown on her face because Charlie reached out, wrapped her right arm around Allie's shoulders, and hugged her close.
"We talked about families," she said softly, too softly for David to hear. "Back when we had that first coffee together. The whole cousins piling out of the woodwork thing came up. He'd lost a big family, six brothers and two sisters plus his parents in a fire, but he had... has lots of cousins, too. I told him I just had the one brother. No sisters."
She glanced up at David, already on the landing.
"Aunties would have been happier if he was your sister," Charlie said.
"The aunties would have been happier if he was three or four of my sisters and a brother," Allie told her. "Is it weird that we talked about kids the second time we ever met?"
"Don't sweat it, sweetie, it was likely the connection manifesting early."
"Right," Allie snorted. "Some connection."
"He just chose to leave, Allie. He didn't choose to never come back."
"That's not the way it works."
Charlie shrugged as she moved past her, through the door David was holding open, and into the apartment. "Maybe it should. Work that rebel thing you've got going here. Rise and shine, gentlemen!" She'd slid into her bar voice. The windows rattled. Men woke up in Edmonton. "I have tales of daring to share!"
Charlie swallowed her last bite of scrambled eggs with fried mushrooms and garlic and sighed happily as she put down her fork. "That's better. Seems like that pizza was a long time ago."
"Tales of daring," Michael prodded, around a mouthful of toast.
She looked around at her cousins and Michael and Joe and figured she'd kept them waiting as long as she could. Which, to be honest, had been about half an hour longer than she thought she'd be able to, but ritual-and the grounding after it-worked up an appetite, and breakfast had proved to be too tempting to resist. "All right." Pushing her chair out from the table, she picked up her mug and got comfortable. "I left the bar around ten thirty..."
As she stepped out the back door, Charlie glanced up at the sky. Although she honestly believed the Dragon Lords had run far and fast after they'd had their scaly asses handed to them on a platter, there were another nine, so a little caution couldn't hurt. The rain had passed and the sky was clear, the stars as bright as they ever got over the city's lights. No triangular shape blotted out bits of the heavens and the only sound she could hear was a distant horn and what sounded like "I Don't Care" by Fall Out Boy seeping out of one of the cheap apartments bordering the far side of the parking lot. She was vaguely appalled that she recognized it.
The bartender's station wagon was all that remained to keep the Beetle company. The rest of the band had left with their friends and family pretty much the moment they'd finished the set. Two of them had babysitters to pay off.
She didn't see him until she was almost at the car and he straightened from where he'd been leaning against the hood. When he tossed his head, throwing long bangs back off his face, his eyes were a brilliant and familiar green.
Instead of his brothers' faintly ridiculous "I'm a badass" uniform, he wore baggy jeans with a T-shirt and a gray hoodie under a brown wind-breaker. He didn't look much older than Dmitri, and that helped dim the want down to a manageable level.
As he'd obviously seen her, retreat seemed an unlikely option.
Charlie adjusted the grip on her gig bag and wished she had the guitar out in her hands. "What can I do for you, Ryan?"
He shrugged, hands shoved into his pockets. "You walk in the Wood. I could smell it on you the other night."
"Yeah, and?"
"There's something... around." A glance to either side, brilliant eyes searching the shadows. "Watching and stuff. I see it..." He waved a hand beside his head. "Here. Out of the corner of my eye. It's gone if I look at it straight. I have been hunting it because I do not trust anything that watches from the edges, but I think it hides in the Wood when I get close."
When Charlie spread her hands in the universal gesture for Yeah? So?, he rolled his eyes.
"You walk in the Wood.You can take me. I can hunt it down."
And bring it back and get my brothers to take me seriously, Charlie added silently. Aloud, she said, "How long has this thing been hanging around?"
"Almost two months... No." Ryan snorted out two streams of smoke and tossed his hair back again. "Not month, week. Thirteen days. I get days. Sun comes up, sun goes down. Weak means not strong. It's a stupid word for time."
"It's week with two ees."
"So?"
"Never mind." Brushing past him, close enough to feel the heated air, she opened the door and slid her gig bag into the backseat. It had been about two weeks ago that the shadow had first shown up in the Wood, nearly pushing her off the path when she'd gone to pick up Roland in Cincinnati and later, when she'd tried to get to Allie, flinging her out of the Wood completely. Odds were good her shadow and Ryan's watcher were one and the same. Straightening, she shoved the seat back and said, "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll take you into the Wood to hunt this thing."
"Oh."
"Disappointed?"
"I thought you would need to be threatened," he admitted.
"Hey, you're plenty scary just standing there." When he snorted out more smoke, she grinned. "Yeah, I didn't believe that either. Get in the car and let's go."
"Where?"
"Nose Hill. There's a lot of wild out there, and with something your size in tow, I may need to get a run at it."
"I am not that much larger than you."
"In this shape. But we'll be taking the other shape with us, right? That's plenty big," she said when he nodded.
He looked pleased as he got into the car, and Charlie grinned. Apparently size mattered even to Dragon Lords.
Traffic was light at ten forty on a Wednesday, so they made good time. Ryan tried to look like he was holding the handle on the dash because it was clearly there in front of him to be held, but his grip compacted ridges into the plastic.
"There is much of your family's magic on this vehicle," he said with forced nonchalance. "Does it make the vehicle safer for the speed it goes?"
"Not really." She turned onto 14th Street from Memorial Drive. "Most of the charms make it go faster."
"Oh."
Laughing now, not a good idea. "First time in a car?"
"Yes. I have never been to the MidRealm before. It is hard for us to do and all the time there are fewer places of power to ease the way."
"And that's why Adam commandeered a Fey gate?" Dragon Lord or not, UnderRealm or not, Adam was going to catch high holy hell from the Courts when he got home if he'd been responsible for the breach in security.
"I do not know commandeered, but when he saw what the youngest was doing, he tricked the guard, made him think the gate was closed so that he would leave." The young Dragon Lord wasn't exactly babbling, but nerves had definitely loosened his tongue and he seemed to find talking preferable to thinking about his current mode of transport. Charlie was all over that. "We were not all supposed to come, only those who agreed with Adam, but once the others knew the gate was open, there was no one to stop them. Now we are all here, and there is nothing to do but wait and avoid each other until the time for waiting is over and we know for sure who will stand with us."
"I thought you were the youngest."
"I am."
"You said Adam saw what the youngest was doing."
"No. I did not."
Charlie could smell the acrid and unforgettable scent of burning plastic. Confirmation wasn't necessary; she knew what she'd heard. "So, twelve of you, eh? That's a big family."
"Thirteen. We have a sister as well. And thirteen is not large. There were many, many more in the clutch, but..." Charlie caught his shrug in the corner of her eye, the move quintessentially teenage boy. "Mother sat for a long time. She got hungry."
"Your mother ate some of your brothers and sisters?"
"No, my mother ate some of her eggs. They are not brothers and sisters until they hatch. And she only ate two hatchlings. It is hard for us to ignore meat when it is helpless. Our sister..." He snorted. "... she had to be so careful and she was so angry. That was scary. We all were very careful to stay clear after she finished Mother, although Mother was large enough it took time."
"Finished...?"
"Eating."
"Right. And your father? No wait, let me guess. Your mother ate him before she started laying the clutch."
"Yes.You are clever because Adam says your mothers do not do that."
"So your sister ate your mother before she started laying? Why didn't she eat the father?"
Ryan shrugged again. "He wasn't around."
Smart guy, Charlie acknowledged.
"And there wasn't much meat on him," Ryan continued. "Here, cows are good and buffalo is better. Adam won't allow us to eat people."
"But not everyone agrees with Adam."
"He would make them agree with this. He knows the MidRealm best."
"He's probably right anyway." Charlie turned into the park at the first entrance past John Laurie Boulevard. "We taste like pork. Eat a pig, have the same experience, no one screams at you."
"Thank you. That is good to know."
When she turned off the engine, he released the handle, took a deep breath, and nearly filled the car with smoke when he exhaled. "I do not think any of the others have done that!"
"Good for you," Charlie coughed, all but flinging herself out into the parking lot. Ryan followed more slowly, trying to look like mild asphyxiation had been his intent all along.
"Ryan..." Wiping her nose on her cuff, she tried again. "Ryan, does Adam know you're with me?"
"He does not keep me. And besides, he proved you were safe when he went to you this morning."
"Technically, he went to Allie, but yeah, okay, fair point." Her gig bag smelled a bit like sulfur, but the guitar inside it was fine. She settled the strap over her shoulder and closed the car door, indicating Ryan should do the same. "There's a path over there leading into the park. Let's get this show on the road."
It wasn't easy getting Ryan into the Wood. Charlie could usually slip in past a couple of bushes, but carrying the weight of a full grown Dragon Lord... although weight wasn't exactly right. More like essence. Presence? Charlie was pretty damned sure she felt claws on her shoulder and heard wings at one point during the walk, but she kept playing and kept walking. She'd be damned if the Wood was going to keep her out.
Eventually, she learned enough of Ryan's song that they got in.
"That," she panted, dropping down onto a log beside the path, "was not fun."
I didn't think it would be so hard. Ryan had slipped back into his true form. Charlie could still hear him although his lips didn't move. Well, his mouth didn't move. Dragons didn't actually have lips. You can rest here while I hunt.
"It's easy to get lost in here, I'd better go with you."
No, you would only slow me. I cannot get lost as long as I have your scent.
"You saying I smell?"
The enormous eyes blinked once.
"Never mind." She waved a hand. "Have fun, I'll be here when you need to go home."
She could feel the shadow's presence to the left, down where the trees began to grow farther apart, their heavy crowns blocking the light. Apparently, so did Ryan because he rose into the air-much more easily than he had out in the world-and sped off toward it. Either his size was flexible here or he could adjust the landscape more precisely than she could or those trees were farther apart than she'd thought because he slipped between them with sinuous grace and disappeared.
Time passed because Charlie played her heartbeat on her base strings. Without that to ground her, she would have had no grasp of when to emerge. Time moved differently in the Wood, if and when it moved at all and, for all the time she'd spent traveling, she'd never sat still and allowed the Wood to move around her before. Usually they danced as partners. She found it interesting that no matter how much the surrounding landscape changed, the log she sat on and the gap Ryan had used to get in among the older trees stayed the same.
One heck of a lot of heartbeats later, she caught a glimpse of the shadow. It came to the edge of the trees, skidded along a gully, flowed over a dry riverbed, its movement almost familiar. It wasn't moving in the Wood, it was moving through the Wood, becoming the fixed point.
"Ryan! It's trying..."
It slammed into her, knocking her over. She twisted to protect her guitar and landed hard on a rock.
And it was gone.
"Trying to get out," she finished as Ryan dropped out of the sky and landed beside her, burning and changing as his feet touched down.
"I almost had it," he panted. "It is old and canny, but I have its scent now and I will find it and I will rend it!"
"Well, come on, then," she told him, rising carefully to her feet. "If we hurry, maybe we can catch it on the other side."
"You can follow it through?"
"I'm just that good. And it went through about two meters that way." The end of a song she nearly recognized still rang in her ears. They could slip out on the same notes.
Except they came out where they came in, deep in the park.
"It is the site of power, on the top of the hill," Ryan sighed. "It is too strong and it has pulled us here and I have no scent of the shadow."
Charlie's stomach growled.
"Your body is angry?"
"Hungry."
"Mine, too."
"Well, the shadow's out of the Wood and I know the song now to get you in, so I say we call the night a win. How about we go get ourselves the best pizza ever?"
"I don't..."
"I do. Come on, kid."
"So, we went to Chicago..."
"Wait." David held up a hand. "You took a Dragon Lord for pizza in Chicago."
"Yeah, there's this place I know, best pizza in the world. Ryan ate six, so he seemed to agree."
"What did you talk about?"
"He ate six pizzas," Charlie reminded them. "With essentially a human mouth. We didn't have time to talk about much."
"Who paid?" Roland wondered.
"Ryan."
"With money?"
"Adam made sure he had walking around money for when he was in skin, not scales. And speaking of Adam, he was waiting when we got back to the car. Which was an easy trip because of the draw of the hill." Charlie yawned and ran both hands back through her hair. "You know, Allie, if I'd aimed for the hill instead of for you, I don't think the shadow could have pushed me out. I could have skipped the whole ass in a plane thing."
"Builds character," Allie pointed out.
"Got lots, thanks."
"Was he mad?" Joe wondered. "Adam?"
"Not at me. Wasn't thrilled Ryan had gone off-line for a while, though." Faced with a circle of blank expressions, she explained. "They have this whole telepathy thing going. Kind of Emma Frost with scales. Anyway, while Ryan was in the Wood, Adam couldn't hear him and then we left for Chicago before he arrived. He didn't have the fast pass, so he waited by the car. The scorch on the jacket-bit of Adam showing temper. They flame a bit when they yell. Sorry, Allie, I'll replace it. And this..." Reaching into her pocket she pulled out an emerald green scale about as big around as a loonie and slightly concave. "... this was on the ground when they took off. But it's all good," she added as David took the scale. "After he finished pulling the older brother shit, Adam seemed happy Ryan had found something to do now Allie won't let them burn down buildings."
"I just asked them not to," Allie protested, putting a fresh pot of coffee down on the table. "It's not like I said they weren't allowed."
"He could probably smell you were crossing and didn't want to mess with you." Charlie slid her mug over closer to the pot and looked sad. Allie sighed, poured, and slid it back. "I got the impression that motherhood is kind of fucking scary in their family."
"Kind of?" Michael snorted. "They eat their young."
"Only in the egg. Mostly only. Anyway, once Adam and Ryan left, I fell asleep in the car until Allie woke me. Then I came home." She spread her hands. "Ta-dah."
David passed the scale to Roland and scratched at his jaw, the soft shook, shook of his fingernails against the stubble the only sound for a moment. "The youngest is coming through," he said at last. "Some of the Dragon Lords are here to stop it. Some are here to assist it. They don't know how the numbers break down, but hopefully it'll be six of one/half a dozen of the other so they can fight themselves to a standstill."
"The youngest is another Dragon Lord, their nephew," Allie continued. "But their sister had to be careful while she was sitting, so maybe she only had one in the clutch and that distilled his Dragon Lordness, making him like you."
"Super Dragon Lord! I'm not saying David's a super Dragon Lord," Michael amended hurriedly, "just that this new guy probably is. If there was only one."
"I suspect Adam and those supporting his position want to stop the super Dragon Lord..."
Michael grinned.
"... to protect their own interests and that he'll be at his most vulnerable when he first emerges," Roland said thoughtfully. "The super Dragon Lord is dangerous enough to him, to them, that it was worth the risk of antagonizing the Courts to arrive at a place where he could be destroyed."
"Or she." They all turned to look at Joe, who blushed. "Ryan seemed scared of the females, is all."
"Smart of him," Michael muttered.
Allie smacked the back of his head. "Don't you have deliveries to supervise?"
"I do." He stood and stretched, T-shirt riding up to show a line of tanned muscle above the waistband of his jeans. "David, if you've got a minute, I could use your help finishing off those stairs before the furniture comes."
"I could..." Roland began, but David cut him off.
"Rol, last time you held a hammer, you nailed my boot to your mother's back porch. I've got it."
"You nailed his boot to the porch?"
Setting the scale down, Roland pushed his chair back. "I missed his foot," he muttered, heading for the bathroom and answering his phone as he moved. "Hi, baby girl! Does Mommy know you're calling?"
"I should go open the store," Joe murmured. He went to push his sleeves up his arms, realized he was in a sweater that actually fit, and all but ran for the apartment door when he saw that at some point Charlie had sketched a charm on his forearm.
When only Allie and Charlie remained at the table, Allie raised a speculative eyebrow at her cousin. "Well?"
Charlie didn't even pretend to misunderstand. "I thought about it, more than I did while lusting over Adam actually-Ryan's young enough to be a little more equal opportunity-but the package was so pretty I figured I'd be too distracted to protect myself against the inevitable third-degree burns."
"Safe sex is important."
"There's hot and then there's too hot to handle."
"No hazmat suit, no love."
"You're reaching."
"I know." Allie leaned over and kissed her gently. "Go have a shower, and I'll be in to charm those bruises for you before I head downstairs."
"Sounds good." Charlie paused just outside the bathroom door. "You should call Graham. Share information if nothing else."
"Nothing else."
"Allie..."
"He chose, Charlie."
She stared across the room for a long moment then shook her head. "If you say so."
"Hey! Knock first!" Roland yelled as Charlie pushed the bathroom door open.
"Dude, like I haven't seen it before."
Allie pulled out her phone. Opened it. Closed it again.
Graham might not know exactly what was coming through, but Kalynchuk certainly did. She didn't know what he'd done while in the UnderRealm to piss off the youngest of the Dragon Lords although, since the youngest in any family spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove themselves, it was possible he hadn't done much.
Either way, speculation wouldn't help Graham.
Before the imminent arrival of the Dragon Lords had driven him into hiding, Stanley Kalynchuk had lived in Upper Mount Royal. Big house, extensive grounds, a few too many rich American neighbors for Graham's liking, but he kept his opinion of that to himself. Many of the odds and ends scattered through the house were objects of power, artifacts displayed like they were nothing more than a rich man's knickknacks, and half of the enormous basement had been turned into a workshop.
Spinning the white shell around on the desk with the point of the letter opener, Graham waited to be called into the inner chamber that had become living space and workroom in one. Cramped, but he suspected Kalynchuk missed the ostentatious displays of power more than the square footage. He'd loved to show off his collection of weird.
"And this," Kalynchuk paused in front of a corner cabinet and indicated a brass hourglass about ten centimeters tall."This contains the sand of time."
"Because it's an hourglass."
"No, the actual sand of time. Turn the glass and while the sand runs out, time stops for everyone but the one whose hand is on the glass."
There wasn't that much sand."How long does it take."
"Two and a half seconds."
Graham'd had a little trouble seeing the point, but he'd made a polite noise and the tour had continued.
"This is a cross-section of the thighbone of the last True Hero."
That had been just a bit creepy. When Kalynchuk had moved to the more defensible position in what had been his office closet, both hourglass and thighbone had been locked into the vault by the workroom with about half of the visible artifacts. The rest, and the basics from the workshop, had been brought here.
Graham flicked the shell around again and wondered how much longer he'd be kept waiting. He'd had his ritual bath and now he could really use a ritual cup of coffee as well as a few ritual hours on his computer clearing up some ritual bills for the newspaper. The Western Star went to the boxes on Wednesdays, so Thursdays were light, but he still had work to do.
For his other job.
Maybe he'd start writing up that piece on the Emporium. He'd gone over a few of the items for sale with Catherine Gale, but he could certainly use Alysha Gale's take on them-they'd done nothing in the store itself.
His mind wandered off to the sorts of things they could have been doing in the store had they still been doing things.
"Thinking of that Gale girl?"
Startled, Graham jerked back and knocked the shell off the desk. Paper clips went flying. The shell bounced twice and came to rest, spinning slowly by his boss' left foot.
"Sorry, I'll just..."
"Get your head in the game," Kalynchuk snarled, the shell suddenly back on the desk, the paper clips back in the shell. "If these are the lingering effects, you're better off without her." He stepped back, indicating Graham should enter. "Are you able to remember the rules, or should I go over them again?"
"Don't touch anything, do exactly as I'm told; it's not rocket science, Boss."
"In your current state it could be," he muttered as Graham brushed past. "Stand there, on the right side of the table, facing the table."
The table was about a meter and a half long and no more than half a meter wide. On it was a cast iron pot with a pouring lip suspended on an iron cradle over a scorch mark on the table. In the pot, a small ingot of lead as well as shavings of a number of different metals not usually used for alloying. Next to it, a single cavity bullet mold.
"They call this Dragon's Fuel," Kalynchuk said as he set a sugar-cube-sized piece of what looked like black honeycomb down under the pot. "Ironic, isn't it. This is almost the last of the supply I brought back from the UnderRealm. When we've dealt with the threat, I may finally be able to go back and get more."
The knife he chose was the smallest on the rack, about six centimeters long and made of silver. Graham had always thought that for a man who kept a hired gun, his boss was just a little too enthusiastic about sharp objects.
"Hold your hand out over the pot. The blood must join the mixture at the moment the metals liquefy."
"And you need my blood because?" He'd given blood in these kind of rituals before, but he drew the line at bleeding without knowing why.
"To aid your aim."
"I don't miss."
"This time, you can't miss."
"And your blood is in there for?"
Kalynchuk paused, sleeves pushed up, old burn scars on his forearms looking shiny under the overhead fluorescent lights. Graham thought he might not answer; he didn't always, but in the end, something one of Graham's journalism profs had told him usually held true-people liked to share how clever they were.
"My blood combined with the power I'll bind to this bullet is what gives us a chance to kill the creature.You will be the system of delivery, but I will strike the final blow. From here on in, don't interrupt."
A short chant in words that sounded painful to pronounce ignited the fuel. It burned white hot, too bright to look at directly. Hand held out over the pot, Graham could feel the heat pulling the skin on the inside of his arm tight and he wondered if his boss' scars had come from learning to control the freaky stuff. But that he knew better than to ask.
The knife was sharp enough; he barely felt the point go in and watched in fascination as two drops of blood fell toward the metal. He'd had reason to cast silver bullets in the past, and he knew that liquid and molten metal was a bad combination.
"Step back!" Kalynchuk barked as the blood made contact.
Graham jumped back as a column of black smoke rose up and spread along the ceiling. After the first time he'd emptied the building, Kalynchuk had ordered Graham to strip the offices of all fire alarms. Graham hadn't been happy about it, not with the way his boss preferred to work, but he did as he was told.
Watching the smoke, he thought he could hear screaming. His mother's voice calling his name. His father calling for her. One of his uncles had told him the house had burned so hot and so fast that everyone had to have died instantly. That they hadn't suffered. The rubble had smoked for three days before the rains put the last of it out. They all said it was a miracle the whole town hadn't gone up. He rubbed at his forehead, trying to rub the memories away.
He never thought about the fire.
"No point in dwelling on the past." Kalynchuk's voice in his head merged with Kalynchuk's voice chanting what he assumed were words of power regardless of how made up and vaguely ridiculous they sounded.
When the smoke and the chanting died down, the sorcerer picked up a ladle.
"You need to flux the metal," Graham pointed out. Generally, he wouldn't have said anything, but generally Kalynchuk wasn't working within his area of expertise.
"The blood has purified it."
Not in the real world, but from what he'd seen, sorcery was at least one step left of reality anyway, so Graham let it go.
Kalynchuk brought the mold horizontally to the nozzle on the ladle, then rotated it to vertical, lifted it far enough to allow a small puddle to form on the sprue plate, then set the ladle back into the...
Empty pot.
So he'd literally only get one shot.
A carved wooden dowel to break off the excess metal, then the bullet fell out of the open mold onto a Holstein-patterned potholder. It looked like any other hand cast bullet Graham had ever seen.
"I'd like to see your Alysha Gale cook this," Kalynchuk sneered.
Last night Allie and her family had taken down three Dragon Lords, in a bar, with no chanting or fire or bloodshed. Well, none of their blood anyway. Graham just realized he hadn't told his boss about that.
Wasn't going to.
Wasn't sure why.
What would he say to her given the chance?
I've got your back.
"So, Graham Buchannan."
Charlie looked up from feeding a new A string through the tuning peg. "What about him?"
"Do I need to have a few words with him?" David spun a chair around and settled across the table, arms folded across the chair's high back, disconcertingly dark gaze locked on her face. "Or have you got it covered?"
"Don't know what you're talking about."
"He was there last night."
She should have known David had sensed Graham's presence. "I've got it covered."
"Allie didn't notice him."
"Allie had her feelings hurt," Charlie snorted, crimping the string.
"He makes her..."
She glanced over when David's voice trailed off.
He shrugged. "Her crazy plan with the sorcerer, whatever the hell she's up to with the Dragon Lords-since she met him, she hasn't been thinking straight."
"Hand me those wire cutters, would you? Allie used to be happy just being one of the girls," she continued as he slid them across the table into her hand. "She was a cheerleader, she was on the field hockey team, she went to a university close enough she could come home every weekend. She got a job she didn't hate and maybe she'd be chosen and maybe she'd meet someone outside the family, but either way it didn't really matter if she didn't because she had that whole Michael broke her heart thing to fall back on. And me." Charlie plucked the new string, tightened it a little further, and plucked it again. "Since she came to Calgary, Allie's started thinking for herself, she's started doing things. There's a fuck of a lot of Gale girls out there, David, but this, whatever the hell this turns out to be, this is Allie's chance to be something more."
"And when you say this, you mean Graham?"
"No, dumbass, I mean all of it. Graham, the sorcerer, the Dragon Lords, you." Charlie sighed and lifted her guitar off the table and onto her lap, running her fingers lightly over the new strings. "Gale girls get lazy, complacent, but Allie faced down a roomful of aunties when she was thirteen, so there's always been more in her. She just needed a kick in the ass to bring it out."
"And Graham?"
"Ritual needs an auntie present to be binding."
"That's not," David began. Paused. "That's exactly what an auntie would say."
Charlie grinned, picking out the first two bars of "Avalon." "And I'll say it to Allie when I think she'll listen. Like I said, I've got it covered." The sound he made next was speculative enough she rolled her eyes. "What?"
"So you and Graham?"
She didn't bother pretending to misunderstand. "He's Allie's choice. I'm willing to share."
"It looks great, Michael." Allie linked her arm through his and leaned into his shoulder. "Hard to believe that less than a week ago this was a big empty space."
The loft now had a finished kitchen along one end, complete with a breakfast bar and two stools, as well as a bathroom with a corner shower. The larger area was carpeted in a dark brown Berber and held a green-patterned sofa, two matching chairs, a coffee table, and a queen-sized Murphy bed up against the opposite wall.
Michael leaned sideways and kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, well, if I don't make it as an architect, it looks like I have a future in general contracting."
"What do you mean if you don't make it?"
"I've got time to put in with Brian's father before I can get my license and, after I walked away, well, I doubt he'll want me back."
"Do you want to go back?"
"To the job?"
"Michael..."
She felt him shrug. "The job, Brian, they're tangled together."
"You need to talk to him."
"Unmarried marriage counselor talking there, Allie."
And she knew that was as close as he'd come to saying, You screwed up your love life-what makes you think you know best about mine. "Then I need to talk to him."
"I think you've got enough going on here. And speaking of here, who are you planning to move in?"
Behind the smile and the dimples, he looked so miserable that she let the change of subject stand. He was right; she had enough going on in Calgary to keep her from hunting Brian down and demanding an explanation, but later, when it was over, Michael was top on her "to do" list. "I was thinking Joe needed a place, but, for now, I want him in the apartment. I want everyone in the apartment. With the new furniture in the second bedroom, we can sleep ten. Well, nine..." Her finger bounced off the muscles sheathing his torso. "... considering one of them's you."
"Are you saying I hog the bed?"
"I'm saying you're probably distantly related to the Jolly Green Giant. Face it, Michael, you're large."
"And proportional."
"I hate you."
He twisted out of her grip, grabbed her ears, and kissed the top of her head again. "You love me."
She did. She didn't know exactly when loving him had stopped gouging a constant and Promethean hole in her heart, but all that remained was a memory of pain and a comforting presence she knew would always be there loving her, supporting her. She dug her fingers into the ticklish spot high on his side to get him to release her ears, and when she had him on the floor, shrieking in laughter, she drew another charm just below his right ear.
Rolling off him, avoiding his flailing limbs with the ease of long practice, Allie held out her hand. "It's getting late, I should check on Joe.You coming."
His fingers were warm when they wrapped around hers. "What's it say?"
There was no reason to either deny or lie. "It's just something visible to let the Dragon Lords know you're under our protection."
Michael snorted as he stood. "Referring to yourself in the third person now?"
"The family's protection."
"It says mine, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
The front door was swinging closed as they came into the back of the store and, just for a moment, framed in her Gran's clear-sight charm, Allie saw glossy black wings, highlights an iridescent purple under the streetlamps. Then there was a woman, tall and angular, striding away.
"Was that one of the corbae?"
"Yeah." Joe's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "She came for her mail. Allie..." He gestured behind him at the empty cubicles. "... they've all come for their mail."
"So they got used to us. Is that bad?" Some of the boxes had been pretty full. The Fey had a fondness for mail order catalogs.
"It's not good." He wet his lips. "I think it's tonight."
"Mail call?" Michael asked from behind her.
Joe shot him an exasperated look that seemed to steady his nerves. "No, it. It's the best reason I can think of for them to be clearing out. This lot doesn't like to be seen as picking sides."
"Picking sides? That's... Oh." Heart pounding, she stared at Joe, suddenly realizing what he meant. "It's tonight."