"But the dragons are searching for the sorcerer, right? So they might have thought Charlie..."
"It doesn't work that way, Michael. Sorcerers have a power signature for the same reason the store does. The family uses power, we don't hold it."
"I know that."
"Then you know they couldn't have been targeting Charlie." Allie glanced toward the bedroom where Charlie was still asleep and snoring. Snoring musically, but definitely snoring. She'd called in the fire and stayed to give a statement before heading home and giving a significantly less edited statement there.
"Yeah, and I also know that your family doesn't believe in coincidence."
"I never said it was a coincidence that Charlie was there when the store burned, I just said they weren't targeting her. Not the same thing." She opened the fridge door to put the butter away, saw the blueberry pie, and wondered if Auntie Jane thought she was stupid. The thing had more charms than blueberries.
"So if it wasn't coincidence, what was it?"
"Something else, obviously." She closed the door a little harder than was necessary.
"Oh, that's mature, Allie." Michael's voice had picked up an edge. "I thought we didn't keep secrets."
Sighing, she turned to face him. "We don't."
"So tell me what's going on with the dragons."
"They're hunting the sorcerer!"
"Well, they fucking suck at it!" Michael grabbed his tool belt off the arm of the couch and stomped out of the apartment. Gran's charms kept him from slamming the door but only just. The definitive click of the latch rang in the silent apartment.
Allie frowned. Silent?
"Someone sounds less than gay this morning." Charlie, in turn, didn't sound happy about being awake. "And when I say less than gay," she added, squinting in the spill of light as Allie came into the bedroom, "I mean really fucking cranky. Call Brian. Tell him to come and pick up his boy."
"It's not about Brian." Allie sat on the side of the bed and pushed a bit of indigo hair off Charlie's face.
"Allie, sweetie, it's entirely about Brian. One, Michael's been around family all his life. He doesn't need that shit explained. Two, the only time you guys ever fight is if there's a third party involved. And, three, he hasn't been laid in days, so it's no wonder he's cranky. Call Brian."
"I'm not getting involved in this."
"As if."
"Not this time."
"Uh-huh."
"I've got errands to run before I pick up Rol. Go back to sleep." She bent and kissed Charlie's forehead to speed the healing of the scorched skin, then slid off the bed.
The mirror showed her holding a crying baby. Allie half thought she saw a lashing tail poke out of the diaper, but Auntie Vera had called to warn her about Auntie Jane's pie-not the charms, the pastry-and the vitriol distracted her. When she looked again, nothing.
Allie found Joe sitting in the food court in North Hill Center, drinking a coffee and being ignored by a belligerent-looking representative of mall security who clearly did not believe in leprechauns even if they had a Mark's Work Wearhouse bag and a new dark blue Henley.
"Got a minute?" she asked, sliding into the seat across from him and tracing a charm on the table that had the security guard glaring through her as well.
"Could," he said carefully. "Why?"
"Did you know there was a sorcerer in the city?"
His eyes widened. "No way, really? Those guys attract trouble like shit attracts flies. You got a sorcerer, and next thing you know you've got all kinds of nasty stuff pushing through the cracks trying to take them out." Jerking his head back, he stared up at the exposed ductwork and the ugly orange light fixtures. "Is that who they're after, then?"
They were not perched in the ductwork, and Allie only checked to be thorough. "Yes, that's who they're after." She licked dry lips. "It was his guy who threatened you."
Pale skin blanched. "With the Blessed rounds?"
"Unless there've been more threats you haven't told me about."
"No." He rubbed a thumb over the back of his hand, tracing the charm. "This is beyond not good. I mean, if a sorcerer's pissed at me, I need to be getting out of town. Now."
"It wasn't about you, it was about me. About the family. We..." Destroy sorcerers where we find them was more than she wanted to admit to. And not currently accurate anyway. "... don't get along with sorcerers very well, and you'd just spent time with me. In Gran's store. But you're safe now," she added quickly as Joe jerked away from her. "I talked to him and..."
"You talked to him? To the sorcerer?" Joe's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. "About me?"
"No, I talked to his shooter about you, and it won't happen again." Seemed like a smart idea to keep the identity of the shooter to herself since Joe and Graham were definitely going to be interacting. "You're safe, you have my word." She frowned. "Okay, you're safe from the shooter, and I'm well aware he's not the only danger in town."
The new key on the old brass key chain she'd taken from the store had fallen to the bottom of her messenger bag and it took a moment to rummage it free. She'd barely thought of Joe all day Sunday given the whole sorcerer thing, and Charlie was right. Had been right. Was still right. Given everything that was going down, Joe needed a little more commitment from her. She laid the key chain down between them on the table. "There's no reason for you to wait outside in the mornings. Or whenever. I'd feel better if you slept in the apartment, even though I don't know that anyone's actually after you," she added hurriedly seeing his expression, "but that's your choice."
Joe stared down at the key and then up at her, pale skin paler still, although she hadn't believed that possible. "Do you know," he began. Shook his head. Pushed his hair back off his face with fingers that trembled slightly. "Stupid. Of course you know. Put a key in a cradle to keep a baby from being stolen by fairies. Give a key to a changeling, lock him in place. Give him a place. This is more than just a way to open a door. This is... It's... For me..."
Allie put one finger on the key and pushed it toward him, the tie that linked her to her family throbbing in time to her heartbeat. "I know."
"Really?" When he looked up, hope made his eyes as Human as she'd ever seen them.
"Yes. Really." Choosing to live unrooted was one thing; being forced to it was something else again. Allie couldn't make it right that Joe's people had used him as currency to buy the few years of amusement a mortal would provide in the UnderRealm, but she could give him a place and people to stand by him. Or occasionally in front of him. Barely breathing, he swallowed once, Adam's apple rising and falling in the thin column of his throat. Then, finally, he placed his fingertip beside hers and nodded.
"Good." She glanced at her watch and stood. "I've got to get to the airport." A step away from the table. A step back. "Joe..."
He paused, key halfway to his pocket.
"The sorcerer and I have come to a sort of agreement-mostly involving not doing much of anything to each other-but he did give the order to have you threatened, so if you want to... you know, not, because I didn't kick his ass, I'd understand."
Ginger brows drew in so far they almost touched over Joe's nose. "You could have kicked his ass?"
"By myself? No. But I could have called the aunties in."
"You still could?"
"Yes, but..."
"You're playing the long game, then."
Allie thought about that for a moment. "I guess I am."
"Then we're good." Joe closed his fingers around the key. "More than."
"Thank you."
On the way out, Allie took a moment to ask the security guard for directions and sketched a charm on his tie just below the cheap brass tie clip. Moods were easy to adjust, and she saw no reason he should make everyone suffer for his.
Roland's plane got in on time. He pulled back from her welcoming kiss, gently brushed an eyelash off her cheek, and frowned slightly. "You've changed since the last time I saw you."
Allie snorted. "Rol, last time you saw me was during ritual and you weren't exactly at your most analytical. And you're second circle, so it wasn't like you were paying a lot of attention to me. And it's only been a week and a half. And you only just got here."
"All valid arguments, but..."
"Roland!"
They turned together as a tiny, dark-haired woman with a brilliant smile and abundant curves crossed the terminal toward them. She stopped in front of Roland; not so much in front that she was obviously ignoring Allie but enough that it was clear where her attention lay.
"I just wanted to say once again how much fun it was to travel with you and I hope we get a chance to see each other again while you're in Calgary. You have my number?"
"I do."
"Good."
The heat barely masked in her eyes brought Allie forward half a step. Roland started as though he'd actually forgotten she was there.
"Sandra, this is my cousin, Alysha. Allie, Sandra had the seat beside me and we ended up having to share a screen-the plane had the little ones on the seatbacks and hers refused to work."
"Pleased to met you, Sandra." Allie smiled, and the other woman blinked. "Thanks for taking care of him for us."
"My pleasure." But she sounded uncertain.
"Sorry to cut this short, but airport parking... you know?"
"Yes. Of course." Frowning slightly, she held out her hand. "Good-bye, Roland."
Small tanned fingers disappeared inside his. "Good-bye, Sandra."
Allie smiled again then turned to lead the way out to the car.
After a few steps, Roland fell in beside her. "It wasn't like that," he said after a few steps more.
"She wanted it to be."
"I wouldn't have called her."
"Now she won't mind as much."
"As much?"
"Hey, you're still a hunka hunka burning legal love, I couldn't change that."
He laughed as they stepped outside. "Like I said, you've changed. A week ago, you'd have ignored her."
"Maybe." Roland was David's age, so she might have trusted him not to stray. "But I'm the only family you've got out here."
"Charlie left?"
"No, but Charlie's... Charlie."
As the silence extended, Allie couldn't figure out what Roland needed to think about because it was a family truism that Charlie was Charlie and the rest of them would just have to cope.
Finally, he nodded, said, "True," somewhat anticlimactically, then added, "the aunties want me to pump you for information. They think you're hiding something."
"Do they?"
"They're certain of it."
She sighed. "Wait until we get to the car and we can talk."
"I can't believe you're hiding this from the aunties!"
Pedal to the floor, Allie roared onto Deerfoot Trail. "The aunties would only make things worse."
"That's not..." He paused, quiet for a moment, one hand gripping the handle built into the dash, knuckles white. "Probably," he agreed at last. "But that's not your call."
"Oh, yes, it is. They sent me out here to deal with things, and I'm dealing."
"Auntie Catherine left you the store, but you chose to come out here and deal with things, Allie."
"And I'm dealing." When Roland opened his mouth to argue, she turned on the radio. When he sighed and reached to turn it off, she grabbed his wrist. "Wait. It's the local news. I need to hear it."
"... third fire of the night at Web Wizards on Broadway. Although the fire marshal's office has yet to issue an official statement, an unidentified source confirms that arson is suspected."
"Web Wizards," Allie repeated, sliding the Beetle back into the righthand lane when a hole opened between a transport and an elderly Buick.
Roland turned the radio off as the weather report began. "Allie, we need to discuss you hiding a sorcerer from the aunties."
"Not now, Rol. I'm thinking. And I'm not hiding him, I'm merely letting him remain hidden."
"That's a bad defense."
"Seriously." She took her eyes off the road long enough to glare at him. "Thinking."
Charlie looked up from her guitar as the apartment door opened. "Auntie Meredith called while you were gone, Allie. If I'm still being bounced out of the Wood, they want me to grab a plane and head home so that I can take one of them traveling and they can kick shadow butt. I reminded Auntie Meredith that since the shadow was tied to your song, I was right where it didn't want me to be and planned on staying. Besides, it took them too damned long to pony up, and I just signed with a band. She told me to quit. I told her you needed me. She asked for what. I said you'd met a guy. That seemed to shut her up although there may have been cackling. Hey, Roland."
Leaving his suitcase at the end of the sofa, he bent and kissed her. "I see you're still working the punk look."
Tucking a strand of indigo hair back behind her ear, Charlie rolled her eyes. "Punk has been over for a long time. I'm thinking of dying it red, though. Red's hot for country."
"What country?"
"Not country geographically; country musically. Oh, yeah. Allie..." She twisted to watch Allie cross the apartment. "... Joe showed up. He's out back helping Michael."
"And Joe is...?" Roland asked.
"Allie's leprechaun."
"He's not my leprechaun," Allie protested, heading into the bedroom for her computer.
Charlie's snort carried clearly though the open door. "You gave him a key; in what way is he not yours?"
"I didn't say he wasn't mine," she muttered as she grabbed the laptop and flipped it open. "I said he wasn't my leprechaun. I gave him a key, he's on the edge of family now."
"The edge at the foot of the rainbow."
"Let it go, Charlie." Laptop balanced on one hand as she came back into the main room, Allie frowned down at the screen. "Please tell me girls-withguitars.com isn't what I... Eww." It took three tries to hit delete. She didn't know a lot about guitars but that couldn't be good for the instrument. "Get your own computer if you're going to surf for porn!" she snapped, sitting down at one end of the big table and clearing the cache.
Roland wrapped an arm around his backpack as Charlie looked at it speculatively. "Don't even think about it."
"I can't afford a laptop. I have to buy a pickup truck."
"Because you're playing country music now?" His right eyebrow rose. His left remained neutral. "It's not like you to buy into stereotypes."
"Everyone else in the band has a pickup truck!"
"If everyone else in the band..." Roland frowned. "Uh... Wait, I've got it. If everyone else in the band dyed their hair red, would you?"
Charlie snickered. "Way to miss your save, dude. Allie! What's the anti-country music vehicle?"
"Don't know, don't care. Buy a bicycle. Look at this..." When her cousins crowded around, she pointed at the screen. "These are the Calgary Yellow Pages on-line. Nothing comes up for sorcerer, but when I search for wizard, the first three-Appliance Wizard, Blizzard Wizard Heating and Air Conditioning, and Web Wizards-all caught fire last night. The dragons are trying to flush him."
"Looks like," Charlie nodded.
Roland turned to stare. "By burning down businesses with the word wizard in the name?"
"Hello! From the UnderRealm," Charlie reminded him, flicking his ear. "They know less about how the world works than you do."
"They've been sent to find the sorcerer," Allie interjected before the argument really got going. "They're supposed to clear him out of the way before his enemy comes through. This suggests they're running out of time and getting desperate."
"Desperate dragons," Roland began.
"... just what we need," Charlie finished in complete agreement.
Allie scrolled down and tapped a fingernail on the bottom entry. "This is where they'll be tonight. Wizards Of Electrostatic Painting, Beaconsfield Crescent NW. And I'll be there waiting for them."
"Why? They're not burning down family businesses," Roland continued when Allie swiveled around to face him. "This has nothing to do with us. My advice is for you is to call the aunties and have them shut the whole thing down-dragons, sorcerer, gate to the UnderRealm."
"Didn't she tell you?" Charlie asked.
"Tell me what?"
"Charlie!"
"Allie's trying to work with this sorcerer, to interject a little gray into the way the aunties think about them."
"Why?"
"For David."
Roland frowned, pleating his forehead. Allie could feel Charlie coming up with a comment referencing hamsters and wheels, but before she could spit it out, Roland said, "You think David's going darkside and that this will help?"
"No, I don't think David's going darkside!" She turned to Charlie. "That's why I didn't tell him. I knew he'd think that! It's complicated," she added turning back to Roland again.
"You think?" Roland muttered.
"It gets better," Charlie sighed. "Not only does she think this'll help David, but she's screwing the sorcerer's apprentice."
"Assassin!" Allie snapped.
"Oh, that makes it so much better." Roland rummaged in a side pocket of his backpack and pulled out his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"This isn't dealing with things, Allie. I'm calling the aunties."
"No."
Charlie's eyes widened as Roland's thumb froze over the number pad.
"What?"
Allie took a deep breath and stood. "You haven't chosen, and I'm telling you no."
He frowned and stared at her like he'd never seen her before. After a long moment, he closed the phone. "I'm going on record as saying I don't like this."
The situation. Not that she'd stopped him. She was within his seven-year break and, in the end, Gale boys knew where they stood. "You don't have to like it, but it's my decision. And when the dragon-or dragons-make their move tonight, I'll be there waiting for them."
"Why?"
Not Roland that time. Charlie. Who shrugged when Allie turned toward her.
"It's a valid question, sweetie. I'm beside you all the way on the new look at sorcerers thing-David deserves a better shot than he'll get from the aunties, and Graham obviously pushes your buttons. So yeah, do what you have to, to keep him from being collateral damage-but this?" She sighed and shook her head. "Neither the dragons nor the businesses they're burning have anything to do with the family.You'd be putting yourself at risk for no good reason. Besides, if they are getting desperate, and not just bored out of their scaly skulls, then it'll all be over soon anyway. Big bad arrives." One finger on her right hand flicked up. "The sorcerer deals with it." A second finger. "Your boy deals with the dragons." A third finger. "David's there as backup, so there's never any actual danger." A fourth finger. "And when told the story, the aunties admit sorcerers might be useful for something besides extremely high-grade fertilizer even though it was his screw up that started this in the first place." She stared at her fingers. Waggled them. And said, "I'm seeing a flaw in your plan."
"Two," Roland sighed. "The aunties assume that exposing David to a sorcerer is enough to give him ideas, and you've actually made the situation worse."
Charlie folded all but one finger down and flipped it at Roland.
Allie held up a hand and cut off his response. "I'm going out to meet the dragons because I don't want any more of this city to burn down. And when David is exposed to the sorcerer and doesn't fall, then the aunties will have to admit he isn't going to. It's as simple as that."
"Simple?" Roland asked, his tone suggesting it was anything but.
"Simple enough," Allie told him. "I'm living here, and I don't want the city burning down around my ears."
"You're living here for now."
"It's burning now!"
"Admit it, Allie, this is just you not coping well with living so far from home!"
"All righty, then," Charlie broke in before the argument could escalate. "They toasted the first building at midnight last night, so do we assume they're adding symbolism to their dumbass idea to flush the wizard and meet them at twelve?"
"We're not..."
"Yes, we are." When Allie started a second protest, Charlie smacked the back of her head. "This isn't like the sorcerer. Discretion doesn't really apply to giant, flying, fire-breathing lizards who very nearly removed my fucking eyebrows, so I'm going with you. In fact, if we're going to stop them don't you think you should be calling your boy with the big gun?"
"We're not stopping them like that." Allie offered the pronoun as surrender. In all honesty, she'd rather have Charlie with her when facing giant, flying, fire-breathing lizards.
"Okay, how are we stopping them?"
"You'll have my back; I'm going to talk to them."
"They talk?"
Allie reached out and pointed at her laptop. "They read the Yellow Pages. On-line."
The dragons' next target was as far north as the airport and tucked up close to Nose Hill Natural Environment Park.
"That's one big park," Allie murmured as they got out of the car around the corner from the targeted building. So much wilderness in the midst of so many people was an obvious oasis even in the dark-she could feel the weight of all that nothing pressing against her.
Charlie glanced across the median and then across four lanes of 14th Street at the silhouette of the hill against the night sky. "Sacred place on the top," she said as she settled her guitar strap over her shoulders and tossed the gig bag back in the car.
"Yeah, I got that." Awareness of the site lapped at the back of her neck, lifting her hair. It was old, used for centuries and abandoned for less than a hundred years; undisturbed by development, it was like a big pushpin keeping the city connected to the UnderRealm. No wonder things were happening here.
"I wonder why the Courts didn't open the gate up there."
"Easier to put a gate where there's already a gate on this side. Nothing up there but, well, a whole lot of nothing." Allie bounced the car keys on her palm for a moment as she stared into the darkness, then dropped them in her bag and headed for the curb, tossing off a casual, "You, me, and Roland should maybe pay the top of the hill a visit sometime."
"A visit?" Charlie's tone evoked bare skin and friction. "We going to be around that long?"
No. Maybe.
Hands shoved in her jacket pockets, Allie stepped over a crack in the sidewalk. Roland could suck a rope. She was coping fine, but she still wasn't staying one moment longer than it took her to figure out what had happened to Gran. Or until the whole sorcerer beats the greater evil impresses aunties takes the pressure off David thing went down should the Gran question be unexpectedly answered. Well, maybe long enough to finish cataloging the contents of the store and find a cousin willing to take it over. She wasn't like Charlie, always roaming; she needed family around her, not thousands of miles back east, the distance a constant pull against her heart.
Except she'd given Joe a place.
And she heard herself say, "You just joined a band," like it was the one thing that mattered.
In step beside her, Charlie shrugged. "And Rol's just here to dot the legal i's and cross the legal t's."
"Gran used the toss it in a box filing method. He'll be here for a while."
"David'll be here day after tomorrow. I'd be more than happy to visit the hill with him."
The thought of David's power opened up on that hill made her snort. "That'll be the plan in case the dragons don't show tonight. Take a bottle of steak sauce with you."
"Aren't you supposed to use virgins as dragon bait?"
"That's unicorns."
"I kind of miss unicorns."
"Really?"
"No."
They followed the curve in the road around to the east as an eerie howl from the park vibrated through bone and blood and whipped neighborhood dogs into a frenzy.
"I bet the people around here..." Charlie's gesture took in the houses they were passing, the blue flicker of televisions showing around the edges of curtains in the few living rooms where the residents were still awake. "... think that's a coyote."
Allie nodded in the direction of the nearest hysterically barking dog. "She doesn't."
Tucked back from the corner where Beaconsfield Road met Beaconsfield Crescent, Wizards of Electrostatic Painting was set up in a converted garage. It looked like the kind of business that had been built up out of hard work and a dream, and Allie wasn't going to let it burn. She'd been hoping she could use the parking lot, but as that turned out to be only a narrow strip of pavement along the east side of the building, she frowned out at the t-junction and stepped into the intersection. "You think this'll be enough room?"
Charlie glanced up at the night sky where nothing blotted out the stars. Yet. "If it isn't, this is-if possible-an even stupider idea than I thought. What are you going to do about traffic?"
"These houses all have back lanes," Allie told her returning to the sidewalk and dropping her bag on the narrow strip of dormant grass. "And given the way the roads around here twist and turn, I don't imagine there's much through traffic during business hours, let alone at nearly midnight."
"Good. Because I'm imagining you getting run over by a guy with bad skin and an ugly jacket delivering pizza."
"Well, stop."
Hidden by the angle of the roof, Graham peered through the scope and swore under his breath. After they'd cleared the air about fire-breathing not having been mentioned...
"I have no idea what their range is. When it comes to it, you'll just have to shoot them before they open their mouths."
... Kalynchuk had insisted nothing about the more mundane fires would draw Allie's attention. The destruction had occurred nowhere near the one business the Gale family owned in Calgary.
"Even if she hears about the fires," he snorted, "she'd have no reason to think my enemies are involved and therefore no reason to work out the pattern."
Something had clearly given her a reason.
Given that, and also given that Allie had walked blithely into the sanctuary of a man she knew would order deadly force to protect himself, he couldn't say he was surprised to see her here.
He was more than a little curious about what the hell she thought she was going to do.
Allie rubbed some warmth back into her fingers. In spite of sunny days, nights in early May were not exactly balmy and the radio weather forecaster had laughed, kind of high-pitched and guilty sounding, as he mentioned snow. With finger flexibility restored, she dug out the box of only slightly used sidewalk chalk she'd found that afternoon in the store, and pulled out a fat, white cylinder.
"Isn't that a little big?" Charlie asked as she bent down and started to draw the first of the three charms.
"No." With the piece of chalk laid on its side, the lines for the charm were about six centimeters wide. "I want them to see it before they burn the building down."
"Probably for the best; emergency vehicles are a big-ass distraction.You know," she continued as though imparting the wisdom of the ages, "there's no actual reason they should listen to you. Please, stop burning the city down. Bite me. Well, okay, then."
Shuffling backward, Allie dragged the chalk line out into the middle of the road.
"I'll be convincing."
"There's no actual reason why they shouldn't eat you."
"Which is why you're here."
Over supper, all three Gales and Michael had agreed that being bounced randomly around the globe by a shadowy antagonist beat being dragon chow.
"There's no proof you can even get into the Wood," Roland pointed out. "Given the way the shadow stopped you from getting to Allie, it's entirely possible it won't let you enter in Allie's company."
Michael wrapped his hand around Allie's wrist as though he could hold her in place."Charlie?"
"Little Mary Sunshine there doesn't travel the Wood," Charlie told him soothingly as Roland snorted around a mouthful of pie."I do. And I guarantee I can get us both in. After that, who the hell knows, but since the other option is emerging digested from a dragon's ass, I'm good with a random destination. Allie?"
Allie had admitted that wasn't really an observation she could disagree with and had spent the rest of the meal ignoring the way Roland's gaze had kept tracking back to her. At least once, she was certain he'd reached for his phone but brought his hand empty out of his pocket.
"Michael wanted to see the dragons," Allie said as she finished the last charm.
"Is that what you two were talking about? How'd you convince him not to come?"
Michael was not a Gale boy to be told no and have it stick.
"I reminded him that they flew over the store every morning and all he had to do was go outside and look."
"And?"
"And then I reminded him of the size of the car and that he'd have to sit in the backseat."
"Smart. Maybe even smart enough to... Allie."
"I hear it."
Wet sheets, flapping in the wind.
Allie scrambled up onto the sidewalk and stood at Charlie's right, first two fingers of her left hand tucked behind the waistband of her cousin's jeans. There had to be contact if they were going to go into the Wood together. Although, given what was dropping down into the intersection, the heavy beat of wings stirring up enough wind to snap small branches off the bracketing trees and slam against her like openhanded blows from a giant hand, comfort may have also been a factor.
Son of a fucking bitch, it was landing! They'd never landed in the city before!
Pressing his body down into the asphalt tiles, he slipped his finger through the trigger guard.
It was one thing to know that dragons were big, in the same sort of way space was big, secure in the knowledge it was unlikely the entirety of either would ever have to be faced, and it was another thing entirely to stand and watch a dragon drop out of the night sky. Around fifteen meters from branching horns to the tip of a lashing tail, this particular dragon was ebony and gold, iridescent and beautiful in the way of very, very dangerous things where admiration and terror became easy reactions to confuse.
Sitting up on its haunches, talons gouging the pavement, large enough to completely cover all three charms, it folded its wings with a sound like thunder and stared at the two Gales with enormous dark eyes.
"Holy fuck," Charlie muttered.
"Yeah." Allie pushed disheveled hair off her face as she stepped forward.
Jumped back as the dragon burst into flame.
The heat should have melted the asphalt, ignited the trees.
Ignited them.
NO!
He literally, actually, impossibly felt the world stop as Allie disappeared in the inferno.
Charlie spun away, protecting the wood of her guitar with slightly less flammable flesh.
Holding her breath, hand thrown up to protect her eyes, Allie searched the roaring flames. Trying to see through the fire to the dragon. Trying to...
Between one heartbeat and the next, the flames fell into their own center. Wrapped around themselves. Solidified.
Became a man.
A man?
Not a dragon! It was suddenly very hard to breathe. Not a dragon; a Dragon Lord! The son-of-a-bitch sorcerer could have mentioned that!
A line of white light flashed through the place where the dragon's head had been and slammed into the side of a house, the impact loud enough to rouse the inhabitants from sleep.
The Dragon Lord raised dark brows over familiar eyes.
An audience, Allie realized, was just what they didn't need.
Well, not just-but among the top ten.
"Charlie!"
"I know! Hang on..." Her left hand worked the tuning pegs. "... heat's pulled everything sharp."
A curtain twitched in a second-floor window.
"Now, Charlie!"
As lullabies went, it wasn't so much close your eyes and dream sweetly as it was if you kids don't go to sleep immediately, I will come up there and you will be sorry. By the time the last note faded, there wasn't so much as a squirrel awake within a five-block radius; the lullaby had bludgeoned every living creature to sleep.
Breath still fast and shallow, Allie peered at the dark starburst against the previously pristine siding, then turned her full attention back to the man in the center of the intersection. "What was that?"
"A Blessed round." The Dragon Lord's voice was unsurprisingly deep.
And suddenly it became impossible to breathe at all. She had no idea how much of what raced through her head showed on her face, but the Dragon Lord smiled.
"You're surprised," he said. "The one who fired the weapon is not here with you, then. This pleases me. Attempting to lure us into a trap would have been fatally rude."
The second dragon was green and gold. Allie thought it was smaller, but, with eyes squinted shut against the wind, she was too distracted by what it held against its chest to tell for certain. It took almost everything she had to close her teeth on a clich��d cry of denial.
Graham hadn't heard the second dragon over the roar of blood in his ears. Hadn't known it was there until claws closed around him and bones broke as it snatched him off the roof. He hung limp as it landed, weapon trapped between his body and heated emerald scales, conserving his strength, breathing shallowly to keep the shattered ends of ribs from puncturing a lung.
If they made a mistake, he'd be ready.
"He hides behind the mark of sorcery," the Dragon Lord said calmly, twitching a nonexistent wrinkle out of his suit jacket. "Ryan had to trace the bullet back to find him, and then it was scent alone that gave him away. But look there, he wears your mark as well, Gale girl, which is why he continues to live.You may correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to indicate eviscerating him would stifle conversation. Oh, yes," he added, smiling again, "we know what you are." A nod toward Charlie. "What both of you are. And I know how a Gale girl smells. Tastes." His eyes gleamed. "Not something I could ever forget. Or ever want to."
Allie really hoped he meant tastes in as licentious a way as it sounded. "Let him go."
"As you wish. Ryan."
The green dragon's protest sounded distinctly sulky.
The Dragon Lord snorted, blowing lines of white smoke from each nostril. "Because I said so."
He was ready when the claws loosened. Took up the shock of landing in his knees and hips. Ignored the old pain and the new bright spike of agony in his chest. Brought up his weapon.
"Graham! Don't!"
The muscles of his hand spasmed as they tried to simultaneously obey two opposing commands.
The smell of sulfur.
Way too many teeth.
Darkness...
Graham collapsed as Allie reached him. She dropped to her knees on the pavement, one hand on his chest, the other reaching up, past the teeth, drawing a fast charm on the dragon's nose just where the green shaded down into gold. The scales were so hot that the skin on her fingertip blistered.
His roar suddenly more of a strangled croak, the dragon reared back, swiping at his muzzle.
She could hear the other Dragon Lord laughing, but all she could see was the blood bubbling between Graham's lips as he fought to breathe. There was a stupid vest that was obviously useless when it counted and the stupid clothing he had on under it had too many stupid fasteners or no fasteners at all, so she charmed right through and finally pressed her palm against skin.
"He needs a hospital. Charlie, go get the car!"
"Uh, Allie..."
"Now!" She didn't know the charms to fix this, but that didn't stop her from tracing patterns over and over and over the damage.
A scrape of claw against the road.
"I wouldn't," the Dragon Lord said.
At first, Allie thought he was talking to Charlie, but the silence stretched and lengthened to be finally broken not by claws but by the metallic jingle of keys and Charlie's boots pounding out a rhythm into the distance.
As Allie felt Graham's struggle ease under her touch, she risked a glance over her shoulder.
The green dragon, Ryan, glared down at her from under golden brow ridges, head dipped to sight along the line of his horns. She knew that look. She'd seen Dmitri wear one very like it.
The Dragon Lord stood almost directly behind her. She hadn't heard him move. He reached out, stroked the back of her cheek with two fingers and, unable to stop herself, she leaned into the touch. As the skin under his caress tightened, he murmured, "We will have the conversation we should have had tonight another time, Gale girl." A glance past her, down at Graham. "Just a suggestion, but... shorten his leash." Then he stepped back, and Allie found herself surrounded by fire. Impossible not to brace for pain, although the heat merely baked dry the inside of her nose and mouth, coating her tongue with the taste of sulfur.
Before she could work up enough saliva to swallow, two pairs of enormous eyes stared down at her-the emerald pair narrowed in familiar, adolescent pique, the ebony pair amused. With a backwash that nearly flattened her to the road, the dragons leaped into the air, beating their wings against the night.
"So, a Dragon Lord," Charlie said as they maneuvered Graham onto the fully reclined passenger seat.
"Dragon Lords," Allie told her, drawing another charm against Graham's right leg so she could tuck it more easily into the car. "Ryan, too."
"Did he change?"
"Did he need to?"
"No, I suppose not."
She straightened, closed the car door, and turned to her cousin, uncertain of what to say. "Charlie..."
"It's not a problem, Allie." Charlie held up Graham's keys. "These were in his pocket. I'll take his truck home and let the guys know what's going on." Eyes narrowed, she added, "Just a feeling, but I'm guessing his boss didn't tell you the whole story."
"Not just his boss. Graham had to have known what they were if he was supposed to be able to kill them." The keys dug into her palm as she ran around to the driver's side. "Wake the neighborhood before you go."
"Yeah, yeah, drive..." Charlie jumped back as the Beetle all but spun around one rear wheel and roared off. "... carefully."
Revelry lost a little something when played on the guitar.
"They turn into people?"
"They can take the appearance of people," Charlie amended as she came out of the bedroom in a pair of sweatpants and a faded Barstool Prophets T-shirt. "They're still dragons."
"Who look like people?"
"Yes."
Michael's eyes gleamed. "That's pretty cool."
"That's very, very dangerous." Roland looked over at his phone, lying out of reach on a pile of papers on the big table, then over at Charlie.
She shook her head, even though calling in the aunties was beginning to sound like an excellent idea. "No. This is Allie's show."
"Because Gran left her the store?" Michael asked, heaving himself up off the end of the sofa bed, crossing to the kitchen, and opening the fridge.
Charlie's turn to look over at Roland. He frowned and shrugged, unwilling to commit to the suspicions Charlie could see written out in his body language. "Yeah, that's the main reason," she said at last.
"But you guys'll stop her if she does something really stupid, right?" He turned toward them, shoving a broken piece of pie into his mouth and somehow managing to not spit blueberries and pastry as he added, "Because you're older."
"Doesn't exactly work that way," Charlie told him, sitting down in the spot Michael had vacated, wrapping a hand around Roland's bare ankle. "You know that." She stroked the soft skin of his arch with her thumb. "I wish we'd convinced Joe to stay; it's a lot more dangerous out there than we thought."
"Joe's testing that he gets to come and go," Michael pointed out, wiping his hands on a dish towel. "He'll stay as soon as he realizes he doesn't have to."
Roland nodded. "And he is full-blood Fey. Changeling or not, the Dragon Lords won't want to start a fight with his people, particularly not if they're already feeling annoyed about them using the gate."
"Thanks to Allie, we're his people now," Charlie snorted. Frowned. "But you have a point."
"About?"
"Joe being full-blood Fey."
At twenty after three, they finally allowed Allie back behind the curtain into examination room one. The emergency room in the Peter Lougheed Centre of the Calgary General Hospital-and wasn't that a mouthful to choke out-had been nearly empty when they'd arrived and Graham had been seen to immediately.
But only because immediately was as fast as Allie could arrange it.
She'd used information gleaned from Graham's wallet to fill out as much of the paperwork as possible and lied through her teeth about the rest, tracing tiny charms into the end of every section on the forms. After they'd rolled him away for X-rays and MRIs and whatever else turned out to be needed, she'd sat on one of the ubiquitous orange plastic chairs, chewed on a thumbnail, and concentrated on getting him fixed as quickly as possible. Around two thirty, she'd poured a charm into a paper cup of water and brought it to an elderly drunk because the random shouting of obscenities had become distracting.
He'd fallen asleep, looking vaguely horrified, and Allie'd returned to keeping the medical profession focused.
She did not think about Dragon Lords in the city.
Much.
If the sorcerer's enemy could use Dragon Lords to hunt for him, who the hell had he pissed off?
When she pushed the curtain aside, Graham was sitting on the edge of the gurney, bare feet braced against the floor, chest wrapped in white, face nearly as pale, uppermost hex mark just barely visible. Her charm blazed under the fluorescent lights.
"Should you be sitting up?"
"Have to get out of here." He seemed to find the patch of floor tile framed by his knees fascinating. "Two cracked ribs-that's..." A short struggle to breathe. "... nothing."
"Not quite nothing." Allie moved closer, resting her hand on his arm as he tried to rise, her touch enough to hold him in place. "There's impact damage to your ankles, your right knee's swollen but functional, and you've got moderate to severe bruising over seventy percent of your body-I'm assuming that's an estimate although for all I know they might have measured. They probably have charts. And that's just the new stuff-they asked me if you were into extreme sports. Given the number of old injuries they listed, they must assume you kind of suck at it if you are." She could hear herself babbling and made an effort to stop. "Still, it could have been worse."
"It was." Taking her hand in his, he tugged her around into the vee between his legs, lifted his head, and managed to lock his drifting gaze onto her face. "What did you do to me?" he demanded.
"I brought you to the hospital." She raised her other hand to push the hair back off his face, but he grabbed her wrist, the movement the careful exaggeration of someone fighting painkillers.
"No, before," he insisted. When Allie shook her head, uncertain of which before he referred to, his eyes narrowed. "Between the pain and breathing blood... a punctured lung... that's hard to miss. Heard the doctor talking... saw recent scar tissue. No puncture."
"Oh, that."
His eyes widened. "Oh, that?"
"I don't know what I did." Basic first aid, the kind every Gale girl learned early to tend to fathers and uncles, brothers and cousins, didn't extend much beyond bruises and minor lacerations at third circle. Immobilizing broken bones in a pinch but better to wait for a first-or-second-circle healing rather than screw it up and have to break the bone again. "Not specifically."
"Not specifically?" His nostrils flared, once, twice, as he fought the drugs for coherency. "I'm finding your casual use... of that much power just a little..." He frowned as he searched through the haze of painkillers for the word. "... disconcerting."
"Would you have preferred robes and candles and eldritch symbols and Latin chanting and whatever it is your sorcerer does?" Allie asked. "Because given where we were and who we were with and-oh, yeah, the fact your sorcerer was nowhere around, that wasn't really an option. And..." Using his loose grip on her wrists, she tugged herself a little closer until her hips pressed hard against the inside of his thighs and she could smell him, just a little, over the pervasive scent of antiseptic. "... there was nothing casual about it. I thought you were going to die."
"Me, too." The frown deepened. "I mean, not me.You."
Allie smiled for the first time since she'd realized what the second Dragon Lord carried and freed her hands so she could cup his face between them. "You thought I was going to die?"
"I did?" The frown unfolded. "I did. Why are you smiling?"
"You did something stupid for me." Bending forward, she kissed him gently. His lips were dry and sticky against hers and he still tasted just a little of blood. "And speaking of stupid," she said, backing away, "why didn't you tell me they weren't just dragons!"
"Ow!" He let go of one wrist and rubbed the shoulder she'd punched. "Injured here!"
"And way too drugged to feel that. Dragon Lords?"
"Not my information... to give."
"Who sent them? How many of them are there?"
Graham sighed, reached up and cupped her cheek. His fingers felt cool over the skin the Dragon Lord's touch had scorched. "Don't ask me... things I can't..."
She caught him as he began to tip left. "Come on." Dropping a kiss on the top of his head, she carefully adjusted the vertical. "Let's get you dressed enough to get you home."
"Good thing he's a bit of a shrimp."
"Michael."
"I'm just saying." Breathing a little heavily, Michael laid Graham down on Allie's bed and stepped back, rolling his shoulders. "Why bring him here instead of to his own place?"
Allie bent to untie the laces on his right boot. "He's safer here."
"From the Dragon Lords?" Roland asked, moving to Graham's other foot.
"Them, too."
Leaning against the wall by the door, Charlie shook her head. "You turned off his phone, didn't you?"
"No." Feeling the weight of regard from the other three conscious people in the room, Allie straightened and turned, dropping the boot to the floor. "No," she repeated. "He didn't have it turned on. I mean, he was on a stake-out; getting a phone call would be stupid."
"Stupid as shooting at a Dragon Lord?" Charlie asked.
Allie kicked the boot under the bed. "Not quite."
"He's been marked." Dropping the other boot, Roland nodded toward the visible hex-Allie'd gotten Graham's shirt and jacket on him but hadn't bothered doing them all them way up. She'd tossed his T-shirt and vest into the backseat. Actually, she'd tossed his vest into the back before she'd gone into the hospital for help-Kevlar being harder than broken ribs to explain. "Can his sorcerer track him using those? Track him here?"
"Through Gran's protections? Not likely." Moving around to the side of the bed, Allie unbuckled his belt.
"Does he know where he is?" Roland wondered, grabbing the bottom of his black jeans and tugging as Allie lifted Graham's hips enough to clear the fabric. "Or did you put him out before mentioning the final destination?"
"Bet she didn't ask if she could charm him out," Michael muttered, yawning.
Charlie snorted. "No reason to ask when you know the answer. He'd be all macho and..." She dropped her voice half an octave. "... no puttin' me ta sleep, little lady, I don't want to be missing out on the pain."
"Little lady?"
"It's four thirty in the morning, I don't have my best stuff."
Bending to ease Graham's arm out of his shirtsleeve, Allie heard Roland sigh. "Allie, does he know you brought him here?"
"I told him." His skin was warm and a little damp and the bruises were purpling up nicely. She let her fingers rest on the curve of his shoulder. "And he heard me phone Charlie when we left the hospital."
"Did he understand?" Roland insisted.
"What difference does it make?" she sighed. "This is the only place neither the Dragon Lords nor the sorcerer could get to him." When she straightened and turned, they were staring at her again. "He took a shot at a Dragon Lord for me. Because he took a shot at a Dragon Lord, they grabbed him. They saw the hex marks. They know the sorcerer is here in Calgary."
"They knew that," Charlie reminded her. "They were hunting him."
"They were hunting for him. Not quite the same thing."
"Unless the sorcerer was lying about that."
"He didn't lie to me," Allie insisted. "He merely omitted details."
Roland's brows nearly disappeared under his hair. "What part of Dragon Lords are merely?"
Charlie watched her thoughtfully as she pulled the covers up from the foot of the bed. "If they'd wanted to get information out of him about the sorcerer, they had their chance tonight and blew it off."
"Because he's wearing my mark and we were right there and they didn't want to start a fight."
"Why not?" Michael asked. "I mean, I'm glad they didn't," he added when both Allie and Charlie turned to glare at him, "but you look at it from their point of view and they could have kicked your ass."
"My guess is that they don't want to risk taking damage before the big fight."
"From the aunties?"
Allie looked into memory and saw Graham hanging in Ryan's claws. Looked down at him on the bed, wearing only boxers and bandages and bruises, and said, "Them, too."
"Okay..." Roland sounded as though he believed her. "... so the Dragon Lords would like to get him alone and extract information about the sorcerer. And the sorcerer?"
Lightly smoothing the sheet over Graham's chest, Allie considered Stanley Kalynchuk. Without meeting him, the aunties would say he was a brutal egotist, corrupted by the power he controlled, destined to abuse it. They'd feel he was significantly more dangerous than the Dragon Lords as he'd chosen his path. As much as she wanted to ease the way for David, Allie was going to go with the aunties on this one. "Like I said, Graham's safer here."
"And when he wakes up?" Charlie asked softly. "What happens then?"
Allie shrugged and brushed a strand of hair back off his face. She could hear the layers in Charlie's question, but she refused to acknowledge them. It had been a long night and all that mattered, here and now, was that Graham hadn't drowned in his own blood. "I don't know."
After a moment, Michael scratched under the waistband of his elderly pajama pants and snickered. "You're thinking about the padded handcuffs in Gran's drawer, aren't you?"
She felt the corners of her mouth twitch up in spite of herself. "Shut up."
Dragged out of sleep by the ringing of her phone, Allie glared at the clock beside the bed. Seven forty-nine. She'd been asleep for just a little over three hours. Given the aunties, that was more sleep than she'd expected to get.
When she managed to focus on the call display, her eyes widened.
"How did you get this number?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, Ms. Gale," Kalynchuk growled. "Is he with you?"
Allie's lip curled. Or would have had it not stuck to her teeth. She ran her tongue over them and said, "Don't ask stupid questions, Mr. Kalynchuk."
Behind her, Graham stirred but didn't wake. She'd removed the charm when she got into bed, but it seemed the painkillers had been enough to keep him out.
"I want to speak with him."
"I want to know why you didn't tell me about the Dragon Lords."
For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer. When he did, he didn't sound exactly apologetic. Or at all apologetic. "I told you as much as you needed to know."
"Yeah, well..." She yawned. "... they disagree."
"They?"
"The Dragon Lords."
"Put Graham on."
"He's asleep."
"Wake him."
If he'd asked instead of commanded, she might have considered it.
"No."
His breathing suggested it had been a while since anyone had denied him. "I am a dangerous enemy, Ms. Gale."
"Interestingly enough, you're a dangerous friend too." Yawning, she snapped the phone closed. Since it seemed highly unlikely he could get any angrier at her, she rolled over, curled up against Graham's side, and went back to sleep.
Michael and Roland both had work of their own to do, so Charlie'd gone down and opened the store. Half expecting to see Joe already in place behind the counter-allowing her to haul ass back upstairs and grab some more shut-eye-she'd been a little annoyed to see the place empty.
Seemed no one wanted to buy crap at ten AM on a Wednesday, so she'd continued her hunt for the artifact producing the autoharp music. With no distractions, it had taken her a surprisingly short time to find it in behind a white china chamber pot. Circa 1915, according to the sticker.
Leaning against the counter, she ran her fingers over the edge of what looked to be an old presentation box for medals or jewelry. Painted gold with a red-and-black crest glued to the center of what had been the lid, the outside gave no indication of the contents. The upper edge and the long edge opposite the hinge had been beaded, allowing the box to stand on one end and be opened like a reliquary. There was no clasp to hold it closed, and when it had fallen off a pile of mildewed postcards and landed behind the chamber pot, it had opened, just a little.
Charlie opened it the rest of the way.
Inside, against plaid padding, were two drawings of young men holding instruments. Not exactly photorealism, one had long hair, one short and they were both wearing what were probably supposed to be kilts made from the same plaid fabric as the padding. Next to the drawings were rolled napkins from an American hotel.
The drawings were signed.
The napkins were sweat-stained.
Whoever had trapped their souls either really hated or really loved Celtic music.
Listening to "The Orange and the Green" being played on autoharp and pennywhistle, Charlie couldn't decide which.
"I brought..."
She snapped the case closed and came out of the aisle to face Joe, standing just inside the store holding a mug in each hand.
"Oh. It's you." He looked down into one of the mugs, then held it out. "Kenny gave me one with milk and no sugar. I guess he knew you'd be here. Where's Allie?"
"Sleeping. She had a late night." Charlie and the boys had been able to nap while Allie'd been with Graham at the ER. Not exactly eight hours but better than a slap in the face with a fish. "So," she asked after a moment spent worshiping the amazing aroma wafting up from the coffee. "Is there a reason why you didn't mention the dragons are actually Dragon Lords?"
Joe's eyes widened. "She met...?"
"We met. Might have been nice to have had a heads up."
"I thought she knew." He jerked back a step, two spots of color burning high on each cheek. "She said she knew. I swear, she told me she knew! Fuck me, I wouldn't have not told her if I hadn't thought she knew. Even before. I wouldn't have.You have to believe me.You have to..."
"Joe!" As his mouth snapped shut, Charlie sighed. "At the risk of sounding last millennium, don't have a cow. I believe you."
He looked startled and she realized he hadn't expected that. "Why?"
"Why not?" To begin with, he was telling the truth. He had thought Allie'd known. Or he'd convinced himself she'd known, which was close enough for Charlie. She had no trouble at all seeing Allie making assumptions and Joe choosing to go along with them rather than raise the suckage in his life even a little bit more.
A flash of ebony and gold out on the street caught her attention and, frowning, she waved Joe away from the door.
Okay.
Not so much a flash of ebony and gold as a whole freaking sidewalk full of it, framed by Auntie Catherine's clear-sight charm. In the sunlight, the highlights gleaming off the scales were very nearly aubergine.
Flipping open her phone, she called Roland.
"Hey, get Allie up. We've got company."
The sound of Joe's mug shattering against the floor almost drowned out Roland's response.