Claim the Dragon

by A. C. Arthur

  “Okay, genius, how do you propose we walk up in there?” Reese asked.

  Steele looked to Magnum, who nodded at him. “Easy,” he said.

  Then he and Magnum both walked away from Reese, getting closer to the group of enforcers that were supposed to be guarding the front door.

  “Whoa, guys, you can’t be here,” one of the enforcers said holding up his hands as Steele and Magnum lifted the tape so they could walk under it.

  He was a tall, slender guy with yellow-gold hair peeking from beneath the fitted cap the enforcers wore.

  “Officer Grant,” Steele said after reading his badge. “We’re here to see your supervisor.” He walked closer to the enforcer and watched the stern look the guy was now giving him.

  The minute Officer Grant opened his mouth to speak—probably to tell Steele he wasn’t going to see any supervisor today—Steele pursed his lips and blew the slightest breath full of sleep dust in the man’s face. The enforcer’s legs wobbled and before he could fall Magnum caught him and laid him gently on the ground.

  They could hear the sound of guns being drawn and feet clattering as the other enforcers ran toward them.

  Magnum pushed his sunglasses up farther on his nose and looked at Steele who rolled his head on his shoulders.

  “Let’s go,” Steele said.

  Both he and Magnum turned toward the other enforcers and blew sleep dust in their direction. And because they’d tried to all come after them at once, neither Magnum nor Steele moved to buffer the fall when the dust took effect and each of them hit the ground like dominoes.

  Steele looked over his shoulder to see Reese still standing on the other side of the tape. “You comin’, buddy?” he asked with a smirk.

  Reese gave him the middle finger and snapped the tape apart before walking through.

  There were still people moving around inside the hotel and Steele didn’t want to put them all to sleep, even if it was just a temporary slumber, because that would risk more exposure and Theo wouldn’t like that. He pointed to the stairs instead and Magnum and Reese followed him. They were able to get up to the twenty-second floor using the steps but above that was taped off, and they could hear a number of people on the floor above.

  “What now?” Reese asked, but before any of them could answer he continued, “You hear that?”

  The three of them stood on the stairs in silence. Drakon hearing, like all their other senses, was heightened and some with sonic power could actually hear through walls as thick as steel. They didn’t have to be that powerful to hear the soft footfalls coming toward them. Reese stood at the bottom of the stairs, bracing his body for whatever was coming toward them. In his human form his power of indestructibility was like a force field. As a dragon it was a lethal weapon that allowed him to get closer to any enemy than anyone else.

  Magnum always carried a gun. He reached behind his back and pulled the long-nozzle silver-plated weapon and held it in front of him. Steele preferred hand-to-hand combat first and foremost, but he also had a gun. He didn’t get a chance to draw it because a woman came around the small turn from the stairs on the twenty-first floor to the stairs on the twenty-second. Simultaneously a door on the twenty-second floor going to the twenty-third opened.

  Steele spun around and grabbed the arm of the guy coming through the twenty-third-floor door, pulling him hard and then releasing, so that the gun the guy carried bounced off the opposite wall. Reese only had to reach out a hand, grabbing the woman by her neck. The man knocked his head on the wall a bit too hard and slumped to the ground, out cold. The woman on the other hand, bared her sharp fangs and hissed at Reese.

  He dropped her instantly, but stood over her, daring her to move.

  “You can kill me but then you won’t learn who’s really after that dagger,” she said.

  Steele and Magnum both recognized the woman who’d been sucked down a storm drain in an alley a few months ago. Her hair was lighter now, almost white, but still cut low to her head and her eyes flashed a brilliant gold, two distinct contrasts to her golden-brown hue.

  She was also the woman Ziva had been involved with at some point.

  “Let her up,” Magnum told Reese.

  “Your name’s Enes,” Steele said, coming down the steps behind Magnum.

  Reese stepped away from her but only far enough so she could get up off the floor. She rubbed her neck as she cut her eye at him, then turned her attention to Magnum and Steele.

  “You were at Twilight a couple weeks ago,” she said, looking directly at Steele.

  He’d been there several nights, looking for her or the other vamp who’d disappeared with her, but on the last night he’d been distracted the moment Ravyn walked in. “Yeah. And?”

  Enes shook her head. She was no more than five feet even, with a small compact build, and according to Ziva, she hadn’t been a vampire for very long.

  “That woman you couldn’t keep your eyes off was told where to get the dagger,” she said before crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall. “I bet you wanna know why.”

  “I wanna know why you’re here right now claiming to have information and acting like you want to share it with us. Were you following us?” Reese asked. He took another step closer to her, but Enes just glanced at him and rolled her eyes.

  “That’s a good question,” Magnum said, while Enes returned her gaze to Steele.

  “Who told her where to find it and why?” Steele asked. “And don’t even think about striking some type of bargain. You’re outnumbered here and things definitely won’t go well for you if you do.”

  She seemed to consider his words for a second, but then shrugged. “I wasn’t following you. I was waiting for you because after I saw this on the news I knew it was your handiwork. She can’t know that I told you.”

  “If you’re scared of someone finding out, then why’re you snitching?” Reese pressed her.

  “I’m not scared of anybody or anything, just not trying to get in the middle of this war that’s already brewing between you dragonfolk and the Royal Blood,” Enes said.

  “It’s a little late for that,” Steele added.

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t know what Warrick was doing. In fact, I tried to keep him away from that woman because I knew she was trouble the minute the blue-eyed dragon walked her into that hall. But he wouldn’t listen and look where that landed him.”

  “Yeah, turned to ashes in the Far Realm by the sick spirit that he decided to join forces with,” Magnum replied.

  Steele recalled all that had happened four months ago when Shola had been brought to Burgess to marry Warrick, an outcast of the Royal Blood. But they’d already conquered that demon and killed the idiot Warrick who’d brought him to town. What he was more concerned with now, was how any of this involved Ravyn.

  “Look, just tell us what you know and we’ll go from there,” Steele said.

  She pushed away from the wall and walked toward the steps behind them. Reese followed her, sneering when she turned to give him an impatient look.

  “Alright, well, all I know is Vertis was paid to track her down.”

  “Paid by who?” Steele asked.

  Enes looked up at him. “Temptra, the Dhampir.”

  “Dhampir.” Magnum whispered the word while Steele’s fingers clenched into fists.

  “Go on,” he told her.

  “I’ve never met her, just read about her in the old tombs Warrick kept sealed in a vault. Once he was gone, Hikeen sent a bunch of his knights to clean out Warrick’s townhouse. They didn’t know about the apartment he had in the Luxe building. That’s where the vault was,” she said.

  “What does Temptra want?” Steele asked.

  “You remember that army of vampires Warrick wanted to use his rule over Mobo to resurrect? Well, Temptra’s on a much bigger scale. There’s mo
re than one vampire army buried in that region and Temptra wants to command them all. To do that she must raise the Royal Guild, and they’re in the Congo territory near something called Lava Lake.”

  “The dagger is Egyptian,” Reese said. “She’s lying, man. Let’s just gag her ass and take her to Theo to see what he wants to do with her.”

  “You,” Enes said, narrowing her eyes at Reese, “won’t touch me again without bloodshed.”

  Reese moved closer, but Steele stepped between them.

  “What does the dagger have to do with raising these vampires?” Because he didn’t believe Enes was lying. She’d been flying under the radar for months. Hell, she’d seen him in the club when he hadn’t seen her. So why would she wait for them here if she didn’t have something to say? Then again, why did she have so much to say? He’d wait to hear everything before he tried to figure that part out.

  “It raises the dead. That’s what it was made for by that pharaoh. It’s why the tomb was broken into in the first place, so that some idiot could raise his dead mistress, or some such nonsense. Anyway, the curse on the dagger is that only certain people are worthy enough to wield its power. That woman in the club who caught your eye is one of them.”

  Steele felt the heat rising from the pit of his stomach to burn the back of his throat. Since walking away from Ravyn last night the beast had lay dormant as if wondering what to do next now that she was out of the picture. But now it was rising, bringing with it all its fiery rage at the implications of Enes’s words.

  “Damn, we’re back to raising some dead vamps again,” Reese complained. “Aren’t you guys already dead?”

  This time when Enes cast Reese an evil glare, her teeth elongated until they seemed to prick her bottom lip and a growl-like hiss rumbled in her chest.

  “There’s something else here,” Steele said in lieu of trying to intervene with these two again.

  Magnum looked around. “I sense it too.”

  “It’s more undead,” Enes told them. “And if you don’t trust what I’m saying, just ask Ziva. She knows.”

  Steele and Magnum exchanged looks. It was bad enough they were getting all this information from someone who should’ve been their sworn enemy, but now Enes was invoking the personal relationship between her and Ziva that each of them knew about but hadn’t dared mention since the day Ziva almost bit Theo’s head off when he’d ventured there.

  “Alright, I’m taking her with us,” Reese said and came around Steele to grab Enes’s arm once more.

  Before the vampire could lash out at Reese, Steele held up a hand. “Shhhh.”

  He walked back up the steps and stood close to the door. The guy who’d come through it moments ago was still out cold on the floor. “Do you hear those whispers?” They sounded so familiar, the words that were being said and the voice, he could swear he’d heard it before.

  Magnum came up the steps behind him, standing just a few inches away from Steele. “I don’t hear it,” he said. “But it could be coming from the dream plane. You could be drifting in and out of the dream, just like you did last night.”

  “But you said you felt something,” Steele insisted.

  Magnum nodded. “I do. It’s cold and evil, probably the undead just like she said.”

  They were speaking in hushed tones but he was certain Reese could hear him, even if Enes and the knocked-out guy couldn’t.

  “So you believe her?”

  “It makes sense,” Magnum replied. “The girl that’s set to die in your dreams steals the dagger. The dagger’s meant to wake the dead. What’s the common link?”

  “Death. Vampires who are undead but need to wake some of their real dead ancestors. The Reaper is the bringer of death.”

  “And the Dream Reaper,” Magnum said solemnly.

  Steele shook with the words. “Was meant to save her, regardless of what the rules say.”

  “Or she was meant to die to save the world from what might come with the real dead vampires,” Magnum added with a serious glare.

  For seconds the Eze brothers only stared at each other, at odds with what they believed and what would happen next, but united in the notion that they had to do something either way.

  “We can’t take her back to the Office,” Steele said.

  “Hell no, Theo would kill us both.”

  “I’ll call Isla. You take her to the Towers.”

  “What are you going to do?” Magnum asked.

  Adrenaline was already pumping through his veins. “There’s a loose thread,” he said. “I’m going to see Robles and find out where he really got the dagger.”

  “And then?”

  He should have known Magnum wouldn’t let him just walk away. He wouldn’t go with the part of the plan Steele had willingly shared. No, that’s not how his brother rolled.

  “Then I’m going to check on her. Even if they only want the dagger, she’s linked to it, or at least she was. I saw it and I didn’t realize it, but now I know. I just gotta see her to make sure she’s alright.”

  Magnum wanted to say more. He wanted to warn Steele again, to tell him that there was no way he could stop the Reaper from taking someone who was on its list. But he didn’t.

  “Meet us at the Towers,” Magnum said on his way down the steps.

  Steele didn’t reply. Instead he stepped closer to that door again and listened.

  The dagger is mine.

  The female voice said it over and over again and Steele realized where he’d heard it—in that odd dream he’d had while Ravyn was lying in his bed. He took the steps faster than he had coming up, bolting out of the building and to his SUV, totally ignoring the yells from the enforcers that were now up and once again guarding the building.

  Yanking the door open after disengaging the locks he climbed behind the wheel and called Isla to let her know what was going on, and then he headed to Sodesto to meet up with Daron Robles, the human who knew the mysterious Dhampir.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You look different,” Cree said, and Ravyn continued to stare at the computer screen.

  “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she replied. Her attention was really on the spreadsheets she kept of their supplies, and timelines for more improvements to Safeside. That’s what she’d been doing all afternoon. Planning, looking toward the future, and trying to ignore the weird feeling she had that something just wasn’t quite right.

  Cree turned, leaning his butt against the edge of her desk a few inches from where she was sitting. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant there’s something different about you today.”

  She shrugged. “Same soap, same shampoo, although I do need to buy some conditioner, so you might be seeing some frizz in my hair soon. But otherwise, nothing new to see here.”

  “Yeah, there is, if you’re looking.”

  She sat back in her chair, giving him the attention he obviously wanted from her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He huffed. “When we first came down here we were both frightened and out of options. The enforcers had burned down your place after successfully kicking our asses. I was in the hospital for months and you never left my side.”

  “You saved my life, Cree. There was no way I was walking out on you. Besides, I didn’t have anywhere else to be at the time.” She could joke about that now, but four years ago when all that darkness came crashing down in her life, she hadn’t thought there’d ever be light. But here they were today, in this place that they’d built doing what they’d wished someone had done for them way back then.

  “Why didn’t you just rent a house and take me there after the hospital?”

  “You know why,” she said and then cleared her throat.

  “No, I don’t. You never talked about that. The moment I woke up in the hospital you just said we would take care of each other from no
w on and then we left and we found this place, but you never said how you felt about what happened or what it did to you and your dreams.” He was much more mature than a nineteen-year-old should be. Thinking about things that he shouldn’t have had to think about for years to come, dealing with people and situations that no child should have to deal with, ever.

  “What do I look like, dumping all my problems on a kid?” The moment she said those words she knew they were wrong. Hadn’t she just been thinking of how mature he was? She sighed.

  “Look, you obviously have something to say, so just say it. There’s never been any pretenses between us before, there’s no need for them now.” That was true. There was only honesty between her and Cree, it had been that way from the very start and she appreciated that more today than ever. But she didn’t know why.

  “I said it the other day when you were so distracted. I think we should be aboveground with the rest of the world. You wanted this place to be some sort of safe haven for the unwanted, but who gives a damn about whoever doesn’t want us? We want us and we’re enough!”

  She’d never seen Cree this intense before. When she’d met him he’d been a hungry, skinny kid, very polite and a bit on the timid side. After the altercation with the enforcers he had gained an edge to him and he’d insisted on learning martial arts from a video collection they’d found at the pawn shop. But he was still pretty skinny even though he’d surpassed her in height about two years ago.

  “We are enough, Cree. But the world is cruel and it’s...we’re different from the rest of them.” She paused then, looking back at the computer screen. They were different, people were different, weren’t they?

  “Differences create a more colorful world. That’s what my grandmother used to say.”

  “Your grandmother who thought she could see the future?” Of course her tone sounded condescending, how could it not? She did regret that, but it was too late to take back the words.