by D. R. Rosier
We had a few loose ends to tie up before we could head back to Dallas.
We went back to the hotel and checked out, and I finally had boots again. After that we met shortly with Carol and Leo to give them a rundown of this morning’s events, and tell them how the soldiers died. From there, we grabbed a quick lunch, and then headed back to Dallas. Lisa was being very affectionate, and touchy feely, which wasn’t really like her. I wrote that off to her thinking I was dead, or dying earlier, when I had pulled off the impossible and turned into a dragon. She had just about lost it and had killed with a savagery that was breathtaking.
Or would have been if I could have breathed at the time.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t mind it all that much, and she’d get over it eventually. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it without getting caught, but I was determined to learn how to do things in dragon form, like walk, and fly. I was probably an idiot, most likely that would get me killed.
It was late, close to eight at night when we got back to the city and dropped off Harold. He was acting a bit twitchy and nervous as I walked him to the door, but when we got there he seemed to gather himself and looked directly into my eyes.
“Would you like to come by tomorrow night for dinner?” he asked in a relatively confident tone.
Suddenly I felt a little self-conscious, remembering the conversations I’d had with Lisa, which annoyed me for some reason. I knew it was because I didn’t have a hold on him at all, it made it… different. A risk.
“If Lisa can come too, I’d love to. We’re together, and we share everything.”
He frowned, “I thought there might be something there, but I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s the staying professional on the job thing. But did you miss the kiss back at the ruins?”
I could see him thinking about it, I’d obviously thrown him.
He looked startled, “No, I didn’t see that. I went to check on the door, see if water was getting out, to give you privacy to dress. Alright, I’ll see you both tomorrow night then?”
There was an awkward moment, I just smiled in answer, and then he nodded and went inside. I headed back to the car.
I announced, “We have a date tomorrow night.”
Lisa tilted her head, “He didn’t look very excited to have two women coming tomorrow.”
I shrugged, “Probably wondering if we’ll eat him alive and then write him off.”
Lisa smiled, “Do you really think he’d hate that?” she asked as she started us towards home.
I shook my head, “No, but if he wants something more serious, it would bother him at least a little. So I’m taking it as a good sign.”
“Your scent has changed by the way, though you don’t smell like a dragon, or a shifter. Maybe Harold can tell us why tomorrow. Regardless, I don’t think you need to worry others will pick up on it through passive examination.”
I felt a little relieved at that, if she couldn’t pick it up it was probably safe to say other vampires and shifters wouldn’t either. That might not make a difference for mages, witches, elves, or other dragons though, I guess I’d find out soon.
I smiled and asked slyly, “Maybe a more direct examination is called for? When we get home I mean.”
She snickered, “I think you may be right. In-depth and exhaustive seems to be in order.”
When we got home, it took us a long time to get caught up after the last two days. The intimacy between us seemed stronger than ever, and I’d never felt more loved, more pleasured, or had absorbed as much power as I did that night.
Chapter 16
I’d have thought I’d be ready for a vacation after Corpus Christi, but not being able to sleep meant more hours to wind down and relax. I was more than ready to go, when the time to go into the office rolled around the next morning. Brent called us into the office right away, I imagined he could feel us enter the building when the wards passed us through.
We spent about an hour debriefing. Initially I was going to tell Brent about my dragon, but I had a feeling a part of his oath required him to pass along any new information to my father, and I preferred Theo not finding out about it if at all possible. Regardless, it didn’t change the story that much, we just never gave all the details about defending the hallway from the antechamber, so in a way we told nothing but the truth.
Brent didn’t seem to feel any changes in me, and it made me wonder. Siren magic was so unique, it seemed to operate on a different frequency than everyone else’s. That seemed to include my connection to water, because I experimented while in his office by shifting a bottle of water slightly, and he didn’t notice a thing.
That gave me an edge of sorts, my magic couldn’t be blocked at all, or even sensed, with the exception of course of other sirens who I wouldn’t be able to hide either my magic or the song of my being, which would make it clear exactly what I was. On the downside, it also meant I couldn’t use it to block other magic users either, like other dragons, mages, and witches. As far as the sirens, I thought I was the only one here in Dallas, but I’d have to be careful.
When we finished going over the last couple of days, he activated the monitor. A picture of an elf came up, tall, arrogant looking, as well as stupidly handsome and attractive.
Brent said, “This is Darin Seln, he’s a conman, or is it con-elf? He specializes in seducing rich women out of their money. This shouldn’t be a hard one for you two, he was supposed to be in court yesterday to face charges of fraud and theft to the amount of several million dollars over the last five years. The government actually has him tracked to a presidential suite in the Hyatt Regency hotel in reunion tower through one of his known aliases, one we guess he didn’t think we knew about. He’s not known to be violent, so try not to blow up the hotel.”
I snorted and looked at Lisa, “He takes all the fun out of it,” I said in false disgust.
Lisa nodded in faux sadness, “I’m not sure I even want to do it now, no destruction, no fun. All these rules to follow, don’t blow up hotels, don’t massacre the bystanders, it’s intolerable. I can’t work under these conditions.”
“I don’t know, I think he jinxed it when he said it would be easy, so there’s plenty of hope for mayhem, death, and destruction.”
Brent sighed in surrender and rubbed his eyes, “Go… no mayhem! That’s an order.”
“So death and destruction are still on the table?” I asked in my best wise ass cheery voice.
Brent growled, “Out!”
Lisa and I shared a look, neither of us smiled but I was sure my eyes twinkled just as much as hers did.
I did a little looking online on the way there. The presidential suite was over two thousand square feet and spanned two floors. The guy was really living it up on other people’s money. We found a place to park and walked a couple of blocks over to the tower. When we made it to the hotel lobby, a middle aged man frowned at us as he took in our dress, and more specifically, our weapons.
Before he could object, I pulled out my identification. He still didn’t seem very happy to see us, so I assumed he was gay. Nothing wrong with that, just most straight males are at least a little happy to meet me, even the ones I arrest.
Lisa held up her phone, “We have a warrant, give me a keycard for the presidential suite, now.”
He growled, “And if I don’t?”
I shrugged, “We cuff you, and call the police to haul you away for obstruction of justice, and possibly harboring a fugitive. And then we’ll go get him anyway. We have a warrant.”
His lips twisted in contempt, but he started typing on the computer, and he reached for a blank card to program. It wasn’t that common, but some humans didn’t like supernaturals at all, especially those that were victimized or lost family or friends because of one. It was kind of hypocritical, there were tons of humans that were murderers, and the victim’s families of those crimes didn’t hate all humans as a result, merely because they were human themselves, but I understood it. It w
as easier to just lump us all in the bad category than actually think and make individual and informed judgements.
I fell prey to the same mentality sometimes, although all elves were arrogant bastards, so I wasn’t sure if that should count.
Lisa grabbed the card, and ordered the guy not to call or warn anyone, I wasn’t sure if she used compulsion or not, but if she did I wouldn’t object, better safe than sorry.
We got on the elevator and took it almost all the way up, and got off. We took a left and went down the hallway, which is when I heard the songs and grabbed Lisa’s hand to stop her. I held up two fingers and mouthed the word wolves, that was all that was needed to tell her I could hear two wolf shifters guarding the door to the presidential suite.
There’d been nothing in the briefing about Darin having guards. I cursed my comment about Brent jinxing us, I’d probably made it worse by mocking fate and not finding some wood to knock on.
Lisa held up three fingers, and retracted them one at a time, last finger to go down and we rushed around the corner. I sung some low notes under my breath, an attempt to confuse them. It kind of worked, they were slow to react, but they were good enough fighters that their body and reflexes kicked in at the last second. We both punched out with the pommels of our swords, trying to knock them out.
Lisa’s hand caused the goon’s head to snap back and hit the wall with a moderately loud bang. I on the other hand should have sparred to determine how much strength I had now that I was an active shifter. My speed wasn’t much different, but my strength obviously was. I still wasn’t in Chad’s league, but my own strength had probably doubled.
The shifter I hit, his head went into the wall, literally I mean, which caused a fairly loud sound, oops. There goes the destruction part.
They both looked confused, and now dazed, so I sung a few bars to put them to sleep. Mine started snoring, Lisa’s went for a belt knife so she pounded his face again, and a quick follow up of light siren song had him knocked out.
Lisa grinned, “No death yet, but thanks to you, some destruction.”
I snickered since she’d echoed my own thoughts, and got two pairs of cuffs out and put them on the goons. They wouldn’t be helpless, but they’d be weaker, and unable to shift now. I put my ear to the door, and I could make out five more songs dimly, the soundproofing for the suite was pretty impressive for a hotel.
“Okay, There’s an elf in there, three more wolf shifters, and a witch,” after a pause I half asked, “Maybe they’re partners? Imagine an elf’s charm added to a witch’s ability to twist and control nature. I really hate bad Intel.”
Mages generally threw around energies, and built wards. Witches were different, they dealt with nature and life. I suppose it was a little akin to being a siren, but not really. Sirens were limited to the humanoid species and had limited options and influences. Witches could twist a man’s lust, but they could also make plants grow, or use a tree’s roots as weapons, or to subdue a foe. They could do just about anything, from starting a plague to curing one, to making an apple tree grow and blossom out of season, or even twist life into something else.
One of the rumors about the origin of vampires was a brilliant witch made the first one, when she was trying to create a spell to live forever. Of course, it backfired because her test subject woke up in a bloodlust, and killed her. Supposedly… I’m not sure I buy it.
Regardless, it would be child’s play for a witch to create potions to help Darin not only get in with a rich woman, but to control that woman into giving her riches away, and even forgetting she’d done it. What I really wanted to know was why hadn’t the fact he had an accomplice been known.
Lisa nodded thoughtfully, “How should we play this?”
“Well I’m not seeing an easy way to avoid the death part, I don’t think we can play around and try to subdue three more shifters, an elf, and a witch.”
Joking aside, violence didn’t faze me that much and was a part of my world, but I wasn’t really that bloodthirsty though, and this wasn’t an execution like that asshole lion shifter had been.
I added, “Well, we could shoot the wolves in the stomach with silver, that should put them out of the fight. Got any ideas for the witch?”
Lisa sighed, “Confuse her and the elf. I’ll knock him out, you go after the witch.”
I nodded, “You know they’re expecting us by now right?”
Lisa rolled her eyes in obvious agreement, while I swiped the card, the notes of confusion already leaving my lips. I dove in sideways, low to the ground and put two bullets in the side of the shifter I’d known was waiting to stab us by the door. That’s where my plan fell apart, I heard the witch cry out something in Latin, and I went blind.
Not good.
Still, I could hear their songs, I aimed in the general direction by sound and double tapped the second shifter, hopefully somewhere in center mass, based on his song I knew I’d hit him, but not exactly where, and he was still alive. I also heard Lisa come in behind me and shoot the third one. The shifters were pretty much down, silver fucked them up pretty good, and they’d die in about a half an hour if we didn’t get it out of them after subduing them.
That’s when I heard the elf chant a few words, what the fuck, the briefing had nothing in it about him being a mage. What a cluster fuck. I pushed with my feet and rolled, right into something very hard, and sang the notes of confusion even louder as I felt a fireball go right by me. This fight was turning more exciting than I cared for.
I raised my gun and shot at the witch’s song, but her song didn’t change, she must have had some shield of some kind up, or hardened skin most likely. Hopefully Lisa figured out I was blind, because I couldn’t tell her without stopping my siren song of confusion, which would be a bad idea with two casters still in play. I wasn’t sure what to do as I heard the obvious sword play going on between Lisa and the asshole mage, at least no one else was casting, so I kept up the song. There was nothing I could do to break the blinding curse.
The first shifter I shot near the door started to move toward me slowly, he must have been a hell of a tough bastard. I raised my gun in his direction, but held my fire when his song froze and stayed in one spot. If he moved I’d empty the clip into him. I could use the song to determine position, but that didn’t really tell me shit about what his arms were doing. Fuck, what if he had a gun?
Well, he’d have probably shot me by now. That didn’t make me feel much better.
I felt something hit my chest, but it didn’t get through my armor. The bastard must have thrown a knife. I shot him twice and his song was extinguished. The witch screamed in insane anger, which was suddenly cut off. Well that was death. I relaxed a little as I felt Lisa’s song move around the room, being blind really sucked, in a fight it sucked more.
“They’re all cuffed, I’m calling Brent to send a bigger pickup vehicle, and something to lift the curse.”
I stopped singing and said, “Thanks, I’ll just rest here.”
She laughed, the bitch, I so wasn’t kidding.
“Can you feel the moisture in the air?”
At first I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but then I reached out with my new magic. I could feel the moisture in the air, and that gave me a small idea of the room layout, and where people were. It was confusing though, nothing like seeing at all, but with it I’d have been able to feel that knife coming through the air, or even what their arms were doing, sort of.
Of course, now that I knew I could do that, I’d probably never be blinded in a fight again.
I got up and moved over to the couch and sat down. It was still disconcerting.
“It kind of works,” I said grudgingly.
Lisa said, “We should train that, it will give you eyes behind your head, even when you can see.”
That was a good point, but my magic and hearing the songs already did that. Of course, this was a little clearer, I’d be able to feel guns for instance, as long as it was hu
mid enough that is. I tried to relax, but I felt really self-conscious until one of the mages showed up with a company transport van, and dispelled the curse. I looked around and the room was trashed pretty bad. I wondered if it counted as mayhem or not.
Chapter 17
I looked into the mirror, my ash-blonde hair was elaborately coiffed, a pair of ruby earrings and a matching necklace glittered against my fair skin, and I had on a dark blue strapless dress that hugged my curves, and revealed enough cleavage and leg to titillate, but still look classy. I was also holding my sheathed katana, habit I suppose. I’d leave it in the car, I just didn’t want to be out and about without it.
Lisa looked delicious in a black dress that hugged the sweet curves of her petite form, and she had on a pair of sapphire earrings and a matching necklace. She looked amazing, and I got warm and tingly just looking at her. She looked so damned sexy, and adorable. I still didn’t have a death wish, so only told her she looked stunning. She smirked in my direction, no doubt scenting my body’s reaction to her appearance, but her eyes showed approval along with barely contained desire for me as well.
Lisa asked, “This too much for dinner at his house?”
I grinned, “Probably, we look ready for a four-star restaurant, but I wanted to dress up. I don’t think he’ll mind.”
She laughed, “He probably won’t be able to speak either.”
I asked tentatively, “Are you sure you want to do this? I’m happy with you Lisa, just you.”
Lisa came over and kissed me softly, and a little carefully so we wouldn’t get mussed.
“I am,” she said confidently when the kiss ended, “Are you sure? I was… well I was thinking that you liked him, and monogamy is cool, but in a couple of hundred years, adding in other partners will help keep things spicy between us, and it will let us grow together and evolve, instead of growing stagnant. It is early in our relationship, but I figured that was to the good, if we tried twenty years from now, it would feel a lot weirder I think. I think it’s better to set long term expectations now.”