by Maria Dean
The four Lionheart workers arrived at the Hennepin county jail, armed and ready to go. Thanks to Sally, they had a cover story and a way into an interrogation room with one of the jailed slayers. Winston and Astrid were to act as criminal defense lawyers, claiming the man was their client. Tom and Sally would work the guards in case there was any trouble. They both could be very persuasive when they wanted to be.
"Attorneys Pfeiffer and Majors," Astrid introduced herself to the guard. "We're here for Jonas Fletcher."
Sally's contact had alerted the rest of the workers the attorneys were on their way. The guards nodded and led them into the interrogation room, where the young Jonas Fletcher sat in handcuffs. "You have ten minutes to speak with him about his options," the guard said his face intimidating and expressionless. Astrid wasn't sure if he was in on their true intentions or not. The man winked at her while Winston wasn't looking, so it was entirely possible he either knew about the plan, or was just trying to flirt.
"Fletcher," Winston greeted the blonde thief when they entered. "We have some questions for you."
He glanced between them and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. "Did the church send you?" His voice wavered. Astrid watched his hands shake in the cuffs. "Look, I know I wasn't supposed to get caught. You have to understand, it was all an accident. We didn't know the place had a security system. Just," he looked at Astrid, his eyes watering, "please don't hurt me."
Winston glanced at his partner. "Well, Attorney Pfeiffer? Are we going to hurt him?"
"Don't be a dick," she muttered. "We're not here to hurt you, Jonas. We just have a couple questions about your church."
Jonas wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion. "You're--you're not here from the church? Who are you? You're not alchemists, that's for sure." His eyes widened suddenly. "Oh my god, are you from the hunter organization? Is the team up finally happening?"
With the mention of the monster hunters, Astrid played a different hand. "Jonas, my name is Astrid Gray. Do you know about my mother, Calypso Gray?"
He gasped. "Calypso Gray is your mom? Holy shit." Jonas broke out into a grin. "Holy shit! You don't understand how famous she is. She couldn't join the church because she was a woman, so she started her own hunter training academy."
"Sorry," Winston broke in, "I'm a little new on the hunter scene. What's the difference between a slayer and a hunter?"
Jonas snorted. "Amateurs, right?" His confidence wavered under Winston's death glare. "Sorry. Dragons slayers are men who operate under the Catholic order. We're called by God's hand to take the fight to the fire-breathing beasts. Monster hunters are freelancers, both male and female, who take down most magical creatures if they're paid to do so. I guess the biggest difference to remember is the dragon slayers were the ones who sealed all the dragons in their own realm. The monster hunters were the ones who killed Father Time."
The realm with the gate just keeps coming back to you, doesn't it? There had to be a connection between Jonas's claim and the secret realm. Snapping back to the conversation, Astrid said, "My fellow hunters and I were quite disappointed to see the church so brazenly exposed. What were you doing?"
The slayer lowered his voice to a whisper. "The church in Saint Paul got a list of residences associated with dragon families," he explained. "We were casing them in search of the dragons, but we didn't have too much luck. That and the alchemists were on our trail, too. The church in Saint Paul hasn't always been on the side of alchemy. We think they were the ones who messed up that night in Mac-Groveland. They are the only magical beings besides Alices with the ability to easily travel through realms."
Astrid nodded in agreement, though internally surprised other groups couldn't get through to the other-realms. She made a note to herself to go back and speak with Alexi about how he could get from the hunters training grounds to their world. "Do you still have that list?" Astrid asked.
Jonas shook his head. "I don't have it on me, no. But I can tell you who does." He leaned forward, grinning. "X."
"X?" Winston repeated.
"Yeah, X. You know, scholar of the monster hunters, the only guy in the Twin Cities who knows more about the dragons than the church itself?" Jonas gave Astrid a look that screamed can you believe this guy? and chuckled to himself. "He operates out of the Merriam Park library. It got attacked when we were hitting up dragon residences. We think it was a retaliation against the church, though X says otherwise. He's a really weird guy."
Something didn't sit right with Astrid. That something was the fact the more Jonas talked, the more things made sense. "Attorney Majors, I think we have all we need," she blurted. "Thank you, Jonas. We'll be in touch." Astrid dragged Winston up with her in a rush, and they were out the door before Jonas could get another word in.
They met Tom and Sally outside. "What's wrong?" Winston asked Astrid. "Is it about X?"
"Winston, remember the name of that scrawny nerd at the Merriam Park library who told us there was nothing sketchy going on?" Astrid was already heading to the car, stealing the keys from Tom's hands.
"It was Xander or something," Winston replied.
"And what's the name of the person we have to get in contact with at the Merriam Park library?"
Winston groaned. "X," he said.
"Are we going on another field trip?" Sally asked, jumping into the back seat. "Oh, and Astrid's driving! That's even more exciting!"
Tom slid into the passenger's side. "Astrid, do you even have a license?"
"I couldn't have interned in grad school without one," she replied as she started up the car.
"Huh. Didn't know that," Tom said. "I guess there's a lot of things we didn't know about you, Astrid."
Welcome to the club, buddy.
CHAPTER 3
Two things of note happened on the drive over to the Merriam Park library. Through a series of complicated maneuvers, to the tune of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, the Lionheart employees learned Astrid was a very defensive driver.
"Driving makes me super anxious," she explained while she waited for a green light. "I don't think humans should have as much power as we do in these metal death traps."
"Fair point, but you also totally could've turned there," Winston griped from the back seat.
"Shut up, Winston."
The second was Christian asking Astrid out on a date. He called her while she was on the interstate, freaking her out enough to make her take an exit and pull over. "This isn't a great time," she said as she watched her friends enter a restaurant.
Tom and the others got out to give her space. She'd driven them to a more exciting part Nicollet Avenue, complete with a variety of food vendors and a donut shop that sold macaroni and cheese donuts.
"Sorry, Astrid, I just got really excited." Christian's chipper voice slipped into a more apologetic tone. "I was cooking a pizza, and I thought, hey, maybe Astrid would want to come over and hang out. Then I remembered you're the kind of pineapples on a pizza person, and I happened to have some pineapples in the fridge, so I figured I'd call you. Sorry, I can go if this is a bad time."
The fact he'd thought of her was one thing. The fact he was willing to sacrifice his anti-pineapple stance was a completely different level of sweet. Astrid blushed, glad her coworkers had left the car. "Actually, that sounds great. I might not be free for another hour, though. Is that fine?"
"Of course, I still need to let the pizza dough rise," he replied.
God, do all the Russo brothers cook? If Giovanni cooked like his brothers, the inevitable choice between the three was going to be harder than Astrid thought. "Send me your address and I'll be over as soon as I can," she said.
There was a muffled noise on the other end, something Astrid could only imagine was Christian cheering. "Right, got it." She could feel his warm smile from the other end of the phone. "I promise it'll be worth your time."
A text came in with his address. "Cool. I'll see you later, then." She hung up just as her coworkers returned to the car. "Did you
get takeout?"
Tom held up a donut box. "Winston just spent $50 on donuts. Please eat some of these."
Astrid glanced between his box and the one Winston gripped greedily in the back. "We're all adults here, right? Like, we all pay taxes and rent and make legitimate, legal decisions."
"Astrid, I've seen how much you spend on vintage blazers on Etsy. Don't fucking start with me." Winston then stuffed his mouth with a donut.
It was hard to take his insult when his face was covered in chocolate, but Astrid stayed quiet anyway. "X better like donuts," she said as she drove them back onto the interstate.
The Merriam Park library was too quiet when they got there. Winston and Tom flanked Astrid as they entered, trying to look tough and masculine. The real secret weapon of the group was Sally, who went to the front desk and asked to see Xander Dougherty. "We're his good friends," she lied. "He's been rather down in the dumps lately, so we brought him donuts as a pick me up!"
The older librarian smiled. "Well aren't you a sweetheart, dear? He's in the back. I'll go get him for you." The woman disappeared into a room used for sorting books, coming back with X in tow. "Xander, your friends brought donuts!"
X looked at the group in front of him and faked a smile. "How nice! Let me just go in the back and, uh, clock out." He bolted into the back room.
"Ma'am," Astrid said after a moment, "is there a back exit out that way?"
"Well, yes, but why would he need that?"
Astrid groaned. "Stay here," she ordered the rest of the group. Exiting out the front, she watched the twitchy librarian sneak out the back. "Look buddy, we just want to talk," she said as she approached him. The minute X saw her, he broke out into a sprint. "Damnit."
For all her intellect and ability to portal into other dimensions, Astrid still had flaws. One of the biggest ones was the fact she couldn't run for shit. X outran her easily, even though he at least stopped for a red light. That ended up being his one downfall.
Astrid cornered him, grabbing his wrist as he tried to run. "Don't even think about it," she growled. "I have spent too much of my day searching for answers. I heard you're the guy who has them. So, you're going to come with me, answer my questions, and eat some of those goddamn donuts my coworkers insisted on buying. Understand?"
He frowned. "Fine," X said. "Can you let go of my wrist?"
"Usually, that leads to people running away again," Astrid said. "Don't do anything that will make me shove you into another dimension."
Sally bribed the older librarian with donuts, so she'd keep quiet about the X fiasco. The scholar himself sat with the Lionheart crew in the sorting room, where he'd been hiding before they got there.
"I was trying to hide from the dragon slayers," he explained after Astrid made it clear she knew about the world of hunting. "They blame me for their arrest, though I have no idea why. I didn't give them any bad information. They were just clumsy."
Astrid glared at him. "Jonas Fletcher said you had a list of locations where the dragons lived. I need it." To try to convince him to help her, she added, "Someone has to finish the job, you know?"
He sighed. "Yeah, well, the slayers paid me good money to get that list. I'm not cheap."
"Astrid, do you think you could do that portal thing again?" Tom asked. "I kind of want to see it in action."
Smirking, Astrid nodded. "There are at least two shimmers in this building, one of which is in here." To X, she said, "I don't have to fight you to threaten you, understand? Unless you're an Alice too, I can drop you in any dimension I please. Try me."
"You're a--shit, are you really an Alice?" X grinned. "That's wicked. I didn't know the hunters had any on their roster." He rose, putting his hands up when the rest of them tensed up. "It's okay, I'm just going to get the list. On one condition."
Astrid quirked an eyebrow. "What is it?"
"One day, you're going to owe me a favor that requires you to portal me somewhere," he replied. "Vague, I know. There are a lot of realms out there I still need data on. You might come in handy one day."
Though Astrid didn't like the idea of being used as a portal service, she agreed anyway. "Give me the list."
X unlocked a file cabinet with his name on it and rifled through the pages. "Out of curiosity, how d'you know it was me? Jonas only gave you my codename."
"Dude, your codename is the first letter of your real name," Winston said in between donut bites. "You're not slick."
The librarian rolled his eyes. "Ass," he muttered as he grabbed a manila folder. He returned to Astrid and handed it to her. "This is the file the dragon slayers ordered from me. Most of these places have been hit up already."
Astrid opened it, searching the list for locations and names she knew. Sure enough, the homes of all seven Russo grandchildren were on the sheet, along with their businesses and the homes of their family members. Astrid caught the names of Nya and Kaylin Opal, too, and added yet another mental note to her list of reminders. Tell Matilde her girlfriend was in danger.
A highlighted address caught her attention. "Why is this one marked like this?" She asked, pointing to the top of the list.
"I'm not sure," X replied. "I think it was because they wanted more information on it. I haven't heard from any of the slayers since they got arrested."
She shut the folder and motioned for her team to leave. "We'll be in touch," she said to X.
Storming out of the library, Astrid dragged her friends back to the car. "Here's the thing," she said to them as they piled back in. "That highlighted address is where I'm supposed to go for dinner tonight."
"Oh, which one?" Sally asked. "Is it Christian? He was really nice when I met him."
"Yeah, it is," Astrid nodded. "I'm heading straight there now. Winston, you can have your car back when you're done. I just want to make sure he knows they're still trying to hunt him."
Winston nodded. "You're a good person, Astrid. Especially for these weird dragon dudes you've only just met, that aren't really that hot."
"I know you're only saying that because your boyfriend is in the car," Sally interrupted, "but you're really, really wrong about that. Have you seen them? They're like Greek gods, Winston. They're sculpted."
"They're definitely sculpted," Astrid muttered to herself.
Tom snorted. "If there's one good thing that's coming out of this, it's Astrid's awakened sex life."
If Astrid hadn't been driving and if Tom wasn't her boss, she would've punched him in the throat. Scratch that. Not punch, Astrid wasn't even strong enough to do that. Dropping him in another realm sounded a lot better.
You're using that as a threat a lot more than you should, you know. Astrid's conscience had a bad habit of being right. She ignored her friends' chatter and focused on driving up to Christian's house in the suburbs. Lorenzo's home had been small and modest, much like the Dragon shifter's personality. He could be a jerk, sure, but he wasn't nearly as flashy as either of his brothers. Astrid expected Christian's home to reflect him, big, flashy, and slightly obnoxious.
She was shocked when she pulled up on his street and found Christian's neighborhood was a smaller suburban neighborhood. There were a series of basic two-story buildings, all with the same outer facades.
"I have a friend who lives in a place like this," Sally said. "Every house is the same, and every family is pretty much the same too. It's like they're all carbon copies of each other out here."
"Sally," Winston asked, "does this friend happen to be a photographer named Johanna?" The receptionist nodded. "Sally, that's just a vague description of The Stepford Wives."
"Well," she said, biting into another donut, "you got my point."
Astrid turned off the engine and handed the keys to Tom. "Get everyone home safe." With a nod from her boss, she exited the car and straightened out her clothes. Christian's house was separated from the rest only by the splash of color on the outside. It had a red panel exterior door, as opposed to the white and grey houses that surrounded it.
The interior nearer to what she'd expected. The walls and book shelves were lined with works of art and gorgeous artifacts he'd obtained from all over the world. It was a very on-brand kind of flashy. Everything reminded her of the sweet, though sometimes outrageous Russo brother.
What stuck out was the trail of flower petals on the hallway floor. "Real subtle there," she called out. Astrid couldn't hide the grin as she followed the trail. "You know, this is only our first time getting dinner, there's no reason for you to pull out all the stops..." The flower trail led her to a smashed flowerpot in the dining room. The blood drained from Astrid's face as she looked up from the pot to the broken window in the dining room. Glass covered the wooden floor, staining the planks with shards and blood. "Christian?" Astrid gasped, looking around the room. "Christian!"
There was no trace of him anywhere. She searched the first floor of the building, stepping around the glass and the blood to avoid leaving evidence. "This can't be happening again," she said to herself. The dragon slayers were all in jail. There was no way they broke out in time to go get Christian.
Astrid circled back around to the dining room and found herself at the back door. A thin trail of blood trickled out under the door. She shoved it open, finding the trail led out to the backyard and into the alley. Astrid returned inside for a moment, grabbing a fire poker from Christian's fireplace. Even with her Alice abilities, Astrid was the last person you wanted on your side during a fight. She couldn't run quickly and had the physical strength of a small cat. Given that, she was considering calling for backup. She didn't know who to talk to, as Lorenzo was out of town and Giovanni wasn't someone she trusted.
Deciding to go it alone, Astrid followed the blood trail out into the alleyway. Christian lived on a cul-de-sac, meaning the alleyway curved around the street in a circle. The blood trail ended midway through the alley, turning and hitting a brick wall. Astrid approached the wall with the fire poker held out, hoping she could at least stab whatever attacked Christian.