by Aaron Crash
Steven and Tessa rushed to the window.
“Are you seeing this?” he asked, unable to contain the awe in his voice.
“I saw her jump out the window,” she said. “But then she disappeared. Gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Poof, just like that.”
But Steven knew better. She might’ve vanished from the eyes of humanity, but like Aria, Steven was no human. The crimson dragon soared around the building, once, twice. Watching her slide through the air was beautiful. It was like watching a dancer completely in control of her movements. Then Aria whirled and flew back toward them. At the last moment, she went from dragon to human and nimbly soared through the open window. She rolled off her momentum and landed on her feet. The sweet scent of cinnamon hit them in a wave.
Aria smiled. “There are windows above us, hidden from undiscerning eyes, but I can see them. There is a room, and I think I saw a landing, but it might be closed to me. I think warding magic is in place here, which is why we are having trouble. If this Stefan Drokharis studied powerful portal magic, he might’ve known a spell to keep outsiders away. If you can open a door, you can close it as well, correct?”
“We should be careful,” Tessa said. “Remember, there were those spec-ops guys outside the St. Vrain Aerie. They might be here as well.”
Aria nodded. “Yes, that is possible. Steven, I will change into my True Form, and you can ride on my back. While we are connected, you should remain invisible to human eyes.”
“That’s right,” Tessa said. “That’s why I couldn’t see you. Can all Dragonsouls hide themselves?”
“Yes, it’s very important—otherwise there would be a million videos of dragons on YouTube. Are you ready, Steven?” Aria asked.
Steven gulped. He wasn’t exactly scared of heights, but damn, they were fourteen floors up and there was nothing but thin air between him and the concrete hundreds of feet below.
Aria went back to the edge, hopped out nonchalantly, and then it was his turn. She was a long slender form with wide leathery wings under him. He steeled himself. Now wasn’t the time for fear. It was time for bravery.
He stood on the windowsill in his new athletic shoes. And then, he jumped off. Aria swirled around herself, long head arcing, long tail whipping, wings sprouting, and then she was flying up to meet him. Wind whistled cold and insistent in his ears. The adrenaline of falling made every detail stand out, especially the strong spicy scent of the dragon wafting up.
He plummeted, she soared up. They met in midair. His left hand found her neck, and he used it to guide himself onto her back as Aria adjusted her flight. In seconds he was sitting on her back like he’d been born on Pern.
He was riding a dragon. Him, Steven Whipp, riding a dragon like he was a Targaryen in Essos. She circled the building, climbing steadily higher. Their speed and the general temperature of the air chilled him, and his fingers were numb in seconds.
He wished he could talk with her while they flew, but he didn’t know it was possible until she growled in a voice that vibrated through his entire body. “Steven, there, do you see?” It was like Smaug from The Hobbit being voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
Steven had to yell over the wind. “Yes, I see it.”
There was a fifteenth floor, but it was hidden in the architecture, an ingenious floor added at the very top of the hotel under the Hilton sign. And it was completely hidden from human eyes because Stefan Drokharis had loaded the place down with spells. Steven could see the shimmering of magic even at a distance.
The pendant flashed on his chest. From inside the hidden floor, a brilliant golden radiance burst through the windows. A rocky panel slid out from the front of the secret room, creating a landing ledge. Aria flew over to the platform and touched down light as a feather, letting Steven slide off her body. It was farther than he thought, and he hit the stone floor with a thump, falling onto his butt. Aria shifted into her human form, still naked, and offered a hand to help him up.
He grinned. “In middle school, I had a friend who used to dip toothpicks in cinnamon oil. Every time I smell you, I think of Corwin Kristofferson.”
Aria didn’t pause. She was all business. “I’ll go get Tessa.” Then she was gone, turned back into a dragon, flying around to the other side of the building.
Steven walked across the landing platform. The floor had windows now, which had appeared on the outside, but he didn’t see a clear way in. It was all just black stone. The pendant flashed, and a wall slid downward while candles flickered on inside the room.
Though long abandoned and completely covered in dust, it was a plush, comfortable parlor, not wrecked like the one in the St. Vrain Aerie. The place smelled like beeswax candles and the dusty ghost of ancient incense. Thick red couches sat on a plush Persian carpet covering a hardwood floor. Gilded hand-carved clocks decorated the room, but their pendulums had long ago stopped moving. Paintings, covered in a layer of gray, hung on the walls. Their frames were baroque wonders, treasures in and of themselves. Various tables were covered with expensive looking knickknacks: a large number of jeweled daggers, a silver mirror, a wooden box full of gold coins—all just lying right there out in the open.
“Acquire a Hoard,” Steven whispered, greedy hunger blooming in his belly. Under a lamp sat what might have been a Faberge egg. It had the jewels for it. If that really was a Faberge egg, he could sell it for millions of dollars. Which made him immediately wonder what the paintings on the wall might’ve cost. He now regretted not taking a single art history class. Could one of the paintings be a lost masterpiece by Michelangelo, Donatello, or one of the other ninja turtles?
He chuckled at himself. He knew far more about popular culture than he did about real culture.
He walked deeper into the room. Tomes filled bookcases, but these hadn’t been ruined like the ones in the other Aerie. The whole floor was a mixture of rooms, all connected. He wandered into the master bedroom, which was bigger than the entire Marriott suite where they had crashed the night before.
A massive king-size canopy bed, covered by thick comforters, seemed small compared to the size of the room. As he neared the bed, a roaring fire burst to life in the fireplace, painting the room in a warm glow. In the bathroom, the fixtures were from before he was born, but it wasn’t like the place was from the sixties. No, it was like a penthouse from the nineteenth century. Back in the main room, he traced a finger through the dust on a grand piano. A fire erupted in this room as well, orange tongues licking at thick logs.
Did the magic know he was chilly?
It seemed so. And those candles, they had lit themselves.
Then Steven noticed what looked like a pirate’s chest under a swath of velvet. He’d thought it was a coffee table, but no, it was definitely a big ironclad chest.
Tessa and Aria walked inside a moment later, one fully clothed, the other as naked as a jaybird. The minute Tessa, holding the spell book, drew near, the keyhole in the chest glowed. Steven tried to lift the lid, but it was locked, solidly shut.
She lifted the Drokharis Grimoire. “It’s heating up. I can feel it. And wow, this place is like a French palace threw up on itself.” She took a long look around, lips pursed. “Talk about old-school,” she finished.
Steven nodded. “I didn’t light the candles or the fire. They just turned on by themselves. There’s a bed …”
He wasn’t sure why he said it, but Tessa tsked him. “Not now, you horn dog. I’m guessing we have to figure out how to open the chest.”
Aria removed the velvet covering and threw it behind her with the flick of a wrist. It wasn’t just velvet, it was a flag, scarlet and golden. Steven remembered seeing a picture of a similar flag the Spanish flew hundreds of years ago when their ships had been destroyed by the British. The entire strange floor was full of such artifacts. Just how old were those sabers crossed on the wall? Who had used them?
Steven tried to open the chest again. Locked. It was clear, though, whatever they’d come for—either the Power of t
he Pen or the Magic of Ink—was inside that rusty, mysterious locked chest. The keyhole continued to glow.
“Okay,” he said. “Where do you think the key is?”
EIGHTEEN
Trying to find a single key in the treasure trove of relics, artifacts, and antiques seemed like an overwhelming task. Magic would be involved, Steven had no doubt. Too bad they couldn’t use a jeweled dagger to open the chest. There were a ton of those lying around. An arsenal of them.
A chill wind blew through the wide-open front of the building and flipped up a corner of the Persian carpet covering the hardwood floor. Most of the wood was polished maple planks, but under the rug, there was a design.
Steven left Tessa and Aria standing by the chest in front of the sofas. He grabbed the edge of the rug and pulled it back. A dark polished starburst was inset into the pale wood. Yanking back farther on the rug, another star was revealed. An idea formed in his head. It was a long shot, but it was worth trying.
“Help me move the couches and the rug,” Steven said.
“Wow, an adventure that involves moving furniture,” Tessa said, smiling. “This sounds like a union job. I need two fifteen-minute breaks, a half hour lunch, and if I hurt my back, you better have workman’s comp.”
Aria shrugged. “I don’t know what any of that means. Stand back, Tessa.” The woman transformed into her Homo Draconis form, a slender cinnamon-scarlet dragon humanoid.
Steven nodded, understanding what she was thinking. He undressed. Accessing his Animus, he focused on his own transformation, and soon his black-scaled body matched hers. They were so much stronger than humans, and they were easily able to lift the sofas and move them back. The chest was huge and full of something wickedly heavy, but their draconian muscles were able to do the job with utter ease.
Tessa helped by moving the small fragile items off the end tables: the box of coins, the jeweled daggers, the silver mirror, and everything else. Meanwhile, the pair of Dragonsouls carefully rolled up the fancy carpet and carted it off to the side. Tessa went back and forth, moving bundles of swords, old books, scrolls, and a wide collection of random antiquities—any one of which might’ve been worth a fortune.
Finally, the beautiful wooden floor was revealed in all its glory: starbursts of the Draco constellation, rendered in gorgeous dark cherry wood, stretched across the light wood floor. The long line of stars ended in the uneven sides of a square-like shape, which was the head.
Tessa cocked her head. “Well, if we ever needed money, we could start a moving company. We’d have to put in a nondisclosure agreement, though. People would need to swear they never saw big lizard people moving their piano. Which brings up a question. How come I can see you now, Aria, and I couldn’t see you when you were flying around?”
Aria shifted back into human form. “Dragonsouls have a variety of supernatural abilities to keep themselves hidden. Simple concealment spells to hide our shapes from humans as well as a Mind Wipe spell we can cast to make everyone forget what they saw. We have to remain hidden. I’m letting you see me. When I flew around the hotel, I had to block all human eyes from discerning me.”
“Gotcha,” Tessa said.
Steven, though, wondered why secrecy was so important. He figured it was for the normal reasons: avoid the law, avoid being studied by government agencies, avoid the paparazzi and notoriety that would bring. However, there were other reasons, he knew it. And it was pretty remarkable the Dragonsouls had remained hidden for centuries. He shifted back to being human, and he pulled on his underwear and pants.
Aria rolled her eyes.
“Why so modest?” Tessa asked. “It’s not like we haven’t seen you naked.”
Steven felt his face heat up. “I don’t want to try and figure out my past with my junk hanging out. Clothes make me feel better, okay?”
“You’ll get over that,” Aria said. “Now, we see the Draco constellation on the floor. How can that help us open the chest?”
“Not sure,” Steven said, staring at the pattern in the floor, then glancing at the chest. “Hand me the grimoire, Tessa.”
She placed it in his hands. He walked the line of inlaid starbursts, but nothing happened. At least, nothing happened until he got to the boxy head of the dragon. When he walked into the square, his pendant glowed, which didn’t surprise him, but it also seemed to attract the dust motes floating in the air. Moving the furniture around and rolling up the carpet had beaten up a cloud of dust.
The motes blazed in the light, each one painted a golden color, and they were forming something.
A key shape.
Curious, Steven walked away from the squarish dragon head. The pendant quickly dimmed, and the dust mote key vanished in a blink. He grinned. “I get it. Help me with the chest.”
He put the grimoire down, and they tried to lug the chest over as humans, but it was too heavy. From inside it, they felt something slosh around. What the hell? Finally, Steven had to drop his pants again and turn into a Homo Draconis. In his middle form, he and Aria were able to lug the chest over to the square engraved into the floor.
He adjusted the chest so that the lock lay above the square. Then they shifted back into humans. And yes, he pulled his pants on again.
“You’re going to have to get over your modesty,” Aria said with a slight look of disgust on her face.
“Yeah, I’m sure that will happen eventually, but not yet,” Steven said, then cleared his throat. He lifted the pendant off his head, held the topaz over the square, and watched as the golden dust key coalesced right before his eyes. As he lowered the pendant, the key went with it, dripping dust from the movement in swirls. Would this really work? The key didn’t seem so solid, but it did glow with unearthly power. Carefully, he guided the dust key into the lock and turned it.
The rollers in the lock clicked, and the latch sprang open.
“That is so cool!” Tessa burst out. “Steven, you’re a genius!”
Steven blushed at her praise. He slipped the pendant back around his neck. Then he lifted the lid of the chest, and the rusted hinges squeaked in protest. Whatever was inside was dark and liquid, but how could that be? It wasn’t like the wooden slats could be waterproof, and yet, it seemed the chest was full of ink.
Steven dipped a finger into the goopy black, and the result was immediate. The dark liquid shot up his hands, wound around his arm like a python, then hit his shoulder, only to spread down his chest and gush up his neck. He had jeans on but that was it. In seconds, the ink covered every bit of him, pants or not.
The pendant exploded in a supernova of light, which flung the ink away until it formed a cloud of black that swirled through the room, carried by some mystical wind.
The light bursting from the square of topaz abruptly turned into a prismatic spray of rainbow. The room seemed to explode with multicolored light, and all the while that cloud of ink continued to swirl and dance. Steven glanced down into the chest, but it was empty.
“Holy fuck me!” Tessa spat, her eyes wide. She’d fallen to her knees and stared in wonder at the twirling ink cloud. Her voice could hardly be heard in the screaming breeze.
Aria had inched her naked self to the landing platform, and it looked like she might bolt at any minute. Even she seemed mystified by what was happening, which probably wasn’t good.
“Aria!” Steven called to her. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she yelled in a frightened voice. “I’ve not seen this kind of magic. Like I said, with the rise of technology, Dragonsouls have used less and less sorcery. This is something … beyond me.”
Like a shadowy demon, the mist of ink circled the room, exploring nooks and crannies, sweeping around Aria, checking out Tessa, and then returning to form a cyclone of darkness with Steven directly at its center. In moments he couldn’t see anything except churning black, and all he could hear was the thunderous roar of the unnatural tornado.
Then a voice shouted, echoing and reverberating in his ears, “N
o, Persephone, run! I have it set up. I knew this would happen!”
A figure formed in the ink, made of black dots of the murky liquid, a strong, powerful man with a heavily bearded face. Steven recognized it as the red Dragonsoul from his vision. But who was he?
A woman’s voice answered the first. “Stefan, they’re coming in. The book, is it with the stars?” The ink coalesced into a woman—the same woman who had been sketched in the Drokharis Grimoire. That was Persephone Drokharis, and she was speaking to Stefan Drokharis.
“The Gift of the Book, Magic of Ink, and the Power of the Pen, yes!” Stefan said. He spun, and the ink slipped off him for a second before being sucked back into his form. “I’ve hidden them. He’ll know about us. On the eve of his third decade, our son will discover who he truly is.”
Stefan Drokharis transformed into a dragon just as another dragon hit him. They slashed at each other with their talons, rising into the air. The scope of the ink tableau changed, grew smaller, as a tower rose from the floor, and cottonwood trees resolved into view. It was the St. Vrain Aerie—Steven recognized the four animal heads on the tower, the four doors. The two dragons continued to rise into the sky, tumbling, swooping, battling. A second and third dragon joined the first, desperate to kill Stefan.
Stefan tumbled from the air, slamming through cottonwood branches like a careening freight train of muscle and scale. Down, battered, though still alive. Inky flames exploded among the ink cottonwoods as more dragons appeared. There were five of the great beasts now, all attacking Stefan in concert. All breathed different things—acid, lightning, some kind of strange white fire—which struck the beleaguered Stefan Drokharis.
The woman, Persephone, hadn’t shrunk, and remained as tall as Steven. Like him, she stood above the miniature view of the dragon battle as her husband was burned, electrocuted, struck by acid, and exposed to a cloud of poison gas.