Enticing the Dragon

by Jane Godman

  * * *

  The door to the copy shop was unlocked, a clear signal that it was a trap. Too easy. Nevertheless, Torque stepped inside. The place smelled of disuse. Of dust, old newspapers and something unpleasant. Like maybe an animal had crawled in there and died.

  Torque stood still, his finely tuned senses seeking any sign of life. Any sound or scent that would tell him Hollie and Karina were in this building. There was nothing. His eyes adjusted swiftly to the gloom and searched every corner. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were abandoned copy machines and computer monitors, a stack of old chairs and a desk with three legs and a pile of bricks in place of the fourth. On top of the desk Torque’s attention was caught by a cell phone.

  It was out of place in this run-down environment and there was enough light for him to see that the area around it on the table was dust free. Which made it look like the cell had been left there recently. But that wasn’t the most noticeable thing about it. The most important, glaringly obvious feature by far was that it was taped to a bottle of clear liquid...

  As the cell phone rang, the explosion hit. Blinding white light was accompanied by a sound like the roar of an express train approaching at tremendous speed with a loud whistling, wailing noise. The blast hit him at chest level, like an ocean wave, lifting him off his feet and powering him backward. Helpless, Torque let it take him, carry him back and slam him into the wall. With the breath driven from his lungs at force, he slid into a sitting position on the floor, feeling like a broken marionette.

  But he wasn’t broken. If that had been the intention, it had failed. Although he was shaken, he was undamaged. Whoever had planted that bomb hadn’t known what they were up against. His inner dragon strengthened his mortal. He wasn’t superhuman, but he was close. Pushing himself away from the wall, Torque staggered to his feet. His ears were buzzing, his head was pounding and his legs felt like they belonged to someone else. But his spirit was intact. And he was angry. Tail-swishing, wing-beating, fire-breathing furious.

  Come for the dragon, would you? Best not miss.

  He looked around him. Part of the ceiling had fallen in and the windows had blown outward. A pipe overhead had burst, allowing water to gush into the room. Several small fires had broken out. Ignoring the devastation around him, Torque stalked through to the back of the store. There was a locked door at the rear and he dealt with it by giving it several swift kicks. The panels of wood soon gave way under his onslaught and he barged through the ruined structure and out into the night air, taking in great gulps as he walked.

  What now? He had walked away from a pathetic attempt at a trap, but he had done it with no way of finding Hollie and Karina. Breathing hard, he was trying to think what the hell to do next when his cell phone buzzed.

  “Did you enjoy my little warm-up activity?” It was the voice of the man who had claimed to have Hollie and Karina.

  “If that was the best you’ve got—”

  “Best? I wasn’t even trying.”

  Torque could hear a noise in the background. He forced himself to concentrate on that, trying to identify it. He had heard it before, very recently.

  “Let’s see how you like what comes next.”

  If this guy thought he was sending him on some sort of hunt... Torque had lived through a time of quests. In his opinion, they were mostly a waste of time and energy. Going straight to the main prize was so much easier.

  “Head to the storage depot next to the railway station.”

  As he listened to the instructions, Torque focused on that noise. Jangling, discordant music. The wheezing of ancient pipes. It made him think of cotton candy and children’s laughter. And he knew exactly where he had heard it.

  “There is a container with a green door.”

  “Are Hollie and Karina there?” He knew damn well they weren’t. They were near the calliope machine he’d heard earlier when he was chasing Teine.

  “You’ll find out when you get there.”

  “I hope you’re prepared to die a horrible death when I find you.”

  The response was an amused chuckle before the Incinerator ended the call. Torque resisted the impulse to crush his cell phone underfoot. Instead, he considered the situation. All he had was an idea of the area where Hollie and Karina were being held. He didn’t know the precise location. But he knew someone who might be able to help.

  Ged answered his call on the first ring. “Are you okay? We saw an explosion.”

  “I’m fine. Any news on Khan and Sarange?”

  “No. They’re still not answering my calls.”

  That news was both good and bad. Sarange would have been the best person to track Karina, but she might have been distracted by concern for her daughter’s welfare. But there was another werewolf on the team, and Karina was half wolf. Torque was hopeful Finglas would be able to pick up the baby’s scent. And the Incinerator had left another trail for him to follow.

  “Send Fin back to the hotel. Tell him to start at Khan’s suite. I don’t care how he gets in there. I want him to track Karina, so he needs to find something of hers to get her scent. The guy who is holding Hollie and the baby is likely to have taken them in a car, so he won’t be able to follow the smell through the streets, but I know the area where they’re being held.”

  I hope I do. He was pinning everything he had on that damn calliope. Torque paused to draw breath, aware that the words were spilling out too hard and fast. “They are near the fairground close to the Rooftop Restaurant.”

  “We’ll meet you there.” Ged’s calm tone was as reassuring as ever.

  “One more thing...there was blood on the carpet outside Khan’s suite.” Torque clenched a fist against his thigh, fighting the wave of emotion that hit him. Let it not be Hollie’s or Karina’s. “Fin may be able to use that as an additional way of tracking them.”

  He ended the call to Ged, aware he had one more thing to take care of before he headed over to the fairground. There was a booby-trapped container near the railway station. It was intended for Torque, but an innocent person could stumble across it at any time. He had to find a way to make it safe. Luckily, he wasn’t the only fireproof person in Denver that night.

  He made another call. “Where are you?”

  Alban sounded mildly annoyed at the question. “Chasing around the streets of the city trying to find Teine, just as you asked me to. It’s a big place and she’s a small woman. If you could narrow the search area, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Forget that. Go to the storage depot next to the railway station and find a container with a green door.”

  “Any particular reason?” Alban asked.

  “Yes. It will probably blow up as you enter.”

  * * *

  Even on the fifth floor of the apartment building, the bright lights of the fairground and the calliope music were jarring. Hollie could feel a headache forming behind her eyes, but maybe it was unfair to blame the entertainment on the street below when there was a man with a gun sitting opposite.

  “Your pet dragon is running around town obeying my every command.” Dalton’s gloating tones made her feel slightly sick.

  “What do you mean ‘my dragon’?” She tried to console herself that Dalton couldn’t know the truth about Torque. No one could.

  “I was there, remember? When he rescued you from the burning bus, I saw it all. That explosion wasn’t meant for you. It was supposed to be for him. But you were wearing his clothes and I was too far away to see. It was your fault you got caught up in it, Hollie. But what came next, that was a revelation. A rock star who is also a dragon? I was too shocked to film what I was seeing, but I won’t be so slow next time.”

  His next words chilled her.

  “Soon the whole world will know the truth about Torque.”

  “Please, Dalton. You are angry with me. I understand that. But T
orque hasn’t done anything to hurt you.” She hugged Karina tighter. “And let the baby go. She needs her parents.”

  He barked out a laugh. “He’s done nothing to hurt me? How can you say that when he took you from me?”

  The words frightened her even more than the gun that was hanging loosely from his fingers. If Dalton believed Torque had stolen Hollie from him, then his mind had become unhinged.

  They had split up four years ago. Yes, Hollie had been a Beast fan back then, but she hadn’t met Torque and there had never been any hope or prospect that she would do so. She hadn’t even been an overzealous follower of the group. She had always written that strong pull she felt toward Torque off as imagination. She had certainly never spoken of it to anyone. If Dalton had somehow become convinced Torque was the reason they broke up, it was a problem he had; it wasn’t anything Hollie had done.

  “Dalton, you know that isn’t true. I only met Torque recently...”

  “But it was meant to be. You would never have stayed with me. Not when he was waiting for you.” His teeth clenched in a tight, unpleasant grin. “You had a dragon in your destiny, Hollie. I was never going to be able to compete with that.”

  This mysterious partner of his, the other half of the Incinerator team, must have gone to work on him. Preying on Dalton’s minor insecurities and jealousies, magnifying them until they became this huge, festering resentment. For five years. They had worked together, laughed together, been friends. And the whole time he was harboring this terrible secret.

  Yet, even though he talked about destiny, his insistence that his accomplice wasn’t a woman perplexed her. Who, other than Teine, could have seen into the future?

  “And the baby is my way of making sure you behave. I know how feisty you can be, Hols.”

  She gritted her teeth. Hols. The man who used to call her that had been her friend. Whoever this was, he wasn’t the Dalton Hilger she had known. She had to face up to that. This was the Incinerator. The enemy. He looked and sounded like Dalton, but she had to be prepared to fight him if she was going to get herself and Karina out of this alive.

  “If you know who Torque is, you must know you won’t be able to kill him,” she said.

  “There are worse things than death for his kind.”

  The words triggered a memory. What had Torque said? There are worse things than being slain.

  “Once I expose him, once the world knows what he really is, he’ll lose everything. Money, fame, freedom...you.” He grinned. “When he’s a circus exhibit, he’ll wish he was dead. Better still, there could be a fortune to be made. Can you imagine how much people would pay to hunt a living, breathing dragon? Big-game hunting would be nothing in comparison. I could set up a company. Of course, I’d have to make sure he wasn’t killed outright first time. Maybe the hunters could take trophies. A few scales at a time. The longer I let him live, the more money I’d make.”

  Hollie felt sick at the images he was conjuring. “You used to care about every living creature. Who did this to you, Dalton?” Tears burned the back of her throat as she asked the question. “Who made you into this person?”

  For a moment, Hollie thought she saw a flicker of regret in his eyes. Then the mask came down again. “You did,” he snarled.

  His cell phone buzzed before she could say anything more. Dalton’s expression changed as he looked at the screen. Anger became fear and something more. She’d have said it was awe, but he moved too fast for her to be sure. Getting to his feet, he went over to the window to take the call.

  He was talking in an urgent undertone. No matter how hard she strained to hear, Hollie couldn’t catch what he was saying. Whatever it was, she got the feeling something had gone wrong with his plan. Hope flickered inside her like a tiny star in a midnight sky and she tried not to pin everything she had on it. That little light was too small and insignificant to guide her out of this dark place, but for a brief instant, it felt good. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was Torque who had somehow messed up Dalton’s cleverly laid schemes?

  When he finished speaking, he was breathing hard and his skin had taken on a waxy hue. He tried out a snarl, but it didn’t quite work.

  “Change of plan. It looks like the dragon boyfriend will have to die, after all.”

  Chapter 19

  Karina woke up again and was weepy, clinging to Hollie and crying louder every time she caught a glimpse of Dalton.

  “Can’t you keep her quiet?” Dalton was pacing the small room. Hollie could see he was struggling to keep it together, and his earlier threats toward the baby terrified her.

  “She wants her mommy. Maybe if I take her to the window, the lights will distract her.”

  He regarded her suspiciously for a moment or two, then shrugged. “Just don’t get any ideas.”

  Bouncing the little girl against her shoulder and murmuring words of comfort to her, Hollie went to stand at the window. She wasn’t sure what sort of ideas Dalton thought she might have, but jumping from this height with a baby in her arms wasn’t on her agenda. The only reason she had come to look out at the view was to genuinely try and divert Karina from her distress. She supposed there was a vague hope at the back of her mind that she might catch a glimpse of something—anything—happening on the ground to reassure her. Maybe she would even see a muscular, flame-haired dragon-shifter striding to her rescue.

  She didn’t see Torque, or anyone she recognized, but the sight of life going on as normal had the effect of grounding her. Torque would be doing everything he could to find her and he wouldn’t be using conventional means. He also had a formidable team around him.

  Dalton had said Torque would have to die, but he also knew Torque was a dragon. Hollie couldn’t make those two pieces of information add up. At first, she had believed that Teine was the person responsible for changing Dalton from her friend into a ruthless criminal. That would have made sense. Teine had the power to kill a dragon. She had already done so, murdering two whole dragon-shifter clans back in the Scottish Highlands.

  But Dalton had insisted that Hollie was wrong. His partner was not a woman. That made her blood run cold. Because it meant the other half of the Incinerator team was a man with the same powers as Teine. And there couldn’t be many of them around.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of Dalton’s cell phone. That half fearful, half worshipful look crossed his face again as he gazed at the screen. Grasping Hollie’s arm, he dragged her toward the bedroom.

  “In here.” He pushed her across the threshold. “And stay there. No matter what you hear.”

  He slammed the door closed and she was left staring at it in shock and fear. What now? Was this part of the plan, or had something changed? She had thought she was operating at the highest level of anxiety, but this new development kicked her stress levels up a notch. Panic was like a silent fist tightening on her throat. Her eyes widened, darting around the empty room. Racing heart, brain on fire, nerve endings misfiring like a faulty car engine, thoughts that were a cluster bomb inside her brain, each new idea triggering a series of explosions...any attempt to function normally failed.

  Karina wriggled in her arms, reminding her that she had to get past this. She had to calm down and think rationally. Hugging the baby close, Hollie pressed her ear to the hardwood panel. The silence was broken by three heavy knocks, presumably on the front door.

  There was a murmur of voices and she strained to hear. She couldn’t make out the words, and it might have been her imagination, but she definitely heard a wheedling note in Dalton’s speech. He sounded like a child trying to make excuses for his behavior to an angry parent. There was obviously a seniority within the Incinerator partnership, and if she was right and the person who had just arrived was the other half of the team, Dalton was scared of his ally.

  Then they passed the bedroom door and what she heard next rocked her back on her heels. One
tiny word. Not even a word, more a sound, an unmistakable colloquialism. It was meaningless and out of context, but it told her everything.

  Dalton’s companion said, “Och.”

  Opening the bedroom door, she was face-to-face with Alban before she had time to think about the danger. “So that’s why you kept your passport up to date. You needed to follow Beast around the world, starting fires in their wake when Dalton couldn’t get time off from his day job.” She was pleased with the way her voice remained perfectly calm as she confronted him. “And that’s why you said time settles all scores. You’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

  Unfazed by her words, he smiled. “Hello, Hollie. I didn’t expect to ever see you again.” His piercing gaze shifted from her, and the smile faded. “But I suppose I should have anticipated Dalton would screw this up.”

  Dalton’s face went an ugly shade of red. He turned on Hollie. “I told you to stay in the bedroom.”

  “You told me a lot of things.” Her panic was fading now and anger was bubbling up in its place. Alongside her renewed courage, she felt Karina’s tears subsiding. It was as though the little girl was sensing Hollie’s mood and drawing on this new surge of bravery. “Like how you were still investigating this case and you weren’t a criminal.”

  She turned to Alban. As she did, her attention was briefly caught by the fact that the front door hadn’t fully closed. Thoughts of escape flashed through her mind and were quickly quashed. There was a dragon standing between her and freedom. “You pretended to be Torque’s friend.”

  He shrugged. “All’s fair in love and dragon warfare.”

  “No, it’s not.” She practically stamped her foot at him. “You are the person who told me dragons are honorable. You said the feud between the Cumhachdach and the Moiteil was over when Teine imprisoned you and Torque together. Now I find out it was all a pretense and you were working behind his back all this time. That doesn’t sound like the dragon way.”

  “He stole from me.” Alban’s expression was sullen.