On the last turn, we stepped into a large open area that had a little kitchen setup, with a refrigerator that looked like it was straight out of the fifties. Off to one side sat a small dinette set with four chairs arranged around it. A heavy sigh slipped from Chang as he sank into one of the chairs and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“You doing okay, Chang? You’re not looking so hot.”
The old man snorted and looked me up and down once. “You’re not looking so hot yourself,” he said irritably.
“Trixie left,” I murmured as I sat in the chair that put me on his left.
Chang nodded. “Not surprised. It’s dangerous up there,” he said, motioning toward the ceiling. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a slightly crumpled packet of cigarettes. While not a smoker, I was surprised that I didn’t recognize the label on the front. The picture was of a woman who looked like a Bettie Page pin-up girl holding a cigarette and smiling. But instead of perfect white teeth, her mouth was full of sharp fangs. Holding one cigarette between his thin lips, Chang started to pat down his pockets as he searched for either a lighter or matches.
With a little grin, I snapped my fingers on my right hand, creating a teardrop of a flame on the tip of my index finger. As I held it out to him, Chang leaned forward and took a couple draws, getting the cigarette lit. Satisfied, the old man leaned back and smiled at me. “How long have you been waiting to be able to do something like that in front of me?”
“I haven’t been,” I said, waving my hand to extinguish the flame. “Smoking is bad for you.”
“Not as bad as you’d think,” he murmured cryptically. We sat in silence for a couple minutes as he puffed pensively on his cigarette while I tried to ignore the acrid smoke hovering in the air around us. I appreciated the companionable silence. Too much had happened recently to fill the void with needless chatter. Chang also knew that he wasn’t going to be able to sell me any of his random knickknacks today.
When he was half finished, Chang ground out the cigarette in a little black plastic ashtray in the center of the table and pushed to his feet. “More is wearing on you than your girlfriend troubles.”
“There’s this crazy bitch killing pregnant women for a reason I can’t even guess,” I said, watching as he pulled open the yellow door of the rounded refrigerator and started digging through the drawers. “And then there’s this other psychopath. He’s killing kids and . . . and . . .”
“Death Magic,” the old man murmured. He straightened, holding oranges held in either hand.
Chang handed me one of the oranges before easing back into his chair. I smiled as I turned it around in my hand. It was a sanguinello, a blood orange; the same type that Chang had sold me a couple years ago when I had been trying to help my vampire ex-girlfriend out with a problem in her nest. It was the same time that I met Trixie.
“You do have a way of getting yourself into trouble,” Chang murmured, slowly peeling away bits of the thick orangish-red rind.
“Tell me about it.” I put the orange away from me, setting it against the ashtray in the center of the table so it wouldn’t roll around. “I think we’ve got a good lead on the woman. She’s human, with an Alpha Conversion tattoo. It’s made her insane, but in the end, she’s still just a human. My problem is the other asshole. I have no idea how to catch this guy. Fuck, Chang, I don’t even know what he is! How am I supposed to stop him if I don’t know what he’s capable of?”
“He is the one who is using this Death Magic?”
“Yes,” I sighed. Jumping out of my chair, I paced into the kitchen area and turned back, running my hands through my hair. “When we started tracking the guy, he was putting all this strange writing on the wall, like he was experimenting. Gideon seems to think that he didn’t quite know what he was doing. But as he moved farther north, he got better at what he was doing. He slaughtered vampires and brought them back as zombies.”
“Death Magic is very old,” Chang said slowly, nodding. “I don’t even remember the last time it was used. The Ivory Towers destroyed all the spell books years ago. This man would have to experiment if he was to accomplish what he was seeking.”
“Yes, but who or what is he? Who used the Death Magic in the first place?”
“Humans.”
“What?” I said, stopping sharply. “That’s impossible!”
“Why?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. These crimes were so horrible that I didn’t want to think about my own people being responsible for them. But then, the Towers were still humans and they were responsible for all kinds of atrocities. I guess I just didn’t want the humans to be responsible this time. I needed it to be someone else.
“It was a very long time ago. They were a sect splintered off from either the Picts or the Vikings that had settled in the region. They were fighting very bad wars and had lost many people. They wanted a way to raise their dead so that they could continue to fight. They started stealing the children of their enemies and killing them so they could bring back their dead.” Chang sighed, staring down at the orange in his hands. “They had some help. Goblins stole the children. There were also some Dark Elves who helped to twist the magic.”
“But as you said, it’s been a really long time. Who the hell remembers?”
“There would be a few. Not many. What did this man look like?”
I frowned and resumed my pacing. “Tall and thin, he had white hair and large black eyes. There was a kind of . . . luminescence to him. It reminded me of the fey, but he was . . .” Turning back to face Chang, I stopped and stared at the old man. He was sitting perfectly still, his head down so that I couldn’t see his face, but there was a new tension in his lean frame.
“You know,” I said in a low voice. “You know who this bastard is.”
“Yes.”
“Are you working with him? Damn it! Are you what he is, Chang? I know you’re not human. You’re too damn old and know too many damn things. You do magic. Are you one of these things?”
“No!”
“Then what the hell are you? You seem to know all my secrets.”
When Chang looked up at me, his dull brown eyes were gone, replaced with bright red eyes. The irises were narrow, vertical black slits like those of a cat. The old man smiled, revealing a row of sharp, pointed teeth, while a thin stream of smoke curled out of the corner of his mouth. I took an unsteady step backward away from Chang as he smoothly pushed out of his chair, displaying an ease of movement that I’d never seen in him before. He waved a hand at me that was now covered in red scaly skin and tipped with black talons.
“You would put me in league with that creature?” he growled. His voice had become deeper as if his chest was massive. “Have I ever done anything to make you believe that I would kill the innocent for my own gains?”
“No, Chang, but we’ve both got our secrets.”
His smile widened and he gave a little shake of his head as if he pitied me. I was beginning to feel like I deserved a little pity but that thought was lost to me in the next second as the air tingled with a rush of magic. A bright light engulfed Chang like it had the white-haired man, and my heart stopped for a second in my chest.
Where the other man had transformed into a large white owl, Chang was larger and far more frightening. When the light waned, I blinked my eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the normal light levels of the room, but I immediately wished I hadn’t. Standing before me was a dragon.
I tried to take a step backward but I simply fell on my ass, staring up at the massive creature. He was huge in the small, confined space. His wedge-shaped head nearly brushed the two-story ceiling and his long tail was wrapped around his body to keep it from crashing into any of his shelves of treasures. His entire body was covered in dark red scales and his black-and-red wings were folded against his back. Lowering his head to me
, he cocked it slightly to the side as if to say “Happy now?” No. No I wasn’t. I was so much better off in the fucking dark on this one.
“I thought all the dragons were gone,” I said in a rough voice.
It was probably the most inane comment I could have made, since Chang really didn’t need to be reminded that all the dragons had been killed by the Towers, but then my brain wasn’t working properly. There was a voice in the back of my head screaming for me to attack or at least put up some kind of defensive spell, but I couldn’t. And it wasn’t because I was faced with a dragon, one of the most magically powerful creatures in the world. It was because this dragon was Chang. I’d worked with Chang for years. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a friend, but I had never gotten the impression that Chang hated me either.
“No, we’re not all gone,” he replied, his voice a deep rumble that shook the ground beneath me. “But our numbers are very few.”
Chang exhaled and a cloud of smoke swirled around me. I coughed and waved one arm in the air before me, trying to clear it away. When the smoke finally thinned, I found that we were no longer in Chang’s underground warehouse of goodies. Now we were in the middle of a green field with snowcapped mountains rising up in the distance against a pale blue sky. At first I thought it was all an illusion because it didn’t feel as if we’d traveled across any great distance, but I could feel the warm sunlight on my face, and the sweet breeze ruffled my hair.
I looked over at Chang to ask him where we were, when he lifted his head toward the sky. Following his gaze, I gasped and nearly fell back against the ground to see dozens of dragons soaring across the sky, their massive wings spread on the wind and their brilliant scales reflecting the sun.
“There was a time when our numbers were great. We filled the sky and made the earth tremble with our roar.” Chang’s voice was a deep rumble as he watched his brothers and sisters pass overhead, swooping and circling in a beautiful dance. “And when we wished to watch the other creatures of this world, we changed shape and walked as humans. Despite our new forms, some humans knew what we were. They recognized us.”
“Warlocks and witches,” I whispered.
Chang nodded. “Recognizing their great gift, we taught them magic.”
“No,” I cried, shaking my head in denial.
The dragon ignored my outburst and continued his story while watching the sky: “We taught them to control the weather, the seasons, life and death. We showed them how to extend their lives and how to heal nearly any injury. In the end, they were more like dragons than humans, but there was never enough power. We showed them how to stop time, steal souls, and scorch the sky, but it was never enough.”
“Why?”
Chang paused and finally dropped his gaze to me. “Because they were always afraid that we knew more.”
“So they killed you . . .”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know whether Chang heard me. He’d lifted his head back toward the sky, his eyes following a brilliant blue-and-green dragon as it streaked across the heavens. “It has been more than a century since I saw another of my kind. Will you kill me now, warlock?”
“No!” I shouted. Digging my heels into the earth, I pushed back to my feet. Of course, standing didn’t really make me feel better since the dragon towered over me. “Why the hell would I even think that? I don’t give a damn what you are and you know it. My only concern is stopping this lunatic. Are you helping him?”
“No.”
“Then why would I kill you? Not that I could. We both know I couldn’t hurt you, Chang, so the question isn’t fucking funny.”
“I am a dragon.”
“Yeah, and I’m a freaking warlock and a member of the goddamn Towers! You gonna kill me now?” At this point, anger was starting to overwhelm the fear I felt. Or maybe I was just shouting at the dragon because I was scared out of my mind. It wasn’t the wisest course, but the past few days had succeeded in pushing me to my breaking point and I was a little beyond rational thought.
“Maybe.”
“Damn it, Chang! I’ve had enough games!”
Magic crackled in the air and there was a low rumble of something like thunder even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. One of the dragons roared as it passed overhead, as though it sensed the sudden surge in magic.
Trixie was right. I was losing control of the magic; my anger and frustration was overpowering my control.
Taking a couple steps closer to Chang, I held my hands out and open toward him. “I’m a warlock, Chang, but you know I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said in a low voice. “We’ve known each other for too long. You’ve helped me out of too many bad scrapes. I think we’re as close to being friends as the two of us are capable of being.” I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, savoring the smell of lavender hanging on the air. I’m sorry about your people and the Towers. I’m sorry—”
A hand landed on my shoulder and my eyes jumped open to find Chang, the human version of Chang, standing beside me in the little kitchenette in the warehouse below the earth. Worry drew deep lines in his wrinkled face and I couldn’t remember him ever having that expression when he looked at me. “The fate of my people is not your fault.”
“So you don’t hate the Towers?”
A small smile pushed away some of the concern in his eyes. “No, I hate them and would like to see them gone after their betrayal, but taking that hatred out on you will not bring back my lost people.” The old man eased back into his chair as if his body was suddenly plagued with aches and pains, but there was a mischievousness glinting in his brown eyes. “But that’s not to say that I didn’t think of using you a time or two in hopes of causing the Towers problems. Of course, you’ve managed that on your own over the years. You didn’t need any nudging from me.”
“Are you helping this person working the Death Magic?”
Chang frowned at me and I knew I’d insulted him. “No.”
“Do you know who this is?”
“No. I don’t know him personally.”
I clenched my teeth. He was evading my question with that little addition. Getting the truth out of Chang was sometimes like nailing Jell-O to the wall. The bastard hoarded information like he hoarded his other treasures and only willingly gave something away when he thought he could get something more valuable in return.
“Do you think this person is also a dragon?”
“No,” he said quickly, the word jumping from his tongue sharp and clipped. I was afraid that he ruled out this person being a dragon because his actions were so tasteless and reprehensible. He simply didn’t want to be related to this creature in any way.
“Then what in the world is doing this? It’s not like I can make a list of likely enemies. Everyone hates the fucking Towers.”
“You can. There are not many races who are old enough to know about Death Magic and powerful enough to control it.”
Closing my eyes, I rifled through the lists of creatures I had learned about while living in the Towers. When it came to magical powers, there weren’t a lot of races that were a big threat. Most of the races that could use magic had only very specific and limited abilities. That’s not to say those abilities couldn’t be really fucking nasty, but there were limitations. Elves were great magic users, but they were limited specific nature-related abilities. Summer Court elves were into plant growth and weather magic, while Winter Court elves worked in glamour and illusions as well as weather magic. Dark elves were nasty, but even they weren’t powerful enough for Death Magic.
In fact, warlocks and witches were the ones with the most scope and depth to their magic use. As far as I knew, our limitations were only a lack of knowledge and a lack of power to control the spell. The only other ones I had ever heard of who had that kind of magical range were dragons and . . . fuck.
“No, Chang!” I snapped, turning around to point at the old man.
A smug smile rose on his lips. “Not liking the answer doesn’t change it.”
“No, they’re dead.”
“You thought all my people were dead.”
“Fuck!” I shouted, half tempted to just sit down in the middle of the floor and stay there until the world crashed down around me. Unfortunately, that was looking a lot closer than it had just a few days ago. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Kill him.”
My head jerked up and glared at Chang. “Really? Kill a unicorn? You want a warlock to slaughter what is likely the last unicorn. I can’t even begin to count all the things wrong with that statement.”
“He is the last if he truly is a unicorn.” Chang nodded and then continued, dashing the little hope that had burst forth that he could be wrong. “I would know if this person was a dragon. I can sense when there are others near. This is not a dragon. A warlock?”
I shook my head. “No. He may have looked human, but the feel of him was off. There was nothing human in him, and certainly nothing human in his magic.”
“Was his hair like liquid starlight?”
I nodded, remembering thinking those exact words while the man was swinging.
“And in his eyes were the whole of the heavens?”
“Yeah.”
Chang looked at me and the pity was obvious now. “Dragons are of fire and earth. Legends say that is why we like gold, silver, and gems so much—they are woven into our souls. I think we just like collecting things,” he said with a wink. But he soon sobered from his bit of playfulness. “The unicorns were of the heavens. They are the purest form of magic, but only its lighter forms. They can control life and the mind. Their powers harness the purity of the soul and the movement of the planets. I’ve never heard of one using Death Magic—never would have thought it possible.”
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