The Dragon of New Orleans

by Genevieve Jack

  The ropes binding her wrists should have burned through but they did not. She concentrated on the enchantment as her dark hair whipped around her face inside the inferno. She thought back to the knots Gabriel had given her to practice on. She’d finally untangled the last one, the most difficult, days ago. An infinitely looping tightening charm layered on a strengthening spell had almost been her undoing. Almost. Raven closed her eyes and focused. First she whispered a weakening spell, then a loosening one, then one to interrupt the repeating charm applied to the ropes. Her wrists pulled apart, and the binding fell into the flames.

  With a dark laugh, she realized she’d needed this. Needed the flames to reach over her head so she could see herself clearly in them. She was no frail victim, no damsel in distress. She was a survivor, a descendant of Circe. And she was her dragon’s witch.

  Eyes trained on Crimson, Raven leaped off the pyre, landing in the street to the screams of the voyeurs. Smoke curled off her naked flesh. She strode toward the voodoo queen with malice on her mind.

  “Come out and play, Crimson!” Raven yelled. “Everyone gets a turn.”

  Crimson turned, started to run. But Raven would have none of that. She cast her hand toward the witch, gripping her within her newfound power.

  “Delphine, help me!” Crimson called, but the Casket Girl took one look at Raven and ran. She wasn’t the only one. The crowd of onlookers was terrified, scrambling over each other to get away from her. Raven ignored them. She lifted Crimson into the air, and with a twist of her wrist, directed the gaping woman’s momentum into the fire, closing her fist to hold her against the burning stake. As soon as Crimson’s back slapped the post, the flames engulfed her. The mambo howled in agony.

  Black smoke billowed from the dusty street, and Raven felt her stomach drop. The crowd, the fire, the executioner, all faded away. She found herself again in Crimson’s temple, standing where she’d been, in front of the grimoire. She was back in her dress, although her skin still smoked. Crimson was back too, wheezing on the floor, the majority of her skin blackened and bubbling.

  Raven gazed down her nose at her. “What’s wrong, darling? Turnabout not fair play?” Demons sifted from the shadows, crowding close, sniffing the voodoo queen’s body. “Your friends are here.”

  “No,” she rasped.

  Raven could see she was dying, killed by her own magic, by her own power. It would be so easy to finish her off. A stomp of a foot or a crook of Raven’s finger could snap the woman’s neck.

  “Having your magic inside me is like living through a bout of salmonella,” Raven said. “Powerful, deadly, and something you never want to experience again.” Raven backed away from her, allowing the demons to move in closer. One was spreading her scorched legs, another lapping at a bloody wound on her throat. “I will never practice it. Your power will fade from me and it will die, just as you will die. No one will ever practice this brand of magic again.”

  A gurgle came from Crimson’s throat. Raven could barely see her body now under the pile of demons. Her soul, however, she could see quite clearly. The dark form had left her body and stood small and filmy beside it. The soul stared at her with wordless hate as a band of demons dragged her down into the floor, to the hell that she’d once sought to control, the hell that she deserved. Crimson’s soul reached for Raven, her mouth gaping like a woman taking her last breath before drowning. An oily black hand rose up, landed on top of her head, and pushed her down where she disappeared into the deep dark beyond.

  Raven stared at the body, scorched and motionless in a puddle of her own blood. Dead. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the woman’s magic, but Raven did not feel a single thing, not one emotional whiff of sadness or regret. She would have finished her if she’d had to, she realized. But there was justice in this. Crimson had lived by dark magic and she’d died by it.

  Raven whirled, scooping Gabriel’s heart from the altar and cradling it in her arm. She opened Crimson’s grimoire, tipping the black candle onto its pages. Fire blazed. The pages curled, sending up sparks as the flames destroyed Crimson’s legacy. Chin held high, Raven strode from the room and from the shop.

  She paused to grab her bag and mask, which were still sitting on the counter, right where she’d left them. To the crackling sound behind her and the smell of smoke, Raven picked up the phone next to the cash register and placed a call to the fire department.

  Her second call was from her own phone. “Duncan? I need you. No, I’ll meet you at the corner. You won’t be able to see me. Just wait there.”

  The fire was all around her now, but she strolled from Hexpectations without a second thought about the flames. Only days from Mardi Gras, she could hear the crowd of revelers in the Quarter and suspected someone would soon notice the fire. It didn’t matter. If anyone was watching the shop at that moment, they would only see the door blow open and a bit of smoke filter into the street.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sunrise. Raven felt the warmth on her face as she crossed the courtyard behind Blakemore’s to get to Gabriel’s treasure room. The peacock-blue layers of her dress fanned out around her with her heavy stride. Her hair was wild, long since freed from its updo. She’d lost the pins and the hairpiece. Black curls stuck to her cheeks and neck.

  She was relieved to find the door to the treasure room open. Tentatively, she crept inside. No way would Gabriel have forgotten to lock this room. Everything he’d ever told her suggested that this was too important a place to him, filled with hundreds of years of rare and valuable treasure he would never leave unguarded. At first she wondered if Duncan had called Richard. Then she learned the truth. At the center of the room, in the space before the great mountain of Gabriel’s making, two faces watched her.

  “Thanks for letting me in,” she said. The oreads’ skin was as delicate and smooth as pearls and stretched tightly across harsh, pointed features. The two had eyes the color of diamonds and amethyst wings as light and thin as tissue paper. “Are you Juniper?” she asked the taller one. He nodded, his long graceful neck bending slightly toward her. “And you must be Hazel?” The other smiled. “It is a pleasure to meet you both. I only wish it were under better circumstances.”

  Raven placed the giant emerald on the floor in front of her. The two nymphs gasped. Juniper hissed and flapped his wings. Hazel began to weep.

  “He’s still here,” she said. “He’s in there. I can feel him. I don’t know if this will work, but I have a memory. Pictures.” She tapped her temple and closed her eyes tightly. “I need a blade, preferably silver, and a bowl big enough to hold his heart.”

  Hazel disappeared and reappeared with a dagger encrusted in gold and jewels. Juniper brought her a deep silver basin.

  “Thank you.” Raven placed the heart into the bowl. “Stand back.”

  The oreads scurried away. Raven held her arm over the emerald and sliced. Blood poured out over the heart, filling the bottom of the bowl. Her lips parted and a chant came to her from somewhere deep inside. She let it come.

  My love, I give to you life, life from my flesh, flesh from my power, power from the fire, the beginning of all things. My love, I give you life, life from my flesh, flesh from my power, power from the fire, the beginning of all things.

  Again and again, she repeated the chant, her body rocking with the words. Her voice was unnaturally low, not hers. The cut on her arm healed. The sun rose and then began to set again, the sounds of music and partying in the streets coming and going with the hours. She swayed and wet herself. Small, delicate hands steadied her. She continued her chant. The sun rose again.

  Eventually her body gave out. Her words stopped. The magic stopped. She toppled to the floor. The last thing she saw before she slipped into the dark river of sleep was Juniper and Hazel pushing the bowl into the pile of treasure, their faces grooved with tears.

  She woke just before midnight, the witching hour calling to her heart in a way she couldn’t explain. The light of the moon swept through the
windows and bathed the treasure room in soft, watery ecru. Her tongue felt like leather in her mouth, and her stomach was hollow. Somewhere outside, a band played. Laughter and voices filtered through the walls from the street.

  Tiny hands grabbed her shoulders: Juniper. He helped her up and over to where a table was set. Hazel placed a plate of rice, fish, and vegetables before her and poured her a tall glass of water. Unable to raise her arms, Raven slumped in the seat. Hazel lifted the water to her lips. The sudden slaking of her thirst sent her into a fit of coughing. With help, she guzzled the rest and then swallowed tiny bits of the food Hazel fed her.

  The nymph’s porcelain features hadn’t recovered from her extended sadness. Dark circles marred her eyes, and there was no color in her cheeks. Even her wings had paled.

  “No change?” Raven asked.

  The two shook their heads.

  “It’s only been a few hours.”

  The two nymphs shook their heads harder. Juniper handed Raven her phone, newly charged and overloaded with dozens of calls from her mother and sister. Disbelieving, she stared at the date. If she stared long enough, would it change? Would the truth of what had come to pass be undone? It was Fat Tuesday, two minutes before midnight. It had been three full days since she began the spell.

  “This can’t be,” she said.

  Both nymphs visibly sagged.

  No wonder the music outside seemed so loud. Mardi Gras. Raven watched the time roll over to midnight, then stood. She would sleep in Gabriel’s bed tonight and deal with the repercussions of what had happened tomorrow. She rose and turned toward the door.

  The tinkle of falling metal stopped her in her tracks. With trembling hands, she turned slowly, searching the pile of treasure. A goblet fell off the top of the mound, rolled down the side, and bounced across the floor before bumping into her toes.

  “Gabriel?” Tears overflowed the dam of her eyelids.

  The pile shifted, the mountain splitting like a curtain as a massive head broke through, nostrils flaring over interlocking teeth. The dragon’s dark eyes burned under a set of bony horns, its sleek, scaled body slipping from the treasure and moving toward her, talons clicking on the marble floor. The green dragon she’d come to love stood gloriously whole before her, its emerald heart glowing in its chest as it should be.

  She dropped to her knees, tears streaming now, harder and faster than she could ever remember crying. It was through blurred vision that she watched him shift, that gigantic body folding and breaking, rearranging itself into a man composed of light and shadow, curves and hollows.

  Wiping the tears away, she saw him clearly only when he bent over to sweep her off the floor and into his arms.

  “Gabriel.” Her voice cracked.

  His eyes searched her face. “I am here, little witch. Yours once more.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed him to carry her home.

  Gabriel conveyed Raven across the courtyard and up to his room, loving the weight of her head against his chest. He needed to eat and to shower and to make love to her until she screamed his name and promised him she was his forever, not necessarily in that order. His chest swelled when he saw she was still wearing his ring.

  Raven was in the same dress he’d left her in three days ago. The skirt was soiled and sweat caked her hair. Her needs came first. He carried her into the bathroom and started the shower, seating her on the closed toilet lid. Within the confines of the dress, she looked thinner, hollowed out, as if the boning of the dress was all that was holding her up.

  “We both need a shower,” he said. “And something more to eat.”

  “I’d like a shower,” she said weakly, her eyes searching his face.

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  “Crimson is dead. I killed her.”

  “Good.” Gabriel frowned. “Do you think her spell was successful?” He glanced at her abdomen.

  “No. I’m barren, Gabriel. I can’t have children because of the damage my body endured during my cancer treatment. I wanted to tell you, but there never seemed to be the right time.”

  “No children, ever?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Was that why you agreed to Crimson’s proposal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Smart.”

  “Do you still want me?” Raven asked. “Even if it means you won’t have children? You’re the heir to Paragon. If you are with me, your line will end with you.”

  He leaned in close, taking her face in his hands. “I still want you. I will always want you. We are not in Paragon, and honestly, the fact that you are barren will make things easier. The mating of a dragon and a witch is forbidden primarily because their progeny would be too powerful. We won’t have progeny for anyone to be concerned about.”

  A moment of silence spread between them.

  “What was it like?” she asked suddenly, her hand coming to rest on his arm. He noticed that the paint on her nails had melted in places and looked scorched in others. He had questions himself. There was no reason to hold anything back from her. Deep inside, he understood that what had happened was miraculous and irreversible. They had both destroyed and recreated each other. There was no word for the type of intimacy they shared, and he would do nothing to damage it.

  “It was pure light, like standing in the sun. I didn’t expect that. We are taught in Paragon that we return to the Mountain when we die. I always assumed the heart of the Mountain was dark and dank, that death would be like sleeping. I was wrong. It was standing in the sun, or in the heart of a flame. There was softness and a breeze. The smell of cherry blossoms. The sense of being surrounded by company, although I don’t remember speaking to anyone. It was not unpleasant.”

  “Oh.” Raven’s tone sounded surprised and a little sad. “Are you upset I brought you back?”

  Gabriel was quick to allay her fears. “No. No, Raven. The entire time I was there, a tug right here”—he tapped his sternum—“bound me to you. I thought of you. I desperately wanted to help you, to return to you. I simply could not. This bond between us became my pulse, my heartbeat. I knew if I let you go, my heart would stop and I would cross over permanently to that place. But I refused. As long as I felt the pulse, your pulse—or was it mine kept beating by you?—I was alive.”

  Tears scored Raven’s cheeks and he wiped them away, the bones of her face hard and sharp against his thumbs. “What happened to you, little witch?”

  “I absorbed Crimson’s magic to try to undo what she’d done to you, but everything about her practice was destruction. She knew nothing about bringing life. We fought and she sent me back in time, into the body of my great, great… I don’t know how many greats, but she was my grandmother. I was in the body of the granddaughter of the goddess Circe, a demigoddess who also went by that name, Circe Tanglewood, on the day she was burned at the stake.”

  “I think I remember that day,” he said slowly. “I stayed away. I could not stand the injustice of it.”

  “Crimson was there with Delphine. Delphine was Circe’s accuser.”

  “That evil crone.” A growl rumbled in his chest.

  “I was tied to the stake and they tried to burn me, just as they must have burned her. I was living her death.”

  “Fuck, Raven. How did you survive?”

  “They burned her over the branches of the Tanglewood tree. It’s our family crest. Gabriel, Circe never had a grimoire. She recorded her spells, all the knowledge about her magic, in the bark of that tree. Every branch was covered in symbols. I breathed in the smoke and took all of them in. All of them. She was… powerful. She’d brought that tree from someplace called the Garden of the Hesperides.”

  “But the fire…”

  Raven laughed. “It couldn’t burn me. I’d just had sex with you. I was brimming with dragon magic. The flames barely tickled my flesh. I escaped and threw Crimson into the flames. I watched her burn alive.”

  “Praise the Mountain.” He reached a
round her and helped her unzip her dress. It took all his effort to remain impassive as he witnessed the ashy smudges on her skin and the way her ribs showed. He pulled her up to help her out of the dress and her undergarments.

  “It was Circe’s magic that brought you back.” Her blue eyes blinked fresh tears away. “Old magic. The same magic that brought your kind into being.”

  He repositioned her naked body in his arms and wiped her tears away. A hard swallow preceded his next question. “Do you still hold that power within you?”

  “I’m not sure. I feel weak, like there is nothing left.” She was pale. Too damn pale.

  “You must take from me, Raven.”

  “But—”

  He held up his hand, showing her the ring, its center filled with nothing but green light. “I am immortal again. You cannot drain me. You will not hurt me.”

  In response, she tipped her head and welcomed his kiss.

  “Not so fast, dirty girl.”

  He adjusted the temperature of the water and turned her into the spray, eliciting a small squeal from her. She smiled. Pure radiance, he thought. He smoothed back her hair under the water and delighted in the way rivulets traced over her shoulders and down her breasts, dribbling off the hardened tips. With a growl, he leaned her against the shower wall.

  “You’re purring again,” she said.

  He glanced at her while he soaped a washcloth and began scrubbing one of her arms. “I do not think it is a purr.”