Maybe she was just shaken up by the day’s events.
Maybe she was too skittish.
Maybe she should welcome the chance to learn what she really wanted to know.
* * *
It was remarkable to Jorge that such a weak species had managed to survive for so many eons. It must be simply because humans bred with such abandon. Raw numbers made up for the inadequacies and misjudgments of the individuals.
This one, for example, this Jacelyn, had absolutely no clue that Marco was Pyr and that Jorge was Slayer. Even better, she was unaware that the dragon she sought to destroy was sitting right across the table from her. Her obliviousness to the truth made Jorge want to laugh out loud.
He had recognized her scent, of course, as being the woman with the boy in Seattle all those months ago. She lost some weight, but it was the same woman. There were shadows in her eyes and her lips were tight, and she dressed more athletically than she had. Clearly the boy’s death had changed her, giving her new purpose.
Jorge could work with that.
He was keenly aware of the woman on the far side of the restaurant, a real beauty, who was watching him. There was a confidence and a hunger about her that Jorge found remarkably appealing. He had little time for the wiles of women, but liked how intently she watched him.
At least she could appreciate quality.
Jorge could almost taste Jac’s curiosity, but he let her wait for the morsel of information he could share. The wine was opened and poured, and the alcohol put a flush in her cheeks. The hum of conversation resumed all around them. Jorge asked her questions and the more wine she drank, the more readily she replied.
She had moved to Seattle recently although she didn’t say why. Jorge could guess.
She had wanted to be an artist, but had put aside her goals and opportunities to take care of her sick mother. In fact, she seemed to be one who frequently put aside her own goals to help others. She’d taken care of her sister’s son frequently, too.
The details of her life were excruciatingly boring, but Jorge smiled and listened as if fascinated. He believed that he even managed to appear sympathetic at the right moments—like when she confessed to providing palliative care for her mother.
All the while, he schemed as to what he would tell her. There was so much he knew of Marco, but most of it would show Jorge in bad light. He selected one key detail.
“So?” Jac asked when the pizza was served. “What do you know about Marco?”
“Just enough to guess why he might have been angry with you today.”
Jac’s manner was expectant.
“The dragon you shot today…”
“The opal and gold one,” she interjected. “There’s video footage of him fighting a green and gold dragon near London, and he was in that television special that Melissa Smith did about the Pyr. At least, I think it was the same dragon.”
“It was,” Jorge said with authority. “His name is Rafferty. He killed Marco’s uncle a few years ago, and Marco witnessed the attack.” Jorge shook his head sadly, even though he knew that Marco hadn’t mourned Magnus for a second. “Marco had no other surviving family.”
Jorge chose not to tell her that Rafferty was only wounded, not dead.
Jac’s dismay was evident. “Then it was personal for him, too,” she whispered and bit her lip. “He must have been stalking that dragon. He was the one who wanted to come here. Maybe he heard that Melissa Smith would do an interview here and guessed that Rafferty would make an appearance.”
Jorge nodded and ate pizza.
“But I ruined his plan!” Jac took a gulp of wine. “No wonder he was angry with me.” She shook her head, her disgust with herself clear. “I don’t blame him for being furious. He must have planned and prepared, and I ruined everything by being impulsive.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Jorge murmured. “It’s easy to be overwhelmed by enthusiasm.”
“But it’s the mark of an amateur,” Jac said with such despair that Jorge had an idea.
Time would be heavy on his talons for the next few months. He had to wait to verify that Drake’s mate was pregnant and also for the next blood moon to ripen the next batch of clones. In Jac, he saw an opportunity to create more trouble for the Pyr, which might give him an unexpected advantage.
“Wouldn’t it be great if you could make it up to him?” he asked, and Jac looked up at him, her eyes wide.
“How could I do that?”
“What if you continue with what you started?”
“You mean kill more dragons.” She nodded with vigor. “I’d do it, but I have no idea how. The crystal was the only weapon I knew about.”
“There are others,” Jorge said, eating the last bite of pizza. He forced himself to sound casual, but really, the idea of having a human in thrall to him was exciting. And he still had the option of beguiling her. “If you like, I can teach you.” He pushed a napkin across the table to her. “I live in Portland,” he lied. “Give me your address in Seattle and I’ll call you when I get home. It could be a week or two.”
“Me, too,” Jac said, writing her address on the napkin. “I want to check out the nest where those eggs were.”
“Really?” Jorge asked idly, guessing that she knew more than she’d told him. “I’m more interested in finding out where the others are.”
“There are more?” She glanced up, her gaze darkening when Jorge smiled. “Because there were only five,” she said softly. “Which means there have to be eight more to make thirteen.”
Jorge was startled but he hid his reaction. He nodded. “How did you know?”
“Marco has a verse on the wall of his apartment that talks about them.”
“You’ve visited his apartment?” Jorge asked.
Jac smiled. “It was how we met. He lives in the apartment right over mine. There was a parcel delivered to him instead of to me.” She frowned then. “At least that’s what he told me at the time. Later I guessed that it was really from him.”
“How so?”
“Oh, it was a book about slaying dragons, by someone named Sigmund Guthrie.”
A jolt ripped through Jorge at that detail. Sigmund, of course, had contrived the cloning of Boris Vassily, and Jorge would love to have had more than thirteen clones at his disposal.
Had Sigmund written his process down in that book?
“Really?” he asked, striving to appear casual. “I don’t know it.”
“I think it’s the only copy,” Jac confided. “It has tons of detail, although it’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“I assume you’ve put it in a safe place.”
Jac laughed. “Of course!”
So, the human had usefulness, and Jorge had a reason to let her live. “That was good thinking,” he said with a smile and topped up her wine. He let her chatter on about her plans, paying only slight attention while he concocted his own.
He eyed the dark-haired woman, who smiled at him openly. She had fabulous legs, and Jorge let her see his appreciation.
She let him see her pleasure in that.
A trip to Seattle was in order, Jorge decided. He wanted that book, as much to keep the Pyr from having it as anything else. He wondered whether he could make it appear that Marco had turned Slayer, just to cause confusion in the ranks of the Pyr. They would have doubts, after all, given that Rafferty had been injured by the darkfire crystal. He sipped his wine and decided it was definitely worth a try.
If nothing else, it would fill his time.
He winked at the brunette, who smiled in invitation, then focused on his scheme.
Chapter Fourteen
Marco had trusted the darkfire and the darkfire had lied.
He couldn’t really accept it. In fact, he couldn’t understand it. He nearly stalled the 4x4 as he drove it back to the rental place. All he knew was darkfire and its ways. All he heeded were the urgings and whispers of darkfire. All he believed was that darkfire, even with its propensity for turning
everything upside-down, was good.
The injury of Rafferty was not good, no matter how he looked at it. The death or disfigurement of that Pyr could never contribute to the greater good of anything, as far as Marco could see.
Had something tainted the darkfire? Had Jorge somehow found a way to turn the ancient force to his demand? The very idea made Marco sick at heart.
What would Pwyll have thought of this development? Marco could only imagine. That Rafferty had been struck down, and would possibly die, because of Marco’s actions was an abomination. He didn’t dare trust the darkfire to heed Pwyll’s chant, not without subverting it to something else.
Something worse.
If nothing else, this incident showed Marco to be a poor custodian for the last crystal containing darkfire. That was why he’d left it with Sloane.
Oh, Jac had fired the crystal, but that didn’t absolve Marco from responsibility. He had approached her. He had misled her. He had invited her to Easter Island with him. He had made love to her and trusted her, even been enchanted by her. He had certainly been distracted by her.
He had told her that the crystal could be used to kill dragons and had been by her side, with the crystal, when Rafferty appeared. He had known that she was determined to hunt dragons. In hindsight, his choices seemed naive, if not stupid.
His only excuse was that humans weren’t supposed to be able to command the darkfire. Jac shouldn’t have been able to fire the crystal. She wasn’t a Firedaughter, like Liz.
Why had the darkfire responded to her desire?
The only possible explanation was that the darkfire had responded to the desire of a Pyr or Slayer in the vicinity, not to Jac at all.
Marco parked the truck and considered that idea. He couldn’t smell any Pyr or Slayers, but the Slayers who had drunk the Elixir could disguise their scent. The island could be crawling with them, and he wouldn’t know. How many were left? There was Jorge, of course, and the five that had hatched from these eggs. Were there other eggs? Other hatchlings? He recalled the verse and assumed these were five of the thirteen “monsters” that would emerge into the world.
Was Jac in danger? He sat in the car, letting it idle.
He only thought of the possible danger after their last exchange, which in itself was remarkable. Marco couldn’t recall ever having been so angry as he was with Jac. He never lost his temper. He was always serene and composed, always observant but somehow outside of events.
Not this time, though. This time, he was embroiled in Jac’s choice and Rafferty’s injury. Had the darkfire changed him, too?
Or had it been Jac herself? Marco closed his eyes and took a deep steadying breath. He hadn’t been able to believe his luck when she’d turned to him with that small smile the night before, or the light sweep of her hand over his chest. He’d been struck by her fragility, the very vulnerability of being human, in contrast with her determination and spirit. Her resolve to avenge her nephew, regardless of the price, showed a nobility that Marco found admirable.
He hadn’t been able to resist her.
He’d let down his guard for the first time ever, and Rafferty had paid the price.
What was his responsibility to Jac from this point forward? Had he put her in danger by creating the possibility for her to injure Rafferty? Marco had to think so. It was his creed to defend humans, after all, and while a small part of him thought she deserved to be abandoned to her fate for such a foul deed, another part of him knew that the greater responsibility was his own.
She hadn’t understood what she was doing.
Pwyll would have said that it was up to him to make the distinction clear. Marco backed the car out of the lot and turned around, heading back toward the small hotel where he’d shared a room with Jac. He waited when he discovered that she was out and spent the time wondering whether she would even speak to him again.
When he saw her strolling back to the hotel with another guy, he couldn’t believe his eyes. When he took a deep breath and smelled Slayer, Marco was incredulous.
It was Jorge. The one Slayer Jac was determined to remove from the face of the earth. Marco knew he should disappear to keep Jorge from catching his scent, but he couldn’t leave. He watched from the shadows as Jac laughed at something Jorge said and he could practically smell her discomfiture. She didn’t really like Jorge, Marco guessed, much less trust him, but somehow the Slayer had established a bond with her.
Had he beguiled her? The very idea sent rare fury through Marco.
Jac pivoted quickly and walked away as the Slayer watched. Marco saw Jorge take a deep breath, saw him smile, and knew he’d been discerned. To his relief, Jorge turned and strolled in the opposite direction.
Indifferent to the fact that Marco was there.
It was dismissive, a slap in the face in dragon terms, but Marco didn’t care. He didn’t want to fight, not right now.
Jac glanced over her shoulder and relaxed slightly to see Jorge retreating. She didn’t know who the Slayer really was. Marco was sure of it.
Which meant that Jorge was trying to charm Jac, undoubtedly for some dark purpose of his own. What did he want from her?
How could Marco find out? Somehow he had to guard Jac, find out Jorge’s plan, and keep from being discovered by that Slayer.
That sounded like the kind of long shot the darkfire might favor.
Marco lingered until Jac was securely in the hotel room. He breathed a barrier of dragonsmoke around the hotel, knowing it wouldn’t stop Jorge but hoping it might defend her a little. As he breathed, he considered his options.
He had inherited the role of the custodian of the darkfire crystals.
But he didn’t trust the darkfire anymore.
Marco wove in the ends of his dragonsmoke, then checked for the resonant ping of a completed barrier. He knew he could go to Sloane’s home and retrieve the crystal, but that would mean using the power of the darkfire to spontaneously manifest elsewhere. He wanted nothing more to do with darkfire.
No, he’d stand vigil over Jac and do it the old-fashioned Pyr way. No more spontaneous manifestation, not if it meant using the darkfire. He’d live like the other Pyr, bound to the world and limited just as they were. If he travelled, he’d fly himself or journey amongst humans. No more easy fixes.
Marco had to consider that the power of the darkfire wasn’t his to command, not any longer. Maybe that was what it was turning upside down, taking his hereditary responsibility and blessing, then turning it into a curse.
Either way, he wasn’t going to play darkfire’s game.
* * *
Rafferty’s unconscious figure in the middle of the great room of Sloane’s home was enough to sober all of the Pyr. Sloane kept humming the Apothecary’s song beneath his breath, unable to stop himself even though it hadn’t helped much.
Rafferty seemed to be in a coma, neither recovering nor getting worse. Even in dragon form, his breathing was so shallow that Sloane found it hard to hear.
“At least he’s stable,” Erik said, and Melissa shot him a look. The leader of the Pyr was seeking a positive detail, and there weren’t many candidates. Sloane knew that Erik was disheartened by his own inability to see Pwyll’s ghost, much less hear the Cantor’s song. He kept flicking glances into the corners but his strained expression revealed that nothing had changed.
“For how long?” Melissa asked. The darkfire crackled under Rafferty’s scales, and Sloane found it easy to imagine that the unpredictable force was wreaking havoc in Rafferty’s body.
Havoc that Sloane apparently couldn’t halt. It was another failure to heal on his part, and he was getting sick of failure. It seemed that the darkfire had inverted any potential success by the Pyr.
Or maybe just by him.
“How can there not be a prophecy?” Thorolf demanded. He was rubbing Chandra’s feet where they sat together on the loveseat. “It could help us understand Chandra’s dreams.”
“Have you had any more?” Erik asked.
<
br /> Chandra shrugged. “Two more versions of the story, if it is the same story. I keep seeing the same twins.”
“One with serpents falling from his mouth,” Eileen said with interest. “And one with pearls?”
Chandra nodded. “I see those two brothers coming to eat together in peace, but they end up fighting over the affections of a beautiful woman who is sleeping there and kill each other.”
“What happens to the woman?” Erik asked.
Chandra shook her head. “I don’t know, but there’s a kind of earthquake afterward.”
Eileen exhaled. “The woman is a prize in this story, not a character. She might as well be a fortress or a gem or even a pile of money. The taboo against fighting while eating exists in many cultures and is reinforced in many stories.”
“Like attacking your host or guests,” Melissa added.
“But it doesn’t help much in this case,” Erik nodded, and his mate nodded agreement.
“What else?” Eileen asked.
Chandra winced. “The guy who has snakes falling from his mouth throws something. It’s something he’s made and I can’t tell what it is. He seems to expect it to come back.”
“A boomerang,” Thorolf said, leaning forward. “That’s the only thing I know that comes back when you throw it.”
Eileen snapped her fingers. “Does he go hunting for it?” she asked, with obvious excitement.
“Yes,” Chandra said, “but he ends up at a mountain of some kind and tries to pry it from the earth. He doesn’t succeed.”
Eileen laughed. “It’s a creation story. Alinga, the lizard man, makes the biggest boomerang he’s ever made, but when he throws it, it doesn’t come back. He goes in search of it and discovers that it has buried itself in the desert and become Uluru.”
“Uluru?” Erik asked with obvious confusion.
“They used to call it Ayer’s Rock, until custody reverted to the aboriginal peoples of Australia,” Eileen said. “That’s one of the traditional stories explaining its creation.” She smiled. “The other involves twin brothers.” A ripple of excitement passed through the room.
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