Dragon Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 3)

by Cedar Sanderson

  I did not expect to see the creator of the noise. Shaking his head after the piercing kelpie scream, but heading toward me with a determined look in his eye, was Beaker. The red Chinese dragon was as long as the galley he’d just smashed, able to breathe fire, I knew from the first time we’d met… and bonded very firmly to Bella, who he seemed to consider family.

  “Beaker!” I scrambled past Peg, who seemed to be rooted in place. I didn’t blame her. The dragon was a fearsome sight if you didn’t know he was amiably dim-witted. “Beaker, bad boy. You don’t break things, haven’t we had this discussion?”

  He reared his head back, his massive eyes glinting at me, and his golden whiskers which formed a sort of mustache over that mouth full of very sharp teeth twitching. Then he swooped his head down and grabbed me. I yelled.

  It’s not that it hurt. But when you’re that full of adrenaline and shock, you don’t feel injury right away. No, it was pure surprise. The last time I’d seen Beaker we had left him in the care of my friend David, the firebird, who lived Underhill in the wilderness where Russia was Above. A half a world away, and with instructions to stay there.

  Had he hurt David? I realized he was holding me with a soft mouth, like a retrieving dog, and that we were rising through the water. None of it touched me, he was magically keeping me in a bubble. Peg was nowhere in sight. How had Beaker found me, and why?

  Beaker swam as well as he flew, with a sinuous back and forth motion. I lay crosswise in his mouth, and fumed silently. Now Peg would be angry, and I had still been working on her for her help against the Low Court. Beaker couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk, even if his mouth hadn’t been full of me. Bella’s theory is that at one time he could shift to human form, like her grandfather could. Bob was a Western Dragon, the last one of his kind, according to him. Bella was a quarter dragon, but couldn’t take dragon form. Beaker, Bella thought, had been injured or abused to the point where he could no longer shift, or think very well any longer. He was certainly doglike in his actions and devotion.

  “Take me to Bella!” I yelled at him. Beaker made a garbled noise deep in his throat. That was no help. His vocalizations could be expressive, but not with me in the way.

  We broke the surface of the water and I took a deep breath. I could breathe in the bubble of air he’d created, but it had reeked of fishy dragon breath. Now I sucked in lungfuls of cool… ocean?

  We were in the sea? I craned my neck to see what was around and could only see water. Beaker was still swimming, and I could feel the breeze on my face as he moved rapidly through the water. I wondered where she’d taken me, and just how long I’d been out while she was carrying me on her back. Questions and more questions, and just when I’d been getting answers.

  Search and Rescue Dragon

  Beaker rose out of the water and into the air before too long, but he didn’t relent and let me out of his mouth. I was beginning to hurt, now. Not that he’d bitten me, but the cold air on my unprotected face and the awkward position. I dearly hoped he wasn’t taking me into danger. I was going to be useless for a while until I got feeling back into my limbs.

  I had to close my eyes, the wind whipping my face made them sting and tear uncontrollably. I debated bubbling and going elsewhere, as we were clearly nowhere near Low Court any longer, but I wanted to know what Beaker was up to. I’d hang on, or let myself be hung onto, a while longer.

  When I felt his flight path alter, I opened my eyes again, blinking rapidly to try and clear them. It didn’t work. All I could see was a blur. There might have been some changes of color from the gray surface of the sea, but I wasn’t sure. I closed my eyes again, swearing.

  Beaker made a confused noise and I realized I’d been swearing loudly, and at length. Well, if he hadn’t known the words before, there were times they were useful. We landed with a bump. Every time I’d seen him before, he’d been graceful in every movement. The cursing must have thrown me off… just like Beaker did, now. I hit the ground rolling, feeling like a thrown rag doll, and just as helpless to stop myself.

  Beaker nosed me, “Meep? Meek meek.”

  I groaned. “I’m jus’ gonna lie here a minute…” I still couldn’t see, although presumably I was face up now. I could breathe, anyway. Both legs and the one arm that had been pinched in his jaw tingled painfully.

  “Lom?” Now, that was a voice I knew. I rolled to my side, then sat up. My legs were still useless.

  “Bella?” I rubbed my eyes with my hands and got them mostly clear. I was looking at Beaker’s nose. He was looking worried. “Move, you big brute. I forgive you. Come on. Shoo.”

  He turned his head, and I saw Bella hug his snout. “You found him.”

  That explained a lot. She’d sent him after me. “Honey, I had planned to send you a message before I dossed down for the night. What couldn’t wai…”

  The words died in my throat as she turned fully toward me. I scrambled to my feet, swaying slightly. “Bella!”

  She came to me, her face solemn. I stood still. I was in no shape to move, and she was… She was very pregnant, now.

  “What happened?” She asked me, stopping a pace away from me. Her nose wrinkled. “Phew, you smell like fish.”

  “Beaker had me in his mouth. Bella, how…” I gestured at her belly. “I’ve been gone a day.”

  She shook her head, and I could see the tears fly out of her eyes. “It’s been more than two months. We’ve been frantic, looking for you, and dealing with… Oh, Lom.”

  I stepped forward and pulled her into my arms. She stiffened, and then melted into me, sobbing. I looked over her head at Beaker, who was crying too, big drops that splashed when they hit the sand. He coiled his body around the two of us, giving us shelter. Beaker seemed to sense her moods and react to them, I’d noticed before. Maybe it was the dragon connection.

  “I can’t have been out that long. I didn’t even grow a beard.”

  She looked up at me. “You have a little stubble. But no more than your usual. A day? Where were you?”

  Her voice kept going back and forth between angry and upset. She started to push me away, and then clung tight. I didn’t blame her at all. She hadn’t needed my disappearance, and with the babies, and the coronation…

  “Did I miss the coronation?”

  She hiccupped. “You would think of that first. There were nights I wondered if that’s why you weren’t coming home. No, it’s next week. I called Beaker out of desperation and sent him looking for you.”

  “Good. I really didn’t want to miss that, no matter how much I complained.”

  She looked up at me. “Are you going to tell me where you were?”

  “I was in the kelpie’s house. I passed out from lack of air on the way down… I was riding her…”

  Now Bella did push me away. “You were what!”

  “Now,” I started to laugh. “That sounded really bad. She isn’t human, my dear lady, she was a horse, at the time.”

  “Really.” She got that absent-minded look I knew well. She was accessing the library. Which reminded me to ask her about Alger’s lack of access. It had been two months and surely they’d had that conversation.

  “Oh.” She refocused on me, a look of surprise on her face. “A beautiful white horse, right?”

  I nodded. She went on, like she was reading bits of a book to me. “But they have a female form as well.”

  I broke into her narrative. “Very unattractive. Wears seaweed in her hair, and the talons, not to mention the teeth… Bella...”

  She kept going. “Usually found in rivers and streams, demand tribute in the form of lives every seven years, oh, wait, some of them want more like two lives a year, it seems to depend on where they are found. Different individuals, then, not one as the Greeks seemed to think. They had a legend that all the water in the world was one linked system, and the naiads would know anything that happened in water anywhere in the world…”

  “Not quite, but Peg would be a powerful ally for information of
Low Court which is why…”

  “You were visiting her? You know what legend says about men who are invited home with them?”

  I didn’t know, but I could guess based on what I’d known before, and the way Peg had been acting. “Dammit, Bella, you know I wouldn’t…”

  I held out my hands to her. She shook her head at me. “Why would you go off with a strange woman, Lom?”

  “This is Underhill. There are a lot of strange women. And my job means I have to talk to some of them. Even, yes, go off with them. Bella.”

  I wasn’t going to beg, and I was wondering what had gotten into her. This was not my level-headed princess.

  “You didn’t come home! It’s been months!”

  “Bella!” I stepped toward her and grabbed her arms. “Bella, this isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

  She burst into tears, again. I wrapped her in my arms. I wasn’t going to let go again. “Mine. You’re mine, and I’m yours. Remember that?”

  She buried her face in my shoulder. “I keep crying. I hate this. I just… I thought you were dead. We couldn’t reach you. Messages just… wouldn’t go. They’d sit in my hand when I tried to reach you. Alger sent Mark above, and Raven…”

  I groaned and laughed at the same time. She’d dragged the trickster into it. I was never going to hear the end of this.

  “I don’t know why, Bella. You know I wouldn’t have left you like this of my own free will.”

  “The kelpie kidnapped you.” Bella looked up at me again. “Do you think she was trying to keep you prisoner?”

  “Um, no idea. I thought we were going to have dinner and talk.” My stomach, on cue, growled.

  “Did you eat anything?” She not only looked alarmed, she hugged me tighter.

  “No, Beaker broke in just as I was about to have a fish dinner. So I haven’t eaten in… months?”

  That didn’t feel right. I was hungry, sure, but that would have killed me.

  “I think if you had eaten that fish, you would never have been able to leave. She really did want you for herself.”

  I had completely missed that cue. Peg had acted like she was willing to work with me, not like a black widow. Then again, no one knew what became of the men the kelpies took for themselves.

  “Bella, I’m here, now, and I have no idea what happened to the time. Will you forgive me? And maybe feed me?”

  She chuckled. “Gladly. To both. Ready to go home?”

  “Oh, yes…” She had us in a bubble before I could finish. “What about Beaker?”

  “He always finds his way to me. He’s a good search dragon.” She was still holding onto me. I bent and kissed her.

  We were still working on that, catching up for lost time, when we arrived at home. She’d brought us right into our bedroom, and we had privacy… so she sent me to take a long bath, and a hard scrub. It took a while to get the fish and old ghoul off my skin and hair.

  Evidently I’d transferred some to her, because Bella joined me after a while. The big tub and shower I’d taken the trouble to install came in handy, since she was no longer as slender as she’d been the day before for me. I got reacquainted with her, and the glows of our children, nestled in the new shape of my bride. I was not happy that so much had been stolen from me.

  There were things I needed to know, and people I needed to talk to, to assure I was still alive, and that I knew more about Dion’s enforcer… all that could wait. I needed to make sure Bella was all right, first. It involved food, bed, and sleep wrapped up in one another’s arms before either of us was willing to let the outside world know I was back.

  We hadn’t talked much about anything of import during those few hours. She’d sent messages to King Trytion and Alger, merely letting them know I’d been found. So when I walked down the stairs, it didn’t surprise me to find them waiting in the kitchen. I sensed Bella’s hand in this. She’d been the one who asked me to go find coffee, and tea for her. Coffee, it seemed, was no longer agreeing with her pregnant system.

  Alger wordlessly greeted me with a bear hug, lifting me off my feet. I was taken by surprise. He, at least, didn’t seem to have thought I was hiding out and shirking my duties. He sat me back on my feet and scrutinized me closely.

  “So. Where were you?”

  “Kelpie’s house. For less than a day.”

  He nodded and let go of me, satisfied. “Time runs different in the underwater kingdom. It’s how they live for so long.”

  “And why some of them only eat once every seven years?” I had a small epiphany. He nodded. “Damn. Glad I didn’t stay for dinner, then.” I turned to Trytion.

  “Sir…” I wasn’t sure what to tell him.

  “That was cryptic, and yet I understood some of it.” He stood and clasped hands with me, then returned to his breakfast. When had my place become the guesthouse for royalty?

  He waved a forkful of eggs in my direction. “It worries me, you know, that I got any of it at all. Some of the worst parts of kingship are having to know everything, and I try to avoid it.”

  “Um…” I needed to take Bella her tea. And I needed more coffee in me before I had this conversation.

  “Sit, Lom.” Bella walked into the kitchen. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “That sounds ominous.” I sat as ordered, and Ellie put a plate in front of me. She squeezed my shoulder before she went away again, which was an outpouring of emotion from her.

  Bella started to tell me everything, with Alger and Corwin filling in a little.

  Bella Alone

  Bella hadn’t expected me back anytime soon, certainly not that night. She wasn’t looking forward to the next morning, though, after two bodies in as many mornings. When dawn broke, and I wasn’t home, but there wasn’t a body, all she felt was relief, and then she had calmly left for work at the Court.

  Court was always hard for her. Raised American, with a strong dose of Alaskan independence and resourcefulness, she’d intended to spend most of her career alone, out in the woods. She had a big, loving family to socialize with when work was done. Now, she was virtually alone, surrounded by people whom she couldn’t trust. Joe was grieving, Corwin would only make brief appearances in between being King Trytion. Bella had given him an apologetic glance as she was telling this part, and he’d just waved a hand. Don’t trust him fully myself, he told her, and she went on.

  Tensions were running high. This was the first full Council session since I had so rudely interrupted with Margot’s body in my arms. Alger and Lucia were the only faces she could count as friendly, and both wore masks over their pain. Bella sat next to the king, and waited to see what would happen.

  Wait and see had become her motto. Corwin had warned her this would be the case. Do too much, too soon… or in some cases, do anything at all, and bad things would come of it. Benign negligence was the best way, he told her, to keep a kingdom on an even keel. So, Bella asked him, we take over the world and leave it ruthlessly alone? He’d laughed, told her she had it in one… and now, she serenely faced the people who wanted to make things happen.

  Each one, she was learning, had some motivation. Buckingham was half-mad for family, and pure blood fairy rule. He had sent her on a mission where she could have been killed, with malice aforethought. Lucia told her that as malevolent as the man was, he wasn’t smart enough to have come up with it on his own. The true one to watch for, she’d been warned, was the Duchess Laenven. Of the Willow clan, she was the aunt of one of the spurned princesses, who after Bella’s selection had mostly retired to their estates to sulk for a season. Only Dill and Lady Herbale remained at court, becoming friends with Bella. Only Lady Herbale wasn’t on the Council.

  Bella kept her face a smooth mask as the meeting began with formalities, but behind it she was day dreaming of molding the council membership to have more friendly faces. It would be very nice to have a congenial workplace. It would be positively invigorating to know none of the faces in the room were looking at them all as enemies. S
he was very aware that someone here was a traitor, and likely the reason Margot died and Lom was off running dangerous errands.

  But there was no danger, here. No one was shooting her, or hunting her to grind her bones for bread… at least, that’s how she remembered the stories about ogres going. This was all highly civilized, and cold, and how are you today very well and you. No one talked about death, except when Buckingham stood and cleared his throat.

  He wanted to propose a measure of censure against the newly re-instated Dukedom of Elleria, for the behavior of their titular head, and to reluctantly remind their majesties that if the Dukedom was found to be incapable of ruling peaceably and productively, the bloodline would be stricken from the rolls entirely.

  Bella didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded ominous, and provoked a dangerous glitter in the king’s eyes. Buckingham, his chest puffed out like a male ptarmigan in full display, stood waiting for something.

  “We will take that under consideration.” Trytion’s voice came out like a granite block moving slowly under pressure. Buckingham, with a slight smirk, started to sit down. “We will remind you. Indeed, all of the council that the Lady Margot was on our business when she was cut down so cruelly. If the bonds of blood drove our trusted friend to rash action, it is no more nor less than could be expected of a loving brother.”

  Buckingham looked as though Trytion had hauled back and punched him in the gut. His eyes flickered back and forth between Bella and the king before, tellingly, sliding to the Duchess who sat with her hawk-like face still, and her wings at rest. She didn’t even twitch as he fell back into his chair like a sack of potatoes.

  Bella had decided then she never wanted to see that face again. Buckingham might piss her off, but the Duchess scared her. The rest of the council was much more proceed-as-expected deathly boring, but at least no one was trying to eat her, that was what she kept telling herself. Afterwards, in chambers, she tried to explain what her thoughts had been to the king.