by Aaron Crash
Mouse, naked, sped over to Liam. She triggered DragonStrength, and that was the fucked thing: she’d killed a ton of those Dragonskins and was full of Animus. If only she could cast the portal magic, but she couldn’t.
She rolled the Yellow Ronin onto his back. She straddled his legs and attacked his belt, buttons, and zipper. “Okay, Liam, I’ll suck you off, you’ll get some Animus, and we’ll have you redo the portal. Hell, if you have trouble getting off, I’ll even give you a show with Aria.”
Aria had other ideas about that. “Uh, no. It’s pretty obvious you are straight. And you are not my type.”
Mouse nearly snarled in frustration. The Yellow Ronin wasn’t getting any wood anyway. What was his deal?
Liam knocked Mouse’s hands away. “That is not happening. I couldn’t … not after … not with the memories of my Escort still fresh in my head.”
Mouse stood up. “That was fifty fucking years ago, Liam. It’s time to get back on the saddle. It’s Steven we’re talking about. It’s Steven!” Mouse felt the tears come and those felt unfair. Why was she crying? Why wasn’t she tougher? “You think I want you? Not on your life! But I’ll do anything for him. Anything!”
She stomped off across the sagebrush. She was barefoot. Fuck! Her heel came down on a cactus. The pain was sharp but welcome. Feeling something other than frustration and despair felt good, however bad. She turned into partial from and kicked the prickly plant out of the dirt.
Her mind raced through their options. At her top speed—and that was using shit off the Pugna branch of the skill tree to fuel her muscles—she could fly a hundred miles an hour. Problem was, France was thousands of miles away. At least twenty hours probably. They had the funds to fly, but that would probably take just as long. Steven, Tessa, and Sabina needed their help now. How could they fight those Trinity twats alone?
Aria approached her. Of course she did. “Mouse, listen, I’m scared too. But we need to think. Liam isn’t going to have sex with us … Nor do I think Steven would approve. We must hope Steven and the others survived. We must trust in his ability as a Prime.” She paused, jaw going tight. “But we must also find Liam a kill. Your hurricane circle is still cut. Perhaps we’ll get lucky and someone will attack us.”
“I was thinking about that,” Mouse said. “I’m a little nervous being out in the open, but then again, if anyone attacked me right now I’d fucking cut their colon out with the Slayer Blade.”
Aria paused. “It doesn’t have to be an enemy. Anyone would do. We could find a homeless person, perhaps …” She trailed off.
Mouse turned. “Damn, girl. That’s cold.”
“Like you said. Anything for Steven,” she replied, her voice a sharpened blade wrapped in velvet.
“Well, we don’t need to do that—which, by the way, is another little something Steven would never approve of. There’s plenty of dragons I’d love to feed to Liam. All we need to do is drive west. I know a bar in Hooper, Montana, where Cassius Pine’s mercenaries hang out.”
“Dive or fly?” Aria asked, a dangerous glint in her eyes. She was raring to fight.
“I think we’d have to drive. Liam is in bad shape.” Mouse clenched her jaws to keep her fucking tears trapped in her fucking eyes. “But, Aria, what if they’re dead? What are we going to do? You and I will have to go to this Rahaab prick. He’s probably a million years old and smells like mothballs and Ovaltine.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Aria said. “Ovaltine, I mean. But I do know that Steven Drokharis is the most powerful Dragonsoul I’ve ever seen. The things he can do … his fight, his will to win, his sheer determination. I don’t believe he’s dead. Not in my heart. I think he either found a way to escape or he defeated Rahaab’s wives.”
Mouse remembered how tough they’d been. Hell, even the Dragonskins had been a nightmare to fight. And what was that symbol on their leather sashes? A red cross inside of a white circle?
She sighed, getting a grip on her emotions. Which wasn’t easy without vodka. “Okay, so we go to Hooper. We pick a fight and then get Liam to open some veins. He’ll get Animus and then we’ll cast another portal spell.”
Aria nodded. “I’ll get my phone. I left it in the trailer. I’ll call Bud and let him know about our situation. He can monitor things to see if we can find a trace of Steven. Who knows? They might have called him. We must believe in Steven, like we’ve been doing for months now. I’ve bet everything on him, time and again, and he’s never let me down.”
Mouse closed her eyes. Dumb tears. They trickled down her face. “I’ve never felt this kind of love for anyone, Aria. It’s scary. It’s so scary. For Steven. Even for Tessa. Hell, I’m even growing fond of you and Miss Blind Mexico, 2018.”
Aria wasn’t the hugging kind. Hardly. She’d suggested they find some hobo and sacrifice him. But the Indian woman did take Mouse’s hand. “I know your fear. I’ve felt it. The love we have is special. It makes us strong even as it makes us weak.”
“I’d sacrifice anything for you guys,” Mouse whispered and meant it. Right down to her bones.
“I know. So would I. But it has not come to that. Now, let us find someone to feed to Liam so he can bring our Prime back to us.”
Mouse let out a frustrated grunt. “And I didn’t even get a crepe. Worst. European vacation. Ever.”
Liam’s phone tweeted. He’d wiped the blood off his face and was grinning. “They’re alive,” he whispered.
FOURTEEN
Steven sat on the bed with the third volume of the Drokharis Grimoire in his lap. The extra pages that had been stuffed in the book lay next to him. He couldn’t make much out of most of them: graphs, charts, schematics for a door, that kind of thing. Two pieces of parchment were definitely useful. The first was a scroll that would let them imbue an object with magical powers, while the second was an invisibility spell riffing off a Magica Defensio charm.
As for the book itself, Steven was baffled by it. It didn’t make any sense. None. Zero.
Tessa and Sabina were getting ready to go out. It was a frenzy of perfume, clothes, makeup, and hair braiding. Giving Pierre the gold had done wonders. He basically had sent in a team of his buddies to take care of them. They were all young guys, and whenever they got around Tessa and Sabina, they’d get shy and tongue-tied. One had a girlfriend, and she brought in the clothes. The girlfriend was studying fashion design in Paris, so she knew about clothes and sizes.
Steven had eaten every bit of cheese, sausage, cured meat, and bread that their personal concierges had brought in. Say what you will about the French, but they knew everything there was to know about food—cheese especially. He’d devoured hunks of something called mimolette. The fresh bread? That shit went down smooth. As did the morbier, which had a line of ash in the middle. Eating cheese that had ash in it seemed fitting for a dragon.
Steven turned a page in the third volume.
Not that he was a full dragon—that was one thing, at least, he’d learned from the book.
It seemed that in essence, he, Aria, Mouse, and Liam Strider were all half-dragons—offspring from when the ancient, spacefaring Alpheros had mated with Homo Sapiens. That was a new word to him: Alpheros. They’d been the dragons that they’d seen on the tapestries in the antechamber of the hidden library. The three brothers—Rahaab, Mathaal, and Icharaam—had escaped the Zothoric Horde and come to Earth fifty thousand years ago. Icharaam fell in love with a human woman, and the first Dragonsoul was born.
Which meant Steven was the long-lost descendant of one of the three brothers.
Steven had read through the history section several times, since that was the most straightforward part of the whole tome.
Icharaam had wanted to come out of hiding to improve the world. He was troubled by the warring, horny apes. Homo sapiens were quick to murder each other, Neanderthals, and any megafauna around them. They wanted sex and violence—the more the better. Icharaam’s passion to help the planet and the apes became an obsession. One whic
h eventually got him killed. Murdered, actually, by Rahaab and Mathaal.
And that in itself was a huge secret. Not just that Icharaam had been murdered, but how he’d been murdered. Apparently, the Alpheros couldn’t be killed by normal Dragonsouls or humans. Only other ancients could end the life of an Alpheros. Well, that or the Zothoric. But their power—the true power of the Alpheros—was depicted on the two-headed Dragon Skill Tree, the Path of the Mirror-Souled Dragon. A path that had been denied to the Earth-bound Dragonsouls for millennia.
Stefan Drokharis, however, had unlocked that path.
And now, that same skill tree floated in Steven’s head—though the new powers of the new path were still locked. Hell, he didn’t even know what those powers might be since none of the new skill orbs were labeled. Steven figured this tome was the key to unlocking those powers, yet several of the key pages were encrypted. That was the only way Steven could explain it.
He leafed to the back of the book, where the twin-headed Dragon was scrawled. The text and the illustration swirled into circles of ink, and then the words faded to black. White text appeared out of the darkness. But it was mostly nonsense. Or seemed to be.
My books. Mountains. The sky. Guilt and sorrow and peach cobbler. The woman brings me peach cobbler. It is sweet, and the peaches are sweet, and the crust is crispy, and the texture is good on my human tongue.
Steven had no idea what that meant. It seemed to be a ramble of words. However, he thought they had to be the clue to unraveling the mystery. He’d tried to write on the page with the topaz pen, hoping that would help, but everything he wrote disappeared.
Moreover, the strange passages changed every single time. And there seemed to be three voices at work … three different people. The brothers? Maybe.
He turned to another section, which outlined portal magic. True, there were bits and pieces that seemed to make sense, but those parts all pertained to things outlined in the other two grimoires. As he watched, a section of ink bubbled and grew dark, and then more yellow text appeared.
What I do I do for the good of the world. Sometimes our fears are justified and justify our every action. Sometimes fighting our fear is a mistake. I know what lies in the dark corners of the universe. I’ve seen the empty hunger and the devouring abyss.
Finally, he went to the last voice, near the beginning of the grimoire.
On this page, the words chased each other, moving too fast to read, until they scattered off the page and an empty white space was left.
Black text appeared.
I wonder about my own father and what he wanted for the world. Can we know the minds of our fathers? Would we want to know? Ignorance might be a blessing. What if I knew what my grandfathers thought going back in time to the very beginning of my family line? If I knew about every aspect of their lives, would that help me understand myself? Or would I feel even more the outcast?
Steven closed the book. If felt like the most important pages of the third volume had been filled with random people’s journal entries. And changing journal entries at that. How did that help him?
It didn’t. One thing was clear. With what he knew now, there was no way he would be able to kill Rahaab. No way. The fight would be over before it even began.
Tessa wandered out of the bathroom. She was in a red-and-white dress that clung to her curves and had a low V-neck that emphasized her cleavage. She was shaking an earring into her lobe, and watching her do that, all made-up and looking so sexy, filled Steven with hot desire.
Sabina stepped out and eased herself into the room. She wore a short black dress that allowed him to see every curve and muscle of her legs. And her hips. And her chest. He’d wound up trapped in France at a nice hotel with the bustiest women in his Escort. Well, there were worse things. Liam, Mouse, and Aria were safe and had a plan to recharge Liam so he could open another portal. All of that was great news.
Which left him with a bit of free time—so long as they flew under the radar and kept away from Rahaab’s trinity of wives. That shouldn’t be a problem. Steven and Tessa had tattoos hiding them. As for Sabina, Tessa had brought a little vial of Liam’s magical ink in her leather satchel. Pierre connected them with a tattoo artist he knew, and in next to no time, Sabina had a hurricane circle tattooed on the back of her left hand. Just like that, they were hidden. Safe.
Rahaab and his wives had no idea where the portal scroll might’ve sent them. It could be any country on any continent. Or maybe they’d think Steven and his Escort had been sent to another planet. Maybe the home world of the Alpheros, though according to the text, it had become a wasteland after the Zothoric attacked.
Steven shoved the pile of papers back into the grimoire.
“Any luck with our encrypted pages?” Tessa asked.
Steven sighed. “Nope. Still a mystery. But at some point, we’ll figure out who the three people are. It’s like we’re getting their thoughts right on the page. It’s fucking strange.”
“I would help,” Sabina said, “but I’m blind, so, yeah. And I don’t have the Animus to cast a Divinatio. Later, though, I can try. I want to help.”
“Good. Because boy do we need your help,” Tessa said with a smile.
Steven got up and slipped on the suit Pierre had provided. It fit perfectly—gray silk slacks, a coat, and a turquoise shirt. Charcoal shoes.
When they walked through the lobby, Pierre seemed like a different guy. “My American friends, you look very good. Is there anything else I can provide?”
Steven smiled at him, his hands around the waists of his women. “No, Pierre. Thanks, man. We appreciate it.”
Pierre nodded. “You have reservations at the finest restaurant in Saint-Malo. I would suggest the bourride with lemon aioli.”
“I don’t know that is, but I’m sure it’s really fucking tasty.” Steven led Tessa and Sabina out onto the streets of Saint-Malo.
The rain was gone, and the streets glimmered in the moonlight. All the beautiful stone, the ornate windows and doors, the flowers in the window boxes, the sheer glory of the medieval city was lit up by electric lights and stars.
“I can’t believe … I can’t believe I’m here,” Tessa whispered, emotion choking her voice. “I’m just a barista, I barely graduated high school with solid Ds. And here I am. Here I am.” She fell against Steven, and he held her tight.
The restaurant must’ve cost a fortune, but Pierre was handling all that. You couldn’t very well pay with gold coins. It wasn’t a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
They were seated on the top floor of a building—lots of windows, lots of candlelight, very few tables. Steven sat in the corner, facing the door, with Tessa on one side of him and Sabina on the other. The women ordered the fish. The bourride turned out to be halibut. Sabina ordered the buckwheat galette with salmon, capers, and dill. Galettes were a kind of crepe, and they all toasted Mouse. Poor girl, she’d taken a trip to France but hadn’t eaten a thing. Boy, was she going to be pissed when she heard about this.
As for Steven’s meal, he had a hunk of beef slathered in a pepper sauce. It was delicious, one of the best meals of his life.
Celebrating, though, was hard. How could he unravel the mystery of the third volume? They were so close to an answer, and they needed to find one fast. If Rahaab hit them before they found his Achilles’ heel, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Tessa tipped back her glass of wine. “Steven, come on. Quit worrying. We’ve been down before. We’ll figure this out. Rahaab can’t be that bad.”
“The stories about him aren’t just bad, they’re terrible,” Sabina murmured. She’d eaten, and her color was better, but she still seemed weak. Yet that red lipstick and her heavy eye makeup made her look so good. Like Aria, she was model gorgeous. Her hair was so black and beautiful. And her skin, so creamy and brown.
Steven blinked. He wondered how sex would work with the two of them. He knew, after dinner, back at the hotel, something would happen. But what?
Tessa s
napped her fingers in front of Steven’s eyes. “Hey, buddy, wake up. Yeah, Sabina is muy caliente. For sure. Why do you think she and I can’t keep our hands off each other?”
Sabina blushed. “Sí, Tessa is also beautiful. But my friends, you should know what I know. About Rahaab. Five years ago, I was married to Scotty Ortiz. He ruled the Sonoran Desert Primacy. I was his youngest wife. We were happy, and I was a part of his family. My parents were already dead, but I come from a long line of brujos and brujas. They were killed by Javier Jones, who is today still the Dragonlord of the Jalisco Primacy and other Mexican Primacies.”
Steven noted the name, Javier Jones. It was another potential enemy he’d have to face eventually.
Sabina continued. She spoke of a foe Steven had already defeated. “Rhaegen Mulk, God curse him, wanted to expand his territory, and so he attacked Scotty. The fighting was fierce, but I did my part. Until Scotty became desperate. He gave me to Mulk.” Sabina swallowed hard. “It was difficult … for both of us. But I hoped my sacrifice would spare Scotty and my friends in his Escort. It didn’t. Mulk broke the deal and killed them all. Scorched earth.”
Steven felt her sorrow. Tessa sniffed at her tears and shook her head. She was so sensitive. And the fact that Sabina had been traded around like property? The barista hated that more than anything.
“But Mulk never got the Sonoran Desert Primacy, did he?” Steven asked.
“No. He had a meeting with an ancient dragon. He called him ‘R.’ They met at the Phoenician Hotel in Phoenix. A day later, Mulk said he was pulling back. Javier Jones would then take over and rule the Sonoran Desert Primacy as well as Jalisco. Actually, that would be his third territory because he also ruled Baja. Javier Jones is ruthless, but there are worse Dragonsouls in the world. Far worse.”
“So we think ‘R’ is Rahaab,” Tessa said.
Steven nodded. “And he’s powerful enough to get Mulk to change his mind. Even without a fight. He says ‘jump’ and every other dragon says ‘how high?’”