by Willa Okati
Dakarai paused, forehead knotting in thought. “The magic is strong right now.” He flexed his hands. “If he does appear, I can force him back into the nether plane.”
“One hundred percent sure?” Gina had to ask.
“I won’t know until I try, but I feel as if I can. Do you think that’s good enough?”
“Works for me.” Gina tapped the sharp edge of her pencil against the paper. “Randall, will you give me one of those makeshift spears? One with a sharpened edge?”
Not saying a word, Randall got up and headed for the box of dowels. He rummaged among them until he found one which had a pointed end and brought it to Gina. As he passed it over, he inclined his head as if to encourage her.
Gina took the weapon, the cool weight of the wood solid and semi-reassuring in her grip. A dowel, sharpened or not, wouldn’t be much use as a weapon if she needed one, say, if the drawing summoned the dragon, but it was better than nothing. “Are you with us?” she asked. Again, she had to know. The whole team thing. They had to work as a unit.
Randall’s expression revealed nothing but trust. “I have faith in you and Dakarai,” he said, simple and to the point. “Finish the drawing.”
“Here goes nothing.” Gina figured the magic would work no matter how clumsily she drew. Switching the pencil and spear between right and left hands, she applied the soft lead to her sheet and drew.
Her dragon’s head and muzzle appeared on the vellum. Gina shuddered in distaste as she drew in the razor-keen teeth in the long muzzle. The pencil moved on its own and created a fireball being expelled from the dragon’s jaws. She heard a crackling sound, as if the fire were actually there and burning.
She tensed.
And waited.
And waited.
And nothing happened.
Gina let go of the tension thrumming through her body and went slack. “Okay.” She drummed the picture with the eraser end of the pencil. “This is what our boy looks like. Does this help, Dakarai? Randall?”
Less than you might think.
“Shit!” Gina jumped back, knocking the stool to the ground. It clattered away.
On the page, the dragon turned his head. He leered at them, eyes glittering with malice despite being no more than pencil lines. Knowing what I look like has no bearing on what I can do. And why should I wait for you to puzzle it out? You swore to protect the city, Gina. Let us see if you can shield it now.
“Erase the head!” Dakarai scrambled for Gina’s pencil. “Quick!”
Like she was going to go slow! Hastily, Gina scrubbed her eraser against the vellum. The lines smeared, curls of rubber piling up in their wake. She didn’t stop until half the dragon’s trunk was gone -- and then it was only Randall’s hand on hers, pulling her fingers open, that made her stop.
“Easy,” he soothed. But he didn’t promise everything would be all right. Neither did Dakarai, whose fists were working in and out of tight knots.
Pandora’s Box was open, and all hell was about to break loose.
Chapter Twelve
Randall shouldered open the hidden rear entrance to the shop -- which, as Dakarai had informed them, he’d been very careful the police did not know about -- and made his way toward the front. “God, it’s sizzling outside.”
“You’re back.” Gina turned to him in relief and then took a second look of appreciation. To counter the increasing heat outside, he’d stripped down to a black muscle tank top, but still gleamed with sweat. He held two bulging plastic sacks, one in each hand. The weight of them pulled the handles to the breaking point. There were red welts on each set of fingers where he must have had to stop and adjust the burdens he carried.
He didn’t seem to care. “What’s the news?”
Before sending Randall out to the hardware superstore to get anything he could find that might work as a spear head, Gina had gone to work on Dakarai. Dakarai had hemmed and hawed about brain rot and mental pabulum, but in the end he’d produced an ancient black and white TV from the inner bowels of his shop.
“It probably won’t even work,” he’d warned as Gina sat down tailor-style in front of the thing. “God only knows how old the thing might be.”
“Circa 1970s, looks like to me.” Randall had leaned on Gina’s shoulder, peering at the station dial, then adjusting the foil-coated rabbit ears. “See what you can find out. I’ll go take a look for myself while I’m outside.”
All the while he’d been gone, Gina had only been able to pay half her attention to the TV set. Despite the way it flickered and the picture rolled up and down, making it look like scrambled porn, she had been able to tune into a local news station.
What she’d seen wasn’t good.
“Glad you’re safe.” Gina unfolded her legs from beneath herself and rose to wrap her arms around Randall’s neck. She gave him a rough squeeze and then, because she was there, a quick kiss. “I thought something might have happened.”
Randall looked slightly startled when Gina pulled back, then grinned and ruffled up her loose strands of hair. “Nah, no worries about me. I’m the bodyman, remember? Your strong right arm. Although, no lie, it’s one hell of a mess outside.”
“Tell me about it.” Gina eased herself back down and nudged at the humming TV with one sneaker. “From what I’ve been able to make out, things are going insane.”
“Insane is a pretty mild word.” Randall put his shopping bags down. Their contents clinked and clanked against one another with a comfortingly hard metal sound. “Everywhere I went, people were at each other’s throats.”
“Yelling, screaming, in everyone’s face?” Gina guessed wryly. “But no one actually did anything much worse than use their fists.”
“How’d you know?”
Gina gestured to the TV. “No reports of shootings, knifings, or other attempts at murder. No rapes.”
“Probably not for long.” Randall was such a big man, broad through the shoulders and strong in the legs, he had a hard time hunkering down, but he did his best job at self-compaction and joined Gina. He gave her a sober look. “Like I said, it’s getting rough. Men are pushing at women. Vice versa, too. I broke up one crowd of hysterical women surrounding a cute twenty-something guy.”
Gina chuckled and nudged her ex. “So you noticed he was cute, huh?”
Randall pinkened. “Yeah, well... no matter what else is going on, I’m not blind.”
“Is he okay now?”
“Should be. He was right on his apartment steps. I told him to drop everything, go inside, and lock the door. Never saw anyone move so fast before.” Randall added a noncommittal noise to the end of his speech. “If the ladies don’t go up and knock his door down, I guess he’ll be okay.”
Gina made a fist and pounded the floor. All she accomplished was sore knuckles and a brief moment of steadiness on the TV screen. “I should be out there,” she complained. “I need to protect the city.”
“Gina.” Randall took her hand in his own, chafing the fingers. “You’re not one of the X-Men, okay? The best way for you to get these people safe is to kill the dragon. Once he’s gone, the rest of this stops.”
“If he shows himself.” Gina scowled. “Why’s he hiding? All he’s doing is pissing me off.”
“I think that’s what he wants.”
Gina fell silent and stared at the TV. The dragon had been in hiding since his picture came to life -- although his influence was, as they’d both observed, definitely at work. The pervasive anger and sexual heat were proof of that and still appeared to be his weapons of choice.
If he’d just come out in the open where she could get a crack at him!
“This is Tamara Sykes reporting live from the steps of City Hall,” a woman declared on the TV. Her expression was stamped in an ugly scowl. People wrangled behind her, one of them jostling her forward, almost into the camera. “Conditions in town continue on the verge of a riot. Hey! Hey, aim the lens at me, not them!”
The picture had drifted away from the
reporter to the men tussling behind her. She grabbed the lens and wrenched it back to focus on her, tangled hair and all. Professionalism and pure wrath were clearly at war deep under her skin. Her words came out clearly, but almost snarling.
“Police have been called out in force. Some say this is the result of the earlier firebombing that, as yet, has no explanation. There are rumors that the exploding missiles are meteorite chunks. There are also rumors that this is part of an alien invasion. And if you believe in that, you probably believe Elvis is still alive, too.” Tamara snorted. “Back to you, Neal, the fathead who thinks he’s better than me because he sits behind a desk. Your hair’s fake, Neal! You think you’ve got everyone fooled, but you’re as bald as a baby! Yah!”
Gina sighed and twisted a dial to turn the volume down. “And so on, and so on, and so on.” She turned to Randall. “What kind of stuff did you get?”
“Whatever I could grab in a hurry. I didn’t want to be out there too long.” Randall tugged one of his heavy bags over and began sorting through the contents. “A lot of hand gardening stuff. Hand rakes, spades, digging knives. Not the best or strongest metal, but they’re a start.”
“Yeah. They don’t exactly sell swords or good old-fashioned killing spears at Lowe’s.” Gina took a trowel as Randall passed it to her. She tested the edge. Pretty blunt. “You think Dakarai could put an extra-sharp edge on these?”
“I don’t see why not.” Randall glanced around them, then looked puzzled. “Where is Dak?”
Gina pointed up. “Aerial feed.”
Randall tilted his head back, and contrary to Gina’s expectations, grinned. “Leave it to Dak.”
Dakarai had his feet firmly planted on the ceiling, his arms spread out wide as if for balance. Hair floated around his face, sparks of static electricity jumping from curl to curl. His eyes were shut tight but his mouth moved nonstop, speaking some whispery, spidery language Gina knew she didn’t have a prayer of understanding.
“I guess he’s up to some mage stuff,” she suggested with a grimace. “He wouldn’t tell me much. Just said he was going to do what he could. Then he went airborne.”
They regarded Dakarai for a moment. A glance at Randall told Gina he knew better than she did about what Dakarai was up to. “Spill,” she said with a nudge to his ribs. “What’s Mr. Wizard doing?”
Randall laughed without humor. “Protecting the city. Not letting contact with the ground poison his magic. Keeping all that rage, all that lust, from spilling over. It’s why the place hasn’t exploded yet.”
Gina eyed her levitating mage. “Uh huh. And what happens if he lets go?”
“Once he’s finished the spell, it’ll hold for a while. It’ll still only a Band-Aid, though. Anything we do right now is just a stopgap.”
A prickle of curiosity teased at Gina. “How do you know that’s what he’s doing, anyway?”
Her ex didn’t take his eyes off Dakarai. “Educated guess,” he said after a moment. “I got put in charge of the physical -- weapons, armor; wasn’t able to get a Kevlar vest, by the way -- so it stands to reason he’d work with the metaphysical. Besides, it’s like him. He can’t stand by while others suffer.”
Gina rolled the thought over in her mind. No, Dakarai couldn’t, could he? The kind of man who’d ward and shield so many had to have a heart for the people. He wouldn’t stop trying to protect them if he was able to help it, and she’d bet it would just about kill him when his hands were tied. She had to admire the man. Whether it would have been years before they’d run into each other, or whether they’d spent their whole lives apart, Dakarai would have kept his skills honed sharp in case he were called on to help her.
He wasn’t all about magic, though the power was a big part of him. The magic came from the man himself, one Gina had learned was a decent guy, bighearted and exuberant.
She could see why Randall had fallen for him.
Randall sat close enough to touch, so Gina reached out and brushed his bicep. The tattoo she’d noticed before was an addition since they were last a couple, something heavy and tribal with jagged edges. It didn’t have the professional look of most tats she’d seen. “Dakarai do this?” she asked, tracing the design. “Is it a charm?”
“Kind of.” Randall reached to touch, brushing against her. Their skin snapped with static electricity where point met point, a small blue crackle in the air. Gina flinched away, then put her hand back. “It’s magic. Guess you could tell.” He gave her a rueful look. “Dak’s idea.”
“To protect you?”
“Partly. And partly just to put his mark on me. For the ordinary world, it’s like a... not a wedding band exactly... I’m not sure what to call it. But when it comes to the mystical, it shows I’m under the protection of a master mage.”
“Bet you could defend yourself.” Gina fondled Randall’s rock-solid bicep. “Which is kind of what I’m counting on you to do.”
Randall flexed his arm experimentally. “I know.” He frowned as he watched his muscles bulge and ripple. “Bodyman to the last of the Georges. Arms carrier, shield bearer, the hero -- heroine’s -- battle bodyguard, just like in the legends. I didn’t see my life going this way, but I’m not sorry.”
The moment grew awkward. “So, what other tricks does Dakarai have up his sleeve?” Gina tried as a conversational gambit.
“Mmm. He can raise the dead.”
Okay, not what she’d been expecting. And -- damn. He was that strong? “You’re kidding.”
“I’ve seen it happen. Only once or twice. Only when someone really needed to cross back over. It’s not pretty. But he has the know-how.”
“Remind me to stay on his good side.”
Randall chuckled. The tension between them eased.
Gina shifted partially onto her hip, leaning against Randall’s solid bulk. They remained quiet for a long moment. “I guess there isn’t much to say about what’s in the past,” she finally offered. “Except -- I’m glad to have you on my side.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be.” Randall let Gina rest against him. She closed her eyes briefly to look at the cords binding them together and found his pulsing with warm red light. Soothing, like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. His actual heart thudded beneath her ear, a regular thump-thump which calmed her. He smoothed back her hair. “You and Dak. I wouldn’t be by anyone else’s sides.”
Randall and Dakarai... Gina moved restlessly. “Tell me what it was like when you got together.”
“You’ve heard the story.” Randall sat still, placid. “He found me when I was lost and looking for something I couldn’t figure out.”
“You were missing me?”
“Always.” Randall wrapped his arm around Gina, supporting and holding her close. “I wish you’d told me back then everything you knew about the dragons. How dangerous they really are. I could have prepared better. I might have been able to really help you, instead of getting blown away.”
“Yeah. I could say I was a kid, I was a moron, I didn’t know any better, and all of those would apply, but you’re right. I should have said more.” Gina tilted her head. “Would it have changed things?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. After what happened, I had no reason to doubt Dakarai and his abilities. It was easier with him. A lot of things were. Falling in love was just natural between us.”
“This big epiphany about you belonging together?”
“Not really. What we are just sort of grew out of being together every day. He kissed me, and I liked it.” Randall moved his shoulder. “Things went from there.”
“Went a pretty long way,” Gina observed drily. “You’d have been happy with him the rest of your life if all this hadn’t started, wouldn’t you?”
Randall shifted so Gina lay more firmly against him. “Not exactly. No matter how good things were with Dak, I couldn’t stop wondering about you. I think in the end I would have had to look you up.”
“What about Dakarai?”
“He knew. Mage, re
member? He saw my heart, and he knew it was divided.” Randall began to play with a strand of Gina’s hair. “No matter what happens, I’m glad we got to straighten things out between us. Which we have, right?”
Gina couldn’t stop herself from lowering her fingers to stroke Randall’s thigh. “Sort of. I can handle being part of a threesome when it comes to fighting. And we’re pretty amazing when all three of us are naked together. But it feels like there’s something... missing.”
“Like what?” Randall dropped Gina’s hair and laid his hand between her breasts. He didn’t touch or suggest anything, but seemed to be waiting for her to make the next move.
Gina reached down inside herself and summoned a ball of courage. “Like one more time with only you and me,” she whispered. Moving again so she was on her knees against Randall’s leg, Gina reached out to caress the angle of his strong jaw. “It’s the Three Musketeers now, I know. But I want you all to myself this once. Is that wrong?”
Randall turned to study Gina. She waited for his judgment, heart in her throat. This mattered. There was history behind the two of them which needed some closure, and she hadn’t gotten it yet. Every gaping hole needed to be sealed.
“You are so beautiful,” he said at last, mirroring her touch with rough fingers on the angle of her own jaw. “I never did forget what you looked like. Every time I closed my eyes and thought about you, there you were. I wanted you. Dreamed about having you under me again, legs around my waist.” He voice roughened. “Fucking you.”
Gina began to tremble in anticipation. “Please.” The spot between her legs began to tingle. “One more time.”
Randall hesitated. “Dakarai?”
From above their heads, they heard a chuckle. “Dakarai understands very well what needs to be done,” the mage said, breaking off his chant. “I won’t stand in your way.”
“Thank you,” Randall breathed. When he looked down at Gina, his gaze was hot, as if he’d been infected by dragon flame. With a thrill of delight, though, she knew this wasn’t the result of any magical influence. The fire was all for her as a woman and a warrior. He cracked a grin. “You want a spear?” Removing Gina’s hand from his face, he lowered it to rest over the crotch of his jeans.