Monsters, Book Two: Hour of the Dragon

by Heather Killough-Walden

  “Cryogenics for the magically inclined,” Victoria muttered softly with a wry smile.

  Kat grinned. “Indeed.”

  The information she’d just given Victoria about the stasis spell wasn’t supposed to be randomly shared. For one thing, it turned out that it took an exhaustive amount of magical energy to place a body in stasis, and so far only one individual had managed to do it – Jarrod Sterling, the creator of the spell himself.

  He’d originally woven the magic into his transformation spell, and it was no doubt doing its job at that very moment with Antares Mace and Annaleia Faith. But when he had, the sovereigns had recognized the magic’s enormous potential and asked him to isolate and strengthen it. Which he dutifully did. And though the Time King can not reverse time to the point before someone’s death, he was able to perform some very draining time-reversing magic in a restoration spell on Price’s victims to return their bodies to the state they’d been in during the seconds directly after death. At that time, if they had been resuscitated, they would have most likely returned to the living naturally, which meant their bodies had still been vital.

  Which meant that a healer could then be brought in to alleviate the wounds Price had given them. The healer was none other than Angela Clemens, the mate to the Monsters clan second-in-command, Jacob Crow.

  After that, thanks to Sterling’s refined stasis spell, they had all been successfully placed in a stable state that would last forever if necessary. To do this with one person, much less many, was so difficult, it placed the sovereigns and their magic users in a compromised position for a period of time. Sterling was frankly exhausted. It was a pity the incubus wasn’t a fan of sex or he would have recharged much more quickly. But his tastes were refined, to say the least. Katrielle likened it to a human losing the interest to eat. Which sometimes happened. Depression, stress, trauma, and in Sterling’s case, existence and experience, were all possible causes.

  In short, the sovereigns and their mages needed to rest and recharge. And they did not need to be attacked while compromised in this manner.

  So, the word was mum about the stasis spell.

  But if anyone understood the importance of staying quiet about such things, it was Victoria Grace. And Victoria had suffered the added trauma of finding that victim’s body. Hearing that there was a chance the woman would be saved was a hopeful thing Kat knew Victoria probably really needed right now.

  Her instinct seemed to be right. With this new knowledge, Victoria did seem to sit up a little straighter, and her eyes appeared less distant.

  “Victoria… you shouldn’t have waited so long to come and see me.”

  Victoria glanced up, blushed a little, and then looked away again. “I know. But lately things have been sort of crazy for you guys. And you in particular have been pretty much constantly surrounded with people that I didn’t want to… well, I didn’t want to – ”

  “I was surrounded by people you didn’t want to chance giving yourself away to.”

  Victoria shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “You know I have people in the field who are completely trustworthy with situations like yours, and they’re seldom surrounded with other supernaturals. They’re there specifically because of their relationships with me. I trust them implicitly. Were you not given a list of them when you were younger?” Detective Hendrix James was one such contact, and one that would have taken very good care of Victoria if he’d only known.

  The fact that she’d managed to hide her identity as a Golddust from even that seasoned werewolf was testament to how good she was at maintaining pretext. And how sad it was that she had to do so.

  “I was,” Victoria said. “I memorized it, as my parents instructed. And then the Apex destroyed the memory, along with… everything else. That’s why I stuck around after turning in the girl’s body. I could tell Detective James was a werewolf, and as you know, golddusts can sense proximity to Nomads. I knew he would eventually lead me to you.”

  Katrielle watched as the woman focused on a corner of the room, obviously trying very hard not to break down. I should have known, she thought. Destroying the memory of the list of names was of course one of the first things the Dire Aurum would have done to cut off escape routes.

  “Victoria, how did your parents die?” A Golddust child could only be conceived through the union of an Aurum and a golddust, both of which were immortal. If either of them had learned of Victoria’s attacker, they would have confronted the Dire Aurum themselves. The fact that they didn’t suggested they were both dead.

  “My dad was killed by Hunters. My mom was then….” She broke off, swallowing back more pain with audible gulps. Then she whispered, “They kept her and intended to use her to lure others like my father. But when she could break free, she used one of their guns to kill herself. I got all of her memories when she died. Like all Golddust children do.”

  Kat processed that information, and for the first time in a long time, she felt something emerge of the old woman she used to be. Lalura Chantelle, the weathered old bat who could learn of anything, see anything, hear anything, know anything, and not even blink. Chantelle had lived through wars and lost loves and witnessed atrocities. She was hardened.

  A part of that hardened crone awakened inside Katrielle, re-birthing itself as needed. It was the cumulative experience and wisdom of a Nomad, this unfolding of past lives when necessary. Katrielle looked down at the table with its multitude of spell components and rather than say, I’m sorry or You’ve been very strong, she instead very softly said, “She sounds brave. And I can’t say I blame her.”

  Victoria looked up at Katrielle, her gold eyes searching. Then, her expression one of deep gratitude and more than a little surprise, she nodded. “Nor can I.” She swallowed and added, “Thank you.”

  “Your own children were adopted, then?” Katrielle asked next, subtly changing the subject.

  “Yes. Oscar and I agreed to adopt right away once we were married. We took them in at the same time; they were siblings.”

  Katrielle smiled. She had already known the children were adopted. Oscar had been a magic user, but he was mortal, not an Aurum. Hence, Victoria hadn’t been capable of conceiving with him. It was a stroke of incredible fortune for the three children to have been adopted at once, especially given that the youngest of the children had been an infant at the time of adoption. Infant children were so often separated from their siblings for couples who wanted to adopt babies.

  Speaking of babies….

  Katrielle lifted her chin then and took a deep breath before again shifting the subject. “What did you think of the other people who were in the Monsters garage when Faith revived her friends?”

  “There were more than fifty people there. Any in particular?” Victoria asked so quickly it was almost flippant. She knew damn well who Kat was alluding to. Victoria was smart; she was astute and keen. She knew.

  “You tell me.” Kat glanced over at her companion – just in time to see Victoria look down at the table and flush slightly. It was quite a thing to see a Golddust flush. The blood that rose to her cheeks was not red. It was gold. On darker skin, this flush would appear as a type of glow, radiant but often disguisable as bronzer or highlighter. In someone fair however, it glistened too much to ignore. And for someone like Victoria who was not only fair but yet had the remnants of the original magic the Nomads had placed on the golddusts long ago, it became a very light pink flushed with tons of shimmer. It was quite fetching, actually.

  It was only too bad it was also very telling. It would have given her away as a Golddust if not for the fact that her eyes, hair, skin, and nails did so already.

  “I thought so,” said Kat. “You noticed him, then.”

  Victoria hesitated, the flush darkening, the shimmer turning festival-worthy. It was fortunate Golddust blood didn’t oxidize in the same manner iron did, otherwise Kat could imagine their blushes might be something like green rather than gold. They were also lucky magic prevented t
hem from weighing a lot more than they did due to gold being four times heavier than iron.

  Victoria swallowed hard and stood up, no longer comfortable staying seated and in one place. The fight or flight instinct was kicking in already and all Kat had done was mention the presence of an Aurum. It would most likely be best not to ask her whether she noticed that he had noticed her too.

  Or maybe that was what had her so fidgety. Maybe she did notice that.

  “There’s no way he could have seen me through all of that dirt, right?” Victoria asked, as she turned around and began pacing. “I mean, I paid a mage to put all kinds of iron in that dirt. It was like I was walking around in layers of blood. I could smell it.” She made a face and shook her head. “No. He couldn’t have known.”

  An ordinary Aurum so soon after feeding on Golddust blood and on a day when so much was taking place might not have noticed Victoria’s presence. But, golddusts literally gave off a sort of sensation around Aurums, announcing their locations to goldblood vampires.

  Their proximity acted as a kind of drug on any Aurums who had not recently fed on them, quelling fear and inhibition and fueling lust. They usually had this sort of effect on vampires in general, in fact.

  Katrielle supposed this sensation they gave off may have been a survival trait long, long ago, back when Aurums joined with golddusts much more frequently to breed with them in exchange for their blood.

  But those days had come and gone and soon Aurums were struck with the bloodlust they called “gold fever” to an epidemic degree. As a result, golddusts were reduced to a mere handful before the Nomads had stepped in to protect them.

  So much time had passed since then, Aurums were accustomed to never meeting golddusts in person, or at least not being aware that they had. They might chalk up a passing “high” as perhaps random giddiness or something in the blood of someone they’d just fed on. They would never suspect it had been a Golddust in their proximity.

  So it was possible an ordinary Aurum would not have recognized Victoria for what she really was. Not under all of that dirt and all of those clothes. Not on that day, when so much was going down.

  But, there was nothing ordinary about any single member of the Monsters warden clan. Including Nathan Connor. So of course the “Aurum” in question had indeed noticed her.

  But Katrielle didn’t tell her that. Nor did she tell her that if Nathan Connor wanted to find her again, he would most likely find a way to do so. She didn’t even tell Victoria that this might not in fact be such a terrible thing, Connor being the kind of man he was. And she most certainly didn’t tell her that Connor was not only an Aurum, but an Apex. The same kind that had taken her family from her.

  Victoria was not the only one actively hiding what she was from the world.

  What she did tell her was, “I believe you are going to be just fine, Victoria. Now sit down; the spell is ready. We need to begin at once.” Especially if the girl wanted a hope in hell of escaping Nate Connor.

  Victoria sat down on her stool and took a deep breath, no doubt attempting to clear her mind. Katrielle watched her a moment or two more, studying her profile. She was very beautiful in her natural form. She practically radiated strength and splendor. Like the metal she bore in her veins. She doesn’t stand a chance, Kat thought.

  And then she began the spell.

  Chapter Fifty-two – Unknown Locations

  It hurts, he thought helplessly. His entire body just hurt so much.

  Would you like my help, Price?

  At the sound of the question so clearly spoken, Randall opened his eyes. He still couldn’t see anything at all out of one of them, and vision from the other was fading fast. Still, it was enough to see that he was alone in the room. It would have been difficult to miss another person in the plain, white space. There were no decorations. There were only four white walls, a plain white alcove where he could do his “business” in private, and the bed.

  The room felt more like an oubliette, which would be fitting for a holding cell for the noblesse. That’s what they were; the bastards who’d taken his angel and then questioned him. They were the noblemen of the non-mortal world. Sovereigns. He’d never yearned so badly for a guillotine.

  He’d told them everything he knew; there had been no stopping the words from leaving his mouth. The strange thing was, he knew so little. He’d been able to give them almost no information concerning Victor Maze. Because the truth was, he didn’t know anything about the man. Randall sighed. Pulling the air into his lungs and expelling it again was an uncomfortable process, just like everything was becoming. He looked down at his body, which had also been clad solely in white. The crisp, clean linens did little to hide the truth, however. He could see just enough of himself to tell that he looked as bad as he felt. It wasn’t good.

  Skin wasn’t supposed to be that color.

  Could be the light in the room, he thought, but even his unspoken words lacked hope. There was nothing wrong with the light in the room. From what he’d been able to glean, the room was a holding cell for special prisoners. He’d been transferred to it after being held in a dizzying number of other locations. Here, Randall figured they were finally finished with him and probably didn’t even know what to do with him. Maybe it really was an oubliette.

  This final cell was in the mortal realm, and even guarded by mortal authorities, for the most part. However, wards had been placed over the cell to negate most magic. Which was probably why the locks on the door were ordinary locks; he’d checked. And the plumbing and water and bed inside the room were all ordinary, mortal constructs.

  Even so, there was no way out for Randall.

  He clutched at his guts as an unpleasant sensation spread outward like a wave on a sea of trash. That was how he felt inside. As if he were composed of rotting trash.

  I’m dying, he thought. And then he corrected the thought with a shake of his head as his tongue pressed against loose teeth with an all-encompassing feeling of dread. He knew the truth. Were he to make it out of the room and even out of the building, there would be nowhere for him to go. He wasn’t dying.

  He was already dead.

  I can help you, said the voice in his head.

  Randall grimaced, shutting his eyes again when a wave of pain and nausea claimed him. He doubled over and retched, but nothing came up. Every joint in his body hurt like mad. He was sick and disoriented.

  He’d just been thinking that he had never before felt so miserable – when that voice had suddenly spoken in his head, offering help. Now he wondered if he were just imagining it. After all, if he was physically falling apart, that meant his brain was falling apart too.

  You’re right about that, said the voice. You’re falling apart, Price. But I can help you.

  “Maze?” Randall whispered softly. Now he recognized the voice. But he hadn’t heard from Maze in so long. In reality, it might not have been as long as it felt because it honestly felt like forever. There was a sour, iron-laden taste in his mouth. His nose felt like it was burning and he was so tired of not being able to see. There was a soup being boiled up in his belly, he was hearing physical sound at a strange delay, and he was cold. So cold.

  He was miserable.

  Allow me, the voice said.

  Randall leaned back against the wall behind him and suddenly every discomfort that had been piling on his body layer upon layer disappeared. In quick succession, the pains and aches and bad tastes and loose teeth and nausea and exhaustion – everything – was alleviated. Until all at once, Randall Price was whole for the first time in weeks. It was the most wonderful feeling he had ever experienced, that cessation of pain.

  He shuddered beneath the very real pleasure of an end to his suffering, and opened his eyes. Now his vision was crystal clear, and for the first time in days he realized he still wore his glasses. They were sitting crooked on his nose, but his vision had been so bad before, and his discomfort so strong, he had forgotten about them entirely.

&nbs
p; Randall straightened them absently and sat back up, scooting to the edge of the bed to place his bare feet on the cold white floor. He looked down at those feet. His toes were straight, nails trimmed, the skin a good, healthy pink again. So Randall lifted his head and thought a question at his savior. Where are you?

  I can’t appear in this room, Victor said. You will have to leave on your own. But once you’re past the wards, I can take over.

  Randall thought about that. He looked at the single door in the room, wondering how the hell he was supposed to get through it.

  It’s warded against people like me, said Maze. Not people like you.

  You mean not humans, Randall reasoned. I see. He looked down at himself again, and suddenly – he really did see.

  He saw it all. And he understood.

  Maze… he thought. I didn’t actually survive when that plane crashed, did I?

  There was a brief beat of silence in which the truth was ever increasingly plain. Then Maze said simply, No.

  I didn’t think so. Randall took a deep breath, nodded to himself in a strange kind of acceptance, and then turned and knelt facing the bed. He knew the camera above the door was watching, and that if anyone was monitoring its feed, they would be able to tell immediately what he was doing if he wasn’t covert about it. Of course, they would be able to tell he was no longer decomposing too, if they looked closely enough.

  Hence, he hoped that by turning his back to the camera as he was, they would only be able to see his clothing and his hair, which would hide the state of his body. He also hoped they would simply assume he was praying.

  I can take care of the cameras, Victor offered helpfully. That made sense; the camera’s controls and viewscreen were outside the room, beyond the wards.

  In the meantime, Randall bowed his head and focused on his task. As he thanked his lucky stars that he had read as many books as he had in his life, he set about sliding his wire-rimmed glasses off his face so he could turn the wires into a make-shift lock pick.