by Rachel Aaron
“What’s wrong?”
Julius jerked his head up to see Marci staring at him. “Excuse me?”
She bit her lip and looked back at the road. “You just made a really sad sound. ”
He looked down at his lap, embarrassed. Great, now Marci thought he was pathetic, too. “It’s nothing,” he lied, sinking lower.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Her quick offer caught him off guard, but not nearly as much as how desperately he wanted to take her up on it. If she’d been a dragon, such a question would have been an obvious play for information. Of course, if she’d been a dragon, she wouldn’t have asked if he wanted to talk in the first place. She would have demanded.
But Marci wasn’t a dragon, and she wasn’t ordering him to do anything. He didn’t even think she was fishing for secrets. She was just being politely concerned. Being nice. Humans got to do that, and Julius was so tempted to take her up on the treasure she’d just unwittingly offered him that he actually started thinking up excuses for why spilling his troubles to her would be a forgivable offense.
In the end, though, he kept his mouth shut. Eager as he was to confide in someone who wouldn’t use every word against him later, revealing clan business to a human was a quick way to get that human killed. Fortunately, being inoffensively quiet was a survival skill Julius had perfected long ago, and he set himself to staring out the window, studiously ignoring to the concerned glances Marci shot him whenever she thought he wasn’t looking.
***
Considering the rates most mages demanded for their services, Julius had expected the party to be up on the skyways with all the rest of the money. Instead, the address took them back into the Underground, but not the flashing tourist part this time. Though clearly once a nice neighborhood by the water, nearly all of the original buildings were now gone, replaced by large brick warehouses built to serve the massive riverside casinos overhead.
“You’re sure it’s below the casinos, not in them?” Marci asked, eying the lower levels of the huge hotels that poked down through the suspended skyway like tree roots reaching for the real ground below.
“This has to be it,” Julius said, though even he wasn’t feeling so sure himself. Other than the warehouses, the only other things down here were the massive blocks of prefab tenements built to house the armies of workers who kept the big hotels above them ticking over. There were a few crowded family style restaurants and a cheap chain grocery store, but nowhere a bunch of mages would throw a party, and definitely nowhere he’d expect to find a dragon. Still, according to the listing Svena had shown him, this was the place, so he went ahead and told Marci to find somewhere to park.
The address itself turned out to be for a large warehouse right on the river. Julius didn’t want to risk scaring off his target, so he had Marci to park in an alley one block down so they could case the place first. When they approached the warehouse itself, though, Julius realized he needn’t have bothered.
Apparently, this “exclusive mage party” was about as exclusive as a frat kegger. Every door, window, and loading bay in the warehouse had been thrown open to let in the night wind off the water, and music was thumping so loud, Julius could feel the bass through the sidewalk. They walked right in through the front without challenge, and while Julius wanted to attribute this to Marci’s excellent illusions, he had the feeling that he could have crashed through the roof as a dragon and not turned a head.
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“It smells like an Amsterdam canal in here,” Marci yelled over the music, batting at the smoky air in front of her face. “What are we doing at this party again?”
“Looking for someone,” Julius yelled back. “I’m going to go check the back. You stay here and try to blend in. I’ll message you if I need help. What’s your number?”
“I don’t have a phone. ” When Julius gaped at her, she raised her hands helplessly. “What? You need a Residency ID to get a phone in the DFZ, and I don’t have one yet. I’m working on it. ”
Julius heaved a deep sigh. “Just stay here, then. I’ll be back soon. ”
He waited until she nodded before moving away, breathing deep as he walked to see if he could pick out the sharp, metallic scent of another dragon. Unfortunately, smelling anything through the overwhelming mix of river, humans, and pot smoke turned out to be impossible, so Julius began searching the old-fashioned way. Fifteen minutes later, he’d found two people who claimed to be dragon shamans, one white-haired young woman who called herself a human dove, and zero actual dragonesses. He was starting to worry Katya wasn’t here at all when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
Julius whirled around, furious and frightened that he hadn’t noticed someone sneaking up on him, and came up nose to nose with a tall, youngish human male with long hair and a pleasantly goofy grin plastered across his face.
“Welcome to our party, newcomer rock-man,” he said, offering Julius a weird half bow. “I’m Lark, albatross shaman and the head of the local circle here on the waterfront. Are you interested in joining our communion with the spirits of the land and such?”
It took Julius several seconds before he remembered what kind of mage he was supposed to be. Deciphering the rest of the greeting took a good bit longer. “Wait,” he said at last. “If you’re an albatross shaman, why is your name Lark?”
The young man threw up his hennaed hands. “Don’t get too caught up in labels, my brother. That way lies madness. You gotta just be with the magic inside you, ya know?”
Julius nodded blankly. Marci’s rant about shamans was starting to make a bit more sense now. “Well, if you’re the leader, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a friend. Her name is Katya. ”
When the shaman shook his head, Julius pulled out his phone and brought up the picture Svena had given him. The moment he saw it, Lark’s eyes brightened. “Oh! You mean Katie. You just missed her, man. She and the gator left ten minutes ago. ”
Julius stared at him. “Gator?”
“Ross Vedder, alligator shaman,” Lark clarified with a wink. “They set up together last week. Great couple, really. Hilarious. ”
That description was so undragonlike, Julius wasn’t sure they were talking about the same Katya. “Do you know where they went? I really need to find her. ”
Lark shrugged and pulled out a surprisingly nice phone of his own. When he got it close to Julius’s, another picture of Katya appeared in their shared AR with the name KATIE beside it. In it, a happy Katya was smiling wide and hugging an equally ecstatic-looking Lark at a party just like this one, and her blatant joy hit Julius like a punch to the gut.
“Ross and the rest of his peeps have a commune downstream,” Lark went on, sending a map location to Julius’s phone. “Real nice setup, very ‘one with the powers of the place’ vibe. They’re doing some absolutely amazing work restoring magical ecosystems down in the pipes. I’ve been trying to get something similar going up on the old Ambassador Bridge for us bird types for years, but we’re kind of hard to manage. You’d think we’d flock better, right?”
Julius waited impatiently for him to stop laughing at his own joke before asking. “And you’re sure she’s at this place?”
“Who can be sure of anything?” Lark said sagely. “But I’m pretty sure. She said she was going home for the night, and that’s their home. Ergo, et cetera. ”
Julius glanced back down at the address Lark had sent him. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he was probably going to get. “Thank you. ”
“My pleasure to be of assistance to any creature,” Lark replied, clapping Julius on the shoulder. “Hey, you wanna drink? We got a full bar out back. Liquid, herbal, and nitrous, what’s your pleasure?”
“No thanks,” Julius said, ducking out of his grip. “I’ve got to go find my…” He paused, trying to think of an acceptable title for Marci. “Companion,” he said at last. “Maybe later. ”
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“Suit yourself, Mr. Rolling Ston
e. We’ll be here all night if you change your mind. ” Lark pressed his hands together. “Namaste!”
Unsure what else to do, Julius returned the gesture before pushing back through the crowd to where he’d left Marci. When he reached the door, though, she was nowhere to be seen. This sparked a minute of frantic searching before he finally spotted her standing with a crowd of people in the corner, watching a man in some kind of tribal costume spin a halo of fire over his head.
Julius walked up behind her and leaned down to speak into her ear. “Let’s go. ”
“Just a second,” she said. “I want to see if he’s going to blow himself up. ” She scowled at the costumed man, who was currently waving his arms in a frantic motion as he tried to maintain the roaring ring of flames. “That is not how you cast that spell. ”
Julius grit his teeth. “Come on, Marci. ”
She heaved a long sigh and followed him out of the warehouse. When they were safely down the street, he filled her in on what Lark had told him.
“You mean we missed her by ten minutes?” Marci groaned. “That’s so unlucky. ”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Julius said. It never did with dragons. “We need to find the alligator shaman. If she’s still with him, tonight won’t be a total—”
He never got to finish, because at that point, Marci vanished from his side with a gasp. Julius whirled around a split second later…and found himself staring straight down the silenced barrel of a gun.
Chapter 4
Oddly enough, Julius’s first thought was that the pistol, a souped-up next gen Colt . 45, looked oddly small. A heartbeat later, he realized he was mistaken. The pistol was normal-sized—it was just being held by an absolutely enormous man. His other hand, equally huge, was wrapped around Marci’s face, smothering her mouth and holding her tight against his chest with her feet kicking a good foot off the sidewalk.
“Easy there, buddy,” the big man said, wagging his gun in Julius’s face like a tsking finger. “This here is a private matter, none of your concern. ”
Marci made an angry, muffled sound against the man’s palm. The thug squeezed in reply, cutting off the noise and her kicking in one move. When she was quiet, the man smiled and shifted his eyes back to Julius. “You just go on about your business and won’t be no trouble. ” He tightened his finger on the trigger. “Now walk away. ”
Julius looked at the gun, and then at Marci, who was staring at him above the man’s fingers, though not in fear or desperation, as he would have expected. Instead, she was looking straight at him like she was trying to tell him something. Julius was still trying to figure out what when the magic she’d used to disguise him as a rock shaman exploded in the big man’s face.
The thug flew backwards, his scream echoing down the alley before cutting off with a crash as he slammed into the brick wall of the warehouse across the street. His gun went off at the same time, firing harmlessly into the dark. He also dropped Marci, who landed in a coughing heap on the dirty pavement.
Julius was at her side in an instant. “Are you all right?” he cried, pulling her to her feet. When she nodded, he moved on to the next most important question. “What was that?”
“Backfire,” Marci replied, her voice thick and slurring, almost like she was drunk. “Couldn’t cast with him tryin’a crush my skull, so I backfired our illusions at him. ” She turned to grin triumphantly at the man now lying unconscious on the other side of the alley. “At’ll teach him to grab me!”
The question why did he grab you? had already formed on Julius’s tongue when he saw the thin trickle of blood coming out of Marci’s ear. “You backfired yourself, too, didn’t you?” When she lifted her shoulders in careless shrug, he grabbed them. “Marci!”
“Was worth it,” she slurred. “He had a gun in your face. ”
Julius blew out an angry breath and tightened his grip on her shoulders, using them to steer her firmly toward the car. He’d find out what was going on later, when they were safe. For now, he just wanted to get out of—
He stopped short as two shadows, big ones, stepped out of the loading bay at the alley’s dead end. There were footsteps behind him, too, and Julius glanced over his shoulder to see three more men had moved to block off the street, trapping him and Marci in the middle. Since this part of the Underground wasn’t covered in neon, the light in the alley was awful, but even stuck in human form, Julius’s eyes were sharp. He could clearly see the lumpy shapes of guns tucked inside the men’s dark jackets. He was trying to decide what to do about that when Marci yanked out of his grasp.
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When he snapped his head around to see why, she was shaking herself like a dog. When she stopped, the glassy look was gone from her eyes, and she stepped into what would have been a fighting stance if she’d had a weapon in her raised hands. “Don’t worry, Julius,” she said softly. “I got this. Just stay back. I’ll protect you. ”
“Protect me?” he said just as one of the men blocking off their exit raised his voice.
“Don’t even think about it, Novalli!” the big stranger bellowed, the words bouncing like buckshot down the alley. “You can’t blast all of us and you know it. So be a good girl and come quietly and we won’t hurt your boyfriend there. Mr. Bixby wants a word with you. ”
Marci’s whole body went stiff at the name Bibxy, but she didn’t drop her hands. If anything, she looked more deadly than before, even with the trickle of blood that had now worked its way down from her ear to stain the white collar of her shirt. But while Julius knew she was a mage and absolutely not to be underestimated, she was also human. Human and hurt, facing down five armed men, all of whom had a good six inches and at least a hundred pounds on her, and she was doing it to protect him.
That thought did something to Julius’s insides. It twisted him over, rearranging priorities he’d thought long settled. The cautious thing, the right thing, would be to step back and let her do as she liked. After all, said a voice that sounded very much like his mother’s, she was only human. Why should he risk himself for a mortal? Especially here, in the Lady of the Lakes’ territory where any slip-up would bring Chelsie’s wrath down on his head, or worse, the Lady’s down on his mother. That was a situation Bethesda would find deathly inconvenient. Julius’s death, specifically.
That horrifying thought should have settled everything. For almost all the years he could remember, Julius’s survival strategy had revolved around avoiding situations that would give his mother a reason to kill him. Now though, he didn’t want to stay out of the way. Maybe getting kicked out of home had fatally skewed his better judgment, or maybe he’d finally hit his limit for belly-crawling to creatures more powerful than himself, but when Julius looked down the alley, he didn’t see an inconvenience for his family. He saw big, thuggish, idiot humans threatening Marci, the person who’d shown him more kindness, compassion, and help in the last hour than he’d experienced in twenty-four years of life. Marci, whom he’d already started thinking of as his ally, maybe even his friend.
It was a terrible excuse. Friendship was as undraconic as generosity. But then, as everyone liked to remind him, Julius never had been much of a dragon. And that was funny, because when he clenched his fists and stepped up to stand beside Marci, Julius felt more draconic than he had in a long, long time.
“Can you handle the two behind us?”
Marci jumped at his whisper so close to her ear. “I’m pretty sure,” she whispered back. “Why do you—”
Julius was gone before she finished. His true form was sealed and he was woefully out of practice, but it didn’t matter. He was a dragon, they were human, and that was enough. Before the three men at the end of the alley even realized he was gone, Julius was behind them with his hand on the crown of the biggest human’s skull.
With surprise on his side, one push was all it took to slam the thug’s face into the street. The big man went down like a tree, and Julius paused just long enough to kick the gun o
ut of his hand before turning on the remaining two.
He’d fully expected to find them gawking, or maybe fleeing in terror, but these men were clearly professionals. By the time he turned, they’d recovered enough to swing their guns back toward him. But Julius was getting back in the swing of things now himself, and he hadn’t lived this long as the smallest dragon in his clan by being slow.
The men had barely raised their weapons before he was in front of them. He dropped down at once, sweeping the first man’s legs out from under him with a fast kick that sent the large human sprawling backward, slamming the back of his skull against the street with an extremely satisfying crunch. Julius didn’t wait to see if the man would recover. He was already closing in on the lone survivor.
By this point, the last man standing had actually managed to get his gun up and aimed at Julius’s chest, but the shock of Julius’s inhuman speed seemed to have made him forget how to use it. Normally, this sort of fear-induced paralysis would have been enough to make Julius stop. Unlike the rest of his siblings, he didn’t enjoy scaring people. This time, though, stopping didn’t even cross his mind. This man needed to be scared almost as much as Julius needed to be scary. After years of being labeled a failure because he refused to participate in the cruel, cutthroat power games that absorbed the rest of his family, it felt amazingly good, right even, to finally be a dragon in someone’s eyes. Especially since he was doing it to save a friend, rather than crush an enemy.
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He approached slowly, giving the long-buried animal part of the man’s brain time understand that he was facing an apex predator. The more the man shook, the slower Julius went, using the steady crunch of his footsteps like a hammer to drive the fear deeper until the thug was trembling so badly he fumbled his weapon. Only then, when the man had lost his gun and looked ready to lose his lunch as well, did Julius finally grab him.