by Rachel Aaron
She held up her hand, and Julius saw three of Katya’s gleaming, white-gold hairs pinched between her fingers. That was what she’d been doing inside the wrecked car, he realized. She must have pulled them off the headrest.
“I can’t claim to be an expert tracker,” she said, winding the long hairs around her fingers. “But any idiot can follow a trail this hot. Unless that van is warded, this should be more than enough to take us right to her, especially since she’s a dragon. Not that I’ve tracked dragons before, of course, but you guys are so magical I could probably follow you from space. ”
Julius froze. “You knew Katya was a dragon?”
Marci gave him an oh, come on look. “It was kind of obvious. Humans don’t look like that. ”
“Like what?” Because he’d thought Katya had looked remarkably undraconic.
She ducked her head, and he was relieved to see a bit of color come back to her cheeks. “Never mind. Just let me go so I can start on the tracing spell. ”
Julius stilled her with a firm push. “Not until I’m done. ”
Marci froze, but it wasn’t until he saw how wide her eyes had gotten that he realized he was growling deep in his throat. He stopped at once, keeping his attention on his work as he carefully wiped the blood from Marci’s neck. Still, it was hard to keep his hands steady. He was just so angry, angrier than he could ever remember being, and he didn’t know how to handle it. But there was nothing he could do while Marci was bleeding, so he poured himself into the present, tearing off another piece of his shirt to bandage the cut. He was trying to think of the quickest way to get her to a real, sterile bandage when he heard the faint rumble of a car on the road outside.
He stilled, bracing for fight or flight. Since it was unlikely their enemy would be returning to the scene of the crime so soon, he was betting on flight. This might be a nearly abandoned section of a terrible neighborhood in the Underground, but the wreck had been loud. That sort of thing was sure to draw human attention. Not cops, of course, this was still the DFZ, but nosy humans of any sort were the last thing Julius wanted, and when he saw an ancient Crown Victoria drift to a stop behind Marci’s totaled sedan, he knew it was time to go.
“Do you need anything from your car?”
Marci stared at him like he was stupid. “Of course I need the stuff in my car. Do you have any idea how expensive casting markers are?”
“I’ll buy you new ones,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Come on, we have to—”
The blare of a horn cut him off. In the street, the Crown Victoria’s driver was beeping out a Shave and a Haircut pattern, and Julius’s poor stomach clenched again. He turned around, watching in stunned silence as the antique car’s tinted window rolled down to reveal the smiling, too-handsome face he really should have been expecting all along.
“Hello, little brother! I had an inkling you could use a ride. ”
When Julius didn’t answer, Bob climbed out of the car. “What? No hello for the loving brother who came all this way just to offer his assistance?”
He was never able to say later what part of that had been the last straw. He couldn’t even explain his thought process, most likely because he hadn’t been thinking at all. He was furious and frightened and the smell of Marci’s blood was all over him. Bob, on the other hand, was standing there grinning like this was all a hilarious joke, and something inside Julius just snapped.
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Before he knew he was moving, before he realized he’d even made the decision, Julius was standing right in front of his brother with his hands fisted in the seer’s midnight blue jacket. “You,” he snarled. “I know you did this!”
Bob didn’t answer, just stared down at his little brother with his all-knowing green eyes, and in the silence, the magnitude of what he’d just done hit Julius in a rush. He’d grabbed his brother, his eldest brother, a dragon nearly forty times his age who could swat him like a fly.
This dawning realization must have been plain on his face, because Bob’s lips pulled into a smug smile. “Ah, there it is,” he whispered. “There’s the fear. I was beginning to worry I’d lost my touch. ”
By this point, Julius’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely grip, but he still didn’t let go of his brother’s coat. He was in for it now, he reasoned. The hammer of retribution was going to fall no matter what, so he might as well speak his piece.
“I don’t know why you did this,” he said. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to gain from using me or stirring up trouble between the clans, but whatever convoluted mess of a game you’re playing, you had no right to drag others into it. ”
“Others?” Bob’s bright green eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “How interesting. Why don’t I believe you’re talking about the tragically kidnapped Katya?”
His narrowed gaze slid pointedly over Julius’s shoulder to where Marci was standing across the street, but he needn’t have bothered with the dramatics. Julius knew perfectly well that he’d revealed his hand, he just was too angry to care. “Marci is not your pawn,” he growled. “I can’t stop you from using me, but you leave her out of this or I swear I’ll do everything in my power to wreck any of your plans I can reach. ”
As threats went, it was a pretty weak one. For all Julius knew, that was exactly the response Bob wanted. It was the only retaliation he had, though, and at that moment, Julius fully intended to follow through however he could. But his brother was looking at him strangely, sagging against his hold in a way that forced Julius to support his weight as the silence stretched thinner and thinner.
Julius’s nervousness stretched with it. The longer his brother went without answering, the more certain Julius was that those rash words would be his last. But then, after almost thirty seconds of horrible, empty quiet, Bob’s face broke into a wide smile.
“I think that little speech might just be the most draconic thing that’s ever left your mouth,” he said, easily breaking out of Julius’s hold. “Territoriality, possessiveness, aggression, threats of reprisal…” He shook his head in wonder. “Why, baby Julius, could you be growing into your fangs at last?”
Julius had no idea how to respond to that, or how to react when Bob reached down to slap him on the back.
“Don’t get your feathers in a fluff,” he chided. “I’m here to help! I can’t let you have all the fun, can I?”
Julius gaped at him. “What’s fun about almost dying?”
“But that’s the best sort of fun,” Bob replied. “The kind you can look back on centuries later and laugh about. Of course, since I’m always centuries ahead, I can laugh about it right now. ”
And then he did, loudly.
Julius watched with growing apprehension, reminding himself not to read too much into Bob’s antics. Seers were famously mad, after all, and he’d always suspected Bob had a bit more fun with that than he really should. Since his brother showed no signs of pulling himself together anytime soon, he looked around for Marci instead, spotting her poking through the ruins of her car. He was about to go help her when Bob’s arm suddenly wrapped around his shoulders.
“Don’t bother her yet,” he warned, his laughter gone as quickly as it had come. “She’s about to get a phone call. ”
Julius attempted to tug out of Bob’s grip only to find that he couldn’t. “What phone call?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a jangly electronic tune rang out across the street. Marci jumped at the sound, her hands flying for her shoulder bag, which had never left her shoulder and had gotten rather bloody as a result. She fumbled with one of the wet front pouches before pulling out the phone he’d given her. Rather than answer, though, she looked at Julius. “Should I take it? No one has this number. ”
“That’s never stopped me,” Bob said before Julius could open his mouth. “Just answer it already. The suspense is almost as obnoxious as your ringtone. ”
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Marci shot Bob a surprisingly nast
y look, but she touched the screen to accept the call all the same, putting it on speaker. It wasn’t much of a speaker since Julius had been forced to get her one of the cheaper models, but the result was still plenty loud enough for dragons to hear from several feet away.
“I’ve got your girl. ”
Julius had never heard that deep, angry voice before, but Marci clearly had, because her whole face flushed with rage. “Bixby,” she spat.
“Hello, Miss Novalli,” Bixby crooned. “Long time no see. ”
If Marci had been a dragon, Julius would have expected her to start breathing smoke at this point. “What do you want?”
“You know exactly what I want,” Bixby said, his voice so smug Julius could actually hear the sneer that must have been on his face. “I want my property, and you’re going to bring it to me. And before you get any ideas, let me say right off that I know exactly what sort of company you’re keeping these days, so if you don’t want the Lady of the Lakes to add a pretty blond dragon head to her collection, you’ll shut up and do exactly what I say. ”
There was a pause while Bixby waited for Marci to protest. When she didn’t, he continued.
“In one hour, I’m going to send you an address. You come alone with the Kosmolabe, and I’ll let your little friend slither off none the worse for wear. You don’t show, or you decide to bring along that new boyfriend I hear you’ve picked up, and we’ll toss Sleeping Beauty into the lake faster than you can say ‘I miss my daddy. ’”
The sound that came out of Marci when he said that last part was closest thing to a growl Julius had ever heard from a human. Bixby must have heard it too, because he sounded smugger than ever. “Good to know we have an understanding. See you in an hour. ”
The call had barely cut off before Marci grabbed the screen like she was going to crush it between her palms. “That, that, ooooh. ”
Julius swooped in just in time to rescue her phone. He plucked it out of her straining hands and hit the icon to trace the number. Naturally, the results came back blank, and Julius made a mental note to talk to his hacker about putting real tracing programs on their phones, because he was getting mighty sick of this Unknown Caller nonsense. He huffed in annoyance and turned to hand the phone back to Marci only to find her staring at him, her face stricken.
“Julius,” she said, voice shaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. This is all my fault. I never meant to get you involved in my drama, and now I’ve messed everything up. You were right, I should have left that stupid golden softball in the desert. I—”
Julius put a hand on her shoulder. With gentle but firm pressure, he steered her farther down the street, away from his brother. Real privacy was impossible when a seer was involved, of course, but that didn’t mean he wanted a live audience for this.
“Marci,” he said when they were more or less alone. “You have nothing to apologize for. This trap was not your fault, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to get my hands on Bixby. ”
She shook her head. “But—”
“But nothing,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “We’re going to handle this together. You help me, I help you. That’s what makes us a team, right?”
She stared at him for a long time after that, biting her lip in a way that made him worried she was going to cry again. Thankfully, she didn’t, but he could hear her heart in her throat when she whispered, “Thank you. ”
“No thanks needed,” Julius said, but he coveted her words all the same, hoarding them in his memory like precious stones. If she kept this up, it was going to take more fingers than he had to count all the times someone had thanked him and meant it. He liked that idea very much indeed, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face as they walked back to her car to salvage what was left of her stuff.
Sadly, it didn’t take long. The wreck had crushed her trunk, destroying everything breakable and burying everything that wasn’t inside a twisted mass of metal. Ghost, being non-corporeal, was the only survivor, if a death spirit could be said to have survived anything. He seemed to be giving Marci a piece of his mind, though, so Julius left her arguing with her cat and returned to Bob, who was watching from the hood of his car like this was the best show ever.
He smiled as Julius approached, patting the spot beside him on the freshly waxed hood, which his weight was already denting. Julius ignored the invitation and leaned on the bumper instead. “So how long have you been playing Bixby?”
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Bob’s eyes widened, and then his hands flew up to grip to his chest like he was having a heart attack.
“What?” Julius cried. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Bob said, dropping his hands. “It’s just the shock of seeing you acting so stern and dragon-esque. If I’d known getting you kicked out of the mountain would have such immediate positive returns, I’d have told Mother to do it years ago. ” He paused. “Oh wait, I did know! Must have been a timing thing. That’s the problem with being all-knowing but not all-remembering. After a while, you just can’t keep up. ” He frowned and started fumbling with his pockets. “I really should start leaving myself notes. ”
He did leave himself notes. They were hidden all over the mountain, sometimes for years. Finding them was a favorite game for young Heartstrikers, but Julius had no time or patience for his brother’s antics right now. “Wait a second. You’re the reason I was sealed?”
Bob rolled his eyes. “As I pointed out to your human earlier, the seal was Mother’s idea. She’d been fretting over who to use as a scapegoat for this Ian situation for months. I merely gave her a nudge in your direction. ”
“A nudge?” Julius repeated, his anger coming back in a rush. “You nudged me right out of my home!”
“Don’t act all put out,” Bob said. “This little jaunt to the DFZ has been the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You were miserable hiding in your room, and it made me miserable to look at you. At least now you’re actually living up to your potential. ”
Julius opened his mouth to argue, but he closed it just as fast, because Bob was right. The last few days had been terrifying and painful, but also completely life-changing. Just because he was enjoying the results didn’t mean he approved of his brother’s methods, though, and he shoved his hands into his pockets with a surly harrumph. “Well, you could have gone about it in a nicer way, or at least a less dangerous one. Last I checked, a car wreck didn’t count as a nudge. ”
“Oh, Julius,” Bob said sweetly. “You’re all the nice we’ve got. And as much as it pains me to admit, you’re giving me a shade too much credit in all this. This Bixby person is indeed a pawn, he’s just not mine. ”
The confession came so quickly that Julius, who was still stewing over the fact that he’d actually benefited from Bob’s meddling, robbing him of his right to be upset, almost missed it. “Wait, what?”
“I didn’t arrange this little incident. ”
“But it had to be you,” Julius said before he could think better of it. “There’s no way this could have happened without a seer. ”
Bob rolled his eyes. “I never said a seer wasn’t involved, only that it wasn’t me. If I was going to nab your dragoness out from under you, I’d find a classier way to do it. Being hit by a car is so pedestrian. ”
Julius winced as his brother broke into hysterical laughter at his own terrible pun. In a way, though, the break was good, because he needed to think. Bob’s claim that he wasn’t behind this was a huge relief, if it was true. He didn’t think his brother was lying, though, because the idea of Bob kidnapping Katya so Bixby could use her to get the Kosmolabe when Marci had it in her possession not ten feet away just didn’t make any sense, even for Bob. But if the Heartstriker’s seer wasn’t behind this, who was?
“That’s a good question. ”
Bob’s laughter cut off like a switch. He was now sitting perfectly still on the hood of his car with his legs crossed in lotus position, studying Julius with a serene expressio
n. “Your face is very transparent,” he explained. “Tell me, Julius, how many seers do you think are alive in the world right now?”
Before Julius could even open his mouth, Bob broke into a grin. “Trick question! The answer is three. There are always three, and only three, seers in existence at any given point. At this moment, the roster includes myself, Estella the Northern Star, and the Black Reach. ”
Julius shuddered at that last name. The Black Reach was a legend from the Golden Age of dragons, that mythical time a thousand years before the disappearance of magic when power had been plentiful and great dragons had flown freely. He hadn’t known the old menace was still alive, or a seer, though the latter would explain the former nicely. Still, “I thought the Black Reach lived in China. ”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Bob said with a shrug. “The Black Reach doesn’t have to be in the same hemisphere to meddle in your affairs. He didn’t get his name for having unusually long arms, you know. But while the Black Reach certainly could have arranged this particular act of automotive tragedy, I don’t believe he would. Far too unsubtle. This is lazy seer tinkering, real last-minute stuff. The Black Reach would never stoop to such sloppiness. ”
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Julius shook his head. “But if he didn’t do it, and you didn’t do it, that only leaves Estella, which doesn’t make any sense. She’s the acting clan head of the Three Sisters, isn’t she?”
“Indeed. ”
“So why would she do this?” Because even by dragon standards, arranging to have your little sister hit by a car and kidnapped by humans was a bit much.
Bob sighed. “Oh Julius, not all clans value family as highly as the Heartstrikers. ”
He grimaced at the thought. “So what’s Estella up to, then?”
His brother lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I have no idea. I can’t see a thing. This is why seers normally stay away from each other. We block each other’s sight. It’s highly annoying, which is why I’ve been blocking Estella’s at every opportunity. ”
Julius gaped at him. “So you’ve just been antagonizing her?”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Bob said. “Come now. I know you’ve spent most of your adult life hiding in a cave, but even you must be aware that our clan’s not winning many popularity contests at the moment. Mother stepped on quite a few scaly toes in her rush to the top, including Estella’s, and the Northern Star never could learn not to take things personally. She’d eat our whole clan for breakfast if she ever got the chance, and part of my job is to make sure she doesn’t. Now pay attention, this next bit is important. ”