Vampire Dragon

by Annette Blair

  He took Bronte in his arms, close against his body, to protect her from the elements, and turned his thoughts to the positive and enticing, rather than the vengeful and negative.

  Comfortable? he asked her, using telepathy. You don’t hurt anywhere, especially your chest?

  “I told you. The wound seems ancient.” She stroked several of his scales. “Beautiful sheen, but Darkwyn, you look scary as a dragon.”

  I am deadly, make no mistake. But, you are safe.

  “If it weren’t for the violet of your eyes, I wouldn’t know you,” she added, examining his face thoroughly, making him feel like his big ugly lumbering self. “Your lids turn your eyes into slits,” she said. “Did you know?”

  Limit your words, he snapped. We fly.

  “Guess that means shut up?”

  He did fly, roaring and shooting his fire upward to keep Bronte warm, but not too warm. The clouds were nearer than he expected and before long they rose above and cleared the blinding sheet of snow.

  Puck could not take the altitude for long, nor could Bronte, so as soon as they escaped the Mount Washington blizzard, Darkwyn regularly dipped below the clouds.

  The world is dark but beautiful from here, Bronte communicated.

  He looked straight at her. It is, this trip.

  Sooner than he expected, following Puck, they approached the fairgrounds, which meant he had taken a terribly circuitous route getting there.

  Drak’s is dark hours too early, Bronte said.

  Wait for me to shift back before you go in. I do not like this dark.

  He set her and Zachary down near the carousel where Bronte could sit, rest, and wait for him.

  Zachary headed for the water’s edge while Darkwyn ambled into the trees beside the cemetery to shift.

  It took becoming a man again to realize . . . “Bronte,” he called.

  “Yes, naked man?”

  “You knew.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t anticipate the problem. Want a utility crew jumpsuit?”

  “You have a jumpsuit?”

  “Zachary stuffed several into his backpack, in case of a naked dragon.”

  “I love that brilliant boy.”

  “Don’t tell him. He’ll punch out your lights. Here it comes.” She tossed the backpack and got him square in the gut. He wondered if she’d slugged him on purpose, but no way could she see him in here.

  When he met her, she chuckled. “I would have liked you better without the jumpsuit.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” Zachary said, falling into step beside them on their way to the Phoenix. “Watch what you say, will ya? I’m an impressionable kid.”

  “Right, and I’m a big lizard.”

  Bronte elbowed him, and Zachary actually cracked a smile.

  “Seriously,” Darkwyn told Zachary. “I did not see you over there. Thank you for the jumpsuit, by the way.”

  “In case of customers, I thought you should arrive dressed,” Zachary said.

  “Ya think?” Bronte mocked them both, but in moonlight, Darkwyn saw concern replace her playful expression.

  “Maybe Vivica and Ogden only kept Drak’s open the night we left?” Bronte speculated. “And couldn’t come back today. I mean, the place is utterly deserted. Then again, why would the manager close Bite Me early, even if Ogden and Vivica didn’t show?”

  “Stay behind me,” Darkwyn said, going up the porch steps.

  The creak of every door echoed in the empty building, or it seemed empty to him. They heard a yowl, likely Lila or Scorch, and followed the sound.

  Darkwyn almost wished he still had claws as he climbed upward, except he’d crush the stairs with his dragon weight.

  The yowl led them to the Crimson Room where tapestries hung crooked from dislodged rods on red damask walls, and copies of Vampire Daily and the New York Times had been left scattered about. Casket sofas sat near casket coffee tables, several on their sides.

  Lila scratched at the top of a salmon coffee table, her claws bloody. Yowling when she saw them, she jumped down, stood on her hind legs, and pawed at a coffin latch.

  Darkwyn unhooked it, and raised the cover.

  Vivica lay inside, gagged and bound, hands and legs, eyes closed, body still as death.

  Darkwyn lifted her from the coffin, her skin cold and clammy, and disliked her gasp of pain. He laid her on a sofa to take off her gag.

  “I know CPR,” Bronte said, pushing him aside. “You call 911. My cell phone works here.”

  Bronte feared she was too late, but Vivica finally began to sputter and cough, at which point Darkwyn tried, without Vivica’s cooperation, to sit her up.

  “Leave her the way she’s most comfortable until the paramedics arrive,” Bronte said. “At this rate, they’re gonna program the Phoenix into their GPS.” She got Vivica a glass of water. “Drink,” she said, “though I can get whiskey, if you’d prefer?”

  “Water,” Vivica said, unable to grasp the glass with her stiff fingers, so Bronte held it to her lips.

  “Ogden?” Darkwyn asked.

  “Home. He hadn’t fully recovered. I asked Jaydun to come tonight.”

  “Where’s Jay, then?”

  Vivica’s eyes filled. “They shot him, and you know, Darkwyn, what happens when a shape-shifter is wounded.”

  “He shifts.”

  Vivica nodded, tears slipping down her face. “The more dragonlike he became, the more he towered over them, the more rounds they fired into him. From the air, he kept looking back but I screamed for him to save himself.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s probably hiding in some cave healing himself. I’d know if something happened to him. For that matter, I think you would, too.”

  She bit her lip with a half nod. “I guess I would.”

  She’d as much as admitted with those words that Jaydun was her heart mate, but he’d leave it alone until she said it outright. “How about you, Vivica? What happened to you?”

  “Two thugs dragged me up here and gagged me. As they put me in the coffin, Bronte, they said if I lived, I should give you a message: ‘Sanguedolce says your time is up.’ ”

  FORTY

  Darkwyn kept an arm around Bronte as they stood on the sidewalk watching another ambulance leave the Phoenix, this one with the owner of Works Like Magick inside. Since his acclimator had no visible wounds, he thought it best for her to see a doctor.

  Vivica insisted Bronte stay with her building and talk to the police, who were now doing a room-to-room, floor-by-floor search, from basement to attic.

  He and Bronte made their way toward the fairgrounds.

  Zachary, his hands in his pockets, stood waiting, miffed at them both for making him stay near the carousel and out of harm’s way.

  “He hates being treated like a twelve-year-old, the more so because of his unique wisdom. He figures he could outsmart Sanguedolce, if I let him. Let him get killed, more like. I promised my sister I’d raise him, vowed I’d get him to adulthood, hale and whole. And despite Zachary fighting me all the way, I intend to keep that promise.”

  Darkwyn agreed, head and heart. “You’re right. He’s where he should be.”

  Before the three of them went back inside, Darkwyn walked the grounds. First the porch, to peek into Bite Me, but the pub and café was empty. When he turned to speak to Bronte, she was gone. Damn, they should have coordinated their search. She must have taken a different direction, but not outside. Darkwyn made Zachary stay by the woods near the cemetery on the opposite side of the fairgrounds until he declared the building safe and free of Sanguedolce’s thugs.

  He took the tourist route through Fangs for the Memories, fanning out to the storage area for Bite Me. Also empty.

  Time to head for Drak’s second-floor rooms, but before Darkwyn got halfway up the stairs, he heard several consecutive pops. Gunshots?

  He ran toward the sounds, fully aware that the cops had guns, too, so either good or evil could be wielding them.

  He found a wou
nded officer in the Green Room, dialed 911, and fielded the usual questions. While he talked, he recognized Bastian’s art on the walls. Skinny Christmas pines, tall and pointy, hiding colorful mushrooms, and faeries beneath. An eco-friendly background for the “green” room . . . and death.

  With help on the way, he bent to the cop. “Who did this to you?”

  “Big bruisers,” the cop said, and passed out.

  Sanguedolce’s men were still here? “Bronte!” Darkwyn shouted. “Bronte?”

  In the Crimson Room, two men aimed big guns his way while night air blew in through a gaping hole in the back wall. A dragon-sized hole. Jaydun’s escape route, perhaps?

  Darkwyn did as he was told and tried to stay positive. Jaydun could have healed, come back, and taken Bronte to safety. If so, he hoped they picked up the boy as well.

  Darkwyn wanted to peek out the side window to see if Zachary was still beside the cemetery, but he dared not. The mobsters, if that’s who they were, should not suspect anyone could be out there.

  He sent a telepathic warning in hopes that Bronte or Zachary would at the least sense danger. Hide. The mob is here.

  “What happened to . . . the girl?” Darkwyn asked the gunmen as he inched toward the opening in the back wall.

  “Dead,” one spat, the words a literal knife to Darkwyn’s chest. And though he knew logically, as a dragon man, that he would have felt Bronte’s pain and the snuffing of her life force, his inner dragon was less easy to control. He fought rage, but his beast became stronger, grew claws, scales, and it fed on fury.

  “Another one!” a gunman said.

  “Don’t shoot,” the other warned. “Shooting makes them mad.”

  As the two backed away, Darkwyn gave them a fiery roar before he jumped out the gaping hole.

  Gunshots followed, but he hit the ground leaping and reached the carousel without the ability to shout for Zachary and Bronte.

  Zachary was gone.

  Darkwyn roared, turned full circle, and saw fire shooting from the windows of Drak’s. The roof, itself, smoked. Had he set fire to the second floor while trying to frighten the gunmen?

  But why the roof? There were two floors between Drak’s and the roof.

  Scumduggers, the wounded cop was still inside—the place hadn’t been on fire when he left him—and he couldn’t be sure where Bronte, Zachary, or the animals were.

  Darkwyn wanted to get everyone out. He had time; it was only a small blaze, well, two, but his heavy, lumbering dragon body would get in his way, not to mention breaking the building, though he could use a bit of dragon strength, now more than ever. Nevertheless, he ran as he transformed again. No matter how uncomfortable, he appreciated the ability, as he stumbled through the shift. His claws became hands. He tripped and went sprawling when his feet transformed beneath him.

  He stood and did the safest maneuver in a transformation if you needed to keep moving: he tucked and rolled, and came up a man, naked again, but who cared? “Rain, damn it!” he shouted to the heavens. “Andra, send rain! Please!”

  He got hail instead, as if that would stop him. Oh, but wet, mushy hail. Good.

  He imagined Andra and Killian working against each other, circling, neither as strong as she’d like. Wet fire-snuffing slush was good enough for him. He’d take what he could get.

  He raced up the stairs, and when he hit the second floor, fire licked at his man skin, and he roared more with an agony of soul than body. Where was his family? He jumped through a wall of flames, healing his burns even as he scanned empty rooms.

  More flames, more pain, which motivated a dragon, made him madder and stronger—made him turn into a snarling beast, impossible to control.

  FORTY-ONE

  Staying sane over not finding Bronte and Zachary caused the kind of suffering Darkwyn had no power to heal.

  While trying to keep his inner dragon from reappearing, he found the wounded policeman, coughing and bleeding, picked him up as if he weighed no more than a kitten, and carried him down and out to the curb.

  “I wish you had a big S on your chest,” the cop said. “It would be easier to tell the guys at the precinct I was saved by Super Naked Guy.”

  “Tell them you were saved by the Vampire Dragon.”

  “That you? Okay. I’ll leave out the part about you being naked.”

  “Appreciate it.” Darkwyn sat the cop on the curb, turned, and blessed be, Bronte shouted his name. Prickles of relief attacked his limbs as if he might pass out; he’d been that scared.

  He turned to the sound, and a jumpsuit flew from the bushes. He slipped into it as Bronte came running, and a huge weight slipped from his shoulders. He grabbed her and kissed her, and kissed her again. “You’re safe,” he said. “Thank the Goddess. Isn’t that one of Zachary’s backpacks? Where is he?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  She grabbed his sleeve in a tight fist. “Darkwyn, find Zachary for me.”

  “My next order of business. Ambulance is on the way.”

  “Good,” she said. “You find Zachary and I’ll stay with our friend here until help comes.”

  The cop nodded. “Thanks, both of you.”

  Darkwyn glanced at the Phoenix roof where slush balls the size of his fist landed and smoked the place up. He squeezed Bronte’s hand on his sleeve, kissed her quick, and went back inside. Meanwhile, the room where the slush got in through the hole in the wall smoked.

  If only the slush could reach the fire inside as well as the gaping hole on the back side.

  Darkwyn pushed out the front window, eliminating a bit of wall with it, his dragon strength immense on the cusp of transformation. Now the room gaped open on both sides.

  Slush reached the edge of the fire, melted and dribbled toward more flames. It would take a change in the wind’s direction to get the fire completely out. “Andra,” he shouted. “Help!”

  Whoosh, the wind changed, picked up strength, and blew the slush right in. Sizzle turned to smoke.

  Darkwyn saluted, and ran up the stairs.

  Killian must be tired after his besting her earlier, then the trip home, with all that bad weather. Andra wouldn’t usually get this much help to him without Killian stopping her.

  He found the family floor empty. Upper-floor apartments, also empty. Zachary was nowhere to be found. Darkwyn shivered at the implications, and let his roar shake the rafters, though he held his fire.

  Yes, even as a man, he could use his fire to fight, to warm his family, but he could destroy with it, too. The evidence, a throat-burning reminder of his horrific blunder, a blunder that curled around him in the tendrils of smoke rising from the ashes.

  More transformations would be called for. More nakedness, more clothes. He grabbed his things and tossed them off his balcony, cursing his own weakness.

  Strengths could turn on you to become curses. Worse than the destruction of the Phoenix, was that the fire might have given Sanguedolce’s henchmen the opportunity to abduct Zachary.

  “Zachary!” Darkwyn shouted, heart pumping, guilt eating at him, his hope as sturdy and dependable as the air in a balloon.

  How could Zachary let himself be caught? Zachary knew things. As a child, he’d fearlessly searched for evidence. He would be an asset in any situation, especially to a man like Sanguedolce, who would want a brilliant enemy nearby, where he could keep an eye on him, boy or not.

  Zachary knew that and he would use the knowledge.

  That boy had better not have hitched a ride back to Canada.

  Who was he kidding, trying to talk himself into believing Zachary was all right, albeit in the wrong company?

  The boy had not been tied up and left in the burning building. Darkwyn made sure of that. Right now, he should think about getting Bronte to safety, but she wouldn’t go without Zachary.

  He’d take another run through Fangs and make sure nobody had been bound and left behind after his earlier check, then he could concentrate on getting Bronte out of here.

  The cop a
nd his gun should be enough protection for Bronte, until the ambulance left when she would be alone out there.

  “Zachary?” he called as he fast-forwarded through the flames that made their way inside the walls to the first floor. “Zachary?”

  Near the spiderweb, he heard shouting. “I’m too young to die. Save me, and these rodents, too.”

  “Puck!” Darkwyn found the hysterical bird caged in a diorama with Scorch and Lila.

  Scorch licked his face, which meant Killian had outgrown her host. The evil sorceress would need her own form to exert full power as their struggle grew. Lila patted his face and stroked his cheek. Oddly, he appreciated the vote of confidence, real or accidental.

  Cats in his arms, clothes singed, skin burning, with a parrot who wouldn’t get off his head, Darkwyn walked through Fangs and opened every casket, but no Zachary.

  Damn, he wished he’d opened the caskets upstairs.

  He took the critters out via the front door, and noted that firemen were taking charge. He sent the animals to Bronte, still waiting near the curb. “I need one more look upstairs for Zachary.”

  She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Darkwyn, I’m scared. Scared they got him.”

  “Either way, we’ll get him back.”

  “Oh, good. I thought I’d have to talk you into taking me to Canada.”

  “To Canada and the man who would kill you? I said I’d get Zachary back. We’ll address your role in the rescue, if you have a role, after I look upstairs. In case Sanguedolce’s men are still around, hide in the woods by the fairgrounds, and take the animals?”

  “Who’s an animal?” Puck snapped. “I’m a bird, a long-tailed parrot of the genus Ara, a Catalina macaw, and I’m bea-u-tee-ful.”

  “Puck, in any other situation, you’d be entertaining as hell.”

  “Ex-cuuse me.”

  “The woods,” he said to Bronte, and she blew him a kiss and ran, the parrot flying beside telling dragon jokes.

  On the way upstairs, his mind raced. That boy had a spare generation of wisdom on his side. He was too smart to get caught by the mob . . . unless he wanted to be.