“I bet the fire breather would disagree.”
Warner laughed. “Outward appearances and manifestations are useless when it comes to guardians. Baxia’s magic counters that of Suanmi’s, for instance. The rain bringer and the fire breather. If Chi Wen had chosen to stop aging earlier, you would have no idea he was nearing the end of his ascension.”
“You mentioned before that Chi Wen rarely leaves the nexus now. But he goes to see Rochelle.”
“Which indicates how important he feels the oracle is.”
Yeah, that idea didn’t make me extra lightheaded and anxious at all. I reached for the second bottle of water and twisted off the cap.
“I know it scares you,” Warner said. “What the far seer sees.”
“According to Pulou, what he doesn’t see should be a bigger concern.”
Warner made a noncommittal noise, but he didn’t try to talk me out of not worrying.
His support was appreciated. But I wouldn’t mind living in denial a little longer.
∞
I hadn’t realized I’d drifted off to sleep until I said, “The dragonfly was silver.” Vocalizing the words woke me from a dream I couldn’t remember.
“What dragonfly?” Warner asked.
As I opened my eyes, both they and my ears were overwhelmed by a torrential rainfall. It appeared to be attacking the vehicle as Warner drove far too quickly down the face of a mountain … literally. The steep gravel-edged road cut along a deep ravine to our right, appearing so narrow that I doubted an oncoming car could pass us — if the driver could even see us in the storm.
“Headlights,” I muttered as I reached for the last swig of water. I desperately needed to rinse out my mouth — and, unfortunately, to pee. It was great that I wasn’t dehydrated, but the timing for a pit stop was awful. I couldn’t see much through the thwacking windshield wipers that were barely keeping up with the deluge, but it was full-on dusk outside.
“I can see,” Warner said.
“Others need to see you.”
He obligingly started looking around for the headlights — which, rather disconcertingly, took his attention off the road. The sentinel might be able to survive a fiery car crash into the depths of a ravine in the middle of the Andes, but I was a hundred percent sure I wouldn’t.
“Wait.” I shucked off the heavy layer of sleep that often accompanied impromptu naps, then did the same with the chest strap of the seat belt and my ski jacket. I was way too hot now.
I ducked underneath Warner’s arms and leaned across his lap to hunt around for the headlight switch on the left side of the steering column.
“Found it.” I turned the lights on.
“Thanks,” Warner said. “You could stay there.”
“Slung across your lap?”
“Looks more comfortable than sleeping upright.”
I laughed and straightened up. “Oh, yeah? And here I thought you were angling for a blow job.”
Warner frowned like he did whenever his genetically built-in translator failed him. He didn’t understand the reference, or had no context for it. Same with asking for directions in Spanish at the gas station. Give him a few more minutes and he’d be speaking like a native, but there would still be cultural or social expressions he wouldn’t get at first.
Oh, God. Mortification flushed my already overheated face. I wasn’t going to explain that one.
Warner opened his mouth and I cut him off.
“Three dates.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing. Just the thing you said about us having only been on three dates.”
“Shall we discuss that now?”
“No.”
Silence fell, but I felt oddly settled. As if something had clicked for me, and I understood what point we were at in our mating dance. If having to explain what a blow job was mortified me, then I certainly wasn’t ready to be giving any.
“You should sleep more, Jade,” Warner said. “Listen to the rain. The city is just below us. I saw it right before the weather shifted. We’re perhaps thirty minutes away.”
“We need to stop at the next gas station, for a bathroom.”
Warner nodded.
I shifted the seat until it was fully reclined, listening to him for once rather than insisting that I was fine. “I’ll explain later.”
“The ‘blow job’ ?”
“Yes.”
“After more than three dates?”
“Yes.”
“I understand.”
“You always do.” I closed my eyes.
“Not always,” he whispered.
I smiled but didn’t respond. Then I remembered the dream. “The dragonfly in the library was silver,” I said, my eyes still closed. “A treasure of Pulou’s. It was following Drake around.”
“Metallurgy?”
“So Drake said. And I’ve been wondering about my pen. The one that writes runes.” I was murmuring, drifting off as quickly as I’d woken. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept, and the car was so warm … so cozy … with Warner driving.
“A metallurgist who worked with silver,” Warner said.
I was too deep into the drift of sleep to answer, though I tried. I dreamed of books, of silver wings, and of there never being enough cupcakes.
∞
I swore I’d only been asleep for five minutes when Warner hauled me out of the comfy, heated passenger seat to practically carry me to a gas station bathroom. Happily, I was too drowsy to freak out about my reflection in the mirror when I washed my hands and splashed water on my face. I did shriek a little over the lack of hot water, though.
I was still so tired that I probably wouldn’t have been able to find the vehicle if Warner hadn’t been waiting outside the bathroom for me. I wanted to immediately curl up back to sleep, but he practically forced me to drink another bottle of water and eat a few handfuls of trail mix. He kept blathering on about me needing the salt. I liked the sound of his voice, but I would have preferred to hear it lulling me back to dreamland.
I wouldn’t have forgiven him for the force-feeding, except there were candied-coated Smarties in the mix — probably some generic brand, but still tasty. He was right about the salt too, but I didn’t tell him so.
“You’ll make a good dad,” I said to him.
He laughed, then murmured something softly that I wished I could have heard. I was already back in the dream library, though … moving the pieces of the centipede on the map to match Rochelle’s drawing, and wondering what I was missing.
I was always missing something that I always ended up discovering too late.
CHAPTER TEN
When I woke again, the night sky was clear and full of an impossible number of stars. I was alone in the SUV, which was sitting directly underneath a large floodlight in a fairly empty airport parking lot. Long-term parking, I guessed. I peered sleepily out the passenger-side window, thinking I could maybe make out the runway behind a chain-link fence and what appeared to be smaller, private hangars. The well-lit main terminal building was farther off to the left. I couldn’t really see it from my low vantage point, but it appeared to be smaller than the Vancouver airport.
A brand new, still-chilled bottle of water was sitting in the cup holder beside me, along with a snack pack of dry roasted peanuts and a note scrawled on the back of a receipt. So Warner must have gone, come back, and left again quickly. God, if I hadn’t already been crushing on him to the point of losing all dignity, I would have been doing so now.
I straightened my seat and downed half the bottle of water as I read the note.
I have gone to collect the vampire.
Stay in the vehicle.
Please.
With a cherry and chocolate on top.
It was signed with a scrawl that looked vaguely like a W.
I snorted a laugh and reached for the peanuts. Then I looked up to see the teenage Shailaja standing ten feet in front of the SUV.
The tableau of the teen
with the chain-link fence and the lights of the airport behind her actually made me flinch violently enough that I spilled water across my necklace and chest. I couldn’t taste a drop of her magic, meaning the SUV must be magically sealed within and without.
Shailaja smiled — like she enjoyed seeing my surprise. Then she said something I couldn’t hear, nor could I read her lips.
I glared at her, all the anger that had been born in the bakery boiling up in an instant. Thrown by my own vicious reaction, I tamped down on my fury while undoing my seat belt as surreptitiously as I could.
The rabid koala had thankfully replaced the stretched-way-too-small yellow sundress. She was now wearing a quilted down jacket and skinny jeans tucked into knee-high, supple leather boots that I utterly refused to salivate over. A bright blue backpack dangled from her left hand.
Damn freaking dragons and their freaking endless ability to adapt.
I opened the door, not taking my eyes off the teen for a second as I stepped out from the SUV. A confrontation was coming. I preferred to be on my own two feet and not stuck in a tin can when it hit. Even despite Warner’s request for me to stay in the heavily warded SUV. Shailaja had already ripped through the substantial bakery wards while in her child form. Though her magic wasn’t fully unlocked, she’d definitely be even stronger and faster as a teenager.
The night was balmy, which was good, because I was wearing just my dark-green turtleneck merino wool sweater and jeans. I’d left my hat, scarf, and jacket in the backseat.
The moment I cracked the door, the taste of her magic — carrot cake with a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg — came to me. Burnt carrot cake, and not a lick of icing. So her magic had resolved into more than simply the sweet sootiness I’d picked up in the bakery. I was thankful for how the burnt taste helped with keeping my hate-on, because I really loved moist carrot cake. Especially with cream cheese icing … and a half a cup of cocoa mixed in the batter.
Yeah, I was hungry. A girl can exist on water and a handful of trail mix only for a couple of hours.
Carefully closing the car door so that it wouldn’t get between me and the teen when all hell broke loose, I glanced around for Shailaja’s shadow leech pals, but didn’t see any. Though they cast large pools of light directly beneath them, the parking lot floodlights were spaced far enough apart to create numerous deep pockets of darkness for the shadows to hide within.
“You made it difficult to track you, alchemist,” Shailaja said. She was now standing immediately before the front bumper of the SUV.
I tried not to flinch at her sudden nearness but failed.
“I thought it was the portals,” she continued. “But I see now it was this vehicle. Ingenious.” She patted the SUV’s hood like it was a puppy.
“It took you three months before,” I said, having no idea why I was engaging in any conversation with the teenage dragon. Maybe I just always held out hope that kindness would prevail.
“Did it?” she asked. “My sense of time and self is less scattered than before. But I’m still not whole. I believe it was the necklace that kept me at a distance before.” Her gaze fell to my chest. “I see you’ve begun to replenish it, but it won’t be enough.”
“Enough for what?” I snapped. It was a stupid question, since I knew what she wanted, but keeping her chatting seemed like a good idea while I figured out what to do next.
The teen reached into her backpack and pulled out the dragonskin map. She unfolded the tattoo across the hood of the SUV, not caring that the vehicle was still speckled with rain.
As she smoothed her fingers over the bottom edge of the tattoo, ornate runic calligraphy appeared along the top edge. The same calligraphy that had appeared when Warner touched the map.
“Where dragons dare not tread,” Shailaja said. Then she laughed. She was better at hiding her crazy edge now than she’d been as a toddler, but I could still hear it in her amusement. “We know that isn’t the complete truth. Not that I would expect anything more from the treasure keeper.”
“We know you were stopped.”
“But I made it all the way,” she said, completely unrepentant. “You will collect this artifact for me.”
“I really won’t.”
The sheen of gold that rolled across Shailaja’s eyes was the only warning I got before she lunged for me. I called my knife into my hand even as I was thrusting it forward to meet her attack. Miss Cupcakes and Trinkets had taken a nap and woken up ready to rumble.
A step before I gutted her, the rabid koala was knocked sideways by Warner, who was moving so quickly that I hadn’t even tasted his magic before he was slamming Shailaja down on the roof of a car parked ten spaces away.
I cringed as the roof caved, blowing out the car’s windows. The owners of the super-cute old-style Mini were going to be seriously pissed when they got back from whatever trip they were on. Ironically, four parking spots on either side of the Mini were open.
“Sentinel!” Shailaja cried out as if she was greeting an old friend, rather than presently being throttled by an angry dragon. “I didn’t recognize you before.”
“I don’t know you,” Warner spat.
Tasting peppermint magic somewhere to my left, I whirled to the right to meet the shadow leeches as they unfurled from the pools of darkness between the parking lot lights. Ignoring me, the shadows swarmed Shailaja and Warner. Then Kett was beside me, his fingers morphing into long claws as I dove forward to slash the leeches with my jade knife. The vampire hissed and fell back as the leeches latched onto him.
I pulled up an extra layer of protection from my necklace and pressed forward, but my blade met no resistance.
The shadow leeches and Shailaja were gone.
Warner was standing as if still pinning the teenage dragon to the roof of the crushed Mini. Slowly, he straightened and scanned the parking lot.
“That’s an intriguing mode of transport,” Kett said. His cool voice drew my attention away from the sentinel, and I turned back as the vampire bent over to retrieve Shailaja’s backpack. He had red sores all over his face and hands, but even as I stepped toward him in concern, I saw them heal.
Warner still hadn’t moved from the crumpled car.
“She’s gone,” I called out as I crossed to see what Kett had uncovered. “I can’t taste her magic anymore.”
Kett dug through the backpack but didn’t find anything that seemed to interest him.
“She left the map,” I said, turning to take a closer look at the dragonskin tattoo where it was still spread out across the hood of the SUV. It appeared undamaged and unaltered, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if Shailaja had used it as a napkin and corrupted it with black magic. She was just that arrogant. Which, for some reason, reminded me that I had yet to see her wield any sort of weapon. Shailaja armed with a sword or a knife was a sobering thought. I’d bet all the chocolate in my pantry that she’d trained as much as Warner had, which was easily fifty years more than I had so far labored under the sword master’s tutelage.
Kett leaned in next to me to look at the map. He’d only seen a picture of it before.
“Words that look like runes appear at the top when dragons touch it,” I said. I placed my fingers along the edge of the first block, coaxing the smoky magic out of the tattoo so I could shift it and begin to build the centipede. Then I realized I still hadn’t seen or heard anything from Warner.
I looked over to see him standing over the crushed Mini as before, his hands still outstretched.
“She left the map,” I repeated.
“It was her,” he said. “She’s alive.” His tone — a mixture of surprise, anger and … grief — twisted my gut.
Kett laughed quietly. I looked at him, appalled and hurt by his insensitivity. He smiled tightly. “The almost-immortal have long lives, Jade,” he said. “And the histories to go with them.”
Then he turned his attention back to the map.
Damn, damn, triple damn.
And now I was jealous
about more than just a psychotic teenage dragon’s boots.
Ah, Warner.
∞
I realigned the centipede on the map while Kett watched me intently … or rather, while he watched the magic. Warner and I talking about immortality and long lives reminded me that it was probably exceedingly rare for the vampire to experience new magic. I often suspected that the rarity of my own magic was the only reason we’d become friends in the first place.
Warner sorted himself out and joined us as the map shifted to reveal the location of the second instrument of assassination. Or at least to point us in the right direction.
“So in order to have tattooed this on his back, and to appoint Warner as sentinel of the instruments of assassination, the former treasure keeper must have tracked down all the instruments.” Even as the thought was making its way out of my mouth, I knew that everyone else had already deduced that months ago. Not to be daunted by my own insecurities, I forged ahead with the train of thought. “So why not collect them then? And his daughter might say she wants this one in order to harvest the magic from it, but then why did she go after the first one?”
I looked pointedly at Warner. “You said she broke from the guardians because she believed in immortality.” I carefully kept any hint of accusation from my tone … well, as best as I could without also screaming, ‘You said you weren’t an item!’
Warner nodded. His eyes were fixed to the map but unfocused, as if he was thinking.
“But dragons aren’t immortal.”
“No.”
“She wanted to become a guardian, then.”
Warner ran his hand across his face, then through his hair. “She should have been in the line of succession.”
“But she wasn’t?”
“No.” Warner sighed — a heavy, lonely sound that actually hurt me to hear it. I was plainly misunderstanding his reaction to Shailaja …
“You were sure she was dead,” I said. “Because you thought she’d done something for which she deserved to die.”
“I never thought she was the reason for the treasure keeper’s secrets. But yes. I assumed by Pulou’s behavior that she’d met with the edge of the warrior’s blade.”
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) Page 16