I expected some sort of protest on her part, but once again she surprised me. I guess it was because she had been wyvern for so many centuries, and thus used to making decisions on the fly, but she took less than a minute to work through all of her anger and allow reason to take its place. “There’s nothing to stop me from declaring war again,” was all she said.
“That’s between you and the green dragons, although I should mention that your son has promised us the use of the Song Phylactery in exchange for freeing you.”
The air cracked with energy as she sucked in a huge breath. I thought for a moment she was going to blast me with a fireball, the dragon heart insisting that I take immediate action against her, but she released her rage before I could do anything. “Tell me what he agreed to.”
I explained the terms of the agreement with Jian along with our reason for wanting use of it, and after a moment’s thought, she nodded her head. “Red dragons always honor their word. When you have the other shards collected, I will provide you with the Song Phylactery so that you can re-create the dragon heart. But you will not have the shard until then.”
“That’s acceptable,” I agreed, wondering about her lack of demand for its immediate return afterwards. “I’ll need your formal acceptance of this peace treaty before I can tell Aisling to begin the recall.”
She snatched the thick vellum and pen I pulled from my leather bodice, snarling under her breath as she signed her name to it, using the nib of the pen to nick her finger, and sealing the treaty with blood, as was customary in the Otherworld.
“Excellent. I think you’ll find that this was the wisest choice.”
Her look should have dropped me dead on the spot. I just smiled as I rolled up the treaty and tucked it away. “I have to go back to the shadow world to let Aisling know she should begin the proceedings. It shouldn’t take long, although I do feel that I should point out that Drake will make sure Aisling is well protected, so if you’re planning on getting the jump on her once you’re back in the world, you’d better think again.”
She said nothing as I stepped back into the shadow world, but I sensed a great many emotions burbling around under the surface.
I closed my eyes for a moment, focusing my thoughts on Gabriel, reaching out to find the essence of him that I knew would be waiting for me in the shadow world. There was much in the space where it touched Abaddon that left me shaking with fear, but slowly I began to feel warmth, a comforting glow that filled me with light and love.
“Gabriel,” I said, the word whisper soft.
“I am here, little bird,” was his answer, his voice distant. I couldn’t see him any more than he could see me, but just hearing his voice gave me comfort in a comfortless place. “Is it done?”
“Yes. Tell Aisling that Chuan Ren signed the treaty.”
“Has she agreed to honor Jian’s promise?” his voice asked, echoes of it rolling around me.
“She has.”
There was silence for a moment. “I have told Drake. Aisling will begin the recall immediately. May . . .”
His voice stopped, and I was aware of a sense of something troubling him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Is Chuan Ren there with you?”
I looked behind me. The cell was represented in the shadow world by sooty archways that led into inky darkness. The ground was covered with glittering dragon scales. In the middle a silhouette stood—Chuan Ren.
“I see her, yes.”
“There in the shadow world?”
“No, in the cell.”
Gabriel was silent for the count of twenty. “Then who is in there with you?”
“No one. It’s just you and me.”
The sense of unease in his voice grew. “May, there is someone else here. I can feel the presence of another dragon. Come back to me now, little bird.”
I looked around, but there was no sign of anyone else visible. “I can’t. I have to go back and get Jim first.”
“Come back now, May,” Gabriel insisted, louder and more strident.
The worry in his voice sent a little skitter of fear down my back. There was only one other dragon I knew of who could be in the shadow world. “I promised Jim I wouldn’t leave without it.”
Gabriel swore softly to himself, frustrated at being limited to an insubstantial presence in this world. “Get out. Get out of the shadow world. It is not safe for you here.”
I thought of the wrath demon standing outside, in the real world. “I don’t think it’s terribly safe for me out there, either.”
“Much as it distresses me to speak the words, you are Magoth’s consort. Bael cannot harm you without violating the laws he enforces. I can rescue you from him, May, but I cannot save you from whoever is stalking the shadow world.”
He had a point, but I didn’t particularly like it.
Chapter Twenty-four
Gabriel was adamant about me leaving the (relative) safety of the shadow world. “I will remain here in an attempt to locate the dragon. If Bael finds you, demand that he contact me for a ransom.”
“Gabriel—”
“Please, little bird. Do as I ask.”
When he put it like that, I couldn’t come up with a good reason for refusing his request, so with reluctance, I left the shadow world . . . but not until I’d slipped as far away from the wrath demon at the door as I could manage.
Luckily, Chuan Ren’s cries as she saw me distracted the guard, which allowed me to shadow and race out of her cell even as she was beating it on the head and demanding that it catch me.
“Oh, man, you came back? I figured you’d ditch me. I gotta say, May, if I was in your shoes, I probably would have left me behind,” Jim said as I scooted into the linen closet where it was hidden.
Its words may have been flip, but relief filled its voice, and it butted its head against me in a gesture of affection.
“I won’t say I didn’t consider it, but I do try to keep my promises,” I answered, patting it on the head and suffering a couple of happy swipes of its large tongue. “Before you start celebrating, though, we have to get out of here.”
“I thought you were just going to find a way out of Abaddon via the beyond, and let Aisling summon me,” it said.
“That was the original plan. It’s been changed due to some unknown dragon finding his way into the shadow world.” I opened the door and peeked out. Although I hadn’t encountered anyone on the way back to the closet, signs of occupation around us were audible.
Jim whistled. “Dragon? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Baltic,” Jim said, nodding.
I glanced down at the demon. “Why do you say that?”
“He studied with a famous archimage named von Endres. Antonia von Endres, I think. Everyone knows that mages have the ability to overcome most types of magic,” Jim said with complacence. “If it’s a dragon in the beyond, it’s gotta be Baltic. He’s the only one who has the ability to get in there. Which . . . Oh, wow, that means he probably is hunting you.”
“Me? I don’t see why, unless it’s for the shard, and if it really is Baltic, then that won’t make sense since he was the one who stuffed the blasted thing in Kostya’s lair to begin with.”
“What makes you think that?” Jim asked with a little curl of its lips.
“Well, someone who had the shard to begin with must have done it, and who else would have taken it from Kostya only to return it?”
“Dunno, but I don’t think who used to have it is as important as who will be trying to get it now.”
“Good point. And the sooner we get out of here, the safer the shard will be. Do you know if Bael’s palace has a physical manifestation in our world?” I asked Jim.
“Yeah. House in England. Aisling went to it once. I think there’s also a London house.”
“Which means there’s probably one in Paris, too, if he’s maintaining multiple entrances from the real world to Abaddon. Let’s hope we can find it quic
kly, before we’re spotted.”
It took some time, but we managed to make our way up to a level that seemed to have access into the mortal world. One was blocked by a bevy of female demons sporting wicked-looking swords, and another bore curses and spells that made the portal glow with black light.
“Third time’s lucky,” I said softly as we crept down an empty hallway toward a promising door.
“The only luck in Abaddon belongs to the master,” a female voice said behind us.
I spun around and beheld the sight of another wrath demon, this one wearing the body of a pretty, but muscular, dark-haired woman. It strolled toward us with apparent nonchalance, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was probably capable of breaking both Jim and me in half if it so chose, quite possibly both of us at the same time.
I resisted the instinct to shadow and stood my ground as the demon approached, absently noting that there was a huge sword strapped to its back.
“Eep,” Jim said, pressing into my leg. “Wrathy at twelve o’clock.”
“So I see. Good afternoon. I assume I have the somewhat dubious pleasure of addressing one of Bael’s elite guard?” I asked with the formal tone that folks in Abaddon seemed to prefer.
“I am Jecha. The lord Bael wishes me to inform you that you are now his prisoner. Your attempt to free his prize has not gone unnoticed, and you will pay the price for your actions.” A nasty smile curved the demon’s lips. “I’ve never tortured a doppelganger before. This should prove to be enjoyable.”
With calm disdain I looked down my nose at the demon, which, given that it was several inches taller than me, wasn’t particularly easy, or I fear effective. “Do you know who you address, demon? I am May, consort to Lord Magoth, sixth prince of Abaddon. By rights, you should kneel in my presence, but I will be gracious and allow you to stand.”
“Ten out of ten for style,” Jim said sotto voce, rubbing its head on my leg. “But something tells me you’re going to have to win the swimsuit competition to get the big prize.”
The demon smiled even more. It caused a muscle in my cheek to twitch uncontrollably. “Effrijim, demon sixth class, speaks the truth. You, however, do not, doppelganger.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning. “I am Magoth’s consort. Bael cannot order my torture without violating the very laws he upholds.”
“You were Magoth’s consort . . . but with your act of insurrection against Lord Bael, Magoth has been excommunicated from Abaddon.” Evil amusement danced in the demon’s eyes. “Which means that you’re no longer a consort to a demon lord and, hence, are an interloper and a thief. Do you know how Lord Bael deals with such?”
Fear chilled me. Not a faint, worrisome fear, but the sort of freezing fear that slows your brain and locks your body into a statue of absolute, complete terror. Bael had kicked out Magoth?
“Jim?” I asked, blinding reaching my hand out for its head.
“Right here.”
“You remember what Aisling said?”
“Yup.”
I figured it hadn’t forgotten that Aisling had commanded it to follow any and all of my orders without exception.
“Excellent.” One part of my brain started back up, rather sluggishly, but enough to trigger self-preservation. “Destroy!”
A large, black furry shape lunged upward from the floor as Jim threw itself at the demon, taking it by surprise. The demon fell over backwards, immediately pulling the sword from its scabbard. I stomped down hard on its hand, causing it to scream in pain, Jim taking advantage of the distraction to clamp its teeth down on the demon’s other arm. I snatched up the sword, intending to disarm it and escape to the shadow world, but wrath demons are not so easily taken advantage of.
It spat out a few words, and instantly the ground was crawling with imps, nasty rage imps whose bodies were covered with a type of acid.
“Go!” Jim bellowed as it flung itself off the demon and onto the mass of imps that had risen as one to strike me.
I didn’t wait to debate the point, not while the wrath demon was preparing to spring at me. I twirled around and left that reality for the shadow world, the demon’s heavy sword still clutched in my hand as I raced away until I was sure it could no longer see me.
Instantly, I was aware of two things: one was Gabriel’s presence, and the other was that he was absolutely correct—there was another dragon there.
The man I’d come to think of as Baltic stood at the end of the twisted parody of Bael’s palace hallway. He spun around when I entered the shadow world, avarice chasing disbelief across his face as he saw me.
“You!” he said first, then seemed to scent the air. “You bear the dragon shard?”
He started down the hallway toward me.
“May!” Gabriel yelled; he was not visible to me, but I could feel his presence nonetheless. “What are you doing? Leave now!”
I spun around on my heels and bolted, not wanting to stay around to see what Baltic had on his mind. “I can’t!” I yelled to Gabriel as I raced around tortured bits of masonry and metal, sliding down an incline to a pit, only to leap up the other side and through a shattered archway. This part of Bael’s palace seemed to be in ruins in the shadow world, making it difficult to navigate. “Bael knows about the recall. He’s kicked out Magoth, which means I have no status.”
Gabriel swore again, this time more profanely, railing against the fact that he was unable to help me.
I hurdled a fallen stone pillar, quickly crawling underneath it to curl up in the inky recess it created, holding my breath as a shadow touched me briefly as it sped past.
“May? May!”
I waited until the dragon was well past me before emerging from my hiding spot, silently racing back the way I’d come. I assumed he could hear Gabriel and me talking, but the diffusing effect the shadow world had on sound made it likely he couldn’t pinpoint my location based on it.
“May, answer me!” Gabriel roared, anger, frustration, and an impotent fury audible in his voice.
“I’m here. I’ll find a way out,” I answered, taking a different path from the one that led to Chuan Ren’s prison. “Don’t worry about me, Gabriel. This is my world. I know my way around it.”
“Gabriel,” a male voice called out, uncomfortably close. I swung around and raced in the opposite direction. “Gabriel . . . Tauhou? Wyvern of the silver dragons.”
Gabriel spat out something in the language I recognized as Zilant, the tongue used by dragons centuries before English was adopted as a universal means of communication.
The voice chuckled, the sound seemingly coming from everywhere at once. “And this is your mate? How did you get around the curse, I wonder. It is of little matter. She is no longer yours.”
A wordless roar met that statement, one not of pain, but of absolute, unadulterated rage.
I paused for a second, startled by the depth of emotion in the sound.
“Find somewhere to hide,” Gabriel yelled suddenly. “I will find you, little bird. Hide yourself and wait for me.”
I wanted to point out the obvious, that even if he did find me, there was little he could do to help me since he had no physical presence in this world, but there seemed little use in that. I concentrated on controlling my breathing as I dashed around the shadow version of Bael’s palace, seeking a place well away from the mysterious dragon where I could hide, or a passage out to the real world.
Time seemed to blur as I searched. It had been hard enough to find an exit in Bael’s palace, but here in the shadow world, where the fabric of being had been warped by association with Abaddon, it was a nightmare of endless onyx archways leading to nowhere, pits that opened at my feet, broken columns and walls, and twisted black metal that clawed at me as I raced past.
A faint lightening in the distance heralded what might be a passage out of Abaddon. I stood for a moment, catching my breath before making my cautious way toward it, struggling to control the emotions the dragon shard had stirred in my fli
ght. The hand gripping the demon’s sword was stiff and aching. I relaxed my fingers, flexing them to restore the blood flow as I listened intently for sounds the dragon was near. For the previous fifteen or so minutes I hadn’t heard anything but the normal muted sounds of the shadow world. Perhaps I’d given him the slip.
I looked at the promising light on the horizon, weighing my need to save myself with Gabriel’s request that I find a hiding spot and wait for him. I shook my head as I considered the latter. “There’s no time,” I argued to myself. “Even if he got someone to come into the shadow world to help me, it would take that person too long to find me. I have to get out of Abaddon.”
“I agree. Abaddon is no place for you,” a voice said behind me. I snatched up the sword, whirling around to face the man who emerged from the shadow of a half-tumbled wall. He glanced at the weapon held in front of me, one eyebrow rising lazily. “You have nothing to fear from me, mate.”
“I’m not even going to point out how ludicrous that statement is,” I said, both of my hands holding the sword so it pointed at his heart. Dragons might be hard to kill, but even they wouldn’t run headlong into a sword. “I will warn you that I have no intention of being taken away from Gabriel, nor will I allow you to take the dragon shard.”
The dragon ignored both the threat and the sword as he circled around me, eyeballing me from the top of my head to the toes of my boots. I kept the sword between him and me, turning as he made his objectionable examination. “You are not as finely made as my mate was.” A slow smile made his lips quirk. “On the other hand, there is much pleasure to be had in taking the mate of a silver dragon again.”
“I’m not Ysolde,” I said, wondering if my stab in the dark was going to find its mark. “And Gabriel is not Constantine Norka.”
He lunged at me, snarling out something I didn’t understand. I slashed at him with the sword, amazed as the air in front of me gathered into a blue light that formed itself in a sword. “Do not think that because I will take you as mate means you will be anything but a pale comparison to her. You are merely a female, a means to an end, a lesser dragon and nothing more.”
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