The Dragon King and I
Page 13
One perfect blond eyebrow arched and he gave me a look rife with indulgent amusement.
“Oh do you. And what, pray tell, am I?”
“You’re the villain.”
“No.” His face twisted in rage and he leaned forward to snarl at me from less than an inch away. “I’m a villain. One of many. Small in the grand scheme of things.” His face softened and became almost pleading. “But I don’t have to be.”
My chin lifted in defiance. “Then why did you kill Mr. Jenkins?”
He looked blank for a moment. As if the there was a list of victims he had to mentally sort through. Finally realization dawned and I felt my gorge rise at his cavalier view on human life. “You mean the old man?”
I simply glared, and his hands worked around my wrists, squeezing all the tighter. “You needed a hero.” he explained slowly, false calm oozing out of every pore. As if I was the one out of control. “The man I killed?” he shook his head. “He was too old to be playing your Knight in Shining Armor. So I did us both a favor and retired him.”
Just as he’d been hoping to ‘retire’ Sam. I knew the signs. He wanted me all to himself, and everyone else was a threat to that. Obstacles to be eliminated.
“Seraphim didn’t send you, did she?” I made it sound like a question, but really, I already knew the answer. “She probably doesn’t even know who you are.”
“Oh, she knows me.” his mouth twisted bitterly. “I DJ at the club. She’s the one who pointed Rachel out to me and hired me to tell her about Clarabell. Said she would do it herself, but that most humans found her intimidating. She needed someone to convince Rachel that a visit to Clarabell’s was your best bet.” He shrugged, “And who better to do that than a Piper?”
“And sleeping with her? Did Seraphim hire you to do that, too?”
His eyes widened slightly at how much I knew, and he bared his teeth, his hands crushing my wrists in a grip designed to punish.
“No. That was a bonus.”
His eyes traveled over me and I saw his eyes glaze as he took in the sight of my bare breasts. I could feel him against my abdomen, hard and ready, and I tugged at my hands in a futile attempt to get free.
Even worse than the fear of force was the sick knowledge that he wouldn’t be using any. Why let me put up a struggle when he could just use his magic to bespell me back into the damsel he’d been pining for. The one that craved his touches more than life itself. He wasn’t just going to rape me.
He was going to make me enjoy it.
“Sam.” his name was part plea, part warning, and Conric laughed as he rolled his hips and ground his erection into me.
“Sam, Sam, Sam. He’s just as much a villain in all of this as I am. I saw his true nature. I know what he is.” he shook me and screamed his frustration into my skin. “So why is it ok for him to love you and not me?”
“He doesn’t-”
“He does. Gods,” he laughed incredulously. “I’ve been to countless realms and this is the only one that views love with more antipathy than sex.” He looked at me and there was genuine confusion written across his face. “Why are your people so willing to fall into bed with one another but so reluctant to find true love? It’s madness.”
His question stumped me. He allowed me a few more moments of silence to turn the problem over in my head, and finally just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if he isn’t dead by now, he’s still trapped beyond the veil. He can’t save you this time.”
“Maybe not.” Maleficent purred, her freshly manicured nails sliding across his shoulders like the talons of a much larger beast. “But I certainly can.”
His eyes widened in shock and his lips parted.
I never found out whether he’d been about to yell, curse us both, or magic his way out from under the witch’s grasp. Maleficent simply moved too fast for him to do much of anything but gag as her hands wrapped around his neck. On her knees behind him, she settled his chin in the crook of her elbow, winked at me, and then broke the Piper’s neck.
* * * *
I sat on the edge of my bed; arms wrapped around the rags that used to be my dress, and shook.
I couldn’t stop.
It turned out that Maleficent wasn’t big on comfort. Instead the witch turned Godmother was busy trying to push the rotting zombie head out from beneath my bed with a broom she’d found in the kitchen.
Note to self:
Burn the broom….and maybe my carpet.
“Thank you.” I finally managed, after listening to her grunt in disgust for about thirty seconds or so. On her stomach and now halfway beneath the bed, her response was muffled.
“For what?”
“Oh I don’t know.” I began, sarcasm beginning to thicken my voice. “Protecting my virtue. Saving my life. Killing a man on top of me and stuffing his body in my freezer. The list goes on. It makes it hard to pick just one.”
She chuckled.
“No biggie. What else are Fairy Godmothers for?”
I smiled, despite the awfulness of the situation.
The smile slipped almost immediately when I asked, “Why didn’t you say something sooner? You were here the other day. You could have warned us about him then.”
“I’m not a mind reader, pup. You’re my only exception on that point. I just thought you’d invited him to join your troupe of merry men.”
I scowled. I was starting to see obvious differences between the old fairy regime and the new witchy one. The Fae had obviously been more in the know than their successors. Though in all fairness, Maleficent had managed to keep me alive this far so she was obviously doing something right.
“What brings you out so early anyway? It’s not even noon yet.”
“My charge was in trouble.” She grunted from below. “Let’s me break a few rules.” Her voice lowered and I shifted uncomfortably as I realized that she was talking to the spirit fae. Or rather, what was left of the spirit Fae. “Come here you little-OW!” she transformed from cajoling to shocked outrage in less than 3 seconds flat. “Twist my tits; the little bitch just bit me.” The mattress heaved and I squealed as Seraphim version 1.0 shot out from beneath the end of the bed like a pool ball. She flew across my floor, blond ponytail twirling like the blades of a fan, to bounce off the wall near my dresser.
I put my head between my knees and fought not to throw up as Maleficent bounced back onto her feet, broom propped on her shoulder like a baseball bat. I looked back up just as Maleficent kicked the head over with one high-heeled boot and stuck the rounded end of the broom through the bloody stump of the Fae’s neck.
She lifted the broom handle until she could look the dead Fairy in the eye.
“You should thank her, too.” she said cheerfully, turning the broom so that Seraphim 1.0 could blink at me. “She’s the one who called me. Isn’t that right love?”
The head grinned at the endearment and I rushed from the room, hand over my mouth. I barely made it to my bathroom in time, but when I did I spent a wretched five minutes throwing up everything I’d ever eaten, ever thought about eating, or would eat in the future.
I flinched at the feel of Maleficent’s hands in my hair but settled when she began gathering the mass of it up and out of the way. She rubbed my back, slow, steady circles, that centered me better than any words could have.
Finally I pulled away, settling on the floor so that I could lean my back against the tub. My face was flushed. I felt hot, but when I brushed a strand of sweat soaked hair away I realized that my skin was clammy to the touch.
Maleficent wrinkled her nose at the smell of vomit and flushed the toilet before settling across from me. I don’t know what she’d done with the head. Didn’t want to know. Instead I regarded her levelly and voiced a question that had been nagging at me ever since I’d found out that the hero of this little drama was dead.
“What do we do now?”
She read the direction of my thoughts and settled her chin on one upraised knee.
> “Finish the Quest.”
“But—”
She waved away my protest before I could finish voicing it. “You and Samuel will just need to play more than one role. It’s hard but not impossible.”
Some of the strength I’d found tried to desert me. So he lived. She wouldn’t have mentioned him if he didn’t. The loss of Sam now, really would mean giving up.
“What is Sam’s role in all of this?”
She blinked in astonishment. “You mean you don’t know?”
I shrugged. “It hasn’t come up.”
Maleficent looked as if she were about to say something, but she shook her head at the last minute.
“Whatever. I’ll let him be the one to tell you.”
Groaning, she got to her feet and dusted herself off. It was strange seeing her in just a t-shirt and jeans, hair in a bun at the nape of her neck. There was less skin on display, but she’d always seemed larger than life no matter how much (or how little) she was wearing at any given time. That hadn’t changed. For the first time I was comforted by her towering presence rather than petrified by it.
“Will he be all right?”
Maleficent sighed, “That really depends on you.”
“What do you mean?”
Visibly, she hesitated and her face became thoughtful. “Samuel is having some trouble…coping in this world. He’s stronger than most,” she admitted, “but there’s weakness there. He’s been in this world for some time now. Longer, I believe, than he let you think.”
“I just thought he’d come across to help me. It never occurred to me that he’d already been here.” My mind flashed back to our conversation after the cemetery. “He said he only had a few more days before he began to turn. It’s one of the reasons why he wanted to leave for the market last night.”
Maleficent frowned. “Last night?”
I nodded, and she spared me a long look.
“I’m sorry to break this to you, pup, but time runs differently on the other side. You were gone for three full days. Samuel’s missed his deadline.”
This…stunned me. On one hand the urgency to get back to Sam was even greater, but on the other hand…
On the other hand I’d missed having dinner with my mother.
(Yay)
I shook my head bitterly, ignoring the tiny, petty, part of me that celebrated this particular turn of events.
“We should have left when he’d wanted us to. If only that stupid jar—”
I hesitated, and sent Maleficent angry, accusatory, eyes.
“That wasn’t my fault.” She defended herself absently, staring intently into my bathroom mirror and turning her face first this way and then that as she searched for imperfections.
“You gave him the damn thing. What was wrong with it anyway?”
Rolling her eyes she met my eyes without turning away from the mirror. “There was nothing wrong with it. It’s a general healing spell. There are so many different magical beings walking around that it’s just easier to have something that conforms to their individual needs. If you’d opened the thing, it would have been a magical ointment. Our late Piper? Nothing but music. In Samuel’s case, the jar healed him by forcing him to do what his kind does best.”
“Which is?”
“Heal themselves.” Abruptly she clapped her hands and turned smartly on her heel. “But enough about all that. I’m afraid you have somewhere to be.” She pulled me to my feet, out of the bathroom, and back into my bedroom.
“Where are we going?”
“You,” she correctly cheerfully, “are going to go save your man.”
“He isn’t my—”
“Here.” She shoved something heavy and round into my hands I realized with a start that it was the platter from the market.
“What—”
She gripped my shoulders and met my eyes with more seriousness than I’d ever seen from her.
“Trust me. You’re going to need it.”
“I was willing to take her word on that, but that still didn’t explain to me what was going on.
“Where am I going?”
“Back across the veil.”
My body flushed instantly, the sweat that gathered between my breasts and under my arms left me chilly and shaking with terror. She squealed and used one arm to hug me tight to her.
“You’re so cute when you’re scared. But you don’t have anything to worry about this time. Your Samuel has taken care of all of the nasty, little, goblins. He just needs someone to bring him home. Simple enough, right?”
I didn’t appreciate the baby talk, but I did relax some. Though if things were as simple as she claimed then why the hell did I feel as if I were heading off on a suicide mission?
Wait a minute.
“What do you mean he took care of them all?” I jerked out of her embrace so that I could watch her face work. “There were thousands of them. An army. There’s no way one person could have-”
“And yet he did.” she waved my protests away impatiently, and glanced me over. Her nose wrinkled as if she was looking into another toilet bowl full of vomit and she shook her head. “I can’t heal you this time, but the least I can do is make you look less-”
“Like a rape victim?” I supplied.
“Less like the victim of an assault. Your goodies haven’t been violated so I call that a win.”
My Godmother ladies and gentleman. Such an advocate for women’s rights. And sensitive, too. Ignoring my inner brat, Maleficent snapped her fingers. Her magic spiraled around me in a cloud of sparkling purple smoke and when it cleared, I looked down to find myself now dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a tank top, every bruise, cut, and bite I’d endured in the Market now glaringly, painfully, obvious.
The good news was that not only was I dressed, I was also clean. My skin was no longer sticky with fruit and dried blood. And if the scent of mint was any indication she’d even washed my hair. Hands down, the most useful ability my Godmother had. My brow furrowed as I angled my foot and noted the logo on the side of my new shoes. Mentally, I searched for and found the retail price of my new kicks, and whistled.
“Just in case you need to make a run for it. Trust me. You’re going to need those, too.”
Her smile was big, but her words rang with truth, and my shoulders slumped.
Yeah, that didn’t sound ominous at all.
Chapter Nine
“We love each other like matches in the dark. We don’t talk, we catch fire instead.”
- Mathias Malzieu, La Mécanique du cœur
A few hours later I once again found myself outside the door of Madam Clara, psychic medium. I’d left Maleficent back at my apartment. She said she’d be heading back home soon anyway since she wouldn’t be able to go to work that night. Having already used up her time quota by coming to help me. I’d been leery about leaving her on her own, but she’d assured me that she had projects that would keep her sufficiently occupied.
“You’re not my only client, dear.”
I’d surprised myself with a little spurt of jealously, but I suppose it should have occurred to me before. If only some of the witches had been conscripted into taking on charges, then of course they’d have to take on more than one just to get to them all.
I shook these musings away and engaged in a mandatory staring match with the door knocker. It leered at me, and making a small sound of disgust I rapped sharply on the front door, and waited. For the first time, I had to knock more than once and even then it was a good five minutes before Flo answered the door.
While she was still dressed as impeccably as ever there was a distinct lack of luster to her face. My fingers, which had tightened around the handle of the platter in my hand, relaxed as I saw how…drawn she looked. Her eyes, when they met my own, were clear enough, but there were deep bags beneath them that spoke of sleepless nights. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her nose.
“Yes?”
“Um. Hi.”
“What do you want?”
I squished the urge to offer her some sinus medicine or something, and lifted the platter.
“I need you to lift the veil for me. Mal—Seraphim says that I can get in easier now that I have something from that plane.”
Flo scowled at me, bad temper at full throttle, before yanking the door open wider and shuffling away. Taking this as an invitation to follow, I threw the door knocker a smug look, and did so. We walked past the barista room and deeper into the recesses of the house.
“How come no one’s ever here. You can’t be the only employee.”
She groaned, as if conversation with me was the last thing she felt like doing. Flo must have known that I would just keep pestering her because she answered despite her reluctance to do so.
“I’m not the only one here. I’m just the only one you can see and vice versa.”
Whoa. “Really?”
“A geas from Clarabell amounts to a banning. As far as either of you are concerned the other doesn’t exist. The rule also applies to anyone under her care.”
Probably to prevent me from taking advantage of them in a bid for Clarabell’s attention.
“You can see me.”
“It’s my job to see you.” she sent me the evil eye over her shoulder; “I had no idea you’d be gracing us with your presence quite so often, however. Here we are.”
She stopped in front of an archway leading into a cavernous room that had been transformed into a library. There was no way this place looked this big from the outside, but I guessed that that had more than a little to do with magic.
I moved to step through the archway but the goblin woman grabbed me by the belt loop on my pants and pulled me back. She shook her head without looking at me, and reached forward with her free hand to brush her thumb across the surface of the platter. Then, as if touching something delicate, she pressed her thumb into the space beneath the archway and stepped back, pulling me with her.