by C. I. Black
“In here.” He staggered inside — still no sight of cameras — hissed his power word and summoned a gate. Trying to ignore the agony within him or the annoying trickle of blood oozing down his leg, he concentrated on the courtyard around the corner from the ekas. It had been pretty much unkempt and abandoned five hundred and fifty years ago. Here was hoping it still was.
CHAPTER 17
Grey grabbed Ivy’s hand, reveling in the sudden clarity of the black vortex in front of him, the damp cool of the parking garage, and the smell of vehicle exhaust and oil. They stepped into the gate and his magic powering the vortex stuttered, drawing back to the anchor behind him.
Shit. They couldn’t afford to step back into that courtyard. If the police weren’t there already, they would be soon.
With a growl, he forced more magic and concentration into the gate. It spat them out into a silent, dark courtyard. It was similar to the one where Seville’s gate anchor sat, small with two- and three-story buildings blocking in three sides, but this courtyard was even smaller. There wasn’t room for a tree, only a bush that took up half the yard and looked like it had never been trimmed.
Thank the Mother of All the courtyard was still as abandoned as he remembered. He gritted his teeth and forced his body to move to the gate and into the street beyond the courtyard. He didn’t know what he was going to do if Jet was already there. As injured as he was, there was no way he’d win a fight.
“Do you still have that gun?” he asked.
Ivy held out the weapon.
“Check how much ammo you have left.” A part of him wanted to take the weapon from her, and while he had experience with various sidearms — from before the 1946 attack — his instincts said she was a better shot. Not to mention it was better if they were both armed.
“I’ve four bullets left.”
Here was hoping they wouldn’t need more.
There were two doors to the ekas, a front door a block down and around the corner on a narrow street, and a side door which exited into an even narrower alley on the far side of the building from them. And while some ekases had remained popular establishments for dragons to visit, this one in Seville was close to being abandoned. A dragon could still visit and worship in the temple to the Mother in the basement, but there wasn’t a proprietor on site and it wasn’t regularly stocked with supplies.
Grey strode to the heavy wood and iron front door — like all the doors to the neighboring buildings — and grabbed the latch. Magic shivered over his hand and up his arm, sending spikes of pain through the still-healing slice. The spell recognized his dragon spirit, released the lock, and he eased the door open.
The tingling magic of a gatelock whispered over his skin as he crossed the threshold. It was a fraction of the strength it should be. A drake with a powerful gating ability, like Diablo, who could rapid free gate in the middle of a fight, could probably break through the spell. Grey had no idea if he could or not, and given his injuries and tenuous clutch on reality, didn’t want to try. Jet, while not a hatchling but still not an ancient drake, hopefully didn’t know she could even try.
Inside, the common room lay wreathed in shadows, with only a hint of light coming through the single grimy barred front window. His night sight — not strong enough to have perfect vision in the dark like other drakes, but good enough that he wasn’t going to blindly stumble into something — kicked in. A dozen wooden tables and four dozen matching chairs filled the room. Half the chairs and tables stood as if they’d been trapped in time, with their stubby candles in red glass jars on the tabletops, while the other half had been tipped over and broken, as if a tornado had swept through, selecting furniture at random, two here, three there, and one in the middle of others that were completely untouched.
He stepped inside so Ivy could join him, and closed the door. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust with garlands of cobwebs. It didn’t look like anyone had been here in at least a century, but—
Ivy hissed her power word. Her aura flared, and Grey shifted closer to her before he could stop himself.
She clenched her jaw, took a step away, and her aura returned to normal. “Jet’s already here. She used her earth magic to hide her footsteps and went through that back door.”
“Well, shit.” Grey tightened his grip on his sword and forced himself to move away from Ivy. Even without her magic activated, he was still drawn to her on a subconscious level that worried him. If every time she used her magic he needed to get closer, what else would she see about those he was trying to protect?
A soft clatter beyond the door yanked him from his thoughts. One problem at a time, and Jet was at the top of his list of problems.
“Get your flashlight app out, but keep the light low,” he said.
Ivy drew her phone from her purse and they crossed the common room to the door. If memory served him correctly — and since he was still within range of Ivy’s memory dampening aura, he was forced to guess at what his actual memory of this place was — beyond this door lay a kitchen and the stairwell down to the temple of the Mother. The clatter hadn’t been loud, so he was guessing — and hoping he was wrong — that the sound had come from the basement.
He glanced at Ivy, and she turned off the light app and put her phone away. While in the dim light she appeared calm, her breath was a little too fast for a dragon who had much experience with combat.
“Take a breath. If Jet is here, keep back and have that gun ready,” he said, then cracked open the door to the kitchen.
No one in sight.
No sound, either.
He opened the door farther, revealing that, if the tornado of destruction had swept through here, it had done so after the kitchen had been gutted. Where the ovens should have been was an empty space with blackened stone walls. Ash was still heaped in the fireplace — that had been the main source of cooking once upon a time — and more dust and cobwebs and debris from broken cupboards and countertops littered the area, but there were no signs of pots or pans or any other cooking implements.
With both the common room and kitchen in disarray, Regis had clearly not made maintaining this ekas a priority. Of course, with his desire for all drakes to move back to the safety of Court and never return to the human world, it made sense he’d abandon all the ancient meeting houses, which had been formed just after the Scourge and before the Handmaiden had discovered the interdimensional sphere that had become Court.
The clatter came again. Louder this time and without a doubt from behind the door near the fireplace — the one leading downstairs, not the one on the other side of the room leading to the alley.
A quick check behind the closer door confirmed the stone stairwell leading down was empty — at least as far as he could see, until the stairs curved around before reaching the basement floor. With a breath that made his chest and gut hurt more than it steadied him, he crept down the stairs. If luck was on his side, Jet would be too busy with whatever she was doing to notice him and he’d be able to get the jump on her. This time. Because surely one of these times that plan would actually work.
He reached the curve in the stairs and crouched. Yellow light flickered through the partially opened door leading to the temple of the Mother, the kind of light that trembled, reminding him of candlelight. But that was ridiculous. Even if Jet didn’t have night sight, she was a modern drake. Even Grey had a phone with a flashlight app on it.
“Can you see her?” Ivy whispered.
“No. I need to get closer.” As much as he wanted to just barrel in and attack, given his injuries, that wasn’t the best plan. “Remember, keep—”
“Keep back and shoot the bitch.” She flashed him a hint of teeth. “I’m not going to forget after our last couple of fights.” Between one second and the next, her ferocity vanished. “Not, at least, between now and stopping her.”
“Good.” He wanted to say something more, yearning to help her with her confidence. She might be young, but he would have thought being
in Tobias’s employ would have helped her with that. Of course, being a member of Regis’s coterie might not have helped anything, particularly given Regis’s recent fury over Zenobia’s coup, Hunter quitting, and Barna’s refusal to stop his activities in the human realm. “You’ve got this.”
Grey eased the rest of the way down the stairs to the partially opened doorway. Inside, Jet had lit candles. The small temple, while in the same kind of disarray as upstairs, was illuminated with the glow of dozens of candles and two oil lamps. She’d gathered them to the right, setting them beside broken and upended chairs, creating a semi-circle to provide enough light to examine a tapestry.
She took a step back and held up her phone. Not to examine or add more light, but to take a picture.
The tapestry was the one that had been there in the 1400s, when he’d visited last, depicting the two great temples to the Mother in Arrapha and Chang’an. It was ridiculous to think this enormous woven cloth that had been on display for centuries held the key to finding the two coin pieces. There wasn’t enough detail to indicate where in either of the massive temples the pieces of a coin — that couldn’t be larger than a quarter — were hidden. But maybe there was a small detail he hadn’t considered. If he left now, told Ivy to stand a good ten feet away, he’d be able to remember every stitch.
But that wouldn’t deal with the problem that Jet had pictures and would be able to crack the code as well.
Jet pocketed her phone in her jeans back pocket, and Grey tensed. She just needed to step closer and he’d have the advantage. But instead, she grabbed the tapestry and flipped it over, revealing the image of a gold dragon with wings spread, about to take flight. She pulled out her phone and took more pictures.
He blinked and a second image, this one of the tapestry’s back, overlaid the first, with slightly different shadows. Ivy’s power might make it more difficult to draw on his memories, but his earth magic to remember everything still worked. Without a doubt, this had to be the key. Perhaps the front and back images joined together somehow. Perhaps—
Jet ripped the tapestry from the wall and kicked an oil lamp onto it. Oil spilled, soaking into the fabric, and flames swept along its path. Ivy gasped and Jet’s attention jumped to the doorway.
“I see you finally made it.” She drew her saber. “A little too late, I’d say.”
Not really. He’d seen the back. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to forget it. But very few people knew he had that ability and he wasn’t about to let someone like Jet know. Besides, he couldn’t let Jet leave and figure anything out. “It’s only too late if I can’t get your phone.”
“What makes you think from our last encounters that you’re capable of taking my phone?” She flashed her teeth at him, all aggression.
“You still have a red slash in your gut where I stabbed you.”
“Yours is still bleeding.” Her sneer deepened, and the fire behind her blazed hotter, the flames devouring the tapestry and jumping to the pieces of wooden chairs. “I bet the smoke inhalation incapacitates you first, and I just waltz out of here.”
With how fast he healed? Yeah, he’d bet that, too. Jeez, he was going to have to make a move, but he had no advantage. He was really starting to regret the need to keep her alive to answer questions, not to mention the voice of reason at the back of his head that said not another dragon soul could be lost.
Ivy shifted, her foot softly scuffing against the stone floor. She was still out of sight behind him.
Well, he had one advantage.
“Even if you have to hit me, shoot her,” he said under his breath, and he rushed into the room, swinging for Jet’s head.
The attack was obvious, and Jet swept her saber up to block his strike, but he twisted at the last minute and grabbed for her sword arm. If he could wrap her up in a grappling hold, Ivy could shoot her.
But Jet wrenched back and swiped her saber at him in a wild swing designed to force him away. He leapt back on instinct. Her blade sliced through the front of his coat but thankfully didn’t cut skin.
Ivy stepped into the doorway, the gun raised. Jet grabbed a shireken from her hip and threw it at Ivy. The blade hit her shoulder with a wet thunk, drawing a scream. Jet launched herself at Ivy, and Grey lunged for Jet. He grabbed the edge of her jacket and wrenched, but she grabbed the gun. Ivy held tight. Jet twisted, using Grey’s pull to jerk Ivy off balance and crash her into him.
Dropping his sword, he half-caught, half-deflected her to the floor beside him and tightened his grip on Jet’s jacket. With a growl, he yanked her toward him. She stumbled, turned, and wrenched the tip of her blade toward his gut. He heaved to the side, but this time the blade caught skin, slicing into his side and drawing more biting fire.
God fucking damn it. He was getting tired of being stabbed. He twisted more of her jacket around his hand, limiting her distance and therefore her mobility with the saber, and punched her in the face.
She staggered back but he held tight and hit her again. Her nose crunched. Blood gushed out of it.
“I’m taking that phone,” he growled.
“You keep telling yourself that.” She dropped her saber and, using his grip on her jacket, shrugged out of it.
Grey staggered forward, off balance, and she snapped her foot out and slammed it into his chest, knocking him back.
“Better luck next time.” She bolted out of the temple, tossing a grenade into the doorway as she hit the stairs. “If there is a next time.”
Grey’s heart skipped a beat and panic crushed his chest. The room wasn’t big enough. There wasn’t enough cover.
Protect Ivy.
Everything within him screamed that he had to protect her.
He grabbed her, wrenched her away from the grenade, and held her in front of him. With a roar, he yelled his power word, willing everything he had, every ounce of strength and will and life into his magic.
Please break the lock. Please open faster than the grenade. Please. He had to protect her. Every cell in his being howled. Protect her.
The grenade erupted behind him as they tumbled into the gate.
Fiery agony raced over his back, stealing all breath, all thought, and his ears rang, even with the muffling sensation of the gate. His magic holding the gate open wavered, straining against the magic of the weakened gatelock, and jumping to the anchor where they’d first arrived.
He mentally seized his power, forcing every last ounce of strength he had into keeping it open, and locked on the courtyard just outside the ekas. If Jet hadn’t gated away, she couldn’t have gotten far. He had to find her, catch her—
His foot hit hard ground and his legs gave way. He shoved Ivy out of the way, the best he could do to avoid falling on her, and slammed into the ground. The ringing in his ears made it hard to concentrate, and every breath burned through him. Everything hurt. Mother, it hurt!
But there wasn’t any time. If Jet was still there, he had to grab her.
Get up. Move.
He shoved up to his hands and knees and glanced at Ivy. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes were too wide, her face too pale.
“Tell me you’re all right.” The panic that had seized his chest in the ekas tightened. She had to be all right. He couldn’t explain why or how. He’d just met this drake and he still had no idea what to do with her and what she might have seen from his clothes.
It was the shock of the moment. That was all. An instinct from all his years fighting and protecting dragon and human comrades.
He tried to shake the feeling away, to focus on the job, but the sudden movement ignited a burst of agony that raced through him.
God damn it. Get up and finish the job.
“Are. You. All right?” he asked through gritted teeth, his head swimming and the cobblestones under his hands blurring.
“Your back,” she said, her voice somehow centering him and cutting through the ringing and shuddering.
“It will heal.” If he really thought a
bout it, it should have been worse. They should have been dead. He could only guess he’d entered the gate before the worst of the shrapnel had struck. “Can you stand? We can’t let Jet get away.” He fought to straighten and stand.
Ivy scrambled to his side and helped him, one handed, the gun still held in her other hand. Thank the Mother they still had a weapon. Her help answered one of his questions — could she stand? — while her movements also suggested her injuries weren’t so bad that it would take long for her soul magic to heal them.
The vise around his chest eased, but that only returned all his focus to the pain consuming him.
CHAPTER 18
Ivy helped Grey stand, her ears ringing and her head spinning as if she were still within the gate. Her pulse pounded and the frozen knot in her gut had swept through her limbs, making them tremble.
“We have to catch her.” He staggered, unbalanced, and she tightened her grip on his arm, trying to steady him.
He was crazy. Even with only the dim illumination coming from the streetlight ten feet away, she could tell his back was a bloody, shredded mess. He shouldn’t be standing and he certainly shouldn’t be going after Jet. The woman had seriously injured him twice and while both their swords had been abandoned in the temple, that didn’t mean she was without a weapon. This injured, it would be easy for someone to decapitate Grey and separate his soul from his human body.
Her heart raced faster. She couldn’t let that happen. Bolo had seen her with him. He would tell Regis, and she didn’t know if Tobias would be able to protect her from him… or if he even wanted to. She wasn’t even sure what about Regis terrified her, only that the knowledge imprinted in her locket and her encounter with him earlier that day screamed he was dangerous, that he would hurt her and take joy from it.
Grey was her only hope at freedom. Even if that meant searching his memories to find some secret she could use to force him to help her.
“Come on.” He staggered to the wrought iron gate leading to the street. “We can’t let Jet examine those photos. She can’t get that coin.”