by C. I. Black
“Guilty.” He entwined his fingers with hers and headed toward the partition, determined to look confident. “Hunter says if you look like you know what you’re doing, no one will stop you.” God, he hoped that was true.
“Hunter has a lot of experience going places he’s not supposed to?”
“About two thousand years.” Hell, Grey and Hunter had been going to places they weren’t supposed to even before the Great Scourge, when they’d been little more than hatchlings.
They passed the first white partition and the closest cook glanced up. Grey ignored him and led Ivy past a waitress shifting a tray of full champagne flutes on her palm. No one said anything, although Grey was sure if questioned, they’d all be able to describe them to the authorities.
The security door stood at the back of the foyer, a plain gray door partially hidden by a pillar and beyond the last of the caterer’s tables. Ivy glanced at the phone as they approached and tapped on the screen.
“The security cameras are now on a loop and the code for the door is 5-5-7-3-6.”
Grey typed in the code. The red light on the security panel turned to green and the lock on the door clicked. He resisted the urge to glance back. Looking around would give them away. No museum employee would check behind him as he entered a secure area he was supposed to be able to access.
Inside lay an empty, institutionally gray hall with white fluorescent light panels in the ceiling.
“The coast is clear and also in the adjoining hall,” Ivy said, and they headed to the end where the new construction entered the original building. Here the hall continued to the left or exited into a stairwell on the right.
Ivy glanced at the phone. “All clear in the stairwell, too.”
Grey eased the door open, straining to hear any indication Jet was lying in wait. Which didn’t make sense. Why would she be waiting to ambush them when she could get the coin and be gone, all without risking a confrontation?
Still, he couldn’t help the nagging feeling that things were going too smoothly. There hadn’t been any drakes at the reception, no one had stopped them from entering the museum’s secure areas, and so far they hadn’t run into any guards.
“The hall at the bottom of the stairs is empty and so is the restoration room.” Ivy pursed her lips. “Does this feel too easy to you?”
“I was thinking the same thing.” He cracked open the security door at the bottom of the stairs and glanced into the hall. No one. “When we get into the restoration room, can you—”
“—use a little magic to see if Jet has already been there?” Ivy flashed her teeth. “Priority number one.”
They rushed into the hall, stopped at the second door — the restoration room — and Ivy used her magic to get the key code.
“The keypad says Jet hasn’t been here.” Her aura flared as they entered the restoration room.
Grey glanced into the darkness, looking for any hint of an aura, his night sight not strong enough to see clearly to the back, but good enough to make out a massive statue in front of him and at least a dozen workstations on either side. Still no sign of Jet or anyone else.
“The room has no memory of Jet, either.”
“I wonder if something is actually going our way for a change.” He turned on the overhead lights — for Ivy, because she didn’t have any night sight — and they flickered to life, revealing an enormous room with a high ceiling.
In the center stood the Chang’an dragon statue, a larger-than-life representation one and a half times bigger than what Grey had been before the Scourge.
Ivy gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
Sculpted with magic, the granite drake stood on its haunches, its wings unfurled, one front leg stretched up as if it were about to leap into the air. Every inch of the statue had carved scales, large ones covering the back and tail and smaller ones on its belly, chest, and neck. Each scale had an intricate swirling pattern that, even with magic, would have taken years of concentration to engrave.
Grey hadn’t been a pious drake before the Scourge and the fall had given him conflicting emotions about the dragons’ goddess. The first time Grey had seen this statue, it was just after he’d almost died in the humans’ ninth crusade, because his memories had overwhelmed him. He’d hiked his way into the temple in Chang’an, dropped to his knees, and prayed to the goddess to take his soul. Instead, the Handmaiden had answered his call, whispering in his mind that she’d help him if he met her in her chambers at Court. “Sag sed ed sedu,” she’d said, a promise to soothe his heart and raise his soul. He’d become her servant in exchange for magic to stop his memories, and he hadn’t returned to Chang’an since.
And all the Handmaiden had asked in return was to read and reread her journals, searing every minuscule detail into his mind with the magic he had begged her to help control.
Funny how that had turned out.
Ivy gasped and flicked off the overhead light. “There’s a security guard coming down the hall.”
The glow from the phone’s screen illuminated her face, casting it in a ghostly complexion as her wide eyes remained locked on it.
Grey rushed to the statue. If their luck was at an end, he wasn’t waiting to get the coin piece. The tapestry had portrayed a glow emanating around the dragon statue’s heart, but even with the fluorescents off, no light emanated from the statue.
The heavy thud of steady footsteps sounded outside in the hall.
Grey ran his hands over the scales, pressing on the statue’s chest. There had to be a latch or something. But nothing shifted under his touch, and no shimmer of magic tingled over his skin, recognizing him as a dragon and releasing a magical lock.
The footsteps drew closer and slowed.
Ivy’s eyes widened even more.
Maybe there’d been something in the journal the Handmaiden had made him read. He tried to remember the book’s details, but his mind had gone blank. His aura wasn’t anywhere near Ivy’s and yet there was nothing, no swirling fog, not even a hint of anything that had happened before the last month.
Son of a—
Now was not the time to finally get his wish.
“He’s at the door,” Ivy hissed, her hand dipping into her purse. “I don’t want to shoot him. What do we do?”
CHAPTER 30
Grey fought to bring even a tickle of his magic forward to find the coin before the security guard entered. Nothing. Not even a flicker of memory.
“Grey?” Ivy hissed, drawing a step closer — and making it harder for him to use his unwanted magic.
God, there had to be a way to get this coin. Jet wouldn’t have his memories, but she also had the page she’d torn out of the book that Grey hadn’t read.
“He’s at the keypad.”
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“Hide.” Please, Mother, he just needed more time. And space from Ivy. Something that went against everything his soul was saying.
Ivy glanced left and right and a vise gripped his chest. She didn’t have night sight and had no idea where to go.
He rushed to her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her around the statue. She pressed the phone to her chest, cutting off the light, and they hunched low. Heat swelled through Grey. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close, even though what he needed was to put distance between them.
The lock on the door clicked and light bled into the darkness from the hallway.
Grey’s pulse pounded. He didn’t know what he’d do if they were caught by the human. He couldn’t kill the man, but he couldn’t leave the museum without getting the coin piece.
A beam of light from the guard’s flashlight swept over the room with the speed of a cursory glance, then the door clicked shut, engulfing them in darkness again.
“Thank the Mother,” Ivy said.
Thank the Mother, indeed. Now he needed to get away from Ivy long enough to search his memories for anything to do with the statue.
He drew close to her, unable to stop
himself from sliding his lips across her cheek as he whispered to her, “Stay here. I need to use my magic.”
She turned into him. Her lips found his and she kissed him with a quick, heated passion. “Not going anywhere.”
He bit back a groan. “You make it so hard to leave.”
“I’m sure I make other things hard, too.”
“You have no idea.” He dipped in for another kiss and the image of the dragon sitting in the Chang’an temple flickered across his sight.
“Did you hear something?” Ivy asked.
“I—” Another flicker of the dragon. It had been a cloudy day, but somehow, at the moment he’d sagged to the flagstones in front of the dragon, a beam of sunlight had cut through the clouds, in through a temple window, and hit the statue’s back, giving it a luminous halo as if it were alive with a dragon’s spirit.
“Grey?” Ivy asked, her breath warm against his cheek. Her grip on his arms tightened. “Your aura is pulsing. Like you’re using magic.”
Which was impossible. Her aura crackled against his. There wasn’t even a hint of memory fog and not a whisper of that alley.
Water rattled against a window and the reek of garbage filled his nose.
Wonderful. Just when he’d thought he’d found a way to get rid of his magic. He wished the memory had stayed with the temple.
The reek and rattle vanished and luminous light filled his vision again. Soft chanting wafted on sun-warmed air, and little specks of dust danced in the sunbeam like earthly manifestations of soul magic.
Way better than the alley.
The light vanished and the alley returned.
Damn—
Except he’d just thought about the alley again.
His throat burned and his blood oozed between his fingers. The drake who’d attacked him chuckled, the sound dark and grating. His face materialized out of the darkness and his lips curled back, revealing broken teeth.
God damn it. Grey was sick and tired of seeing this all the time. What he really needed was to get away from Ivy so he could remember the damned journal.
The journal snapped into focus. He was in his suite at Court, lounging in his oversized cushioned chair — the only chair he’d found that comfortably fit his large frame. The embossed leather book cover pressed against his hand as he brushed his fingers over the thick, yellowed paper. Everything was crystal clear, in better focus than his memories had ever been, as if he wasn’t just there but was also hyper aware of every little detail—
Just like when Ivy was near and she brought the present into sharp focus.
“You really can remember every little detail,” she said, her voice soft. “That crease in the page, the weight of the book—”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to share.” He pushed the memory to the back of his mind, not releasing it but trying not to focus on it, either. He hadn’t even thought to share his memory with Ivy, but it had happened. He was going to need to pay attention to what he was thinking when she was around. No point sharing any of his other horrible memories. The one from the alley was more than enough. “You need to keep an eye on the security cameras. I’ll go to the back of the room.”
“No, don’t.” Her grip on his forearm tightened. “I don’t know if the room is big enough for me not to affect you. Might as well stay, share it with me, and do it as fast as possible.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Do you have a better one?”
He wished he did. But she was right. While he hadn’t been able to sense her aura from the hotel bedroom to the living room, he’d still felt her effects on him. He hadn’t had a memory blackout since. Not even a whisper of memory fog. It was foolish of him to think the effects only went one way.
“Fast as possible.” He drew in a breath and concentrated on the memory of the book, but there wasn’t anything else written that referenced the statues or the temples. The Handmaiden could have put something in code, but so far the clues had been obvious. At least obvious to him with his experiences.
He glanced at the statue, the scroll work in the scales barely visible with his night sight. A hint of remembered sunlight illuminated the dragon and the Handmaiden whispered in Grey’s head again. Soothe the heart and raise the soul. At the time, that had been more than he’d wanted. He’d just wanted the memories to stop. And after almost two thousand years, he’d wanted those memories to stop forever. He yearned for what she’d promised, a soothed heart and a raised soul.
He’d thought she’d meant rebirth, his soul stripped from this human body and the constant ache of his memories gone. Except he had a nagging feeling what she’d really meant was finding his perfect match, a soul that soothed the ache within him and made him a better, stronger drake.
He pressed his palm to the statue’s back. “Sag sed ed sedu.”
Magic, like a bolt of lightning, snapped up his arm. Ivy yelped and jerked back as if it had zapped her, too. Stone ground against stone and light flared from the statue’s front, blinding him.
He blinked, fighting to clear his sight, and stood, centuries of fighting experience refusing to let him get caught unprepared by rushing around to the front of the dragon to face whatever was happening.
The scrollwork on the four scales over the statue’s heart was lit with magic, and they were sliding apart. Inside, in the middle of more glowing scrollwork, lay half of a disc the size of Grey’s thumbnail, square instead of round to fit within the square hole cut in the center of the medallion. For a second it shimmered with luminescent white magic, the color of the Handmaiden’s sorcery, then the light faded, leaving a plain brass chip.
“That’s it?” Ivy asked. “It’s hard to believe something so small and simple could control the fate of all dragonkind.”
“The Handmaiden has always been funny like that.” Her most important moment, her biggest plans, were done in secret. In this case, without the participant, Grey, even knowing. She’d been preparing for the eventuality that Grey would need to find this coin piece from before he’d entered her service. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. There’d always been something different about the Handmaiden. For the most part, he’d always thought it was because she was the only dragon sorcerer. When he was struggling the most with his memories, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to her than just a sorcerer.
He shoved those thoughts away. She’d manipulated him for the good of dragonkind, and in the process, he’d found his inamorata. He’d just have to consider that a win and move on.
He brushed the tip of his finger past the open scales to test for traps. When nothing happened, he grabbed the coin piece. The metal was warm as if even though he couldn’t see anything unusual about the coin, its power couldn’t be fully contained and he could feel it. The scales slid shut and the light dimmed, throwing them back into darkness.
“Let’s get out of here.” He shoved the coin into his pocket — not having a better place to put it. There’d be time to give it the proper reverence it deserved once they were back at the hotel.
Ivy glanced at the phone, swiped on the screen to change cameras, and frowned. “I think we have a problem.”
“A Jet kind of problem?”
“A Bolo kind.” She pointed to the screen. Somehow, Bolo had gotten past the locked door in the lobby behind the caterer’s station. “He must have gated here, used his magic, and discovered us.”
“What are the odds of that?” They could have been anywhere in the world just as easily as they could have been in Vancouver. “Someone must have pointed him here.”
“But who?” she asked.
“My guess is whoever Jet is working for.” Grey grabbed her hand and a shiver of desire slid up his arm. “The only person who’d know we might be here would be Jet and Jet’s employer. They have to be sending Bolo our way to keep us distracted.” But that still didn’t help Grey narrow down the already slim list of suspects to the one dragon responsible.
“Well, it isn’t working.” She fla
shed him her teeth and jerked her chin to the back of the room. “If we go out the back, we can avoid him.”
“Sounds good to me.” Grey led her past the dragon statue, and they wove their way through the workstations to a large freight elevator.
“The loading dock is clear,” she said, and Grey hit the button to make both sets of doors in the elevator open without changing floors.
Cold air swept over them and the musty smell of damp concrete flooded Grey’s nose. Beyond lay a wide-open space with four metal loading bay doors. Against the far right wall stood a few crates and boxes, lit with the red glow of an EXIT sign over a human-sized security door.
Ivy glanced at the phone. “The cameras outside say the driveway is clear.”
Grey squeezed Ivy’s hand and they rushed out of the museum into the cool early evening air. Orange streetlights shimmered in the puddles on the driveway and on the brick wall of the museum’s modern addition that stretched along the left-hand side. Above, clouds raced across the sliver of the moon, indicating a storm was coming. And one was. Even if they prevented Jet and her employer from joining the coin pieces, other drakes would rise against Regis. The storm was inevitable.
But for now, all they had to do was get back to the hotel and complete their part in preventing this one disaster.
Something crunched. A footstep against the asphalt.
Everything within Grey froze.
Ivy’s aura flared, and she jerked to face the back of the building. “Jet.”
“God damn, I hate that power of yours,” Jet growled as she stepped out of the shadows at the building’s edge, her camouflage magic flickering and vanishing from around her. She lunged and grabbed Ivy’s purse. “Give me the coin piece.”
Ivy heaved back, but Jet yanked on the purse and the strap — strung across Ivy’s chest — jerked her forward and out of Grey’s grip.
He drew his hunting knife and swung at Jet’s arm. She twisted closer to Ivy, knocking the phone from Ivy’s hand and sending it skidding across the driveway, while keeping her grip on the purse strap. Grey’s knife nicked Jet’s jacket but didn’t catch flesh, and she drew her saber and sliced the purse strap in one quick move.