by Alicia Wolfe
DRAGON BLOOD
Reclaiming the Fire #4
Alicia Wolfe
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the sole product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
DRAGON BLOOD
Copyright © 2018 by Alicia Wolfe
Cover image used with permission
Interior design by Clara Stone
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
Purchase only authorized editions. For information or to obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].
Chapter One
“Where are they taking her?”
My partner Davril Stormguard and I were lying on a rooftop under the midnight sky, staring down into a dark alley. A cold wind blew, raising goosebumps on the back of my neck, but I could feel Davril’s warmth at my side. Four dark figures were hauling a struggling woman down the alley, destination unknown.
“I don’t know,” Davril said. “Come on, we have to save her.”
As silently as we could, we rappelled down the side of the four-story building, alighting in the alleyway. By the time we touched down, the assholes abducting the woman were just turning a corner into a cross-alley. We hurried after them, careful to keep from making too much noise. We didn’t know who we were dealing with or what abilities they might have.
“You really think Nevos is sacrificing people to the Shadow?” I whispered.
“It’s all too possible.”
It was hard to believe that handsome, dashing Nevos, Davril’s own brother, might have become the high priest of the evil being known as the Shadow, a.k.a. Lord Vorkoth, and could be rounding up sacrifices to him, but that’s exactly what we’d been hearing in the underground.
And we meant to do something about it.
We paused as we reached the corner and peered cautiously around it. The dark figures had reached a basement access panel and were opening it to reveal a black stairwell going down.
“No!” said the woman, a blonde in her early twenties. “Don’t—do this! Let—me—go!” She kicked and bit at them.
One of the assholes slapped her across the face. “Shut it!”
She went limp and breathed heavily.
“Let’s get them before they take her down,” I said.
Davril darted forward, toward the kidnappers and their victim, and his right hand curled around the hilt of the invisible sword in the equally invisible scabbard at his waist. As soon as he drew it, it would blaze with light, giving us away, so he waited. My own hand curled around the hilt of my crossbow as I followed.
The figures spun as we approached. One reached toward a gun at his side. I fired my crossbow. The bolt pinned his hand to his thigh.
“Bitch!” he said.
“Language,” said Davril, and punched the man in the face. He fell over.
We’d reached the knot of abductors. One slashed a knife toward my throat. I blocked his arm with my forearm, a move Davril had taught me a few weeks back, then kicked his legs out from under him. Another one punched me in the gut. I doubled over, bile shooting into my mouth. Davril struck the man over the head with the hilt of his sword. He collapsed.
The guy I’d sent to the ground pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Davril’s chest, thinking he was the bigger threat. I still held my crossbow, though. I hated to kill anyone, but there was no time to be nice about it. I fired. The bolt flew through the air and pierced his heart. He gagged and collapsed backward. The gun clattered to the ground.
The girl they’d been in the process of carrying down into the dark stairwell had gotten free, and she scooped up the gun, ran several steps away and wheeled back toward us, pointing the gun not just at the bad guys, but at me and Davril, too.
“Hey, watch it!” I said, as the barrel swung in my direction.
“Who are you people?” she said. Tears trickled down her pretty face, and her blond hair was in total disarray, as were her fashionable club clothes, a slinky black miniskirt and glittery halter top. I wondered where she’d found them. She’d lost her shoes.
The final goon that had been trying to abduct her and hadn’t been subdued yet made a move to dash through the opening and down the stairwell, but Davril grabbed him by the back of his jacket and flung him against the wall. He hit hard and slipped down it to lie unconscious near a pile of trash. The girl with the gun nearly shot Davril at his sudden movement, but I shouted, “Hey!” and the gun swiveled back to me.
“Keep it together,” I said. “We’re here to help you.”
She blinked, then nodded, evidently realizing just then that we had helped her. I guessed she’d been too mixed up to have figured out what was going on. She sucked down a deep breath and tilted the gun barrel down. She still held it generally aimed at us, but not directly anymore. That was a start.
Davril thrust his sword back into its sheath, and it vanished from view, as did the scabbard. A man on the ground, the one he’d struck in the face, was just then regaining consciousness. I saw him stir, blink, take in the scene, then start to reach for his weapon. Before I could react, Davril kicked him in the side of the head and he went back to sleep. At the movement, the girl’s gun jerked again, but it didn’t fire, and she refrained from pointing it at Davril.
She nodded to me, indicating my crossbow. “Can you put that thing away?”
“Uh, sure.” I shoved it back into its holster. “There. All friends, okay?”
She swallowed. “Um. All right. But who are you?”
Davril started to answer, but I beat him to it. I’d been hoping for a chance to use this line, and finally the opportunity had presented itself. I put on my biggest, most noble smile and said, “We’re Fae Knights, and we’re here to rescue you.”
Her reply wasn’t as impressed as I’d hoped for. “Oh.”
“Technically, we’ve already rescued her,” Davril said.
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Party pooper.”
The girl frowned at me. “You’re a Fae?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Okay, technically not. I’m what they call an honorary Fae Knight.”
“I didn’t know there were such things.”
“Well, I’m the only one. Jade McClaren, at your service. Davril here is the real Fae, and he’s an actual Fae Lord, so mind your P’s and Q’s. Or whatever. I’m not sure what that expression means.”
Davril cleared his throat. “Please, Jade. Let me.” Directing his attention to the girl, he said, “Do you have any idea why these men were abducting you, or who they are?”
She wiped her eyes, which were streaming, then she seemed to gather herself. She straightened her back. Then, realizing that she still held the pistol, she awkwardly tossed it to the ground as if it were a dead rat, then stepped away from it.
“I was just at a party and was waiting for an Uber home when a guy came al
ong on the sidewalk and took my arm. Before I knew what was going on, because he did it all casual-like, he’d steered me into an alley. Then his buddies jumped me and carted me off. I don’t know where they were taking me.” Her eyes moved to the dark hole that they’d uncovered and the equally dark set of stairs that led down to who-knows-where.
I peered down the stairs, then studied the men. Each wore dark hoodies with the hoods pulled low over their faces. Jerking one of their hoods back, I didn’t notice anything unusual about the guy’s face—kind of rough-looking, but human enough. My gaze went to the crossbow bolt sticking out of the one asshole’s chest. My breath slowed, and I felt something sting my eyes. It wasn’t my first kill, unfortunately, but murder wasn’t getting any easier. Maybe that was a good thing.
“You did what you had to do, Jade,” Davril said, seeing where my gaze had gone.
I nodded my thanks, but his words weren’t much comfort. It was just something I would have to live with.
To the girl, I said, “So you have no idea who these jerkwads are?” When she shook her head, I added, “And you’ve never seen them before?”
She hesitated, then came forward. She pulled the hood back from the face of the dead man. Shook her head. She started to approach one of the still-breathing men but couldn’t seem to make herself. I did it for her, pulling the hood back from his face, then the fourth one. When I was done, she said, “No, I’ve never seen any of them before.”
“This wasn’t about her,” Davril told me. “Not specifically.”
The girl was trembling. “What …. did they want me for? Was it … ?”
I hugged her. She stiffened, then let me.
“We don’t know,” I said. I thought about telling her of the rumors we’d been hearing, the ones regarding Nevos and human sacrifice, but I didn’t think that would comfort her much.
“But it was something … supernatural?” she said, then hastily added, “I know you guys don’t deal in regular human crimes.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Usually.”
Davril’s eyes flashed heatedly; he was probably thinking about his brother. “We don’t know for sure. But we mean to find out.” His gaze swung toward the hole, and determination shone on his features. Uh-oh.
“You can’t mean to do what I think you do,” I said. “I mean, we don’t have any idea what could be down there.”
Davril prodded one of the unconscious men with his toe. “They could be the only ones, Jade. But if they’re not, we need to stop the others. This young woman might not be the only one abducted tonight.”
“There could be … more?” she said.
“It’s possible,” I said. “You’d better take off.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police or something?”
“We’re the Or Something. Trust me, it’s better if we deal with this. You go. Maybe your Uber’s there by now. Go. Have a stiff drink. If you want someone to talk to, ring me.” I slipped her my card—I had business cards now, go me—and she stared at it, then shrugged and slipped it away in her bra.
“It’s all right,” Davril told her reassuringly. “We’ve got this.”
She watched us both for another long moment, then turned and moved off. I waited till she had vanished round a bend, headed back toward the main road, then raised my eyebrows at Davril.
“You sure about this, Dav?”
He grinned, crouched down and grabbed a handful of one goon’s hoodie. “We can use their jackets as cover.”
They were all wearing the same kind of hoodie, almost like a uniform or something. Working quickly, Davril I bound the three living men, stripped two of them of their hoodies and put them on. Then together we squared our shoulders and faced the dark stairwell plunging down below ground. Into darkness and mystery.
“I’m not sure about this,” I said.
Slowly, he took a step toward me. His hand lifted and came down on my shoulder. He squeezed it softly. His skin was hot, and I relished his touch. He had touched me all too rarely over the last two months, ever since Nevos had stolen the enchanted wardrobe that allowed him to commune with the Dark Lord Vorkoth. Ever since I’d slept with Nevos. Things had been … strained … between me and Davril. I couldn’t blame him, really. But I’d had good reason to do what I had, and if Nevos hadn’t been so damnably suspicious it would have worked, too.
But it meant where before Davril and I had been partners on our day job building toward being partners of another kind, now we were day-job partners only. And tense ones at that. Not good. So it was nice to feel his hand on my shoulder, if only for a moment. Seeming to realize that he’d violated our new non-touching policy (his policy, not mine), he removed his hand, took a deep breath, and turned back toward the hole.
“Well, shall we?” he said.
I sighed, wishing we could do more touching and less hole-exploring. Er, you know what I mean.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not? It’s not like we have something better to do.”
Or maybe, like, everything would be better than this.
Without another word, he led the way down.
Sounds echoed strangely in the tight, brick-lined hallway the stairs had led to, and somewhere water plinked, slowly and steadily, probably from some rusty old pipe. Even so I couldn’t help but think of slow drips of blood. The rest of the world seemed very far away.
“Is it cold in here or is it just me?” I said.
“Shh,” Davril said.
He moved slowly, one hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. He was right. We had to be quiet.
The tunnel turned, then hit a cross-tunnel. Davril frowned, his gaze going from one dark archway to another. At last, with seeming reluctance, he turned to me.
“What do your shifter senses pick up?”
I was half dragon shifter, even though I could no longer shift. I still had enhanced senses, though, and my hearing was better even than his. Faint sounds teased at my ears, and I indicated a particular doorway.
“That one,” I said.
I started to go through it, but he reached out an arm, stopping me.
“I’ll go first,” he said softly. I wasn’t sure if I was reassured by his sexism or relieved by it. Maybe both.
In any case, he went first, and I followed right behind. Ahead, the sounds grew louder, and I could, faintly, hear the noises of people—no monsters, no demons. At least for the moment. They spoke in low tones. Punctuating the background conversation, if that’s what it was, came muffled shouts and maybe even screams, as of people screaming through a gag.
The air grew colder and danker against my skin.
Another archway appeared ahead, and two figures stood to either side of it. Hunching low, I pulled the hood of the hoodie down low over my face.
“Where are the others?” one of the figures said.
“And where’s your sacrifice?” demanded the second one.
A sacrifice, I thought. Great. So it was true.
“We got separated,” I said. “They’re coming right behind us.”
Davril and I stopped forward, meaning to bluff our way past. The doormen weren’t having it, though. One clapped his arm on Davril’s shoulder, shoving him back. The other reached for something at his waist—a pistol.
I jabbed the guy going for his gun in the throat. He gagged and dropped to his knees. Meanwhile Davril shrugged off the hand on his shoulder and punched the guy in the nose, hard. His head rocked back, struck the brick wall, and he slumped to the ground unconscious. The other guy, clutching his throat, started to rise. I hit him in the crown of his head with the butt of my crossbow. He listed to the side and breathed deeply, his eyes closed.
“Well done,” Davril whispered to me.
“You too.”
The brief fight hadn’t made enough noise to illicit a response from other baddies. When no one jumped through the doorway at us, Davril nodded at me and stepped through into the dim chamber beyond. I sucked in a breath
and followed.
What the hell?
Around us rows of kneeling figures chanted and bowed to something on stage. I turned to see something that sent a shiver down my spine. A blood-red demon, complete with horns, stood on a sort of stage, a great black sword gripped in one hand. Two more demons were dragging a thrashing woman toward a stone altar directly before the baddie with the black sword.
“HURUM-KUUM!” he shouted.
“SURUTH-KUUM!” the congregation thundered.
Most of those in the congregation appeared to be human, I saw, so when they turned sideways to glance at us, I didn’t bother to keep pulling my hoodie low.
“I don’t see Nevos,” I said softly, not that I needed to bother. The demon with the sword was still speaking some demonic religious chant, and his flock were still responding in kind. Quite loudly. The dark chamber, with dimly glimpsed walls and a low, curved ceiling, reverberated to the sounds.
“Me, either,” Davril said. “Or any sign of him or Angela’s people.”
“No bikers, no Razor Wings, no wizards. Could it be that this has nothing to do with … ?”
Before I could complete the thought, the demons bearing the thrashing young woman reached the altar and laid her down on it. She struggled, but they were too strong. As the demonic priest or whatever he was lifted his sword, my words trailed away.
I raised my crossbow.
Davril’s hand curled around the hilt of his sword. He sort of grinned. It was the grin that said Now comes the action. I knew that that was what Davril lived for, what his spirit demanded. I responded in kind, because I was the same way.
Just before he could draw his sword, though, half a dozen figures on the front row leapt up, and each one yanked out a shining sword.