"Tonight? Now?"
"Maybe not right now," Joe allowed. "But given the way everyone's hun kering down, real soon. Tonight some time."
Good enough for her. "Where?" Allie asked.
He shrugged, hands spread. "I don't know."
"No one said anything?"
"No." His brows drew in. "I sold a yoyo while you were gone, but that's probably nothing."
"Probably?"
He shrugged again.
"Okay, close and come upstairs. We need to have a war council."
Joe's freckles stood out in high relief. "We're going to war?"
"Well, no," Allie admitted. "But it sounds better than we need to sit around and rehash what we know and figure out what the hell we're going to do when we get out there."
"So we'll be going out there, then?"
She shot a quick glance over at Michael. "Not all of us."
"Okay, the youngest Dragon Lord is breaking out in Calgary. There's a dozen Dragon Lords already here-some of them want to stop him, some of them don't, and we have no idea of how the numbers split or what their reasons are or if we agree with any of them. We have a sorcerer who considers this Dragon Lord his enemy and is going to use a..." Hand waving didn't give her the word. "... use Graham to stop him. Those Dragon Lords who don't want him stopped are going to object. We know..." She pointed at Charlie. "... that they need a place of power to come through. That he's not coming through at a gate but trying to slip through unnoticed. We know where there's a place of power in the city."
Charlie grinned. "Nose Hill."
Allie nodded. "Nose Hill." She paced over to the window and looked up at the sky, but all she could see was the lights of the city reflecting off the low cloud cover. Here be dragons. Or, technically, there be dragons. Dragon Lords. She sighed. Never mind. "We need to be there to make sure the various factions don't burn the city down. Did I miss anything?"
"We need to be there to keep Graham from getting his ass eaten," Charlie put in.
"Graham is... isn't..." Taking a deep breath, she spun around on one heel, the rubber shrieking against the floor, and folded her arms. "Anything else?"
"What exactly do you plan on having us do?" David asked.
"Just what I said; we make sure the city doesn't burn down."
"And we don't interfere in the family business of the Dragon Lords."
Although David had made more of a statement than asked a question, Allie answered him. "Not unless we need to in order to keep the city from burning down."
"And if this family business includes eating the sorcerer?" Roland wondered.
"As long as they don't cook him first over the coals of the city, we don't interfere."
"And Graham?"
Allie turned to look at her cousin. "Graham..." When Charlie's brows rose, she sighed. "Can we just play Graham by ear?"
"Sweetie, we can play him by whatever body part you like."
"Thank you." She ignored all the eye rolling. "Michael, Joe-you'll stay here."
"We could help!" Michael protested.
Joe shot him a disbelieving look. "Speak for yourself."
"Okay, I could help."
"How?"
He frowned. "You don't even know if you're going to do anything. I can do nothing as well as any Gale. And I can duck and cover when the shit starts hitting the fan."
"No."
"Allie..."
She crossed the room to stand beside his chair. "Michael, if you're there, you'll split my focus."
"I was there in the bar."
And she'd never been able to forget it, but whatever they were walking into on the hill, it wasn't going to be anything as simple as a bar fight. She laid her on his shoulder and squeezed. "I can't risk it. I can't risk you. Please."
He looked down at her hand and sighed. "All right."
"I'll leave you my phone," Charlie told him, tossing it into his lap. "You'll be connected. If we need you, we'll call."
"We'll take my car," David added. "You'll have the Beetle if you need wheels."
"Strange his phone isn't here yet," Roland mused, shrugging into his jacket. "It's been over a week."
"I'm guessing Brian's keeping it close. Hoping he'll come home for it."
"Brian can kiss my ass," Michael muttered.
"See," Charlie leaned down and kissed his cheek. "You've started to forgive him."
Graham parked his truck on Beaconsfield just down from where the two Dragon Lords had landed the night he'd...
The night he'd complicated his life. And for fucksake, he provided protection for a sorcerer; it wasn't like his life had been uncomplicated before Allie walked into it and began tossing the metaphorical room. Okay, technically, he'd walked into hers, but that was...
He took a deep breath.
Head in the game.
The game came with fire and claws and certain death if he didn't get his shit together.
He doubted very much the Dragon Lords would notice another vehicle on a residential road where even they might spot a single car in the park's parking lot. The one that called itself Adam had definitely spent time here in the past.
The Dragon Lords were still circling wide, unwilling to start anything yet, but they were all up there, attention focused on the top of the hill. There was no ambient light, no moon, no stars, but by the time he jogged through the darkest of the available shadows and reached the path he'd marked earlier as maintaining cover for most of the distance he had to travel, his eyes had adjusted enough he could pick up speed. He had night vision goggles with him, but he preferred using his own senses as much as he could.
Although, thanks to Allie, they'd been less dependable of late.
Another deep breath.
Stop thinking about your fucked-up love life.
Given that nothing much overlooked that open hilltop, he was going to have to get a lot closer to the target than he'd like. At least that made the boss happy; he wanted him right on top of things.
Just before he reached the crest, he slipped off the path to the tallest of the surrounding trees, climbing it quickly and, for lack of a decent sized branch at this height, securing a sling to the trunk. Line of sight wasn't as high as he'd have liked, but it was the best the site offered given that he had no safe way to reach the small copse of trees actually on the summit. The scattering of glacial boulders offered fuck all protection from an aerial attack. That the trees were barely budding was a good news/bad news thing. It made him more dependent on the glyphs for camouflage but reduced the chance of a sudden wind screwing things up.
He raised his M24 and glanced through the scope.
Still no sign of the target. Just a brown expanse of dead grass and a few exposed rocks.
He had the special round in the chamber and a magazine of Blessed rounds as well as half a dozen more loaded up with full metal jackets ready to load as soon as he took his shot. Hopefully, once shit and fan impacted, the Dragon Lords would be too busy fighting each other to notice him.
"Are you in place?" Kalynchuk's voice rumbled out of the earpiece.
"I am."
"Remember, you're to keep me fully informed of everything that's occurring, no matter how apparently insignificant.You have no way of knowing what small piece of information may be relevant. Is there any sign of the creature emerging?"
"No." Kalynchuk had been unwilling to allow him to carry even a small camera, convinced his enemies could track him through the signal. Hell, maybe they could. How big a step was it from large, flying, fire-breathing lizards who turned into something that looked like men to large, flying, fire-breathing lizards who turned into something that looked like men and could surf video signals?
"Have you seen any sign of the Dragon Lords?"
"They're keeping their distance."
The sorcerer snorted. "So far. Remember, we don't know which of them will be acting in my best interests, so you have to get that shot off before the first of them makes their move."
"I know.You're sure Allie... the Gales are unaware we have a go?"
"They don't, as a family, seek knowledge. By the time they discover the emergence is occurring, it will be too late for them to interfere."
Then it would be too late for Allie to be in danger.
He took another look through the scope.
Still nothing.
"There's a man up a tree at the edge of the hill," David said quietly.
Allie glanced over at Charlie, who made several exaggerated expressions all essentially boiling down to "Gee, I wonder who it is?" and while it was unlikely Kalynchuk had climbed a tree... "Is it Graham?"
"Steel and gunpowder seems to suggest it is."
Graham.
"Can he see us?"
She could hear the smile in David's voice as she ducked under a low branch. "Not if I don't want him to. Tidier if I took him out, though."
"No. We're here as impartial observers..."
"Like UN peacekeepers," Roland offered.
Charlie snorted. "Who keep getting their asses shot off because they can't shoot back."
"Not like UN peacekeepers, then," Allie amended.
"So we can shoot back?"
"Back, but not first. No matter what Han Solo did," she added pointedly to Roland.
"So we just let Graham blow away Junior when he shows up?" Charlie wondered.
Allie wanted to say no if only because they'd had proof the Dragon Lords could trace the shot and, by taking it, Graham would put himself in danger, but Graham was not her concern. If Kalynchuk had been telling the truth and this emerging, youngest Dragon Lord was more than a personal danger, but also a danger to the city and beyond, then allowing Graham to try and remove that threat was the smart thing to do. If he failed, they could act as backup.
"See, Auntie Jane, we can work with sorcery. We don't need to destroy it."
"You can work with a man with a gun. The sorcerer had his ass tucked safely behind a wall of hexes."
"But David was out here, helping to save the city."
"And you think that David allowing you to stop a Dragon Lord without any of the first circle present is a good thing? Because that amount of power will corrupt!"
"Allie?"
Wonderful. Even in her head, Auntie Jane got in the last word.
"Just thinking."
"Nice change. Do we know where exactly the shit's hitting the fan?" Charlie muttered as they peered out across an empty hilltop. "Because there's a fair chunk of real estate out there."
David shifted to settle the weight of his rack, and pointed. "About six meters out."
"How the hell do...?" Allie glanced up, picked a leaf off one prong, and crushed it between trembling fingers. Even though he wasn't channeling power, David was manifesting physically. She'd thought only Granddad could do that. But they were very close to the sacred site and that proximity could easily be causing strange effects. "Never mind."
She let her gaze drift out along the direction David had indicated and, suddenly, concern about her brother was no longer front and center in her thoughts. She couldn't say if it was six meters or ten, but something grabbed her attention and held it. Groping behind her for Roland's hand, she gouged a quick charm into the dirt, anchored herself, and reached out for more information.
The ambient power, this close to a sacred site, surged up through the contact and knocked her on her ass.
Strong hands pushed into her armpits and hauled her back up again.
"Allie? What was it?"
"Not what I expected." She rubbed at a stone bruise and frowned out toward the center of the hill.
"What did you expect?" David asked cutting both Roland and Charlie off one word into their own questions. Roland growled, low in his throat, but let it go.
"Something that felt like a Dragon Lord."
That wasn't the answer to the question David had asked, but he stayed with her. "And this didn't?"
Allie leaned against Roland and thought about it. "My sample for comparison is a little small; he didn't feel like Adam, that was for sure, but he felt sort of like Adam and sort of like something else. Something I know, but..." Lower lip between her teeth, she let her voice trail off as she tried and failed to define the second power signature.
"You said he?"
"Male, definitely." If there was one thing a Gale girl knew, it was how to identify male power. "Weirdly familiar but not."
"Patina of the UnderRealm?"
She glanced over at Charlie. "A what?"
Charlie shrugged. "You know what they say, there's nothing like the UnderRealm for leaving a waxy buildup."
"Who says that? Don't actually tell me," she added quickly. "I don't know what it is, but it's not the UnderRealm. It's something from..."
The middle of the hill exploded, the sound strangely muted given the violence of the emergence. A fountain of dirt rocketed into the sky surrounding a pillar of light so bright it seared afterimages on the inside of Allie's eyes. Rather than painting the bottom of the cloud cover, like a searchlight, the pillar capped out about ten meters up.
"Like a light saber," Roland murmured.
"When this is over," Allie told him, "we're expanding your knowledge of media into this millennium."
Graham had expected fire. It was how the Dragon Lords did things. It all came back to fire. A pillar of light felt wrong in subtle ways that lifted the hair on the back of his neck. Finger around the trigger, he stared through the scope and waited for the emerging form to coalesce.
Scales would be easier.
Skin wouldn't stop him.
Weird how Kalynchuk insisted on referring to it as "the creature" as if they didn't both know it was another Dragon Lord.
"What's happening?" Kalynchuk sounded as close to terrified as Graham had ever heard him. "Damn it, talk to me!"
"It's here."
David raised a hand and the falling dirt and rock dropped harmlessly around them. Allie couldn't even feel him pulling power. She'd worry about how much power he seemed to be holding another time-here and now the last thing she needed was a concussion. All right, maybe not the last thing, but close.
Open as she was, she could feel the power coalescing in the center of the hill.
Not quite entirely Dragon Lord. Actually, only about half Dragon Lord...
As she realized where she'd felt the second power, she started to run. No time for explanations. No breath to spare. No option but to reach his side the moment he took physical form and pray Graham took a moment to aim.
No question her family would follow.
The light remained for a moment or two after gravity had taken care of the dirt, then it collapsed in on itself.
"The instant the light vanishes, take your shot!"
Graham's lip curled. Usually, the boss left him alone to do his job. Trusted him to do what he needed to. The backseat driving was fucking annoying.
The light had condensed to a pillar two meters high. Maybe a little less. It narrowed as he watched. Darkened.
He drew in a breath. Held it.
The light became a man. No, a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen.
Allie dove forward while the boy was still partially light, got an arm around a narrow waist, and took the slender body to the ground with her. Rolled as fire splashed against the jumbled dirt next to her legs.
He sneezed, clutched her shoulders, and squinted up at her from under messy bangs, looking a little shocky. His eyes were a swirling mix of color. "You're not my dad."
"Graham!"
"He's down!" No time to wonder why he left out the pertinent details. Like the way Allie had appeared for an instant in his scope and nearly stopped his heart. "I have no shot."
"Then get a shot! Put the gun to his fucking head if you have to!"
Graham had dropped out of the sling before Kalynchuk finished speaking.
"Allie! What are you doing?"
She rolled again. "He's just a kid!" Standing and pulling the boy up into her arms, Allie drew charms on damp, sulfur-scented skin as she locked herself down to Roland's anchor and reached beyond. A red Dragon Lord swooped low out of the clouds, mouth open and belching flame. Viktor, if the twelve didn't double up on colors. Didn't matter who he was. Allie cut out the middleman and slapped the flame back at him.
Dragons can't fly on their backs.
Dragon Lords, however, were able to stop themselves from crashing by disappearing in flame.
"Allie!"
Right. David. She needed to let David handle the offense while she worked to protect the boy. She felt Roland's arm go around her, felt Charlie pick up the strands of power, felt David slap another Dragon Lord out of the sky.
If they had any of the first circle with them, they could have called up a wind strong enough to remove the cloud cover.
There's twelve of them! Why are we even attempting this without the aunties?
Then Graham appeared out of the night, weapon raised and Allie remembered she had more immediate concerns.
She locked his gaze with hers. Thought about saying, I won't let you shoot him. Decided, all things considered, that was fairly obvious. Thought about saying, It's time to pick a side. Remembered how badly he reacted to ultimatums. Finally let his name escape on an exhaled breath.
Saw him lower the weapon.
Over the thirteen or so years he'd protected the sorcerer, necessity had required Graham to do a number of things that might be considered cold. Even brutal. He did his job, and he walked away. But shooting a naked boy-even if it wasn't a real boy-who stood blinking and trembling, all knees and elbows, wrapped in the arms of the woman he...
... cared about, that was outside his job description.
As of right now.
"Graham! What the hell is going on? Is the boy dead?"
He reached up, eyes still locked on Allie's face, pulled the earpiece out, threw it to the ground, and crushed it under his heel.
Allie had no time to savor the victory. She felt another rush of wings and lifted her head to snarl, "He is under my protection!"
David pulled power through the family link; held it ready.
A pair of Dragon Lords dove in from the west, but, impossibly, before David could react, Adam dropped from the clouds and drove them off. He was larger than his brothers, his gleaming black scales an absence of color against the sky.
When he landed, the ground shook. He hadn't been that large on the street. Couldn't have been.
When he roared, Allie felt it in blood and bone.
"David! No!"
She saw David's muscles lock as he fought to ignore the challenge.
When Adam changed, the ground smoked under his feet.
"You're making a mistake, Gale girl. If he lives, his mother will follow a road of blood to the MidRealm and destroy everything in her path just because she can."
Allie turned the boy so Adam could see the charms she'd drawn. "And if you kill him..."
"Yes, yes," He waved a hand. "You've claimed him. Are you certain you know what that means? His life, his death, are your responsibility now." His lips pulled back, his smile all teeth. "What did I say about you..." A nod to David, acknowledging another power. "... and yours, interfering in the business of our family? It seems," he continued without waiting for a response, "that you may meet your big bad after all. Let us hope I can convince my brothers you've made a move so foolish we have no countermove unless we want to go to war with your aunties. I'm not ruling that out, by the way."
Above the clouds, someone shrieked a challenge.
"If you'll excuse me, Ryan requires my assistance. Some of my brothers are trying to curry favor by protecting the boy, and Ryan isn't aware we've changed sides. Should he ask..." This Adam directed specifically to Charlie. "... I had every confidence in his ability to survive. Good luck, Gale girl. Good luck, nephew." The boy stiffened, beginning to fight off the effect of emerging into another reality. "Let's hope there's enough luck to go around." Another flash of teeth. Another tower of flame. Allie braced herself against Roland as Adam took to the sky.
"Allie, I don't understand."
She looked past the boy's head at Graham, who'd lowered his weapon because she'd needed him to. "He's Kalynchuk's son."
"But he's a..."
"He's that, too. That lot up there..." She jerked her head toward the battle raging above the clouds. "They have a sister."
"What are you doing answering Charlotte's phone, Michael?"
Michael moved the phone away from his ear. Auntie Jane achieved impressive volume when annoyed. "She left it with me."
"When she went where?"
He frowned as he parsed the sentence. "I can't tell you."
"Don't be ridiculous." It sounded like a warning.
He could feel himself starting to sweat. "They went to a park."
"They?"
Oops. "Charlie and Allie."
"Charlotte and Alysha went to a park? I see." He was horribly afraid she did. Right through the phone. "And the boys? Wherever they are, they're not answering their phones. Now, you don't want their mothers to worry, do you?"
"No?"
"Are they with Alysha?"
Yes or no questions couldn't be faked. "Yeah, but..."
"So, the whole family is in a park. Has Alysha involved them in something dangerous or have they decided to take up midnight picnicking?"
Midnight. He glanced at his watch. "It's got to be past three AM where you are, Auntie Jane."
"I can tell the time, Michael."
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"I can sleep when I'm dead." Or when everyone else is, was pretty strongly implied. "Answer the question."
"Uh... they're just observing." He motioned Joe closer. The leprechaun shook his head and backed up a couple of steps.
"The Dragon Lords?"
She knew about the Dragon Lords. That made things a little simpler. "Yeah, the Dragon Lords."
"And what are they observing the Dragon Lords doing?"
"I don't know."
She could, apparently, hear the truth in that. "I see," she sniffed after a moment. "Does this have anything to do with my sister?"
"With Gran? I don't think so. Do you think so?"
"I wouldn't put it past her," Auntie Jane muttered. "Oh, and your young man misses you a great deal."
"Brian? Why were you talking to Brian?"
"He has your phone.You should call him."
"Not going to happen, Auntie Jane."
"I've thought you were a number of things over the years, Michael, but I never thought you were a coward. Do not prove me wrong."
He listened to the dial tone for a moment, then closed the phone. "Auntie Jane," he said to Joe.
"I figured. Don't take this the wrong way, but the whole lying to relatives thing? You really suck at it."
"We have to get him to the apartment!" Allie wrapped her jacket around the boy's shoulders. "Do you have a name?"
"Yeah, I have a name!" he declared, yanking the jacket close.
"And it is?"
"Why should I tell you?" The full upper lip curled. "You are not my father!"
The special round safe in his pocket, Graham slapped in a magazine of full metal jackets and almost said, "Your father sent me to kill you," but he didn't know for certain, not one hundred percent for certain, that Kalynchuk knew the creature emerging, the boy, was his son. For the sake of the years they'd spent together, he had to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Your father couldn't make it," Allie told him. "We're here in his place."
"He sent you?"
"He sent me," Graham growled.
The boy studied Graham for a moment, eyes hazel now although other colors slipped in and out. "I can smell him on you."
"Then you know I'm telling the truth."
"Why didn't he come himself?" Graham glanced up at the sky and the boy laughed. "Oh, yeah. Them. They would devour him if they could. My name is Jack. My mother says it is a name for heroes."
Jack and the Beanstalk.
Jack the Giant Killer.
Little Jack Horner.
Jack O'Neill.
Captain Jack Sparrow.
Captain Jack Harkness.
Those were all the Jacks Allie could recall off the top of her head, but in her own defense she was a little distracted by the blue Dragon Lord falling from the sky, trailing flame from great gashes in its scales. It hit the ground with less impact than the wind accompanying it, ignited, disappeared.
Half a dozen trees turned into torches.
Allie threw power at David. The fires went out.
They almost missed the second Dragon Lord, scales a rich chocolate brown, diving toward them from the south, and the third, a much darker green than Ryan, dropping in from almost directly above.
Graham snapped his weapon up and squeezed off a shot. It hit the brown Dragon Lord in the meaty part of the muscle where the left wing joined the body. Spraying blood, he screamed and wheeled off. David filled a green wing with wind, pinwheeling the sinuous body down toward the ground. The Dragon Lord changed just before impact, ran half a dozen steps as a heavyset man with dark tattoos, changed again, and disappeared into the clouds.
"We need to talk about this somewhere else!" Graham yelled, scanning the sky.
David ground an ember out under his heel. "He's right."
"Didn't I say we had to get Jack to the apartment?" Allie rolled her eyes. "Maybe if we started moving!"
"I want to go to my father!"
"First, let's not get killed by your uncles."
Jack thought about that for a moment, then nodded.
Graham caught up to the rental car as they turned onto 9th Ave S.W. heading east. As they passed 6th Street, as he passed 6th Street, as he drove right on by without even considering turning toward the office and Stanley Kalynchuk, he realized that this finalized the choice he'd made when he let Jack live. He touched the shape of the special bullet in his vest pocket.
His blood to make it fly true and Kalynchuk's to make the kill.
Did Kalynchuk know?
He'd made enemies in the UnderRealm; Graham had already dealt with a few. He might have only sensed the power coming, known it was an enemy but not which enemy.
Until the arrival of the Dragon Lords.
Unless he'd thought it was the mother emerging and not the child.
Not hard to believe the mother'd be pissed. Given Jack's apparent age and the fact he'd fired that first shot to save Kalynchuk's life almost exactly thirteen years ago and knew the sorcerer hadn't been to the UnderRealm since, Kalynchuk had knocked up a Dragon Lord and walked away, leaving a big scaly, flying, fire-breathing single mom behind.
A trickle of sweat rolled down Graham's back at the thought. The Dragon Lords were not Human. Didn't matter what they sometimes looked like. They were...
Well, they weren't. That was the point.
For Kalynchuk to actually...
He might have been forced. Taken without his consent. Not ever known there'd been a child.
But blood magic wouldn't kill without a blood connection.
Would it?
Had he known?
"Put a gun to his fucking head if you have to." First time he'd ever used a pronoun. And Graham hadn't told him what, exactly had emerged.
"Is the boy dead?"
The boy. Not the enemy. Or the creature.
There didn't seem to be much doubt left to give him.
When David turned down into the alley behind the store, Graham followed. Seemed like a way to show commitment. Plenty of room in the garage for the car; room enough for him to pull up tight against the building and still leave space for the garbage truck to pass. He took his weapon with him-he didn't know if Kalynchuk could show his displeasure by de-hexing the locks from a distance, but that wasn't a risk he was willing to take.
The garage door slid closed behind him. He supposed it was a good sign it hadn't slid closed in his face.
Things had changed during the trip.
Jack now wore jeans and a black T-shirt under Allie's jacket-or a jacket that bore some resemblance to Allie's. The jeans had that baggy-ass thing going and both his boots trailed their laces. Roland was missing his shirt, Charlie was barefoot.
"Jack realized he should have more clothes, so he made some out of the available fabric," Allie told him as Jack wandered off to explore the garage.
"Made some?"
"Yeah. Dragon Lord levels of power applied to sorcery which I'm not sure he should even be able to do at his age. And I don't think the car rental place is going to be happy."
Graham glanced into the car. Most of the fabric had been removed from the back of the front seat. There were also gouges in the fabric of the roof, deep enough he could see the gleam of metal. As he straightened, he glanced over at David and saw a rack of antlers that wouldn't have looked out of place on the wall of an old Scottish castle flickering in and out of sight. "Those are... I mean, they're..."
Allie followed his gaze. "You can see them? Great." Reaching out, she swept her fingertips through the lower prongs. When she turned to him again, she was frowning. "You shouldn't be able to see them, they're insubstantial."
Behind her, David turned, and his expression shifted Graham's grip on his weapon. He knew what power barely under control looked like. "Allie."
He couldn't see her expression when she turned to face her brother, but he did see her shoulders tighten.
"David, I'm so sorry. I didn't..." A long step back bumped her up against Graham's chest-the car door limiting his movement. She reached behind her and wrapped her fingers around his wrist to steady herself.
To his surprise, the tension visibly eased, and David suddenly looked like less of a threat. "You're Graham."
"Yeah." They'd never actually been introduced, given the flaming flying lizards and all.
David stepped back, long legs moving him around the front of the car until the bulk of it was between them. "Later."
"He means you'll talk later," Allie murmured, releasing him.
His wrist throbbed where her fingers had been, the skin feeling hot and tight. "I got that. What's up with the..." A jerk of his head toward the flickering horn.
"It's a family thing. But you can thank Jack that they're not solid. I think he drew on David to fuel the transfigurations he did in the car." She wasn't exactly looking at him, but she wasn't moving away, so Graham decided to count that as a win. "I mean, it's no wonder his uncles freaked-he's an instinctive sorcerer with Dragon Lord access to power."
"Instinctive?"
"Unless your boss..."
"Ex-boss." Probably. She actually smiled at him then, and he hoped the qualifier hadn't shown on his face.
"Okay, unless your ex-boss kept trotting back to the UnderRealm to give lessons, he's untrained."
"He didn't."
"You're certain."
"As I can be. So he was right; Jack's dangerous." He wasn't exactly asking, he wasn't stupid.
Before Allie could respond, the paint can Jack had moved to the workbench to examine exploded.
Graham hit the dirt but lifted his head in time to see David clench a fist and the blast crumple in on itself. The antlers seemed to firm up for a moment.
"Jack's thirteen," Allie told him as he stood, brushing off his jeans. "That's always dangerous." They locked eyes for a moment, but before Graham could figure out what to say, Allie turned away. "Come on, Jack..." She tugged the boy away from the bench. "... let's go inside. I bet you're hungry."
"Starving!" In the low light of the garage, his eyes glowed.
"Do you like pie?"
"I don't know."
"Let's find out."
Roland followed Allie and Jack out into the yard, staying close enough that Graham had to swallow the growl rising in his throat. He looked away to find David studying him. Speculatively? Suspiciously? Hard to say.
But this was apparently not later as David turned his head to maneuver his purportedly insubstantial antlers out the door. Graham fell in beside Charlie, moving a little more slowly because of her bare feet.
"So," she said as they stepped out into the courtyard, "figure out what you want to say to her yet?"
"It's not that easy."
"It's not supposed to be easy, dumbass."
He nodded at David crossing the courtyard. No way the three scrawny bushes leaned toward him as he passed. "How did he get those things into the car if it was Jack who made them insubstantial." Kalynchuk had never mentioned the abilities of the Gale men, and Roland had been able to stop him cold, sweater vest and all. David seemed like an entirely different level of problem, especially since Graham had no idea where he and Allie actually stood. Or if they stood together at all.
Charlie rolled her eyes. "Please, that was later. I had to blow him in the parking lot and bring them down a bit, or he'd have been walking back."
Graham literally felt his jaw drop. She didn't sound like she was bullshit-ting, and he had a reporter's built-in bullshit detector. "Seriously?"
"Why do you think Auntie Catherine drove a convertible?"
"She didn't have..." He waved a hand above his head.
"The aunties are first circle." Charlie's smile curved wickedly and Graham's pants felt suddenly, uncomfortably tight. "She could get as many of those as she wanted."
All of a sudden, his memories of conversations with Catherine Gale showed up in a whole new light. "So when she suggested we...?"
"She meant it."
"That's..." Graham paused, caught by his reflection in the enormous mirror in the back hall behind the store. "Why are there fourteen of me?"
Charlie shrugged as she pushed past. "Maybe it likes you."
Jack liked pie.
Allie cut him another slice of her mother's lemon meringue-minimally and nonspecifically charmed with the Gale version of wear nice underpants in case of accidents-and slid the plate across the table.
"We don't have anything like this back home," he moaned, shoveling an enormous forkful into his mouth. "Although," he added thoughtfully, after he'd swallowed, "I did eat a nest of pixies once that tasted kind of the same, but you know..." Sweeping his tongue over his lower lip, he retrieved a bit of meringue. "... chewier."
"You ate pixies?" Joe put down his fork.
Jack shrugged as he chewed. "Not often. They're so small you have to find a nest, or they're not worth it. I like them, though."
"So are pixies...?" Michael tapped his head, and Allie didn't think he meant imaginary.
"Thinking, reasoning, obnoxious little shit disturbers.Yeah." She pulled out the chair beside the young Dragon Lord and sat down. "Jack?" When he looked up from his rapidly disappearing pie, she took a deep breath. "Here, in this world, we don't eat anything we can have a conversation with."
"Not unless both parties are enjoying themselves," Charlie added.
"I don't see how that's possible," Jack admitted, frowning.
"Well..."
Roland kicked her under the table. "Let's not confuse him. Jack, here in this world, we have very distinct ideas of what constitutes food."
His frown deepened. "I don't know what constitutes means."
"It means we don't eat people," Allie said quickly, cutting off Roland's certain to be even more confusing explanation.
A nod down the table at Joe. "He's a leprechaun."
"Leprechauns are people."
"Those small things with wings outside?"
"Those are pigeons, you can eat those. Except not those particular pigeons," she amended, "because I know them."
"You knew this pie."
"Not the same thing."
"My mother says if you limit your food, you limit your chances. My Uncle Viktor has been trying to eat me my whole life."
"Why?"
Graham's voice lifted the hair on the back of Allie's neck. She'd been treating him exactly like the others, giving him a place at the table, feeding him, ignoring the way he made her skin feel too tight and like there wasn't enough air in the room.
Jack shrugged thin shoulders. "Because of who my father is. Mother says I frighten them because of what I can do, and that fear makes them stupid, but they really don't like that as long as I'm alive Mother won't clutch again and that makes me heir. There's never been a male heir. Mother says there's no way I'll live as long as a pureblood anyway, so they can just fuck off and she'll clutch again when she's good and ready. Also, they really, really hate my father because he showed up and messed things up. Although they don't hate him as much as Mother does, but you don't eat the only egg in the clutch. Is there more pie?"
The pan on the table was empty of everything but a few crumbs of crust.
Charlie pushed her chair back. "I'll check.You eat like Michael; he was a skinny little shit at your age, too."
"I'm bigger in my other form," Jack protested indignantly.
Flames licked at his edges, but before Allie could get out so much as a clich��d "No!" they disappeared and only his eyes showed any evidence there'd ever been a fire. She glanced over at David. He shook his head. If David hadn't stopped it, then...
Jack's chair tipped over as he surged up onto his feet. When the heavy wooden back slammed against the floor, everyone jumped and the lights flickered. Allie wasn't sure who was responsible. Wasn't positive it hadn't been her.
"It's gone!" His eyes gleamed gold, lid to lid. "I can't find my other self!"
"It's your father's blood." Graham glanced at Allie as everyone turned to face him. "Blood magic's the strongest there is," he continued when she nodded to let him know he had the floor. "You lot should all know that. He's in the same reality with his father for the first time in his life, and it's locked him down.You don't need scales while you're here, kid, and you'll get them back when you go home. I've picked up a bit over the years," he added in answer to David's raised brow.
"My father's blood," Jack repeated. His gaze jerked around the room like he was in a cage. "When do I get to see my father? I want to see my father."
Everyone turned to look at Graham. Who sighed.
"It's complicated, kid."
"But he sent you."
"Yeah. He sent me."
Allie wondered what Graham had in his front pocket. Every time he spoke to Jack, his hand rose to touch the small lump. She suspected he didn't even know he was doing it. It was an artifact, she could feel that much but nothing more specific, not with the amount of free-floating power in the room.
The Dragon Lord-no, Dragon Prince, she guessed if he was heir-drew himself up to his full height. "You should take me to him," he declared imperiously. "Now."
"I'm not..." His fingertip whitened. He was pressing against the lump so hard it had to have been digging into his chest, but he gave no indication that it hurt. "Your father might not want to see you."
"So? I want to see him."
"And they say Gale boys are spoiled," Charlie murmured, setting half a rhubarb pie on the table and dropping into her chair.
Allie bumped her with her hip as she passed. "You could call him." They were the first words she'd spoken directly to Graham since the garage, and that had been a whole pie ago.
"Call him?"
"I think we all need to know where he stands." She held out her phone. "You'd better use this. It'll make sure you get through."
"I don't..." His gaze slipped past her to Jack and back to her again. "All right."
When their fingers touched, Allie felt the shock race up her arm and pool warm and heavy in her belly.
David growled and pushed away from the table. "Loft."
Head cocked, eyes whirling, Jack watched David leave, then jerked his head around toward Allie as the door slammed. "We don't have that problem," he said.
That problem. They needed more third circle here while David was or it was going to become a bigger problem. "Lucky you."
"Allie?"
Which was when she realized she hadn't let go of the phone. "Right. Sorry.You can go into..." She started to gesture toward the bedroom, felt power building, remembered there was now a bed in the second bedroom as well and jerked her hand more or less toward the bathroom.
"No. Better you all hear."
He wanted them to trust him. Allie could see that. Understand why. Still... she glanced over at Jack. "Are you sure?"
"If it goes wrong..." Graham's one-shoulder shrug reminded her of his injuries although there were no visible bruises, so it seemed he'd been healed. She hated that it was Kalynchuk who'd healed him. "It's better he hears it from the source than secondhand."
"The fast Band-Aid approach?"
He started to frown in confusion, then smiled up at her, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Yeah, the fast Band-Aid approach. Here, where he has people..." She wondered if he even knew he was reaching for her. "... who'll support him."
Allie wanted to take his hand. She wanted to take his hand more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. More than Michael. But Graham had chosen, and they couldn't... it wasn't...
"Maybe you two ought to save that for later," Charlie suggested.
"They have no later," Roland reminded her.
She heard Michael sigh. "He chose to come back."
Apparently, everyone but Joe had an opinion. Allie watched Graham's hand settle on the table.
She spun around as Charlie's foot impacted with her butt, glared at her cousin, and said, "Jack, do you care if we can all hear your father talk to Graham?"
Jack's shrug was all teenage boy. "What could go wrong?"
She couldn't let him go into it blind. "Graham."
"I don't..."
"Tell him." It was only logical to stand by Graham's side where she could see both Jack and the phone. She was close enough to hear him sigh, see the fine muscle movement as he squared his shoulders.
"Your father sent me to kill whatever emerged from the UnderRealm."
Jack cocked his head to one side, the motion almost birdlike. If birds had evolved from dinosaurs and dragons were sort of like dinosaurs, then... she shook the thought away. Not the time to consider parallel evolution in metaphysical realms. "Did he know it was me?"
Graham touched the artifact in his pocket again. "He said it was an enemy."
Not the whole truth, Allie realized as Jack said, "Then he didn't know it was me."
"You're no danger to him?"
"I don't know. I haven't met him yet." He looked around the table and rolled his eyes although with the whites still barely showing Allie found it a strangely nondefinitive movement. "And he hasn't met me. How can you tell a person is your enemy if you haven't met them yet?"
"He has a point," Charlie admitted.
"He has a mouthful of them," Roland murmured in what Allie suspected was intended to be a warning but only came across as somewhat petulant.
"He only looks like a thirteen-year-old kid, doesn't he?" Joe said suddenly. "He's not, though, is he? He's a Dragon Prince. Heir to the sky. Stop treating him like he's fucking made of soap bubbles, remember he eats people when he's at home, and call his old man."
The silence was broken by a snicker.
From Jack.
"Is there a speaker on this thing?" Graham asked.
Allie held out her hand, and he dropped the phone in it without them touching. When she set up the speaker function, she returned it the same way.
Eyes locked on the number pad, Graham punched in ten digits and set the open phone down beside his empty plate.
It seemed Kalynchuk had been waiting for the call.
"Is it alive?"
"He's standing right here," Allie told him, watching Graham close his fingers around the artifact.
"Then you've doomed us all!"
"Overreact much?" Charlie snorted.
"It maps the way, you fools! I warned you, Alysha Gale! I warned you that disaster would follow if it was not destroyed. If you're there, Graham, kill it! Kill it now! It may not be too late!"
Graham took a deep breath and quietly asked, "Did you know?"
To give him credit, although Allie hated doing it, Kalynchuk didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Of course I knew. And that shot, that shot you didn't take, that shot was the whole reason for your existence! The stars told me my past would find me sooner or later. Those other, minor annoyances over the years-I could have lowered myself to deal with them if I'd had to. This was your task, and you failed me! Failed me after I trusted you with my life! It is most definitely safe to say I will not look kindly upon you should we meet again, but since the lucky ones among us will shortly be dead, thanks to your stupidity, my displeasure seems moot. Kill it if you want to live!"
"Father?"
The silence extended long enough Allie opened her mouth. Closed it again when it turned out Kalynchuk had one final point to make. "Of all the men of power, back to the first man who claimed his birthright, only I dared that action which brings this doom upon us. No one else ever dared so much. I have that at least."
"Wow," Jack said over the dial tone. "He's a bit of an ass, isn't he?"
It had rained at some point while they were all upstairs, but except for directly around the three scrawny shrubs, the courtyard dirt had been packed too firmly for anything less than a downpour to make much of an impression. Graham leaned against the west wall by a stack of lumber under a tarp and wished he hadn't stopped smoking.Yeah, it was a filthy, expensive habit likely to shorten his life-in point of fact, the reasons he'd quit-but it had given him something mindless to focus on when his thoughts slid off into unpleasant areas.
Like how he'd spent thirteen years working for a man willing to kill his child. Have his child killed. He pressed two fingers against the pocket.
"You okay?"
"Just needed some time alone," he said, watching Allie close the door and walk toward him while frowning down at the wet ground.
"Okay." She settled against the wall, close enough he could feel the narrow strip of air between them begin to warm.
"What part of alone didn't you get?"
"You said needed. I figured you were done." She still hadn't looked directly at him. "Charlie said we should talk-actually, she was a little more definitive about it than should-but I'll go. If you want me to."
She'd started to move before he found his voice. "Stay."
They stood-leaned-silently for a moment, then Allie said, "Can I see it?"
"It?" The corners of his mouth twitched although he couldn't quite manage a smile. "You'll have to be a little more specific."
"Did I ask to see it again?" Her elbow impacting with his side turned out to be a lot pointier than it looked. "I meant the artifact in your pocket."
Yeah. He'd figured. It felt warm as he fished it out. Body temperature. "You're not going to see much." The fixture over the door held one of those energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, and the circle of light ended about a meter out.
Her fingers were warmer than the bullet as she plucked it off his palm. He found that vaguely comforting. "I have night-vision charms on my eyelids."
"Seriously?"
"Gale girls aren't big on eye shadow, and we like to minimize our chances of waking up the aunties."
He matched his tone to hers; all surface, no depths. "No lights on when you come home late?"
"Or go to the bathroom. Or raid the fridge. This would have killed him?" Her voice suddenly serious, she held the bullet up between thumb and forefinger. It seemed to glow with a dull, dirty light. Optical illusion. Probably. "In either form?"
"That's what he made it for."
"Your blood's in this, too."
Interesting she could sense that but not surprising, all things considered. "My blood's just there to help my aim."
Allie made a noncommittal sound, then said, "Or to give his uncles a scent when they set out to find the shooter. My charm wouldn't have lasted against blood magic."
"You think..."
"I think," she interrupted, "given that your target would have been standing absolutely still in the moment just after emergence..." The moment she'd tackled Jack to the ground. "... you couldn't have missed a shot at that distance."
Nice to think that. "I wasn't a lot farther away the last time I missed."
"But now you know how fast they change.You wouldn't make that mistake again. That miss, just made this shot..." She raised the bullet a little higher. "... more likely."
Graham frowned. "He'd still be in danger from the Dragon Lords. He'd need me to take out as many of them as possible."
"Unless he thought your death by Dragon Lord was the best way to get my family involved. While we're going after the Dragon Lords, he can slip away. Hide again."
"Again?"
"If the aunties haven't taken him out, it's only because they don't know where he is."
And that just begged for a sidebar. "Why do the old women in your family hate sorcerers?"
She shrugged. He didn't know if she'd moved closer without him noticing, or if he was so attuned to her, he could feel the air currents shift. "Power corrupts."
"That's a pretty nonspecific reason to kill someone."
"He ordered you to kill his son."
Yeah. Definitely a specific example of the premise.
"As much as I hate to admit it," Allie continued. "Actually managing to have a son with the Dragon Queen suggests he's a lot more powerful than I thought. Because that's, as Charlie pointed out, fucking amazing."
"He was good with fire," Graham told her dryly, remembering the blaze answering Kalynchuk's gesture in the workshop. Then, suddenly, he froze.
"And that shot, that shot you didn't take, that shot was the whole reason for your existence!"
"Graham?" She'd finally turned to look at him. He could feel the heat of her concern on the side of his face. And then the press of her hand against his chest. "Breathe!"
The air in the courtyard felt superheated as he drew it into his lungs and gasped it out. Then Allie started to breathe with him, her mouth near his, slowly in and out, the vise around his ribs loosening. "He was good with fire," he repeated, barely recognizing his own voice. Allie stood close enough he could see that her eyes were the cool gray of a winter sky, and he let himself fall into them. "I saved him out in the woods, made a one-in-a-million shot, and two days later my whole family was dead in a fire."
Allie made the jump with him. "You think he killed your family?"
"I think he was willing to kill his." His hands were shaking. Graham didn't remember reaching out to hold Allie's hips, but it helped. It helped to have something warm and alive in his grasp. "He showed up in the village almost before it was over and took care of everything." His family had been nearly hysterical with grief. He remembered uncles, hard men who'd fought the North Atlantic every day of their adult lives, crying like children. He remembered how Stanley Kalynchuk's hand on his shoulder had felt like the only thing he had left that was real.
This time, when the memories tried to slip away, he fought to hold them.
It was like trying to hold smoke. He had the essence but not the substance.
"Why can't I remember?"
Allie touched her forehead to his. "He doesn't want you to. He wouldn't, would he?"
"No. He wouldn't." Graham took a deep breath and loosened his hold on her just a little. Probably too late to prevent bruises. "He was there for me for all those years because he needed me today. Needed to know someone could take that shot and not miss. I'd have shot through you, wouldn't have hesitated if I hadn't gotten to know you. I'd have killed you and considered you collateral damage for the greater good."
"But you didn't."
"But I could have."
She cupped his face between her hands and repeated, "But you didn't." Then she kissed him. Softly, comfortingly.
She was all he had left. When she pulled back, he murmured, "If I could choose again..." and she stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time and she smiled.
"No."
"I just..."
"No. Not until you really understand what it means."
It took a moment to hear not yet instead of no. "But I thought I only got one chance."
"Well, you're like two people, right? The reporter and the sorcerer's... person? Two people, two choices. Besides, there's a half-Human Dragon Prince upstairs eating pie. We're making this up as we go along."
"We are?"
"Yes. We are." And she kissed him again.
"He needs to talk to someone," Charlie had said, "and it can't be either of the boys, not with all that horn showing. He'll end up going all bantam rooster and getting damaged."
"You go, then."
"No."
"Charlie..."
"Get your head out of your ass and get down there!"
"Michael..."
Michael had given her the saddest smile she'd ever seen, and she knew he was thinking of Brian. "Talk to him, Allie. It doesn't have to go further."
So she'd talked to him. And she'd listened to him.
She hadn't planned on kissing him, but she'd needed to do something to ease the pain. Kissing him was just the best way she could think of to say she was there if he needed her and have him believe it. Funny thing, though, she'd ended up convincing herself.
"If I could choose again," he'd said.
She'd been ready to tell him it didn't work like that when she'd realized there was no reason why it couldn't. And maybe she'd babbled a little, but he hadn't seemed to mind.
The second kiss was less about comfort and, selfishly, more about finding him again.
Turned out, he'd never been gone.
She felt as though she were sinking into him and pulled away before she lost herself. Not the time, not the place... Well, not the time and only the place when she was sure Charlie wasn't watching from the apartment window.
"Allie..."
The sound of wet laundry flapping by just above the building cut off whatever Graham had been about to say, but when Allie leaned back against the wall beside him, he kept his hand around hers as they watched the sky. She half expected one of the triangular shapes to land on the top of the building, but all three flew on by. "What do you think they're doing up there?"
"Regrouping. Licking their wounds. Getting ready for round two." He stroked her palm with his thumb, and it felt so much like family that it literally made her knees weak. "Do you think Jack's mother is on her way?"
"It's the only thing Adam and your ex-boss seem to agree on."
"But what do you think?"
Allie took a deep breath and tasted sulfur on the breeze. "I don't know. It seems like the females are the defining avatars of the Dragon Lords' power. It takes a lot to shift that kind of thing."
"She has a way to finally get to Jack's father. That's a lot. Do you think she sent Jack?"
"I don't think she'd have risked him, especially since it seems that keeping him alive this long has been a big 'fuck you' to pretty much everybody. But what do I know about Dragon Lords? I'm almost positive Adam wanted to stop Jack. To stop her. But then Jack gets here, and he changes his mind."
"Because you claimed him?"
"It can't be me."
"Can you stop her?"
"Not alone. And I'm not exploring other options until I'm sure she's on her way." The aunties were still the court of last resort. "Adam's playing some weird game of his own, and I'm not taking the ravings of a man who wants to kill his own child as truth." She frowned at the sound of sirens in the distance. "Is that fire or police?"
Graham cocked his head. "Fire."
Allie sighed. That so figured. "You know what I said when we left for the hill? I said all we were going to do was stop the city from burning down." Without really thinking about what she was doing, she found herself sliding almost effortlessly through the imprint of the city until she touched the place where it went wrong, touched the fire, and put it out. Senses humming, reveling in the unexpected freedom, wondering if Charlie felt the same lack of boundaries stepping into the Wood, she reached a little farther and touched the scar on the top of the hill.
Moved down it just because she could.
Heat.
A little farther.
Rage. Surging. Consuming.
Allie didn't know where the city ended and it began. Where she ended and it began. It roared through her, scouring bleeding bits of self free as it passed. Then it came around and did it again. And again. She couldn't find herself.
Pain...
Hatred...
Burning.
Burning.
Burning.
But there, on the edge.
Something.
If she could only remember...
Hand.
She could feel her hand.
"Allie!"
She could feel her nails digging into Graham's skin where he held her hand between their bodies. She could feel bruises rising on her shoulder blades from where she'd pressed back into the wall.
"Allie? Are you all right? You went away for a minute." He looked concerned but not terrified. That was weird because given the way her heart was slamming up against her ribs, she had to look like she'd just brushed up against the end of the world. Then she remembered he couldn't really see her.
"Sh... sh..." Dragging her tongue over dry lips, she tried again. "She's coming."
"Jack's mother?"
"I have to make a phone call." When he started to release her hand, she tightened her grip. "I can use the other one."
The number she needed had moved to the top of her phone book. Another time, she'd be annoyed about that. Four rings. Five. Six.
"It's the middle of the night, Alysha Catherine."
"I need a first circle, Auntie Jane."
"You need a first circle." She heard Auntie Jane yawn, teeth clacking together when she closed her mouth. "Why?"
About to say it was complicated, Allie suddenly realized it wasn't. "The Dragon Queen is on her way."
"Really?" Auntie Jane sounded more curious than angry. That was good. "How is she finding her way?"
"Her son, by a sorcerer, is here."
"Try to be more precise, girl. Her son by a sorcerer is where?"
"In the apartment. Eating pie. The sorcerer is here, too."
"In the apartment?" Allie was fairly certain she could feel frost forming on the phone. "Eating pie?"
"No. But in Calgary."
"I see."
She thought she did. "It's more complicated than that."
"No, Alysha Catherine, it is not. A full circle?"
Burning.
Burning.
Burning.
And never burning out.
"Yes. Please."
"And who will anchor a first circle, Alysha Catherine."
Allie glanced up at the loft. knowing she'd see her brother staring down at her, knew that when he felt the burning, he'd understand. Hoped that one day, he'd forgive her. "David."