Nora nodded, her dark eyes glinting behind the lenses of her
bright red glasses. "Exactly. Just like Schrodinger's cat. until Paolo speaks,
the future exists in many states, but as soon as he tells you the future, it
becomes real."
"Cheap parlor trick," Marvabelle said, her expression sour.
"Oracles offer much more profound guidance than simply predictin' someone's
clumsiness. Oracles offer words to influence a lifetime."
"Really?" I looked at Hank. He didn't look much along the
lines of a lifetime-influencing man. He looked like an uncomfortable, slightly
sweating bald man with a sizeable beer belly. "So how do you do the oracle
thing? Does stuff just come to you, or do people seek your advice, or what?"
Hank opened his mouth to speak, but his wife spoke before he
could. "Hank is from the classical school of oracles," she said, with a pointed
look at Monisn, "First, he communes with the god and goddess of all bein'. Then
he lights a special blend of herbs that allows his mind and soul to merge into a
higher plain. At that point, he is tap-pin' into the wisdom of the Ancients, and
he is open to questions from those seekin' his advice."
"I bet I can tell you just what sort of herbs he lights,
too," Jim said sotto voce.
I stifled a snicker, careful to keep it soundless. I might
not think too much of Marvabelle's boasts, but I was new to this society, and it
behooved me to mind my p's and q's.
We discussed the various ways oracles consulted their sources
of wisdom, and then the conversation turned to upcoming workshops and events of
the conference. By the time the banquet was over, my head was spinning with
thoughts of water altars, Argentinean curanderismo, ten signs that your
significant other is a soul stealer (I could have used that advice before I
married my ex-husband), and of course, the demon-tormenting workshops—so popular
that three separate sessions were planned.
"Tell me you're not going to any of them," Jim demanded as I
walked him out to the side lawn, which I'd been told was the area reserved for
dogs to do their thing.
"Oh I don't know. I think they sound interesting. I might
pick up some techniques to keep you in line."
"Yeah, like you need to learn any more ways to make my life a
living Abaddon?"
He stopped next to a large laurel bush. I moved over to a
small wooden bench almost obscured by a rowdy group of azaleas and breathed
deeply of the night air. It was scented with the perfume of midsummer
flowers—tall gladiolas, delicately colored roses, early-blooming mums, and
beautifully waving beds of poppies in almost every color. The dog walk was a
long, narrow stretch of grass that was bordered on three sides by a woodland
copse, the tall fir trees casting long shadows that sent inky fingers across the
grass.
"This really is a gorgeous city—it has exquisite gardens," I
said, allowing myself to drink in the beauty of the surroundings. Despite the
big hotel and conference complex a few hundred yards behind us, it felt as if we
were totally alone in a little piece of paradise.
"'Hello, remember me?" Jim asked, a pointed look on its face.
"You can still see me!"
"What? Oh. Sorry."
I turned around, giving the demon my back so it could do what
it had to do without a witness. Jim didn't mind that I had to clean up after it
performed its outdoor activities, but experience had proven that privacy was
necessary to the act. Since I didn't want to spend all night out here waiting
for the demon to take care of business, I strolled down the lawn toward the
firs. The sun was a burnt orange ball half disappeared behind the distant hills,
but it didn't seem to lessen the heat of the day very much. The shade of the
dense clutch of trees looked cool and inviting.
From behind the nearest tree, a shadow separated from the
copse. Before I could suck in a startled breath, a familiar figure lunged toward
me. The street thief who had tried to rip me off at the train station slammed
his fist into my shoulder, sending me flying backward into another tree. He
jerked at my belt, half pulling me forward onto him.
"Hey!" I yelled, suddenly realizing what was happening. I had
tied the amulet in its soft leather pouch to my belt in order to keep it safe
with me, in case anyone had thoughts of searching my hotel room while I was out.
(It had happened in the past.) "Stop it! Help! Jim!"
The young man snarled something as he pulled at the amulet,
but I had tied it with a couple of sailor's knots, guaranteed to withstand even
the most nimble pickpocket's fingers.
"I'm busy here, Aisling!" Jim's voice drifted down the lawn
as I struggled with my assailant. The man grunted when I stomped his foot,
retaliating by slamming his elbow into my jaw so that I reeled backwards.
"Effrijim, I command thee to stop thy pooping and help thy
master right this frigging second!" I yelled, my fingers clawing the man's hands
as he fought to release my belt.
"Fires of Abaddon, Aisling, don't ever do that to me again.
It's bad for my prostate or something—hey, who's that?"
"Get him," I snarled as the man spat an oath at me in
Hungarian. Before I could clarify to Jim just how I wanted the demon to
attack—one of the trials of being in command of a demon was that you had to give
it very specific orders—a glint of silver flashed in the man's hands.
He had a knife. One that would laugh scornfully at my
intricate sailor's knots, damn him. I tried to remember everything I'd learned
in my self-defense classes about disarming a man with a knife, but before I
could put it into practice the man slammed his forearm against my neck, pinning
me to the tree. I reached up to poke my fingers in his eyes just as his knife
swung forward in an arc intended to sever the leather straps binding the pouch
to my belt.
I screamed as the knife slashed through the thin gauze and
reached my tender flesh.
Jim yelled something in Latin and lunged at the man, but even
as I struggled to disarm him, he cut the thongs to the pouch and bounded away, a
quicksilver shadow in the woods.
I slumped to the ground, cradling my arm.
"Are you all right?" Jim asked "How bad are you hurt? Should
I go after him?"
"Yes," I answered, rocking with the sharp, burning pain that
snaked up my arm.
"Really?" Jim looked into the dark woods. "You want me to
chase him? Uh . . . he's got a knife, Aisling."
A voice shouted behind Jim.
"Yeah? He also has my amulet, and Uncle Damian isn't going to
forgive and forget if I lose another priceless object. Demon, I order thee to—"
A man loomed up behind him, immediately crouching down next
to me. "You are injured? I smell blood. Allow me to see. I am a healer."
"You can smell blood?" I asked, momentarily disoriented by
the man who bent over my arm. All thoughts of the amulet evaporated as he lifted
his head and his silver eyes laughed into mine.
"Yes, I can. It is not a bad injury. I believe no muscles or
tendons were severed—"
"You're a dragon," I interrupted, noticing the slightly
elongated pupils. His skin was a warm caramel color, his long hair pulled back
in a pony tail, but it was his eyes that held my attention. Bright silver, like
illuminated mercury, they glinted through the darkening shadows, exotically
tilted, full of secrets and mysteries.
"Yes, I am. How perspicacious of you. I am Gabriel Tauhou. I
have the honor of being the wyvern of the silver dragons. And you"—he brushed
aside a ruffle of my blouse, exposing the brand on my collarbone that Drake had
left the month before—"you are a wyvern's mate."
"Just what we need—another wyvern," Jim drawled, sitting down
next to me, giving Gabriel a piercing glare, "Look, she's been hurt, OK? Why
don't you get on with the healer thing and stop flirting with her? She's got
enough to deal with without you, too."
As much pain as I was in, I had to admit Jim's protective
stance warmed my heart a little bit.
Gabriel's finger traced the circle pattern of Drake's brand.
"This is the symbol of the wyvern of the green dragons. You are Drake Vireo's
mate?"
"Not necessarily," I started to say, wanting to refute
anything to do with the handsome, arrogant man who had the tendency to literally
haunt my dreams when he was so inclined.
Gabriel's blinding smile stopped me. "Ah, good. You are
versed in dragon lore. Then you know that a wyvern's mate is subject to the laws
of lusus naturae."
"Huh?"
"Lusus naturae. It is Latin for 'whim of nature.'" His
fingers caressed my jaw as he pushed a curl off my face. "It simply means that a
wyvern may challenge another for the right to a mate."
"You have got to be kidding!" I gasped, my brain grinding to
a halt at the idea of what it was he was saying,
Jim heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Oh, great, now you're going
to be into threesomes. I can't wait to tell Drake about that."
"The amulet!" I shouted, glaring at Jim before I pushed my
way out of Gabriel's near embrace.
"You have lost an amulet?" he asked, looking around at the
flower beds and the lawn.
"No, the man who stabbed me stole it."
"Ah, I see. It is valuable?"
I opened my mouth to say it was priceless but remembered in
time how dragons reacted to any form of treasure. They were hoarders, acquiring
treasure to be hidden away in their lairs, and even if the amulet had no gold—
which acted more or less like the dragon version of catnip—it was still a very
valuable piece.
"It's valuable to me," I said, choosing my words carefully.
"I'm a courier, and I'm supposed to deliver it to someone here in Budapest. I
have to get it back."
"Sit," he ordered, pushing me back to the ground from which I
had struggled to get to my feet. "I will find this amulet for you."
"But how—?" I knew from the experience of the previous month
that each of the four dragon septs had special skills for which it was known.
Drake and the members of his sept were master thieves, while the blue dragons,
headed by a veritable god of a man named Fiat Blu, were trackers extraordinaire.
But Gabriel had said he was a healer—
"The one who attacked you has your blood on him- I will find
him. But first I will attend to your wound." Gabriel lifted my arm and bent his
head over it. For a second I felt an abnormal fear that he was going to bite me,
but it wasn't his teeth that touched my skin.
His mouth, lips, and tongue caressed the bleeding gash. I
sucked in my breath at the intimate feel of his mouth on my flesh, part of me
disgusted by the thought of what he was doing, another part, a dark, secret
part, strangely intrigued. His breath was hot on my arm, and for an instant I
thought it was dragon fire I felt licking along my skin—but that couldn't be
right. Drake was the only dragon whose fire I could feel.
Gabriel looked up from my arm, a tiny bead of my blood in the
corner of his mouth. His tongue flicked out to suck it into his mouth, his eyes
smiling at me as he leaped to his feet and quickly scented the air. Then he was
off with the grace of a very male, very sexy gazelle.
"Holy cow," I said, my breath made uneven by the experience
of his type of healing.
"I'm going to tell Drake that you have a new boyfriend." Jim
said, watching me with unreadable dark eyes. "One who likes to suck owies. I'm a
demon and even I think that's just gross."
I looked down at my arm. The long cut was still red, but it
had closed and stopped bleeding, as if there was something in Gabriel's saliva
that promoted healing. "You say anything to Drake at all, and I swear we'll go
to the neutering clinic, Have you ever heard of a dragon who can heal?"
"Sure, dragon spit is well known for its healing properties."
I glanced up at Jim, puzzled by the sarcastic tone in its voice. "Not! Dragons
aren't healers, Aisling. They take, they don't give. You know that."
"Well, this dragon has something going for him, because not
only is the pain gone but the cut is closed. Come on. Maybe you can track the
guy who cut me. Or Gabriel. I need that amulet back, and as much as I appreciate
Gabriel's first-aid skills, I don't trust him where treasure is concerned."
We ran through the copse of trees, emerging on the other side
to find ourselves in a rock garden filled with exotic plants and a little
waterfall that splashed prettily down a mossy cliff.
"Oh, man, now I gotta pee," Jim complained as we ran by the
waterfall to the stretch of lawn beyond it.
"You do not. It's just a psychological thing. Do you smell
either Gabriel or the guy who did the slash and dash?"
"What do I look like, a bloodhound? I'm a Newfoundland! We're
water dogs. We don't do the tracking thing!"
We ran up to the outer edges of a church ruin. Beyond it was
an open-air theater. I stopped next to a marble plaque marking the site of an
ancient convent, clutching it for a moment as I caught my breath. Jim panted
beside me, its tongue hanging a good six inches out of its mouth.
"This is ridiculous. This island is something like a mile and
a half long and who knows how wide. We'll never be able to find them if you
can't track them."