Maya let us in. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll make us dinner.”
I looked into the bathroom mirror and bit back a scream. My face was drained of color and streaked with dirt from crawling across the roof. My shirt was ripped and just as dirty. My eyes, though, terrified me. An ice green glint glowed out at me before receding to my usual dark brown.
My hands shook as I washed my face and dried myself with Maya’s clean towels. When I walked out, Maya was cooking something that smelled good. She pointed with a spatula at a pile of shirts on the couch and told me to pick one out.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked her as I stripped off my top and pulled on a black one with a spangled design. It was a little big for me but at least clean and whole. “When I first moved here, you hated me.”
“With good reason. You can be a true bitch, Janet. But you also saved my ass up in Las Vegas, and you’re fun to party with.”
“Good for me.”
“Shut up and eat. I only know how to cook Mexican food, so that’s what you’re getting. My mother wouldn’t teach me anything else.”
“I like Mexican.”
“That’s good.”
The plate she put in front of me tempted me in spite of my mood. She hadn’t made your average tacos or burritos but a savory meat in a thick sauce ladled over a couple of fresh corn tortillas. A corn and rice pilaf had been piled beside it. I dug in, my eyes watering from the chiles, my mouth very happy.
“You should open a restaurant,” I said.
“No way. I like working with wiring because it doesn’t complain. People in restaurants do. All the time, about everything.”
True. I’d already encountered people who couldn’t be happy with anything in my hotel, no matter how hard I tried.
I was shoveling in the last mouthful, thinking I could fall in love with Maya, when she glanced sharply out of the window. “Who the hell is that?”
I whirled, nearly sending my plate to the floor. A long black limousine had stopped in the street outside, an incongruous vehicle in this neighborhood of pickups and modest family sedans.
A dark-haired man emerged from the front passenger side and opened the back door of the limo. Another dark man got out, this one with sleek black hair in a ponytail that glittered under the streetlight. He wore a long leather coat, and I saw lines of tattoos snaking around his neck to disappear into his shirt. His aura bore sparks of fire, as did the aura of the similarly dressed men behind him.
My heart squeezed into a tiny ball. “Maya, you should get out of here.”
“Why? Who are they?”
Dragons. Here to slay me? But I was under protection as Mick’s mate, wasn’t I? Which only lasted as long as Mick was alive, I remembered. The fine aftertaste of Maya’s food turned bitter.
Had the dragons bypassed the trial and simply killed Mick? Found him walking alone and decided to take him out to get to me? And where the hell was Colby?
The two tall men in leather dusters kept coming up the walk. The Beneath magic stirred in me, ready for battle.
The first dragon stepped square into Maya’s flowerbed, squashing blossoms, and she was out of the house like a shot. “Hey. Watch what you’re doing!”
The man’s eyes were black dark, like Mick’s when the dragon in him rose to the surface. His ponytail bared his neck, and I saw that the tattoo lines were the ends of sharp wings. He must be inked all down his back, with the edges of the tatts rising up his neck.
“We’re not here for you,” the man said to Maya and flicked his gaze to me. The dragon-man behind him was even taller, his hair shorter, a tattoo flowing up the sides of his neck and over his ears. He looked older than the first man, more regal.
Maya regarded them coldly. “No? Who the hell are you?”
“They’re here for me,” I said.
I stepped out past her to face the first dragon, who was as tall as Mick. I folded my arms and gazed up at him, trying for the protective look Pamela had assumed while she’d watched over Cassandra.
Maya ducked back inside, and I saw her going for her phone. She’d call the cops, maybe Nash. The first dragon glanced in, raised his hand, and the phone burst into flame. Maya shrieked.
“Leave her alone,” I said in a hard voice. “What do you want?”
“For you to come with us,” the first dragon said.
“That’s a line from a bad movie. Why should I?”
“We need to talk about Mick’s trial.”
I went cold, although some relief touched me. If they were talking about the trial, then Mick must still be alive.
“It’s straightforward, isn’t it?” I asked. “You’ve already decided that Mick’s guilty. You only need to decide whether to give him a chance to survive his punishment. His Ordeal, whatever that turns out to be.”
“That has yet to be determined.”
“You’re the dragon council, I take it.”
“He is.” The first man jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the taller dragon. “He wants to meet with you in private. It’s perfectly within dragon law.”
“I’m so relieved.” Like hell I was going to get into a car with them. “We can have our little meeting right here.”
“No.” The taller man spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, with undertones of darkness, far richer and fuller than the first man’s. He was much older, I guessed, with time to develop a timbre like that. “We will speak in a place of my choosing.”
“What guarantee do I have that I’ll make it back from this place of your choosing?”
His flunky answered me. “You are protected under dragon law. You are mated to a dragon, and you are a key witness. Until the trial, you are untouchable.”
“And after it?”
The man raised his shoulders in a leather-clad shrug. “That remains to be seen.”
“You know how to make a girl feel good.”
I thought the corners of the councilman’s mouth twitched, but I couldn’t be sure. The flunky didn’t look amused. “You can come with us voluntarily, or we can force you.”
“I thought you just said I was untouchable.”
He gave me a brief nod. “We are not allowed to kill you. But we can kidnap you if we later release you unharmed, especially if it might be for your own good.”
“Now I know you’re dragons. You have that twisted dragon logic.”
Maya was on the porch again, looking scared but scowling. “You’re not leaving with them, Janet.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, deciding. “I want to hear what they have to say.”
I didn’t trust them, but I did know by now that dragons fell down and worshipped dragon law and honor. I also knew that my Beneath magic was up to taking them if they got cocky. I kept that thought out of the front of my head, in case they could sense it somehow, but the magic was amused.
I was so tired of thinking of my magic as a separate entity. I wanted to conquer it or get rid of it. I didn’t like it talking to me.
The councilman started walking back to the car. The flunky gestured me to precede him. I made them wait to fetch my coat, and the flunky insisted Maya bring it to me.
“Janet,” Maya said as she handed me my warm leather jacket.
I shrugged it on. “Go to the Magellan Inn and ask for Colby. Tell him what I’m doing.”
“Putting your trust in Colby is foolish,” the flunky said.
“Yes, well, he’s a dragon, and I figure at least he’ll know where you’ve taken me. And how to find me if I don’t come out.”
Now the flunky looked annoyed. I didn’t like going with them, but I wanted to pick their brains as much as they wanted to pick mine.
“Tell him,” I said to Maya.
She nodded, and I walked down the drive ahead of the flunky. The chauffeur’s assistant had the back door open, a portal to a dark, plush interior.
The councilman entered the car. The flunky stood back and waited for me to get in. Such a gentleman. I had one foot in the door when something wrapped around me from behind and yanked me out again. Not a hand, not an arm, a band of white magic that tried to squeeze me in two.
I heard shouting—the flunky, the chauffeur who’d jumped out of the car, his assistant, Maya. The band of light lifted me high and then dropped me.
I landed at the feet of Jim Mohan, who did not look good. His face and arms were covered with abrasions and bruises from the club having fallen on him. Healing abrasions—which was weird. His wounds had healed even more than mine had, and I’d done healing spells on myself.
I got speedily to my feet. The dragons rushed us, and the flunky grabbed me by the arms to haul me away from Jim.
“No!” Jim shouted. “Leave her alone!”
The flunky dragged me away. The chauffeur and his assistant pulled out pistols. I realized with a jolt that those two weren’t dragons—they were as human as Maya.
I had no idea whether bullets would kill Jim or just piss him off. He’d been resurrected, but he could obviously be hurt. Could he be killed again by human weapons?
The flunky shoved me against the car and moved to Jim, hands flaming. The councilman himself came behind him.
If Jim ignored the pistols, he didn’t ignore the dragon fire. He swung to face the two dragons, hands raised.
“Don’t attack him!” I yelled at the dragons. “Get in your damn car, and get out of here!”
They didn’t listen to me. Of course not. Stubborn, arrogant dragons. The councilman and flunky went for him, flames streaming from their hands, tattoos glowing under their clothes.
It happened so fast, I couldn’t tell how he did it. One moment the two dragons were advancing, ready to burn Jim to a cinder. The next, the dragon councilman rose into the air and started to scream.
His body cracked straight down the middle. Crimson blood sprayed over me like water, the councilman’s scream died to a gurgle, and his body fell, ripped inside out to land on Maya’s pristine front lawn.
Eighteen
The flunky let his flame die and stared at the councilman in horror. The chauffeur and assistant started unloading their guns into Jim. Jim flinched from the impact of bullets, but he didn’t fall, didn’t die.
I grabbed at the magic I felt dancing in my body and hurled it at Jim. “Stop!”
“No,” he said. “They’ll kill you.”
“Just stop!” I shouted.
The chauffeur’s assistant took advantage of the distraction to plug Jim right in the head. Again, Jim flinched, but he stayed very much alive. He turned, made a slicing motion with his hand, and the chauffeur’s assistant fell to the grass, dead, his body cut in half.
“No!” I screamed myself hoarse.
Jim gave me a wild look. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He turned and ran off into the darkness.
What was left of the councilman lay in a steaming heap, and the chauffeur was bent double, sobbing and puking. Maya had disappeared, the only smart one around here.
The flunky was standing still, his dark eyes wide, the fire under his skin red in the darkness. I grabbed his shoulders, shook him.
“Make him turn into a dragon,” I panted. “Make him turn into a dragon.”
I didn’t even know if that would help. But whenever Mick got badly hurt as a human, he shifted to his dragon form to save himself. I had no way of knowing whether the councilman could still shift, or whether he was already dead and beyond saving.
The flunky nodded. He stripped off his coat and then his shirt, sweat pouring down his face as he hastily got rid of his clothes. Once he was naked, he raised his arms out to his sides and let fire pour out of his hands. The fire wrapped around what was left of the councilman, encasing him like a sheath.
The dragon flunky’s body gleamed with sweat, the tattoo of a full dragon on his back. The tattoo wrapped all the way around his torso, the wings running down his arms; what I’d seen on his neck were the barbed spikes at the bend of the wings.
The tattoo glowed and rippled. It seemed to absorb the flunky’s body into it, until a black dragon, shining in the streetlights, spread real wings and rose on them. The dragon shot into the air, expanding as he went; then he snaked one talon down and scooped up the cocoon of fire. The downdraft of his wings bombarded me with hot air, and then the dragon was rising into the night.
A second dragon swooped out of the desert to meet him, this one so fiery red it glowed with its own light. He wasn’t Mick—Mick was huge and black all over. The dragons exchanged screeches before winging off together over the empty desert. Silence settled on the street, and the breeze stirred the dead man’s coat.
Sirens erupted from both sides of Magellan at once, both the town and county police responding.
I turned shakily toward Maya’s house and found myself staring down the barrel of a semiautomatic. The Beneath magic had left me, vanishing as quickly as it had come. The eyes of the chauffeur over the barrel were human, terrified, and enraged.