The Dragon King and I (18 page)

I didn’t appreciate the baby talk, but I did relax some. Though if things were as simple as she claimed then why the hell did I feel as if I were heading off on a suicide mission?

Wait a minute.

“What do you mean he took care of them all?” I jerked out of her embrace so that I could watch her face work. “There were
thousands
of them. An army. There’s no way one person could have-”

“And yet he did.” she waved my protests away impatiently, and glanced me over. Her nose wrinkled as if she was looking into another toilet bowl full of vomit and she shook her head. “I can’t heal you this time, but the least I can do is make you look less-”

“Like a rape victim?” I supplied.

“Less like the victim of an assault. Your goodies haven’t been violated so I call that a win.”

My Godmother ladies and gentleman. Such an advocate for women’s rights. And sensitive, too. Ignoring my inner brat, Maleficent snapped her fingers. Her magic spiraled around me in a cloud of sparkling purple smoke and when it cleared, I looked down to find myself now dressed in a pair of jeans, sneakers, and a tank top, every bruise, cut, and bite I’d endured in the Market now glaringly, painfully, obvious.

The good news was that not only was I dressed, I was also clean. My skin was no longer sticky with fruit and dried blood. And if the scent of mint was any indication she’d even washed my hair. Hands down, the most useful ability my Godmother had. My brow furrowed as I angled my foot and noted the logo on the side of my new shoes. Mentally, I searched for and found the retail price of my new kicks, and whistled.

“Just in case you need to make a run for it. Trust me. You’re going to need those, too.”

Her smile was big, but her words rang with truth, and my shoulders slumped.

Yeah, that didn’t sound ominous at all.

Chapter Nine

“We love each other like matches in the dark. We don’t talk, we catch fire instead.”

 - Mathias Malzieu, La Mécanique du cœur

A few hours later I once again found myself outside the door of Madam Clara, psychic medium. I’d left Maleficent back at my apartment. She said she’d be heading back home soon anyway since she wouldn’t be able to go to work that night. Having already used up her time quota by coming to help me. I’d been leery about leaving her on her own, but she’d assured me that she had projects that would keep her sufficiently occupied.

“You’re not my only client, dear.”

I’d surprised myself with a little spurt of jealously, but I suppose it should have occurred to me before. If only some of the witches had been conscripted into taking on charges, then of course they’d have to take on more than one just to get to them all.

I shook these musings away and engaged in a mandatory staring match with the door knocker. It leered at me, and making a small sound of disgust I rapped sharply on the front door, and waited. For the first time, I had to knock more than once and even then it was a good five minutes before Flo answered the door.

While she was still dressed as impeccably as ever there was a distinct lack of luster to her face. My fingers, which had tightened around the handle of the platter in my hand, relaxed as I saw how…drawn she looked. Her eyes, when they met my own, were clear enough, but there were deep bags beneath them that spoke of sleepless nights. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her nose.

“Yes?”

“Um. Hi.”

Annoyance flickered to life in her eyes and she went to close the door on me. I stopped her with my free hand, surprised at how easy it was to do. She sighed and her shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

“What do you want?”

I squished the urge to offer her some sinus medicine or something, and lifted the platter.

“I need you to lift the veil for me. Mal
—
Seraphim says that I can get in easier now that I have something from that plane.”

Flo scowled at me, bad temper at full throttle, before yanking the door open wider and shuffling away. Taking this as an invitation to follow, I threw the door knocker a smug look, and did so. We walked past the barista room and deeper into the recesses of the house.

“How come no one’s ever here. You can’t be the only employee.”

She groaned, as if conversation with me was the last thing she felt like doing. Flo must have known that I would just keep pestering her because she answered despite her reluctance to do so.

“I’m not the only one here. I’m just the only one you can see and vice versa.”

Whoa. “Really?”

“A
geas
from Clarabell amounts to a banning. As far as either of you are concerned the other doesn’t exist. The rule also applies to anyone under her care.”

Probably to prevent me from taking advantage of them in a bid for Clarabell’s attention.

“You can see me.”

“It’s my job to see you.” she sent me the evil eye over her shoulder; “I had no idea you’d be gracing us with your presence quite so often, however. Here we are.”

She stopped in front of an archway leading into a cavernous room that had been transformed into a library. There was no way this place looked this big from the outside, but I guessed that that had more than a little to do with magic.

I moved to step through the archway but the goblin woman grabbed me by the belt loop on my pants and pulled me back. She shook her head without looking at me, and reached forward with her free hand to brush her thumb across the surface of the platter. Then, as if touching something delicate, she pressed her thumb into the space beneath the archway and stepped back, pulling me with her.

The change was instantaneous. In the blink of an eye the view of the library morphed into that of a barren wasteland. It was so hot on the other side that the sun looked white and the blackened earth was cracked like a jigsaw puzzle. The emptiness stretched out into the horizon and I quailed at the thought of going in there.

Beside me Flo was sneezing violently into her handkerchief, her slim body wracked by the force of each one.

“Are you all right?”

“Goblin fruit.” She got out between bouts of sneezing. “Allergic.”

Which is probably why she didn’t live beyond the veil with the rest of her kind, and why she’d disappeared soon after stepping foot there. For the first time I got a whiff of something. It was carried along on the dry blasts of heat coming from the other side of the archway and my stomach grumbled.

Baking fruit. I’m not sure if it had been outside forces or if this was just how the world looked at high noon, but the heat in conjunction with the Goblins’ wares reminded me of cherry turnovers, apple pies, peach cobbler, and a host of other goodies that left my mouth watering. When a miserably sick Flo indicated that I step through, I didn’t even hesitate; and all too soon I found myself trapped, once again, on the other side of the veil.

* * * *

I walked for an eternity.

I died ten times over and every time I opened my eyes, Hell looked exactly the way I’d left it. It would have been comforting if it hadn’t been so hot. I would have cried, if the tears didn’t scald my cheeks as they fell.

Time stretched on in slow, painful increments. My skin dried and cracked, my lips peeled, and I’d stopped sweating a long time ago, my body too exhausted to produce even that. Eventually it became harder and harder to walk, and I realized that in addition to exhaustion, the bottom of my tennis shoes were beginning to melt, the material sticking to the cracked ground and slowing me down even further as if I were swimming through tar.

Eventually, the shoes melted all the way through and I let them fall from my feet without a backward glance. The feel of the ground eating through the bottom of my feet was excruciating but I numbed to the pain too quickly for comfort. I smelled burning meat, and morbidly enough, my stomach growled. I should have had lunch or something beforehand.

The ground began to slope upwards on me, the incline so sharp that the only way I was able to make it to the top was on my hands and knees. When I cleared the rise and looked down, the sea of bone glinted harshly beneath the blazing light of the sun.

The goblins were all dead.

The knowledge had come to me the second I’d stepped across but it wasn’t until this moment that I knew for sure. The slope on the other side of the hill was a lot gentler so it was easy enough for me to get down and all too soon I found myself standing at the edge of the Goblins’ final resting place.

I stared down into the gaping black holes of what used to be a Goblin’s eyes and shivered. My mind felt blank, all of me dried up and empty, but something about the evidence of so many lost was making the wheels start turning again.

I would rather have stayed numb.

Ignoring the way my vision dipped and swayed, I began making my way across the bone yard. In a way I suppose I wasn’t surprised by what I’d found. I’d gotten the impression that Sam had a very ‘them or me’ sort of mentality. There was only one thing left alive in this wasteland. One thing. And I was supposed to bring it back home? As I stepped around the melted bones of goblin merchants, I wasn’t so sure doing so would be a good idea. Whatever could do something like this…

How did I know I could really trust Sam? Had he always been capable of this level of destruction or had he really run out of time? When the beast dropped down out of the sky, my only warning came in the form of momentary relief from the heat as a shadow blocked out the sun. Other than that I didn’t hear it, I didn’t sense any danger, and I certainly didn’t smell it despite the all too distinctive scent of sulfur.

When it landed in front of me, it shook the ground, lifted me off my feet and had the skeletons around me levitating a few feet in the air before they crashed back down. Something, the edge of a bone or a rock, stabbed into the back of my forearm and I tried to make some sort of noise to express the pain, but my throat was to dry to let me. Instead I fought of a wave of dizziness and tried not to pass out. I’ve never dealt with a dragon before, but I somehow doubted that it’d just walk away from unconscious prey.

But strangely enough, it didn’t attack me. At least not right off. Instead we simply stared at one another. The stillness gave me a chance to investigate it, to catalogue the sight of it in my mind. I never thought I’d find a giant, fire breathing, lizard beautiful but that was the only way to describe it.

The armor that covered its body looked man-made. Beaten bronze, expertly engraved and fitted to protect the giant beast from snout to rigged tail. The armor shone brilliantly beneath the sunlight as the creature stared down at me. The armor not only acted as protection but as a containment, because beneath its weight wasn’t flesh and blood, but flame. It shimmered and stretched, reaching past the constricting armor to lash out into the empty air. Like the rays of the sun, though this particular star wasn’t red and gold, but toned like the most priceless of gems. Vibrant greens, deep yellows, burnt oranges, and violent reds combined with soothing tones of brown, topaz, and iridescent pearls.

I could see how ancient men would have confused the flame as skin from a distance. The way they moved and rippled with the beasts every breath left no doubt in my mind that they had life and sustenance of their own.

Awed and shaking, mind no longer blank in any sense of the word, I met Sam’s eyes. They were jet black. Polished obsidian that held a human’s intelligence if not an ounce of compassion. My hand lifted of its own accord and I found myself reaching for him. Wanting desperately to touch the armor plated snout, so see if it felt as cool to the touch as it looked.

He was the size of my mother’s estate, but at the sight of me walking towards him on legs as weak as a newborn calf’s, it lowered itself to the ground like some giant, man-eating, cat. He tracked my movements warily, tail whipping along the dirt restlessly as it waited for…for something.

I was less than a yard away when Sam angled his head to one side and a stray patch of sunlight broke free from his influence to ricochet off the surface of the platter I held. To be honest, I’d forgotten about the damn thing, and at the sight of it Sam’s snarled.

I realized that he must recognize the platter as goblin made and would have thrown it away from me, but it was too late for that. I caught of glimpse of his tongue, ruby made living flesh, and teeth chiseled from diamonds, before his back arched and he took a deep breath.

Then he exhaled, and just like that my world was engulfed in flame.

* * * *

It was reflex that made me lift the platter like a shield. I didn’t expect it to save me, and was stumped when it did more than simply melt away in my hands. It sent the dragon flame spreading around me as if I were a rock in the middle of a streambed. I felt the force of the flames being leveled on me but I didn’t feel them, simply watched them wash around me like the trailing ends of a comet.

I had a moment where I was so, I don’t know, hypnotized by the beauty of it all, that I almost reached out to touch it. But sight of it melting a skeleton not five feet away from me as if it were made of wax was a stark reminder of my situation.

So instead I hunkered down and held on to my shield grimly. Whatever magic had been worked into the steel must have been impressive indeed, but it could only stand up to an all out assault for so long. The oval ends of it began to round out, and against the palms of my hand I could feel it slowly, slowly, beginning to heat. If I planned on making it out of here in one piece, or any piece for that matter, then I needed to do something drastic.