Dragon Bound

TWO

Pia spent the next hour trekking across town. She witnessed how the city transformed after that unholy sound, as if it were a painting some artist smeared with sinister streaks of dark colors. Stress carved itself into the expressions of the people she passed on the street. Anger erupted in shouted confrontations, and clumps of uniformed policemen appeared. Pedestrians moved with greater urgency. Smaller shops and kiosks put out CLOSED signs and locked their doors.

In normal circumstances she would have taken the subway, but as ugly as the mood had turned on the streets, she wasn’t about to risk getting trapped underground. At last she stood in front of the shithead’s door.

The tenement where he lived was in miserable condition. She breathed through her mouth and tried to ignore the used condom on the floor of the stairwell and the baby squalling two apartments down. After she did this one last thing and she stopped by work to say good-bye to Quentin, she was so out of here.

The door yanked open. Her fist was moving before she had fully laid eyes on him. He doubled over as she punched him in the stomach.

He wheezed and coughed. “Fuck, bitch!”

“Ow!” She shook open her fist. Thumb outside, not inside, dummy.

He straightened and glared at her as he rubbed his abdomen. Then he started to smile. “You did it, didn’t you? You actually, really did it.”

“Like you gave me a choice,” she snapped. She shoved at his shoulder. It knocked him back enough so she could stalk inside and slam the door shut.

His smile turned into a gleeful laugh. He fist-pumped the air. “Yes!”

Pia regarded him, her gaze bitter. Shithead, aka Keith Hollins, had amiable good looks with shaggy dishwater blond hair and a surfer’s body. His cocky grin had women flocking to him like flies to honey.

She had been one of those flies once. Then disillusionment had set in. She had thought him kind when he was charming. She had taken his caressing manner for real affection and called him boyish when the truth was he was selfish to the bone. He was Captain Fantastic in his own mind. He created the fiction that he was a risk taker when in reality he was a gambling addict.

She had broken up with him a few months back. Then just last week his betrayal had punched her in the teeth, but it felt like much longer.

Pia had been so lonely since her mother died six years ago. There was not another single creature who knew her for who and what she was. Only her mother had known. Her mother had loved her so much she had devoted her life to safeguarding Pia’s welfare and safety. She had raised her daughter with a fanatical attention to secrecy and with every protection spell she could muster or buy.

Then Pia had thrown away almost everything her mom had taught her for a sweet smile and the promise of some affection. I’m so sorry, Mom, she said in her head. I swear I’ll do better now. She stared at Keith doing a touchdown shimmy. He pretended to slam a football on the ground and grinned at her.

“I know I had that punch comin’ to me. I owed you one. No hard feelings, sugar.”

“Speak for yourself.” Pia’s words were coated in frost. “I’ve all kinds of hard feelings going on over here.”

She dropped her backpack to the floor and glanced around even though she was pretty sure they were alone. Fast-food wrappers littered the thrift store coffee table. A dirty T-shirt draped the back of the couch. Some things never changed.

“Aw, come on, P., there’s no need to be like that. Hey, listen, I know you’re still pissed, but you gotta understand somethin’, sugar. I did this for us.” He reached for her shoulder, but she jerked back before his fingers could touch her. His smile dimmed, but he didn’t lose his easy, caressing manner. “P., you don’t seem to get it. We’re gonna be rich now. Really fucking rich. Why, you can have anything you want. Won’t you like that, darlin’?”

Keith was the one who didn’t get it. The dimwit didn’t realize he was collateral damage. He had constructed this fantasy world in which he was a player while his gambling debts grew worse, and he fell more and more under the control of his business associates.

Those “associates” were shadowy connections a couple times removed from Keith’s bookie. She imagined them as a cackle of hyenas gathering around their prey with languid purpose. Keith was lunch, but they had decided to play with their food before the kill.

She didn’t know who his contacts were and she didn’t want to. It was awful enough that she knew there was real Power somewhere up that food chain. Human or Elven, Wyr or Fae, it didn’t matter. Something nasty had turned its attention this way. It had enough magic and muscle to take on one of the premiere Powers of the world.

And here was Captain Fantastic, a mere human with not a single spark of Power in him and not a lick of sense, either. The fact that she had ever hooked up with him, even for a few months, would keep her humble forever.

She told him, “You sound like the dialogue from a bad movie.”

Keith’s flirtatious manner fell away and he glared at her. “Yeah? Well, fuck you too.”

“And it goes on,” she sighed. A headache had begun to pulse in her sinuses. “Look, let’s get this over with. Your handlers wanted me to steal something from Cuelebre—”

“I bet my associates that I could get them anything from anywhere,” Keith sneered. “And they suggested something from Cuelebre.”

Today had been a long bad day on top of a long bad week. It had started the moment Keith had put an object of Power in her hand and told her she was going to find Cuelebre’s lair with it. The shock still clung as she remembered the pulse of serious magic that had seared her hand.

The feeling was compounded by a rush of terror for whoever, or whatever, had the kind of mojo to create that artifact and hand it to Keith.

That was sure a special moment, when she discovered Keith had betrayed her. When she realized that, between Cuelebre and the cackle of hyenas, she was screwed. If she stole from Cuelebre, she was dead. If she didn’t, she had no doubt Keith would tell his hyenas, and she was still dead. Rock, shake hands with hard place.

Having the charm sit in her hand was like holding on to a cluster bomb. The design had been deceptively simple. It had felt like a finding charm with a onetime activation, but it had had the Power to slice through all of Cuelebre’s protections.

Her breath shook as she remembered the terrible walk she had taken earlier that day, through an innocent sunlit city park where coffee-drinking adults watched over shrieking children as they threw sand and pelted from the merry-go-round to the jungle gym.

The sounds of traffic and barking dogs had punctuated the blistering pain in her hand, as the charm’s activated Power flared and drew her along a flower-lined path to an anonymous, utterly forgettable rusted metal maintenance door set into a park viaduct. The charm drew a thin shimmering path that led through an invisible mist of cloaking and aversion spells, which had her convinced with increasing urgency that she was lost, mistaken, cursed, trapped in her worst nightmare, in mortal danger, damned for all eternity—

Pia’s fragile control snapped. She slapped Keith’s chest with both flattened hands, driving him backward a few feet. “You blackmailed me into stealing from a dragon, you asshole!” she shouted. She pushed him again and he staggered back. “I trusted you with my secrets.” Although not all of them, thank the gracious Powers, not all. She’d somehow retained a few last scraps of self-preservation. “I thought we loved each other. God, what a wretched joke. I could crawl under a rock and die from embarrassment, except you. Are. Not. Worth it.”

Her last shove knocked Keith into a wall. The look on his face would have been comical if she’d had a sense of humor left.

His astonishment turned ugly. His hands shot out faster than she expected. He shoved her back so hard she tripped and almost fell. “Well, I must have done a good goddamn job of faking it,” he snarled. “Because you’ve got to be the most miserable fuck I’ve ever had.”

Pia never knew until that moment that she was capable of killing someone. Her hands curled into claws. “I am an excellent fuck,” she hissed. “I am the best thing that ever happened to your sorry, deluded, preejaculating ass. You just didn’t have the good taste to recognize it. And you know what? Now I don’t even know why I put up with you. I had a better sex life with five minutes and my hand in a hot shower.”

Captain Fantastic’s face turned puce. She stared. She’d never seen that color on a person before. He cocked back his arm as if to hit her.

“You do that and you never get what you want. Plus you lose a hand.” The frost in her voice turned to an ice pick. He froze. The ruthless stranger that had taken over her body brought her up nose to nose with him. “Go ahead,” she said, settling into a soft and even tone. “Amputation might be a little therapeutic right now.”

She stared him down until he dropped his hand and took a half step back. The move wasn’t much, but it meant a lot to her battered pride. In a contest of wills she’d pinned him to the mat.

“Let’s get this over with,” he snapped.

“About time.” She dug into her jeans and gave him a folded piece of paper. “You get what I stole when you read that out loud.”

“What?” He gave her a blank look. It was clear things had taken a turn beyond his comprehension. As a nonmagical human he couldn’t feel how the paper glowed with Power from the binding spell.

He unfolded it and scanned the contents, and his face contorted again with rage. He dropped the paper like it was on fire. “Oh no, bitch. This isn’t gonna fuckin’ happen. You’re gonna give me what you took and give it to me NOW!” He lunged for her backpack. She took several quick steps back, letting him rifle through the contents. Wallet, tennis shoes, the half-empty bottle of water and her iPod spilled onto the floor.

He made an incoherent strangled noise and rounded on her. She danced back another step and kept on her toes, both empty hands held up as she gave him a mocking smile.

“Where is it!” Spittle flew. “What did you take? Where did you hide it? FUCK!”

“You said it didn’t matter,” she said. As Keith advanced on her, she kept moving in counterpart, keeping a few feet between them. “You said your keepers—”

“Associates!” he roared, fisting his hands.

“—didn’t care what I took as long as it was from Cuelebre, since they had the means to verify the take. I suppose that means they can spell it somehow to prove it really is from him.” The back of her shin came in contact with the coffee table. She gathered herself and sprang backward as Keith made a lunge for her. She put a lot of push into her jump and landed in a crouch on the couch as Keith stumbled into the table. “And you know what?” she said. “I don’t give a damn, except for one thing.”

Pia paused and straightened. She bounced a little as Keith scrambled back to his feet. His good surfer looks had twisted into an expression of hate.

She wondered if it would occur to him that her backward jump had been too far and high for a normal human woman to make, but she supposed none of that mattered anymore.

“The thing about blackmail is it never stops at just one payment. All the TV shows say so, anyway,” she said. She didn’t know she had any more disappointment left until her stomach sank at the cunning expression that flashed in Keith’s eyes. “Did you think I wouldn’t guess you meant to keep using me? After all, why would you stop at just one theft? It was always going to be like, ‘Hey, Pia, I’ll keep quiet about you if you’ll do just one more little thing for me.’ Wasn’t it?”

His top lip curled. “We could have been a real partnership.”

He had the gall to sound bitter. Unbelievable. She dropped her flippant tone and became serious. “Either you would keep blackmailing me, or sooner or later—if you haven’t already—you would tell your owners about me. Or”—she held up a finger—“how about this scenario? You’re going to give them what I stole, which will prove to them you were doing more than just idle boasting. It’s going to make them take you seriously.”

His mouth tightened. “They already take me seriously, bitch.”

“Riiight.” She continued, “They probably promised to wipe out all your gambling debts if you could pull off the theft. Maybe they said they’d give you a good chunk of cash as well. You’re hoping this will save your miserable hide. Then they’ll finally sit up and give you the kind of attention you deserve. They’ll have to take you as a real player and not some chump up to his ears in bad debt. But don’t you see—if that happens, they’re also going to get seriously interested in how you pulled it off. They’re going to want to ask you a lot of questions.”

The anger faded from Keith’s face as what she said sank in. “It wasn’t going to be like that,” he said. “I didn’t tell them hardly anything about you.”

Hallelujah, it looked like he was turning thoughtful. Or what passed for thoughtfulness, for him. She relaxed enough to step off the couch and sit down. “You know, I think I believe you on that,” she said. “At least I think you believe it. But what you ‘hardly didn’t tell’ was already too much.”

She could see how his thought process would have gone. He was going to retain all the power. He would keep her strung along in a pseudo-partnership where he held all the strings and got her to do whatever he wanted. His “associates” were going to be admiring and respectful. He probably thought he would end up being a real broker for them too and get them whatever they wanted for exorbitant fees. Then Keith was going to get to live the good life.

“Okay,” she said, scraping at the dregs of her flagging energy to adopt a brisk attitude. She braced her hands on her thighs. “We have to step outside of Keith’s fantasy land now. Here’s how it’s going to be. You swore you would keep what I said in confidence. This is all about keeping a dishonest man honest. You blackmailed me, so now I’m blackmailing you, because however you look at the scenarios I just painted, I’d be screwed.”

He shook his head and said, “No, you wouldn’t, P. All you gotta do is work with me. Why can’t you just fuckin’ see that?”

“Because I’m not like you, Keith,” she snapped. “And damage control is the only way I have a remote chance of getting out of this nightmare.”

“I can’t believe you would just walk away.” He looked as petulant as a little boy.

“I walked away a couple of months ago,” she reminded him. “You just wouldn’t stay gone. Now pick up that piece of paper and swear the binding oath, or I’m leaving and you’re never going to get what I stole. That would mean you’ll have to renegotiate a different payment plan with those ‘associates’ of yours on the money you owe them. Wouldn’t it?”

She didn’t have to say how those different payment options would go. She could tell he knew his life was on the line. Keith regarded her, his mouth turning down at the corners. “You know, it could have been good.”

She shook her head. “Only in your dreams, cowboy.”

He walked over to the spell and picked it up, reluctance in every step. She held her silence as he paused one last time. She could tell he was trying to think of a way to get out of reading it. But there was nothing he could do, and they both knew it.

He read it in a fast, ill-tempered tone. “I, Keith Hollins, hereby swear never to talk about Pia or her secrets in any way, either directly or by inference or silence, or I will lose my ability to speak and suffer unremitting physical pain for the rest of my life.”

He gave a shout as the magic activated. The paper burst into flame. Pia sighed as a weight lifted, just a little, from her shoulders. She went to stuff her things into her backpack.

Keith said, “Okay, I did what you wanted. Now we go to pick up what you stole. What is it—a gem, a piece of jewelry? It had to be something you could carry.” Avarice crept back into his eyes. “Where did you hide it?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t hide it anywhere.”

“What?” Realization dawned. He bared his teeth like a feral dog. “You had it on you the whole time.”

She drew a folded linen handkerchief from her jeans pocket and handed it to him. He tore it open as she shouldered her backpack. She walked out the door as the swearing began.

“Oh, fuck me. You stole a goddamn PENNY!”

“Bye, baby,” she said. She walked away. The hall misted in front of her. She gritted her teeth until pain shot through her jaw. She would not spill one more tear for that loser.

He shouted after her, “What is a dragon doing with a penny in his hoard? How do I know this goddamn penny is even his?”

Well, there was a question.

She thought about reminding him his “associates” could verify a real theft. She thought about telling him she knew a fake would have gotten him killed, but the poor dumb schmuck was doomed anyway.

Either Cuelebre would find and kill him, or sooner or later he would piss off one of his “associates.” They would want to know how he got hold of Cuelebre’s property. And now Keith wasn’t going to be able to tell them. How awkward was that.

Then she thought of telling him about her own stupidity since it hadn’t occurred to her to try to pass on a fake to him. Despite a few unusual abilities, Pia didn’t have a larcenous bone in her body. She couldn’t think with the cunning of a criminal.

Besides, she hadn’t dared to do anything but the job once she had realized real Power moved in the shadows behind him. Something was brewing. It was bigger and worse than anything Keith could imagine or she would want to. It smelled dark like assassination or war. She wanted to run as far and as fast as she could away from it.

Never in a million years would she have imagined finding a jar of pennies amid all that blinding treasure in Cuelebre’s lair, or that “take a penny, leave a penny” would come to mind. Everybody did it at gas stations. Why the hell not.

She thought of a whole conversation she could have had with him. Instead she shook her head. It was past time to leave.

“You’ll be sorry!” he shouted at her. “You’ll never find anyone else that will put up with all your bullshit!”

She gave him her middle finger and kept walking.

Alow-level panic continued to urge Pia to run. After several lip-chewing minutes, she decided not to return to her apartment. The difficulty of the decision surprised her. She didn’t own many things that mattered. Her furniture was just furniture, but she did have a few mementos from her mother and she was fond of some of her clothes. Aside from possessions, the real wrench was breaking from the continuity of what home she did have.

Don’t let yourself get too attached to people, places or things, her mother had said. You have to be able to leave everything behind.

Be prepared to run on a moment’s notice.

The definition of their lives had hinged on this. Pia’s mother had kept stashes of cash and different identities for them in a half-dozen places throughout the city. Pia had memorized public transportation routes, lock combinations and safety deposit numbers for all the locations by the time she was six years old. They’d had regular escape-from-New-York drills where she would go through the routes and get access to the documents and cash while her mother followed and observed. The picture IDs got updated as Pia had grown older.

Still, while Pia had nodded and said she understood, the events of last week showed just how much she hadn’t really understood or internalized things. Her mother had died when Pia was nineteen. Now, at twenty-five, she was beginning to realize how sloppy her behavior had become.

It wasn’t just her monumental foolishness at trusting Keith. She had kept up with the regular self-defense and martial arts classes, but she had fallen out of the habit of taking them seriously. Instead she treated them like they were for exercise and entertainment. Now her mother’s early lessons were coming back to haunt her. She only hoped she would survive long enough to appreciate what it meant to be sadder and wiser.

Earlier Pia had wiped out one cache to pay the witch for the binding spell. Now she took a circuitous path to Elfie’s bar in south Chelsea. She managed to hit one safety deposit box before banks closed and a second, less conventional cache hidden at her old elementary school playground. She had three new identities and a hundred thousand dollars in unmarked nonsequential bills stuffed in her backpack, along with a renewed paranoia weighing her down.

When she pushed through the front door to Elfie’s bar, she had begun to feel like she was wearing half the dirt in the city. She felt grubby and hollowed out, emotionally drained and physically hungry. Stress had clogged her throat for days and she hadn’t been able to choke down much food.

Elfie’s was open for lunch during the day. Lunch, served from eleven to three, was a supplemental part of the business, as Elfie’s came alive at night. Quentin, the owner, could have turned it into one of New York’s premiere clubs if he had wanted to. He had the charisma and style for it.

Instead Quentin kept a lid on the business getting too big. Elfie’s was known as a good neighborhood club with a steady, loyal clientele of mixed breeds from all three races. They were the city’s very own Island of Misfit Toys, the flotsam and jetsam of societies, not being fully Wyr, Fae, Elven or human and thus not fully belonging anywhere. Some were open about their mixed-breed nature and argued the benefits of living out of the closet. Many, like Pia, hid what they were and pretended to fit in somewhere.

She had worked at Elfie’s since she was twenty-one, when she had pushed through those same front doors and asked Quentin for a job. It was the only place she had found after her mom had died that came close to feeling like home.

She pushed her way to the servers’ end of the bar and sagged against it. The current bartender on duty, Rupert, paused in slinging drinks and looked at her in surprise. He lifted his chin, silently asking if she wanted him to get her a drink.

She shook her head and mouthed at him, “Where’s Quentin?” The bartender shrugged. She nodded, waved at him, and he went back to work.

Air-conditioning licked her overheated skin. Her eyes threatened to water again as she looked around familiar surroundings. She liked bartending at Elfie’s. She liked working for Quentin. She hoped Captain Fantastic and his hyenas rotted in hell.

The after-work crowd cluttered the large trendy space and lined up three deep for drinks. Low-level magic items and Power sparkled through the constant buzz of conversation. Sports channels played on huge HDTVs on the other side of the bar. Most people watched the wide-screen mounted high in one corner of the bar. She looked up to a CNN newscast.

“. . . and in local news, reports continue to roll in on the extent of the damage from this afternoon’s mysterious event. Meanwhile, speculation continues to run rampant as to the cause.” A blonde lacquered woman, one of CNN’s regulars, gave the camera a professional smile. The reporter stood in front of a sidewalk where crews of workmen were sweeping up mountains of broken glass.

The barfly next to Pia said in a voice that sounded like tumbling rocks, “Hey, gorgeous. Weren’t you taking a week of vacation? What are you doing here on your time off?”

She glanced at the hulking, squat half troll perched on a custom-made steel stool. On his feet, he slouched at eight feet tall with pale gray skin and a thatch of black hair that refused to lie down. “Hey, Preston,” she said. “Yeah, I’m still off. I just need to talk to Quentin for a minute.”

Preston was one of Elfie’s regulars. He declared he lived life on his own terms. A freelance computer programmer, he worked from home during the day and warmed the bar stool at Elfie’s at nights. He drank like a fish and occasionally acted as volunteer bouncer when things got dicey. “You know it’s a bad sign when you can’t leave work at work, honey,” he grunted as he slurped down a tall Coke glass filled with scotch.

“It’s a curse,” she agreed. Pulled by an invisible string, her gaze drifted back up to the overhead screen. She watched in equal parts fascination and horror.

“Quentin went somewhere about twenty minutes ago,” the half-breed troll told her. “Said he’d be right back.”

She nodded as the CNN reporter continued. “. . . Meanwhile public officials confirm that the origin of the event occurred some distance from Cuelebre Tower on Fifth Avenue, in a local park near Penn Station. Cuelebre Enterprises has released a press statement claiming responsibility for the unfortunate ‘research and development accident.’ We now go to Thistle Periwinkle, PR director for Cuelebre Enterprises and one of the more famous spokespersons from the Elder Races.” The scene cut to a small figure surrounded by reporters in front of Cuelebre Tower’s polished chrome and marble veneer.

The crowd at the bar broke into two-fingered whistles, scattered stamping and applause. “WOOT!” “Faerie Barbie—yes!” “My GIRL!”

The petite figure wore a pale pink business suit that accentuated an hourglass figure with a tiny waist. Standing close to five foot ten, Pia always felt like a galumphing horse when she saw the faerie on television. Cuelebre’s famous public mouthpiece wore her fluffy lavender hair in a chic flipped-up bob. She wrinkled her tilted nose with a sympathetic smile as a dozen microphones were thrust in her face.

“God, she’s hot.” Preston heaved a sigh. “What I wouldn’t give for a chance at that.”

Pia gave the huge craggy male a quick glance and scratched at the back of her head. The fact that the cutesy faerie was Cuelebre Enterprises’ PR spokesperson always seemed manipulative to her. Look at how nice and friendly and safe we are, oh my.

The faerie held up a delicate hand. As soon as the shouting quieted, she began to speak. “This will be just a brief statement today. We’ll follow up later with more details as we better understand the situation. Cuelebre Enterprises regrets any inconvenience this incident has caused the good people of New York and promises a prompt resolution to any and all property damage claims.” The faerie’s gamine smile died. She looked dead-on into the lens of the camera, her normally merry expression grim. “Rest assured that Cuelebre is using every resource available to conduct a full investigation. He gives you his personal guarantee that what caused today’s incident will be taken care of swiftly and decisively. There will never be another occurrence.”

So much for cutesy. The crowd of reporters around the faerie stilled. In the bar the constant burr of noise died. Even Rupert stopped serving drinks.

Someone nearby said, “Damn. Did that twee little chick just pull off scary?”

On the wide-screen the scene erupted into chaos again before it cut back to the main newsroom at CNN where the blonde reporter said in an urgent tone, “And there you have it, Cuelebre’s public statement, and didn’t it sound like a loaded one, folks.”

The news show went on to do a brief biographical sketch on Cuelebre. There wasn’t much documented about the reclusive multibillionaire. He was universally acknowledged as one of the oldest Powers in the Elder Races and recognized as the iron-fisted ruler of the New York Wyrkind demesne. He was also a major, if shadowy, power player in the Washington political scene.

Close photographs and film segments of him always blurred. The most detail cameras had been able to capture of him was from pictures taken at a distance. The network showed a couple of snapshots of a group of tough-looking, powerful males. In the midst of them towered a massive, dominant figure caught in aggressive midmotion, dark head turned away.

Cuelebre had never made a public acknowledgment of what he was, but news shows loved to speculate. They avoided claiming anything but made much of how his first name, Dragos, really meant “dragon” and Cuelebre was a mythological giant winged serpent.

Even the most marginalized half-breed that crept around the edges of the Elder Races’ politics and society knew what and who Cuelebre was. Every one of them would have felt in their bones the dragon’s roar that had shaken the city to its foundations.

Pia groped for Preston’s scotch. The troll handed the glass to her and she gulped at it. The liquid slid down her parched throat and exploded into a burning fireball in the pit of her stomach. She gasped and handed it back to him.

“I feel you,” said the troll. “They’ve been playing stuff like that all afternoon. Apparently the ‘incident’ ”—he made finger quotes in the air—“broke windows in buildings as far as a mile away and cracked one brownstone down the middle. I heard it myself, and I’m man enough to admit the sound made my stones shrink.”

Panic pulsed through her again. She dropped her hands below the bar to hide how they shook. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, I heard it too.”

“Whoever made him that mad?” Preston shook his head. “I can’t imagine, but it’s gonna make Judgment Day look like a picnic.”

A deep voice said by her ear, “You look like shit.”

Pia almost leaped out of her skin. Then she pressed the heel of her hands against her eyelids until she saw stars before turning to face Quentin.

“That’s my boss,” she said over her shoulder to Preston. “A compliment a minute.”

The troll snorted.

Quentin leaned against the wall by the swinging doors that led to the back. He regarded her with a frown. He was six feet two inches of lean tensile strength and spare graceful features, one of those scary-gorgeous guys that could make the cover of GQ if he had been a model. His dark blond hair, when loose, would fall past broad shoulders, but he normally kept it pulled back in a queue. The severe style emphasized the long bones of his face and piercing blue eyes.

Pia’s emotions took another wild swing. Her lips tightened and she looked down to tug at a backpack strap. “I need to talk to you,” she told him.

“Figured as much.” He straightened from the wall and turned to push open one swinging door.

Pia wiggled her fingers at Preston and walked to the back, Quentin behind her. The door swung into place, muting the bar noise.

She continued through the stockroom and stepped into his spacious office. She stopped in the middle of the room, dropped her backpack and just stood there, her tired mind a blank.

A beautifully proportioned hand came over her shoulder and hooked under her chin. She allowed him to turn her around, though she could only meet his intent gaze for a moment before her own drifted to an area somewhere over his right shoulder. Her chest hurt. She could feel his scrutiny travel down her body.

“I’m leaving town,” she told the area over his shoulder. Her voice sounded choked. “I came to say good-bye.”

Silence stretched and grew thin. Then Quentin put a hand on her forehead and wrapped the other around the back of her neck. Her gaze flew to him, and the concern she saw in his expression almost did her in. He said, “You have a headache.”

Golden warmth began to flow from his hands, infusing her head and spreading through her body, easing pain away. “Oh God, I had no idea you could do that,” she said with a sigh. “That feels so good.”

When her knees sagged, he pulled her into his arms and held her close. “I’m afraid I can’t do anything about the heartache.”

Pia’s mouth trembled. He must have read misery on her face like a road map. She rested her head on his shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to yell at me for not giving you two weeks’ notice?”

“How about I don’t and we’ll just say I did.” He rubbed her back. “Deal?”

She sniffed and nodded, wrapped her arms around his waist.

Quentin’s age was indeterminate. He could have been anywhere from 35 to 135. There was something stern and ageless about him in repose and his aura carried a hint of violent secrets, so Pia had always put her money on older. She’d had a flaming crush on him for years. Usually she enjoyed it. It was a comfortable indulgence, made all the more so because she knew she would never act on it.

There had been a frisson of awareness the moment they laid eyes on each other. Quentin bore a low-level hum of Power that pulled at her bones. She recognized what it was. He carried a glamour that helped him pass for human, which was very similar to hers and the other half-breeds who camouflaged themselves. She wasn’t sure what he was but she guessed part Elven.

She knew he had no idea what she was either, and because he didn’t pry she had tolerated the speculative glances he had given her at the beginning of their acquaintance. One of the things she appreciated most about her relationship with Quentin was that they didn’t ask each other questions that were too personal.

After the first couple of months of wariness, they had relaxed in each other’s company, having come to a tacit understanding. They both knew they had things that were better left hidden in the shadows. They were both content to leave them there.

He began to untangle her ponytail, combing through the strands with long fingers. “Did Keith have anything to do with this? You haven’t seen him since you broke up with him, have you?”

She was shocked at how good it felt to have Quentin stroke her hair. Going boneless, she turned her face into his shirt. He smelled like warm, virile male and green growing places. It felt so good to be held by a strong, steady man. For a few moments she allowed it to banish her chill as she pretended she belonged in his arms and that she was safe. What a dangerous, stupid pretense.

She stiffened and pulled out of his arms. “Yes, I have seen him, and no, it wasn’t romantic. Keith has contributed to this,” she admitted, not willing to lie, not only because she cared for Quentin but also because she had never been able to figure how much truthsense he had. “But it’s complicated.”

Quentin strolled to close his office door. He leaned against it and folded his arms. “Okay, so I’ll get it uncomplicated. Just tell me where he lives.”

Alarm flared. “No! You’ve got to swear to leave him alone.”

Quentin cocked his head, regarding her with far too much acuity for her comfort. “Why? You don’t still care for him, do you?”

“God, no!” She scratched at her head with both hands and then rubbed her face. “That isn’t it at all. Look, you don’t understand because you don’t know anything, I get that. And I can’t explain it to you. I shouldn’t have even come to say good-bye. This was a big mistake.”

She gestured at him to move from the door. He didn’t budge. Only then did she realize his position at the door had been deliberate. She huffed, angrier at herself than she was at him. She had to start getting smarter real fast, or she was going to be barbeque.

Quentin caught and held her gaze, his eyes going stormy. “Just tell me what kind of trouble you’re in,” he said slowly and deliberately. “And I will take care of it. I won’t ask questions you either can’t or don’t want to answer. All you’ve got to do is tell me what’s wrong.”

Just like that her panic was back, only this time it was for him. She leaped forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. “You listen to me.” She tried to shake him but he was too big. The stubbornness in his face made her snarl. “I mean it. You have got to take me seriously. Shit’s happened, and I’m not telling you about it. I’m leaving and that’s that.”

Still watching her, he took her hands from his shoulders, wrapped them together and held them against his lean chest. “Pia, we’ve known each other for four years, and we’ve respected each other’s privacy very well up until now. Whatever else you are, I know you’re a smart cookie—”

“You say that to me with a straight face after I fell for Keith. What a joke,” she said. She tried to jerk her hands away, but he wouldn’t let go.

“You made a stupid mistake. That doesn’t make you stupid,” he said, crushing her hands against his chest until she felt them throb. “I’ve seen you watching how things work around here. Do you think I don’t have contacts or influence? Let me help you.”

She stopped struggling since she wasn’t able to get loose anyway. “I know you have influence. There’s got to be lots of reasons why Elfie’s has such a large loyal clientele of half-breeds and why you talk with so many of them back here in your office. And I’m sure there’s got to be a lot of interesting conversations during your Monday night poker games. Judging from other visits and back door deliveries, I’m also quite sure you have contacts from the Elven demesne, and God only knows who else.”

“Then you should know I can help you,” he said. He seemed to realize he was hurting her and loosened his hold. “All you have to do is let me.”

She rolled her eyes. She knew he was stubborn, but this was ridiculous. “You are still not listening to me. You. Can’t. Help. Me.” She turned her hands over and clasped his. “We’re still not going to talk about it, but just think for a minute, will you? Dragon?” She curled her hands into claws. “Rowr? Me leaving town?”

He whitened as he stared at her. “What did you do?”

She shook her head. At least he was taking her seriously now. “All you need to know is my kind of trouble has got you outclassed and outgunned. Do nothing. Even better—don’t even think of doing anything. And God, Quentin, whatever you do, don’t go after Keith. There’s something really bad and scary out there that thinks it can mess with Cuelebre and get away with it.” Leaning forward, she let her forehead chunk on his chest. “After telling you just that much, now I’m going to have to kill you. Please, listen to me. You’ve come to mean a lot to me and I don’t want to hear you’ve been hurt or killed. Especially when there’s nothing you can do, anyway.”

His arms came around her again and he squeezed her so hard she lost her breath. Then he put his lips next to her ear. “I am not,” he said, “going to let you go on the run without helping you. Deal with it.”

She groaned and pushed against him but he wouldn’t let her go. “What is the matter with you, moron? Do you have a death wish?”

“Oh, shut up. Of course I don’t. I just look after my own,” Quentin said. He let her go and strode to his desk. Surprised, she staggered and pivoted to track him. His mouth thinned into stern lines. She saw again the shadow of something scary darken his face. He flashed her an ironic glance. “Even if she does incomprehensible stupid things and squeals like a girl.”

“Fuck you. You’re not the boss of me. Anymore, anyway,” she muttered. She watched him open his wall safe with swift efficiency.

He pulled out an envelope and handed it to her. “You’re going to go here,” he told her. “To a little place I own.”

His autocratic attitude caused a brief impulse of anger to sputter like an engine ticking over, but she was losing the energy to fight with him. She opened the envelope, pulled out two house keys on a plain metal ring and just looked at him.

“Ask me where it is. Say, ‘Quentin, where is it?’ ” he said. “Go on.”

“Quentin, where is it?” she parroted without expression as she started to throw the keys onto his desk.

“Why, thank you for asking, Pia. How uncharacteristically polite of you.” He strode back and told her, “It’s just outside of Charleston.”

She froze in midtoss. “South Carolina, Charleston? The seat of the Elven Court Charleston, smack in the middle of their demesne?”

Quentin smiled. “That’s the one. The one Cuelebre can’t enter without the Elven High Lord’s permission, or he breaks all kinds of treaties and things get really fucked-up for him.” His smile faded and he searched her gaze. “I don’t know what happens after you get there or what your next step is. This may do nothing more than leverage some Elder politics to buy you some breathing room. But it’s a first step.”

“Yes, it is,” she breathed, staring at the keys. She stuffed them into her pocket and threw her arms around Quentin.

Maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her after all.

Quentin pushed another set of keys on her and walked her out the back to the small parking lot adjacent to the back of the bar. He stopped by an unassuming blue 2003 Honda Civic. “Take it,” he said.

“This is too generous,” she said, her throat clogged. “And you’re too involved as it is.”

He refused to take the keys back. “Look, the car can’t be traced to you, or back to me. I keep half a dozen of these. It’s no big deal. Shut up and get in.”

“I’m going to miss you,” she said.

He gave her a fierce hug. “This isn’t good-bye.”

“Sure it isn’t.” She wrapped her arms around his long waist and held him tight.

“I mean it, Pia. Find a way to keep in touch to let me know you’re okay, or I will come after you.”

She could only hope that something would happen to keep him from making good on that promise. He had to stay out of this mess. She couldn’t bear to think she might have gotten her boss and friend killed because she couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.

He pressed his lips to her forehead and stepped back. “Go on, get out of here.”

She pushed the unlock button on the key ring, threw her backpack in the passenger’s seat and climbed in the car. When she pulled to a stop at the end of the block, she looked in the rearview mirror.

Quentin stood at the edge of the parking lot watching her, his hands on his hips. He waved at her.

There was a break in the traffic. She pulled onto the street and he was gone.

Quentin had said the drive took more or less twelve hours, depending on traffic, from New York to Charleston, most of it on I-95. She wanted to get as much distance between herself and the New York Wyr demesne as she could. After forty minutes, she stopped at a Starbucks and bought a tofu salad sandwich and a large coffee so strong it could have scoured her bathtub clean. Then she drove until she couldn’t see straight.

The demesnes of the Elder Races lay superimposed over the human geographical map. There were seven Elder demesnes in the United States, including the Wyr demesne seated in New York, and the Elven Court that was seated in Charleston.

Each demesne had its own lord or lady who enforced its laws. Some Elder rulers preferred to live at a distance from humankind. They kept their Courts in Other spaces where only those with magical aptitude could discern and cross dimensional boundaries. Others, like Dragos, lived in the human realm.

She wasn’t clear where the Wyr-Elven border was so she drove until she was sure she had crossed over. Sensible or not, she felt a little of the fear peel away. Finally around 3:00 A.M., the exhaustion she had been fighting wouldn’t take no for an answer. She pulled into a motel and got a room with one of her fake IDs. She put the door chain on, dropped her backpack onto a chair and sank onto the bed. The room spun as she toed off first one shoe, then the other.

I could sleep for a month, she thought as she got sucked down a whirling drain into black.

She wasn’t that lucky.

Dragos stood at the edge of his penthouse balcony atop Cuelebre Tower. He looked out over his city as the sun approached the horizon. This late in the day the deepening sunlight was a heavy golden weight with the richness and complexity of a rare, aged white-burgundy wine. His feet were planted wide apart, hands clasped behind his back.

The balcony was one of his favorite places to meditate. There was no railing. It was a large ledge that ran the circumference of the building, which took up a city block. The balcony was a handy, more private place to launch or land when he didn’t feel like going to the roof, which was used by his sentinels and certain other privileged members of his Court. He could enter or exit the penthouse from any number of large French-style doors.

Cuelebre Enterprises was the umbrella for any number of businesses, and it consistently ranked in the top ten of the world’s largest corporations. Casinos, hotels and resorts, stock trading, shipping, international risk assessment (private army for hire), banking. He employed thousands of Fae, Elves, Wyr and humans worldwide, although the majority of Wyrkind preferred to live in New York State so that they could live within the law and protection of his demesne.

Those Wyr who clustered in Dragos’s Court and occupied key positions in his companies tended to be predators of some sort, the type of shapeshifter that thrived in a competitive, volatile, sometimes violent environment, although there were a few tough-minded exceptions like Cuelebre Enterprises PR faerie Thistle Periwinkle, known to her friends as Tricks.

Like Rune, his First, all seven of his sentinels were immortal creatures strong in Power. They were also raptors of some sort. There were the four gryphons, Rune, Constantine, Graydon and Bayne, each responsible for keeping the peace in one of the four sectors of his demesne. The gargoyle Grym was in charge of corporate security for Cuelebre Enterprises. Tiago, one of the three known thunderbirds in existence, headed Dragos’s private army.

Last but not least was the harpy Aryal, who was in charge of investigations. She had not taken well to giving over the investigative reins on this theft to Rune. She was not known for having a serene temperament. There was a reason she had risen to such preeminence in his Court. Dragos’s smile was grim. The harpy was one hell-spawned bitch when she lost her temper.

He reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the scrap of paper left by his thief. The message was scribbled on the back of a 7-Eleven receipt. The thin paper was already getting dogeared from his handling. He opened it and read what the thief had bought yesterday. A pack of Twizzlers and a large cherry Coke Slurpee.

Rune, he said telepathically.

His First’s response was immediate. My lord.

You will go to—he squinted at the faded lettering on the receipt—the Forty-second Street 7-Eleven store and retrieve all of their security footage for the last twenty-four hours. There is a good chance our thief may be caught on it.

Re-eally, drawled Rune, his hunter instincts engaged. Leaving now. Back within the hour.

Oh, and Rune?

Bring back Twizzlers and a cherry Coke Slurpee. He wanted to know what these things were.

Sure. You got it, said his First, clearly taken aback. Dragos?

What. He squinted and stretched, basking in the last of the sunlight.

Any idea what size Slurpee you want? His First’s mental voice sounded odd.

They had known each other and worked together for several hundred years now. Dragos said, You know my tastes well enough. Will I like it?

Now that Dragos was back in control of his temper, Rune fell into their normal friendly informality. Uh, I don’t think so, buddy. I’ve never known you to do junk food before.

Make it a small, then. Dragos held the receipt up, sniffed and frowned. Even to his sensitive nose the receipt was starting to lose that delicate feminine scent and smell like him.

He strode inside. The penthouse took the Tower’s top floor. Just below that were his offices, meeting rooms, an executive dining hall, training area and other public areas. The third floor down housed his sentinels and other top Court and corporate officials. If it had been a stand-alone building, it would have been a mansion. All the rooms and halls were built on a massive scale.

Dragos located the kitchen in the penthouse. It was a foreign place filled with chrome machines and countertops. No one was there. He went in search of the communal kitchen responsible for serving the dining hall and all the sentinels, Court and corporate executives’ needs. He located it on the next flight down.

He strode through the double doors. A half-dozen kitchen staff froze. In the corner a brownie gave a squeak of dismay and faded into invisibility.

The head chef hurried forward, wringing her hands. She was a dire wolf in her Wyr form, but she kept her human shape, that of a tall gray-haired middle-aged woman, during work hours. “This is an unexpected honor, my lord,” she gushed. “What can we do for you?”

“There are plastic bags with zippers on them. I’ve seen them in commercials,” Dragos said to her. He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name. “You put food in them.”

“Ziploc bags?” she asked in a cautious voice.

He pointed at her. “Yes. I want one.”

She turned and snarled at her staff. A faerie leaped to a cupboard and then bounded to them. She bowed low to Dragos, head ducked and eyes to the floor while holding a cardboard box up. He pulled out a baggie, placed the 7-Eleven receipt inside and zipped it closed.

“Perfect,” he said, placing the small bag in his shirt pocket. He walked out, ignoring the babble that rose behind him.

While he waited for Rune to show up, he went to his offices to confront the most urgent of issues waiting for his attention. His four assistants, all Wyr handpicked for their quick intelligence and sturdy dispositions, occupied the outer rooms that were adorned with works of abstract expressionism by such artists as Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky and sculpture by Herbert Ferber.

Located in a corner of the building, his office was decorated in natural tones with wood and stone. As with the penthouse, the outer walls of the office were plate glass set with wrought-iron French doors that opened to a private balcony ledge. The interior walls were adorned by two mixed-media canvases he had commissioned from the late artist Jane Frank. They were from the artist’s Aerial Series, which depicted landscapes as if seen in midflight. One canvas was a landscape by day, the other by night.

As he sat at his desk, his first assistant, Kristoff, poked his dark shaggy head in the door. Dragos clenched his teeth on a surge of irritation. Head bent to the contracts laid on his desk, he said, “Approach with caution.”

The Wyr’s ursine nature and shambling demeanor masked a Harvard-trained MBA with a quick-witted, canny mind. Clever bear that he was, Kristoff said the two words guaranteed to grab his attention. “Urien Lorelle.”

His head lifted. Urien Lorelle, the Dark Fae King, was one of the seven rulers of the Elder Races; his demesne was seated in the greater Chicago area, and he was the guy Dragos most loved to hate. He sat back and flexed his hands. “Bring it.”

Arms overflowing, Kristoff lunged forward and spilled documents onto his desk. “I’ve got it—the link we were looking for between Lorelle and weapons development. Here are hard copies of everything. Transcontinental Power and Light’s 10-K filing with the SEC, last year’s proxy statement and annual report and its quarterly corporate-earnings conference calls. I’ve marked the relevant pages and typed up a report.”

Formed in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Transcontinental Power and Light, Inc., was one of the nation’s largest investor-owned utility companies. The Dark Fae King was the largest individual shareholder.

Dragos picked up the 10-K filing and began to flip through it. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document was thick, some 450 pages in length and dense with statistics, tables and graphs.

Urien Lorelle and he shared so many differences of opinion. Lorelle’s utility company was partial to mountaintop-removal mining. Dragos preferred mountaintops to stay where he could see them. Urien’s fleet of aging coal-burning power plants emitted over one hundred million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Dragos preferred to breathe clean air when he flew. Urien wanted to see him dead. Dragos preferred to see Urien not just dead but utterly destroyed.

“It’s because you prefer to live in an Other land. You don’t care how much you pollute this side of things, you anachronistic bastard,” he muttered. He said to Kristoff, “Summarize.”

His assistant said, “Transcontinental has set up a partnership called RYVN, the acronym—well, it doesn’t matter. RYVN has applied for a Department of Energy grant to clean up an old Energy Department site in the Midwest that produced nuclear fuel and defense applications back in the fifties. RYVN says they want to explore building a new electricity-generated nuclear plant on the site, along with new contracts with the Defense Department.”

His eyes flashed lava hot. He hissed, “Defense applications.”

Kristoff nodded, dark eyes bright. “Weaponry.”

The financial documents he held smelled like printer ink and paper, but Dragos scented the blood of an imminent kill.

“Get a hold of our DOE contact,” Dragos said. “Make sure he knows to reject RYVN’s grant application and why. After you’ve done that, I want you to destroy the RYVN partnership. When that’s gone, go after the individual partners and dismantle them one by one. Head the project yourself.”

“Right,” said Kristoff.

“No mercy, Kris. When we’re done, no one will dare partner with Urien on something like this again.”

Kristoff asked, “Project budget?”

“Unlimited.” The Wyr-bear turned to go, and he added, “And Kris? Make sure they know who shut them down. Especially Urien.”

“You got it.” Kristoff gave him a grin.

So many differences of opinion between him and the Dark Fae King. So much hate, so little time.

Just then Rune appeared in the doorway wearing torn jeans, combat boots and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. The gryphon’s tawny hair was windblown. He carried two drinks in a cardboard box drink holder, a plastic bag and a bulging manila folder under one arm. He dumped out the contents of the bag. Packets of Twizzlers tumbled across the desk.

Dragos tore open one packet. Rune shoved straws into the drinks, gave him one and kept the other.

“I’ve got the footage,” said Rune, gesturing to the folder under his arm. “Do you know what we’re looking for?”

“Make prints of anyone who buys Twizzlers and cherry Coke Slurpees and bring them to me. Just those two things, nothing else. It will be a female, although she may be in disguise.” Dragos bit into a red rope of candy. He stared in disgust at the remaining half in his hand and threw it in the trash can. Then he picked up the drink and sucked on the straw with caution.

Rune burst into laughter at his expression. “I said you wouldn’t like it.”

“So you did.” He slam-dunked the Slurpee. “Apparently you will be watching the tapes for someone with no taste.”

“This shouldn’t take long. Thank the Powers for fast-forward,” Rune said. He swiped up a few of the Twizzlers packets, winking at Dragos. “Since you don’t like them,” he said, and left.

Dragos went back to work, but his concentration had splintered for other matters. He kept three wide-screens on the opposite wall on different news channels. His other three assistants came and went. The ticker tape headlines of one channel caught his attention and he turned the volume up. The preliminary cost estimate for the property damage he caused that afternoon was already in the tens of millions.

The news crew conducted interviews of pedestrians. One woman said tearfully, “Forget about property damage. I heard that sound earlier today and I’m going to be in therapy for the rest of my life. I want to know if Cuelebre is going to pay for that!”

He pushed the mute button. It was turning out to be one expensive damn penny.

Outside the wall-sized windows, early evening fell into full night. Then Rune came loping back into his office, paper in his hands.

“I’ve got it, got her,” his First exclaimed. “Lots of people bought lots of crap, but only one woman bought only Twizzlers and a Slurpee. What are the odds?”

Dragos leaned back in his chair. He felt a pulse of dark anticipation as Rune handed him the paper. He shuffled through all of the photos. They were of a fixed scene of the 7-Eleven’s registers and the glass front doors. Rune threw his large frame into a chair and watched as, with an impatient shove, Dragos wiped clear the large expanse of his desk and began to lay the photos out one by one.

Rune had printed several sequential eight-by-elevens. As Dragos laid out the grainy black-and-whites he could almost imagine the woman in the photos moving. He couldn’t wait to see the footage and watch her move for real.

There she was, opening the door. She moved to the left and disappeared from the camera. There she was again, reappearing, holding a packet of Twizzlers and a Slurpee drink in slender hands. She paid, gave the cashier a smile. The last photo was of her pushing out the front door.

He went over them again with more care.

The angle of the shots made it difficult to say for sure, but she seemed a normal height for a tallish human woman. She was whippet graceful with long bones and delicate curves. The camera caught the dip and hollow of her collarbones. She wore her thick hair in a ponytail that was somewhat disheveled, and it was either white or some other light color. He was betting on some shade of blonde. Her triangular face was far too young for it to be gray.

The slash of Dragos’s dark brows lowered over his blade-straight nose. The woman looked tired, preoccupied. No, she looked more than tired—she looked haunted. The smile she gave the cashier was courteous, even kind, but sad. She wasn’t what he expected, but he knew in his old wicked bones that this was his thief.

He traced a finger down the silhouette of her figure as she walked out the 7-Eleven door. It was the only one of her walking away. He didn’t like this picture. He slammed his flattened hand down on it and crumpled it in his fist.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

“I have just one question for you,” Rune said. The gryphon’s long legs were spread out, his eyes curious. “How did you know to send me there and what to look for?”

Dragos looked up with a flash of secretive jealousy. “Never mind how. We’ve found her and your part in this is done. You can go back to your regular duties.”

Rune nodded at the photos. “What about her?”

“I’ll take care of her.” Dragos bared his teeth. “I’m hunting this one. Alone.”

He sent Rune away, climbed to his penthouse bedroom and opened the French doors. The late-spring air licked into the room. He stood in the doorway looking at the gleaming city lights.

Where are you, thief? I know you’re running somewhere, he said to the night. He lifted his head to the breeze, which carried the city’s complex mélange of scents.

Power, magical or otherwise, has its own set of habits. He realized he had fallen into a bored complacency. Either life conformed to what he desired or he bent it to his will. He didn’t ask, he took. If a business interest threatened him, he had them destroyed. No mercy. He had settled into the unsophisticated laziness of brute force.

Dragos summoned his Power and began whispering beguilement into the night. He held the image of his thief firm in his mind. The magical threads flexed like long-unused muscles and began curling outward on the breeze. It was only a matter of time before they found their target.

I’ve got you now.