Holy Smokes Read online

“Uh…yeah. Drake is a wyvern, actually. That’s the leader of one of the dragon septs. He’s a green dragon. He’s very powerful, and very well respected,” I added, knowing my uncle was big on respect amongst one’s peers.

  The explosion I was half expecting never came. Nor did the lecture, or the demand that I leave the church that instant and return home to Oregon with him. Instead, he continued to look thoughtful for a minute, then abruptly nodded his head. “Got it. Where’s Drake?”

  I gawked at him. I outright gawked, never a pretty expression, but there are times when nothing but a gawk will do. “You’re not going to rant and rave and demand I leave Drake and Jim and everything? You’re not going to tell me what I just said is impossible, and I must be insane? You’re going to believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you. You haven’t given me a reason not to.” He gave me a long, level look. “I’ve seen many things before that I’ve thought were impossible, so I’ve learned not to make judgments.”

  “But…” I waved my hands around. “It took me weeks to finally get to the point where I believed everything. Weeks!”

  “You always were more rigid in your thinking than I thought wise,” he pointed out.

  “And you don’t mind that I’m a Guardian? And marrying a dragon?”

  He shrugged. “I assume by now you know what you’re doing with your life. If you didn’t want to be mixed up with all this demons and dragons strangeness, you’d leave.”

  “Well…yeah. I would.” I was mollified that he respected my life decisions, but still surprised he accepted it all so easily. “Wait a minute—you threatened to disown me as a niece when I got married the first time. Why are you being so tolerant and understanding now?”

  “Drake isn’t that mealymouthed twit you married when you were eighteen. He’s a man.” Uncle Damian frowned again. “At least he looks like one.”

  “All the dragons use human forms—it’s much easier than stomping around with wings and a tail and such,” I said absently. “I agree that Drake is miles above my first husband, but I’m a little surprised you’ve taken to him so quickly. You were only in the house for half an hour before you dragged me away to the hotel.”

  “A smart person knows how to size up potential competition in less than a minute,” he answered, giving me another level look. “And since I see you’re going to ask, no, I don’t consider him competition, now that I know the truth about him. I had suspicions when you said he dealt with imports and exports, but this changes the situation.”

  “Well…good.”

  “Besides, you love him. It’s written all over your face when you look at him, and since I could see he’s just as in love with you, I decided not to interfere.”

  I knew my uncle would like Drake when he had gotten to know him, but I hadn’t expected him to accept the fact that we were getting married quite so quickly or easily. I couldn’t help but smile just a little at the faint note of disapproval in my uncle’s voice when speaking of love. “Yeah, we’re crazy about each other. I’m glad you’re go with Drake and me. I guess that leaves me free to have that nervous breakdown now, huh?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. No niece of mine has ever been a weakling, and you’re not going to start being one now. What about a cell phone? I’m assuming Drake has one?”

  Jim came back over to me and leaned on me, wordlessly begging for attention. I mopped up his chops with his drool bib, adroitly whisking out a fresh one from the bag I’d brought into the room with me, tying it around its neck.

  “Yes, he has one, although he’s not answering. I…er…tried calling him when you thought I was going to the bathroom.” I made a nervous gesture with my hands. “I didn’t want anyone to know I was checking up on him. But now I’m just getting worried. Drake wouldn’t back out of the wedding. If he’s not here, it’s because something has happened to him, and…well, one of the other dragon septs is at war with us, and it’s possible they’ve done something to him. Or Fiat has. He’s another wyvern, a particularly nasty one who has caused trouble for us more than once.”

  “Don’t forget Gabriel,” Jim offered helpfully.

  “Gabriel is another wyvern,” I told my uncle. “He’s…I dunno about him. But I don’t think this is something he’d do.”

  “Could be Bael,” Jim said. “That’s the head demon lord, the premiere prince of Abaddon, and the guy who got Aisling to kill another demon lord so she could take his place.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve been having an interesting time here,” my uncle said slowly.

  Jim grinned. “You could write books about it.”

  “Hardly,” I said, pulling its drool bib tighter before rustling through the bag for my cell phone. “I’ll try Drake again. Maybe he’s just stuck in traffic?”

  The distant noise of London seeped in through the high windows as I punched the speed-dial number, listening through seven rings before Drake’s voice clicked on. “I am away from the phone. Please leave a message following the tone.”

  “No answer,” I said, my stomach now one giant leaden ball. Tears welled behind my eyelids as, deep within me, I knew something was wrong.

  “Aw, Ash,” Jim said as I blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the tears before they were visible to others. The demon leaned its big head against me, offering comfort in the only way it could. “Drake’s been around the block a few times. He’s been at war with Chuan Ren before, and he didn’t succumb. He’s probably just beating the crap out of a few red dragons before heading to the church.”

  “I know. I’d feel if he was…” My hands fluttered around in a wordless expression of the unthinkable. “Besides, brides are allowed to cry on their wedding day.”

  “You’re not a normal bride,” Uncle Damian said abruptly, shoving a box of tissues at me. I took a couple, dabbing at my eyes, wanting like crazy to give in to the emotions of the moment, but knowing it wasn’t wise.

  You don’t have to give in to it, a smooth, dark voice spoke into my head. Why submit when you can dominate? You have the power, Aisling Grey. Use it to ensure your mate’s safety.

  “Shut up!” I snarled, dabbing viciously at the tears that spilled over my eyelashes.

  “The voices?” Uncle Damian asked Jim while giving me a wary look.

  “It’s the dark power. It talks to her.”

  “Dark power?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I said, sniffling as I tried to keep the tears from ruining the makeup job my stepmother had spent so much time on to ensure I was presentable. My eyes were awash, an uncomfortable feeling. I tried to fix the problem but ended up just making things worse. “Oh, hell. I think I just lost one of my contacts. No one move!”

  I squatted, careful not to brush my dress against the floor, feeling around for the contact lens. Jim snuffled around as well.

  “Found it. Whew.” I stood up with the contact on one finger, smiling weakly as I reached for my bag.

  A horrified gasp had me freezing on the spot, the bottle of lens cleaner in my hand as my uncle lifted my chin to look closer at me. “What the hell happened to your eye? And…is that blood?”

  I wadded up the tissues I’d been using to wipe the tears. “It’s only temporary. I think. I…oh, it’s a long story, too long to tell here. The end result is that I’ve been proscribed, and one of the side effects of proscription is that your eyes change, and you cry blood.”

  “Proscribed? Isn’t that another word for damned?”

  “I thought so, too, although I gather it’s just one step on the road to damnation. There’s supposed to be a way to get out of it, but so far we haven’t had any luck trying to figure out how to reverse the process. Physically, it’s no big deal, although the white eyes look a bit freaky, so I’ve been wearing tinted contacts so people don’t get the willies around me until we figure out how to get the proscription lifted.”

  It took him a moment to process all that, but process he did. He nodded his head and issued a curt, “Smart.”

  “
We thought so.” I cleaned the contact, using my purse mirror to pop it back into place. I had just dabbed away the last traces of blood when the door opened.

  “…and I said it wasn’t smart to do the planning all by herself, when I was at her disposal. But you know how girls are these days, Reverend Miller…headstrong, always so headstrong, and particularly so with Aisling. Oh, my dear, where is he?” Paula took my hands in hers, giving my fingers a little squeeze. “It’s an hour past time, and Reverend Miller says there is a christening in a half an hour!”

  “I’m very sorry to have to rush you,” the rector said, a look of genuine distress on his face. “It’s the McKenzie triplets, you see. Mr. McKenzie is the drummer in that extreme rock band, the one that bites off the heads of chocolate bats. They are here now, ready to set up for the press, and…well, I’m truly sorry, but Mr. McKenzie is most insistent that the baptism go forward.”

  “Of course,” I said, making a quick decision. “I’m just sorry we’ve delayed you this long. Please tell him we’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes. Jim, heel. Silently.”

  My demon shot me a look that acknowledged it recognized an order when it heard one, although I knew I’d pay for that later.

  “Oh, Aisling, this is terrible, just terrible. Damian, where is he? Isn’t there something we can do?”

  I left my stepmother wringing her hands and wailing to Uncle Damian as I marched out to the front of the church. I took a deep breath; the church was heavy with the usual scents of wax and wood polish, topped off with a heady note from the white roses that dotted each pew. The conversations from approximately three hundred people died as everyone looked with expectation at me. I smiled nervously, picking out a few familiar faces in the crowd. Only a handful of my family had come to London for the wedding—my stepparents, uncle, and twin cousins who were on their way back to the US after a year spent working at a commune in Italy. A few of the dragons were known to me, but most were there just as a courtesy to Drake.

  “Oy! Get a move on!” called someone at the back of the church, where a crowd of people with elaborate hair and Gothic clothing milled, clearly the rock star and his party.

  “Sorry. Hi, everyone. We…er…we have a bit of a problem, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel the wedding today. Drake has been unavoidably detained, and the church is needed for a celebrity christening. I want to thank you all for coming today, and say how sorry I am that things didn’t get off the ground, but we’ll try to do this again…er…” I glanced to my left, where the rector stood. “Do you have time tomorrow?”

  He thought for a moment. “I could give you an hour in the afternoon. Shall we say three?”

  “Yes, thank you. Three o’clock tomorrow, everyone. I will completely understand if you can’t make it, but those of you who can are welcome to attend.”

  The hum of conversation started up the second I stopped, my cousins immediately swarming me with questions and platitudes. I told them I’d explain later, shooing them on their way as another familiar figure stopped in front of me.

  “Mon amie, you look very charming in that dress. But what is the matter with Drake?”

  “Rene, it’s good to see you.” I smiled as he hugged me. “Where’s your wife?”

  His eyes smiled right along with the rest of him. “Ah, she suffers from the allergies of the nose, do you remember? It is an infection of sinus she has now, and it is giving her much grief. She is much distraught at having to miss your wedding, but it looks as if that is a moot point, no?”

  “I’m sorry she’s sick. And yeah, things have kind of fallen apart. You haven’t…er…heard anything about Drake, have you?”

  Rene’s smile faded a little. “It does not work that way, you know?”

  “I know. I just thought since you were evidently assigned to me and all, you might know what’s up with Drake. I mean, this does have an impact on my future, so I thought it would fall under the whole fate thing.”

  “I’m a daimon, Aisling, not a soothsayer. That simply means I am to present myself to you when you need a helping hand. I cannot see into the future any more than you can.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, but I’m a bit worried about Drake, what with Chuan Ren still out for blood.”

  He patted my hands. “I understand, but Drake, he is a dragon most formidable, no? He will not be harmed easily.”

  “I know, but…Oh, I’m just being emotional.”

  He did the hand pat again. “We shall go look for him, and that will ease your concerns.”

  “I guess. Don’t tell me you’ve managed to round up an other taxi?”

  “Not this time.” He chuckled. “I have borrowed the car of my cousin Felix. I will wait outside for you to finish with your family.”

  “Thanks, Rene.”

  A couple of the green dragons came up and asked if there was anything they could do. I thanked them, apologized for the delay, and accepted their promise to pass along any word of Drake, after which they left quietly. It took a good ten minutes for my family to help the wedding planners pick up all the decorations, leaving me exhausted, sick with worry about Drake, and still stinging from the blistering the rock star gave me as he yanked down my bundles of white roses and satin ribbons.

  “Have you ever wished you could hit a rewind button and start the day over?” I asked Paula as we trudged down the steps to the street, Uncle Damian having gone off to make sure the wedding planner people were simply storing the decorations and not throwing them out.

  “Goodness, no! I don’t use those remote controls. They have so many confusing buttons. David knows how to use them. Don’t you, dear? How they expect people to remember what everything does is just beyond me. You shouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist to turn on Wheel of Fortune.”

  I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, my heart lightening at the sight of the woman there. “Nora!”

  Jim rushed to where my former mentor stood, her familiar warm brown eyes shining behind bright red glasses. I knew she didn’t want to have anything to do with me since I’d been proscribed, but I couldn’t keep from excusing myself and running over to her, enveloping the smaller woman in a big hug. “I’m so glad you came. I knew you said you weren’t able to, but…oh, Nora, I’m so glad to see you again. How are you? Pál said you found a new flat and were all settled in, but…well…”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” she said softly, not meeting my eyes as she gently disengaged herself from my embrace. Jim, ordered to silence, rubbed its head on her leg. She patted the top of its furry head absently. “There would be all sorts of trouble if the Guild found out I’d come, but I thought I would just sit at the back. You look well.”

  I bit my lip to keep the tears from forming again. Nora had been driven away from teaching me by the proscription, fearing a continued close association would lead to her powers being tainted by me. I’d known that couldn’t happen—the dark power was very clear it was me it wanted—but I respected her decision to leave, even though it had felt like I was losing my best friend.

  “We’re OK. Did the Guild reinstate you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” People streamed by us on the sidewalk, traffic doing likewise on the busy street. It was incredibly awkward standing there with her. I could tell by the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes that she was just as uncomfortable as I was. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, this is ridiculous. Paula, tell Rene I’ll be right there. I just want to have a word with my friend.”

  I grabbed Nora’s arm to keep her from escaping and pulled her after me around to the side of the church, into a small yard area where the garbage cans were stored off the street. “Sorry, but there’s so much I want to say to you, so much that’s happened in the last month, but Drake told me not to stand around on the street in case Chuan Ren’s men were lurking about. Can we get together a little later? Maybe have a coffee or something? I’d really love to have a long talk with you.”

  She took a step back, still look
ing at her hands. “I’m sorry, Aisling, that wouldn’t be prudent for either of us.”

  I swallowed down a painful lump, nodding despite the fact that I wanted to yell and scream and generally have a good old-fashioned hissy fit. I was a professional, dammit. I might be proscribed, but I was a Guardian, and a wyvern’s mate, and a demon lord. And although it broke my heart to lose Nora as a friend, I’d do what it took to go on.

  “I understand. It was nice seeing you. I miss talking to you.”

  “As I do you.” She glanced up, meeting my gaze for a moment. I was shocked to see the sadness in her eyes. “I should be on my way. I just wanted to wish you well and offer my congrat—”

  A wave of rust-colored bodies exploded from nowhere, most likely the alley that ran alongside the church, but wherever they came from, they had the element of surprise on their side.

  “Good god, what the—Jim! Help!”

  The small foxlike creatures leaped straight for me, knocking me back against the stone wall of the church. Jim, obeying my command, snarled silently and lunged at the nearest creature. “What the hell…what are these?” I yelled, frantically drawing a protection ward in front of me with one hand while trying to beat off the fox things with the other.

  Nora didn’t hesitate, immediately going into full Guardian mode as she drew wards, her hands dancing in the air as she sent creature after creature back to Abaddon. “They are huli jing.”

  Whatever they were, they had sharp little needle teeth that tore at the flesh of my hands as I flung them off me. My hands were slick with blood as Jim snatched as many as it could, shaking its head to snap their necks.

  “Huli jing, huli jing. Let’s see, those are…” I dug through the information in my mind, trying to sort out the bit of information I needed. “Chinese fox spirits!”

  “They are susceptible to fire,” Nora yelled as she waved a hand and chanted a quick spell that summoned up a fireball which wiped out a half dozen of the little spirits.

  Automatically, I reached for Drake’s fire, but it wasn’t there.

  Use me, the dark voice spoke into my head.