Holy Smokes Read online

  “Uh-huh. We’ll get to that in a minute, oh ye of the annoying subject changes. I understand if you don’t want to get into a lengthy discussion of dragon politics at this time, but you can answer one question for me. I thought Kostya was a Baltic supporter—he sure sounds like one when he talks about annexing the silver dragons. But if he actually killed Baltic—or tried to—then I’m confused.”

  “Baltic was…difficult,” Drake said, looking up when Pál and István entered the cavern.

  “They are all still out, although we are running out of time,” Pál told him. “The building is secured, and there are no signs that anyone outside it is aware of what’s going on.”

  “And the one in the subterranean apartment?” Drake asked.

  István shook his head. “We didn’t find him, although there were signs someone had used the bolt-hole recently.”

  “He must have noted our presence here before we became aware of the apartment, and left rather than risk meeting us,” Drake said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Makes you wonder just who it was.”

  “It could be that he is amongst the guards we took care of.” Drake rubbed his chin in thought. “But I suspect not.”

  “Would you recognize Baltic if you saw him again?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What about Pál and István?”

  “Pál was not born when Baltic was killed,” Drake answered. “István saw him at weyr meetings.”

  Pál gave me a wry smile. “I’m the young one.”

  “So I gather. Well, it may be as you say then—the person staying in that odd apartment had Baltic’s books, and Baltic is dead. Gabriel is either confused, or I misheard him.”

  Drake said nothing but continued to rub his chin.

  It took the better part of the last hour we had there for the demons and Traci to break the bane. But break it they did, with only the loss of three demons (or rather, their forms).

  “Love and kisses to Bael,” I told the lone surviving demon before I dismissed it.

  It looked at me like I had beans sprouting out of my ears.

  “If you do not mind my asking, lord, why did you summon Lord Bael’s minions and not your own?” Traci asked as the dragons pushed past it to get into Fiat’s lair.

  “I’m trying to make a point. Did you send out those e-mails like I asked?”

  It nodded, looking much put-upon. “I fear you have not thought through your actions thoroughly. They will be sure to anger the other lords and enrage Bael.”

  “Perfect,” I said with a satisfied smile. “What time did you set the meeting for?”

  “Tomorrow at noon, as you requested.”

  “Great. Thanks for your help with the bane.”

  Traci looked faintly shocked. “I am your servant, Lord Aisling. I am ever at your bidding.”

  Jim poked its head out of the lair. “Ash? You coming? The guys are having ore-gasms in there, and I think you’re going to have to bitch slap a couple to calm them down. Ore, get it? Like gold ore? Heh heh heh. I slay me.”

  “If only, Jim. I’ll see you tomorrow before the meeting, OK, Traci?”

  The demon bowed and disappeared. I followed Jim into the lair, which was nothing more than a huge walk-in climate-controlled bank vault. The shelves were filled with priceless objects of art, most of them jewel-encrusted gold, but there were also other items of value—artwork, ewers, statues, boxes of raw gems…the list was endless, al though thankfully the vault wasn’t.

  “So, how does it stack up to your lair?” I asked Drake.

  He stood in the center of the lair, his body trembling slightly. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, an expression of bliss on his face, no doubt the effect of being in proximity to so much gold. “It is nearly comparable.”

  “Really? Wow. I can’t wait to see yours.” I watched him for another second, smiling at the look on his face. “This stuff really is like an aphrodisiac to you guys, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, a reverential tone in his voice.

  I ran my hand down his chest. “So if I was to strip off all my clothes and lie on a pile of gold coins…?”

  His eyes popped open, fire leaping in a ring around us. I was startled by that—I wasn’t pulling the fire, which meant Drake had momentarily lost control. “You would just barely survive.”

  “Oooh,” I said, burning even more from the passion in his eyes. “I think we’re going to have to try that when we get back home.”

  He growled at me, a low rumble that was both primal and erotic as hell. I had the worst urge to pull him into a corner and have my way with him, but remembered in time where we were.

  “Right, well,” I said, clearing my throat. “As Pál said, we’re running out of time, so why don’t you pick out the biggest and best of Fiat’s treasures, and we’ll get going while the going is still good.”

  Pál and István had been opening lockboxes and turning out shelves, making little cooing sounds of pleasure as they touched the treasures. Kostya was in the back of the vault, his eyes glittering onyx as he flung open the lid to a wooden box. It was filled with ancient gold coins.

  Drake pulled himself together, shot me one last sultry look, and began scanning the shelves for items.

  “Maybe you can answer something for me,” I said as I opened a velvet box, admiring the Victorian sapphire necklace and earrings within it. “You told me a while ago that dragons can’t summon demons.”

  “We can’t,” Kostya answered, running his hands through the gold coins. His voice was rich and thick with pleasure.

  I mentally rolled my eyes at the dragons and moved on to another jewelry box. This one contained old Greek-looking gold and silver jewelry. Museum-quality stuff—I wondered how many of the world’s treasures were being held by dragons.

  “Then how did Fiat come to have all sorts of dark power–based wards on his lair door? And that bane—that was broken by the demons, and they couldn’t have done that unless a demon had been used to make it in the first place.”

  “Fiat obviously engaged the services of someone who could call demons,” Drake answered, his voice muffled as he poked around the back of the vault.

  “So, why can’t you call demons?” High on one of the metal shelves, a small unadorned wooden box sat. I squinted at it. A ward was barely visible on it. I used the small ladder to climb to the top and pull down the box.

  “You need to be a part of the Otherworld in order to summon its members. Dragons are bound by the laws of the weyr, not the Otherworld. We are outside of its sphere of influence. However, because of the long-standing treaty the weyr continues to honor, interaction between dragons and non-dragons is tolerated. That courtesy does not, however, extend to the summoning of its denizens.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know you were not part of the Otherworld.” I opened the box and pulled aside a bit of blue silk. Inside lay a rough lump of gold, fashioned into a shape that looked vaguely dragonish. A thought struck me. “But…I am a part of the Otherworld.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  I climbed down the ladder and moved around the tall metal stand that stood in the center of the vault and frowned at Drake as he squatted next to Kostya, the two of them removing the side of a glass case that held what looked like illuminated medieval manuscripts. “Doesn’t that mean we have a conflict of interest?”

  Drake looked up. “How so?”

  “Well, you’re in the weyr, governed by its laws. I’m in the Otherworld, bound to uphold it.”

  “You’re my mate. You are a member of the weyr as well. That takes precedence to your loyalty to the Otherworld. There is no conflict.”

  I wasn’t sure I bought that, but I wasn’t willing to argue the point in front of Kostya. “What did you guys find? Anything übervaluable?”

  Drake put the manuscript back in its glass case. “Everything in here is valuable.”

  “But nothing stands out as something he’d move heaven and earth to get back?” I asked.
<
br />   “Nothing leaps out at me, no. Kostya?”

  He shook his head, dusting off his knees as he got to his feet. “There is nothing outstanding. The gold is of a very nice quality, though.”

  “Why don’t you just take some of that?” Jim suggested, nosing around the box of gold coins. “If someone took my big ole herkin’ box of gold, I’d want it back. And I’m not even a dragon with a gold fixation.”

  Drake pinched his lower lip as he looked around. “I would not tolerate anyone taking any treasure from me, but Fiat might not feel it was a sufficiently valuable hostage. I do not see anything that I would value above all others, and yet…” His voice trailed off as he looked around the vault. “And yet I feel as if something is here. Something…important. István? Pál?”

  The two other dragons stopped rummaging and stood with Drake for a moment, the three of them making a slow circuit of the room.

  “Yes,” István said, nodding. “I feel it, too. Something very old.”

  “Something gold,” Pál said, lifting his chin to scent the air. I sniffed as well. I didn’t smell or sense anything different.

  “Kostya, do you feel it?”

  Kostya paused for a moment, then shook his head. “You green dragons have a better sense of smell than I do.”

  “What exactly does it smell like?” I asked, wondering if my super–Guardian vision could pick up something that was identifiable only by its scent.

  Drake slowly paced the aisle of the vault, his eyes narrowing on me. “Like…you.”

  “Me?”

  His eyes focused on the box in my hand. “What are you holding?”

  “This?” I held up the battered figurine. “I think it’s a kid’s dragon toy. An old kid’s dragon toy. The details aren’t very good.”

  Drake sucked in his breath, his eyes as brilliant as green crystals. “Aisling, do not drop it.”

  I looked at the blobby dragon in my hand, trying to see what it was he was getting so worked up about. “Is it valuable?”

  The other three dragons descended on me the same time as Drake, all four of them staring with wonder at the thing.

  “It is the Lindorm Phylactery.” He held out his hand for it, cradling it with both hands when I set the blob on his palm.

  “’K. And that is…?”

  “It is a relic of the time before the weyr. It was carried by the first dragon. It has immense importance to dragonkin.”

  The other men jostled Drake until he reluctantly passed it around.

  “Gotcha. So it’s the something really important that you felt? Then we take it?”

  “I will take it,” Kostya said, his hand closing around the blob of gold. “It belongs to the black dragons.”

  “It belongs to no one,” Drake said, rounding on his brother.

  “It was held by Baltic before he fell.”

  “Before you killed him, you mean?” I asked sweetly.

  I’m lucky I didn’t spontaneously combust. I’m sure that was the intent of the look Kostya fired at me.

  “It belonged to him. It passes to me now.”

  “Kostya—” Drake started to say, and I knew we had a situation on our hands.

  “Jim?”

  “On it.” Before Kostya could move, I had the binding ward on him, and Jim had retrieved the phylactery, dropping it at Drake’s feet.

  Kostya snarled something that had Drake lunging toward him. I held him back, saying, “Sweetie, it’s not really the time or place, remember? Let’s get out of here, then we can discuss what to do with this thing.”

  My words were punctuated by the dim sound of a siren.

  Drake swore and grabbed the phylactery, wrapping it back up in its bit of cloth and replacing it in the wooden coffer.

  “I assume you have some sort of an escape plan?” I asked.

  “Yes. Come.”

  “What about him?” I asked, nodding toward the still-sputtering Kostya.

  “Release him.”

  I hesitated. “I don’t like having to say this, but…well…he seems to feel this thing is his.”

  “He is my brother,” Drake said with a long look at Kostya. “I trust him.”

  I erased the ward on Kostya reluctantly. Drake took my arm and hustled me out of the room. I glanced back over my shoulder at where the others were following.

  Drake might have faith in his brother’s loyalty…but I didn’t feel nearly so confident.

  23

  “Drake, I would like you to repeat the following oath: I, Drake, take you, Aisling, to be my wife and companion, my friend in life. Together we will bear the troubles and sorrows life may bring us, and celebrate the good and joyful events with which we are blessed. With these words, and with my heart, I bind my life to yours.”

  I yawned. I couldn’t help myself, I was so tired after a sleepless flight home from Italy, I was having trouble staying awake.

  The man performing the ceremony stared in horror at me. To my left, Paula gasped.

  I was instantly contrite. How rude is it to yawn at your own wedding? Rummy though I was from lack of sleep, I had enough wits about me to know I had to rectify my apparent gaffe. “Sorry. I’m so tired I’m having a bit of trouble focusing. We had a horrible flight from Italy. It just seemed to go on and on and on. You ever have one of those flights? First we were delayed at the airport because of some weather issue, which was scary enough, because there were dragons after us and they might have found us if I hadn’t done a few brain-pushes on some guys to forget they’d seen us, and then there was a mechanical problem, and we had to get off the plane and wait around a couple more hours before they got that fixed, and you know how impossible it is to sleep in an airport. You know, sweetie, I think we should get our own plane. Nothing big like a rock star, but something cute that we can zip around in. One with a bed in the back,” I told the man standing next to me. He was as handsome as sin, with mobile black brows, a lovely nose, and the most delectable mouth I’d ever seen. And his eyes, oh, his eyes. I stared at them for a few minutes, wondering if our child would get his eyes. I sure hoped so. “Your eyes are so gorgeous, I could just suck them right out of your head.”

  “Aisling!” Paula gasped again.

  “I’m sorry, we were talking about planes, weren’t we?” I felt bad. I had shocked Paula with my lust for Drake, but to be fair, I couldn’t help lusting after him—he was so deliciously lustworthy. “I do love him, you know,” I told her, tugging on her sleeve so she’d know I was being sincere. “I really, really love him. Honest! I don’t just want to suck his eyeballs, and oil him up and then lick him off, although to be honest, that sounds pretty good to me right about now. I can’t wait to do it again with his fire, because that makes all the difference. But we couldn’t because there was no time in Italy, and then when we got home, Paula was there waiting for us to go get married…oh, wait, you are Paula, aren’t you. Drake?”

  Tears burnt behind my eyes as I took two steps and wrapped my arms around him, a horrible presentiment claiming me at that moment. “My brain doesn’t seem to be working right. I think I may have said something embarrassing.”

  His voice rumbled above my head as he said, “I’m afraid this is going to have to wait for another time. Aisling is not herself at the moment.”

  The words danced in my brain as I snuggled into him, sighing with happiness at the feel and scent of him. Then I frowned, what he’d said finally sinking in.

  “Wait!” I said, pulling back. I looked around, confused for a moment. Paula and David were standing to my left. Behind them Uncle Damian stood watching me with a frown. On Drake’s other side were Pál, István, Kostya, and Jim.

  I waved at Jim, giving it a secret wink to let it know that I knew why it wasn’t talking. “Good job, Jim. I know it’s hard for you because you’re such a chatterbox, but you’re doing great. Keep it up, ’K?”

  Jim blinked at me.

  “I’m getting married,” I told it, because clearly it was confused about what was happening h
ere. “This is it, the big day. And it’s kind of my last chance, so keep up the good work!”

  “Kincsem, we will do this another time. You are too tired,” Drake said, pulling me away from where I was patting Jim on its head.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, recoiling in horror. “Paula will skin me alive if we don’t go through with this wedding. Oh! Hi, Paula. Um…I seem to be having momentary lapses of judgment, but I’m fine now, just fine. Better than fine! Let’s kick this shindig into high gear.”

  Paula slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes huge as I smiled brightly at the guy marrying us.

  “Sorry, I interrupted you. Please go on. Is it my turn to say something? Because there are a lot of things I’d like to say to Drake, and no, I know you’re thinking I’m going to go on and on about his eyes, but I’m not going to, so there. Ummm…where were we?”

  “We were leaving,” Drake said firmly, taking my hands in his. “You are too tired, Aisling. We will delay this ceremony a day until you are rested.”

  “Paula’s going to be pissed,” I told him as he gently pushed me toward the door. “Will you break it to her for me? I hate to make you do that because it really is my problem, but you know, I’m just a skosh tired, and maybe she won’t yell if you tell her. Oh, look, a demon. I’m sorry, the wedding is off for another day. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  The demon—and it was a demon, even my sleep-deprived brain recognized the fact that the man standing in front of us in a zoot suit that would have been better suited to a 1940s movie was, in fact, a demon—looked confused for a moment before it said, “You are summoned by Lord Bael.”

  The overhead lights in the small room burst and would have showered tiny little bits of glass down upon us if we’d still been there. But since the demon suited action to words and sucked the entire wedding party off to see Bael, by the time the glass hit the floor, we were gone.

  I don’t know if it was the act of being yanked through the very fabric of time and space that dropped the euphoric sense of giddiness that lack of sleep had brought upon me, or if it was the look in Bael’s eyes as he turned slowly to consider me, but whatever it was, I suddenly found myself as sober as a judge…and mad as hell.