Fire Me Up (21 page)

Istvan said something I didn't understand. I cocked a
questioning eyebrow at Pal. Not only was he friendlier than Istvan, his English
was as good as mine.

Pal looked uncomfortable and didn't meet my eyes. "He said
that there would be much talking tonight."

Istvan snorted. I decided to ignore him, feeling a shower and
possibly a quick nap would do more for me than figuring out a surly bodyguard.

My first appointment went off without any disasters striking
me—Paolo didn't stop by to give me another warning, Drake didn't show up to go
bossy on me, and Jim wasn't there to say inappropriate things at the very worst
moment.

Despite all that, it was a complete failure.

"I will make a note of your phone number," Fiona the Scottish
Guardian said, giving me a look that pretty much said she'd rather consort with
a demon lord than ever give me a jingle. "As I said at the beginning of the
interview, I have many applicants hoping to gain an apprenticeship with me, so
the competition is naturally very intense."

"Understood. And thank you for considering me. It sounds like
your program of training is very comprehensive." I drew a line through her name
on my mental list of potential mentors. The only good thing that had come out of
this interview was a nugget of information regarding the ritual examination that
all would-be apprentices must pass in order to be formally accepted. I stood and
shook hands with Fiona, waiting until she left before looking at the name on the
back of a business card she'd handed me.

"Marvabelle O'Hallahan" was written in Fiona's neat script.

My heart sank. I was contemplating just how horrible this
ritual could be with Marvabelle in charge (my imagination is way too good for my
peace of mind) when a shadow moved over the card.

"Disaster follows your every footstep."

I looked up, the card crumpling in my hand as I glared at the
back of the man who walked away from me. I shook my fist at him, "Yeah, and its
name is Paolo! Leave me alone, will you?"

"Are you still beset with admirers?" a soft, English-accented
voice asked.

I smiled at Nora and waved her to a chair. Fiona had opted to
meet me on the shady side of the verandah, a favorite spot for all the
conference attendees, if the number of tables filled to capacity was any sign to
go by. "Hi, Nora. Are you looking for a place to sit? I have an appointment in a
few minutes, but you're welcome to share my table."

She nudged a chair out with her foot, carefully balancing a
tall glass of iced tea and a plate of fresh fruit. "Thank you. I missed lunch
and didn't think I could go until dinner without eating. Where is Jim?"

I explained briefly what had happened at the park.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Poor Jim. But if the vet is
positive he got all the poison out, I am sure Jim's resilience will help the
body recover quickly. You might be able to destroy a demon's physical form, but
they are heartier than a mortal being."

My stomach growled loudly as she speared a piece of melon.
"Sorry," I said, trying not to look like I was starving. "I had fallen asleep on
Drake's bed—now, I guess, also my bed—after my shower, and I only barely made it
to the appointment with Fiona without being late. There hadn't been any time to
rustle up something for lunch."

"You're welcome to some," she offered, pushing her plate
toward me.

'Thanks, but that's not necessary." I looked at my watch,
chewed my lip in thought for a second, then turned around and looked at the
doorway leading into the hotel. Zaccheo stood next to the wall, a pitcher of
water clutched in his hands, his body tense and quivering slightly in
anticipation as if he was waiting at the starting line of a race. I smiled at
him and he shot over to me, almost knocking down an elderly couple in his haste.

"You want water?" he asked, holding the pitcher as if it was
made of precious gems. "You want more water?"

"No," I said, speaking slowly but firmly. The only way I'd
managed to have a conversation with Fiona without him drowning me in ice water
was to forbid him to approach me until I signaled I wanted something. He had
remained against the wall, ignoring other patrons as he stood poised to race to
my side at the merest flick of my finger. "I have to leave in five minutes, but
I missed lunch and I'm hungry. Do you think you can find something quickly—"

He was off before I finished the sentence, ice water
splashing everywhere as he raced into the hotel.

I turned back to Nora. "You know, I could get used to this
amulet."

"Amulet?"

"It's a delivery I have to make." She just looked at me as
she ate her fruit, the sunlight glinting off her glasses. I started to explain,
but a crash behind me heralded the return of Zaccheo. He skidded to a stop at
the table, bumping it hard enough that I grabbed for my water glass and Nora's
iced tea to keep them from being knocked over.

"Here is bread and soup and fish and very fine meats and
cheese," Zaccheo said, unloading his armful of plates onto the tiny table. "You
eat these, yes?"

I looked at the food mounded before me. It looked like he had
raided the kitchen's store of conference food, grabbing an uncut baguette, a
huge round party plate of cheeses, a similarly large plate of rolled cold cuts
bedecked with parsley and olives, and a bowl of a thick, spicy soup. "I will eat
one of these. I don't have enough time—or stomach capacity—for all of it."

His face fell.

"I promise that I'll come back and eat more another time," I
said, feeling guilty that the amulet could play him so cruelly. "But right now
I'll just have this delicious-looking soup. All right?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed back his sorrow, but
he removed all the extra plates without making me feel any worse.

"How is your search for a mentor going?" Nora asked once the
table was cleared and she could put her plate of fruit down again.

"If I say abysmally, would that make you feel sorry enough
for me that you'd take me on?" I asked, only half joking.

She smiled and shook her head, chewing a couple of grapes
before answering. "It would not. I never make appointments based on pity."

I stifled a sigh with a spoonful of chilled curried seafood
soup. "Are you having a good time here? Get lots of applicants for the
apprentice spot?"

"I'm having a very nice time. The workshops are very
interesting, but I will admit, I'm more intrigued with the non-official events."

"
The sightseeing stuff? I wish I had time to take part in
some of them. I really want to see the castle, but what with everything going
on, I just don't seem to have time. Although I can recommend the Budakeszi
Wildlife Park. So long as you don't eat the deer food. Drat, I have to run. It's
nice seeing you again, Nora. Good tuck with your apprentice hunt"

"The same to you," she called as I gathered my things and
dashed off, stopping only long enough to stuff euros in Zaccheo's hands before
running through the inner restaurant to the lobby of the hotel.

I had arranged to meet Theodora Del Arco, a Guardian from
Belize, there before we proceeded to her room for the interview. Theodora, a
short, elegant woman with waist-length black hair that made me green with envy,
told me she preferred a neutral environment to interview applicants, claiming
that only in a room that had been cleansed of the imprints of others could she
truly judge a person's qualifications.

Ten minutes after our appointment time I asked at the front
desk if Theodora had left a message for me. She hadn't. I tried calling her
room. There was no answer.

It was the faintest niggle of worry that sent me to the
elevators, a niggle that grew steadily in my mind as I walked down the hallway
on the seventeenth floor, scanning the room numbers for the one Theodora had
mentioned she was in.

"This is ridiculous," I told myself as I turned a corner and
headed down another corridor. "What happened to Moa was a fluke. It had nothing
to do with me. She died in her sleep, that's what the policewoman said she
thought happened. Her heart gave out while she was sleeping, and she died. It
was nothing to do with the fact that I've been the one to find bodies before—"

I stopped as I turned another corner. The hallway was filled
with people speaking in shocked, hushed voices. A maid's cart had been shoved to
the side, a woman in a hotel uniform sitting on a chair in the corner, two of
her coworkers crouched around her, offering sympathetic pats on her shoulders
while she sobbed into the white hand towel clutched to her mouth. A man in a
police uniform stood guard in a doorway, not saying anything to the handful of
people gathered, many of whom wore conference badges.

I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them again to
count the doors. Yup. It was Theodora's. Sick with fear, I turned, intending to
leave before anyone spotted me, only to come face-to-face with a woman who
grinned at me with wicked delight.

"Why, Hank, look who's here. It's that Guardian woman. The
one the police arrested before, when that other Guardian was killed."
Marvabelle's voice scraped along my skin with all the gentleness of
poison-tipped barbed wire. "Fancy her being here, too. Right on the scene where
yet another Guardian was discovered killed. How very coincidental."

I summoned a weak smile. There really wasn't much else I
could do.

"This is becoming repetitive," Drake said as I emerged from
the local police station.

I squinted at where he leaned against the limo, the sun low
in the sky behind him, blinding me so that all I could see was his silhouette.
"Tell me about it, You're not the one who keeps getting hauled in by the
police."

He held the door to the car open for me. I climbed in,
relieved to see we were the only occupants in the rear. Pal and Istvan were in
the front seat, Pal giving me a cheery smile before turning to face the front.

"Aisling, I like to think of myself as tolerant, but I must
remind you that you now bear a certain responsibility for the welfare of the
sept, and thus I would appreciate it if you could pass the day without
attracting the attention of the police."

I leaned back against the soft leather, closing my eyes and
wishing for a tiny little moment that I could roll back time to just before I
had agreed to courier an aquamanile to Paris. I would never have been involved
in the murders there, never have summoned Jim, never have discovered that I was
born to be a Guardian, and never have met Drake.

Little flickers of flame teased my fingertips. I opened my
eyes, expecting to see Drake kissing them, but he wasn't.

My fingernails were on fire.

I glared at him. "Now what?"

He tried to look innocent, but we both knew he wasn't. "It is
a manifestation," he said, picking up my hand and sucking the tip of each finger
to extinguish the flames.

"A manifestation?" I pulled my hand from his, not because I
wanted him to stop sucking my fingers, but because my body started up its usual
clamor to jump him. "Of what, exactly?"

"My fire. It sometimes happens in new mates. You will learn
to control it in time, or so I am told."

"You haven't had a mate before, have you?" I asked, allowing
him to pull me close to his side. He smelled good. He felt better. "Jim said
that dragons mate for life. So that means you've never had a mate, right? You're
new to all this, too?"

"I am familiar with the ways of the dragons," he said,
handily avoiding answering my question. Drake was a master at that. "I know what
passes between a wyvern and his mate."

"Uh-huh." I wasn't convinced, but I let it pass, "Aren't you
going to ask me what the police said?"

"They requested an interview with you because your name was
in the Guardian's appointment book. They asked you about your relationship with
her. They inquired as to the last time you had seen her. And they confiscated
your passport and informed you to not leave the country without first consulting
with them."

I pushed myself away from his warm body to stare at him.
"Don't tell me—you've suddenly developed Fiat's psychic abilities?"

He looked disgusted. "A green dragon is above the antics of
such a lesser being."

"Mmm." I rubbed my forehead, almost too tired to think. "I'd
just like to know what's going on. The detective I spoke with said preliminary
reports showed Theodora also died in her sleep—a weak heart was said to be the
cause. But that makes two Guardians dying just a couple of days apart, a
situation that stretches the boundaries of coincidence. Any ideas about what
could be happening here?"

Drake shrugged. "I have been consumed by our negotiations. I
have not had time to play detective."

"Do you think there's something to play detective about?" I
asked.

"I have no idea. It doesn't seem likely that two Guardians
should die so quickly, but it seems less likely that their deaths were anything
but natural."