Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons (31 page)

“No, I think that’s fine. I forgot to tell you earlier that I have Drake’s reward, and I wanted to reassure him that it’ll be waiting for him when he has the sword.”

“I’m so glad it’s finally happening,” Aisling said in a confidential tone. “Drake has been itching to do this job ever since we got home. He’s trying to teach Ilona how to use a Wii controller, but she’s teething and insists on sucking on it rather than pressing buttons as he insists she should. This will give him something more constructive to do.”

I heard the masculine rumble of a voice in the background.

“She’s six months old, Drake. She’s not going to benefit from the honed-to-razor-sharpness hand-eye coordination that you get from playing Super Mario Brothers,” Aisling said. “Sorry, Ysolde. You said you were going to leave shortly, yes? We’ll meet you in St. Petersburg in…How long will it take us to get there, sweetie? Drake says it will take two hours to get the plane ready and fly out there, Ysolde, so expect us around one a.m. You’re absolutely certain Dr. Kostich will take a portal at that time of night? He doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of guy to do rash things like take red-eye flights.”

“He has only a few hours to save his daughter, so yes, I think he will. We’ll meet you outside the portal place, then.”

“We? You’re not bringing Baltic, are you?” She sounded appalled. “You didn’t say you were bringing him.”

“I was a bit rushed then, but yes, we’re all going. But…er…Aisling, Baltic thinks I’ve arranged for Drake to steal the blade so that I can give it to him.”

“Ah. Well, you will be, in a roundabout way.”

“Yes. It’s just the route it takes to get to him that will no doubt annoy him. So if you and Drake could keep mum about that, I’d appreciate it.”

“Our lips are zipped. And by that I mean I’ll leave Jim at home, so it can’t spill the beans to Baltic, which we both know it would do in a heartbeat.”

“Thanks. Nico will continue on with Brom to Moscow, if your offer of a pickup at the portal office is still open.”

“Of course it is. We’ll be delighted to have him stay with us for a couple of days. The babies love to play with Brom!”

I giggled to myself as I hung up, and made a mental note to give Brom a bonus to his weekly allowance to compensate for all the baby drool he would be encountering.

Less than an hour later, I grilled the employee at the St. Petersburg portal station about whether Dr. Kostich had arrived.

“No one’s come through for two days,” the man said in a mild Yorkshire accent, eyeing the money I held just out of his reach. “Just you lot, and we don’t normally see dragons using portals around these parts.”

“It’s a bit of an emergency,” I explained.

He glanced to the side, and I turned to consider the sight of two mussed-up dragons sitting on the floor, each clutching a paper cup. Taking a cue from Maura, I also brought a bottle of dragon’s blood wine with me. Holland and Savian were off finding two cars to hire.

“Aye, must be.”

“We’d like to use your waiting room for a bit,” I said, adding a few more bills to the ones I waved at him. “If your portal isn’t that much used, you won’t mind us doing that, I’m sure.”

His gaze snapped back to the money, watching as I gently waved it in the air. “No, I don’t see as that would be a problem. So long as you’re a customer.”

I smiled and handed him the money, then spent the next five minutes coaxing Baltic and Pavel into the waiting room. They were both prone to be a bit snappish, which I put down to having had to use a portal multiple times in the last week. Evidently, the cumulative effect of portalling was a bit more devastating than I had anticipated.

I called Brom to make sure that Nico and he had arrived safely in Moscow, and that one of Drake’s men was waiting for them (he was), answered a call from Maura to assure me that she, too, had (barely) survived the portalling, and then set about rallying my crew.

“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re making such a big fuss about,” I told Baltic, when he refused to get off the couch he had collapsed on some fifteen minutes before. “You’re acting like a big baby. You don’t see Pavel demanding to be left alone so he can die in peace, do you? He’s just fine and dandy.”

Pavel lurched past me, ran face-first into a wall, rebounded off it with a shake of his head, and fell over onto his back with a little gurgle.

Baltic looked up from where he lay prone on the couch, and he glared at me just as if I were to blame.

“Fine! I’m to blame! You can yell at me later if you like, but Savian and Holland are going to be back with the cars any minute now, and I want you up and ready to follow Dr. Kostich the second he arrives.”

He growled. He actually growled.

I bent down and kissed him, saying softly into his mouth, “Just keep in mind that when this is all over, I’m going to be so grateful to you, I’ll be willing to let you be bossy in bed for a long, long time.”

He stopped growling and started looking interested, but I caught his roving hands and stepped backward, pulling him to his feet. “Come along, handsome. We have work to do before we get to the rewards.”

“Rewards, plural?” he asked, giving Pavel a hand up. “It had better be plural, because my temper will need much assuaging after this.”

I pinched his butt as I passed him. “Right. I think a few jogging laps around the block will do much to clear your respective heads. I’ll stay here in case Dr. Kostich shows up. Would I be out of line if I asked you to hold hands so no one gets into trouble? Oh, Pavel, ouch, is your head all right? Yes, I agree, that doorjamb really is in the way. Maybe next time you should keep your eyes open when you walk through a doorway. And I think perhaps you should
walk
around the block, not jog.”

Another fifteen minutes later, and not only had Savian and Holland arrived with two vehicles, but the dragons were all more or less operating on all thrusters again, although Pavel’s run-in with the door left him with a nasty cut on his forehead that was taking its own sweet time to heal, no doubt due to his general state of discombobulation.

“Are we late?”

I spun around to see a familiar woman step out of the portalling office. “May?”

“I hope we didn’t miss anything. Aisling said we had to be quick, and here we are.”

“Ah,” a dark-haired, dark-eyed man said as he followed her out onto the sidewalk. He looked around, taking a deep breath, his face alight with pleasure. “St. Petersburg. The pillaging that went on here. The violence that ensued. Surrounding villages fired to the ground…the sweet sound of screams filling the night…the many captives I took back to my palace later, for even more fun…good memories, every one!”

I gawked at the man.

“This is Magoth,” May said with a deep breath. “He’s a former demon lord.”

“The best there was, eh, sweetness?” the black-haired
Magoth said, turning his eyes to me. His brows rose as he shimmied toward me, all undulating power and rampant sex appeal. He wore leather pants, and a black silk shirt open nearly to his navel. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until a little breeze caught his hair and lifted it back. “And who do we have here? Sweet May, who is this delicious-looking blonde, and is she into threesomes?”

Baltic was still far enough away down the sidewalk that I risked setting fire to Magoth’s feet.

“Oh, don’t do that,” May said quickly, causing me to tamp down briskly on the fire. “He just enjoys that sort of thing. Trust me on that.”

“Oooh,” Magoth purred, trailing a finger down my arm. His touch was icy, as if he’d been sitting in a refrigerator. “Someone likes to play rough. Go ahead, sweetheart—fire me up!”

“Magoth, you promised!” May said, punching him in the arm. “This is Ysolde. She’s the mate to the dread wyvern Baltic, and he won’t tolerate any crap from you any more than Gabriel lets you hit on me, so stop it right now, or the whole thing is off.”

“Ysooolde,” Magoth drawled, bowing over my hand and kissing my knuckles, his tongue snaking out to lick between two of my fingers before I snatched my hand back. “Would you like to see my curse?”

“Say no,” May advised.

“No,” I told him, then asked her, “Is there a reason you felt it necessary to bring a demon lord with you?”

“Magoth is a
former
demon lord,” she corrected. “He’s without about ninety-seven percent of his power, so he’s mostly safe to be around. Although he has a libido the size of Montana.”

“So kind of you to say, sweet May. Now,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “where do we start?”

“Gabriel says we need a demon lord for the lifting of
the curse; although he only has three percent of working abilities, they should be enough.”

“Ah. I thought Aisling could do that since she’s a demon lord, as well.”

“Yes, but she’s a good demon lord, and she can’t be used for this purpose because it’ll proscribe her again. Thus, Magoth. He’s the only demon lord we can deal with safely, now that Abaddon is in uproar over recent happenings.”

“What recent happenings?” I asked.

May waved away the question. “Bael was overthrown. It doesn’t really matter to us now, except in so much as all the demon lords are fighting for ascendancy. Magoth is our best shot.”

“In so many ways,” he said, waggling his hips at me. “Would you like me to show you three or four of them?”

“I’d like to give you a big old whack upside the head, but I suppose that wouldn’t fly,” I told him.

To my horror, his eyes lit up with sexual interest. “Oooh, you like it rough, too? Excellent. Perhaps you and I can get together a little later on and compare our favorites list, hmm?”

“You know, you make me appreciate just how non-creepy Constantine is,” I told the former demon lord. “I’m going to have to thank him for that, later.”

“Did I hear my name invoked?”

My shoulders slumped as Constantine shimmered into view.

“What do you have to tell me, my adorable little squab?”

I turned to face him. “Squab, Constantine? Really? Squab?”

He grinned. “They’re cute. And I like to bite them.”

“Do you really?” Magoth said, giving Constantine a once-over. “I suppose it would be preferable to bats, as that one rock star was known to do, but I myself prefer
a nice, poisonous tree frog if I’m going to bite off the head of any animal. The tang of the poison as it courses through one’s blood nicely counterpoints the robust, earthier flavor of the frog. There are some salamanders that are almost as nice, but not quite the same sort of a rush, if you know what I mean.”

Constantine blinked at Magoth. May groaned, and turned, suddenly realizing her mate wasn’t with her. “Gabriel? Where are you? What are you doing in there?” She reentered the portal office.

“I don’t bite the heads off anything, let alone a frog,” Constantine corrected. “Who the devil are you, anyway?”

I made the introductions, providing brief explanations of who each of them was before watching as May led Gabriel from the portal office.

“I didn’t know dreadlocks could stand on end,” I commented as she fussed over him, straightening his shirt and his eyebrows, then handing him one shoe, which evidently had come off during the portalling. “It’s a good look, though. Where are Maata and Tipene?”

“In Australia, where any sane dragon should be,” he answered, feeling his hair, and smoothing it down to its normal state. “When they found out we’d have to take a portal to reach here, they refused to join us, although they send their regards to you, and compliments to Pavel.”

“This is going to sound horribly rude, and I don’t for a second mean it to be taken that way, but why
are
you here?” I asked as Baltic, his eyes narrowed on Gabriel, approached, the air bristling with electricity.

“Aisling said you—” May stopped at the sight of Baltic, shooting me a questioning glance. I shook my head just enough to warn her against finishing the sentence.

“Look who’s here,” I told Baltic as he stopped beside me. “It’s May and Gabriel and May’s former demon lord, Magoth.”

“Ah, the dread wyvern we’ve heard so much about,”
Magoth said, giving Baltic a quick visual examination. “Any time you and the so-luscious Ysolde wish to join me in a quick orgy, just say the word.”

Baltic rolled his eyes, but Constantine said, “Orgies? We’re having an orgy? What sort of an orgy? A bondage orgy? Or just a regular one?”

“I vote bondage,” Magoth said, waggling his eyebrows at May.

“Seconded,” Constantine said.

“No one is having an orgy, bondage or otherwise,” I said firmly, trying desperately to reclaim control of the conversation. “I do have to say I’m a bit surprised to see you here, May.”

“Aisling said you were going to need some help, so we thought we’d pop over to Russia and see if we could be of assistance.”

Gabriel looked in surprise at her but said nothing.

Baltic’s favorite scowl was firmly in place as he faced Gabriel. “We do not need the help of silver dragons.”

I rounded on him, slapping my hand on his chest hard enough to make him look down in surprise. “That is enough!”

“Mate, you—”

“Oooh, she
does
like rough play,” Magoth said sotto voce. “I like her.”

“You can’t have her,” Constantine said somewhat prosaically. “If she leaves Baltic, I have a claim on her. She was my mate for about five minutes before he challenged me for her.”

“So she plays around, then, hmm?”

I ignored the comedy team to focus on Baltic. “No! It’s enough, do you hear me? Far and away beyond enough. There will be no more slurs made against silver dragons—do you understand? No more! It’s through, Baltic. This war between the black and silver dragons is done, finished, ended once and for all.”

“I will not forget what they did to us,” Baltic snapped, his fingers tightening.

“Well, you’d just better learn to live with it, because I have had enough! We are all going to get along if it kills us. Do you hear?”

“It killed me,” Constantine quipped.

“They probably
can
hear you; we could hear you two blocks away, and we had the car windows closed.”

I spun around to see Aisling climbing out of a car, Drake at her side. I was about to greet them when Aisling added, “Oh no, not you again.”