The Nothing: A Book of the Between (25 page)

His own guilt and reluctance didn’t help anything.

What he wanted, in the moments when he was able to be honest with himself, was simple. An ordinary life. He wanted to go run A TO ZEE BOOKS and paint pictures and create sculptures. He wanted to make love to Vivian every night and wake up to her in the morning, to have children together. Their children, his and hers, not some hideous offspring like he had spawned on the dragon woman Aidan.

Which brought him back to the whole dilemma all over again. There was no normal life, either for himself or for Vivian. No matter how he might rebel against the twisted weavings of fate that had brought them here and set their paths together—dragon slayer and Dreamshifter—there was no going back. No waking up as if this were nothing more than some dark dream.

The part of him that was hardwired to the killing of dragons would always be stirred by Vivian’s dragon nature. It had been an ease and a relief to him to have her inner dragon sleeping, and now not only were they were about to wake it, they were going to use blood magic in the company of people whose motives he didn’t understand or trust.

Kalina and Leander were smooth as silk, and every word they said smacked of lies and deceit. He suspected they were engaging in the most insidious and effective of deceit—that which revealed a part of the truth while hiding what they didn’t want known.

Every fiber of Zee’s brain and body shouted out against this blood magic, even though he understood perfectly why they were here. He knew Vivian felt compelled to do this thing because there was no other thing to be done. Even so, it was all he could do to keep from dragging her away. Out of this grove, away from these people, and into a dangerous landscape that would swallow them alive in moments, he had no doubt, if the Master willed it.

“I don’t like it,” he said again, eyes locked on Vivian’s.

“I know.” Her voice told him everything. She saw the same things he did but had made up her mind to take the risk. There was nothing he could do but stand with her and do his damnedest to kill anybody who harmed her. If they zapped him with some sort of magic thunderbolt, at least he’d go out fighting.

Godzilla shifted uneasily, snorting smoke once again.

“The dragon should be bound,” Kalina said. “He could kill us all.”

“You’re frightened of a baby dragon,” Zee said, one hand resting on Godzilla’s shoulder. The scales felt smooth and cold as ice beneath his palm, though each one reflected back a tiny image of the torches so that he gleamed like fire.

“Only a fool has no fear of dragons,” she retorted.

“Even the great Sorcieri?” His blood stirred in the way it always had when a weaker person was bullied or threatened, even as he marveled that he felt protective of a dragon. “I won’t have him harmed or forced. The binding was bad enough.”

“He’s willing to share his blood with me.” Vivian’s face was set in lines of stone. “I can’t communicate well with him, but that much I can read.” Her eyes asked something of him. It took a minute but he registered it at last and nodded slightly, despite a deepening foreboding.

A little of the strain went out of her. “Zee will draw the blood,” she said.

“It’s not customary—”

“None of this is customary,” Zee said, cutting across Kalina’s words. If they were going to do this, it needed to be done. Any delay could be merely a ruse to create time for the springing of a trap. “If we are going to go through with the blood magic, I will take the blood.”

Something flickered in Kalina’s dark eyes. Leander shrugged. “Give him the cup and the blade. Let it be done.”

The girl bent her head in submission, though there was nothing submissive about the set of her shoulders or her chin. She reached into the leather pouch tied around her waist, producing first a silver cup and then a dagger carved from black stone.

Zee swallowed hard. He had seen a knife like this before, in Jehenna’s hands. The blade had been hungry, had brought out all of his long-suppressed capacity for violence, and he had very nearly slit her throat with it. Things would be a whole lot better if he had followed that inclination.

He took the cup, careful to avoid Kalina’s fingers. It was a thing of wonder, and he couldn’t help admiring it despite everything. Purest silver, untarnished, it shone as though with a light of its own. The sinuous body of a dragon was engraved along the rim, its wings forming the handle. It was heavy, solid, and masterfully crafted. Before taking any further action, he carried it to Vivian. “Tell me if it is enchanted.”

“Is your trust so small?” Kalina demanded. Anger made her look taller, harder. A powerful woman, no matter what she tried to say or portray.

“My blood and body. My dragon,” Vivian countered, taking the cup into her own hands. “It’s clean, as far as I can tell. But I don’t trust the knife.”

Relief flooded Zee. If he must be the one to tap the dragon, at least let it be with an honest blade. But the reprieve did not last more than an instant. The two women stood, eyes locked, the lines of tension so taut, he could have cut them with his sword. It seemed to him that so much as the twitch of a finger or the blink of an eye would blow the whole room up like a powder keg. Leander stood off to the side, out of the line of fire, and that was when Zee saw the truth of it, eyes for magic or no. Kalina had power, if not of magic then of something else. She was the dominant of the two. Leander served her.

“I have compromised as far as I am able. Your dragon slayer may draw the blood,” Kalina said at last. “This is fitting, in its way. But he must use the ceremonial knife.”

Again Vivian’s eyes found Zee’s, and again they asked the question. She would never compel him to this, but what choice did they have in the end?

Still, remembering, he crossed the room and knelt at her feet, head bent. Keeping his voice formal, he said, “I offered you my protection, Dreamshifter, wherever that should take us, whatever it should cost. I tell you now I trust neither this blade nor my ability to control it once it is in my hands.” He looked up at her, to let her see all that he could not say. “Last I held a blade that was not my own, I nearly killed you with it.”

His hands were trembling, he realized. Never had he felt such fear, in all the years since he had first learned to channel the warrior spirit he’d been born with. It was not fear of his own death, which seemed a small thing in that moment. It was the realization of all the evil he could be made to do by forces outside himself.

If she’d gone soft then, if she had relented into Vivian instead of wearing the mask of Dreamshifter, if she’d stroked his cheek, or kissed his hands, he would have been undone. But her eyes remained golden and reserved, and instead, she was more fully something other than she had ever been, even when shifted into a dragon.

Dreamshifter, dragon, and Sorcieri, he remembered.

“The power of command is mine to use,” she said. “If need be, I will stop you in your tracks. I promise you this.”

Zee had heard her use the Voice, though never on him. It would have to be enough. He could not mention the dynamics of power he had seen between the two Sorcieri, would have to trust that she had seen it, too.

So, he got to his feet and took the blade Kalina held out to him. At the first touch, his bloodlust leaped in excitement. The black stone in his hand felt alive, thirsty. Dream after dream ran through his memory like water, dreams in which he had carried this blade. The blade cared not for right or wrong. It sought only the joy of the thrust, the hot salty gush of human blood, the black steam of the dragon.
 

Godzilla made a small bleating sound, more sheep than dragon, and shifted restlessly away.

Zee felt split into two different selves.

One wanted only to use the knife. A dragon was an abomination, a beast born to be slain. His practiced eyes glanced around the torchlit circle, taking in the small space, calculating the likelihood of intervention from, or injury to, the humans present. He sniffed the scent of dragon, hot rock tinged with brimstone, registering that his prey was young and frightened, not yet old enough to flame. An easy kill. One swift thrust, just there where the foreleg met the breast—

His other self held back the killing strike, disliking the way the knife tried to do the thinking for him. When he killed—if he killed—it would be by his own will. An open battle, not the slaughter of a cornered and frightened beast.

Wait. That wasn’t right, either.

The dragon had a name and was not to be killed at all. And the woman standing beside the sorceress had a name as well, was important to him...

“Zee?” she asked, and at the sound of her voice, his head cleared, not all the way, but enough.

I’m okay,
he meant to tell her, but his lips didn’t move. He wanted to tell her that the woman, Kalina, shone like a red flame while the man nearly vanished into the shadow, but again there were no words.

He had a task to do, only a simple thing. Fill the silver cup with blood for Vivian to drink. The dragon—Godzilla—would allow this. He was not to slay the creature, no matter how hungry the blade in his hand. Didn’t want to.

As he approached the dragon, he felt a change of sensation as drastic as stepping into a warm room from out of a subzero winter wind. He was still conscious of the enchanted dagger in his hand, but his head was clear. Dragon magic. This was why the Sorcieri wanted the dragon bound. Not because Godzilla might fight back, but because his magic could counteract their own.

Vivian spoke before he found the words.

“Fill the cup with the dragon’s blood and bring it to me.” It was the Voice of Command, and it struck him between the shoulder blades like the shock from a Taser. His body stiffened in response, his eyes locked on hers. Tears rolled down both cheeks but she was composed, her will like iron.

She had spared him the decision and the guilt, taking it upon herself. Maybe it was better this way, since he still didn’t trust the black stone blade.

Godzilla shifted position and stretched out his long neck, providing easy access. His hands no longer his own, Zee held the cup in one and the dagger in the other. Standing well back to avoid splatter, he thrust upward through the soft underside of the neck, then withdrew the knife.

Black blood followed the blade, the first drops steaming on the grass. Zee thrust the cup underneath to catch the flow, shifting the grip to the handle as the metal heated instantly. It took only a moment to fill. The blood continued to gush and he wondered how to stop it but was still under compulsion and unable to speak or act until his task was complete.

Carefully, so as not to spill, he carried the brimming cup back to Vivian.

She took it from him, avoiding his eyes, flinching at the burn of the hot silver against her palms. But she lifted the cup and drank, though the blood was scalding and stank of sulphur.

Perhaps the first swallow burned, but as she drank, the gold in her eyes grew brighter, the scales on her shoulders darkened and spread up her neck and along the edge of her jaw.

One breath, no more, and then all of the color fled from her face, her mouth falling open in shock and surprise. The cup fell to the ground as her hand went to the place just above her breast where Zee had once nearly killed her with the dragonstone, and came away drenched in blood.

She staggered. Zee had his arms around her before either had time to draw another breath.

Kalina bent to retrieve the cup.

“Get away from her,” Zee ordered.

The girl laughed. “Or you will do what? You have no strength of will to match magic. You don’t want me to heal her?”

Despite the mocking tone, her face and that of Leander were deadly serious. Kalina held the cup below the wound in Vivian’s breast. Zee swallowed hard, watching it fill with crimson liquid. So fast. Too fast. She was going to bleed to death while he stood by and did nothing.

Once the cup was full, Kalina thrust it at her brother. “Make the exchange.”

He took the cup from her and crossed to Godzilla. Zee saw now that in the other hand, Leander held a hollow tube, carved of the same smooth black stone as the blade. It was widened at one end into a rough funnel shape. Godzilla shook his head and snorted, but the boy murmured something to him and the dragon settled, presenting the wound for inspection.

Leander carefully fitted the end of the tube into the wound, then began to pour Vivian’s blood into the funnel.

“No,” Vivian gasped. “Don’t let them, Zee. Don’t you see?”

He didn’t. His brain felt slow and fuzzy. Both hands were pressed over her wound, trying to staunch the blood that continued to well out between his fingers, around his hands, down her shirt, and onto the floor.

“Hurry,” Kalina said. “She’s bleeding too fast.”

They weren’t trying to kill her, then. That was all he could think.

“Done.” Leander poured the last few drops of Vivian’s blood into the funnel.

Kalina raised both arms and began an incantation. It was almost music but not quite, rising and falling with quavers and ululations that raised the hair on the back of Zee’s neck. As her voice rose to an intense pinnacle of sound, the frail body in his arms jerked violently and then went limp.

“Best step back,” Leander said, behind him.

“Stay away from me.”

The blood had stopped flowing, he noticed half a second later. He put his hand to her throat, his own heart pounding desperately as he sought a pulse. It was there, slow and strong. Her skin heated beneath his fingers, growing so hot he jerked away involuntarily. Scales emerged on all exposed skin. Her chin sharpened, her face shifting into a reptilian shape. Her eyes flickered open, looking into his as Vivian for only an instant before the pupil narrowed from a circle into a vertical slit at the center of a predator’s golden gaze.

Having seen the transformation before, not knowing how conscious she would be of herself as Vivian at the first, Zee stepped back as Leander had advised. Something was different this time, but it took a moment for Zee to register the details. She had been a green dragon before. This time, her scales continued to brighten after the shift, as if heated by a fire so intense, their very color was supercharged to a brilliant red-gold that hurt his eyes.