Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (3 page)

“I was going to call my mom,” I said with a sigh, holding my hand out for the phone. Drake tossed it to me. Technology held no fascination for the fledgling, probably because nothing actually functioned around him.

I tried turning the phone on. It started to boot up, so maybe I’d gotten lucky —
 

“Will the witch follow us?” Drake asked. Then he stuffed something in his mouth so quickly that I couldn’t actually identify it as food.

“I hope not,” I answered.

“It is foolish to hope for an outcome you know will not happen.”

“Oh, thank you, sage one.”

Drake grinned. He popped something else in his mouth, chewed, and then swallowed.

Gum. He was eating gum.

“Stop that!” I snapped. “It’s gum. You’re just supposed to chew it.”

Drake frowned. “What good is that?” He ate another piece.

“If you get sick, I’m not carting your ass around.”

“I never get sick,” Drake declared with utter confidence.

“You’re hanging with me, kid,” I said. “ ‘Never’ just went right out the window.”

Drake looked at me seriously for a moment — probably working through the window reference — and then broke into a broad grin. “I hope so, warrior’s daughter. Never is a boring word.”

Jesus. “Suanmi is so going to kick my ass,” I muttered.

“That would not be good,” Drake said, all serious now. “I fear you would not survive such an assault, but the fire breather rarely resorts to physical confrontation.”

“Helpful.”

“You are welcome.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I know.” He didn’t. He’d picked up the lying-but-not-really-lying thing from me. It wasn’t as endearing a trait as I would have thought.
 

“So we meet the sorcerer and then what?” Drake asked. “Are we saving the necromancer?”

I sighed. The thirteen-year-old knew way more about my life than he should. But then, he’d been my constant companion for the last three months, and he asked a lot of questions.

“I hope so.” I glared at the fledgling, daring him to pull out one of his sage sayings. He just smiled back at me, content for the moment. That calm would probably last for another thirty seconds.

“Maybe we’ll have to storm the castle,” Drake said, gleefully.

And the calm was gone.

“At least I have a dragon,” I said, knowing it was wrong to play along with Drake but desperately trying to channel some of his lightness. “You need a dragon to storm a castle, don’t you?”

Drake threw his head back and laughed. It was a mannerism I think he might have adopted from my father, Yazi, but one he embraced with abandon.

The truck engine stalled … then caught … then stalled again. I took my foot off the gas.

“Stop it,” I said to Drake. Yeah, I said that to him a lot. It didn’t seem to have any lasting effect.

He snickered. “We could get there faster on foot.”

The engine caught again.

“You could, maybe. But the swords would be rather obvious out in the human world.”

“What would the humans do if they saw swords?”

“They’d wonder. They’d ask questions.”

“But we need not answer them,” Drake insisted.

“This is why they don’t let you out of the nexus yet,” I said. “You can’t just go blundering around in the world you’re spending your entire life training to protect.”

“You blunder just as much as me!”

“More, probably. But I can’t bulldoze entire mountains in a single breath.”

“Neither can I, though I don’t understand ‘bulldoze.’ I assume it is bad.”

“We’re here to rescue, not to destroy, is what I mean.”

“I don’t destroy.”

“But you don’t create.” The words were out of my mouth before I thought them through.

Drake fell silent. I forgot how young he was, all the time.

“I’m sorry —”

“No, alchemist,” Drake interrupted. “You create. I protect. I understand.”

“Okay.”

“We are careful of the humans.”

“And others.”

“Yes, I will be careful.”

“My version of careful, not yours.”

“Your version?” Drake cried. “You would barely give me permission to breathe, you’re so docile.”

“Did you just call me docile?”

“Yes. Did that anger you? Perhaps we should fight?” the fledgling asked hopefully.

I shut my mouth and clenched the steering wheel. I didn’t like getting my ass handed to me by a thirteen-year-old on the training floor … or off it.

According to the Google Maps route that the witch had plotted, the drive was only supposed to take us two more hours in a fairly straight line. I could make it through two hours, couldn’t I?

If the truck didn’t break down first.

CHAPTER TWO

Blackness Castle was — literally — a castle. As in, built out of stone, with towers and one big wall running the perimeter and everything. I mean, I wasn’t sure what I’d expected — the word ‘castle’ was in the name, after all — but I’d never actually seen a castle in person before. Forgive me; I’m from Canada. I was impressed by the Parliament Buildings in Victoria.

“There’s a freaking gate,” I said.

“It looks like a boat,” Drake said.

I rolled the pickup truck to a stop in the gravel-filled area in front of the wide front lawn that ran the length of the castle. I swiveled to look at the fledgling guardian incredulously.

He was peering up and out of the windshield at the castle. “What? The two towers … north and south look like the stem and stern. It’s long and narrow and it juts out into the water.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “A really big stone boat.”

Drake shrugged. Freaking dragons were impossible to impress.

Night had fallen right around the time the fledgling guardian’s tummy had started growling. Drake didn’t complain and I didn’t stop for food. I also pushed the gas tank so much we might have been rolling in on fumes, which was fine because Drake was right. If we really needed to leave in a hurry, we’d probably get away quicker on foot.

The half moon was bright in the dark, clear sky, though it had rained for portions of the drive. A low stone fence branched off from the high castle wall to form a sort of front yard. The castle was set back, looking — as Drake had already said — as if it was floating in the Firth of Forth behind it.

It was impossible to tell from this vantage point if anyone was home. I couldn’t see any lights on in the towers.

“So are we just going to knock on the front door?” Drake asked.

“Yeah. I think it’s behind the castle gate, but that was the short version of the plan.”

“What’s the long version?”

“It was more of a plan B. You know, if he doesn’t answer the door.”

“We break it down.”

“Yeah. Well, I break it down.”

“And now you have me.”

“Great,” I said, casting a long look in Drake’s direction. The fledgling grinned back at me, as if the idea of breaking into the powerful, potentially evil sorcerer’s castle was like ice cream and video games for him. Maybe it was. There didn’t seem to be any other dragons of Drake’s age around the nexus, nor did there seem to be a formal school or anything. Just our trainer Branson, who barked drills at us and let us loose in the library.

“Where are all the other fledgling guardians?” I asked as I opened the truck door and stepped out into the cool night. Nothing like a little friendly banter to lighten our short walk toward the deadly magical onslaught that potentially awaited. I wasn’t underestimating Blackwell … well, not again, at least.

“There aren’t any right now,” Drake said. “Baxia will be the next guardian to choose her successor, and she doesn’t need to do so for another two hundred years or so.”

“What about Yazi’s nephew or niece?” I hadn’t met my younger cousins; I’d just hunted through my family tree wondering if my three-century-plus-year-old dad had any other children. He didn’t. Guardians, it seemed, didn’t breed often. I’d also tried to find information about guardian succession in the nexus library without any luck. I had no idea how potential guardian dragons were selected, how they ascended, or why each guardian then wielded unique magic beyond their inherent strength, agility, and invulnerability.

Drake shrugged, strangely silent as he followed me around the front of the truck. I let it drop.

The stars were clustered densely overhead, and I wondered what they would say about the next couple of life choices I was about to make. You know, if I could read stars.

“We only have twenty hours,” I whispered, urging myself forward. I could take whatever the sorcerer could throw. Hell, I’d been training my ass off in anticipation of this moment for three months. Well, not this moment exactly, but a moment probably much, much worse. Blackwell had a thing for me. He was a collector, the same as Kett and I were collectors. Sienna was only interested in destroying … as far as I could tell, at least. Sienna, not Blackwell, my ultimate target.

“Yeah,” Drake said, but I couldn’t remember right away what we’d been talking about. Then I picked up my own train of thought.

“Branson might not have come for me, you know,” I said. “If you hadn’t followed.”

Drake shrugged. The moonlight glinted off the hilt of the gold broadsword behind his shoulder.

A shadow disengaged from the low stone fence that stretched behind Drake. My jade knife was in my hand before the taste of her magic hit me … bitter yet refined dark chocolate … more berry than citrus.

“Kandy?” I whispered.

Drake slipped behind me but didn’t draw his sword. It was a well-practiced move. We’d determined early on that if he was behind me, my dowser senses were more accessible. By ‘we,’ I mean Branson figured it out. So Drake followed while I led. The fledgling hated it, and I wasn’t a big fan of having that sword behind my back either. It wasn’t exactly a precision weapon.

The shadow stalked toward me. Teeth flashed, their white enamel caught momentarily in the moonlight. Next thing I knew, I was running, then crushing a green-haired werewolf in a massive hug.

The werewolf in question gave as good as she got. If I wasn’t half-dragon, my upper arms and back would have been seriously bruised.

“Kandy,” I cried. I had missed her so much I forgot any and all decorum, not that I ever had much.

“Dowser,” Kandy murmured as she buried her face in my curl-covered neck and inhaled. “You smell the same. That’s good.”

I pulled away from the hug to look at her. Even in the moonlight, I could see her green hair wasn’t as perfectly dyed as it normally appeared. And she was slimmer than usual. More wiry than her typical litheness.

“You, however, do not look the same, dowser.” The cool voice spoke from off to my right. “And it’s not just the sword you carry or the new ability to wield it that is evident in your body.”

Kett. Surrounded by Drake and Kandy’s magic, I couldn’t taste the vampire’s magic at all, but I could feel the life debt bond he owed me. It hung between us in the darkness like an unsprung trap. I didn’t have to see him to know he would be untouched by the three-and-a-half-months that had passed.

“You’ve teamed up with a vampire?” I teased Kandy as I stepped back from our hug.

She shrugged. “He was here when I arrived.”

“Oh? What brings you to Blackness Castle, Kettil, Executioner of the Conclave?” I asked, mockingly. Vampires never did anything that didn’t benefit them directly, though they were also all about the long game so maybe I was missing something.

“I came directly from Portland,” Kett said, not answering my question at all. “Blackwell was obviously the best lead to the black witch’s whereabouts.”

Kandy snorted. “Would have been nice of you to share that info, vamp.”

“You’ve been here for three months?” I asked.

Kett didn’t answer.

Kandy growled with frustration. “We can’t get in.”

“We can,” Drake said from behind me.

We all turned to look at him. Even Kett stepped into the moonlight to lay eyes on the fledgling guardian. I still wasn’t sure how the vampire collected shadows around him so thoroughly. He was dressed in his typical cashmere sweater and atrociously expensive jeans combo.

“I thought it might have been a dream,” Kett murmured. His voice was unusually heavy with emotion.

“No such luck,” I said.

Kett turned his ice-blue eyes on me and smiled. That should have probably scared me even sillier than I already was, except I welcomed it.

God, I missed my life. Even the terrifying parts, it seemed.

“You brought a dragon to storm a castle, eh, Jade?” Kandy peered over my shoulder, jumping to a conclusion about Drake’s identity that must have been informed by Desmond’s recounting of the events in the nexus. Kett wasn’t chatty as a rule, and I’d had to keep our couple of phone conversations very short.

“You wouldn’t expect anything less, would you?”

“Nope.” Kandy grinned her patented predator grin. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Ditto, babe. Ditto.”

I hadn’t wanted to drag anyone — not my mother or Gran or Kandy — any farther into Sienna’s mess than I already had, so I’d kept my mouth shut about my plans. But I was more than pleased that the green-haired werewolf was back by my side. And the vampire, of course, though I never quite knew what would happen the moment our interests diverged.

∞

“Artillery fortified,” Kett said. “The defensive spur to the southwest is the main entrance.”

“Just point, vampire,” I said. Only five minutes into our reunion, I was already snapping at him for being way over my head all of the time.

We were standing by the pickup and gazing at Blackness Castle. Surveying would be a better word, maybe, except I really had no idea what I was looking at.

Kett raised his hand to indicate a stone walkway to the far left of the castle. “He’ll reside in the central tower,” he added.

“The wards are impressive,” I said. I’d scanned the length of the castle’s nooks and crannies, and couldn’t see any weak points in the magic that protected it and kept us out.

“Yes,” Kett agreed. “But I wouldn’t expect anything less of a sorcerer with Blackwell’s lineage.”

“Did you stop by the bakery for cupcakes?” Kandy asked. The castle neither impressed nor intimidated her. That unending confidence was the hallmark of most werewolves — but it was especially prevalent in Kandy, who was a pack enforcer.