Dragon Knight (The Collegium Book 3) (16 page)

“I can’t offer you a guarantee of peace or happiness.” Lewis stood with his back to the door, facing Gina where she sat frozen in her armchair.

Very slowly she put down her cup of coffee. “No one can guarantee those things.”

“Other people have more predictable lives than mine, and lives less subject to scrutiny. You saw the effects of rumor downstairs.”

“I also saw the respect people have for you that is helping to carry the Collegium through a difficult time in its history. I think I understand how important the Collegium is to you, and you to it. I wouldn’t ask you to relinquish any of your duties.”

He took three steps forward and gripped the back of an armchair. “I don’t know how the Deeper Path Morag introduced me to is changing me.”

Tears stung the back of Gina’s eyes. She opened them wider, denying the tangled emotions of fear and regret, and of incipient loss. “I think it is making you more distant. When you believe the Collegium is through this transitional stage, you’ll resign as president and go out to explore other worlds. Like my aunt Deborah, the unknown will call to you.” She stood clumsily. “I would go into a relationship with you knowing that would be the ending. You’re worth it.”

He released the armchair with a muttered curse and strode around it to her. “Gina—”

She put both hands on his chest, holding back his protest. “But when you go out to explore other galaxies, the relationship ends. I can’t live waiting for your return, feeling you grow ever more distant not simply geographically, but in your experiences and emotion.”

“You could come with me.” He clasped her upper arms. “That’s your dream. You told me you were trying for clarity of sight. I could work with you on it.”

She slid her hands up to his face. “I don’t know if I want it any more. But I do want you. For however long we have.”

Their kiss had a hungry, sorrowing edge that soon submerged under the flood of desire. Simple lust, but there was nothing simple about it. She craved him for so much more than his body, and she offered him so much more than hers. Soul, dreams, caring.

She wanted to forget thought as she had just hours ago and surrender to the storm in her blood.

He tore his mouth from hers. “I have to find this fifth group member, first. Then we’ll have time for us. I’ll make time,” he vowed.

She believed him, and pushed aside thoughts of how short that time might be. “So let’s find this Mr. or Ms. X.”

But it wasn’t that easy.

When she opened the door of Lewis’s inner office, intending to go and see if she could help Zhou’s forecasting team, she rocked back on her heels. “Huh.”

The outer office was filled with people, with Chad attempting to impose some sort of order. It seemed everyone wanted to assure Lewis that they would never have believed a rumor about him and a demon.

For Gina, it was a bit like walking the gauntlet. Everyone stared at her. She looked back at Lewis, but he was expressionless.

“Five minutes each,” he instructed Chad. “We have work to do.”

Gina escaped to the forecasters’ Zone where she found Zhou in conference with Gilda, the chief demonologist. They were visible through the glass walls of his office at the edge of the Zone. Their conversation appeared intense.

“Any good news?” Gina asked the people she’d worked with yesterday.

“Lewis isn’t demon-haunted,” one of them joked.

Gina forced a wry smile at the gallows humor. “I always knew that.”

“Yeah.”

She hesitated. She wasn’t actually part of the forecasters’ team. They’d accepted her yesterday for their own reasons, but today…she reached a decision. The Collegium wasn’t her home territory and Lewis could reach her anywhere.

“Going home,” she texted him.

Giant, invisible weights lifted off her shoulders as the doors of the Collegium closed behind her.
Argh
. So much tension. She walked fast, unable to shake a feeling that someone watched her. Had Kora assigned her a bodyguard?

Gina readied a protection spell in case the watcher wasn’t well-intentioned. However, she made it to Paul O’Halloran’s portal without incident, and since he was sulky and monosyllabic, travelled through to Emmaline’s portal with a minimum of hassle or conversation.

Emmaline, looking like a gray heron in a summer-weight linen suit, gave her a searching look. “If you need any help, remember we’re family.”

Gina hugged her, but was grateful that Emmaline never pushed for confidences. Riaz would have peppered her with questions after the show the Collegium guardians and the hired combat mages had put on yesterday.

Home looked wonderful, and feeling its protective wards close around her felt even better. The sense of being watched had been left behind in New York. She brewed a cup of green tea and dried rose petals, and sipped it as she wandered through her house. She halted in front of the door to the closet beneath the stairs.

Lewis had invited her to journey with him along the Deeper Path. In a sense, he’d dared her to share her dream with him. The offer had hit her hard, and not pleasantly.

She set her tea cup down on the top of a low bookcase and opened the closet door.

Finally, the torrent of people who just
had
to see Lewis eased. He leaned back in his chair and replied to Gina’s texts. Not only had she gone home, she’d gotten home safely. She was more secure there than inside the Collegium, and that was an indictment on the organization.

“Still hunting 5,” he texted. “Stay safe.”

He put the phone down and reached for the papers in his in-tray, trusting that Chad had acted as an efficient PA and prioritized the various reports so that any dealing with the Group of 5 were on top.

Chad seemed to have dismissed whatever mood he’d been in. Possibly shared adversity had allied them. Neither appreciated a horde of emotional people invading their day.

“Of course he’s busy.” Gilda’s voice came from the outer office, rougher than usual, showing signs of strain. “We’re all busy. And worried.”

Lewis resigned himself to the inevitable. “Come in,” he called.

She did, accompanied by Zhou.

“Five minutes,” Lewis said bluntly.

Gilda and Zhou collapsed onto chairs on the far side of the desk.

“Suits me.” Gilda rubbed her eyes. “I need to sleep. But Zhou and I noticed something, and oddly enough, it was Neville who pointed it out. He’s done good work containing the Turkish earthquake’s aftershocks, too. Not as young as he was.”

Zhou broke into her tired rambling. “Neville identified a critical point. The Group of 5’s activities have been wide-ranging, malicious and characterized by self-interest, but when their activities have crossed paths with the Collegium, it’s you, Lewis, who has been their focus.”

“Because I suspected their existence before I could prove it.”

“Perhaps.” Zhou’s agreement was cursory. “But what if the Group of 5 courted your attention? Yours in particular.”

The back of Lewis’s neck tingled in atavistic warning.

“You noticed something two years ago. Then a year ago the Group of 5 lured you to the North West Passage. You’re not an easy man to kill, and as commander of the guardians you were seldom in the field alone.”

“They wanted me dead.”

“In a way that wouldn’t attract attention to them. A rogue weather mage summoning an ice storm that escaped his control and killed you? No one would have suspected a conspiracy. You would have been mourned, and your absence would have critically unbalanced the Collegium.”

Lewis frowned. “Why? Kora and I have had some personality clashes as she settles into her role as commander of the guardians, but that’s to be expected. She could have stepped up easily into my shoes a year ago.”

“Operationally, yes,” Zhou said. His eyes were hollow with tiredness, the skin beneath them paper thin. He hadn’t just been awake through the night. He must have been using his magic to the utmost, trying to penetrate the unknown fifth group member’s shroud of concealment. “But Richard was president then.”

“He wouldn’t have rejected Kora’s assumption of the role of guardian commander,” Lewis said.

Gilda clapped her hands together, once, sharply. “You’re overlooking the obvious, as we did. Why did we all vote for you to replace Richard when you’re so young?”

“I don’t feel that young,” Lewis said ruefully. But it was a matter of perspective. Zhou and Gilda were old enough to be his parents. “But I realize I am young to fill this role. I consider it temporary. I realized you all voted me in because you knew that the Collegium’s restructure would be difficult, and once achieved, the president who did it could step down, clearing the way for the new and permanent president to move things forward.”

Zhou shook his head. “We voted for you because you were already president.”

Lewis jerked back. “No.”

“You said it yourself.” Gilda leaned forward, tapping the desk. “In the board meeting yesterday you said that the president’s role was to be a touchstone. That has always been you.”

“An honorable man,” Zhou said. “Through the troubled last months of Richard’s presidency and in this time of change, people looked at you and saw why the Collegium exists. You serve. The Group of 5’s plan to murder you in the North West Passage backfired. Instead, you burned out your magic to save hundreds of lives, and that added to your honor. I believe the rumor linking you to demons was one final attack at the heart of the strength you give the Collegium.”

Lewis shook his head. “No. One person can’t be that important. It’s not healthy.”

“Nor is it permanent.” Zhou was sympathetic even as he swayed with fatigue. Gilda put a hand on his shoulder. “You were needed when Richard failed the Collegium and we all failed to detect the demonic taint so near the presidential office. You provided the quiet, trusted leadership. And now, as we change, people still need someone as a symbol to be trusted and a promise of what we can achieve.”

“But once the restructure is bedded down, more of us will need to share those responsibilities,” Gilda said. “You’re right, Lewis. It’s not a burden one person can carry. Not forever, not without it consuming them. But for now, you are vital to the Collegium’s strength and future.”

“I have to rest.” Zhou braced himself against the desk. “You need to consider that the mastermind of the Group of 5 is still out there and there’s a high probability that his next attack, the way he defends himself against us, won’t be a rumor, but a direct and personal assault on you.”

“I’ll remember,” Lewis said. He shouted for Chad and had his PA assist Zhou to the chief forecaster’s own office where Zhou had a bed he could rest on.

For himself, Lewis slipped into clarity of sight. He copied the pattern of warding he remembered from Gina’s home and locked it around the office, setting the outer bemusing perimeter to enclose the entirety of the Collegium’s headquarters. Then he let go of the silver energy and picked up the papers he’d been trying to read for two hours. Their information was probably out of date.

Gina walked into Morag’s chamber to find the dragon curled near the human corner of it, evidently waiting for her.

A thin cloud of sage-green smoke enveloped her, slowly dispersing. Her body was obsidian, barely reflecting the white opal of the chamber.

“Good morning, Gina.”

“Hi, Morag.” Gina sat in the armchair. For the first time ever, she felt awkward here. Even on her first visit to be introduced to Morag Gina had been more excited than uncomfortable. Aunt Deborah had actually told her to stop “grinning like a loon”.

Gina didn’t feel like smiling now. She felt terrible, knowing that she was about to let down Morag, herself, even her family.

“I can’t do it,” she said abruptly.

Did Morag’s wings lift and resettle? There was almost a stir of silver above her spine. Gina ignored it and stared into Morag’s eyes. “You’ve taught me so much about opportunities beyond Earth, of other ways of thinking, of simply knowing that there is a world beyond humanity’s. It’s helped me in my hacking and in how I analyze data.” Something Gina had realized only as she worked closely with Zhou’s team of forecasters.

“You are an energetic and enthusiastic companion,” Morag said. “If I taught you anything, it was matched by what you have given me.”

“Me?” Gina’s dejected shoulders straightened. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You have shared your life, and that is no small thing. You are free with your emotions. You express them. It is a startling and appealing trait, one that might benefit my own people, but I fear we lack the courage to be so vulnerable.” An azure-tinted smoke sigh. “You care so much for those you love.”

Gina crossed to Morag and touched a black tentacle that reached out to her. Smooth and cool, it fleetingly caressed her hand before withdrawing. Standing so close, Gina could only comfortably see one of Morag’s large, alien eyes. The intense blue of it seemed sympathetic, sorrowing.

“You have guessed, haven’t you, Morag? No, you always knew.” It was so hard to say the words. To say good-bye to her lifelong dream. “I won’t ever attain clarity of sight or journey along the Deeper Path because I can’t relinquish my ties to the people I love, to family and friends, or even give up my ties to the physical world. I love the sensuality of it too much. I am renewed, made whole, when I experience the scent of violets hidden in a shady corner of the garden, the warmth of sun on my skin, the sting of salt spray when the storms come. I’m not a fit dragon knight.”

“A dragon knight?” Musing humor, sadness, kindness. “You are an excellent knight, strong enough to be true to yourself. Dedicated. Determined. It was your very determination that I had to shake.”

“You mean I’m stubborn?” Gina was ruefully amused. She’d been accused of stubbornness before.

Morag didn’t share her humor. Without moving, the dragon was nonetheless further away. “I feared that you, with all your efforts, would acquire clarity of sight before you understood that achieving it would sacrifice essential elements of your nature. You thrive enmeshed in loving your family and friends, and in the familiar space of your home. In my concern, I manipulated you. I would like to apologize.”

“You had me bring Lewis here to learn the Deeper Path because you knew that would show me what journeying it cost.”

Morag blinked. “You guessed?”

“Only today.” Since Morag had retreated, Gina returned to the armchair. The solidity of it and the reassuring rough weave of its upholstery grounded her. “I was blinded by my human way of looking at the world. To me, Lewis is far more important as president of the Collegium than I’ll ever be. So I assumed you were teaching him the Deeper Path to assist him. This morning, I realized that he was merely the means you chose to open my eyes to the choices, and consequences of those choices, that I faced. You’re a very loyal friend, Morag, as well as wise. Thank you.”

“As to that.” The dragon uncurled, rose and paced. It was unusual behavior from one so habitually controlled. Her vestigial wings stirred the air with a flutter of silver. “I am perhaps not as clever as I thought. I had to tread a careful path. I’m bound not to interfere in happenings on this world. All I could do was offer Lewis a chance to achieve clarity of sight and choose to journey further.”

“Which, being Lewis, disciplined and detached, he did,” Gina said.

“Yes.” Distinctly unenthusiastic agreement.

“Morag, is there a problem?” Gina stood and walked the couple of steps to the table, resting her butt against it. Had the dragon guessed that Gina had fallen in love with Lewis?

I hope not
, Gina thought fervently. She crossed her arms and put on a disinterested, tough girl expression. One heart-to-heart talk with Lewis establishing that she couldn’t love him when he journeyed further along the Deeper Path and left her for other galaxies was all Gina could endure. She didn’t want to confess her tortured heart to Morag.

“Earth is a confusing place,” the dragon said unexpectedly. “Clarity of sight enables me to see dimensions you cannot, and yet, as a human you see other realities that evade me.”

“Emotions?” Gina ventured cautiously as the silence stretched out. The silence was so vast and still, she could almost hear the chamber resonate like a giant heartbeat.

“No, although those are tricky.” Morag abruptly closed the distance between them. She stood taller than normal, very alien, as if mannerisms she used to reassure Gina had been shed. “Since my arrival on Earth centuries ago I have discovered that there are some things that clarity of sight does not reveal. Places, creatures, that cannot be found on the Deeper Path.”

Gina had no idea what Morag meant, and apparently, her confusion showed.

The dragon’s tentacles twitched. “Humans can see these creatures, but I cannot. You can converse with them, those of you who wish to do so, but I cannot hear them. I believe that the situation is the same for them. They are aware of my presence on Earth, but they cannot breach my protections to enter my chamber—although they have tried numerous times through the centuries. They are ambitious and clever.”

“But not human?” Gina asked.

“Most certainly not human.” Morag paused.

“Who, then?”

“I cannot perceive them. I can only judge their existence by alterations in the happenings of Earth and humans’ speech.”

“You can’t see them physically or with clarity of sight.” Gina’s statement wasn’t a question. She was rephrasing Morag’s information, conscious that Morag was definitely leading to some revelation. Something unpleasant to judge by the cold creeping into Gina’s veins. “A sentient species present on Earth, but not human…”

Morag’s tentacles lay flat in a sign of resignation. “You call them demons.”

“Not many humans talk with demons.” Gina’s thoughts scrambled to understand Morag’s ominous mood. “I wouldn’t worry that you can’t talk with them. It spares you their evil. Good people only converse with them long enough to banish them.”

“If they can see them. If they can use their magic against them. My power, the power of the Deeper Path, doesn’t work against demons.”

The Deeper Path wasn’t magic. Gina knew that. What she hadn’t known was its limitations.

“Morag?” she whispered.

The dragon, larger than ever, looked at her through one massive, swirling blue eye. “I didn’t know of Lewis’s quest against this Group of 5 when I requested you bring him to me for lessons on the Deeper Path. Even when hired mages attacked your home, I didn’t suspect—”

“Nor did I.” Gina stared at the floor of the chamber. The opal colors shifted and flamed.

Morag’s claws scraped at the alien surface. The sound was like ice grinding and breaking, a groan of material under immense pressure.

“A demon is the fifth group member that we can’t find.” Gina watched Morag’s front left claw scour a jagged tear in the opal floor.

“I can’t interfere,” Morag said. “As it is…”

Gina’s pulse beat like thunder, faster and faster. “There’s a demon after Lewis. He’ll be able to see it if it’s close to him, but he doesn’t have magic. He has only the Deeper Path which can’t help him. And the guardian bodyguards have probably relaxed or been withdrawn, believing that with the new power he demonstrated, he can defend himself. And he probably can, against anything but a demon.”

She grabbed her phone out of her pocket. “I have to warn him.”

Her call went to voicemail. She left a terse message. “The fifth group member is a demon. Your new power won’t work on it.” If anyone was tapping his phone, that gave away nothing but the necessary warning.

And if it was the demon tapping Lewis’s phone, she’d just told it that Lewis was powerless against it.

Gina groaned despairingly and phoned the Collegium. The receptionist put her through to Chad. “I have to speak with Lewis. I know who the fifth member of the group is.”

“Who?” Chad’s voice was weighted with the urgency and authority of his guardian role.

“Lewis,” Gina said just as urgently.

“He’s gone. I don’t know where.”

Gina swore as she disconnected. “Fay’s number. I need to phone Fay. She banishes demons. Lewis trusts her. Damn, damn, damn. I don’t have her number.”

A number appeared on her phone’s screen.

Morag puffed pale apricot smoke. “You’d have found it if you had your laptop with you.”

That was stretching the dragon’s non-interference policy, and Gina appreciated it. “Thank you. Fay? Gina Sidhe. I think the fifth group member is a demon. No, I don’t know why anyone didn’t think of it. We just assumed that there weren’t any that powerful roaming around unbound. But I can’t reach Lewis and he doesn’t know who—what—his enemy is or that his new power won’t work on it. How do I know that?” Gina looked at Morag. “I consulted an expert.”

Fay’s voice was crisp. “Contact Kora. She’s efficient. Have the Collegium find Lewis, now. That’s their priority. I’ll make my way back to headquarters so that I’m available if they need more firepower against the demon.” Her voice gentled. “You don’t know that the demon has Lewis. See you in an hour.” She disconnected.

“Does the demon have Lewis?” Gina asked Morag.

“I can’t interfere.”

“Damn.” Emotions ran up against logic and Morag’s evident unhappiness. Everything got tangled. Gina phoned the Collegium. The receptionist put her straight through to Chad, by his orders. “Fine. I’ll talk to you,” Gina snapped. “But you have to contact Kora immediately. Fay is on her way back in case the demon has Lewis. The Collegium has to make finding him its priority. All resources, now. Get Kora to approve it, and if she won’t, contact Zhou and Gilda. The chief demonologist will know how bad this is.”

“We all do. Kora will issue the order to find Lewis, and to brace for a demonic attack against the Collegium.”

They hung up simultaneously.

“I need to go,” Gina said to Morag.

“You love him.”

“Lewis? More than life.”

A massive boom shook the chamber.

“Morag?”

“I apologize,” the dragon said. “My temper. Go, child. That I must wait here impotent to fix problems of my meddling is my punishment.”

“You didn’t summon the demon.” Gina was out of the chamber and in her hall closet as the last word vanished behind her. She raced out to her car, and drove fast down the driveway, through her protective wards, and onto a public road. The sleep spell hit instantly.

She should have taken precautions.