Light My Fire (5 page)

Amelie poured more wine and shook her head. “No. I
do not mix much with the upper echelons of the L’au-
dela. I am happier in my own sphere of influence.”

“Boy, do I envy you that. Well, the red dragon wyvern,
Chuan Ren, is a ... um . .. trying to find a nice word for
her. . .”

“Bitch,” Jim said, licking Cecile’s ear.

I made a wry little smile. “Basically, yes. She’s very
powerful, very aggressive, and I don’t think she likes
Drake very much. I know she doesn’t like me.”

“Hmm.”

‘The fourth wyvern, Gabriel Tauhou, is a sweetie. He’s a healer, like you.”

Amelie smiled and nibbled on a cheese stick.

“Aisling has a crush on him.” Jim’s voice floated to us
above the low drone of the air conditioner.

“Oh, I do not. I like Gabriel, nothing more. He helped
me when Drake wouldn’t, and he doesn’t seem to want to stir up trouble, unlike the other two wyverns.”

“That is very interesting,” Amelie said, looking thought
ful. “And what of the fifth sept?”

“The what?” I frowned, setting down my wineglass.
When I started mishearing things, it was time to switch to
something a little less potent. “Fifth sept? There are only four dragon septs—red, blue, silver, and green.”

“Non, there is a fifth sept. I heard that a black dragon had been spotted in Germany. The local speculation is
that he will claim the post of wyvern and bring the black
dragons back.”

“There’s a fifth sept?” I looked at Jim. “Jim, how many
dragon septs are there?”

“Now, or ever have been?” Jim answered. I ground my
teeth a little. The dragons had a habit of answering a ques
tion with a question, and Jim had picked up that habit.

“Right now, how many dragon septs are there?”

“Four,” Jim said, pausing a moment. “Five if you count
the black dragons, but no one has seen any of them for a
hundred and fifty years.”

“Who’s the wyvern?” I asked. Neither Jim nor Amelie
had an answer. “Well, then, why did they disappear? What
happened to them? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned them
before this?”

Amelie shrugged. Jim sucked ear. I glared at it.

“You never asked,” my demon finally answered.

“I believed you would receive answers to your questions from your mate,” Amelie said. “I am not au courant
with all that goes on in the dragon world. I can only tell you what the gossip of the moment says.”

“Well, you can bet your bootstraps I’ll be asking
Drake about that. If there’s another wyvern out there I
have to make nice to, I’d like to know about it first.”

Amelie smiled again and switched the subject. “I know
this will be of interest to you, since you had something to
do with it the last time you were here—the office of Venediger has not yet been filled, although there have
been challenges for it.”

“Oh, really? You know—silly me—I never was quite
sure exactly what the Venediger does. It’s a position run
ning the French Otherworld?”

“France, yes, and the rest of what is now the common
market. Mostly all of Europe. It is a very big position,
you know? Very important. To be Venediger means to have much control, much power. The challengers for it
have been strong, but not strong enough.” She slid me an
odd little look that I couldn’t read.

“Really? What happened to them?”

“They killed each other,” she said simply and held out a plate of cold, marinated mushrooms. She made a little moue at the horrified expression on my face. “Yes, it is shocking, but unfortunately, the people who first come
forward at a time like this are not ones we want in control. Now that the feverheads and rogues have done away with themselves, the serious challengers will come out and bat
tle for control.”

“I guess you’ve got to be a hothead if you end up fight
ing to the death for a job,” I said slowly, wondering what
sort of person would end up in control of western Eu
rope’s Otherworld society.

Amelie agreed. “But Aisling ... there has been some
talk.”

“Oh? About what? Oooh, stuffed tomatoes! Thank
you, they look delicious.”

I popped a tiny tomato into my mouth while she sat down opposite me, her hands folded together.

“Do you recall what I said the last time I saw you?”

“The last time? Hmm.” I thought back a couple of
months. “Bon voyage?”

“Before that. It was right after you solved the murders of the Venediger and Madame Deauxville.”

I put down the scrumptious morsel of tomato and
cheese, my blood running cold. “You said that since I had
defeated the person who was going to take over as Venedi
ger, that meant I was a candidate for the job, but it’s not
going to happen, Amelie. I have enough on my plate as is.”

“It is the opinion of many here that you would be per
fect for the position,” she said stubbornly as she poured
herself another glass of wine.

“Much as I appreciate such a thought, I wouldn’t be perfect for it. I don’t even know what a Venediger does,
for cripe’s sake!”

“You are a smart woman. You would learn quickly.”

I set my glass down and took a deep breath. “Thank
you, but no. Seriously, no. It’s all I can do to keep up with
Nora and the dragons—anything else would be absolutely
out of the question.”

She shrugged, and without saying anything more on
that topic, turned the conversation to personal subjects. I
told her what I’d been doing the last couple of months,
about our time in Budapest, and gave her a brief update
on the situation with Drake.

“He ... betrayed you?” she asked, clearly surprised.

“In a manner of speaking. He kind of tricked me into
becoming his mate while leading me to believe he would
support my Guardian training.”

“That is very wrong of him
...
but very like a dragon,”
she said after a moment’s thought.

“Yes. I will admit that he was in a hard place, and per
haps I wasn’t noticing warning signs as well as I might,
but hindsight and all that.”

“Hmm. It is difficult.”

By the time we were through dissecting my love life,
discussing all the gossip of the Paris Otherworld, and al
lowing Jim to have quality Cecile time, I had only an hour
and a half left before I had to get to the station to catch
the high-speed train back to London.

“Would you like to go to G&T?” Amelie asked as I helped her clear the dinner table after we’d eaten a lovely
meal of poached smoked haddock and potatoes, and wild
mushroom ravioli that had me gibbering with pleasure as
it melted in my mouth. “If it has bad memories for you, I
will understand, but it is still the premiere place in Paris.”

“I’d love to. I don’t hold the bar at fault for all the stuff
that happened there,” I told her as we gathered up our
things. Jim was torn between leaving Cecile and missing out on potential snacks from unwary patrons at the Goety
and Theurgy bar, where so much had happened a few
months ago. In the end, it decided that although love was eternal, a sleepy Cecile was not as entertaining as G&T.

“I want a drink, though. And some snacks. That mush
room thing isn’t going to hold me over until morning,”
Jim said as we headed for the metro.

“If you’d eaten the food Amelie provided, you
wouldn’t be hungry now,” I said in an undertone, pinch
ing its ear to remind it to keep its voice down in public.

“That was dog food!” Jim’s voice was rife with disbelief.
“Do you have any idea what they put in that stuff? It’s,
like, all ground-up lips and butts! I’m not putting that in
this magnificent form!”

“Fine, I’ll buy you a hamburger once we get to G&T,
but if I find you begging from anyone, it’s straight back
to the Akashic plain with you!”

I was mildly surprised to see that G&T looked no different than it had before but was reminded with a jolt, at
the sight of the previous Venediger’s picture on a wall near
the bar, that the events I’d remembered were only a few
months in the past. Despite the former owner’s brutal mur
der, and the manager’s spiral into madness, everything
looked exactly the same. I half expected to see Drake and
his two redheaded bodyguards lounging in the corner.

“I know it’s silly, but you’d think it would look different
after everything we went through.” My gaze roamed the
club, looking for some sign that the events we’d partici
pated in had some sort of lasting effect. “Everything’s the
same, though—same low, pulsing music you have to yell over to be heard, smoky air that leaves you craving a ven
tilation system, and people slinking around looking as nor
mal as can be despite the fact that they’re anything but.”

“The band is different this week,” Amelie said, waving
a hand toward a small stage at the opposite end of the
club. We walked down the few steps into the room, pre
pared to squeeze our way through the dense wall of peo
ple who stood among the bar, tables, and dance area. I
expected we’d have to use a few elbows to get through,
but as I stepped forward, an aisle through the mass opened
up as if by ... well, magic.

“This is odd,” I whispered to Amelie as I took advan
tage of the strange phenomenon. Before me, people
stepped aside to make way for us. Behind, the path closed
up seamlessly after Amelie and Jim. “This happened to
me once before here—what gives with everyone? Why are they acting like they don’t want me to inadvertently
brush against them? I’m not a leper!”

“No, but you are a person of much importance in the
L’au-dela,” Amelie answered in a soft tone. “You are a
demon lord, a wyvern’s mate, and a Guardian. There has
never been a person who was all three—that is why many
people believe you would be a good Venediger as well. They
are simply showing you the respect due your position.”

“Hey, if Aisling is a celeb, does that make me one,
too? Will someone ask for my picture, do you think?” Jim
asked, looking around for potential paparazzi. “Should I set up my
demon-jim.com
Web site now?”

“Oui,
you are known as well. All have heard of you:
You are the demon who serves your master well.”

“Hrmph,” Jim said. “Lassie I’m not! Fame can wait if all I’m going to be known as is a trusty sidekick. What’s
this
biz about Ash as the V?”

“Just silly talk, nothing more. I’m not going to com
plain about making it through a crowd easily,” I whis
pered to Amelie, “but it still gives me the creeps.
I’m
not
anyone important at all, and for them to treat me this way
is ... oh, look, a table.”

We grabbed a couple of chairs and a small table in an
out-of-the-way corner and accepted menus from the
waitress.

“Drinks?” she asked in broken English.

“I will have a cognac,” Amelie told her, handing back
the menu.

“Er.. . dragon’s blood,” I said with an apologetic smile.

“And for ze demon?” she asked, giving Jim a bland
look.

Jim drooled on her foot.

“It will have a club soda in a bowl and a hamburger
with all the trimmings.”

“No onions. I have Cecile to think of,” Jim corrected me.

“So? How does it feel to be back?” Amelie asked once
the waitress left, tipping her head to the side as she looked at me.

I looked around again. Although the music pulsed, conversation ebbed and flowed around us, and people
generally went about their evenings, I had a feeling that
everyone in the room knew exactly where I was sitting. It
was an uncanny, unnerving feeling, and it made me ex
tremely uncomfortable. “It feels . .. kind of odd. The first
time I stepped foot in here, I had no idea of what this
world was made of. I guess what’s bothering me most is
that the club hasn’t changed—I have.”