Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) (17 page)

“Text you what?” I called after him.

The nearest airport to the portal.
Kett’s voice sounded suspiciously like a whisper in my mind.

My step faltered. “Did you hear him?” I asked Warner. “About the airport?”

Warner shook his head.

Damn it. Telepathy?

“A side effect, perhaps,” Warner said.

“It’ll wear off?”

“Hopefully.”

I sighed. I liked Kett well enough, but I didn’t want anyone in my head. Pulou could communicate with me like that, but only when we were both standing in the magic of the portals. And for some reason, it wasn’t so disturbing then.

I’d started walking again, but hesitated when another thought occurred to me. “You don’t think he …” I glanced back over my shoulder toward the warehouse and the amplifier’s offices, realizing midway into the question that I didn’t want to vocalize less-than-fantastic thoughts about a friend. And especially not to Warner, who was genetically inclined to be prejudiced toward vampires.

“I think,” Warner said, placing his hand on the small of my back and guiding me up the sidewalk past a closed pizza place, “that Kettil, the Executioner of the Conclave, collects more than he kills.”

I tried to not squirm uncomfortably at Warner’s vocalization of my thoughts.

“He’s different,” I said.

“And you feel responsible for that difference.” Warner tapped his left thigh where he wore the sacrificial knife when he was dressed in his dragon leathers. The knife was still there, of course. The clothing was simply an aspect of Warner’s chameleon magic.

“Sometimes I think he’d prefer to be dead,” I whispered. “True dead, full dead.”

“The vampire values his immortality. But perhaps he also chafes at its restrictions.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Two more blocks and two more left-hand turns, and we’d somehow arrived back at Haoxin’s steel-and-glass apartment building. Standing at its base, it felt like the skyscraper was towering over the city, though only because it sat two blocks from the water’s edge. The streets were quiet here but not completely empty.

A cool breeze made me shiver, though it didn’t stir my still-sticky-with-dissolved-foam hair. Warner brushed a kiss across my lips without warning.

“We’ll find the map,” he murmured.

I reached for him, for the strength of his arms, wrapping my fingers around his biceps as far as they’d go. I took a moment to breathe in the smooth, creamy-chocolate-and-sweet-cherry magic that he held so tightly coiled around him.

“We don’t know she’s in Peru,” I said. “Or that she can even read the map.”

“If she is who she claims to be, then she’s the daughter of the former treasure keeper and can most likely unlock the map. If not, then whoever she is, she seeks an object of power and for you to unlock her magic. She’ll follow us to Peru.”

“What does ‘to break with the guardians’ mean, exactly?”

“If, as she appears to be, Shailaja is in league with the shadow leeches, then I would conclude that she believes in immortality.”

“But dragons aren’t immortal. Only long-lived and difficult to kill.”

Warner shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, glancing around the street. “Is the vampire near?”

“Classified dragon secrets?” I asked, teasing but still somewhat serious.

Warner huffed out a laugh. Behind him, through the glassed entrance of the apartment building, a tired-looking businessman stepped out of the elevator with his pure white English bulldog. The dog made a beeline for the front doors, tugging his master after him.

Instead of reaching out for a taste of Kett’s magic to answer Warner’s question as to the vampire’s proximity, I took the sentinel’s hand and pulled him into the building before the door closed behind the man and his dog, who were now wandering up the sidewalk.

∞

If we hadn’t opened the shades earlier, the apartment would be pitch black, but the glow from the city below and around us lit the room just enough to distinguish the furniture. And Warner, of course. He was kind of hard to miss as he stepped into the living room. Not that I’d had a chance to test that in the dark yet.

Warner sighed and ran his hand through his hair, leaving it a mess. Something about the gesture made me pause. So much of him was cobbled together from the people he’d first come into contact with when he woke from stasis … my accent, Kandy’s ideas of clothing, Pulou’s raised eyebrow. But right now, all I could see was Warner … watching me as I watched him.

I wanted him to close the space between us, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. I had a feeling that the level of intimacy I wanted, that I craved, was unusual for his time period. Not that he’d been a monk, but I think everything private took place behind closed doors in the last life he’d lived.

He certainly didn’t kiss like a monk.

And the door was most definitely shut and locked right now.

I closed the space between us. Slowly, deliberately. A smile spread across his face, and he leaned back against the couch and stretched out his legs. I would have to walk between them to get as close as I planned to be.

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t a monk.

“I like dancing in this age,” he said.

“You’re a quick study.”

I stepped between his legs but left the last few inches open between us. He ran his hand up over my invisible knife, resting it on my right hip, but he didn’t tug me closer.

“I was supposed to take you to dinner before the dancing.” His face was deep in shadow, but I could see the glint of golden magic in his eyes.

“Supposed to?” I murmured. I reached up and tucked my fingers into the collar of his silk shirt to feel the warm, smooth skin where his neck met his shoulder. If there had been more light, I might have caught a glimpse of his tattoo, which I still hadn’t seen beyond the thick black edge that curved over his collarbone.

“Drake indicated that our third date should be dinner and dancing.”

“Drake is fourteen,” I said with a laugh, then sobered quickly. “Wait, this can’t be just our third date.”

“Fourteen years spent living in your century,” Warner said. “And having a fortress collapse on you, then almost drowning, might feel like a hell of a date, but it wasn’t.”

I leaned into him a little more, swaying forward to capture his lower lip in a kiss. Then I said, “Dragons aren’t immortal.”

Yeah, I was unfocused. I was slowly warming up from the imagined brain freeze of Kett sifting through my thoughts, and oh so ready to collapse into Warner’s arms. Yet I was exceedingly aware that the map — and Warner — were compromised, and that the world was full of secrets I suddenly needed to know to move forward. Secrets I’d needed to know three months ago but hadn’t been aware of — because no one, not even Pulou, had known of Warner’s or Shailaja’s existence. Even guardian dragons weren’t infallible.

“But guardians could be immortal,” Warner answered as he brushed a light kiss across my left cheek. “And some argument could be made for the children of guardians, I suppose.”

That piece of information cut through the comfort of the kisses. “Sorry?”

“It’s rare for a dragon to mate after taking on the mantle of a guardian. Often, the children of guardians become guardians themselves. As I believe is the case for Chi Wen, Baxia, and Haoxin.”

“And guardians relinquish their power every thousand years.”

“Give or take, but yes. Willingly.”

“But they don’t have to?”

“An argument could be made.”

“What’s the argument against?”

“The magic a guardian carries is taxing, even divided as it is between the nine. It can wear on the mind and physical body. And living that long is disorienting. Elder guardians tend to withdraw, like Baxia. And delegate their day-to-day responsibilities, as Chi Wen soon will with Drake. Haoxin and Qiuniu have already begun to walk the far seer’s territory upon request.”

“You think that Shailaja broke with the guardians because she believes in immortality.”

“If she is Shailaja, then the company she keeps is telling.”

“And the sacrifices made to create that company.” The shadow leeches were most definitely a product of the blackest sort of magic, whether or not the sorcerers had been willing participants in their own ‘evolution.’ “She was attempting to collect one of the three ways to kill a guardian.”

“Yes.” Warner sounded grim, and I didn’t much feel like hashing through it all again. I would rather have continued with the soft, intimate kisses. But I didn’t.

“Does it bother you that I’m slow?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject. “You assimilate so quickly —”

“No,” Warner interrupted. “You aren’t slow, Jade. You’re thoughtful … focused on what matters to you. Life is not so clearly defined for most of us.”

“Life isn’t so clear to me at all.”

He laughed. “Well, you make it seem that way.”

“You make it seem that way!”

“Another reason we are well matched,” Warner murmured.

And just like that, I was exceedingly interested in renewing the kissing session. Just with more vigor.

“What was the first reason we’re well matched?” I asked, flirting as I reached up to tease open the second button of his shirt.

The portal blew open behind us.

“Goddamn it all to hell,” Warner muttered, more viciously than I’d ever heard him.

I threw my head back and laughed. Why not? I was terrible at delaying gratification. I might as well enjoy it while it was being forced upon me.

Haoxin, the guardian of North America, stepped through the golden magic of the portal and offered us a sunny smile. The petite blond was wearing a pretty pink-and-white, long-sleeved, form-fitting dress that showcased her every smooth curve.

“Just passing through,” she said, giving Warner a saucy grin as he slowly stepped away from me to offer the guardian a low bow.

I mimicked the movement.

Haoxin waved away the formality of our greeting. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“We have a lead, guardian,” I answered. “Peru.”

Haoxin snorted. “Qiuniu is going to love that.” Then without further comment, she crossed through the living room toward the kitchen. “The far seer awaits you,” she said as she glanced around. Then she added disappointedly, “You didn’t bake?”

“No, guardian,” I answered. “We’ve only been here —”

“Joking, warrior’s daughter,” Haoxin said as she pulled an expensive-looking espresso machine out from a lower cupboard. “The brownies are lovely, but they couldn’t make a great triple-shot, extra-foam latte if my life depended on it. And some mornings, it does.”

Warner winced, probably at the afore-forbidden dissing of brownies. Then he said, “Thank you for your hospitality, guardian,” as he turned toward the still-open portal.

I wasn’t in such a rush to see the far seer, but I also couldn’t just hang around Haoxin’s living room …

Sigh.

A shower would have been nice, too … with Warner washing my back. If by ‘back,’ you understand I meant everywhere, all over, upside and down. Yes, in the shower.

Double sigh.

“My employee Todd is a wizard with espresso. He makes a mean shot,” I said over my shoulder to Haoxin as I stepped into the magic of the portal. “Or so I’m told.”

“I shall hold you to this proclaimed wizardry, Jade Godfrey,” the pretty guardian called after me with a laugh. “And consider it an open invitation to visit you at your bakery.”

The thought of Haoxin — or any guardian — in the bakery gave me heart palpitations. I really, really had to work on connecting my brain to my mouth. Like, before I opened my mouth. I got into more tight spots just by being polite than doing any other thing … except for crossing paths with the far seer.

CHAPTER NINE

‘The far seer awaits you,’ was pretty much the worst thing anyone could ever say to me. Ever.

Just to make that statement even more soul-crushingly terrifying, I walked through the portal to find the far seer — as expected — waiting in the nexus, and decked out in his usual gold-trimmed white robes. He glanced at Warner, eyed me up and down, and said, ‘Ah. Not today.” Then he wandered off toward the dragon residences.

I looked at Warner, who shrugged.

“A shrug is not an appropriate response in this situation,” I said, then instantly regretted my tone. “I’m sorry …”

“Walking under the gaze of the far seer must be unsettling,” Warner said.

He didn’t step closer to me, though I couldn’t blame him. My father might walk in on us at any moment, and I wasn’t sure how the warrior of the guardians felt about his newly found mortal daughter dating the sentinel of the instruments of assassination. God, my blood ran cold every time I thought of my dad and the instruments at the same time.

What the hell was I doing standing around?

I turned toward the door that led to the territory of South America, looking at it closely to make sure it was the correct one. It was constructed out of a smooth deep-red wood — bloodwood, I thought — and intricately carved like all the other doors of the nexus. I wasn’t sure of the nature of the design, though. Incan? Or Mayan? I knew those were cultures from South America’s history, but I wasn’t sure of the differences between the two.

The only good thing about walking through the portal into the nexus was that it somehow seared off all the dissolved foam that had dried on me, so I didn’t feel so sticky anymore. Though I steadfastly refused to acknowledge the crisply burnt shoulder of my pretty new sweater.

I reached for the door, pausing when I realized there was no visible handle. That was different … I hadn’t realized that certain territories could be closed. Or maybe I was reading too much into it and all it needed was a solid push —
 

“We should ask permission.” Warner’s tone was measured and slightly cautious, as if he thought I might explode for absolutely no reason. “And get supplies.”

“Supplies?” I said testily. I hated that walking-on-eggshells tone, especially from men, even if I was just imagining it now. I also hated being questioned as I was about to charge into battle. “You need supplies?”

“No,” he answered. “You need supplies.”

I turned on him. “Yeah? Like a bathing suit?”