Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) (19 page)

“Keyless entry,” I said. “Handy magic. Though I’m not sure how the healer knew to key it to you specifically.”

“He didn’t. Any dragon who walked here would need to access it.”

The garage was protected by a different spell than we’d seen in Haoxin’s apartment. But that was a place we’d already gained entry to by way of a portal, so we simply had to remind the wards we were allowed to return. I had something similar on the alley door that led to the bakery, but Gran, Scarlett, Kandy, and I were the only ones who could use it.

Warner swung open the double doors to reveal a silver Mercedes SUV. Yeah, after driving around London with Kett, I now recognized the logo enough to know that much. It had been used recently enough that it was still splattered in dried mud. It was also coated in layers of magic — more wards constructed by the healer.

Warner grinned at me as he crossed to the driver’s-side door.

“Wait,” I said. “You can’t even drive.”

He shrugged. “It’s a long trip with empty roads. Sounds like a good time to learn.”

“Seriously? Now?”

“What could go wrong?”

“I don’t know. Did you notice the huge lake? The cliffs?”

Warner laughed and opened the driver’s door.

I crossed my arms. “You’re supposed to open my door first.”

He paused, surprised. Then he grinned as he crossed around the vehicle to open the other door.

Completely haughty, I squeezed by him. But as I turned to step up into the seat, he blocked me with his hip. Then he laid a fierce kiss on me that started on my lips and exploded in my nether regions.

I clenched the sleeves of his jacket, holding myself firmly away from collapsing into him, when all I wanted was to wrap my arms around his neck. With one hand curled around my waist and one at the back of my neck, he held me so firmly that I might not have been able to break away if I’d tried. And, yeah, that thrilled the part of me that wanted to be … wanted. My heart rate skyrocketed, and every pissy thought drained out of my pretty little head.

The possessiveness of the lip lock eased, then turned teasing. Warner brushed his thumb lightly against my neck, pulling back until we were barely touching.

“Always?” he whispered against my swollen, suddenly empty lips.

“Always what?”

“Do I always open doors for you? All doors or just cars?”

“If you’re going to be old-fashioned about it.”

He regarded me for a moment. Then he nodded and released the back of my head, stepping back to allow me entry to the vehicle.

I almost moaned at being released, but I managed to control myself. Though my legs were rubbery, I climbed into the passenger seat without making too much more a fool of myself.

The sentinel packed a lot into a single kiss.

∞

We headed in the direction Qiuniu had indicated, finding the road easily. The SUV came fully equipped with heated seats, a GPS, and a charging station for an iPhone. Though I opted against blasting music while Warner was learning to drive.

All the technology was heavily warded against magic, and interestingly enough, by Qiuniu. I’d tasted similar, though less powerful wards, on the SUV Kett had stolen from Blackwell while we were hunting Sienna in Scotland. Magic and technology wore against each other. Gran went so far as to suggest that technology and human industry were destroying magic. As the earth died, so magic withered. But the guardian of South America obviously had a healing touch with more than just magical beings. As did Jasmine, the reconstructionist’s cousin, who’d laid the wards on Gran’s computer. So maybe everything wasn’t quite as dire as Gran thought.

After figuring out that the gas pedal was seriously sensitive, Warner drove like he’d been doing so his entire life. Honestly, if he wasn’t so sexy — and judging by that last kiss, so into me — I might have hated him for his endless adaptability … just a little.

I pulled out my cellphone and checked it for a signal every few minutes. The plan was starting to feel flawed. I knew I should trust my elders, but I wasn’t sure how being vaguely near the location of the instrument was going to draw Shailaja to me.

Except if she figured out she couldn’t read the map, then she’d ‘demand my aid’ again.

“Did you check on the bakery?” Warner asked.

“It looked brand new,” I said. “Better than before. Hopefully, an overnight facelift doesn’t call too much attention to itself. Or didn’t call too much attention already, seeing as how a day supposedly passed between Vancouver and San Francisco.”

“Blossom was just claiming her dominion. Perhaps putting it back to what she perceived as its original state.”

“She left the broken trinkets, though.”

“She can’t replicate your magic,” Warner said, sounding proud.

“Thank you for introducing us,” I said, feeling oddly shy and overwhelmed.

“Anything, Jade,” Warner said. “Anything you need that I can supply is yours.”

I nodded, threading my fingers through the wedding rings of my necklace. I placed my left hand on top of his where it rested on the center console, but I didn’t speak.

The comfortable silence between us was better than any words I could have come up with anyway.

∞

We stopped at a gas station in Cerro de Pasco, even though after what felt like most of the day — but was probably only a couple of hours — the SUV still had a full tank of gas.

We’d climbed farther up into the mountains to get here. The handy computer system in the SUV informed us we were now at 4330 meters. As Qiuniu had already said, this settlement at the very top of the Andes Mountains was known for silver … and for not much else.

As we’d driven in, all the tiny houses and businesses appeared to be falling into a mining vortex. According to a quick Google search, the entire city of seventy thousand people was built around a gigantic pit.

The Google search also unearthed some not-so-nice opinion articles and blogs about the area. Something about an environmental disaster in the making … or maybe it was already occurring. I wondered if Qiuniu worried about it, notwithstanding that he couldn’t interfere. Not even a guardian dragon had any power here. Their guardianship — aka ‘saving the world’ — only revolved around the use of magic, specifically magical disasters or demonic incursions. Environmental issues or other catastrophes created by humans weren’t under the guardians’ purview or control.

As we climbed out of the vehicle at the gas station, the only magic I could feel for miles around was the power I brought with me … Warner and the SUV. That was exceedingly odd. Whether or not there were Adepts nearby, I should at least feel some sort of natural magic.

I tried to dowse farther as we walked toward the convenience store situated behind the pumps, but I couldn’t taste a trace of magic in the area.

After a few steps, Warner paused and shifted his shoulders oddly as if he was suddenly uncomfortable. “You feel that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t feel … or taste anything.”

Warner made a noncommittal noise, then continued into the well-stocked store. I paid twenty American dollars for three one-liter bottles of water — knowing I was getting ripped off, but needing to hydrate in the extreme altitude.

Warner asked for directions, but those pretty much consisted of ‘follow this road until you get to Huanuco.’ But, you know, in Spanish, which neither of us spoke.

Warner might have learned English in a matter of minutes when he’d woken up in my bakery, but he’d had me all demanding and feisty in his face then, plus way more time than we wanted to take with this pit stop.

Thankfully, we had a translator app and spotty cellphone reception. So we muddled through a conversation and I texted Kett to let him know we were heading for the airport in Huanuco.

We drove out of town only a dozen or so minutes after we entered.

My phone pinged with a text from Kett as Cerro de Pasco was dwindling in our rearview mirror.

>On my way.

“The vampire?” Warner asked.

I nodded, but didn’t answer out loud. I hadn’t completely absorbed what I’d just seen and felt at the top of the Andes Mountains. I knew I’d been sheltered my entire childhood from magic. But I hadn’t completely realized how sheltered from the wider world I was as a Canadian, and a Vancouverite especially.

“I’ve never seen anything like that … place,” I said.

“Silver is exceedingly valuable to human society.”

“But not so good for magic.” Something about silver made it almost antimagic. Most alchemists used gold or platinum and gems to build objects of power. And the whole werewolves-being-allergic-to-silver mythology was pure truth.

The only Adept I’d ever known who could work with silver was Hoyt, the slimy spellcurser. He used silver ball bearings to hold his curses. When those curses triggered or exploded near another Adept, the silver added to their damage, even though it wasn’t conducive to magic in general. I’d be interested to know how Hoyt had figured out how to contain a curse in a ball bearing, but I wasn’t even remotely interested in having an actual conversation with the spellcurser. Unless maybe it involved breaking his collarbone, then dragging him around Stanley Park by horse-drawn carriage.

Yeah, I’d thought about that scenario enough to refine it down to one particular daydream.

“Did you notice the way the very earth rejected our presence there?” Warner asked.

“Ah, no,” I answered. “I noticed a complete lack of magic, but you felt rejected? Just walking around?”

He nodded, obviously perturbed.

“Where dragons dare not tread,” I muttered, quoting the text that appeared whenever any dragon touched the map. “You think the silver in these mountains is a natural repellent?”

“Not necessarily just to guardians or dragons,” Warner said. “But I’ve never felt so unwelcomed by a physical place before.”

“But I didn’t feel it.”

“You hold your magic differently. You collect it as you pass by, but because you also store it, perhaps you don’t need to.”

“And dragons?”

“Have evolved to walk the earth. To be anchored to stone and gem … to the magic that fuels creation.”

Okay, suddenly it felt like we were on the edge of a spiritual conversation, and I felt uninformed. Or, rather, too uninformed to have settled on my opinion. “Instead of the skies, you mean?” I teased, wanting to continue but not quite so seriously. “With tooth and claw?”

Warner glanced over at me, deadly serious. “We no longer take that form.”

“Excuse me? Dragons could be … dragons? I mean I’ve been reading up on dragon lore, but I … you know … didn’t totally believe it.”

“Only one guardian is capable of such now … if she can even recall the form. The power of shapeshifting is entrusted to her alone.”

“Right, Bixi. But you don’t think she’s ever turned into a dragon-dragon?”

“Not that I know of. I understand it’s a last resort sort of thing. A massive use of her magic. The guardians are not gods.”

“But?” I could hear something left unsaid, hanging behind Warner’s words.

He didn’t continue.

“But …” I repeated, before supplying my own observation. “But we know at least one dragon who is an immortality seeker.”

“Yes.”

“And with age comes power? Like with vampires?”

“I’m not certain that is due to age only. Especially not in Kettil’s case.”

“He was … created already powerful?”

“Perhaps. But I think he’s earned the power he has … or sought even greater power.”

“Which is why he’s called the executioner.”

“The vampires keep their secrets close. I’m not sure what an execution entails. Does Kettil drain those condemned by the Conclave? Does he add their power to his own? I have no idea. In any case, he fulfills a similar role to your father.”

“Who dragons call the warrior, rather than the executioner.”

“The vampires selected their own titles. It’s not our prejudice that named them.”

“Fine. Back to the dragons.”

“The power of the guardians doesn’t grow with age. Their potential is there from the moment a dragon assumes the mantle of one of the nine. They must learn to control and access that potential, but its extent doesn’t change. And no one guardian is more powerful than another.”

“I bet the fire breather would disagree.”

Warner laughed. “Outward appearances and manifestations are useless when it comes to guardians. Baxia’s magic counters that of Suanmi’s, for instance. The rain bringer and the fire breather. If Chi Wen had chosen to stop aging earlier, you would have no idea he was nearing the end of his ascension.”

“You mentioned before that Chi Wen rarely leaves the nexus now. But he goes to see Rochelle.”

“Which indicates how important he feels the oracle is.”

Yeah, that idea didn’t make me extra lightheaded and anxious at all. I reached for the second bottle of water and twisted off the cap.

“I know it scares you,” Warner said. “What the far seer sees.”

“According to Pulou, what he doesn’t see should be a bigger concern.”

Warner made a noncommittal noise, but he didn’t try to talk me out of not worrying.

His support was appreciated. But I wouldn’t mind living in denial a little longer.

∞

I hadn’t realized I’d drifted off to sleep until I said, “The dragonfly was silver.” Vocalizing the words woke me from a dream I couldn’t remember.

“What dragonfly?” Warner asked.

As I opened my eyes, both they and my ears were overwhelmed by a torrential rainfall. It appeared to be attacking the vehicle as Warner drove far too quickly down the face of a mountain … literally. The steep gravel-edged road cut along a deep ravine to our right, appearing so narrow that I doubted an oncoming car could pass us — if the driver could even see us in the storm.

“Headlights,” I muttered as I reached for the last swig of water. I desperately needed to rinse out my mouth — and, unfortunately, to pee. It was great that I wasn’t dehydrated, but the timing for a pit stop was awful. I couldn’t see much through the thwacking windshield wipers that were barely keeping up with the deluge, but it was full-on dusk outside.

“I can see,” Warner said.