Me and My Shadow (15 page)

Dr. Kostich's fingers continued to weave a rune of power against the fabric of his pants leg.

“You are threatening me?” Baltic asked, genuinely amused. I glanced toward the door where his cohort stood, half-afraid he'd come charging in, but he merely leaned against the doorframe, looking not at all worried.

That fact made me more uneasy than anything else.

“We will do whatever is necessary to protect May,” Maata said, inclining her head.

“Then you will die with her,” Baltic said with a shrug. “You will all die if you try to stop me from retrieving what belongs to me.”

“I'm a naiad,” Cyrene suddenly said. She jumped up and hurried over to stand next to me in a show of support. “I'm immortal. I can't die.”

Baltic slid her a quick look. “Would you like to place a wager on that assumption?”

Cyrene showed rare circumspection by saying nothing other than a whispered, “Kostya was right—whoever this dragon is, he's a pain in the butt. Show him what you're made of, May.”

“Kostya?” Baltic lifted his head as if he was scenting the air, his gaze narrowed on Cyrene. “You are his . . .”

“Mate,” she said quickly.

Baltic's eyebrows rose.

“Oh, all right, all right! I wish everyone would stop doing that when I tell them I'm Kostya's mate. It's annoying! I'm mate lite, OK? Not quite a full-fledged mate, but close enough to count. Not that I want him anymore, the heartless, unfeeling bastard. But if I did, I'd be his mate. Sort of.”

We all stared at Cyrene as she had her verbal hissy fit.

“Are you done now?” I asked politely.

“Yes.” She crossed her arms over her chest, stuck out her lower lip in a truly world-class pout, and spread a glare among us all.

“Good.” I turned back to Baltic. “I'm a little busy being arrested, so if you want to spew threats and enigmatic comments, you'll have to do so later. Good-bye.”

Baltic smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, despite his handsome face, and it did, in fact, light up his eyes, but it was a light that boded ill for anyone who stood in his way.

“Your false sense of bravery is laudable. Useless and misguided, but laudable. I admire your courage.”

“Thank you. Now bugger off,” I said, using a British phrase I'd heard in the street.

He gave an abrupt shake of his head. “Not without the shard.”

“The shard doesn't leave me,” I answered.

“You insist on doing this the hard way. . . . Very well.” His fingers danced in the air for a moment, but before he could do anything, Dr. Kostich finished drawing his runes. The air in the room suddenly collected at one point, then punched outward toward Baltic with the force of a luxury liner. Baltic's startled yell as he was sent flying through the open door, stopped only by his dragon friend, was almost as loud as the compression blast made by the explosion.

“My ears!” Cyrene screamed, clapping both hands over her head.

“That was not nice, mage!” Baltic charged forward with a snarl, a ball of light bursting into being in front of him, stretching itself into a long, glittering blue-white shape. It was the light blade I'd seen him wield before, a weapon that no dragon should be able to use.

Dr. Kostich gawked at it for a moment, stammering, “That is a . . . you cannot have that. . . . Who
are
you?”

“Would it be a cliché to say your worst nightmare?” I asked.

“Yes,” Maata, Cyrene, Nathaniel, and Obi answered.

Dr. Kostich was too busy staring at the sword Baltic swung toward me.

I didn't wait for any more bons mots to occur to me; I took one look at Baltic, and let the dragon shard have free rein.

It shifted me immediately, and I took advantage of the momentary surprise in Baltic's black eyes to tail-slap him backwards, out the door again.

Maata and Nathaniel shifted, as well, their silvery scales reflecting the light from the overhead chandelier as they flanked me. Obi remained in human form, clearly torn between joining us and protecting Cyrene and Dr. Kostich.

“You're outnumbered,” I called out to Baltic, sauntering with dragon ease to the door. “You might have the light blade, but are you strong enough to take on four dragons?”

“Four dragons and one really pissed-off naiad,” Cyrene said, pushing her way between Maata and me to stand with her hands on her hips.

“That's it?” Baltic sneered. “That's all you have to oppose me? Do you have any concept of just what powers I have learned? Can you even guess as to what I could do to you and your friends with the merest flick of my fingers?”

I was ready for the attack even before he started forward. With one hand I shoved Cyrene backwards, a little harder than I would have liked, but she was vulnerable, and I would not put it past Baltic to strike at her in an attempt to weaken me.

His sword flashed as it swung toward me. I spun around, my tail sounding a whipcrack as it slammed into him, but I wasn't quite fast enough—the light blade bit deep into my leg, burning me with an icy fire the likes of which I'd never before felt. I slammed shut the door in the face of Baltic's companion, roaring my fury as Maata and Nathaniel rushed forward into the fray. Baltic didn't shift to a dragon form; he simply parried all the attacks with his sword, looking almost bored, the bastard.

“Enough!” Dr. Kostich bellowed, his hands drawing the last of another set of runes. “This will end now!”

Another explosion of air and light rocked the house, sending all of us flying backwards—all but Baltic.

Kostich stared at him with mingled horror and confusion for a moment before the dragon shard, tired of my feeble attempts to direct my foreign dragon body around, took charge of the situation. In a flash, I was on top of Baltic, having knocked him to the ground, his blade skittering away on the marble floor, great arcs of light flying from it as it spun. I snarled and bit at Baltic as he flung me off him, leaping to his feet in order to run after his sword.

“Oh, no, you don't,” I growled, lunging forward onto him, dragging my claws down his back, cutting deep through material into his flesh.

He screamed with pain and spun around, trying to dislodge my hold on him. “We will finish this now,” I yelled, biting hard on his shoulder. I tasted blood, spitting it out as he threw himself onto the floor in a rolling move meant to loosen my hold on him.

It worked. I slid across the floor, scrabbling desperately with my claws for a hold. Maata and Nathaniel raced toward him, but Baltic was too fast in human form—he snatched up the blade, leaping over Maata as he headed toward me.

Kostich's blast of light must have lit up the block. It wasn't the same sort of compression blast of air as he'd used before—this one was a golden halo of light that suddenly burst through me, burst through the entire block, bedazzling and blinding and bringing everything and everyone to a complete halt for a few seconds.

As the light dissipated, I shook the dazzle from my brain, and looked around for Baltic.

He was gone. The front door stood open, but when I rushed to the street, shifting back to human form as I did so, it was bare of dragons. The few people that stood outside had odd expressions on their faces, as if they were bemused.

“They will not remember what happened,” a voice spoke behind me. “Mortals seldom do.”

I turned to search the face of the man beside me. “You saved us.”

“No.” Kostich shook his head, his expression grim. “You did that. All I did was give you a little time.”

“Whatever it was, it worked.”

“No,” he repeated. “If it had worked, he would be incapacitated at best. But while everyone else was stunned by the light, he escaped. He should not have been able to do that.”

“What exactly was the light? It left me feeling stunned.”

“It was an arcane concussion blast, a minimized version. A full concussion would have blown out the walls of this house. As it is, it merely served as a brief distraction.” Kostich looked worried as we returned to the house. “The dragon should have been affected by it as we were, but he was not. And there is the blade—he should not have that light blade. It belonged to a famous archimage.”

Slowly, I closed the door and leaned against it while I considered Dr. Kostich. “I'm not going to allow you to send me to the Akasha, you know. I have too many things to do here. Baltic is one of those things.”

He hesitated for a moment, glancing from Cyrene to the dragons and back to me. “I believe we might be able to come to an accord regarding that.”

“What sort of an accord?” Cyrene asked, coming forward. She stopped at a look from me. “Sorry, May. I thought you might need a little bit of help, but . . . never mind.”

“What sort of an accord?” I asked Kostich.

“One which we will each find satisfactory. You wish to be pardoned, and I wish to have the von Endres blade. Do you think we can help each other?”

I stared at him for a moment. “You want Baltic's sword?”

“Yes. It disappeared when the archimage von Endres died. I had thought it lost to us, but to see it now being wielded by a dragon . . .” He shook his head, his expression puzzled. “I do not understand how it can be. No dragon can use arcane magic.”

“Perhaps one who was resurrected can,” I said slowly.

Kostich's look was piercing. “He was resurrected? You are certain?”

“Fairly. There's no other way he could be alive now otherwise.”

“I begin to see the light,” Kostich said slowly, his gaze directed inward. “That could be why my quintessence was stolen. If so . . . very well. This will take some doing. I will not be unprepared next time I meet him. A triumvirate, I think, will answer. My apprentices are ripe for such a challenge, and with your aid, I believe we will be successful. You agree to my terms?”

“I don't even know what they are,” I said cautiously.

“Tch.”
He made an impatient gesture. “You will assist me in acquiring the von Endres blade, and I will grant you a full pardon for those crimes of which you are charged.”

“Do you think it's possible to take the sword away from Baltic? If it's something important, he's not likely to let it go without a serious fight. And while I'm up to kicking him out of my house, I don't know that it will be possible to get the sword from him without killing him.”

Dr. Kostich evidently came to some sort of a decision, for he nodded his head twice and murmured, “Yes, it will be a good test for Jack. Tully is weaker, but such an experience will be invaluable to her.” He raised his voice and added, “Does it matter if the dragon is dead? Given your reputation, I would have thought you would relish an official sanction to destroy him.”

“I am not a hit man, if that's what you're implying,” I said rather huffily, straightening my shoulders and trying to look down my nose at him. “I'm a thief, and even then, there are extenuating circumstances. I do not go around murdering dragons, even those that threaten me.”

He made a careless gesture. “Whether he lives or dies is not a concern. The blade is. Do we have an agreement?”

I bit my lip and looked at the others in the room. Cyrene nodded her head and gave me a thumbs-up. Nathaniel and Obi watched me carefully, but I sensed their approval. Maata alone looked concerned, her silver eyes dark with worry.

“Yes,” I said, coming to a decision. In for a penny, in for a pound . . . “Yes, we have an agreement.”

Chapter Seven

Dr. Kostich hadn't been kidding when he commented that a full arcane concussion blast could blow out the walls of Gabriel's house.

“He underestimated it, however,” I said to Cyrene as we sat huddled in a police car some eleven hours later. “It blew out the walls of the houses on either side, too. I hope they find the two cats belonging to the old lady who lives next door.”

“And her fish,” Cyrene said, hugging the blanket that was the only thing between her bare skin and everyone else. “I feel so bad about the fish. What was Baltic thinking trying to blow us up like that? He knew we wouldn't be killed.”

“No, but we're vulnerable now,” I said in a hushed voice as yet another policeman bustled past, talking into her radio and carrying a clipboard. “We don't have a stronghold to keep him at bay, and he knows it. We'll have to set up camp at a hotel or find another house. But even that—it wouldn't be safe against Baltic. Not until we've had some time to put in security systems.”

“I know a house that's safe from Baltic,” Cy said, yawning.

“Really? Where?”

“That yummy Drake. I bet he'd take us in if you asked nicely.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. And really, why should I protest? As I thought the idea over, I realized just how sound it was. Drake's house was sure to be protected from unauthorized entrance. Not only that, we'd have the power of the green dragons to help in case Baltic might, somehow, make it into the house. There really was no downside to the idea.

“Congratulations, Cy,” I said, pulling out my cell phone to call Gabriel again. “You've had your first good idea. I'm so proud of you, I've got tears in my eyes.”

“That's what you said the last time I had a good idea,” she said smugly.

“Way back in 1922. You may want to pace yourself just in case you overload your brain,” I said with a dead-pan face.

Regardless of my joking, it
was
a good idea, and although Gabriel approved of the plan, he did sound somewhat worried. “Drake will not allow harm to come to you, but I don't like you being under his roof for any length of time.”