Chapter Two #2
Elle shook her head. “I have no idea how you cope with the fact that actual gods straight from mythology are your in-laws, but since you’re more or less married to a demigod, I guess it’s all par for the course.”
“Something like that. Oh, here we go. Aisling usually hosts these, because her wyvern, Drake, is very techy, and has set up a whole system for her to host the mates’ chats.”
A woman with curly brown hair popped onto the screen and smiled. “Hello, all! I’m afraid we’re going to have limited numbers due to the short notice, but I did send everyone the information.”
“My apologies for the rushed request,” I said, making a face that I hoped accurately expressed my regret. “It’s kind of an immediate problem, so I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”
“Bee says she’s not leaving the bathroom for the next three months,” Ysolde said, glancing up from her phone.
I muted myself and quickly told Elle, “That’s Aisling Grey in the upper left corner.
Ysolde is the blonde. She’s Baltic’s mate.
The woman who just logged on and looks like a nineteen twenties flapper is May, mate of the silver wyvern, Gabriel.
Bee is the sister of another wyvern, and another mate, respectively.
She and her wyvern, Constantine, are expecting their second child. ”
“Ugh. I so don’t miss those first months,” Aisling said with a grimace, then glanced to the side when a big black Newfoundland dog shambled in and plopped itself down next to her.
I unmuted to say, “Thank you all for coming. This is my friend Elle, who has been staying with us for the last ten days, and is very discreet, so you don’t have to worry about saying anything in front of her.”
“I’m a psychiatrist for angsty spirits, shades, and revenants,” Elle said, giving a little wave at the laptop’s camera. “So I’m very familiar with nondisclosure as a working concept, and absolutely agree to keep anything heard here to myself.”
“We’re always happy to know a friend of yours,” Aisling said politely, then quickly ran through the introductions.
“Not that I want to pressure you to hurry, Charity, but we’re leaving for Paris in two and a half hours, and Drake’s about at the end of his patience trying to get everything wrapped up here in Hungary so we can spend a month in France. ”
“In other words, what’s up?” Ysolde asked, ignoring the fact that a boy of about four was riding a small bike with training wheels in circles around the couch upon which she sat.
I took a deep breath. “It seems that the First Dragon has been having some difficulty getting to Yrian.”
Ysolde frowned. “If that’s a dig against Baltic—”
“Not in the least,” I said quickly. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, but it’s nothing like that. I think the First Dragon understands that there’s only so much Baltic can do for his brother. The problem is the Asile itself.”
“And that is what?” May asked, obviously making notes. She normally shared secretary duties with Bee, but since the latter was evidently unwell, May stepped in to keep all the mates up to date with the meetings. “A person, place, or thing?”
“The Asile is the name of the ... well, I hate to use the term ‘mental asylum,’ but that’s really what it is.
The First Dragon said it’s a place where the Otherworld confines all the beings it feels have mental or emotional issues.
He said that since Yrian had been arrested by the mortal police three different times and subsequently destroyed each of the buildings where he was confined, the Otherworld Committee decided he was a danger to both immortals and mortals, and stuck him in the Asile. ”
“Gabriel said something about that,” May said, tapping the end of a pen on her lip as she looked thoughtful. “We talked about going into the Beyond and reaching him that way, but we weren’t sure if Yrian could access it. Do you know if he can, Charity?”
I shook my head. “If he could, the First Dragon would have gotten him out that way. Evidently the Asile people take their security very seriously. Not only do they have those big ghostly scary guys as security, but Dr. Kostich works with the psychiatric team and is more or less in charge of the whole place. He’s seen to it that there are so many spells, wards, songs, and even a bunch of banes woven into the material of the building that not only can you NOT sneak in via any altered form of reality, including the Beyond, but you also can’t perform magic once you’re inside the Asile.
Which is why the First Dragon can’t simply roll up and take Yrian out with him. ”
“Wow,” Aisling said, glancing to her side when her demon, Jim, shifted next to her. “Dr. Kostich actually used banes and songs to protect the place? Both of those involve dark powers that I assume he would have to stay away from.”
I gave a half shrug. “I have no clue about that. I do know that on his last attempt to see Yrian, Dr. Kostich saw through the First Dragon’s glamour, and forbade him from entering the building.”
“Holy crapbeans,” Aisling said, looking again at Jim when it shifted. “Do you need to go out? Or do you have something to contribute to the conversation? You may do so if it will help the situation.”
“Heya, everyone,” Jim said on a gasp, just like it had been holding its breath.
What sort of a demon chooses a dog as its form? Elle wrote on my notepad that sat on the desk before me.
One that is the son of the being who created Abaddon—aka the mortal idea of hell—while at the same time having the head of the Court of Divine Blood as its mom, I scribbled.
Her eyes widened. The demon’s mom was the head of heaven?
I nodded as Jim continued. “Heya, Charity. Heya, Charity’s shrink. I didn’t know you could have visitors at Chez First Dragon. Is it, like, out where anyone can stop by and snuffle the flowers?”
“No,” I told it firmly, stifling a giggle at what Avval would have to say if I invited the demon for a visit.
Aisling almost rolled her eyes. “It is rude to invite yourself, as I tell you every time you try to palm yourself onto Ysolde for the food she and Pavel cook.”
“They got some good eats,” Jim said, smacking its doggy lips a few times. “Soldy would never make me eat that ass-flavored diet food you keep letting the vet talk you into.”
“And that’s enough out of you,” Aisling told it with a little flick of its ear. “No speaking unless it answers a question or is helpful. Sorry, Charity, please go on.”
“I’d like to know more about Dr. Kostich forbidding the First Dragon to do anything,” May said, still taking notes.
“I don’t doubt he’d try, because he’s always had the attitude that he rules the Otherworld, but what I want to know is what the FD did in response,” Ysolde asked, grunting a little when her son Anduin suddenly leaped onto the couch, hauling a stuffed white dragon that was almost as big as him, slamming it onto her lap with a demand she pet the dragon.
“You can take it as read that he expressed his unhappiness with both the situation and Dr. Kostich,” was all I said, but I smiled to myself at some of the pointed remarks Avval told me he’d made, and how Kostich was clearly fuming by the end.
“Good,” Ysolde said with a satisfied smile, before shifting the stuffed dragon from her lap, handing her son a plastic sword instead. “Now, what is it you want, exactly?”
I frowned, aware that I might well be overreacting to Avval’s unhappiness, but driven regardless to provide him with the love and support he’d lacked for the last six hundred or so years.
“I’m not actually sure, to be honest. I just remembered how innovative and productive the mates’ collective has been with other problems, and hoped you would put your heads together as to how to get Yrian out of the Asile. ”
“Hmm,” Aisling said, looking thoughtfully at nothing. “I admit that other than having Drake break into the place—which he would do in a heartbeat, because there’s nothing that man loves so much as being able to put his green dragon thieving skills to use—other than that, I don’t have any ideas.”
“I suppose a physical jailbreak is out of the question?” Ysolde asked, a similarly thoughtful expression on her face. Absently, she picked up a second plastic sword, and parried her son’s attacks. “Baltic would be delighted to fire up some arcane blasts on the Agile place.”
“Asile, and alas, that’s also something the First Dragon would do if it would have any effect, which he assures me it wouldn’t, due to all the magic woven into the building itself,” I answered, glancing at a scrap of paper Elle pushed my way.
Can I help? As a psychiatrist, that is? Maybe I can see Yrian?
“I was afraid of that,” Ysolde said with a sigh, still absently wielding her toy sword as Anduin continued to attack. “I’m not sure what else Baltic could do, but I’ll ask him.”
“Thank you,” I said, my hopes sinking as I scribbled my answer on Elle’s note. No, we tried that earlier. The medicos running the Asile don’t allow others in to consult unless it’s their request for help.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any ideas other than trying to use the Beyond,” May said with a little shake of her head.
“Jim?” Aisling asked, nudging her demon. “Does anything occur to you that would help Yrian?
Jim’s face scrunched up as it clearly thought on the subject. “It’s a question of which you want more ... getting into the cuckoo’s nest, or getting the first Firstborn out. Which is more important? Because getting in is easy. ... It’s the getting him out that might be a bit tricky.”
“If it was easy to get in, Charity wouldn’t be asking us for help,” Aisling told it.
“Meh,” it said, giving a shrug of its shoulders. “That’s nothing a good glamour couldn’t handle. Actually ... the same could be said for getting Yrian out, too. But it would have to be something special.”
“I just told you that the annoying Dr. Kostich saw through the First Dragon’s glamour,” I pointed out.