Chapter Nine #3
“As for your claim I’m defenseless, I existed—and thrived—without my élan vital being powered by an esprit for more than five hundred years.
So if you are worried Deus will smite me the second he gets his hands on it, you can stop.
I am far from powerless against him.” He waggled the fingers of his right hand, a black glow starting as he drew the symbols of a spell in the air.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said, my stomach bees unhappy when the car pulled up outside the Midnight Bazaar building. “Also, I want you to teach me sword fighting. Yes, it’s a very old building, Dawn. It used to be part of the Hanseatic League offices. Hunter, a moment.”
I pulled Hunter aside as Dawn took a couple of photos of the building. “I’m sorry to keep harping on this, but are you really sure it’s a good idea to bring her with us? If your evil half brother recognizes she’s an amulet in person form, won’t he go bug-nuts to claim her?”
“He won’t recognize her,” he said, his hand on my back as moved me toward Dawn.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I know because I didn’t recognize her, and the dark power with which my sire damned me makes me unusually perceptive about that sort of thing.”
I didn’t like the idea of having Dawn around someone who would absolutely use her for the detriment of the immortal and mortal worlds, but I needed to have faith in Hunter.
I’m not sure what I expected once we got to Papi’s office—a somber-faced Papi along with a raging homicidal dragon, perhaps—but the three people seated on a balcony, enjoying the sunrise with what very much looked like mimosas, was not it.
“—won’t say she didn’t make a very tempting offer for the sword, but I am nothing if not a man of my word, and since you and I had come to an agreement earlier, naturally, I didn’t entertain her demands that I work with her, instead,” Papi was saying when we entered his office.
“Who wants my sword?” the man next to him asked.
“Some Finn named Lattsa. I told her that you’d had your request in for the sword for three weeks, and since she only called me an hour ago, I’d have to honor your bid.
She said some pretty harsh things in response—ah.
” Papi stood up, turning to face us as we entered his office.
“Our guests of honor have arrived. Excellent, excellent. I take it this is the dragon, Mabel?”
Hunter stiffened next to me when the man and the woman also rose, slowly returning to the room. His fire was so high that for a moment it spilled into me.
“Er ...” I glanced quickly at Hunter, but he was involved in a glaring match with the man who had to be his half brother. “Yes, this is Hunter.” A bump on my back had me adding, “And this is our friend Dawn. She’s ... uh ... we’re taking her home, but she wanted to see Amsterdam first.”
“I seem to have a fondness for Europe,” she said, squeezing between Hunter and me to beam at the three other people. She took a step back once she got to the woman. “But you’re a nereid, surely? Not a dragon?”
“Why yes, I am! How kind of you to notice! I’m Tara, Deus’s mate, so I’m kind of a dragon.
Maybe dragon adjacent? Honey bunny?” The woman, a lovely blonde with a dancer’s body (minus, no doubt, the troublesome feet), smiled widely and stepped forward to shake hands.
“And you’re Dawn? It’s a pleasure to meet you.
Which means you must be Mabel. Deus was very annoyed that you refused to take him to the Thirteenth Hour, but all’s well that ends well, isn’t it? Oh.”
Her smile faded as she eyed Hunter, who managed to stop having a glare-off with Deus long enough to give Tara a nod.
“And you must be one of the twins,” she said, her lips thinning a little. I wanted to step on her toes. “Well, as I told Deus, what happened in the past is in the past, where it should stay. Now that you’re both orphans, it’s a good time to mend the rift in the family.”
Hunter and I both stared at her in disbelief for a few seconds before Deus stepped forward with a low snarl.
I saw no family resemblance between the two, despite both men having dark hair and green eyes. But where Hunter’s face was so beautiful it could have been sculpted by a Renaissance master, Deus’s face was rounder, with less interesting planes, and zero pizzazz.
“Do not waste your time, mate,” Deus said, his eyes a muddy green, and filled with hate. “Hunter would rather try to murder our tribe than embrace kin.”
Hunter didn’t move, but his fire roared inside him. “You are no more kin than you are a dragon hunter.”
“Now, now,” Papi said, not foolish enough to move between the two men, but he got close to it, and waved his arms around until Deus took a step back. “This is not the time or place for personal grudges. We have business to transact, yes, Mabel?”
“Blackmail, you mean?” I asked, throwing caution to the wind. What was the use in having a fabulously deadly dragon at your side if you couldn’t say the things you’ve long wanted? “Yes, we’re willing to settle that crime.”
Papi rolled his eyes, but held out his hand to Hunter. “The sooner we get this finished, the sooner you can return to your dance hall. Sword.”
I thought for a moment Hunter was going to refuse, but before I could tell him it wasn’t worth the sacrifice of his sword, he pulled it from the back scabbard, holding it upright in front of him for a few seconds before asking Papi, “You agree to return to Mabel the compact containing her debt to you in exchange for this élan vital, and swear upon the oath of your blood that no further debt is due her?”
“Oh, the blood oath.” Papi slapped his hands on his jacket pockets, then his pants, then the jacket again before tsking as he pulled out a sheet of paper, which he handed to Hunter along with the debt compact, both of which he promptly gave to me.
I read it through the oath. “It’s exactly what we asked for,” I told Hunter.
Before he could do more than nod, Deus reached forward like he was going to snatch the sword right out of Hunter’s hand.
Hunter jerked back at the gesture, almost spitting the words, “Only dragon hunters may touch an élan vital!”
“It’s mine now,” Deus argued, his face red and scrunched up as he tried to get the sword again.
“No. I’m giving the sword as the blackmail price for Mabel, but the sword is all you will have. The esprit won’t remain without a demon hunter. Derry, I dismiss you from my service.”
Tara squawked when Derry the giant owl appeared, while Dawn, who had been studying the antique photos Papi had on his wall, clapped her hands and exclaimed, “You’re back!
I’m so glad. You can go with me to visit my distant cousin Emily.
You’ll like her. She has goats. Although I think you should probably adopt a human form, so as not to scare them.
Goats being notoriously afraid of owls.”
“What—what is that?” Tara asked from where she’d taken refuge behind Deus.
Derry shook himself, his form dissolving into that of a stocky, white-haired young man with brown skin and golden eyes. He smiled at Hunter and me but said nothing.
“That’s Derry. He’s Dawn’s friend, and also an esprit,” I said, my heart sinking when Hunter, with a long look at Deus, handed the sword to Papi.
I wanted to weep, but the discussion we’d had on our way to the Netherlands was still fresh in my head.
There wasn’t anything I could do to change his mind about giving up his sword for me, but I was heartened that he kept repeating that Deus wouldn’t have it for long, and it would be useless while he did have it.
And I would move the stars themselves to make sure the sword was returned to Hunter, where it belonged.
Deus grabbed the élan vital from Papi, a smirk of such profound smugness creeping across his face that my palm itched with the desire to strike it.
“At last, an owner the sword deserves. I hope you get used to the feeling of handing over your valuables, brother. Because this is just the first of many.”
The sound of the slap that followed his statement filled the room for a few seconds; then a stunned silence consumed us.
“Mabel,” Hunter said with an obvious warning in his voice, but there was a line of humor in it that had me relaxing.
“That’s for being a dickwad,” I told Deus, allowing Hunter to pull me back to his side.
Deus snarled something rude, but glanced at Hunter’s right hand, which was already drawing black symbols in the air, and instead allowed his mate to fuss over the resulting red mark on his cheek.
I was exceptionally proud of that mark until I realized that I was giving Papi more information than I wanted him to have.
“Some people,” Tara said, scowling at me when Deus gestured her aside.
“Yeah, really,” I couldn’t help but shoot back, glaring at Deus. “Some people are just asshats.”
Hunter made a noise that sounded like a strangled cough, but the fact that I couldn’t feel his fire told me he was stifling laughter. I knew just how he felt. Furious as I was with Deus and the whole situation with Papi, I couldn’t help but see the humor in it.
“That dragon is just rude,” Dawn said with a sniff at Deus before giving Tara a long look. “My ex is many things, but even he would draw the line at being such a poor sport. You might talk to your man about the meaning of the word decency.”
“Decency!” Tara said on a gasp just as Deus started to shout, but Hunter, thankfully, had enough.
Without a word to his brother or Papi, he spun me around, and with Dawn and Derry in front of us, we left the office.
It wasn’t until we were outside that Hunter took a deep breath and gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m glad that office was on the second floor, because any higher and I might not have made it out without laughing. No, we don’t have time for you to ... too late.”