Chapter Six
Dragons had voracious appetites. Not only for food, either. But right now, it was food Evangeline needed. Her metabolism was fast, and if she didn’t keep up with it, she would feel it. Dragons referred to this feeling as “dragangry.” Of course, that was a fairly new term.
Despite the fact that she’d just met her worst enemy and was fated to marry the beautiful bastard, Eva was in the process of purchasing a number of peanut butter protein bars from Biscoff on Pier 39 when she was overcome with a sudden sense of dread. And this one had nothing to do with the new Dragon King.
It was a little like realizing you’d left the iron or oven on at home when you were already two days into your vacation. It was that sense of reaching up to touch your favorite pendant, and touching nothing but tee-shirt instead. It was the sudden knowledge that something was wrong – really wrong – and it was too late to do anything about it.
Mimi had already gone home, escorted by Calidum with a transport spell. Eva suspected the Dragon King knew how to transport without any kind of spell; she suspected he knew how to do a lot of things no one knew about. But he was not only the new sovereign, he was Mimi’s teacher, so he played things by the book and made sure she learned along the way.
And he’s hiding, thought Eva. There was that too. He was a wanted man and had been for thousands of years. And no one in this realm had the slightest clue.
But right now, in this very moment, that didn’t matter. Because right now, the world was coming to an end. She was sure of it. That was how it felt.
“Miss?” the woman behind the counter called, attempting to get Eva’s attention. She held a bag up in one hand. It was filled with the six peanut butter bars. Eva had purchased every single one in the case. The grease from the bars was already beginning to stain the bottom of the bag in widening dark spots. Her stomach growled.
But something was so very, very wrong.
She took the bag mechanically, smiling and thanking the woman before turning to make her way out of the small, busy shop. Native San Franciscans came to Pier 39 for things like lunch at Boudin Bakery or drinks at the Wipeout Bar and Grill, or just to see the Sea Lions. Tourists came for all three, plus shopping. But more than anything, a trip to Pier 39 was a sensory experience and even people who lived in the City by the Bay never really tired of the atmosphere.
There was always a musician of exceptional skill at the entrance to the pier, setting the stage so that it felt, from the moment you stepped onto the boardwalk, that you were in a movie from the past. The air was always filled with the dichotomy of delicious scents from the crepe vendor, Boudin Bakery, Biscoff coffee, and a number of restaurants – contrasted with the overripe smell of sea lions and rotting fish. The carousel was almost always turning, its bright and beautiful lights and larger-than-life animals setting what felt like the whole world in motion.
Dragons liked beautiful things. They were drawn to them. And Evangeline very much liked Pier 39.
Since the invention of the camera phone, it had become increasingly difficult to tell tourists apart from natives; no one carried massive analogs any longer, those around-the-neck behemoths that labeled a newcomer on sight. Here, as in most bustling places now, people from near and far mixed and mingled on the boardwalk, a movement of color and noise not unlike a human river. She stepped into the flow and followed the lead to the right, taking the boardwalk past Boudin’s, the Musical Stairs, the Mirror Maze, the 7D Experience and world famous carousel, all the way to the end, where it lowered a few steps to an observation deck overlooking the bay. In the distance was Alcatraz Island, and beyond that were the sailboats and many crafts of bay tours.
Eva chose an empty space beside a coin operated viewing machine and grasped the wooden railing before closing her eyes. In her mind, the world spun. She saw images, flashes, and heard voices. One of them sounded an awful lot like her. Screaming for help.
“Eva.”
Evangeline’s eyes flew open. Her pupils dilated, and she spun, recognizing not only the voice, but the feel of him at once. Only now, he looked nothing like the Calidum he’d been just a few minutes earlier.
“Korridum,” she whispered.
He didn’t smile this time. And the seriousness of his visage equaled the stark handsomeness of it. He was a six and a half foot tower of dark beauty, from the dark jeans and charcoal leather jacket to the black hair but for its single white stripe. His eyes were black, but she knew they could change. And his face was that of a fallen angel.
People around them stole glances in their direction. Eva could feel their stares. They’d already been looking at her, but she was used to that. Now the Dragon King was standing in front of her in most of his natural beauty, and the combination was clearly too much for humans to take. They were curious. Who were these two? Actors? Models? Was someone filming? Certainly they weren’t from around here….
The bitch of it was, he was holding back. There were so many aspects he wasn’t allowing to show. And in his true true form? The massive beast he could become would fill the pier from end to end.
“You aren’t safe here, Eva.” He didn’t move. But Evangeline knew he could. So fast that he would appear to blur from one location to the next. “We need to leave at once.”
Evangeline could have said a hundred spiteful, acid-tongued things in that moment. But she was still pulsing with warning deep inside, and it was an un-ignorable kind of warning – and she knew he was right. And that was a bitch of a thing too.
“What’s happening?” she asked, trying to keep her tone steady so the onlookers wouldn’t overhear.
“Amunet has been revived.”
Eva’s breath stilled in her lungs. A prickle of sensation moved along her abdomen, following the tight white line of her on-again, off-again scar. She touched it absently and paled. Questions were bullied by answers in her head, barely a step ahead of their hard fists of truth. How had Amunet survived the fall into the Duat’s abyss? Clearly someone had saved her. Probably the Traitor. And the Entity? Same deal.
And how had the sleeping goddess been awakened?
Another slice of pain traced along her wound like light gleaming on the edge of a sword. Well, there was an answer there too. And it was even more violent than the others.
“It’s my fault,” she whispered. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but some realizations were too wild to be caged for long between two rows of teeth.
The Dragon King moved closer, and the inhabitants of the Pier seemed to hold their breaths, eyes widening, lips parting, as if they were watching two celestial bodies in the process of colliding. Would the two creatures of unearthly beauty kiss? Fight? Embrace? Who were they to each other? Something in the rubber-necking inner child of each one of the humans gathered over the water dictated that they stop, wait, and find out.
But Calidum spoke in a hushed tone, and the people watching were only human, so they couldn’t hear what he was telling her.
“Arach is coming for you.”
Eva blinked.
Arach? The dead Dragon King? What the hell was he talking about?
“He’s far from dead, Eva. He is the Traitor.”
He’s the Traitor. Eva closed her eyes and touched her forehead. Of course he was the Traitor! No wonder the Entity had kept the Traitor’s identity a secret from her. Arach was probably the one king in the realms the Entity would expect a fellow dragon to instantly recognize.
“He was promised a queen,” Calidum continued.
Eva rolled with his words as if she were trying to remain standing in the surf with the tide coming in. The truths kept hitting her, one after another.
“I know,” she said, eyes still shut. “I get it.” She was figuring it all out now. It all made so much sense. “And I’m guessing I’m the queen.” Her voice was far, far away, probably somewhere on Alcatraz Island, hanging out with the cormorants, gulls, and pigeons.
“A green dragon wouldn’t stand a chance against me in battle,” the Dragon King told her plainly. There was nothing in his inflection that spoke of boasting. He was simply trying to get to the point as quickly as possible. “But there’s not a doubt in my mind that Arach is no longer a green dragon. The Entity will have seen to it that his promise comes to fruition.”
“And since it will take more than a green to hold on to me…” Eva continued to put the pieces together with mentally numb fingers. “He will become something more.” She opened her eyes and locked them on him.
Calidum nodded slowly. His black eyes glinted with just a hint of that fire they could burst into. “Amunet is not yet at full strength, though you can feel what she’s capable of already.”
There was no doubt about that. Evil was growing thick in the atmosphere.
“And she has used what power she yet possesses to aid the Entity in changing Arach,” he continued. “Until we know what we’re dealing with, we need to move you some place secret. Some place safe.”
But you killed my father.
The mind is a curious thing. Every mind in every realm was composed of billions of ADHD neurons that jumped around and lit up and shut off and brought up images and thoughts and memories with the slightest provocation at light speed, no matter the situation. They were like tiny dancing munchkins, grinning ear to ear on sugar highs and leaving sticky fingerprints all over the walls of the brain as they flicked switches, giggled, and climbed on top of things that nothing was supposed to climb on top of.
Even in the heart of real and present stress, the mind continued to spin and run and tag, you’re it. Even dragon minds did this. And so it was with silent but accepting bewilderment that as Evangeline thought those words: you killed my father – she also of course pictured Inigo Montoya in the heart of his confrontation with Count Tyrone Rugen, the six fingered man.
Her immature neurons snickered at their pubescent analogy.
It wasn’t funny. It really wasn’t. He’d been her pata. Her father.
But yeah. It also kinda was.
Prepare to die, she dutifully thought next. But it was empty and dangled unspoken and barely even mind-whispered, like toilet paper on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
“What do you want me to do?” she finally asked, whispering the words. Killing him could come later. Surviving long enough to do it – that was what mattered now.