Chapter Fourteen

FOURTEEN

Parisi

T he dragons were having a discussion. It was useless, but I've ever believed in allowing people to make their own choices, whether for good or ill, without input from me unless I was specifically asked.

The dragons did not ask.

"We need to get Parisi and Jim some protection while Parisi is undoing Desi's shackles," the one named Aisling said, looking to the other dragons present for agreement.

"I don't know how we can pull that off," May, mate of the silver wyvern, said with a look of doubt toward Jim. "Sally, can you banish Gabriel and me to the Akasha like you do Jim?"

"You are not a demon," she said with a slight shake of her head.

"What does that have to do with the Akasha?" Aisling asked. "Anyone can be sent to it, not just demons."

"In the normal course of events, yes, but trying to banish anyone from what is already a prison of banishment is extremely difficult. I'll be honest with you, sugar—the only reason I can banish the demon Jim is because of my time as a demon lord. I have just enough powers left from that to be able to send a demon wherever I want."

"What about Finch?" the Dark One's mate asked, turning to him. "This place is an Hour, and you said all the leaders of the Hours could visit each other. Could we get Finch in on the action that way?"

"I am not sure," Christian answered, rubbing his chin. Something about the gesture made my stomach tighten ... and not in a good way. "I will ask him if he'd be able to leave it should he be able to travel there."

They discussed that point for a while, then switched to other options, including bribing the Hashmallim, and ways Sally might be able to help without bringing down the wrath of the Court upon her head. I let them carry on while I pinpointed the feelings I'd felt while trying to free the prisoner Desislav.

Why did he feel familiar, and yet also was surrounded by so much rage that it turned the very water cold around him? I did not know rageful people. But the way his dark hair moved around his head ... I shook my own head at the nonsensical idea that I knew him. The others might be confused about that, but I was not.

I was a Defender of the Blood, nothing more. The others were clearly mistaken. Still, I had things to do back at my home, and for that reason, I interrupted the cyclical nature of their discussion. "I don't need someone to protect me while I am freeing the prisoner Desislav; I need someone to attack the boggarts before we enter the water."

The silence that followed was pleasing.

"The best offense is a good defense," Aisling said slowly, looking at the Dark One and dragons. "Why didn't we think of that? Of course it would be easier to go in and blast out the boggarts before you finish breaking Jim's dad free. But ... can you do that by yourself?"

I thought for a moment. "No," I finally admitted. "I will need another."

"Dude. Like I'm made of mashed potatoes?" the demon dog asked. "I'm here to help save my dad, even if it means I lose my fabulous form killing boggarts."

"No one is asking you to lose your form," Aisling told it, patting it on the side.

I gave it another look, planning on making a pointed comment about how it couldn't even hold a weapon, but its eyes ... its eyes seemed to pluck at my insides in a way that was wholly unfamiliar to me.

I thought of how it had looked when it stood before me in man form. Again, there was something about the eyes, and the shape of the face. It was as if a thought was nudging me from a very long distance, a prod so gentle I wasn't sure if it was really there or not. Rather than telling the demon that it was at best useless, and worse a liability that I'd have to protect while dealing with the attackers, the words that spilled from my mouth were, "Your aid is welcome, although the number of boggarts demands a third person, preferably one with a bladed weapon."

"Present!" a man's voice came from Aisling's laptop. "It's been a few months since I've had to use my sword, but I will gladly accompany you to the Hour."

"But can you go to the Hour, Finch?" Allie asked, leaning forward to see the screen better. "Christian wasn't sure if you could get out even if you can travel to it."

"I checked with the former steward who ran this Hour—and did an exceptionally good job at it, so much so that Tatiana and I are trying to lure him back into the job—and he said that being the lord of an Hour gives me the ability to enter and exit any Hour," Finch answered.

"Thank all the little imps for that," Sally said, her gaze on me for a few seconds. I felt the impact of her gaze and lifted my head to study her. Power was woven around her in varying bands, manifesting itself as a variety of colors ranging from pale pink to a deep maroon, lime green, and a soft yellow. She also bore a symbol on her brow, one I saw every time I looked in the mirror.

Unable to keep from asking, I leaned down and asked the demon Jim, "Can you see the symbol on my head?"

"The one from the Court?" It tipped its head to the side, giving me a long side-eye. "Yeah. It's the same one that Sally has."

I touched my forehead, wondering about that. I had never questioned the symbol, but now I wondered if perhaps some of my past might not have been erased by my time in the Beyond.

"But that's folly," I said softly, giving a mental headshake. "I've only been in there a short time."

"Try sixteen hundred years," Jim said, now watching me carefully. "That's when I was born."

"I would know if I had a child," I told the demon.

"Would you, though?" it asked, and I couldn't find an answer.

"It's just a damned shame we can't get a couple of dragons in the place, too," Aisling said, kicking at a pillow that had fallen off a couch.

"Well, you can't," Sally said as she stood up and stretched. "Not unless they have got some demon in them that I could use to get a grip in order to send them to the Akasha. Shall we reconvene tomorrow? Jenna said she'd be available then, and assuming we can drag Mabel away from her dance studio, we can give it another try with the handsome Finch."

"The taken handsome Finch," his mate corrected, giving the screen a gimlet look.

"Wait, wait, wait," Aisling said when Sally started moving toward the door. "You said we could get a dragon into the Hour if he was partially a demon, yes?"

"Oooh," Jim said, giving a low whistle. "Now, that's an idea."

"There are only three dragon hunters in existence," Sally told Aisling. "Assuming that's what you're thinking of."

Aisling smiled. "There may have been three, but now there's five, and one of the two is in town, and according to what Drake said, he's chock-full of demonic dark power. That was his shtick before he and his twin were balanced so now they both have dragon and demon powers."

"Interesting," Sally said with slightly narrowed eyes as she watched Aisling tapping furiously on her phone. "I hadn't heard about this, but admittedly, my contact with dragonkin is normally limited to May and her manly thighed Gabriel. Very well, if you have a dragon hunter on tap, I should be able to throw him into the Akasha with Jim once we are finished."

"Gee, thanks," the demon said, but I had to admit it looked a lot more cheerful than a few minutes before.

"Two extra fighters should be sufficient, but I cannot stay another day," I announced, standing up. I made a snap decision not because I wanted to return home so badly, but because of the unsettled feeling I had the more time I spent around the demon Jim. Also, the expression on the prisoner's face when he'd seen me haunted my memory. It had gone from torment to intense joy to fear and dread and fury unlike anything I'd felt. "So either we do this now, or I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else to free Desislav."

Silence filled the room. The dragon and the Dark Ones exchanged glances; then Aisling said, "I guess we can rally everyone now for a third try. Er ... Finch ..."

"I'll get ready and meet you just inside the entrance of the Hour. It shouldn't take me longer than thirty minutes," Finch answered, nodding when the other Dark One spoke in an old form of an Eastern European language before ending the video call.

I recognized the language from ... my brain seemed to skitter away from the name I was seeking. I worried for a few minutes about that, but by the time I had my thoughts under control again, the others were preparing to return to the Hour.

"If you don't mind, I'll guide you from here rather than going all the way out to Hyde Park," Reaper Mabel told me twenty-seven minutes later, after she (somewhat wearily) greeted everyone as they were leaving. "We can wait at the antechamber, if you all like."

"That is agreeable to me," I told her, then added, "I wish to be taken to the Thirteenth Hour."

"Your wish is my command," she answered with a wry twist of her lips, and then the feeling of being turned inside out claimed me as we entered the Hour.

"I've got to deal with a potential disaster at work," Mabel told me, holding up her phone. "If you don't mind, I'll go hunker down in the corner and try to put out the fires."

"I thought you were a dancer?" I asked.

"I am. But that's my mortal-world job. I also work for ..." Her words trailed off as she gestured vaguely.

I waited for her to finish, but she simply gave me a somewhat lame smile and plopped herself down on a rock, her phone in hand.

I was about to go dip into the water and see if any boggarts were patrolling—which I thought they might do after our two breaches of their lake—but just then a Dark One marched down the stairs and greeted us.

"Hello again. It's a pleasure to see you both in person. I'm Finch Dante, in case you missed the introductions on the Zoom call. Ah, so this is the infamous Lake of Upside-Down Sinners. I must make notes for Tatiana. She is interested in all sorts of oddities, and this certainly qualifies as one." The Dark One was suitable bulky and tall enough to reassure me he'd be able to handle himself in a fight, although I noted his sword was not two-handed.

"Thank you for helping," I said politely, my gaze still on the sword.

"I'm more than happy to do what I can to assist in putting our missing thane back into my Hour," he responded, then shot me a curious look. "Is there something about me that is bothering you?"

"Yes," I said, believing in being forthright whenever possible. "Your sword."

He pulled it from where it hung at his side. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's one-handed. A two-handed sword is usually more effective when beheading boggarts," I pointed out, drawing from my back my own sword. "This is Mina, light of the night sky. You'll notice it's two-handed. All Defenders of the Blood carry such swords."

"But I am not a Defender of the Blood," he pointed out, but examined the sword when I held it out for his approval. "That said, it is a lovely sword. Does the name have a meaning?"

"Yes, of course. All swords that bear a name have a reason for such. In this case, it was spelled by Mina, who was ..." I stopped, my memory once again shying away from pulling forth the information I wanted. "She was ... she spelled the blade," I repeated, troubled by the fact that I couldn't remember.

"Just so. I'm sure it's highly effective in your hands, but I am not so lucky as to have more than single-handed swords. This one was my father's favorite, and I find it works well with me."

"By the living darkness, I think you've killed me," came a voice from behind Finch. It had an Irish lilt to it, but was decidedly male.

"You're such a big baby. What's a little translocation to a deadly dragon hunter?" The woman who spoke trotted down the stairs. She had an odd twisted hairstyle that looked like blobs on the top of her head, but there was a brightness about her that was unfamiliar to me, although I thought she might be some sort of sprite. She stopped when she saw me, and then made a deep bow. "Goodness, a Sovereign. I had no idea that you were the warrior Hunter said needed some help. Now I'm glad I agreed to help him one last time."

"Fires of Abaddon," Jim gasped as it literally tumbled down the last few stairs. "The Weaver's blipping gets worse every time. Are all my toes present?"

"This is Clover," the dragon named Hunter said by way of an introduction. "She is my esprit."

" Was your esprit. I'm divorcing you because you are not boyfriend material," the almost-sprite snapped back.

"I never told you that I was," he argued. "I explained to you when you signed on to power my élan vital that I wasn't a one-woman sort of man. I never have been, and I never will be."

A snorting sound came from the corner of the antechamber.

Hunter glanced toward Mabel. "Pardon?"

"Nothing," she said without looking up from where she was continuing to tap on her phone. "I just snorted derisively."

"And you are ... ?" he asked, his arms crossed as he glared at her.

"Not really any of your business," she said, pursing her lips as she continued to type on the phone. "Not unless you are ready to go to the afterlife."

"You must be the reaper," he said, his gaze lingering on her.

"Are we ready?" Sally asked, dumping the contents of Jim's backpack on the ground. "I hope this is going to be enough mini-breathers. The shop where I get them is now sold out. Also, I had to guess on wet suit sizes, so no complaints if they don't fit well."

The next few minutes were spent in everyone stripping down to don the wet suits, although both the Dark One and the dragon hunter protested that they needed no such thing.

"You say that now, but when your toes drop off, you're gonna be sorry," Jim told them.

"The area where the prisoner is being held is icy to the point of disabling," I said, and adjusted my sword so I could reach it easier.

"Shall we?" Hunter asked the sprite.

"OK, but this is the last time. You're just going to have to convince another esprit to take over, because Sasha says I can work for her for a bit while I decide what I want to do."

He bowed and held out his sword—two-handed, and beautifully scribed and gemmed—and she shrank down into a ball of brilliant yellow light that bobbed down the length of the sword before it settled into an empty socket at the cross guard.

I led the way, and although obviously no one could speak while we were underwater, I felt the shock and surprise in the two men as we swam deeper and deeper, weaving our way through the bodies that lunged and grabbed at us.

By the time the cold started to creep around us, warning we were near the prisoner Desislav's confinement location, the booming of the ancient siren could be heard. I kicked forward, spotting the chain ... but no body was attached to it.

Jim flailed for a moment in an obvious attempt to express its disbelief in what it was seeing. I knew just how it felt. Despite the cold that started to freeze the blood in my veins, I dove deeper until I could touch one of the empty shackles that rested on the floor of the lake.

Pain seared through my hand, causing me to jerk back. I felt a disturbance behind me, and spun as quickly as I could to see a handful of boggarts attacking both Hunter and Finch.

By the time I had my sword out and swam up to dispatch as many boggarts as I could, the men had the five boggarts floating off without their heads, the nasty blackish-green blood snaking toward us in insidious tendrils. I pointed upward and the men nodded. We swam up and, with slowed movements, dragged our frozen selves out of the water.

"That's ... holy shit, that was cold," Hunter said, his pale green eyes looking stark. "I see why you recommended the wet suits. But ... where was this demigod?"

"Gone," I said, sitting down on a step, waiting for my body to stop freezing and start to run as normal. "I don't know how, but I suspect with how twisted the second manacle was, the curses woven into it depended on both pieces binding him."

"Desi isn't there?" Sally leaped back when Jim shook itself in a manner that sprayed her with water, and looked momentarily horrified before her expression smoothed out to one of mild interest. "He couldn't have escaped the Hour, though. Not on his own. Someone would have told me if he—"

An alarm on her phone remarkably like the one that still echoed in the chamber sounded, and she glanced at it before smiling broadly. "Well, how do you like that? Evidently, Desi has broken free of his bindings and is loose in the Hour. Hashmallim and more boggarts have been dispatched to find him."

"That's just wrong," I said, feeling more myself now that my hand had stopped burning where it had touched the shackle. I couldn't imagine what it had been like to have that clapped to my wrist for more than a thousand years. No wonder the poor man looked so tormented. I had a strong urge to take him into my arms and soothe him like I would an injured animal, but shook that impulse away as foolishness brought on by the circumstances. "No one deserves that sort of punishment."

The sound of running feet on the stone stairs leading to the lake filled our room, and it was with an audible groan that Hunter rose from where he'd collapsed on the floor. "Why do attackers never give you the chance to catch your breath before they strike again?"

Despite his complaint, I approved of the stance he took at one side of the stairs, while the Dark One did likewise. I noted he had picked up one of the morning stars previously wielded by a boggart, and was pleased when he moved into place opposite Hunter.

I hefted my own sword and bowed my head in prayer to the mother sun and father moon, asking them for the strength I needed in order to defeat my foes.

They boiled down the stairs in a mass of green, black, and gray bodies, the shadows of their misshapen forms oddly disconcerting as they flickered on the walls.

"Take off their heads," Finch yelled as he swung first his sword, then the morning star, handily taking down two of the lead boggarts, while Hunter's sword flashed in the light of the lanterns, the runes on it glowing with a brilliant gold light. "They're hardier than you think if you don't take their heads."

As more and more boggarts poured down the stairs, I glanced behind me to make sure that Sally and Mabel were safely out of the way. Sally stood in front of Mabel, her hands at her sides, but the bands of power that were woven around her were almost flickering with leashed energy. I decided that she could more than take care of herself and the reaper, and turned back just as three boggarts that had raced past the fighting forms of Hunter and Finch leaped toward where Jim stood next to me.

I smiled, brief memories of battles in the past lighting up my mind, and raised my sword.