Chapter 25

Murtagh

“This is too much, too fast,” Caspian was telling me after he’d calmed Zazie down on the plane. She was cleaned up and Miles had given her about eighteen different stitches across her body. We were just staying there now, not knowing where Seraphus would turn up, but if he’d figured out that we were going for the diamonds, then I realized that he could be anywhere.

I was drinking a scotch, feeling like an asshole.

My fathers wouldn’t have put my mother through any of this bullshit, I knew that much. What was wrong with me?

“Miles said she’s going to be fine. And he should know,” Caspian told me, sitting down in the seat across from me. He didn’t need to remind me that Miles had been a medic in the First World War. I knew. I remembered most things.

“I am the worst mate in the world,” I told him after silence rang for a moment. When he looked up at me, as if about to build me up or something, I added, “You are, too.”

“What are we supposed to do? Stay here and get killed by Seraphus?” he demanded. “We have to go Daconia, or he needs to go there. We can’t stay in this realm.”

“We should have put her someplace safe and gone after him. We can kill him,” I told Caspian firmly, my voice a growl. “We brought our young, very fragile mate out into unknown dangers unlike most Navy-Seals would ever face twice in the last two days.”

“Something to tell the grandkids,” Caspian assured with a nod.

I rolled my eyes.

Caspian gave a shrug of his shoulders. “We’re not certain that Seraphus can be killed. You grew up in a different territory, Murtagh, but I grew up far closer to the skirts of the djinn kingdom. I’m going to assure you that many have tried. None have succeeded.” He leaned forward and added, “I don’t like putting her into danger either, Murtagh. I hate it, in my bones. I do. But this is a lesser evil than it would be to face Seraphus directly.”

I stared into my glass for a while, trying to think. “I thought getting the diamonds would be easier than this,” I admitted. “I thought the biggest danger would be Seraphus’ minions sneaking up on us. I didn’t even consider dangers during the search.”

“Mm. I know,” he droned thoughtfully, putting one leg over the other. “I have no idea why you thought that. Honestly, it could have been worse.”

“How so?” I demanded. What had happened was as bad as it could possibly be.

“I don’t know, finding the diamonds stuck in a tub of toxic waste? That would about do it for us,” he pointed between us. “Let alone her. And yeah, she acts young and impulsive. Do you remember us when we were about that age? I do. We were idiots. She’s Albert Einstein compared to where we were. At least she’s not also hot-headed like we were.” He pressed his lips together. “Or are.”

I stabbed my fingers through my hair. “Why can’t things have been easy?”

Caspian shifted in his seat, starting to adjust the rings on his fingers. “We’ve done easy, Murtagh. We’ve done easy for a millennium. Easy does not equate to happiness, does it?”

I growled low in my throat, but mostly I just hated that he was right. Sure, there had been an adjustment period when we’d crossed into the realm and not been able to go home. To call it ‘culture shock’ would be putting it lightly.

But after that, it was easy. I had even gotten lazy about it by avoiding technology because it was ‘too much work to learn’.

Now, fate decided that it had had enough of that. It gave me a Gen Z mate, then a way to get out of the realm (only when I wasn’t dying to be back at home), and a mortal enemy who made me jumpy. Once the world decided to shake itself up for me, it really got itself in a damn hurry.

“Now what do we do?” Caspian asked pointedly, taking mercy on me and changing the subject.

“Go to the witch…” I sighed.

“The one that has Seraphus watching her house,” Caspian added, nodding with sarcastic approval.

“Then have her perform the ritual ceremony…”

“Before we die, hopefully.”

“And then go home.”

Caspian blinked at me and then looked towards the bedroom at the back of the plane. “Does she know that’s the plan? What about her brother?”

I groaned. I had so much shit to worry about, it was hard to remember that she actually cared about her family here. “Shit. The brother…”

“And then what, anyway?” Caspian asked, straightening.

I looked at him, confused, shaking my head. “And then what… What?”

“I mean, what are we going to do with her back in Daconia? I think we forgot to sit and talk about it.” He pointed to the room at the back of the plane as he poured himself a drink. “She’s a djinn-human hybrid. Mostly djinn. Would our people approve?”

I blinked. “It’s been a thousand years. How could we know for sure?” I asked him, shaking my head. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“It’s better than bringing it up when we get there. I care about her, Murtagh. I want us—you and I at least—to be realistic about this. It might not be a cure-all, bringing her back to Daconia.”

“And your alternative?” I asked him, feeling annoyed at him pointing this out to me.

He shook his head. “All the options are awful. The more I stop and consider them, the sicker to my stomach I get. Bring her to Daconia, she’s ostracized, and so will our child be. Stay here—she might be dead in a week. So might we.”

“Daconia looks good painted in that picture,” I reminded him.

He sighed and massaged his forehead. “I miss Daconia, but every time I think of a future, it’s a future here. I mean, I know, I know, it’s impossible. But for years, I’ve been dreaming about raising my children in this realm. Strollers, preschool plays, Christmas. Football Games. That sort of thing.”

“Caspian,” I sighed, unsure of how to respond to this. I understood it, but it wasn’t helpful. “You can’t have everything.”

He frowned, looking suddenly very depressed. “I know,” he admitted, then sat heavily in his seat. “The problem is I’ve long ago gone native. I like it here, now. I might have liked it for some time. And now that I have my mate, I think I can actually enjoy it without being constantly depressed. I want to see it in this new perspective.”

I rolled my eyes, but suddenly I recalled the witch reminding me, ‘I can’t imagine your world has that many potato chips in it. Somethin’ to keep in mind.’ Sure, it wasn’t potato chips that was the sticking issue (although, I was gonna miss them), but for some reason I hadn’t considered it. I was so busy missing Daconia’s luxuries, I forgot how many I had gotten used to in this realm.

I had to think about it—what did I want? I always thought I just wanted to get home.

“We have to get home. We have a constant danger in Seraphus. We can’t have children with this pressure. It’d be hell. That’s why we agreed to let her look for those diamonds in the first place!” I gestured to the back room. “Or else why would we have put her through that?”

“So your witch has no idea how to negate this future?” He leaned forward. “Maybe a way to kill him?”

“I like to think the witch or her demons would have mentioned it if there was,” I assured. “Besides, even if we tried to kill him, we’re back putting our mate in danger.” I groaned and massaged my scalp. “It’s hard to think with all this indigestion. Somebody was wearing gold when I ate him.”

Caspian groaned too, straightening himself out in his seat. “I think most all of them were. When did those gold necklaces become popular again? I’m turning green.”

Miles came out of the room, straightening his clothing. “She’s a little on the grumpy side,” he mentioned peevishly. “Not that I blame her. Getting shot isn’t exactly a good time. She’s asking for the diamonds.”

I pulled myself up from my seat and drank the rest of my whiskey in a gulp. “Why does she want the diamonds?” I asked Miles.

Miles rolled his eyes. “Who knows? She keeps saying that they want her. Not the other way around—very much that the diamonds are asking for her. She might have lost it.”

I snorted and pulled out the diamond where I had it hidden before walking into the bedroom, Caspian following behind me.

“How are you feeling, beautiful?” he asked cautiously, sitting down on the bed next to her while I secured the second diamond.

She frowned at us. “I’m great,” she assured sarcastically, looking down at her leg, which was heavily bandaged.

She put her arms out to me, the ancient Byzantian ring shining as her hand reached into a beam of sunlight shining through one of the aircraft’s small windows. “Give me my babies. And my bracelet.”

“Your babies, hm?” I smirked.

“See, I can already tell this is where me and you differ. Can’t you hear them?” she asked, blinking up at me with annoyance over her face, like I should definitely be able to ‘hear’ something from these stones and was stubbornly ignoring them.

Caspian and I exchanged glances. “No,” I finally replied to her after Caspian shrugged and gave me an ‘I don’t know. She must be in shock or something’ expression.

“Seriously?” she asked, shaking her head at me, as if stunned. “They’re being incessant. Like wailing infant-style.”

I shook my head, but I handed her the bracelet, and then both gems.

“Shhh. I’m here,” she told them with a maternal expression on her face. “It’s okay.”

Caspian was leaning in now. “What do you think they’re saying?” he asked her.

She looked up, her eyebrows narrowing. “What? Do you think they speak language?” she asked, like he was the crazy one. “It’s not a language. It’s… It’s like…” She frowned. “It’s like a communication, but like a story. Like, all being said at once, all at the same time. All just…” She rubbed her hand over one of the diamonds, petting it. “Just so eager for me to connect to it.”

She looked up at me, her white eyes now void of her iris and pupil, but the white itself sparkled like an opal. “I thought you’d feel it. How do dragons not feel it?”

“We’re a different species,” I said, hoping that’s what it was and that she wasn’t just insane because she was shot and was now broken in the mind from the episode.

“Yeah, but I thought that we had an ancient ancestor. You said that once,” she reminded me impatiently.

“So do wolves and chihuahuas,” I reminded firmly. “We’re talking a million years ago. Ancient history. Ancient legends. Our species, my dear girl, has different abilities. You don’t shapeshift, for example, while it couldn’t be easier for Caspian and I.”

She frowned. “I was hoping you could hear them. I can’t understand what they’re saying. But they’re so… upset.” She stared at them, her brow furrowed, her expression disturbed.

“Probably because you did your own thing once again and ended up getting shot by Russian mobsters,” I said firmly, looking her over.

“Yeah, that didn’t make them feel any better,” she assured flatly, as if I had something there.

I rolled my eyes. “Sweetling, you’ve got to start making wiser decisions.”

“And you should probably eat a lot less people,” she mentioned with a noncommittal shrug. “We all have things to work on.”

Caspian snorted at this derisively, but then he heard his cellphone buzz in his pocket. He seemed like he was going to ignore it at first, but then seemed to want to know who was calling.

He looked down and sighed. “It’s the witch again.”

“Put it on speaker,” I asked, pointing to the bed.

Caspian pushed a button on the phone then laid the device flat on the bed.

“Witch?” he guessed as he answered the phone by putting it on speaker.

“That’s not how you answer the phone,” Wendy complained from the other line. “Mos’ people say ‘Hello’ like they’re not complete heathens. Anyway, how ya’ll doin’ on dat gem-hunt of yours?”

“Could be better,” hissed Zazie, still looking flushed from the pain. “Did you check on my brother?”

“Did I! Cher, I tell you what, I brought him and that whining husband right back to my place and?—”

“Oh, God!” Zazie complained, looking incredulous. “You didn’t!”

“He’s on death’s door, you fucking bet your nuts I did!” was the defensive reply. “That cancer is gettin’ all aggressive. I’ve been keeping him together with my whole spell book, oauis. Give that chemo an ally-oop. And it’s working fine enough. And Seraphus knows I got him, but his cronies are just… I dunno. Waiting? Watching? Standing strangely right out on the street and staring at my place? Pick a number, I guess. That husband is in a right state, too.”

Zazie huffed. “Probably because of the shadow-man. Or your demon. Or your cat.”

Caspian visibly shuddered at the mention of the cat, unable to handle his disgust.

“Are you kiddin’? Ryan and Silas became fast friends! They’re practically the same person! Grumpy streak a mile wide, both of ‘em.” There was a beat of silence. “Mais there was an initial shock, ouais. But now we’re just campin’ out together, a great happy family while we wait for you. What’s the plan?”

“We can’t get to you!” Caspian argued. “You’re under watch!”

“That’s not a plan, that’s jus’ another problem,” Wendy complained.

“Do you have a plan?” Zazie asked hopefully. “Or maybe your boyfriend does?”

“Big Daddy, you mean?” Wendy asked, sounding confused.

“Yes.”

“Now he ain’t my boyfriend exactly, but Big Daddy is doin’ research about it, yeah. But he ain’t come up with nothin’ yet. Look, I think we all know what needs to be done.”

Caspian, me, and Zazie all looked at each other for a moment before looking down at the phone.

“Which is?” I demanded.

“Well, you gotta take Seraphus out, of course. I mean, kill him dead. It’s a shame, ‘cause he is a little on the handsome side, but he’s bad news. Hell, he’s such bad news, Samael wants to take you out himself.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you die and you ain’t a weapon no more for him, are ya?” Wendy reminded tersely. “Mais don’t you worry, he’s happy to be talked out of it.”

“Oh, that’s good…” Zazie squeaked, unsettled.

“Let’s talk about djinn weaknesses. You got three ways of killin’ an ancient djinn there. First, poison. Second, cuttin’ the head clean off. Third, burning him to death. Or you could trap him.”

“Trap him?”

“Ouais, cher! Now, it’s really hard to trap a djinn, but it can be done. Not into a lamp exactly, but there have been stories. The real rub is that I have no idea how to trap one.” There was a pause over the line. “Do you?”

I was rubbing my temples by now, so stressed out that I felt my brain was going to turn into pudding at any moment. “No.”

“Alright, well, I’ll keep in touch, then. Don’t you worry about your brother or his man, you got me?” she added. “If I can do nothin’ else, I can get him right comfortable.”

Zazie frowned, and I saw her eye twitch before she swallowed hard, shifting her diamonds on her lap. “Thank you.”

“De rien, cher,” came the warm reply before the phone silenced, and the call ended.

We all stared dejectedly at our diamonds that sat on Zazie’s lap. She fiddled around with the bracelet, deep in thought, until she plopped it back onto her wrist.

“What should we do?” she asked me, finally looking up.

I looked at Caspian, and he was looking at me, too.

Why was I always the one that had a plan?

I sighed. “Well, you sleep and get some strength up,” I replied wearily. “We’ve had a long day, and I can’t think with so much gold sitting on my esophagus. But I’ll think of something.” I patted her knee. “Got me? Get some sleep as best as you can.”

She sighed and nodded, and I climbed into the bed next to her after pulling off my jacket. “You want me to put those diamonds somewhere?—?”

“No,” she pulled both diamonds up to her stomach as she laid down.

It wasn’t too long before she fell asleep. I saw over her head that Caspian hadn’t even left his seat. He was looking at me thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Nothing. Maybe the witch is right… Maybe there’s a way,” Caspian replied. “Maybe we should stay and finish this?”

“Our parents couldn’t finish it. How many kin did you lose to djinns during the war? The war where Seraphus was the leader?” I reminded him, hoping he’d get serious.

“Yeah, but we’re different than our parents, Murtagh,” he argued. “We’re earth-realm dragons now with our sweet little djinn mate. We are nothing like them. If anyone can find a way out of this… Isn’t it us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Caspian.”

He got up and groaned. “I’m going to get some tums and sleep. I’ve had too much Russian food.”

I snorted, then looked down at the rocks around Zazie.

I blinked. For a second, it almost seemed like they were… glowing.

I shook my head. It didn’t make sense, and I was half-sick after eating so many people.

“I need to lie down myself,” I admitted, laying my head on the pillow next to Zazie, staring at the diamonds until my eyes slowly closed.

I awoke to something poking my eye. After grumbling and pulling myself awake, I could see Zazie standing over me. I imagined, looking at the light from the windows, that I must have been sleeping for some hours.

“You guys wake up!” she snapped.

I startled, sitting up, and then palming Caspian’s face until he was awake too.

He grumbled and rolled over, but in the next second he startled awake, seeming to remember that being woken up non-gently could easily mean… “Seraphus?” his eyes opened wide.

“No,” she huffed, then pivoted her leg to the side. “See?” The bandages and gauze, bloody and forgotten, were piled up in a messy heap near her feet.

She was only wearing panties, but her thighs were beautiful, unmarked. Flawless; no gunshot wound in sight.

I pulled myself to my feet quickly and got up just to kneel on the ground in front of her in the next moment, looking at the other thigh, too, in case my memory had failed me. “What happened? How is this possible?”

She smirked and lifted her chin at the diamonds.

They were glowing, their shining turning off and on, and I could almost hear a high frequency in my ear.

“Can you hear them?” Zazie asked, petting her hand down my shoulder. Her smile was almost… childlike. Her tone was downright eager as her hand was shaking my shoulder with excitement. “Can you?”

I shook my head. “I can hear… something,” I admitted.

The noise became piercing.

“What the hell is that?” Caspian moaned, cupping his hands tightly over his ears.

“The diamonds,” she said flatly, her frown at us looking almost embarrassed now. “They’re calling you idiots.”

“What on—?” Caspian demanded, looking at them and almost poking one of the diamonds with a finger-turned-claw, carefully approaching.

“Don’t piss them off,” Zazie said, looking into a drawer and finding a pair of pants. “They have a plan.”