city of dragons 03 - fire magic (19 page)

“Thank you,” said Darla, barely looking at him.

“I have to admit I’m curious about the Order as well,” I said. “Where do you keep the magical prisoners?”

“Oh, that’s up another level,” said Darla, smiling at me.

“And, um, what’s your criteria for locking someone up?”

“Well,” she said. “They must be quite dangerous. Planning to use magic to hurt a number of people or give themselves undue power, that sort of thing.”

“So you lock them up before they do whatever it is that they’re planning?” I said.

“If possible, yes,” she said. “But sometimes we’re simply not quick enough. Then we have to do damage control and get them before they cause any more mayhem.”

“How do you find out what they’re planning?”

“Oh, it’s generally fairly obvious,” she said. “Usually, they’re making very public threats by the time we step in. For instance, imagine that, oh, I don’t know, Stalin had been magical. If so, we would have stepped in and locked him up and that would have been that.”

I nodded slowly. “So, it’s always that caliber of bad guy you lock up.”

“Usually,” she said.

“Very interesting,” said Lachlan.

She shot him a cold look.

His charm was clearly not working on her.

Generally, it did, which was strange. But maybe she wasn’t actually bisexual at all. Maybe she was a closeted lesbian who only pretended to be attracted to men. Why she’d keep it a secret, I didn’t know, but maybe she was just old-fashioned. She’d said that she knew Esther, who was a very ancient mage. It was possible that Darla used magic to extend her lifespan as well. Maybe she simply didn’t realize that she could be open about her sexual preferences.

“Would you like to see the wing where we keep the prisoners?” said Darla.

My hackles went up again. Was this when she’d shove us into a cell?

“We’d love to,” said Lachlan, speaking before I had a chance.

* * *

“These are all magically reinforced,” said Darla, gesturing to the iron bars that went from the ceiling to the floor in front of a large-ish cell. Inside, it was an odd mix of medieval dungeon and modern fixtures, like the toilet, sink, and bed. The place didn’t look comfortable, but it didn’t look inhumane either. It was bigger than the cell that I’d been in at Roxbone. “There’s a special spell inside the cell that sucks the magic from the prisoner and redirects it elsewhere, and no one could get out of here.”

“I thought you said there was an escape,” I said.

She sighed. “Well, theoretically, no one could. That’s actually why this cell is empty. The prisoner who was in here got out and while we were hunting him down, he got himself killed. This city isn’t a safe place for dragons, really. I don’t know why so many of them seem to want to vacation here.”

“Who was the prisoner?” I said. “What did he do?”

“He was a mass murderer. Wanted to rule the world, that kind of thing.” She shrugged, as if to say that was typical. “That was a case where we had intervened just in time to stop his megalomaniac rise to infamy.”

There was a snicker, echoing off the ceiling.

I turned, looking. Where had that come from?

“Oh,” said Darla. “Well, they can’t all be conveniently killed off, unfortunately.” She stalked past the empty cell to the next one down. “How are we today, Caleb?”

I edged after her, along with Lachlan.

The next cell looked quite like the empty one except for the fact that there was a man sitting in this one. He had a desk shoved up against the stone wall, and he was sitting at it. The desk was covered in books and papers. The man was unassuming with brown hair and brown eyes. He was neither overly attractive nor ugly. He was… there, somewhat unoffensive and unnoticeable.

“We?” said the man. “That would require that I speak for you as well? Am I privy to your moods?”

“This is Caleb Kinnan,” said Darla. “It’s best to ignore him.”

“Perhaps you meant the royal we,” he said. “In that case, allow me to answer. We are quite put out, and our ennobled person is rather uncomfortable. We would like to be served roast pork by scantily clad men if you please.” He noticed Lachlan. “Him. He’d do nicely as a manservant.”

Lachlan folded his arms over his chest but didn’t respond.

I decided not to either. Hadn’t Darla just said to ignore him?

“Now, now,” said Darla. “You know that someone like you isn’t about to be given any kind of comforts. You don’t deserve them, you know.” Her voice was light, almost teasing.

Caleb made a sour face. “Whereas you, stealing power from poor sods like me, are as pure as the driven snow.”

“Now, now, Caleb,” she said. “You’re hardly a poor sod.”

Caleb smiled now, and it was ugly. “Now, that’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Darla leaned close, gripping the bars of the cell. “And to think, after everything you tried to achieve, you’ve ended up under my power. Trapped here.”

Caleb got up from his chair and sauntered across the cell. “Careful, Darla,” he said softly. “Your ego is showing.”

She just laughed.

Personally, I didn’t get it. She had told us that we should ignore Caleb, but now, here she was, taunting him.

He kept coming closer.

“You shouldn’t touch the bars, you know,” Darla said, and her voice had dropped lower, so that it was almost chummy.

“Going to jolt me again?” said Caleb, stopping just a foot behind the bars.

Darla raised her voice. “Sid? You listening?”

“I hear you, Ms. Tell,” came a voice from down the hall, thick with a British accent that was different than Darla’s. Hers was crisp, BBC. His was muddled, urban, drawling.

Darla raised her eyebrows at Caleb. “Just one word from me, and I’ll have him send the jolt through the bars.”

Caleb parted his lips. “Do you have any idea what that jolt feels like? How painful it is? It makes my teeth ache.”

“Then you’d better step back, hadn’t you?”

Caleb took a small step backward. He spread his hands.

“Best not to wind him up too much, Ms. Tell,” called Sid.

Darla sighed, looking disappointed. She turned back to us. “Sid’s right, of course. He really is quite good with the prisoners.” She started walking back the way we’d come. “Off we go, then.”

* * *

“Well, she let us go,” I said. I was standing over the stove, browning ground turkey to have with some penne pasta and tomato sauce.

Lachlan was next to me, chopping vegetables for a salad. “Yeah, I don’t think she sees us as a threat. Otherwise, she would have either captured us or made sure to threaten us.”

“You don’t think that bit in the prison wing with Caleb wasn’t a threat? I thought she was trying to show us what would happen if she locked us up in there.”

“No way,” said Lachlan, as he finished mincing the onion. “That was her showing off for you. I think you’re right. She has a crush on you.”

“Showing off? What?”

“Yeah, she wanted to impress you,” he said.

“Whatever,” I said. “You have your interpretation, I have mine.”

“Whole place is pretty weird,” said Lachlan. “I can see why you’re creeped out by it. But I think we’re okay. I mean, as long as we don’t try to impose our megalomaniac will on the world.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I set down the wooden spoon I’d been using to stir the meat. “I hope you’re right.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her,” said Lachlan. “I’d be… wary of her, of course. There’s something about her that’s a little… off.”

“You feel that too?”

“Yeah, I don’t trust her or anything,” he said. “But I don’t think she means us any ill will. And I think you made the right call going to see her, because she’s the kind of crazy that you don’t want to piss off.”

“But I get the feeling it would be easier to piss her off than anyone might expect.”

“Well, there’s that,” he said. “But seriously, we’ve got bigger issues than the Order of Rasmossen and Wolffe.”

“You mean the case,” I said. “How we’re a whole lot of nowhere with that.”

“Well, maybe this girlfriend is the answer,” said Lachlan. “Or maybe it really is Elizabeth. I mean, she was laying it on pretty thick, don’t you think? All that sobbing and going on about how her brother was good deep down?”

“I think she meant all of that,” I said.

“Maybe she did,” said Lachlan. “Which was why it was all the more devastating to find out her brother wasn’t the man she thought he was. That he was actually a horrible person who was going to bring shame to her and to her family.”

“And so then she what? Ran out, got a bow and arrows and shot him while he was flying over her house? And then arranged for a dealer to come and take away his body to cover her tracks?”

Lachlan furrowed his brow. “Yeah, maybe we’re grasping at straws here.”

I turned away from the stove. “Did you know that if I deliver the baby at Roxbone, they’ll take it away from me?”

He set down the knife and came over to me. “That’s not going to happen.”

“When I was locked up there, my roommate said that there was another pregnant woman there, and that a week after she delivered, she committed suicide because she couldn’t handle losing her child.”

“Jesus.” Lachlan put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. “Penny, that’s not going to happen to you.”

I looked up at him. “It’s awful there. It’s so cold and horrible. It’s like being trapped. If they try to take me away again, I’m going to burn them all to the ground. I won’t let them take me.”

“Listen to me, a good lawyer can stall the trial out far past your due date. You won’t be pregnant in that jail, even worst case scenario and we never find Alastair’s killer.”

“You don’t think we’re going to find out who did it either, huh?”

“I’m not saying that.”

I extricated myself from his arms and went back to the stove. “But you’re thinking it. You’ve thought about the possibility.”

He hesitated. Then he went back to the vegetables and started chopping again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Sonia Meader laughed. She was a tiny blond woman with bright blue eyes and huge boobs. She wore a lot of makeup. “I had no idea that Alastair had ever mated. You were his mate? But then, where were you? I thought dragons mated for life.”

Lachlan and I were at Andy’s, the bar where Sonia worked. Alastair apparently liked to hang out at this place. It was where he’d met Fletcher Remington before taking him home to sacrifice his body for magic. I guess he’d also picked up chicks here.

“That’s funny,” said Lachlan, “because Elizabeth Cooper says that you used to leave her voicemails complaining that Alastair was still interested in his ex-wife.”

Sonia’s smile faded. “Oh, she did, hmm?” She made a face, and she suddenly looked six years older, almost haggard in her disgust. “Well, isn’t that special.”

“So, you did know?” I said. “You knew he was mated to me?”

She looked me over. “Not at first. But after we were involved a while, it came out. He was a liar, that man.”

“Gotta say,” said Lachlan, “it’s not looking great for you, keeping things from us right out of the gate.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Who did you say you were? Are you with the police?”

“We’re heading up this investigation,” I said.

“What else did he lie to you about?” Lachlan said, before she had time to react to what I’d said.

“Oh, all kinds of things. That we were going to get married. That he was done with dragon women and he only wanted to date human women now, that kind of thing. I found out later that he was sleeping with that girl who got killed by the Dragon Slasher, and she wasn’t a human woman, that’s for sure.”

“So, you were angry with him,” said Lachlan.

“Angry?” said Sonia. “I hate that bastard’s guts. He made me do weird shit, too, let me tell you. At the time, I’d be all into it, and then later, I’d wonder what had possessed me.”

“What kind of weird stuff we talking about?” said Lachlan.

“In the bedroom,” said Sonia, her face flushing a little. “I’m not a prude or anything, but I also don’t see the need to do all kinds of perverse things either. But whenever I’d protest, he’d just look into my eyes, and then I’d do whatever he said.”

“He compelled you,” I said.

Sonia looked at me. “Yeah, maybe I heard of that before. I didn’t know it was real.”

“It’s real,” I said, thinking of my own experience being compelled by Alastair. As a dragon, I shouldn’t be compellable. No magical creatures were. Neither was anyone with a magical artifact or amulet. But Alastair had been so powerful after he killed Fletcher that he’d been able to do all kinds of horrible things.

“So, when was the last time you spoke to him?” Lachlan asked.

“He stayed with me for a few nights in the beginning of June,” said Sonia. “I told him to get out. I knew he was trying to get back together with you, and I didn’t want anything to do with him. But I guess he did that compelling thing on me or something, because I couldn’t say no to him. And it was the same old song and dance, telling me what kind of future we were going to have together, how we were going to be together forever, all of that crap. And then one day, he up and disappeared, and I haven’t seen him since. Now, you’re telling me he’s dead.” She stopped, knitting her brows together. “Oh, maybe he didn’t leave. Maybe he disappeared because he got killed.” Abruptly, her eyes filled with tears.

“You ever use a bow and arrows, Ms. Meader?” said Lachlan.

Sonia was thrown. She looked up at Lachlan, confusion in her eyes. “Why do you ask that?”

“Have you?” said Lachlan.

“He was dead,” said Sonia, and there was a tremor in her voice. “That’s why he left. And I’ve been hating him for it. But I shouldn’t have, because maybe he really meant it that time.”

“Meant it?” I said. “Does that matter? I thought you hated his guts.”

“Well, if he chose me in the end, then I would have forgiven him,” she said.

“Bow and arrows?” said Lachlan.

“I took archery in college for half a semester,” she said. “But I was terrible at it. Never hit the target. Why is that important?”