Love Charms (119 page)

He pulled me close. “Don't worry about
that now. I've been waiting for you to find me.” I buried my head in his
shoulder, inhaling his scent. He nuzzled my neck and nibbled my earlobe while a
hand ran down my back in a light caress.

I moaned as he kissed his way down to the
hollow of my neck. The softness of his lips changed to the hard bite of teeth.
I gasped, caught on the edge between pleasure and pain.

In the distance, a voice shouted, “Let
her go.”

Hands pulled me away from Mark and I gave
a mewling cry of protest. I wanted to rip off my clothes and make mad passionate
love right there on the streets of Wyverndell. I strained to run back to him,
but could not overcome the strength of whoever held me. Tears coursing down my
cheeks I screamed, “Mark!”

A stinging slap bounced off my cheek.
“Wake up.”

I blinked and my vision cleared enough
that I could see Jocyllen glaring at me with narrowed black eyes. “Where's
Mark?”

“Who is Mark?” Jocyllen’s gaze left mine
and looked to someone behind me.

“Her boyfriend, but he's been dead for
about a year now,” said Jacob, who I realized was the person holding me.

“Ahh, no wonder you were such an easy
target then,” Jocyllen said. He shoved Mark in front of him with one hand, the
other holding Mark's face forward. “Here, look at this. What do you see?”

“Mark," I sobbed.

The guide released Mark's chin and
slapped me again. “You are hysterical. Now look, really look this time.”

I licked my lip tasting blood and looked
at Mark again. Only this time he wavered in and out of focus. Sometimes I could
see Mark before me, clear as day, and other times there was a small green man
with violet eyes staring at me. The green man had a forked tongue that darted
out of his mouth at me in a suggestive manner.

For a moment I drowned in sensation as a
picture flashed through my mind of what that tongue could do to me. My knees
went weak and I sagged in Jacob's arms. “What is going on?”

“Finally she says something intelligent.
You've been marked by an Eros goblin.”

“Marked? What does that mean?” I looked
carefully at the sky avoiding eye contact with anyone around me in an effort to
control the metaphysical onslaught being launched against me. A psychic conduit
existed between the Eros goblin and I. No matter how I tried to shield myself,
I couldn't shut him out and he was slamming me with a crash course in the Sidhe
version of the Kama Sutra..

“You've been infected with lust.”

“No kidding. Now what?” I gasped as I
spoke, thinking lust wasn't quite the word for the passion boiling in my blood.
Even through the haze of desire, I still found a moment to wonder if the
pharmaceutical companies knew about the Eros goblin. Whatever he infected me
with would make a potent aphrodisiac.

“Wait until his bite works its way out of
your system.”

Images hit me faster, a few positions
looked like they could be fatal. I risked a peek at the Eros goblin wondering
if I would still see Mark, but Mark was gone. All that remained was the green
man with the forked tongue that, through sheer mental suggestion, was driving
me out of my mind.

I writhed against Jacob and then felt the
flush of embarrassment heat my cheeks at my behavior. “How long does it take
for this to wear off?”

“Not long. A couple hours,” said Jocyllen
with a longsuffering sigh.

I bit back a groan.“This intense?”

The dragon looked at me, eyes narrowed in
disapproval as if I wasn’t worth the trouble. “There are things that can be
done to help you.”

“Then help me,”  I panted as my blood
overheated. Soon it would begin to boil, I could feel it.

Jocyllen pointed to the Eros goblin. “And
this goblin's punishment?”

“Whatever your laws dictate,” I said
between ragged breaths. The simple act of talking had been elevated to an
aerobic activity from the Eros goblin's bite. “Now get me out of here.” The
last word came out in a high-pitched moan as my body arched against the constant
stimulation, finally unable to resist it. My eyes rolled back in my head and I
fell into the soft darkness of unconsciousness.

* * *

I floated for some time in a morass of
erotic imagery. Every sexual fantasy and nightmare I had ever dreamed, thought,
or imagined played through my mind and erogenous zones. Even unconscious, I
could feel the heat from the bite envelope me, suffocating me until I began to
choke. I woke then, coughing and clawing at my throat. I sat up, and, opening
my eyes, found I was in a large bed. Jacob sat in a rocking chair next to the
bed, but came to hover over me when he saw I was awake.

“Are you all right?”

“Water,” I said, my voice hoarse. My
tongue felt like I’d been licking sawdust.

“Hang on.” He went to a small table holding
a pitcher and poured some water for me. “Here.”

I took the small glass and drained it.
“More.” I held up the empty glass thinking I would've preferred to drink
straight from the pitcher.

Jacob brought me more water. I drained
the glass again and then again, until there was no more water left.

“Better now?” Jacob asked with a
sympathetic smile.

I thought for a moment, taking stock.
Aside from feeling flushed, I no longer had the mad urge to strip off my
clothes and engage in perverse sexual acts with a goblin. Progress. “Yes, I
think so. Where are we?”

“The King's castle. He sent his own
healers to take care of you.”

Looking down, I saw that I wore a soft,
cotton night gown. “Where are my clothes?” I scanned the room, but saw nothing
except stone walls, a fireplace, and a few chairs.

“You soaked yours with sweat, so they
took them to be cleaned.”

I frowned and let myself fall back onto
my pillow. “Oh.”

“I think they left some robes for you in
the bathroom closet.” Jacob pointed to a small doorway at the end of the room.

“They have bathrooms?”

“Yes. Very modern ones too.”

I threw back the covers and swung my legs
over the side of the bed. Jacob lent an arm for support as I wobbled to my
feet.

“Are you sure you should be up?” He
looked concerned.

“Yes. I want to see the King as soon as
possible.” I shook off Jacob's hand, and took a few tentative steps on my own.
Aside from feeling light-headed, like I did when recovering from the flu, I was
able to walk without difficulty. “But first a shower.” A girl had to have
standards and being clean before meeting with royalty was one of mine.

Chapter
Ten

The first thing I noticed when we were
ushered into the throne room for our audience with the king, was the simple
decoration. A throne constructed of roughly hewed wood sat on a dais, also
constructed of wood. On its seat lay a crown made out of a smooth, polished
wood that gleamed like gold in the sunlight coming in from the narrow windows
lining the throne room. Everything was made of wood, there was no metal that I
could see.

Between the windows, hung tapestries
depicting dragons in daily life. One tapestry appeared overly modern for a
Sidhe with a scene full of beakers, test tubes, and boiling distillations. In
short, a chemistry lab, but I knew it wasn't chemistry the dragons were
interested in. They wanted gold, lots of gold and they had been trying for
centuries to perfect the alchemy formulas for turning base metal into gold.
They had been unsuccessful so far, but managed to create a tarnish resistant brass
now used widely throughout the human world. I had a pair of brass candlesticks
that, thanks to the dragon's alchemy, I hadn't had to polish for more than six
years.

Next to the alchemy tapestry, hung
another showing two dragons soaring vertical from the ground, side by side,
tails intertwined and fire shooting from their mouths. The other tapestries
around the room seemed to deal with a dragon's life from birth through
adolescence. There were scenes of an egg hatching, a small dragon walking and
flying as well as a young dragon receiving a piece of gold.

While certainly beautiful, the throne and
tapestries decorating the walls lacked the attention to ostentatious detail I
would've expected from royalty. Recalling the dragon's legendary avaricious
nature, though, I could see why avoiding metal might be wise. A dragon in the
throes of gold lust might make off with a throne adorned with gold.

Jacob and I sat on the stools placed at
the foot of the throne dais and waited. I fidgeted with the embroidered ribbon
on the sleeve of the pale blue robe I wore, wondering how it was the dragon's
had adopted what amounted to nothing more than an elaborate muumuu as their
preferred form of dress.

I was just beginning to try and picture
what lay under a dragon's robe that would make such billowy attire utilitarian,
when, with no fanfare, a door opened and a dragon stepped into the room. Like
all dragons, he was tall with a long face and wore a robe dyed a deep purple.
The skin of his face and hands was a silvery gray, light enough that it almost
seemed to reflect the sun filling the room. With a nod to us, he walked up the
dais, put the crown on his head, and settled into the throne to address us.
“Welcome to Wyvrndell. I am Wyllven, King of the dragons.”

Unsure of the protocol, I started to
stand thinking I should curtsey or bow, but he held up a hand. “No need for
formalities. Please sit.”

I sat. “Thank you, your majesty.”

“I hear you've already had quite the
adventure. Please accept my apologies for the Eros goblin. He will be punished
and I have also talked to your guide, Jocyllen about his appalling disregard
for your safety. Your skills are too important to the dragons to be risked so
cavalierly.” Wyllven's lips thinned in anger. “To think all could've been lost
if you had been taken by the Eros goblin.”

“Taken? I thought it was more like being
bitten by a mosquito.” A really horny one, but still just a mosquito.

The king shook his head. “No. The Eros
goblins hunt pleasure and there is not much left of their prey when they are
done. Without your friend's help and Jocyllen's late rescue you would've been
dragged off to the Wastelands never to be seen again.”

I shivered at my narrow miss and wondered
why Jocyllen had trivialized the whole thing. A few hours to wear off indeed.
“Well, then I am grateful for the help, late or not.”

“Yes, I imagine you are. I, however, am
displeased. This should've never happened, but I suppose I shouldn't be
surprised.” His mouth flattened into a grim line.

“How so?” asked Jacob.

“Someone is working against me, but I
don't know why. On the surface, my dragons seem happy. No one has spoken
against me, yet now I find someone has stolen from the Sidhe's treasury. A
theft that puts us all in jeopardy.”

“You want me to find the thief and the
gold,” I stated flatly. It was always good to confirm client expectations
upfront so there was no confusion about what I was to do.

“Thieves, Ms. Parker,” the king
corrected. “There is more than one and I already know where the gold is, I can
smell it from here.” He raised his nose and sniffed the air, closing his eyes
for a second. “Given enough time I can find it myself. What I need to know is
who stole it and who conspires not just against me, but all dragons.”

“Is there anyone you suspect?”  I asked.
People and Sidhe alike, often had a sort of sixth sense about these things. I
wanted to know what Zyllven thought, what his gut said as it might be more
accurate than he realized.

He shook his head, light shimmering
across his silver scales as he moved. “No and I have no magic to use that can
help me identify the dragons behind this, not without involving the Sidhe and
they don't know the gold is gone yet. I'd like to keep it that way. What I need
is a psychic. I need you.” His hands clenched, he pounded a fist on the armrest
of his throne. “Who among my dragons would risk us all? We could all lose our
homes and our lives because of this.”

Jacob shifted in his seat next to me.
“Excuse me, but I'm confused. How is it you will all be punished for the crimes
of just a few dragons?”

“You are not familiar with the Safe
Harbor Treaty are you?” asked the king.

Jacob shook his head.

Wyllven steepled his long fingers and
leaned back in his throne. “You have seen us in our original state, yes?” He
paused and continued at our nod. “We have small hands and even smaller fingers.
Our arms are little better than stumps.” He waggled his fingers at us. “Our
dragon form is of very little use to us. We can fly and breathe fire, but we
can't do much else. We hoard gold using our hind legs, our arms are that
useless. The Sidhe have a curse, 'may you be a dragon in your next life'
because we have the intellect of an elf, but not the body. What good is a plan
to build a home if you have not the hands to do the work? And we were
surrounded by humans." He snorted. “Humans who wanted nothing but to steal
our gold and tan our skins. They hunted us, persecuted us, until we had no
choice but to strike back.”

"The Dragon Wars,” I said referring
to prehistory that only came to light since the Great Coming Out. Man had gone
through many boom and bust cycles of primitive development before finally
mastering the technology that got him to the Middle Ages and beyond. During
that time, dragons had exterminated entire villages when they felt threatened
by man.

“Yes. As time went on, it became apparent
you humans were going to supersede your spears and develop new, more lethal
weapons with which to hunt us. About the same time, one human, a psychic like
yourself, had managed to sneak into Fairy and come back with the Sidhe crown.”
He lifted the crown off his head and held it up. “This is a replica of the
Sidhe crown, made of wood. The real crown is made of gold and is an object of
much power and magic, whoever wears it will never see defeat. The Sidhe were terrified
the thief would use the crown to raise an army to cross into Fairy and take it
over, stealing Sidhe magic for their own use.”

“Like the renegades,” I said.

“Exactly.” Wyllven put the crown back on
his head. “This human was the first renegade. We dragons knew what had
happened. We know where the portals are between worlds and one of our own saw
this human leaving Fairy with the Sidhe crown. With the theft of the Sidhe
crown, we saw a chance to change the status quo. We would much prefer to live
in Fairy, but the Sidhe thought, and rightly so, that we would steal their
gold. So they condemned us to make do in the human world where we were
continually hunted. With the crown, however, we had a chance to change all
that.”

“So, you found the thief and took the
crown," Jacob said.

“Correct. We can smell gold like sharks
smell blood. We sniffed out the crown and snatched it. Harnessing its power, we
negotiated the Safe Harbor Treaty with the Sidhe. They would grant us land and
magic to change form so long as we never touched their gold. That was about a
thousand centuries ago, and all that time we have abided by the terms of the
treaty, even though it is difficult for us to deny our instincts to hunt gold.”
He looked out the window, nostrils flared, sniffing. “Now it seems we have
failed. If we don't return the gold and find the thieves soon, we will be
evicted, forced into the human world. One where we can't shape shift and are
trapped in our original form. A world that has passed laws forbidding us to
enter. A place where, once again, we will once again become targets for
humans.”

“So why steal the gold now?" I
couldn't fathom what could corrupt so many years of successful abstinence.

“I don't know. At first I thought perhaps
there was a movement to dethrone me. I would willingly step down.
Administration is overrated." He gave a wry smile. “Yet I can find no one
who will openly challenge me. They assure me they are all pleased to have me as
their king.”

“But clearly something is going on,”
Jacob said.

Wyllven nodded. “Yes, which is why I
asked for you, Miss Parker. Find which of my dragons has betrayed us and find
them soon, or we will all be punished.”

I swallowed at the weight of the
responsibility his words placed on my shoulders. This was no simple matter of
finding lost gold. The fate of the dragons and humans alike rested on my
abilities. I had seen how large the dragons were in their original form and
estimated the population of Wyvrndell to be in the thousands. The thought of
that many basketball-court-sized dragons set loose on the human world gave me
chills. I hoped I was up to the challenge and could resolve the problem before
it led to an eviction of dragons. “I will do my best to help you.”

“Thank you.” He inclined his head to me.
”I will have my son Zyllven escort you. I think you will like him better than
Jocyllen. He should be here any minute.”

On cue, the door opened, and in came the
shortest dragon I had seen thus far. Zyllven wasn't much taller than the
average NBA star with sage skin and a paunch that gave evidence of a healthy
appetite. Where Jocyllen had been aloof and cold, Zyllven was friendly and
effusive. He bustled into the room with a smile on his face, hand out to shake
ours. “Welcome to Wyvrndell.” 

“Thanks," I said accepting his hand,
and, instantly, I knew it was him. I was able to read him same as I had the
zombie detective.  It seemed the detective hadn’t been a fluke. I’d added
another dimension to my abilities.

Just by touching the dragon prince, I
knew Zyllven was behind the whole thing --his guilt ran through me like an
electrical charge. Worse, he had no idea that I knew. He thought the mental
wall he had erected in his mind was enough to keep me out. A lot of people
think that, and don't realize the only way to block a psychic is to be psychic.
If you can't tap into the flow and ebb of energy surrounding everything, you
can't shield yourself. Someone had given Zyllven some really bad advice about
psychics.

Confused, I looked from father to son
trying to reconcile the impressions I had formed so far with the hidden truths
I was picking up and wished I could think of a way to touch King Wyllven
without seeming rude.

“I'll leave you in Zyllven's care. The
second you find something, come and find me.” Wyllven stood, and, setting his
crown on the seat of his throne, came down from the dais to grasp my hand in
his, a warm smile on his face.

I read him for the brief moment we
touched and found no hint of the guilt present in his son. Whatever game was
afoot, at least the king wasn't in on it, which left me with the task of
telling the king his son was betraying him.

Fortunately, I had the sense to ignore
the king's instructions to report back to him immediately. I wanted to
investigate further before breaking the news to him. Things were never what
they seemed in Fairy and I had to be sure I had all the details before I
started accusing people.

* * *

Zyllven, for all that he was guilty, took
his duty as our guide seriously. He gave us a thorough tour of Wyverndell’s
center showing us the market, their alchemy lab, which turned out to be the
brick building with smokestacks we had seen from the air, and a quick
walkthrough of the adjacent residential area. He introduced us to every dragon
we met as 'special guests of the king'. I shook scaled hand after hand,
constantly open to anything I might 'feel', but found no one else carrying the
guilt Zyllven bore. Either he was careful to introduce us only to the innocent,
or he was working alone.

I believed it was the former as Zyllven
didn't strike me as complex enough to be a good thief without help. Even now
the anxiety over what he had done filled him, seeping out in a twitch under his
eye and a tendency to laugh with nervous tension. I almost felt sorry for him
as he was clearly in over his head.