The Witch Thief (Harlequin Nocturne) (14 page)

There were streetlights now, but they were dimmed by the mist that had clouded down around them. Amma’s clothes clung to her; she was cold and damp.

Joarr snagged her hand as it swung at her side and wove his fingers through hers.

The heat was back, just as strong, just as relaxing, but this time confidence instead of languor came with it. He pressed his fingers against the back of her hand, and she pressed back.

It might not seem like her problem. Fafnir might not be heading toward the chalice or the Collector. But there was no way she was turning back, no way she was leaving Joarr to discover what the dwarf was up to alone.

Chapter 13

A
light above them hissed and went out. A rat scurried across their path.

Joarr gripped Amma’s hand tighter. There was no reason for the witch to be here, but despite his efforts to get her to leave, to go back to the hotel and be safe, she’d insisted on staying with him.

And for now, he wasn’t going to question her motive. He was just going to concentrate on doing what she wouldn’t do for herself—keeping her safe—and on discovering what the dwarf was up to.

Joarr had no idea what they were walking into. He believed the dwarf didn’t know they were behind them, just as he believed what he had told Amma—that whatever the dwarf was up to it didn’t involve her. It did, however, involve dragons.

He was beginning to suspect both notes—not just the one delivered to their hotel room, but the original one that Rike had shown him, as well—were nothing but a ruse. A trick to lure a dragon to the dwarf.

If so, why?

He was fairly sure he was about to find out.

Amma and Joarr had followed the dwarf through the streets for ten minutes now, keeping far enough back so Fafnir wouldn’t hear or see them. Their caution, however, seemed unnecessary. Fafnir didn’t look anywhere but straight ahead, not even when a cat jumped in front of him and knocked over a metal trash can. He was focused, one-hundred-percent focused, on wherever he was going.

In the ten minutes of walking, the scenery hadn’t changed a lot. Old warehouses still lined the streets. They were newer, however, than the building that had been converted into the bar. These weren’t brick, but were constructed instead from some human-made prefab material.

Fafnir stopped in front of one and glanced around. Still, the caution seemed at most cursory. He pulled a key from his pocket, approached a dented metal door and jiggled the key in the lock. With a creak the door opened and Fafnir disappeared inside.

“Follow or wait?” Amma asked. Her fingers dug into Joarr’s arm. He could feel her tension.

He was tense, too, with anticipation. It was obvious the dwarf was hiding something here, something he didn’t even want the other dwarves from the bar to discover.

“Follow,” Joarr said. “But quietly.” The last was an unnecessary add-on, but he didn’t want the dwarf to discover them yet. Not because he was afraid—that idea was ludicrous—but because he didn’t know yet if his quest stopped here. If as Joarr expected the chalice wasn’t inside, he would still need to watch the dwarf without Fafnir realizing it. No matter what he found inside this warehouse, Rike and the Ormar would still be expecting Joarr to return with the chalice.

The door opened into a small room that looked like a reception area. There were offices, constructed of thin partitions, off to one side. A few yards ahead of them, out of Joarr’s sight, another door opened and started to creak closed. With Amma close behind, he followed, managing to shove his foot in the still-open doorway before it clicked shut. He and Amma slipped inside the room. Then he guided the door to make sure it eased closed silently.

Once it was shut behind them, they assessed their surroundings.

The space was huge and open, like an airplane hangar. It was obviously the main room of the warehouse, but there were no shelves, no boxes—nothing but the little dwarf and the prone form of a full-size dragon.

“Fuck,” Amma swore, but in a whisper.

Joarr couldn’t even say that. He was too shocked, too appalled and too aware that the dragon was not only dead, he was Rike’s missing nephew.

Fafnir turned.

Joarr pushed Amma toward the ground. They crouched behind a forgotten forklift.

Fafnir pulled a battery-powered lantern from his pack and set it on the concrete floor. Then he bent to shuffle inside some more. When he stood, he held a dagger and a flask—just like the one the dwarf outside the portal had carried.

Fafnir stepped forward and ran his hand over the fallen dragon’s skin.

“Is he…?” Amma whispered.

“He’s dead,” Joarr confirmed. “Dragons don’t decompose like other beings when they die. We don’t decompose at all.”

“So, how do you…?”

“Fire. Dragons’ funerals are all rites of fire.” The words were solemn; Joarr was solemn. He’d known dragons had died recently, known this one was missing, but seeing him lying there forgotten—for how long?—made it all real. Bile rose in his throat.

“What’s the dwarf doing?” Amma wiggled on her heels, apparently trying to get a better view of Fafnir from behind the forklift.

The dwarf was done stroking the boy’s form. He held his dagger now, tip down, and thrust it into his flesh. The smell of blood, thick with metals, filled Joarr’s senses.

“He’s…” Amma turned her head and closed her eyes.

Joarr glanced back at the dwarf. He stood with his lips pressed against the wound he’d created. His tongue curled out again and again, lapping at the blood that oozed from the dragon’s body.

“He’s drinking it…” Joarr didn’t move. He’d never imagined this. He’d seen Fafnir taste the human’s blood at the bar, seen his anger when the dwarf realized the man wasn’t a dragon, but it hadn’t occurred to him—

“Why? Why would he do that? I’ve never heard… Do beings do that? Do they drink dragon blood?” The horror was clear in Amma’s voice.

Joarr shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard of, but then, the chalice…”

“Protected you,” Amma finished.

“No.” Joarr shook his head. He’d been thinking the same thing, but he wouldn’t…couldn’t believe it. The legend of the chalice wasn’t true. If the dwarf had developed a taste for dragon blood it wasn’t because the dragons had lost the chalice; it was simply bad timing.

“What’s he doing now?” she asked.

“Filling the flask.” Joarr’s fingers tightened on the forklift’s metal body. He wanted to stop the dwarf. Stop the sacrilege his fellow dragon was being submitted to, but he knew Rike’s nephew was past feeling, past caring, and to honor his memory Joarr had to keep his head, had to do what Rike had asked of him. He had to find the chalice. Suddenly the job seemed real and important.

It took the dwarf a half hour to fill his flask; the blood flowed slowly. When he was done, he screwed on the lid and carefully, lovingly placed it inside his bag. Then with one last lick of his tongue over the gash he’d created in the dragon’s skin, he walked out the door.

Joarr and Amma stayed behind the forklift until they heard the door bang closed and the key turn in the lock.

Amma stepped out first. She glanced toward the dragon’s corpse, but seemed unwilling to move closer. “Is that… Do you think Fafnir sent those dwarves? Were they trying to gather your blood?”

Staring at the body and thinking of how he would tell Rike, it took Joarr a moment to answer. “So it would seem.”

“So, the chalice… Is it all coincidence? Is it not here at all?” Amma rubbed her hands over her arms as if she was cold, which she very likely was, dressed as she was in the skimpy skirt and shirt of the club girl.

Joarr closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms. Then he stood there, heat flowing from his body into hers, silence settling around them. She pressed her face into his chest and her heart beat against him. It was good, having her there with him. He didn’t want to be alone right then; didn’t know if he could do what had to be done without her by him.

He sighed, then tilted her face up so he could stare into her eyes. “I can’t leave him here like this, not for the dwarf to feed on again. Will you help me?”

Her lips parted; she thought to say no. He could see that the events had shaken her, would have shaken anyone…they were that unnatural. But she nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”

First they examined the body. It was difficult, both physically and emotionally. But it had to be done. Joarr needed to know what had killed the young male. Unfortunately after studying every inch of the dragon’s body, they could find nothing more than a few old battle scars and the wound Fafnir had inflicted on the body as they watched.

“So, what killed him?” Amma asked.

Joarr didn’t answer. There was no answer. It was exactly as Rike had told him. No mark of a hero’s sword, no sign of being blasted by some as-yet-unknown force—nothing. The dragon was just dead. But dragons didn’t just die—they hadn’t, until now.

With a shake of his head, he waved off Amma’s question and concentrated instead on what little he could do to provide the boy’s family with comfort.

He couldn’t haul the boy home, but he could save him from further insult at the dwarf’s…or anyone else’s…hands. He could perform the burial ceremony himself—or try to.

Joarr didn’t have the firepower to incinerate an entire dragon alone. Feeling both tired and antsy, he explained to Amma that she would have to convert her magic to fire, too. Together they would convert the boy’s body to nothing but ash—hopefully without destroying the human neighborhood around them.

Amma didn’t hesitate. She nodded her head and waited expectantly. He led her to the dragon’s middle, where the boy’s own fire should still be stored. He placed her hand on the body’s stomach, where he wanted her to aim her power. They stood there for a second, the silence in the warehouse seeming to grow around them, swallow them. Then he stepped back.

Amma’s magic would act as an igniter while Joarr actually set other parts of the body aflame.

With Amma waiting, he converted to dragon form. He towered over her, barely fitting inside the huge open space. She looked small and fragile. Seeing her standing by the dead boy sent a chill through Joarr. Dragons weren’t supposed to die… If something had downed this strong, healthy male, how could the witch be safe? He wished she’d listened to him and gone back to the hotel…but he needed her, too, needed her power to do what had to be done, needed her support to get through finding the boy like this.

He straightened his wings and fought the need to shriek his anger and outrage.

Now he knew why the dwarf had a brackish scent, knew the source—dragon blood. There was no telling how much the dwarf had consumed.

Was Rike’s nephew the first? Or were the other two boys this dwarf’s victims, too?

Joarr couldn’t sort it out now—but he would. His mission had changed, grown bigger. He didn’t just need the chalice. He needed revenge, too.

He flapped his wings. His feet lifted slightly off the floor. He hung there and pulled air into his lungs, held it until he saw that Amma was ready.

Together, they let loose with their powers. Fire burned from Joarr’s lungs, up his throat and out of his lips—fire hotter than any he had ever created before. As it burst from inside him, he realized the danger—that Amma wasn’t a dragon, that he had no idea what temperatures her body could withstand. Panic flashed. His eyes darted toward her, but she stood strong, magic flowing from her palms and not so much as a bead of sweat forming on her brow.

White, then blue magic streamed out of her. She kept her attention directed where Joarr had told her—at the dragon’s center, his core where he created fire, where hopefully pure magic like the witch’s would ignite the dormant flames.

The boy’s tail took fire first; the skin was dry there. It crackled up his spine, creeping toward his center where Amma waited.