Page 6

6

HAILEY

The nullifying dagger lay on my coffee table like an ominous centerpiece, its dark blade seeming to swallow the light from the autumn afternoon filtering through the windows.

Around it, the most powerful beings I knew shifted uneasily, their movements sluggish as if moving through water instead of air.

I wiped my palms on my jeans, my skin prickling with the wrongness radiating from the artifact.

"Well, I think we can definitively say it works on vampires," Luke quipped, his usually fluid grace reduced to a halting shuffle as he circled the table.

His face, always pale, had taken on a waxy pallor, dark circles blooming beneath his eyes.

From her perch on the armchair, Adalinda observed the effects with a deep frown.

Her elegance remained intact, but I caught the minute tremor in her fingers as she swept a lock of raven hair behind one ear.

"This dagger nullifies magic. I’m not sure what the other does. But together they can kill a dragon."

A thought struck me, and I glanced around, realizing we were one dragon short.

"Where's Flint?"

Jax shrugged, the movement stiff. "Hiding in the bedroom. He said the dagger makes everything feel 'yucky.'" A ghost of a smile flickered across his face at our son's choice of words. "Can't say I blame him."

Yeah, me neither.

"So, it weakens us physically, disrupts our magic, and generally makes us feel like microwaved crap," Zara summed up from her spot on the couch. "But how do we use it without...you know, using it?" She flapped a hand at the dagger, unwilling to move any closer.

Izora tilted her head thoughtfully. "Therein lies the problem. We have to get close enough for it to affect the killer, but that means it affects us too."

"And we still don't know exactly what it might do to a vampire long-term," Luke added, worry creasing his brow. "Or a shifter. If it can block shifting, what happens if one of them gets cut?"

An uneasy silence settled as we all pondered that disturbing question. My eyes drifted back to the blade, its edge wickedly sharp. How much damage could even a nick do?

Adalinda cleared her throat delicately. "Shifting for a shifter is more biological than magical so the dagger’s power doesn’t affect a shifter’s ability to shift, but if they have magical abilities, those wouldn’t work. A direct stab to the heart with this dagger would likely still prove fatal to a shifter, powers or not. The sudden loss of magic combined with the physical trauma..." She trailed off, her lips pressing into a thin line. "As for a smaller cut, I suspect it would strip away their abilities entirely, shifting included. Permanently."

A chill skated down my spine at the thought. To lose such an integral part of yourself in an instant, to an enemy's blade... I shook my head. "And for vampires?" I asked, not entirely sure I wanted the answer.

"Untested." Izora's tone was carefully neutral, but the slight narrowing of her eyes betrayed her unease. "Our regenerative abilities might lessen the impact, but..." She spread her hands in a gesture of uncertainty.

"So, we're dealing with the supernatural equivalent of nuclear waste," I summed up. "Potentially catastrophic, hard to control, but possibly our only shot at stopping a killer." I sighed. "Fantastic."

Jax rested a hand on my shoulder, his touch grounding even through the dagger's miasma. "We'll figure it out," he murmured. "We have to."

I leaned into him briefly, drawing strength from his solid presence. This was my city, my people. Even monsters like us needed protection sometimes. I took a steadying breath, the sweet decay scent of fall leaves drifting in through the cracked window.

"Okay, then." I squared my shoulders. "Let's brainstorm. How do we make this thing work for us without, you know, the gruesome death part?"

Luke, ever the scholar, pulled out his phone and started typing rapidly. "I'll see what I can dig up on anti-magic containment. Maybe we can rig some sort of carrier that blocks the effects until we need them."

"I've got a few contacts in artifact recovery," Izora mused, her fingertips drumming restlessly against her thigh. "They might have some ideas."

"What about a delivery system?" I wondered aloud. "Some way to get the dagger close without us having to be in zapping range?"

"Like those insulin jet injectors?" Zara piped up unexpectedly. We all turned to stare at her, and she shrugged. "What? I dated an Army medic once. He had all sorts of fun toys."

"It's...not a terrible thought," Jax admitted after a beat. "We could look into some kind of projection device."

"Great, magic-negating hypodermics. I'll add it to the list of things I never thought I'd say." Despite the snark, I felt a small ember of hope kindling in my chest. We had a plan, or at least the bones of one. It was a start.

As the debate picked up around me, theories and countermeasures flying, I noticed Zara slip away from the group to join Xander by the window. I hadn’t realized he had returned from his trip to New York. He was still tying up loose ends from retiring as the leader of New York State. The lanky vampire stood with his arms crossed, observing the scene with the wry half-smile of someone who'd seen too much to be easily fazed.

"Some welcome party, huh?" Zara's grin held a sardonic edge as she tipped her chin at the glowering dagger. "Come back to Philly, see the sights, get your magical mojo kneecapped by kitchenware."

Xander snorted, his dark eyes glinting with reluctant amusement. "Still beats New York," he drawled. "I'll take a magic FUBAR over rat pixies in the subway any day."

Zara's laugh caught me by surprise, a bright, unguarded sound that cut through the room's palpable tension. It faded into a companionable silence as they watched Luke scribble on a legal pad, his brow scrunched in concentration.

"You know," Zara began after a moment. "All this hype over tall, dark, and dampening over there..." She jerked a thumb at the nullifying dagger. "But what about the other one?"

Xander tilted his head, curiosity flickering across his angular face. "Now that you mention it..." He raised his voice without taking his eyes off Zara. "Hey, Dragon Lady. What's the deal with Mystery Blade Number Two? Don't leave us in suspense here."

Adalinda glanced over, one sculpted brow arching at the nickname. "Isn't it obvious? It cuts."

"Cuts...?" Zara prompted, making a go-on gesture.

The Dragon Queen let out a delicate huff of frustration. "It cuts," she repeated. "Dragon hide, dragon scale, dragon bone if the tales are to be believed. That's all it's ever been known to do."

I leaned forward, propping my elbows on my knees. "But you think there's more to it." It wasn't a question. I could read the uncertainty in the set of her mouth, the furrow between her brows.

"I think," she said precisely, "that dragon-kind does not create weapons of singular purpose. And I think that blade has kept its secrets for a very long time." Her jewel-toned eyes turned distant, ancient mysteries swirling in their depths.

"There are stories, of course. Myths passed down through generations of dragons, growing more embellished with each telling." A faint smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Some say it can unmake what the dragons have made, that any creation of our magic would crumble at its touch."

Her gaze cut to me, glittering with wry amusement. "Others whisper that it holds the power to transform, to remake the nature of a thing into its truest self. That a dragon in human skin could be...peeled back to their scaled glory."

I suppressed a shudder at the image, visceral and vaguely nauseating. I'd seen what happened when shifters got stuck between forms - it wasn't pretty. "And you believe these stories?"

Adalinda shrugged one slim shoulder. "Believe? No. But I have learned not to discount the kernel of truth in even the wildest tales." She reached out, trailing an elegant finger along the dagger's hilt. It was a strange contrast, the delicate curve of her hand against the weapon's brutal lines. "And I have never known Kit to make anything without purpose."

Zara worried at her lower lip, her brow creased in thought. "So, it's like a magical Swiss Army knife, but we don't know what the other wacky attachments do?"

"An apt, if inelegant metaphor," Adalinda agreed with a slight wrinkle of her nose. "The blade is a mystery, even to the eldest of us. Some theorize it may be a key of sorts, that it could unlock powers or places long sealed away."

"Dragons do love their riddles," Xander mused. At Adalinda's sharp look, he raised his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I calls 'em like I sees 'em."

"Regardless," Adalinda continued, ignoring Xander's smirk. "Its purpose remains to be seen. Perhaps it is simply a blade, nothing more or less. The simplest answer is often the truth." But there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes, a question left unvoiced.

I reached for the daggers, wrapping my fingers around the worn leather of their hilts. They felt surprisingly light in my hands, almost delicate despite the wicked edges. One to weaken, one to wound. A matched set, but with only half the instructions.

The dagger of nullification made a strange kind of sense - destroy the magic, destroy the mage. Or dragon in this case. But why create a second blade just to cut? Why shroud it in secrets and speculation? Something wasn't adding up.

I glanced around the room, taking in the tense lines of my friends' faces, the wary hope and weary determination. We were no closer to answers, not really. Just more questions piled atop the old.

But that was the job, wasn't it? To keep asking, keep pushing, until the truth finally gave way. We'd figured out the demon councilwoman, stopped a rogue necromancer, and even negotiated a peace treaty with the fae. We could handle one little dagger.

I set the blades back on the table, the metal whispering against the wood. Okay, two little daggers.

"People." I pushed to my feet. My voice rang with a confidence I didn't quite feel, but I faked it well enough. "We've got our toys, we've got our theories. Time to put them to work."

Jax met my gaze from across the room, a smile ghosting across his lips. "As the lady wishes," he murmured, dipping his head in a playful half-bow.

In the bedroom, Flint let out a sudden shriek of laughter, followed by Kendra's muffled chuckle. The sound was bright and startling against the heavy atmosphere, a reminder of the world still spinning outside.

I squared my shoulders, feeling my resolve settle like a weight across my back. "Let's figure out how to use the daggers to catch us a killer."

It was going to be a long night. But then again, when you ran with vampires and witches, socialite dragons and snarky pixies, the weird and wild was pretty much par for the course.

I could handle long. I could handle weird. And if I played my cards right, maybe I could even handle those creepy, cryptic little daggers and the nasty son of a beast who'd wielded them.

Hey, an immortal girl can dream.