Page 13

CHAPTER 13

“A bsolutely not.” Linda crossed her arms and glared at Pan. “You can’t take Noah dragon hunting. I need his help here.”

Pan tilted his head. “We are not hunting dragons. We are searching for his missing mate. She may be injured.” He hoped that she wasn’t dead. While the city was damaged, there was plenty more damage an annoyed and upset dragon could do, and it wouldn’t make a good first impression on the humans. Pan was beginning to realize how much human cooperation he needed to achieve anything.

“He’s a kid with?—”

“I’m twenty-one,” Noah said as if that disproved Linda’s point.

Only twenty-one. Yet Noah had twenty-one more years of experience in this current version of the human world than Pan. Noah had lived his entire life in this world. The bits that Pan remembered were long gone. There were no carriages or opium dens. There were no painted warriors or druids. Everything he knew about the human world no longer existed.

There were more humans, for a start.

And their technology had progressed rapidly.

Perhaps the lack of magic had forced them to develop other means of making miracles.

Linda shook her head. “Pfft, practically a child. What do you know about looking for dragons?”

“Not a lot. What does any human know about looking for dragons?” Noah countered. “But I have helped search for lost dogs. And I fed the dragon out the back.” He stood a little straighter. “That makes me the resident human expert.”

Linda barked out a laugh. Pan was tempted to join in, but he wanted Noah on his side. He needed to keep Noah close because, somehow, he had the occasional glimmer of magic.

“You don’t really need me here, and I need to do something useful,” Noah continued.

Linda shook her head. “Given that Silas negotiated the use of this place for the vampires?—”

“I did no such thing.” Pan stamped his foot in frustration. It was less satisfying without hooves. The soft leather of the vampire boot scuffed the floor instead of offering a resounding ring. “I said that passage would need to be negotiated with the owners of the tavern. You own the tavern, and you have the right to demand payment and compensation. You can refuse.”

“And what kind of twat would I be if I refused? They’re stuck in that palace with rotting bodies and no running water. No one can survive that.” Linda jabbed her finger at the two maps on the table. “And how come their leader isn’t out here talking to me?”

“He is dealing with the dead, most of whom are his blood relations. Plus, the children left behind.” That was the easy answer. And while it was also the truth, there was a lot he was leaving out. Feryn was mourning the loss of his family, his city-state, and his world. Sometimes older vampires and elves, who had lived several centuries, developed a kind of melancholy from having seen and lived too much. He felt it occasionally, but for him, it was solved quite easily. He flitted to another continent. He found new followers and granted new prayers or reinvented himself with a different name for the different place. And if he was really tired, he visited a different world.

Elves and vampires rarely took off on a jaunt to see something new, mostly because they worried about their responsibilities and their families. Which made him believe that most of the melancholy was caused by responsibilities.

Which he now had.

What he’d give to go back two hundred years on this world and lie disheveled on a couch, drink absinthe and smoke opium, and fuck until he forgot about everything.

Moving through time was not something he’d ever wanted to do. He didn’t know of a single god with that ability. Perhaps it was because magic was always expanding and growing, and to go backwards meant using magic in its current form, which didn’t exist in the past. This couldn’t work. Trying to make theories about magic without being able to touch it made his horns ache.

Pan lifted his hand, showing Linda the ring again. “I am acting for him. Will your human authorities know what to do when confronted by a vampire, or will they panic? What will they do if they find the dragon?” He bit off the words. “How are the human authorities dealing with my people? Are they being helped or ignored?”

“Nan, please. I want to help.”

Pan smiled at Noah. He didn’t care if Noah’s desire to help came from curiosity or the goodness of his heart. Or his own desire to do more than look at him. He’d seen the heat in Noah’s green eyes. Smelled the lust on his skin and had wanted to kiss him on the steps in front of the dragon.

Linda narrowed her eyes. “You only want to help because he’s been using sex demon magic on you.”

Pan laughed. That wasn’t how incubus magic worked.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, acting Lord Silas Wilde. I see the way you look at him. And now you’re all dressed up, I see the way Noah looks at you.”

Noah groaned and walked away from the table as if done with the conversation, even though he hadn’t been dismissed by him, the acting Lord. So much for the ring giving him any kind of authority with humans.

Pan drew in a breath. “I can honestly say I am not using any magic whatsoever. There is none.” He put his hands on the table and leaned over the map. “And I don’t coerce people into my bed with magic.”

No, but they often wanted magic from him. They loved him for what he did for them.

She held his stare as if unconcerned that she was challenging a temporarily magicless god. If the vampires didn’t need her help, he’d put her on his magic-induced inconvenience list. He didn’t smite; he just made sure there was always a rock to trip over, a worm in their apple or a hole in their sock. And the more frustrated they became, the more magic plucked at their laces and spilled their drink.

Noah returned to the table with a glass of water. “Can we focus on the actual issues? Like the missing dragon, the dead in the palace, and the lack of food and water in there.”

And the lack of magic.

But that wasn’t something that could be solved before the next full moon. Or at least he didn’t think it was possible. It felt like a much bigger issue. He would sort out the vampires and the dragon and then have Noah whisper his name until he tasted magic again.

“This is only one building. How many other buildings have trapped vampires and others in them?”

“I don’t know.” Pan shook his head. “And this is only the main city. There are other smaller towns and farms that are also part of the city-state.”

“What is a city-state?” Noah asked as he peered at the map.

“It’s kind of like local government, except they’re independent. They existed in mediaeval times,” Linda said.

Pan had no idea what local government was, though he could guess. “Each city-state had trade deals and alliances with other others. It got very complicated politically. Not all of them rule the same way, either. There was a lord, or a king, or both. If a city had both, one was political, and one was military. There was also usually a Strega, who used magic and read the fate lines, and a knight who dispensed justice. Neither the Strega nor knight have come to the palace, which is troublesome.”

“You think they’re dead?” Linda asked.

“I think we need to go to their homes and check.” Another thing to do before he did what he needed to do. “We need to tell my people that they haven’t been abandoned. They need to realize that this human city isn’t out to harm them.”

It better not intend to harm them.

Not that there was much he could do if the humans decided to slaughter every mythological being. But he could hold a grudge for a very long time, and when his connection to magic returned, he’d make them all suffer. Though he suspected the humans responsible would be long dead.

“The mythological beings here are safe. There is an EU directive that they are refugees.”

They kept using words he didn’t understand and could only guess at. He didn’t like not understanding. “And the EU is?”

“The European Union,” Noah said. “You are lucky you arrived here because in other countries?—”

“We have enough problems without detailing the happenings in other countries,” Linda said rather too quickly. Pan guessed that meant other countries were not treating them as refugees. “These maps are in two different scales. We need at least two other buildings to be able to marry the two together.”

While he’d flown over the human city, it hadn’t been to identify Tarikian buildings. Nor was he familiar with Beita to recognize what he’d been looking at, especially when everything was broken.

Pan considered Noah for a couple of heartbeats. Like the cook who’d made him a sandwich while listening to the radio, Noah had news from other places. Humans didn’t have Strega, so how did they get news so fast? “How do you learn what is happening in other countries if you are not connected to magic? If you have no Strega to pass the message?”

“The news and social media.” Noah pulled a small black rectangle out of his pocket.

The cook had used the word news, but that didn’t tell him how it worked. “How are the newspapers finding the news so fast?”

Pan had no idea what social media was. Just because he recognized the words didn’t mean the meaning was conveyed.

Noah tapped the rectangle, then put it on the table. “People record what is happening on their phones and post it to social media—which is kind of like news but informal. So we can see what is happening in other countries. News stations do much the same. They record the events and report on them, and then they’re posted to the Internet.”

Pan watched the images on the phone change. It was a portal into someone else’s life. Not just a message passed via the Strega but a sign posted for all to see. “What is the Internet?”

“It’s our magic way of connecting,” Linda said.

Pan frowned. “It’s not magic. I can’t sense any magic.”

But what if they did have magic, and he was the one who was broken? No, he’d caught a glimmer of magic off Noah. It wasn’t him. It was this world.

“I think what Nan is saying is that trying to explain the technology will take far too long. But we can see what’s happening around the world. Every country is affected by the collapse, and there is fighting in some places.”

“Then I need to make sure that my people here don’t start fighting.” There were far more humans than there were Tarikians, so how he was supposed to do that, he had absolutely no idea. “When I flew over the city last night, I wasn’t looking for landmarks.”

Now he had a map of Beita he’d be able to locate and identify buildings. Or at least he hoped that would be the case.

He cursed Feryn again, but this time he was quite glad that he had no magic to follow through with that curse. While he understood grief, it was only because he’d seen all kinds of people be swept up in it; it wasn’t something he’d ever felt himself. Though the loss of magic was deeply unpleasant and upsetting, and he’d do anything to get it back.

Maybe that’s what grief felt like for mortals.

Unlike other people, though, this wasn’t his forever as he would reconnect with magic. The alternative was far too terrifying to even contemplate. But the word rolled around his head in every language he had ever known.

Mortal .

Gods didn’t die…death was possible, sure, but they didn’t die of natural causes. They were killed, usually by other gods. Which wasn’t any more reassuring, given that in his current state, it was rather too easy to kill him.

“We don’t need to fly over the city. We can walk out the door with your map,” Noah said, pointing to the palace on the map. “The spire is a good landmark because it’s tall.”

“It would be taller if three floors weren’t buried underground,” Pan muttered.

“No one’s going to be digging that up in a hurry,” Linda said. “Noah’s right. Go for a walk for a couple of blocks, identify what you can. Then, once we orientate the maps, we can make a logical plan.”

“And what am I supposed to tell the dragon?” Because walking off and leaving a dragon behind the palace was not a good idea. The dragon might get hungry. Not only that, they weren’t known for their patience.

“They didn’t live in the city, did they?” Noah asked.

“No, they lived on the outskirts. They like hills and such.” He pointed to a couple of likely places on the map. “But maps mean nothing to a dragon. They can talk, but they have no concept of time. He doesn’t understand how he’s ended up in this strange city and why the palace is so small. It’s like talking to a small child. A lost and hungry small child.”

“How hungry?”

“That depends on how recently he hunted.”

Linda stared at him for far too long, and it was not the nice, warm stare that Noah gave him. This one was as sharp as a sword, as if she saw straight through him and knew he was hiding things. He didn’t like it. It was dangerous.

“I’ll talk to the butcher and see if he’s got any carcasses going to waste. And while you two take your walk, I will call my daughter, Meredith. Perhaps she can help with the locating of the Strega and knight or at least speak to the people in charge of this mess so they are aware they should speak to you regarding mythological issues.”

Yes, that is exactly what he needed: more people coming to him with more problems. He was already missing the euphoria of the vampire bite. At least while warm in its embrace, nothing mattered. He simply existed.

Which would have been more relaxing if he hadn’t been untethered from magic. Instead, the euphoria had made it clear he was on his own in a way he had never been, or at least didn’t remember.

Pan rolled up the map of Beita.

Noah stopped him and pointed to a labeled arrow. “What does that say?”

“Calla.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What is Calla?”

“The neighboring city-state.” Wasn’t that obvious? There had been similar markings on three sides of the map, indicating all three neighboring city-states. The fourth side was, of course, the coast and the selkie town, which technically fell under the protection of the city-state, though the selkies considered themselves independent. And much like mermaids, most sensible people left them alone.

The male selkies could be savage—both in bed and on the battlefield.

While mermaids were friends with no one, selkies were friendly with all, until someone was stupid enough to cross one. And crossing one meant facing the wrath of all. Or it had.

“Allies or enemies?”

Pan gave him a weak smile. “That depends.”

“On what?” Noah’s frown deepened.

“Exactly that. Is it trade, and if so, for what, and if it’s for war, well, it depends on who you’re fighting.”

Both humans looked at him with disbelief etched on their faces. “Is it not the same here?”

It used to be the last time he’d been in the human world.

“No,” Linda said slowly, weighing her words. “Countries join alliances and don’t fight the countries in that alliance unless they want to be kicked out.”

That made sense, but what if there was an old enemy in the alliance? Were those grudges supposed to be ignored? “For the details on the alliances with the neighboring city-states, you will need to deal with Lord Feryn, as I am not privy to those arrangements.” He finished rolling the map. “For the moment, I don’t think the details of the old alliances matter, as we are all dealing with the same problem.”

And the more he understood about the extent of the problem, the more it seemed too big to fix. Even if he had magic and worshippers, this was beyond his power. Even gods had limits. And he was at the end of his. This mortal body needed feeding and sleep. And he wanted to sit down and let somebody else sort all of this out.

Noah handed him a water bottle and something in a crinkly wrapper. “Come on.”

He followed Noah out of the kitchen.

“Make him put a hat on so the horns are hidden,” Linda called after them.

“She’s right.” Noah pulled a black knitted hat off a hook. “It was left here a few weeks ago. No one’s returned to claim it. We also have three jackets and a pair of gloves. We threw out the underpants and socks—I don’t know how they were left behind.” His lips twitched. “I mean, I can guess about the underwear, but the socks?”

Pan took the offered hat and pulled it on.

Noah reached out and adjusted it. His fingertips grazed Pan’s cheek as he lowered his hand. “There you go. Do you want a coat as well, or will you be warm enough?”

“I’ll take a coat.” Then, the clothes that weren’t human in style would be hidden. It was safer, easier, to appear human.

Noah handed him a dark green one. “That should fit.”

It did, and he mimicked Noah shoving the bottle and what he assumed was food into a pocket. He kept the map in his hand.

“Why are you helping when it’s easier for you to walk away?”

Noah shrugged. “Because it’s the right thing to do. And if I’m doing something, I can’t freak out.” He tilted his head toward the bar. “And the palace is a bit hard to avoid, given that I work here.”

“You aren’t worried about vampires and others.”

Noah glanced away. “Of course I am. Everything that I have only ever heard of in myths and stories is real, although not in the way the stories said. I can’t go home, and I’m not sure I want to because my parents are difficult. Which makes me sound like a terrible person.”

“A terrible person does not help strangers.”

Noah gave him a wan smile. “Maybe I’m just doing it because you have a dragon.”

“He is not my dragon. He is not anyone’s dragon. But I should explain to him what is going on. Or at least part of it and hope he doesn’t eat me in the process.”

The way his life was going, getting eaten by a dragon was not going to be the worst thing that happened to him.

“Please don’t get eaten. You’re the only one who knows how to talk to him.”

Pan huffed. “For a moment, I thought you might say it was because you like me.”

Noah gave him that glance, the one where his green eyes became molten and dangerous, and Pan almost tasted magic in the air. If he kissed Noah…

“You’re cute, but you know that given what you are.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the kitchen as if he expected Linda to be listening.

“Cute?” He was a god! He wasn’t cute. He was… He wasn’t a god at the moment, and Noah believed him to be an incubus.

“Yeah, a bit too twinky to be my type.”

“I have no idea what that sentence means.” Noah seemed to string words together because they sounded good. But it felt as though Noah had both complimented him and turned him down in the same breath.

Noah opened the door. “I’ll explain twinks, twunks, and social media as we locate landmarks. And you can explain Strega and incubi to me.”