Page 14

CHAPTER 14

N oah shoved his hands into his coat pocket. Next to him, Silas did the same. It was midafternoon, but the air was cool and had a bite. With the coat and hat on, Silas appeared to be human. Almost. Maybe it was the way he carried himself. Or his expression. But there was something about him that made Noah’s skin tingle.

Not with fear. He wasn’t sure what the sensation was, but it was dangerous, as when he was around Silas, all he wanted to do was touch him.

And while Silas said he wasn’t using any magic because there wasn’t any in this world, that didn’t mean he wasn’t using something else. He was, after all, a sex demon…unless Nan was right, and Silas was lying. But why would he?

“So yes, incubi do eat food, but the energy generated by sex is way more satisfying,” Silas said, continuing his explanation.

“How long can you go without?”

Silas glanced at him. “Without eating or without sex?”

“It’s the same for you, isn’t it?” He jumped over a rather large crack in the footpath. The crack continued up through the building, widening as it reached the roof. “How big was the palace? How far does it stretch underground?”

Silas jumped over the gap, and they both stared up at the newsagent that wouldn’t be reopening any time soon.

Silas frowned as though offended by the destruction. “I can’t answer that as I’m not familiar with the city.”

“Yet the vampire lord has made you acting lord… Why?” What was so special about Silas that the lord trusted him? The warning Nan had given him echoed in his mind.

“Because I was the first one to knock and offer?”

Noah grimaced. “You could be some kind of criminal.”

Silas snorted and walked on. “I’m glad you think so highly of me.”

“I’m trying to understand.” Because there were things that weren’t adding up. “You said there’s no magic, so what will the Strega be able to do?”

Silas turned around. “I don’t know any more than you. In fact, you know more because this is your fucking world. Your town, not mine. You understand how things work, and you understand the technology in your little magic rectangle.”

“Phone.”

“I know what it’s called. I was making a point.” He pressed his lips together and crossed his arms. “I don’t want to be acting anything. I don’t particularly want to search for a missing dragon, either. All I want is my magic.”

“So why did you agree to it?”

“Because asking the dragon to take me to the palace was the quickest way for me to get there. But the dragon would only help me if I agreed to help him.”

Noah didn’t understand Silas’ exasperation. “That sounds reasonable.”

Silas tilted his head. “I should’ve known you’d take the dragon’s side.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Silas considered him for a second. “Just that humans have a long history of either fawning over dragons or fighting them.”

Noah opened his mouth and closed it again. Even though he suspected the truth, he needed to ask. “So there used to be dragons in this world.”

“Of course there was. But they weren’t going to stay when you were busy hunting them.” He sighed. “There used to be much more crossover between our worlds. Perhaps it was the lessening of magic here that reduced the contact, or the rise of technology, or perhaps the way humans started attacking those who weren’t like them. Our myths have as many holes as yours and just as many mistruths.”

Over the road, the florist was boarding up windows. Flowers were hardly an essential business, so it would be a low priority. Noah pointed further up to the street corner. “That’s new.”

They crossed the road. Noah was surprised that this section wasn’t too badly damaged. There was no rhyme or reason to the cracks or buckling. They stopped and stared at the meter-high piece of something. It was made of stone and about a meter square. On the ground next to it was a smashed statue. Silas bent and picked up a chunk of stone. He placed it on top of the pale brick box, then pulled out the map. “It might be part of the bridge. Or some other landscape feature around the palace. We’re definitely inside the palace grounds.”

“How can you be sure?”

Silas traced what Noah assumed was a scale bar along the side. Before tapping the palace on the map. “Because if the spire is there, we have not walked far enough to be beyond the grounds.”

“So we need to get out of the palace grounds. Perhaps you should’ve taken the dragon up.”

“I’m wearing clean clothing. Perhaps you should’ve clung onto his leg and gone up.”

“His leg? You don’t ride on a dragon’s back?”

Silas laughed, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “I would love to see you try, but I don’t want to see you killed, either. You might manage to climb onto his back, but the first thing he’d do would be to launch up and then roll so you fall off. Then he’d probably catch you and eat you in a couple of bites. And no one would condemn him for it.”

“Right, so laws don’t apply to dragons.”

“There are definitely laws around dragons. Most of them involve being polite and not pissing them off. So, if you tried to ride one, you would be the one at fault. There are similar laws about mermaids.”

“Don’t piss them off, or the one about human sacrifices?”

“Both. Tariko is…was…made up of many cultures. Some places only had one or two different beings. Others were a mosaic of many. A city where elves and vampires and minotaurs and werewolves?—”

“Werewolves?”

“Wolf shifters. I have heard humans have tales about them and other kinds of shifters. Anyway, they all had their own culture and ways of doing things. And yes, there were clashes, but for the most part, people got along.”

“And where do incubi fit in?”

Silas was silent for several seconds. “They usually leave home and travel with others around the same age until they find a place they want to stop.”

“And no one cares incubi feed on sex?”

“Why would they? The sheer number of people having sex in a city can sustain quite a number of incubi. It’s not as though incubi go round having sex with everyone. Though that is a very good way to feed.” Silas’ voice lowered, and the way he looked at Noah made him feel as though he were Silas’ next meal.

“Does it hurt?”

Silas’ eyebrows pinched together. “Does what hurt?”

“Being fed on.”

“No. Some people enjoy it.” Silas took a step closer.

Noah resisted the urge to lick his lower lip—not that it mattered, as that’s where Silas’ gaze landed anyway. “So, to find your magic, you need to be around people having sex?”

Silas glanced away. “It’s not that easy. I’m hoping the Strega will have some answers.”

“And if she has no connection to magic?”

“Then it’s not only me. Which is an answer. Not a good one. Although if I’m broken and can’t reconnect to magic, that’s not good either.” He shook his head, his dark curls bouncing around his cheeks. “None of this is good.”

“Yeah, the collapse kind of fucked up my world, too.”

Silas made a noise that might have been agreement. “Do we keep walking in this direction, hoping for another clue, or do we go around the block?”

“If we go around the block, we’ll still be too close to the palace. Let’s continue.”

They left the broken statue on the ground and continued up the road. There’d be two or three businesses that appeared to be completely undamaged, then the next building would be cracked or collapsed.

Traffic lights had fallen over, along with some power poles and streetlights. Ahead, the police had blocked off the road. Noah stopped. Going through the blockade was more trouble than it was worth. He was supposed to be working at the pub, not wandering the streets.

“I think we should go down the side street.” Noah also didn’t want to explain to the cops that they were locating mythological buildings because they had a map of the city—though, at some point, he’d need to talk to Aunt Mer about what could be done.

He turned into the side street and stopped. Because there was no street.

Instead, two meters in front of him, a stone bridge arched out of the ground before diving into the asphalt.

“Looks like we’ve found the bridge over the river,” Silas said as though that were a positive. “And if you look up, that statue matches the one we found. So if you know where we are, we can return to the tavern and match this up, which gives us a starting point for the missing dragon.”

Noah stared up at the bridge, then back at the asphalt as an oily sensation swirled in his gut. “If that’s the bridge that led out of the palace grounds, and there were people who lived and worked in the palace… Where are they?”

Most of the palace was three floors underground. If people had been standing outside when the collapse happened…did that mean they were now underground?