Sparks Fly: A Novel of the Light Dragons (6 page)

Smiling, he made a move as if he was going to kiss my hand, but a voice stopped him.

“Constantine Norka?” A tall, elegant woman of Indian ethnicity approached us. “I am Marsella.”

“Yes, I am Constantine. This is Ysolde de Bouchier, my mate.”

“I am not your mate. I am Baltic’s mate,” I said wearily, smiling politely at the woman as she gave me a quick once-over. “I’m not with Constantine at all, as a matter of fact. I’m just here shopping for a few things.”

“Ah.” She touched one of the packages in my basket. “The Octopus. An excellent choice. I have heard many good things about it from gentlemen customers.”

“Yes, well…” I shot a glance at Constantine, and cleared my throat. “That’s not for my wyvern. It’s for another dragon. I’m just replacing his toys.”

“Indeed,” she said without the slightest hint of curiosity. She turned to Constantine, saying, “I understand you were desirous of engaging my services. I regret to tell you I am unable to resurrect shades, and even if you were in a form conducive to resurrection, I would be unable to do as you desire. The resurrection of dragons is a difficult feat, one that only a master necromancer can accomplish. I can think of only three such people in existence today, and even then, the materials required to do so are beyond the means of most individuals.”

“Quintessence,” I said, nodding as I remembered hearing that Thala had stolen Dr. Kostich’s priceless quintessence to resurrect Baltic.

“Just so.” She gave me a long look. “Do you have knowledge of the resurrection of dragons?”

“You could say that. I’ve been resurrected twice, now.”

She stared at me in disbelief for a moment. “Twice?”

“I sacrificed myself for her the first time,” Constantine said, putting his arm around me. I elbowed him sharply in the side and slid away from him. “I don’t know how she was resurrected a second time.”

“Yes, twice, and it’s not something I recommend.” I gave Constantine a firm look. “Don’t even try to pretend you don’t intend to be resurrected simply so you can harass poor Gabriel.”

“I am wyvern, not him,” Constantine said, obviously ready to go into the familiar diatribe about the silver sept belonging to him by rights.

Marsella murmured something about seeing to another customer, then glided off to another section of the shop.

“I’ve already told you I’m not listening to any more of that, Constantine. You can’t go messing with the septs that way, and that is that.”

“Messing with the septs?”

I froze at the mild voice behind me, the world seeming to stop as slowly, I turned around to behold a man who wasn’t a man.

It was the First Dragon, right there in the middle of a London sex shop.

And he didn’t look happy.

“U
m,” I said, not knowing how to greet the more-or-less god who was effectively my father-in-law, and wishing for the hundredth time that I had my memories back so I knew how I had addressed him in my former life. “Hello. I didn’t summon you inadvertently again, did I?”

“No,” the first dragon said, his all-knowing gaze drifting over to Constantine for a moment.

“I’ll just…er…get back to what I was doing.” Constantine gave a deprecating cough before he suddenly busied himself by examining the nearest item at hand, which turned out to be an exercise ball with some odd attachments. He hastily shoved that back and grabbed the item next to it, bending his head over it as he pretended to be engrossed with it.

I considered the First Dragon for a moment or two. “Since I assume you don’t normally visit chic London sex shops, I’m going to assume you’re here to speak to me? Or is it Constantine you want?”

We both looked at Constantine. He was absently fondling
the betasseled teat of a lifelike blow-up sheep in fishnet stockings. Constantine reddened and shoved the sheep behind him, but he must have flipped on some sort of switch, because the sheep began to vibrate with a loud hum.

The First Dragon turned back to me and opened his mouth to speak, pausing when Constantine’s sheep started baaing in what I can only imagine its creators thought was a seductive manner.

Constantine muttered to himself as he beat the vibrating, baaing blow-up doll against the wall in an attempt to shut it up.

“I gather it’s me you wish to see.” I cleared my throat and tried to look relaxed and not at all worried about that fact. The First Dragon’s eyes were hooded, his face stern, causing my stomach to turn to lead.

“You have failed me, daughter of light.”

“Baaaagggg…”

I turned an annoyed glare on the man behind me. “Constantine! We are trying to have a conversation here. Could you play with your sex sheep somewhere else, please?”

“I’m not playing with it, and it’s not mine,” he said, shooting little looks at the First Dragon. “I’m just trying to shut the damned thing up, but it won’t die.”

The First Dragon raised one eyebrow.

Constantine blushed even harder and began swearing softly to himself while alternately throttling the doll and beating it with the exercise ball.

A quick worried glance at the First Dragon sent my spirits plummeting, not that they were in any way buoyed by what he had said. “I’m sorry if I’ve failed you. I’m really not trying to, but I’ve had a horrible time trying to figure out just what it is you want me to do.”

At a choked noise from Constantine, I recalled to whom I was talking, and made an apologetic gesture.
“That is to say, it’s difficult with my memory loss to understand what it is you want me to do. I’m happy to do it. I just needed a little guidance on what it is, exactly.” Mentally, I groaned. I sounded as lame as I felt.

His gaze roved over my face for a few seconds, his expression, as ever, unreadable. “If you fail me entirely, daughter, there will be the gravest of repercussions, ones that I will not be able to correct. For your own sake, and for that of all dragons, you must right the wrong done. The sacrifice of the innocent shall not be wasted.”

At his words, desperation swelled within me, desperation and fear, topped off with more worry than any one person should have. I wanted to tell him that I was trying, but that Baltic was being his usual dragon self and not giving me any help. I wanted to point out that I was starting at a disadvantage by not realizing what his relationship to Baltic was in the first place, and that if someone,
anyone
, had just taken pity on me and reminded me of things I had known in the past, I might have succeeded by now. Instead, I said the last thing in the world I expected to say to the ancestor of all dragons.

“Did you love Baltic’s mother?”

His eyes widened slightly. The air around us stilled, as if all life had ceased but for the three of us.

“It’s just…I’ve always wondered. You seem to care about him a lot, and I thought maybe that was because his mother was very dear to you….” My voice, fortunately, trailed off to nothing. The basket handle bit painfully into my hand as I waited for him to either smite me dead on the spot for being so bold, or to answer my question. I fervently hoped he’d do the latter.

“Hope for the future lies within you,” he said after half a minute of extremely painful silence. “For the sake of it, you must succeed.”

A chill swept over me as he turned away, but before he could disappear, he turned back to look at me, his
eyes, so fathomless, not even remotely human. “If I did not, you would not be here.”

I blinked a couple of times in confusion, not sure what that meant.

“Why did you ask him about Lady Maerwyn?” Constantine clutched a now-deflated—although still vibrating—sheep in one hand, and the giant exercise ball in the other. “And what did he mean by his answer?”

“Lady Maerwyn?”

Constantine gestured with the ball. “Baltic’s mother.”

“Ah. I’m not entirely sure what he meant,” I said slowly, suddenly feeling the urge to cry. What a tragedy for the father of all dragons to lose his beloved mate. “And far be it from any dragon to just come out and answer a question when it’s put to him.” I shook the shadows from my head and glanced at Constantine, who still held the giant ball. “How on earth are you supposed to get two people on that at the same time?”

For a second or two he looked at me as if I were mad, then glanced down to the sex toy. “Why would you try to get two people on it?”

“Well, it has two…er…phalluses on it. That means it’s for a couple, doesn’t it?”

He coughed and shoved the deflated sheep into his basket, replacing the exercise ball on the shelf. “Not in this case.”

“Really? But then what is the second…” My eyes widened as I understood. “Oh. That has to be really…never mind.”

“Not quite your style, eh?” He didn’t make another risqué comment, which took me by surprise. Instead, he said in a voice filled with wonder, “The First Dragon visited you. I do not believe he has ever done such a thing without first being summoned.”

“And can I say just how much of the world I feel is on my shoulders right now? Don’t fail or I what, wipe out
the entire weyr?” I slumped against a shelf full of strap-on devices in varying sizes, colors, and species. “I really am getting tired of his dumping everything on me. I’m half tempted to just do as Baltic tells me, and ignore him, but unfortunately…” I stopped, realizing I was babbling everything to a man who didn’t particularly care if I fulfilled the task with which the First Dragon burdened me. “Well, enough about that. My time is up, and I have an appointment elsewhere. I will talk to you soon, Constantine. Enjoy your spectral whip and sexy sheep.”

“Ysolde! I am not through discussing…blast and damnation!”

I glanced back to see him fading into nothing. I smiled and blew him a kiss before he disappeared completely. He followed me, unseen, to the register as I paid for my items, but after a few minutes, he ran completely out of power. With a few impotent snarls of rage, he disappeared entirely.

“And I am so grateful that he stayed in a corporeal state for as long as he did,” I said to myself as I got into the car.

“Who?” Ludovic asked.

“Constantine.”

“The silver wyvern? The former one, that is?” Ludovic looked startled.

“Yes. He’s a shade now. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”

He blinked at me a couple of times, then nodded. “Very well. To the green wyvern’s house, I assume?”

“Yes, please.” I sat back while Ludovic drove through the busy London traffic, my thoughts tangled and confused.

Sadly, I was beginning to get used to their being in that state.

“I’ll call if we’re done earlier than two o’clock,” I told
Ludovic a short time later as he saw me to the door of Aisling and Drake’s London house.

“I will be nearby,” he said, bowing in that formal way of all dragons. His manners may have been smooth as silk, but the way his eyes watched everyone on the street belied a background in protection that was comprehensive enough to pass even Baltic’s stringent requirements.

I patted Ludovic on the arm before entering the house. “You don’t have to hide in the shadows and covertly watch everyone who walks down the street. In fact, I know you’d be welcome for lunch at Drake’s house.”

He shook his head, his gaze flickering hither and yon, watching for any potential threat. “This is my job, Ysolde. I will fulfill my duties in a manner worthy of the blue dragons.”

“He’s sooo serious,” I told Aisling and May some ten minutes later, after having spent a few minutes playing with Aisling’s twins before they went down for their naps. “I know that Baltic put the fear of god into him about keeping me safe, but he won’t even go sit in a pub when I’m shopping. He has to lurk in darkened doorways and skulk along alleys, waiting for Thala to pounce.”

“If I had to answer to Baltic, I’d be skulking in the shadows, as well,” May said with a little laugh, leaning down to scratch the hairy belly of the demon in large black Newfoundland dog form that was Jim.

“Aw, yeah, right there…” Jim’s voice trailed away in bliss as one of its back legs kicked wildly when May hit a particularly itchy spot. “You have the best fingernails of anyone, May.”

“I should—they’re long enough,” May said with a smile, holding up her hand and waggling her crimson-tipped dragon claws.

I considered them for a moment. “I’d just like to know why the shard, the very same one I carried, left you with
the ability to shift into dragon form even though you’re a doppelganger, while I, who was born a dragon, can’t do so.”

“I thought you were resurrected as a human,” Aisling said, entering the library, followed immediately by a couple of green dragons laden with trays of food. “Er…the last time you were resurrected, that is. I wasn’t around for the first one. Lunch, anyone?”

“Hooyeah!” Jim cheered, leaping to its feet and sniffing the trays. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

“You will eat only what you are given, and if I catch you mooching off May and Ysolde, it’ll be off to the Akasha with you,” Aisling warned as the table was laid out with tempting dishes.

“Yeah, yeah, heard it before. You da big bad demon lord, and I’m just the lowly demon. Hey, where’s my burger?”

“That
is
your burger,” Aisling said, nodding at the chopped-up contents of a plate in a raised dog bowl.

Jim sniffed and wrinkled its nose. “That’s not a burger! It smells like cereal and crap.”

“It’s a vegetarian burger. It’s healthy and low fat, and it’s just what you need if you’re going to lose that extra ten pounds the vet says you need to drop. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to eat it. Now, let’s see…Ysolde, our cook heard me talk so much about the wonderful food you had at the
sárkány
, she wanted to make sure you’d enjoy this lunch, so she went all out with the menu. Here we have panfried Tasmanian ocean trout with butternut squash gnocchi, and that is the orange-honey marinated beetroot, ricotta, and pine nuts tossed with a citrus dressing, and over there is a crisp flatbread, topped with Gruyère and ham.”

“Oh man! And all I got was a low-fat crap burger!” Jim whined, watching with pathetic eyes as Aisling pointed out each dish. “I love Tasmanian ocean trout!”

“Beetroot, ricotta, and pine nuts,” I repeated as we took our seats around the table laden with delicious food. “I’ll have to tell Pavel about that. I never thought of pairing up beetroot and pine nuts.”