Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King (9 page)

“Hmmm,” Megan said.  “Slowly.”  Her hand dropped to my thigh.  She gave it a squeeze. 

“Tell you what,” I said.  “Anyone who saves my life in the heat of battle gets a 10K bonus.”

The boys paused while eating desserts.  Gumbo said, “Really?”

“You want a blood oath?” I asked.

“No, honey, that’s not what I want.”  Megan smiled as her hand felt me up.   Her eyes went large with shock.  She leaned in and whispered.  “Please tell me that’s not a crowbar in your pants.”

There’s a lot to be said for having dragon-blood
.

Sadly, I had to turn her down.  “Uh, no time.  I’ve got to get a move on or I’ll be late.”

“Late for what?” Jorge asked.

“I’ve got to dragon-nap a little kid.  You guys can take the rest of the day off.  I’m not going to be able to take an armed escort with me to the dragon world.”

NINE

“The best reason for mending

bridges is to burn them again.”

                                                   —Caine Deathwalker

I climbed the long flight of white steps to the front porch with its round, marble columns.  Our Lady of Perpetual Motion just looked like a huge catholic cathedral—a massive, white-brick edifice with a single, spire-capped tower rising four stories, as if flipping-off heaven.  The rest of the building was T-shaped with a fancy dome back where the halls intersected. 

I approached a life-sized statue, a European looking woman in blue and white robes, a baby tucked under one arm, gilt halos over their heads.  The porcelain lady had a mysterious half-smile, like she knew a secret she wasn’t handing over.  The statue anchored a mild aversion spell turning humans away that had no idea of what went on here.  Those that knew this as a portal station were able to push through the low-grade magic, with just a moment of concentration. 

I felt an impulse to pump the face full of exploding rounds, but I kept my Berettas in my Malibu armory when a thought could have armed me. 
Maybe next time
.  It wasn’t moral restraint—
whatever that is
—that stopped me, but the fact that the portal operators would deny me service if I ticked them off.  And then I’d have to kill them all.  And I still wouldn’t get where I needed to go.  There are times when even a Demon Lord needs to play nice with others.

I passed the statue and went in through oversized, dark-stained, wooden doors.  There were miniature humanoid creatures in hooded friar robes waiting, clutching digital pads with grooves for credit card transactions.  As I crossed the foyer, one of these personnel attached itself to me, clomping along at my side in wooden clogs. 

Inside the cathedral, no service was underway.  No candles burned.  Traffic flowed into confessional boxes on the right, while another stream of travelers emerged from the bank on the left.  I got in the shortest line on the right.  The little critter beside me croaked words, “Destination?”

“Dragon Realm,” I said.  “Two ways for me, add a child’s fare for the return.”

Those nearby turned to look at me.  Meeting my glare, they turned away again.  I understood the surprise.  Most of these travelers were staying in this dimension.  Reaching other universes cost a great deal.  Fortunately, I had one of Lauphram’s demon clan corporate credit cards, good on Earth, Shambhala, and most hell-dimensions with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. 

“Station?” the critter asked.

“X’lourgahillus,” I said.

The creature entered the information and held up a blue fuzzy paw.  I handed over my credit card.  He swiped it through his machine and returned my card.  “Stay in this line, in this position.  If someone else takes your trip, the fee will not be refunded.  You must return by the same gate, so take note of where you emerge.  The gate will recognize you and bring you back anytime in the next twenty-four hours, Earth time.”

“Understood,” I said.  He lingered.  My line advanced.  I took a few steps.  He lingered.  “What?” I asked.

“You’re Deathwalker, the demon lord.   The one they call the Red Moon Demon.”

“Yeah.”

He dug in his robes, searching.

I tensed, a heartbeat away from summoning a gun.

He pulled a small spiral-bound notebook out of hiding and flipped it open.  “Can I have an autograph?  Make it out to ‘Nuroggi, my best bud.’”

I stared.  “Autograph?”  That’s a first.  I found a pen and gave him what he wanted, only to find myself surrounded by others of his kind.  They held up scraps of paper, napkins, waving pens.  “Okay, what’s this all about?”

“You protected the city!” one of them said.

“And the portals,” another added.

Several more said, “And saved our jobs!”

“You’re our hero.”  That one had a female voice.  She dropped her voice to a stage whisper.   “I want your baby.”

Yeah, right.   A free ride on my wallet as I pay child support out the ass.  Not happening.

I signed quickly, misspelling my name on purpose as Cain Dethwalker.  Clutching their autographs, they hurried back to work.  The woman lingered, hope flashing in her liquid-crystal eyes of green tourmaline. 

I smiled regretfully.  “Sorry, I’m in a committed relationship…” 
With my own best interest
.

She sighed and trudged off.

I hurried and caught up with my line.  The guy right in front of me passed the confessional’s door.   A blue-green shimmer surrounded him.  He snapped out of view, leaving the booth empty.  My turn.  I stepped in and my skin chilled and went tingly.  My vision clouded with cool, blue-green light, and my next step was a reality away.  Colored light bled off my skin as I looked around at a park-like area surrounded by a monolithic metropolis of gray stone, steel beams, and topaz glass.  The architecture was steam-punk medieval with hints of sci-fi.  Most notable of all, no hard, sharp corners.  The buildings were safe for dragons to slither over and around them.

A buffer zone of forest ringed the park I was in.  Garden plots and paths crowded in.

Close by, quartz-lined flower beds held reddish brown grass and swaying, sapphire stalks crowned with golden blooms.   There were benches in the area for humanoids and great crumpled, folded beams of steel to serve as rests for dragons in their natural form.  These iron tangles could have been stolen from a modern art museum.  One of them across the park actually did have a dragon coiled around it.  He seemed to be rather old, scales faded and worn, dozing, soaking up rays from an over-sized ruby sun that dominated a fifth of the golden sky. 

I turned and saw that I’d just emerged from a golden statue of a dragon, its head dropped so

I was staring past fangs, down a hungry, jeweled maw.  Something about the shape of the head made me think this was a female.  I wondered if my long-missing mother looked like this, or was still passing somewhere for human.

A throat cleared. 

I turned and found the escort I’d anticipated.  A woman with high, firm breasts and flaring hips filled out a turquoise uniform with gold buttons.  Her pants were striped with black.  A cute little hat perched on her head, the kind of hat a stewardess might wear.  The holstered gun on her belt—and the razor-sharp, black-iron claws she wore on her left hand—indicated she was no stewardess.  Behind her were two burley males in the same uniform.

“Name and species,” the woman asked.

“Caine Deathwalker, dragon-born.”

She looked me over with scathing violet eyes that matched her hair.  “You’re a dragon?  Wait, Deathwalker.  I’ve heard that named.”  She took out an e-tablet.  Apparently, the whole city was wired for WIFI.  She made a small
Hmmmm
sound.  Her eyes widened.  “Royal Clan.”  Her eyes narrowed.  “In disfavor; no permission to be on the dragon world.”  She put her tablet away, letting it dangle on a clip from the back of her belt. 

While this was going on, my inner dragon stirred, his happiness washing over me, mellowing my mood.  He used my senses to absorb our surroundings. 
It’s so beautiful
. 

His electric fire jazzed along my nerves.
 
I felt heat in my back, my shoulder blades softening like wax, melting, reforming.   I took off my coat and then my shirt, not wanting them damaged by the change I felt setting in. 

The woman asked, “What are you…”  She fell silent, her gaze raking my dragon-blood tattoos.  Her face paled as she realized the forces I could unleash without ever turning fully to dragon.  I also noticed she and the men were no longer looking me in the face.  That probably meant that my right eye had gone golden dragon, pulsing with imperial magic.  My right eye would should my father’s heritage, glowing inferno red.  My back hurt with an orgy of growth, cells multiplying exponentially, new muscles forming.  Bone spurs thrust from my back, the ribs of dragon wings.  Leathery membranes sheathed them and filled in between.  Fresh blood dripped down my along with other fluids I couldn’t identify by smell.  My family was the golden dragon clan.  That meant my wings were bright yellow.  As they dried, I fanned them languidly.

That out of the way, I noticed a severe tension in my escort. 
What did they think?  I’d come all this way just kill them?

“That looked … painful,” the woman said.

“It was.”  Not that I’d let that show in my face or body.  She was projecting.  Full-blood dragons change without pain and fuss.  I wasn’t that lucky.  I think my change pried a little sympathy out of her; she still didn’t look me in the eyes, but her face softened a little.  I didn’t think my welcome party was going to try and shove me back into the portal.

“Business?” she asked.

“Family business.  I’m expected,” I lied.

Her tablet was back in her hands.  She tapped its face.  “I’m approving you for a one-day pass.  Be gone by this time tomorrow.”

I nodded.  “Understood.”

They backed away, and when they felt comfortable turning their vulnerable backs to me, they did.  I let them get a good distance away before folding my shirt and coat over my arm and starting toward the city.  Having planned this mission, I knew where I was going, the Red Clan section of the city, one of their schools.  Julia would be in class and definitely not expecting me.   She would be happy to see me though.  Just because her “uncle” Red was being a douche bag, refusing to see and talk with me, didn’t mean she loved me less.  I was the one who’d avenged her murdered mother, who’d taken her off the street when orphaned, finding her a home with

Red. 

You defile yourself, you purify yourself.  You offend a friend, you say you’re sorry
. 

I was sure she’d understand being used as a pawn to teach Red a much needed lesson.  Really, I didn’t know why he was mad at
me
, unless it let him not face having turned coward on the battlefield, abandoning me in my struggle with the Blue Star Priestess.  Aggie, Red’s wife, was going to be mightily wroth with me.  I just hoped she’d be madder at Red, and would twist his arm so he’d do the right thing.  I really wanted to trust the guy doing my tats, and I didn’t want to have to break in a new artist.

Musing and ambling along, I eventually came to the address I wanted.  The building looked
like a three-story factory on the outside, red stone, concrete pillars, and a lot of glass windows.  Numerous people passed me, many with lingering glances as they scented more than dragon in me.  They were of many clans, wings of countless rainbow shades on their human bodies.   Those fully changed into dragon kept to the upper levels of the city with its sky roads, or winged across the tawny-gold sky.

I went in.  Despite the rough look of the building, the inside was clean and lacking in machinery.  Instead, the great vaulting spaces were devoted to mentoring.  Red Dragon Clan children were sitting in groups, being lectured, or working one on one with instructors on shape-shifting and flame attacks.  I left my shirt and coat on an iron bench by the door and went up to a desk where several oversized men stood in red leather longcoats and black boots. One of the men had red eyes and copper hair.  The other was bald and wore rectangular sunglasses, red lenses on a black metal frame.

They looked me over as I closed in, especially eyeing the golden wings.  As I stopped, big iron rivets in the oak floor boards near my feet pulled in little yellow jags of electrical fire, helping to ground me.  There were soft crackles and a smell of ozone around me since I’d come to this world.  It was starting to feel normal.

Copper Hair just stared like a trained attack dog, waiting for a call to lunch.  Sunglasses said, “What do you want?”

“Not to have to kill anyone.  I’m Caine Deathwalker, the
Red
Moon Demon, and I’m here for my daughter, Julie.  Sweet little thing, thirteen years old, green eyes, short black hair, usually found carrying a stuffed green dragon that I gave her.  I’d introduced myself with a having red in it, not gold.  I hoped, subconsciously, that might influence them just a little.  

The two men exchanged a fast glance.  Copper Hair said, “Julianna, that’s Red’s kid.”

I explained, “He’s a foster father, like I am.  The girl’s mother died in my arms.  I found Julie the best home I could.  I couldn’t very well take her to the Golden Dragon Clan.  They’re just now acknowledging
me
.”  I pointed to the tats on my torso.  “Hey, Red does good work, doesn’t he?  Best ink man I know.  That’s why I brought the kid to him.”

Shades nodded.  “Yeah, gotta come to the Red Clan for quality people and expertise.  I got some ink from him myself.  I recognize the style on you.  From the amount of ink on you, I’d say you’re his best customer.”

“Sure,” I smiled.  “He and I go way back.  We’ve fought battles together.  I’m not here to bother anyone, it’s just been a long time since the girl’s got to do anything but school, or work at Red’s.  I thought I’d treat her to night out in the human world.”