Dragons Prefer Blondes (12 page)

After surveying the room for a bit, I noticed a small alcove by the door. Since two large human men were on each side, it was safe to assume that led to Graves’s office. I shim mied through the crowd. I unbuttoned my coat, stuck out my boobs, and put on my sexiest smile.

“Hello, boys. I have a secret for you two.”

They looked over my head, doing their best to ignore me.

“What’s that? You don’t care.” I pouted. “That’s too bad.” I reached up so fast they didn’t see what hit them as I pinched a nerve in their necks that left them standing but with their heads lolling forward. That was a Master Kanashi trick, one that Bailey thought she’d probably learned from Spock on old reruns of
Star Trek
. I didn’t think Master K was the kind to watch television at all, but you never knew.

I opened the door and climbed the narrow hallway, which was painted a claustrophobic purple. That’s when it hit me. This couldn’t be Graves’s club. It was a dive. While his businesses might cater to people who gave me the skeevies, the clubs were always opulent, always over-the-top, and always spotless and tasteful. While he liked driving us crazy, he’d never had such a large amount of Fae in his clubs before. Oh, we’d see one every once in a while, but nothing like this.

Something wasn’t right here.
Maybe he hasn’t had time to clean the place up.

At the top were two more doors. These were guarded by magic, which I could see. Nothing too painful, but if someone didn’t know, they’d get the shock of a lifetime. I’m not as talented as Mira with the magic, but I had enough knowledge to untangle the web of protection spells in a few seconds. Circling my index fingers, I mumbled the words my mother had taught me years ago.

Raised voices shouted behind the door on the right, so I assumed Mira was already doling out some pain. I wasn’t wrong. The door swung open, and she had Graves up against the wall, her fist shoved into his sternum.

“No fair. You’re partying without me—again.” I shut the door. “You know we need to call the cops on this place. Mr. Graves here is in violation of just about every code you can think of and a couple that don’t even exist. Not to mention the fact that he’s completely ignored the treaty. The magic surrounding this place is enough ammunition to put him down for a long time.”

Graves looked like a young George Clooney. That was the irony of it all. Death was gorgeous. Sad but true. Every time I see the real George at a premiere I always take a second look just to make sure it’s really him.

The club owner didn’t look very worried about Mira’s menacing pose or that her hand now slid firmly around his neck. “You can’t kill me, and Canada has different laws when it comes to codes.”

Mira rolled her eyes.

“The evil in this place stinks,” she ground out. “You have Fae and God knows what else sexing it up with humans downstairs. You get away with a lot of crap, Graves, because most people are afraid of you, but we aren’t. I’m dragging you back to the high council.”

His face didn’t give any sign that he was worried, but his right fist clenched. “It’s a waste of your time.”

“Technically, they can’t kill you, but the mages can bind you and stick you somewhere that you can’t cause trouble. In fact—”

“Uh, before you do that, I have a quick question for him.” I moved a little closer, taking in the office as I did. A beat-up desk, the same dark purple on the walls, and the place was a musty mess.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“At present, cuddling with your sister.”

Mira growled.

“Don’t make her angrier. She might separate your head from your neck. I know it won’t kill you, but it has to be painful to regenerate. This isn’t your club. I know it isn’t. So why are you willing to take the fall for this?”

Regret crossed his face, just for the briefest moment. “I can’t tell you.” He closed his eyes as if he were ready for Mira to do her worst.

Surprisingly, she let go of his throat. “She’s right.” Mira waved her hand around. “This place is a disgusting dump. Not your style. Even the magic isn’t yours.”

He stood there with his eyes closed.

Mira pounded the wall next to his head, and he didn’t flinch. I had to give it to the guy. He was brave. Stupid, but brave.

“Whomever you’re protecting—” The door slammed open, interrupting me midsentence.

A gryphon, two fairies, and a demon rushed into the room.

Lovely.

“Party time, Mira.”

Her guns were drawn before I finished the word “party.”

Everything happened all at once. The demon jumped me, and I elbowed him in the neck, grabbing the bowie knife from my belt as I did. I ducked his punch and then brought the knife up into his jaw. He stumbled backward, but he didn’t die.

Behind me, the gryphon’s claws shredded my leather coat.

I spun around, kicking out to hit the demon in the stomach. The gryphon took a good swipe at my face, catching my neck instead.

Ah, hell.

I probably had less than a minute before his damn toxins invaded my body.

Without turning away from the gryphon, I grabbed the plasma gun from my waist and shot the demon in the head. I knew I hit the target, because his headless body hit the floor to the left.

“God, I love these things.”

“I know, right?” Mira shot the last of the fairies, but not before his broad knife sliced through the top of her right thigh. I saw it as I squatted and tried to turn at the same time to keep the gryphon, which had gone scaly, from ripping off my head.

Shoving out my leg, I cracked his kneecap. Even with a boot on, it made the bottom of my foot hurt like hell. Their exoskeletons are incredibly protective even when they’re in half-human form. That’s what makes them so horribly hard to kill.

The kick made his right leg collapse, and he fell forward, right on top of me.

I would have laughed, had I any air left in my body. The monster snarled. It lifted a claw, and then suddenly it was off of me and flying across the room.

Graves stood above me and held out a hand.

I took it, and he hauled me up. “Drink this.” A glass of amber liquid magically appeared in his hand.

I stepped back.

“It will keep the toxins from killing you.” He shoved it toward me. “Drink it.”

I didn’t think he’d try to kill me in front of Mira, so I took it and chugged the contents. It was the same thing Mr. McMurphy had given me before.

What the heck?

I would have asked Graves why the hell he’d helped me, but he disappeared into the ether. I still couldn’t catch my breath. Finally I coughed, and the air whooshed into my lungs so fast it was like a thousand tiny needles piercing my skin.

“That was fun.” Mira ripped the sleeve off of her T-shirt and tied it around her leg. “I’m calling for a cleanup crew. This is one otherworldly pile of crap.”

“Yep,” I said hoarsely. Damn gryphon had done something to my larynx.

“You okay?” She reached out a hand and I helped her up.

I nodded. “Throat hurts, but I’m doing better than you.” I looked down at her bleeding leg.

“I hate when those assholes get the best of me.” She looked over at the headless demon. “Gilly’s gonna be mad we didn’t invite her to the party.”

“I’m going to tell her that was your idea. That way she can kick your ass if she gets mad.”

She grunted. “Has to catch me first.” When she wasn’t dealing with a bad leg, Mira could run faster than anyone I’d ever met. We’d called her Cheetah Girl, well, until the Disney movie came out with the same name. She threatened to kill us if we did it after that.

“What’s Graves’s part in all of this, and why aren’t we seeing these things when they jump?” I waved a hand around the room. “There have to be at least a hundred Fae downstairs, and our guys haven’t seen any of them.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think Graves had anything to do with this,” Mira said as she limped to the door. “He was used. A shill. His scent was barely in the room when I arrived. He hadn’t been here a minute when I opened the door.

“My guess was someone was using him to throw us off the track of the real bad guy. It’s the evil, Alex. Some kind of dark magic is protecting these creatures, and my guess is it’s behind the trouble you’re having with the dragons.” She pushed the comm on her ear. “We need a cleanup crew. Hello?” She looked at me. “Comms aren’t working. It’s the damn magic around this place.”

“These guys aren’t going anywhere. Zap the door with a little of your magic to keep things tight. Let’s flash home and get some help.” Mira was getting pale, and I worried she might pass out.

“I hate to leave all this trash lying around.” She poked at one of the fairies with her foot. “I don’t know these guys, but I’m going to find out how the hell they arrived in this club.”

“Too bad Graves skipped out so fast.”

She nodded. “We’ll see him again. We always do. Why do you think he helped you?”

“No idea. Maybe he didn’t want dead Guardian juju on his karma?”

She laughed at that. “I don’t think Death worries much about karma, dork.”

“Got a better explanation?”

She thought for a moment. “No. Except maybe Death has a crush on you. He kept that monster from slashing you again, and he could have whiffed out here at the first start of trouble.”

No, he doesn’t have a crush on me, but I think he may have one on you.
I wasn’t about to say that. Even injured, my sister was lethal. I coughed to cover a laugh. “Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER 13

Back in the control room, we unloaded our weapons.

“My only regret is that we didn’t burn the place down,” I told Mira. The blade I’d finally wedged out of what was left of the demon’s head had a large amount of goo on it. I reached into one of the steel cabinets and pulled out the special cleaning formula Bailey had devised for just such an occasion.

“I know, but we couldn’t risk it.” Mira pushed herself up onto the steel table. Her leg had stopped bleeding, but she’d definitely need stitches. We Guardians healed fast, which is a good thing, considering what we put our bodies through every day.

Before we left we’d taken a good look at the outside of the building and realized something very important. We couldn’t burn it down because it was in one of the residential neighborhoods of Montreal. There were families in the buildings nearby, and we couldn’t risk the fire spreading. If Mira hadn’t been weakened by her injury, she maybe could have kept that from happening, but we couldn’t take the chance.

Mira did the next best thing. She spelled the place with so much magic no evil would ever pass through its doors again. Of course, it was easy to see her body was paying the price now.

My sister would be a powerful mage one day, if she ever decided to give up the Guardian gig. Not that we could, but eventually our bodies would hit a certain age, and the next in line would fill the job.

“I need to speak with you.” My head popped up to see my mother scowling in the doorway.

The joy never stops around here.

Mira looked to the heavens, and I stifled a smile.

“Hi, Mom.” She was dressed in a long black skirt and tunic, which had been tied together with a beautiful red belt. She looked like she was ready for a date at the country club, but my guess is she was involved with council business. That’s all she ever did anymore.

“Mira, you need to go back and undo the magic you did on the club.” Mom clasped her hands in front of her.

My sister nearly did a Linda Blair with her head. “What?”

“You girls need to be more careful.” She pointed a finger at us.

Anger boiled deep in my chest, and I didn’t bother to check my tone. “That place stank of evil and was overrun by creatures who had no business being on planet Earth, let alone mixing with humans.” I spat the last words out through a tight jaw.

Mom crossed her arms in front of her chest. “How do you think they arrived there without being detected by the radar?”

“Through dark magic,” Mira interjected. “The place was covered in it. There has to be a portal inside.”

“I had it put there,” my mother said calmly. “Evil is drawn to it, which is why there was such a high concentration.” She tapped her head with her forefinger. “Think, girls.”

I shrugged. “Evidently, we’re too stupid to get it. Maybe you should spell it out for us.”

“Is it better to have the evil in one place or spread out all over the world? The council’s mages have created several spots throughout the universe for evil to congregate. They are drawn to these places without really knowing why. We have our spies there, keeping an eye on things and passing on intelligence when necessary.”

I wiped the knife I had in my hand and carefully put it on the table. “Did the council, in its infinite wisdom, ever think to tell the Guardians—you know, the protectors of humanity—what they were doing?”

There was no expression on her face, but her eyes bored into mine. “The fewer people who know about the council’s plans, the better. It’s difficult during these times to know who to trust.”

Mira’s jaw jutted out, and I knew she was getting ready to yell. I put a hand on hers and shook my head. She took a deep breath.

“We aren’t just people, Mother.” I said the words carefully. “We’re Guardians. When
your
council meets, we’re the ones who protect you. Or did you forget? This idea that we don’t need to know about evil gathering into one spot on a world we’re protecting is insane. I see no logic in it at all.”

“I don’t know who has been handing you intel,” Mira added, “but they’re wrong. Ask Alex about her dragons. They aren’t staying at the club. She’s caught several of them outside of it.”

Mom’s head snapped toward me. “What is she talking about?”

“I’ve had two instances where dragons were trafficking humans. The first group jumped to Xerxes but was gone before I could get there. I stopped the second attempt not too far from the club.”

“Why was I not informed of this?” Mom asked.

“It’s in my daily reports. The ones we send to the council. I don’t call you every time I kill a dragon. We’d never get off the phone.”