Lord's Fall (34 page)

Almost? What did that mean? What else needed to be done? And please God, could it wait until morning?

Before she could ask him, the questions melted into darkness and she plummeted deep into sleep.

•   •   •

D
ragos made contact with Grym to let the sentinel know that he and Pia had returned. Telling the sentinel about what had happened in the Elven demesne could wait until later. It was too big of a story to share in a quick telepathic exchange.

As soon as Dragos was certain that Pia had fallen deeply asleep, he slid out of bed, dressed again in his dirty clothes and strode up a flight of stairs to the Tower’s rooftop. The winter night was bitter cold, and lit with a massive spray of colored lights. He could sense Soren’s presence lingering, but he ignored the Djinn for now.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the God Machine.

No longer a string of plain wooden prayer beads, the Machine looked like a perfect cut diamond, the largest and most sumptuous diamond Dragos had ever seen. It shone like a beacon in the darkness, the only true light in a world filled with uncertainty and shadows. Power burned in his hand, an eternal black lotus.

A perfect jewel, and Power.

They were his two most favorite things in the world, aside from Pia and the baby.

“No, you don’t,” he said to Taliesin’s seductive Machine. “You cannot influence me that way.”

He changed into the dragon, launched and flew out over the water. Past the New York harbor to open sea, and still further, flying strongly while the wind burned in his lungs and the stars overhead in the velvet night sky outshone everything on Earth.

Finally he reached a point where he was surrounded with nothing but dark ocean, sky and wind. The Djinn had wisely stayed back in New York, and he sensed no creature below the ocean’s surface.

He threw the Machine as far as he could. The bright diamond/black lotus flashed in the night as it arced through the sky. It worked its magic on him even as he let it go and watched it fall. When it disappeared into the water, he yearned to dive after it.

But another lodestone drew him, the memory of Pia, soft and warm and sleeping in his bed, and his yearning for her was even stronger than the lure of the Machine. He didn’t hesitate as he wheeled in the sky and flew back to the city, back home.

He landed on the roof and changed, more tired than he had been in a long time, and that was when the Djinn Soren chose to reappear, materializing in front of him in the figure of that tall, white-haired man with a craggy face, and shining, starred eyes.

“Do not ask me for that favor right now,” he growled at the Djinn.

“Are you sure?” asked Soren, with a bladelike smile. “It is a
small
favor, after all, quickly asked and granted, and then you will be debt free once more.”

Dragos gritted his teeth at the bait the Djinn so adroitly dangled in front of him. He snapped, “Ask.”

“Last year, my son Khalil told me the details of the Oracle’s prophecy,” Soren said. “He and I agreed that it posed some interesting questions.”

Dragos’s expression shuttered. He turned away from the Djinn’s intensely curious gaze and stood with his hands on his hips, watching the New York skyline. “Careful, Soren. You get just one answer.”

The Djinn walked over to stand by his side. “The prophecy talked about you along with the other primal Powers, not just as a beast but as Beast.” Soren asked softly, “Why did you never cast a God Machine into the world?”

Dragos remained silent for a long time as he looked out over his city. New York was such a magnificent teeming brawl. As solitary as he was by nature, he still loved living right here, squarely immersed in the middle of all this rich, messy life.

He said, “I never felt the need.”

EIGHTEEN

T
he next morning, the Sentinel Games resumed.

Pia was incredulous when she heard the news. Her head was under her pillow—her own pillow in her very own bed, rapture, joy, joy—and Dragos had just lifted up a corner of it to whisper good-bye to her. She grunted and lifted her head to peer at him, her rapture rudely interrupted.

He was showered, shaved and dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and he looked so tired. He never looked tired. Their bedside clock read 6:42
A.M
. She hooked her fingers into a belt loop of his jeans.

“Really?” she whined. “Nooo. I mean,
really
? Why?”

“Because when shit happens, it doesn’t take a day off,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. “The relentless pace of the Games is as much a part of the weeding process as anything else. If someone doesn’t like that, it’s better that they back out now before they run into real trouble as a sentinel, trouble that won’t slow down or go easy on them just because they’re having a bad day.”

Heh, yeah, she got that, but she didn’t have to like it. “They didn’t almost die,” she whispered. “You did.”

He bent his head and played with her fingers. She looked at the short black curl of his eyelashes against his cheeks, loving him so much that it twisted her into a pretzel. He said quietly, “That’s all the more reason for me to be present.”

She took in a quick breath, and suddenly she was wide-awake.

Because the problem is that people do talk.

As the Wyr had returned to New York throughout the night, word of Dragos’s fall would have gotten around. It must have been clear to everyone that he had been critically injured. Not only did the Wyr demesne need to see proof that he was all right, but so did the other demesnes and countries throughout the world.

Hell, for that matter, so did Wall Street investors.

Remorse twinged. She sat up and said, “I’m sorry.”

He gave her a hard hug. “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s been a hellish goddamn week. After the Games are over tomorrow, you and I are spending the weekend in bed. In the meantime, you should eat and rest.”

She smiled, a wry twist of the lips. “See you later.”

He gave her a swift kiss and left.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, she had showered and dressed in jeans and a sweater. She had also put on makeup and eaten so many buckwheat pancakes that her stomach was full to bursting.

When she called for a driver, Eva and Hugh appeared. At her look of surprise, Eva gave her a small grin and told her, “Imma just keep turning up now like a bad penny.”

Penny.

Pia doubled over and laughed uproariously, while the other two watched her with puzzled expressions. “I’ll explain it someday,” Pia told them. She cocked her head and smiled at Hugh. “It’s good to see you. Are you here for the reason I hope you are?”

He returned her smile, his plain bony features creased with good humor. “Got my hat in hand and I’m looking for a job, if you’ll have me.”

“I’m delighted to have you,” she told him. Not only did she genuinely like Hugh, but he and Eva already knew how to work together. It was a good start.

Eva told her, “This kind of gig was too big a change of pace for the others, but no surprise there. Johnny’s been waiting to have a word with you, though, if you can spare him a few minutes.”

“All right,” she said, resigned. “I need to get to the Garden, but I can take a few minutes right now.”

“He’s downstairs,” Eva said. “I told him to grab a coffee at Starbucks.” At her questioning look, the other woman added telepathically,
He don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’, Tink, but he’s got questions.

She nodded grimly and rode the elevator with Hugh and Eva down to the ground floor. Once they stepped into the Tower’s main lobby, Eva said to Hugh, “Get a car and meet us out front.”

“You got it,” Hugh said. He disappeared, winding through the crowd at a deceptively sleepy pace.

Pia and Eva walked into Starbucks where Johnny sat at the window counter with an empty coffee cup in front of him. He hunched over his computer game. He looked up as Eva tapped him on the shoulder, then he switched off the game and shoved it into his back pocket as he stood.

Pia clasped her hands behind her back, twisting her fingers together hard as she gave him a smile. “Hey there,” she said. “Thanks for everything you did on the trip. I’ll want to tell the others in person later, myself, but for now, would you pass on my thanks to them too?”

“Sure, I’ll tell them,” Johnny said. It saddened her that he seemed ill at ease and uncertain. “Look, about that night? You know, when the shit hit the fan, and we were at the passageway where the Elves were fighting.”

“I know which night you’re talking about,” she said quietly as she tensed.

He met her gaze shyly. “There for a while, I passed out, so I’m not sure what happened, but I know two things. I know I took a mean sumbitch wound. I even remember thinking, damn, I’m not gonna get over this one. Then when I woke up, you and Evie were there. Now I’ve got no scar. I’ve got nothing but the memory of that sword going in, and—” He blinked rapidly as he looked from one to the other. “I don’t know what you guys did or how you did it, but I wanted to say thank you.”

Pia’s face softened. She touched him on the shoulder. “We did what anybody would have done,” she told him gently, as she chose her words with care. She’d gotten used to dancing around telling the whole truth. “We poured all the healing juice we could into you.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “None of our healing potions were used.”

She and Eva looked at each other. “I had healing potion in my pack,” Pia said. That wasn’t a lie either. She did carry a few, just in case.

“There’s Hugh with the car,” said Eva. “We gotta go, sport.”

Eva and Johnny looked at each other. Moving as one, they stepped into a fierce hug. “It’s not gonna be the same without you,” he said, muffled.

“’Course it won’t.” She thumped him on the back. “You kids gonna have to worship my bitch-goddess self from afar.”

He laughed, his arms loosening. “See you around, bitch.”

“You know it.” Eva slapped him on the cheek, an affectionate tap, and turned to Pia. “Ready, Tink.”

She blew out a breath. “Let’s go.”

As they walked outside to the Cadillac idling at the curb, Eva said telepathically,
See, like I told you. He’s confused and he don’t really know anything.

Pia didn’t reply as she climbed into the backseat.

No, Johnny didn’t know anything, she thought. But he knew enough to wonder about what really happened, and to question her story. Healing potion couldn’t have healed him so completely, not that bad of a wound, and not without leaving a scar.

And people talk.

She told Hugh and Eva to wait outside, then she walked into the Cuelebre supersuite at the Madison Square Arena. Dragos stood at the window that looked out over the arena. He had his head bent over a file while Kris talked to him. Both men turned as the door opened, and Dragos’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. They lowered again immediately.

“What,” he growled, “are you doing here?”

“I’m doing the same thing you are, so don’t give me any lip about it,” she said calmly. As he assessed her with a narrowed gaze, she walked over to kiss him. Then she looked out over the arena.

A smile hovered at the edges of his hard mouth as he bent his head again to read his file, and she could tell that he was really pleased. He murmured, “It’s that whole partnership thing again, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. She braced herself. “Dragos, in the spirit of partnership, we need to talk about something.”

He lowered the file and brought his head up with a frown. “What’d I do this time?”

She shook her head at him. “Nothing. It’s what I did.”

“Kris,” Dragos said without looking around at his assistant.

“Yeah, I got it,” Kris said. “Go work somewhere else for a while.”

As soon as the younger man left, Dragos threw his file on a chair and turned to her. “What happened?”

She told him about Johnny’s injury and how she had healed him. When she had finished, she said, “He doesn’t know what happened, but he’s really puzzled.”

“Ah,” said Dragos. “That’s the other healing you were talking about.”

“What? When?”

The corners of his lips twitched. He told her, “When you stuck your elbow in my mouth.”

She rubbed her temples. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning, and already a pressure headache was beginning to build behind her eyes.

“The thing is,” she said, “Johnny’s bound to talk about what happened. In fact, I’m sure he already has to his unit, and who could blame him? Then there’s what happened to you out on the battlefield, when, as you say, I stuck my elbow in your mouth. You were clearly down and not getting up on your own. People have got to know that I did something to heal you. And Dragos, you may not have noticed this, but I certainly have—people are starting to resent the fact that I haven’t revealed my Wyr side.”

His amusement had vaporized, leaving him taut with tension. He said, “Where are you going with all of this?”

She threw out her hand in a gesture of frustration. “I’m wondering if we should just throw my Wyr side out there and let the world know. I’ve thought before that this whole issue is like watching a slow-building train wreck—”

“No,” he said. His gold eyes flared with incandescence. “We should not.”

“I’m not sure that we’re going to have any choice about it,” she said.

“We have a choice, and I say no.” His hands came down on her shoulders and he gripped her hard. “In fact,” he said between his teeth, “I really want to forbid this. I want you to notice that I haven’t.”

She softened and rubbed his forearms. “I notice it, Dragos, and I’m very glad of it.”

He studied her grimly, clearing thinking hard. “Speculation is not knowledge,” he said. “Just like Johnny is confused about what happened to him, people cannot be sure about what happened in the valley. They don’t know if you fed me healing potion, or if you threw a healing spell. Most of them were too far away. The only ones who were close by to see anything in detail are the sentinels.”

“And Carling,” she said. “And Quentin, and Alex, and Eva—and don’t forget Hugh.”