Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) (19 page)

I turn
ed
and took several steps, trying to move naturally like I wore ice armor all the time. I watched the blue mote. It moved on the map, showing the progress I was making. Great, I had my guide.

I
follow
ed the hallway
, seeing only servants scurrying about. None of them paid me much mind, probably grateful I didn’t add to their duties.
Once I left the back of the castle and approached the central core, I saw guards on patrol, or posted to protect places where frost giants were not allowed. Or people like me for that matter. T
hanks to
my
armor,
I
didn’t
look out of place.
After the first dozen or so guards, I relaxed and pretty much ignored them.

When I reached the treasure room, there were no guards. This told me high level magic was being used,
so
guards would have been
a
waste. Still, I couldn’t loiter long in the hall. If I were seen here, all hell would break loose. Someone was bound to sound the alarm. The doors were double-wide, painted bright arterial red; probably a warning to the stupid.
Red v
e
ins
branched
out of
f
the doors
,
into the
surrounding
walls
,
both
décor
and fey magic, though the power there
was dormant
.

Needing more insight, I concentrated on the Dragon Sight tattoo on my back, near the spine. It came to life with a flare of heat as if a fireball were charring my left lung from the inside. The sensation was blinding agony, but very short lived. In exchange for the pain, I saw through my ice visor as if it weren’t there. In addition, a smoky amber glaze covered the world. In that haze, spells and magical items revealed themselves to me with a color coding and a numerical rating that indicated their power level like I was walking through some kind of an online RPG, only this role-playing game could get me killed if I was careless.

The magic of the doors was low-key, a simple magical alarm activated by any movement of the doors. But beyond the door, a blurry blob of light, like a violet x-ray,
showed a high level threat. This was dormant too, for now. The numbers attached to it made me cringe. Old Man had numbers like that.

Okay, I had
a
spell that just might work here. My upper back and shoulders flared awake as my
Demon Wings
activated. This spell was supposed to make all supernatural creatures refuse to register my reality. It had worked back home in the fight with Izumi and
t
he living blizzard. It ought to suppress the alarm, and let me steal past whatever it was gently slumbering inside the vault.

Drawing a deep breath,
I pushed
one of the
doors open a crack and
l
ooked inside
.

Daaaaammmmnnnn!

NINE
TEEN

“Cry me a river … so I

can
drown your ass.”

—
Caine Deathwalker

The first five feet in
to the treasure room
was a narrow passage. I could reach out and touch
left and right
wall
s
at the same time. They matched the ceiling and floor—blood red ice, dimming to purple where drifting will-of-the-wisps happened to cast shadows of blue light. The ceiling was cathedral-high.
I came out of the passage and the chamber belled out, doing a good job of matching the distance above. My sense of smell was blunted by the cold, but I knew what the chamber was made of;
blood, fey blood
. You don’t get
this
rich shade from food coloring.

Directly ahead of me, a twelve foot statue of an ice dragon occupied a three foot dais. The beast looked far from lifelike
,
covered as it was in scales of white jade
,
with gold claws and teeth, and
star-
sapphires the size of my fist for eyes. Its silver wings were mechanical, probably dwarf made, and just a bit too cute for my taste. I didn’t think they’d even lift the dragon off the pedestal if activated. All the joints were hinged so the device could move when brought to life. That made sense since this was the source of all that freakin’ huge energy I’d detected outside
t
he door.

Mental note: do nothing to wake up the mechanical dragon.
I think it holds the soul of a real dragon inside.

Treading lightly, I circled around the sculpture and studied the many treasure laden shelves, tables, and pedestals that formed a labyrinth. One section of the maze had a pocket where
three
van
it
y mirror
s
in obsidian frames guarded a rack of jeweled gowns. The dresses were woven from pure silver thread and beaded with blue pearls. There were matching handbags and feathery masks with goblin faces. Should there be a surprise costume ball, the queen would be ready.

There were chests full of gold and crown jewels.

Izumi had said
the relic might be hidden under a glamour, but that didn’t bother me. I let my magic enhanced vision scan everything in sight. I was looking for an item with even more power than the dragon guardian near the door. Half the things in here had minor spells attached, some for protection, and some for seduction. Screwing and getting screwed seemed to be a major fey pastime.

I wound through the labyrinth taking multiple paths, crisscrossing my own trail, and eventually returned to where I’d started.
Nothing
. So what did that leave?
If I wanted to hide a magical item that gave off a powerful aura, I could either cloaking the whole thing—which would take a helluva lot of power—or, better yet, I could simply mask the aura with another. I returned to the dragon to give him another look.

I circled the mechanical beast, studying it carefully. The object I wanted could be in plain sight, or even built into the sculpture, maybe a hidden comp
artment. I reached out, my ice-
gloved hand hovering inches from the white jade scales. The dragon’s tail twitched with a soft hum of power.

I froze in place, holding my breath.

Mecha-dragon’s long neck swung my way. His whiskered snout stopped a foot away. Star-sapphire eyes
wobbled in his face as he stared through
me
. Panning constantly, his gaze never stopped. At last, he returned to his resting pose, shutting down with a whispered sigh of dropping power.

Too friggin’ close.

Breathing shallowly once more, I withdrew my hand and circled the dais. Facing the somnolent dragon, I knelt with my back to the entrance and examined the pedestal more closely.

Ah, hah!
A hairline crack
along some decorative gilding indicated a secret compartment. The door had a series of mother-of-pearl moon shapes set in the black lacquer. They detailed the phases of the moon, left to right, from a thin ring of inlay that represented a new moon, to a crescent moon, half moon, gibbous moon, full moon, and back eventually to a dark moon. The shapes had a faint glow of ice-blue magic, a very low key spell.

A magical combination lock
. I smiled. This had to be what I was looking for. I’d probably only get one try. An incorrect sequence would set off an alarm, and the big guy looming over me.
I looked up at his gaping maw, at those gold teeth, the jewel eyes fixed on the door behind me. There had to be some way to keep him shut down while going into the drawer, unless he was attuned to the queen and only she could safely open the drawer.

My gaze dropped to the top of the dais. Just under mecha-dragon’s head lay a crystal lotus
that could fit in my palms
. Normally, you’d expect a giant pearl. The lotus was
unusual
and its placement screamed that
i
t was important.
Ah, yes. The moon shapes are decoys. The lotus is the true catch.

Putting my theory to the test, I reached out and gave it a quarter turn counterclockwise.

There was a soft click. I looked down and saw that the drawer had popped open. The dragon hadn’t moved. I’d guessed right.

I reached inside the drawer…

And mecha-dragon lunged off the dais, picking me up with the power of his charge, slamming me back into the narrow passage and the door at its end. I hit the door with a loud
thoom!
The ice shield and the armor back plate shattered, hailing to the floor around me as I dropped to hands and knees. Separate from me, the broken ice was no longer shielded by my
Dragon Wings
magic. Of course, the sound of me crashing into the double doors had already betrayed me.

There was no time to figure out what I’d done wrong.
Mecha-dragon was at the opening of the narrow passage, peering in
. H
is
star-sap
p
hire eyes
spill
ed
a rad
iant silver-blue. This was like being
hit
by halogen headlights on high beam. His jaws cracked open even wider, like he was planning on swallowing me whole. This shifted his eyes’ glare upward and let me see the inside of his throat frosting up. I had a second or two before being engulfed in the liquid hydrogen mist-breath of an ice dragon.

I could have backed out the doors into the hallway, or switched my power from
Dragon Wings
to my defensive barrier, but some nameless instinct had me use my
Dragon’s Voice
. I didn’t call for Izumi, I called out to the dragon soul lodged inside the mechanical dragon. I wasn’t even sure what I said, except that it was in the oldest language of dragon kind, a phrase I’d heard Red Fang use once in drunken rage.
Some kind of oath involving fire, ice, blood, and wind…

With a clack, t
he dragon’s mouth clamped shut on
the
impending deluge. A little swirl of white mist escaped the nostrils, but that was all.
B
etween
me and
the
white jade dragon
, a ghostly image formed of a true ice dragon.
Mecha-dragon’s dragon soul was now awake … and curious. His phantom stare raked my body, lingering on the tats drawn with ink made from dragon blood.

His thoughts touched mine.
And what are you supposed to be?

“Everyone keeps asking me that,” I said.

Answer the question. Your life depends on it.

There was only one way to have him respect me. I concentrated on all my tattoos, warming them up with a trickle of life force. The
exposed
ink on my
torso and
arms
brightened from black to a dull red, then warmed to the color of fresh blood
.
This had the effect of wrapping me in a miasma of dragon magic; identification and threat all rolled into one.

The ghost dragon sniffed.
The earth magic of the Red Dragon Clan, but there’s something underneath. Show me your true power, not what you’ve borrowed.

I stared. A
ll my magic was borrowed, dragon blood blended into the ink of my tats. I had nothing else to show him.

The dragon soul collapsed back into the mechanical dragon. Its mouth hinged open. I knew what was coming; ice breath. That left one option; kicking over the game table. I let all my tats go dormant, except for one:
Dragon Flame
. Saving nothing back, I let it all go out in one explosive blast, shoving fire down mecha-dragon’s throat, washing his scale, claws, and wings
with the equivalent of a solar flare peeled off the sun.

I couldn’t see the dragon
very
well in the flame I hurled. There was a blue-white billow between us as his breath vented my way, but it was absorbed in the fire stream, flung away from me. After a moment, it seemed as if his gold fangs were melting like ice. The jade scales blackened, scorching, and the silver wings lost shape evaporating. The mechanism retreated, as if sensing its death. My fire pursued. I ha
d
to stay close, keeping the hottest part of my f
lam
e on target.

In the vault, my fire mushroomed, swirling out to
wash
the far walls, whipping itself up in a rush
to
the high ceiling. I poured even more fire into the attack, knowing if it became diluted, what was left of mecha-dragon might be enough to kill me in my exhausted, weaponless state. I looked down to see that I’d blazed away the rest of the ice armor. I stood naked against a threat stronger than any other I’d ever faced.

Mental note: don’t
d
o this again.

My fire was falling in on me, the outer edges thinning to nothing. Furthermore, warm blood was climbing up my legs to my knees; melt off from the blood ice in here.

I got a good look at the mechanical dragon. Its wings were stumpy, twisted strands of silver slag. The jade had blackened, fusing in places, cracking and pitted elsewhere. Its eyes were unchanged, but the gold claws and teeth were gone. Still, the machine was at least a couple tons of enraged killing fury. It waded into the dwindling spray of my fire.

I all but felt death breathing down my neck, his bony hand on my shoulder, whispering of the delights of eternity.

Hell, no, I’m not ready to go
.

Some unknown door deep in my spirit swung open a crack, and new magic filled me like nothing I’d ever known. My flame still condensed, but it
grew hotter than ever. The red of blood-flame turned an eye-searing gold. The blood under it bubbled and steamed.

Mecha-dragon was slammed back onto his dais, his body superheating from solid directly to a gaseous state. Sweat poured down me in slick sheets. A feeble flicker, my protective barrier tried to come on to save me from my own power. The dragon sculpture melted into the blood. The top of the dais burst into flame, releasing an oily black smoke that made me choke.

And suddenly, the dragon soul was back, free with no body to anchor it. He cried out;
Enough, I yield!

Good thing too, my solar flar
e
snapped out, leaving me an aching tiredness that went deep inside my bones. My vision blurred and a roar filled my head. I sank to my knees, doubting I’d be getting up any time soon.

The spirit hung near me, reproach in its eyes but gratitude as well since I’d broken the ice queen’s hold over it. He said;
You should have just told me who you were, Halfling. Had I known, not even the queen’s geas could have prevented me from aiding you. Now you’ve wasted both our strength.

His words were a riddle I couldn’t fathom.
Who I am? And what the hell was with that fire spell going gold on me?
Thinking hurt my head, so I shelved the mystery for another time.

He began to fade, shifting out of this reality, leaving me with a final thought:
I am Wyrmmfrey of the Ice Clan. Call on me seven times, and this debt will be paid.

I grinned. “Good to know.”

But he didn’t hear me, having returned to Earth. I wished I was there too, in a bar somewhere, a large frosty mug of beer in my hands.

The chamber had to be well warded. Our ruckus hadn’t drawn any attention. Not even the massive out pouring of magical energy. My luck wasn’t totally bad. I half crawled, half swam over to the flaming dais. The open drawer in its side had filled with blood. I plunged my hand inside and felt around. I no longer had the strength to power my
Dragon Sight
, but I had to believe there was something in the drawer to justify all this effort.

My hand thrashed inside, making the warm blood frothy. The iron scent was thick and cloying. The drawer was empty except for my hand. I drew it out and cursed softly under my br
e
ath for se
v
eral long minutes.

My baleful stare raked the crystal lotus. It had undergone a transformation, stripped of its glamour. The thing was no longer clear crystal but as red as the blood I was squatting in. I reached out to touch it.

And the world went away in a crimson burst of cold light that stole all my senses
. The red wash dimmed and I
dropp
ed
into a lightless abyss.