Marci’s head snapped up to find Katya watching her with a little smile on her face.
“He won’t die from this,” she said. “It’s only one bullet.”
The gentle words made Marci want to wring the dragoness’s lovely neck. “It’s not just the bullet. He also got bitten by the magic eaters,andhe’s sealed. He shouldn’t have been in there at all!”
She hadn’t meant for that last part to come out quite so hysterical, but to her surprise, Katya was nodding. “I know this was my family’s doing,” she said. “I smelled my eldest sister while the humans were putting the chain on me. I’m not sure what sort of play she was making with this—I could never claim to know the workings of a seer—but your clan was hurt in the process, and I would offer amends.” She straightened up, looking Marci dead in the eye. “I offer your master a life debt in payment for my rescue and to make things even between our clans.”
Marci blinked. “Master?”
“You are his human, are you not?” Katya said, nodding at Julius. “I’d offer it to him directly, but he’s not exactly in a position to make a decision at the moment, and I would like this settled quickly.”
Marci bit her lip, brain racing. For the sake of accuracy, she felt she should own up to her own part in the Bixby/Kosmolabe fiasco. On the other hand, if Katya wanted to blame her sister and give Julius a life debt to settle the score, who was Marci to screw that up? There was only one problem; Julius hated debts. If Marci accepted one on his behalf, he’d probably be really upset. Then again, itdidsound like a pretty sweet offer.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t think Julius would—”
“Nonsense,” Bob interrupted, making her jump. When she looked up, he was staring straight at her through the rear view mirror. “A life debt between dragons is a power that can balance clans. It is not tendered often and should never be squandered. Julius, of course, is too young and too nice to understand this because he would never dream of going to war. But he’s indisposed at present, so the question is, how nice areyou, Marcivale Novalli?”
“Notthatnice,” she said, turning back to Katya. “We accept the debt.”
With remarkable lightness for someone who’d just given up something of such vaunted value, Katya smiled and offered her hand. After cleaning the blood off her own, Marci took it, but the bite of icy magic she felt through the dragon’s fingers almost made her let go again. She had pride to maintain, though, so she held her ground, gritting her teeth as the magic swelled and burst, falling over all of them like snow before Katya finally let go.
“There,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “That’s settled.”
“And just in time, too,” Bob said, whipping the car around another corner and down a ramp into a parking deck set into the skyway itself. “Fancy that.”
Marci looked up in alarm. With everything that was going on, she hadn’t been paying attention to where they were driving. Judging by how nice the parking deck was, though, she could only imagine it was somewhere very expensive—a hypothesis that was further supported by the pair of armed and augmented security guards who tried to stop Bob when he parked his car directly in front of their elevator.
The guards had barely taken their first menacing step forward before Bob hopped out with a huge, friendly smile. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said warmly. “No cause for that. We’re expected. Just call up to apartment fifty-three and tell Jessica that her brother Bob is here to see her.”
The guards looked skeptical, but they obeyed, the bigger one hanging back to keep an eye on Bob while his partner made the call on his headset. Whatever answer this Jessica person sent, though, it must have been a doozy, because by the time Marci got Julius to the edge of the seat, the guards were falling all over themselves to help. One even offered to drive Bob’s car around to a more secure location that wasn’t in the middle of a loading zone. Bob’s reply was to smile sweetly and announce that anyone who touched his baby would lose a hand. This threat was further reinforced by Ghost, who chose that moment to hop up into Crown Victoria’s back window and splay his fluffy, transparent body out in the shadows like a normal cat would in a sunbeam.
After that, the guards didn’t say a word. Not about Bob’s parking or the apparent dead body he dragged out of his back seat and tossed over his shoulder like a bloody sack of flour. They didn’t even comment on the trail of ashy dirt the three of them tracked into the fancy elevator, or the pigeon that quietly swooped out of the car to land on Bob’s head. It was a mark of just how surreal Marci’s life had gotten that riding in an elevator in one of the nicest buildings she’d ever seen with three dragons didn’t even strike her as notable anymore. She was mostly worried about Julius, who was starting to look terrifyingly pale.
Bob stopped them at the fiftieth floor, leaving a little trail of blood on the carpet behind him as he carried Julius down the tastefully appointed hall to one of the building’s corner units. The door opened before he got there, revealing yet another fantastically beautiful woman with perfectly dyed blond hair and striking green eyes, giving Marci pause. Just how many Heartstrikers were there, anyway?
“Brohomir,” the new dragon said breathlessly, ducking her head in a little bow. “This is such an honor. I was not expecting the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers. What can I do for…” She stopped suddenly, eyes flicking to the body on Bob’s shoulder. “Is thatJulius?”
“Indeed it is,” Bob said, shoving his way into the immaculate apartment behind her. “Hello, Jessica! No need for pleasantries. We’re just here to borrow your medical degree.”
“For Julius?” she said skeptically.
“An excellent medical deduction, seeing how he’s the one bleeding on your carpet,” Bob replied. “Now are you going to tell me where to put him, or should I just choose a spot?”
He looked at her for an answer, but the dragon seemed to have lost her ability for speech. Her green eyes had turned as round as cue balls as they traveled from Bob to Marci and then to Katya, where they got stuck. When the silence had stretched on too long, Bob shrugged and started for the white, incredibly expensive-looking couch in the middle of her living room.
He was about to drop a very bloody Julius on the cushions when Jessica cried, “No!” The threat to her furniture seemed to have woken her up, because she burst into motion, marching quickly through the living room and down the hall that led to the rest of the apartment. “This way. I’ll look at him immediately.”
Smiling, Bob followed his sister, Julius’s body bouncing on his shoulder. Marci hurried after them, leaving Katya to shut the door, blocking the view of the curious neighbors who’d come out to see what all the fuss was about.
***
Julius woke up slowly, easing into consciousness like he would into a too-hot bath. Fortunately, coming back wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared. He felt clean and dry, and there was something on his chest that, though itchy and constricting, was much better than the painful mess he’d passed out to.
Encouraged, he slid his hand under the sheets to investigate and immediately encountered the familiar softness of medical gauze. Bandages, then. Also sheets, which meant he was probably in abed. That was a definite improvement over the back of Bob’s car, worth checking out, and so, with a deep breath, Julius cracked his eyes open.
He was in a bedroom. That much wasn’t surprising, given the bed, but whatwassurprising was that he recognized it. The elegant beige and white room was one of Jessica’s guest bedrooms. Bob must have brought him to their sister for medical treatment after he’d passed out. That would explain the expert bandage job, and why he’d been upgraded from the couch. Seers always got the best stuff.
After a few groggy tries, Julius managed to sit up with relatively little pain. He was contemplating giving standing a go when the door opened and Marci burst into the room.
