Chapter 1
In a dark corner of the DFZ Underground where the touristy, old Detroit kitsch of lower downtown collided with the clapboard factory neighborhoods, in the top floor walk-up of a crumbling apartment building so poorly constructed, it had to lean on the nearby skyway pillar to stay upright, Julius, youngest son of Bethesda the Heartstriker and greatest failure of the Heartstriker dragon clan, was engaged in a standoff.
He stood with his back to the water-damaged drywall, his green eyes locked on the shadowy kitchen, where another pair of eyes—these round, reflective, and traffic-cone orange—watched him from the dark. Below the eyes, a massive jaw was open in a threat display, showing off twin rows of short, shark-like teeth with a growl that sounded like a miniature chainsaw. It wasn’t nearly the scariest wall of teeth Julius had faced, but he knew from unfortunate personal experience that whatever those fangs lacked in size, they made up for in sheer power. A tank badger could bite through steel if it got mad enough, and this one seemed to be well on its way, stomping its stubby, long-clawed paws on the stained linoleum as it paced back and forth, looking for a way past the dragon’s guard.
He was not going to find it.
The moment the badger’s pacing brought it into range, Julius attacked, sweeping in with his catchpole. The long, carbon-fiber rod flexed like a fishing pole as Julius tipped it sideways, deftly slipping the steel wire loop at the end over the tank badger’s armored head. The moment the noose was in position, he turned the pole again to cinch the loop tight, trapping the animal in a choke at the end of the stick.
“Gotcha!” he cried, bracing with his arms out to keep the thrashing badger at the end of the pole as far from his body as possible. He was reaching back with his foot to slide the warded cage into position when asecondtank badger jumped out of the broken cabinet above the fridge to land on top of the first, biting through the steel wire that Julius had looped over its neck like so much taffy floss.
“Oh comeon,” Julius cried, yanking back his now useless catchpole as both tank badgers turned to growl at him, their squat, heavy bodies blocking the kitchen doorway in a wall of armored muscle and sheer orneriness. “I thought you guys were supposed to be territorial.”
The badgers snarled in unison, snapping their powerful jaws. Julius bared his own teeth in reply, trying to remind them who the bigger predator was around here, but he might as well have been growling at one of his siblings for all the good it did. Tank badgers were immune to poison, most magic, and their armored hides were tough enough to stop bullets. They were also fireproof, which meant they cared about dragons only slightly more than they cared about humans, which was not at all. Plus, there were two of them now, which was one more than Julius was prepared to deal with.
“Marci!” he called, keeping his eyes on the badgers as he tossed the broken catchpole away. “How’s it going?”
There was a long, frustrated silence before she called back. “Could be better.”
That was not the answer he’d hoped for. “Better how?” he asked, risking a look away from the badgers just long enough to dart his eyes back to the living room where Marci was standing over their client, a young man whose prone body was overshadowed by the ghostly apparition of a tank badger the size of a car.
“It’s notmyfault,” she growled, scowling into the glowing spellwork circles she’d drawn all over the cheap parquet floor. “This should have taken ten minutes, but this stupid curse is so buggy and poorly made, it’s actually almost impossible to remove. It’s like whoever did it went all the way around the circle of incompetence and ended up at accidental brilliance.”
“I keep telling you, it’s not a curse,” the client croaked, his pale face covered in a sheen of nervous sweat that only got worse every time one of the tank badgers made a noise. “It’s a love spell.”
A love spell that attracted male tank badgers looking to mate sounded like a curse to Julius, but he kept his mouth shut. There was no point in antagonizing the client, especially since Marci was doing such a good job of it on her own.
“It’s a scam, that’s what it is,” she said, flaring her spellwork as she fed more magic into her circles. “You got yourself tricked into paying for a summoning by some idiot, no-license shaman, and now you’ve got a female tank badger spirit sitting on your head like you’re her new den. You’re lucky attracting randy males is all she’s doing.”
“So get rid of her,” he gasped.
“I’m trying!” Marci snapped. “But it’s kind of hard to undo spellwork when you have it permanently attached to your body.” She stabbed her finger down as she said this, pointing straight at the crude and obviously brand new spellwork tattoo encircling the client’s bicep. “Seriously, dude, what were youthinking? Why would you get spellworktattooedwhen you don’t even know what itdoes?”
The man began to look panicked. “Just get it off!”
“Too late for that,” she said, rolling up her sleeves. “It looks like the spell’s already gotten cozy with your magic, which means it’s going to take more than physical removal of the ink to get it out.” Marci shook her head. “Nothing for it. We’re going to have to burn her down.”
The man began to sweat harder. “Burn down? That doesn’t sound good. Are you sure you’re qualified for this?”
“Burning down a spirit just means Marci’s going to siphon off magic until it’s small enough to banish,” Julius explained, slipping into his unofficial job of team peacekeeper. “Just relax. I’ve seen her do this plenty of times, and I assure you it’s perfectly safe.”
Marci rolled her eyes at that last bit. Fortunately, the client wasn’t looking. “Just hurry up,” he rasped, closing his eyes. “She’s crushing me.”
Like it could hear them talking about it, the giant female tank badger spirit hissed and crouched down harder over its prey. The noise caught the attention of both males, and they barked in reply, their stubby, club-like tails bashing holes in the kitchen floor in their excitement.
“Can you keep the hordes at bay for a few more minutes?” Marci asked, looking at Julius. “I’m going to try and finish this in one swoop.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised, unclasping the industrial strength cattle prod from his belt. The voltage was calibrated to stun a buffalo, which meant it’d be enough for one of the badgers. The other was another story, but from the intent way they were staring at the female spirit, Julius knew he was just going to have to wing it. Now that they outnumbered him, any hesitation the badgers might have had was gone. They were going to get to the female, and they were ready to go through him to do it. So, before the beasts could shuffle out of the kitchen to flank him, Julius jumped straight at the bigger one, leaping through the air to shove the cattle prod’s electrode deep into the gap below its armored jaw.
The animal’s squeal went off like a siren, piercing his ears as the tank badger’s body went stiff from the shock. It fell over a second later, too stunned to even breathe. The shock wouldn’t last long, though, so Julius didn’t waste time. He’d already whirled around, dropping the prod, which took five seconds to rebuild its charge, to grab the warded cage he’d hauled up five flights of steps back when they’d thought they’d only have to deal with one tank badger, and not a moment too soon. He’d barely closed his fingers around the cage’s spellworked metal tines when the second badger launched itself at his head.
For such a squat, heavy animal, the tank badger was impressively fast, but here, at last, Julius had the advantage. Moving with supernatural quickness, he planted his feet and spun, positioning the cage in front of him. By the time the tank badger saw what was waiting, it was much too late. It was already in the air, and there was nothing it could do but squeal as it flew into the open cage like a ball into a goal. The impact when it crashed into the back was still enough to nearly take Julius off his feet, but he caught himself just in time, bracing against the doorway as he locked the cage door in place, shutting all one hundred pounds of furious tank badger behind an inch-thick grid of spelled metal.
And just like that, one threat was eliminated. The caged badger snarled and snapped, but the slits between the bars were too small to get its nose through, much less teeth around. Feeling satisfied that it was caged for now, Julius turned back to face the larger badger, who was already shaking off the cattle prod’s stun, hissing like a cat as it rolled to its feet. He was trying to figure out what he was going to do about that since they’d only brought one cage when a bowling ball-sized blast of swirling air flew over his shoulder and slammed into the badger’s face, knocking it head-over-claws back into the kitchen.
It hopped back up almost immediately, shaking off the magic like it was nothing, but when it turned around to growl at Julius again, its orange eyes no longer had the crazed gleam. The poor thing actually looked more confused than anything else, its pointy snout snuffing in the dark. Then, almost as though it had done the math and decided this whole mess was no longer worth the bother, the badger turned and fled, jumping through the shattered kitchen window and rattling away down the rickety metal fire escape.
Julius waited a few seconds to make sure it was really gone before looking over his shoulder to see Marci standing behind him with her arm out and her bracelet shining like a flood light. “Thanks.”
