Chapter 14

“So let me get this straight,” I said to the collected masses. “You have funeral rites to perform, and Damionatrexion—Damion for short—has blocked access to your funeral grounds.” I took a breath.

I had summoned two tables and we sat across from each other. The talks had been long and arduous, with a lot of oblique terms and veiled nuances. Gwydion, Chloe, and Xandra were on my right, with Xath and Sofia on my left. Across from us were seven dragons sitting in their human forms. All of them were attractive ... and built like a brick shithouses. Andreallion was their Queen, and had six Councilors flanking her, three to a side.

“None of you guys can force him to remove the block because he is on your Council, and fighting him would kick in various sanctions against the attacker. Furthermore, the only dragons you could turn to who would be capable of defeating him are allied with him and are waiting to take over the council when you fail to perform the proper rites.”

I looked at the assembled council. All of them were blushing except for the one at the very end—Damion himself.

“You have summed it up very well, Master Warlock,” he said with just the right amount of deference.

“I have to tell you guys that I don’t see why I should get involved. Frankly, this is an internal Draconic matter, and I see no upside for me if I involve myself. I actually admire his gambit. I could see us working well together if he were leading the council,” I replied.

At this point Andrea (I was shortening all their names) spoke for the first time.

“I would almost be disappointed if you took the deal on altruism alone,” she said. “You need a focusing crystal for some reason. Damion has an ancient dragon Heartstone that would work much better than the Eye of Solomon, which my sources tell me you are seeking. The Eye was cracked many years ago and, frankly, I can almost guarantee that it is hidden well enough that you won’t find it.”

“How did you know I was looking for the Eye?” I asked, trying to mask my surprise. I had thought my back channels were circumspect enough, but clearly I was going to have to tighten things up.

“You have been abetting the smuggling of antiquities out of the Middle East for the past two years,” she replied. “All of a sudden you orchestrate the killing of your friend’s brother-in-law and send an expensive car to the Sheik. That tells me you have found what you are looking for. When I obtained a copy of the shipping manifest and found the Sheba Codex listed upon it, it was not a great leap of imagination to conclude that you sought the Eye. Since the Eye is basically a powerful thaumaturgical focusing matrix, I further concluded that what you truly needed was a focusing crystal. If you were to slay Damion, his treasures would be yours. Including the Heartstone of Lanceltion ... whom you know as Lancelot.”

Quite aside from the Lancelot bombshell, she had arrived at the right conclusion. Even though she’d used the wrong reasoning. It was nice to see these guys weren’t infallible.

“It wouldn’t be just the Heartstone. As a powerful warlock in his own right, he has many artifacts locked away. If you were to defeat him in single combat, all his treasures would be yours,” Andrea continued. As she said this, she summoned a piece of paper and slid it over to me. It appeared to be an inventory of money and items that Damion held. The funny thing was that the money was all held in bank accounts, mainly Swiss and Cayman Islands. So much for seeing a dragon sleeping on a bed of treasure. Hell, some of his artifacts were actually on loan to museums. Welcome to the Twenty-First Century.

“We have an extensive spy network. There are likely some items that we have missed, but I am sure that list accounts for ninety percent of his assets,” she answered my unspoken question.

I shifted my gaze to Damion and examined him with my mage sight. He was indeed powerful. We would be about even in power ... if we had met before Ajak. He also had some unknown innate powers due to his being a dragon. I had no idea if they would tip the balance in his favor or not.

However, something felt off about this whole situation. These guys were DRAGONS, for crying out loud! The gambit used to blackmail the Council was sophomoric at best. The negotiations to get me involved were equally pathetic. I almost wondered if there was another game being played here and this was just a screen. Except for the fact that this was so blatantly a bad negotiation that they would know I had to see it for what it was. I started looking deeper and deeper for hidden agendas when I heard a mental snort.

You ever think that maybe these guys don’t play the mind games you do, boss? Xandra asked me mentally.

These guys can’t be this naïve, can they? I sent back.

Why not? Like you said, these are dragons. Backstabbing and throat-slitting probably aren’t their strong suits. They seem to be adept at getting information, but I’m thinking that they’re a pretty straightforward group most of the time. I’m not picking up any vibes that they want to backstab you. In fact, now that I focus on them I can see that the only deceit is in Damion. All the others are playing it straight, she concluded.

We may have found one of Xandra’s new powers, I thought privately. Sweet.

So what’s the play? I sent.

Can you take him? I know you like the idea of getting a dragon’s treasure hoard. And if we could get a focusing crystal without having to traipse through the Congo it would be worth it, she answered.

I can’t imagine this guy being tougher than Ajak. If it was a straight up Warlock battle I would have no issue. I’m not sure what he’s bringing to the table as a dragon, though. I think I want to do it just to say I kicked the shit out of a dragon, I sent.

I heard Xandra snort in my head.

I looked at Damion one more time and nodded at him. He nodded back, and I knew we were on.

“So how does this work? Soul exchange is a given. What other terms are there?” I asked, more to Damion than the rest of them.

“It will be a duel to the death, one on one, in our arena. The loser shall give the winner his soul and all worldly and otherworldly possessions. Furthermore, the winner shall be granted the hand of the princess in matrimony. I always did want to be royalty,” Damion responded with a smirk.

I assume the last part was a gibe leveled at Andrea. There seemed to be more than just bad blood between the two.

“I’ll agree to those terms, provided her mother will accept the betrothal when I win,” I answered, letting a bit of smugness into my own voice.

A collective sigh rippled through the members of the Council, despite the hard looks Damion and I were getting. It looked like these guys wanted to be able to dictate terms.

“I have five days left on my vacation and I want to spend at least four of them trying to make babies. Let’s get this done tomorrow,” I said, ignoring the collective gasp from my side of the table.

Damion looked a bit nonplussed.

“There are rituals and forms to address before we can just enter a duel,” he sputtered. “It would take me two weeks to meet the proprieties.”

“This is a Warlock duel, D-bag,” I responded. “Any extras you add on have to be Dragon-specific which I am sure the council can waive given my species. If you think I’m giving you two weeks to figure out how to backstab me, you’re dumber than you look. I would throw down right now, but I’m not sure if Xandra is wearing panties and I would be distracted until I could figure it out. I know Sofia is going commando, so I will have to give her a spanking for taking my attention away from such an august council.”

I shifted my gaze addressed the rest of the Council. “Now, are you guys gonna man up and force Damion the d-bag dragon fight me tomorrow, or are you going to puss out?”

The motion to waive duel protocols passed four to one (Andrea and Damion had to recuse themselves). After the vote I got up and left Xath to deal with the fallout.

Fifteen minutes after inspecting Xandra’s panty situation (commando as usual) and turning Sofia’s tight little butt pink, Xath came into the parlor area where I was sipping a cuba libre. He helped himself to a rum bottle and mixed his own drink, then sat down across from me and stared.

“If I had one tenth the power you do ... why do you have to be such a dick?” he asked exasperatedly.

I sipped my drink and regarded him quietly. I really didn’t want to get into a fight with Xath. As I said before, I liked the guy. He did what he felt was right for the community as a whole.

“Do not play the silent trick with me, Martin. We know each other too well. I have to know why you felt the need to provoke the Dragon Council. We have an unprecedented chance to open communication with creatures of legend, and you end the meeting talking about underwear? My God, man! The knowledge and abilities these beings could bring to the table are unprecedented! Why won’t you just cooperate with me for once?” He had really gotten himself worked up.

“Xath, believe it or not I’m not trying to get in your way when it comes to Council business. I simply don’t care about you guys that much. I have to point out that you wouldn’t even know about this if I hadn’t invited you as a guest. This is my circus and these are my monkeys. I had to push the Dragons from an angle they weren’t expecting to be able to judge their motives. Think about it; I’m going to kill one of their council members tomorrow. I’ll be a human striking down a dragon and readjusting their entire power base. I expect every one of those guys to betray me at some point, and I have to be able to see how bad it will be. My talking about panties took them by surprise, and they revealed things. It showed me the only two who were taking me seriously about fighting and killing Damion were Damion himself and Queen Andrea. Now I know to watch the queen a bit harder,” I replied, trying to keep myself calm.

“Why do you need such a huge focusing crystal?” he asked, trying to catch me off guard.

I looked at him for a long time. If it were him alone I would have let him in on my plan. The problem was that he represented the Arcane Council, and would be duty-bound to report my project. I didn’t need the interference.

“Warlock business,” I said trying to shut the conversation down.

“Nope, not this time, you are a member of the Council and I am going to insist you let us know what you are up to. In the last two months you have managed to get a high ranking Paladin killed, lasso a demon prince, fight an angel to a draw, challenge a top-tier wizard to an archaic duel, restore a ley line to downtown Detroit, and sit down to tea and crumpets with dragons. You’re hunting well outside your patch, and I’m going to have to reign you in. I expect full disclosure by tomorrow,” he concluded.

Really? I was going to have to deal with this now?

“You really don’t want to pull rank right now, Chief,” I told him in what was probably a dangerous voice.

“Martin, you have to realize I am not your enemy here. There are members of the Council that want us to censure you, and the Paladins are straining at their leash waiting for a chance to get at you. I am not saying you can’t do whatever it is you want to do. I just want the Council to be in the loop. Frankly, it is in your best interest to fall in line a little bit. If we were to censure you, there would be no protection from people going after you,” he said cautiously.

And now I was pissed. I remembered a line from the Watchmen graphic novel that fit so well here.

“Xath, the minute you censure me I will come after the Osirons. Within a week there will not be a single one of those bastards willing to step into the darkness because they’ll know a demon is waiting for them. The day after your censure goes down I will have a personal treaty with Victoria that will ensure me the help and cooperation of all the Vampyres. The things she wants me to do would make me so much more powerful on this plane. As for the Paladins, the minute one of them made a move I would tear the soul out of their number-two general and feed it to Ajak. They did such a good job letting him out; I would let them resume their play date. Did you know that Percival Brightblade manipulated his own daughter to dump me five years ago? I would send an extra-special present to him. You need to wrap your head around something here, Chief: the Council doesn’t protect me from the supernaturals. It protects the supernaturals from me.” I was shaking with rage by now.

Gwydion and Xandra popped their heads in at that point and noticed the chill in the air. Both of them backed out slowly.

Both Xath and I were trying to regain control of our tempers. After a few seconds, Xath relaxed a little and spoke.

“Let’s talk after the fight tomorrow. Emotions are running high right now,” he said stiffly.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” I replied in similar fashion.

We each retired to our quarters. I really didn’t need this shit right now.