We really ought to practice more.

  Izumi smiled down at them. “It’s all right, he doesn’t shoot children.”

  I muttered, “There’s always a first time.”

  “Be good to the help,” Izumi said. “It pays off in the long-run.”

  True. I pull out my wallet and let a few twenties flutter from my hand to the carpet. “Oh, look,” I said, “someone accidently dropped some money.”

  They started to reach for the bills, then paused, probably suspecting a trick.

  “Go on,” I said. “There’s a lot more, if you should hear things I might want to know.”

  The twenties were snatched up, vanishing into the girls’ clothing. Izumi closed the suite door and we continued down the hall. She slanted me a sideways gaze. “You just couldn’t do a good deed with no strings attached, could you?”

  “I’m a demon lord, not a philanthropist. Flat-out charity sets too dangerous a precedent.”

  We made our way to the Asian dining room, past the great hall. Regular breakfast had already been served in several stages for the demon clan. Workers were clearing away the mess from the last round of service. In contrast, the head table on its raised dais was immaculately set with plates, utensils, glasses, cups, and cloth napkins. There was a white-orchid, palm frond centerpiece to contrast with the black lacquer of the table which was surrounded by black silk cushions. The soft sounds of harp and flute swept along in the background, someone’s idea of music to aid digestion.

  Izumi and I strolled to the table and seated ourselves. This triggered a rush of workers to fill water glasses and offer coffee or juice. If anyone here feared me, they suppressed their emotion well. I smelled nothing.

  Old Man came in through a side door and sauntered over. His Mr. Olympic body strained a navy blue suit. He wore a lightweight turtleneck. Its paler blue was just a few shades deeper than his skin tone. He smiled and nodded to Izumi, and gave me a bold, appraising stare. “You guys are getting quite domestic, aren’t you? Going to tie the knot soon? I could use some grandchildren to train in the family business.”

  “If we went that way, and ever came up with rug-rats, Izumi would never turn them over to you. She knows how I was raised.”

  He shrugged and sat down beside us. “Better the cruelty of family than loving neglect that leaves a child unready for a savage universe.”

  I reached for my water glass. “I agree. Even when I was a child, I knew why you did all the things you did. It’s the only reason I never killed you in your sleep. That and the fact that you had a magic, spell-proof lock on your bedroom door.” I took a sip and set the water aside, as the help brought coffee, ice coffee for Izumi, and grapefruit juice for the Old Man. The servants retreated. Soon, they’d be back with platters of various kinds of food for us to choose from.

  “About yesterday,” the Old Man said. “I don’t blame you for anything. And we’ll get Julia back. Red’s has taken the theft of his ward as a direct insult to their honor. They didn’t like a half-human in their clan, but she was theirs. You know how dragons are about their possessions being taken.”

  I gave him my half-dragon stare. “Why, no, how could I know such a thing?”

  Izumi jabbed me with an elbow. “Behave. No fighting at the breakfast table.” She smiled. “It sets too dangerous a precedent.”

  “Give him the paper,” I said.

  “Huh? Oh, yes, here.” She handed over a paper folded in half, reaching past my face.

  The Old Man took the letter and read it as the works carried platters of smoked sausage, bacon, ham, eggs, waffles, fresh fruit, and buttered toast. I used a fork to indicate which of the items I wanted, letting them pile up on my plate. Izumi went with waffles, strawberries, and whipped cream. The head chef came out in a white uniform, wearing a puffy hat. He personally served the Old Man his eggs Benedict and French toast dusted with powdered sugar, sprinkled with fresh blueberries.

  By then, the Old Man finished the letter, tucking it away, a chuckle on his lips. “Imaginative strategy. You do me proud. What’s next, embassy guards outside your suite doors? Are you going to put a diplomatic license plate on Osamu’s limo so you can get out of parking tickets?”

  I considered. “Would that work?”

  The workers scurried off like cockroaches when the lights come on. Dimitris had entered the hall by the main doors and was bearing down on the head table. The butt of his staff, thunked rhythmically as he came. He wore a robe of hunter green, trimmed with gold. The look didn’t quite match his steel-toed combat boots. He gritted his teeth so hard, I expected to hear them break at any time.

  I picked up my coffee in case it became necessary to throw something in his face. Then I thought better of easting the coffee. I leaned sideways, into Izumi, and stared into her winter-blue eyes. “You will save me from this threatening creature, won’t you?”

  She looked at the consignor, then back at me. “Sure,” she squeezed my thigh under the table, “but it will cost you.”

  I widened my eyes in mock-shock as the monster in my pants hardened. “You’d take advantage of me?”

  She nodded emphatically. “Repeatedly.”

  Dimitris stopped at the edge of the dais, his smoldering glance raked me, then remembering his manners, he visibly calmed himself, bowing respectfully to the Old Man.

  The Old Man smiled while cutting his French toast with a fork. The smile had no warmth, having a shark-like quality. “It’s not my habit to listen to complaints while eating. Bad for digestion.”

  Dimitris bowed again, deeper this time. “I am sorry, my lord, I am overcome by indignity.

  The outrage! You cannot imagine.”

  The Old Man contemplated the piece of toast on his fork. He sighed. “All right, make it quick.”

  Dimitris pointed at my face. “This creature—!”

  “My son.” The Old Man took a bite and reached for his juice.

  “Is shooting demons in the hallway, getting blood everywhere.”

  “Actually, just one demon,” I said.

  Throwing a baleful glare at me, Dimitris continued. And he’s damaged the door to his suite, hanging a ridiculous plaque. Housekeeping was turned away when they could not provide a passport for this new ‘foreign territory.’”

  Good job, Zero-T.

  Dimitris threw his hands into the air. “It is too much to be borne.”

  “No,” I said, “it definitely got born all right, hatched from my fertile imagination just this morning. Sometimes, I even amaze myself.”

  Dimitris sputtered.

  The Old Man held up a hand, calling for silence. “Are you not aware that my soon is a lord in Fairy with his own bonded kingdom?”

  Dimitris stared. “That can’t be right.”

  Izumi lifted a knife she’d been using to saw through a sausage she’d stolen off my plate. “I’m the ambassador for his fey domain, and I’ve already delivered my credentials.” She paused a second. “You aren’t trying to get rid of me are you? I could cry ice cubes.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Dimitris is withdrawing his objections,” the Old Man looked at his consignor. “Aren’t you?”

  “I—uh, of course, my lord. A simple misunderstanding, apparently.”

  “Apparently,” I echoed. “I will speak to embassy security though. There’s no reason we need to deny ourselves housekeeping services.”

  The Old Man smiled. “There, all settled.” He moved on to his eggs.

  Dimitris stood there. Stood there some more. Then turned tail and slunk off.

  Breakfast went on. Messengers came and went with reports from the War Room. The Old Man would glance at them, and set them aside. Nothing seemed important enough for him to act, which meant the enemy was laying low so far today, or Kaden was able to keep the lid on the boiling pot. Keeping busy, I hadn’t expected him to accompany Dimitris here, but I knew I’d get both barrels of his contempt when our paths crossed.

  I pushed my plate away. “So, Old Man, about that scroll…”

  “Useless,” he said. “You have to be able to speak ancient Atlantean to invoke it.”

  “And that’s a dead language?” Izumi said.

  “A murdered language, actually,” the Old Man said. “Someone is running a bluff.”

  I wasn’t so sure. There was a tone in the Old Man’s voice that said he wasn’t completely convinced himself. “Just who do you think is behind all this?”

  “Tell me a little more about that weather wizard you ran into,” he said.

  “A scholar, I think, a general, too. He knows how to command troops, run an operation, and judging from the spells on that hazmat suit of his, he’s educated in a wide variety of magic systems. He hit us with lightning, fog, wind, and heavy ordinance.”

  “A perfect rival for you,” Izumi said.

  “A dead rival when I see him again.”

  The Old Man cleared his throat. “So, uh, you didn’t get a good look at his face?”

  I shook my head no. “Uh, uh, but he’s big, almost as tall as you, though not as buff. Still, he moved with power, obvious martial arts training—but not the bad kind where you’re always posing. Thinking about it, maybe it’s a good thing the fight didn’t go hand-to-hand. I think I’ll start carrying around some hand grenades. They would have come in handy yesterday.”

  A blue-armored demon arrived. Instead of hurrying up to the Old Man, he came to me. His eyes were rusty-gold, matching his hair. His skin was amber, his palms matte black. He handed me an envelope. “There’s a messenger waiting at the door for your response.”

  I opened the envelope and read note. It simply said: We need to talk. In place of a signature, there was a metallic seal. I smelled the paper. Ink mixed with real gold. The seal was a family crest I didn’t know, a dragon clan.

  The Old Man plucked the paper from my hand. He studied the seal and smiled. “I knew they’d come around one day.”

  “Who the hell are they?”

  He looked at me. “Your mother’s family. When you see them, try to make a good impression. We need allies in this war.”

  SIXTEEN

  “I’ve never met a gun I didn’t like.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  The War Room was quietly intense, voices low, a background buzz. Desk-jockeys coordinated with field teams. Fingers tapped keyboards, updating the plasma screens. Izumi hung in their awhile before getting bored and begging off due to the pressing weight of her “diplomatic responsibilities.”

  Old Man and I spent the day there. He kept me close, using me as a sounding board, a not so subtle method of forcing me to spew combat strategy. He wanted the War Room staff to be acquainted with the concept that I had an aptitude for more than drinking and sexual conquest. Hour by hour, we tracked enemy attacks across the city, and coordinated responses with the other preternatural communities.

  At one point, the room personnel went off duty as a new team took over. The First Sword hung in there, long past when his edge started to slip. After he took too long to make a simple decision, the Old Man ordered him to go get some rest. That dropped the tension in the room noticeably. I was glad no longer to be feeling his stares knifing into my back. By evening, I was well into fatigue, not quite fully recovered from the cemetery battle.

  The Old Man’s shadow hand materialized at the nape of my neck, an unobtrusive touch of power. Usually, the shadow hand smacked the back of my head in response to some smart-ass comment I made. This time, it came without provocation, putting a tingle on my skin, pouring arcane strength into me. Renewed vigor flushed my cells. It was like chemical high that didn’t mess with one’s sense of reality.

  I kept my voice low. “What was that for?”

  “You’re of no use to me asleep on your feet, and I don’t want to send you off to sleep.” His stare remained locked onto the plasma screens. He nodded at the display. “The tempo of the attacks is increasing. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Izumi will just have to endure the loneliness of an empty bed.

  The Old Man stiffened. “There’s a developing pattern hidden among the targets: one of them a government warehouse of mystic relics confiscated over the years, and the other a museum—fortunately not the right one.”

  I felt excitement burning deep. “You know what they’re after?”

  “I think so. I want you to go to the Unnatural History Museum and retrieve the Cup of Poseidon from the Greek section. Zero-T will cover you, leading two six-demon teams.” That the Old Man would single Zero-T out to have my back meant that he knew about the First Sword’s antics, and was keeping track of my allies.

  In the Great Hall—the hub of the clan house—we found a knot of demon warriors waiting to be deployed should need arise. They were throwing dice behind Lauphram’s throne. Money was changing hands.

  Zero-T went over and pointed, making his choices. “You guys are with me. Do a good job and I’ll put in a good word with Lauphram when we get back.”

  A leaf-clothed demon with vines growing out of his flesh scrunched his eyebrows and scratched his ass absently. “Who are you again?”

  Zero-T walked off instead of answering. Twelve demons followed us out, none of them happy to see I was also going along for the ride. We left the mansion and crossed a side courtyard to a massive garage where we requisitioned armored vehicles with tinted windows. Outside the clan house, various types of demon cloaking magic reactivated. Vine guy became just another bruiser in a green business suit. The fire demons no longer had flames for hair. Zero-T’s earth magic mask adhered to his face, gaining the flexibility of human features. The vehicles were charmed as well so as to deflect attention. No one was going to give us a ticket for speeding, or to try and steal one of our cars while we were on a job.

  Zero-T was the only one who took his own vehicle. I rode up front with him, a pair of fire demons in the back seat.

  We’d crossed the city and parked near the massive sprawl of stairs leading to the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. The roof’s overhang had a row of lights beaming down on us, illuminating three sets of double doors. Bracketing the doors, the “Dino Lab” banner and the one for the “Pavilion of Wings” added slick advertising to what would otherwise be dull, off-white brick. This massive structure possessed divergent architectural styles, seen as while circling the property. This was the ugliest of its sides. Elsewhere lay a rotunda with graceful scrollwork. Another side featured an ultra-modern boxlike affair made of glass-and-steel.

  Because the enemy could get here anytime, or be here already, we’d divided our force to cover all of the entrances. We’d all go in at the same time, and sweep the complex on the way to the section housing the Greek History exhibit. This building was both our destination, and not. An extra-spatial dimension permeated the structure, allowing two museums to share the same space without atomic annihilation resulting that would have left a radioactive crater.

  Though that would be fun in its own way.

  I held my long weapon case in hand. Looming behind me, Kona wore red-painted Kevlar, arm- and shin-guards, and a horned helmet with cheek-guards. Imari was jet black, wreathed in a second, translucent skin of pale orange flame. She wore nothing else. I tried not to stare; she had a reputation for causing oglers to spontaneously combust, but how a naked demon-girl can blame others for looking when she’s flaunting everything, I didn’t understand.

  The demons were supposed to be my backup against the enemy—if they showed—but their real purpose was to act as bodyguards. While I wasn’t popular with the troops, they couldn’t just let me get killed without Lauphram ripping out their hearts and lungs and making them eat their own eyeballs.

  Discipline’s important.

  I pulled raw magic from my core, not activating a spell, but energizing my aura, shifting it into the visible light spectrum. In the golden glow, the concrete underfoot developed an acid green sheen. The slick expanded, becoming a magic circle with interlocking geometries and arcane runes. Instead of being static, the pattern shifted like the meshed gears of an old-fashioned pocket watch. There were two outer rings that raced in opposite directions. The pattern blurred as its harsh light vortexed around us.

  I closed my eyes until the light died. Opening them, I saw the letters on the building had changed. We’d been phased by the transition point to the altered space holding the Unnatural History Museum. The outside was much the same, but the inside would have entirely different displays based on the history of the preternatural communities worldwide.

  Imari passed me, going toward the doors. She was about to step out of the circle, when I noticed the trap. “Wait,” I called. “Look at the ground between you and the doors.”

  She stood one-footed, then pulled back her raised foot, putting it down inside the transition point. Kona joined her, staring down at the concrete. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “Me either,” Imari said.

  Hmmmm. Must be something about my half-dragon heritage. I definitely see wispy blue on the ground.

  Surrendering an excellent view of Imari’s flanks, I reluctantly advanced, stopping between the two fire demons. I warmed up my Dragon Fire tattoo. The cost of the magic twisted my spleen like a well-chewed wad of gum—at least that’s what it felt like. As the agony faded, my hand burst into fire. I pointed my palm at the concrete and dropped a couple fireballs outside the transition point.

  The fire splattered on a shell of light just above the ground as another spell circle faded into view, this one with wiggly lines like symbolic water, flowing over to the three sets of doors like an electrical connection. The pattern’s cold glow was dark violet. Forced into complete visibility, the trap burned the air with the thick stink of infernal spirits. I didn’t have to know exactly what the trap would do, but the result was bound to be grisly, ghastly, and god-awful. The writing inside the trap wasn’t anything I recognized. I could try to overpower it, but that might take a lot of power I’d soon need.