Page 12 of The Dragon With A Girl Tattoo
I paused to eyeball the line of dragons, vampires, and assorted children that straggled down the path.“I don’t think so, but we can ask her.”
Her twins dashed around Aisling and Drake, who were clearly having some sort of an argument, the kids chasing Allie’s girls and son, a tall boy who looked just like his father.
“—we do not need a castle.Honest to Pete, Drake, the house in Hungary is big enough and old enough to count as one, not to mention your Paris house.Just because you don’t have a home with crenellations and murder holes doesn’t mean—what?”Aisling came to an abrupt stop when Allie and I burst into laughter.
“Sorry,” I said when Drake flashed a scathing look my way.“I didn’t mean to laugh.It’s none of my business if Drake fell in love with Christian’s castle and wants one of his own.”
“He didn’t act that way with Dauva,” Aisling pointed out when Drake, with a little roll of his eyes, strode forward to where Gabriel was standing with Brom and Pixie, watching all the people stream in and around the audiences at the various five stages.
“That’s because Drahanská Castle is unique and desirable by anyone,” Christian said as he, too, strolled past.I averted my gaze so as not to laugh at his smug look when he called out, “Perhaps you dragons would like to see my dungeon?I have kept it as it was when I had the castle built seven hundred years ago.It is unique in that respect.”
“Oh, that was subtle,” Allie said loud enough for Christian to hear.She also must have done some of the mind talking that Gabriel said the vamps could do with their mates, because Christian suddenly whirled around and glared at Allie for a few seconds.She just grinned.
“Ilona!Don’t you dare even think of climbing that!”Aisling bellowed when her oldest daughter approached one of the sound scaffolds with a speculative glint to her eye.“Remember what Allie said—she has a time-out space in the playroom where children who don’t behave get put.Keep it up and you’ll join Ava and Anduin there.In the playroom, that is, since neither child has misbehaved.”The last was spoken to Ysolde.
“Oh, Anduin is almost always in time-out,” Ysolde answered as she passed by with Baltic on her heels.“I swear he’s worn a groove on the naughty step at home.”
“He has my nature,” Baltic said with complacence.“He rebels against the constraints deemed important to others.”
“Which is just another way of saying he’s incredibly stubborn,” Ysolde answered, and stood glancing around.“Are we supposed to watch the stages in a particular order, or is it just go where the music sounds good?”
Ilona answered Aisling in Magyar, something I knew drove Aisling nuts, since she had a hard time picking up any language, and her children appeared to have inherited their father’s linguistic abilities.
“You know how I dislike it when people say things in languages I can’t understand,” Aisling told her kids with narrowed eyes.“Remember that the time-out corner awaits any child who doesn’t follow the rules.”
“Waffle cones!”Brom said, obviously spotting a vendor, his face lighting up just as if he were one of the younger kids.“Would you like one, Pixie?My treat.”
“Ice cream!Ice cream!”The chant went up from all the children, and Brom—with only a slightly martyred look—herded all five over to the booth with Pixie wrangling the stragglers.
“Oooh, now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Jim said, following as it tried to pull its backpack around, no doubt to get at the credit card that it had proudly announced Aisling had given it at Christmas.“Heya, Brom, can you float me enough for a strawberry waffle cone?I can’t get the zipper open unless I take off the pack, and then someone has to do the snap to put it back on....”
“With luck, that will keep them out of trouble for five minutes,” Aisling said, also glancing around.“I hope there’s some good dance music.Drake is a killer dancer when he wants to be, and I made him promise if there was something suitable, he’d take me for a spin around the dance floor.Or dance grass, as the case may be.Where to start?That looks like a girl group.Shall we support the ladies ...er ...ladies?”
Seeing as the wyverns were clustered together with Christian as they stood back and surveyed the area, no doubt looking for signs of trouble, we drifted off to the farthest stage, partially concealed by two massive RVs.We’d filled in Allie via the mates-and-friends group chat earlier in the week, so she knew what was going on with Yrian.
“So this evil dragon is after your sept, Aisling?”she asked.
“Supposedly, although it’s been three weeks, and we haven’t seen hide nor scale of a bad dragon, let alone anyone from Xavier’s tribe.My mentor, Nora, thinks maybe it was a mistake, or a way to cause havoc with minimal trouble.Drake, of course, has gone into serious protection mode, which is why he had the security team here for the last few days.”
“Christian is pretty good at keeping troublemakers from the festival,” was all Allie said in response, but we all shared a smile.
“Have you guys found the artificer you were looking for?”she continued as we moved to the back of a gathering crowd while the four women band members set up their equipment, aided by the roadies and sound crew evidently hired for the event.“Not that I knew what one was, but Christian—who is awfully good with glamours, although he said he wouldn’t be able to fool Dr.Kostich—explained to me that they use life magic to craft three different types of glamours.”
“Life magic?”I asked at the same time that Ysolde said, “There’s more than one type of glamour?”
“According to Christian, the most common glamour is a surface one, which changes the appearance of a person.Then there’re will glamours, which affect the moods, emotions, and actions of people within a certain distance of the person wearing it.The last kind, illusion glamours, is evidently the rarest of all of them.”
“What do they do?”Ysolde asked as the band took their places.
The four women weren’t dressed alike, but each wore some variation of pink and black, the drummer in a catsuit, while one of the guitarists wore what looked like a pair of bike shorts with a tight pink tank top.The second was in what I thought of as a Lolita outfit, complete with pink wig, polka-dot ruffled miniskirt, and thigh-high striped stockings.A woman with thick black braids wrapped around her head, and a black-and-white poodle skirt topped with a pink sweater, was evidently the singer, since she fussed with a microphone for a minute, pausing to chat with one of the technicians.
“Eh?”Allie pulled her attention from watching the band get ready.“Oh, the glamour?They can make people experience whatever the user wants.Christian said he’s only seen one of those, and the cost on it was way too prohibitive to consider.Evidently an archimage was selling one to the highest bidder a few centuries ago, but was basically asking for magic far out of the reach of the normal vamp about town.I like that singer’s skirt.It’s very retro.”
“Looks like they’re that sort of a band,” Aisling said, applauding when one of the crew announced the third round of the tournament was to begin.“I hope it’s fifties or sixties music.The kids and I love to dance to that, and it’s worth the time to wheedle Drake into doing the twist.”
“What’s life magic?”I asked Allie when the music began, a boppy dance song that had my toes tapping.I looked across the field to where I could still see the men, now surrounded by the children, as I wondered if Gabriel would like to watch the band, too.“I haven’t heard of that, and I like to stay current with all the possibilities.”
Allie’s expression turned regretful.“I’m afraid I don’t know.Christian didn’t expound, and I didn’t think to ask h—oh!”
