Page 30 of The Dragon With A Girl Tattoo
“I mean, how long does it take to get a freakin’ sandwich?Effrijim!For all that’s good and green, I summon you!Wait, what?Internet magic?”Becket stopped frowning at the portal and turned it on him instead.“Just how long have you been outside of the mortal plane?”
“The First Dragon says it has been sixteen hundred years, although I have difficulty believing that.It seems like twelve hundred, at best.”
She blinked a couple of times at him, drawing his attention to her eyes.They were large, and a delightful shade of blue that made him very aware of her female self.“OK.I guess some things in modern life would seem like magic to you, but I can assure you that cell phones aren’t made up of anything but metal, plastic, and glass.Stay here.I’m going to make sure Dr.Kostich isn’t outside waiting to pounce.Effrijim!”
She hurried out of the room, trying to summon the demon again.
Yrian pursed his lips prefatory to considering his next move, but at that moment, the demon dog popped into the room with him, shaking before it sat down and tipped its head as it studied him.
“Heya,” it said.
“A demon is of no help to me,” he told it by way of a greeting.
“Yeah, lots of people say that, but then something happens, and whammo, yours truly is suddenly your best friend.Where’d Beckers go?”
“Becket,”he said, annoyed with the flip way the demon referred to her—and ignoring the fact that a minute ago he’d questioned her name—“is getting the portal operator.Ah.That must be him.What practice are you conducting?”
The last question was asked of Becket, who had returned accompanied by a slight man with brilliant green hair, bits of metal piercing many spots on his face and ears, and a parrot perched on his shoulder.
“Huh?Oh, it’s my band’s practice.Jim!There you are.I’ve been summoning you for the last five minutes.I assume you’ll travel with Yrian through the portal.We’ve got to hurry.I paid Simon here to close up the shop for lunch, but that’s only fifteen minutes more, so we need to get Yrian to safety, and my butt to the Czech Republic, before our time is up.I don’t trust that Dr.Kostich further than I could hurl a behemoth.”
“He gets pissy about things like prisoners escaping,” Jim said, nodding.
“You’re a dragon?”the green-haired Simon asked Yrian, squinting at him in a way that had Yrian straightening his shoulders.
“I am Yrian Shadowsworn, the Firstborn,” he said simply, allowing a little of his fire to escape, stifling the flinch of pain that always accompanied such things.
“OK, but ...”Simon’s face screwed up as he obviously thought.“Dragons don’t do well portaling, right?At least, that’s what the ones that use the Paris shop say.I used to work there until they opened a new one because the old portal collapsed on itself.They always had some special wine for the dragons that came through.”
“Dragon’s blood,” Yrian said absently, his gaze on Becket.He had to admit, it wasn’t hard at all to look at her, not once she’d removed the glamour of the mad mage Kostich.She had copious amount of curves, a heavily freckled heart-shaped face that made him feel things he hadn’t felt for many hundreds of years, and a quirky mind that he admitted held him highly intrigued.
“That’s the stuff.You got any on you?”Simon asked them.
“No.I had no idea you needed wine, or I would have mentioned it to the dragons,” Becket answered, glancing behind her nervously as if she expected to see the mage burst into the room.“Is it vital?That is, can you send Yrian through without it?”
“I like dragon’s blood,” Yrian told Jim.
“Yeah, Ash always keeps a few bottles in the London, Paris, and Budapest portal shops just in case they have to use them,” it answered, nodding and snuffling Simon’s shoes.
“As it happens, I have half a bottle that was left by some blue dragons the last time they came through,” Simon said, turning around and heading for the outer room.“I can get it if you like.”
“Hurry, please,” Becket told him, glancing again at her phone.“I just hope your dad and the vampires cleared the area.”
“Paris?”Yrian asked, confused.He didn’t like the emotion.“Why would Dark Ones be helping the First Dragon?Dragonkin do not involve ourselves with them.”
“Maybe you didn’t in the past, but you do now.Or at least, a few of your family members do so.And I wasn’t talking about Paris.My band—musical band—is playing in a town named Brno in the Czech Republic.Your father and I made an agreement whereby I’d get you out of the Asile, and he’d make sure your family members force a couple of demons to leave me alone.”
For a moment, a pang of guilt stabbed deep into Yrian’s gut.That others—most notably the First Dragon—had to intercede on his behalf was galling.He was the Firstborn!He needed aid from no one!
That thought died even before it was fully formed.Obviously, he very much did need aid, since he hadn’t been able to get himself out of the Asile prison.“Although I would have, in time,” he said aloud.
“Would have what?”Becket asked, tapping on her phone, no doubt sending one of the sorts of messages that took him an entire two weeks to master.
“Escaped the prison.Why are demons bothering you?”He cast a pointed look toward Jim, whose eyes grew round as it scooted behind Becket.
“Given that you more or less blew out a heavily magicked wall that should have been impervious to your powers, I can see where you feel like that.And the demons were sent by a demon lord.”
He just looked at her, waiting.
