Dragon 2 Chapter 17 (Patreon)

It wasn’t until after the convention that Jadelyn separated from Sabrina.

“I really like her.” Jadelyn said as I walked her to the dark SUV that would take her and her security team home. “You could really use the help of a wizard. They might not be great in a pinch, but a prepared wizard is a terrifying thing.”

“Are we really pulling in more so soon? I thought you’d be more interested in talking about… plans between you and me.” I hedged, knowing that I needed to breach the conversation, eventually.

“Yes.” She fidgeted, blushing heavily. “About that. My father refused to hold anything public because of the skinwalker threat. But my mother pushed him and won’t settle for anything less than a small private… event early next week. Tomorrow?”

“And we’re talking about a wedding, a siren wedding? No one will tell me exactly what to expect.” I looked at the men waiting in the SUV and wanted a moment of privacy with her to talk rather than talking in the public parking garage.

“Hey, can you guys get out of the SUV and give us a minute?” I asked them.

The security detail was quick to comply. Everyone, even the driver, got out and took up points around the car as I slid in and pulled Jadelyn with me.

“Everything okay?” She asked, sounding scared.

I let out a heavy sigh. “It is.” Grabbing her hands in mine, I turned, so that we were facing each other. “Look, this feels fast. I’ve known you for four months, and we’ve gone on one date. Now, you are offering to give yourself to me in a way that we can’t undo.” I looked down at her hands, as if they’d hold answers.

“You’ve marked me. That feels more permanent than a wedding ring. Plus, this is what I am choosing to do. My heart was made up before the date. The date was just a sort of confirmation for me. The fact that you are what you are only makes me want to nail you down even more before a dozen others join when they see how amazing you are.” She tilted my head up to look into her eyes.

“Zach, you are a good man. You are amazing to my best friend, supposedly a fantastic lover, and I have no doubt you’ll be able to provide and protect for as many women as you could want. I trust my judgment with men the same as I do with the family business. Either I’m all in or I’m out.” She paused, taking a breath before her eyes softened and she nearly whispered, “The question is, are you all in?”

“I—” I paused. Saying this without conviction was useless. Jadelyn deserved better than that.

I put my thoughts together and then I started again. “I am worried more about you than about me. This sounds permanent for you. Not that I would ever walk away, but everything we have together is so fresh. I don’t know what the future holds. I want to know that you will continue to be happy in this relationship.”

She smiled brilliantly. “I want this. As far as the future, no one ever knows what it will hold. But this feels right, natural. And your beast must agree. Honestly, knowing that the beast wanted to mark me makes me even more confident in us being together.”

I pulled her close and kissed her, suddenly feeling hungry for her.

Jadelyn broke the kiss and put her lips next to my ear as she sang a soft, sweet song that lit something inside of me.

Pushing her into the back of the seat, I rocked the car as I growled with pent up need, letting my hands aggressively wander her curves.

She sang a few more of those dulcet notes into my ear before she gave up in a fit of giggles. “Take your pants off. I’ll help you blow off some steam. You really are pent up; I didn’t expect such a strong reaction.”

***

Jadelyn was fixing her lipstick, putting a fresh coat on as the security guards remained outside the vehicle. They seemed to be pointedly ignoring what had just happened in the car behind them.

“I see why Scarlett needed help. Which means we do need to find you more women. I’m not sure Scarlett and I will be able to keep up on our own.” Jadelyn rolled her lips together and checked them in a compact mirror.

“Lost myself a little there.” I was a little embarrassed. After no sex for a few days, it appeared my stamina had declined sharply. But I at least made up for it in recovery time.

“That’s okay. I meant to rev you up with my song, and I enjoyed every minute of it. There’s something about the look you give me. And there’s a thrill of knowing that I can bring you to that state.” She smiled and planted a kiss that was still wet with lipstick.

I didn’t need a mirror to know there was a big pink lip print on my cheek right now. “Marking me yourself?”

“Call it a siren’s mark if you want. Or maybe a little revenge for when you made me choke on it the first time. I’ve never had semen come out of my nose before.”

“It has quite a few magical properties.” I said, as if that solved things, scratching the back of my head. I’d gotten a little carried away.

Jadelyn patted me on the thigh. “Yes, it does. Scarlett told me a bit of what to expect, but experiencing it was something else.”

At that, I frowned. Was there something I was missing? But I pushed past that for now. “I think we’ve kept everyone waiting long enough. I’ll talk to you later. Tell your mother to set a date, and I will do everything in my power to be there for it.”

“Will do.” Jadelyn smiled as I left the car and flipped open my phone, finding several texts from Morgana and Sabrina asking where I was.

Heading back into the convention center, I wandered around until I met back up with Morgana and Sabrina. “Sorry about Jade, Sabrina. I had no idea she was going to be so pushy.”

I went to say more, but Sabrina held her hands up for me to stop. “I should be thanking you. Getting a chance to talk to the Scalewright heiress for so long, many magi would kill for the opportunity. But I was surprised that you wanted to put off talking, though. You seemed so interested in the skinwalker.”

A guilty smile crossed my features. “I promised not to go hunting down the cabal of warlocks that were involved with the skinwalker.”

“Then what are we doing?” She asked, now more confused than ever.

“There is another problem I’d like your help with. We’ve been tasked with making sure the swamp troll migration passes through Philly and someone seems to be luring them off route.” I looked around, wondering if the convention wasn’t the place to have this conversation.

Sabrina didn’t quite understand what I was getting at, but luckily, she seemed more than eager enough to help. “Okay, if you think I can help.”

Morgana must have picked up on my discomfort. “Why don’t we find another place to talk this through?”

“Bumps?” I asked. It wasn’t as if Morgana could openly hang out in many places.

“What’s Bumps?” Sabrina asked, looking between the two of us.

“Morgana owns a bar here in town. You’ll enjoy the ride if nothing else.” I snickered.

My partner didn’t find my joke quite as funny as I did. “If it is such a problem, then you drive. Try not to sink this one at the bottom of a river.” She tossed the keys at me, which I caught before they hit me in the face. With her aim, they were meant to hit me in the face.

Shrugging, I led them both out to the parking garage. “Sure.” For the last several days, she’d driven a different Ferrari. It was a mind-boggling display of wealth if you asked me, but then again, Morgana could do what she wanted.

She was old enough that no doubt a few early investments of hers had to have blossomed into some insane wealth.

“Nice car.” Sabrina commented as she squeezed herself into the tiny backseat.

“Wait until you see her garage.” I buckled up and pulled the car out of the garage. I drove at a pace that I hoped would teach Morgana a few things about how sensible people drove. “So, Sabrina, what did you manage to find out?”

She pulled out her phone as if it was filled with notes as she started to scroll through it. “There are a few things, but the strangest thing was when I asked my mentor about the spell. At first he seemed to recognize it, but then he had doubts, almost like he was trying to convince himself he didn’t know the spell.”

“Do you think he’s involved?” I asked.

But she shook her head vehemently. “No. He’s a crazy old coot, but he’d never do something this dark.”

Morgana turned around in her seat, and I realized she didn’t even have her seatbelt on. Crazy woman. “Do you think he could know someone that might be involved?”

Sabrina’s eyes lit up with understanding. She took a moment to consider it before giving a small nod with a shrug. “Yeah, that might just fit. But I have no idea who. You have to understand, my mentor is pretty much a hermit. He met up with a bunch of other old men here at the conference, but before then I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk to another person, at least not willingly.”

Right now, it was one of our only leads, but I still had to be careful. I didn’t want to break my word. Gray space I was fine with, but openly breaking it wasn’t something I would do.

For the moment, I abandoned the idea of following up with her mentor and instead continued with the approach we’d already planned on. "Sabrina, do you have any idea about the troll problem part of it?"

"Troll problem?" She asked.

“We can’t go directly at the problem, but we can go from another angle. We are on a job to take care of the swamp troll migration. Someone, very possibly the same group, is manipulating the trolls off their migration. It’s causing trouble in the city.”

“What do you mean by manipulating? Are we talking about charms, compulsion, what?”

“That’s what we don’t know.” I turned to Morgana. “Maybe you can explain?”

That earned me an eye roll from both of the women. “Really?” Sabrina sighed.

“I’m not well versed in magic. Just a brute.” I joked.

“Okay, well, there are many schools of magic, but it all really just boils down to intent and method. If you’re talking about coercion in some way, then that requires the controller to have something in continual contact with the troll.” She explained.

“We can rule that out then.” I thought back to the trolls at the park. Once they had transformed, everything on their person had been destroyed. I had the displeasure of seeing their troll junk and was certain there wasn’t anything still on them. “They were as naked as the day they were born, not even a magical signature lingering on them.”

Sabrina paused, losing whatever thought she’d had as her eyes grew wide. “You can see magic?”

“It’s a talent.” I shrugged.

“That’s an understatement.” She eyed me more seriously for a moment before continuing on. “So if they weren’t wearing something physically or magically, then that leaves simpler types of magic.”

Taking a turn towards the club, I focused on the road for a moment and Morgana picked up the conversation. “It wouldn’t take much to set off a troll if you could just get them there. Maybe a calling of some sort?”

Sabrina considered that. “Depending on the range, the size of net needed, that could require significant power.” Sabrina explained. “Maybe something even simpler?”

“Like what? Some hotdog smelling enchantment?” I joked, but both of them seemed to take it seriously.

But I knew we were running out of information to use to narrow it down. “I don’t think we have enough to narrow down how they’re doing it. Maybe we should instead focus on where they are doing it?” I redirected the conversation.

Morgana pulled out her phone and started tapping away, dropping pins on a map.

“Assuming this is the same group, we know who is doing this, but we don’t know why.” I looked at Sabrina in the rearview. “Is there anything bubbling in the magi community that would explain why a group would go after paranormals?”

She shook her head. “Nothing new, just the normal grudges. My mentor seemed to think that the paranormal and magi were getting along just fine when we came to the city.”

Morgana let out a small grumble, seeming far less confident in the two groups being civil. “The magi and us are always at the brink of something.”

“I always thought magic would have made life simpler, but it sometimes feels like it has only made everything more complex.” Sabrina lamented.

“It isn’t so much magic. It’s any form of power. It makes people do stupid things.” Morgana and Sabrina shared a moment of commiseration.

The rest of the ride was quiet as Morgana made small noises on her phone, mapping out the troll attacks we’d worked so far.

When I rolled into Morgana’s garage, I peeked in the rearview to catch Sabrina’s jaw drop open.

“This must be the nicest club in the world. Everyone who goes here drives one of these?”

I laughed. “No. These are all Morgana’s cars.”

Sabrina’s baffled expression focused on Morgana. “Why?”

“Cause I can. Plus, this isn’t that excessive. I’ve had my eye recently on a gold plated BMW.”

“Gold plated?” I perked up before I squashed down whatever urges I had for gold. “I mean, if you do something that excessive, I quit. Wait, first I’d steal it.”

Morgana rolled her eyes and strolled into the club. Sabrina was hot on my heels. “So what is this place like?”

“You’ll just have to see. It has a bit of everything and is bigger on the inside.”

Sabrina’s eyes were wide as we stepped into the first layer of the club. She was looking around, clearly trying to figure out the puzzle that was the inside of the building. “This place is huge.”

“Yup.” I moved through the empty dining room. It was still too early for customers. Instead, paranormals were out in the open, moving about to get the place ready.

When we came down into the second level of the nightclub, there were even a few goblins working on the lighting around the stage.

Sabrina watched them with interest, and I realized she probably hadn’t had the chance to see many paranormal before. “How does she hide all of this? No one notices that it's bigger than it is supposed to be?”

“Pretty sure the guys on the lower levels are too drugged out to notice. Otherwise, there’s a big paranormal crowd that uses the club. They obviously get it.” As much as I’d love to share in the revelation of Morgana’s club with another, I wanted to focus on the task at hand. “Morgana, can you share the map you’ve been making?”

Morgana swayed her hips as she walked over to the bar and sat down. I took my preferred spot behind the bar and started to pour our group a round of drinks. Morgana spun her phone on the bar top. “Look, I marked out where all the attacks have occurred this last week.”

I looked at the pins on the map, hoping to see some sort of clear pattern. But it just looked like a giant jumble.

But then I thought about the other night and my mind started to be able to sort them. But when I thought about the attacks and looked at where they fell, I started to notice a pattern. Each day’s attacks seemed like it had a pattern. “Can you sort these out by day? Maybe color code them?”

Morgana nodded and started to sort them while I finished pouring us drinks, making sure to pour Morgana her favorite champaign blood.

She finished and put the phone back down. Plain as day, each night there was a rough line of pins in a different color.

“Now we just need to figure out which way they are going tonight.” I said, looking at the pattern.

Sabrina let out an excited squeal, pulling out her phone and flipping through it. “Here. Look.” She pulled up a picture of a worn map. It had a much older Philadelphia depicted on it, but the lines followed the patterns of Morgana’s pins. “This is a map of the ley lines. My mentor showed it to me before we came.”

“Either of you care to explain what those are? All I know is what’s in movies.” Sabrina and Morgana were already excitedly pointing and scrolling onto the map.

Sabrina looked up at my question. “It’s not that different. Many cities have a network of ley lines. They are sort of magical veins that run beneath the surface of the world.”

“More than that.” Morgana added, tapping where they roughly converged in Wissahickon Park. “Where the ley lines converge are connection points to other worlds. That’s where the Faerie Realm connects to Philly.” She pointed to where they came together.

“That makes total sense.” Sabrina nodded, looking at the map. “So they are using the ley lines for whatever they are doing.”

The idea of a portal to another world was bigger than I could fully process at the moment, so I ignored it, filing it away for another time. “Any other big portals around here?” I asked.

“There’s one that leads to hell in DC.” Morgana said casually, as if it was common knowledge.

“Is there one to heaven in the Vatican?” I joked.

Morgana nodded. “Yes. Though both hell and heaven have multiple portals throughout the world.” She didn’t seem to get my joke.

“Never mind. That’s for another time. Let’s focus on our troll problem and the cabal of warlocks causing problems in this world.” I focused back on the map. “Can we predict which one is going to be used tonight, or does it tell us anything about what they might be doing?” I looked to Sabrina for answers.

“The whole point of ley lines is that they are constant sources of power. It might mean that whatever they are doing is large enough that they don’t want to use their personal reserves. But obviously it limits where they can operate.”

Limits where they can operate… “Why don’t we wait and see which one they pick for the first troll sighting of the night, then we push ahead, further down the ley line and see if we can’t catch them in the act?”

Morgana and Sabrina thought it over.

“It is a sound plan, but it still puts us on the defensive. What do we do about the first troll?” Morgana asked.

“Bring Kelly?” I suggested. “Drop her off with a tranquilizer and have her put it down on her own?”

“That just might work. Call Kelly, and while we wait for the first call, let’s test out your new changes. We have a few hours before the trolls will be active.” Morgana was all smiles. It was that evil, vindictive smile that told me she was going to put me through my paces.

“Training?” Sabrina asked, looking between the two of us.

“You don’t want to watch. I just get the crap kicked out by an old blue granny.” My head jerked back as Morgana yanked my ear.

“What was that?”

“Oh look, time to do a little training.” I smiled over my shoulder. “Sabrina, do you want to stick around?” I felt bad leaving her here.

But Morgana made up for it. “I have a library if you’d like to look through it.”

Sabrina’s eyes practically shinned. “Yes, please.”