Autumn's Bane Read online

  “Echidna vanished, shortly after Typhon was driven into stasis. Nobody knows where she went, but we always keep hope that she might return one day and lead us against the Luminous Warriors. We wish she could return and take up the throne, as a good queen should.” Ashera’s expression grew dreamy, and it occurred to me that was one thing that the dragons lacked.

  Oh, the Luminous Warriors followed Typhon, but there was no true monarch, no true council. The Dragonni were a race without a clear leader. That made me sad. It was hard to live under a leadership you hated—under someone who was a despot.

  Herne cleared his throat. “I wish for that, too. Very much. She seems to have been an extraordinary woman…dragon…”

  “Queen,” Ashera said, smiling at him. “I suppose, there is always hope. Anyway, to matters today. I wanted to tell you about a dragon who has been spotted around Seattle. I believe he’s the one responsible for the vrykos rising. And we think this is happening all over your country, if not the world. You see, the shadow dragons have a firm grasp over the dead. And one in particular has been seen in your city. He’s dangerous. I remember him from before we came through the portal, back in the Forgotten Kingdom. His name is Gyell.”

  She pronounced it with a hard “G.”

  “Gyell? Would he possibly be working with white dragons?” I asked. “We saw Aso and Variance out at the graveyard, loading the vrykos we hadn’t managed to destroy into a van.”

  “Yes, from our network we’ve been developing, we found out the three of them are assigned to the Seattle area. They’re all dangerous, all deadly, and Gyell is an ancient dragon compared to most of us. He’s cunning and brilliant, and he’s ruthless. Aso and Variance might as well be common thugs compared to him.” Ashera shuddered. “The white dragons act pretty much as the brawn for the red and shadow dragons. They seldom rise to prominence. My guess is that Pandora was put in charge of all three, and she and Gyell are most likely the ones hatching the ideas.”

  I let out a sigh. Pandora, again. Part of me had ridiculously hoped she had gotten bored and meandered off. Last we saw her, we had been out on Mount Bracken, rescuing Raven from her clutches. The goddess, a wayward daughter of Zeus, had chosen to throw her lot in with Typhon. She had proven a sadistic and ruthless servant for the Father of Dragons.

  “Do you have any idea where Pandora escaped to? She’s not on the mountain anymore,” Herne asked.

  “She’s not? You checked?” I asked, swiveling to look at him.

  “Yes, I checked for my father and mother. Pandora packed up and got her ass out of there after we found her.” Herne frowned.

  “Pandora has moved into the Seattle area, so she’s hiding out somewhere. We aren’t sure where. She’s very good at keeping out of sight.” Ashera sighed. “She’ll rear her head again soon enough.”

  “The murders she was committing seem to have stopped,” Talia said. “At least, we aren’t getting any more reports. That doesn’t mean she’s no longer targeting necromancers.”

  Ashera gracefully crossed one knee over the other. “My thoughts are that they’ve moved onto bigger plans. But think about this: They could be flushing out those who work with the dead. Who else would you call to combat an army of ghosts and vrykos and zombies?”

  A light went off over my head. “Bone witches, necromancers…mediums.”

  “Right. And when you engage them to help you, it makes it easier for Aso and Variance to pinpoint those you’ve called on. They can then target them at leisure, while disrupting the town with the creatures that Gyell’s set free. Two birds. One stone.” Ashera shrugged.

  A knot in my throat made it hard to speak. We had called in Raven to help, and she had already been under Pandora’s thumb once. Would they be targeting her a second time? Add to that, Pandora knew where Raven lived, so it wouldn’t be hard to find her.

  “We have to warn Raven,” I said.

  Herne gazed at Ashera, a contemplative look on his face. “I have another question and maybe you can answer it.”

  “I’ll be happy to help, if I can.”

  “What’s Typhon’s end game? That’s one thing none of us can figure out. It can’t just be domination or he would have sent the Luminous Warriors in force, to drive the world into submission already.” Herne shook his head. “The gods have discussed this ad nauseum and we can’t seem to come to a consensus.”

  Ashera smiled, then, and a cold light filled her eyes that made me shiver. “We captured one of the shadow dragons who’s high up in the ranks of the Luminous Warriors. After we found out what we wanted to know, we stripped his memory and sent him back. The other side will find him, and he won’t be able to tell them anything. By the marks on his body, they will assume he had an accident that left him wounded in both body and mind.”

  The room seemed to darken. The strength behind her words made me feel very much like a dust speck next to her. It was as though her true nature—her dragon self—filled every inch of the building and beyond. And at that moment I realized that, one of the Celestial Wanderers or not, Ashera was far more than deadly.

  “What did you find out?” Yutani asked, and even he seemed subdued.

  “Typhon isn’t out to kill the mortals of this planet, but to enslave them under his rule. Even in stasis, while he slumbered, images and information from the outer worlds crept in, and he watched as civilization evolved. There’s much that could benefit the Dragonni, including melding magic with technology. And with so many people…let’s just say the food supply is far more likely to support a larger dragon population.” She shifted uncomfortably.

  I took a breath, not quite understanding what she was saying.

  But by the look on his face, Herne did. “Then it’s worse than we feared.” He pulled out his phone. “I need to text this information to my father and mother, so they can pass it on.”

  “What are you talking about?” Angel said. “What’s this mean? My stomach feels like I swallowed a rock, and my psychic alarms are screaming.”

  Rafé looked worried, leaning over to stroke her arm. She gave him a wan smile as Viktor cleared his throat and turned to her.

  “If I am hearing right, Typhon intends the mortal population—I assume humans, Fae, and Cryptos all inclusive—to become the food supply for a large and robust dragon community.”

  Ashera nodded, a grim smile on her face. “Yes, that’s his plan. To take over this world, and to enslave humanity—Cryptos included—for work and for food.”

  I started to say You have to be kidding me, but the words died on my lips. She wasn’t kidding. Typhon saw the world as one big hors d’oeuvres platter for the Dragonni. The old Twilight Zone episode—“How to Serve Man”—came to mind and I cringed.

  “So, throw the world into panic, and when we’re steeped in chaos, come in and take control?” Herne asked.

  Ashera nodded. “Yes, that’s about right.”

  “Question: If Typhon is so powerful, why’s he hanging out in the astral realm right now?” Yutani asked.

  “That I can also answer. Thousands of years in stasis has weakened him. He needs to regain his strength. Until then, he’s vulnerable. That was another thing I wanted to tell you. Herne, if the gods go up against Typhon soon, they may be able to defeat him. Typhon is a Titan, yes, but if you can weaken him even further, perhaps you can find a way to permanently disable him. The Titans can’t be killed, but they can be hurt. The Celestial Wanderers and the Mountain Dreamers will do everything they can to help you.” Ashera leaned forward. “We would like to ask you to find Echidna. If you can find the Mother of Dragons, she will stand with us. She alone, of all the dragons, has the same strength as Typhon. At least when she vanished she did.”

  Find the Mother of Dragons? I blinked. “How are we to find her, if her children don’t even know where she went?”

  “You have the power of the internet. You have the power of worldwide communication at your fingertips. We can tell you everything we know about her, and maybe you can find ou
t what happened to her.” Ashera opened her purse and pulled out a thumb drive. “This has everything we have been able to dredge out of our memories, and from the LoreKeepers, who are our oral historians.”

  Herne looked at the drive, then slowly picked it up. “We’ll do what he can.” He handed it to Yutani. “You and Talia, get started on this. Meanwhile, Viktor, contact our informants and set them in search of Pandora, but warn them to hang back, avoid catching her notice, and to be careful. Pay them overtime and stress the need for secrecy.”

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “Warn Raven. Tell her what’s going on. If she takes on any cases, she needs to verify who’s actually offering her the job. Also, tell Kipa, but no one else. That way, she won’t just think we’re being overprotective.”

  “Will do.” I leaned my elbows on the table. “Ashera, what’s the name of the dragon network you guys have formed? What should we call you? Just referring to the ‘Dragonni’ relates to all the dragons, and we can’t just say ‘the good dragons’…that sounds ridiculous.”

  Ashera laughed, her voice musical. “We call ourselves the Spiral Web. The dagoids are such beautiful webweavers and they work as a hive mind, which is what we’re trying to do—weave a web to trap Typhon as we work together.”

  “What’s a dagoid?” Angel asked.

  “In the Forgotten Kingdom—the kingdom of the Dragonni that exists beyond the mists, on the other side of the astral realm, in another physical world much like this one—there are spiders that are the most beautiful creatures you’ve ever seen. They have eight legs, like spiders here, and an exoskeleton, but they also have an internal skeleton, and they grow to about three feet in diameter. They’re golden and white, with black tiger markings, and while they are poisonous, they’re also intelligent, so they can be reasoned with. Sometimes. They live in the woods surrounding Miareta—the city of the Dragonni.”

  Visions of a vast city rose in my mind, and I wondered, did the dragons live there in their natural form, or in their shifter form? “If you don’t have your queen, who rules?”

  “A council—the Star Dragonni. They’re descended from the Celestial Wanderers but somewhat different. They evolved into…think of a hologram in your world, but give it intelligence and vision and the ability to move about.”

  “Like a spirit?” Angel asked.

  “Not exactly. The Star Dragonni exist between worlds, like ghosts, but they aren’t just spirits. They’re pure energy. They make up our Council. There are six of them, along with one dragon each from the Celestial Wanderers, the Mountain Dreamers, and the Luminous Warriors. Which means, the Luminous Warriors are almost always overruled when it comes to decisions. That’s what drove them to move to their own city in the Forgotten Kingdom. They seldom even bother addressing the Council of the Dragonni now.” Ashera paused, then laughed lightly. “And now you know much more about my people than I had intended, but no harm, no foul, no damage.”

  The last thing I wanted to meet was one of the dagoids, but I appreciated the fact that the Spiral Web took their name from one of nature’s architects.

  “If you have no more questions, I should be off. I have to return to the island tonight. We’re meeting again to discuss—among other things—this meeting I’ve had with you today.” As she stood, Herne and the other men stood with her.

  “Thank you for being so open with us. We need all the help we can get,” Herne said, holding out his hand. She extended hers.

  Ashera regarded him solemnly. “You do need our help, and we need yours. Together, perhaps we can stave off the worst of the damage.”

  A vision of the future rose up in my mind, with humans and Crypto alike enslaved, forced to work for Typhon, and forced to die to feed the hungry dragons.

  “Ashera,” I said before she turned away. “We’ve established that the Luminous Warriors will eat humans…but…what do you eat? And the other dragons who make up the Celestial Warriors and Mountain Dreamers?”

  She paused for a moment, then said, “Blue dragons eat mostly fish and seaweed and, of course, human food when we’re in our shiftings, as we call our human shapes. We also gain a certain amount of energy from being in the water. All dragons gain sustenance from eating large animals—or small, though something like a dog would be a snack. Silver and gold dragons can gain energy from being under the stars or the sun, respectively. Green dragons gain energy from the forests—from living among the trees. Black dragons are able to breathe in life force from being underground. Red dragons from being near magma or large fires, white—from the upper reaches of the world where the air is thin and the snow is deep. And shadow dragons, from the underworld.”

  “So, humans, for example, would fall under the…”

  “Large animal category. One of the reasons that the dragons are not nearly as numerous as we could be is the lack of food in the Forgotten Kingdom. There is food to go around, but we have kept to a strict protocol when it comes to laying eggs, and there are a number of hoops to jump through in order to be permitted a birthing license. But here…” She ducked her head. “Here, we could breed without end—humans breed so quickly, there would be an unending supply of food. Yet, regardless of that temptation, the Celestial Wanderers and the Mountain Dreamers do not yield. We will not help the Luminous Warriors enslave you, nor will we feed off your kind unless it’s in self-defense.”

  With that, she turned and left the room. Angel silently followed her out to unlock the elevator for her.

  I stared at the table. Typhon’s end game could spell the end of life as we knew it. If we didn’t stop him and the Luminous Warriors, we’d all be under enslavement and we’d not only provide free labor, but our very lives for the Dragonni’s continued existence.

  “What do we do?” Talia asked. She stared at the table, unmoving. “Even when I had my powers, the harpies were never this deadly. We preyed on people, I admit that, and as a harpy I ate more than my share of…” She paused, looking miserable. “As a harpy, we fed on humans as well. But we never set out to enslave them.”

  “Ogres seldom forage for humans, though I won’t say that’s never happened.” Viktor rubbed his temples. “Herne, when will you tell the others about this? They need to know.”

  “I texted my mother and father while we were sitting here, but I’ll go…I can’t tonight, we have to meet Dormant Reins in the Catacombs. I’ll go tomorrow. Ember, will you and Yutani do the intake on Henny Jessaphy?”

  I nodded. “Yes, of course. When will you leave?”

  “After we talk to Dormant Reins, I’ll go. This will take a little time. I’ll text for Morgana to gather the gods to meet at dawn.” He looked preoccupied. “All right, back to work. Given the severity of the issue at this point, I think we need to devote most of our time to finding Pandora, Gyell, Aso, and Variance. Also, we need to start the search for Echidna and find her, if at all possible.”

  “Since she disappeared about the time Typhon was forced into stasis, there’s a good chance she knew how he was defeated,” I said.

  Herne nodded. “Yes, I’ve thought of that. And I’m sure Ashera’s thought of that as well. All right, we should get busy.”

  As we broke the meeting, Herne gently embraced me, taking care not to hurt my side. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for an afternoon tryst, my love. And with your side…” He looked pained. Herne was lusty and passionate, and I knew that days without sex wore on him, probably more than they did on me.

  I kissed him back, lingering in his embrace. “I know. It may be several days. But when we do, it will be all the sweeter. At least, it helps to think that way,” I added.

  He laughed, patting my ass. “I love you, wench.”

  “I love you, rogue.”

  And with that, he went back to his office and I returned to my desk.

  Sharne was supposed to come over for dinner at eight, but I didn’t think that with meeting Dormant Reins at ten, I would have time. I put in a call to my uncle, asking if he could resc
hedule and come over the next night instead. He agreed, and I went back to my paperwork, my thoughts replaying the conversation with Ashera over and over. The gloom was thick, and I wanted nothing more than to go take a dip in the ocean to wash away the tainted film that Typhon’s looming presence had spread across the entire world.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stared at my closet, wondering what to wear.

  No silver. Keep my throat covered. Something a little sexy, but not too inviting.

  Also, I had to douse myself with perfume to cover the smell of the wound. Feeling like this was just a little too complicated, I steeled myself and flipped through my clothes. One dress would have been good, but it was too short for my comfort level, at least among a bunch of vampires. Another was a little too tight and would be hard to run in. Then I remembered Yutani’s advice and brought out a leather corset top that I could zip up the front, and a pair of nice jeans. I paired them with knee-high boots and my leather jacket.

  Angel had me sit at the vanity while she brushed my hair into a high, tight ponytail, fastening it with a gold band. I had cloisonné combs that I fixed on the sides, and then I put on my makeup, going heavy on the smoky-eye look and cat wing eyeliner. As I picked up my bottle of Autumn—a spicy-scented perfume—I motioned for her to stand back.

  “You might want to stand downwind,” I said, laughing, as I began to spray it on thick. After a moment, I smelled like I’d walked through a fog bank at a fragrance counter. I coughed, wrinkling my nose. “How do I smell?”

  “Like you spilled a bottle of perfume all over you.” Angel waved her hand in front of her face. “But I doubt if they should be able to smell the blood beneath that.”

  “Good.” I draped my purse over my shoulder, after sorting through it to make sure that I didn’t have any pocket knives or anything else in it that would be objectionable. “Okay, downstairs. Herne and Yutani will be picking me up soon.”

  Angel made sure I made it down the stairs without problem. I wasn’t as woozy or as in as much pain as I had been during the morning, but I was still leery. The stitches pulled, but I could tell the most immediate pain of the wound was starting to die down and Yutani was right, the corset helped shore me up.