Enchantment Emporium

“I didn’t lose it!” The force of the words sprayed saliva over the windshield as he turned down another empty suburban street. “You took it from me.”

“Damned right.” Graham didn’t bother hiding his triumph. “They’ll never let you near him. And they won’t let me near him if there’s a chance I’m under your control.”

“Fortunately, I don’t care what they want or they intend. However, in case we can’t remove him, his mother will be at least as disoriented upon arrival as he was—perhaps more, given that she has no connection to this world except through him—that’s when the old women will do whatever it is they plan to do. They’ll fail—they have no idea of how strong she is—but that failure should further distract her. I controlled her once, I can do it again. If I can get her into skin, you can kill her with Blessed rounds. A lot of them, admittedly, but it can be done.”

“Should have thought of that before you grabbed me.” He spread his hands. “No weapon.”

“Not your favorite, perhaps, but I stopped by your condo and picked up your other M24.”

The thought of Kalynchuk knowing how to find his very well hidden weapons cache made his skin crawl. “I won’t use it.”

“Stop being so stupidly squeamish. She’s not Human.”

“Are you Human?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Maybe he said it to Allie. Maybe to Kalynchuk, he wasn’t sure.

“You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?”

“If she’s not Human,” Graham growled. “Neither are you.”

“She’s a Dragon Queen, you… Oh.” The near side of Kalynchuk’s mouth curved up into a derisive smile. “You’re talking about Alysha. What did the little bitch tell you? That we’re descended from some magical mating between a woman and the Horned God? Could be true. Could be total bullshit. What you need to remember here and now is that the creature’s mother will kill you when she kills me.” Years of questioning unreliable witnesses slid Graham past the sudden change of topic. “Kill you, me, half of the city, most likely. She’s not exactly precise when she’s in a temper. And then she’ll hunt, because she’ll have worked up an appetite, and more people will die. The Gale girl. The old women.”

“Or they’ll win.”

“Unlikely.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“No,” Kalynchuk sighed, turning on the windshield wipers as it started to rain, “you won’t because in the end you will do what I tell you to do. Just like you always have.”

“Fuck you.”

“Touch your nose with your right thumb.”

Graham fought the impulse, but his right arm rose like a puppeteer held the string. He could feel a trickle of sweat run down his side, but he could also feel his thumb against his nose. Then his body was his own again and he threw himself across the seats only to be slammed back, his head impacting with the window. The pain was strangely cleansing.

“Do your seat belt up. You may obey me now for more easy-to-understand reasons than you did,” he continued as Graham did as he was told, “in that now you have no choice—but you will continue to obey. Don’t worry, after it’s over, I’ll skip out on watching the old women swatted out of the sky by the Dragon Lords, and for all I care, you can return to your one true love. Have they told you the men choose? Also bullshit. Choose the decoration of your cage. Choose the length of your leash.” His knuckles whitened as the steering wheel creaked under his grip. “Choose whose hands hold the end of that leash, but never for a moment think you can choose to be free.”

“They say you chose to kill eight members of your family.” Freedom being just another word for mass slaughter. “Is that true?”

“It was them, or me. All power corrupts.” The laugh lifted the hair off the back of Graham’s neck. “Hypocritical fucking cows.”

“Jack’s bored.”

Glancing up at Charlie leaning against the end of the counter, Allie sighed. “I thought you were teaching him to play World of Warcraft?”

“He’s a little aggressive, where a little means he went completely fucking nuts. Although, to be fair, the flamethrower was a bad idea. What are you doing?”

Allie waved the dimpled metal cap covering the tip of her baby finger. “Entering this basket of thimbles into the database.”

“Each individual thimble?”

“They’re for sale separately, so, yeah.”

Charlie slid one on, and then another, and then another until all eight fingertips were armored. “Give a thimble for luck, use a thimble to predict a death, we beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble, the dodo said solemnly.” She rattled them off back into the basket. “And no, anal retentive does not have a hyphen.”

“Cataloging helps me not think.”

“Didn’t cataloging used to be your job? I mean, I’m all in favor of a job that requires no thought but you ever think that might be why you were let go?”

“Bite me.” Allie pulled a pale blue Wedgwood thimble, slightly chipped, out of the basket as Charlie sprawled over the counter. “It helps me not think of anything but cataloging, okay? When I think about her, I can feel the fire.”