Nice Dragons Finish Last

Chapter 4

Oddly enough, Julius’s first thought was that the pistol, a souped-up next gen Colt .45, looked oddly small. A heartbeat later, he realized he was mistaken. The pistol was normal-sized—it was just being held by an absolutely enormous man. His other hand, equally huge, was wrapped around Marci’s face, smothering her mouth and holding her tight against his chest with her feet kicking a good foot off the sidewalk.

“Easy there, buddy,” the big man said, wagging his gun in Julius’s face like a tsking finger. “This here is a private matter, none of your concern.”

Marci made an angry, muffled sound against the man’s palm. The thug squeezed in reply, cutting off the noise and her kicking in one move. When she was quiet, the man smiled and shifted his eyes back to Julius. “You just go on about your business and won’t be no trouble.” He tightened his finger on the trigger. “Now walk away.”

Julius looked at the gun, and then at Marci, who was staring at him above the man’s fingers, though not in fear or desperation, as he would have expected. Instead, she was looking straight at him like she was trying to tell him something. Julius was still trying to figure out what when the magic she’d used to disguise him as a rock shaman exploded in the big man’s face.

The thug flew backwards, his scream echoing down the alley before cutting off with a crash as he slammed into the brick wall of the warehouse across the street. His gun went off at the same time, firing harmlessly into the dark. He also dropped Marci, who landed in a coughing heap on the dirty pavement.

Julius was at her side in an instant. “Are you all right?” he cried, pulling her to her feet. When she nodded, he moved on to the next most important question. “What was that?”

“Backfire,” Marci replied, her voice thick and slurring, almost like she was drunk. “Couldn’t cast with him tryin’a crush my skull, so I backfired our illusions at him.” She turned to grin triumphantly at the man now lying unconscious on the other side of the alley. “At’ll teach him to grab me!”

The question why did he grab you? had already formed on Julius’s tongue when he saw the thin trickle of blood coming out of Marci’s ear. “You backfired yourself, too, didn’t you?” When she lifted her shoulders in careless shrug, he grabbed them. “Marci!”

“Was worth it,” she slurred. “He had a gun in your face.”

Julius blew out an angry breath and tightened his grip on her shoulders, using them to steer her firmly toward the car. He’d find out what was going on later, when they were safe. For now, he just wanted to get out of—

He stopped short as two shadows, big ones, stepped out of the loading bay at the alley’s dead end. There were footsteps behind him, too, and Julius glanced over his shoulder to see three more men had moved to block off the street, trapping him and Marci in the middle. Since this part of the Underground wasn’t covered in neon, the light in the alley was awful, but even stuck in human form, Julius’s eyes were sharp. He could clearly see the lumpy shapes of guns tucked inside the men’s dark jackets. He was trying to decide what to do about that when Marci yanked out of his grasp.

When he snapped his head around to see why, she was shaking herself like a dog. When she stopped, the glassy look was gone from her eyes, and she stepped into what would have been a fighting stance if she’d had a weapon in her raised hands. “Don’t worry, Julius,” she said softly. “I got this. Just stay back. I’ll protect you.”

“Protect me?” he said just as one of the men blocking off their exit raised his voice.

“Don’t even think about it, Novalli!” the big stranger bellowed, the words bouncing like buckshot down the alley. “You can’t blast all of us and you know it. So be a good girl and come quietly and we won’t hurt your boyfriend there. Mr. Bixby wants a word with you.”

Marci’s whole body went stiff at the name Bibxy, but she didn’t drop her hands. If anything, she looked more deadly than before, even with the trickle of blood that had now worked its way down from her ear to stain the white collar of her shirt. But while Julius knew she was a mage and absolutely not to be underestimated, she was also human. Human and hurt, facing down five armed men, all of whom had a good six inches and at least a hundred pounds on her, and she was doing it to protect him.

That thought did something to Julius’s insides. It twisted him over, rearranging priorities he’d thought long settled. The cautious thing, the right thing, would be to step back and let her do as she liked. After all, said a voice that sounded very much like his mother’s, she was only human. Why should he risk himself for a mortal? Especially here, in the Lady of the Lakes’ territory where any slip-up would bring Chelsie’s wrath down on his head, or worse, the Lady’s down on his mother. That was a situation Bethesda would find deathly inconvenient. Julius’s death, specifically.

That horrifying thought should have settled everything. For almost all the years he could remember, Julius’s survival strategy had revolved around avoiding situations that would give his mother a reason to kill him. Now though, he didn’t want to stay out of the way. Maybe getting kicked out of home had fatally skewed his better judgment, or maybe he’d finally hit his limit for belly-crawling to creatures more powerful than himself, but when Julius looked down the alley, he didn’t see an inconvenience for his family. He saw big, thuggish, idiot humans threatening Marci, the person who’d shown him more kindness, compassion, and help in the last hour than he’d experienced in twenty-four years of life. Marci, whom he’d already started thinking of as his ally, maybe even his friend.

It was a terrible excuse. Friendship was as undraconic as generosity. But then, as everyone liked to remind him, Julius never had been much of a dragon. And that was funny, because when he clenched his fists and stepped up to stand beside Marci, Julius felt more draconic than he had in a long, long time.

“Can you handle the two behind us?”

Marci jumped at his whisper so close to her ear. “I’m pretty sure,” she whispered back. “Why do you—”

Julius was gone before she finished. His true form was sealed and he was woefully out of practice, but it didn’t matter. He was a dragon, they were human, and that was enough. Before the three men at the end of the alley even realized he was gone, Julius was behind them with his hand on the crown of the biggest human’s skull.

With surprise on his side, one push was all it took to slam the thug’s face into the street. The big man went down like a tree, and Julius paused just long enough to kick the gun out of his hand before turning on the remaining two.

He’d fully expected to find them gawking, or maybe fleeing in terror, but these men were clearly professionals. By the time he turned, they’d recovered enough to swing their guns back toward him. But Julius was getting back in the swing of things now himself, and he hadn’t lived this long as the smallest dragon in his clan by being slow.

The men had barely raised their weapons before he was in front of them. He dropped down at once, sweeping the first man’s legs out from under him with a fast kick that sent the large human sprawling backward, slamming the back of his skull against the street with an extremely satisfying crunch. Julius didn’t wait to see if the man would recover. He was already closing in on the lone survivor.

By this point, the last man standing had actually managed to get his gun up and aimed at Julius’s chest, but the shock of Julius’s inhuman speed seemed to have made him forget how to use it. Normally, this sort of fear-induced paralysis would have been enough to make Julius stop. Unlike the rest of his siblings, he didn’t enjoy scaring people. This time, though, stopping didn’t even cross his mind. This man needed to be scared almost as much as Julius needed to be scary. After years of being labeled a failure because he refused to participate in the cruel, cutthroat power games that absorbed the rest of his family, it felt amazingly good, right even, to finally be a dragon in someone’s eyes. Especially since he was doing it to save a friend, rather than crush an enemy.

He approached slowly, giving the long-buried animal part of the man’s brain time understand that he was facing an apex predator. The more the man shook, the slower Julius went, using the steady crunch of his footsteps like a hammer to drive the fear deeper until the thug was trembling so badly he fumbled his weapon. Only then, when the man had lost his gun and looked ready to lose his lunch as well, did Julius finally grab him.

The thug screamed, fighting like a cornered animal. But strong as fear had made him, it still wasn’t strong enough. With a sharp-toothed smile, Julius lifted the frantic man up by his collar and flung him into the wall across the alley. The man bounced from the impact and fell flat on his face, and though he was still breathing, he made no move to get up again. When Julius was sure he’d stay that way, he turned to check on Marci only to find her standing exactly where he’d left her.

That couldn’t be right. He’d ended his fight fast, true, but not that fast. She should have moved at least a little. But then he saw the men he’d left to her at the far end of the alley, and everything became clear.

When he’d last seen them, the two men had been standing with their guns drawn. Now, they were both down on their knees, grabbing at their necks like they were trying to pull something off. Marci, meanwhile, was standing with her arm thrust out, holding something in her outstretched fist that was glowing like a floodlight. As Julius got closer, though, he saw it wasn’t actually in her fist, but on it. The glowing object was one of her bracelets, a chunky, pink plastic ring he hadn’t paid much attention to before. Now it was lit up, though, Julius could clearly see the tight lines of spellwork on the inside of the inch-wide band pulsing like a heartbeat, and every time they flashed, the men at the end of the alley scrambled harder.

By the time he’d made it back to Marci’s side, both men had fallen over, their faces purple from lack of oxygen. Marci’s own face was red with effort, but her expression was triumphant as she finally released the fist she’d been holding.

“What did you do?”

She jumped foot into the air when he spoke, and then jumped again when she turned around and saw the three men he’d defeated sprawled across the alley. “Christ,” she panted, eyes jumping back and forth between the bodies, the cracked wall, and Julius himself. “What did you do?”

“I asked you first,” he said, tilting his head at the men she’d choked unconscious—or maybe to death. He wasn’t close enough to tell for sure. “I thought Thaumaturges didn’t cast spells on the fly?”

“We don’t,” Marci said, sticking out her arm to display her line of thick plastic bracelets, all of which, Julius could now see, had inner bands that were absolutely covered in spellwork. “This one’s my own variation on the force choke. An oldie but a goodie, and very effective.”

He gave her pink bracelet an appreciative smile before looking back at the men she’d downed. “Are they dead?”

She shook her head. “Murder is illegal even in the DFZ, and I try not to rack up too many felony charges my first week in a new town.”

Julius couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. Marci laughed too, leaning on him for support in a familiar way he found both comforting and startling. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched him with trust or affection. She didn’t seem to realize she was doing it, either, because she jumped off him again just as suddenly a few seconds later, cheeks flushing.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m, um…” She looked around at the body-strewn alley as though seeing it for the first time, and the flush of color drained from her face. “Wow,” she whispered, running her hands through her choppy hair. “I am really sorry about all this. Thank you very much for helping me.”

“Any time,” Julius said, and then stopped in surprise at how much he meant it. “It was nice to help someone,” he added when the silence had stretched too long. “Though, of course, I would like to know why a group of armed men attacked you.”

“They’re from Vegas,” she said. “But I never thought they’d chase me all the way up here, and I especially didn’t think they’d find me.” Her expression turned bleak, and she started wringing her hands together so hard he worried she’d wring them off. “Again, I’m really sorry about this. Like, really, really sorry. I guess you’ll want out of our contract now?”

“Why would I want that?” he asked, looking around. “Though we should probably get out of here.”

She nodded. “Fleeing the scene is definitely the smart criminal thing to do.”

The words were clearly meant to be a joke, but Marci’s delivery was oddly flat. Everything about her right now seemed off, actually, though whether it was from the shock of the fight or the backlash or some combination thereof, Julius wasn’t sure. Whatever the reason, she was wobbling so badly he had to step in, sliding his arm under her shoulders to keep her from going down.

“Thank you,” she whispered, leaning tentatively on him as he helped her to the car.

“You’re welcome,” Julius said. “Though I really wish you hadn’t backlashed yourself. I’m no magical expert, but isn’t that how mages kill themselves?”

Marci snorted as he lowered her into her seat. “It’d take a much bigger spell than that to kill me. Though I will admit I hit myself a bit harder than I anticipated. It’s been a while since I lost control of my magic enough to get backlashed flat out like that. I’d forgotten how much it sucks. But I didn’t exactly have time to be picky since that bastard had a gun in your face. Of course, if I’d known you were secretly a ninja, I wouldn’t have been so worried.” She looked back at the men he’d taken out. “How did you do that, anyway? I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.”

Julius thought back to the years of training every Heartstriker underwent before being allowed out into the world at seventeen, not to mention his overwhelming biological advantage. Neither of those explanations would work for Marci, though, so all he said was, “My brother’s into martial arts and extremely competitive. I picked up a few things during my time as his punching bag.”

That wasn’t exactly a lie, but Julius shut the door before Marci could ask any more questions. Fortunately, her car was behaving itself. It started the first try, and Marci grabbed the wheel straight out, skipping the autonav in favor of getting them out of the alley and away from the downed thugs as fast as possible.

When they’d put several blocks between themselves and the scene of the crime, she slowed to a more reasonable speed and slumped over the dash with a long sigh. “I’ll waive the fee for today, of course. I know it’s no proper thanks for saving my bacon, but it’s all I can afford right now.”

Julius thought of her horrid basement apartment and shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. You did the job I hired you for. I’m happy to pay.” Her full rate, he decided, just as soon as Ian paid him.

Instead of being happy, though, Marci’s jaw tightened. “Let me buy you dinner, at least. I know a good place.”

“It’s really okay.”

She turned to him with a cutting look. “Julius, you saved my life. You have to let me do something.”

“You’re going to keep working for me, right? That’s something.” Potentially a big something, because they still had to chase down Lark’s lead on Katya and her alligator shaman. Marci, however, did not look appeased.

“That doesn’t count!” she cried. “You can’t let me pay you back by doing work I was going to do anyway!”

Julius shifted uncomfortably. Honestly, he didn’t want Marci paying him back at all. Trading debts was what dragons did, but Julius had helped her because he’d wanted to, and it had felt like freedom. Given the chance, he’d do it all over again for that feeling alone. But that wasn’t a line of logic a human would understand, so Julius decided to give in. Just a little.

“I’ll accept dinner,” he said. “But only if you tell me what that was about.”

Marci suddenly looked much less eager. “You’re sure you want to know?”

Julius shrugged. “I don’t mean to pry into your business, but believe it or not, I don’t normally get into back-alley brawls with strange men.”

“Well, if anyone deserved breaking your ‘no slamming people into walls’ streak over, it would be Bixby’s idiots.”

“I only got half of them,” he reminded her. “You did the other. Credit where credit is due.”

Marci laughed. “If by ‘credit’ you mean ‘assault and battery charges,’ then I guess you’re right.” She shook her head and turned to flash him a warm smile. “You know, we make a pretty good team.”

Julius felt that smile all the way to his toes. By the time he’d recovered, she’d turned away to fiddle with her car’s GPS, muttering under her breath about skyways and satellite uplinks and idiots who built cities on top of other, perfectly good cities.

In the end, she gave up and drew the route by hand, laying down a path that took them into the city’s industrial south west. Julius had no idea what she was trying to get to down there, and he didn’t ask. He was too busy enjoying the novelty of the words we and team to care about anything else as they sped away from the grim alley, following the river south as the moon began to rise.

Considering they were driving away from the lake and Algonquin’s tower and everything that was generally considered the heart of the DFZ, Julius had fully expected the city to get scarier, but it actually did just the opposite. The further they drove south along the river, the more corporate and uniform everything became. Instead of old buildings renovated into massive shopping centers, the Underground in this part of the city was filled with parking decks and massive housing units that, while nicer than the ones they’d just left by the casinos, were still bleak, utilitarian bricks of poured cement broken up only by railed walkways and tiny glass windows.

If you looked past that, though, the area actually reminded Julius far more of traditional suburbs than the DFZ Underground you saw in the movies. There were chain restaurants and coffee shops and shopping centers with parking decks full of mid-range cars and corporate buses shuttling people up to the massive offices on the skyways overhead. If it wasn’t for the fact that the whole place was basically a cement brick built under a giant bridge, it could have passed for anywhere in America once you overlooked the camera drones and armed private security patrols.

Since she’d driven them down here, Julius expected Marci to turn them into one of the huge chain restaurants, but she didn’t even look at them. She just kept driving until, eventually, they drove right out of the Underground and into the dense factory district that butted right up against it.

Before, when they’d driven out of the city, it had been all open space and plants and strange magic. This time, it was a very different landscape. In a deal that had brought dozens of multinational corporations to the DFZ, Algonquin had ceded the entire south western corner of her city to the new technology of magical fabrication. Even now, fifty years and two monetary overhauls later, the vast majority of the world’s magically integrated consumables—five sense projectors, the mana contacts on phones that made AR possible, even enchanted paper like the stuff Marci’s contract had been printed on—was still made in the massive factory complexes that had transformed what used to be the city of Dearborn, Michigan into a bleak landscape of monolithic, windowless buildings and canyon-like roads.

Huge at it all was, though, the factory park definitely didn’t seem like the sort of place you’d find a restaurant, and the longer Marci drove, the more uncomfortable Julius got. “Um,” he said at last. “Are you sure this is the right way?”

“Positive,” Marci replied. “I looked this place up on my way over before I had to chuck my phone. Best rating in the city.”

Julius didn’t see how a restaurant could survive out here, let alone be good, but he was even more curious about why she’d had to chuck her phone. He was dying to ask about a lot of things, actually, but he forced himself to wait. This job was already much more complicated than he’d anticipated, and as much as he wanted to push his lead on Katya, he wasn’t ready to charge recklessly forward without solving Marci’s puzzle first. Besides, he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d gotten off the plane this morning, and now that she’d reminded him about food, eating suddenly seemed much more important than following a tip that might well be the start of a wild goose chase. Or wild dragon chase, in this case.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait much longer. Despite the seemingly endless wall of identical industrial complexes, there were actually several smaller business squeezed in between the factories wherever there was room. Marci’s restaurant was one of these, a squat wooden shack built right up against the wall of a factory that made enchanted glass for AR displays. According to the back-lit sign, it was a BBQ joint. According to Julius’s nose, however, this place served greasy, sauce-covered heaven.

“We’re lucky it’s between shifts,” Marci said as they got out of the car. “I tried to come here yesterday, but the factories had just let out, and the line was around the block.”

Julius could see why. Despite the delectable smell drifting out its screen door, the inside of the restaurant was barely big enough to hold twenty people. It was empty now, though, and he took advantage of that to get them a prime booth in the corner that put his back to the wall and gave him a good view of the front door.

“Order whatever you want,” Marci said as she plopped down across from him. “Everything here is fantastic”

Julius bit back a grin as he picked up the one page laminated menu. Marci had no idea the trouble she was inviting, telling a dragon to order whatever he wanted. Hungry as he was, though, he was determined not to use more of her clearly limited funds than was absolutely necessary to make her feel better. So when the waitress came out of the tiny kitchen to take their order, Julius kept it small, just two plates of pork, three sides, a half order of cheese fries, a basket of cornbread, and a banana pudding.

Marci’s eyebrows were nearly up to her chopped-off hairline by the time he finished, but she didn’t comment as she ordered her own dinner of a pulled-pork sandwich and a beer. When the waitress asked her what kind of beer, Marci shrugged and told the girl to surprise her.

“Honestly, I don’t even like beer,” she confessed as the waitress vanished back into the tiny kitchen. “But a day like today demands a drink.”

Julius couldn’t argue with that. “So,” he said, resting his elbows on the red checkered tablecloth. “Do you want to start, or should I?”

Marci waved her hand. “Fire away.”

“Who is Bixby?”

“One of my dad’s old clients.”

The anger in her voice was all the hint Julius needed. “Bixby was involved in your father’s death?”

Marci sighed, but the waitress returned with their drinks before she could answer. “It’s more complicated than that,” she said when they were alone again. “Dad was one of the first wave of mages born after the comet. He never had a formal magical education because there wasn’t any such thing back then, but he taught himself how to break curses, which was a booming market in Vegas at the time. Business was good when I was younger, but my dad was very bad with money, and soon we were in a lot of trouble.”

She took a long swig of her beer, then made a face and set the bottle aside. “I didn’t actually know how much trouble until I was thirteen. That was when my mom got fed up and left us, and I learned that Dad was up to eyeballs in debt thanks to his moocher family and terrible money skills. I’d also tested positive as a mage by this point and enrolled in the best private magic school in the area, so there was that to pay as well.” She heaved an enormous sigh. “My dad was so proud of me. He would have cut off his right arm before he took me out of class. He was desperate, and Bixby knew it.”

Julius rolled his water glass between his palms. “I’m guessing Mr. Bixby isn’t exactly a legal sort of person?”

“I’m sure some parts of his business are legal,” Marci said. “But he definitely leaned more to the shady side. He knew my dad needed money, so he proposed a racket. Bixby’s mages would curse someone, and then my dad would use the good name he’d built up over the years to come in and break it for an exorbitant fee.”

“They wagged the dog,” Julius said.

She nodded. “It didn’t seem so bad at first. The debts were getting paid and money was coming in again, but Dad was miserable. He had this thing about being a hero, rescuing people from evil magic, that sort of stuff. It was the whole reason he got into curse breaking to begin with, and turning that mission into a scam was killing him. He hid it from me while I was a teenager, but as soon as I found out, we started working on an exit strategy. I was just an undergrad at the time, but I already knew enough to work with him on expanding the legal parts of his business—the wards and magical consulting and so forth. The idea was to get away from curse breaking and Bixby all together, but just when I thought we were clear, Bixby wouldn’t let him go.”

Her shoulders slumped as she spoke, like she was sinking into the table. “He threatened to have Dad arrested. There was more than enough evidence to convict him, and Bixby had cops on the take as well. Dad knew it, too, so he folded and went back. I tried several times to get him free over the years, but every time, Bixby would come up with some threat to make Dad stay until he finally hit his limit.”

“What pushed him over the edge?”

“I don’t know,” Marci admitted, taking another drink. “But last Tuesday morning, he marched into Bixby’s office and threatened to expose the whole operation unless Bixby paid him the final amount he was owed and let him go. But Bixby isn’t the sort of man who responds well to threats. He told my dad to try it and see what happened. Of course, I didn’t know about any of this until I came home from class that afternoon and found my dad packing up the house. He said we were leaving that night.”

At this point, Marci’s expression turned so sad, Julius was amazed she didn’t start crying. “What happened?”

“We fought,” she said, eyes on the table. “You have to understand, I always knew Bixby was bad news, but I didn’t know how bad. I didn’t know my dad’s life was in danger, and I was only twenty credit hours away from finishing my doctorate. If I’d known what was really going on, I never would have argued, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. He wanted me to leave school, just dump my whole semester, and run away with him.”

She stopped, pressing her palms over her eyes, but Julius didn’t push. He just sat there, waiting, until Marci continued. “I stormed out. I knew it was a childish thing to do, but I was just so angry. When I came back an hour later, he was already gone. I never saw him alive again.”

She did start crying then, little sniffles she quickly hid behind a long sip off her beer. “Sorry,” she whispered, wiping her eyes.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Julius said, handing her a paper napkin.

She took it without a word, wiping her eyes. “It just all happened so quickly. I left for the DFZ that same night, and I’ve been running ever since. I don’t even know where I’m running to anymore, other than away.” She balled the napkin in her fist and shot him a watery smile. “Some professional I am, huh?”

“Professional doesn’t mean superhuman,” Julius said quickly. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’ve done amazingly well considering what happened. I have no complaints at all about the work you’ve done for me, and it was my pleasure to send a few thugs packing on your behalf. Good exercise, too. I haven’t done anything like that in years.”

He finished with a wide smile, but Marci was staring at him in wonder, like she was seeing him for the first time. And then, without warning, she smiled back. A warm, radiant, open smile he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to. Fortunately, the food chose that moment to arrive, and they both seized on the distraction.

As Julius’s nose had predicted, it was all delicious. He wolfed his first plate down while Marci was still putting sauce on her sandwich, but the second took him much longer. By the time he was ready to start on his sides, Julius was astonished to find he was full.

“Eyes bigger than your stomach?” Marci asked.

“Guess so,” Julius grumbled, trying not to sound as upset as he felt. Apparently, even his appetite was limited to a human scale now, which meant he’d lost food and flying to his mother’s seal. That realization almost made him weep. He loved eating.

There was no point in wasting good food, though, so he offered his untouched sides to Marci. She took them gladly, eating the fries so quickly he started to wonder when she’d last had a proper meal. But as he watched her eat, the story she’d told him circled around and around in his head, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized the ending didn’t add up.

“Marci?” he asked, leaning on the table. “Can I ask you a rude question?”

She shrugged. “Go for it.”

“If your father wronged Bixby and died for it, why is Bixby still after you?”

Marci looked down, poking at the fries left in the basket. “I know a lot about his operations in Vegas.”

“We’re a long way from Las Vegas,” Julius said. “Not to say your knowledge isn’t valuable, but unless you’ve got material evidence against him that could be used in a court of law”—he paused until she shook her head—“I don’t understand why he’d send men all the way up here just to hush you up.” Maybe he did have a plotting draconic talent in him somewhere, because the more Julius thought the situation out from Bixby’s angle, the less sense it made. “And the fight,” he continued. “The man who grabbed you could have just as easily broken your neck instead, but he didn’t. They clearly wanted you alive. Why? Do you have information Bixby wants? Something to do with your father, maybe?”

“Not that I know of,” Marci said, keeping her eyes locked on the fry she was stabbing into a glob of cheese sauce. “My best guess is that this is about pride. Bixby always made a huge deal about how no one who wrongs him gets away with it. That’s probably why he’s putting in so much effort to catch me. If he lets me run, other people might start thinking they can get away, too.”

Now that Julius could understand. Dragons were just the same. Unfortunately, pride was a much more troublesome enemy than greed or fear. If Bixby was determined to make an example of Marci, he couldn’t be reasoned with and he wouldn’t give up, not until his ego ran out.

Considering what Marci had said so far and his own observations of Bixby’s penchant for employing giant, suited men to do his dirty work like he was the villain in a crime drama, Julius didn’t see that happening any time soon. If it had been any other human, he would have said she was screwed. But Marci was clever and resourceful, and she had him now. As she’d said, they made a good team, and Julius was determined to hold up his end. So long as he was here, Bixby wouldn’t touch a hair on her head.

Just thinking that made him feel worlds better, and he gave Marci a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out to get him off your back. In the meanwhile, the DFZ’s a very big place.”

“And his goons will think twice about taking us on after the beating we gave them,” Marci said proudly, tipping her beer bottle toward him in a one-sided toast.

Julius wasn’t at all sure about that, but he like how prominently and confidently she included him in her plans. In fact, he liked the idea of being Marci’s competent partner so much more than being Bethesda’s failure that he didn’t even rush her as she slowly worked her way through the rest of his food.

“So, that’s my story,” Marci said between mouthfuls. “What about you? Where are you from?”

“New Mexico,” Julius said, which was the truth. “I just arrived in the DFZ this morning, actually.”

“I knew you were green,” she said with a chuckle. “Though I couldn’t tell if you were new to the city or just to the Underground. Where are you staying?”

“I hadn’t figured that out yet,” he confessed. “I also came here on a family emergency, and I haven’t had a lot of time to get the details straightened out.”

“Family emergency, huh? Is that why you’re looking for that girl?”

“Sort of,” Julius said. “My brother asked me to find her.” And pleasant as this was, they really needed to get moving on that.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket to pay their check quietly, because despite Marci’s insistence that she was buying, she didn’t have a phone. No phone meant no electronic bank account, and he wasn’t going to sit here and wait while the register validated every piece of cash she handed them. But when he clicked on the AR to check his account, a message was waiting for him.

Duck.

That was it. The sender was listed as Unknown Caller, but Julius had no doubt who was behind it. What he didn’t know was if Bob wanted him to duck now, or four months from now.

Just to be safe, Julius dutifully dropped under the table, motioning for Marci to do the same. She obeyed instantly, crouching down on the padded bench. They stayed that way for a good thirty seconds before Julius got up again with a sigh.

“What was that about?” Marci asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, glowering at the message. “I think my brother is confused.”

“Oh,” she said, brightening. “The one looking for the girl?”

“No, another brother,” he said, standing up. “Come on, we’d better get out of here.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Marci asked, following him to the counter.

“Too many,” Julius grumbled, paying for dinner with the last of the money Bob had given him and hustling Marci out before she realized what he’d done.

They’d nearly made it back to the car when the hairs on the back of Julius’s neck begin to prickle. He looked over his shoulder, eyes darting to find who was watching him, but the street was deserted.

He forced himself to walk normally to his side of the car, only half listening as Marci berated him for stealing her chance to pay for his dinner while he focused on his nose. He’d always been better at smelling than listening, but no matter how deeply he breathed, he caught nothing out of the ordinary. Just the chemical smell of the factories, rust from Marci’s car, and the warm scent of delicious barbecue mixed with the faint reek of oil from the truck yard across the street.

He shook his head with a sigh, trying and failing to stomp down on the instinctual urge to run for cover. But then, why should his body calm down? Between his mother, Bob’s cryptic messages, guns shoved in his face, and Ian playing games with powerful females from other clans, he’d had enough stress today to last a lifetime. A little jumpiness was a perfectly natural reaction. It didn’t mean there was actually someone sneaking up behind—

A hand grabbed his shoulder.

Julius nearly jumped out of his skin, but the hand kept him in place, four knife-sharp nails pressing into the tender hollow just beneath his collar bone as a cold, soft, female voice whispered in his ear.

“Hello, brother.”

And that was when Julius knew for a fact that he was dead.