He snarled and tore the mahogany dresser apart. He picked up the bed and hurled it across the room, then whirled and drove his fists into the wall. He must have hit a girder because something inside the wall groaned and buckled.
The door to his bedroom slammed open. He whipped around, almost faster than sight, teeth bared. Rune and Aryal entered like twin cyclones, half-dressed bodies aimed like weapons. His First was armed with a sword while Aryal carried a semiautomatic. Rune went left and the six-foot harpy dove right before they both realized he was not under attack. They slowed to a stop.
To give his sentinels credit, they didn’t run when faced with the nude figure of their enraged lord. In fact, Dragos had to admit it was brave of them to enter his bedroom in the first place. That thought was the thread that helped him to gain enough control so that he didn’t tear their heads from their shoulders.
“Bad dream?” Rune said, keen gaze steady as he straightened from a fighting crouch and let the tip of his sword fall to the floor.
“I’ve got her human name,” he said. They all knew who he meant. “Pia Giovanni. Find out what you can about her, quickly, and get me the witch. I need a tracking spell.”
The harpy Aryal’s sleek brows lifted as she glanced from his ruined room to the predawn sky. For a moment her life trembled by the merest thread. If she had spoken a single word just then, she would have died in flames.
“DAMN YOU, MOVE!”
The floor of the penthouse shuddered at his roar. They raced out the door. So they were smart as well as brave.
The lingering traces of the beguilement clawed at him. He yanked clothes on and stalked outside to pace the balcony. The penthouse was a prison. Even the vast, spread-out, noisy panorama of the city felt like a cage. He wanted to lunge into the air. He felt the impulse to slaughter something but he was trapped and flightless until the witch arrived.
The dragon stood at the edge of the ledge, fists clenched, and with narrowed eyes he watched the small quick-moving humans in the street eighty floors below.
A short time later, Rune said telepathically, My lord, the witch is here.
My office, he said. He moved along the penthouse balcony until he stood one floor above his office. Then he leaped to the ledge below.
Rune and the witch had already entered the room. The gryphon was unaffected by his sudden appearance but the witch stared as he straightened to his full height. A human Hispanic woman with a tall imperious beauty, she was quick to lower her gaze when he opened the French door and strode inside.
Cuelebre Enterprises had for some years contracted with the best witch in the city. Dragos had never bothered to learn her name but he recognized her. She was afraid of him, which he ignored. All humans were afraid of him. They should be.
He growled, “I need a tracking spell put on a woman.”
The witch inclined her head. She said, “Certainly, my lord. Of course, no doubt you already know that the more information I can be given on a target, the better I can craft a tracking spell for it.”
“Her name is Pia Giovanni,” Dragos said. He handed her the stack of photos from the 7-Eleven security footage. “This is what she looks like.”
The witch went still, her eyes on the top photo. Her expression was a perfect blank, but something, some minuscule change in her posture or breathing, roused the predator in him. A smooth, fluid shift of his body brought him closer to her. He could sense her body heat and the pulse at her neck and wrists, which beat more rapid at his proximity. He scanned her with truthsense as he asked, “Do you know this woman?”
The witch’s dark gaze lifted to his. She said, “I have seen her in the Magic District. I didn’t know her name.”
Her face remained that perfect blank, revealing nothing. It was not, he thought, the blithe calm of innocence but one of educated discipline. Still, she did speak the truth. The predator in him eased back. He nodded at the photos. “Is her name and a photo enough for you?”
The witch said, “I could cast a spell with these things. But it would be more durable, and it would last longer, if you had something of hers that I could use as an anchor. A good tracking spell is more complicated than a finding. It must shift and move as the object changes direction.”
Unsurprised, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag that held a battered receipt. “It just so happens I do have something we can use.”
FOUR
Shaken by such a rude awakening, Pia rolled off the bed and lurched into the bathroom to take a shower. She hadn’t carried any toiletries in her backpack beyond hand lotion and Chap-Stick so she had to make do with the motel’s paper-wrapped sliver of plain soap. It took forever to work some through her long hair and lather a washcloth, but at least the water was hot and plentiful. The skin at the side of her neck felt tender as she scrubbed herself.
She paused and rubbed at the tender area. What was that?