The Stone Warriors: Dragan Read online

  He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s possible, though the other person would have to be more than commonly powerful, and that’s rare. It could be nothing more than a strong witch. One of my brothers was the son of an extremely powerful dark witch. Sotiris could sense someone like that over great distances, especially if he entered her home territory. The same would apply for certain vampires. Do you have them in this world? Vampires?”

  She glanced at him in surprise. “Vampires? Well, yeah, but I’ve never met one or anything. They’re mostly in gossip magazines with all the beautiful people. But witches? I’m not sure about those. I’ve never read about anything like that, and believe me, the stuff I read would definitely include it.”

  “Perhaps they don’t exist in your world, then. But they did in mine.”

  She winced. “On the other hand, I never believed sorcerers were real either. I just thought Sotiris was rich and weird, which isn’t all that unusual. But now, there’s you, so I’m willing to suspend my disbelief, as they say, to include the possibility of”—She had to take a long breath before saying it. —“sorcery. Magic.” She made a face. “You’d think I’d be happier about that, but somehow I’m not. Too late, I guess.

  “Anyway,” she said, rushing ahead, “the presence of whoever it is that made Sotiris avoid Florida, might make it the safest place for us. That’s about 1000 miles to the northern part of the state. Could be even farther if we can track down your Nicodemus, but we’ll figure that out as we go. Right now, if you add our detour through Cleveland to throw Sotiris off the trail, we’re looking at close to 1400 miles. Maybe more if we take some backroads to confuse things even further. And that’s way too far to drive in a single day. I’m thinking at least 3 days, especially since you can’t drive.”

  “Yet,” he added.

  “Yet,” she agreed in exasperation. “What do you think about the plan?”

  “I think it’s always good to seek out potential allies among your enemy’s enemies. And as this Florida is also a goodly distance, you can teach me to operate your carriage as we travel.”

  She snorted. “First lesson. It’s a vehicle, not a carriage, and this particular vehicle is called an SUV.”

  “SUV.” It sounded like one word when he said it.

  She pointed at the glove box after she made the turn onto the main road. “There’s a manual in there. Tells you all about it.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I know you said the curse gave you an understanding of every language, but did it include reading?”

  “More or less,” he said absently, already paging through the manual. “It helps that I was able to read before the curse, although obviously I haven’t done a great deal of reading since then. I guess I’ll discover what skill I still possess.”

  “There are diagrams, too. They’re usually good.” He didn’t respond, and she wondered if she’d lost him. “Mind if I play some music?” she asked.

  His only response was a distracted hum of agreement.

  Yep. She’d lost him. She switched to satellite radio and settled in for a long ride.

  SOTIRIS’S CELL RANG as he sped up the drive to his lakefront mansion, gravel spinning away from his tires, pinging on the undercarriage with an infuriating racket. He hated the damn rocks, but it was the only practical material for an approach that was so long as to be a private road, rather than a simple driveway. Dust filled the air when he finally stopped and climbed out, coating his shoes despite the hard stone surface at the foot of the stairs. He coughed and waved a useless hand in front of his face, as he checked his phone. He frowned. The security company?

  Already there, and not afraid of anything he might meet, he strode up the stairs and twisted the front door knob, cursing when it proved to be locked. That damned girl locked the house up tight, even when she was awake. Frightened little mouse. But then, that was part of the reason he’d hired her. He hadn’t wanted some chatty little thing. He’d wanted her to do the job and remain invisible. He jammed his key into the lock and yanked open the door, startled into stillness for a moment when the alarm went off. What the fuck?

  Hurrying for the panel, he quickly cleared the alarm, wondering why the hell the company had called if the alarm hadn’t gone off. His cell immediately rang. The security company again.

  “What?” he demanded impatiently. “I’m here. The alarm wasn’t disturbed and the house was locked.”

  “Sir, I’ll need your password?”

  Jaw tight, he spoke the pass phrase, knowing he’d get nothing else from them until he did. “What the fuck is going on?” he snarled. “I told you—”

  “Sir, this is”—Sotiris didn’t listen to what came next. All he heard was, —“and it’s not the house alarm we’re calling about. It’s the cabinet alarm upstairs.”

  He almost dropped the phone. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced upstairs and into the room containing the only thing he truly cared about. Not the blades, though they were delicious mementos of his various victories. No, there was only one . . .

  He stared at the ruin of the room, blades missing, glass everywhere . . . and the hexagon . . . gone. Impossible. How could they have known? No one knew what it was, what it meant. Only he and Katsaros. And its creator, he reminded himself. But she was far from here, and no longer a force in this world or any other. He’d made sure of it.

  He called the security company back.

  “Mr. Sotiris,” the same security supervisor said. “How may we help?”

  “The video,” he said hoarsely. “Who took it?” He didn’t have to explain what “it” was. They knew. Because they’d urged him to store the hexagon in a bank vault instead. But he’d thought to outwit everyone. Who would have expected his most valuable relic to be stored in a house by the lake? In a room decorated with old blades? It had no jewels to tempt the ignorant, no magical signature to attract the knowledgeable.

  “The woman you employ, sir. Maeve Collins. She took it, though from the background movement, she wasn’t alone. And she didn’t linger. Fourteen and half minutes after she took the item, the alarm was set at the back door, and two people left the house. Ms. Collins and a large, unknown man. We have no record of him entering, but she must have admitted him. There was no prior alarm.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like us to send a team, sir? We can help—”

  “Not with this you can’t.” Sotiris hung up.

  Knowing what he’d find, but needing to see it anyway, he strode for the statuary, pulling so hard on the heavy door that it flew open. Light filled the room, activated by motion sensors embedded in the walls.

  “Fuck!” He followed the curse with a wordless roar of fury, storming over to the pile of rubble and staring, as if he could undo the disaster by focusing hard enough. “Fuck!”

  He spun away. There was no point in lingering over the bits and pieces of ancient stone that had been Dragan’s prison. With the warrior gone, it was nothing but trash. Damn it. His mind was spinning, thoughts jumping uselessly from one thing to the next. There was little doubt that the girl had been the one to free Dragan. The nature of the curse . . . it demanded a woman’s vulnerability to work. He’d designed it that way.

  And once the bastard was out. . . . Dragan had been a king’s son. A beautifully-made man, for all that he’d had the misfortune to have been “blessed” by the goddess and chosen to fight all her battles. Those battles had hardened him, but they’d also produced a confident strength that the girl, meek and inexperienced as she was, wouldn’t have stood a chance against. Not that Sotiris gave a damn about her. It didn’t matter anymore whether or not she’d helped Dragan. She’d stolen from him. Stolen the one thing he could not lose. She would die for this.

  Sotiris forced himself to focus, to consider his options. He wouldn’t be able to find Dragan until the warrior used his magic, which in turn wo
uldn’t be possible until he’d topped off his energy levels. A thousand years ago, he would have been bursting with magic in the short distance between house and garage. But now? Hell, with magic so thin in this world, it could take days. But Sotiris wouldn’t wait that long to find him. To find the hexagon. He had to catch them before the warrior managed to reconnect with Katsaros, something that would happen soon, if the last few months were any indication. The bastard was more than strong enough to be aware that his man was free, though he shouldn’t be able to know exactly where. Not with the goddess’s magic mucking things up. Katsaros would be reduced to sending out a homing beacon of sorts, hoping to bring the warrior to him, which might well take a while, given the distances involved.

  That gave Sotiris time, but didn’t help him find Dragan. On the other hand, he realized if he got close enough to the girl, he could track the hexagon. It had been created with his power after all. Or close enough as to make no difference.

  He didn’t need to find Dragan. He needed to find the girl. Unfortunately, he’d never bothered to hang a tracking spell on her personally. There’d been no reason. However, she did own and carry with her the usual assortment of electronic devices so pervasive to this age, every one of which should make her eminently trackable. Sometimes, technology was a fair substitute for magic. Not very often, but sometimes.

  Going into his office, he picked up the landline phone on his desk, which would route the call through so many places around the world that it would be close to untraceable. Not that it mattered—it would be a short conversation. He dialed a number from memory and started talking as soon as the call was picked up, before the other man could even speak.

  “I want Maeve Collins located. You have her information.”

  “It’ll take time.”

  “It’s urgent. Bonus fees will apply.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  The line went dead. Sotiris dropped the phone to his desk, and sat down to consider his next steps.

  Chapter Three

  Near Cuyahoga National Park, Ohio

  MAEVE WAS TIRED and hungry by the time they neared Cuyahoga Falls. The five hour drive had seemed much longer, given the stress of their hurried departure and the fact that she hadn’t slept much the previous night. There was also the constant worry that they’d been followed, which had her looking at the rearview mirror as much as the road. Wanting to get as far away as she could before stopping for the night, she’d taken them through the first drive-through they’d hit once they passed Buffalo. She’d figured Dragan had to be starving, no matter how or where he’d been imprisoned. There was physical hunger, and then there was the psychological need for food. She understood that, but driven by instincts that were telling her to run, she’d settled for McDonald’s as the easiest and fastest stop.

  Dragan hadn’t known what to order, so thinking about her male cousins—every one of whom towered over her—she’d ordered four quarter-pounders with cheese and four giant orders of fries. She went with water to drink, since she couldn’t imagine he’d be too thrilled with any kind of soft drink, much less a milkshake, which was her sin of choice.

  She paused in the parking lot long enough to show Dragan their gourmet lunch selection, then watched him study it before taking a tentative bite. His first reaction was a wince, but long-dormant hunger must have kicked in after that, because he ate through three burgers and the better part of four orders of fries, before gulping down three bottles of water, and looking around for more.

  More? Jesus, he made her cousins look like picky, thin super-models.

  “We’ll eat more when we stop for the night. Better food, too,” she said, hoping she wasn’t lying. She’d never been to any part of Ohio, and had no idea what to expect. Especially since they were heading to an area known mostly for a river which had caught fire and then served as the poster child for national environmental legislation.

  On the other hand, she’d already decided to stop close to the national park, rather than driving the extra distance into Cuyahoga Falls. It wasn’t as if either of them cared about the scenery. They only needed a place to sleep for a few hours, and then they’d be moving on. Even northern Florida was a lot farther than Tennessee. Using Orlando as a target, mostly because she’d been to Disney World there, her nav system estimated almost sixteen hours of driving, and that didn’t include stops to rest. But since every mile was one more between them and Sotiris, she didn’t mind.

  “That looks good,” she said, spotting the sign for a major mid-priced hotel chain.

  Dragan read the sign. “I thought that was your word for holy days.”

  “Oh, hmm. I’m sure the word originated with that since the only days off used to be religious holy days. It’s not my field, but I’d guess holidays”—she gave it the contemporary pronunciation—”didn’t become common until after World War II.”

  “World War?”

  She glanced at him.

  “Since my imprisonment, I spent more centuries than not in complete darkness. You, sweet Mae, were the first person to visit me in a very long time. Other than that fucking sorcerer, and he never bothered to tell me about the latest world events.”

  She wondered about his use of the word “fucking,” but given its sexual nature—and the fact that she was far too aware of him sitting only inches away from her, looking all studly and gorgeous—she decided to forego any further etymological conversation. Instead, she focused on what he’d said. Centuries? Was that even possible?

  “May I ask you a question?”

  He glanced at her with a lingering smile, then turned back to the road and said, “Ask.”

  “How did you . . . ? I mean, why would Sotiris do that to you?”

  “Why do men usually do such things? Greed. Hatred. It was a vastly different world, then. Perhaps an entirely different world. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “But in my world, sorcerers ruled great territories and led armies of thousands in search of more. Nicodemus was young, but already the most powerful sorcerer in the known world. And Sotiris hated him for that. He was two decades older than Nico, older than any of us, and resented losing the eminent position that had been his, especially to someone so young.” He shook his head, eyes closed, as if remembering. “Nico was . . . amazing. He was able to do things as a child that even mature sorcerers could never master. Feats which only fed Sotiris’s envy and hatred.

  “We fought battle after battle against him, and always won, taking great swathes of his territory, and gaining the love of people who’d been his, since Nicodemus was a far more benevolent ruler. Sotiris was a greedy bastard—the world wouldn’t have been enough for him. He always wanted more. Fortunately for the world, he wasn’t strong enough to hold it.” He frowned. “Which is why he resorted to treachery and magic to finally defeat us.

  “We had gathered for a final decisive battle, the one that would have ended the fighting and seen Sotiris dead, or at least gone from our world. But he cast a great spell moments before the battle began. The four of us—my brother warriors and I—were imprisoned in stone and cast into the winds of time. Nicodemus was left free, and yet not. But I know him, and if he still lives, he will have spent the intervening years searching for the four of us. And if he’s dead, then he died still looking.”

  “That’s awful,” she whispered, not intending him to hear.

  But he did, and his green eyes were bleak when they met hers. “Awful doesn’t come close. It was the worst sort of hell.” His eyes closed as his head dropped back against the headrest, and she thought he was finished talking. But then he rolled his head toward her and said, “Do you know . . . I watched the shadows move over the walls every day, waiting for your visits.”

  Maeve scrunched her face, embarrassed. “I probably talked your ear off. If I’d known you were truly listening, I’d have tried to be more interesting. Or at
least useful.”

  “You were more than useful. You saved my sanity. And now, you’ve broken the curse.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I’m glad it worked, but it’s not like I knew what I was doing. I still don’t know—”

  “It wasn’t your words that did it, nor some magical cantrip you happened upon. It was your heart, sweet Mae. Your compassion in the face of Sotiris’s hatred.” He smiled. “That and your love of wings.”

  Her face heated. “Sorry about that. I probably shouldn’t have stro—touched them the way I did.”

  His smile broadened. “You talked about them often enough, even without touching. I rather liked it,” he said lightly.

  She pulled into the hotel parking lot, grateful for the dark night that hid her flushed cheeks. Stopping under the portico outside the hotel lobby, she turned to him. “I’ll go in and make the arrangements. It won’t take but a minute. I’d invite you along, but I don’t want to draw attention, in case Sotiris sends someone after us. You’re too obvious. Especially if the desk clerk is female,” she added in a mutter. “Tomorrow we’ll stop on the way, at an outlet mall or something, and stock up. But for tonight, we’ll check into the room discreetly, order some food, and sleep. Okay?”

  “More hamburgers?”

  She winced. “Maybe something more wholesome. There’s a coffee shop here. Let’s try that.”