The Stone Warriors: Dragan Read online

  Dragan didn’t need to watch. He knew the power of his arm and his blade, knew the magic racing like fire through muscle and bone until he was a creature of purest sorcery. He lifted his gaze to the men who’d gathered to cheer on their leader, the ones who’d be next to die if they chose to fight. For every warrior Dragan faced met death. There could be no other outcome. Dragan was his magic. It made his heart beat and his chest swell. It was his gift from the goddess, to safeguard her realm.

  The enemy fighters lingered for no more than an instant longer. It was one thing to face Dragan in the light of day, with their staunch leader heading the charge. It was another to challenge a flame-eyed demon with wings as black as the night settling around them, while their leader lay dead.

  They fled, shoving at each other in their desperation to escape the gods’ own nightmare.

  Dragan followed their retreat to the shore, close enough that they knew he was watching, but distant enough that none would feel the need to prove their courage and challenge him. He might be the goddess’s chosen, the scourge of any who thought to invade her isle, the pitiless defender of her people. But he didn’t have to enjoy it.

  His own mother had abandoned him to the priests at the moment of his birth. He’d been suckled by goats and raised to the blade, living under the priests’ pitiless care and never knowing a kind word or gentle hand. That had changed the first time the goddess’s magic had manifested his wings. The priests had prostrated themselves before him then, their faces buried against the dirt.

  He’d lived all alone from that day forward. Honing his skills in battle, his victory never in doubt, the only question how many he would kill on the day.

  But he was tired. He hadn’t volunteered for this life of blood and loneliness. A life that had no reward at its end, no quiet withdrawal from the fight as his grandchildren played nearby. His only reward would be death. And then the next king’s second son would be blessed by the goddess.

  Walking into the yard after the battle, he stabled his horse first. A young, terrified boy was waiting to care for the animal, which would be groomed and fed, given the best of care. Because horses were valuable. More so than blessed warriors, it seemed.

  He went directly to his cottage after that, pausing outside to drag off his bloody clothes and armor, to leave them in a blood-stained basket. The priests would come before dawn to collect them, cleaning the armor and burning the clothing, leaving a clean basket of replacements near the door. Dragan didn’t know where the fresh clothing came from or who cleaned his armor. It didn’t matter, as long as it was there when he needed it, when the next battle horn sounded and he rode off to slaughter a new band of invaders.

  He washed himself next, drawing bucket after bucket of cold water and sluicing his naked body, not caring who might see. His yard was discreet enough, protected from the castle’s overview and invisible from the village. Secret enough for lust-filled visitors in the night. But it also afforded him the privacy to bathe—a small, if coincidental, courtesy. Perhaps the only one.

  Once he’d scrubbed his skin until it burned like a thousand bee stings, he walked into the cottage and pulled on his night clothes, then sat before the fire and ate the dinner left on the hearth for him. That was another duty of the priests, though he doubted they did their own cooking. As he ate, he drank flagon after flagon of ale, until his body began to relax and his anger to fade.

  It was as he was finally crossing to his bed that he heard the call to battle.

  He jerked to a halt, every muscle tensing, his throat straining to swallow the howl of anger that threatened to force its way to his lips. He’d killed enough enemies for one day. But when he went to cover his ears against the inevitable horn’s blare, he realized this call was different. It was a voice on the wind, a warm draft of air that snuck through the cracks of this cold night, and sought him out, as if it carried a message for him alone to hear. But it wasn’t from the goddess.

  It was, however, a summons to war, a call for the finest warriors on earth to fight for the very soul of mankind. To battle an evil that would crawl over the land until there was nothing else.

  Dragan was no fool. As a creature of magic, he knew sorcery when it touched him. But this sorcerer wanted more than a lone fighter. He wanted Dragan to join with other great warriors like himself, to form a brotherhood against evil. He stumbled back to sit on his bed. Was this a trick? An enemy trying to lure him away? Or a test from the goddess? But as the summons came again, he tasted its magic and found nothing familiar, nor anything of deception or guile. He stared around the cottage where he’d lived most of his life, where he’d live the rest of his life, if he did nothing to change it. And he thought about a brotherhood of fellow warriors, standing side by side with him against the enemy. Brothers who’d watch his back and share his ale at the end of the day.

  He stood and began packing. Better to die young as a warrior standing with brothers, than to live forever alone as a monster.

  Chapter Six

  On the road to Manhattan,

  New York City, NY, present day

  SOTIRIS’S FOOT SLAMMED his brakes while his hand pounded the horn when a huge truck cut in front of him, using its size to demand the right of way as it took a last-minute exit. Humans. A necessary but inelegant part of his life. But perhaps they wouldn’t be so much if he could bring his new project to fruition. His thoughts returned to memories of his early planning stages and the realization that Dragan, the warrior imprisoned and at his mercy, was the perfect answer to his power problems.

  Others might have studied the trapped warrior and seen nothing but stone. But Sotiris had known better. He’d known there was warm blood flowing beneath the stony exterior, a desperately beating heart and straining lungs. It made him smile again, just thinking about the torture it must have been. But then he remembered that Dragan was gone, and his rage roared into life once more.

  He’d designed the damn device, spent months perfecting it. He’d been ready for the final test, for the infusion of magic to power it. And that was where Dragan had come in. He’d never intended to do more than lock away that fucking monster in a place where Katsaros would never find him. But then, he’d thought . . . why waste all that potential? His device needed power. And Dragan was not only powerful, but goddess-blessed. His magic wasn’t quite the same as a sorcerer’s in-born power, but it was close. Dragan had been gifted by the goddess at the moment he emerged from the womb, his power vested in every cell of his body, just like a sorcerer’s. The warrior might be trapped in this magic-starved world, but his magic still came from the goddess, not the earth or the sky, or even simple genetics. The goddess had blessed him upon birth, creating a direct line between Dragan and her personal power. He could benefit from whatever magic was floating freely about, but he didn’t need it. As long as he was alive, there was an engine inside him, ready to tap into the goddess and draw down more magic.

  Granted, the people of this world didn’t seem to believe in the gods anymore, but their belief wasn’t necessary in this case. Sotiris had tested Dragan and confirmed the existence of his magical reserve, even after being held dormant for so long, though it was somewhat depleted by time and neglect.

  The memory of that moment, of the confirmation of his theory, still had the power to make Sotiris smile, but he no sooner had the thought than his mood plummeted once again.

  Dragan. Just when Sotiris had been ready to begin, when the necessary device was complete and he’d only been waiting for his own magic reserves to return to their peak, Dragan had been freed by a silly girl who had no idea of the forces she was taking on.

  She’d find out soon enough, once his investigator managed to track her down. But it might already be too late. Sotiris had sensed the moment of Dragan’s release and knew that his enemy would have done the same. Unfortunately, that also meant he’d begin searching for his warrior usin
g both magical and mundane means, which would very quickly draw the warrior straight back to his master, fucking Nicodemus Katsaros.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t matter where Dragan went now. Freed of his stone prison, he’d be useless for Sotiris’s purposes. A powerful monster trapped in stone was useful. That same monster on the loose and looking for vengeance was a nightmare.

  Sotiris drew up in front of his Manhattan high-rise on that thought. Leaving the Maybach running, he swung out of the driver’s seat and strode into the lobby through a door held open by the doorman, while the valet rushed out to drive the car over one block to the building’s private garage. As it was still mid-afternoon, the tower’s elevator was empty. Stepping inside, he inserted his key, ensuring a high-speed flight directly to the penthouse level.

  Once there, he went straight to the bar, poured himself a generous three fingers of very fine scotch, then sat in front of the living room’s big window to stare at the sky and think. Power. Magical Power. He needed it to make his device work, and he needed his device to ensure his place on top of the power hierarchy of this world. He sat silently and sipped.

  The glass was almost empty when the solution hit him. He didn’t need Dragan. He needed a power source. In fact, he could use multiple sources if necessary. Not too many sources, though. That would be tedious. But a few individuals with substantial power—not like Dragan’s, but strong enough to combine with others—would work as well. He rose to refill his glass, then went back to his contemplation of the now darkening sky, this time not bothering to sit. He had several minor magic workers in his employ, but “minor” was the key word. They were good for hunting down magical artifacts, and providing security for some of his properties where valuable artifacts—both magical and not—were stored. He’d contemplated using them at the Finger Lakes house, but hadn’t wanted to draw the wrong kind of attention to Dragan’s hiding place. He hadn’t anticipated the threat posed by a lone human woman, but that was water under the bridge.

  The magic workers he employed could possibly serve his current needs, but it would take several of them working together, and he was reluctant to do that. For one, he didn’t trust them enough, but he also didn’t want to lose their services, since the constant strain on their magic to power his device would eventually kill them. That had been yet another reason why Dragan had been so perfect—his body had been designed to endure the ebb and flow of powerful magic.

  He glanced through the big plate window to the street below, where traffic was at a near standstill as a few hundred thousand vehicles took to the street for rush hour. This time of year, it would be full dark soon, which would only make the traffic worse. Although the city’s lights would make up for the—

  “That’s it,” he muttered. He was surprised, now that he’d come up with a solution, that it had taken him so long to think of it. Losing Dragan had obviously angered him more than he’d understood, clogging his thoughts with useless emotion. But as always, a bit of good scotch had done its job. He knew what he had to do now. There was only one question left to answer: which vampire territory should he begin with?

  Chapter Seven

  Near Cuyahoga National Park, Ohio

  MAEVE SAT CROSS-legged on the bed nearest the window, while Dragan paced from the door to the window and back again, over and over, with occasional pauses to pull the curtain aside and stare down at the parking lot. The pacing didn’t bother her—she’d learned in college to work anywhere, despite the distractions. At first, she’d looked up every time he stopped at the window, worried that he’d seen something suspicious. But she’d soon figured out he wasn’t staring at anything in particular, but rather engaging in some serious brooding.

  She, on the other hand, was on a hunt—her favorite thing to do. Give her minimal information and a good wi-fi connection and she could find something on anybody. Granted, this time around, the opening information was a few steps lower than minimal. She had a guy—a sorcerer, supposedly—who’d lived in another world a few thousand years ago, and who was, hopefully, now in this world looking for Dragan and his brothers-in-arms, who’d also lived in that other world and time.

  Easy peasy, right? Apart from the magical aspect of it all. But then, she’d already admitted to herself that Dragan’s appearance and story held a note of truth, so . . . why not a thousands-year-old sorcerer. She sighed.

  “Did . . . Nicodemus,” she asked, stumbling a little over the unusual name, “have a last name? Um, a surname, a family name.”

  Dragan turned from the window and stared blindly, as if not seeing her.

  “Hello? Dragan?”

  He blinked. “It was a long time ago,” he said, which Maeve took as an apology. Or at least an explanation. “Nico was the son of a . . . king, you’d call it. He didn’t have a last name, so much as a territorial claim. Katsaros.”

  Maeve squinted up at him. “Can you spell it?”

  He looked frustrated. “I don’t know the names of all your letters, but I can write it for you.”

  “That works,” she said far too chipperly, automatically trying to counter his brooding, which she saw as sadness. Not that he didn’t deserve to be sad, but she didn’t want him to be. That approach made sense in her mind, which she admitted was a trifle twisty—one step sideways from that of most people she knew. She offered him a pen and paper, then went back to her keyboard, deliberately not watching him write. He’d said he could read, and his English was perfectly fine, with only the tiniest trace of an indefinable accent. But it wasn’t as if he’d been keeping a diary while trapped in stone for all that time. Writing might be more difficult.

  “I believe this is it. Read it, and I’ll know. Out loud,” he added, when she gave him a puzzled look.

  “Oh, right. Duh.” She glanced at the note. The letters were boldly written, the lines appearing slightly hesitant, but otherwise correct. “Katsaros,” she read, putting emphasis on the second syllable. “Am I saying that right?”

  “Yes. Nicodemus Katsaros.”

  Maeve nodded, studying the name thoughtfully. “If he’s been here as long as you—”

  “I don’t know how Sotiris’s curse affected Nicodemus. It was different for him, but I don’t know in what way.”

  “But you seem confident that he’ll have come looking for you and the others. Which means eventually—however you all do that sort of thing—he’d have ended up here. In this reality.”

  He nodded in agreement, although his eyes reflected less certainty.

  She wanted to say something amusing, once again wishing she could blow away the cloud of sadness that seemed to surround him too often. Biting back the urge, she feathered her fingers over the computer keys in thought. “Will he have aged?”

  “No, no more than Sotiris. Less even, since he was so much younger when his power came to him.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “He’ll have moved then, probably several times, so people wouldn’t get suspicious. And he’ll have changed his name, at least a little. Modernized it, switched things around.” Lips pursed, she started typing variations of the name, going for modern and westernized, focusing on North America. There was no evidence he was here, but it was a good place to start since Sotiris definitely was, and he seemed like the kind of man who’d want to keep his enemies close. Plus, there was lots of land, lots of people . . . a good place to hide in plain sight.

  On the other hand, he might well have kept his last name. Sotiris had, after all. And his name wasn’t exactly generic in the U.S. The first name, though—Nicodemus—that would definitely have been changed. It was too distinctly foreign, too unusual. It would draw attention, which a guy who lived forever wouldn’t want. Would he?

  Hell, what did she know? She was running on pure gut instinct, tempered by a lifetime of reading too many books. She called up a baby name website. Really, where else would one go? She st
arted with the n’s, only because in mystery thriller-type stories, the good guys always used the initial of their first name when picking a pseudonym. It supposedly offered some psychological boost so the person could remember the new name. As she searched, she skipped over anything unusual, since the whole point of his choice would have been to fit in. Nothing to see here, move along.

  “Nash, Nathan, Neil . . .” she began, tasting each name as she went. “Nelson.” She thought for a moment. “Nelson Katsaros.” Her lips twisted, her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head. “Nope. Let’s see, Neymar? Definitely not. Niam? Sounds like someone misspelled Liam. Nicholas, Nigel, Noah. . . .” She stopped and went back up the list. “Nicholas. Nicodemus. Nicholas.” She looked up to find Dragan watching her with a bemused expression. “What about Nicholas?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Of those you’ve spoken, it’s closest to his birth name. Does that matter?”

  “It might,” she said, thinking of those fictional characters and their pseudonyms. “Let’s give it a try anyway.” Going back to her search, she played with the spelling a bit, but eventually typed, “Nicholas Katsaros,” and hit “search.”

  A surprising number of entries returned, including more than a few obituaries, which she discounted, since the Nicholas she wanted wouldn’t have died at all, much less in his 90s. Long-lived people, those Katsaroses, but her target was immortal.