Dragon Queen (Avery Rome Book 3) Read online

  Real Tarsus had taken about thirty seconds to do it, the first time they’d met. That was how she’d gotten the copy of the demon library in her mind.

  Valerie looked at her funny for a moment, then nodded. It was nearly terse.

  “Do you think it’s time then?”

  Avery actually understood the meaning of that. She wanted to know if it was time to punish the powers that had tried to execute her daughter for not dying like she should have. The story was darker than it sounded on the surface, once memory Kait came to the front.

  “I think so. We need to at least start in on the ground work. I also don’t want to mess up any plans that your daughter already has in place. So, we should go? I can do that when I get back.” They were both going to the meeting, after all. Avery still needed to vote, as well.

  They could choose to do that on the computer, which allowed everyone in the world to do it that day. Or to use a write in ballot. Those were already in however. There was a count of those early responders, but it was illegal to put that out to anyone until after all the votes were in.

  Barb waved at her.

  “We have more messages? Can you come back when you’re done?”

  She could, of course. Even if she was supposed to show up for breakfast, no one would blame her for working and doing her job, instead. The only person that might be troubled would be Calley, if she lost. Even if everyone was saying it was kind of likely. It wasn’t that no one liked her, but she wasn’t old, and while kind of famous and well connected, the other people involved were pretty important as well. Whoever got the most votes won, so if she was in the same category as anyone else, she might lose, because her demographic had been split up.

  Not that it mattered.

  Avery was proud of the woman regardless. She’d pulled out the stops on her campaign and actually had a good platform. The only issue there was that the others weren’t doing poorly that way. They were all worthy seeming people. At least the ones she knew about.

  That she wasn’t totally informed on all of them was… Really, probably a thing that she just had to fix. There was likely data inside her mind for that. If she could ask the right questions. The only thing lacking was time to get that done.

  Taking Val by the hand, she lightly pulled the woman through the floating and dynamic node that existed in the back room. It was lovely today, showing an odd green hue to it. That wouldn’t impact anything as far as travel went. It probably meant that someone was doing magic or using a lot of electricity near the node. That or… Something being done with radio waves. She hoped it wasn’t anything serious.

  They stepped into a large room, that had held a party the last time they’d come in. Complete with writhing bodies on the floor. This time there were three people, two good looking men and a very hot woman, all dressed up to look like professionals. Suits and business skirts. Val looked right for the room, suddenly, but Avery was dressed all wrong for it. A single female Alede, who had red hair and felt older than the twenty-three she looked came forward. The woman smiled hugely, stepping forward.

  “Ah! Valerie, so nice to see you. I see that you’re with… Is this Miss Rome?” Interestingly, the man to her right held out an electronic notepad, showing an image of her, that had been on American television. She was nude in the picture, since she was about to turn into a Dragon at the time. The guy nodded.

  “That seems correct?” Then he stopped, and really looked at her closely. “I love that dress, by the way. The shoes are adorable too. Can I get the name of your person?”

  She nodded.

  “I did these. Last night before bed. I have a party, of sorts. The Shifter election is today.”

  The man nodded at her, but seemed happy enough to have her there. That showed in his pants.

  “Really? That sounds fun. We should get together and play dress up sometime. We’re about the same size. In my girl form, I mean. A little bigger…” The man stopped suddenly, as the others glared at him.

  Avery just nodded.

  “Up top? I think it’s a dragon thing. At least the two men that I met didn’t have large breasts either. There aren’t a lot of us. Anyway, we should try and do that? I have to go right now though. I can pick you up later, if you want, Valerie?” It was just what she always asked her friends, when leaving them anyplace. It just seemed polite, really.

  “Oh! That would be lovely! We can get Kaitlyn to do it, but it’s good to have backup plans. You had work to do, before you attend your presidential candidate? You’re backing Calley Hale, aren’t you?”

  The words were strange tasting, but she nodded, since it was also correct, more or less.

  “That’s right. She’s a friend of mine, but also has a good platform. Everyone in the running seems to be a strong contender, so there really isn’t going to be a loss tonight. Not for the Shifters as a whole. I’m going to collect whoever wins and take them to the government complex after that, for a news conference. Then probably back to whatever party they have planned.” It was probably telling them too much, considering the man who liked her dress and shoes appeared to be taking notes. On a data pad, but he was actually writing it down. Then he reached into his side pocket and moved in to hand her a card.

  “Marty Hagman. Deputy Attaché, in charge of travel and papers.”

  “Nice to meet you, Marty. Everyone. Call me if you need me, Val?”

  It was probably a little abrupt, but something in her head was telling her to leave. Quickly. That memory wasn’t that of Tarsus however. No, it was a different Greater Demon. One who, when the inside of her mind was offered up…

  Seemed far nicer than most of the others of her kind. Zack was a bit more gentle, perhaps, but the girl was no worse than most Shifters that way. That part was a bit of a shock, to be honest. Avery would have figured her as being manipulative and cold inside. Instead she seemed nearly normal. Like a real girl.

  Woman, since she was in her mid-twenties.

  Blinking, she took off, not really up on everything yet. On the other side of the void, after opening that up, she stood alone for a moment in the back of the Yoghurt World. Working things out. When it came up, Keeley Thomson, The Mistress of Souls, informed her of what the issue was.

  Marty Hagman had been part of trying to have Kaitlyn Swanson murdered. Worse, the man hadn’t even done it as part of his job. He’d actually been working with several other elites to punish Kait for being related to Judy Swan. The famous actress.

  One of the people who were going to be on the new television program with Avery. They’d actually done the pilot already, which had gone over well in the special testing for such things. That meant they had at least one thirteen-episode season to prove themselves worthy to be in people’s homes. Her role hadn’t been that hard, since she was basically playing herself, except that instead of being a line walker, she was just a regular Dragon. Also, a mercenary, but Avery was actually one of those, so it wasn’t that different for her. Her parts had mainly been about guarding the main character from a Vampire. One that wasn’t that old or powerful in the show at all. That role was played by a Human man, who was decently well regarded as an actor.

  They’d had a fight scene, and she’d shifted into her half form, since it would save on special effects. Part of her hadn’t loved that, since she was an unclean Death Serpent, but the audience had been impressed, or so she’d heard. They were starting their filming season in mid-June, since the director wanted to have the whole thing in the bag by October. It was airing starting in late September. That was the plan anyway. It was going to be on the same channel that had Krista Hall’s popular program. Blood Reborn.

  Since she was directing the program Avery was in, that made sense, because she had to be in both locations.

  After she collected herself for a minute, taking the whole thing to consider what to do about Marty and his friends, she nodded. Then she moved to the front, to find that Barbara was just cleaning the tables. It was already clean, but Eve had shared that i
t was part of their duty there, to make certain no one with superior senses would be offended.

  “Barbara?” The woman spun to look at her, faking a smile.

  “Right. I’d feed you, but not in that dress. I won’t be the one to help you get something on it. Here, the messages. One of them is from Eric Weise. He wants to set up a conference with you in a few days. That will be him and a few of his Mages, I think. Get back to him for that, regardless of what you decide. Then…” She shifted the papers in her hand, showing there was a second sheet. “If you can find your way to Human Zack’s world? Chris, one of their Human line walkers came, asking after you. I don’t think it was for a date. I did mention your boyfriend, but he didn’t seem to be driven back. Then I also mentioned the whole thing where you two were on Vampire rules for that and what that would mean. After all, you’d be silly not to hit that. Especially since he’s a line walker already. At the very least you need to go and make sure he has whatever it is he needs. Help or whatever.”

  Nodding, she tried to smile, puzzled by both of the messages, if she were going to be honest about it.

  “I’ll get back to them. Probably not today. I have a sense that things might just be a little bit busy. I don’t know why.” She really did, but Barb just nodded, picking that up.

  She was an Elder, so of course she was going to understand things more easily than Avery would.

  “I hear that. Anyway, get going. You aren’t even late yet. Just remember, in a week you get to start your real summer vacation. All two days of it. Then things will really pick up for you.” She seemed to think it was funny, even if it was probably true.

  She didn’t really expect much of a vacation to come. She already knew that she was going to be working. Both on the show and with her other jobs. Now all she had to do was to convince Krista Hall that the best place to shoot a television program was from inside the mall. That would make her commute really easy.

  That was what she was thinking when she stepped out of the back of the shop in Vancouver and ended up in Nevada. Next to a plant that looked like a hippo.

  Chapter two

  There was no one waiting outside for her, or anyone else, though the parking lot off to the left of the circular driveway was half filled with cars already. Most people drove to get where they wanted to go. It made sense that there would be provisions for that kind of thing in place, given that simple fact. She’d used a shortcut, technically. A warp in space that lead from one point to another directly. It was tied to the node at Westfield, since it had been manufactured at some point. Probably by Zack, the Greater Demon. At least it was a lot more useful than most of the random rips and tears that seemed to occur naturally.

  It was also a very symmetrical disk, which had layers of different see-through colors to it. Each of those led to a different location. It also gave the thing a nice, rather friendly, rainbow appearance. The thing shimmered in the air, catching her attention for a few moments. As a Dragon, or so the rumors went, she was going to be extra attracted to shiny things. This one had to count for that. It was lovely on a level that few things ever truly were.

  Supposedly Avery could learn to open things like that as well. How that was supposed to be done, she didn’t really know.

  Except, of course, she kind of did.

  It wasn’t even coming from the demon library in her head. A lot of information had been over the last few months. It was just something that made sense to her, when she thought about it for even a few seconds. People, even regular Humans, could warp space around them. Bente, her mentor, could tear the fabric of reality open, and step into the lines that way. Technically, she tended to walk on the fringe of the reality they were in. Almost outside of space itself, but not quite. That was what Greater Demons and even the lesser ones meant when they spoke of line walking, really. Skirting the edge of physical space, to move around unimpeded.

  The thing there was that anyone should be able to learn to open space like that. Then, once it was finished, if she connected two points on purpose, it would make a short cut. A rift in space that would allow her to walk from one place to another. If the far side of that was directly next to a node, that could be used to step all the way outside of space and time. On the other hand, if she linked things to the void itself, she should be able to create a small, but real, node. The trick would be in sealing the edges correctly, so that it wouldn’t slip away after a few minutes.

  She didn’t need anything like that at the moment, but she kind of did need to learn how to actually do it. That way she wouldn’t be as easily trapped anywhere. Really, it would speed up her ability to go to a lot of places, since Nodes didn’t just show up everywhere equally.

  Her head hurt a bit, after thinking about all that. It was pretty creative, for her, and her brain wasn’t up to that kind of thing all the time yet. It might never really be, given her innate nature. Memorizing things was easier than being artistic for her kind. Making things up was almost a super-power for Shifters and a lot of other kinds of beings. Humans were very close to being the masters of that particular magic. On the good side, she could use that part of her being now. Thanks to the punishing training of the Fashion Demon.

  The whole thing was nearly a joke, of course. A thing that had been set up in the first place by Zack. Probably to manipulate her later. There had been hints of that being his end goal, at least. Then, every single Greater Demon she’d ever met had flat out told her that all of them were going to do things like that to her, if they could. Not trusting their warnings would be silly of her, given that.

  Knocking on the large, white front door, she was a bit surprised when it was opened, not by Calley or Tyler, but by Ann. Tyler’s mother. The Greater Demon known as The Rotted. The being that held her own mother as a personal slave.

  A person who was, more or less, a friend of hers from school. They’d sat together at lunch every day for half a year, at least. Which was very clearly about more of that manipulation. Even Avery got that bit.

  “There you are! Everyone is coming in over the next few hours.” She stopped then, the young face smiling. “Also, you look incredible. That dress should be nearly enough to keep Bente from hanging you by your thumbs for a week. You could do a better job on the makeup. Not much, since your face is your face and you haven’t learned to shape shift to fix that, but on that score you have the single worst mentor you possibly could. Bente is picky as fuck about how faces look. No one else will think you’re a shame to your people today though. You could do movies and look right for the role at the moment. Come in?”

  The girl, who looked white, and slender, at the moment, snagged her darker hand and pulled Avery inside the vast palace. It was the house where the band Living Proof lived. If you could call it something as pedestrian as a home. Or suggest that what they did was honestly living. None of them were actually alive, strictly speaking. Three of them were Vampires now. The remaining one was basically a Zombie. Unclean undead, each and every one.

  Her friends.

  That was clear, because when they got to the living room, which was a huge space that had multiple, and very expensive seeming seating options, she was met with several hugs. A virtual flood of them, which came from every side. The first was from Calley Hale, who bounded across the room at her, the Bat’s short red hair not moving as she did it. She was in a skirt, blouse and jacket, in an official appearing off gray color, complete with sensible shoes. Calley looked about twenty, but was older than that. Closer to forty. Young to be a leader of her people, but not to a level that it wouldn’t be allowed. Some shifters just didn’t age like Humans did.

  That meant that most of their kind wasn’t going to judge based on appearances that way.

  Warm arms went around her, from slightly below, since Hale was even shorter than she was. By several inches. Nearly half a foot. Bat Shifters simply weren’t large people. Dragons were just all over the place that way. At least she thought that was the case. It wasn’t as if she’d met a lot of them i
n her life. They weren’t common at all.

  “Avery! You actually came. I wasn’t certain… I mean, being linked to a loser wouldn’t help your street cred, you know? I could see you being careful that way.” She seemed to mean the strange words.

  Tarsus didn’t tell her what they meant, but did remind her to use the data she held inside of her. It was a thing he did now and again, which came across almost as a lesson. Sometimes he just gave her what she needed, but at other points he insisted she do it for herself. It didn’t take very long at all, once she bothered to try.

  Smiling, Avery carefully hugged her back. The woman needed the contact, as a rule. It was part of her nature. Bat Shifters had very high contact needs, compared to a lot of other Shifters. They were also very sexual, because of that fact.

  “We’re friends. Of course I’m here. Besides, we honestly can’t lose today.” She really meant it, due to the fact that everyone running was a good enough choice, but Calley snorted.

  Then she pulled back, holding Avery’s hand tightly and moving them both into the room, where people were sitting. Some holding cups of coffee, almost as if they were magical talisman. There were enough people already that it was kind of hard to find everyone she knew. Most of them were people that she simply didn’t have names for, which was interesting. They were probably her people, after all. From the way they moved, which tended toward smooth and energetic, or in a few cases didn’t, it was certain that most of them were Shifters of some kind.

  Avery didn’t let that observation wow her too much, since people coming to a Shifter Presidential vote party might just be linked to that group. It wasn’t hard to figure out.