Page 287 of Dragon Slayer

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CATS AND DOGS

Jake was…really tired of all this magic bullshit. Despite what Dr. Talbot had insisted during his initial debriefing – when he’d made the transition from patient to operative; before that disastrous trip out west to retrieve Ruby Russell – magic appeared to be completely uncontrollable for mere mortals. It was bad enough with the werewolves, and the girl, and the angry Marine, and those bow-and-arrow guys who’d stormed the place. Not to mention the resident vampires. But now here sat this red-haired shithead, and Jake was…pretty much done.

They sat in the upstairs study, the one in the main part of the house that Dr. Talbot used to entertain visitors he didn’t want to drag through the chaotic, ugly lab area in the basement; the people he needed to schmooze. Jake didn’t understand why he was here, and was doing his best to melt back into the flocked wallpaper.

Today, Liam Price was dressed in olive-colored slacks with a knife crease, a cream sweater, and had a black topcoat draped over his shoulders. He sat with his elbows braced on the arms of his chair, hands linked together in front of him. It was such a calculated, designed-to-impress pose, and Jake hated him for it.

“I’m assuming you still want me to perform the locating spell?” he said.

“Er, yes, please. If it’s not too much trouble. I’ve already spoken with Lord Dracula about his use of electrical corrective measures in the future,” Talbot said.

Price leaned forward a fraction, gaze going to the door. “Shall we do it now? No time like the present. Then we can begin searching for my daughter in earnest.”

Talbot winced – Jake suspected mostly because the idea of launching another search for Russell, this time with her fire-wielding parents in tow, sounded truly awful. “Actually. Well. Prince Valerian isn’t here at the moment.”

That caught Price’s attention. He turned back slowly, red brows lifted. “Beg pardon? I thought you had him chained up for everyone’s safety.”

“We did. Wedo. It’s only – his brother’s taken him riding this morning.”

“His –brother?”

Talbot looked ashamed. “Yes.”

“I was under the impression they hated one another.”

“I’m not sure they don’t.”

Jake could still see Prince Valerian laid out on the library rug when he blinked. Arms and legs twitching, blood pouring out of his mouth and down his chin, matting his hair. A wound like a canyon, opening him at his neck, and shoulder, and chest. Jake had seen ribs. Jake had been to war, and that was part of the reason, he was sure, he’d staggered away and vomited into an ornate vase in the hallway.

It had seemed like the sort of wound delivered by a hateful hand. It was one thing to kill on orders, to drop an enemy in combat; it was another to savage an opponent like that.

ButPrice stroked his chin with one long finger and looked pensive. “Vampires often have strange relationships with one another. They love deeply, but they aren’t pack animals. It makes for unusual personal dynamics.”

Jake snorted despite his determination to keep quiet. “So werewolves are dogs and vampires are cats?”

“More or less,”Price said, serious. “Is this the first time he’s been out of his cell?” he asked Talbot.

“N-no. It’s…the third.”

Price lifted his brows, inviting an explanation.

Talbot sighed, looking caught between shame and dread. Like a scolded child, Jake thought. “Yesterday, before you arrived, Vlad unhooked his brother’s restraints and took him up to his own room, to be bathed and cleaned and redressed. Before that…there was an escape.”

“An escape? Dr. Talbot, did Prince Valerian contribute to the ‘chaos’ into which you lost my daughter?”

“Yes.”

He thought that over for a moment. “I want to examine his cell.”

“Of – of course.”

They all trooped down to the dungeon. It sparked a knee-jerk, momentary panic in Jake to see the door of the last cell standing open. He hung back, and wasn’t even ashamed of the fact, content to let Price walk into the cell and take a look around. This was his errand, after all.

The mage turned in slow circles, eyes tracking over everything. He leaned forward and picked something up off the cot. He smirked and then showed it to them: a small mirror, like a woman would carry in her purse. “Someone brought him a little gift for his vanity.”

Talbot sighed. “That would be the baroness, I imagine. They’re friends of a sort.”

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