Page 57 of Bleeding for the Prince
One of the plus sides of being dead was that he didn’t feel the cold. “Give me your phone. I’m thermally immune.”
“Fucking corpse.”
“That’s your hobby, not mine.”
Gwil spent several minutes making recordings and taking photos while Hyax paced alongside their new scaly friend. He muttered something possibly fae and scooped several times to pick things off the floor.
“I’ve collected a few measurements. Once we’re back, I might be able to run a diagnostic to see if I can figure out how asleep this thing is.”
“I’m going to have to report what we’ve found to Goya.” As much as he hated the fucker, if he didn’t tell him and a dragon woke up and wiped out half of Kensington, he’d be hunted down and his head removed.
“Really? I’m surprised you’re willing to talk to him.”
“I have a duty to alert the Met if there’s a potential threat to life, especially on the scale a dragon might cause.”
“He’s not going to be able to help,” Hyax said. “I don’t want him turning up, trying to take over and ballsing everything up.”
“I don’t want that either, so it’s important I go with a plan when I do. And if we have to, I could ask Solivatus to get the Vampire Council involved.”
“Let’s avoid that if we can.”
“Agreed,” Gwil said. He knew why Hyax would be reticent, but he thought it was still good to have options.
Another loud snore reminded them of the urgency.
“Time to leave,” Hyax said. “We’ve got what we came for. The longer we stay the more likely we are to disturb it.”
They headed back to the tunnel and reversed their steps, Hyax wanting to be back in a stairwell before he’d risk opening a portal. They arrived at their home in Spitalfields, and Gwil grabbed a bottle of whisky. “I think we can both do with a drink after that.”
“Definitely. But at least we know what we’re dealing with.”
Gwil thought it a relief of sorts, but he had more questions. He handed Hyax a glass. “Right, based on what you saw down there, are you comfortable with the premise that the incidents are caused by rogue bubbles of dragon magic?”
“Yes,” Hyax said. He retrieved a couple of books. “I think it’s the only feasible explanation.”
“How does that work? Why weren’t you able to sense the residual magic at the scenes when the bubbles popped?”
Hyax flicked to a page in one of the books. “The dragon is in hibernation mode, according to this, which also creates a form of camouflage.”
“And that would wipe out all residual magic.”
Hyax removed several thin golden scales from his pocket. “I found these on the floor of the cave. My hypothesis is that the magic bubble is cloaked, but it can’t leave nothing behind because magic and physics don’t work that way. I think when the magic bursts, the residual magic manifests a thin scale.”
“Like the scale I found on the floor at Dante’s. It looked like a bit of paper, so I guess they might have been overlooked at the other incidents.”
“Yeah, who would be looking for a bit of rubbish? The book says that dragon magic often leaves a smattering of scales.”
Gwil knew he wasn’t an expert, and while he could understand the dragon magic theory relating to the incidents around levitated or magic-possessed objects, he didn’t see how it could work for the lust potion. “I get the ones where objects came alive, but the lust potion doesn’t fit this pattern. How could it happen to conjure up a potion with the capability to show true affection for someone who takes it? Was there one just sitting about, and it got snatched up and deposited in the changing rooms?”
Hyax nodded. “You’ve made a good point. They do have an apothecary, but lust potions can only be brewed for keyedindividuals; otherwise, they’re indiscriminate, and that’s not what happened. The two ladies had feelings for each other before the potion acted, and the background dragon magic could have masked what really happened.”
“I think we should rule that incident as an outlier and look at it as a separate event—not related,” Gwil said. “I’ve got the details of those involved. I’m going to do a bit of digging, but for now let’s work on the basis that the potion isn’t part of this.”
“Good idea. The remaining ones fit the pattern.”
Gwil knocked back his whisky. He’d seen a lot of strange things in his career, but a dragon under London, blowing magic bubbles, was a new one for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
