Stone Dragon (The Painter Mage Book 5) Read online

  “There might be.”

  I blinked slowly, surprised to hear Jakes’s voice. I looked over at Devan and raised my brow in question, but she only shook her head. She hadn’t known he was coming down either.

  “Jakes,” I said, eyeing him. He stood at the bottom of the stairs wearing dark jeans and a white shirt that strained to hold his muscles back. “Didn’t expect you to go breaking into people’s homes.”

  “That’s amusing, considering the source,” Jakes said.

  “I’ve never broken into your house,” I said.

  “Only the yard and the shed. You’ve brought Nizashi and other powers—” his eyes flicked past me to rest on Nik sitting on the shelf “—to my home. I might have information for you, but if you would rather I have knocked first…”

  I took a deep breath and laughed softly. “No. We’re friends, aren’t we?” I asked. Jakes’s face remained unreadable. “Anyway, you’re always welcome here. Maybe you give us a little warning shout the next time.” Jakes nodded solemnly as if what I’d asked of him was some monumental task he would fulfill. “What’d you learn? Tom know anything he can share?”

  “Tom knows very little about the Zdrn,” Jakes admitted. “He served your father many years, and thinks the escort has never come before.”

  Twice. If the Zdrn was held once every few centuries, my father would never have gone, but that didn’t mean he knew nothing about it. “What of your father? The Alpha would have gone as well, wouldn’t he?”

  Jakes tipped his head. “It is likely. He did not have the chance to share with me what service he’d been required to fulfill.”

  Sometimes it was easy to forget Jakes had been through as much as me. Losing his father had been challenging for him, thrusting him in the place where he had to lead. Everything that I’d learned told me he wasn’t quite ready for the position, but he did what he had to in order to keep the other shifters—and the city—safe. That included assuming the mantle of the Alpha.

  “You said there might be a way to find out what I need to do to survive the Zdrn,” I said.

  Jakes fixed me with an intense stare, the kind that told me I wasn’t going to like what he had to suggest. I’d seen the same from him before, and each time we came across a certain level of badness. “As much as he might have stored here, Tom didn’t think your father would keep anything about the Zdrn in Conlin.”

  I frowned. My father had left me a basement full of books, a house painted with protections, a park with statues of his creation, and a shed full of miniaturized prisoners, but there was nothing here about the Zdrn?

  So far, everything I’d found in Conlin from my father had been intended for me to use. If he hadn’t kept anything here about the Zdrn, that meant he hadn’t expected I would need to know. Maybe the Elder would have been surprised I’d been chosen too.

  “Then where?” I asked.

  “Tom suggested there would only be one place your father would entrust with that information.”

  My heart started to sink even before he finished and I understood why Jakes had given me a look that told me I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. Because I didn’t. Not one bit.

  Arcanus.

  When Taylor had come looking for help, I’d refused. Mostly because I didn’t know how much I could trust her, but she’d convinced me to at least consider returning to Arcanus if only to help find Hard. That had been when I had the possibility of having her with me, someone who had the potential to be raised to master level.

  If I returned, alone and without a chaperone to explain why I had?

  It might get ugly. No, it would definitely get ugly.

  “There’s no way I’d be able to get there, find what I might need to know, and get back in the three days the Wasdig gave me,” I said. “And he made it pretty clear what would happen if I wasn’t ready when he arrived.”

  Jakes nodded. “You have agreed to protect this place. And I serve as the guardian of the gates.”

  “Wait… you’re saying you’re going to let me use one of the doorways?”

  I wasn’t sure how he expected that to work. Most simply crossed the Threshold. Maybe they all did. And I knew what would be waiting for me if I did cross over. All sorts of Trelking soldiers, all intent to drag me off to his prison, a prison I’d been tasked with helping secure, so I knew exactly how powerful it would be.

  “I’m not sure that’s even the best idea, Jakes. We might be able to summon enough energy to cross the Threshold once, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to do it a second time. And then there’s the return.”

  “There is another way. One your father established for him to easily pass between Arcanus and Conlin.”

  Well, shit. Of course, there would be. My father was nothing if not prepared.

  I glanced at Devan who sat watching me with a blank expression, wondering if we’d missed it this entire time we’d been here. It seemed a cruel twist that Taylor had wanted to return, but Jakes had held back the means. Then again, she had nearly released the hunters into Conlin, so I couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep her away from other doorways, especially ones where she might learn how to pass from Arcanus and back to Conlin easily.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “It is in a place he designed for such a purpose, a place where few would expect to find it.”

  As he said it, I thought I knew. And began laughing.

  Devan looked over at me. “What? Where is it?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing my father left a special doorway for him to get easy access to meatloaf.”

  6

  The Rooster is one of those old fashioned diners, with the letters of the restaurant spelled out in bright red neon, the paint of the building looking crisp and fresh—probably some trick of my father’s—and an air of age about the building. Overtop all of that, was an underlying energy.

  Now that I knew to look for it, I could sense it easily. It was placed there by my father as a way to prevent any magical creatures from battling while on the Rooster’s grounds. A sort of place of peace, something like what I would be going to at the Zdrn, and that’s if I’m lucky. The energy started at the edge of the parking lot, a steady sense that pushed on my awareness even more than it ever had before. It reached the building, focused on it, placing the protection of the Elder overtop everyone who would enter.

  Except, I’d seen death near the Rooster. The Nizashi had been killed here. Nik somehow managed to bypass what my father had set in place. And there had been an attack on Tom’s private residence at the back of the diner, though I still didn’t know if my father’s protections extended there or not. What other magical beings could overwhelm the protections my father set in place around the Rooster?

  This early in the morning, coming in before the sun even poked its rosy head above the horizon, leaving little more than burnt orange clouds along the sky, the parking lot of the Rooster was empty. That didn’t mean no one was here. I’d come to learn an empty lot didn’t necessarily mean no one sat inside, probably gripping a cup of Tom’s dark coffee at this time of the day. Usually, there was at least one shifter lurking around. If it wasn’t Jakes, then it would be Kacey or someone else.

  I parked Big Red near the end of the first row of parking spots and climbed out. Devan tucked one of her figurines into a cubby on the dash before she jumped out and followed. Both of us were still tired from the night before. Me probably more than her. Devan needed sleep, but she could get by with quite a bit less than I could.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want to come over here last night after Jakes left,” Devan said. Even her voice was cheerier than me at this time of the day. I’d rather sleep until the sun was fully up. Getting up at sunrise was definitely not for me.

  “Thought about it,” I admitted. “But I wanted to be a little better rested before I risked this. I’m not sure what we’re going to come across here.”

  “And are you?”

  I shot her my best
forced smile, and she laughed at me.

  In reality, I felt like I was a little punch drunk, especially after spending another few hours working with Nik after Jakes left us last night. I’d managed to learn another of his magi tricks, this one involving a certain way of positioning his body tied to using a single word to charge the magic. From what I could tell, there was a pattern to everything Nik had taught me, even in speaking the word. It made me wonder how different the magi magic was from what painters used.

  The door opened with a tinkling of bells. There was a tingling sense as I passed through, the energy of the protections washing across my skin. Devan trailed behind me, staying close. Music trailed from the jukebox Devan had repaired, a steady country rhythm and not a song I’d ever heard before. Somehow, even though Devan had never spent much time on this side of the Threshold, she managed to find an eclectic assortment of songs for Tom’s jukebox, filling it with a surprising variety, mostly songs I’d never heard of before.

  The diner smelled of toast and eggs with heavy overtones of grease. My mouth started watering right away.

  I glanced around, surprised to see the diner mostly empty. This time, the empty parking lot had actually been because the diner was empty. Devan and I took places at the counter and waited.

  Tom Brindle popped his head out of the kitchen and looked over at me, a worried expression to his eyes. “Oliver. Sam tells me you intend to travel,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I have much of a choice. He told me you didn’t know much more about the Zdrn.”

  His eyes tightened. “Not anything that would be helpful. The Elder had been summoned before, but whenever he served, he did not require my assistance. I doubt there would have been anything I could have offered anyway.”

  I’d seen that Tom was a bit more than a simple tagger he claimed to be. Maybe not to the level of what I’d reached by spending the decade on the other side of the Threshold, but I’d seen the protections Tom had placed around the part of the diner where he lived. There had been elements of things my father would have taught him, but there had been more than that too. Tom had developed something of his own style, much as I had.

  “Yeah, well we’ve got two days. I’m not sure if that’s enough to reach Arcanus and find anything that would be helpful, but there doesn’t seem to be any other choice, does there?”

  “It’s a shame your friend could not go with you.”

  “So where is it?” I asked.

  “You’re just going to go? No breakfast?”

  I glanced at Devan, and she shrugged. “I could use something to eat.”

  “You could always use something to eat,” I said. Devan could eat more than me most days.

  Tom flashed a relieved smile and hurried back into the kitchen. He poked around for a few minutes, and when he returned, he carried two plates loaded with eggs, toast, and bacon, setting them down in front of us. Devan and I tore into them with abandon.

  Tom leaned back, watching us. “You should not have been the one summoned,” he finally said.

  I glanced up from my plate, my fork loaded with eggs and the piece of toast in my other hand hovering in front of my mouth. “That’s what I keep hearing.”

  “I don’t mean that to insult you, Oliver. Only that you are very new to your role. You only agreed to serve a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah. Serve the city. Jakes neglected to mention I would have to serve the Protariat as well.”

  Tom pushed his wire-framed glasses up on his nose. “You didn’t know?”

  I shook my head as I chewed. “Not when I spoke up.”

  Tom settled his hands on the counter. “Oliver, it’s not too late for you to change your mind. You don’t have to be the one to do this—”

  “Because there are so many others lining up? From where I’m sitting, it didn’t look like there were too many others interested in the gig.”

  Tom inhaled slowly. “I know your father would be proud of you, but I wonder if he knew what his role would involve. Would he still have served as he did?”

  I didn’t know my father as well as Tom. Or as well as many people. All I knew was that he had managed to lead the painters in Arcanus while still somehow serving on the Protariat, standing alongside powerful beings like the Trelking and Jakes’s father. That alone told me all I needed to know about my father’s abilities.

  “Well, I’m all we’ve got. Sorry to disappoint,” I muttered between bites of egg. Finishing, I set the fork down and looked to see that Devan had already cleared her plate.

  She focused on Tom as if trying to understand something about him, and then smiled slightly, barely more than a soft pull of her lips.

  “Thanks for breakfast, Tom. You’ll have to put it on my tab,” I said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, could you show me to the doorway?”

  He gaze lingered on me a moment, and then he nodded, waving a hand for us to follow. Tom led us to the back of the kitchen, quickly around the wide stainless steel counter, the still sizzling cooktop, and the pantry stocked with everything he needed to keep the diner running before finally pausing in front of one of the cooler doors.

  “Here you go,” he said.

  I studied the door, frowning as I did. “You want me to go into the freezer?”

  “That’s the freezer,” he said, pointing to a door across from us. “This is one your father set here. He’s the only one who’s ever used it. As far as I know, no one else can use it, but Sam didn’t think that was likely, so here were are. Either it will open, or it will not.”

  The door looked like nothing more than your typical steel freezer door. There was the lever latch on the right side. Massive hinges hung on the left. The door itself was a bright silver. I didn’t see anything about it that would explain how my father had used the door to travel to and from Arcanus.

  But I felt energy from the door.

  It emanated from it, swirling underneath the bottom of the door and around the hinges and the handle, sort of like cold seeping out. There was nothing visible, nothing that would make clear what my father had done or what I would need to do to manage to open the door.

  How had I missed it before?

  “Get anything?” I asked Devan.

  The medallion I wore around my neck had gone cold, telling me she was working her magic. Devan’s magic was different from mine, giving her the ability to detect other magical power, and apparently to breathe life into tiny figurines. “There’s something here,” she said.

  “Yeah, I can feel there’s something here,” I answered.

  “You feel it?”

  I shrugged. “It sort of tingles on my senses, like when we came through the front door of the diner.”

  I reached toward the door, sweeping a hand across it. Part of me hoped patterns would appear that would allow me to trigger the door to open, but of course, there was nothing. I grabbed a pinch of ink, going with a hint of blue this time.

  Before leaving, I’d grabbed the colored inks I thought I might need while in Arcanus. Red and black were easy decisions. Red could do a lot of damage and augmented my natural ability quite well. Black was the color I was most attuned to. As much as I might not like it, I could use black to devastating effect. The other colors had different uses. Blue would put me in touch with the thinking side, something like a knowledge base to it.

  Normally, it wasn’t a color I would choose, but seeing as how we were going to Arcanus and I needed to be able to understand what my father might have left there, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have blue along with me. Really, if shit went bad in Arcanus, there might not be a whole lot I’d be able to do anyway. Arcanus had its own protections built into it.

  I started with a swirl of blue all the way around the door. Then I added a series of arcane patterns, this something like those 3D circles they show you at the eye doctor to check your depth perception. They were slow and painstaking to create, but they would help me identify if there was anything more about the door I should know.

 
When I got the patterns complete, I infused it with my will, drawing energy from myself and augmenting it through the pattern itself. There was a flash of light, and a jolt that left my teeth feeling like they might tingle, and then the ink I’d used on the door disappeared.

  “Damn,” I whispered.

  “See? Only your father could open this door,” Tom said.

  There had to be something I was missing if only I could figure out what that might be.

  I reached into the bag I’d brought with me and pulled out the little statue of Nik. At the bottom of the bag was the orb. I’d brought him along, thinking he might know something I didn’t, or at least be able to find something I couldn’t. I hadn’t expected to need him so soon.

  Tom’s eyes widened when he saw the crystal ball. “You can’t use that here!”

  “Why? I know my father tempered the ability to use painter magic here, but I don’t need all that much. Only enough to animate him a little.”

  “Even your father wouldn’t risk that.”

  “Yeah, well my father isn’t here. I have to work with what I’ve got,” I snapped.

  I regretted it as soon as I said it. Tom was trying to help in the only way he knew how. Unfortunately, I was doing all I could in the only way I knew how.

  Devan took a step back, giving me room. I made a small circle dusting on the floor, readying the protection in case Nik decided to get any stupid ideas. With Nik, I assumed he’d take pretty much any opportunity to escape. Not that I blamed him, not entirely at least, but I’d need to be prepared for when he inevitably made a run for it.

  With the circle in place, I infused it with energy, drawing it solidly into place. Then I set the statue of Nik on the floor, putting him so he could face the freezer door. “Might want to back up,” I warned Tom.

  He shot me a nervous glance, and I shrugged.

  Before firing up the crystal ball, I pulled the long cylinder out of my pocket and held it in my hand, readied to use it on him.

  With everything in place, I pushed through the crystal, splitting the power I needed to draw into the different streams. A flash of light shot from the ball and hit Nik, toppling him over.