Dragon's Egg (Dark Streets Book 2) Read online

  Dragon’s Egg

  Book 2 of Dark Streets

  By BR Kingsolver

  Cover art by Heather Hamilton-Senter

  http://www.bookcoverartistry.com/

  Copyright 2018

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  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Other books by BR Kingsolver

  The Chameleon Assassin Series

  Chameleon Assassin

  Chameleon Uncovered

  Chameleon’s Challenge

  Chameleon’s Death Dance

  The Telepathic Clans Saga

  The Succubus Gift

  Succubus Unleashed

  Broken Dolls

  Succubus Rising

  Succubus Ascendant

  Other books

  I’ll Sing for my Dinner

  Trust

  Short Stories in Anthologies

  Here, Kitty Kitty

  Bellator

  BRKingsolver.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Dragon’s Egg

  Chapter 1

  Leaving my favorite Italian seafood restaurant, I turned right and walked along a path with a park on one side and condos on the other. I always enjoyed the pleasant half-mile stroll from the restaurant to the Kennedy Center. It was quiet and rather pretty. Silly me.

  A Vampire, a little too smooth and graceful to be Human, walked toward me. I knew I shouldn’t be prejudiced, but I always tensed up in the presence of sentient beings who ate other sentient beings. I slipped my hand into my bag and fingered my knife. We walked by each other, him trying for eye contact, and me avoiding it. He kept going, and I relaxed.

  In that moment, as soon as I let my guard down a little, a hand grabbed me around the neck, long claws sinking into my skin, and tried to pull me down to the ground. My athame was still in my hand, so while I resisted going down, I let my attacker pull me to her.

  Her? Yes, the new Vampire was definitely female, and definitely surprised when the athame penetrated below her breast and into her heart. Her mouth opened wide, showing her fangs, but no sound came out. The shock in her eyes gradually dimmed, and her grip on my throat relaxed.

  I pushed her away and whirled to meet who or what made a sound behind me. It was the male I had just passed. He wasn’t looking at me, though. His eyes were fixed in horror on the woman slumping to the ground.

  “Friend of yours?” I asked.

  He turned his gaze to me, and I thought I saw a bit of fear there. But his eyes slid back to the woman, really not much older than a girl. He was young, too. He moved toward me, but slowly. I stepped aside, and he knelt down by her.

  I moved a few yards off, pulled an old scarf from my bag, and cleaned my knife. Then I folded the scarf, put some disinfectant on it, and pressed it to the deep scratches on my neck. I couldn’t see if there was blood on my dress.

  Although I was only a mile from home, I didn’t have time to go home, dress my wound, change clothes, and make it back to the Kennedy Center for the performance. So much for that ticket. I looked back at the young couple on the ground. On his knees, he had gathered her into his arms and held her, silently rocking back and forth. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  He should have taken her to the local blood bar, but they tried for something exotic instead of cow blood. Not a smart choice.

  In the pale light of a soft mid-autumn evening, I decided that it was time for me to get the hell out of Washington for a while and go on holiday.

  The following day, when I went into the nursery, I called my staff together. It was mid-October, and I only had four people still working for me, down from thirty during the summer. My landscaping business was almost dormant during the winter, but we had some specialized contracts with a few customers, and the nursery itself needed some maintenance.

  The evening before, feeling a bit guilty that I planned to abandon my staff, I baked a cake for them. We met in the cottage kitchen, and I served coffee and cake. When everyone had their mouths full, I announced, “I need a vacation. What are everyone’s plans between now and March?”

  “We’re shutting down for three weeks at Christmas,” Maurine O’Malley, my office manager said, “just like we always do. I’m going to Colorado then.”

  Kathy Long, my accountant, said, “Other than Christmas, I normally just work four days a week in the winter. No big plans to go anywhere. We can’t afford it.” Kathy’s husband was in medical school and they had big plans for the future.

  My foreman, Ed Gillespie, said, “Jamie and I are going up to Canada to see her parents at Christmas, but other than that, we’ll just hang around DC all winter.” Jamie was his girlfriend and my other employee. She helped Ed with mowing lawns, tending the greenhouses, and general maintenance around the nursery.

  There were two Gnomes who lived under a mound in the nursery, Fred and Kate. I didn’t need to check with them since they never went anywhere. They did a lot of work for me, and I knew they would take care of the plants I had in the greenhouses. Those greenhouses were their major source of food in the winter.

  The other inhabitants of the nursery were the fairies, but they were already preparing to hibernate through the winter. When the first frost hit, we wouldn’t see them again until spring.

  “So, where are you going?” Jamie asked.

  “I discovered recently that I have a cousin in Ireland,” I said. “She’s invited me to visit, so that’s where I plan to start.” I shrugged. “Bum around Europe, see the museums, hit the Mediterranean and see if I can find a billionaire who needs his yacht landscaped. You know, the usual.”

  They all laughed.

  And so, I contacted my cousin in Ireland, made plane reservations, and took care of all the piddly stuff my staff insisted I do before I left. By the end of the week, I was ready to head to the airport. Then the letter came.

  Most of my mail consisted of bills, advertisements, and unwelcome communications from the government. Most of that went to my business address. My closest friend preferred email, and all my employees texted me. So, a letter addressed to my real name, arriving at my home, was unusual.

  A faint residual trace of magic lingered on the envelope—from either the sender or someone else who handled it. I tore it open and stared at the elegant Elvish script.

  Sel Kellana,

  An urgent matter requires your attention. I understand that you will be in Iceland and have taken the liberty of changing your flight plans. My representatives will meet you at the airport and escort you to Alfenholm.

  Lord Altinir
ap th’Vordinir

  I read it twice, absolutely thrilled that some damned refugee Elven lord from Alfheim had changed my holiday plans. At least he was polite enough to tell me. I wondered what Altinir and his representatives would do if I declined his invitation.

  Re-reading it again, I felt a brief moment of irritation and despair for my people. All four major Elven groups on Earth had called their settlements Alfenholm. So much for creativity. I tried to imagine the look on Altinir’s face if I showed up at the wrong one. Probably, it would piss him off, plus it would piss off the lords and ladies at the place where I did show up. I had met very few Elven nobles, but they weren’t known for a sense of humor.

  My flight was booked through Reykjavik to Dublin in Ireland, and my distant cousin would meet me there. I had never met her, but she contacted me after the Washington, D.C., “incident” the previous summer and invited me to spend Samhain with her and her family. “Incident” was what the press and the government insisted on calling a magical catastrophe that was almost followed by a civil war between Humans and paranormals, as Humans liked to call any being who didn’t show up in Earth’s fossil record.

  No matter how hard I had tried to keep a low profile, word of my involvement leaked to the press. And as much as I would have liked to shove a microphone up a couple of people’s butts, that would have been rude, and Elves were never rude. Thus, the letter from Altinir, politely informing me that he felt entitled to redirect my life. I had to assume he had heard about me the same way my cousin had. From the damned TV.

  I seriously doubted that I would consider his ‘urgent matter’ as being very urgent to me. But as I went about the rest of my day, I realized that I was very curious. The old bastard probably counted on that.

  It was what I thought of as a normal Icelandic day when we landed in Reykjavik. The temperature was forty-four degrees, and it was raining sideways. I hadn’t planned a long layover on purpose.

  I briefly flirted with the idea of just avoiding Altinir’s servants, but when I got off the plane, it became immediately obvious that there were two kinds of people in the terminal. Short people, mostly, and tall people. Humans and Elves. Alfenholm was the second largest city on the island, and Elves made up over ten percent of the country’s population. Unfortunately, being six-foot-six with green hair sort of marked me as an Elf. If there was anywhere in the world where people instantly recognized what I was, it was in Iceland.

  A middle-aged Elf and his younger companion made a beeline for me the instant I stepped inside the terminal. Magic radiated from them, and even though they weren’t armed, the way they moved shouted ‘warrior’. Both were around seven feet tall, one with silver hair, the other with bronze. The Human women they passed openly drooled.

  “Sel Kellana,” the older man said with a bob of his head.

  “Yes,” I answered in English.

  “Please come with us,” he said in Elvish, turning and starting away.

  Feeling irritated, and therefore perverse, I said in English, “I don’t think so. I’m not in the habit of going anywhere with strangers.”

  Elves can blush, though we tend to do it for different reasons than Humans. Both men blushed. The older one bowed from the waist. “I beg pardon. I am Selinger ap th’Gervan, and my companion is Valinir ap th’Vadovanar. If you would please, our Lord Altinir ap th’Vordinir wishes to speak with you,” he said in English.

  I nodded. “I shall attend Ser Altinir.”

  Their eyes zeroed in on me so fast I almost imagined sound effects. I knew that I might be setting myself up for problems, but I was damned if I was going to acknowledge their lords and ladies as having any authority over me at all. The idea of bowing and scraping because of someone’s birth had always rubbed me the wrong way. Besides, I’d been living outside of Elven feudal structures for decades, and I suddenly discovered that I preferred the American ideal of equality. Not that any of the people I would meet in Iceland gave a damn about what I preferred.

  We didn’t leave the airport, or at least not immediately. My escort steered me toward a ground car that took us to a helicopter. That’s when I balked.

  “You’re crazy. There’s no way I’m getting in a helicopter in this weather.” I had to use the English word for helicopter. If there was an Elvish word, I didn’t know it.

  “We won’t be flying through the weather,” Selinger said. “We use magic to block it.”

  As though that would make me feel better. Magic and technology tended to have a cancelling effect on each other. The spells didn’t work, and neither did the electronics or machinery being spelled.

  I smiled at him. “I don’t think so, sugar,” I said in English. “I’ll tell you what. You go get Lord Altinir and bring him here. I’ll wait for you in the bar.”

  The reaction to my statement was about what I expected. They weren’t happy. Selinger pulled out a mobile phone and made a call while I tried to keep a straight face.

  After about ten minutes, Selinger hung up and said, “The weather will clear in the next hour. We’ll go then.”

  My mobile phone said something different. The storm was predicted to continue through the day and possibly through the following morning.

  In fifteen minutes, the wind began to slacken, and fifteen minutes after that the rain became a soft drizzle as the clouds broke up. At the end of the hour, the sun shone in a cloudless sky, though I could see angry black clouds on the horizon in all directions.

  “If you please,” Selinger said, motioning to the helicopter.

  I was too stunned to offer any protest. Although I knew in theory what a weather mage was capable of, I had never seen one in action. Feeling as though my reality had shifted, I allowed my escort to lead me onto the helicopter, buckle me in, and then we lifted off. We flew east, toward the Veidivotn region in the center of the country, where most of the Elves had settled. I had been to the Elves’ shop in Reykjavik before but never out to their settlement. In spite of myself, I was curious to see how they were living in their new world.

  We flew for an hour through eerily serene skies over undulating green expanses broken by black lava flows. The vast Vatnajökull glacier gleamed blindingly white in front of us. When I saw a scattering of lakes, I knew we neared our destination.

  Many Humans couldn’t understand why the Elven refugees chose such a forbidding and cold area to settle, but we were able to regulate our body temperature far better than Humans, and except for the most severe heat or cold, the climate didn’t affect us very much. With plenty of geothermal heat, setting up hundreds of acres of magical greenhouses allowed the settlers to grow enough to eat and even to sell fruit and vegetables at markets throughout the island.

  What the area did offer was privacy, and Iceland was the most Elf-friendly society on Earth. Most of the city of Alfenholm consisted of barrows or mounds, the homes and shops built essentially underground. The helicopter set down in an open area at the edge of a small airport. A couple of men met us with saddled unicorns, which we mounted and rode through a newly-planted birch forest into the city.

  There, I was led to a long barrow with a few skylights and several doors. Once inside, we descended a flight of stairs into a foyer, which opened into a large hall. Magelights hung from the ceiling and along the walls, giving the place a bright, open feeling.

  An Elf, well over seven feet tall, with long silver hair and a wrinkled face, strode confidently toward us. He was dressed in dark green leggings and a red-and-black embroidered tunic.

  “Welcome, Sel Kellana,” he said in High Elvish. He stopped before me and bobbed his head in welcome and respect. I bowed my head in return.

  A woman stepped up behind me and draped a spidersilk shawl across my shoulders. I tried to keep my face passive. Elves sometimes welcomed honored guests with small gifts. I knew that spidersilk shawls often served that purpose in noble houses. But dear Goddess, I had only touched a spidersilk garment twice in my life. It was worth more than my father’s fishing boat, and the
ir gesture shamed me for acting like such a bitch at the airport. I took a deep breath and hoped I didn’t embarrass myself while under their roof.

  “I am Altinir,” he said. “I know you’ve had a long journey. Come, join us for supper. Minirin will take your luggage to your room.”

  The young Elven woman with golden hair who had covered me with the shawl picked up my backpack and duffle bag and walked away toward the far end of the room.

  Altinir led me to a long table under a chandelier of magelights and showed me a seat. The table was large enough to seat thirty, but only four places were set. Altinir sat across from me, a middle-aged woman with copper hair sat to my left at the head, and when Minirin returned, she sat next to Altinir. All three were powerful mages.

  “I am Erinir,” the redheaded woman said. “I am the leader of this village.” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled. “Selinger tells me that you aren’t fond of using titles.”

  “I had little contact with the nobility in Midgard,” I said, “and I’ve lived in the United States for almost seventy years.”

  She nodded. At first, I thought she was acknowledging my statement, but maybe she was giving a signal, since servants appeared and served our meal. The food was simple—a roast leg of lamb with root vegetables covered with a sauce seasoned with herbs I hadn’t tasted since Midgard. I wondered if I could buy some of the seeds. The wine was French.

  As was the custom, our dinner conversation avoided business. They asked about my flight, about Washington, and about my life in Midgard. I asked about their crops and entertainments. After dinner, we were served fruit tarts and aperitif glasses of agavirna, a potent Elven liqueur.

  “I’m sure that you are curious as to why we invited you,” Lady Erinir eventually said. “I think that discussion should wait until tomorrow. What I will say tonight, is that the ability to feel magic, and interpret those feelings, is very rare. We have been informed that you might have that ability.”