Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

when I realized it came from the big black dog.
    “Me?” I squeezed my arm. It felt solid enough.
    “Yup. You dropped like a sack of anvils. Then the First Dragon made his grand entrance, waved his hands around, and blammo! You were alive again.”
    “The First Dragon . . .” There was something about that name, some memory that tugged on the edge of my awareness.
    The woman and man had been arguing while the dog talked to me. I wondered for a moment if I had gone moon-mad, but decided that if I had, it didn’t matter if I talked to dogs, so I asked it, “Who are you?”
    “Boy, you really are out of it, aren’t you. You don’t remember anything? Baltic’s going to go bonkers if you’ve lost your memory again.”
    I frowned, searching my mind. There were many fleeting shadows of memories that moved so quickly I was unable to pin them down. “No, I . . . there’s something . . . a man, I think. He’s . . .”
    “Fine!” the woman yelled, taking me by the arms and steering me toward a door. “But if Baltic wants to know why Ysolde is all wonky from being resurrected a second time, I’m going to be sure to tell him it’s your fault.”
    The man snarled a curse as I was hustled out of the room, down a short hallway, and out another door into a corridor filled with doors.
    Something about the surroundings struck a familiar note as well. “I think I’ve seen this before,” I said, pointing at the wall as the woman and the dog herded me into a small metal room. I touched the wall of it, lurching when the floor moved beneath me. “This is a . . . a . . .”
    “Oh, man, I hope you get your memory back soon, or Baltic really will have a hissy fit,” the woman said.
    I looked at her as she pulled me backward out of the small room and into a big, bright hall.
    “Not hall,” I corrected myself as I looked around. “Lobby. Hotel lobby.” The world seemed to resolve itself before my eyes, as if it was slowly being brought into focus.
    “Thank god,” Aisling said as she and Jim pushed me into a large off-white chair.
    “Aisling!” I said with delight. “I know who you are! And Jim!”
    She gave me a crooked smile, then gestured to a waiter and demanded coffee. “Whew. You gave us quite a fright there. I was trying to figure out how to tell Baltic that we killed you changing Jim back, and then the First Dragon was suddenly there, and . . . well, I’m just glad your brain is back, too.”
    I frowned as she began her sentence, but by the time she was done, I had pulled together enough of my wits to respond. “The spell killed me?”
    “I don’t think so. Kostich said it was the backlash of arcane magic that was suddenly released when Jim was changed back into Newfie form. You lit up like a Christmas tree for a minute, then collapsed. We’d just figured out you were dead when pop! The First Dragon was there, calling your name, and bringing you back.” Aisling gazed at me with a kind of amazement. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone being resurrected twice, especially not by the First Dragon. Drake says he hasn’t made an appearance for centuries, not until May saw him when she re-formed the dragon heart. It’s obvious you have some sort of a tie with him.”
    I took a deep breath, grateful to feel air filling my lungs. “Well, I’m not going to complain, since I’m alive. I can only imagine what Baltic—” Horror made the skin on my neck crawl as realization struck me. “Oh, dear god! Baltic! He must have felt me die!”
    Frantically, I searched my pockets for my cell phone, but found nothing.
    “Oh, geez. I didn’t think of that. Your phone got blasted with the explosion of light. Here, take mine,” Aisling said, shoving her phone at me.
    My fingers shook as I punched in the phone number, remembering well the promise in Baltic’s voice when he swore he would not live without me.
    “Were you dead long enough to kill him?” Aisling asked, adding a hellish nightmare tinge to an already overwhelming sense of panic.
    “Please answer, please answer,” I chanted as the phone rang. Tears filled my eyes as I blocked the need to examine the worst-case scenario. “Please, Baltic, please—”
    A wordless snarl of anguish answered the phone.
    “Baltic!” I yelled into it.
    “Ysolde?” Heavy breathing was all that met my ears for a few seconds. “Christos! What are you doing to me? Where are you? Why did it feel as if my heart was ripped out anew? What have you