Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

“Just you lot, and we don’t normally see dragons using portals around these parts.”
    “It’s a bit of an emergency,” I explained.
    He glanced to the side, and I turned to consider the sight of two mussed-up dragons sitting on the floor, each clutching a paper cup. Taking a cue from Maura, I also brought a bottle of dragon’s blood wine with me. Holland and Savian were off finding two cars to hire.
    “Aye, must be.”
    “We’d like to use your waiting room for a bit,” I said, adding a few more bills to the ones I waved at him. “If your portal isn’t that much used, you won’t mind us doing that, I’m sure.”
    His gaze snapped back to the money, watching as I gently waved it in the air. “No, I don’t see as that would be a problem. So long as you’re a customer.”
    I smiled and handed him the money, then spent the next five minutes coaxing Baltic and Pavel into the waiting room. They were both prone to be a bit snappish, which I put down to having had to use a portal multiple times in the last week. Evidently, the cumulative effect of portalling was a bit more devastating than I had anticipated.
    I called Brom to make sure that Nico and he had arrived safely in Moscow, and that one of Drake’s men was waiting for them (he was), answered a call from Maura to assure me that she, too, had (barely) survived the portalling, and then set about rallying my crew.
    “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re making such a big fuss about,” I told Baltic, when he refused to get off the couch he had collapsed on some fifteen minutes before. “You’re acting like a big baby. You don’t see Pavel demanding to be left alone so he can die in peace, do you? He’s just fine and dandy.”
    Pavel lurched past me, ran face-first into a wall, rebounded off it with a shake of his head, and fell over onto his back with a little gurgle.
    Baltic looked up from where he lay prone on the couch, and he glared at me just as if I were to blame.
    “Fine! I’m to blame! You can yell at me later if you like, but Savian and Holland are going to be back with the cars any minute now, and I want you up and ready to follow Dr. Kostich the second he arrives.”
    He growled. He actually growled.
    I bent down and kissed him, saying softly into his mouth, “Just keep in mind that when this is all over, I’m going to be so grateful to you, I’ll be willing to let you be bossy in bed for a long, long time.”
    He stopped growling and started looking interested, but I caught his roving hands and stepped backward, pulling him to his feet. “Come along, handsome. We have work to do before we get to the rewards.”
    “Rewards, plural?” he asked, giving Pavel a hand up. “It had better be plural, because my temper will need much assuaging after this.”
    I pinched his butt as I passed him. “Right. I think a few jogging laps around the block will do much to clear your respective heads. I’ll stay here in case Dr. Kostich shows up. Would I be out of line if I asked you to hold hands so no one gets into trouble? Oh, Pavel, ouch, is your head all right? Yes, I agree, that doorjamb really is in the way. Maybe next time you should keep your eyes open when you walk through a doorway. And I think perhaps you should walk around the block, not jog.”
    Another fifteen minutes later, and not only had Savian and Holland arrived with two vehicles, but the dragons were all more or less operating on all thrusters again, although Pavel’s run-in with the door left him with a nasty cut on his forehead that was taking its own sweet time to heal, no doubt due to his general state of discombobulation.
    “Are we late?”
    I spun around to see a familiar woman step out of the portalling office. “May?”
    “I hope we didn’t miss anything. Aisling said we had to be quick, and here we are.”
    “Ah,” a dark-haired, dark-eyed man said as he followed her out onto the sidewalk. He looked around, taking a deep breath, his face alight with pleasure. “St. Petersburg. The pillaging that went on here. The violence that ensued. Surrounding villages fired to the ground ... the sweet sound of screams filling the night ... the many captives I took back to my palace later, for even more fun ... good memories, every one!”
    I gawked at the man.
    “This is Magoth,” May said with a deep breath. “He’s a former demon lord.”
    “The best there was, eh, sweetness?” the black-haired Magoth said, turning his eyes to me. His brows rose as he