Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

major naval base, and there was an Air Force base just north of the city. But after the Turning hit and ambient magic levels began rising, lots of cities wanted a dragon. Dragons were immense magic sponges - they soaked up all the free-floating magic that interfered with technology. The government had, not unreasonably, wanted a dragon sopping up excess magic in L.A., not the smaller city.
    It hadn't been up to the government. The Dragon Accords that Grandmother had negotiated awarded each dragon a permanent base, but made an exception for one of them: the black dragon, the eldest of them, known to Lily and Rule as Sam and to others as Sun Mzao. Officially, Sam's territory was wherever he happened to be.
    In practice - and in the eyes of the dragons - Sam's territory included much of the West Coast, down into Mexico. He'd agreed to overfly Los Angeles frequently, and Sacramento occasionally, but he laired just outside of San Diego.
    At slightly under half a mile high, San Miguel Mountain wasn't the largest peak around, but it was close to the city and highly visible. To the consternation of environmentalists, that was where Sam had dug his lair - in the west side of the mountain, facing the Sweetwater Reservoir. An unusually large dragon needed a great deal of fresh water, after all.
    That's where Lily and Rule headed shortly before eight A.M. that morning, taking Highway 54 out to Reservoir Road. There was no guarantee that Sam would be home, but he usually flew at night, so they had a good chance of catching him.
    Or he might know they were coming and either wait for them or leave to avoid them. Lily didn't know what the limits were on his ability to touch other minds or read thoughts outright. Distance mattered, but she didn't know what his range was. Earth and stone mattered, too, which was one reason most dragons liked a rocky lair. It cut out the ambient mind-noise.
    On the way, Lily made a couple calls, then took out her laptop. She pulled up the list of suspected professional hits that headquarters had sent her, skimmed it... and thought about dragons.
    In the Western world, dragons had been considered a myth for centuries. Lily had certainly believed that - right up until one seized her in his talons and carried her off. That happened in Dis, otherwise known as the hell region, where the dragons had emigrated more than three hundred years ago when Earth's magic grew too thin for them.
    And now they were back.
    At least some of them were - twenty-three, to be precise. Lily had the idea there might be more dragons in some distant realm. Sam wouldn't say, but they must have a home realm. She was pretty sure dragons weren't native to Earth.
    Sam's bunch had lived here a very long time, though, before temporarily relocating to Dis when Earth's magic grew too thin for them. How long? No one knew except the dragons, and they weren't saying.
    Lily did know a few things about dragons, at least about the ones living here. They were compulsively curious, hoarders of knowledge more than gold - but they liked gold, too. Part of their fee for overflying their assigned territories, soaking up excess magic, was a measure of gold dust. No one knew why they wanted it.
    She knew that dragons were mostly solitary, but they got together at times that fit some internal rhythm rather than the calendar... and sang. They sang to fulfill needs she couldn't guess. They also sang to work magic.
    That's how Sam brought them all back from hell. The dragons couldn't open a gate themselves - which did not make sense, because they'd left Earth once, so why couldn't they make a gate? But dragons weren't big on explaining, so that question resided in Lily's find-out-one-day mental file. Sam had either taken advantage of the arrival of Lily and Rule in Dis, or he'd in some obscure way been counting on it so he could use their gate.
    Only their gate had been far too small for dragons, and they hadn't been able to open it for reasons that had to do with there being two of Lily at the time. Lily had taken care of the latter problem the only way she could. Sam had handled the first problem, singing the gate large, singing it open long enough to bring his people home... and with them, Max and Cullen and Cynna and Rule. And Lily, of course.
    One of her. Most of her. She tried not to think about that too much.
    She also knew why Sam had chosen San Diego for his lair. Li Lei Yu lived here. Therefore, so did the black dragon.
    Lily wanted badly to know