Breathing Fire

Mav just grinned at me. “I’ve seen how fast you heal. You’ll be good as new by the time you reach his casino. And he won’t believe a word that comes out of your lying, whoring mouth.”

I clucked my tongue at him, going in for the kill. “I’m no druid, Mav. You’ve seen how fast I can heal. It’s a spell, not a natural ability. It takes effort on my part. And neither of you have any healing abilities of any kind. That much I remember. You could probably call in someone that does, but I’d be willing to bet that you won’t risk anyone else finding out about this. No one is willing to become an accomplice to you idiots. I wonder how Dom would react if he saw the shape I’m in, with not a scratch on either one of you. I know from past experience that the proof that you restrained me will make him go apeshit.” I held up my wrists. They were red and already turning into a dark, bruised purple. “These little marks alone will trigger his wrath.”

Mav was starting to look a little green, but he still tried to bluff his way out of it. “You haven’t seen him lately, Jillian. He hates your guts. He doesn’t give a damn what happens to you.”

My chest hurt a little at what he said, and I wondered how much of it was true. I tried to snort at him disdainfully, but it just made more blood spurt out of my nose. “You and I both know that he could hate me enough to beat me to death himself, but he’s still dominant enough that if he sees me like this, he’ll rip apart whoever did it just for disobeying a direct order, and with so much apparent gusto. I have no qualms about giving you two up to him.”

Michael finally let go of my wrists. I fell to the floor, glaring up at both of them. “Fine, you win, for now,” Michael said, not looking me in the eye. “We’ll report that we found nothing unusual when we went to make inquiries at your shop. But, you know, all you’re doing is buying a little time. Everyone has to come clean sometime, Jillian.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” I flipped them off with both hands until the bells chimed their exit. I tried to sit up. The world went black.

CHAPTER THREE

OCD

 When I came to, every part of my body was throbbing. I noticed, as I stumbled around the shop, that my assailants had been considerate enough to put up the closed sign on their way out. How nice. And they hadn’t managed to break any bones. When I returned the favor, they wouldn’t be able to say the same.

I dug up some aspirin in my office. It didn’t do much for the pain. A half pint of my sister’s rocky road ice cream helped, though. I more or less passed out in my office chair.

When I next awoke, I noticed a completely different sensation than pain. My skin was literally steaming. I could see the bare skin on my arms glowed gold. My nails changed colors as I watched. Magenta, crimson, scarlet, orange… It went on and on, the colors shifting through the spectrum of every hue. I knew from past experience that my hair and eyes were doing the same.

This had been happening a lot lately. I was pretty sure it wasn’t normal, even for my kind. I needed to ask Lynn about it, but I knew nothing like this had ever happened to her.

My body had been acting up for a while now. Pretty much, I was hoping that whatever problems it was having would work themselves out, or better yet, go away. Whatever this thing was, I was really just counting on the whole immortal thing to trump it. A few hundred years of perfect health had made me overconfident, I supposed.

I lay there, eyes closed, until my body had calmed down. I sighed. I was procrastinating. I had some unpleasant magic to perform. My battered body had already begun to heal the damage that had become my insurance.

I had lied to Mav when I told him that my body did not heal quickly on it’s own. I did, however, have a way to stop the healing process, for a time. I unlocked the hidden drawer in my desk, drawing out the ancient relic I kept there. Chanting softly, I stopped my body from healing. This was a spell generally meant for someone other than yourself, and it almost hurt worse than the beating, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And lucky for me, I was on a first name basis with both desperate times and desperate measures. Boy, did they love me. The feeling was very much not mutual.

My body quickly rebelled, and I emptied my stomach into the wastebasket beside my desk. This was not going to be a fun couple of days, but at least I had bought Lynn and I some time. Now I just had to get up off my bruised ass and make use of it.

The closest thing I had to an informant worked as a cocktail waitress at The Golden Dragon. The Golden Dragon was a dump casino on the outskirts of the strip. It was, however, the closest casino to The Grove, the monstrosity of a casino that belonged to the druids. It doubled as their base of operations for the west coast.

It was a perverse phenomena, since the druids were notorious for their love of forests and water, and all things green. I had often wondered why they would choose to station so many of the green-loving bastards right smack in the middle of the desert, but I’d learned not to ask. No druid would answer that question. And just asking it tended to make them real salty.

I’d met Casey years ago. She had been sobbing quietly in the cafe portion of our shop. She was a cute little thing, with corkscrew auburn curls and bright green eyes. I’d sat down in the chair across from her and asked her if she needed help with anything. She’d then proceeded to tell me her life story, including the most prominent part, about her having a stormy affair with one of the higher ranking druids. I’d given her some good relationship advice, knowing a thing or two about the subject, and we’d been friends ever since. I’d also placed a silencing spell on her. If she made a habit of talking too much to strangers about such things, she’d quickly find herself buried in the desert.