“You will answer my question!” Jovana snarled.

“I am a wyvern,” Kostya said, nostrils flaring in outrage. “I do not take orders—I give them.”

“Not to me,” she said, biting off the end of each word. She made an odd sort of gesture with one hand over another, and to my amazement, a blue-white fuzzy ball of light appeared in her hand. She flung it at Kostya.

I grabbed his arm to pull him out of the way, but he stayed put, reaching up to catch the ball of light just as casually as if she’d tossed him a softball. The light faded as the ball turned to dragon fire, which he then threw down to the floor. It spread in a pool around us.

“I am a black dragon,” he said with a little smile. “Of all the dragonkin, we are the only ones who have an affinity with arcane magics.”

She swore in a very scatological manner that had the prude in me pursing her lips. “Guillaume!” She made an imperious gesture. “Take them to my office. I will get the answer to my question there.”

“Like hell you will,” I said, and pulled hard on Kostya’s fire, fully intending on using the ring to get us out of there.

Kostya kept his eyes on her but turned his head slightly in my direction as he said softly, “Do not, Aoife. It is what she wants.”

“She wants us to get the hell out of here?”

“No. She seeks to know the source of our power.” He stopped when Guillaume approached hesitantly, obviously not wanting to get into it with Kostya but unwilling to disobey his boss. “We are content speaking to you here, Jovana. You must take my word for the fact that our ability to circumvent your ward has nothing to do with our intention to break the curse affecting the dragons and end the war that Asmodeus has declared upon all dragonkin.”

She smiled, and for a moment, I wondered if she was related to Asmodeus’s two demon bouncers. “I would not be a very effective Venediger if I believed everything that was told to me.”

The door to the street opened, and sunlight streamed inside, making little motes of dust whirl and swoop in an intricate dance. Used to the darkness of the club now, I blinked at the bright sunshine, the light giving a stark look to the chairs and tables in its path. A strange noise followed the opening of the door, along with a blobby black shape that suddenly popped forward with an audible sucking sound.

“Fires of Abaddon!” the black shape swore, shaking himself before turning back to the door. “Man alive, Aisling! Is it going to be like this any time we go out? Because my fur is seriously rumpled, and I’m going to need a prolonged brushing to get it back to what it was.”

“Jim!”

Jovana spun around at the entrance of Jim, her frown almost as potent as those normally worn by Kostya. “I thought you said that the Guardian was at home? And yet here it obviously is, complete with her demon, and you know well that I do not allow demons in G&T.”

“Yo,” Jim said, giving his shoulder a lick. “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m some sort of genital wart. Aisling tells me I’m a good demon. I used to be some sort of a sprite or something, but I got booted out of the Court of Divine Blood—”

I nudged Kostya.

“The Court is what mortals think of as heaven.”

“Gotcha.”

“—and somehow ended up as a demon, although she wasn’t very forthcoming about that bit because she said it was probably better if I didn’t know all the shenanigans I used to get up to. Heya, Eefables. Heya, Slick. Aisling said you’d probably need some help. She’s trying to keep Drake in the car, although I just bet that noise you hear now is him arguing with her and not doing as she said.” There was another movement at the door, and Aisling popped through, followed by Drake.

I jumped in front of Kostya, my hands on his shoulders to keep him from lunging at Drake, but to my surprise, he didn’t even tense up.

“Sorry, Pal, Istvan. I’m going to have to rest a bit before I pull you guys through. It really takes a lot out of you to push past a ward,” Aisling called out the door; then she addressed Drake. “Sweetie, I told you that Kostya was going to be here and that it’s just going to cause endless trouble if you come inside where you both can see each other.”

“Hey,” I said to Kostya, looking up into his face. He looked mildly interested at the newcomers. I released his shoulders and poked him in the arm. “How come you’re not trying to kill your bro—”

I stopped and spun around to stare at Aisling. She was staring back at me. “I heard you,” we both said at the same time.

“What the hell?” I added.

“Abaddon,” Jim said, snuffling Guillaume’s shoes before plopping down next to him.

“How—” Aisling turned to Drake. “How is this possible?”

“I strictly forbade you to force your way through the wards guarding the premises!” Jovana finally found her voice and marched over to where Aisling and Drake stood. “And what do you do? Exactly that!”

Aisling visibly straightened her shoulders at the same time that Drake took a protective step forward. “Hello, Jovana. I’d say it was nice to see you, because I’m a polite person, and I believe that it pays to be nice to people, but evidently you not only don’t believe that, but you also forgot just who gave you the job of Venediger to begin with!”

She did a little head bob while she was talking that made me giggle.

“Oh, boy,” Jim said, giving an excited wiggle. “Cat fight! Wish I had some popcorn.”

“I have not forgotten,” Jovana said, her voice cool. “That fact has no relevance here, whereas you disobeying my orders regarding dragons in G&T—”

“I’m a wyvern’s mate,” Aisling interrupted, clearly getting irritated. Drake murmured something and was about to step forward again, but Aisling held him back. “You don’t have any right to give Drake or me orders. You can request that I do something, and I will—”

“You are a member of the Guardian’s Guild!” It was Jovana’s turn to interrupt, and she did so with vehemence. “Thus you are bound to the rules of the L’au-dela, and that includes honoring my dictates.”

I sighed softly to myself and asked under my breath, “What’s a L’au-dela?”

“It is the formal name for the Otherworld.”