Thanks to the swift efficiency of the Eurostar high-speed train running under the English Channel, three and a half hours after I had raced out of Nora’s London apartment, I was standing on the street staring down a dark alley named rue des Furoncles sur les Fesses du Diable (aka Boils on the Buttocks of the Devil Street), a familiar view since that particular narrow alley was home to Le Grimoire Toxique, the cute little shop that catered to the wiccan and witch crowd in Paris. This area of town was heavily given over to occult-type shops, most of which were harmless places where non-Otherworldians came to buy incense and love spells. The shops given over to supplies used by those who knew what they were doing were hidden away on similar dark, out-of-the-way streets like the one where Amelie Merllain lived.

The tiny bells over the door to the Grimoire Toxique tinkled cheerily as I pushed open the door, a similarly cheery smile on my face. Two elderly ladies stood next to a bookshelf as a third woman, middle aged, with a slight amount of gray mixed into her short black hair, stood on a stepladder and fetched bottles from a top shelf.

“Bonjour, Amelie,” I said in my best French (which admittedly was atrocious). I sneaked a peek at the slip of paper upon which I’d written a greeting gleaned from my seatmate during the trip to Paris. “Um. Tu es que l’ombre de toi-même! Quoi de neuf?”

Amelie’s figure froze for a second. “I believe I am more than a shadow of myself, but not much is new here in Paris. Could it be that someone from out of town is asking?” She turned around with a warm smile. “Aisling, I knew it must be you. You have a way of speaking French that is truly…impressive.”

I laughed and hugged her when she hurried down the stepladder, her hands full of jars that she set down on the counter. Speaking in quick French, she gestured toward me as she bustled around behind the long counter that served as her sales desk. The two ladies looked at me with pursed lips.

“Bonjour,” I told them. They murmured what I assumed were polite replies. “Sheesh, Amelie, it’s been forever since I last saw you!”

“You exaggerate. It has been under two months, I think. I will be with you in just one of the brief moments.” Amelie doled out a pink powder, some dried herbs, and a handful of rose hips. “I told my ladies here that you are a friend from America, and are a powerful, much-respected Guardian.”

The ladies looked anything but awestruck. “Then you are guilty of exaggerating as well.” I hooked my foot under the rail on a tall wooden stool at the end of the counter, and plopped myself down on it. “Regardless of the time passed, I’m pleased to see you again.”

“And I you,” she said as she made up a neat paper package of all the herbs, giving them to the two ladies with a few hurried comments. “But where is Jim? Cecile will be deranged if she is not to see him.”

“Oh, Jim!” I leaped off the stool, a little zinger of guilt lashing me. “I forgot all about it. I put it in the Akasha.”

“The Akasha?” There was a little stereo gasp as Amelie spoke. The two ladies looked horrified and backed up a few steps.

“Yeah. The Akashic plain, actually. You know—the place everyone calls limbo? Where demons who don’t eat their vegetables go?”

Amelie just looked at me. The two ladies stood clutching their packages, eyeing me warily as if they were afraid to go past me to the door.

“You are joking at me, yes?” Amelie asked.

“Um. About the veggies, yeah. I put Jim in the Akashic plain because of England’s quarantine laws for animals. It’s an easy way to get in and out of the country without having to worry about documents for Jim.”

“But, Aisling…” Amelie looked taken aback for a moment or two. “The Akasha is steeped in dark powers. I know of many experienced members of the L’au-delà who will have nothing to do with it because it poses such a danger to them. Only the most protected of people access it. Who taught you to do so?”

“A…er…friend. He just taught me how to send and summon Jim from there; that’s all.”

“Still, you must be very powerful indeed if you are able to utilize it without it tainting you.”

I stopped cold, wondering why I was always the last to hear things. The limbo I’d been parking Jim in was steeped in dark powers? Why hadn’t Gabriel mentioned that when he gave me instructions on accessing it? How would I know if I’d been tainted? Why didn’t Nora warn me about it when I told her that’s where I was sending Jim? And why did I always end up in hot water doing something simple? “Uh…yeah, something like that. Why don’t I just summon Jim and we’ll move on?” I took a deep breath and swung open the door in my mind that was the portal to all my Otherworld powers. “Effrijim, I summon thee.”

The air in front of me gathered together in a tight clutch, the motes of dust dancing on the afternoon sunlight cohering into a shape that quickly formed itself into that of a large, shaggy, black dog.

“Hounds of Abaddon, Aisling! Could you have left me dangling in limbo for any longer?” Jim glared at me for a moment; then its eyes opened wide when it realized where we were. “Amelie?”

The two ladies gave up all pretence and ran from the shop screeching something that I gathered wasn’t a compliment on the form my demon had picked out above all others to wear in the mortal world.

“Where’s Cecile?” Jim asked hurriedly, spinning around to examine the shop, its nose in the air as it tried to scent her. “Cecile? Baby? Daddy’s home!”

“Cecile is having her rest upstairs—” was all Amelie got out before Jim went bounding from the room, heading for the back door and the flight of stairs that led to the apartment over the shop.

“The door is locked, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes, but there is a window open,” Amelie started to say, but the distant sound of tinkling glass interrupted her.

I sighed. “I’ll pay for that, of course. I’d better go see if Jim managed to cut itself in its frenzy to get to Cecile.”

“I believe I will take the early afternoon leave,” Amelie said, going to the door to hang a CLOSED sign on it before locking up.

“Oh, but I hate to make you miss any customers.” I hesitated by the beaded curtain that divided the front of the shop from the tiny back storage area.

“Non, it is an unexpected pleasure, your visit. One worth celebrating, yes? We will celebrate.”

The celebrations took the form of a bottle of chilled white wine (Amelie remembered my favorite brand) and a plate of delicious cheese munchies. I sat back in the bloodred neo-baroque armchair and sighed happily. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again. So much has happened in the last couple of months, I feel like a different person from the one who wandered in your door looking for information about a certain wyvern.”

“Ah, yes. How is Drake? I heard that you were formally mated, and that you found a mentor, yes? This is very good news.”

Jim looked up from where it was lying in a patch of sunlight with Cecile, Amelie’s elderly, fat Welsh corgi. “News flash: Aisling broke it off.”

“Again?” Amelie asked, giving me a surprised look.

“Yes, again.” That word was beginning to grate on my nerves. “It’s not like I didn’t have a reason to leave him! He betrayed my trust.”

“Hello, and welcome to Aisling Heartbreak Hour,” Jim said, nuzzling Cecile’s ear. “I hope you’re comfortable, because this is likely to take a while.”

“One more word, and you’re going to find yourself back in the Akashic plain, tainted powers or no,” I snapped, my patience worn thin by Jim’s needling…and my own guilty feelings. Although Nora had been the first person to put it into so many words, I realized that I’d been hiding the truth from myself behind hurt feelings. “This is not going to take a while. Drake and I had issues. I left to think things over. I’m still his mate, I’m still bound to the sept, and tomorrow, as a matter of fact, I’m going to another dragon conference to stand by Drake while he does whatever he does at these gatherings.”

“Gatherings?”

“Yes. Some sort of dragon shindig. Possibly involving wyverns, although I hope the more idiotic ones don’t show.”

Amelie sucked in her breath. “Idiotic? You speak so of the other wyverns? You dare much, Aisling. Do you know them well?”

“Not horribly well.” I took another sip of wine, enjoying the fruity Riesling. “Fiat Blu I met here in Paris at the same time I met you. I met some of his men, as well. Did you know the blue dragons are psychics?”

She nodded. “Oui, I remember. And yes, they are known for their ability to find secrets.”

“Yeah, well, Fiat is lovely eye candy, what with that whole blond god thing going for him, but underneath that handsome exterior beats the heart of a rat. He’s trying to stir up trouble for Drake.”

“Ah?”

“Fiat paired up with Chuan Ren. Have you ever seen her?”

Amelie poured more wine and shook her head. “No. I do not mix much with the upper echelons of the L’au-delà. I am happier in my own sphere of influence.”

“Boy, do I envy you that. Well, the red dragon wyvern, Chuan Ren, is a…um…trying to find a nice word for her…”

“Bitch,” Jim said, licking Cecile’s ear.

I made a wry little smile. “Basically, yes. She’s very powerful, very aggressive, and I don’t think she likes Drake very much. I know she doesn’t like me.”

“Hmm.”

“The fourth wyvern, Gabriel Tauhou, is a sweetie. He’s a healer, like you.”

Amelie smiled and nibbled on a cheese stick.

“Aisling has a crush on him.” Jim’s voice floated to us above the low drone of the air conditioner.

“Oh, I do not. I like Gabriel, nothing more. He helped me when Drake wouldn’t, and he doesn’t seem to want to stir up trouble, unlike the other two wyverns.”

“That is very interesting,” Amelie said, looking thoughtful. “And what of the fifth sept?”

“The what?” I frowned, setting down my wineglass. When I started mishearing things, it was time to switch to something a little less potent. “Fifth sept? There are only four dragon septs—red, blue, silver, and green.”

“Non, there is a fifth sept. I heard that a black dragon had been spotted in Germany. The local speculation is that he will claim the post of wyvern and bring the black dragons back.”

“There’s a fifth sept?” I looked at Jim. “Jim, how many dragon septs are there?”

“Now, or ever have been?” Jim answered. I ground my teeth a little. The dragons had a habit of answering a question with a question, and Jim had picked up that habit.

“Right now, how many dragon septs are there?”

“Four,” Jim said, pausing a moment. “Five if you count the black dragons, but no one has seen any of them for a hundred and fifty years.”

“Who’s the wyvern?” I asked. Neither Jim nor Amelie had an answer. “Well, then, why did they disappear? What happened to them? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned them before this?”

Amelie shrugged. Jim sucked ear. I glared at it.

“You never asked,” my demon finally answered.

“I believed you would receive answers to your questions from your mate,” Amelie said. “I am not au courant with all that goes on in the dragon world. I can only tell you what the gossip of the moment says.”

“Well, you can bet your bootstraps I’ll be asking Drake about that. If there’s another wyvern out there I have to make nice to, I’d like to know about it first.”

Amelie smiled again and switched the subject. “I know this will be of interest to you, since you had something to do with it the last time you were here—the office of Venediger has not yet been filled, although there have been challenges for it.”

“Oh, really? You know—silly me—I never was quite sure exactly what the Venediger does. It’s a position running the French Otherworld?”

“France, yes, and the rest of what is now the common market. Mostly all of Europe. It is a very big position, you know? Very important. To be Venediger means to have much control, much power. The challengers for it have been strong, but not strong enough.” She slid me an odd little look that I couldn’t read.

“Really? What happened to them?”

“They killed each other,” she said simply and held out a plate of cold, marinated mushrooms. She made a little moue at the horrified expression on my face. “Yes, it is shocking, but unfortunately, the people who first come forward at a time like this are not ones we want in control. Now that the feverheads and rogues have done away with themselves, the serious challengers will come out and battle for control.”

“I guess you’ve got to be a hothead if you end up fighting to the death for a job,” I said slowly, wondering what sort of person would end up in control of western Europe’s Otherworld society.

Amelie agreed. “But Aisling…there has been some talk.”

“Oh? About what? Oooh, stuffed tomatoes! Thank you, they look delicious.”

I popped a tiny tomato into my mouth while she sat down opposite me, her hands folded together.

“Do you recall what I said the last time I saw you?”

“The last time? Hmm.” I thought back a couple of months. “Bon voyage?”

“Before that. It was right after you solved the murders of the Venediger and Madame Deauxville.”

I put down the scrumptious morsel of tomato and cheese, my blood running cold. “You said that since I had defeated the person who was going to take over as Venediger, that meant I was a candidate for the job, but it’s not going to happen, Amelie. I have enough on my plate as is.”

“It is the opinion of many here that you would be perfect for the position,” she said stubbornly as she poured herself another glass of wine.

“Much as I appreciate such a thought, I wouldn’t be perfect for it. I don’t even know what a Venediger does, for cripe’s sake!”

“You are a smart woman. You would learn quickly.”

I set my glass down and took a deep breath. “Thank you, but no. Seriously, no. It’s all I can do to keep up with Nora and the dragons—anything else would be absolutely out of the question.”

She shrugged, and without saying anything more on that topic, turned the conversation to personal subjects. I told her what I’d been doing the last couple of months, about our time in Budapest, and gave her a brief update on the situation with Drake.

“He…betrayed you?” she asked, clearly surprised.

“In a manner of speaking. He kind of tricked me into becoming his mate while leading me to believe he would support my Guardian training.”

“That is very wrong of him…but very like a dragon,” she said after a moment’s thought.

“Yes. I will admit that he was in a hard place, and perhaps I wasn’t noticing warning signs as well as I might, but hindsight and all that.”

“Hmm. It is difficult.”

By the time we were through dissecting my love life, discussing all the gossip of the Paris Otherworld, and allowing Jim to have quality Cecile time, I had only an hour and a half left before I had to get to the station to catch the high-speed train back to London.

“Would you like to go to G&T?” Amelie asked as I helped her clear the dinner table after we’d eaten a lovely meal of poached smoked haddock and potatoes, and wild mushroom ravioli that had me gibbering with pleasure as it melted in my mouth. “If it has bad memories for you, I will understand, but it is still the premiere place in Paris.”

“I’d love to. I don’t hold the bar at fault for all the stuff that happened there,” I told her as we gathered up our things. Jim was torn between leaving Cecile and missing out on potential snacks from unwary patrons at the Goety and Theurgy bar, where so much had happened a few months ago. In the end, it decided that although love was eternal, a sleepy Cecile was not as entertaining as G&T.

“I want a drink, though. And some snacks. That mushroom thing isn’t going to hold me over until morning,” Jim said as we headed for the metro.

“If you’d eaten the food Amelie provided, you wouldn’t be hungry now,” I said in an undertone, pinching its ear to remind it to keep its voice down in public.

“That was dog food!” Jim’s voice was rife with disbelief. “Do you have any idea what they put in that stuff? It’s, like, all ground-up lips and butts! I’m not putting that in this magnificent form!”

“Fine, I’ll buy you a hamburger once we get to G&T, but if I find you begging from anyone, it’s straight back to the Akashic plain with you!”

I was mildly surprised to see that G&T looked no different than it had before but was reminded with a jolt, at the sight of the previous Venediger’s picture on a wall near the bar, that the events I’d remembered were only a few months in the past. Despite the former owner’s brutal murder, and the manager’s spiral into madness, everything looked exactly the same. I half expected to see Drake and his two redheaded bodyguards lounging in the corner.

“I know it’s silly, but you’d think it would look different after everything we went through.” My gaze roamed the club, looking for some sign that the events we’d participated in had some sort of lasting effect. “Everything’s the same, though—same low, pulsing music you have to yell over to be heard, smoky air that leaves you craving a ventilation system, and people slinking around looking as normal as can be despite the fact that they’re anything but.”

“The band is different this week,” Amelie said, waving a hand toward a small stage at the opposite end of the club. We walked down the few steps into the room, prepared to squeeze our way through the dense wall of people who stood among the bar, tables, and dance area. I expected we’d have to use a few elbows to get through, but as I stepped forward, an aisle through the mass opened up as if by…well, magic.

“This is odd,” I whispered to Amelie as I took advantage of the strange phenomenon. Before me, people stepped aside to make way for us. Behind, the path closed up seamlessly after Amelie and Jim. “This happened to me once before here—what gives with everyone? Why are they acting like they don’t want me to inadvertently brush against them? I’m not a leper!”

“No, but you are a person of much importance in the L’au-delà,” Amelie answered in a soft tone. “You are a demon lord, a wyvern’s mate, and a Guardian. There has never been a person who was all three—that is why many people believe you would be a good Venediger as well. They are simply showing you the respect due your position.”

“Hey, if Aisling is a celeb, does that make me one, too? Will someone ask for my picture, do you think?” Jim asked, looking around for potential paparazzi. “Should I set up my demon-jim.com Web site now?”

“Oui, you are known as well. All have heard of you: You are the demon who serves your master well.”

“Hrmph,” Jim said. “Lassie I’m not! Fame can wait if all I’m going to be known as is a trusty sidekick. What’s this biz about Ash as the V?”

“Just silly talk, nothing more. I’m not going to complain about making it through a crowd easily,” I whispered to Amelie, “but it still gives me the creeps. I’m not anyone important at all, and for them to treat me this way is…oh, look, a table.”

We grabbed a couple of chairs and a small table in an out-of-the-way corner and accepted menus from the waitress.

“Drinks?” she asked in broken English.

“I will have a cognac,” Amelie told her, handing back the menu.

“Er…dragon’s blood,” I said with an apologetic smile.

“And for ze demon?” she asked, giving Jim a bland look.

Jim drooled on her foot.

“It will have a club soda in a bowl and a hamburger with all the trimmings.”

“No onions. I have Cecile to think of,” Jim corrected me.

“So? How does it feel to be back?” Amelie asked once the waitress left, tipping her head to the side as she looked at me.

I looked around again. Although the music pulsed, conversation ebbed and flowed around us, and people generally went about their evenings, I had a feeling that everyone in the room knew exactly where I was sitting. It was an uncanny, unnerving feeling, and it made me extremely uncomfortable. “It feels…kind of odd. The first time I stepped foot in here, I had no idea of what this world was made of. I guess what’s bothering me most is that the club hasn’t changed—I have.”

“But changed for the better, no? Now you see all the possibilities.”

I smiled. Amelie was the first one who’d told me to look beyond the obvious into something she called the “possibilities”—which I’d gathered meant that anything that could be, might be. It was all very quantum physics, and I did my best to try not to think too hard about it, just accept that there were things existing that I had never thought possible.

“Oh, look. There, do you see? The man at the end of the bar, next to the troll.”

I squinted through the smoke and tried to pinpoint the figures Amelie was indicating. “There’s a troll here? The kind with green hair and stumpy legs and a big pot belly?”

She gave me a look like I had suddenly sprouted antlers. “What are you speaking? No, of course a troll does not have green hair and a pot belly. The woman in the Birkenstocks and patterned capri pants. That is the troll—her name is Trude. She comes from Bavaria. But that is not who I want you to see—it is the man next to her. That is Peter Burke.”

“And Peter Burke is…?”

“He is said to be a most powerful mage. And one of the…what is the word? Contenders? For the position of Venediger, hein?”

“Ah.” I looked at the man she indicated. He turned at that moment and looked directly at me. I smiled. He frowned and looked away again. “He doesn’t look like a powerful mage. He looks like…well, kind of Alan Aldaish. Placid, almost.”

“You are not seeing the possibilities within him,” Amelie said dryly.

I admitted that was so and, clearing my mind, swung open the door to my powers and released them in order to really look at the mage.

As it always did, everything seen through my super-Guardian vision looked so much brighter, so much sharper, as if the everyday world was slightly grayed out and blurred. I moved my eyes along the people in G&T, noting that a woman who sat apparently alone with two men actually had a spirit shape hovering protectively behind her. The woman Amelie named as the troll had a faint sparkle of something all over her skin—it reminded me of mushroom spores. My gaze shifted to the man next to her, and I jerked as his head turned once again to me. For the space between seconds a black tendril of power seemed to snake off him, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I had imagined it.

“Huh. Interesting. I’ve never seen that before, but I don’t see anything that screams mage. Then again, I’ve never met one. Maybe there’s something about them I don’t know to look for.”

“He is not a popular man,” she said quietly.

“Really? If there’s such a powerful mage all ready to step into the Venediger’s shoes, why on earth would anyone want me to fight for the job?”

“We do not know who he is. No one knows for certain.” Amelie leaned close so I could hear. “But it is rumored his power comes from a dark source.”

Something bothered me about Peter Burke, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Perhaps Amelie’s forebodings were getting to me. “Hmm. I can see why people wouldn’t want someone with one foot in Abaddon in control of the Otherworld, but if you want to get technical, I am a demon lord, so that should let me off the hook, too.”

She shook her head. “Everyone here knows about you and Jim. You are not a prince of Abaddon, nor do you have ties to them.” Her gaze shifted across the bar to where Peter Burke sat. “The same cannot be said about others.”

“Hey! I sensed an insult in that statement!” Jim said, looking up from the bread sticks I’d given it. We both ignored the demon.

“Well, it’s a moot point. I can’t take the job.” I continued my perusal of the room, greatly enjoying seeing beneath the surface of the denizens of the Paris Otherworld. “Wow. This is fascinating.”

“I wish you would think about it…oh, dear.”

“Oooh, there’s a faerie over there. She has translucent wings that are almost invisible even to my supervision. Cool.”

“Ash, you’re going to be sued if you keep it up.”

I ignored Jim. It always exaggerated. My gaze shifted past the faerie and her companion (also fey), wandering around the room, enjoying seeing people in their true forms. A little ripple of excitement caused everyone to shift, a wave of cool air curling through the crowds as a hush descended over everyone.

“That’s odd. I wonder who’s causing that…oh, no!”

“Aisling, you must stop now. This is getting out of hand,” Amelie said.

“It’s Fiat,” I groaned, recognizing the man at the doorway of the club. “Damn. I was hoping to avoid him.”

“Ash, you may want to drop the menu before it burns you.”

“Hmm?” I looked from where Fiat was gliding his way down the steps, two of his guards in tow, to the menu I still held in my hand. It was on fire.

“Criminy dutch!”

The mental door slammed shut as I dropped the menu on the floor and stomped on it a few times to put the flames out. I looked up to apologize and explain to Amelie that although as Drake’s mate I could pull on his dragon fire, I had yet to really learn how to control it, but the look on her face as she gazed around the room stopped me.

Every menu in the place was alight. People stood silently with them burning where they had dropped—on the tables, the floor, and the bar itself. To a man, they all turned to look at me.

“I see you have made your presence known in your own distinct manner.” A smooth voice with an Italian accent floated from the far side of the room. “Welcome back to Paris, cara.”