“I did see her,” I said. “I know I hurt … her. I told her I was sorry.” Dragon smiled. It wasn’t a thing of pleasure; it was the opening volley in an assault. I had seen that smile enough times to know.
“Well, I’m sure she’s already halfway to forgiving you,” she said. Her hand flashed out as she punched me hard in the side of the face. The force of the punch almost knocked me out cold. I flew across the deck, hit the rail, and flipped over it, landing with a crunch on the tar and gravel of the unfinished roof, near a grimy skylight. If she had hit me with all her might, my head would have popped like a Rice Krispy, but she didn’t want to kill me. I oddly counted that as a win.
I groaned and pulled myself up to my feet. My jaw was numb. I spit some blood and slipped under the rail back onto the deck. “That the beginning of the healing process?” I asked. Lauren shook her head.
“That’s a long time coming,” she said, “and it’s a damn sight gentler than you deserve, Ballard.”
“Agreed,” I said. “I need your help, Lauren.” There were couches and chairs and a few love seats set up around the deck, and Dragon sat in one of the larger chairs. She tucked her legs up under herself and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“Nice to see some things never change,” she said. “I figured sooner or later, one of the more recent ones would leak, and I’d have you sniffing around my city and my case again.”
“Dragon, what are you talking about?” I said, and I saw something shift behind her eyes.
“Why are you here, Laytham?” she asked.
“I’m tracking a runaway,” I said. “Fae nobility. It’s a cold case, and the last lead I could stir up says she came to L.A.” Lauren looked genuinely troubled. “Now, your turn,” I said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The girl,” Dragon said, “the little Jane Doe from 1984, the case that got Nico killed. And then the second one…”
“In 1989,” I said. My hands were shaking a little as I pulled the cigarette away from my lips and let the smoke stream from my mouth. Dragon nodded.
“The one that got you dismissed…”
“I quit,” I said. “What are you telling me, Lauren. I fucking deserve to know, more than goddamn anyone.” I felt my control slipping, a rainbow of chakra energy spilling out of me like I was a novice. The power swirling about me, vomiting out of me, was enough to level this city, turn the desert to a sea of liquid glass.
“Laytham,” Dragon said, her eyes widening as she perceived what was happening. “Get your fucking shit together!”
“You … tell … me,” I growled, and I saw genuine fear on the face of one of the most powerful beings I know. “There were more? More fucking murders?”
“Yes!” she said. “Goddamn it, yes! Now get it under control, before you kill everyone for miles with your goddamn temper tantrum!”
I blinked and realized that I was at the center of a maelstrom of me. All the hype, all the ego and legends and bullshit aside, I am that powerful. I can move mountains with faith, faith in me, in my power. It was what my granny saw in me when she tried to put my feet on the path to become a Wisdom, like her. It’s what had terrified, enticed, or threatened most of my teachers over the years. It was the hungry, horny, angry god at the fractured core of me, and I tried to keep it in check, not out of some selfless lie, not to protect others, but because it scared the hell out of me too, scared me to think what I could do if I ever completely let go of it, scared I would lose my comfortable, mortal self in all that mindless power. And as much as I fucking hate me, at the end of the day, I’m all I have.
Breathing, it was the key to everything. It was the first lesson and the last. It’s remarkable how much we control, focus, increase, and diminish through the keyhole of breath alone. Breathing is the music of life; it is the throttle to our power and our health. If one does not breathe well, one does not live well, and a wizard who cannot control his breath cannot control his magic. Primary lessons, first principles. I fell back on them, and I let go of the self, as much as a selfish S.O.B. like me is capable. I let the meat and the bone, the blood and the breath drive. The mind slipped back and away, and slowly, slowly, I felt the jagged edges of the storm-tossed sea that was my power. I let the thinnest sliver of my consciousness enter the awareness and I, with aching care, spread my will over the raging force of my aura, like oil on water. The energy smoothed, calmed, and then finally retreated back to the recesses of my mortal shell.
I was back on the deck, back on the roof, back in my body. I was shaking, like the aftermath of an adrenal high. My hands clutched the rail I had tumbled over a few moments ago when Dragon had punched me. I looked down at my hands; the knuckles were white from my grip. Steam was curling up from the metal of the deck around my hands. My vision refocused, and I saw the millions of lights burning across the city. I had almost snuffed them all out. I exhaled carefully, an even stream of air. My heartbeat was even, I was even.
“How many?” I asked. My voice sounded weird to me, small and fake.
