I skidded to a stop at the door, seeing only one dragon present.

“Gabriel?” I asked Tipene, the second of Gabriel’s elite guard.

He tipped his head toward the door. “They’re testing the security system.”

I considered whether I would be able to last the ten minutes or so it would take before Gabriel and the security experts would emerge. I knew the answer even as I leaned in to allow the retina scanner to examine my eyes before I moved directly in front of the door, my eyes on the lock.

Tipene watched me with interest as I shook out my hands, trying desperately to clear my mind enough so I could “talk” to the lock.

“I’ve never understood why doppelgangers can do that,” he commented as I laid my hands on the lock, closing my eyes to concentrate.

“I have no idea, either. I’m just grateful I can do it.”

“I don’t think you’re going to have much luck. This is a MacGyver 512 titanium carbon magnetic electron lock, calibrated on the atomic level. It’s absolutely top-of-the-line, not even released to the public yet. I know you can open most locks, but I doubt if even you will be able to get through it, May.”

“We’ll see.” I persuaded the lock to open a few of its secrets up to me, probing its depths, noting with interest just how intricate and well made it was. Most locks allowed me to open them with nothing but a token resistance, but this one was different. It didn’t respond at all to the usual persuasions, making me resort to brute strength. As I worked my way through the many levels of the lock, I made a mental note to tell Gabriel that there were some cases where overdesign was not to the good.

The last of the tumblers finally gave way under the force of my will, allowing the steel rods to withdraw smoothly into the body of the lock. I flung a quick smile at Tipene’s goggling when I jerked the door open.

“How—?” he started to say, but I didn’t wait around to gloat.

At the sound of the door opening, the three men who stood in the vault consulting a clipboard turned to look at me.

I ignored two of them, flinging myself on the third.

“Little bird!” Gabriel’s voice, arms, and presence wrapped themselves around me, making me feel as if I’d come home after a long journey.

With blatant disregard for both dragon etiquette and mortal manners, I kissed him, needing the reassurance that only he could provide me.

“I don’t believe it,” one of the two men said as I dug my fingers into Gabriel’s soft dreadlocks, tugging on them to make him give me what I wanted. “She didn’t just open that lock. It’s impossible. It’s just impossible. No one can open that lock. Maybe we didn’t close it properly. . . .”

“Fire,” I whispered into Gabriel’s mouth.

His dragon fire spun through me, setting me ablaze with his molten heat.

“It was closed,” the second man said, censure in his voice. “And as you can see by the fact that the silver mate is right here, I think it’s all too clear that the lock is not as impossible to defeat as your company has claimed. If I’ve told one dragon, I’ve told a hundred—the best security system in the world won’t do any good so long as the door is easily breached.”

“My locks are not easily breached,” the first man snarled. “This has to be an anomaly.”

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked, finally disengaging his tongue from mine.

“We have got to get rid of Magoth.” I didn’t want to say more in front of the other men. Gabriel trusted them to construct his lair, but neither one of them was a dragon, and I wasn’t sure how far his trust went.

“Hey, May, just thought you’d like to know that Magoth found your wallet again, and is on the phone with your MasterCard in his hand. Hey, Gabe, how they hangin’? Oooh. Nice lair. Is that a MacGyver 512 you got there? Drake has one on order.” Jim stepped around the two security experts and cast an interested eye around at the work in progress.

“István dropped it off a couple of days early,” I explained at Gabriel’s surprised expression. “Evidently Drake feels that since Aisling’s due date has come and passed, everyone would be more comfortable without Jim making references to her exploding like an overripe peach.”

“The word was actually ‘pimple,’ but yeah, Drake threatened to chop me up into demon chow if I didn’t get out of the way,” Jim said with absolute nonchalance. “But it’s all good, because Ash made May my temporary boss while she’s busy popping out that baby, and May loves me. Right, May?”

Gabriel’s quicksilver eyes flashed from the two men, now arguing over the relative merits of wards versus banes (the latter being weakish curses that were nonetheless extremely powerful, and very difficult to break). “What has Magoth done now?”

“We just have to get rid of him,” I said in a low voice, hoping he could read the message in my eyes. “Immediately.”

“Right, May?” Jim repeated, a little more forcefully. “Ya love me, right? I’m da man?”

Gabriel examined my face. “Has he touched you?”

I sighed, holding up my hand. Rather than normal, slightly freckled fingers, it was made up of long, elegant silver digits tipped with scarlet claws. “The dragon shard isn’t working correctly. It seems to be confused. And the sooner Magoth is gone, the sooner I can straighten it out.”

“Who’s your daddy? That’s right—incredibly handsome, and manly in a furry sort of way, Jim is! I’m all yours, sweet cheeks, duly authorized by Ash to submit to your every whim and desire, especially the ones that involve giving me food and belly scratches.”

“You don’t mean . . .” Gabriel’s eyes opened wide.

I nodded.

“I’ll kill him.”

The words were spoken softly, and in Gabriel’s normal velvety tones, but the underlying threat was so great it made my blood grow cold.

“Whoa, now! No offense intended,” Jim said, backing away. “If you don’t want May giving me belly scratches, I can get them elsewhere. Word of advice, though, Gabe—you may wanna think about switching to decaf.”

“You can’t,” I said sadly, the dragon shard, content at having stirred things up, subsiding into silence as reason returned to me. “He’s still immortal, and there’s a chance we can unload him back into Abaddon.”