by Chris Lowry
“Stop a demon,” I spoke over him.
“Free a trapped spirit too,” my watcher said.
“And do my job,” I snapped.
“Okay, okay,” Kiko sat up and traded her beef for shrimp. “No need to shout. I’m sitting right in front of you.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I stuffed more chicken in my mouth.
Her dark eyes grew wider.
“Yurei,” she breathed in wonder.
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “And he’s trying to add to my to do list, just like you.”
She took a few more bites and settled the box on the tabletop. I was glad she let me finish eating in peace.
Kiko strutted across the floor to the min-fridge and tossed a bottle of water to me. She got one for herself and drank it down in tiny gulps.
“We’ll stop for more,” she said. “We’ll need to stay hydrated out there.”
“Out where?” I paused with the bottle halfway to my lips.
“In the desert,” she said as if it was self explanitory.
“And why are we going to the desert? Aren’t we in a desert?” I glanced over my shoulder to where Elvis floated. “Vegas is in a desert, right?”
“It’s where we find answers,” she said. “Get dressed.”
She went into the bathroom and shut the door. I don’t know if she was giving me privacy or keeping some for herself, but I shucked my jeans, tee and bomber back on while she was in there.
“The crash site is in the desert,” Elvis said. “I’m just saying.”
I sighed. I tried to make it sound world weary and put upon. It didn’t take much.
CHAPTER
The valet brought the Caddy and Kiko climbed behind the wheel.
She ignored common sense and the laws of traffic as she floored it out of the casino and crossed three lanes on the Strip.
Her hearing was more selective than mine, because the sound of horns, curses and screeching tires made me cringe but she didn’t flinch.
A mad motorist caught us at the second light and let out a string of curse words through his window while he waved a gun.
I flicked a finger and yanked it from his hand, then floated it across to settle on the seat between us.
“Neat trick,” Kiko said.
Then the light changed and the other driver was drawing the horns and ire of the cars on the Strip as Kiko left him staring, wondering what happened.
“You want to tell me where we’re going?”
She lowered her thick sunglasses and glanced at me over the edge.
“You’ll see,” she said.
“Ask her if she knows where the plane crashed,” Elvis said.
“They’ll have cleaned it up,” I answered over my shoulder. “They don’t just leave crashed planes out there.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“They would if they didn’t know about it,” she said. “I can find three that belonged to smugglers.”
“Like pirates?”
“Drugs. People,” she shrugged. “Lots of things in the desert.”
“Including crashed planes.”
“More than that.”
“Where we’re going?”
She nodded.
“You’ll see.”
She took the Interstate towards Los Angeles to the second exit eight miles out of town and followed a smaller three lane highway for six miles.
The only way I knew it was a highway was by the number on the sign.
Everything else about it was deserted, which made sense in a desert. But there were no other cars, no dwellings and no people.
Everyone else had the sense to avoid the afternoon sun, except for us.
And we forgot to stop for water.
She turned onto a worn gravel road and began a slow bouncing ride toward a clutch of mountains that smudged the western horizon.
The sun kept beating down in waves as the mountains got closer, and Vegas became a smoggy shape behind us.
It was easier to talk at the slower speed, but the sun made it an effort not worth making. We drove in silence instead, even the radio turned off.
The road ended in a wide circle with a small redwood sign tacked to a pole next to a path that announced a Trailhead.
“We’re hiking?”
She pulled to the side of the gravel circle that doubled as a parking lot and clicked the Caddy in gear.
“Something you need to see,” she said.
She climbed out of the car and popped the trunk. I joined her and she passed me a backpack before sliding into a smaller one of her own.
There was water in them, hydration bladders full to bursting. I bit the tip between my teeth and took a sip, surprised it wasn’t warm.
“Let’s go,” she said and set off on the trail at a good pace that surprised me for someone with legs so short.
I planned to get some answers on the trail. Like why were we out there, where were we going and what the hell was she thinking.
But the path started rising as soon as we cleared the first copse of trees, and then it was an effort to keep up.
We walked for three miles, then at some marking on a tree that looked like slashes to me, she turned and led us across a narrow ridge.
The ground here undulated, small hills and tiny valleys, strewn with rock and dust and red dirt. The weather wreaked havoc on the geography and turned it into an almost alien landscape.
The sun didn’t help. It was relentless and merciless, setting toward the shadow draped mountains. It covered everything in a harsh glow of baked rocks and burned ground and stumpy lifeless dirt.
“The ground is burned,” I said out loud as realization hit me.
Kiko nodded, the back of her black hair bobbing against her neck.
The ground around us was singed in rings. It reminded me of something I had seen before, but not for decades.
My memory was trying to bring it to the forefront when Kiko stopped and pointed at a cave.
“In there,” she said, but didn’t lead us forward.
“More homeless tunnels?” I asked.
“Or was this where whatever was hunting the homeless made its lair?”
She shrugged.
“Are we going in?”
“I’m not going in,” she sniffed the air.
“More shit?” I said, but that wasn’t quite right.
It was that and the smell of something else. Something big and reptilian and dead things. Lots of dead things.
The cloying funk of rotting meat.
“What kind of demon did she summon?” I wondered if we were too late.
If the witch had unleashed some ancient horror on the world to wreak hell.
I was only half right.
Kiko grabbed my arm and yanked me behind a bolder. It was big enough for her to hide behind, but some times little people forget those of us who are normal sized.
A lot of me showed around the rock.
And when the shadow inside the cave moved out into the last of the sunlight as it bathed the western mountains in a harsh glow, I’m man enough to say I “eeeped.”
Not a peep. Not a shriek. And I didn’t think it was that loud.
But it was loud enough to be heard. And noticed.
Two yellow cat eyes the size of platters winked open in the darkness and a puff of flame jetted from the mouth of the cave.
“Ryuu,” Kiko whispered. “Daragon.”
“Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,” I whispered back as a Dragon the size of three city buses slithered out of the dank cavern looking for us.
CHAPTER
We huddled.
More precisely, Kiko hid behind the whole rock, folding her body into a compact tight ball, while I cowered next to her.
I knew about dragons.
From books.
But no one had any real world experience for thousands of years. I’d have to ask the Judge, but I wasn’t sure if I’d last to make it from the clearing, let alone back to the boss.
Kiko
shivered next to me. I guess she was thinking the same thing.
The dragon below us made a lot of noise as claws scrabbled on the rock.
We huddled for what felt like hours, time in which I had plenty of mean and nasty things to say to Kiko and to Elvis, who I knew was floating over me and watching the damn thing.
But he wasn’t talking, and neither was I.
I was afraid the slightest sound would clue in the monster to our whereabouts. I don’t know why the ghost wouldn’t say anything.
The sun moved like a snail on a salt trail, taking its sweet ass time to hit the mountains which signaled the beginning of twilight.
My calves cramped first. Then my lower back, and finally all the muscles in my lower body started screaming, and when the screaming stopped, I knew I was about to hit full on muscular rebellion and fall over.
That would be the end. The dragon would hear it and pounce. I called up one last spell to go out with a bang, and try to take it with me.
Maybe I’d get a medal and sainthood like St. George.
Then I fell.
Just as the dragon took to wing and powered out of the craggy vale.
It opened its maw to roar in the night, sounding for all the world like a jet engine revving.
Loud enough to cover my scream of agony as pins, needles and electric jackhammers attacked my legs and back.
The shape of the dragon was a dark spot against the purple twilight as it rolled over and disappeared over the mountain.
“Hunting,” Kiko stood over me and offered a hand to help me up. “You should really stretch more.”
I took her hand and pulled a little harder than I needed, but she was stronger than she looked.
A lot stronger.
I stood with one hand on the boulder while spasms shook my lower body.
“It’s okay,” said Kiko. “I wanted to faint too.”
“My legs are asleep,” I said.
She nodded like she knew the truth.
“That’s not what’s hunting the homeless,” I stated. “And some help you were.”
I aimed my head at Elvis.
“What did I do?”
“Why didn’t you talk us through,” I said, trying hard and failing to keep the accusation out of my voice. “You could have told us everything you knew.”
“You didn’t ask,” the watcher sulked.
I gaped.
“Besides, dragons are magic,” he said. “They might be able to hear ghosts.”
“Is that true?”
“Some books say so,” he said. “It’s hard to remember.”
I knew his memory was getting shoddy, but I swear, he was using it as an excuse this time.
But I didn’t call him on it.
“You knew it was there,” I turned on Kiko, stiff legs dragging in the dirt.
She nodded and pulled her straw out of her pack, drinking deep.
“You could have warned me.”
She nodded again.
“Remember when I said you owed me,” her eyebrows wiggled on her forehead.
My stomach started to drop. She answered before it could make the trip.
“You’re going to help me kill it.”
CHAPTER
Kiko started hiking back down the trail. She didn’t glance back to see if I followed.
The light was fading from purple to black, a wash of stars glowing into view. It competed against a yellow red radiance where Vegas squatted in the middle of the valley far away.
Going down was easier than going up.
But the new knowledge of a mythological beast kept me quiet.
I’m not sure why Kiko or the ghost were silent.
I was wracking my brain, trying to recall how to kill a dragon. Was it in the books of magic I had studied? Did magic even work on them?
And why did this little woman think I was going to help her as a favor for driving?
Weren’t there monster hunters out there whose job it was to slay dragons?
Or knights? I tried to remember if there were still knights around.
“Elvis, how do you kill a dragon?” I asked.
He floated over the ground off the trail, tugged along by the ethereal cord that kept us connected.
Some ghosts are tied to buildings, or to places where they died.
Elvis was tied to me by the trauma of his murder.
CHAPTER
“You don’t need a wizard,” I told Kiko as she bounced us back down the road back the way we came up. “You need a Knight.”
She gripped the wheel with two hands and glared at the rocks revealed by the headlights.
“I had a knight,” she frowned.
“And?” I said when she didn’t offer more.
“The dragon ate him.”
“Ate a knight.”
“Cooked him,” she shrugged. “Chomped him. I didn’t watch. He was a good samurai.”
Of course he was, I thought. In a world where dragons roamed, samurai would still be around.
I turned my head to look at Elvis.
“Why would a dragon be here?”
He thought about it, ghost eyes gazing across the Martian like landscape that stretched on either side of the car.
“Good grazing,” he finally said. “Hikers, campers, people out in the wild who won’t be missed.”
“I meant, how did a dragon get here?”
I turned to Kiko. “That’s a question for you too.”
She shrugged.
“I only followed it here.”
“With the samurai,” I settled back in the seat and bit back a ton of frustration.
“Here’s what I know about dragons,” I said. “They’re impervious to most magic.”
“Correct,” said Kiko.
“Which is why you don’t nee me,” I told her. “Magic is pretty much all I’ve got.”
She shrugged again. I was getting pretty damn tired of the indifference to my feelings.
“You are here,” she said. “And giri.”
I scowled.
“I don’t speak Japanese,” I said.
“You owe me.”
“For driving me around, that’s a dinner. Maybe pitch in for a tank of gas. But not to kill a freaking dragon.”
“Giri,” Elvis moaned. “I like that concept. Yes, Marshal. You owe.”
“I owe you, okay. I know that. And I’m going to help you,” I said. “But her…I have a witch to hunt. A demon to kill. A demon that’s not a myth monster. I don’t think it is, at least.”
“Giri,” said Kiko.
“Turn right,” said Elvis as we reached the road.
“That’s not the way to town,” I said.
“I know the way,” Kiko informed me.
“Elvis said to turn right.”
She stopped in the middle of the road and looked up the bleak expanse of asphalt that stretched away in the darkness.
“What’s there?” she asked me.
I pointed over my shoulder to what looked like an empty backseat to her.
“The crash site,” said Elvis.
“Out here? With the dragon?”
“I would be surprised if they were related,” said the ghost.
I threw up my hands. They weren’t going to let me find the witch, and I still needed a lift back to town.
If I got out to hitchhike, it might be hours before someone came along the back road to offer a ride, and even then, they might not want to pick up a stranger in the dark.
I could poof back to town, but that would be a drain on my magic and if I ran into something, like a demon or a vampire hit squad, I’d need that power.
“Fine,” I mumbled. “Just go look.”
