by Chris Lowry
Kiko turned the wheel with a small smile of satisfaction.
“What are you smiling at?” I snapped.
“Giri,” she said. “The more I do, the more you owe.”
She punched the accelerator and any curse words I might have tossed her way got lost in the grumble of the engine and the cold night wind washing over us.
CHAPTER
“Is this it?” we stood on the edge of what would be called a pasture if the grass was green.
Clearing was the wrong word too, though that described the place. It was off the road by several hundred yards, and hidden between two ridges.
The kind of place wilderness explorers took one look at and said, “nothing to see here.”
Maybe someone on an ATV would run across the place in the next few years.
But they would have to be lucky.
Like me.
The crash was between the ridges, a churned up stretch of dirt and rock fifty yards long.
Bits of metal debris littered the clearing. The plane looked like it disintegrated on impact, a rolling tumble that spread parts across the dale where they burned.
“I don’t know what I can tell from this,” I said.
But the ghost ignored me.
Instead, he floated away, as far as his tether would let him until I could no longer see him in the dark.
“Before you kill the dragon, you will share your story about him with me,” Kiko said.
“We say please and thank you,” I muttered.
“Don’t be angry with me Marshal,” she said and slipped her arm through the crook of mine. “Obligation is a serious affair in my world. As serious as the true name of something is in yours.”
I didn’t know the extent of it, but somewhere I had read about the cultural aspects of Japan. I knew a little bit in passing about a lot of things, the kind of stuff one tends to pick up in ninety five years of living, and lots of study.
The Judge gave us reading lists to keep us aware of how magic played across different countries. It was always possible to get called to another continent to back up a fellow Marshal, though I had only been asked to help the now former Marshal of the West.
Japan was serviced by the Marshal out of Hong Kong, who covered the Asian continent. She would know a lot more about paying back favors than I would, but so far, I hadn’t had time to reach out and ask.
Elvis floated back into view.
“This won’t be easy,” he said.
“What won’t?”
A second ghost flitted in view behind him and I flinched. Normally, I can handle the spirits of the dead.
They look just as they did while they were living.
Except this guy.
He had been on the plane, but it was hard to tell if he was one of the Elvis’ or what.
The ghost was a charred floating skeleton with chunks of melted flesh frozen in dripping hunks clinging to the hairless skull.
“He was the pilot,” said Elvis.
The skeleton’s jaw moved, but I couldn’t hear any sound it made.
But it did make sound, that much I could tell by the way Elvis tilted his head to one side. Like he was listening.
“It was sabotage,” said Elvis, a satisfied look on his face. “Murder.”
“Then ask him who,” I said as I tried not to look at the pilot.
“He can understand you,” Elvis explained.
“Well I can’t understand him,” I said. “Just find out who did it and we can turn it over to the cops.”
I could wrap it up in a bow, deliver it to the authorities and check this off my list.
“He doesn’t know,” Elvis answered.
“Great,” I sighed. “What does he know?”
Elvis listened to the sound I couldn’t hear again.
“It hurts, Marshal,” he said and I felt sorry for him. Felt sorry for the pilot too, but the sadness in my friend’s voice was worse.
It was empathy, but nothing he could do about it.
“Is he tethered?” I asked, knowing what the answer was. If the ghost was still here, he was tied to the crash.
“He’s bound until the murders are solved,” said Elvis. “Unfulfilled business.”
The same thing that kept Elvis around, I thought. Tied to me with unfinished business.
“Tell him I’ll help,” I said and sighed.
I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t come to Vegas to solve a murder, not even a mass murder, but if my haunted friend needed my help, I was going to try.
“Don’t over obligate yourself Marshal,” Kiko advised.
She only heard one half of the conversation, the things I said, but she gleaned on to the words help and arched an eyebrow.
“What?” I snarled. “You think this is harder than killing a dragon?”
“At least you are thinking of it too,” she said and went to wait in the car.
“Wrap it up,” I told Elvis. “See if you can get any information we can work with.”
“I’ll try,” Elvis said still sounding sad. “But there isn’t much to work with what’s left.”
I glanced at the charred floating skeleton and nodded. I got it.
“We’ll do our best,” I said and went to join Kiko in the car.
CHAPTER
We drove back in silence until the city came into view. The bright lights of the Strip was an explosion of brilliant colors that assaulted the senses.
Cars lined all four lanes, a mass of humanity moving on the sidewalks faster than the traffic jammed up at stoplights.
It was a never ending parade of people, moving, churning, surging from one casino to the next, from club to club and one side to the other.
The casinos were designed to draw people in and keep them there, working to entertain while they seperated the people from their money.
But people were fickle and mobile. They followed what they thought was luck from one side to the next, over the roadway and across, drinking, yelling, laughing and planning.
It was seething with energy and I could feel it as we entered the edge of town.
It’s what the witch needed. Energy to feed the demon inside her and summon one much worse.
I stared at the glittering lights, the kaleidoscope of colors that would make a rainbow jealous and closed my eyes to let it wash over me.
There was a hum in the air, like a giant electrical generator, pulling on the energy.
“Stop the car,” I said and Kiko pulled over at a red light.
“The light’s red,” she said. “I don’t have a choice.”
But I ignored her and jumped out of the car.
I pulled up a spell and saw lines running through the sky, arcing form person to person, bouncing off the tops of their heads and pulling a bit of life, a bit of energy from each of them.
The lines were blue in my vision, thousands of them, like strands on a web, all leading in one direction.
I followed. It had to be the witch working on a summoning.
Because the lines were stealing from people, and that’s bad magic. The worst kind.
The kind of magic the Judge created the Marshals to stop.
It was time to quit worrying about dragons and dead Elvi and vampire wars. It was time to get down to business.
I lowered the brim of the Stetson and went to work.
CHAPTER
The lines looked like neon tubes floating in the sky, dancing off the tops of certain people in random patterns but all drawn toward the miniature Eifel Tower in front of a resort.
Elvis tugged along behind me and I could hear people sputter as he floated through them, tiny shivers of confusion running along the crowded sidewalk.
The front of the resort was packed with convention buses disgorging tourists into the packed lobby.
The noise level was so loud, I bet the dragon could roar outside the front door and no one would hear it.
Which made me think that was why no one had reported a dragon in the area. Vegas was too loud, too n
oisy and the surroundings too deserted for anyone to notice yet.
“Did you see the sign?” Elvis pointed to the glowing marquee.
It was a magic show. No, a magic convention.
I grabbed one of the tourists getting off the bus, a young kid with black pants and a red bow tie.
“What is this?”
“It’s magic man,” he said and pulled a bouquet of flowers out of his sleeve.
“Neat trick,” I said. “I mean what is it? What is a magic convention?”
“Only fifty thousand of the world’s best magicians here to have a rocking party!” the kid whooped.
Then I guess he was done with me, done answering questions at least, because he turned and walked through the crowd.
I watched his head as he entered the automatic doors. A shaft of blue light bounced off his hair, and he shifted direction to follow the line.
“I smell bad mojo,” said Kiko from my elbow.
“Guess you found a place to park,” I looked down at her.
She tilted her head and I followed the direction. The Caddy was parked at the valet station, one of the white clad men standing guard in front of it.
“It’s okay there,” she said. “We won’t be long.”
I almost asked we won’t? I almost asked how she knew.
But she strutted through the doors and followed the crowd before I could say a word.
I was getting pretty tired of trying to play catch up.
“Come on,” I said to Elvis as I hustled after my guide.
CHAPTER
It was easy to pick out the magicians from the gamblers. They were all doing some sort of trick.
I saw canes pop from flashes of light, and shift into flowers or pigeons.
There were sleight of hand artists flipping, shifting and slipping cards from behind ears, behind backs and from under sleeves.
There were capes, and tuxedos and spangled vests, black top hats and white gloves and variations on themes that stretched from Victorian to Gothic and all points between.
And a common thread?
The threads of light that splintered and danced off the tops of heads toward a door in the back of the casino.
The threads held a tug, a draw.
I could feel it at the base of my skull, like a suggestion to move, to follow, to keep going.
“Feel that?” Kiko asked as I joined her where she stepped.
“Bad mojo,” I told her.
“We’re going in there?”
I passed a hand over my bomber to show the star and let it fall back.
“I don’t think I have a choice.”
She sniffed.
“Think any of these are real?”
I glanced around. She was talking about the magicians. I nodded.
“Yeah, it’s a good way for low level users to hide,” I said.
“Then this will not be good,” she declared and marched toward the door.
“Marshal,” said Elvis. “The Elvi are here.”
I could only see him as a shimmer in the light, but easy enough to make out where he was looking.
At another shimmer of light, like a fog over the slot machines, a big patch of it.
“I’ll get to them Elvis,” I sighed.
He moaned and it made me shiver.
When I turned back toward Kiko, I saw a flash of blue lightning thread off her head.
It lit up the back of her hair in a pop bulb of brilliant white, two triangle shapes of shadows on the top of her skull that disappeared as the light dissipated.
She stumbled, then marched again in earnest, looking for all the world like she was pissed and ready to kill someone.
I felt sorry for anyone who got in her way and hurried after. I had to keep them safe just in case they did.
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
There is power in nature. Magical power. Don't believe me? Watch a flower bloom. When you put a seed in the dirt, a single stalk shoots up, fed on nothing but sunlight and water. From that stalk, leaves florish and flowers bloom, explosions of color and smell to please the senses.
But the magic doesn't stop there.
That flower becomes food for birds and bees and insects, carrying necter and pollen to create more flowers, taking seed and spreading it even further.
Nature is magic.
Nature is power.
Earth magic is one of the strongest elements, and full of emotion. The earth, the very foundation of the physical realm, is a powerful spark for emotion.
Those birds that feed on the flowers, the farmers who sow the seed, surfers in the ocean, lovers who stand on cliffs and enjoy the breeze.
Every single spark of emotion given off by the trillions of lives that inhabit the earth, love, gratitude, fear and rage, is absorbed.
Magic is emotion.
Emotion controlled by will.
And though my will was strong, I was going to need something a hell of a lot stronger to forge a lance that could kill a dragon.
I needed a thunderstorm.
"I'll trade you a story, Marshal," Kiko said.
She flipped open the lid to a small cooler and pulled out a bottle of craft beer. It immediately began sweating in the desert heat.
I took it from her, twisted off the cap and tossed it back in the cooler as she did the same for one of her own.
The cold amber liquid was full of coffee flavors, the hint of nut drifted up from the bubbles. I took a second sip and asked without looking.
"What story would you give me?"
She snickered over the tip of her bottle.
"The kind of story that would curl your hair."
"I've always wanted a perm."
She placed the bottle on the ground between us and leaned back, her muscular legs stretched out in front of her. I could see the lines in her arms, the small bulges at her shoulder. Her fine black hair whispered around her head in the slight breeze.
"I will share a story with you," she said without looking at me. "For one of equal measure."
Among some magical creatures, stories have power. Much like names, which can be the essence of an identity, stories gain power through application. I blame the oral tradition that pre-dated history.
Think about it.
Some guy wanted to scare his kids to stay away from the big hairy monster, so he made up stories about it. Those stories got passed around the campfire, and eventually from campfire to campfire, spreading as a sort of early warning system.
At each telling, the people listening began to believe, and as more poeple believed, the story gained power.
The words might shift a little, the names might change, but the meaning remained clear.
Stories became a power as people believed in them.
Faith magic.
The offer to share a story was the offer to share magic.
I took a sip of beer and listened carefully.
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
Elvis wants to help the trapped ghosts of Elvis impersonators.
This leads them to a local witch who is secretly working for Gloria.
She pretends to help the Marshal and betrays him.
Kiko demands payment for driving him around.
They go dragon hunting.
I'm not some Vegas Knight on a dragon Quest, I snapped.
Tell me about it. She sneered. I met the Vegas Knight. I worked with the Vegas Knight. And you sir are no Vegas Knight.
I lifted and eyebrow and tried not to laugh.
Wait, there really is a Vegas Knight?
Of course.
I was just kidding. On the verge of breaking out in a Monty Python sketch.
What is a mighty python?
Monty, I corrected.
No, his name was Loyen.
The Vegas Knight was named Sir Loyen? Now you're just messing with me.
Why would I joke about a dead Man? She stared over at me, right hand on the wheel so her chin was tucked into the curve of her arm.
Dark eyes flashing as the oncoming headlights played off them.
I felt a surge in my sirloin and did a quick check on the extent of the Vegas spell.
Nope. Out here, it was all me.
Dead Knight, I said like a man trying to take his mind off certain things.
She smirked.
By the dragon.
