Dragon Shadow

by Alicia Wolfe

  Normally, this would have concluded things, and Ruby and I would have gone on our way—or maybe she would have stayed, the scamp—but today wasn’t a normal day.

  My hand strayed to the golden antler, still in its netting on my hip.

  Jason seemed to recognize my distraction. Frowning, probably eager to begin his alone time with Ruby so they could, ah, study the clock, he gazed down to the antler.

  “What’s that?”

  Strangely, part of me was hesitant to give it up. Shaking off the weird notion—money was money, honey—I removed the antler from its netting and held it up to the light.

  “We found this in the same safe the…”

  I stopped when his eyes went wide. Jason was black, but in that moment, his skin turned ashen.

  “What?” Ruby asked, sounding breathless. Her hand darted toward his, as if to reassure him, but at the last moment she drew it back.

  Jason visibly shook it off, whatever it was. Color returned to his face. “That,” he said, speaking slowly and dramatically, “is the antler of a Golden Hind.”

  “Why did I have to get the hind part?” I said. “I should’ve gone for the front.”

  Jason leveled a sour look at me. “That’s not funny.”

  “I thought it was pretty funny,” Ruby said, hiding a snicker behind her hand.

  “Let me take a closer look at it,” Jason said.

  We gathered around his great table. He examined the antler with a range of instruments, all magical, from enhanced magnifying glasses to larger, more steampunky apparatuses. I tapped my foot in impatience and would have lit a cigarette, but Ruby had made me quit last year. I’d just been on the verge of forgiving her, too.

  “Well?” Ruby asked eagerly when Jason leaned back.

  “It really is,” he said, sounding awed.

  “Is what?” I said, wishing again for a cigarette.

  “The antler of Golden Hind.”

  “You’ve heard of those,” Ruby told me, as if I were an idiot.

  “Remind me,” I said.

  “Mythical beings,” she said. “Golden deer with magical properties.”

  “Long ago, when the Fae first started coming here—short trips, not like their recent migration—they brought some of the Hinds with them,” Jason said. “Or maybe the Hinds came on their own, I don’t know. Some legends say they’re intelligent. The Hinds are all gone now, or I thought they were. This antler must come from the Fae Lands. Or…”

  “Or what?” Ruby questioned, looking up at him. The profound respect and care she had for him was reflected on her face.

  “Well, it could be one of the lost Hinds. The ones that came over all those years ago. Only why would this antler be surfacing now? Jade, you say you found this in a penthouse…of a human?”

  “That’s right. He’s not even a mage or anything, although he employs them.”

  Jason rubbed his face. “That antler is a powerful thing, guys. It’s not the sort of object people have lying around or even stored in a safe. If this Hawthorne guy had it at his home, that means he was planning to use it.”

  “What for?” Ruby asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe…”

  “Yes?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll have to study it more. If Hawthorne had hired a mage to begin some magical working with it, the imprint of that might still be embedded in the antler. Give me some time and I’ll examine it closer. Then maybe I can figure this out.”

  “I don’t know why it matters,” I said. “Just name a price and I’ll see if I like it.”

  Jason’s jaw fell open. “You would sell it to me?”

  “What else would I do with it? Use it as a paperweight? A back scratcher?”

  That seemed to stump him. “Good question.”

  Ruby shook her finger at me. “Jade, we can’t just sell it, or get rid of it. We nearly died getting this thing, and a very bad man—well, at least a bad man—was up to something with it that may or may not involve the Fae Lords. Something is up with this thing, Jade. Maybe…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe something…bad.”

  Her words held a gravity and a level of doom I normally didn’t hear from her. Now that she knew the antler belonged to a Golden Hind, something seemed to have changed in her. It was as if she saw things differently now, as if she were seeing a bigger picture than I was.

  “Ruby,” I said, trying not to sound irritated. “The last thing we need is to get mixed up in some intrigue involving the fucking Fae Lords.”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “Jade, this is bigger than you and your revenge.”

  “We weren’t even talking about that, Rubes. And please, let’s not start.”

  “We were talking about it. You said you weren’t interested in what was going on with the antler, but I know the reason for that. It’s because you can’t see beyond your own—”

  “Enough.”

  Jason’s head swiveled back and forth from Ruby and me as if watching a tennis match, but it wasn’t entertainment on his face. It was alarm.

  “Whoa there, ladies,” he said. “Calm down now.” Then, to me: “Revenge? What’s she talking about, Jade?”

  I’d never told him the truth about my heritage or what I was doing in New York in the first place.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “Well?” Ruby demanded.

  I forced myself to count to ten. “Fine.” I sighed. “Let Jason examine it. You and he can even do it together.”

  She smiled, but Jason frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, and I could tell he meant it. “I need to work on the antler alone. It will require all my concentration. Give me a day and come back. Hopefully, I’ll have some answers for you by then.”

  Ruby pouted, but she must have seen he was telling the truth, because she nodded. “Okay, then. See you tomorrow, Jason.” Brightening, she turned to me. “Sis, I’m sorry about what I said.”

  “What?” I said. The last thing I wanted was to talk about our feelings. Ugh. “No, it’s—”

  She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “We need to go out,” she said firmly. “We need to party.”

  “You mean, like to a club?”

  She looked at me over her shoulder, and a smile had split her freckled face. “Hell yeah! We just stole some prize loot, saved a nice young woman from her nightmare, and may have landed ourselves in the middle of something interesting. I’d say a drink is in order.”

  “A drink! But you’re underage.”

  She yanked a wallet out of her purse and flashed it at me. “Not after I cast just a little bitsy spell on my driver’s license.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I’m a stone-cold badass thief witch, babes. You’d better believe I would fudge my driver’s license by one month.”

  I laughed. What the hell?

  If only I had known.

  “You are stone cold,” I said in admiration. “Okay, where should we go?”

  “I know just the place.”

  Chapter 3

  Lights blazed, and I paused to admire the display. Pandora’s Box was the hot new magical club in town, and it occupied the first few floors of a major building downtown. A magical mural had been painted across the façade, and not only was it very…lurid, depicting a lot of very healthy people with not much in the way of clothing cavorting across green rolling hills dotted with Roman columns entwined with ivy, but the figures in it moved, gyrating, thrusting, and posing provocatively. Also, the mural glowed, the magical paint not just lambent in the dark, but burning through it like a lighthouse beam through fog. It looked like one could just walk right into the mural, just step from the New York sidewalk into Orgy Hills.

  Two actual centaurs—buff, shirtless guys with the lower halves of horses—stood to either side of the main club entrance, serving as bouncers. A lengthy line of hopeful partiers trailed down the street, eager to get in.

  Ruby and I climbed out of th
e cab, which reeked of clove cigarettes, and joined the others in line. It was October and plenty cold, but the owners of the club had magically heated the sidewalk area outside the ‘Box.’ In fact, a few beads of sweat trickled down my back as I took my place.

  We’d swung by our apartment to change before coming here, and we were all decked out, Ruby was in a short, glittery red skirt with a matching top featuring much cleavage—Mom would have thrown a fit. I was in a black mini-dress and thigh-high shiny leather boots with high heels. I looked good in black.

  “This is going to be awesome,” Ruby said. “I’ve been dying to come here.”

  I glanced up and down the line. Many here sported magical totems or symbols, or at least wore things that looked magical. Magic was the new cool, and everybody wanted in on it, whether they were part of the actual supernatural community or not. It was all alien to me in a way. I’d been born supernatural, but I had had to keep it secret or suffer the consequences, at least until the Fae Lords arrived and changed everything.

  Of course, the consequences had caught up to me even though I kept the secret, and my gifts—well, most of them—had been stolen. Our father had died that day, and our grandmother not long after. When Ruby said I wanted revenge, she wasn’t kidding, and I had good reason, too.

  “Think any of these guys can do any real magic?” I asked, just to make conversation.

  “Not like I can,” Ruby said.

  She lifted a hand, said a word under her breath, and a tiny ball of green fire jumped from her palm. Gasps of astonishment rippled up and down the line. That answered that question. If such a small display could awe them, they couldn’t be magic users.

  “Stop showing off,” I said.

  Ruby sniffed and closed her palm. The fire died. She brightened again. “Did you see what Jason was wearing?”

  Here we go. “Not really.”

  “He had on a new top, and it was tight. Like, really tight.”

  “I didn’t notice.” Although I had.

  “I think he’s been working out.” Her cheeks colored. In a lower voice, she asked, “You told him in advance we were coming, right?”

  “Well, duh. I had to make an appointment.”

  She beamed. Her enthusiasm was both infectious and annoying. “I knew it,” she said, hugging herself.

  I tried not to roll my eyes. “Knew what?”

  “Duh,” she said, mocking me. “He worked out for me!”

  She continued chatting happily about Jason as we advanced in the line and were at last admitted into Pandora’s Box. I couldn’t help but admire the meaty chests of the centaurs as we passed between them. They had smeared scented oil all over their torsos and thick arms, and their heavy slabs of muscle glistened tantalizingly. It was all I could do not to reach out and poke their abs.

  We spilled into the club, which buzzed with noise, lights, and warmth. People packed the place, but there was enough room to dance, and couples thronged the dance floor, thrusting and gyrating not much more modestly than the people on the mural outside. The owners of the club had stuck with the whole Roman theme. I would have thought it was passé, but they made it work with Roman columns supporting jets of magical pink and blue fire, vines climbing stone walls on one side of the room—flowers burst from the vines, emitting magically intoxicating smells—and a grand Roman fountain that seemed to spout not water but…blood?

  “Blood?” I said, surprised.

  Ruby nodded sagely, as if she had known this all along. Maybe she had. She’d been reading about this place for weeks, dying to go there as soon as she turned twenty-one or had a good enough excuse to get me to take her earlier. Sucker me.

  As we made our way toward the long, gleaming black marble bar along one corner, she pointed at the people decked out in black leather and wearing too much foundation.

  “Vampires,” she said.

  I recoiled, but she tugged me along, bound and determined to reach the bar and her first quasi-legal drink.

  “Vampires?” I repeated.

  “That’s right. Or their groupies, more like. They’re allowed here, too—the vampires. Not the groupies. Although, them, too, obviously. I mean, vampires have to have their groupies, right?”

  “I…guess.”

  “Why don’t witches have groupies? I would love some groupies. Maybe those centaurs…” She bit her lower lip. “Anyway, it’s not like there’s a law against vampires or anything.”

  “There should be.”

  I had known about the existence of vampires even before the Fae-rival, but I’d been shocked when they “came out” along with the other shifters and paranormals after that event. Some things belonged in the darkness.

  “Why?” Ruby said as we reached the bar and had to stand in another line to get one of the bartenders’ attention.

  “Because they kill people?” I suggested.

  “Pfft. If they kill people, they go to jail just like any other murderer. But if they don’t, why not let them be?”

  I sighed. I wasn’t going to win this argument. But that didn’t mean I had to sit next to one of the creepy goths who were either real vampires or fang bangers. I couldn’t tell one from the other, so I kept my distance. We finally signaled the bartender, a cute tattooed girl who had absolutely nothing Roman, magical, or goth about her, and ordered our drinks. I nearly leapt out of my skin when she handed me my daiquiri, because when she did she flashed me a smile, revealing a set of gleaming white fangs.

  “Ack!” I said.

  Even Ruby paled. “Are those real?” she asked, leaning forward. The vampire nodded. Ruby’s face brightened. “Can I touch?”

  The bartender laughed and indicated the tip jar. “Depends on how generous you are.”

  Evidently Ruby wasn’t generous enough, because shortly after the bartender moved off to help someone else.

  I downed a long swallow of my drink to calm my nerves. “Serves me right, I guess,” I said. “Should’ve known that someone who looked so normal couldn’t really be normal, not in this place.”

  Ruby nodded at the goths. “I bet that means they’re just groupies. The real vampires probably look just like everyone else.”

  I flinched, suddenly looking around with paranoia.

  Ruby laughed again. Her attention switched to her drink, and a grin crept across her face. At last, she would get to enjoy her first quasi-legal alcoholic beverage in public. I knew all too well that it wasn’t her first first drink, as I’d caught her at my beer more than once and had warned her off it just as many times. Well, almost as many. I mean, I wasn’t our mom.

  “This is going to be glorious,” Ruby said, and then placed her lips to her straw. She’d ordered a strawberry margarita. I watched as the red liquid traveled up her straw and past her lips. Her eyes widened, and her cheeks sucked in. Pulling back, she said, “Cold! Too cold!”

  I laughed. “Serves you right.”

  She stuck her—very red—tongue out at me. “It’s delicious.”

  We found a small table and sat down. “So,” I said. “How long have you been hot for Jason?”

  “Since I realized you weren’t going to make a move on him. I mean, I always thought he was hot, but I never let myself get too far in my thinking, if you know what I mean. I kept expecting you to do something.”

  “I don’t know why I never did. He is awfully cute.”

  “He’s more than cute, sis, he’s delish. But I guess he’s not bad enough for you.”

  I shifted in my seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Ha. I’ve never seen you go out with a guy that didn’t have at least three tattoos.”

  “That’s not true at all. Besides, when do I ever go out?”

  She slurped her margarita noisily. “True,” she said, making a face to show she was getting a brain freeze. “Why don’t you go out more?”

  I sipped my own drink, desperate to end this line of conversation. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  She regarde
d me with alarming soberness. She could go from bright and fuzzy to shockingly grim with ridiculous speed, and it seemed like she’d just switched gears. Uh-oh.

  “It’s not because of your…mission, is it?” she said.

  Groan. “No. Can we talk about something else?”

  But she had me speared in her gaze. She wasn’t letting me off the hook that easy. “Sis, Dad and Gran wouldn’t want you to carry on this way. Let it go.”

  A swell of anger rose in me. I tried to shove it down, because Ruby was the absolute wrong person to unload on, but somehow I couldn’t stop it. She had pricked an old wound, and a deep one.

  “Could you let it go?” I said.

  “Yes.” Her eyes glanced down. “If I had to.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, I could.”

  “If someone had stolen something from you that you prized above everything else? That defined who you are?”

  Her eyes flicked back to me, hurt pooled in them. “More precious than anything else?”

  Shit. I’d stuck my foot in my mouth again. “Ruby, I didn’t mean it like—”

  She set her margarita down and stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  I reached out. “Ruby, come on, you know I didn’t mean it like that. Sit down, let’s talk about this.”

  Anger flared in her eyes, and pain settled on her face. I would have given anything to take my words back, but it was too late.

  “I’ll…” She swallowed one last sip of her margarita and seemed to be trying to shake it off. Her eyes strayed to the dance floor. “I’ll catch up to you later,” she told me, which was as much closure as I was going to get for the moment.

  “Ruby,” I pleaded, but she was gone.

  The dance floor was sunken in the great main room of the club, so I could peer down on it from the bar area and watch Ruby melt into the throng of gyrating, sweaty bodies and vanish. Real smooth, I thought.

  Ruby shouldn’t have pushed me, I told myself. Why did she always have to push?