Moonlight Dragon Collection: Urban Fantasy

by Tricia Owens

  "We are aware."

  "Aren't you worried about him? If he gets access to—"

  "Your mission is not Vagasso."

  "But—"

  "You are fortunate we choose not to levy punishment for your arrogance, Anne Moody."

  "Arrogance." I couldn't help lifting my chin at that. I had my flaws, no doubt about that, but I didn't count arrogance as one of them. "It wasn't arrogance that drove me to use my sorcery. I was trying to save the city. I was trying to help you."

  "Did we request such assistance from you? You, of all the magick users in Las Vegas?"

  "I was the only one there!"

  "We are everywhere. Always."

  "Like Elvis, huh?"

  "You will assist us in the manner of our choosing. You will complete a mission for us."

  Tentatively hopeful, since a mission suggested I might leave here alive, I asked, "Which is what?"

  All of the shrouded figures turned their heads as one to look at me. I cursed beneath my breath as goose bumps broke out over my entire body.

  "Stop," I gritted out. Stop looking at me with your damn empty eye sockets.

  "Dragon sorceress, it's time you followed in the footsteps of your ancestors."

  After I ran the words through my head again, I frowned. I had been braced for the Oddsmakers to bring up the subject of my parents, or the Chinese people in general. I'd figured the Oddsmakers would use ancient history against me and claim that I was a threat on the horizon, waiting to unleash. I certainly hadn't expected the Oddsmakers to encourage me to become what everyone had always told me was bad.

  "You can't be serious," I blurted, my fear temporarily subdued in my shock. "All I ever hear is how I should never give in to the calling of my blood because if I do you guys will come after me. Now you're saying you want me to become a dragon?"

  "Do not presume to know what we want from you. If you become the dragon, you will be destroyed."

  A chill swept through the room, momentarily lifting the edges of the sheer curtains and showing me that nothing stood behind them. When they settled again, they did so over the forms of those unnatural figures.

  "We gave Iris Moody a task and she failed it."

  A zap of lightning couldn’t have made me stand any straighter. "My mom?"

  "We gave James Song the same task and he failed it."

  "Uncle James," I murmured. My head swam with confusing thoughts and emotions. "They were both...working for you? What were they doing?"

  "Vagasso is the first consequence of their failure. There will be others seeking to capitalize on what was not done."

  "Which is what? What did my mom and my uncle fail to do?"

  "You haven't earned that knowledge yet. First, you must prove that you and your ancestors are not traitors."

  The accusation chilled me more than the supernatural cold that slipped through the room.

  "Traitors." I could barely speak the word, I was so angry. "My mom and my uncle were not traitors. That's ridiculous."

  "Prove it. Otherwise we take your life along with the lives of your accomplices."

  My heart stuttered. "My friends have nothing to do with any of this! You can't hold them responsible."

  "We already do."

  The figures beneath the curtains stepped back, allowing the black, gauzy material to hang loose and billow lazily once more. I wasn't comforted by their absence, though. Something worse was sure to come.

  When the curtains began to dissolve, I spread my feet and fisted my hands. I would fight what was revealed or I would call up my sorcery to destroy it, whatever it took. No way was I going down easily.

  As layer upon layer of curtains melted, they revealed a poured concrete floor that extended back and back, forming the basis for an enormous room that could have been used as a hangar. Maybe it was. Then I stopped caring about where I was when the last row of curtains misted away to show the walls of the room...and what adorned them.

  "Vale," I breathed.

  I ran toward him without consideration or care that this might be a trap.

  He hung against one wall, feet at the level of my shoulders. He wasn't pinned there by chains or ropes. His bare limbs were held up by enormous, gnarled hands sporting fingernails as long as my thumb. Four hands, each with palms as large as my head, emerging from the wall as though they were extensions of it with no visible seam showing where flesh met concrete. The muscled arms were hairless and white like the albino pythons I'd seen on an Animal Planet special. The thought of how cold and reptilian their touch must be made me want to gag.

  Vale was naked, but just like when I'd seen him naked in Tomes, this wasn't the time to ogle him. He looked terrible, his dark hair hanging limp over his eyes which were clenched shut. A light sheen of sweat covered his trembling body. I would have suspected torture by electricity except the Oddsmakers were too sophisticated for that. No, however they'd hurt him, they'd done it with magick. Which meant it probably lingered and Vale felt it all the way down to his marrow.

  "What are you doing to him?" I demanded. I had no one to glare at so I tipped my head back to yell at the vicious scene on the ceiling. "He's innocent! He has nothing to do with anything!"

  Above me, the demented scene continued, but the image of God's profile, like a one-eyed Jack on a playing card, turned to look down at me with cool indifference.

  "Vale Morgan is not who you think he is," that girlish voice told me excitedly, as if she was bursting to tell me a nasty secret.

  "He's my friend. That's all I care about."

  "Don't you care that he is the youngest heir to the Gargoyle Throne? A throne of corruption and evil?"

  Gargoyle Throne? I pictured one of the grim creatures squatting on a throne, Conan the Barbarian-style. What in the world did a gargoyle king rule over? The rooftops of Paris? Who challenged him for rights? The Pigeon King?

  Though I made jokes in my head, in truth I was disconcerted. Vale had hid who he was from me and it was a pretty significant omission. What else had he kept secret? Were the Oddsmakers right to keep him bound like this?

  Another look at him and my answer was a definitive no. Unless he'd hurt someone, he didn't deserve what was being done to him.

  "Let him down," I ordered.

  "He is your motivation."

  "For all the wrong reasons. Right now you're only motivating me to plot revenge against you for hurting one of my friends."

  It was a suicidal comment, but I was so furious at that moment that I honestly didn't care if I ticked off the Oddsmakers. I wanted them to come at me. Then I could at least unleash Lucky and let loose my frustrations over being sucked to this place against my will and subjected to supernatural bullying.

  "He will be freed once you complete your mission."

  "No deal."

  I reached into that rumbly place behind my breastbone and pulled up my dragon. Lucky roared to life, a thirty-foot blaze of golden fins, claws, and fangs filling the air above my head. I fed him plenty of my life energy because I needed a show of strength and badassery. He gave it to me, lighting up the cavernous room as though he were a mini sun. He was bright enough to rouse Vale. I saw his eyes go wide when he recognized Lucky and me.

  "Jesus, Moody," he croaked. "Don't."

  "Too late," I said grimly. "They're pissing me off."

  I sent Lucky straight at him. My dragon struck at the white hand gripping Vale's left ankle. A snap of dragon teeth and the huge white appendage flared open, fingers curling back as though they'd touched a hot stovetop. The other hands reacted by tightening their grip on Vale's other limbs, forcing a yell from him. Lucky shot to the nearest hand at Vale's other ankle and sank his fangs into the white skin. The fingers convulsed, freeing Vale's leg.

  Lucky zipped swiftly to the other two hands, biting them until they curled away like rearing white spiders. Freed, Vale fell off the wall and landed on the coil of Lucky's serpentine body, which carefully lowered him to the floor.

  "You're crazy!" Vale g
asped as I slung one of his arms around my shoulders and pulled him to his feet. "The Oddsmakers will kill us both."

  "If they're willing to blackmail me with your life, I figure we've got nothing to lose."

  "Wrong, Anne Moody. You have much to lose when you cross the Oddsmakers."

  A blink and the curtains dropped into place all around us, close enough that I could have reached out and touched them. I tried to yank Lucky back to me, but the black, gauzy material snarled around him, ensnaring him like a fish in thick seaweed. He spewed fire, but the blackness absorbed it like baking soda. As the swathes of black began to wrap him up, he writhed, creating a strobe light effect that made the man who came out at me all the more hideous.

  He was all white like the hands that had held Vale, his head appearing oblong but maybe only because of the lack of hair. He didn't even have eyelashes surrounding the full black sclera of his eyes. He was taller than Vale by a foot and was swaddled in the dark cloth that trapped us. One cold hand sized Vale's shoulder and tore him away from me. Vale went stumbling off into the curtains and was immediately swallowed by them as though he'd never been.

  The white figure grabbed me by the top of the head and one shoulder, yanking my head to the side and baring my neck—

  I screamed as his cold lips sealed over my skin like a suction cup of ice. Fire lanced through my neck as his fangs sank into me...

  Something heavy barreled me sideways away from the vampire. Vale. But when I looked for him, he was engulfed by blackness once again. I grunted as I was slammed to the floor by something within the curtains that wasn't my friend.

  The curtains swirled. Something within it punched out at me, connecting with my shoulder. I punched back and hit only soft cloth. I tried to scramble backward and felt my hair seized and yanked, pulling me toward the black shrouds. I kicked out and hit nothing.

  I couldn’t fight what I didn't understand. Without an identifiable target I was flailing against ghosts. Fear begged me to dump all of my energy into Lucky and blast my way out of there. But something, a niggling voice in the back of my head that sounded like Uncle James', warned me that I couldn't do that. For all the power the Oddsmakers possessed, and I had no doubt that they could literally cause anything to happen, I wasn't seriously hurt. They weren't out to kill me. This was a lesson.

  As soon as I came to that conclusion, something that felt like a brick slammed against my head. Though I fought it, terrified of being unconscious in this hideous place, I didn't stand a chance.

  Lights out.

  Chapter 3

  Fingers touched my face before they drifted down to my jaw, to my neck.

  "Ow," I said, and batted the hand away.

  When I opened my eyes I thought I was still wrapped up in the Black Drapes from Hell. I was surrounded by inky darkness. But when I tipped my head back, instead of looking up at the demented Sistine Chapel, my gaze was filled with stars.

  "I've never known anyone who was bitten by a vampire," Vale said from where he squatted beside me. He was careful how he squatted because he was still naked. Bruises were already beginning to darken the skin of his upper arms and I bet there were matching ones forming around his ankles.

  "I've never been someone who was bitten by a vampire," I retorted. "And by the way, I was lied to. That thing wasn't sexy and it damn well didn't sparkle."

  "Just be glad vampirism isn't an infectious disease, Moody."

  When I reached for my neck to feel the wound, he caught my hand and steered it away.

  "It won't scar. They can't afford to leave behind proof of their existence. I can already see that the holes have closed up."

  Good, because I sure as hell didn't want a creepy vampire's love bite as my souvenir from visiting the Oddsmakers.

  The Oddsmakers. I sucked in my breath and sat up to look around us. We were surrounded by miles of scrub and little else. The fact I could actually see stars gave me an idea of where we weren't.

  "How far are we from the city?" I asked, fearing the answer.

  Vale sighed and turned his head to gaze to the distance, to my right. "Far. We're near State Route 357." When I gave him a blank look, he smiled humorlessly. "The Extraterrestrial Highway." He thumbed behind him. "Area 51 is that way."

  I stared at him. "Are you pulling my leg? What are we doing out here? Where are the Oddsmakers? Those were the Oddsmakers, right? Not random, sadistic monsters?"

  "Those were the Oddsmakers, as much as I could tell. They never fully show themselves, so identification is all but impossible. As to what we're doing out here..." He shrugged. "This is where they conduct business. Beneath the Air Force Base. About eight miles down, or so the rumor says."

  "All of that just happened beneath Area 51?"

  He nodded.

  I had to laugh, I mean really laugh. It made total sense, actually. You could perform all the magick you wanted beneath the country's most infamous secret military base and if anything ever leaked out you could just blame it on aliens or government cover-ups. It was ingenious

  "If I weren't so scared of them I'd admire them," I said after I'd calmed down.

  Vale, though, scowled at me. "What the hell were you thinking back there, taking them on with your sorcery like that? Do you realize what they could have done to you?"

  "But the important thing is that they didn't. I think it was a test to see if I'd give in and turn dragon and attack them. Since I didn't, I proved I'm not a so-called traitor, and you and I are here, in the boonies. Wow, those guys are assholes, come to think of it. They didn't even leave us a moped or skateboards...how the hell are we supposed to return to Vegas?"

  "We'll manage," Vale bit out.

  Boy, he really was pissed, and from his point of view I could understand why.

  I sobered. "I'm sorry for getting you into this."

  His lips twisted bitterly. "This wasn't all about you, Moody."

  "What are you talking about? They told me they want me to do some sort of mission for them. You were kidnapped to put pressure on me."

  Vale studied me for a few seconds, then abruptly stood up and strode away. "You're right."

  Of course that only convinced me that I must be wrong. I climbed to my feet with a groan, a myriad of tiny aches making themselves known throughout by my body.

  "Wait. Vale, why did you say this wasn't all about me?" I tried my hardest not to stare at his bare backside. "Is it because you're the heir to the Gargoyle Throne? And thanks for telling me that, by the way. I appreciated learning it from a disembodied voice."

  "I'm not the heir," he said with an impatient wave of the arm. "My brother will inherit."

  "Fine, you're the dashing, wastrel younger brother. Why didn't you tell me who you are?"

  He turned and glared at me. "Does it matter? I have nothing to do with politics. I'm on my own; otherwise I'd be back in Europe."

  "But that's why the Oddsmakers grabbed you, isn't it? Because of your position?"

  He turned around again, putting his back to me and hiding his expression. But I wasn't about to let him get away with it. I grabbed his arm and tried to spin him. I'd forgotten how strong he was. He didn't budge an inch. He turned on his own to study me with annoyance.

  "It's my business, Moody."

  "Apparently it's mine, too, since we were both snatched by them." I hesitated, and then laid my hand on his bare shoulder, just above the giant, finger-shaped bruises on his arm. "I'm not your enemy here. I think I've proved that a couple of times now. I want to know who you are. Not just to protect my own butt but because...well, I just do. You're interesting."

  His dark gaze held mine. "Interesting. That's like telling a guy he's swell."

  "Hey, I've gotta play coy. That's what Cosmo tells me."

  "I think we're beyond coy. I'm naked."

  "And I haven't looked lower than your chin for at least ninety seconds."

  His lips twitched. He ran a hand over his face. "Remember when your friend Orlaton told you that gargoyles tradition
ally possess the souls of demons?"

  "Sure. I thought he was being paranoid."

  "He was right, Moody. The gargoyle that sits atop our throne isn't my father. It's a demon that overthrew my father—killed him—and replaced him. No one's supposed to know that because it would put me and my brother and other gargoyles in danger."

  As I gaped at him, he continued.

  "The original gargoyle curse, cast nearly a thousand years ago, turned a stone statue into a flesh and blood man but kept him trapped in a cycle of transformation. That's why I have three forms: gargoyle, statue, and man. But somewhere along the line a sorcerer decided gargoyle forms would provide a great place to hide a small demon army. He bound a handful of lower tier demons into the form of gargoyles. They can't shift into human forms, however they look like gargoyles and they turn to stone like gargoyles. They did a lot of damage to the gargoyle reputation, which Orlaton and others are aware of. Trust me when I say I didn't appreciate it when I was possessed by Vagasso's demon. It struck too close to home."

  I nodded. "You and I are two peas in a pod, tainted by the actions of some bad apples."

  "The Oddsmakers know I'm not a demon, but they're aware that the current king is. They have me under constant surveillance because they think I might start a war against demons."

  "Wouldn't that be more your brother's goal, since he's the one who's next in line to inherit?" A thought occurred to me. "Can he inherit? Demons don't die."

  "Exactly. The current Gargoyle King is under the thumb of its human handler, and the Oddsmakers believe that either my brother or I will eventually go after him to regain control of the throne. My brother probably will, but that will be his battle to wage, not mine. Too bad the Oddsmakers don't want to believe me about that."

  "Why were they torturing you?"

  Vale looked away and muttered something.

  "What was that?" I prodded.

  His brows drew down fiercely. "I said they wanted me to look pathetic so you'd do what they said."