Moonlight Dragon Collection: Urban Fantasy

by Tricia Owens

  Zach's face turned red, obviously figuring out that she knew he was related to leprechauns. "Distant cousins," he insisted. "I'm barely Irish. I swear."

  "Of course," I said breezily. "Anyway, we're here for business."

  With his eyes on the floor, he mumbled, "Come on in," and hustled back inside.

  "Be careful," I hissed at Melanie. I poked her in the ribs. "We need him."

  "I know, I know. I'm sorry, but he looks just like the Lucky Charms guy!"

  Vale just sighed like he was embarrassed to be with us and followed us into the apartment.

  Melanie jerked to a halt four feet inside. "What the?! This is nuts!"

  Zach and Rob had chosen to live in this awful neighborhood in order to be close to the Strip, but like any sane people, they hadn't wanted to live in squalor. So Rob had used some magick to improve the place. Just a touch.

  "This is subtle," Vale murmured. He looked both amused and horrified as he studied the interior of the apartment.

  It was pimped out like a rapper's crib. Or more accurately, what a hip-hopping white boy leprechaun thought a rapper's place looked like. Try saying that three times fast.

  Since Zach's boyfriend Rob was an actual warlock, the walls didn't just look like sheets of gold, they were made of gold. The winding crystal stairwell actually did, in some strange magickal way, lead to a third floor room with an enormous, ten-person capacity Jacuzzi. Large dressing room-style orb bulbs ran along the tops of the gold walls and a chandelier so big you could probably ride it over Niagara Falls made the entire place sparkle and threw light so bright you had to wear shades. Which Zach did with a flourish, whipping a pair of dark glasses from his droopy back pocket and sliding them over his eyes.

  Melanie screeched as a giant black pit bull tore around the corner of the room and launched itself at her. I didn't try to stop it. I knew there was no need. All the big animal did was jump on her and try to lick her. Zach and Rob were actually afraid of pit bulls, so they'd simply transformed their pet Labradoodle, Gizmo, into the tough-looking breed.

  I snagged a bag of Beggin' Strips off a polished chrome and glass cocktail table that managed to look both tacky and incredibly expensive. I tossed it at Melanie. "Here. Throw that into the room over there and Gizmo will leave you alone."

  "This is a weird pit bull," she declared. "My monkey senses tell me it's not real." She threw the bag and the dog took off like a shot.

  "Gizmo is real," Zach insisted, his brows drawing together. "He'll mess you up good."

  I shook my head at Melanie when Zach turned to face Vale. "What do you think of my digs, gargoyle?"

  "It's unusual," Vale allowed as he looked over the white leather sofas draped with faux mink throws, and then at the stripper pole at the far end of the room. "Better than what I expected." Which wasn't saying much, considering the exterior.

  "Where do gargoyles live?" Zach asked him, subtly shifting closer to him. I watched to see if Zach would try to touch him.

  Vale casually stepped to the side, away from him. "I typically perch on the roofs of the tallest buildings."

  Zach nearly swallowed his tongue. "Really?"

  "No, I have an apartment in Summerlin."

  A televised rap battle on mute couldn't have frustrated Zach more than that answer. I felt sorry for the poor kid and slung an arm around his muscled shoulders.

  "Big Z, we've got something for you to look at. We need your expertise."

  Still mopey, he nodded. "Okay, let's hit up my studio."

  Zach's studio was just as outrageous as the living room. He'd designed it to look like a high end recording studio that Snoop Dogg would have felt comfortable in. At least until Snoop discovered that Zach used all the equipment in there to make spritely jingles to celebrate slot jackpots. There must have been tens of thousands of dollars' worth of gear in there, and the walls appeared to be professionally sound-proofed. But again, it was all a magickal illusion.

  Melanie poked the thick padding on the walls. "So cool! This is where you make all the slot machine music, huh?"

  Zach sat in front of a huge keyboard, his feet not quite touching the ground, and played a few seconds of a spritely tune, his head bobbing in time with it. "Recognize that?" he asked hopefully.

  Melanie and Vale were clueless so I ventured, "Jackpot on Deuces Wild?"

  "Ha! Not even close, Anne. It's the double bonus feature spin-off on the Prancing Ponies jackpot." He played another tune that was equally cheerful. "You have to know that one."

  I sighed, drawing a blank. "Nine out of nine on keno?"

  "C'mon! It's my most popular tune! Bonus level on Spinning for Dollars!"

  Zach looked a little put-out that we hadn't recognized his work, so I hastily changed the subject before he got bummed and decided he didn't want to help us.

  "Damn, I nearly guessed that," I told him, snapping my fingers regretfully. "I'm just so distracted by this thing we found. You want to take a look at it?" I pulled out the chips that I'd retrieved from the remains of Stevie the troll. "What can you tell me about these?"

  Zach turned on a lamp at the mixing board and studied the pieces under its light.

  "Check out Zach's collection," I told my friends while he looked it over.

  I swung open a panel in the padded wall that revealed four inset glass shelves that were lit from above by pot lights.

  This was the real draw of the place, in my opinion, and why we were forcing Zach to endure our presence in his home. The shelves were loaded with small statues of various gods, singing bowls, prayer books made of papyrus and bamboo, feathered fetishes, jewelry pieces...basically anything that any culture imbued with religious significance, Zach wanted. His collection would make a theologian drool, which was amusing because Zach was an atheist.

  "He knows his stuff," I said proudly as my best friend and I admired the items.

  I felt Vale come up behind my right shoulder and take a look. "You've got ivory here."

  "It's all good," Zach said absently, still bent over the chips. "The ban on imports applies to ivory obtained after 1976. Everything you see there is from the nineteenth century or older. It's legit."

  "It's not all ivory."

  Zach glanced briefly at us. "Not from elephants, no."

  I frowned. "From what, then? Rhinos?"

  "They're magickal...hey, this is pretty interesting," Zach said, holding up the chips I'd given him. "The writing that's on them is unique, yo. It's a combination of Latin and antiquated Czech. That would normally mean that this piece is from the fourteenth century or so, right? Something like that, anyway. The Czech Republic didn't have a solid written language at that time. It was all a mish-mash like this. But the rest of this—the material, I mean—doesn't match the time period of the writing. It's less than fifty years old."

  Melanie put down the vial relic she'd been looking at. "What the heck does that mean, then?"

  "Whatever is written on here was done by some dude who's either really old or else learned it from old text books." Zach tapped one of the chips, the larger one. "Also, that there's an aleph. It might be Egyptian. No, it has to be."

  That just made things even more confusing. Latin, Czech, and Egyptian? Why couldn't there have been a stamp on them somewhere that said "Proudly Made by John Doe"?

  "Is it made of bone?" I asked, trying to find a way to tackle this thing.

  He nodded. "Yup."

  He went to the shelves holding his collection and plucked a small figurine off the shelf and handed it to me. It was pale and stained brown in some places, worn in others, but I could still make out that it was meant to represent a lizard of some kind. Komodo, maybe? Godzilla as a baby?

  "That's made out of the same thing this is," Zach said absently, while staring openly at Vale. "Dragon bone."

  I dropped the figurine and spent a few seconds trying to retrieve it as it rolled along the cracks of the stone floor.

  "No way this is from a dragon." I replaced the figurine on the shelf,
experiencing the heebie jeebies. It was like holding a real human skull. "You've gotta be kidding me, Big Z."

  "He's not," said a new voice.

  Oh, great. I plastered a smile on my face as Rob entered the room. Unsurprisingly, he was dressed in a purple robe that Orlaton, my occult neighbor, would have drooled over. Totally over the top with silver runes running along the hem and some kind of fur along the lapels that for all I knew, and considering how fake everything in this place was, could have come from a yeti. With his black, silver-streaked hair and sharp black goatee, Rob looked like a magician in Camelot who used too much Just for Men hair dye on his beard.

  Since he was with Zach, I imagined Rob's rapper name was something like Jazzy Warlock Rob or Mix a Lot o' Magick.

  "Surprised to see you here, Anne," he said to me, letting me know by his tone that by 'surprised' he meant 'pissed'.

  "Hey, Rob. Long time, no see. I brought a treasure over for Big Z to look at. It's really interesting." I waved awkwardly at Melanie and Vale. "And of course I brought my friends along."

  Years ago, when Zach was merely Little Z and had been undergoing a crisis of sexuality, he'd meekly asked me if he could kiss me just to see if he felt anything. Knowing Zach was gayer than Liberace, I'd agreed just to put the guy out of his misery. Of course that was the exact moment when his partner Rob walked into the room and saw us. Since then, Rob and I hadn't exactly been the closest of friends. Which was stupid, because Zach was head over heels in love with the weirdo. I'd heard some of the rap love songs he'd written for the guy. Sappy leprechaun limericks set to a driving bass line was something I hoped I never had to listen to again.

  "My friend Melanie," I said, introducing her. I hesitated, then added purposefully, "And my boyfriend, Vale."

  Inwardly I cringed, half-expecting Vale to correct me, but he just nodded a greeting at Rob, whose mood visibly improved.

  In fact, he practically had a spring in his step as he walked over to the mixing board and studied the bone chips from over Zach's shoulder.

  "Definitely dragon bone," he murmured, squinting down at the pieces. He raised his silver eyes to me. "I recognize the compulsion, too. This is for making a golem."

  "That's right," I said excitedly. "Do you know anyone in town who might have made that?"

  Rob straightened to his full height, but slowly, dramatically. I knew something bad was heading my way.

  "I do know, but the knowledge is going to cost you a favor," he said.

  Las Vegas was built on favors. It was all about who you knew. Before the corporations moved in in the last decade, the only way to get a job in most Strip casinos was by using "juice", that is, going through friends or friends of friends.

  The magickal community was no different, in that regard. If anything, favors were more heavily relied upon because everyone mistrusted everyone. When you didn't know if the guy you were dealing with could breathe fire or turn invisible, you learned to be wary and exchange services and favors rather than paper money, which could be easily magicked.

  "What kind of favor are we talking about?"

  Rob pointed at the bone chips. "The sorcerer who made that also made a cursed scrying ball. That's what he does: make cursed artifacts, except he refuses to sell or accept commissions, which leaves people like me in a pickle."

  "So you want me to steal the ball," I murmured, but my mind was racing ahead.

  Rob had said that this sorcerer's specialty was cursed artifacts, which meant there was a pretty damn good chance he was the one who'd not only made the gargoyle golem that my parents had been tracking, but also the necromancy artifact that was their ultimate target.

  "Who is it?" I demanded.

  Aware that he had the advantage, Rob just shook his head smugly. "Agree to the deal first."

  I looked to Melanie and Vale. "What do you think, guys?"

  "I think agreeing without knowing everything is idiotic," Vale said bluntly. He'd been ogled by Zach since we got here and I could tell his patience had reached its limit. "We don't know what we'd be facing."

  "How bad could it be?" I honestly didn't know, but Lucky was incredibly powerful. The two of us were near the top of the food chain when it came to magickal beings.

  Vale glared at me as though I were brain dead. "Think about what we're after, Moody. It's a necromancy artifact."

  "Ah." I'd kind of forgotten that small detail. Any sorcerer who'd found a way to raise the dead was bad news. Maybe even in Vagasso's league.

  As always, I considered the alternatives. I could probably use Lucky to torture Rob into giving us the name of the sorcerer, but that would likely get me in trouble not only with my friends but with the Oddsmakers as well. Not to mention who could be that kind of an asshole? Not me.

  Another option was to drive Rob and Zach out of here and ransack their place for clues that might reveal the sorcerer's identity. If Rob had such a hard-on for this scrying ball, there was a chance he had information about it in the apartment somewhere, information that could be tracked to its owner.

  But that would take time, and it might ultimately yield nothing. Twenty years had passed while this golem-maker had lived the good life. I wanted that to end and I wanted it to end yesterday.

  "I'll risk it," I told Vale and Melanie. I made a point of looking each of them in the eye. "This is my mission. I'm willing to face whatever is at the end of this. I told you I don't want you getting involved beyond the research."

  Melanie planted her hands on her hips. "Yeah, and we told you no way were we letting you do this on your own! If you're willing to try this, I'm with you, Anne. We'll kick some sorcerer butt and avenge your parents. Yeah!" She thrust up her fist like she was performing some kind of superhero salute. Or was that a Mexican Power move?

  "And you?" I asked Vale. "Feel free to walk away."

  "You're always trying to wear the pants," he muttered, not happy in the slightest. He ran a hand through his dark hair. "Fine."

  I played it cool turning back to Rob. "Give me the name and tell me what you know about him and his place and I'll get you your scrying ball."

  His eyes lit up giddily. "He's called Dearborn. Professor Dearborn. He used to teach at UNLV—Prehistoric Civilizations—but now he doesn't work for anyone that I've heard. He lives on the sixteenth floor of Nirvana North, the high rise on the West side of the Strip."

  "How can he afford a place like that if he's not working?" Vale questioned.

  Rob spread his hands. "He's a sorcerer. Anything is possible."

  "What kind of defenses does he have?" I crossed my fingers hopefully. "Just the condo security? Or some wards?"

  Rob's laugh made me feel dumb. "You must be joking. His place is rigged with all sorts of curses. Dangerous ones." He studied the fingernails of one hand, avoiding eye contact. "He's been targeted before. It was a failure. A very dark, ugly failure."

  "What happened?"

  "Black magick."

  "That's just great."

  "You made a deal," Rob snapped quickly.

  I waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, we made a deal." I felt like a sucker, though, even if it had been my own fault for agreeing. The last thing I wanted to do was become involved with more black magick.

  A look at Vale showed he shared my dismay and disgust.

  "You're the one who targeted him before, aren't you?" Melanie pressed like a terrier. Or more appropriately, a Chihuahua. "That's why you know about the black magick."

  Rob shrugged, not apologetic, but with tension in his shoulders that told me some things.

  "Whoever you sent to steal from Dearborn was hurt," I guessed. When he didn't acknowledge my suspicion, I went on, "How badly?"

  "It's not my fault if he wasn't prepared, okay?" Rob's voice was strident in his defensiveness. "My guy oversold himself and he paid the price."

  I groaned. This was getting worse and worse. "What was he? What was your guy's magickal ability?"

  "He was a warlock," Rob muttered. "But he was also a cat burgla
r. He claimed he could break into any building, no matter the security. He'd developed spells, he said. Specialized spells. He made it sound like entering Dearborn's condo wouldn't be a big deal. He'd done hundreds of similar break-ins, he'd said. This wouldn’t be any different."

  Vale took a threatening step forward. "What happened to him? No bullshit."

  Rob stood taller and tipped his chin up. "I'm not...one hundred percent sure. All I know is...a week after the job was supposed to be done, I began receiving packages. One a day for the next two weeks."

  Zach shuddered and his eyes went glassy. He dropped the rapper act as he moaned softly, "It was bad. I never want to go through that again."

  Rob put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Priority Mail," he told us grimly. "Bits of the warlock I'd hired, only he was different. Mutated. Like he'd been fused with a-a crocodile. Zach thinks he was mummified but I think it was something even worse." He swallowed. "The last package was the largest, containing his—his head. What used to be a head. I only recognized him because he had memorable pale green eyes."

  "The color of honeydew melon," I whispered, aghast. "Not Jeremiah?"

  Rob looked sick. "You knew him?"

  I could only nod as my skin broke out in goose bumps. Personally knowing Jeremiah and hearing his awful fate put this into real perspective for me.

  "We're out of here," I said shakily, needing to put distance between myself and that awful story.

  "Wait, I have to tell you about the scrying ball!" Rob chased me as I stormed to the front door.

  "You're not afraid Dearborn will be irritated with you for trying to steal from him a second time?" I challenged as I flung open the door and held it open for Vale and Melanie.

  Zach clutched Rob's side as the two men drew to a stop in the middle of their rapper pad. Maybe this place had defenses I didn't know about, like invisible barbed wire or electrified floors. Maybe Rob thought he was invincible in this strange little hidey hole he'd constructed with Zach in the shadow of the casinos.

  "Some things are worth the risk," Rob said mysteriously. He looked down at Zach and hugged him tightly. "When I originally sent Jeremiah to 'acquire' the ball, I wanted to use it for purely selfish reasons: I wanted to see if I made it into a big showroom at Bellagio or Wynn in the future. Now, I couldn’t care less about my career. I want the scrying ball only so I can see how much time he has left."