Moonlight Dragon Collection: Urban Fantasy

by Tricia Owens

  "Tell them they have to keep quiet," I said as I tried to peer up and down the street to see if any of my non-magickal neighbors had responded to the extremely unusual sound. The majority of the people who lived on this street were magickal beings. We'd subconsciously gravitated toward each other. But this was one of the older neighborhoods, which meant non-magickals had been living here before things turned magick. I knew of at least two elderly non-magickal people only a few houses away.

  My friends crammed beside me at the window as we all watched Lev, transformed back into his wolf form, trot out into the yard. He went straight for a huge silver-gray wolf. I'm talking he was the size of a lion. Lev's wolf dropped down to the ground and sort of belly crawled toward this big wolf, obviously supplicating himself to the pack alpha.

  The silver wolf snapped at Lev's black wolf, prompting Lev to roll onto his back and present his belly.

  "So weird watching your boyfriend submit like that," Celestina mumbled from beside me. "He never does it to me."

  "You're not an enormous wolf with killer fangs," I pointed out. "You're much, much prettier."

  "You also don't stink when you get wet," Melanie chipped in. "I seriously can't stand the smell of wet dog."

  "Yes, I've got that going for me," Celestina said dryly.

  We watched as Lev's wolf slowly rolled upright again. The other wolves' howling had tapered off and now we could hear domesticated dogs around the neighborhood barking their heads off. Anyone who could sleep through all of that needed to be checked that they weren't in a coma.

  "Do wolf shifters communicate telepathically?" I asked Celestina as I watched Lev and the alpha nip at each other.

  "Not the way gargoyles can. They don't use words, but they can think and react emotionally as humans do. He's tried to explain it to me but I never completely understood it. They'll probably shift to their human forms soon so they can talk properly."

  "They'll all be naked," Melanie breathed.

  Christian patted her on the shoulder. "I'm not threatened. Really, I'm not."

  "Oh! So sorry! You know I'd never go for a wolf. Too smelly!"

  He laughed. "That does make me feel bett—"

  We all startled as the wolves began baying again, even louder than before.

  "Jesus, the entire city will hear them!" I moved away from the window. "I can't let this go on. I have to stop them."

  Vale fell into step behind me as I stormed outside. "You realize you like to dive headfirst into conflict, don't you?" he said to me.

  "I might have fear of missing out syndrome," I replied, distracted. These wolves were seriously out of control. My ears rang from the volume of their howling. "Enough already!" I ordered. "Are you trying to draw the Oddsmakers here?"

  The wolves quieted instantly and turned their beady eyes on me. Boy, you never really appreciated how tame dogs were until you found yourself facing a pack of wolf shifters. And these guys weren't even as vicious as werewolves.

  The big silver alpha transformed. He was huge in his human form, too: at least six feet seven and over two hundred pounds of muscle. He could have played professional football.

  He was also kind of sexy the way Lev was, in that wild and unkempt way particular to wolf shifters. His pale blond hair poured in a bushy ripple down his spine and an equally wooly beard dripped to his collarbones. Icy blue eyes glared at me from above a face crisscrossed with long, claw-like pink scars. He was naked, but with everything else that was going on, I glanced only briefly at the rest of him. His face was just too interesting.

  "The Oddsmakers' Dragon," he spat. Like Lev, he had an Eastern European accent but his command of English was far better. He must have been in this country a lot longer. Could have been centuries, for all I knew.

  "Yeah, I go by Anne, thanks. And who are you?"

  "Raker, alpha of the Black Die Pack. Alpha of Lev." But he threw a glare at Lev, leading me to believe that Raker had ordered Lev not to associate with me.

  "Hopefully Lev has told you that all the stories about me aren't true," I said, keeping my chin raised because I was shorter than this guy by a full foot.

  "I decide for myself what threatens my pack," Raker growled.

  That growl did funny things to my insides that Vale probably wouldn't have appreciated hearing about.

  "Well, now that you've met me I'm telling you I'm no threat to your pack. I'm a friend. Lev can vouch for me."

  Lev's black wolf whined a bit and danced around. I was beginning to get the feeling that continually bringing him into the conversation wasn't doing anything to improve his standing within the pack. I wish I knew something about wolf pack politics, but honestly, who really did besides groupies and furries?

  "You attacked the shifters," Raker said in his rumbly voice. "You assassinated the gargoyle called Xaran. There were witnesses, so don't bother denying it."

  "Did any of these witnesses actually witness me doing the deed? Or did they only see me grab Xaran and fly off?"

  Raker narrowed his icy eyes, which pulled at some of the nearest scars and slightly contorted his face. Who all had he fought to get those scars? And what had happened to his opponents? Were they absorbed into the pack or did he necessarily have to eliminate them to remove future threats to his command?

  "If you didn't kill him, where is he?" he challenged me. "Give me proof that you let him go."

  "That's not possible, unfortunately. As soon as I let him go, he took off like a shot. I think he went back to Paris. Try checking there." I smiled. "Any excuse for a vacation, right?"

  "You treat this like a joke and I will treat you as a joke," Raker snarled. He took a step forward and suddenly Vale stood between him and me.

  "Back off, Alpha," he said quietly.

  Raker sniffed the air and looked Vale over with that same, mangled gaze. "Gargoyle. You should step aside. This isn't your fight."

  "If you're defending my brother's death then it is my fight." A warm breeze stirred Vale's hair. "Except your defense of him is unnecessary. Xaran lives. I saw him with my own eyes. I spoke to him."

  I quickly looked around Celestina's yard and then to the nearby yards. If eavesdropping pixies were in the vicinity they'd be difficult to spot, but I had to try. This wasn't a conversation for the Oddsmakers' ears. They still believed Xaran was dead.

  "How can this be possible?" Raker demanded. "The dragon had him in its jaws."

  "He tasted terrible, alright? I let him go."

  Raker glared at me but Vale spoke up, drawing his attention back to him.

  "The rumors about Xaran's death exist to keep Anne safe for reasons that I don't want to get into. I encourage you to continue spreading the rumors. Act as though you believe them. But I'm telling you the truth, Alpha. My brother is alive."

  The big wolf shifter heaved a deep breath. "I must accept your word, then."

  "Why don't we call it a friendly misunderstanding and let it go?" I said, coming up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Vale. I wasn't about to hide behind him like the little lady. "We're all on the same side. That's the good news."

  As I spoke, another wolf, this one black with a white mantle, began sniffing Lev. Lev snapped back at the other wolf, which prompted a loud tussle until Raker turned his head and snarled, "Enough!"

  The black and white wolf transformed, becoming a stocky young man with a wicked mustache and goatee. "Alpha, he carries the scent of the Eastsiders! They all do! Why are we standing here discussing this? They're traitors!"

  Oh, man. If there was a word guaranteed to set me off these days it was that one.

  "Listen, Fu Man Chu," I said, pointing a finger at the stocky shifter, "there aren't any 'traitors' here so I suggest you learn what the word actually means."

  "A true Black Die member would never carry the stink of an Eastsiders," the shifter snarled at me. "Or of a dragon."

  "You're not exactly smelling like roses either, buddy. You ever hear of dog breath? Try a Mentos."

  "You're a traitor! Yo
u're the assassin of the Oddsmakers!"

  Some of the other wolves began growling and lips curled off fangs.

  I pointed at the shifter. "And you're not the alpha, so I'm not talking to you."

  He leaped for me but Raker turned and slammed a powerful arm across his chest, knocking the other shifter back a handful of paces, where he glowered. "Enough! She's right. You're not the alpha of this pack. Back off. Now!"

  The stocky shifter stepped backward, but he had plenty of glares to split between Raker, me, and Lev. That guy was going to be trouble in the future. Raker had better watch his back.

  "Why did you all show up here?" I asked the alpha.

  "Someone called," Raker growled, aggressive all over again. "He did not identify himself and I didn't recognize his voice. He claimed that you brought an Eastsiders shifter into my territory and then killed him in the hopes of inciting a war between our packs."

  I made a face. "That's ridiculous."

  "If a dead Eastsiders shifter is found within the Black Die territory blood will be spilled."

  Uh oh. "Isn't that jumping to conclusions? What if the guy died of a heart attack or had an allergic reaction to peanuts?"

  "The first death will bring war!" Raker roared, stepping forward.

  "But what if—"

  Raker lowered his head and his shoulder muscles bunched violently. "Is there a dead Eastsiders shifter in my territory?"

  I gulped. "Maybe?"

  All hell broke loose.

  Raker roared and jumped at Vale and me. He transformed in mid-leap in a move straight out of a horror movie. It was pure instinct to pull up my dragon, Lucky, who flared like the sun right there on the sidewalk, lighting up the entire street. Raker's wolf slammed head first into Lucky's chest and bounced off him to smack against the sidewalk. The other wolves in the pack went rabid when they saw what happened to their leader. They hurtled en masse at my dragon.

  It was like watching squirrels going after a pit bull. The wolves swarmed over Lucky, uncaring that he was so gold and bright that I saw an image of him on the backs of my eyelids when I blinked. They tried to bite at his sides and back but he was covered with scales that repelled their teeth. A few caught a fin between their jaws but Lucky shook them off like fleas.

  Vale grabbed me and tried to pull me back to the safety of Celestina's house. We were nearly at the front door when a wolf tackled him, hitting him between the shoulders and sending him sprawling across the barren yard.

  That ticked me off, big time. Although I knew this was a terrible place to stage a fight—any of the neighbors could look out their windows or open their front doors—I wasn't about to let Vale and me be overrun by a bunch of obnoxious wolves who didn't belong here in the first place.

  I fed Lucky a ton of my energy, growing him until he was sixty feet from snout to tail. First I had him grab the wolf that had attacked Vale and fling it down the street. Then I had him snap his long tail at the rest of the pack, smacking wolves this way and that, their furry bodies skidding across the asphalt of the road or into the scraggly yards of my neighbors. A couple of them hit the iron fence surrounding Moonlight Pawn and yelped as my wards gave them a little zap.

  The wolves tried again and again to attack Lucky, circling him like they would a water buffalo, attacking him in groups and singly. But no matter how clever they were, they simply couldn't dodge his whipping tail. It also helped that Lucky wasn't a dumb beast. Not only could he think for himself, but he had me guiding his actions. The closest a wolf was going to get to him was close enough to receive a dragon smackdown.

  That's when Raker turned his sights on Vale and me.

  "Wait!" I yelled at him as he loped for us.

  But he didn't wait and Vale had to shift into his gargoyle form to intercept the nearly three hundred pounds of furious wolf that barreled straight for me. Their bodies collided with an awful thud, with Raker's momentum driving Vale's gargoyle backward to gouge out a deep furrow in the hard-packed soil. It looked like the trail you'd expect to see after a meteor struck the Earth.

  Vale's gargoyle didn't lay down for it, though. The gray-skinned creature flipped Raker's wolf off it using its powerful hind legs. Once the wolf hit the ground, the gargoyle jumped on it and began pummeling the wolf while evading its gnashing, spit-flecked bites. The fight was brutal and painful-looking and I hated every second of it.

  "You're all a bunch of idiots," I grated out. But how could I stop so many wolves at once?

  For some reason The Matrix jumped to mind. It's worth a shot. I slowed down Lucky, making him appear tired. The wolves began salivating, sensing weakness. They circled him, the click click click of their nails on the asphalt reminding me of the sound of falling hail.

  Then I turned my back, clenched my eyes shut, and had Lucky pulse as bright as an exploding star, or my idea of one, anyway. It was so bright I saw the light even with all my precautions. I heard a dozen or more yelps of pain. After I had dimmed Lucky to normal levels again, I turned to find the wolves stumbling blindly into each other or lying on the ground, trying to wipe at their eyes with their paws. All of them were incapacitated except for Raker, who was still fighting Vale's gargoyle.

  "Raker, your pack is at my mercy!" I shouted at their struggling forms. "Where's their alpha when they need him?"

  That caught the wolf's attention. It leaped backward off the gargoyle and shot a look at the street. When it saw the helpless state of its pack, it transformed back into Raker's human form.

  "What did you do to them?" he demanded, flinging his wild-maned head toward me.

  "I call it a dragon EMP. Or maybe a dragon flashbang. Which do you think is catchier?"

  "I'll tear your throat out—"

  Vale's gargoyle leaped between Raker and me. The wolf shifter drew up short, his lips peeling back off his teeth.

  "I don't know why you flipped out just now," I said to him, trying to keep my tone of voice calm and reasonable, "but you have no reason to attack us."

  "No reason?" Raker's icy eyes bulged and the muscles in his pecs jumped as he curled his hands into fists. "You disrespect my kind and incite war and tell me I have no reason to seek revenge?"

  "Look, it was a mistake, okay? We found the dead shifter at First Friday and we only brought his body here because we were trying to identify him. He was already dead! Can't you take him to the Eastsiders alpha and explain what happened? There doesn't need to be a war."

  "What violence has been done to his body?"

  I smiled with relief. "None! Once they get a good look at him they'll see—"

  "Uh, Anne?"

  Melanie's apologetic call from the front door of Celestina's shop made me cringe. Don't give me bad news. Not now.

  "Um, Anne, can I speak to you a moment?"

  I held up a finger to Raker. "Hold that thought."

  I dashed back to the front door while Vale's gargoyle kept Raker in place. Melanie was hanging on the door with a sheepish expression on her face.

  "So, um, maybe the dead shifter is sort of changing?"

  Groaning, I pushed the door open and peered inside. The body was changing alright. It was turning into something that resembled a giant mushroom, but a glowing one, like one you might see if you'd gone and eaten mushrooms. The shifter's limbs were barely recognizable as limbs, more like stumps, but the bulk of its body had molded into this oblong mushroom thing which, strangely enough, appeared to be melting as fast as it was forming. Worst of all, though, was that the whole mound was covered with golf-ball sized half-spheres that appeared to be covered with skin. I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly what those orbs were.

  "Great," I muttered to myself and ducked back out into the yard.

  "Hey, guess what?" I said brightly, mentally preparing to pull Lucky up again as needed. "It seems like your friend is definitely changing. I wouldn't exactly call it 'dematerializing'." I added finger quotes just to drive home my point. "But it's certainly not pretty and it seems to be puddling on the floor of my
friend's shop. Any suggestions?"

  "You lie!" Raker roared.

  "Holy cow, calm down! I'm not lying. Something's happening to it. You should—you should take a look for yourself."

  I didn't like the idea of allowing him inside with my friends, but he seemed like he wouldn't back down until he could see the body. Considering it was moldering and glowing like something born out of nuclear waste, I was eager for him to get a good look, too. Hopefully he'd have an explanation.

  "Vale, it's okay," I told the gargoyle. "Let him pass. We need to let him take care of this, otherwise they'll keep fighting."

  The rest of the Black Die Pack was currently stumbling around, blindly colliding with parked cars and fire hydrants, but I didn't mention that. Raker needed to believe he was the badass boss of a badass crew right now.

  "I'll let you in," I told him once Vale's gargoyle reluctantly stepped to the side, "but if you go anywhere near my friends I'll have my dragon turn you into a rug."

  Raker's smile was as wolfish as it got. "I'd like to see you try it."

  "Just do what you need to do and don't cause trouble," I said, frustrated.

  He finally nodded his big head. "Show me the corpse."

  It wasn't my favorite word but I nodded, too, and led the way back to the shop. I pushed in the door and quickly called in, "Everyone move to the kitchen. Big, bad wolf coming through. I'm not kidding."

  I was grateful that they didn't argue or question the command because Raker soon shouldered me aside and barged into the room. He took one look at the puddle-y mess on the floor and cursed in a language that sounded Slavic.

  "What is this?" he gasped and took a step closer.

  Just like I'd feared, the skin covering those weird ball-shaped growths on the mushroom split apart to reveal that they were covering dozens of giant eyeballs. As one, they swiveled to look up at Raker. He jerked to a stop and cursed again. He didn't back up, though, and that was his mistake. An orifice opened on the mushroom and something spat out of it. The arcing glob of slime splashed Raker right across the bridge of his nose.

  He stiffened violently, like he'd just stuck his finger into an electrical socket. Blackness swept out from where the goop had struck him, spreading across his face like a Zorro mask. The sclera of his eyeballs went midnight black, making him look like some sort of demon. He opened his mouth but no sound escaped from his lips as the blackness crawled through the skin of his face, covering it in an inky mesh that quickly moved down his throat. Once it hit his chest, it exploded downwards, streaking to all four limbs.