Moonlight Dragon Collection: Urban Fantasy

by Tricia Owens

  You will burn in Hell for this!

  Stop before we rip your organs from your body!

  I whimpered as those agonizing voices started up, piercing my eardrums. Beside me, Melanie and Uncle James cried out and covered their ears with their hands. But the sound of those harrowing voices couldn't be blocked. It infiltrated skin and bone and bored into me, heading straight for my soul. I gritted my teeth, but I feared the molars would grind down to powder.

  Orlaton opened the visible locks wrapped around the chest and then spoke the incantations that removed the invisible ones. The chest cracked open immediately, that evil sliver of darkness peering out at us. And then those needle-like claws curled over the edge, and I wanted to scream.

  This thing had a name now: The Devourer. I didn't know what it looked like and I desperately never wanted to find out, especially now that I was aware that Orlaton's parents were in there with it...or what was left of them.

  Orlaton didn't move to open the chest completely. He backed away from it, as though he were afraid. But that was only me projecting my terror onto him. Orlaton was in control. Before I realized it, he'd cut into his hand with an athame and solemnly dripped his blood onto the statue of Baphomet.

  Celestina abruptly stopped chanting and singing and now sat motionless on the floor, her dark eyes unseeing. I didn't get the impression that she was meditating or in any kind of a daze. She radiated an intense awareness, as though she tracked the progress of something on another plane, something the rest of us couldn’t see, hear or touch. Something I'd just as soon steer far clear from.

  I watched her head turn, gaze moving blindly to follow something across the room. I shivered as I frantically followed her gaze, trying to see what she saw. But there was nothing. Nothing—

  She gasped. Her head snapped around to face Orlaton and the Devilment Box. In the brief moment that I'd been watching her, the lid of the Devilment Box had fallen completely open. I didn't know who had done it. I would have yelled at them for their idiocy had I breath to do anything but whimper at what now stood in front of the chest.

  It was a goat-man creature, at least six and a half feet tall, with furred legs with backward joints, cloven hooves—the works. It stood where the statue of Baphomet had sat...and the creature was on fire.

  Melanie screamed. I heard Uncle James let out a shout. I was ready to pee in my pants. I didn't care what Orlaton said. This flaming creature didn't look anything like a martyr for men's souls. It looked like a demonic beast about to inflict major damage on all of us. This was the thing on the cover of band albums, representing anarchy and catastrophe. This was something I believed would pull me to Hell.

  Orlaton staggered back against a bookshelf. His face lacked blood. He released a choked sound as Baphomet bent forward and reached into the Devilment Box with one flaming human arm. Baphomet pulled, and those horrible, hateful voices screamed out in protest.

  Damn you to Hell!

  You cannot defeat us!

  You will all suffer unspeakable agony!

  Baphomet straightened upright. In its hand dangled two slithery, gauzy, rag-like creatures the color of mud at the bottom of a water-filled grave. They writhed in Baphomet's grip like snakes and dripped thick, inky sludge into the Devilment Box.

  Suddenly, a hand shot up from within the chest. It was gray-skinned, with seven or eight unnaturally long fingers tipped with the same needle-like nails I'd seen before. My mind screamed It's The Devourer, look out! But before The Devourer could grab back the rag-like beings in Baphomet's grip, Baphomet punched down into the middle of the Devilment Box with its free hand. I felt the impact in the soles of my feet. The Devourer's hand spasmed, its fingers jerking like spider legs. It gripped Baphomet's elbow. But that was a mistake.

  With its free hand, Baphomet seized The Devourer's arm and ripped it out of the box to a cacophony of screeching. It chucked the torn-off appendage across the floor of the rotunda, forcing Melanie to yelp and leap over the skittering limb. Before it had rolled to a stop it was already disintegrating into black smoke. Soon, it had vanished completely.

  The drilling, grinding quality of the voices lessened to a distant, dying wail, but the two beings in Baphomet's other grip continued to struggle. Before I could begin to guess what the goat-man idol intended to do, it opened its horrific goat jaws and shoved the two rag-like things inside and swallowed them.

  "No!" Orlaton screamed.

  Baphomet turned to face him, cloven hooves stomping heavily on the wooden floorboards. It continued to burn with supernatural fire. I quickly called up Lucky and made him go big. Though I deeply regretted it when Baphomet turned its infernally dark eyes upon me. It was all I could do not to shrink back beneath its regard. I had an old fear of demons and Baphomet was close enough to being one to scare me to the core.

  Yet despite my fear, I wasn't about to let it attack Orlaton.

  "Don't harm him," I ordered shakily.

  Baphomet, aflame, only stared at me. Its expression was wholly unreadable to me, as alien as a goat's would be, but so much worse. Being stared at by that thing rearranged your priorities. It made you question what really mattered in life. When Baphomet abruptly extended its wings, I sucked in my breath and stumbled back, terrified that it was about to launch itself at me.

  Baphomet didn't attack. It flapped its wings once and then began to dry heave. To my amazement and disgust, Baphomet vomited a pearlescent stream onto the floor, from which rose a light white mist. It wasn't true vomit. I knew at once that it was the souls of Orlaton's parents, cleansed of whatever had been done to them within the Devilment Box.

  The Sin Eater had done its job.

  Baphomet didn’t linger. It burned up in a massive ball of flame that made us all flinch back. The fire and Baphomet disappeared from our plane of existence. The only proof that the idol had visited us was the set of cloven hoof prints seared into the wooden floorboards on either side of the statue that sat there.

  "Holy cow," I breathed. "Let's not do that again."

  Trembling, I ordered Lucky to shut the lid of the Devilment Box. Once closed, the chest lost its ominous qualities. I noticed belatedly that the air felt still and quiet. No more cursing. No more hate.

  Because Baphomet had eaten it all.

  I tucked my middle two fingers against my palm, extended my other three fingers and murmured, "Rock on, goat-man."

  Celestina took a deep breath and said, "We must be going now," in a male voice.

  I startled, but of course, that was why she was here, to channel and communicate with Orlaton's parents. Ectoplasm leaked like ethereal tendrils of smoke from the openings of her ears and nostrils.

  "Are you safe?" Orlaton asked her, still white-faced but looking stronger. He took a hesitant step toward her and then forced himself to stop. "Will you be alright?"

  "We are safe, Orli. We will reunite with you in time," Celestina replied in the voice I presumed to belong to his father Charles.

  Orlaton nodded and a tremulous smile crossed his lips. "Okay, Dad."

  I thought, His dad calls him Orli. I wanted to squee from the adorableness of it.

  I spoke up tentatively. "Sir, may we ask you for something before you and your wife move on?"

  Celestina didn't turn to look at me, her head surrounded by swaying ectoplasm, but Charles' attention was evident.

  "You worked with the Oddsmakers," I said. "Do you know what's become of them?"

  "They're still here. Looping."

  "What does—"

  "Goodbye," Celestina said. "Be a good boy."

  A moment later, her head drooped, the ectoplasm vanished, and she shivered. When she raised her head again, her eyes were clear. "He's gone," she said softly.

  "Dios Mio," I heard Melanie mutter from behind me. "That was all kinds of scary, but I think it turned out alright, right? It did, didn't it?"

  "It did," Orlaton answered. For once, he sounded like a normal teenager, not sad or defensive or angry or snooty. Just a seven
teen year-old boy who'd fought off demons and survived to reach the verge of manhood. Our friendship was strange—no sleepovers or bracelets were in our future—but I was proud of him for all that he'd endured without wigging out. Orlaton might look wimpy, but he was pretty darn badass in his own right.

  "Thank you for your assistance," he said to us, a rare humbleness softening his features. "I never would have attempted to free them on my own."

  "The thanks go to Celestina and your dad's good standing with Baphomet." The latter relationship was probably the true savior today, and I suspected was also the reason why the Oddsmakers had wanted Orlaton's dad to work with them. Being buddies with a major deity could make you pretty attractive to those with a hard-on for demons and other big-time entities.

  I checked out the statue, which was now inert and as exciting as Vale's, though not nearly as cute. "Never would have guessed the icon for headbanging was such a cool guy-thing-creature-whatever."

  "It helps that my father was a satyr."

  "True." I studied Orlaton with interest. "So how is it that you're non-magickal?"

  "I never said I was. I can shift into my satyr form at will, but I only do so for certain ceremonies and rituals." He tugged on the embroidered lapel of his robe. "It's not a form that wears many garments well, unfortunately."

  I snorted. Leave it to Orlaton to eschew his magickal side because it ruined the line of his clothing.

  On the floor, Celestina rolled her head on her neck. "Now that that's settled, are we any closer to knowing what happened to the Oddsmakers? I didn't understand the reference to 'looping.'" She looked at each of us in turn. "Anyone?"

  I had no clue, and I doubted Melanie did, either. Orlaton seemed dismayed that, for once, he didn't know something. Which left Uncle James who, I was excited to see, wore a thoughtful expression on his face, as though Charles' words had triggered a memory.

  "We should return to Moonlight," he said carefully. I could tell he was doing his best to temper expectations. "Something there may be of relevance."

  ~~~~~

  Orlaton joined us for the trip to Moonlight, which surprised me in a big way.

  "Have you ever stepped foot in here?" I asked him as I lowered the protective wards on the yard.

  Oddly, his expression darkened, and Uncle James said quickly, "Many times in the past, Anne."

  "But not since I cursed the place," Orlaton muttered.

  The wards dropped as I shifted the last rock into place, but I didn't move. I could only gape up at him on the other side of the gate. "Wait a second. Run that by me again."

  "It was an accident." Orlaton toed the ground with a scowl on his face.

  "It was indeed," Uncle James said with a chuckle. "No harm, no foul. Well, perhaps a bit of harm and quite a bit of foul, but nothing that isn't easily dealt with."

  As Orlaton turned red, I rose to my feet. "The bloody bathroom? The cursed cameos? The spirit on the roof? That's all because of Orlaton?" My uncle nodded sheepishly. "I thought you said a blond witch did it."

  Uncle James shrugged. "In a way she is responsible. She was a customer at the time and was goading me about the prices of some of Moonlight's items. Let's just say she was extremely vocal about her displeasure. Orlaton happened to also be shopping at the time and overheard her. He thought to assist."

  "She was intolerable," Orlaton muttered. "I would have thrown her out of Tomes without question. But since I knew Mr. Song wouldn't be so aggressive, I thought to intervene on his behalf." He sighed. "I was new to my studies, unfortunately, and hubris was my downfall. That day I may have bitten off more than I could chew."

  Uncle James gently ushered me toward the door because I would have stood on the walkway all day, gawking at Orlaton. Had he really just admitted to being arrogant?

  "Curses have an unfortunate tendency to go awry," Uncle James said generously. "I don't blame you at all, Orlaton. Your heart was in the right place."

  "So his good intentions actually did pave the way to Hell, right through the middle of Moonlight." I shook my head in annoyance although I did see the humor in it. "All these nuisances. I should have figured that somehow they were tied to you, Orlaton."

  "I feel the same about you whenever my toilet stops up, Miss Moody."

  "Ooh, he got you there, Anne!" Melanie crowed.

  Toilet humor. I expected so much more of a boy genius.

  Once we were all inside Moonlight, we forgot about the curses and looked around expectantly, waiting for Uncle James' revelation to strike us. I, however, got nothing. And it turned out for good reason.

  "It's not here," he said, sounding shocked. He strode up and down the aisles of merchandise, eyes large behind his glasses, before finally giving up and looking to me. "The painting from the Gallery of Veritatis. Did you sell it?"

  "Ha. 'Did I sell it?' The government has it. It's Exhibit A in the Case for Anne Moody Being a Major Traitor and Bad Guy."

  He looked gobsmacked by the news.

  "What was its significance?" Celestina asked him. "How did the painting relate to the 'looping' that Orlaton's father..." She trailed off as realization struck her at the same time it hit the rest of us.

  "Charles believes the Oddsmakers are inside a painting?" I literally scratched my head. "How does that even work?"

  "Magick," Melanie supplied innocently.

  I nearly smacked my forehead with my palm. "Maybe this all has something to do with the fact that Echinacious is allowed to maintain a room that he claims can't be spied on by the Oddsmakers. On the surface, it makes no sense that they would have allowed that. But if they did so in order to have leverage in the future..."

  "Echinacious is a complex creature," Uncle James said cautiously, leading me to believe there was a heck of a lot he wasn't saying.

  "You're saying he might be sneakier than we know." I laced my fingers behind my neck. "If that's the case, we may be in trouble. The capstone seal for the Infernus Rift reformed in the floor of the gallery. Is that like, the worst thing that could have happened?"

  Uncles James' expression didn't ease my growing paranoia. "Let's go over and find out."

  ~~~~~

  Since the scene had the potential to look like a witch hunt, I suggested that only Uncle James and I go to the gallery. Echinacious knew us and presumably trusted us somewhat. It also served to keep my friends out of harm's way if the situation went south.

  "What else do you know about this guy—er, goblin?" I asked Uncle James from the side of my mouth as we approached the plain, squat building that housed the art gallery.

  "He was one of the original settlers of Las Vegas. One of the first to recognize that with the introduction of gaming, this valley would soon be drowning in chance magick."

  "So he wanted to take advantage of that. What's his angle? What does he get out of running the gallery?"

  "He collects debts and favors."

  Vale had told me as much, but I'd forgotten. Vale owed him for the two memory stains that Echinacious had allowed us to create, but did my own success in closing the Rift negate that? Did Echinacious, in fact, owe me? I wasn't holding my breath for it, but it sure could be helpful if that proved to be the case.

  "Do you believe he's working in secret for the Oddsmakers?" I asked my uncle.

  "Echinacious tries very hard to be a neutral party. Aligning himself with anyone is bad for business, and the business he runs hinges on absolute trust."

  "That doesn't mean he can't be doing something on the down low."

  "No, it certainly doesn't." We had reached the gallery. He opened the door for me. "I believe, though, that Echinacious might be amenable to telling us the truth himself."

  The strangeness of stepping into the all-white interior of the gallery's lobby was made even more startling by the fact that Echinacious was already waiting for us. The goblin, in an olive green suit, stood near the four busts that hung on the wall, facing us as Uncle James and I entered.

  "Mr. Song," the goblin greeted. "So go
od to see you free again where you belong."

  "Echinacious." My uncle greeted him with apparent warmness, so I didn't tense up just yet. I wanted to believe the goblin was on our side. He had assisted Vale and me when we needed it most. Then again, he had known that Uncle James was incarcerated and hadn't thought to tell me. Maybe all Echinacious cared about was the barter aspect of our interactions. Maybe he held no loyalty except to himself. If so, I hoped I could work with that.

  "It's been a long time," Uncle James went on. He looked around the gallery, though there wasn't much to see. "Nothing has changed here."

  "Nothing needs to." Echinacious touched the side of his crooked, gnarly nose. "But I sense that may no longer be the case."

  "The government has the painting of the English countryside," I blurted. "The one where the axe murderer attacks the picnicking family."

  "Massacre at Dour Lake," Echinacious said with a nod. "I remember it well."

  "Does it matter that the government has it? Can they learn anything about us from it?"

  "Oh, no doubt they will be endlessly fascinated by it. And by endlessly, I mean that in the most literal sense. They will never decipher its magick. And so, in that regard, we have little to fear."

  "Who performed the magick that created it?" I asked. "Was it you?"

  "It is indeed my work, Anne. Though I hesitate to claim credit when, as you know from experience, the artwork from the Gallery of Veritatis is heavily influenced by its customers."

  "So just as Vale's memory and my sorcery were needed to create our memory stain, whoever commissions a looped portrait helps create it, too."

  "Precisely."

  I looked at Uncle James, who gave me a somber nod. It was time to lay our cards on the table.

  "We have reason to believe the Oddsmakers commissioned a portrait from you," I said as I watched the gallery proprietor closely for a reaction.

  Echinacious smiled and studied both my uncle and me. Nothing in his bearing suggested he was bothered by what I'd said.