Dragon Bites

by Allyson James

  I had no idea where I was. Not in the hotel suite Janet, Maya, and I had been sharing, not Janet’s hotel at the Crossroads, nowhere I’d ever been.

  And I was in bed. Unclothed. I took a peek beneath the sheet. My underwear, blue to match my dress, clasped my hips, but the rest of me was bare.

  I dropped the sheet as the door opened and my friend from the baccarat table—Cornelius—walked in. He tiptoed in, as though thinking me still asleep, and I slammed the sheet and blanket to my chest.

  He stopped halfway across the floor. “Good. You’re awake.” He sounded relieved.

  “Are you a pervert?” I asked him.

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “A pervert. Are you one? Did you take my clothes?”

  Cornelius’s expression cleared. “Ah, I see your concern. Your clothes were in shreds and had to be removed. But no, I didn’t touch you. The nurse did.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Chandra. Female. She’s very professional. Worried about you, but she says you will be all right. We found you in time.”

  My heart beat quickly, and magic prickled in my fingers, as it always did when I was scared.

  “In time for what?” I demanded.

  “To save you from drowning.” Cornelius didn’t move from his spot in the middle of the carpet, which was thick and covered with roses. “The man fighting you was arrested, don’t worry.”

  “Arrested.” My mind was cloudy. I’d been battling the dragon slayer, who’d done his best to strangle me and drown me at the same time. Colby and Drake hadn’t been there at the pool—I’d saved them from him at least.

  That made me feel a little better, though I hoped Drake had been able to go dragon and heal himself. But Colby would have made sure he was all right, wouldn’t he? The two acted as though they didn’t like each other, but now that Drake had quit the Council, they watched each other’s backs.

  “Who arrested him?” I asked.

  “My men didn’t say—probably they don’t know. A police officer and some formidable looking assistants came in and took him away.”

  “Your men.” I looked Cornelius up and down. “You have men? Who are you? A mob boss?”

  Cornelius shook his head, his smile faint. “I say my men, but they work for the hotel.”

  “The C. Wait, the C is owned by a guy called Christianson. Is that you?”

  “No. John Christianson is my brother. He owns the chain.”

  My heart beat faster. “And you were playing at the tables, because …”

  He shrugged, his cheekbones staining red. “I like to play. It relaxes me.”

  I remembered Cornelius losing hands and pushing away chips like it was no big deal.

  “Now I understand why you were being so nice to me,” I said, disappointed. “I was a big spender, and you were trying to keep me happy.”

  Why this hurt me so much, I don’t know. I felt tears sting my eyes, like I was a big sappy baby.

  Cornelius raised a hand. “Not at all. I saw a young woman a bit out of her depth, and as I said, you are the same age as my daughter, which made me protective. You put up quite a fight against that man. He was a magic user?”

  I started and pulled the sheet higher. Cassandra had told Janet that John Christianson knew all about magic, had wanted her to help him fulfill some of his customers’ darkest desires with it. Cassandra had quit the hotel and disappeared, terrified of what would happen if Christianson found her.

  Apparently Christianson couldn’t work magic himself, which was why he’d hired Emmett and Cassandra. It stood to reason Christianson’s brother would know all about magic too.

  “Yeah,” I said warily. “Pretty strong Earth magic in him.”

  “I’m not certain what that means. He was using his magic to cheat?”

  “Sure was. Made the right cards come out of the deck for him.” I’d done the same thing, but I felt it prudent not to mention it.

  “Hmm.” Cornelius didn’t look fall-over amazed that a mage had waltzed into his brother’s casino and used magic to cheat, or that I’d figured it out and challenged him. “What do you mean by Earth magic?”

  I shrugged, wishing I didn’t have to lie flat, but I wasn’t about to let Cornelius, no matter how kindhearted he was, get an accidental glimpse of my tits.

  “Means magic rooted in this Earth,” I said. “Like witches who focus on crystals or water to work spells—stones and water come from the Earth. Or Changers—they get the power to shift from the Earth. Dragons, too. Dragons were made from volcanoes, by volcano gods, which is why they can wield fire.” I closed my mouth before I could mention dragon slayers who went after the dragons. I didn’t know whose side Cornelius was on.

  He wore a quizzical look, as though debating whether to believe me. “You know a lot about this.”

  “I’m kind of an expert. This guy was definitely using Earth magic. Smelled like dirt.”

  “And all Earth magic, er, smells that way?”

  “Not always.” Janet’s Earth magic didn’t—she smelled like a rainstorm when she used her Stormwalker powers—a good rainstorm that settled the dust and made the world fresh. Grandmother Begay’s reminded me of rosemary. Mick smelled like fire, and Colby smelled like incense. I liked that. Drake smelled of incense too, but a different kind. Drake was cinnamon, while Colby was more like sandalwood.

  “You describe it as though you don’t have Earth magic,” Cornelius observed. “But you fought like a mage. What kind of power do you have?”

  Oops. Speaking of secrets …

  “Oh, nothing special.” I managed a shrug. “Can I get some clothes? I feel weird talking to you like this. Or are you holding me hostage? Keeping me naked so I can’t run away?” Not that it would stop me. I’d be out the window and down the street in a heartbeat, wrapped in the sheet if that’s all I could find.

  Cornelius raised his hands in surrender and stepped back. “Nothing so dramatic. I will have Chandra check you over and bring you something to wear. Then you can choose any clothes you want from the gift shop, as much as you like. It’s on me. As a thank-you for catching a swindler at our tables.”

  “And then I can leave?”

  Cornelius hesitated a fraction of a second, and that small fraction made my wariness return.

  “Of course, leave if you’d like. I’ll have a car drive you anywhere you wish. Though I’d appreciate it if you stayed for a little while at least, and talked to me about how this man used magic to cheat. So we can be on our guard. I can have your luggage transferred from whatever hotel you are staying in, if that will make you more comfortable.”

  I sensed a trap, and I hated traps. They made me crazy and want to kill everyone in my path to get out.

  But I was also curious. Why did he want to pick my brain? Cornelius seemed personable and polite—kind, even—but something was up.

  Grandmother Begay said curiosity was Janet’s downfall—she couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business, no matter how much trouble it led her into. Well, I was Janet’s sister, so I guess the curiosity was genetic.

  I flashed Cornelius a smile. “That would be great. Let me clean up, you give me dinner, or breakfast, or whatever meal we’re on, and we’ll talk.”

  “Excellent. Thank you—er, would you be so kind as to tell me your full name, my dear? For Chandra’s records.”

  I wasn’t sure why that was important, but what the hell? My human name was harmless. “Gabrielle Massey,” I said. “I’m Apache.”

  “Are you? How intriguing. Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

  Cornelius pressed his hands together, looked as though he might bow, thought better of it, and left the room with dignity.

  I waited a few heartbeats until I was sure he wasn’t coming back, and then threw off my sheets as I tore to the bathroom. I truly had to pee.

  Chapter Ten

  Janet

  Mick arranged everything from the lobby of the C. I would stay in Las Vegas with C
olby while Mick, Drake, and Titus took the dragon slayer back to our hotel. Once I found Gabrielle, Colby and I would return with her to the Crossroads.

  Maya and Nash opted to stay in Las Vegas—that is, Maya refused to leave. She declared she wasn’t missing her trip because of me and my crazy family, an arena full of demons, and a weird man who called himself a dragon slayer. She said this in a hard voice, but I could see she was concerned about Gabrielle as well, and didn’t want to go until she was found.

  Nash, to my surprise, chose to stay with Maya. He’d already taken leave to come to Las Vegas and keep an eye on her, he said, so he might as well enjoy his time off.

  They left us to return to our original hotel down the Strip, Maya looking not quite sure what to make of Nash’s decision.

  Mick hired a car to take dragons and slayer to Arizona, and when it pulled up, he and Titus bundled the dragon slayer into it. Drake, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, probably the only things he could find on short notice, climbed quickly in after him, the binding spell Drake had woven shimmering like silver between him and the slayer.

  Mick gave me a hard kiss on my lips, first, to say good-bye, second, to tell me to be careful. I rose into the kiss, tasting his fierce determination and also his frustration.

  I waved at him as the car rolled down the hotel’s circular drive, the slayer wedged between Titus and Drake in back, Mick in the front. Colby and I stood on the walkway near the door to watch them go, a warm desert wind wafting up the slope.

  I worried as much about Mick as I did about Gabrielle, my heart squeezing as the car pulled into traffic at the bottom of the drive. Drake’s binding spells could be broken, and if this one gave way, Mick would be in a lot of danger. The magic coming from the dragon slayer was terrifying.

  “Okay,” Colby said as the car moved out of sight. “Now we seriously have to look for Gabrielle.”

  “Did you say you were trying to find Gabrielle?” A young man, a driver from one of the many limos parked in front of the hotel came to us, wide-eyed. “She asked me to wait for her, but then there was the big fight inside, and now she’s gone. She all right?”

  Before I could answer, Colby caught the young man’s shirt in his big fist, lifting him off his feet. “Who are you?” he growled. “What do you know?”

  “Colby, put him down,” I said quickly. I resisted the urge to add, “Bad dragon.”

  The man’s gaze slid to me. “You must be big sister Janet.” His words were strangled. “I’m really worried about her.”

  “Colby,” I admonished. “He can’t talk if he can’t breathe. Put him down.”

  Colby set the man on his feet with exaggerated gentleness and brushed off the front of his shirt. “So, talk.”

  “I already said. I drove Gabrielle here, and she asked me to wait. Then she chased that guy out of the hotel, and then you showed up.”

  “Why did you drive her here?” Colby rested hard fingers on the man’s chest.

  “She told me to take her to the best hotel in Vegas. Which is this one. Said you’d be good for the fare.” He glanced nervously at me.

  I sighed. “Of course she did. Don’t worry, I’ll cover it. What’s your name?—I’ll make sure you get the fee.”

  “Amos. But I’m not leaving until I know she’s okay.” He lowered his voice, conscious of the other drivers, the valet parkers, and the security guards hovering near. “There’s rumors that weird things go on in this hotel. Bad things.”

  “And you brought her here anyway?” Colby demanded.

  “It’s all right if you stay in the casino and public areas. It’s different when you check in. I didn’t think she’d be staying, but she’s the kind they like. Lots of money, lots of courage.”

  “Courage, yes,” I said. “Money—not so much.”

  “She had enough to sit at the thousand dollar baccarat table,” Amos said. “I saw her.” He flushed. “I went in to check on her.”

  Gods, how the hell had Gabrielle convinced the casino to let her play a thousand-dollar minimum game?

  Simple. She’d used magic, which had alerted the weird people who owned the C.

  “I’m glad you were concerned about her,” I told Amos. “Do you know people who work here? Can they help me find her?”

  He looked eager. “Sure. I’ll ask around, and meet you—where? They’ll talk to me more if I’m by myself,” he finished apologetically.

  “Middle of the garden,” Colby said. “Fewer people to overhear us.”

  “Got it.” Amos looked us up and down, Colby in his very wet clothes, and me in the simple jeans and cropped top I’d put on so we could race out. “Not sure they’ll allow you into the hotel like that. They have a dress code.”

  “I can change as soon as I can get my luggage here,” I said. “I’ll just go check in.”

  Colby’s grin beamed out. “I like how you think, sweetheart.”

  What the hell? I moved to the etched glass revolving door. The best way to know what goes on in the evil lair is to walk right in.

  * * *

  Gabrielle

  I showered, dressed in the bathrobe Chandra, a calm-voiced woman who told me she was from Nigeria, brought me, and I shopped.

  I didn’t even have to leave my hotel suite, a lavish apartment that seriously beat anything the Crossroads Hotel had to offer. The TV had a channel for the shop downstairs, not a static online thing where you clicked on something and added it to your cart, but a feed of the wares, with slim young women modeling the clothes and jewelry. It didn’t look homemade either, but like a professional advertising company had put it together with sleek backgrounds and sulky, shoulder-tossing models.

  The coolest thing was, you picked up the phone, told the shop which dresses and jewelry you were interested in, and they brought everything to your room.

  I indulged myself asking for about twenty outfits and trying them all on before I settled on three. I picked all three because I couldn’t decide between them.

  Chandra stayed with me throughout, giving me her opinion without reticence. Between the two of us, we chose a shimmering knee-length silver dress with spaghetti straps. The dress hung on me like a wave of water, but at the same time was modest, no cleavage. Grandmother Begay was always on me about modesty, which drove me crazy, not that I had any intention of showing total strangers all I had.

  We picked out a quieter blue dress with short sleeves for more casual occasions, and a red top and minute black skirt in case I wanted to go dancing.

  I talked about getting jeans and a black shirt, like Janet wears, because she looks kick-butt in them, but Chandra wrinkled her nose.

  “You need your own style,” she said in her rich voice. “You have beautiful black hair and can wear bold colors. Don’t settle for drab.”

  Chandra’s blouse was a swirl of blue, gold, red, and green that made her dark eyes sparkle, and she’d wound a bright scarf through her hair. She smelled a bit of lavender, but clean, not cloying.

  “Why do you work here?” I asked as I put on the silver dress to have lunch with Cornelius. “Are you a nurse for the whole hotel?”

  “I’m not a nurse—I’m a doctor,” Chandra said. “Or I was.”

  Her tone was sad, and I looked at her with more interest. “They won’t hire you in the United States as a doctor? Why not?”

  “Oh, they would if I went through the steps for the license, but that is not the path chosen for me.” She gave me a cryptic look. “It is a long story, but one for another day.”

  Since I’d started hanging with Janet and her friends, I’d cultivated an interest in other people. I very much wanted to know Chandra’s story, but she gave a firm shake of her head, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me, at least not at the moment.

  I’d also developed worry. Had Drake truly been able to go dragon and get away? I kept wondering. Since I hadn’t seen pieces of dragon on the grass outside, I assumed he’d made it. What about Colby? And Janet? Was she safe in our hotel room with Mick looking
after her?

  It was new to me, this concern about people. I wanted to call Janet, talk to her, make sure everyone was all right, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t have a cell phone—Grandmother Begay didn’t like them and she wouldn’t let me have one. Pete, who absolutely hated technology, was trying to talk her into getting one for me so I could at least check in, but Grandmother was stubborn. I didn’t have any money or credit to buy a phone on my own.

  There was a landline phone in the room, but I’d have to ask the front desk for the number to Janet’s hotel, and I couldn’t trust that no one would be listening to my call. I didn’t want Cornelius or his staff to hear exactly what I said to my sister. None of their business.

  I would figure out a way to contact her, but for now, Chandra was hurrying me, saying Cornelius would be waiting.

  She steadied me as I slid into a new pair of silver, strappy high-heeled sandals, and then she looked into my eyes, as though assessing my state of health. “You are strong and resilient. Just be careful.”

  Chandra stayed behind as I went out—why, I didn’t know, but I had the feeling she wouldn’t tell me that either.

  I discovered a guard outside my door, one of the security guys with an earpiece. He only gave me a minuscule nod as I said hi to him, and he pointed the way to the elevator when I asked.

  I met Cornelius in a restaurant tucked away on the second floor. This restaurant didn’t flaunt itself like the grandiose ones I’d seen on the ground floor or have gimmicks like a chocolate fountain. The restaurant was hidden in a discreet corner behind a thick glass door, as though it let in only those in the know.

  A man in a tux opened the door and admitted me into a darkened room with red walls and hidden lights that cast dramatic shadows over the black tiled floor. The foyer contained a hostess desk in front of a wall that hid the rest of the restaurant.

  The maître d’, also in a tux, greeted me in a quiet voice and told me that Mr. Christianson was waiting. He led me around the partition to a room that carried on the black and red theme, with discreetly spaced tables and chairs. Simple, the decor said, and very expensive. Chefs in pristine white coats and tall hats cooked behind a half glass wall.