A young man was there. He was dark-haired, blue-eyed, and completely naked. His black hair was curly and much too long, making him appear a wild man. But she remembered the scales, the claws, the eye. A dragon shifter. She wondered if he were one of the Great Sky Dragon’s. She wondered what excuse he meant to use for being naked. But none of it mattered. He knocked at the window. She opened it. And then—
And then he was reaching in and saying, “I’m sorry, this is going to sound very odd—”
He stopped and sniffed, and for a moment she wondered what he was smelling, besides the obvious smoke in the air, but his voice was subtly different as he said, “Or perhaps not so very odd. Listen, I shift into a dragon and I’m going to shift. And then I’m going to fly you down to an area behind the dumpsters where I can shift and change. Do you think you can climb on my back?” he asked, even as his face seemed to already be elongating for the shift. “And hold on while I fly you down?”
She wanted to make a joke about wanting to be introduced first, but instead she nodded once and watched as he coughed and writhed in the change from human to dragon. The hand grasping madly at the windowsill changed to a giant clawed paw.
The dragon facing her looked nothing like her own dragon form. He was sturdier, more massive and looked less like the serpentine dragon of Chinese myth. Bea didn’t look like Chinese dragons in tapestries and parades either. For one, she had wings. But this man’s dragon looked more like something that might have been carved into the front of a Viking ship: barrel-chested and heavy-jawed.
His mouth worked, and he said something that sounded like “now.”
She scrambled hand over hand, grabbing at his neck, surprised by the feeling of warm scales, wondering if hers felt like that too; then she stepped onto the narrow ledge of shingles, trying to throw a leg over the massive ill-balanced body, and mentally cursing the Great Sky Dragon.
She lost her footing and held her breath, seeing the fire trucks so far below. He grabbed her with his spare paw and threw her over his back, barely giving her time to hold onto his neck before flying down, carefully keeping behind the smoke, to land with a jar in the alley, behind the dumpsters. He began contorting almost immediately and Bea jumped off.
She stood, shaking, not believing she was on solid ground, and it was all she could do to keep herself from kissing the compacted dirt of the alley.
Moments later, he was saying, through a coughing fit, “I’m sorry. I had to hurry you. If the breeze shifted, they would have seen us.”
“No, that’s fine,” she said and averted her eyes, as he dove for a bundle of fabric behind the dumpster. “Thank you for saving me.” She wasn’t sure if she should fake astonishment at his being a shapeshifter, but in the next second she was glad she hadn’t, because he came from behind the dumpster, fully dressed, grinning, tying back his hair with a rubber band.
“So,” he said, “I guess you don’t shift into something that flies.”
“I—” She started, then hesitated. “I…” And blushed. “Dragon actually. But…how did you know?”
“You smell shifter. You know?” His eyes widened. “No. You don’t know. I see. Dragon?” His eyes went up to the tower. “But then—”
“I…” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. There was…there was…I woke up in there. It was on fire. And I couldn’t shift.”
“Oh?” Tom Ormson said, but didn’t press it. Instead, he said, “We’d best go around and you tell them you came down…the drainpipe or something. Dang. We should have tied some sheets together to make it seem more likely…”
“That we didn’t fly down?” she asked with a shaky smile, unexpectedly liking this man more than she’d expected to when she figured out he was the Great Sky Dragon’s candidate for her hand. “I don’t think it will matter. The way my door felt, the fire was just behind it—”
A loud crash-bang from the tower, and Bea looked up to see the roof cave in. A scream went up from the parking lot. Tom took a deep breath. “Well, that’s that,” he said.
He walked her around to the parking lot, where the firefighters were looking up at the tower with a look of the sheerest horror. That was when a matronly woman suddenly yelled, “Ms. Ryu!”
Bea was puzzled. She had no idea how this woman knew her name.
“You poor thing,” the woman said. “You’re confused and no wonder. Of course, when you checked in, you didn’t really spend much time talking to me. I’m Louise Carlson, the owner of the Spurs and Lace, of course.”
“Oh?” Bea said. “I checked in?” Zombie drugs. They must have given her zombie drugs.
“Oh dear. Well, of course you’ll be confused. You know, you were wearing those dark glasses, and I never realized how unusual your eyes are. I was thinking about you up there on the tower. I’m just glad you got out. How—”
“I…climbed down sheets,” she said. “Until I could get to the shed roof.”
Louise blinked, “I didn’t think we had that many sheets.”
“Er…closet. Ten.”
“Well, very glad to see you,” the nearest firefighter said. “We have a paramedic who—”
“No, I’m quite well,” Bea said.
“I’m just going to take her into the diner and get her some coffee,” Tom said, with a tone of quiet authority. His absolute calm—his absolute certainty—seemed to carry its own weight. One of the firefighters made a sound, but Louise pointed out that Ms. Ryu couldn’t be involved with starting the fire, after all, nor could she know anything about it, since it had started several floors below her, and then Tom Ormson was leading her to the back door of the diner.
As they entered, Bea was impressed by the fact that with the tragedy playing itself out back there in the parking lot, there was no one watching at the back door of the diner, or through the window that faced the fire. In fact, it seemed almost as if she’d just entered a classroom where kids had been very naughty and then became models of good behavior when the teacher came back. There was a strained “I’m being good, Ma” quality to the groups sitting around the tables, and even to the two employees behind the counter, one a young man manning a grill and fryer and the other a woman doing something to vegetables that included a lot of very fast chopping. Neither of them gave off the vibe of being the “teacher” figure.
And then Bea saw her. She was tall—taller than Tom Ormson—and, Bea thought dispassionately, she was also very beautiful with golden skin and long brown hair, the edge of it dyed in a way Bea wouldn’t mind imitating if she could figure out how.
Bea knew two things at once. One was that this was Tom Ormson’s girlfriend. And the other was that if she tried to steal this woman’s boyfriend she would be in for a hard, hard fall.
Not that she had any intention of stealing Ormson. Even if he was nice and good-looking. The world was full of nice, good-looking men, and trouble like this she didn’t need.
The woman turned from giving coffee warm-ups to the table she’d been attending, and as she looked toward Ormson, Bea could sense some form of communication pass between them. Bea felt Ormson touch her arm very lightly and he pointed at the corner booth in obvious invitation, but she dug in her heels, turned around and said, “I— I’m sorry, Mr. Ormson, I—”
“Sit down,” he said, very quietly, “and tell me who sent you.”
She realized she’d called him by name and he’d never introduced himself. She could explain it. She could say that she’d heard it somewhere. But as she slid into the booth and saw those blue eyes watching her with an odd mixture of interest, amusement and wariness, she realized that perhaps it would be best if she avoided any unneeded complication and told him everything. He was a dragon shifter—the only one she knew other than the Great Sky Dragon. And unlike the Great Sky Dragon, he seemed to be sane.
Sitting quietly, she folded her hands on the table. Tom Ormson got two cups of coffee, slid one in front of her, took one for himself, sat down. “Now, suppose you start talking. In itty-bitty words, b
ecause it’s already been a long day. Tell me who sent you.” He gave her a look. “You don’t look quite like one of the Great Sky Dragon’s people, but you look close to it.”
Chapter 8
For a moment Tom thought she was going to bluff him. He could see the thought passing behind her jade-green eyes. Unusual eyes in an Asian face, but Asian was only the predominant cast to her features. Beneath it, she looked as exotic and unplaceable as Kyrie.
Then she sighed. “My name is Beatrice Bao Ryu. Bea to my friends. I am…” Deep breath. “I was an art student at the University of Georgia, but—”
“You shift into a dragon.”
“Oh, yeah, since I was about fourteen. But it seems, because they don’t— It took them a while to find out what I was and that I was…”
“Them?”
“My parents and…and whoever it is, who works…the Great Sky Dragon’s people. My parents aren’t shifters. They only found out I shifted over Christmas. And I think…there started to be trouble at Dad’s business. Dad is a vet. Veterinarian. Clients would get anonymous calls saying that he was mistreating the animals when he boarded them and that he…well…other bad stuff. And the animal hospital was broken into twice, and everything…what wasn’t stolen was smashed. I didn’t know why, though I knew Dad was worried and, well…that we were having money trouble.”
She looked up and saw Tom’s blank look. “I know, it sounds unrelated, but it isn’t. I heard my parents talk, and I found out that—you see…my dad was being blackmailed. He had to send me…send me here. Send me to the Great Sky Dragon, or they were going to bankrupt Dad. I didn’t like the sound of that”—she made an airy gesture—“so I came out to see who this Great Sky Dragon, Ancient One person was, and to tell him what I thought of what his triads were doing to Daddy.”
“Oh, I’d have paid to see that,” Tom said, and grinned. “I think I was the only one to ever defy him before.”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I went to see him where his letters to my dad said to meet.” She waved her hand again. “At the Three Luck Dragon.”
“Yeah, he likes that place,” Tom said. He had his own memories of the restaurant, his own reasons to stay away from it. For one, he’d been eviscerated in its parking lot. Fortunately dragons weren’t that easily killed. In fact, short of cutting the body into two or more pieces or separating head from body, they would come back from about anything.
Still, Tom remembered dying and, knowing the Great Sky Dragon had considered that a gentle spanking, it made him very careful about the creature. He took a sip of his coffee. “So, what did he want with you? And did you say no? Is that why two dragons tried to roast you?”
She covered her face. When she looked up her cheeks were glowing red. “No. Yes. I mean…I said no. But then…but then I don’t remember anything. I woke up in that room, and…and I couldn’t shift.” Her last words came out in a near whine.”
As Kyrie approached, Tom extended a hand to touch her. He needed the reassurance of her proximity, the comfort of knowing that whatever madness was about to engulf them—from feral shifters to whatever it was the Great Sky Dragon’s people were cooking up now—they would face it together.
“I think they knocked me out,” the girl said. “I have a lump over my ear. I think they knocked me out and…”
Kyrie looked at Tom and he looked back at her. Feeling married extended beyond sharing the same bed and kissing without worrying about morning breath. Kyrie’s glance said as clearly as possible, You have to tell her the truth. She has to know what she’s up against.
Tom didn’t know how much of Bea’s story Kyrie had heard, but he knew she was right. He took a deep breath. “No. I think he killed you.”
The girl blinked, looked startled. “I-I beg your—pardon?”
Tom took another deep breath, feeling like he was diving into freezing waters. Kyrie kissed him and patted his shoulder as though to give him courage, before going off. “Sorry. I don’t know how else to say it. The Great Sky Dragon doesn’t think it’s a very bad punishment…He…” He paused and took another deep breath.
“I’m not dead,” Beatrice said, her voice just a little too loud.
“No. Of course not. The only way to kill a dragon is to separate the head from the body or cut the body in two. And even that I’m not sure about, if the two halves are brought together immediately. I’m also fairly sure you can’t come back from being burned to cinders, but I might be wrong. You’re not dead, but my guess is that the Great Sky Dragon gave you a killing blow and did it on purpose, so you were temporarily dead. The telltale is that you can’t shift. You usually can’t shift for about a day after you recover…come back to life. Whatever. And he probably had someone else check in in your place, because Louise sounded all confused about your checking in, and you don’t remember it. You must have been dead some days…Usual is three days, of course.”
“Dead? I…what day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“It was Sunday.” She put her head in her hands.
“Yeah,” Tom said, as gently as he knew how. “That would…well…Usually it takes a few days to come back, and I’m going to guess he knew exactly where to put you and…I have bad news—I heard two dragons were seen setting fire to the bed-and-breakfast.”
“He—He wanted me to burn?” She looked almost wooden, her face unnaturally immobile, but she’d gone very pale. And before Tom could answer, she added, “I’m sorry. Where is the—”
He pointed her to the restroom and she went. She came back minutes later, looking composed, but still faintly green.
Chapter 9
Bea couldn’t understand why the idea that she’d been dead and was alive again would have made her throw up. Perhaps it was the shock. And she couldn’t say she felt better afterwards. She wasn’t sure “better” was the word, except that the physical distress and then rinsing her mouth and washing her face and hands had made her feel like some time had elapsed. Like she’d had time to catch her breath.
Ormson was sitting at the table eating, but his girlfriend was hovering at the end of the hallway, waiting. She led Bea to the booth, and Ormson got up, tied on a bandana to confine his hair, and went off to the restroom.
There was a steaming pot of tea and two cups on the table, and the woman poured the tea and pushed a cup toward Bea, “I thought tea was better for you just now,” she said. Then she pushed a container of sugar packets at Bea. “And sugar is good for shock.”
Bea rarely sweetened her tea, but she did it now.
The woman waited till Bea took a mouthful, then said, “My name is Kyrie, by the way.”
“I…my friends call me Bea.” She paused. “How— Why did Mr. Ormson say that about…about the Great…about my being killed?”
Kyrie looked serious. “Because you can’t shift afterwards, for about a day or so. Just getting hit on the head doesn’t stop your shifting, but being dead and coming back does.”
Bea was going to ask how they knew that, then stopped. She didn’t even want to know which of them it was who had been killed before. Instead, she inclined her head and drank a mouthful of sweet tea. And swallowed. And looked up—to meet sympathy in the young woman’s eyes.
“If it makes you feel better, he once gutted Tom from neck to groin and left him for dead. I thought he was dead. The morgue here still talks about it as one of the oddest cases of shock. But…I thought he was dead.” Her eyes were dark with pain.
“But why?”Bea asked. “What was the point of roasting me alive? Or…undead or something?”
The woman smiled. “I think,” she said, “that this is the Great Sky Dragon’s idea of introducing you to Tom in a romantic fashion.”
“What?” Bea swallowed hard. “I want to tell you that I—”
“Don’t have the slightest interest in my boyfriend?” Kyrie said, and smiled. “Yeah. I kind of figured. You don’t look like an arranged marriage sort of girl, but you know, the…Himself is very old, and—”
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“And has read way too many comic books?”
“Oh, more than likely,” Kyrie said dryly.
At that moment She Only Comes Out at Night sounded in the tinny tone of a cell phone, and Kyrie dug into her pocket to bring it out. She listened for a moment, then said, “Shit,” not as though it was a swear word, but as though it was a statement of fact. “Shit.”
*
Rafiel woke up. It was…cold, very cold, and it was hard and prickly under him, as if he were lying on a bed of thorns.
So this is what hell feels like, he thought. His mouth was parched, his body hurt as though someone had worked him over with sandpaper, and his eyes appeared to be glued shut. His skin was icy cold, but covered in sweat. At least he hadn’t lost a whole day.…Had he lost a whole day?
Working against what seemed to be heavy weights sitting on each of his eyelids, he opened his eyes and looked up at a red-tinged sky. Only one eye worked. His left eye appeared to be obstructed—blackness was all he saw. Memory came back to him, of pursuing the feral shifters, of the strange female feline, of…her paw penetrating his left eye.
Had she killed him? He had no idea if, like dragon shifters, lion shifters also came back from the dead, but he had a feeling that the same rules applied, that they were, somehow, all parts of a whole.
He managed to raise himself onto his elbows. No, this was not something he could wait and heal from. For one, he was starving for protein—so hungry that if a rabbit crossed his path, he’d eat it raw, fur and all. For another, he was scratched, scraped and bitten over most of his body, and his left thigh appeared to have been torn open by a massive claw.
For a moment he was afraid to look at his right thigh. Then he did, and the phone was still there, secured by its orange coil.
It took him forever to get the phone off his thigh and even longer to dial Kyrie’s number, even though both she and Tom were on his contacts’ list. He kept hitting the wrong buttons. When he dialed it, he put the phone to his ear and then almost fell asleep, listening to the phone meep against his ear.
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