by Lysa Daley
Dragon’s Fire
A Shifting Magic Short
Lysa Daley
Copyright © 2018 by Lysa Daley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
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Chapter One
I strode across the UCLA campus with a little skip in my step, even though it was only 8:30am—a half hour before I usually got out of bed. But I’d been looking forward to today for two weeks. With my grad school tuition paid-in-full, I was headed to Advanced Potions and Herbology, my first official class of the semester. I’d always loved the campus with its old grand Romanesque main buildings, but this morning the grass looked even greener, the buttery yellow California sun shone brighter, and the birds sang just a little more sweetly.
I had more than enough time to make a stop at Northern Lights, my favorite campus coffee shop, grab some breakfast, and read for an hour. Whistling a cheery tune as I breezed around a corner, a dark figure lurched from the shadow of an overgrown rose bush and grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Ah! Hey—” I cried out, stumbling backward. Catching my breath, I recognized my assailant. “Agatha! What are you doing?”
“Good morning, Lacey.” The meek undergrad inched back into the shadows, pushing her comically thick glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“How come every time I see you, you practically scare me to death?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled apologetically. If Wednesday Adams had a frumpy sister, who also happened to be a vampire, that would be Agatha.
I rubbed my shoulder. “You grabbed me a little hard there.”
“My superhuman strength sometimes slips my mind,” she said. “Hard to get people’s attention outside in the light when you’re allergic to sunlight.” She shrugged, gesturing up at the butterscotch yellow morning sun. Sunlight didn’t exactly kill vampires, but even a few seconds of direct exposure could leave a pretty nasty burn.
“And what are you doing out here in the harsh light?”
“Trying to find you,” she replied. “I texted you like five times.”
“No, you —” I glanced at my phone to see that I’d missed more than five texts, the first one at 7am. I’d been so happy to be back at school that I hadn’t noticed my phone’s ringer was off. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Mr. Stroud needs to talk to you.” Along with being an undergrad student here, Agatha also worked part-time as an administrative assistant for this guy I did some work for named Mr. Stroud, as well as for the registrar’s office on campus.
“Right now?” I asked.
“I guess so.”
“I don’t work for him anymore.”
“He said you’d say that.” She pulled out her phone, scrolling through to find notes. “Right, here it is… He said to say it’s not about a new job. It’s about finishing something you already started. But it’s not—”
“Is it Sam?” I asked, alarmed. A young police officer named Sam Brown had been nearly killed by a rogue vampire attack while trying to protect me. He was currently in a medically induced coma at a nearby hospital.
“…But it’s not about Sam,” she finished her sentence.
I hesitated.
“He wants you to stop by the office later this afternoon,” Agatha explained.
“Can’t I just call him?”
She shook her head. “He was very clear that he needs to talk to you in person. He said he’d pay you for your trip downtown and back—two hundred dollars cash—even if you say no to the job. But I guess it’s a time-sensitive thing, so I need to let him know if you aren’t available today.”
I thought about it for a moment. I could use a little more cash. “I guess it can’t hurt to hear him out.”
Five minutes later, I stepped up to the bakery counter in Northern Lights. “Can I get a chocolate chip muffin and a vanilla soy latte?”
An undergrad barista with a babyface rang me up. “That’s $5.29.”
Wallet in hand, I handed him a crisp ten dollar bill. I had another eighty dollars in my wallet. It felt good to have a nice little wad of cash. Still, I worried as he gave me back my change. I’d paid my tuition and rent so when this cash was gone, I wouldn’t have much money left.
I’d recently run head first into money troubles. My father, who had encouraged me and eagerly agreed to pay for grad school, unexpectedly had his assets suddenly frozen when he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Because of that, I had to scramble to find an alternate way to pay for school. In a desperate attempt to make a quick buck, I accepted a temporary job for what I thought was a low-level supernatural bounty hunting firm. Turned out, I was actually working for the most powerful magical institution on the planet called the Society of Shadows. They’ve single-handedly been keeping mankind and the supernatural community safe from dark magic for the last half a dozen centuries.
That was all fine and good, but what mattered to me was the fact that it paid exceptionally well.
I took my coffee and muffin over to a table near the window. My plan had been to power through several chapters of the Culpepper Herbology textbook. I’d missed the first two weeks of classes, including all the reading, lectures and assignments that came along with it. I wasn’t too worried. Despite the fact that I was a class II animagus witch who can shapeshift into small animals — mostly birds and little mammals — my real superpower has always been school. Even though I was behind in my Ph.D. program, I knew I could catch up.
After reading the section detailing the similarities and differences between poisonous crosswort and creeping crowfoot three times and still not retaining it, I closed the book as a feeling of regret grew inside me. Why had I agreed to speak with Stroud? I’d already told him I wasn’t interested in continuing at the Society. I didn’t need the two hundred dollars that badly. And I had a feeling Stroud was just trying to suck me back in.
I took a bite of my muffin and decided that I could tell him face to face, once and for all, that I wasn’t interested in working for him. That way I could neatly nip this situation in the bud and make a little cash after my classes were done for the day.
* * *
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Mr. Stroud said from his large plush office on the thirteenth floor of the Society of Shadows building. It was hard not to feel a little intimidated by the large collection of supernatural weapons on display. “How’s school?”
“Good.” I smiled back for an instant but then forced myself to swallow the grin. No smiling. I’d promised myself I would be tough. He wasn’t going to dissuade me now.
Also, I’d intentionally not dressed to be out in the field. For my first day back on campus, I’d worn a floral dress, heeled ankle boots, and a jean jacket. Fieldwork generally required a more practical selection of clothes and shoes: something in this season’s camouflage Kevlar and combat boots were always classic.
“So I have a little job… actually it’s more of an errand,” he began, “because I know you’re not interested in any more fieldwork.”
“Right. I’m not,” I replied firmly. “And even if I were interested, I’m behind at school, and I just moved to a new apartment…”
“Of course.” He nodde
d in complete understanding. “Still taking the Wizards of the World seminar this quarter?”
“I am,” I said cautiously, feeling like I was walking into a carefully laid trap.
“That’s why I thought this little job might be perfect for you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I need someone to return the pendant you retrieved from the troll on your first assignment to its rightful owner.”
“The partial dragon’s tooth?” I’d managed to sneak into a troll’s lair, hidden in an L.A. river drainage tunnel, to retrieve half of a dragon’s tooth charm on a chain.
“The owner is in town and would like to take possession of it,” Stroud explained. “He’s leaving tonight. That’s why this job is on a bit of a tight deadline.”
I’d secretly shown the necklace to my new landlord, Mr. Radagast, who owned a supernatural bookshop and was generally knowledgeable about all magical books and objects. Despite the dragon’s tooth smoking in my hand, he confirmed it was basically powerless without the other half of the tooth. I wasn’t entirely sure that was true because I’d seen Stryker Smith, a Society agent and powerful wizard, use the half-tooth against a lesser demon, sending it back to hell.
“What does that have to do with my Wizard’s of the Worldseminar?”
“The pendant is going back to Dr. Elias Chen, a prominent Chinese sorcerer and renowned curator of Chinese artifacts,” he explained. “Thought you might like to meet him.”
That probably meant the tooth had come from a Chinese dragon. Dragons still lived in some of the most remote areas of the world: mostly north of the Arctic Circle and in the deep interior of New Zealand. But the dragons of China—the fiercest, largest, and most deadly dragons to ever roam the planet—had been extinct for thousands of years. Even a partial Chinese dragon’s tooth would’ve been incredibly powerful in the hands of a skilled wizard. I had to admit that I was now more intrigued by this job.
“I just need someone to buzz it over to the museum,” he said. “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars once the pendant is safely returned.”
“Five hundred?” I repeated. That seemed like a crazy amount of money for basically a messenger’s job.
As if reading my thoughts, Mr. Stroud said, “Listen, Lacey, I know this sounds like a low-level job, but let me assure you, a capable agent needs to return the pendant personally. There are those out there who would go to extremes to possess it.”
“So this is a dangerous errand?” I asked, my interest again fading. I’d had enough danger in my life recently.
Realizing he’d alarmed me, he dialed it back. “I suppose potentially. But valuable supernatural items are always sought by those who worship dark magic. I just meant, I need an agent—not a messenger company—to return the tooth. In order to be safe. The odds of anything unusual or dangerous happening are extremely unlikely.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “I understand.”
“Not all the jobs around here are dangerous and life-threatening. Sometimes we just need to return things to clients.” Stroud handed me the slip of paper. “Dr. Chen is just a few blocks from here on the other side of the freeway.”
I read the address. “Is this in… Chinatown?”
“The Asian Museum of Art and Antiquities is on the eastern edge of Chinatown.” Then he added, “After you return the necklace to Dr. Chen back in the curator’s office, he’ll give you our recovery fee.”
“So I deliver it, get a check, and come back?”
“It’s not exactly a check. It’ll be 1.967 ounces of salt.”
“That’s some valuable salt.”
“Very rare and valuable. It’s mined from deep within the Himalaya Mountains of China. They call it ghost salt because it’s so pure it looks almost translucent. It’s excellent at keeping certain dangerous spirits at bay.”
Salt acted as a sturdy binder and blocker. It kept certain supernatural elements in or out — depending on your desire. Even a simple line of table salt along a window sill would prevent an ordinary ghost or a lesser evil spirit from entering your home.
“Once you make the exchange, you must come straight back here,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Great.” I stood to go.
“The salt should be pre-measured and put in a light-proof black velvet bag,” he explained, handing me a small digital scale. “But you really must insist that you get to measure the salt with our scale. That’s critical. Do you understand?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, slipping the scale into my messenger bag.
“And one more thing,” Mr. Stroud warned. “Please keep the pendant in the protective jade box that our antiquities people placed it in.”
“Because jade is a cool water stone and protects the dragon’s tooth that could potentially harness fire.” I nodded.
“You are a good student, now aren’t you?” he replied. “So I’m sure you know that a dragon’s tooth can be deadly. This full tooth killed my old friend Dr. Song shortly after she discovered it during an archeological excavation ten years ago. She was accidentally cut by the tooth, causing an extremely rare infection to grow that eventually took her life. That’s part of the reason it was cut in half. And why I instructed our vault to keep it safely stored in jade on the second floor.”
“Right.” I nodded vaguely.
Except I knew the pendant wasn’t in the second-floor vault. Stryker had it. He’d brought it with us to hunt the rogue vampire that had bitten Sam. Also, not to be too nit-picky, but it had never been in a protective jade box.
“Barrymore runs the vault.” Stroud handed me an official document tucked neatly in an envelope with a gold foil seal. “Just give him this, and he’ll retrieve the pendant for you.”
Obviously, Stroud didn’t know that Stryker had checked it out. Senior agents don’t need permission. I weighed the consequences of busting Stryker, but decided to keep my thoughts to myself. For now, at least.
Instead, I just played dumb. “Okay, thanks, Mr. Stroud.”
As soon as I left the office, I texted Stryker. Where are you? I need to get something from you.
Of course, he didn’t reply.
Chapter Two
First, I checked the gym. Stryker was much more likely to be there than anywhere else in this building. Or he was out in the field on a job. If that were the case, then I’d have to go back and tell Mr. Stroud the truth. Or some version of it.
Luckily, it didn’t come to that because I found Stryker at a desk in our common work area. Despite being a centuries-old organization, the Society’s Los Angeles office had been organized like a modern Silicon Valley tech startup. No assigned desks or cubicles. Instead, you picked any available workstation and left any files you might have at the end of the night in the nearby lockers with digital locks. There was also the required foosball table and an open kitchen with lots of snacks. Pretty slick. Very 21st century.
“Hey, you didn't answer my text,” I called to Stryker as I approached.
“I didn’t?” Stryker sat at a desk scribbling something on a pile of forms. He must have brought in a job. He looked up at me and winked. “Kind of like you didn't return my earlier text.”
Except, I had intentionally ignored his text.
“You texted me?” I feigned surprise, pulling out my phone and pretending to scroll through the list of unseen texts. His text consisted of one word: drink. “What’s that mean?”
He squinted at me like I was crazy. “Hasn't anybody ever asked you out for a drink before?”
“Um, yes.” I rolled my eyes. “But generally the invitation is a little bit more formal than just a single word… without even any punctuation.”
“Seriously?” He sniffed. “My God, you're such a grad student.”
“Your point?”
“So how about it?”
Now it was my turn to squint. “Is this a work-related beverage?”
“Sure.” He winked again. “I like to mix business with pleasure.”
Stryker was tall, dark and handsome, but he was unequivocally not my type. He also happened to be a first-class player and all around ladies’ man.
“I think it might be wise to keep our relationship strictly professional.”
“Aw, come on.” He made a fake pouty face. “I bet you're thirsty. Two for one margaritas at this little place on Oliveira Street. You know that’s why you came down here.”
“I’m actually looking for you regarding a work-related issue. Mr. Stroud asked me to return that dragon’s tooth pendant that we used during that vampires/demon situation last week.”
“And what if I don't have it?”
“Then you can go explain that to Mr. Stroud because he’s pretty sure the pendant is all safe and sound in a jade box locked in the second-floor vault. But that shouldn’t be a problem because I'm sure you checked it out correctly? You did all the correct paperwork? And everything is on the up and up with regard to using magical objects on an unrelated assignment?”
He stared at me for a long moment then sighed. “You’re no fun.” He swiveled in his chair, picking up his worn leather backpack off the floor. He unzipped the front pocket and pulled out the wadded up pendant. It wasn’t even stuffed in a plastic bag or an old box. He handed it to me and said, “There you go, darling. Don't say I never gave you nothing.”
As soon as I took it from him, the tooth felt warm in my hand. “I thought you couldn’t use this without the other half of the tooth?”
“You can’t wield fire without both halves. But this baby holds a strong enchantment. Must be really old. So it’s good for other things.”
“But I saw you use it on the demon?”
“That was just a little sputter. The demon’s energy allowed me to amplify the pendant’s enchantment. Demons are excellent conduits.”
Even though Stryker came off as something of a happy-go-lucky cad, he was still a wise wizard. I wasn't sure exactly how powerful he was, but he was way more skilled than me. He also happened to be a full-on lycanthropist, taking the form of a were-bear. I’d learned that the hard way on the job.
