Hunting Down Dragons (Moonlight Dragon #2) (17 page)

My mouth filled with saliva, but I managed not to throw up.

Something landed on the road behind me with the click of claws. I smiled darkly, well familiar with that sound. Dearborn's eyes darted nervously between me and the gargoyle behind me. Dead miners were still crawling toward us, but the majority of them had been torn apart during my mania. They were little more than torsos with heads, wiggling fruitlessly in the scrub.

"Where is the artifact that you used to raise these people from the grave?" I demanded, taking a threatening step forward on a leg that trembled. It was all about attitude, though, and right then I had a ton of it. "Tell me, Dearborn, or I will personally cram that cursed thing down your throat and watch you choke on it."

"I only wanted your bones," Dearborn whimpered, backing away from us. "Vagasso said I could have them."

"Never believe a guy who hides his baldness by tattooing demonic rituals on his head." I snapped my fingers, just because I knew it would make Dearborn twitch like a mouse. He did. It was as amusing as I'd hoped. "Come on, Dearborn! Give me the artifact. You've done enough damage."

Slowly, making a big production out of it like it was all he could do not to roll into a fetal ball and bawl his eyes out, Dearborn reached beneath the collar of his shirt and hooked his fingers in a leather cord. He pulled it up, revealing something that looked like a crooked finger hanging from it.

"The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife, so they took great pains to keep their bodies preserved for the journey," Dearborn said as he pulled the necklace off over his head. "To them, there was no such thing as death."

Hell, it
was
a finger. A mummy finger. That thing was going straight into the glove compartment for the drive back to Vegas.

Suddenly, Dearborn raised his hand with the finger lying atop it like a pickle on a platter. He began shouting in a language I assumed was as old and dead as the miners still wriggling in the dirt. Probably older.

"What's he doing?" I asked nervously.

Nothing good.
Gargoyle claws wrapped around my upper arms from behind, preparing to carry me away.

Before Vale could, a small, dark figure leaped up from behind a cactus and delicately plucked the necromancy artifact off of Dearborn's palm. He gasped and lowered his hand to stare dumbly at his empty palm. On the other side of the road, a monkey with blue hair waved the finger at him tauntingly.

"Melanie, you didn't stay in the car!" I yelled angrily.

Well, maybe not as angrily as I could have, because she was now using the mummy finger to pretend to pick her nose and it was pretty damn funny after all the tension I'd just experienced. I shook my head and looked between her and the gargoyle.

"Remind me never to ask either of you to help me put IKEA furniture together.  You're both terrible at following directions."

Melanie chittered a monkey laugh and swung the mummy finger on the cord. The gargoyle just settled on its haunches and stared at me with its glimmering eyes that I could have sworn held a hint of smugness. I owed a lot to these two, but business first.

Cautiously, with my nerves stretched as tight as guitar strings, I pulled up Lucky. Feeling him again was like licking the top of a cupcake that I'd vowed not to eat. There was a tremendous temptation to become the dragon again. I still recalled the joy of those moments, the rush of endorphins as they coursed through my blood. But I hadn't forgotten that I'd nearly lost myself forever. In a sense, I'd nearly died. I was terrified of walking that close to the edge again.

So I fed Lucky only enough energy so he could charbroil the blue cursed thing lying at Dearborn's feet, until its glow died out and the black tendrils shriveled and blew across the road. Then I ordered my dragon to bully a shaking Dearborn out into the desert and onto his stomach.

"Let me have that cord," I said to Melanie. Her nimble little fingers undid the knot and slid the finger off before tossing me the thin leather.

"What are you doing?" Dearborn asked me in a tremulous voice as I stood over him. His breath stirred the dirt in anxious puffs. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I should." I yanked his arms behind his back, meeting little resistance, and tied them together by the wrists with the cord. Then I pulled one of his feet up toward his butt and tied the end of the cord through the laces on his shoe, so he was hog-tied by three limbs. I didn't have enough cord to do more than that.

"But I'm not going to kill you," I told him as I stood. "However,
they
might."

Though most of the undead miners consisted of scattered bones and tattered rags, some remained put together enough to slither through the desert toward us.

"You said they won't rest until they bring living flesh into their graves," I reminded him. "Thanks for sacrificing yourself for the rest of us, Dearborn. I take back what I said about you. Actually, no I don't. Enjoy your night."

Dearborn began screaming so I plugged my ears and headed up the road with my friends back toward Nelson.

"Now that I know what you taste like, I wonder if I'll develop a hunger for gargoyle flesh."

Vale looked at me like he thought I might be disturbed.  Hell, maybe I was. I'd been trapped in Lucky's brain for an unnervingly long time. A dragon was little more than a dog or a wolf, guided primarily by hunger, fear, and desire. Come to think of it, a dragon was like most guys I'd dated during high school.

Despite the joke about gargoyle flesh, I was genuinely sorry for the injury to Vale's arm. He insisted it wasn't deep, but it would probably need stiches. I ran a tongue over my sharpest teeth, imagining again the sensation of biting into him. With a shudder, I banished the thought.

I turned back around in my seat and tried to relax as Melanie drove us to the freeway. In the backseat, Vale had stopped the bleeding on his arm with napkins that he'd found tucked between the seats. He didn't appear to be in pain, just thoughtful. I wasn't surprised. He'd seen a side of me that I hadn't wanted anyone to see.

"You both saved my butt back there," I told them nervously, the way you would after you'd majorly screwed up and everyone knew it. "I was on the verge of shopping for medieval castles before you slapped me back into my senses."

"You did it on your own," Vale said quietly. "Don't belittle what you were able to do, Moody. It's important that you know you're not a victim to your power. You can control yourself. You did."

I drummed my fingers on my knee, wanting so badly to believe him. All my life I'd harbored a fear of my inner nature. No one liked to lose control, and no one wanted to accidentally hurt other people. I had the potential to do both, and that was frightening. But tonight I'd glimpsed another possibility. Maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver of truth in Vale's words and I could control the dragon. Maybe being descended from dragons wasn't going to be my downfall.

"You were totally cool, Anne." Melanie gunned the accelerator slightly in her enthusiasm. "For a moment I admit I was kinda worried because I'd never seen Lucky look so real and ferocious, but Vale's right. You came back and that's so great! Maybe now the Oddsmakers will stop treating you like you're a threat!"

"That would be nice," I murmured wistfully as I stared at the glove compartment where the necromancy artifact sat atop Melanie's car registration form. Had the Oddsmakers been watching tonight?

Pfft. Stupid question. They were Elvis. They were everywhere.

I turned around in my seat again. "How do we tell them we have the artifact? Do they have a website? An email address?"

Vale frowned and started to answer.

Of course he never got the chance. Melanie's car flipped. We turned upside down, the seatbelt digging painfully into my hips. I heard the roaring of a great beast—

I opened my eyes. Adam, the son of God, was stabbing his wand slowly through the throat of some Angelic being who was soundlessly screaming.

"Oh, god," I groaned when I recognized the demented Sistine Chapel murals above my head. "Guess I don't need to send that email."

I rolled upright delicately, half-afraid I'd be immediately bowled over by another albino vampire. To my relief, Vale was there, standing above me and looking out at the waving black curtains. His feet were spread, his back to me. He was protecting me until I woke up. Now I really felt terrible for biting him.

"Hey," I said as I stood and lightly touched his shoulder. The muscles in it were tensed. He was ready to punch someone or launch into his gargoyle form. "You seen Melanie?"

He shook his head. "She's of no concern to them. She's likely still driving us home."

"You mean our doppelgangers," I said with an annoyed shake of the head. "I'm not too thrilled with having my double running around town, showing off a terrible sense of humor."

"A doppelganger means the Oddsmakers intend to release you when they're done with you," Vale whispered. "If they mean to end you, they don't go to the trouble of creating a placeholder."

I hoped he was telling the truth and not just trying to put a positive spin on things. I turned a full circle.  Yet again, there was nothing in the place except the black lung tissue-curtains and the slow mo madness happening above our heads.

"Hello?" I called out. "We're here. We've got—oh, crap the finger! Vale, it's still in the glove compartment!"

"We are in possession of the Token of Ammut,"
said the familiar, eerie female voice that brought to mind all the scariest Japanese horror films I'd seen.

When nothing more was forthcoming, I said, "Uh, you're welcome?" Vale turned to give me a warning look but I was becoming annoyed again. The Oddsmakers really knew how to step on my last nerve. "Why didn't you get it yourself?" I demanded. "Dearborn wasn't a demon. If you can pluck the finger from the glove compartment you could have just as easily snatched it from around his neck at any time."

"Dearborn is not a demon but he struck a deal with Ammut. We do not interfere with the dealings of Egyptian gods."

"But you'll gladly send Vale and me out to interfere for you, is that it?" These creepy bosses were a real piece of work.

"Moody, don't be an idiot!" Vale hissed at me.

I opened my mouth to tell him to relax, I got this, but that was when I noticed the bead of sweat rolling down his temple, dampening a lock of his wavy hair. Vale was scared.

And why shouldn't he be? The last time he'd been brought here he'd been tortured so badly he could barely stand.

Shame washed through me. I was playing fast and loose with our lives without having a true understanding of what was at stake here.

In what I hoped was a respectful tone, I said, "We're glad we were able to retrieve the—er, Token of Ammut for you. You're pleased, right?"

"We are satisfied."

Some of the stress left Vale's face.

But I couldn't help pushing a personal agenda.

"And you saw how I controlled my dragon form, right? I was able to stop myself from doing any harm. I have it all under control. Totally."

"Those who are descended from dragons are never far from their predator natures. You will remain a threat for as long as you live, Anne Moody."

God…dammit.

"That's not fair! I haven't hurt anyone and in fact I've saved a bunch of people! And I did what my mom and my uncle couldn't. That has to count for something."

"We did not task you with retrieving the Token of Ammut. Nor did we task Iris Moody or James Song with retrieving the Token of Ammut."

There it was. A banana cream pie smashed in my face couldn't have stunned me more.

I gaped at Vale, who laced his fingers together behind his neck and then slowly closed his eyes in apparent resignation. "I'm sorry, Moody. I was wrong."

We'd both been wrong, but the blame was solely mine. He'd warned me this might not be the Oddsmakers' mission but I'd been gung-ho to find the golem-maker no matter what. God, how could I have been so narrow-minded and stupid?

"Then what's the mission?" I asked wearily.

I was so over this it wasn't even funny. And frankly, after the night I'd had, I wasn't that far from launching my dragon and saying to hell with it. I'd burn the Oddsmakers lair from the inside out. The only thing holding me back was Vale's presence. I couldn't afford to do anything that might hurt him. Not after I'd already bitten the poor guy.

Right on cue, his hand curled around my upper arm, warm and strong, reminding me that we were in this together now and everything I did reflected on him and vice versa.

"Easy, Moody," he murmured.

I could take it coming from him.  He'd been through the ringer right alongside me. I took a deep breath and nodded my head to show him that I'd gotten it together.

"Please," I said calmly to the ceiling, though with an edge I couldn't completely suppress. "Tell me what this mission is and I'll prove once and for all that I'm not a danger to anyone."

"Soon, Anne Moody. The dust first must settle from your actions tonight."

I didn't like that. It suggested there would be some kind of fallout. But from where? Dearborn, after some initial goading and assistance from Vagasso, had been working alone. What would his absence from the world mean to anyone else?

Unless there was more to this delightful story that I wasn't aware of. Oh, joy. I couldn't wait to find out. After I'd nearly lost my humanity and after nearly biting a chunk out of Vale I was done with trying to satisfy the creepy crawlies who called themselves the Oddsmakers. I just wanted to sleep. Maybe grab a burger.

"Fine," I said. "If you want me, you know where to find me. Now send Vale and me home."

And that's an F-you in case you didn't pick that up, I thought at them.

"Such pride. Be careful, Anne Moody. You endeavor to make enemies where you already have too many."

Unimpressed with the warning, I crossed my arms and sighed. Really loudly. Undoubtedly Vale's eyes were rolling back in his head in exasperation.

"You will be called upon and we will observe. Judging by what we have already seen…the odds are not in your favor."

"Gee, thanks for the encouragement. I feel like I can conquer the world now. Can we go?"

I could be stupid. I was stupid then. My big mouth got me an anvil to the head, and all went black.

~~~~~

When I woke up in the dirt, I just sighed and lay there. "They screwed us again, didn't they?"

"It's not so bad this time," Vale muttered. "Melanie's here."

That made me sit up. As far as I could tell, we were out in the boonies again in the same place the Oddsmakers had dumped us the last time, outside Area 51. But Vale was right: the headlights of a car were heading our way. I could hear crazy honking, which meant it was probably my best friend.

"Well, miracles never cease," I said happily. "She must have remembered me saying this was where we ended up last time."

Vale offered me a hand up. I let him pull me up and began to say something witty about how the Oddsmakers must secretly like me since they didn't kill me twice when Vale growled, "Enough, Moody!"

Startled, I stared at him.

He paced, hands balled into fists. He was all brooding masculine energy and it affected me because I wasn't dead yet, but I made sure my eyes were on his face and not on his butt when he glared over at me.

"What is it you're hoping for?" he asked me. "That they'll get sick of your attitude and finally wipe you out? So you can have the satisfaction of saying you fought them until the very end?"

"I'm not interested in being their toy, Vale. They don't have the right to order me to do anything for them. They're nothing but supernatural bullies."

He stalked up to me. His hair fell over his forehead in careless waves in contrast to his jaw, which was clenched tight in anger.

"If you don't do what they say you will cease to exist," he said distinctly. "There won't be any heroic last stand and no war cry, Moody. It'll be like you never were. Moonlight Pawn will be taken by the bank and your entire family will be nothing but a memory that grows fainter every day. Is that how you want to honor your parents? Your uncle?"

"My uncle's not dead," I gritted out, hating this defensive feeling. Vale was supposed to be on my side.

"At this point I think it's safe to say he's not coming back." Some of the heat left his voice. "It's only you, Moody. It's up to you to prove that your family is great and powerful and trustworthy. Flicking your nose up at the Oddsmakers and acting like you don't care if they're afraid of you is just asking for the worst ending possible." He reached out and cupped my face. "That's not the ending I want for you."

I wanted to fling him off and tell him he was being anything but a supportive boyfriend, but he was right. It galled me, but he was right.

He gazed into my eyes. "You're tough. I get it. You're braver than most everyone I know. But you're also a young woman and you've got your entire life ahead of you. All I'm asking is for you to pick your fights. You don't need to fight everybody. Let the Oddsmakers win this one, so you can fight for people like Zach and Rob tomorrow."

I closed my eyes and fought off a shudder of emotion. "I won't let my friends be hurt again."

"I know you won't. And that means you have to be here to defend them. When the Oddsmakers reveal their mission for you, you'll accept it without complaint."

That brought my eyes open. Reading my expression, Vale's lips twitched as if he were holding back a smile.

"I'll clarify: don't complain as much as usual," he amended. "Just do it and be done with it, so you can go back to being Anne Moody, defender of the bullied."

"Sounds like a terrible superhero," I muttered. "You probably want me to wear spandex, too."

"Only if it's skintight," he said, his voice deepening.

I slung my arms around his waist and used my
other
super power on him: I kissed him.

My apology was in that kiss and I made sure it was a good one. A thorough one. One that encompassed everything I'd done wrong not only to him but in my life. I could tell by the tightening of the muscles in his body that he understood it. Thank god for cerebral and empathetic boyfriends.