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

I nodded. "Rumor says he's buried somewhere in the desert."

"I don't know if that's true or not, but I heard that the Oddsmakers grabbed him by shrinking him down to the size of a cellphone and then pocketing him and walking out of the casino."

I laughed, though if the story
were
true, it wasn't funny. "Then they could have just flushed him down a toilet, not gone to the effort of burying him out in the desert."

He grinned at the suggestion. "It's just what I heard. No one knows much about the Oddsmakers except to steer clear of them."

Celestina, sitting beside him, gave a snort of derision. Stretched across her lap with his head out the window was Lev, now in his wolf form.

"Oddsmakers are like the Mafia for magick," she said. "They don't operate for the good of anyone but themselves. Threaten their bottom line and they'll erase you."

I found that an interesting analogy. "So what's their bottom line? Surely they're not motivated by money?"

"They're motivated by a hunger for power. No one can do anything of major magickal significance without their permission."

"Well, I guess someone has to take some kind of control," I said. "Otherwise we'd have sorcerers and shifters running free all over the place and the government would be snatching up the rest of us for testing and military experiments." I shuddered. "Better to have rules than be poked and prodded, right?"

"You assume the Oddsmakers exist to protect us." Even in the dark interior of the car, I could read Celestina's skepticism. "It's all about power. Always."

I didn't doubt she was right, which set my mental gears turning. "How did they come about? Did they take control on their own or were they elected?"

"Ooh! Ooh! I know this!" Melanie took one hand off the wheel to wave it above her head. "My dad told me the Oddsmakers showed up in Vegas in the late 1950s because huge amounts of chance magick were building up here. A lot of the vintage places like the Sands, the Sahara, and the Horseshoe were doing well by that time and bringing in a lot of business. God, Anne, most of them have been imploded, how sad is that?!"

"It is sad, but keep going," I urged, trying to keep her on target. I loved her, but as a monkey shifter Melanie could have an attention span shorter than a six year-old's.

"Okay, so the valley is like a big bowl, right? The mountains surround us in a ring. And there's nothing nearby to soak up all the chance magick that grows every time someone makes a bet. I mean, you flip a coin and a tiny bit is generated even from that. So imagine thousands of people betting on everything, twenty-four hours a day. It just kept building and building and the Oddsmakers realized someone nasty was going to come along and try to take advantage of it all. So they decided to begin monitoring the place to make sure no one was tapping into it for the wrong reasons or being sloppy and revealing magick to ordinary people."

It was interesting, and I wanted to know more, but history needed to take a backseat to my current nervousness. "But who
are
they?" I pressed. "Some of the original Oddsmakers must be dead by now. Were they replaced?"

Melanie could only shrug. "I don't think my dad knows anything about who they are. I'm not sure that anyone does."

"When you find out, Anne," Christian said, "let the rest of us know."

"Ha ha," I muttered at his unsubtle suggestion that I would be picked up soon and brought in for questioning.

He laughed at my sour expression. He was of zero interest to the Oddsmakers, so this discussion probably meant little to him. Unless he planned on putting on a SeaWorld show in the lake in front of Bellagio, no ordinary human was ever going to learn that Christian was a water fey.

"I'm teasing, but the fact of the matter is you can't stop it if it happens," he went on more seriously, "so why worry about it? If they want you, there's nothing you can do to avoid them."

"Do they have an email address? I'd love to write and tell them that the dragon that was out there tonight was not my doing." With a sigh, I settled back in my seat. "I'm going to get the blame for this. I know it. But you're right. All I can do is sit back and wait. I don't like that."

"It'll be okay," Melanie assured me with a smile. "Even if they question you, you're innocent. We'll all testify as character witnesses!"

"Are you trying to get me hanged?"

She giggled. The sound relaxed me. I checked how much money I had. "Hey, are you guys hungry? If we go to the Peppermill I'll buy."

Melanie opened her mouth to cheer—

—except I never heard it.

The Toyota Prius flipped. That was how it felt, like my seatbelt cut into my hips and all the blood in my body rushed into my head. Screaming filled my ears, mine or my friends'. I couldn't tell which because the sound was swiftly drowned out by a blast of ferocious sound like a jet plane taking off or a monster roaring—

~~~~~

I was no longer in Melanie's car.

I blinked. Above me was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, stretching so far in every direction that I couldn't see the edges from where I lay.

But was it really the Sistine Chapel? The longer I stared at the frescos above me the more wrong they appeared. The painted figures within the scenes of Genesis were all subtly but definitively unnatural: a fang here, a claw and tail there, a cruel twist of the mouth that I was sure Michelangelo had not intended. It was ancient Italian bizarro world.

Compelled by curiosity, I eventually located the iconic depiction of God extending his finger to create Adam. Just like everything else, it was warped. This version of Adam held a wand, the tip of which glowed with magick where God touched it. And God…well, he looked like someone you didn't want to turn your back on. He reminded me a bit of a werewolf.

I said, "Is this…is this someone's
fanart
?"

The sound of my voice startled me. I spread my hands flat beneath me on what felt like cold, hard concrete. Breathing through my mouth, I did my best not to freak out. Where had the car gone? Where were my friends?

Where the hell was I?

"A better reaction than most, Anne Moody. A point in your favor."

The voice was a young woman's, but that only made the hairs stand up on my arm because there was no way someone my age could be responsible for what had just happened to me.

Inwardly cringing, I stood up. The thought crossed my mind that I could call Lucky, but I paid no attention to it. Using my sorcery against the Oddsmakers sounded like the worst thing I could do. I had to face this as plain old Anne Moody.

Talk about terrible odds.

Wherever we were wasn't the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, not that I had seriously considered that for longer than a few seconds. Though the ceiling, towering far above me, was painted with Michelangelo's finest as interpreted by a twisted fan of Harry Potter or Buffy, this wasn't a chapel. In fact, if I hadn't seen the ceiling I wouldn't have believed there
were
walls. Maybe there weren't. Magick made anything possible.

Case in point, surrounding me on all sides were what looked like curtains of black silk that seemed to disappear into nothingness where they neared the ceiling. I knew they weren't curtains, however, because despite the lack of a breeze, they occasionally shivered and billowed and emitted puffs of a smoke-like material as though the curtains themselves were living tissue releasing spores.

The room, or lair, was cold, which was another neon sign telling me that I was now in the world of the supernatural. I rubbed my bare arms and wished I'd worn jeans even if it was ninety degrees outside. I was dressed for the Fourth, not grandma's spooky basement.

"Where are my friends?" I asked. My voice was instantly swallowed by the black curtains. I tried again, louder this time. "I want to know where my friends are."

I heard the whisper of movement, a rustle of cloth over cloth. The curtains around me were mostly still, so I followed the sounds up, above my head. The figures I'd thought were painted were moving slowly, changing positions, interacting with other figures. I watched fanged creatures biting into the necks of winged angels, bringing looks of horror to their beautiful faces. Child-like cherubs tore the limbs off figures that howled in soundless agony. Snakes slithered through the spaces between the bodies. Malicious-eyed eagles dived at fallen figures and ripped their flesh off in stringy bits. The scene was vaguely reminiscent of a sadistic Greek myth, except that I knew that most myths were based on a magickal reality.

Was I still in Vegas? Reluctant to pull my eyes away from the ceiling, half-afraid that some of the figures would come to life and fall on me, I tried to make sense of the rest of the room. I couldn't tell if it was rectangular or round, if the illumination that allowed me to see came from behind the curtains or emanated from the floor.

"Why am I here?" I tried again, impatience leaking into my voice. Still nothing. "Why ignore me? Are you trying to bore me to death?"

"Impatient to meet your death, Anne Moody?"

Immediately I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. The voice was a woman's, soft and sweet and yet somehow bringing to mind the dripping, black-haired girl from
The Ring.
It was the kind of voice I expected to hear if I were trapped in a haunted house. Maybe I was.

"I think I'm here to be yelled at and then released," I said hopefully. "And I'll have learned my lesson, believe me."

I startled as a form materialized behind the curtains to my right. It stepped forward just enough for the gauzy material, if that was what it was, to settle into the nooks and crannies of the person's face and over its head and shoulders. It appeared to be an average-sized man, but everything else about the figure was far from average.

"Who are you?" I whispered, because my throat had constricted and a whisper was all that would come out of me.

The face behind that curtain made my knees tremble. There were hollows in that face which should not exist and angles in disconcerting places. Things moved beneath the cloth where there shouldn't have been any movement, as if the figure's face crawled with insects or tiny, alien appendages.

The figure breathed, making the cloth go concave and convex over the hole that I assumed was its mouth. But that hole was far too large and that motion…it was somehow horrible. Signs of life, in this instance, were the last things I wanted to see.

"Do you believe the Oddsmakers are one or are many?"
asked the saccharine voice. It didn't appear to come from the figure since the cloth over its mouth didn't react as she spoke.
"Will you believe that we are…legion?"

"That's what demons say," I said cautiously.

Abruptly I reassessed where I might be. Had Vagasso grabbed me? Was this revenge for banishing the demon that he'd needed?

"There is much power in this region
.
Chance magick is generated by hopes and dreams and fears. So many fears… It's far too much for one, or for many, to manage without…corruption.
"

"So you
are
the Oddsmakers." My voice held a plea.
Lie to me, lady. I want to believe.

"Today, we are. Tomorrow…others are."

I gasped when seven more figures stepped forward, pushing against the black curtains. They all stood motionless, only the cloth moving against their mouths and in tiny, terrible places over their faces. All could have been men, but all were subtly wrong, subtly horrific.

"What do you want with me?" My lips were chapped but I didn't have any saliva in my mouth to moisten them. I was on the verge of calling up Lucky because I was scared down to my toenails. But pulling forth my sorcery here might be the last thing I ever did.

"The entity calling itself Vagasso is not your battle." 

As she spoke, more figures stepped against the black curtains, until I was surrounded by dozens of them. Maybe there were more, standing behind their shoulders, just out of sight. It was a flash mob of horror. The middle of the room wasn't far enough for me to stand for my comfort. I wanted to dig my way out of there, even if I had to do so with my bare hands.

"You will not engage Vagasso."

"He—it, whatever Vagasso is—summoned a demon." I kept my gaze darting around the circle of shrouded figures, watching for movement, for a sneaky step forward. "He wants to overthrow you."

"We are aware."

"Aren't you worried about him? If he gets access to—"

"Your mission is not Vagasso."

"But—"

"You are fortunate we choose not to levy punishment for your arrogance, Anne Moody."

"Arrogance." I couldn't help lifting my chin at that. I had my flaws, no doubt about that, but I didn't count arrogance as one of them. "It wasn't arrogance that drove me to use my sorcery. I was trying to save the city. I was trying to help
you
."

"Did we request such assistance from you? You, of all the magick users in Las Vegas?"

"I was the only one there!"

"We are everywhere. Always."

"Like Elvis, huh?"

"You will assist us in the manner of our choosing
.
You will complete a mission for us."

Tentatively hopeful, since a mission suggested I might leave here alive, I asked, "Which is what?"

All of the shrouded figures turned their heads as one to look at me. I cursed beneath my breath as goose bumps broke out over my entire body.

"Stop," I gritted out.
Stop looking at me with your damn empty eye sockets.

"Dragon sorceress, it's time you followed in the footsteps of your ancestors."

After I ran the words through my head again, I frowned. I had been braced for the Oddsmakers to bring up the subject of my parents, or the Chinese people in general. I'd figured the Oddsmakers would use ancient history against me and claim that I was a threat on the horizon, waiting to unleash. I certainly hadn't expected the Oddsmakers to encourage me to become what everyone had always told me was bad.

"You can't be serious," I blurted, my fear temporarily subdued in my shock. "All I ever hear is how I should never give in to the calling of my blood because if I do you guys will come after me. Now you're saying you
want
me to become a dragon?"

"Do not presume to know what we want from you. If you become the dragon, you will be destroyed."

A chill swept through the room, momentarily lifting the edges of the sheer curtains and showing me that nothing stood behind them. When they settled again, they did so over the forms of those unnatural figures.

"We gave Iris Moody a task and she failed it."

A zap of lightning couldn’t have made me stand any straighter. "My mom?"

"We gave James Song the same task and he failed it."

"Uncle James," I murmured. My head swam with confusing thoughts and emotions. "They were both…working for you? What were they doing?"

"Vagasso is the first consequence of their failure. There will be others seeking to capitalize on what was not done."

"Which is what? What did my mom and my uncle fail to do?"

"You haven't earned that knowledge yet. First, you must prove that you and your ancestors are not traitors."

The accusation chilled me more than the supernatural cold that slipped through the room.

"Traitors." I could barely speak the word, I was so angry. "My mom and my uncle were not traitors. That's ridiculous."

"Prove it. Otherwise we take your life along with the lives of your accomplices."

My heart stuttered. "My friends have nothing to do with any of this! You can't hold them responsible."

"We already do."

The figures beneath the curtains stepped back, allowing the black, gauzy material to hang loose and billow lazily once more. I wasn't comforted by their absence, though. Something worse was sure to come.

When the curtains began to dissolve, I spread my feet and fisted my hands. I would fight what was revealed or I would call up my sorcery to destroy it, whatever it took. No way was I going down easily.

As layer upon layer of curtains melted, they revealed a poured concrete floor that extended back and back, forming the basis for an enormous room that could have been used as a hangar. Maybe it was. Then I stopped caring about where I was when the last row of curtains misted away to show the walls of the room…and what adorned them.

"Vale," I breathed.

I ran toward him without consideration or care that this might be a trap.

He hung against one wall, feet at the level of my shoulders. He wasn't pinned there by chains or ropes. His bare limbs were held up by enormous, gnarled hands sporting fingernails as long as my thumb. Four hands, each with palms as large as my head, emerging from the wall as though they were extensions of it with no visible seam showing where flesh met concrete. The muscled arms were hairless and white like the albino pythons I'd seen on an Animal Planet special. The thought of how cold and reptilian their touch must be made me want to gag.

Vale was naked, but just like when I'd seen him naked in Tomes, this wasn't the time to ogle him. He looked terrible, his dark hair hanging limp over his eyes which were clenched shut. A light sheen of sweat covered his trembling body. I would have suspected torture by electricity except the Oddsmakers were too sophisticated for that. No, however they'd hurt him, they'd done it with magick. Which meant it probably lingered and Vale felt it all the way down to his marrow.

"What are you doing to him?" I demanded. I had no one to glare at so I tipped my head back to yell at the vicious scene on the ceiling. "He's innocent! He has nothing to do with anything!"

Above me, the demented scene continued, but the image of God's profile, like a one-eyed Jack on a playing card, turned to look down at me with cool indifference.

"Vale Morgan is not who you think he is,"
that girlish voice told me excitedly, as if she was bursting to tell me a nasty secret.

"He's my friend. That's all I care about."

"Don't you care that he is the youngest heir to the Gargoyle Throne? A throne of corruption and evil?"

Gargoyle Throne? I pictured one of the grim creatures squatting on a throne, Conan the Barbarian-style. What in the world did a gargoyle king rule over? The rooftops of Paris? Who challenged him for rights? The Pigeon King?

Though I made jokes in my head, in truth I was disconcerted. Vale had hid who he was from me and it was a pretty significant omission. What else had he kept secret? Were the Oddsmakers right to keep him bound like this?

Another look at him and my answer was a definitive no. Unless he'd hurt someone, he didn't deserve what was being done to him.

"Let him down," I ordered.

"He is your motivation."

"For all the wrong reasons. Right now you're only motivating me to plot revenge against you for hurting one of my friends."

It was a suicidal comment, but I was so furious at that moment that I honestly didn't care if I ticked off the Oddsmakers. I
wanted
them to come at me. Then I could at least unleash Lucky and let loose my frustrations over being sucked to this place against my will and subjected to supernatural bullying.

"He will be freed once you complete your mission."

"No deal."

I reached into that rumbly place behind my breastbone and pulled up my dragon. Lucky roared to life, a thirty-foot blaze of golden fins, claws, and fangs filling the air above my head. I fed him plenty of my life energy because I needed a show of strength and badassery. He gave it to me, lighting up the cavernous room as though he were a mini sun. He was bright enough to rouse Vale. I saw his eyes go wide when he recognized Lucky and me.