Trouble with Gargoyles: an Urban Fantasy (Moonlight Dragon Book 3) (10 page)

He opened his eyes once more. His face went eerily still.

"This is evil," he intoned again, staring at me and then at the amulet he'd set between us.

"Yeah, I heard you the first time." Why were magickal beings such weirdos?

Just to freak him out, I carelessly picked up the amulet. An impression of a ram's head decorated one side. I'd seen one of these before, a green one. A witch made these and sold them to ordinary people at craft and art fairs as occult relics. Completely harmless and this guy should have known so.

"Look, do you want to sell it or pawn it? I'm closing up soon so I need to hurry this along."

Goth guy raised his eyes beyond my shoulder to Vale. The misbehaving cobra twitched its tail.

"This is evil," he repeated for the third time, "and so is that."

The red amulet turned into a puddle of hot wax in my palm. I yelped and tried to fling the wax off but it seized up tight around my hand and then it began to climb up my wrist and onto my forearm, increasing in volume and encasing my arm in rigid wax.

I yelled for Vale but he was already in his gargoyle form, zooming over my shoulder straight for Goth guy—

Snakes exploded from within the guy's black duster, causing the fabric to flare back. At least a hundred of them, all black, but all different sizes and lengths, probably different varieties but I was no herpetologist. The snakes seemed to be attached to something within the duster, or hell, were attached to Goth guy himself. He held his arms out, an eerie, beatific smile on his face like he was cleansing the world by attacking us with his wriggling, fanged friends.

Vale's gargoyle dive-bombed the guy, weaving skillfully between the writhing, snapping snakes, avoiding them just as it had managed to avoid me when I was in my dragon form out in the desert.

Two of the snakes managed to strike Vale's gargoyle, sending it spinning sideways and out of reach, leathery wings flapping hard to propel it away. I prayed the snakes didn't possess actual venom, but I couldn't spend much time worrying about it. I was about to become an exhibit in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

The red wax had reached my shoulder and was beginning to spread across my collarbones and up the side of my neck. I tried smashing it with my other fist, but the wax was too thick. The wax climbed up my throat and curled over my chin.

Lucky blasted into the room like an explosion, immediately ramming into Goth guy, sending him and his snakes staggering into the nearest shelf of merchandise. I punched the wax on my neck and this time the red menace cracked. Like a self-hating Mike Tyson, I punched myself repeatedly and rotated my trapped arm until the wax began to flake off me in chunks. I had Lucky fly at Goth guy to head butt him again to make sure he wouldn't reactivate the wax.

Goth guy spun beneath Lucky's attack to sprawl across the floor, his black snake pals writhing angrily beneath him. It looked like the guy had fallen into a nest of snakes, but it was worse knowing the snakes were a part of him, or at least under his command. As Lucky reared back for another strike, Vale's gargoyle zipped in and raked its claws across the back of Goth guy's duster. The guy howled and the snakes beneath him either retracted or were absorbed into his body. In seconds, the guy lay alone on the floor. He twisted his head back to give me a baleful look from over one shoulder.

"You deserved that and worse," I told him as I shook off the last bits of red wax. What a mess on my shop floor. I couldn't even re-melt it into a candle. Not without risking that it'd try to smother me in my sleep.

Just for a little added indignity, I had Lucky bite the back of the guy's duster and drag him to his feet. Goth guy angrily shook off the dragon once he was upright. I had to give him points for not being intimidated by a thirty-foot golden Chinese dragon that was near enough to bite his head off. But I subtracted all of those points for him being an asshole.

"Who are you?" I demanded. I heard the clicking of the gargoyle's claws as it settled on the floor on the other side of Goth guy, facing Lucky. My dragon, hovering in the air, seemed torn between watching the man in black and Vale's gargoyle. This wasn't the first time Lucky had shown a less than thrilled reaction to Vale in either form.

Lucky has had an issue with him and his gargoyle from the beginning. You thought it was jealousy. What if it's not? What if your dragon knows what you're afraid to face? What if Lucky knows he's your enemy?

"Who are you?" I repeated, because I'd rather face down a known baddie whom I hadn't slept with.

Goth guy calmly brushed himself down. He appeared to be in his late twenties, but with magickal beings you never really knew. Vale was a perfect example of that.

"It doesn't matter who I am," Goth guy said, finally lifting his gaze to me. His eyes were a medium shade of blue, but it was difficult to look at them when the snake tattoos above his eyebrows continued to rear and twist across his forehead as though they faced off against a mongoose. "I'm not your enemy. I was trying to keep you safe."

I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled it. "Come again? You were about to asphyxiate me with wax."

"It wouldn't have covered your face. It was meant to keep you immobile while I dealt with
that
." Goth guy aimed an icy glare at the gargoyle.

My throat went dry. "What are you talking about?"

"You've been deceived.
He's
been tricking you. That's what they do." Goth guy shook out his coat, but snakes didn't fall out around his feet; he was simply adjusting the fit. He looked back at me again. "We know you're a dragon sorceress, but you have no idea what you're dealing with. We do. As I said, I was sent here to save you."

"Who the hell are 'we'?"

"SOS: the Society of Shapeshifters. We're an advocacy group for the protection and preservation of shifter rights."

"SOS?" I had to shake my head. "You realize that he's a shapeshifter, right? Of course you do. You freakin' saw him shift right in front of you."

Goth guy's eyes narrowed with apparent affront. "But he's
cold-blooded
."

I stared at him for a long moment. "Buddy, in case you missed it, about a hundred snakes just burst out of your coat like jazz hands and I'm pretty sure every last one of them was cold-blooded."

To my surprise, he flushed. Hell, he turned beet red. "The snakes are a spell. They're tied to my tattoos. I'm not a snake shifter. I'm a—" He mumbled something I couldn't make out.

I leaned forward. "Say again?"

His cheeks grew even brighter.
"I said I'm a hedgehog shifter, alright?!"

I had to bite my lips and hold my breath. Once I was no longer in danger of bursting into hysterical laughter, I nodded. "I see. So the snakes are an attempt to make you look…tougher. Than a hedgehog. A cute little—I have to tell you, you have the cutest little feet and your nose—"

"Make fun all you want," he hissed, "but we won't stand for his kind. And if you protect him you'll go down, too."

Great. A zealot. Vale had mentioned these guys during the drive to Christian's house, right before I burned it to the ground during my mini-faceoff against Vagasso.

"So you're one of the purists." I crossed my arms, even more annoyed than when I'd been scraping wax off my body. "Vale's not cold-blooded. That's a big mix-up with some gargoyles back in Europe that are actually demons. You saw him a minute ago. Tall, dark, and handsome? Definitely not a cold-blooded demon."

"You're compromised," Goth guy stated.

"And you're insulting me," I shot back, "for making me sound like I'm some sort of idiot."

Goth guy pressed his lips together. The snakes above his eyebrows rippled but slowly lay down again, though they looked twitchy. "You don't know what he's capable of," he said quietly.

It was one of the few things he could have said to make me think twice. As if he sensed that things were going south for him, Vale shifted back into his human form. He didn't appear to care that he was stark naked in front of Goth guy, whose only reaction to his transformation was to curl his hands as though he wished he could strangle Vale.

"I know the SOS," Vale said. If there hadn't been venom in the snakes' bites, there was plenty of it in his voice. "I don't know you."

"My name is Gareth. I just arrived from California. They called me to deal with you."

"I thought I taught the SOS to leave me alone." Vale took a step toward the other man, his nakedness doing nothing to diminish the danger radiating off him. "You dare attack me in my friend's shop? You attack
her
?"

"I waited, hoping you would go outside. I couldn't wait any longer." Gareth didn't move, though the snakes on his forehead were wild again. I thought I saw movement beneath his black duster, too.

"Vale," I warned.

He didn't take his eyes off Gareth. "I saw. It doesn't matter how many snakes he has." His smile was a predator's. "I'm going to kill him no matter what."

"Wait!" I cried out. "This guy's from California. Don't you think that's a strange coincidence?"

If Vale had gone ahead and killed Gareth at that point, it would have sealed the deal for me that Vale was behind the attack on Diana and was trying to cover it up. But to my relief, my comment gave him pause.

"It was no coincidence," Gareth confirmed, oddly defiant. His attitude reminded me of Kleure's, which sent a shiver of revulsion through me. "I saw what you did to that woman."

I sucked in my breath. "You saw—"

"What?" Vale said softly, leaning ominously over Gareth. "What do you think you saw?"

"I saw your gargoyle, and nothing you can say or do will change that."

I locked up the shop and turned off the Open sign. The wards were up so nothing could come in and bother us while we interrogated Gareth. Lucky took a form that was as thin as rope and twenty feet long. He wrapped around Gareth, binding him in the haunted rocking chair while Vale and I took turns pacing in front of the guy.

"What did you see?" Vale demanded quietly, menacingly. He'd pulled his clothes back on but left the jacket off and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. I think he was trying to show Gareth that he was ready to begin waterboarding him or whatever, but I just appreciated the reveal of strong forearms and broad shoulders.

"I saw you," Gareth shot back triumphantly. He acted as though his announcement had struck a nerve. "Your gargoyle broke into that woman's apartment through the kitchen window. You were waiting for her when she came home."

"Why didn't you warn her?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I wanted to see what he would do to her."

"Remind me not to ask you to watch my back," I muttered.

"My orders were specific: find Vale in whatever form he was in and apprehend him."

"Not kill me?" Vale asked softly.

Gareth tried to act tough but I caught the way he shivered. "I was just supposed to immobilize you."

"Because you think he's cold-blooded. That is the stupidest reason ever."

"That's not the only reason," he shot at me. "It's because his kind are in league with demons. He paves the way for their invasion. When the city is covered with gargoyles, tell me how you'll know the difference? You won't be able to!"

"That's a problem for
my
species to deal with," Vale said, his face as stony as his statue form. "I don't recall the gargoyles asking for your help."

"If you can't handle your own, then it's up to someone else to do it!"

Vale took a step toward him but I jumped between them. "Let's go back and focus on the gargoyle you saw breaking into that apartment. You're one hundred percent certain that it was a gargoyle? It couldn't have been anything else?"

Gareth shook out his shoulders. "I know what I saw. I'd swear to it in a court of law."

"Handy if what you were planning to do was legal," Vale muttered with a glare.

I gave him a look and he spun away, arms crossed. I squatted in front of Gareth. "This is more important than you realize. Tell us everything you know about that gargoyle and what it did that night."

Gareth sneered. Even his snake tattoos wiggled insultingly. "Why should I?"

I heard Vale turn on his heel as if he were about to leap back into the fray, but I beat him to the punch. "Because if you don't cooperate," I said softly, smiling at Gareth, "I'm going to let my dragon bite all your limbs off before he burns you to a crisp."

I let him see in my eyes that I was serious—at least about the part about Lucky biting some part of him; I wouldn't kill anyone except in self-defense. What Gareth saw in my eyes was enough for him to take me seriously.

"I saw it clearly in the moonlight," he began, darting a nervous look at Vale, who remained behind me. "It had been waiting in the trees for the woman to come home. I know because I had been following it for over four hours, trying to corner it."

"How did you know about it?" I asked.

"The SOS is worldwide. We have a network of watchers. We've been following this gargoyle since it was first spotted in Vancouver a couple of months ago. It reappeared every few days in a different state. We thought it was a new gargoyle, until it showed up in Las Vegas. That's when we realized it was Vale."

I kept my expression neutral, but I was bothered by what Gareth had said. Either the gargoyle they'd been tracking
had
been Vale, or his brother had stopped in Vegas and neither of us had been the wiser.

"Go on," I told Gareth.

"I didn't become involved until it showed up in California. That's when I was sent to track it."

"You found it in a tree."

"That's right. While the woman was parking her car, it climbed out of the tree and inside her apartment. I don't know what happened once she entered. I heard her scream once and that was it. About two minutes later, the gargoyle crawled out of the window and flew away."

"You didn't think about helping that woman?" Vale growled.

Gareth glared at him. "I was parked a block away, watching everything with binoculars. By the time I arrived at the apartment, you—excuse me, the
mysterious gargoyle
—was in the process of leaving. I had to follow it. I couldn't keep up, but I knew where it was heading."

I stood up and took a step back from both of them. I didn't know what to think.

"Moody."

Vale's deep voice, the one I found so sexy, sent a shiver of trepidation through me. He was watching me with those dark eyes, probably reading every thought that ran through my head. He motioned for me to join him in the studio. For the first time, I was nervous about being alone with him.

And I hated myself for it. How shallow were my feelings for him if I could doubt him the first time a stranger accused of him of wrongdoing? Angry with myself, I led the way through the bead curtain and into my bedroom.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Vale said at once, crowding me against the edge of my bed.

Rather than push him away, I sat on the mattress and looked up at him calmly. "I believe he followed a gargoyle here. I don't believe it's you."

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he released his breath. "Thank you."

"Is it someone you know?"

It was my turn to hold my breath. I knew what answer I expected. If he didn't give it to me...we might have problems.

I watched him turn to gaze sightlessly out the back window. "I think it's Xaran. I think it's my brother." He glanced at me almost anxiously. "I'm sorry I didn't say something sooner."

"No, it's alright," I said, relieved. "You have no idea how glad I am that you admitted it might be him. I had some suspicions, but I don't know your brother or your relationship to him. I didn't want to assume anything."

"As soon as I heard Diana's story I had my suspicions, too, Moody. I needed to go there and see for myself."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing in her apartment, but Gareth was right. Xaran had been waiting for her in a tree. He left a mark in the bark there, something he carves when he's bored."

"Why is he threatening people to learn about you?" I laughed uneasily. "I know you don't own a phone, but surely gargoyles have other ways to communicate with each other? Especially royalty—"

"Being an heir means nothing," he said tensely. I'd touched  a sore spot. Why did it hurt? Vale began to pace the studio.  "When I left Europe I left all that behind. Xaran knew that. He agreed to let me go while he dealt with the demon king on his own. He'd said he was fine with it."

"He's doing reconnaissance," I suggested, "trying to learn who you're hanging out with and whether he can trust me."

"He agreed to let me go."

"Vale," I said, rising to my feet and coming up behind him. "Why is this a big deal? What's going on with your family's throne?"

"I told you that a demon sits on the throne. That's not problem enough? Xaran obviously needs my help overthrowing it."

But there was something in his voice that didn't ring true to me. I couldn't put my finger on it, and that bothered me a lot. Distrusting your boyfriend wasn't supposed to happen without a reason, and yet I didn't fully trust him on this and I didn't know why.

"We need to contact him," I declared. "He can't keep going around threatening the people who know you. And with this SOS group out there, that's just asking for an ugly confrontation."

"I can get rid of them," he said darkly as he turned to face me. The light was at his back, but I could still see the grim cast of his features.

"Scare him, don't hurt him." I let him know by my tone that I wouldn't condone anything else. "I've had enough of violence lately."

He cocked his head. "What happened while I was away?"

"It doesn't matter right now," I said as casually as I could. "I just don't want you to give the SOS or anyone else another reason to fear you. We need fewer enemies, not more. Once they're gone, we'll deal with your brother."

Vale rested a hand on my shoulder. I knew him well enough by now to tell that something was on his mind, something that might not have anything to do with Xaran or the SOS. Something that might be personal between us and explain why he'd shown up with roses.

When the silence stretched, I prodded him. "Go scare him off, Vale, so you can take me to your place like you promised."

He gently squeezed my arm. "Stay here."

I remained in the dark while he went back into the shop to deal with Gareth. The masculine murmurs of their voices remained steady, even though I'd half-expected Gareth to resist at least vocally. But I heard nothing of strife between them and when, about ten minutes later, the bead curtain parted and Vale stepped into the studio, I knew that Gareth had been taken care of, whatever that meant.

"Close the shop and we'll go?" Vale asked hopefully.

I searched his face for signs that the confrontation with Gareth hadn't gone pleasantly. But Vale was a handsome cipher. In the end, all I could do was say, "Let's go."

~~~~~

We took a ride sharing service to the Naked City. It certainly wasn't my first choice for a date, that was for sure.

The neighborhood behind the Statosphere tower, known colloquially as the Naked City, was a sketchy one. Some considered it one of the most dangerous in the city, though as a magickal being my opinion on that was skewed. Dangerous to me was eight miles beneath Area 51, where the Oddsmakers were.

But for most people this was an area you avoided at all costs unless you had no choice. It was rife with gang activity. For some reason this was where Vale lived. I couldn't disguise my confusion as the car let us out on a street stretching within the shadow of the city's most iconic landmark.

"Why here?" I asked, keeping my voice low as we walked across a weed-filled yard up to a battered old house with graffiti-covered walls and plywood nailed over its windows. "You didn't bring me out here to knock me off, did you?"

"I realize it's not the most romantic of locations," he said wryly as he unlocked the deadbolt on the front door, "but it's where I spend my time when I don't spend it with you."

"Not in Summerlin?" I asked, pretending to be disappointed.

"I only told Zach that so he wouldn't try to stalk me."

Sadness prick me at the mention of my dead friend. "Good call. He totally would have."

Inside it was bare, practically empty. The carpet was worn but seemed clean and the kitchen wasn't crawling with roaches (probably because it didn't look like anyone had ever cooked anything in there). There were clothes in the closet of the sole bedroom, but no bed. After my quick, depressing tour, I returned to the living room where Vale waited.

"You're such a liar," I said. "You don't live here. Not really."

He broke into a grin. "I was waiting for you to dump me when you saw this place."

"I wouldn't have dumped you, but I would have seriously reassessed my options. So where
do
you live?"

"I actually do crash here on occasion. When my first choice isn't available."

"Your first choice?"

He held out his hand. "I'll show you after we eat. For practical reasons."

He held my hand as we walked out of the neighborhood and up to the Strip. North Las Vegas Boulevard was pretty sketchy, too, and I nervously eyed some shady characters. But Vale walked with purpose and he must have radiated danger because no one bothered us. Hell, no one looked our way twice.

To my surprise, Vale took us inside the Stratosphere. At just over eleven hundred feet high, it was the tallest freestanding observation tower in the U.S., according to my handsome tour guide. He led me to an elevator which we rode seemingly forever, finally ending up on the 106th floor.

"Oh, my gosh," I breathed as we stepped out and I saw the sign for Top of the World. "I've always wanted to eat up here."

"I'm glad I'm the first to bring you," Vale murmured.

"I wish I'd worn something nicer!"

His lips brushed my ear. "I told you before. I think you're beautiful as you are."

It was easy to forget everything that had happened today and curl my arms around his waist and kiss him. Easy to pretend that my greatest concern was whether I'd get the surf and turf and whether I'd let Vale drink champagne directly from my lips at the end of the night.

We ate dinner and we laughed. We admired the beautiful view of the city and we admired each other. Everything that had happened to me lately felt like they'd happened to someone else, like I'd watched a horror movie that I wouldn't have to watch again and could forget.