Trouble with Gargoyles: an Urban Fantasy (Moonlight Dragon Book 3) (9 page)

Finally, the next page proved to be something other than static information or an educational guide. Uncle James wrote directly to me:

Anne, it is imperative that you know that a terrible danger is looming over the world and there is a good chance that it may originate here in Las Vegas. The power that we're all drawn to is exactly what's drawing the insects, and these insects seek to commit terrible deeds.

That was more like it. I scooted back until my back rested against the headboard and I drew my knees up to my chest, resting the journal against it. It was a flimsy defense against supernatural prying eyes, but it was the best I could do. I dropped my eyes back to the page and continued reading.

Your mother and father agreed to wage war against these insects. I never told you because your father asked me not to. He knew you well, Anne. Even at four years old. He knew the fire that would be ignited in your blood if you learned how they had lived their lives. He wanted to protect you and I do, too.

But I think it's time to allow you to make your own decisions.

I shook my head, sick with the knowledge that this journal had been sitting beneath my bed for two years. Two years! I prayed nothing that I read would prove to be time sensitive.

Your mother was a magnificent dragon sorceress. Our family's blood comes from the ancient dragons, but in the womb the power went to your mother. I'd always accused her of being a greedy twin and this proved it. I am a dragon sorcerer, too, even though I've told you I am a warlock. I'm sorry for the deception, but for a long time now it has been dangerous to be descended from dragons. Though I haven't been concerned for my own safety, I've been concerned for yours. A house of two dragons, even if one is as weak as I, would attract attention. But I'd hoped that a lone, young sorceress who was discreet with her power, would not.

"Yeah, I blew that one, Uncle James," I said bitterly.

Still, I was amazed to learn that he had been a dragon sorcerer. Really, there wasn't a reason I should have suspected it. He had never used his power that I remembered. He'd simply told me that he was a warlock.

I'm not powerful, but your mother could do great things. This is why the beings known as the Oddsmakers called upon her to perform various tasks for them.

And there it was. Kleure's accusations were the truth. I took a deep breath to quell the rising emotion in me. I didn't want to be angry with my parents or ashamed of them. It took willpower to continue reading when I feared what I would learn.

Neither your mother nor your father would tell me what they did for the Oddsmakers and on their behalf. But I do know this: whatever she did, it kept your mother awake at night. It prompted her to ask me to watch over you should anything ever happen to the two of them. Yes, parents of young children have been known to plan ahead in this way, but I sensed urgency in your mother's request. To me, it felt as though she were planning for the inevitable, not for the worst case scenario. It made me question the nature of her tasks for the Oddsmakers.

Opening that Pandora's box may be the last thing I do.

That was the end of the page. My heart began to pound as I turned to the next poem in the book. Using the wet pad, I washed down the sheet as I had before. Another sheet of my uncle's writing appeared for me to read.

When you were a year old, something arrived in Las Vegas.

A chill rippled across my skin. It was as though the air conditioning had kicked on full blast.

There were rumors of what it could be. They were only that: rumors. No one had seen it in daylight. No one had seen it by streetlight. No one knew if it was a shapeshifter or if it was a monster. It was too quick to be identified. Too smart to be caught. Clever and wicked, was how people described it.

Dangerous, was what I thought.

I let out a long, low breath, telling myself to calm down. It occurred to me then that the wards were down and the shop door was unlocked. I saved my spot in the journal and jumped out of bed. Out in the yard, I reset the wards around the property. Instantly I felt better, although guilt weighed on my shoulders as I returned to the shop and locked the front door.

Back in my bed once more, I picked up the journal with hands that trembled. I sensed that everything that I knew of the world was about to change in the next few minutes.

Your mother admitted to me that she had been ordered to hunt down this newcomer for the Oddsmakers. I wasn't to tell anyone. It was a secret mission. I thought it was a strange one. Why didn't the Oddsmakers seize the creature themselves? We all knew they possessed the power to do so, so why send your mother?

The mystery was never solved to my satisfaction. One day, four months after the sightings of this creature were first reported, your mother informed me that it had left Las Vegas, never to return. I was relieved that she hadn't been hurt.

But, Anne, I am convinced that your mother lied to me that night.

I only wish I knew what she had been lying about.

Had Uncle James believed she had lied about the creature leaving Vegas? Or had he meant he believed that my mother had, in fact, destroyed the creature and not simply run it out of town?

My thoughts turned naturally to the creature that had attacked Diana. Were they one and the same? It made sense. Revenge could no longer be sought against my mom, but it could be found through me.

I read on.

Iris kept many secrets from me. I'm convinced she was forced to use her sorcery in ways she was afraid to tell me. She wanted to protect me. She wanted to protect you most of all. But perhaps there is danger in this ignorance. I'm beginning to think that this is the case.

She and your father were killed by a dark entity, though the story you've been told is that their deaths were an accident. You were only four and impressionable. I believed that telling you the truth would only make you grow hard and bitter and determined to seek revenge. However, now, as I am on the verge of meeting with the Oddsmakers for the first time, I have to question whether I have the right to stop you from doing what you want.

Iris was your mother. Jacob was your father. They were taken from you. Maybe you should be allowed to take in return.

Nothing more was written in the journal. I closed it, unsure if Uncle James had meant that final line to galvanize me into seeking revenge. Even if he hadn't, that was where my heart was aimed. The problem was I didn't have a target.

I'd already eliminated Dearborn. Vagasso was next, but I didn't know how to find him and he seemed similar to a bear or a tarantula in that you didn't go after them on their own turf. I had to wait for Vagasso to expose himself and then strike.

But what about that creature that the Oddsmakers had ordered my mom to hunt down? Its description sounded suspiciously like the creature that had attacked Diana. I needed Vale to come home. I had the feeling he might have the answers to questions I didn't know I needed to ask.

First, though, I needed to grill a certain small Voodoo doll.

When I entered Celestina's shop, I saw that the curtains were drawn around the alcove where her reading table sat. This indicated that she was with a client, a fact confirmed by the small sign hanging from the curtain rail which directed me to have a seat and be patient.

Patience wasn't possible at that point. I walked to the middle of the room and looked up at the hanging Voodoo dolls. The Diana-doll waved one small arm at me.

"How's it going?" I whispered so as not to interfere with Celestina's reading.

"I'm inside a doll made of cotton balls and burlap. What do you think, Anne, dear?"

I didn't envy whoever ended up marrying Christian and gained Diana as a mother-in-law.

"I don't know how these things work," I said, motioning at the doll. "Is there anything we can do to make you feel more comfortable?"

"Do you have a Barbie townhouse available for rental?"

"Ha ha, sorry. Just sold my last one." I
was
tempted to move her into a haunted doll house. As soon as I could find one. Magickal items were often listed in the missed connections section of Craigslist. You just had to know how to separate the hook-up ads from the magickal insider ads. "Listen, I was wondering if you could go over a few things with me about your attack."

The doll swung back and forth on its fishing line. "I told you everything I know. It was too dark to see much."

"Right. I understand, and maybe you won't be able to tell me anything more, but…did you get an impression of the size of the creature that attacked you?"

"It wasn't larger than an elephant. It wasn't smaller than a rabbit. It was dark."

I nodded understandingly even though I wanted to swat the doll out of the air like a volleyball. "Maybe narrow it down a bit to, I don't know, between a dog and a lion?"

The doll continued swinging. "Alright."

"Did you hear the sound of claws or did it have hooves, do you think?"

"I don't—I suppose I recall hearing a clicking noise."

"Good, good!" This was like pulling teeth but we were making progress. "What about air pressure? Was the air still or did you ever feel a breeze?"

"I couldn't tell if it had wings," Diana-doll snapped at me. "I would have said as much. I—"

She cut herself off quickly, but I'd caught it. "You, what?"

The Voodoo doll stopped swinging. Though its button eyes couldn't convey emotion, I nonetheless sensed that the doll was annoyed.

"Nothing. I was wrong, so it's irrelevant to consider."

"Diana, please. Just tell me. Any little thing can help."

For several seconds the doll said nothing and didn't move. I began to wonder if Diana's consciousness had finally succeeding in leaving the doll. Then:

"When it first appeared, I thought it was Vale, because it spoke to me with its mind."

"I thought so, too," I admitted to her.

"But it wasn't him," she said firmly.

Her certainty made me feel better, but I didn't like being so ignorant. Why didn't I know more monster lore? I definitely needed to read through Uncle James' guide and memorize everything he'd written. 'Know thy enemy' was sounding like a pretty good idea.

"What other creatures have the ability to speak telepathically?" I asked her, hoping the list wasn't too long.

"That's the problem, dear." The doll sighed. "I don't know of any besides gargoyles."

~~~~~

I opened the shop because I'd hoped that servicing customers might clear my head and allow me to think about the situation rationally rather than emotionally.

It seemed unlikely that Vale had been the one to attack Diana. She knew him reasonably well. She would have recognized him, shadows or no. Plus, the creature had been asking questions about me and Vale. Sure, that could have been a ruse to steer suspicion away from him, but why torture Diana for info he didn't need? Nothing about Vale had hinted that he could be cruel in any way. That didn't seem like something you could hide, especially from a girlfriend.

No, I was positive it wasn't his gargoyle, but it was something around the same size, with claws. That left a lot of options.

With my chin propped on my hand on the counter, I watched the two teenaged boys who hovered around the section that held monster hunter paraphernalia. The items there weren't really meant for use in hunting monsters—I'd be run out of town for encouraging such an activity—but it was how I called that section of the shop in my head. The shelves there held weapons of all sorts, from wooden knives to sharpened katanas, to curved scimitars and small crossbows that fired silver arrows. My favorite was a shield the size of a pizza, covered with silver eagle heads whose beaks would come alive and snap the hell out of whatever came in contact with them.

One of the boys reached for it and immediately yelped and jerked his hand back.

"It's protected by blood wards," I told them.

Startled, they both jumped back from the shelves.

"What are blood wards?" the younger boy asked.

"Duh, you need to spill blood before the ward lets you through," his friend told him after punching the younger boy in the shoulder. "Then the weapon is keyed to you."

"That whole section is warded," I warned them. "So you can look, but I don't suggest you touch. Not until you're ready to commit blood and buy."

"Why can't we test them out?" the older boy asked, scowling slightly.

"Test them out how?" I replied, bored. "Two of those blades leak poison. The arrows will melt once they penetrate skin. That axe on the wall will inject barbed metal thorns into your palm that won't release you until you've named and killed a victim. Which one did you want to try out?"

The boys didn't linger long after that.

I thought about them, and tried to guess what kinds of magickal beings they'd been. Shifters? Probably. But either or both of them could have been warlocks or sorcerers. Or something rare like a water fey or one of a dozen entities whose powers hadn't been fully cataloged by the people who liked to do such things. The truth was, the magickal community was wildly diverse, which was great if you were trying repopulate the Earth but not so great if you were trying to pinpoint a poorly described creature.

Sunset came quickly, thank goodness, and fortunately, so did Vale.

And he was such a jerk. He brought roses.

"Who are those for?" I demanded. I surged up off the stool as though he'd walked in carrying a loaded shotgun.

He smirked. "Who do you think?"

He looked good. Too good, like he was intending to use his hotness as a weapon against me.

"You go off to find Diana's body and you come back looking like that?" I accused, waving at his black sport coat over a black button down and dark jeans. His wavy hair fell in a sexy tousle over his eyes. He'd brushed it that way deliberately; I was sure of it. Just so I'd want to brush it back with my fingers.

"I found her body and it's fine. Two minor bruises on her upper arms, like someone had grabbed her there, but otherwise her physical form is unharmed. I already visited her at Celestina's and told her it was safe to go back." He stopped on the other side of the counter. The smell of the roses began to fill the shop like a cloud of gargoyle pheromone. "I thought we'd celebrate."

I eyed him mistrustfully. "Celebrate what?"

"The fact that we're all okay? Isn't that enough?"

"Well, sure, but it's just weird. Unexpected, I mean."

The hand not holding the roses came up to rub the back of his neck. "Seeing her body that way, empty like a corpse, hit me in a particular way. It made me think of you."

"You thought of me in association with something mindless?"

"Moody…" he said with a strange, quiet chuckle. His gaze dropped to the roses and held there. "You're not making this easy."

I finally got it then: he was flustered.

He'd been worried about me.

"Oh," I said, like an idiot. Fair enough. I was one. "That's…sweet, Vale. I—wow, I really like that."

I felt myself blushing and it was a good feeling. It proved to me that I wasn't cynical and jaded, that something as simple as someone caring about me could still make me feel happy. I always tried so hard to be strong…it was nice to be soft for a change.

He looked up from beneath his fringe, part bashful, part hopeful, part
I'm getting in your pants with this look, aren't I
? Vale knew what he was doing.

I didn't mind it, though. Who wouldn't want to be seduced by someone with those eyes? Vale didn't strip your clothes off with a look; he laid you bare, inside and out.

"I thought if you were interested, we'd swing by my place so you could take a look at where I live. Learn a little more about me." He turned to look back at the shop. A Goth man was at the back, his back to us as he perused the shelves. He'd entered the shop about ten minutes earlier. Vale faced me again with a quirked brow. "If you manage to close up before sunrise, that is."

"As soon as the shop clears I'll close it," I told him, fighting off a fluttery feeling of anticipation. It was a girlish feeling and I liked it. I was probably in denial, pretending everything that had happened with the Oddsmakers hadn't happened, but I didn't care. "Should I get changed?" I tended to favor comfort over fashion most of the time, but I was no stranger to Sephora and I had a few cute outfits that I knew would turn Vale's head.

He brought the roses up to his face and smelled them while his gaze roamed over me, leaving my skin tingling. "I think you're beautiful as is, Moody. And what you're wearing is fine for what I have planned."

Ooh, now that had possibilities. 

I propped my hands on my hips. "Are those flowers your security blanket or do you intend to actually give them to me?"

He blushed.

I nearly squealed with delight.

Then the cursed cameos, prophets of doom, chimed in:

Betrayed! Betrayed!

He's nothing but trouble!

You're a fool to trust…Anne Moody!

That's right. I'd totally forgotten. Someone was supposed to commit a betrayal.

Would it be Vale?

I held out my hands for the roses. "Gimme."

~~~~~

The Goth guy took his sweet time. He must have browsed for nearly a half an hour. I was pretty sure he fondled every item I had for sale, including the zombie nutcrackers, one of which bit the guy's thumb.

Vale had settled himself behind the counter with me, leaning against the shelves like a sentinel. Or maybe he was only staring at my butt.

I was highly conscious of his presence behind me in a variety of ways, some good, some not so good. Now was the time he could hurt me. As soon as this last customer stepped out the door I could find myself with a back full of gargoyle claws. But my body was equally aware of Vale in other ways. Womanly ways. My heart remained attracted to him even though my mind screamed at me to arm myself.

I was limp with relief when Goth guy finally approached me at the counter.

He reached into his black duster and removed something from the inner pocket. Very precisely, as though he were placing a landmine, he set an amulet that looked to be formed of blood red wax on the counter. He said with all the gravity of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg address, "This is evil."

I scrubbed my face with both hands. "Really."

Vale was utterly silent and motionless behind me, but his amusement buffeted me like the winds that periodically blasted through the valley.

"Why is it evil?" I asked. I wasn't in the mood to play along. I had somewhere to be, and hopefully with someone I wouldn't need to kill by the end of the night.

"You can't tell?" the Goth guy asked me with a shade of suspicion in his voice.

"Aura reading isn't my thing, sorry."

That didn't sit very well with the guy, who made a show of flexing all ten of his fingers where they rested on the edge of the counter as though he were struggling to maintain his patience. What was he going to do? Go Super Saiyan on me?

Now that he was near, I noticed the tattoos: a snake curved along the top of each eyebrow, like each was resting on a furry log. They weren't ordinary tattoos, though. The one above his right eyebrow was a cobra. It periodically rose up into the middle of his forehead and flared its hood at me.

I waved generally at his face. "You don't worry that someone non-magickal would notice that?"

He frowned like I'd just spoken German to him, and raised his hand to his eyebrow. He hissed and jerked his hand away when the snake tattoo struck at his finger. Two tiny beads of blood welled on his finger before he touched it to his tongue and licked it away. He lowered his hand to the countertop again. I watched him close his eyes and scrunch up his face, like he was trying to launch himself into space using the power of his mind. The snake lay down along his eyebrow, matching its sleepier twin on the other side.