California Imperium

by Aaron Crash

  Chazzie clicked her tongue. “Well, I ain’t never heard of Dragonknights before, though I like the sound of finding the holy grail. Sure. Do you think it’s the lost son of Merlin?”

  Pru answered. “Well, that certainly makes sense, sis. The daughter opens the first eye, and the son opens the second. Sure. To save us all. That sounds like humans and dragons alike, now, don’t it?”

  Steven listened, thinking about the King Arthur myth stories. So the knights actually were dragons? What were the names of the other knights? Gawain, Galahad, Mordred. But who else?

  He sighed.

  “The Dragonknights’ Chamber certainly was a different thing from the Americos Chamber.”

  “Naw, they were about the same. Right close to each other? Betcha dollars to donuts the same fuckers built ’em both.”

  “Maybe, but once we heard the knights talk and were shown the map, it deactivated the thing. That Americos Chamber didn’t change. And we saw the flash of orange.”

  “I hate the color orange.”

  “Come now, match it with some browns and yellows, it can be pretty.”

  “I never liked the Denver Broncos. Orange and blue? It’s garish, sister. Silver and blue? Now, we’re talking.”

  “The Dallas Cowboys are America’s team as you well know.”

  “Amen.”

  “Does whatever bad mojo that’s keeping Steven from America have anything to do with our King Arthur friends?”

  “I’d have sex with King Arthur.”

  “Nope, we’d want Lancelot. He was the good lay. All the stories say so.”

  “I think Liang Pope’s deal, with the dagger and the scroll, has absolutely no bearing on our new quest for the holy fucking grail. And you can take that to the bank, sister.”

  The Wayne twins continued to work their magic, scheming, planning, offering up theories and shooting them down. Even Mouse was silenced as the pair worked.

  “Sounds like we have to find the lost son,” Pru finished.

  Tessa broke in for the first time. “And he might be sunning himself in Bali. While we were in the Dragonknight Chamber, we saw a map. Well, the map came from the torch, which Aria was holding. I still have it. I stuck it in my trusty leather satchel.”

  Aria let out a breath. “When I first touched it, the torch hurt me. I felt it strike me... it struck my Animus, and I wasn’t the right person. Yet the next time I touched it, the torch wanted me. And the electricity? That came from my Animus. I felt it leave me to fuel the torch.”

  No one had a reply to that.

  The names and theories spun through Steven’s mind. The lost son. The holy grail. Merlin’s daughter, all found in a secret cave, half-destroyed by the elements, in Oregon. It seemed human storytellers had been wrong about several key points when it came to King Arthur. Then again, scholars agreed that he never truly existed. It was a story.

  Yet over and over, Steven saw that stories had a way of coming true.

  The Wayne twins took up their conversation as if Steven and the other women weren’t there.

  “Spider Finger?”

  “Yeah, duh, Liang Pope basically had that guy’s hand up his ass, puppet style. Big magic is in the mix. But do I think that Spider Finger is a Knight of the Round Table? No, I do not.”

  “Dang, but we can’t know that.”

  “You wanna know what I think?”

  “Yer gonna tell me.”

  “I think that Spider Butt is gathering up all the Primes to work against us... Liang Pope, Javier Jones, and even Morty Flint.”

  “No, Morty made a two-Primacy investment in our Steven. Morty is on the level. Javier hasn’t sent us a head recently, so he might be up to no good.”

  Tessa broke in. “Hold on. So, if this were Scooby-Doo, we’d have two episodes... The Mystery of the Bad Mojo Americos Chamber and The Mystery of the Dragonknights and Merlin’s Daughter. Oh, and who’s Merlin’s daughter? That would be me. Tessa Ross. High school dropout. And Mr. Ficco said I’d never amount to much. Fuck that guy!”

  Aria made a disgusted face. “I do know about Scooby-Doo and his drug-addled friend. A far superior detective is Byomkesh Bakshi. I read all the stories when I was a girl in Mumbai. My favorite has to be Makorshar Rosh, or The Venom of the Tarantula.”

  No one knew how to respond to that. There was that dazed silence that followed Aria’s pop culture outbursts.

  “You know—” Chazzie started.

  Before she and Pru could start up their lightning round again, Steven said, “Hold on. I know what we have to do.”

  Zoey hated the plan. Everyone did, except for Pru, who smiled and smiled.

  Chapter Twelve

  ABNER SAVEDRA WALKED down the rolling stairs off his jet and onto the Astoria Regional Airport’s tarmac.

  Inside the jet were Eckles, the other Willbreakers, and a dozen women. Eckles was not only a Morphling, but a pilot, and he’d flown them in from LAX. People talked shit about that airport all the time, and Savedra had to laugh at that. Humans. Complaining about an airport. In the mountain village where Savedra had grown up, they’d traveled by horse-drawn cart, and he’d been grateful to be off his feet for a minute. Eckles had taxied the plane off the main runway but didn’t go to a gate. The meeting was outside, in the dark and the elements, which pissed Savedra off because of course it was raining. It was always raining in the PNW Primacy. He’d stripped off his jacket and black T-shirt and went out in only his jeans and his black engineer boots.

  The rain pattered across the hair and scars that covered him. He liked his hair. He wasn’t a fucking woman, he was man. And men should be hairy. As for the scars, he wanted Roy Right to see that he could survive almost anything.

  Two other jets sat at the edge of the tarmac, away from the main terminal, though the regional airport had no commercial flights. It was for cargo only—for business, like this meeting.

  Roy Right had promised a gift for coming, something that Javier Jones supposedly made. That tempted Savedra enough to come, as did a serious talk about that fucking Drokharis kid. Three more Primacies had fallen to him in less than twenty-four hours. First he got the Farmlands and the Dakotas for some bizarre reason; Savedra had a hard time thinking that Tiano Helge and Lawrence Candler had given up their territories voluntarily. And now they were managing Canadian holdings for Morty Flint. That wasn’t surprising. Morty Flint knew which end of the gun he wanted to end up on. But all of that felt thousands of miles away.

  When Liang Pope fell? That was basically next door to Savedra. And all hopes of using Liang to squash Jem Osprey went out the window.

  Savedra eyed the other two planes. Roy Right walked off one, holding an umbrella over his lurid silver silk suit, shining even with the little bit of light from the windows of the jets. The terminal sat in the distance, across the black soup of the asphalt. Roy Right was tall but wore cowboy boots to make him taller. He was thin but wore clothes with cuts to make him seem thinner. He had a platinum bolo tie, encrusted with jewels. And he wore sunglasses, even at night—custom Santos de Cartier aviators, three thousand dollars at least, with a style that would’ve made him a douchebag even if he never opened his mouth at all.

  But Roy Right talked all the time, and every word was shit. One of his teeth was silver, and it flashed every so often.

  Roy got down to it. “Well, Abner, so glad you could come. I do believe the proverbial shit has hit the fan, and I aim for us to be on the side of destiny for once. Fuck knows every other cock-knocker has found his dick in the dirt when going up against Steven blow-me Drokharis.”

  Savedra sighed, wishing he didn’t have to deal with idiots like Roy. A second later, he had other things to worry about, as he spotted the other Dragonlord who’d come to join them. Every muscle in him tensed as the sweet flow of adrenaline hit.

  Coming down his own rolling stairway waltzed none other than Jeremy “Jem” Osprey. Close to seven feet tall, he was bald, with a big bushy beard that fell down his chest. He wore leather,
from coat to chaps to boots. A dozen cows must’ve died to offer up all that leather covering his huge frame. His own sunglasses, Wiley X Gravity shades, clung to his scalp.

  Both of his ears were ringed from lobe to crest because every time Jeremy “Jem” Osprey killed a Prime, he added another earring.

  Osprey walked onto the pavement.

  Savedra shifted his arms into talons and triggered IonClaws, his weapon of choice.

  The NorCal Prime whisked a hand cannon from inside his coat. That was a Desert Eagle, and knowing Osprey, those bullets would be enchanted.

  Footsteps whispered behind Savedra, and a bracelet clicked closed on his arm, even though it had grown thick with scales. A shadow streaked through the rain, moving so fast, his eyes had trouble following the slim form.

  His IonClaws winked off, not because the bracelet disrupted the energy, but it had returned his hands and arms to human, and IonClaws didn’t work with puny human fingernails.

  At the bottom of his stairs, before he could fire, that bit of speeding midnight slapped a bracelet onto Osprey. At the same time, slim, dark fingers plucked the gun out of Osprey’s grip. And then a woman appeared by Roy Right’s side.

  The Sin City Primacy’s Dragonlord grinned. “See, Umbra? No problem. And you thought that would be difficult.”

  The woman had dark skin, but she wasn’t African. Her facial features were more indigenous to South America. That sloped nose. The lips. Something about the shape of her eyes and her ink-dark hair. She was naked. Standing like a Dragonsoul stood, on thick thighs, with no real breasts to speak off, but a tuft of pubic hair that Savedra had to admire for a quick second. When it came to women, he hated the new trend of shaving. He didn’t want a little girl. He wanted a woman who knew how to take dick and like it.

  Savedra tried to shift his arm back into a claw, but he couldn’t. Osprey was trying yank his bracelet off using brute strength. Both failed. The bracelet was a hunk of silver with a simple clasp, but that wasn’t what drove the magic. A chunk of quartz was inlaid in the top of the bracelet. The crystal drove the magic. Savedra was sure of it. He caught the scent of burning hickory wood in the air.

  “You won’t be able to cut through that little piece of jewelry,” Roy Right drawled. “And you certainly won’t be able to pull it off with brute strength. Think you can smash the crystal? Try it. You see, it’s tied into your Animus. I know the trigger word to free you. And I might do that. But first, we’re going to make ourselves a little coalition, something Liang Pope would’ve loved to see, God rest his soul.”

  Roy came walking up, while his woman, Umbra, turned into a Homo Draconis and vanished. Only she didn’t. She was just running using a jet-fueled version of SerpentGrace.

  Roy stood between Savedra and Osprey, who both had lowered their arms.

  “You see,” the Prime said with that grin on his face, like he’d just won the superball lottery and didn’t even need the money, “you two are trapped in your human form. Thank you to Javier Jones, who can’t be here at the moment, but he’s in with us, I assure you.”

  Osprey threw off his sunglasses. “Roy, I’m going to kill Savedra. With my bare hands. And then I’m going to kill you.”

  He moved to do that.

  Roy stayed still. He didn’t even close his umbrella. He held up a hand. “How long would you last as a human against me in my True Form, Jem? I don’t think you’d survive a New York minute, and as we all know, those are short, real short. So just cool your jets.”

  “And if I call my Willbreakers out of my plane?” Savedra asked.

  “Oh, they might make it to the bottom of the steps,” Roy conceded. “But they wouldn’t last long against my little shadow. Umbra, how old are you?”

  From out of the very air, a voice whispered, “I am two thousand years old, my Prime. And I serve you and you alone. If the men come out, if I see any dragons, they will be in hell before the devil knows they are dead. I believe that is the phrase.”

  Roy chuckled. “Oh, Umbra, I love you more than you could ever know.”

  From behind him, abruptly, Savedra heard, “I know, my Prime. I feel your love, and I glory in it.”

  The SoCal Prime didn’t turn around. He knew she’d already be gone.

  Roy continued to exude a smarmy sleaze. “Umbra is greased lightning, but like you, Abner, my little shadow has her claws, but they aren’t bright, like yours, like everyone else’s. They are dark, like sin, covered with the blood of countless victims. That’s why they’re dark. Now, how many souls would it take to darken a girl’s IonClaws? You don’t have to answer. That is what’s called a rhetorical question.”

  Savedra ignored Roy and spoke to his sworn enemy. “Well, Osprey, we could go for him.”

  “I’d rather beat your skull in, Savedra,” the NorCal Prime said in an even voice. That voice, so crisp, so measured, betrayed his biker appearance.

  “Because I took your land? That was a long time ago. And I plan on taking more. Let’s be clear on that,” Savedra hissed. And he spat at the other Dragonlord. Two centuries ago, that might’ve meant something. Now, in America, not so much.

  Osprey chuckled. “Roy, you are an idiot to think Savedra and I can ever be anything but enemies.”

  “And you both are dumb to think you’ll survive Hurricane Drokharis. Don’t you two see it? We’re next. Hell, as far as we know, he’s already taken out Clete in the Deseret Primacy. He might’ve done it first, and Eve Downfyre is just playing along. And then? He takes me. And then you. And he owns most of the U.S., everything west of the Mississippi at any rate. No one, no one since Mathaal, has had so much territory on the North American Continent.”

  Savedra sighed. More stories. He would ignore the fact that Roy was talking about ghosts, forget that Roy had tricked him, and brought him within striking distance of his bitterest enemy. He knew the truth.

  Osprey said what he was thinking because of course, Osprey’s territory now shared a border with what people called the Drokharis Primacy. “So we all three come together to take out Steven Drokharis. Then after we kill him, we will kill each other. We will not divide up his holdings peacefully.”

  Roy swallowed and then grinned, showing a silver tooth. “Now, wait there a minute, Jem. I think we can all come to a consensus. Javier is a part of this, but he doesn’t want any land. That makes things easier. If you both agree I can have all of Nevada, then I’m okay with that. And we make blood oaths about this, mind you, blood fucking oaths. We do that? I’m okay with Nevada. Then you two can murder each other over the rest of little Stevie’s territories, but why? Why not just work together?”

  Osprey’s face was lost in shadows. He’d turned away from the light, so Savedra couldn’t see his eyes, only the outline of his beard, glowing in the night. “I want California and the PNW. Mr. Savedra can have all the rest.”

  Savedra heard the words, but he couldn’t believe them. The SoCal Primacy was important, had a lot of money and power flowing through there, between Los Angeles and San Diego, and it was gateway to Las Vegas as well as Tijuana. It wasn’t the only valuable territory out there though. When he’d come to America looking for a Primacy, he hadn’t cared a bit about where he went, what he did, or who he had to kill to get it. Osprey had just been the first, easiest target.

  And now, the NorCal Dragonlord was offering him not one but several Primacies. And even Roy Right was fine with only holding onto his Sin Cities and the wastelands between them. Most people thought he owned them anyway, though that wasn’t the case. It was contested land, but why? Who lived there? Not many humans and fewer Dragonskins.

  “Fine,” Savedra said. “We do oaths, contracts, and we are done. I want old magic for this arrangement.”

  Osprey rumbled laughter. With the size of his abdomen, his lungs, that was quite the rumble. “You gave up, Savedra. You gave up with one offer. The land you fought for, bled for, shed tears over from what I’ve heard. And in seconds, you just gave it up? Why?”

  “Fo
r exponentially more power,” Savedra said. “You are a young little shit, Osprey. I’ve lived. I’ve bled, and yes, I’ve wept over my life. I know what it means to want, to be hungry, to be hunted. I will have the home I’ve always wanted in America. You’ve never been homeless. Your father chose you to take over his Primacy. Perhaps, if you’d known want, you’d have more wisdom.”

  “Enough!” Roy’s voice changed from the homespun country good ol’ boy to a force to be reckoned with, a force that had at least one ancient wife. “You two have nothing to fight over now. So I want you to stop this nonsense. We have a common enemy.”

  “So where is he?” Savedra asked.

  Roy paused. “I don’t know. But I have Bruno Illick hunting him.”

  “Shit,” Osprey said. If Savedra hadn’t known better, he’d have thought he heard fear in that one little word. The NorCal Prime wiped the rainwater off his bald head. “It might be, Mr. Right, that your coalition is unnecessary. If Bruno is hunting Steven Drokharis, then he is already dead.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  STEVEN CLIMBED UP THE stairs of the lighthouse. His Escort was gone, none of them very happy about it. Zoey had clung to him the entire time he told them his plan, her face nuzzled into his neck even as he felt her tears fall.

  She’d finally shifted into a wolf, so Steven hadn’t been able to see her red-rimmed, tear-streaked eyes. If Mouse hadn’t been there, the Morphling wouldn’t have left at all. Mouse was so different with Zoey, so gentle and kind. They were quite the pair.

  Chazzie and Pru knew the truth, though, and they’d helped sell Steven’s idea. Sabina had roused herself from her sleep to cast a Divination spell, and then that settled it, because she saw the future, and yes, Steven’s core Escort would have to separate to find victory. She also saw fire, bloodshed, and death. In other words, constant battle, which was the life of a Dragonsoul.

  Tessa mentioning Scooby-Doo had given Steven the idea. The Wayne twins and Sabina would go back to the mainland to study The Mystery of the Bad Mojo Americos Chamber. The rest of his Escort would travel to Australia to check in with Liam Strider and investigate The Mystery of the Dragonknights and Merlin’s Daughter.