by Tricia Owens
Kusahara narrowed his eyes. "There is no one else."
"Then the three of us are walking out of here—or make that driving," I quickly added, thinking of how the Oddsmakers always dumped us off in the desert without a ride.
"And why would I do that?"
"Because I'm going to give you what you want."
"Which is?"
"Entrance to the Oddsmakers' facility." Using 'lair' sounded just a touch too hokey even if that was how I referred to the place in my head.
Kusahara went very, very still, which was quite a feat considering the man was already super Zen. "That's quite an offer."
I got contradictory vibes from him: his words suggesting he was receptive but his body language telling me the opposite. I didn't understand.
From the corner of my eye, I watched his hand, the one with the black symbols tattooed onto his fingers, curl into a fist. "What makes you think that will satisfy us?"
"You and I both know the Oddsmakers are the big kahunas here. They want to take over the planet or blow it up, I'm not sure which. But either option puts an end to burritos. I'd just as soon avoid that, but I don't have the power to stop them. You and your forces, however, have a good chance, so...the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I'm willing to risk them finding out that I’m helping you if you do what needs to be done."
"What do you know of their plans?" he asked me sharply, like he was one step away from turning me upside down and shaking the truth out of me.
"Nothing concrete, but I guarantee you they're a threat to your way of life."
Kusahara paced a few steps ahead, his back to me. "Your offer is interesting, but ultimately unacceptable. The United States Government does not make deals with terrorists."
I admit I was shocked. How much of a bigger threat did this guy need?
"So you're willing to risk it all against an alien force that is a hundred times stronger?"
"In which ways is it stronger?" he asked softly. When I didn't immediately reply, he said, "Something tells me, Miss Moody, that you are pretending to possess intelligence that you don't actually have. And that is very dangerous game indeed."
A chill rushed over my skin. It had been a mistake to try to play hardball with Kusahara. The man was a sharpened katana, waiting to slice my belly open and sift through my innards for a truth he could accept. If he killed me, no biggie. He still had Uncle James and Vale to apply the screws to. But my gut told me death at his hands wasn't my biggest concern. He was conniving. Something else was going on.
"I'll explain everything I can," I said carefully, "but not to you. Sorry, Kusahara, but I don't trust that anything I tell you will reach the right ears. I want Basher back."
Kusahara pivoted slowly on one heel to face me. "You'll tell him everything?"
I was surprised by his apparent capitulation to my demands, but then reminded myself that Kusahara would be listening and watching everything, ready to jump in if he thought Colonel Sanders and I were getting too buddy-buddy.
"Sure. But only him, and I want to do it in front of Vale, so he can confirm and you people won't need to torture him for info you already have."
"Yes," Kusahara said evenly, "we would have tortured him for that."
Sheesh. He wasn't even trying to sound sane.
"Well, let's do this," I urged.
After a long, assessing look, Kusahara nodded.
~~~~~
I was taken to the lab, where Colonel Sanders awaited us, a smug look on his face that he made sure Kusahara noticed. Since I hadn't seen Kusahara use any sort of communications device to call Colonel Sanders here, this told me that the hallways were bugged. Probably every inch of this place was.
My primary concern wasn't that I'd been overheard. My concern was currently handcuffed by both wrists to the armrests of the chair in which he sat. Vale watched me from beneath his mussed fringe of hair. That tousled hair and a reddened area high on his left cheek told me he'd been roughed up a bit, but overall he seemed okay. His gaze was wary, not pained, and he didn't send me any urgent messages with his eyes; he simply wanted to know what I was up to.
The tanks and other unnerving devices and machines were on the far side of the room. The four of us were in an area dominated by cabinets and an examining table. The lights were bright enough to perform delicate surgery by.
"I will return," Kusahara said ominously, and then he did that pivoting on the heel thing again and walked out of the lab with crisp steps. The door closed and locked audibly into place.
"As you've learned," Colonel Sanders said into the ensuing silence, "your situation can become worse, Anne. You could be forced to deal solely with him."
I nodded. "I hear you. I've chosen the lesser of my evils. Er, no offense." But I didn't really care about offending him, so I continued. "You want to know about the Oddsmakers, right?"
Vale tensed slightly but didn't otherwise move. His dark gaze was watchful. He reminded me of a cornered fox.
"What can you tell us about them?" Colonel Sanders crossed his arms and leaned back against the examining table. He was playing this casual, thinking it would loosen my tongue. That was fine with me.
"They're a different caste of aliens, a ruling class. Unlike Vale, my uncle, and me, who are mere scouts. That's why we've been embedded for so long. We gather information about the civilization of a planet and send that information to the higher-ups. That information brought the Oddsmakers here. Their intention is to remove all life from this planet."
Vale didn't blink. He didn't suck in his breath. He did nothing, as though me claiming that we were all aliens intent on destroying the Earth was what he'd expected all along. Hell, maybe he had. He often knew things way before I did.
"I see. And how have you been communicating with them?" Colonel Sanders asked.
"Telepathy, of course."
He nodded slowly. "Of course."
As he considered his next question, I noted the location of the visible cameras and where I thought additional hidden ones might exist, as well as the audio devices.
Colonel Sanders pushed off the table. "And where is your home planet located, Anne?"
I smiled at him. "And invite you to mess up my planet, too? No thanks."
"But—"
"Sorry, Colonel Sanders," I said. I held Vale's gaze as I said, "This interrogation is over." Vale closed his eyes.
I went full dragon. We—I—exploded into the lab at a humongous scale, filling the room with literally tons of dragon muscle, dragon scales, and enough light to blind someone from miles away. Colonel Sanders, by design, never saw it coming. One minute he was standing a few yards from me, the next, he was pinned face first against a far wall by my dragon's tail with no chance of turning his head much less the rest of his body. Not that he would have been able to see anything, anyway. His watering eyes blinked continuously against the brilliant glare pouring off my dragon.
"What's happening?" he yelled.
I answered by nosing a tall filing cabinet across the room and pushing it against his back, keeping him trapped against the wall. He squeaked, which was amusing from a man of his age and bearing.
Moody, what do you think you're doing?
Vale had shifted into his gargoyle form, understanding that this was a breakout attempt. I couldn't speak to him in my dragon form, so I snatched his gargoyle up against my belly and held him there, covered by my tiger paws. His gargoyle didn't struggle. His trust in me was absolute. For that reason alone I would give my dying breath to free him from this place where his fate was a dire one.
After cradling my own unconscious body, I blasted out of the lab, knocking the doors off their hinges and sending concrete flying down the hall. Somewhere, an alarm went off, its blaring tones echoing down the halls like the lonely call of a whale. If there were flashing lights I didn't see them; the glow off my dragon made it impossible to tell.
My dragon brain was pretty tiny and useless for a game of Scrabble, but it could recall the mental map tha
t Uncle James had described to me. Bashing into the walls of the too narrow hall, I found his cell again and ripped the door away.
"What are you doing?!" he cried out as he jumped to his feet. His face reflected outright horror at what I'd done. He had drilled into me, again and again, the dangers of giving in to my dragon, and with good reason. But much had changed both in the magickal world and in me. I wasn't the same young woman he'd left behind, and that was both wonderful and terribly sad.
I didn't give him time to chastise me, especially with audio hooked up throughout his room. I snatched him up just as I had Vale's gargoyle and my body, and wrapped everyone in my arms, concealing as much of them from view as I could. I heard his muffled shout—probably at finding himself crushed up against a gargoyle—but I ignored it and bulldozed my way out of the room.
Uncle James didn't know where the exits were and I had been unconscious when the government soldiers had brought me down here. But the one thing I did know about a building was that if it had ventilation shafts, they eventually had to reach the outside in order to exchange the air. So I tunneled up through the foot wide shaft in his room, tearing open the ceiling around it and leaving a huge swathe of utter destruction in my wake.
The shaft traveled horizontally through several rooms which I also destroyed before we made a vertical turn. I roared with glee as I wrecked the facility on my way up to freedom. I was Dragon of Doom, Dragon of Destruction! The building shook and roared not only from the carnage I inflicted upon it but from my vicious joy.
Stay in control, Moody.
Vale's voice in my head startled me, and judging by his jolt, it surprised my uncle, too. It was a much needed reminder to pull back on the reins. My dragon was becoming a little too headstrong with nothing to do but lay waste to this place.
Fortunately, I had plenty of practice at this. A bit of concentration and my dragon blood subsided. With renewed control over myself, I continued to tear through the building like an agile missile shooting for open air. Another turn. Smash through more walls, ceilings and floors. Obliterate furniture and storage supplies. Throw airmen, soldiers, and other military personnel off their feet. Closer, closer, closer. My dragon snout twitched, practically smelling fresh air ahead despite all the concrete, plaster, and shredded insulation clogging the air.
And then we burst out of the building and into the open air. I pulled up, my wings slowing my ferocious speed. Hovering, I looked around.
But we weren't outside.
"Miss Moody."
I snarled as I spun in midair. Kusahara stood on the floor of the immense hangar that I'd mistakenly assumed to be the outside. Dark shapes sat in the corners of the hangar, covered by tarps, their forms sleek yet strange. Experimental aircraft? Recovered UFOs? Could've been either and I didn't care. My focus was on the slender, black-haired man in the black suit who stood calmly beside the blast hole that I'd made in the floor.
"I was hoping to see this in person," he said. He spoke quietly and was barely audible above the horns and shouting coming from the facility beneath us. "A Chinese dragon in Las Vegas. Very rare. I'm impressed."
I couldn't speak in my dragon form, and I wasn't sure what I would have said to him anyway. Probably something insulting or a sarcastic thanks for his condescension.
"I was going to arrange for your release," he went on, "but this might be better. I now have firsthand proof of your capabilities, and you are, to some extent, about to be indebted to me."
I roared, angered by that last bit and not really understanding it, either. I was only a dozen yards from freedom. Why would I need him?
And then I heard it: the low rumble of heavy machinery. Had I been standing on the ground I might have felt the shaking. The sound grew louder. I saw the metal walls begin to vibrate.
"Tanks are heading this way, and they are mounted with ground-to-air missiles that will easily strike out of the sky a target as large and shiny as you are, Miss Moody. You won't escape here unharmed. Your precious cargo won't survive, at any rate."
I snapped at the air, petulantly.
"So you need me, and I'm willing to assist. For a price." I saw the tattoos on his fingers begin to glow red. He was a magickal being. A warlock or sorcerer, maybe. And a sneaky and clever one to have infiltrated the government at this level.
"I'll help you escape," he told me, "and I'll cover your absence here. In exchange, you'll remove the Oddsmakers as a threat to the world. I'll leave you to interpret that as you wish, but knowing that the Oddsmakers are most likely going to come after you for killing Vagasso, you won't want to handle them with kid gloves. This is magickal war, Miss Moody. If the rest of us are going to survive, you need to win."
I hovered in the air, too shocked to growl or bare my teeth at him for ordering me around. He seemed to take my reaction as acquiescence, because he turned and pointed at the sliding doors of the hangar.
"Once I begin, fly through there," he told me. "Head south and you'll see the lights of Henderson and Las Vegas. You have three hours before sunrise. I'm sure you'll want to reach home so you and Mr. Morgan can plan your attack." Kusahara turned even grimmer, which I hadn't thought possible. "I'll keep my colleagues off your trail, but only through the weekend. The higher-ups are due here on Monday, and I won't be able to interfere without drawing attention to myself. If you don't stop the Oddsmakers by then, you won't get another chance. I can guarantee you that you and your friends will never see the sun again, and the fate of the magickal community will rest with the worst of our kind."
No pressure.
"Here. My number." He held out a business card.
I snarled threateningly.
"It's not a trap. You may need my help."
It was only because I was uncertain about his motives that I swiftly swooped down and nabbed the card with a back paw. I quickly flew out of reach again.
Kusahara brought his fingers with the glowing symbols on them to his neck and pressed the symbols to his throat. He opened his mouth wide. And then he wailed.
My dragon roared with pain. I felt Vale's gargoyle and Uncle James howling against my belly. I'd always assumed banshees were female, but Kusahara set me straight. I couldn't have lingered if I'd wanted to. The pitch of his wailing was excruciating, making my ears buzz violently as though a tattoo needle were eating at them. I beat my wings and shot across the hangar like a bullet, smashing through the doors and out over a tarmac where three tanks and a dozen trucks laden with big guns I couldn't identify had been rolling up. Now, with Kusahara's banshee wailing, their drivers had lifted their feet off the accelerators to curl up in agony. I flew past them without a single man turning to look at us. Everyone was too busy screaming and writhing in reaction to the piercing wail.
The darkness of the desert disguised where we were. I couldn't make out roads and of course there were no lights. Mountains crowded around me, forcing me to zigzag before finally breaking out into the open desert. As Kusahara had said, once past the mountains the glittery sprawl of Las Vegas could be seen in the distance.
We had escaped the facility. But I didn't fool myself into believing that we were home free.
Chapter 4
I landed in the desert within walking distance of a gas station that serviced truckers heading up north to Utah. Vale, after shifting out of his gargoyle form, was naked. Uncle James wore clothes that could be mistaken for hospital scrubs, so he volunteered to hit up the gas station and try to scrounge up the coins to use the pay phone that I'd spied on the way in. It was possibly one of the last of its kind.
I waited until he was out of earshot before I began the laborious process of pulling out of my dragon. It wasn't a pretty process. Besides all the thrashing around, I sounded like I was receiving a Swedish massage with coarse grit sandpaper, which was why I hadn't wanted Uncle James around to witness it. He didn't need further reasons to condemn my behavior.
"Oh, man," I groaned when I'd finally returned to my human body, lying on the desert floor. A scorpi
on could have born babies on my face and I wouldn't have flinched. I ached all over as though someone had been punching me with the wrong side of a porcupine.
Warm fingers brushed my sweat-damp hair from my face. "Are you alright?"
"I think I need mouth-to-mouth," I murmured and added a whimper for good measure.
"You're in luck," Vale whispered. "I happen to be proficient at this."
He wasn't kidding. I curled my hand around the back of his neck to keep his mouth on mine. Kissing someone after you've feared for their life lends it a different taste. It's sweeter somehow, and addictive, like you can't bear to end it. In many ways, Vale faced more danger than I did. He was an ancient species. Nations would kill to learn what granted him such a long lifespan. And even amidst magickal beings he was special since he was the Gargoyle Prince, heir to the throne in Paris. To me, he was simply mine, and I was terrified of something happening to him. I'd lost my parents. For a time, I thought I had lost my uncle. No way was I losing Vale. But sometimes Fate's hold was stronger and it didn't matter how hard I tugged; I couldn't win.
Tonight, though, I had won. It hurt to end the kiss with Vale, and I only relented because his hands cupped my cheeks in a wordless request to separate.
"I'm okay," he assured me, his breath moist against my lips. "I need to know about you. Did they touch you? Hurt you?"
"Never had a chance." I combed my fingers restlessly through his hair. "And as you can see, I found my uncle. They'd been keeping him there all this time. Oh, Vale, I feel so bad for him."
His expression grew grim. "Did they experiment on him?"
"He said they drew his blood and did some medical testing but dragon blood doesn't show up using medical devices. Without that, he's an ordinary human."
"That's good." Vale's gaze drifted out of focus for a moment and I knew he wasn't thinking of Uncle James, but of me.
I stroked his hair. "We got out of that as well as we could have. My dragon doesn't show up on digital recordings. They won't have any idea what just happened or how we all escaped. They'll waste time trying to find out where their security failed. Forget all of that. We need to focus on the Oddsmakers."