Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3)

by Heather Heffner

  Aaron frowned. “You are not the first vampyre prince to have attempted such. The Dark Spirits cannot be controlled. Most are unpredictable ghosts of vengeance and chaos.”

  Santiago waggled a finger. “Come now, brother. You followed the Yucatán down to the central Americas the same as I, the week of the seven-day solar eclipse. You know of the Elder Dark Spirits who are out there.”

  Aaron sucked in his breath. “You speak of The Twelve.”

  “I speak of our mutual purpose.” Santiago opened the bag and dumped out something heavy: a body. It looked to be a young Korean girl who’d starved to death. The lines on her face were relaxed as if she were sleeping. Santiago nodded in satisfaction and then drew an ugly character on her forehead. “She will do. It likes to pluck out the eyes.” Then he kicked her body into the lake.

  Donovan’s eyes began to redden as to the east, a fierce orange sun flashed between peaks, as if angry to find its sacred valleys polluted by the undead. The sun’s fingers spread further, like the wings of a phoenix, until the entire skyline blazed brilliant pink.

  “Well? Where is your mysterious little friend?” he demanded of Santiago. “Unless it thinks we’ll be more useful as pillars of ash, then it had better show itself.”

  “I forgot the other summoning ingredient.” Santiago smiled wickedly at Donovan’s crimson-splattered face. “Fresh blood.” Then he shoved Donovan’s head into the glacial waters of Heaven Lake.

  Donovan’s eyes and throat began to burn while his back buckled under the sun’s advance. He opened his mouth to roar his fury. Crimson blossoms undulated out of his skin and into the deeper reaches of the water.

  Suddenly, the entire lake vanished. Donovan blinked, staring down the charred throat of an eerie caldera.

  “A powerful Dark Spirit has made a dwelling here.” Aaron helped Donovan to his feet. “Look.”

  A storm front had amassed to the north so quickly that the three vampyre princes stopped to watch. Rolling winds tumbled forward in unnatural silence. They took on the form of charging bulls, which chased the dawn’s light with their stampeding hooves and a swing of their great heads. The avenging sunrise was trampled flat. Velvety night returned to the peak of Baekdu, ringing with the hoot of an owl, and underneath—a slow, dry hiss, like a disturbed snake rattling beneath the leaves.

  He was so intent on the skies, Donovan almost didn’t hear the slow scrape of something climbing out of the caldera. A head of sticky, matted black hair emerged first, followed by a pale torso. Then the Dark Spirit blurred and reappeared directly in front of them. Slowly, it extended a hand.

  –Come–

  Aaron froze at Donovan’s side. “Xec.”

  “Surely not the first Dark Spirit who offered Queen Maya vampyrehood?” Donovan demanded as the wasting apparition swayed before them.

  –I am It. Xecotcovach, the Face Gouger. Destroyer of the first humans-made-of-wood. I am the Bird who plucked out their eyes and swallowed them. Afterwards, my god had no use for me and cast me to the winds. Now I serve a new master–

  “The Twelve.” Aaron’s grip hadn’t loosened from his broadsword.

  –The humans disturb my masters’ sleep in the underworld with their insatiable ways. The time has come for them to be reduced to dust again. However, they are protected–

  “There is a new Spring Dragon in the East,” Aaron agreed. “Raina Alvarez, daughter of the great Yong Mun Mu. She is the Changeling Soul.”

  –The Alvarez sisters have indeed revealed themselves– Xec said –but they do not know who they are. They do not know what they are. Raina is imugi. She is not a dragon yet. I already have agents in place who will steer her to us. Indeed, she and her dragon siblings will prove most useful–

  The three princes managed to gaze upon the Dark Spirit’s face. The Face Gouger had no eyes of its own, only two botched holes. Its black lips were spread to the nubs of its ears: a dead man’s grin full of awful promise.

  ***

  ~Khyber~

  The dream bridge broke with a violent snap. Intended or not, I didn’t know. But anger pounded in my skull, and I almost tore the door free from my hideaway bedroom. How dare that demon bird befoul sacred Baekdu San.

  The jjimjilbang was silent in the early hours of dawn. No one was awake in the bathhouse, save for a stooped ajumma mopping the halls. She started prattling about how I’d enjoyed my sleep, but I shut her up with one look. I stalked down the stairs to the baths where I could lose myself in the quiet hiss of the spa’s steam.

  I knew what was coming. I, too, had been there the week of the seven-day solar eclipse so long ago. The conquistadors had ceased their bloodshed against the First Peoples for an instant, fearing they had awoken something more horrible than the ugliness in their hearts. They always looked above to “the heavens,” and never to the earth below.

  Its name escaped my lips—a thing half-buried to hide the worst parts I couldn’t bear to remember:

  “Xibalba.”

  The Place of Fear.

  Once I had marveled at my vampyric power, my ability to kill with a touch. Now I knew there were entities out there older and greater than the vampyres. The Twelve Mayan Lords of Death who ruled the underworld of Xibalba were the primordial. We were their children. My death touch, my undead existence…all of my accursed “gifts” stemmed from them.

  Long ago, the formidable Mayan Death Gods would grow angry every time the mortal world interrupted their slumber. Before they had been locked away by the Mayan Hero Twins, they had plotted to transform all of Eve into a realm of pain, humiliation, and despair to punish the living for waking them so that they, too, would have no rest. It was rumored that the eldest of the Death Lords desired to eat the sun itself, feast on the ensuing wave of global anguish, and then sleep in eternal silence.

  Not a bad dream. It would mean the end of the world, but I had to break this damn life bond somehow. The old Khyber would have been fully behind my brothers’ plan, but now I knew it meant putting Raina in danger. If she truly was Mun Mu’s daughter, then she, a newborn imugi, couldn’t understand yet the duties that came along with being the Spring Dragon: bringing the rains to thaw winter’s chill, watering a thirsty earth during drought, and most importantly, balancing the power of the sacred pearl only a dragon was wise enough to wield: the yeouiju.

  I knew that if the world were to survive, then we vampyres must be rebellious children who departed our parents’ path. As much as I despised Maya, at least she’d understood this.

  But now I had just watched my remaining brothers shake hands with a demon bird out of hell: the messenger.

  I hadn’t believed the old legends, but Xecotcovach seemed convinced of the Alvarez sisters’ identities—especially considering the circumstances of Maya’s fall in the last battle of the Were War. If the demon bird reported back to its masters, then their servants would be coming. And they would strike soon, before Raina, Citlalli, or any of the shapeshifters realized a new horror was stalking them.

  Korea wasn’t ready for the Death Lords of Xibalba. Only a dragon was.

  Part I: Imugi

  Chapter 1: Unburied Secrets

  ~Mami~

  Ileana Alvarez locked the door with a practiced click and then stood back to survey her joy. Her pride. The growing Alvarez Family Restaurant had been put to bed after a busy night. Earlier the two stories and the overhanging balcony had been teeming with laughter, and its tiny fairy lanterns had lit up the patio like a wreath of stars.

  This restaurant was another child to her after she had lost so many in different ways. Marisol, gone save for the tango floor Mami had erected for her near the bar. Miguel was in the Sol beer stocking the fridge; Daniella was the intricate menu design. Citlalli and Raina were embedded in the foundation itself: Raina loved the mural of jumping dolphins at Puerto Vallarta and the candles that smelled like the sea. Citlalli was the striking scarlet porch and the golden-stitched carpets that brought this place alive. The restaurant was her child. It was all
of her children.

  Her lip curled. Not bad for an orphan naca who had crawled out of the belly of México City. She had always known she was different than the other street children. She had survived that terrible night’s gunfight while her parents had perished. Her dreams were meant to be lived: Restaurant owner. International food service consultant. And as The Korea Herald had glowingly remarked: “Ileana Alvarez’s passion and dedication to quality are quickly establishing her reputation as ambassador of Mexican cuisine to the Republic of Korea.” She had done it all. It was just a matter of paying the price.

  Wind gusted down the Itaewon alley, silencing the hum of the neon lights and making wooden bar signs creak.

  Have you paid the price, Ileana?

  She walked faster. Shadows crawled up the graffiti-sprayed walls and twisted around colonnades, but she didn’t look. She had learned not to look a long time ago. But a pile of trash was in her way, and something scuffled amongst it. Ileana pulled back to the wall. Her heart thudded as she kept an eye on the shifting debris, and she stepped lightly like she’d learned to do as a young girl when danger was close.

  It was a flock of chickens. Ileana released her breath and shook her head in amusement. If only Nana could see her now! Her brave and adventurous granddaughter, scared witless by a few clucking birds. They must have escaped from old Yana’s Henhouse up the street. Smiling, Ileana checked her cellphone. She’d have to hurry to catch the last subway home.

  Suddenly, the hens rose in an uproar, flapping their stunted wings and squawking as if being chased by a butcher. Ileana fell back, gripping her shawl tighter. At the heart of the feathered fury was a shock-white rooster, its eyes beady red. It ripped open the jugular of a smaller cock, savagely shaking its rival until its feathers glistened rubicund. Then it noticed her watching.

  The white rooster dropped the dead bird and opened its beak. What started as a hiss deepened to a darker and far more mournful sound: the foreboding hoot of an owl.

  No. She hadn’t paid the price. A survivor knew when to fight and when to hide. She’d thought her family was safe on the far side of the world.

  But now They had found her.

  Ileana gathered up her skirts and ran. By the time she left the alley, six warning hoots echoed in her ears.

  Chapter 2: Ablaze

  ~Citlalli~

  It was 8:30 PM on a Friday night, and I, Citlalli Alvarez, newly appointed Alpha of the Seoul werewolf pack and restorer of the White Tiger to the throne of Eve, had two more tables of campers to get through.

  Campers are restaurant customers who decide that they have nowhere else better to be and will take up your section for hours, rarely leaving enough to compensate. Not that tipping was expected in Seoul, but I sure as hell didn’t dissuade them. One table was full of elderly tourists who’d practically cried at being able to pronounce the names of things again. They’d stumbled upon the rare Alvarez Family Mexican Restaurant amidst the bustle of the immigrant district of Itaewon two hours earlier. Awe had enveloped their faces, and their fingers had seized the Western-style silverware with fierce familiarity.

  My other table was a rowdier party of college boys from Seoul National University, who thought they were the shit. They had been taking full advantage of our 10,000 won beer pitcher deal all night.

  Spiro was front-of-house manager tonight. He stood in the back and glared down his nasty long nose at me. I returned the look with equal affection. You’d never catch him in anything less than long sleeves. My brother Miguel and I were convinced that it was because he was a fully decorated veteran of a gang or something equally as bad. He was also an immigrant who spoke spooky-good Korean, so Mami had hired him as the night shift manager.

  My cellphone tweeted like a bird, and my heart leaped to my throat. That was Hyeon Bin’s ringtone. Hyeon Bin was my kidnapped friend Una’s uncle, a fighting monk who was part of the dwindling spirit-walking Won family. I double-booked it to the kitchen and checked the message.

  Disappointment flooded my chest. Peomeosa Temple had been a letdown. No one had seen Fred, the devious nine-tailed fox who had captured Una, since the Lady of Eve’s return to the spirit world. Hyeon Bin’s message said he was following a lead south to Jeju Island, but he would meet me a week from now in Eve.

  I put away the phone and headed briskly for the expo window. This only confirmed it for me. If a nine-hundred-year-old fox didn’t want to be found, then he wouldn’t. Hyeon Bin would not approve, but I needed to lure Fred out…and then bargain whatever I needed to in order to make him return Una safe and sound.

  “Citlalli!” Without fail, Spiro’s nasally voice made me shudder in revulsion. “Citlalli Alvarez!”

  I paused in the middle of hoisting a fully-loaded tray and fixed a polite smile on my face. Albeit, showing a lot of bared teeth.

  “I’m trying to run some food, Spiro.” The tray rattled on my shoulder, and I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my ear. The kitchen door swung open, blowing the scent of grilled chicken and zesty cilantro over my face.

  “Which should have been out five minutes ago. You weren’t texting on the clock, were you?”

  I had gnawed through the throats of undead horrors and picked fights with hungry ghosts. Now the most dangerous thing I could do was sneak in a level of Candy Crush during work. I gave a mock gasp. “There are servers here who do that?”

  Spiro examined me idly. “I need you to close back-of-house tonight for Jung Yeon.”

  I nearly dropped the tray in shock. “What? I closed last night!”

  “She does not feel well,” he stated.

  I glared at Jung Yeon’s head bobbing across the restaurant. Liar. Probably had to study for one of the gazillion tests she was always taking.

  “Here at the Alvarez Family Restaurant, we step up to support one another because we are a family.” Spiro smiled with slightly sharpened teeth. “All of us are equal teammates. Just because one little girl happens to be the daughter of the owner does not mean she shouldn’t be expected to do her share. And after some of the no-show stunts you’ve pulled in the past…” Spiro shrugged, ignoring my buckling knees. “I’m surprised you even know what back-of-house closing is.”

  My body was full on shaking now, but it wasn’t me. It was something else. Wolf wanted to tear the man’s face off. A single golden eye in a midnight-black coat leaped to the forefront of my mind, and I had to use my remaining strength to shove It back. But that left room for Her—

  ~Demon~

  My head snaps up, and I smile at Spiro. It is made all the more disconcerting because of my prosthetic eye, tilted slightly so light slides off the glassy surface. I didn’t make it through the Were War without what the Omega calls a few…injuries. I call them improvements, the best being me, the true Alpha of this shifter body. The Omega shouts and Wolf snarls, but I ignore them both.

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  The little man’s stupid grin disappears. I smile disarmingly again and then turn on my heel, the tray missing him by a hair.

  “Waitress!”

  The college boys. They insist they’ve never left the country, and yet they can converse quite comfortably in English. The implications aren’t lost upon me as I waltz up to their table.

  “Your name one more time? Cit—”

  It feels good to pull these human muscles back in a dangerous smile. “My name is Citlalli.”

  “Very beautiful,” the leader says, tilting a head of cropped black hair. “My name is Minho. It is nice to meet you.”

  “Pangapseumnida,” I reply in turn, and a chorus of polite “Ohhhs!” breaks out over my elementary nice to meet you greeting. Minho nods to his friends.

  “Citlalli,” he says more confidently, hoisting up his pint glass, “you are a very good waitress. These—how do I say—?”

  “Empanadas.”

  “They are very…delicious!”

  One of the other boys raises an empty pint glass. “One more round.”

  I tilt
my head so my thick black curls cascade over my shoulder. “Here? On a Friday night? Don’t you think this restaurant is a little…boring?”

  Minho understands my meaning. He’s a smart one. I keep my smile fixed on him as he stutters about for a response.

  “Maybe, but…you are here. So it is not boring.”

  “What if I were somewhere else?” I pretend to think. “Please tell me you know Club Karma.”

  “Karma? Oh! It is very fun club!”

  I shrug. “Let’s go.”

  “Yes, but…” Minho looks around confusedly. “You at work?”

  “Yana, take Table 10,” I call over my shoulder. No point in hanging around a restaurant in a country where tipping isn’t expected. The smaller girl nods meekly. I smile. Daughter of the restaurant owner unimportant, my ass.

  “Minho, give me your credit card to close out. And then, let’s…go.”

  We go. I just have time to see a red-faced Spiro dash over to a cringing Yana, and then the door slams shut.

  I laugh and light up a cigarette with Minho. It’s about time I ditch this piece-of-shit job anyway. One of Minho’s friends magically produces a case of soju, and we toast each other as we walk, the neon-glowing cityscape of Itaewon spreading far and wide before us.

  A laughing black monkey points the way to Club Karma. We spy him painted on road signs and plastered on the side of street vendor carts. Wolf’s ears pick up the deep beat pulsing beneath the ground, and then we shove open the grimy door leading down into the concrete earth.

  All around, people hug the walls and climb atop platforms to escape from the throbbing mob on the dance floor. The liquor runs smooth and sweet in shiny purple buckets that you could take to the beach. Minho tucks a pink paper umbrella behind my ear. I laugh and drain the last of the bucket dry. Green lights wink like exploding stars. The giant monkey spray-painted on the wall appears to leap around the room, laughing at some angles and snarling at others. Minho shoves more crinkled bills into the bartender’s hand. We cheer with our buckets. I grab Minho’s hand, and we fight our way over to the platform protruding up from the heart of the dance floor like a lone island.