Greater Treasures
From the Case Files of DragonEye, PI
By
Karina Fabian
Copyright 2013 Karina Fabian
http://fabianspace.com
http://dragoneyepi.net
Greater Treasures: From the Case Files of DragonEye, PI
Written by: Karina Fabian
Cover art by: Sarah-Jane Lehoux
Edited by: Chris Speakman and Pamela Luther
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapters
*
Dragon and Nun
Dart in the Dark
Junior & the Fat Man
Fall Drake
Faerie-Go-Round
Santry
The Roman Lance
The Lord’s Gift
*
Dragon & Nun
Imagine a world where technology and magic coexist, and humans rub shoulders with mystical creatures on a daily basis. Sound ideal? Forget it. The Interdimensional Gap opened between the Mundane and Faerie several years ago, and a lot of us Magicals have followed the lure of a brave new world to settle here in Los Lagos—but just because we’re bumping shoulders with you Mundanes doesn’t mean all’s well in paradise. More often than not, reality is as far away from ideal as your cartoonified versions of fairy tales are from the tales of the Brothers Grimm.
“Coexist” makes a great bumper sticker, but it’s not so easy when your kind are trying to kill me and mine—and now they have the access to weapons from two worlds to do it.
I was watching TV with my partner and roommate, Sister Grace, a high mage for the Faerie Catholic Church, when we heard the dogs barking outside.
I lifted my head to listen. "Customer."
"Just as well," Grace sighed with some relief as she turned off the TV. The local Geraldo-wannabe had invited a couple of Mundane Neo-Nazis and some Faerie toughs to discuss their differences. One skinhead had just finished announcing that once they had eradicated the "fairy contagion,” they'd resume their crusade to purify the "proper" human race. I'd been betting the audience would storm the stage and was kind of looking forward to the ensuing ruckus. Dragons like ruckus.
Grace hid the TV by closing the door to the closet in which it stood, and then peered out the mini-blinds. "She's good with the dogs—friendly, but not gushing over them. Nice outfit—business, but not too out of place. Sensible shoes. Her hair's redder than mine."
The window was partly open, so I used my sniffer. "Out of a bottle. She's got money, too. More than anybody should carry around in this part of town."
"Good. The mortgage is due and I need some supplies for the workshop. And I've flooded the local arcane market in Faerie with dragon urine."
I shrugged. Every part of a dragon, from fangs to fewmets, as some kind of magical value and is highly prized in the arcane market on Faerie. Of course, St. George had taken most of that away from me with his spell, but there was one thing he couldn't mess with, and that was a natural reaction of dragon digestion. I didn't mind filling a few bottles to sell. Too much of our work depended on Grace's magic.
"Here she comes," Grace said and took her place at her desk. She used a cantrip to open the door just before our stranger could.
"Welcome to Dragon Eye Private Investigation Agency," I said as she stood there, mouth open in a dainty “oh!” of surprise. "I'm Vern and this is Sister Grace. How can we help you?"
Grace indicated a chair, and our visitor sat hastily, perching on the edge. Her hair was a golden red; someone went to a lot of trouble to get all those dark roots. Brown contacts hid her blue eyes and made them look mysterious and innocent. She had one of those figures popular with Mundanes today—curvy without being hourglass—her legs half-hidden under a tight skirt she seemed accustomed to without actually liking. She clutched a carefully-not-too-expensive pocketbook in front of her. Her nails were short, pink, and fake. She was trying to look scared and unsure, and doing a fair job of it, but you can't fool a predator.
"My name is Eva, Eva Heidler, and I need help. It's my brother, Weylin. He's gone and joined some cult; I think it's called the Brotherhood of Baal?"
Grace and I exchanged longsuffering glances. "Baal?" I sighed. "You know, I realize there's a lot they don't teach in Mundane schools, but you have the SyFy channel. A couple of episodes of Stargate and you'd know he's bad news. They got that much right."
It never ceases to irritate me how Mundanes refuse to understand Magicals. It's been nearly a decade since the Gap opened between this world and mine, and people still think catching a leprechaun will get them gold and not a debilitating curse. Many of our worst cases started out with some idiot thinking the supernatural realm held the answers to all their problems. Looks like we'd just gotten another one.
"I've been trying to get to him, but he's in some kind of isolation, probably because of me. I found a man who said he can arrange a meeting, but only if I… He wants me to..." She reddened. "I thought, maybe, if you'd take the case, I could meet him and put him off one more day. Then, you could follow him back, and he'd lead you to my brother."
"How much do you know about this cult?" Grace asked.
"I don't. I just know that a couple of weeks ago, he'd made some new friends, and they kept talking on and on about Baal. Last week, he came home with a tattoo that said 'Brotherhood of Baal.' Two nights ago, he was gone. Our parents died a couple of years ago, and I've been trying to do the best I can, but… Please, find him for me, and I'll get him all the help he needs." Her eyes filled with tears then. Nice touch.
"When are you supposed to meet this man?" Grace asked sympathetically, though I don't think she bought the story any more than I did.
Eva gave us the address of the hotel and the time she'd be in the lobby, and then pulled out a roll of bills. Tremblingly, she laid them out, a combination of Faerie and Mundane, watching for some signal it was enough. I let her lay out the price of a couple of her expensive perms and manicures before I leaned forward. "Don't take any notice of us tonight. We'll contact you when we have something."
*
That evening, Grace came down from her room looking far less comfortable in her thrift store slacks than Eva had in her expensive skirt. She had a light jacket over her sweater and under it, her guardian angel medallion.
"Well?" she asked, doing a spin in her sneakers.
"Very Mundane. But I still think I should go."
She didn't protest the logic of a twelve-foot, quarter-ton, scarlet-and-black North African Faerie Wyvern trying to discreetly tail anyone in the streets of Los Lagos. Instead, she asked, "Still got a bad feeling about this?"
"She's unicorn bait."
"I know," she sighed. "But if there's a cult of Baal brewing, the Church needs to know. Especially now, with tensions between the Faerie and Mundanes so high, which is another reason why I have to go."
"Just…be careful. Follow him, don't get seen, and call me once you find his hideout."
"Vern, I've been doing this for how many years now? I think I can handle a simple tail job." Grace laughed.
It was the last time I'd hear her laugh for a long time.
Dart in the Da
rk
I was trying to distract myself with a late-night movie—a real stinker, so bad I couldn't even pan it properly—when the phone rang. I snatched it up on the first ring. "Grace?"
"Vern, it's Kel…”
"Oh, God," I prayed.
Ten minutes later, I was standing at Grace's bedside at Los Lagos General, trying very hard to keep from bumping the various tubes and machines they'd attached to her to keep her alive. Kel—Officer Killian—was with me. When I’d arrived, a uniformed officer I didn’t recognize followed me in and was eyeballing me warily from the door. Guess he didn’t like a dragon lurking around a good Mundane hospital. The doc was giving me the evil eye, too.
"It was sheer luck we found her," Kel was saying. "There are always screams in that neighborhood, usually domestic disputes, but this lady kept calling insisting it was different. Then one of our rookies passed by the area without noticing anything, but decided to go back. She said she had a funny feeling, like someone was leading her."
I pulled down the collar of Grace's gown with one claw. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Uniform's hand reach for his sidearm—like I was the threat to her. "Where's her pendant?"
"Her what?"
"Guardian angel pendant. It probably saved her life." I was about to chew the lot out for divesting a mage of her of her protections when Kel smacked his forehead, muttered, "Oh, right," and dug through the closet. Father Rich sneaked in just as Kel found it, squeezing past the officer and giving him a chiding look. Uniform’s hand dropped from his sidearm to his side.
“I came as soon as I heard the news,” he said before crossing the air over Grace and murmuring a prayer. Kel handed Father Rich the medallion, and he, in turn, held it out in his open palm toward me. I set my clawed hand over his.
Together, we murmured a prayer to reactivate the spell. I felt a slight tingle of magic, but it was weak. The charm had been totally sapped. Father Rich put it back on Grace’s neck, being careful of the ventilator.
"I don't think magic will help her," the doctor noted with professional pessimism. "She was shot with a dart gun full of poison, animal tranquilizers, and iron."
I jerked my attention from Grace's too-still features to look at Kel. He held up his hands to show me the size of the dart. Big enough to take down an elephant.
Or a dragon.
I answered Kel's questions: Yes, she was on a job. I gave him a description of the perp she was trailing, but not our client's name. No, I didn't know who might have done it. There were plenty of folks, Mundane and Faerie, who didn't like me—seriously, take a number. But most were smart enough to tell a human from a dragon, and most knew an error like this would only make me angry, and they wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Kel answered my questions: No, no eye witnesses, just a lady who heard screams. No sign of struggle. Needle on the dart made of titanium, which would pierce through my scales nicely. Grace had been shot in the back from far enough range that it broke a rib and bruised the surrounding tissue but didn't damage any internal organs. When the doctor was less than forthcoming about his patient's—my partner's—condition, Kel supplied those answers, too, before I lost my temper and had an early breakfast of flame-broiled physician. The picture he painted was enough to make me forget Doctor Doubter’s prejudice.
After Kel left, I stuck around just long enough to say the Sorrowful Mysteries with Father Rich. I wasn't going to make Grace better by worrying, and there was only so much my prayers would do.
It was just after four in the morning when I finally left. Even with a cloudy moonless sky, I wasn't taking any chances. I activated the "stealth charm" Grace had made for me after watching a documentary on stealth technology and headed to the scene. What little light there was curved and diffused around me, so that I was at most a ripple in the night sky. Maybe on a bright, starry night, someone would notice, but tonight the baddies would have to be using enhanced Sight and be actively looking for me. Even then, they’d have to be lucky to see me.
I circled the neighborhood where they'd found Grace, my own superior senses straining to pick up anything unusual while the rest of my brain mulled over motives and suspects.
There were plenty of people (and I use that term loosely) who wanted to see me dead. Since the Gap had opened up between the universes and I'd hung my shingle in this one, I’ve saved both worlds several times, many of them before I'd teamed up with Grace.
And after every Save The Universes Case, there were more beings who promised their revenge than who were grateful. I rarely ever get a bonus for my troubles. They say crime doesn't pay, but inadvertent heroism doesn't satisfy the electric company, either. Still, most of the vengeful-types weren't this sloppy. They would have used weapons specific to a human Church high mage for Grace and saved the elephant gun for me. Even more, the mix of poison and iron wouldn't have done more than slow me down. It didn’t make sense--unless they were sending me a message.
If so, the illiterates should have used the postal service.
There was nothing unusual that I could find, no scent of magic to indicate either an arcane attack or Grace defending herself, no suspicious leavings that would suggest a person lying in ambush. Kel said their rookie found Grace in the shadows of an alley, but I couldn't find any evidence that she'd been dragged there. Had she already found her mark and was skulking in the shadows, or was she drawn there—and if so, how and by whom?
I chanced landing in the alley, scaring off the usual complement of vermin and strays. Whatever had happened here hadn't been high-powered or unfamiliar enough to scare away the locals. There was the usual graffiti on the walls, including the swastika "stamped" over a sketch of the Mundane-accepted symbol for Faerie, a black oak. Looked like it'd been there awhile. I fought the urge to rake my claws over it.
Dragons are territorial by nature, and I'd claimed Los Lagos as my territory for as far as I could fly in a morning in general and certain areas inside that in particular. It was something the Faerie, human and Magical, understood, and, for the most part, respected. Even when they tried to operate above, below, or around the laws of God and Man, they were always aware they risked the chance of dealing with me. Mundanes, however, were slower on the pick-up.
I wondered what it was going to take to explain it to them—and how much it would cost me with God. Just as every good deed earned me back some of my former dragon glory, every sin was paid with remission.
I decided to risk it. The bricks rasped in gravelly protest as I raked my claws across the red-painted symbol of hate. Maybe some of them could take a hint.
There wasn't anything more to be gained from hanging around, so I took to the air and headed to Eva's hotel.
The Inn at Los Lagos was in the city center, an aging four-story affair that towered over the buildings in its immediate area, yet was dwarfed by the newer office buildings just a few blocks away. Still, the economic boom that the opening of the Gap had brought to Los Lagos had saved the hotel from disappearing into obscurity, and its new stucco job attested to some major renovations while the overbearing neon billboard in front declared its pleasure in welcoming both Faerie and Mundanes to the Comparative Artifacts Conference.
Despite their advertised open-mindedness, this was not an area I usually frequented, and I didn't want to send any night desk clerk screaming for his mommy, so I invited myself to Eva's balcony on the third floor. I landed with a lightness of foot most Mundanes are surprised to find in a dragon and tapped on her sliding glass door with one claw until I heard movement from within. Then I tapped a little more until I heard the footfalls heading my way.
Eva pulled back the vertical blinds, gave a little shriek to see my face only inches from the plate glass, and hastened to unlock the door and pull it open. She stepped out quickly, pulling her silk robe more tightly around her against the cool early morning air. Her face was washed clean of make-up, though she still had the contacts in. Her hair wasn't too badly rumpled. She didn't look like she'd been asleep, nor like sh
e'd been making a restless attempt at it, either.
She regarded me with confusion for a moment, but whether in surprise or because she wasn't sure how to address me, or both. I couldn’t tell. Finally, she stammered, "I wasn't expecting you until the morning—I mean later this morning. Is something wrong? My brother?"
"Never found your brother. My partner has been shot."
"Oh my God!” She swayed a little and looked for a seat to collapse in, but when none offered itself, she swallowed hard instead and invited me in.
She’d rented herself a comfortable little suite, done in a fair replica of Duke Galen's guest rooms, but on a much smaller scale. She hadn’t unpacked her suitcase, although I caught the glimpse of a dress through the crack in the closet door. Red, some kind of rayon I’d bet, with bling sewn into the top. Probably what she wore to the bar. I’m sure if I asked her about it, she’d have some excuse about trying to be convincing. Frankly, I didn’t care.
Eva walked restlessly to the nightstand, pulled out the chair, but didn't sit in it. "What happened?" she asked as she watched her own fingers tap a nervous staccato upon its carved lacquered wood.
"That's what I need to know. Tell me everything that happened this evening."
"Well, I…I met that man at the lobby. I think Sister Grace was there, but I couldn't be sure. I think it was her—silvery red hair, wearing a bulky fisherman's sweater over dark slacks?"
I nodded, and she began to pace as she continued. "We went into the bar. I didn't really look, like I'd promised, but I think Sister Grace followed us in. He bought me a drink I barely touched. I refused to take things any further until he took me to my brother, but I gave him enough to keep him interested—"
"Right there in the bar?"
Suddenly, she stopped and met my gaze straight on. "Listen, I don't know how you dragons do it—"
"We don't."
"Then you'll have to take my word for it. There are ways to be discreet and yet keep things…interesting." For a moment, she smirked, then seemed to remember herself and shuddered.
Greater Treasures: A DragonEye Novella Page 1