Dragon’s Fire Read online

  “It’s not a very well-known process,” he continued. “Kind of a hack, if you will. You just piggyback off of the demon’s dark energy.

  “Piggyback?”

  “Yeah, you turn it back on them. I’ll show you next time we go demon hunting.”

  “I was sort of hoping I’d never encounter another demon.”

  “C’mon! We had fun that day. I especially enjoyed catching you as you fell five stories.”

  “It was only three stories.”

  “Guess I should have let you fall then,” he said. “Hey, do me a favor and don’t remind Barrymore that I borrowed the tooth. I might possibly already be on the vault’s shit list.”

  “Really? I’m stunned.” I arched a sarcastic eyebrow. “But…as thanks for catching me, I guess I can let it slide.”

  “If you really want to thank me, then let’s go get a drink.”

  Ignoring the question, I asked, “How am I supposed to get it to the museum if it’s not in a jade box?”

  “You’ll be fine. I had it in my backpack for a week and a half. Just put it in your pocket. Sometimes Stroud is just a nervous nellie.”

  Instead of just throwing it in my bag, I took out a hard sunglasses case and put the pendant in there. It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep it safe for now.

  “At least you’re cuter than the last errand boy.” Stryker smirked. “Of course, I think he had an unfortunate run-in with an unruly pack of ghouls.”

  Ghouls. I hated ghouls. The mere idea of the semi-dead made my skin crawl.

  “Sure you don’t want to grab a drink later?” he called after me as I headed towards the elevator. “I’m buying.”

  “Yeah about that… I have to study.”

  “Wow, a girl hasn’t said that to me since the 11th grade.”

  * * *

  The Museum of Asian Art and Antiquities in Chinatown sat just east across Downtown LA. I crossed over the spaghetti tangle of freeways, leaving behind the glass high rises as I first passed the oldest part of Los Angeles near Olivera Street and Union Station, then on to Chinatown. A string of red painted lanterns draped across the Chinese style pagoda let me know I’d entered another world. Locals and tourists strolled the sidewalks going in and out of cafes and shops.

  So far I’d been involved in three other cases. First, obviously, was the troll with the stolen pendant. That job turned out to be deceptively easy. Then I retrieved the missing Helmet of Invisibility that had been “borrowed” by a maid trying to get back at her ex-boyfriend. I tracked the helmet down all by myself—btw— even after more experienced agents had already spent weeks failing to locate it. All was good until Stryker swooped in and stole the helmet literally right out of my hands. He then miraculously managed to redeem himself when he helped me with the rouge vampire/demon episode that saved Sam’s life. I was in way over my head on that case. Luckily, we managed to kill the vampire, releasing the vampire’s curse on Sam and freeing him from the terrible fate of turning into a vampire.

  Following my car’s GPS, I arrived at the northern end of Broadway Avenue, the oldest part of Chinatown, where I spotted a replica of ancient Chinese palace standing behind a canopy of mature bamboo plants and eucalyptus trees. A sign written in both English and Chinese let me know that this was the museum. There was plenty of street parking this far away from the livelier business section.

  My phone told me it was just past 5:30pm as I climbed the broad cement steps, passing a trickle of patrons leaving the museum. As I pushed through the ornate brass and glass entrance doors, a voice called out.

  “We’re closing, ma’am. Open again tomorrow at 10am,” said a huge Asian guard wearing a red jacket.

  “I’m not a visitor.” I handed him the document Stroud had given me. “I’m here to see Dr. Chen.”

  Skeptical, he pulled out the letter, but when he read it, his face changed, and he bowed respectfully and let me pass. “Of course, Ms. McCray. Dr. Chen is waiting for you.”

  The guard gave me directions to the curators’ offices in the back. Walking through the surprisingly large museum, I passed a fantastic collection of Mongolian mummies, terracotta soldiers, ancient art and ceramics. I made a mental note to come back when I had more time. Since it was closing time, only a few stragglers remained, along with a cluster of college kids trailing behind a dull sounding professor lecturing on the history of the Ming dynasty.

  Even though I knew Dr. Chen was waiting for me, I paused briefly to read the description of the biggest mummy I had ever seen. Asian mummies weren’t the same as Egyptian Mummies. They weren’t wrapped in cloth. Instead, they looked like hard, dried prunes of a human shell, so brittle a single touch might shatter what remained of them.

  Examining the large mummy, a former Buddhist monk, I heard the soft pad of footsteps behind me. But when I turned my head, no one was there. I spun a circle. Nobody was in the previous gallery, either.

  Alone, I continued, picking up my pace slightly. The deeper I got into the museum, the fewer people I encountered. Lights began clicking off in the nearby galleries as the museum grew dim.

  Crossing through a narrow gallery filled with nothing but carved Chinese urns from the Ming Dynasty, I thought I saw a shadow silently slink up behind me. I whipped around. No one there. My imagination was playing tricks on me.

  Finally, I arrived at the last gallery dedicated to the art of the Buddhist temples of ancient China. All the way at the end, the entrance to the curator’s office stood along the back wall. Large metal bells, salvaged from an ancient temple, hung from the ceiling getting bigger and bigger as I walked under them toward the office. Temple bells. Their design was much simpler than European cathedral bells. But there was something so elegant in their shape that I wished I could hear them toll.

  Arriving at a pair of double glass doors marked Curators’ Office:private, I tugged on the handle, but it was locked. Unsure, I knocked. The guard told me that they’d be unlocked. The office behind the doors looked empty. Everyone appeared to have gone home for the evening. I knocked again.

  As I waited, I heard a slight metal vibration then the sound of a cable snapping. Directly over my head, the most massive of the metal bells had broken free from the thick cable that secured it to the ceiling. I scrambled, but still couldn’t get out of the path of the massive plummeting bell.

  All I could do was close my eyes.

  Chapter Three

  An instant before I was crushed under the weight of the ginormous bell, a hand roughly yanked me out of the way, slamming me to the ground. I’d gotten safely out of the path of the tumbling bell a split second before it crashed down, giving rise to a horrible, ear-splitting, endlessly reverberating claaaannnngggg.

  From the floor, I looked over my shoulder to see that my savior was a mild-mannered Asian man in his late 50s, wearing a neat black suit, crisp white shirt, and square black glasses. He stood looking down at me with concern.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, offering a hand.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied as he helped me to my feet. I casually patted my messenger bag to make sure the eyeglasses case protecting the pendant was still in one piece.

  As the bell’s endless reverberation finally faded away, a pair of museum guards on high alert thundered in.

  “It’s okay, gentlemen,” the man said with authority. He was the sort of man who commanded respect with his distinguished demeanor and confident voice. “Thankfully, she is unharmed.”

  “Yes, sir,” one of the guards said with a deferential bow.

  “Please, make sure the entire museum is secure.” The man politely requested, but it was more of an order than a request. “No one gets in or out. Complete lockdown.”

  The guards bowed then scattered. I waited for someone from the museum to hurry in to check the condition of the temple bell. But no one seemed even the least bit concerned about the massive—presumably priceless— ancient artifact lying on its side, like a fallen soldier, on the ground.

  When
the guards were gone, the man leaned in and quietly asked, “Do you have it?”

  I tried not to react or change my facial expression. Something felt off. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

  “I’m Dr. Elias Chen. I believe Mr. Stroud sent you with a package for me.” His eyes darted to the messenger bag slung crosswise over my left shoulder. I instinctively tightened my grip on the strap as I watched his eyes flash like he could feel the pendant’s magic. “You don’t have it secured in jade?”

  “It’s secure,” I replied sharply, giving away my secret. But if he could feel its energy permeating through my bag, then so could many other wizards.

  “We must go.” The man, who claimed to be Dr. Chen, moved away from the curator’s door toward the gallery’s exit. “We’re not safe here.”

  I still didn’t move. “I’m sorry, sir. Do you have some sort of I.D. or something?”

  He stopped and sighed. It took him a moment to remember which pocket held his laminated museum I.D. He finally pulled it from his trouser pocket and handed it to me. It identified him as Dr. Elias Chen, and the photo matched his face. Strange, powerful magic crackled off of him. He was a wizard. Not exactly sure what kind. But a wizard still.

  “Were you following me, Dr. Chen?” I handed the I.D. back. “When I was walking back here?”

  “Following you?” He laughed. “Of course not.”

  “Someone was,” I said. “So how do I know you didn’t make the bell fall?”

  “Please, we must go. I will be happy to answer all of your questions once we get to a more secure location.”

  “But I was specifically told to go to the curator’s office.” I pointed at the door behind me.

  “Believe me. I have a much safer place.” His eyes drifted to the bell on the floor. “Dark forces are after what you so carelessly possess.”

  Before I could defend myself, he turned and marched off. All I could do was follow. I struggled to keep up as he snaked his way through a chain of seemingly identical galleries, turning left, then right, then right again. I silently wished for a sack of breadcrumbs to drop so I could leave a trail to find my way back.

  Zig-zagging through the museum, we arrived at a nondescript gallery tucked into an out-of-the-way corner of the museum. The small square space was filled with nothing but Asian animal statuary; a terra-cotta elephant, a large metal horse, a Buddhist monk with a dog’s head and several dralions—fierce half-lion, half-dragon guardians.

  Dr. Chen stood in front of an empty patch of wall. He folded his hand in front of his chest, closed his eyes and quietly chanted something in what I suspected was Mandarin Chinese. A spell? After he completed the incantation, a previously unseen door materialized in the wall. He pulled it open, revealing a small hidden chamber.

  “After you.” He politely gestured.

  Impressed with his magic, I stepped into some sort of clean room with bright white walls and Lucite floors. Only a stainless steel table stood in the center of the room. Two young Asian women, wearing bulky magnifying glasses, white coats and masks, leaned over a tall carved panel that looked like it came from the palace of some Asian Emperor. They were doing the painstakingly delicate work of art preservation.

  I stepped closer to get a better look. The panels told some story through the carved images. I saw a dragon emerging from a mountain as a crowd of tiny people below fled. The next image portrayed the dragon setting fire to a village. In the next, a warrior battled the dragon. The final carving displayed the warrior now riding on the back of the tamed dragon.

  The second panel was all about a giant bird. And a feather.

  Dr. Chen saw me studying the art and said, “These were palace doors from the early Ming Dynasty and tell the Chinese story of the four elements. In my culture, the ancients believed that the world was composed of four basic elements that sustain life: fire, water, air, and earth. In Ancient China, a single wizard grew so powerful that he could control all four elements by enchanting four different items: the feather of Phoenix controls flight, the scale of the mermaid allows one to command water, the tiger’s tail provides unlimited strength, and most dangerous of all, the dragon’s tooth controls fire.”

  “That sounds like part of a local origination myth,” I replied. Many cultures had a story about how man came into the world, and where we got our abilities. They’re the “in the beginning” stories.

  He raised an eyebrow, re-appraising me. “You sound more like a scholar than a Society seeker, Ms. McCray.”

  “I suppose I’m a little of both,” I explained. “But, to be honest, I’m mostly a grad student studying the history of magic.”

  “Now that we are in a secure location, may I see the pendant?” he asked as he put on protective gloves.

  I pulled the sunglasses case from my bag and handed it over.

  “And what happened to the jade box?” His eyes flicked from the case up to my face in clear disapproval of my method of transportation.

  “Right, about that…” I began. “Unfortunately, I was unable to acquire it.”

  “Stroud lost the Box of Canton?” He sounded outraged.

  “No, no.” I put a hand up. “It’s still back at the Society’s headquarters. I retrieved the pendant from an… intermediary who didn’t have the box with him, and since we were on a deadline… But I can go back and get it.”

  “No.” He sighed wearily, like a man with too much on his mind. “This will have to do.”

  He slowly opened the sunglasses case and carefully removed the half dragon’s tooth. Under the bright lights of the clean room, the tooth faintly glowed and slightly smoked.

  “The tooth is reacting.” Dr. Chen quickly closed the case.

  “Is that bad?” I asked tentatively. “Because when I first recovered it from the troll’s lair, it did the same thing. It smoked and sparked.”

  “That’s not possible.” He shook his head. ”When did this happen?”

  “Right after I recovered it. Last week. On my way back to the Society, I made a quick stop to show it to a friend.”

  “A friend?” He sounded alarmed.

  I explained that I’d brought it to Mr. Radagast, a magical objects vendor and expert. As we examined it in his store, smoke drifted up. At the time, we hadn’t thought all that much of it.

  Dr. Chen looked over at the two girls who had stopped working and were listening to our conversation. When his eyes fell on them, they dutifully went back to work. He turned back to me. “You have no idea how much danger you and your friend were in.”

  “What do you mean?” The idea that I had to put Mr. Radagast in any danger was upsetting. A bad feeling grew inside me.

  “She was close by when you were examining the tooth.”

  “Who was?”

  Instead of answering my question, he asked, “Did Mr. Stroud tell you that I was on the excavation when this tooth was discovered?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was fifteen years ago, deep in the Himalayan Mountains. Dr. Camille Song, an archeologist, found the dragon’s tooth, totally intact. It was remarkable to discover such a specimen in one piece. The local villagers said we would never find the cave, let alone a dragon’s tooth. They believed that the teeth had been lost to mankind forever.”

  “How did you find the location?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was Dr. Song. It was as if she could feel the tooth’s energy.”

  “I heard she was tragically killed in the process.”

  His expression darkened. “You don’t know the full story. No one does. We knew that we had to be very careful with the tooth. It was clear from the moment we saw it that it was highly enchanted with the dark and powerful energy. As we transported from the underground mine back up to the surface, we were almost killed when our tunnel collapsed. Dr. Song’s backpack was ripped from her body. Fearing that she would lose it with the tooth inside, she scrambled after the pack. The tooth somehow tore a hole in the side of the bag. As she grabbed the falling bag, she was de
eply cut by the end of the tooth.”

  I understood the implication of being cut by the tooth. If an item cursed with dark magic draws blood, it could infect that person with its dark power — if it didn’t kill them first.

  “For most, that cut would have been a death sentence,” he said. “Most would have died a horrific death by fire. A long, painful death. Their blood slowly boiling from the inside, their skin burning and crackling. The hair on their body would become singed and blackened.”

  I cringed. Mr. Stroud hadn’t bothered to mention that. Now I more fully understood the dangers of possessing this tooth — even if it was only half. “What a terrible way for her to die.”

  “No, she didn’t die,” Dr. Chen said.

  “But—”

  “She was already a strong witch. Instead, she somehow harnessed the dragon’s power and took control of the power of fire.” He nodded gravely. “A curse. Not a blessing. The whole tooth warped her mind, transformed her into a monster.”

  “But she no longer controls the tooth?” I asked, pointing out the obvious. I had just returned half of it.

  “She has the other half. That is why this half is so important. Once we understood that the tooth had taken ahold of her, my group and I managed to get it away from her.” He went on to explain further, “But a dragon’s tooth cannot be destroyed. We found a way to break it in half.”

  “So you separated the two parts to divide the power.”

  “The two halves are ineffective unless you put them together.”

  “I kept this half with me for a long while. I wore it tucked underneath my shirt with a strong enchantment surrounded it. But more than once, she almost ambushed me and stole the tooth,” he explained. “Because I live and work in Beijing, I sent this halfway around the world to this museum. It has been hidden here for fourteen years. Then ten days ago, I got word that that location had been compromised, and the other half of the tooth had been stolen. I am very grateful to you for returning it.”