Hunting Down Dragons (Moonlight Dragon #2) (15 page)

"Pull over," Vale directed quietly.

Melanie jerked the car over beside a mound of rusted junk which upon closer inspection proved to be an old Studebaker. Wildflowers sprouted from cracks between the windshield and the hood.

"I'll be around," Vale said and then he jumped out quickly, preventing me from yelling at him for not keeping Melanie company like he'd said he would.

But honestly, I wasn't surprised. Vale had been after the golem-maker for two decades. He was as curious as I about Dearborn and his creations.

I motioned for Melanie to continue driving down the road. When I glanced in the sideview mirror, I saw a dark form lift into the air and disappear overhead.

We left the little "town" of Nelson and headed onto a narrowing road. Dearborn hadn't specified where to meet him, but he and I both knew that I'd sense the location when I came to it.

Sure enough, not three minutes and a few hills later, I told Melanie to stop the car.  She looked around wildly but I hadn't seen Dearborn nor evidence that he was near. I just had a feeling that this was it.

I turned to her. "Drive back to Nelson. Wait there for me. Do not, under any circumstances, come looking for me or try to help. You'll only make things worse for me."

"I understand." Thank god for a best friend who didn't jump to the wrong conclusions. She pulled me into a quick, crushing hug. "Be careful, Anne. Please!"

"No worries, Melly." I gave her a wink and then exited the car.

I heard her make a three-point turn and head back up the road. Soon, it was just me on the one-way road, surrounded by hills of cacti. Ahead of me, about another three miles, lay Eldorado Canyon and the Colorado River. I hoped I wouldn't have to walk that far to find Dearborn. I wasn't much of a fan of moonlit strolls in rattlesnake country.

I began walking, senses attuned for movement. The skies were clear. Vale was nowhere in sight, but I hadn't expected him to be. He was probably a master at creeping around without anyone noticing.

I topped a rise in the road and there beneath me stood Felix Dearborn
.

He was dressed all in black, and he was taller than I expected. Taller than Vale. Unlike Vale, Dearborn had the beginnings of a hefty gut. The moonlight accentuated the oblong shape of his head and made the Texas-shaped birthmark on his forehead appear to glow. I took a quick look around but didn't see anyone else nor any signs of golems.

"Anne," Dearborn breathed as I drew to a stop twenty feet from him. He curled and uncurled his meaty hands but I didn't sense any tension from him. He wasn't envisioning wrapping his hands around my throat. Not yet.

"Dearborn," I greeted. "I've decided I'm going to give you a choice: you can cooperate with me or I'll toast you like a marshmallow. Fair enough?"

He smiled. He had a weirdly small mouth. It made me question how he managed to cram enough food into his body to contribute to that big belly.

"You're in such a hurry, Anne," he cooed. "I thought we were here to get to know each other. I know so much about you…don't you want to know about me?"

Thankfully he didn't pout, otherwise I would have kicked him in the balls. I crossed my arms instead.

"Fine. Tell me where the necromancy artifact is. What does it look like?"

He shook his head, looking disappointed. To our left, somewhere in the hills, a snake shook its rattler in a quiet, rain-like susurration.

"Don't you want to know how I lured your mother and father to their deaths?"

Lucky churned and roiled behind my breastbone, begging to be released, but I knew Dearborn's game. He was looking for reaction. He'd have to wait.

"So you're saying the gargoyle golem you made was a trick?" I asked. "To what, put them on that road at a certain time—"

Dearborn balled his hands into fists. "I could have killed them at any time. I don't need a time or a place, Anne. I have the power to snuff out life like
that
." He snapped his chubby fingers. "No, the funny part is that all along, though they thought they were chasing me, I was chasing them. Well, her.
Iris
."

Another sigh of my mother's name. Dearborn definitely harbored some kind of weird fixation with her.

"Why chase them?" I demanded, though I wasn't sure I really wanted to know.

As I'd feared, his moon face took on a dreamy expression. "Why wouldn't I chase her? Your mother was so powerful. So regal. So magnificent. When I began going down the list of Chinese dragons in Las Vegas, I knew as soon as I saw her photo that she would be my first."

"Your first what?" I cringed, waiting for his answer.

"My first set of bones in this city, of course."

I shook my head. A fly whizzed past, wings flapping noisily. "What are you talking about?"

"You met my troll," Dearborn reminded me. He gave a wheezing sort of laugh and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "You held its breath of life in your hands. You gave it to the Magnificent Rob."

"The bone chips," I said slowly, with a dawning sense of horror. "Zach said that they were dragon bones."

"There's extraordinary power to be found in the bones of dragons, Anne. Add an aleph and you have the ability to breathe life into dirt. Into the garbage of humanity. Into anything."

"And you wanted to use my mom's bones for…" I shuddered violently. I was highly conscious of the fact that no one had said what had happened to my parents after they went over the cliff. "Did you..?" I couldn't bring myself to say it.

Dearborn's moue of disappointment was real, I was grateful to see. "After all the work I'd done to entice her to go after my golem…when the final moment came, I was prevented from reaching her. I couldn't do what I'd planned all along to do. To harvest her."

Harvest her.

I wanted to punch Dearborn in the face because it would hurt but it wouldn't kill him. I wanted that more than his death: I wanted his pain. It was the only way to make him feel a fraction of what I felt at learning that my parents had been killed so that my mom's skeleton could be stolen and used for golem-making.

"I thought that was my last chance," Dearborn went on, shaking his head sadly. "The other dragons in town are all male dragons. Their bones aren't as suited for my work. Like much in nature, the females of a species hold the true power. I knew of you, of course, but you're only a hybrid dragon. I thought I needed pureblood for my golems…until Vagasso told me something quite interesting."

The utterance of that dark spirit stiffened my spine. I'd had only one encounter with Vagasso, and I'd been on the losing end of it when he used his magick to punch me into a pool. He'd been toying with me then, unaware of the danger I presented to him. I had no desire to face him when he was legitimately trying to kill me.

"How do you know Vagasso?" I asked Dearborn.

From the corners of my eyes I noted that the shadows seemed darker, the hills seemed to loom. I imagined a hundred rattlesnakes slithering toward me, compelled by Vagasso's dark magick.

"Years ago, before I came to this city, I led an excavation outside of Cairo, Egypt."

"Merimde Beni Salame," I cut in, startling him.

"Why, yes. Very good, Anne. Did you know that Egypt is a country that harbors so many artifacts that their largest and most important museum can't hold everything that is discovered? They have to excavate their own collection from the floors of their basement because the sheer mass begins to bury itself again."

"That's super interesting, really. What has this got to do with Vagasso?"

"I found something during my excavations, Anne. Something life-changing. An idol made of bone!"

Dearborn's apparent glee went over my head. "What's the big deal about that?"

His joy dimmed. I sensed a hint of resentment from him for being ignorant. In the tone of an exasperated teacher, he said, "Egypt is older than academicians have been able to prove. It's not only the cradle of life, it's the cradle of morality. They say the bones of the Devil himself lie in Egypt and I agree. I believe I found one of those bones that day."

Holy Toledo. "You don't honestly believe that."

"The proof was evident. The day after I took possession of it, Vagasso appeared in Cairo. He is no ordinary man, as you are aware. His presence in Egypt was…significant."

Interesting that Dearborn thought Vagasso was human. The wards around Orlaton's bookshop were designed to repel dark spirits, and they had held off Vagasso. Did that make Vagasso half-human? A former human?

"He presented me with a proposal: he would arrange an audience for me with an ancient god who would grant me the knowledge to suspend and create life. In exchange, I would give Vagasso the Devil's bone idol." Dearborn spread his arms in a
what can you do
gesture. "It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

If that were true, and that was a big if—bones of the Devil, say what?—it might explain where some of Vagasso's power came from. Maybe.

"After his run-in with you," Dearborn went on, "he told me about you. He assured me that even though you're a half-breed, incredible power runs in your bones." Dearborn's eyes swept over me and he actually licked his lips, as though imagining what a rack of my ribs tasted like. "He gifted you to me. Again, I couldn't refuse. I had to have you after I was cruelly denied your mother."

"That's a referral I could have done without," I muttered of Vagasso.

"I sent you a message, you know. It wasn't polite of you to ignore it."

I blinked. "What message?"

Dearborn turned coy. "Don't tell you didn't see it. They all saw it."

I racked my brain until it hit me. "The dragon on the Fourth of July? That was you?"

Dearborn clapped excitedly. "It was! Did you like it? I made it out of matches so it would burn. A bit of tongue in cheek that I thought you might appreciate." His excitement dimmed. "It burned up far too fast, however. Didn't last long enough to intrigue you, apparently."

That explained why the Oddsmakers hadn't called me to task over the incident. They'd been aware all along that the dragon flying that night had been a golem. Damn, I'd felt all that stress for nothing. The list of reasons to make Dearborn rue the day he was born was growing longer.

"So I tried another tactic, Anne. I thought perhaps you like to chase. You are, after all, a predator and I apologize for momentarily forgetting that." Dearborn grinned. "I was so clever. I fed a bit of info to the street, directing you to Stevie. The only way that could have worked out more perfectly was if he had managed to subdue you. But you're too strong for that, aren't you?"

Dearborn was getting a real kick out of sharing his machinations with me. I should have just had Lucky bite his head off and put an end to the sickening revelations. But curiosity had a funny way of rearranging your priorities. I still wanted to know every last detail of Dearborn's devious plan. It was fascinating in a car crash sort of way. Unbelievable and awful.

"When you made your way to the Magnificent Stabber-of-Backs Rob, who pointed you in my direction, the trap snapped shut." Dearborn's beady eyes narrowed. "Here you are."

"You didn't have to kill them," I bit out.

"No, but the curse I'd put on his leprechaun boytoy was taking too long. Lingering deaths are boring. Just ask Jeremiah. He couldn't wait to die."

The pressure behind my breast bone was growing. Lucky wanted to do damage and I wanted to let him.

"Blowing up your friends was far more satisfying and dramatic. For me, at least."

The smugness that leaked from his pores would have greased a Slip 'n Slide ride around the globe. I couldn't wait to shoot this asshole down.

"I don't know," I said airily. "An explosion is sloppy and inelegant if you ask me. Like smashing an ant with a frying pan. But whatever. The Oddsmakers sent me after you for the necromancy artifact. Whatever else you're doing is just playing in the mud as far as I'm concerned. It's just a lot of noise."

A bald face lie now that I knew he powered his golems with magicked dragon bones, but I refused to feed into the guy's ego.

It was my turn to feel satisfaction when his expression darkened. The Texas-shaped stain on his head turned bright red as it filled with blood.

"You're nothing but a child," he said, spit flecking his lips. "You think I'm giving you anything?
You're
going to give
me
what I want, Anne, and be more useful to me than your bitch of a mother was."

"Yeah, you probably shouldn't have said that." I called up Lucky in full strength.

The explosion of his golden form in the sky above us made Dearborn cry out and throw his hands in front of his eyes as he staggered backward. He was vulnerable in that moment. Easy pickings. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't have my dragon bite him in half or incinerate him. I needed Dearborn alive to tell me where the artifact was. I needed the Oddsmakers off my back.

"Tell me where the artifact is," I demanded. I felt the sensation of scales rippling across my skin but I did my best to ignore it. I could afford to give in to my dragon nature just a little bit. Just enough to put the scare into Dearborn. "Tell me, or you're going to end up with a sunburn that goes all the way to your bones."

But Dearborn laughed like a proper villain would. He lowered his hands from his eyes only to raise them at his sides, clawed and tensed like a conductor urging his orchestra on at the crescendo of a performance.

I heard a noise from the hills.

Something rolled down the hill to my left. It started out the approximate size of a tennis ball. I thought it was a kid's toy that a family of tourists had left behind. However the ball wasn't just rolling, it was compelled. And as it rolled toward us it grew larger, like a snowball accumulating more snow. In fact, that was exactly what it was doing. Just as Stevie had done in the tunnels.

By the time the golem unrolled itself seconds later it was the size of an average man and roughly shaped like one if you could see past the tumbleweeds, pieces of cacti, and jutting rocks that comprised its body. It made me think of a frosted gingerbread man that had been dragged through the desert by a negligent child.

A second ball of dirt rolled down the hill from the right. Then two more rolled down from the left again. Four more on the right. More and more desert snowballs picked up momentum until eventually two dozen golems stalked toward me dripping dirt, bits of scrub brush, and crushed wildflowers.

A part of me was filled with wonder. When did you ever see life spring from the earth like that? But of course life was even cooler when it wasn't out to hurt you.

"Your golems won't save you, Dearborn."

"Let's see," he said, almost gleefully.

As he backed up down the road, the golems lumbered toward me. They were ungainly and slow, but their footsteps pounded the ground and I had no doubt their fists of stone and cacti would hurt like hell if they made contact with me.

Heat built in my chest. I let it out through Lucky, ordering him to blast the golem that was nearest to me. He spat a long streamer of red and gold flames, fully engulfing the golem. Tumbleweeds and cacti on the golem's body flared up as they caught fire, then spewed ribbons of smoke. The smoking creature kept walking.