Kitty’s Big Trouble (9 page)

She crossed her arms and glared, her dark eyes shining. “If you want to help me—”

“I can’t help you if you send me away.”

Vampires didn’t breathe—they no longer needed oxygen to survive. So when Anastasia sighed, it was on purpose, and a mark of her frustration. “As much as I would like to end Roman’s existence, and will if I ever have the opportunity, the pearl is more important. Keeping it away from him is my priority.”

“A pearl?” Ben said. “This is all about a piece of jewelry?”

Anastasia surveyed and disregarded him with a glance, which made me want to get in her face even more. How dare she diss my guy. An older vampire, Anastasia wasn’t used to werewolves talking back. I’d seen her get pissed off, and I wondered how far I’d have to push her before she got pissed off at me. Wasn’t going to find out this time. I eased Wolf back and stayed civil. “Anastasia, I want to know what we’re fighting for here. Tell me about this pearl.”

“The Dragon’s Pearl,” she said. “It’s an artifact of great age and power.”

I wrinkled my nose. “What’s it do?”

Cormac, who’d been lurking and nigh unto invisible, stepped forward and said, “It’s a bottomless container. The stories say you put it in a jar full of rice, the jar will produce an endless amount of rice. Or gold. The artifact itself was said to be a gem or a pearl, carried by divine dragons. But more likely it was a charm created by a human magician, probably as an imperial gift or status symbol.” On second thought, it was Amelia who said all that, but Anastasia didn’t have to know that.

“How do you know that?” Anastasia asked. Her gaze was narrowed, suspicious.

“I’ve been around,” he said. “Picked up a few things.” There. That was Cormac talking.

“Yes,” she said, skeptical. “Clearly.”

“Was it made by dragons or magicians? Is that important?” I said.

“It was created by a magician,” Anastasia said. “There’s no such thing as dragons.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. I never knew anymore what was going to turn out to be real and what wasn’t. Being a werewolf tended to give one an open mind. Or made one totally confused. “So dragons aren’t real but this thing that could possibly grant someone untold riches is?”

“Roman doesn’t need the money, though I’m sure he’ll take it,” she said. “He’s going to use it to try and replicate a spell—a magical copy machine, if you like.”

I looked at Cormac. “Would that even work?”

“Don’t know,” he said, studying Anastasia with interest.

Anastasia’s tone was serious, her expression grave. Even more grave, rather. “Roman’s followers wear a talisman. A coin that marks them—to Roman, and to each other. There’s a binding spell attached to the coins.”

The walls suddenly felt very close, and the room suddenly got very hot. “A coin from ancient Rome?” I asked. “On a leather cord?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised, suspicious. Cormac and Ben were looking at me with startled expressions.

To think I’d wanted to write it off as coincidence.

I’d put the coin I took from the vampire in Kansas into my pocket because I’d wanted to show it to her, which turned out to be a pretty good call. I drew it out and offered it to her.

Her jaw tightened as she stared at it. “Where did you get this?” she said, with as much shock and emotion as she’d yet displayed.

“From a starving vampire in Dodge City.”

“Dodge City? Don’t tell me you found the vampire den that Wyatt Earp burned?”

“Oh my God, you know about that? Should I have called you first?”

“I wasn’t there, I only heard rumors.” Wearing a faint, twisted smile, she shook her head. “He uses those to mark his followers. He can make more himself, but the spell is time consuming and Roman coins in good condition aren’t as plentiful as they used to be. He’s going to try to use the Dragon’s Pearl to replicate not just the coin, but the spell attached to them.”

“He’s expanding his army,” I said. “Exponentially.”

Cormac said, “Kitty, if that thing is bound to him, that means Roman knew you were here before that wolf pack found us. He tracked you with that.”

I said, “We have to get rid of this.”

“Will defacing the coin work?” Cormac asked.

“The vampire who wore it is destroyed?” Anastasia asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then it should.”

“I’ll need a hammer,” Cormac said.

Anastasia went up the stairs and called in Chinese to the woman at the counter. After a moment, she returned, carrying a hefty sledgehammer, which she gave to Cormac. He lay the coin on the concrete floor, raised the hammer over his head, and brought it down with a heavy crack, then a second, and a third. The thing sparked under the blows, bouncing. When Cormac moved aside, I picked up the coin—flattened, now. All the markings had been mashed, erased. It almost seemed a shame. I held it up for Anastasia to see, and she nodded.

“That should do it,” Cormac said.

I held it away from me, looking at it askance. It probably belonged in the nearest trash can, but I shoved it into my pocket. I’d deal with it later.

Anastasia started for the exit in the back of the room. “We have to meet the one who will take us to the pearl.”

Ben, Cormac, and I regarded each other in a silent conference. Was it too crazy? Too dangerous? Or fascinating enough to make it all worthwhile? Cormac gave a curt nod—he was game. I imagined that Amelia’s curiosity played a part in his willingness to continue. Ben’s lips were pursed. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to argue. His back was straight, his stance confident—he’d follow whatever decision I made.

I wanted to see this Dragon’s Pearl. With the two men following, I joined Anastasia, who waited by the open door. We went through it to another set of stairs.

Chapter 7

W
E FOLLOWED THE
stairs up to a doorway, wood with rusted hinges, that opened into a narrow alley between tall brick buildings. Lights shone through shaded windows, the sound of a TV carried. This should have been a mundane scene, evening in a city neighborhood, but the voices were in Chinese and I felt a sense of incongruity, as if I had entered another country, another world. Pagoda rooftops across the street gave the skyline a foreign air.

Leaving the alley, we walked for a time, rounding a couple of corners. The streets were arranged on a grid; even so, I didn’t know whether I’d be able to find my way back. The place seemed narrow and mazelike. I stayed close to Anastasia. Ben and Cormac trailed, keeping watch behind us. My nose worked overtime, taking in scents. At one point, we must have passed a restaurant—the air became warm, heavy with the odors of spices, vegetables, and cooking meat. It tickled my nose, then my stomach. We continued on and the smell faded.

Finally, we turned down a small, quiet street and stopped before a door—the back of a shop, maybe. A handwritten sign, laminated and taped to the door, announced the name of a shop and its hours in both English and Chinese: Great Wall Video. This wasn’t what I was expecting of Anastasia’s secret contact. We should have been meeting someplace truly clandestine and mysterious. Gambling parlor, opium den …

Anastasia knocked, and a moment later a young woman opened the door. She was in her midtwenties, Asian features, dark eyes, pink plastic-rimmed glasses. Her short dark hair was dyed in magenta streaks. She wore a black baby-doll T-shirt, faded jeans, and big black shit-kicking boots. Techno music played in the shop behind her. The back room walls were covered with movie posters.

Her arms were braced across the doorway, and she wore a serious frown. “Yeah?”

“May we come in?” Anastasia said in her most suave, amenable voice.

“Why? Who are you?” She glanced over Anastasia’s shoulder to the rest of us, who were watchful and bristling.

“My name is Anastasia. I need to speak with you.”

“Why not come to the front like everyone else?”

“Because I need to speak with you quietly, Grace Chen.”

The woman’s eyes widened. Her lips pressed together, as if determined not to ask the next obvious question—she clearly didn’t know Anastasia, so how did the vampire know her?

“I can’t let you in. Tell me what you want right here,” Grace Chen said, nodding at the threshold.

Anastasia said something in a language I presumed was Chinese and handed over a rolled slip of heavy paper that she’d drawn from her trouser pocket. Still glaring, the woman unrolled it and studied the text written on it for a long moment.

In the alley, I fidgeted, feeling cornered. I kept looking one direction and the other, but the far corners of the street were hidden in shadows. Ben was right there with me, and brushing his arm only comforted me a little. Cormac didn’t seem bothered.

Chen rolled up the slip of paper and pointed it at Anastasia. “Where did you get this?”

“From the man who wrote it.”

“This is five hundred years old,” she said, and I gaped.

“Yes.”

With a sigh, the woman stepped aside. “Fine. Come in.”

We followed Anastasia inside as Chen looked us over. The back room was tiny, barely managing to hold a workroom sink and cleaning supplies in one corner, and a few rows of shelves stuffed with cardboard boxes and dusty merchandise. Visible through the back doorway, the front of the store—a video rental place specializing in imports—wasn’t much bigger than the back room. Narrow, dim, closetlike, the place was crammed as if it had been collecting items for decades. Shelves, racks, and piles of DVDs and CDs pressed together. You could analyze the accumulation; discover the layers of Bruce Lee under the Chow Yun-Fat movies. On the dark walls were more posters for Chinese movies—some of them recognizable, films like
Titanic
and
Spider-Man
with the titles and credits listed in Chinese. Something epic, full of costumes and kung-fu moves, played on a tiny, twelve-inch TV screen shelved in the corner behind the counter.

Since Anastasia didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us, I introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Kitty. These are my friends, Ben and Cormac.” Ben smiled thinly; Cormac didn’t seem to be paying attention, studying his surroundings instead.

“Grace,” she said. “What’s your deal?”

I glanced at Anastasia. “I’m not sure I exactly know.”

“Kitty, you and the others can keep a lookout,” Anastasia said.

“I guess we’re the hired muscle,” I said, donning a wry grin. “I’d actually rather stay and watch. Five hundred years old you said?”

Anastasia set her jaw and refused to be baited, but Grace seemed intrigued, as if annoying the vampire gave me a point in my favor. Grace offered me the scroll.

It didn’t seem like five-hundred-year-old paper. It should have been dusty, crumbling at the least touch, but it had been very well preserved and felt smooth and strong. Which meant, if it really was that old, it had to be magic. A column of Chinese characters was inked on it. Cormac stepped over, and I offered it to him. He ran a finger over the surface, then shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, handing it back to Grace.

“What would you expect to know about this?” Anastasia said.

He hitched his thumbs on the pockets of his jacket and looked away, smiling wryly. I knew what people saw when they looked at Cormac: tough guy, man of few words, maybe not too bright. He cultivated the image.

Anastasia said to Grace, “You have the Dragon’s Pearl, yes?”

“If you get the Dragon’s Pearl, what are you going to do with it?” Grace answered.

“
If
I get it? Does that promise mean nothing to you?”

“I have to ask, it’s part of the deal,” she said.

Combat sound effects echoed from the TV at the front of the store.

“I don’t want it for myself,” Anastasia said. “I want to protect it. A very dark power is looking for it.”

“I thought I was protecting it.”

“This is bigger than you are.”

Grace laughed. “That’s what you say to someone you want to help you?”

I stepped in. “It’s a vampire thing. They have this innate sense of superiority. Just ignore it.”

“Vampire?” Grace said, skeptical. “You don’t look dead.”

“I’m not
jiang shi,
” Anastasia said with forced patience. “I’m much more than an animated corpse.”

I had to admire Grace for seeming confused rather than frightened. As if five-hundred-year-old messages showed up on her doorstep all the time. “So we’re talking
Dracula
here?”

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Anastasia said. “But yes. And I’ll get what I came for.”

Looking tough with her punk hair and punk glasses, Grace stood with her arms crossed. She was solid as a wall, and not afraid of the vampire.

“Anastasia,” I said. “You need to stop acting like everyone’s a bad guy. We’re all on the same side here.”

“I thought hired muscle wasn’t supposed to talk much,” Grace said.

“They aren’t,” Anastasia said stiffly.