Tiger Eye (41 page)

Dela glanced at Eddie and Lise, their heads bowed together in quiet conversation. Lise was older than Dela had previously thought—on the high end of seventeen—and more than willing to make her own life, away from the memory of her father. Three months previous, Dela had given Lise the keys to the warehouse. In addition to living there, Lise was now Dela’s new gallery manager. Dela thought it was a good fit; Lise worked hard, and she had good instincts for business.

It pained Dela, remembering Adam in that job, but time had brought a sense of peace—even, perhaps, true forgiveness. It was no use hating the dead.

If Lise hated her father, she never said so. She never spoke of him, except in the beginning, when she had wanted to learn everything the Magi had done to Hari and Dela.

“My dad was an immortal psychopath,” she said, and that was the end of it, even about her psi-abilities, those glowing silver orbs. Dela hoped Lise would relax in time, especially with Eddie helping her. The two of them had become as thick as thieves.

I’m so nosy. Though who could blame me for being curious about the kinds of things she can do? Her father might have been crazy, but he was also powerful.

And if he had more children left in the world …

“Would you like to take a walk?” Hari asked.

“That sounds nice.” She looped her hand through Hari’s arm as he helped her stand. “We’ll be back soon,” she told the others, who waved their wine glasses at her with merry abandonment.

The air outside was cool, and Hari wrapped Dela up against his side. The night sky bristled with city light, starlight, and the sidewalk was almost empty.

“I can’t wait to get home,” Dela confided. “I love seeing everyone, but I miss it, just the two of us.”

The two of them, alone in their new home set in the forest, nestled in the lee of a mountain.

Hari’s laughter was low, soft. “I need to finish the last room.”

“Oh, you’ve got time,” she said, leaning into him. “Besides, I really can’t see us using it all that much at first.”

Hari kissed the top of her head. “I think I like the sound of that.”

He froze then, eyes flashing. A shadow slipped free of the alley ahead of them, and Dela smelled the scent of sandalwood, stone.

“Long Nü,” she said. The dragon woman glided forward, greeting them with a smile.

“I am glad you are both well,” she said. “I thought I would … drop in and say hello.”

“You could have joined the party,” Hari said.

Long Nü shook her head. “I think I would remind everyone of darker days, and this should be a time of joy. Shall we continue walking, though? I am curious to hear of your lives since we last met.”

So they walked, telling Long Nü of their new life together; their recent marriage and their home in the mountains, built
with Hari’s own hands. They told her of Dela’s art exhibit, with its shape-shifting theme, and then they told her of the other shape-shifter who had recently joined the ranks of Dirk & Steele.

“How nice for Koni,” Long Nü said, though she did not seem very surprised by the news. “The raven has finally found his roost.” She looked hard at Dela, and her eyes were sharp, canny. “And what of your powers, Dela? Have they continued to grow?

Dela blinked. “How did you know?”

“I am not just a shape-shifter,” Long Nü said. “You should remember; I see with more than my eyes.”

“I remember,” Dela said, “but no, I haven’t grown any stronger. Which is fine with me. I figure stopping bullets and breaking handcuffs is good enough. I don’t want to be greedy.”

Hari made a low sound in his throat. “It is still a mystery, why Delilah’s gifts grew in strength after she met me. We believe it had something to do with opening the box, but even that answers nothing.”

Dela thought of the riddle box, locked in a safety deposit box. She and Hari had decided to leave it there. For now.

Long Nü smiled. “I believe the box might be part of the reason, but not in the way you imagine. I suspect you always had great potential, but merely lacked the belief to unlock it. Being near Hari, exposing yourself to true magic, released the block you imposed upon your mind. With Hari, you began to accept anything was possible.”

“You haven’t been thinking about this much, have you?”

“I am merely wise. The result of advanced age.”

Dela shook her head, smiling. “Well, I am neither wise nor old, but something tells me you had another reason for wanting to see us, besides curiosity.”

Long Nü sighed. “Am I so transparent? I suppose you are
right. Mere curiosity would not have been enough to bring me here, not with all my work left undone.”

“Your work?” Hari frowned.

Long Nü stopped walking, and for the first time, Dela thought she could see past the ageless quality of the woman’s face to something darker, more weary.

“I told you I helped Hari because of a family promise, and that was true—but I had another reason, one even more important than honor. And that, my dear children, was survival.”

“I do not understand,” Hari said, but Dela did, and Long Nü nodded at her.

“There are so few of us left, Hari. The world has changed, and we must change with it, or else be lost forever. It is not enough to live alone, stuck in the old ways of clan and territory. We must find each other—help all we can, preserve what is left. Otherwise, where will all the legends go? We are the creatures dreams are made of.”

“You want us to help,” Dela said.

Long Nü looked up at the stars, scales rippling iridescent against her throat. “I am growing old, Dela, and soon—soon I will be too old to journey the world, in search of my people. It is my one great fear, that I lapse into the shade without this last task complete. Dragons have always been the guardians of our race. It falls upon our hearts to protect the shifting kind. To fail in this, when I am one of the last, does not bear imagining.”

She stared hard at Hari, and then Dela, her pupils narrowing into the eyes of the dragon. “Before I met you, I did not think it possible to seek help from a human in a task of this magnitude. But you and your friends have resources, and you are familiar with the unusual. And who knows? Perhaps we can all help each other in the long run.”

Dela knew all too well that Long Nü’s idea of helping could
be quite different from her own, but she had to admit that the dragon woman had taken care of their mafia problem. No one had heard a peep from Wen Zhang’s family. Of course, financial problems might have been the cause of that. Dirk & Steele had made good on its plan to expose as many shipments of illegal immigrants as they could. Recent Coast Guard confrontations with ships in the Pacific had been making the news.

They began walking again, until Long Nü stepped into a dismal alley.

“I must go now,” she said, “but you will see me again. Take care of yourself, Hari. You are the very last of the tigers.”

“No,” disagreed Dela, smiling, placing Hari’s lean strong hand over the budding swell of her belly. “There will be others.”

And the dragon laughed, embracing them with arms of golden light.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without the love, support, and encouragement of my parents, none of this would have been possible. My gratitude is endless. Thanks also to Cord Buckner, detective and lawyer-extraordinaire, who let me use him in my (shameless) search for knowledge, and never once complained. To my grandparents, family, and friends—many thanks for your cheerful support and compassion. And to my editor, Chris Keeslar, and my agent, Lucienne Diver, thank you again and again for being so kind, and so very supportive.

Finally, deep thanks to all of my wonderful friends and teachers from Clarion East 2004. What a group. You guys are the best. Here’s to a bright future of making our word choices “more better.”

Woof.

RAVES FOR
TIGER EYE!

“I didn’t just like this book, I LOVED this book. [Marjorie M. Liu] has a great voice, a fresh new premise, everything I love to read. Anyone who loves my work should love hers.”

—New York Times
Bestselling Author Christine Feehan

“A star is born! If you are a fan of first-rate paranormal romantic adventures, [
Tiger Eye
is] the jackpot. Marjorie M. Liu is an amazing new voice who is ingenious, fresh and utterly spellbinding!”

—RT BOOKclub

“Wow! Once I started reading
Tiger Eye
, I could not put it down. Fans of Feehan and Kenyon will love this exceptional paranormal story and should embrace Marjorie M. Liu with great enthusiasm. Liu’s distinct voice, complex characters and unique premise make
Tiger Eye
a standout novel in the genre. I can’t wait for more from this talented author.”

—
Tanzey Cutter, The Best Reviews

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

TIGER EYE. Copyright © 2005 by Marjorie M. Liu. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201371-2

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