In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (3 page)

3

Finding
the Dragon Lady

“
B
y
e, Grandpa,” Leroy
said as he kissed the top of his grandfather’s head, tears running down his face. “I’ll never forget you.” He bent down and hugged the old shaman standing in front of him, squeezing him to his belly. Leroy was 6’ 8 ½” tall. Grandfather was not quite five feet. Hugging had always been a problem for them.

“Leroy, this old carcass is leaving this world, that’s all. Just a pile of meat and shit. Would we love each other any less if you were here for my last gasp?” Leroy shook his head. “Find Cass Duane. She can have much time on this earth if you find her, or she can have none if you don’t. Only you can save her. You are soul mates.”

His grandfather paused a moment before letting him go. “You have been with me all your life, Leroy. You are a spirit warrior,
my
spirit warrior. We live a certain way, and you have lived that way better than any. Now, you may find it necessary to ‘break the Rules.’ Do you follow me?”

“No.”

“To save Cass Duane, who has fallen to such a desperate low, you may have to do things that are counter to my teaching. For instance, my spirit warriors are faithful to their husbands and wives. If warriors are not married, they do not have sex at all.”

Leroy blushed.

“You have lived this way perfectly, my grandson. I’m very proud of you. But because of where Cass is, you may have to lie to get to her. You may have to do other things too. You have my blessing, my dear one, to do what you need to do to save her.”

Leroy sputtered. “You mean …”

“Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”

He stood silent, glad they were alone. He didn’t want any of the others to hear. He was a virgin at age twenty-four. The other warriors knew, of course. They respected him. But in the world … Would he have to betray the principles he’d held all his life?

Those were the last words he’d hear his grandfather say. He had made that crazy dash from the rodeo in Las Vegas to the Mogollon Bowl because his grandpa was dying. And now he had to cut their time short.

They bounced across the desert in a SUV. Will Duane had ordered a helicopter to pick them up at the main highway and take them to the Las Cruces airport. A Numenon jet waited for them there, ready to speed to New York City.

He was traveling with Doug Saunders. Leroy had barely spoken to him, but during the few minutes he’d spent drumming at the Meeting, he’d heard that Doug was Will’s “fixer.” He handled tricky situations, legal and illegal. Leroy couldn’t see how Doug would be very useful. Doug’s hair was messy and his shirttail hung out. He seemed stoned, but many participants in the Meeting did. He shambled when he walked, like a bear.

On the plane, Leroy clenched his teeth and grabbed the arms of the seat to keep from screaming. Two things got him on that plane: his grandpa told him to go and he wanted to save Cass. He’d never been on a plane; it was his greatest terror. Tumbling out of the sky, hitting the ground. The horrible noise the door would make when it closed. Thoughts like those had kept him from going near a plane. His breath exploded in short pants.

Doug looked him. “Your first time flying?”

Leroy nodded.

“If you get airsick, there’s a bag in here.” He pulled a flat bag out of a pouch in the back of the seat in front of Leroy and opened it up. “Puke in there, then close it with these tabs.” Doug gave a pantomime demonstration.

Leroy left the bag in his lap. Hadn’t occurred to him that he might throw up. His guts roiled at the possibility.

He didn’t vomit and he did make it to New York.

“Hannah, would you stop doing that at the breakfast table?” Doug barked, his fork stuck into a gooey mass of sauce and egg yolk. “I can’t eat my eggs Benedict with you flashing that, what? Vibrator? It’s too big to be a shell. First you tore apart that
missile launcher,
now this. Don’t you know how to act in a house?”

They had spent the night in a condo owned by Numenon, heading for bed the minute they arrived. The next morning, Leroy followed his nose and found himself in a very fancy living room. A compact woman in a black leather jumpsuit had a giant weapon torn apart at the far end of the dining table. Her face looked like his dad’s when he took down his hunting rifle; touching the weapon thrilled him. The woman’s face showed that joy she felt at reducing the massive apparatus to tiny pieces and reassembling them was greater than his dad’s love of his gun.

A uniformed butler appeared and served them breakfast.

“I didn’t know what you wanted, Leroy, so I ordered you eggs Benedict,” Doug said. “That OK?”

He’d never heard of eggs Benedict, but they looked good. Like grits and gravy with fried eggs. That’s when Hannah laid a long, cylindrical metal object with a pointed end across the back of her hand. Somehow, it ended up stuck vertically between her pointer and middle finger. She flipped it end to end, up and down, between the digits of her hand, one hand to the other.

“Hannah, stop that!” When Doug spoke the second time, she neatly caught the cylinder and stood it on end on the glossy tabletop.

“You will be happy with my dexterity when I save your life.” she said. She had a heavy accent. “I practice so I can be ready. And I am ready. So are my people. They will be here when you finish your
eggs Benedict.
”

Leroy frowned. How did she do that? Why did she do that? She was playing with a very large caliber shell that went to a very big gun, a gun not seen outside the military.

“Eat! Eat your food!” she turned to Leroy. “Eggs taste terrible when they are cold.” A broiled chicken breast sat in front of her, with a tall glass of green stuff. Hannah fastened her eyes on Leroy the way Kip, his border collie, laid eyes on a sheep. Like he could control it just with eye contact. Maybe kill it, too. “I am Hannah Hehrman. No one introduced us,” she stuck out her hand and shot a dirty look at Doug. “He does not know how to live in a house.

“I am Mr. Duane’s Chief of Security.” She kept staring at him with those laser-eyes. She was a good-looking woman, compact and tough. She had shiny black hair cut straight all around. Her black jumpsuit clung to her trim and muscular figure, making her seem like a cartoon superhero. She had red lipstick and nails. But everything about her said she was a killer.

“Do you find me odd, Leroy?”

“Uh. No, ma’am.” A fine strand of egg yolk dripped from his fork onto his chin.

She laughed. “I am very odd, Leroy, even for my country. I am from Israel. Do you know where that is?” He nodded. “In my country, people need to be tough. We need to be able to defend ourselves. We must make sure that the enemy knows we will retaliate, and our retaliation will be far harsher than what they meted out. I do not come from a peaceful place and I am not a peaceful person.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He couldn’t eat. Sitting with Hannah was like hanging out with a shark and hoping it was in a good mood.

“I was in line to be a general in my country. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am, though I can see how folks would want you to be a general.”

“Here I sit, a woman raised with war all around her, whose home village had been blown to bits and all her family killed.” She swept her tough, hard hand around the luxurious room; its perfectly manicured nails were as incongruous as her precisely cut hair and tailored suit.

Leroy’s eyes followed her gesture. The condo in Manhattan was grander than anything Leroy had seen, including the buildings in the few movies he’d attended and all the TV he’d watched. One wall was glass, looking out over a river and a torrent of cars heading over a bridge. The furniture was gleaming white leather and straight lines with bright colored pillows and rugs thrown around. The tables had shiny chrome table legs and glass tops. The paintings looked like they’d been made with spray paint and masking tape.

“That’s a Mondrian,” Doug said, noticing Leroy gazing at one of the pieces of art. “He’s a famous painter. I don’t get him, but the experts say he’s a genius. His stuff goes with the apartment.”

Hannah looked at her watch, a space age monster that looked like a mini-computer on her wrist. “My operatives will be here in a moment and we will get to work finding Cass. You will see why Will Duane values me so much.” A smirking smile. “If we can’t do it, it can’t be done.”

“I don’t think I’d get too jacked up about it, Hannah,” Doug broke in. “You’ve found Cass a bunch of times before, and so have I.
This time
will be different because of
him,”
Doug indicated Leroy with his fork. “He’s the one who will straighten her out.”

“
Where is she?” Hannah asked. “Give me your ideas.” Her team had arrived, seven of them, versions of Hannah, men and women dressed in low-key combat gear that didn’t look much different than what people wore on the street. They wore the lean menace of professional killers. Hannah didn’t introduce them.

“Yeah, where do you guys think she is?” Doug asked. They sat around the dining table sipping coffee.

One of the operatives said, “She’s a junkie. She’ll be where the junkies are. The city parks are our best bet. That and cheap hotels.”

Hannah abruptly sat erect, face livid. Leroy had only seen top spirit warriors project so much directed fury. “Miss Duane is not a
junkie.
She is an addict and she is the daughter of the man who employs you. She will not be in some park or lying in a cellar.” Her accent made her voice a growl. “Where will we find a young woman of enormous means whose father ensures that she will be ‘cared for’?
That
is the problem.” Hannah glared around the table.

“She tricking?” Doug asked.

Hannah bridled. “One would assume so, if she is well enough. She may not be presentable.”

“She’s hidden in a high-end whorehouse where they pay the cops up the kazoozie to keep things quiet.” Doug seemed certain and almost nonchalant.

“I would assume that would be the case.”

“You brought the arsenal?” Doug said.

“Yes, Doug. The whole package.”

“They’ll have metal sensors wherever she is. If you walk in armed, they’ll kill her. We’ll have to do a no-weapons, walk-in, walk-out. All friendly.” Doug looked different to Leroy. Smarter, tougher. He’d done stuff like this before.

“All we have to do is find an upscale cat-house in a city of seven and a half million strangers without alerting the cops or bad guys. Send the kids home, Hannah. I need to think.” Doug said. He meandered to a leather easy chair. “If I get any ideas, I’ll tell you.” He closed his eyes and appeared to sleep.

Leroy watched him for a moment. He seemed peaceful and far away. Doug was in the place shamans went to know the truth. Was Doug a shaman? No, not yet. But he would be one.

Hannah sent her operatives to their condo.

Hannah and Leroy stared at each other across the table.

“Where do you think she is?” Hannah asked him.

“Close,” Leroy replied. “I can feel her here,” he put a hand over his heart. “She’s dried up like a dead flower before it turns to dust.”

“I think, that, too. But how will we find her?” Hannah said. “I would normally reach out to the police, but Doug is right. This place will have purchased protection. Making an official inquiry would result in them killing her.

“And then we have Enzo Donatore. You have heard of him?”

“Yeah. Mr. Duane told me about him, and my grandpa told me, too. He was the one that attacked the Meeting and killed everyone.”

“He is unstoppable, Leroy.”

“My grandpa stopped him, the Great One and the Ancestors stopped him cold.”

“Did your grandfather say he was stopped for good?”

Leroy shook his head. “No, ma’am. He just ran off to lick his wounds.”

“He is back, perhaps not full strength, but growing. I can feel it. He has powers of his own and his own legions of monsters and spies. You need to know more: he can see all over the world with a crystal called the ‘see-stone.’ He can see anywhere. Will’s technology can only slow him down.” Hannah looked glum. They sat silently for a while.