The Dragons of Heaven (3 page)

I dithered for a moment before pushing open the box office door and peeking out into the theater.

The lobby was lit by dim lights from the concession stand and the amber glow of street lamps from outside. My thief was nowhere in sight. I knew the theater's layout as well as any visitor, but not knowing what my thief was after meant I wasn't sure where to go. I hated being so new and clueless. For the thousandth time, I considered ditching my legacy and going back to being a simple street magician who was too busy trying to find a flop to worry about fighting crime.

I didn't want to give up. Couldn't. I could manage this; I just needed help.

I closed my eyes and concentrated again on the Shadow Realms. This time, instead of stepping into shadow, I pulled something out of it. The mass was sticky and unformed, more like tar than taffy, and it clutched at my mind with little claws of darkness, scrabbling for purchase. I whispered a name, shaping the darkness before it sent me into a panic. This was another thing I feared I'd never grow used to – calling creatures from the shadow. The claws released my mind, and the scrabbling that only I could hear was replaced by the real scrape of claws on the lobby carpet.

“Templeton.” I sighed with relief. The rat, about the size of a terrier and composed of shadow, snuffled around my feet.

“Hello, Missy,” he whispered. His snuffling ranged further afield, along the base of the concession counter and up the paneled sides as high as he could reach on hind legs.

“Hey, Templeton.” I kept my voice low. “Would you mind giving me a hand with something?”

“Of course,” Templeton said, but curiosity outweighed his ability to focus on a conversation. He continued to snuffle around the concession counter, rounding the corner and going straight for the popcorn machine. “What smells so good?”

“Get back here,” I hissed, following him behind the counter. I was about to yank him away from the industrial popper when I heard a sound from the street. Footsteps. Someone was coming.

I crouched low and peered around the corner of the counter, shushing Templeton. Just in time. A new shadow approached the main doors, a dark shape against the frosted glass. The silhouette twisted to look over its shoulder, then bent to fiddle with the latch on the main doors. A few moments later there was a soft
ka-chunk
and the door pushed open. The figure slipped in and tucked two thin slivers of metal into a pouch at her belt. I was impressed. As a magician, I knew my way around a set of lock picks, but I could never have popped a tumbler that fast. She was a pro.

She was also not the woman I'd been watching all week. This one had a solid, athletic build, and her heritage wasn't as easy to peg. She wore her dark hair pulled back in a braid, but a few frizzed curls had pulled free. She walked with a loose and easy stride, daring the world to question why she was breaking into a closed theater at night.

So, my mysterious lurker had an accomplice. And I had two bad guys to deal with instead of just one. I should have called the cops. What the hell did I think I was doing? Who did I think I was?

Ignorant of my presence, much less my minor existential crisis, the woman spared only a brief glance around the lobby before sauntering up the stairs to the mezzanine. Too late to call in anyone now. I left my hiding place and followed her up.

“Hello, Asha.” The newcomer's voice breaking the quiet made me flinch. I crept up the last few steps and peeked over the balustrade. The Indian woman stood in front of an open display case from the Chinese exhibition, a slender tube of dark wood held in one hand. The newcomer stood a few paces ahead of me, stance wide as she leveled the muzzle of a small firearm at the other woman.

“Just put the Sutra on the floor and kick it over,” said the lady with the gun. So, not conspirators. Competitors.

The Indian woman cocked her head and arched one of those perfect brows. “Really, Abby? Do you really want me to treat such a prize so poorly? I could just as easily walk it over. You have the gun, after all. You're in control.” Something in the rolling cadence of her accent made the words mocking.

Gun-Lady – Abby – tightened her grip and firmed her stance. “I'm not letting you anywhere near me. Not after last time.”

“Last time… was that Prague?”

“Warsaw.”

“Of course. I get those East European cities confused. So cold and comfortless.”

“I'm not going to be drawn into your banter, either. You're trapped. There isn't any unalloyed metal up here; I checked. Now hand over the Sutra.”

“That leads us to a small conflict. You see, my employers want it badly.”

“You'll just have to disappoint them.”

“Ah, but I hate to disappoint such – persuasive – gentlemen.” Asha took a step to the side. And another.

“The Sutra.”
Ka-click
went some part of the gun that I assumed was the hammer. “Now.”

Asha stopped sidling at the sound. Her searching glance flicked in my direction. Her shoulders relaxed as she spotted me, and a slow smile lifted one corner of her mouth.

“I am sorry, but I can't bring myself to treat such a treasure so poorly. Why not have your little friend come forward to take it.”

“My wha–?” Abby might not have fallen for the ploy, but I jerked back in surprise at being pulled into the confrontation. Abby caught my movement at the edge of her vision and turned, the gun's muzzle training on me. Reacting on instinct to the threat of that ugly shape, I vaulted the balustrade. I ducked under her guard and came up between her outstretched arms, thrusting them open with the momentum of rising. The gun flew out of her grasp, hitting the wall behind me and tumbling down the stairs in a series of thunks.

Abby grabbed for me. I wrapped my arms around hers. She was bigger and stronger than me, but she was more the barroom brawling type. We ended up face-to-face, grappling for the upper hand.

“A ninja? Is that what you're supposed to be?” Abby went for an arm-lock, and then another when I relaxed and flowed through her first attempt.

“I'm Mistra, and I'm not letting either of you walk off with that... uh... scroll case thingy.”

“Kid, back down. You have no idea what you've gotten into.”

Aikido wasn't my main form, but Abby seemed a lot less scary without her gun. I could redirect her attempted holds all night. “Looks pretty clear to me: a couple of thieves squabbling over a bit of shiny.”

The shadows behind me shifted. Not toward me. Away. Asha was using our distraction to sneak off.

“Templeton, stop her!”

Claws scrabbled on carpet, followed by a piercing shriek. Abby looked up to see what had frightened the other woman. I swept her legs out from under her, sending her down with a shove to the sternum, then vaulted back over the balustrade to the main staircase below. Asha cowered against the banister, the scroll case clutched to her chest.

“Just hand it over, lady, and no one gets hurt,” I said in my best threaten-the-villain voice. It needed some work. Templeton advanced a pace, which was much more effective. I'd have to ask him how he perfected that rabid look. Shadow foam dripped from his muzzle.

“Keep your
asura
away from me,” Asha said, a hitch of terror in her voice. With one hand, she reached for, missed, then grabbed the banister. She clutched it to her back, as if the anchor could somehow save her from our combined threat.

“Hand it over, and I'll call him off.” I held out my hand and tried to look like the more reasonable and comforting of her two options.

She backed up another step. Her hand found the copper fixture that held the banister to the wall. Her posture relaxed. She twirled the scroll case in her hand. “I don't think I will.”

“No! Don't let her escape!” Abby dove down the stairs for her fallen gun. Asha rippled as though she were reflected through a shimmer of desert heat, and her form blurred into cobalt blue smoke. A gun fired, deafening in the confines of the theater. The wall behind where Asha had stood exploded in a spray of plaster chips. The pillar of smoke had already dissipated, sucked into the copper fixture. I thought I saw a reflection of Asha's laughing face reversed in the curve of the copper, but then she was gone.

Something twinged in my left shoulder. Thinking one of the plaster chips had nicked me, I lifted a hand to it. It came away covered in blood. A lot of blood. I sat down.

Templeton nuzzled my hip. “Missy, are you all right? You're leaking.” I tried to answer, but I was having difficulty staying upright.

“Oh my god.” A wad of fabric was pressed to my shoulder. “Kid? Kid, speak to me.”

“Huh?” I looked at her. The lines of her features were sharp, each stroke clean and bold. She was too strong for pretty. Handsome. Striking. Those were the right words. She looked like an amazon – like an Ace.

“I messed up, didn't I?” I asked her, looking at the blood covering my hand so I wouldn't have to face her.

“You're going into shock. What's your name?”

I shook my head, or tried to. It might have been more of a wobble.

“Your name, kid. Name,” she insisted.

“Can't,” I managed. “Secret identity.”

“Oh, for the love of – you! Rat-thing. Your mistress has been hurt. I need to get her help. Can you tell me her name, where she lives, anything?”

“Missy isn't my mistress; she's my friend. I serve the Conclave of Shadow.”

Their exchange helped to bring me back a bit. I'd been hurt, she said. I'd been–

“You shot me.” I'd been shot. I opened and closed my hand. The blood was bright red. Sticky. And there seemed to be a lot of it.

Like an anvil in a Wile E Coyote cartoon, the pain came crashing down on me. A high whine lodged in the back of my throat, a sound that scared me even more than the blood because I couldn't seem to staunch it.

Abby pressed her makeshift compress harder, which didn't help the pain or the keening. “I just grazed… the bullet must have… Shit. Can you get up? I need to get you to a hospital.”

That broke through. I swallowed the whine and shook my head. “No. No hospitals.”

“Look, kid. Uh, Missy.” She grimaced; I sympathized. My name didn't make me sound any older. “You're hurt. You're losing blood, and I'm not that kind of doctor. I respect you trying to do the whole Argent Ace thing, but–”

“No hospitals. No insurance.” I fumbled for my backpack and handed her a card, getting blood all over both. “Free clinic. Twenty-four hour trauma clinic. On Post.” A field of cotton had sprouted inside my head. It clogged my ears, mouth, and thought processes, but it seemed to be absorbing the pain.

“Well, at least it's close.” She hefted me up. Templeton pressed against my knees, which did nothing for my balance.

“Templeton.” My voice sounded faint and far away. I cleared my throat. “Go home. I'll be fine. Go home.”

With a hangdog expression, he snuffled once more at the ground, then stepped into the shadows of the stairwell and was gone.

“Right. Let's get you to this clinic. I hope they can handle walk-in bullet wounds.”

I hoped so too. Poor Shimizu. This would teach her to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.

T
here's
nothing like medical-grade painkillers to give you vivid dreams.

I knew my grandfather was Mr Mystic, but he'd retired by the time I came along. The tales of his hero days were no more or less real than the ones he read to me about Narnia or Prydain, and I would play at being an Argent Ace the same way I would play at being Inigo Montoya or Jack Burton.

I was wearing my grandfather's hat, which meant I was either Mr Mystic or Indiana Jones. Given the maze of couch cushions I was crawling through and the ancient pearl necklace dangling from my belt, my money was on Indy.

A monster of shadow leapt out at me and I ran, with it fast on my heels, jumping from cushion to cushion as the floor turned to lava, then to a river full of ice floes, then to the only solid footholds in an avalanche. I made the final, impossible leap to the cushion that marked the peak of the mountain. The shadow wasn't as agile. It tumbled into a bottomless abyss, caterwauling all the way down. My grandfather dragged my dangling body to safety, taking my hat and settling it on his head.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I thought you were leading this expedition.”

“You have the hat.”

“Then it must be bedtime.” He tucked me in, and I didn't complain. Bedtime was story time.

“Tell me about the dragon maiden,” I begged, rubbing the strand of pearls along my lips. I loved their smoothness, how they warmed to my touch and gleamed like Lady Amalthea's star.

“Wouldn't you rather hear about how your grandmother and I fell in love?” he asked. That was the story he preferred to tell.

I shook my head. “No. That's boring ‘cause it really happened. I want to hear the dragon story.”

“Are you saying that one is more interesting because it didn't happen?”

“Well, duh,” I countered with all the rhetorical skill at my disposal.

“What if I said it was real, Miss Missy? What then?”

“Don't be silly. Dragons don't exist. Now tell the story and tell it right.”

“As you wish,” he said. “Once upon a time, a young and foolish man journeyed to the roof of the world because he wanted to be a hero. He climbed all day and all night. For three days he climbed, and on the third evening, near collapsing from the cold, he came to the gates of Shambhala.”

We sat on my bed as it floated above the clouds, watching a younger version of my grandfather climbing to the roof of the world. “That's heaven, right?”

“Heaven has many names. Now, the dragons who lived there were upset by his presumption. They only allowed him to find the gates so that they might send him on his way.”