Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (24 page)

TWENTY-
FOUR

“Family’s proof there is a devil; with

as twisted a sense of humor as my own.”

                                        —Caine Deathwalker

It was a helluva place to meet: the Watts Towers in South Los Angeles.  From a distance, the ninety-nine foot structures looked like sculpted trees, the cone-shaped kind.  Standing against a backdrop of night sky, they were all lattice-work, the largest pieces of folk art ever created by one person: colorful cement and steel sculptures ornamented with mosaics of bottles, seashells, cups, plates, pottery, and ceramic tiles.  They were finished in 1955 by Simon Rodia, an immigrant Italian tile-setter, took him thirty-three years working in his spare time. 

The man seriously needed a life.

It was 9:00 P.M.  The street was deserted except for my parked limo and Osamu behind the wheel.   I
left the masks Zero-T had made for me inside the limo as I got out.  I stood on the sidewalk, outside a tall, white, metal fence that kept out the curious in-between tours.  There was no sign of my mother’s family.  I took a deep whiff, but the only dragon blood I smelled was my own, tainted by human some would say.

A
trap was likely.  It wouldn’t be the first time my family tried to kill me to purify the blood-line.  Yet I had a fragment of memory from Fairy—after taking down the Green Flame Assassin—a fleeting impression of family members being there, kneeling in homage at my rebirth as a golden dragon.  

For their sake, t
his meeting had
better
be a move toward reconciliation. 

If we didn’t need
every ally, if the city wasn’t in the middle of a war with an enemy was several steps ahead… 
They must have been planning this for a long time.  Maybe since the sinking of Atlantis.  There are demons that live a very long time.  Look at the Old Man.  Well, standing here isn’t going to fix anything.
 

I walked away from the limo.  Osamu had his instructions: wait for me.  If he saw me shoot up a fireball, he was to call Izumi, then come running, demon sword in hand.  If he saw no distress signal, and I wasn’t back in an hour, he was call Lauphram with the news that I was in enemy hands.

Blending into the night, I wore black jeans, tee-shirt, Kevlar armor, and shin protectors along with my favorite pair of steel-toed boots.  I hid the armor under a baggy, black hoodie.  I had an Army field knife strapped to my right thigh, a Berretta Storm in the front pocket of my hoodie, and a machine pistol at my left side, casually hanging by a strap over my shoulder.  My tattoos were warmed and primed with raw magic, the equivalent of being on a hair-trigger for instant release. 

I contemplated using my
Demon Wings
tattoo on my upper back to render me invisible to lurking dragons.  I didn’t bother because I knew they’d hear or smell me coming with senses sharper than my own.  I was a half-breed; they were the real thing, but I was dragon enough though to leap to the top of the steel fence and hop from there to the walkway on the other side.  I walked deeper into the Towers area, looking for the landmark they’d given me: a courtyard with a tricorner baptistery made of concrete, inset with green stones.

The back of the lot was lit by numerous streetlights that cut through the Towers, casting weird shadows, making the place a surreal playland.  On closer inspection, the skeletal cones looked like a giant had started to build a cluster of spaceships, but had given up in the early stages.  I kept glancing upward as I went, knowing a dragon or two might be roosting among the beams and flying buttresses. 

Eventually, I found the baptistery.  It was rather small, and filled with water.  The surface vibrated.  Rings expanded with no sign of what was troubling the water, except for a golden light that fanned up from the bottom of the pool.  I stopped at the edge, looking down.  The light came from the stone lining of the baptistery, not from artificial lighting. 

I activated my
Dragon Sight
tattoo.  My mind staggered under the information that I was viewing liquid magic, a potent reservoir waiting to be tapped. 

Yeah, this is definitely the place.

A deep, age-worn voice spooled out of the shadows behind me.  “Caine, I’m glad you could make it.”

With one hand in my front, hoodie pocket, gripping my Beretta automatic, I turned without rushing.  No one was throwing lead, or magic spells yet.  There was a chance I could keep it that way.  A chance for allies.  A chance to find out more about my mother from the only people that could tell me.  I sat on the lip of the baptistery, all that magic tingling the short hairs of my neck despite the thrown-back hood.

The man with the old, deep voice was stocky, wearing a charcoal suit with white shirt and navy blue tie.  His arms and shoulders, as well as the top of his head, were hidden by a black silk cloak.  His lower face was seamed and clean-shaved.  His eyes were in shadow, but possessed a butter yellow glow.  My magically heightened sight didn’t pick up any magic weapons or relics on him.  He didn’t register as even having magic.

Next to him was a much younger woman.  She was different; little tags appeared all around her, betraying the presence of powerful offensive charm, and defensive wards.  She’d come loaded with killing magic, all of it color-coded royal yellow—the strongest dragon magic I knew of.  She wore the same kind of cloak, the open front revealing a dress of black lace that grew dense enough in strategic places to preserve a weak illusion of modesty.  Flaxen hair spilled out of her hood.  Her shadowed eyes were antique gold, like the bracelets she wore on both wrists.  Her hands gripped the front edges of her cloak, crumpling the material as she glared at me.

The man threw back his hood, and I saw close-cropped, steel-gray hair. The fire of his gaze didn’t dim.  He stood there like he’d claimed his piece of ground and didn’t intend to surrender it.  “I’m Drake.”  He shifted his face slightly to the side, toward the woman.  “That’s your cousin Kinsey.”

“Don’t soil my name with your lips,” she said.  “I’m not here because I want to be.
  If you’d only had the decency to die at birth, things would be ever so much better.”

Under his cloak, Drake rolled his shoulders to relieve tension.  “That true
but not very helpful now.”

“You called for this meeting,” I reminded
them.

“So
we did.”  He crossed his arms across his chest.  I caught a flash of yellow diamonds set in white-gold cufflinks.  “Can I be honest with you?”

“It would be a novel experience,” I said. 
“I’d especially like to know if the storm-fey trying to kill me are working for one of you.”

Drake said, “The assassins are not ours.  We are dealing in good faith.”

The young woman flipped back one side of her cloak so that a jewel-hilted rapier came into view.  It had a basket-style hand guard, looking Scottish in origin.  The sheath was black lacquer, hanging on gold chains from a thin leather belt with a silver and garnet buckle. She shot Drake a hard look.  “I’m against telling him anything.”

“The family voted.”  Drake shot her a quelling glance.  “Your side lost.  The attacks against

Caine will stop.”

“Good to know,” I murmured.

She looked at me like I was bat-shit scraped off her boots.  “It doesn’t mean we’re bringing you into the family.  It just means you’re dragon enough to be allowed to exist.”

I feel so special.

I continued absorbing every word, nuisance, and expression from them, and kept my voice bland, the sarcasm light rather than crushing. “Kind of you to decide my fate for me.  Do you care as much about this city?  War’s here.  You need to stand up for the community that shelters you, or all of us might be swept away.”

   “Not freakin’ likely,” Kinsey said.  “We will put down whatever threat comes.”

I nodded.  “But will you seek it out?  Will you stand with L.A.’s Council of Lords?”

“We do not need the support of the lesser races,” Drake said.  “We will fight when the battle is brought to us, or we will flee if that path preserves the greater portion of our power and wealth.”

I sighed.  Well, I’d asked the questions the Old Man wanted explored.  I’d be taking squat back to him on a silver platter. 

Kinsey offered me an evil grin. 

I braced for attack, watching carefully.

She said, “We do, however, have answers that will benefit you in the struggle ahead.  They have a price.”

Of course, nothings free. 
“What price?”

Drake
said, “We have the power to open a door for you to a place where you will be tested.  Death is possible, but if you’re strong, skilled, or have enough dumb luck, you’ll discover the secrets of your enemy.”

“What do you get out of it?” I asked.

“This trial will resolve the dispute in our clan once and for all,” he said.  “If you pass, you will accepted as a proper dragon.”

Kinsey’s smile widened.  “If you fail, the opportunity to find acceptance will probably never be offered again.”

“You expect me to fail, and maybe die?”

They answered in unison: “Yes.”

I laughed.  “There’s that honesty you were talking about.  What it really comes down to is: do I have faith in myself?”

“A true golden dragon would not be bound by fear,” Kinsey said.

“But you don’t have to be stupid either,” Drake said.

“I’ll do it,” I said, “but I have one condition.”  I sent a thought out upon the ether, calling my demon sword to me.  It leaped through a fold of space, materializing in my hand.

Kinsey frowned, eyes turning wary.  “What?”

“When I come back, I’ll want
the answers I’ve earned.  You’ll tell me all about my mother, everything you know.  I have a right to that much at least.”

Drake and Kinsey shared a silent glance.  Drake’s gaze made a demand.  At last, Kinsey nodded agreement,
showing no enthusiasm over the concession.  She turned her gaze to me.  “All right.  We agree.”

“Swear by your family name,” I demanded.

Drake spoke in sibilant hisses, and back-breaking consonants.  The words were slippery yet ponderous, a high form of the dragon tongue.  Red-Fang’s dragon speech was a lot easier to understand.  “You have your pledge of honor,” Drake said.  “I need to open the door we spoke of.   You have my word this is not an attack.”

Kinsey muttered, “Unfortunately.”

I looked at her.  “One of these days, Cousin, I’m going to teach you humility, and maybe pull that fireplace poker out of your ass.”

She half-drew her sword, letting the metal scrap out a warning.  “Half-blood freak!”

“Enough,” Drake said.  “Let’s get this done.”

She shoved the sword back into its sheath.  “Fine.”

Drake raised his face to the sky.  He spoke ancient Latin, his voice peeling forth like the crash of apocalyptic doom.  “Revertere ad me, deponere imperium, ad tempus et aperuerit ianuam!”

I
managed a rough translation:
Return to me, power apart, and open the door—

A shockwave caught me from behind.  I was lifted into the air.  On reflex, I brought the

Beretta out of hiding, aiming at Drake, but not firing as a sphere of golden light from the baptistery rushed past me.  I felt no pain, no alteration to myself, except I was a ghost.  I could see right through my arms as if they were golden crystal.  The column of magic probably shot high enough into the night sky to obliterate an orbiting satellite.  All that power was Drake’s, returning to him.  I was part of a balance, a payment to undo an earlier displacement spell.  From the amount of power he’d used, I knew that wherever I was going wasn’t anywhere safe or sane. 

I remembered Gray at Gloria’s bar.  What he
’d said: “You’re going on a journey.”

A long journey.  Damn, another prophecy that does me absolutely no good to know.

I tilted backwards, like someone being baptized.  I could see the baptistery.  From my angle, it looked upside-down.  The golden glow of the water was dying, but the bottom of the pool had gone dark with an abysmal distance.  Filling my lungs with a last gulp of air, I fell headfirst into the pool.  Like a diver wearing a belt of weights, I dropped like a stone.  The gold light went out as I dropped, deeper, ever deeper. 

My lungs burned for air.  I fought to hold my breath in knowing that if the bubbles got away from me, it would make swallowing water that much easier.  I felt lightheaded, but managed a mental litany of curses. 

See if I trust a dragon’s word ever again.

A current grabbed me and flung me sideways.  I should have hit the side of the tunnel I was in, but nothing stopped me.  Then light was back, a watery blue-turquoise blaze surrounding me as bubbles burst from my mouth.  I was picked up and thrust halfway into air, and slammed onto a white, sandy beach.  My machine pistol clattered at my side and, through it all, I still gripped my demon sword.  Seagulls were clacking.  A warm sun beat upon my back as the wave withdrew.  I didn’t know where I was: on the California coast, on the Mediterranean Sea, maybe some parallel dimension that only resembled Earth.  All I knew for sure was it had been a hell of a ride.