Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (3 page)

~Mami~

Ileana Alvarez locked the door with a practiced click and then stood back to survey her joy. Her pride. The growing Alvarez Family Restaurant had been put to bed after a busy night. Earlier the two stories and the overhanging balcony had been teeming with laughter, and its tiny fairy lanterns had lit up the patio like a wreath of stars.

This restaurant was another child to her after she had lost so many in different ways. Marisol, gone save for the tango floor Mami had erected for her near the bar. Miguel was in the Sol beer stocking the fridge; Daniella was the intricate menu design. Citlalli and Raina were embedded in the foundation itself: Raina loved the mural of jumping dolphins at Puerto Vallarta and the candles that smelled like the sea. Citlalli was the striking scarlet porch and the golden-stitched carpets that brought this place alive. The restaurant was her child. It was all of her children.

Her lip curled. Not bad for an orphan
naca
who had crawled out of the belly of México City. She had always known she was different than the other street children. She had survived that terrible night’s gunfight while her parents
had perished. Her dreams were meant to be lived: Restaurant owner. International food service consultant. And as
The
Korea Herald
had glowingly remarked:
“Ileana Alvarez’s passion and dedication to quality are quickly establishing her reputation as ambassador of Mexican cuisine to the Republic of Korea.”
She had done it all. It was just a matter of paying the price.

Wind gusted down the Itaewon alley, silencing the hum of the neon lights and making wooden bar signs creak.

Have you paid the price, Ileana?

She walked faster. Shadows crawled up the graffiti-sprayed walls and twisted around colonnades, but she didn’t look. She had learned not to look a long time ago. But a pile of trash was in her way, and something scuffled amongst it. Ileana pulled back to the wall. Her heart thudded as she kept an eye on the shifting debris, and she stepped lightly like she’d learned to do as a young girl when danger was close.

It was a flock of chickens. Ileana released her breath and shook her head in amusement. If only Nana could see her now! Her brave and adventurous granddaughter, scared witless by a few clucking birds. They must have escaped from old Yana’s Henhouse up the street. Smiling, Ileana checked her cellphone. She’d have to hurry to catch the last subway home.

Suddenly, the hens rose in an uproar, flapping their stunted wings and squawking as if being chased by a butcher. Ileana fell back, gripping her shawl tighter. At the heart of the feathered fury was a shock-white rooster, its eyes beady red. It ripped open the jugular of a smaller cock, savagely shaking its rival until its feathers glistened rubicund. Then it noticed her watching.

The white rooster dropped the dead bird and opened its beak. What started as a hiss deepened to a darker and far more mournful sound: the foreboding hoot of an owl.

No. She hadn’t paid the price. A survivor knew when to fight and when to hide. She’d thought her family was safe on the far side of the world.

But now They had found her.

Ileana gathered up her skirts and ran. By the time she left the alley, six warning hoots echoed in her ears.

Chapter 2: Ablaze

~Citlalli~

It was 8:30 PM on a Friday night, and I, Citlalli Alvarez, newly appointed Alpha of the Seoul werewolf pack and restorer of the White Tiger to the throne of Eve, had two more tables of campers to get through.

Campers are restaurant customers who decide that they have nowhere else better to be and will take up your section for hours, rarely leaving enough to compensate. Not that tipping was expected in Seoul, but I sure as hell didn’t dissuade them. One table was full of elderly tourists who’d practically cried at being able to pronounce the names of things again. They’d stumbled upon the rare Alvarez Family Mexican Restaurant amidst the bustle of the immigrant district of Itaewon two hours earlier. Awe had enveloped their faces, and their fingers had seized the Western-style silverware with fierce familiarity.

My other table was a rowdier party of college boys from Seoul National University, who thought they were the shit. They had been taking full advantage of our 10,000 won beer pitcher deal all night.

Spiro was front-of-house manager tonight. He stood in the back and glared down his nasty long nose at me. I returned the look with equal affection. You’d never catch him in anything less than long sleeves. My brother Miguel and I were convinced that it was because he was a fully decorated veteran of a gang or something equally as bad. He was also an immigrant who spoke spooky-good Korean, so Mami had hired him as the night shift manager.

My cellphone tweeted like a bird, and my heart leaped to my throat. That was Hyeon Bin’s ringtone. Hyeon Bin was my kidnapped friend Una’s uncle, a fighting monk who was part of the dwindling spirit-walking Won family. I double-booked it to the kitchen and checked the message.

Disappointment flooded my chest. Peomeosa Temple had been a letdown. No one had seen Fred, the devious nine-tailed fox who had captured Una, since the Lady of Eve’s return to the spirit world. Hyeon Bin’s message said he was following a lead south to Jeju Island, but he would meet me a week from now in Eve.

I put away the phone and headed briskly for the expo window. This only confirmed it for me. If a nine-hundred-year-old fox didn’t want to be found, then he wouldn’t. Hyeon Bin would not approve, but I needed to lure Fred out…and then bargain whatever I needed to in order to make him return Una safe and sound.

“Citlalli!”
Without fail, Spiro’s nasally voice made me shudder in revulsion. “
Citlalli Alvarez!”

I paused in the middle of hoisting a fully-loaded tray and fixed a polite smile on my face. Albeit, showing a lot of bared teeth.

“I’m trying to run some food, Spiro.” The tray rattled on my shoulder, and I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my ear. The kitchen door swung open, blowing the scent of grilled chicken and zesty cilantro over my face.

“Which should have been out five minutes ago. You weren’t
texting
on the clock, were you?”

I had gnawed through the throats of undead horrors and picked fights with hungry ghosts. Now the most dangerous thing I could do was sneak in a level of
Candy Crush
during work. I gave a mock gasp. “There are servers here who
do
that?”

Spiro examined me idly. “I need you to close back-of-house tonight for Jung Yeon.”

I nearly dropped the tray in shock. “What? I closed last night!”

“She does not feel well,” he stated.

I glared at Jung Yeon’s head bobbing across the restaurant. Liar. Probably had to study for one of the gazillion tests she was always taking.

“Here at the Alvarez Family Restaurant, we step up to support one another because we are a family.” Spiro smiled with slightly sharpened teeth. “All of us are equal teammates. Just because one little girl happens to be the daughter of the owner does
not
mean she shouldn’t be expected to do her share. And after some of the no-show stunts you’ve pulled in the past…” Spiro shrugged, ignoring my buckling knees. “I’m surprised you even know what back-of-house closing is.”

My body was full on shaking now, but it wasn’t me. It was something else. Wolf wanted to tear the man’s face off. A single golden eye in a midnight-black coat leaped to the forefront of my mind, and I had to use my remaining strength to shove It back. But that left room for Her—

~Demon~

My head snaps up, and I smile at Spiro. It is made all the more disconcerting because of my prosthetic eye, tilted slightly so light slides off the glassy surface. I didn’t make it through the Were War without what the Omega calls a few…injuries. I call them improvements, the best being me, the true Alpha of this shifter body. The Omega shouts and Wolf snarls, but I ignore them both.

“That won’t be a problem.”

The little man’s stupid grin disappears. I smile disarmingly again and then turn on my heel, the tray missing him by a hair.

“Waitress!”

The college boys. They insist they’ve never left the country, and yet they can converse quite comfortably in English. The implications aren’t lost upon me as I waltz up to their table.

“Your name one more time? Cit—”

It feels good to pull these human muscles back in a dangerous smile. “My name is Citlalli.”

“Very beautiful,” the leader says, tilting a head of cropped black hair. “My name is Minho. It is nice to meet you.”

“
Pangapseumnida
,” I reply in turn, and a chorus of polite “Ohhhs!” breaks out over my elementary
nice to meet you
greeting. Minho nods to his friends.

“Citlalli,” he says more confidently, hoisting up his pint glass, “you are a very good waitress. These—how do I say—?”

“Empanadas.”

“They are very…delicious!”

One of the other boys raises an empty pint glass. “One more round.”

I tilt my head so my thick black curls cascade over my shoulder. “Here? On a Friday night? Don’t you think this restaurant is a little…boring?”

Minho understands my meaning. He’s a smart one. I keep my smile fixed on him as he stutters about for a response.

“Maybe, but…you are here. So it is not boring.”

“What if I were somewhere else?” I pretend to think. “Please tell me you know Club Karma.”

“Karma? Oh! It is very fun club!”

I shrug. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, but…” Minho looks around confusedly. “You at work?”

“Yana, take Table 10,” I call over my shoulder. No point in hanging around a restaurant in a country where tipping isn’t expected. The smaller girl nods meekly. I smile. Daughter of the restaurant owner unimportant, my ass.

“Minho, give me your credit card to close out. And then, let’s…go.”

We go. I just have time to see a red-faced Spiro dash over to a cringing Yana, and then the door slams shut.

I laugh and light up a cigarette with Minho. It’s about time I ditch this piece-of-shit job anyway. One of Minho’s friends magically produces a case of soju, and we toast each other as we walk, the neon-glowing cityscape of Itaewon spreading far and wide before us.

A laughing black monkey points the way to Club Karma. We spy him painted on road signs and plastered on the side of street vendor carts. Wolf’s ears pick up the deep beat pulsing beneath the ground, and then we shove open the grimy door leading down into the concrete earth.

All around, people hug the walls and climb atop platforms to escape from the throbbing mob on the dance floor. The liquor runs smooth and sweet in shiny purple buckets that you could take to the beach. Minho tucks a pink paper umbrella behind my ear. I laugh and drain the last of the bucket dry. Green lights wink like exploding stars. The giant monkey spray-painted on the wall appears to leap around the room, laughing at some angles and snarling at others. Minho shoves more crinkled bills into the bartender’s hand. We cheer with our buckets. I grab Minho’s hand, and we fight our way over to the platform protruding up from the heart of the dance floor like a lone island.

Minho grabs my hips, and he shoves up roughly from behind. I smirk, seize his hands, and then run them up and down my calves. He gasps, excited, before tightening his arms around me. I inhale his wintergreen cologne approvingly. As the beat grows faster, I lean back and lazily flick my tongue up Minho’s neck and ear. The crowd roars its appreciation. My left eye rolls up, blinded by the hot glare of lights above me.

Minho spins me around, and he touches his forehead to mine. His brown eyes reflect no inner Were, no beast snarling to get out. Just the warm trust of a lamb’s gaze. He shudders as I pull him closer, and our lips touch.

It’s snowing. The bubbles tickle my ear gently at first, but then begin to fall in greater, heavier drifts until the entire club is a blur of strobe lights tearing through a blizzard.

“FOAM PARTY!” Minho’s friends pump their fists in the air. My hair is soaked, and Minho’s shirt clings to his chest. We run our fingers up and down each other’s wet skin wonderingly, desperately. Finally, Minho gives a small groan and surges forward, seizing my lips in a kiss that trails down to explore the shape of my collarbone. I throw back my wet hair and howl my victory to the artificial moon.

Chapter 3: An Intervention

~Demon~

Feet pad softly against wooden floors. Somewhere, a door slides open and then shut. I open my eyes to the room I share with my sister—the TV is on mute, a Hello Kitty alarm clock ticks in the corner, and Raina’s poster of SS501 singer Kim Hyun Joong graces the left wall. My pile of unfolded laundry lies in the other corner. Minho’s disheveled hair pokes out of the covers next to me.

I slip from the bed and carefully survey the hall. Raina is asleep on the couch. No sign of Mami.

“Hey.” My younger sister sits up and stretches, her silky black hair spilling down to her shoulders. “Where were you last night? Woojin came by to see you.”

I say nothing. Behind me, Minho emerges, red-eyed in the morning sunlight.

“Hello,” he says to a startled Raina. “You must be Citlalli’s younger sister, yes? I am Minho.”

“Um…nice to meet you.”

“I’ll call you later, Minho,” I say quickly.

Minho looks surprised. “Do you have time for breakfast?”

“Nope.” I smile and hold out his wrinkled jacket. It smells strongly of beer and cigarettes.

“It was so much fun, Citlalli. You will ca—”

Still nodding sweetly, I close the front door in his face. Yawning, I shake my enormous bedhead and amble back toward the darkness of my den.

Raina’s voice stops me. “Citlalli?” she asks, sounding weird. “Who was that?”

I think about it. “Minho. Met him last night.”

“Weren’t you supposed to work until late last night?” When she receives no response, she tries again: “Aren’t you seeing Woojin? The optometrist?”

I shrug. “Sure.”