Author’s Note: The Case of the Bloodstone Dragon originally appeared in Dragonthology from Untold Press. This version has been significantly revised.
The night was about as typical as summer nights get: sticky humid, the flicker and hum of the light overhead as pesky as a mosquito. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to talk to. The fan facing my desk let out an unwelcome metal-on-metal screech before finally stuttering to a stop. It’d been living on borrowed time, just like me. Everything came to an end sooner or later.
Ignoring the heat dripping off the walls of my back-room office, I loosened my tie and sucked down coffee from the Thermos. At least the juice had started out its life as coffee. By now the stuff was laced with so much booze, it should’ve spontaneously combusted the minute I flicked on the lighter. A smoke, any smoke, just to pass the time, as the skies opened in a sudden downpour. The life of an investigator-for-hire sure was predictable.
Except for when it wasn’t. The night should’ve folded up like an envelope, nice and tidy. Unremarkable. Put-awayable. So when the door opened and a flash of lightning so bright it could’ve lit up the entire Manhattan skyline silhouetted the woman standing there, I knew trouble had found me. The thunder and lightning were just exclamation marks I didn’t need.
Through the haze of smoke and alcohol, I still had the presence of mind to do a quick analysis. The woman’s hair, long and flame-red and bountiful, covered her face. All I could see was one sparkling green eye through there and thought, sure, shapely to a T, ruby hair, green eyes, there’s a story behind all that. She let out a hesitant breath; a curl of smoke rose from her lips.
Good. Another smoker. I stabbed my Pall Mall out in the overflowing ashtray. “Evening.”
“Oh good, you know how to overstate the obvious.” She took a step forward. Just as I thought: walking trouble. It didn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure that much. Anyone letting themselves into a private eye’s office after-hours had secrets to protect, and secrets were an investigator’s favorite commerce.
“Sarcasm looks good on you.”
She didn’t break stride at all. “It’s my specialty.”
Good, good. I never worked with anyone who couldn’t hold their own. “I’m guessing you’re here because you need help, not that you’re an IRS agent with a grudge.” Or from the collection agency. The rent was already a few weeks overdue, but times were tough and the city was as mean and unforgiving as ever. Since Penny, my front-office girl, never worked nights, I was on my own.
I could handle it. I could handle almost anything. And what I couldn’t handle…well, it hadn’t gotten the best of me yet, but there was still time.
As surreptitiously as possible, I eyed the woman framed by the office door. She hadn’t moved forward, but hadn’t run away either. Maybe this job would be the one. The one that paid the bills. The one that broke me out of this rut. The one that would kick-start this stubborn cynical heart back into some semblance of working order.
If not, there was always the chance it’d be the one that finally did me in. Either way would be fine.
“Glad to see that investigator brain of yours is on the job.” The lady sashayed toward but not into the bare-bulb light. The shade had been busted in a scuffle with my ex-partner Marco Del Rio a few months back. The son of a bitch hit it with his trademark baseball bat on his way out, then threatened to wipe the streets with me if I ever got in his way again.
No good ever came from taking on a case filled with beautiful women, and Del Rio and I both knew it. That never stopped either of us from doing it, over and over. The first time, we told ourselves it was because they paid the bills. Next we told each other what a kick it was to do surveillance on cheating husbands or cheating wives. After that, we were both convinced that it was because the best-looking women had the most cash. The reality was that both of us were desperate, bedraggled losers looking for a quick hit, a by-proxy taste of the kind of luck most people only ever read about in dime-store novels. Of course, it was a woman who tore us apart. Marco left under a cloud of fury a mile wide, convinced he was the one who should have gotten the girl. Little did he know that same girl ditched me as fast as she could once the case was over, and never paid a cent for the high-quality photos we’d taken of her jet-setting husband canoodling on his yacht with the starlet.
Live and learn.
I didn’t miss Marco. I didn’t miss the woman, either. The someone-else’s-wife, the one with the seamed-stocking legs that went on forever, with the glossy yellow hair and pouty smile and big blue eyes. No, I didn’t miss her at all.
An even better-looking classy lady stood in front of me now. Different, but trouble all the same. “You haven’t said what I can do for you, Mrs….”
“Miss,” she breathed, and her husky voice took my thoughts straight to four in the morning after a night drinking at the jazz club, or to places so foreign and exotic I’d never be able to put together the cash for a visit. “Miss… Scarlet.”
I barely stifled a smile. I’d heard pseudonyms up the wazoo in my time as a PI, and sometimes they were good ones. Sometimes they were obvious. Other times, like now, they were just ridiculous. But I knew enough to keep the incredulity to myself.
“All right, Miss Scarlet. You’re here for a reason, and that reason probably doesn’t have a hell of a lot to do with my good looks and stellar reputation.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She still hadn’t stepped into the light, and the smell of smoke clinging to her was thick and musty, like she’d been smoking in a steaming pile of bricks. “Because you aren’t that good-looking and frankly speaking, your reputation stinks. I’m here because… because I don’t have anywhere better to go.” A sharp intake of sorrowed breath rattled her shapely frame. “And from the looks of the place, neither do you, Mister Clark.”
She breathed my name like the words were the coda to some sort of epic opera. To my surprise, she punctuated the sentiment by hitting my desk with a gloved hand. When she leaned forward to grab my wrist I knew instantly why she’d shown up after dark. Penny was gone, no one else could disturb the two of us, and I couldn’t ring for help. That bountiful red hair fell to the side of her face, exposing her features.
I nearly spat out what little coffee I had in me, but professionalism won out. The piercing green eyes, the barely visible scale-like quality to her skin. Even under an expert makeup job, one that almost made her look presentable, I knew this was no ordinary girl.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. The dragons had finally caught up with me.
Dragons. The one thing I hated even more than cheating wives, philandering husbands, angry ex-partners, or not enough money to pay the rent. Sure, I’d been mixed up with their type before. Five years ago, when I was a happy-go-lucky beat cop, I’d run into a whole gang of them. The Smok gang, to be precise. Tripped over their hidden stash one night and found out the hard way that dragons meant it when they said take a hike. By the time New York’s finest found me and radioed for an ambulance, I was delirious from the beating. It took the docs hours to sew me back up again, and that was without taking special care on the parts that showed outside my uniform. Yeah, it was dragons who’d given me the distinctive jagged scar across one cheekbone, put what some people mistook for a permanent sneer on my face. There was no love lost between us, and anyone who knew me knew that much.
When Scarlet’s hand closed tight around my wrist, I didn’t bother hiding my wince. If she knew enough to find me, she knew my story.
“Relax, Mr. Clark.” A wisp of smoke escaped from between her ruby-red lips when she smiled, and that’s when I saw the flash of teeth. Of the sharp and pointy variety.
The problem was that there was nothing relaxing about the grip she had on me, or about the way her hand only tightened. “I’m not with the Smoks, if that’s what you’re worried about. In fact”—now she let go, slowly removing the glove from one hand to inspect her talon-shaped nails, the red paint on them matching her lips perfectly—”I’ve got my own bone to pick with them. Call me crazy, but I thought you might, too.”
Did I ever. They’d cut short my promising rise in the ranks to detective, given me nightmares for years. Sometimes I still woke up in a sweat, mouth dry and heart racing. But I didn’t want pretty little Scarlet having the upper hand while I figured out the whole setup. I should probably have been thanking my lucky stars that no one had slipped me a mickey or gone the old knock-on-the-head routine. That instead, a living breathing dragon cloaked as a modern-day femme fatale stood in front of me, here in the relative safety of my office, checking her nails for dings and scratches. I rubbed the pain away from my wrist, sat back, and reached for my Pall Malls only to come up empty. Probably just as well. Both of us smoked, but if one of us was going to die of lung problems, it wouldn’t be the dragon.
The visitor chair needed recovering badly, but it was all I had. I gestured toward it. “Go on. You’ve got my attention.”
Scarlet sat down as gracefully as a dragon could. “Thanks, Mr. Clark. I could use a sip of whatever concoction you’ve got in that Thermos.”
I nodded to that, too, pushing it toward her. “Knock yourself out.”
She drained the cup’s contents and let out a sigh. “Thanks. I needed that. Can I assume the usual? That we’re alone, that there aren’t any hidden cameras or recorders, and that everything we discuss will be held confidential?”
I looked around the room like it was my first time in the place, as if some spy device might suddenly drop from the ceiling. “I can’t even scrape together the rent on this lousy place, never mind install a security system. I’ll lock the door if it’ll make you feel better, but any creep worth a dime can get past it if he wants.” Luckily for me, I wasn’t very wanted.
“Skip the sob story, Mister Private Investigator.” The words she spat out were every bit the slur she intended. She followed the line of my eyes but seemed satisfied.
I wasn’t lying. I was down to my last hundred bucks, most of which I’d keep in reserve to pay Penny. The rest was earmarked for a dire emergency.
Scarlet’s voice softened to a hush. “You’re familiar with Emil Smok.”
Sure, I knew the guy. He wasn’t the leader of the Smok gang, but had been a rising star when I found their hoard. Emil was the son of a bitch who ordered the rest of the crew to beat the stuffing out of me, and it was his reptilian face I saw looming over me right before I blacked out. If he’d been on the way up the ranks half a decade ago, he could only be dead or more important now. Since she was asking, I went with the second option. “Second-in-command to Big T. Runs the Smok operations on the lower East side. Has eighteen personal bodyguards, lords it over everyone down on D Street. Word is he’s looking to take over.”
Scarlet nodded. “He’s been priming to take over for years, but he’s patient. The beating you took gave him an edge. He made a name for himself on it. Now, normally I’d be a good girl and mind my own business. I wouldn’t care what Emil Smok did with himself now or five years ago and I certainly wouldn’t care who he hurt along the way. We girls have our own ways of doing things, if you follow my meaning.”
I didn’t. I’d never understood women, but that was of little consequence. I gave her a simple nod anyway.
“I work for a special effects agency in Midtown.” She gestured off-handedly to her face. “Right hand to the stars on all those horror films. I’m not half bad at it, as you can probably guess. Better at applying the makeup on others than on myself, but I didn’t have a whole lot of time tonight.” Leaning forward, she rummaged in the pocket of her trench coat and came up with a half-empty pack of Winstons, which she tossed toward me. Tucked into the cellophane was a card that read UPTOWN F/X, with a phone number and a downtown address. “Not your usual brand, but again, short notice,” she said dismissively. “We’re wrapping a film right now. The latest with Harley Chance.”
A low whistle escaped my lips as I eyed her cigarettes. Harley Chance graced the cover of every magazine, every billboard, every promo reel for every horror film coming out of Hollywood or New York City or anywhere else. Still, I stayed calm and cool. “I didn’t know they worked with your type.”
“My type?” Her nostrils flared dangerously. “I didn’t take you for the sort who figured like only attracted like, Mr. Clark.” Just as quickly as it had arisen, the storm of anger left and Scarlet’s frame relaxed again. “But we can work on your prejudices another day. Tonight, time is of the essence.”
I could see that, and made note to check my assumptions at the door next time. If there was a next time.
Scarlet’s voice went low. “I don’t know how much you know about the inner workings of dragon society—yes, I’ll go ahead and own up to it—but there are a few… oh, let’s call them tricks of the trade. We’re particularly good at effects work, and have been for a lot longer than anyone knows. For ages, we only plied our trade back in the old country. Kept things pretty secret, and that investigative noggin of yours can probably figure out why. Who’s going to hire a dragon when they can hire a human? You’re not the only one with preconceived notions about us. All that considered, we’ve done our best to learn to blend in.” Scarlet sat back in her chair, crossed her very human-looking legs, and tapped a toe.
I refilled her cup. “I wasn’t expecting a history lesson tonight, but don’t let that stop you.”
Once again, she downed the contents of the mustard-yellow Thermos cap before wiping her lips delicately with the edge of one of her gloves. “I’ll spare you the long story, Mr. Clark, and get straight to the point. Our company has been in possession of a bauble known as the Bloodstone Dragon. Have you ever heard of it?”
Bloodstone Dragon, Bloodstone Dragon: I racked my brain but couldn’t remember ever hearing the name, let alone the thing’s history. I decided to send the stoic act packing. Scarlet was a dragon. That meant she’d see through my bravado pretty easily, if my experience was anything to go by. Shaking my head, I dropped the single word “no” into the air where it hung like a bloated mosquito waiting to pop. “But let me guess. This Bloodstone Dragon happens to be a priceless artifact, one of a kind. And you’ve managed to misplace it.”
She started to answer, but I held up my hand. As far as I knew, this would be the only chance to show off my keen detective skills before getting stomped again—probably for the last time—by Smok and his crew. “And no one at Uptown F/X knows about this yet, but when they find out, you’re in a world of trouble. And to top things off, you know Emil Smok has it in his possession.”
“Well, what do you know,” she said with a grin bordering on the feral. “You’re not as dumb as you look.” Politely, she covered her lips with the tips of two fingers as a small hiccup of smoke escaped.
I matched her knowing grin with one of my own. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, where do you propose we start? You didn’t walk in here without some sort of plan.” Those Winstons had been burning a hole in my line of sight long enough. I reached for the pack and finally lit one. The smoke filling my lungs was sheer bliss, and I realized dragons probably felt that good all the time.
The whole next day I berated myself for falling for a dragon’s innate allure and not pressing for more details. Like everyone else, I knew better, but there was no helping it. By light of day, with Scarlet long since gone and only an empty Thermos bottle and half a pack of Winstons to mark her presence, the whole thing started to smell like some kind of setup. Some fever dream. But no, her number was still on the card stuffed into the cigarette pack as evidence. Tonight, the plan we’d hatched would take effect.
“Good morning, Mr. Clark!” Perky as ever, Penny bounced into the office smelling like daffodils and looking like sunshine. I had no idea how she always managed to be so happy. Hell, I had no idea how anyone managed to be that happy. I liked Penny and envied her for having a life outside these four walls. But as she sat down and arranged her desk (it didn’t need arranging), she was as cheerful as ever. “Oh, Mr. Clark? I was wondering if I could leave at four tonight instead of five. We’re having a family picnic in the Hamptons, and if I leave then, we can make it through traffic in time for dessert.”
A grin tugged at my lips, making the scar on my cheek ache like it had never earned the right to smile. We in this case meant Penny and Brett, her fiancé, the fellow who worked across town at the insurance agency. “Sure. Go ahead and leave whenever you want. Get yourselves to that picnic in time for the main course.”
“Mr. Clark, you’re the greatest.” If Penny was still in school, she’d be head cheerleader. As it was, she worked for a run-down ex-cop in a hole-in-the-wall in the worst part of town and never made it seem like it was anything other than the best job in the world. Half the time I felt guilty about it. I spent the rest of my time grateful for her presence. I needed more than a little sunshine in my life, and Penny was it. She’d never be all of it, but I’d take what I could get.
“Got a lead on a new case,” I mentioned after reappearing from the grimy back bathroom freshly shaved. Navigating a razor past the scar on my face was always a fun challenge, but the dingy bit of daylight sneaking in through the narrow window helped make that task a little less perilous. “Lady”—I used the term loosely, and for lack of a more dragon-appropriate bit of terminology—” stopped in last night. Needs help recovering something she misplaced.” That was the best code I could come up with for priceless artifact stolen by the low-down scum who did this to my face.
Penny’s lips shaped themselves into a perfectly round “o” as she waited for more information. “Anything I can do to help, Boss?”
“Just hold down the fort and keep on top of any incoming messages. I’m going to step out and do a little recon. See if I can dig up any dirt on the whole affair.” And get out of the office for a while. It was starting to smell like me or I was starting to smell like it. Either way, I needed a break. “And see what you can find out about a joint called Uptown F/X.” After handing over the business card and disappearing into my office, I drew the shade and changed into a clean shirt. Some things Penny really didn’t need to see, and she was discreet enough never to ask if I slept there. Which of course I was.
You didn’t find a girl like her every day.
“You should eat something, Mr. Clark. Don’t forget, or I’ll bring you back something from the picnic!” Her threat trilled out as a laugh and sounded like birds in the trees, something I’d liked a long time ago but had forgotten how to hear. I promised her I’d eat, didn’t tell her there wasn’t enough in the coffers to pay her next week, and towed the used shirt with me to drop at the cleaner’s on my way out. Looking like hell was a guaranteed way to scare away any potential clients, not that they were exactly busting down the door to get in. Marco had been bad-mouthing me around town, but today I didn’t have time for thoughts of revenge or regret, or even of anger. I was on a mission to find out everything I could about the Bloodstone Dragon.
Sometimes, a detective’s best friend was the public library. Today was no exception to the rule. Before too long, pieces of the story started falling into place.
The Bloodstone Dragon’s origins were cloaked in mystery and shrouded by time, but in the 1800s it had surfaced in a small village in rural western China. Its finder, a man whose name was never recorded, traded it to a passing merchant who in turn sold it to a Russian fellow. The Dragon turned up next in Romania, then Poland, then Germany. From there it traveled to France, then across the channel to England, where it remained in a private collection for a long time. In December of 1911, the artifact was sold to a wealthy American who traveled across the ocean to pick it up himself. The buyer and his wife were so enchanted with England that they decided to stay for a few months, booking passage back on the Titanic. When the ship sank, the Bloodstone Dragon was presumed lost, even though the wealthy buyer’s wife and maid survived the trip. At that point, the Dragon was alternately described as a sculpture, a trinket, and as jewelry, and no one seemed to have a good idea what the thing actually looked like. How big or small it was, whether it was carried or worn. All experts could agree on was that the thing was crudely carved into the shape of a dragon, and was either plain navy or navy flecked with splotches of red.
Bloodstone. Not the most expensive or exotic stone in the world, but there was something about this dragon. Rumors of a curse followed it around. The French fellow who sold it to the Brit died when his train car derailed. The Brit lost his prize racehorse in a freak accident. The Titanic disaster spoke for itself. Then the Great War broke out and interest in the Dragon faded. Its trail ran cold until it turned up at a flea market in Peoria, Illinois in July of 1929, where it was picked up for a song by a savvy investor who knew antiquity when he saw it. Unfortunately, before he could make any profit off his purchase, he lost everything in the Stock Market crash later that year. In a fit of despair, he set his own house on fire and all his belongings were lost. There, the trail went cold again. For nearly thirty long years and through another World War, no one knew the whereabouts of the Bloodstone Dragon. No one talked about it or made any attempt to buy or sell it.
Not until last night. In my run-down piece of crap office in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, the first word in almost three decades surfaced about the missing artifact. And tonight, I would find it again with the help of a living dragon codenamed Miss Scarlet. Wearing a freshly starched shirt would be a good thing. I was already hot under the collar just thinking about what might happen later.
Just after 2:15, I dragged myself back to the little hole-in-the-wall I liked to call home to find Penny on the phone, surrounded by a sea of paper. She held up one finger as I walked in, her signal that she had something to tell me. With images of bloodstone and dragons floating behind my eyelids, I took a seat and waited.
“No, Sir,” she said in about as chirpy a voice as I’d ever heard. “No, I don’t know when he’ll be back. In fact, I’m sure he’s gone for the weekend… oh, I’d rather not say… Well, since it’s you… right. To the family farm upstate. But don’t let on that I told you!… All right, now you take care. Yes, if he gets in, I’ll have him call you.” With a pronounced roll of her eyes, she set the receiver back on the cradle.
I took my time lighting a cigarette. “Who’s interested in my whereabouts?” I hadn’t been to the family farm upstate in years and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go. Penny was obviously trying to keep someone off my trail.
“It was Mr. Del Rio. He called four times but wouldn’t tell me anything.”
File that under things to think about in my spare time.
“Just like the bad burger I had a few nights ago from that joint down the street. Keeps turning up when it’s least welcome.” I smiled at her through my cigarette and nodded at the paper on the desk. “Got anything for me?”
Penny tapped the pencil’s eraser to the top of the paper stack. “Uptown F/X,” she read, “founded in 1940 by Charlie Storm in Los Angeles. During the war they specialized in propaganda films for the military. Once that was over, they got their feet wet in the horror film business in Hollywood. Worked on a few low-budget titles like Rise of the Cat Mummies and Vampires from the Dark before latching onto a few of the more popular titles: Spiders in Space and Things That Go Bump, movies along those lines. At the peak of the genre’s popularity, the studio simply packed up and moved here.” Penny shuffled the papers around on her desk. “In a rare and unsolicited interview, Charlie Storm said that if the movie business wanted them, it could come find them. That was in the March 1952 issue of Daily Variety. Within a few months, some of the most influential horror filmmakers had dropped the L.A. effects houses in favor of Uptown. From all reports, they were willing and able to afford to have that kind of work done from New York.”
“Movie people. Go figure. Did they say why?”
Penny shrugged amiably. “Sources all seemed to indicate that they did the best effects work. That Uptown’s work was so realistic, it was impossible to tell where the actor ended and the character began.”
Smoke curled up from the end of my neglected cigarette. Cupping a hand, I tapped ashes into it. “So they’re a good makeup company. What about the founder, that Charlie Storm character. Anyone say what happened to him?”
“No.” Penny shook her head. “He’s still listed as the owner, but no one’s heard from him in about five years. I called their office, but the girl who answered said the owner was unavailable. She did tell me they were booked out well in advance, and that if I wanted, she would send us their brochure. I told her I’d get back to her.”
I didn’t need to ask Penny if she’d heard anything about dragons. If she had, that would have been the first thing out of her mouth. “You did good. Now go on. Pack up your stuff and get out of here. Can’t keep the family picnic waiting.”
With a cheery grin, Penny stacked all the papers neatly before pushing back her chair. “Here are all my notes, Mr. Clark. Maybe you’ll find something in them I overlooked. After all, you’re the investigator.” She pulled on her spring-green cardigan and plucked her handbag out of the desk drawer. “I have the phone going to the answering service. It wouldn’t do for Mr. Del Rio to find out I lied about you going upstate.” She fished a subway token out of her wallet, put on her gloves, then paused to look me up and down. “I’m definitely bringing you back some food from this picnic. I can tell you didn’t eat.”
All I could do was laugh. “That obvious, is it? Make it something good and I’ll treat you to an ice cream soda.”
Once the door closed behind her, I locked it. I folded my last hundred bucks into an envelope with Penny’s name on it, then set it in the drawer where she usually kept her handbag. I had just enough time to study those notes of hers and piece them together with what I’d learned. See where they matched up and where they didn’t. And on my way to meet up with Scarlet, I’d try to figure out where Marco Del Rio fit into the picture. The timing on his calls couldn’t be coincidental.
Emil Smok was just cocky enough to have stopped being careful. After all, he had eighteen guys looking out for him at all times. Why should he have to be the cautious one? That’s what he paid them for. In the five years since he’d started proving himself to the Big Boss by putting cops out of business—I might have been the first but was far from the only one—he’d earned the right to complacency. He ran downtown with an iron fist, or maybe that ought to be an iron claw: his was a purely fear-based organization. If I was the poster boy for what happened to unfortunate outsiders, who could imagine how he treated any insiders who crossed him? Human or dragon didn’t seem to matter. Smok’s guys disappeared with alarming regularity.
They also popped up with alarming regularity. If you weeded a garden a new straggler always showed up to fill in the space, so I’m not sure why I was surprised when my ex-partner Marco showed up at the meeting spot instead of Scarlet. Swallowing back all my questions, I nodded. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Family farm upstate, huh, Clark?” Del Rio laughed through the unlit cigar clenched between his teeth, folding his arms across his burly chest. “You can tell your girl that line might be good enough to fool half the idiots out there, but we were together long enough, you and me. Three years. I know your tricks. I know who comes and goes out of that office. And I know what you’re up to. I guarantee you’re never going to find it.”
I could either play dumb or play along. Knowing Marco as well as I did, playing dumb wouldn’t make him cut me any slack. Might as well go with the flow. “How’d you get mixed up in dragon business?”
Marco was no slouch. He knew what he was doing. Misunderstandings or not, he was good at the job. That’s why he didn’t give me any more than I’d given him—and just when we were ready to kiss and make up. His laugh and answer were a slap across the face. “I’d be asking you the same question if I didn’t already know the answer. Tall, slim, long red hair, legs that go on for miles. Clark, you’re so predictable.”
Under normal circumstances Marco and I could have carried on that stupid conversation for days, but time wasn’t on our side. I didn’t even get to ask him what he’d done with Scarlet before things geared up. The skies opened with a roar, the nightly thunderstorm whipping up a lashing downpour. It caught us both by surprise and sent us scurrying to the nearest awning. A bolt of lightning a moment later illuminated the crew of dragons closing in on us. Trench coats notwithstanding, they were easy to recognize with those reptilian faces and swishing tails. Before I had a chance to even think about drawing a weapon, they had me.
“Something you want to tell me, Del Rio?” The exasperation stayed out of my voice, but Marco could read me pretty well. It was probably all over my face.
He sneered and pointed a gun at my forehead. That was the last thing I remembered before sinking to the sidewalk. It figured Del Rio was mixed up with dragons. He never could resist the scent of danger.
The best part about waking up all tied up in a corner after being sucker-punched by your ex-partner is finding out who else is tied up in the corner with you. Once I came to and shook away the cobwebs, I recognized the weight of a head lolling against my shoulder. At least Del Rio and his dragon buddies hadn’t bothered gagging either of us before dumping us where we sat. Our hands were tied behind our backs, and I wondered idly if those claws of Scarlet’s still looked like immaculate long red fingernails, or if a few had been busted in the tussle.
“You should have waited for me, doll,” I whispered as my vision cleared enough to take in our surroundings. I didn’t recognize our location, but the dank smell of old water and the grimy metal clanking around us wasn’t enough to mask the distant sounds of train cars. It was scorching and humid, and the air was tinged with the scent of hot metal. Almost like the ozone of the storm that had hit right before my one-time partner pistol-whipped me.
Speak of the devil. Del Rio stood arguing with one of Smok’s guys not too far away. Every now and then a word made its way over to us, and I didn’t like what little I could hear. Gun. Dispose. Troublemakers. Boss. It added up to even more of a headache than the one I already had.
“You fool,” spat Scarlet. “I did wait for you. That’s what got me here.”
There was no time for recriminations. “They’re looking this way. Be a good girl and pretend you’re still unconscious.”
Once again, her head nestled against the crook of my neck. Even though the situation was dire, I wasn’t fool enough not to appreciate the little rush that move sent up my spine. A guy like me had to get his thrills where he could, no matter how bad the timing.
“You know,” I whispered, “for a dragon, you’re not all bad.”
“Shut up, Clark.” The hint of a smile curled her lips, but she reined it in. Beneath the words all I heard was you’re not bad yourself. Phantom sentiment, but maybe my downfall would be the way I had always believed the hand of fate leaned more toward good than evil.
Del Rio stepped across the room, where his argument with Smok’s guy grew even more heated. Marco slapped the dragon, hard, then came away shaking blood back into his hand. Scales weren’t as soft as skin, but it looked like he’d made his point. The lackey hung his head before taking a step back.
Scarlet’s whisper was so quiet I could barely hear her against the churning of the machinery. “That’s Albert Shaw, Smok’s boy. Not his biological boy, but—”
“Yeah, his boy, I get it. What do they want with us?”
“They have the Bloodstone Dragon. But it’s useless without the key, so they’re trying to figure out which of us has it and how to get it.”
The thing had a key? That was news to me. “Sister, I spent half the day researching that toy of yours and nothing mentioned a key.”
“Of course it didn’t.” Her voice dripped with disdain. “That’s not the kind of information that would ever be made public, Mister P.I. Here’s the skinny: to humans, the Dragon is just a pretty bauble. Something to put on a shelf, and only worth the price they pay for it because someone else wants it even more. But to me… let’s just say most humans will never know its true value.”
“You want to give me a clue? Because you sure as hell didn’t give me any key.”
Her laugh was like oil oozing out of a sidewalk crack. “I gave you a clue. I have the key, but they’ll only get it over my dead body.”
“Brave words.” I’d heard them before, but they usually came out of my mouth, not out of the mouths of pretty redheads tied up next to me.
“I assume that was your girl who called around today snooping for answers? You really need to teach her to be more subtle.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t expect it. A detective’s got to be thorough.”
“A shame you couldn’t have trusted me.” Her long-suffering sigh caused her chest to rise and fall a little more pointedly than usual. “But I do appreciate a thorough man. Since you like guessing games, try putting the pieces together.”
Through half-open eyes, I watched Del Rio and Shaw continue their argument. Heatedly. The whole area around us was bathed in an eerie golden light. Shaw pointed toward something I couldn’t make out from my lowly vantage point. A distant noise, like the screeching of brakes, wafted into the area. As Marco and Shaw moved out of my line of vision, I was struck by sudden insight. “We’re below the subway. In the sewers.”
“Bingo, smart guy.” Once again, Scarlet started to smile. “When you use that all-too-human noggin of yours, you are able to make sense of things, aren’t you.”
“So that hoard of Smok’s, the one I stumbled on five years ago…” Of course. If I knew one thing about dragons, it’s that they were collectors. The shinier, the better. The more metallic, the better. The more expensive, the better. “He moved it down here, which is why no one on the NYPD could ever find it. Hard to explain that one away when you’re lying in a hospital bed stitched and bandaged and everyone thinks you’re nuts anyway.”
I felt her nod. Scarlet didn’t have to confirm things any other way.
“And he’s got your Bloodstone Dragon. Let me guess. He’s heard the stories about it, knows it’s valuable, but doesn’t know what to do with it. Thinks it might be worth more than what it looks like.”
“You can thank your buddy Del Rio for that.” Scarlet shook her head. “Nosing around where he shouldn’t. I never figured him for the brains of the operation. Why do you think I came to you?”
“My good looks and stellar reputation.” I parroted back what I’d said when I first met Scarlet.
She let out another sigh, the kind that sounded like she’d lost all hope with the world around her. Maybe she had. The situation was dire. If we were in the sewers beneath the subways, we had a long way to go before there was nowhere to go but up. Miles and miles of these things twisted and turned their way under the city; we could be anywhere. But my gut told me we had to be downtown, somewhere in Smok’s territory.
That’s when Scarlet’s hands twisted free. I made mental note to never underestimate the power of claws. Scales. A dragon’s determination. While the coast was clear, she quickly untied the knot binding my hands too. “You can’t hold dragons with ropes for long. If Del Rio was smarter, he would have remembered that. Scales. Hard as diamonds.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know about you. Maybe he thinks…”
They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but they’re wrong every time. The whole thing suddenly became clear as day to me, with one notable exception. “Wait. Are you telling me Marco’s been on the trail of this thing for… how long now, three years?” If that was the case, it meant that he’d been onto it well before our business split up. And if that part was true, then maybe our falling out hadn’t been over the society lady with the cheating husband after all. Maybe that had just been a convenient excuse.
“Closer to four years,” Scarlet admitted wearily. “I should have come to you a lot sooner, but I never imagined they’d be able to get their hands on it. I had the Dragon so well protected.”
“Where’d you keep it? On a string around your waist, tucked into your garter?”
The look Scarlet flashed me told me that my wild guess might not have been as wild as it seemed. But Marco and Shaw came back into our line of sight, so we clammed up and stuffed our hands behind our backs again. I had a feeling there was going to be plenty of time for explanations later on. After Emil Smok arrived. And from the agitated look on Del Rio’s face, that would happen sooner than he wanted.
He would take the whole thing out on me, just like always. Only this time, I’d be ready for it.
Things aren’t always as dramatic in real life as in dime-store novels, movies, or on TV. From my days as a beat cop, I knew that running my own investigative agency would involve more sitting around wasting time than being up and moving. Sure, it had its moments, its brushes with fame and excitement. For some PIs, nothing beat the feeling of cold steel in their hands, poised and aimed with the trigger cocked.
Me, I’d always wanted to retire to that family farm someday. I figured raising a family and being surrounded by loved ones was out of the question, so that had never been part of the equation. But that didn’t make the fantasy any less pleasant. The key to getting there was to lay off the heavy ammo. Here in the sewers, with the heat and humidity, the dead weight of a human-sized dragon resting against me, I figured the only way I’d end up at the family farm after all was six feet under. The realization wasn’t as sad as it could or should have. Mostly, I just felt resigned to dying when Marco and Shaw came back over, cracking knuckles and shooting each other knowing glances.
Del Rio leaned over the pair of us, kicked me—I suppose for good measure, or for vengeance, or to prove he was as tough as any dragon, or just because he could—before yanking Scarlet by her hair. At least one rib was cracked, I knew that much, but what were a few busted bones between friends? Only a taste of what Marco could dish out. Nothing I couldn’t survive.
“Look at this, lady.”
Scarlet groaned and forced her eyes open. The green in them glittered as they took in the amulet dangling from a chain in front of her nose. If I could hear her sharp intake of breath, so could Marco and Shaw. In fact, it looked like Shaw smelled it before he heard it, because his reptilian nostrils began twitching.
The Bloodstone Dragon wasn’t much to look at. An inch and a half or so from top to bottom, a dusky blue bloodstone marginally carved into what might pass for a dragon. I could see Scarlet’s mouth falter like she was about to cry, but she stayed nice and steady. “So you have the Dragon. Big deal.” Defiance lit her eyes and gave resoluteness to her expression.
“Both of you stand up and come with me.” Marco’s voice was calm, though his eyes were anything but. I recognized the desperation, and that’s when another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. He acted like he was in charge, but he was scared. Scared enough to start to panic. There was only one person who could make him feel that way.
Emil Smok.
“Better do like the man says, sweetheart.” Breathing wasn’t easy with busted ribs, but Scarlet and I both did good, pretending our hands were still tied. As Shaw pulled me up, my grimace wasn’t for show. The pain was real.
Proud, Scarlet shook the hair back from her face. It looked like she was the fearless one in the bunch as she let Del Rio walk us toward the other side of the room and the source of the golden glow. To the spot where Marco and Shaw went when they’d moved out of our line of sight.
I couldn’t help but let out a low whistle when I saw it. Just like in all the fairy tale books sat a dragon’s hoard. A huge pile of gold and jewels, coins and gemstones. Things from all over the world, from so far back in history that I didn’t know their names and guessed Scarlet might not either. “Smok’s, I take it?”
For the first time, Shaw spoke up. “Belongs to the boss.”
“Shut up,” Del Rio warned him. “I told you to keep your trap shut.”
Anger flared up in Shaw’s bright yellow eyes, but I kept the observation to myself. It might come in handy later, especially if I could get myself in any kind of shape to make a move. Shaw and Del Rio were so obsessed with the amulet that they hadn’t noticed our hands were untied. I’d use that, even if it was for some last-gasp harebrained escape attempt.
“You know why it’s so damn hot in here?” Del Rio began pacing, swinging the Bloodstone Dragon back and forth on its golden chain.
“Because you stink and they haven’t aired it out?” That earned me a cuff on the jaw, but I stood my ground.
By my side, Scarlet nodded toward the pile of loot. “This is more than just Smok’s hoard. We’re in a refinery.”
“You’re a smart cookie,” Marco offered. “Melting down all the gold, molding it into bars. Easier to transport, and a better commodity.”
“All those artifacts.” I shook my head, rubbed my jaw against my shoulder. “Damn shame, if I actually cared.”
“That’s one thing about you, Clark,” spat Del Rio. “You never did care enough to study your history. If you’d bothered to learn a little bit more—”
“I know plenty.” If there was going to be a regulation pissing contest, I could win it handily. I’d never been as easily flustered or angered as my ex-partner.
“He knows everything,” Scarlet offered. “If you want to be the only one who knows the secret of the Bloodstone Dragon, you’re going to have to kill both of us.”
Del Rio laughed bitterly. “You don’t want to tempt me.” Once again, he dangled the Dragon in front of our noses. “We have it, but we don’t know how to make it work. Show me, and I’ll share all of this with you. The three of us”—he pointedly ignored Shaw in his calculations, which had to be a mistake—”will be rich beyond our wildest dreams. You know that family farm you always talk about? Hell, you’ll be able to buy all of upstate, Clark. Retire from the detective business.”
Now it was my turn. “You don’t want to tempt me.” Filled with a bravado I didn’t feel, I took a step forward, playing my hands behind my back as I tried to figure out what kind of game Scarlet was up to. I didn’t know the Bloodstone Dragon’s secret any more than Marco, but now I had to pretend that wasn’t the case. Admittedly, I was a pretty good liar and a quick thinker. The pieces weren’t exactly lined up like dominoes, but they were falling into place one by one.
“When you nicked the Dragon from the Uptown studios, you didn’t know what you’d gotten yourself into, did you, Marco.” Now it was my turn to laugh. It was bitter but honest. “You figured you could get us to spill the beans before Smok got here, but if that’s the song you want to sing, you’ll have to find another bird to teach you the tune. Nothing’s free in this lousy world. Everything comes with a price tag.”
I glanced at Scarlet and nodded. As one, we reached forward, taking both Shaw and Del Rio by surprise. Her dragon reflexes were too much for Del Rio. The Bloodstone Dragon snapped from its chain, skittering off across the floor. It landed precariously by the edge of a gap in the floor. Down below, what looked like a river of gold rushed by.
The refinery. It might as well be molten lava. If the Dragon fell into that, then no one would be able to fish it out. Scarlet sucked in a breath. I grabbed Marco by the arms, twisted them back, and wrapped my rope around his hands.
“Get it, you fool,” hissed Del Rio, and Shaw raced over, crouching by the amulet’s side. With long clawed fingers he drew it closer, then picked it up. When he folded it into his palm, a funny thing happened. A dreamy expression lit his face; he started to sway back and forth like a cobra in one of those snake-charmer’s baskets. Another light bulb clicked on in my brain.
“There’s a reason that thing stays on a chain, you idiot. And you sent a dragon to retrieve it. Smart, Del Rio, smart.”
“I don’t—”
“Tell him, Charlie,” I said to Scarlet. “It is Charlie, isn’t it?”
“Carlotta, technically,” she nodded. “Charlie was my father, but people have called me Charlie my whole life..” Reaching over, she took the gun out of Del Rio’s holster and handed it to me. “Go on, now, while you can. While Shaw’s entranced. Knock him out and take it.”
In that moment, I knew exactly why she’d needed me. Shaw couldn’t touch it and neither could she. She needed a human—any human—to do the carrying for her. Whatever the effects were, I’d be immune to them. That was something to sort out later, but for now I nodded and did as she asked. Once Shaw slumped to the floor, I pried the amulet out of his claw and was almost disappointed to discover it did nothing for me. Cautiously, with the gun aimed at Del Rio, I picked up the chain and slid the Dragon back onto it. Luckily the latch was still intact. I moved to Charlie’s side. Whatever the case, she was still my client and we both wanted this thing ended.
“Around your neck?”
“Please.”
I handed her the gun, knowing that once she’d regained possession of her trinket I was expendable. But since I didn’t have much to live for other than the debt collectors and half a pack of Winstons, it didn’t make much difference.
“So you finally threw your lot in with the dragons,” hissed Del Rio.
“You’re a fine one to talk. Shut up, Marco.” I fastened the Bloodstone Dragon around Charlie’s neck. She handed the gun back to me.
“He’s your ex-partner.” Her voice was as cool as a cucumber in a freshly-dressed salad. “Do whatever you want with him.”
“Since I’m not much for murder, I say we just tie these two up and leave them for Smok. Minus one Bloodstone Dragon.”
“Your prerogative,” she cooed. “I have what I came for.”
“But wait,” cried Marco right before I returned his kick in the ribs. “How do you activate it? What does it do? How does it work Please, Clark, you’ve gotta tell me.”
I looked at Charlie and laughed. I had no idea.
At the Uptown F/X office, I made myself comfortable in plush surroundings with a cup of hot coffee and an ice pack. My ribs hurt, but they would heal. For every second the clock on the mantel ticked away, the more I wondered if any of that business in the sewer had actually happened. The bruise on my jaw and the aching in my ribs told a different tale, and so did the crudely-carved amulet hanging from its chain around Charlie’s neck.
“We never discussed terms, Mr. Clark. I was surprised you didn’t ask for cash up front.”
Ruefully, I shook my head. “When you’re at the end of your rope, you don’t go around making demands. This was the one I wasn’t going to come back from, plain and simple. Your cash wouldn’t have done me any good.”
“Silly man.” With the edge of one long gloved finger, Charlie tapped the figurine. “You knew more than I figured. Or figured out more than I expected. Thanks for helping. By now, Smok should have found his wayward boys and realized they lost his new little toy. They’re both probably coated in gold and floating downstream.”
“I imagine so.” A lot of unspoken words hung between us. I didn’t know where to begin with them, but I’d never been friends with eloquence and didn’t see the point in starting a relationship with it now. “Hell of a way for Del Rio to go.”
Charlie waved that same hand. “We may never know, but I’ll be surprised if he ever surfaces again. The same with Shaw. You don’t go around crossing Emil Smok. But tell me, Mister Private Investor, just how much do you know about the Dragon?”
“Its history.” I lit myself a cigarette, waved out the match, and flicked it into an opulent ashtray. “That rumors of a curse follow it around. That it likes to disappear. I take it that’s what you’re going to do now? Disappear with it for a while?”
“I have to. If your ex-partner squawks at all, Smok will be after me. No, I’m afraid New York and I are done—I’m going to have to go on hiatus. At least most of the effects for the new Harley Chance film are in the can. My people here can finish them up.” That’s when she looked me squarely in the eye. “You still don’t know what all the fuss is about, though? What this little baby is responsible for?”
I shook my head. “Not sure I want to. That thing’s nothing but a headache.”
Laughing, Charlie Storm sat back in her chair like she owned the world. “When you were little, Mr. Clark, did you read tales of dragons? Fantastic creatures that flew across the skies breathing fire, ravaging the countryside, leaving destruction in their wake? Every country has some sort of dragon legend. Didn’t you ever wonder how we came to be the creatures you see these days?”
“Guess I never thought about it,” I had to admit. “I always figured the stories were just that: stories. That humans and dragons had always intersected like we do.” A puff of smoke curled up and away from the end of my Winston and I blew a perfect smoke ring right through it. I was developing a taste for the things.
“True, every single story.” Charlie took off the glove, tapping her palm with an ivory-handled letter-opener. “But over time, things change. Every now and then, something comes along that hastens that change.” Now her finger tangled in the fine gold chain. “Bloodstone, Mr. Clark. The key your former partner was looking for? It’s in the name.”
Before I could even put two and two together and make it equal four, she’d sliced herself right in the palm with that opener. Blood started seeping from the wound and when it did, she wrapped her palm around the figurine. I sat there, mouth open, cigarette hanging off one lip, watching and waiting. At first, nothing happened. But then the air around Charlie shimmered. I blinked hard; my eyes couldn’t be working right. In her place sat a perfectly human woman. There was no trace of scales, no claws, no flare of reptilian nostrils.
“Charlie Storm, Owner of Uptown F/X at your service, Mr. Clark.” She stood, sauntered around to my side of the desk, and leaned forward. Around her neck, the blue stone was now flecked with red. Her blood, I assumed. “My so-called toy has the ability to let us shapeshift. We can become what we want with it. It’s a one-of-a-kind artifact, blessed by the ancients, cursed to be the only one in existence. Smok wanted to replicate its powers, but that’s been tried before. It can’t be done. It does, however, seem to be quite generous with its gifts. The power in it never runs out. At least not yet, and it’s been doing its magic for centuries.”
“How long does the transformation last?” I was almost as mesmerized by it as Shaw had been. I wanted to reach out and touch the amulet. See what it felt like now. Would it be different after being infused with Charlie’s blood? Warmer? Oily? Would the thing come to life and bite off my hand?
Her laugh pealed like faraway church bells. “It follows the phases of the moon. The shift fades at the next new moon.”
I let out a low whistle, unable to resist the lure anymore. My hand went not to the Bloodstone Dragon but to her face; I stroked the skin on her cheek. She was as soft as a baby’s bottom and a lot more beautiful. “It sounds too good to be true. Like I told Del Rio, everything comes with a price tag.”
Charlie, eyes closed, leaned into my palm for half a heartbeat before stepping back again. When she looked my way again, her all-too-human face was tinged with melancholy. “It does indeed. In this case, what we become dilutes the pure dragon DNA. Over time, we’ve taken on more and more human characteristics. Of course, those get passed down from generation to generation. It’s the price we pay for trying to fit in.”
Like most people, I’d been guilty of looking down on dragons just because. “Sorry,” I offered. What else could I do?
“It’s not yours to apologize for. We all make our own choices.” She put the gloves back on tenderly, then wrapped her fingers around the dragon. It looked like old comfort, and I was glad she had it back.
I had so many more questions now. But I wasn’t one for standing around feeling either inadequate or sorry for myself. I was only one human in a sea of them, some of whom were probably dragons or even something else in disguise. I watched the way she caressed the dragon, and another light bulb blinked on somewhere in the depth of my thick skull. “That little treasure of yours. Does it only work on dragons? Dragon-to-human?”
Charlie’s eyes lit up, some ancestral fire burning deep behind the green. “I have no idea. As far as I know, you’re the first non-dragon ever to see it in action.” Casually, she handed me the letter opener. “You want to give it a try?”
“No, no.” I shook my head. “It’s already been a hell of a day.” My hand went to my ribs, then to the sore spot on my jaw. “Maybe some other time. You said you had to lie low. Where are you going to go?”
Charlie shrugged. “This all happened on short notice, so I haven’t decided yet. Got any ideas, Mr. Clark?”
I laughed. “I’m going to have to lie low for a while too, in case Del Rio sang.” The farm upstate was out of the question and I didn’t have two dimes to rub together, but I’d figure something out. “I always thought someplace warm would be nice. I guess we could pool our resources and see where things take us.” It was half joke, half pipe dream, all gamble.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she breathed. “Look at you, throwing in with dragons after all.”
I guess I had, but it didn’t bother me. “About that.”
Charlie waved off any more talk. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep using the Dragon. No one will ever know.”
She really didn’t know me at all. “Now that worries me. I was going to say, once we get wherever we’re going, you don’t have to use it unless you want to. You’re okay in my book either way.”
“Flatterer.” She shot me a shrewd glance. What she was thinking, I couldn’t possibly know. But she quickly emptied the contents of her desk into her bag before tapping the Bloodstone Dragon again. “Let’s take it one step at a time, Mr. Clark. We ought to have plenty of opportunity to see how things go.”
I liked where things were headed. “Please. It’s Jake.”
“Jake, then.” Charlie shut her desk drawer, taking in a look at the office around us. Understanding flooded her face. Once we did this, there would be no turning back.
“Second thoughts?” It was an offer I had to make. I knew myself, but I didn’t know her. Not really, not any more than I’d known Del Rio or Penny or anybody. Maybe that would change. I hoped it would.
With a shake of her head, the dragon who looked like the world’s most beautiful redhead nodded resolutely toward the door.
I smashed out the Winston, stood, and offered her my arm. “Then it’s a deal, Miss Storm. Charlie.”
Together, we walked out into the night, the Bloodstone Dragon tucked tightly into her top. Someplace warm beckoned. Hopefully, that someplace would have an endless supply of cigarettes and tropical drinks. If it was my turn to finally land in the embrace of Lady Luck, there’d only be one dragon along for the ride.
And if my fortune held, that one would stay right by my side.
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