Trouble with Gargoyles: an Urban Fantasy (Moonlight Dragon Book 3) (12 page)

I kept an eye on the streets, but none of the passersby looked up. Or if they did, it was only briefly, to admire the Stratosphere itself or on the occasions when another jumper took a brave leap and was vocal about it. I crossed my fingers that the situation was the same inside the restaurant where the diners had a closer view of the gargoyles. Hopefully the rotation of the restaurant made it difficult for them to get a good look.

The fight lasted for nearly five minutes before I saw one dark figure race west. I had no way of knowing who had been left behind, so I waited tensely as the remaining gargoyle zoomed to where I stood against the wall. Even when it landed heavily, it took me a few panicked seconds to notice the lack of scar on the gargoyle's face.

"Vale, thank god," I breathed.

Questions bubbled inside me as Vale transformed.

"That was your brother!"

He nodded grimly and began yanking his clothes on. "I nearly killed him for grabbing you like that."

"Why did he do that?" I pushed my hair back out of my face. I felt like I'd been dangling beneath a 747. "Was he trying to hurt me?"

Vale grimaced. "He wants to meet with you. He won't take no for an answer."

I straightened. "That's fine. I want to meet that jerk, too!"

Vale just shook his head. He was sweating and his hair was a riot of dark waves. He was more than a little fierce, and it was a good reminder that for as sweet and romantic as he'd been, he was still an ancient creatures that had survived numerous attacks throughout his life. "I told him to meet us at my place. But if you don't feel comfortable there, he'll know where to find us."

"It has to be Moonlight," I said. That he didn't argue told me that he'd anticipated my answer. "Your bossy brother is going to meet me on
my
turf."

Vale glanced at the sky again. "I'm not sure it'll make any difference."

Someone was waiting for us at Moonlight.

When I saw the silhouette, I told the car service driver to drop us off a half a block away. Vale tried to lead the way but I grabbed his hand and pulled him back so we approached together.

Had it been darker, I might have mistaken the man on the sidewalk for Vale. But there was enough starlight for me to see that this man was slightly broader across the shoulders and thicker in the waist. He wasn't quite a bruiser type, but he looked like he wouldn't shy from a physical confrontation. When I drew close enough to see his face, I was torn: he shared Vale's somber, dark-eyed look, the one that had hooked me when I'd seen Vale through the magick mirror. But Xaran differed from his brother in two significant ways: where Vale always seemed thoughtful and brooding, like a man wrestling with important decisions, Xaran appeared to be a man who had already made up his mind and was willing to fight to defend those opinions. He also shared the pale scar on his face that had adorned his gargoyle form. It was a battle scar or I'd eat my shoe.

"Don't say a word until we're inside, Xaran," Vale warned as soon as we were within earshot of him.

The other man nodded his head easily, as though he hadn't just been fighting his brother with tooth and claw, as if he'd simply come over for a chat.

Unnerved by the unpredictability of Xaran, I hurriedly entered the yard and lowered the wards. I snapped the lights on in the shop, though I kept the Open sign turned off and locked the door once both men were inside with me. Then I thought better of it. I reset the yard wards. No point leaving us open for someone to sneak up on us.

"No interruptions this way," I said as I regarded the two men who seemed to take up eighty percent of the breathing space within Moonlight.

I remained by the door while Xaran drifted toward the shelves. Vale stood midway between us, not quite blocking his brother's view of me but clearly ready to leap between us.

"What are you doing here?" Vale demanded. There was an edge to his voice I'd never heard from him before. Being without a brother or sister, I didn't fully appreciate all the nuances that could exist in a sibling relationship, but I was beginning to realize there were numerous strong undercurrents running between these two.

Xaran crossed his arms in a pose Vale had used often before. Xaran was dressed in a brown leather jacket with jeans and heavy leather boots. He looked like he'd just ridden up on a Harley. His hair was longer than Vale's, pulled back into a short ponytail at his nape with tendrils framing his strong face. I supposed he was sexy in a bad boy biker kind of way, but that just spelled trouble in my book. The bad boy biker might make your girlfriends sigh with lust, but he wasn't going to be there when you needed someone to help you carry three dozen cupcakes to a book club meeting.

Not that I ever baked cupcakes or attended book clubs, but I could tell that Xaran was one of those untamed magickal beings that were better admired from afar.

"You know why I'm here, Vale." Xaran's voice sounded like it came from a crack in the earth. It was as deep as magma. "You're overdue, so I thought I'd come by and see if you needed assistance."

Vale's hands curled into fists. He shot me a quick look that made me stand a little taller. Had that been guilt on his face?

"What's he overdue for?" I asked warily.

"Moody..." Vale growled, throwing me a look of consternation.

"You really think I'd just stand here and be quiet like a good little girl?"

Under other circumstances I would have found his sigh and the way he closed his eyes to be sort of cute. But once again, it appeared that my boyfriend had been playing fast and loose with the truth.

He ran a hand over his face, something he usually did when he was frustrated or trying to buy time. Probably both applied at the moment. "Xaran, she doesn't know. Any of it. The time was never right."

"How long have you been here?" Xaran demanded. He pointed at me. "You think this situation is going to get better on its own?"

"Listen, buddy, you point that finger at me again and my dragon will bite it off," I said to him.

Xaran gave me a head to toe look. It was as offensive as a once-over given by any guy on the Strip. "She's just like I thought she'd be. We'd better get this right or we'll be in trouble."

That was it. I was tired of being referred to as though I wasn't there. I pulled up Lucky in his weaker form, just so his bulk and his brightness filled the shop and caused Xaran's smug smile to fall off his face. He staggered backward into the nearest shelf.

"What the hell?!"

Vale just shook his head. "Moody will kick your ass if you keep talking about her that way."

I feigned innocence. "Who, me? I'm sweet. But Lucky? Yeah, he'll take a bite out of your big, bad self." I banished Lucky in an instant, just so the transition would be more dramatic. "It sounds like you two boys have a lot to tell me. I want to hear all of it. And it better be the truth."

Frustratingly, that didn't spur either of them to speak first. They just continued glaring at each other.

"Is headbutting next?" I asked.

"You shouldn't be here," Vale said to Xaran. "You should never have left Europe."

"I'm here because time is running short and apparently you lack a sense of urgency. Are you mad? Playing around with this dragon—"

"Be careful what you say next," I murmured.

Xaran glared at me a moment before switching his attention back to his brother. "I heard something about a demon summoning. What makes you think that wouldn't draw me here?"

"If I'd needed help with Vagasso I would have asked for it," Vale shot back.

At the mention of Vagasso I swallowed with dread. "How do you know what happened with Vagasso?" I asked Xaran.

"Because there are a lot of ears in this town, dragon. And they come to me when they hear something juicy. You may have stopped Vagasso, but all you've done is convinced him to try for something more dramatic. That's how dark spirits seem to work."

"You sound like you know a lot about him. Why is that? And why don't
you
know more about Vagasso?" I shot at Vale.

"Because he's stuck his head in the sand, pretending things aren't about to unfold the way we all know they will," Xaran growled, as much as at Vale as at the situation. "He doesn't know anything, but he should. You both should." He advanced on Vale again. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"What were
you
thinking showing up here where anyone can see you?"

Vale was ready to punch his brother. I wasn't in the mood to see them fighting; they might wreck the shop.

"Enough with the sword fighting," I snapped. "Just say it: why are you here? Oh, and let's not forget you stopping off first in California to terrorize a poor woman!"

Xaran scoffed at the accusation. "I didn't terrorize her. I'd barely begun questioning her when she fainted and wouldn't wake up. What could I do then? I left."

"Why question her in the first place?" Vale countered. "You knew that was Christian's mother."

"Because I wanted to know what you've been up to all this time. Or make that, what you
haven't
been up to. If she'd told me you were doing what you were supposed to, I would have returned to France and you wouldn't have been the wiser. Instead, I had to come here and see for myself that this place is about to go up in flames." Xaran pointed obnoxiously at me. "And I'm not talking about your dragon."

I seriously had to restrain myself from having Lucky bite off that finger. "So the first thing you do is attack me and nearly kill me?"

Xaran shrugged like it was a minor detail. "I wanted your attention and I wanted to see what the situation was like between you two." He gave a pointed look at Vale. "I got my answer."

"Yeah, he's my boytoy, so what?" I ignored Vale's grunt of annoyance. "You've got my attention. It's the wrong sort of attention but I'm getting the feeling you don't know the difference. Are you responsible for the curse that's been on my shop lately?"

Xaran didn't quite smile but the twitch of his lips was damning enough. "I wanted to see how you'd react, see if you're just a little girl or someone we can use."

It was my turn to point. "You're a real asshole."

"I'm not a delicate flower, no. I'm what I need to be. I'm hoping you're what
you
need to be."

His vagaries were getting on my nerves, but I had to break this down one point at a time. "Tell me about Vagasso and this new plan you say he has."

Xaran began a casual exploration of the shop, running a thick finger along the edges of the shelves as he spoke. "Vagasso is no longer interested in taking over this city with demons. It was a difficult plan to begin with and you two seemed to have driven that point home for him. As you know, I didn't get all the details so I'm merely making assumptions here." He had the gall to smirk at us, like he was a misbehaving little boy who'd tried to tickle the information out of Diana. I was wrong about him and Vale. They were nothing alike.

"His new plan makes far more sense because it takes advantage of a weakness that's existed here for decades."

I saw Vale go pale. "You're not talking about the Rift."

Xaran snorted indelicately. "Of course I'm talking about the Rift. It makes perfect sense. The first experiment didn't work. Now it's time for Plan B. We thought it would happen later. It's happening now. That means your timetable was just shortened significantly." He had reached the monster hunting section and I waited tensely for him to grab one of the weapons there and attack us with it. "You need to do your job, little brother. I'm not leaving until you do."

"What is he supposed to do?" I asked, narrow-eyed.

Xaran's smile was a quick slice across his face. "Get on your good side." He dusted his hands as though everything he'd touched had left a residue. "So maybe it'd be best that I leave him to it." He abruptly turned and headed for the front door.

"You're leaving just like that?" Incredulous, I looked between him and Vale. "There's more to this!"

"There is." Xaran unlocked the door and opened it. "But I'll leave that to your boytoy to tell you all about it. I just stopped by to light a fire under the two of you."

Chuckling, he let himself out of the shop. The wards buzzed as he moved through them. He wouldn't be able to come back through them, but at that point my focus was on Vale.

"Your brother is a piece of work. I'm glad he lives in Europe. He should stay there."

Vale smiled without mirth. "I'm sure he'd rather be there. He's got enough to handle without coming here and borrowing more trouble."

"What's the Rift that you mentioned? You looked horrified by the idea of it."

Vale looked slightly ill. "It's called the Western Infernus Rift. It runs beneath the Las Vegas valley. Non-magickals call it the Las Vegas Shear Zone. They think it's a fault line. It's more than that. It's an opening to Hell."

My head fell back on my shoulders. Of course Vagasso would be interested in the gateway to Hell. He was a mega-baddie. Going big was their M.O. It was how you gained access to the Super Villains Club.

"Why aren't people falling into it or demons spilling out of it?" I asked as I pictured a crack the size of the Grand Canyon, vomiting up a sea of orcs. "Is it guarded by someone? Some
thing
?"

"A passive defense exists: nine seals that keep it locked shut. That, however, is the problem. Vagasso must think he has a play on the seals, a way to break them or neutralize them. I'm not sure. I'm as clueless as you are."

"Except that you're not," I pointed out. "From what your brother said, you've known about Vagasso for a while. In fact, it almost sounds like you originally came here to fight him."

It would make more sense, actually. A lot of coincidences had lined up that I was beginning to doubt.

"Moody..." Vale walked up to me and cupped my shoulders. "I came here for you. That was my mission originally. But before I could tell you anything, I made a mistake: I stopped first to visit a friend, someone who was trying to keep tabs on Vagasso."

I thought hard. "You don't have any friends except mine." I cocked my head. "Christian?"

"Yes, I'd had no idea that he was moving against Vagasso. It was purely bad timing."

"Moving against Vagasso? But the way he described what happened with the demon possession made it sound like you getting cursed was a big mistake. An accident. Before then, he'd never had contact with Vagasso."

"Only one part of what happened was an accident, Moody. Diana sabotaging the demon summoning ritual and trying to send it into an inert object was a very deliberate act." Vale rubbed my arms. "He and Diana have been following Vagasso ever since he killed Christian's father in Antarctica."

I blinked. "I thought he was accidentally killed by fishermen in Alaska."

"Christian said that because at the time he didn't know how much he could tell you. I'm telling you the truth now: the two of them have vowed to hunt down Vagasso and punish him for murdering Christian's father. When they learned he was in Vegas, they came, too. Diana infiltrated his group so she could stop whatever he was planning."