Dragon Born 1: The Shifter's Hoard Read online

  “How much do you know,” Soojin asked as she worked, “about what your mother used to do for a living?”

  The question took me off-guard.

  “Not a lot,” I said with a shrug.

  I hadn’t really come here to get interrogated, though if I was going to have to wait for Soojin to finish making Mom’s medicine, we might as well make small talk.

  I continued. “She used to work for the government—some kind of intelligence thing. She always used to say that she could tell me about her job, but then she’d have to kill me…”

  I laughed at the memory, but Soojin didn’t.

  “She was a grand woman,” the shopkeeper said with pride. “A real life-saver. And a wonderful coworker. I wish things weren’t so tense between our peoples.”

  I felt my eyebrows furrow together.

  “Between the Chinese and Americans?” I blurted, not understanding.

  Soojin’s laughter sounded like the tinkling of the bell over the front door of her store.

  “No, not like that at all,” she said, taking the mixture she’d ground up and putting it into a cloth pouch. “It’s just… people used to be nicer, you know? We used to be able to get along with each other, once upon a time. Everyone living next to each other, coexisting peacefully.”

  Soojin sighed, as if she were remembering some fairytale kingdom she and my mother had been forced to leave. “Not like today.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said.

  No you don’t, Soojin’s smile said. But her indulgent look meant she was willing to forgive me, anyway.

  “Please give Raya my love,” Soojin said, putting the cloth pouch into my hands. “Your mother was—is—one of the best people, young man. I know you don’t know much about the friendship we shared, but trust me—she’s saved my life more than once. Hell, she may have saved the world at least a handful of times.”

  I found that hard to believe, but I appreciated the nice words. I was sure Mom would, too.

  “I’ll tell her,” I told the shopkeeper. “Do you maybe have a phone number I could give her, in case she wants to catch up or something…?”

  Soojin’s face lit up, her mouth forming a little ‘o’ of surprise. “Young man, are you hitting on me?”

  My face flushed beet red, turning hot as an oven.

  “Not like that!” I assured the shopkeeper, holding up the hand not clutching Mom’s medicine.

  Soojin frowned deeply.

  “Not that you’re not very attractive,” I blurted, putting my foot in it even further. “Especially for a woman your age. I mean, you are hotter than the girls I go to school with…”

  Soojin’s smile grew wider, almost wolfish.

  “I appreciate the compliment, young man. A famous man once said a person can live two months on one of those. Give Raya this medicine, and she should be fine.” She cocked her head to the side. “And if she wants to reach out to me, she knows how to do it. Unless you want my number?”

  Was this woman for real?

  “I, uh…”

  Soojin gave me a sympathetic smile and gestured toward the door. “Have a nice night, young man. Watch out for yourself—it’s going to be raining off and on all night. Take care that medicine doesn’t get wet!”

  It was still raining when I got outside of the Dragon’s Hoard Apothecary.

  As I tucked the pouch containing Mom’s medicine into my jacket, making sure it was nice and deep to avoid the rain, I kicked myself for being so awkward.

  So what if the shopkeeper was Mom’s age? She’d seemed interested in me—and it wasn’t like I was going out on too many dates lately.

  It wasn’t that I was a loser or anything like that. I’d had my share of girlfriends. It was just that between classes and looking after Mom, I didn’t have much time for anything like a dating life. Some cougar who owned her own business, though, probably wouldn’t be looking to play the game with some young guy like me.

  More likely she’d just want a boy toy…

  I was thinking a lot about Soojin as I made my way back to the bus stop.

  Just like every other time I’d visited K-Town, it was as if whatever haunted it gave up the ghost as soon as I was done with my business. I encountered no strange sights or missed turns on the way back to the bus stop, and made it there in a cool five minutes flat.

  Unfortunately, the bus back to my Mom’s apartment complex left four minutes after I made my way back.

  “Damn it,” I grunted, running a finger down the bus schedule next to the stop. The bus lines around here were unreliable at the best of times, and looking at the sky it was going to start pouring down any minute now. Worse, the overhang that normally sheltered people waiting for the bus had been broken down the middle. Even now, in a light drizzle, water dripped onto the bench.

  If I waited here, I’d get drenched—and Mom’s medicine would be ruined. Not that I wouldn’t have minded seeing Soojin again, but still. Mom was sick, and she needed this stuff.

  As the rain began to pour, a pair of headlights cut through the gloom. A new bus roared up to the stop, coming to a halt with a squeak. The door retracted, revealing a world that was cool and dry. The bus driver swiveled in his seat, staring down at me like a traveler from another world.

  “Waiting for another one?” he asked.

  I glanced up and down the street. “I’m headed to the south side,” I said, frowning deeply.

  The bus driver laughed. “Missed your ride, huh?” He was a portly fellow, with a friendly face. A plastic cup bigger than my head sat in the cupholder next to him, full of soda. “Well, you could hop aboard and take the next bus at the Barker Street stop. That ought to be hitting the same places.” He glanced through the windshield at the rain, then the broken bus stop ceiling. “Or you could wait here.”

  That same chill I’d felt in the alleyway tingled at the back of my neck. Barker Street? I’d heard that on Soojin’s program—her ‘podcast’. There was some kind of troll there…

  Why the fuck not? I asked myself. I was going to be late one way or the other, so I might as well be dry. The driver was right—I could catch the next bus at the Barker Street stop and make it home only a half-hour later than if I’d made my ride.

  “Sure,” I said, stepping onto the bus.

  As I snuggled into my seat, watching through the window as the bus drove into the rapidly falling night, I couldn’t help but wonder just what I’d find on Barker Street.

  My mind raced with possibilities, my overactive imagination going into overdrive.

  The least likely possibility, one that came from my innermost being, was that I’d find exactly what Soojin’s program had stated.

  A troll.

  I laughed to myself and shook my head as the bus rolled down the wet streets.

  Chapter 2

  The bus screeched to a halt, spraying walls of water in either direction as the brakes squealed.

  “This is Barker Street,” the bus driver said, looking back over his shoulder. “Anyone for Barker Street, please exit the bus.”

  No one else rose. Only a few patrons were on the bus at this late hour; most of them appeared to be either sleeping or dead. I wasn’t about to shake them and find out.

  Sliding from my seat, I made my way to the front and stepped into the night. The bus driver gave me a final nod, then closed the door and drove off, leaving me alone at the bus stop.

  It had clearly just finished raining. Mist hung on everything, obscuring buildings and making this section of the city look like something out of Silent Hill.

  Maybe it was the weirdness of getting lost in K-Town or that strange radio program I’d heard in Soojin’s store, but I’d seriously started to get freaked out.

  Something weird was going on, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it almost as much as I wanted to get Mom her medicine.

  A quick check of my phone’s app for the bus company showed the next bus was due to arrive in about fifteen minutes. I could wait—or I could do a
little exploring. I’d only rarely been to this part of town, even though it practically bordered the southside apartment complexes where Mom called home. Cities were like that—you could move from luxury to poverty in a few blocks, from single-family homes to high-rises and slums.

  I pulled up Google Maps. A wireframe street map of the area filled my phone’s screen. My location showed up helpfully as a little red dot, sitting next to the ‘Barker Street Bus Stop’.

  I zoomed out, looking for Bachman Avenue. It was two blocks to the west. I couldn’t see very well through the fog, but it looked like there were some warehouses or something over there.

  Rabid troll sighting, I thought, tucking my phone away. Gotta keep it away from the normies. Shit, I’m a normie, aren’t I? At least, I always thought I was pretty normal.

  Meeting with Soojin had definitely shaken that belief a bit, though. I was going to ask Mom some pointed questions about her former life and career as soon as she was feeling a little bit better.

  Well, I might as well check it out. Better than sitting at the bus stop for fifteen minutes, right?

  No traffic came as I made my way down Barker Street.

  I did my best to avoid puddles as much as I could, but the bottoms of my boots still got soaked as I trod through the remnants of the storm.

  Above my head, clouds rolled in, blocking out the stars and plunging the night even further into darkness.

  At first, I didn’t even register that I reached the corner. A street sign stood atop the concrete, pointing balefully into the night. BARKER ST adorned one green side in pearly white print, BACHMAN AVE the other.

  This was the place. So where was the troll?

  Just as I’d guessed, a warehouse stood at the intersection.

  It looked like it had seen better days. Half the windows had been smashed in by hooligans, and graffiti had been spray painted all along the sides. I was all for street art, but the things tagged on the building were unprintable—dicks and swear words, mostly. Definitely not for normies in any case.

  I was about to turn around and head back for the bus stop when I heard a sound. A crash and a tinkle, like something falling over and then shattering into a thousand pieces. A robber? An alley cat?

  I should have turned around.

  Shit, if I’d have known what was waiting for me, I’d have run for my fucking life and never looked back.

  Instead, I punched the numbers nine and one into my phone just for safety’s sake and stepped into the alley along the side of the warehouse, using the screen as a flashlight to peer through the fog.

  “Hello? Who’s back here?” I asked, taking another step forward.

  No more sounds.

  Either whatever had caused the crash was long gone, or it was laying low and staying quiet.

  I paused at the mouth of the alley for a long time, listening to my heart pound in my chest. Why the fuck was I so scared all of a sudden?

  It was just a radio show, I told myself, feeling foolish. Some dumb podcast Soojin was using to entertain herself because her store had been empty for hours. That’s all it is, Derek. Your imagination.

  There was nobody around—shit, I was two blocks away from the bus stop! If there wasn’t so much fog, I could see the damn thing from where I was standing.

  Picturing it, I turned around and peered down the block, squinting.

  As soon as I did, rough hands grabbed me by the shoulders.

  My phone slipped out of my hand and hit the ground, plunging the alley into darkness. I hadn’t heard the intruder approach. They must have been standing right behind me the whole time. Either that, or they’d appeared out of thin air.

  “Hands off, pal!” I roared, thrusting an elbow backward at the attacker’s midsection.

  This guy was taller than me, and he stank besides, but I knew how to smack someone in the breastbone in a way that would make them back off. I’d gotten a mugger to leave me alone that way once.

  This wasn’t like the mugger. My elbow hit what felt like solid steel, and I was the one crying out in pain.

  “Buddy, I don’t have any fucking money!” I yelled, writhing in the man’s grip. J

  esus, he smelled like a landfill!

  He wasn’t going for my pockets or my wallet—just wrapping his arms tighter and tighter around me, like he wanted me to stop struggling.

  Suddenly, I wondered if this was a mugger after all. What if I’d stumbled into the lair of some kind of serial killer?

  The guy started sniffing me, and shit got weird in a hurry.

  “Hmmm,” the mugger rumbled, like a boulder that could talk. “Stop wriggling, little fish. Where have you been playing to smell that way?”

  A part of me was shocked this guy could smell at all. If I stank that bad, I’d have probably cut off my own nose just to make it stop. I kicked out at his legs, but they were like fucking tree trunks. I couldn’t get any leverage on him. He was even bigger than my first impression had led me to believe. What the fuck, was Andre the Giant lurking in this alley or something?

  The man pulled me deeper into the alley, chuckling low in his throat. Fighting the sudden surge of panic that filled me as my escape route grew further away, I kicked out toward the mouth of the alley. The side of my boot hit the edge of my phone and flipped it over, illuminating the walls to either side of me. The man’s shadow loomed over me like something out of a horror movie, big and bad and only barely recognizable as human.

  That wasn’t what shocked me, though. In the light from the phone, I could see the arms wrapped around me—and they were gray. Like, zombie gray. Dead person gray.

  If I let this thing drag me to the back of the alley, I’d never leave.

  My struggling must have pissed him off, because he stopped pulling backward and started trying to lift me off my feet. As he did it, he leaned down and sniffed me again, like I was a donut fresh off the line at Krispy Kreme and he hadn’t eaten for days. Something about the way he did it turned my stomach.

  “You smell like a shifter,” the gray guy rumbled, sounding confused. “But there’s something else on you, too. Mage blood? How do you smell like both, little fish? Are you a mage, or have you been taking a bath in the blood of one?”

  I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what he was saying. This was all insane—some crazy guy with a dead man’s arms and a vocabulary out of Lord of the Rings was trying to kill me. Or maybe drag me into the back of the alley and do something even worse to me. Either way, I wasn’t about to find out.

  The phone sat by the rapidly shrinking square of the alley’s mouth. It was the only part of the world that made sense any more, and I needed to get back there with a burning passion. The numbers nine and one sat on my phone’s screen, like a scream that had died in someone’s throat.

  “Let… me… go!” I roared, pulling as hard as I could toward the mouth of the alley. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The guy’s arms were like iron bands around my chest and waist, completely unbreakable. He started to tug harder, and my leverage against the ground slipped. Gravel slid beneath my feet as I went back a step, then another.

  I got an idea. This guy was strong, sure—stronger than just about anyone I’d ever met. But he was stupid, too. Maybe I could do something he wouldn’t expect.

  I thrust myself forward again, straining with all my might like I was at the very limit of my powers. The big guy gurgled with delight, wrapped his arms around me tighter, and began to tug.

  As he did, I stopped what I was doing and shot backward, hard.

  It caught my attacker completely flatfooted. He’d been tugging me toward the back of the alley with most of his strength, and the sudden change in resistance nearly knocked him on his ass. I stomped on his foot as hard as I could with my boot (thank God for steel toes) and ducked downward out of his grip, using his moment of disorientation to get away. Suddenly, the iron bands around me were gone.

  I sprang to the mouth of the alley and picked up my phone, holding it in front o
f me like a talisman. “Stay the fuck back,” I growled, turning around. “Or else I call the police…”

  I trailed off, staring up at the man. And up. And up…

  It wasn’t a man at all.

  Standing near the back of the alley was a ten-foot tall monster. Its entire body was gray, not just the arms it had wrapped around me to try and drag me back to its lair. Dirty brown rags covered its body, which would have been called ‘fat’ or ‘barrel-chested’ at the least if it wasn’t a literal slab of muscle. It was hairless, with beady red eyes and a mouth full of teeth too long to belong to a human being.

  “Troll,” I said, stunned to my core. “Troll moving southward at Barker Street and Bachman Avenue…”

  It was real. Holy shit, it was real!

  The troll leaned forward, peering at me beneath its heavy brows. Now that I was no longer in its grasp, some of its interest in me seemed to have faded—as if it was my smell that drew the creature to me, and not anything else. I wasn’t about to map human emotions on a thing as big and beastly as it, but it looked almost confused as it peered from the back of the alley.

  “You’re not a shifter, but you are,” the troll rumbled, taking a slow step forward. “You’re not a mage, either, but you are. Smells don’t lie, but it makes no sense!” The troll slammed a meaty fist against the side of its head. “How do you smell like both, little fish?”

  “Don’t come any closer,” I growled, trying my best to make myself appear menacing. In truth, I felt like I was about to shit my pants. I glanced over my shoulder, estimating the distance to the bus stop and how fast I could get back there—

  A woman stood behind me. Holding a pistol in a two handed grip like something out of a crime thriller.

  There was a loud pop, and suddenly my right ear was ringing like a bell. The troll gave a soft jerk, as if he’d just felt a sudden chill, and took another step forward toward me. His leg gave out beneath him, and he toppled, landing in a heap directly in front of me.

  Something warm and wet covered my face and jacket. I touched my cheek with my hand and held it up in front of my phone—my fingers were a deep, sticky crimson. Blood.