Tears of the Dragon

TEARS OF THE DRAGON

by

Angelique Anjou

( c ) copyright 2004 Kaitlyn
O’Connor

Cover art by Jenny Dixon, ©
copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

www.newconceptspublishing.com

Chapter One

Lennie nudged his partner. “That’s her,
comin’ down the steps.”

“
Which one?” Tony peered through the
gathering gloom.

Lennie glared at him. “The dame, ya
moron.”

“
My eyes ain’t so good after dark,”
Tony said sulkily. “An’ anyway, she was behind the hulking giant
there. I thought you was talkin’ ‘bout one of them dames over there
by the sidewalk.”

“
Them’s workin’ girls, numb nuts. Just
get the damned trunk open,” Lennie growled, crawling out of the car
as the petite redhead reached the sidewalk, bid the man who was
with her good evening and turned in their direction.

She was a pretty little thing, Lennie
thought as she came closer and he was able to make out her features
… delicate … like one of them china dolls, but with curves in all
the right places. It was a pure waste to whack a dame that looked
that good. He didn’t like doing dames anyway. It offended him,
almost as bad as having to whack a kid. He wondered what she’d done
to tick his boss off.

Shrugging it off, he stepped away from
the car when she came abreast of him. “S’cuse me, ma’am? I wonder
if you could point me in the direction of
110
^th
street?”

The woman paused, looked him over
curiously. “This is 110
^th
,”
she said in surprise.

He looked around, saw no one was looking in
their direction and grabbed her, covering her mouth with his hand
as he hauled her off her feet and moved to the trunk of the car,
which was open and waiting, Tony nervously fingering the lid.

The woman, Lennie noticed, had gone limp in
his arms the moment he’d grabbed her. He wasn’t falling for that
one though. Dropping her into the trunk, he stuffed a gag in her
mouth, tied it with quick efficiency, and trussed her like a
Thanksgiving turkey. The whole job took less than five minutes, but
Tony looked like he was going to pee on himself as he danced around
the rear of the car.

“
You need to take a leak, or what?”
Lennie snarled as he slammed the trunk lid.

“
I don’t like grabbin’ her right here
in the street. No tellin’ who might’ve seen it. We shoulda waited,
like I said, till she was close to an alley.”

Lennie gave him a look. “Get in the car,
moron. She don’t walk by no alley. She catches a cab at the corner
and hits for home. I been watchin’ her for a week.”

“
What’er we gonna do now?” Tony asked
nervously, once they were settled in the car again.

“
We go to the docks. Where
else?”

“
What ya got in mind?”

“
Somethin’ quiet. I figured we could
tie a brick to her or somethin’ and pitch her over the side. Boss
didn’t say to get rid of the body, but he likes things tidy, so I
figure he’ll be happier if we don’t leave it layin’
around.”

“
She sure is pretty,” Tony said
wistfully.

“
Yeah? And how would you know? You
didn’t even know which dame I was talkin’ about.”

“
Think we got time to get a little
honey before we snuff her?”

Lennie gave him a look. “Hey! She’s a lady.
Didn’t your mudder teach you no manners? You don’t get fresh with
ladies.”

Tony gaped at him. “But … but … we’re gonna
snuff the dame!”

“
That’s different. It ain’t personal.
We’re just doin’ our job here. An’ our job ain’t about rapin’ and
pilagin’. It’s about makin’ the boss’s problems disappear. Besides,
foolin’ around is dangerous.” He shook his head. “We off her. We
tie an anchor to her and we ditch her.”

* * * *

Khalia Peterson couldn’t decide whether the
discussion, which was perfectly audible to her in the trunk, was
intended to scare her or if they didn’t realize, or didn’t care,
that she could hear them.

She was irritated, regardless.
She
was
a lady. They had no
business manhandling her in such a way. They’d ruined her coiffure!
Her suit was probably ruined, as well, and she’d just bought it the
week before. The trunk stank of chemicals and the lord only knew
what else.

What really ticked her off, though, was that
they’d put her in the position of having to complete the
destruction of her lovely suit. She’d been thinking it over ever
since they’d tossed her into the trunk. The big ox that had grabbed
her had said they were headed for the docks, which meant she might
have twenty minutes to come up with an alternative.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of
one.

Sighing, trying to tamp her justifiable
anger, she concentrated on shifting.

She must have concentrated for a full
ten minutes. All the while, she was jounced unmercifully in the
trunk as her kidnappers seemed to go out of their way to find every
stinking pothole between 110
^th
and the docks, until she began to think she must know what it
felt like to be a basketball.

Nothing happened and her confidence began to
seep insidiously away as the sound of heavy traffic faded and they
drew nearer their destination. Resolutely, she ignored the gradual
siphoning of her assurance. She’d always prided herself on her
clear-head in the face of disaster, her ability to calmly assess
any situation and pursue the most logical course.

She had first learned that she could shift
when she’d reached puberty. It wasn’t a ‘gift’ that she’d found a
great deal of use for, however, and, if she were honest with
herself, she wasn’t particularly thrilled at the ability to become
a female of Amazonian proportions merely by willing it. There were
certainly drawbacks to being a small person, but weren’t there
always drawbacks with everything? And she rather liked being
referred to as petite. In her mind, it made up for some of her
other shortcomings--her garish, blindingly red hair, for
instance.

She supposed now, though, that she might
ought to have practiced her gift in case of need. She needed it
now, if she ever had, and she couldn’t seem to recall how she’d
summoned it before.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her mind to
the tell tale thump of the tires over wooden planks that told her
they’d reached the docks and concentrated once more, her mind
focused on the discomfort of having her hands tied behind her
back.

Even as the car slowed and abruptly rocked
to a halt, she felt a tingle in her hands and arms, then the
burning sensation as bones and muscle lengthened and stretched,
bursting the sleeves of her jacket and then the rope around her
wrists.

It was heartening, but hardly enough. Two
huge arms weren’t going to be enough to fight off two men with
guns.

As she heard the doors slam and the
footfalls of the men coming around to the back of the car, she
thought of the amulet she always wore next to her heart, the
dragon’s tear.

They were after it. That had to be the
reason behind this and ‘the boss’ they’d referred to none other
than Clyde Hawkins. He’d approached her only the week before
regarding the legend of the tear, hinting that he suspected she had
it in her possession.

Digging it from her bodice, she clutched the
tear possessively. It was all that she had from the mother she’d
never known. She wouldn’t part from it for any price. She wasn’t
about to allow these hooligans to steal it from her.

To her relief, as if merely holding the
amulet tightly in her fist were enough to focus her gift, she felt
her body growing, transforming, heard the tear of fabric and
bursting seams. The moment the catch of the trunk clicked, she
rolled onto her knees and thrust upward, exploding out of the trunk
and bowling both men over.

She checked, tempted to make use of her size
and strength to teach the men the error of their ways, but her size
did not make her proof against bullet holes and the surprise hadn’t
lasted long. She’d barely cleared them when the two men began
scrambling for their guns. Whirling, she fled toward the edge of
the dock, launching herself toward the water even as she felt the
first barrage of bullets whiz past her.

She hit--something--even as she launched
herself off the pier. Her mind, grasping to assimilate the unknown,
produced the sensation of swimming through a chilled, clinging
jell. Briefly, the air seemed to be sucked from her lungs. Sound
ceased. Even as an unfamiliar sense of panic touched her mind,
however, her struggle to gasp was suddenly rewarded by a sharp
intake of breath. The sensation of traveling at high velocity was
as instantaneous as the breath of air.

Expecting to feel the chill wetness of
water, Khalia was so stunned when her fingers plowed the warm
graininess of sand that that stunned her almost as much as the
impact of her body against solid earth. Fortunately, she regained
the ability to move at about the same instant that she was finally
able to draw breath into her lungs again. Sneezing and coughing,
she turned her head to try to drag in a breath free of airborne
debris and finally managed to climb to her knees.

The belly flop in the sand dune had knocked
her ‘shift’ out of her as well as the air from her lungs. The
tattered remains of her clothing fluttered in the sharp breeze
blowing over her, pieces drifting downward and settling to the
ground around her along with the debris she’d plowed up from the
desert floor.

It was a desert, she realized the moment she
managed to wipe enough sand from her eyes to peer around her. She
hadn’t imagined the sand, or the friction burns on her palms, her
knees, and, in fact, pretty much everything in between. Her
clothing had protected her somewhat in more tender areas, but, as
she’d known would happen, shifting had pretty well shredded her
clothing, leaving a lot more exposed skin than might have been
vulnerable otherwise.

When she’d assured herself she was
alone, she spat the grit from her mouth. Spitting in public was
incredibly unladylike and ill-mannered, and she was embarrassed
to
think
about doing it, let
alone
do
it. On the other
hand, she couldn’t believe it would be very healthful to swallow
dirt and, since no one seemed to be about to witness the lapse, she
was more interested in her health and comfort at the moment than a
lapse in manners. When she’d expelled as much of the grit as she
possibly could, she sat back and looked around a little dazedly,
absently shaking the sand from a tattered bit of clothing and using
it to blot her lips.

The glow of a full moon lit her
surroundings. As far as she could see in every direction, there was
nothing but rolling dunes. In the moonlight, the sand looked as if
it had the color and consistency of brick dust.

Where was the city? And how had she come to
find herself in a desert of all places? The city was surrounded by
marsh and water, not desert.

Khalia was still trying to assimilate the
indigestible when a dark shadow swooped above her head. Ducking
instinctively, Khalia’s head whipped toward the perceived threat.
She was arrested, however, by a sight that so took her by surprise
that she could only blink at it, stunned, unable to think at
all.