Year of the Dragon (Changeling Sisters Book 3) (8 page)

I’d be damned if a human won this competition without a growl from a wolf.

I slogged my way through the mud and then lunged upon the unclaimed rope. The audience began to shift and yell. Fingers pointed in my direction. The Korean boy turned to see the snarling foreign girl yank the rope through the slot in the balloon wall with all of her might. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead, and a moment of unease seized me as I realized he was blind. But then he grinned.

Damn
, he was strong. I dug my heels in, but the mud built up around my ankles. I slipped and hit my head against plastic blue Teflon. The crowd
ooh
ed.

Out of sheer desperation, I hugged the rope tight to my chest before flinging myself in the opposite direction. The resounding roar set my ears on fire. Daring a peek over my shoulder, I saw that the boy had been knocked flat on his back. I graciously kept him there, slamming his head against the balloon wall a couple of times before I made a break for the bell. I just had to tap the bell once for that glorious
ding
of victory, just once—

The sheer violence of the jerk sent me flying through the air. I counted the number of clouds in the sky. Then my head hit the blue bouncy machine, and it was all I could do to twist the rope around myself. But by then, the bell had already sung.

“Red wins!” the announcer courteously announced my defeat in English. Scowling, I untied the rope from around my waist and jumped down to “congratulate” the victor. Quickly, of course. Before the rest of the pack saw that their Alpha had been bested by—

“Khyber?” I blurted. The familiar pale, hawkish face with a wing of jet-black hair turned toward me inquisitively. But something was wrong. This boy didn’t stand like a powerfully commanding prince expecting to be obeyed. Neither did he smell like the walking corpse he was. In fact, this Khyber didn’t smell like anything. But most incredible were his eyes—their peculiar gray-blue color was gone, replaced by impenetrable marble black flecked with gold.

The wingless vampyre cocked his head. “
Mweo-yehyo?
”
What?

“Don’t play games with me, you prissy mother-fucker.”
Literally
. Maya had claimed all of her princes as sons…and lovers. I grabbed his shoulder. “What are you
doing
here? Raina has enough to worry about!”

I needn’t have worried. The Khyber-looking boy curiously examined my left hand with a delicate touch. His sightless eyes remained fixed upon my face.

“I don’t know you,” he said in Korean. “My name is Taeyang. These games are fun, aren’t they?” He grinned and held up my hand. “Even if I almost lose to girl with nine fingers.”

“Funny, Khyber,” I grumbled. “I lost that finger thanks to you, soju brain. You can knock it off, now. Raina will want to speak with you. For
closure
, you understand. You blood-suckers messed up her life enough.”

But he continued to shake his head. “Sorry. Little English.”

“No English, my ass,” I snarled. “You’ve had hundreds of years to study. Right, Khyber? Khyber!”

“Taeyang,” he repeated again in Korean. “My name is Taeyang.” Then he slipped into the crowd and was gone.

I swore and started to go after him, but then Yu Li and Bae dashed up.

“Your phone chimed,” Yu Li said breathlessly. “Won Hyeon Bin is ready to meet you at the Lantern Shop in Eve.”

My eye roamed the laughing crowds, but they kept “Taeyang” safe from sight.
“Komaweoyo,”
I thanked them. “Bae, watch my body when I enter the spirit world. Yu Li, gather up the pack to go home. Vampyres may be in the area, and no wolf should face them alone.”

Her eyes widened, and she gave a short nod. “
Algesseumnida
.”

Chapter 9: The Lost Doorkeeper

~Citlalli~

The first time I visited Old Man Zhi’s lantern shop in Eve, it had been the lone building lit on a cold, dark street. The spirit world had been bent into a cruel and hostile place under the Vampyre Queen’s rule. Trash had littered the alleyways, the local school abandoned, and hungry ghosts had lurked in the shadows, unable to move on. I had been an unwitting accomplice to a devious nine-tailed fox named “Fred,” who had been after Old Man Zhi’s soul-catching Lotus Lantern. We’d succeeded, and I’d been cursed as a “thief.”

I smiled fondly as I inserted the key in the door. When I was a bit older and wiser, I’d returned to do penance for my crime. In the process, I’d learned Zhi Renshu’s story and helped him find peace. He was gone now, hopefully reunited with his brother and his love Anli in the Beyond. For some inexplicable reason, Zhi-
laoshi
had left the lantern shop and all of its wondrous contents to me. Maybe he thought I was an artistic genius.

Or maybe he knew that with the true Lady of Eve returned, I was about to be busier than a Costco.

“Hi, Gobu,” I groaned. The anxious garlic spirit hovered outside the door, too big to enter. “No, I haven’t finished your Garden Lantern yet. Try back in three moonrises.”

“I’ll just wait outside then,” he droned, and I rolled my eye. Of course, spirits had nowhere else to be.

“You should hire more help!” Old Mother Leopard Cat and her three rotund kits had broken in again. They watched me from the rafters with gleaming amber eyes. “My eldest Mangdung would make an excellent choice.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching to swipe back the luck lantern Mangdung was hiding behind his paws, “but I think your definition of ‘help’ differs from mine.”

The string of bell lanterns chimed, and I whirled about, frustrated. “I’m not open—”

“Which is good,” the fighting monk Hyeon Bin said with a smile, “or else I’d be accused of cutting. There is a line halfway around the block.”

I opened the window and was blinded by a hoard of cheerful, glowing ghosts waving back. Crap.

“Sorry, I’m closed today!” I called. “Internal staff meeting!”

A sea of groans rose, mutters of “Old Man Zhi was never this behind schedule,” and, “But you’re never in Eve!” most prominent.

“Yeah, yeah. Leave a comment card.”

An unhelpful monkey spirit took that opportunity to shake the overflowing comment box over my head, showering me with angry tasseled papers and curses. I closed the window extra tight. Just then, I heard a thunderous crash in the back of my shop.

“Distract them!” I yelled at Hyeon Bin, who had made himself a cup of tea. I leaped over wire lantern frames and stacks of rice paper, skittering down to the kitchen. Miguel ducked through the doorway, grinning.

“Nice shop, sis,” he said. “So technically, you are
still employed.”

“Technically,”
I stressed, as someone threw an egg at the window, “I graduated from high school, too.” After the pack’s old Alpha, Seu Jaehoon, had passed, I’d awarded myself a diploma from his home school. Desperate times and all. The pack needed a smart, inspirational Alpha who had graduated with perfect grades.

“How much money do you make?”

I pointed to the safe. “It’s not so much money as these weird artifacts from all over the world. I make my ghost clients magical lanterns on the condition that it will help them move on. Like Gobu’s Garden Lantern, which is supposed to help him sprout tall enough to reunite with his love, the Green Onion Spirit.”

“Uh-huh. Love your management style,” he remarked as the uproar surged outside. “Are you sure those ghosts aren’t trying to eat us?”

Like Raina, my older brother didn’t have the fondest memories of Eve. He’d nearly been supper for some starving ghosts, for one. Then Fred had kidnapped Miguel with the intent of eating his liver and
becoming
him. It was every kumiho’s dream to transform into a human. Fred wanted to become human
and
win the love of his deranged life: my brave spirit-walking friend Una. Unfortunately, she was interested in Miguel for some reason, so that put him in Fred’s crosshairs. Una had averted Fred’s liver-dining date in time—in exchange for voluntarily becoming Fred’s captive.

Hyeon Bin placed his cup of tea aside and rose. “So. You are Miguel.”

“You’re Una’s uncle.” Hyeon Bin didn’t bow or extend a hand in greeting, and my brother shifted awkwardly. “How’s the search for Una going?”

“Badly.”

Miguel squirmed, letting his gaze float anywhere else but the steely-eyed monk. I let him. He was lucky I didn’t bring up Yu Li.

The crowd’s cries suddenly fell into a hushed silence. I flung open the door, and there She was.

The Lady of Eve was a magnificent white tiger. Starlight refracted within Her azure eyes, and Her fur coat was a blizzard of inky black stripes and coils. She was still relatively young compared to Her mother, the previous ruler of Eve who had been murdered by Maya.

With a single bound, the White Tiger leaped to corner me.

We three “sunshine souls” bowed. The Lady of Eve inclined Her head in turn and glanced at the awestruck crowd.

–Leave us–

They scattered.

Miguel nudged me. “And I thought you were scary.”

I rubbed my arms self-soothingly, unable to withstand the power in those age-old sapphire eyes. They were a mirror, a challenge to gaze upon myself as I truly was. She defeated Her enemies before the fight began by confronting them with themselves. “There are other ways to inspire fear.”

Within the lantern shop, Hyeon Bin fell to his knees. “Please, Great Immortal, you must help me find my niece. She is the last of the Won spirit walker clan, the guardians of Eve. I called upon the great chicken dragon charioteers and used my last wish to go to her. They could not!”

He set his teacup down, his face troubled. “An evil green mist spreads in the South China Sea. Mortal humans without spirit sight do not see it. However, when they get too close, they lose their memories and turn their transportation back around: cargo ships, ferries, planes… All the while, their dogs bark and know something is wrong. My order could only travel as far as Busan; all of the islands to the south, even Jeju-do, are lost!”

I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach by a sledgehammer, knowing the depth of Hyeon Bin’s anguish. I, too, had considered calling upon my
gyeryong
friends Kwan and Sanghee to find Raina. The gyeryong were chicken dragons who used to tow the chariots of ancient Korean royalty. Now they granted their riders three trips, anywhere they wished to go in Eve. However, realizing I would not be ready to face the Vampyre Queen’s Court, I had chosen to wait. For Hyeon Bin to call upon the cockatrice without knowing what lair he would be walking into meant he had reached new heights of desperation to save Una.

“A place the cockatrice cannot go?” I swallowed hard. “How is that possible?”

–The Children of Death have fallen in the East- the White Tiger said. –Now their Parents in the West come looking–

“Well, that sounds fuck-tastic,” Miguel contributed. “Now we have to deal with the vampyres’ creators?”

The White Tiger prowled around the lantern shop restlessly, Her tail twitching beside a Memory Lantern.

–Your niece is not just a spirit walker– She told Hyeon Bin. –She is
the
Doorkeeper, the one who keeps the spirit and sunshine world in balance. And now she is in enemy hands–

“Truly?” Hyeon Bin murmured. “
Aigoo
, I have failed my niece! What would
noona
say?”

“Would someone please tell me how screwed we are?”

I immediately reached out to grab Miguel’s shaking hand. He only started spewing profanity like a volcano when he was really, truly scared.

The White Tiger’s tail brushed his ankle, and he ducked behind me.

–Always one spirit walker will emerge who is stronger than the others, one whom the world of the living and the spirits gravitates toward. Won Una grew strong in the ways of spirit by helping you overthrow the Vampyre Queen– the White Tiger said, nodding toward me. –She keeps the two worlds in balance, but the longer she remains trapped here, the more the waking world will be sucked into Eve. The veils will begin to blur. The Were-souled will find themselves transported to Eve more frequently. And ghosts, not all of them good, will take notice of the waking world. If this mist is beginning to appear in the waking world, then the veil is too thin already–

I raised my eyebrow at Miguel. “Good job.”

“No, it is not the boy’s fault,” Hyeon Bin spoke up unexpectedly. “We must keep our arrow notched at the source of this evil: the kumiho. We will find a way to defeat Fred and you will be reunited with Una, my boy; do not worry.”

Miguel’s fingers tightened around mine. I frowned, but didn’t say anything. “So we’re pretty screwed. But what’s up with that weird green mist Hyeon Bin saw?”

–It keeps us out– the Lady of Eve said. –Whatever the enemy is planning, it is taking place behind that veil. They would only be able to stop me from entering if they are in control of the Doorkeeper–

“And who are ‘they’?” Miguel kicked over a Laughing Lantern in frustration.

“I can answer that.”

Our heads shot up. Raina stood in the doorway, casting a suspicious glance around the lantern shop and making an extra effort not to touch anything.

“Raina! You came!” I hurried over to welcome her inside.

My younger sister didn’t unfold her arms. “Just this once. For Una.”

The White Tiger’s gaze softened. –Annyeong haseyo, Girl-Who-Does-Not-Know-Her-Family-Name–

Raina gazed upon the White Tiger, and a flicker of wonder rekindled in her downcast eyes. “Why do you call me that, Lady of Eve?”

–I was like you, once. I was No-Name, until your sister discovered my past–

“Well, my problem isn’t that I don’t have a family name; it’s that I have too many. I’m an Alvarez. I’m a Mejía. Now I’ve been invited to be a Yong.”

The great cat purred. –That sounds difficult. The most beautiful things are, impossibly so. Many will only know one world in this lifetime. You have been invited to know three–

“Technically four, if you count being a flying reptile,” I added. “I’m terribly jealous I’ll never know what it’s like to be cold-blooded.”