Heart of a Dragon

Chapter Two

Donovan DeChance sat by his fire and stared into the flames, lost in thought. He was a tall, striking man with long dark hair that washed back over his shoulders. His eyes — at first glance — seemed black, but they flashed violet if he turned his head just the right way. At that moment, he was idly stroking Cleopatra, his Egyptian Mau, and worrying over a problem that had haunted him for years. It seemed no more likely to be solved in that moment than it had in any of the other thousands he's spent pondering it, but he persisted.

The main room of his home was a combination library, den, living room and office. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves so tall that there were rolling ladders attached to each to make the uppermost shelves accessible. Along the base of the shelves were crates filled with more books, manuscripts, scrolls and documents. The contents of those crates overflowed onto the floor and flowed out to cover every horizontal space in the room with the exceptions of the chair he was sitting in, his desk, and the altar in the corner.

On the table beside him a tumbler of whiskey waited beside the slip of paper that had sparked his mood. It was a delivery notice — three more crates to arrive within the next couple of days. He knew he could find room for them along one of the walls, or behind his couch, but that wasn't the problem. Soon, something would have to give, and he wasn't ready to abandon his bedroom, or the few hideaways remaining to him.

When the phone rang he stared at it, at first unable to draw his thoughts back into the moment. He seldom got unexpected calls. For a moment he considered letting the answering machine handle it. He glanced at the crates and stacks of books and sighed heavily.

"Soon," he said, lifting Cleopatra carefully off his lap and standing. "Soon we will figure this out, Cleo, or you will find yourself sleeping four feet in the air on papyrus scrolls."

Cleo yawned, stretched and rubbed against his leg as he stepped to his desk and reached for the phone. Even the phone was old. It was black with an elegantly curved handset, and it looked out of place beside the wide, flat-screen computer monitor and the CPU.

"Yes?" Donovan said.

"It's Cord. I have information I think you'll be interested in."

Donovan frowned. He glanced at the fire, and at his chair, then back down at the phone. He considered chancing it and trusting his security, then sighed heavily.

"Not on the phone," he said. "Club Chaos. Ten o'clock."

"You're buying," Cord said.

The line went dead, and Donovan hung up. Cord was one of a string of informants and less-than-reputable denizens of the San Valencez underground who reported to Donovan regularly. The darker half of the city rested in a delicate balance, powers vying for control on all sides, new players dropping into the game unannounced, and Donovan couldn't afford not to remain current. He dealt in information and knowledge. His life often depended on knowing just a little bit more about things than anyone else involved in them, and so, instead of sitting and sipping whiskey as he tried once more to solve the conundrum of too many books and too few shelves, he turned toward the city.

"You'll have to watch the place for me, Cleo," he said. "I'm not expecting company, but we never know, do we?"

The cat stared up at him and licked its lips. The connection between the two was a deep one. If Donovan closed his eyes, he could watch himself through Cleo's eyes. He often wondered what the cat saw in those moments, but, once again, it was a subject for another time and place.

Donovan stepped to one of the few shelves in the room that was not completely overflowing with books and studied a small rack. Charms and pendants dangled from metal hooks. There were vials filled with powder, rags and pouches, and an array of stones lined up in careful symmetry. He never went to Club Chaos without proper preparation, particularly when Cord was involved. The man was much smarter than he let on, and Donovan wasn't naive enough to think he was the only beneficiary of that intelligence.

He studied the pendants carefully. He settled on an equal-armed cross in deep amethyst. It was set in an intricate pattern of silver with tiny carved characters along each band. He slipped this over his neck and dropped it beneath his shirt. He took a second group of green crystals that dangled from strong, thin chains joined by a loop at one end and dropped them into his hip pocket. He studied the rest of the shelf carefully, and then turned away. It was going to be a quick trip, and there wasn't any particular threat. He had his usual protections, and on any normal day they were enough. He just liked to have something up his sleeve for emergencies.

Cleopatra hopped up onto his desk and watched him with wide, baleful eyes. He stepped over and scratched her between her ears. She arched her back and pressed into his touch. Donovan smiled.

"Keep your eyes open, Cleo," he said. "I don't want any surprises when I get back."

Donovan glanced at the phone. He considered calling Amethyst. He knew she'd probably meet him if he asked her, and he'd feel better if someone else at least knew where he was. He shook his head, frowned, and turned away from the phone. He had no idea where his sudden paranoia was coming from, but he'd learned over a long life to trust his instincts, and though he didn't sense any particular danger in meeting with Cord, something felt wrong. No reason to drag anyone else into it, whatever it might be.

He stepped out of his door, locked it carefully, closed his eyes and set the wards. He felt ancient forces converge as he mouthed the incantations. The ornate wooden door grew unfocused, shimmered for a moment, and as he stepped away it took on the aspect of a more mundane frame — painted dingy white and stained from too many hand prints and boot toes over the years. Donovan had stayed in those rooms a very long time, and he'd made a number of "upgrades" — he liked to keep them to himself. He owned the entire building, though it would have been difficult to trace it back to him. It allowed him to make hidden modifications, and to come and go as he pleased, while appearing to those around him to be just another tenant.

He avoided the elevators and took the stairs to the first floor. Once there, he turned toward the back of the building. There was a maintenance exit that led to an alley behind the building, and he slipped through it quietly into the muggy southern California night. He stood very still in the shadows and waited. If anyone had been watching for him to exit, they'd follow. If anyone outside was waiting for him, he wanted to know they were there before making a move.

All that stirred were scraps of paper in the breeze. The alley opened on the street at one end; at the other was a solid brick wall. Donovan turned away from the street. When he reached the rear wall, he walked along it slowly, counting bricks. He touched the thirty-third from the right, on the eighth row from the bottom. The brick shimmered. Donovan stepped back and watched as the tombstone shaped outline of a doorway formed on the surface of the wall. Three stone steps led down into the darkness beyond the doorway, and he took them quickly, running down all three, back up two, and then stepping back down and pushing on the wooden door ahead of him. It swung inward, and he stepped through, leaving the alley behind.

The door closed behind him with a click, and he stood in a corridor with stone walls stretching out to the right and left. Along the walls doors were lined up at even intervals, stretching off beyond his sight. The air was cool and dank and there was an odd, smoky scent in the air.

Torches shone at intervals along the corridor, but there was no indication of how long they'd burned, or who might have lit them. Donovan had discovered references to the corridor in a crumbling diary written by an early Californian explorer. It matched notes in ancient European texts, and at least one carefully preserved Asian scroll. All indicated a set of corridors, a nexus providing a central entrance and exit to a series of portals. The network was vast, and if everything he'd read was correct, all of those doorways might not open onto Earth. Fortunately, all of those he'd managed to open did.

There were lesser portals known to many of the denizens of San Valencez, but to his knowledge, Donovan was the only one to discover this older route, and he kept his secrets very close. Sometimes a secret was the difference between life and death.

When he'd discovered this first entrance, he'd purchased the building closest to it. The wall and the brick were an illusion — the steps that led down to the portals each had their own wards. His opened with a simple mathematical solution contrived of climbing and descending the correct number of stairs in the proper order. Others required more intricate keys and rituals. It was a mystery he'd only begun to unravel, but it had proven very useful. He believed that there had once been keys, possibly formed of crystal, but their location was lost to time

The corridor was ancient and powerful, and he never stepped into it without a twinge of nerves. Whatever power had created the portals and the corridor that joined them had stood for centuries, perhaps longer. The thought of how far they might stretch, and of who — or what- might share that corridor at any given time was sobering. It was also possible for magic — over time — to fade, or warp. He didn't think he wanted to be in the corridor when that happened.

Donovan walked slowly away from the doorway that led to his alley. As he walked, he counted the doorways on his right. He'd found that if he tried to watch the doorways on both sides, it threw off the count in some arcane manner. Fourteen doors down he stopped, turned to his left, and crossed to the portal directly opposite. He opened the latch and stepped onto a short stone stair that led up into the alley outside Club Chaos.