In Laude Draconum

Prologue

There weren’t always Dragons in the Valley. Just like there weren’t always sewer-elves in Pasadena. Or gangs of street goblins camped out all around the tar pits on La Brea. The truth is, the San Fernando Valley was a totally dragon-free zone until just 50 years ago. That, of course, is when a stealthy little squad of pixie-mages surprised everyone by conjuring up a giant frostjette long enough for the creature to punch a hole in the Mulholland Dam up in the Hollywood Hills. The resulting flood submerged everything from Los Feliz to Beverly Hills. And the Dragons, their cozy basement office-lairs in the Financial District now marinating under ten feet of water, winged it north to the Valley, where they’ve been contentedly conducting their money laundering, extortion and related grifting enterprises ever since.

Yes, I understand you’re likely aware of the overall situation. But you being new in town and coming all this way to get my personal take on the red-sump hoodoo case, I just want to make sure you have the details along with the big picture.

So, the Valley after the reservoir emptied out into the L.A. flatlands? Good and bad points. On the plus side, the breach of the dam marked the last gasp in the fighting of the short-lived Magia-Hyoom Unpleasantness. And the flooding, and subsequent arrival of the Dragons in the San Fernando, freed up plenty of cheap rental units all through the Valley. So that was good. Sorta.

On the negative side, Dragons and their unsavory mob-style business model made living next door to them in the Valley pretty dicey, thus all the suddenly available rentals. So why did I live there? Short version of the long story: affordable apartments. And I actually kinda admire Dragons. I mean, they’re survivors, right? Despite a couple thousand years of being bad-mouthed, hassled and hunted by every shiny, new-forged, would-be hero with a Claymore blade, full-body armor and a chip on his or her shoulder. So, sure, I respect the big lizards. At least, when they’re not trying to burn off the tree cover where I was hiding that one time.

Did I actually owe them for debts run up at their so-called speak-easy-casino on Lankershim? Could be. But to actually unload the sterno-breath on me? Over a piddly five hundred and thirty bucks? Seems disproportionate. Especially since the possum-rat dealers at the Five Card Stud tables in their crappy joint have a well-earned rep for concealing cards in their pouches. In any case, just as a pair of fire-burping scorchers zeroed-in on my hiding spot, Evelyn stepped in. Well, flew in, and saved my Hyoom butt from being toasted into bar-b-q’d dick on a stick by these two overly pissed-off casino owners. So, hat tip to Evie for that. Just one more reason I have a soft spot for her kind. Yeah, Evelyn Moltensalt. She’s a gem. Older than dirt and quicker than snot, she used to call herself. Can’t argue with either. And, well, me and that homeless Dragon? We’ve been chums ever since.

And it wasn't just her talking two very annoyed Dragons out of frying my hide. I guess we saw something in each other. Maybe it was that we were both in the same bucket. As persona non grata, I mean. Me, because of a little misunderstanding with a certain captain Escobar of the Burbank P.D. last year. I mean, the charge is a joke. Conduct unbecoming a private dick? Me? It’s insulting. In any case, as I said, I expect to be cleared and have my badge back any day now.

As for Evelyn being on the outs with her fellow dragones de fuego? It was the virgins. Not her fault, I’ll say right off the bat. It was a sickness. Evie was sick. Is still sick, truth be told, but fighting it. The fact is, the Southern Cal chapter of the Dragons and Like-Kind Guild had signed off on the no-eating-virgins rule over a century ago. So, Evie’s… illness… eventually got her booted from the union and living like a beggar up amid the ruins of the old Hollywood sign. It was so sad. Her pathetic little nest of dried grass and virgin bones stuffed into what was left of the sign’s big letter D. Anyway, when her daughter Sophie went missing, she asked around and, no big surprise: my name came up. So, she got in touch. I mean, we were both in the pathetic-lost-souls bucket at that point, right? And she was desperate and needed my help. What could I say? Of course, she’s a pro bono case for me. Charging her would just be wrong. But don’t go spreading that around, OK?

And, yes, as you’ve noticed from our current surroundings, I finally bailed on the Valley. The fact is that once my P.I. license got pulled, I was just another down-and-out cabrón with a nasty gambling habit and overdue bar tabs from Ventura to San Berdoo. Anyway, I got to feeling kinda… vulnerable out in the Valley. Besides, it was time for a new start. So, scorcher admiration or not, I told Evie I’d find her kid, said so long and decamped for greener pastures. Being the generally lucky S.O.B. that I am, I fell right into this sweet guest house. Right on Paradise Cove, too. Smell that sea breeze! Rent free in Malibu, can you believe? And yes, it’s temporary. The owner’s the El Gran Bruja of the local witches’ conclave, so, yeah, more gold than God. Anyway, I’m just housesitting till she gets tired of the Seychelles and comes home, but I expect to be back on my feet and fully re-credentialed by then.

As for my resume as a private dick up until the review board snatched my badge? I don’t mind telling you that until last year I was a well-known and semi-employed hawkshaw working a full plate of cases across the Greater L.A. basin. OK, fine, maybe well-known is pushing it. More like somewhat familiar to a tiny, select clientele of Hyooms and Magia not scared off by how shockingly little I charge. But hey, the jamokes who hire me – present company excluded -- are part of an income bracket in an officially underserved segment of the population. So, my entirely reasonable rates? Means I’m doing my bit for society here. Tending to your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to blah blah blah and so forth.

But I digress. As I can do. You came to me about the red-sump hoodoo affair, and I appreciate you appreciating the fact that I’m the guy to talk to about this. I also appreciate you knowing the value of my in-depth savvy on this high-profile and hush-hush matter. I mean, black market red-sump, floating around in the public domain and falling into the wrong hands, et cetera? Not good. Also, I’m well-pleased to inform you that your check cleared, just as you insisted it would, with no issues whatsoever. And, that being the case, I now feel fully agreeable to spilling what I know. Which is plenty, my friend, plenty.

Now, first up, and you may find this hard to believe, but when I broke the first clue in this little drama, I didn’t know the troll was right behind me in that Venice Beach alley. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Trolls are stupid-huge and they wear hyoomin-vertebrae-neckties that rattle when they walk and they reek like rotting lamprey corpses lit on fire and how could you not know?’

I can explain. This was a kelp-troll, all right? So, less smell to tip me off. And while, as you are no doubt aware, trolls are all on the deadly side of aromatic, kelp-troll aroma is considerably less potent than, say, your run-of-the-mill landfill-troll.

And me not knowing about the troll’s proximity isn’t the point. The point is what had just popped up in the rusting dumpster right in front of me. That would be none other than Sophie Moltensalt. Yes, Evie’s runaway, teenage daughter. Well, teenage by Dragon reckoning. So, under two-thousand years, at least. And Sophie was not looking so good. There was steaming mucous dripping from her snout, her head was swaying back and forth on her neck and her scales had gone dull and flakey. But it was her eyes that told me I’d done good. And not just good in that I’d tracked down Evie’s missing girl. But good the way her eyes had the bulging and the violet-orange-glowing. Cuz that meant I had also tracked down my first lead on the red-sump. Yeah, only red-sump hoodoo gives someone’s peepers that unholy glow. I’d set out to find Evie’s one and only, and I’d succeeded. OK, succeeded sort of by accident while I was relieving myself against the dumpster she’d crashed in for the night. But I’d also sniffed my way onto the first thread in the red-hoodoo tangle. So, good job me, is all I’m saying.

And now you understand my overlooking the troll sidling up behind me, right? I was a little distracted, with very good reason. The last time a red-sump hoodoo-overdosed dragon reached critical mass and exploded you couldn’t go near the Santa Monica pier for a year. The Ferris wheel there still gives off a soft, radioactive blush on a moonless night. Sorta romantic, really.

But, I digress. So, from the ghost-light in Sophie’s eyes? She was ready to blow. The brown-black smoke beginning to curl up off her neck scales was my second clue, after the eye-glow. I jerked my NerveCo Relax-o-Matic stun-gat from the shoulder harness beneath my left armpit, leveled it at her – and watched it skitter onto the concrete after she clawed it out of my grip. Quicker than snot, just like her mom, right? Then I ducked, just before the ribbon of flame she shot at me seared the empty air where my mug had been. Not her fault, of course. Soph wasn't herself, no doubt about that.

She was about to spit her second flare at me when she spasmed, gurgled a little, went rigid and toppled headlong out of the dumpster. Sprawled on the ground, a seizure shook her like a cheap motel’s massage-mattress you’ve just dropped a quarter into. Then, she jerked up onto all fours again, wings arched back, black smoke pouring off her skin, ghost-eyes bright as the headlights on a '47 roadster. She was gonna detonate. Momentarily. And I was going to vanish in a small, dirty-nuke mushroom cloud of pink, atomized P.I.

And that… is when the troll struck.

Let me say this up front. I’m not a bigot. But I’ve never liked trolls. Most of them, at least. And I’m not even talking about the hyoomin-bone fetish or the spicy scent. It’s the poetry. There, I said it. Their poetry is annoying. And sorta constantly spewing out of them. So, annoying and often. OK, rant finished. And... not a bigot.

The troll’s hammer-blow fell just as the clumsy oaf crashed into, and basically tripped over, yours truly. I was crouching at that point. The words “quaking with face covered” have been used in subsequent retellings of the incident. Whatever. The point being he nearly crushed me, trolls being large, as noted. The guy’s war hammer cut through the air, arcing toward Sophie’s trembling head. I had just enough time to throw my arm up into the hammer’s path. I didn’t stop the blow, natch, but I did manage to slow it down a little. Amazingly enough, it didn’t break my arm -- but once the adrenaline petered out later and the pain set in, I was pretty sure it had.

So, the hammer hit just upside the left, glowing eyeball of Evie’s poor, drug-addled kid. The jolt cold-cocked her, and she dropped to the pavement like an oversize rag doll, her wings fluttering down around her. In any case, the tap on the head neatly short-circuited the runaway neural-nuclear reaction about to go off inside her -- the kind of reaction that is the peculiar result of a Dragon's mysterioso internal workings mixed with the black arts necro-villainy cocktail that is a red sump hoodoo potion. So, no pink-mist P.I. wafting on the breeze. No bad news for someone else to give Evie.

“Ursa!” I croaked from the weight on top of me and the odor chewing its way into my sinuses. And yes, I did say Kelpers were less offensive, by and large. But that close up? Not so swell. “Get… the hell… offa me…”

“Yeah, right,” Ursa muttered, hefting himself up. “So, you good, boss? Break anything?”

I didn’t need to look up at the big lummox to see the smirk on the boiled-ham kisser of my erstwhile partner.

“Oh no. I’m fine, really,” I lied, getting to my feet – and realizing I could barely move my right arm, which was starting to puff up at the elbow.

“Cut it kinda close on this one, didn’t ya boy-o?” Ursa leered at me. “Slowing down a bit, are we? Feeling our age?”

“I had her, ya dope,” I told him. “I was about to put her lights out, no harm done. You coulda killed her!”

He snort-laughed at this.

“Uh huh, she disarmed ya and what next? Sing her to sleep with a lullaby?” He loudly guffawed at this sad excuse for humor. “I woulda pulled my punch at the end anyways. No sweat.”

Then he got that look. That dreamy-troll-eye look, which is really pretty creepy emanating from something that big.

“Here it comes,” I moaned and went to retrieve my NerveCo, cradling my mashed arm.

“There once was a copper from Burbank…”

“Whoa. I’m a regular citizen these days, Urs. And I’m from Malibu now, all right?”

Ursa glared at me. It wasn’t polite to interrupt a troll’s poem-ing.

“An ex-private dick out for glory…” he started over, through clenched teeth. He gave me a look. I didn’t interrupt.

“…Got a little too close to his quarry.

Where his marginal skills,

Damn near got him killed,

‘Til Skull-Kisser ended the story.”

Yes. His hammer. Skull-Kisser. He called his hammer Skull-Kisser. What can I say? Not a subtle bone in the guy’s nine-foot, wart-and-scar covered body.

I'd just straightened up after retrieving my stun-gat when I heard Ursa let out a gutteral "ooof" behind me, like the wind had just been knocked out of him.

Spinning around, I saw the big guy sitting flat on his large troll ass trying to shake the stunned codfish expression off his face. Beyond him, flapping her way out over Santa Monica Bay and picking up speed fast was the silhouette of Sophie Moltensalt. So, stunned and defused, but not out for long -- and not so stunned that she forget she had some sorta reason for running away in the first place.

So, I watched her go. Backlit by the full moon rising over the glassy water of the bay, the sight would've actually been kinda romantic... some other time.

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