A new Ghost of Hong Kong story by Steve Miller!

 We're kicking off the New Year with a new tale of danger and death!

The Ghost Rises

The shaft of light fell through the skylight like a blade, cutting through the darkness of Hu Wan's private chamber to illuminate the small circle where Kam sat. The rest of the room remained in shadow—deliberate, theatrical, the way Wan preferred his fortune-telling sessions. He liked his captive psychic spotlit, vulnerable, a specimen under glass for his amusement.

Kam's wrists bore the raw marks of the chains that bound her to the heavy mahogany table. The metal links clinked softly as she moved her hands across the zodiac cards spread before her, their ancient symbols seeming to glow in the concentrated light. She wore only the thin silk slip Wan had allowed her. It was more than he sometimes let her have, so she should probably thank the gods for small favors.

"Tell me again," Wan said from the darkness beyond the light. His voice carried the rough edges of a lifetime of cigarettes and violence. "Tell me what you see."

Kam's fingers trembled as they hovered over the cards. Not from fear—she had moved beyond fear weeks ago—but from the effort of maintaining the performance. Her gift was real enough, though not in the way Wan believed. She could read people, sense their intentions, feel the currents of fate moving through the world. But she had learned to shape her visions, to guide them toward the outcome she needed.

"The Tiger prowls in darkness," she said, her voice carrying the ritualistic cadence Wan expected. "The Dragon sleeps in his mountain fortress. But the Ghost..." She paused, letting the silence stretch. "The Ghost rises from the earth to strike down a great enemy."

Wan stepped into the edge of the light, and Kam suppressed a shudder. He was a thick man, running to fat now in his fifties, but the muscle underneath remained solid. His face bore the scars of his rise through Bangkok's underworld—a knife slash across one cheek, a puckered bullet wound near his temple. He wore an expensive silk shirt open to reveal gold chains nested in graying chest hair. In his hands, he cradled an MP5 submachine gun like a lover.

"The Ghost of Hong Kong," he said, his lips pulling back in something between a smile and a snarl. "That legendary bitch thinks she can come for me. For Hu Wan." He laughed, a sound like gravel in a cement mixer. "I know why she comes. Those brothels in Chiang Mai—the ones I invested in. She thinks she's some kind of avenging angel for those whores."

He moved closer to Kam, close enough that she could smell the whiskey on his breath and the acrid scent of gun oil. His free hand reached out to trace the line of her collarbone, and she forced herself to remain still, to keep her breathing steady. This too was part of the performance.

"But I'm ready for her," Wan continued, his fingers trailing lower. "I've got fifty men in this compound. Motion sensors. Cameras. And when she comes through that door..." He gestured with the MP5 toward the room's single entrance. "I'll cut her in half before she can blink."

Kam's eyes remained fixed on the cards, but her awareness extended far beyond them. She could feel it now—a presence drawing near, inevitable as the tide. The Ghost was close. Very close.

"The cards say the Ghost will rise soon," Kam said softly. "Very soon."

Wan's hand moved to grip her chin, forcing her to look up at him. His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated from whatever cocktail of drugs he'd been consuming. "You better hope your visions are accurate, little bird. Because if this Ghost doesn't show, if you've been wasting my time..." He let the threat hang unfinished, but his grip tightened enough to make her jaw ache.

The radio on Wan's belt crackled to life, shattering the moment. "Boss! Boss, we have an intruder! North perimeter, someone's—"

The transmission cut off, replaced by the sharp crack of gunfire. Then more shots, rapid and overlapping, the distinctive chatter of automatic weapons mixing with the deeper boom of shotguns. Wan released Kam and spun toward the door, bringing the MP5 up to his shoulder.

"All units, report!" he barked into the radio. "What's happening?"

Static answered him, punctuated by more gunfire. The sounds were moving, drawing closer to the main house. Kam could track the battle's progress by the acoustic signatures—the firefight starting at the outer wall, then moving through the courtyard, then into the house itself. Wan's men were dying, and they were dying fast.

"Second floor clear!" a voice shouted over the radio, high-pitched with panic. "She's heading for the—"

The transmission ended in a scream, a sound of pure terror that cut off with horrible abruptness. Then silence. Complete, absolute silence that seemed to press against the walls of the darkened room.

Wan's breathing had gone ragged. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the frigid air conditioning. He kept the MP5 trained on the door, his finger white-knuckled on the trigger. "Come on," he muttered. "Come on, you bitch. Come through that door."

"The Ghost rises now," Kam said, her voice carrying an otherworldly certainty. "The zodiac has spoken. The great enemy falls tonight."

"Shut up!" Wan snarled, not taking his eyes off the door. "Shut your mouth or I'll—"

He never finished the threat. His attention was completely focused on the door, on the obvious point of entry, on the place where any rational attacker would appear. Which was exactly what Kam had been counting on.

In the far corner of the room, hidden in the deep shadows beneath a side table, a section of the floor lifted silently. The trap door—an escape route Wan had installed years ago and then forgotten about—opened just wide enough to admit a human form.

The Ghost of Hong Kong emerged from the darkness below like a wraith materializing from the underworld. She moved with absolute silence, her black tactical gear rendering her nearly invisible in the unlit portions of the room. Her face was covered by a balaclava, only her eyes visible—dark, focused, utterly calm. In her hands, she carried a suppressed pistol, the weapon an extension of her body.

Wan was still talking, his voice rising with a mixture of fear and bravado. "You think I'm afraid? You think Hu Wan fears some ghost story? I've killed better than you. I've—"

He turned, perhaps sensing something, perhaps just nervous energy making him check his flanks. His eyes widened as he registered the figure standing in the shadows behind him, the pistol already rising to aim at his center mass.

"No—" he started to say, trying to swing the MP5 around.

The Ghost fired three times in rapid succession, the suppressed shots making soft coughing sounds that seemed impossibly quiet after the cacophony of the firefight outside. The first round took Wan in the chest, punching through his sternum. The second caught him in the throat as he staggered backward. The third, delivered with surgical precision as he fell, entered just above his left eye.

Hu Wan collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, the MP5 clattering from his nerveless fingers. His body hit the floor with a heavy thud, blood pooling beneath him in the shaft of light that had so recently illuminated Kam's captivity.

The Ghost moved immediately to Kam's side, holstering her pistol and producing a set of lock picks from a pouch on her tactical vest. Her hands worked with practiced efficiency on the chains binding Kam's wrists, the locks clicking open one by one.

"Thank you," Kam said softly, rubbing her freed wrists. "I knew a great enemy would fall tonight."

The Ghost paused, glancing at Kam with an expression that might have been curiosity. When she spoke, her voice was low and controlled, carrying a slight British accent that spoke of international education and careful cultivation. "Your great enemy. Not his."

"The cards don't lie," Kam said carefully.

The Ghost returned to working on the chains, her hands moving with practiced efficiency. "The brothels in Chiang Mai," she said, her tone conversational but edged with something harder. "Seventeen girls, the youngest barely thirteen. Wan's investment portfolio was quite detailed once I accessed his financial records. That's why I came for him."

"He liked to brag," Kam said, her voice hardening. "About his business ventures. About how much money there was in selling children. He thought I was just his fortune-teller, his exotic pet."

Another lock clicked open. The Ghost moved to the ankle chains. "Men like Wan always underestimate the people they cage." She glanced up. "How long did he keep you here?"

"Three months," Kam said. "Reading his fortune. Warning him about his enemies. Telling him what he wanted to hear." She paused, then added quietly, "And what he needed to hear."

The Ghost's hands stilled for just a moment, then continued their work. "What he needed to hear?"

Kam met her eyes. "I told him the Ghost would rise tonight. I told him to watch the door. I made sure he was looking in exactly the wrong direction."

The final chain fell away, and Kam was free. She swayed slightly, months of captivity and malnutrition taking their toll. The Ghost caught her, steadying her with a firm hand, then produced a dark jacket from her pack and draped it over Kam's shoulders.

"Clever," the Ghost said, studying Kam's face. "But how did you know I would come tonight? How did you know I would come at all?"

Kam took a breath, her legs trembling beneath her. "Because I called to you."

The Ghost went very still. "Called to me."

"I've been reaching out for weeks," Kam said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sending everything I could—the layout of the compound, Wan's routines, the trap door. I knew you were hunting him. I knew you would come."

For a long moment, the Ghost simply stared at her. Then something shifted in her expression—recognition, perhaps, or confirmation of something she'd been trying to rationalize. "The visions," she said softly. " They came from you."

"Yes."

The Ghost backed away slightly, processing this revelation. Then, cool and professional again: "Can you walk?"

"How did they come through?" Kam asked.

The Ghost's expression grew distant, remembering. "At first, I thought I was losing my mind. Three weeks ago, I was doing my evening meditation—I practice yoga, helps maintain focus for the work—and suddenly I saw this room. Not imagined it. Saw it. The skylight, the cards, your face. And I heard a name: Hu Wan."

She moved toward the trap door, checking it with her flashlight, but continued speaking. "The images kept coming. Always when my mind was quiet. During savasana after a session. In that space between sleeping and waking. I'd see the compound layout, the guard rotations, the forgotten passages beneath the building. It was like watching surveillance footage, except the camera was inside my head."

"I wasn't sure you were receiving them," Kam said, following her on unsteady legs. "I just kept pushing, kept sending everything I could."

"I tried to ignore it at first," the Ghost admitted. "Thought it was stress or some kind of psychological break. But the information was too specific, too detailed. And when I cross-referenced the name Hu Wan with my existing intelligence on trafficking networks, everything aligned. You were giving me everything I needed to find him." .." She met Kam's eyes and asked again, "Can you walk?"

"Yes," Kam said, though her legs trembled. "Yes, I can walk. I can run if I have to."

"We'll take it slow," the Ghost said. She gestured toward the trap door. "

Kam looked down at Wan's body one last time. In death, he seemed smaller, less monstrous. Just another predator who had finally met something higher on the food chain. 

"The zodiac was right," she said quietly. "The Ghost rose from the earth. The great enemy fell."

The Ghost glanced at her, something that might have been respect flickering in those dark eyes. "Your gift is real."

"Yes," Kam said. "Though not in the way Wan believed. I can't see the future, not exactly. But I can feel the currents of fate, the patterns of cause and effect. And I can sometimes... nudge them. Guide them toward the outcome that needs to happen."

"You guided me here."

"I called to you," Kam corrected. "You chose to answer. You chose to hunt Wan. I just... made sure you had the information you needed. Made sure he would be exactly where you needed him to be."

The Ghost nodded slowly, processing this. Then she gestured toward the trap door. "We should go. The authorities will be here soon. I made sure to trigger several alarms on my way out."

Kam moved toward the escape route, then paused. "The other girls. The ones in the brothels. Will they—"

"Already handled," the Ghost said. "I hit Wan's operations in Chiang Mai three days ago. The girls are safe, being processed through legitimate aid organizations. Wan's partners are either dead or in custody." She paused. "That's why he was so paranoid tonight. He knew I was coming for him. He just didn't know how."

"Because I told him," Kam said, a small smile playing at her lips. "I told him the Ghost would rise. I told him to watch the door. I made sure he was looking in exactly the wrong direction."

"Clever," the Ghost said, and there was genuine admiration in her voice. "You're wasted as a fortune-teller."

"Perhaps," Kam said, beginning to descend into the passage below. "But the cards don't lie. They told me a ghost would rise to strike down my enemy. They told me I would be free. They told me that justice, however delayed, would come."

The Ghost followed her down, pulling the trap door closed above them. In the darkness of the passage, lit only by the Ghost's small flashlight, they moved away from the room where Hu Wan's body lay cooling in its shaft of light.

"Where will you go?" the Ghost asked as they navigated the narrow tunnel.

"I have family in Taiwan," Kam said. "If they still remember me. If they'll take me back after..." She trailed off, the weight of her captivity settling over her.

"They'll remember you," the Ghost said with quiet certainty. "And I'll make sure you get there safely." She paused, considering her next words carefully. "What you did—reaching out to me like that—it wasn't just impressive. It was useful. Intelligence I could trust completely because it came from the source itself."

Kam glanced back at her in the dim light. "You want readings."

"I might," the Ghost admitted. "My work requires knowing things others don't. And you have a gift for seeing what's hidden." There was a beat of silence, then: "I don't usually work for free, and I suspect you don't either. But tonight... let's call it an introduction. A demonstration of what we might offer each other."

"You're proposing an arrangement," Kam said, understanding dawning.

"I'm proposing we stay in touch," the Ghost said. "You helped me tonight more than you know. Handed me Hu Wan on a silver platter. In the future, when I need to see clearly, I'll know who to ask. And when you need a ghost to rise..." She let the sentence hang.

"I'll know who to call," Kam finished softly.

They emerged from the tunnel into the humid Bangkok night, the compound behind them already alive with the wail of approaching sirens. The Ghost led Kam to a nondescript motorcycle parked in the shadows of a nearby alley, producing a second helmet and a leather jacket from the storage compartment.

As Kam settled onto the bike behind her unlikely savior, she felt the psychic currents shifting around them, the patterns of fate realigning now that Wan's dark influence had been removed from the world. She had been right to reach out, right to trust in the legend of the Ghost of Hong Kong.

The Ghost started the engine, the sound a low purr in the darkness. "Hold on," she said.

Kam wrapped her arms around the Ghost's waist, feeling the solid reality of her rescuer, this woman who had seemed like nothing more than a myth until tonight.

"Thank you," she said again, the words inadequate but sincere. "For hearing me. For coming."

The Ghost didn't respond, guiding the motorcycle out of the alley and into the flow of late-night traffic. They disappeared into the neon-lit streets of Bangkok, two women bound by violence and liberation, by psychic connection and shared purpose. Behind them, Hu Wan's compound blazed with police lights, and somewhere on the top floor of the house, in a shaft of light, on a mahogany table, ancient symbols spoke of justice delivered and debts repaid.

--

If you enjoyed this story, you might also like this other Ghost of Hong Kong story that can be read here at the blog. You might even consider getting a copy of The Ghost of Hong Kong anthology, which is full of stories you can only find there!

Meet a new character!

Every so often, when we are generating images at OpenArt.ai, we get hilarious misfires. Sometimes, the misfires inspire ideas completely separate from the property or concept we were trying to illustrate.

The latest of these led to the idea for a brand-new character, Kenzie Cooper, and a story to introduce her to the world! (Jane Glix is the pen-name given unto us by the computer, so this and any future stories featuring the deadly Zodiac-based assassin!

Written in the Stars

The penthouse suite of the Hotel Metropol overlooked Red Square with the kind of view that cost more per night than most Russians earned in a year. Kenzie Cooper stood at the window, watching snow fall across the Kremlin's illuminated domes, calculating the precise moment a man would die. Her laptop sat open on the mahogany desk behind her, displaying two astrological charts side by side, their geometric patterns of houses and planetary aspects glowing softly in the darkened room.

On the left: Dmitri Ivanov, born March 15, 1968, at 3:47 AM in Novosibirsk. Sun in Pisces, Moon in Scorpio, Ascendant in Capricorn. A man whose natal chart spoke of ruthless ambition cloaked in emotional manipulation, of power accumulated through secrets and fear.

On the right: Her own chart, calculated for this specific moment in Moscow. Mars transiting her eighth house—the house of death and transformation. Jupiter forming a trine to her natal Pluto. The aspects were clear, undeniable. Tonight, the cosmos aligned for justice.

Kenzie had been tracking Ivanov for three months, ever since the dossier arrived through her usual channels. The file detailed his crimes with clinical precision: journalist assassinations disguised as accidents, political opponents poisoned with exotic compounds, entire villages displaced for mining operations that poisoned their water supplies. Ivanov had built his fortune on suffering, protected by a network of corrupt officials and the kind of wealth that made him untouchable through conventional means.

But Kenzie didn't operate through conventional means.

She returned to her laptop, studying the ephemeris for the evening. Ivanov would attend a private auction at the Pushkin Museum at nine o'clock—a gathering of oligarchs and international collectors bidding on looted antiquities. The event was invitation-only, security extensive but predictable. More importantly, the Moon would enter Ivanov's twelfth house at 9:47 PM, the house of hidden enemies and self-undoing. Saturn would simultaneously square his natal Mars.

The universe has a sense of timing, she thought, closing the laptop.

It hadn't always been this way—astrology was once just another curiosity, a peripheral skill she'd stumbled upon by accident. Now, it was as essential to her work as her custom-made Walther PPK.

Kenzie had discovered astrology during her first year as a professional. A target in Mumbai, a corrupt pharmaceutical executive, had kept an astrologer on retainer. While surveilling his office, she'd intercepted communications about "inauspicious timing" that caused the executive to cancel a trip. The trip would have taken him out of her reach for weeks. Instead, he'd stayed in Mumbai, and she'd completed her assignment on schedule.

Curiosity led her to study the charts herself. She approached it with the same analytical rigor she applied to ballistics, surveillance, and tactical planning. The patterns emerged quickly—not mystical prophecy, but a sophisticated timing system that mapped psychological vulnerabilities and optimal windows for action. Some might call it superstition. Kenzie called it another tool in her arsenal.

The Pushkin Museum glittered with old-world elegance, its neoclassical facade illuminated against the winter darkness. Kenzie arrived at eight-thirty, dressed in a black Valentino gown that cost more than her first car, her dark hair swept into an elegant chignon. The invitation she presented at the door was genuine, purchased from a minor aristocrat who needed cash more than culture.

Inside, the auction occupied the museum's main gallery, where priceless artifacts lined the walls in climate-controlled cases. The guests circulated with champagne flutes, their conversations a mixture of Russian, English, and French. Kenzie recognized several faces from intelligence briefings—arms dealers, money launderers, the architects of modern kleptocracy dressed in Brioni and Chanel.

Ivanov held court near a display of Scythian gold, surrounded by sycophants and bodyguards. He was shorter than his photographs suggested, with the soft features of someone who'd never missed a meal and the cold eyes of someone who'd ordered many final ones. His security detail consisted of four men, positioned at cardinal points around him, their attention focused outward on potential threats.

Kenzie studied them with professional assessment. Ex-military, probably Spetsnaz, competent but overconfident. They expected threats to come from the obvious vectors—the entrances, the crowd, the windows. They didn't expect the threat to come from the stars themselves.

She checked her watch: 9:15 PM. The auction would begin in fifteen minutes. She needed to be in position before then.

The museum's layout had been memorized weeks ago through architectural plans and reconnaissance visits. The main gallery connected to a series of smaller exhibition rooms, which in turn led to administrative offices and storage areas. Security cameras covered the public spaces, but the back corridors operated on motion sensors and periodic guard patrols. The guards changed shifts at nine-thirty, creating a seven-minute window of reduced coverage.

Kenzie moved through the crowd with practiced ease, accepting champagne she wouldn't drink, exchanging pleasantries in flawless Russian with men whose fortunes were built on blood. She positioned herself near the gallery's eastern exit, the one that led toward the administrative wing.

At 9:22, she slipped through the doorway.

The corridor beyond was dimly lit, lined with storage rooms and conservation laboratories. Kenzie moved quickly but without apparent haste, her heels clicking softly on marble floors. Anyone who saw her would assume she was looking for a restroom or taking a phone call away from the crowd.

The conservation lab was unlocked, as her research had indicated it would be. Museums prioritized protecting their collections from the public, not from threats that originated within their own walls. Inside, she found what she needed: a white lab coat hanging on a hook, a security badge clipped to its pocket, and access to the museum's environmental control systems.

Kenzie pulled on the coat and studied the control panel mounted on the wall. The museum's climate control was sophisticated, designed to maintain precise temperature and humidity levels for artifact preservation. It also controlled the ventilation system for the entire building.

She removed a small vial from her evening bag—a custom compound synthesized by a chemist in Prague who asked no questions and accepted only cryptocurrency. The substance was colorless, odorless, and would disperse through the ventilation system as an aerosol. In low concentrations, it caused mild disorientation and nausea. In the concentration she was about to introduce into the main gallery's air supply, it would trigger acute respiratory distress in anyone exposed for more than ten minutes.

Anyone except Kenzie, who'd taken the antidote an hour before arriving.

She checked her watch again: 9:31 PM. The Moon had entered Ivanov's twelfth house three minutes ago. Saturn's square to his Mars was exact.

The stars don't lie, she thought, opening the vial.

The compound dispersed into the ventilation system with a soft hiss. Kenzie sealed the empty vial in a plastic bag, tucked it back into her evening bag, and returned the lab coat to its hook. She was back in the main gallery within four minutes, her absence unnoticed in the pre-auction excitement.

The auctioneer, a distinguished man in his sixties, took his position at the podium. The first lot was a Byzantine icon, its gold leaf catching the gallery lights. Bidding opened at five hundred thousand euros.

Kenzie positioned herself near the gallery's main entrance, far from Ivanov but with a clear line of sight. She watched the crowd, counting seconds in her head. The compound would take approximately eight minutes to reach effective concentration in the gallery's air supply.

At the six-minute mark, she noticed the first signs. A woman near the front touched her throat, her face suddenly pale. A man coughed into his hand, then coughed again, harder. The auctioneer paused mid-sentence, his voice catching.

By minute seven, the gallery had descended into chaos.

People stumbled toward exits, gasping for air that seemed to have turned thick and hostile. The bodyguards surrounding Ivanov moved to protect him, but they were affected too, their movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Someone screamed. Glass shattered as a guest collapsed into a display case.

Ivanov clutched at his chest, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. His bodyguards tried to move him toward the exit, but the crowd had become a panicked mass, everyone fighting for the doors simultaneously.

Kenzie moved against the flow, her breathing steady and controlled. The antidote worked perfectly, allowing her to navigate the chaos while others struggled. She reached Ivanov just as his bodyguards lost their grip on him, their own respiratory systems failing.

She took his arm, steadying him. "Let me help," she said in Russian.

He looked at her with desperate, uncomprehending eyes, too oxygen-deprived to question or resist. She guided him away from the main exits, toward the eastern corridor she'd used earlier. Behind them, museum security and emergency responders were flooding into the gallery, trying to manage the crisis.

The corridor was empty, the chaos of the gallery muffled by thick walls and closed doors. Ivanov leaned heavily against her, his breathing labored and wet-sounding. They were alone.

She lowered him to the floor with surprising gentleness. His eyes searched her face, confused, pleading.

"The Moon entered your twelfth house tonight," Kenzie said quietly. "Hidden enemies."

Dmitri Ivanov. Born March 15, 1968, in Novosibirsk. Sun in Pisces, Moon in Scorpio. His natal chart had been fascinating to study—all that Scorpio energy in his eighth house, the house of death and other people's resources. He'd spent his life taking what belonged to others. Money, land, lives.

Saturn squared your natal Mars at exactly 9:31 PM, she thought, watching his face. Did you feel the shift?

Ivanov's fingers grasped weakly at her gown, his eyes widening with understanding and terror. She remained still, professional, her expression neutral as the compound completed its work. His struggles weakened, then ceased. His eyes remained open, staring at nothing.

All those bodyguards scanning rooftops and checking credentials, she mused, and the real threat was the woman in Valentino who knew her way around an ephemeris.

Kenzie checked his pulse, found none, and stood. She removed a small syringe from her evening bag—a second compound, this one designed to mimic the symptoms of a massive heart attack. She administered it quickly, professionally, then returned the syringe to her bag.

The medical examiners would find a man who'd died of cardiac arrest during a mass panic event. Tragic but unsurprising, given his age and the stress of the situation. The compound in the ventilation system would be traced to a faulty seal in the museum's climate control system, a terrible accident that would result in lawsuits and resignations but no criminal charges.

Kenzie straightened her gown and walked back toward the gallery, her heels clicking against the marble with measured precision. The chaos had subsided into organized emergency response. Paramedics moved between guests sprawled on benches and leaning against walls, oxygen masks pressed to pale faces. Security personnel coordinated evacuations in low, urgent voices. The grand space that had glittered with champagne and ambition an hour ago now hummed with the fluorescent efficiency of crisis management.

No one paid attention to one more well-dressed woman emerging from the corridors, her face appropriately shocked and concerned. She'd practiced this expression in mirrors across a dozen cities—the slight widening of the eyes, the hand pressed briefly to her chest, the careful way she avoided looking directly at the bodies being loaded onto gurneys.

Outside, the Moscow night had turned cold. Blue and red lights strobed across the museum's neoclassical facade. Kenzie accepted a blanket from a paramedic, wrapped it around her shoulders, and stood among the other survivors. She watched the organized chaos with the detached interest of someone observing a play she'd written herself. Every element had unfolded exactly as the charts predicted. Saturn's square to Ivanov's Mars at 9:31 PM. The panic beginning at 9:27. His death at 9:34.

Precision, she thought. The cosmos rewards precision.

A police officer approached with a tablet, taking statements. Kenzie waited her turn, mentally rehearsing her story. When he reached her, she gave her account in flawless Russian, describing the panic and her own escape through a side corridor. Yes, she'd seen others in distress—an elderly woman, a young couple, several men in tuxedos. No, she hadn't witnessed anything suspicious before the incident. She'd been admiring a Fabergé egg in the east wing when people started coughing.

The officer's eyes were tired, overwhelmed. He typed her statement with two fingers, asked for her hotel information, and moved on to the next witness. The whole interaction took twelve minutes.

They let her go within an hour.

Kenzie walked back to the Hotel Metropol rather than taking a taxi. She needed the cold air, the movement, the transition between one reality and another. Moscow at night was all golden domes and dark streets, the city's imperial past pressing against its oligarchic present. Her breath misted in the air. Her feet ached in the Louboutins, but the discomfort felt grounding, real.

She thought about Ivanov's chart as she walked. That Scorpio Moon had made him dangerous, secretive, capable of profound cruelty. But it had also made him predictable. Men with that much fixed water energy always believed they could control the depths, never realizing the depths would eventually consume them.

You were always going to drown, she thought. I just chose when and where.

The hotel lobby was warm, bright, blessedly normal. The night clerk nodded to her as she crossed to the elevators. In her suite, Kenzie stood at the window for a long moment, looking out at the city. Red Square glowed in the distance. Somewhere out there, Ivanov's body was being examined, photographed, documented. His death would make the news by morning. Business magnate dies in museum tragedy. His widow would weep for the cameras. His enemies would privately celebrate.

And Kenzie would be gone.

She turned from the window and began to pack with methodical efficiency. The evening bag with its incriminating contents would be incinerated in a private facility outside Moscow. The Valentino gown would be donated to a charity shop in Berlin. The laptop with its astrological charts would be wiped and disposed of in Prague.

Before shutting down the computer, she opened her own natal chart one final time. Mars had moved into her ninth house—the house of long journeys and foreign lands. Jupiter was approaching a conjunction with her Midheaven, the point of career and public reputation.

New opportunities, she thought. Recognition for work well done.

The encrypted message arrived as she was closing the laptop. A new assignment, this one in Singapore. A human trafficker with connections to government officials, a man whose crimes had gone unpunished for decades. The dossier included his birth data: August 3, 1972, 11:23 PM, Manila.

Kenzie opened her ephemeris and began calculating. The target's chart showed a challenging Saturn return approaching, with Pluto transiting his fourth house—the house of endings and final resting places. In six weeks, there would be a lunar eclipse in his eighth house.

Perfect, she thought.

She booked a flight to Singapore under one of her alternate identities, then spent an hour studying the target's astrological profile. Sun in Leo, Moon in Gemini, Ascendant in Aries. A man of ego and cunning, someone who believed himself untouchable. His chart showed a pattern of Jupiter protecting him from consequences, expansive luck that had kept him one step ahead of justice for years.

But Jupiter's protection was waning. The eclipse would strip away his defenses, expose his vulnerabilities. And Kenzie would be there when it did.

She'd learned long ago that justice operated on multiple levels. There were the courts and laws, systems designed by humans and corrupted by them. And then there were the older laws, the patterns written in the movements of planets and stars, the cosmic mathematics that governed rise and fall, action and consequence.

Some called it fate. Others called it superstition. Kenzie called it mathematics.

The snow had stopped falling over Red Square. The Kremlin's domes gleamed under clearing skies, and somewhere in the city, emergency services were still processing the tragedy at the Pushkin Museum. By morning, the news would report Dmitri Ivanov's death as a terrible accident, one victim among many in a mass casualty event.

No one would suspect murder. No one would trace the compound or question the timing. No one would think to cast an astrological chart for the moment of his death and see the patterns written there—the cosmic signature of justice delivered with precision and purpose.

Kenzie closed her laptop and looked out at the Moscow skyline one final time. Somewhere above the city lights, invisible in the urban glow, the planets continued their ancient dance. Mars and Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto, the Moon waxing and waning through its eternal cycle.

The stars didn't lie. They simply revealed what was already written—in the charts, in the patterns, in the inevitable mathematics of consequence.

And Kenzie Cooper knew how to read them.

She left the Hotel Metropol at dawn, another anonymous traveler departing Moscow. By the time Ivanov's associates began asking questions, she would be in Singapore, studying another chart, planning another operation, following the cosmic roadmap that had never steered her wrong.

--
Does Kenzie deserve a second appearance? Let us know, and we'll see what Jane Glix can come up with. :)

The Ghost and the Christmas Miracle: Fiction by Steve Miller

It's a tale of a different sort of Christmas miracle...

The Ghost and the Christmas Miracle

The snow fell in thick, wet clumps across Vancouver's east side, turning the streets into a treacherous maze of slush and ice. Billy Wei's Honda Civic fishtailed slightly as he took the corner onto East Hastings too fast, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. The dashboard clock glowed 11:47 PM—he was almost 30 minutes late.

His phone sat silent in the cup holder now, but he could still hear Amy's voice from an hour ago, raw with anger and exhaustion. "It's Christmas Eve, Billy. Christmas fucking Eve." The memory of Sophie's face—confused, sleepy, clutching that card she'd made—twisted something deep in his chest. Two years old. She'd waited up for him.

But Mitchell had called. When Mitchell Chen called, you came.

The house loomed ahead, a renovated Craftsman that looked respectable enough from the outside. Billy pulled into the circular driveway, noting the other cars already present. Tommy's Escalade. Ray's BMW. The whole crew was here, which meant this wasn't just another collection run. Mitchell had sounded tense on the phone, paranoid even. Something about the Mexicans making moves.

On Christmas Eve, Billy thought bitterly.

He killed the engine and sat for a moment, watching the snow accumulate on his windshield. Through the front windows of the house, he could see warm light spilling out, the kind of domestic glow that reminded him of his own apartment. Where Amy was probably still awake, angry and hurt. Where Sophie slept with her new stuffed reindeer.

Billy checked his Glock 19, ensuring a round was chambered, then tucked it back into his waistband beneath his jacket. Three years of this. Three years of telling himself it was temporary, that the money was worth it. Rent. Daycare. Amy's nursing school tuition. Better than construction work, he'd said. Better than breaking his back for minimum wage.

But lately, when Sophie looked at him with those wide, trusting eyes, the weight pressed down harder.

He stepped out into the cold and to Mitchell's front door. It was ever-so-slightly ajar, which struck him as odd immediately. Mitchell was paranoid about security, always had the door sedured and at least two guys posted. Billy pushed it open slowly, his hand instinctively moving toward his weapon.

The entry hall stretched before him, all polished hardwood and expensive artwork that Mitchell had probably bought to launder money. And there, sprawled across the floor near the coat closet, was Danny Cho—one of Mitchell's regular guards. Billy's breath caught. Danny wasn't moving, his body positioned awkwardly, one arm twisted beneath him.

Billy drew his Glock, the familiar weight suddenly feeling inadequate. His heart hammered against his ribs as he moved forward, keeping his back to the wall. Danny's chest rose and fell shallowly—unconscious, not dead. A small mercy, though Billy couldn't imagine what had put him down. Danny was ex-military, trained and alert. Taking him out without a sound took serious skill.

The house was too quiet. No voices, no music, none of the usual sounds of Mitchell's operation. Just the soft hum of the heating system and Billy's own ragged breathing. He moved deeper into the house, past the living room where Mitchell usually held court, toward the back offices where the real business happened.

Another body in the hallway. This time it was Ray Martinez, slumped against the wall near the bathroom. Billy checked him quickly—also unconscious, a dark bruise blooming on his temple. Professional work. Someone had moved through this house like a ghost, taking down trained men without raising an alarm.

Billy's mouth went dry. He should run. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around and get out while he still could. But he kept moving forward, drawn by a sick need to know, to understand what had happened here.

The third body stopped him cold.

Tommy Nguyen lay face-down in the hallway leading to Mitchell's office, and this time there was no mistaking it. The back of Tommy's head was a ruin of blood and bone, two neat entry wounds visible even in the dim light. The carpet beneath him was soaked dark, still spreading. Billy's stomach lurched. He'd known Tommy since high school, had been at his wedding two years ago.

A sound reached him then—a voice, choked and desperate. Mitchell's voice, coming from the office ahead. Billy crept forward, his Glock raised, every nerve ending on fire. The office door stood half-open, light spilling out into the hallway.

"Please," Mitchell was saying, his voice cracking with terror Billy had never heard from him before. "Please, I can pay you whatever they're paying. Double it. Triple it."

Billy reached the doorway and peered around the frame, and the scene before him seemed to freeze in crystalline clarity.

Mitchell Chen knelt in the center of his office, hands raised, his expensive suit rumpled and stained with sweat. Around him, scattered across the floor like broken dolls, were the rest of his inner circle. Billy recognized them all—Chen's lieutenants, his enforcers, the men who'd made his operation run. Some were clearly dead, their bodies twisted in unnatural positions. Others might have been unconscious like Danny and Ray, but Billy couldn't tell from this angle.

And standing over Mitchell, dominating the room despite her slender frame, was a woman.

She wore a long red coat that fell to her knees, unbuttoned to reveal a form-fitting black bodysuit beneath that looked more like tactical gear than fashion. Black boots, practical and silent. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, revealing sharp, elegant features that might have been beautiful in other circumstances. But it was her eyes that held Billy frozen—dark and cold and utterly devoid of mercy.

In her right hand, she held a compact machine pistol, some kind of modified MP5K with a suppressor attached. The weapon was pointed directly at Mitchell's head with the steady confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times before.

"I don't want your money," the woman said, her voice carrying a faint accent Billy couldn't quite place. Mandarin, maybe, or Cantonese. "I'm not here for negotiation."

"Then what?" Mitchell sobbed. "What do you want?"

"Justice," she said simply. "For the girls you've trafficked. For the families you destroyed. For the communities you poisoned." She tilted her head slightly, studying him like a scientist examining an insect. "Did you really that you could do what you've done and simply continue?"

"I'm just a businessman," Mitchell pleaded. "I provide a service—"

"You're a slaver and a murderer," the woman interrupted, her voice never rising above conversational level. "You sold thirteen-year-old girls from rural Bolivia. You promised them jobs and education, then locked in brothels and shot full of your product until they couldn't remember their own names."

Billy's blood ran cold. He'd heard rumors, whispers about that side of Mitchell's operation, but he'd never wanted to believe them. He'd told himself he was just doing collections, just moving product, nothing to do with the darker aspects of the business.

"That wasn't me," Mitchell said desperately. "That was the Colombians, the Russians—"

"You facilitated it. You profited from it." The woman's finger tightened on the trigger. "And now you pay for it."

The suppressed shots were barely louder than coughs—two quick pops that echoed in the sudden silence. Mitchell's body jerked twice, then crumpled forward onto the expensive Persian rug, blood pooling beneath him.

Billy gasped before he could stop himself, the sound escaping his throat like a wounded animal. The woman whirled with inhuman speed, the machine pistol tracking toward the doorway, toward him. Billy raised his own Glock, his hands shaking, and suddenly they were locked in a standoff—two armed strangers pointing weapons at each other across a room full of corpses.

For a long moment, neither moved. Billy could see her evaluating him, those cold eyes taking in every detail—his cheap jacket, his trembling hands, the way he held his weapon like someone who'd been trained but never really wanted to use it. He tried to steady his breathing, tried to remember his training, but all he could think about was Sophie's face, Amy's voice, the Christmas tree they'd decorated together last week.

"You're late," the woman said finally, her weapon never wavering. "Billy Wei, correct? Low-level collections, occasional enforcement. Three years with Chen's organization. No major crimes on your record beyond the drug distribution."

The fact that she knew his name sent ice through his veins. "Who are you?"

"Someone who came to kill Mitchell Chen and his lieutenants," she said calmly. "The others—the guards, the muscle—they just got in the way. I gave them the chance to walk away. Most didn't take it."

Billy's eyes flicked to the bodies on the floor, then back to her. "You killed them all."

"The ones who chose to fight, yes." She took a step closer, and Billy's finger tightened on his trigger. She noticed and stopped, a faint smile crossing her lips. "You're scared. Good. Fear keeps you alive. But you're also thinking about someone—I can see it in your eyes. Someone waiting for you."

"My daughter," Billy heard himself say. "And my girlfriend. It's Christmas Eve."

The woman's expression didn't change, but something flickered in those dark eyes. "Then you have a choice to make, Billy Wei. You can try to avenge your boss, and die here, on this floor, and your daughter will grow up without a father. Your girlfriend will spend Christmas morning identifying your body."

She paused, letting the words sink in.

"Or," she continued, her voice softening almost imperceptibly, "you can accept this as the Christmas miracle it is. You can lower your weapon, walk out that door, and go home to your family. You can hold your daughter and tell her you love her. You can be there for her first day of school, her graduation, her wedding. You can be the father she deserves."

Billy's hands shook harder. Mitchell was dead. Tommy was dead. The whole organization was decapitated in a single night. There would be chaos, power struggles, violence. But there would also be an opportunity—a chance to walk away, to leave this life behind before it consumed him completely.

"I came for Chen and his inner circle," the woman said. "You're not on my list, Billy. You're just a man who made bad choices trying to provide for his family. I understand that. But this is your only chance. Lower your weapon and walk away, or die here with the rest of them."

Billy thought of Sophie's card, the one Amy had mentioned. She'd made it herself, probably with crayons and construction paper, her little hands working so carefully to create something for him. He'd never even seen it. He'd chosen Mitchell's call over his daughter's gift.

Not anymore.

Billy lowered his Glock slowly, his hands still shaking. The woman watched him carefully, her weapon tracking his movements, ready to fire if he made any sudden moves. But Billy just tucked his gun back into his waistband and raised his hands.

"Smart choice," the woman said. She lowered her own weapon, though she kept it ready. "Go home, Billy Wei. Spend Christmas with your family. And when the police come asking questions, you tell them you were late, you found the bodies, you ran. You don't know anything about a woman in a red coat. Understand?"

Billy nodded, not trusting his voice.

"And Billy?" The woman's eyes hardened again. "This is your one chance to change. If I hear you've gone back to this life, if I hear you've hurt anyone, sold anything, facilitated any of the evil that Mitchell Chen represented—I'll come for you. And next time, there won't be a conversation."

"I'm done," Billy managed to say. "I swear. I'm done with all of this."

The woman studied him for another long moment, then nodded. "Then go. Before I change my mind."

Billy didn't need to be told twice. He backed out of the office, keeping his hands visible, then turned and ran. He stumbled over Ray's unconscious body, nearly fell over Danny in the entry hall, but he kept moving. The cold air hit him like a slap when he burst through the front door, snow swirling around him in the darkness.

He ran to his car, fumbled with his keys, and somehow got the engine started. His hands shook so badly he could barely grip the steering wheel, but he managed to back out of the driveway and onto the street. In his rearview mirror, he saw the house receding, warm light still glowing from the windows, no sign of the carnage within.

Billy made it two blocks before he had to pull over. His hands were shaking so violently he couldn't hold the wheel steady, and his breath came in short, sharp gasps that fogged the windshield. He put the car in park and gripped the steering wheel, trying to ground himself, but all he could see was Mitchell's face—the fear in his eyes, the way his voice had cracked when he begged. The bodies on the floor. Ray's twisted arm. The woman's cold, dark eyes as she'd aimed the gun at Billy's chest.

He pressed his palms against his eyes, but that made it worse. Behind his eyelids, he saw it all again. The blood. The stillness. How easily she'd moved through that house, how efficiently she'd ended lives. How close he'd come to being one of them.

His stomach lurched and he barely got the door open in time before he vomited into the snow. He stayed there, bent over, gasping, the cold air burning his throat. When the heaving finally stopped, he sat back, wiping his mouth with a shaking hand. The snow fell steadily, already beginning to cover what he'd left on the ground.

Billy sat there for a long time, watching the snow accumulate on his windshield, listening to the tick of the engine. Slowly, gradually, his breathing steadied. His hands stopped shaking quite so badly. He started the car again and pulled back onto the street.

The drive home felt endless and dreamlike. The streets were nearly empty, just the occasional car passing in the opposite direction, headlights blurred by falling snow. Billy drove on autopilot, his mind somewhere else entirely—replaying the woman's words, the choice she'd given him, the weight of Sophie's card in his pocket. The familiar landmarks of his neighborhood appeared and disappeared like images in a fog.

When he finally pulled into his apartment complex, he sat in the car with the engine running, staring up at his building. Third floor, second window from the left. The lights were on. Amy was still awake. He could see the faint glow of the Christmas tree through the curtains.

He turned off the engine. The sudden silence felt enormous.

Billy sat there in the dark, watching his breath fog the air, trying to figure out how to walk through that door. How to face Amy. What to say. What he could possibly say that would make her understand without telling her what he'd seen, what he'd almost become part of. His hands found the steering wheel again, gripping it like an anchor.

Finally, he got out of the car. The cold helped. The snow on his face helped. He climbed the stairs slowly, each step deliberate, and stood outside his door for a long moment with his hand on the knob. He could hear the faint sound of the television inside. Normal life. His life. The one he'd almost thrown away.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

The apartment was dark except for the glow of the Christmas tree in the corner, its colored lights casting soft shadows across the living room. Amy sat on the couch, still awake, her arms crossed. She looked up when he entered, her expression hardening.

"Billy—" she started, anger in her voice.

"I'm sorry," he said, and his voice broke. "Amy, I'm so sorry. You're right. About everything. I'm done. I'm done with Mitchell, with all of it. I'm done."

Amy's expression shifted from anger to confusion, then to something else as she really looked at him. She stood up slowly. "Billy, what happened? You look—"

"I can't explain it all right now," he said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, hollow and distant. "But I need you to know—I'm done. I'm getting out. I'm going to find legitimate work, something clean. I'm going to be here for you and Sophie. I'm going to be the father she deserves."

Amy moved closer, studying his face in the dim light. Her anger had evaporated, replaced by concern and something that looked like fear. "Billy, you're scaring me. What happened tonight?"

"Something that should have happened a long time ago," he said quietly. "I saw... I saw what this life leads to. Where it ends. And I can't—" His voice caught. "I can't do it anymore. I won't."

She searched his eyes for a long moment. Whatever she saw there—the truth of it, the finality—made her reach for his hand. "Okay," she said softly. "Okay."

"Can I see her?" he asked. "Please? I need to see her."

Amy nodded and led him to Sophie's room. The door was already open, and Billy stepped inside quietly. His daughter lay in her toddler bed, her stuffed reindeer clutched to her chest, her face peaceful in sleep. On the nightstand beside her bed was a piece of construction paper folded in half—her card. Billy picked it up carefully and opened it.

Inside, in crayon, she'd drawn three stick figures—a tall one, a medium one, and a small one, all holding hands. Above them, in Amy's handwriting helping Sophie's attempt, were the words: "I love you Daddy. Merry Christmas."

Billy's vision blurred. He set the card down gently and leaned over to kiss Sophie's forehead, breathing in the sweet scent of her baby shampoo. She stirred slightly but didn't wake, just hugged her reindeer tighter.

"I love you too, baby girl," he whispered. "I'm here now. I'm going to be here."

Amy stood in the doorway, watching him. When he turned to her, she opened her arms, and he went to her, holding her tight. They stood there in the hallway, wrapped in each other, while Sophie slept peacefully and the Christmas tree lights twinkled in the living room.

Billy pulled back just enough to look at Amy's face. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out Sophie's card, the one he'd been carrying all night. He held it in both hands, looking down at the crayon drawing—three stick figures holding hands—and then at the Christmas tree beyond, its lights reflecting in the dark window.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, covering the city in white.

--

If you enjoyed this story, you can read more about the mysterious killer in NUELOW Games' The Ghost of Hong Kong, available at DriveThruFiction and DriveThruRPG.

A Tale of the Christmas Dragon

 We're counting the days till Christmas, and if you are as well, we hope our every-other-day posts will help make the time go by faster!

Today, we're bringing you a story about Brigid, The Young Lady Who Loves Christmas. (You can read another one in Gifts from the Christmas Dragon if you like this one.)

Christmas Miracles

By Steve Miller

The December wind bit through the empty streets of downtown, carrying with it the faint echo of distant carolers and the metallic scent of impending snow. She hummed "Silent Night" under her breath as she navigated the cracked sidewalks, her breath forming small clouds in the frigid air. The grocery bags in her arms were heavy—one filled with carefully selected gifts wrapped in cheerful paper covered in snowmen and reindeer, the other stuffed with ingredients for tomorrow's Christmas dinner: a small turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes, and all the fixings that would transform her tiny apartment in the city into something that felt like home.

At five-foot-one and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, she knew she didn't cut an imposing figure--and she was more than okay with that. Her short red hair stuck up in its usual chaotic arrangement and her face was a constellation of freckles that became even more pronounced in the cold. She wore a threadbare winter coat that had seen better days, jeans with worn knees, and boots that were more practical than fashionable. To any observer, she looked like a young woman of modest means trying to make Christmas special despite her circumstances.

The streets were eerily empty for ten o'clock on Christmas Eve. Most people were already home with their families, gathered around trees and fireplaces, exchanging gifts and making memories. Earlier, she had filled in at the diner for her friend Kerrie and worked a double shift—someone had to serve the lonely souls who came in for coffee and pie on holidays. She'd stopped at the twenty-four-hour grocery store on her way home. Tomorrow, the two kids from next door—their mom deployed overseas—would come over, and Brigid was determined to give them a Christmas worth remembering.

She switched to humming "Deck the Halls" as she turned down Maple Street, a shortcut that would shave five minutes off her walk. The streetlights here were spaced farther apart, creating pools of shadow between islands of sickly yellow light. Graffiti decorated the brick walls of closed businesses, and the occasional piece of trash skittered across the pavement, pushed by the wind.

She didn't notice the figure in the alley until he was already moving.

He emerged from the darkness between two buildings like a predator lunging from cover—a man in his thirties, lean and wiry, with a scraggly beard and eyes that darted with the nervous energy of someone riding a chemical high. In his right hand, he held a knife, the blade catching the streetlight and throwing back a wicked gleam.

"Money. Now." His voice was rough, aggressive, brooking no argument. "And the bags. Give me the fucking bags."

"It's Christmas Eve," she said, her tone almost conversational despite the tremor she couldn't quite suppress. "This isn't very Christmas-spirity of you, threatening people with knives."

The man's face twisted with rage. Before she could react, his left hand shot out and connected with her cheek in a sharp, stinging slap that made her head snap to the side. Stars exploded across her vision, and she tasted copper.

"Shut the fuck up," he snarled, stepping closer, the knife now inches from her face. "You want this in your gut? Huh? You want me to gut you like a fish right here on the street? Shut your mouth and give me what I want, or you'll get the knife next."

Her cheek burned where he'd struck her, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes—partly from pain, partly from the shock of sudden violence, partly from the crushing disappointment that this was how her Christmas Eve was ending. With shaking hands, she held out the bag of presents.

"Here," she whispered, her voice thick. "Take them. The Spirit of Christmas will set you straight, though. You'll see."

The man snatched the bag from her hands, then grabbed her purse from her shoulder with such force that the strap broke. "I said shut up about—"

He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, with a swift arcing of his arm and hand, he drove the knife into her shoulder.

She cried out and stumbled backward, her remaining grocery bag falling to the ground as she clutched at her shoulder. Blood seeped between her fingers, soaking into her coat.

"I told you to shut up," the mugger said, his voice cold now, almost matter-of-fact. He wiped the blade on his jeans and pocketed it, then turned and walked away, carrying her purse and the bag of Christmas presents as if he'd just completed a routine transaction.

She sank to her knees on the cold sidewalk, then collapsed onto her side. Blood spread across the concrete beneath her shoulder, dark and glistening under the streetlight. The groceries from her dropped bag scattered—a can of cranberry sauce rolled into the gutter, a box of stuffing came to rest against the curb. Her body shook with sobs, her small frame convulsing with each breath.

Above her, the first snowflakes of the evening began to fall.

--

Matt Holt felt pretty good about himself as he walked swiftly away from the scene. The adrenaline was still pumping through his system, making everything seem sharper, more vivid. The knife was back in his pocket, and he had a purse—probably not much cash in it, but maybe some credit cards he could use before she reported them stolen—and a whole bag of Christmas presents.

He'd been watching the twenty-four-hour grocery store for the past few hours, waiting for the right mark. Someone alone, someone small, someone who wouldn't put up a fight. The redhead had been perfect. He'd felt a momentary pang when she'd mentioned Christmas spirit—his mother used to say stuff like that—but he'd squashed it down. Sentiment was something he'd driven from his person long ago.

The stabbing had been necessary, he told himself. She wouldn't shut up, kept talking about Christmas spirit and consequences, and he'd needed to make sure she understood the seriousness of the situation. Besides, it was just the shoulder. She'd live. Probably.

Matt turned down an alley that would take him toward his apartment, a studio in a building that should have been condemned years ago. He was already planning his next moves. First, he'd go through the purse, take any cash and cards. Then he'd open the presents. With any luck, there'd be something valuable—electronics, jewelry, something he could pawn. Whatever he couldn't sell, he'd wrap back up and give to his buddies. They'd get a kick out of that, receiving stolen Christmas presents. The irony was delicious. Somewhere overhead, he heard a strange whooshing sound, like a rush of wind or maybe the heavy beating of wings. He glanced up briefly but saw nothing except the dark sky and falling snow—probably just a bird or the wind playing tricks between the buildings.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice the figure ahead of him.

She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, perhaps fifty feet away, backlit by a streetlight that created a halo effect around her silhouette. Even from this distance, Matt could make out the distinctive outline: small, slender, with short, messy hair that stuck up at odd angles.

His blood ran cold.

It couldn't be. He'd left her bleeding on the sidewalk six blocks back. There was no way she could have gotten ahead of him, not with a stab wound in her shoulder, not without him seeing her pass.

Matt's hand went to the knife in his pocket as he walked forward, his pace slowing. As he got closer, the details became clearer, and his stomach dropped. It was her. Same threadbare coat, same jeans, same boots—though the coat was dark with blood spreading from her shoulder, a wet stain that should have left her weak and trembling. But something was different. She stood perfectly still, not swaying or clutching her wounded shoulder. And there was something about the way she held herself—a confidence, a presence that hadn't been there before.

"You have one final chance," she said, her voice carrying clearly through the cold night air. There was no tremor in it now, no fear. It was calm, measured, and somehow terrible in its certainty. "One final chance before the Spirit of Christmas punishes you for your crimes."

Matt's fear transformed into rage. How dare she? How dare this little nobody threaten him? He'd already stabbed her once; clearly, she needed a more permanent lesson. He pulled the knife from his pocket and advanced on her, his lips pulling back in a snarl.

"You're going to regret you were ever born, bitch," he growled, raising the knife. "I'm going to make you wish I'd finished the job the first time."

"My name is not bitch, it's Brigid." Brigid didn't move. Didn't flinch. Didn't show any sign of fear.

Instead, she began to glow.

It started as a faint luminescence, like she'd swallowed a light bulb, a soft golden radiance that emanated from her skin. Matt stopped in his tracks, his knife hand wavering, as the glow intensified. It grew brighter and brighter, forcing him to squint, until Brigid was blazing like a star, like a bonfire, like the sun itself had descended to the street.

And then she began to change.

Her body elongated, stretched, expanded. Her arms thickened and extended, fingers fusing and lengthening into massive claws tipped with talons like curved daggers. Her legs bent backward at the knee, becoming powerful haunches covered in scales that gleamed like rubies. Her neck extended, her face pushing forward into a reptilian snout filled with teeth like ivory swords. Wings erupted from her back—vast, leathery wings that unfurled with a sound like thunder.

In the space of three heartbeats, the small, freckled young woman had transformed into a dragon.

She was magnificent and terrible, a creature of myth and legend made flesh. Her scales were the deep red of arterial blood, shot through with veins of gold that pulsed with inner fire. Her eyes—still recognizably Brigid's eyes, but now the size of dinner plates—fixed on Matt with an intelligence that was utterly inhuman and yet somehow more human than anything he'd ever encountered. They held judgment, and wrath, and a terrible, implacable justice.

Matt's knife clattered to the ground. His bladder released, warm urine running down his leg. He tried to scream, but his throat had locked up, producing only a strangled wheeze.

The dragon that had been Brigid lunged forward with a speed that belied her massive size. One enormous claw closed around Matt's torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and then she was rising, her wings beating with powerful strokes that created windstorms in the narrow street. Trash and snow swirled in the vortex of her ascent.

Matt found his voice and screamed. He screamed as the ground fell away beneath him, as the buildings shrank to the size of toys, as the city spread out below like a map. He screamed as the wind tore at his clothes and face, as the cold bit into him with teeth far sharper than any December night had a right to possess. He screamed until his throat was raw and his voice gave out.

The dragon climbed higher and higher, until the city lights below looked like a field of stars, until Matt could see the curve of the horizon, until the air grew so thin that each breath was a labor. Then, finally, she stopped, hovering in place with slow, powerful beats of her wings.

She brought Matt up to her face, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her scales, close enough to see his own terrified reflection in her enormous eyes. When she spoke, her voice was like an avalanche, like a volcano, like the wrath of nature itself given sound.

"PRAY FOR A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE."

Then she opened her claw.

Matt fell.

The scream that had died in his throat returned with renewed vigor as he plummeted toward the earth. The wind screamed past his ears, drowning out his own voice. The city rushed up to meet him, growing larger and larger, details resolving from the blur—individual buildings, streets, cars, the hard, unforgiving pavement that would be his grave.

His life didn't flash before his eyes. There was only terror, pure and absolute, and the certain knowledge that he was about to die, that his body would be found splattered across the concrete, that this was how it ended, on Christmas Eve, killed by a dragon, killed by the Spirit of Christmas itself.

The sound of rushing air seemed to grow louder in his ears. The ground was so close now. He could make out individual bricks in the building facades. Could see—

Darkness took him.

--

Matt woke to the sound of voices and the feeling of something hard and cold beneath him.

"—the third one this week. I'm telling you, these junkies are getting bolder."

"Yeah, well, this one picked the wrong night to pass out on our steps. Come on, let's get him processed."

Matt's eyes fluttered open. He was lying on stone steps, and standing over him were two police officers, their expressions a mixture of annoyance and weary resignation. Behind them, the facade of the Fifth Precinct police station rose into the night sky.

He was alive.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. He was alive. He hadn't hit the ground. Somehow, impossibly, he was alive and uninjured, lying on the steps of a police station with his stolen goods—the purse and the bag of presents—arranged neatly beside him.

"All right, buddy, up you go," one of the officers said, reaching down to haul Matt to his feet. "You can sleep it off in a cell."

Matt's mind raced. He could talk his way out of this. He was good at that. He'd spin some story about finding the purse and presents, about being a Good Samaritan trying to turn them in, and then—

He saw her.

She stood at the end of the block, illuminated by a streetlight. She was human again, small and slender in her threadbare coat, her short red hair sticking up in its chaotic arrangement. But she was holding her shoulder—the shoulder he'd stabbed—and the look on her face was one of absolute, unwavering certainty. Her eyes met his across the distance, and in them, he saw the dragon. He saw the judgment. He saw the promise of what would happen if he lied, if he tried to escape justice.

"I did it," Matt heard himself say. The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other in his haste to confess. "The purse and the presents, I stole them. I mugged a woman on Maple Street. I stabbed her in the shoulder. And there's other stuff, other crimes. I broke into a car last week on Fifth Avenue, stole a laptop. I sold stolen phones to a guy named Eddie at the pawn shop on Broad Street. I—"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down," the second officer said, pulling out a notepad. "You're confessing to all this?"

"Yes," Matt said, unable to look away from that girl's steady gaze. "Yes, I'm confessing to everything. I want to confess. I need to confess."

The officers exchanged glances, the kind of look that said they'd seen a lot of strange things in their careers, but this was a new one. People didn't usually show up on the station steps with stolen goods and a burning desire to confess to multiple crimes.

"All right," the first officer said slowly. "Let's get you inside, make sure you know your rights, and take a full statement. This is going to be a long night."

As they led Matt into the station, he looked back one more time. She was still there, still watching. As their eyes met, she nodded once—a small, almost imperceptible gesture—and then she turned and walked away, disappearing into the falling snow.

Inside the station, as Matt sat in an interrogation room and confessed to every crime he could remember, as the officers typed up his statement with expressions of increasing disbelief, as the reality of what he'd done and what would happen to him began to sink in, he found himself thinking about his mother. About the Christmas stories she used to tell him when he was young, about Santa Claus and his list of naughty and nice, about redemption and second chances, about the magic of Christmas.

He'd thought those were just fairy tales, stories for children who still believed in magic.

He'd been wrong.

Outside, the snow fell more heavily now, blanketing the city in white, covering the bloodstain on the sidewalk where Brigid had fallen, transforming the dirty streets into something clean and new. Church bells began to ring in the distance, announcing the arrival of Christmas Day.

--

In a small apartment across town, Brigid sat on her couch, her shoulder bandaged—the wound already healing with a speed that would have astonished any doctor—and looked at the gifts she'd selected from her treasure hoard during a quick visit after dropping the mugger off at the police station: a silver music box that played lullabies and granted peaceful dreams, a kaleidoscope that showed visions of far-off lands, and a set of wooden toys carved by craftsmen centuries dead that never broke and always brought joy to their owners. They were perhaps a bit unconventional as children's presents in this age, but they had the added benefit of being enchanted. Tomorrow, the neighbor children whose mother was deployed with the Navy would come over, and they would have Christmas dinner, and it would be wonderful.

But tonight, on this Christmas Eve, justice had been served. The Spirit of Christmas had spoken, and a man who had chosen cruelty and violence had been given a Christmas miracle.

Just not the kind he'd expected.

Brigid smiled, took a sip of hot chocolate, and began to hum "Silent Night". Outside her window, the snow continued to fall, and the world turned toward Christmas morning.

It was the most wonderful time of the year.

A Tale of the Christmas Dragon by Steve Miller

Brigid, the Dragon Who Loves Christmas, has been traveling the Earth for millenia, so there are thousands upon thousands of stories to tell. This is one of them. (You can read another in Gifts from the Christmas Dragon, if you like this one.)

The Dragon's Gift

The afternoon sun filtered through silk curtains that billowed in the warm Persian breeze, casting dancing shadows across the mosaic floor of the palace's eastern hall. Brigid reclined on a mountain of cushions, her small frame nearly swallowed by the opulent fabrics—crimson and gold, azure and emerald, all threaded with silver that caught the light like captured starfire. A servant girl, no more than fourteen, knelt beside her with a bowl of grapes, each one perfectly round and glistening with moisture from the palace's underground springs.

"Another," Brigid said lazily, opening her mouth like a baby bird.

The girl obliged, placing a grape on Brigid's tongue with practiced precision. The dragon—for that is what she was, though no one looking at her would guess it—closed her eyes and savored the burst of sweetness. In this form, she appeared to be nothing more than a slight woman, perhaps in her second decade of life, with skin so pale it seemed she'd never seen the sun, despite the constellation of freckles that covered every visible inch of her. Her hair was her most striking feature: a wild shock of red that refused to be tamed, cut short in a style that would have scandalized the Persian nobility had they not known better than to comment on a dragon's choices.

She wore a simple linen shift, white as bone, with no jewelry save for a single copper band around her left wrist—a trinket she'd picked up in Alexandria three centuries ago, or was it four? Time had a way of blurring when you'd lived as long as she had.

"My lady," came a voice from the doorway. Darius, her chamberlain, bowed low. He was a good man, efficient and discreet, which were the only qualities Brigid truly valued in her household staff. "You have visitors."

Brigid cracked one eye open. "Tell them I'm indisposed."

"They are Magi, my lady. From the East. They seek permission to cross your lands."

 
Both eyes opened now. Brigid sat up, causing an avalanche of cushions to tumble to the floor. The servant girl scrambled to retrieve them, but Brigid waved her away. "Magi? How many?"

"Three, my lady. An aged master, a man in his prime, and an apprentice."

Brigid's lips curved into something that might have been a smile, though there was too much tooth in it to be entirely friendly. "Well, well. It's been an age since I've had proper magicians at my door. Most of them know better than to disturb me these days." She swung her legs off the cushions, her bare feet touching the cool mosaic. "I suppose I should see what they want. Send them to the garden courtyard. And Darius—have the kitchen prepare refreshments. If they've come all the way from the East, they'll be hungry."

"At once, my lady."

Brigid stood, stretching like a cat. She padded barefoot through the palace, her feet making no sound on the stone floors. Servants pressed themselves against the walls as she passed, their eyes downcast. They knew what she was, of course. Everyone in her household knew. But they also knew that she paid well, asked little, and had never once eaten any of them, which made her a far better employer than most of the Persian nobility.

The garden courtyard was her favorite part of the palace. She'd designed it herself, modeling it after a garden she'd seen in Babylon before that city had fallen to ruin. A fountain burbled in the center, surrounded by beds of roses, jasmine, and herbs whose names she'd forgotten. Date palms provided shade, and the air was thick with the scent of orange blossoms. Stone benches lined the perimeter, and it was to one of these that Brigid made her way, settling herself with her legs tucked beneath her.

The three Magi entered a few moments later, escorted by Darius.

The eldest was a man who had clearly seen many decades, his beard white as snow and reaching nearly to his waist. He wore robes of deep purple, embroidered with symbols that Brigid recognized as Zoroastrian, though there were other markings woven in—older symbols, from traditions that predated the Prophet by millennia. His eyes were sharp despite his age, and they fixed on Brigid with an intensity that suggested he saw more than her human form.

The second was perhaps forty, with a neatly trimmed black beard and the bearing of a scholar. His robes were simpler, dark blue with silver trim, and he carried a leather satchel that bulged with scrolls and instruments. He had the look of a man who spent his nights studying the stars and his days debating philosophy.

The youngest couldn't have been more than twenty. He was clean-shaven in the Roman style, with nervous eyes that darted around the courtyard as if cataloging every detail. His robes were the plainest of the three—undyed wool with a simple rope belt—but he wore them with a pride that suggested he'd only recently earned the right to call himself a Magus.

"My lady Brigid," the eldest said, bowing deeply. "We are honored by your hospitality."

"You know my name," Brigid observed. "But I don't know yours."

"I am Melchior," the old man said. "This is Caspar"—he gestured to the man in his prime—"and our young companion is Balthazar."

"Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar," Brigid repeated, tasting the names. "You've come a long way. Sit, please. My servants will bring food and drink."

The three Magi settled themselves on the benches opposite Brigid. As if summoned by her words, servants appeared with trays laden with dates, figs, flatbread, cheese, and cups of cool water flavored with mint. The Magi accepted the refreshments with grateful nods, and for a few moments, the only sound was the fountain and the distant call of birds.

"So," Brigid said, once they'd had a chance to eat. "You seek permission to cross my lands. Where are you headed?"

"Judea," Melchior said. "To Bethlehem, specifically."

Brigid raised an eyebrow. "Bethlehem? That's quite a journey. What business do three Magi have in a backwater town in Judea?"

Caspar leaned forward, his eyes bright with excitement. "We have been studying the stars, my lady. For months, we have observed a conjunction of planets—Jupiter and Saturn, meeting in the constellation of Pisces. It is a sign of great significance."

"A sign of what?" Brigid asked, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer.

"A birth," Melchior said quietly. "A powerful force for good is entering the world. A king, perhaps. Or a prophet. Or something greater still. We have come to honor his arrival with gifts and praise."

Brigid was silent for a long moment. She reached for a cup of water and drank deeply, buying herself time to think. When she set the cup down, her expression was unreadable.

"A powerful force for good," she repeated. "In Bethlehem."

"Yes, my lady," Balthazar said eagerly. It was the first time he'd spoken, and his voice cracked slightly with youth and enthusiasm. "The signs are unmistakable. This child will change the world."

"They always do," Brigid murmured. She looked at the three men, studying them. They were sincere, she could see that. They truly believed they were on a sacred mission. And perhaps they were. She'd lived long enough to know that the universe had a sense of humor, and that prophecies had a way of fulfilling themselves in the most unexpected ways.

"You know what I am," she said. It wasn't a question.

Melchior nodded. "We do. You are Brigid the Dragon, one of the eldest of your kind. You have walked this earth for longer than any human civilization. Your power is vast, and your wisdom is deep."

"Flattery," Brigid said, but there was no heat in it. "You want something more than just permission to cross my lands."

Caspar smiled. "You are perceptive, my lady. We would be honored if you would join us on our journey. A being of your power and knowledge would be a fitting witness to this momentous event."

Brigid laughed. It started as a chuckle, low in her throat, but it grew until it filled the courtyard, echoing off the walls. The Magi exchanged glances, uncertain whether they should be offended or alarmed. The servants, who knew their mistress better, simply waited for the laughter to subside.

When Brigid finally caught her breath, she wiped tears from her eyes. "Oh, that's rich. You want me to come with you to honor a powerful force for good?" She shook her head, still grinning. "Gentlemen, I appreciate the invitation, truly I do. But I'm going to have to decline."

"May I ask why, my lady?" Melchior said carefully.

Brigid's smile faded, replaced by something more somber. She leaned back against the bench, her eyes distant. "The last time I tried to visit with a so-called powerful force for good, I ended up making him mad enough to destroy the most advanced civilization on Earth at the time."

The three Magi stared at her. Balthazar's mouth had fallen open slightly.

"You're speaking of Atlantis," Caspar said slowly.

"I am," Brigid confirmed. "Though that wasn't what they called it. The name has been corrupted over the centuries, passed down through stories and legends until it bears little resemblance to the truth. But yes, I'm speaking of that place. That shining city of crystal and bronze, where they'd mastered arts that your modern world can barely imagine. Where they'd learned to harness the very forces of nature, to bend reality to their will."

"What happened?" Balthazar whispered.

Brigid was quiet for a moment, her gaze fixed on the fountain. When she spoke, her voice was soft, almost wistful. "I was younger then. Not young, mind you—I was already ancient by human standards—but younger than I am now. Less cautious. Less... jaded. I heard rumors of this great civilization, this place where humans had achieved wonders. And I was curious. Dragons are curious creatures by nature, you see. It's both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness."

She paused, reaching for a fig from one of the trays. She turned it over in her fingers, examining it as if she'd never seen one before.

"So I went to see for myself. I took this form—or one very like it—and I walked among them. And they were magnificent, truly. They'd built towers that scraped the sky. They'd created machines that could think and reason. They'd even begun to unlock the secrets of immortality. But there was a darkness at the heart of it all, a rot that I didn't see at first."

"What kind of darkness?" Melchior asked.

"Pride," Brigid said simply. "Hubris. They'd achieved so much that they'd begun to believe they were gods themselves. They'd forgotten that there were powers in the universe greater than their machines and their magic. And when I tried to warn them—when I tried to tell them that they were courting disaster—they laughed at me. Called me a primitive. A relic of a bygone age."

She bit into the fig, chewing slowly. "So I left. I returned to my true form and I flew away, back to my lair in the mountains. And I should have stopped there. I should have let them face whatever consequences their arrogance would bring. But I couldn't let it go."

"But you said you made someone mad enough to destroy them," Caspar said. "That you were responsible."

Brigid's expression darkened. "I was. Because instead of accepting that I'd done what I could—that I'd warned them and they'd rejected me—I made a choice. I went to see him. The one they called the Maker, the Architect, the First Cause. Different cultures have different names for him. You'd probably call him God, though that's a simplification."

She set down the fig, her appetite gone. "I told him what I'd seen. I told him that the humans in that city had grown too powerful, too arrogant. That they were a danger to themselves and to the world. And I knew—I knew—what he might do. But I went anyway. I couldn't bear that they'd dismissed me, that they'd laughed at a dragon's wisdom. So I reported them like a petulant child running to a parent."

She finished wiping her fingers on her shift, the gesture mechanical. "And he listened. And then he acted. He sent the waters to swallow that city, to erase it from the face of the earth. Every tower, every machine, every person—gone in a single night. And it was my fault. Not because I warned them—that was right. But because I couldn't walk away when they refused to listen. Because I went to the Maker and set that destruction in motion when I should have simply let them go on."

The courtyard was silent save for the fountain. Even the birds seemed to have stopped singing.

"I've carried that guilt for a very long time," Brigid said quietly. "Longer than you can imagine. And I swore to myself that I would never again interfere in the affairs of powerful forces for good. Because in my experience, those forces have a way of causing just as much destruction as the forces for evil. Sometimes more, because they believe they're justified."

Melchior stroked his beard thoughtfully. "With respect, my lady, I don't think this is the same situation. We're not going to warn anyone or to interfere. We're simply going to honor a birth. To acknowledge the arrival of something sacred."

"And what if your acknowledgment changes things?" Brigid asked. "What if your gifts and your praise set events in motion that lead to suffering? What if this child grows up believing he's destined for greatness, and that belief leads him down a dark path?"

"Then that is the risk we take," Caspar said firmly. "But we cannot let fear of what might happen prevent us from honoring what is. The stars have spoken, my lady. This birth is significant. To ignore it would be to turn our backs on our sacred duty as seekers of wisdom."

Brigid studied the three men. They were so certain, so full of conviction. She envied them that, in a way. It had been centuries since she'd felt that kind of certainty about anything.

"You're going to go whether I give you permission or not, aren't you?" she said.

Melchior smiled. "We would prefer to have your blessing, my lady. But yes, we will go regardless. This is too important."

Brigid sighed. "Very well. You have my permission to cross my lands. I'll have my people provide you with supplies—food, water, fresh horses if you need them. The route through the desert can be treacherous, and I'd hate for you to die of thirst before you reach your precious child."

"Thank you, my lady," Balthazar said, bowing deeply. "Your generosity is—"

"I'm not finished," Brigid interrupted. She stood, pacing to the fountain. She dipped her hand in the water, watching the ripples spread outward. "I won't go with you. I can't. But I want you to take something from me."

She reached into a pocket of her shift—a pocket that shouldn't have been there, that existed in a space slightly adjacent to normal reality—and withdrew a small leather pouch. She hefted it in her hand, feeling the weight of the coins inside.

"Gold," she said, tossing the pouch to Melchior. The old Magus caught it deftly. "Twelve coins, freshly minted. Add them to whatever gifts you're planning to bring. Tell the child's parents it's from a friend who couldn't make the journey."

Melchior opened the pouch, his eyes widening slightly at the sight of the coins. They were beautiful things, stamped with images of dragons and stars, made from gold so pure it seemed to glow with its own inner light.

"This is too generous, my lady," he said.

"It's not generous at all," Brigid said. "It's guilt money. It's me trying to balance the scales, just a little bit. If this child really is a force for good, then maybe my gold will help him. And if he's not..." She shrugged. "Well, at least his parents will be able to afford a decent life for him."

Caspar stood, bowing. "We will deliver your gift with honor, my lady. And we will tell the child's parents of your kindness."

"Don't tell them anything about me," Brigid said sharply. "Just give it with the rest of the gifts. That's all. Let them conclude what they will conclude."

"As you wish, my lady."

Brigid turned away from them, facing the fountain. "Darius will see to your supplies. You should leave at first light tomorrow. The desert is cooler in the morning, and you'll make better time."

"Thank you, my lady," Melchior said. "May we ask one more question before we go?"

Brigid didn't turn around. "You may ask. I may not answer."

"Do you truly believe that powerful forces for good are as dangerous as forces for evil?"

Brigid was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "I believe that power is dangerous, period. Good, evil—those are just labels we put on things to make ourselves feel better about our choices. The truth is that anyone with enough power to change the world will change it in ways that hurt some people, no matter how noble their intentions. The only question is whether the good they do outweighs the harm."

She finally turned to face them, and there was something ancient and terrible in her eyes, something that reminded them that she was not human, had never been human, and saw the world through a lens they could never fully understand.

"I hope that child is everything you believe him to be," she said. "I hope he brings light and joy and peace to the world. But I've lived long enough to know that hope is a dangerous thing. It makes us blind to the costs of our dreams."

Melchior bowed one final time. "Then I will hope for both of us, my lady. And perhaps, in time, you will see that not all powerful forces lead to destruction."

"Perhaps," Brigid said, though her tone suggested she didn't believe it.

The three Magi left the courtyard, escorted by Darius. Brigid stood by the fountain for a long time after they'd gone, watching the water and thinking about cities that had fallen, civilizations that had crumbled, and all the times she'd tried to do the right thing only to make everything worse.

Finally, she returned to her cushions in the eastern hall. The servant girl was still there, waiting patiently with the bowl of grapes.

"Another," Brigid said, settling back into the pillows.

The girl placed a grape on her tongue, and Brigid closed her eyes, savoring the sweetness. Outside, the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. Somewhere to the west, three Magi were preparing for a journey that would take them to Bethlehem, to witness the birth of a child who would change the world.

Brigid tried not to think about what that change might cost, about Atlantis sinking beneath the waves, or about all the other times she'd seen hope turn to ash.

But she thought about them anyway. She always did.

And in her pocket—that impossible pocket that existed between moments—the weight of guilt sat heavy, even though she'd given away twelve gold coins to try to lighten it.

Some burdens, she'd learned, could never be set down.

Some mistakes could never be unmade.

And some dragons could never stop being what they were: ancient, powerful, and forever haunted by the memories of all the things they'd seen and done and failed to prevent.