Dragon's Blood (Black Planet Book 1) Read online

  Black Planet

  Dragon’s Blood

  Belinda McBride

  Contents

  Black Planet: Dragon’s Blood

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Also by Belinda McBride

  A Note to The Reader:

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Black Planet: Dragon’s Blood

  Belinda McBride

  San Francisco hasn’t been the same since the Great Shake of ’08. On the ruins of Fisherman’s Wharf, a ramshackle city rises like a mushroom, a strange dichotomy of safety and corruption. In this forbidden city, a monster prowls the corridors and alleys, seeking the nanite-enhanced flesh and blood of underground cage fighters.

  Detective Annie Tanaka once survived an encounter with the monster. The attack left her clinging to life and riddled with fear. Now the monster has returned, and he’s hunting in her territory. She’ll need every weapon in her arsenal to face this enemy and prevail.

  Unfortunately for Annie, her mentor, a legendary fight master, hasn’t been seen in decades, and her unwilling partner is next on the monster’s menu. Annie soon realizes her real enemy is not the monster, but her own fear. And against that fear, Annie must stand alone.

  Chapter One

  2083 CE, San Francisco

  “Mornin’, Annie!”

  “Mornin’!” Annie Tanaka tossed a grin over her shoulder and planted a foot, running and vaulting over the narrow, artificial canyon. Narrow, yes, but it was a thirteen-story drop to the alleys, and whether she hit water or rebar, her death would come fast and hard.

  “Good Morning, Annie!”

  “Hey, Mrs. Y! How’s things?” She didn’t slow as she replied. The boat to Oakland might just possibly be on schedule today, and she didn’t want to miss it. There were other boats, but she tried to stick to routine. Besides, Cappie Reynolds was fair. He rarely overcharged except for when it was storming. And when it was storming, Annie would much rather stay at home in bed, listening to the sound of water dripping from her leaky roof. Since she couldn’t do that, she rose hours earlier to take a hand-powered flatcar through the eerie underwater tunnels that bisected the Bay. That mode of transportation carried its own stamp of horror, but she could fight bandits and mild claustrophobia. She couldn’t fight nature and the ocean.

  Annie’s light boots skimmed over a long ramp that dropped a level and came out on the roof of Parsottie’s Eatery. From there, a series of gradually descending rooftops lead out of Wharf, over the Wall and would set her on the streets of San Francisco proper. She’d never have to set foot on the dangerous lower corridors with this route. Even in the daytime, the ground level harbored gangs and drug addicts, cheap whores and the occasional thrill-seeker from outside.

  Every time she approached a ramp, whether it was a braced structure or a flimsy board, she scanned quickly and carefully. Caution might slow her down, but it wasn’t unusual for the local reigning gangs to sabotage passages. Thick bundles of electric cables snaked over surfaces and dangled in the air. She’d taken a few hard falls in her time, only extreme luck combined with phenomenal agility saved her from taking the drop forever.

  With her heart beating from fear and excitement, Annie paused in the shelter of two buildings. The City didn’t patrol Wharf territory these days -- it was harder to get in than out -- but old habits die hard. From her elevated vantage point, she checked for gangsters, guards, and anyone that might have something to gain by keeping a Wharf rat in… or out.

  The coast was clear and she was over solid ground now, so she took a dead cable hand over hand, down to the level of the Wall. From there she simply jogged to the docks, taking a skinny stair passage that led straight to her destination: The Morning Glory.

  Grungy but seaworthy, the old boat had been a luxury yacht in a previous life. Now the old lady was just a dirty, faded whore, not unlike those Annie had passed in the lower alleys of Wharf. But if the Glory went down on you, she went down forever, carrying you into the cold, murky water of San Francisco Bay.

  Annie gave herself a moment to tamp down panic, staring at the oily water below her feet. Overhead a lone gull circled hopefully. About eight other passengers were aboard. If she didn’t hurry, she’d get stuck out on deck, propped on a dirty tire or a coil of greasy rope. Annie murmured a quick prayer to Bok Eye, the Chinese God of Water, and then she stepped aboard.

  Commuting this way was a delicate balance. She didn’t want to be late, ending up stuck on deck, or possibly missing the boat altogether. But she also didn’t want to be early. The old boat smelled fishy. The roll of the waves brought nausea to her throat. The less time onboard, the better.

  She’d timed it perfectly.

  “Hey, Annie. You going to ride up front with me today?”

  “Hey, Cappie.” She extended her fare, daring him to up his charge. The Bay commute was a seller’s market, and if he was in a crappy mood, Cappie wouldn’t hesitate to boot a rider in favor of one with deeper pockets. “This is for round trip,” she said firmly.

  He stared at her offering, and then nodded curtly. “Head up front and take a seat. You can have my chair.”

  She ducked her head, hiding a smile. That usually meant Cappie and his on-again off-again lover had made up. Their fights were notorious, the stuff of local legend. Their make-up sex? Marlin had probably given Cap the ass-pounding of his life. Marlin had reputedly walked in on Cappie with a floor-whore last week. Thing about living in Wharf, there were no real secrets.

  Nearly twenty thousand people were crammed into a warren of high- and low-rise buildings that had mushroomed up on the site of Old Fisherman’s Wharf. They lived shoulder to shoulder in one of the highest population density neighborhoods in the world.

  The wall around Wharf was a mystery. Some said it was to keep Wharf rats in, others said it was to keep the city dwellers out. Only old Guo Lee knew the truth of the matter, and he’d never shared that story with anyone.

  Annie settled into the worn leather of the captain’s chair and relaxed a bit. From the bridge she could see sun and sky and water while avoiding the claustrophobic conditions below deck. She could also see whatever might be coming. Annie Tanaka didn’t like being taken by surprise.

  The motors strained and groaned as they started, and then Cappie stood at her side, giving her a rare, gap-toothed grin. His teeth were surprisingly white in his weathered face. Yeah, he’d gotten some. And then some.

  She wished she was getting some too.

  The trip across the Bay didn’t take long. Nevertheless, there were nail-marks in her palms, bite marks on her lips. Over the past five years, Annie had trained herself to minimize the self-inflicted damage. For a time, she’d sported an ever-present bloody spot on her full lower lip and her fingernails had been chewed down to the quick.

  Once they tied off, she darted up the docks to solid ground, taking a moment to collect her nerves. She leaned against a fence, one hand over her pounding heart, the other clasped in a fist. It wasn’t the boat that frightened her, it was the water. Odd, since she lived in a high-rise that towered erratically over the bay. Annie knew exactly why she was afraid and didn’t bother to question it, or even attempt to talk herself out of the phobia. No amount of looking back could change things. No therapist would ever desensitize her to the filthy water of the bay.

  She could only move forward if she turned her head in that direc
tion. One of old Guo’s favorite sayings. Walking forward led Annie straight through her greatest fear almost every day of her life.

  A short walk along Oakland’s waterfront took her to the sleek electric train system that wound through the East Bay. Ten minutes in relative comfort and she stepped out into hordes of traffic, both human and mechanical. The train whizzed away, climbing up to become an elevated monorail on its way to Berkeley.

  The station house was new and high-tech, a thoroughly modern testament to the rebuilding of the city by the bay. San Francisco had staggered under the burden of rebuilds and recovery after the Big Shake of ’08. The Marina District had slid into the liquefied ground it had been built on. Fires had gutted Fisherman’s Wharf, leaving the space clear for the squatters’ city that eventually evolved into the comfortable anarchy of Wharf Town. The city itself had regained some of its former glory, yet continued to struggle with modernization and safety.

  The East Bay had brushed itself off and taken the opportunity to create a new, ultra-modern infrastructure. It was clean, safe, and always looking toward the future.

  Annie preferred San Francisco.

  “Hey, Detective Tanaka!”

  She grinned and waved at the station receptionist, stepping into a bullet-shaped lift. Level three put her at the locker rooms where Annie quickly changed from jeans to a chic trouser suit. Today she had case briefings and a press conference about the status of a high profile drug case that she’d closed. While she wouldn’t speak directly to the press, Annie needed to look professional.

  She armed up, her pistol in a shoulder harness, cuffs on her belt. Annie ran a comb through her sleek black hair and carefully applied matte red lipstick. She dug pins from her kit and did a simple up-do, and smudged her lids with a bit of liner.

  She slipped into sleek red pumps and checked herself in the mirror. The black suit looked good. Professional yet attractive. At work she could sometimes afford to look like a girl. Within reasonable limits.

  She locked her space and headed out, ignoring the half dozen other cops in various states of undress. Terrence was in the shower, singing as he scrubbed the grime of his undercover identity from his skin. He was on his way home to his wife and baby. Amy Lyn was drying her hair; she’d been on late night as well. The large room was split into a men’s half and a women’s half, but nobody seemed to care if that invisible line was crossed. Annie was one of the few who opted for the private showers and changing cubes.

  She was out the door and heading for the break room to pick up her morning coffee when a young intern caught her. “Detective Tanaka?”

  “Hey, Lou, what’s up?”

  “Greene wants you to skip the briefing today. You’re to meet him in I-six.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Annie frowned and watched as he jogged away, no doubt looking for his next target. She changed direction and headed back down to the interrogation levels on the ground floor. Her belly jumped uneasily. She thought about that coffee and decided to skip it. Meeting Greene in the I rooms could only mean one thing.

  A new case, deep undercover.

  “Oh Jesus.” Annie looked at the photos and then followed those with the lab reports. She closed the file and rested her head in her hands. “Greene, you can’t do this to me.”

  “We need a man on the inside, Tanaka. You’re it.”

  “God, Greene, if you mean what I think you mean…”

  “He’s back.”

  Greene stared at her steadily, his gray eyes looking sad and worn. Five years ago this case had nearly cost Annie her life and her career. It had taken her partner’s wife, and then it took her partner as well. She should want a second shot at this monster, damn it. But she didn’t.

  “How many?” She rubbed her eyes, staving off a stress headache.

  “That we know of? Two here in Oakland. Four confirmed in San Fran. LA won’t commit to a number, but they’re hinting he’s been there. I’ve got feelers out in Seattle and Portland. He’s covered a lot of ground.”

  “It’s not a he, Greene.”

  “Whatever. But he’s… it’s here now. We’ve got a taskforce started but that’s primarily for groundwork and diversion. We don’t want him looking your direction till you’re right on top of him.”

  She met his eyes and slowly he pushed another file across the tabletop. It was “The Plan.” Her undercover identity. She sat quietly, reading and memorizing the operation. Green tried to hide a smile when she got to the layout. “Greene, I can’t -- Wharf is my home! I can’t go undercover in my own neighborhood.”

  “It’s his next logical target, Tanaka. And nobody there knows you’re a cop, right? So they won’t have to know. And Wharf has no official police force. No protocol and no red tape. We can operate there without permission from San Francisco.”

  She could act independently of either force if need be. Of course, she wouldn’t have the support of a standing police force inside the walls. It would take far too long for Oakland to arrive if she had an emergency. She’d be on her own.

  “Okay, so the next problem: I’m not an insider in the gambling or fighting world. How exactly am I going to get into position?”

  “Covered.”

  Even as he answered, she heard a commotion out in the hallway. Bodies thudded against walls, shouts and curses echoed into the room. She glanced at Greene with a raised brow.

  “My inside connection?” She asked.

  “Their timing couldn’t be better, could it?”

  She shook her head and turned back to the file. When she finished, she met Greene’s cool eyes. The past couple years had been hard on the man. His wife had died slowly of Dragon’s Blood, the mysterious Hemo disease. No amount of transfusions had kept her going. Add to that the burden of heading up the undercover forces… Well, it was hard on a man. It showed in his prematurely graying hair, in those sad, soulful eyes. He was only thirty-five.

  “So you’re in?”

  “Like I have a choice?” Not if she wanted to keep her job. And she did love her job, most of the time.

  “So you know who’s in that other room?”

  Anne nodded wordlessly. She swallowed, her throat dry and parched. She wanted to get up, cross the harbor and go back home. But she didn’t have that choice.

  “You ready?”

  She stood, rising to her full height, squaring her shoulders, masking the uncertainty, the guilt and the fear. All the freshly plowed shit that had re-surfaced after reading the case notes shook her to the core. She gathered the files from the table and handed them to Greene. Standing aside, she followed her boss out the door. This was undoubtedly as painful for him as it was for her.

  Aiden Chen glared. Of course, they’d pulled some damned sack over his head, so the glare was pointless. He jerked his arms, testing the shackles that anchored his arms to something heavy and solid… a table? His naked feet were secured to the floor, the slender cuffs were smooth, surprisingly comfortable and made of some metal completely impervious to his strength. He gave up the struggle and focused on his surroundings.

  An interrogation room, judging by the feel of things. The hard chair was cold against his nearly bare ass. He wracked his brain, trying to remember what warrants might be out on his name, and came up with nothing. He mostly operated inside Wharf, which was off-limits to the SFPD. Something else was up. Instinct cooled his temper; he went still and quiet. He waited. Within moments, the door opened.

  “Okay, Chen, I’m taking off the hood. You be a good boy and wait patiently.” The accent was flat and white. East Bay. Automatically, Aiden’s bare foot jerked against the shackle. He stilled himself as the fabric cleared his face, allowing him to breathe fresh air.

  He blinked against the harsh, artificial light. It was indeed an interrogation room--one he’d never seen. Too clean for The City. Too new. His glare moved from the uniform leaving the room to the dark mirrored window, which caught his angry reflection. His heightened vision told him the observation room was empty. Three cups of h
ot tea waited on the table, one in front of where he sat. One black. Two green. They were still steaming.

  How civilized. Maybe they’d have cucumber sandwiches, too. The kind with the crusts trimmed away.

  He shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair. They’d pulled him from bed before dawn and he needed to pee. He could only be grateful they’d allowed him underwear. Aiden prayed the cage groupie that’d been in his bed had locked up on her way out. He didn’t have much of value, but still, he didn’t need any roof rats digging through his shit. He rarely took anyone home; he must’ve had too much to drink again.

  The door opened and Aiden glanced up, feeling his face go stiff and still. Of course he wasn’t in San Francisco. He was across the Bay, in Oakland. Milo Green entered the room. He sat carefully, placed a stack of files on the table then pushed the cup of green tea toward Aiden. They’d knocked him out with a tranq. He didn’t even remember the ride over.

  He closed his eyes, heard several sets of footsteps echoing down the hall. But one set stood out like a signal. Steady and light, and almost silent.

  He didn’t need to see to know who it was.

  Aiden opened his eyes when she walked into the room; she was cool, elegant and dangerous. That serene, beautiful face was the face of evil as he knew it. Maybe evil was a little dramatic. Try pain, grief, and betrayal.

  Yeah, that fit.

  “Hello, boss. Hey, Annie.” Sarcasm laced his words. “Long time no see.”

  She paused just inside the door, looking at him. She didn’t look any older than she had that morning she’d walked out the door of his home, Lisa at her side. The black suit was the perfect foil for her dark hair and porcelain skin. The touches of red at her ears and throat reminded him of blood. She was missing something, though. He’d rarely seen her without a smile, and back then, she’d always glowed, as though she’d been lit from within. That was all gone.