by Sarah Noffke
“The sword isn’t for sale,” Sophia repeated and started to back away, thinking it was best for their health.
“Hey, where are you going?” Popped Collar asked. “We’re just messing with you.”
“Yeah, it’s not every day we meet a fake dragonrider,” his buddy said.
“I’m not a fake dragonrider,” Sophia said through clenched teeth, wondering why she was letting these Jack Fruits get to her.
“Man, this one is delusional,” Hat said to the other dude. “I mean, even if you didn’t have the fake sword, who is going to believe a girl is a dragonrider?”
And there it is, Lunis said in Sophia’s head. You have my blessing to rearrange their faces.
Sophia stretched her head to one side and then the other, working out the tension in her neck. “The age of dragonriders has changed.”
Popped Collar laughed. “Sounds like it’s going downhill if they are letting girls ride.”
All Sophia’s restraint evaporated. She pulled out Inexorabilis in one swift movement, earning wide-eyed expressions from the pair. They didn’t even have a chance to react before Sophia brought the blade around. If she had used her full speed, she would have easily decapitated the two, but that wasn’t her intention. She didn’t even want to harm them, just scare them out of their wits so they never again underestimated a female.
“Oh shit!” Hat yelled, grabbing his friend by the shirt and yanking him down to the concrete as the sword passed overhead. They dropped clumsily as Sophia struck in a low lunge.
The guys stumbled back on their hands and feet, crab walking on their bums as they tried to get as far from Sophia as possible, fearful looks on their faces.
She twirled her sword, doing some fancy work that wouldn’t harm anything except a few horse flies, but it looked rather intimidating.
“Dude!” Popped Collar exclaimed.
“Who the hell is that?” his friend exclaimed, nearly rolling into the street to put distance between Sophia and them.
“I think she’s an actual dragonrider,” his friend replied.
“Yeah, that’s exactly who I am,” Sophia said, her chin down and eyes full of intent. “And instead of kicking your ass, I’m going to save it for the next time a danger nearly takes you out. What do you do say, boys?”
The dudes clumsily stumbled to their feet.
“W-W-We’re sorry,” the first one stuttered.
His friend slapped his arm. “I think she meant for us to say thank you.”
“Thank you!” the other yelled. Both boys tucked tail and hauled themselves down the sidewalk, easily intimidated by the small dragonrider before them.
Chapter Seven
Liv was standing with her arms crossed and her boot tapping the tile floor when Sophia entered the electronic repair shop.
The dragonrider halted and studied the amused expression on her sister’s face. “What’s up?”
“Just watching an interesting display in the streets,” Liv replied and pointed to the large display window at the front of the shop.
Sophia glanced in that direction and saw it gave her sister the perfect vantage point to see the whole incident which had just taken place. “Oh, well, those guys—”
“Are Laffy Taffies who not only can’t dress or put logical words together to form coherent ideas but are constantly getting on my last nerve putting up posters advertising their dumb podcast,” Liv stated, interrupting Sophia.
“Oh, yeah, that all seems about right. So you’ve met?”
“Unfortunately,” Liv answered. “What I don’t get is why you didn’t give them haircuts or shred their clothes, so they had a reason to go down to the thrift store and buy things their grandfathers threw out decades ago.”
Sophia shrugged. “I just wanted to scare them. They are harmless.”
Liv nodded. “You have more restraint than I do.”
“Well, my job is to protect the mortal world,” Sophia stated.
“And mine is to keep the magical one in check,” Liv added.
The sisters smiled at each other. “We are pretty cool counterparts,” Sophia said.
“That we are,” Liv said with a smile. “Too bad Clark is so lame and doesn’t have as cool a position as us.”
“He’s the book nerd, so we all have our roles,” Sophia stated proudly.
“Yeah, we are a pretty cool bunch,” Liv offered.
“That we are.” Sophia smiled, feeling the familiar euphoria take over when she thought of her siblings. “Familia Est Sempiternum.”
“What brings you here?” Liv asked, giving her a sideways skeptical glare. “Did you miss my famous nacho recipe?”
Sophia giggled. “You cover chips in way too much cheese. There’s not really much of a recipe to it.”
“It’s about the approach,” Liv stated. “Well, then you came to give me your Christmas list?”
Sophia shook her head. “I don’t need anything for Christmas. Well, having it at the Castle would be nice, but the angry Viking won’t allow the boys to have electronics, the housekeeper to express herself, or me to have any Christmas traditions.”
The light expression on Liv’s face dropped. “You’re coming home for Christmas, right?”
“Well, I hadn’t really planned on it,” Sophia answered and immediately regretted it. “I mean, I want to, but I might need to work, and we don’t really do anything.”
Liv recovered and nodded. “I get it. We don’t really get holidays off at the House of Fourteen. I’m not sure what I was thinking. In case I do see you, what do you want for Christmas, little sister?”
Sophia thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I mean, I have you and Clark and Lunis and pretty much everything I want.”
Liv yawned loudly. “Come on. You can do better than that. You have to want something.”
She sighed. “I want dragons not to be extinct.”
Liv gave her a sympathetic expression. “I get it. No luck on that front?”
“No, it appears most of the lone dragonriders were hunted down and taken out by Thad Reinhart,” Sophia explained. “It’s unclear if there are any lone dragons out there, but so far, it doesn’t appear hopeful.”
Liv thought for a moment. “Have you considered looking into genetic testing?”
The laugh that popped out of Sophia’s mouth surprised her. “I can’t even get Hiker to use a Kindle device. I’m absolutely certain he’s not going to allow genetic testing to manufacture dragons. Is it even possible?”
“Well,” Liv began, “remember Adler Sinclair?”
Another laugh spilled out of Sophia. “You mean the evil man who killed our parents and siblings, made it so mortals couldn’t see magic and almost destroyed the magical world? Yeah, I seem to recall him slightly.”
Liv gave her a subtle smile. “You were young, that’s all. Just ensuring I didn’t relate things from before your time.”
Sophia rolled her eyes, tired of being treated like she was born yesterday. Magic might have accelerated her growth, but that shouldn’t matter. She was every bit as mature if not more than any other eighteen-year-old. Actually, the chi of the dragon had put years of experience into her that made her well beyond her years. She liked to think she was more mature than Evan, who was over one-hundred years old, but that wasn’t saying much.
“Yeah, so what about Adler?” Sophia asked.
“Well, I’m not sure if you remember he had a small dragon,” Liv told her.
Sophia blinked, memories rushing back. “Indikos, right? That’s right!”
Liv nodded. “That’s right. From what I understand, he was a result of cross-breeding and magical genetic engineering. He was very rare, but couldn’t the same possibilities apply to real dragons?”
Sophia thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I want to say no since there’s the collective dragon consciousness that connects them all. It’s not like they can be manufactured. There were only ever one thousand of them. They are unique, like the souls of humans.�
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“So you can’t just create one because it has to come from somewhere, you mean?” Liv asked.
The complexity of this was enough to make Sophia’s head burst. “Yeah, I think so, but if all else fails, I guess we could look into it. Whatever happened to Indikos?”
“Oh, I gave him to Hawaki,” Liv answered, pointing to Inexorabilis on Sophia’s hip. “The maker of your sword. She was the right fit, and when the small dragon needed refuge, it just made sense. The last I checked, the two are enjoying island life together.”
Sophia smiled. “I’m glad he got a happy ending after everything.”
Liv nodded. “Yeah, it just shows no matter how we come into this world, no matter who thinks they own us, the story can always take a turn.”
A tired sigh fell out of Sophia’s mouth. “I’m not sure if that’s the way it will work out for the dragons, but that’s why I’m here. I was hoping you could help me look into some magitech that seems to destroy the connection between dragons and riders.”
“I’ll try,” Liv answered. “The real magitech expert is in the back grooming the chimera.”
“Do you ever listen to the things you say out loud?” Sophia asked, withdrawing from her cloak the magitech gun she’d gotten off Logan that severed her connection to Lunis, at least momentarily.
Liv stepped back at the sight of the device, her eyes widening, her hands in the air. “Whoa, that’s not any normal magitech.”
Sophia went to hand it to her sister, but Liv took another step back. “You shouldn’t be touching it, and neither should I. That thing isn’t safe.”
Using magic, Liv withdrew the magitech from Sophia’s hand. It hovered for a moment before it glided to a workstation and rested with a clunk.
“I know it’s dangerous,” Sophia explained. “It was used on Lunis and me. It’s horrible.”
“Then why do you have it, and why did you bring it here?” Liv asked. “I know an abyss that empties into the pits of hell. Do you want me to throw it down there for you? I’ll just need a mortal to offer the demons so we can use their trash receptacle.” She peeked out the window and pointed to the street. “I think one of those hipsters will do nicely.”
Sophia laughed, loving how her sister always had that effect on her. “No, I know it’s dangerous and probably unstable, but it’s the only real lead we have right now. I was hoping you could examine it and give me some information. Maybe tell me where it came from or who created it or something.”
Liv studied her sister, seeming to look into her soul. “You all are pretty lost, aren’t you?”
Sophia’s mouth twitched. “Yes. Thad Reinhart has the upper hand and always seems to be one step ahead of us. We can’t get close to him, and even if we could, we don’t know where to look. And with technology like this, we really shouldn’t risk getting close until we figure out how to combat it.”
“So you also need a way to fight this?” Liv asked.
Sophia nodded in reply.
“Don’t worry about him having the upper hand,” Liv consoled. “That’s how it always works with all my enemies. I’d get really concerned if I went into a fight with the advantage.”
“Yeah,” Sophia related. “I guess it’s that upper hand that makes us so relentless.”
“No, it’s the Beaufont blood.” Liv took several steps backward and poked her head through the swinging door at the back. “Alicia, can you join me up here when you get a chance?”
“Of course,” a woman said, her voice cloaked in an Italian accent.
A moment later, a beautiful woman with long brown hair and a chiseled face strode through the backdoor, her brown eyes smiling at the sight of Sophia. Behind her came John Carraway carrying his terrier, Pickles.
“Oh, if it isn’t my favorite little dragonrider,” John said, hugging Sophia into him, making her suddenly feel small.
She patted Pickles on the head and smiled up at the owner of the electronics repair shop. It was John who had given Liv her second life when she’d abandoned the House in favor of a simpler way. She’d abandoned her magic too, wanting nothing that reminded her of their parents and their death. That felt like eons ago and had proven to Sophia that people change and then change again.
“You say ‘little dragonrider’ like Lunis is a toy she flies around on,” Liv said with a laugh.
Pickles licked Sophia’s face before John pulled him back. The little dog wasn’t a normal terrier by any standards, but a timeless chimera meant to protect the Mortal Seven. Sophia was glad he wasn’t in his chimera form right then because it was quite overwhelming and usually resulted in objects being tossed around when his tail, a serpent’s head, swung around.
“She’ll always be little Sophia to me,” John said fondly to her sister.
“Well, this little dragonrider has brought in one of the darkest pieces of magitech I’ve had the misfortune of seeing.” Liv pointed to the gun on the workstation. “I haven’t examined it, but just being in the same space, I can feel the magic and sinister vibes rolling off it.”
Alicia cut her eyes to the device. She was an expert with magitech, which worked out perfectly since John was an expert when it came to mortal electronics. Together the pair had revolutionized the shop, now catering to both mortals and magicians, helping both worlds to manage their electronics better.
“Oh, I thought I sensed something,” Alicia said, eyeing the device. “I thought it was just Liv going off on those hipsters again.”
John chuckled. “She does bring a lot of negative energy into the shop when she berates those guys.”
“They deserve my wrath,” Liv grumbled.
“Then there was yesterday when she had that zombie accidentally follow her in here,” John related to Alicia, sounding amused.
The scientist nodded. “Yeah, there was a lot of negative energy around that fellow.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Liv explained. “I needed some parts for a project I was working on but wanted to be close to a freezer first.”
John grimaced. “I’m not sure I want any more information on the subject.”
“I’m certain you don’t,” Liv answered. “Also, if you look in your freezer, the stuff in the blue Tupperware isn’t leftover casserole.”
John shivered. “I think I’ll go and shop for a new freezer at the junkyard.”
Alicia nodded. “Good idea.”
The shop owner winked at Sophia as he made for the door. “Good seeing you, little Soph. Take care and try not to get yourself into too much trouble.”
“She rides majestic dragons for a living!” Liv called to him.
He waved. “Still, she’s just that little magician to me. Always will be.”
Liv shook her head as John left. “It must get pretty tiring when no one takes you seriously, Soph.”
“It can be, but then again, the look on people’s faces when I kick ass is worth it,” Sophia said with a laugh.
“So, this magitech…” Alicia gave the device a tentative look. “It’s going to take me some time to investigate.”
Liv came over to Sophia’s side and elbowed her. “Don’t you love that? It will take her just enough time until Thad is about to take over the world and destroy it. Then Alicia will conveniently figure out what you need to know and deliver the information, giving you just enough time to step in and kill the bad guy who had the upper hand right up until then.”
Alicia shook her head and smiled. “I really wish I could be fast with this one, but I’ve never seen any magitech like this.”
Liv whistled. “And she’s seen it all.”
“Well, I’ll take whatever I can get,” Sophia said, trying not to sound disappointed.
“Actually, I think I might be able to offer a bit more,” Alicia began. “Magitech like this has a strong frequency it gives off.”
“As we’ve discussed,” Liv added.
“Exactly,” Alicia answered. “Now that I know what I’m looking for, I might be able to find a way to trac
k other magitech that shares the same frequency.”
“Which could lead me to Thad Reinhart himself,” Sophia said, growing excited.
“I can’t promise anything,” Alicia amended. “Magitech of this caliber is incredibly hard to disguise or hide.”
“A magician like Thad Reinhart will have top-level security,” Liv said.
“He does,” Sophia stated, remembering when she broke into his facility north of the Gullington.
“I might also be able to help with foiling security measures,” Alicia stated. “Like I said, I need to investigate this fully. You can understand a lot about a magician based on the magitech they create. It tells you how they operate, what brand of magic they use, and a whole host of other crucial information.”
Liv draped her arm around her sister’s shoulder. “Aren’t my friends excellent?”
Sophia nodded and laid her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Yeah, and you’re pretty great too. Thanks for the help, ladies.”
Alicia smiled. “I’m happy to help. And if you’re working on getting rid of the person who created this, then my efforts will be well worth it. Whoever is behind this is thoroughly evil.”
“Okay, so I’ll check back in with you?” Sophia asked the scientist.
“I’ll ping you,” Alicia answered.
Sophia nodded. The expert of magitech didn’t need her phone number or any other contact information. She’d find her. “Okay, then I’ll leave you to it.” She pulled herself off of Liv and smiled at her sister. “3D printer,” she said simply.
“3D printer what?” Liv questioned.
“You asked what I want for Christmas,” Sophia said with a smile. “I want a 3D printer so I can freak out Hiker. He’ll totally think it’s some devil tech magic and stomp around the Castle for weeks bellowing about it.”
Liv nodded proudly. “You are my sister.” She tossed a sideways look at Alicia. “I think we can manage a 3D printer, don’t you?”
The scientist smiled wide. “Consider it done.”
“What do you want for Christmas?” Sophia asked her sister.