Dragon-Ridden

by T. A. White

  “Looks like my creature has found a playmate,” the sly man said next to Tate’s ear. Spittle flew from his lips as he leered at her.

  She gazed at him blankly. She’d lost track of the conversation while she’d been trying to communicate with Night, who was now hissing at the sly man. From the corner of her eye, she watched as he bared his teeth and snapped at the air in anger.

  Tate wasn’t in a situation to help anybody, even herself.

  He wants me to kill. Impossible. Impossible. Prey is predator. Prey is predator.

  It was a struggle to keep track of both conversations. One out loud and another in her head.

  I don’t… know what… you mean, Tate thought. It was a little easier to send her thoughts this time but left her sweating from the effort.

  “Sam, I don’t remember you being a part of my clan,” Lucius said.

  “No. I have not been allowed that honor,” Sly man said, looking slightly confused.

  “Then why are you threatening my guest as if you were?”

  Leader. He wants me to kill leader.

  Leader? Lucius?

  Which? Tate looked back at the group. A hazy image formed in her mind. The coloring was a little off, but it was definitely Lucius. Tate wondered if she’d be blamed if Night killed his target.

  Why can’t you kill him? Tate asked. It would solve several of her problems very nicely but she might end up stranded below ground as a result which wasn’t so appealing.

  Too powerful. Last one who tried was blown apart. I’ll die. Cubs will die. Spark will eat us all. A keening rose in Tate’s mind. All this mind talk was giving her a headache.

  Stop that, she snapped. You’re not dead yet. How are you supposed to kill Leader, I mean Lucius, from your cage?

  The hinge is faulty. Easy to escape. Will die, will die, WILL DIE.

  Night’s mental volume felt like a punch right between the eyes. She couldn’t even cover her ears to turn it down. A headache took root right behind one eye and throbbed with each heartbeat.

  For a being that looked like it could slaughter its way through the city, Night was a bit hysterical.

  Alright. Alright. No need to shout. For now, just stay in your cage while I think of a way out for both of us.

  For now they’d have to play it by ear and hope an opportunity for escape presented itself.

  He has control for death collar. He can kill cubs if I don’t act the way he wants. The thought was urgent.

  That was something Tate could do something about. Maybe. What does it look like?

  An image formed in her mind of an oblong white piece of metal with what looked like a series of clear buttons on it.

  Luckily, Sam, the sly man, had stayed near Tate for his dress down by Lucius. He watched the men with great intensity.

  The remote wasn’t anywhere visible to Tate. Where is it?

  String around his neck. Night’s hope filtered through his speech. He shifted slightly in his cage as he gave her his rapt attention. It’d be a hell of a time to fail.

  How does one go about stealing in a room fool of thieves? Not just any thieves, either. The best in the city.

  It really was amazing how Tate continued to find herself in these situations.

  Conscious that she was the center of attention again, Tate nonchalantly moved away from Night’s cage with Blade still a shadow at her back. It looked like Lucius was finally ready to address his business with Tate. She’d kind of been hoping that she’d been forgotten.

  “What are we to do with our wayward bird?” Lucius asked.

  Tate wasn’t anybody’s bird, let alone a wayward one. “Release her back into the wild?” Tate asked hopefully.

  The blond snorted as he choked back a laugh.

  “We could do that,” Lucius said seriously. Then he smiled at her. “But that would mean all that work to get you here would go to waste.”

  Tate knew he wanted her to ask why he had brought her here and it gave her a perverse kind of satisfaction to act counter to his expectations. She eyed Sam and edged a step closer. She could see the chain circling his neck but not the remote.

  “You’re an odd creature,” the blond suddenly remarked. “Here you are surrounded by extremely dangerous men and yet you show no fear. You even rebel in your own odd little way.”

  Tate didn’t know what to say. Not many would have attributed her silence to a form of rebellion. Most attributed her silence to caution or fear.

  She suspected the blond was much more astute than his face suggested. He wore a mask of good cheer that hid his true thoughts. Rather than being a mere spectator of the proceedings, he was the conductor, forcing the music to bow to his agenda.

  Reluctantly she said, “What’s surprising is how often I’m called odd or strange or unique. Why, I’m told that so often, I’m almost beginning to believe it. To me, you are the strange ones. Kidnapping random people off the street, only to tell them they’re odd, is much stranger.”

  “And yet, you do not ask the one question that every other person we’ve kidnapped asks,” Lucius said. “’Why am I here?’ Or some variation.”

  Tate shrugged. “What can I say? I’m unique.”

  “And contrary,” the blond remarked.

  “What is your name, sir?” Tate asked.

  “What use is it to you?”

  “I simply grow tired of calling you the blond one in my head.”

  There was a pause as they digested that comment. Then the blond threw back his head and laughed. Even Lucius smiled slightly. Tate had grown accustomed to being laughed at, and as such, her attention had wandered back to the problem of stealing the controller from Sam.

  She didn’t allow her eyes to rest on him, not wanting him suspicious. Instead she prowled the edges of the room as if restless. There was only one entrance to the chamber and the guard Tate had assaulted stood in front of it. The look he gave her as she passed him was unfriendly. She sniffed. If he hadn’t wanted to be manhandled he shouldn’t have pushed her. Twice.

  “I’m Lucius,” the friendly man said leaning forward and smiling as if they were sharing a joke.

  “But-“ Confused, Tate looked at the man she had assumed was Lucius. “I thought. Then who are you?” she asked him.

  “Lucius,” he said.

  Two Lucius’s. Huh? For a moment the puzzle was enough to distract her from her objective. “It must be difficult, when people are addressing you, to tell which they are talking to.”

  Lucius Two, as Tate now referred to the former blond, laughed again, the sound cheerfully filling the chamber. He propped a chin on one hand. “Yes, and it confuses would be assassins as well.”

  “Because they can’t tell which of you is the real Lucius,” Tate finished for him. “Clever.”

  Lucius Two leaned over and patted Lucius One’s arm. “You’ve brought such an exotic bird home.”

  Hurry, Night thought at Tate.

  Hush, Tate snapped back. She had her own problems to solve. She’d help him if she could but not at the expense of her safety. Tate was a lot of things, but selfless was not one of them. A thought occurred to her based on what Sam had said earlier. If I do this, can you get me back to the surface?

  Surface?

  You know. Sky? Not underground? Tate could sense his puzzlement so she sent him a hazy image of the city streets. His recognition filtered through her mind.

  Yes, but first you help rescue the cubs from the Red Lady.

  That wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind. She’d hoped getting the remote would be enough to gain his help. It would also mean staying underground longer when being here was already drawing her nerves tight with tension.

  What if I give you the remote, and you take me to the surface?

  He rejected her idea immediately. No. You will help rescue the cubs then I will take you to the surface.

  It was a risk. He could be lying about knowing the way. There was no way to know for sure without helping him.

  “Which one
do you think is real?” Lucius Two asked.

  Huh? Tate had forgotten what they’d been talking about while trying to strike a deal with Night. Probably not the best idea in a dangerous situation like this one.

  The confusion must have shown on her face because he elaborated. “Who is the real Night Lord?”

  Tate pondered the question as she circled the room again. What answer was the least likely to get her noticed? She wondered if it was a question they posed to all of their “guests.”

  “Does it really matter which of you is the real one?” she finally asked.

  “You are dodging the question,” Lucius One said.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes,” Lucius Two said tilting his head. He examined her with a curious expression as if she was a pet who’d done something unexpected.

  “I don’t think so,” Tate contradicted. She stopped two steps from Sam and changed directions to the cage, almost bumping into Blade in the process. “I imagine that you both are the real Lucius. Or close enough that it doesn’t matter.”

  She examined the hinges and even chanced touching one. A spark snapped at her fingers, and she barely controlled her yelp. She rubbed tingling fingers against her pants as she turned back to the two Lucius’ and sauntered to stand next to the sly man again.

  ‘That’s a cop out,” Lucius Two said, sounding slightly disappointed.

  Tate snorted but didn’t reply. No matter what her answer was she was going to be wrong, no doubt. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t here to play guessing games.

  She waited patiently for them to figure out she was done playing this game. The silence built as she casually glanced around the chamber. All of her moving around had lulled all the guards, except Blade, into a false sense of security. Though they remained focused on her they no longer were as on guard as when she’d first entered the room.

  “Jost mentioned that about you,” Lucius Two said. “That you could be stubborn and that when you were done you’d just refuse to play anymore.”

  “Did he?” Tate said trying and failing to show disinterest.

  “He’s the one who pointed you out to us actually,” Lucius Two said. He cocked his head. “I hope you don’t think he was betraying you. He probably wanted you to work for us as a friend.”

  “I doubt that. Friends don’t kidnap each other.”

  “Isn’t that how you came to be on the same ship?” Lucius One asked. He laced his fingers together as he trained dark eyes on Tate. “By being forced onto it?”

  Tate’s breath caught. There was no way he could have known that little tidbit unless someone had told him. Tate considered her secrets hers. Sharing them would have been a deep violation of trust, one that would be difficult to forgive for any reason. On the other hand, Jost wouldn’t have known she’d be leaving the crew here.

  Seeing he had made his point, Lucius Two continued. “We brought you here because you interfered with an operation of ours.”

  He paused to see if Tate had any comments. She gestured for him to continue. “You took a hair ornament from one of our operatives.”

  “You mean pick pocket.”

  “It is extremely important that it be returned to us.” He smiled politely at her. “So we’d like it back.”

  Tate didn’t respond. She was quite simply, stunned. This entire debacle was over a hair ornament that she’d liberated on impulse? She’d been kidnapped, not once but twice, to get back something that goes in a person’s hair. A female’s hair, which none of these men were. Tate didn’t have the words to express her feelings and just shook her head dumbly.

  “Are you kidding me?” she finally shouted. The guards reacted reflexively at her outburst, putting a hand on their weapons. “All of this.” She gestured wildly, hitting Sam by accident. She steadied him before continuing. “All of it has been over a hair ornament? One that I don’t even have because I gave it back to its owner. Who, by the way, was sitting with you at a table right before you knocked me out.”

  It was unbelievable.

  “It was a fake,” Lucius One said calmly, not phased in the slightest by her outburst. Lucius Two chuckled slightly to himself. The guards looked a little rattled.

  “What was a fake?” Tate snarled.

  “The hair ornament you returned. Our boy stole the real one, which you took from him. The one the lady has now is a fake. That leaves you with the real one,” he reasoned. “We need it back.”

  “Or she got wise and decided not to wear her jewels around the city anymore and instead is using a fake one.”

  “She’s not,” Lucius One said implacably. “You will give us the real one.”

  “I don’t have the real one,” Tate snarled back.

  “Look little bird,” Lucius Two interrupted, holding up a hand to forestall her next words. “Give us what we want, and we’ll let you go. We won’t even hold this against you in future dealings. Don’t give this bauble to us, and your life will get very uncomfortable.”

  “Future?” Tate asked. “Once I get out of here, I hope never to see any of you again.”

  “That’s going to be hard since, as a thief, you fall under our domain,” Lucius Two explained.

  “Yeah, but I’m not a thief. I lived with thieves for a while and might have helped them a time or two, but that does not mean I have any intention of continuing in that tradition.”

  Lucius Two cast a knowing smile Tate’s way. He played the charmer in the Lucius duo. Tate would bet that when Lucius One’s intimidation tactics didn’t work, Lucius Two got it done with a bit of honey. “In the course of a day you have stolen from one of our master pick pockets and not even moments earlier you stole Sam’s necklace. Nice job by the way. If that doesn’t make you a thief, I don’t know what does.”

  “What? My necklace?” Sly man’s voice was high and panicky as he ran his hands over his shirt searching for his necklace.

  This wasn’t exactly what Tate had planned by taking the controller. She’d hoped to be subtle and not have anybody notice until she was gone.

  Not finding the controller in his clothes, Sam turned to Tate in a rage. “Where is it?” he hissed, advancing on her, his face flushing redder and redder. His beefy hands curled into fists and he swung at her. Tate dodged back and almost ran into the cage. She sidestepped to stand next to it. Night growled threateningly at the man. If a six foot predator with teeth like Night’s had growled at Tate like that she would have made sure there was a considerable distance between her and it. Maybe Sam was just braver than her.

  “I have an alternate deal to propose,” Tate said, keeping an eye on Sam.

  “Oh?” Lucius One folded his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair.

  “How about I expose a plot to kill you, both of you, and save your lives at the same time?” she said hopefully. She waited a beat for confusion to wash across their faces and a horrified understanding to register on Sam’s. “Now Night,” she shouted.

  The feline burst out of his cage in a rain of sparks as the door literally flew off its hinges, landing on Blade. Before the shock of his escape could die down, Tate was out the door running down a corridor. Night hard on her heals. Not knowing where she was going she took random turns in an effort to lose their pursuers. A left then a right and a left again.

  Night bounded in front of her, running on all fours, his stride eating up the distance. Tate followed close behind, her lungs burning. Sounds from Lucius’ men pursued them but died down a little more with every twist of the tunnel they ran down.

  They were free but lost. Tate really hoped Night had been telling the truth when he said he knew the way out.

  Chapter Nine

  Tate stumbled to a halt, not caring if Night left her behind. It had been twenty minutes since they last heard any sign of their pursuers, and she didn’t think she could run another step. She was exhausted, her feet hurt, and she really wanted out of this gods-be-damned maze.

  If she wasn’t very much mistaken, they’d been traveling down
for the last few minutes, the last direction she wanted to be heading. Tate pressed a hand into her side as she panted. Instead of slowing down, her breathing sped up until she gasped for air, as she tried not to think about being lost down here for days. Panic fed into more panic until it seemed she wasn’t getting any air.

  Whiskers touched her face. Tate opened her eyes and looked into Night’s concerned face. How embarrassing to have someone witness her weakness.

  He curled up beside her and lowered his head into her lap. Just breathe. It’ll be all right.

  His chest vibrated against her as his purrs filled the corridor. It was soothing against Tate’s frayed nerves. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound, forgetting the rest. Gradually, her breathing slowed, timing itself to the hand petting his fur, and the tension washed away from her muscles.

  They rested. Tate was unwilling to move and spoil the first instance of total peace she’d had since descending that first set of stairs.

  She hadn’t thought it would be this difficult to make a go of it on her own. Being on a ship had been easy, like being on an extended holiday with no rules and no one to tell you no. Danny and Riply always had her back. Before the crew had become so hostile, ship life had been free of this constant fear.

  Here, she kept finding her way from dangerous situation to even more dangerous situations. There was no end, and unless she wanted to start killing indiscriminately, the people she angered simply grew.

  To cap things off, she was lost underground pursued by men who thought she had something of theirs. It was her worst fear realized.

  This place scares you. Night’s voice was stilted and awkward, echoing Tate’s unspoken thoughts.

  “Yes,” Tate said, her throat clogged with unshed tears.

  Many hairless ones have trouble when they become lost down here, he said seriously.

  Tate laughed. “It’s not my first time being lost in a maze like this. Though, that maze is thousands of miles from here.” She looked around and shivered. “I never thought I’d be in this situation again.”

  A thought occurred to Tate, “You’re more talkative now.”