Six Isles' Witches and Dragons Box Set

by Lisa Daniels

  Closing her eyes, she attempted to calm herself, to reach into that place where her magic resided. To try and ignore the fact that her heart was pounding in her neck, ears, cheeks.

  Finally, Kelsey summoned lightning, letting it course through her veins, lighting up the pipes around them in sudden yellow. Revealed out of the darkness was Lissa, still asleep—and an inky, misshapen figure reaching claws towards her, as black as night.

  “Lissa! LISSA!” Kelsey’s hand shook, but she tried to focus again, to aim at that horrific creature, on all fours like a dog. Lissa’s eyes snapped open, and she registered the thing in front of her.

  “Skies!” Lissa flung out a hand, blue electricity streaming from it, and the creature shuddered and jerked, before dissipating into a pile of ashes.

  Kelsey dashed to the open window, slamming it shut, and Lissa stumbled out of bed, her eyes wide.

  “W-what was that?” Kelsey said, cautiously approaching the black pile of ash on the ground. She’d never seen anything like it.

  “A kill order,” Lissa said between clenched teeth. “It’s a coal-demon.”

  “Demon?” Kelsey whispered, trying to register the word. “You mean, like from the underland?”

  “More like a contract put out on me by someone who clearly wants me dead,” Lissa said, now grabbing a bottle of alcohol from her cupboard. She didn’t bother pouring it into a glass, and glugged straight from the top. “Clearly they didn’t know you were here, though. Otherwise that attack would have succeeded.” The bottle she held shook violently.

  “Who would want to kill you out here?” Kelsey asked, confused, nervously glancing towards the window, in case another one of those monsters appeared.

  “Oh, I know who,” Lissa said with a snarl, looking truly terrifying with the way her face contorted to do so. “The Conclave of Zamorka. Picking off the witches who won’t join them.” She took another long swig from the black bottle. “Might’ve refused an offer less than a month before accepting you here.”

  Kelsey started at the name. She knew Perran was chasing a current fugitive belonging to this exact group.

  “And… you didn’t think to mention this?” Kelsey stared at the woman, incredulous. She didn’t really know a whole lot about the law side of things, but she suspected that Perran Rus would have highly appreciated being told about this.

  Though he hadn’t actually mentioned to the storm witch who he was chasing. Just “a fugitive”.

  “I’m not sure if it’s my place to say, Lissa, but I think if you know anything about the person who tried to kill you—you should tell Perran. He’s on the lookout for exactly a Conclave fugitive.”

  Lissa gaped at her, before her expression dropped into a scowl. “Of course he is. Would it have killed him to mention something like this before?” Now, apparently remembering her manners, she grabbed a glass, a new bottle of alcohol, and poured some out for Kelsey. When Kelsey attempted to refuse the drink, Lissa gave her such a terrifying glare that she felt no choice but to comply.

  The alcohol burned her throat and made her cough, but she swallowed it with nothing more than a slight whimper. “I really don’t like this stuff.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Lissa said. “It’ll steady your nerves, anyway. Steadies mine every time. And it does get lonely out here for a storm witch...” She trailed off into a long silence, broken only by the sound of liquid swishing and shuffling feet.

  “Will you be attacked again?” Kelsey asked, dreading to know the answer. `

  “Most likely. But there is some good news in all this,” Lissa replied with a grim smile.

  “And what news is that?”

  The raven-haired woman sneered. “At least we know that Perran’s fugitive is on this island. Because you need to be close by to summon something like that.”

  Chapter Six – Perran

  He’d visited every single cursing island so far. The only trouble was, people could move. For all he knew, he’d move to one island, and his target just hopped onto the one behind him.

  Even with all his contacts, his resources, with Luan and his crew helping, all they found was that the fugitive was in the area. But clearly lying low. It didn’t help he had a deadline to report by.

  Well, at least something good was happening out of it. Kelsey was getting her training sorted, even though he was failing his case. Even flying by dragon form everywhere didn’t help him to keep ahead.

  Now he sailed back to Lissa’s island, hoping the ridiculous sum of money he’d forwarded to her would be worth it. Thinking about greeting Kelsey cheered him up, anyway. Would be nice to see her face after this long, tiring mess. He’d considered bringing her back a gift from the other islands, but refrained at the last moment, because he didn’t want to put any additional pressure on Kelsey. She became so stiff when Lissa had casually mentioned the kissing part. He’d had some time to process those words himself now, and he realized he wouldn’t exactly be opposed to some kissing.

  But only if she consented. There was something about watching her develop from a shy, timid little thing to someone capable of putting her own opinion forward, capable of smiling, and discovering more and more about herself. Skies, she’d even dared to disagree with him, and he understood just how much of a big deal that was. People in Kelsey’s situation rarely had anything good to say about themselves. They always thought they were at fault.

  That was always the thing that grated most.

  Still, he probably had a long way to go regarding Kelsey. He just needed to keep teasing her out of that shell, to make sure she grew and grew… until she left him, or… something else.

  The island peeped into sight. He watched Vash and Rukia deep in conversation, and Evelyn sitting calmly beside them, obviously the one pushing forward the vessel at the moment. Such a talented pair of air witches. They always needed to take a lot of anchor breaks with Luan, but both of them were almost tireless in energy.

  Of course… Luan had a rather different skill set in her air magic.

  Sighing, he walked into the belly of the Elegant, stalking into one of the holding cabins, where Luan was currently in the process of suffocating someone. The man lay on the floor, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, as Luan placed him in a temporary vacuum. Before the vacuum caused permanent damage, she always returned the air. Her expression was dark, full of hatred. She crouched in front of their victim, who clawed at his throat, taking huge gulps of air, his eyes bulging as he stared at her.

  “I can do this all day. All night. And maybe I’ll keep it up a second longer, so you feel your tongue boiling and the last of the oxygen being used in your blood…”

  “No, no, curse you, whore!” the man spat, though his teeth chattered in terror. “I already told you, I don’t know anything! You’re torturing me for no reason!”

  “Lies,” Luan said, with a voice as cold as ice. “We know exactly what you’ve done, Chalkley. We know you’re the kind of person who has a finger in everyone’s pie…”

  “Still going to be a while?” Perran asked sympathetically. Luan nodded, and Perran exaggerated a sigh. “I’ll get something from the galley kitchen for you. And then I’ll be off to pick up Kelsey.”

  “Are we really going to give up the mission, boss?” Luan asked, before dumping Chalkley in another air vacuum. “You’ll want to expel the air in you, or your lungs will explode,” Luan advised him, and a panicked, hissing breath was her response.

  “I’ll give it another few days. The precinct didn’t provide funds for a longer trip, so I’ll tap into my own funds.”

  “Alright,” Luan said, still fixed on Chalkley, who was now going purple in the face. Perran didn’t feel any pity for him—the man had been responsible for a lot of women’s deaths, in far more horrific fashion than what Luan did to him. Both thought it rather fitting for a woman to exact punishment from him. Perran went and grabbed some food for Luan, then left her to it. One way or another, they’d extract the information from Chalkley’s waste
d body, so he’d give away all his underworld contacts. And with any luck, maybe some Conclave members would show up on his long list of contacts.

  It was something. Perran stepped off the ship after informing his crew of his intentions, and morphed into dragon form, his gray body winding sinuously through the air, huge wings catching a gentle breeze, allowing a sedate glide when he locked them. It felt good to drift as a dragon—he’d been doing that often on the ship, sometimes even just curling up on the deck, since his skin itched when he went for too long without shifting.

  Maybe he could turn up at Lissa’s doorstep in this form, see how his friend-turned-acquaintance would react. She never liked dragons. Always found them scary. Even as a child. Understandable. He’d probably be uneasy facing the mouth end of a dragon as well. His orb-like eyes took in the blue canvas of dawn above, the few wafts of clouds in the atmosphere, and the spindly, jagged shape of the little, nameless island, where people lived in crudely constructed buildings, using the dark lumber wood that covered most of the space there. The air tasted of faint traces of smoke, usually from wood-burning stoves and fires, and he did a few lazy loops over the tops of the trees before alighting a few minutes later in front of Lissa’s hovel. He reluctantly morphed back into human form, deciding that scaring Kelsey wasn’t quite on the list of things he wanted to do to her, and rapped smartly upon the door. Maybe he’d be waking them up, but he didn’t want to keep Kelsey there any longer than the stated contract. In case Lissa sought to extort it further.

  No answer from his knocks. He waited for ten seconds, rapped again, louder, more insistent, rocking on the heels of his boots. He examined the cufflinks in his black jacket, checked his tie was still in place, wondered if he was perhaps overdressed for the occasion… but silence reigned from inside.

  “Hello?” he called, now trying to peer through the windows. His heart dropped somewhere to his stomach when he squinted through the bottom part of the front window and saw an empty home.

  Maybe they’re just out for an early morning walk. No signs of disturbance. He calmed himself down, rationalizing what he saw. Hoping that there really was nothing suspicious about this. Plus, they were storm witches. True, one was a budding storm witch, but they should be able to handle themselves.

  Should he wait? He considered, then went off, determined to search for tracks on the pathway, in the dirt that he missed before.

  Chapter Seven – Kelsey

  “How do you know where to go?” Kelsey whispered. She followed after Lissa as best as able, but kept getting her feet snagged in roots, in unexpected soft, muddy areas, as Lissa trudged through the dark foliage.

  “There’s only one spot it could have originated from,” came Lissa’s reply. “Since something like that requires a ritual, and we don’t really have a whole lot of consecrated areas on this island. Just a small shrine some people left to what they believe is the spirit of the island, asking for its favor to chop wood, that sort of thing.”

  The deeper they got into the island’s territory, the more and more anxious Kelsey became. She kept seeking to calm herself, but the way the trees almost seemed to hug her, branches clawing across her clothes, leaves brushing her face… she hated it. She much preferred the city, where you didn’t need to worry about nature and the dangers it contained. She heard birdsong, and harsh caws, and the rustling of small animals. She didn’t think there would be any large predators on a small island like this, but then again, she didn’t exactly know island ecology in the first place, or the types of animals that existed, given that all she’d seen in her life were some birds, cats, dogs, and rodents. Not including insects.

  She saw a many-legged insect on a tree that made her squeak in fright. How was it possible for something to have that many limbs?

  “I can hear you wheezing in fear,” Lissa said dryly, navigating the uneven terrain with ease. “There’s nothing that will hurt you in these parts.”

  “Except the coal-demon creature that was sent to kill you?”

  “That, and people, I suppose. The neighbors are okay, though. We have about five air witches with their partners, living the quiet life. Air witches tend to be the most common out here because they can easily get around the islands and ferry little tugboats around if we want to visit friends.”

  As much as Kelsey appreciated Lissa giving her more information about the place, she did wish Lissa had done it earlier. The woman had been too focused on the training, and reluctant to engage in much small talk. Kelsey had tried to pry into Lissa’s life as well, how she knew Perran, but the only thing she really understood was that they were both children on Serpent Isle. They were linked by that long-ago event, but ever since then, had drifted apart. Something caused this woman to live alone on a faraway island, with a damaged face.

  Maybe she hid from society? Maybe… maybe she was abused? Kelsey didn’t know, but the woman had some solid walls up around her persona. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get to know Lissa. Though last night, Lissa might not have ever had the chance to speak again…

  “Almost there,” Lissa said, panting a little from exertion. She drew up her long, ankle-length dress to hop over a tree root before pointing to something. When Kelsey peered over Lissa’s shoulder, she saw a strange, mossy stone with patterns etched upon it, and what looked like a tiny, ivy-covered entrance to a cave that couldn’t have been much bigger than Lissa’s hut. It was surrounded by trees, some of them cut to stumps to create more space around the shrine. The grasses there were all downtrodden, and some gravel had been scattered along the narrow, winding pathway there, which crunched underfoot.

  The heady scent of pine and something overripe, sweet to the point of going sour, permeated the clearing, and Kelsey’s every breath sounded too loud in her ears. Her eyes kept darting around for those strange black beasts but found nothing. “Do you think the person who did it is in there?” she whispered, pointing at the shrine.

  “They’d have to be quite slow of wit if they were. But maybe we’ll find some evidence of what they were up to.” Lissa turned, glaring at Kelsey with her coal-black eyes. “You make sure you’re in touch with your magic. There could be something dangerous lurking in wait.”

  Kelsey gulped visibly, and something shivered in her stomach. Every muscle in her tensed, and she wondered whether they should be doing this at all. “Should we… shouldn’t we maybe get reinforcements?”

  “Depending on if I was the only witch targeted,” Lissa said grimly. “I’m planning to check the air witches’ houses later. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Creeping closer, Kelsey felt Lissa draw upon her magic until the air around her crackled, infusing her entire body, so that a single touch, or even just coming within two or so meters of the storm witch, would zap the offender. Unless it was Kelsey, who could redirect the energy.

  Lissa at first prowled around the shrine, and Kelsey stood dumbly in front of it at her orders, waiting for something to emerge. She couldn’t quite see past all the ivy vines there and kept imagining one of the beasts loitering just because, ready to pounce and kill—which raised her stress levels and snuffed out the little magic she had been able to accumulate.

  What a great and mighty storm witch I am, Kelsey thought in frustration. What’s the point in having this kind of power if I can never use it properly?

  Although she certainly had progressed from not realizing she had any at all. And, technically, she did save Lissa. So, she wasn’t as useless as she thought. Not that it was much of an encouraging viewpoint at this time.

  “There’s stains on the back of the boulder,” Lissa said in faint disgust. “Looks like blood, and an oily, green substance, which…” She fell silent. When she didn’t answer for a moment, Kelsey’s worry increased.

  “Lissa?”

  The storm witch moved away from the stone, her face pale, her eyes distant, her magic extinguished. Wordlessly, ignoring Kelsey’s questions, she moved to the vine-draped entrance of the cave and went straight in, sho
wing no caution at all.

  Not willing to stand there and do nothing, Kelsey edged through the vines as well, letting some electricity snake up her right arm. She had little time to feel pride in doing so, as the light from her arm revealed a cave dripping with a sickly, greenish tint, like the veins of a poisoned heart. A dog lay on a stone slab with a sword rammed through its body—it resembled the shape of the coal-demon that had attacked them the night before. An overwhelming, creeping sensation burned through Kelsey. She looked to see a green droplet on the top of her hand, and felt something moving through her, thirsting—grasping for magic.

  This is…

  Throwing all caution to the winds, Kelsey lunged inside and seized Lissa by the shoulders, hauling the mute storm witch out. She had to push the witch hard, and only when they had cleared a reasonable distance away from the shrine did light return to the storm witch’s eyes.

  “It’s the Creeping Rot,” Lissa whispered, eyes wide and horror-struck.

  Exactly what Kelsey had suspected and feared.

  Which meant the both of them were now infected, the disease raking through their insides, infecting, killing them as they spoke.

  “If it’s there...” Lissa said, now starting to look dizzy, unfocused, “then this island doesn’t have long left.” She winced. “And we still haven’t found the person responsible for this...”

  Kelsey continued walking forward, until at the edge of the clearing, she collapsed, Lissa falling down with her. Neither of them moved. Pain burned Kelsey’s limbs, but thankfully, she was spared from enduring it for long. Unconsciousness rushed to meet her.

  Chapter Eight – Perran

  The good thing about being a dragon was the sense of smell the form offered. He abandoned his tracking efforts quite soon, simply because he was bad at it, even for a cop, and shifted into his dragon form to enhance his olfactory intake. Lissa and Kelsey’s scents didn’t seem old to his nostrils—perhaps two hours, at most. He followed on the ground, shifting in and out depending on whether he could make it through the overgrowth or not.