War of Fangs (The Unseen Book 1)

by L. A. Boruff

  Bloody finger in the air, I asked which stone to touch. The tension in the room was overwhelming as Mama Pacha took my hand and touched my finger to a stone on top of the well.

  Chapter 16

  Nothing happened. The tension disappeared as Elias sucked in a breath, disappointed. “Do it again, Riles.”

  I touched my finger to the stone again to no result. Mama Pacha grabbed my hand and held my finger down on the stone, the cut stinging as she mashed it to the rough rock.

  After three or four long seconds, the stone grew warm. A red light glowed under my finger and I jerked my hand out from under Mama Pacha’s. I backed away until my back hit against the far wall. Elias and Anthony joined me as the room vibrated.

  The red light spread to the stones immediately around it, and I could hear a noise rather like a lion roaring. Elias spoke as I turned to him, excited.

  “Did you hear the sound of water running?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied. “I heard the sound of an animal roaring.”

  Anthony and Mama Pacha said, simultaneously, “I heard the running water.” Michael remained silent.

  Mama Pacha explained the reason, “You hear sounds of your homeland through the portal stones.” My eyes grew wide and latched back onto the sight of the glowing stones.

  Great. I’m going to go through to an animal of unknown origin, big enough to roar like a lion. I reached one hand under my shirt and squeezed the handle of one of my many guns, this one resting at the small of my back.

  The glow spread until all of the stones resembled hot coals in a fire. Mama Pacha had an expression on her face like a child staring at a Christmas tree. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes huge, like a cat about to pounce on a favored toy.

  A wind swept through the room and tickled my cheeks. It was hot and dry. It didn't feel like the cool air we’d encountered on this island. The heat swirled around me and lifted my hair from my shoulders; it was eerie, frightening, and completely fascinating.

  Nobody else was showing signs of being windswept. Michael stared at my hair, awestruck, and the others were staring at their hands and arms. “What are you guys feeling?”

  “Mist,” said Elias. “It feels like I’m standing at the edge of a waterfall. I can hear the splash, and feel the droplets on my skin, but I’m dry.”

  “I smell damp earth, dirt,” added Anthony.

  Michael smiled at me, his eyes a fountain of sadness. He approached me and touched my hair. “I see it moving, but I don't feel the wind.” He grabbed the end of a clump of hair. The end he held was still, but the middle of the strands still tried to move.

  “How long will the portal stay open?” I asked.

  “Now that it’s activated, it'll stay open until you place your blood on a different stone. It is important that it be closed as soon as we're finished so that nothing else comes through from another dimension. We must move quickly.”

  She turned to the well and climbed over the edge. She sat on the stones, legs dangling inside. With one last glance at me, she stood in the middle, supported as if she were standing on solid ground. Then she faded out and was gone.

  Elias and Anthony approached and scrutinized the well. “Besides the glowing stones, the well looks like we'll fall all the way down when we step in.”

  “Well, she did it okay. It’s now or never, guys. Michael is going to stay here until we know it’s safe.” I ran up and kissed them both on the cheek one last time. “Be careful and come back to me. I will go as fast as I can and come back to you. I…,” I trailed off and glanced back at Michael. “I love you both. I need you both to come back so we can begin our lives together.” They both promised to be safe and come back to me before climbing onto the edge of the well.

  “Would it be weak of me to want to hold hands?” Anthony asked, laughing at his own nervousness.

  “I’m cool with it, man.” Elias grabbed Anthony’s hand. They stood up inside the well, eyes fixed on me as they faded into nothingness. Before they disappeared, I saw Elias try to wipe his face as if it were getting soaked.

  I walked up to the well, the wind whipping my hair faster as I approached. The heat was overwhelming after being used to the chilly air of the Isla. I took a deep breath and sat on the side of the well on the far side, so I would face Michael as I stood. The stones were warm through my pants, as if heated by fire.

  I dangled my legs into the well and gathered the courage to stand. Michael’s face was panicked again. He ran toward me and scooped me up off of the well. “Turn off the portal, Riley. Do it!”

  “What’s wrong with you, Michael? Put me down!” I screamed, furious. He sat me down across the room and grabbed my bleeding hand.

  “Give me blood! I need some blood to close the portal.” He was distraught. He wiped my blood on his hand and ran back to the glowing stones. I followed, at a loss for what to do to calm him and complete our mission. That portal was my only ticket to a longer life. “Damn it, Michael, now isn't the time to lose your shit!”

  Michael rubbed my blood on random stones, hoping one of them was the one that would shut off the magic. He grabbed my hand and squeezed fresh blood from my finger. While he was busy at the base of the portal, tapping my blood onto each stone, I ran over to the well and jumped inside before he could stop me.

  I almost dropped to my knees. Somehow, when I jumped over the side, I expected to fall, my eyes deceived by the depth of the well. But my feet were on solid ground. My body vibrated and my hair stood on end from the wind. “I’m sorry, Michael. I have to go. I will be back as soon as possible.” Michael was standing beside the well, mouth gaping.

  “No, Riley, jump out! I can’t touch you while you’re there or I might be transported too. Please, please come out of there!” he begged. I waved as the lights in the room went out, like someone turning a dimmer switch.

  A deep voice, humming a haunting and lonely melody, filled my ears and drowned out the sounds of Michael’s shouting. My body was weightless, as if I were falling. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to scream or panic. The weightlessness left as fast as it came and I stood inside a small cave, facing the entrance. The source of the wind whipped into the cave entrance, further tangling my hair above my head.

  The humming continued behind me. I whirled to find a figure sitting against the back wall. He was cloaked from head to toe; how he could stand the heat of this world with a cloak on was beyond me. I shuffled my feet, hoping to attract his attention without the need to speak. His eyes must've been closed for him to miss the glowing stones. I gripped the gun behind my back.

  He didn’t move. I investigated the rest of the cave, cognizant of my training—to be hyper aware of my surroundings. The rest of the floor was completely bare, save the ring of glowing stones around my feet, the same circumference as the well back on Earth. Several torches lit up the inside of the cave, and I could see a night sky in the distance. It was so chock full of stars, I wanted to run outside and stare up at the alien lights.

  I kept myself still and directed my attention back to the humming figure. My hair irritated me, so I reached up to grab it and put it in a quick braid. I froze when I saw my arm—it was green. Are those scales? Fucking hell. They were. My arm was covered in thick scales.

  My breath quickened as I took in both arms; scaly, green arms. I brought them closer to my face. They were actually quite beautiful, multi-hued pieces of greens and browns.

  Flipping my hand over to inspect my palm, I found sleeker scales, more like a snake’s, where my arms were more like a fierce lizard, or how I imagined a dinosaur would feel. I touched my face tentatively. It was sleek like my palms. I’d’ve killed for a mirror. Continuing my exploration of my face, I found I still had eyebrows.

  I jerked my shirt up and stared at more hard, armor-like scales on my abdomen. My stretch marks were still there, but the pooch around my belly button was gone. My stomach was hard and flat. The stretch marks were breaks between the scales. Apparently, the smoother sca
les of my face and hands were hidden underneath the harder scales, because I could see it in the stretch marks. The gun on my hip scraped against the scales of my side.

  My panic was well and truly set in. I stepped out of the stones and took a couple of small steps toward the hooded figure. I cleared my throat and his head jerked up. He scrambled to his feet and pressed himself against the cave wall. My hand went back to the gun behind me. I didn’t want to pull it out unless absolutely necessary.

  He barked out a question in a language I didn't understand. I shrugged. “Is there any chance you understand English from planet Earth?” I asked, completely dumbfounded as to how we would communicate.

  He let out a low chuckle and walked toward me, still completely shadowed by his robe. I couldn't even see his hands. I backed away, ice in my veins. My stomach clenched as I imagined what sort of creature was under that hood or if he meant me any harm. He walked toward the portal and reached out a finger to touch a stone. His touch left a smear of blood behind on the stone he touched. The stones stopped glowing immediately. He was like me.

  He brought up his hands in a universal gesture of peace, palm out. I was finally able to see his skin and it was similarly patterned like my own new skin, but his was in shades of grays and blacks. I stopped moving, temporarily fascinated. I wanted to grab his hand and look closely at it.

  He lifted one finger and brought it to my forehead. My eyes tried to watch his finger and his other hand at the same time. He could be distracting me in order to chop my head off with his other hand.

  He didn’t though. He simply touched his finger to my forehead. I stiffened, my muscles rigid. As soon as he touched my forehead, my body was overcome with goosebumps and my brain tired.

  “What are you doing?” I asked uselessly. He couldn't understand me.

  “I'm giving you the knowledge of my language.” It dawned on me he was speaking his own language, which reminded me of Hungarian, and I wondered if any of the words in the two languages were shared.

  “How are you doing that? Someone back home was able to share knowledge and memories with me in a similar fashion, but she wouldn’t explain it.” I continued without giving him a chance to answer, a million questions pinging around my brain. “Where am I? Why do I resemble a lizard lady, which, by the way, I look like that chick from a TV show back home, which is kinda cool. Do you even know what a TV show is? Are you going to hurt me? Are you my ancestor?” He shushed me after that question by putting the same finger on my lips.

  “Hush, young one. I will explain. Please, come sit.” He walked back to his spot against the wall and I noticed he’d been sitting on a pile of fur blankets. “We have been waiting for you for centuries.”

  I lowered myself down beside him, crossing my legs and facing him. “Me? Me, specifically?”

  “In a way, yes. Many thousands of years ago, when these portals were created, a prophecy was made. It was foretold that a young dragon with scales of jade and jasper would appear from this gateway and save our people when we were on the brink of extinction.”

  He took my roughened hand in his own. He leaned toward me, face intense. “You are the first person to come through those stones in over two hundred years.”

  I’d been burning to ask him what in the hell we were, but his statement chased the question from my mind. “Two hundred years? The portals in my world haven't been used in over a thousand years, as far as we know.”

  He blinked. “It could be that time passes more rapidly there. I know that there's only one world we can enter through these portals.” He turned his head toward the stones. “The knowledge of the portals and how to create them is lost. Much of our knowledge is gone, dead with those who traveled to your world. I was given instructions for how to turn the portal off, but not activate it. There is much we do not know.”

  “Stop. Before you go any farther, I need to know what I am!”

  “You don't know?” He was clearly shocked by my lack of information about my heritage. “How are you supposed to save our people if you have no idea what we are? Are there none of our kind in your world?”

  “I have no idea what I am. When I left my world I had skin like…well, like a human, if you know what that is. What are we? What’s your name? Where are we? Let’s get the basic questions out of the way, and then we can dig into the hard stuff.”

  “I don't know what a human is. We’re dragons, young one. You are a dragon. You are a part of the oldest species we have ever been able to find. We call ourselves the Sárkány, and of the species that migrated to your Earth in years past, we never found another species that existed before we did.” My mouth gaped as I stared at him. His eyes twinkled. “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Riley Effler.”

  “I'm honored to meet you, Riley Effler. My name is Axoular. I'm one of the last Sárkány in any universe, and so are you.”

  “Dragon. I’m a fucking dragon?”

  “Sárkány.”

  Here we go again. “Fine, Sárkány. Where am I?”

  “You are in the land of Galdiart. This land was once populated by a host of Sárkány. When the portals were created, hundreds of us traveled to your land, and few returned.”

  “Where did the rest of your—our—people go? The ones that never traveled to Earth?” I was confused how so many could be lost in only two hundred years.

  “There was a war. Many of our brethren wanted to attack your Earth and conquer it. Our planet is largely empty. There’s never been much foliage and fewer and fewer wild animals to eat. Many here wanted to descend on your primitive world and take over.”

  “Obviously you didn’t.”

  “No, we won the war, but the consequences were terrible. Thousands died on both sides. Then, many died of starvation and exposure, as entire cities were razed to the ground in the war. We, who should live for centuries, surrounded by thousands of our own kind, were suddenly numbered in the hundreds. We destroyed the portals, except this one, out of fear of becoming extinct.”

  “Why save any?”

  “Because of the prophecy. Because we knew that one day you would come. That’s the worst part! When we began our journeys to the Earth realm, we were told in great detail what would happen. But nobody believed our prophet. He was laughed at.”

  “You believed him, or you wouldn't be here.”

  “The war was one hundred and seventy years ago. I was an infant then. I believe the prophecy because I grew up with the knowledge that a large part of it has already come to pass. And now, here you are, to fulfill the rest of it.”

  “So, to summarize. The portals were created. Some of you went to Earth, not many returned. A prophet predicted it, but nobody believed it. Almost two hundred years ago, you had a great war that was also prophesied. Most of you are dead because of the war. You’ve been waiting on me to save you. Did Ye Olde prophet give you any indication of how I’d be able to save your people? I mean, I do okay for a human, but for a dragon? I don’t even have long life! I’ll die within another forty to sixty years.”

  I looked down at his hand, still clasping mine. “That’s the biggest reason I came, to see if you could help me extend my life. My children, they'll live many hundreds of years as well, but I won't. And I’m in love, and my loves, they'll have to watch me grow old and die. I came here in the hope that you might have some way to extend my life, not to save an entire species.”

  “You won’t help us?” he asked, terror in his voice.

  “I didn’t say that. I’ll do anything I can for you. I just don’t know how much help I could really be.”

  “I believe I can solve your problem of longevity. It is said that the savior will be only half Sárkány. It was foretold that the Sárkány lineage would lie dormant until one was born of a Sárkány female and—here’s where we're confused—the father would be ‘One-Who-Drinks.’ We have never known what that meant.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I have a general idea. So my Sárkány genes were in some sort of a recession
until I had a kid with Michael, a Supay. The Supay are descendants of yet another world, come through to Earth using your portals. They mainly drink blood.”

  “That explains that part then. Yes, if you’ve had a child with One-Who-Drinks, then your heritage should take over your body. You’ll live a long life, as long as you aren't killed in an accident or murdered.”

  My body shook in relief. I was free. Whatever the coming days held, however I helped these people, whatever Elias and Anthony found in their world, I would live with my children and my loves. I wouldn't be left behind, lonely and broken. I jumped to my feet and did a little wiggly dance. “I won’t have to drink blood!!” My euphoria came to a crashing halt. “Wait. What do Sárkány eat?” Please don’t say blood.

  “Mostly meat. We don't eat much else, though we do spice our meat with different bits of foliage at times.” Axoular raised an eyebrow. “Why do you need to know our eating habits?”

  “Nevermind. That’s a long story. I have to get back and let them know I’m safe. I’ll come back, okay?”

  Axoular jumped up, agitated. “You can’t leave yet! You must come meet my clan, let them know that you are here and real. They would never believe me if I went home with a fantastic tale of The Jade.”

  I hesitated, eying the portal stones. “My family will be worried. We’ve got to be quick. How far is your village?”

  “Right at the base of the hill. Come, we'll hurry.” He grabbed my hand and lunged forward.

  The sky opened before me as I stumbled out of the cave. The ground was illuminated by the light of millions of stars. They all seemed closer to the ground than the stars on Earth were. Maybe that’s why the planet was so warm. Being closer to their stars could mean they were closer to their sun as well.

  My mind raced with questions. If I was a dragon, would I be cold blooded? How would I survive winters? I needed a thermometer. And a mirror. I wondered what happened to my makeup when my skin changed. Was there a thin layer of alabaster Mary Kay foundation covering my greenish-brown—brownish-green?—face? Holy cow! I wonder what my yahoo looks like?