As they ran, he opened his senses up, picking up the faint sound of pounding feet behind them. Whoever was chasing them; there was more than one.
“Do you and your dad have trouble with gangs or something down here?” he hissed over his shoulder.
Lucy snorted, but it wasn’t a funny sound. “Or something like that, yeah,” she admitted.
“That’s strange. Lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of any in Purdy. We’re a small town and don’t have the crime element to support them.” Lucy didn’t respond as they turned down another alley that was really a narrow dirt road, overgrown with weeds and grass from disuse. Faint light at the other end said it came out onto a main drag further down.
The pounding footfalls behind them had faded. He looked towards the faint glow at the end. If they crossed that it went up a short hill on the other side and they’d be home free in his forest home where they’d be safe.
Lucy gasped and pulled at his hand, stumbling behind him. She wasn’t in near the shape he was and was slowing him down. She must have realized that same fact when she suddenly stopped, yanking her hand free and stopping, hands on her knees, bent over and taking in great shuddering breaths.
“You... have to... go on without me. I’m a liability... you can get away.”
His turn to snort. “I’m not leaving you behind. What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“They won’t hurt me...” she started.
“What do you mean they won’t hurt you? Just what in the hell is chasing us anyhow?”
She looked away and growled in frustration. “Please go. I’m begging you. Just. Go!”
Jake frowned at her, straightening in confusion. What wasn’t she telling him?
“Jake, they won’t hurt me bec...”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for any of that now, Magical.”
The voice came from his back left and he whirled at the bitter words.
A man stepped from the shadows. Only medium height and build, his shaggy head of dirty blond hair was shoved beneath a baseball cap, partially obscuring the rest of his face from view. He wasn’t alone. Two others stepped out , surrounding them.
“You gave us quite a chase, Jake, is it? Or should I say, wolf?”
Jake started on a gasp of horror; his heart pounding faster than it had when he ran. How did they know what he was? Nobody did, not even his best friends Pete and Stephan knew of his family’s Magical background.
He stared them down, pushing Lucy behind him and rotating them in a circle in a futile act of desperation. He heard the tears behind every shuddering sob she uttered at his back.
He was easily an even match for two or even three humans. But they were armed, and he was not. The glint of steely knives reflected back at him, but it was the barrels of several handguns and a rifle he stared down the end of that gave him the most pause.
“Who are you? What do you want? We’ve done nothing wrong.”
The older man chuckled. He had all of a single second to register that they found his words hilarious when he felt a sharp cool breeze at his back. Lucy was wrenched away and he turned with a snarl of fear and rage. Jake’s hands trembled and folded into fists, the hair along his arms stiffening and growing coarse. He stretched his fingers straight with an aching crack; the nails sharpening to wicked points. It always happened when he lost his temper. It was why none of his family wrestled. Too hard to control it in hand to hand combat. Football was dicey enough.
“Let her go!” Jake started in the thug's direction that had grabbed her. Easily his match in height and breadth, the older man snugged a muscled arm around her front and under her neck, pulling her up on her toes as he smiled. Her eyes went wide with the effort to breathe as he cut off her windpipe. The threat was obvious, and Jake froze, indecisive.
“What do you want from us? I have little money,” he added.
He wondered if they were related. It was hard not to notice the family resemblance between the two younger men and the first man that had spoken. All had similar builds and hair the same dingy dark blond. Thicker beards in desperate need of trimming covered their chins.
The first man spoke again, voice razor sharp and cold with excitement. “Oh wolf, we don’t want your money. No, that’s not what we want at all.”
Jake tried to keep his eyes on the others as they slowly crowded in.
“You should have run when Lucy told you to.”
Jakes eyes swerved to hers, alive with... hate? Wait, that couldn’t be right. In utter horror, he watched as the man holding her bent down and placed an affectionate kiss on the top of her head before releasing her. She stepped away and slanted a glare in his direction.
“Was that necessary? You are an ass.” She brushed at her clothes before turning to stare at Jake, her eyes no longer friendly.
“I tried Jake. I gave you an out, you just had to take it. Instead, you had to be noble. That’s rich, isn’t it? A noble monster?”
Jake flinched at the acid that accompanied her words. Had he taken a step straight into the twilight zone? What was happening here?
“What about us? I thought maybe...” he cringed at the whine in his voice he couldn’t quite prevent.
Lucy took a step back, removing herself from the circle with regret tinging her voice. “See, that’s your problem Jake. You were thinking with your little brain about getting me all alone, instead of those monster instincts you were born with. Pity, they might have saved you.” She turned away, voice husky as she finished. “Now, nothing can.”
Jake opened his mouth to say something back when he felt the first sting, like the poke of a wasp on his shoulder. Two more followed. As the world rotated sideways, he realized something important about the rifle.
It hadn’t been loaded with bullets at all.
THE SCREAMING WAS GIVING her a headache. “Is that necessary? Really? I thought we were here to find a cure for the monsters and protect the humans so they weren’t dangerous anymore, not torture them to death.” Lucy rubbed at the spears of pain that lanced through the top of her head. Another long gasping scream rippled along the corridors of the basement beneath the old warehouse and she shuddered. Her skin was crawling like ants hopping in the sun, and she was sure she was going to be sick.
“Don’t worry your pretty head about it, daughter. The experiments are necessary to find out what they are and what makes them vulnerable. Dr. Whiting is compiling notes on each Magical we capture. We need to find out their strengths...and their weaknesses...”
Lucy swallowed, the nausea not abating. “That man’s no doctor. He’s worse than any monster we’ve captured. Have you ever wondered? What if they aren’t all evil?”
The reaction was immediate. Her father and brothers, Wyatt and Jazz, whipped their heads in her direction. The thunderous look of rage on Jazz’s face as he got in hers had her taking two back and her heart speeding up in panic. “They killed mom. Gutted her like a fish and left her to drown in her own blood. If she hadn’t hidden us and if dad hadn’t come home? How dare you suggest they need any of our mercies? Soulless bastards, every single one.” He spat, spittle and rage filling the room and rolling over her in waves. Lucy’s eyes shot to her father’s as he pulled his gaze away, unwilling to hold hers. She wished she could remember what had really happened. But she’d barely been out of diapers when the attack occurred and had no memory of it.
“That’s enough, son. You can’t blame her for what she doesn’t remember. It’s enough that you know you are doing what’s necessary. If the humans knew what was out there, living amongst them, stalking them when they were unaware, they’d be grateful for our protection. But there are too many flaming liberals that would frown on what they force us to do to protect them. For now, it’s just our little family secret, right Lucy?”
Lucy grimaced and turned away towards the door, gagging as the last scream cut short on the end. She slapped a hand over her mouth and ran through the opening and for the bathroom down the hall.
She made it just in time.
CHAPTER TWO
I FELT LIKE I WAS SITTING on the edge of the world and it was a long way to the bottom. The mist from the falls streaming by the ton in front of me hit my face with a sting and dribbled down my chin. If my mother had been there, she would have been screaming at me to get away from the drop-off. But that was how I felt right then. On the edge of discovering something I wasn’t sure I was ready to find out. The others hadn’t arrived yet, but then I’d purposely come early.
Heat from the back of the cave behind me whispered over my shoulders. The hot springs were in those caverns. I hadn’t even bothered to look at them yet, instead choosing the more abrupt savageness of the 80 foot drop to the bottom of the valley from where I sat. We’d all of us taken that plunge in our first semester. Sirris had sent us over the edge with half a mountain’s worth of boiling river behind us. We’d all survived somehow and lived to fight the Demon wolves another day. That had been our first run in with the evil that was Will Bennett. It hadn’t been our last.
I moved my hand out, stretching farther than I should, beneath the slam of water and spraying it everywhere. I thought of Wyndoor, the other dimension from the semester before. We’d sent both the vampires and the remaining Demon wolves back home. We’d rescued the Tuttles that had been missing for months from Shephard’s Mountain. Thomas had his brother back. I sat back and got to my feet and turned around as the rush of changing air hit me in the face and the portal in the mountain's side’s whirred open.
I refused to think just then about where we were going for an entire summer. I smiled, at least my best friends were all coming with me. I wouldn’t be alone.
Sirris stepped out first, her eyes lighting up at the sight of all that tonnage behind me. As our resident mermaid, she liked anything wet. Behind her came Thomas and his brother Todd, their dark faces sober and nearly identical. The last two to move through the portal even as it faded back to solid again was Nick and Fern. Both their expressions were hard to read, but then the lighting beneath the river of water outside the cave wasn’t the best.
“I love this place.” Sirris purred, moving dangerously close to the edge and thrusting both hands straight out beneath the falls wrist deep, causing an inward avalanche of spraying water in all directions. I leapt out of the way, but she didn’t notice.
“Come on Sirris, there’s more water back here. And more important? It’s warm.” Thomas told her.
We entered the cavern beneath the falls and couldn’t prevent the sigh of amazement. Sirris knew of its existence, but none of us had until the semester before when we’d discovered it as an alternate entrance into—and out of—Drae Hallow.
We’d worn our suits beneath our shorts and shirts, so it was a simple matter to take off outer clothes. The cavern itself was not large, but every available surface gleamed wet. It was a terrific environment for the dense carpet of lichens and moss that grew and covered the rocky surfaces along the bubbling pool. Several sconces with oil-soaked torches in them sat waiting along the wall. I grabbed them one by one and pulled my magic with a snap of my fingers to set them afire, the flickering flames casting bouncing shadows along the walls and lighting our faces to sinister proportions.
The pool itself was maybe ten feet by fifteen and shaped like a rectangle. Nicholas reached down and ran his fingers under the surface, making me grin. “Afraid of getting boiled alive like yesterday’s lobster, Nick?” I asked.
He shot me a wry grin. “It’s perfect. I was just checking to make sure it was warm enough,” he lied.
“Yeah, you were just worried about boiling your junk, Seul.” Todd teased, stepping in. Nick’s face grew ruddy with embarrassment and he sent a glare Todd’s way.
Sirris Dipped a toe, Thomas taking her hand, so she didn’t slip on the slick rocks. I think he was just looking for an excuse to touch his best friend, for whom his actual feelings weren’t tame at all. Of course, she didn’t know that. Talk about a clueless mermaid.
The rest of us followed, settling in a semi-circle with Nick to my left and Fern and Todd sitting opposite. Heartfelt sighs all around.
“Sirris, you weren’t wrong. This is heaven!”
“Oh yes, any time I get a chance in the winter.”
I stared at her blissful expression and my eyes traveled the length of her body to her legs and feet beneath the surface of the pool where the water churned way more than it should. I saw a ripple of color and the peek of a fin beneath the water in front of where she reclined. Sirris had let her inner mermaid out to play.
“Have any of you ever heard of Basilisk Valley before this? I mean, you’ve all been part of the Magical world a lot longer than me.” I asked, settling back against the smooth rocks of the pool with a sigh.
Several heads shook no. Fern spoke up. “I haven’t. I asked my Aunt and I guess she knew of it, but it’s a pretty closely guarded secret. Unlike Drae Hallow, Basilisk Valley doesn’t have any of that. They rely on the remoteness of the location, the heavy woods and darkness to cover what they are,” she admitted.
Nick nodded. “I asked my folks too. Mom hadn’t heard of it, but dad said its close to 300 years old, if you can believe that. Like its name, dragons originally found it. But a wide variety of Others and Magicals have settled in and around the small town beyond the valley. I think he called it Purdy. Half the size of Breathless, which means its tiny.” He complained. I knew he wasn’t looking forward to spending his entire summer away from family and home any more than the rest of us. Well, except Fern. She seemed pretty geeked to be going.
I stared at my strange roommate, surprised to realize she had a kicking figure beneath all the skirts and loose clothing she favored. But the slim one piece was unrelieved black, which was right in character. “What’s got you so excited to go anyway, Fern?”
She was examining an albino crayfish, resting in her palm, his antennae quivering in her direction. Resting over her shoulder, Kit reclined. She was a young Weis pup that Kit had brought back from Wyndoor. She wasn’t of our world, though she bore a slight resemblance to a cat. Round yellow eyes gleamed as Kit stared at the wriggling crustacean with interest. Fern tapped Kit’s twitching nose. “Not for lunch, so stop it. You ate before we came.” She lowered the crustacean back into the water and looked up at us.
“Aren’t you? I mean think about it Sadie. A whole unknown world to explore, so much different from Drae Hallow. Being sent here might be more like a vacation. Besides, I would think you especially would be interested in going. For you, it’s a little like going home, isn’t it?”
Nick nodded, picking up the thread of the conversation. “That’s right, Sadie. Think about it. Valley of the Dragons. We don’t have but a few in Drae Hallow with that shifting ability. We’re going to visit an entire clan of dragons there. Ancients. You can find out who you really are and where you came from, maybe.”
The back of my shoulder itched maddeningly over the substantial birthmark that resembled a dragon draped over my shoulder. My nerve endings beneath the mark burned. As we spoke, I looked at the back of my hands. Curious, I tried to pull forth my dragon just to see what would happen. I gasped when several hairs along my wrist and forearm grew longer and flattened into coppery triangular scales. I held them there long enough for a good look and to hear several gasps of wonder from my friends before they receded and I was left looking at the smooth backs of my tanned hands again.
I looked up at all of them. “What if this is all I am. Wendy Seul says a lot of shifters never move beyond what I am right now? Just a hint, a bit of a tease of ability, but no change. And who says I want to, anyway? I think puberty was bad enough. An Other’s first change can be deadly.” I added.
Thomas shrugged. “True, it can be.” But he didn’t look worried. His eyes glittered as bright and yellow as Kit’s in the darkness, reflecting the wolf inside of him. His own change wasn’t far off. But rather than being scared, he was excited and could hardly wait to embrace his inner wolf. Mos
t Other embraced their first total change somewhere in their late teens.
“Our birthday is this week.” Todd spoke up for the first time, including Thomas, one of triplets, in his statement. The third brother, Terry, had stayed back with his sisters and father at their farm on Shephard’s Mountain.
I remembered that my 17th birthday was in July and I wouldn’t be here to celebrate it with my mother or father. One more reason to not want to go.
Thomas continued. “We’ll be 18 on Tuesday.” He turned to glare at Sirris. “No frilly stuff like last year either. You embarrassed me to death.”
“Don’t listen to him. You can embarrass me anytime you want.” Todd grinned, waggling thick brows in her direction and earning a glare of heat from his brother.
I pushed up out of the pool and sat on one of the smooth flat rocks that ran around its rim to cool off.
“Not to change the subject, but what do you think happened to Will Bennett. Where to you think he went?”
Nick frowned and pulled up to sit beside me, steam rising from our heated bodies. He admitted, “I’ve been worrying about that too. I mean, he could have gone anywhere, right? Maybe he came out somewhere else inside Wyndoor?”
I stared at the glittering silver drops of water that ran over Nick’s shoulders and down his chest. Had he grown taller and broader this last year? The muscles along his arms popped as he leaned back on them and I jerked my eyes away, but not before I caught the amusement in his. Ass.
“It’s possible. But remember, the Demon wolves weren’t under his control anymore after he went through. So, either he came out in Wyndoor somewhere too far away for it to be effective, or...”
“He’s not in Wyndoor anymore at all...” Fern finished, face grim and dark in the shadows.
Valley of the Dragons (Rule 9 Academy, #3) Page 2