So she wondered if asking her next question was wise. If, by opening up her inquiry, lots of squishy things would come slithering out.
She had to ask, anyway. Her gut told her she owed it to Orel.
Why, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it had to do with her own childhood—the running and the hiding and the not knowing who or what she was. She hadn’t even known who her father was until she was seventeen.
He’d taken her in, no questions asked. He’d extended his aristocratic hand and given her the safety she needed to get beyond the horrors of her younger life. And now she was about to start her graduate studies, all because Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov believed in her.
But he could be overprotective at times.
Still, for Orel, she needed to ask.
Marci sat down on a stool behind the desk. She fiddled in one of the drawers while continuing to do her best to pretend she wasn’t listening to Daisy’s end of the phone conversation.
“Do you know… someone…who calls himself Nax?” Daisy asked her father. She paused around “someone” so her father understood that she was asking about a fellow Shifter. Best not to speak directly of Shifters and their abilities in front of a normal like Marci.
Her father paused once again. More happy, entertained yells resonated from the background. “No. I will ask.”
I will ask meant that he would have a full dossier on Nax the mechanic by this time tomorrow.
“It’s not important,” she said. Why, she didn’t know. It was important. Something about the situation poked at her gut. What if Orel needed help? “He’s got a son. Orel.”
“Do you believe the child might be in danger?”
No, she thought. Maybe. “Do you remember how I told you Mom used to hide things from me?” Her mother had disappeared around the same time Daisy found her father.
Her mother had never, not once, mentioned to Daisy, or told her any history about, or prepared her in any way, for becoming a Shifter. Her father had taught her what it meant to be a bloodhound and a healer of animals.
He was the better parent by a long shot.
“I remember,” he said.
“I’m getting that vibe, Dad. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if Nax is lying, or if he’s truthful about who he is. But I swear Orel is more than the son of a… mechanic.” She glanced at Marci.
Another long pause punctuated by clinking ice echoed through the phone connection. “Aye, daughter.”
They finished the call with Daisy promising to be back in her house in St. Paul as soon as possible. Until then, she would stay out of trouble and enjoy her remaining time in The Dells.
She handed the receiver to Marci, who placed it in the cradle.
“My niece’s class has a kid named Orel,” Marci said. “She likes to talk about the strange-but-cute boy with the odd name. Says he couldn’t speak a lick of English when he showed up last year in the middle of the school year, but sounded just like everyone else before the summer started.”
So Orel also had an affinity for languages.
Daisy stared out the open front windows of the lodge’s lobby. The sunset spread lovely golds and reds over the trees. A soft wind freshened the air without drying it out. And somewhere out there was a little boy whose grasp of language came out clipped and who liked nature in his own way.
And who might be a Fate, no matter what his father said.
Marci tapped on her keyboard. “How many more nights are you staying?”
As many as it takes, Daisy thought. “Not sure. Until you kick me out.”
Marci looked up. “We have a group coming in this weekend. They booked the entire lodge.” She nodded toward the back. “You’re good until then.”
Daisy watched the sunset. “There’s a mall in town, right?” She waved her finger at the old-school phone behind the counter. “I need to replace my phone.”
Marci looked out at the sunset, then at Daisy, then back at the coming night. She shook her head. “Are you thinking of taking the motorcycle out again?”
Daisy shrugged.
“You have a death wish.” Marci tapped something on her keyboard. “There are two stores, here and here.” She pointed at the screen. “Depending on your carrier.”
The closer store was the one she needed. “They close at nine?”
Marci tapped again. “Yep.”
Daisy didn’t have a lot of time. “Thanks.” She swiped the motorcycle key off the counter. “Tell your grandpa I promise not to crash his bike again.”
She ran for the lot.
Chapter Eight
Motorcycles were never the safest option, nor were they the warmest. Not during the day, and certainly not at night. Daisy should have asked Marci if they had a jacket she could borrow along with the bike.
She’d made it to the phone store before it closed, but not the train station. She would book a ticket from Amtrak’s website when she got back to the lodge, or ask Jacob or Marci for help.
Outside of town, on the windy side roads, the only light came from the moon and the cycle’s bright headlight. Daisy took the curves slowly anyway. And this time, she wouldn’t be surprised by random scents, calling or otherwise.
Shadows infested the trees, and the land beyond the ditches was one big black cloud. The bike groaned along, obviously still pained by her slide earlier in the day, but it did its job.
The curve with the sign came into view. Tensing now would only increase the likelihood of her doing a stupid skid again, so she willed her shoulders and her arms to relax. She inhaled too, to make sure nothing caught her off guard.
Exhaust from the bike. Trees. The ever-present creeping Charlie. But no wounded raccoon and no obvious traces of a Shifter with enthralling abilities.
The cycle’s headlight hit Nax’s white and yellow sign. Daisy squinted at the bounce-back.
She didn’t see Orel sitting on the ground with his back against the sign’s inner post until she rode by.
Why was he out here in the night? And why, deep in her gut, did her body thump out It’s a trap?
He was a kid, for goodness’s sake. Not an active anything. Not someone’s pawn. She couldn’t leave him if he needed help.
Daisy turned the bike around and pointed the headlight away from the sign. Enough light scattered so she could see him, but not enough that the glare would blind either of them.
She took off her helmet. “Hey, Orel,” she called. “You okay?”
He didn’t look up and continued to stare into space. He didn’t respond at all.
The kid looked dazed. Not dazed as in dreaming or simply thinking, but medically dazed. Trauma or shock or a seizure kind of dazed.
Daisy set the helmet on the back of the bike and made her way down the ditch and through the weeds.
“Orel.” She squatted next to him.
He still didn’t respond. She checked his pulse and sniffed—and swore she caught a faint hint of an electrical fire again. She looked up. Perhaps one of the lights on the sign was malfunctioning.
Orel blinked—and his scent blinked. The baseline that was Orel—the young male scent mixed with the paper pulp and the dustiness of pencil pigment—pulsed. The hint of electrical fire dissipated.
Did his scent just change? But it didn’t—nothing new, nothing not Orel, manifested. It just wasn’t the same as it had been a microsecond before.
Daisy rubbed at the side of her nose. Even with Nax messing with her head, and the overwhelming weeds, no scent-scape changed, then un-changed. Not like that.
“Orel?” She touched his face. “You’re cold.”
He blinked again. This time, his scent stayed as it should.
She’d seen enthralled normals acting dazed like this before. Customers at The Land who got out of hand and tried some nasty business with one of the waitstaff would get their asses enthralled and sent back to the hotel.
But she’d also seen enough medical issues to wonder if he needed a healing.
Which she couldn’t p
rovide. Her healings and enthrallings only worked on animals. “Orel, honey, are you okay?”
He shook. The wave started in his neck and worked all the way down his spine and into his arms and legs. “It is okay that you do not like Fates. My mother does not like Russians.”
Daisy sat back on her heels. His mother was a Fate. She had to be. No doubt about it now.
“I’m Australian.” She dropped her voice into her native accent, mostly because almost everyone on Earth found an Australian accent friendly. “My mum’s part Aborigine, part Japanese, and part off-the-boat, mate.”
Orel blinked again. His lips rounded. “Oh,” he said. “You have a funny name.”
“Daisy?” she asked. “Daisy isn’t any funnier than Orel.” Her Australian mother happened to like flowers, which was why she got the flowery name.
Orel shrugged and went back to staring into space.
“Where’s your mom?” Maybe he’d tell her. Maybe she’d get him out of this funk and be able to help him once and for all.
Orel pulled away. He brushed his knees and patted the ground in much the same way as the raccoon kit had the first time they met. Then he did the straight-backed, straight-up standing again.
“Orel?” She asked.
And once again, he cocked his head as if listening to someone she couldn’t see.
Daisy stood, too. “Who are you listening to?”
Orel narrowed his eyes and pointed at her chest. “You heal animals.” He spoke as if her abilities should allow her to see whoever—or whatever—he saw. As if she should have the same affinity he did.
“I do,” she said. “But I think you might be more special than me.”
Orel tipped up his chin. “You are the Russian’s daughter.”
Nax must have said something to him about her father, which meant that Nax had been doing some digging. But why? Daisy looked into the dark toward where the driveway wound into the trees.
Maybe she could use her heritage to an advantage. “It’s true my dad is Russian.” A Grand Duke, to be exact. “I’m related to the last Tsar.”
His eyes rounded as much as his mouth. At least he seemed to be out of his daze.
“Are you a princess?”
Technically, she would be a Duchess, but Orel didn’t need a lesson on the structure of defunct Russian royalty. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
Orel peered at her face. “You’re pretty like a princess.”
Daisy chuckled. “Thank you. But you do know that it’s what’s up here,” she tapped her temple, “and what’s in here,” she tapped over his heart, “that makes a person good.”
Orel nodded vigorously. “He tells me not to be fooled by pretty things because sometimes they’re mean.”
Ain’t that the truth, she thought. She patted his shoulder. “Someone who is pretty but mean abandoned me here in Wisconsin Dells.” She pointed up the road. “I was on my way back from town. I bought a new phone.”
“Someone left you all by yourself?”
Orel wrapped his arms around his chest. His scent flickered away from the interest he had begun to show toward a bitter and icy fear. Or at least she thought he smelled fearful. It was hard to tell with all the minty lavender of the creeping Charlie.
Daisy leaned forward so she could look him in the eye. “Orel, do you know where your mom is?”
His eyes grew huge once again, and once again, he acted as if someone whispered in his ear. “You ask a lot of questions,” he said.
Daisy extended her arms instinctively, as if whirling her arms would keep a ghost away from her body. Maybe not a ghost, but she might be able to hold off an enthraller pretending to be a ghost.
“Nax,” she growled, “if you are manipulating this child, I swear to God I will—”
“Nax is my father!” Orel screeched. “Nax came for me and my friend and now we are safe in America!”
His friend? Was there another Shifter here? Maybe she’d been wrong all along. Maybe Nax wasn’t manipulating Orel. Maybe she missed the real threat.
“Is your friend here?” If she was dealing with a class-one enthraller—someone so powerful he or she could make Daisy not see them simply by pumping out targeted ‘ignore’ calling scents—then she was way out of her depth here.
And in a hell of a lot of danger.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
Orel raised his hand as if touching the side of a horse. “He’s my friend,” he said. Then to the air, “It’s okay. You can show yourself.”
Only one creature other than a strong enthraller could hide in plain sight. Only one so large that a young boy would need to reach up to touch its side.
But there were only two such creatures, and neither was here in Wisconsin Dells.
And yet…
Orel swiped his foot along the ground, then stood tall. “This is Drako,” he said. “My dragon. He says hello.”
Chapter Nine
Where a dragon walked, his human followed. They never parted, never stepped away from each other, never moved out of the other’s sight.
This was the way of the two Dracae, Ladon and AnnaBelinda, and their beasts. To each other, they were Brother and Sister, their beasts Brother-Dragon and Sister-Dragon. The bonds between Ladon-Human and Ladon-Dragon, and between Anna-Human and Anna-Dragon, eclipsed a Fate triad’s seer bonds.
Fates worked together. The dragons were togetherness.
Daisy understood down to her bones the power of the beasts, and their brilliance, and the strangeness—even for a Shifter—that was dragon.
Ladon-Human taught her hand-to-hand shortly after the trauma that led her to search for her father. Ladon-Dragon had used the soothing lights of his mimicking skin to help her regain her mental balance. She knew them by the names most of the Shifters at The Land called them—Ladon and Dragon. They were a wonder, and her friends.
And now Orel held out his hand as if he, too, understood what it meant to be Dracae.
He did not. He touched air.
Not a dragon mimicking the night to absolute invisibility. Not a bison-sized beast with giant six-taloned hand-claws. Not a beast who, when he wasn’t completely hiding himself, smelled of sunshine and cinnamon and oranges.
Orel touched nothing.
“Orel…” she said. What could she say? You’re imagining a dragon?
Or was someone manipulating him to think he saw a dragon? Technically, a Shifter with morphing abilities could morph themselves into a dragon. Supposedly, some idiot tried to every century or so, but soon realized that changing from the basic human body plan caused internal organ problems, not to mention issues with mass and density.
Her father would nod his head and dismiss such stupidity out of hand. “Shifters are not magic, daughter,” he’d say. “One cannot make a body break the rules of physics and biology.” So no werewolves, or werecats, or weredragons. And anyone who tried ended up dying a painful, twisted-up death that not even the most skilled healers could undo.
Manipulating perception was so, so much easier than manipulating reality. Which made enthrallers, of the three types of Shifters, the most dangerous in immediate, close quarters.
Hell, some enthrallers could force a bloodhound to think they were scenting trails that weren’t there. All you needed was refined calling scents and the skill to target your attack.
So little Orel probably believed down to his bones that he was a friend to the Dracae. That his imaginary friend, Drako, was as real as the real beasts.
Thing was, knowing that you might be enthralled was half the battle against any enthraller. Even normals with their hackles up had a chance against a class-two enthraller trying to get them to do something they didn’t want to do.
Unless you were a little boy plucked from your home and tossed into Wisconsin Dells. A little boy who needed an imaginary friend.
“Hello, Drako,” Daisy said. “Why can’t I see you?”
Orel grinned and stood up straight as if proud of how well he’d trained h
is dragon. “Real dragons are invisible to everyone except their humans.”
He knew about the dragons’ mimicking ability. And he understood at least something about the human-dragon bond. More than an eight-year-old living with a class-three enthraller should know.
“I won’t hurt you, Drako,” she said.
“Oh, we know,” Orel said. “You’re here to heal him.” He rubbed at the air as if rubbing the side of a large beast. “We knew after you healed the raccoon.”
She stepped closer. Real dragons mimicked. They didn’t vanish. Any real beast still breathed, still stomped on plants, and was still touchable.
Nothing but air slid along her outstretched palm.
“He needs a healing?” She’d heal this imaginary dragon if it helped Orel through whatever set him on this path. “He didn’t get hit by a car, too, did he?”
Orel frowned. He leaned into the air and wrapped his arms around the dragon that wasn’t there.
A person could not fake leaning against a dragon. Different muscles fired when leaning into a beast who took your weight than when you leaned on air. Your body still had to hold itself up. Your core responded differently, as did your back and your arms. Differently enough that even in the night gloom illuminated only by the scatter from her motorcycle’s headlight and the dim lights on the sign, anyone who understood what to look for would know immediately if there was a dragon about.
Drako was not real, no matter what Orel believed.
“Sometimes I hear him talking to me,” Orel said. “Sometimes not. If you heal him, he will talk to me all the time.”
Dragons did not talk. Not like people, anyway. “What do you mean, Orel?”
“He’s not always the same,” Orel said.
Drako acted differently at different times? “Does he ever ask you to do things you don’t want to?” Because if Nax was making this boy—
A man appeared directly off Daisy’s left elbow. A huge man, one a couple inches taller than her five eleven frame, and with shoulders at least half again her width. His t-shirt stretched around his large biceps. He glared down at her with shadow-dark eyes from under an unruly mop of curly dark hair. A full-but-trimmed beard hid most of his face.
Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories Page 26