Lucky: Dorian Gray Novels Book 1

by F. E. Bradley

  The problem is that the pull in my chest just keeps counteracting everything in my head. It feels like the fear wrapped around my heart is a steel cable whose other end is connected to Dorian. The more I resist following, the tighter it wraps around my heart, crushing everything that could keep me from going to him.

  A cry of pain comes from the other side of the wall, and I can’t hold back anymore. I don’t know if it came from Dorian, but the possibility is enough. I push through the fence, and on the other side I can barely see through the ice and wind. I realize then that the wind seems to be coming from the direction I need to go – It isn’t just a simple wind blowing from North to South – it seems to be blowing out from some unseen center point. Whatever that other Druid is doing, must also be creating this wind and the bitter cold.

  I hold my hand up to shield my eyes, but it isn’t enough. I can barely open my eyes to see the ground beneath my feet as I push towards the center of the storm. ‘I must find Dorian’ keeps playing on a loop in my mind. I will keep pushing through this with everything I have – I can only hope to be strong enough.

  I can’t tell how far I’ve come, but the wind is now so strong that my feet can barely push me forward anymore. I fall several times and use my fingers to grab at the gravel beneath me. My feet are scrambling to keep from losing ground, and I can feel scraps on the tips of my fingers from clawing at the frozen terrain for traction. Somehow I gain a little momentum and then I fall forward with a few stumbling steps. The wall of wind and flying ice is suddenly gone.

  I blink and rub the buildup of ice crystals from my lashes and look around feeling suddenly lost for direction. There’s no wind now to fight against and lead me with its opposition.

  Behind me, I can see the beginning of the wind wall that I just crossed through. I’m in the eye of the hurricane, and instead of inspiring fear, I’m glad to have this one small sign that I’m getting closer to where I need to be.

  I can see row after row of cement trucks all around me. Those that are behind the shimmering wall of wind have their large drums turning, almost like the wind is powering them. Bright rainbows of spirals, painted flames and flag motifs are all spinning unnaturally fast pulling against the frames of the trucks.

  Not far away, I hear Coan yell to someone, “Why are you doing this?” I can hear the complete shock in his voice. I move around the edge of the closest truck, and I can see the three of them. Dorian isn’t harmed – the relief washes through me. He is in a small cage with bars made from vines, but he’s alive and beautiful in his anger.

  Coan is in a similar cage, but he doesn’t look well. The same vines that form his cage are also wrapped around his wrists, neck and ankles holding him immobile. Between the cages and me is a young angular looking man wearing a casual denim jacket and sneakers. His back is to me, so I can’t see his face, but the way Dorian and Coan are looking at him indicates that he is the source of the danger. From what I can see, he looks almost average in every way and he certainly isn’t what I was expecting to find.

  He takes another step toward Dorian and says, “Tell me where the power is coming from!” His voice sounds very young, like he’s just past puberty, but the amount of anger in it is shocking.

  The thought that this insignificant little twit would have the nerve to harm Dorian or Coan rages in me like a fire burning in my gut. My anger flares so hot that I feel like I could use it to take that insignificant little fool down a peg. I almost step out into view before I realize that I’m completely powerless to stop him. It’s like water was just thrown on my fire, completely stamping it out.

  The dark-haired young Druid waves his hands in the air and appears to throw something at Coan. I’m too far away to tell what he threw, but I can hear it stick into Coan’s thigh like a dart into a board. I recognize Coan’s yell as the same sound that brought me through the fence.

  Dorian looks at Coan and pain flashes across his face before he looks back at the young Druid with anger and says, “Let him go – he’s one of your kind! Stop hurting him!”

  The teen laughs happily and says, “He’s the one I need here the most! His pain is going to get me the answers I need.” He whips his arm forward again like he’s throwing a ball, and I can hear the sickening sound of Coan’s flesh receiving another injury.

  Coan lets out another cry before he can steady his reaction and his face. With labored breath, he shouts at the teen, “The elders…. will…find out…about this.”

  The young Druid nearly doubles over with delight. “Who do you think sent me?” he said between light peals of laughter.

  Dorian’s eyes go wide, but I can see that the young Druid’s words aren’t alarming to Coan at all – they brush past him like an expected lie.

  “We won’t give you any information!” Dorian snarls after looking over at Coan. For the second that their eyes lock it appears like there is some wordless communication flowing between them – ‘stay strong, and I’m sorry’.

  The young Druid straightens up and starts slowly pacing like he’s really considering what Dorian said. With his new position, I can finally see part of his face. He looks to be only about twelve, maybe thirteen years old, but his overexaggerated contemplative manner belongs to someone much older.

  His face is very thin and pale, but his jaw and cheekbones are strong – the type of face that would look attractive when he was a little older.

  Holding his chin between his thumb and first finger, he turns back toward Dorian and Coan in their respective cages. He reaches his arm out and pushes his hand through the air as Coan’s cage slides across the ground landing right next to Dorian. One small flick of his wrist, and vines grow up to hold Dorian’s hands and legs still while Coan’s vine wrapped wrist is pushed through the bars so that Coan’s hand is now pressed into Dorian’s shoulder.

  Still pacing and looking contemplative, the young Druid says, “Maybe you’re right – I should stop hurting another Druid…” The fake innocence of his words makes my stomach roll as I realize what he now intends to do. He throws another invisible dart, but this time it’s aimed straight for Dorian. “…when you can do the job for me.”

  I hear the faint sound of breaking glass, but I can tell that Dorian was hit by the shocked and tortured look on his face as he sees Coan’s pain. I can’t think of anything else as cruel as this – to use Dorian’s curse like this.

  The vines touching Dorian’s skin momentarily turn brown and dead before new vines can take their place growing over the old and it looks like almost the same thing is happening under Coan’s skin as the energy of his life courses out of his hand and into Dorian. When Coan tries to pull his face away and hide his pain, the Druid makes another vine grow pushing his face back around.

  As each vine withers and dies as it touches Dorian, he can move just a fraction of an inch before a new vine takes the place of the old.

  After everything that Dorian’s told me, I know that this is his single biggest fear coming to life - Watching his touch drain the life away from someone he cares about. It’s the thing that’s kept him isolated so many years, and now it’s happening because he won’t tell this Druid about me.

  Coan and Dorian are looking at each other, eye to eye, and I see Coan set his jaw and shake his head – encouraging Dorian to stay silent no matter the price.

  I may not be able to do anything to harm that Druid, but I can give him what he wants in the hope that he’ll let Dorian and Coan go free. I won’t put either one of them through any more pain to save me.

  Shoulders back, chin up, I step out from behind the large truck I was using as cover. Dorians eyes focus on me, and his brow pulls down as his jaw goes slack. It’s the expression of loss and fear and anger all rolled together. It prompts the young Druid to turn around.

  The sight of me is enough to turn up the corner of the young Druid’s mouth into a snide grin. He looks back and forth between the pleading look on Dorian’s face and my martyr’s posture. The satisfaction of manipulation s
hines out from his face.

  “So,” he continues speaking in a honeyed tone. “What have we got here?” He’s sauntering toward me, but he momentarily looks back over his shoulder at his prisoners. “Why would some random girl need one of those rings?”

  I cover my ring with my other hand in a uselessly protective gesture. He keeps walking toward me and the look in his eyes subtly changes – it’s almost hungry.

  Over his shoulder, I can see that Dorian is fighting the vines that are holding him back and thrashing at them with his full strength.

  The Druid slides closer to me and reaches up one hand to grab around the back of my neck. I feel like a mouse trapped frozen in the stare of a snake. Even though he’s shorter than me, I can feel a danger coming off of him that has nothing to do with his stature.

  Behind him, I can see and hear that Dorian is making progress with the vines. The Druid’s attention doesn’t waiver from me in the slightest and he’s leaning in staring at my face, but his eyes aren’t quite focused, like he’s looking at something behind my eyes. His nose wrinkles up like he smelled something bad and a look of contempt washes over him. He pulls his hand back away from my neck like he just touched something dirty.

  “Nothing, you’re nothing!” he says with contempt. Whatever he was hoping to see in me, he obviously didn’t and I’m instantly grateful to whatever it is that shields me. Dorian is now running towards us, but he’ll never be able to make it if the Druid turns back around and sees him.

  I don’t want the Druid’s attention back on me, but it’s the only way that I might be able to give Dorian a chance to get him.

  “You’re wrong,” I yell. “I’m the source!” It works, and I feel his gaze envelop me, wondering if there’s any truth to what I said. It distracts him just enough that he doesn’t notice the sound of Dorian’s approach until it’s too late.

  Dorian slams into the young Druid at full speed, pushing him back and away from me. Shock is evident on the Druid’s face – stronger because he was so assured that he had the upper hand.

  The Druid’s fingers flex and he’s suddenly holding sharp shards of ice. He scrambles in Dorians grasp like a rabbit caught be a predator. The shards of ice splinter against Dorian’s skin but they are much more effective on the panicky Druid’s palms. The sight of his own blood accelerates his hysteria and like the rabbit that keeps trying to kick while being carried in the jaws of a predator, the Druid keeps generating more and more glass like shards.

  Dorians grip remains firm and his face is stoic as he watches the Druid squirm. Dorian’s curse is pulling the life out of the Druid faster and faster as he tries to hurt Dorian. His skin ripples like his life force is pushing a current of water just under the surface of his skin. He’s in such a frenzy, that he doesn’t even realize that his attack is intensifying the effects of Dorian’s curse.

  The current of life force running out of the Druid and into the chasm of Dorian’s curse is starting to turn the Druid into an ashy husk. His legs are the first to crumble away to dust, leaving his jeans to flatten as ash pours down out of them onto his previously bright white sneakers.

  His arms now are moving slower and weaker as they wrinkle and shrink. His face is gray and desiccated, like he’s been exposed to great heat. He looks over at me, and I can see that the only thing still bright about him is his eyes. His expression shifts from fear back to superiority for one final moment before his face starts to crumble.

  I see Dorian’s shock, before I realize what’s happening. His face is pulled in all directions with surprise and fear – it’s an expression I’ve never seen before, but it’s what I thought his face should have looked like each of the times that I thought his life was at an end. A spray of clear sharp ice is headed straight at me, the Druids final act of torment.

  It feels like time has slowed down, but so have my reflexes. I can clearly see that I won’t be fast enough to get out of the way. There are too many flying shards, and they’re traveling far too fast. I can see certainty in my immediate future - I probably won’t survive this.

  I thought that you were supposed to see flashes of your life running through your head in times like this, but all I can see is impending doom. I try to cover my head and curl myself in to make myself smaller – to make the target smaller in hopes that there will be fewer hits, hopefully a little less pain.

  I hear the sickening hollow wet sound as the crystal shards hit, so much louder than those that hit Coan because it’s so much closer. I wait, expecting to feel the pain, but it doesn’t come. I tentatively take a breath, expecting the movement to trigger the pain that should be coming, but when I still don’t feel it, I wonder if I died before the pain could register.

  I stand up straighter and uncrunch my shoulders before carefully pealing my hands from my face.

  Chapter 23

  The first thing I see is Dorian standing in the same place he was a minute ago. The young Druid is gone and all that’s left are ash covered clothes at Dorian’s feet.

  There is pain, fear and pity in Dorian’s expression, but it isn’t quite the same as before the crystal shards came flying at me. It takes me a second to realize that the difference lies in where his gaze is focused – he’s looking down toward my feet.

  I look down, expecting to see ugly crystal shards sticking into my body, when I see the reason why I don’t feel any pain.

  Wyatt is crouched down in front of me on his hands and knees. I reach my arm out to touch his shoulder, and the force is enough that he crumples to the side and falls flat on his back. The side that was facing away from me is now in full view and I can see sharp spikes sticking into him. There is one in his arm, one in his shoulder, one in the middle of his chest, and one lodged deep in the side of his neck coated with thick red gurgling blood.

  I fall to my knees beside him and things start to flash before my eyes – Wyatt’s life, and my own. We were together so often, our lives so intertwined, that our memories are one in the same.

  I see Wyatt and I learning to ride our bikes and how he ran beside my bike so he could catch me if I fell. I see the two of us trying to catch tadpoles out of season and coming home with a bucket of shells instead. I see the first time we were allowed to stay up for New Year’s Eve and how we didn’t realize until years later that we only stayed up until 11 because of the time zone difference between Wisconsin and New York where the ball dropped.

  I see the tent that we set up in Wyatt’s backyard when we wanted to go camping, and how we chickened out when we heard too many strange noises, and how we tried to scare other by coping those same noises when people were poking around the mansion. I see how we drove my dad’s old truck around and around in the field until we ran out of gas. We got in big trouble for that one because we made so many ruts in the field, but it was worth all the fun we had doing it.

  I see us mounding up piles of hay in the barn so we could climb up in the rafters and jump into them.

  I see a thousand things flash before my eyes in a tenth of a second. I would gladly take the pain and the death that were intended for me if I could save Wyatt from this. Why did he jump in front of me?

  Then, I remember how in the first month after I learned to ride my bike, Wyatt didn’t ride his at all so he could be there to catch me. I remember how Wyatt always brought an extra towel when we played by the creek so that I would have something to dry off with. I remember how he has always covered me with a blanket after I’ve fallen asleep, and how he always went out first to check for monsters if I was scared. I remember how he tried to take the blame for causing the ruts in my dad’s field, and how he always jumped first into the piles of hay to make sure there was enough cushioning. Wyatt has always been there for me in every way, and now he’s saved my life. He’s always been more than I or anyone could deserve.

  Why couldn’t the danger focus on me where it was supposed to be, Wyatt wasn’t supposed to be a part of this. He wasn’t even supposed to be connected to this part of my life – he was
supposed to stay safe. This is all my fault. I should have noticed him before he could do something like this. I should have found some way to stop this from happening.

  Wyatt coughs weekly, and a stream of blood flows from his mouth. I reach my hand out to touch his cheek, hoping that he’ll look at me and then I feel another hand covering my own.

  It’s small and feminine with a pearlescent green cast to the skin. The hand is attached to a fine boned blond with long waving hair. Her expression is almost motherly, but she looks like she isn’t any older than I am.

  “I can help him,” she says simply.

  The crushing weight of seeing Wyatt like this has me in a place beyond shock. At any other time, I’m sure that having someone magically appear right next to me like this would make me at least jump back, but right now my head is in a place that no one can touch.

  I look over at Dorian and Coan, and they haven’t moved. They are still in exactly the same position, with exactly the same expressions that they had before. The trucks behind them have all stopped moving too and everything is absolutely quiet.

  Looking down at Wyatt I see the gurgle of blood at the corner of his mouth is frozen in place. It should be running down his cheek, but it isn’t – has time stopped?

  It’s unnaturally quiet and the world is as still as a picture except for me and the blond stranger blinking at me with an odd mix of affection and concern.

  At any other time, I would ask this stranger who she was, or why she was here, but with Wyatt’s life hanging in the balance, all I care about is that she can help him.

  “Please!”, I beg her.

  “I will heal him for a price. I want you to spend some time with me and …,” she begins to say, but I interrupt her.

  “Yes, anything! Just do it!” I would give anything to save him. I can’t let this be the end of his life!

  She continues speaking, completely ignoring my interruption. “you should know that you probably won’t come back.”