Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Ladon gasped. His body flung backward and his head snapped against the side of the van. A thud echoed through the vehicle, and probably through the loading dock.

  Human! Dragon’s big claw-hand curled around his shoulder. Steady yourself.

  “I…” He’d had a dream. A nightmare. “Rysa.”

  She had rolled over, away from the beast and toward Ladon, but hadn’t stirred when he smacked against the side of the van. She sighed in her sleep, her eyes still moving as if she, too, dreamed.

  Ladon reached to feel the tension of her skin under his fingertips, to check for a fever, to simply feel the body of his beloved. But his hand stopped inches away from her cheek. Two precious inches.

  If he grabbed hold of her, she would fall, too.

  Your dream leaves a residue. You need coffee. The beast sniffed Rysa’s face.

  Coffee? How am I going to get coffee? Though strong coffee might help. Very strong coffee. The kind you ate with a spoon.

  Ladon rubbed his face. Long ago, he had grown sick of the bad dreams. They had mostly died down over the past few decades, but the threats to Rysa had ripped the lids right off their tombs.

  He sniffed. The threats and her calling scents.

  “They’re not decreasing, are they?” he whispered. Under his breath, he laid curses upon every old god the recesses of his brain remembered.

  No. They are steadily increasing. The beast sniffed again. They shift and change in a way similar to how your mind changes as you wake up.

  Ladon closed his eyes. Were they still connected? Was his flatness coming from her and not the beast?

  Or perhaps it is you. Dragon huffed and curled his hand over Rysa’s hip. I do not like your moods, Human.

  A bit of ‘agitation’ combined with undernotes of ‘desire’ and ‘need’ wafted off Rysa and suddenly, completely, Ladon’s mind blanked.

  He was looking into his hole again. And the calling scents drifting off Rysa had taken a spotlight, hooked it to a car battery, and pointed it straight down into his soul.

  Ladon gasped again.

  The patterns moving along Dragon’s hide grew spikey and random.

  Much like a Burner.

  I will open the door. Dragon used the tip of his tail to pop open the van’s rear exit.

  Ladon stifled a cough. Burner stench flooded in and, for a moment, overtook Rysa’s calling scents.

  A head appeared, one attached to a body bending over from the roof of his van, and gazed inside with fire-tinted eyes. A head Ladon recognized.

  “Get off my van!” Ladon hissed. Did you know he was up there? He pushed to the beast.

  Yes. Dragon huffed again. He needs to be close enough to hide Rysa from other Fates. I signed with Derek and allowed Billy to be directly above us.

  “He’ll damage the finish!” Ladon stood carefully and pointed at Billy’s head. “Get off my van or I will pop you where you hang, Burner.”

  “Then who will be marring your child-molester-mobile? Heh? Not me, you goon.” Billy curled his middle finger like a claw and pantomimed scratching at the van’s paint.

  “I have my knife,” Ladon growled.

  Billy’s head vanished only to be replaced by his feet. He jumped and landed in a crouch a good five feet from the back of the van, still giving Ladon the finger. “What’s the princess see in you?” He shrugged. “Though you are friendlier than the smaller one.”

  So Sister hadn’t tolerated any Burner stupidity while Ladon slept.

  No. Dragon carefully backed out of the door. There was an altercation.

  “She’s fucking terrifying.” Billy spun around. “She got mad after I sent the Professor away. Yelled at the pretty boy and told us how we need to behave around you. So entertaining!” He stopped spinning, stuck out a leg, and balanced on his toes. “Now you, you’re just reality TV crazy—but the other one is, like, Progel… Progit… Pro whatever you two are, intense.”

  “Progenitor, you halfwit.” Ladon followed Dragon out but stopped at the threshold, standing between Rysa and the Burner. What he meant by “reality TV crazy” Ladon did not understand, but he suspected it wasn’t good. Even a Burner could tell he was out of sorts.

  At the back of the loading dock, another large, roll-down door opened into the warehouse proper. Behind Billy, row after row of boxes and pallets filled two-story-tall shelves extending deep into the building.

  Offering too many places for Burners and bad Fates to hide. Ladon’s lower back tensed.

  Billy tipped his head. “I smell scents. The princess is an enthraller? Ohh….” His eyes glazed over.

  “If you step even one inch closer—”

  “I know! Okay?” He danced back and forth and tapped his toe as he pulled up his sleeve. “I wrote it down. No closer than a dragon length. It’s right here next to No killing and Listen to Rysa.” He waved his arm around.

  He’d traced the words several times—Ladon saw the marks. Maybe he was trying. But Burners always forgot. “Why are you here, Billy?” Ladon stepped closer. The Burner’s garish t-shirt and shoes appeared bleached. Both frayed. His nylon jacket puckered in several spots, as if he’d forgotten to calm his fingertips before touching himself.

  Sometimes Ladon wondered why Burners didn’t implode when they danced their own fingers over their skin. But if they did, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to pop them. Which he might do right now. Work off some of the itches crawling across his skin.

  Rysa’s glaring spotlight of calling scents had evoked all sorts of monsters from deep inside Ladon’s mind.

  Billy tipped his head in the vertebra-snapping way Burners did. “I owe the princess.” He stared but not at Ladon’s face. “And you I suppose.” His hand flicked at Ladon’s nose. “You better be treating her well.”

  His stench gave Ladon a headache and nullified any relief he might have gotten from his nap. Not that he’d expected relief.

  But he’d hoped for calm. For the return of her talon by Trajan to help her get her abilities under control. He’d thought maybe, just maybe, the universe might give them one little break.

  But no. The calling scents wafting out of the back of the van were now strong enough he knew he couldn’t go back inside. Soon he would need to be thirty-five feet away again.

  Because it didn’t stop. It never stopped.

  A Dragon-caused haze filtered through his perception and the familiar sensation of compelling pushed aside Ladon’s rising anger. Or perhaps it was fear. Whatever twisted inside his guts was not pleasant.

  Billy balled his hand into a fist. “She’s special, so you do well by her.”

  This Burner dared to tell Ladon to do well by his woman? Ladon’s shoulders hardened to rocks as his back and arms readied to punch.

  “Hey!” Billy danced backward, his eyes and mouth perfect circles. “I’m trying, okay? I haven’t killed anyone because I remembered! If I eat some wanker, the princess will feel all gutted! I know she will! She’s my Fate.” He sniffed.

  “That’s it!” Ladon was going to rip the thumbs off this Burner and stuff them in his mouth. Rysa was not his Fate. Not by a long shot.

  Rysa was Ladon’s fate.

  Leave the Burner alone. He is trying. Dragon’s head rose and he looked into the warehouse. Derek approaches.

  “Ladon!” Derek jogged through the rear door of the loading dock. “Step away from the van. Her calling scents are ramping up again.”

  “And me! Tell him to step away from me!” Billy backed toward the wall.

  Derek pointed at the loading dock’s entrance but did not take his eyes off Ladon. “Go there, Burner. Stay close to the van but do not touch it again, understand? Or I will break your fingers.”

  Billy frowned. “I thought we were friends.”

  Derek continued to watch Ladon and not look at the Burner. Though the Burner was a bigger threat than Ladon. A much bigger threat.

  Derek does not believe so.

  Ladon’s perception snapped to his brother-in-law. Derek
watched him carefully, his eyes piercing, as if missing a twitch would lead to all their deaths. He’d taken off the hat but wore gloves, probably because of the Burners. And he sniffed the air.

  “I am here, am I not, Billy?” Derek dropped his hand to his side. “We spoke of this when you came back in, did we not? ‘Do not aggravate the Dracos.’ Do you remember? You are to answer questions with humility and speed.”

  Dragon circled behind Derek and the Burner. Sister comes in. They are outside patrolling.

  Derek pointed at the door. “You need to eat. Anna needs rest. Her Dragon fatigues. Unlike Brother-Dragon, she did not benefit from a healing when we left Branson.” He patted Dragon’s neck. “Please take your human to the break room and make him eat.”

  “We will not leave Rysa.” Ladon’s back tightened again. Why would Derek ask such a thing of him?

  “You are not leaving anyone. You will be right down this aisle. Anna-Dragon will call to you if we need you. But you and Brother-Dragon have been affected by Rysa’s calling scents more than Anna and her Dragon. You are… volatile.”

  “See!” Billy bounced on his toes. “You’re a goon!”

  Ladon snarled.

  Dragon pushed the Burner toward the open loading dock. Tell him I lose patience.

  “He’s going to take you outside and rip off your arms, Burner.” Ladon slapped the side of the van, but stopped before doing it twice. The noise out here was already too much. They might wake Rysa.

  Though she seemed to sleep through everything right now.

  Maybe she was unconscious. Maybe what Sister did to her had caused damage. He spun, peering into the van. Rysa sighed and rolled over, still sleeping.

  A burst of calling scents rolled out of the vehicle and Ladon’s entire body spasmed. His gut clenched. He’d vomit if he didn’t step back.

  “Please.” Derek spoke behind him. Ladon did not turn. “She will wake soon.”

  “No.” Why did Sister leave Derek alone with Burners?

  Derek is fast, like you.

  Ladon turned around. Dragon nuzzled his brother-in-law’s shoulder. The beast had moved far enough away that Rysa’s calling scents didn’t make him nauseated, the way they made Ladon. “I do not like to eat when I am fighting.”

  Derek looked up at the ceiling. “We will call you.” He pointed away from the van, toward the back of the warehouse.

  I will take him outside first, the beast signed to Derek. He must breathe fresh air.

  Dragon stretched like a giant cat, first dropping his front, then his back end. He walked first by Ladon, then the Burner. Come, Human.

  The beast stepped into the light of the gray midmorning, his hide fading into invisibility as he walked away. He did not look back. He walked away.

  And Ladon had no choice but to follow.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Rysa dreamed of water fountains and sorority bathrooms and embarrassing moments, and now she needed to pee. In the dream, she climbed stairs—black painted stairs full of shadows—but they were too tall. She had to pull herself up, the way she’d have to pull herself over a wall. She climbed and climbed and climbed some more and the shadows were mad because she’d stolen their job.

  In her dream, she climbed through jealous shades.

  But the stairs were her only option because the elevator moved too fast and would shoot her out the top of the roof and to the stars if she entered.

  Its interior gleamed cold and gray like iron and had a revolving door.

  Or it would drop her directly into the heart of a fire so hot she’d immediately melt into a glob of wiggly wet something and she would implode.

  A chemical fire. A very smelly chemical fire.

  She needed to pee. Really, really needed to pee, no matter what the shadows or the Burners wanted.

  Her eyes flew open.

  She was alone in the van with piles of Ladon’s clothes and a stack of balled-up Dragon blankets. With that bachelor smell of pizza and too much coffee.

  Rysa sat up. What-is bounced through her head the way she bounced when she became over-excited. The present was up on its toes and chatting non-stop about how it could now outline everything that needed outlining because it had its marker back and boy-oh-boy no one would mess with them again because the filters aligned and now Rysa really was a true threat.

  Her bouncing present-seer banged its head against the inside of her skull and it was beginning to hurt. Rysa rubbed her forehead.

  Oh my God, she thought, blinking. Do I sound like that? Do I sound like my present-seer when I get hyperactive?

  Of course she did. Her seers were her, after all.

  She’d think about it later because right now, she needed to pee. The back door of the van stood wide open and they were parked inside somewhere with big rolling doors. Which meant there had to be a bathroom nearby.

  Rysa bounced a little on her knees before scooting toward the door.

  Her past-seer popped an image into her mind—Dragon setting her talisman down next to her pillow. Someone had wrapped it in a royal purple scarf and given it back to Ladon.

  She whipped around, her face slack and her eyes wide. “Oh my God!” There, in a bundle next to where she’d been sleeping, was the purple scarf.

  “You got it back for me!” she yelled as she scooped it up. “You got my talisman back!”

  But damn it, she had to pee.

  Rysa jumped out of the van, dancing as she landed on the loading dock concrete. She jogged through the roll-up door, her still-wrapped talisman in her hand, looking for someone. Anyone.

  The ceiling above her head was a good twenty feet up. Pipes crisscrossed through steel beams, along with electrical conduits, huge hanging lamps, and an obvious layer of cobweb-infested dust.

  Walls of stuff surrounded her. Stuff on pallets. Stuff on industrial-sized shelves. Stuff wrapped in plastic and stuff in rows and rows of indistinguishable boxes.

  She was in a warehouse.

  A cold breeze pushed across her face, blowing from where, she did not know, but it carried a familiar, very unpleasant smell that made her tongue feel like she’d just licked a battery.

  “Burners!” she yelled. She’d awoken in some giant storage place, with Burners, and she really, really needed to pee. “Ladon!” Where the hell was Ladon? “Dragon!”

  She had her talisman. She could see. Her fingers made their way through the scarf, through the crinkly brown paper, and through the plastic zipper on the bag.

  And finally, Rysa’s seers flicked over to happy and perfectly clear.

  Ladon and Dragon were patrolling. Outside. They heard her and would appear in seconds. Anna and a man—an emperor—argued farther into the warehouse.

  And she smelled Burners. Her panic wanted to constrict her waist like a girdle but she really needed to pee.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Damn it, she didn’t want to pee her pants in front of Burners.

  Seer tentacles burst from her mind and snapped straight out ahead, down the aisle in front of her, and then around the corner. Rysa ran for the bathroom.

  Two bright green doors—one with the guy figure and the other with the gal—waited in a shadowy corner behind a forklift. She hit the women’s door and it banged against the wall. Lock it popped into her head and she did, then immediately went about her business.

  A voice wafted through the door as she washed her hands.

  “Princess?”

  She recognized the voice. “Billy?” Rysa unlocked the door and swung it open, not thinking about consequences. No thought that perhaps exposing herself to Burners without Ladon or Dragon could get her in trouble.

  Billy Bare, the Burner who first stole her from the campus parking lot two and a half weeks ago—and the Burner who helped find her mom—stepped into the light thrown into the shadowy corner by the one overhead lamp. His bright red sneakers squeaked on the concrete floor. His dark hair was still a random mess, and he still stank of acid and chemicals, maybe sulfur, but his black
nylon jacket was gone. Not the blaze orange t-shirt, though it had faded considerably.

  His arms were covered with words, some as faded as his shirt, some black. Three markers poked out of the pocket of his dirty jeans. He pulled one out and used it to point at Rysa. “Tell Boyfriend I don’t like his machete. It’s too shiny.”

  “Ladon!” Rysa screamed and backed into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door again. She pressed her back against it, listening, and gripped her talisman with both hands.

  What had been white noise before was now a cloud of chatter. She had her talisman. She should be able to control her seers now, but that’s not what was happening. They were still on—on like a radio in the background—like they were before. But now the channels were clear and distinct. And she heard them all.

  She was, all of a sudden, back in class, with a lot of students huddled around, all doing group work in her head. Everyone talked. Everyone had an opinion. She had to listen to all the chatter and sort it out because her grade depended on it.

  Panic edged in. Crowds overwhelmed. Crowds made her spin. And now she was a crowd.

  And just outside the door was a Burner who also had opinions, and who yelled from outside the room, because he wasn’t part of the what-was-is-will-be class. He got kicked out for throwing spitballs.

  She almost dropped the talon. Almost let it bounce across the floor and under the sink. It wasn’t supposed to do this. It was supposed to help her see what she needed to do to stop what was happening to her, not fill her head with an unruly class full of babbling students.

  “Where the hell is Ladon?” she screamed. Her seers burst out as gyrating tentacles snapping and whipping and not at all under control.

  Not at all showing her anything useful.

  Pain ratcheted into her eyeballs. This time, when her seers burst out, they hurt like a goddamned rug burn on her corneas. Hurt and would not shut up.

  A growl rolled through the door. Images popped to Rysa—Dragon with his hand over her hip as she slept in the back of the van. He’d been able to be close to her while she slept, but not now. Obviously.