Smoke and Flame (Rise of the Dragons Trilogy Book 2)

by N. R. Hairston

  Iago, too, seemed to have relaxed, as the tension in his shoulders was gone. He sat down, not looking half as upset as he had a second ago.

  I blinked as the two now happily chatted about something Lantana had said or did, back when they were all still together.

  Reid pinched the bridge of his nose, a defeated look on his face. “The sooner this is over, the better.” I couldn’t agree more, time was in short supply here.

  Reid and I needed to learn more about these powers before they consumed us, and Iago needed to get his sister back. Since Lantana was also the key to finding Brad and Melinda, getting to her was doubly important in my book.

  “So,” I said, making all eyes turn toward me. “I agree with Iago. I think we should do things his way.” Iago would do anything to get his sister back, so if he thought this would work, it probably would.

  At least I hoped so anyway because if not, we’d all be up shit creek.

  Chapter 2

  We decided to leave from Todd’s house the next day since his place was bigger and could fit all of us comfortably.

  Right now, we were doing last-minute checks and going over the plan one more time. Coen had earplugs that would protect us from the full force of his thunderclap, and we each put those in.

  My sister crept up to me, looking like she normally did when going to work at the bank. She had on a beige sweater, khaki pants, and held a notepad in her hand. “Alisa, let me just.” She took my backpack off my shoulder and began carefully checking through it, marking items off her list.

  She added another flashlight, two more bottles of water, and three cans of vienna sausage. Then she went on to Reid who was standing beside me.

  He handed his bag over no problem and then shot me an amused look. I shrugged, hey it made her feel happy and a part of the team, so...

  Trout, Coen, and Iago, stood in a corner talking quietly amongst themselves, the fight from earlier clearly forgotten. Vonda gave Reid his bag back and then set her sights on them.

  They smiled when she walked up, and eagerly engaged her in conversation, before readily handing over their bags. A feeling of elation went over me as I watched, happy that she now had something she seemed to look forward to.

  She’d been lonely and isolated for so long that I was glad she now felt a part of a team. That went for myself and Todd as well. Somehow all three of us had closed ourselves away from even each other, and now we were working together, trying to save someone’s life, or at least bring her back home to her brother.

  Todd came up the hall, and though his eyes were bleary as if he’d just awakened, he looked freshly shaved, his clothes were neatly pressed, and he didn’t have a hair out of place. He stopped short when he saw all of us standing in his living room, and let out an exaggerated sigh. “So, you’re not gone yet?”

  His eyes roamed over us as he headed for the kitchen and his coffee pot. Soon the delicious smell of dark roast filled the air. “And here I was thinking I would finally have my house to myself again.” He got his mug down from the cabinet, not looking at any of us.

  I took in his stiff shoulders and the flippant way he spoke and realized that this was hard for him. He’d enjoyed being a part of the team as much as Vonda had.

  I sighed and realized that we were all socially awkward, my siblings and me. We didn’t reach out for relationships or social connections. Even when they came to us, more than half the time, we shooed them away.

  For the last couple of weeks, he’d been able to laugh, entertain, and help with something that was bigger than all of us. He didn’t even seem to mind the constant activity and huddle of people coming and going.

  In fact, he always made sure there was plenty to eat, and often used us as guinea pigs for new recipes he was thinking of introducing in the restaurant. Now, here we all were going off to risk our lives with no idea of when we’d be back.

  That couldn’t be easy for him, or Vonda, and it made me want to fight that much harder. I was determined to come home to my family, to keep building on this new bond that we had going, and I wasn’t willing to let anything stand in the way of that.

  Todd swallowed hard and turned to me. He seemed to think about his words for a minute, and then he just let them out. “You need to stay here.”

  I blinked, not sure I’d heard right. “What?”

  He put his cup down and came to stand in front of me, his shoulders still tense and tight. “What about mom and dad?” He folded his arms in front of him.

  “What about them?” I did not like the way this conversation was headed.

  “What are we supposed to tell them if you don’t come back? That we knew you’d probably be killed, but let you go anyway?” He took a deep breath, and it looked as if he was trying to calm himself.

  I let out a breath of my own, because I got it now. He was worried about me. He was my big brother and had looked out for me my whole life, and here he couldn’t do that.

  I was going off to a world that we already knew to be dangerous and there was nothing he could do to protect me from this, and he didn’t know how to handle that.

  “The world’s not that bad,” I said, trying to downplay it a bit so he wouldn’t worry.

  “Yes, it is,” my sister said, walking up with her notebook gripped tightly in her hand. She took a second to flip through the pages then stopped when she found what she was looking for.

  She showed it to my brother. “Trout said that they will probably all die.”

  Todd’s eyes widened as he read whatever she’d written on the paper.

  Vonda gave him a conspiratorial glance. “I already called mom and dad, but just in case they’re not here in time to stop her, I made sure she has everything she’ll need in her pack.” Her voice got low and her eyes misted over. She turned to the side, sitting her notebook on the counter. “I made sure they all have extra of what they need.”

  And just like that, a rotten feeling started in my stomach and spread to the rest of my body. They were really worried for me. Worried for all of us, and there was nothing I could do to make it better, though I’d give anything to make them feel better about this.

  Reid put an arm around my shoulder, and I leaned into his touch, happy he was there. “We’re doing what we have to, to survive. They’ll understand.”

  I nodded, but then I played back what she’d said and felt like choking her. “Did you say you called—”

  A knock at the door sounded, and I groaned, knowing what was coming next. Two seconds later the knob twisted, and my mother and father stepped inside.

  I shot my sister a sour look because I knew she’d left the door open just for them. My father strolled into the room, and one would think this was his house, and Todd and the rest of us were all visitors.

  “I’ve come to take you home, Alisa,” he said, looking at me as if this was something we’d discussed beforehand. My father was of medium height and weight but walked like he stood ten feet tall. He was bald on top and had salt-and-pepper hair on the sides.

  My mom on the other hand was tall, slim, and wore her hair loosely around her shoulders in a mountain of curls. Vonda and I both looked like her, though everyone in my family sported thick black hair and brown eyes.

  Reid cleared his throat, and all eyes turned to him. “She’s not going home, Tony. I’ll keep her safe.”

  My mother scoffed. “You won’t even help her pay a bill or buy a light bulb. How do you plan on keeping my daughter safe?”

  I looked at her to see if she was serious. She kept her eyes on Reid, the look on her face unreadable. Fine, I guess I needed to set the record straight one more time. “He doesn’t live with me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “He could still buy you bulbs,” Coen said, walking up to join the conversation, uninvited.

  My mother smiled at him. “See Coen here. He helps your brother out at the restaurant, helps him tidy up here, cooks dinner, and everything.”

  Coen stood at my mother’s side, beaming at her
praise while throwing me a slick look under his eyelids, the little shit.

  My father turned to my mother. “Reid and Coen are not the same person, Marta, and while I appreciate Coen doing what he can to earn his keep, you would think Todd should be able to run his household without the assistance of others.”

  I bristled at his words. Out of the three of us, my father was hardest on my brother, always had been. “We’re leaving.” I pulled out my porter, anxious to go anywhere that would take me away from this mess. I needed my head clear when entering this new world, not full of thoughts of family turmoil and discord.

  My father held up a hand to stop me. “Now, Alisa hold on a minute. I’m glad you and your brother have found someone that makes you happy.” He gave a pointed look at my sister, and she seemed to wither under his gaze. “I just think that Reid has been looking out for you for some time now, and while I appreciate that, had he never let you train under him in the first place then none of this would have happened and—”

  I stopped listening because my father was never letting this go. No matter how much he liked Reid, this would always be a sticking point.

  Reid had let me train under him. After I’d finished my sixty hours pretraining class, and taken a course on criminal justice, Reid had taken me under his wing and taught me everything he knew about the PI business.

  This, to my father, meant that every time I got hurt or banged up on a job, it was Reid’s fault, and I swear I didn’t know how he connected those dots, but this was my father, and connecting random things was something he was good at.

  My mom was unimpressed with my father’s words. “I don’t see Coen leading Todd off to some hell fight on a world...” She paused as if she couldn’t believe the words she was speaking. “That they know nothing about.”

  I pointed my porter. They didn’t need us here to fight about this.

  Reid and the others crowded around me, but my father’s loud voice boomed through the house before any of us could make a move. “You are not going, Alisa. Now, this is not up for discussion. Get your things, and your mother and I will take you home. We’ve already made arrangements to stay with you for a few days, just to make sure things continue on smoothly.”

  I looked at them both, horrified, and then to Trout, who’d moved to the other side of the room and opened a portal. I ran toward him, jumping through before anyone could say another word.

  Chapter 3

  I stepped into the world Graven, straight into a hellfire of hard biting rain. It stung when it hit my skin, and I could see blisters starting to form.

  Reid and the others came in behind me, and I watched until the portal closed, making sure none of my family had had the fool hearted idea to follow us through.

  Coen was the last to emerge, and three seconds after that the portal closed, my parents and siblings nowhere in sight. I would have let out a sigh of relief, but the constant onslaught of rain stinging my skin made it damn near impossible to do anything but stand there.

  Reid stood beside me, looking upward as if trying to figure out how to make it stop. Good luck with that. Trout, Iago, and Coen were in front of us, their heads drawn together, talking about something.

  “Hey, you couldn’t have warned us about this?” I asked Iago, my arms wrapped tightly around myself.

  He raised a brow. “I don’t control the weather, Alisa.” He gave me a look that said I should know better, then turned back to his conversation.

  I was about to throw out a comment about him being a smart-ass when a scratchy, hard voice called our attention to the trees in front of us.

  “Who invited the Litvan here? I think we should send them home in small pieces.” A man with yellow hair and glowing orange eyes sat up on a branch looking down at us. He had on brown wool pants that were dirty, torn, and cut just above the ankles. His shirt was a gray Tee.

  His hair was loose and matted, though some hung in clumps around his face. He looked like he’d worn the same thing for the last three years, and perhaps he hadn’t bathed in that time either. He didn’t look like he had.

  A small woman, looking like she’d fetched her clothing from a dumpster, popped up beside him. She had short dark hair, cut roughly, like a child with a pair of scissors had gotten ahold of her and shown no mercy. They both looked to be no older than thirty. “Big pieces or little pieces?” she asked, her teeth brown and crooked, her voice hard and gritty.

  “We’ll decide later.” He jumped from the trees, shaking more rain down, a wicked grin on his face. A half a second later, she landed beside him, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  I instantly went on alert, but then remembered why we were here. We needed information. The rain let up a little, and I was thankful for that if nothing else.

  Iago cracked his neck. “Have to make it through them, to talk to anyone else.”

  The woman lunged for me. Even though we couldn’t use our powers, we were still expected to fight, which is where all my extra training came into play.

  I ducked, causing her to hit open air. Then I headbutted her and sent her back a few steps, hearing an “ompth,” as her head bounced around her shoulders. She turned hot eyes my way and used her telekinesis to sling me through the air. Stilling my breath, and trying not to cry out, I landed in a puddle a few feet away.

  The rain was hard and itchy on my skin when I hit, and I hopped up immediately, wishing I could wash the feeling away. The guys had taken out the man she’d been with, as he now lay limp on the ground.

  She had her back turned to me, hand raised, ready to attack Reid. I came up behind her and grabbed her by the hair, throwing her to the ground. She grunted and tried to get back on her feet, so I put a boot to her throat to stop all movement.

  Now immobile, her eyes held nothing but rage. I didn’t want to kill her, but she’d certainly attack again if I let her up. I applied more pressure to her neck, hoping she’d pass out and I could get away.

  After a couple of seconds, her eyes rolled back in her head, and I eased up. Where she’d been rigid before, she now lay completely limp. Horrified, I removed my foot, and Reid quickly checked her pulse. “She’s alive,” he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  My clothes felt icky and stuck to my skin. Even when I tried to pull them apart, they remained in the same spot. The guys looked as wet as I did, but other than that, they hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  “Come on, over this way,” Iago said, walking straight ahead.

  The mud was up to our ankles now, making our movements hard and sluggish.

  A quick look around showed me a bunch of crude structures placed haphazardly apart, all made of large round gray rocks. I thought they were homes, yet none had doors, so anyone could walk in or out as they pleased.

  Most of them stood about twelve feet and had a trail of mud leading up to the opening. Some probably couldn’t hold more than six people, while others could probably fit twenty.

  The streets were all mud and dirt and every few feet we saw large overhanging trees.

  Even the atmosphere was dark, and I didn’t know if it was the lack of sun or maybe it was just later in the evening here.

  We’d probably only made it a mile before another group stepped out of the shadows, looking very much like the first two we’d encountered. Except this time, I counted over twenty.

  Beside me, Reid bristled and flexed his hands.

  Iago’s fists clenched, but his voice was low and insistent when he spoke. “Remember, no powers. We want to get taken. That’s the only way to find out anything. It’s just how things work here.”

  Trout stood by his side in a boxer pose, looking ready for anything that came his way. Coen stood a little in front of me, arms out, feet slightly parted.

  A guy with stringy blue-gray hair stepped toward us, while the rest of his crew closed us into a small circle. “Did you see that fight a few seconds ago, guys?” he asked his friends, his voice mocking.

  Adrenaline made my heart beat faster as sweat mixe
d with rain fell down my face. A feeling of menace rippled through the air, and I wasn’t sure we’d be able to stick to that no power thing, because I didn’t plan on losing my life here today.

  “Came here with no powers,” a man with dirty blond hair said, a sneer on his face

  “Now, how’d they do that?” a woman with curly brown hair asked.

  “Don’t know, but they would have used them when fighting if they had any.”

  The guy with the blue hair came even closer, making Reid, myself and the others tense. He had a dark glint in his eye, and my stomach rolled because I knew we were in for some shit. “I don’t know, maybe they just—” He headbutted Iago and then sent a hard right to his face.

  Iago’s head snapped back, and blood spurted from his nose. “I’m okay.” He held up a hand, stopping Trout, who was already making his way toward the blue-haired dude, hand up ready to attack. “I’m okay,” he said again, trying to calm his boyfriend down.

  “Take ‘em to Gin and Dern. Find out how they got here with no powers,” Blue hair said.

  A guy pushed me in the back, egging me forward and I realized that Iago’s plan was working. If we’d come through blazing with powers, we would have been in for the fight of our lives.

  It had been a good plan, and I could see that realization on Coen’s face as we walked in the direction they lead us. “I hope Gin lets me play with them,” a male voice from deep in the crowd said. “Been so long since I got to play with one.”

  A shiver ran through me, and I wondered just what the hell type of people we were dealing with here. We were severely outnumbered, and even if Lantana was here, I had no clue how we’d set her free, much less ourselves. We’d taken a gamble, and I was okay with that. In the PI business, sometimes that was the name of the game, now it was time to see if it would pay off.

  “I’m going to skin the female, and feed her to my cat,” another voice said, this one a woman. I gulped, trying not to think about it, and remembered that I still had powers, even if I wasn’t using them at the moment.