Smoke (The Slayer Chronicles Book 1)

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  “It doesn’t really sound like the kind of party that Reign would go to, does it?” I said. “It sounds more like local teenagers trying to get away from their parents.”

  “True,” said Naelen, who was driving the rental car out of town, down the road that led to the old Trimball place. “But I think we have to check out every lead. If she is out there somewhere at this old farm, then we won’t find her anywhere else.”

  “She probably isn’t, though.”

  “But we should check, or else I’ll always wonder,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said. I understood that.

  The Trimball farm was less than six miles out of town. It was a ramshackle white house with peeling siding that was falling off the house.

  In its day, the place was probably rather impressive. It was fairly large, which a lot of rooms and a big wraparound porch. Of course, now the thing was barely hanging onto the house and I was fairly sure the wood of the porch was rotting away.

  We pulled up over a rough and bumpy dirt road and parked in front of the house.

  The barn was off to the other side. It had been red in its better days.

  We got out of the car.

  “Well,” he said. “What now?”

  I shut the car door. “This was your idea to come out here.”

  “So, what are you saying?”’

  “That it’s your call what we do,” I said.

  “Well… I guess we should look for Reign,” he said.

  “There’s no one out here.”

  “She could still be a rogue,” he said. “She could have come to a party out here, been given one of those damned drinks, and shifted.”

  I supposed he was right. “Well, in that case, let me get my bow and arrows out of the trunk.”

  He popped it for me.

  I retrieved them, the bow fitting over my shoulder where it belonged. I felt better carrying them. Stronger. More myself. “All right,” I said. “Well, if she were a dragon, she’d probably be out in the field or something, not inside either of these buildings, but let’s go ahead and check through them. We’ll split up to make it go quicker.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll take the house, you take the barn?”

  “Okay,” I said. I trudged off in the direction of the barn. “Watch out for snakes,” I called after him.

  He made a face at me. “Snakes?”

  “You afraid of snakes?”

  “Please,” he said. “I’m a dragon.”

  I laughed.

  “You be careful too,” he called back.

  I waved and turned back to the barn.

  The barn had two large doors that stood open, but inside, it was dark. As I got closer, I could smell the remnants of scents—hay, manure, animal smell. I wrinkled up my nose. Once, when I was a kid, we’d lived near a farm. I’d never much liked the way it smelled, I had to admit.

  As I stepped inside the barn, I felt a rush of trepidation.

  I shook myself and turned around, making sure that I was alone. I wondered what it was about this barn that gave me the creeps.

  I squared my shoulders and touched my arrows, running my fingers over the fletchings.

  “Just an old barn, that’s all,” I whispered to myself. I plunged into the darkness.

  At first, I was nearly suffocated by the warmth and the smell. It seemed oppressive, choking down on me from all sides. I couldn’t see either, so it was like being plunged into blindness. An unpleasant blindness in which I couldn’t breathe and everything smelled bad.

  My pulse started to race and the back of my neck broke out in a sweat.

  I didn’t move at all for several moments. I stood there, forcing myself to acclimate, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Eventually, they did. But my pulse kept racing.

  The barn had two rows of stalls. They were dirty, dusty, and it was hot in here. I fought through the air to peer inside one on the left and then another on the right.

  Nothing in them besides the dirt floor.

  I looked behind myself, and then back down the row of stalls. Did I really have to go look in every single one of them? A dragon wouldn’t be in here. Not in a place like this, so confined.

  But the truth was that a dragon would fit inside a stall like this. Dragons weren’t huge, not like the ones in the storybooks. They shifted into a creature about the same size as a human, with a wing-span less than six feet. They were fierce, but not enormous. With folded wings, one could easily be concealed in one of these stalls.

  I shifted on my feet, still resisting going further into the barn. In spite of how warm it was in here, I felt a cold chill travel up my spine, making the sweat on my neck feel clammy.

  What was wrong with me? Why was I resisting this? Something about this barn made me feel…

  Well, I supposed it had happened in a barn.

  But not like this one, a voice screamed inside my head. A nice barn, all cleared out, and refinished, and turned into apartments for Mrs. Clarice and when it happened, there was blood underneath the loft, blood spattered everywhere and—

  Now I was trembling. I didn’t like to think about that if I could help it.

  I forced myself to start walking down between the stalls just to run away from that memory. If there was any way that I could purge that memory from my mind, I would do it, but I hadn’t yet found a way to get rid of it, and sometimes it haunted me.

  My pulse picked up even more speed. Now my breath was coming in gasps, and my forehead was sweating. My hair was pasted against my forehead. I shoved it out of the way. I touched my arrows again.

  The next two stalls were empty.

  I hurried forward. These will be empty too, I told myself. Nothing will be there.

  But I couldn’t help it, and I pictured something in the stall. Something bleeding and twisted and ruined and—

  “No,” I said out loud.

  Still, I hesitated. I didn’t want to look in the next stall.

  “He’s dead,” I said fiercely. “He’s dead. He can’t be here.” And I propelled myself forward.

  Nothing. Empty stalls.

  I let out a noisy breath.

  Only two more.

  I shut my eyes. Wasn’t this enough? Did I have to look in those too? There was nothing in this damned barn. We shouldn’t even be here. If Naelen hadn’t insisted…

  I was crying, I realized. My eyes were wet with tears.

  I took an unsteady step forward.

  “There’s nothing in those stalls,” I said through clenched teeth, urging myself forward.

  I peered around the edge of the stall on the right side.

  Nothing. Empty and dirty.

  Then I turned to the right side.

  Something was there.

  Something big and dark and motionless.

  I pulled three arrows out of my quiver. Three, not one, which was my habit, because if I held all three, I could rapid-fire three shots one right after the other, increasing my chances of doing damage.

  I held all the arrows in one hand, but only notched the first. I crept forward.

  The dark thing didn’t move.

  Now, closer, I caught the scent of singed flesh. Something burnt.

  I nudged the motionless thing with my foot.

  Pieces of it flaked off, oily ash. It had been burnt to a crisp. It was… an animal of some kind. Maybe a wolf. A coyote. I couldn’t be sure.

  And then I realized there was a hole in the stall. I hadn’t been able to see the light filtering through it because the dead animal was in the way. But it was fairly obvious that the thing had crawled in through the hole and died here.

  If it was burnt that meant…

  I moved around the dead animal and knelt down. The wood here had been burnt too. It looked like something had blown flame at this hole, trying to get to the wolf or coyote.

  Dragon.

  Damn it, maybe Naelen was right after all. Maybe Reign really was a rogue.

  I backed out of the
stall, carefully avoiding the dead thing. There was a loft in the barn, but I wondered if it was really worth searching up there. The dragon had been outside the barn. If I was going to find it, I probably needed to get out into the field, make noise, draw it out.

  I lowered my bow, starting back toward the door of the barn.

  And a flutter of wings and fire descended on me from above.

  A dragon was coming out of the loft, its eyes the empty black holes of a rogue. Its claws were extended, its jaws gaping.

  I brought up my bow.

  But a wall of flame was already coming for me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I dove for the ground, switching my bow to the same hand as my three arrows.

  The flame went over my head, missing me by centimeters. The smell of burning hair filled the air. It had gotten the tips of my hair.

  I rolled over onto my back, bringing my hands together. One hand took the bow, the other notched the first arrow. I let all three go, one after the other, as quick as I could.

  The first two arrows went wide.

  But the third penetrated the dragon’s leg. It whined.

  Blindly, I felt behind me for more arrows. I really needed to learn how to shoot with more than three arrows in my shooting hand, but my hands were too damned small. If I were a man—

  The dragon sailed out of the barn door, flapping its wings.

  Hell, it was getting away.

  I scrambled to my feet, pulling three more arrows out of my quiver as I did.

  Wait. That arrow felt different.

  I glanced down at it. Oh, right! The damned tranquilizer arrows. If this was Reign, and I killed her, Naelen would never forgive me. Hell, he might kill me.

  Running after the dragon, I dropped the two regular arrows and pulled out two other tranq arrows.

  The dragon was gaining altitude, climbing into the sky.

  Damn it. Still running, I notched an arrow and let it fly. Then the next. Then the next. I had to be careful with my aim. These arrows were tranquilizers, but if they hit in the wrong place, they could still be deadly.

  Two arrows hit the dragon. One in its flank. Another in its neck. The dragon faltered, losing height.

  Good. I got it. Now, how long was it going to take before those damned tranqs took hold?

  The dragon seemed to focus on me. It let out a cry of rage and swooped down for me.

  I pulled out more arrows.

  The dragon went into a low dive, pulling up at the last second and heading straight for me with claws extended.

  I let fly with three more arrows.

  They went low, all flying underneath its belly.

  One struck the car’s tire.

  Oops.

  But then the dragon made a sloppy landing, skidding into the ground.

  I pulled out another arrow, even though I was out of tranq arrows. I waited.

  The dragon stopped moving.

  I let out a breath. The tranquilizer must have taken hold.

  I rubbed my forehead. Whoa. Where the heck was Naelen? I turned in a circle, looking for him.

  But before I could locate him, I caught sight of another dragon on the horizon. It was flying in low, just over the trees. It was green and silver, and I could see its scales glittering in the sunlight.

  It was too far away to know if it was a rogue or not, but it stood to reason that it was. This could have been some other poor sod who’d had one of those Claw Rushes at some party out here.

  The only problem was that I was out of arrows. There was a limit to how many would fit in my quiver. I scanned the immediate area, looking for some arrows that I could pick up off the ground. There were the two that I’d dropped, the lethal ones. I guessed if I only used them to wound the dragon, then it would be all right to shoot them. After all, maybe this dragon was Reign. I couldn’t kill either of them.

  The drogan was coming up quickly.

  I darted over and picked up both arrows, notching them and taking aim.

  But I waited. This dragon needed to attack first. That was my code if I couldn’t ascertain whether it was a rogue right off. I didn’t shoot at dragons unless they were clearly a threat, and this one was only flying.

  The dragon swooped down and alighted in front of me.

  Now, I was close, and I could see that its eyes weren’t black. This wasn’t a rogue.

  The dragon surveyed the motionless corpse and then kicked off, back into the air again, flapping its wings.

  “Naelen?” I said.

  The dragon was flying back over the trees.

  I took off running after it.

  It flew past the trees.

  I ran through the trees. On the other side of the strip of vegetation was a lake, its water glittering in the sun. The dragon dove straight down into the water, disappearing.

  In seconds, Naelen resurfaced.

  “It was you,” I said.

  He smiled, swimming towards me. Then the water got shallower, and he was wading. The water was at his armpits, then at his belly button. I could see his pecks, and they were nice pecks. They were defined and tan and powerful and had just a very tiny bit of hair on them. His stomach was flat. He kept coming closer, and then I could see that there was a tiny line of hair below his belly button, and that it was leading down further and further and—

  I looked away. “Uh, you have clothes out here?”

  He chuckled. “They’re lying on that log there.” He pointed.

  I looked where he was pointing at saw the clothes. “You want me to—?” But then I glanced back at him, and he was totally naked and the water was only at his thighs, and I could see his—

  I turned around, my face burning.

  He was still laughing.

  My whole body felt hot, not just where I was blushing. I felt tingly and my own clothes seemed a little too tight. I shook myself. Okay, so he had the body of a Greek god. So what? He was perfect, but he was a jerk, and he was technically my boss, and he was a dragon, and I had no business being attracted to him, no business at all, and—

  “I saw the dragon, and I thought you might need some help,” he said from behind me. “That’s why I shifted.”

  “I managed just fine on my own,” I said. To my horror, my voice was shaking.

  “No, I saw that,” he said.

  Without looking at him again, I stalked back through the strip of trees toward the house. One of my arrows had penetrated the car’s tire, and we weren’t going anywhere with a flat.

  * * *

  I had the car jacked up when he got back. I was standing on the lug wrench to loosen the lug nuts on the tire. They were always on too tight for me to loosen with just my arm strength. Actually maybe I could have done it if I really put my all into it, but standing on the wrench was easier.

  “Let me help you with that,” he said.

  “I got it,” I snapped. “I’m the one who shot the tire out. I’ll put the spare on.” I bounced on the wrench until it loosened. Then I moved on to the next lug nut.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I can—”

  I pointed at him. “Stop.”

  He shook his head. “You bewilder me, Clarke Gannon.”

  I ignored him.

  “The dragon you took down isn’t Reign, by the way,” he said.

  “No?” I was standing on the lug wrench again.

  “No,” he said. “She’s red in dragon form. I should try to dig up a picture for you… Can’t think why I didn’t do that already.”

  I bounced on the lug wrench. It didn’t budge. “Yeah,” I grunted. “That might have been helpful.”

  “Please let me do that,” he said.

  I shot him a nasty look. “You ever change a tire yourself, Mr. Rich Boy?”

  “Yes,” he said, narrowing his eyes. He held out his hand for the wrench.

  I hopped off it. Stretched. Tried to go at it with my hands. My palms were sweaty. I couldn’t turn it. I grunted again.

  “Clarke—”

&nbs
p; “What are we going to do about that rogue there, then? How long until the tranquilizer wears off?”

  “We should have quite some time,” he said. “Six or seven hours, maybe eight.”

  “Well, if it’s not Reign, I guess I should, uh, put it out of its misery. Unless you want to take it back to your lab.”

  His shoulders slumped. “What will you do after it’s gone?”

  I took out my phone. “There’s a website where shifters post photos of any missing family members in their dragon forms. If I find a match, I call the family and someone comes to get the body. I generally tell them that I found the corpse, not that I killed it.”

  “And if there’s no match?”

  “Well, I don’t know whose territory this is down here, but I could make some calls. Have someone come and cart it away.”

  “Someone who’s going to sell the parts?” said Naelen.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “If there’s no match, can’t you just leave it?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Sure, I can do that.”

  We were quiet.

  He held out his hand again. “Give me that.” He gestured to the lug wrench. “You look for a match.”

  I hesitated. Why didn’t he look for a match? But maybe it would be rude to ask him to do that. Too painful for him. I handed the wrench over.

  He took it and started working on the lug nuts.

  I got my phone out and navigated to the website with the pictures of the missing dragons. I scrolled through the pictures. There weren’t very many. This rogue was definitely not any one of them. So, I picked up my bow and got out an arrow (I’d gathered them up before starting to change the tire.) I took careful aim. I had the luxury, since the dragon wasn’t coming at me.

  The arrow soared forward with a twang.

  And burrowed right into the dragon’s eyeball, deep into its skull. Dead.

  “Geez,” said Naelen.

  I looked back at him.

  He already had the tire off. “Did you find a match?”