Smoke (The Slayer Chronicles Book 1)

by Val St. Crowe

  I shrugged.

  “Times three?” said Robin.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, a spell like that… I’m going to need some special ingredients. Expensive ingredients. I’m not sure you can afford them.”

  “How much money you need?” said Naelen, taking out his wallet.

  “I don’t know… maybe I could get by with five hundred,” she said.

  Naelen took out his cash and counted out seven hundred dollar bills. “Don’t just ‘get by,’” he said. “Get what you need. That be enough?”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking down at the money. “Thanks.”

  “How long is it going to take you to get the ingredients?” Naelen said.

  “I guess you’re wanting them yesterday?” said Robin.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “We’re trying to save people.”

  Robin rubbed her chin. “Well, if I haul ass, I can get everything together by this evening.’

  “This evening?” said Naelen. “That’s hours away.”

  “And,” said Robin, ignoring him, “a spell like this, I’m going to need to use the power of ‘tween times. I have to do it at noon or midnight if I want to get the right results. Noon’s out, so it’s got to be midnight.”

  “Midnight?” Naelen sighed.

  “Sorry, Mr. Dragon,” she said. “That’s the best I can do.”

  “We’ll be back at midnight,” I said.

  * * *

  Since we were back in Sea City for a bit and we had nothing pressing to do, I decided I’d go back to see Gina. I really hoped that she was doing okay in rehab, but I wasn’t holding my breath. For all I knew, she’d up and run off the minute I left town.

  But when I went to the gate and asked after her, I was told she was there, and that she could see visitors later on, after dinner.

  To kill time beforehand, I went down to the beach, took off my shoes, rolled up my pants, and walked in the surf. It was peaceful looking out at the horizon. Every once in a while, I saw a swimmer or a boat, but mostly my view was uninterrupted. Just the water and the sky. I felt good. Happy. Safe. Nothing mattered, not the weirdness between Naelen and me or the fact that I was about to go up against Cunningham.

  Everything was peaceful and serene.

  I didn’t walk for too long, though. My leg was still hurting a little bit from the place where Cunningham had made me stab myself. It wasn’t crippling or anything, but it wasn’t pleasant.

  So I went to the boardwalk, and there was no more serenity. It was crowded and full of shops. I stopped and got some fries at Thrasher’s, which is the only place to get fries in Sea City. Freaking delicious. I loved the place because they served two things. French fries. Soda. That was it.

  They were the best fries in the city. Probably the best fries anywhere on the planet, really. And the way to eat the fries was with malt vinegar, not ketchup. They always had bottles of it sitting out on the counter, which I’d pick up and generously douse over the fries. Yum.

  I saved some for Gina, but they wouldn’t let me bring them into the rehab facility.

  They escorted me to a visitor’s center, which was a big room like a living room, except that it was all white. It had white walls and white carpet and was full of white sofas covered in white throw blankets. There were white end tables decorated with white candles. It was kind of weird. When I commented to the woman who’d escorted me there on it—a woman who was wearing a white dress and a white scarf over her head—she said that the pristine surroundings inspired purity within the faithful.

  The faithful? What?

  Anyway, then Gina showed up. But she was in one of the white dresses too. She didn’t have a full white scarf on her head like the woman did. Instead, it was like a little triangular thing that tied behind her ears.

  When she saw me, she beamed. She held out her arms to me. “Clarke, I’m so glad to see you.”

  I was a wee bit… disturbed by her appearance. But she was my sister, so I crossed to her and walked into her arms.

  She gave me a huge hug. “How are you?”

  “Uh, peachy,” I said, pulling back. “What’s, um, what’s up with the outfit?”

  “Oh, we all wear white here,” she said. “The pristine color inspires purity within us.”

  “Right,” I said. Where had I heard that before? Oh, yeah, from the crazy lady talking about the faithful. “Gina, I feel like maybe I didn’t do a lot of checking into this place before I ponied up all that cash. Is this, uh, religious?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Spiritual, yes, but not religious. I feel as though I’ve taken the first step to not only healing my addiction, but to healing my spirit. And once my spirit is whole and pure, I feel certain I won’t be tempted to take dice anymore. I’ll be free of that horrible vice.”

  “No temptation at all? Really?” I wasn’t an expert, but I didn’t think that was how all this worked.

  “Maybe at first,” she said, shrugging. “But over time, it’ll fade. The more that I resist and choose the white light within me, the more that I will be filled with it.”

  Okay, well… that was weird and a little hokey, but I figured it was probably sound. It was always hard to stop doing something at first, but it did get easier with practice. If she needed to believe there was a white light in her in order to accomplish that, well, there were worse things. I nodded. “So, you like it here?”

  “I love it here.”

  “I have to admit,” I said, chuckling, “I was afraid I’d get here and find out you busted free. It’s happened before.”

  “This time it’s different,” she said. “This place is different. They’re really helping me here. I feel like a completely different person.”

  “Yeah, you, uh, you look like one.”

  She laughed.

  I didn’t.

  She took my hands in hers. “You could learn things here as well, Clarke. The white light flows through all of us, but things that we do can block up its path, keeping us stuck in old and painful ways. Coming here is like getting all those blocks removed, making sure you flow perfectly again.”

  “Mmm,” I said, “like a spiritual enema. Sounds amazing.”

  She giggled. “Clarke! You shouldn’t say stuff like that.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m find with my blockages for now, Gina. But if you’re happy here, then I’m glad. If this is working for you, then whatever white light you want, I’m good with it.”

  She smiled at me. “Purity, peace, and patience is all we need.”

  I cringed. “Uh, right. Whatever.”

  She hugged me again. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you. You’re my sister, and I love you.”

  I hugged her back, strangely touched by this. “I love you too.” I peered into her eyes. “Always will, you know?”

  “Always,” she agreed.

  * * *

  At the stroke of midnight, Naelen, Robin, and I gathered around a small table on the bottom floor of the lighthouse. The room was only lit by candles, and the small table contained a map.

  Robin set a shallow silver basin on top of the map. The basin glinted in the candlelight and I could see that it had been embedded with dragon scales. Robin began to toss things into the basin—herbs and powders and liquids. As she did, she intoned in a strange other language, one with harsh consonants and long vowels. She spoke strings of words and sprinkled something shimmery into the basin. She closed her eyes and plunged her fingers into the contents of the basin and said more ugly-sounding words.

  She lifted her hands high, liquid and bits of herbs flowing down her arms. “So mote it be,” she breathed upwards.

  The air filled with something very akin to static electricity. There was a crackling feeling to it, the way it feels on very dry, very cold days. The energy in the air all seemed to be radiating from the basin.

  Then she ran her fingertips around the edge of the basin.

  It began to glow a strange ethereal turquoise colo
r.

  “So mote it be!” Robin yelled in a loud, scratchy voice.

  The basin glowed brighter. The contents within it also started to glow.

  And then they started to smoke. Wisps of it rose from the inside of the bowl, blue-gray and white. The smoke wreathed our faces, ringed us as if it were protecting our small circle.

  Abruptly, Robin overturned the basin onto the table and the map.

  The liquid sizzled as most of it began to evaporate and disappear into clouds of white smoke.

  What was left gathered in glowing puddles on various places on the map.

  “All right,” said Robin, breathing heavily. There was sweat on her brow. She pointed to one of the puddles. “That’s a prison, one seeded by dragon sacrifice, so we know it’s not that one.”

  “Wait,” said Naelen, “this is showing us all the places where there’s a large concentration of power? Every single one?”

  “The only thing as powerful as that arrowhead thing you showed me is dragon sacrifice,” said Robin. “Well, maybe not the only thing, but it’s pretty damned close.”

  “What’s that?” I said, pointing to a puddle right over Sea City.

  “That’s Roxbone,” said Naelen. “We have a prison for magical creatures here.”

  “No, that’s Roxbone,” I said, pointing.

  “I have no clue,” said Robin.

  “It’s right over the part of the city where Penny Caspian’s hotel is,” I said. “It’s got to be something to do with her.”

  “Who’s Penny Caspian?” said Robin.

  “No one,” I said. “Never mind. Let’s eliminate that one. Come on, what have we got, guys?”

  Naelen had to get out his phone and look up all the places seeded with dragon sacrifice, and we had to check each of the puddles against his list. But eventually, we had it narrowed down to two different places.

  “So, one of these is Cunningham,” said Naelen. “What’s the other one?”

  “Could be dragon sacrifice that no one knows about,” said Robin.

  “Could be more of the objects,” I said. “There are nine of them. We’ve accounted for five of them here, but there are four more out there.”

  “Could be anything,” said Robin.

  “Right,” said Naelen. “But we don’t know which is which.”

  “We’ll have to check them both,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Naelen and I stood looking down on a tall, brick house. It was old. Must have been built quite some time ago. Stately and imposing, it towered over us.

  “So, what happens if we don’t come back later?” I said.

  “The pilot is going to assume we’re busy and go back home,” said Naelen.

  “Should we tell the pilot to alert the authorities?” I said. “Maybe you should call him and say that if we don’t come back, to give this address to the police.”

  “We’ve got to take care of this ourselves,” said Naelen. “You’re the one who’s always telling me how useless the police are against magic.”

  He had a point.

  “All right, fine,” I said. “So, hopefully, we’ll have a plane to escape on later. Unless Cunningham kills us all.”

  “So, what should we do?” he said. “Go knock on the front door? Neither of us can be compelled by him since we both have an object. We’ve got our machetes.” He patted his against his thigh.

  “No way,” I said. “Let’s use the pendant and turn ourselves invisible so that we can sneak in.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s good. That’s a good idea.”

  I shook my head at him. “You really don’t have ideas much, do you?”

  “I don’t think that way,” he said.

  “All right,” I said, pulling out the pendant by its leather string. “Now, as long as we stay close, it should work on both of—”

  Suddenly, there was movement behind me, so fast that I couldn’t react.

  And then there was a sharp pain on the top of my head and a thudding sound, and reverberating waves of pain going through my head and neck and shoulders, and then—

  Dark.

  * * *

  I came to with a massive headache. I looked around and found myself in a kitchen, slumped over a table covered in a red checkerboard tablecloth. I sat up slowly, blinking hard.

  “Hey there, Clarke,” said a voice.

  I turned in the direction of it, still feeling woozy. My eyes focused on a fellow dragon slayer, an older guy named Otis Sanders, who I sometimes ran into at Happy Harry’s. We were friendly, but we weren’t what you would call friends. Rumor had it he belonged to one of those human supremacy groups, the Brotherhood. I didn’t approve of crap like that.

  “Otis?” I said. “Where am I?”

  “You’re here at this Brotherhood safe house,” he said. “It’s pretty new, and we got it all fancied up. Even called in some favors to make sure that magic don’t even work here, just like at those jails they got.”

  I gulped. “This place is seeded with dragon sacrifice?”

  “Yup.” He grinned, looking proud.

  Great. So, we definitely hadn’t found Cunningham this time. But we also were in a bad spot. A place run by the Brotherhood wouldn’t be kind to Naelen. And I didn’t see him anywhere. “The ritual to use dragon sacrifice is magic,” I said. “Thought the Brotherhood didn’t hold with magic.”

  “Well, we got to do something to even the playing field,” said Otis. “This way, when we bring the dragons here, they don’t have the advantage.”

  “You bring dragons here, huh?” I said. “And, uh, what do you do with them?”

  “Kill ‘em, of course,” he said. “Ain’t any good dragon but a dead dragon. Now, the others with me, they said that since you was out there with a dragon, that you must be a sympathizer, but I vouched for you, Clarke. I told ‘em that you were a slayer, and that you must have some good reason for being with a dragon.”

  I debated quickly. I could either defend Naelen and make a stand or I could play along and hope that I could find some way to get us both out of here. Playing along seemed like the best option. “Uh… yeah. He tried to hire me for a job, but he wasn’t going to pay me until it was finished. I figured I’d just wait until the cash was in my pocket and then I’d kill him. Even had a good scheme for getting him to shift for me.”

  He chuckled. “That’s what I thought. I knew you wouldn’t be palling around with the likes of him.”

  “Of course not,” I said, straightening up.

  He patted me on the shoulder. “Good to have you here, Clarke. Good to have you.”

  I tried a smile. “Uh, so what’s going to happen to him, then?”

  “Happen to him?”

  “Well, I brought him in, and I don’t think it’s really fair, you stealing him from me. His carcass would fetch a lot of money, you know. That’s my money, near as I can figure.”

  Otis tapped his chin. “Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t know. I do know that he’ll be executed later on this afternoon. We throw ‘em in a tank of water and electrocute ‘em until they shift. Then we blow ‘em away.”

  Interesting. He could shift even though there was no magic in this place? So the shifting itself wasn’t magic, then? It was pure biology? Strange.

  “I can talk to others about making sure you get a cut of what he’s worth.”

  “Not good enough,” I said.

  “Well,” said Otis, “it might have to be.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Otis, you better find someone else that I can talk to about this. Someone who can get me my money.”

  “Now, now, don’t be like that. I helped you out here. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here talking to me, all free and clear, you understand that?”

  “Sure, Otis,” I said, smiling. “Where’s the dragon now?”

  “Locked up.”

  “Where?”

  He drew in a deep breath, narrowing his eyes. “In the basement.”
/>   Crap, had that been too suspicious? Apparently, Otis wasn’t as stupid as I thought he was. Time to save face. “Well, that’s a good place for him, because he can’t shift and fly out the window.”

  “Yeah,” said Otis. “That’s true.”

  “I’m glad he’s secure,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you guys to lose him. I did a lot of work to get him myself.”

  “No, I realize,” said Otis, sighing. “Look, there might be somebody I could talk to.”

  “You better hope there is,” I said. “You better scurry off and find that person right now.”

  He considered. “All right, then. You wait here, Clarke.”

  I smiled. Wait here? Like hell was I waiting here.

  I only waited as long as it took for him to be out of sight and then I eased my way out of the kitchen. I stood in the doorway and looked down a narrow hallway. Ahead of me, to my right, was a staircase that ascended to the upper levels of the house.

  I tiptoed down the hallway.

  It dead-ended into the front door. To my left, there was another doorway. The doorway opened onto another narrow hallway.

  Man. This place was like a maze.

  But there was some good news. Right next to the front door was a bow and set of arrows. The bow was bigger than I usually would use—it probably belonged to Otis or some other larger man—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use it if I needed to.

  Frankly, I’d have liked a different weapon for indoor use, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  I picked up the bow and slung the quiver over my back.

  I looked back the way I’d came. No one was there.

  But I didn’t like this. If I kept going, I’d have no way out besides running down this hallway. Well, I guessed there was the front door. Okay, fine. I took a deep breath and made my way slowly down the hallway.

  This hallway opened onto a big room with a fireplace and a mounted deer on the wall, its antlers casting ominous shadows over the lack of furniture in the place. There was nothing in there. There weren’t even any pictures on the wall. It was a dark, empty room, and I didn’t like it.

  I stepped into the room, and my footsteps echoed.

  I liked that even less.

  I took the bow out and three arrows. I moved through the room as quietly as I could, bow at the ready.