Handlers of Dragons (Children of Ankh Book 4)

by Kim Cormack

  Kayn pitched one of her sister’s heels at her. She caught it and winked mischievously. This was going to be good!

  Lexy began smashing her heel against the heavy-duty shatter resistant barrier, while yelling a colourful list of obscenities. A fanned-out crack formed across the divider. She slammed her fist through the window. With her hand covered in blood, she grabbed one of the men by his hair, yanked him through and tossed him at Kayn while declaring, “Snack time!”

  The terrified Abaddon attempted to squirm away as Kayn swiftly pinned him down. She stared deep into his eyes as she declared, “You should have given me candy.” Kayn immobilized him by putting her full weight on his shoulders, grasped either side of his face and allowed her ability to take hold. The warmth of his life force traveled up both of her arms, into her chest where it continued to gather until the blissful euphoria caused her to shiver. Dark energy was always one hell of a trip. Her emotions sunk into the quicksand of her Dragon soul and for a time all was lost but the numb sensation of nothing at all. When she finally looked up, Lexy was chasing the other man across the dusty parking lot. She must have climbed through the window into the front. Power was surging through Kayn’s being so she opted for the direct route as she booted the door. It flew off the hinges and soared through the air, landing in the gravel lot creating an explosion of dust and debris. Kayn casually jumped down from the back of the van into the dusty lot. People came from every direction, trailing ominous black and gray mist, wielding various weapons. She coldly calculated her next move as her eyes scanned the junkyard. There were shooters with weapons drawn perched on the tops of the stacked rubble of demolished vehicles as dozens of unafraid Abaddon strolled towards her. If they were two normal girls they’d be in over their heads but they weren’t normal. They were anything but... Unaffected by rational things like numbers of assailants, she visually searched the parking lot for her partner in debauchery, narrowing in on her almost instantly.

  Her crimson-haired vengeance filled immortal sibling rose to her feet beside a body. She brushed herself off and announced, “Who’s next?”

  They came at Lexy as she booted them away, hurling them through the air and stomping on the heads of those unfortunate enough to remain underfoot. Kayn watched her sister fight, mesmerized by the ghoulish blur of violence. Someone grabbed her from behind and repetitively stabbed her. Annoying. Kayn kicked back with immortal force, snapping her assailant’s leg in two. She coolly observed her enemy as he shrieked in agony, squirming around in the dust like a pig with a bone visibly protruding from his calf. Kayn emotionlessly yanked the serrated blade from her back and watched the sheer terror in the Abaddon’s eyes as she stomped on his face. A male voice in her head prompted, ‘behind you on your right.’ Kayn stepped to the left as she spun around. Half a dozen arrows whirled through the air, missing her by a hair. She heard a few popping sounds. Aware that she’d been hit, Kayn icily peered down at the blood pooling on her shirt from the gunshot to her abdomen. The heat from her healing ability began searing through her as the wound closed and her body forced the bullet out. It dropped in front of her. She was healing extraordinarily fast. They were attacking her from all sides as she slashed each assailant with the blade in a blur of red spray and confusion, until the fighting ceased leaving the two Dragons standing in the wake of their destruction. They heard the tinny sound of something falling in the pile of wreckage. Both girls sprinted towards the noise. One by one, they hunted the survivors, feeding on their energy to heal, until they were crawling through wreckage as wild creatures covered in the blood of their enemies, void of humanity. Aware of little but the sun’s radiance and metallic scent of the blood stiffening their clothes.

  “Kayn! Kayn! We’re here!” a voice called from below her royal perch. “Come down! We’ve called the Aries Group. We need to get you guys out of here. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later!”

  She didn’t care but something within her urged her to listen. Zach...it was him. Kayn coldly met her Handler’s gaze. She inquisitively cocked her head. She wanted to be left alone. Zach began climbing up the wreckage, ceasing movement close enough to feel like a nuisance.

  He tried to urge her to come down with hand motions while whispering, “Please Kayn. We need to leave.”

  For some reason, she felt obligated to follow Zach’s directions even though she didn’t want to. Kayn climbed down to stand before him. Zach was holding out his hand. He wanted her to take it. She felt her hand rising from her side against her will. This irritated her but as their skin made contact, the driving urgency to continue the massacre abruptly subsided. The reality of what she was doing came into focus.

  Zach prompted, “You’re almost there...Come back to me.”

  She felt the tie to his soul as he gave her hand a gentle squeeze and cautiously inched closer until she was in his arms. As she inhaled his scent, she felt a sedating sense of peace within. Yes. She wanted to go with him. She felt her emotions beginning to rise to the surface.

  Zach pulled away. He lovingly cupped her cheeks with his hands. While utterly beaming, he said, “Welcome back Brighton. We need to go.”

  As Kayn became aware of her situation, her eyes searched for the others. Grey was standing next to Lexy with his arms around her. That’s nice. They’d obviously made up. Multiple loud shots rang out in the silence. Driven by an instinctual need to protect Zach above all, Kayn shoved her Handler out of the way, fully prepared to take one for the team. Lexy let out a guttural wail as she stepped in the bullets path with both hands raised. The bullets froze in midair. It took a second to register the hovering bullets. “Holy shit,” Kayn whispered. That snapped her the rest of the way out of Dragon mode. She looked back to find both Grey and Zach were also frozen in place. The shooters were like statues. Awestruck, she watched as Lexy reached out and touched one of the hovering bullets. This was extremely cool! Lexy is way better at freezing time. From behind them, someone started a slow clap. The Dragons spun around to find their rather inept paternal figure thoroughly enjoying the show.

  Seth continued to clap as he marched up to motionless Grey and gave him a pat on the head.

  Lexy was the first of the Dragon sisters to speak, “Did you do that?”

  “No child,” Seth proudly admitted. “That was all you.”

  “But, I can’t do that,” Lexy countered as she plucked the hovering bullet out of the air and stared at it in the palm of her hand.

  “You couldn’t do that. Now you can,” the mischievous Guardian clarified as he poked another bullet. It dropped into the gravel at his feet.

  “Will I be able to do this?” Kayn questioned as she grabbed another bullet from the air.

  Seth buried the bullet at his feet with a kick as he answered, “I honestly have no idea. Stopping time is a Guardian thing and you are part Guardian so it’s entirely possible. It doesn’t last for long though so you might want to start taking those left-over Abaddon thugs out. Come see me the next time you’re in the in-between and we’ll experiment.”

  Lexy scowled at Seth as she vehemently retorted, “You left me at a demon farm for five years!”

  “Are you really still on that? It’s been over forty years. Get over it!” Seth announced as he tried to come closer.

  She curtly promised, “I was eleven. I may not be able to kill you but I’ll snap your bones like twigs if you take one more step!”

  Seth sighed as he opted out and countered, “So, you’re saying you’ll need time before we cuddle?”

  Lexy rolled her eyes and sparred, “Enough bullshit black spandex man. How do I unfreeze them?”

  It was then that Kayn smiled. She’d become so used to ignoring the weird stuff, she hadn’t noticed her genetic sire’s choice of form.

  Seth marched over and placed both of his hands on Kayn’s forehead. Her brain felt all tingly. Seth was grinning like a naughty child as he whispered, “You’re welcome.” Without explaining, he vanished. He materialized behind one of their assailant
s and rather joyously snapped his neck. “Come on you two,’ he declared. “The jobs not finished. The Aries group is coming. Also, you might want to keep the whole freezing time thing on the down low.” Seth disappeared and reappeared behind the next shooter and effortlessly took him out.

  They were both so entranced with what he was able to do that they’d stopped paying attention to the duties at hand.

  “We only have a few minutes here, maybe less, Lexy’s new,” Seth prompted and they joined in to finish the job. He motioned them closer as he announced, “Time to leave. The Aries Group is almost here.” He pointedly looked at Kayn as he declared, “They shouldn’t see you looking like that twice in less than a week, they’ll get antsy.”

  He probably had a point there.

  Seth placed his hands on their Handler’s shoulders and prompted, “We’re out of time. If you want to come along, you’d better be touching them in...3,2,1.”

  They grabbed their Handler’s and in a flash, they were back inside their hotel room. The boys were both completely alert and confused as hell as to how they got there.

  Seth pressed his fingers against his lips to shush the group. He grinned at the four, then looked at Lexy and urged, “Take a chance. Come see me. I’ll help you figure that new ability out.” He tossed a bag of stones at her.

  Lexy looked like she was about to tell Seth off when he disappeared in a flash of light.

  Grey glared at Lexy and questioned, “What new ability?”

  Lexy pressed a finger of caution against pursed lips as she dumped the privacy stones into her hand and placed them around the room.

  As soon as the stones were set, Kayn piped in, “Lexy froze time! I’m starving. Dibs on the shower!” With that, she dashed away, leaving her sister there to explain. Once they’d all showered and changed into less murdery clothes, they sealed their blood-soaked garments in bags and left them in the tub planning to dispose of them later. They decided as a group to stay in and mend fences. Nobody asked any questions or fought about trivial things that couldn’t be undone as the four watched a couple comedies and dined on the greasiest entrées room service had to offer while snuggled up in bed.

  Utterly exhausted, the four Ankh fell asleep early and awoke to a brand-new day. With Lexy and Kayn being the ones enrolled, the boys opted to stake out the exterior of the school, hoping to head off any complications before they arose. The two Dragons set off in search of the girl slated for Correction. They were both relieved as they spotted Carmen because they’d rather epically dropped the ball the day before. They were supposed to be staying in the background so they’d be familiar yet unknown. If Carmen survived her Correction and recalled seeing them in passing, the odds were much higher that she’d come willingly. For days they wandered the graveyard for the creative, attending classes while scrutinizing their prospective clan member from afar. It didn’t take long to realize she was a horrible person who snuffed out the weak in the wilds of this cliché of a high school as lions would gazelles. They both wanted to leave this rotten mortal for whatever or whomever came for her next but that wasn’t the job. Their duty was to snatch her after she survived her Correction. Each day they entered the vehicle feeling like they were wasting their time but it wasn’t their job to determine who got to be Ankh. They tailed Carmen to self defence class and then home that evening. She was walking to the front door as they pulled into the driveway across the street. Her front door was partially open. Carmen paused. Kayn felt it in her soul as the door shifted ever so slightly in the breeze. They all ducked as Carmen looked back at the street just as Kayn had a couple years ago. Kayn’s stomach clenched. It was happening... Right now. The girl was a heinous bitch but nobody deserved this. Kayn looked around the vehicle. They were all aware of what was happening. Either it was one of the other clans or Abaddon in that house. She sensed the darkness within Carmen’s house and a tidal wave of hunger washed over her. Kayn was white knuckling the handle of the door as Grey sat up front blowing bubbles and snapping his gum. If she ate him it would shut him the hell up. Her pulse began racing as her veins brightened making her skin virtually see-through.

  Lexy glanced back at Kayn and whispered, “Calm yourself down. Breathe in and out until you’ve got it under control. You know the drill. We wait. We can only take her if she survives on her own or if Azariah gives her another chance.” She paused for a second before adding, “Zach, she ingested too much dark energy earlier, she might need to be weaned off. I’d feed her before she eats Grey.”

  “What?” Grey asked as he looked back.

  “Keep snapping your gum Grey,” Lexy threatened. “If she doesn’t kill you, I will.”

  Zach was still gapped out staring at Carmen’s house.

  Grey snapped, “Earth to Zach! Do something before she eats me!”

  Zach looked at Kayn and whispered, “Oh, shit. That can’t be good. I’m on it.” He offered her his hands.

  That was offensive. I’m on it? Kayn was about to accept a snack from her Handler when Kevin’s voice yelled, ‘No!’ His voice echoed within her mind. Rattled, Kayn yanked her hands away from Zach and stammered, “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Lexy countered. “If you take too much I’ll bring him back. It’s not a big deal.”

  She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone she was being spiritually guided by her enemy. It was a conflict of interest. Kayn shook her head slowly as she explained, “My gut’s warning me against doing this. It’s never steered me wrong.”

  Grey piped in from the driver seat, “I’m curious, where did you put the dark energy you ingested earlier?”

  “I don’t know,” Kayn answered honestly. “Seth touched my head and told me it would help me. Maybe, it was something to do with that?”

  “Why was he there?” Zach asked. “We were incapacitated. We missed a large chunk of the conversation.”

  “Apparently, Seth’s an avid stalker. He knows where we sleep, quite literally.” Lexy answered. “That’s how he brought us back to our hotel room.”

  “Gross,” Zach commented.

  Grey laughed and launched his gum at the dash. Lexy grimaced and said, “That’s why we can’t take you anywhere.”

  She needed to cut herself and heal. She had to do something before she ceased to have control over her actions. Kayn reached for a blade. She was poised to slice into her palm as Lexy slapped it out of her hand and quietly scolded, “If Abaddon’s doing the Correction, they’ll smell it.”

  Their attention was brought back to the normal looking house as the lights turned on in the kitchen. “Weird... They usually cut the power or loosen a bulb,” Kayn noted. Nobody ever makes it out of the doorway. Kayn flashed back to a vision of herself trying to flick on a light in the entrance of her house. The house was quiet, uneasily so. The vertical blinds had been left slightly open but they couldn’t see what was going on from this vantage point.

  “I’m going to get a closer look. If I get caught, I’ll improvise,” Grey declared as he quietly got out, closed the car door behind him and sprinted across the road.

  Zach was about to follow him when Lexy said, “No, let him do it. This is his thing.”

  Grey snuck through the grass to the blind covered window and found the right angle to peek inside. He stepped away, strolled up the front steps and musically knocked on the door. What in the hell was he doing? The door opened. He began chatting up the completely unharmed girl they’d been observing. A moment later a teenage boy with a sketchy smoky aura appeared. He placed his arm possessively around Carmen and closed the door in Grey’s face.

  Grey walked back to the car and got inside, looking defeated. “Let’s go,” he bluntly stated. He started the engine and pulled away.

  “Wait. What’s going on?” Zach questioned.

  Grey explained, “There’s a kitchen full of Lampir and our Carmen appears to be entirely unfazed by her family’s corpses on the linoleum. This isn’t our girl.”

  The pregnant teen with the matching yellow aura.
Kayn confessed, “I thought I saw another one but she was pregnant.”

  “Maybe this is a test? This definitely isn’t playing out like a normal Correction,” Zach inferred as he grabbed a bag of Doritos from the grocery bag of surveillance snacks on the floor.

  Kayn snagged one. She was about to eat it when Kevin’s voice directed, ‘You need to go back. If you feed from the Lampir. You’ll get the information needed to complete the job. Use Chloe’s ability. Seduce your way inside. Lampir love the pheromones just as much as Lycanthrope.’ She touched Grey’s shoulder and asserted, “Go back. If they’re Lampir, Carmen’s lack of reaction is mind control. They could just be taking their time doing her Correction.”

  “Lampir don’t partake in Corrections,” Grey clarified.

  “Go back. I’ll dose them with pheromones and find out everything they know,” Kayn asserted. She devoured her Dorito in one mouthful and grinned at Zach as she realized he’d bought her the insanely spicy ones. He really was sweet... Most of the time. She really needed to give him credit. He was trying.

  Grey turned the vehicle around, blindly trusting her gut instinct which made her feel a tad guilty because it wasn’t really hers. If Kevin ever screwed her over while guiding her, she was totally going to kick his ass.

  Zach leaned in and whispered, “Did I hear that right?”

  “I’ll explain when we’re alone,” she whispered. Kayn grimaced as she wiped the Dorito dust on her black pants. Seducing her way into a house while smelling like Doritos might prove to be rather comical. Kayn enquired, “Does anybody have a breath mint?”

  Lexy passed back a mint as she asked, “Are you sure you’re capable of this right now? You haven’t had the best luck summoning up your abilities.”

  Kayn met her sister’s concerned gaze as she replied, “I can usually trigger the pheromones with Zach’s help.” She popped the mint into her mouth.

  Lexy winked at Zach as she passed him a mint and teased, “You’re on Romeo.”