Fire Marked

by Val St. Crowe

  “I saw the proof,” said Salix, and he turned around to address anyone who was listening in. “You want to know what happened, you ask Selah Holmes. She has everything you need to know.”

  Ossian clenched his hands into fists. “Doesn’t matter what she has, Salix. You want to take over this clan, you’re going to have to kill me. And I don’t kill easy.”

  “Name your weapons,” said Salix.

  “Pistols,” said Ossian. “No magic.”

  Salix swallowed.

  “You be ready at noon?” said Ossian.

  * * *

  The sun was high overhead and we were all gathered in a clearing at the end of the campground. There was going to be a duel. A real old school pistol duel like in the Westerns. At high noon to boot.

  Lachlan said he didn’t know why Ossian had chosen that weapon. Pistol duels were almost entirely down to chance unless someone was incredibly fast and incredibly deadly with his aim. Lachlan speculated that was maybe what Ossian wanted. He knew he was guilty, and so he wanted fate to decide whether he remained the leader or not.

  Since Ossian couldn’t officiate over this duel, the job had been given to another man, someone named James, who was as close as possible to neutral in this situation. James had a talisman that would let him know if either of them cheated and used magic.

  The morning had been full of people flocking to Selah to read the blackmail letter. Most believed and had turned against Ossian. They were very worried that he would cheat again, and they wanted to be sure that James watched the talisman like a hawk.

  In the end, the talisman had actually been modified so that it would flare brightly if magic was in use. That seemed to satisfy everyone.

  The atmosphere was tense. The people felt betrayed. They had trusted Ossian, and now they felt as if they didn’t even know him.

  James said, “A challenge has been issued by Salix Bryant against Ossian Bryant, to the death. Should Salix be victorious, he will be the new leader of the Bryant clan.”

  There was a smattering of applause.

  “He’s not the leader yet!” snarled Ossian, who was wearing a tight t-shirt that clung to his muscular chest and arms. He looked angry and determined.

  The applause stopped immediately.

  “Please stand back to back,” said James.

  Ossian and Salix turned away from each other.

  James reached into Salix’s holster and examined his gun. The pistols were six shooters. The two would have six shots to hit each other. James was checking to make sure everything in the gun was on the up and up. When finished, he returned the gun to Salix’s holster and did the same thing with Ossian’s gun.

  Satisfied, James took two steps back. “You will pace off twenty paces. When I tell you to turn and fire, the duel will begin. The object is to render a mortal death in the other—head shots, heart shots. If no one has done this after both of you have emptied your guns, whoever drew first blood will be considered the victor. The victor will be given a machete to cut off the loser’s head and render them true dead. If neither manage to wound the other, this duel is a draw, and the challenge must be renewed. Twenty paces now.”

  Ossian and Salix paced off carefully and then both stopped, waiting, facing opposite directions.

  It was silent. No one said anything. The only sound was the distant sound of nature—birds twittering in the trees, insects buzzing in the air.

  “Turn and fire!” bellowed James.

  They moved too fast for me to see them turn. I heard the loud booming noise of gunshots ripping out of the guns, one right after the other. Bang-bang-bang.

  Salix yelped.

  I turned to look at him. He was still firing, but he was clutching his side.

  And then a bullet struck him right in the forehead. Blood arced out of the wound, and Salix fell backward onto his back. Then another bullet struck his motionless body. It hit his shoulder, making Salix jump off the ground.

  Then it was silent.

  I turned to look at Ossian, who hadn’t been hit at all. He strode over to Salix’s body. He surveyed the motionless man, whose unseeing eyes stared at the sky. Ossian nudged Salix with one toe.

  James came forward and handed Ossian a machete.

  Ossian swung, severing Salix’s head from his body. He looked up at everyone gathered around. “The challenge has been fulfilled. Is the clan satisfied or do more wish to take it up?”

  Silence.

  Then another voice. “I wish to take up the challenge!”

  James reached down and fished Salix’s gun up off the ground. “Legend Bryant will challenge Ossian Bryant in a pistol duel to the death. Should Legend be victorious, he will be the new leader of the Bryant clan.”

  Legend held out his hand for the gun.

  James handed it over.

  Legend examined it.

  Some other men came over to provide both Ossian and Legend with more ammunition. A few others dragged Salix’s body away. A few people trailed after him. Two women were crying. A man was stone-faced.

  “That’s his girl,” said Lachlan softly to me. “And his brother and sister.”

  I shuddered.

  “Please stand back to back,” said James to Ossian and Legend.

  The two turned.

  James went through the same thing again, having the men pace off twenty paces.

  Then he yelled, “Turn and fire!”

  I kept my eyes on Legend, but before he could even get off a shot, a bullet exploded at his throat. A spray of blood and gore overtook him, and he stumbled, going down hard on both his knees. His gun discharged ineffectively, the bullet going into the ground.

  I looked over at Ossian, who squeezed off another shot right away.

  This one hit Legend in the eye. He fell to the ground.

  Ossian jogged over to the body, one hand out for the machete.

  James handed it over.

  Ossian swung.

  A murmur went through the crowd.

  Ossian raised the bloody machete over his head. “The challenge has been fulfilled. Is the clan satisfied or do more wish to take it up?”

  A short pause, and then the answering yell. “I wish to take up the challenge!

  Applause from those gathered.

  “Kill the bastard!” yelled someone.

  But the new challenger, Eddie Grant, failed to kill Ossian. Instead, Ossian shot him in the head.

  The crowd didn’t take that well. They wanted Ossian dead. He was guilty. They knew it, and they weren’t happy with the idea that he was getting away with it.

  John Knight stood up next. We’d talked to him, and I felt a little anxious at the idea he was going to get himself killed.

  I hoped he’d be the one to kill Ossian.

  He wasn’t. He managed to wound Ossian, landing a shot in Ossian’s thigh, but Ossian had already hit him first, a shot to the gut. Ossian put two more bullets in John, who lay on the floor yelling in pain until Ossian cut his head off.

  I was starting to feel sick. I’d never been happier for democracy in my life.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” Lachlan said. “We’ve got to do something. Ossian’s going to kill all the able-bodied men in the clan, and we need them to fight and get Jackal back.”

  “Well, what are we going to do?” I said. My eyes widened. “You are not fighting him.”

  “No,” said Lachlan. “I wouldn’t do that. A pistol duel is suicide.”

  I let out a breath. “Thank God.”

  “We could kill him ourselves. It’s what the crowd wants.”

  “Kill him?” I said. “Seriously? How? You want to twist his head off?”

  “Maybe we just use whiteflame,” he said. “It’s easier.”

  “Well…” Killing a guy in cold blood? Sure, he’d betrayed his clan or whatever, but I didn’t actually care about that, not really, and I wasn’t sure that I would be okay with simply pouring deadly whiteflame into this man. It seemed like overkill.

  And t
hen I looked up in the sky, and what to my wandering eyes should appear?

  But a rogue dragon.

  I grinned, pointing up at it. “How’s that for perfect timing, Lachlan? I’ll just lead the dragon to him.”

  Lachlan grinned too. “Yeah, I guess that works.”

  Ossian was currently yelling at the crowd and all kinds of men were lining up, yelling that they took up the challenge.

  I moved closer to Ossian, keeping an eye on the dragon, which was coming down quickly, nose toward the ground.

  That’s right, come to mama, I thought at it.

  The dragon seemed to see me, sense me, something. It was coming right for me.

  I looked back at Ossian. He was reloading his gun, ready for another challenger.

  I looked back at the dragon. It was still coming. I had to wait until just the right moment, or the dragon wouldn’t go for Ossian.

  I turned back to look at him. He was still loading the gun.

  Back to the dragon. Closer. Closer.

  Back to Ossian. He was done loading. He was cocking the gun, getting a bullet into the chamber.

  My heart started to thud in my chest. Come on, dragon, I thought at it.

  And then…

  Now.

  I ran at Ossian at full speed, the dragon right on my heels. The minute I got close to him, I dove out of the way.

  The dragon tackled Ossian, breathing fire in his face, catching his hair on fire, his beard.

  Ossian screamed. He flailed helplessly, shooting into the dragon.

  The dragon whined as the bullets hit it, but it didn’t stop. It kept at Ossian, digging in its claws, breathing fire, sinking its teeth into Ossian’s charred flesh.

  Ossian kept screaming.

  Until he stopped.

  And then Lachlan was behind me, seizing my hand.

  We reached for our whiteflame, and it was right there, and I realized I’d missed it, missed wielding all this power, this energy. It felt good as it tore through our bodies, like it was filling us with light and joy, and I poured its destruction at the dragon and at Ossian.

  The dragon squealed.

  The whiteflame took out its entire midsection and most of Ossian’s.

  It kept going, into the ground, burning a huge deep hole, and I knew we should stop, but I didn’t really want to. I just wanted that white wave surging through me. I wanted to keep feeling that power. I wanted lit up with it. I wanted—

  But I yanked my hand away from Lachlan.

  Who panted and shook and stared at the palm that had been in mine, his eyes wide.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Look, I called everyone here,” said James in a voice that barely carried over the loud conversation that was going on around the bonfire, “because we need to figure out what’s going on.”

  It was later that day, near dusk. The rest of the day had been spent burying bodies. There were so many who were dead.

  Lachlan and I didn’t know what it was that we should do. We couldn’t very well ask for people to help us go after Jackal right now. Well, we could ask, but it seemed like it would be in poor taste, after everything. However, we didn’t know how much longer Jackal even had. He could very well be dying right now. He needed someone to rescue him.

  I was in favor of using that as our arguing point. Saying that too many members of the gang had lost their lives that day, and that we had to go save Jackal because of that.

  But Lachlan said that they might get killed trying to get Jackal back, so what kind of argument was that?

  Maybe he was right. I didn’t know. But we had to do something.

  There might be nothing that would could do except go on our own. However, there were too many drakes for the two of us to take down on our own, and our whiteflame was difficult to control. Also, it was a little weird the way it had made me feel the last time I’d used it, almost as if I was… addicted to it or something, which didn’t make any kind of sense.

  I hadn’t even brought that up to Lachlan. I doubted it had made him feel the same way. I was embarrassed about the way it had affected me.

  “Hey,” said James. “Can we please all quiet down for a few minutes here? I’m trying to talk.”

  “Who put you in charge?” yelled someone.

  “I’m not in charge,” said James. “No one’s in charge. That’s why I called this meeting. We need to figure out what we’re going to do. We need to get a new leader. We only have one way of getting a new leader around here, and that’s through a challenge. We don’t have anything in place for what to do when our leader is burned alive by a rogue dragon.”

  There was a lot of mumbling amongst all the members of the clan.

  I turned to Lachlan. “What if the leader dies of old age?”

  “They’re vampires.”

  “Right,” I said. “An accidental death?”

  “Never happened. Near as I know, Gemini was the original leader, and Ossian is the only other leader they’ve ever known.”

  Well, that was kind of crazy.

  “Quiet!” yelled James.

  Slowly, quietness descended onto the group.

  “I welcome any proposals,” said James.

  “I nominate you as leader,” yelled a voice.

  “No!” said James, terror in his eyes. “I don’t want to be the leader of the clan. Don’t ask me to do it. I won’t.”

  More mumbling.

  James held up his hands.

  Slowly, they got quiet again.

  “We need a system for talking,” he said. “So, if you have something to say, please raise your hand.”

  “Are you kidding?” yelled someone. “We ain’t in grade school!”

  “Just do it,” snapped James.

  More mumbling.

  Then the mumbling faded.

  Nobody raised a hand.

  James looked out over them all. “No one has any proposals for how we get another leader?”

  Silence.

  James dragged his hands over his face. “Well, do we have any nominations?”

  More silence.

  “Anyone at all?” said James.

  “Anyone we would have nominated got killed by Ossian,” yelled someone.

  “Raise your hand,” said James.

  “Fuck you, with your ‘raise your hand,’” yelled someone else.

  “You don’t want to lead, pick someone else,” yelled a third person.

  “Why should he pick?” yelled some other person.

  And then everyone started yelling. People got to their feet and said things at the top of their lungs, trying to address the crowd, but everyone was talking too loudly, and no one could be heard at all.

  Lachlan and I exchanged a glance. I could see that he was annoyed. He probably just wanted them to be quiet, like I did, so that we could get up and ask them to help us with Jackal. Maybe all they needed to stop this leader business from becoming a big problem was a distraction of some kind. Maybe saving Jackal was just the ticket.

  Quiet, I thought at the crowd, leaning close to Lachlan.

  He took my hand into his, rubbing his thumb over the inside of my palm.

  I mouthed it. “Quiet.” And then I said it out loud. “Quiet.”

  “Quiet,” said Lachlan, shaking his head at them.

  And then… suddenly, it started to get quiet. People stopped speaking, and they all turned to look at us.

  I felt a strange, panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. That had just been a weird coincidence, right? They hadn’t gotten quiet because of us, had they?

  Lachlan looked frightened as well. He got to his feet, dragging me up with him, since we were still holding hands. “Uh, maybe this isn’t the best time to be worrying about this. It’s already been quite a trying day for everyone. Maybe you should all go to your campers and RVs. Go to bed and get some rest.”

  The crowd suddenly turned, everyone moving together. In unison, they began heading away from the bonfire, shuffling off with blank expressions on
their faces.

  I put my fingers to my lips. What the hell was happening?

  Lachlan squeezed my hand.

  We stood there, watching, as every last one of them walked away.

  When we were alone, we stared into the fire, unsure of what had just happened.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “It’s compulsion,” I said quietly. We were back in our camper now, both of us sitting on the couches, feeling afraid and confused. “It’s got to be some kind of compulsion. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen people behave like that.”

  “But they’re vampires,” said Lachlan. “Magical creatures can’t be compelled.”

  “Alastair did it,” I said. “And so did Darla Tell.”

  “Right,” he said. “So, we’ve got some kind of crazy compulsion power now? You think it’s part of the blood bond?”

  “Has to be,” I said. “I wonder what the limits are.”

  “Why are we suddenly getting new blood bond powers?” said Lachlan. “Are you… feeling like this bond is getting, I don’t know, weirder?”

  “Weird in what way?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Never mind. You know, I never really compelled anyone before. We didn’t even mean to do it this time, and we made them all do as we said.”

  “I’ve done it,” I said.

  “Really? Because it always felt wrong to me,” said Lachlan. “Like I was violating a person.”

  “Well, not for anything bad,” I said. “But I used to compel the maids not to say anything to Alastair when they saw me eating chocolate. Because he wanted to know if I broke the diet he set for me.”

  Lachlan furrowed his brow. “Fucking Alastair. I wish I could bring him back to life and kill him again.”

  “Sorry I brought that up,” I said.

  “How’d that work, anyway?” said Lachlan. “I thought that compulsion only worked when the person was in your presence.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’d have to hide outside the room while they were giving their reports to Alastair for the day to make sure it didn’t wear off.”

  “Well, this doesn’t seem to have worn off.” He went to the window in the kitchen and peered outside. “Everyone’s still asleep.”

  “So, it seems like it’s pretty powerful, then,” I said. “Huh.”