Lock and Key

by Evangeline Anderson

  The Drake girls stared at Sanchez each time he came jogging over to get the ball back, obvious disapproval written large on their faces. But they said nothing, even as he threw and retrieved the football from the Fae girls again and again and again.

  I wondered idly if there was some hierarchy among the Drakes that I didn’t know about. Was it a male dominated society because the males had dragons inside and the females didn’t? Or was it simply that Sanchez was the biggest and the strongest player on the field—with the possible exception of his friend, Reyes—so they all deferred to him? Were the Drakes like a wolf pack where the strongest ruled?

  I would really have to take some kind of History of Other Species class at some point if I could ever get out of Home Ec or Elementary Casting. It would be good to have more knowledge of the people I was now surrounded by—their traditions and customs and legends—it would go a long way towards helping me fit in at Nocturne Academy. Or so I hoped.

  Just as I was rounding the bend closest to the volleyball net, I saw Sanchez throw the football into the group of girls again…

  Only this time it hit Kaitlyn right in the side of the head.

  It was impossible to know if the big Drake had aimed for her on purpose or if she’d simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t care, anyway.

  I ran off the track at once, forgetting all about my wounded heels and the knife stabbing my side. My only goal was to get to my friend who had crumpled to the ground and was clutching the side of her face.

  The un-scarred side.

  “Kaitlyn? Kaitlyn—are you okay?” I skidded to a stop beside her and fell to my knees in the grass, reaching for her.

  She was moaning softly, her hand over the right side of her face—the pretty side, I thought dismally. I put an arm around her and she leaned towards me blindly.

  “My eye,” she whispered and I heard tears and panic in her voice. “Megan, I can’t see!”

  Her one good eye! I felt rage burn through me as I held her tight.

  “Hang on—I’m going to get you to the nurse. Uh—there is a nurse on campus, right?” I asked her.

  She nodded and I helped her to stand, though she was wobbly, as though the blow to the head had made her dizzy.

  Just then, Sanchez came jogging up, a slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth, as though he thought the whole thing was funny.

  “Oh snap—did I hit you, freak?” he said to Kaitlyn, laughing a little. “Damn—guess I did! I think I got you on the good side, too—guess you’ll be a freak all over now.”

  Kaitlyn started to cry—a low hopeless sound that tore at my heart and suddenly I wasn’t just angry—I was infuriated.

  “Hey, asshole!” I jumped to my feet and snapped at Sanchez, who looked at me in apparent surprise. “In case nobody taught you better, it’s not polite to call people names—especially after you hit them in the head like the asshole you are!”

  “What did you just call me?” he growled, bending low to shove his face into mine. I saw his dark brown eyes change to bright yellow and smelled the acrid tang of his sweat in my nostrils. It let me know the beast inside him was close—very close—to the surface.

  I guess I should have been afraid, but his implied threat only made me more enraged. I was so angry I felt like I was tingling all over—like sparks of fire were rushing through my body and filling my veins instead of blood.

  “I said you’re a small-minded, small-dicked, asshole,” I snarled in his face. “Not only that, you’re a bully!”

  Then I slapped him as hard as I could.

  The minute my hand connected with his cheek, it felt like something had left me and gone into him. The rage I was feeling somehow transformed itself into force because his head rocked back and he staggered backwards, though he was so big there was no way I should have been able to move him—at least not with physical strength alone.

  Sanchez put a hand to his cheek, his blazing yellow eyes widening, then narrowing with rage.

  “Why you little puta,” he growled. “I should have taught you a lesson yesterday but you’re sure as hell gonna get one now!”

  He started to come for me, one beefy arm drawn back, his fist cocked to punch. But suddenly Reyes was there, getting between us and stopping the blow that was meant for me as he caught his friend’s fist in one large hand.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Reyes’ voice was tight with anger, his own eyes glowing a molten gold as he shoved at the other male.

  “What the fuck, Reyes?” the enraged Drake snarled, trying to get around the other boy to go for me again. “This little puta slapped me, I’m gonna put her down for it!”

  “What’s wrong with you, acting like a cabron all the time?” Reyes demanded. “Picking on those who are weaker than you—trying to hurt females? She was right to call you a bully—that’s what you are!”

  His words seemed to catch Sanchez completely off balance. For a moment he just stared at Reyes as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard him right.

  Then Reyes shoved him as hard as he could and Sanchez staggered backwards. He found his balance and his face turned into a snarl of pure hatred. As it did, his mouth seemed to elongate strangely, looking more like the snout of an alligator than that of a human. At the same time, his teeth became long and sharp, glittering in the bright morning sunshine.

  “You’ll be sorry for that!” His voice was little more than a growl.

  “Is that how you want to play it? You want to challenge me here and now?” Reyes demanded. He still sounded angry but not frightened at all. “Remember your place, Sanchez—and don’t make me put you in it.”

  This seemed to make Sanchez even angrier because he rushed forward, his mouth and face becoming more deformed all the time. But just before he could land a blow on Reyes—or else bite off his head with the freakish animal mouth that had grown in place of his own—Coach Vasquez appeared from nowhere and stepped between them.

  “De-escalate!” She shouted at Sanchez. “De-escalate now! You let your drake out on school grounds and I swear by the shells of the first egg I’ll have you sent back to the Sky Lands and busted down in rank so fast your head will spin, Sanchez!”

  For a moment I didn’t think Sanchez would stop. The fury on his malformed face—which was more than half dragon now—was terrible to behold.

  Reyes, however, just stood coolly by, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching. His big body looked poised, however, as though he was ready to face any threat Sanchez offered. I realized that he had put himself between Kaitlyn and the other Drake—almost as though he was shielding her.

  I drew back and put an arm around her shoulders again, pulling her carefully back from the action. But Coach Vasquez’s threats seemed to have finally had an effect.

  Slowly Sanchez’s face began to lose its reptilian cast and his long, toothy muzzle shrank back into a human mouth. His eyes, however, remained an angry bright yellow and when I looked I saw that Reyes’ eyes still blazed pure gold.

  “That’s enough—both of you!” Coach Vasquez put a hand on both of their chests and shoved, forcing them apart. “Now what started all this?”

  I wanted to say she’d know what started it if she had been doing her job instead of reading in the shade. But I had a feeling that was asking for trouble that would last the entire time I spent here at Nocturne Academy. So instead I took a deep breath and held onto my temper with both hands as I stepped forward and spoke.

  “Sanchez threw a football and hit Kaitlyn in the face,” I said, glaring at him coldly. “Then he came over here and laughed about it and called her ugly names as though it was some kind of joke.”

  “I only said what we’re all thinking,” Sanchez snarled. “I called her a freak because she is a freak!”

  At that point Reyes drew back and punched him.

  It must have been a powerful blow because Sanchez, though he was built like a bull, went to his knees. He shook his head from side to side, lo
oking dazed, then he glared up at Reyes.

  “I don’t care who your Sire is, you’ll be sorry for that, pendejo!” he snarled.

  “I’m only sorry I have to take wing with someone who has no honor,” Reyes said coldly. Then he said something else in another language and I knew it wasn’t Spanish because I’d taken a year of it in my old school.

  This new language was guttural and deep—slightly Germanic, I thought—but when Reyes spoke it, it almost sounded like someone else was speaking through him. Someone or something with a much larger frame and deeper chest.

  Maybe something like a dragon, whispered a little voice in my head.

  Sanchez drew back as though he’d been punched again but he didn’t say anything in return. He just sat here in the grass, with my handprint still vivid on one cheek and a dribble of blood coming from his swelling bottom lip and glared at Reyes.

  At last he said, ‘This isn’t over,” in a thick, angry voice and spit blood on the ground. It looked very red against the green grass.

  Coach Vasquez started to yell at Reyes, probably for punching Sanchez, but Reyes turned on her, his eyes still brilliant gold, and said something else in the strange, deep voice that made her flinch back.

  She took a step away from him, eyeing him warily, then turned to me.

  “Go on—get her to the Healer,” she snapped, pointing at Kaitlyn. “Be quick about it!”

  “I’m going with them,” Reyes said, in his normal voice. “To make sure they get their safely.” He glared a silent threat at Sanchez and then turned to me. “Come on—this way.”

  23

  I wanted to tell the big Drake we didn’t need him but the sad fact was, we did. Kaitlyn still couldn’t see very well and I had no idea where I was going.

  Reyes shepherded us along, walking behind as though to ward off any danger and glancing back over his shoulder, as if to see if Sanchez was coming after us. He wasn’t, but that didn’t stop the other Drake from glaring with those yellow eyes as we retreated to the safety of the castle.

  Reyes came right into the girl’s locker room with us—which I guessed didn’t matter since nobody was in there. We would have kept going but Kaitlyn must have figured out where we were because she balked at going back out into the main part of the school.

  “Wait, Megan,” she begged me in a low, ragged voice. “Please, I don’t…don’t want anyone to see me like this. To see me all uncovered.”

  I understood at once that she didn’t want everyone seeing her scars but I was really worried about her hurt eye.

  “Isn’t there a back way we can take?” I asked, half speaking to her, half to Reyes.

  He nodded.

  “Yes, actually. There’s a back tunnel that leads from the boy’s locker room almost straight to the Healer’s office. She’s always on call during practice.”

  I almost said, “lead the way,” but caution stopped me. For all I knew, this was some kind of a trick—a way to get us alone while we were vulnerable and Kaitlyn was helpless.

  “Why are you helping us?” I demanded, staring up at him. “What’s in this for you?”

  “Nothing.” He looked pained. “Except perhaps to restore honor to the name of my Sire and my people. I am…” He cleared his throat. “Deeply ashamed of the way my countryman has treated Kaitlyn. It is cowardly and wrong to attack or abuse those who are weaker than ourselves.”

  He sounded sincere and I felt in my gut that he was telling the truth. Deciding to trust my instincts, I nodded at him.

  “Well, it was good of you to stand up for Kaitlyn.”

  He shook his head. “I should have spoken up sooner. Sanchez is a cabron with no honor—I should have called him out when he was rude to her to begin with.”

  “You can ask her forgiveness later,” I said, still keeping Kaitlyn close to me. She had managed to get the hair band out of her hair to hide the side of her face again, but this also meant I couldn’t see if her one good eye had gotten better or worse. “For now, we need to go.”

  Reyes nodded.

  “This way.”

  We went briefly out into the corridor with Reyes on the outside, blocking the view of any curious student who might be passing by, and then into the boys’ locker room, which looked pretty much exactly like the girls’ except for all the clothes and towels strewn around haphazardly.

  “There’s a door just here that leads to the corridor that goes to the Healer’s office,” Reyes remarked. “But wait,” he added, when I started for it.

  He ran to one of the lockers and opened it. Out of it, he pulled a white uniform shirt with long sleeves and brought it over to Kaitlyn.

  “Please—would you like to wear this?” he asked her softly. “To cover you from prying eyes, in case anyone else is with the Healer?”

  She looked up at him briefly, her one good eye still red and swollen and nodded—a quick, jerky motion of her head.

  Reyes knelt before her and helped her put on the shirt as though he was dressing a child. And indeed, Kaitlyn was so much smaller than the massive Drake, his shirt fit her as though she was a kid wearing her father’s clothing.

  The long sleeves hung down over her scarred hands and the shirt tails went down to her knees. The scarred calf of her left leg was still visible but other than that, she was almost completely covered by the big Drake’s uniform shirt.

  Kaitlyn clearly felt better when her scars were covered because she looked up again, briefly meeting Reyes’ concerned brown eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for helping me.”

  Reyes ducked his head and spoke formally.

  “You honor me by wearing my clothing. I do not deserve your thanks.”

  Then he led us swiftly through the door and down a long, narrow stone corridor to the Healer—which I supposed was what they called the school nurse here at Nocturne Academy.

  I just hoped my friend was going to be okay.

  24

  “She’ll be all right.” The Healer was an older woman in her sixties with salt and pepper hair cut short in practical style. Her office looked like any other school nurse’s I had ever seen—except for the far wall which held a lot of weird looking things floating in cloudy amber liquid in glass jars.

  I stared at them—was that really a mouse with two heads? And a snake eating its own tail? What possible use could that be? Were these arcane magical remedies or just a collection of medical oddities?

  I didn’t dare to ask—the Healer had a brisk, no-nonsense way about her that was not conducive to curiosity. She had already taken charge of Kaitlyn and had her lying down on a cot in the little exam room beside her office.

  I wanted to stay with her, but the Healer was shooing me off.

  “I told you, she’ll be fine. I’m just going to put another cold compress on that eye and use a little anti-inflammatory magic on her and she’ll be put right in no time,” she told me. “She’ll be excused from classes for the rest of the day but you’ll see her tonight in your dorm.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “That is—if you two are in the same dorm?”

  “We are,” I said firmly. “We’re in the dungeon together.”

  “Ah.” She nodded and eyed my lanyard speculatively. “You’re Megan Latimer, right? I thought you’d be in the South Tower.”

  “Yes I am Megan Latimer, but I’m not rooming in the Sisters’ dorm,” I said. “And I’d really like to stay with Kaitlyn.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not issuing you a pass just so you can sit around and chat with your friend,” she said briskly. “You’ll need to get to your second period class or risk demerits for tardiness.” She glared at Reyes who was standing guard, just outside the small exam room door. “And you need to go too, Ari.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’d better stay. Sanchez is mixed up in all of this and his blood is up. He nearly let his Drake out on the field just now.”

  The Healer’s face went a little pale, I thought. But all she said was, “And if he come
s in here, you can handle him?”

  Reyes nodded.

  “My wings fly higher than his,” he said, which sounded like some kind of Drake code I didn’t understand.

  I did understand though that Reyes was getting permission to stay while I had to go.

  “Why are you letting him stay?” I demanded, frowning at the Healer.

  She put a hand on one bony hip.

  “Because, Miss Latimer, a Drake with his blood up is one of the most dangerous things you could ever hope not to face. And only another Drake male—preferably one who out-ranks him—can even have a hope of controlling him or de-escalating the situation. Do you know what a full-grown Drake looks like in his animal form?” she demanded.

  I shook my head.

  “I’ve never seen one—well not completely anyway,” I said, figuring that the semi-transformation I had seen Sanchez undergo didn’t count.

  “We’re talking a two-ton beast bigger than a barn and some of them breathe fire! So yes, I’m allowing Ari Reyes to stay while I send you away. Now have the courtesy to leave my office before I give you demerits!”

  “Can I at least say goodbye to her?” I asked, lifting my chin. I was really racking up the demerits today, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to leave Kaitlyn without making sure she was okay.

  The Healer sighed deeply.

  “Fine—two minutes,” she snapped, pointing to the exam room. “And then you’ll have to go straight to your second period class.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped past Reyes and went into the room, where Kaitlyn was lying down in the dimness with a cool cloth over the right side of her face. She was still wearing the big Drake’s uniform shirt and she looked small and crumpled in the oversized clothing.

  “Hey, Kaitlyn.” Crouching by the side of the cot, I took her hand in mine and squeezed.

  “Hey.” She squeezed back.

  “The Healer is making me leave,” I told her. “But she says she’s going to excuse you from classes for the rest of the day so I’ll see you tonight in the Norm Dorm—okay?”