Angel switched off the comm unit. He crossed the space and stood at the open doorway and stared out at the landscape of Earth. There was nobody about, the place eerily silent. Nothing moved, until he looked upwards and searched the darkening sky.
As always, his mind filled with wonder when faced with the immensity that was Kronos. Black with iridescent purple lights rippling across his hide, he hovered above the ship, silhouetted against the red sky. Peering down out of huge violet orbs, his gaze fixed on Angel.
“Come.”
The word echoed in Angel’s mind. Then the dragon gave a flick of his tail and headed off toward the mountains.
Not giving himself any time to think it was a really bad idea, Angel raced back into the docking bay, jumped into a speeder, and was heading after Kronus. As he steered the speeder through the open doors, Rico spoke over the comm unit.
“Go have some fun, Kid, but don’t tell the captain I told you to. We’re leaving in…” he turned away obviously to consult with Devlin, “…two hours, so be back with our scaly friend by then.”
“I’ll do my best.”
It wasn’t as though they would leave him behind and risk the wrath of his sister. As he passed the second set of doors, Tannis came over the comm. “Angel, get back here, right—” He shut off the link without waiting for her to finish, pressed the button to unlock the comm unit from his wrist, and tossed it back into the docking bay.
Once outside, the speeder hovered just above the ground. Angel stared up into the darkening sky trying to catch a glimpse of where Kronus had gone. A faint shimmering trail showed the flight path, and off in the distance a black speck appeared. “Come.”
The word held a hint of irritation this time.
Angel steered the speeder above the level of the few trees that dotted the barren landscape and then headed after the black speck. The air was cutting and soon the icy wind was whipping through his hair. As he increased to maximum speed, he threw back his head and laughed. Wow, he was on Earth.
“Is something amusing…kid?”
There was no point in answering. While Kronus could project his thoughts over immeasurable distances, Angel couldn’t project his anywhere at all. And that was probably just as well, he wasn’t sure he wanted people to know what he was thinking. Sure, he could see the advantages—the Collective had ruled the universe for centuries, and much of their power had come from their ability to communicate telepathically.
It had taken five hundred years for the ships that had left Earth to find a system capable of sustaining life, and there they had also stumbled across the secret of immortality, Meridian. The substance bestowed eternal life, plus a few other—not necessarily beneficial—attributes, including telepathy, inhuman strength, violet eyes, and eventually wings. The latter was apparently the point when they had realized there was more to Meridian than they’d originally suspected.
Even so, none of them had ever guessed what it really was. Not until the Blood Hunter had dived through a black hole in search of an alternative source and found—
“Kid.” Kronus interrupted his thoughts.
The dragon was on the ground directly in front of him and he slammed on the brakes. The speeder came to an abrupt halt almost hurling him out of the front seat.
“Perhaps you should watch where you’re going.”
“Where am I going?” He lowered the vehicle to ground level and jumped out. “And what are we doing here?”
The last of the sun’s light had vanished and he peered out into the darkness. Kronus crouched on the grass in front of him, wings folded, eyes unblinking. “You don’t need to know. You just need to do as I say.” The words oozed menace.
Angel snorted. “Yeah, of course I do. Not. Tell me what you’re up to or I’m going back to the ship.” He turned and headed back to his speeder. Kronus launched himself lightly into the air, over Angel’s head, and came down on the vehicle. His gigantic claws closed around the metal and it crunched beneath his colossal strength.
Angel shook his head. “Tannis is going to be so pissed at you.”
Kronus ignored the comment. “Do what I say and I will see that you return safely to the ship. You will not find your way back without me.”
“Want to bet?” He sniffed the air, filtering out the smells from this world, identifying the faintly sulfurous after-burn of the speeder. He could follow the trail back to the Blood Hunter. He shoved his hands in his pockets and set off. “See you back at the ship.”
He held his breath as he walked away, because really, he didn’t want to go back. He was just fed up with people—and dragons—thinking he was a soft touch and they could push him around. What he really wanted was to discover what the dragon was after.
A hiss sounded behind him, then the whoosh of wings close over his head, and Kronus alighted in front of him. He eyed Angel from those vast purple orbs. Staring into them, Angel knew he could get lost in the immensity of time. Kronus was old, so old Angel couldn’t begin to imagine the things he had seen and done.
Long ago, dragons had controlled the wormholes that joined the far reaches of time and space. Or at least the females of their race had. They were time-mancers. But playing with time is a dangerous game, and the dragons had come close to annihilating not only their universe, but the whole of creation. Afterwards, they had rid the world of the time-mancers, so they would never again be tempted to play masters of time. Slaughtered all the females of their race, burned them in dragon-fire—one of the few reliable ways to bring their kind to the true-end—and retreated to their home planet.
So, no more female dragons, and no more time-mancers.
Until Saffira had come along. Now the wormholes were open once again.
Kronus sighed, with a hiss of sulfurous breath. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”
Angel crossed to a massive bolder close by the dragon, scrambled up so he was almost level with his eyes and didn’t have to crane his neck. “So what are we doing here?”
A trickle of flame leaked from his nostrils as Kronus pondered his words. Angel guessed he wasn’t used to explaining himself. “I wish you to get something for me.”
“And you know this…thing is here?”
“I do. I have been here before.”
Something occurred to him. “You’re the one who twisted the wormhole. Right at the end. You brought us here.” He thought a little more. “And that’s why you came on the Blood Hunter in the first place. Why you helped me stow away. You planned this all along.”
Kronus nodded his great head.
“So what’s so important? What do you want me to get?”
“An egg.”
“I’m guessing not a chicken egg.”
“No, a dragon egg. A female dragon egg.”
Angel grinned. “Hey, Kronus wants a girlfriend.”
The dragon exhaled loudly, filling the air with his hot, smoky breath. “I want the power we once had.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
The dragon shrugged, at least Angel guessed it was a shrug, hard to tell. “I have learned from our mistakes.”
Angel thought it highly unlikely. More probably, Kronus was bored. “Can’t you just ask Saffira to go back in time to before you killed them all and get a female?”
“We didn’t kill them all. They…sacrificed themselves so the universe would not be torn apart.”
“Of course they did.” He’d talked to Saffira, who had seen it in one of her visions. And the truth was that more than a few of the time-mancers had needed a push.
Kronus ignored the comment. He was good at that. “But no, they cannot come forward past the moment of their true death. They are stuck in the past.”
“Then why not just go back and live in the past with them?”
“Because I don’t want to live in the past.” Impatience laced his words. “Immortality is hard enough anyway, and I want to see what happens next.”
Yeah, Angel could sort of understand that. “And you’re not content t
o just let what happens next…happen next.” When the dragon said nothing, he sniggered. “Go on admit it—you want a girlfriend. Aw that’s sweet.”
“Maybe.”
“So where exactly is this egg?”
“At the house of a woman. You will find her over there.” He gestured with his great head to the east where Angel could make out a faint glow of light. “In the big building with the picture of a dragon on the sign over the door. She has red hair. You must follow her home, find the egg, and return to me.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Do not let the woman see you follow her.”
“Why can’t you just take me to the house?”
“I cannot go there. Another self is close and I cannot risk us crossing. Or him sensing my presence.”
“You mean you’re already here? There’re two of you?”
“And if we connect…well, it would not be a good thing.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“Do not try…do!”
The walk took longer than he expected. Once or twice he thought about shifting, but he considered the logistics and decided against it. After ten minutes, the moon rose, and at least he could make out a vague path through the vegetation. Finally he hit a proper track, made for land bound vehicles, and after that the going was easier. He glanced back once or twice, but Kronus was soon out of sight.
By the time he reached the cluster of buildings, he was shivering. The material of his jumpsuit deflected water and retained body heat but was not made for temperatures like these. Christ, he hated the cold. The village was nothing more than a huddle of houses, but as Kronus had told him, at the center was a large structure with a sign swaying above the door. The Dragon’s Den. The dragon was not black like Kronus, but red, though otherwise they were similar. The old legends of Earth must have come from somewhere, and he was guessing that Kronus and his kind had been seen in these parts before.
He approached the building with caution. Should he wait outside for the woman to leave? But he was cold and intrigued; he wanted to see as much as he could of this time and place. Inside he could hear the rise and fall of many voices.
As he pushed open the door, the conversation stopped abruptly.
There were no men in skirts.
The room was snug and warm after the chill night air, and a fire flickered in a huge open fireplace. As he stepped inside a prickle of unease ran down his spine and inside his wolf growled. He’d spent much of his youth trawling the bars in Pleasure city, the capital of Trakis Two, often hunting for his sister, but he’d never felt himself the center of attention like this before.
Of course, he was dressed differently. They were all in blue pants, thick heavy coats to keep out the cold and damp. He was all in black, a jumpsuit and knee high boots. No doubt, he must look a little odd to these people.
“You’re a wee strange one,” a man spoke from the right. He was seated at a table with a group of three others, playing some sort of game with little black blocks.
“Not that wee,” said another.
Luckily, Angel got his height from his father, not his diminutive mother. Suddenly he had a wave of homesickness. Would he ever see them again? They had stayed behind as part of Thorne and Candy’s administration. His mother was the ex-high priestess of the Church of Everlasting Life and she’d offered to try and bring the last of the Church’s people back into the mainstream populace. Thorne reckoned the fighting had gone on long enough and it was time to bring an end to the hatred and bitterness that had nearly torn the Trakis system apart. He had offered everyone who truly wanted it—and Thorne was able to discern their innermost thoughts—an amnesty and the chance for a new life.
Angel gave the men a vague smile. They raised their eyebrows but went back to their game. “Bloody tourists,” one muttered.
He searched the room. At first he didn’t see her as he methodically went through the tables. There were fewer people than he’d originally thought; the place just seemed crowded because it was so small. Finally, he glanced behind the bar which ran along the short edge of the room, and there she was.
He recognized her straight away by her fiery red hair. Not just red, but bright red, like a halo around her head. Her hair was the biggest thing about her; she was a tiny little thing, probably coming up to no further than his shoulder. She had a pointed face, green eyes and a wide mouth, smiling, showing small white teeth. She radiated happiness and he found himself drawn toward her.
As he approached, her gaze ran over him, all the way down then up again, her grin widening. “You want a drink?”
Did he? He glanced around; everyone else was drinking. He nodded.
“So what would you like?”
A hard question. Alcohol had been banned not long in the future, way before he was born. What was it Rico drank? “Whiskey,” he said.
“What sort of whiskey?”
Was she making this difficult on purpose? How the hell did he know what sort of whiskey? Maybe seeing his confusion, she waved a hand at the shelf behind her. There were bottles. Lots of bottles. He pointed at one and she raised a brow but reached up and pulled it down. “This is single malt, twenty years old and will set you back twenty-five pounds a shot. You okay with that?”
“Twenty-five pounds?”
“Money. You know what that is?”
He knew what it was in theory, but he’d never actually seen any. Money was pretty much an alien concept in the Trakis system.
“Hmm.” She considered him a moment longer. “Well, I’m not giving away the good stuff,” she said with a sigh, replacing the bottle on the shelf, “But because you’re pretty, and have really weird taste in clothes, and are obviously not quite right in the head, you can have a drink on the house.” She pulled down another bottle and splashed some into a glass, pushed it toward him and watched, her lips tilted with amusement.
He picked up the glass, sniffed, and swallowed the liquid in one go. It was smoother than Rico’s, which always felt as though it was stripping the skin from his throat, and straight away the heat rolled in his stomach.
He put the glass down and stared at it longingly.
Her lips twitched, but she poured another shot, then made a show of screwing the top on the bottle and placing it back on the shelf. “Can’t give away all the profits.” She came back, leaned her arms on the bar, and studied him, her head cocked to one side.
“So,” she murmured, “a beautiful stranger walks into a bar and—”
“You think I’m beautiful?” he asked.
She looked him up and down. “You’re not telling me no girl has told you you’re beautiful before.”
“Er…no.”
She stepped to the side and waved a hand. The wall was mirrored behind the rows of bottles and he could see himself. He’d never really thought about what he looked like, though most people said he was the image of his father. Which made him, tall, dark haired, with amber eyes. He stared at the reflection —he didn’t care about looks, but who would he really like to see when he looked in a mirror? All his life he’d lived in his sister, Candy’s, shadow. Now he was as far away from her as it was possible to get, time to stand on his own and decide who and what he wanted to be. Did he want to be fierce like his father, once the most notorious assassin in the universe? Or good like his mother? Did he want to be all powerful like Candy’s new husband, Thorne? Or more like Rico who had no interest in power, and just wanted to get as much fun out of life as he could. Or Tannis, fiercely loyal to her crew? Trouble was he had too many role models.
But what did he want? Who did he want to be?
“See.” The girl’s voice interrupted his musings. “Even you’re mesmerized.”
He’d never had a girlfriend, though he wasn’t a virgin. Candy had auctioned off his virginity to her friends on their twenty-first birthday and only told him about it the next day. He’d believed he’d suddenly become irresistible. Candy hadn’t even shared the proceeds. But his life in general had been a litt
le…messy and not conducive to relationships. Now he wondered what it would be like to have someone of his own.
“I think you’re beautiful as well,” he said. Because it was true. He liked the way she looked with her fiery red hair and pale skin. The freckles across her nose. And he liked the way she smelled, like flowers.
She shook her head, but was still smiling. “So where do you come from?”
That was a difficult one. The Trakis System, around about a thousand years from now, would only cause disbelief, and she already thought he was crazy, but he found he didn’t want to lie. Maybe he was curious as to her reaction. “Would you believe another planet?”
“So you’re an alien?”
“Er…no.”
“And you were just passing?”
He nodded. “I was…going for a walk and I passed this place and thought it looked nice and…”
She reached across and patted his hand where it rested on the bar. “Well, my friend, you tell a great story. But it’s time to say good night.” Strolling to the far end of the bar, she picked up a bell and rang it. The conversation in the room fell silent.
There was some muttering, but one by one the customers set their empty glasses on the bar and walked out until only Angel was left.
“You too,” she said. “It’s closing time.”
He didn’t want to go. She tilted her head and pushed a red curl behind her ear. “If you haven’t flown off to your own planet tomorrow, then come back,” she said. “Maybe bring some money. You can buy me a drink.”
He nodded, though tomorrow he’d be long gone. With a sigh of regret, he headed for the door.
“Hey,” she called out behind him. “What’s your name?”
Turning back, he smiled. “I’m Angel.”
She grinned. “Of course you are. I’m Mara. I’ll see you tomorrow, Angel.”
He shivered as the door clicked closed behind him. The rest of the customers had disappeared, and he stepped to the side of the building and hid himself in the shadows. A couple of minutes later, the door opened and Mara stepped out. She locked up behind herself and headed down the single street. Angel waited until there was some distance between them before following her. She walked past the buildings, but continued after the houses ran out. Once, she glanced back, as though she sensed his presence, but in his black clothes he merged with the night. Even in this form, he felt more at home in the darkness than he did in the light. His eyes saw far more than a mere human, his nose picked up the scents of all the strangeness.
The Dragon Chronicles Page 20