by Max Andren
I knew he was right. I should have reached out to him when my shadowed self was following that magical trail. I would next time, I told myself and apologized.
As we were flying over the warehouse and across the night sky towards Kansas City, a sensation came over me that was reminiscent of one of my more memorable bouts in solitary confinement.
The sensation that day had started out just as insidious, barely there and unrecognizable for what it truly was—hundreds, if not thousands of tiny black ants crawling all over my unprotected skin. I was bound and helpless in that dark hell of the asylum basement.
It was horrible!
What would the sensation turn out to be this time?
14
The creepy-crawly sensation came and went over the next few weeks, but I couldn’t place what it was or from where it originated. At least not initially, but the feeling was at its strongest when I was at my most vulnerable—asleep and in the dreaming. There was something about being there that allowed me to connect easier with others—if I wanted to—and sometimes when I didn’t.
My goal was to hunt down Hulbetto, locate the dragon brethren being tortured, and find Mia before it was too late. They had all become my reasons for living and the purpose to my life. I wanted to find them and free them from the hell they endured, but especially Mia.
I no longer ignored the voices, but actively sought them out and listened to what they had to tell me. Not that I understood half of what they had to say.
I kept those goals foremost in my thoughts as I discovered what it meant to be a soul seeker. Cipriano taught me all that he could, but some of what I needed to learn would have to come through trial and lots of errors.
My dragon was still small and I couldn’t always shift on command. I was hindered by the inability to reach my full potential. Something was still missing and holding back my transition to a full-fledged Phoenix Dragon.
It was frustrating, to say the least!
I learned how to take advantage of all my normal senses and all the ones that weren’t—including dropping my shields to allow the voices of the lost to come in and find me. And boy did they.
Every. Single. Night.
My shadow self was compelled to respond every time—shifting to follow their pleas of mercy. The resonance of their pain became easier to track as I became more proficient and familiar with the various auras emitted and the stinging sensation of the dark magic tainting the pathway on my way to them. But despite these changes and pinpointing where my brethren were located, I was always too late.
Every. Single. Time.
The dragon souls I connected with had died before I managed to reach them.
Every. Single. One.
I was no soul seeker. I was a complete failure and should change my title to corpse finder instead.
Could Hulbetto know that I was coming? I was continually one step behind—often just minutes too late. I was tracking him through the dead and the dying, but maybe he was doing the same.
At times I felt as if someone were watching me, tracking me through the dreaming as I tracked the voices. Was Hulbetto using Hanley’s druid blood to find me as I used it to find him?
I needed to ask Cipriano, I had kept this to myself thinking that perhaps I was just imagining things. The feeling was just vague enough to make me doubt myself and my developing abilities.
Tonight, something had dramatically changed. I’d been able to connect with his current victim immediately upon falling asleep and when I entered the dreaming. She had been right there and screaming for help. It was as if she had been specifically waiting for me.
I had stopped shutting out the voices. I learned to find the energy trail created by the pain and suffering of the brethren and follow it directly to its source.
However, this time was different, as were the circumstances.
The desperation of this woman came from the fact that she, as well as her daughter had been taken. Her pleas for mercy and for help were not for herself, but for her little girl.
The energy fueled by her love and fear were the strongest emotions I had ever felt!
Her desperation was a beacon—a magnetic force pulling me rapidly from my bed and into my shadow self in quick succession. Something that I had yet to accomplish on my own with any rapidity, and yet here she was, practically dragging me to her. All I had to do was hold on for the ride.
This is what I imagined a mother’s love would look like. What it would feel like—self-sacrificing and all encompassing.
I would save her and her daughter this time. I was no one’s hero, but that was the only acceptable outcome. I would not let Hulbetto win again.
I had been so close to saving Ralph, but too late nonetheless, just like all the others. This losing streak needed to change, but this time I needed to save two people and not just one.
I could hear her daughter too. I could feel her pain and confusion. The feelings were a little too close to home—too reminiscent of what I had gone through as a child. Residual fear coursed through me and shook me to the core.
No child should have to experience this.
Through my connection with the two of them, I could feel and sense Hulbetto. It was like they were able to amplify him and his evil-essence. It was that amplification that would make all the difference.
I felt a positive shift, perhaps I’d win this time and save them. I quickly tethered myself to them and followed their energy trail straight into the heart of darkness.
15
Time had been essential, so I left without saying a word to Cipriano. I should have reached out with mind-speak to alert him to the fact that Hulbetto had struck again, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want a lecture as to how I wasn’t ready to take him on. The time would never be right. If I was truly a so-called soul seeker, then I needed to start using that ability so that it could grow and evolve—and me with it.
The time for patience and caution had passed!
There was a thrumming sensation running through my veins, so I knew I was near. Dragon blood? Or druid? I didn’t know and frankly, I didn’t care. I would use whatever I had or needed to get the mission accomplished and save them.
The mother and daughter’s energy signals were pounding in my chest and resonating through my soul. That’s how I would ultimately find them—soul to soul. All these people that I found carried dragon blood, no matter how dilute. Dragons had been around since time immemorial.
There were lots of normals with dragon blood, more than I would have suspected. But if they had more than a trace, I was able to connect with them. What percentage that was, who knew, but they had to have a certain amount to be detectable by my weird soul-seeking ability.
I didn’t recognize where I was, but I thought I might be on the outskirts of Chicago. There was a waterfront area with abandoned buildings, just like where I had found Ralph. A water element was integral to the drampires’ dark magic, as was soil from their home country.
My shadow-form wavered when stabbing pain hit my stomach. It was so strong I spontaneously shifted. I fell over twenty feet in human-form before I managed to shift to my dragon. My dragon had graduated to the size of a dog, so in other words, I was still small. One day I’d be full-sized, or so I hoped.
My wings caught a thermal swirling between the old dilapidated buildings and I rose with it. Traveling in either my dragon-form or shadow-form was an exhilarating ride. I loved the freedom these alternate forms afforded me.
I would rather die by my own hand, than forfeit this feeling. I would never tolerate the confinement of an asylum again, especially after tasting and knowing such freedom.
I loved the sensation of air flowing across my dragon scales. Individually my scales weren’t much to look at per se, but their coloring was unique, I’d been told. They were variegated with a blend of Phoenix-red, Dragon-blue, and a delicate pearlescent.
In addition to the beauty they presented, they collected and collated information. They s
ensed and perceived various stimuli and sent the perceptions to me for analysis, behaving somewhat like a computer.
I could tell by the resonance of the mother-daughter beacon and the oppressive feeling of the warehouse I approached that I was where I needed to be. The dark magic implemented by Hulbetto would deter normals from venturing too close to his building or any attempts to breach the doors to his inner sanctum.
I would not deter me!
I shifted back to shadow to be less detectable. Though I doubted I’d be able to sneak up on Hulbetto, but I was going to try. Once inside the building I followed the trail straight to them.
It felt like I had travelled back hundreds of years with the way the interior of this enormous room had been renovated. The floor was covered in soil and I would bet it had been flown in from Scotland.
Druids had a close connection with the earth, but drampires had turned their backs to these earthly ways. I was surprised Hulbetto would carry on with this tradition. There was power in the ancient soil and it was sure to be infused with dark magic. I was leery of stepping on it.
I wanted to learn all that I could about my drampire enemy and had absorbed all of what the others had told me. Cipriano and Ian had the most experience and knowledge about drampires, they had touched all of our lives.
My glyph was connected to drampires via Hanley’s druid blood and I hoped it would help me to save more dragon brethren. I needed every advantage I could find to defeat them, especially the older, more powerful ones like Hulbetto.
Where was he hiding?
At the center of an immense room was a large rock that looked like a flat cairn, again from Scotland. It reminded me of the standing stones in England—though on a much smaller scale. The rock was discolored and deeply stained with the blood of my ancestors, a testament to the atrocities my dragon brethren had suffered.
I could feel the echo of the pain and suffering—both ancient and current—as mother and daughter lay immobilized on the rock. I could no longer feel the mother and realized that I was yet again too late. The stabbing pain that had caused me to spontaneously shift had been her killing blow.
Hulbetto wasn’t there, or not that I could detect, so I floated towards the rock in the middle of the room.
The mother was littered with more glyphs than I had ever seen and she’d been brutally eviscerated. The rock bore yet another dragon death.
Her daughter had several glyphs carved into her delicate skin and each was glowing green with dark magic. She was young, younger than I had been—maybe five. It was hard to tell. She wasn’t speaking and her gaze was fixed, staring up at the ceiling. I rushed to her side.
She was dead.
16
I grabbed the little girl and pulled her into my arms—dropping to my knees.
I was an utter failure as a soul seeker. Would I ever be in time?
I wanted to die with her in this moment. I wanted to escape the never-ending struggle. The constant strife and misery. I wanted to make a difference and find the souls that were suffering and deliver them from hell.
I didn’t want to destroy what was left of them with my dragon fire!
My efforts were worthless. I was worthless.
Despair gripped my heart in a brutal vise. I could feel what little hope I had accumulated exsanguinate from my dying soul—bleeding one painful drop at a time. Just like the mother behind me, we had both tried and failed to protect her daughter.
Tears slid freely down my face, something I hadn’t allowed in years. I wept for all of the lost. I wept for this little girl and all that she would miss.
I wept for her dreams—never to be realized.
I pulled her limp body tighter against my chest and screamed as loud as I could, “Why!” Not caring who heard my rare outburst.
“Why?” I sobbed softly, my eyes shut tight. Tears escaping to anoint her neck.
“I’m so sorry little one…” I whispered, my voice raspy and small, “so sorry.”
With my eyes shut, I didn’t see that my aura had surrounded her in the white light of healing. She was alive and I didn’t realize it until I heard her weakly within my mind.
My eyes widened and I looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed, but I saw a lone tear slide out. Her curly auburn hair was wound around my arms, as if seeking life.
Gently, I placed my ear to her chest and heard her heart stuttering—just as mine had been when Cipriano found me in the dungeon.
I didn’t think, I just reacted and gathered my dragon essence and prepared it for her.
“Drink, little one,” I frantically implored, “drink of my essence and be Renascent!” I rasped into her ear.
Whether she understood or not, I don’t know, but thankfully she accepted my offering—a necessary component. I gave her my dragon essence without reserve and I felt the shift. I was weakening, but I didn’t care.
She was growing stronger and would live. That was all that mattered. I would forfeit my life for hers and happily.
I finally got it right! I saved a life, but that thought was tempered by the fact that I had lost one too.
I could see that my essence was reviving her and because I had the ability to heal as well, her injuries were disappearing. Her color improved to the healthy glow of youth.
She opened her solemn amber eyes to look up at me and the rush of maternal feelings I had for this young girl were unexpected. I would die to protect her, just as her mother had.
I arched my back as I was hit with a burning pain that sliced across my back from left to right in a ripping arc that felt like fire.
17
“I see you made it in time, well…” Hulbetto said, trailing off with the unsaid implication hanging in the air between us.
He had taken me unawares. Where were all those wonderful dragon senses when I had needed them?
I shook my head. I still had a lot to learn. I projected with my mind to Cipriano exactly where I was and added an apology and to hurry.
I saw Hulbetto’s glowing green eyes and smug evil face for the first time from where I curled my aching body around the little girl in my arms. I was determined to protect and shield her.
He had his hands resting on the hilt of a sword. It was resting on its point in front of him like a staff. Blood—my blood dripped from the blade to soak into the soil at his feet.
I refused to answer him or cry out in pain, even though the pain was excruciating. Staying curled around the girl, I took slow deep breaths and pushed the pain aside—easier thought than realized.
“Pray forgive me, My Lady,” a voice whispered apologetically though my mind. The words weighted heavily in grief and remorse, “I cannot control his strikes, no matter my wishes.”
I tried to focus on the words, but it was difficult through the haze of pain.
Focus, Charani. Focus!
“Tell my brother to break the sword and destroy me! I can no longer endure the blood of our race upon my hands and staining my soul.”
“Aiden?”
“Aye, My Lady. Tell him…”
He faded away and said no more. I was left with a lingering sense of desolation, but before that feeling could disappear, I snatched a remnant of it, tethering it to my soul for safe keeping—if I survived.
I only had brief glimpses of Hulbetto through the eyes of his victims, so I hadn’t known what to expect. And like most things in life, the more time you had to think upon a problem, the larger it seemed.
I expected to find someone larger-than-life, not diminutive in height. However, the evil emanating from him, coupled with his muddy, yet magic-enriched aura made him seem larger.
The hate I felt for this man—this drampire—eclipsed all other emotions in this moment, until I was consumed by it and channeled that hate to alleviate the debilitating pain. I placed the girl behind me, but away from where her mother was and turned to face Hulbetto.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he had scored a debilitating hit and stared str
aight into his soul-less eyes. I stood unflinching—no small feat—as I could feel the burning laceration pull and gap open with my movements and blood gushed out to pour over my butt.
The little girl scooted up behind me to rest against my legs and curled her arms around my calf. Hulbetto tracked her movements, a predator sizing up its next kill.
“Did you know that Hulbetto was an anagram for butthole?” I taunted.
His eyes narrowed on me—the little girl at my feet forgotten.
Perfect.
I jumped well away from her, knowing that he would strike again and he did. He clipped the fleshy part of my upper arm and back—a twofer—with his sword. Poor Aiden, I thought just before Hulbetto struck again, clearly pissed at my anagram reference.
I was bleeding from multiple strike points and weak from sharing my essence. My dragon would be so little compared to him, but I shifted anyway to escape his next blow. The current created by his sword lifted my hair just as I turned to dragon.
I needed to get creative. He was extremely proficient with that sword and had dark magic at his disposal, plus centuries of experience. I shouldn’t have come by myself, I thought briefly as an arrow whizzed by my ear. I barrel rolled to my left to miss having my head skewered.
Not fair, he had help. I should have realized an apprentice would be lurking around somewhere in the background. Now my attention would be divided three ways.
This would be so much easier if I was a full-sized dragon, but at least I was no longer a hatchling, I thought as I rolled to avoid another arrow. I primarily focused on Hulbetto, but saw the archer start for the little girl.
Oh, hell no!
I pulled my wings in tight and flew straight at him, diverting his course away from her. I pushed at her mind to run out the door. Either she didn’t hear me or she was too scared, but she didn’t move an inch.