Jacob stood up, not meeting my eyes and I felt that stab of guilt straight through my heart once more. The sadness I saw etched into his face was tearing me to pieces. Finally, he looked up at me.
“No, you're not Patty,” was all he said before he turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my guilt.
I got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and headed up to my room. Getting to the top of the stairs, I saw the light on underneath Jacob's door and gave brief thought to going and talking to him. Apologizing. But then the light went off, so I scrapped the thought.
I stepped into my room and shut the door softly behind me, kicking myself the whole time. I dropped down into the seat at my desk and fired up the computer. I was still wired from my adventure and not ready to sleep just yet. Besides, I had a few things I wanted to research.
As I waited for it to boot up, I took a drink from the bottle and then put the cap back on. I was so far out of line with my remark about Patty and I knew it. The weight of the guilt pressing down on me was oppressive and hurt to even think about.
Patty is what had led Jacob to the Order in the first place. She had been his daughter and like my parents, she'd been killed by some dark creature. It wasn't the Scales, but something else. To this day, he couldn't quite describe what it was, but from everything he'd said, it sounded to me, like a werewolf. But who knew exactly?
Watching his daughter get ripped to pieces by something he couldn't understand, let alone identify, was going to make his memory hazy. It wasn't surprising that he couldn't say exactly what it had been that had killed Patty. If I'd been left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't have been able to describe the creatures that had killed my parents. Not in any way believable to the cops. They probably would have assumed that my coping mechanism to seeing such a horror was to make up some fantastical creature. A monster that didn't exist.
After Patty's death, Jacob said he'd been lost. Adrift. A ship without a rudder. Until the Order had found him. They'd given him a sense of purpose. Renewal. A focus and discipline he'd lost after seeing his daughter brutally killed.
Our paths were very similar. Of course, most of the people who made up the Order had a similar tale of loss and tragedy. I only wish that Jacob could see that we used our emotions differently and no one way was inherently better than the other. I wasn't careless or reckless. My emotion made me much more ruthless and effective.
I sighed. Jacob would never understand that though. Even though he'd trained me to be an efficient killer, he wanted to protect me. Keep me safe. Do what he couldn't do with Patty. And it led him to be a little overbearing. I wished he could see that.
But Jacob had taken me in. Had given me a home and a life. He'd treated me like his own, he hadn't been lying over overstating things. And for my part, I'd come to think of him as a father figure. No, he'd never replace the father I'd lost, but Jacob had done his best to fill that void. He'd given me a sense of purpose and direction. Without him, who knows where I'd be.
I was in the wrong for saying what I'd said. I needed to make amends for that. And I would make sure to do that first thing in the morning.
Sitting up in my chair, I logged into my computer and pulled up a search engine. I shifted my focus from what had happened with Jacob to what I'd seen earlier – something I would need to share with him in the morning after hopefully, patching things up with him.
My mind was consumed with the man in the lot – the man I'd followed down into the sewers, and the man I'd tried to kill. He obviously wasn't a man. Not a human man, at any rate. I'd seen him spit fire onto that Scale – a fire that had consumed it. To the best of my knowledge, fire couldn't touch the Scales. Only a bronze blade could kill them.
Which meant that we were dealing with something unknown to us. Something dangerous.
I plugged in as many keywords as I could, searching for information on what I'd seen. I found blog post after blog post about a variety of paranormal creatures who could spit fire. But none of them fit. None of them looked – human. And the creature I saw had most definitely looked human. He was bipedal, fought with two blades, and most importantly – bled. If it bled, it could be killed.
I read more posts than I could count and still came up empty. Whatever it was, remained a mystery. It was something I was obviously going to have to share with Jacob. Perhaps, he had information or an idea about what I'd seen.
I was just about to shut down for the night and get some sleep when a blog post caught my attention. It was just some random kid's blog and looked like it hadn't been updated in some time. It also wasn't very highly viewed, garnering just a pair of comments – one by the writer himself.
What caught my attention though, was a supposed eyewitness account of a man – whose description sounded very much like the man I'd wounded earlier – battling some unknown creature with a pair of long, curved daggers. It sounded very familiar, but could have been coincidental. Perhaps there were other hunters around the city.
No, what made this account different was the claim that the man wielding the curved daggers had spouted fire from his mouth before turning into a dragon. The account goes on to state that the dragon was roughly eight feet tall, had a wide wingspan, dark green scales all over its body, and eyes that glowed red, as with an inner fire.
“Dragons?” I asked myself. “Seriously?”
I leaned back in my seat and took another drink of water. Given what I did, what I saw, and what I fought on a regular basis, I shouldn't let myself be surprised by anything. But for some reason, dragons – or rather, men who could transform into dragons – seemed a bridge too far.
I honestly didn't know how much credence to give that posting. The similarities between what was described and what I'd seen though, were striking. It was almost uncanny. But dragons? If nothing else, it gave me a place to start. Something to use as I dug into it a little more.
The one thing that gave me pause though, and the thing I couldn't quite figure out, was that the man – or dragon – or whatever it really was, had been fighting the Scales. It had killed one of them and was chasing the second – presumably to kill it too. But why?
All my life, I'd been trained and taught to kill all those things that were not human. It was deeply ingrained in me. And over the course of my time with the Order, I'd seen no reason to believe that those things we hunted weren't evil. That they weren't a threat to humanity.
These creatures sometimes fought one another over territory or whatever. This was probably one of those cases. I'd been right to try to kill that thing in the sewer. My only failing was in not actually killing it.
I had more questions than answers at the moment. But my eyes were getting heavy as exhaustion set in. Finding answers to those questions could wait for now. I'd be better able to think them over in the morning after I'd gotten some rest.
And of course, after I'd made amends with Jacob.
Chapter Five
Zarik
After my encounter with the mysterious woman in the sewers, I'd retreated to my home. I was wounded and needed to heal. The fact that I had been wounded irritated me to no end. It was because I'd been careless. Foolish. I'd chased the woman without regard. I'd underestimated my adversary.
It was beginning to be a habit. One I needed to break very quickly.
My wounds had taken longer than normal to heal. No doubt, an effect of whatever poison she'd tipped the crossbow bolt with. Though by the time I sat down at the coffee house for my meeting with Quint, I was more or less back to normal. I'd called him after my encounter to fill him in and set up the meet the next morning. As my Warden, he needed to know what was going on.
“You okay?” Quint asked as he sat down at the table, cup of coffee in hand.
I nodded. “Fine,” I said. “Pissed that she got the drop on me.”
He shrugged. “It happens to everybody from time to time,” he said. “The important thing is that you're alive. That's all that matters to
me.”
Looking around the sparsely populated coffee house, I made sure we weren't being observed when I dropped the crossbow bolt on the table. He picked it up and looked at the tip curiously.
“Bronze head,” he said.
“Yeah, I thought that was interesting too,” I replied. “As is whatever poison she coated the head with.”
“I'll see about getting it tested to identify it,” he said. “How did it affect you?”
“Slowed down my healing,” he said. “Stung like hell. But other than that, nothing serious.”
He nodded. “Good,” he said. “So, tell me more about these creatures – what did you say they were called?”
“They called themselves the Chokan,” I said. “Lizard-men. They're humanoid, bipedal, but they've got some seriously tough scales covering their body. Silver doesn't do a damn thing. My blade glanced right off of them.”
“You said you killed one though?”
I sighed. I knew I'd broken one of our cardinal rules – don't draw attention to ourselves. But I hadn't had much choice. I simply nodded.
“Yes, Warden,” I said. “I had to hit it with dragon fire.”
Quint looked thoughtful, but not upset – thankfully. “Were you observed?”
“To the best of my knowledge, only by the mystery woman.”
He nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “I would imagine if you had been seen, somebody would be making waves about it somewhere,” he said. “Before I came, I did a little digging online and didn't find anything. I think we're in the clear.”
I let out a small sigh of relief. “Glad I caught at least one break last night,” I said. “I apologize, Quint. I know the prohibition against –”
He shook his head. “I have full confidence in you, Zarik,” he said. “I know that you wouldn't have used your dragon fire if you'd had a choice in the matter. Like I said earlier, I'm just glad you're alive.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, sipping our coffee, consumed with our own thoughts. I watched a few women come into the shop – they were probably in their mid-twenties and looked fairly athletic. As I looked at them, I wondered if either one of them could have been the woman who'd shot me last night.
I shook my head to clear it and focused on the moment in front of me. “So, do you happen to know anything about these Chokan?”
Quint shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don't,” he said. “I'm going to have to go to the Keepers with this.”
I nodded. “I figured as much,” I said. “I've never seen anything like them before.”
“What about this girl?” he asked. “What can you tell me about her?”
I shook my head, frustrated. “Other than she's a great shot with a crossbow while on the move?”
Quint gave me a rueful laugh. “Yeah, other than that.”
I'd thought about her – or rather, obsessed about her – all night long. Having come close to death at her hands, it was probably somewhat understandable. But, even after a night of reflection and angst, I didn't have anything concrete. I got the impression though, that last night hadn't been her first rodeo, as the old saying goes. She'd been trained. And trained well.
“I don't have much to offer on that front,” I said. “She wore a hood and a mask. All I could see were her eyes. She's human, that much I can tell you. She's a trained fighter. I have a feeling she knows all about these – Chokan things – and that she's been hunting them.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just a hunch,” I said. “I can't think of any other reason a masked, crossbow and throwing star wielding woman would show up to a vacant lot in the middle of the night.”
Quint smiled. “Fair point.”
“It did get me wondering though,” I said. “About the crossbow bolt. What if the head is bronze, because that's what can kill these Chokan?”
Quint scratched at the stubble on his jawline and nodded. “That's a really solid thought,” he said. “That very well could be the answer to that riddle.”
“Which means, I'm going to need some new weapons.”
He nodded. “I'm going to have to have some made for you,” he said. “Bronze blades aren't exactly – common.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Until then, watch your back,” he said. “And do your best to avoid engaging with those things. At least, until we have more information.”
“Understood,” I replied. “And what about the woman?”
“It's a riddle,” Quint said, staring off into the distance as if he were trying to recall some bit of information.
“What is it?”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin again. “I've heard rumors about some underground society of hunters. But honestly, I never put much credence into them. Although now, I see that perhaps, I dismissed those rumors too quickly.”
“An underground society?”
Quint fidgeted with his coffee cup, clearly turning things over in his mind. “For years, there have been rumors and whispers about something called the Order of Midnight,” he said. “I've done some digging and wasn't able to turn anything up on them. If they truly exist, they're deep underground.”
“The Order of Midnight?” I asked. “And what is their supposed purpose?”
Quint shrugged. “I don't know for sure that I believe in it or not,” he said. “But if rumors are to be believed, they were formed to protect the world from any manner of creature that threatens humanity. And that would presumably include us.”
“But we're not a threat to humanity,” I replied.
Quint shrugged. “Supposedly, they make no distinction,” he said. “A non-human isn't human – therefore, in their supposedly misguided and zealous view – a threat to humans.”
“That's not just stupid, it's bigoted.”
He laughed. “Yeah well, it's not like we're going to win a logic war with these people,” he said. “If they actually exist. And I'm not entirely convinced of that yet.”
“I'd say that a masked woman who almost took me out lends a little weight to the rumors.”
“Yeah, it would seem to make a strong argument,” he said. “But we need more information.”
“So, what are we going to do about them?” I asked. “Supposing they actually exist and this woman isn't just some half-baked vigilante type?”
“I guess that as long as they don't get in our way, there's not much we can do about them.”
I leaned back in my seat and ran a hand through my hair. “I'm surprised we've not run into them before.”
“You're assuming this is actually a legitimate group,” Quint replied. “For all we know, the woman you ran into really was just some half-baked vigilante type.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But one thing I can tell you is that the woman knows how to fight. She's damn good. I never even saw her until it was too late.”
“Maybe you were too distracted with the creatures,” he offered.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Well, find out what you can about her and this supposed group,” he said. “And be careful. I don't want you taking any unnecessary risks. Especially not with these creatures.”
I snapped him a quick salute. “Aye, aye, Captain,” I said.
“Smartass.”
“That's me.”
Quint stood up from the table, tucking the crossbow bolt into his coat pocket. “Check in with me as soon as you find anything,” he said. “In fact, check in with me once a day, just so I know you didn't get yourself killed.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, giving him a grin.
“Yeah well, I'm feeling slightly less confident in you at the moment,” he said and smirked. “You did get your ass kicked by a girl, after all.”
I shot him the finger and shook my head, laughing. Quint turned and walked out of the shop. I drained the last of my coffee and stood up to go. I looked at the girls who'd walked in again earlier and found one of them staring back at me. And again, it made me wond
er if she'd been the girl who'd tried to kill me the night before.
She turned back to her friends, giggling and speaking in hushed tones. No, it couldn't be her. I had a hard time picturing the girl from the night before giggling with her girlfriends.
I walked out of the shop and into the morning sunlight. I was going to find the woman and learn everything I could about this supposed Order of Midnight. I wasn't going to underestimate them or be caught off guard again.
Chapter Six
Ella
The morning sunlight streaming through my windows and hitting me square in the face, woke me up. My eyes were grainy and I felt like I'd only just fallen asleep. About all I wanted in that moment was to roll over and sleep for another three days. But, I couldn't do that.
I grumbled to myself and climbed out of bed. Rubbing my eyes, I staggered over to the bathroom and turned the shower on. Without bothering to wait for it to warm up, I stripped off my clothes and jumped in, letting the bitingly cold water hit me – stifling a scream as I felt like I'd submerged myself in ice water.
Gradually, the water began to warm up and soothe my frosty skin. The cold water had done its job though – I was awake and alert. I let the warm water work its magic on me and when I felt sufficiently thawed, I washed up then climbed out of the shower and toweled off.
Walking back into my room, I put on some clothes for the day – jeans, my boots, and a black t-shirt. I ran a brush through my short, black bob and I was ready. Jacob was already moving around downstairs and I felt a knot in my stomach constrict. The butterflies of guilt and remorse were already fluttering in my gut knowing what I had to do.
But, I was a big girl. I'd screwed up and it was up to me to fix it.
I took a deep breath and let it out before opening my door and heading downstairs. Jacob was in the kitchen reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee when I walked in. He didn't even bother to look up at me – let alone greet me – when I walked in. The air in the kitchen was definitely frosty.
No Such Thing as Dragons : Complete Series Box Set (Books 1 - 5) Page 17