by Holly Hook
"I can't see!" Sven shouted.
"None of us can," I said, focusing on strengthening the rain. Thunder cracked and lightning illuminated the world for a split second. I glimpsed Mr. Olsen retreating to a truck, using the rain to hide his cowardice. But the curtain returned and blocked everything. The cold rain even dimmed my heat vision. It cooled things too much. The floodlights couldn't even penetrate it.
"He's running," Dirk said.
"Hypocrite," Sven said.
Those words gave me enough rage to make the rain pound down harder. Ponds formed on the ground. Water ran into the pit, taking mud with it. The hoard would get dirty. If it got buried, it would be much safer.
And did it seem like more water was flowing into the clearing?
Rivers rushed towards the Slayers. I glimpsed a dark figure falling in the rushing water, joining sticks and leaves as he sailed towards the mouth of the pit. Waterfalls rushed in and a roar of them striking the bottom followed. The rain blasted down, but this seemed over the top. Too early. Something else was happening, and it wasn't me.
Was someone directing the water into the pit?
"Keep it up," Sven said. "They deserve to drown. All of them."
Another loud whoosh followed and a massive shape, this one bronze, landed in the clearing, snarling and snapping. Mrs. Macher. She'd said that was her color. Claws scraped metal. A man screamed. Then a horrific crunching sound followed. Men screamed in terror. I was glad that the rain blocked out most of the fray. Another huge thump followed as another dragon landed. They were taking advantage of the rain cover, getting close to the Slayers and killing them with claws and teeth.
The thought almost broke my concentration. I'd almost done this to Sofia in a fit of rage. This was an act I could do, and I'd never make peace with that. The rain thinned enough to let me see the Slayer caught in the flooding fall into the pit to join the rest of the debris. He screamed on the way down. Three other raging streams rushed to fill the hoard below. One of them threatened to dislodge one of the moving trucks and cast it into the pit, complete with the hiding workers.
"Don't stop, Felicia!" Sven said. "They need the cover you're giving them!"
Dirk squeezed my hand, urging me to keep the rain up. My magic wavered, weakening. I had a limit, then. Hunger ripped at my insides.
The wheel of the moving van dislodged.
"The rivers have to stop or those guys will go in!" I shouted. The workers didn't deserve to die. I felt no anger towards them.
A crossbow fired.
A dragon growled in pain.
The flash of anger returned, and I focused on the deluge, giving it one last burst of strength. Another mighty curtain of rain beat down, and before it blocked out everything, I saw the moving truck slipping back towards the pit on one of the rivers.
Men shouted.
And a motor started somewhere. Some of them were fleeing in another truck. I'd let them. They had the chance for freedom and I knew what it was like not to have it.
But the water continued to rush—
Another Slayer screamed.
This time, it was the woman. It was a scream of terror followed by the grinding of metal and the crash of a huge object. The machine gun went off one last time before silence took her place.
Now there was only the driving rain.
And the men shouting at each other to bail.
"Felicia, stop!" Sven shouted. "They're going to go over!"
He snapped me out. I let go of Dirk and shook my head. Trembling, I watched as the rain died, turning to a sprinkle as if someone had flipped off a switch.
And before us was a scene of blood and carnage.
Chapter Thirteen
Blood mixed with water. Bodies lay on the ground, all of them armored. Crossbows lay over them, some still armed with arrows. A sword sank into mud nearby, pink with blood.
"Oh," Sven managed before leaning over to throw up.
And then I saw the dragons. Five of them milled around the clearing.
Steve stood twenty feet tall, dark green and terrifying, with his claws over the body of a Slayer. He had ripped open a chest plate, just as he had with Sofia, but he'd gone further this time. Steve had ripped open...I turned my gaze away and joined Sven instead, wrapping my arm around him.
Sven finished gagging. Then he leaned into me. No. We leaned into each other.
"Those guys!" Dirk shouted. "They're drifting to the pit!"
He jarred me out of my state. I'd forgotten.
The workers screamed as the moving truck inched to the pit. The sound would haunt me forever. No one was stopping it. I ran down into the clearing, past Mrs. Macher's bronze form, and towards the white moving truck. It rode in the raging stream now, and a man stood at the edge, grabbing the side as the contemplated jumping into the water. The truck was just ten feet from the mouth of the hole now.
"Someone stop that truck!" I shouted over the roar of the flash flood. "Steve. Mrs. Macher. Someone!" I looked at the young man leaning out of the back as a crate slipped past him and into the flood. Two dozen more men stood behind him. If they jumped, they'd get sucked under the truck. If they waited, they'd fall to their deaths.
Steve growled and stormed towards the truck, making the earth shake. The workers screamed. I feared he'd kill the men, too, but instead, he rammed his spiny head into the back of the truck, right into the partly down door, and pushed. The water threatened to dislodge the dragon's feet, but Steve growled again as the men retreated to the back. Mrs. Macher joined him, and their two forms pushed the truck away from the pit and out of the raging stream. Mrs. Macher pointed the back of the truck out of the water with her neck, leaving the men with safe ground to jump onto.
But none of them dared at first.
And I couldn't blame them.
Sven grabbed my arm. "The Slayers. They're all dead."
I took a breath and squeezed him around the waist. He spoke with a heavy accent now, unable to keep his composure. My strong, confident Sven had become a child for a moment. His blue eyes gave away his shock and terror.
And I felt the same.
Dirk stood right behind him, pale. He held his hand over his mouth, eyeing one body on the muddy ground. The Slayer lay next to a crate of stolen treasure. It was a man I'd seen in the meeting days ago.
And he'd died, I guessed, to teeth.
"Don't look," I said to them both, wanting to run. "The dragons did what they had to in the rain. Fire would not work. Though that would have been worse."
My shock wore off enough to study the other dragons in the clearing. I spotted another blue one, this one trimmer and less bulky than the one who had fallen. The floodlights reflected off oceanic scales as the creature paced, searching the tree lines for something. Underbrush crashed as red eyes hunted. This dragon was desperate. Terrified.
I had a sense it was searching for the fallen one.
Was this one Ellie? I had the sense that was so.
And was her father the other blue dragon?
Mrs. Macher walked across the clearing as if to comfort her, and Dirk looked at me, freaked out that he was seeing one of his parents like this. It was as if his brain couldn't compute all of this. We were all in shock. Mrs. Macher joined Ellie (I think) while yet another dragon, an off-white one with dark blue spines, joined her. Maybe that one was Mr. Macher. The three of them walked towards where Ed had fallen, together.
More enormous wings flapped as two more dragons, a simple brown one and a yellow one, landed.
"The Boers," Dirk managed. "I think I need to go to bed now and forget all of this."
"We all do," I said. "I...I don't know if Ed made it."
The surrounding streams continued. It was as if all the water in the county were racing into the pit. A Slayer's body got caught in one and toppled into the den like a piece of trash. Mud flowed.
"Can one of the dragons control water?" Sven asked. He looked away from the bodies that remained. Sven was trying to distract himself fro
m the worst. There was something he didn't want to see. There must be a dozen. Two had gone into the pit, leaving eight or nine more.
My stomach turned over. Something was bothering me and it wasn't just the corpses.
"It looks like it," Dirk said. "Look at this stream over here. It's arcing over the hill and defying gravity. I think the blue dragon who got shot might be doing it. That means it might still be alive."
"That would make sense," Sven said, slipping his hand into mine.
"Dirk, Ellie might need you," I said. "She's going through a hard time." I tried to imagine one of my adoptive parents, injured. Perhaps my bio parents had died this way, only to arrows and swords. My mother had.
And she had killed people, just like the den had.
This was necessary, I told myself.
And then I leaned over and retched. There was nothing to get up, so at least I didn't vomit in front of Sven.
"Felicia," he said. "Even I agree this had to get done. Why don't we check on those men?"
I was glad he was taking charge for now. It was the strong Sven I knew. Mrs. Macher had turned the truck in a way that faced us and out of the stream which continued its march to fill the hoard. It might take months for the water level to go down enough for us to get to it again.
Braziers hissed as they went out far below. The sound was unmistakable.
The water down there was already eight feet high.
"Come on," Sven said. "Dirk's following his parents and Ellie."
It was a good idea. We stepped over another body—another one of the greedy men from the meeting. The tense feeling refused to leave me. It had to be all the bodies lying around. This was my first time seeing real war. It was no wonder veterans suffered issues when they came back from them. Did dragons?
All the Slayers had died.
And one of the moving trucks was missing. Three remained.
The men had all sheltered in the one that only had two empty crates. The others appeared full of treasure. I wondered how much the one that escaped had.
"Hello?" One man asked.
All of them had tight red glows around their bodies. Three dozen men gathered in the back of the truck, most of them eyeing the dragons behind us. None of them dared step out although two of the dragons had saved their lives.
"Hey," Sven said, lifting one empty hand. "You're all free."
I allowed myself to feel good for these guys. But they all had wide eyes and cautious stances. I could tell from the looks on their faces that the Society had fed them all kinds of crap about dragons. These guys knew about them already and might have even taken part in dragon drills.
"Come on out," I said. "Nobody will hurt you." I felt no anger at these men even though they'd taken treasure. All they had done was try not to get whipped. I wondered how they'd gotten themselves into this situation.
Terror melted away. Men let out breaths. A couple shuffled to the edge of the moving truck. They had dull eyes when they weren't horrified. The Wiglaf Society must have done horrific things to these men to break them.
A tall, blond guy with a sunburn jumped down. "Are you sure? We saw what happened to our so-called protectors."
"They weren't your protectors," Sven said.
"You look like one," the guy said to him.
"I'm not," he said.
"He's not," I said at the same time.
"You twins?" The guy asked.
"He's a twin," I said. "Come on. Those Society people must have told you a lot of bad stuff about dragons. They only get like this when there's a reason. They know you didn't want to take the treasure or go down into the den."
The sandy-haired guy narrowed his eyes at me. "How do you know?"
I didn't want to explain right now. "Look," I said, pointing behind me. "They're letting you go free. But before you guys leave, we might need to ask you some things."
The blond man backed away and faced another guy, a dark-skinned one who lingered at the back of the truck.
"Should we just leave?" the blond asked, incredulous.
The second guy looked to his comrades. "We had better," he says at last. "The Slayers are dead."
"Hey, don't you guys know there's a world out there?" I asked.
"It's overtaken by dragons, isn't it?" The blond's gaze shifted over to the Boers, who are walking around the clearing, searching for any more danger. Then he eyed the floodwaters which continued to rage into the hoard. "That's what they told us. I guess it's true."
"The Society are liars," Sven said. "They told you that to keep you working for them, didn't they? How much of your lives have you spent working for them?"
I couldn't believe it. These men had no clue there was a mostly human world out there they could join. Did the Society steal babies and raise them as slaves, or did they have a pool of people somewhere?
"Since we were babies," the blond man said. "The Society rescued us from the dragons. We would have all died, otherwise. Now we repay them."
"That's a load of crap," Sven said. He grabs my hand for support. "What happened was they stole you when you were babies from a world that's nowhere near as dangerous as they say. You must have families out there who are wondering where their children are."
A strange look came over the blond's face. He was thinking. I got that he was the most aware of the group, the one who had wondered the most about what was out there.
"Get out," I said, waving the men down from the truck and pointing towards Olivia. "Watch your step. There's a town a few miles that way, and if you walk, you can get there. But promise not to say a word about the dragons, or they might get angry and come after you. Do you understand?"
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sven asked.
I didn't like threatening them, but we had to protect ourselves. "We'll know if you talk," I continued. "Keep this a secret, and you'll live long, prosperous lives. And no, you won't encounter anything bad in the town. Most of the world is just people like you." Then I looked at the blond guy. He was the most open of the group. "We'd like to ask you some questions, though. Stick around and we might even reward you."
He looked to his friend. "A town?" he asked.
I imagined the Society transported these men around in pitch-dark moving vans all the time, not allowing them to see the outside world.
"Yes. There will be lights. Follow them. They're harmless," I said. "The town's name is Olivia. There are lots of towns in this world. And you guys know how to work. In the real world, you work and people pay you. You can buy your own houses, cars, clothes, and food." These guys would have a rough time at first, but they'd adjust. I hoped.
A strange feeling washed over me. I'd used my powers to kill, but I had also saved. My mother could heal and do other great things even if she had a terrible destructive power. I had even ended the drought in Olivia with just a few storms and I could continue to do so. Now I had brought these guys freedom. They were me. Trapped all their lives, never seeing the world but dreaming of what could be out there. Now they'd see it.
And I thought maturing would be another prison. Adler made it sound that way. It was turning into something I never expected.
"Go," the blond said to the men. "I'll stay with them."
"Are you sure?" the second man asked. "There are dragons here."
"They didn't kill us. If they wanted to, they would have by now," the blond said. "I think it's okay. Maybe they're right. I told you the Society isn't telling the truth about things. Well, except that dragons are real. But they don't seem so bad."
"You know, Ted, I trust you," the second guy said.
"You're all my brothers," Ted said. "I'll find the town and meet you there."
We watched as the two dozen men filed out of the moving truck, leaving a couple empty crates behind. I watched them vanish into the trees, staying in tight groups as they headed towards Olivia. I wondered how they'd cope with everything. A few looked at the corpses of the Slayers. The woman remained hunched over the machine gun while the male
Slayers had fallen in a ring. The tension returned to my gut. Something was wrong and my mind wasn't putting the pieces together yet.
"Felicia?" Sven asked. "We need to check on that blue dragon. If you can heal, you might help."
"You're right," I said. I looked to Ted. "Follow us. There's something we need to attend to, but no one will hurt you. I promise. The Slayers are all dead. Even the leader—"
It hit me.
Mr. Olsen wasn't among the dead.
And a moving truck had driven out of here during the rain—
Sven and I looked at each other. My eyes must have communicated my thought to him, because he stared at the corpses, studying each one. I knew for certain the Slayers that got washed into the den weren't Mr. Olsen. I'd seen them.
"He was a coward," Sven said, grasping my upper arms. "Father always has been. And all this time, he said it was me." He then released me and balled his fists. "He's nothing but a coward and a thief!"
"Come on," I said. "We don't have time to waste. If Mr. Olsen's still out there, then there's no telling what he has planned."
Chapter Fourteen
Mr. Olsen was a big worry, but so was Ed. Why hadn't I thought of him first? The floodwater was still flowing—uphill in some cases—so that gave me hope he was still alive. The Boers remained in the clearing. Everyone else had gone to where the blue dragon had fallen. I spotted cracked trees where he'd gone down. No voices followed. Dirk was the only one there in human form. I doubted Ed would shift back in his state.
Those bullets—
Sven and I burst through the trees. Dirk stood there in front of a fallen blue form, right in a puddle of brilliant blood. Ed was breathing—I could hear his windy breaths—but he was struggling. Just behind him, Ellie, still in dragon form, stood behind him. I detected the Machers off to the sides, watching the developments. Dirk stood there, breathing in panic.
"Ed," I said. "I'm assuming it's you. Stop making it flood. There's no more need. Save your energy. The hoard is safe." I realized that I faced his belly. His gray wings rested over his side, covering many of the blood trails. I saw his flesh giving off an orange glow, trying to heal, but no one had been able to dislodge the bullets. My heart raced. They weren't like arrows and easy to pull out. I looked to Sven.