Scales: Book 1 of the Fate and Fire Series

by Amity Green

  I could work with it. Use it.

  Vertigo tipped my balance slightly but I managed to stay upright. Kai must have been watching me because he was beside me a moment after I came off the chair.

  All my efforts got me stuffed back down onto my bottom. “Why do you always have to put your damn hands on me?”

  “Don’t try to move. You won’t get far in your condition, and it will serve to piss me off.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” I shot back as he walked away. My head rested against the arm of the chair, relieving the throbbing at my temples. He could’ve been right about the part where I wouldn’t get far.

  Something clammy stuck to my face where it contacted the upholstery. My clothes were wet and I soaked the chaise with warm, dirt-and-blood streaked water. The comfy bedroom Kai had given me sounded pretty inviting. I’d start with a hot shower to clean out my wounds, then nurse my system back to runaway condition by snacking at the kitchenette.

  Kai returned with two bottles of water and an apple. He dropped my backpack on the floor beside us and sat on the foot of a nearby chaise. I drank one of the bottles without coming up for air and ate a few bites of the fruit like a ravenous grasshopper, handing it back to him. I desperately needed to brush my teeth. Bits of dried blood streaked the uneaten meat of the apple.

  “Where were you trying to go?”

  “I was looking for Brea.” It was odd how lying could come so easily. I wasn’t going to tell him I planned to steal one of his cars before I went looking for her. I didn’t bat an eye.

  “In the courtyard by my coach house?” he said, watching me carefully. “You think I have your friend stashed in one of my automobiles?”

  “Had to start somewhere.” I opened the other bottle of water, grimacing against pain in my wrist. “Did you throw me down the stairs over there?”

  “No. How long have you known Peter?” He gave an answer and expected one in return.

  “I don’t know Peter at all. How long was I out?” I tossed back. Lie, lie, and lie. If hell truly existed, I’d be a guest really soon at the rate I was going.

  “Two days. You were looking for Brea, nothing else?”

  “You left me down here, knocked out, for two freaking days?” No wonder I felt like crap. And Ezra probably thought Peter and I had run away, being gone for so long. Had Peter even realized I’d disappeared, for two damned days?

  “Answer my question.”

  “What else would I have been looking for?” He was probing to see if I knew Peter was there, too. “I can’t believe you left me sprawled in the water for days. I could have drowned— ow.” Yelling made my head scream back at me. I slammed my eyes shut, caressing the temple that didn’t have a goose egg on it. I might have been having a big epiphany about rage being my new friend, but I was still beat up.

  “You were told to stay in your room.” He gritted the words at me with a locked jaw. “If anything, you should have listened for your own protection. This,” he waved a hand at my disheveled condition, “serves you right.”

  “You punished me by leaving me lying in the water back there?” I gestured toward the corner where I’d laid in the stream, inhaling water. I’d been unconscious, out of view of the people who recreated in the pools. “You bastard. I could have laid there and died.”

  “You’re lucky I’m not the one who found you skulking in my courtyard. You’d be feeling entirely ….” He searched my bruised face. “Differently.” He stood. “I’ll warn you once more about angering me. This is all you get, so you’d better learn quickly.” He offered a hand. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

  We headed for the stairs. I insisted on walking myself, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, counting my steps.

  I stopped, looking back at the water for a glimpse of the water lady who’d helped me.

  “What is it?” He narrowed his eyes on me, watching me closely.

  “Nothing.” I turned to take the next stair.

  “What were you looking for?” He grabbed my arm above the elbow.

  “Ow!” I snarled, drawing my arm back quickly. “Stop grabbing me!” I took a breath to get past the pain that racked my elbow. “I saw something odd, no big deal.”

  “Well, then. Up you go.” He said, prodding me on.

  People constantly telling me what to do made me want to scream. I sent him an icy look and turned to go up the stairs. My movements were slow, bearing pain as I climbed.

  “Don’t act so put off, Tessa. You brought this all on yourself.”

  “Stop talking, Kai.”

  I was livid when he laughed.

  Chapter 21

  There’s no event in life that will deliver a paradigm shift faster than someone trying to kill you. I felt I’d aged a lot in the last couple of weeks. Fun teenage years playing volleyball by the lake and deciding what I wanted to be when I grow up, gone. Kaput. Replaced by days of thinking about keeping myself and my best friend safe and free, and having my heart broken for the first time, while juggling a new life between being a human and a gargoyle.

  Who’d ever think a gargoyle could cry? Or breathe for the matter. At least it was without physical pain. My body healed when I transformed at dusk the night before and then I’d slept the entire next day, waking up a couple times for water and then going back to bed. When I woke again I’d changed and slept crooked on one wing, which was far worse than waking with a stiff neck. I lay in the huge, over-stuffed bed in my latest prison wishing I was back in Austin with Brea, chatting over Skype about boys and new clothes. I’d had enough of the UK. The email I received from Professor Douglas that day had turned from the biggest blessing in my life into the biggest curse.

  And my best friend was involved, lost somewhere in the vast, confining unknown of an insane man’s domain.

  I remembered the day last summer when I felt my life was going to change. Substantially.

  I laughed through my tears, causing bit of clear mucus to spray into the air from my snout. Guess it’s safe to say it was a change for the worse. Crying was going to help nothing, but it made me feel better. I wiped my snout on a scaly forearm and rolled upright.

  It was time for Plan B, which would hopefully go much smoother than Plan A. I was ready to escape my room to search for Brea, find her and fly her back to the bookstore. My tail twitched at my feet. I wasn’t emotionally recovered from the outcome of Plan A yet. Someone had tried to kill me. That, or they wanted to hurt me really bad. Scenarios twisted through my mind. I could have broken my neck on those murderous stairs.

  I rose from my bed, stretching my wings so far the span made the boney tips scrape along one wall, gouging into the plaster. A small, childish grin formed as I watched paint chips and dust fall to the plush carpet.

  In the library, the tile floor was cold even through the thick skin of my clawed feet. Moonlight glittered outside. Dew-laden fog gave way to a crisp, clear night. I opened the window and inhaled fresh air, closing my eyes, just breathing, trying to steel myself for my first, solo flight. Moonglow reflected through the trees, iridescent and silver. I leaned out, feeling the sill against my chest plate. The second my snout crossed the plane into the night air, electricity blasted my face like a hammer.

  I coughed blood into the air. The cold tile pressed up on my side, as if the floor had risen up to meet me. The room went red around me and faded.

  * * *

  “You just don’t learn do you?” Petra stood over me, pleased as punch. She hunched forward, claws resting on her thighs, wings twitching behind her. She smiled, bearing sharp teeth within a perfect set of gargoyle dimples. “Seriously, you are thick.”

  “Go away,” I managed to whisper. Trying to speak made my eyes hurt.

  “You don’t mean that.” Petra’s large head cocked to the side, like a dog listening to someone speak.

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t steer you wrong here. I really want you to leave me alone.” I sat up bracing on my knees and the bottom of my wings, t
hen got to my feet. My head throbbed with my pulse. “Were you outside the window?” I turned on Petra, looking to deliver a payback. She wore a simple, cream colored dressing gown and looked ridiculous, not that I was ready to walk a runway in my cami and skirt. I pulled at the top, self-consciously.

  “No, genius. The windows up here are warded against a pass-through from either direction.”

  “Warded?”

  “He put a spell on them.” She said it like I should know what she meant. “You got hit in the window.”

  “A spell.” I was supposed to believe I’d been smacked in the face by a spell that guarded the library windows.

  Petra nodded.

  “Like a witch’s spell?”

  “Yes, Thickness. Takes you a moment to digest certain things, doesn’t it?” She crossed her arms over her scaly chest, staring at me.

  There was a special, added insult to being poked at by someone who spoke with a British accent. “Was that slime over the hallway door also a ward?” I used two clawed fingers on each hand to make air quotes. Doing such a human gesture with gargoyle talons had extra sarcastic zip. I’d made it through the slime and only threw up a couple times. Yay, me. But I’d only tried getting out the window once. Maybe it only worked on a second attempt.

  “Yes. And that one was meant to be a warning. You keep surprising Kai.”

  “You don’t like that, do you? Kai thinking about me?” I taunted.

  “Look, you and I agree on one thing, and that’s the fact that we both want you gone,” she shot back. She hissed, nostrils flared. “And don’t get ahead of yourself, Tessa. You’ve far from figured out what’s bad and what’s good out here. Things are soon to be really messy, and you need to get your fragile, little human friend out of here.”

  “So, what? Are you going to clue me in?” There was no way I was going to let her get me all riled up at that point. I touched the end of my snout to see if I was still bleeding. Pain shot from my nose into my throat. I hissed against the sting.

  “So, I was on my way to your room when I heard you get hit. I can show you how to get out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving here without Brea,” I retorted.

  “I know where she is.”

  “There has to be a catch to this.” I didn’t trust Petra any farther than I could toss her. Overhand, like a football.

  “The catch would be that you leave here tonight, with your friend, and you never come back.” She put her claws on her hips. “You go back to London and stay put.”

  That sounded pretty good. I had to get to Brea and get her back home to her family before something terrible happened to her. I hesitated, but only for a second. There was a chance I’d never see Peter again. The thought of how he’d betrayed me stung. He’d known Kai had Brea. He’d driven us to Scotland. I’d heard him laughing with Kai in the courtyard.

  “Deal.” She could have her twisted little “happily-ever-after. Maybe her scheme would really work out. And I was fresh out of plans of my own.

  “Let’s go then.”

  * * *

  Petra would tell me to wait in one spot, normally tucked against a wall or in a corner, walk a little bit ahead and then motion for me to join her. It was impressive, considering she found places to conceal my large, gargoyle form. We made our way so slowly I twitched with impatience, but managed to contain my anxiety by thinking about finally getting to see Brea.

  To my surprise, we headed back down to Kai’s mineral springs cavern. My foot hit the first step going down like a magnet pushing through the field of a repelling, opposite pole. My senses screamed that I shouldn’t go any farther. It was unexplainable and seemed unwarranted, except that I’d been injured down there. I ignored the foreboding although it was so bad I realized I’d been holding my breath. Continuing would be a risk. Petra could turn on me any time, but my imperative was to get Brea out of the mess I’d put her in and get out of Scotland.

  The air smelled rich with sulfur and like the dark dirt under the nun’s rosebushes in Austin. As we descended, Petra become human. The simple, frock style dress hung long around her skinny frame. I looked at my human hands, and back up the stairs to the starry, moonlit sky. Petra watched me.

  “What’s going on?” I wasn’t complaining, but it was the first night in months I looked like myself.

  “It’s the water. Something in the minerals coming up from the aquifer mute the transformation,” she said, gesturing back outside. “Don’t get excited. Just as soon as you go back up those stairs, you’ll change back to your true form.”

  I gaped. “Hello,” I said, waving my hands in front of her face. “This is my true form.”

  “No.” She said. “It’s really not.”

  I didn’t have what it took to argue that. I was a believer in the changes controlling me. But it was interesting to know there was a mineral able to mute the effects of my transformation.

  “Do you know exactly what does the trick down here?”

  “It’s a mixture of elements. I’m not certain which.” She continued into the cavern. “Stay here,” she whispered.

  I waited against the wall, peering in at the activities inside.

  Humans swam in the pools. Lots of them. They gathered in corners and on furniture, totally at ease basking in warm humidity.

  I considered the word “humans” and it sounded like some alien being, some foreign species. I was nothing if not completely, utterly conflicted.

  Making out a familiar face in the foggy, broken light of the cavern was tricky. I didn’t know where Petra had gone. Steam gushed in places. Water bubbled and flowed.

  In one place, it rose a little higher out of the current, seeming to grow, or pile up. In seconds it was about six feet above the surface, churning in the air, forming human limbs. I blinked, remembering the woman who’d urged me to take a breath. I hoped it was her.

  The form stepped forth, the outline of a human body glistening in the low light. Muscular and tall, and obviously, not female, it began walking in my direction, leaving wet footprints behind.

  I searched faces but all others were oblivious.

  It looked at me with liquid pupils, fixed and studious.

  Without warning the watery man broke into a run, melting into a flow at another pool in the stream, right before it got to me. My legs trembled, but I stood my ground. Besides, I had no evidence it was bent on harm. More otherworldly entities lived in the cavern. I hoped whatever it was would be as kind as the woman who’d compelled me to fight for breath that day. There were no signs of him in the stream. He’d dissolved like sugar in a boiling pot.

  About fifty people were visible and none let on that they’d seen what I had. They could all be gargoyles and I’d never know the difference. Music thrummed and my nervous trembling rocked me in place to the dark rhythm. Everyone seemed so happy, and I yearned to be a part of their fun. They swam and laughed, disappearing in groups and did things I was too shy to keep watching.

  A small geyser spewed in the stream closest to me. I jumped. The water-man rose from the current again, looking at me with determination shining in his ethereal eyes. It was hard to tell, but I think he smiled at me before settling back into the water.

  I tucked myself back inside the corner. I couldn’t ask about what I’d seen without sounding like I’d lost the last remaining marbles knocking together in my head. I could just see myself asking Petra and enduring more of her condescending commentary and lilting laugh that accompanied. There was no way I’d put myself through that again, but I sort of wished she would show up because it was hard to stand still with everything happening around me. I made myself small in the darkness, but curiosity ruled me sometimes and I wasn’t willing to miss much.

  The lighting was spectacular, blending color with strobe. Grey fog clouded low on the dance floor, where college-aged humans gyrated slowly. The place held just enough people to make it interesting. They hung out casually, wearing swimsuits and drinking at the bar, partying together like the
y were at a beach club somewhere.

  Possibly, some were human, not gargoyles. I was jealous. They were beautiful and small. Never changing like I did when I forfeited my true form at night. Seeing them touching each other as they danced was wonderful, knowing how smooth skin felt in their hands, devoid of hardened scales and sinewy, bulging muscle. They moved slowly, with determined motions, eyes fixated on each other. I didn’t hear one of them make a sound over the heavy beat of the music.

  Peter didn’t appear to be down there but I kept looking, craning my neck to search the part of the room I hadn’t scanned. Some humans didn’t need the dance floor, holding and caressing each other wherever they deemed a good place. I loved dancing, for the brief time I’d been able to at the bookstore. Peter’s skin had been smooth, the muscle bunching under my touch. I didn’t want to admit to myself I missed him so much it hurt, so I didn’t.

  Darkness prevented making out details and I didn’t realize I’d stepped out of my corner to watch until one of the guys broke away from a group near me, wandering close. His eyes were narrowed to slits. I panicked a little. One hand reached for me and I dodged his sluggish motions, sliding back to the corner. He followed like a drunk rabbit after a dandling carrot.

  He was a beautiful human, shirtless and wearing a pair of board shorts. He closed the distance between us and reached for my waist with both hands. I began to wonder if I should shove him back into the room and act like nothing big had happened. He leaned in, hands moving slowly over the bare skin of my arms. I peeled his grip away.

  “Please, just go back over there,” I whispered.

  He ignored me, close enough that I could smell a harsh, chemical aroma on his skin and breath. I pushed at him.

  “Go away!” I whisper-shouted.

  Petra appeared behind him. She yanked him backward. The guy staggered a little, then wandered onto the dance floor like nothing happened.

  “What is wrong with these people?” I asked.

  “Not a thing if you ask one of them. They all think they’ve found utopia. Kai has a supply of a tincture at the bar to keep them … fun.”