by Isa Hunt
He smiled coldly at me, and there was the unmistakable hint of a challenge in his eyes. My puma growled silently within me, and I felt a sudden urge to shift there and then and sink my teeth and claws into him.
“That will be up to her to decide, not you,” he said calmly. “And with Artemis's strength being what it currently is, I suspect that she will want all the allies she can get. And I'm sure all of you know that the more mates she has, the more powerful she can become.”
“He's right,” admitted Paul grudgingly.
Paul always was the diplomatic one, the sensible one. Bears . . . their tempers were way too even, and it took too long to rouse them to anger. I glanced across at Benoit and grinned with a satisfied smile to myself. He at least had jealous anger glowing brightly in his eyes. He didn't say anything, though.
“Will you take me to the dragon queen?” asked Sergei.
“You didn't see her when you came in?” asked Paul. “She and Kelly – Kelly is the new dragon queen – should have been in the living room, as you entered the apartment. They weren't there?”
Sergei shook his head.
“Nobody was there.”
A look of intense anxiety came across Paul's face, and I could feel it in my guts as well.
“Oh no,” he murmured.
“What's wrong?” asked Sergei.
“Assassins . . . Artemis's assassins” muttered Benoit. He was already running for the door, and I turned and pulled my gun out and followed him.
We all dashed down the hallway and charged into the huge living room.
“Kelly!” I yelled hoarsely. “Kelly!”
But she was gone. The room was empty. Li-wun and Kelly were both gone.
CHAPTER 8 – PAUL
I had never been one to panic; usually, I was pretty cool and collected even in situations of the most extreme stress – but feelings of panic started to rip through me when I realized that Li-wun and Kelly were both missing.
“Oh shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Oh shit.”
“Alright, just calm down, calm down guys,” said Benoit. “If there had been enemies in here, we would have heard them. There would have been screams, shouts, the sounds of a struggle, maybe even gunshots.”
“Not if the assassins managed to take them by surprise,” said Rex grimly. “One syringe of that blue liquid each, right in the neck – they would have been paralyzed before they even had the chance to scream.”
“I don't think they were taken by assassins,” said the newcomer, Sergei. “I'm sure I would have seen something. And the guards were still at the door when I got here.”
“Maybe the guards were in on this whole thing,” said Rex. “Maybe Artemis paid them off.”
“I doubt Li-wun would have employed guards who weren't utterly loyal,” said Benoit. “She is old and wise enough to tell whether a person can be trusted or not, whether their loyalty can be bought, or whether it would never be for sale, not for any price. And she would only have employed guards who would absolutely be loyal to her.”
My feelings of panic and anxiety started to subside. Maybe these two were right. Maybe there was an m
ore benign explanation regarding the disappearance of Li-wun and Kelly.
As if appearing on cue to answer this question, a middle-aged man, dressed in the traditional black silk attire of a Chinese servant, emerged from one of the side doors. He bowed deeply to each of us – with an especially deep bow to Sergei, who he seemed to recognize – and then smiled.
“You are looking for the empress and your dragon queen, I presume?” the servant asked in heavily-accented English.
“We are,” I answered. “Where are they?”
He smiled mysteriously.
“Come with me.”
I glanced across at the others, and there was suspicion written plain across their faces. We nonetheless all gave each other subtle nods, agreeing to follow this man. I holstered my pistol, but kept it loose in its holster and rested my hand on it, just in case.
“Do you have any idea where he's going to take us?” I whispered to Sergei.
He shook his head.
“I've never been here before,” he said. “So I can't tell you that, I'm afraid.”
“And this guy?” I said, indicating with a subtle head gesture toward the servant. “Do you think we can trust him?”
“Like your friend just said about the guards, I'm sure the Empress would only employ people she was utterly sure she could trust.”
I nodded.
“I hope so. This all seems kinda . . . suspicious to me.”
“And to me,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “But don't worry – if anything happens, I've got your back.”
He lifted up the bottom of his jacket, subtly showing me that he too had a gun holstered there on his right hip. The sword wasn't the only weapon he was carrying.
I had only known this guy for a couple of minutes, but I already liked him. Perhaps I just wasn't as jealous a type as either Benoit or Rex, but I didn't have much of a problem with Kelly adding another mate to her stable. And she was the queen, after all – such a decision would be entirely up to her, whether the others liked it or not.
The servant led us to the last door at the end of the hallway, which he opened with a key on a red string around his neck, hidden beneath the high, stiff collar of his silk robe.
“There is another reason, beyond that of simple camouflage, that the Empress chose this building in which to 'retire,' if you wish to call it that,” the servant said with a subtle smile.
“Alright,” I said to him, still feeling a little suspicious. “And what reason is that?”
“You will find it in here.”
He opened the door wide for us, and I saw that it did not lead into a room, but rather into a narrow passage, at the end of which was an elevator.
“Which floor is it?” asked Rex as he walked toward the elevator.
“The elevator only goes to one destination,” said the servant. “Be prepared; it is quite a long ride.”
“Quite a long ride?” asked Benoit. “But this building is not so tall. It certainly isn't a skyscraper.”
The servant chuckled softly.
“What are they called in English? Ah yes . . . icebergs. That is what sank the Titanic, is it not? What you see on the surface of the ocean is but a tiny part of a much more massive structure.”
Nobody said anything as we waited for the elevator to arrive.
“Come on guys,” said Rex as the elevator doors finally opened. “Let's see where this elevator goes.”
We all followed him, crowding ourselves into the cramped space of the elevator. Once inside, I saw that there were indeed only two buttons. One, which said “A,” perhaps for an apartment, was glowing. That was where we were. The other button was labeled B, probably for the basement. That was the only place we could go. I leaned across and pushed B. The doors closed, and the elevator started to go down.
“He said it would be a long ride,” commented Benoit. “Let's see just how long it really is.”
Down we went . . . and down we kept on going. I looked at my watch. Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. We were still going. Thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty. A whole minute. Man, what was going on here? We had to be almost half a mile underground now.
“Damn,” murmured Rex. “That guy wasn't joking, huh?”
“It seems that he wasn't,” muttered Benoit. “I don't like small spaces like this. I want this damn thing to stop so I can get out and breathe.”
It had been a minute and a half now. Now a minute and forty seconds. What was the hell going on here? How deep were we gonna go?
Finally, I felt the elevator starting to slow down, and after around ten seconds of slowing, it came to a stop.
“Well, this is it,” I said. “Let's see where we are.”
The doors opened, and as soon as they did, we all gasped with surprise – and awe. We stepped out of the elevator, staring all around us in silent wonder. We we
re in a gigantic underground cavern – and flying up near the ceiling of it, a few hundred feet above us, were two glorious dragons.
CHAPTER 9 – KELLY
“We're gonna start training right now?” I asked, quite surprised. “What uh, what are we gonna do?”
Li-wun smiled with that sweet, grandmotherly smile of hers, and I immediately felt much more at ease.
“Have you learned to fly?” she asked.
“I did fly . . . once,” I replied.
As I thought back to my experience of flight, a surge of intense, conflicting emotions rushed through me. There was exhilaration but also fear. It was hard to forget the heady thrill of flying through the air as a dragon, but it was even harder to forget the terror of not being able to hold my form, and shifting back into my human form high above the ground, and then plummeting earthward in a fall that had almost killed me.
“I sense that it did not go as planned,” she said.
I smiled, feeling somewhat embarrassed.
“No, it uh, it didn't really go as planned,” I said. “I couldn't hold my dragon form, and I shifted back into my human form in mid-air. I only just survived the fall.”
“And now, after this . . . do you fear flying?”
I had to be honest with her; I had a feeling if I lied she would see right through it anyway.
“Yes, I actually am a little afraid now. It's not the flying part; that seemed to come pretty naturally to me. It's the holding my dragon form part. I don't want to shift back to a human in mid-flight again. I was lucky that my mates were there to catch me when I fell. If they hadn't been there, I would be dead now.”
Li-wun nodded knowingly.
“You would be surprised how many young dragons have died just like that. The feeling of flying is so . . . intensely liberating, so joyous, so exhilarating, that it is addictive. Often, the young dragon is so overcome by the feeling of that first flight that they fly too high, too long – and they cannot hold their form, transform back to their human selves and fall to their deaths.”
“So how do I hold my form longer?”
“As with anything that requires skill,” she said with a twinkle in her small, dark eyes. “Practice. And a helping hand from someone who has been doing it for far longer than yourself.”
“I would really appreciate your help,” I said, “but I don't think we can just, uh, you know, take to the skies of New York City. I don't think that America is ready for the headline, 'dragons fly over New York' just yet.”
Li-wun chuckled.
“Ah good, I see that you already value discretion as a shifter. The human world is not ready to know of the existence of our world; perhaps they never will be. And whenever they have discovered us, in the past, they have hunted and killed us and made war on us. It is sad, for we could do so many things for each other, our kind and theirs. But I fear that due to their nature – they fear things they do not understand and envy those more powerful than themselves – they would never accept us for what we are. This is why you must always keep our existence a secret, even from those closest to you.”
I nodded.
“Well trust me, I don't intend telling any, uh, 'humans,' about the fact that I'm a dragon shifter. Jeez, I can't believe I'm even saying that. A dragon shifter! A dragon! See, even if I did tell people, everyone would think I'd gone totally nuts anyway. They'd lock me up in a padded cell in some institution somewhere.”
“As I said, they fear what they do not understand.”
I nodded.
“I guess that's been the case with a lot of stuff throughout history. Not that I know that much about history or anything, but . . . it seems that most of the time, people do things out of fear.”
“And you must never allow fear to rule you, Kelly,” she said sagely. “Especially as a dragon queen. You must lead through your own courage, in the face of whatever comes your way.”
I sighed and shook my head.
“I'm too scared to even fly now. How can I be this great dragon queen that everyone seems to think I am?”
“Well, flying is the easy part. That's a fear that will be simple enough to get over. Come, let's get started on that.”
“Where though?”
She stood up and started shuffling out of the room.
“Li-wun, uh, where are you going?”
“Follow me,” she said.
I figured I didn't really have much choice, so I got up and hurried after her. She shuffled all the way down to the end of the hallway and opened a door there. I was surprised to see that it lead to an elevator.
“This is where we're going?” I asked.
“Come,” she simply said and shuffled into the waiting elevator after pressing the button.
I followed her in, and she closed the doors behind us and pressed one of the buttons inside, of which there were only two.
“Don't be alarmed,” she said as we started to descend. “The ride will take a while.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
She simply smiled.
“Be still for a while. Commune with your thoughts, your inner self.”
“Uh, okay.”
I stood in silence, wondering where on earth this elevator was taking us. The building we were in wasn't tall, and yet the ride seemed to be taking forever. I wanted to ask her more questions – I had a lot of those – but she had told me to be quiet for a bit, so I tried to do that. Thoughts of my long-lost brother's mysterious phone calls popped into my head, and with them, the familiar feelings of frustration and sadness. I wondered if I should ask Li-wun about him. Not right now, I figured; she had, after all, just asked me to shut up for a while, pretty much. I thought about Jason and felt really sad and worried, but realized that for the moment there wasn't really much I could do about helping him, even though I wanted so badly to rescue him from whatever danger he was in.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in the cramped space of the elevator, the doors opened. I was greeted with pitch darkness.
“Alright, uh, Li-wun, I know you asked me to be quiet for a while, but what is this? It's so freakin' dark in here I can't even see my hand in front of my face!”
“Wait here,” she said and shuffled off into the inky blackness.
“Oh jeez,” I muttered under my breath to myself. “Where is she going? What if she trips over something in the dark and like, breaks her hip or something?”
But before I could say anything else I heard a switch flip, and the whole area was flooded with light – and my jaw dropped with sheer shock.
“Oh my God . . . ”
That was all I could say as I stared around me in wonder. It was utterly magnificent. We were in some sort of underground cavern. It was a huge one. It reminded me of the inside of a massive cathedral, kinda, but much higher. There were all these long stalagmites and stalactites, like the spires of a church, and the ceiling was hundreds of feet up in the air.
“What . . . what is this place?” I gasped as Li-wun came shuffling back.
“This,” she said, “is the reason I chose this building as my place of exile. I needed somewhere to fly, but anywhere above ground would give me away. So I looked for the next best thing – a place under the ground.”
“Wow, just . . . wow,” I gasped. “I've never seen anything like this in my life, seriously.”
“Most people haven't, and won't. This is a closely kept secret, and I must ask you to never tell anyone of the existence of this place.”
“Don't worry, I won't,” I said, “and like with the dragon thing, even if I did tell anybody they'd probably call me crazy anyway.”
She chuckled.
“Still, there are those who may believe, even in the most outlandish-seeming things, and this is why we must exercise both caution and discretion.”
“I understand, Li-wun. So uh . . . we're gonna fly in here?”
She nodded.
“That we are. Are you afraid?”
I had to nod.
“Don't worry,” she said. “Remember what I told you about being a wind dragon – we have the ability to manipulate the air. If you cannot hold your form, and you fall, I will catch you one way or another. If I am not close enough to you to catch you with my hands, I will create a pocket of air on which you can safely float to the ground.”
“You can, uh, you can really do that?” I asked.
“You would not have believed me a few days ago if I told you could breathe fire – yet you have already done this, and found it to be true, have you not?”
“I have, yeah.”
It was true. I would never have believed such a thing before – yet it had happened. I had done it.
“Alright, well yeah, I guess we can do this. But first, tell me . . . is there any way I can guarantee that I'll be able to hold my form for longer?”
“You are going to need more power for that. There's no way around that. More chi. But I can tell you that if you start to panic when you feel the change coming over you, you will quickly lose all ability you have to hold that form. Simply being calm and focusing on your dragon attributes – your wings, your scales, your teeth and claws – will allow you to hold the form a little longer, long enough to get safely to the ground if you are not too high up in the air.”
“So . . . I need to uh, you know, with my guys, er my sacred mates.”
She nodded and smiled.
“Yes. As I explained, this is a way to gather chi into yourself. Your mates are your source of power. Use them well. The more chi you bring into your being, the longer you will be able to hold your dragon form without effort. After a few years, you will have accumulated enough chi to hold it indefinitely.”
“But wait, hold up – a few years? I don't think I have a few years! Isn't this crazy Artemis guy after me right now?”
She nodded.
“Yes, he is – and he grows stronger with every passing day. And you will have to face him. You are right – you do not have the luxury of a few years to prepare for this battle. You have a much shorter time than that. This is why I must train you to the best of my ability. We must do as much as we can with the little time we have.”