PS The Dragon Fights (Shadeworld Book 2)

by K. G. Wilkie

  The gas station was empty, but the garage standing next to the empty convenience store still had a roof and four sides. She checked the door and found that it looked clean enough. It was obvious that this town was a bust and she'd have to retrace her steps to see if the same bus that had dropped her off could either bring her further out or return her to Las Vegas where she could catch a different ride, but for now she'd need to sleep if she was going to be walking several miles to go home. Alyss looked at the roof and noticed that there were, in fact, some holes in it. She remembered that the weather out here could usually be relied upon to stay dry, so it still seemed as good enough a place to stay as she could hope for in this ghost town.

  "Hey, little lady." Some men, boys really, came knocking at the garage door when she had already curled up to sleep. "We heard you making noise out here. Sorry we didn't come out to meet you sooner, but we don't get up before night time here."

  She eagerly went out the door to meet with them. "Oh I'm so glad there were people here. Can you guys help me find the closest place to sleep?"

  Another one of them walked forward with a grin, his piercings flashing in the lone streetlight. "I've got just the place for you, honey. Want to spend the night with us?"

  She backed up a step. "I want to sleep somewhere, but I don't really like the sound of doing it with anyone else," she said.

  "We couldn't get into town today, so we're pretty lucky you showed up," the third one said.

  "I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as we will," the first chimed in again.

  She picked up a wrench from the shop floor and held it like a club. "I don't want any trouble from you people, but I don't like the sound of this conversation we're having," Alyss said.

  The trio's eyes burned with fire and bat-like wings sprouted from their backs. "Bad move, my friend, to hunt daemons with plain steel," the second hissed.

  They advanced on her.

  An old woman stepped out of the air in front of her. "No, I don't think this will do at all. Boys, you are forgetting your manners. International law states that you are required to retrieve and utilize food without their awareness. Clearly you have forgotten that one." She shook her finger at the target of her ire. "As for the rest, you have behaved very irresponsibly."

  They hissed at the interloper. The old woman shrugged and snapped her fingers, opening a portal. "If you are going to be like that, then we're going to have to send you back to the Daemon Realm so you can pull yourselves together. In the future, please be sure to act more professionally," she said. With a snap of her fingers the three daemons were sucked into the portal which quickly shut after them.

  She tucked her long grey hair behind one mahogany ear and looked at Alyss. The teen was still holding the wrench and facing this stranger, but she was obviously shaken. The lady tutted. "Now, that will not do. Tell me what's happened," she said.

  Alyss looked her over, obviously doubting the reliability of the kind of strangers who literally popped up out of nowhere. Eventually the strain of all she'd gone through got to her, though, and the girl told the odd stranger everything--the imprisonment, strange tales of danger brewing in the Shadeworld, and another world full of monsters like they'd just seen.

  The old woman nodded. "Yes, well, that all makes rather a lot of sense, doesn't it? But I can see you're in a muddle about it all," she added. She looked at Alyss and nodded.

  "Well, we'll have to see about some of your issues. The name's Galacina, by the way," she said. Galacina held out her hand, and the girl cautiously shook it. She nodded in approval again. "Well, I can fix some of your problems," she said. Galacina snapped and opened another portal that opened onto a bathroom stall. "We can't have you just pop into existence out of nowhere, but if you walk out of this stall here, you'll find yourself in the LAX airport," she said. She pulled out a thick bundle of currency in a few different colors, but a good chunk of the bundle was green. She gave these to the girl.

  "I think these are the American dollars; I can never quite keep track of them. This money should be enough for at least one plane." She pulled out another stack of more colorful bills. "This here should get you around in Russia. I expect you'll want to head over there. Biggest bunch of wild territory you can find in this world if you don't count Antarctica, which I must say it's best not to. Wild forested land is really the best chance you have of being hard to find, you know." She stuffed these bills in her hand as well.

  "I'm busy with my travels and I have to run, but I think I'll be seeing you again very soon. This reality has an awful lot of interesting things going on right now, and I think I'm going to come back to enjoy the action soon enough."

  She opened another portal. This one had a view of endless white expanse with cube-shaped worlds floating around.

  "Wait!" Alyss called out to her. "When will I see you again? What's going to happen here that's so interesting?"

  The woman paused with one foot in the other side. "Everything is interesting to someone," she said. "I'm just here because I'm afraid not enough people have interest when they really should and I'm a sucker for helping people like that. Tootles," Galacina said. Then she was gone.

  Alyss was shocked by her abrupt visitor, but still she followed her directions and got on a plane. She took the money she'd been offered and went even further afield. Alyss knew she had no time to waste on fear of a repeat of what had happened, because being trapped again was even worse than dealing with some hoodlums. She had taken a bus, and another, and then a plane, and a second plane. On the third plane she got off at the transfer point on the off-chance it would slow down those following her.

  Then in Beijing she picked up the Trans-Siberian railway, the route taking her into the heart of Russia. After weeks in a third-class compartment where she had to ask the old ladies on the train to help her with at least daily tea and a few stops along the way to pick up basic groceries next to the train stations--third-class passengers did not get served any meals after all--she stumbled off at the smallest station she could find and waved goodbye to the one old lady that had helped her so nicely. She stumbled away from the station and walked on shaky legs that weren't used to the solid terrain of ground under her feet after spending so many days on rocking compartment floors. In the West it was deep into fall, but up here it was close enough to being winter to make no difference. She had a sleeping bag and a basic Mylar blanket used in emergency kits, but it wasn't enough to prevent an average human from getting terrible frostbite. She survived each night of shivering to continue walking each day. Her progress was slower and slower each day, her icy feet stumbling, but still she continued on.

  A normal person might have turned tail days ago, but there was no turning back at this point. Not only was the way back lost to her, obscured in the drifting snow which clouded the view in every direction, but it was truly hopeless now to go back with an empty wallet and no way to return home.

  Somehow home was a foreign concept now, taking one slow step in front of the other. It was like she didn't really have a home and never had--just memories of a house, a yard, and her parents' faces. She had no fuzzy feelings deep in her gut that she could turn to for comfort out there when every part of her got so cold and desperate for any concept of warmth, even metaphorically. She had no warmth. She had nothing but snow, snow, snow. There were many trees and plants and even small animals, hunkered down against the weather, all around her, but she was born and bred in the suburbs and had no clue of what to do with all the natural stuff out there. Oh, the benefit of hindsight, to remember those extreme survivalist shows she'd never really enjoyed watching on television, and thinking how nice it would be if she'd watched just a few episodes. Or even school English classes were full of old books someone had written a hundred years ago about kids surviving on their own--Hatchet, The Wild, or My Side of The Mountain--if only she'd chosen any of those books to read and do the dumb essays on instead of the novels she'd picked out that were more fun.

  It was a side-line of thou
ght, but soon it thankfully drifted away as her ears became hard and frostbitten in the cold and her fingers began to seize up and her feet started stumbling more until she no longer had the strength to think much at all. All she could think of was taking one step forward, and then another, and travel yet more miles on and on, hoping she'd stumble upon some small hidden inlet or village to hunker down in. She also feared that she might end up in another big city by accident where she'd revel in the peace of being somewhere she could get a meal and place to stay, even knowing she'd have to leave it right away because her pursuers were more likely to find her in more populated areas simply because they were more likely to search through cities than the stark wilderness she found herself in.

  She finally saw a light peeking out at her through the trees, and in just a few more steps she collapsed on the doorstep there. She gave a weak knock at the door, and it opened as much as the security chain would allow.

  The women behind the door said something to her, no doubt in Russian, which she was still terrible at speaking several days ago when she was well-fed and warm on the train. She weakly shook her head. The woman sighed and switched to muttering at her in English, scolding her for being so stupid as to travel in the storm and asking her how she'd gotten there, so far away from anywhere else.

  "Please let me stay here," Alyss said, barely aware of her surroundings. "I need to stay here. I need to stay away from him, from Aeron."

  The old lady looked at her in alarm. "Aeron, the prince?" Alyss didn't think to ask her how she knew of him; she just nodded. Her eyelids grew heavy and she slowly fell into slumber. "Wait, little girl! Aeron, tell me about why Aeron wants you," she said. Alyss just shrugged. Sleep overcame her.

  She woke up in the morning to clothes and the smell of a hot breakfast. "I can do this much for you," the lady called out from the other end of the cabin, "but no more. I won't help you if trouble comes after you." She muttered that she knew it surely would, but she wasn't going to put her neck on the line for the type of person who could survive a storm like that.

  Eventually, the lady went out to the town market to do her daily shopping, and Alyss followed along behind her, now renewed and energized after one night's sleep so she felt ready to go exploring already. She bundled up in the extra warm clothes her host offered. Her ears and fingers and toes had already returned to full health and showed no signs of frostbite, so she doubted it was really necessary for her, but she took the extra layers offered to her anyway just to comfort the woman.

  The marketplace was more like the bazaars she'd seen in Hollywood movies, full of tents and collapsible stalls the merchants were unpacking at that moment. There was already a respectable clump of people milling about to buy wares, and the merchants called out to passersby to convince them to buy this or buy that. A knot of people was engaged in haggling over the price of giant beets the size of her head next to her, and another group was talking over the benefits of a new rug. It was surely a surprising market, as many of the pieces for sale were fine goods and fancy furniture. Some of them reminded her more of the style of things in the palace than what she'd expected to see in Siberia.

  "How can you guys get such expensive things out here?" the girl asked her guide.

  The woman just shrugged and went around to the stalls she wanted to see, buying some radishes and parsnips with a side of beef. She explained that their town traveled a lot and did quite well for themselves. "We can keep these things," she added with a sharp eye at her guest, "because we look out for each other with our arms, and no thieves have been able to take anything from our people yet. It would be wisest not to try," she added. Alyss blushed and protested that she hadn't meant that at all, which her host eventually seemed willing to accept.

  "I wouldn't want you to get desperate to find a way to finance the next part of your journey," her host said. "I'm willing to help you, child, but I will not put my neck on the line over you."

  Screams sounded down the square. Alyss turned her head and saw Aeron charging through the crowd. A vendor grabbed onto his arm and started arguing with him about the damage done to her stall in his haste. He tried to yank free from her grasp or shove her aside when she couldn't be budged, but he didn't make much progress. Alyss's eyes bugged and she darted away to the nearest alley leading off of the square, thankful that he hadn't seen her before he'd been waylaid or no shopkeeper could have stopped him.

  She twisted around the maze of the town, having no clue where she was going or how to get there but doing her best to get as far away as possible. She wasn't familiar with the streets and ended up wasting precious minutes doubling back towards the center, but eventually she made it to the houses set up on the outskirts of the city.

  Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Alyss could hear him flying behind her. Clearly, her lead had not been enough. She was reinvigorated by his nearness and managed to run even faster than before in her attempts to escape him. Alyss replayed the memories in her mind of how she had suffered and hungered since leaving the palace. She had traveled, she had walked, she had fought for her freedom. She had earned her freedom, and she was desperate to keep it for as long as she could. To get home. To leave behind forever the crazy magic and dead golems and endless secrets that she was something more than she appeared, like so many had hinted. To leave behind forever that crazy world and the people in it who almost seemed to think she was one of them. She wasn't; Alyss was sure. She was just a girl who needed to keep running, to run faster, to go, go, go.

  All of her fatigue seemed to be burned away. She was no longer a hollowed-out shell working on pure bravado. She was a running machine, each stride synced perfectly with the swing of her arms. More than her second wind, she felt adrenaline and focus powering her to run beyond her strength and endurance. It felt good, and powerful. She would have enjoyed it, if the sound of constant wing beats hadn't reminde3d her of impending doom should she fail. Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Fwoosh.

  He banked, turning briefly away from her. She ignored the oddness, the strangeness, running with all her heart forward. Then she saw it. He'd made a flaming wall of pale blue fire, suddenly rearing up before her eyes. She could have hit herself, watching her steps to be sure she wouldn't stumble but missing such and obvious thing. Alyss flinched at the heat but tried to break through the wall, screeching in agony at the pain of being burned. So the flames weren't just a magical illusion, but truly physical and painful. She tried to force herself to walk further though them anyway. Just two inches of complete pain and she would get through it and away from him.

  The wall of flames burst open and spread through the rest of the town.

  Alyss jumped back to avoid being burned alive by the now miles-deep barrier. Her skin and clothes were completely repaired once she severed contact with the wall, but still she could remember the feeling of the burns, and she couldn't bear to try to break through it now that it was so impossible a task.

  Screams split the air. Alyss turned toward their voices, almost compelled to go to them and help. The sounds of his wings were getting louder as he came closer, though, so she swerved aside to try to get away from him somehow.

  She moved in the opposite direction of what she had heard him doing. But he was there, waiting. She looked back to see a shadow of him fading off to the right. She shrieked, trying to turn back to the town, but the wall of fire moved to rapidly surround her on all sides like another impenetrable prison waiting to block her with every step she took. He folded his wings along his back and dived down for her, swooping straight up into the air until he cleared the rapidly disappearing wall. Aeron scooped Alyss up in his arms.

  He was whooping in exhilaration at the speed, the sheer joy of flight. She screamed in fear at the trajectory. He evened it out to a more horizontal plane of movement, and her protests quieted. He took a peek at her face. Her cheeks were blushed and her eyes closed as she silently savored the sensation. He smiled fondly himself.

  Her eyes snapped open then. "What are you doing?" she screamed in rage. "Let
me go!" She kicked and punched at him, as well as she could with her wind up-blocked by her unwieldy position. He growled back at her protests.

  "You really want me to drop you at this height?" he asked.

  She stilled abruptly. She made not a cheep more of protest. He hefted her more securely. She squeaked in surprise, but said not a word. He now held her so that his left arm came under both of her armpits and across the front of her torso, his right hand holding her under the butt and across her thighs like he was just carrying an unruly toddler in his arms. It was demeaning, but he refused to hold her in another way or release her as she repeatedly begged him to.

  They were traveling quickly, scenery becoming one smooth blur beneath their feet. The shadow of a mountain range rearing before them shaded their eyes from the pure light of the full moon. It continued to stand sentinel at their backs as the duo sped steadily along in front of it. Plains and flatlands were outlined in clear relief beneath them. The cloudless night made the moon so bright and clear that it was outlined in strong relief, even as everything else in the world seemed to blur and spread with the speedily passing miles.

  They flew on in silence for a moment, Aeron savoring his position. "Aren't you going to magic us back to the palace?" Alyss eventually asked grumpily. "What's the point of having all this power and not being able to use it and make your life more convenient?" she added. "It's a complete waste if the best you can do is make androids that don't need recharging." He looked at her sidelong, as if to question whether she really wanted to risk going there and starting a fight when her life depended on him continuing to keep hold of her so high in the air. Alyss wasn't fazed by the scrutiny. "This is so inefficient; it feels like a waste," she complained.