Playing With Fire: Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society

by Meg Ripley

  "What do you think it could be?" Hava asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, she reached forward. She intended to place her fingertips on the edge of the disc, but instead felt like someone had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her harshly into the whirlpool center of the glow.

  Hava tried to resist the yanking feeling, reaching back to try to grasp anything that would allow her to stay in place. Her fingers brushed against Josh's hand and she heard his voice call her name, but it sounded like it was coming to her through water. Cold air rushed past her and a vibrant swirl of colors went past her eyes so quickly she couldn't see anything else.

  She no longer felt the floor beneath her feet and suddenly it seemed like there were walls closing in on either side of her. In a matter of seconds, she felt herself hit the ground hard, pain shooting up through her knees as she made contact with a metal floor. She gasped for breath and tried to stand, but something hit her in the back, sending her forward so she sprawled on her belly across the floor with her face only inches from what looked like a pair of heavily studded black boots.

  She heard a groan that sounded like Josh and she pushed back, forcing the weight on her back off her so that she could roll over. Josh and Jake lay on the floor, crumpled as if they hit the ground with the same hard intensity that she had and were trying to recover from the shock.

  "Who are you?" a deep, growling voice demanded.

  Hava turned her eyes sharply back to the studded boots and then let them travel up along tight black pants, a studded belt, and a chiseled, smooth body that made her bite down on her bottom lip despite the fear and confusion rolling through her.

  "Who are you? Where did you come from?" the voice demanded again, louder and more aggressive this time.

  The force behind the words had what she suspected was the opposite effect of what the speaker had intended, filling her with anger instead of fear. She climbed to her feet, ignoring the pain in her legs and hands, and lifted her face to confront the man. As she did, the breath caught in her throat and she took an involuntary step back.

  Standing still and strong, the man appeared to be nearly a foot taller than Hava and carved out of marble. His body rippled with muscle and his stance told her that he was not frightened by their sudden appearance. What had startled her, though, was his face.

  A black mask concealed his face, covering from the top of his head down to his neck with what looked like smooth, dark leather. The mask only closed over the front of his face and connected at the back of his head with a series of strings tied together. Hava could see a thick, dark ponytail running along the back of his neck and settled into the curve of his neck and shoulder.

  "You aren't supposed to be here," the man snarled, "We are supposed to receive a transmission from 1776. How did you get here?"

  His words swirled around her in a confusing cloud. She tried to sift through them, but she wasn't understanding what he was saying to her.

  "What do you mean a transmission?" she asked.

  "How did you get here?" he demanded again, his voice becoming angrier and more frantic each time he spoke.

  "We climbed into the torch of the Statue of Liberty."

  She felt dumb with the words coming out of her mouth, but it was the only explanation she could give him.

  "That portal is not supposed to be open yet. How did you get through it?"

  "Portal? I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't mean to go through anything."

  "You have to go back."

  Hava turned and saw her friends staring at the wall. Josh flattened his hand against it, but it didn't move.

  "The wall is solid, Hava."

  She turned back to the man and pointed behind her at the wall. The fear that she had forced away with her anger was creeping back and the look of the mask on the man's face was causing it to ripple down her neck and coil in the center of her chest.

  "There's no door. How are we supposed to get back?"

  The man suddenly took a long stride forward and Hava moved out of his way. He touched his hand to the wall in several places and then balled his fists and slammed them into the surface, letting out an angry sound as he did.

  "The portal sealed itself. It's like it doesn't exist."

  "How is that possible? We just came through it. It has to exist."

  "That's not necessarily the case. That portal was not meant to open for another fifty years, which means that it didn't exist when you came through it and it seems to have ceased to exist again. The question is, though, whether it is just the portal that doesn't exist, or its vessel."

  ****

  "How would the statue of liberty not exist anymore?" she asked, feeling like her mind was swelling, "We were just there. Just seconds ago, we were standing in it. How can it suddenly not be there?"

  "I need to know who you are," the man replied, ignoring her question.

  His voice was slightly muffled by the mask in front of his mouth, but she could still hear the edge in it.

  "Why do you need to know?"

  "The portals are only meant to provide authorized transmissions. You are not an authorized transmission that I know of and you came through a portal without a predetermined transmission set for the next fifty years. I need to know now who you are and why you are here."

  "I don't have any idea why we're here," she told him, "I told you, we were in the original torch of the Statue of Liberty and then we were here."

  "I'm Josh," Josh said, startling Hava with his forwardness as he stepped toward the masked man and extended his hand toward him, "I'm a tour guide at the Statue."

  The man looked at Josh's hand, but didn't take it. He looked over at Jake.

  "Who are you?"

  Jake extended his hand toward the man as Josh had.

  "I'm Jake. I live on a farm."

  He winced and stepped back so that he was partially hidden behind Hava.

  "And you?" the masked man demanded, turning his attention to Hava.

  "I'm Hava. I'm a history student." The man started to turn away and Hava raised her voice slightly, "Who are you?"

  He paused and slowly returned his gaze to her.

  "Makhahr."

  "Where are we?"

  Makhahr crossed the room and pulled what looked like a lever on the far wall.

  "It doesn't matter where we are," he said, and Hava noticed that that wall behind them had started to glow and sparkle, "Because you are going back."

  Hava felt the same sensation of someone grabbing her and pulling her that she did when she was standing in the torch near the orange disc and an instant later she, Josh, and Jake landed in a tangled heap onto a hard-packed wood floor.

  She slowly rose to her feet, stood carefully and looked around. A fire in a fireplace on the opposite side of the space filled the room with light and she could smell damp earth, a sharp, nauseating chemical, and something strangely sweet. The adrenaline of the fear rolling through her sharpened her senses and she detected a sawing sound from behind her.

  Taking a steeling breath, Hava turned around. A table was several feet away and a heavyset man stood with his back to them, hunched over something laid out on the wood surface. A lantern positioned in the corner of the table cast extra illumination on the area, making the man's shadow stand in stark contrast across the floor.

  He seemed to be concentrating on whatever was on the table and hadn't noticed their presence. Hava stepped forward cautiously.

  "Excuse me?"

  The man didn't move and Josh stepped up beside Hava.

  "Sir?"

  He still didn't move, but before Hava could call out to him again, she heard Jake.

  "Where the hell are we?" he shouted as if everything that was building inside of him from the moment they climbed up into the torch suddenly broke.

  At that, the man whirled around and Hava's hand flew to cover her mouth. She was staring at Benjamin Franklin.

  The four of them stood in stark silence for a few seconds before Ben
jamin closed the space between them with speed and intensity that startled Hava so much she stumbled backwards into Jake. He caught her by her arms and held them, keeping her against him as if trying to both protect her and feel protected by her.

  "Who are you? When are you from? How did you get here?"

  The questions came out so fast that it took Hava a moment to process them.

  "We are just people who were in the Statue of Liberty. We don't know how we got here or why," she said.

  "Statue of Liberty," Benjamin muttered to himself, looking down as if the words sounded familiar but he couldn't quite place them. Suddenly he looked up at them and Hava saw a blend of fascination and panic glittering in his eyes, "You are not an authorized transmission."

  It was the same term that the masked man had used.

  "What do you mean?" Hava asked.

  "You should not be here. You must be an emergency transmission. There is a reason that you are here."

  "What reason? How could there possibly be a reason for us being here when we don’t even know where we are or how we got there?"

  "I need to show you something," Benjamin said.

  He gestured for them to follow him and guided them toward the table. Hava gasped when she saw a body lying on the table, its face covered with a cloth but its chest cavity open. She felt nausea roll through her and she turned away. As she turned her back to the body, she felt Jake push past her toward the table.

  "Where is his heart?" he asked.

  "Are you a doctor?" Benjamin asked.

  "I'm in medical school."

  "I have eight more bodies just like this buried beneath this floor. You have just noticed why."

  "Did you kill them?" Hava asked in a hushed voice.

  "Of course, not," Benjamin snapped, "This is how they leave them."

  "Who is 'they'?"

  Benjamin met her eyes sharply.

  "We need to go back. They need us."

  ****

  "You told us that the problems with the portals in China had been resolved."

  Hava looked down the long table at Thomas Jefferson who was glaring at the masked man sitting at the other end with fire in his eyes. Her mind was reeling. She felt like she was standing still and that everything was happening around her so fast she couldn't get control of it.

  "We thought they had."

  "If you are going to sit with us and have a civilized conversation, the least you could do is remove your war mask."

  "War is coming."

  "It's not here now."

  There was a moment of tense silence and then Makhahr lifted his hands and released the ties on the back of the mask. He eased it away from his face and Hava was stunned at how incredibly beautiful he was. His eyes met hers and she saw something in them that told her he was not human.

  "The portals in China were destroyed, but the warriors who were still weaponized have gone rogue. They plan to use the knowledge of the universe and all of history to destroy Earth and all of its inhabitants so that they can claim the planet and rebuild it."

  Hava noticed that even as he spoke to the other men at the table, among them Sam Adams and George Washington, he didn't turn his eyes away from her.

  "How is this happening?" she asked, "How are any of you here?"

  "Our kind and yours have cooperated for centuries," an older man sitting near Benjamin said, "We mastered technology long ago that allows us to break through the barriers of time. This has enabled us to help structure the world as it should be. Now these rogue warriors seek to destroy that by changing the patterns of time so that key moments do not happen. If they succeed, it will set off a ripple effect that will destroy all of history as you know it."

  "What are they trying to change?"

  "They have already destroyed the ancient Egyptian civilization and brought about the fall of Rome."

  "But those things already happened. They are part of history."

  "Part of history as you know it. To you, what they have done already happened long ago. You do not have the capacity to comprehend the breadth of time. What they have done, has always been done, what they intend to do is still yet to happen."

  "What do they intend to do?"

  "They plan to kill the Founding Fathers before they have developed the Declaration of Independence."

  "I don't understand."

  "The days leading up to the Declaration were the most vulnerable time for the nation," Makhahr said, his voice sending a shiver down her spine, "They know that, and they intend to take advantage of it. They know that if they can prevent the Declaration from coming into existence, they will send the entire course of history into turmoil. That moment in time established patterns that developed the world as it exists today. Without it, a ripple effect will leave the planet completely destroyed by now."

  "But those things have already happened," Hava insisted again, "You said they destroyed Egypt and Rome. Those civilizations fell thousands of years ago, and it had nothing to do with an alien race."

  "Come with me," Makhahr said, standing.

  Hava moved to follow him. Jake and Josh stood, but Makhahr held a hand up to stop them. They lowered back into their chairs and as Hava followed the gorgeous man out of the room, she could hear a heated debate building around the table.

  Hava and Makhahr walked in silence through the large home where they had been meeting until he led her outside. She felt him step up close beside her and the heat emanating from his body made her stomach shiver. His hand touched hers between them and he pressed his palm to hers, intertwining their fingers.

  "What do you see?" he asked, looking up into the sky.

  She followed his gaze and saw a sky that looked just like what she knew, though she realized now that she was on a planet far from Earth.

  "Stars."

  "No," he said, shaking his head, "You see the memories of stars. The actual stars were there long ago. Things are not always as they seem, and what you see is not always is truly there at that moment. Sometimes you experience moments that should not have happened, and miss moments that should have. Sometimes you think you are experiencing something, when you are truly caught in a memory."

  "The destruction of those civilizations…"

  "Has at once just occurred and been history for millennia. It is because it was, and it was because it has always been. That is how these creatures operate. They utilize their knowledge of time in its entirety to both travel through and manipulate it."

  "If they want the planet, why don't they just attack now? Why bother going through the hassle of setting up some complicated destruction?"

  "Knowledge, is all they have. They are not strong enough to fight now, and even if they were, the warfare would put them at risk. This way, they are able to allow mankind to destroy itself while they are able to remain at a safe distance."

  "Why does the timing of killing the Founding Fathers matter though? If you already know these men found the country and create the Declaration, why can't they just do it earlier than history says?"

  "There are some moments that cannot be changed. The Declaration is one of these moments. That singular action changed the course of humankind. The warriors have already arrived in that time. They can only change the patterns once. If we can hold them off until the Declaration is written and distributed, they will never be able to change it and it will destroy them."

  "Can this moment be changed?" she asked softly.

  Makhahr turned to her and she felt his hand cup her face. She let him guide her around so that she looked into his eyes and her body brushed his.

  "No," he whispered, "You were meant to be here. That is why the portal opened for you. This moment is and will always be."

  ****

  Pursuit of happiness.

  Hava lifted her face further toward Makhahr and felt his mouth settle onto hers. She sighed at the feeling of his lips pressing tenderly into hers and parted them, welcoming his tongue into her mouth. The sensation was nearly overwhelming, dizz
ying in how unexpected it seemed, yet how completely sure she felt under his touch as if, just as he said, this moment was always meant to exist.

  The kiss deepened and Hava wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing her closer to her. Suddenly he pulled away from her and looked at her through lowered eyelashes.

  "You know I am not one of your kind," he said.

  It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded in response.

  "Yes."

  "And you are alright with that?"

  "I want you, Makhahr. It doesn't matter to me."

  He leaned down and captured her mouth again, biting into her bottom lip.

  "There are things about me that are different."

  "Tell me."

  She was nervous about what he was going to say, but she felt so passionately drawn to him she knew that no matter what he said, she would still need him. It was as though her pull toward the Statue had been actually been a pull to him, and that somehow, she had been waiting for this moment all her life

  "I am stronger than human men."

  "How much stronger?"

  He reached down and swept her into one arm, pulling her up so that he cradled her against the front of his shoulders. She gasped and clung to him, noticing that his muscles didn't even seem strained.

  "I am also more…powerful."

  "What do you mean?" she asked in a powdery whisper.

  Makhahr nuzzled his face against her stomach until her shirt moved out of the way and touched a kiss to her skin. She drew in a breath as he moved his mouth down, still holding her against him as he let his lips trail down until he reached the waistband of her pants. His tongue dipped beneath the waistband and she arched against him.

  "Let me show you."

  He tucked his other arm around her and she didn't protest as he started moving away from the building and into the darkness. He carried her a short way before she saw a row of smaller homes positioned along a winding trail. He walked through the door to one and she felt them climbing stairs before he lowered her gently onto a soft mattress.

  Makhahr came down with her, stretching his body over hers so that she could feel the full weight of him crushing her down into the bed. It felt warm and fulfilling, and Hava indulged herself by lifting her head to run her tongue along his collarbone. He kissed her languidly for a few long seconds before bringing his hands to the hem of her shirt and nudging it up.