Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters)

by Rebecca K. Lilley

  “It means I think you should go fuck yourself,” I added helpfully. Pain had never been a good enough excuse to make me shut my mouth. My breath whooshed out hard. A solid punch to the ribs will do that.

  I lost track of time as the beating seemed to last forever. The bastard even made me black out at one point. I had reached my absolute limit when I called a halt to it.

  “Enchanter,” I finally gave an answer to his favorite question. It was a lie, but not a real obvious one.

  “Bull,” Mav snarled, and smashed his fist into my ribs. He loved that spot. I coughed up more blood, spitting it in his direction.

  “Wait, wait,” I said when he went to punch me again. I had really reached my limit. I knew it for certain because the panic in my voice had become very genuine. “I am an enchanter, and I can show you.” He paused, and I continued. “I can make you do my will. For instance, you’re not going to tell Dom that you ever saw me. In fact, you won’t tell anyone that you know where I am.”

  Mav just blinked at me for a minute. “Now why on earth would we do that?” he asked. “If that was an enchantment, it was pathetic. I had no urge to obey you.”

  “I’m pretty sure you don’t want him to see me like this. And if you tell him that you found me, there’s nothing stopping me from paying him a visit myself.”

  Mav just grinned at me. “I’ve seen how fast you heal. You’ll be good as new by the time you reach his casino. And he won’t believe a word that comes out of your lying, whoring mouth.”

  I clucked my tongue at him, going in for the kill. “I’m no druid, Mav. You’ve seen how fast I can heal. It’s a spell, not a natural ability. It takes effort on my part. And neither of you have any healing abilities of any kind. That much I remember. You could probably call in someone that does, but I’d be willing to bet that you won’t risk anyone else finding out about this. No one is willing to become an accomplice to you idiots. I wonder how Dom would react if he saw the shape I’m in, with not a scratch on either one of you. I know from past experience that the proof that you restrained me will make him go apeshit.” I held up my wrists. They were red and already turning into a dark, bruised purple. “These little marks alone will trigger his wrath.”

  Mav was starting to look a little green, but he still tried to bluff his way out of it. “You haven’t seen him lately, Jillian. He hates your guts. He doesn’t give a damn what happens to you.”

  My chest hurt a little at what he said, and I wondered how much of it was true. I tried to snort at him disdainfully, but it just made more blood spurt out of my nose. “You and I both know that he could hate me enough to beat me to death himself, but he’s still dominant enough that if he sees me like this, he’ll rip apart whoever did it just for disobeying a direct order, and with so much apparent gusto. I have no qualms about giving you two up to him.”

  Michael finally let go of my wrists. I fell to the floor, glaring up at both of them. “Fine, you win, for now,” Michael said, not looking me in the eye. “We’ll report that we found nothing unusual when we went to make inquiries at your shop. But, you know, all you’re doing is buying a little time. Everyone has to come clean sometime, Jillian.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.” I flipped them off with both hands until the bells chimed their exit. I tried to sit up. The world went black.

  CHAPTER THREE

  OCD

  When I came to, every part of my body was throbbing. I noticed, as I stumbled around the shop, that my assailants had been considerate enough to put up the closed sign on their way out. How nice. And they hadn’t managed to break any bones. When I returned the favor, they wouldn’t be able to say the same.

  I dug up some aspirin in my office. It didn’t do much for the pain. A half pint of my sister’s rocky road ice cream helped, though. I more or less passed out in my office chair.

  When I next awoke, I noticed a completely different sensation than pain. My skin was literally steaming. I could see the bare skin on my arms glowed gold. My nails changed colors as I watched. Magenta, crimson, scarlet, orange… It went on and on, the colors shifting through the spectrum of every hue. I knew from past experience that my hair and eyes were doing the same.

  This had been happening a lot lately. I was pretty sure it wasn’t normal, even for my kind. I needed to ask Lynn about it, but I knew nothing like this had ever happened to her.

  My body had been acting up for a while now. Pretty much, I was hoping that whatever problems it was having would work themselves out, or better yet, go away. Whatever this thing was, I was really just counting on the whole immortal thing to trump it. A few hundred years of perfect health had made me overconfident, I supposed.

  I lay there, eyes closed, until my body had calmed down. I sighed. I was procrastinating. I had some unpleasant magic to perform. My battered body had already begun to heal the damage that had become my insurance.

  I had lied to Mav when I told him that my body did not heal quickly on it’s own. I did, however, have a way to stop the healing process, for a time. I unlocked the hidden drawer in my desk, drawing out the ancient relic I kept there. Chanting softly, I stopped my body from healing. This was a spell generally meant for someone other than yourself, and it almost hurt worse than the beating, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And lucky for me, I was on a first name basis with both desperate times and desperate measures. Boy, did they love me. The feeling was very much not mutual.

  My body quickly rebelled, and I emptied my stomach into the wastebasket beside my desk. This was not going to be a fun couple of days, but at least I had bought Lynn and I some time. Now I just had to get up off my bruised ass and make use of it.

  The closest thing I had to an informant worked as a cocktail waitress at The Golden Dragon. The Golden Dragon was a dump casino on the outskirts of the strip. It was, however, the closest casino to The Grove, the monstrosity of a casino that belonged to the druids. It doubled as their base of operations for the west coast.

  It was a perverse phenomena, since the druids were notorious for their love of forests and water, and all things green. I had often wondered why they would choose to station so many of the green-loving bastards right smack in the middle of the desert, but I’d learned not to ask. No druid would answer that question. And just asking it tended to make them real salty.

  I’d met Casey years ago. She had been sobbing quietly in the cafe portion of our shop. She was a cute little thing, with corkscrew auburn curls and bright green eyes. I’d sat down in the chair across from her and asked her if she needed help with anything. She’d then proceeded to tell me her life story, including the most prominent part, about her having a stormy affair with one of the higher ranking druids. I’d given her some good relationship advice, knowing a thing or two about the subject, and we’d been friends ever since. I’d also placed a silencing spell on her. If she made a habit of talking too much to strangers about such things, she’d quickly find herself buried in the desert.

  And so I found myself dumping some money into a slot machine as I waited for the cocktail waitress to make her rounds. I got lucky. Casey just happened to be working my section of the place. Her face broke into a big smile when she saw me. She nearly skipped her way over to me in her excitement. God, had I ever been that young? Not in this lifetime.

  She wore a black and gold cocktail getup that exposed her midriff and left nothing to cover her ass but some fishnet pantyhose and a string. She was sporting the bad boob-job that so many professionals in Las Vegas had adopted.

  I was shielding my bruises for the sake of not drawing attention to myself, though people seemed to stare my way no matter what I did. Being blond and around the six foot mark tended to make me stand out.

  “Hi there,” she said, as she got closer. “Just here for slots?”

  I smiled at her. “I came by to see you, actually.”

  She beamed at me. “One second. Let me go tell my boss I’m taking a break. I have a fifteen minute one coming up, but
they won’t notice if I slip out for thirty.”

  She pulled out a smoke the second we stepped outside, lighting it. She offered me one, and I declined. I knew I’d never get lung cancer, but I just couldn’t stand the things.

  “Some druids came and paid me a visit today. Heard any gossip about anything to do with our shop?” I asked bluntly.

  She froze, the cigarette actually falling from her hand. “Shit, yeah, I have. Been meaning to tell you about it. I guess someone who visited your shop claimed that you were magic-users. Some old hag, looking to get a reward, I hear. Joseph told me about it because he knew I went to the shop a lot, wanted to know if I noticed anything unusual.” She laughed nervously. “Crazy, right? I figured they’d go check out your place and see that she was scamming them.” I was watching her face while she spoke. She never met my eyes once.

  “Why’d you cross me, Case?” I asked her softly.

  She burst into tears. “I didn’t mean to, I swear. Joseph used something on me. I was talking, telling him things I didn’t want to. I figured you’d get out of whatever trouble they made for you. I know you’re really strong.”

  I let my shields down, showed her my battered face and arms. She sobbed harder, apologizing over and over. I put my shields back up. Normally, I avoided using magic around humans like the plague, but it seemed the damage was already done here. “Why couldn’t you at least give us a heads up?” I asked her.

  She was shaking her head. “It was like I said, some old w-witch-hag got to them first.” Witch-hag’s were a particularly nasty class of witch. They always looked like ancient old hags, regardless of their age. Their youth was the first thing they sacrificed to gain more power. After that, they got even more desperate, sacrificing countless other things. The rogue hags were even less particular, sacrificing humans or even whatever Others they could get their hands on. It alarmed me a bit that one had been aware of me, but not me of her. Luckily she hadn’t been a rogue, or she would have done worse than gone to the druids. If a rogue hag knew what I was, if they had even an inkling, and got the jump on me, with any knowledge of how to bind me, she would harvest me for parts. There’s nothing a rogue hag would love more than getting ahold of one of my kind.

  Casey continued. “Then Joseph was questioning me. I’ve never seen him like that. He was ruthless. I’m not sure I ever really knew him at all. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, backing into the side of the building and sliding down into a crying heap.

  “What all did you tell them about me?” I asked quietly.

  “Everything I knew. Everything you’ve ever told me, or that I’ve noticed on my own.” She was curled up on the ground now. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

  I felt a little sick at heart, but I was too practical to overlook a good opening when I saw it. “You can’t, Case. But you can call me if you hear anything. Keep me up to date on anything you find out.” I was walking away as I finished, Casey a mess on the ground of the alley behind me.

  “Are we still friends?” she called after me.

  “You tell me. I don’t have a lot of friends. Is this how you normally treat them?” I ignored her pitiful sobs and walked away.

  Well, I’d learned two useful and unfortunate pieces of information with that errand. One was that Casey’s boyfriend was on to our little chats, probably had been for awhile, if he had resorted to be-spelling her. The other was that, whether they wanted to or not, Mav and Michael wouldn’t be able to just forget that I existed. It was obvious that the attention of more higher-ups had been caught. On the bright side, if Dom was one of those higher ups, I was pretty sure I would know it by now.

  I was speeding down Tropicana Avenue when it started again. I started to tremble. I barely pulled over before I lost control of my body. A familiar force pushed against my mind, and this time I didn’t fight it.

  At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. It was all wrong. “I should not be looking at you like this,” I told my other form. The dragon was more beautiful than I had realized, gazing at it from the outside for the first time. It was all glowing, shifting colors, as it’s long form writhed in agony. It’s eyes were the same palest aquamarine I had in human form. “Why is this happening?” I asked it. It didn’t answer. It was hard to pull my eyes away from it’s entrancing beauty, but I did for a brief moment, and I perceived that all that surrounded us was an inky blackness. Suddenly, all of that blackness turned to a shinning silver. Water seemed to surround us at every angle. It laid it’s body on the shifting ground, head nearly touching me. Was it going to sleep, or laying down to die?

  It rolled suddenly onto it’s back, showing me it’s belly. I stepped close, but couldn’t touch it. “What’s happening to us?” I asked it. It had clearly brought me here to show me, but I was not as perceptive as I needed to be. It began to moan in pain. A twin pain brought me to my knees, clutching my middle. Suddenly it’s moan turned to a roar of agony. I tried to shield my ears from the noise, but instead found myself voicing the same agony in my human throat.

  As the noise died down I realized I was lying beside my other self, close to mirroring it’s pose, our limbs almost touching. I turned my head to meet it’s eyes. So much anguish floated in their depths that I gasped. Was this what I had always dreaded?

  “It can’t be the madness.” My voice was a hoarse whisper. I was too young, and I’d been doing so much to prevent it. Surrounding myself with humans on a nearly daily basis, staying in human form more than dragon. Everything we had ever learned about preventing the brain sickness that lived in our bloodline, I had practiced as part of a daily routine. I was damn near OCD about it. It’s tormented roar was my only answer. I blacked out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  About That Crazy

  Day 2

  I woke up in a bitch of a mood. My body hurt even worse than it had the day before, when I had dragged my bruised ass back home late, falling into bed.

  I could smell something burning, and I strongly suspected that it was my bed. I just lay there for awhile, feeling odd for some reason. I mentally catalogued the reasons I felt so weird. It may have been the fact that I had a spell suspending the powerful regeneration that my body was accustomed to. It could also be that I had more than likely incinerated some of the important parts of my bed while I slept. Wouldn’t that be fun to explain? But no, It was something else. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I finally got up, stomping into the bathroom. I didn’t even look back at the bed. I had no desire to see what kind of damage I had done while I slept. I had just redecorated my bedroom, and I had really liked the fresh new look. It was a mix of orange and brown bedding with a dark, heavy wood bed frame, and matching furniture. It was just the style that I was into at the moment. I hadn’t even had time to get sick of it yet. I slammed my door on the mess.

  I just stared at my reflection for a long minute, before what I was looking at sank in. “What the fuck?” I shouted at my reflection. Ok, I could be a drama queen. I could be honest about it. But this was almost too much for my teetering sanity.

  My long blond hair had been so straight that it didn’t even bend for more years than I cared to count. At the moment, however, I was looking at a head-full of corkscrew curls. They were curled up so tightly that my hair was now a half a foot shorter. I looked vaguely like a grown up, battered version of Shirley Temple.

  I just stared at myself, frozen for a long moment. I had the pale aquamarine eyes that were a trademark of my family. They were so pale that, when my pupils were dilated, as they were now, my eyes could look almost completely white. Our eyes had been called many things. Haunting, ghostly, ethereal, other-worldly, beautiful, eery, creepy. Right now mine narrowed with the look of faint disgust on my face.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Lynn’s muted voice came from my bedroom, shaking me out of my reverie.

  I opened my bathroom door, and just stared at my sister. Her short black hair was sticking up in every direction. This was extremely unus
ual for her. Lynn’s hair usually did precisely what she wanted it to. It was the polar opposite of my hair, which usually did nothing at all. It wouldn’t even take to dye. The stuff just washed out.

  But the messy hair wasn’t the problem. What really bothered me was the shiner covering her right eye. “What happened to you?” I asked her.

  “What the HELL?” she asked me at the same time.

  “I woke up like this.” I fingered my curls.

  “You beat yourself up in your sleep?” She raised a brow at me.

  “Oh, that,” I said stupidly. “That was Druids. Who gave you the shiner?”

  “Hell if I know.” She looked disgusted with her answer. “Druids? Really? That’s not good. So Dom found you?”

  “Not exactly. It’s complicated, but for the moment, I have it under control. Ish. Just avoid the shop for a few days.” There was no trail to connect the store to our house, which was no accident. Welcome to the Church of Paranoia. I founded it. “Have your goths call in some of their friends if they need extra help.” As I spoke, Lynn noticed my bed. I followed her gaze and cursed. Her jaw hung open. The linens and much of the mattress were charred black.

  She kept looking at me, then at the bed, her mouth trying to form words. I was at a loss for words, as well. Finally I sneered at the bed, then shrugged at Lynn. “The bed started it,” I told her, then swept past her, out of the room.

  Two of Lynn’s human goth followers were hanging out in the dinning room. I nodded at them as I passed through to the kitchen. They nodded back solemnly. Yes, Lynn has followers. Followers as in, they think she’s a goddess and sort of worship her as such. It was a generational gap between us. I had missed out on that whole instinct to be worshipped thing. In fact, the thought of someone showing me that kind of adoration made my skin crawl. It was, however, a constant source of entertainment for me to watch her do it. And to give her shit for it.