Dragon Adventurer collection

by K V Deal

  “Ya shouldn't have done that!” Charlie snapped. “What if something else happens?”

  “Then we deal with it!” I snapped back. I couldn't help myself. Her attitude was starting to get to me.

  She glared at me, and I returned it look for look. She broke first, looking away as she slid into a sulking posture.

  Yeah, snapping at her didn't really do jack or diddly. Probably better to distract her.

  Carah seemed to have been thinking in a similar line. “So, you guys said she hasn't been seen in a while?”

  “Her neighbors say that she’s still living here,” Axle sighed. “But, yes. It’s been a while since she was last seen out and about.”

  Carah inspected the building. “Have you taken a look inside?”

  “What?” Axle looked shocked at the suggestion. “No! Carah, no matter how much things have changed, that would still be breaking and entering! We don't do that.”

  Thinking back, my tail began to lash. “Really? Because I seem to remember somebody doing it to me when I first woke up,” I said.

  “Search and rescue teams worked differently,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “That should be obvious considering their role.”

  “We don't have to go in,” Carah said, still eyeing the building, “just, you know, take a peek.” A grin spread across her face.

  “The hell are ya talking about?” Charlie turned to follow her gaze.

  There on the wall, a little higher than my head, was a small window, covered by wrought-iron bars.

  Carah stood up and stretched. “Hey Jake, give me a leg up?”

  “Right.”

  Less than half a minute later I was kneeling by the window as Carah stepped into my cupped hands and then jumped onto my shoulders. She grabbed the iron bars and pulled herself in for a look.

  “I don't like this,” Charlie muttered. “Were supposed to be asking Rachel for help. She sees us like this and that might be out the window.” She crossed her arms glancing around as she and Axle kept lookout.

  “I...don't think we need to worry about that,” Cara said with a pained note in her voice. “We need to get in there. Like, right now.” Before any of us could say a word, she’d hopped down and was rushing over to the front door.

  “H-hey! Wait up!” Axle shouted as we hurried after her.

  “Damn it, Carah! What did ya see?”

  “Somebody's lying on the kitchen floor in there! They aren't moving!”

  Crap.

  There could be other explanations for that, plenty of them. But it didn't sound good.

  Carah tried the door. “Damn it!”

  “Move!” Charlie snapped as she rushed the door throwing her weight at it. There was a thud, and the door shook but held firm.

  I blinked. That rush of hers had more force behind it than I would’ve thought she could manage.

  She hissed at the door, stepped back and rushed it again.

  Still no real damage.

  “Charlie! Let Jake in!” Axle shouted, grabbing her arm.

  His contact pulled her out of the mindset she’d been in. She got out of my way.

  Setting my shoulder, I rammed the door. I made sure to aim closer to the lock then the hinges. With a bang, the door crashed open sending me sprawling into the room.

  That had been… Somebody stepped on my head as they ran into the building.

  “Mph! Hey!” I looked up just in time to see Charlie turning a corner.

  What the heck was going on with that lady?

  A foot slammed into my back as Axle ran over me. “Sorry!” he called back as he ran.

  I growled, my tail beginning to lash. “Don't mind me. I’m just a stepping stone.”

  A set of leather shoes attached to a set of red legs danced around me. “Come on, Jake! We're lagging behind!”

  Son of a…!

  I shoved myself to my feet and scrambled forward down the hall. As I ran, I realized there was the smell of decay in the air and just a hint of singed flesh. Anger began to boil in my heart as I began to guess at what I was going to find.

  I rounded the corner, my claws digging into the door frame as I ground to a halt right behind the others as they stood staring at the state of the kitchen.

  “The hell?”

  In the corner of the room, was a dead body--its throat crushed in, body burned and a shocked expression on its features--an inquisitor.

  That wasn't the strangest thing, though. In the middle of the kitchen, a woman was lying with her arms crossed and her eyes open wide in terror as she watched us. Around her body was a circle of some kind of red powder. Some lines traced outward to form a second circle just a little way away.

  I could feel magical energy in the powder. The magic moved sluggishly in a pattern that flowed from the corpse, out along the strands of the second circle and then pooling at the other end and looping back.

  “What in the world is this?” Axle whispered.

  “Rachel!” Carah called out running forward.

  I grabbed her arm, stopping her as I quickly stepped past. “The red stuff is magic. Don't touch it.”

  Charlie's hands clenched as I passed. “Like ya know a damn thing about it!” she said, but she didn't stop me.

  I tried to ignore her. She was right, but the way she said set my tail going. Instead, I quickly looked around the room.

  The rustic broom by the hearth should do it.

  I grabbed it and approached the pattern. “Might want to step back,” I said.

  I looked at the captive as she lay unmoving in the circle. “Don't worry. I'll get you out of there.”

  “Jake, what are you doing?” Axel sounded worried, but I didn't look up. I put my full concentration on the flow of magic. As far as I could guess, the safest time to do this was when the power was all at the other end of the pattern.

  I gripped the broom at top of the handle, giving myself as much room as I could, and then gingerly held it out over the pattern.

  I waited, breath held, and then, with a quick swipe, I scattered the end of the pattern.

  The magic began to flow back in my direction, but as it reached the broken ends of the pattern, it pooled. At first, there seemed to be no effect, but as more and more of the power pooled at the broken end, the powder began to glow, casting an increasingly bright, red light onto the rest of the room.

  “Oh... Not good.”

  “Jake, shut the hell up and run!” Carah shouted.

  I bit my lip in a second of indecision, then bolted across the room. Reaching low as I ran, I scooped up Rachel--I hoped this woman was Rachel at least--trampling through the pattern as I went. Pain shot through my feet when I stepped on the powder. It felt as if I was running over a line of thumbtacks. I let out a yelp and almost dropped my passenger, but I managed to keep holding on. She began to move sluggishly in my arm and definitely did not make running any easier.

  The light got brighter and brighter behind me as I made it to the doorway. “Go!” I screamed at the others.

  But they were already in motion before the words even left my lips. Carah was moving at a full run through the door.

  “Rachel!” Charlie kept her eyes on the woman in my arms as Axle dragged her after Carah.

  I almost made it to the doorway when there was a sudden silence. I couldn't even hear my own footfalls against the wooden floor. It lasted just long enough for me to realize it was there.

  Carah stood in the doorway urging me on, but there wasn't time. I hurled Rachel at her sending them both tumbling out of the house. Then something hit me with the force of a speeding truck. There was no sound. No warning. Just pain.

  And then darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Chapter 14

  I woke up to pain. Lots of pain, just about all over my my body.

  Someone must’ve taken a meat pulverizer to me.

  I tried to pull myself together while working to remember what the hell was going on. Let’s see, marina, sunken city, Charlie, this Rac
hael person, and then...

  Oh, right.

  I forced my eyes open, glancing around. A flickering light cast a glow in a very small space around me.

  Where the hell am I?

  That could wait a second. Right now, I took a moment to make sure that I was still in one piece. I flexed my arms and legs. They were still there, as far as I could tell. In decent shape, too, since, even though they hurt like hell, everything seemed to move right. That was the good news.

  The bad news was that, while I was watching my limbs, I couldn't help but notice I seemed to be trapped in a very tight space, so small that I couldn't even sit up. I was laying at the foot of a stone wall that I could only see if I turned my head as far as my neck would go. Underneath me was a wooden floor, leading me to guess I was still in Rachael's home.

  The worrying bit was the large slab of interior wall in front of me that was pressed up against the exterior wall behind me. All that stuff left a gap just big enough for, well, me. The worst part was that I didn't even have the space to get my arms into position to try shoving my way out. My tail started to rattle, echoing my nerves. It was loud in the small space.

  “Alright... Think, Jake,” I muttered to myself. I worked to make my mind go over survival options rather than focusing on all the ways I could die in here. I looked down to where my feet were laying and found the source of the flicking light. My lamp, of course. Man, nothing put that thing out.

  I tried to force my arms into a pushing position again. Still no luck. I had about as much wiggle room as I’d have had in a coffin. Less actually. I considered just trying to burn my way out using my fire breath but stopped myself at the last minute. If I still couldn't get out, well I wouldn't burn to death, but the fire might use up all my air.

  I flexed my hands in frustration. At least I could move those with no problem. Actually, that gave me an idea. I turned my hand so that it was palm out and pressed it up against the section of wall.

  “Store this.”

  I couldn't help but grin as the wall vanished. Then, the ton of shit the wall had been holding up collapsed, burying me once again.

  Crap!

  Now I didn't even have the space to twitch! I panicked, trying to thrash my way out. This resulted in a slight shifting of the pile above me. I tried storing what I could reach, but after the first time, the mass above me shifted, so I couldn't grab anything. My heart began to sink.

  This wasn't…

  Light!

  “Over here!” a voice called out from above me.

  A hubbub broke out above me. I could hear people fighting their way over the rubble, causing shifts down where I was. The noise got louder as the wreckage over me began to shudder. More spots of light began to appear. Shovel-sized hands broke through, carefully scooping aside a last layer of junk.

  A large blue-skinned head came into view, a look of concern just visible behind a thick beard. “Hey! You okay?” his voice boomed in my ears. “Guys, give me a hand getting him out!”

  More hands came down gripping me and dragging me out into the sunlight.

  A crowd of people had gathered around. As I pulled free, a cheer went up.

  “Jake!” Carah scrambled across the rubble to throw herself at me. She wrapped me up in a hug. “Oh, thank god.” Tears were running down her face. “Don't do that shit ever again!”

  I pause for just a moment and then slowly wrapped my arms around her. “Sorry,” I whispered. I really didn't know what to do here. This was way beyond my experience.

  There was a general spate of clapping and a few whistles from the crowd. I looked around awkwardly not really sure why there were so many people.

  Axle and Charlie moved towards us with another woman, a beautiful young Day One human with long golden hair, in tow behind them. Reaching us, Axle turned to the gathering. “Thanks so much for all the help!” He hesitated, obviously trying to figure out what to say next.

  The woman with him stepped up, elegantly positioned herself, and let out a blindingly cheerful smile. “Thanks everyone! Sorry for taking you from what you were doing!” The way she said it turned her words into a polite dismissal. Most of the group began to break up and head their separate ways. She turned to the few remaining stragglers. “It’s been a very trying day. Would you mind giving us some privacy?” She gave them a wink to take any perceived barb out of the more direct comment.

  After that, the only person left was the blue man who had first found me. He was average in his height but twice as wide as a normal man with amazingly thick arms that gave the impression of fingered flippers. He used these arms to subtly pull both Charlie and Axle over next to him to form a wall between the golden-haired woman and the departing crowd.

  I was watching from behind, so I couldn't entirely see what happened. It looked like, once she was hidden from the crowd, the woman’s face pulled and tightened. I could see skin shifting as her ears changed shape and her hair went from golden to a pretty brown with curls. The curls hid the rest of what happened from my view. Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned forward to rest her head against the blue man.

  “Thanks, dad,” she sighed.

  Carah slipped out of my arms. “Sorry about that.” She was blushing that cute purple color again. She grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the rest of the group. I was a bit disappointed that she let go of my hand when we reached the others.

  “Thanks,” I said to the rest.

  “Not a problem!” the man boomed as he wrapped an arm around the woman, who I could only guess was Rachel. “Helping out was the least I could do for the man who saved my daughter.” He held out one of his massive hands, obviously waiting for a shake. “Sebastian.”

  It was a weird feeling having my hand so thoroughly engulfed by his. I rubbed the back of my head as we shook, grimacing down at the rubble. “I don't know if I’d call it that…” I looked up at Rachel’s back. “Sorry about your house.”

  “That wasn't you,” she answered. She didn’t turn away from her father, her face still buried in his chest. “That was Edward.” There was pain and venom in her voice as she said the name.

  Sebastian's arm tightened around his daughter. “If I ever see that bastard again…” he growled.

  Seems I’d missed out on some kind of explanation. Everyone’s expression was grim at the mention of this Edward guy.

  “You won’t,” Rachel said, finally pulling back from his chest. She wiped her face with the back of a hand. “Dad…”

  “I know, I know,” he sighed, “but he hurt my little girl…”

  It felt a little bit awkward watching, kind of like I was intruding on something private.

  “Sorry for butting in, Rachel,” Charlie said, ignoring the mood and stepping right into the conversation. “But we really should take ya to the hospital. Whatever was being done to ya--well, it being unknown magic--ya really should be checked out.”

  Rachel’s shoulders tensed, jumping up around her ears. “No!”

  Charlie blinked and took a step back in surprise. Actually, I think we were all surprised by the vehemence in her voice.

  “Ray, you should let a doctor look at you,” Sebastian said, a look of worry in his eyes.

  “No! Don't you see it?” She spun around, turning away from her father. She waved her arms to emphasize her point. “He’s going to want me back, and the hospital is a perfect place for him to hunt, with that constant stream of new faces going in and out! Too many to keep track of! He could slip in as easy as water through chicken wire!”

  For the first time, I could see her face. It was thin with an impossibly long mouth that stretched from one side of her face to the other. Her gray eyes were tinged with red from crying. The tracks from the tears stretched down her face past a smooth patch where a nose would normally be. She looked just like the inquisitor I faced at the Gray House.

  Charlie grimaced. “She’s got a point. No way to really keep her safe there.”

  “But why would he risk coming after you?”
I asked, scratching my head.

  “He needs me for a spell. It has to be me, someone who's the same type of Changed as him. And he told me things about the Inquisitors and why he’s here, things he won't want known!” She wrapped her arms across her chest.

  Sebastian stepped up and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and he smiled at her, miming taking a deep breath. She nodded and began breathing deeply to calm herself down.

  Charlie shot a glare over at first Axle and then at me. “Well, that’s nice. And we can’t even try to let Gloria know, since somebody decided to waste our sparrow!”

  “Charlie, will you please drop that?” Axle rubbed his forehead. “You want me to say I made a mistake? Fine. I screwed up! I'm sorry I tried to get you help!” From the look on his face, he hadn't meant to let that last sniping comment slip out.

  Charlie glowered at him and opened her mouth to respond with another sharp comment, but Carah stepped in between the two. “Okay, cut it out! You’re both stressed, and we haven't had enough rest! For now, though, we need to figure out how to keep Rachel safe!”

  As I watched the argument, a thought flicked into my head. I walked around the three to get to Rachel. “Hey, just a question. Can you transform into one of us Changed?” I asked as the other three began to shoot down each other’s ideas on how to solve the problem.

  She glanced up at me…and then up further. At her height of about five-and-a-half, I was almost two feet taller than her if you counted the horns. “I…umm…yes. I can.” Then she blinked and looked down. “Well, within reason that is. If the body type is a lot bigger than mine or has a bunch of extra limbs, I might not be able to. I would have to try. Also, I can’t make anything up. It has to be someone I’ve seen.”

  “And how long could you keep it up?”

  “Depends. The longer it’s been since I’ve seen someone the harder it is for me to keep up the shape.” She paused. “If you thinking of having me impersonate someone it won’t help… he’ll know.”

  “How?”

  “Everything is reversed.” She gestured at her body with a hand. “It’s like looking in a mirror.”