I looked at the group of lookie-loos, which was growing by the minute as word of this spectacle reached the other buildings in the complex. A couple of Melinda’s neighbors kept glancing warily at the stairs that led to the outside door, keeping watch for members of the board.
Though, I’d like to see them pry that dragon loose. Didn’t the maintenance payment our scribe forked over to them every month include vermin removal? That should include a certain dragon, right? But so far, the board had made themselves scarce.
I set that curiosity aside. I needed a riddle, and I knew just who to ask. “Scribe?”
“Hmm?” Melinda looked up from the phone she was composing our latest adventure on, and her brows rose in a question.
I waved to the dragon. “Do your wordsmithing thing and whip up a riddle to bedevil that dragon.”
Melinda just looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Riddles aren’t my thing. I’ll have to search the internet for a good one.”
Okay, so that was a ‘no’ on the wordsmithing front. Drat. I consulted her phone again. “Maybe one of our awesome readers had sent in a riddle.”
“Maybe they did.” Melinda resumed chronicling our adventure-in-progress on her borrowed phone. “Just be careful.”
I nodded. Of course, I’d be careful. Her phone was our only link to our subscribers and their help right now. But so far, there were no riddles amid their responses. Darn. Who else could I ask?
Green light captured my attention. Had Papa awoken? I spun on my heel to check. Uncle Miren had dragged Papa into a corner formed by two cinder block walls. Since his magic liked rocks, that had seemed like the best place to leave him. Papa’s eyes had cracked open, but it was just his magic checking on us.
“I’m okay. Uncle Miren’s here with me. He won’t let anything bad happen to me. You just rest,” I said to Papa’s magic. Maybe it heard me.
When it was certain I was okay, his eyes closed, and their glow winked out. Okay, so no riddles would be coming from him either. Hmm. Now, what should I do? Definitely not disturb him or his magic.
“That’s right. I’ll keep him out of trouble. Don’t you worry about that, bro.” Uncle Miren gave my shoulders a squeeze.
I bristled at that last comment. “I don’t get into trouble on purpose.” Besides, how much trouble could I get into with my uncle standing by to scoop me up at a moment’s notice?
But Uncle Miren wasn’t swayed by my logic. He just gave me a disbelieving look that called my bluff. Well, I was in a room with an angry dragon, so technically, I was in trouble. I just wasn’t alone in that trouble.
Darn it. He was right. I glowered at my uncle, and he just grinned at me until the crowd edged past my distracted Scribe, phones in hand. They jostled each other and my uncle as they tried to get the perfect shot. While Melinda had been writing away, she hadn’t been watching the door or keeping tabs on the growing crowd. Unfortunately, our audience had more curiosity than sense, so they’d been gradually creeping past her.
“Hey, watch it.” Pain wiped Uncle Miren’s smile away as another of Melinda’s neighbors bumped into him. I rushed to his side.
“I’m okay.” Uncle Miren gave me a glance that was probably meant to be reassuring, but it missed the mark.
“Where’s your other crutch?” I squeezed his big hand.
“At home where we should be.” Uncle Miren pointed at the door and the sea of heads between us and Melinda’s apartment. It was maybe twenty paces away from all the action. “I don’t usually need both.”
“You should have brought both crutches, so you can give that leg a rest.” Papa sat up and leaned against the wall. His magic wrapped a shining green band around Uncle Miren’s bad knee, and some of the pain pinching my teenage uncle’s face eased.
“I would have if I’d known there was a dragon on the loose.” Uncle Miren gave me a pointed look, but this wasn’t my fault.
“That’s no excuse for leaving it behind,” Papa mumbled as his eyes closed again.
“You just sit there and rest, bro. We’ll deal with the dragon. Won’t we?” Uncle Miren patted me on the back, and I nodded.
“She’s not loose yet. That would be an improvement.” Melinda belatedly noticed the crowd and that it could use some controlling.
Several of her older neighbors chose that moment to try and sneak by her. Before they could, Melinda sent herself the story she’d been writing and extended her arms to either side to block the entrance again, but it was too late for that.
Since most of our audience was already in the room with us, Melinda let her arms drop to her sides and pushed through the crowd. “I need everyone to take a step back. We need room to work here.”
When the crowd ignored her request, Melinda tried again to get them to move back into the foyer to give them some cover. But they refused to budge.
“You have plenty of room for the nothing you’re doing about this situation.” Someone was grumpy today. I couldn’t see which of Melinda’s neighbors had said it, not that it mattered.
“I’m trying to fix this—” I started to say, but the dragon interrupted me.
“Since you’re all so keen on snapping a picture of me, maybe I should strike a pose.” The dragon reared up on her hind legs. “Would you like that?” Her eyes were red again and flashing in a repeating pattern.
I had to look away before she mesmerized me, but the crowd loved it. Some clapped, but even Mr. Grumpy must have snapped a picture of the rearing dragon. She crooked her claws and inhaled a lungful of humid air.
Uh-oh. I glanced at Papa, but his eyes were closed and his chin rested on his chest. He was out cold again. There would be no shield to protect us if this fire show got out of hand. Not good. I had to do something and fast, but what could I do without magic?
A Fight Neither Can Win
[Somewhere in Between Worlds]
“What is this?” Metalara struggled to release her wings, but the locking mechanism was stuck. She had to let go of that girl, so she could pull the emergency release handle. Finally, her wings snapped free and unfolded, but the damned purple-glowing tube was too narrow to fully extend them, and the wind shear forced her wings up and back, where they could do absolutely nothing to slow her fall. “What’s generating all that light?”
“Why do you think I would know? I’m not the mage in the family. My twin is, and he isn’t here to explain what this magical whatchamacallit is.” Mystery Girl ducked and covered her head with her crossed arms. Her dark hair streamed out behind her, tangling in the wind.
“If you didn’t know what it was, then why did you pull yourself into it?” And why the hell did I follow you? Metalara shook her head. That wasn’t one of her better decisions, but she’d felt this inexplicable pull toward that purple-glowing hoop and had not been able to withstand it. Nor was it just her curiosity either that had led her in here. There was something familiar about it, but she couldn’t track down what.
“Because my half-brother, who you tried to strangle, entered it, and I need to get to him. I need to save my family. But that doesn’t explain why you followed me in here. You could have stayed at my brother’s cave.” Mystery Girl peeked between her crossed arms at Metalara. She had peculiar gray eyes that seemed to glow, but that could just be reflected light from this luminous whatever it was.
“I don’t know why I followed you.” Metalara looked away, discomfited by that girl’s direct gaze. She was too perceptive for her own good.
“I’m Sovvan, by the way. What are you called?”
“Metalara, for obvious reasons.”
“I’d shake your hand, but you might try to strangle me again, or are we past that now?” Sovvan offered her a tentative smile. Damn, she was a plucky one.
“That depends. Are you the Agents of Chaos’ minion?”
“Hellfires, no. I stay far away from them.” Sovvan shuddered, but that could be from the temperature. That wind whipping past must be freezing, and her robe didn’t look all that thick.
“Oh please, then why do you bear their mark?” Metalara couldn’t physically roll her eyes because they were convex crystal panes, but she could roll them in her mind, and she did.
“I—what? I don’t bear any such mark.” Sovvan lowered her arms from her head and started frantically searching her body for that mark, starting with her hands.
“It’s between your breasts.”
“Why were you looking at my breasts? Are you a pervert?” But Sovvan pulled her robe aside and peeked at the spot. Her eyes widened at what she saw.
Interesting. So she hadn’t known it was there. Metalara didn’t know what to make of that. “Relax. I check everyone for it. It’s nothing personal.”
“Is that mark why you tried to kill me?” Sovvan wrapped her robe more tightly around herself and tripled knotted every tie that held it closed.
“Yes, I must destroy the Agents of Chaos and their allies. That’s my mission.”
“Well, could you leave me out of it? I need to save my family. Why won’t this purple tunnel end, so I can get to them?” Sovvan folded her arms across her chest as that purple light finally faded to black, but they kept falling.
“Did you think I’d let you? Oh, Sovvan, my dear, you’ll never reach them in time. I’ve made certain of that.” Dysteria laughed somewhere in the darkness then fell silent. Her work was done here, but what had she done?
“You witch! Where are we?” Sovvan shook her fist, but there was no one to punch.
“Where all stories die because that’s all you are—a story told by a second-rate Scribe who will never amount to anything. Goodbye. This is the end for you, but not for me.” Dysteria cracked her whip, and sleighbells jingled.
“You’re wrong about everything, and you won’t keep me from my family. I’ll find them, and I’ll save them. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Sovvan lifted her chin and laid a hand over her heart, and a glowing chain grew out of it. “I’m coming, Sarn. Hang on until I get there.” She’d whispered that last part to the chain lengthening as they fell.
Metalara scanned the darkness for Dysteria. “Where is she? I need to backhand that bit—”
“I don’t know.” Sovvan interrupted. “I can’t see anything in this darkness. Can you?”
“There’s nothing to see, just empty space, and we’re falling through it.” Metalara fought to spread her wings. There was plenty of space for them here, but the gears had frozen in both her wing joints, so she only managed to deploy them halfway, but it was enough to slow her fall some.
“What about me? I don’t have wings. Well actually, I do, but this angel bound them so—aren’t you going to help me?” Sovvan extended a hand to Metalara. “I thought we have a truce.”
“We do, but it’s only temporary.” So Metalara caught her hand, and they glided in a more or less controlled manner toward a rectangular object floating in the darkness.
“This isn’t the Gray Between.”
“I gathered that. Do you know where we are?” Metalara asked. The least Sovvan could do was provide answers, not just dead weight.
“I have no idea where we are, but I’m quite sure this isn’t where my family is.” Sovvan touched the glowing chain that dangled from her chest.
It dwindled to a misty apparition as it approached the thing they were heading for at a fast clip. Too fast for the fall not to hurt Sovvan, but her chain was pulling them down. It had latched onto that rectangular object, and it was reeling them in.
“Is that a giant book?” Sovvan asked right before they slammed into it. She hit face first and grayed as she passed out, becoming a ghost again.
“Oh no, you don’t. If I can’t escape, then you can’t either.” Metalara grabbed the edge of the book and used the last of her power to heave it closed, trapping Sovvan inside before that girl could slip away. “You’re staying right here until I figure out what part you play in all this.”
Metalara collapsed on the cover as her charge ran out. The key in her back stilled. “Someone turn it, please.” She begged with the last dregs of her power, but there was no one there, and that song was echoing through her mental gears.
Metalara was all alone in the darkness on a giant floating book where no one could find her. This might be the end of me, and I didn’t even get to go out fighting. Metalara wanted to punch something, but she didn’t have the energy to move, so she stared into the darkness, and let the song play.
“Changes come in threes,” she sang softly into the cold darkness, unable to help it.
Strike a Pose
[Westchester, NY]
What could I do without magic? Nothing, not to a dragon, but I must do something. She was preparing to spit fire at us, after all, and I didn’t want to get burned. But as I glanced around, I didn’t see anything to help me. The dragon had taken everything we could use as a weapon.
There was just a forest of legs surrounding me on three sides, and soon, I’d be surrounded by picture-takers, who didn’t care about their safety. But I cared, I squared my little shoulders and prepared to do battle with my best weapon—words.
Besides, after this, I’d never see any of Melinda’s neighbors again unless they read our other adventures. I doubted they’d be fans of high fantasy stories after starring in one. But I could do some damage control on that later. “You have to move back.” I pushed on the nearest bystander’s legs, but that failed to move her.
“Kindly take your hands off me, child. I’m fine where I am.” The old lady removed my hands from her jeans and snapped a picture with her phone of the fire jetting out of the dragon’s mouth.
It was a thin stream of orangey light shooting right at us, and the crowd was just taking pictures of it. The fire arced over the crowd and struck a trashcan, slagging it, and the crowd took pictures of that too because melted trashcans were picture-worthy on this world. People could be so weird sometimes.
The dragon snorted with laughter at the rapt attention of the crowd, and a fireball shot out of her nose. She covered her pursed lips with a claw feigning embarrassment then sucked in a breath and shot another flame through the first one and somehow disrupted it.
Was she growing more powerful the longer she stayed cozied up to that boiler? How was that even possible? I would figure that out later. Right now, I needed a riddle to bedevil a dragon and hopefully distract her from her fiery fixation.
“Do you know any riddles?” I turned to my uncle for help, and he stopped trying to move the crowd back. Maybe one of the many books he’d read for school had a good one in it. Who knew what they were teaching him.
Uncle Miren thought for a moment. “Just one. Why is a dragon like a doubloon?”
“I don’t know. Why are they alike?” And what the heck was a doubloon? I scratched my head on that one.
“It's a coin. You’re supposed to ask the dragon why they’re alike.” Uncle Miren turned me to face her.
Oh, right. I gripped the phone in my hands and hoped this riddle would buy us some time to find another solution. I’d just opened my mouth to ask when the dragon uncurled the spade-shaped end of her tail and tapped it on the white floor tiles in front of me.
“Shush. I’m thinking.” The dragon tapped her cheek, but she, thankfully, didn’t breathe any more fire.
The last fireball she’d created extinguished itself when it landed in a puddle, dispersing the crowd a little as they all tried to take pictures of it. But we weren’t safe yet. Glowing ones and zeroes flew off the dragon’s tapping tail tip and zinged across the floor. I dodged them, and they dissolved into the floor tiles with a soft pop to applause from the crowd. They weren’t helping matters.
After another tense moment crawled past, the dragon dragged a claw down the side of the boiler, and it squealed in protest. “I know. We’re both shiny, and we prey on your mind if you lose us. You’ll have to do better than that, little boy.” The dragon rolled her glowing eyes at me.
But I stood tall, refusing to be cowed by the creature holding the buil
ding hostage. It helped that Papa often rolled his glowing eyes, but not at me, never at me. I was the apple of his eye. The dragon also wasn’t all that much taller than him in that metal body.
She must have sensed her presence wasn’t inspiring the right amount of awe because that dragon squared her shoulders and spread her wings so they arched over her wheezing prize. Her wing claws rested on the bundles of tubes that connected the boiler to the network of pipes that heated the building. If they weren’t enough of a silent threat, she opened her maw, revealing a merry blaze burning in her mouth. Ouch. Smoke curled up from it.
Could she set off the smoke alarm and the sprinklers again? I touched Melinda’s phone, and the question wrote itself across the screen.
“That’s a good question. I have about a dozen more that need answers.” Uncle Miren nodded and took the phone when I handed it to him. He tapped our busily writing Scribe on the shoulder and showed her the screen when she looked up at him.
Her brow creased as she read. She took the phone and typed a response before handing it back to Uncle Miren. He read it then handed me the phone. I touched the screen and words jumped into my mind, relaying to me her response.
“It depends on how the system was set up. It might recharge on its own, or it might require servicing. Either way, someone may show up soon to find out what’s going on. When that alarm went off, it may have triggered other alarms.”
Oh. That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. Those sprinklers had effectively doused the dragon’s fire for a while. We could use their help again. I glanced at the dragon. Had the program that transferred the content of the messages I touched to my mind done the same for her?
She growled, showing off her teeth, and more lookie-loos snapped pictures. The combined flashes disoriented me until Uncle Miren steadied me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and leaned into his good leg until a screech made me jump. The dragon ran her claws down a pipe, scraping off bits of paint that flamed up as they fell.
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