Dragon Spells

by Melinda Kucsera

  “Why? We need her.” I pulled the chain again, but I couldn’t dislodge her. she was too heavy.

  “Your aunt is busy.” The metal lady punched the dragon in the snout, cutting off the flames when the dragon tried to reopen her belly flap. “Why were you waiting for me? I’ve been trying to figure that out while I analyzed your weaknesses.”

  “I owe someone a favor, and destroying you will repay that favor. It’s nothing personal. I’m sure you’re a fine creature.” The dragon backed toward the boiler and gestured to the broken wall separating Melinda’s bathroom from the laundry room. The fléchettes shot out of that hole in the masonry and flew toward the metal lady.

  But she didn’t even dodge. The metal lady just lay there as those fléchettes struck her carapace. Many ricocheted off her metal hide. Some doubled back to the dragon, and some flew toward us. Uh-oh, and Papa was out cold still.

  “Papa!” I flopped on his chest and pounded on it. “Wake up, Papa, and save us.” But he didn’t. His eyes didn’t so much as flutter.

  Uncle Miren grabbed me around the waist and dove out of the way. He put his back to the wall beside the door to the laundry/boiler room and hunkered down, shielding me with his body. Melinda crouched next to him, and her neighbors all rushed for cover. They weren’t taking pictures anymore.

  “What about Papa? Who’ll protect him?” I struggled in my uncle’s grip. Papa lay unprotected in the foyer. We were only six feet away, but we had no way to protect him.

  “I can’t protect you both, and he’d want me to protect you above all else.” Uncle Miren hugged me hard to his chest, so I couldn’t see those fléchettes land, but I heard the thunk they made. Had they hit Papa?

  “His magic will protect him if it can,” Melinda said from somewhere nearby, but that wasn’t reassuring since Papa had been having more and more problems using it here.

  White light blinded me. When it backed off I struggled to get free. “I want to see. Let go of me.” I wriggled until my uncle finally relented.

  He rose painfully until Melinda handed him his crutch. “Thanks, I needed that.”

  She nodded. “You’re welcome. Just be careful.”

  Uncle Miren grabbed my hand, and we padded over to Papa together as a winged warrior woman in full armor vanished. Fléchettes had struck the glowing chain connecting him to my missing aunt, and they protruded from the floor in a tight ring around him.

  “That winged lady saved Papa. Look.” I pointed to the fléchettes sunk into the floor. None had struck Papa. “Who was she?”

  “His Guardian Angel, I think.” Uncle Miren rubbed his chest as if it hurt, or maybe it was just his heart hurting over the terrible decision he’d had to make. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

  “You can’t destroy me with any craft you possess.” The metal lady gestured to the fléchettes lying beside her. They’d just scratched her hide, but she moved woodenly when she rose, still holding the chain. She wasn’t letting go of it that easily. Darn it.

  “That was just the warm-up. In fact, that’s all I’ve been doing since I arrived, warming up for the main event. They were a nice distraction while I powered up.” That dragon waved to us, of course.

  “What? Are you saying this whole thing was a set up to lure that creature here because she has something you want?” Uncle Miren let go of my hand and strode forward bristling with anger. “Then why are we here?”

  I stayed by Papa’s side because that was where I belonged. I’d never seen my uncle this outraged before.

  The dragon flicked her wing claws at us like we were the annoyance, not her. “Of course not, you had your part to play.”

  And that did it. My temper snapped. I tried to go to my uncle, but a large hand closed around my ankle. Even just barely conscious, Papa was ensuring I couldn’t go anywhere until he let me, and he squeezed my ankle to make sure I understood that. Oh well, maybe Papa would wake up soon.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.” Uncle Miren advanced as the dragon turned. He would have gotten right up in her face if she hadn’t put her back to him because we weren’t a threat to her, and we never were. All this time she’d been toying with us, so that black sphere could drain Papa. He was the only one of us she’d needed, and that just made me even angrier because I wasn’t useless. I’d helped Papa defeat a monster, and I knew he could do it again if we could get that sphere to stop draining his magic.

  Papa’s eyes opened a crack, so his magic could peer up at me, but it wasn’t the green earth magic he used all the time. It was his other magic; the white one he didn’t know how to use yet. It looked at me, and I swear it winked. Its glow was just as bright as it had been the few times I’d glimpsed it.

  I dropped to my knees beside Papa. “Can you help us?” I asked that white magic. Sometimes, it needed a little persuasion.

  Papa’s eyes closed. Was that a yes or a no? I guessed I’d have to wait until Papa woke up to find out.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.” Uncle Miren stabbed his index finger into the dragon’s spiny back.

  Uh-oh, he was too close to her. “Come back here!” I waved to him, but he didn’t notice because his back was to me. Please back away from her, Uncle Miren, I prayed. One flick of her armored tail, which was restively switching, could hurt him badly.

  The dragon rolled her glowing eyes as she turned. They weren’t red anymore. Her eyes were as blue as the millions of tiny ones and zeroes that comprised her. But there was a red strobing light inside her. “And I’m ignoring you. I thought that was obvious, but maybe I should be clearer.” The dragon pointed a glowing claw at my uncle, who smartly backed away before she sent a lightning bolt at him.

  But Uncle Miren easily dodged it. “Why did you come here? It wasn’t just to mess with us.” Uncle Miren stabbed his index finger into the air between him and the amused dragon.

  She blew a smoke ring in the air, and my uncle took that as his cue to put some more space between them. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now, and you do have a right to know what part you played in my triumph.”

  “What triumph?” I asked. I’d been content to let Uncle Miren do the talking, so I didn’t draw the dragon’s ire down on me until Papa could protect me. But I didn’t do quiet well. It just wasn’t in my nature.

  “Can’t you feel it? It’s in the air, and soon it’ll be everywhere.” The dragon spread her claws. She was talking about that strange field that was draining Papa.

  “What is it?” Uncle Miren beat me to the question. He was halfway to the foyer now.

  “It’s entropy.” The metal lady raised her shiny fists. The longer we kept the dragon talking, the more mobility our metal ally regained. “She’s an Agent of Chaos.” The metal lady pointed at the dragon.

  “What does that have to do with anything, and what is an Agent of Chaos?” I scratched my head. This explanation had left me with more questions than answers.

  “It has everything to do with it. Entropy is chaos.” Metalara pounded her fist into her palm.

  “I’m still confused.” I shook my head.

  Melinda squeezed my shoulder. “Order is magic and energy and everything that makes up life. Entropy is the opposite.”

  When she fell silent, I looked a question at my uncle, begging him to explain because I was still confused.

  “Entropy is death, low or no energy, and chaos because, without order, everything breaks down.” Uncle Miren kicked a fléchette at the dragon, but it fell short of her.

  “Oh, so that entropy thing is draining Papa?”

  “Yes, she’s found a way to increase it, and that reduced the energy my brother has to work magic and the reservoir of magic he carries around inside him,” Uncle Miren said.

  “So, it’s that spherical thing in the boiler. It’s creating that field and sucking up all the energy around it.” I pointed to it and hoped that metal lady had a plan to stop it because I didn’t. Papa couldn’t go anywhere near that ball, and I didn’t think Uncle Miren or I should either
.

  “Give that boy a prize.” The dragon spun and pointed a glowing claw at me. “You’re smarter than you look.” But that didn’t stop her from shooting an electrical bolt at me.

  I did the only thing I could. I flopped onto Papa’s chest and cowered there as the lightning passed over me and struck the opposite wall in the foyer. A few of the remaining lookie-loos sped up the short staircase to the exit and the outside world where crazy things like dragons existed only in storybooks.

  “If what everyone’s saying is true, then where’s she getting her energy from?” Papa whispered in my ear. Even his voice sounded strained.

  “She should be as weak as you, right?” I curled into him, and his big hand rested on my back.

  Papa nodded then he went very still, and I listened hard for a heartbeat, but I didn’t hear it. His hand slid off my back.

  “Papa!” I screamed as a pair of long arms wrapped around me and scooped me up. A loud boom shook the wall. What was that?

  Drag Racing Books

  [Route 9, NY]

  Sovvan screamed as her ride, a giant book of all things, closed up like a clam and flipped over, dumping her off it. But luck was finally on her side. Below, a branch was rising to meet her, and Sovvan reached for it. Her hands struck first and gripped that beautiful rough bark, abrading them, but who cared because she’d stopped falling. Sovvan grinned. No crash-landing for me, not this time thanks to this tree.

  A sharp tug on the chain that still connected her to that giant book dragged her attention down, just as it struck the grassy median. The book tipped over the guardrail and landed on the road, scattering the peculiar honking vehicles on it.

  Were those things alive? They must be, or why would they make those loud noises? What were those amber blinking lights on their fronts and the red ones on their bums? Sovvan swung herself toward the tree and wrapped her legs around its trunk then carefully shifted her hands to it and climbed down.

  “Why are you in a tree?” a little girl asked from somewhere below.

  “Because I didn’t want to crash-land again. That sort of thing hurts a lot.” Sovvan’s hands stung, but the pain was fading because the cuts were minor, and she was some bizarre hybrid now. That must have conferred some extra healing factor on her. It’s about time I got some benefit out of this. Sovvan hopped off the tree onto the shoulder of a two-lane highway.

  “Why aren’t you wearing a mask? The Governor of New York says everyone must wear a mask. It’s the law.” The girl’s voice had come from inside one of the vehicles parked on that shoulder.

  “Are you actually inside that thing?” Sovvan approached the black vehicle, and the girl raised her hand in a stop sign. She sat on a bench seat in the rear of the conveyance, and several gray belts held her in place. How very odd. Then again, this was a strange world. So, Sovvan shrugged that off.

  “Stop. Don’t come any closer. You have to stay six feet away. That’s called social-distancing, and it’s the law.”

  Sovvan stopped six feet away as requested. “Do you need a rescue?”

  The girl scrunched up her face in displeasure. “Why would I need that? My mom’s just making a phone call she doesn’t want me to overhear then we’re going to drive some more to charge the battery. They said on the news you should do that for fifteen minutes once a week. It’s good for the car. Hey, where’s your car?” The little girl, who looked to be about four or five, pressed a button, and the window lowered some more.

  “I don’t have one.” Sovvan couldn’t see what was beyond the trees on the other side of the road. Was her family somewhere over there? “Hey, would you happen to know where my family is?”

  The child must. Otherwise, why was she here?

  The little girl shook her head. She had dark hair like Sovvan. “If you don’t have a car, then how’d you get here? This road is for cars and trucks only.”

  In answer, Sovvan pointed to the giant book blocking one lane of the road. Well, if this girl didn’t know where her family was, then it was up to her to find them. Sovvan touched the link to her brother, but as had been happening far too often since this bizarre adventure had begun, she got nothing from it. Great. I could use a clue right now.

  But she got none because her luck had run out. Sovvan pasted on a bright smile for the little girl. “It was nice meeting you, but I have to go now.”

  “Where are you going?” the girl craned her neck.

  “To find my family. They’re in big trouble, and I need to save them.” Sovvan waved to the girl and started walking with traffic, but she’d only taken a few steps before the link to her twin yanked her back to that damned book. Why me?

  “Are you a princess? Because you kind of look like one, but your dress needs to be poofier, like mine.” The little girl fluffed out the hem of her pink dress. “I’m a princess from a movie. Guess which one.”

  And that little girl was entirely too nosey, but Sovvan remembered being that young.

  “When I was your age, I wanted to be a warrior princess, but I’m following a different path now.” Sovvan regarded the book. She couldn’t go anywhere without it, but neither could she carry it. It was nine feet long by six feet wide and one foot deep. Or maybe she could.

  Sovvan studied the rear of the black vehicle. It had an open bed. She just needed some rope. How heavy could one giant book be?

  “You didn’t guess which princess I am.” The little girl pouted, and her sparkly pink crown slid down her forehead.

  “I don’t know. Do you have any rope perchance?” Can I lift that book? Sovvan watched the cars fly by while she waited for an opening and the answer to her question.

  “I don’t know. Mommy, do we have a rope?” The little girl kicked the seat in front of her.

  “Honey, I’m on the phone. What do you need a rope for anyway?”

  “I don’t need it. The stranded princess—who says she’s not a princess—needs it. But I don’t believe her because she’s wearing a fancy dress, so she must be a princess.” The little girl slammed her fist into her open palm, closing that topic. “So, can I have some rope for her? She needs to save her family, and I want to help her. We princesses have to stick together.” The little girl picked up her sparkly pink scepter and twirled it.

  “I’ll have to call you back. Yeah, okay, right, I’ll be on that call later. Tell Kat. Seven o’clock it is. Talk soon. Bye. Okay, Rosalie, run that by me one more time. What do you need and why?” A woman asked, presumably she was the little girl’s mother.

  That was all Sovvan heard before a car horn blared as she darted over to the book, which had landed on the other side of the highway, of course. Who knew cars came from the opposite direction over there. Sovvan jumped back onto the median and covered her head as a car slammed into the giant book.

  “Do no harm,” a woman whispered, and she sounded like that drawing of a Scribe Sovvan hadn’t found yet. But when she did, she’d give that woman a piece of her mind for the hell this crazy story had put her through. Oh yes, she would.

  The book rippled like disturbed water as a purple glow seeped out of its pages, and the car bounced off it and drove away.

  “I guess you are a magical book.” Sovvan kicked its spine. “Where’s my family? You promised to take me to them.” Sovvan kicked the book again.

  Kicking it was cathartic, but it wasn’t helping her to get where she needed to go. Nor did she have many options. She could climb over the guardrail and cross two lanes of traffic to find out about that rope, or she could stand here and try to get the now glowing book to do something. Anything at this point would be a huge help.

  “Are you okay, Miss?”

  Sovvan glanced at the speaker. A young man in his early twenties waved to her from his car. He’d stopped parallel to the book and lowered his window.

  “Miss? Do you need help?”

  Sovvan shook her head. She did need help but not the sort he could offer.

  “Let me at least help push your car off the road.” He opene
d his car door.

  Was that what he saw? A large car instead of a giant glowing book? How strange. “Thanks, but I’m fine where I am.” Sovvan waved for him to go.

  “Are you sure because we, New Yorkers, have to help each other in these tough times.”

  What was a New Yorker? Was that what the people on this highway were called? Sovvan decided not to ask that question because it would prolong the conversation and traffic was building up behind his car. “I’m fine. You go on. I don’t want to hold people up. This thing promised it would get me where I need to go. It had better deliver on that.” Sovvan kicked the book again, and this time, she got a reaction.

  Several pages rustled, and that voice spoke again. “I’m trying to keep my promise, but the chaos field is growing, and it’s sapping my power.”

  “Then how are you doing that page-glow thing? Can’t you channel that power into some kind of locomotion? You don’t even need to fly, just hovering would be fine.” Better in fact because when that giant book crashed again, and it would, Sovvan could easily dismount and save herself from harm.

  The book fell silent again. Sovvan kicked it but got nothing for her trouble. “Hello? Are you listening? I asked you a question. It’s rude not to answer it.” Sovvan folded her arms.

  “If you’re sure you don’t need help—” the young man trailed off. He shut his car door and refastened his seat belt. The lines of his tanned face reminded her of that angelic captain in the harbor at the edge of the Gray Between. Maybe they were distantly related?

  “Stay safe. Stay New York tough. Peace out.” He waved and flashed up two fingers in some sort of sign then drove off, much to the relief of the ten cars that had been idling behind him.

  “You too. I think.” Sovvan waved, not at all sure what that meant, but she liked the sound of that last one. She could use a little of that New York toughness. It sounded like just the thing to get this book moving. Maybe it needed a push.

  Sovvan walked along the median to the rear of the book and almost screamed when a horn blared, startling her. A black vehicle stopped even with her and two windows lowered. The same little girl from before—Rosalie was it? —shook her finger at Sovvan. For some reason, she was wearing gloves now and a large, sparkly ring on each hand.