Flux of Skin

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Andreas answered with a blast of ‘back away’ calling scents that caught Ladon, as well. It took all his willpower to hold his feet in place.

  Vivicus swished his hand at Andreas. “Why is it when God tells you to set up an operation, no one points fingers, but when I do, I’m the bad guy?” He huffed and spun around. “Go home!”

  Andreas turned on his half-brother, his beefy hand clamping down around Vivicus’s neck at the same time he blasted out a specific blend of ‘comply’ and ‘still’ meant to hold a morpher. “Be quiet, you crazy fanatic.” He waved his other hand at the hospital. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Looking for the Fate.” Vivicus pouted and batted his eyes like a schoolgirl. “Did you know she’s half healer? She’s a boon.”

  “Andreas, he’s here to kill her,” Ladon said. Where was the beast? “What did you do to my dragon?”

  “I am not!” Vivicus grabbed his brother’s wrist, but it did no good. “She needs protection. From him!” He pointed at Ladon. “That dragon’s a problem. He’s always been a problem.”

  “You can’t hurt this one, Ladon. You can’t be that man anymore.” Andreas held out his other hand to help Ladon off the ground.

  “What?” But Ladon knew. Andreas referred to a specific moment in both their lives—the death of Sister’s daughter. Vesuvius exploding. The young Fate whose life Ladon took as revenge.

  They’d both tried, over the millennia, to balance the harm he’d caused. Andreas did so by training the original Draki Prime. Ladon knew he’d never fully balance his mistake, but he tried. Every day he tried.

  “I know you’re trying to enthrall me, brother.” Vivicus glanced around at his men.

  Another blast of ‘comply’ and ‘still’ burst from Andreas anyway. His voice rose. “I will stop all your hearts from where I stand!” he yelled as he shook Vivicus. “Back away right now.”

  Several of the Seraphim set their weapons on the ground. Most of them backed away. Three ran into the spaces between the dump trucks.

  “This is what I get for hiring mercenaries.” Vivicus’s nostrils flared. “You’re all fired!”

  Ladon carefully stood. The rib throbbed, annoyed as much by his jumping as by Andreas sneaking up on him. He pointed at the backside of the hospital building.

  Andreas looked between Vivicus and Ladon. “She made it sound like you were the threat, Ladon-Human.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Ladon didn’t have time for this. The Seraphim scattered, leaving a burning truck in the lot. The van sat between him and the tunnel exit, but close to the building and not at a straight shot.

  He had to run the open lot.

  “Yes, please tell us, brother.” Vivicus sneered.

  Andreas threw Vivicus backward and smoke curled around him as he moved through the air. He slammed into the door of the far truck with a loud smack, sliding down slowly, his feet over the running board, then dropping to his knees on the pavement.

  “What is the balance here, Ladon-Human?” Andreas pointed at Vivicus. “Does the Fate pose a danger to the Shifters? Is that why he’s here?”

  “Yes!” Vivicus yelled. “It’s simple! The Dracae don’t understand.”

  Ladon would leave Vivicus to his half-brother. If they wanted to inflict Shifter-on-Shifter violence, he wasn’t going to stop them. Andreas was more than capable of taking care of himself. Ladon scanned the wide swath of parking lot between him and the back side of the building. Too open. Andreas had told the Seraphim to run, but he might not have gotten all of them.

  So Ladon ran for the nearest truck.

  A gun fired. The pop echoed off the trucks, the same way the first shot had echoed when Ladon jumped the hood. This time, Ladon smelled gunpowder. The tang hit his nose, an abrasive darkness that made him cough.

  Except he didn’t cough. His ribs moved—the fragile ones. The two with the fractures under the giant bruise on his side. This time, they snapped, parted by the bullet.

  It gouged through his side, through muscle and bone and organ.

  Behind him, Andreas’s free hand stripped the gun from Vivicus’s hand while the other snapped his neck. Andreas dropped Vivicus and fired two rounds into his head.

  The son of a bitch would be up in less than an hour. Up and again terrorizing Ladon’s family.

  Andreas dropped the gun. “Brother-Dragon!” he yelled, then lifted Ladon off the pavement. “By all the old gods, I’d forgotten how much you weigh.”

  “You let him shoot me?” Ladon asked Andreas. He bled. A lot. It didn’t hurt. Yet. “What kind of Second are you?”

  Andreas growled a command at a terrified Seraphim and the man got out of their way.

  “I apologize, my legatus,” Andreas said.

  “I told you ten centuries ago to stop calling me that.” The wound should hurt more than it did, which was not a good sign. No instant pain was never a good sign.

  Andreas was carrying Ladon in the wrong direction. “That way, you idiot.” This time, the cough was real. “Toward the ambulance garage. Sister’s bringing them out.”

  “I’m taking you inside.” Andreas dropped Ladon’s feet to the ground. “I can’t fucking carry you anymore.” He looked around. “Brother—”

  Dragon appeared. Flame roiled from his mouth as he breathed out and forced back the smoke.

  “No!” Ladon pressed on the wound. He’d had worse. “Seraphim. They went around back. They’re after Rysa. She’s with Sister and Derek.”

  Andreas looked at the blood, then toward the back of the building. “Mira sounded as if you were… not happy with her daughter.”

  “Mira?” They didn’t need Fates involved. Not the Jani, especially if they were lying to Andreas.

  “She called me four days ago. I was in Mumbai.” Andreas also pressed on the wound. “You need attention.”

  “It’s not that bad.” Ladon pressed harder. “Rysa’s a healer.” Not that he’d let her do anything. It would stop bleeding on its own sooner or later.

  Andreas pulled keys out of his pocket and hit a remote. The SUV beeped.

  He signaled Dragon. “Get him in.” He opened the passenger side door of the huge, dark-colored SUV, one big enough that he could drive it in comfort—and haul a dragon. “You too.” He waved Dragon around the back.

  Pain pushed out from the wound. Pain, and Ladon’s blood. The bullet had nicked something important. Ladon felt it.

  Cold started inching in.

  “You listen to me. You stay in the truck when Brother-Dragon and I go out. You got that?” Andreas said.

  How would that help? Dragon couldn’t go down into the tunnel. He’d be too far away.

  Ladon didn’t respond.

  “Then we’re taking you inside.” Ladon’s Second scowled in the rearview mirror.

  Human, you must listen to Andreas.

  The SUV skidded around the back of the building, toward the ambulance garage. “I hope you just scolded him. Twenty-three centuries and this kind of stupid shouldn’t be what finally does him in.”

  Ladon gave Andreas the finger.

  The other man scowled, his ocean-tinted eyes showing a mix of anger and anguish, and slammed on the brakes just outside the ambulance bay.

  Andreas glanced into the rearview mirror again. His face changed, shock setting in as Ladon’s words finally sunk in. “She’s active both Fate and Shifter?”

  Dragon did not sign an answer to Andreas, nor push anything else to Ladon. Even though he ran visible, he’d blocked his emotions from Ladon.

  Ladon knew why. He bled too much.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The tunnel door slammed against the concrete wall with a loud crack. Rysa shuddered.

  A man had his arm around her waist. He hauled her up concrete stairs and her feet bounced against the metal edging along the lips of the stairs. If he didn’t stabilize her, she’d fall on her face. The concrete would smash open her head and her Greek chorus would spill all over his boots.
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  What Rysa had in her stomach spilled out her mouth onto the squeaky-clean shininess of the new exit to the hospital’s ambulance bay.

  “You are wheezing.” The man—his name was Derek. Though his name really wasn’t Derek, it was something else. Something Russian. Derek was his American name, because he was an American now. He’d been an American since he first escaped from the Shifters.

  Derek threw open the door at the top of the stairs and pulled her through into the darkness, and pressed them both against one of the waiting ambulances. Sunlight filtered in through a small window next to the huge, hangar-like garage door, but very little made it to them.

  She’d seen something around him before. Something wrong. Now the only wrong she sensed was the gunfire reverberating up from the tunnel and the sounds of screeching tires outside.

  But a stray thought stuck—he had escaped from the Shifters before. He’s smart enough to do it again.

  Her chorus hadn’t completely shut off. “Derek,” she whispered. Her throat felt swollen, like she’d been stung by a million bees.

  He glanced at her. “Rysa, you cannot use your abilities, okay?” He looked around. “You need help.”

  The overhead lights burst on, one rack at a time, followed by echoing electrical clunk, clunk, clunks.

  They weren’t alone. Two EMTs—a big, burly guy with a bald head, and a no nonsense woman with a severe brunette ponytail—rounded the front of the ambulance.

  They’d help her. She’d start breathing again, but something was happening outside. Something bad. She needed to go out. The Seraphim weren’t under control. Randomness clogged Rysa’s seers and the Shifters responded now like caged animals. Any action they saw as a threat would cause them to start killing. Every normal inside and outside the hospital building was in terrible danger.

  Especially the first responders.

  “Get in the office!” Rysa yelled. How her voice made it through her throat, she didn’t know, but it hurt like hell, grinding like sand on fire. “Turn off the lights and stay down! Get on the radio and tell them that no one is to engage the people in the parking lot! No one!” She retched, dry heaving again. “Derek, they’ll kill everyone.”

  Derek pointed at the two EMTs with his gun. “Do what she says.”

  They balked, the big male watching the weapon.

  Derek dropped his arm. “I will not hurt you. But you need to listen. When you hear noises coming up from the tunnel, do not come out.”

  The woman pointed at Rysa, her hands up, and stepped closer. “She needs help.”

  “Derek, they have families.” Children. Rysa’s entire gut wanted to push its way out of her mouth.

  More shots echoed from the tunnel. Both EMTs backed against the other ambulance.

  The male pounded his open hand against the vehicle. “What if we take her into the back of the rig and close the door? Can we do that?”

  “No!” Rysa pulled away from Derek. Somehow her body pulled up what she needed. From somewhere, it found the strength. She bolted for the door with the little window.

  Derek yelled something, but she didn’t hear. The door slammed against the wall and stuck, jammed open. Rysa dashed out into the sunshine.

  The garage was flanked by a wide-open employee parking lot on one side and the square, squat, bone-colored power plant on the other. Steam rose out of a short stack. Smaller buildings dotted the dirt toward the hospital proper, as if the power plant was a Russian doll and someone had laid out all its little mini-mes one by one by one.

  She smelled burning rubber. Across the lot, a big truck burned.

  Her future-seer whispered—explosives.

  Rysa turned in a circle. This was too much, too fast, but she needed to find something. A vehicle she should recognize. A big, black van—the van. They were supposed to run for the van.

  “Derek!” she yelled. “Come on!” The van meant safety. If she crawled into the back, she’d be away from all the chaos and she could stop panting.

  A blinding image hit her mind, one full of a terrible stench and braced by emotions so hot they burned through her fever—blood. A lot of blood. Ladon, his face contorted in agony, seen by a dragon looking over the backseat of an SUV.

  They’ll kill everyone screamed through her mind again. The normals, Derek, her, the man she loved. “Sister-Dragon!” she yelled. We need you!

  The other dragon had to listen. She had to.

  Derek appeared in the ambulance garage’s door. He popped through quickly, looking around, before he ran to Rysa. “Anna is out. They are coming.”

  She must have wavered, because he caught her before she hit the pavement. “Van.” She pointed. “Run!”

  But two huge dump trucks barreled down on them. Two giant yellow and orange behemoths roaring like mammoths as their drivers shifted them into higher gears. Two trucks chasing the biggest dark blue SUV she’d ever seen.

  Derek hauled her to the side as the SUV squealed and spun to a stop. The driver’s side door flew open even before the vehicle stopped.

  A huge man unfolded from the seat. Big like a football player, he stood at least six five, more likely six seven. His biceps were the same size as Rysa’s thighs and when he leaned over the hood of the SUV, they stretched tight the sleeves of his dark green t-shirt. His head was perfectly-shaped, masculine and sort of square, and he looked down at her with ocean green eyes framed by wonderful, deep bronze skin and the third most handsome face she’d ever seen.

  “Are you Rysa Lucinda de la Turris?” he asked with a voice as rich as his skin.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Andreas Theodulus Sisto. I am the Dragons’ Legion.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The two dump trucks growled, and their brakes ground from a low grating to a high scream as they skidded across the lot.

  The back of the SUV flew open and Dragon landed in front of Rysa. His talons gouged deep holes into the asphalt and he growled, flame spilling from his mouth, as he vanished.

  She felt snarls flow over her, but not between Dragon and Ladon, who lay bleeding inside the SUV. The snarls moved behind her, toward the other dragon twisting through the ambulance bay doors.

  The big man named Andreas smacked the hood of his SUV. “Tsar! Get her in the car.”

  Derek pulled Rysa toward the back passenger door. “Listen to him, Rysa. Or he will make you.” A quick scowl moved across his face as he looked up at the huge man.

  “What?” She tried to call her seers, to make them behave and give her answers about what was happening, but all she saw was the irreality. It snapped over Derek again—and over the SUV. “No no no,” she babbled. The irreality meant death. And the only person inside the vehicle was Ladon.

  “Ladon!” She dove for the SUV.

  Derek yelled something about needing the van. And about Sister-Dragon. Rysa didn’t follow, but the big man named Andreas did.

  She saw keys fly through the air, past her face, straight from Derek and into the outstretched hand of the giant.

  Rysa ripped at the door of the SUV directly in front of her. Why couldn’t she get in? “Ladon!” she screamed again. He lay bleeding in the back seat. She saw him through the window. He’d die if she didn’t get in.

  Andreas pointed at Rysa. “Stay with—”

  A Seraphim, moving so fast Rysa barely saw him, smacked into Andreas. The big man sidestepped, rolling along the hood of the SUV, and his arm came around. He caught the other Shifter around the neck.

  Bones snapped.

  And the keys fell under the tires.

  “Shit!” Andreas smashed the Seraphim against the hood. The Shifter vanished, ducking out of Andreas’s grip and under the fender of the SUV, where Rysa could not see him.

  Derek appeared, reaching for the door handle, but the door flew open and knocked him back. He staggered, grabbing for Rysa, but she dove forward.

  She still couldn’t get inside. Ladon stopped her, his hand out, before she
could crawl in. “Get… her… out of here,” he growled.

  Her healer barked. “Oh my God Ladon you’re bleeding!” This couldn’t be happening. He’d lost too much blood. She had to do something and she had to do it now. “Hold still! Ladon, I’m going to—”

  Something grabbed her ankle.

  And pulled.

  The Seraphim whom Andreas had tossed had crawled under the vehicle. Rysa screamed and fell backward, her balance completely, utterly obliterated.

  She’d smash her head on the asphalt. She’d die. They’d all die. Ladon, Derek, this new man named Andreas, both dragons. Dead here, right now, behind the newly-upgraded Rock Springs, Wyoming hospital.

  Except she didn’t hit. Ladon snatched her right arm and she floundered, her left shoulder scraping the asphalt, but he caught her. He didn’t let her fall.

  An agony-filled holler burst from him and he fell forward, out the door. She twisted again, bracing herself, and landed on her hip, Ladon on top of her.

  Pain ricocheted from her pelvis all the way to her toes and out to her fingers. But nothing snapped. Not on her and not on Ladon. They were okay, except for the bleeding. God, he was bleeding. All over her.

  “Stop bleeding!” she yelled.

  He inhaled deeply. “I’m trying!”

  She must be kicking out calling scents. What was she doing?

  The Shifter yanked on her leg again, this time twisting her ankle. “Get off me!” she screamed and kicked.

  Ladon responded, rolling to the side.

  “Not you!” She grabbed for him but the Shifter yanked hard.

  Rysa skidded under the SUV.

  “Let go of her!” From the other side of the SUV, an arm snagged the Seraphim’s waist. A huge, massive arm, one the Shifter did not want to mess with.

  They both skidded forward, the rough ground under her back snagging and ripping at her skin. The Shifter gulped but didn’t let go.

  “No!” she yelled. They were pulling her away from Ladon. “Andreas! He’s bleeding! Let go of me!”

  The Seraphim’s hand released. He vanished away, disappearing out the other side, yanked out by Andreas. Rysa heard a gulp, a snarl, and more bones cracking. Then a shadow of a body flying toward the dump trucks.