by Willa Hart
Their obvious distrust took me by surprise. I hadn’t been expecting a hero’s welcome, but after the kindness and warmth Tamar had shown us, I naively assumed everyone in the local weir — the ones who hadn’t gone over to the dark side — would be just as good-natured.
Newp.
Ryen broke the tension by tugging on his collar and bugging out his eyes, a la Rodney Dangerfield. “Wow, tough crowd, I tell ya.”
“Tamar,” said the man who looked like her brother, “why have you brought these strangers into our territory?”
Tamar shook her head, as if disappointed in the man’s manners. “This is Luka, my brother. I’m sorry he’s so rude.”
Luka Radu shot his sister an offended look before turning his attention to Kellum, who’d stepped forward and extended his hand.
“I’m Kellum Novak,” he said, using the ancient dragon language so everyone could understand. “We’re trying to find a human friend of ours. Her name is Zoe Walsman, and she was kidnapped in Los Angeles by the jadokari, who are holding her for ransom somewhere near here. As we speak, Lazlo, the acting casique of our weir, along with another member of our elder council are meeting with your elders to pay their respects.”
The five at the table exchanged unreadable glances, but their eye rolls spoke volumes. The female dragon snorted her amusement, then shook her head with contempt.
“Arrogant Americans.”
“Mariam,” Tamar snapped. “They are our allies, not our enemies, and you will treat them with respect.”
Mariam looked as if she wanted to argue, but finally shrugged and leveled an implacable look on Kellum. “What makes you think your human friend is here?”
Kellum didn’t want to tell the world about my abilities, at least not while we were still trying to figure them out, so he went vague. “We have reason to believe—”
“Which means you have no idea where she is,” she interrupted, smirking at her pals.
Luka leaned back in his chair and gave me a long, appraising look. I held his stare until he finally shifted his attention back to Kellum. If I’d flinched, he would have known how nervous I was, and I didn’t want to show any weakness. Not with their cold reception.
“Humans and dragons go missing all the time around here,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Most of them leave more of a trail than it sounds like you have for your little human friend, yet none ever turn up again.”
My heart stammered in my chest at this gloomy news. “You have missing people too?”
Again, a round table of eye rolls.
“For decades now,” Alek confirmed.
“More in recent years,” one of the burly guys said. “Maybe not all victims of the jadokari, but we presume most are.”
“Why should one more missing human matter?” asked the other, not a shred of empathy in his expression.
“Because she’s my best friend and I’m not leaving Romania without her,” I said, stepping forward with a snarl of anger.
How dare they belittle Zoe’s kidnapping — and Zoe herself!
“And how has that been working for you?” Luka asked. “I understand you’ve been here over a week, yet you are still searching.”
This guy was really starting to piss me off. Time for a shot over their bow. “Well, at least we’re doing something instead of sitting on our thumbs like some people.”
I sensed Kellum’s urge to stop me, to hold me back from tearing into these people who may or may not help us find Zoe, but he didn’t. He’d learned that when it comes to those I love, I’m a rabid pit bull ready to bite the heads off anyone who gets in my way.
A muscle in Luka’s jaw clenched and pulsed as he glared at me. “You’re all fools then. Any human girl in their hands is long gone. Unless she’s worth a fortune, and for some reason” —his gaze shifted up and down my casually dressed body— “you don’t strike me as the type to keep company with royalty.”
I threw my shoulders back and tossed my hair for the full Arrogant American effect. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Zoe’s alive, and we’re going to find her. With or without your help.”
Luka’s face flared red, but before he could clap back at me, Kellum stepped forward. “We’d much prefer with your help, which we’d like to reciprocate by helping you find some of your friends.”
The fire in Luka’s eyes winked out and was replaced by such profound sadness, my heart ached for him. How many friends had he — they — lost over the years, the decades? No doubt lots more than I had, but that didn’t mean for a second I’d give up on Zoe.
With a heavy sigh, he glanced at the others at the table before speaking. “We don’t know why, but the jadokari have been more active for the last decade or so. Kidnapping those who speak out against them or Vazha, harassing others who don’t support them fully, wreaking havoc within the community, just to keep everyone on edge.”
“Why do you all allow it?” Danic asked, frowning heavily at their apparent inaction.
Luka’s eyes fell closed and he pinched the bridge of his nose, like he was tired of hearing the same question over and over again. “The elders can’t seem to figure out how to handle the situation.”
Mariam muttered something under her breath, which caught Kellum’s attention. “What was that?”
“I said, they know exactly how to handle it.”
“They why don’t they?”
“That’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves for far too long,” Tamar said, finally taking a seat at the table like one of the members of this little group.
“The elder council are either too scared to act,” Luka explained, “or they’ve been compromised.”
Mariam jumped in. “Luka likes to give the elders the benefit of the doubt, but you can’t spend twenty-plus years losing members of your own weir without noticing. They’re old, rich, and well-connected. They know more than they’re letting on, and they know we know.”
Tension sparkled in the room like static electricity, but their anger and mistrust of us seemed to be fading.
“That’s why we’re here,” Luka grumbled. “We’re not elders, but since they apparently refuse to do anything, we’re left to pick up the pieces. Maybe they’re afraid, or maybe they simply don’t want to rock the boat, but we can’t allow such complacency any longer. That’s exactly how Vazha rose to power in the first place — good men doing nothing.”
Mariam nodded emphatically. “And god knows we no longer have the luxury to do nothing, not if we want to keep anyone else from going missing. If they want to rest on their laurels, so be it. We’ll investigate on our own and do what’s best for our community, our people. And that includes ensuring any outsiders don’t interfere.”
“We don’t want to interfere,” I insisted, trying a more relaxed attitude on for size. “We share a common enemy, so there should be no reason we can’t work together.”
“Really,” she said, her face hardening to stone. “Would you be so forthcoming if we showed up in Los Angeles demanding that you share all your knowledge with us?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but snapped it shut when I realized she had a point.
“Then let’s start simple,” I finally said, addressing Luka because he appeared to be the leader of their little rebellion. “You have one of their keepers. A melot, I think they’re called?”
He nodded mutely.
“We’d like to talk to him, ask him if he knows where my friend is being held.”
His eyes bugged out. “Absolutely not.”
My emotions were wild and I did my best to control them, but even I could hear the venom in my words. “Are you aware they attacked us the other day?”
Luka looked at his sister, then back to me. “We were informed.”
Ryen stepped up next to me, his fists clenched and his body trembling from anger. “Then I’m sure you were also informed that they were targeting Favor. They drew us away from her and Tamar, leaving them both at risk. Do you care so little for
your sister’s safety?”
“How dare you!” Luka slammed his palms on the table and half-stood in outrage. Tamar laid a hand on his shoulder to keep him from acting out. He dropped back into his seat and glared at his sister.
“Luka, surely you don’t think I would lead enemies into our midst.”
“You trust far too easily, Tamar,” Mariam said coldly.
Luka shook his head. “No, I refuse. This is absurd. These foreigners shouldn’t even know about our prisoner, much less be allowed to speak to him.”
“Luka,” Tamar said, taking his hand and giving it an earnest squeeze. “It’s unwise to turn away allies when we’re already fighting an uphill battle.”
He jerked his hand away and switched from Balaur to Romanian, laying into her with words I didn’t understand but could easily interpret. They bickered like siblings for a full minute before they suddenly stopped, like a switch had been flicked. Or they’d come to an impasse. That seemed more likely. When Tamar spoke, she used Balaur again so we wouldn’t be left out of the argument.
“I didn’t bring them here so you could make a fool of me, dear brother.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought them here.” Luka shifted his gaze to us. “We have plans for this melot.”
“What plans?” Ash asked warily.
“It’s a delicate process,” he started, ignoring Mariam’s warning look. “We’re going to convert him back to our way of thinking.”
“So you’re going to torture him until he pretends he’s back on your side,” Danic said, crossing his bulging arms impressively. “Then what?”
Luka blinked at his bluntness but barreled on. “Once we’re sure he’s no longer loyal to Vazha’s followers, we’re going to send him back into the melot underground as a mole.”
“All the more reason to let us talk to him first!” My patience had just about run out with these shortsighted dragons.
“You’re outsiders,” Alek snarled. “He won’t listen to you. No proud Romanian would!”
“You’ll ruin everything,” one of the big guys said. “This kind of operation requires a delicate hand.”
“Oh, I have a very delicate hand,” Ryen said with a smirk at the guy. “Want me to show you?”
Luka stood, eyes glowing. “Take one step closer and I’ll show you my hand, you smart-mouthed prick!”
Ryen jerked his head back like he’d been slapped, totally taken off-guard by the insult. Danic stepped in front of his brother, flexing every visible muscle.
“Keep up that kind of talk and you’ll be the one needing conversion therapy!”
“Enough!” Kellum shouted with enough force to startle all the angry people into silence. Once he was certain he had everyone’s attention, he continued in a much calmer tone. “Arguing isn’t going to fix either of our problems. I’d like to propose a compromise.”
Mariam coughed out a chortle, but a sharp look from Luka quieted her, allowing Kellum to finish.
“At least allow us to be in the room when you speak with the prisoner.”
Mariam beat Luka to the punch, locking her gaze onto Kellum. “No. That’s far too many people. One of you may join me in my first interrogation. One. The rest stay behind.”
Luka and the others gaped at her sudden turn-around, but Mariam ignored them. She kept her pointed gaze locked on Kellum, silently goading him into volunteering. Before he could say anything, I stepped forward.
“I’ll go.”
Mariam’s attention snapped over to me, at the same time Kellum and Danic barked their objections. I held up a hand and everyone quieted.
“First, as a human, I’ll be the least threatening to him. Second, they already tried to kill me once. If he recognizes me, he might talk just for the fun of it.”
“She has a point,” Hale said.
Ash nodded. “It might make him feel more at ease to speak.”
Mariam pressed her lush lips into a hard red line, then finally jerked her head in what I took as a nod of agreement. “Fine. Follow me.”
She stood without another glance my way and headed for the stairs. No turning back now.
Chapter 7
Luka took up the rear of our three-person convoy as we climbed the strangely steep stairwell to the second floor of the run-down house. My skin tingled with excitement and fear. I was walking into a potentially volatile situation and this time I wouldn’t have my boys around to protect me. Judging by Mariam and Luka’s angry expressions, I couldn’t exactly count on them to step up if the melot decided to attack me. I was on my own, for the first time in years. But the skills I learned while I was in the foster care system were not easily forgotten, plus I had new powers — maybe even some I didn’t know about yet — so I felt confident I wouldn’t walk out of the interrogation room dead.
Of course, Luka and Mariam didn’t know any of that. Or at least not all of it. They probably saw me as a fragile human, and a foreign one at that. Their distrust of me and my boys was not only obvious, but maybe even understandable.
I felt for them. I had to leave my own continent to realize that not all weirs were created equal. Our west coast weir, led by Maximus — and now temporarily by Lazlo — was tight and well-run. I didn’t always agree with Lazlo’s methods or decisions, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was on my side. Our side.
But the dragons of Romania were being torn apart. Not only were they dealing with a rift between normal dragons and keepers and the jadokari and melots, but the younger generation couldn’t rely on their elders to address the problem. Boiled down to its essence, they were a bunch of kids trying to untangle a harrowing mess their parents refused to acknowledge. It was the premise for some of the best campy movies of the eighties.
God, I wish Zoe and I were watching The Goonies right now, chowing down on a pint of Chunky Monkey.
The wise, if cynical, words of one of my foster dads came rolling back to me. “Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.”
We reached the upstairs landing and Mariam moved to a door with a heavy padlock on the outside. As she slid the key into it, Luka grabbed my arm and turned me toward him, a fierce warning in his brown eyes. I swallowed my fear and gave him a defiant look, even though my knees were practically knocking.
“You do not speak,” he warned.
“Not a single word out of that pretty little mouth,” hissed Mariam. “Understood?”
As much as I wanted to snap at them, I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing so many loved ones over such a short period of time — short for dragons, anyway. I wanted to help them. I hoped they would realize we weren’t here to sabotage their carefully constructed plans. While I didn’t like how they peered down their noses at us, like we were trash, I reminded myself that we were on their turf. I needed to defer to them, especially if it would lead me to Zoe.
“Understood,” I answered solemnly, twisting the lock on my lips and throwing away the key.
They seemed puzzled by my action, then finally accepted my promise. Luka reached for the doorknob, and as he pushed it open, Mariam pressed a finger to her lips as a final reminder to keep my big American yap shut. I nodded and followed them into the room.
It looked like it once had been a bedroom, but the window on the far wall had been boarded up so not even a sliver of sunlight could peek through. A fluorescent light fixture hung from the ceiling and the only furniture was a single chair in the middle of the room.
A thick rope had been tightly tied around the melot’s upper body, keeping him stick straight in the hard chair. More rope bound his ankles to each leg and his hands behind his back. He looked younger than I expected, but the black hatred in his eyes reminded me he wasn’t simply a troubled teen.
I shuffled over to the front corner of the room, where I had full view of him but he’d have trouble seeing me past his interrogators. He was skinny, almost malnourished. High, sharp cheekbones jutted from his thin, sallow, and very sour-looking face. His slightly hooked nose
jogged to the right, hinting it had been broken at least once in his life. Dark eyes were rimmed pink, with dark smudges under them. Either he suffered from intense, unrelenting insomnia, or he was into some seriously hard drugs. Probably both.
His head was shaved smooth, with only the faintest of five-o-clock shadows darkening the tattoos covering every inch of space. Some were more skillfully done than others, with a handful of truly crude ones, which had probably been created with a knife and an ink pen. Most looked like Celtic designs to my untrained eye, but not all. They sank below the collar of his stained white t-shirt, a testament to his devotion — whether to Vazha’s followers or tattoos in general, I couldn’t be sure.
He sneered up at Luka and Mariam, black eyes narrowed to slits and his lip curling in a snarl. The balls on the guy! There he sat, a mere human dragon keeper, facing down two potentially deadly dragons, yet he showed no fear. Getting any intel out of him wasn’t going to be easy, but they dove right in, undeterred.
“Hello, Levan. Ready to talk yet, you piece of filth?” Luka pulled himself up to his full height to intimidate the melot.
Levan just smiled up at him, half his teeth missing, the other half rotting.
“Tell us who’s in your crew and we won’t hurt you today,” Luka said.
Mariam asked her own question almost before Luka had finished his. “We want names, backgrounds, every detail you can think of.”
“How many of you cockroaches are out there scuttling around?”
“Where’s your homebase?”
“I bet he’s not even Romanian,” Luka said to Mariam.
“Just some foreign asshole trying to screw things up on our turf.”