Fire Bound Dragon

by Elizabeth Rain

  It took us nearly as long to make the trip this time as it had the last. Less snow, but more mud made the hills slick and we seemed to slide back as much as we moved forward. We reached the cabin by noon and stopped long enough to stoke the fire and have lunch. I banked the fire before we left to keep the cabin above freezing. I was sure we weren’t making it off the mountain before nightfall. Not that we weren’t used to parading around in the dark, but the cabin was there and convenient.

  Thomas led us back to the same tangle of a blackberry patch we’d visited before. The piece of fabric was gone. I knew I was in the right place though. I’d left it as a marker. Something else had had other ideas. It could have been a rodent, lining his nest with the patch of fleece, or even a stray bird doing the same. My instincts told me otherwise.

  The four of us fanned out, going over every inch of the patch, mostly on our hands and knees. More than once I glanced in Nick’s direction as he tried to fold his six plus foot frame down to ground level and help. His disgruntled expression told me all I needed to know. Are we having fun yet, Nicholas?

  It was my turn to scowl when he found the buttons, two of them right next to each other. Thomas rubbed them between thumb and forefinger. Levi was the trademark etched into the pewter-colored fastenings. Buttons from Lawrence’s shirt and after so many months, our only sign of a struggle.

  We kept looking. I tried not to notice the sun's progress. Both Sirris and I, smaller than either of the guys, spent too much time on our elbows and knees, belly down in the mud beneath the brambles, the thorns pulling my hair into a snarl and picking at the heavy quilted flannel jacket I wore. I wondered if that was how the first clue had happened. It made me wonder why there weren’t more. A noise ahead of me drew my eye. I stared into the shoe-button eyes of a large raccoon. She was less than five feet away and as startled to see me as I was her. Still, she took her time ambling away from me towards the center of the patch and a rotting log that was so huge it could have only been there as the patch grew up around it years before. It was dark, the vines thick and twining above my head as I watched her progress. She reached the log and then dipped her head towards the depression in the earth dug there. And then she vanished. I blinked; sure she’d gone down into a hole in the ground; she hadn’t just disappeared into thin air. I moved forward to check it out. A panicked shout somewhere on my left and not under the briers made me change my mind. I scooted backwards, swearing at the clinging vines impeding my progress. When I could finally stand upright I whirled toward Thomas’ yell and froze.

  We weren’t alone, and because the thorny vines grabbed everything, we’d piled our packs and weapons on the ground so they wouldn’t get in our way. We were unarmed. Stupid, Cross.

  We’d found the Demon wolves. Or they’d found us. One of them stood off to the side, gripping Sirris neck under a brutal hand and holding her immobile. The threat was obvious as he gave her a shake and she cried out. He could easily snap her neck with a twist of his wrist. The second werewolf stood to the side, facing off against Nick and Thomas, who stood frozen and indecisive. They’d have to go through the Demon wolf unarmed to get to her and we all knew we’d never make it before she was dead. My eyes slid to the pile of backpacks piled against the base of a huge Big Tooth Maple where we’d left them for convenience. Theirs; not ours.

  I turned to the third wolf, seven feet tall and the same leader from before. He stared straight at me, yellowed eyes gleaming with malice.

  We were dead; I was sure of it.

  It shouldn’t have startled me when he spoke, I’d heard him once before, speaking English with Will Bennett in the cave. But the raspy voice, thick with a foreign accent, grated along my nerve endings and made me shiver.

  “Where is it? Tell me and you live. Or he’s gonna have fun.” He growled, indicating the wolf holding Sirris. The sentences were brief, but I understood him fine.

  I frowned. “Where’s what?” I asked and immediately regretted it when the wolf holding Sirris shook her like a rag doll. The grip on her was brutal and I hadn’t missed the glimmer of red seeping beneath his fingers. His claws had cut her. The growl of rage and the deep umber of Thomas’ eyes said he hadn’t missed it either.

  “Wait, here now, don’t get crazy. Just tell us what you mean. What’s it? We wanna help, truly.”

  My words didn’t have the desired effect. Instead, his voice rose. “You know human. Tell me or bury her!” he spat, looking more frustrated by the moment. I wondered if his English vocabulary was limited and he was struggling to find the right words. I hoped he hurried before the brute that held my dearest friend slipped.

  My gaze breezed past Nick. He was becoming a sorcerer of some note, but he still needed his staff to channel it. The staff leaning against the tree next to my crossbow. At my side, my fingers ached and I stretched them flat and balled them up, trying to erase the sting. Unlike Nick, I didn’t need my bow to harness my magic. It was in my hands. Only, I wasn’t too sure how making the grass grow was going to help. What I needed was my fire. But I’d never channeled it beyond using it as a fire-starter to keep us warm, or possibly to heat the end of my bolts to a red-fiery glow. This was different, and there was Sirris too. I didn’t dare send it winging in her direction. I didn’t want to fry my friend as well when I took out the monster holding her.

  But I had to do something. I wasn’t sure what they were after and I didn’t trust them to let us go if we gave it to them anyhow. I caught Sirris’ eye. Hers were streaming, the tears a muddy track down her cheeks as she shook. I tried to remember what I’d done before, using my mind to whisper and plea, to call the magic to me. Almost at once I felt the shiver of power as it moved through the air and brushed along my shoulders and torso and traveled down my arms to pool in my hands.

  I continued to talk, needing his attention on my face, away from what my hands were doing. “Where are the people who lived here? Or those who came after looking for them?”

  His lip curled. “Humans.” He said with derision. “The humans are gone.”

  My heart sank. Was he saying they’d killed them?

  “I don’t know what you want, but we can’t help you if you can’t tell us what you did to them.”

  He snorted and shook his head. “Can’t stay.” He spat, more agitated by the moment. “We need to get back to Wyndoor.”

  The angry growl in his throat as he struggled for the right words told me I wasn’t pleasing him.” But it didn’t matter, because even as he raised his fist to point it at me, I flung my first hand out. A fireball the size of a baseball flew from my fingers and landed at his feet, the flames splashing onto his hairy legs and spreading upwards in an instant. As he howled his rage, brushing at the fire before it could fully catch, my other hand was tossing the second ball in the idiot's direction guarding our packs. It hit him low on his hip, and like the first, it grabbed hold immediately. He must have never received the memo on stop, drop and roll. With a screech of pain, he took off into the woods, slapping at the flames, the rich oxygen just making them spread faster. The wolf holding Sirris, shocked by the sudden attack, loosened his grip on Sirris. It was all she needed as she went limp and Thomas jumped him from behind. The demon wolf shuddered and reached back, clawed fingers sinking deep into Thomas' shoulders and flinging him sideways into our packs. Thomas reached for his bolos. But it was too much for the wolf and he turned tail and ran after his companion. Sirris and Nick had reclaimed their staffs and as a unit we all turned to face the lead wolf, who had put out the fire and stood facing us. His glare encompassed us all.

  His eyes met mine and I blinked. I was used to seeing anger and rage and savagery reflected in their inhuman eyes. But for just a moment, instead I thought what might have been despair swam there instead.

  “Need to go. Or die.” He growled. He opened his mouth to say more, and then with a grimace of confusion, he turned and loped after his companions.

  For several moments nobody moved. And then we all were, gathering up th
e rest of our things and heading back down the trail towards the cabin. While we’d scuffled, night had descended, casting the path in heavy shadow. There was the barest glimmer of light to see by as we stumbled into the homesteads yard and closed the door behind us. Both Thomas and Sirris needed medical attention. I was still trying to figure out why they were still standing and why the wolves had chosen not to fight but had run off like they did. They were the same wolves that had attacked us before; I recognized the leader especially. But something about them was different, though I wasn’t sure I could put my finger on what.

  I tossed a few logs on the fire and sent a whisper of heat with them. Along with the banked embers, they immediately caught.

  Thomas was already fussing over Sirris, though the long thin gash on his own shoulder was worse. Nick and I forced them both to sit down as we tended the slight tears with the first aid kit we found in a linen closet.

  I struggled to understand as we worked how they weren’t poisoned and dying like before.

  Thomas spoke as a log fell, sparks darting into the air. “just scratches. They aren’t poisonous. I feel fine. Well, pissed, but I’m not dying at least. Something changed.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, but what. You should both be dead or a lot sicker than you are.”

  I finished bandaging Sirris up. “I wonder, is it possible that Will was behind that too? Was he somehow making their DNA interact with ours to make it poisonous like it did?”

  Thomas shrugged, wincing as Nick bandaged his shoulder and shooting him a glare. “Why not? We did. Jerry used your blood to make that poisonous cocktail we smear on our weapons. Maybe he did the same kind of thing.”

  I was still mulling it over as I wandered into the kitchen and started pulling open cupboards. We needed food.

  “They wanted something. And whatever it was, it was more important than killing us. Before, I could have sworn that was their sole purpose. But not today.” I added as I opened cans and poured them into a pan. Mixing vegetables with several soups to make a stew of sorts. We were starving and not picky at that point.

  “I think their ability to understand and speak English is pretty limited.” Nick said as he closed the lid on the medical kit and stepped back. Thomas touched the bandage and nodded an abrupt thanks.

  “Agreed, but I think figuring out what they wanted from us could be key.” Sirris murmured from the kitchen, pulling out bowls and crackers.

  “Do you think they killed them?” Thomas asked what we’d all been wondering.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It would explain why they knew where to find us. Except, when I asked about that, I got the sense that he knew I was asking about them, but not the sense of excitement over a kill that was there before. I think they know what happened to them at least.” I finished pouring soup.

  Thomas gave a terse nod and pulled a bowl of soup across the table towards him. He picked up a handful of crackers and dropped them on top and grabbed a spoon. But he didn’t sit with us. Instead, he opened the door and closed it behind him. The creak and whine of a chair on the front porch told us what we needed to know. Thomas wanted to be alone.

  THE LIBRARY WAS DESERTED. Not that it often had many students in it on a Friday Afternoon after classes had ended. But this was bad even for that. I’d fled the uncomfortable silence of my dorm room, even though Fern had been in her normal spot, tucked up underneath the gauzy covering of her little cave where she hid most of the time whenever I was in the room. I’d been avoiding Thomas for most of the week, and where Thomas was, so was Sirris; so her too. Thomas had been in a mood after we came back from the mountain empty handed a second time. No one could stand to be around him. Nobody wanted to poke that wolf. I figured Sirris hung only to show her support. I wasn’t that devoted and I needed a break.

  Standing in the library's doorway, I saw only three students at tables studying. Two of them were students I knew by sight, but nothing more. I struggled to remember if they were in any of my classes. It surprised me to see that the third student was Kimmy. Of all of Thomas’ siblings, Kimmy was the most friendly and sociable. She had an openness about her that drew people in.

  But as I stared at her dark head bent over her studies, I had to remind myself that Todd was her brother too. Unlike her siblings, that wore their emotions on their sleeves for the world to see, Kimmy hid that part of herself.

  I found my feet moving in her direction. I sat down across from her, surprised when she didn’t immediately look up with a smile. I looked closer and realized she’d been crying. It was enough to have me gathering my things back up and booking for the door. Instead, I reached out a hand and covered hers with mine. She looked up then, her usually vibrant brown eyes the palest of yellow, revealing what she was to anyone who was paying attention.

  “I miss him Sadie. So much and I don’t even know why. He was the biggest pain.” She grabbed a Kleenex next to her and wiped at her cheeks and nose. It didn’t help much.

  “We don’t know for sure what happened yet, Kimmy. There’s still hope.”

  She snorted in disbelief. “I wish I believed that. But it’s been months. If he and the others were still alive don’t you think we’d have heard-found something?”

  She wasn’t wrong. “I think we’d have found something if they were dead, too.” I added. She closed her eyes and took a breath to calm her nerves.

  She gave my hand a squeeze and released it to pick up her pencil and turn the pages of her textbook to a different chapter. “I don’t know. Let’s change the subject, okay. I don’t know what to think anymore. So... did you hear?”

  I undid the fastening to my pack and got out my books on Dark Beasts. I had a couple of chapters to read before Monday. “Did I hear what?”

  “That they found another one. An Other in Bane Woods, down by the Lake again. A runner, but he wasn’t jogging when they found him. Not dead, though; he’s in the infirmary with the other two. They still haven’t woke up. Doctors aren’t sure they will.”

  We hadn’t been in Bane forest since the previous semester when Thomas had taken us all on a late night tour of the lake and woods.

  She continued. “Know what else? What Mayor Seul forgot to tell us was that they were at least five pints low.”

  I blinked at her in confusion. “Five pints... what?” I shook my head at her.

  “Blood, Sadie. Someone drained them almost dry. Not enough to kill them, but close.”

  I leaned in, voice a whisper. “I thought Vampires were a myth! Are you trying to tell me those blood suckers really exist? Are you kidding me?” I hissed.

  She shrugged, looking worried. “Well, I don’t know of any that attend school at Rule 9 or live in Drae Hallow. I have heard that they have them in some of the bigger Magical cells. They keep to themselves, though. Never heard of any here. And I’ve never heard of them doing that. Biting necks and sucking on them is old school. The ones I know of now drink synthetic blood from a bag and do fine. This was weird. The Mayor and Drae Council are keeping it quiet. The guards been out looking for whoever is doing it, but they have had little luck. They’re keeping everything on the down low.”

  I nodded. Probably for the same reason they’d kept the Demon wolves secret as well. Still, this wasn’t on the other side of the mountain. This was in the valley where they lived. People had a right to know if they were in danger. Maybe they’d pay better attention to the warnings to stay out of the woods if they did.

  I remembered back to when Mayor Seul had first put the curfew in effect. Had it been a month already? At the time we’d wondered if the demon wolves and our missing friends might be connected to the attacks in Bane Forest.

  I suddenly gathered up my things. “Hey, I gotta go Kimmy. Good luck with your studies. See you at Supper?”

  I could feel her strange eyes on me all the way to the door.

  “I THINK YOU HAVE A death wish, Cross.” Nick shook his head at me as we walked back from War and Combat. Thomas walked behind him. The three of us had pulled
away from the rest of the class. Ours wasn’t a conversation we wanted to share.

  Thomas spoke behind him. “Fine. Stay back then. We’ll go without you.”

  Nick laughed, unamused. “Oh, no and let you guys have all the fun? I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “Because I don’t like it. Too many coincidences and I think it all ties together somehow. The demon wolves are still on Shephard’s Mountain, the Tuttles including Thomas’ brother are still missing, and now we have vampires in Drae Hallow. We’ve made two trips up that mountain to look for something, anything we might have missed that might shed light on what happened. But nothing, and we’ve been interrupted twice. Someone isn’t happy we’re going up there. And now we suddenly have vampires in the valley? I want to know what’s going on, don’t you?”

  Nick shifted his pack to the other side of his shoulder and rearranged the straps as we walked. It had been an interminable day and we were all tired and not looking forward to a longer night and little sleep.

  “I want to know yes; we all do. But I want to live long enough to tell someone about it or make it right. And all right already Thomas. I can hear you grinding your canines from here. I’m coming and I’m even perfectly willing to let all you idiots lead the way.”

  I giggled suddenly. “Sounds good to me, Nick Seul. You can protect us from whatever attacks us from behind.” He groaned at my attempt at humor. But I heard Thomas snickering, which made it worth it.

  Thomas and Nick left me and continued on to their dorms, and I headed for mine. Inside, I bypassed the first floor in favor of the second. I stood in front of Sirris room and knocked. She usually beat us back from class and cleaned up before me and then waited for me in the lobby. But today I wanted to catch her in her room and alone. We had plans to make that didn’t involve curious ears. We were getting ready to break the rules again.

  She answered finally, but it took her several moments to get there. She backed away from the door, a toothbrush buried in her mouth and white foam dribbling down her chin. Her eyes glared daggers at me as she slammed the door and went into the bathroom, talking around the toothbrush. I had no clue what she said.