Fire Bound Dragon

by Elizabeth Rain

  A flood of words and pictures, like a motion picture on fast forward, played in her head. When she got to the part where her aunt looked right at her she jerked. Damn, she was in trouble. She didn’t catch everything, but she caught enough. When the movie clip ended there was nothing but white noise and early spring snowdrops. She opened her eyes as the moth twisted her antennae backwards, searching. With a smile, she watched it flutter away to find the slipper shaped white flowers in bloom nearby that contained the nectar it fed on to survive. Spying was a thirsty business.

  I NEARLY FELL OFF THE upper bunk when the door slammed, jarring me out of pleasant dreams and a welcome nap. As it was, my head skimmed the top of the ceiling with a thwack that had me wincing at the contact.

  “Are you crazy, what’s gotten into you?” I asked my roommate. Where was my quiet roomy that never talked and was always quiet? I wanted that one back.

  “Get down here and stop whining. We need to talk.” Fern said, climbing into her own bed, but for once pushing the gauzy drape that concealed her from the outside world back.

  I was in no mood to do anything but sleep. But Fern wanting to do anything at all that resembled being social piqued my curiosity. Running my fingers through my hair, I grabbed the unruly tresses and used the hair tie on my wrist to toss it back into a messed up ponytail. I climbed down and took a seat in the rolling office chair and gave the floor a kick, sending it careening into the desk where I turned and propped my feet so I was semi-reclining. I wasn’t ready to be fully vertical yet.

  “Spill it Mason, I was in the middle of a splendid dream.”

  I couldn’t see Fern’s frown of disapproval, but dang-it—I could feel it.

  “I just came from the council meeting.”

  “What council meeting? Those are on Tuesdays.” I stated. It was true, Drae Council met every Tuesday in the evening at 7:00. I should know. I’d attended several. A couple I’d been invited to.

  “No, the emergency meeting to discuss the attacks in Bane Forest? Pay attention.”

  I scowled. Her bedside manner hadn’t changed a bit.

  “So, they had a meeting then.” I said. Get to the point, I wanted to add.

  “Well, apparently...”

  “Wait, and you know any of this how?” I interrupted, my brain just catching up to what she’d said. “You mean they invited you?”

  A slight pause. “Well, not exactly.”

  I shook my head, confused. “What exactly then?”

  “Never mind that; it’s not important. Are you going to listen and let me talk or what?” came the sore put upon answer from beneath the bunk bed. I could make out most of her, but she’d still angled her head into the shadows, so I had to imagine her mouth moving.

  “Talk.” I was running out of patience.

  “The Council knows about the vampires. They know there are three of them and that they are attacking the hikers and joggers. Despite the warnings, enough people from Bitterroot, mostly Others who never listen anyway, are using those paths. There are now four victims reclining in comas in the infirmary.”

  I started. So there’d been another one since the woman we’d found and taken there. I wasn’t surprised that the council had found out so much about the vamps. It was our group that had leaked the information to them in the first place.

  I nodded.

  “They are sending out the Guard to capture them in the next few days. They plan to put them on trial, but the verdict is clear. They’ll just be going through the motions.”

  My feet hit the floor. All at once, I was wide awake.

  I wasn’t overly fond of the vampires. I mean, after all; they’d tried to eat me. Still, my instincts telling me there was more to the story than I knew was screaming meemies in my head. My mind took it in, capture them, put them on trial... what then?

  “What does that mean then? What do they do to Magicals that break the law and what, go rogue?” I asked. I was still too new to Drae Hallow and the Magical world to know how that worked.

  “Well, they put them to death of course. Can’t have a bunch of Magicals running around eating the humans and giving our existence away now, can you?” the quiver at the end of her voice told me she wasn’t near as flippant about the entire thing as she seemed. Despite my immediate horror, I wondered about something else.

  “Why do you care anyhow?” I asked her.

  “Because, like you, I know there’s something else afoot here. Aside from the fact that I think those vampires are as much victims as us, not that I condone the munching mind, I also want to know how they tie in with the demon wolves and the other dimension. Hard to get information out of them if they are dead. And alright, she’s pregnant. Baby blood sucker or not, it’s a little baby. What they are proposing is wrong. But the people of Bitterroot are out for blood, no pun intended.”

  I stared at the shadow where her face was. Oh, pun intended, all right. “Wyndoor.” I added absently.

  “What?”

  “The Demon wolves called it Wyndoor, the other dimension.”

  I continued. “What a mess. We can’t keep letting them dine on the civilians. But I don’t want them dead either. I want to know what they know, and if they are here by mistake, get them back before anyone else dies.” I finished.

  “Nobody has died. Comas, remember?” Fern reminded me.

  “No, but they might as well have. Nobody is waking up.”

  “They lost a life-threatening amount of blood. It takes the body a while to recover from that. The safest state to do that in is a resting coma. I’m betting they’ll be fine, given time. And enough blood transfusions.”

  “I need to talk to Sirris. Then we need to talk to Thomas and Nick as well. Are you coming?” I wondered, scooting across the floor after a sock and my shoes.

  “No way. I told you already. It’s your turn to spill the beans.”

  I snagged my last runaway sock, balled behind the wastebasket. There was less than an hour before we were meeting for game night. I wanted to tell Sirris before we headed on over. We’d take the guys aside later and tell them too.

  My hand on the doorknob, I turned back to Fern one more time. “You sure you can’t tell me how you found all this out if you weren’t at the council meeting?” I was burning with curiosity over that fact.

  From beneath the canopy, which she’d pulled across after we finished talking, I thought I heard a snicker, cut short by her hand. “Oh, I never said I wasn’t there.”

  I shook my head and closed the door behind me. I didn’t have time for any more of Fern Mason’s riddles.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I had just enough time to tell Sirris the basics of what I knew. Neither Nick nor Thomas showed for game night in the Commons cafeteria. So it was during Sorcery and Enchantment that I could finally get Nick alone to tell him. We were sparring partners, as seemed to happen more often than not, and due to the unpredictability of unknown Magic, we were spread well apart from the rest of the class.

  Today we worked with rounded Sai, martial arts weapons that resembled a pair of short steel pitch forks held in each hand. They were not my weapon of choice, but I was decent with them. Since Nick’s weapon of choice would always be the staff, in this at least we were evenly matched.

  Until he sent a shiver of electricity through the tips and into mine when the tines crossed above our heads. The shock of pain the bolt sent through me made me moan. But it focused me as nothing else could, and I worked to duplicate the maneuver. I was getting better at calling my magic, if you could call the spits and sputters and sparks I produced as magical.

  When I experienced my first success, it was nothing more than a dribble from the end of my Sai, but it was enough to get a grunt of acknowledgment from Nick, who stepped back and eyed me, flexing his fingers around the wrapped grips of his weapons. He gave me a nod of approval and I was stupid pleased. Nick had two years on me. Two extra years to develop his own sorcery and hone his skill with various weapons. He was becoming a force to
reckon with. I was still a newbie. I’d had months and I was Other to boot. Or so I was told. Nobody was sure what I was exactly. I’d had a few startling glimpses of what looked like scales appearing over the back of my hands and shoulders in the heat of battle. Most likely I was getting a nasty case of psoriasis.

  “Good Cross. That’s a start. See if you can pull more down through the shoulders. Focus your energy through your hands down to the tips, yeah, that’s it.”

  We continued to dance around each other, the tips of our Sai blocking and making contact to the ring of steel on steel. The pointed edges were sharp and though we padded up for protection, we moved at minimum speed to minimize the risks.

  “Did you know the Council met the other day?” I said.

  Nick paused and I went in for a touch and took my point. Two for me.

  He frowned. I’d distracted him. “No, I didn’t. I knew they were going to have to eventually though. What with the three joggers being attacked.”

  “Four now.” I corrected him.

  A dark brow rose. “Another one, hmm. So how did you find out about the meeting?” He wondered.

  “Fern told me. And... just don’t ask how, alright? Anyway, apparently they want to send in the Guard to capture them. They want to bring them to trial.”

  Nick nodded. “Yup. Makes sense. They have to be stopped.”

  I stared at him, alarmed by his flippant attitude. They did need to be stopped. But he didn’t need to be so cheerful about it.

  “If they find them guilty, they’ll put them to death. I’m not okay with that.” I went in for another jab with my right hand, blocking with my left. The steel screeched as the Sai locked near our wrists and we pushed away from each other.

  He frowned. “I don’t like it either. But they’re killing people. If they find a way outside of Drae Hallow, we may never catch them. Think of the damage they’d do to the human population of Breathless, Sadie. Our Magical blood is making them sick, maybe. What if the pure human blood makes them healthy? They were tough to fight when they were weak...”

  He had a point—damn him. But I still thought we were missing something. And the vampire that was pregnant. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. “I think they just want to go back. I think Fern’s right, I don’t think they’re here by choice.” I feinted once more and pulled back sharply when I felt the give of the steel tip over his forearm.

  “Sorry about that. No, really.” I murmured, wishing I could sound more contrite as he glared at the drop of blood that welled there.

  “No contact Cross. Are you forgetting your manners?”

  Maybe I was. But before I could open my mouth to answer, he moved in and slapped the length of steel with welt raising finality along the back of my leg, way too close to my butt. Eyes narrowed, we continued to circle, sweat dribbling down the sides of my face and pooling in the crease of my neck. I should have brought my bandanna.

  “What if they are connected to the Demon wolves like she said and are from the Wyndoor too? What if we don’t get to question them and they die with the information we need, what then?”

  Nick shrugged as the whistle blew and our sparring ended. “Well, then we find another way. There are still the Demon wolves. At least until the Guard find them too. I for one would like to see them both go. I miss normal and boring. We’ve had way too much excitement lately. And the other night... mom.” He snapped his mouth shut and I knew the last part had slipped out and he’d regretted it and wanted to pull it back in.

  Seeing his mother in Bane Forest that night had really messed him up.

  He stood down as the whistle blew, grabbing his things and storing his Sai in their pouch. I did the same.

  “Whatever, Sadie. I’m not helping you on this. I’m not going against the Council or the Guard. I can’t. I’d be going against my father.”

  I looked at him, an anxious ball of something nasty pooling in my gut. “You won’t help. Even if you know I’m right?”

  He looked at me, and I imagined I saw a glimmer of regret. Still, he answered quick enough. “No, not even then.”

  We moved apart, arriving at the watering station on opposite ends. But the water spigots weren’t the only thing that stood between us. Before, our arguments and petty bickering had been just play. The stakes were higher here, and the betrayal of trust cut deep.

  Thomas and Sirris arrived and I noticed that Nick and I weren’t the only ones on the outs. Sirris face was beet red, her hair a wild tangle around her face as she filled her bottle with jerky movements and turned away from us all. I eyed Thomas, but he refused to meet my eyes, his mouth drawn in bitter, angry lines. I wondered if they’d been talking about the same thing. Whatever it was, it hadn’t gone according to plan. Marcus Tannon called us together for a brief Q & A session before dismissing us. I ignored the guys and hurried to catch up to Sirris. Neither Thomas nor Nick made any effort to walk with us. Maybe that was smart on their part.

  “Hey Sirris, wait up will you?” I panted.

  “Leave me alone, Sadie. I’m not in the mood.”

  I ignored her and kept pace. But I said nothing as we walked fast enough for it to be considered a slow jog. A half mile later she talked, spitting the words out.

  “He doesn’t care! He says he doesn’t think they know anything about all the missing people. He says they need to be put down, even the woman. I mean, how can he be like that? She’s going to have a baby. If they do that to her, the baby dies too. It’s innocent of whatever its mother is doing. How can he be like that? I thought I knew him better. How could I have been so wrong?” A soft hiccup followed, and I knew she was crying.

  “Sirris. I’m sorry. He knows, but he’s angry too and worried it's already too late for his brother and the others. Hope is a hard thing to hold on to when you have nothing to hold it up. We’re short on clues at this point.” I tried to defend Thomas, though in reality I was right there with her. Still, I understood a bit of what he was going through.

  “We can’t let it happen, Sadie. It’s not right. They just want to go home. They don’t want to be here any more than we want them here.” She murmured, wiping at her cheeks with the end of her dirty sleeve.

  “I know. But I don’t know how were going to stop the Guard, either.” I worried my bottom lip, drawing blood and sucking at the minor wound in irritation.

  Suddenly, Sirris stopped dead in the trail and turned to me. “We don’t Sadie. We don’t stop the Guard; we warn the vampires and find a way to get them back.”

  I stared at her ravaged face, streaked with determination. She was right, warning them was the only way. If we could get them to listen. The last time we’d seen them they were too busy trying to eat us to listen to anything, and now, several weeks later, they would be even more desperate. I just hoped we weren’t inviting ourselves to be the main course.

  “SHE’S DYING, AB’ET. I’m surprised she hasn’t lost the baby already.” Quiet despair tinged Jorta’s voice.

  “We’re doing the best we can. There hasn’t been enough, we need to expand where we hunt...” Ab’et began, voice growing desperate.

  Jorta shook his head, eyes gleaming silver as the scent of prey reached him, still a way off down the trail. “It doesn’t matter. It’s poison and you know it. She can’t keep enough of it down, and what she does makes her sick. She’s starving Ab’et. We all are.”

  The two stood off the main trail on a short bluff, hunched in the shelter of a large Big Leaf maple, the inky sky concealing them completely from whatever passed by on the trail below. They had learned to make do in the world they found themselves. But Jorta missed Wyndoor, his home world. This world was all dull edges and foreign smells. His fingers scraped over the rough bark of the maple tree and he thought of the thorny bramble that concealed where they hid, the prickly vines that pulled and tore his skin and made him bleed. He wanted the soft mossy carpet that blanketed his home, the smooth bark of the Suita pine soft beneath his fingers and its rich amber glow. He even missed
the thorny hide of the Weita tree and its dense covering of sharp welts. He looked up at the sky, at the single heavy moon hanging there. There should be three of them that lit their world day in and day out with a soft umber glow and that didn’t sap their strength or burn their eyes with its brightness. The earth should smell sweet and citrusy like the Abecca bush with its candy sweet purple fruit and brilliant blue leaves soft on the cheek. This place stunk like rot and made his nose sting and bleed.

  They’d been inside this world for over a month now and the hunger had become a constant thing, the nourishment they were taking in barely keeping them alive. Something about the physical make-up of their prey made them sick. They struggled to keep anything down. Elise was fading the fastest, her body weak, the baby sapping what little strength she had left.

  “We have to find a way back. We can’t stay here much longer and survive,” Jorta whispered, the sound like a hiss on the air.

  Ab’et snarled back, struggling to keep his rage in check. “Don’t you think I’ve tried. I’ve looked. The monster that did this, I’ll rip his spine...” he started.

  “Enough!” Jorta hissed, teeth a flash of white against dark.

  “When and If we get back, I’ll see he’s served up to you, to the entire vampire world, on a platter. But none of that matters if we don’t get out of this world soon and back to Wyndoor. We have to be alive to fight.” Jorta’s words floated over the air, brief and choppy with worry, fading into the wooded silence.

  Ab’et had grown silent, thoughtful. “The young ones from the other night...” he started.

  “What about them? They were armed and more prepared than the rest. At full power they wouldn’t have touched us. But weakened...”

  “No, something else. The dark-haired girl. Her blood.” He glanced at Jorta and thought back. “You were too busy to notice. You had your hands full with the sorcerer and the wolf. Elise was busy just surviving the mermaid. What they were was obvious, our senses aren’t that dulled yet.” A branch crackled on the path less than a hundred yards away.