Fire Bound Dragon

by Elizabeth Rain

  “It was barbaric!” Sirris spoke up, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye and wetting her cheek.

  I leaned back against the wall and pulled my knees up, burying my face against my folded arms there.

  Nick spoke and I listened, but I didn’t look up. “How does any of that make us any better than the humans? Do we really delude ourselves that we are the more civilized race? Maybe the reason we don’t mingle with them isn’t because they can’t handle our Magical abilities. Really, I think it’s because they recognize us for the beast inside us. We are the monsters in the dark.

  IT SEEMED TO BE A TYPICAL thing, the way the Council was known to drag their feet. I turned the page in my book and tried to concentrate. Forest Sprite’s, such a cute name for such nasty little buggers. My eyes crossed and I yawned.

  Following the meeting the night before, they had spread us out to give us more room and to have our textbooks and assignments delivered to us with most of our assignments. It gave me something to do besides worry.

  It wasn’t working. I flipped the page back to reread the paragraph I’d completely blocked out.

  Three days. That’s how long Jorta and Ab’et had before they carried sentencing out. My stomach roiled. Beheading. Apparently that was one of only a couple ways to kill a vampire. Gross. Why couldn’t it have been by like, lethal injection or something?

  “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  I looked up. Sirris was standing on the other side of my narrow bars in her own cell. She looked like hell. They’d brought us the necessities and toiletries and allowed us showers. But they’d forgotten Sirris straightener. Apparently the long waterfall of liquid silk that fell down her back wasn’t exactly natural. Without it, her hair stuck out in all directions in a frizzy halo about her head. She was definitely having a big hair day. I pulled my straight mass of dark hair back in an unrelenting ponytail. Simple and no fuss. But our appearance went beyond straighteners and ponytail holders.

  I knew we were all exhausted. The council had decided, and rightly so, that it would be in everyone’s best interest if we stayed in lock-up until they carried the executions out so we couldn’t attempt to interfere.

  I rubbed my eyes, but they continued to water. I hadn’t slept in days, though the cot was passably comfortable. “I know. Me neither. I wonder what happened to Thomas and Fern?”

  Sirris frowned. “If Thomas is out there free as a bird and hasn’t even bothered to visit...” She didn’t need to finish the rest.

  She held up the slim book on Elemental Magic and scowled at it and changed the subject. “This will not be good for my chances of passing, you know.”

  I knew. Sirris sucked at Elemental Earth magic. It might have come naturally to me and I was getting good at using it. Fern was amazing at it. Her aunt was the professor, so maybe that helped. But Sirris, no matter how much she tried, was a failure.

  I couldn’t pick on her though. Because as awful as she was, I was that bad with a staff in Magical Weapons class. We tried to help each other out when we could. It wasn’t working.

  I turned to look at Nick, a tall shadow sitting cross-legged against the cot as far away from everyone and everything as he could manage in a six by six feet cell. His nose was buried in a book and he appeared to be deeply engrossed in whatever was on the pages. But I knew he wasn’t.

  “Stop faking Nicholas. I know you’re listening.” He froze and looked up.

  “You’re bothering me and I’m trying to study,” he growled.

  “You bother me all the time and I can’t get you to stop. Stop thinking you can make it all go away if you ignore it.”

  He blew out a savage breath and slammed the book shut with a thud, tossing it aside as he got to his feet and wandered closer. His face on the other side of the bars was deep in the striped shadows, giving his tall dark form a sinister appeal that I tried to ignore.

  I stared at him. Being locked up hadn’t done him any more favors than it had us. But somehow, the dark growth that dusted his jaw wasn’t as off-putting as I wanted it to be. “Dad was in here last night and talked to you. You never told us what he said.” I shared.

  “No. I didn’t.” He admitted, jaw tight.

  “Did he mention Thomas or Fern? Or anything else that’s going on we don’t know about?” I persisted.

  “He said that they weren’t in custody or trouble. But nobody’s seen them, either. He got word that Jerry took up residence in town temporarily to be near you, Sirris.” He glanced her way. She leaned forward, several strands of frizzy hair smoking with a sizzle when they contacted the bars. She jerked her head back in alarm.

  “I hate this!” I hissed. “It sucks.”

  Nobody argued. I almost wished they would. I was roaring for a fight, some way to let loose of the tension that had me coiled tight and dangerous to myself and everyone around me.

  The automatic lights came on as the sky darkened towards late evening beyond the small square windows, one to each cell. The lights would go back off on a timer by 10:00. Apparently that was when we were supposed to retire to sleep. Yeah, right? I wondered how that was going for the vampires, alone and starving in their cells—waiting to die. And Elise, knowing she was only waiting to give birth to the daughter she would never know so she, too, could lose her head. It was wrong, all of it, and we were powerless to do a damned thing about it.

  Time dragged. No one visited. I passed the time studying; or trying to. Sirris and Nick did the same. We’d exhausted every subject we could think of to talk about.

  I closed my books and sat them on the floor when the lights clicked out. I wasn’t ready to sleep, though I was exhausted. I listened to the sounds of the building settling, the furnace kicking on to ward off the chill, a murmur of voices distant in another part of the building.

  When the voices grew closer I frowned. That wasn’t right. Nobody had visited us that late before. I checked the illuminated wall clock outside the cell. It was just a quarter past 10:00.

  When the door clicked open, we all shoved to our feet to see who it was. Had Lucas Seul come back to talk with Nick or the rest of us? Maybe Jerry was coming to see his daughter. But none of that made much sense given the hour.

  When three figures entered I had to blink to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. The young Guard on duty, I think his name was Sam, came in first. Fern and Thomas followed him.

  “Wow sir, that’s a strange request for the Council to make, right? I wonder what they could be thinking.” He stared at Fern as he spoke and moved in our direction.

  “The council was adamant that they be there for the meeting. I guess they want them present when they present their decisions regarding their behaviors this past couple of weeks. I hope they don’t expel them all.” Fern continued, voice sounding odd and tinny, like it was in a vacuum. Something weird was going on.

  Fern stopped at my cell in the middle. “You kids ready to get out of here and stretch your legs?” she asked. I frowned in confusion. Nick looked amused for some reason, but Sirris was just as much in the dark as I was.

  Fern turned to the young Guard. “You are doing an outstanding job, Sam. Can you get them out for me?”

  “Sure, sir. But why don’t you do it?”

  “Because I want to see just how well you paid attention in class. It’s easy for me to trip the locks, how about you?”

  Sam grinned and stepped forward, pleased with the attention. I just wondered if someone had stolen my strange friend and replaced her with... I didn’t know what this was.

  He waved his hands and frowned, sliding a suddenly nervous glance in Fern’s direction when nothing happened.

  “Try again, son, you got this.” Fern smiled encouragingly in his direction. None of us missed the nervous twitch at the corner of her eye.

  But it was for naught. The second time he waved his hands we all heard the telltale click of the locking mechanisms and the silence that said the shocking current had been disabled as well. Sam smiled in satisfactio
n and stood back as we all came out into the short hallway.

  “Excellent job, Sam. Kids follow me.” Fern turned with a jerk, along with Thomas who hadn’t said a word so far, though his eyes had slid in Sirris direction more than once.

  We walked to the main entrance where Fern stopped and turned to the eager young Guard. “Sam, I can see why you graduated at the top of your class.”

  Sam frowned in sudden confusion. “I did? I barely passed. I had to take Spells and Enchantments twice,” he admitted.

  Fern spoke quickly. “Uh. I mean the second time. Didn’t you do fairly good the second time?”

  Sam brightened. “Oh, yes. I did much better then. Thank you sir, it’s a pleasure to serve under you.”

  Fern looked down her nose at him. “You can return to your post now; I’ve got it from here. Why don’t you knock off an hour early in the morning? I’m not sure when I’ll have the kids back, but I’ll take care of things until your relief arrives.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that. You have a good night.” He turned and left without glancing our way once, his steps sharp on the linoleum floor as he walked back down the hall to his office, just on the other side of the long room that housed our cells.

  I opened my mouth to blast Fern with the million questions that bubbled to the surface, but Nick caught my gaze and gave a single hard shake of his head. I pursed my lips in irritation as we opened the door and walked into the night.

  WE MADE THE BLUFF OVERLOOKING Bitterroot when Fern stumbled and would have fallen if not for Thomas’ quick reflexes. He caught her and lifted her up, glancing back at the rest of us as we stopped on the trail.

  I could contain myself no longer, though I imagined I knew what had gone down. “What just happened, Thomas?”

  He started walking again, holding Fern high against his chest as she snored against his chin. She was out cold. He spoke back over his shoulders as we moved towards the outside portal and the other side of Shephard’s Mountain.

  “Well, it was a good thing our young Sam there isn’t a strong Magical. Fern threw up an illusion enchantment. The entire time while we saw Fern, Sam saw and heard Mayor Seul.”

  “She was good. Took me a minute to realize what she was about.” Nick admitted from behind us.

  Thomas smiled down at Sirris, walking at his shoulder. He nodded at Fern. “Yeah, she’s crazy strong, but holding that spell for that long tuckered her out I think.”

  I thought of our mysterious antisocial young friend who kept to herself and rarely spoke unless she had something important to say. The list of what we knew about Fern Mason was a lot shorter than the mounting mystery of all we didn’t.

  We entered the mountain corridor and moved along its length without pausing. We weren’t out of danger yet. The Guard patrolled this passage regularly. We had no desire to meet them.

  I breathed easier on the other side as we headed along the path up the mountain.

  “Where are we headed?” But I was sure I already knew.

  “The only place we’re safe right now. We’re bunking in with the Demon wolves again.” Thomas finished, shifting Fern to a comfier position. I smiled at the thin line of drool that trickled from the corner of her mouth and smeared the front of Thomas’ filthy flannel shirt.

  “Are you sure that’s smart? I don’t trust them.” Sirris muttered.

  I didn’t either, not even a little.

  “I’m sure that’s our only option for now. Sides, we’ll need their help if we’re to have any chance of finding and going through that portal. They know what’s on the other side, we don’t. I don’t like our odds without them,” he finished, voice sour.

  I knew the wolves loyalty extended no further than their mutual need of what we knew about that portal and Will Bennett. Right now we needed each other. What happened when we became unnecessary, and they didn’t?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Another day had gone by and I sat with the others, clustered about the fire. Thomas fed it absently, expression glum. We weren’t exactly the main cheering section. We’d failed at pretty much everything. We hadn’t figured out where the portal leading into Wyndoor was located. Close didn’t count for much. Demon wolves still roamed Shephard’s Mountain. I stared at them across the flickering light of the fire. They glared back. We weren’t exactly sharing warm fuzzies any time soon. The cousins were still unaccounted for. It had officially been two months since their disappearance and our chances of recovering them were dwindling like the life expectancy of the vampires waiting on death row. In two days they would cease to be a worry or a problem.

  “We can’t do this without them.” Nick admitted.

  I blinked at his statement of the obvious. “No kidding, Sherlock. But you better get used to it. Times almost up, isn’t it? We’d failed to drive our end of the bargain and get them back.”

  Sirris laughed bitterly. “It was never a negotiation, remember?”

  No. Maybe not to them, but I’d planned to keep our end just the same. Now it didn’t matter.

  Giat leaned forward and snagged a sliver of what remained of the rabbit he’d spitted earlier. My stomach growled. Our hosts weren’t exactly gracious and it had been too many hours since my last decent meal. Depression had worked to deaden my appetite, but that was wearing off. He stared in my direction, popping the meat in his mouth and chewing with no semblance of manners. “Do you humans always give up so easy? I can see why your race is extinct where I come from.”

  I glared back. Enough was enough. I reached in and ripped off a hind leg. “We’re a bunch of teenagers and two miscreant wolves against an entire town of Magicals. I cannot see how that makes us cowards.” I snarled, in no mood for his lack of manners and overabundance of attitude as I bit into the partly charred meat, juice dribbling off my chin. “Besides, Magicals and Other. We aren’t only human,” I mumbled around a mouthful. Still, he was right, though I wouldn’t be admitting it soon.

  Fern wandered in from where she’d disappeared earlier into the woods. She took a seat on a log and leaned in to warm her hands. She said nothing, but her eyes were moving around the pitiful circle we formed beneath the rocky outcropping.

  “So, is that the way we’re going to roll? I wonder, do you think there will be a funeral? What about the baby? I wonder if she’ll look like Elise, or favor Jorta?”

  I snarled in her direction. “Shut up! You finally say something and that’s the best you can do? What do you expect us to do? They tied our hands. We lost. Checkmate. Game over,” I whined.

  “Well, sure. If you say so. What are your plans from now on? Do we turn ourselves in? Probably won’t matter for long, anyway. If Will brings that army across it’ll be war for sure. No more Rule 9, Goodbye Bitterroot. Hello, beginning of the end of the Magical world.”

  I wondered my eyes didn’t freeze her with frostbite. “I liked it better when you didn’t talk.”

  A glimmer of a smile tugged her lips.

  Thomas came and dumped a load of firewood by the fire and glanced my way. “Where I come from family doesn’t give up on family. Todd is mine. We always had our differences like brothers do, but I like to think if things were reversed, he wouldn’t quit on me as long as there was hope. Those vamps are our best chance of getting through Wyndoor to where they’re being held. I don’t like our chances without them.” He tossed a couple of logs on the fire amid a shower of sparks that rose and glanced off the bedrock above our heads.

  Fern reached forward and grabbed the other leg, glaring at the largest wolf, daring him to say a word. He ground his canines, showing a gleam of teeth, but said nothing. She took a dainty bite. She waved the bone around like a baton to encompass us all.

  “So, what I think I’m hearing, is that we’ve got to stop whining and come up with a plan to get them out. Two days, and we’d better make it one in case.” A rustle of movement and Kit stuck her head out, enormous round eyes blinking at them as she stretched long, her tiny jaws wide, teeth glittering sharply. Her nose twitch
ed and she snatched the morsel of rabbit Fern held beneath her chin, pulling it into her mouth and chewing with gusto.

  Nick sat to the side and back from the rest of us, stoic and silent. I had to wonder in a way if this was hitting him harder than the rest of us. I courted trouble, seemed to have a nose for it. But not Nick. Being in the thick of things and on the wrong side of the law wasn’t how he operated.

  Just so, he was paying attention to the conversation. “We need the vamps to want to help us. No more dinking around and wasting time. We need to know that if we get them out; if we find that portal and get them across, it’s to finish the job and find the others before it’s too late. I wish I trusted them.”

  Dae snorted, shaking his head in disgust. “You can’t trust vampires.”

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it, the belly laugh rolling out so hard I clutched my stomach to stop the jiggle. “That’s rich. I don’t trust you!”

  His eyes narrowed with evil purpose in my direction, but nobody argued.

  Nick went on as if we had said nothing. “I think we should do a little reconnaissance first, sniff out a deal before we assume they have good intentions.”

  “Maybe, but I would think they have to be getting desperate. Ticking clock and all that.” I added. “Even so. Say they agree. How we going to get them out?”

  “We use the key.” Nick said, mouth grim and eyes bleak.

  Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to like where this was going.

  “Key?”

  “I need to talk to dad. He might be the Mayor, but it doesn’t mean he agrees with what’s going on. But the town is bitter, and whether they were willing to be party to that vampire judges degree or not, they aren’t willing to rock the boat and step in. That goes double for the Council. Nobody wants to go up against the wishes of a thousand year old vampire. Not healthy.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. I couldn’t blame them.

  “Dad could trip the cell doors, maybe even make it look like an accident, or blame it on the vampires, I don’t know and whatever. It’s not like there are any other options, right?”