Refuge

by Karen Lynch

  “What the . . . ? You have a freaking dragon in here!”

  I gawked at the greenish-brown creature breathing small puffs of smoke as it watched me with large green eyes eerily similar to those of a crocodile. Leathery wings were folded against its scaled body, and it crouched in the back of the cage like a cat about to pounce. It was small for a dragon, roughly the size of a very large bull, so I figured it must be young. Dragons are not native to North America so I wondered what in God’s green earth had brought this one here.

  “Not a dragon, a wyvern actually.” An olive-skinned man with short black hair walked up to stand beside me. “And a mean one at that. This one burned five people and killed two in Utah before we managed to catch him.”

  I tried to remember what I had read about wyverns. They are smaller and faster than their dragon cousins but not as powerful. They breathe smaller flames, and they have two legs instead of four. Whereas dragons are intelligent, wyverns are closer to animals, kind of like a crocodile with wings and just as deadly.

  I shivered. “What will they do with him?”

  “We have a place down in Argentina where they actually train them to hunt vampires. We’re holding Alex until they can send someone to get him. Don’t get too close to him. His flame has a good three-foot reach, and he won’t think twice before trying to fry you.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from me. “Alex? You named a wyvern Alex?”

  The man chuckled. “One of the men who caught him gave him that name. He said the beast was as surly as his older brother.”

  Shaking my head, I smiled and held out my hand. “Hi, I’m Sara.”

  “Sahir.” His dark eyes were warm when he smiled. “I have heard much about you.”

  I made a face. “Yeah, you and everyone else, apparently. I think warriors gossip more than the girls at my old high school.”

  Sahir’s laugh was deep and rich, and I liked him immediately. He moved toward the hellhounds’ cage, and I followed. The hellhounds growled menacingly, but he ignored them. “I have cared for many creatures, but this is the first pair of fell beasts I’ve ever had in my care. They are extremely rare. When I heard how they were captured, I must admit I thought the story was fabricated – until I saw you walking with them.”

  “Damndest thing I ever saw,” said Seamus, who had finally stopped studying the lock on the hellhounds’ cage. “I thought for sure someone was going to die when I saw them coming at us. Sahir, you have any idea how those beasts could’ve gotten loose?”

  Sahir shook his head. “No one’s been here since they brought them in last night, and the keys are in my office. Perhaps we should check the security footage.”

  Seamus and I followed Sahir to his brightly lit office at the back of the building where Sahir logged into a computer. A few clicks later, he brought up the feeds from the security camera in the building. “All camera feeds are stored in the central security database, but you can view them from any computer if you have clearance,” he explained to me as he clicked on the camera for the hellhounds’ cage. He opened the digital footage and went back an hour. Then he slowly fast-forwarded until we saw the door to the cage click open and the hellhounds leave the cage. Sahir switched to one of the outdoor cameras, and we watched the hellhounds push open the main door and run from the building.

  “Could it have been unlocked by mistake?” I asked, and their expressions told me that it was unlikely.

  Seamus rubbed his chin. “Not many know the beasts are here, and I can’t see why anyone would set them free.”

  “As a precaution, I’ll ask security to put a second lock on the cages,” Sahir said as he reviewed the footage again. “I’m just thankful Alex didn’t get loose as well.”

  I shivered at the thought of the wyvern flying around the grounds shooting flames at anything that moved. “Yeah, same here.”

  Seamus left after we finished going over the surveillance videos, saying he had to get back to work. I stayed with the hellhounds for another hour and spent a little while getting to know Sahir who was new to Westhorne, too. He’d come here from the compound in Kenya two months ago, and before that he’d lived all over Africa and the Middle East. He was originally from Afghanistan, but his interest in supernatural creatures took him far from home. He considered himself more of a scholar than a warrior, and he obviously cared a great deal for the welfare of the beasts in his care. He told me few people came to the menagerie, but I was welcome to visit the hellhounds whenever I wanted.

  I was in much better spirits when I returned to the main building later that afternoon. It felt strange to have so much free time here, but Westhorne did not offer regular classes for the trainees. Mohiri children went to school until they turned sixteen, and then they began their warrior training either at their home compound, or at a place like Westhorne where the seasoned warriors took over their education. There were six trainees here besides me, and I’d noticed their days were a lot fuller than mine. In the mornings, I trained with Callum, but so far my afternoons were free. According to Callum, it was to allow me a period of adjustment before full training began. Eight hours with that Scottish brute? I couldn’t wait.

  Back in my room, I fired up the killer new laptop that had been waiting in my room for me on my first day here. It made my old one look ancient, and I was immensely grateful the Mohiri loved technology. Their network connection blew my old cable modem out of the water. I went to my happy place every time I logged in.

  The first thing I did was log into the new email account my hacker friend, David, set up for me. David was hiding from the Master, too, and he was pretty paranoid about communication, which considering our shared history wasn’t a bad thing. He had also shown me how to check for any kind of surveillance software on my new laptop, in case the Mohiri were keeping track of my online activity. I hated to be mistrustful even before I got to know them, but I had to be sure. Thankfully, the computer was clean.

  There was one new message from David, and I opened it, eager to see if he had any news. I knew the Mohiri had to be looking for Madeline and the Master, but in the week and a half I had been here, I hadn’t heard a word about their progress. So, David and I were doing our own search for Madeline. Well, David was doing most of the work, but he had as much vested in finding her as I did.

  The last lead I told you about turned out to be bogus. I have a few more I’m checking out and I have some of my friends helping. It might take me a few weeks, but if M is in the country, I’ll find her. I’ll keep you posted. Stay safe.

  I read the email again. David was really good at what he did, and I bet his friends were, too. If anyone could find Madeline, it was him. When he did, she was going to tell us everything she knew about the vampire that had torn our lives apart. I still hadn’t figured out how I would make her talk, but I’d think of something. Maybe I’d threaten to feed her to the hellhounds.

  I tried for the hundredth time to think of a reason why she didn’t just pick up a phone and call the Mohiri to tell them who the Master was. Why spend your life on the run when you could eliminate the thing you are running from? She was a warrior, a vampire hunter. She should be ridding the world of vampires instead of protecting the identity of one as dangerous as a Master. I did not waste my time wondering why she didn’t give up his name to protect me. Madeline had shown her lack of maternal feelings a long time ago.

  I closed my email and checked out a few of the message boards to see what was going on out in the world. According to my old pal, Wulfman, it was very quiet in Maine these days, and I suspected that was because every werewolf in the state was still on alert after all the vampire activity there a month ago. I worried about Nate there alone after what had happened to both of us, but Roland kept assuring me that Maxwell was monitoring the area and the pack was keeping an eye on Nate, too.

  The rest of the country wasn’t lucky enough to have werewolves guarding it, and I read about at least two dozen disappearances in California, Texas, and Nevada that
looked vampire-related. I shuddered every time I thought about a human in the hands of one of those monsters. I still had nightmares about Eli even though I’d killed him. I had no illusions about my ability to fight off a vampire, and I knew things could have turned out horribly for me if circumstances had been different. If Nikolas and the werewolves had not arrived when they did. If Eli hadn’t been too distracted to see me reach for my knife.

  My phone rang and I reached for it, knowing it had to be one of two people since only Roland and Nate called me at this number. I was already smiling when I answered it.

  “You owe me big time, demon girl,” Roland quipped, snickering at the nickname he’d made up for me last week.

  I leaned back in my chair and scowled at the wall. “If you don’t stop calling me that, I’m not talking to you anymore.”

  He laughed at my weak threat. We both knew that would never happen. “I think you’ll forgive me when I tell you about my little trip to a certain cave today.”

  My stomach quivered in excitement. “And?”

  “And that place is a bitch to get to. You couldn’t find a less dangerous hideaway?”

  “Remy found it, not me, and you have to admit it’s the perfect spot. Now tell me.”

  “Do you know how bloody cold it is up on that cliff?” he moaned. “I think my toes are still frozen.”

  “Roland!”

  He sighed. “Message delivered and answered.”

  I jerked upright, my heart racing. “Answered? He left something for me?”

  “More like he drew something on the wall of the cave. I took a picture of it with my phone. I don’t know how you can read this stuff. It looks like hieroglyphics.” I heard him playing with his cell phone. “I just sent it to you.”

  I scrambled to check my email, and I had to wait another thirty seconds for his message to show up. When I opened the attachment, I stared at the picture for a minute before tears pricked my eyes. Leaving home had been hard enough, but leaving without saying good-bye to Remy had killed a little piece of me. After a lot of pleading on my part, Roland had agreed to leave a small note in the cave for me. Remy could not read human writing, and I knew how to write a few dozen troll words, so my short message translated to, I miss you. Sara. On the cave wall, written in Troll was, I miss you too, my friend.

  “Well? What does it say?”

  I translated the writing for Roland, and he huffed loudly. “That’s it? You made me freeze my ass off climbing down a cliff twice to find out if he was still your friend? Hell, I could have told you that and saved myself the trip.”

  “You don’t know trolls, Roland. They have very different ways, and the elders are really strict. If they told Remy to stay away from me forever, he would obey them.”

  He sighed again. “Sara, I might not know troll ways, but I saw you with Remy. Meeting him is not something I’ll ever forget. No matter what happened back then or what orders he got from his elders, that troll will never stop being your friend.”

  Roland was usually playful and goofy, and sometimes I forgot how insightful he could be. “I think I just needed to hear it from him. Thanks for doing this for me. You’re the best.”

  “I know. I get that a lot.”

  I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Good to know some things will never change.”

  He laughed with me. “What can I say? Women love me.”

  “You’re hopeless, you know that? One of these days, you’re going to meet someone who doesn’t fall all over you, and I hope I get to meet her.”

  “I have met her, and she broke my heart back in elementary school.”

  “Oh, don’t start that again.” I closed my eyes, still embarrassed by his and Peter’s recent confessions that they both had crushes on me when we were kids.

  “I bet your face is red right now,” he teased.

  “Stop it or I won’t tell you about what happened today.”

  “More exciting than my day?”

  I told him all about the hellhounds, the menagerie, and the wyvern. He whistled and told me I had to send him some pictures. “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that, but I’ll ask. Maybe you can come visit me and see them yourself.”

  “Yeah, a werewolf visiting a Mohiri stronghold, that should go over well.”

  “You never know. Stranger things have happened.” I picked at the label on a bottle of Coke on my desk. “So, any special plans for the big birthday next week?” I felt a pang of sadness at the thought of not being there for his eighteenth birthday. It is a huge milestone for a werewolf because they are considered an adult at eighteen, and they are included in hunts and start doing patrols with the other adult wolves. It was bittersweet for both of us. We were excited for his coming of age, but sad that we wouldn’t be able to celebrate his birthday together. My own birthday was a little over a month away, and it was hard to imagine him and Peter not being here for it.

  “No big plans. I think I have to work the next day anyway.”

  “You have a job? Who are you, and what have you done with Roland?”

  He groaned. “And what’s worse is I’ll be working for Uncle Max at the lumber yard. Every weekend.”

  “Didn’t you always say you’d rather work at a fast food joint than for Maxwell?”

  “I have no choice. I gotta make some cash if I’m ever going to get some new wheels, and the lumber yard pays good money.”

  Guilt settled over me. Roland’s pickup had been ripped up by a pack of crocotta trying to get to me. He loved that old truck.

  “I know why you’re quiet all of a sudden, and you better stop it,” he ordered. “That was not your fault. Besides, one of the guys in the pack might sell me an old Mustang he has in his shed. It needs some work, but my cousin, Paul, said he’d help me fix it up. You remember him; he’s the mechanic. I just need to get enough for a down payment and it’s mine.”

  I smiled at the excitement in his voice. “I wish I was there to see it. You never did finish teaching me how to drive.”

  “Forget it! I saw what happened to the last car you drove.”

  “Hey, that was so not my fault, and I got away from the bad guys, didn’t I?”

  “They must have lots of cars there you can practice on, and they can afford to replace them.” He made a sound like a snort. “I bet Nikolas could teach you, if you don’t kill each other first.”

  My hand jerked, almost knocking over the bottle of Coke. I pushed it out of my reach and glared at it. “I haven’t seen him since he dumped me here and took off.”

  Roland was quiet for a moment. “I’m sure he has lots of work to catch up on and he’ll be back soon.”

  “He can stay away for good for all I care.”

  “Come on, you don’t mean that. Nikolas is not such a bad guy, and coming from me, that’s something.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.” My face heated up, and my palms prickled as resentment flared in me at hearing my best friend defend him. I knew I was overreacting, but I couldn’t stop the angry hurt that came every time I thought about Nikolas leaving the same day we got here. After everything we went through, he couldn’t even be bothered to say good-bye.

  A soft hissing pulled me from my silent rant. I looked at the Coke bottle a few inches from my hand, and gasped at the brown soda bubbling up as if it had been shaken. My hand closest to the bottle was crawling with blue static, and sparks leapt from my fingers to the bottle that looked ready to explode.

  I jerked my hand back and tucked it under my other arm, and almost immediately, the soda began to settle down. What was happening to me? Whatever it was, it was getting worse.

  “Hello? You still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” I tried to keep the tremble from my voice. “I got distracted for a minute. I need to tell you something.”

  “Okaaay,” he said warily. “You haven’t been selling troll parts on the black market have you?”

  “Roland!”

  “Sorry.”

  I sucked in a long,
slow breath. “You know how my friend Aine said my Fae powers might start to grow? I think it’s happening – or something is going on anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like my power is on the fritz or something.” I described the little flare-ups I’d been having, including the strange cold spot in my chest. “I almost made a bottle of Coke explode a few minutes ago, just by touching it.”

  “Hmm.” He was quiet for a minute. “Maybe it’s tied to your emotions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t been very happy since you went there, and you got mad when I mentioned Nikolas. Faeries are supposed to be, like, happy all the time, right? Maybe being negative screws with your Faerie magic.”

  I snorted. “Great explanation.”

  “No seriously. Or it could be hormones. It’s not that time – ?”

  “Stop! Do not go there if you know what’s good for you!” My face really was flaming now.

  Smothered laughter reached my ears, and I called him a few not-so-nice things, which only made him laugh openly. The thing about Roland is that it’s really hard to resist his laughter.

  “Feel better?” he asked when we’d both finally stopped cracking up.

  “Yes.” I wiped my eyes. “You’re an ass.”

  “But you love me anyway.” His voice grew more serious. “I’m sure this thing with your power is nothing. You’ve been through a lot lately, and it’s probably messing with you.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” What he said made sense. This had only started up since I came here. I wasn’t miserable, but I wasn’t happy either.

  “Of course I’m right. I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

  “No, you have that huge ego, too.” I felt lighter than I had in days.

  “Well, my job here is done.” He heaved a weighty sigh. “Now I have to study. We have a chem test tomorrow, and I still have to graduate from high school.”