Chasing Legends

by Pippa Amberwine

  “I guess I deserved that. Let me tell you what’s going on first.”

  “I know what’s going on, or at least some of it. You’ve been opening rifts in the veil, and people have been dying.”

  “Well, yeah, although, to be fair, I’ve only been involved in the rips—ah, rifts—that have been opened today. The one that let you through. I don’t know anything about any others.” I thought it was best not to talk about the dead dragon we’d found just yet. No point in getting him riled up again until it was absolutely necessary.

  “So, who has been opening up these other rifts?”

  I had my suspicions, and I couldn’t help myself glancing at the stairs where Lynnette and Derek were, but I had no real knowledge if what I suspected was true.

  “No idea,” I said truthfully. “Like I said, the one today is the first I’ve been involved in.”

  He narrowed his eyes as he watched me, so I stared back with my best I-know-nothing face.

  “Anyway,” I said, not wanting to miss out on getting in my own hits, “how do you know so much about the rips?”

  “Because—” He started speaking but then obviously thought better of what he was going to say. “Because I was asked to investigate.”

  “Right, so what are you, like a cop?”

  “I’m not a cop. Just . . . an interested party, shall we say.”

  “Well you can say it, but I’d never use the word shall.” I smiled at him, and just for a moment, I swore the corners of his mouth turned up.

  “Why did you open the rift, Katie?”

  “I didn’t. It was Lynnette.” He looked at me blankly. “Upstairs. All in black. Long hair.”

  He lifted his chin. “Why did Lynnette open a rift for you?”

  “Because . . .” I hesitated. I could lie, but the truth would come out at some point, and then he’d probably never believe another word I said. Alternatively, I could tell him the truth, that we were hoping to come and get a donation of dragon blood, by force if necessary. If I told him that, he would probably be even more pissed than he already was. I opted for the middle ground. Still the truth, but not necessarily the complete unvarnished truth.

  “What do you know about our planet?”

  “Other than your languages, not much. I do know about the viruses that tore through your world after your people opened a huge rift into a dimension of demons and chaos, though, and that’s why people from my world are not allowed to visit yours. We cannot risk the virus getting back to Dracos.”

  “Okay, that’s cool. How do you intend to get back home then?”

  “I can . . .” He dragged the word out while he reconsidered what he was going to say. “Find a way.”

  “So, there is a way you can get back.”

  “I would find a way.”

  “Let’s leave that for now, Mr. Mysterious. So, you know about the viruses. That’s good. Presumably you know about the VAMP2 virus, too, then.” He nodded. “Did you know it’s being used to mind control the people who are afflicted?”

  “No. Why would someone want to do that?”

  “We don’t know, exactly. There’s an implant that controls the symptoms of VAMP2. If you have the implant, the man gets control.”

  “What man?” Jevyn asked, looking confused. I glanced at Marty, who also looked confused but nothing new there.

  “The man.”

  Jevyn shrugged.

  “It’s a saying. It means all those people out there who want to control the people. Big government. Faceless corporations. Multinational companies. Oligarchs. Monarchs. Politicians. Obstetricians. Doctors. Proctors. They all want to control us. They are the man.”

  “Obstetricians?” Marty said, looking a bit green.

  “I couldn’t think of a rhyme for politicians, okay? You get the point though,” I said.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Marty said.

  “I meant Jevyn, Marty, for god’s sake.” I snapped out the words before I considered them. Marty looked all hurt puppy dog. “Sorry, Marty. My fault. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

  He crossed his arms, and his chin stiffened in an almost-pout.

  “I see what you’re driving at,” Jevyn said. “You don’t like people in authority.”

  “No. Authority is fine if it comes from the will of the people. When that will is taken away, I wanna know why.”

  “You think you should have a say then?”

  “I do, and I don’t like what’s happening, where people who sell something or make something seem to think they can stomp all over the little people.”

  “What little people?” Jevyn said, tilting his head.

  “Oh, man,” I said. “People like me and Marty and the guys upstairs, the ordinary people of the world.”

  Jevyn held up his hands defensively. “I get it.” He might get it, but he didn’t look too bothered about it. “So, why the rift? You want to run away from the man?”

  “No.” I tried to calm down a little. Talking about what had happened made me so angry. “I would never run away. Truth is we have found a way to be able to live normally, without the implant.”

  “Great,” he said, looking at me for a moment. “How?”

  “Well, this is the tricky part, see, because I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Yes? Both.”

  “And why would that be?”

  I shifted on the bed a little. The comforter felt a bit stiff, and then I remembered it was Derek’s bed and suddenly had an urge to hurl.

  “It comes from your world.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t. I’m assuming. But I think my assumption has a very high chance of being correct.”

  “What makes you think it’s from my world?”

  Shoot. I had to be careful here. “It has to do with dragons,” I said. “But that’s as much as I want to say.”

  “So, this thing has to do with dragons, and you opened a rift so you could come and get some of it?”

  “Right.”

  Jevyn sat forward on the sofa, rested his elbows on his knees, and put one hand under his chin.

  I heard raised voices upstairs but couldn’t make out the words.

  Jevyn gave me a direct, unblinking stare. “But if you haven’t been involved with any of the other rifts, how do you know about dragons?”

  Shit.

  I opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t think of a way around it. I was going to have to go all out with the truth.

  “Lynnette, come back here.” The shout from upstairs broke my open-mouthed trance. It was Nova. Then there was the sound of witch footsteps coming down the steps with speed, promptly followed by Derek. I knew it was him as soon as I saw his sneakers. Yikes. Blinding.

  Before I knew it, the slender, black-clad figure of Lynnette was stomping into the room, stopping just past where Marty was standing.

  “This has gone on long enough, Katie, and you, whatever your name is.”

  “Jevyn,” I said. “His name is Jevyn. Look, Lynnette, I know you’re annoyed because you didn’t get paid and all, but could we talk about that another time?”

  “No,” she yelled. “It’s too late. If you’re not going to pay me, I’ll go get what I want myself.”

  She turned to one side, started moving her hands around and muttering whatever incantation she was saying, and a small rip began to appear, the air seeming to spiral on the spot, growing bigger and bigger as she moved her arms.

  “Move, Marty,” I yelled. Marty dived over the arm of the sofa, his head landing next to Jevyn, who was looking on bemused.

  Lynnette was being reckless and stupid. Her last rip had vaporized two people from Jevyn’s world. What the hell was wrong with her?

  I started to holler something to that effect, but she cut me off.

  “That’s right. Move,” Lynnette yelled. “I’m going through.” The rip was widening and stirring up air in the s
mall basement apartment. “Don’t try and stop me.”

  Nobody moved. We were all in shock.

  “After three. I’m going.” She was dragging it out. Perhaps the memory of spattered people was holding her back.

  I noticed Derek getting closer to her. He started making the movement and muttering too, and the rip changed shape to an oval. He grabbed Lynnette’s arm.

  “Lynnette, you don’t need to do this.”

  “Yes, I do, Derek.”

  “Lynnette, no!” Derek yelled, but Lynnette stepped forward, dragging Derek with her, and with an almighty whoosh of swirling air, they vanished into the void.

  Jevyn didn’t move. He just muttered his own incantation, and the rip abruptly disappeared.

  I stood there in shock.

  My rip maker had disappeared, and my plan to go negotiate a steady supply of dragon blood was thwarted. Almost the only dragon blood left in Boise was pumping around the veins of Jevyn sitting opposite me, and I was pretty damn sure he wouldn’t be interested in cooperating.

  I gave him my most winning smile while I tried to think about what the hell I was going to do.

  I knew Lynnette was trouble the moment I saw her.

  Chapter Eleven

  BY THE TIME the dust, the paper, a pair of Derek’s boxers, and my initial panic had settled after the rip closed, everyone else had clambered down the stairs and was looking at me.

  “What the hell happened, Katie?” Nova said, kicking the boxers off his sneakers with a look of disgust on his face.

  “Lynnette happened,” I said. “She opened a rip—”

  “Rift.” Jevyn decided it was the time to correct my terminology.

  I glared at him. “We call them rips. But whatever. She opened a rift and went through.”

  “Went through where?” Penny asked, too shocked to have noticed that her ponytail was coming undone.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It was all so quick. Pfft, and she was gone.”

  Jevyn snickered.

  “What’s so funny?” I said, turning on him.

  “It wasn’t pfft. It was more like shwssh.” He threw his arms around to illustrate the point.

  I glared again. “I heard pfft.”

  “Shwssh.”

  “Pfft.”

  “Shwssh, and I—”

  “Quiet!” Marty yelled, , and everyone got their hands to their ears too late to stop the ringing. “Sorry. I can’t stand pointless arguments. We need to work out what to do next. We need to get the—y’know—and soon. I don’t feel so great. Like I might—”

  “Okay, Marty. I know what you mean,” I said, stopping his blabbing.

  “Why did she want to go anyway?” Jevyn asked.

  “We sort of promised to pay her if she opened a rift.”

  “Yeah, you said, but what would you pay her with? We don’t use money in our world.”

  “Huh?” Frankie said. The pursuit of money was what he’d existed for, until he caught the virus. The residual desire was still there, but the ability to find a way of getting money successfully seemed to have eluded him. I wondered briefly if that was something common among us.

  “She seemed to think she might find plenty of stuff over there that she would be able to bring back and sell. She’s a bit of a hothead from what I can tell,” I said.

  “But what? The only things of any value are technology-based, not trinkets like the stuff upstairs,” Jevyn said.

  “Do you have gold?” Nova asked.

  “Diamonds?” Penny asked.

  “Silver?” Marty asked.

  “YouTube?” Sparks asked.

  “Pizza?” Frankie asked.

  “Yeah, we have all those things.” All five faces lit up. “Except YouTube and pizza.” Sparks and Frankie frowned.

  “Then you have a lot of things that Lynnette could bring back and sell,” I said.

  “But all those things are virtually worthless,” Jevyn said, evidently unable to reason why such things would have value here.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. The ache there and in my head had come on as soon as Lynnette had gone pfft, or whatever sound it made. I sat back down on the bed from where I’d jumped up at some stage.

  I was pretty certain that Lynnette being in Dracos was going to mean big trouble for everyone involved, but short of finding another witch or mage who could open a rip, there was no way of getting her back until she was good and ready and loaded down with large sacks of swag.

  “Is she going to cause problems in Dracos?” Jevyn asked. Spooky, mind-reading dragon guy. Not that it was much of a stretch to suspect Lynnette would be a troublemaker.

  “No, I’ll take care of it,” I said confidently and then turned my back on him and mouthed, “Help,” to the others.

  “How? You can’t get there.”

  “I know that . . .” Then, I gambled on something that had been tickling away in my mind. “But you can, can’t you?”

  “Kinda, probably, maybe I can,” he said, pitching his voice a little higher.

  “Make up your mind,” I said sternly. That earned a sharp look and then a begrudging twitch of a smile from Jevyn.

  “Can you get back to Dracos? Yes or no?” I asked him, while edging forward on the bed to get a little closer to him and maintain eye contact. No point letting the pressure ease off.

  “Yes. I suppose I can. Happy now?” He arched a brow at me.

  “Happier than I was a few moments ago, yes,” I said, although I was still annoyed that Lynnette, the hothead, had gone on ahead, dragging poor Derek with her. I half-hoped she hadn’t made it through, but I didn’t really mean it. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not after seeing the end results.

  I was happy though. Jevyn had all but admitted he could get us over there without me having to tell him what it was we actually needed.

  And we did need it. I could already see signs on some of the other guys that the last shot of dragon blood was wearing off. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary with Penny—she was an expert at keeping the physical signs hidden under a half-ton of makeup—but the rest of them were starting to lose some color in their faces, and Marty in particular had dark rings under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a week.

  I had no idea how I looked, but I could feel the first few pangs of hunger, bloodlust starting to rise in my stomach.

  We needed to get over there, get the blood without offending Jevyn, and get back quickly so the guys could get back to normal.

  Otherwise it was back to the human blood for us, and that meant trouble.

  “So, the big question, Jevyn. Can you get us to Dracos so we can stop Lynnette and Derek from causing mayhem over there?”

  Jevyn stood up. I didn’t feel at all threatened by his physical presence standing over me, but Marty and Nova stepped forward protectively.

  “It’s okay, guys,” I said, standing up so I was looking Jevyn in the eye and not the crotch. “Can you?”

  “I can.”

  “Fantastic. We’d best go now though so—”

  Jevyn held up his hand to interrupt. “I said I can. I didn’t say I would.”

  He granted me a smug smile that made me want to wipe it off his face, but I took a breath and waited for him to continue.

  “One. I can’t take everybody. Maximum is two people at a time, three including me, and if you take Marty, I’d have to take two trips.” He turned to Marty and shrugged. “Sorry, big guy.”

  “That’s okay, I understand.”

  My heart went out to Marty then. He looked so deflated.

  Nova put a comforting hand on Marty’s shoulder. “What else?” he asked.

  I was glad Nova was keeping up. I was so busy being sad for Marty that I’d forgotten Jevyn was making a list.

  “Two. The virus. I can’t allow it to come to Dracos.”

  “None of the post-Rip viruses spread through the air. Large disturbances in the magic fields cause mass outbreaks, but those disturbances are probably confined to our
world,” Nova said.

  “Yeah, the VAMP2 virus is otherwise spread through a particular and deliberate mingling of blood and saliva. The zombie virus is all but eradicated,” Frankie said. He was our man for finding out the details about the virus. In his old life, he had been a microbiologist, though you’d never guess it on meeting him. “VAMP2 happens more in younger people than older.”

  “I want to stay with the guys,” Penny said firmly. “I wonder if there’s a spa some place around here I could get a quick mani?”

  I laughed at that. Seriously?

  Sparks shook her head, indicating she didn’t want to go either.

  “It looks like me and you, Nova,” I said.

  “I’m ready, Katie.”

  Jevyn squared off with me, his face serious. “I need to know what it is you’re coming for, what exactly it does for you, and I need a commitment from you both, and from Lynnette and Derek if they’re not in pieces, that once you come back here, you’ll never use a rift again. It’s too dangerous for us and for you.”

  It occurred to me then that Jevyn wasn’t being mean when he said the things he said, he was just doing what I was doing. Protecting the people closest to him, and in the process, probably protecting us from ourselves.

  “Once we have what we need, I guarantee that we won’t try and cross to your world again.” I held up my hand to stop him from interrupting. “Or create any more rips, and we won’t ever encourage anyone else to do it either. I can’t speak for the actions of anyone other than the six of us, but you have my word on that, and if we do find anyone creating a rip, we’ll do our level best to stop them.”

  “And you are coming for . . .” He prompted.

  “I’m not going to tell you yet. I will tell you when the time is right. If you help us with this, you will save our lives and give us a future, and we will all be eternally grateful. If there is anything we can do to assist you while we’re there, then we’ll be only too happy to help.”

  I held my breath while Jevyn examined my face. I tried to keep it as neutral as possible so he wouldn’t think I was trying to hide anything else from him. What we needed was more than enough to keep from him for the time being.

  “You promise. No danger?”

  I let out my breath and crossed my heart. “I promise. We’ll track down Lynnette and Derek first and then deal with our needs.”