by D M Gilmore
“Have you forgotten our deal, Sangita?” Smog said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. He stepped fully into the cell as the armed drakes took position on either side of the cell door, their rifles at the ready. “The deal was that if I could get one dragon, you would supply the mate. That was our deal. I may not have Asher right now, but the moment he sets foot in this building I will have both him and his little whelpling in chains. They will be mine, Sangita, so how about you start fulfilling your end of the deal and get me my male breeder.”
Sangita looked at the floor in both disgust and nervousness. Ruth craned his neck so as to be able to look at both through his good eye, and caught a glimpse of Sangita fingering a silver necklace that he hadn’t noticed before in the club. Dangling from the silver chain was a chunk of pink crystal, which Ruth immediately assumed was her draquartz.
“You don’t even know if he’ll come,” she finally said, looking Smog in the eyes. “How could he be so stupid as to fall into such an obvious trap?”
Duncan Smog laughed a hearty chortle, putting a hand to his chest and laughing with his whole body. The other drakes were silent for a moment, before the two guards joined in the laughter. Sangita looked from Duncan, to the guards, then back to Ruth, before slowly joining in on the laughter, unsure of how she should react to their behaviour.
As it turns out, laughing was not the correct course of action.
Before she had a chance to react, Smog reached into his jacket with the hand on his chest and produced a very familiar pistol, which he quickly levelled at Sangita. The laughter in the room immediately died, and Sangita eyed the weapon nervously.
“He’ll come,” Smog assured her, pulling the slider on the pistol before aiming directly at her chest. “You don’t know Asher like I do. He doesn’t care for anything except the idiot brute, as you called him. Everything he does, he does to protect Ruth. So by taking Ruth prisoner, I have ensured that not only will Asher come, but he’ll walk in so blindly that he’ll be trapped before he even realizes there was a net.”
Sangita swallowed nervously, but did not respond. Her hand dropped to her hip, gripping the baton she knew was there. “If you think anyone is dumb enough to fall for such an obvious ploy, you haven’t been playing this game with skilled opponents,” she said, drawing the baton as quickly as she could.
Smog was unimpressed. With a passive expression on his face, he pointed the gun at her leg and pulled the trigger. There was a soft popping sound, followed by a bright light, and Sangita felt a flare of pain fill her thigh as she dropped to the ground, crying in pain. Smog grumbled something in Cantonese as he sauntered up to her, grabbing her by the crest in his free hand and placing the barrel of the pistol directly between her eyes.
Sangita’s eyes widened in terror as she looked up into Duncan’s cold, emotionless face. “If you shoot me, Duncan, you will never get your dragons,” she growled, masking the look of terror on her face with a frown and a sneer.
Duncan’s eyes narrowed, and Ruth watched his trigger finger twitch, and for a second he was scared that Sangita’s brains were about to be splattered all over the cell floor. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he pulled the gun away.
“Good,” Sangita said, leaning to pull herself up, “I’m glad you could be reasonable.”
Duncan scoffed, then slapped her across the face with the back of his hand, knocking her right back down to the floor. “I don’t appreciate it when my subordinates back talk to me, so don’t think for a second that I’ll appreciate it from you. Don’t even think about bandaging that wound, either, I want you to remember that feeling, let it sink into your skin, because I’ll give you another just like it if you ever think of questioning me again.”
Sangita only grunted in response, and kept her eyes squeezed shut so that nobody could see her eyes. Ruth couldn’t even begin to gauge what kind of emotion she might be feeling, but if he had to guess, it wasn’t good.
“As for you,” Smog continued, turning to face Ruth and levelling the gun with the red drake’s own forehead, “I fully expect your brother to turn up before the night is over, and when he does I am going to enjoy killing you,” he said, with a sly grin. “I can’t have the pleasure of killing him for his treachery, see, because that would kill his dragon. I still need his dragon, see, so instead of taking my anger out on him, I’ll have to settle for you. Who knows, when I’m done disposing of your body, maybe I’ll strip him of his draquartz and watch him slowly melt into an aberrant over the next twenty years. He just has to be alive, being in a functional state seems optional at best.”
Ruth’s roar of anger shook the room, and for a moment even the tied-up drake forgot his broken body as he struggled against his restraints and reached out with his broken arm, which Smog grabbed with his free hand and squeezed. Ruth’s roar turned into a scream of pain, as tears and pus poured out of his eyes while Smog continued to squeeze and twist his arm. He held him there for a few seconds before finally letting go, and Ruth’s broken arm dropped into his lap, the setting rod bent where Smog had gripped it. Duncan scoffed in disgust at the pair of wounded drakes, before storming out of the cell, and stood around only long enough to watch the guards slam the door shut.
“You can stay in there as punishment, Sangita,” Duncan called, as he and his entourage stomped down the hall. “Enjoy your night with the rabid animal.”
As soon as the sound of footsteps faded, Sangita’s face turned from a mask of pain to a sneer of anger. “Bastard,” she muttered, pulling herself to her feet, using Ruth’s chair for extra support. “Complete and total fool.”
“Is what he said true? He can’t kill my brother?” Ruth asked, swallowing nervously.
“If he wants Asher’s dragon, then yes, he will need to keep your brother alive,” Sangita admitted, “so as much as I’m sure you’re worried about him, you should save some concern for yourself.”
Sangita suddenly pulled a stubby knife out of her pouch, and leaned in close to Ruth. Ruth recoiled, expecting her to stab the blade into his vulnerable, exposed flesh, but instead she began to cut the wires that bound him to the chair.
“Why?” was all he could say, as one by one she cut his limbs free.
“Because I can admit when I was a poor judge of character,” Sangita grumbled, looking up at Ruth hopefully, “and I pray that I’m a better judge about you.”
Chapter 20
Asher drove his car manually, letting his batteries recharge off the car’s mana while he followed the glowing mana signature that he recognized as belonging to Ruth. At this distance from the centre of the flux, the trail decayed at a considerable rate, but there was still enough of a signature left that the spell allowed him to follow his brother’s captors. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew that there would almost certainly be people watching his movements, just in case he found where they were hiding.
The anger was boiling in him, threatening to pull him back into a hyper-focused daze. It was like his mind was an echo chamber, and every time he allowed his thoughts to wander to the feelings of anger or loss, it would suddenly increase, become more powerful. He did his best to push the thoughts out of his head and focus on driving, but he was still aware of his mind wandering back into the echoes of rage.
Esther was flying in the air around the car, following him just barely out of sight. He entertained himself by imagining that she was scanning the rooftops for any sign of spies or pursuers, and the thought managed to keep him slightly more distracted. He had tried to offer her a ride in the car, but she refused and instead had taken to the air. It was cramped in his tiny vehicle, even with Ruth’s seat vacant. He couldn’t blame her, after all she had spent the entire ride to Erebor hidden in a backpack.
The drive didn’t take long, taking him to a place just inside the range of the manaflux, and stopping at what appeared to be a ruined police station. The irony that a drake mob had taken over an establishment once dedicated to enforcing the law wasn’t lost on Asher. He suppose
d it had been abandoned when the government had given up trying to keep the force staffed inside the manaflux, and ever since it had fallen into disrepair. How long ago had it been abandoned, he wondered. Forty, maybe fifty years? When was the last time the police had ever tried to establish a solid foothold in the Scarborough broodtown?
Asher spat in disgust at the crumbling old building and narrowed his eyes. The brick was thick, but his enchanted vision still allowed him some sight to the inside. He couldn’t make out distinct figures through the wall, there were just too many people inside for him to identify. The mana signatures within blended and swirled, like television static combined with an acid trip. Ruth’s own signature was buried within that mess, somewhere. He just had to get in, find his brother, kill Duncan Smog, and get out. Easy.
He sighed, and quickly backed his car into an alley not a hundred meters away. Close enough to be seen if any of the Mountains were keeping watch, but hopefully far enough to be out of range of their weapons. They could shoot, but would hopefully miss. He quickly killed the engine and disabled the spell holding his clunker together. The car sagged and sighed with a few sputtering noises from the engine, before finally settling down. His manavision spell was disabled soon after, there would be no point in trying to see through walls with all the signatures so jumbled together like that. Better to conserve the mana.
At the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t storm in with spells blazing. If he wanted to get his brother out safely, he knew that he’d have to kill Duncan before he had a chance to kill Ruth. The longer it took for Duncan to find out he was there, the more time Asher had to locate and save his brother.
He sighed in dismay. He didn’t have a plan. He had less than half of his mana reserves, which would drain fast if he went in for a fight. He couldn’t let Esther get hurt, because any damage dealt to her would hurt him just as badly. He was quickly beginning to understand that being bound to an infant dragon was definitely more of a burden than a blessing, but as far as he knew there was no way to undo the binding, and he didn’t have the time to research it. Better to live with the added weakness while exercising the benefits that came with it. Esther could, after all, serve as support. She could fight with both missiles and lightning, she could conjure shields and adapt them to different attackers. She was a valuable resource, one that could just as quickly turn into his biggest weakness.
He quickly checked the spells he had at his disposal. He had rushed to follow the mana trail before it disappeared, so he hadn’t had time to head home and install some new, more situationally appropriate spells onto his watches. He was left mostly with his usual array of spells, but in a firefight it would be safest to rely on a simple energy projection spell. In this case, Magic Missile would be his go-to weapon. With a gesture, he called the spell’s code into his display. With a quick keyboard shortcut, he located a section labelled power output and adjusted the variable from 3 to 10. There was no point in trying to be gentle, this time.
Other spells he had on hand included his force blast spell, which may actually be more useful than he gave it credit for. He made a mental note to give that spell’s code a thorough update once this ordeal was over, to focus and direct the concussive blasts. His shield spell was also active, although he wouldn’t have time to update it for use in close combat. That took a lot more than changing one number.
Looper would most likely not matter, and anything else he had seemed pointless. He grumbled in annoyance, and hooked his watches back up to the battery pack, flashing a nerve wracking 48 percent charge. He decided to keep his phone disconnected, to attempt to preserve his power just a bit longer. His phone held no spells worth running in this situation, so he set it on silent and stuffed it angrily into his jacket pocket, where his fingers brushed against the plastic of Nicholas Jones’ COMA badge.
With a grumble, he pulled the badge out of his pocket. Written along the bottom of the identification card was a phone number, which he assumed was the one he had been told to call. Shaking his head, he stuffed it back into his pocket and pushed the car door open.
The moment his bare, clawed feet touched the clammy pavement, Esther dropped out of the sky and alighted on his shoulders, coiling her tail around his neck once again in her favourite position. Asher had grown accustomed to having her head peeking on his right side, so that whenever he looked over, she’d be waiting there to see him. Now that he was aware that they had a connection, even if he didn’t quite understand it, he could feel her in a way that had only been a vague impression before.
Emotions, flashes of ideas and images that didn’t belong to him danced through his mind. Esther looked into his eyes, and for a split second Asher thought he could see through them himself, looking up at his own face in awe and worry.
“I can’t guarantee we’ll survive this,” he said to her, stepping out of the alleyway and stalking towards the police station, keeping to the middle of the empty street, in case anyone tried to jump him from the alleyways, “but we are going to take so many of them down that it won’t matter. Our survival isn’t important. Ruth’s is.” The cracked pavement crunched noisily beneath his feet, loose stones and pebbles digging into the thick flesh of his soles and clacking against his exposed claws.
Esther nodded in understanding, and an image of Ruth’s healthy, unharmed face flashed in Asher’s mind.
“Yes,” he said, smiling down at her, “Ruth. Brother. Family.” He couldn’t know if those words meant anything to her, but he still got the vague impression that she understood him.
Esther’s eyes narrowed as she glared at the police station, which they were quickly approaching. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air, and she began to growl. Asher’s mind quickly blinked with images of blood and fire, and though they were left up to interpretation, he felt he had a solid grasp of what she wanted to do.
Standing on either side of the entrance to the station was a pair of drakes, a brown and a copper, with rifles trained on Asher. They were shouting something, but he wasn’t listening to them. Esther’s mind flashed orange, danger, warning, but Asher didn’t stop advancing, holding his hands out at his sides in a relaxed T pose. They began to fire as Asher stepped into the parking lot that surrounded the station, his feet crunching through the patches of dead grass that had broken through the unkept tarmac. Asher ignored the mana bolts, which Esther promptly blocked with a quick shield. As a malicious grin spread across his face, Asher raised his hands at the pair and clenched his fist. A few more bolts ricocheted off the shield, and he opened his palms.
They didn’t have a chance to call for help as twin missiles of silver mana shot from Asher’s outstretched palms and buried themselves into their chests. The copper looked down at the projectile sticking out of his sternum, and promptly slumped down to the ground, unintentionally pushing the missile deeper into his chest. The empowered missile remained solid, dense, when normally it would have already dissipated, and the wound on the copper’s chest bled like a fountain. The brown was more fortunate, taking the spell closer to his shoulder, and managed to remain standing long enough to level his rifle at the quickly approaching Asher. Again he shouted a warning, but his words fell on deaf ears, his rifle humming loudly as it charged a fresh shot.
Asher buried a second missile in the drake’s skull before he even had a chance to fire his weapon.
Asher scoffed in disgust at the guns the guards had been wielding, and kicked them out of the way with a talon. “Barbaric,” he grumbled, searching the guards for anything he might find useful. He looted a few dozen dollars in cash, and took one of their phones, which seemed to be in surprisingly good condition. A quick check told him it didn’t have any useful spells on it, mostly hologames and porn, but he still shoved it in his back pocket. It might be worth something later.
With a deep breath, Asher placed his hands against the metal doors of the police station and braced himself for what was inside.
“Shield up, Esther,” he whispered, “we’re going i
n hot.”
Chapter 21
Esther had the shield up before Asher even had the door open, and the timing couldn’t have been better. The moment the door was open a crack, the shield was bombarded by a hail of gunfire and spells, as manabolts and bullets rippled against the hemisphere swirling energy. Without even a hint of hesitation, Asher pushed the doors open as wide as they would go, and Esther extended the range of her shield to surround them in a shimmering bubble of protection.
Asher squinted as he stepped into the dark room, lit up only by short bursts of muzzle flares and bolts of energy as he tried to get a handle on the number of people attacking him. His targets, however, didn’t remain still, moving from cover to cover, and what he could see was illuminated only by the dim light coming through the open door. He could see a desk, about ten or fifteen feet away, made from metal and chipboard, devoid of any kind or papers or utensils. It couldn’t have weighed more than 200 pounds, tops, he guessed, and wouldn’t offer the best protection. Some cover was still better than no cover.
An image flashed in his mind of the shield dissipating, and he looked down at Esther in concern, noticing that she seemed to be straining from the effort of maintaining the shield.
“How much longer can you hold it up?” he asked, silently cursing himself for assuming that her shield would be unlimited. With all spells, there was a cost, and shields drained mana as long as they were in use or being hit. Asher had foolishly assumed that Esther’s mana would be unlimited, but like all sources, even her deep reserves were draining.
Esther collapsed against Asher’s shoulder as she dropped the shield, and Asher raised his own just in time to stop the next volley of fire. He quickly rushed into the room, kicking some chunks of rubble out of the way as ducked behind the desk for cover, and lowered his shield. The moment he disappeared from their line of fire, the shots ceased.