by Alexis Davie
Her captors looked like they were the type that needed to be gagged and tied up if they ever got caught. From her vantage point in the back seat, Ellie wasn’t able to see the woman that was driving, but she suspected it was a dragoness. She saw some short, choppy hair that wasn’t designed for cuteness but for making sure that it didn’t get in the way during battle. There wasn't any doubt in Ellie’s mind that she was looking at a military woman. Everything about her, from the cocky way that she held onto the steering wheel of the hefty Hummer to the reflective sunglasses she wore over a scowl, hinted that she was serious. The only time she’d ever laughed was in the face of death, and even then, it was only a chuckle.
But it wasn’t the dragoness that scared Ellie. No, it was the ape of a man that sat next to her in the backseat, eyeing her from head to toe in an unpleasant way. If you saw him walking towards you on the street, you wouldn’t just switch sides of the road. You’d leave the city and start anew with a new name. He was built like a truck, hulking and massive enough that he barely fit in the seat. His piercing grey eyes, the unusual color that gave him away as a dragon, scanned her like a hawk watching a mouse, but like if the hawk was simultaneously wondering how she’d taste and how she’d look naked. If someone made a poster for how scary a mercenary could be, he’d be the poster child. His arms were about as thick as her entire thigh, arms that he’d covered from bulky shoulder to meaty fingers in tattoos. One of his callused hands was stroking the holstered gun on his belt while the other one hung out the window. He stared at Ellie, who, in turn, avoided his gaze and shied away from him. If she was able to talk, she’d try to recruit the dragoness’s help in this. There had to be some kind of female code, right? Surely, the dragoness could understand why no woman in her right mind wanted anything to do with the monster sitting across from her. That had to mean more than genetics. But she couldn’t talk, so she was forced to sit there and let him stare at her for the whole drive.
“She’s cute,” he declared out of the blue in a deep, gravely voice, like he’d been a smoker since he was six. “Maybe a little skinny, but that’s okay.” His grey eyes stared unwaveringly at her, like he was daring her to do something. What the hell he was expecting, she didn’t know. She just kept avoiding his gaze. “I’ll make do.”
Ellie, in twenty-eight years of living, had never been more uncomfortable. On one hand, she’d normally cuss him out and leave, but in this scenario, she was trapped in here with him, and this big brute of a man had a gun. Based on what she’d already seen of him, he’d most likely use it if she pissed him off. She kept her eyes away from him, hoping, pleading that he’d leave her alone. She had literally done nothing to him. The whole trip, she hadn’t said anything bad to her captors, and that seemed like she was already being entirely too nice. She leaned her comparatively tiny torso away from him, which should have given him the message, I don’t want to engage, please leave me alone, but it apparently gave him a different one.
“I bet you’re tired,” he told her, leaning closer. A quick glance to see what he was doing showed her that he had a scar across his jawline, a pale, jagged thing that stretched from his ear to the bottom of his chin. Great. He looked in the general direction of the driver. “I bet she’s sleepy. She had to wake up so early to come with us. Poor baby…” He spread his lips in a feral smile, revealing his canines, longer and scarier than they had any right to be. “Think she wants some coffee?”
Ellie’s heart started pounding. Most of this trip, he had been creepy as hell and giving off a dangerous, pervert vibe, but now, he was doing something about it. What if he tried to touch her? She’d have to fight back, but she stood about as much of a chance as a puppy against a seasoned tiger. Without her powers, he’d crush her. She once again scooted her hips over, which only seemed to amuse him.
The dragoness’s voice came from the front, accompanied by a casual glance that must have kicked in some protective feelings towards Ellie. “Hey, how about not being a moron? Leave the poor thing alone. Shit, she’s probably scared outta her mind.”
The big man glared at his companion, then turned his attention to Ellie.
“I don’t think she minds it. Listen here, witch, if you want me to stop, just say it.” He grinned, obviously thinking he was really funny. “Go on. Don’t be shy.”
Ellie wriggled in her seat. She tried to speak through her gag, but what came out was some awful, unintelligible gibberish. Her face burned with humiliation and fear. She felt like a gazelle that had been trapped by a couple of lions who were just toying with their prey before they finished her off. She tried to think rationally. She was alive and obviously going somewhere, so they didn’t want her dead. Theoretically, it meant that she was supposed to be safe, but it sure didn’t feel that way. Things were going south, and fast.
The dragon moved back, taking his hand off his gun for only a second. “Hear that? She’s fine with it. Hand me that coffee. I think she’s thirsty.”
They hit a bump, causing all three of them to jump in the air. It didn’t faze him, though it hosted the smaller Ellie a good inch or two into the air before she landed. She twisted as far away from the big man as possible, pressing her back against the door.
“Leave me alone!” she shouted, but it came out as, “Mmmmph!”
He obviously understood what she was saying, but instead of being a decent person, he decided to be an absolutely terrible one. He moved closer to her, laying a hand next to her thigh. A darkness glinted in his eye when she scooted away. The message was obvious: quit being an annoyance, or his delivery would change. He was out of patience, and she’d tested him enough.
“Teneha, you know what I like most about witches? They’re so… breakable. See, they act all powerful, but when you take their magic away, what do you have? A human. A common, worthless human.” He reached in like he was going to stroke her cheek. “And humans—”
He didn’t get to finish that dramatic, threatening monologue, because as he opened his mouth, he made the crucial mistake of getting too close to her, meaning Ellie was able to firmly headbutt him.
She instantly regretted it the moment their foreheads smacked together. With an audible thud, their heads snapped back simultaneously. Pain shot through her, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the instant flood of regret that came after it when she saw his expression. He blinked hard, obviously startled that she’d stand up to him, but the surprise was short lived. The rage of a bully who’d finally had his victim turn on him kicked in, and he ran a long finger along where they had connected on his forehead. A violence ignited in his grey eyes, his lips contorting into a snarl.
“Oh, you just made this a lot more fun.”
Ellie shoved herself away as best as she could, writhing and trying to bring her arms around the front of her body so at least she wouldn’t catch his fist straight to the face. She tried to yell a spell, but it came out unintelligible and didn’t activate. She slipped on the slick fabric as she attempted to get into a safer position, realizing that she was nowhere near able to defend herself here.
“Hey!” Teneha twisted in her seat and saw what was going on. She must have pieced it together pretty fast, because as the dragon lunged towards Ellie, she slammed on the brakes. Ellie and the dragon were flung forward, colliding with the front chairs. Watching him tumble was like watching a building in the air, but he came up fast. Teneha grabbed his brawny shoulder and kept him from attacking Ellie. “Knock it off, Ajax!”
He threw her hand off as Ellie gave up trying to bring her arms around the front. It was an impossibility, first off, and secondly, she ended up just crouching like a jungle cat on the seat, ready to jump into action and do something if necessary. She couldn’t think of a lot that she’d hate more than having to get her ass kicked by a big dragon, but if it got down to it, no matter how scary he was, she wouldn’t just crawl into a corner and give up.
“Mmmph, mmmmph!” she shouted. I said, leave me alone!
The dragoness grabbed her partner again as they ski
dded to a stop on the dirt road, bringing up huge swaths of dust that flew past the windows. Ajax shoved her again, but she was back with the other arm in a second. He wasn’t even remotely focusing on her. His complete and total attention was focused on Ellie and the sheer, brutish rage that came from inside him. “She headbutted me!”
“Stop and think!” snapped Teneha in annoyance, like she wasn’t terrible worried about Ellie being injured but just didn’t want to deal with it right then. “I don’t care if she shot you! She’s supposed to stay safe.”
That was apparently enough to have Ajax, who seemed to have forgotten it, pause. “Says who?”
“Says Sebastian,” came the instant response, spoken with a hint of reverence and fear. Whoever this Sebastian fellow was, his word was enough that it made the two goons rethink the situation. “You wanna piss him off?”
Ajax hesitated, looking like he was weighing the option. Ellie watched the big man swallow his anger, though the fire still burned in his eyes. He glared at Ellie, rubbing his forehead and rolling his lip back to show his long canines, which were strong and capable enough to rip through a human’s flesh if he wanted. He stared at Ellie for a few good seconds. Ellie prepared herself for him to jump on her, which would be just a bloodbath in her current state, before he let out a guttural, animistic growl from the base of his throat.
“Try me again, witch, and I don’t care who wants you healthy.” He ran his tongue over his teeth. “I’ll show you what a dragon can do.”
The dragoness cocked a skeptical eyebrow behind her sunglasses, apparently not impressed, before shaking her head and returning to driving. She eased on the accelerator, and slowly but surely, they kept moving along the dusty old road into the middle of nowhere. Ajax stared at Ellie menacingly, as though he was imagining all the things he’d do to her if given the chance. She tried to relax at least a little and wasn’t too successful. Her breathing and heartrate slowly returned to normal, and she kept to her side as much as she could.
She was a witch, and they were dragons. She kept repeating that through her head, again and again. This wasn’t funny. This was serious. Ajax wanted her dead or worse, the dragoness only wanted her safe so she wouldn’t anger Sebastian, whoever that was, and Ellie was still tied up and helpless. If Ajax had a hankering to, he could take one of those fangs and cut her throat right then and there. She wouldn’t be able to stop him. She shuddered at the idea and tried to put on a brave face. This was a nightmare in every sense of the word. For the first time in their trip, she realized that she was thoroughly fucked. She had no contacts with anyone who’d notice if she was gone.
Nobody would be coming to find her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t go toe to toe with a dragon, not now, not ever. There was a reason witches worked together. The first person who would wonder what had happened to her would be her landlord when she stopped paying utilities if she ended up dead. Her head started to ache from where she’d headbutted Ajax, but she hardly noticed it. She curled up in the corner of the seat, wishing she wasn’t so alone in the car, telling herself that she’d survive whatever came next, and praying that this Sebastian fellow was different from the taste of dragons that she’d had so far.
2
A few minutes passed before the Hummer pulled up and came to a slow halt on the country road.
Ellie, who had slowly but surely returned to her normal spot instead of crouching on the seat, felt dread settle in. She’d finally been okay with being driven around, because at the immediate moment, she wasn’t in serious danger. Thanks to the dragoness, she wasn’t going to be suffering any terrible fates while in the car, but all bets were off whenever they arrived at their location. Maybe this Sebastian fellow wanted her there safe so he could do unspeakable things to her. She didn’t know, and truth be told, it wasn’t like she had much of a say in the matter. Human police didn’t know how to stop crimes between witches and dragons, and though they weren’t as common as they were back in the medieval times, modern day abductions and murders still happened every now and then. To be fair, they were generally by extremists, but that didn’t comfort her. She knew nothing about the people in front of her. They might be the witch killing variety.
The dragoness put the car in park and turned to look at Ellie and Ajax with what almost looked like compassion behind those reflective sunglasses. Then her expression hardened, and Ellie was left wondering if she’d made it up. Behind her, outside the already dusty windows, a wall of dust that they’d kicked up went drifting past.
“Here’s the deal,” Teneha told her bluntly. “No running, no trying to escape, and you’ll be fine. We need your expertise. Sebastian wants to talk to you, but play it cool, and you’ll make it out of here. Freak out, and… just don’t be stupid.”
Ellie slowly nodded. Yeah. Cool. Don’t be stupid. Totally reasonable after they had kidnapped her and put her life at risk because some dude wanted to talk to her. She didn’t have to bite her lip, thanks to the muzzle, but she wanted desperately to say some things that would land her in hot water.
Ever since she was a kid, she’d had a bad habit of smarting off to the wrong people. The filter in her brain that made most people simmer down didn’t work with her. Of course, as time went by, the trouble for smarting off became worse. Getting fired. Breaking up with a significant other. Getting shot in the head by two scary dragons and having her body hidden so nobody would ever know what had happened to her. Ellie made a conscious effort to keep herself from saying anything stupid when, and if, they finally let her speak.
Ajax got out first, lumbering out of the vehicle like a big ape. The moment his hefty frame left the vehicle, the shocks relaxed and raised up the Hummer. He proceeded to muster up some spit and eject it onto the ground around his military boots. Ellie instinctively hated him for doing it. There was a time when people needed to just spit because they needed to, but there was also a time when asshats did it to look cool, and she was fairly sure that the big brute of a man fell into the second category. He rolled his brawny shoulders around and glared into the rising sun like he was trying to out-alpha nature itself. Dipshit.
Ellie waited until the dragoness came around, because if she had to choose between Big and Stupid guiding her or Teneha, she’d pick Teneha every time. Teneha had already won big points in the more trustworthy category, which was a disappointing thing to say. Ellie scooted her butt across the seat and hopped nimbly out of the car. The moment her tennis shoes hit the rocky ground, the humidity of the air whacked her across the face. It hadn’t been as obvious when she’d been in the car, but now that she was out and about, it became apparent to her that she was absolutely nowhere near where she’d started this unwanted journey. They were at a beach, somehow, even though no beach was anywhere near the witch compound.
There were only a few things that people wanted to do at beaches. One was leave the country, and the other was frolic in the waves like schoolchildren, and somehow she doubted that they were going to be frolicking in the waves like schoolchildren.
And then she realized it wasn’t a normal beach. It was a portal to a tropical island.
About fifty yards to the right and about fifty yards to the left of where they were stood massive black obelisks with glowing golden runes running along the smooth surface. Between them stretched a shimmering portal that opened up into a picturesque scene of a tropical island that, Ellie would guess, was miles out in the middle of what appeared to be an ocean. They stood in a heavily wooded, country place with big trees that had no business being that close to sand, and then, if they stepped through the portal, they were in what she could only assume were very deep waters hiding all sorts of horrible sea monsters. On one side of the portal were rocks and dust and dirt. On the other side awaited deep waters that moved with a tropical wind, spewing water mist onto the otherwise dry landscape on the other side.
Ellie froze. A portal? Why the hell did they need a portal? First off, portals were illegal after they had been deemed too dange
rous back in the 1980s. They were a great way to get places with large things, like trying to get a car from Texas to Russia in a quarter of a second, but they were also exceedingly dangerous to operate. It was the magical version of Russian Roulette. Most of the time, sure, there were no problems. But that last, unlucky time… disturbing things happened. People weren’t supposed to be able to walk through space like that. Reality didn’t like it when people messed with the natural order of things, so people who got unlucky with portals usually ended up stranded on one side at best and dead at worst.
The presence of this portal raised a number of questions, most notably why they were there and why she was looking at an island. Secondly, why was this particular portal so big? Most portals were meant for a single person or a couple of people to be able to walk through. Something this size could get a mansion through without scratching the walls, which meant it was a dozen times more combustible and dangerous than a normal one. There was powerful and highly illegal magic at work here. This thing could break a dozen magical codes without even trying. It shouldn’t even be able to operate.
Ellie had seen pictures of similar portals, but they were mostly paintings from the Middle Ages. Every few years, different kinds of magics were outlawed. First was the legendary Death Magic, able to resurrect the dead. Then during the Industrial Revolution, the magical community cracked down on bootleg magic, where some creative users combined steam-powered technology and traditional magic. Portals like this were built on a different infrastructure than normal portals. Ellie had studied things like them before, of course, but she’d never suspected that she’d actually see one in real life. It was surreal, in a way. In a much bigger way, it was scary and amazing. Yet more concerning questions were raised when she spotted the speedboat situated by the edge of the portal. The slim vehicle floated on one side of the portal with a rope tied to a tree on the other side to keep it from getting away. As her skeptical eyes drifted over the sleek aluminum surface, hoping that she wasn’t supposed to go through the portal on the speedboat, she noticed someone standing nearby. To be more specific, she saw a man standing under the tree, talking on the phone with his back turned to them.