Drinking Destiny

by Pippa Amberwine

  I could barely see through the window, which looked as dirty on the inside as it did on the outside. What I could see showed precious little sign that anyone was there. I moved onto the next window. Jevyn set out to do the same on the other half of the house and its low-level wing.

  I had reached the last window when Jevyn called out to me. He waved me over.

  When I got there, he pointed in through the window. I could just make out Derek’s thin outline lying on a couch in what looked like an office. I couldn’t see well enough to be able to tell if he was alive or dead.

  “We need to get in there.” I stood back, ready to find something to smash the window.

  Before I could find anything, I heard the sound of breaking glass. I looked over my shoulder to see Jevyn breaking out the last few shards.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I elbowed it. I saw it on a few TV shows.”

  “You didn’t cut yourself?”

  He inspected his arm and then shook his head.

  “You were lucky. Come on, let’s get inside.”

  Jevyn held out his clasped hands to boost me up, and a couple of seconds later I was in, closely followed by Jevyn. We trod carefully over to where Derek lay on the couch.

  He was breathing. I could just make out the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

  “He’s alive,” Jevyn said.

  “I see that. I wonder what sort of condition he’s in.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Jevyn laid his hand on Derek’s shoulder, and Derek jumped and squawked as if he had just had an electric shock. He rolled over to face us, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. His face was swollen and red, his eyes were both purple and almost closed, and he had a cut on one eyebrow that had leaked a stream of blood down his face. He looked like he had been in a major car crash.

  I squatted next to him.

  “Derek, what happened?”

  “Chemosys.” He managed to mumble the word though cracked and bloodied lips.

  “Why? Why would they do this to you?”

  “They wanted me to open a rip.”

  “What for?”

  “So they could access Dracos. They have big plans for what they want to do there.”

  “Like what?” Jevyn asked, squatting beside me.

  Derek seemed taken by surprise by Jevyn only wearing a pair of shorts.

  “Infect all the dragons, find a cure, and sell it to them.”

  “Bastards.” Jevyn spat out the word with so much anger that I was worried he would break though the walls of the room.

  I reached around for my pack and pulled out a water bottle. “Here, Derek, drink some of this.”

  I held the bottle to his lips while he sipped.

  “We need to get him out of here,” Jevyn said, “before those thugs come back again.”

  I agreed. “Can you walk, Derek?”

  “I don’t know. I can try.”

  Jevyn and I stood again, making room for a groaning Derek to swing his legs over.

  “I didn’t do it, you know?” he muttered as he finally managed to heave his frame to his feet where he swayed and rocked until I put out an arm to hold him steady.

  “You’re a hero, Derek. You clearly paid for that choice. What happened to the people who did this to you?” I asked.

  “I got rid of them,” said a voice behind me, making me jump.

  I spun around, leveling my pistol at the threat until I saw exactly who it was.

  “Lynnette?” I lowered my gun and flicked on the safety.

  “Yes, it’s me. I’m back again.” She wasn’t the sparky woman I remembered from her shop. Some of the light seemed to have faded out of her eyes.

  “Where have you been all this time?” I asked.

  “Well, I spent a little time over in Dracos, looking for stuff to sell in the shop.” She shifted her attention to Jevyn. “The marketplace in Pathya is a remarkable place, Jevyn. All manner of goodies for sale there. And the prices? Just so cheap. After that, I spent some time . . . away . . . doing stuff. Then I was approached by somebody who promised me a lot of money to get a machine working that they hoped would make tears in the veil between worlds.”

  “Why you, though?” Jevyn asked.

  “Because I’m a witch, I suppose. You know, all that magic and stuff? Plus, I know about the rips, and I guess for something like that I came in pretty useful.” Her expression saddened. “It was only when I found out that they were cracking a rift into Grayfair to spread an infection that I realized it was Chemosys behind it. I couldn’t face seeing that all over again. I was just a youngster when the infection was released on Earth.” She went very quiet and closed her eyes. “I didn’t want to see that kind of thing happen again.”

  “Thank you, Lynnette. You might have saved my entire people,” Jevyn said sincerely.

  “Oh, that’s right. You’re one of the dragons, aren’t you? Joshua, was it?”

  “Jevyn.”

  “That’s it,” she said, snapping her fingers.

  “So how did you find out about Derek?” I asked.

  “I heard someone talking about him and what they were trying to do. I told them I knew him and could get him to do anything. That got me away from New York and to where Derek was. I couldn’t let them harm him, but when I got here, he was, well . . . like that.” She pointed at Derek sitting on the couch, gingerly touching his face with his hands.

  I put words to the question I thought I should ask, not knowing if I would like or approve of the answer. “What did you do with the guards?”

  A brief flash of anger, teeth clenched, flashed across Lynnette’s face.

  “They’re gone,” she said quietly.

  “Gone where?” I asked.

  Lynnette looked over at me with a steely gaze.

  “Just gone. Their vehicle is in the garage. That’s what I was doing when you got here.”

  “Look, Lynnette,” I said. “After your experience at the hands of Chemosys, would you be willing to help us? We’re about to go and get that machine. We have a plan to close all the rifts.” We didn’t just yet, but I had to sell the idea.

  “Count me in,” she said. “Just one condition.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “I need a guarantee that there will be no more virus taken over there. If there is, I’m liable to lose my temper.”

  “I’ll be glad to give you that guarantee,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty

  Katie

  Nindock’s town

  THREE DAYS AFTER Jevyn and I found Derek and Lynnette, a sizeable group of us gathered.

  “So that’s the plan?” Nindock said, standing over a large sheet of paper with a drawing of the Chemosys facility in New York that Dr. Li had spent hours creating. He didn’t sound too impressed. “You want me to commit Kam and my people to an attack on this place with you guys, but you don’t know for sure if that machine is even there?”

  “It’s there all right,” Lynnette said. “I was there, working with it just a couple days ago.”

  “You don’t think they’ll move it in case, you know, someone tries to get it back?” Nindock asked.

  “I don’t think they have, Nindock,” Cole said. “I’ve had my people in New York watching the place. Nothing like it has gone in or out in the last twenty-four hours. Unless they moved it in the few hours before my guys got there, then it’s still there.”

  “It still seems risky. According to the Doc, the place is heavily guarded. Could we be walking into a trap?”

  That was it. I knew he was going to say yes. He just said “we” instead of you. It was just a matter of time.

  “What say you, Kam?” Nindock asked.

  Kam stared at the map for a few moments and then looked up. “Do I get to kill ‘em?”

  Score one for go.

  “Yeah, you get to kill them,” I said. “We want to put those guys out of action permanently. Cole has promised that as soon as we have a cure he’ll fund it and m
ake it available to dragons and vampires alike for nothing.”

  “Yay for Cole,” Penny said. She and Cole had gotten pretty close over the previous few days. It was nice to see Penny happy.

  “I want to go too,” Sparks said. It was the first time since Derek was carried back into our quarters that she had left his side. I wasn’t about to say no, and I felt truly sorry for anyone who decided they wanted to fight her when we got there.

  I looked at Nindock and raised an enquiring eyebrow, daring him to say no.

  “Hell, okay, why not? If it means we get a cure for the dragons with the virus in time, then yeah, we will all go.”

  A small cheer went up around the saloon, and Nindock waved a hand at the bartender for drinks all round. I couldn’t really summon up much enthusiasm for the whole idea of celebrating. It was going to be dangerous with a chance that some, or even many of us, could get killed. It also would bring the day when Jevyn had to make his choice another step closer, and that was already causing a knot to form in my insides.

  Kam and his dragons were already half-drunk before the meeting, and the prospect of free liquor was greeted with raucous shouts.

  I stepped aside and tried to find a table out of the way somewhere. I’d been feeling rough, rougher than was normal, all day, and although I thought the pain was at least partly caused by the thought of not seeing Jevyn again, I was realistic enough to know that a lot of it was caused by a lack of blood. My gums were sore, my head ached, and all the muscles in my arms and legs felt like they were being stretched to a breaking point. I felt like I’d gotten the flu but ten times worse.

  “Mind if I sit with you?” I raised my bleary eyes to see Cole standing in front of me, looking concerned.

  “Sure.” It was all I could summon up the energy to say right then.

  Cole sat on the seat opposite me, and when I looked up, I could see the concern in his eyes.

  “You look like shit, Katie.”

  I huffed. I didn’t have the energy to laugh even though it was funny.

  “Thanks, Cole.”

  “Is it getting worse?”

  I nodded. There was no point denying it.

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Not unless you feel like draining off a pint of blood and donating it.” I managed a sickly grin and saw Cole’s face whiten. “No?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll turn down your plan. Do you have dragon blood left?”

  “No, Frankie had to have what was left before he turned . . . nasty.”

  “So, what will you do?” he asked.

  “She’ll come to me, Cole.”

  Cole jumped in his seat when Jevyn spoke, and I nodded my thanks at the offer. I would have to take it up, or I’d be in no condition to go on our little jaunt the next day.

  Jevyn slid a chair out from under the table and sat next to Cole, leaning his forearms across the wooden surface and gripping his hands together.

  “Listen, Cole,” he said. “I might not get another chance to say this, but I owe you an apology. I thought you were working against us, but now I know you’re not.”

  Cole said nothing for a moment, looking down at his hands.

  “Apology accepted, Jevyn. Thanks. It means a lot to me. I’m going to go and leave you two to . . . errm . . .” He gulped loudly, blanched a bit more, and then stood and headed into the saloon.

  “You feeling as bad as you look?” Jevyn asked sympathetically.

  “Thanks, you look great too.” I meant it sarcastically, but the trouble was that as ill as I felt, he did look great. I couldn’t believe that that night might be our last night together. Although he had said nothing in the meantime, I knew he would be planning to use the machine to do whatever he needed to do almost as soon as we had possession of it. On the one hand, I was dreading it, but on the other, there was little point prolonging the agony. If we were going to be apart, a quick painful break was better than a long, drawn-out goodbye.

  The next twenty-four hours were either going to be the happiest of my life at the end or, by a long margin, the saddest.

  ***

  THE NEXT DAY, I felt better. Jevyn had squeezed a few spots of blood from his thumb, and when he faced away, I had devoured them greedily. The kick from them had been immediate, and a wave of euphoria had swept over as the aches and pains and urges had rapidly dissolved away. Although I felt a whole lot better than I had before, I didn’t feel completely well. It seemed like Carol’s theory about the sun-dragon blood was right.

  After everyone had gathered in the saloon along with all the equipment and some serious firepower, we discovered a problem. It had already been decided that the risk of traveling by road was far too great. The number of SCAR patrols we were likely to come across on the way was huge, too many to make it a worthwhile trip.

  Therefore, it had been decided that the safest way to get there would be to fly. It was only once the number of people and the sheer weight of all the armaments and gear was examined properly that it became clear that unless we had a small army of dragons, each carrying someone or something, we were never going to get everyone and everything there.

  It was Lynnette who came up with the solution.

  “Why don’t we just open a rip? We can go straight there, do what we need to do. Then, once the rip is closed, the gear can be dumped, and the dragons can fly us back.”

  I tried to think of an alternative just to spite Lynnette who seemed to be relishing the forthcoming battle a bit too much. I couldn’t, though. It was a sound plan, and I offered my congratulations to her for coming up with it. Silently and begrudgingly.

  The day itself had been a drag. Because there was no travel time to worry about, we all had a whole lot of hours to fill. Some people played card games, some watched TV. Kam and his buddies had a wrestling competition on the dusty track outside the saloon. Kam won. No surprise there. Dr. Li added some more detail to her map of the facility, and Sparks tended to Derek who was in no condition to go with us but had insisted that he had to and wanted to be with Sparks. When she wasn’t with him, she spent her time pacing the saloon and outside with a darkly murderous look on her face.

  Revenge for her was a dish served hot and heavy, and she would doubtless find a way to take it for what Chemosys had done to Derek. Penny and Cole disappeared somewhere and came back a couple of hours later, red-faced and sweaty, so I didn’t need to guess what they had been doing.

  Several people had tried to persuade Cole not to go. He hardly had a fighter’s build, but he was needed to get that damn machine working.

  Marty was morose. He was still recovering from his gunshot wound, so although he was coming, he was only going to be guarding the equipment, not needed in the first attack.

  I was more concerned that Jevyn was reticent about the plans once we got there. When I asked him, he just shrugged and said we could wing it. That was not the Jevyn I knew. He would never do something like this without a plan and a couple of backups.

  Something was up, but when I watched him talking to Derek, Lynnette, and Cole in a little huddle, I assumed it was about what would happen when we found the rip-making machine, so I didn’t ask him. I was nervous enough already about the battle without constantly trying to second-guess what Jevyn was up to. Whatever it was, I couldn’t see a happy ending coming. Our last night had been glorious, yet heartbreaking at the same time, and that was the memory I was resigned to take with me into whatever life had to offer when this was all over.

  As soon as the sun went down, but before the dusty green landscape succumbed to night’s dark blanket, we all gathered together again in the saloon. Nobody made a long, emotional, rousing speech for the battle ahead. No one prayed for success. No one sang songs of glory or lament.

  “Is everyone ready?” were the only words spoken by Jevyn in the silence of the saloon, answered by silent nods of silent heads.

  Jevyn signaled to Derek, and within seconds, a perfectly formed rip appeared in the room, blowing dust around the fl
oor and ruffling the bar cloth that was slung over the barkeep’s shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” Jevyn said, and with a muted clunk of weapons and ammo, our party headed into the nightmare to come.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Katie

  Queens, New York

  COLE HAD GIVEN specific instruction to Derek as to where to open the rip and had done a perfect job despite his purple-and-yellow bruised face.

  According to Cole, the Chemosys plant had only been built a couple years prior next to a golf course. Nearby, there was a large area of wooded parkland that would allow us to get next to the site without being seen. It was also where Cole’s right-hand man, Trey Whalen, and a small team of men had been keeping the plant under observation.

  Once everyone had dumped their excess gear in one place so Marty and a couple of dragons could keep an eye on it and protect it from any stray SCAR or Chemosys patrols, Cole called Trey in to find out what the up-to-date situation at the plant was.

  Even from beneath the trees, the glow of floodlights and searchlights lit up the area with a dull, reflected light, turning the darkness of night under the trees to a gloom.

  The entire team gathered around as Trey filled Cole in with the information he had. The man was big, much bigger than Cole, but I could sense there was a mutual respect between the two men that had clearly been born in high-pressure situations. It occurred to me that I still had no real idea who Cole was and what he had been through to get where he was.

  I wondered if I would ever know.

  I tuned in to what was being said.

  “How many?” Cole asked, sounding alarmed.

  “At least five hundred.” Trey’s voice was clear as a bell, but he spoke quietly. Everybody paid close attention to what he said.

  “Five hundred new guards? And they all arrived today?”

  “Yep. Fifteen truckloads, all in SCAR transport, and some pretty heavy firepower in SCAR trucks too.”

  “Do you think they know we’re coming?”