Drinking Destiny

by Pippa Amberwine

  I walked over to him, took both of his hands in mine, and then stared up into his gold-flecked eyes I’d grown to love.

  “Thank you.” I reached a hand behind his neck and pulled him down to share the last touch and taste of his lips that I would ever know.

  They had never tasted sweeter.

  I pulled away before I started to cry. “For everything.” Then I headed for the door, which Nindock held open.

  I didn’t look back.

  I couldn’t look back.

  Cole, Nindock, Lynnette, and Nindock’s remaining dragons followed me out.

  Cole touched me on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t built that machine—”

  “It would still have happened one way or the other, Cole. It isn’t your fault. You were trying to do the right thing. Don’t feel bad about that.

  As we walked the corridors, the sound of gunfire got louder and louder. When we opened the door, what seemed like a full-scale war had broken out. Our people were spread out in two lines between the door and the gap in the fence. There was little in the way of cover, and at least a couple of people, Kam’s guys by the look of them, were lying on the grass, unmoving.

  “What happened in there?” Kam asked.

  “It should be happening soon. We need to get our people away from here. The whole place is going to blow. We need to get out and get into that forest to give us some cover. Otherwise, it might take us all with it.”

  Kam put two fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle that cut through the sounds of battle squealing and whistling around us.

  Then he put a hand on either side of his mouth and yelled, “Zip it up.” He turned to me and said, “No Jevyn?” He looked around as he spoke the words.

  “No,” I said sadly.

  He nodded. “You need to make a run through the middle of these two lines to the fence. The rest of the guys will zip up behind you. Get going.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I’ll wait here and cover you and then make a run for it. Nothing’s going to hurt me. Now go.” He shoved me gently and then rounded up the rest of the crew and yelled at them until we all started running.

  That was scary. I could hear bullets whistling across between us and the grunt of a dragon as one of the bullets found its mark. I kept running until I got to the fence and helped to hold it open for everyone else to get through. Then I checked for Kam to sign for him to come over, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “Katie, come on, when that thing blows, it’s going to be bad. We need to move on.” Cole pulled at my arm.

  “Okay, okay. I was just waiting for Kam.”

  “He’s gone, Katie.”

  “I see that. But where?”

  “I don’t know, now c’mon!” he yelled.

  Although stuff was still being fired at us, we were almost across before Nindock fell over in front of us, howling in pain and gripping his leg.

  “Bastards shot me,” he said through gritted teeth when I reached him. I didn’t know how much time there was before things blew sky-high, so I dragged him to his feet and held him while two of his surviving dragons hooked an arm each over his shoulder. He was going to live but would have to wait before we could treat the wound.

  All anyone was interested in was getting into the woods and getting some cover. At last, the dark canopy spread over us, and we were in the woods. The two teams we had left soon joined us although someone was missing.

  “Where’s Penny?” I hollered.

  I heard a faint call. It was Marty. “Over here, Penny was hit.”

  I headed over toward them. When I got behind a tree, I saw Marty on his knees next to Penny. His hands were covered with blood, and Penny’s top was a mass of scarlet soaking into the pink fabric. I looked at her eyes. The color and sparkle had left, and she stared sightlessly at the night sky through the spindly, bare branches. My heart cramped so painfully that I couldn’t breathe. Oh, Penny.

  Cole landed on his knees next to me. “No, no, this isn’t right. I mean Trey . . . no, Penny . . . no . . .”

  His voice gave out, choking on the cry in his throat that he let out just as a dull thud shook the branches of the trees.

  “Get down,” someone shouted.

  Bodies collapsed to the floor all around me, and I lay as flat as I could, shielding Penny’s body. I put my hands over my ears and waited.

  Seconds passed, and I was just about to sit up when the night sky was ripped to shreds by a massive purple ball of energy and fire that exploded with such force that the buildings nearby just vanished, melted, atomized, never to be seen again.

  The trunks of trees around us began to snap as howling wind slashed across us at hurricane speed. I heard one crunch to the ground not far from where I lay, but I didn’t dare look. A scream from that direction pierced my ears, but I couldn’t tell who it was.

  It took a while, but eventually the winds subsided and then stopped, until nothing more than a cold winter breeze blew across us.

  I lifted my head and cleared away the branches, twigs, and leaves that had fallen onto me and Penny so I could stand. Cole shifted and moved, struggling out from where he had been buried, his face tear and dirt stained.

  Somebody was helping whoever got trapped by the tree that had fallen. But I was drawn back. Back to the edge of the trees. The first couple of rows had, in places, collapsed under the sheer destructive blast from the plant, but when I managed to climb through and over flattened trees, the sight before me was breathtaking.

  Where the buildings of the complex had been, there was a large scoop out of the earth, like someone had hit the ground with a giant golf club and hoofed out a divot. Farther away, other buildings lay in ruins, just flattened piles of metal and jagged sticks of framework that jutted darkly into the night sky like a mouthful of rotting, blackened teeth.

  Nothing was moving other than the gentle flutter of odd pieces of trash that floated down to the ground in front of me.

  The entire Chemosys plant was gone, not even the fences left standing.

  I heard someone crunching through the detritus behind me, but my eyes were transfixed. My thoughts were only on those who had been inside and those who had already left, never to come back.

  “It’s unbelievable,” I said, using paltry words to express the sheer devastation in front of me.

  “Certainly is.”

  I spun around.

  “Jevyn!” I screamed at the top of my voice, unable to stop the sobs and tears I’d been saving up for later. I ran over to him. His clothes were filthy and scorched, and his eyebrows looked barer than before. He had a cut above his eyes, allowing blood to seep and trickle down his face. To most people, he would have looked like a victim in a horror movie, but right then, he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

  “Hi,” he said, a sly grin spreading across his face.

  “But . . . why, I mean how . . . what happened?” I hugged onto him as hard as I could and kissed him fiercely on the lips to make sure he wasn’t some cruel apparition.

  “Kam happened.”

  “Kam?”

  “Yeah, Kam.”

  “But he was outside.”

  “And as soon as you turned to run, he hopped inside, down into the basement. I was in Pathya by that time, waiting for Derek to set up his rift and run for it before the explosion. Kam burst in, headed straight through the rift to me, and pushed me through, back to Earth before I could say a word. Nothing I could do about it. I helped Derek close the rift on his side, and then we made a run for it. We didn’t quite get far enough away to come out scot free, but a cut and a few bruises are a small price to pay, I reckon. Funny thing is, I was just about to do the same thing myself. The thought of leaving you was just too much. I had just shifted my gaze to Nova to see what he thought. He just looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘You gotta go with your heart, man.’ Then, Kam grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and tossed me through.” Jevyn stopped tal
king for a moment and looked at the ground. “He was right, and a good friend to you, and I’m sorry he’s gone, Katie.”

  “I’m not. He was right, and if he hadn’t been there . . . well, you might never have come back if Kam hadn’t turned up. And he has Famil. Where’s Derek?”

  “Back at the camp,” he said. “We got blown into the trees a little farther down, so it took us a while to get out.”

  “I’m so happy you made it, Jevyn. So glad. You’ll never know how much.”

  “I think I have a reasonable idea. Come on, let’s get back and disappoint Nindock. He’ll have me on his back full time from now on.”

  “He got shot in the leg.”

  “Oh. Crap. That’s going to make life difficult. I mean, he’s bad-tempered enough as it is without a leg wound to blame.

  “And Penny died.” The euphoria of seeing Jevyn disappeared as reality bit me hard in the heart.

  “I know. I saw her. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I want to bring her back with us and give her a proper burial.”

  “I think that would be fitting. Come on. Let’s get back to everyone.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Katie

  Nindock’s town

  THE SALOON BUZZED with low conversation. A few days before the rest of the crew, Nindock and some of his people, Carol and Ypalde, and quite a few townspeople had gathered in a patch of green around the edge of the dusty paths and tracks that interwove around the place Jevyn and I had decided to call home. Nindock’s Town.

  Cole had built Penny’s coffin himself and had painted it in the brightest neon pink he could find. A suitable color for someone who had loved that color every moment of time I’d known her.

  In the late-winter sun, the coffin glowed where it stood, draped in a cloth made from a large blanket that had been dyed pink.

  After the brief ceremony, Cole had insisted on burying her himself. “My way of saying goodbye,” he had said, and reluctantly, we had all agreed to leave him to spend his final moments with Penny in the way he wanted.

  Nindock had called everyone to the bar to announce some news a few days later.

  “Everybody,” he had called, standing just before his usual table. The room had slowly quietened down and then fallen almost entirely silent. “As you all know, once we got back from New York, it didn’t take long to work out that we had a spy in camp.”

  I remembered watching as he’d been dragged out of the bar and paraded around the marketplace. It had all seemed a bit Middle Ages to me, but to be honest, he got what he deserved. He could have cost many more lives than the five we had suffered at the hands of Chemosys. It was a lot of people to lose, but it had been worth it. The day after the explosion, we heard that there had been action from the government at last, and Chemosys no longer existed. All of its operations had been shut down completely and its top people taken into custody.

  I hadn’t seen the ex-bartender again since that day, but I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

  Nindock held up a hand for quiet again, and the crowd settled.

  “It meant I was short of a barkeep, but it also made me think. Ever since we set up this town, I have tried to do my best while juggling a million and one other jobs in the air. Losing the barkeep was just another thing I was going to have to solve, but somebody came to me a couple days ago and made me an offer to buy the saloon. I took him up on his offer. It will be one less thing to worry about, and I will be able to spend more time looking out for the dragons who are here.”

  A murmur of approval rumbled through the crowd.

  The last few days had been rough, but the virus that was spreading through the camp had petered out, in no small part due to Nindock’s swift actions with quarantine. No new cases had come up, and some dragons had recovered quickly, due to a natural-defense mechanism in their bodies, which I knew Carol was very excited about being able to study.

  “So,” Nindock shouted over the noise, “with a certain sadness, it falls to me to announce that the new owner of Nindock’s Saloon is none other than . . .” Somebody banged on the table in front of them like a drum roll. “Frankie.”

  “Did you know about this?” Jevyn whispered in my ear. We were standing in the middle of the floor.

  “I had an idea,” I replied as I watched Frankie climb to his feet. The money he had taken, his share, the day before was a clue, but I didn’t know for sure.

  Frankie walked around the bar, which looked somehow different. I realized then that across the shelves at the back of the bar, which held the liquor bottles, there was a plain curtain hanging.

  Frankie stood by the side of it, holding a couple of white drawstrings.

  “I just want to say a big thank you to a couple of people,” he said in his usual laconic style. “First to Katie for being my friend and seeing me through the last few years.” The crowd cheered, and everyone’s attention was on me. I wanted to hide in a corner, and my face went hot under the attention. “Second, to Cole for helping me with this little unveiling over the last day or so.” Another cheer, and a previously glum-looking Cole smiled briefly and acknowledged the crowd with a wave. “Thirdly to Penny, who was, like Katie, a solid friend to me over the last few years, supporting and helping me at every step. She is why I bought this bar, to show that I have faith in the people here. So, it is with great pleasure I announce that from today forward, this place will officially be known as Penny’s.” He pulled the drawstring, and the curtain parted to reveal a bright-pink, flashing neon sign displaying the new name for the bar.

  The light it cast immediately turned the drab interior into a bright, cheery . . . pink kind of place. Exactly right for Penny.

  I joined in the round of applause for the unveiling and the even louder round of applause for the announcement that the first drink was on the house.

  But I didn’t want to stay.

  I pulled Jevyn’s arm and flicked my head at the door.

  He nodded. It had been a tough time and a difficult few days.

  I needed some peace.

  We had taken over a house, not far from Carol’s, so we could help her with her work. It was a fair walk back, but the night was clear, and the stars were shining brightly among the moonlit sky.

  “Good decision,” Jevyn said as we walked, arms linked together.

  “Which one?”

  “Most of them, I think. The bar. Me coming back. Nova going to Famil.”

  “I wonder what they’re doing now?”

  “I don’t know. I Just hope they’re experiencing a fraction of the happiness I feel right now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at the brightest star in the sky. “Me too.”

  “You feel like an early night?” He winked at me when I cast a glance his way.

  “You know what,” I said. “ I really don’t. I feel like going some place quiet, sitting on a hill, watching the stars all night with the man I love, and then watching the sunrise in the morning.”

  I realized he’d stopped walking then.

  He stood before me proudly in his dragon form and said, “Your ride awaits, my lady.”

  I laughed, then climbed onto his back, and watched as Nindock’s town, Boise, Lynnette’s shop, and all the troubles of the previous few months faded away to tiny specks of light in the dark countryside below.

  ~ ~ ~

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  Stone Cold Magic by Jayne Faith!

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  by Jayne Faith

  Chapter 1

  IT WAS A pleasant summer night, but I walked with my fists stuffed deep in the pockets of my lightweight jacket and my head bent as if leaning into a stiff, chilly wind. I paused at the end of 12th Street where the mid-century bungalow houses stopped and the little shops began. Murky shapes feathered the edges of my peripheral vision, moving in a slow, curling dance like wisps of campfire smoke. There were moments, even long stretches, when the phantom shapes faded into the background of my awar
eness. But every time I noticed them anew, my insides chilled and gave a little lurch.

  I tried to convince myself that the shadows framing my sight were meaningless. More than once, I’d sternly told myself they were just misfires of my optic nerves, artifacts of having been clinically dead for eighteen minutes. My brain had been deprived of oxygen, and there were bound to be some lingering effects. Hell, what were a few blurry dark shapes when I could have suffered serious brain damage—or not come back at all? But none of my internal cajoling had worked particularly well. Ever since I’d opened my eyes on a gurney with a sheet pulled up over my head, the shadows had been there. And as much as I wished it were otherwise, I couldn’t help feeling that the smoky shapes were alive. They lurked, an ever-present reminder that sure, I may have cheated death. But I’d brought something back with me.

  It was odd, knowing I’d been dead, queued up for the morgue, and yet somehow escaped the cold clutch of the grave to walk away from the hospital and return to my little apartment and the usual rhythms of life. I was like one of those drowning victims you sometimes hear about on the news, a still body with no pulse pulled from icy water and then miraculously revived. I knew I was lucky. I was beyond fortunate to be alive. Except something wasn’t right.

  I shivered and tucked my chin to my chest. Nope, not right at all.

  With the dancing shadows framing my sight came horrific nightmares, jerky, unfocused visions of death that plagued my dreams when I slept and my thoughts when I woke. In the two weeks since the accident that had temporarily killed me, I’d become so sleep deprived—and, frankly, creeped out by the dreams—I’d finally decided I had to do something. I’d waited to see if my head would clear, hoping that during my forced medical leave I’d get back to normal. But it hadn’t happened, and I couldn’t wait any longer. Tomorrow was my first day back at my job as a Demon Patrol officer, and I needed to be fresh and clear-headed.

  That was what brought me to where I stood—the hope of finding relief. The particular segment of 12th Street before me was known locally as Crystal Ball Lane. It was lined with small shops offering magical cures, a place normals came furtively seeking love potions, healing charms, and money spells. Ordinarily, most normals shunned the use of such things. They believed magic was responsible for tearing the world open twenty-nine years ago and letting in the hellish chaos of demons, the vampire virus, and the zombie virus. And, well, I couldn’t blame normals for their prejudice because they weren’t entirely wrong.