Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  And so did the whiff of electrical fires that she’d noticed when they were under the sign. But the breeze picked it up and it vanished as quickly as it hit her nose.

  Orel muttered in a language she didn’t understand, then looked up to the side as if listening to his friend.

  The dazed look cracked. His slight body shook. He staggered into the tree before extending his hand to his imaginary dragon.

  “Drako is real!” he screamed. “I hate you! I don’t want you here!”

  The kid ran after his father before Daisy could answer.

  The same fear that had iced her gut earlier—the same chill that overran her body when Nax said You talk a lot—turned the air frigid. The same sense that perhaps she’d gone too far into a situation. The same poking that screamed Run!

  Daisy did the one thing left to her: She listened.

  Chapter Twelve

  Daisy’s dreams often involved to-do lists and trips to the store. Sometimes, when her classwork pressed on her mind, she would dream of the unending aisles in a city-sized grocery store and how she only had one chance to find the canned tomatoes or the right kind of cheese and if she missed her chance, she would never again eat spaghetti or nachos.

  She’d had a lot of dreams like that just before the University of Minnesota accepted her into the Veterinary Medicine program. What if her one chance in life to become the trained animal healer she dreamed of being passed her by? What if she screwed up the one part of the application process that mattered the most?

  What if she couldn’t quite grasp what she needed to grasp to make the future she wanted?

  Because even at twenty-two, she had a past that shackled her in place—or at least to certain behaviors. Why else would she continue to date terrible men?

  Why else did she poke her nose in where it wasn’t wanted?

  She should have learned her lesson, but obviously a deep part of her mind refused to let go of the familiar.

  Daisy opened her eyes.

  The ceiling of her room at the Rocky Arbor Park Lodge looked the same as it did the day before—dingy white but otherwise clean and fresh. The room continued to smell of lemons and vinegar, though whoever cleaned it while she was out yesterday had also used a strong disinfectant in the bathroom.

  She’d dreamed of the unending grocery store again. The one that meant she couldn’t get her priorities straight.

  Something was wrong up the hill at the Auto Repair shop. Something Shifter-based and Fate-complicated. Something too dangerous for her to handle on her own.

  No more nights in The Dells. No more worrying about Orel and his father. Jacob had promised her a ride this morning, and she’d get herself on this afternoon’s Empire Builder destined for Minneapolis and St. Paul.

  Daisy grabbed her new phone off the side table and swiped to unlock its screen. All her icons were in the correct places. Her background photo still showed her German shepherd, Dawnstar, who lived in Branson with her father.

  At least Nax hadn’t messed with her perception of her tools.

  She dropped the phone on the bed and rubbed her forehead. Nax was the other kind of douchebag she attracted—the manipulative creep. The dangerous asshole who saw her as a something to break. The man all sane people needed to stay away from.

  She was bad-man honeydew. Not one could resist.

  Men like that often saw their children the same way.

  Daisy picked up her phone. Should she get her father involved? Allow the equally powerful and probably more deadly Shifters of The Land of Milk and Honey take care of Nax? Her dad could handle the politics.

  Or she could track down the local Shifters on the way out of town and save her father the trouble. Ask them if they really did support Nax. But that, too, offered up a massive dose of possible complications. Who knew if the local clans would see her as a whole different type of prize, as Nax insinuated? Better to stay the tourist.

  Or what if her original intuition was correct? What if Fates were involved?

  Her phone buzzed and The Land of Milk And Honey icon she used to represent her father’s number appeared.

  The name of the individual you asked about is not familiar to those with whom I have spoken, the text said.

  Your timing is impeccable, she responded. But of course his timing was impeccable; he was Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov.

  You have a new issue?

  What should she say? I stuck my nose in too deep and now I’m confused? I think Fates are involved, she texted. And Russians. All tied up with a Shifter of indeterminate power.

  Then she texted the blurry image of Nax’s back. In case a photo helps jog memories, she added.

  After a long moment, he responded. I will ask again.

  Thank you.

  She stared at her phone for a long moment. Her father was taking his sweet time answering.

  Leave, popped up on her screen.

  That was it. No rationale. Just the one word.

  Fates were not to be trifled with. Not known Fates. Not mysterious ones. And especially not ones tied to Russian nationals.

  Yet something told her she needed to run back into that burning house, which was stupid. So, so stupid.

  Her father wanted to make sure that this one time, she didn’t get burned.

  Will do, she responded.

  Be careful.

  I will, Dad. Extra careful, not only for herself, but for everyone.

  Jacob put his sedan into park and pointed out the window. “The ticket booth is through that door there.”

  She had a couple of hours, but soon she’d be on her way home and away from Wisconsin Dells.

  Jacob patted her arm. “I got dumped once, when I was about your age,” he said.

  Daisy unbuckled her seatbelt. To him, her anxious finger tapping and her constant frowns were about Brad. Better that way. Normals often did not fare well when they got mixed up in the world of Shifters, and even though Wisconsin Dells crawled with enthrallers and morphers, Jacob and his family seemed oblivious.

  Most of Branson knew nothing of her father’s business. Safer for them that way.

  “In my day, we didn’t call them douchebags.” Jacob grinned. “She was beautiful. I’ll give her that. Was big into righteous living and made sure everyone knew about it.” He shrugged. “We got cornered one night after leaving a party.”

  He leaned closer. “Lived in Chicago at the time.”

  Daisy nodded.

  “Anyway, we got cornered. She basically used me as an offering to keep from getting her ass whooped.” He tapped the steering wheel. “Didn’t work. She proceeded to blame me for the entire scene when we got out of the hospital.”

  Sounded like something Brad would do, right down to the “righteous living.”

  “Sued me. Can you believe it? Judge laughed her out of the court.” He shook his head. “I have two pins in my left leg because of that fight. I left and came here shortly afterward.”

  “I’m sorry,” Daisy said. “Douchebags are ubiquitous.”

  Jacob laughed. “In time and space.” He patted her knee again but his face lost all joviality. “Look, if you end up staying, call, okay? If there’s a room open, we’d be happy to have you back.”

  “Thanks,” she said. Most likely, she’d be on the evening’s train.

  “If you stay in town, stay away from the Lexicon.” He nodded toward the tourist district. “They may not take well to one of their own they don’t know.”

  His family must not be as oblivious as she thought.

  His eyes widened and he lifted one eyebrow, and tapped the side of his nose. “Not many of us unblessed can recognize a bloodhound when we meet one.”

  Daisy chuckled, and shook her head. “I’ll be careful.”

  “When your card came back registered to The Land of Milk and Honey, I figured I’d better make sure you stayed out of harm’s way.”

  So Jacob knew more about Shifter politics than she’d originally suspected. “I can handle myself,” she sa
id.

  “Damn straight, you can.” Jacob snorted. “Better than most, I’d say. Still, as a guest, it’s my job to make sure you’re well cared for.”

  Daisy reached across the seats and gave Jacob a quick hug. “Thank you.”

  She pulled her backpack from the rear seat and stepped out of the car. Jacob waved once more before pulling away and heading back toward his lodge.

  This close to the waterslides, the air smelled more of chlorine than car exhaust. More people moved around as well, though not a lot walked. Like so many other Midwestern towns, Wisconsin Dells was not set up for foot traffic unless you were inside a park or a mall.

  Daisy shouldered her pack. The warm brick of the historic Amtrak station and the exposed beams of the roof gave the little building a charm only reflected in the older, more natural parts of the town. The station also gave off a sense of loneliness that its otherwise sweet and clean exterior did not. Being isolated in the gray sea of a parking lot would do that to anyone or anything.

  The teenager behind the ticket counter grinned and nodded as her job demanded, and proceeded to dispatch her check-in duties with the bored intensity needed for correctly typing in a name and printing off a piece of paper.

  Daisy would be on tonight’s Empire Builder back to St. Paul. No more weird enthrallers. No more Brad and his bullshit. Then she would make sure her father looked into Orel’s situation in a timely and politically well-tuned manner that didn’t start a Midwestern Shifter war.

  And Daisy Reynolds Pavlovich would step back onto the veterinarian-in-training road into her bright and shining future.

  The eastbound train chugged and clicked outside as it waited, its big blue cars imposing but still somehow friendly. A few people filed into the station from the track-side doors, most with suitcases and other tourist gear.

  Daisy hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and walked out to the benches on the track side of the little station to take a look around.

  A family hustled their way off the train, mom in front, dad carrying a sleepy three- or four-year-old, and a distraught, angry-smelling teenaged son bringing up the rear.

  Dad was a Shifter. Daisy sensed him clear as Nax’s doorbell, and he sensed her, as well. He tipped his head and waved, then walked by with his wife and kids, but stopped no more than a few strides beyond Daisy.

  Both the dad and his son were large, the way Shifter men tended to be. The kid had pulled his hoodie’s hood over his face, and sauntered as if he wanted the world to know it owed him big-time.

  Dad looked over his shoulder. His son stopped next to Daisy, and looked up from his phone.

  The seer of a Fate washed over the Shifters as a well-dressed, corporate-looking man stepped off the train.

  Dad’s face tightened and Daisy knew exactly what he was thinking: How did I not know?

  The Fate must have been traveling in a different car. If he’d gotten on at a different stop, and didn’t use his seer, the Shifters wouldn’t have known.

  Most seers had a musical quality to them—chimes or sometimes drums. A Shifter understood and felt the seer more than experienced any hearing of it, sort of like remembering music. From how Daisy’s father described his many interactions with triads, most Fates’ seers reminded him of an orchestra’s woodwinds, though some, like the corporate Fate, had more weather-oriented seers. She’d always suspected that whatever allowed a Shifter to know a nearby seer was in use somehow connected to—or adjoined—the parts of the brain that remembered sound.

  So a seer felt like music or thunder or sand blowing in the wind even though it was literally none of that.

  When she told her father her theory, he’d only nodded and said that he would be happy to pay for medical school as well, if she wanted a second doctoring degree.

  He had high expectations, her father, and every time she exceeded them, it made him happy. Not every child was so lucky.

  The man’s seer flowed over her again like sand moving through dunes. Soothing, soft tinkling, all clear and pitch-perfect, filled her mind. This man was not malicious, or at least was able to hide any malicious intent. If anything, the seer indicated an even-keel take on the world.

  Still, a Fate was a Fate.

  The man adjusted his tie. He was shorter than Daisy, with close-cut black hair and eyes that matched his sand-in-dunes seer. His face carried the straight, sharp features and strong cheekbones Daisy associated with Egyptian men, and he had a consistent appeal she found attractive.

  He stood on the brick walkway, a lightweight black suitcase in his hand, his intense gaze washing over the people milling around.

  Strong, musky attraction broke through the teenager’s wall of anger. He watched the Fate, but Daisy wondered if her impression that he’d felt the man’s seer was false.

  He was too young—sixteen at most—and much too pissed off at the world. Activating a young man with such obvious issues was a recipe for disaster, and almost every Shifter on the planet knew better. Some families did activate their kids early, mostly families with a strong history of bloodhound noses and strong enthralling abilities. The excuse was that it gave their kids extra time to train into their abilities.

  If this kid was yet-to-be-activated, but was destined for class-one or class-two abilities, he might sense things he didn’t understand. Daisy had always had a good nose, even when she was a kid. The boy might be the same.

  Right now, he was more conscious of his attraction to the Fate than any possible threat. The wave of attraction was quickly followed by a semi-sour combination that smelled like equal parts insecurity and embarrassment. Then yet another wave-wall followed, one that added his anger back in, as if he was angry about his own cycle of emotions.

  A third Shifter, a man in an Amtrak uniform, ambled down the brick walkway as if he saw Shifters and Fates come in and out of town every day, all the time.

  Behind them, the Fate’s seer washed outward once again. When it ended, he blinked, tipped his head, and looked at the train employee. Then he took in the two active Shifters and the one young male standing between him and the station entrance.

  The teenager’s scents masked most of the Fate’s, but Daisy did pick up the clarity of concern, or focus, or perhaps the heightened perception that came with fear. The situation was new, and too many Shifters milled around for one Fate to handle.

  The man shouldered his bag and walked toward the station entrance. When he got close to Daisy and the boy, he stopped. His sand-in-the-wind seer flowed outward once again.

  “University of Wisconsin, then the University of Chicago for an advanced degree in biophysics,” he said. “Top honors and a research job in Portland.” He gave the kid a thumbs-up.

  The boy’s anger froze solid. He opened his mouth to speak but Daisy shook her head and the kid snapped it shut.

  The Fate pulled out his phone and quickly walked into the train station.

  The father moved his littlest one to his other hip. The mother looked between her husband, the Fate walking away, and Daisy. Her expression said she knew exactly what had just occurred, though her scent said she did not know the specifics.

  The slack-jawed kid stared.

  “Tobin.” The mother reached out her hand to the teenager. “We don’t want to be late. Grandma’s waiting.”

  The kid walked toward his family. “Why did he say that to me?” he asked his father.

  “Talk to your grandmother about future-seers,” the dad said, and quickly hugged his son.

  Daisy watched them for a long moment as they waited outside the station until the Fate exited through the main door. Then they went in, bags in hand, on their way to a Dells vacation.

  Even after a random Fate did something nice, something which even if it ended up being a lie would probably put that kid on a good path anyway, the family was still wary.

  With good reason, because Fates cheated. Fates lied. Fates attempted murder.

  Yet the Fate who just walked by could have been anyone. He might be
in town on business, or a vacation. He did not smell like Orel, so probably wasn’t a relative, or part of his mother’s triad.

  His entire purpose might have been to put one proto-healer on the correct path into the future. Or he could be from a Fate family out to destroy Nax, or Orel’s Fate family, or the Shifters of Wisconsin Dells, or even Daisy’s father, for that matter. He could have been a real, legitimate, James-Bond-level spy.

  Any group of people who could see the past, present, and future had a leg up on building Rube-Goldberg-level schemes of manipulation. Adding unnecessary interconnecting knots to their destructive ways seemed to be how Fates peacocked for other Fates—Look at us! Our triad is so good at what we do, we instigated this entire chain of events decades ago just so our future-seer could walk out of a particular shop and buy this here t-shirt featuring this exact design!

  They did shit not out of necessity, but to display skills.

  But Daisy had just watched a man step in when a kid needed it most. A kid who might have been lost if this moment in time had moved by.

  Because something said this was the moment Tobin needed to hear what the Fate told him. That the Fate had stepped into a situation where he was outnumbered and offered assistance even though he could have gotten hurt.

  The Fate walked around the side of the station building, whistling as he stepped. He stopped just before re-boarding the train several cars down, and put his phone to his ear. Then he climbed the steps on his way eastbound toward Chicago.

  “Goddamned Fates,” Daisy groaned. She, too, shouldered her bag and she, too, made her way through the doors into the station.

  So much for riding the Empire Builder home tonight.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sometimes, Daisy wondered about the psychological effects a bloodhound nose brought with it. How becoming hyper-sensitive to a type of perception most humans did not acknowledge—much less understand—had changed how she operated in the world.

  She knew the moment she stepped into a room who found her physically attractive and to what degree. She knew who didn’t. She also knew who second-guessed, stuffed down into their gut, or otherwise controlled that attraction.