Dragon’s Fate and Other Stories

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  The stinging, acidic stink of terror made her eyes water. The sweet, slow-moving scent of contentment made her sleepy.

  And more often than not, she didn’t realize why her eyes watered or she felt sleepy until she thought back about a moment that had otherwise passed her by. Learning how to be a good bloodhound would help, as would experience. But until then, she needed to trust her gut and heed her instincts.

  So something was driving her back to Nax’s property. Something which told her that waiting for her father to deal with this situation would be too late for Orel. Something her untrained nose had determined was worth the danger, because at this point, she should listen and stay away.

  Yet here she was, standing once again on the gravel in front of the massive oak tree, with a belly full of fear for the life of a young boy who, from all external signs, was likely fine with his father. A kid who maybe had a hard time, and an imaginary friend, and who now hated her guts. A child who would probably be better off if she left him alone.

  But something smelled wrong and if she didn’t figure out what it was—if it came back to hurt Orel, or her, or the Shifters of The Dells—and she just walked away, she would never forgive herself.

  Ten feet away, the sign nailed to the oak tree glistened in the early evening sun. Its green looked deeper. Richer, perhaps. More real. Daisy’s finger stuck to the drying paint and left a print on the lower left corner.

  She inhaled. It smelled real.

  If Nax was still messing with her perception, he’d upped his game.

  Golds and burnt oranges spread from the sunset out along the gravel between the buildings. Long shadows followed. The trees and plants rustled, but nothing else moved.

  Creeping Charlie still dominated the scent-scape, and masked any ambient traces of Orel or his father.

  “I know you’re here, Nax!” Daisy yelled. She didn’t, but if he was going to play mind games, so was she. “I came back because I can help!” He couldn’t mess with her the way he did, and he couldn’t mess with Orel, no matter how scared of Fates he might be. The ends do not always justify the means.

  She understood the aftereffects of being messed with. The second-guessing. The self-denial of reality. The internalizing of the lies and the subconscious, subsonic pain caused by fear.

  Nax was doing to Orel exactly what she would expect a bad Fate to do to Nax.

  So this wasn’t about her. She would handle anything Nax threw at her. Orel couldn’t—that was obvious from how he believed in his imaginary friend’s physicality.

  The Fate who’d messed with her before she came to live with her father had taken away her calm. He’d stolen her trust and mashed it into a pulpy ball of ooze.

  She wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Orel.

  No one answered her call.

  The screen door on the office banged against the frame. Daisy jumped and instinctively put her hands out as if to ward off a ghost. Not that having her hands out would stop Nax or any other enthraller, but the deep parts of her brain didn’t know that. They did what deep parts always did—took a protective stance.

  No one appeared directly in front of her. No one ran at her, or yelled, or swore. No Nax-like smells manifested. She was still alone on the gravel between the office and the garage.

  Daisy dropped her hands and slowly, deliberately, wiped them on her jeans. She would not startle like that again. She’d will her body to behave, if it was the last thing she did.

  Which it might be. She had no real sense of how dangerous Nax might actually be, only her gut responses and the knowledge that he manipulated on a level which, if not suspicious, skated right up to it.

  She was pretty damned sure he’d stolen Orel from his Fate family. The hiding, the evasiveness, the lying, all suggested Nax was covering a truth that showed him as something other than the good guy.

  And Orel’s changing scents suggested the boy needed intervention—which Nax refused.

  So maybe Nax skated right on by the “suspicious” sign on the edge of immoral behavior, gave it the finger, and sliced his way through its soft, broken center.

  If she was correct, he was worse than a douchebag. He was a criminal.

  The door on the office smacked against the frame again. Daisy walked over, careful to sniff and watch for activity, and caught the door. The interior door hung open about an inch.

  The inside of the office was pitch black. No little twinkling lights like last time. No slivers of sun making their way around the curtains. Just dust and the lingering death-scent of decaying, cut creeping Charlie.

  Nax was using it to throw off bloodhounds. No one would fill their home and living area with an allergy-inducing weed if they didn’t have a reason.

  Daisy closed her eyes and inhaled.

  She’d been an active Shifter less than five years. Her mother had refused to activate her before she ran off, and Daisy hadn’t asked her father until shortly before she left for her undergraduate studies.

  Neither she nor her father had been shocked that she manifested her mother’s animal healing and enthralling abilities. But the bloodhound nose had been a surprise.

  So she really did not have a lot of training on how to use it correctly. She figured that paying attention to the smells she picked up was three-quarters of the battle.

  There were bloodhounds out there who could smell a fire ghoul ten miles away. Others who were so sensitive to the scent-scape that they could not be around people. She should not be confounded by a scent folk remedy like creeping Charlie.

  Orel’s pencils gave off a faint mixture of wood shavings and clay. The wood box holding the gold-trimmed cards added deeper notes to the wafting, sparse wood in the air—the box was well-cared-for, and oiled. The cards themselves also added a deep—if diminished, as if someone had taken them—note to the dusty, milled scent of Orel’s sketchbook.

  Heat trapped between the curtains and the windows caused whirls of convection in the dark of the office, and slowly moved the scent of wood away from Daisy and toward the open door.

  The dust carried Wisconsin dirt and leaf litter. The carpets outgassed from a cleaning sometime in the past year. A leaking pipe from a sink in the back room added a hint of mildew.

  Daisy inhaled again.

  Orel’s young male scent rose out of the background. Like a lot of normal human pheromones and biological markers, nothing described male other than “male.” Testosterone added a deeper edge to a body’s scent in much the same way it added depth to a voice, goldenness to skin, and muscle to bone. Estrogen had its own also-indescribable profile, one which for Daisy smelled familiar. Male smelled familiar-yet-deeper.

  Nax’s maleness also manifested, but at a bigger level than she associated with his smaller frame. When he wasn’t around, his scents said Nax-but-larger.

  Was her bloodhound nose picking up on the truth under his enthrallings? Was the real Nax the larger man she’d glimpsed?

  She tilted her head up and inhaled again, and focused on the layers of hints of Nax in the air. Her father was taller than her, but not by a lot. Several of the other men at The Land were big and broad. They all left stronger hints of themselves at eye level or higher.

  And Ladon—the human who lived with Brother-Dragon—was both taller and wider than most men. Ladon wasn’t hulking, but he did have wide shoulders and a strong, muscular build.

  Ladon’s scent patterns swirled and wafted like a stream around unmovable muscle-rocks, and Nax’s scent fit a profile more similar to Ladon’s than to any smaller man she’d ever met.

  All Daisy’s senses of lying had been real; Nax was taller than her, and carried significantly more body mass than he appeared to.

  “Liar,” she muttered. Son of a bitch, she thought. First Brad, then Nax. Good thing Jacob hadn’t also turned out to be a criminal asshat.

  She sniffed again. Tears. Anger intertwined with Nax’s maleness.

  Orel had been frightened—no, terrified. He’d run from the office, which
explained the unlocked door.

  Daisy returned to the gravel driveway. She sniffed again. Out in the open, she picked up only dust and the omnipresent minty lavender of the creeping Charlie.

  Orel must have run off at least an hour ago.

  The sun was about to set. Was Orel out in the woods by himself?

  What if Nax found him first? But animals in the woods might, even this close to the town. She’d met a wolf in the park, and had scented a couple of bears.

  Orel shouldn’t be out in the dark by himself.

  Daisy pulled out her camping flashlight before hoisting her pack onto her back, then checked the battery on her new phone. She had a good charge, one that would get her through the night if she needed to call for help or use the phone’s light if her flashlight died.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Northwest, she thought. Not consciously, but in her gut, and in the same way she knew she needed to sort this situation now. Her nose must be picking up indications which she could not overtly sense. A distraught and terrified Orel had gone northwest.

  Trust it, she thought. Be the person Nax obviously wasn’t—the one with a grip on the real.

  Daisy flicked on her light and headed for the woods behind the little house.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Orel!” Daisy yelled. “Orel! It’s Daisy! Come out!”

  She inhaled with every step and tested the air for signs of Nax. He wasn’t going to sneak up on her again. He wasn’t going to mess with her head and make her forget what he wanted to cover up.

  “Orel!” she yelled.

  A twig snapped. Daisy whipped around.

  A raccoon stood up on her hind legs with her front paws out the same way Daisy stood every time Nax startled her. The raccoon shook her stout backside and flicked out her ringed tail. She chittered at Daisy, then patted at the leaves by her feet.

  Three kits appeared.

  Daisy knelt. “Are you the same family Orel asked me to help?” She hadn’t gotten a good enough scent on the kit to know if one of the three was the one she had healed. The kits didn’t seem frightened, though, and she hadn’t used any calling scents on them.

  The mother chittered again.

  “I think you might be.” She breathed out ‘friend’ and held out her hand.

  The raccoons sauntered up. All three of the babies sniffed at her fingers.

  “You all look well fed.” She chuckled and rubbed the kits’ heads. “Too bad you couldn’t tell me which way Orel went.”

  Mama grumbled at the babes. They looked up at Daisy, then at their mother, then out into the woods.

  “Go on,” she said. “Be safe, okay? Stay away from the road.”

  The raccoon family toddled off into the trees. They, at least, seemed to know where they were going.

  She turned off her flashlight and stood there in the evening gloom. She had her camp pack, so she’d be okay overnight. And unless an animal snuck up on her in her sleep, she could more than handle a bear or cougar or wolf.

  Daisy closed her eyes and listened. Frogs croaked not too far away, which meant a pond or wetland. Small animals scurried in the leaf litter. An owl hooted.

  A wary-smelling weasel watched her from his hiding place under a bush about ten feet away. Heat rose from the ground and brought scents of the earth with it—fungi and ground cover and insects.

  No indication of other humans, just… a minty folk remedy. She inhaled again. Cut creeping Charlie, as if someone was carrying a bouquet. She swung her flashlight around looking for footprints or a trail of some sort.

  “Orel?” she called.

  Up ahead, in the shadows beyond her light’s radius, a high-up branch creaked. Something cracked. Daisy aimed her flashlight at the noise.

  Flowers sprinkled down onto the forest floor from inside the canopy of a young oak about twenty feet away.

  “Orel?” Daisy called again.

  The creaking stopped. The dropping blossoms stopped.

  A sketchbook fell out of the tree.

  Orel had tucked himself into a dip between two large branches about six feet up. He’d hooked his bag onto a branch, but it had tipped. He must have been carrying the flowers and his art supplies. His hollow looked sturdy and fairly safe, so even if he dropped his stuff, he wasn’t likely to fall.

  “How did you get up there?” Daisy picked up his sketchbook.

  A corner of one of the tarot cards she’d seen in the office poked out between two of the pages. The gold trim caught the glare from her flashlight and shimmered in the night air.

  She glanced up at the bag. A bulge in the bottom suggested he carried the crystal ball, too.

  “Did you run away, Orel?” she asked. He’d run away and taken his mother’s metal-touched objects.

  He held up his hand to shield his eyes from the flashlight’s glare. “Leave me alone.”

  Daisy carefully tucked the card into the sketchbook. She pointed the light into the tree and away from Orel, so he wouldn’t need to shield his eyes.

  She held out the book. “It’d be a shame if the raccoons carried this off.”

  He made a point of looking away.

  “They were just here.” Daisy pointed at the clearing. “The mom and the kits. You probably saw the whole thing, didn’t you?”

  Orel nodded.

  “Why are you hiding out here?” Daisy waved her hand at the trees. “It’s dark. You’ll get cold.”

  “Drako says I cannot trust you. I want my book back.” Yet Orel pulled himself tighter against the larger of the two branches.

  His dragon was feeding him unverified opinions. Either Orel was manifesting a psychological problem much more intense than an imaginary friend, or this Drako was more than he seemed to be.

  With all the manipulations Nax had laid on her, Daisy’s money was on Orel’s mental health being just fine.

  Orel pointed. “You are Russian.” He spit out his words just as his father had, and with more venom than she expected for an eight-year-old. The amount of sour fear rolling out of the tree spiked.

  “It’s true that my father is of Russian descent,” Daisy said. “He’s an American now. I was born in Australia. I came here when I was younger than you. No one here is going to hurt you.”

  She checked the tree for footholds. He was too afraid to be up there by himself.

  “They came for Mama and Maty and Papa. They hurt Maty. Then Nax came. I remember Mama and Nax yelling.” He switched over to a language Daisy didn’t understand, but sounded vaguely like Russian.

  His eyes took on the same faraway look they’d had when she found him dazed out.

  “Where are your Mama, Maty, and Papa now, Orel?” she asked. Maybe if she got him talking to her, he’d come out of his trance.

  “I’m not stupid!” he yelled. “I knew Drako wasn’t real! But when Nax came, the real Drako came with him! That’s how I knew it was okay to go with him. He is my father! Mama said so. Nax did not know, but Drako did! Papa said one day I would see the truth and I did!”

  Even from the ground—and in the dark—Daisy saw Orel shaking. His scent also… shook. Slippery came to mind—slick but not oily, soft like a cloud, and just as diffuse. These terms shouldn’t have a scent, but with Orel, they did. He shook, jittered, fluxed…

  Orel’s mouth slackened. His eyes dazed, and he slumped against the tree trunk.

  Daisy tucked the sketchbook into the back of her waistband and darted up the tree. Fingers curled into bark. Feet slipped. But she made it into the crook of the branches before he teetered too far forward.

  “You okay, buddy?” She curled her arm around his middle and settled him better into his hollow.

  Orel leaned against the branch. “Mama cut the little doggy ivy to discourage bloodhounds,” he said. “She said it barks and keeps away all the bad ghosts and bity things.”

  Daisy patted his leg. “I figured that’s why there’s so much ground ivy around.” She leaned close. “It’s called creeping Charlie here.” />
  Orel blinked. “Roshidnyk zwichainii,” he muttered, then dug in his bag. “I pulled some. To keep away bad things.” He held up a handful of the ground ivy.

  “Do you think I’m bad, Orel?” If he didn’t think her bad, maybe she could get him to open up about Nax. “Do you think Drako is?”

  He tossed the ivy out of the tree. “I want my book back.”

  Daisy handed over the sketchbook.

  Orel held the book in such a way that she could not see his work. He flipped through the pages, half eyeing her and half looking at his drawings, and stopped when he came across the card. Carefully, he picked it up and ran his finger over the gold edging.

  “Mama told me to take these,” he said absently.

  The nakedness of the moment raised the hairs on her arms. Those cards—hell, for all she knew, the crystal ball, too—were special.

  Not once in her life had she thought about what made a hunk of metal a Fate talisman. What about an object imbued it with real, literal power for the triad who touched it.

  She still did not understand, and she probably never would. How could she? She wasn’t a Fate, or a proto-Fate, like Orel. Talismans were not her domain, any more than laying hands on an animal and transferring the necessary energy to heal a wound was Orel’s.

  There were mysteries in the world, and part of understanding what a mystery meant was understanding that its meaning might not be yours.

  But they were all human. She could help him with that.

  He tucked the card into his bag first, then followed it with his sketchbook. “How old were you when you left your home?”

  Daisy settled herself into the tree as best she could. The bark rubbed and the knots poked, but the tree had room for both of them.

  “Five,” she said. “We lived mostly in San Diego. When I was seventeen, I met another Shifter.” A friend. “A doctor, and a good man. He taught me all about Fates and Shifters and Burners and the dragons.”

  If it hadn’t been for the doctor, she would never have left San Diego. She would never have found her father.