His stories never failed to make visitors laugh, whether they were an important politician visiting from Phoenix, a neighbor he’d spent the afternoon helping to fix a sink, or some local street person that he’d invited home for one of Maeve’s filling Irish stews or stuffed poblanos. Very few ever left the Martinez household not feeling like a member of the family.
He knew how lucky he was. Several of his friends’ parents were divorced, or they’d fight. He never doubted how much his mom and dad loved each other. His mother, usually so reserved, never hesitated to return any of his father’s public kisses, no matter how much it embarrassed their sons. At their most recent neighborhood block party, which his father regularly hosted, he’d overheard a woman rudely ask his mother why she stuck with a short man whose looks wouldn’t get him a single glance with any woman half as beautiful as Maeve. He recalled with great pride how cold his mother’s voice had become, but how gentle she’d remained.
“That’s because you stop looking too soon,” she had said in her thick Irish brogue. “I find a man’s most attractive feature to be his heart, and Eduardo’s heart is the most beautiful I have ever known.” She’d spun, walking away and leaving the woman speechless. He had never loved his parents more than at that moment.
Still, he often worried if their marriage, and his life, was as solid as it seemed.
A sharp retort from his mom shocked him out of his reverie.
“What nonsense it this?” Her voice was so angry. Both boys shared confused looks with each other, then with their mother. This was not like her.
She whirled on Miguel. “Is this true?”
“Y—yes,” he stammered, assuming she meant what had happened on the bus. Then his baby sister started to cry.
“Now look what you boys have done! To your rooms, both of you, and don’t come out until your homework’s done and your bathroom is clean.”
Miguel backed away several steps, then turned and slouched to his room. What had gotten into his mother? He sat on his bed for a few minutes, staring at his old Kurt Warner and Arizona Cardinals Super Bowl poster. The other wall had his complete collection of Harry Potter movie posters, although The Sorcerer’s Stone had faded badly and scotch tape held Goblet of Fire together where it had torn when Carlos had thrown a football at him.
He set his iPhone to shuffle, threw open his pack, and yanked out his schoolbooks without changing from his uniform. He was determined that, no matter what had upset his mom, he wasn’t going to make things worse. Only five minutes had passed, however, before his door popped open and Carlos collapsed on the bed.
“Geez, what’s with mom? You’d think we’d broken a window or something.”
“Give her a break, Carlos. Isabel’s probably spent the whole day crying or something.” He glared at his brother. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?”
Carlos shrugged. “I’ll get it done when I want, not when I get yelled at when I didn’t do a thing.”
“You’ll just piss mom off, and you know dad’ll kick your butt if that happens. Just go do your homework and call me when you’re ready to clean the bathroom.” Miguel turned back to his geometry, but his brother didn’t take the hint.
“I think I’m going over to Joaquin’s house. Lemme out your window, will you?”
Anger suddenly surged up his chest like a geyser at Yellowstone. “Are you crazy? Don’t make things worse!”
Carlos strutted towards the window. Miguel could see irritation in his brother’s face almost as fiery as his own. As Carlos unlocked the window and slid it open, warm air pouring in, Miguel shouted.
“What are you doing? Stop it!”
Carlos’s jaw jutted defiantly. “I told you. I’m going to Joaquin’s house. Are you gonna come?”
“You stupid idiot!”
Suddenly, the air crackled. A small spark split the air like lightning and both boys fell backwards as if shoved hard. For a few seconds, he simply lay on the floor by his bed, stunned and gasping for breath. The anger had been purged, as if the lightning bolt had punched it out of his gut.
Finally, he managed to push himself to a sitting position. His brother sat beneath the still-open window, breathing hard, his black hair standing straight and his face white. He touched his own red hair and jerked his hand back at the sharp static shock.
“What was that?” Carlos muttered, his voice weak with no hint of acrimony.
His own voice trembled. “Did—did you feel anything right before that…that whatever?”
Carlos ignored the question. “You look funny.”
“You’re pretty ugly yourself,” he said with a weak chuckle.
Carlos slowly pushed himself to his feet. “I think I will do my homework.” Stumbling towards the door, he added, “That was really weird. Do you think mom heard it?”
“I hope not. Just call me when you’re ready to clean.”
Carlos left, quietly closing the door behind him. Miguel sat back, staring at his Cardinals poster, then got up and slunk into the bathroom. The sight of his brother’s spotless sink next to his toothpaste-smeared counter was one too many reminders of his strange new identity.
Grabbing his brush, he stared again at his hair and eyes that were so different, trying futilely to force his red hair to lie down. Finally, he slammed his brush on the toothpaste-splattered tile.
“Why do I have to look so stupid! Why can’t I just be normal?”
Whatever had happened wasn’t just weird. He’d felt something escape, something inside of him that had practically burned its way out right before that strange explosion. He’d felt the same heat on the bus and in P.E. He’d been angry both times. He’d also been angry when Burton and his buddies had tried to attack him and Javier at the parade. There wasn’t something weird happening. There was something weird with him.
♦ ♦ ♦
Miguel sat up straight in his bed, panting hard. Sweat drenched the neck of his t-shirt. What was it he’d been dreaming? All he could recall were large, round, icy eyes hovering over him. He’d been so cold, frantically searching for escape. Beyond that, nothing of the dream remained except the fear.
He placed a hand on his chest and tried to breathe deeply to calm himself, but his dread clung to the darkness. His imagination ran amuck, seeing the eyes in each corner like fat, bulbous spiders clinging to webs.
Something moved outside, he was certain. Not a neighborhood cat prowling for mice, but an entity of immense proportions. He wanted to pull the covers over his head and hide, hoping it would leave and the eyes disappear, but he needed to see what was out there. All of it was tied to the recent strange events in his life, of that he was certain.
As if in a trance, he slid out of his warm bed. Each step was as weighty as slogging through thick mud and his mind fought against the eyes staring at the back of his head, beckoning him to turn and give in to his fear. He would not yield, keeping his focus on the windowsill until he reached it, gasping from the effort.
He caught his breath, then put an eye to the crack between the curtains, desperate to see what awaited him. For a moment, he hesitated until he realized his doubt came from the eyes in the corners. They did not want him to see. Resentment swirled and his belly burned. Recklessly, he tore open the curtains. Faint light from the solitary street lamp dimly illuminated his room, but it was enough to make the eyes flee.
He paused, fully expecting whatever monster awaited him to roar and tear him to pieces. The only thing that moved, however, was the swift shadow of a cloud passing the moon. He shook his head, clearing the final cobwebs of his nightmare.
“You’re an idiot, Miguel Martinez,” he muttered quietly to himself and climbed back into bed. As he settled the sheets around him, however, he realized for a cloud to move that fast, he would hear the wind. He shivered. This time he buried himself in the blankets, convinced there was something outside hunting for him, stalking him because he was weird.
Sleep was a long time coming and when it did, his nightmares retu
rned more frightening than before.
Chapter 3
The Dragon
With a few swift snaps of her leathery wings, Wu Zhao rose to catch the early morning thermal that her two brothers were riding. For several glorious moments, she floated, her sleek, serpentine body supported only by the soft pressure of the current until gravity lassoed her waist and dragged her back towards earth.
Her crimson scales glinted as she rapidly beat her wings again. A shadow passed swiftly over her as Wu Tian, her older brother, sped out towards the deeper, darker, slate green water, his wings barely beating. His bright blue scales glimmered as he soared, a thousand lapis lazuli twinkling. He was thicker, more muscular, and slower than his younger siblings but, even as his sister watched, he twirled and pirouetted like a faery dancing an arabesque. Other than the occasional light snap and slight shift of his wingtips, he seemed to simply glide rather than fly, a grace she envied.
Below her, Wu Fei raced by in a tight roll, her younger brother exhaling smoke from his snout so it whirled behind in a fanciful coil. He was longer than most dragons, with black scales like opals and whiskers like flagella, the fastest of the young guardians.
As the smoke coil drifted apart, she spotted a puffin fleeing for the safety of a cave along the low cliffs that was far too small for a dragon’s snout. Wu Zhao furiously beat her wings once more as she wheeled around, then snapped them twice to gain momentum. Down she dove, her wings pulled tight against her back. The wind whistled in her ears, her bright green eyes focused on the fat bird pumping its fluffy wings frantically. As she hurtled past Wu Fei, he roared with delight at her sky hunt, and she felt the heat of his fireball pass just far enough above her to tease but not distract.
Angling her body, the lighter scales of her belly nearly brushed the rocks of the cliff. The puffin was so close to safety that she risked hurtling into the rocks at the base where the waves crashed. The little chubby bird glanced up over its shoulder…and saw nothing but Wu Zhao’s wide-open maw. Less than a foot from the safety of a cave, the long, sharp teeth snapped shut, and a single feather floated towards the ocean.
Without breaking momentum, her wings shot out and she banked sharply so only the tip of her long tail scraped any of the rocks. Finally, she could savor her plump prey and the crunch of its bones.
“Well done!” shouted Wu Fei with a laugh. She slowed, soaring upward, and watched as he twirled gracefully into a dive towards the smooth, gray-green sea. With a gleeful roar, Wu Zhao matched his turn, but she was clumsy in comparison, barely flattening her own descent just above the small whitecaps in time to let her wing tips skim across the surface. Her shadow raced beneath her along the shallows, rising and falling with the bottom.
The tide was in, hiding most of the narrow rocky shore. Above the cliffs, rough brown grasses swayed on low, undulating dunes. Occasional spruce trees, stunted by harsh weather, gave feature to the land, the wind off the water forcing their branches to reach away from the ocean so they leaned lopsidedly. The desolate coast was broken only by the mouth of a narrow river meandering down from the jagged mountain peaks rising hazy blue in the distance. Miles of unbroken forest blanketed the land from the mountains to the dunes, a vast green quilt.
Still hungry, Wu Zhao’s large emerald eyes darted back and forth, but the small birds that usually flocked to the desolate coast were absent with the dragons present. Only gulls remained to hunt, as if they knew how awful they tasted.
Like all dragons, her eyes slanted slightly upwards on either side of her long head beneath ridged scales. She wished her gaze could be serene and discerning like Wu Tian: his would soften with compassion when viewing his prey but harden with justice at the sight of his enemies. He was certain to be chosen as a mature one at this year’s festival and be eligible to pass judgment on the low races. She sighed. The Great Ones would never consider her wise enough to become a mature one.
Twisting, her eyes sparkled as she watched him suddenly soar up, then loop backwards and skewer the water, his wings almost disappearing against his body, his entry smooth as a dolphin. Once more, she marveled at the grace of his water hunt, gliding in a light circle as she awaited his exit. After a minute or so, he exploded out of the water, straight up a hundred feet or more, until he snapped his wings open, spraying droplets in spectacular rainbow and golden showers before allowing gravity to take over. He fell into a long glide, and she spotted a silvery fish wriggling in his massive mouth.
As he flew close to her, Wu Tian bit his teeth firmly and a portion fell. She snapped her wings twice with a whip-like crack, accelerating quickly, and expertly caught the piece of fish just before it hit the waves. She bit into the juicy flesh, savoring its sweetness. She could eat fish all day, if ever she could water hunt like her older brother, but she was far better at snatching birds.
Wu Fei soared above, laughing, and let loose a spectacular fireball towards a flock of seagulls that barely darted safely away, laughing again at the startled look on her face.
“Life is good!” he roared.
“Today it is, brother,” she grinned back, the undulation of both her long, crimson whiskers echoing her happiness.
“Come on, admit it! You loved the look on those faeries’ faces when we caught them in the middle of their dance last night.”
“They were certainly surprised,” she chuckled, recalling the startled expressions of the couple dozen or so winged beings as they pranced around their bonfire. It was the first time she’d finally joined Wu Fei on one of his faery larks, as he called them, making them scatter and blowing their fairy ring apart. The sprites, her brother said, needed to be reminded regularly of their place. They were only the most powerful of the low races. They were not dragons.
“Fei,” chided Wu Tian, “One of these times, your pranks will cause serious trouble.”
“Oh, come on, Tian. What elder would even see us? Besides it was just a tribe of faeries. What harm could they ever do?”
“Do you even know what side of the war they’re on?”
“What do we care about faeries and their quarrels?”
She giggled. “You’re starting to sound like father, Tian, all worried about Oberon’s battles as if it matters to us if he stays king or if Finaarva defeats him.”
“Well, father says Finaarva’s evil, and a murderer, and I think he’s right.”
“Father’s not even an elder,” she responded, “and they care about the low races no more than they ever have.”
“Face it, Zhao. Our big brother has his heart set on being raised to mature. Come on. I want to hunt some goats before the festival starts. It’ll be our last chance for meat for the next three days. You might as well too, Tian. The ascended ones might just approve you this year.”
For a moment, Tian’s blue belly glowed, the heat of his gullet turning his scales a pale sapphire, and Wu Zhao worried he would shoot a fireball at his brother in anger.
“Tian!” she shouted. “The Cavern is ready for the festival. There’s nothing else for us to do!”
Her brother glanced at her, then sighed, smoke issuing from his nostrils, before shaking his head with a chuckle.
“Very well, little brother. So long as they are wild goats, I will join you.”
As they wheeled and glided over the shoreline, Wu Tian said casually, “Last night, when the Great Ones arrived, I overheard father telling one of them that Ao Shun may show up before the festival ends.”
Wu Zhao and her younger brother snapped their heads to stare at Tian. He had that smug look that so annoyed her.
“What? Ao Shun? Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” blurted Wu Fei.
“If you two weren’t wasting time scaring a pack of faeries, you would’ve heard it as well. It wasn’t exactly a secret.”
“No wonder the elders seemed edgy this morning,” she said. “And I thought they were just cranky because we flew in so late last night.”
“Do you think he’ll really come?” asked Wu Fei as they wheeled in f
ormation to follow the river towards the mountains in the west where they knew goats sometimes foraged. “Will he bring his hong?”
“The other rainbow serpents?” answered Wu Tian. “We don’t even know where father heard he was coming, or if it’s true. I saw Ao Shun once, though.”
“Yes, we know,” she muttered. “Every time his name comes up, you remind us he showed up at the festival when you gained your hunting rights.”
“And that it’s the only time any Colors have seen him at the Cavern in the last fifty years,” added Wu Fei, chuckling. “When Wu Zhao was born.”
Wu Tian continued on as if he hadn’t heard his siblings. “I’ll never forget his face, with that massive scar along his jaw, and those eyes that just stare into you until you’re wet. Or that voice. So deep and so—“
“—And so mesmerizing,” Wu Fei finished with a wink at his sister.
“Well,” Wu Tian said, “the mere suggestion he might show up certainly annoyed the elders.”
“Wouldn’t you love to go fight with him, Zhao?” asked Wu Fei, his black scales glowing briefly in his eagerness. “I’d so love to be out there, dealing justice to those ogres or giants. They certainly deserve it. Maybe even do more to the faeries than just scare them.”
“The faeries aren’t so bad,” Wu Tian said. “At least not King Oberon’s lot.”
“I’d rather travel the stars, like our ancestors did once,” she said wistfully. “Mother says Ao Shun and his rainbow serpents still do.”
“The elders will never let us join Ao Shun or his hong,” said Wu Fei glumly. “You know their mantra: ‘Live and let live, or you will never become an ascended dragon.’ We’ll never be allowed to fight in a real battle.”
“Just like we’ll never be ascended until we’re too old to fight,” she muttered, a hint of bitterness in her voice.
They soared in silence until they reached the mountains and began their last hunt until the festival ended. As they flew off, the other birds gradually abandoned their hiding places rejoining the gulls.
Blood of the Dragon Page 2
