Fifth of Blood

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Yes, you are a dragon. Ladon came around back and closed the rear door. A big, grumpy dragon who needs a nap.

  You need sex. You are grumpier than me. Playing staring games with Rysa does not help your mood. Dragon shook, stretching his big dragon muscles, readying himself for a fight. We must find her talisman so you can be with her.

  Ladon groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Tonight, I will find high ground and watch the campsite. You will sleep and you will not play games with Rysa. The beast snorted as he turned his back to Ladon. Take care of it yourself and do not bother me anymore.

  “Hey!” Ladon said. “That’s not fair!”

  Another snort pulsed through their stream of energy.

  “You like it as much as I do.” Ladon thrust his chin at the parking lot. Rysa had moved the sedan and she’d text when she found the best place to wait.

  When you are with her. Not now.

  Well, I’m sorry you find us annoying. Ladon waved at the theater. How many times over the centuries have you pulsed distractions at me while I was with a woman you didn’t like?

  Dragon walked away, climbing the slope at the side of the steps. Those times were different.

  So? The attitude coming off Dragon gave Ladon a whole new type of headache. One combining with the three-day-old, painful frustration nestled in his groin.

  Dragon huffed again. We have Fates to find.

  “They’re in the theater.” Ladon waved up the steps. A kid walking by looked at him funny, obviously wondering who he was talking to. Ladon tapped his ear, pretending to have an earpiece.

  They will tell us what we need to know. They will not lie to me. Dragon leaped away.

  Ladon followed, frowning. Derek had said they were kids and seeing Dragon might intimidate them so much they’d stop talking altogether.

  What difference does it make if they are children? Dragon jumped, invisible, onto the last set of steps leading up to the theater entrance. Fates are Fates.

  Fates raised in the families were Parcae, bound tightly by their breed’s manipulative ways. But these kids lived outside the major urban areas, where the families held most of their power. Remember what happened when we found Rysa? You warned me not to assume she was bad then. Why is this different? Ladon pushed.

  A new grumble pulsed from the beast. These Fates are not Rysa.

  Ladon pointed at the theater. They may know something, but be careful. Don’t scare them too much.

  Dragon rolled to the side, avoiding a laughing couple as they descended the steps, and stopped outside the entrance, waiting for Ladon to catch up. Hurry. Rysa needs her talisman. The Fates will get away.

  I’m coming! Ladon jumped the steps, three at a time. Run silent, so they don’t sense you.

  Dragon huffed. I know what to do.

  Ladon sidestepped around a woman arguing with her grade school aged child. Enough with the—

  Ladon’s phone blipped. He glanced at it, as irritated by its perpetual buzzing as he was by Dragon’s attitude.

  Stop arguing. They sense you. How the hell did Derek know they argued?

  Another text followed: Rysa says go around to the theater’s mall entrance. I am to follow them inside.

  Ladon peered through the tinted glass surrounding the outside entrance in front of him, seeing Derek stuff his phone into his pocket as he vanished through the interior sliding glass doors.

  Ladon looked down at his phone again. Rysa texted Derek and not him? She should have texted him.

  Ladon felt his cheeks tighten.

  Go. Dragon pushed him toward the other side of the atrium and the main mall entrance.

  Ladon’s fingers gripped the damned phone. I hate malls. Too loud, often with ceilings Dragon couldn’t climb, always full of babbling normals and fake-smelling foods.

  We chase, not purchase. Dragon ran for the other entrance, pulling on the energy connecting Ladon to the beast.

  Their connection sucked at Ladon’s mind, not unlike his overall frustration, a drawing up that felt as if someone was trying to siphon off his life. Or keep his life away from him.

  They had to recover Rysa’s talisman.

  Ladon ran toward the mall entrance.

  Chapter Five

  Derek walked through the door into the theater proper, glancing around and looking for the Fates. No one set off his radar—at least no recognizable Shifters were around. But the three Fates must have moved deep into the theater by now. He sensed no seers.

  The bored and sterile-smelling ticket attendant ripped the little piece of paper and handed back a stub before pointing to the right. “Theater seven,” she said, without making eye contact.

  But Rysa’s text said to go left.

  Derek turned left, ignoring the attendant, and walked with the crowd into a wide hallway studded with doors, each under an electronic sign declaring what movie played inside, and when. People laughed and chatted and tired children whined. The complex smelled of stale sugar and carpet cleaner. The rug under Derek’s boots gripped his soles with a slight hint of stickiness.

  Three boys ran by hitting at each other, with a yelling teenaged girl following behind. Someone’s cell phone rang.

  Derek looked around for the Fates, but no one stood out. He had a clear view of all theater doors, as well as the mall entrance at the end of the corridor, beyond another, smaller lobby. Ladon and Brother-Dragon should be in the mall by now.

  Derek frowned and walked into the first theater, “listening” for seers. The light dropped off and the entrance stretched out into a long, narrow box, one channeling the blaring voices of too-loud advertisements.

  He winced, his ears irritated by the noise. He’d never hear the Fates in here.

  The inside of the theater was nothing more than an arena, but with a massive, overwhelming screen instead of sand and blood. His wife and his brother-in-law had glowered enough about “spectacle” to have Derek wondering if the audiences in the auditoriums were here for the same reasons.

  A woman with a flabby man blinked when she almost ran into Derek. Desire wafted off her as if she were a Shifter enthraller and thick enough the auditorium’s air conditioning did nothing to mask it. But Derek guessed she was just a woman bored with her boorish husband.

  Derek sidestepped around the man. Smiling, he nodded to the woman, his gaze taking her in, appreciating what the man obviously did not. Smooth curves, strong arms, some wrinkles around her eyes adding character to a lovely, if plain, face.

  “Excuse me.” Nodding, Derek kept his eyes on her, and stepped to the side.

  The woman brushed by him and sat, but continued to glance up. The man looked between Derek and his wife, and a flush of anger crept up his neck.

  Derek tipped his hat and stepped back, then exited the auditorium.

  The next two theaters offered the same—loud distractions, fake smells, and too many unappreciated women. Derek stopped in the center of a compass pattern set into the carpet in bright, contrasting blues and oranges, his toes pointed inward, toward the mall, his back to the outside, theaters to his left and right.

  He listened and felt for the telltale vibrations of Fate seers. Pinching his eyes closed, he stood perfectly still, and concentrated. Did they get away? To lose this lead would mean the whole process would take longer. And longer he did not want to take. Rysa’s calling scents did not affect him, but breathing her frustration was becoming irksome. And he missed his wife.

  The Fates hid—but they hid from Ladon, not him. So why couldn’t he find them?

  His phone chirped, doing nothing to ease his annoyance. He looked at the screen. A text from Rysa appeared: Look up.

  Derek lifted his gaze from the phone just as the three teenagers ducked out of the last theater before the mall-side lobby. They moved as one, the boy in the center and flanked by the two girls.

  The boy stopped and pulled the fair-haired twins behind him, and glared at the mall-side exit. A present-seer burst filled the corridor and th
e rustling of paper money crinkled through Derek’s mind.

  For a quick second, all three turned their backs to Derek and looked out the mall entrance.

  A new outside flicker of annoyance popped against Derek’s mind—and he immediately sensed Brother-Dragon was right outside the door.

  Which meant they would run in Derek’s direction, not Ladon’s.

  One of the girls squinted and shuffled backward. A past-seer blipped—metal coins dropping—and she took off, running straight toward Derek.

  The boy grabbed for her, but missed. “Virginia!” he yelled, but she didn’t listen.

  These three had not yet learned to work together.

  The other two turned as well, the future-seeing girl more terrified than the boy. She ran for the mall lobby at high speed.

  Derek twisted to the side, moving quickly, and snagged the one named Virginia around the waist.

  Chapter Six

  The mall door swiped open for Ladon, groaning and jerking, and the building’s filtered air hit his face like a slap. At least ten degrees cooler than outside, the air held a hint of humidity—and cinnamon. A lot of cheap cinnamon.

  And coffee.

  Bad pop music pulsed from speakers hidden somewhere on the high, smooth ceiling. People laughed and yelled into cell phones. The excruciating wireless buzzing thumped against his skull, harder and more violent out here in the open entrance atrium of the mall than in the theater.

  Ladon grimaced.

  It is not Derek’s fault he is the only one who can be near Rysa right now. Dragon climbed the inner wall of the mall entrance, moving quickly across the hanging light fixtures. You should not be jealous that Rysa texted him first. Garish advertising banners wavered as the beast flicked his tail and moved between them.

  Ladon held in a groan. Focus on the task. He glanced over his shoulder and through the doors at the theater atrium, just visible across the outside walk.

  Derek misses Sister-Human.

  Dragon hung upside down on the wall above some little store hawking smashed up fruit mixed with painful sweeteners, his back talons gouging the fake adobe concrete. Bits of desert-colored paint flecked onto the unsuspecting normals who moved under him. One glanced up, completely unaware of the one-ton beast hanging over her head, and swatted at imaginary flies.

  Be careful.

  Dragon ignored his comment and pulled himself up the wall above the storefront. He sprawled over a huge banner showcasing some action movie playing in the theaters, and the sunglass-covered face of a movie star stared down at Ladon from the beast’s back.

  The walls are not solid. Creaks echoed and the fiberboard under Dragon’s talons ripped. The beast undulated around two teenagers with their hands in each other’s back pockets as he dropped to the floor.

  Ladon watched, his back tense and his body ready to create a distraction.

  But no one noticed the new holes in the giant face above their heads.

  Normals rarely noticed things they couldn’t explain.

  Dragon danced into the center of the wide open area outside the theater entrance, dodging people and a big, triangular “You Are Here” kiosk. Storefronts lined each side of the area, a few of them shuttered, most quiet and lonely. Stairs and escalators dropped to a lower level in the center of the open area. The entire circle was enclosed by a waist-high railing painted in the same dull desert tone as the rest of the building, and on the other side, the theater’s interior lobby opened into the mall.

  And directly ahead of them, inside the theater doors, three Fates all turned as one.

  All three gave Ladon the finger.

  “Brats.” Ladon ran and closed the distance fast.

  But the Fates separated, one running right for him, one back into the theater, and one for the escalators to the lower level.

  If one gets away, they will bring reinforcements. But Ladon couldn’t split from Dragon.

  And the little shits knew it.

  They probably already have. Dragon leaped over a woman with a stroller and ran for the boy, who sprinted for the exterior door. We may meet their parents soon.

  Nothing more fun than a Fate family reunion.

  Ladon jumped a bench and planter and ran after the girl headed for the escalators. The familiar needles in his nerves started, raking across his skin as if someone had laid a burning blanket of nettles over his body, but he pushed forward anyway. They’d catch at least two of these Fates.

  But he slowed. The world whipped. Dragon’s perceptions were too dissimilar from Ladon’s own, and his mind reeled. The beast’s grumpiness made the stretching more difficult for him to accommodate. Their usual distance shortened.

  Ladon pulled up short as sudden nausea twisted his gut into a hell-filled balloon. Vertigo set in. Up wasn’t up anymore and the wrongness of the world’s directionality screamed in his ears. Screamed like burning nettles on his skin—an evil voice reminding him that he was nothing more than a half of a whole.

  The boy turned around, jogging backward, and grinned like the little fucker he was.

  All we need is one. Dragon wasn’t letting up. I am close.

  Ladon glowered at the boy. The kid stumbled but caught himself, and ran in the other direction, deep into the mall.

  Ladon spun, moving as fast as he could muster, and sprinted toward the escalators. Dragon had managed to back the girl against the railing and she burst future-seer pulses at his invisible form, hoping, Ladon guessed, to find some way around the beast. She twitched, trying to dodge what she couldn’t see but knew was in front of her. Passersby grimaced, and most looked away.

  A new pulse jangled off her and she rushed toward the escalators again. She jumped a planter, dancing along its inner edge, between the pointy tree and the railing. Then she did something Ladon never expected from a Fate. One foot hit a bench. Her hands dropped to the railing. And this triad’s future-seer jumped to the floor below.

  Ladon leaned over the railing. The girl looked up. She’d landed on the down escalator.

  The girl ran down the steps and deeper into the interior of the lower level.

  The drop wasn’t more than twenty feet where he stood, and Ladon knew he’d land hard, but he wouldn’t break anything. Most likely.

  No! Your rib is still fragile. Dragon snarled and the noise rolled through the open area, bouncing off the storefronts. Rysa is not here to heal you.

  The future-seer screamed.

  Everyone nearby—all the normals in the stores and in the open area—all stopped walking. They all stopped talking. And they all stared.

  Derek walked through the theater doors, the future-seer’s twin in front of him.

  People might not be able to see the beast, but they could hear him. And here, unlike most grocery stores, he couldn’t hang from the ceiling girders.

  Another scream burst up from below. Ladon’s nose twitched.

  He smelled calling scents.

  Chapter Seven

  The future-seer screamed again. Her eyes bulged and she retched and dropped to her knees in front of Rysa, dry-heaving like some drunk sorority chick who’d already puked up all the crumbs she’d fit into her skinny little gut. “What the fuck…” Beautifully cut blonde hair fell in graceful curls around her heavily made-up face.

  She looked like she’d been constructed from photographs.

  Rysa circled, staying about ten feet away—far enough so the girl didn’t pass out, but close enough that Rysa’s out-of-control calling scents made her very, very uncomfortable.

  The girl should have seen not to take the escalator down. No one shopped down here. Most of the storefronts on this side of the mall were closed. They were alone, except for the people upstairs, who were, for the most part, too far away from Rysa for her calling scents to affect them.

  Rysa and the girl stood in a small area of carpet between the stairs and the escalators. A plastic tree jutted out halfway over the spot. Faded vines and ugly giant flowers decorated the carpet under their feet. To the sid
e, a huge fiberglass ladybug with seats for parental backsides waited all by itself. Rysa’s always-on seers dropped the truth—this place, not too long ago, was full of happy cries and climbing children.

  The girl had never played here. Her clothes were too nice. That little bag with the thin leather strap she wore over her shoulder looked designer.

  These kids had coin.

  This close to the girl, Rysa’s seers cut through all her decreased abilities and I-need-my-talisman randomness. Finally, she accessed some useful information.

  Her past-seer pulled up the dramatic high points of this girl’s life—growing up in California, in a rich community, in a huge designer house on a designer beach. Pouting and whining and throwing designer toys when her parents set about to move her to Santa Fe. Tears were shed—salty, horrible tears of a child who believed her world had just ended, her twin sister echoing her agony. They worked each other into frantic balls of anger who thrashed and thrashed.

  Therapists and medications followed.

  Anger pulsed inside Rysa—anger and a complete lack of sympathy, though she knew this girl’s life wasn’t all that different from her own.

  But then they’d stepped off the plane into their new home and were met at baggage pick-up by another family. One the girl’s parents had known for a very long time.

  A family with a boy exactly the same age as her and her sister.

  Things were different after that.

  “I can feel your seers drilling into my head! And how…” The girl—her name was Montana. Rysa’s past-seer had picked that up, too. “…how come I didn’t see you?”

  Because your boyfriend can’t stitch up the present the way I can, Rysa thought. She sniffed and crossed her arms. “Unlike you, I am Prime.”

  The girl’s mouth dropped open. “You’re a Shifter.” The venom curled around the last word would kill a bear if it could be condensed out of the air and painted onto a dart.

  Rysa stepped toward the girl, shaving about two feet off the distance between them. The girl gagged.