by Richard Amos
Screw feelings! I didn’t want them, not like this.
“Cool it,” I told myself. I was supposed to be in bad-arse mode.
I shouldn’t have gotten ready so quick, stuck in this room with the fae book. Except, I wasn’t trapped here—I was free to go downstairs, upstairs, or wherever the hell I wanted.
Dean could be in the hallway right now. His bedroom was next to mine. Bollocks! I was trapped … by my own stupidity.
I went to the door, my ear pressed against the wood. I’d hear him moving. He wouldn’t linger out there, just stroll across the carpet to the stairs and go wherever. Unless … unless he was lingering right now. Oh, crap! He could be waiting outside my door, preparing himself to come in again for another go at me. Warmth rushed to my groin. No! I’d just cried my eyes out over this like the hot mess I am. I didn’t want another round.
My palms my sweaty, my mouth dry, and I couldn’t hear anything outside in the hall. He wasn’t there. He was—
Hurried footsteps, boots on plush carpet. Bloody hell.
I backed away from the door and licked my lips. Damn my slutty self for wanting more. This was the power’s fault!
My door flung open. It was Greg. “You need to get downstairs right now.”
Everyone was in the dining room, suited and booted to go with dire expressions on their faces.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A sudden surge in rituals,” Karla said, “all out in the open. Sabrina West has just informed me of one happening right now in Greenoaks. Three people have been burned at the stake right outside a stationery shop.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Rose called,” Nay said, “about one going down in Mystique Square right now, and down on the beach. More burnings at the stake.”
Anger bubbled up. “Then we shut them down.”
“High beast activity readings at Coldharbour Station,” Greg added, “at the city farm, at a leisure center in the east, at the warehouses we were at last night, stuff happening north, east, south and west—the whole city.”
“All rituals?”
“I think so, mate.”
“Then the white eyed guy lied. The window is closed?”
“Not necessarily,” Karla said. “This is just a terrible reminder of her gathering strength. We need at act now, right now.”
“But the people,” I said. “They need us. They’re seeing all of this!”
“There is nothing we can do right now,” Karla said. “We have to hope Lilisian is as weak as we have been informed, and destroy her once and for all. The magic of the city will have to be enough to help them not see.”
“How?” I said. “People are being burned alive in public places!”
“All messes can be cleared in good time.”
I was shoved over a cliff edge into a raging wind. “What the actual fuck? You’re that heartless? That’s it, just let them get on with it?”
“Jake,” Greg said.
“Don’t even come at me with the greater good shit, because I don’t want to hear it. People out there are dying because I failed to protect Luke and set those shadows free and they freed her.” Every inch of me was hot, blazing with fury. I was actually sweating with rage. “I owe it to them.”
“You—”
“No! I owe it to—”
“Jake!” Greg boomed. “What do you think will happen next then, eh? There’ll be more than burnings. Shit will hit the fan like we’ve never seen before. Why do you think she was stopped the first time? She was gonna destroy us.”
“So, you lost almost everyone,” I snapped, not meaning to.
His amber eyes blazed, his hands balling into fists. “Fuck you, Jake. If we hadn’t, you’d be dead, the world overrun. Don’t stand there and mouth off when you have no idea, because you don’t. Not one clue, mate. You could never understand what we lost.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, averting his eyes from me.
The raging winds had put me back on the cliff, my anger receding. What could I say? I jumped right in and mouthed off—a skill of mine.
“This is the nature of the city,” Karla said. “There has to be sacrifice of the few in order to save the many. What comes next has to be the destruction of the Supreme beast. That is all there is. People are slain every day that we cannot save, and this is no different.”
I’d forgotten about the people in Hamlet Station—that abandoned place in the north east of the city. I, the one getting all indignant about leaving people to die, had let them slip through my mind because life was going on away from them. They were far away and out of sight.
I was a bloody hypocrite. Without a word, I lowered my head like an obedient weapon and awaited my orders.
“Jake?” Karla said.
I shook my head.
No one said anything else directly to me. I didn’t want them to. This was my job, and this was what feelings did—they made you look like a dick and stung like a bitch too. I needed to expel all this at some stage, boil myself down to the basics of a weapon and be a killing machine, save Coldharbour, kill the white eye guy and then disappear to some isolated corner of the world and live out my days alone. I drove people to hate me, like Michael. My guardians would follow. I’d set Greg on the path now. What a prat to think I could have really cool friends.
Yeah, we all needed to strip it back.
You drama queen!
Piss off!
That was the thing with anger. One minute you’re on the rage cloud, then you tumble all the way down to the swamp of feeling like utter crap.
I lifted my head, rolled my neck. If I was gonna be a weapon, then I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and whining. It did no one any good. Screw the swamp, I was ready to bust heads.
“We leaving now?” I asked.
“Yes,” Karla answered. “Everything is set for your departure.” She hesitated. “Be safe, be swift.”
My sparks flashed to life.
A roar ripped through the night outside.
“What the hell?” I commented.
Dean was off, tearing out of the dining room in the direction of the front doors. I followed with Greg and Nay.
The roar came again, otherworldly and terrifying.
Cold wind rushed into the main hallway of the mansion as I tore across the floor toward the open doors. Dean was looking up.
“Holy fuck,” he said as I stopped next to him.
I looked where he looked and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“That can’t be,” I said.
“Oh, crap,” Nay added.
“It’s …” I couldn’t say it.
“No way,” Greg said.
“Talk to me,” Karla said from behind me, arriving on the scene.
“A … a … dragon,” I answered.
“Excuse me?”
The dragon was a reddish orange, a glowing beacon set against the dark sky. It was huge, I mean really bloody huge. Its wings were the length of a swimming pool, its mouth big and scary with green eyes of fire in its head, and talons jutting from its hands and feet that did not look at all pleasant.
“A dragon,” I said. “A beast dragon.”
“It’s heading for Rainbow Mile!” Dean cried.
Chapter Nine
“What do we do?” I’d just resigned myself to the whole greater good angle, but now the game had changed once again.
No one was answering me. “Come on, people! What we gonna do?”
“A dragon,” Karla said.
“For God’s sake!” I charged off to Greg’s blue Audi hatchback. I couldn’t drive.
Greg was at my side within seconds. “What you doing?”
“Got your attention,” I said.
The dragon’s roar cracked the night.
“We can’t go to the gates with that on the loose,” I said. “You know we can’t.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Shit!”
Nay and Dean joined us.
&
nbsp; “No!” Karla called. “You need to head to the beast realm. It is the only way.”
The cannons, built around the mansion, came to life, lasers pointing at the main gates.
I turned to see the piggies gathering. There must have been about twenty of them.
“What now?”
The wards flashed red in resistance to their presence.
“JAKE!” That voice … it made my skin crawl.
“Purple,” Dean said.
Together, we hurried to the mansion gates.
The piggies, carrying with them two bound and gagged men and two women, fanned out in a semi-circle. And at the heart of it was Purple, a wicked smirk on her face.
“You’ve changed your hair,” I said.
It was now a sleek bob of purple.
“Yes,” she said. “Thanks for noticing.”
“Makes you look really plain.”
She giggled. “I didn’t come here to spar.”
“Then get out of here,” I retorted.
She clicked her fingers and the piggies threw the people onto the road.
I went to run forward. Dean grabbed me before I’d made two steps.
I pulled against him. “Get the fuck out of here!” I spat at the enemy.
The dragon roar was thunder. I could still see it, slowly making its way down to Rainbow Mile.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Purple said. “She is Her Majesty’s special creature.”
I pulled harder for freedom, Dean not relinquishing his grasp. “Thought that was you.”
That made her smirk falter a little. “Your days are numbered.”
“That’s great. Can you piss off now?”
The piggies threw liquid over the people, whose screams were muffled by the gags.
“The fire will burn through Winter,” Purple said. “We give blood and fire to Lilisian, our Supreme beast, our queen, our divine one. She is risen, she is coming.”
A piggy stabbed a blade into one of the men’s chest. Blood spurted as the blade was withdrawn.
I let out my own version of a roar and broke free of Dean’s hold.
“Jake!” he yelled.
They all yelled my name—my guardians—but I was out of the wards and diving on top of the piggy with the blade. It went down easily, dropping the weapon, squealing in shock. I grabbed its head and went into the fog.
Oh, crap! Once this swine was dead, I’d be back out in the real world, surrounded by more piggies and Purple.
Purple … That bitch!
I cracked my knuckles and extinguished the beast’s essence.
Golden shards fell off me as I moved quickly. All my training had done wonders for my reflexes. A piggy was on me, jaws wide and ready to crush my head. I slid out of the way and grabbed the fucker by the head, killing it.
Back in the thick if it again, the piggies were going crazy with their squealing. There were amber ribbons swirling all over the place. It was a pretty sight, but it didn’t stop them fighting with their nasty blade knuckles.
Crunch went a skull under Greg’s ferocious fists. Bang went a potion thrown by Nay, sending piggies hurtling down the sloped road. And Dean pulled out one of his graceful moves, leaping onto the shoulders of one piggy, delivering a kick to its face and then leaping to the next one, breaking its neck between his legs. It wasn’t dead because it couldn’t die that way. That only lasted until I killed it proper.
More piggies were coming up the road, streams of the bastards. Hyena beasts ran alongside them to join the action.
“Get behind the wards, Jake!” Greg roared.
Before I could protest, not prepared to leave them to it, something sharp went into my back.
I gasped and didn’t expel the air I sucked in, pain blooming.
“Jake!” Dean cried.
The blade was driven deeper. It pierced my left lung. I could feel it burst through.
Hot breath on my neck, laced with the scent of violets. “Yes, Jake. Get behind the wards.”
It was Purple.
I was too busy being skewered to come back at her with an insult.
“I’ll—” She was cut off by a vial breaking at her feet.
Purple smoke engulfed us—fitting as she was the queen of all things purple. It was that laughing gas Nay had used on the hyena beasts many times.
I got a hit myself. Purple was shrieking with laughter, letting go of the blade inside me. I joined in, my lung screaming in protest as I lost my shit to a joke that hadn’t been told.
I doubled over, tears streaming down my face, chest on fire, stomach throbbing. It wasn’t just a laughing fit, but a screaming of hilarity. Man, it hurt like hell.
Another vial broke and more gas was released. The hyenas lost it, the piggies too. I wanted to cover my ears from the awful shrieking. My belly needed my hands as it was about to rip apart from the deathly giggles. Blood was pouring down my back from my stab wound. That was the second time she’d got me with a blade. I so needed to pay her back. She just had a habit of evading me, making appearances at really annoying moments like now.
An angel had come and kissed it all better, that angel being my healing magic. Green energy bathed me in its merciful light, undoing the effects of the potion and lessening the pain in my lung. It would hit me every thirty seconds until I was fixed up.
Greg was on me. He threw me over his shoulder and slammed his way through the laughing mass, carrying me back into the safety of the mansion grounds like the ferocious golem he was.
He laid me on the grass. It was cold and wet on my back. “I can stand.”
There was concern all over his face. “You all right?”
“I’m fine. Really.”
Another burst of green light came to confirm my answer.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I said.
He offered me a hand and helped me up. I didn’t need it, but it was such a kind gesture—Greg was all about the kind gestures and being the awesome friend. And I’d been an arse to him. God, I was … now was not the time for this.
Dean and Nay joined us.
“Is he safe?” Karla screamed, hurrying over. Mr. Douglas was with her, brandishing a shotgun.
“I’m okay, Karla,” I said as more healing magic kicked in. I was almost back to a hundred percent.
“Thank goodness! Why did you do that? You should never be so reckless with your life!”
I didn’t know how to answer her. I wanted to help those people. It was a fool’s move in the extreme. The outcome could’ve been really, really crap. Ha! That was an understatement.
“I’m sorry,” I said pathetically.
Dean’s face was full of dark rage. I was waiting for a verbal tirade about how stupid I was. It didn’t come. Still didn’t stop him staring, or lessen the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
The laughing fit continued beyond the wards. I looked to the sky—the dragon was gone.
“The people,” I said. “Where are they? We have to …” No. I couldn’t see them. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Greg said.
Damn.
“Time to remove these invaders,” Mr. Douglas said.
Seconds later, with all of us back in the safe zone, the cannons went wild. They spat bullets at the beasts. I watched their flesh tear apart, blood and bodily juices spray up against the wards. The cannons were unrelenting in their assault until there wasn’t a single figure left standing.
Not dead, but all of those beasts were gonna have a really hard time putting themselves back together again. Their essence would be trapped or would be lost, trying to find a new shell which wasn’t always easy and depended on the level of the beast—Lesser, Gentry or Regal. The lower the level, the less the beast could do. Lilisian was a Supreme beast, way up there in the hierarchy.
“I will seal these remains in lead boxes until you return,” Mr. Douglas said. “Those who remain within their bodies will be awaiting your deathly touch, Mr. Winter.”
�
��Thanks,” I said.
“Come on,” Greg said. “We have to go.”
“Straight to the Industrial Quarter,” Karla said. “She has to be stopped.”
“Yeah,” Greg replied, opening the driver door of the Audi.
I got in the front with him. “Seriously? We’re not going after the dragon?”
He revved the engine. “You think I’m leaving the people of this city to burn?”
“We can’t,” Nay added. “Even if this is Lilisian’s work. There may not be any city to come back to.”
“Exactly,” Greg said.
“Karla’s gonna be pissed off in the extreme.”
“She wants this to end.” Greg sped off down the driveway. “Kill the root. But the game’s changed.”
I wanted to hug him. We’d stop that flying lizard beast of Hell. “I’m so sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wouldn’t.” Here came the unleashed tongue. “You’re such a good friend to me. You all are.” Dean was … I wouldn’t go there. “And I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I friggin’ love you, man! You’re like the brother I never had. I don’t want to spoil that. I’m so sorry. You have to know I am.” What the hell? I clearly hadn’t heard of a thing called overkill. “I love you and Nay and D-D-Dean.” I winced at the last name. So much for transforming into an unfeeling creature.
“Aw,” Nay said.
“I’m sorry, Nay. If I hurt you.”
She leaned forward and squeezed my shoulder. “I know, babe. I love you too.”
Greg was silent, staring straight ahead at the road.
Crap. I’d really gone and done it with the waffling. Why couldn’t I just shut up?
Greg’s muscular arm shot out and curled around my neck. He had me in a headlock. The big bloke pulled me to him, driving one-handed. Yeah, he was cutting off my airway.
“You sappy git.” He kissed me on the head and let me go. I flopped back into my seat. “Course I know that, Jakey. Things are crazy. You’re my little buddy, one of the sacred circle. I love ya, mate.”
“This is one loved up car,” Dean said.
Greg snorted.
