“What does it feel like?” he asked with wonder.
“I don’t know. It’s just pulsing.”
“Does it do anything?”
“I don’t know,” Mako repeated.
“If you put it up next to the door does it do anything?”
“I don’t know anything about this Erik. Stop asking questions.”
However, she didn’t have a better idea. Mako held it in her hand up toward the door. The glass oval glowed brighter and began to burn her hand. She dropped it when she pulled her hand back from the door. It fell to the floor, bouncing off the bottom step, rolling, and stopping at the door. Mako had to rub her eyes to make sure she was actually seeing what she was seeing. It lifted itself off the floor and began floating in mid-air. Erik and Mako stared at it, waiting for it to move. The oval hung there in the middle of the door exactly where it had been.
“Should we touch it again?” Erik asked.
“That’s a stupid question. If we don’t touch it, it isn’t going anywhere. Since it is not opening the door, what else do you suggest?” Mako asked him.
“Just pick it up again. Maybe it’s a key,” Erik suggested, undeterred by her annoyance.
“It was getting hot and started to burn my hand. That’s why I dropped it.”
“Oh.”
Mako chewed her bottom lip as she thought about her options. She didn’t feel like wasting all evening on this door. Reaching her hand out slowly, she attempted to touch the oval. She was prepared for the burning sensation this time. Mako held her breath and grabbed the glass orb. It was cool to the touch this time. The same pulsing amber light was still inside it.
“Push the door now?” Erik offered.
Mako decided he wasn’t being super helpful but refrained from saying so. She was already going to do that. She found a divot where the light orb had come from. It happened to be the same size as the glass ball she held.
This was too obvious for Mako. She tried to look into the little divot it had created, but it didn’t go through the door. She pushed at the door now that the amber oval was out of it. The door refused to budge. Mako would never admit defeat to Erik, but she couldn’t think of anything else. Persuading the door to open by asking it nicely didn’t seem like it was going to work. She glared back at Erick as she placed the glass into the tiny hole it had created. This time it stayed cool to the touch. The pulsing didn’t even get brighter. Mako knew she hadn’t imagined the burning sensation. The orb locked into place and the door swung open of its own accord.
Both of them stood there looking into the door. There were large open display cases everywhere. There were so many little knickknacks on the shelves that things were falling off and sitting on the floor. On one shelf were little vials of scented oils and lamps to go with them. On the shelf directly below, there were towels in all sorts of colors and textures. The other side held candles on top and what she could only assume were picture frames stacked together. The shelf beyond this held tiny figurines that looked like someone had taken a lot of time, energy, and effort to paint and position. Looking at the wall directly across from them, Mako saw a wall of books and papers and folders in no particular order that she could discern. Someone had obviously stacked it all in the built-in bookshelf and left it there. There was a pile on the floor that was starting to grow to the point it was ready to topple over. Although there seemed to be no order to this place, Mako realized that everything was perfectly clean and pristine.
The smell was what drew Mako’s attention most. It smelled like magic. She was half expecting to have a full apothecary sitting in the far corner of Akor’s Sundries. Who owned a shop that no human could get into anyway?
“This is it, you did it,” Erik said smiling.
“Since the door handed us the key, it wasn’t that hard,” Mako said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Erik chuckled from behind her. Mako tried to ignore him and stepped through the doorway. The reaction was immediate. Power surged through her. Lightning sparked from one side of her body to the other. She could feel Erik’s hand on her shoulder, but she couldn’t make her arm move to bat him away. She actually felt the glass orb drop out of the door and hit the ground. The second it hit the floor she had a choking sensation. Her power rebelled. Mako fought back this time. She wasn’t getting electrocuted again. One of these two had to be a lightning dragon. Her arms rippled with scales. She was a more powerful dragon than Erik. She could take him. She tried to turn to face him, prepared to take out her threat. If she incapacitated Erik he couldn’t shock her anymore.
“That was quicker than expected.”
One dragon at a time. Take out the weaker one first, Mako told herself. She couldn’t deal with Akor right now.
Erik’s hand on her shoulder gently guided her forward. Her feet moved with his direction. How, when she couldn’t make her own body move, did he do it for her? He was guiding her somewhere.
“This should help her,” Akor said and placed something over her neck.
He was planning on trapping her! How dare he? Mako raised her hand to grab at whatever was on her neck. She could drop it easily enough but moving her hand up to her neck was almost impossible. No, that wasn’t true. She could move easily. Erik’s hand on her shoulder was allowing him to move her where he wanted. If Erik’s connection was allowing her to move with ease, she wasn’t going to waste the movement going where they wanted. Akor was ten feet away and coming towards her. Mako tried her best to focus.
He was coming closer. Mako counted down in her head.
Three… two… one…
She launched herself at Akor. Erik was not prepared for the sudden movement. He was pulled off his feet and landed face first on the floor.
Akor, however, calmly put his hand out with two fingers extended. His fingers connected with her forehead and Mako froze in mid-jump. She had never met a dragon that could do that. There was no ice to accompany the frozen. There was no air keeping her up. It was two of his fingers placed on her forehead. She was literally frozen.
“Erik that was your fault. Lead her back that way.”
Erik didn’t respond. Mako glared at Akor. She was fully aware of what was happening as she watched Akor remove his fingers from her forehead.
“I need your help,” he said in a calm voice that did nothing but aggravate her more. Akor placed something around her neck and Mako found she couldn’t even look down to see what it was. “When you wake up you will feel better.”
Mako had all of a moment to wonder what he was talking about before his fingers were back on her forehead and she blacked out.
Five
Everything hurt. Her arm felt heavy as she brought it up to rub her head, but Mako was grateful she could move it. She felt sick to her stomach. Mako opened her eyes to see a blurry room. She was in a bed. That much she knew but where was the bed? This room also smelled like magic. The room was decorated with such earthy tones she knew it was Erik’s. The stack of gardening books on the little wooden desk would have been a dead giveaway.
Mako found herself smiling. He’d also grown vines inside the room all up and down the walls. The closet was a giant mirror and reflected those vines, as well as the ones growing along its edges. Maybe Akor was training him to use his abilities and this was the result of his practice. She wished she had found someone to train her. Persuasion couldn’t show outwardly like this. She didn’t think a half dragon could be this powerful though. If they were, the Red Dragon council would have stepped in sooner and protected them, as well.
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Mako jumped off the bed. The realization that she was lying in Erik’s bed after being frozen by Akor, then passing out was starting to register in her brain. She was going to be on her guard from here on out.
She had her shorts on, her tank top on, money in her pockets…. All of it…. The only thing missing was her shoes and her hair was no longer in a ponytail. Mako looked around the room twice before she was forced to admit to
herself that she would have to search elsewhere for her shoes. This would result in having to talk to Erik and that was something she didn’t want to do. If Akor had them…. Anger surfaced, hot and fast. As soon as it did, something on her chest glowed. She looked down to see the little amber pulsing glass ball, connected to a chain. Wrapped around the chain was a tiny silver dragon. It was holding onto the glass and curving up, so the chain connected to its head and the tail wrapped around the bottom of the glass. How had Akor put the glass oval on a necklace? Mako pulled at it to snap the chain. Nothing happened. She could take it off instead.
She pulled it up and over her head, expecting it to come loose as soon as it cleared her head. Something stopped her hand. It was stuck in her hair. That was all. She pulled with her other hand at a different angle, harder this time. The same thing happened.
Now Mako was panicking. She put it back around her throat and pulled that way. Still, nothing happened. She couldn’t remove the necklace.
Crapbaskets! What is this thing? She thought.
She was going to have to get Akor to take it off. The knowledge hit her like a ton of bricks. She was not asking that dragon for anything. Maybe Erik knew how to remove it. He did know another way into the shop. The thought of never seeing inside Ash Maker’s Sundries again should have filled her with glee. Instead, she felt like she was going to miss it. Even if he was being a jerk and gave her a necklace she couldn’t take off, Akor appeared to know more about dragons than she did. She would be passing up on her own kind to go back to her lifestyle… as a human.
Mako took a deep breath. She had not been around other dragons for most of her life and the desire to know more about them was too much to pass up. She found it odd that Akor wasn’t ushering her out the door as fast as possible. That’s what her previous experiences had taught her. Dragons didn’t want other dragons anywhere near their stuff. One did not just wander into another dragon’s territory without warning. Maybe Akor was crazy. He scared her. She didn’t know what kind of dragon he was, but no one she had ever met could stop someone so completely like that. First things first, she had to get this necklace off and find her shoes.
She assumed the doorway to Erik’s bedroom would lead to the greenhouse. It did not. When she opened the plain wooden door, she found herself looking at the interior of the Ash Maker’s Sundries. She was right next to the counter. Since humans weren’t allowed down here anyway, she didn’t understand why he even had a checkout counter. The glass cover over it was sparkling and pristine, like everything else. She moved behind it in an attempt to hide. She didn’t need Akor coming down here and freezing her again.
Mako tried to figure out where she was in this store. With all the tall shelves and knickknacks everywhere, it was like a maze in here. A well-organized maze, but she didn’t know which way the exit was. She was going to head left but felt a pull at her neck. Looking down she realized the necklace was pulling her towards the right side of the store. Mako blinked down at the glowing amber necklace. She had never owned a magical trinket before. She was trying to figure out what to do when she heard footsteps coming from the right side of the store. The building couldn’t be that big. If all the shelves were gone, she should be able to see the basement of the diner from here. The footsteps seemed further away than that. Something was wrong with this building. Now that she knew Akor could do things no other dragon could do, she placed the blame solely on his shoulders. It was his fault she was down here. It was his fault she had this necklace on.
Then she heard music. It was some punk rock band she thought she recognized. It had to be Erik. Thank goodness. He might know how to get this thing off.
She waited until he sounded close enough to her before coming out from behind the counter. Apparently, sound carried in here differently than in other buildings because she misjudged his distance by a longshot. Erik didn’t seem to see her. His head was hidden in a book and he had earbuds in his ears.
Mako sighed and walked up to him. She pulled out one of his earbuds and he finally looked up at her.
“Oh, you’re awake,” he said a little too brightly for her taste.
“Yes, I am. Where are my shoes and why do I still have this?” she demanded, pulling at her necklace.
Erik cleared his throat. “I didn’t know about the shoes. But that is probably tied to you now.”
Mako wanted to slap him. “I don’t care. I want it off. Why doesn’t it come off?”
“What do you mean it doesn’t come off?” he asked, deflated.
Mako groaned in frustration.
“Look!” she pulled the necklace over her head but again it refused to be removed.
“Cool…. I mean… not cool,” Erik corrected, taking note of Mako’s glare of anger.
“How do you get it off?” she bit out.
“I don’t know, but Akor might have something to say about it. I didn’t end up with a trinket when he wanted to know about my powers.” Erik reached out to take her hand and Mako pulled it away.
“No, I’m not talking to him. I want shoes and I’m leaving.”
Erik blinked at her like she was crazy. “You can’t just leave.”
“I can, and I will. Do you have shoes I can have?”
“We can find a shirt too if you are cold,” he offered. “This way.”
Erik led her around some shelving. At least he knew where he was going in this maze.
“There are more clothes down here than before,” he said more to himself than to her.
Mako rolled her eyes at him and took in the set of clothing racks. There were only six of them all neatly laid out and obviously sized.
“So, he has a magical inventory?”
“That’s one word for it. There weren’t any women’s clothes here before, but we’ve never had a need for it,” Erik laughed at her. He started flipping through the shirts on the nearest rack. He pulled out a V-neck t-shirt with flowers and circles on it, and another with a peace sign.
“Oh, please, no childish clothing,” Mako groaned. She shook her head at the next two options and finally started going through clothes herself. Erik had great taste for Erik, but she was going to find something in this mess of stuff that she liked.
She finally gave up and settled on a white button-up shirt and a camisole for underneath. Then she set her sights on finding some shoes. After much searching everywhere, Erik thought there could be clothes, they found that there were no shoes in the entire store.
“What the crapbaskets?” Mako asked out loud. “Why would he take all the shoes?”
“I have some in my room you could probably borrow.”
“Why didn’t you say so before?” Mako demanded.
She followed him back into his room. He pulled open his closet door, and Mako glanced at herself in the mirror when he moved it in her view. She blinked at herself. She was glowing. She could see her own glow. The light coming off her was a dim amber, like the necklace. She touched the necklace tentatively and shivered.
“What happened to me?” she whispered. “Why would the necklace make me glow?”
“It probably has something to do with how your persuasion power reacts to it. How do you persuade people to do things? Is it tell them to do it or-”?
Mako’s glare cut him off. She couldn’t go outside glowing. What did that dragon do to her? Akor was going to pay, stopping power be damned.
“Calm down Mako. You won’t do yourself any good by getting worked up about it. I’ve played his games before. He probably has something up his sleeve.” Erik said to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.
The contact snapped her out of her thoughts. At least he wasn’t sparking her anymore.
“Can you try and remove this first then?” she asked him as sweetly as possible. If his half-dragon power allowed him to resist her persuasion, Mako could still rely on good old female charm.
Erik shrugged.
“I can try but I can’t promise anything.”
To his credit, he paused be
fore he touched her necklace. Looking her in the eye he took a deep breath and pulled lightly. Nothing happened. Even a regular necklace wouldn’t have snapped with that strength.
“You’re going to have to pull harder than that,” she said as sweetly as she could muster.
“I wanted to make sure that nothing weird was going to happen if I messed with it,” he explained.
“You have a point. Alright. Try for real this time.”
Erik pulled with enough strength this time that she felt the chain mark her neck and knew it would be red when she finally got this thing off. Still, the necklace stayed. She had to squash every ounce of pride she had to bow her head, as much as she didn’t want to. She only did it so he could lift it over her head. The same thing happened. This necklace was stuck to her and there was no getting it off. Mako wanted to take the thing and throw it because she was so angry. If it didn’t come off, she couldn’t throw it.
“I guess we are going to have to see him,” Erik mused. “I did find your slippers though. I don’t think you will fit in my tennis shoes. I didn’t realize my feet were so much bigger than yours.”
Mako sighed. “Fine. Give me the slippers. Let’s go find him.”
Erik handed her a pair of little blue fluffy slippers with bunny ears on the top. She raised her eyebrow at him. Beggars can’t be choosers she reminded herself.
“Bunnies?”
“Well I got them for my birthday and they work as intended. I don’t go anywhere except the diner anyway,” he retorted. He left the room to give her some privacy.
Mako pulled the camisole over her head and shrugged into the shirt. She was glad the shirt hung down over the top of her shorts once it was buttoned. She slid her feet in the slippers without further complaint. Then she joined Erik, who was waiting for her, back into the shop.
“Do you really sleep in there, or is that some guest bedroom? What time is it, anyway? And where were you planning on sleeping tonight if I was still passed out?”
Scales and Flames Page 29
