Of Dreams and Dragons

by Karpov Kinrade

I sigh. "Fine, but you have to stay in your room reading a book, remember?"

  He looks at me, then Pat, then me again. "Why's Blake sleeping on the couch?"

  "Kyle, go to bed. Please." I'm trying not to let my frustration show, but this has been the day from hell already, and I'm afraid it's just going to get worse.

  "Okay, fine." He finally leaves, and I hope he's not spying in the other room. There are some things a kid his age doesn't need to know.

  I turn back to Pat, lowering my voice. "Tell me everything. Now. Or I swear to god I will beat you with this bat and not think twice." He flinches at the threat and I press my advantage, remembering his fear of me yesterday. "Who is Pike? What deal did you make?"

  Pat looks ready to run again, but seeing my resolution, he reconsiders and slumps into a kitchen chair. "It was… just a favor."

  "What kind of favor?" I ask, raising the bat a little higher.

  "I was in trouble, all right? Bad trouble." He sighs, acting the consummate victim. "Some people wanted money from me. Said I owed them for a deal gone bad, but they knew there was a chance of that from the start—"

  "Stop making excuses for once in your miserable life!"

  "Look… these people, they were trouble. And Mr. Pike, he made the trouble go away."

  I scowl at him. "How?"

  "I don't know," he says. "You don't ask questions. That's his way. He fixes it, and that's all you need to know."

  “And what did you offer in return?"

  "I… " he pauses, biting down on his lips.

  "What?" My voice is cold, low, scary.

  He doesn't answer. He looks away, avoiding eye contact.

  "What!" I raise my voice and the bat.

  Spittle flies out of his mouth as he talks. "You gotta understand. I would have been killed. They would have killed me, and then where would we all be? What would have happened to the kids? To Laura? I had to think of the family!"

  Right, like his motives have ever been that self-sacrificing. But his words send a chill down my back. Whatever he did, it's bad. And not bad for him, because Pat never makes deals that would be bad for him if he can help it. "Pat, shut the hell up and tell me what you did."

  His head falls forward. "I offered one of the kids, okay? In exchange for Pike making the problem go away, he could come and take one of the kids at his chosen time."

  The bat falls to the ground and I fight the urge to vomit as all the blood drains from my face. My voice is barely a whisper now. "You offered… I… I can't believe it… how could you?"

  "It's the only offer he takes, okay? He makes your problems go away, and then, when the time is right or his need is great or whatever, he comes to take a kid."

  "For what? Why does he want kids?" A dozen reasons flood my mind, each worse than the next. What kind of child slavery ring is this bastard running?

  "I don't know, I swear!" He's sweating now, and his eyes dart around the kitchen, likely looking for something to drink. "To be part of their cult, or something. That's how they recruit, I think."

  My knees are shaking and I sit down in a chair across from him. "This can't happen, Pat. Pike is going to go away, and you're going to make sure he does. He's not taking one of my kids."

  "You can't stop him," Pat says, his voice defeated. "He can do things no normal man has any right doing."

  I think back to how I couldn't call 911 on my phone, and how Dean and Blake couldn't register my description of him. "Which one?" I ask. "Which of the kids does he want?"

  "The youngest," he says. "He likes them young, impressionable, I think. So they take to the training better."

  Kara. He's coming for the baby. My baby. The baby my mother died to give birth to. She was told she shouldn't carry to term, but she insisted. She knew she was too weak, but she didn't care. As she lay in the hospital bed hooked up to machines, her skin so pale and translucent I could see her veins, she held my hand and looked into my eyes. She was delusional. Calling me by another name. "Elliana." Grasping for me. "Elliana." Screaming at me. "Elliana. I am scared, my friend. I am scared." I could see the terror in her eyes. I swore then and there I would take care of the littles no matter what.

  When the machines started to beep faster, and the doctors and nurses came to rush me out, I knew it was over. Hours later they handed me a baby so pink she looked like a tomato, and I held her in my arms and whispered in her ear even as tears still poured down my face. “It’s a big scary world out there, I know, but I’ll protect you, okay? I promise.” She seemed to smile then—though the nurse said it was just gas—and I don’t know if I’ve ever been as happy and as sad in the same moment since.

  Strength returns to my limbs and I stand, emboldened by a new determination as Pat sits there and weeps his tears of self-pity. He reaches out and tries to touch my hand but I push him away. "I don't want your tears. You sold one of your own children to save your skin. One of my children. The child Laura gave her life to save." He flinches at the name of my mother.

  "Please," he begs. "Please find a way to save her. The place she'd go. The things she'd have to do… "

  "What things? What place? What do you know of it?"

  "I wasn't always a useless drunk," he says, surprising me with this brief moment of self-honesty. "I used to work for people… people with power. I knew things. Too many things. I was a liability when their system of power crumbled. This man, this Mr. Pike and his ilk, they enslave children into a life you can't imagine. She'll be brainwashed or worse."

  A knot forms in my gut and I pace the kitchen floor. I need to find Mr. Pike before he comes back for Kara. Whatever this child trafficking ring is, it needs to end now.

  My phone buzzes, and I check the message. What I read makes me curse under my breath. I hoped something like this wouldn’t happen, but of course it was a fool’s hope.

  “How would you find him?” I ask, clenching my jaw, my knuckles turning white around the bat, an idea—probably a very stupid idea—forming in my mind.

  Pat rubs at his nose. "Well, he's looking for kids, right? If any are missing, that's where to start."

  I was thinking the same.

  I look down at my phone again, rereading the message from the station.

  Calling all available personnel for an immediate search and rescue. A child has gone missing in Low Gap Park.

  Seven

  Ghost In The Forest

  I grab my pack, check to make sure it has all my supplies—water, power bars, a headlamp, change of socks, a GPS and my radio—and slip on a thick coat. I turn to Pat. "Stay here. Keep an eye on the kids. There's a patrol car outside for protection. I'm going to try to find Pike before he finds us."

  Pat nods, and I wake Blake and show him the text.

  We get to the staging area at the parking lot outside the park as others from the fire and police department show up to help. There's about twenty people total, which isn't a great head count but not our worst either.

  It only takes a few minutes to get the basics. Teenage boy went hiking alone, never came home. This was his last known whereabouts. He’s not answering his phone and the GPS tracker for the phone isn't working. We all take a map and a partner—Blake and I choose each other— and head out.

  It's a new moon, which means limited natural lighting. We both wear our headlamps to keep our hands free as we hike through the woods. It's late, dark, and the only sounds are the crunching of twigs under our feet and the calls of creatures in the night.

  I explain to Blake what I learned from Pat and tell him my plan. Then I show him what else I brought in my pack.

  "A gun? Are you nuts?"

  Blake doesn't like guns.

  "I'm going to find this guy. Before he takes my baby." Just the thought of losing Kara kills me inside.

  Blake shakes his head. "That’s insane. We need to let the police handle this."

  "Like Dean?" I ask, knowing his answer.

  "Well, not like Dean, but someone else in the department surely."

&n
bsp; "Blake, something weird is going on. I can't explain it, and even when I do you don’t seem to understand, but this isn't a normal guy we're talking about. I can't risk leaving this in someone else’s hands. I'm running out of time. I only have a few hours before Pike said he’d return."

  I stumble over a rock, catching myself against a tree. My limbs are too tired to be hiking tonight—I’ve already dealt with a head injury, a fire call, and loss of consciousness due to smoke inhalation. I should be resting, letting my lungs and body recover. Instead, I'm trekking through a dark hiking trail, hoping the kid we're looking for is okay, and hoping I can catch Pike before he comes to collect my baby.

  We've been walking for an hour when Blake stops, takes a swig of water, and excuses himself to find a tree to relieve himself.

  I look down at the picture of the missing kid on my phone. Mat Parson. He's thirteen with a shock of bright red hair and a face full of freckles. He’s from the same school as Kyle, and I think I may have seen them hanging out together. I try not to imagine what my little brother will have to go through if his friend is never found. I try to look for—

  A twig snaps nearby.

  I turn to the right, pointing my headlamp at the source of the sound. Nothing but trees and darkness. But… Wait. A sound. Whispering.

  "Blake? That you?"

  I look around but don't see anyone, so I creep forward in the woods, following the whispers. "Blake? Hello?”

  It occurs to me it could be the boy we're looking for, and I yell his name as well. Maybe he's hurt and calling for help, but his voice is too weak to talk. I walk faster, suddenly certain he's close by. I pull out my gun, just in case I find Pike, and hold it securely as I pick up my pace.

  The cold metal feels foreign in my hands. I've trained at a shooting range and have a license to carry a concealed weapon—not uncommon in the fire department—but I've never actually pointed a gun at another human. I hope I don’t have to pull the trigger tonight, but I will if it means saving a life.

  The path I'm on divides into two, and I travel right, where a dried-up stream used to live before the draughts and heat wave. Another whisper. A bitter wind.

  I step onto a short cliff overlooking a clearing. I scan the area, my headlamp illuminating the broken trees and large rocks and—

  There. Something

  A body.

  A boy.

  Splayed unnaturally over a fallen tree. Limbs at odd angles. Someone stands over him. A man dressed in black.

  I raise my gun.

  And then I see it.

  The wind catches his red scarf.

  “Kaden?”

  “Step away from the boy!” I yell, pointing my gun at him.

  Kaden turns towards me, his blue eyes shining against the beam of my headlamp. "I didn't harm him," he says instantly, bending down over the body.

  "Don't move!" My arms are steady, but my heart pounds against my rib cage. Sweat beads down my forehead. I release the safety on the gun and slow my breathing.

  "Please," he says, his voice urgent. "I must finish cleansing the body."

  "Don't move, or I will shoot!" My mind is frantic, trying to piece together what is going on. Pike isn't here. Kaden is. Is Kaden working with Pike? Is Pike at my house already?

  "If I don't finish what I started, we will all be in danger," he says.

  What is he even talking about? "Don't touch him!" I walk down the cliff, closing the distance between us. The reality of pulling the trigger is even harder than I thought; I try to push the thoughts away, but I can't stop my mind from recoiling at the thought of hurting another person. A person I know. A person I was actually attracted to. I went into my career to save people, not kill them.

  Kaden pulls back from the body and lifts his gloved hands in the air. "I know what this looks like, but you have to trust me. The boy's body must be purified, otherwise—"

  A strong wind hits us. A stray lock of hair comes loose from my ponytail and flies around my face. His scarf flails about, but… it doesn't drift in the same direction as the wind. It's moving against it, to the west. This makes no sense. My eyes follow the direction his scarf is blowing and… I see it. In the woods.

  A pair of eyes wreathed in flame.

  Nostrils filled with smoke.

  A razor sharp mouth.

  Just like my vision in the fire. But I was hallucinating then. A side effect from lack of oxygen.

  Am I hallucinating again? Am I more injured than I realized? Nothing about my life in the last twenty-four hours makes sense.

  The creature glides out of the trees, its large red body half mist, half physical form. Its head is that of a wolf, its body that of a serpent.

  I blink, expecting it to disappear.

  It doesn’t. It draws near instead.

  My gun wavers in my hand. I shouldn't be holding a weapon if I can't even decipher fantasy from reality. What if I shoot someone innocent? What if none of this is happening and I'm just losing my mind?

  My mum never said much about my father, but she did say he wasn't right in the head before his death. What if I inherited something from him? What if I'm totally losing it? Where's Blake? I need him right now. I need him to tell me what's real and what's not. Because I don't even know anymore.

  And then Kaden speaks, in a voice so low, I almost don't hear him. And I realize he's not looking at me anymore. He's looking in the direction of the monster. He sees it too.

  "Run," he says. "Run now!"

  I hear his words, but they become jumbled in my mind. I can't think. Can't move. I'm paralyzed by self-doubt.

  And then the creature lunges forward.

  And I act on animal instinct.

  I fire my gun, aiming directly for the vision before me.

  But the bullets do nothing. They fly through the creature as if it were a ghost. A spirit. As if it didn't exist at all. But this all feels entirely too real. And I don't think I'm imagining the body of the boy, or Kaden standing before me.

  I brace for death, hoping that when it comes I’ll wake up and realize this was all a nightmare.

  Death doesn’t come. I don’t wake.

  Instead, the creature passes me by. And heads straight for Mat Parson.

  Kaden yells something I don’t understand and jumps in front of the boy’s body, but the spirit whips around him.

  And slams into the corpse.

  The creature vanishes, and for a moment, everything turns quiet. Even the wind dies down to nothing, the air so still it's stifling.

  Then the boy gasps for breath. His chest rises and falls. Impossible.

  I rush forward to help.

  “Stop!” yells Kaden.

  I follow his gaze.

  And I see the boy’s eyes. I see them roll back into his head until only the whites show. I watch as his hands and legs crack and move at odd angles, rearranging themselves to work again.

  "It's too late," Kaden says. "It possessed him." He pulls something from his coat.

  Something metal that glints against the light of my headlamp.

  It takes my mind a moment to process what I see. A sword. The largest sword I’ve ever seen. I wonder how he even manages to hold it. The hilt is simple, wrapped in leather strips, made for large hands. The blade is bare, no markings or embellishments, the steel black as night.

  "I'll hold if off," Kaden says, positioning himself between me and the moving corpse. "It will follow you, Sky. It will follow you until it kills you. Run. Run now!"

  The boy stands, but his movements are awkward, as if someone wears him like an ill-fitting outfit. His eyes turn red as if they burn with flame. The boy roars, but the sound he makes is not human. It is guttural and monstrous, and it makes every instinct in me terrified. His young teen muscles expand, getting larger and larger, growing until his skin rips open, revealing raw, unnatural flesh. His jaw comes unhinged, then tears his face apart as a new head explodes from his throat, its giant mouth full of layers of sharp teeth, its tiny eyes at the top of it
s head like a deep sea fish. What was once a boy has grown twice the size of any man I've ever known. It lashes out with a giant pink tongue forked like a snake’s. Trying to grab something. Trying to kill something.

  My body takes over as my brain freezes.

  And I run like never before.

  Eight

  Broken One

  Lungs burning.

  Feet pounding.

  Heart racing.

  I push my body to the limit.

  I’m not fast enough.

  The serpent-like tongue lashes out, grabbing at my ankle, pulling me to my knees.

  Steel flashes through the air and Kaden cuts the tongue in half, freeing me from its clutches, but the severed part lives on. It jumps and wiggles and tries to wrap itself around my leg.

  I kick it away and stand up, forcing myself to keep running.

  Through the darkness I run, over stone and bush and underbrush, zigzagging through trees, twigs snapping underfoot, my body covered in cold sweat, the world around me a blur of blacks and grays.

  Behind me, the creature cries out in pain from the blow Kaden dealt. The sound is like a dying deer, a blend of child and animal and fear and pain, and it chills my soul.

  I have no idea where I'm going—the map I committed to memory long forgotten—but I know I'll reach the end of the woods soon. Will that mean safety? Or will I be leading this monster towards a populated area, putting more people at risk?

  I make a split-second decision and change directions, knowing I'm heading deeper into the woods, but away from anyone else who might be harmed. This new path is less traveled and the terrain more wild. I trip on the root of a tree and stumble. Something in my foot snaps as I fall forward, and pain shoots through my body. I bite my tongue until it bleeds, and tears well in my eyes as I cradle my right foot.

  Despite the pain, I force myself to stand. My foot can barely handle my weight, likely broken somewhere. I look around, trying to figure out what to do next, and I see the creature and Kaden behind me.

  The beast strikes with claws in a savage flurry of destruction, no pattern to its assault. And yet, Kaden evades each attack. He's fast, unnaturally so, but something about his movement is wrong. His left side is more agile than his right. His shoulder is stiff. Was he injured? Did the beast wound him?