by Jory Strong
A barrage of pop-pop-popping had the old woman prodding the fire with the stick and the younger woman scooping fresh nuts.
Near the two women, a dark-haired young girl with a smattering of freckles peeked out from behind her mother, then ducked out of sight, making Analia smile.
The girl peeked out again. By human standards she looked like a miniature version of an eight or nine-year-old.
Analia gave a quick wave before the girl once again ducked out of sight, only to peek out again on the other side of her mother and return the wave. Analia’s laugh had other children peeking from behind parents and siblings, which further emboldened the freckled girl. She stood, remaining behind her mother for a moment before coming out and sitting cross-legged, her size only adding to her adorableness.
She reminded Analia of Christmas and birthday trips to toy stores, and wanting dolls that were the same size as the grig child on the opposite side of the campfire.
“I’m called Gwendolen,” the girl said in a clear voice before her face scrunched up in a frown. “You don’t feel magic.”
“I don’t think many humans have magic.”
The little girl hugged herself. “Oh. Then how are you going to help keep Herrica and her sisters from getting us?”
“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh,” several adults around the fire said, more than one of them glancing over their shoulder as if whoever it was they feared could be summoned by the use of a name.
Analia’s heart skipped into a faster beat. She half turned toward Gellawin, but before she could question him about their enemies or the charm, there was a gout of flame in the dark orchard.
A high-pitched shriek was followed by a second gout of flame, then the sound of something crashing through vegetation.
Analia tipped onto her knees. Gwendolen said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re just dragonettes. They look like miniature dragons, but they aren’t dangerous to us, well, not usually.”
The little girl made a face. “Mostly dragonettes use their fire on big insects and small rodents. That’s how they cook their meat before they eat it. Yuck. We don’t eat meat. Do humans?”
“Some do and some don’t,” Analia said, then to divert the conversation before she was forced into admitting she was one of those who did, she asked, “So dragons exist?”
Gwendolen nodded sagely while several of the much older children exchanged glances. Then a red-haired girl, a teen by Earth standards, said, “Haven’t you met one? Dragons go to your world all the time. That’s where many of them find their mates.”
Taine’s image popped immediately into Analia’s mind and her mouth literally dropped open. Was it possible?
Everything inside her said, Yes, not only possible, but likely. Every time she’d encountered Saffron’s significant other, he’d been wearing a T-shirt that referenced fire or dragons.
“Tomorrow I’ll catch a dragonette for you,” Gwendolen said, recapturing Analia’s attention. “Then you can see what a real dragon looks like.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t want you to get burned.”
Gwendolen’s tiny chin jutted outward. “I won’t get burned. I catch dragonettes all the time.”
Beside her, her mother tsk-tsked and said, “Careful my darling, that exaggeration comes close to a falsehood.”
Gwendolen crossed her arms over her chest, and though her chin remained thrust forward, her lips quivered, creating a pang in Analia’s chest.
“Are there dragons here?” she asked, wanting to restore the girl’s happiness but glancing skyward and thinking that gathering around a campfire in the center of a clearing might be begging to become a meal—even a banquet.
“No,” Gwendolen said. “They have their own realms. We don’t have to worry about them getting us. We have to worry about…”
She trailed off before being shushed again for naming their enemy, and yet several adults still glanced over their shoulders as if searching the darkness for the thing they feared—and that fear was palpable, not just in the adults but in the children.
Analia rubbed her palms over her knees, her heart beating faster and faster, mimicking the rapid-fire popping of nuts in the fire as she came to a decision about the charm.
The woman gathering the roasting nuts dumped those she’d collected into another bowl carved from a tree trunk. The old man lifted and shook the bowl, before taking a nut and passing the bowl.
Maybe it was foolish, but she trusted these people. They’d searched her apartment, taken the other charm and abducted her, pulling her into a world she hadn’t known existed, and yet … the old man at the supernatural fair had said that possession of the charms would begin a journey of discovery, and it had, starting on the beach with the encounter with the fey hound, and leading to Supernatural Ops and being with Kellen…
A shaft of pain went through her chest. Was he even looking for her? Or had he taken the charm to IRE headquarters and asked Maksim to have someone else search for her?
The old man’s warning had come true. She’d lost possession of the charm to an IRE agent and almost immediately her chance at happiness with a true mate had disappeared.
She blinked away sudden tears, refusing to allow their escape. She wanted to learn more about the enemy the grigs feared. She wanted to know more about the charm and its magic. But as the bowl moved from person to person, she had an increasing sense that time was running out, and that she would ultimately be the cause of their deaths if she didn’t tell them where to find the remaining charm.
We face enslavement and slaughter! an impassioned Furgil had said. And Gwendolen had touched Analia’s heart, though she couldn’t bear the thought of any of those around the fire being killed.
Analia closed her hands into fists, took a deep breath and said, “Kellen has the other half of the crystal. He took it from me shortly before we got to The Magic Shack, the place where you came through the mirror. The charm is in his pocket.”
The bowl came to rest on a young man’s lap. Every gaze fixed on her.
“Who is this Kellen?” Gellawin asked, his voice holding encouragement and hope.
The pain of moments earlier returned in a rush, embedding itself in her heart like a hundred splinters. It was too easy to hear the cold fury in his voice when he’d accused her of ditching the charm outside of the astrologist’s house, the suspicion and disbelief after she’d told him she might have gotten the charm at The Magic Shack, the finality when he’d asked her if it’d all been a lie.
Her fingernails digging into her palms, she said, “He’s an IRE agent.”
The bowl of nuts tumbled to the ground as the young man who’d had it on his lap jumped to his feet. He glanced around the fire circle, gaze coming to rest on three old women and three old men, including Gellawin. “I beseech you, Elders, send me on this quest. I am agile and do not fear death.”
A middle-aged woman, her brown hair coiled and worn pinned at the sides of her head, also stood and searched out those same old grigs. “Send me along with Lobiris, Elders. I can add my experience in the human realm to his swiftness of action. My loss would not be a burden as I have no mate or children.”
One by one, other grigs stood, each of them stating how their choice would benefit the effort to retrieve the charm, each of them stating a willingness to die.
The painful splinters in Analia’s chest turned to icy shafts. She hugged her knees to her chest then forced her arms down and stood. “No one has to die. I can—”
“There is nothing you can do to aid us,” Gellawin said. He took her hand between both of his. “Because of what you’ve shared, your name will be sung by those gathered around the fire for generations to come. But this must be our fight and we must hurry to it. Is the crystal contained in something that will mute its power?”
“No.”
“Then there is hope, and opportunity, as long as this agent doesn’t reach the IRE vaults or fall prey to our enemies.”
“What if he�
��s not near a mirror?”
Despite his tense features, Gellawin laughed. “The mirror was an accidental passageway. There was some trace of magic attached to it, probably an old sorcerer’s spell. We were following the magic that fled the charm in your apartment, and took the most direct route, encountering you, thinking you were in possession of what we sought since you were in our path.”
Gellawin, along with the other five elders, moved around the circle, each choosing one of the grigs who’d volunteered.
Analia felt like screaming, like weeping, like demanding that she be allowed to go with them to Earth.
Burloksson placed a hand on her arm. “Our realm is like yours, magic poor. And like your human sorcerers, we channel magic, though unlike them, we each draw from the land and have a reservoir of that magic residing within us. When we brought you here, it drained our collective power. If you had magic of your own, we could return you to your world and be sure of getting back to ours. But until the magic builds again, we can’t risk being too weak to recover the artifact.”
“I understand,” she said, forcing the words out though her chest remained tight and her hands clenched.
The prospect of them hurting or killing Kellen—or him doing the same to one of the six selected volunteers was intolerable.
Several adults and children were crying, though when the elders returned to their places along the circle and held out their hands, even those agonizing at the potential loss of a loved one joined hands.
Rather than reach across her, Gellawin clasped Burloksson’s hand behind Analia’s back, making her feel included in the circle though she had no magic to offer. In the center, around the fire, the volunteers stood, their hands also clasped, their gazes fixed on their loved ones, as if to carry those images to their deaths.
She expected chanting, but the grigs hummed a series of tones. Their voices rose and fell, moved through a number of octaves.
The hair on Analia’s bare arms and neck lifted. Her very bones seemed to vibrate with the tones.
Her skin tightened and tightened and tightened. Her ears felt clogged the way they did when taking off in an airplane—and then popped, the pressure suddenly released as the six grigs in the center of the circle winked out of existence—at least in their own realm.
* * *
“We can’t allow him to return to IRE headquarters!” Tobik screeched, grabbing the door handle on the passenger side of Deidra’s rented vehicle.
Deidra’s hand snaked out and locked around the grig’s arm, her nails stabbing into his skin. “You have no chance against a fey hound, much less a fey hound and a dragon. Wait. You sought me out because I’m the superior hunter. Wait.”
His hand fell away from the door handle and she released him. If not for her determination to ultimately rule as Kellen’s mate, she would have happily allowed the foul-smelling grig to rush to his death. She had no use for a traitorous being who would betray his own kind.
Even with the windows open, the car stank of fetid meat and baked apples. The rank smell seemed soaked into the very seats after hours spent in the car, waiting outside the human mongrel’s apartment building, then following Kellen and the inferior bitch as they went first to the astrologist’s house, then to The Magic Shack.
Something must have happened inside the magical junk shop, given Kellen’s rush out of there alone, and the arrival of more IRE agents. If not for Tobik being positive that Kellen now possessed the artifact, she would have entered The Magic Shack and made it clear to the human trash that her existence was barely tolerable and would end if she didn’t stay away from Kellen.
A block in front of the rental car, Kellen and the dragon scion finished their conversation. The dragon drove away in his expensive sports car.
Kellen got into the human’s small car and Deidra snarled as she imagined the scent of the human clinging to Kellen’s clothing and skin.
She’d soon rid him of the stink of another female. She’d soon ensure that all of his thoughts and all of his desire to please were focused on her—a truly worthy mate though he wasn’t good enough, would never be good enough for her. But sacrifices had to made, and she was willing to sacrifice to fulfill her destiny.
“He’s leaving!” the foul-smelled grig screeched. “We have to do something!”
He was right in that Kellen could not be allowed to reach IRE headquarters with the artifact. But now was the moment for her to use the advantage she possessed.
Drumming long fingernails against the steering wheel, she said, “We’ll catch him and acquire the artifact.”
“How?” Tobik’s voice rose with increasing panic as Kellen neared a corner, marking an intent to turn with a blinking signal light.
“The how is my concern. Right now I require proof that you can deliver on what you’ve promised. How is it that I’ll gain the control I seek over Kellen?”
“Follow him! Follow him and I’ll tell you!”
“Tell me now and I’ll follow him.” Deidra flashed gleaming white teeth. “Don’t tell me and our alliance is ended.”
Tobik tugged at his clothing, releasing shirt buttons and flooding the interior of the car with more stench. He reached inside his shirt and a hound’s acute hearing captured the sound of him opening a hidden pouch, freeing a strong wave of fey magic.
She sniffed, but didn’t recognize the magic’s origin. The grig pulled a long, silky chord of silvery, woven hair from beneath his shirt.
Tobik’s tongue glided over thin lips and his pupils dilated. He pressed his mouth to the weave and inhaled deeply. “This is my mistress’s hair. She’s a baoban sith.”
Deidra shuddered even as her heart raced in anticipation and her mind conjured images of turning the woven hair into a collar securely fastened around Kellen’s neck.
The baoban sith were creatures of myth—of nightmare. She’d thought them extinct, killed millennia ago because of their ability to so thoroughly ensnare other fey with their blood and hair.
Their enslavement didn’t require constant presence or the continued use of power. And the enslavement was total, complete, taking over another being’s will, not just making them compliant.
For the baoban, no delicacy was greater to feast upon than human blood. But the baoban didn’t possess the magic to easily enter the human realm nor did they possess the glamour essential to completely mask their appearance.
In olden days, the baoban had turned other, far more powerful fey into slaves whose wealth and magic—whose very lives—were plundered for the purpose of taking the baoban to the human realm or fetching humans to the fey realms.
In one of Tobik’s long diatribes as they had waited for Kellen and the human interloper to emerge from her apartment, he had whined about the unfairness of being cast from his clan. He’d also let it slip that grigs could create their own portals.
Now Deidra smiled, understanding the purpose behind this hunt—one she’d use to her advantage. She shook off the fear that mention of the baoban had brought.
Pleasure filled her at imagining the fate of Kellen’s unworthy bitch. What better type of slave for the baoban to possess than ones who could provide a steady stream of human prey—human prey that would include the female who’d dared to catch Kellen’s interest.
“Give me the braid,” Deidra said, reaching across the seat and snatching it from Tobik.
He didn’t lunge forward in an attempt to reclaim it but wailed, “Now go! Go before we lose him!”
Because it suited her, Deidra started the rental car’s engine and pulled from the curb. The innocuous white car was like thousands of others in San Diego. Unnoticeable. Until it was noticed—and then it would be too late.
With a surge of speed she caught up to Kellen, though she kept her distance. It was easy enough to mentally plot his path to IRE headquarters.
“He’ll be on the interstate soon,” Tobik said, his voice continuing to grate on her as badly as his stench. “If the artifact is placed in one of the vaults, I�
��ll be punished. You said you had a plan. What’s your plan?”
“Shut up,” she growled, needing to interpret the sudden edgy feeling along her spine that had come when she considered peeling away and racing ahead of Kellen so she could get onto the freeway ahead of him. There were a multitude of places where they could lay in wait to ambush him in the neighborhood he’d pass through to reach IRE.
That was their best bet at catching him off guard and having time to act. That made sense…
But some instinct kept her behind him. Blocks passed. Up ahead was a turn that would lead him to the freeway.
“He’s going to get away!” Tobik yelled, his gaze drifting to the braided hair on her lap, his body tensing, betraying his intention to snatch the magical weave.
Deidra glanced at him, bared her teeth and snarled a hound’s warning. Even in human form, the warning was enough to have him pushing backward against the passenger door.
He was a loathsome, pathetic creature, one she doubted his mistress would avenge, though Deidra intended to honor the bargain she’d made. Her hand dropped from the steering wheel to the silky, silver braid that would soon be Kellen’s collar. There were advantages to a continued alliance with a baoban sith.
Deidra tapped the gas pedal, closing some of the distance between them and Kellen, then smiled when he sped through the intersection and turned away from the freeway. She’d been right to listen to her instincts.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Tobik asked, his voice holding less panic.
“Home.” But Kellen couldn’t be allowed to get there, not with a dragon as a neighbor.
Deidra turned left, instead of continuing to follow Kellen, then accelerated.
“What are you doing!” Tobik shrieked, the panic returning.
Deidra didn’t bother to answer.
She mentally followed Kellen’s route, speeding through yellow lights and cursing the increasing number of pedestrians as they got closer and closer to the beach. “Tell me when you can sense the artifact.”
