“Sister-Dragon is on the roof.” Ladon pointed at the little chunks of brick as they fell behind the decrepit evergreens.
This part of Wyoming was drier than Minnesota and a semi-arid place with many more grays and browns than Rysa was used to. Her childhood in California had been green and gold and the vastness of the Pacific. Minnesota had been fresh water and deep green trees with winter snow banks so tall they blocked sightlines. But here, the mountains and the sky commanded all and the trees cowered next to the buildings and clung to the human population like domesticated pets.
She liked it. Even through the pain in her skull, she felt at home. The mountains began here. Real mountains, not the smoothed-out cores of the Mesabi Range near Duluth, in Northern Minnesota. California had it too, at your back when you looked out over the ocean. The massive presence of the land.
It fit Ladon and Dragon.
The beast’s ghost-form refracted before he disappeared over the edge of the roof. AnnaBelinda had been pulling into the hospital parking lot when Ladon called. Derek’s blood disorder made him grit his teeth and refuse to eat so Ladon’s sister brought him down to the hospital.
Ladon stopped at the check-in desk and flashed an ID card.
The lady offered a cordial nod to Rysa. “ID, please.”
Her driver’s license was in her backpack. On the floor of the coffee shop in the basement of the Continuing Ed building. In Minnesota.
Ladon leaned over the counter. “Julie, she left her wallet in the van. She’s with me.” He flashed a brilliant smile.
Julie smiled back, obviously charmed. “What’s your name, Miss?”
“Lucinda Thomas,” Rysa said, using her middle name. Not having her real name in a database combed by law enforcement agencies seemed like a good idea.
Julie typed something and her computer printed off a name badge. “Next time, bring in your identification, okay?”
Ladon peered down the hallway.
“Same room as always, Mr. Drake. 1367E.” Julie pointed in the direction Ladon looked.
Ladon flashed his brilliant smile again. “Thanks.” He nodded to a waving nurse as he led Rysa down the hall.
A small and lithe woman wearing her wavy black hair in a ponytail and a black t-shirt and jeans much like Ladon’s ran from the room and jumped into his arms.
“Brother!” she said. She hugged him and dropped back to the floor.
“Sister.”
AnnaBelinda’s uncanny eyes were light brown like Ladon’s, but flecked with green instead of gold. “So you’re the source of the trouble,” she said.
Ladon scowled.
The dragon woman scowled back. “Come on. Derek wants to say hello.” She looked Rysa up and down again. “You stay out here.”
“Sister.” Ladon tightened his hand around Rysa’s.
Icy annoyance crackled from AnnaBelinda. Her mouth opened to respond, but she snapped it shut and walked back into the room instead.
Inside, a handsome man played solitaire on a table next to his bed. He was about the same height as Ladon. His biceps were as defined and his shoulders as broad, but he had sandy brown hair. An IV tube snaked across the bed and into his arm above an ugly bruise. He watched Rysa with crystal blue eyes, but she couldn’t tell his age. His face looked both young and old, as if he’d seen more of this world than he should have.
Ladon’s and AnnaBelinda’s expressions carried a detachment, a sort of immortal irony. Derek, though, understood death. Tom’s cousin had had the same look when he came home after three tours in Afghanistan.
He smiled when he saw Ladon. Some of Ladon’s tension fell away as he smiled back. These two men showed a closeness Rysa would have hoped for if she’d had a sibling.
“Ladon!” Derek back-slapped his brother-in-law.
Ladon pulled two chairs next to the bed and presented one to Rysa. Derek offered his hand before she sat. AnnaBelinda grumbled at the foot of the bed.
Derek ignored his wife and nodded to Rysa. “You are the Fate?” His Russian accent colored his resonant voice. Maybe he was an enthraller like Penny.
“I’m Rysa.”
AnnaBelinda shifted her weight and glanced at the ceiling just as a burst of annoyance poured down from Sister-Dragon above.
“I…” She pointed at the ceiling. “I felt that.” She could sense the flow from both dragons.
AnnaBelinda’s scowl deepened.
Derek, though, smiled. He leaned forward. “I cannot.”
“Oh,” Rysa said. It seemed she really was a rare specimen.
She’d never met anyone with a smile as charming as Derek’s. Not even Ladon could match its brilliance. If Derek wanted to be a movie star, all he’d have to do is wink.
He shifted in the bed and Rysa saw the tip of a dragon’s tail winding across his shoulder, under the hospital gown. It looked like an old tattoo, not very colorful, and faded. He had another dragon on his ring finger, partially hidden by his wedding band.
How did he get tattoos with his blood disorder? Everything in this new world was turned upside down.
“You have caused quite a stir, if you did not know.” Derek’s gaze flicked to Ladon before another smile highlighted his perfect teeth. He scratched his arm near the IV site. “There are new Shifters in town.”
AnnaBelinda shook her head.
“I told her to ignore them. Maiming is not wise right now.” He nodded toward Rysa.
These Shifters were an irritation, and one not normally ignored because, as she’d learned in the electronics store, they were dangerous. When Rysa dropped into Ladon’s life, she complicated things for his sister in ways that must have hurled an already on-edge woman over a cliff.
“We have a situation which must be contained.” Derek leaned toward Rysa. “I know Shifters.” He frowned and sat back. “They whisper of the families and the Prime triads. The Shifters stay away. Mostly.”
Rysa nodded.
“I know the Jani had something to do with the attack in Abilene twenty-one years ago. The Shifters are still angry.” His lips thinned.
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.” She’d upset the delicate politics of Fates and Shifters and now anyone trying to help her had a target on their heads. No wonder AnnaBelinda was upset.
AnnaBelinda grimaced. Derek watched his wife but he addressed Ladon. “You look like hell, my brother. Go home. Brother-Dragon needs sleep. As do you.” He watched AnnaBelinda tic as if she wanted to pace. “They will let me out this afternoon. We will find Mira. Correct, rodnoy?”
“No. Not a Jani Prime.” AnnaBelinda stood behind Ladon with her feet planted and her body tense. She refused to look at Rysa. “I told you on the phone that I will not have a Fate in my home.” Her body shifted into a slow alignment with Rysa. “I don’t care if you’ve inserted yourself into Brother’s life. I don’t trust you.”
Of course you don’t trust me, Rysa thought. Why would you? But Rysa’s nasty raised its head and dug around the edges of AnnaBelinda’s belligerence.
Rysa shouldn’t trust her. Unlike Ladon, her fury never cooled.
Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please wait in the hall, Rysa.” His face showed real concern. The suggestion was meant to protect her from his wife’s ire.
Ladon’s jaw tensed. “She stays with me.” He pulled her closer.
Rysa squeezed his fingers. “I’ll be okay.” Dealing with his sister’s hate would be easier for him without his Fate girlfriend breathing the same air.
He shook his head. “But—”
“I’m fine,” she lied. Her head throbbed. AnnaBelinda’s hostility beat in a painful rhythm. “There are chairs right outside.” She’d wait for them to stop yelling. Then she’d make Ladon go home. Dragon needed sleep. He couldn’t fight. He’d get injured, or worse, killed.
She’d had faith in her mom’s ability to survive. That as a Prime present-seer, she’d get away or manipulate the Burners into an action that revealed their location. But she’d also believed that Lad
on’s sister was like him—someone who woke every morning intending to be the best person possible. Rysa had hoped AnnaBelinda would take this burden from his shoulders. That, as his sister, she’d help.
But AnnaBelinda believed all Fates deserved what the future forced down their throats. If Rysa’s mom escaped, so be it. If she didn’t, well, that wasn’t AnnaBelinda’s problem.
If Rysa sighed at the wrong moment—if she flinched or pouted or let down her guard for one second—Ladon and Dragon would disappear into the Black Hills of South Dakota. They’d track her mom. Not sleeping. Not resting. They’d drive themselves into the ground before they’d let her lose her family, all because his sister refused to help.
They’d die. Burned, frozen, she didn’t know. The world would lose a dragon and cause the other to rampage, like her uncle had foreseen. And Rysa would serve her purpose as the weapon who killed the Dracae.
Rysa gave AnnaBelinda a wide berth as she walked out into the hall. Maybe luck would hold. Maybe Ladon might talk sense into his sister. Either way, he was done searching for the Jani Prime. Rysa would cut off that path to ruin.
“Why did you bring her here?” AnnaBelinda spit the words at Ladon.
“Will you calm down? You know damned well what’s at stake.” The harshness of Ladon’s voice added to Rysa’s anxiety.
AnnaBelinda swung her arms around. “Just because you’re sleeping with her doesn’t mean she’s trustworthy. She’s a time bomb! Maybe things are fine now, but she’ll be the death of us all.”
AnnaBelinda slammed the door.
A time bomb. The death of them all. AnnaBelinda wouldn’t put a knife in Rysa’s belly, but she’d drive her into the back country and leave her there to die.
AnnaBelinda would do the same to Rysa’s mom. She’d track Mira, but not well, and she’d miss opportunities. When Dragon woke, he and Ladon would take up the slack, but it’d be too late. And he’d never speak to his sister again.
Another path to ruin.
Rysa couldn’t catch her breath, and she bent forward in an attempt to hide her spasms from the nurses who walked by. AnnaBelinda yelled something and she heard Ladon yell back. Then more yelling, this time from Derek.
The hospital hallway closed in. Ladon and AnnaBelinda yelled at each other but the hospital’s front entrance glowed with the midday sun. Warm, clean, fresh air beckoned from outside.
Rysa stood. She walked. When she passed the reception desk, she nodded to Julie, but stopped.
She needed a pen.
“Julie.” A can decorated with construction paper and macaroni pinwheels sat against the computer. “Did your daughter make that?”
Julie blinked. “Umm, yes.”
Rysa nodded toward Derek’s room. “Ladon told me.” She didn’t know why she lied. Her nasty wanted a damned pen.
Julie glanced at 1367E. “You two serious?” She leaned forward, her eyes wide. “He’s a good guy. He’s in here all the time visiting Mr. Nicholson when he comes in for treatments.” She tapped the side of the pen cup. “He probably won’t tell you this, but he and his sister paid for the new wing.” She nodded toward the construction. “He’s so down-to-earth I doubt he’d let on… you know…” She nodded toward the construction again.
Rysa focused on the pens. Julie’s words rolled by without registering as Rysa’s fingers pulled a marker out of the can. “Can I borrow this? I’ll bring it back. I promise.” She had no idea why her seers had a desperate need for the pen, but she figured she’d better listen.
Julie shrugged. “Sure thing.”
Rysa smiled and saluted with the marker. “Thanks again.”
Julie nodded before turning to a nurse. Their lips twittered and they glanced down the hall at 1367E.
Rysa caught her breath at the door. The bright sunshine beckoned. Everything floated by, skating on a thin film, flattening the world. Something told her to step through the entrance.
Outside, the hospital loomed behind her, anchored to the sky. She filled her lungs with the clean air to clear her head.
Her nose pricked. She’d caught it on the breeze, faint but obvious—the unmistakable tang of Burner.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Derek leaned forward after Sister slammed the hospital room’s door. “Anna! You do not know her. Mira is her only family.”
Sister paced. Her behavior was worse than anything Ladon had done when she’d taken up with Derek.
Rysa had nothing to do with what happened two millennia ago. This hate of Sister’s reared its ugly head every few centuries. Ladon had long suspected her antagonism toward the Shifters was a displacement of her hate of Fates more than a real fury.
Sister glanced at the ceiling.
Brother is angry, Sister-Dragon pushed.
Ladon’s lip twitched. Dragon wasn’t taking abuse from his sister. Neither dragon brooded or nitpicked, but Sister’s attitudes had long ago infected Sister-Dragon.
“Damn it!” Sister threw a plastic bin at Ladon’s head.
He caught it just above his shoulder. A snarl sat at the base of his throat but he held it and crunched the plastic into a prickly ball instead.
“Stop!” Derek slapped the table. “No one deserves to lose their family to murdering ghouls.”
Sister glared at her husband, but didn’t answer.
“Then it is settled.” Derek’s gaze stayed locked on his wife’s face. “Take Rysa home. Rest. You and Brother-Dragon cannot fight as tired as you are. We will find Mira of the Jani Prime and we will return her to her daughter. Alive.”
Sister looked away.
Could he trust his sister to cooperate? Make sure—
Dragon interrupted his push. Rysa has gone outside.
What? Ladon threw the balled up plastic back at his sister. Why?
You and Sister-Human were yelling.
Ladon bolted for the door. Did she go out alone?
He growled at Sister before he realized what he was doing. She’d heard Dragon, too.
Something is wrong.
Sister stayed behind as he ran into the corridor.
Billy waited at the edge of the parking lot with his hands tucked into his nylon jacket. His red cross-trainers stood out in the dry grass and his orange t-shirt nudged out from under his collar.
Rysa should do something, but she couldn’t remember what. She should tell someone there was a Burner out here between the cars, but all that fuzzed out.
Billy made the air smell like burning rotten eggs. He pranced around like an idiot, but following him seemed her only clear path forward.
He danced a little jig and ran across the median between the lot and the white clinic building on the other side of the asphalt.
He knew where her mother was. They’d left Minnesota together. She remembered that little bit of her visions.
“Billy!” Rysa called.
He waved and watched a car drive by.
Rysa ran between the cars. Were there other Burners out here? Did it matter? She needed to chase Billy. “Where’s my mother?” she asked. She was supposed to chase him.
Billy stomped on the median’s gravel and looked up at the sky. “Weather’s nice here,” he said offhandedly. Then he cocked his head at the weird Burner angle. “Where’s the lizard king?”
Lizard king? Something nagged at the edges of Rysa’s mind. She wasn’t alone. Out there, somewhere, were people capable of bracing her against cracking into a million shards.
But she couldn’t remember.
“I’m supposed to tell you something.” Billy scrutinized the cars. He snaked out an arm and singed a handprint into the lustrous finish of a big pick-up. “They drive a lot of trucks in the mountains.” He sniffed and scratched at the tip of his nose. Little sparks popped off his skin. “Harder to steal a truck.”
“Is my mom okay?” She remembered that much. She walked forward and flared her hands as if she approached an angry dog.
“They took Lizzy.”
One of Rysa’s memories tri
ed to surface but slipped under Billy’s mumblings. The world felt edited and the edges of her context trimmed. She remembered her mom, and Billy, and that she was in Rock Springs, Wyoming. These were the central clues in her game of life. Nothing else registered.
“Where is she, Billy?”
“Didn’t you hear me, Fate bitch? They took Lizzy.” He seethed like a coiled snake waiting for her to twitch so he could strike. “Your mum begged us to take her. Said she’d help us get away if we helped her find the other one.” His face heated and he jabbed his fingers in the air as if he were firing pistols. “I told her they promised us Shifter snacks and she’d better get us at least three or I’d eat her! But they caught us and took Lizzy.”
“Billy.” She held up her hands. “Who took Lizzy?”
“The girl is creepy. Even I can tell she’s creepy.” He bopped on his toes and bent forward. “You pissed off their pa. That’s what one of the boys said. I can’t tell them apart.” His gaze flitted across the lot. “The big dinosaur’s not going to snap my neck, is he?”
What dinosaur? “Billy, please.”
“They all thought together real hard and they saw your mum.” He twirled around. “They were real cocky about it. Rubbed your mum’s face in it, they did. Something about ‘practicing’ and ‘focusing on consequences’ and being ‘the best.’” His fingers smoldered as he air-quoted the words. “Wankers.”
He tapped his cheek and little wisps burst into the air. “We were with buffalo—bison—mean ugly cows.” He shrugged. “They’re big. Not tasty like you.”
“Where is she?”
“They’ll snap your mum’s back!” A light popped from his mouth when he gritted his teeth. “That’s what I’m supposed to tell you. Won’t kill her. Not technically.”
The War Babies. And she’d followed Billy away from the hospital building.
“I don’t like them.”
The editing increased. Her nasty should have control of her seers, of the tentacles, but it didn’t. It fought anyway, and it guarded something important.
“Come here.” The pen she’d taken from the front desk felt as if it vibrated against her palm.
Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1) Page 24
