Men And Beasts (Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Book 6)

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  A communication blasted between the man and the beast, but Ladon looked up at the storage rooms high above the cave’s apartments, and in particular, the room where the Dracae stored their weapons.

  “It’s time.” Maria showed him her scabbards, one containing her talisman, her midnight blade, and the other empty and waiting. “The Burner would not give me Poke, so Stab’s time has come….”

  A Nebraska backroad near the Wyoming border….

  Billy tapped the brakes of the now his-and-only-his turquoise 1967 Chevy Impala. The auto was a lovely, strong vehicle with an equally lovely, strong engine, and he had promised the big Shifter named Sisto that he would care for it well. He would not allow Fates to steal it.

  He wasn’t much good for anything else, but he could keep an auto safe.

  Driving helped block the intrusive static and the radio chatter. He ate that Fate and the universe punished him by opening his brain to the white noise of some long-off air traffic control, though he was pretty certain they weren’t chatting about taxiing and runway numbers.

  His songs helped as well, but he’d stopped singing to himself when he hit the Nebraska border. New lyrics filled his brain and did what new lyrics always did—called up the reason for their making in the first place.

  He’d stopped wanting to think about the princess when he left Cheyenne.

  Maybe the chatter in his head started because that Fate put a remote radio-controlled detonator under his skin. He should have pulled it out as soon as she pushed it in. Tossed it into the hotel. Saved himself and not worried so about the princess or her thoughts and feelings.

  If he had wanted to save himself, he wouldn’t have noshed that Fate cow. He would have turned her head into a cloud of incinerated bone and meat and stood over her body like some American movie star. The princess would have thanked him. He would have been the man she expected him to be.

  Instead, he was Billy the Burner, ex-rock star, ex-employable individual, ex-recovered addict. Ex-human being.

  At least he got a new posh ride out of his adventure. The body might be a 1967 Impala but the engine wasn’t. She purred right along any road, gravel, pavement, it didn’t matter. Put a plow on her front and she’d roam right on through the mountains.

  He’d decided to take her east and give himself a moment before driving west again. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and he did not want to go into Praesagio both figuratively and literally hotheaded.

  Or so he told himself. Maybe he just wanted to be as far from the princess and her boyfriend-husband, and all their trappings, as he could be.

  The chatter in his head buzzed again. “Why the countdown, my friends?” No one ever answered, but it seemed polite to include them in his conversations.

  He slapped the side of his neck. Sometimes hitting the glass under his skin stopped the buzzing. Driving often did.

  The nasty piece of work Sisto stole the car from had infused the vehicle’s panels with the ashes of Billy’s fallen brethren—Burners she probably killed herself, considering the equipment she carried in the boot. He’d found several knives, three guns, a baseball bat, and a guitar, of all things. His precious magic sword now snuggled in between the bat and the instrument, safe and sound. He no longer needed to carry Poke on his person all the time. Not with this vehicle. Fewer stares, that way.

  Some dumbass had pulled over up ahead. The other car looked like every sedan on the road, but out here in the wide open areas, it stood out. The locals drove trucks.

  He needed to be careful. Fates were everywhere.

  Billy tapped his brakes again as he approached. The sedan looked newer, and posh, which meant the driver most likely had connections.

  People with connections did not make good meals. Their connections tended to go looking for bodies and murderers. He would sate his hunger somewhere calmer.

  He might not have lived up to his princess’s expectations—he had quite predictably lived down to his own—but he didn’t need to be dense about it.

  A man in an indigo-violet parka and a black knit cap leaned against the sedan, watching Billy approach. He’d stuffed one hand into a pocket, but the other he held straight and slightly behind his leg.

  A sandstorm past-seer blew through the car. Billy sneezed.

  No one should know his location, not with his Burner blood and his Burner-infused auto. No Fate should be able to trace his scent in the what-was-is-will-be.

  The engine cut. Just turned itself off. His lovely auto slowed.

  Billy slapped the steering wheel. “Bollocks!” His vehicle stopped about fifty feet beyond the Fate in the dark purple parka.

  Connections or not, the man was about to meet Billy’s teeth. He flung open the door and spread his arms wide. “What the bloody hell do you want?” he yelled. “What did you do to my auto?”

  The man pointed his gun in that two-handed way Federal types held their weapons ready. Billy sniffed, trying to pick up anything off the man, but the wind and the cold whistled by his face and not a lot got in.

  The Fate stopped within firing range but far enough back he might—probably not—survive if Billy went boom. “Mr. William Barston?” he yelled. “You are the Ambustae familiar with Rysa Torres Drake?”

  What did this Fate know about the princess? “Why?”

  The man straightened. He dropped one hand off his gun and nodded toward the Impala. “That car belongs to Penelope Sisto, a bounty hunter and bloodhound enthraller, Mr. Barston. It’s lowjacked. We hacked her accounts.” He grinned. “All her accounts, in case you wish to go shopping.”

  Billy chuckled. This guy might not be so bad. “You still haven’t told me what you want.”

  The Fate held up his hands, gun still palmed. “My name is Amir Sut, Mr. Barston. I work for a very specific branch of Praesagio Industries.”

  Billy rolled his eyes. “Obviously.” He probably wanted Poke. They all wanted Poke. He waved the man away. “Bugger off!”

  “The car won’t start, Mr. Barston. Not until I re-enable the engine.”

  Billy scooped up a handful of snow and whipped it at the Fate. “Is that why Sisto gave it to me? So you could find me?”

  The Fate nodded. “One of the reasons. We also knew you would be safe until we could bring you in if you had a quality vehicle.”

  Billy lowered his head and stared out of the top of his eyes at the Fate. “Take me in?”

  The Fate inhaled. “Yes, Mr. Barston. I’m here to offer you help with… the hunger. And…” He frowned. “… I have been authorized to inform you of the complete halt to all programs involving the use of burndust in building materials. You have Emperor Trajan’s word.”

  Trajan? “That geezer’s not in charge anymore.”

  The Fate’s mouth twisted. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  No. No, he did not.

  “The Emperor wishes to offer you a job.”

  Employment? “At your mega-corporation of institutionalized murder?” Billy gave the Fate the finger.

  “You would be working for my specialized unit, Mr. Barston.”

  Was this Fate offering him a job as a spy? “Doing what?”

  The Fate holstered his weapon. “Saving the princess, of course.”

  Of course. More thinking about the princess. More contemplation and more lyrics. “I have a request….”

  The reception in Branson, Missouri….

  Rysa pursed her lips. Her eyelids fluttered. “How?” she asked.

  They’d stepped out into the low, soft light of the pavilion’s back hallway. Ladon figured she would want privacy when he showed her what had just appeared in his phone’s inbox.

  Billy’s crackling voice flowed from Ladon’s phone’s speaker. “Hiya, Princess. Boyfriend,” he said. He held a guitar and leaned against a familiar-looking car.

  “Who’s recording this for him?” Rysa took the phone and held it up to allow Dragon to also see.

  “I don’t know.” Ladon would ask Derek, or mayb
e Ivan, to research the specifics of the video.

  “We need to help him, Ladon.” Rysa looked up at his face. Her lip quivered.

  “I know, love.” He’d figure out how.

  Billy strummed the guitar. “I wrote this for you… both of you.” He grinned. Even on video, his teeth fluoresced.

  Rysa snuggled closer.

  That is Penny’s vehicle, Dragon pushed. Perhaps Andreas knows more about this situation than he has said.

  “Perhaps,” Ladon responded. “We will ask.”

  Yes, the beast signed.

  Billy hummed a few notes and tuned the instrument, then strummed again.

  He sang. His voice soared over the wind and the snow swirling around him, wherever he was. So much loss rode on his voice. Loss and sadness, and an apology for not being the good man he seemed to think Rysa and Ladon expected him to be.

  The song turned hopeful, but not for Billy. He sang for someone else—everyone else, for the world, to be what he could not. To be good men and women.

  “Oh, Billy,” Rysa touched the phone’s screen. She looked up at Ladon’s face again. “We have to help him.”

  “We will.” Ladon wrapped his arms around the woman he loved. The woman who inspired a Burner to be human.

  He watched Billy set the guitar onto the hood of the car. This was not the Billy who helped him escape Texas. This Billy looked… defeated.

  Yes, Dragon pushed, he looks like a man who has lost his freedom….

  The base…

  “Nice lair you have here, sandy Fate-boy.” Billy clicked his fingernails over the drill marks in the tunnel’s wall. He set off little puffs every third click, which seemed to unnerve the Fate nicely. “Do you have a throne on a dais and a fluffy cat to stroke? Or a death ray aimed at Washington? What’s the ransom?”

  The Fate had allowed him to carry Poke. He’d said something about it being “where it needed to be” before ushering Billy into an elevator in the middle of a frozen cornfield.

  It has all been as surreal as the chatter in his head.

  “This place is not a lair, Burner.” The Fate pointed at the tunnel’s brightly lit endpoint. “Please. They’re waiting.”

  Lair or not, surreal or not, Billy would not walk into the lion’s den a weakling. He would stand tall. If he could not be the best man the princess wanted, he could be the best Burner.

  The room, wide with a tall ceiling lit by harsh LED lights, held only a long, bare conference table surrounded by uncomfortable, bare conference chairs. No art. No color beyond the industrial gray of the walls.

  Pieces of a broken sword spread out like a puzzle on the center of the table, a familiar-shaped hilt pointing away from Billy and the blade’s still razor-sharp, still black-as-midnight tip aimed at the door he’d just walked through. Most of the remaining pieces were arranged to fit together between the two.

  Two holes opened like coves in the topography of the sword: One shaped like the shard he’d taped to Boyfriend’s cast and a second, smaller piece where the blade was supposed to attach to the hilt.

  Billy pointed. “Is that….” He felt the power oozing off each of the damned thing’s bits.

  The Fate nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why is it here?” This could not be good. Not good at all. The only reason the Fate Progenitor’s talisman would be in a lair was to lure in the Progenitor of the Fates.

  The sandy Fate stared at the broken sword with a reverent awe. “We have someone who will fix it.”

  “Fix it?” Was that possible?

  The Fate nodded. “She only needs to be activated….”

  The reception in Branson, Missouri….

  On the other side of the dance floor, Ivan hugged Daisy.

  “Something’s wrong.” Gavin pushed his way behind Mr. Sisto’s chair. Twisting between the big man and the wall strained his immobile rib, but he needed to get to Daisy.

  He looked down at the drawings on the other side of the man’s plate. At the face of the woman Mr. Sisto called Idunn, the Shifter Progenitor, and his mother. “That’s…”

  Daisy jogged up to the table. She wasn’t looking at the drawings. She was looking at him, her eyes still wide and rounded. Her skin flushed red as well, as if something Ivan told her sent her blood pressure through the roof.

  “What’s wrong?” He reached over the table for her hand.

  She blinked. “I’m…” Her gaze swept across Mr. Sisto to Dr. Torres, then back.

  Her brow furrowed. She pointed at the drawing.

  “Why is there a picture of my mom on the table?”

  Outside….

  Idunn, the Progenitor of the Shifters, leaned against the barn door’s frame.

  Across from Dmitri Pavlovich’s state-of-the-art stable, inside one of the many buildings in his vast entertainment complex, their daughter danced with dragons.

  Dunn smoothed the black curls of her hair and the wrinkles of her blue t-shirt. She was a small woman, like AnnaBelinda, and like all the Progenitors, her eyes carried more metallic glints than a normal’s. But unlike Ladon and AnnaBelinda, she’d never been restrained by color-based dragon impulses.

  Andreas was in there, as was Sandro Torres. That little shit Ivan walked among the guests. They were all formidable. Daisy was safe, but Dunn still needed to deal with the threat that brought her here in the first place.

  She whistled. “Here, girl!”

  Daisy’s German shepherd, Dawnstar, padded over. The dog remembered Dunn as Cecilia Reynolds. She dropped her old doggie butt on Dunn’s foot.

  “How are you, girl?” Dunn rubbed the dog’s head. “I see Daisy is keeping you healthy.” The dog was long past her prime, but she moved well and vibrated with health. “Where are your little friends?”

  Dunn looked around for the other dogs, Dawn’s sons Radar and Ragnar, and one of her targets, the little corgi named Emergency Rations. “Ivan’s keeping her inside, isn’t she?”

  Dawn whined. She stood and looked over her shoulder as if asking Dunn to follow her into the darkness of the barn. The dog led the way to an office in the center of the building. She pawed at the door, whining again, before sitting next to Dunn’s legs.

  Dunn found the corgi inside, sleeping in a warmed bed under a desk in the corner. Three tiny monochromatic kittens snuggled in with the dog, all also sleeping. Dunn touched each, checking and rechecking.

  Emergency Rations lifted her head.

  “How are you doing, my little friend?”

  The corgi whimpered.

  “Here, honey, let me help.” Heat rolled from Dunn’s palm into the dog’s throat. The corgi coughed.

  A slug hit the floor.

  Dunn moved her fingers to each of the kittens and they, too, coughed up similar, smaller slugs. She shot healing into all four animals. They sighed in unison. Little mews echoed under the desk.

  The dog pulled the kittens close like the good adoptive mother she was, and returned to sleep.

  Dunn poked at the four slugs. They wiggled toward each other, homing in on their brethren, and quickly merged into one larger slug. It lifted its “head” as if looking for a place to hide until it built what it was meant to rebuild.

  Dunn picked it up. “Vivicus,” she said. “You sneaky psycho.” The slug thrashed, a slimy bit of her dead firstborn. “They killed you for a reason and I’m sorry to say, my dear boy, but you need to stay that way.”

  She placed the slug on her tongue. It wiggled and screamed, its little howling vibrations moving up into her cheeks, but she didn’t care. She swallowed the last remaining piece of the First Morpher whole. Now, if she wanted, she could make a whole new First Morpher. Might not be a bad idea, considering.

  Dunn burped.

  Behind her, the door clicked.

  She spun around. A tall, normal man leaned against the office threshold in much the same way she had leaned against the barn door frame. He also carried several weapons concealed under his indigo-violet jacket.

  She recognized his gar
b first, before she recognized his face. “You’re Praetorian Guard.” He was most likely here as a special bodyguard sent by her other son, Trajan, as a gift to the Dracae.

  She waved the man away. “Not my monkeys. Not my circus.”

  He stood up and smoothed his jacket, again in much the same way she had earlier. Consciously or not, he mimicked her, and was likely using his skills to “build empathy with his asset,” a ploy the Guard often used.

  “I remember you.” She tipped her head. “1544, in the hills outside of Manchester.” Yes, it was definitely him. “You were in training. Cordelia Palatini was your commanding officer. I made you long immortal.”

  “You told me to ‘now and forever annoy the dragons!’ Yes.” He stepped into the office and offered his hand. “Harold Demshire, ma’am.”

  She glanced around his side. “Where’s your partner?” She’d tasked him with protecting the original Draki Prime, though why she’d thought a normal—even a normal with exceptional fighting and spy abilities—could have kept Marcus, Timothy, and Daniel safe from The Children of the Burning World, she didn’t remember. Sometimes odd thoughts like that manifested in her mind. She’d long thought a ghost whispered strange secrets in her ear. Gave her information that she shouldn’t have and told her tasks she should not do. Why else would she come for Vivicus’s slugs, or make this man immortal, or save the lives of the Romanovs? Her Russian interference had cost her Andreas’s love and respect.

  At other times, she thought herself as crazy as her now-dead son, Vivicus.

  Harold Demshire tipped his head toward the door. “He’s here. He’s waiting.”

  She nodded. “What do you want?”

  Harold also nodded. Yes, this man had talents beyond a mere normal’s. “Your help.”