Celtic Dragons

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Julian couldn’t believe that he was encouraging the woman he loved to startle a known-killer, but if she didn’t, then he might startle her and that would be far worse. He held his breath as the screen stayed still, Siobhan silent and unmoving.

  When there was movement, it was sudden but smooth as Siobhan got to her feet with one motion, raised her gun, and fired three shots all at the exact same spot—the right side of the dolly that was near Melanie. All three bullets landed in the same hole, directly between two of the dolly’s slats, and Julian bit back his reactionary gasp, waiting to see what she was planning and if it had worked. He had no visions to help her in this moment, and if his instinct had been wrong, Xander could be about to attack her from behind.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Before the second bullet hit the box, Xander stumbled out from behind the dolly, his arms thrown over his head as he ducked behind something else. Julian felt both intense relief and fear as he realized that there was no going back at this point. But Siobhan had the upper hand, having scared Xander right out of his little hiding hole.

  Julian wanted to cheer for her, but he didn’t dare. Instead, he sat in his hospital bed, so intent and intense that his whole body was rigid.

  What Xander said, Julian couldn’t make out, but Siobhan let out a derisive laugh. “Hardly. You act like it was hard to figure out what you had planned here. I know that Melanie is wired to an explosive, and I know you were hiding back there like a coward, waiting for me to instinctively run to her and try to free her. You have to do better than that, Xander. I’m not that easy to pull one over on.”

  Again, Julian couldn’t hear Xander, and it was driving him insane that he couldn’t know exactly what was happening. The screen cut out for a moment, panicking him, then flickered back to the warehouse, revealing Xander standing much closer, his soft, pudgy face a mask of rage. This time, Julian could hear him perfectly.

  “That’s not my only trick. No, no, no,” the man said, his hands rubbing together over and over. He licked his lips, staring at the gun. “Another gun. Such violence. I’m already wounded…”

  Julian could see the bandaging on the arm that he’d shot, and at the moment, his only regret was that it hadn’t done more damage.

  “Come closer,” Xander encouraged, smiling eerily as he beckoned her forward. “Come closer, and I’ll tell you all my secrets. I’ll tell you how I was a bad, bad boy. I’ll tell you everything before I kill you. I wanted to tell someone. I did. I wanted to tell them, but no one will listen.” He moved closer again, seeming to be under the impression that Siobhan wouldn’t use the gun in her hand. “You’ll listen.” His eyes gleamed, so close now to the camera.

  “Back off,” Siobhan said, her gun between them. “Keep your distance, Blanchard, or I’ll blow your head off. You think I can’t disarm Melanie on my own? Think again.”

  But Xander was distracted, and Julian thought that the man seemed to be looking directly at him. Then Xander moved closer again, and his hand lifted up. “Are you…making a movie of me?” he asked, his voice squeaking in indignation. “NO!”

  With one violent swipe of his hand, Xander sent the glasses crashing to the ground, the loud noise echoing in Julian’s ears as the video tumbled over and over again before landing with the camera trained uselessly on the ceiling.

  “No!” he shouted, sitting straight up in bed as the bottom of Xander’s shoe sole came into view, then descended down on the feed, turning it into brutal blackness. The sound cut out a moment later, and Julian, devastated, lay back in his hospital bed, breathing hard. “Damn it!” he shouted. “Damn it!”

  Ophelia tried to calm him. “We can see him through your visions. We’ll find her.”

  “And what good will that do?” Julian demanded, snapping at the woman. “I can watch while he kills her? Without a warning system, I’m no good to her.”

  Kicking off his blankets, he pulled every cord out of his arm, freeing himself. “Let’s go. You’re driving me there. Don’t argue, Ophelia. Drive me to her. We’re going now.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I’m going to her,” he said, turning a gaze on her that she clearly recognized as serious. She nodded, and Julian stood up. He was slightly dizzy and his legs weren’t fully under him, but he wasn’t staying in that hospital room another second, as long as Siobhan was out there on her own. That was his woman, and he was going to retrieve her. God help the person who tried to stop him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Siobhan

  When Xander had begun walking toward her, Siobhan had focused in immediately on two things—the knife hanging at the side of his jeans, strapped there, and the trigger device that was in his back pocket, just visible above his hip. She’d let him get closer and closer without pulling another warning shot because at any moment, the man could blow up the boxes surrounding Melanie and end her life. Whatever the woman had done to Xander, she didn’t deserve that.

  She was playing the long-game with Xander, but she hadn’t anticipated him detecting her technology, and when he reached up and knocked her glasses to the ground, the Bluetooth device had gone with them and he’d destroyed them both before she could stop him, his knife now drawn and in his hand. Siobhan hated it, because she knew that Julian was going to be beside himself, but it wasn’t the fight that she was there to pick with Xander. If she acted now, about the loss of the camera, she became reactive to him, instead of proactive.

  Siobhan couldn’t afford that. She had to play this right because she didn’t want Xander to end up dead. It didn’t sit right with her, when he was clearly not in his right mind.

  “Feel better?” she asked, purposefully remaining totally calm as he stamped on her glasses over and over. “What a big, strong man, destroying that itty-bitty camera. Aren’t you powerful?”

  He glared at her, his hand clenched around the knife. “That was a mistake. I invited you here. You! Just you!”

  “You call this an invitation?” she asked, glancing around. “Lame party, dude.”

  The comment got under his skin, giving her an idea of how to handle him. She could upset him with just her words, but she had to be careful not to upset him so much that he made a rash decision and pushed that button on the trigger in his pocket.

  “It’s not a party,” he hissed. “It’s a show.” Backing up, he brandished his arms wide, the knife still clutched tightly. “It’s my show! Mine. You tried to say I was crazy, but now you’re going to know! You’ll know who I am before I kill you.” Taking the knife, he drew it menacingly across his own throat, miming slitting it open. His mouth opened grotesquely, his tongue flopping out and his eyes rolling back as he let his head fall to one side as though he was dead. Then, without missing a beat, he was staring at her again, a terrifying giggle bubbling up out of him uncontrollably. “My show!”

  “I’m bored already,” she told him, again refusing to react. Her best weapon was that she wasn’t emotional and he was. That would be far more useful than her gun. “If this is a show, how about you try to keep from putting me to sleep?” To emphasize her casual lack of concern, she hopped up onto a nearby box, sitting there, her gun dangling from her hand as her legs swung idly.

  His eyes narrowed again, his mouth opening and closing and opening again as he tried to get his bearings. “You’re not playing it right!” he finally shouted at her. “Play the game!” He rushed over to Melanie and grabbed her by the hair, making her head jerk backward, muffled sounds escaping from around the gag. “See her? This is my mommy. Did you know that? My mommy. Isn’t my mommy pretty, Siobhan? Doesn’t she look like she could rock you to sleep at night?” Rearing his head back, he slapped Melanie across the face, causing her head to hit against the pole as she whimpered.

  Siobhan felt a surge of rage, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Instead, she shrugged. “I don’t know. She doesn’t look like that great of a mom to me.”

  “She wasn’t!” Xander hissed, stalking toward her again. “She left me
! She abandoned me to those monsters—those monsters! They hated me. They starved me and beat me, and they locked me in a cage!” He mimed grabbing onto cage bars in front of him, his voice becoming small and child-like. “I want my mommy! I want my mommy! Please don’t leave me in the cage, Grandma! Please!”

  Despite herself, she did feel sorry for Xander—for the boy version of him anyway, who hadn’t asked to be treated so cruelly. His grandparents had made him into the person he was now, and it wasn’t his fault that they had.

  “I killed them,” Xander said, licking his lips and dragging the tip of his finger along the edge of the knife, giggling. “I killed them both! In their beds! Ohhhhh, there was so much blood. I was so bad! Oh, I was bad! I was a bad, bad, bad boy, but they couldn’t lock me in the cage anymore. They couldn’t!” He made his face go slack again, the arm holding the knife dangling by his side. A shiver passed through his whole body, making him wriggle like a worm on a hook. “They looked like this, old and wrinkled and naked in their bed.” He bolted up right again, fingers tightening around the knife handle. “I killed them!”

  Siobhan shrugged, staring fixedly at her nails as though her cuticle maintenance was suddenly of utmost importance. “’Kay. And?”

  A shriek erupted out of him, and he threw his knife toward her, the blade sinking into the box that was just behind her, inches from her head. She refused to flinch—outwardly at least. The truth was that he was, by far, the creepiest, scariest person she had ever faced, not because he was more adept at fighting or smarter than her average foe, but because he was clearly dark and disturbed. His giggle would haunt her for the rest of her life. But it was worth it to keep from showing him how much he bothered her, because part one of her plan had worked. He had disarmed himself for her. Siobhan smiled at him and reached back to pull the knife out of the box, folding it closed and slipping it in her pocket. “Thanks, dude.”

  He was seething at her refusal to be in any way impacted by him, his soft, squishy face turning red with rage. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out the triggering device. “I still have this. I still have her! That excuse for a mother who went off to find herself while I lived in a cage.”

  “Yeah,” Siobhan said, nodding, finally abandoning her nail scrutinization. “Shit happens. That’s life.”

  “Shit!” he yelled, determined to make her react. “I slept in my own shit! I slept in my own stinky, squishy, bug-infected shit!” His free hand crawled up his face, shielding his eyes. “Don’t make me go back in there! Don’t! Don’t! Grandma, please!”

  Siobhan glanced over at Melanie, whose forehead was bleeding, and she saw the pain in her eyes—not just pain from her injuries, but pain for the boy that Siobhan also felt for. This was her son, and seeing what he had become—feeling the guilt she must feel—had to be every bit as bad as being tied to a pole, gagged, bound with explosives, and bashed in the head.

  “I’m Brandon Nicols,” Xander said, suddenly dropping the childhood voice and straightening up out of his flashback. “Brandon Nicols isn’t a bad boy. No, he makes everybody happy. He does what everyone else does.” Xander walked up to Siobhan and grabbed her hand, shaking it hard. “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Brandon Nicols, and I work unloading boxes at a company called Bowden. Sshhh, don’t tell anyone what we’re really shipping.” He winked at her. “It’s a secret.”

  Siobhan felt a chill go through her as his palm touched hers, but the moment he grabbed her hand to shake it, in whatever persona he had suddenly adopted, she tightened her own hold on him, refusing to let him pull his hand away from her.

  His eyes darkened, and Brandon Nicols, the half-way functional part of him disappeared. “Let go of me,” he hissed. “Let go, or I’ll pull the trigger right now.” His other hand held up the trigger device, his thumb pressing menacingly on the red button. Melanie whimpered, shaking her head vehemently, and Siobhan knew she was taking a risk. But every moment she let the psychotic man hold that trigger, she was taking a risk.

  Yanking his arm, she pulled him closer to her, then spun his arm around behind his back as she jumped down from the box and pulled his arm upward, placing such a strain on his joints that he shouted in pain. A long string of filthy curses spewed from his mouth, but Siobhan had heard worse before.

  “Drop it,” she demanded. “Drop it, put your hands up, and we all walk out of this alive. Melanie goes home, I turn you in, and you get the help that you need. Drop the trigger, or I’ll break your arm, and then I’ll kill you.”

  It was a bluff. She couldn’t—in good conscience—kill the man unless it was in direct defense of herself or Melanie or some other innocent person. She wouldn’t kill him in cold blood because of that little boy he had once been.

  But he didn’t know that.

  “Never,” he hissed, trying to push back against her, using his weight to attempt to topple her over. Siobhan was too practiced in self-defense and hand-to-hand combat for that though, and she braced herself against him, gradually lowering him to the floor. Melanie was still whimpering, clearly terrified that he was going to push the trigger, but Siobhan knew better. That was his only ace in the hole. If he killed her now, this was all over, and this was the show he’d been waiting for. He had a plan, and he was adapting it to fit Siobhan into it, but he wasn’t going to abandon his plan unless he had no other choice.

  She had to make sure that he had no other choice.

  Siobhan wrestled him all the way to the ground from behind, without taking her eyes off the trigger in his hand. She couldn’t reach for it without losing her leverage to keep him pinned beneath her, but as soon as she got him all the way on the ground, she grabbed for his other outstretched arm, throwing her whole body after him.

  It put her off balance, and Xander was able to buck her off of him, sending her tumbling onto the warehouse floor as he scrambled to his feet. Acting quickly, Siobhan spun on her back on the floor, swinging her legs out to sweep under his. It made him stumble, but he didn’t fall. Instead, he ran away from her as she got to her feet, and by the time she could start after him, he was almost across the room.

  Siobhan followed, but carefully, watching his every move. The warehouse had any number of potential weapons lying around, ready for him to use against her, and he had taken her off guard once. He wasn’t going to do it again.

  “Xander, you’re not going to come out of this well,” she said, keeping her voice unaffected, as though she was rather bored by the whole fight and just wanted him to end it now. “You think I’m going to lose next time? I’m a trained fighter. And you know what? It’s not your fault that you’re so angry. I can get you help.”

  “You want to lock me in a cage,” he hissed, backing up from her now, his eyes continually darting toward a workbench.

  Siobhan shuddered to think what he might find there to use against her or Melanie if he had half the chance. Her eyes darted there too, and then she did see it. It wasn’t the workbench at all, but the door below it—the one that led to an underground area that Xander was inching his way toward.

  She had been wrong. He was abandoning plan. He was going to hit that trigger and blow up the warehouse the moment that he opened that trap door, and she was too far away to keep him from doing it. The door was now just a few inches from him, and he could bend at any moment, yank it upward, and disappear beneath it as his thumb pressed down on that trigger.

  She couldn’t stop him, and she couldn’t get her and Melanie out in time; she also wasn’t going to let it end like this. Their eyes locked, and for a brief moment, she saw the triumph in his eyes. She saw his knees bend, and this thumb begin to press, and she abandoned all hope of stopping him. Whirling around, she jumped as high as she could and shifted mid-air, her dragon form sprawling out across the warehouse as she sped toward the pole that Melanie was attached to.

  Angling her wings, she curved her body, swinging her heavy, scaled, golden tail around her with as much momentum as she could gather and letting it crash directly into the
pole that was holding Melanie. The solid metal bowed, bent, and then broke in half, and she kept it from falling on the middle-aged woman with one swift sweep of her wing. The pole fell harmlessly to the side, and the bonds that had linked Melanie to it loosened by the lack of the pole and slipped off of Melanie’s wrists as she yanked her arms back, terrified. She was free from the explosives, but the explosives themselves were still every bit the danger they had been moments earlier. Siobhan swooped down and picked the woman up in her claws, then turned to put as much distance as possible between them and the explosives.

  The shock of seeing a dragon appear had frozen Xander, and when she turned toward him, menacing and impressive in all of her glory, he was gaping at her. She would expect nothing less, but she also knew that the moment he recovered, he would press that trigger out of desperation.

  This time, she was right.

  His hand contorted, his thumb jamming the red button hard, and the result was instantaneous. The bonds that lay on the floor beneath them erupted with force and fire that quickly began to burn the floor and the cardboard boxes that littered the warehouse. Had she been in her human form, Siobhan would have been knocked across the room by the force of the explosion, but her dragon form was strong in every way. Her wings shielded Melanie as Siobhan bore the brunt of the impact, tumbling over in the air once before managing to right herself.

  The moment she had control over her wings again, she flew to the one window, breaking through it with her tail and then tossing Melanie outside of it. The woman would suffer more than a few bruises and possibly a broken bone or two, depending on how she fell, but she was alive—not beaten to death by her resentful son.

  That was all that Siobhan could ask for.

  When she turned away from the window, Xander was nowhere in sight, and she didn’t doubt that he was safe in his cellar, shocked, horrified, and desperately disappointed, but very much alive. It was more than she was going to be able to say for herself if she didn’t get out of the warehouse soon. It was the kind of building that could be ravaged by a fire in mere minutes, and the heat and smoke were already oppressive. Flames surrounded her everywhere, which was all right—as long as she was in her dragon form. Her scales would protect all of her except the soft underbelly and throat.