by D. N. Hoxa
And a second later, the tunnel disappeared.
The weak rays of the setting sun fell on my cap. I stopped running because there was no need for that now. If they’d wanted us for something, they wouldn’t have let us leave.
Spinning around, I searched the street for soldiers or demons, or both. So far, lots of paranormals were coming our way, but they didn’t seem to mind us at all. They were just in a hurry to get through the invisible door of the black market.
Turning to Elisa, I sighed. “What did you do?”
Breathing heavily, she took the cap off and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Elisa wasn’t someone who’d get tired of running that distance, so it must have been the fear.
“I pissed him off,” she said with a flinch. Exactly what I’d suspected. “Come on.”
At the time, I had no idea what pissing off a fairy like that guy meant. I didn’t know about the consequences, but I eventually would.
“How did you piss him off?” I asked Elisa as we walked down the street in a hurry, keeping our heads down. “Who is he, anyway?”
“A very powerful fairy. They call him the Holy Trinity because his illusions can make you feel, hear, and see everything the way he wants you to.”
“I’m guessing that’s not a common thing?” I knew next to nothing about fairies.
“Can’t say for sure, but people are afraid of him for a reason.”
“So why did you piss him off? Were you not afraid of him, too?”
Elisa smiled sadly. “When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, fairies don’t intimidate you all that much. I told him I’d rat him to the Seelie Court in the fairy realm if he didn’t tell me what that dragon can do.”
“And you thought that was smart, why?” I’d have been pissed off if somebody threw threats at me, too.
“Doesn’t matter,” Elisa mumbled.
“Of course it does. He was our only chance at figuring this thing out!” Now, we were back to square one, and I couldn’t help but blame her for it.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I was doing my best. I had no idea he’d be so freaked out and go fairy crazy on me!”
“Just how freaked out was he?”
“Very,” she breathed. “I literally didn’t see it coming. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave, and I think he meant it. Now, there’s no way he’ll tell us anything anymore.”
Biting my lip, I slowed down a bit. “Maybe he already did.” If what she said was true, than he did tell us—not much, but something. “Normally, there would be no reason for him to threaten to kill you over a dragon weapon on some witch’s hand—which is what this is, or should have been, to him.”
“But it wasn’t,” Elisa whispered in wonder. “That dragon is more trouble than I thought.”
“I already knew that, I guess.” Trinity was the second fairy who’d looked at the dragon as if he never wanted to see it again. Just when I’d forgotten Gerin’s face, Trinity’s was fresh in my mind now.
“From experience, I’ve learned that things that make people go ape-shit on people are better kept far away from you,” Elisa said. There I was, thinking the same thing.
“I have to get rid of this.” I raised my hand to look at the dragon. It could have fooled anyone in the world, except those who knew what it was. My entire arm felt foreign to me, like it didn’t belong to me, since I’d put the dragon on.
“It’s much more trouble than it’s worth,” Elisa agreed.
“Without it, though, the demons are probably going to kill me.”
“It’s still better off far away from us.” Clearing her throat, Elisa hurried her steps. “Don’t look right away, but there are some freaky guys with masks on their faces around the street. I saw them at the black market as well. Almost like they’re looking for me—or you.”
My heart leaped as I turned my head to the side as casually as I could. I didn’t notice them at first, until I saw the black mask over a guy’s face, and the sunglasses. His face was completely shielded but his head turned from one side of the street to the other, to indicate that he was indeed looking for someone.
Running wasn’t going to help us—it was going to draw attention we didn’t want, because so far, nobody was coming after us. They hadn’t spotted us yet. But it was impossible to walk casually when I knew people were looking for me, and I was right there.
“How long do your spells last?” I asked Elisa. If it weren’t for them, we would have been long spotted.
“Last time I checked, they were solid for twenty-four hours,” she said. “The confusion spell, at least.”
“What else did you put on me?” I wanted to know what my chances were, but Elisa flinched.
“A mix of Hedge magic. Just keep walking and don’t look back. Nobody is going to follow us.”
Nobody did. To make sure, we walked for almost twenty minutes in a hurry before we allowed ourselves to take a break. Our best bets were still places owned and frequented by humans. In them, we’d at least see other paranormals coming from a mile away. Night had fallen by the time we chose a bookstore to hide in. It was a place where paranormals could go, but also one we could spend some time in, pretending to browse books. It would give us time to cool down and make a decision on what to do next.
The store was huge and full of shelves. The five people browsing were human, as well as the two workers behind the wooden counter, desperately looking at the clock, waiting for closing time. We found a spot behind a large shelf where a decorative mirror on the opposite wall showed the entrance door perfectly. It was the medical book section, which was a blessing. I didn’t need to focus on browsing books for real and forget to check the door, which was what I’d be tempted to do with other genres.
“You think they were with the ECU?” Elisa asked, but I shook my head, feeling much more relaxed now. Safer. Even my heartbeat slowed down—something it hadn’t done the whole freaking day.
“The ECU doesn’t use masks. They either want to tell everyone they’re there by wearing their uniforms, or try to go undercover by dressing normally.” I’d never seen any of them wear masks before.
“So who was it?” Elisa was much more on edge now than before, which didn’t sit well with me.
“Does it matter? We’re safe for now, and we need to figure out what to do next.” I had cash with me, so finding a place to stay wasn’t going to be as troublesome as finding a way to hide from the ECU and the demons. So far, Elisa’s spells and Pretters had worked, but we couldn’t rely on them forever. And the witches those demons took from the research facility were probably already suffering a great deal. Just the thought of that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
Suddenly, I felt sick.
“Depends on what you want to make a priority. The kidnapped Dirts, or the dragon.”
I flinched. “Stop saying that word.” My words sounded slurred together.
“Sorry,” Elisa said with a roll of her eyes. “Scarlet, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Don’t I look fine?” I wasn’t fine. In fact, I was feeling really sick. What the hell? I was fine just a few seconds ago!
“Let’s get out of there,” Elisa said, concern altering her voice. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the entrance.
“We have nowhere else to go, and we have to save the witches. That’s my priority!” Why did my voice sound so strange?
“Just breathe, Scarlet. Breathe.”
Warmth spread on my chest. I was looking at the sky. Why was I looking at the sky? Wasn’t I just walking by Elisa’s side?
I wasn’t. Her face was over me, her lips moving fast as she chanted. Something hard was under me, and I was no longer standing. Cold fingers touched my forehead, sending a shock wave to my brain. Darkness consumed the blue sky above me.
“Just breathe.”
***
The small lamp across the room shone white. It was strangely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it yet. The yellowing walls had more
cracks on them than I could count. The bed I was lying in creaked when I moved, a sound I’d heard only the night before. That’s how I knew we were in Mojo’s former brothel turned motel for outlaws.
“You up?” Elisa said. She was on the other side of the bed, sitting at the edge, putting the daggers she’d given to me inside her jacket. Her hair was wet and neatly combed behind her ears, her overgrown bangs falling all the way to her nose.
I faintly remembered the sick feeling I’d had, and the way my strength had left me. I hadn’t even realized what was happening before I lost consciousness. Now, I could move my hands and arm, and I didn’t feel like throwing up anymore. I was perfectly fine, so I tried to sit up. No problem.
“What the hell happened?” I asked Elisa, my voice thick with sleep. Made me wonder how long I’d been out.
“No idea.” Elisa stood up and went over to the windows. I didn’t know how much she could see through the closed shutters, but I couldn’t tell if it was day or night. “You passed out in the middle of the street.”
“Shoot,” I whispered to myself. Looking down at my body didn’t give me any ideas. I looked just as I had before leaving that room the first time. “How long have I been out?”
“A while,” Elisa said. “It’s almost midnight and I’m going out.”
I jumped to my feet. “I need to eat something first.” Though I felt fine, I was also completely spent, and I didn’t operate very well with an empty stomach.
“You’re not coming,” said Elisa, making me smile. “I’m going to search for demons, try to figure out where they’re gathering. I won’t be long.”
She had lost her damn mind. “Absolutely not! I’m not going to stay locked in here. No way in hell.”
“Scarlet, be reasonable about this. Twenty-four hours have passed and I’m not sure if my spell stones are any good. Walking out of here could notify both the ECU and the demons, and then it’ll be over. This is the only place where you can’t be tracked.”
She did make a good point, but I wasn’t having it. This was my fight. I made the deal that brought the demons to the facility to kidnap all those witches. It was my responsibility to make sure they were freed as soon as possible. “I don’t care. I’ve blocked my powers before. The demons can’t find me, and if they can’t, neither will the ECU.”
“That was before you were at the top of their shit-list. They’re going to find you as soon as you step outside,” Elisa shouted.
“So spell me again! Do whatever you did to me again so we can be on our way. I’m hungry.”
“I can’t spell you. The strongest magic came from the spell stones. We can stay here and fight over this, or you can let me go do what I know how to do, and find where the demons are keeping the others!” She came really close to me. Our noses would have touched had she not been shorter than me by a few inches. Her blue eyes shone as she analyzed me, but that only pissed me off more.
“I don’t trust you, Elisa. Secrets hang in the air around you. You won’t tell me who you are or where you come from. If you think I’m comfortable with letting you out of my sight, you’re wrong.” Though I wished she wouldn’t have made me tell her this, it was no secret that she hid from me. It was no secret that I didn’t know her enough to trust her. Besides, I’d told her that before—right after she said the same.
“You don’t need to trust me. You just need to let me do my job. I agreed to help you, and this is me helping you! Stop being so fucking stubborn.”
“I want to go with you.” It was as simple as that.
“For fuck’s sake! You know it’s dangerous. Do you really want to go back to the ECU? Because you won’t be able to use that thing to get out again!” she shouted.
And when she put it that way… “What exactly are you going to do out there?” I asked reluctantly.
Taking in a deep breath, Elisa stepped back. “I’m going to search for demons. And I’m going to follow them.”
“And if you don’t find any?” Without realizing it, I’d agreed to let her go on her own. She was right, and I could pretend all I wanted, but I knew that without protection, the ECU would find me, or the demons would. I couldn’t afford to be found—not now. Not until all those kidnapped witches were free again.
“Then I’ll look tomorrow. You have money. So far, nobody’s found us here.” She shrugged. It was true, we’d been safe at Mojo’s, but that didn’t mean it was going to last.
“On one condition. You find or buy or make more Pretters like the ones that kept us hidden until now.”
Pressing her lips together, Elisa nodded. “I’ll try my best. I don’t know how to make them, but I can maybe find a way to buy them. Just don’t expect them to be cheap.”
“I don’t.” Sitting down on the bed made me feel like I was suddenly missing a limb. Being the adult sucked, but I had to let her go on her own.
“If something happens to you, how will I know?” I asked Elisa. She did have a phone. Maybe I needed one, too.
“If I’m not back before dawn, you’ll know,” Elisa said, going for the door.
“Hold on.” I reached for the money in my pockets only to realize it wasn’t there. My heart jumped.
“It’s there. I took some for the room and for food.” Elisa pointed at her pillow. Sure enough, the money was under it.
“Take more and get me a phone. I won’t use it to make calls, so don’t even get me a card.” It had been ages since I’d been online and watched any kind of news. And if Elisa needed more than one night to find the demons, I was going to need all the distraction I could get.
“Stay inside,” she said when she pocketed the money then disappeared out the door soundlessly, leaving me all alone with my thoughts.
Eight
Elisa didn’t find any demons on the first night.
On the second day, she went out to get us food because she claimed she was safer, having only one bad guy after her. The demons didn’t want her, only the ECU. She was gone for about ten minutes when it began.
My strength seemed to leave me in waves. I was doing nothing but reading some news on my new phone, lying down on the bed, and I wasn’t even that hungry. It made no sense to feel so weak all of the sudden, until I remembered that I’d felt exactly like that when we left the bookstore the day before.
Panic settled over my shoulders and it got very hard to breathe. My limps were frozen, my mind slipping away from me as if something was sucking it out. I felt myself fall into nothingness, terrified that I was going to die all alone in a former brothel room, never having the chance to save those people I’d doomed with a kiss.
When I woke up, Elisa hadn’t noticed a thing. She’d thought I’d fallen asleep reading, because the phone had been still in my hands when my finger had frozen.
The first time this happened, I’d been fine afterward. Now, not so much.
My left hand felt a bit numb. The clearer my head got, the more I began to feel the pain—and it was coming from the dragon.
For some reason, I didn’t tell Elisa. I let her think I’d fallen asleep, reading. If she suspected that this might happen again, I could forget about her taking me to hunt down the demons, even if she did buy the protective Pretters. So I kept it to myself and ignored the pain as best as I could while we ate. The sandwich she’d bought us tasted like dirt to me, but I chewed and swallowed just the same.
That night, it didn’t happen again, and Elisa didn’t find the demons.
On the third day, I kept on the bed. Elisa sat on the floor on the other side of the room, playing games on her phone, and I pretended to read about a Carnival my father used to mention. Paranormal tradition that took place once a decade in the middle of Manhattan. My dad had gone there as a kid once, and as barely an adult, right after he and my mother had me. I was pretty sure the stories he told my siblings about it were exaggerated. I thought it no longer existed, since it hadn’t been organized ten years ago—I would have remembered—but now it looked like it was on again.
> My body already knew it was coming. By lying down, it would be easy to lie to Elisa again. The energy was wiped from me in a single breath. The pain starting in my left hand paralyzed my entire arm. It was very similar to what I’d experienced when Melinda had tried to get the dragon off me in the ECU research facility. It was maddening, and I would have screamed my guts out had my jaw not been paralyzed, too. My mind shut down faster this time, as if eager to escape the pain. I couldn’t see the dragon around my hand because I couldn’t move, but it felt as if it was trying to tear from my skin, making a mess out of my entire body.
Until I passed out again.
Elisa was suspicious, to say the least. I told her I had nothing better to do than to sleep, and that I’d needed the rest. She wasn’t convinced, but she still went out on her own when night fell. All alone in the room, I put a towel over the bed, and my left arm over it. For the first time since I put it on, I was going to try to remove the dragon myself.
I grabbed it by the wings, just as Melinda had. I braced myself for the pain and I pulled with all my strength. The faster it was off me, the better.
But my own body refused to obey to my commands when I pulled. My fingers let go of the wings and I fell back on the ground, screaming. The sick feeling in my gut returned, full force. Air refused to go through my throat and dark spots filled my vision as I looked at the ceiling. There was no string of energy in my body and my mind couldn’t handle it. The fairy Trinity invaded my thoughts before they, too, escaped from me. He’d said that I was going to die soon. That the dragon was going to consume me until there was nothing left to take. Now that I felt like it was the center of my universe, I believed him. The bracelet didn’t turn into a real dragon, and it didn’t eat at my hand like I’d imagined it would ever since I found out what it was. But it still ate me. It sucked my energy, in a worse way than the demons did. It left me bare and on the ground, screaming, until I really had nothing more left to give.
