Licked by the Flame

by Serena Gilley

  One light was pink, the other a reddish-gold color. What on earth were they? Clearly they were not actually on the mountain, but hovering in midair. They were flying, or floating, but not in tempo with the course of the wind. UFOs? No, way too small for that. All the pseudo-documentaries on television portrayed them as much larger than these. What Lianne was watching appeared more like…intelligent insects.

  Of course they weren’t, though. Hell, no intelligent insect would turn up in the Icelandic wastelands in the middle of a freak storm, so obviously that couldn’t be it. But there they were, flitting below her and seeming very intentional about it. Clearly they had some sort of intelligence, whatever they were.

  She battled the wind and the loose rocks at her feet to push hair from her face. Lightning slashed through the air, more than once exploding into the rocks. Lianne’s footing slipped as a rock beneath her toe shifted, but she held on somehow and readjusted her hold. It wasn’t easy, staying up here while everything around her seemed to wage war.

  Another crash of lightning and she realized her vehicle had been struck. Damn it! She gazed down the mountain face and watched as glittering sparks flew out in all directions, the vehicle erupting in smoke and the glow of fire in its undercarriage. It only took a few moments for the acrid smell of burning plastic to waft up to her on the violent gusts that pounded and pelted her body. Hell. Now how was she getting back to the jobsite if she ever did find Nic’s lifeless body out here?

  She figured he had to be dead. There was no other excuse for the fact that even in the midst of this storm he still hadn’t appeared. She’d been moving toward the darkest, most unseeable area on this rock face to look for him, and the closer she’d come the more foreboding it felt. Just glancing over at it now, only a few yards away, sent chills up and down her back. As close as she was, even with the frequent lightning strikes, her eyes still couldn’t penetrate the thick shadows there. It was almost as if the mountain just simply quit being at that point, that some great void of nothingness was fastened onto the side of the cliff, and the shadow opened into oblivion.

  Maybe that was where the UFOs came from. Oh God, she was messed up. She shook herself and started plotting her descent. She hadn’t thought much about that as she inched her way up here, which was probably a mistake. With all this lightning, she’d be fried here any minute if she didn’t find some way down.

  But how about that dark void? She’d been heading there; maybe she ought to continue. If that little crag in the rocks was so shadowy, maybe that meant it cut deep into the mountain. A cave, maybe. She could tuck herself in there and get out of this wind, not be such a target for every lightning bolt that flashed out of the clouds. At the very least, she’d get there long before she could make it to the ground. And even if she did get there, it wasn’t as if their smoldering vehicle would offer her any protection.

  She reached her numb, bleeding fingers outward toward what seemed the next promising chunk of rock that would move her slightly closer to that void. Bits of the ledge she stood on shifted again, but she quickly found a new foothold. The designer boots she’d worn for this trip didn’t provide nearly enough warmth. She laughed at herself. Yeah, she had been heading to Iceland to work with a bunch of engineers and nerds, so of course she put style ahead of functionality. Well, at least when they finally found her frozen body out here someday, she’d look good.

  Another adjustment and she had moved a good ten inches closer to the darkness. It was no small feat, considering that she shuddered and twitched at every crash of thunder, every jolt from the nearby lightning. The wind was not getting any easier to ignore, either. What kind of crazy storm was this? If she didn’t know for a fact the very notion of it was ludicrous, she’d think it was targeting her specifically.

  Suddenly her whole body was enveloped in darkness. That was weird, considering her peripheral vision could still see flashes of lightning all around. Right where she was, though, it felt as if some huge form suddenly blocked her from view, shielding her from the storm and even canceling out the wind. She blinked through her tangled hair and could see that, as crazy as it seemed, this was indeed the case.

  Something huge was swooping directly toward her! Giant wings flapped against the storm and a body came into view. What grabbed her attention—aside from the giant wings and overall hugeness of it—were the eyes. Hot, fiery eyes glowed behind an impossible face. A dragon!

  Hallucinations, of course. That had to be the explanation. Still, she huddled tight up against the mountain, and an involuntary whimper escaped her. Her head knew this couldn’t be real, but the whole rest of her believed it sincerely. She was being preyed upon by an enormous red-glowing dragon.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Its wings blocked the sky, its eyes nearly burned through her, and its sharp claws gleamed as it reached its powerful arms toward her. She screamed and fought it off as best she could, but the action was stupid and futile.

  Her footing gave out and she fell from her perch. The dragon—or whatever it was—scooped her up and clutched her tightly against its hard, heated body. She could see that it was covered in scales. Layer upon layer of them, shiny and nearly as hard as metal but somehow warm and flexible, too. She struggled against this incomprehensible monster but it held her fast. Escape was out of the question.

  She forced herself to look at it, to make whatever sense she could out of this. This couldn’t be a dragon, but what the hell was it? She was pressed so tightly against its body she could see very little of it now. The wings flapped, she could hear them, and she felt the muscles of the creature’s broad chest flex and labor with the action. It felt…alive. Real. It couldn’t be, of course. There was no such thing as dragons, after all.

  It sure as hell looked like a dragon, though. Above the chest was a long neck that reached up above her, putting the creature’s angular face out of clear view. She shifted her focus to its arms. Ripped, powerful, and oddly humanlike, except for the knife-sharp claws and the rows of spade-shaped scales.

  As the creature shifted these muscular arms, she could see between the scales. Instead of flesh, it appeared the monster was made of molten steel, bursting with occasional flares. The bright glow of heat and fire matched what she’d seen in his eyes.

  His eyes? No, its eyes. This was not a human; it was a thing. A horrible, terrible, impossible thing, and she’d rather fall to her death now than let it carry her off to feed its young or do whatever it was it might be planning on doing with her at this point. She pried at its claws and kicked against it. Apparently her new boots weren’t very good for this, either.

  She could have sworn the creature merely chuckled at her feeble attempts. The steady whoosh of his wings against the air, though, did seem to be slowing down. They were losing altitude, too. At first the creature had swooped her high into the air, but now they were descending again. Maybe she could get away after all!

  “Put me down!” she railed at him, kicking and clawing for all she was worth.

  “Not until I’ve got you someplace safe,” the horrific beast replied.

  What was that? The creature spoke to her? And his voice had been…oddly gentle and soothing. In fact, he had sounded a lot like Nic. Well, clearly that could only mean one thing.

  This really was just another hallucination and she had nothing to worry about. In fact, this whole mountain fiasco with freak storms and fluttering UFOs was probably nothing more than a bad dream. Yeah, she was probably back in her bed safe and sound and warm. Well, maybe not warm. Maybe she’d kicked her blankets off and that was what sent her into this frigid nightmare to begin with.

  Okay, then, she guessed she could just relax until something finally woke her up. She gave up the kicking and fighting and let her body slump against the warm form of the dragon. It did feel oddly secure here, as a matter of fact.

  “That’s better,” he rumbled into her ear. “You should rest now.”

  And then, with one more flap of his wings, he whooshed her toward
that terrifying, dark void in the side of the mountain. The tiny colorful glows she had seen earlier suddenly showed up next to them, accompanying them on their flight. The void appeared darker and larger than ever. No wonder that spot had seemed so foreboding when she’d first seen it. Clearly it was an alien dragon’s lair and she was about to be held captive there.

  Okay, whatever. This hallucination or nightmare or tumor-induced delusion kept getting weirder by the minute. She kind of wanted to know where it would go from here, actually. At some point she was bound to wake up and laugh at it all, wasn’t she?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nic did his best to shelter Lianne as they passed into his safeguarded entrance. He reached out with his mind to disarm the security measures made of ancient magic he had placed as enchantment here, but to his surprise he could not find any. His securities had been stripped.

  Carefully depositing Lianne on the smooth floor of the fire-worn cavern, he whirled to find the two fairies trailing him. They had no trouble passing his security, either.

  “What have you done?” he demanded.

  The male fairy glared at him defiantly, but the female was more intent on Lianne.

  “Is she all right?” she asked, pointing at Lianne’s limp, silent figure.

  “Yes. I’ve put her into a sleep. She’ll be fine.”

  It had actually been very easy to overcome the woman’s jumbled thoughts. She was fully overwhelmed; her mind had welcomed his suggestion of sleep. She’d struggled only briefly, then gone limp in his arms as he carried her in here. He’d expected to need to shield her from the securities he’d placed here to keep humans out, but obviously not.

  “Now tell me how you disabled my magic,” he asked the fairies. He allowed the fire within him to show close to the surface, a clear threat for these tiny creatures just in case they had any ideas of lying to him.

  “We did nothing,” the male fairy said. “We were sent here to find out what’s going on.”

  “Who sent you?” Nic asked, twisting his huge form in the narrow passage so that he was able to keep himself between Lianne and these two fairies.

  “That doesn’t matter. What we need to know is, what were you doing on the mountain with a human?” the fairy asked sharply.

  Nic had to give him credit for bravery, fluttering into his secret abode and facing him boldly. The only reason he hadn’t fried the little insects already was because they had tried to help him. Now he needed to know why. If he wasn’t happy with their answers, their fluttering days would be over.

  “You’re a little out of your element, I think,” Nic stated. “This is dragon territory. How did you disable my safeguards?”

  The fairies simply shrugged, glitter spilling off them with even the slightest movement. Their colorful glow combined with the heat emanating from Nic’s own body, causing shadows to dance over the walls of his carefully constructed entryway. Stray gusts from outside penetrated occasionally, making Fairy Dust and raindrops filter through the air.

  “I didn’t see any safeguards,” the gold-colored fairy said, his small voice surprisingly strong as it echoed off the cold rocks. “What is this place, dragon?”

  “I am Nicolai Stefanya Vladik and I will ask the questions here. Why have you come to this mountain?”

  “We’ve come here to find out what you and the humans are working on,” the female fairy declared. “We know about the machines the Fairy Council is secretly using, and that someone has been redirecting them here. We want to know why.”

  She spoke with conviction, her tiny finger wagging in his face. So the Fairy Council was somehow involved in this scheme? That was most interesting. Everyone knew elves held primary jurisdiction in Iceland, and they certainly had enough sense to stay away from this mountain. What would fairies be doing here?

  “You must be confused,” he said. “Human scientists are here studying the viability of using this mountain as a power source for their cities. I am here to prevent that. Now explain why you believe your Fairy Council is here.”

  The male fairy sneered at him. “They’re involved with the machines. We know about them, dragon.”

  “Do you mean the sensors the humans have placed here to monitor geothermal and seismic activity?”

  “No,” the female answered. “We mean the hybrid machines, the ones that gather magic.”

  They certainly seemed earnestly troubled by these machines, as anyone with half a brain ought to. Could he really trust them? He still wasn’t sure.

  “No such thing exists. The Veil prevents that.”

  “You saw them yourself,” the female declared. “We watched you. You were so angry that you destroyed the machine in that little building.”

  “And did that disrupt your plans?” he asked.

  The male fairy was getting downright belligerent. “We don’t have any plans. We weren’t the ones who set up those machines, but we’re for damn sure planning to find out who did.”

  The female watched Nic’s reaction carefully. “If you didn’t do it, then it seems like we’re on the same side.”

  “If that is the case, then perhaps you wouldn’t mind allowing me to know your thoughts,” Nic suggested. “Just so we can all be assured.”

  “I don’t see how you reading our minds will make us any more comfortable,” the male grumbled.

  Nic shrugged his enormous wings. “It might make me less inclined to turn you to cinders.”

  The female’s eyes grew large and terrified. “Well, that does make for a compelling argument.”

  “Very well,” the male assented. “Read mine, but leave hers alone. She’s only here because I brought her. If you need to know what we’re up to, you wouldn’t get anything from her that you can’t get from me.”

  Nic was almost impressed. “How chivalrous of you. Very well, you first.”

  His first impression was that the fairy did indeed possess some secret information about the machinery in question. Upon deeper probing, however, he came to understand what that was. Indeed, no wonder he’d felt such interesting, arousing sensations as he’d tracked the movements of magic on the mountain. This equipment had some unique side effects on these fairies.

  Just as the male fairy had said, it seemed these two had only recently come here, interested in finding the source of this new technology, just as Nic was. They did not trust their own Fairy Council, but the reasons for that were not entirely clear. Nic had to search the fairy’s mind for more details. They were getting increasingly difficult to come by, for some reason.

  “I sense deception in you,” he announced. “You are hiding something from me.”

  The gold fairy glared at him. “It’s nothing that involves you. Surely you keep a few secrets yourself, dragon? Things that you’d rather not let everyone know?”

  “Like what you are doing hauling a human female up here to your lair?” the pink fairy interjected.

  “My personal affairs are my own,” Nic informed her. “But you are correct. I find no reason to suspect you two are a danger to me or to my plans.”

  “Then perhaps you might share those plans with us,” the gold fairy said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Nic replied.

  “Tell me what you intend for the woman,” the male fairy said and locked his tiny amber eyes with Nic’s.

  He certainly was bold, for a fairy. There was something different about him, too. He had a depth that Nic had never encountered within a fairy before. A quick probe of the creature’s mind ought to give Nic any details that he lacked.

  The wind howled outside the cave entrance, yet the silence inside was almost deafening. Nic tried to reach into the fairy’s mind to find out why he was unlike countless other fairies he’d encountered over the years. He was surprised to find so much resistance.

  “Stay out of my mind, dragon,” the fairy snarled at him.

  “Why? What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing that you need to know.”

  “Oh, just tell him alr
eady,” the pink fairy admonished her friend. “He’s going to find out.”

  The male fairy continued to resist. Finally the female huffed and turned her attention to Nic.

  “He’s half-human,” she announced. “And we have been carrying on a forbidden relationship, and I don’t regret it even a little bit.”

  “Damn it, Raea, stop implicating yourself,” the male said. “I wasn’t going to let him find out about that.”

  Nic decided it would be rude to laugh at their paltry concerns. “Sorry, but I knew about the affair. That much was easy to read the moment I saw you two.”

  “You did?” the female asked.

  “I did. You’ve both been thinking about it pretty loudly.”

  She blushed, but her partner kept his angry frustration focused on Nic. “That is none of your business. If you turn us over to the Fairy Council, they’ll take away our magic and then no one will stop them from whatever it is they’re planning to do with these machines.”

  “No worries,” Nic said at last. “Kyne, is it? Yes, I know your names now, Raea and Kyne. So that’s what you were so intent on hiding from me; he’s half-human and you two can’t keep your glittering little hands off of each other. By the Flame, who knew fairies were capable of such…stamina?”

  “What goes on in our private lives is our business alone,” Kyne declared. “Can we count on you not to give us over to the council?”

  “I have no dealings with the Fairy Council,” Nic assured them. “And you’re right, I don’t really care how often you do whatever you do in your private lives. What I do care about is this hybrid machinery we’ve discovered.”

  “We know nothing about any of this—” Kyne began.

  “Don’t waste my time with lies,” Nic interrupted him. “I’ve been inside your mind. I know what you’ve been told about these devices, and I know you came to Iceland to learn more.”

  “I will learn more,” Kyne replied. “The Fairy Council has one agenda, whoever stole the machinery has another, and obviously you have your own. How many more factions will turn up? We could be dealing with a dozen plots, not simply one or two.”