by Rain Oxford
“I thought Edward told you to stop taking home pets.”
“He’s not my mentor anymore, so I can get as many pets as I want,” I argued. She crossed her arms. “As long as my lovely wife doesn’t mind, of course. I’m sorry, are you allergic to demons? He can be an outside demon. You won’t have to walk him or pet him or anything. Which reminds me, where is Shinobu?”
“She wasn’t here when I brought you back. Don’t worry about her; she’s a wild animal. Now, unfortunately, I need to get back to work.”
“The demon told me something a little disturbing,” I said.
Divina nodded. “I know. I’m a god; I was listening. We can talk about it later.” She gave me a small hug and chaste kiss and then vanished.
“What now, Daddy?” Sammy asked.
“We need to go get Mordon, but I have to go get something straight real quick. I’ll be right back,” I said before flashing to Edward’s house and landing right in front of the woman I wanted to talk to. In her startled state, I grabbed Vivian’s arm and dragged her into the cabin, then shut the door behind us and turned to her. “Who is Sammy’s father?”
She frowned. “Nano is his father. You know that,” she said, a confused frown on her face. I knew Vivian; I knew when she was lying and she was telling the truth. “Why are you asking me this?”
“You know Ron is old enough to pass Divina’s protection spell back to her. Why haven’t you come for Sammy?” I asked. She looked ashamed. “Do you not love him?”
She glared at me. “Of course I love him! He’s my baby!” she paused. “But Nano and I talked a lot about what was best for him. That’s all we ever wanted. And we think what is best for him is to stay with you. Nano is often gone on missions and he has other children that he treats like vague acquaintances. He has children older than me. It’s really creepy, really. With you, Sammy has a brother. You and Divina are powerful enough to protect him and train him. In many ways, he’s already more powerful than Nano.”
“You’re his mother. How can you possibly give him up?”
She sighed and hung her head. “I know you don’t understand. You are what’s best for him. I wish I was, but I know he’s better off with you and Divina. He never liked Dios. He loves me and he likes Nano, but when he used to cry for his dad at night, it was you he wanted. He’s more like you than anyone, and he always wanted to be a Guardian just like you, not Nano. You’re a hero to him. I can’t take him away from you.”
“I don’t think I could give him up, even if you wanted him back.”
She gave me a sad smile. “And that is why you don’t have to, because I could. I already let you go when I loved you, because I knew we weren’t right together. I had to help raise my siblings and that was enough parenting for me, but you wanted a bunch of kids. Let me give you what you really wanted from me. I still love you. I always loved you, and I always will. So I gave you up, like I’m giving Sammy up. Divina is better for you than me, I know. I can see it.” She started choking up, but no tears fell.
I started to reach for her, because that was the only way I knew to comfort her, but I hesitated a second before and let my hand fall. A shudder ran through her, as if she also felt the space between us like a windy canyon.
“I would have married you,” I said. It was no secret; we had talked about it before.
“The saddest words: what might have been? You wanted kids. You love Divina much more than you ever loved me. Take Sammy. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, but he belongs with you.”
I suddenly remembered the dozens of times my mother told me I was the worst thing that ever happened to her. “Sammy will always be a son to me, and to Divina,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you even look at him? Why didn’t you ask him if he was happy? Or ask him what he wanted?”
“Neither of us are good parents. We love him, but Nano and I are having problems right now. Taking him back would be unfair to him, and I can’t keep saying goodbye. I want to be with him. If I spoke to him, if I hugged him like I wanted to… Hell, I wanted to ask him what was going on in his life. I just couldn’t stand to hear…”
“You were afraid that if he was happy without you, it would break your heart. And if he was miserable without you, it was your fault. I get that. Everyone has problems. We keep them away from our kids, we don’t leave our kids.”
“All of the Guardians have a story. All of them have a reason for being who they are.”
I loved Vivian. When I left Vivian and fell in love with Divina, I was very confused. At first, I thought I was just selfish, but then I thought I really didn’t love Vivian at all. Unfortunately, love is very complicated. I did love Vivian, it just wasn’t the same kind of love as I had for anyone else.
This woman was my best friend on Earth, who I would have happily married and spent my life with. However, I always knew something was missing, and that was why we never got any further than we did. It wasn’t until right then that I realized what prevented us from working together. I had been playing house while she was trying to escape responsibility.
This is where we were, and there was no backtracking. Before I could say anything, there was a banging on the door.
“Enough talking, Dylan! We need you out here!” I heard Nano yell. “Give me back my mate!”
Vivian laughed and I opened the door, letting her go to the Guardian. I went out on the porch to find every Guardian standing around in some state of distress. Ghidorah had a sick expression on his face like his skin was trying to crawl off. Everyone else looked like they had just seen a terrible accident that they couldn’t really believe.
“Why has the magic stopped?” Shiloh asked. Everyone turned to me.
“The gates to Duran have opened. This happened on Dios and there was an earthquake a moment later.” I raised my hand when Nano went to speak. “Nila, Edward, and I have already taken care of the people we could. It only lasted a few hours before the wave hit again and magic was returned. The thing is, we were several years in the past. How do you not know about it?”
“There have been major quakes in the past, but maybe it has something to do with the power of the gates. Or maybe it was during a vacation.”
“You have to get the magic back,” Ghidorah growled, approaching the porch. He stopped about six meters in front of me when Hobble jumped between us to hiss at him. “I use only nominal energy and it is very dangerous for others when I am without magic.”
“What are you?” I asked. I felt something like a presence over him, or more particularly, behind him. It felt like when you are alone in your house and you think you see something move out of the corner of your eyes. When you pass a mirror and for an instant you think you saw something that wasn’t supposed to be there.
“I tried to show you before. Now I am trying to hold back. You can feel it, right?” he asked. I nodded. “You have to get the magic back.”
“Xul!” I yelled in my head, sending out my energy to amplify my thought across the worlds to reach him. None of the other Guardians gave a sign of having heard me, because without their magic, they couldn’t read my mind.
He appeared before me instantly, right between Ghidorah and me. “You need me already, master?” he asked. His sincerity fell flat.
“The magic here was cut off by the gate. I know it’s only temporary, but these grown men here are having hissy fits. Is there anything you can do?” I asked.
“The period of loss of nominal energy is a reflex of the gates opening. I can only speed it along.” He turned to glance behind him and when he saw Ghidorah, he screamed. The demon actually screamed. Then he ducked behind me like I could shield him from the grouchy man. “Keep him away from me!” he begged.
Ghidorah rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “I will not reserve judgment just because you serve Dylan.”
“You can’t do anything to me without your magic!” the demon yelled, panic making his voice shake.
Ghidorah grinned like a mobster. The kind that had trained snipe
rs on someone. “You misunderstand. I cannot stop myself without my magic.” The sense of a spectral presence grew until the demon vanished.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing, he just disappeared. If he does as he said and speeds the process to recover the magic, I may actually spare him.”
“If he does what I told him to, you will leave him alone.”
“You wish to atone for his crimes?”
“Never. I will make him expiate for them himself.”
“I will be the judge of his penitence. If I feel he has not fully paid for his crimes, I will execute his punishment.”
“Then you and I may have a problem with each other,” I said. His eyes widened as if he couldn’t believe I would oppose him. Without another word, I flashed back home.
Edward and the boys were sitting at the table with his cards and Edward was trying to teach the boys the rules to his favorite card game. Honestly, Edward taught me how to play snapdragon, and there were no rules. The win of the hand depended on the weather, the time of day, the time of month, the season, the color of the room, the seating position, the number of people playing, the number of hands played… and the list goes on. Sometimes they would give up and flip a coin to find a winner of the hand. The games could last a few minutes or a week.
Once, Divina was so determined to win that she would stop the game repeatedly to wait for changes in time, drag other people in, change seats, and anything else she could think of to play the cards she wanted to the way she wanted to. When it was clear that Edward had won that game, he forfeit; he told her she won. She was very gracious about it and that was the end of it.
“Why did the demons attack right when we were there? It was the same on Malta. Are they after us?” I asked. If so, Mordon could be in danger.
He set down his cards and regarded me with a resigned solemnity. “I think the demons are being drawn to the objects. Unfortunately, that means that history will change. The gates to Dios were opened, and I can only assume that history will collapse in on itself. It could be happening now, it could have been happening for years, or it may not happen until all the gates are open. All I know is that it sounds like the gods are frightened of it. I think there is only one thing that can stop the gates now.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You,” he said. There was no sarcasm or disbelief in him, only honest faith.
“I’m going to get Mordon. Do you want to stay here or return to your place?” I asked.
Edward returned his focus to his game. “Are you kidding? There are eight old Guardians there, all having mental breakdowns. Why in the world would I want to be there with them? I don’t even want to be around them when they’re calm.”
I sighed. “Is this council going to work? Is there any way that Shiloh can keep everyone in contact? That the Guardians will ask for help when they need it?”
He considered me for a moment, shuffling his cards blindly. “If a Guardian needs help, he will first deny it. Then he will turn to his god. When his god turns suspicion on him, he will try to hide. If you want to change that, you’ll have to train it out of them. Shiloh’s concept is a good one, it’s just that we are all really thick-skulled and set in our ways. Some of us, like Emrys, are more open to change because we’re not all there to begin with. For some, like Ghidorah, you will have to shove change down their throat and demand they like it.”
Both of the boys stared at Edward like he just told me to murder everyone. “On that note, I’ll be gone,” I said, flashing to Mordon. I felt perfectly safe leaving my young, impressionable sons in the hands of my not-all-there uncle-father.
Chapter 11
Mordon
I landed to find Dylan sitting upon a pile of rubble. Unlike Emiko and Krayer, I was a proper-sized dragon; I towered over my friend. “Took you long enough. I took the liberty of healing the injured. I hope you don’t mind. And I locked your traitor in the dungeons, since the castle held up pretty well.” He studied me for a moment. I couldn’t even manage to be surprised that he knew it was me. “Shift back, Mordon.” His tone was gentle, as if he knew he would have to convince me.
I was afraid to shift back because I didn’t want to be stuck as a sago again. Rojan needed more time. I roared, since words could not be formed with my dragon tongue.
“I don’t speak dragon,” Dylan said, then winced as his eyes glowed green for an instant. “Oh, hell, I need to superglue my mouth shut.”
“I am not ready to shift,” I said in his mind.
“Now that you have shifted, you will probably be able to regularly shift back and forth. If you can’t, I will find a way to make you able to. I promise, Mordon. But you need to come back now.”
I observed my friend, unsure what to do.
Shift back, Rojan said unexpectedly. It is better to be stuck a person than a dragon when all of our family are people. If he says he can help us to shift back and forth, we should trust him. I think not even the laws of nature can stop Dylan.
I tried to shift, tried to will myself back to being a person, but my body didn’t change. Rojan’s warning about being stuck set off a panic until I roared my frustrations to Dylan. He held up his hands.
“It’s okay. I can help you. Picture yourself as you were this morning. Picture yourself with flesh and arms. Think of your blue and purple eyes, your flat teeth, your abnormally large ears.”
I growled and snorted smoke at him. He sighed and stepped forward. Rojan wanted to back away because Dylan was breakable and I didn’t know my strength yet. For all I knew, my scales would burn him. Even as I retreated, he crept closer until his hand settled on my muzzle. With his fingers so close to my teeth, he couldn’t have looked less afraid. Still, it unsettled Rojan and I had to struggle to keep my snout closed. I opened my wings to take off, but Dylan put both his arms around me in a hug, so that any sudden movement would certainly hurt him. I settled down on the ground because to let him do whatever he wanted was better than accidently hurting my friend.
The image assaulted my mind; Dylan was picturing me and sending it to me with so much force I could think of nothing else until I felt the cracking and shifting of my bones. It started out slow and painful as my bones and body shrank. My wings disappearing into my back hurt the worst, but by the time I was once again my usual size, my entire body ached.
Dylan reached out and his eyes glowed before a blanket flew into his hand. I didn’t bother to wonder where it had come from. I was exhausted. It wasn’t until Dylan wrapped the blanket around me that I realized I was covered in sweat and shivering from the cool morning air. “I read that with werewolves it gets easier after you shift a few times, so I hope it does with you, too,” he said. Although I was leaning against him, I was regaining my strength quickly.
Emiko chose that moment to shift. Unlike me, she did not appear strained from it. Nor did she make a motion to cover herself.
“Holy shit,” Dylan said. I glared at him, but he was focused on her. He put his hands over his eyes, then spread his fingers to peek.
I growled and placed myself between them. “You’re married.”
He leaned around me to see her. “And happily so, but it’s like beautiful art. Just because Divina is my Taj Mahal, doesn’t mean I can’t admire the neighbor’s house. It’s not like I want to do anything with, or to her.”
I growled again, but Dylan would never take my warnings seriously. He was the last person in this world that I would attack. Maybe one day I would learn why.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were going to wait for me to come back.”
He finally took his eyes off of Emiko. “We’re running out of time. The gates are opening and the Ancients are free. We need to get the artifacts. However, I did show up in time to heal these people. There were only a few sago and dragons left. One of them, I locked up. While I was healing, I was also scanning their minds for any malicious thoughts. I’m afraid I found the person responsible for poi
soning your Emiko.”
He picked up the green cloak that Emiko had lost during shifting and handed it to her. She put it on and though the cloth failed to cover her entirely, it made it easier to think. Dylan led us to the dungeon, where one cell was occupied. Inside was the little boy who I saw with the servant at the ship. I inhaled the boy’s scent and started sneezing as my eyes watered. Grabbing Emiko’s arm, I pulled us both away, the shifted my eyes to see that the little boy, no older than Ron, was as rotten as could be. I never saw a child so young who was so hateful, but he definitely had the blood of many people and dragons on his hands.
“How could a child do this?” Emiko asked.
“You never scented him?”
She shook her head. “I never bother to suspect children.”
“Dragon culture,” Dylan said, rubbing his hand down his face. “I wish I could say the same, but humans are different.”
“Humans?” Emiko asked.
Dylan shrugged. “If she’s going to be with us much, she’ll find out eventually,” he said. I considered Emiko. “And if she has a problem with me being from another world and my wife being a god, I can wipe her memory of me.”
I looked back at my friend with shock. “Since when can you control the mind like that?”
“Side effect of a talk with Vretial. We can talk about it later.” “Are you ready to go?” he asked aloud.
“Wherever you are going, I am going with you,” Emiko insisted.
“I’m not babysitting,” my friend warned.
“Your kingdom should be safe now, Emiko.”
“I was not begging in fear, nor am I offering. I will go with you. I heard everything you said to the dragon. You are a mystery, Mordon, and I hate unresolved mysteries.” She glared at me, but somehow it didn’t make her face any less pretty.
“Your girlfriend looks like a pissed off kitten,” Dylan said.
“She is a dragon. Nothing about her is harmless,” I told him. “How did a little child get wrapped up in this? Surely he didn’t act alone.”
