by WB McKay
Ava stepped up beside me and took the map from my slack hand. "We're not far from the end of the map, if these squiggly lines are indicating the desert."
I stared at the map, pushing down my feelings of desolation. Siobhan cared about Owen. She wouldn't want to see him hurt. Ava was right. We were almost there. If the map was to scale, it couldn't be more than an hour. The thought calmed me, but only slightly. My hold on my emotions was tenuous at best. "Okay," I said, proud that my voice sounded reasonably calm. "Let's eat here. I don't want to deal with dragons on an empty stomach."
It felt wasteful to eat Siobhan's amazing food when I couldn't really taste it. The heat and thoughts of Owen suffering in another cell occupied my mind. I hated that I was running from one clue to the next, just like I'd been doing since I'd first encountered Mr. Supervillain. Erik Bresnan was always one step ahead. I'd never seen it coming that he would take Owen. In my two previous encounters he'd been using magical objects to further his agenda. Then I'd won the Fleece, which he'd wanted. The Fleece was too much, too powerful, and it changed everything. I knew enough to know that I didn't yet understand how much would be affected before I was finally rid of it.
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, only realizing that Ava had been talking when she finished.
She gave me a considering look. "It's not your fault Owen was taken."
"I know that," I replied instantly. And I did, otherwise I couldn't have said it. Still, it didn't help the gnawing feeling in my chest.
Ava let out a rueful laugh. "Knowing it and feeling it are two very different things. I spent several decades attempting to turn my parent's behavior into my own fault."
"I'm sure your parents were that way long before they met you."
"I believe that as well. Now." Ava pulled her bread in two, but didn't bother to eat either half. "I also believe they're frightening when determined, and they're determined to find Owen. It's good we have them on our side in this."
"Is that your way of telling me you're not mad I called them first? Because I do feel like shit about that, by the way."
"If you're right that Erik Bresnan took him, then they were the right people to call first," she said.
She wasn't meeting my gaze. Normally I'd be grateful to avoid her scrutiny, but not today. What could Ava feel guilty about? I stared her down, wishing I could read her the way she often read me, when suddenly it clicked. "I told you not to risk spying on Mr. Supervillain."
"Yes." She raised her chin, but still didn't look me in the face. "I don't take orders from you, Sophie Morrigan."
You would have if I'd been wearing the Fleece. She didn't seem to notice my flinch, or maybe she misinterpreted it. I skipped making her feel guilty about going behind my back, and jumped to being a real bitch by saying, "But then why didn't you know he was planning to take Owen? How could you have missed that?"
"Ghosts are afraid of blood drinkers!"
I jerked back. I didn't think I'd ever seen Ava yell before. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't know if he's using them specifically to keep ghosts away, or what other purpose they may have, but he surrounds many of his businesses and himself with blood drinkers. Not all the time, but often enough that ghosts avoid him. When I ask them to make an exception, they won't."
"Not even Patricia?" She was Ava's closest ghosty friend, as far as I could tell. She seemed to always be around.
"Especially not Patricia," said Ava. "You know that about her."
"What do I know?"
Ava widened her eyes at me, urging me to remember on my own.
Oh yeah, Patricia was here. That raised another question I'd been wondering about. "Ghosts can cross into Faerie?" I would have thought they'd be stuck on Earth or in Faerie, depending on where they died.
"She can with me," said Ava.
"Good to know," I said, tapping my chin while I tried to remember what Ava had ever told me about Patricia, and then I did. "Oh!" I said, and then quickly added, "Sorry." The first time I'd met Patricia face to face, she'd mentioned she'd been killed by blood drinkers. I guess that your own murder wasn't something you ever really got over. "So you think he might be keeping them around to scare off ghosts? Why would he do that? You don't think it's about you, do you?"
"It seems silly that he'd think of me," said Ava, but not like she was sure it couldn't be true.
"I don't think so," I said. "He kidnapped Owen, he hangs around your mom. It sounds like he's got a thing for the Kinneys."
"I'm not one of the Kinneys."
The way she said it was like she was ready for a fight on the subject. I wasn't going to touch that with a ten foot pole. "If he's got the blood drinkers to scare off the ghosts so you can't spy, and if he is working with Lana, then he must not really trust her."
"That's a lot of ifs," commented Phoebe.
"My mother wouldn't ask me for information about Erik or anyone else," said Ava.
I wasn't a hundred percent sure that was true, after all she had been happy to ask Ava for help finding Owen. If the issue was important enough, she'd ask Ava. Not that I was going to argue about any of that with Ava.
Phoebe had given up on eating, and Ava was just picking at hers. As hot as it was, even I only ate half my meal. It was probably for the best that we saved some for later, anyhow. "We should get moving," I said. "The sooner I can punch some bad guys in the face, the sooner I'll stop brooding."
"Aren't you usually brooding about one thing or another?" asked Phoebe.
"I'm not sure if you're joking on that one or not," I said.
Ava made a sort of snorting noise. "And doesn't that just say it all?"
"Ha, ha?" I stuffed what was left of my food in my bag. "I never think of you being this funny, Ava."
"How dare you say such a thing!" Ava gasped. "I'm a hilarious delight!"
"I agree, she is," said Phoebe. "I would know. I should have my own TV show, I'm so funny. I have a new piece of comedy prepared just about every time Sophie comes home, but she rarely appreciates it. Sophie is clearly not a good judge of what's funny."
"Clearly," Ava agreed.
"Have I mentioned how glad I am that you two get along?" I asked. "So glad." I readjusted my wings and turned away from them to lead the way. Our trek through the rolling sands was nothing like strolling on the beach at home. For one thing, there was no water. For another thing, this was Faerie.
I was reminded of that when I thought my foot had caught on something, and looked down to see a tentacle reach up out of the sand and wrap around my ankle.
"Oh shit! Get it off me!" I screeched. "Get it off me!"
Both Ava and Phoebe dived onto the sand and pried at the tentacle with their bare hands. I tried to jerk my leg, but it wasn't letting me move at all anymore. "Move out of the way! I'm going to stab it!" They both immediately pulled back, and I slid Haiku down my leg. Once the tip was carefully positioned right above its pink and purple writhing, squishy body, I thrust the sword down as fast as I could. I hadn't planned on the yellow goo explosion. Ava and Phoebe, still on the ground next to me, got the bulk of it all over their upper bodies.
"I… I should have shifted."
Phoebe flung some of the goo off of her face and in my direction. "You also could have used the Fleece's magic on the tentacle monster instead of us."
Ava nodded.
"I did what now?" I reached up to my head, putting the events together. Faerie wasn't interested in giving me time to think that through, though. All day I'd heard the shrieks of brightly colored lizards and hulking birds of prey. But this shriek, loud and carrying from a distance, sounded different from the others.
"Did you hear that?" I asked Ava. She was already scanning the sky. "Was that... ?"
"Dragons," she replied pointing to our left.
I held a hand to my brow and scanned the area. "Dragons? As in multiple?"
"Yes," she said, her voice as hard as steel.
Phoebe stepped up next to us and followed
our gazes. It hadn't taken long to locate the five dragons. They were coming fast, and headed straight for us.
"They don't look friendly," said Phoebe.
They really didn't. Nothing about a pack of five dragons would have seemed friendly to me, but their direct path toward us, their speed, and the intensity of their approach all screamed enemy. Battle options flicked through my mind at lightning speed. Five dragons. I could use my wail on them, but they wouldn't be able to communicate until I stopped. By then, they'd be so pissed off they weren't likely to do anything but roast us alive. With my newfound control over my fear magic, I might be able to scare them away, but that wouldn't do any good. If these were Greta's people, I had to talk to them. That's why we'd come--to talk to them. On the off chance they were open to not attacking us, we still had to try. So, we'd try. We'd wait for them to get close and we'd attempt conversation. If it didn't work, I still had my death light. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of killing them, but I'd been wearing the Fleece when I'd used it on the pirates and managed to only knock them out. No matter how much doubt I attempted to flood my mind with, I still felt confident I could manage that again. That confidence felt organic, but I knew it was the Fleece talking. It hadn't led me astray so far, but I didn't appreciate knowing my gut instincts were all different because of it. Trusting my gut no longer seemed the safe option it used to. I didn't have time to question my decisions like this, and yet…
"I could kill a few of them from here and lessen the threat," I muttered. I had to make up my mind quickly. They were almost on top of us.
Ava put her hand on mine. "It would prove us enemies."
"She's right," said Phoebe.
"And if they've already decided we're the enemy?" No one answered my question, and that was answer enough for me. I felt like I could handle the threat of five dragons if they turned on us at close range, and yet I knew realistically that shouldn't be so. Five dragons were too much for me, even with Phoebe and Ava's help. They could spit fire faster than I could take out the five of them. That was just fact. Even if it felt like I could afford to let the dragons make the first move, even if I felt confident I could react faster than them, that was the wrong choice. My feelings were counterfeit and trusting them could get us all killed.
Beside me was the distinctive ring of blades being drawn and the rustle of thick vines, despite the lack of vegetation any more hardy than scrub brush.
I gauged my power as best I could and brought two glowing balls to the palms of my hands.
Phoebe's vines leapt into the air, reaching for wings and feet. The group of dragons drew up short and poured fire from their gaping maws, burning the vines to a crisp. The various jewel tones of their bodies reflected the firelight. The beauty of their violence wasn't lost on me. I let one of my death lights fly.
It was still hard to think of the beautiful ball of glowing light as anything else. I'd only used it a handful of times, and until my brawl with the pirates after I'd won the Fleece, it had always been deadly to all it touched.
The dragon in the center of the group was my target, and they swooped gracefully to avoid the first pass of the death light. Unfortunately for him, I could steer the projectile. The glowing ball reversed course and the chase was on.
While I dealt with my prey, the other dragons held their line and turned the desert in front of us into a glowing ruin. Sand had started to melt. I had no idea what kind of temperature that took, but it was definitely more than I could stand.
The leader continued to evade my death light, dodging and weaving at impressive speed, but I was gaining on them. If the dragon were to take off in a straight line they might have outpaced me, but there was no way I couldn't eventually catch it with the figure eights it was doing. My tiny, weightless bit of magic could take those turns much faster than even the swiftest of dragons. It wouldn't be long.
All of this begged the question: how was I still alive? Phoebe had managed to entangle one of the dragons and bring it to the ground, but it was still shooting flame, keeping Ava at bay. The other three should have easily been able to pick us off. Even the leader I was chasing could have made a run straight at me, but wasn't.
My mind met up with what my gut had been saying all along, and drew the only conclusion available. "Stop," I called to Phoebe and Ava. "They're not trying to kill us." I snuffed my death light.
When Phoebe and Ava put an end to their assault, the leader dragon let out a roar and circled back to join his companions. They stopped shooting flames and descended to the ground.
I heaved a sigh of relief.
The leader shifted to human form and walked around the scorched sand. He took his steps with purpose and confidence, there was a whole personality in his stride. He was used to being respected, despite his unkempt sandy-blond hair and ripped blue jeans. He stopped about ten feet away and shoved his hands in his pockets, a sign that he was relaxed and felt no threat from us. The ballsiness of this was magnified by the fact that we were in Faerie. Even pretending you could feel safe in Faerie was ridiculous. He cocked his chin at me, pegging me as the leader. I guess the crown made that an easy call. "State your business."
It took a lot of control not to pull up another death light and make him flinch. I resented his casual posture. If he didn't think of us as a threat, they wouldn't have bothered with the display of their power. Stupid Faerie games. Stupid dragons. Regardless, I reigned in my emotions and let them go with a long breath. "I've come to see Greta. She owes me a favor and I intend to collect."
The dragon's head tilted to the side, looking over my shoulder. "Mother owes only one favor and she said nothing about the collector having wings."
My wings flexed involuntarily under his scrutiny, urging me to take flight. "The wings are new, but I am Sophie Morrigan. Will you take me to Greta, or does she run away from her debts?"
The dragon let out a growl and a puff of smoke shot from both his nostrils. "My mother runs from nothing. If you are Sophie Morrigan, she will be glad to see you. If she denies knowing you, I will enjoy eating you." He pulled a small black cloth bag from his pocket and tossed it to me. "Each of you must swallow one of those charms if you want to enter our community."
Phoebe looked skeptically at the bag as I rolled it in my hand. Ava scowled. The last time she'd had to take a charm while she was with me, it had struck her blind. If I had to guess, I'd have thought this was the same magic. The effect was temporary, but Ava'd had to survive a deadly set of obstacles to get her sight back. She experienced a lot of trauma around me.
"You don't have to do this," I told her.
"We've talked about this."
I wondered if she meant that I was babying her, which we'd talked about and I wasn't supposed to do, or that she wanted her brother back, or something else she'd told me that I wasn't remembering in the moment, but I didn't get a chance to ask her. She took the bag from me and pulled out a large red capsule, popping it into her mouth without a second of hesitation.
She grimaced as it went down, then gave me a confused expression. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed in a heap on the ground.
"What the fuck?" A white orb appeared in my hand and I took two steps forward to get in the dragon's face. "What did that do to her?"
To his credit, the dragon didn't flinch. He only rolled his eyes and let out a snort. "It put her to sleep, the same as it will do to the rest of you if you want to see Mother. It is a safety measure."
Not willing to take the asshole's word, I crouched next to Ava's crumpled form and checked her pulse and breathing. Both were normal. I scooped up the bag and pulled out one of the pills.
The leader was the only one in human form, but he was a bad choice, so I looked to the purple dragon at his right. "You. Shift to human form now." The leader barked a laugh, but the big, hostile dragon immediately transformed behind a ball of fire into a scraggly young man. I cringed a bit, I couldn't help it. He just looked so innocent. But so was Ava. "Swallow this," I ordered,
and tossed him the pill.
"What? Absolutely not!" the leader yelled, still looking shocked that the guy had shifted in the first place.
The scraggly young man downed the pill the instant he caught it. The sand made a good, gentle surface for falling flat on his face.
Everyone was quiet in the wake of Scraggly Guy's fall. The three still in dragon form inched back, looking from their fallen friend and back to me, like they couldn't understand what had just happened. The leader looked just as incredulous, but also pissed.
By the time he turned to ask, "How did you make him do that?" it had become clear to me that the charm truly must have been harmless, because none of them seemed overly concerned for their friend's well-being.
"Calm down," I told the leader. He took a deep breath and his shoulders noticeably relaxed.
"Wow," said Phoebe. I couldn't bring myself to look at her.
"Dragons," I addressed them all, "you will take the three of us to Greta." I looked to the leader. "Shift back to your dragon form." With a whirl of flames, he did as he was told.
I turned my back on the dragons, blocking their view of Phoebe, but I kept my sight focused over her shoulder, still not wanting to look her in the eyes. "It may be wise to have someone on the outside who knows where we've gone," I told her.
She narrowed her eyes at me. I could feel it without even looking right at her. We both knew I was offering her a way out and nothing else. I didn't expect her to do anything if we didn't come back out. "Which dragon am I riding?" she asked.
"You pick," I said. She pointed to the shiny ruby one. I raised my voice slightly and told the ruby dragon to bow and allow Phoebe to climb on. They did.
The leader blew flames out his nose.
"You will not attack us," I turned my head as I yelled, making eye contact with each of them as I went. "You will make it your top priority that Ava," I pointed at her, "Phoebe, and myself safely make it to Greta and that no harm comes to us while we are in your presence." The leader's eyelids fluttered for a moment, but went back to normal. "Nod if you understand," I commanded, and sure enough, each of the dragons nodded.
