Magic Born

by Dyan Chick

  "That's the one. I have to get him out before they can hurt him any more." I looked up at the sky. He'd probably already had an hour or two of sunlight, and it was all my fault.

  "Thank you for saving me, Dima," I said, turning to walk away.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  "I have to get my friend out of there."

  "How are you going to do that?" she asked, catching up to me and matching my pace.

  "I don't know. I mean, I'm already a fugitive. Maybe I'll just burn the whole thing down."

  "Oh yeah, that's a good idea," she said. "Then when I show them the tapes of you at the Dizzy Dragon to prove your innocence, they'll let you off for murder and throw you in the pits for the destruction of public property and felony charges on busting out a criminal."

  I froze. "You have tapes?"

  "Of course," she said. "I had to keep a copy. Didn't want the boss to charge me for the broken stuff from our fight. Had to prove who started it."

  "Like, you have copies, at your house? Not just at work?" I asked.

  "Yes." She looked annoyed.

  I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. I have to get him out, anyway. It's my fault he's there."

  "Shit, you're a lot of work, Morgan, you know that?" Dima put her hands on her hips.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Just wait here, okay?" She walked toward the lake, then turned to me. "What's his name, again?"

  "Alec," I said.

  "Don't move," she said. "I'm serious. You stay right there."

  Before I could argue, she dove into the lake, and in a trail of bubbles, she was gone.

  I paced the bank of the lake for several minutes, wondering why I was listening to her. She had saved my life, but I had no idea what she was up to now. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I shook it, listing to the water splash around inside of it. There was no way that was ever going to work again. I tossed it on the grass and started counting. How long was I expected to wait?

  Several hundred later, I saw movement in the water. Then, a head popped up, followed by another head. I ran to the edge and flutters of excitement filled my chest. "Alec?"

  Dima dragged the vampire through the water, setting his upper body on the shore. I grabbed his arms and pulled him out. He looked weak. "We have to get him to some shade."

  Dima climbed out of the water and grabbed his legs. "Come on. My car is nearby."

  The two of us carried the unconscious vampire as carefully as we could to the back of her car. It took some pushing and pulling, but we finally managed to get him situated on the back seat.

  Without words, I climbed into the front seat of her car and she climbed into the driver's side. After she started the ignition and pulled away from the lake, I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

  She looked over at me. "I'm not sure I want to know what's going on or how you're involved in all of this."

  "All of what?" I asked, fearing she was changing her mind on my innocence.

  "Tell me the dragon, the death, the appearance of a second dragon...tell me that isn't all connected to you, somehow."

  "All that," I said, then I started laughing. The uncontrollable laughter of a lunatic. Unable to get words out through the laughter, I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to make it stop.

  "You've finally snapped, then," she said.

  Gasping, I caught my breath and wiped the tears from my eyes. "It's been a long few days, sorry. But, yes. All of it has to do with me. Why? I still don't know, but apparently, I'm part dragon, and someone set me up to see if I would show dragon powers or something stupid like that. To be honest, none of it makes sense to me."

  "So, the second dragon?" she asked.

  "He's a shifter." My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. "He was helping me, and he shifted to save us."

  "By us, you mean you and the comatose vamp back there?"

  Turning, I looked at Alec. He was still passed out. Which is creepy for a vampire since they don't breathe. Since his body was still intact, he was probably going to heal and wake up soon, but I didn't know enough about vampires to be sure.

  "Sort of. We were trying to get to Alec before the sun came up and things just kept going wrong." I thought back to our encounter with Tavas. "Hey, did you see another person out there? Might have looked like a harpy?"

  "Your hot date? That guy that looked like a Fae?" she asked.

  "How long were you in the lake watching me?" I knew Sirens liked the water, but I thought most of them just used the giant bathtubs they added into their homes. My skin crawled. Were there other Sirens in the water watching us the whole time? "Why were you in the lake, anyway?"

  She shrugged. "I've always felt more at home with natural water sources. So I go in the mornings before the park gets crowded."

  "So you watched me?" I asked.

  "I was curious, it was odd to see a fugitive back in the city, and I have to admit, I wanted to know what you were doing with a Fae. It almost made me believe the reports. You know, those guys can't be trusted. They're dangerous." She turned to me and narrowed her eyes. "I never pegged you for one to go after the bad boys."

  "It's not like that. He was just helping us," I said.

  "Right, dragon shifter, a vampire, and a Fae. Girl, you can never judge me again," she said.

  I pressed my lips together. Of course, that was where her head went. I wanted to say something to clear up the odd assortment of my companions, but another question popped into my head. "Why are you helping me? And how did you get him out?"

  "I already told you, we might not be friends anymore, but I never disliked you. The things that happened between us in the past are just that, past. As far as the daylight cells, they're over the water. Like Tahitian bungalows. The water on the bottom reflects the sun more, and if they vamps get too crispy, they drop into the water."

  "That's gross," I said. "And inhumane. How come nobody knows about this?" They'd passed laws about mistreating species based on their weaknesses. It shouldn't be legal for something like that to happen.

  "Tell me about it," a groggy voice from the back said.

  I removed my seat belt and turned completely around in the chair. "Alec! You're alive!"

  "Well, no, technically I'm still dead. But I'm not dust if that's what you mean." He smiled.

  Relief flooded through me, and I smiled back. He couldn't be too mad at me if he was already making jokes.

  "Where are we?" he asked, sitting up.

  "We're almost to my place," Dima said.

  "I'm sorry, but I have no idea who you are," Alec said.

  "That hurts, sweetheart. Need me to show you my fangs? Then, maybe you'll remember me."

  "Oh!" Recognition flashed across his face. "You're the siren from the bar. Wait. What are you doing here? How did we end up in your car?" He looked at me, then back at Dima. "Don't you two hate each other?"

  "Sure," Dima said. "But that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

  "Um." Alec looked at me as if I would clear some of this up.

  "Just go with it," I said.

  "Okay," he said. "So, we're in Realm's Gate. Does that mean you fixed the issue? Are you clear? And where's James?"

  My jaw tightened. "No, I'm still wanted for murder. And James is now a dragon, chasing the other dragon and causing general mayhem."

  "Oh! I get it now," Dima said.

  I turned to face her. "Get what?"

  "That green dragon, that's your new friend, right?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "He totally saved you," Dima said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. The last thing I remembered was being on fire and running to the lake.

  "Well, he flew over the cops that had you cuffed and let it rip, and you got free." She seemed very sure of herself.

  "Sounds like I missed a lot while I was in that death box," Alec said.

  "He could have killed me," I said.

  "Not if you're part dragon, sweetheart," she
said. "Didn't you learn anything in school?"

  "Why do people keep asking me that?" I said. "I was a straight-A student."

  "Yeah, you were. Obnoxious about it, too," Dima said. "But you apparently forgot your lessons on dragons. Dragons can't be burned by dragon fire. That's part of what made that cult so dangerous."

  "Cult?" Alec asked.

  "Those blood guys," she said.

  "The Dragon-Bloods," I said, flashes of history lectures from high school coming to mind. Was I immune to dragon fire? I looked down at my arms and realized my jacket was blackened, and one whole side of the fabric was missing, eaten away by the fire. The skin under it was untouched. "Holy shit, I'm immune to dragon fire."

  24

  "Well, I suppose it's a good skill to have now that we apparently have dragons in Realm's Gate," Dima said.

  "They won't be here long." I was surprised how sad the words made me. "James is working on getting the wild dragon to leave."

  "That's good," Dima said, turning into a tree-lined street in one of the upper-class neighborhoods. "I don't want to have to find a new place to live. I mean, I might like going for swims in the lake, but I don't want to live there."

  She pushed a button on a garage door opener on the sun flap in front of me as we turned into the driveway of a huge, cookie-cutter house. One of the four garage doors lifted as we approached and she pulled the car into the space. Hers was the only car in the garage.

  "This is your house?" I couldn't keep the judgment out of my voice as I wondered which guy she'd gotten to buy it for her.

  "My parents left it to me when they died, so yes, it's mine now." Her words were short, and the irritation at my comment came through, but she didn't press the issue.

  "It's nice," I said, trying to sound sincere. I'd attended her parents’ funeral when we were teenagers. It was shortly after Dima and I had stopped talking, but it was only a few weeks after my mom died, and Dima had gone to her funeral. Neither of us spoke to the other at either event, but a warmth filled me, tinged by regret. Why had we let a stupid fight get in the middle of our friendship?

  "Come on," she said. "I'll show you the tapes; you can decide what you want to do with them."

  "Tapes?" Alec asked.

  I caught him up on the conversations with Dima.

  "That's great news, right? We just turn those into the cops, and you're free, right?" he asked. "Well, aside from the whole breaking you out of prison thing."

  "That wasn't me," I said. "That was Dima."

  "Yeah, about that," she said. "I'd probably just stay out of sight for a few weeks. They'll think you just fell in the lake and didn't make it back out."

  "Does that happen often?" Alec asked.

  She shrugged. "There's a few bodies under those huts. I'm not sure why they don't wake up and leave, but they're there."

  I shuddered as I imagined Dima swimming around sunken dead vampires.

  We followed her in through the garage door, through a tiled mud room, into a wood-floored living area. A television hung above the marble fireplace, and leather furniture faced the screen. The place was immaculate, and I felt a bit bad about the state of my apartment.

  Dima disappeared up the stairs, and Alec and I stood in the middle of the living room. I wondered if we were supposed to follow her but kept my feet planted on the spot.

  "You trust her?" Alec whispered while she was gone.

  "I think so, but even if I didn't, we don't have much of a choice," I said.

  Dima returned with a bundle of clothes. She threw some at me."There's towels in the guest bath if you need them." She pointed down the hall, beyond the stairs. Then she threw some clothes at Alec. "These belonged to my ex, don't bother returning them."

  "When you're done, have a seat," Dima said, gesturing to the couch. "I'll grab the tapes." She disappeared back up the stairs.

  "You want to go first?" Alec asked.

  "Sure." Holding the dry clothes away from my wet body, I walked toward the bathroom. Dropping the clothes in a heap on the ground, I stared at myself in the mirror. I hardly recognized the face staring back at me. My brown hair hung in knots and remnants of eyeliner were smeared under my eyes. My usually pale skin was even more pallid then it regularly was, and my clothes were hanging on by threads. How was I still even covered?

  Peeling the cold, damp clothing off, I kicked it to the side. Using a bar of decorative pink soap, I scrubbed my hands and face with warm water, trying to get the feeling back in my skin. When I opened the cabinet mounted on the wall, I was happy to find a spray bottle of leave in conditioner and a hairbrush.

  After a few minutes of practically breaking the brush in the tangles, I was able to smooth out the mess. Pulling it up into a tight bun out of the way made me feel more like myself.

  Dima's clothes were the right size. At least that hadn't changed. I pulled on the jeans and long sleeve tee-shirt, then set out to face reality again.

  Alec had already changed when I found him in the living room. Modesty wasn't a vampire's strong point. Though, when I walked by the mudroom, I saw the pile of wet clothes on the floor. He must have changed in there.

  "Did I miss anything?" I asked, settling into the spot left between Alec and Dima.

  "Dima was telling me about the cops who came by the bar after we left," Alec said.

  "At the time, I didn't think much of it, but now it's freaking me out a bit," she said.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Well, they wanted all the video files from the night. They knew you'd been there and they wanted all the files," Dima said.

  "They took them, then? They knew I was there when Jimmy was killed, but they still think I did it?" None of it made sense. There were witnesses, videos, proof that I wasn't at Jimmy's until after his death.

  "What do they think? That someone dressed up like me?" I asked. "I mean, if that worked for the videos of me at the Dragon, it would work for the vault."

  "The cops have come into the Dizzy Dragon before asking for copies of the video," Dima said. "They've never deleted it before."

  "The cops did that?" I asked.

  "You can't go to the cops," Alec said. "Whatever this is, whoever is doing this to you, they've gotten to the cops. Maybe we need to run."

  "We haven't even seen it yet," I said. "Let's not jump right to that."

  Dima opened a laptop that was sitting on the table in front of us and popped in a flash drive. She handed the computer to me.

  Alec and Dima both leaned in closer to me as I clicked on the dialogue box to open the video file. A window popped up and started auto-play.

  A black and white version of the Dizzy Dragon filled the screen. I could see Dima dancing in the cage. Alec was standing nearby while I was off camera somewhere.

  "Wow, I look like an asshole," Alec said as the video showed him grabbing onto the cage.

  I came running into view, and I watched myself fighting with Dima on camera.

  "Pause it there," she said, leaning across me and touching the screen. The image froze my hands on fire in the static image.

  "Look." Dima pointed to the wall behind the cage. There was a large digital clock mounted on the wall, and we could see the time displayed. "That's all you need. It shows you were at the Dragon when the vault was cracked."

  "How do you know about that?" I asked. The video of me on the human news said I was wanted for murder. What had they told the people in Realm's Gate?

  "I have a lot of friends. There's very little I don't know that goes on in this town," she said.

  "Yet, you don't know who is setting me up?" The words came out meaner than I meant.

  "I don't think it's a local who did this. Otherwise, someone would know," she said. "I might give you shit, but you actually command a lot of respect for what you do. Either that or some of the unscrupulous people want what you offer."

  "Glad selling curses and spells can get me some affection," I said.

  "So now what?" Alec said. "We can't take it
to the cops. If they saw this, they should have already cleared you."

  "We go to the news," I said, turning to Dima. "You still friends with that news anchor?"

  She glared at me. "You can't be serious."

  "What am I missing?" Alec asked.

  "You're wearing his clothes," I said.

  "Oh, shit," Alec said.

  "Yeah, never date a tiger shifter. Their egos are as big as their...well, you get it," Dima said.

  "Please?" I placed my palms together in a prayer gesture. "I can't get this far and not try. You know it's my only shot. They'll never let me in the station, but they'll let you."

  "Fuck. I didn't realize being your friend would be so much work for me," Dima said.

  "I'll owe you a favor," I said.

  "The way I see it, you'll owe me several," she said.

  "That's true." She'd already saved my life and saved Alec. I knew I shouldn't be asking more, but I couldn't think of another way.

  A knock sounded on the door, and I jumped up so fast, I nearly knocked the laptop to the ground. Catching it, I set it back on the table. Alec pulled the flash drive out and slid it in his pocket.

  "Hide," Dima said.

  Alec and I tiptoed over to the mudroom, closing the door behind us. Worst case scenario, I supposed I could steal Dima's car and take off. Though, then I'd owe her a car in addition to several favors. Since when did Dima become the one who could save my life?

  I slapped my forehead with my hand. Why hadn't I seen it sooner?

  "What?" Alec whispered.

  "The Oracle," I whispered back.

  "What Oracle?" he asked.

  "I'll explain later." I pressed a finger to my lips, not wanting to make any more noise and wondering how I hadn't seen it sooner. Chester had said that help would come from where I least expected it. There could be no more unexpected help than Dima.

  Somehow, knowing that she was likely the person Chester had prophesized about helping me, I relaxed a bit. Then, I remembered he never told me the outcome, only that I'd have help. We weren't out of this yet.

  25

  Footsteps sounded outside the door, and I reached down, grabbing Alec's hand. The mud room was dark with the door closed, and I wasn't sure what was going on behind it. Had the person at the door left? We never heard any conversation or voices. Was Dima okay?