Nite Fire: Flash Point

by C. L. Schneider

  All three men drew a simultaneous troubled breath. There was no deceit in the action. Their shock was natural. They didn’t know the details. They weren’t in the house.

  My pursuer spoke again. “You must come with me.” He gestured at the open manhole.

  I winced. “Most men buy me dinner before they drag me through the sewers.”

  His reply was an impatient smoldering frown. One brother snickered, the other grumbled.

  “You are interesting. I’ll give you that,” I said. “And you brought your…thing.” I glanced again at the indistinguishable lump of creature hiding at the edge of the dumpster. “Let me guess, Jersey Devil? Chupacabra? Baby werewolf? Haven’t seen one of those in years.”

  “My companion is far more dangerous than it appears,” he replied, seemingly unmoved by my sarcasm. “It was sent to help ensure you comply with my request.”

  “It’s not a request if you force me to comply.”

  “I had hoped you would trust me and force would be unnecessary.”

  “Because luring me into an alley just screams of trust?”

  He gestured in dismissal. “You are mistaken. This is not a trap.”

  I laughed, and the brother on his left snapped at me. “This isn’t some human game,” he scorned, teal eyes flashing. “You have no idea what you’re involved in.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I don’t have a fucking clue. So instead of the mystery and theatrics, instead of more bodies piling up…like yours…” I took a step. “Why don’t you drop the tall, dark, and mysterious act and fill in some of the blanks? You can start with your names, which elder tribe you represent, and why I shouldn’t kill you right now so I can get the hell out of this alley and find myself a damn decent cup of coffee.”

  After a moment of grinding his square jaw, the calmer one in the middle relented. “Coen. My name is Coen. And I belong to no modern tribe. I am balaur.”

  “Balaur?” I’d heard of lyrriken born with multiple reptilian heads, but I’d never seen one. Nor the dragons that fathered them. Their dark, mountainous land of origin was rumored to be far from my own. “Now I really am honored. A sighting of one of your kind is rare.”

  “We are shunned, not rare. Those born as I am are often put to death or left unclaimed and banished. Not many survive.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Your dragon form must be beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” He dipped his head in gratitude. “But where you might see beauty, others see threat. Others still: opportunity. If properly trained, a balaur’s power can be considerable.”

  I stared at him, trying to discern the threat hidden inside his revelations. “Aren’t you a ways from home? I didn’t realize the far side of Drimera had exits to this world.”

  “There is much you haven’t realized. But that is not your fault. You were raised ignorant, fed only what the Guild wanted you to know. And that is not insult,” he added, “only fact.”

  “Don’t worry, Coen. I have a thick skin.” I glanced at his brothers. “All three of you are balaur? You all have three heads?”

  “We are balaur,” Coen replied.

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “When in the form of my mother’s species, I exist as you see: separate. When shifted in favor of my father’s dragon ancestry, our bodies become one.”

  “How…?” I tried to picture it.

  Coen smiled slightly. “Now you must come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “To a safe place.”

  “A safe place where?”

  “Does our destination matter so much? You will be safe there.”

  I frowned at him. “I will be safe…in the safe place?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t speak human much, do you?”

  “I have been alone for some time.”

  “Alone with,” my eyes flitted to the other two, “yourself?”

  Coen stared at me with blank eyes and a confused grimace.

  I shook my head. “Never mind. I don’t know who sent you, or what you think I need protecting from, but I don’t need one of you, let alone three. So—”

  “Things are happening,” he said quickly. “Things will continue to happen. You need to be prepared. Safe. Our route home will be circuitous, to reduce the odds of being followed. I know the exits well, but you must stay close to avoid getting lost.”

  “I’m not going home with you, Coen. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He stared at me, mute, with blatant exasperation on all three of his faces, as if he’d honestly expected me to comply.

  Why does he care so much what happens to me?

  Because he did; that was on his faces, too.

  “How can you say home is safe?” I demanded. “Has Naalish forgiven my sins?”

  Tightlipped, Coen shook his head. There was regret in the gesture, but I didn’t want it. I wanted answers. “Your situation on Drimera is unchanged.”

  “Are you a Guild retriever? Dispatched to bring me back for execution?”

  “A retriever, no. Execution…that is up to you.”

  “That’s easy, then. I vote no.” Spotting movement, I turned as the squat four-legged creature poked its furry face out into the open. Its double jaw extended like a projectile, full of teeth and reeking of death.

  I shifted my left arm. Scales and talons appeared. Fire next, as I flung it at the ground in front of the dark ball of flesh and fur. With a yelp it returned to the shadows.

  Bits of residual fire sliding off my hand, I turned back to them. “I can take care of myself.”

  The middle one stepped out from between the others. “If you resist, I will restrain you.”

  “Sewers and bondage? You’re quite a catch, Coen.”

  His gaze slid to my hand. I had yet to put my scales away, and he spent a moment, admiring them. “I was informed this is your way now.” Leisurely, his gaze lifted to mine. “Disrespecting authority. Speaking with scorn instead of truth.”

  “No one tells the truth in this world. It’s how I blend.”

  “And how you hide from the pain?”

  “Oh, there’s no hiding from that.” Abruptly, I set loose my other half. Scales rippled crimson, traversing the length of my body. Flames sparked red from the ends of my hair. For the first time in so very long, I held nothing back. Fabric stretched then ripped. Wings and tail pushed through. Muscles bulked and legs lengthened. I burned away the last stubborn bits of my ruined clothing and my knife clattered to the ground. Sun-glinted scales shrouded every inch of me.

  Relishing in the freedom, I released a burst of ire with my warning. “I’m leaving this alley, Coen. If I have to step over your charred remains on my way out—all three of them. Make that four.” Taking out the unknown first, I flung a stream of fire at the dark creature crawling at the edge of my vision. My strike hit with a shrill wail. The scent of burning fur and meat followed. “One down.”

  He looked back at his other two. After nods all around, as if confirming their course of action, he left them behind and advanced.

  With all his talk of protection, Coen still took the first swing. I ducked, feeling the force of his blow in my hair as it passed over my head. As I blocked his next few strikes, I assessed his attack. Coen’s skill at hand-to-hand was noteworthy, but conventional. His reliance on standard straightforward punches was a simple, direct offense that was easy enough to combat. At least, it would have been if he wasn’t so damn strong. Brute force was something Coen had plenty of, even in his human form. He wasn’t holding back, and if I wavered for an instant, he would take me down. Then he would take me home.

  He was fast, too, considering his size. More than once my jabs skimmed his face as he stepped aside with uncanny precision. Skin shredded on his knuckles as I continued to block his blows with my scaled arms and legs. Yet, neither blood nor pain gave Coen pause. His endurance was remarkable and challenging, but it wasn’t finite. When the sweat broke on his skin, his movements l
ost a trace of their fluidity. I snuck in a hard blow. His lip split. His head snapped to the side, and one of his other two snickered. My opponent, however, looked un-fazed.

  I studied his breathing, his pivots, the set of his shoulders; waiting. I thought back on his moves. If he’d been given the rigorous training of the Guild, it wasn’t obvious.

  Ever so slightly, his swings slowed. The speed of his footwork decreased. He placed one step wrong, widening his stance a bit too much, and I slammed a plated elbow into his jaw. Skin tore. A mist of red hit my scales. As his arm went up to block my next strike, I went under it.

  Raking my fire-drenched claws across his stomach, leather then cotton, then skin opened and burned. As Coen’s blood colored the alley floor, I backed off. There were so few of his kind, I truly didn’t want to kill him. Not that I knew how to kill a balaur. Would extracting one heart do it, or did I need to take all three?

  Shit, I thought, realizing I’d lost track of the other two.

  I spun to lay eyes on them, and Coen gripped my arms from behind. Swiftly, like my lyrriken form weighed nothing, he lifted me above his head. I wrapped my tail around his neck a second before he threw me, and we landed together on the weathered, pock-marked ground.

  Sprawled out on top of me, his hair hung in both our faces as I struggled to regain the breath his fall had pushed from my lungs.

  I felt the handgun in his pocket a second before he drew.

  Placing the weapon to the side of my head, Coen put a bullet in the chamber.

  Annoyed, I laughed. “And here I was, trying to be nice.”

  “If you resist any further, I will shoot.”

  “I thought you wanted to protect me.”

  “I am.” Coen dropped the muzzle of his gun against my right shoulder and pulled the trigger. At such close range my plates afforded zero protection, and my body flinched as the bullet pierced scales and meat. Adrenaline surged to lessen the pain, but not the anger as Coen backed off, seized my ankle, and started dragging me toward the open manhole.

  I squirmed, cursing him. He paused and looked back over his shoulder at me. My blood speckled his face and neck. Watching me, his brow softened with an odd sense of remorse.

  I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t care to.

  Lifting up, I grabbed hold of his hand around my leg. Human skin was far less resilient than hybrid scales, and as I heated my palm, turning my touch fiery hot, Coen cried out. As his grip eased, I broke free. Rolling onto my side, I kicked the gun from his other hand. Before it was done rattling across the ground, I was up.

  The other two men closed in around Coen. Sidling up alongside, they pressed in close, leaving no space between their bodies. As the edges of all three began to blur, I realized they weren’t there to guard his flank.

  The blurred distortion grew. Within it, limbs became indistinct. Sides merged, and Coen drew their forms into his. Arms, shoulders, hips, fused; broadening and elongating. Clothing ripped, disintegrating and falling away as scales of a dark brassy hue spread over a single widening torso, and Coen became one form.

  Of the six legs and arms, only the outer ones remained. Yet, all three necks and heads were present, extending up from a heavily plated collarbone so high, I was certain Coen was the largest lyrriken I had ever seen. I raised my eyes to get a better look at the heads towering over me, and a cold mist formed between us. Fanning out rapidly from the balaur’s position, the cloud of snowy white filled the empty spaces, hiding my opponent (and half the alley) from view.

  The illusionist had conjured a smoke screen. Wonderful.

  I studied the haze, turning, searching for signs of movement and shadow.

  A whoosh of motion stirred the cloud. I jumped back, a second before a thick ridged tail cut through the cloud. The massive appendage whipped left and right, swiping the fog away.

  More rolled in just as fast.

  Frustrated, I blew out a gust of fire, burning away a slice of the miasma.

  Seconds later, the gap filled in.

  Tracking the hazy shape moving inside the cloud, I considered Coen’s motives. His claim of protection made no sense. Yet, if he was a retriever, why come for me now? Why was my capture suddenly so urgent again?

  Coen’s reptilian form broke through the mist. Standing tall on hind legs, the plates covering his chest shimmered with a dark pearlescent sheen. Substantial limbs held up his impressive mass. His thick, muscled torso gave way to three lengthy necks, each as round and solid as a tree limb. Dipping and weaving, the necks meandered in a way that reminded me of enormous snakes rearing up to attack. The supple shafts supported heads that were nearly identical, but slightly varied in length and bulk. Ridges decorated their prominent foreheads. Small horns graced their jaws. Their eyes were startling, as each set regarded me with a distinct and disparate colored gaze.

  The left boasted a vibrant teal. The right was reminiscent of wet clay; a deep gray ringed in the red of his illusion. In the middle: gold. It was a more defined, mesmerizing color than what belonged to the man who had tailed me, but those were definitely his eyes.

  My pulse raced as I stared at Coen. He was magnificent.

  “I’m intrigued,” I admitted. “But you’ve got lousy timing.”

  The head on the left grunted. “Don’t you want to kill me anymore?”

  The right one boasted with a lisp, “She doesn’t know how.”

  My tail flicked. “Ever heard of trial and error?”

  The two outer heads hissed. Somberness settled on the face of the center one. It wasn’t only their eyes that were different. Their personalities were too.

  I caught the golden eyes and held on. “If I go back, if I ever go back to Drimera, it will be when I say and on my terms. It will be my choice. Not yours. And not on the terms of whatever asshole is sitting safely in the background pulling your strings.” I kept my arms at my sides. Fire crackled impatiently as I waited for his response.

  Go for the eyes first. Then the groin, I thought, regarding the impressive mark of his sex resting between his thighs.

  “No reply?” I looked at each in turn. “I’m happy to keep going. One of us will fall eventually,” I shrugged, wincing at the hole in my shoulder. With shifting and the rush of the fight, I’d almost forgotten he’d shot me. “Either way, your illusions won’t hold forever. When the wall goes down and this damn fog lifts, the myth of dragons won’t be a myth anymore.”

  A faint tremor ran through the ground with each step as the balaur approached. His size was intimidating, but I kept still and he came right up to me. Heads bobbing, the heat of his triple breaths blew over my scales. His scent held nothing of the city. Sharp and clean, it smelled of woodland foliage and crisp mountain air. It was clear he hadn’t been here long.

  Bending slightly, I considered pushing off and letting my wings take me up. The roof was a risk. Once I cleared the fog, I’d only have a second to shift back before I was seen from the street. But that wasn’t why I stayed put. It was the bizarre nature of his eyes as all six of them looked at me, projecting resentment, confidence, and barely concealed interest, all at the same time. What I didn’t see was malevolence.

  “I believe you,” I said. “You aren’t here to kill me. But you’ll have to. Because that’s the only way I’m leaving this alley with you.”

  The middle head lowered, putting his face in close to mine. Resigned disappointment softened his voice. “Resisting will only delay what will be.”

  I nodded in acknowledgement of his warning. His neck lifted back up to join the others, and ‘teal eyes’ on the outside glared down in angry exasperation. Gray, on the other side held a skeptical ferocity. They were the impetuous ones. They were fierce and reckless. While reason and intellect shined in the gold eyes. He was the tolerant, perceptive one. He saw their way as well as his own. They were his council, the devils on his shoulder, while he was neutral.

  Middle of the road, I thought, grinning to myself at the irony.

  Abruptly, the
great beast dropped to all fours. A breath fled his nostrils and lustrous wings spread out from his strong back. My body tensed as I studied his scale-wrapped muscles, his long, powerful limbs. Coen wasn’t even close to the size of an elder. Yet he cut a form that would strike fear into any human’s heart. Mine warmed with admiration.

  I watched in awe as he split into his human forms. As much as I appreciated the other, I couldn’t complain about the resulting three naked human bodies, tall and rippled with muscle, standing before me. Two glared with guarded eyes and impudence in the set of their jaws. Yet, their sexual interest was blatant. As they moved away, I noticed the remaining man bore the wounds from our scuffle. His eyes, no longer blazing gold, were once more a soft yellow-brown.

  “Don’t linger,” Coen warned. He gave a nod to the wall and the slowly thinning mist. “Neither will last long after we have gone.” Not waiting for a reply, he walked away. His confident gait drew my eyes to his sculpted back, the power in his shoulders, the solid brawn of his thighs, and the defined muscles of his ass as he stepped.

  When all three had climbed down into the sewer and the cover slid back in place, I reclaimed my human form. It ached instantly. Blood ran in generous streams from a hole on both sides of my shoulder. The bullet had gone clean through. I made a mental note to dig it out of the ground as I pressed a hand against the wound.

  Spotting my knife and Coen’s gun on the ground, I scooped them both up. I retrieved my jacket and slipped it on, pulling the sleeve gingerly over my bleeding arm. The hem stopped at hip level. But if the wall fell, half-naked was better than all the way. Pulling the phone out of my bag, I hesitated, thinking, as I watched the confetti-sized pieces of our burnt clothing blow over the ground.

  Oren had been unresponsive. Ronan was unreliable, even if I did have his number. There was only one person I could count on for speed and discretion.

  On the second ring, he picked up. “Sal’s Gym.”

  “I need clothes.”

  After a short pause, he asked, “Where?”

  I gave Sal the cross streets and told him to text me when he got close. If the wall was still up when he got here, the illusion it was wrapped in wouldn’t even let him notice it was there.