by Compulsio
Rysa fell.
Her back tensed as her instincts pulled her knees toward her chest. The shackles’ weight wrenched. She rolled. Her vision lost the horrid glow of the sky and filled instead with the blackness of the pavement.
She knew what was about to happen, felt the anguish play across her muscles and bones. She’d hit the ground. Snap ribs. Her head would bounce, blinding her with colorless flashes. Blood pool in her mouth. A hip crack. And her forearm shatter.
But it didn’t. Huge hand-like claws—long, dexterous digits ending in vicious-looking talons—scooped under her shoulders and hips. She bounced upward, her free-fall countered by something new. Something large.
A new power surged over her skin. Every hair on her body stood up. The talons retracted into the fingers in a wave moving across each hand. The fingers pushed her gently as the hands pulled her back. She rolled again, facing upward once more.
Nothing stood over her. The cloud deck swirled in the sky, open and visible. Both hands vanished to nothing as well, though she felt them curl tighter.
A ghost held her inches off the ground, yet it felt warm and real and alive. Invisible muscles coiled and powerful limbs adjusted position. She rocked and a massive chest pressed against her side.
She should feel terrified. She should scream at this new impossibility and fight and flounder in its arms. But her vision channel-changed again and she knew what held her wouldn’t hurt her. It wouldn’t bite and rip or hurt her. Ever.
Carefully, she touched what she couldn’t see. Soft under her fingers, the energy crackling from it left her with a distinct sense of amazement.
It let go and her feet hit the ground. Whatever had caught her altered its stance and the position of its chest dropped. Weight shifted. Something strong that felt like it might be a neck rubbed her shoulder.
Across the lot, near the van the woman had pulled the shackles from, another crack thundered through the air. A man wearing black jeans and a black jacket zipped tight around his neck smashed his gloved fist into the nose of one of the ghouls who’d held her in the air.
The fiend staggered back and pulled a knife from his belt. He grimaced, his face reddening. The blade flashed, and he cut down his arm. The stink increased and Rysa covered her mouth and nose, gagging. Whiffs of smoke rose from the ghoul’s clothes but he continued to slice.
The man in black cursed and slashed a whip at the ghoul’s arm. The tip stripped the knife and the man bolted into the lot before the blade hit the ground. The ghoul danced around, swearing, until he looked at the blade next to his foot.
It glowed red. A whine, high-pitched like a wind-up toy about to be released, reverberated between the van and the hatchback.
The knife exploded. The ghoul’s leg below his knee burst into a red haze.
They didn’t just burn. They didn’t just eat people, either. Their blood made knives explode.
And shopping malls. They had to be responsible for all the explosions. All the fires.
Panic welled in Rysa’s gut again. Maybe she was having an aneurism. Maybe none of this was real. How could it be real? She stumbled backward. Maybe—
The invisible chest of the creature who had saved her from her fall blocked her way. It pressed against her back, gentle and real.
Her terror lessened, driven away by this giant she couldn’t see but felt wrap itself around her.
Next to the hatchback, the man in the black jacket smashed an elbow into another ghoul’s chest. “Damned cockroaches!”
A chill ran up Rysa’s spine. His voice, even filled with anger, melted more of her terror.
“Fuck you!” the child shrieked. She and two others ran for the van. Billy and Lizzy snuck around and hid alongside the hatchback.
Another ghoul ran at the man. He dropped his whip and pulled a gun as long as his forearm from a holster on his leg. The barrel recoiled as a poof blasted a barbed spike through the fiend’s heart and spine. It popped through the ghoul’s back cleanly, no blood or gore, just more of the red glow. Then hooks spread from its tip. When the man yanked on the rope, the ghoul fell forward.
Whatever pressed against Rysa’s back moved away but stayed next to her. She felt its presence, but couldn’t see—until a shimmering ghost-line of rich yellows and oranges rolled through the air. A snout and an elongated head appeared. Golden light erupted across the creature’s flank in swirling dots, lines, and hard-edged patterns. Huge, her first thought was dinosaur, but it had a vaguely canine set to its limbs. Whatever it was, it looked strong and agile, and like it could stop every single attack the ghouls threw at it.
It reared onto its hind legs as the man tossed it the gun, the cable trailing. Every muscle along the creature’s ridged back undulated when it caught the weapon. It flicked the cable and the ghoul’s body flew straight up, high above the fight.
For an instant, the ghoul floated in midair like a helium balloon on a tether, still and lifeless. Then the body crystallized, little sparkles rapidly spreading outward from the wound in its chest. Without a sound, the shards vaporized and became a person-shaped, red dust cloud.
Unconsciously, Rysa backed against the creature’s side, seeking its protection. The red dust rippled with menace. The ghoul was dead, but the dust wasn’t. It embodied something far worse than mindless rampaging. The red dust was chaos unfettered.
The cloud imploded. The limbs pulled in first, the dust shaping into a red ball. Flutters rippled the surface like a puff of smoke or a drop of blood.
The entire sphere sucked into a tiny point in space.
A blinding flash ripped through the street and parking lot. The creature curled around Rysa, its talons gouging the asphalt as it blocked the shockwave from throwing her to the ground.
Next to the blue van, a high-pitched screech erupted from the child. “I hate you, dragon boy!” She stomped her feet.
The creature was a dragon?
The kid ran straight for Rysa. “Give us the Fate!”
All Rysa’s panic returned, clawing through the chill on her spine left by the exploding dust. Fate? Billy called her the same thing when he snatched her. She pressed against the dragon’s chest once again, grasping for the calm she’d felt before, but the chains attached to the shackles restricting her wrists and ankles knotted and she tripped. Her palms came down hard on the pavement, her hands wrenching inside the cuffs, and she dropped to her elbows.
Dust pillowed off the ground when a forelimb slammed down on each side of Rysa’s body. A neck appeared over her head and bright, glimmering reds flashed from the dragon’s hide.
The beast blocked the child. The little ghoul couldn’t get close.
Next to the hatchback, the man in black tipped his head as if listening to someone whisper in his ear—and above her, so did the dragon. Energy crackled over her skin.
The man and the dragon shared a bond.
Their energy flowed over Rysa in slow waves and every cell in her body tingled. Their connection wove itself into her senses, brightening her perception and calming both her panic and the pain in her arms.
The dragon dropped its head next to hers. It sniffed her hair, touching her face with its snout. Warmth spread across her belly as its tail coiled around her waist and legs.
The flavor of the energy between the man and the beast altered. Dismay flowed across their connection. Rysa leaned into the beast, needing to soothe, feeling that she was supposed to, and flared her fingers over the swirls and patterns moving across the creature’s hide.
The man in black snarled and pointed at the ghouls. “We can stop this!”
Flame burst from the dragon’s mouth.
Real flame, warm and bright and scented with frankincense and spices. Real fire, not the chemical acid death released by the ghouls. It flooded the area between it, the man, and the kid.
The kid pulled up short. “You think so, h
uh?” She flipped off the man as she ran for the van. “Prick!”
The man glanced at Rysa, then the child, then back to her again. A surge moved through the energy flow connecting him and the dragon. The beast flamed in response.
“Why are you so stubborn?” The man pulled off his gloves as he ran to Rysa, his head tipped again as if he were listening to someone whisper. “A Fate?” Lifting his goggles, he looked down at her with golden-brown eyes. “They shackled you? What kind of Fate are you that you couldn’t get away from Burners?”
The dragon nudged the man at the same time one of its hands curled around Rysa’s belly.
The man’s brow furrowed as he squinted at the beast. “What?”
More energy pulsed between them.
“He says you’re activating.” The man looked around. “Why the hell are you alone?”
“I…” She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know what “activate” meant, or why everyone kept calling her a Fate. But she wasn’t alone. The dragon enveloped her and their energy cascaded over her mind. A calmness she shouldn’t have settled in. She felt right, centered, and for first time in her life, she didn’t feel alone.
The man lifted the chain and peered at it in the dim light. “Burndust in the metal? Can you get your hands out?” He yanked on the cuff, the furrow between his eyes changing from exasperation to concern. “Hey! Can you hear me? Try!” He blinked, his eyes wide.
Rysa blinked, too.
Her eyes saw more than was possible. More than she could handle. In her vision, several versions of the man pulled and twisted and ripped at the shackles, as he tried, but failed, to pull them off. All versions were not quite the same but all possible, as if she watched multiple takes of the same scene overlaid onto each other.
Each rendering of the man understood what was happening, even if she didn’t. Each iteration worked to stop her from becoming something as terrible as the ghouls who now peeled away in their hatchback and van. She felt a need to help pulse along the energy connecting the man and the beast and she knew even if she panicked again, she was safe.
A sense of separation washed over her. She’d taken a step to the side no one else had, or could. Her angle on the world reformed and she saw things clearly that had been obscured before—things that should be obscured. Things she wasn’t supposed to see.
Possibility took on weight. Portions of time became threads. The universe had a weave and Rysa could see its fabric now.
See it, even if she didn’t understand what she saw.
Ladon. Their name danced through her mind, a separate voice, one that was her but not her. Their name was Ladon, and some of their possible futures were more probable than others.
She grasped her throat, the chains dragging across her chest. No air entered her lungs. The dragon lifted her into its forelimbs and held her close to its body.
When what she knew moved sideways, the world burned hot and cold, her fingers frostbitten as her core boiled. Did the fire ghouls do something to her? Except her hands looked fine, not blue and frozen.
Her perception of the dragon fanned out, multiple takes playing at the same time again. She felt the physical edges of each possibility slide along her skin while they flared through her vision.
She held tight, feeling this big beast’s intent. Knowing, understanding, seeing it all for a fraction of a second as a multi-dimensional blossom. For the moment, it—he—was all colors and shapes and textures at once. He gleamed with the stars themselves.
Ladon’s gold-flecked eyes, warm and full of life, anchored the spinning and the world slammed back to normal. She felt better, stronger, with both of them next to her, as if they’d get her through this. They stabilized what-is and what-will-be—the present and the future—and understanding the process of “activation” wasn’t important. Only that she activated now, with them.
She leaned toward the man, still in the forelimbs of the dragon. His steady and perfect heart beat strong under her fingers.
She whispered, “You are Human. He is Dragon. Together, you are Ladon.” She knew, but she didn’t understand. Their energy curled around her like Dragon had when he protected her from the explosion. Everything forward reverberated with them, with Dragon’s colors. With Ladon’s speed and strength. She would be fine.
She clasped his palm. “Thank you.” She would be fine.
Ladon glanced at Dragon and his expression loosened into a wide-eyed roundness. His attention diverted from the shackles still binding her wrists, he stroked her forehead. “You’re burning up.”
With nothing—with everything—Rysa activated. Her mind stepped through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Stepped through while her body was held in the forelimbs of a beast she didn’t know, but would. All while holding the hand of a man whose strength calmed the raging whirlwinds behind her eyes.
Hot-cold power burst from her skin, leaving her new, transformed. She felt Ladon brace himself but he didn’t falter. He didn’t let go.
He took her from the beast and carried her down the street. Dragon followed and Rysa felt what was to come. She sucked in her breath, not because she couldn’t breathe, but because the future exploded in her head.
3
Two nights before, when Ladon and Dragon backed their van toward the rear door of his cousin-in-law’s bar in Branson, Missouri, they hadn’t planned on chasing Burners. They hadn’t planned on rescuing an activating Fate, either. They’d planned to pick up supplies: the two Israeli assault rifles Ladon’s sister wanted, the new Burner harpoon—the one he lost tonight saving the Fate—plus a couple of cases of premium vodka and a new smartphone with more damned apps than Ladon could ever want.
Then the East Chicago Shifter clan called. Ladon’s cousin-in-law, Dmitri, held out his own phone, a drink in his other hand and a scowl on his Russian face. A particularly virulent Burner gang moved west from Ohio. They burned libraries and churches and ate every Shifter they found, taking some directly from their homes.
The Shifters, for all their mercurial abilities, had yet to develop a talent for evading Burners. Their breed morphed, healed, enthralled—plus a host of other annoying traits Ladon didn’t care to remember—but they still pleaded for help. And Ladon and Dragon still responded.
So Dmitri stood in the parking lot of The Land of Milk and Honey and watched Ladon cram rifles and vodka into the storage compartments under the floor of their big van. Both Ladon and Dragon found this vehicle more comfortable than the military transport they used to drive. And less obvious. If normals weren’t paying attention, they’d think the van was a delivery truck.
His cousin-in-law slapped the side of the vehicle and waved them off, his perpetual Russian gloom the same as it was when Ladon met him over a half century ago.
So Ladon drove away, as tired as when he’d pulled into the parking lot of Dmitri’s expansive bar-slash-entertainment complex. As tired and fed up as he’d feel when he dealt with the Burners in the Dells, twelve hours later.
And just as tired as he now felt as he drove away from the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, where he’d tracked the Burners for what he’d thought—he’d hoped—would be the last time.
Tracked them and let them go so he could protect the lone Fate who now lay unconscious in the back of his van.
He pulled the parking brake and turned off the ignition. He’d found a lonely retail complex with a shadow-filled parking lot seven miles north of the campus—a secluded place where they could deal with the problem moaning on Dragon’s blankets.
Ladon looked back at the young woman. Only dim light filtered in through the roof vents but he saw her twitch. The chains rattled and a hollow clink resounded through the van.
A jolt of worry pulsed from Dragon.
Ladon did his best to ignore it. Fates weren’t Shifters. They were a completely different issue, one requiring caution.
/> He unbuckled and crouched on the step up to the back of the vehicle. Fates never had problems with Burners. Fates never had problems, period. Past, present, or future, one of the triad always knew what the hell was going on.
Except maybe this one.
She is injured, Dragon pushed into his mind. The beast hovered over the girl, nuzzling her hair and sniffing her chest. He’d covered her with a blanket and now fussed with its edges, tucking and untucking every time the slightest whimper crossed her lips.
Ladon squeezed the side of the passenger seat and the leather deformed under his fingers. They wouldn’t have chased those damned Burners across Wisconsin if they had known Fates were involved.
That is not true. Dragon snorted out a small curl of flame.
“Yes, it is.” They stayed away from Fates, even beautiful ones who’d just activated.
How many Shifters did those Burners eat? They murdered over a dozen normals when they attacked that mall. You would have helped, even if you knew a Fate was involved. The beast sniffed at the girl’s hair again. She needs our help as much as the Shifters.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow inhales. She moaned again, still unconscious. Ladon stared, unwilling to move closer. Best to be careful and keep his distance.
The beast lifted one of her wrists. Her burns are not bad. The chains bounced against the floor and filled the van with a discordant rasp. She will not blister.
Ladon crossed his arms. The plating on his jacket rattled when he rolled his shoulders. She may be hurt and unconscious, but she was still a Fate. “Quit clucking over her like a damned hen.”
Dragon waved his head side-to-side. Do not yell.
“I am not yelling! We need to get rid of her.” Fast, before her family showed up.
Dragon draped his talons over her hip. His irritation poked at the edges of Ladon’s mind like nettle spines rubbing his skin. The patterns on the beast’s hide sped up and he dropped his head low, one big cat eye glaring at Ladon. She needs our help.
