Veins of Ice

by Melissa Kellogg

  Time was precious, and with each second that passed by, the trolley cart glided further and further across the open stretch of air. Below her was a steep drop. The anvils and melting channels were like distant, toy-sized objects. Her hands start pressing the buttons on the operating panel. The trolley cart stopped, and swung from the abruptness. She looked at the buttons, wondering what the reverse one was.

  Before she could experiment by pressing more, the wyvern landed on the trolley’s cable line. For such a large creature, it was nimble enough to balance on it. She flung ice at it, and it flew away like a startled bird. It launched itself at the trolley cart and rammed it. The trolley cart rocked. She hit the side of it hard, and almost went over.

  The wyvern landed again, but this time, it hung onto the trolley’s arm, which connected the cart to the cable line. It snapped its jaws and crooked teeth at her. It profusely bled from its head wound, and its blood dripped onto her. She reacted by blasting porcupine-like, ice barbs at the wyvern. It screeched, and flew away once again. Several of the barbs had managed to nestle into sensitive spots in the wyvern’s hide. Trickles of blood streamed from those areas.

  “Karena, you have to get back over here. Press the button that’s orange and has the letter ‘R’ on it!” Blade’s voice shouted to her.

  She didn’t hesitate, and jabbed the button with her finger. The trolley cart began to slide back the way it had come. She looked at the stairs she had left. Jinx and Blade were on the platform. Jinx was busy communicating through her crystal skull, and requesting immediate help from the cryptid hunting headquarters and from other teams nearby. The skull lit up in sparks of purple and red.

  Determined to not let its prey get away, the wyvern flapped around. Its eyes gleamed with a need for revenge. It coldly calculated her as it passed by. It stopped to hover. Its wings beat up and down to keep it aloft. She was only twenty feet away from reaching the docking station. It snorted deep from its throat and its frill fanned around its face. Before anyone could stop it, the wyvern spat on the cable line. The line sizzled, and the metal threads snapped one by one. Venom dripped off the cable line. The wyvern spat one more time before darting away.

  “Grab your rifle, Karena, and jump,” Blade yelled to her.

  “I’m not going to survive the fall,” she called back to him in those final seconds before the wheels of the trolley cart rolled over the worsening section of cable. She was so close to reaching her destination.

  The wyvern returned and landed on the cable again, straining it.

  “The rifle is made from metal. Do it, Karena. I won’t able to help you if you’re in the trolley cart.”

  It finally registered with her what he was getting at. In a literal leap of faith, she jumped out of the trolley cart with the rifle in her hands. She dropped, slowed, and then dangling from the rifle, was floated towards the stairs. The cable line snapped and the trolley cart plummeted. It crashed below. If it hadn’t been for Blade, she would’ve been on it.

  “Jinx, attack it. It’s going for her again,” Blade said.

  Magical blasts and snake-like hisses deafened the area. Karena landed on the stairs, and ran up them. She met Blade’s gaze, seeing the relief and terror in them, which mirrored what she felt inside. Even though they were opposing elementals, he had saved her. The truth of it rang in her.

  “Asher is in critical condition, that’s how bad it is. Jinx managed to wipe off the venom, but it’s in his system now,” Blade said and there was a loud hiss and snort when the wyvern tried to spit again. Its venom splattered against a quick energy shield that Jinx had tossed up in front of her.

  “It won’t back off,” Jinx cried.

  “Wyverns won’t retreat, just like dragons. They’re highly territorial. It won’t stop until we’re dead or leave its domain,” Karena explained to them. “Why did you leave him?”

  “He told us to. He ordered us to help you,” Blade said.

  “We have to get Asher out of here now or else he could die, and I’m not talking about in an hour or two. I mean in like fifteen minutes,” Jinx said. Her face conveyed her distress, and the need to act fast.

  Karena paled, and her heart slammed against her chest. They didn’t even have time to wait until a backup team arrived. They had to leave now, but the wyvern wasn’t about to let them.

  The wyvern darted around in the open air, trying to get close to them, but was unable to. Having had enough of its antics, Karena opened her arms towards it. A thick mist poured from them, like an avalanche sweeping down a mountain. It consumed all visibility.

  Under the cover of the mist, with their hand on the railing, they jogged back towards where they had left Asher. They tried to make as little noise on the metal catwalk as possible.

  The mist wasn’t as thick the further they journeyed away from where the platform was and the cable lines were. The catwalk shook under them. It came from some distant impact, probably from the wyvern landing on it. Without a doubt, it would try to sniff out a scent trail.

  Tucked away from the catwalk, they found Asher sitting down and leaning against one of the metal walls of a piece of equipment. He struggled to breathe.

  “Thank goodness everyone is still alive,” he croaked.

  Karena knelt down to him. He looked at her with yellowed, bloodshot eyes. His condition scared her worse than the wyvern did. His hands shook, and his body convulsed in short, violent spasms. He sweated. The top of his uniform had been ripped open by Jinx in order to try to heal him. Below the jagged scar he had gotten from his teenage years was the wound. It was gooey and raw, and the size of her hand.

  Jinx waved her hands in front of it. “It’s worse than it was a couple minutes ago,” she said with a worried look.

  “It’s not going to heal, is it?” Blade asked, delicately trying to avoid implying that Jinx wasn’t a good enough healer.

  Jinx shook her head. “I don’t have the expertise. It’s in his bloodstream now,” she said.

  Emotions tugged at Karena’s heart. She looked back to the mist she had created, where it shrouded the catwalk only a few feet away. The wyvern was still nearby, somewhere. She could save herself. She had more of a chance of surviving if she abandoned everyone. They would be the targets, not her. If she stayed with their team, she would be helping two Fire elementals and an Air-born witch, and risking her life in the process.

  Karena gazed at Asher, and Jinx’s frantic attempts to try to save him. She could just walk away, and they would most likely be killed by the wyvern. Blade and Jinx weren’t equipped to handle a foe like the wyvern. They would tire before help arrived. Three less enemies would be a good thing. Fires and Airs were murderous. Her uncle came to mind, and his tragic death, which still haunted her dad and entire family, including herself.

  But her dark musings passed. She wasn’t a bad person. It wasn’t in her nature to forsake the weak, though the feud did make her consider doing so. She had transferred into Asher’s team for a reason, but more importantly, as she had been taught in her training, work existed in a bubble, where the feud wasn’t supposed to interfere with decisions about to be made. Nevertheless, it weighed on her conscience. It felt traitorous.

  “Get him up. We have to get him out of here,” Karena said, taking charge of the group. “We’ll fight our way out of here if need be.”

  Just as Blade and Jinx heaved him to his feet, a large crash shook the catwalk like an earthquake. The wyvern rushed at them from out of the mist, like a specter of death itself, but in the flesh. Its taloned wings grabbed the hand railing and it propelled itself forward on its two legs, balancing and hopping at a furious pace. It knocked its entire mass into Karena, causing her to hit the railing. She fought to keep the black spots in her vision from taking over. As she tried to regain her breath, the wyvern darted its head forward, and its teeth sank into Blade’s shoulder. He screamed. Metal popped around him, and hurdled themselves at the wyvern.

  Karena watched everything as though in slow motion. Ashe
r crawled backwards, unable to run. The aggressive monster lunged for Jinx who was paralyzed with fear. Blade clutched his shoulder and arm. Metal heaved around them, but most of it was too thick for Blade to manipulate with his abilities. She was at a loss of what to do. Unleashing her powers could hurt everyone. A sudden drop in temperature meant frostbite to them.

  Then, Karena did the unthinkable. She leapt forward and jumped onto the flying reptile’s back. It shook itself, but she had already seated herself onto its back and had grabbed onto its wing joints. The wyvern panicked, and spun around. From thrashing and hitting the nearby metal that had splintered from Blade’s influence, it injured itself. Part of its right wing’s membrane was slashed.

  It took off just as she had wanted. It flew straight up in a fast ascent. She slipped and slid over its body, but clung on. The rafters rapidly approached, like a looming spider web of steel beams. She channeled her ice abilities into her hands. Her elemental essence coursed through her arm, through her hands, and froze the wyvern’s wing joints. The ice spread over its wings, turning them black as the tissue died.

  Confused, the wyvern screeched. With each beat, its wings flapped slower and slower. It lost its bodily power over its wings, and their ascent turned into a sickening descent.

  They fell into a chute, and slid onto a conveyor belt, and passed under a rock crusher’s arm. In the cavernous space inside of the rock crusher machine, the wyvern rounded on her. Her powers flash flooded through her. Her body iced up into a suit of frozen armor.

  Enraged, the wyvern spat at her and roared. Now that it didn’t have use of its wings to help balance itself, the wyvern stumbled around. She backed away as much as she could on the shifting platform that was used to sort out fine grains of ore.

  Due to the wyvern’s furious state, its venomous spit ignited by itself without needing any external flame or source. Upon impact, it seared through her armor of ice, particularly on her left thigh. She regenerated what ice had been lost to keep her protection intact. She pried her gun out of its holster, and flicked it on. Just as the wyvern opened its foul jaws to spit, she aimed and shot it in the mouth with a taser burst. It fell backwards. One of its wings snapped from its weight landing on it. Because she had fired into the fleshy part of its mouth, the taser shot had stunned it for a few seconds.

  Karena flung a volley of icicles at it. Before she could do any real damage, the wyvern’s tail whipped under her, tripping her. She fell hard onto her back. It circled back around, and snapped its jaws forward. It seized her forearm, and crunched down on it in a desperate attempt to maim her. Its teeth scraped against the ice coating her suit. She felt her forearm compress, threatening to break under the pressure.

  Unsatisfied with her forearm, the wyvern decided to try to take a bigger bite out of her. Like a bear trap, its teeth chomped together around her waist. As its teeth crushed her, she was lifted into the air. Her ribs felt like they were about to crack all at once. She cried out from the pain. Venom sizzled and melted the ice of her frozen armor. Soon, it would eat away her suit and reach her skin.

  Karena grabbed the wyvern’s snout. She funneled arctic air into its lungs. It let go of her, but it was too late, the damage had been done. The wyvern wheezed, and rocked its head back and forth as it suffocated. Its lungs had been destroyed, something she wouldn’t have been able to do if she hadn’t been so deathly close to it.

  The large reptile teetered and collapsed. The light in its eyes dimmed. The wyvern didn’t move again. It was dead. She stared at it, panting, in disbelief she had done it. She retreated from its still form, and out of the open end of the rock crusher machine, where a chute plummeted to the floor below. Feeling her bruised, sore body ache and protest to every move she made, she carefully climbed onto a worker’s platform. She leaned against the railing, grateful to be alive, and in one piece.

  The tail of the wyvern poked out of the end of the machine as a reminder of what she had escaped inside of there. She watched it, but it didn’t so much as twitch. In her shocked, adrenaline-pumped state, she had almost expected it to.

  Weak, and feeling nauseous, Karena walked away and took whatever stairs she chanced upon to get to the ground level floor. It was a maze in the foundry. She shouted, but no one answered. She wondered how long she had been in there and if the backup teams had arrived yet. As the adrenaline eased off, so did her strength.

  On the main floor, she found an exit and pushed open the door. Karena skirted around the monstrous building and to the driveway where other teams were pulling up on their motorcycles and trucks. Several teams were already gearing up to enter the foundry.

  She spotted Asher being eased onto a medical cot. But the paramedics didn’t set him in the ambulance. They unfolded the legs of the cot to work on him right then and there.

  Though she felt faint, and wanted to sit down, she staggered to Asher. The medical team made short work of cutting away the upper half of his suit to access his wound better. Due to shortness of breath caused by the venom destroying his airways, his muscled chest heaved. His chiseled abs spasmed. His eyes widened when he saw her, and his left hand rose to her, but he couldn’t get his hand to rise a few inches above the cot. He was too weak.

  Karena watched the medical team stick needles into Asher and hook him up to an IV bag. They were both nonmagical and magical healers, working together to perform what would’ve been impossible had they not been a team. Both of their strengths being used together stabilized his condition. As the venom was filtered out of his blood, it ate through the needles and tubes, so they had to replace everything and try again.

  The cryptid hunting teams surrounded her. They were eager to find out what she had seen in the foundry.

  “What happened?” one person asked.

  Another asked, “Where is it?”

  They all starting talking at once, but then they were shushed because Captain Valmar had arrived on the scene and began barking orders. Everyone dispersed. Another medical van pulled up, and the emergency medical personnel grabbed Blade before he could collapse on the ground. He bled from multiple cuts, but the most severe one was on his shoulder where the wyvern had bitten him.

  “Karena, what happened?” Captain Valmar asked from her left side. Jinx had come over with him.

  “I killed it,” she distantly said. She was beginning to feel detached from everything that was happening around her.

  “You killed it? How?” Jinx asked, pale, and as shaky as a leaf in the wind. “I’m surprised you’re even alive.”

  “I froze it. It’s on the upper floor. Its body is in a rock crusher machine,” Karena said, feeling her condition worsen.

  Her fingers touched where the wyvern had clamped down on her waist. It was tender to the touch. Had the venom gotten into her bloodstream too? Now she felt the pain in her shoulders from where the wyvern had picked her up. She had done a lot of flying for one day. Her shoulders began to throb.

  “It was a Blue Frilled, juvenile wyvern,” Jinx informed Captain Valmar.

  “One or two of them?”

  “One,” Jinx said with frightened eyes. The rings on her fingers clinked together as her hands shook.

  Karena felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her. But she couldn’t recover from it. It didn’t subside. The noise around her quieted, and her body become numb. A haze consumed her until everything went black.

  Chapter 13

  When Karena woke, she found herself in the hospital surrounded by family and friends. Smiles broke out on their faces.

  “Look she’s awake!” Isabel said, leaning over the bed. She had flowers in her hair, and was wearing her favorite pink dress.

  Her mom teared up and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  “Captain Valmar said you killed a wyvern by yourself,” her mom said. Her mom’s friend, Lucy, put an arm around her mom to steady her.

  “I had help, and it was only a juvenile wyvern,” Karena spoke, finding herself parched and hoarse.

  “Only a juven
ile wyvern,” her dad snorted. “You make it sound like it’s as dangerous as a rabbit.”

  Karena sat up. Her body was sore, but a lot of healing work had been done. Her uniform had been cut off, and most of her upper body had been bandaged up. A strappy shirt had been tied around her for modesty, and a light blanket put on her.

  Her mom pushed a tall glass of water into her hands. Karena guzzled it down. She felt how stiff her shoulders were. Hadrian walked over, and sat down on the bed. He held her hand. The distress on his face was tangible.

  “Maybe it was a bad idea,” Hadrian quietly said, his eyes imploring her to rethink what she had done by requesting to be put on a Fire’s team. He was smart enough to know that it had been her choice, and not someone else’s.

  She shook her head, and said, “It wasn’t. I’m fine.”

  “It was those Fires, wasn’t it? Asher, huh? They abandoned you,” her dad said, ever quick to place blame on them.

  “They can’t be trusted,” Troy said, who was a friend of her dad’s.

  “How on earth did you get placed into a Fire’s team?” her mom asked.

  In her mouse-like voice, Lucy said, “They probably left you to die.”

  “No, no,” Karena said, trying to stifle her anger or else her tone would sound odd to them. They wanted to hear that they were right, and that their hatred was justified.

  With a neutral voice, Karena continued, “I wanted to be placed on their team as an act of goodwill. We didn’t know it was a wyvern in that foundry. Asher tried to protect me by placing himself in-between the wyvern and myself, and that’s when he got hit with venom and nearly died.”

  Her dad interjected, “Then it was the others who are at fault for not helping you fight it off. What are their names?”