The link stayed taut between them, dragging her down, but not fast enough. How much time had passed while she’d struggled with this clockwork creature? Too long.
I have to do something to speed things up. Sovvan slammed the back of her head into the bridge of her attacker’s nose, but it too was metal. Stars exploded in her vision. Ouch. Headbutting a creature covered in metal had been a bad idea.
Sorry, bro, you’re on your own until I can escape this metal maniac. The world faded to black, and Sovvan wasn’t sorry to leave it for a while. She just hoped she wouldn’t wake up in the Gray Between again. That place had an uncanny ability to drag her back to it whether she wanted to go there or not. Pull like you’ve never pulled before, bro, if you want my help. Because that’s the only way you’re getting it. Otherwise, I might not remember you’re in trouble when I wake up.
Some Much-Needed Advice
[Westchester, NY]
I touched the screen to open the message that had just arrived, and someone else’s words filled my mouth. “Don’t worry, everyone. A. says the dragon will forget about us in a bit.” But how long was a bit? A couple of minutes? An hour? Longer? I scrolled through my Scribe’s inbox seeking more information. Someone must have a more precise estimate.
“That doesn’t look likely from where I’m standing. Does she say what she’s basing that on?” One of Melinda’s neighbors asked. I couldn’t see which one, but I had a feeling that question had come from the back row of our audience, and the woman didn’t sound impressed. Well, we weren’t here to entertain her. We were here to protect our Scribe.
“No, but she’s been a subscriber for a while, so she’s basing this prediction on the Newsletter-Dragon’s past actions.” But that was before her terrifying transformation, and we still had no idea what her end game was. Darn it. Melinda’s neighbor might be right.
When that metal menace had been our Newsletter-Dragon, she’d frequently lost interest in us and gone about her own business after a while. But if A. was right, then our little adventure would come to a rather anticlimactic conclusion. Did I want that? From deep within a resounding no echoed up from the tips of my toes, and I leaned into Papa’s chest, but he was still out cold, and that scared me.
“In the meantime, what other advice have we received?” Melinda asked from the doorway as the crowd pushed against her outstretched arms.
“I’ll check.” I needed to take my mind off the sinking feeling in my gut that things were about to get worse. I touched another message, and the same technological wizardly put my subscriber’s message in my mouth. “C. says, ‘she might be a heat dragon.’ But how could that be possible?” Our scaly nemesis was a digital dragon unless she was mutating into another kind of dragon. What a scary thought that was.
“What else did she say?” Papa asked from where he lay on the tiled floor.
“Papa?” My hands shook, and I dropped the phone into a puddle. In protest, it locked its screen, and I got the feeling it was glaring at me. Technology was so weird, but it was our only lifeline to help, so I picked it up and dried it off on the towel draped over my shoulders.
Papa stirred as I approached, and opened his eyes. I knelt beside him, and he raised a shaking hand to cup my face. I let the tears I’d been holding in fall. He pulled me down into a hug, and we might have stayed that way for a little while if the exclamations of ‘aw’ from our audience hadn’t reminded me of their presence.
I didn’t ask if Papa was okay, and he didn’t offer any other reassurance than that hug because it was all he could give me. He wasn’t okay and hadn’t been for a long time, but I would find a way to fix that, so I could keep him around for many decades to come, and I’d make a start on that after we dealt with that dragon. Damn her for hurting Papa.
A fresh set of tears threatened, but I held them back because we had a job to do. “Should I call Auntie Sovvan for help?”
Auntie Sovvan wasn’t alive, not in the same way Papa and I were, and that made her pretty hard to hurt. But if I summoned her, she might drain Papa. That would be bad right now because he was already pretty drained.
“Don’t. She’s in trouble too.” Papa wiped my tears away.
“Oh, okay. I didn’t think of that.” But I should have. The dragon, or whoever was helping her, must have caused some additional trouble to keep my aunt busy.
“Maybe it’s a twin thing, but I know she’s trying to get to us, and she’ll eventually succeed.” Papa hugged me to reassure me.
Auntie Sovvan was a determined woman. When she put her mind to something, it got done. So, she’d be here later. I breathed a little easier knowing she was on the way. In the meantime, we needed a non-magical solution to our problem until my aunt arrived.
Papa pushed himself up to a sitting position while still holding me tightly to him. I felt the strong muscles in his abdomen flex through the damp tunic he wore. Nothing Papa owned fit him properly because he was lean and more than a half a foot taller than the average Shayarin. This particular tunic had been too tight before it had gotten wet. Now, it clung to his chest and abs like a second skin.
Some people in the crowd appreciated that. Though, maybe they applauded because he was okay. Whatever the case, the attention made Papa so uncomfortable; his face reddened as he drew his hood down until it touched the bridge of his nose.
I resisted the urge to fling his hood back. He didn’t need to hide. There were no laws against magic here, and his magic took that moment to peer out of his eyes again, lighting them up with their signature green glow. But his magic must not have liked what it had seen because it backed off a moment later, and his eyes were a dull green again, like mine.
“What else does it say on here?” Papa tapped the phone in my hands, and the screen darkened. “Tell me the rest.”
I’d forgotten I was holding Melinda’s cellphone. “Sorry. She recommends we get some metal boxes that make heat. Do you have one of those?” I glanced from the phone to my thoughtful Scribe across the room. I couldn’t imagine a box that gave off heat. I still wasn’t convinced that boiler thingy could do that despite what Melinda had said.
“I think she means a portable heater.”
“Do you have one?” I shifted, so I sat on Papa’s lap instead of kneeling on the wet floor. C’s suggestion to use technology to defeat the dragon made sense.
Melinda must have put towels down to sop up the water because they covered the largest puddles. Papa sat on one and leaned against a dryer. Its metal drum was empty of clothes. I guess that was where Melinda had gotten the towels from. We’d have to thank her neighbor for letting us borrow them.
“Why would I? I had plenty of heat before she came along.” Melinda shook her head regretfully and gestured to the smug dragon in the next room.
“Do any of your neighbors have one of those portable heat boxes?”
“I don’t know. Do you?” Melinda asked the older gentleman who was trying to squeeze past her.
“Do I what?” He tipped his pinstriped baseball hat back, revealing a furrowed brow.
“Do you have a portable heater?”
“Why do you want to know?” His bushy white eyebrows drew together in a scowl as he looked down at my Scribe.
Melinda held her ground. She might be small, but she was determined not to let anyone enter until it was safe, so she stared at the sports fan until he backed off. “What did C. say to do with that heater when we find one?”
“She said to use it to lure the dragon away from the boiler system into some kind of a trap.” I looked at Papa. Could his magic build the trap? Assuming, of course, we could convince his magic to come out and play.
I didn’t see anything to build a trap out of, but there had to be some rocks lying around here somewhere. Rocks were pretty ubiquitous back home. They should be here too. His magic might like that project enough to come to the fore and stay there instead of hiding, and that might make Papa feel better.
“Then what do we do with the dragon?” Meli
nda looked pointedly at her phone when I didn’t answer right away.
“As if any of you can trap me.” The dragon laughed long and hard at that idea. Electricity crackled along her spiny, metal-plated back, and white bolts jumped to her horns, lighting them up.
“Everyone, take cover!” Melinda shouted.
Hurried footsteps echoed in the room as the lookie-loos fled, leaving Papa and me alone to face the dragon’s latest attack.
Chasing A Ghost
[Above Mount Eredren, Shayari]
“No!” Metalara struggled to hold onto that Mystery Girl, but her unconscious captive was losing cohesion and becoming incorporeal. Her hands went right through that girl as the girl grayed out and plummeted toward the world spinning below them, and there wasn’t a damned thing Metalara could do about that except follow her down.
Spangled black became deep blue then shadowed browns and greens as the ground rose to meet them.
Metalara pumped her wings hard to pull out of a steep dive before she struck the side of a mountain, but that Ghost Girl didn’t stop.
“No!” Metalara shouted as that girl hit the ground and passed right through it as if it wasn’t there. But Metalara landed hard in the dirt on the side of a mountain and dug her metal hands into the earth to stop her slide. There must be a way inside.
“You know; there’s a door.” A fellow said from behind her.
“Where?” Metalara grabbed him by the throat, and his eyes bulged.
He probably thought her a knight in full plate armor until he saw her wings fold up onto her back. There was an audible click as the locking mechanism engaged to hold them in place. She was a bit top-heavy until stabilization fins extended, increasing the surface area of her feet.
“There—the doors are over there.” He waved to a cliff, but there wasn’t anything on it.
“It had better be, or you’ll wish you’d never laid eyes on me.” Metalara tossed him over her shoulder and left him gasping in the dirt.
“You’re welcome.” He spat on the ground.
“Be glad I didn’t kill you.” Because she was in the mood to kill someone and her prey had escaped again. I must find that girl before she does whatever the Agents of Chaos ordered her to do.
The precipice was maybe a couple of hundred feet above Metalara. She jumped to an outcropping then another, zigzagging her way up until the terrain forced her to climb. At the top, she rolled onto a wide cliff, which indeed sported a massive set of doors and a switchback path down the mountain. The doors looked like they were large enough to admit a giant. They were fashioned from large panes of lumir crystals, so they glowed a welcoming gold, and one door stood open to receive her. Now, this is more like it.
Two silhouettes stood by those double-leafed doors and were dwarfed by them. The wardens shouted as she blew past them, but she ignored their protests. She had to find that girl, but how?
A fading glyph caught her eye as Metalara ran through a dark tunnel lit by the rosy orange glow of her wings and eyes. It was a triangle, the symbol of change. No doubt, it had been left here by her enemies, the Agents of Chaos, and it pointed deeper into the mountain. So, one of those harbingers of entropy had been here recently unless that girl had left the mark.
Where are you, Mystery Girl? Metalara rubbed her feet across those marks, wiping out the Agents of Chaos’ marks as she ran. But there were more, many, many more.
They shouldn’t be here, not yet. Metalara followed those glyphs through a pitch dark maze and into a tunnel decorated with carvings and statues and a glowing mural made of lumir crystals that spanned the entire ceiling to a staircase and just in time too.
Footsteps echoed in the quiet as someone headed this way. Metalara cursed. That damned stairwell was too narrow for her wings. Damn. Instead, she bounded down those tiny twisting steps as quickly as she could on foot, stopping only to confirm that the marks of change were still leading down into the belly of the mountain. They were.
What had an Agent of Chaos wanted with this place? The air grew danker and ranker as she descended and moisture beaded on her gears, but Metalara kept going until she spotted that triangular glyph on a landing. It pointed into a tunnel leading away from the staircase. No other marks appeared on the steps further down. Well, that was a little too convenient. Someone wanted her to go this way. Why? What was waiting for her at the other end of this trail?
Metalara proceeded with more caution than she’d shown before. She’d been a blind fool not to see this for what it was—a trap. Her joints stuck as she left the staircase, forcing her to expend more energy to move. Metalara cursed as she strode into the humid tunnel, fighting for every step. She was beginning to run down. How long did she have before she’d run low on power?
An hour? Less? Metalara didn’t know. There was no gauge. The Order had removed that as part of her banishment, and they’d probably removed other important bits of her too. She’d have to be on her guard. Her gears would turn until her energy ran out, but she hoped she’d get some warning before that happened.
Had that been the Agents of Chaos’ plan all along? Expend all her energy on a fruitless chase after that girl? That would increase the entropy of this mountain and add to its statuary problem. But that was too simplistic to be the whole of their plan. It didn’t cause enough chaos. There had to be more to this. Well, dawdling in a humid tunnel wouldn’t get her any answers, so she pushed on, searching for the next mark.
“You see it too,” a spirit bear said as he walked through a wall into her personal space. “If you were wondering, the trail goes that way.” He pointed a transparent paw toward an intersection. “But one of them stood right here.” Bear stamped his foot. “That’s my guess, and you must be hunting it.”
Metalara cocked her head to one side. “Whose side are you on?”
“The right side. Are you?” His eyes changed to twin buttons that glowed, and stitches appeared. They traced his furry muzzle and replaced his frown with a silly smile. “I think that decision is yet before you. Choose carefully. You might not get a second chance.” Bear strode past her and disappeared into the wall.
Metalara shook her head. Spirit Animals were just as cryptic as they had been the last time she’d run into one many centuries ago. Some things never changed. She crouched to examine the mark. Damn, that bear was right. The mark was brighter and had been made recently by something quite large, too large to be that girl she’d lost.
Then where do you fit in girlie? Why did Dysteria imprison you if you’re like her, a destroyer, a servant of chaos? Could more than one colony of those insects have banded together to create a super Agent of Chaos? That didn’t bear thinking about since she saw one colony do that albeit briefly when it spoke to the Adversary. And where did he fit in all this? Metalara couldn’t believe the Father of Lies had just strolled on through the Gray Between on some unrelated business.
Metalara pushed up from her crouch and loped down the tunnel, following that trail. It looped around down here then headed in as straight a line as possible toward one particular cave. Someone was inside it. Metalara approached it quietly and nearly tripped when her foot caught on a pile of clothes. Humans were such messy creatures.
“Sarn? Are you in here? What the hell happened here?” a young man asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me that.” Metalara rushed him. Before he could turn to face her, she clamped an arm around his throat. “Where is she?”
“Where is who? I only just arrived. I probably have as many questions as you do.” He struggled, but he was no match for her strength.
“I’m only going to ask once more.” Metalara squeezed, and his knees jellied. “Where is she?”
Protect Us, Papa
[Westchester, NY]
“Papa.” I turned my face into his chest as several bolts of lightning shot toward us. Projectiles were his area of expertise, not mine, so I left our protection in his big, capable hands.
His arm around my waist tightened, and the dryer sho
ok and groaned behind us. Papa leaned forward and flung his other arm up, but no magical shield sprang up. Instead, the door of the dryer flew off and hovered like a shield in front of us. A familiar green glow wrapped around Papa’s forearm to hold the door in place, so he didn’t have to touch it, and risk electrocution.
Bolts of electricity struck the dryer door and ricocheted back to the dragon. She screamed and steam wafted into the room. Uh-oh, we might have broken something important. I curled into Papa. He was my rock in dangerous situations.
“You said you didn’t want to hurt anyone. What happened to that?” I asked when no more lightning came at us.
“I changed my mind.” The dragon mantled her piecemeal wings. They were part metal and part code.
Papa let his arm drop, and he sagged against the now door-less clothes dryer, breathing hard. The magic around his wrist sank into his skin and vanished, letting go of the dryer door, and it clanged when it hit the ground. Before the door could settle, it slid as if magnetically attracted to the dragon extending her greedy claws for it.
But it didn’t get far. Papa stomped down on the dryer door with one of his big feet, stopping its slide. That was one of the benefits of having very long legs. “Bad dragon.”
“Hey, that’s my line.” I elbowed him in the ribs and startled a laugh out of him.
“You can say it next time.” Papa squeezed me with the arm that kept me close enough to protect.
“What will you do now?” asked a voice I didn’t recognize.
I squirmed in Papa’s grip until I could see the other doorway; the one that led back to the foyer and the apartments in this building.
Dragon Spells Page 9
