by L. A. Boruff
“My life, for yours.” Electra said, doing the exact same thing with the sword.
Their words a promise.
A chill went down my spine as I felt something click into place. I honestly didn’t know what to say to them, so I only nodded.
Kia patted my cheek. “Let’s go!” A sensed of dread reared its ugly head.
George ran up my leg. Go, go now! Hurry! It grew.
Sadie? We must go now! Danger! Sigrid’s strident voice pierced my skull.
Go. Go. We must go. It’s here! The sound of Grim’s howl could be heard at the same time he mentally contacted me.
Headed your way Grim. Sigrid. Stay together. I will be there shortly.
“One of you guys grab Kia’s backpack,” I barked turning for the door, the urgency gaining momentum.
George had made it to my shoulder and was hanging onto my hair with a tight grip.
“Key, key. Where did I put the key?” I sang as I patted around in my pocket.
Finding it, I put it in the lock and opened the door. Starting to step through, I halted at the two large bodies in my way both of them scowling down at me.
They saw Kia pretty much at the same time and both of their faces softened immediately.
“So, this is the mite we came to save?” Jareth said, reaching out to move the hair out of Kia’s face, who hadn’t bothered to lift her head from my shoulder.
I knew she was tired. It had been a harrowing day for everyone. I felt her lips lift in a smile.
She waved and said, “hi,” before placing her arm back around my neck.
“Guys, introductions later. My companions are warning of extreme danger, and we need to leave now! Their instincts to find shelter are starting to override everything else. So, please let’s go!” I pushed at Jareth’s shoulder, trying to get him to move.
His hand came up, trapping mine to his immovable shoulder. Those tingles returned. My eyes flew to his. A glow started in their depths. I jumped as a spark went up the arm holding Kia, forcing my eyes from Jareth only to drop into the dark depths of Kragen’s where green fire lay. I couldn’t force my gaze from his. The only sound seemed to be the hard, fast beating of my heart.
“Breathe…,” whispered a deep, penetrating voice near my ear, sending shivers down my spine and raising goose bumps on my arms.
I sucked in a lung full of air, I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The connection becoming more real, more something each time they touched me, talked to me and made eye contact. Why was this happening? Why now?
Sadie! Must go! Sigrid’s loud, urgent squawk in my head freed me from the trap these two men were weaving around me.
Hurry, hurry. Now! Grim howled both externally and internally further freeing me.
I stepped back. My eyes wide at this thing between us, shaking my head back and forth. I couldn’t deal with this right now or them.
“WE HAVE TO GO! Time is up.” I bulled my way through the two men, heading for the back stairs I’d come up from.
“Wait! Azrarath has gone to get the truck. It shouldn’t be long now, and we can all go to my den,” yelled Jareth at my back.
The clop, clop of big boots raced after the nagas and me. No idea who Azrarath was and I didn’t care. We had to go, and I wasn’t slowing down.
“What was that, and who are they?” Calista questioned on my right just behind me, the side that Kia was on in my arms.
I pushed the doors open and ran down the stairs.
I huffed. Disgusted with myself. “They helped me rescue you guys. While I came for you, they took out the rest of the,” I started to say assholes but remembered Kia was listening and changed it to, “fish bait. As to the other, I have no idea! And right now, it doesn’t matter. We have to get back to the house. It’s happening tonight, now, and we don’t have long. The layers are in alignment and tonight is Samhain where the worlds are always closer together. The energy building is almost complete. Can you not feel it? I’m about to come out of my skin!” My words were fast and frantic as I rushed through stair doors at the bottom.
I spotted my daggers on an end table near the demolished front door. Calista was closer.
“Calista? Can you grab my daggers from over there?” She followed my head nod in the direction they were in. “Hurry, please!”
A pissed off voice shouted. “Damn it, Sadie! Stop. Let’s get everyone sorted out. We can all head for my den when the truck gets here. It’s only seven or eight miles from this location. It’s built to withstand anything.” Jareth’s steps hard and angry behind me.
I really wanted to yell at him. Couldn’t they feel the change in the air? “We have to move. Which part of that are you not understanding? Stop talking, and let’s go!”
I scanned the rest of the main room on my way to the front door. There were five new beings going through pockets of downed enemies. All of them stopped as they became focused on us. How I knew these guys weren’t with the bad guys, I didn’t know, other than Jareth had said it was safe now. My eyes came to rest on a key rack right above a counter. There were a lot of us, and we needed to have more wheels.
“Electra! Can you grab all those car keys above the counter there?” I pointed them out, and Electra peeled off to get them.
Hesitating only a moment before jogging for the front door, I flashed by those five other beings as they moved in towards us, but I didn’t stop. Thank goodness there wasn’t a door there any longer. I did get a whiff of them. It was strange mix of Kindred to be all together like this. One was a warlock; I could smell the suppressed magic around him. Another was an elemental, but I couldn’t quite figure out which of the elements was his main one. A fae, what flavor I wasn’t sure, but nature was strong in him. An angel with a lot of power, his aura was beating against mine. I shored up my defenses. The last one was strange. He kind of reminded me of my father, but not quite. I wasn’t hundred percent sure what he was, but he was on par with the rest of these beings. There was something different about all seven of them, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It made me wonder a little about this Azrarath. This was something that could be figured out later or never. I needed to focus on us getting out of here and back to the warehouse where it was safe.
To me! I yelled to Sigrid and Grim.
Both materialized as I ran down the driveway towards where the vehicles were parked. There was an SUV just pulling in, its beams on high.
All sound stopped; it was like a blanket was thrown over the world. I stopped, feeling almost rooted in place. I scanned the sky, but it was so damn dark. It was as if the world held its breath.
BOOM!
I jumped.
BOOM!
Kia screamed
BOOM!
“Mommy!”
CRACK!
“Get to the cars!” voices yelled out.
The wind a sudden wild thing, whipping around us like a whip. Lightning flashed in quick succession suddenly making everything brighter. Jareth’s SUV, and the lights in the house provided the only illumination when the lighting stopped.
BOOM!
Kia screamed again; the sound was so loud above our heads it was like being in a small room with every known drum going off at once. Sigrid flew straight to me and alighted on my shoulder, burying his head in my neck. Grim pressed himself hard to my leg.
“Here,” shouted Electra as she ran up next to me.
“Press the unlock buttons on the keys!” I yelled. “Match the cars up with them, then deal them out to those guys, but keep a set for us.” I caught her nod as she began separating them out and hitting buttons.
Jareth and Kragen joined me on the opposite side of Electra, and I saw the other five guys fan out behind them. For once, they didn’t speak. There were three SUVs, the van, and a pickup in the long-curved driveway besides the one Jareth owned. We only needed three.
The Van beeped. Electra’s eyes sought mine. I shook my head no. She dropped the key fob. One of the SUVs was next, she tossed it to one of the giants
behind us. Then, the truck beeped. I shook my head no. Then another SUV.
“That one! We’ll take that one,” I shouted over the wind.
15
October 30, 2026
Electra tossed the other set of keys to another of the behemoths behind us as we walked to the SUV we’d chosen.
I opened the back door, and Grim hopped in and immediately dropped to the floor. Sigrid flew in and perched on the seat arm of the captain’s chair. Turning my shoulder and leaning in, George jumped down to the seat, then to the floor to huddle next to Grim.
The back-passenger door opened on the opposite side, seeing Calista climb in the back, I almost told her to get in the front but halted, debating which of us was going to drive. Plus, I didn’t want Kia in the front. I needed to seatbelt her in since there wasn’t a car seat. The most recent accident fresh in my mind.
“Electra are you good to drive?” The wind whipped my ponytail into my mouth, causing the words to garble.
“What?” she yelled back, already on the far side of the car about to get in the front passenger seat.
“I’ll drive,” the now familiar voice of Kragen said from behind me.
I cringed. The need to get away from these two overwhelming guys for a while was almost on par with us finding safety. Safety won out. I couldn’t put Kia back in harm’s way and vampires had incredible reflexes. I looked up at the sound of a door slamming to see Electra sitting in the front seat looking at me questioningly.
“Give Kragen the keys; he will drive us,” I finally responded before getting into the back-passenger seat, putting the seatbelt around me.
I couldn’t put the seatbelt around Kia and me; she would be crushed if something happened. The car started. I heard the faint sounds of other car doors slamming.
Kragen’s sudden voice startled me out of my bouncing thoughts. “You good to go? Will the child be safe like that?” he questioned.
Then it came to me, and I wanted to bop my head at my stupidity.
I leaned down and whispered in Kia’s ear. “Change into your dragon form, sweetie.”
Dragons were tough buggers, and this would be the safest form for her to be in if something happened. Since Kia’s dragon was still growing, her scales weren’t as thick or strong, but it would take a lot to damage her.
Her eyes lit up. Kia loved to be a dragon and since we’d come to America, we hadn’t been able to change into it. Too many eyes and cameras and not enough forests to travel in. Putting her between the two captain’s chairs she quickly changed. Then, laid down there in the center, scooting closer to Grim who also scooted closer to her and was asleep before the vehicle even left the curved driveway. The animals still were shifting restless, but it wasn’t the overwhelming thing it had been just minutes before.
Leaning down, I ran my hand down her silver and black body, needing that reassurance once more before responding.
“We’re good now. Let’s go,” I told him.
“This will be rough; the wind’s a bitch and flying debris’s a concern. We’ll go as quickly as we can.” It was at that moment the rains came down in a torrent so thick it was like a waterfall was pounding on the vehicle making it rock heavily. “Did I say rough? I meant tricky and difficult,” he laughed humorously.
The four vehicles moved out slowly. There was one in front of us, but I couldn’t tell if it was Jareth’s SUV or not and two behind us.
An unfamiliar voice broke the silence. “Talis can’t you do something?”
The voice was deep and lilting, but I couldn’t tell much else from it over a speaker phone, which was sitting in a cup holder facing Kragen.
Another voice while tight had a calming smoothness to it. “No. I don’t know about you, but the energy that’s been building all month is at its peak. It’s like….” He paused as if thinking of the right words. “a rubber band that is on the cusp of snapping except on a worldwide level. When it snaps it will fly, smack, thump around, and do damage. The rubber band is like a mean kid holding the magnifying glass over the ant bed, and we’re the ants. We need to save every bit of magic or energy we can manage to hoard for that moment. While this,” I was pretty sure he was using his hands to indicate the outside world. “is nerve wracking, it is only a drop in the bucket. So, no, we need to save our strength for now.” Talis said with finality and saying no more.
The same deep, lilting voice spoke again. “Is he correct, Krir?” There was a…teasing, maybe… note to the words.
While the next voice that spoke was a strong baritone, there was something primal about it that didn’t give you the warm fuzzies over the cell phone. “Yes. Now, stop being a dumb ass, Syythaeryn you already knew the answer.” Krir growled in annoyance.
The now named voice, Syythaeryn, laughed like he’d accomplished something. What? I had no idea.
The explosion of two large rocks being hit together followed by the crack of the windshield as it split down the middle had us all jumping in our seats. Soon, the repetitive pelting of hail the size of ball bearings against the vehicle sounded like hundreds of pebbles hitting tin. The truck swayed back and forth as the wind played paddle ball with us.
A small dragonling was in my lap before I could grasp she’d even moved. My arms closed automatically around her as her head dug into my neck seeking comfort.
Leather twisting broke the unnerving, tense silence within the SUV, as wells as the creak of the steering wheel groaning under pressure, had my abs constricting as if preparing to be hit from any direction. My whole body tight as a bowstring about to be released. My sense of dread grew. The snail’s pace of the vehicle a necessary evil, yet it didn’t stop the sensation of the fierce need to race as fast as possible away from the unseen danger descending on us.
Then as if by magic everything stopped outside. The resounding “fucks,” from the cell phones only confirmed my worst fear. This storm system must be massive to have an eye like a hurricane in the middle of the country. Which meant we were in deep, deep water with no land in sight.
“Move it! Let’s see how far we can get in the calm. We may have to bail and look for low ground but let’s get as close the den as we can!” Jareth words had an abruptness to them of forced calm.
What I was now assuming was Jareth’s truck leapt forward with spinning tires before they gained traction on the wet ground. We followed suit as did the trucks behind us.
The calm around us was unnerving. The rustling of my bond partners as they shifted restlessly a constant background noise. I was grateful they weren’t nattering in my mind about the danger we were in.
The earth dropped as the air pressure changed; further out, the scream of tortured trees, the bark of breaking limbs, or the boom of giant trees falling told the tale of destruction heading right for us. This wasn’t going to work; we’d be swept away in a blink staying on this road and this path.
Sigrid? Which way to go around the storm or at least miss the worst of the storm in front of us? I was almost a hundred percent sure this was a massive tornado. Can you get us to safer ground? I know you can’t fly in this, but can you point us in the direction we need to go?
YES. YES. GO! The terror in Sigrid’s mental tone had me truly looking at him. Only to see he was no longer on the arm of the captain’s chair but as far back in the truck as he could get it, fluttering from the floor of the open space of the trunk area repeatedly.
What form to use? I needed to carry Calista, Electra, and Kia. Through dense trees. Quick and agile. The memory of what I hunted earlier surfaced. An elk. They were fast, could move easily through forest, and had good instincts on where to run when a fire occurred. Plus, they were large enough to carry multiple passengers.
“STOP!” The quick reflexes of the beings in all four vehicles made the issue of crashing mute. Plus, with all the vehicles on conference with each other, the others heard me at the same time I’d yelled at Kragen. Thank goodness.
“We aren’t going to make it in these trucks; we need to run in
a direction that takes us away from what’s coming at us.”
“She’s right. Let’s ditch the trucks we’ll be faster on foot. I can feel some caves further up the mountain if we need to seek shelter there. The closest a mile away,” A new voice came over the speaker. It was low toned, gravely, reminding me of a grizzly bear. “Most of us can run swiftly, and we can get the women and child to safety in less time.” I raised my eyebrow.
16
October 30, 2026
“Who’s got Kia’s backpack?” I asked.
Electra handed it to me over the console.
George? Sigrid? Come it will be safer in the backpack, I urged my two companions.
George scrambled up my leg and jumped in without a response.
My feathers. It will crush them! Sigrid protested.
Keep them in tight. George will help you stay balanced. I will also grab a thick stick to put in the bottom. For now, sit on George. Just be careful, I told him.
Grim follow me, I ordered.
Sigrid carefully hopped into the pack, and I handed it to Calista.
“Let’s go!”
Opening the doors, I found all the big men around our car; their bodies tense as they listened to the approaching storm. It wouldn’t be long before the hail, wind, and rain started again. The wind was already picking up. I saw the top of the trees swaying when I looked up. Handing my little dragonling to Electra, I scanned the ground until I found two broken limbs that would work. Breaking the ends off each, I got them to the right size and then put in the pack in a cross pattern. It worked like a charm. It bulged the ends out making it where it wouldn’t move without some effort. This would make the pack wider in all directions further stabilizing the inside so neither of my bond partners would be crushed. I returned the backpack to Calista who held it in front of her.
Finally, I looked up at all the faces staring at me. Not really taking them in as I didn’t have to time to study each one. All of them were tall and big to some degree.
