Smoke, Vampires, and Mirrors

by Dima Zales

  I strain to go back into Headspace, but the focus doesn’t come. I must be too stressed.

  With huge effort, I inhale a deep breath and focus again. Then again.

  By the fifth attempt, I admit defeat. It’s not stress. I’m out of seer juice because I just had two visions of the targeted timeframe variety—and those are extra costly. But—

  Before I can finish the thought, Nero steps back, shines with energy, and turns into his dragon form.

  Wow.

  Gently reaching out with his claw, he grabs me and deposits me on his giant back. Then, without so much as a “buckle your seatbelt” roar, he leaps into the sky and whooshes toward the castle.

  If I were prone to heart attacks, I’d have one here and now. Dragon-back riding is stressful on a calm day, and given how freaked out I already am, my heart feels like it might jump out of my ribcage and punch me in the face.

  In a blink, we pass the battlefield—which has been cleaned up, especially closer to the castle entrance where Nero lands.

  Pozoj—the hawked-nosed dragon from the other day—is there to greet us. Calmly, he watches as Nero deposits me next to him and turns back into his naked self.

  It’s a sign of my extreme anxiety that the sight evokes only a mild tingle of heat in me.

  “This is Sasha,” Nero growls at the other dragon. “Watch her. I need to go power up.” And in a blur of motion, he disappears into the castle.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sasha,” Pozoj says. “Claudia was just telling me about you.”

  “She was?” I even out my breathing. “Good things, I hope.”

  “I was telling him how impressed I was,” Claudia says as she steps out of the castle, a megaton smile on her face. “I was also telling him how happy I am to know that my brother has been in good hands all this time.”

  “Oh, um… he wasn’t in my hands.” I shuffle from foot to foot. “Speaking of your brother, do you know where he just went? There’s something we need to discuss and—”

  “To enjoy his new hoard of treasure, I’d imagine,” Pozoj says with a note of wistfulness. “You heard him. He said he needs to power up.”

  “Power up?” I look at Claudia, then back at Pozoj. “What does that mean?”

  “How much do you know about dragons?” Claudia asks, and I can’t help but notice how close she’s standing to Pozoj, and how they both look like they’re itching to touch one another’s hand. Clearly, Claudia has been socializing in double time while Nero and I were away.

  “I know Nero can heal major injuries by lying on top of his treasure on Earth,” I say. “And that he’d have more energy and need less sleep after doing that.”

  “Right, but powering up is much more than that,” Claudia says. “Everything that makes us what we are is enhanced. Speed of movement, reaction time, stamina—”

  “I really need to talk to him,” I say, but I can already guess where this is going.

  “You don’t want to disturb a dragon on top of his hoard,” Pozoj says matter-of-factly, confirming my concern.

  “Give my brother at least a few hours,” Claudia says. “Then I’ll take you to him myself.”

  “But I’m in a rush,” I say. “I’m a seer and—”

  “A seer and a vampire?” Claudia says as both she and Pozoj look at me with renewed interest.

  “Yes,” I say, wondering how upset they’d be if I grabbed them by their collars and gave them a shake to impart my sense of urgency. “Can you take me to Nero now?”

  “I’m sorry,” Claudia says. “I don’t want to upset him after just reuniting.”

  I look at Pozoj.

  “I don’t know where the imperial trove is,” he says. “And, more importantly, I’m not suicidal.”

  “Fine,” I snap. “Can you at least take me to the Cognizant from Earth?”

  “Gladly,” Claudia says and finally grabs Pozoj by the hand. “Follow us.”

  She prances into the castle, dragging the male dragon behind her, and I hurry to keep up.

  As we walk, Claudia begins flirting with Pozoj, and I learn that he’s from the richest, noblest dragon family on this world—which is probably why Nero gave him a safer post in yesterday’s conflict. After a while, I tune out their banter in another attempt to enter Headspace.

  No luck.

  Well, I don’t need a vision to predict the near future. I can do so based on past events.

  For starters, to keep me safe, Nero is probably going to want to lock me up and throw away the key. And maybe it’s a rare case when I should let him do so. After all, if I don’t go to Earth, I can’t kill Felix and Ariel.

  Assuming I killed them on Earth, that is.

  Of course, there are other, much better ways to prevent that vision from happening. For example, I can avoid hospitals and other medical facilities—and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

  I can’t not go to Earth. Though my seer powers are depleted, a powerful intuition tells me that if I don’t try to deal with the Tartarus problem personally, my parents are as good as dead.

  Now the million-dollar question is: will Nero help me prevent the upcoming apocalypse in the first place?

  He did say he’d sooner see Earth die than let Lilith have me.

  Is it possible he’ll be content to rule here, on his dragon world, and let the denizens of Earth deal with the threat on their own?

  “There they are,” Claudia says as we enter a large dining hall that is noisier than a night club.

  At a humongous table in the middle sits almost everyone Nero had brought to help him fight those big battles. Only the giants—Colton excluded—and the centaurs are not present.

  Everyone is feasting on varied delicacies except for Vlad, who is sipping a liquid that looks suspiciously like blood.

  “Sasha,” Kit exclaims excitedly, turning into me. In my voice, she says, “I was wondering if Nero caught up with you.” She wiggles her/my eyebrows suggestively, and I fight two urges: to blush and to smother Kit.

  “No time for gossip,” I say, imbuing my tone with as much urgency as I can. “I have information that everyone from Earth needs to be aware of.”

  Vlad, Kit, Colton, Albina, the big werewolf guy, the lady who can control animals, and the maybe-elf look at me with varying degrees of curiosity.

  “It’s Tartarus,” I say loudly. “He’s coming to Earth.”

  The room goes dead quiet.

  Now that I have everyone’s attention, I tell them what I foresaw, and—coming up with an evil idea on the fly—I end with, “Nero owes you a favor for your help here on the dragon world. If you care what happens to your home, call in that favor today and demand that he help you save it.”

  There. Even if Nero didn’t plan to help before, he’s going to find it hard not to do so now.

  Everyone starts asking questions at the same time, and I attempt to answer what I can, which isn’t much.

  “Listen,” I say after what feels like an hour of back-and-forth. “Every minute we spend here talking is a minute less for Earth.”

  Everyone falls silent, clearly waiting for me to tell them what the next step should be, and I have no clue.

  “You should’ve told me your conversation with Nero is literally world-changing.” Claudia grabs my elbow. “Let’s go to the trove—to hell with his grumpiness.”

  “Great,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”

  Vlad, Kit, and the rest get up to join, but Claudia shakes her head. “He shouldn’t harm me or Sasha, but anyone else would be taking too much of a risk,” she explains.

  The other Cognizant sit back down and start talking amongst themselves.

  “Are you sure Nero holds me in the same ‘do not harm’ group as you?” I ask Claudia as we rush through a corridor and reach a spiral staircase leading down.

  “I saw the way he looks at you.” Claudia runs down the stairs so fast I have trouble keeping up at my vampire best. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t harm you. Much. Probably.” A floor later,
she adds, “Maybe let me do the talking just in case.”

  “Great idea,” I say, my stomach squeezing with a bad feeling.

  “Oh, and you should know the trove is outside the castle wards,” she says a few more floors later. “Which means he’s going to be in his dragon form.”

  “Perfect,” I mumble. “Angry Nero in dragon form. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Chapter Four

  The staircase goes down and down and down, seemingly to the center of the planet. At first, the walls around us are the signature silver-tinted obsidian of the castle, then they turn to rock strata.

  The noise begins when the strata goes from brown to black. It sounds like a distant dragon roar.

  As we descend farther, I realize the roar isn’t a roar, but the dragon version of snoring.

  Before I can ask Claudia about it, she speeds up, leaping five to six stairs in each jump until we reach a musty and cold cave-like opening that leads to another, much bigger space.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Claudia replies. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen this place.”

  Diamonds, gold, platinum, priceless works of art—the place is brimming with so much wealth and bling it hurts my eyes.

  Nero’s Earth treasure trove is but a tiny imposter compared to this vastness. Converted into cash, this treasure might exceed ten years of GDP for a mid-sized nation.

  On top of all the loot lies Nero in his dragon form—except he seems bigger than usual, and more majestic.

  The roar-snore is coming from him, and at this distance, it’s nearly deafening.

  “Earth is on the brink of destruction and you take a nap?” I say loudly. “Seriously?”

  Nero keeps on snoring.

  Taking off her clothing, Claudia walks over a million dollars’ worth of gold and turns into a dragon herself.

  Nero doesn’t show any sign of being aware of her.

  Claudia roars.

  Nero keeps on sleeping.

  With a flash, she turns back and gets dressed.

  “Healing sleep that deep is rare,” she shouts in my ear over the snoring. “It only happens after grievous wounds or extremely strenuous activity.” She looks thoughtful. “I didn’t think the fight with Yudo took this much out of him.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask, hoping Claudia doesn’t see my blush. I can think of another strenuous activity Nero partook in recently, one that resulted in a crater in the ground and felled trees. Also, relatedly, how much blood did I drink from him last night? Could it have been an amount that equates to a “grievous wound?”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” she says. “We go back up and wait.”

  “But—”

  “It’s for the best.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “As I was trying to explain before, when a dragon is awoken from this state, he can be crankier than an army of hibernating wool-beasts.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Lead me back.”

  We go up and into the giant dining hall where we left everyone—and we find them on their feet, getting ready to leave.

  Vlad approaches with a concerned expression. “Where is Nero?”

  I roll my eyes. “Getting his beauty sleep.”

  “He might need a few hours in the best case, a day at the worst,” Claudia says. “He’ll be of more help to you when he’s done.”

  “In that case, the others and I will head back to Earth and discuss your vision with the rest of the Council,” Vlad says to me. “Tell Nero that we indeed would like to call in the favors he owes us in order to save Earth.”

  “Will do,” I say solemnly.

  “How about that drink?” Kit winks at me, then turns into Nero and shows me his/her neck.

  “I’m still good,” I say. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to delay your fellow Council members, would you?”

  Kit’s pout looks comically foreign on Nero’s face. Then she turns back into herself and joins everyone as they stride out.

  “So,” Claudia says when they’re gone. “It’s just us.”

  “Yeah,” I grumble. “Are you sure there’s no way to rouse your lazy brother somehow?”

  “Not that I know of,” she says.

  “What if we go back down and smack him?” I start pacing the room, but the vampire stamina makes it hard to burn off anxious energy in this way.

  She cringes. “Even if such a violent approach worked, we’d risk dying in the aftermath—especially you, since you’re not as sturdy as a dragon.”

  “What if I give him a kiss?” I say half-jokingly. “That works on sleeping princesses, so maybe it can also work on a sleeping king, or emperor, or whatever he is now.”

  She grins. “This might be that one rare case where kissing my brother might not get you what you want.”

  “Hey.” I stop my pacing. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing.” She walks over to the table and takes a seat. “Come join me. If you keep on walking around like that, you’ll give me a headache.”

  Dragons get headaches?

  Grudgingly, I walk over to the table and plop into a wooden chair opposite hers.

  “Now,” she says. “Since we have privacy and time to kill, can you please tell the story of how you and Nero met?”

  I take in a deep breath and exhale noisily. “We didn’t have a charming first encounter, if that’s what you’re after. I have no idea when he first saw me, but I imagine I was inappropriately young at the time.”

  Claudia’s eyes bulge.

  “Yeah,” I say. “And the first time I saw him, it was at a job interview—so, given the way jobs work on our world, romance was the last thing on my mind.”

  Despite being clearly disappointed, Nero’s sister drills me for more info. Soon, the interrogation pivots, and I end up telling her all about my recent adventures.

  “The Council forbade you from indulging in your greatest passion?” she says disapprovingly when I get to the part where they told me not to perform magic ever again or else.

  “Yeah,” I say, frowning at the memory. “They don’t want humans to learn about the existence of the Cognizant, and though my illusions are not utilizing my powers, I can still grow more powerful if the humans worship me just so.”

  “I’m glad our humans know who and what we are and that we don’t have those stupid Councils.” She grabs a nearby goblet with wine. “I’m surprised Nero put up with all that nonsense.”

  “I’d say he adjusted to Earth well,” I say. “He’s one of the wealthiest and most powerful beings on Earth—and you know what that means for dragon powers.”

  “Still.” She sips her wine. “I don’t think I will like Earth.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “You say that as though you’re going to go there.”

  “Of course I’m going to go,” she says. “It’s not just Nero who owes everyone a favor. If it weren’t for you and the others from Earth, I’d still be in that cage.” Her expression momentarily darkens, but turns sunny just as quickly. “Besides”—she grins—“this fight sounds like it will be a lot of fun.”

  “Fun for a dragon, maybe,” I say. Then, choosing my words carefully, I ask, “What was it like, to be a prisoner for so many years?”

  The dark expression is back with a vengeance, and I immediately feel guilty for prying.

  “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy,” Claudia says after a beat, her voice strained. “If it weren’t for books and revenge fantasies, I would’ve lost my mind.”

  The door creaks, and Pozoj walks in.

  “There you are,” Claudia says, her gloom gone without a trace. “Sasha was just telling me about her skills as a conjuror.”

  “A what?” he asks, joining us at the table.

  “How about I show you?” I say, deciding to cheer up Claudia with my favorite pastime. “Do you have this here?” I take out my deck of cards and spread them on the table.

  “That looks like a Tarot deck,” Pozoj says. “Only they’re all wrong.”


  “I’ll have to show you something where card values don’t matter,” I say and shuffle the deck. “How about this?” I split the cards in half, turning one half face up as I keep the other half face down.

  I then shuffle the cards in this tipsy-turvy fashion, so that the interlaced cards are a mix of face-up and face-down at random.

  “Now how long do you think it would take to sort out this mess I just made?” I ask as I do some secret moves that are made that much easier with my newfound vampire dexterity.

  “Three minutes,” Claudia says.

  “Two,” Pozoj adds.

  I wave my hand over the cards, then spread them ceremoniously.

  As if by magic, every card is now facing the correct way.

  “That can’t be,” Pozoj exclaims. “Are you an illusionist on top of seer and vampire?”

  “I’m not,” I say. “At least not that kind of illusionist.”

  “Do something else,” Claudia says greedily.

  I strain my brain to recall more effects that don’t require much knowledge of the card values and proceed with a mini show that makes me realize how much I’ve missed performing like this.

  Their reactions are outstanding—in part due to the fact that there are no sleight-of-hand magicians on this world, but also because these guys don’t have TV or computers, so their attention spans are way longer and standards for entertainment are way lower.

  Maybe I can stay here with Nero and become his court magician à la Merlin? That would be almost as cool as my own TV show—maybe even cooler in some ways.

  Wait, what am I thinking? Earth is in danger, and I’m already looking for a new world to settle on?

  My keen vampire hearing informs me that someone new has stepped into the room. Then I hear Nero ask, “Where is everyone?”

  I guiltily hide the cards and turn to face him.

  That nap did his body some serious good. He looks radiantly healthy.

  And as a side effect, sexy as hell.

  “They’ve gone ahead to Earth,” Claudia says, standing up. “I will go get ready for our journey.”

  “You what?” Nero narrows his eyes at his sister, then looks accusingly at me.