Drinking Destiny

by Pippa Amberwine

  I nodded. I’d come across a fair share of prejudice in my time. It wasn’t pretty, but I wasn’t about to let it stop me from doing what I wanted and proving that I was just as good as any other man, or woman, for that matter. I always thought that the people who were prejudiced were the ones with the problems, not me. It did make me sad that it wasn’t just a problem confined to Earth, though.

  “So how do we go about finding this dragon if Nindock has no records?” I asked. “Is there a way to tell them apart from the other dragons?”

  “Only in dragon form. Different types of dragons have different colorings. You’ve seen mine.”

  “And you don’t think this person would be willing to change into dragon form?”

  “Would you do that?” he asked.

  “I suppose not. I mean, we could keep it all secret, get people to change in private so we can see.”

  “Would you?” he repeated.

  “Quit asking me that.” I laughed. “I’m just spitballing some ways of finding out who this person is.”

  “I know. Look, I don’t know how many dragons live here now. I guess it must be two or three thousand. The only way I can think of finding them is to ask them to come forward voluntarily. If we announce what Carol has discovered and ask for the sun dragon to come forward, maybe they will.”

  “We could offer a reward.”

  “We could. That might help.”

  “Will it attract other dragons pretending to be sun dragons?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid Earth is also not on its own when it comes to people who try to take advantage of a situation. It’ll be easy to get those out of the system though because they would have to change to prove they are a sun dragon. The problems start if the sun dragon wants nothing to do with it.”

  I hadn’t really thought about that. My hopes had risen when we finished talking with Carol. She seemed to be making good progress. Since then, the prospect of actually finding the one dragon we needed to find seemed to be receding like an ebbing tide.

  I was feeling both hopeful and slightly despairing by the time we got back to the saloon. Nindock and his faithful friend Kam were seated in their usual places. I also noticed Cole sitting at a table at the other end of the room. I nodded him a greeting.

  Jevyn and I took the two spare seats at the table.

  “So, you two, what did the nutjob have to say?” Nindock asked. “Good news, I hope.”

  I didn’t know why, but what he said stung me. Maybe it was what we had talked about on the way back, but Nindock’s casual remark about Carol got a sharp response from me before I’d even had a chance to think about what I was saying. Sometimes, that was a good thing, but other times, not so much.

  “Hey, don’t call her that,” I said. “Maybe if you guys provided her with some decent lab space and the equipment to go with it, she could get the house cleared out and have her daughter with her. That’s why she gets so upset. You wouldn’t like being forcibly separated from your kid, would you?”

  The grin on Nindock’s face disappeared at the strength of my reaction to him. Good. I felt bad that I hadn’t been able to do anything to help her with her daughter. This was my chance to start to put that right.

  “She has a kid?” Nindock asked.

  “Yes. I told you she had a daughter when we got back after the Chemosys raid,” I said.

  Nindock actually looked a little pensive. “I completely forgot. She never said anything. She was always too busy trying to throttle me.”

  “Can you blame her?” I asked.

  “Well, no, I can’t, but if she’d said something, I could have done something about it.”

  “You’d have brought her daughter here and provided her with some more stuff and somewhere to work?”

  “Not necessarily. I was thinking more that I wouldn’t have gone to see her so often. I don’t like kids.”

  Kam laughed at the look of disgust on my face.

  “Look, Katie. You have to appreciate my position,” Nindock said. “I’m having to fund her. I’m having to house her and feed her. I can’t keep running up expenses without anything coming back in. Until the blood starts flowing regularly, she’ll have to stay put.”

  I gave him my best you’re-a-heartless-SOB look. I wanted to throttle him, too.

  “Listen, Nindock, I think you might be missing a trick here,” Jevyn said.

  “Really, Jevyn? You’re going to try to tell me how I am missing a trick. This should be fun. Go ahead.” Nindock leaned back in his chair.

  “I do. When we were there, Carol explained a few things. Different types of dragon blood affect the VAMP virus. Most dragon blood is, at best, neutral, and in some cases, it actually makes things worse.” Nindock narrowed his eyes slightly at that news. “The only blood that has a significant impact is from travelers, so essentially me and you. Fire-dragon blood has a moderate effect, and lastly sun-dragon blood has a much greater effect than most others.”

  “Sun dragon. But they’re useless at everything,” Nindock said.

  “Their blood is fantastic at almost curing the virus, and Carol says that with the right equipment and a decent lab she might be able to find a complete cure. Imagine that! There are heaven knows how many vampires out there in the world. If you found a cure, just think how much that would be worth?”

  I could almost see the dollar signs pinging up in Nindock’s eyes at that thought, but then his face clouded over.

  “Hold on a minute. How many vampires are there in the world?”

  “Nobody knows. Millions maybe?” I said.

  Nindock’s eyes narrowed. “How long did Carol say regular sun-dragon blood would last?”

  I could see where Nindock was heading.

  “Maybe four years,” Jevyn said.

  “So, if I pony up for her to make a cure, I could sell that to a few million people, and that would be it, right?” Nindock asked.

  “Yeah,” said Jevyn, his eyes scrunching up.

  “But if I don’t make a cure, I can sell the vampires sun-dragon aspirin forever and a day, right?”

  “If you give a man a fish . . .” I said.

  Jevyn, Nindock, and Kam all turned their heads to me and looked puzzled.

  “It’s a saying. I forget who, some old dead guy, but he said something like, ‘If you give a man a fish, he can feed his family for a day; if you teach him to fish, he can feed his family forever.’ That might not be the exact words, but you get my meaning, right?” I offered all three of them a bright smile.

  They looked as confused as they had been before.

  “What do fish have to do with it?” Kam asked.

  “I don’t get it,” Jevyn said.

  “Ohh,” Nindock said and then shook his head. “No. Sorry, you’ve lost me.”

  I held up my hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. The point I was making was that if you don’t make the cure, you could make money forever, but that would come to an end as soon as someone else does, and there are other people doing the research. Carol is close. If you get the cure first, you can clean up while everyone else is playing catch-up.”

  Nindock looked at me for a few seconds, and then a broad grin stretched across his face. “Very clever. Very clever, Katie. Exactly how close is Carol?”

  “She seems to think it would be a fairly simple job,” I said, crossing my fingers under the table. She’d said no such thing, but I was determined to try and help her if I could, and if this meant her daughter could be with her, in a decent house, then a little white lie was surely forgivable.

  I noticed Jevyn looking at me again but ignored him.

  “So, what does she need?” Nindock asked.

  “I don’t have the details exactly, but I’m sure she would tell you if you asked.”

  “Or she’d try to strangle me again?”

  “Not if you tell her why you want to do it. You know, so she can have her daughter with her.”

  “Maybe,” Nindock said. “Now the only other thing to settle is how mu
ch you and your vampire squad are willing to contribute?”

  “Why us?” I asked, surprised.

  “Because you will be the beneficiaries of the cure first. That will put you at an advantage over the other vampires.”

  I spread my hands. “I don’t want to be at an advantage over the other vamps. I just want a cure as soon as possible.”

  “In that case, all the more reason for you to invest some of your ill-gotten gains in this little venture. Look at it this way. You stole the money from Gregori Industries who were the ones who unleashed the virus in the first place, so they will be paying indirectly to fund the cure.”

  I had to hand it to Nindock. There was a certain aspect of closing the circle in his suggestion that would be very satisfying.

  “I’d like to contribute too.”

  The voice from over my shoulder made me jump. It was Cole.

  “I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help overhearing what you were talking about,” he said.

  I could see Jevyn bristling already. Whatever his problem was with Cole, Jevyn hadn’t explained it to me, but it was plain to see on his face that he didn’t want Cole to be involved.

  “Great,” said Nindock. “The more the merrier.”

  “Hold on just a moment,” Jevyn said, rising out of his seat. “Do any of us know who this guy is?”

  “He’s Cole,” Nindock said. “I thought you’d already met.”

  “We have, but we don’t actually know a lot about him, do we?”

  Jevyn had stepped around the table, his fists loosely curled at his sides, and stood right in front of Cole, blocking him from Nindock’s view altogether.

  I saw Kam stand up too. Did he have the same misgivings about Cole as Jevyn did?

  Kam worked his way around the table and then stepped between Jevyn and Cole and faced Jevyn.

  “Back off, Jevyn. Cole is fine,” Kam said.

  The two dragons faced off against each other for a few moments, and then Jevyn backed off.

  I was glad. Jevyn getting his arm ripped off—or worse—was not the kind of pre-lunch excitement I needed. I didn’t blame him. Better to live to fight another day.

  Cole told Nindock they would talk later and walked out of the bar, while Jevyn and Kam sat back down, exchanging glares.

  “One thing,” I said, leaning forward to talk to Nindock.

  “What is it?”

  “I need to find the sun dragon.”

  “I know who that is.”

  My eyes widened. “You do? Where can I find it? I mean him. Or her.”

  “She lives not far away. How about you arrange a small down payment of the cost of the lab, and I’ll tell you where to find her?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “How much?”

  “Five thousand should be a good start.”

  “Five thousand dollars? You robbing bas—” Jevyn stormed.

  “Jevyn!” I yelled before he could go all batshit about the money. “It will be fine, Nindock.”

  “Great. Off you go then, and when you get back, I’ll tell you her name and where you can find her.”

  Chapter Six

  Jevyn

  Nindock’s town

  Near Boise, Idaho

  “I THOUGHT NINDOCK said the sun dragon lived close by,” Katie said as we rounded the last corner to the part of the camp Nindock had directed us to.

  “Maybe he just said that to throw us off the trail if we went looking ourselves.” I was feeling more than a little distracted. I didn’t know why Cole made me feel the way I did about him. Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was that first time we met, when I saw him holding onto Katie’s arm while they spoke. Earlier, he had been right next to her, almost touching her, and all I’d wanted to do was grab him and shove him back away.

  Was I jealous of him? Was I too overprotective of Katie?

  If I was jealous, I certainly had just cause. He was undoubtedly a good-looking man, and just from the way he dressed and carried himself, I could see he was confident and had the easy air of someone who had plenty of money and didn’t mind splashing it around. I’d seen it often enough at court in Dracos to recognize it straightaway here on Earth.

  As for Katie, well, yes, I did feel protective of her, but not because she needed protecting. She was more than capable of kicking butt entirely on her own, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to protect her, although she would probably break my arm if I told her that.

  I was never going to resolve all the strange emotions that were roiling around my head in the short time I had available, so I stopped trying, better to concentrate on the next stage of the journey to finding a cure.

  “Is this the place?” Katie asked, standing outside a tiny shack, almost on the outside edge of the camp. The track outside was dirt and muddy at that. There wasn’t even a single blade of grass growing nearby. Smoke rose from an aluminum pipe that poked through the roof of the shack at an angle. There was laundry blowing in the breeze on a short line along the side of the shack. It was certainly the poorest-looking house I’d seen in Nindock’s town while I had been there.

  Even just a lick of paint on the wooden surface of the outside might have made it look better.

  “This is it,” I said.

  Katie looked doubtful. “Should I knock?”

  “I guess so. Otherwise we might be standing here a long time.”

  “I know, but I don’t want the place to fall apart by my knocking too hard.”

  “It’ll be fine. If she is the sun dragon, she’ll be getting well paid from now on and can perhaps afford a better place.”

  “Okay. Here goes.” Katie stepped over and rapped on the wooden door.

  A few moments of silence passed. All I could hear was the flap of laundry and the gentle lapping of water off the shore of the lake, which was only about a hundred feet away.

  Eventually, I could hear shuffling footsteps heading to the door.

  The door squealed open, and a woman, younger than I thought she would be, looked out of the door. I was struck by how beautiful she was. She was dressed in little more than rags and had nothing on her feet on the cold stone floor, but her eyes and pale, porcelain skin glowed. She squinted suspiciously at Katie and then looked wide-eyed at me.

  “Can I help you? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?”

  I thought for a moment I could see her hands trembling, but she hid them behind herself when she saw me looking at them.

  “No, no, nothing like that at all. We’ve come to ask you something. Can we come in?”

  Her bright eyes regarded us both carefully as she hesitated.

  “All right,” she said eventually.

  She stood to one side to let Katie in, and then I followed. The woman closed the door and walked in behind us. The room was sparsely furnished with just a couple of chairs, a small table under the window—which held a couple of piles of neatly folded clothes—and an ancient sewing box. In one corner of the room was a couch that clearly doubled as a bed. In another was a stove that barely produced any heat at all. Even though it was the middle of the day, candles lit the room.

  “Please, take a seat. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to offer you to eat, but I can make tea if you would like some?”

  The last piece of furniture was an old dresser that held a teapot and a few cracked cups. I couldn’t see quite how she was going to boil the water, and my face must have shown my puzzlement.

  “I have a fire out back where I keep a kettle on the boil all day. I need hot drinks to keep me warm.”

  Her arms and legs, the only other parts of her body showing out of the woolen shawl she had over her shoulders, looked scrawny and thin. Undernourished was my guess.

  “I’d love some tea, please,” Katie said.

  “I don’t have any milk,” she said.

  “Black is fine,” Katie said. “It’s Ypalde isn’t it?” She spoke a little louder as Ypalde disappeared out of the back door with the pot off the dresse
r and then reappeared a few moments later with the pot full.

  “It is. How do you know my name?”

  “Nindock told us about you. You volunteered to donate a blood sample.”

  “I did. I ate well for a week on the money I was paid for that.”

  I found myself wondering how thin she must have been before getting a week’s worth of square meals. Ypalde set out three cups—no saucers—and poured three very insipid-looking drinks, two of which she passed around to me and Katie.

  “Was there something wrong with the blood?” Ypalde asked.

  “No, not at all. On the contrary, your blood is really very special,” I said as Ypalde sat on the couch, smiling shyly.

  Katie spent the next few minutes explaining in detail to Ypalde what the situation was.

  “I had no idea,” Ypalde said quietly when Katie finished speaking.

  “How could you?” I said with a smile of my own. Ypalde looked so nervous, like a tiny bird, tensing when something or someone came too close.

  She shook her head. “So, what happens next?”

  “Well,” Katie said, “if you agree, we would like to take you to see Carol so she can continue trying to find a cure. We’re hopeful she’ll be moving to a new lab soon, but in the meantime, she’s on her own there, so if you two get along, maybe you could stay with her so you’re on hand all the time.” Katie’s suggestion seemed to go down well.

  “As you can see, I’m on my own here and,” Ypalde looked down sadly, “I do get very lonely. I mean I fill my time with sewing, mending people’s clothes, and making curtains and the like, but it would be nice to have some company.”

  Although her house was tiny, it was spotlessly clean, and I wondered how she would cope with Carol’s more chaotic way of living.

  I found myself feeling more than a little bit sorry for Ypalde. She was such an attractive young woman who should have had young men fawning over her, and yet here she was, living in an old shack on the edge of town, barely making ends meet. It was unbearably sad, and I hoped she would come with us to Carol’s place and at least have someone to keep her company.

  “So, will you go? You’ll get paid too, of course,” Katie said.