Dragan Page 6

  I make a mental note of her words, feeling a small sense of relief.

  “What about the vampire?” he asks. “He must got lots of poisons in that bag o’ his?”

  “A wonderful idea, Dravon,” Anona snaps facetiously, whirling around to glare at him. “Why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because our truck just burned to the ground with everything in it!” I hear a smack as she hits the fool upside his head.

  Dravon raises his hand to rub the affronted area, then reaches behind himself to produce a small, black leather satchel. I recognize it as belonging to Baron.

  Anona’s eyes widen, and then her frown shifts until she’s smiling a large, beaming grin at him. “You saved his satchel?” Her voice, sounding raw, is hushed with disbelief. She snatches the bag away from Dravon with the eagerness of an impatient child. I can hear the glass vials clinking against one another as she sifts through the tinctures.She moves closer to the fire to better decipher the labels.

  Another of her henchmen, seated on the other side of her, grunts, his arms crossed against his chest. Clearly, he’s upset at falling out of her favor.

  I can only wonder if both of these brutes are fucking her.

  Ugh. Disgusting.

  “Crawler mucus?” Anona asks, pulling out the vial and unstopping it.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” says a calm voice to my left. It’s Baron, awake against his tree. I wonder how long he’s been quietly sitting there, watching them just as I am.

  “Ah! Our mystery assassin is awake!” cries Anona. I hear her put the stopper back in the bottle. “And he looks the worse for wear.”

  Mystery assassin? I think to myself. Hmm, it appears Anona doesn’t realize Baron’s true identity. I wish I could say the same for myself.

  “Swamp Breath has that effect on a vampire,” he grumbles with a smirk. And, from the looks of him, the Swamp Breath did a number.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asks immediately, sounding annoyed.

  “No reason.”

  “No one smiles for no reason,” she argues. “What do you find so amusing?”

  He shrugs. “That you’ll be dead in a matter of minutes.”

  I wonder at his casual confidence. I find it irksome—we’re obviously at Anona’s mercy, not the other way around.

  “You’re in no position to be making threats,” she admonishes, irritation in her voice. I can’t help but agree with her.

  “It’s not a threat, it’s a fact,” Baron responds in that offhand manner of his. “Crawler Mucus is an airborne toxin.”

  Anona’s expression falters. “So what?” she asks but there’s worry in her tone.

  “So you just inhaled quite a lot of it. Unless you reverse the poison with the antidote, you’ll be dead in about an hour,” Baron finishes.

  “You’re lying,” she counters.

  “Am I?”

  She nods and eyes him narrowly. “I never inhaled Crawler Mucus. I merely looked at it just now.”

  “When the truck caught fire, do you recall the green flames?” Baron continues.

  She nods.

  Truck? I think to myself as I don’t recognize the word. Ah, the wagon contraption is referred to as a truck.

  Baron continues. “When was the last time you saw fire burn green?”

  “Never,” she admits slowly.

  His smile broadens. “Exactly. The flames were tainted with Crawler Mucus, which is why the fire burned the color it did. Just before the explosion, I released the Crawler Mucus into the air.”

  “We took your bag o’ poisons,” Dravon pipes up.

  “An assassin never limits his poisons to merely one location,” responds Baron, his tone of voice one of smug satisfaction.

  It’s a moment before anyone speaks.

  “Which one is the antidote?” Anona asks as she stares down at the satchel.

  “Release me and I will tell you,” Baron replies, his voice calm, almost bordering on uninterested. My chest swells with hope.

  “You think I’m a fool,” Anona laughs.

  “Tell me, Anona, how do you feel?” Baron pauses. “Do you feel lightheaded, perhaps? Are you experiencing a shallowness of breath, a slight tingling in your fingers?”

  She says nothing.

  “It can be quite the agonizing way to go,” he continues. “Out of every poison in my collection, Crawler Mucus took the longest to develop an immunity.”

  “We all inhaled it,” one of her henchmen points out.

  Baron looks at him and nods. “Yes, we all did.”

  “Then we’re all infected?” another one asks.

  “It goes without saying, eh?” Baron chuckles.

  “Mistress, I’m feeling tinglin’,” the same man says to Anona. She dismisses his concerns with a wave of her irritated hand.

  “Who are you?” she asks Baron.

  He shrugs, as if she should already know the answer. “My name is Revenant; perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

  “No, I’ve never heard of you,” she barks back at him.

  His smile broadens. “Then I am doing my job correctly.”

  “Why do you carry such an arsenal of poisons?” she continues, and there’s a clean line of sweat beading from her brow. Either she’s nervous or the Crawler Mucus is beginning to work.

  “Is that not quite obvious?”

  “Answer the fucking question!” Anona yells at him.

  “I’m an assassin,” Baron retorts with another shrug.

  Anona swipes her arm across her forehead. Her skin grows paler by the second.

  “Then what you speak is the truth?” she presses.

  “I speak only the truth,” he responds matter-of-factly. “Release me if you do not wish to die a most painful death.”

  “Argh, he’s bluffin’ mistress. That Mucus shit ain’t nothin’ but faerie potion,” scoffs Dravon.

  “No, I’m havin’ a hard time breathin’,” one of the other men says. His skin is pasty white.

  “Silence,” Anona responds, but there’s fear in her eyes. Her voice sounds tight and harsh. “Tell me which vial contains the antidote, or I’ll test each one on your pretty little angel friend.” With a nod of her head, she motions to Eilish.

  My stomach drops and I notice Baron’s facial expression blanches for a split second before he catches himself.

  Anona smiles broadly. “I imagine the angel doesn’t possess the same immunities you do?”

  “I don’t care what you do to anyone here,” he responds, eyeing her narrowly. “The Shadow King hired me to ensure safe passage from Grimreap. I care as much for their lives as I do for yours.”

  “You lie,” Anona retorts, with doubt in her voice.

  “My own life, however, is something I care for very much. Release me and I will assist you.”

  “We can’t give the angel the poisons,” Dravon reminds Anona. “Variant said he wants her alive.” He takes a deep breath. “He wants all o’ ‘em alive.”

  “You’re running out of time,” Baron interjects.

  “If I release you, you return to Grimreap at once,” she tells him. “You tell no one what happened here. You shrink back into the shadows and you disappear. Do you understand?”

  Baron nods.

  “We can’t let him go!” shouts Dravon.

  “Variant doesn’t know he’s even here,” Anona spits back at him. “He’s no one.” Little does she really know…

  “True,” Baron responds. “I am no one.”

  “Now, where is the antidote?” she hollers, her voice strained from the effort of yelling with her weakened lungs.

  “My satchel,” Baron orders as Anona instructs Dravon to untie him. The huge, lumbering beast pauses for a moment but then grumbles something indistinguishable and fumbles with Baron’s bindings.

  “No, I won’t bring you your satchel,” Anona returns. “That wasn’t the deal. I released you, now tell me which is the antidote.”

  Just then, I’m startled by a noise behind me: the
soft whirring of a pair of small wings. I remain immobile, committed to my charade of unconsciousness. Until I know how to help Baron, the element of surprise will remain all I have on my side.

  ###

  Flumph

  Riverine, for all its pretty colors, be heavy as shit.

  By the time I makes it back to the fork in the road where I was separated from my group o’ assholes, I be tired as a warlock after a busy night in a whorehouse. The heavy stone weighs as much as I does, an’ its weight anchors me only a few feet above the dusty ground.

  Good news is, being so close to the ground, it’s easy to make out the footsteps of my five companions. I follow their tracks for miles, my forehead drippin’ with greasy sweat an’ my hands slippin’ from the edges o’ the rock with every flap o’ my wings. I zig zag between Eilish’s small prints an’ the rest o’ them dickheads’.

  I stop a lot to rest, but everytimes I do, I hear Shadow Butt’s voice in my ear yellin’ at me to keep flyin’. I can’t get aways from him, even when he ain’t even here!

  Dick.

  I lift the fabric o’ my shirt to see if my belly looks smaller. All this starvin’ an’ flyin’ ought to at least make me a little better lookin’. The shiny, slightly hairy hill o’ flesh that greets me proves I gots a long way to go on my weight loss journey. Not that I’m really tryin’, though. A fat sprite is the best kinda sprite, far’s I’m concerned.

  Starin’ at the footsteps in front o’ me shows I’ve got me a long way to go. I sigh, pick up the rock, an’ carry off down the road once more.

  After what feels like forevers an’ a half, the tracks change. Three more sets o’ prints join the ones I been followin’. A weight even heavier than this damned rock lands isself right in my stomach. An’ even though I’m hungrier than shit, I feels like I’m gonna hurl up whatever’s left inside me.

  As I’m floatin’ above ‘em, the path made by my friends jist stops. Looks to me like they’ve run into some company.

  Fear finds me fast. My first thought ain’t for my friends’ safety, but my own. I mean, I gotta look out fer me, ‘cause none o’ them seems too keen ta do it. Save maybe the angel. But, much as I wanna help, I also like bein’ alive.

  And chances are, the lot o’ them be all dead… or at least close. Unless I wanna follow in their footsteps, it’s better ta get as far away as possible.

  But what if they be alive?

  Sometimes, I hate that goody-goody voice that go off in my head.

  I look back at my sweaty belly, jigglin’ whiles I waver in the air. If they wanted rescuin’, maybe they shoulda found themselves a fitter sprite.

  But then I think o’ the angel. I risked it all to save her before; I can do it agin. She could be the key to endin’ Variant, an’ that’s a big deal. Bigger than my life, bigger than anybody’s life, even bigger than my grumblin’ stomach.

  Soze, I take off down the path agin, this time followin’ the tire tracks that carry on forevers. Decidin’ to help gives me new energy, an’ the stone feels lighter than it did before. It ain’t slippin’ from my hands no more, anyways.

  Before long, I make out the sight o’ a fire off the road a bit. ‘Bout the same time, I sees black, charred ground that takes over the tracks I been followin’. Somethin’ happened here. A fire, maybes? I get even more scared.

  The wind carries a voice to where I’m hoverin’ over the burnt road an’ I turn to ice. I’d know that voice anywheres, ‘cause it haunts my dreams most nights.

  Anona.

  Somethin’ surprises me, though. I ain’t as ’fraid as I was before. I feel scared for my friends, but if anyone can save ‘em now, it’s me. I drop the stone behind a tree an’ try to cover up its bright blue with some dirt.

  Then I fly real quiet-like into the woods, far enough away but where I can still see the flickerin’ flames o’ the fire. I still my wings an’ try to be real quiet whiles I move from tree to tree, close to the flames as I can get without revealin’ my position.

  As a general rule, sprites ain’t known for their stealth. There’s assassins an’ shadow creatures that can hide in shadows an’ stay outta sight. That ain’t me, though.

  At least I got my smallness on my side, an’ I’m close enough now to count the figures in front o’ me. Three sit at the fire—I recognize the shapes of Anona an’ Dravon—her, thin and worm-like; him, thick an’ worm-like. Some other big guy’s there, too. Can’t see his face, though.

  There be more shapes I recognize, all slumped ‘gainst trees, lookin’ dead as dogs. I creep closer, my wings keepin’ me off the ground.

  Shadow Butt Jr., otherwise known as Thoradin, be closest to me. I think he must be asleep, but as I get me closer, I hear him move his head to see what’s behind him.

  “It’s me,” I whisper. “I’m here to save your sorry asses.”

  A sprite don’t have many moments to play hero, an’ my chest puffs in spite o’ the fact that we could still die. An’ we probly will.

  Big guy don’t say nuthin’, but when I work that rope free from his hands, I see him nod an’ I fly on to release the others.

  The closer I get to Anona, the more my body starts shakin’ somethin’ awful. She talkin’ to the vamp now, an’ the guard walks o’er to him. I take the time they’re spendin’ distracted to untie the rest of their ropes.

  FIVE

  Cambion

  Mortal Realm

  The buzzing grows louder until I feel the rope at my hands being pulled. Within a few seconds, the binds begin to loosen. Even once my hands are freed, I remain unmoving, fighting the smile that threatens to take my lips.

  I’m so grateful for that fucking sprite, I could kiss him.

  “The others?” I ask in as low a voice as I can manage.

  “They’s all been freed,” he whispers. I square my shoulders and face the question of what to do now.

  “I don’t recall where the antidote is located,” Baron says.

  “Just tell me the name of it,” insists Anona.

  “It possesses no label, thus it will be impossible to find.”

  “How convenient,” she mutters.

  “If you look at the vials, you will notice very few have labels,” he responds.

  She glances down at the satchel and nods, agreeing with him. “Describe the antidote,” she orders. As she approaches the fire, I hear the rattling of glass once more.

  “It’s a clear liquid with a slight purple hue,” Baron says.

  “There are two that match that description,” she answers. “I can barely see anything in this blasted light.”

  She’s correct. It’s difficult to see anything in the darkness, and I mostly rely on my keen hearing. I make out the sounds of footsteps crunching and watch as Anona approaches Baron. Dravon and the other men are just beside her. Before I know what’s happening, Baron kicks the burning coals of the fire directly at them, catching Anona in the face and the men in the upper chest area.

  In a moment, I’m standing. My muscles protest the movement, but I brace myself for a fight and run to Baron’s side. Eilish and Thoradin are fast behind me. I don’t know where Dragan is, but I don’t have time to wonder.

  Overhead, we hear the heart-stopping whoosh of large wings, and when I glance upward, I see Dragan diving down from high above us. He’s partially in his gargoyle shape, but he maintains his fleshly coloring. With his long hind talons, he grips onto the shoulders of one of Anona’s men and soars back into the sky, only to release the man on top of an especially dead tree.

  The man screams as he’s impaled through his neck on a branch. Dragan then dives down and grips the shoulders of another of Anona’s men before flying back up into the sky.

  Thoradin immediately goes after Dravon, a fight that doesn’t appear fair as Thoradin is clearly the larger of the two. But Dravon has a surprise—a shortsword. With one arm still covering his burned face, Dravon plunges the blade deep into the abdomen of the gargoyle.

  “No!” Eilish shouts behind me.


  Thoradin falls to the ground, his expression entirely blank. I watch in disbelief, but Baron is quick to take action. He reaches into Anona’s lap to grab his bag of poisons and, as he does, several of the bottles scatter to the ground. There’s a loud yell as Dragan releases the man from over fifty feet in the sky. He lands on the remains of the motorized wagon and is killed instantly. Anona and Dravon still furiously wipe at their faces and the smell of singed hair and skin is thick in the air, their howls of pain echoing through the forest.

  “Run!” shouts Baron, turning to me and motioning to Eilish, as if I should be the one to see to her safety. I don’t argue, much though I also don’t consider myself her protector. That position is reserved for the idiot gargoyle.

  Thoradin remains lifeless on the ground, but we don’t have time to worry for him now.

  I reach for Eilish’s hand, ignoring the flash of light I see behind my eyelids which means a vision is threatening to overtake us both. Instead, we take off down the road. My legs scream in pain, but we don’t stop. She’s also staggering slightly. I urge her to run faster.

  “Stop them! They can’t escape!” Anona cries from behind us, her voice dissolving into little more than a sob.

  Her cries slowly recede as we flee deeper into the forest. Finally, when Eilish comes to a halt behind me, I stop running.

  “Please, no more,” she pants, her arms tucked into her sides. I, too, pause. My breath is coming in short, labored gasps, and my lungs burn with every inhalation. Flumph flutters down to the ground and catches his own breath.

  Beside us, Dragan lands heavily, his huge form creating a thud that moves the forest.

  “Where’s Thoradin and Baron?” he asks.

  No one answers.

  “Where’s Thoradin?” he repeats, more forcefully this time.

  “He… He…” Eilish struggles to speak between her labored gasps.

  “Dravon killed him.” Baron suddenly appears behind her to answer Dragan’s question. Baron’s calm, not struggling to breathe like the rest of us. Because he’s vampire, he possesses no circulatory system.