One Foot in the Fade, page 20
“They’re babies,” mouthed Eileen, forgetting her usual cool demeanor.
The mother, curled up in the tree, was covered in bright red scales. Her two children were darker; whether that was to do with their age or their parentage, I wasn’t sure. There were white flecks all over them, which I thought must have been some kind of disfigurement until the largest of the babies rubbed his head against the ground and wiped them away. They were bits of egg! The infants had hatched so recently that they hadn’t completely shed their shells.
The mother, shaking off her exhaustion, came out of the hollow, and I was reminded that we weren’t only being quiet to get a closer look at the creatures, but because they would rip us to pieces if they got the chance. The mother’s maw was hanging open, and she had a restaurant’s worth of steak knives tucked under her lips. As she walked, the talons at the end of her wings – which were also her forearms – ripped into the dirt like it was sponge cake. Her body was the size of a car and her wings, while too weak to fly, flapped open and closed as she moved.
Unlike the fire-breathing, four-legged Dragons that were created when animals merged with swamps of pure magic, Wyverns evolved over time. They are the descendants of the rock-skinned reptiles of the Northern Plains who ventured south eons ago and adapted to their new surroundings. There were different types, depending on their environment, but all had two hind legs and two wings with a set of talons at the end. Being smaller and less magical, Wyverns weathered the Coda far better than their Dragon cousins.
She stepped over her two little ones in a protective stance and sniffed the air. We all ducked down, listening to her taste the breeze. Then she made a kind of purring sound, deep in her throat, and received two chirping noises in return.
We couldn’t resist peering over the log again. She shuffled away, the babies beneath her becoming a little sturdier with every step.
Then the mother stopped. Looked back. Not at us, but towards the hollow of the tree. She made a kind of long, low call, more of a word than a growl, so clear in its emotion that I felt like, if I’d heard it again, I would have known its meaning.
They moved away, leaving small and large scratch marks in the dirt, and disappeared into the trees. When it felt safe to speak, Eileen jumped in first.
“That was incredible!”
“Did we scare her off?” asked Larry. “When she smelled us?”
Theodor shook his head. “No, Wyverns change nests as soon as the babies hatch. Their scent will bring all kinds of predators hoping to attack while the mother is distracted and the young are weak: wolves, monitor lizards, large cats and the like. Right now, the children won’t be able to fend off enemies that, in a week or two, would never stand a chance. So, they leave the nest behind. It would be wise for us to do the same.”
“Wait.” Khay was staring at the hollow of the tree. “What was she looking at?” She climbed up on the log, then over it, and peered across the clearing. “There’s another egg.”
The elation dipped down to despair as the mother’s final call repeated in our ears.
Khay continued on.
“We should go,” said Theo.
She paid him no mind and walked straight into the hollow tree.
We all followed.
Khay knelt beside the remaining egg. There was a thin crack and a small piece missing from the top, but it was mostly intact. From my wary position behind Khay, I could see black scales inside.
“What happened to it?” Larry asked, vaguely directing his question to Theo.
“Nothing. It just happens sometimes.”
“It’s the magic,” said Khay, her hands on the crack of the shell. “This one had more of his father in him.” She peeled away a piece of the shell and a leathery black wing slid out. “In the old world, he might have grown to be twice the size of the others.” She pulled away another piece of shell, revealing the top of its head, ridged with stumpy red horns. Below that, a heavy brow and eyelid.
Theodor tried, again, to warn us.
“We should—”
The eye opened.
Eileen, Larry and I gasped. Neither Theo nor Khay seemed surprised.
“He’s alive?” whispered Larry. “Then why did she leave him?”
Theodor unhooked the crossbow from his belt.
“Because he’s not going to make it, and it would have endangered the others to wait. We really must leave.”
Khay, without looking back, raised a hand.
“Let me try.”
She hadn’t yet tied the intricate knots that pinned her robe to her body, so it fell easily from her shoulders. She peeled away the rest of the shell, and the baby Wyvern, like a puppet without strings, dropped into her arms. Through her back, in the space between her shoulder blades, I could just make out his open eye as it looked up at her, more tired than afraid. Only a few moments in this world and he was already exhausted by its cruelty.
With Khay’s bare skin resting against the infant, the animal whined in its throat; surely confused by the burning sensation, and unaware that this stranger, adding more pain to its already painful existence, was trying to save its life.
Through Khay’s body, I watched the infant’s face until it disappeared. Khay was solid again.
WHOOSH!
Khay lost her grip as the animal’s wings extended like an umbrella caught in an updraft, cracking like a whip and catching her across the chest. She screamed and dropped backwards as the baby Wyvern howled – its chest heaving and its mouth open wide – baring its baby fangs and forked tongue, ready to attack.
We got to our feet… but the spasm stopped, the wings went limp, and the creature’s eyes rolled up and away from this world.
Even Larry, prone to blurting out obvious questions, didn’t need to ask whether the creature was still alive. When something dies in front of you, you know about it. You feel it in that part of yourself that knows the things you try not to think about so you can find a way to get up in the morning. It was gone, and that was that.
Khay lifted the cloth back over her shoulders, wiped her eyes, and stood up.
“All right,” she said, “let’s go.”
We all turned and screamed.
34
Instinct
The mother had returned: roaring, mouth open, her teeth bared and wet, and talons clawing at the dirt. She’d left her last child behind but, hearing it call out, could not have resisted coming back. Then she’d found us over its body, backed into the hollow of the tree.
“Use your crossbow!” said Larry in a panicked whine.
“Not if we don’t have to,” said Theo.
“Won’t do much anyway,” I added. “Their hides are like armor.” I looked up at the inside of the tree. It was hollow right to the top, which would be higher than the Wyvern could reach, except there wasn’t a clear way up. “Can we climb this?”
“We should try,” said Eileen. She jumped up and grabbed a piece of wood with both hands. It crumbled into pieces and dropped her back on her feet. “Well, I tried.”
The mother screamed and swiped at us, taking a chunk of bark out of the tree and sending us farther back into the hollow.
Theo’s hand was in my jacket. He ripped the pistol from its holster and pointed it at the Wyvern.
“Whoa, Theo. Are you—”
CRACK!
He fired, high, sending the bullet over the mother’s head. She jumped back from the opening in the tree. He stepped forward. Fired again.
CRACK!
She moved back, confused and scared, creating enough room for our escape.
“Go!” shouted Theodor. “NOW!”
He moved and we moved with him, out of the tree and back towards the log.
The Wyvern shook away her fear. She’d never seen a gun before, and though the noise had scared her, there was no pain to let her know why she needed to be afraid. It was just a sound, nothing more, and with that realization, she turned on us again.
I ran. So did the others. We jumped the log and scrambled through the path. As she followed us – snarling and screaming and snapping at our heels – her wings sent gusts of wind that battered our backs, blowing us off course. Branches snapped and stones rolled under our feet. As I turned to check on Eileen – a couple of steps behind me – I lost my footing and landed on my side, scraping my body across the roots and rocks of the forest floor.
“MOVE!”
I barely got onto my hands and knees before Eileen grabbed me by the collar and dragged me into dense underbrush as the Wyvern mother closed in. We scurried under the brambles and through gaps that we hoped were small and strong enough to impede the Wyvern’s chase.
Hot breath blew through the bushes as the beast roared, shaking the whole thicket and trying to get her teeth or talons into us. Claws slashed at the foliage over Eileen’s head, and she ducked down with nowhere else to go.
She screamed. It sounded like someone else’s voice. Slaughtered leaves and twigs rained down on us as the Wyvern’s wings attacked the barrier of branches.
A frustrated screech from above, and the shadow of the Wyvern pulled back. We heard the desperate flapping of its wings, and more furious grunting, before it stepped away from the patch of underbrush and span around in circles.
I lifted my head out of the savaged brush to see Larry atop the Wyvern’s head, holding onto the spikes on the back of its skull. It thrashed about, but was unable to reach him with either its talons or its teeth. The kid had a good grip, but the Wyvern became more desperate. It cracked its wings like it was trying to take off, then swung its head downward so that Larry was thrown over its face, still holding on, and rested over its maw.
Theo brought the crossbow from his back. I tried to push through the brambles, but before either of us could make a move, or the Wyvern could wrangle Larry into her jaws, there was an explosion of white dust out of Larry’s left hand that engulfed the beast’s face. A few seconds later, they both dropped to the ground, unconscious.
Khay moved towards them, but I got a whiff of the concoction that Larry had employed (luckily not enough to get the full effect).
“Wait!” I called. “Let it clear before you get too close or you’ll end up like them.”
“What happened?” asked Eileen, behind me. Her voice was shaky. Almost childlike.
“Sleeping powder. A Warlock in Sunder hit me with a dose of it a while back. Give it a moment, then we’ll drag him out of there, because the Wyvern will wake up before he does.”
As soon as it felt safe to do so, we picked up Larry and carried him from the mother Wyvern. High-pitched squeals announced the two infants moments before they crawled through the brush, desperate to be back beneath their mother’s wings.
“Will they be all right?” asked Khay.
“I can’t imagine it will last long on a beast her size,” I said. “We just have to hope she wakes up before any other creatures arrive.”
“We made enough of a ruckus to scare away any other animals for some time,” said Theo. “Let’s get him out of here.”
We each took one of Larry’s limbs, carried him back to the water hole, and placed him in the shade while we caught our breath. Eileen checked his pulse and his breathing, just to be safe.
“The kid did good,” she said.
“Yeah,” I conceded. “The kid did good.”
Khay looked worried.
“You all right?” I asked. She nodded unconvincingly.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.”
We could still hear the infant Wyverns calling out, trying to rouse their mother, and I prayed for them to be quiet before another creature answered their call.
“Come on,” said Theo, taking charge. “Let’s get Lazarus into the car.”
We carried Larry up the embankment and did out best to push the fate of the little ones from our minds.
35
Light in the Dark
“That was pretty brave, kid,” said Eileen when Larry finally stirred. It was sunset, and we had him resting by the campfire while the rest of us prepared dinner.
“Not really,” he replied, clearly chuffed with the attention. “The back of the beast’s head was the only place it couldn’t reach me with its claws or jaws. Safest spot imaginable, as far as I could see.”
We ate more vegetables and small game, and Larry demolished his portion like he hadn’t eaten in days.
“Woah, slow down there, hero,” said Khay. “You’ve been out for hours.”
“Sorry.”
“Where did you get that stuff, anyway?” I asked.
“From headquarters. Sleeping powder is standard issue. I forgot that I had it at first.” He looked up and, perhaps because we were all being so nice to him, was uncharacteristically honest. “I’ve never been in any kind of altercation like that before. Not even a fist fight. I’m afraid I somewhat panicked.”
“You did great,” said Theodor. “Saved our skins without injuring the creature at all. I’m sure The Bridge would be proud.”
I knew he’d done well, and that Theodor was just humoring him, but it still annoyed me that he was keeping up the pretense of The Bridge being some continental organization rather than a club of one that he’d created in his bedroom.
After eating, the others peeled off into their tents, leaving Khay and me by the fire. Her hood was down, and she held her ungloved hands out to the flames. Not to warm them – the night wasn’t cold – but to enjoy the sensation of the heat against her skin. I’d observed her in similar moments: running leaves and bark through her fingers, savoring the smell of the campfire coffee, and closing her eyes to sink into the flavors of everything she ate, always aware that it might be the last time that she’d be fully in possession of her senses.
Khay had been fading that day, down by the water. Now, she was as real as the rest of us. Back at the morgue, her experiment had been a success, and we’d left town riding high on Mora’s recovery. The baby Wyvern had been a tragic reminder that Mora was the exception to the rule, and that, without the crown, it might never be repeated.
“You have to remember that this isn’t a gift,” she said, staring into the flames. “It’s a punishment. The jewelry only keeps the wearer in this world if they meet the conditions of the curse. If they don’t, it drags them away.”
A reckless beetle, perhaps overexcited by its first experience with a campfire, flew too close to the flames and cooked itself with a gruesome pop and sizzle.
“Drags you where?”
“When this world was full of magic, the other side felt lighter than this one. Now it’s… now it’s something else.”
I felt a chill, despite the fire and the spring air.
“Magic isn’t like any other resource,” she continued. “It isn’t something you use. You dance with it. Even now, after the Coda, it still surprises.”
“But…” I was going to say something obvious, like “it’s gone”, but I stopped myself. I knew what she meant. It was gone, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t still surprises waiting to be discovered. She was living proof of that.
“The way it left things, and the way things continue to change, it doesn’t always make sense. You’ve seen it yourself, right? Most things haven’t stopped. They’ve twisted. They’ve become puzzles that unlock themselves when you view them from a different angle.”
She had a point. I’d seen it in Edmund Rye, the Vampire who found new power in the bones of his victims rather than the blood. I saw it in the bodies of Faeries whose hidden potential was still waiting to be set free; like Amari, who had escaped from her lifeless shell of a body and been reborn. Not like she once was. Of course not. But alive again, in a way.
“The Genie have always existed between the two worlds. When there was magic here, the other side felt like the lesser of these places. An empty space that was ready to welcome me. Now, when I open myself up to the other side, I feel the power rushing back in. It wants to get back, and it’s using the curse to do it. When I bring a piece of that power back into this world, it rewards me, and allows me to stay here a little longer.”
“Even if it kills someone?”
She nodded.
“It doesn’t care. But I do. That’s why they need to agree to it. That’s my code, now. They need to know the risks and the rewards and decide for themselves if they want me to heal them.”
I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. The familiar self-doubt that creeps in when you’re halfway down a road and start to wonder whether you should ever have left home in the first place.
“But you’re getting better, right? Look what happened with Mora.”
“The jewelry helps. When I only had a few pieces, it was… unpredictable. But I could feel how close it was. I glimpsed the potential. You saw the Angel’s wings afterwards but, brother, you should have seen him fly.” She stared into the flames, remembering the night that she’d stuffed Brother Benjamin full of magic and sent him soaring into the skies above Sunder City. “Maybe the crown will be the last piece. With that, and a bit of practice, it might be enough.”
A cold breeze blew from the south, billowing the fire.
“Then we’ll get it. Soon. I promise.”
She looked at me, and I expected some kind eye roll or chuckle at my sudden seriousness, but she just said, “Thank you.”
We said goodnight and I went back to a tent that, despite the warmth of the night, still smelled quite a bit like wet dog.
36
Kindred
As soon as the sun rose, it became too hot to sleep so we piled back into the car and continued on. The funk of the previous afternoon had lifted, and whether it was the heat, the amount of time spent together, or the fact that we’d all seen each other naked the previous day, a sense of relaxed familiarity fell over us. Eileen put her legs across Khay while she rested, Larry actually sounded his age when he joined in the conversation, and Theodor even treated us to a traveling song.
