Breath of Fire (7 page)

Calista kept her gaze steady on me. “I know who you’re hunting, Rena. I’ve seen them.”

I raised my brows in confusion. “Yes, I believe I just dispatched some of them in the garden. What I need is their Master. I’ve already decided to ask the Council for a warrant of execution. They’ve killed too many humans. And if I keep hunting the minions, then there will only be more to take their place. The Master is my priority. But now I have a separate problem. The FBI has become suspicious. I was questioned this morning.”

My arm was numb from the damage, and I was losing a lot of blood. I’d have to take at least a vial full of dragon tears to heal enough to hunt.

“You have no idea what you’ve been dealing with,” Calista said. “Your investigation has only skimmed the surface of what these Drakán are capable of. You’ve only been focusing on the humans they have butchered because those are the visions you’ve seen, and your humanity closes off your senses to the rest of it. But these Drakán have a vast hunger, and they’ll keep hunting your humans and laughing at you as you continue to clean up their messes. It takes many victims to feed an army of this size.”

“An army?” I asked as dread filled me.

“Yes. The humans are inconsequential. This is what you always fail to remember. The Drakán remains you found last night are not the first to have been found. The ashes of dozens of our people have surfaced over the past two months—different clans from different parts of the world.”

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“No, you wouldn’t have seen as I have. Your powers are strong, but you’re hampered by your lack of knowledge of the other clans, and your lack of connections to them. That is your father’s fault for keeping you secluded here. He is the only one who could grant you permission to meet the other Archos. If you met them face-to-face, your visions would encompass all of the Drakán and not just our clan. And then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Alasdair growled, but I could understand his anger at being provoked. I could also understand Calista’s view. An Enforcer’s powers had everything to do with connections. I had visions and was able to keep track of the members of our clan because I’d met them all—a little over two thousand at the last gathering. We’d be minus three at the next one since Alasdair had killed Marcos and I’d freed his children from the Drakán bond.

Calista went on. “It is also the fault of the Council that other clans are ignorant to what is happening. Not even they are fully aware of what is going on under their noses. The clans know only of their own losses. All the while, the Council keeps their heads buried in the sand and hoards their power, avoiding each other and the knowledge they could share because of the hatred that existed between their fathers.”

I took a chance to look at my father. His face was hard and impassive, but his anger was growing hotter.

“So how do I find them?” I asked Calista. “I’m ready to begin hunting.”

“Patience, Rena. I haven’t told you the rest.” The whiplash of her voice almost made me flinch, but I continued to hold myself still.

“I said remains had been found, but there are hundreds of our people who are simply missing. This is what I’ve seen in my vision. What I’ve come to tell you.”

“Missing? I don’t understand,” I said.

Calista and Alasdair shared a look filled with knowledge—secret knowledge—and silent words passed between brother and sister I couldn’t interpret. A warm wind rushed through the room. My father’s rage was a palpable thing, thick and heavy as it lashed against my skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Rena?” Alasdair asked. “I would have gone to the Council if you’d told me this group of Drakán was drawing attention to themselves sooner. Before they started kidnapping Drakán and killing them. It could be too late for us all now.”

He had me by the throat before I could blink and pressed against the hard stone of the fireplace. “Answer me!” he roared. The stone crumbled beneath my back, and the heat of the flames licked against my legs. Blisters bubbled, but I ignored the discomfort. I had to focus on Alasdair—on living.

The room passed by me in a blur as my body was flung in the opposite direction. Plaster and sheetrock turned to dust as my body went through the wall. I hit the marble floor with a jarring thud, but the momentum of his force pushed me another twenty feet or so, tunneling a path of crumbled stone in my wake.

I lay dazed for a minute before crawling to my hands and knees. The damage to my body was so severe the pain wasn’t registering yet. I willed myself to my feet and only had to steady myself against the wall for a moment. The bloody handprint I left on the wall was a stark reminder of the violence I came from. I was Drakán. Not human. And I needed to remember it.

A curl of smoke escaped Alasdair’s nostril as I faced him down. I couldn’t defeat my father in strength. There was no point in trying. I’d been in this position before.

“That’s enough, Alasdair. Don’t damage her too much. She is of need to us,” Calista said.

Alasdair broke eye contact and began pacing like a caged tiger. “Explain yourself, Rena,” he demanded.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t see a need for it before now. You’ve never cared about what happens to the humans. You barely care and provide for your own people. Your father and the Council created the laws we live by. Even now that you and the other Archos make up the new Council, you still uphold the laws of old. And because of this, I’ve been doing my job half blind. I didn’t know of the other Drakán being killed. And that oversight lies at your feet.”

“Don’t push me with accusations, Rena. You have an obligation to inform me when you feel we are in danger. If Drakán are dying then we are most definitely in danger.”

“I can’t predict the future, Alasdair. That’s Calista’s talent. My visions have shown only the human kills, with the exception of the vision I had last night. And I have no idea why I saw her in my vision when we’d had no previous connection. The only conclusion I can come to is I saw her because one of our own was responsible for her death.”

“I’d know if one of our own was the traitor,” he hissed. “They are mine.”

I didn’t have to say the words, “Unless you’re the ones behind the attack,” but by his darkening expression he was able to read the declaration quite clearly from my face. Alasdair and Calista were the only two Drakán I’d met who had that much power, but surely I would’ve recognized their scents at the kill sites.

“I’ve been tracking these Drakán the last two months,” I said. “But their hunger hasn’t dissipated. The kills are more violent. These predators play with their prey, using torture to prolong the death instead of showing mercy. They were close last night—only miles from here—but none of us sensed them. Not even you, Alasdair. I don’t know how that’s possible. The Master’s power must be great to hide from us all.”

The condescension dripped like syrup from my lips, and he absorbed the verbal accusation without flinching. Alasdair stared at me with hatred flashing in his eyes as he walked toward me. I prepared myself for another attack. I’d been goading him on purpose. I always did, looking for the slightest hesitation in the invisible protection around his mind. It would only take once for me to get inside and destroy him completely.

“I will call the Council together and share this news. Whoever is behind this must be stopped. And you must be the one to stop them, Rena.”

I could tell by the gleam in Alasdair’s eyes that he hoped the Master behind these Drakán murders would kill me as well. It would be a lot easier to have someone else do the dirty work for him.

“How is Rena to stop what she isn’t allowed to see?” Erik asked boldly. “You are sending her to her death without the proper preparation. She needs to meet with the Council herself.”

Before I could blink, Erik was on the floor of the study, his throat slashed to ribbons as his blood poured like thick wine onto the Persian rug. His eyes were wild with panic as the instinct to breathe like a human took over all logic and reason. But Erik calmed as he remembered he wasn’t human, and therefore didn’t need to breathe like one.

I knew better than to try to help him, or I’d end up back on the floor. The flesh at his throat was already knitting itself back together.

“You will get your wish, Alasdair,” I said calmly. “I’ll hunt for the Master until I find him. But I won’t be tied down by Council laws once I have him in my grasp. The warrant of execution doesn’t need a name attached to it. Only that I be able to kill any and all responsible for the death of the Drakán I found, and any other deaths that occur during my search. You and the other Archos can’t hoard all of the power all the time. I have the right to kill just as you do. More of a right, actually. And you never know. Whoever this Master is could be after you next.”

Alasdair gave me a hard look. “I’ll get your warrant on your terms this once, Rena. But you’d better be damned sure you have all the guilty parties responsible. I will not have any more shame brought to our clan. If there is, I will punish you until you’re begging for death. Enforcer or no.”

Alasdair’s skin flowed like liquid and his muscles elongated as his dragon form fought to escape his human body. His blood-red scales rippled like rubies, and his teeth gnashed together with enough force to bite a human in two. He launched himself in the air with his powerful haunches and flew through the front window into the rain. The house trembled with his rage, and his roar rumbled across the sky like thunder.

Chapter Six

“Leave the boy alone, Rena,” Calista said. “He’ll be fine in a while. There’s no need to waste the dragon tears. I never understood this need you have for compassion. No doubt the influence of your mother’s blood.”

I’d limped my way down to Erik’s lab after Alasdair’s dramatic departure. It had taken two vials of dragon tears to heal my body, and I’d grabbed a smaller vial for Erik’s wounds.

“He’s my brother. I’d do the same for you. Family should mean something.”

I lifted Erik’s head and poured the vial down his throat. The skin at his neck knitted itself together seamlessly.

“I’ve always told you that your need to have a connection to someone, to belong somewhere, is what is hindering your Drakán powers. You’ll never be great unless you rid yourself of these useless feelings.”

“I get by well enough the way I am.”

Calista rose from the chair in an angry cloud of swirling silk and paced the length of the room. “Getting by is not going to be good enough,” she finally said. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You need to explore your other Drakán powers, see if you can awaken them from dormancy. Otherwise, it’s like going into a fight with only one good arm and leg. You have to be better. Your people need you to be better. Or we will all die.”

“What are you not telling me?”

Calista hesitated and gave me a long look. I could feel her probes, though they were subtle, but she was unable to breach my shields.

I grasped Erik’s arm to help him up, and I could see him fighting with his Drakán instincts to keep from attacking me. Erik may not have had any powers, but the thirst for violence was still there. It was what had made him such an impressive soldier.

We sat on the couch across from Calista. “Is this about the disappearances?” I prompted.

“Just listen.” Calista’s body was rigid, her pale blue eyes intense. “These killings of our people are problematic, but it is something that happens from time to time. Usually when a Drakán grows tired of life and is looking for a way to die. What has me worried, and now has your father worried, are the disappearances. Drakán can’t be kidnapped without some sign of a struggle. It’s just not possible. But these Drakán were. Which leads me to believe that a member from one of the other clans has learned how to bend time and space to their will. There is a new Viator among us.”

A Viator was a Drakán who could time travel. The only living Drakán I knew who could do such a thing was Alasdair. The evidence of who was behind these attacks was stacking itself against Alasdair very neatly.

“When the Atlanteans destroyed our homeland eleven thousand years ago, your grandfather Niklos was one of the five warriors who survived. Their strength was the only thing that kept them from being swept into the black hole the Drakán Realm became. The ability to travel through time was the only way to move from Realm to Realm. It’s how we traveled to Earth to hunt. You know the history of the Banishment. Why the five warriors hated each other so much?”

I nodded in the affirmative as Calista went to the bar and poured herself another whiskey. She sipped it slowly as she walked back to the fireplace and stood there, staring into the flames.

“When the warriors couldn’t decide who should be king, the gods cast them out of the lands forever and into the human world. The warriors, who’d once been friends, separated from each other and became enemies, forming the five clans. As my father and the others mated with humans and procreated, our powers began to diminish little by little, so that very few hold the abilities of long ago.”

“I’m sorry Calista, but what does our history have to do with what’s happening now?” I finally asked. “I know all of this already. You speak to me of urgency, but I am spending my time here listening to stories instead of hunting.”

“You’re right. I’m stalling,” she said. “This isn’t a pleasant story. And there are parts of it you’ve never been told. Parts that very few of the younger Drakán are aware of. Alasdair spoke of shame brought down on our clan, and he was right. My mother was a traitor.”