Chapter 7 #2
“Landry? Landry? Can you hear me?” he asked, as he studied her eyes between the oily strands of hair.
Landry’s eyes changed from distrustful to wide and limpid. “C-Caden, is that you? Oh, my God! What’s going on? Where am I? Am I--I in ice?”
Iolaire let out a concerned hoot. It didn’t know if this really was Landry or not.
Caden didn’t respond. He was looking into her eyes.
The voice was right. Not like the other mocking voice she had used in the bedroom.
But, then again, the Behemoth had been able to mimic her normal voice before switching to its own version.
“C-Caden, why aren’t you saying anything?! You have to help me out of here!” She cried and weakly struggled against the ice restraints. “I-I’m going to f-f-freeze!”
“I don’t think so,” Caden said softly. “Even if you were human you wouldn’t freeze, but you’re a Shifter now so I doubt you’d even feel the cold.”
“A-a Shifter? Caden, are you crazy?” Landry cried. “It’s me! Landry! I’m as human--as human as--”
“So you don’t remember going through the wall?” he asked.
“The wall--”
“I can see you in her eyes, Behemoth,” Caden said as he caught sight of a smirk on her lips that she failed to hide and a shining light in the darkness.
She went silent and regarded him without any emotion. Iolaire’s wings curled around itself. It didn’t like being near even this small piece of the Behemoth.
“Is she still in there? Can she be brought back?” Caden didn’t expect answers to these questions.
“Of course,” the Behemoth said with another secret smile. “Why would I give up the protection of her soul? It makes you and all the other Dragon Shifters hesitate. You value the human in her because of the humans in all of you.”
Caden knew that he wasn’t going to be sure of whether this was true or a lie.
Not now. Maybe not ever. Iolaire twittered that they should get back to Valerius and Raziel.
It wanted the comfort of Raziel’s wings and it wanted to make sure that its mate had fully recovered.
Caden agreed, but he just couldn’t move quite yet.
“Why are you doing this?” Caden breathed.
He hadn’t even meant to ask this question, let alone again, to expect an answer, but the Behemoth did answer, in a way.
“Why are you doing this?” the Behemoth asked.
Caden frowned. “Because Iolaire and I were meant to be joined. Through me Iolaire gets to experience this world and through Iolaire I get to experience what it is to be more than myself.”
“And why would it be any different for me?” the Behemoth asked.
“Because you hold no love for the people you’ve possessed,” Caden said, feeling it as much as Iolaire telling him it was so. “You’re not meant to be with Landry or any of the people you’ve anchored yourself to.”
A smirk crossed Landry’s face that made her so ugly compared to her normal looks. It was as if she wasn’t her at all.
“Human souls are weak. Like candle flames in a hurricane,” she said. “I don’t anchor myself in them so much as offer my protection.”
“And then? Landry, Ross and Harvey would never have hurt their parents. Yet you had them hostage,” Caden pointed out. “You might promise many things but then you break every one!”
“Only to those who do not listen carefully to what I offer,” the Behemoth said.
“All you offer is slavery and death,” Caden said, certain of this too.
“To humans, yes! But to my fellow Spirits I show another way!” The Behemoth’s eyes filled with an eerie light.
It reminded Caden of dead light--white, silver light that was cold and terrible--that led people astray.
“What other way?” Caden scoffed.
“Have you not heard of the power struggle that takes place between the human soul and the Spirit after joining? Even Valerius and Raziel fought terrible battles over who would be in charge!” The Behemoth sounded utterly amused.
Caden did remember Valerius telling him that many Spirits and the humans they joined with did have trouble agreeing to things in the beginning.
He and Iolaire hadn’t had such problems, but he liked to think that it was because both of them were easy going.
He definitely wanted the best for Iolaire and vice versa so they had been working things out together.
“Shifters and their Spirits find harmony,” Caden told her.
“No, Spirits bend to Shifters,” the Behemoth said with a shake of her head. “They must because this is your world and when they bond with you, they become lesser.”
Caden scowled. “No, that’s not--”
“I am proof of that! I did not bond with Landry or any of the others! I just use them as the empty shells they are,” the Behemoth said with evident glee.
“The Spirits who see what I have done realize that they don’t have to bind themselves to you.
They can just take your bodies and have the experiences they want here. ”
Caden thought of the press of so many Spirits wanting to bond with humans.
But there were limits now on who they were compatible with.
They also had to wait until people were in near death situations.
But what the Behemoth was suggesting was that the Spirits simply push out or, at least, push to the side the souls of the humans.
No, he and Iolaire breathed, feeling how wrong that was.
At that moment, a car came around the serpentine road and the headlights caught both him and Landry in full beam. Caden turned, shading his eyes, as the car came to a stop and a window was rolled down.
“Are you the White Dragon King?” A young woman asked in breathless tones.
“Yes, yes, I am. There’s nothing to see here,” he said stupidly. There was clearly a whole lot to see here. “Move along now.”
“Is that a--a bomber?” A guy called out of the driver’s side.
There were at least three more people in the backseat who were urging the two in the front to get out so that they could see too. Caden grimaced.
Iolaire, sometimes I really wished we had Force powers so we could say: these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. And by droids, I mean us and Landry.
Iolaire cocked its head to the side. The reference was a little beyond it.
Don’t worry, buddy, Caden said. I promise once things calm down I’ll show you all of these things.
Iolaire twittered with enthusiasm, but then went back to being anxious about Landry. Or really, the Behemoth, and all of these people around. There were a few flashes. Caden blinked rapidly as his night vision was impacted by the bright light.
“Can we get selfies with you?” the girl from the passenger side asked.
“Ah, not right now. I have to--”
“Oh, my God, I want one with the ice princess!” the guy from the driver’s side crowed.
“Me too!” one of the people in the back called and tried to climb out of the car.
“Guys, really, I need you to--holy hell,” Caden gasped.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that there was a rusty set of double doors cut into the wall opened with a screech. Behind them were dozens of people. They all stared at Caden with identical looks of hate. Their eyes were full of night shine.
“Get in the car!” Caden commanded the kids.
They had all frozen at the sight of the silent, staring group of people in the doorway.
“What the hell is going on?” the girl whimpered.
“This is bad. Way bad,” the guy mumbled.
“Get. In. The. Car,” Caden repeated.
“You can’t stop us all,” Landry said simply.
And then all hell broke loose. The kids moved to jump back into the car.
The people in the doorway surged forward as if a tidal wave of hate.
Caden turned and used his ice breath to push the people back into the tunnel they were rushing out of like rats.
The car revved up and then, with screaming tires, raced forward directly into Caden’s frost breath.
Thankfully, they had the windows up, but a layer of ice coated the windscreen and the passenger side windows.
There was a scream as the driver lost control and the car veered to the right, towards the sidewalk and the bookstore.
Caden couldn’t do anything. He watched in horror as the car headed towards a plate glass window with a book display beyond.
And then there was something between the building and the car.
Anwar!
The Silver Dragon Shifter was naked and must have been flying overhead when he and Evren saw the ensuing catastrophe.
Anwar put his hands out and stopped the car.
Thankfully, the young man had taken his foot off of the gas, but there was still a furrow in the concrete sidewalk behind one of his heels.
Caden though did not have time to thank the Silver Dragon for appearing just when he needed him to. The momentary lapse in his ice breath had allowed the Behemoth possessed humans to surge past their partially frozen brethren. They surrounded Caden before he had a chance to blink.
A man dressed in a ripped business suit punched him in the stomach before a woman in a yellow babydoll dress slammed her fist into the left side of his cheek.
A slip of a girl in ratty shorts and a t-shirt that had seen better days kicked him in the shins.
There were more people who struck him that he did not have a chance to look at.
Caden curled over, this time in pain. Unlike human blows, the Behemoth’s possessed ones could pack a punch.
Caden put his arms over his head and tried to shield his body.
Got to shift, Iolaire! Caden got out, but the concentration he needed to turn into their Dragon form kept getting hit, kicked, kneed and throttled right out of him.
Pain bloomed in every limb. He tried pushing through the crowd of dozens of the possessed but they surged back like the tide against him and he was thrown back into the fray once more.
He landed on his back and got stomped. All the air was driven out of his lungs and he gasped in pain and shock.
Iolaire gave out frantic cries of confusion and agony.
There was a flash of light. The night turned to day. To his horror, he saw some of the possessed become like x rays before they disintegrated into black ash and were blown away. Caden wanted to scream for Anwar to stop! These people might be innocent! They might be able to be saved!
But someone kicked the side of his head and Caden’s consciousness flickered.
Then a young boy’s face was inches from him.
The boy opened his lips and Caden saw a gap-toothed grin as the boy exhaled some kind of gas that had Caden’s vision blurring and his limbs going lax even as he struggled to defend himself.
V-Valerius, i-in trouble! Caden got out.
Someone had a hold of his ankles. They were dragging him across the street.
He was going in and out of consciousness as more foul breath was passing over his mouth and nose.
He saw the threshold of the doors into the tunnels.
They were taking him somewhere deep inside of Reach.
The doors clanged shut behind him and the boy blew more gas into his face.
Consciousness left Caden and Iolaire.