Chapter 16 #2
Neither seemed to understand me. Both just huddled against the back. Their skins were glistening, and it was at that point that Penn said, “The scent is coming from these…bodies?”
“How many are there, in there?” I asked, my throat feeling raw.
“Two,” Penn said.
“Two…” Dante let out a soft breath. “I think we know what happens to the initiates. They aren’t sucked dry out of their bodies.”
“You mean these…belong to them?” Penn asked.
“My guess is that they were part of those creatures a few days ago. I think they…changed? Transformed? A little later than Mark. Somehow he escaped, but he must have transformed once he was out of the house. Did he know what was happening to him? Did he realize what was going on?” The reality of what we were facing horrified me even more than what we’d imagined.
I had no idea what the end plan was for these creatures, but I doubted even they knew.
“What are they?” Penn asked.
“Some sort of lizard creature.” And then, I knew. “I have a feeling this is what’s behind Erik and Analee’s glamour—you felt snake vibes…and these are in the same family.” It suddenly occurred to me that we couldn’t leave these creatures here.
I had no idea if they knew what they had realized what they were getting into, but the fact is that they were being held captive. And that meant they hadn’t planned on being here. “What do we do now? We can’t just leave them here.”
“Call the cops? But we’re breaking and entering,” Penn said. “And while I think Destiny would understand, I’m not so sure about the rest of the cops. Erik and Analee seem pretty convincing to me and you know they have to have some story already cooked up.”
“We should get out of here,” I said, suddenly aware of the passing time. “I honestly don’t know what to do about these two—”
At that moment, Orik let out a whistle, which echoed down the stairs. Crap, we’d been puttering around too long.
“Hurry, let’s get moving—” But the next moment, Orik came racing down the stairs. He could move pretty fast for such a big man.
“Are they home?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, and they have company. There are at least three others with them.”
“Bodyguards?” Dante asked, as I began eyeing the broken window. We could make it through, but there were still jagged edges of glass and the last thing I wanted was to get stabbed in the gut as I wormed my way through a window.
I grabbed a pillow off of a wing chair that was beneath the window, then clambered up on the chair itself.
Steadying myself, I reached up and used the pillow to protect my hands as I tried to break away the remaining shards.
Then I unzipped the sham and tossed the stuffed insert onto the ground, resting the sham over the edge of the window.
But, before we could flee, there was a loud noise and the clattering of footsteps. Light flooded the basement. I turned just in time to see Analee and Eric stop on the stairs as they took in what was happening.
Erik let out a snarl that didn’t sound human, and that was when I saw three men behind him.
All five of them were staring at us, their eyes reflecting the light, much like a cat’s eyeshine.
The illusion surrounding them began to dissolve, much like a watercolor painting that had been hosed down.
The colors of their skin and clothing faded, as their true natures came into view.
To the side, Penn had been muttering some incantation and now I felt a shield form around me. It had to be some sort of group protection spell.
Dante and Orik held out their blades, waiting. I pulled out the dagger that Dante had loaned me, wishing I were wearing better clothes for fighting.
“Who are these two?” I asked, deciding there was no use in keeping my mouth shut. “Did you capture Mark Ryle the way you captured them? Only he escaped, didn’t he?”
Erik and Analee, by then fully in their reptilian form, seemed quicker than they had in human form. Analee leapt, landing on the floor near me. She was almost my height, looking almost exactly like the pair of creatures locked in the cages.
“You have no idea what you’re messing with,” she said, her voice a combination of clicks and hisses. The words sounded ethereal, as though she hadn’t really said them aloud, but somehow they echoed through the room.
“Then tell us. What are you? Some form of dragon?” I didn’t think they would answer, but I hoped for some clue. Even though I suspected we were going to have to kill them, we needed more information for our records. How many of them were there? Where had they come from? What did they want?
Erik lifted something that looked like a key fob. He pressed the button and there was a noise from the cells behind us. The doors were swinging open. The pair of creatures inside began to move toward us. Holy hell, were they going to work with Erik and his buddies? I hadn’t expected that.
“Do you really care?” Analee asked. “You’re not going to be around much longer.”
“Then tell me,” I said. “If you’re planning on killing us, tell me what you are.”
She looked over at Erik and let out a series of grunts, clicks, and whistles. He answered in kind and it sounded like they were having an argument. Finally, Erik let out a loud growl and Analee shrunk back.
After a moment, she turned back at me. “You want to know? Erik says to tell you, while I’d rather you just mysteriously vanished. But since he’s our leader, I will obey.”
Now I was the one confused. I glanced at Erik—or the beast that had been Erik. “Yes, we want to know.”
“Very well. We’re Darconians. We are, indeed, related to Dragonkin, but we’re creatures of the water, rather than of the air.
As for Mark, he chose to join us. And then, when it was actually happening, he changed his mind and managed to get free.
But it was too late. Once the transformation begins, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
He’s out there now, wandering your streets, looking for a way back to the Mother. ”
The Mother. Was this the mother they supposedly worshiped? But then her words clicked. They were creatures of the water, and he was looking for a way back to the Mother. Of course. The mother was the ocean—it had to be.
“It wouldn’t be hard for him to find his way to the docks. You can smell the water in the air,” I said.
“You begin to understand. That he has no guide is regrettable, but we can’t be everywhere,” Erik said.
He and his goons—who had also dropped their illusion—spread out.
“As to why we’re here, we only seek to expand our race.
Too many of our kind have been destroyed over the years, strangled by the pollution that litters the water and shores.
You have no case against us. We only accept those who are willing…
Those who have nothing to lose. Those who have a history with our kind. ”
I froze. As much as I wanted to plow into them right now, consent could alter everything. I motioned for the others to hold up. “You mean Mark chose to become one of you?”
“Yes, he chose to become a Darconian. As did the pair behind you.” Analee’s voice was cool, almost to the point of ice.
“Each person we take has a faint connection, a drop of our blood line in their DNA that allows the transformation to take place. That’s why you couldn’t understand Erik’s speech tonight.
Only those who have that inner spark can fully comprehend it.
Others find themselves charmed, but quickly drift away. ”
“Do you have proof of this?” Dante asked.
He had figured out what I had. If they did, indeed, have proof that Mark and the others had voluntarily stepped up to be transformed, it would be no different than a human who chose to become a vampire, who offered themselves up for the transformation.
And that compliance would hold up in court.
If they chose to file charges against us for assault, we could be tried with everything from assault to murder, depending on our actions.
Analee continued down the stairs. She walked past me, ignoring my dagger, to open the desk drawer and pull out a file folder, handing it to me.
I sheathed my blade, holding her gaze, and opened the file, flipping through the papers. Each was a signed consent form, along with a fingerprint, agreeing to undergo the “Ritual of Danerial.”
Attached to each form was a description of what the ritual entailed, including giving up their humanity for membership in the Darconian race. The stack of signed consents was thick. If I had to guess, there were over one hundred papers in the file, and the dates went back to 1908.
I glanced over at Dante and nodded, then turned back to Analee. “Why? Why this way?”
“We are seeking our lost ones. They crave a sense of completeness. They long for a family they’ve never had.
And for those with the spark of our blood in their veins, that longing will never be fulfilled until they return to the Mother.
Many were orphans, who never met their families.
But each one—each member has an inner drive to return to the fold.
And they’ll never feel complete until they find their way back to us. ”
And then I understood. Like I had been driven to find out more about my heritage, so these people—with the faintest trickle of Darconian blood in their veins—felt lost and out of synch with the world. Their race was so strong that the smallest fraction of DNA could create unrest.
Feeling defeated, and yet understanding, I handed her back the file folder. “They need to know who they are. Where they’ve come from.”
She took it, and a faint light in her eyes gleamed. It felt almost like a smile.
“Our connection to the Mother is so strong, it echoes through time, it fills our hearts, and our waking and sleeping lives. Mark was afraid, at the end. Before we could calm him down, he escaped. We could have helped him through that one bitter point where every Darconian wonders if they made the right decision. But after meeting the Mother, every fear is erased. We’re searching for him, so we can guide him home. ”
“Where’s home?” Dante asked. He, too, sheathed his blade.
“Far out in the ocean, down in the depths, in the city of the ancients. We came to land at one point, before humans were even a spark in the Mother’s eye, but we could not exist without her embrace.
The distance is a physical pain, a deep hunger that we cannot shake away.
” Erik motioned to the two creatures we had found. They joined him.
“Why were they caged?” Penn asked, stepping forward.
“For their own good. The transformation can be violent, and so we keep our changelings caged during the actual process. It prevents them hurting others, or themselves,” Analee said.
I sat down at the desk, and looked around. “Why do you take the money?”
“We have to have a place to live here in your society. A few of us, like Erik and I, are masters at disguise and we can interact fairly well. Others need more help.”
“How do you know where to look? Were you ordered into this job?” Orik asked.
Erik shook his head. “We’ve volunteered for this position, and we need to fund the meetings, as well as our research.
We have developed a long list of places where our lost children might be found, so we travel all around the world, looking for them, and calling them home.
” He let out a series of odd clicks. “We do not wish to hurt you. Neither do we seek exposure.”
I thought it through. Mark would have been forever searching for a part of himself that he couldn’t find on his own, if he hadn’t joined them. Yes, this would hurt Wendy, but she was a selkie. If anybody understood, it would be her. She had her pod, and now Mark had his family.
“Mark married a selkie,” I said.
“The call of the sea was in her blood. He responded subconsciously to the energy. But that alone wasn’t enough.
Being with her couldn’t make up for being with his own kind.
And Darconian blood will beat out most other blood,” Erik said.
“Tell her, if you like, but enjoin her to silence. Most of the our potential changelings are alone, cut off from friends and family by their own sense of distance.”
I didn’t fully trust them—there was something cool and aloof about them that struck me as potentially dangerous.
But not every race had a human side, and not every race lived by our rules.
They had stuck to the law of the land, secured contracts, made sure their recruits understood what was going on.
They were nomads, wandering the land, searching for their long-lost kin to bring them out of exile.
“Why don’t you come out in the open, like most of the Supe races?” I asked.
“Because, we are among the ancients. We’re older than Atlantis, we’re older than the oldest vampire, we’re older than the Fae,” Analee said.
“We live in our watery depths, as we did so many thousands of years ago. We do not seek to be a part of the modern world. Discovery often leads to destruction, as you know.”
And that, was enough. I turned to the others. “We should leave.”
Orik nodded, as did Penn and Dante. They silently picked up their equipment. As we headed for the stairs, Analee and Erik didn’t try to stop us.
I turned back. “Did you find anybody tonight? Any of your lost ones?” I asked.
Erik paused, then said, “One. She’s been alone most of her life. I think she’ll come home to us. But know this—we never force the issue. If she chooses to keep her life on the land, we’ll note where she is and leave her alone.”
He was telling the truth. My heart told me to just leave matters be.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for explaining. We’ll take our leave now.” And we headed up the stairs, ready to stamp “closed” on Mark Ryle’s case file.