The Dragon's Eyes (6 page)

Mordon lived in a kingdom on Mokii which, like
Shomodii, chose not use electricity. While he had a tub that was filled and
heated by servants, he had very little exposure to the advantages of basic
indoor water systems.

I turned on the overhead, showed him how to adjust
the temperature, and fifteen minutes later I started getting worried. Vivian
and I chatted, mostly about how she went from a tree-hugger to a lawyer in
three years. Apparently all of her cases were fighting for rights and
eighty-five percent of her clients were LGBT. She was still the peace-loving,
determined woman who was brilliant when and where it counted. She used to have
ditzy moments, but she seemed to have grown up since having Sammy.

“So do you have a job?” she asked. “I bet learning
magic is a time-consuming thing.”

I shrugged. “It’s a different lifestyle on Duran. A
few weeks before I went to Duran, I found a book lying on my lawn. I took it
inside and put it on the bookshelf.” I paused to remember the details of the
past three years and found myself smiling. “It was the luckiest thing I ever
did. If I hadn’t accepted it, I don’t know where I would be right now.”

“You never said goodbye.”

“I did, though. Kiro knocked on my door one day,
introducing himself as Edward. He was so odd, but I had to get to work. He told
me there were creatures attacking, killing people, to find this book. He was
going to take it and leave me and everyone close to me to die until he realized
I could do magic. That was why weird stuff always happened to me; I was
subconsciously doing magic my entire life. Then he decided the book chose me as
its Guardian.”

“He sounds like a jerk.”

“He isn’t. I mean, his twin brother had just died and
he was told to collect the book. He had to save as many people as possible and
that meant getting the book off Earth. Edward gave me the choice to take the
responsibility and become his apprentice in magic, and I said I would.

“It was too dangerous to have my scent around you
again, so I called you to say goodbye. I told you I had to leave the city so you
wouldn’t come back to my apartment that had the scent of the book all over it.”

I pulled my book out of my bag.

“He explained everything to me, took me to Duran, and
started to teach me magic. He’s a great mentor and a fantastic role model. You
know none of Mother’s boyfriends or those awful step-fathers were worth the
dirt they walked on. Edward is a Guardian; it’s in his blood to protect and
help those in need. I know anything I learn from him is right and he would
never do anything to hurt me.”

“So if he’s the one who teaches you magic, where is
he?”

“He’s missing. He went on mission a few weeks ago and
I haven’t seen him since.”

“Are you worried?”

“Of course I am. He’s so much more powerful than I
am, but I want to be there to back him up. Then there’s Divina, the first
person I met on Duran. She was just amazing off the bat. I mean, the epitome of
hotness, for both Earth and Duran.”

“Excuse me!” She threw a couch pillow at me. “You
used to think I was hot!”

“Yeah, well, you’re a mother now,” I laughed. She
grabbed the pillow off the floor and tried to smother me, but quickly relented
when I tickled her. “No, you’re really great, but Divina is perfect for me. Her
personality is… difficult for some people to handle. She will openly use her
looks to get her way. She’s cunning and stubborn, but she’s loving and just
fantastic all around. She calls me stupid, she takes me to dangerous places,
and she bribes me like a dog… but she doesn’t whine and argue for the sake of
arguing. She does the right thing for the right reason, every time.”

“You’ve been with her so long and you love her so
much, why haven’t you two had kids? I mean, you love kids. I remember one night
you asked me if we ever got married, if we could have four kids.”

“You said not a chance in Hell.”

“So when are you gonna have them? Is she making you
wait?”

“It’s complicated.” We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Anyway, you asked about my job. I live on a continent called Shomodii. It’s a
pretty wild place. We have territories, like huge properties. I live in a
little cabin in the woods with Edward and we have no electricity or plumbing. I
mean, there’s an
outhouse
. On Shomodii, it could be completely sunny and
warm one day, then a blizzard the next day. I have house chores. Edward and I
have to wash clothes, bathe in a hot springs, and even hunt our food. Well…
Edward hunts… and does all the skinning. I hate that part, so I normally clean
up afterwards. There are fruits and vegetables, and bark to snack on, but both
of us primarily eat meat.”

“Bark?” she asked with a look.

I pulled out a piece of Wigknot bark and handed it to
her. She stared at it like I gave her a cricket, so, with a sigh, I took it
from her hand. “Open,” I said. She opened her mouth and I put the bark inside.
“Chew it like gum.”

She chewed carefully until the taste sunk in and her
eyes widened. “It’s peppermint.”

“It’s also really good for you. Sometimes we have to
go to Anoshii to buy stuff, but Edward is very wealthy. We hardly ever need
money. I have a cute little pet that seems to be a cross between a cat and a
squirrel and defends me like a guard dog. Edward has a really creepy crow that
stares at me like he wants to eat me,” I said. She gave me a bit of a sour
frown. “What?”

“You are having such an awesome life. All I have is
Sammy, and I work so much I hardly ever see him. He’s amazing, really, but I
miss his dad. I miss my friends from Texas. All I do every day is work. I want
to go with you.”

“You’re probably going to get that chance. We have to
get Sammy to safety, but I didn’t leave you in danger the first time and I’m
not leaving you in danger this time. You two can stay with me and Edward on
Duran until Sammy’s father finds you. Only… it’s a one-bedroom cabin.”

“Do you have holidays on Duran?”

“Yes, but most of them are a little religious. Each
land has different holidays based on their religion before the reformation.
It’s a long story. Edward has really interesting accounts on how all the little
holiday traditions began, like setting our boots out on the winter and summer solstice.
Actually, it turns out he was just teasing me about that one; Edward loves
pranks.”

“Yeah, like you didn’t try to prank me every damn
Halloween.”

“I was good at it, too. Except our last Halloween.
Remember?”

“You mean, when you found out I was going to be Red
Riding Hood and you dressed as a ‘hot’ werewolf.”

I laughed. “Let me in, Little Red, I have a package
for you.” I had a basket of her favorite cookies at the time.

“Don’t huff and puff, wolf, I’ll let you in,” she
blushed as she quoted herself. “We made out on the couch for an hour before my
dad got home. I thought you were going to die of embarrassment when he glared
at you, still standing at the door, and said you were to join us for dinner.”

“He was reaching for his gun.”

“It wasn’t loaded.”

“He was going to bludgeon me to death with it, then.”
The man had glared at me all through spaghetti, and it didn’t help that Vivian
hadn’t changed out of her costume. Then he took all the cookies and sat between
us on the couch until it was a suitable hour for me to escape.

“You can’t kill someone for dating your daughter,”
she argued.

“It was Texas. The state gives you a shovel the day
your daughter is born.”

A few minutes later, Mordon came in with a towel
wrapped around himself, still soaking wet. He had a pathetic expression on his
face, but Vivian wasn’t looking at his face.

“The water got cold. Please fix it. Please, please,
please!” He looked so desperate. At least his pleas distracted Vivian from
checking him out.

“That’s a forty gallon tank!”

When she said that, I couldn’t blame him for running
out of hot water; Vivian didn’t realize just how hot he liked it. “You’ll have
to wait until more water heats up,” I said.

Vivian ordered pizza and Mountain Dew for dinner, but
I drew the line at beer. I was responsible for my younger friend and I wasn’t
going to let him drink. While Vivian puréed some vegetable-infused mac and
cheese for Sammy, Mordon sat down next to me on the couch.

“Can we bring pizza back to Duran?” Mordon asked.

“I wish. I know how to make it, though.”

“I get it now. I get why you didn’t take Vivian with
you,” he said. “I have seen the way you interact with Divina and everything
about you betrays your love for her. With Vivian, you act friendly and a bit
protective, but it isn’t love. Your personalities don’t fit.”

“We were great together.”

“How long were you together?”

“We met in high school, so I was fourteen. Unlike on
Duran, humans can date in school. In fact, parents usually can’t stop their
kids from dating, and they can’t force their kids to marry in this country. The
first thing she ever said to me was that smiles are contagious. I told her I
was vaccinated.”

“So you knew quickly that you wanted to be with her?”

I laughed. “Oh, no. We hated each other. I thought
she was totally superficial. She talks that way and hung out with those people.
I was no better, all sarcastic and solitary; I never found a group I fit into
and was put back into boarding school twice. I returned in the middle of my
senior year and she had just broken up with a guy. When he started stalking
her, I told her she could stay at my house after school, since my mother was
never home, but it turned out she had to take care of her family, so I walked
her home every afternoon and to school every morning. The guy got the message
and I started hanging out at her place longer and longer.”

“So you became really good friends?”

“Yes. Then we went on dates and went to college
together and everything was perfect.”

“I see. That’s why you left her.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t. You make no sense most of the
time, but I do understand the need for adventure. You hate perfect. If things
are going perfect, you get bored.”

Instead of arguing with him, I decided to change the
subject. “What’s your nose telling you?” I asked. I knew he had a phenomenal
sense of smell; he could smell intentions, power, moods…

“The mother is innocent, human, and powerless. Her
scent is a little off, but that’s because of Sammy. That baby… he isn’t human
or sago. He has a little bit of human in him, like you do. Your scent is like
sago with a little human, because Ronez was sago. Sammy’s mother is definitely
human, but his father is something not human or sago. I have smelled it
before.”

“From where?” I asked.

“From you. You once came in contact with either the
father or someone else from the same world.”

I let that sink in for a moment. “Well, that might
narrow things down. Vivian said he was a friend of mine. I really don’t know
many people that are not sago or human, but I might have been in contact with
one of Edward or Divina’s informants. When did you smell this?”

“I don’t remember; it was a very long time ago. I
never forget a scent, though. Anyway, that’s not what is important. The baby is
powerful. I wouldn’t get too close to him if I were you.”

“Is he dangerous?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, but I don’t mean he will attack you. He’s
nearly as powerful as you were when I met you. You’re even more so now. I
remember how you were when we met.”

“Like a bull in a China shop.”

“Like a what? Never mind. You told me what happened
when your powerful father was around you as a baby. I think you should be
careful around him.”

Mordon

I was woken by a scream. I sat up in the bed and listened, but there
was no sound of danger or panic. When I breathed deeply, I scented no threat.
The sound of a door opening broke the silence a moment before Dylan knocked on
my door gently.

“I’m awake.”

Dylan and I were both given guest rooms upstairs with
a connecting bathroom. Vivian’s room was down the hall, directly across from
Sammy’s room, so my first thought was that it was Vivian who screamed… but it
sounded like it had been a little girl.

Dylan came in and shut the door quietly behind him.
“Did you hear the scream?” he asked.

“I did, but I didn’t hear anything after it. I don’t
smell fear.”

“I thought I dreamed it, but if you heard it, too…”

“It wasn’t Vivian then? It sounded like a little
girl. Maybe a neighbor.”

“No. I’ve heard her voice before, but it wasn’t
Vivian. It had to have been a dream.”

“I think every little girl’s scream sounds the same
and it makes more sense that a little girl nearby had a nightmare than for us
both to been dreaming the same thing at the same time.”

“I don’t think we would hear a neighbor screaming.
Besides, I don’t have normal dreams; I only ever have Guardian warnings. I’m
going to look around downstairs, just because. You check the second floor.”

He left the room quietly and I heard his steps on the
stairs. I knew he would call me if he needed me, so I searched the upstairs
floor. There was nothing suspicious in either guest room, the bathroom, or the
small storage room, but when I got to Sammy’s room, there was a strange sound.
I opened the door softly so I wouldn’t scare him, but the baby wasn’t asleep.

The first thing that struck me was how cold it was,
and I quickly realize why; the window was wide open and the white curtains were
blowing with the cold wind. The second mystery was that Sammy was sitting near
a small light attached to the wall by his crib, cuddling a stuffed toy. When he
heard me, he turned to me and held his arms up to be held.

“How did you get out of your cradle? And who left the
window open?” I asked as I picked him up. He didn’t appear injured, but I
couldn’t see how he got out of his crib without falling.

Now, I honestly couldn’t smell danger as much as I
could the intention of a person or creature, but nothing about this was right.
Because I used my sense of smell more than anything else to guide me, it took
me a minute to realize what was wrong; the energy. The nominal energy in the
room felt off.

“Wheel his crib into your room. We’ll all sleep in
there and nail the window shut if it gets creepy,” Dylan said from the doorway.

“Is there anything odd downstairs?” I handed Sammy to
him.

“No. But I put Sammy to bed and I know the window was
closed when I did so. God, he’s cold.”

I crossed the room to shut the window and it slammed
a little too hard, which caused the light to flicker out. It seemed reasonable
for there to be electric lights in a child’s room instead of fire, so I really
didn’t think much of it, but to my surprise, it became cooler, as if the dim,
small light generated heat.

Sammy started crying and buried his face against
Dylan’s arm. “Shhh,” he whispered to Sammy. “Jiggle the nightlight and press it
harder into the wall.” Dylan rocked him gently and took him out of the room
into the lit hallway.

I moved the crib towards the door and reached for the
light, expecting it to be hot. It wasn’t even warm. I pushed it back into the
socket and it turned back on with no problem, then I made sure to shut the door
behind me before wheeling the crib into the guest room. When Dylan laid Sammy
down, the baby didn’t fuss at all.

Dylan and I lay staring at the ceiling, listening to
every sound for ten minutes before Dylan got up and left without a word, only
to return a few minutes later with a can of salt. He spread the salt on the
floor in the doorways and on the windowsill.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m paranoid, okay? This will keep witches, ghosts,
and poltergeists out.”

“How does it do that?”

“Shut up. It’s human magic. Just go to sleep.”

I had trouble finding sleep.

*          *          *

The next morning, Vivian was out the door bright and
early, leaving us to be stared at by a quite pompous nanny. I knew exactly how
to deal with these creatures; fire. The first time she raised her voice to the
child, within the first hour and over something trivial as him throwing a toy,
I set her hat on fire. A freak accident, I insisted. Dylan didn’t help matters
by rolling on the floor with laughter.

Sammy cried and struggled as the nanny tried to get
him dressed, as if she were being too rough with him. We didn’t interfere even
as he reached out to us, begging us to save him from the torture.

“Does she smell safe?” Dylan whispered.

“I wouldn’t have let her in the house if she didn’t.”
I took another sniff just for good measure. “The nanny is rude and arrogant,
but otherwise harmless.”

“Hey, did she tell us her name?” Dylan asked. I
shrugged.

Vivian’s house was larger than most houses of Duran,
but quite a bit smaller than the castle I lived at. While my father’s was full
of antique and delicate works of art, from the paintings on the wall to the
furniture we used, it was like living in a museum. I could spend days without
seeing my father, yet he would know instantly if I escaped.

Vivian’s house had scuff marks on furniture and color
strewn about carelessly. The beds were huge and soft and the bathrooms each had
an array of bath salts, bubbles, and oils. Her house had a bit of an elegant
touch with the black leather couch and the glass tables, but I could see that
comfort came first here.

By the front door, I found a bowl of small, edible
objects wrapped in plastic. When I asked Dylan what they were, he said that
they were Halloween Candy. What a long name for such a tiny bite of food. I
tried one and immediately spit it out. It was overwhelmingly sweet, but not
with the natural sweetness found in fruit, and it was gummy. Dylan laughed and
explained that most children loved to eat it more than anything else.

He described the tradition of Halloween as a night
when children dressed up as monsters and went to people’s houses. People at
those houses gave them candy, because otherwise the children would throw eggs
or toilet paper at their house. When I asked if people were afraid of the
children, he laughed at me as if I were an idiot.

He explained Christmas to me, which I decided he had
made up. If he had not, children were treated as royalty here, receiving gifts
and candy at every turn. This made sense, because Sammy’s toys were everywhere
and there was Halloween Candy in the house. When I grew up, I didn’t have any
toys. I told Dylan my thoughts and he nodded sadly.

“I know. I didn’t either. It’s called neglect when
your parent is rich and you have nothing to play with as a baby. My mother had
enough money to send me to private school, just to get rid of me. I grew up in
a quiet house. Noise irritated my mother and she would usually have the
boyfriend of the week punish me if I made any noise. At least Sammy’s life will
be a happier one. That is, if we can keep the beast from possessing him. Hey,
check this out.” He pulled me into the kitchen and faced me toward a huge white
box, taller and wider than me.

“A fridge,” I said. He gaped at me. “I don’t always
tune you out. It is in the kitchen and we have nothing like it on Duran. You
said there was a dishwasher and oven, but I think they would be smaller. So
this must be a fridge.”

He sighed dramatically. “I wanted you to be amazed.”
He reached for the handles in the middle of the box and pulled it open. I was
amazed, but I hid it. The insides were full of light and glass shelf upon glass
shelf of colorful packages of food.

“Your Earth uses a lot of glass as furniture. You
never told me that.”

“Well, this is plastic. Acrylic is much lighter than
glass and is less dangerous when it breaks.”

Duran didn’t use a lot of plastic because it was
deemed environmentally unfriendly. It was regulated and extremely expensive.
Mostly it was used for construction and indoor water plumbing.

To distract me, he turned the television on to what
he called the Animal Planet. After he assured me that the show really was
talking about Earth, not a planet of animals, I was happy to be distracted and
spent several hours learning all about wild animals. Ten minutes in, Dylan sat
down next to me with Sammy and the baby climbed into my lap. Dylan had all
kinds of interesting information on the animals we were seeing, which both
Sammy and I listened to eagerly. The jaguar was my favorite.

At lunch time, the nanny got out a jar of baby
cream-of-meat. The stuff looked disgusting. I knew babies couldn’t eat solid
food, but meat should not come in that texture or color. The fact that Sammy
kept trying to play with his food told me he definitely should have been on
solid food.

Dylan was staring at the jar in revulsion. When the
nanny tried to feed it to Sammy, Dylan grabbed the jar and threw it in the
trash. “That is the nastiest stuff I have ever seen. I wouldn’t feed it to a
dog.”

“It’s none of your business!” the nanny yelled and
stomped out. The woman’s only job was to take care of the child, but we had
spent way more time with him than she had that day. She clearly did not care
about him at all.

Dylan rummaged through the fridge before pulling out
a bowl of fruit and a clear sack of vegetables. I tried to act dignified and
not play with the bag, but the texture was so smooth. It was strong but as
flexible as cloth. It was completely clear like glass, but not invisible. “This
is plastic too?”

“Yep. Americans use it all the time. It’s in
everything, including a lot of food we eat.” Dylan told me that he had used his
magic to examine the ingredients in the baby food and saw that it contained
many gross chemicals. He stopped cleaning the vegetables to frown at me. “Do
you think he can eat solid food?” he asked.

His mother had given him blended food, but he looked
old enough to me that he should at least be eating soft solids. “He looks big
enough, but I’ll check first.” I washed my hands at the sink, went over to the
baby, and held my finger in front of his face. He promptly bit my finger. “Oh,
yes, he is ready. He has fangs.”

Sammy raised his hands with his fingers bent like
claws and did an adorable impression of a roar.

I washed my hands and helped Dylan prepare the
vegetables. Dylan sat the bowl down and fed Sammy what he called a pea. They
didn’t smell very good, and apparently they didn’t taste very good either.
Dylan handed him the spoon, and the baby threw the spoon down, then spit the pea
across the room.

“Peas are yummy. You can’t have fruit until you eat
them,” Dylan said.

He handed Sammy a new spoon and walked away. The baby
then picked up the bowl and threw it at Dylan. I fell out of my chair laughing
and every time Dylan glared at me, it just made it worse. I easily got Sammy to
eat his peas and then gave him fruit.

We may have been a little unkind to the nanny by
hiding the baby and pretending to be napping at the time. Instead of searching
for Sammy, she watched what Dylan informed me was a game show on TV.

The second time the nanny yelled at Sammy, I didn’t
get the chance to do anything. Dylan and I were working on a plan to get Sammy
off of Earth, when we heard the nanny yell at Sammy upstairs. Before we could
make it to the stairs, there was a scream. She ran down the stairs and out the
door, yelling that she couldn’t deal with the demon child anymore.

We hurried upstairs to find the little angel calmly
snuggling his teddy. He looked up at us, smiled, and held his arms open to be
picked up. I picked him up and he squealed with joy.

“Careful not to spoil him. I hear that’s bad for
babies,” Dylan warned. Baby Sammy nailed him square on his chest with the
teddy, then squealed again as I laughed. “Don’t encourage him.”

Right as I was about to say something, I heard the
front door shut quietly. I held up my finger to Dylan and even the baby stopped
babbling. Danger. There was danger in the air. I could smell it so strongly
that my eyes itched.

“Vivian isn’t supposed to be home for hours,”
Dylan’s voice spoke in my mind. This was something we learned to do quite by
accident not long after we met. Oddly enough, it was only between the two of
us.

“That is not the mother. We have to get out of
here. Now.”

Dylan went to the window and pointed out. There was a
very small, metal balcony with stairs leading to the ground. He slowly pushed
the window open, wincing when it creaked.
“You go first and I’ll hand Sammy
to you.”

There was a creaking on the stairs.

“You first,”
I argued. Before he could argue
any further, I pushed him towards the window. He hurried through it, then
reached back for Sammy. I handed the baby to him, slammed and locked the
window, and pulled the curtains closed.

“You prick! Get out here!
”

The door opened.

“Too late.”

The man who entered the nursery was middle aged,
wearing a business suit, and had laugh lines on his face, but there was no
mistaking what he was. The creature inside him was so powerful and malicious
that it couldn’t have been in the body for very long. Even as it stood there, I
could sense the body was slowly burning from the inside out.

“Where is the child?” he asked me, his voice raspy.

“What child? No child lives here,” I answered,
kicking a toy away.

I was slammed against the wall as if by a giant hand,
and held tightly enough that it was difficult to breath.