Legacy of Flames- The Complete Trilogy, page 24
part #1 of Legacy of Flames Series
I pushed sodden hair out of my eyes, anger burning brighter than ever. Dragons didn’t like water, and the curtains of rain masking my vision only served to make me more pissed off at the guy following us. When I slowed down, so did he. I wasn’t about to play tag in the pouring rain with a possible adversary, so I picked up speed again.
“What’re you doing?” Becks asked. “We have to aim for somewhere crowded and lose him.”
“He’s outnumbered,” I said. “Besides, I really want to punch someone.”
She snorted. “I’d like to scratch out that dude’s eyes, but seriously. If someone’s following us, it’s not for a good reason.”
“Maybe he’s offering us a job.”
“Maybe—” She broke off. “Never mind.”
“What?” I surreptitiously peeked over my shoulder, but he must know we were onto him by now. Thanks to the rain and the blurred reflections in the glass, all I saw was someone wearing black. Assassin gear. Or a necromancer, but there wasn’t a reason for a lone necromancer to be wandering around here. I weighed up my options then continued walking. When we were within distance of the nearest inhabited street, I stopped. Now people would be in hearing distance if he attacked. Not that it’d be much use—normal people couldn’t help us, after all.
He didn’t realise I’d stopped until his reflection passed in the glass of the opposite building. Then he did stop. I swung around, as he ducked into an alley.
My heart dived somewhere beneath the streets.
Why the hell is he following us?
The person in question already knew where we lived. “Come on,” I said to Becks.
“He’s still following us,” she muttered as we picked up the pace again.
“I know. I’m gonna shut the door in his face.”
“Why not ask what he wants?”
I gave her a flat look. “You know why.”
“Didn’t think he knew where we worked. He’s not behind the guild’s new procedures, is he?”
“Nah. I doubt the League would take him back in.” I didn’t care if he heard us. I picked up speed, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. Shifters were faster than normal humans, even hunters. But a certain branch of hunters—the Elites—had been given upgrades which made them slightly more than human. At any rate, he kept pace with us until we reached the flat. We’d rented the downstairs floor of what had once been a holiday rental, until the faeries’ arrival had stopped tourism in its tracks. I unlocked the door, my wet hands fumbling the key, and footsteps sounded behind me.
“Ember,” said a voice. It belonged to the last person I wanted to see—Astor, ex-hunter and the man who’d betrayed the last dragon shifter I’d met.
2
My shoulders tensed. If I’d had more willpower, I’d have walked into the flat there and then. The door was open, the key hanging loosely from my hand, but some magnetic force dragged me around to face the intruder.
Astor rested one foot inside the paved front yard, a hand on the gate. His chestnut brown hair had been cut shorter, presumably by hand, and was stuck to his pale forehead with rainwater. Green eyes assessed me, blinking less frequently than I thought human eyes could. But then, he was hardly a typical human. We’d ended up on the run together by accident after my friends and I had taken him captive for information on the hunters. Instead, he’d decided to help us get into the prison, and I’d come to… not like him, exactly, but sort of understand where he was coming from. We’d been reluctant allies, and maybe that might have turned into something more. If he hadn’t admitted what he’d done.
“Come to sell us out?” said Becks. I’d told her and Will the truth about him, how he’d hunted the other dragon shifter. I’d have been happier never seeing him again for the rest of my life.
“Has Cori woken up?” he asked, unexpectedly.
“Say her name again and I’ll break your face.”
He didn’t even flinch. “She hasn’t, has she? I know what they used on her.”
“Of course you do,” I snarled. “You probably used it yourself, when you were capturing and torturing us.”
A shadow passed over his face. “I can help.”
“Ha.” I stepped back. “Give me one good reason to believe anything you say now, Elite scum.”
He scowled. “You—”
“Any reason why you followed us all this way?” I said. “It’d better be a good one.”
“Get out,” Becks snapped. “It’s your fault she’s like this, right? What did you do, help make the drug they used on her?”
“It’s not a drug,” he said. “Not exactly. A powerful sleeping draught, designed to subdue larger creatures.”
“You mean, dragons.”
“Yes.” His mouth tightened. “It’s supposed to be used on them in shifted form. On a human, the effect is magnified, and she’s a teenager. Because of that, unless you find a way to wake her, the spell might last for years. I want to offer—”
“Nope,” said Becks. “You can’t offer us anything, because you’re an untrustworthy scumbag who’s lucky he’s still breathing.”
His face remained impassive. “Believe me, I’d like to be done with you for the foreseeable future, but I happen to know that very few people have experience with that drug, and even fewer know how to cure the effects.”
I glared at him. “And there’ll be one less soon. Get on with it.”
“It’s a substance called Moonlight.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I thought not. It’s rare, and difficult to make. Like a powerful tranquiliser.”
“That doesn’t sound like something humans would make,” said Becks, a note of suspicion in her voice.
“The League was unconventional,” Astor said.
No kidding. They’d used witch ingredients and even turned their own people into part-supernaturals. Even though they hated us and thought we were the devil incarnate. Apparently nobody had ever told them the definition of irony.
“There’s one cure,” he said. “There was never an antidote. The people they used it on never woke up.”
“You mean, shifters.”
“They used it on us, too,” said Astor.
If he was trying to play for sympathy, it didn’t work. “Obviously. They viewed even you as expendable.”
“I know they did. I’m giving some context. After five recruits died of dehydration after being unable to wake up, the League’s scientists figured they had to tone it down. Except by accident, they found a method that worked. It’s called the Moonbeam. I’m not sure where it came from originally, but it’s the only thing that woke someone up from that sleep.”
The Moonbeam. Find the moonbeam—that was what the dragon shifter had said to me seconds before he’d died. He must have known what they’d used on Cori. He’d been trying to give me a clue about how to wake her up.
But could I really trust Astor’s word? Well, no.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You just happened to show up with the information now, after letting us run in circles for weeks. What do you want from us?”
“Want?” he echoed. “I didn’t realise you didn’t know how they’d put her to sleep. I remembered because I heard about the Moonbeam again, and as far as I know, it’s the only item that can work on that kind of powerful concoction.”
“Then where is it?” I asked.
“That’s the problem,” said Astor. “It disappeared during the invasion. I know for a fact it wasn’t in the prison, because there was an uproar when it went missing, two years ago now. As far as I know, they haven’t found it.”
“But it’s on their list? The hunters?”
“Probably,” said Astor. “You know they don’t let things they believe to be theirs get away easily.”
“You mean, you. Have you gone back to them?”
“I wouldn’t even if I knew where they were.”
“Huh. So where’d you hear about this Moonbeam, then?”
“I heard it mentioned.”
“By who?” I asked. “You’ll have to be a little bit more specific, otherwise I might think you’re still out to get us.”
He stepped back. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where the Moonbeam is. Just rumours. I hear things.”
“Yeah, they walk right up to you once you point a gun at them.”
He worked his jaw. “Consider yourself warned. A lot of people want that Moonbeam, and it was last heard of around Magic Avenue.”
“Oh, isn’t that convenient,” said Becks. “So you’ve been raiding the houses your hunter people torched?”
“No, I’ve been working.”
“Sure you have.” I rolled my eyes. “You wouldn’t know honest work if it socked you in the face.”
“I’m not working for the League,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m a taxi driver.”
I stared at him, then cracked up laughing. “Pick something more realistic next time.”
“I’m not lying,” he said irritably.
“An assassin doing normal people stuff. Doesn’t compute.” Okay, so he probably had a good enough idea of London’s streets, but from scurrying over the rooftops, not getting stuck in traffic. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have the patience for it. Though he must have scraped together a living somehow after running away from the League two years ago.
“I’m not an assassin, and you’d know all about doing real work.”
My spine stiffened. “What do you know?”
“What?”
“You know what.”
Astor’s gaze flickered from me to Becks. “No, I don’t. What are you talking about?”
Maybe he doesn’t know about the register. He’d never use one himself, anyway, in case the hunters tracked him down. “Never mind.”
“Right.” He shifted his gaze again, avoiding eye contact with me. “I didn’t have to come and warn you, but consider yourself warned.”
Damn him. Was I being rude? Yes. But he’d caused too much damage for me to accept his word as honest truth. “Okay. Are you done playing the victim? You’re the reason we ended up in the League’s hands in the first place.”
“That isn’t true,” he said. “I had nothing to do with whoever turned you in. Did you ever find out?”
“Yes,” I muttered.
“And?”
“And nothing. I assume the hunters killed the guy who turned us over to them. Why?”
“Nothing.”
Hmm. I’d heard the rumours that someone was selling out the shifters all around the city. The League had paid high sums for information on us, which was how they’d found our group, through a former contact. Our contact, however, had lived in Magic Avenue—the place I suspected Astor had been last. And though I didn’t think he was out to get us, he had a knack of ending up in the same place as people who’d tried to kill us. I wouldn’t trust a word he said.
“By the way,” he said. “That artefact has a second use. They say it boosts shifter powers, as well as countering the poison. I’m not sure why. But you won’t be the only one hunting it, for that reason as well.”
“Boosting shifter powers?” asked Becks. “In what way?”
“No idea. I’m not one.”
“Shifters don’t want superpowers,” I said. “Isn’t the ability to transform badass enough?”
“Just what I heard,” said Astor.
Yeah. He had contacts, all right, and probably not on the legal side. But who? He’d cut off his hand rather than associate with the shifters’ other underground markets. And the hunters never forgave traitors, not for anything. He’d killed several of them and they knew he’d had a hand in helping us escape. Even if he brought Malkin our heads, he’d never be forgiven. The League made ‘inflexible’ look like an understatement. And he knew that better than anyone, because he’d been inducted into their organisation at twelve after losing his family to shifters.
Dragon shifters.
I shoved the thought away. The League intentionally recruited orphaned victims of shifter attacks and stoked their hatred against us through a cult-like underground, where they forced their members to pledge loyalty to the cause or die a gruesome death. Very few had escaped—Astor and his friend Giselle had only made it out because of the confusion following the faeries’ invasion. But that didn’t mean he had an excuse for all the grief he’d given us.
“What are you standing out in the rain for?” asked a sleepy voice. Will padded barefoot to the door, his blond hair standing on end. He’d obviously been napping to compensate for being on guard duty all night. “Oh. It’s you.”
“I was leaving,” said Astor, turning his back. He walked away, without another glance.
Will rubbed his eyes. “What did I do?”
“Nothing.” I walked after him into the house. “He’s trying to get into our good graces again.”
“Not the only place he was trying to get, the last I saw of you two.”
I trod on his foot. Will yelped. “Whoa. Twitchy. I was kidding, Ember.”
“Sorry. I’m a little on edge.”
“You’re also dry,” Becks commented. “Why am I soaking wet from the rain and not you?”
“Huh?” My gaze swivelled to the hall mirror. She was right. Without my noticing, the few minutes I’d been standing under the shelter outside the house, my hair had dried and I’d stopped shivering with cold. I hadn’t even noticed. Weird. Maybe a dragon thing. My dyed black hair still looked like a stranger’s. I looked away and walked into the ground floor flat.
It was simple enough, a small compact one-bedroom suite. We’d set up the living room as a second bedroom and let Cori and our faerie guest have the main bedroom—mostly because the latter kept yelling in his sleep. My sister lay still, her auburn hair covering her face. My heart tied itself in a knot. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to help her.
Or maybe I could.
“Have you heard of the Moonbeam?” I backed out of the bedroom, addressing Will.
“The what?”
“It’s what Astor told us,” I explained. “He said he heard the name mentioned recently, but it’s an item which might be able to wake Cori up. Turns out they used some rare tranquiliser-type potion on her.” My gaze caught on her again, and anger began to spark. “Because they weren’t already depraved enough. Astor might have lied, but he’d have no reason to.”
“There’s an easy way to find out,” Will said. “Just ask in any shifter community. If it’s that well-known, someone will have heard of it.”
“He said it was mentioned in Magic Avenue,” I said.
Will stopped. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Will had taken the loss of his witch’s shop in stride, but still wasn’t happy about it. His witch mother had left the premises to him after her death when he was younger, and his gargoyle father had died before he was born. Becks and I had lost everything in the invasion, and Will had generously let us camp out in his shop until we’d been able to set up more shelters. Except the hunters had destroyed two of them, and now they’d discovered our tunnels, I felt even less safe than I had before.
“I don’t think we should listen,” Becks said. “Anything that guy says is suspect.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “But it’s also plausible. The hunters are after this Moonbeam, too. But I don’t think it’ll be a priority for them. I mean, they don’t have any prisoners.”
“You don’t know that,” Becks said. “All right, then. Do you want to check it out?”
“Maybe.” I hated leaving Cori behind, though. “Okay. Let’s flip a coin again to see who stays behind to watch Cori.”
“Why not draw names out of a hat instead?” asked Becks. “It’s never you.”
Oh. “That’s not deliberate.”
“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that. But you know, she’s your sister.”
“I know.” Damn. She was right. “But… I don’t know about this. The Moonbeam… it’s what the dragon said. His last words were to ‘find the moonbeam’. What if this is exactly what he was referring to?”
Her teeth worked over her lower lip. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I can ask first,” Will said.
“Will, your contacts have turned out to be less than reliable,” Becks said. “Magic Avenue… I don’t like the idea of going back there. Especially when Carter lives nearby.”
“I don’t think he lives there anymore,” Will said. “They wrecked his shop, too. Why does everyone want this Moonbeam? Are there a lot of people stuck in enchanted sleep without a prince to kiss them awake?”
I snorted. “Nope. Apparently the Moonbeam also gives shifters a power boost.”
“What kind of power?” asked Will.
I shrugged. “No clue. It’s what Astor said.”
“And you believe him.”
“Yeah. I just don’t trust him. He’s claiming to be on the right side of the law now, for what it’s worth.”
“It’s worth nothing. He’s a liar.” Becks shook her head.
“Actually… he isn’t,” I said. “He led us on, all right, but he never actually told an outright lie. I just never asked the right questions. Anyway. I think we should check out Magic Avenue and ask around. The dragon shifter in the Orion Stronghold mentioned the Moonbeam. It’s worth checking it out for that reason alone.”
“He might be wrong,” said Becks. “Don’t forget he was imprisoned there in the lab for god knows how long.”
“I know.” I looked away. “It was his last words. I want to try to honour them, even if I don’t know what they mean.”
There was an awkward silence. The others were shifters, they got the outsider thing, but none of them would understand what it was like to be the only survivors of your own species. As far as I knew, that was just Cori and me. Malkin had kept and tormented that poor old dragon shifter for years, most likely. Because dragonfire could burn through anything, Malkin claimed we could even face up to the Sidhe—the all-powerful faeries who’d invaded this realm and left destruction behind. But I wasn’t sure I believed that. Nor did I believe his other claims—like that the dragons warred with one another, that we were evil murderers. Whatever problem he had with us, whatever reason he hated us so much, I was certain he was wrong. He must be. But it sure would help to get that damned notebook translated, just for peace of mind.
