Q's Story - From the Beginning

Q woke up in a coffin, and her first thought was, Not again. Her second was one of horror, but a frantic search told her she was alone. Thank God. A coffin companion was the absolute worst kind of uninvited guest.

The coffin was dark and warm. Dark suggested she was underground, but warmth usually meant climate control. Maybe a crypt? Did they have crypts in San José? Darcy would know.

Where was Darcy?

Didn’t matter. Now that Q was awake, she didn’t have long before she ran out of oxygen. She pressed against the wood above her head. Cheap and rough, it scored her palms. It was dry, which supported her crypt theory – and meant that there would be less rot for her to break through.

Nerves buzzed under her skin, but she ignored them. She would get out. She’d done it before. And then she hadn’t had Darcy.

Where the hell was Darcy?

She shifted to get her knees as close as possible to the center of the coffin. With the movement, something slashed at the inside of her wrist. She winced and grabbed the wound, expecting to find a knife-sized splinter. But instead, there were stitches.

The cut ran crosswise along her wrist, the stitches jagged and the flesh tender. Whatever had happened to her, it had been recent.

Her nerves spiked, and her breath started to hitch. Something was wrong. No Darcy was bad, but no Darcy and an amateur hatchet job on her body?

This was no accidental burial.

She punched against the wood before she knew she intended to move, and it felt good, it felt right, so she did it again and again and again. And it was so loud, and then she realized that she was screaming. Screaming and flailing, panicking like a child. Hysterical.

Her mother had taught her better.

She closed her eyes and forced her body to still. Her battered hands sank; her knees rested limply against the side of the coffin. Her lungs began to slow.

Of course it was an accident. It was always an accident. She would get out, she told herself again. Then she would find Darcy, and everything would be okay. She repositioned herself and braced to thrust up her knee.

And something slammed into the wood inches above her face.

She shrank back, her fingers searching desperately for something she could use as a weapon. But she had nothing. As the lid creaked open, she rolled away and thrust her arm up and out in blind attack.

“Ow! What the hell, Q?”

“Darcy?” Her old friend was standing over the coffin, her brown face lit by the glow of her phone. “Darcy, it’s you. Oh, thank God. Where were you?”

“Shhh!” Darcy glanced over her shoulder as she helped Q sit. “They could be close.”

“Who? Darcy, what’s going on?”

“The men who took you. I’ll tell you later. We have to go.”

“Someone took me?”

“Yes. Shut up.”

Q climbed out of the coffin, her unsteady legs making haste difficult. Not a crypt, she saw. A shed. And she’d been right. This was not an accidental burial.

Darcy’s phone went dark, and the younger woman peeked through the open door of the shed at the woods beyond. Then she grabbed Q’s hand and yanked her into the night.

They ran through woods and moonlight. The ground was blanketed in pine needles, the lack of undergrowth suggesting that the land was maintained. Q wondered if they were on private property, and she shuddered.

She weakened with each step, and when they finally reached Darcy’s car, she leaned gratefully against it. Her lungs wheezing, she asked, “How did you find me?”

“The chip in your wrist. Get in.”

There was food in the car. Q tore into it, her hands shaking with hunger. “Guess this was a weird one?”

Darcy laughed grimly. “You have no idea.”

“Thanks, Darce.”

Darcy looked over. Q’s face was even paler than usual beneath the strobe of the streetlights. “It’s what we do.”

Q pushed a shock of red hair out of her eyes and glanced around. “This isn’t San José.”

“Nope. Westwego. New Orleans.”

“Jeez. How long was I out this time?”

“You mean your little nap?” Darcy laughed more easily this time. “Only about three years.”

*          *          *

The nightly party was winding down by the time they reached the French Quarter. Revelers made their way toward welcoming beds as the music tried to lure them in for one last drink. A man leaned against the hotel, his black hair tousled and spiked, his eyes closed.

Darcy got out of the car, took one look at him, and said, “Shit.”

He opened his eyes at the sound of her voice and then straightened away from the wall. “Is this her?”

“Go away, stalker, before I call the police.”

“You won’t do that.” He walked up to Q, brown eyes rimmed with the deep dark of exhaustion. It was enough to make Q wonder, but of course she didn’t ask. He was Asian, maybe Korean, but he spoke with an American accent. “Took her, didn’t he?”

Darcy grabbed Q’s arm and dragged her inside. “Ignore him. He’s crazy.”

“New boyfriend?”

“Ha!” She pushed the elevator button, her eyes darting around. “Let’s just get our stuff and get the hell out of here.”

“We’re not dating,” he said from behind them.

Darcy rolled her eyes. “She knows.”

“I want to make sure you know.”

“Relax,” Darcy said as he followed them into the elevator. “I prefer the innies to the outies.”

He paused and cocked his head. “I’m trying to decide if that’s cute or gross.”

“It’s both,” Q said. “Who are you?”

“Min.” He smiled with considerable charm and held out a hand. “Hi.”

She glanced at Darcy. Her friend rolled her eyes again and shrugged, so Q shook Min’s hand.

“Who took me?”

He looked at Darcy. “You haven’t told her?”

“We were kind of busy escaping from a nut job.”

“I can tell you about him, but we should get to your room first.”

Darcy raised a brow. “Seriously? That’s your line?”

“You know it’s not a line, Darcy.”

At his quiet tone, she set her jaw. She glanced at Q, worry dragging at her face. “Fine,” she finally said. “But if Q doesn’t want you here, you go.”

*          *          *

“His name is Dette. He’s an archeologist, and he’s obsessed with the supernatural. Demons, vampires, werewolves, angels. He believes in all of it. He started collecting artifacts thirty years ago, and when those weren’t enough, he ramped it up. Now he collects people.”

“People? Jesus. Darcy–”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I said we need to get out of here.”

“We need to call the cops. He kidnapped me, Darcy. Why are we the ones hiding?”

“This guy is crazy rich, and this is his home town. The police are definitely in his pocket.”

“Darcy, I’m sure we can trust the police.”

“Says the white girl.”

Q frowned and turned to Min. “How are you involved?”

He leaned back against the wall as if he no longer had the strength to stand. “I’m like you.”

She lifted a brow. “Like me.”

“I’m a sleeper. But you already knew that.”

Q studied his tired eyes. She’d only seen that level of exhaustion in a few other people. “How did you find out about me?”

“My dad and yours go back. He thought maybe your family could help.”

“With what? I still don’t understand how you’re involved in all of this.”

His eyes grew hard, and every trace of charm vanished. “Dette has my sister.”

Min passed his phone to Q, and a young woman smiled up at her from the screen. “Her name is Mee-Kyong. She’s only had fifteen waking years. She’s still a kid, and he took her while our mother slept in the next room. What am I supposed to tell my mother when she wakes up to find her only daughter gone?”

He slid his finger across the screen, and his sister’s warm smile was replaced by chaos. Blood splattered over shattered glass and wrecked furniture. Papers were strewn across the floor, as if the room had been searched.

“She didn’t sleep through her abduction.” His voice was quiet, but his hand trembled. He balled it into a fist and shoved it in his pocket. “He took her two months ago. She’s been awake for every minute of it.”

Q looked at the phone again, but all she could see was the black of a hidden coffin. All she could hear was the sound of her breath, hitching in burgeoning panic. Her hands were scraped raw, their pale hue already bluing with bruises. And she’d been awake in captivity for maybe twenty minutes.

“Okay,” she said, her voice echoing in her head as if she still wasn’t quite present. She pushed back the memory and met his eyes. “I’ll help you.”

Darcy grabbed her arm and yanked her away. “Are you crazy?”

Her furious whisper carried clearly across the room, but Min only leaned against the wall again, as if his moment of passion had sapped his strength.

“She needs help,” Q said.

“So let him call the police!”

Q raised a brow. “Says…the brown girl?”

Darcy threw up her hands, her long black braid swaying with the movement. “Fine, but we can’t help. We don’t know anything about saving someone from a kidnapping.”

“You saved me.”

Darcy crossed her arms over her waist and sighed. “You hired me to keep you safe. You know I don’t do it for the money, right?”

“Of course I know.”

“And you trust me?”

“Like family.”

Darcy nodded, and rare solemnity fell over her face. She lowered her voice. “This feels wrong to me. Dangerous, and not just in the way we’ve worried about. Three days after Min shows up at our shop, you’re kidnapped. What if it’s not a coincidence?”

“You’re saying he orchestrated the kidnapping?”

Darcy studied him and frowned. “I don’t think so. I’m not getting that kind of vibe. But he probably led Dette to you. It sucks that his sister was taken. Really, it does. But I think it might be safest for everyone if we bow out now.”

“I can’t keep running away every time someone needs my help. That’s not who I’m supposed to be.”

“You’re not doing it for you.”

Q studied her friend. Tiny lines had begun to feather around her eyes while Q slept, and she felt a pang that she’d once again missed so much of her friend’s life. She took a deep breath and nodded.

And then Min said, “He called her the Somnus. Does that mean anything to you?”

Q’s heart stopped and then began to race. Darcy’s eyes widened.

“The Somnus?” Q asked. “You’re sure?”

Min straightened away from the wall. “You know what it is.”

Q couldn’t find her voice. Defeated, Darcy sat and rubbed a hand over her face. “The Somnus is a who, not a what.”

“A legend,” Q managed. “A sleeper who controls sleep and wake – for everything. If he thinks she’s the Somnus, he won’t ever let her go.”

Min shook his head, pale under the gold of his skin. “Unless he figures out that she’s just a simple sleeper. Then he’ll kill her in retaliation.”

Q looked at Darcy, and her hands shook. Darcy nodded, and Q turned back to Min. “How can we help?” 

*          *          *

Dawn rose over the mansion, casting misty pinks and yellows against the clouds. Min stared at the map on his phone, and a dark red blip flashed back at him from the center of the screen.

Darcy said, “Tell me again why he’s not going to just take us all.”

“We left too many breadcrumbs,” Q answered. “Even the concierge knows where we are. Unless Dette’s influence is wider than we realized, he won’t risk it.”

“And we expect him to just hand over Mee-Kyong.”

“We’re not leaving without her,” Min said from the back seat.

“Right. Of course.” Darcy gave Q a look, but she said nothing else.

Min pushed out of the car before it stopped. As he strode up the stairs, the fatigue that dragged at him burned away under a sizzle of nerves. His pace quickened, and Q and Darcy fell behind.

Q put a hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “I need the ring.”

Darcy stopped and stared. “That’s your plan? That’s a bad plan.”

“Do you have a better one?”

Darcy pursed her lips, but she took the ring off the chain around her neck and dropped it into Q’s palm.

Shaped like a dragon coiled by its own tail, the ancient gold seemed to glow when it touched Q’s skin. Warmth shot through her, and she finally felt whole. This was who she was supposed to be. She was meant to protect, not to hide. And despite the best intentions of those who cared about her, that would never change. She took a calming breath and slipped the ring onto her finger.

The doors above them opened just as Min reached up to knock. A dark-skinned man in a black suit looked them over, then retreated into the house without a word. But he left the door open.

They followed him into a white, vaulted foyer dominated by a sculpture in its center. The figure of a woman writhed in dizzying color as flames consumed her body from foot to sternum. The guard closed the door behind them and stood before it, his arms crossed over his body.

“Homey,” Darcy said.

“I’m delighted that you think so.”

The voice came from their left, a Southern drawl dripping with oily condescension. A handsome, middle-aged man emerged from a neighboring room, his deeply tanned skin a stark contrast to the white of his clothes. He smiled at Q as his bare feet stepped delicately over the marble floor.

“Dette,” Min said, his voice like gravel.

Dette glanced at him and then away, as if the brother of his captive was not worth his attention. His blue eyes winged back to Q, and she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

“I must apologize for your earlier accommodations,” he said. “There was a…miscommunication.”

“It happens,” Q said evenly, as if her palms weren’t sweating. “Kidnapping must be a chaotic business.”

“Kidnapping is such a strong word. I prefer acquisition.”

Min growled. “It’s not acquisition when you take a person, you sick fu–”

“How about ‘offering’?” Q asked quickly.

Dette lifted a brow. “An interesting term. Tell me more.”

“Me for her.”

Min’s eyes shot to hers, and Darcy said, “Q, don’t!”

Q held up a hand to silence them. “I’ll stay here if you let Mee-Kyong go.”

Dette cocked his head. “She’s a stranger to you. Why would you do this?”

“Does it matter? Min’s sister goes free, and you get what you want: a sleeper in your collection.”

“Ah, but I already had a sleeper. I had you, dear Quinn. Mee-Kyong was to serve a different purpose, as I’m sure you already know.”

“Was?” Min asked, blanching.

“Oh, she’s still alive. You may even go after her if you wish, although you will almost certainly be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“She is not who we thought, so we have no use for her. She’s been taken for disposal.” Dette held out his hand. His palm cradled a small plastic chip spotted with dried blood.

“You son of a bitch!”

Min lunged at him, a feral sound ripping from his throat. The guard pulled a gun from under his jacket, and Darcy shoved her shoulder into Min’s chest.

“Stop it,” she hissed. “If you get yourself killed, we don’t have a chance of saving your sister.”

Min stared at Dette, his blood hot, but he forced himself to pull back.

Dette held his gaze for a long moment, and then shook his head at the guard. “That won’t be necessary. Yet.”

 “You’re going to kill Mee-Kyong because she’s not the Somnus,” Q said.

He nodded appreciatively. “So you see that an exchange does not help me. But I believe I will keep you, anyway. You are much more interesting than I anticipated.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “You have no idea.”

The ring grew hot on her finger. She held it out and said, “Rise!”

The ground trembled. Wind swept through the closed room, whipping her hair toward the statue of the burning woman and startling a shout from the guard. But Dette only watched her, enraptured by her power, his chest heaving in his excitement.

And the dragon on her ring came to life.

It swelled until its body spanned the room from nose to tail. Great, golden wings unfurled, shattering the statue into thousands of colored crystals. Long, sharp talons clacked against the floor. It threw back its head and roared, and flames billowed toward the vaulted ceiling.

The guard fired at the dragon, but the bullets bounced off the swollen metal and lodged into the wall. Q flung her hand toward him and said, “Sleep!” And the guard slumped onto the floor, unconscious.

Q turned back to Dette, her eyes the same flashing amber as the dragon’s.

And Dette breathed, “It’s you. You’re the Somnus.”

At a flick of Q’s wrist, the dragon grabbed Dette in its massive jaws and lifted him into the air. Dette screamed with a horrible mixture of fear and sick delight, and Q’s stomach turned at the sound.

“Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you. They’ll kill me.”

“And you think the dragon won’t?” The dragon breathed, and Dette screamed again as flames singed his side.

“She’s still here,” he said quickly, his accent fading under the pain. “They won’t come for her till evening. If you let me go, I’ll take you to her.”

Q glanced at Min as the dragon released Dette. He was staring at her, his dark eyes wide. There was no accusation in them, but she felt guilty all the same. As if she should have told him from the start what she was. She reminded herself that she wasn’t responsible for the evils of others.

All she could do was try to stop them.

*          *          *

The domed corridor was long and wide, the meager light augmented occasionally by dragon fire. They could barely see twenty feet ahead. Behind them, the tunnel disappeared into the dark, so that it seemed as if they’d been walking forever.

Darcy muttered to Q, her eye on Min and Dette, “This is too easy, right?”

“Darcy, we’re underground in the middle of a nut job’s property, on our way to his bunker to rescue a stranger. With a dragon. Exactly how difficult to you want it to be?”

“He’s lying, and you know it. He gave in too quickly. And who is this ‘they’ he keeps talking about? ‘They’ will kill him; ‘they’ haven’t taken her yet. What if he’s walking us into a trap?”

“Well, then, you know. Dragon.”

“Right.” Darcy nodded, unconvinced. “Dragon.”

Doors emerged in the dark ahead. Dette stopped at the keypad beside them and glanced at Q. In response, the dragon heated the air, its talons gouging shallow grooves into the cement floor. Dette’s fingers flew over the keypad, and the doors swung open.

Beyond them lay a prison.

Round metal cages stretched from floor to ceiling, showcasing over a dozen men, women, and children in relentless illumination. The spaces between the cages fell dark, the area so wide even the dragon fit easily.  One man bared his teeth as Dette passed, his incisors long and sharp. A few cages down, a woman hissed and flung what looked like lightning at them, but it sizzled against the bars and died away.

Q stared at the back of Dette’s head, supremely uneasy at the scope of his collection. That he could successfully capture and detain such creatures suggested far more knowledge and power than she’d realized. She wondered how much he knew about her own gift.

“Mee-Kyong!”

Ahead of her, Min raced toward a cell to the right, where a dark-haired woman lay on a small cot. The woman sat slowly, her back to them, and a warning chill raced down Q’s spine.

“Min, wait.”

The woman turned and stared blankly at Min, her face tattooed with a lovely filigree of blue. Her green eyes shot to Dette, and then she began to back away.

“Not again!” Her voice was shrill, her eyes suddenly wild. “You send another man in here, and I’ll kill him. I swear I will!”

“It’s not her.” Min stopped, his stomach sinking at the look on the woman’s face. He couldn’t help but imagine what horror she must have endured here. He thought of the bloodied chip stolen from his sister’s arm, and he grabbed Dette and slammed him against the bars. “Where is she?”

Dette only smiled, and Min’s rage boiled. He slammed his fist into that infuriating smirk, and the man’s head knocked loudly against the metal bars. Min hit him again, and then again, livid that even violence, so foreign to him, would fail to provoke a response from his sister’s kidnapper.

“Min, stop! If he’s unconscious, he won’t tell us where she is.”

“Dear Quinn.” Dette turned to her and bared his bloodied teeth. “It’s darling that you ever thought I would.”

The roar came from their left, an inhuman resonance that seemed to shake the very air in which they stood. The ground trembled under the force of the tremendous reverberation. Cages rattled, and dozens of hairline cracks splintered the ceiling.

Another roar sounded, and a huge chunk of plaster crashed into the girl’s cell, knocking down Min and Dette. The bars bent under the onslaught, and the door swung open.

The girl hissed and charged at Min, green eyes flashing. Q flung her hand out and commanded, “Sleep!”

When she turned back, Dette was gone. The roar came again, closer this time, and a piece of the ceiling smashed into the floor at Q’s feet. All around them, caged creatures began to shriek.

Min ran into the dark, shouting for Dette. Darcy grabbed Q’s arm and yelled, “Whatever that thing is, you have to make it sleep!”

“I can’t! I have to see it to knock it out!”

She sprinted toward the sound, clinging to the darkened spaces between the cages. The dragon flew over her head, lighting the dark with its breath. Under the golden glow, she could just barely make out a man in the distance, so large he looked as if he could pick up the dragon with one hand. He walked over to the wall and braced his back against the white brick. He clenched his fists so hard that the muscles in his shoulders popped out in stark relief. And he roared again.

A crack ran up the wall behind his back and then across the ceiling. Another piece of plaster fell and nearly pinned the dragon. Q shot out her hand and shouted, “Sleep!”

The giant fell, and it seemed that even the weight of him was enough to quake the floor. As the cacophony began to die around them, Q called out for Min. He limped over, panting, and rested his hands on his knees.

“Dette’s gone. So is Mee-Kyong, probably before we got here. And now we have no way to know where they took her.”

He rammed his arm against the cage behind him and then leaned against it, his forehead on the cool metal. All around them, supernatural creatures stood and stared, but Q barely noticed. Failure was a lead weight in her gut, and for the first time, she feared that everyone else was right. That she should forget the Somnus and leave the world’s victims in someone else’s charge.

But that wasn’t actually an option. Inadequate or not, she was the only one here. Heart racing, she called the dragon to her side and walked over to the sleeping giant.

And then she woke him up.              

He woke slowly, his brown eyes blinking against the light of the dragon’s flame. At the sight of Q, he opened his mouth, but the dregs of the Somnus sleep slowed his power so that his voice was only an ineffectual mumble.

Q shook her head at him. “It’ll take a few minutes for your power to come back. Using anything more than your regular speaking voice will only slow that down.”

He studied her in silence for a moment, and then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand.

Q added, not entirely unsympathetic, “The headache will take a little longer. But you can still answer my questions. What does Dette want with all of these supernaturals?”

He only sat in silence.

Q frowned. “Why are you helping him? The minute he has what he wants, he’ll turn on you.”

He opened his eyes and said, his accented voice still unsteady, “You know nothing, white girl.”

“Then tell me. What is this place?”

In response, he closed his eyes again.

Min growled in frustration. “This is a waste of time. He’s not going to tell us anything, and Dette is getting away. We need to go now, or we’ll never find him.”

The giant opened his eyes and looked around, his brow fiercely furrowed. “Dette’s gone?”

Q nodded. “Any idea where he went?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then, “He ran from you?”

“He ran from the dragon.” The dragon stretched its long, golden wings, and they clanged against the cages surrounding them. Q said, “You really should answer my questions. Where did he go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you seen this girl?” Min crouched and held out his phone. Mee-Kyong smiled from the screen, but a streak of blood was smeared across her cheek. It took Q a moment to realize the blood was Min’s, his knuckles seeping from where he’d struck Dette.

The giant looked at the picture and then back at Min. “She’s your kin?”

“She’s my sister. Dette stole her.”

He studied the cages beyond them, his dark face grim. And then he seemed to come to a decision.   

“She was here,” he said, his voice beginning to strengthen. “But they took her. Four, maybe five days ago.”

“Who?” Darcy asked. “Who are ‘they’?”

He shook his head, and his smooth scalp reflected the glow of dragon flame. “Mercenaries. Three men and a woman. They wore suits, but they were armed to the teeth. I don’t know who they work for.”

“Where did they take her?”

“Dette has an estate in France. Maybe there.”

“France.” Min stood slowly, his hand dropping to his side. He turned haunted eyes toward Q. “How are we going to find her now?”

“I’ll take you.” The giant stood, and the others backed quickly away. Standing, he nearly topped seven feet, his shoulders twice the width of Min’s. The dragon roared, and the giant held up his hands, his steady movements suggesting that the slowing effects of the sleep had worn off. “I mean you no harm.”

Darcy shook her head. “Hard pass. You tried to kill us.”

“I had no choice.”

“Funny, I didn’t see anyone holding a gun to your head.”

He gestured toward the prison behind them. “This whole place is a death threat – one he’s promised to aim at my family if I don’t follow orders. Either I stop you now and protect my family until the next time Dette threatens them, or I stop him and protect my family for good. I’d rather stop him.”

Q looked at Darcy and Min. Darcy stared at the giant for a moment and then shrugged at Q, though her dark eyes were uneasy. Min said, “Whatever we have to do. I’m in for whatever we have to do.”

Q turned to the giant. “The minute you break our trust, I’ll knock you out again. By the time you wake up, we’ll be untraceable.”

*          *          *

His name was Josiah. He seemed respected by many of Dette’s prisoners, and Q didn’t know if that should make her comfortable or more nervous. But he’d been charged with managing the prison, so he knew how to unlock the cages. When one of prisoners charged at Darcy, Q put him to sleep with a raised palm and a single word.

Josiah lifted a brow. “Yours is truly a unique gift. I have not met another like you.”

“There is no one like me.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “This is a lonely burden for you. Perhaps it is good that we work together.”

Q studied the back of Min’s head as he walked ahead of them, surrounded by supernaturals.

“As long as we stop Dette,” she said, “it’s definitely a good thing.”