Choices: Segment 5 of Q's Story

Dear readers,

I must apologize for the delay in this post. I've been sick, and it really sapped my energy. But I'm back with Choices: Segment 5 of Q's Story. I hope you enjoy it! (Or you can read from the beginning here)

Sincerely,

Lillian

(Lead-in from Segment 4)

 “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.”

(Choices: Segment 5 of Q's Story)

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.