Dragon's Curse (Heir of Dragons: Book 2) Read online

  Dragon’s Curse

  Heir of Dragons Book Two

  Sean Fletcher

  To those with curses all their own

  May you embrace them

  May you break them

  Contents

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  A Record of Lost Things

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

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  A Record of Lost Things

  There are many ways to kill a dragon.

  Not that you’d need to, of course. Not that there are any dragons left that need killing. Not that there are any dragons left, period. Not anymore. Not really.

  Right?

  A blade could do the job. A well-forged length of steel or iron in the right spot is just as effective on a dragon as any human. Death is not particular about its manner of deliverance.

  Magic will do it, too.

  But not simple magic, that mundane spell casting and bumbling about of the arcane arts used nowadays.

  No. What’s needed is ancient magic. Deadly magic. Blood oaths. Summoning chants. Curses. Especially curses. Old, vicious things, full of spite and malice. Evil things. Always created with less-than-noble intentions, and yet always used with the belief that their intentions are, in fact, noble.

  But none of that magic remains today, either. And that which does is safely lost or locked away, far out of reach of any man or beast wishing to use it for their selfish purposes.

  Right?

  Chapter One

  It was too cold for October, it was a school night, she had a geometry test tomorrow she still hadn’t studied for, and yet Kaylee Richards crouched across the street from the apartment complex, waiting for the monster to emerge.

  “You sure Damian gave us good info?” Kaylee whispered.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I know he runs the Slag Heap and has all this secret information, but he could be wrong. Heck, he could be lying.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uh-huh? That’s all you got? Are you even—what are you doing?”

  Jade, Kaylee’s best friend, sat beside her, back pressed against the tree. Her combat knife, a foot of glittering steel she normally had hidden up her sleeve, was clamped between her lips. She was scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper propped on her knee. Her fingers were stained with ink.

  Kaylee leaned over. “Is that Mrs. Douglas’ Chem assignment?”

  “Maybe,” Jade said. “What’d you get for number six? The stoichiometry problem? And can I borrow your lab later?”

  “You’re my dragon-kin Tamer. Aren’t you supposed to be protecting me from evil stuff?”

  Jade smirked. She scratched in another answer. “No one can protect us from the evils of Chemistry.”

  Kaylee checked that the parking lot of the apartment across the street was still vacant. It was. Just as it had been the last three hours. It didn’t even look like normal people lived there, not to mention an unregistered magic user supposedly smuggling dangerous magical creatures.

  She scooted closer to Jade and pointed to an answer at the bottom. “That one’s wrong. I think.”

  Jade let out a frustrated groan and crossed it out.

  “Why didn’t you just do this earlier?” Kaylee said.

  “No time. The Scarsdale Convocation wanted me to get more training hours in before I came on this mission.”

  “You already have plenty of hours. What do you need more for?”

  “Don’t know. Something to do with prepping for the Tamer test next year.”

  “Doesn’t look like we’ll be getting much practice tonight,” Kaylee said. “Surprised the Convocation even let us come along.”

  “You mean let you come with me,” Jade said. “Means they’re finally letting you off their leash. Which I’m eternally grateful for. Waiting sucks, but you make it suck less.”

  Yes, Kaylee was surprised Alastair, the head of the Scarsdale Convocation, had allowed her to help a couple trained Protectors nab this rogue Merlin. Almost exactly a year ago, at the end of her first semester of freshman year of high school, Kaylee hadn’t even been able to leave her hometown of Scarsdale for fear of getting attacked by Slayers.

  But now the Slayers were reported to be far away, which meant Kaylee’s training as a storm dragon-kin, a half dragon/half human with the ability to control storms, could resume.

  And that meant nights camped out across from dingy apartment buildings in cities far away from home. How fun.

  “Is that him…” Jade leaned forward. “Nah, never mind. I think it was just Edwin. Maddox needs to keep him hidden. He’ll blow our cover.”

  “Maddox is Edwin’s Protector, not his babysitter,” Kaylee said. “Besides, Edwin can take care of himself.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jade settled back. She brushed her black hair from her face, her skin alabaster pale in the dark, her eyes, naturally narrowed, squinting to make out any movement in the low light.

  Kaylee finished checking the positions of everybody else in the stakeout. She knew Josh, a wind dragon-kin from the Northern Scarsdale Convocation, and his dragon-kin Tamer Tygus were hiding to her right, cutting off any escape to the south. Which left only the rear of the apartment building, where two fully-trained Convocation Protectors were positioned. Not that Kaylee completely trusted their skills, fully-trained or not. It wasn’t that the Convocation couldn’t protect her. If it weren’t for them the Slayers and their overzealous (and misguided) hatred of all dragon-kin would have done her in a long time ago.

  But the Convocation hadn’t been there last year. They hadn’t saved Kaylee and her friends from Lesuvius, leader of the Slayers, or his plan to use the Dragon Moon to steal all the dragon-kins’ elemental magic. That had been Kaylee, barely controlling her storm powers, and Edwin, finally gaining enough confidence to cast spells, along with Jade and Maddox.

  So yes, Kaylee was cautiously grateful Alastair had finally allowed them to go on a Convocation-sanctioned mission. She had to do something. She didn’t think she would be able to sit around waiting to see what the Slayers and Lesuvius were planning next. And they were planning something. Edwin had told her they were, and if there was one thing that boy was better at than being socially awkward, it was knowing his stuff when it came to magic history and what the Slayers’ next attempt to destroy them would be.

  “They’re moving,” Jade said, nudging her head towards a pair of figures emerging from the darkened field at the rear of the building. “Bout time.”

  The two Protectors, dressed in black combat armor, casually made their way to the front door of the apartment in question. One knocked.

  “Easy…” Kaylee said as Jade leaned forward.

  “You should get ready, too,” Jade said. “This creep isn’t going to come quietly.”

  Kaylee breath
ed in, turning inward to the magic coursing just beneath the surface of her skin. This first level of magic was stable. Soothing, like a second layer of skin. Not like her other kind. The kind Kaylee hoped she wouldn’t have to use tonight.

  Kaylee coaxed the surface magic to her. The dragon within answered.

  The skin on her forearms shifted to jet-black scales. Jagged claws replaced fingernails. Spits of ice-blue electricity arced between her palms, sending a comforting trill through her body.

  The Protectors knocked again, harder this time.

  “Can you hear anything?” Jade said. “Can you shift your ears yet?”

  “Sometimes,” Kaylee said. She kept her arms shifted and now directed her magic at her left ear. Not too long ago, changing more than one part of her body to dragon form at the same time would have been near impossible. It was still hard, but a second later Kaylee’s left ear swelled with sound as it changed.

  “He’s not here,” she heard one of the Protectors mutter. “It’s a bust. Let’s call it in.”

  “One more,” the other answered.

  A final knock. A silence.

  Then something else from within the apartment. Scuttling. A hundred thousand tiny legs on hardwood and concrete. A growing hum of magic, building in power.

  Kaylee knew that feeling. It was the same every time Edwin messed up a spell during their lessons. It was the same when she lost control of her storms. The sensation of tainted magic. Uncontrollable magic.

  Without waiting, Kaylee sprinted straight towards the apartment.

  “Run! It’s about to—”

  The Protectors swiveled on her, their faces shocked. They didn’t see the outline of the door begin to glow behind them. They didn’t hear the rumble.

  An explosion rocked the earth as half the apartment exploded in white.

  Chapter Two

  Kaylee was pretty sick of things blowing up on her.

  In the past year she’d been assaulted, kidnapped, and stabbed; but more annoying than all those combined were the explosions. Sure, she’d technically been the cause of a few of them, but already they were getting annoying.

  Such was her life.

  A force like a punch collided with Kaylee’s stomach, throwing her back. Her world whirled. The hard concrete came to greet her. Just before she hit, Jade dove, using her body to cushion Kaylee’s landing.

  Kaylee’s ears rang. The noises around her was nothing but a high whine, slowing descending into muddled, mushy voices.

  “Maddox! Cover!” Jade barked.

  “Already on it!”

  The muscled frame of Maddox came into view. He wielded a spear, facing the billowing smoke pouring from the apartment. The Protectors lay in a heap nearby. Jade helped Kaylee up, but Kaylee couldn’t take her eyes off them.

  “Are they—?”

  “They’re okay,” Edwin said. He had one hand held out in front. Orange magic curled at the ends of his fingertips. In his other hand, he held a small leather notebook—his book of spells.

  “Protection spell,” Edwin said. “Their combat armor helped too.”

  As if to prove his point, the Protectors stirred. Dylan, military-buzz cut and pissed-off expression, wrenched himself to his feet. A faint magic sheen hung loosely around his frame. He helped up his partner, Beth. Edwin lowered his arm and the luster surrounding them vanished.

  Dylan noticed them standing there.

  “You were all supposed to stay in cover! You’ve exposed your positions!”

  “Edwin just saved your life,” Kaylee said. “You’re welcome.”

  Dylan, still flushed in the face, began pointing back to the trees like he was directing traffic. “In position, before everything is compromised. We have to clean up this mess—”

  “Not to break up your hissy fit,” Josh said, appearing between Kaylee and the still-smoldering apartment. “Someone—or something—is still alive in there.”

  Edwin inched closer to Kaylee as they all faced where Josh pointed. There was movement within the rubble and hazy flames. The explosion had completely decimated half the complex. Kaylee dreaded to imagine the kind of person who would use such a volatile spell around an apartment building full of people.

  Not that she was seeing any people.

  “You hurt?” Edwin muttered.

  “Never better. Thanks for the assist.”

  Edwin grinned, his cheeks blushing faintly. “If you stopped putting yourself in danger I wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “But what fun would that be?”

  “More fun for me, that’s for sure…”

  “Are we really going to count how many times who saved whom?”

  “Are we really going to do this now, you two?” Maddox said. He squinted into the flames. Something was moving closer, pushing its way through the rubble.

  “This isn’t right,” Jade said.

  “What gave it away, sweetheart?” Josh said. “Was it the apartment blowing up or that something’s actually still alive afterward?”

  Josh’s dragon-kin Tamer, Tygus, all scrawny twelve-years-old of him, crouched more protectively in front of Josh. It was, Kaylee thought, the cutest, most futile thing she’d ever seen.

  “I’m not seeing any civilians,” Edwin said.

  “That’s the problem,” Jade said. “Listen.”

  Kaylee did. Despite the explosion, there was no screaming. No sirens. No people. As if a muffling blanket had been tossed over the entire complex.

  “Dampening spell,” Dylan said. “Knew something was up. Nobody’s probably been here for a while. He’s turned the entire place into his personal lair.”

  An immense slab of concrete and splayed metal was hurled away from the nearest pile of rubble and landed with a crash twenty feet away.

  Everyone took a step back.

  “Now you all really need to get behind us,” Beth said.

  But it was too late.

  A man, or what might have once been a man, hurled himself from the flames towards them, his arms flapping at his sides, his legs jutting out at impossible angles as he ran.

  “Stop!” Dylan pulled his sword. The blade unfolded to a vicious point. “You’re under arrest by order of the Scarsdale Convocation—”

  The man swung. Kaylee had a moment to register that his arm was not an arm, that it was in pieces—fuzzy and disjointed, as if composed of a million dots—before it hit Dylan. Dylan blocked the attack in time, but the force sent him flying back. Kaylee blinked. Nobody short of a Merlin with an enhanced strength spell or a Slayer with a magically charged item could do that.

  “Split!” Maddox yelled.

  The group scattered. Kaylee, Edwin, and Josh stayed on the outside, conjuring magic to attack. Maddox and Jade, with no magic of their own, went with Beth straight for the man.

  Jade swung her knife at the man’s exposed mid-section. It was a good strike, impossible to miss at such close range. But at the last second the man’s body split in two. Jade whiffed and stumbled past. A swarm of insects shot from the man’s mouth and bashed her in the side. Maddox barely caught her as she tumbled.

  “Scarabs! Don’t let them reform!” Beth yelled, ducking beneath another attack.

  The scarabs—hundreds of them, thousands of them—scuttled back into the man’s form, pincers clicking, eyes glinting.

  Kaylee pulled on her elemental magic and electricity answered. She’d been taking hand-to-hand combat lessons with Maddox and Jade for a while now, but this enemy would clearly require a little more force of the magical variety.

  “Edwin, can you shield me?”

  Edwin nodded and began chanting. The sweet tang of his magic covered Kaylee’s tongue as his Shield spell fell on her. The effect would last only as long as Edwin could physically sustain it. And while he’d grown immensely better since the first time Kaylee had met him, she didn’t want to put the extent of his magic to the test.

  She rushed in, swiping with her clawed hands. A crackle of electricity sparked from the tips of
her claws, skewering the mass of insects into two separate halves. This time they were slower to reform. The man’s shapeless face turned on her. A gaping, writhing mouth lunged—just as a torrent of wind knocked it aside.

  “You’ll have to hit it harder than that, Kaylee!” Josh said.

  “Give it some serious lightning,” Edwin said. “That might be enough to disrupt it from reforming.”

  Josh summoned another burst of wind. “We’ll give you an opening—no, Tygus!”

  Josh’s Tamer rushed forward as the man went for Josh. Josh knocked the strike aside and pulled the boy back by his collar. “You can protect me when we’re not in danger! Go help Jade and Maddox. Now, Beth!”

  Beth touched a carved talisman on her wrist. Kaylee recognized it as a magically charged charm the Convocation Merlins handed out to the magic-less Protectors. The charm glowed and Beth’s sword ignited in flames. The scarab reared up, sending a wave of beetles her way. Beth’s next strike broke through the mass and sent the group skittering back.

  “Get ready, Kaylee!”

  Kaylee called on her elemental magic again. The sensation was like trying to grasp a wriggling fish and use it as a weapon. She’d grown better the last few months, but Kaylee still felt she should have had more control by now.

  The magic answered anyway.

  Her electricity grew in power, balling in her hand. Her eyes picked out the electrical connections in the air around her; pathways of energy just waiting to conduct her power and enhance it.