Scars, Spells and Secrets

Chapter 25

The man startled, turning to stare out the doorway.

They really ought to stop doing that, Elizabeth thought with a sigh of resignation. Elena strolled calmly towards the bloody remains of the female hunter and plucked up one of the large butcher knives she'd chosen to arm herself with. Out of her shoes, the half dragon was utterly silent as she moved.

The man's distraction very quickly proved fatal as she simply reached up and slid the blade across his throat from behind.

Elizabeth looked away again, trembling in Hawthorne's arms. She had to wonder, though; the man had stayed with his back to them for longer than he should have to simply see if anyone was going to enter the room. It was almost as if....

As if he'd given up.

She felt a gentle tug as Hawthorne stood and did the same. He kept an arm around her and bent down to whisper in her ear. "Keep your eyes shut if you can, just like that, I'll help you out of here. Just keep your eyes closed." She did so, leaning heavily on him for support. "Okay, big step over this," he muttered, and she did so though she felt her foot brush someone's limb. He turned her down the hall and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay. We're out here. We're safe. Open your eyes." She did so, looking towards the locked door that they'd been brought in through. On this side of it there was a chain with a locking mechanism that apparently required a key to be able to let chain slide through it. She turned back to speak, but bumped into Dimitri. He had the young boy slung over his shoulder and was fishing in his pockets. The boy was just whimpering and praying while begging not to die. Triumphantly, Dimitri held up a key ring. Hawthorne took it and hurried ahead, taking multiple tries to even get each key into the lock. He managed on the fourth one, turning it and pulling the chain to open the bar. He pushed it open slowly and gasped, frozen in place.

"What?" Elizabeth asked, rushing to his side. She drew in a sharp breath and covered her mouth with one hand, eyes wide.

There, in the courtyard, was a real, live, honest to God dragon.

It was a metallic silver even in the light of the moon, with huge batlike wings. Its body-his body, she reminded herself, was thickly built and roughly the size of a city bus or an eighteen wheeler trailer. His head must have been the size of Charline's tiny car, and his neck was thick and powerful. His claws were feet long and razor sharp if the gouges in the concrete were anything to go by. There were mostly intact bodies around him, most of them slumped against the concrete walls. His powerful tail, which was at least as long as the rest of his body, was probably to blame for the carnage. He had two large horns sweeping back on his head with a series of spines or spikes going from just below each of those, heading in two lines onto the upper edges of his wings. They ended where the thumb hook on an actual bat's wings would be, the rest of the solid part smooth. The membrane, when stretched, was almost translucent. Beneath one of his talons was the body of Doctor Rehn. He was clutching a gun, or rather half of one; it had been bitten in half by the looks of things, as had the good doctor. When Alexander lifted his foot the man's body shifted in two different directions.

"Elizabeth!"

She stared on, studying the snakelike plates on the underside of his throat and down his belly to the tip of his tail.

"Elizabeth?"

Alexander turned his eye towards her, tilting his head slightly as he stared at herself and Hawthorne. He gave what looked like a small nod and sat, looking utterly regal.

"Elizabeth!"

The witch jumped as Charline grabbed her upper arm, staring at her friend for what felt like an age before her brain processed what she was seeing. She gasped and threw her arms around the other woman, clinging to her tightly. "How did you know to come here? How-" She broke down into sobs at that moment, trying but failing to continue questioning the other woman through her hiccuping breaths.

"Elena grabbed me. She said you and Dimitri and Hawthorne were in trouble and we needed to get into a place and break you out. When Elena started fighting she told me to hide in an empty room. Elizabeth, what is... Going...... On?" She trailed off, staring openly through the doorway at the vision in the courtyard.

"What in the fuck?" she asked sharply.

Dimitri sighed, shifting the young man draped over his shoulder. "Look, honestly? We really, really need to get out of here right now. I swear I will explain everything but this is really not a good place to be."

Charline nodded and went gray as she saw Elena calmly strolling down the hallway, drenched in blood and carrying both of her ruined shoes.

"Spell worked," she told Dimitri. "All traces are gone."

He nodded, wincing visibly. "We need a way to get home."

"I've got one!" Elena said, sounding far too chipper as she held up a gunked up car key. "I don't think the electronic fob is going to ever work again, but the key itself will."

He nodded and sighed. "Guess that's our best bet." He carried the young man to the van, searching it quickly and coming up with a pack of zip ties. "Not gonna take any risks," he explained as he bound the boy's wrists and ankles. He clipped the young man's wrists to the hook in the van and gestured to the vehicle. "Come on in."

Charline stepped forward, reaching out for Dimitri's hand. "I think you're going to come with me. I drove the two of us here and stopped a few hundred feet down the road. I am not letting Elena back in my car, and you and I have an awful lot to talk about."

He sighed and nodded, tucking his cigarette back into his mouth. "I think that's an understatement," Dimitri muttered. He gave Elena a nod. "Take back Dad, okay?"

She gave him a manic grin and waved happily. "Of course. We'll take care of the van too. See you, oh... At the alchemist's house once you two have a chat?" He grunted in response and nodded, heading away with Charline. Elizabeth started to climb into the back of the van but Elena quickly rushed in front of her. "No, you need to sit in front with me."

The witch froze, eyes wide. She suddenly realized that any favor she'd curried with Elena before was dead and gone, and she'd just watched the woman murder four people with her bare hands. She whimpered softly, eyes wide. Elena stared a moment and tilted her head in a way that would have been almost adorable had she not been drenched in blood. "I have to take our dad back with us. He's going to have to change back into human form, and he's going to be naked. Sit in front with me."

She hesitated, eyes flitting over to the dragon and back to Elena and then to Hawthorne. He sighed and walked over, taking the witch's hand gently. "She won't hurt you, if that's what you're worried about," he whispered into Elizabeth's ear.

Elena made her way up to the front, starting up the van. Elizabeth took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "I... Are you sure?" she asked, brows furrowing. "I mean, after what we just saw-"

He shook his head and smiled in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring manner. "I've known both of them since we were all little. She's not going to hurt you, I'd stake my own life on it. Besides..." He hesitated and then let out a weak laugh. "She knows I'd be really upset. After all, if you start dating someone and this happens it can only really go up from here, right?"

Elizabeth couldn't help it; she started to laugh at that. She reached up to wipe the tears off of her face. "Yeah, well. I think we win an award for the worst first date ever."

Hawthorne grabbed her gently and pulled her close to his chest, stroking her sticky curls. "I think we should maybe pick a different spot for our second date, though. I mean, just to be really sure."

She sniffled loudly and laughed at that, her body suddenly feeling leaden. "Yeah, I... I think that's a good idea." She pulled back to give him a weak, watery smile and climbed into the front passenger seat of the car, buckling in carefully. She felt the van rock ever so slightly as Hawthorne climbed in, and then again as Alexander did. The adrenaline had left her, and a sudden exhaustion flowed in every cell of her body.

She was unconscious before the van even began moving.