Chapter One
Chace
glanced up from the glass of amber beer as his closest friend,
Gunner, approached their usual table in the corner of the bar. Unlike
Chace, who was a dragon shifter, Gunner was able to transform into a
panther the size of a car. He had dark hair and almond-shaped, brown
eyes, a muscular frame, a gait worthy of a cat and two pints in his
hands. He sat and placed one glass down beside Chace’s untouched
drink.
“You
ate your pizza, which means you can’t be too sick to drink your
beer,” Gunner observed.
“There’s no
excuse for wasting good pizza,” Chace replied. “Just not
thirsty.”
“You really did it, didn’t you?”
Gunner guessed.
“Yeah,”
Chace replied. “I talked to him.”
“And?”
Chace’s
eyes swept around the shifters’ bar, the only safe haven for a
dying race of supernatural creatures that were being hunted and
killed off. The tables, chairs and flooring were all mahogany, worn
but polished and clean, the ceiling and lattice work on the pillars
resembling those of an English pub rather than a typical biker bar.
The walls were decorated with autographed classic rock posters, and
shadowboxes with guitars, drumsticks and other rock curios perched
above the row of plush booths along one wall.
The bar fed
off his magic and was full this evening, though its patrons were
tense. Their talk consisted of worried murmurs and the occasional
cursing.
“He’ll
give me what I want,” Chace replied. “Doesn’t seem to be any
strings attached. Just wants me and everything I own, which is
basically just my bike at this point.”
Gunner sat
down, frowning. “Why Chace?”
Because
I’m tired of watching people I care about die around me. Chace
debated what to tell his friend, who had been with him the longest of
anyone still living.
“You
remember Steven?” he asked.
“Yeah. He
built your chopper, right?”
“Yep. I used to
take it to him for maintenance every year for forty years, and he
checked up with me monthly to make sure it was working well. He built
it by hand,” Chace mused. “He loved that thing like it was his
own.”
“Used
to. I can guess where this is going,” Gunner said. “He passed?”
“Last
week. I got an email from his son. He left me spare parts in his
will.” Chace chuckled. “Think he liked the bike more than me, but
he was …”
“… the
last human friend who hadn’t died. I get it.”
They
both fell quiet. Sometimes, Chace wondered where the years went,
because they seemed to jumble up and fly by in a blink. And
sometimes, he wasn’t certain he’d make it through the end of a
week, especially when someone like Steven died and made him question
everything in his life all over again. He’d outlived every friend
he’d ever had, up until he chose only to associate with other
shifters. Every time he let himself fall for a girl or made a friend,
he convinced himself that this time, it would work out. The curse
would lift, and he wouldn’t be left alone again.
It
never works out that way.
“A
thousand years, Gun,” he murmured. “I’ve been alive a thousand
years. Steven was eighty, and he left me spare parts, because he knew
I wasn’t going to die anytime soon.”
“Oh, hell.
Here we go again,” Gunner joked. “It’s the nature of who we
are, man.”
“It’s the
nature of who you are,”
Chace corrected him. “I was made a shifter. You all were born
shifters.”
“Doesn’t
matter, does it? We’re all the same now.”
“Except you can
die in a fight with another shifter. Me? No such luck,” Chace
replied. “You expect to be immortal. I can’t figure out why I’m
not dead.”
Gunner
snorted in response.
“You know
what I was doing when I turned eighty?”
“Sleeping
your way across Finland?”
“Yes, but
there’s more.” Chace grinned. “I was going to the funeral of my
mother, who lived to almost a hundred. You ever see a Viking
funeral?”
“On TV.”
“They’re spectacular.” Chace
allowed himself to think of the memory he didn’t like recalling. He
could almost smell the scent of burning wood as his mother’s body
was set afloat on a fiery Viking ship into the sea. The evening had
been cold and clear, the sunset smearing brilliant pinks, oranges and
purples across one end of the sky while the other end was deep blue
and scattered with blinking stars.
He’d gone
incognito, disguised as a distant cousin, for no one but his mother
knew his secret at that point that he was immortal. Even she didn’t
know why the curse was placed on him. It was a secret he hadn’t
told anyone. Ever. He’d been a stupid, hotheaded fool when he was a
kid.
“I want to be human again. I want my
heart back. Anyway.” He shook his head. “I went to see Mr.
Nothing this morning, and he made me a smokin’ deal. He’ll lift
the curse in exchange for everything that is mine.”
“So
… what is that exactly? Did you ask?”
Chace
shrugged. “Don’t care. The moment before he makes me mortal, I’m
going to move my cabin one last time and just live out the rest of my
years in peace. Beside, I only have my magic and my bike.”
“When I met you, you were this
hot-headed, cocky bastard.” Gunner leaned forward, his face taut
with concern. “You mellowed out over the years a bunch. But this
decision sounds like it was made by the young dragon shifter who
didn’t stop to think before lighting things on fire.”
Chace said
nothing. A small part of him agreed, but he’d been more disturbed
by Steven’s death than he cared to let on. Long ago he tried to
close off his emotions to the world. Maybe it was monthly chats and
ritual trips to visit Steven that let the tiny man with a huge smile
work his way under his skin. After a thousand years, Chace should be
completely numb, able to rationalize death as a stage in the natural
way of the world the way Gunner did.
But he
couldn’t, and he’d tried for years to philosophize his way into
accepting death.
“I made the deal anyway,” Chace
said. “He’s going to send a messenger tonight or tomorrow with
one of his cards to let me know where to meet him for the final
spell.”
“You know we don’t know anything
about Mr. Nothing.”
“We know he’s older than even me,
and that he’s got the magic to do this. The deal is
straightforward. Worst case scenario, he kills me.” Chace shrugged.
“I
don’t like it.”
“I don’t
either. What other choice do I have of ever having this curse lifted?
The woman who placed it on me – she’s been dead for over nine
hundred years, Gunner!”
“I know.”
“At some point,
I’ll outlive you and the rest of the guys we run with. No, Gunner,
I’m done. What she did to me can’t be undone any other way, and
I’ve looked for a way to end the curse my entire life,” Chace
said firmly. “I turned a thousand last week, and that’s when
Steven died. It’s a sign.”
“I
hear ya.” Gunner’s voice was soft. “I don’t blame you, Chace.
I just don’t trust Mr. Nothing.”
Mr.
Nothing had gotten his nickname because no one could find out
anything about him. No one knew where he lived and yet, he was easy
to find whenever Chace had wanted to talk to the elusive creature
that had been around since he was made a shifter.
Easy to
find. Not easy to get answers out of. Chace
had nearly gone mad the first few years of the curse trying to get
the shadowy figure that only appeared at night to tell him something
about his newfound immortality or his magic.
To this day,
Chace had no idea what Mr. Nothing was, aside from a shifter of some
kind with great power. He suspected Mr. Nothing was a dragon, though
he’d long since given up trying to get answers out of someone who
didn’t seem interested in anyone else.
Gunner waved
to someone who had just entered, and Chace looked up to see the third
member of their four-man gang. A phoenix shifter with a like-minded
affinity for fire, Luke was blond like Chace, though his hair was
short and his eyes dark, whereas Chace had blue eyes and kept his
dark blond hair long in the way of his Viking people.
“Don’t
tell the others,” Chace said to Gunner. “I’ll let them know
when everything is final.”
“All right.”
Gunner didn’t appear to be happy about keeping secrets from the
other two members of their tight-knit crew.
“Thanks. I’m gonna go get changed.”
“I’ll
put on some tunes. I think the shifters need something to cheer them
up.”
Chace
rose. He agreed silently and took in the faces of those around him
once more, trying to distance himself from his concern. As much as he
tried to deny it, he knew they were his people, even if he’d
started off as a human. They had nowhere else to go, and no one else
to turn to. The shifter creed was simple: to live their lives quietly
without harming anyone or bringing attention to their society. It was
how they remained hidden, a secret subculture that the humans had no
need to know about.
Yet
someone had found out, and the shifter ranks had thinned considerably
the past twenty years. Once numbering in the thousands, the several
dozen men and women seeking refuge in his bar were all that remained.
Chace
left out of the back door of the bar and stepped into the warm air of
early evening. The distant drone of traffic on I-10 reaching him
across the flat desert terrain.
He didn’t
want to feel worry or fear for the shifter family that adopted him
when he had no one else, but he did. On one hand, the timing for him
to decide to strike a deal with Mr. Nothing felt wrong, because he
wouldn’t be around to help the others, if they needed it. He’d
airlifted a few other shifters out of their homes when they’d been
too afraid to leave. Their fear struck him hard, even when he tried
to remain numb to the world.
You care
too much to abandon them, Gunner
had told him once.
And he did.
The brash, selfish, cocky young man who was cursed for being a fool
had turned thoughtful over the years, compassionate and observant of
his world. Even if he tried to keep everyone at a distance.
Chace
focused on the small cabin that materialized out of thin air. Another
creation of his magic, he had managed to take his home with him
wherever he went over the years, the only real solace he had. It was
the cabin where he’d been born and where his mother had lived up
until her death. Only after returning to it after her funeral had he
realized that his magic would let him take it with him.
There
were days when he thought it was more alive than not with a mind of
its own. Its magic and his were intertwined but not the same. It
reacted to his emotions and commands, and yet, it had its own life as
well, which had baffled him for many years until he finally just
accepted it.
He
walked in. The cabin had looked the same for many years. It had a
simple floor plan consisting of a great room where everything was and
a small bathroom he’d added a hundred years before. The great room
held a king-sized bed with a wood stove, living room area, small
office space and a storage corner where he kept what precious items
he had.
Chace
changed out of the dusty clothes he’d worn on his daily ride and
into a fresh t-shirt and jeans, though he replaced his motorcycle
jacket in case he had the urge for a midnight ride, like he did
sometimes. Crossing to the storage corner, he paused.
“Would
you stop rearranging my boxes?” he growled at the cabin.
It
didn’t reply. It never did, but the boxes returned to the order
where he preferred them of their own accord. The tiny disturbance
reminded him of how independent the magic of his cabin was, when it
chose to be. It was like his magic, which obeyed him most of the time
and then sometimes, responded too readily to his emotions and forced
him to shift when he otherwise wouldn’t.
“It’s
like living with a passive-aggressive woman,” he said, amused. “You
listening?”
The
boxes suddenly flew off their shelves and tumbled to the floor at his
feet.
“A
thousand years old and less mature than me,” he teased it. “Clean
that up, please.”
He
turned away, knowing the magic would obey, but probably not until
after he left. He didn’t understand why his cabin was possessed or
the link between it and his own independent magic.
After
a thousand years, he no longer cared. In a few days, none of it would
matter anyway.
He
left the cabin, gaze going to the sky once more. A familiar yearning
filled him, the call of the heavens clear in his thoughts. He found
peace in the sky and in flying around.
Deciding he
had time for a quick flight, he peeled off his clothing and tossed
them on the porch. The transformation from human to dragon was brutal
on his body – and irreparable on the clothing.
Pain
roared through him, hot enough to rob him of breath. His flesh tore
and his muscles were ripped from the bones. His bones then snapped
and changed, forming the skeleton of his new shape, before sewing
themselves back together. Tissue, muscle and skin adjusted and
rearranged atop the new skeleton.
The first
time he shifted, he thought he was dying. A thousand years later, he
could control the pain with ease, even if he hated the bursts of
agony and the twisting of his bones, skin, and insides that occurred
when he changed shapes.
The process
lasted mere seconds, and he unfolded his long wings on either side of
his body. The translucent wings glittered dark teal in the moonlight,
the same color as his thick scales and the fur edging them.
His senses were
far more sensitive in his dragon form, and he breathed deeply and
sneezed fire. The stream of yellow barely missed the bar. The scents
from within were overpowering, and he shook his head then leapt
effortlessly towards the sky. His wings caught him easily and
propelled him upward.
He
imagined the distance between him and the stars growing shorter as he
soared upward, and he beat his wings hard, wondering if tonight was
the night he got close enough to capture one.
Amused
by his thoughts, he dipped his wings, caught an air current, and
began playing, alternately floating in place and weaving in and out
of the current, always intrigued by the challenge of how it tugged or
pushed at his wings. He dove, wheeled and slammed on the brakes in
midair, plummeting towards the earth only to unfurl the long wings
and catch himself a couple feet from the ground.
Chace loved
the sensation of the air ruffling his fur and tickling him, the cool
air of evening filling his lungs. He loved the freedom
of being a dragon most, the
ability to take to the heavens whenever he felt the urge. He found
peace in the skies, looking down at the miniaturized buildings,
vehicles and cars. It gave him perspective, reminded him that his
biggest concerns always looked tiny from far above.
Content with
his short flight, he circled the bar lazily, slowly descending from
the sky. The choice he’d made and the deal he’d bartered for with
Mr. Nothing was done. The mysterious Mr. Nothing gave him time to
think it over once last time, but Chace already knew his decision.
He was tired
of seeing everyone he cared about die. He wanted to be human again,
and nothing anyone said was going to convince him otherwise.
ONLINE LINKS:
Angela Scott hears voices. Tiny fictional people sit on her shoulders and whisper their stories in her ear. Instead of medicating herself, she decided to pick up a pen, write down everything those voices tell me, and turn it into a book. She’s not crazy. She’s an author. For the most part, she writes contemporary Young Adult novels. However, through a writing exercise that spiraled out of control, she found herself writing about zombies terrorizing the Wild Wild West–and loving it. Her zombies don’t sparkle, and they definitely don’t cuddle. At least, she wouldn’t suggest it. She lives on the benches of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains with two lovely children, one teenager, and a very patient husband. She graduated from Utah State University with a B.A. degree in English, not because of her love for the written word, but because it was the only major that didn’t require math. She can’t spell, and grammar is her arch nemesis. But they gave her the degree, and there are no take backs.
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