Micah

A couple hours’ sleep was all he got before morning came. He woke even before his phone alarm went off, feeling anxious and bewildered by his memory of the night before.

He yawned and rolled out of bed, dressing for the morning chill.

His morning routine consisted of a run that should have been invigorating, a shower, breakfast that was little more than a cup of instant coffee (no milk because it was expired), and then a short walk from the complex to the bus station. He was too distracted even to resent his trashed car in the apartment parking lot, thinking about the shadow creature as he got on the local university bus, tapping his foot nervously as he settled into the worn seat.

The ride to campus had never taken so long. Micah felt a sense of dread when he thought about sitting through his professor’s lecture, and he wanted little more than to find Allie and tell her what had happened. He briefly considered skipping.

It’s almost time for finals; I need to cut the crap and go, he thought, looking out the bus window into the lifting darkness, lit only by a distant orange glow behind the obscuring treeline. A near-death experience won’t get me passing grades.

The bus let out a gasp and jerked forward on the brakes, stopping.

Micah stood, feeling the textured pseudo-leather of the seats in front of him as he passed them, using their solidness to keep him grounded, out of his thoughts.

He made his way to the humanities building and arrived at his first class at 7:27 to find it had been canceled. There was a small cluster of his classmates reading the notice on the door regarding the online review due next week.

He rejoiced without pleasure as he looked the notice over, dismissed it, and turned to leave, almost bumping into a dark-haired girl, who smiled brightly at him.

“You’re in this class, yes?” she said, a thick, unidentifiable accent on her tongue, the disconcertingly friendly, white-toothed smile growing bigger as he stared, feeling as though he should know her.

“Uh, yeah. Are you new?” he replied, trying to remember if he had ever seen her before. Her eyes, an unusual shade of ochre gold, told him no.

Gold? He thought, and had to look again, but this time they seemed more hazel, and he told himself he’d only seen light catching them at the right angle.

She was striking, her most notable features being her olive complexion, a square, strong jaw, and the broad shoulders and back of some sort of athlete, apparent even under her canvas jacket, which seemed rough and out of place.

“I just moved here.” She shook out her long, coal-black hair from the strangely-cut jacket, and Micah caught the scent of something wholly unfamiliar wafting from her. “My name is Jemma.”

Her accent is unusual. I can’t even begin to place it.

“Micah,” he introduced himself, shaking her cool hand. He gestured backwards to the note on the classroom door. “Professor Carmichael is flaky as hell, sorry.” He wasn’t sure why he was apologizing.

An odd thing happened then that set his teeth on edge.

A breeze from an open window behind Micah blew past him toward Jemma, sending her hair fluttering back in black whips. Her nostrils flared as though she were smelling him on the draft of air, and her eyes went unnaturally wide as her pupils dilated enormously, like a cat on the hunt. She grinned ferally, baring her teeth in a way that was not friendly in the least, making the hairs on his neck and arms stand on end. The girl in front of him for an instant seemed to be a wild creature, no trace of humanity detectable in her overly-sharp face.

Then it was just as quickly over, and she settled back into normality, looking at him curiously. The only evidence that it had even happened was the hair prickling on his arms and neck, and the way his spine was stiff with terror, for the second time in twelve hours.

He felt uncomfortable as she became nonplussed at the expression on his face, and he began questioning whether it had really happened at all.

What was that? Am I losing my mind? This and last night — is my brain messing with me?

Micah broke eye contact and let his gaze stray to the left, and saw Allie far down the hallway, walking to her first class.

His heart made a little leap at the sight of her, and he remembered he had wanted to tell her about the night prior.

The girl in front of him, and the brief fear she had sent coursing through his bones, was for the moment all but forgotten.

“Hey, it was good meeting you,” he said to her, already distracted and giving her the most cursory of adieus. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Without further explanation, he brushed by her, heading straight for Allie.

Maybe that was a dick move, he admitted to himself.

Then another voice, darker and more vicious: Maybe you should be nicer to her, so you’ll have someone to stick it in when Natalia figures out you’re an asshole.

Micah stopped short, surprised and actually hurt by his own self-deprecation.

Man, I have got to get a handle on these intrusive thoughts.

Allie spotted him and smiled, a thick textbook wrapped in her arms, and he forgot what he had been thinking about. She walked toward him, subconsciously flipping her hair forward over one shoulder to cover the scar, a perpetual habit in public.

“Hey, Allie, nice timing. Something wild happened to me last--”

Her eyes looked past him for just a second, and then stuck there, frozen on something behind him.

He had already lost her attention, he realized with disappointment.

“Allie?” he asked, trying to draw her eyes back to him. They stayed riveted on whatever it was that had claimed them, and she asked, her jaw tight, “Who is that?”

He sighed and turned to see to whom she was referring. She had a fix on Jemma’s broad back as she walked the other way, and Micah said confusedly, “Jemma, some new student—”

“She’s not a student,” Allie said, and Micah saw she was shaking slightly, her arms broken out in gooseflesh.

“What? What’s going on, Al?”

“We have to go.”

“But don’t you have class—”

“Never mind. Come on,” she insisted, pulling his arm, but he stayed put, determined to figure out the connection between Jemma and her sudden intense urge to leave.

Jemma paused and then started to turn back toward them.

Suddenly Allie was moving very fast, tugging Micah’s arm with more strength than he had expected from her tiny body; she yanked him into another corridor out of Jemma’s line of sight and stood with her back to the wall, body pressed against it as if she were on a high ledge.

Other people were starting to look at them weirdly.

He opened his mouth to begin a question, and she held up a shaking hand, face turned in profile to him, watching the corner of the hallway. She turned to look at him for the first time, and he was scared by what he saw on her face. Her green eyes were on fire with fear; she was gripping her book so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her entire body thrummed with tension, like a wire pulled taut, her limbs practically singing with vibrating energy. Her breaths reminded him of a small, hunted animal, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

She hissed at him, “Follow.”

She set her textbook on the ground carefully, not making any noise, and then, free of the burden, she took off down the corridor toward the exit. Micah quickly obeyed, following as closely as he could. She was quick, dodging classmates and using the force of her whole body to open the door when she reached it.

He followed in her wake, exiting in time to see her vault from the top of the steps down to the main path, rolling upon landing, causing several people around her to cry out and jump back. She ignored them, going straight from the roll into a standing position, turning back only briefly to make sure he was still coming, the same humming tension visible in her body.

He took the stairs two at a time as fast as he dared. He caught up with her and she took off again in the direction of the parking lot, reaching her Jeep, and, not bothering with the door, she gripped the lid of the roof and pulled herself up to slide her body through the open window and into the driver’s seat.

Micah’s eyebrows furrowed.

What parkour movie did I stumble into?

He regained composure and ran to the passenger side of the red heap, tugging the latch to open the door and slide into the seat just as Allie started the engine with a roar.

She backed out wildly, the tires protesting against the pavement as she peeled out to the end of the row, skipping the circuitous exit at the other end of the lot and just going straight over the nearest curb with a thump, sending the vehicle rumbling across the freshly-watered university grass.

“Allie!” Micah yelled at her, hands clutching for the dash and window frame as she blew through a hedge before bumping over the curb onto the main road, taking a right onto the highway leading out of town.

“We have to get away from people. She’s going to follow!” she replied over the thunder of the engine. She slowed to an almost legal speed on the highway.

“You mean Jemma?”

Allie nodded, eyes on the road and hands gripping the wheel tightly. She didn’t look at him as she spoke through gritted teeth, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

He watched her carefully, trying to read her, as he responded, “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not who you think I am, Micah.”

“Allie, we’ve known each other for years. How could that be true?”

“I mean, you know me, but not all of me. I’m not the person you’ve built in your head.”

“What in the hell does that mean?” he asked, exasperated and wondering why she was waxing metaphysical.

“My people have been called many different things.” She groaned, taking a frustrated breath. “I feel like no matter what I tell you, you’re not going to believe me. Put on your seatbelt.”

“Your people,” Micah repeated dubiously, making no move.

“I’m a fay, like the fae, the old kind before humans started in on little winged fairy-goblin-things.”

Micah raised an eyebrow.

“You’re joking.”

“No, I swear I’m not. Seatbelt, please.”

“And what is Jemma? I’m assuming she’s not human, too?” he said, his tone clearly stating that he had decided she was setting up a very elaborate joke.

“She’s also a fay, but different from me. My people are lyosalfar. She’s dockalfar.”

Micah shook his head, rubbing his temple with his fingers.

Allie chewed her lip, focused on the road as she zipped in front of another car and ignored their blaring, angry horn.

“Look, Allie, today isn’t a good day for jokes. Normally I enjoy games to skip class, but this — take this seriously for once.”

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me,” she exclaimed, equally exasperated. “Pick up on body language! Do I seem like I’m joking?” she asked, turning her eyes from the road to him finally, her face drawn in a look that begged him to believe her. “Now, please, put on the fucking seatbelt.”

Finally, he consented, slipping the seatbelt over his torso with a sigh.

He just barely had time to turn his face to the window before the shoulder of the road at which he had been looking disappeared, and Micah became confused as his window instead filled with blue sky, and then green grass.

The little two-door Jeep hit the ground with a sound like it was tearing apart, metal shredding and screeching as it rolled across a clearing and barreled right into a tree, driver’s side first.

Micah had just a second of slow-motion clarity, where he saw the metal of the driver’s door twisting inwards like crumpling foil, the bark of the tree coming closer and closer, and Allie moving to join him on his side of the car, avoiding the invading tree as the vehicle began to wrap around its thick trunk. He blacked out briefly.

When his vision came back into focus, Allie was hauling him out from the window of the Jeep, her hands digging into his armpits, and he registered dimly that there was blood welling up from a cut on her bottom lip.

She pulled him onto the grass, and he could only gasp up at her, “What the hell was that?”

“We were hit,” she said simply, looking down at him. Before he could ask the obvious, her eyes unfocused, as if something else registered to her senses that took her attention away. She straightened.

“Stand up if you can, Micah. She’s here.”

Micah rolled heavily onto his haunches, then stood slowly, feeling blood rush to his head, which seemed to be full of cotton and stretched to its limit. He hoped he didn’t have a concussion, and was vaguely alarmed by how distant the thought seemed.

Allie turned her back on him and looked expectantly at the trees opposite their crash site. Micah followed her gaze to the trees just in time to see a lean figure exit the shade of the foliage.

It was Jemma, smiling and strolling as casually as if she had happened upon them by complete accident.

“Aeliana, I’ve been searching for you for ages.” Her voice was too polite, too cheerful, and the sound of it sent another line of tension shivering through Allie. Micah saw it in the corner of his eyes, and became alarmed when she tensed into a position that clearly meant a fight.

“Allie, you can’t seriously--”

She shushed him with an urgent glance, then turned her attention back to the darker girl, her gaze scalding.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said to Jemma with pure venom. “Go back to Sidhe.”

“Absolutely not. The missing heir to the Atlantean throne, hiding out in the Overworld for years, with this...human… -- it’s too delicious. I saw you yesterday at the water, but I wasn’t sure until earlier. Your scent is all over him,” she gestured to Micah. “I just had to wait until you were together again. And now here you both are.” Her lips were twisted in amusement, in stark contrast to the grim hostility evident in Allie’s voice and stance.

Micah’s thoughts went wild with possibilities, dissecting what she had said. Heir to the what throne? Overworld? She smelled me — what happened earlier in the hall wasn’t in my head at all.

“You’re making a mistake,” Allie warned.

Micah watched as a thin snarl of black smoke slithered from Jemma’s mouth, curling in the air.

He felt his jaw go slack in disbelief as he watched it grow, circling her slowly and expanding into something enormous, taller than the trees and longer than the clearing itself. It looped into thick swirls of black smog, which solidified into scales. Micah found himself looking at the coils of a massive serpent; his eyes followed the smooth expanse of its neck up to a head that was not as snakelike as he predicted, and more like a…

“Dragon,” Micah breathed, staring at the mighty head, which had a slim muzzle hanging open in a grin to display vicious fangs. Even as he watched, the coils of smoke were forming sharp ridges along its back and a pair of cape-like wings. Jemma stood in the shadow of a gargantuan, serpentine dragon, its obsidian scales seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it, as if the entire beast were made up of one giant shadow, like the shadow beast that had attacked him the night before.

Not like the beast, he realized as eight ghastly eyes opened on its head. It was the beast.

It appeared to acknowledge his recognition with a wide grin, displaying its sickeningly curved teeth in an intestine-clenching look that said, ‘You again.’

“How long has it been since you used magic, Aeliana? You’ve been here for so long, your abilities have undoubtedly withered,” Jemma mocked, and her dark dragon laughed, a deep rumble that shook Micah down to his white sneakers.

Jemma, however, lost her smile, her face becoming completely calm, as if entering into battle mode. “What can you possibly do against a drake?”

“You’re a fool to bring your drake to the Overworld,” Allie responded. “But you are especially a fool to think I’d be completely unguarded.”

She held out a clenched fist, and when she opened it, a small ball of pure, bright light burned there in her palm. She let the orb drop to the grass, where it lingered for just a second, then exploded silently and filled the entire clearing with blinding light.

Micah’s vision went spotted and everything was too bright for him to make out what had happened. Blotches of darkness made their way into his vision, and the clearing slowly came back into focus.

Jemma and her serpent dragon had flinched from the flash, and only Allie stood tall and strong, at her side a mighty dragon of white scales and gilt pride.

His thick tail was tipped with pale, golden fur and edged with scarlet gems that ran all along his sleek belly. Four muscular legs supported his frame, like that of an enormous jungle cat. His back and long neck were crested with the same golden fur, leading up to a majestic head with brilliant yellow eyes, fur-tipped ears, and a pair of ivory horns that swept straight back. A set of eagle-like wings unfolded themselves from his back and flapped once, gleaming like molten silver and sending a gust of air over them.

Where Jemma’s drake was the night incarnate, Allie’s was a majestic vision of light.

The pair of fae appraised each other, faces emotionless but the air laden with aggression.

Jemma struck first -- or it appeared she did, but really she simply flung out an aggressive hand, signaling her serpent to lunge at the other with vicious speed.

The white drake jumped back beyond its reach, then darted back forward and swiped out with a gleaming claw that was met with nothing. The serpentine dragon had already ducked low and was darting in and up close in the other’s range, but Allie jerked back in response, and her ally used his powerful legs to launch himself temporarily into the air.

Immediately the other’s whip-like tail shot out and wound itself around the pastern of the airborne drake, pulling him back down to the earth. The ground shook when the drake landed. They continued to attempt to land blows on the other.

Allie stood unmoving now, her attention focused completely on Jemma, who was equally still in the midst of the chaos, both of them entirely intent on each other.

The pair of dragons twisted around each other, jaws and claws tearing fiercely at armored flesh. Allie’s drake slashed with diamond-like talons at the exposed underbelly of Jemma’s fighter, who threw up a smoky wing that caused the deadly claws to glance off.

Micah could do nothing but play spectator to this display of might and magic; the battle was far beyond what he could help.

This is really happening. I’m watching dragons fight. Or it’s a really, really vivid dream, he thought, in awe of the clashing creatures.

Allie was focused, the drakes battling above her barely drawing a blink, her eyes solely on Jemma, as if watching for something: a cringe, a cry, a chink in her emotional armor.

And it was beginning to show itself: Jemma was beginning to grow impatient, her calm façade cracking.

“I don’t think you realize just how deep you’re in it already!” Jemma called to Allie, purely for the purpose of distraction. “There are already several of my allies here, going straight for your home!”

It was a successful ploy, in that Allie was distracted for a split second, unable to help herself from subconsciously reevaluating her priorities. Jemma saw her chance.

Signaling her drake again, she stepped back once as the obsidian dragon uncoiled from around the other’s neck and reared back, opening its maw wide. Deep in the pit of the serpent’s mouth, Micah saw a ball of fire form, and then in a rush of blasted heat, it spat a powerful burst of flame at its opponent. The air itself seemed to blister and warp, and the silvery drake screamed under the gout of fire. Allie gasped, looking as though she’d just had the air knocked from her lungs. She doubled over.

Jemma cackled triumphantly. She had lost all traces of her human guise; she again looked like the supernatural creature Micah had seen in the hallway that morning. Her dark hair flared in the wind and her eyes were like pitch; the olive tones in her complexion had disappeared and instead her skin was like dark gold. She was a whirl of gilt skin and fury, ready to end the battle and snatch her victory.

Allie began shaking gently, her face hidden from them, and Micah thought for a moment that she was sobbing.

Then he caught a glimpse of her profile and realized she was badly stifling a laugh.

She looked up at Jemma, whose sharp face fell, caught off guard. Allie shook her head, dismissing the mirth in a clearly mocking way. Despite her humor, Micah could see her face becoming drawn and tired.

“You can’t hurt me with that,” Allie said to the other fay. “This is a guardian spell, completely ethereal and unconnected to me. You, however, brought your real drake here, linked up and everything, and you decided to fight with it. That is why you’re an idiot.”

Jemma barked a harsh laugh, her dark eyes furious. Her serpentine drake swayed with her laughter, no longer battle ready, conflicted, receiving mixed emotional signals from its master. The dark fay had completely lost her composure.

“I’m more than enough for you.”

“No. You’re going to lose,” Allie said, and her drake struck with speed and precision while the other was unfocused, darting in and clamping his monstrous teeth down on the other drake’s neck.

The black dragon struggled for a half second before the muscles in the other’s neck flexed, yanking backwards, tearing scale and sinew and muscle. Dark blood splattered the ground and the shadow beast gave a short shriek that quickly dissolved into a helpless gargle.

As if to match, Jemma’s torso was suddenly torn from the throat to the ribcage, bursting in a mess of gore, followed by her lifeless body hitting the ground without so much as a whimper.

Micah felt a huge rush of relief that overpowered his nausea, and turned to Allie to embrace her, but she had dropped to her knees.

Without her concentration holding it together, her drake disintegrated into thousands of tiny fragments of light, which flickered out before they hit the scorched grass.

“Allie?” Micah asked, kneeling in front of her. Her eyes were closed and her face was pale, but she was smiling weakly.

“Got her,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Not used to channeling that kind of focus. Just need...to rest a few.”

“Allie?”

Her head dipped a little, and he knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder, his face concerned. She breathed in very deeply and opened her eyes to blink them sleepily before letting the breath out in one big whoosh.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think that controlling a guardian spell would be this draining.”

She looked up and prepared to stand, putting her hands heavily on her thighs and pushing. Immediately on reaching full standing height, her face paled, and she swayed.

“Ohp, stood up too fast,” she said, went back down to her haunches, and then promptly vomited onto the grass.

Micah patted her gently on the back.

“You good?”

“Yep, righteous,” she said, though she looked absolutely ill. “It’ll be better in just a sec. C’mon, let’s get out of here in case she wasn’t bluffing about the reinforcements.”

She attempted again to stand, shook her head as if it would clear the nausea, and then started toward the edge of the clearing, back toward the road.

Micah followed her.

“I saw her dragon last night on the road. Totaled my car,” he said.

“They’ve been on our tail for a little bit then. They may have tracked us to both our places.”

They were quiet as they considered the implications of that.

Before they left, Allie set eyes on the sad heap of a Jeep that was curled around a tree like a lover, and her face was apologetic.

“Aw, man.”

The wreckage of the Jeep was fast becoming the only evidence of their being there.

Jemma and her drake were evaporating into wispy black smoke, which rose into the air and disappeared, leaving a clearing containing nothing but burnt grass and a totaled old vehicle.

“Poor car,” she said sadly.

She moved on.