Dragon Mine (A Hidden Novella) (6 page)

Goron boomed in laughter. “All right, we do. Sometimes. But not every moment. I do not know where your father is, Dragon.” He turned to her. “And no, I do not know where your father is, either.”

“Please, can you help us find them?”

“Do I look like a bloodhound? I am not a finder of things or Crescents.”

“How do we defeat the tulpa?” she asked.

Goron looked beyond her. “It’s there now, waiting.”

She and Kirin turned, seeing a black mass hovering outside the circle.

“It must be destroyed,” she said, turning back to Goron.

Tulpas had been known to do damage to both Crescents and Mundanes. Mundanes saw tornadoes or other elements of nature. Crescents saw what lurked behind the magick.

“Please help us,” she said.

He considered them. “For a price.”

She straightened her shoulders. “I will pay it.”

Goron’s gaze shifted to Kirin. “I want Dragon powers for a day.
Your
power.”

Kirin shot to his feet. “Like fiery hell you’re getting my Dragon.” His tattoo stirred, the Dragon’s claws gleaming.

“Then like fiery hell will I help you.”

Kirin’s struggle to control his temper was clear on his face. “Why would you want to be a Dragon?”

“To feel what it is like. I am curious and bored. What gem color are you? No, let me guess by your reaction: Carnelian.” He smiled. “Ah, fire, passion, things I have not experienced in a long time.” Pleasure and anticipation wrapped around his words. “I could have fun with that.”

“What are you, a cross-dresser?”

Goron laughed, which was better than, say, incinerating Kirin. “That’s the deal. It’s the only thing you have that I want.”

Kirin looked at her. His muscles tensed in the deity’s light. Then he directed his gaze back at Goron. “You can’t harm anyone with my power.”

“I will not harm anyone.” Goron’s smile was positively gleaming. “So, is it a deal? For the next twenty-four hours, I have your Dragon?”

Kirin said, “Twelve.”

“This isn’t a negotiation,” Goron said.

“Yeah, it is. I could die without my essence.”

“Eighteen,” Goron said.

“This is starting to sound like an episode of
Pawn Stars
,” Kirin muttered under his breath. “It’s a deal. How does it work?”

“We make the agreements, you grant me your essence, and then tomorrow afternoon it returns.”

Kirin’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. Could they trust the deity? Did they have a choice?

“All right.”

She met Kirin’s gaze. Her brave Dragon. She blinked at the thought. Well, not
hers
.

Goron even rubbed his hands together in glee. “Very well then.” He recited the words, and Kirin repeated them, each one torn from his throat. It was different for Dragons. The beast was part of their identity, whereas Deuces viewed their magick as a tool or a weapon.

As soon as Kirin spoke the last word, Goron reached out, pulling a stream of red light from Kirin’s chest. His Dragon tattoo writhed like a fish caught on a line. Kirin arched, his face contorted in pain.

“Stop!” she said. “You’re hurting him!”

She reached for Kirin, but through gritted teeth, he said, “Don’t touch me. He’ll take your power, too.”

His thigh muscles bulged, straining against some unseen force. His shoulders bunched up. This was a mistake. She pushed Kirin out of the flow, and he fell to his knees. The last of the red essence shot into Goron.

She knelt next to Kirin. “Are you all right?”

He breathed heavily but nodded. A sheen of sweat covered his skin. He lifted his face to Goron. “You have my Dragon. Tell us how we defeat the tulpa.”

“Only the creator can dissolve a tulpa.”

She would have jumped to her feet but Kirin was gripping her wrist. “That’s what he gave you his Dragon for? To learn we cannot defeat it?”

“Patience, Crescent! You will not speak to me that way or I shall depart.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth in a tight line. “Fine. Go on.”

“There is what you call a loophole, should the creator die before dissolving his creation. But you must vow to never tell others.”

“We won’t tell a soul.” Kirin got to his feet, although she felt tremors going through him. “Tell us.”

“Flank the tulpa. One in front of it, one behind it. You, Deuce Crescent, use the orange orb, if you can manage it.”

Orange. The highest power orb, to only be used in extreme situations because the effort they took to create burned the Deuce’s hands. “I will.”

“And you, Dragon. I have heard of this thing called the deepest breath. You know of it?”

Kirin nodded. “I already tried it. Along with Elle’s orb, it sent the tulpa away but didn’t kill it.”

“You have part of the key to destroying it, in that you must send your weapons at it in the same moment. But it will take more than your combined powers. You must weaken it first. Every tulpa is different, depending on the energy used to create it. A tulpa created for revenge knows only hatred and anger. What it wants is more anger. When you fight it, you feed it. So you must ply it with the opposite to weaken its energy. The trick will be to emit”—Goron made a distasteful face, as though he’d gotten a whiff of a dead fish—“
loving
emotions while fighting the tulpa.”

“We have to send warm and fuzzy thoughts
to
the tulpa?” Elle asked.  

“You can think of someone you love or puppies or anything that makes you happy. But keep in mind that this will only work for a short time, perhaps even seconds, before the tulpa returns to its task.”

“So we have to be fighting for our lives
and
thinking happy thoughts.” Elle hoped she kept the strain from showing in her voice. She traded a look with Kirin, who obviously saw the difficulty, too. Especially for him, since he’d be Dragon.

Except…he wouldn’t be Dragon.

Kirin’s arms tightened at his sides. “How can I use my Dragon powers if you have them?” Kirin asked.

Goron raised one eyebrow, a wry smile on his face. “That is your problem. I have done my part. Now I shall go singe some angels, those superior—”

“Goron?” she asked. “My father’s price for your help in creating the tulpa. What was it?”

“His ability to protect himself. You see how much fun I have with you Crescents.” He vanished, leaving only the echo of his laughter.

“Hell.” Kirin slapped his hand on his chest, taking in the absence of his tattoo. “He set us up. He’s probably sitting in a recliner over there with a beer and popcorn, waiting for the show.”

They heard a low rumble nearby. The black mass pressed against the circle. The tulpa was taking form again. It couldn’t get in, but they couldn’t sit there for eighteen hours until Kirin’s Dragon returned.

 Kirin studied the circle. “Do you think he was telling the truth, about how to get rid of it?”

“I don’t know. But it’s all we have. What is the deepest breath, anyway?”

“It’s the drawing of all of our power into one deadly stream. So we come back and finish the thing off.”

She watched the tulpa, now fully formed into its previous scary-assed visage. “Yeah. But we have to get out of here first.”

G
reat. Just fucking great. Kirin was half-naked, Dragonless, with a massive tulpa waiting to grind him up. The Dragonless part bothered him most. A piece of his psyche was missing. He’d felt a little like this when he’d gone two weeks without coming back to Miami. Except this wasn’t just a withering feeling; it was a gaping hole.

Kirin eyed the thing as it stood outside the circle eyeing him back. Well, he thought it was; its eyes were black pits in a flat, butt-ugly face.

“Kiiiiiillll,” its low voice rumbled.

“Yeah, same to you.”

Elle stood next to him, her hands anchored on her hips. “I say we make a run for it.” She worked up a blue orb.

“I’ll distract it here while you break the circle back there. Throw the orb and run to the door. I’ll keep distracting it as I head your way.”

Running away chafed, but without power it was stupid to mess with a fifteen-foot-tall tulpa.

“Hey, dumb ass!” Kirin waved his hands when the tulpa looked at Elle moving away. “Hey! Look at me.”

“Ready,” she said.

He jumped over the circle and moved closer to the tulpa.

Except she didn’t run. “Go!” She faced the tulpa, the orb hovering above her hand.

Like hell.

Elle reared back as the tulpa reached for her. The big, black hand swiped at her, causing the orb to go
splat
on the floor. Blue sparks flared out, singeing their feet and blackening the concrete. She hissed in pain, dancing away from the sparks, her attention off the tulpa for just one second.

That’s all it took for the creature to reach out. Kirin leaped between that massive hand and Elle. The impact blew him back and sent him skidding across the floor. He instinctively reached for Dragon.

No Dragon.

He jumped to his feet, the raw skin on his side stinging where he had scraped across the concrete. The tulpa had knocked Elle down and now leaned toward her, its mouth inches from her head.

“Wooooman.”

She was working up another blue orb. She tried to throw it, but the floor kept her from pulling back enough to get any force behind it. It hit the tulpa’s upper thigh. The tulpa kicked her, sending her rolling across the floor.

That sight, and the sound of her, “Oof!” enraged Kirin as he raced toward them.

The tulpa was reaching for Elle again. One hand could hold her, like in the King Kong movies.

“Hey! Get your hands off her!”

The tulpa turned, probably pulled by Kirin’s rage. He dove at it. The tulpa batted him aside, and Kirin slammed into the wall and slid down. His body aching, he struggled to his feet as the tulpa went after Elle.

Kirin ran, launching himself at the tulpa’s back as it grabbed for Elle. Except he sank
into
the tulpa. He grabbed at anything, which turned out to be only handfuls of oily essence. He tore it apart, pulling, kicking. Suddenly he was face to face with…a face. Wide eyes, open mouth trying to speak in garbled words.

It reached for him. No, not it. He. A man, although his features were warped beyond recognition. The man pushed Kirin so hard that he fell out the back side of the tulpa. He heard Elle shriek. Sparks exploded like fireworks. The tulpa flew upward with an ear-splitting squeal.

Elle ran toward him, and together they raced for the front door. He scooped up his clothes and she smacked into the door, sending it flying open as they dashed outside. Black mist materialized through the corrugated metal wall, passing right through it.

“Get in and put on your seat belt,” he said, jumping behind the wheel.

She was watching the mist as she fumbled with the strap. He jammed on the gas and tore away. The back end of the car fishtailed when they hit the asphalt.

She watched behind them, searching the night sky. “I don’t see it.”

 He kept an eye on the rearview mirror, looking for anything unusual. “I’m pretty sure the tulpa went to my pop’s house but it doesn’t seem able or willing to leave the factory. It’s come after us outside the building twice now but hasn’t followed us.”

She sat facing forward again as they entered the tangle of highways a few minutes later, headed toward her father’s house. “Maybe it only went to Stein’s…well, because my father told it to go there.”

“It doesn’t seem very bright. Probably it hasn’t thought of coming with us.” Yet. Kirin flicked a glance in the rearview mirror. Still no sign of it. He found where he’d tossed his clothing and laid his jeans over his lap, just to be decent. “It hates me, but it likes you. I don’t know which is worse.”

She shuddered, rubbing her arms. “Yeah, that was creepy.”

“There was something even stranger. When I was inside the tulpa, a man pushed me out.”

Horror filled her expression. “A man
in
the tulpa.”

“That’s what it looked like. And remember the first time I went through the tulpa, I heard a scream.”

“Nana said the tulpa sucked out that man’s essence until he died. Maybe that’s how it did it, by consuming the man and then spitting out his body.”

They both went silent for a few moments as those words sank in.

Finally Kirin addressed the gruesome images his imagination was supplying. “I have to think it’s my father in there.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Kirin, that’s horrible. But…if  he’s still alive, can we get him out?”

“That’s what I was wondering, too. But we don’t have much time, according to what Roz said. He’s already been in there a couple of days, which means we have maybe a day. And I’m without my Dragon for the next eighteen hours.” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, frustration engulfing him.

“If only we could find my father.” She shook her head, her mussed brown hair flowing over her shoulders. “He did a terribly irresponsible thing, but I can’t imagine him just running off and leaving that thing to roam. I hope Nana’s right about him consulting with someone to find a way to undo what he’s done.”

Kirin dug out his phone. “I’m going to try Lyra. I’d like to know what she found.” He dialed her number, but it went to voice mail. “Call me,” he said after the beep. “We may have figured out where Pop is.” He disconnected. “That should get her to call right back.”

Goron clapped as the two Crescents escaped the tulpa’s clutches. “Bravo, bravo! I do so love a good entertainment, even if I have lost the wager.” He looked at the Deuce god sitting in the recliner next to him. “It looks as though I owe you an hour of my Dragon power.”

Sedash pushed to his feet. “You’re reluctant to part with even an hour, and yet, you disdain Dragons.”

Goron lifted his chin. “Self-important beasts, always going on about how societies have feared or worshipped them from the beginning of time, forgetting that we are the source of all magick.”

“And yet you covet their essence. How interesting.”

“It’s not interesting at all. Don’t we all want what we cannot have? That is how we came to be in this situation. Wanting physicality and all that came with it.”

“Yes, and look how that ended.”

Goron snorted. “It is a diversion, nothing more. I found more delight in tearing his essence from him.”

“You made it painful, I’m sure?”

“Of course. Now I’m glad I did.” Goron fisted his hands. “How did they escape, especially with the Crescent having no Dragon?”

Sedash said, “Could you not feel his love for the woman? It was that emotion that drove him beyond his human abilities. And weakened the tulpa.”

“Silly emotions.” He glanced through the veil where they could watch the lower plane of existence. “You wish to wager again as to who wins when they return?”

“It’s hardly fair, old man. They succeeded in escaping without his Dragon. Tomorrow he will have it back.”

“Call me a fool.”

The god laughed, a deep, booming sound that probably sounded like thunder over Miami. “All right, fool, I will take your wager. If you lose, you spend one day at a Mundane childcare center.” Their presence always made the babies act up.

Goron cringed. The last time he’d lost such a wager, the crying children had given him a headache for a month. “I hate children.”

Sedash grinned. “I know.”

“And you will spend the evening at a Mundane nightclub, until closing.”

Sedash grimaced. “Even after the lights come on?”

“Especially then.”

Goron hid his smile. The moment the two Crescents had escaped, he’d felt cheated. He had an idea how to up the odds in his favor. “We have a wager.”