Hydra (2 page)

“Wren! The gate!” Mom screams.

“It’s not my turn!” I point out, because there’s no way I’m going back out in the rain, not with a bull charging us. Now the word
danger
seems insufficient. At the very least, they should have put more exclamation points on the sign.

“You’re the only one who knows how to work the latch!” Rilla shoves me toward the door, which might seem sort of cruel except for the fact I’m not completely defenseless, and everybody in the car knows it. I mean, I may be a girl, but I’m strong—I’m about five and a half feet tall, of medium to larger build (even in human form, I’m muscular), and while I’m not wearing any swords right now, I’m still trained, as are my sisters, in not just swordsmanship but various martial arts.

Far more than that, though, I’m a dragon.

But then, so are my mom and sisters.

The bull is still maybe twenty feet in front of us when I open the door to run for the gate. But it’s muddy here (a slippery, slimy mud) and I’m trying too hard to move quickly, besides which Mom hasn’t completely stopped the car, so it’s moving, too. As I attempt to shut the car door (I have to shut it or the car won’t fit through the gate), the momentum of my arm’s motion mixes in an unsettling way with the direction my feet are pointed, and I go down splat on my hands and knees.

This is bad.

The bull is way too close, maybe a dozen feet from the car and my screaming family. I have no choice. I’ll have to change into a dragon, pluck up the bull, and carry it off into the hills some safe distance away.

I’ve no sooner made up my mind, and my fingernails are starting to lengthen to talons and turn blood red, the deep color suffusing my skin in a rush from cells to scales, when I hear screaming—male, guttural screaming, from just behind the car.

I cannot allow myself to be seen as a dragon. And even if I
could
get away with being seen as a dragon (which theoretically a person could explain away somehow, maybe, though I’ve never tried it and don’t want to) I most certainly cannot allow myself to be seen
changing into
a dragon. It’s completely, totally, and in all ways against the rules.

No one can know who we truly are. No one can even know there are dragons alive in the world today.

Our continued existence depends upon it.

So I snap back into full human and spin around in the direction of the screaming, all in the time it takes the bull to charge two strides closer.

There’s a Scotsman—a wild-eyed, red-haired bearded man with an enormous broadsword, which he holds over his head as he runs screaming toward the bull, which is only a few feet from the front of the car by now.

The red-haired guy is still screaming as he brings the blade down over the bull’s muscular neck. The head falls into the puddled road and the animal’s body sort of stumbles forward and slumps over it.

And the dude is still screaming. I don’t think he’s even stopped to catch his breath. He must have amazing lung capacity.

But now he stops screaming and turns to me, his wild red hair settling into dripping streaks across his forehead. He smiles. “Ilsa Melikov?”

“That’s my mother.” I point to the car, where my mom and two sisters are still cowering from the rain, dangerous bulls, and screaming Scottish swordsmen. “I’m Wren. Wren Melikov.”

I’m staring at the Scotsman. He’s dripping wet, his big red beard hanging past his navel, which is most noticeable because he doesn’t have a shirt on. Judging from his shoulder-to-waist ratio, which is impressive, I must admit his choice of attire, or lack thereof, is not entirely unpleasant from my perspective, though I imagine he must be cold.

He’s also wearing a kilt. Not the typical plaid kind, but a dark charcoal gray utility-type kilt, and black leather boots that stretch up to his calves, with bulky pewter buckles and straps all over them.

All in all, a very impressive bull slayer.

He extends one hand to me. “I’m Eed. Eed Cruikshank.”

As I shake his hand, a number of things occur to me all at once. One is that his name is probably Ed, not Eed, even though he pronounces it
Eed
with his Scottish accent. Another is that his last name, Cruikshank, means knob-kneed, which he is. He’d be well over six feet tall, except his knees are bent askew, so he’s hardly brushing six feet.

And besides his knobby knees, his hands are kind of funny, too—calloused and thick-knuckled, but I don’t so much see them as feel them as he shakes my hand quickly and apologizes.

“I was headed up to git the gate fer ye.” His Scottish accent is thick, even thicker than my mother’s. “Sorry I didna make it in time. Didna expect ye to be so quick.” Then he points with his sword toward the bull carcass, which is bleeding into the puddle, making it look like a lake of blood in the light from the rental car’s headlamps. “Sorry if this bugger skeered ye. He won’t trouble ye anymore.”

“I didn’t mean for you to have to kill him,” I apologize. Bulls, I’m sure, are expensive creatures, though they’re not worth nearly as much without their heads attached.

“Nah,” Ed makes a guttural sound with his throat, dismissing my concern. “He was on his last warning. I’ll pull him out the road and ye can drive on up to the house, just around the bend there.” He points with his sword again, this time down the road in the direction we were heading.

I clamber back into the car, closing the door as my mother cruises forward again, past Ed, who’s moving the carcass off the road.

Hmm. Now that is particularly strange.

I know a thing or two about bulls, having eaten many in my time. They’re big, much bigger than cows. This one was probably two thousand pounds before Ed lopped his head off.

But Ed isn’t dragging it by its legs or chopping it into smaller pieces for easier removal. He’s got it over his shoulders and is running through the field, carrying it off.

“Did you see that?” I ask, even as the rain falls more heavily, cloaking the fields from sight.

“What?”

“Did you see Ed carrying the bull?” I ask, but Rilla is folding her map and Mom is busy fiddling with the wipers.

Zilpha looks back at me blankly. “Ed?”

“The Scotsman with the broadsword, who saved us from the bull.”

“I didn’t catch his name.” Zilpha shrugs.

She looks tired. We’re all tried from traveling—flying out from Bozeman yesterday morning, to Denver to Newark to Glasgow, which between the time changes and the flight times took until this morning—and then driving slowly up the Highlands all day today, taking the roundabout scenic route so Mom could see things she hadn’t seen since she was a kid at boarding school.

But now, in addition to being tired, I’m also feeling a little suspicious. Because I know my mom’s always talked about bringing us to see the place where she grew up, but this isn’t technically that place at all. We’re in Scotland, not England. They may be on the same island, but they’re not the same place.

And my dad and brothers aren’t with us. Yes, I know somebody needs to stay home and watch over our village in Azerbaijan and be the dragon protectors and keepers of the fire and all that, but the fact that all the girls are on vacation and all the boys staying home seems a bit odd, especially when you consider that I wasn’t keen on coming on this trip (since deep lakes terrify me), and my brother Felix has always said he wanted to visit Scotland. But he’s not here, and I am.

Now I’m starting to think maybe there’s a reason for that, and I study my mother as she guides the car down the rutted lane to the castle, which is a looming fortress jutting straight up into parapets and battlements and all those castle things we’ve missed seeing for the last six years while we’ve been living in the states.

My mom glances my way, perhaps a bit self-consciously, and flashes me this tiny, apprehensive smile.

She’s up to something. Oh, she is
so
up to something. The woman can’t hide anything. You can always read her face as clearly as any book—figuring out our birthday presents was only ever as difficult as guessing the right thing and then watching her face for confirmation. And right now, Mom’s face says she’s guilty of plotting something.

But what?

I’m going to have to corner her and rattle off guesses until her face gives it away. But before I can do that, we’ll have to get situated in the privacy of our suite of rooms, because most of my ideas have to do with us being dragons, which isn’t something anyone outside of our village is supposed to know.

The headlight beams flash across three men who exit the castle and approach our car. These are the guys from the castle website—handsome Scotsmen in ties and tweed jackets, none of them shirtless or kilted or carrying a sword. None of them Ed.

My mom stops the car under the shelter of the port cochere. We tumble out of the car and the men make their introductions—Malcolm, Magnus, and Angus Sheehy, the curators of the castle, who run the place like a vacation home bed-and-breakfast. Magnus and Angus are brothers. Malcolm is their father. His wife Blair is in the kitchen right now, heating up a late night tea for us.

The castle has been in their family for centuries.

I listen politely and shake hands as needed, but I’m listening to the subtext, filling in what I hear with what I already know of our plans. We’ve reserved a suite of rooms for six weeks this summer. The Sheehys occupy another portion of the sprawling castle. Ed lives above what used to be the stables. He’ll be around shortly to unload our bags and park our car.

Mom’s asking about activities now, tourist spots and seeing the sites, and here it is, the bit I’ve been waiting for. Indeed, she’s arranged it with Malcolm that his sons, who are both single and handsome and look to be twenty-something, will be on hand to escort us and guide us and provide any other services as needed.

I should have known!

She’s trying to set us up with these guys, isn’t she? It’s never been any secret that we’re expected to marry other dragons someday. In fact, the very existence of our kind depends on our finding proper mates and bearing young, and all that.

I look Magnus and Angus up and down. Proper mates, hmm? How does my mother know these men are dragons? Or is she only guessing? The fact that the castle has been in their family for centuries might be a clue, since dragons only started dying off in the past thousand years or so. Tracking down our extant peers could theoretically be accomplished by digging through history and finding the last known dragons, then rooting about to discover whether they have any descendants left. And since dragons traditionally lived in remote treasure-filled palaces and mountain fortresses, a castle such as this one would be the logical place to find dragons.

Not that we’ve ever actually found any dragons that way, not that I know of. To my knowledge, we’re alone on the earth, save for a couple of arch-enemies who are obviously not viable romantic partners.

But perhaps my mother has found some after all. That will be a relief to my sisters. Zilpha, in particular, has always been eager to marry. She’s spearheaded many a historical research project, trying to drudge up potential suitors, though we’ve never found a single one. And Rilla has said more than once she’ll gladly marry and do her part, as long as she can finish her degree first.

I, on the other hand, am hedging my bets that in a world where dragons are nearly extinct, we’ll be lucky enough to find a mate for Zilpha, and maybe even one for Rilla, too. If Angus and Magnus are the two, that’s perfect. There’s not a third. I can be blissfully free of any entanglements, as I’ve always wanted to be.

While I’m musing about all this and my mother’s making plans for Magnus and Angus to give us a tour of the castle tomorrow, Ed approaches us through a small door in the castle curtain wall. He’s put on a tweed jacket, but he’s still wearing his kilt and boots, and his flame-red beard looks wild.

And he smells like roasting meat.

My stomach grumbles, reminding me I haven’t had anything to eat since the fish and chips in Fort Augustus, which we stopped for on our way through the first time,
before
Drumnadrochit, so that was several hours ago.

“Ed.” Malcolm pronounces it
eed
, too. “Bags.” He gestures with his head.

Ed nods. “I put the bull on the spit.”

Malcolm looks annoyed at Ed, which I can see because I’m off to the side from the others. But when Malcolm turns back to my mother, he’s smiling graciously. “In addition to tea, we have fresh flame-roasted beef. I don’t suppose you ladies would be interested—”

“I’d love some,” I offer before my mom can open her mouth to turn him down. Besides the fact that Ed killed the bull in large part to save me from the mad animal, I’m hungry. And from what I can tell from the scent still clinging to Ed, the meat is going to be delicious. Some people don’t like bull as well as steer, because the testosterone supposedly makes the meat wilder or gamier or something.

I like it better that way.

But then, I’m a dragon.

Ed’s opened the rear hatch and is pulling out our bags, which are heavy and numerous. The four of us barely managed to carry them all into the airport, but Ed’s stacking them up on his shoulders like a block tower. I half expect them to topple off any moment.

Ed turns to face us. “I kin show ye to yer rooms.” He doesn’t even sound out of breath. But then, if he carried a two-thousand-pound bull with no problem, our luggage is nothing. It all confirms my suspicions that there’s something peculiar going on with this place, Nattertinny Castle, and Mom’s plans for us to summer here. I can’t recall ever hearing anything about Scottish dragons having freakishly strong lackeys, but it wouldn’t at all surprise me. In many ways, it makes sense.

I follow Ed. My mother and sisters hang back a little behind me, almost as if they’re afraid Ed’s going to drop the luggage and we’ll all go tumbling down like so many dominoes. But Ed doesn’t even pant as he steps through the vast stone foyer and up the broad staircase.

This place is cool, if a bit spooky. There’s an enormous chandelier hanging down from the second-story ceiling high above us. It looks ancient even though it’s lit with light bulbs instead of candles, like maybe it was retrofitted to electric light. But even with all those bulbs, the massive room is dark, the polished wood stairs a deep mahogany finish, the stones dusky gray, the corners shadowed.

The damp of outdoors has followed us in, or perhaps has always been here. It’s cold and clinging, as thick as mist. Invisible, but as tangible as the scent of roast meat wafting back to me from Ed, as real as the scent of the lavender soap I packed in my bag, which got bumped as it tumbled onto the baggage claim carousel at Glasgow, which has been leeching out lavender scent ever since.

My lavender and Ed’s meat scents mix in the air as he navigates the hallways ahead of me. I follow like a hound on the hunt, chasing the smell through cold corridors, until light fills a doorway ahead of me, casting Ed’s burdened silhouette into dark relief.