Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall (30 page)

"Whoooaaaaa, that is some seriously fucked-up shit," I said mostly to myself, fascinated by the fact that I was feeling some sort of creature in this picture.  I refused to consider that I'd lost my mind completely.

"Drink," came the voice again.  It was coming from my left. 
Holy shit on a stick.  One of the dragons is talking to me. 
My breath was coming rapidly, a combination of fear and excitement pumping adrenaline into my system, making me want to pull Blackie out and wave it around a little, just to keep anything that might be tempted to eat me from indulging.

"You mean the green stuff?" I asked, pulling my hand away and letting it drop to my side, trying to figure out which dragon was doing the talking.  I took some deep, calming breaths to control my fight-or-flight instinct.  I didn't want to leave just yet, and I also didn't want to piss this creature off.  Not yet anyway.

"Abssssinthe."

I looked over at the buggane martini, swallowing hard as I imagined myself trying it.  I was never much for hard alcohol or even beer; it all tasted nasty to me.  But then I wondered how many times in my life I'd probably have the opportunity to do a shot with a dragon, and decided to give it a whirl.  "What the hell?" I said to the purple dragon.  "What have I got to lose, right?"

I kept the Green flowing through me as I poured myself a glass of the green stuff - the absinthe.  I raised the tumbler to my nose to give it a whiff.  The smell reminded me of herbs and black licorice. 
"Ew.
  That's gross."

None of the creatures answered me, so I figured they weren't going to peer pressure me anymore than they already had.  I plugged my nose and lifted the glass in their direction, smiling, excited -probably stupidly- about the prospect of partying with a bunch of dragons.  I told myself the council meeting could wait five minutes while I had a little drink with a mystical beast from some of my favorite books.  

"Cheers, dragons!"  I made sure I couldn't breathe through my nose and therefore smell or taste anything, and then threw the stuff in the glass back, taking three large gulps and downing the contents completely before letting my nostrils go.

My tastebuds registered how horrible it was within half a second.  The entire stomachful tried to come back up; but I forced it to stay down, dropping the glass with the effort of controlling my gag reflex.  

I was finally able to breathe normally again about ten seconds later.

"Gah!
  That was
terrible!
  How does anyone drink that shit?"  I scrubbed my bottom lip and tongue with the sleeve of my tunic, trying to get the bitterness and the taste out of my mouth.  "Holy gagballs, that stuff should be banned from the earth."  I scowled at the offending bottle, tempted to pour it all down Ben's toilet.

"Oh, shit-on-a-stick," I gasped, suddenly remembering why I was there in the first place. 
"Ben. 
I have to get out of here."  I was going to miss the meeting.  The reason for drinking the gagworthy liquor didn't seem as important as it had less than a minute ago, as I imagined walking into the meeting and every fae there waiting for me, scowls on their faces.

I took a step towards the door, but faltered, the room having started moving in strange ways.  "Whoopsy," I said, bumping into a small side-table and laughing a little at the tickling sensation the tilting room caused in my stomach.  "Stop moving, room."  I blinked my eyes a few times hard, trying to clear my vision.  Things were swimming around, even the chairs refusing to sit still.

I looked up at the tapestry and was shocked at what I saw there.  The dragons weren't flat anymore.  They were in three dimensions now, their eyes blinking, their heads moving around atop their long scaly necks, and their wings snapping out and drawing back in, floating on invisible air currents.  I saw the claws of the black one opening and closing, like he wanted to grab something and squeeze the hell out of it.

"Hoooollly pixie parts," I said, stumbling over to get a closer look, heedless of any danger tapestry dragons might pose to my person.  But my legs didn't want to function properly, sending me diagonally towards the black dragon instead of the purple one.  I flinched back when it opened its mouth and hissed loudly at me.  The red one next to it hissed too, baring some seriously sharp-looking fangs.  I looked again at the black one and realized it didn't have any of the longer teeth the red one had.

My hand moved down to my thigh, pulling Blackie from its sheath at my leg.  I slowly held it up in front of the black dragon, my hand swaying a little with the weight of it.  "Missing one of these, aren't you?"

I huge burst of fire flew out of its mouth, hitting me full in the face.

"Aaaaaahhhh!" I screamed, ducking behind my forearm, certain I was going to have melted skin or at the very least, singed eyebrows.  I remained crouched over, my arm over my head, waiting for the pain that didn't come. 
Maybe the martini has numbing powers along with room-tilting powers.

A voice came to my ears after the fire finally stopped washing over me.  "You are uninjured, sssstand elemental."  

I wiggled my eyebrows and noticed my face felt fine.  I was pretty sure all my hair was still there, too.  I lowered my arm and stood cautiously, waiting for another blast from the furnace that I feared was coming.  It hadn't hurt, but the heat was there.  Sweat droplets beaded above my upper lip and across my forehead.

I glanced at the black dragon first.  His mouth was closed now, but he eyed me with malice.  I looked next at the purple dragon, the one who I thought had spoken to me.  It didn't look angry or happy, no expression at all showing on its face, making it possible for my blood pressure to go down enough that I had the presence of mind to study what was in front of me a little closer.

The dragons had grown in size, but weren't what I always thought they'd be like.  All of them were about as big as sheepdogs.  They had scales of their predominant color but in varying shades.  The purple and red dragons where boldly-hued, their scales shimmering and glistening, reflecting some light from a source I couldn't identify.  The black and silver dragons had scales that looked duller, more like armor than the other two dragons'.  They were also a bit bigger - largish sheepdogs compared to smallish ones.

I stepped over closer to the purple dragon.  "Are you for real?" I asked, reaching my hand out again.  My fingers trembled, and I was scared shitless, but I had to see how deep I'd fallen into this hallucination.  The room felt like it was moving still, and the different shades of purple in the shining scales made me feel almost woozy - but in a good way.

The dragon remained motionless except for its wings that moved slowly, as if making adjustments on the wind.

My hand made contact with the body of it, the heat coming to me instantly.  It didn't burn.  The skin just felt ...
alive
.  "Oh my god ... you're real ... you're ... you're
living
.  You're alive!"

"Of coursssse we are alive.  Jussst as you are."

"Ha!" I laughed with the insanity of it, but then got instantly sober again, lost in the  dragon's sparkling scales.  "Why are you here?  In this tapestry?"  I stroked its neck and a purring-type sound came from its nostrils along with a wisp of smoke.

"It isss here that we are kept contained, as our ssservicessss are no longer needed by the fae and humanssss."

"What services?" I asked, my mind blown all over again, trying to figure out how dragons could have ever been in the service of me as a teenager in Florida.  There were about ten dorks at my school who still played dragon role-playing games who I knew would totally shit their pants right now if they could see this.  I wished in that moment that I could go home and tell them they were totally right about all of it, so maybe they wouldn't be mocked so hard by everyone else for their games anymore.

"Guardianssss of the portalssss."

"I heard something about that," I said.  "But why?  Why don't we need you anymore?"

The black dragon hissed loudly, more flames bursting out of its huge jaws.  I only ducked a little this time.

"You do need ussss.  That issss the problem now.  Go, elemental.  Tell them.  The Fall drawsss nigh."

"The Fall?  Like as in Autumn?  I'm confused."

Now both the red and black dragons were using their flame throwers on me, so I backed away from the tapestry, stumbling as I went.  My tunic was sticking to me with my sweat, so I plucked at it to get it away from my skin.  I was so distracted trying to do too many things at once, my foot caught the edge of the carpet, sending me down to my butt, making my teeth clack together uncomfortably.  My cloak flew up at the same time, covering my head; and the more I tried to free myself, the worse it got tangled around my neck.

"Jesus ... fuck ... get the hell
off
me you friggin ..."

"Let me help you," came a voice - a fae voice this time.

I stopped struggling, recognizing the voice's owner immediately.  As the cloak fell from my face, I gazed up into the eyes of none other than Ben.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked, a stern expression on his face.

I looked up at him and wished I saw anger there instead of disapproval.  I hated when he got all parental on me.  "I came to find you," I said, getting to my feet, ignoring the hand he held out and only falling to the side a little.  "We have a very important ...
hiccup
... meeting to attend, like, right this second."  I couldn't get my mouth to open all the way and my words were coming out a little slurred.   I stretched my jaw open wide and wiggled it around a little, trying to limber it up so it would work properly again.

Ben frowned at me and then leaned in close to my face.  I tipped my head back as far as I could, my lower back straining with the pressure.

"Have you been drinking?" he asked.

"No," I said, defensively, "I have not.  I don't drink."  A hiccup escaped my mouth again, and my hand flew up to my lips of their own accord.  "Excuse me," I said, moving my fingers away to keep my hands busy with straightening my cloak.  "Get your cape.  We have to go.  Seriously, it's like, life or death or something."

"I already heard.  I came to get my cloak after I ran into Jared in the hallway."  He shook his head at me a couple times before leaving me to go into his bedroom.

I patted myself all over madly, trying to get my tunic to stop looking like I'd entered and won a wet t-shirt contest.  I still had the Green linked up and the turquoise swirls in the cloak were making me queasy.  Try as I might, I couldn't get my connection to go completely away.  I took some deep breaths, trying to center myself. 
Fine, Green.  Stay if you must.  Maybe I'll get lucky and get kicked out of the meeting so I can go sleep this shit off.

Ben came back out about thirty seconds later with his cloak over his arm.  "Come on.  Let's go."

I noticed that he glanced at the dragon tapestry on the way out, but the dragons had all gone back to their regular positions, and none of them were hissing or throwing flames anymore.  As I left the room, I wondered if I'd imagined the whole thing.  The last thing I saw before I walked out the door was the deep red eyes of the black dragon, staring out into the room.  He still looked pretty cranky to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

BEN AND I WERE THE last ones to arrive at the meeting.  I put on my most apologetic expression, but Ben didn't bother.  He looked like he didn't give two shits about everyone having to wait on us.

I nudged him in the side, trying to communicate to him that it would probably help our cause to be at least a little humble.  

He just ignored me.  

I frowned at his back. 
You could at least fake it, jerk.

When I was done staring holes in his back, I glanced at the faces around the table.  The room quieted down as Ben and I took our seats.  My gaze finally fell on the silver elves at the head of the table.  Both Céline and Maléna kept their eyes forward, not looking at anyone.  Dardennes had a very sober expression, which struck me as appropriate but also a little bit unnerving.  He usually had at least a small smile for people at meetings - but not today.

"Thank you everyone for coming on short notice," he said without preamble.  "Jared, we appreciate you alerting us to the need for this meeting.  I'd like to turn the chair over to you now so we can get right to the point."

Jared nodded once at Dardennes and then stood, his eyes scanning the council members' faces as he spoke.  "As Anton has already said, thank you for coming on short notice.  This is an emergency situation, and so while we appreciate that you have many things to attend to right now, we are quite sure you will not fault us for interrupting your work on this occasion."

Jared's eyes stopped on me, making me squirm in my seat.  I felt queasy and wondered what the odds were that I might upchuck right here in the meeting.  My gaze slid to the door, as I tried to gauge how quickly I could make it out of the room if my stomach lost control.

"Jayne and Tony, along with ... some others ... have brought things to my attention regarding the sudden influx of Underworld creatures we've noticed."

"Who were these others?" asked Red.

I frowned at him.  Friggin old coot.  He never could let anything just slip by.  "Just chill, Red, and let him tell the story.  Geez."  The words were out before I could stop them.  I seemed to have lost the break between my brain and my mouth.  I smiled sheepishly, realizing I was working against myself by calling attention my way.  "Or, you know, go ahead and ask your questions.  Whatever."  I wanted to slip down in my chair until I fell under the table.  I got about halfway there before a jab from Aidan stopped me.

"What's wrong with you, elemental?  Have you been drinking?" he asked softly as Jared continued talking.

I sat up straight, deciding that acting outraged was my best defense.  "What?  Who me?  I don't drink.  That's ridikalus."