Smoke, Vampires, & Mirrors

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I’m back in the dragon world, standing inside the crater Nero and I made last night at the edge of the forest meadow. I’m wheezing—which means I’m in full control of my body again.

“What happened?” Nero grabs my arms. “Are you okay?”

“It was a vision,” I gasp out. “A horrible, horrible vision.”

“What did you see?” Nero’s gaze drills into me. “What needs to happen to stop Tartarus?”

Stop Tartarus.

I was so overwhelmed by the horror I just witnessed, I forgot that the vision was supposed to tell me how to prevent an apocalypse.

But how could the death of my friends possibly help with—

“Sasha.” Nero’s gaze darkens. “Speak to me.”

My heart racing like a gerbil in a wheel, I raggedly tell Nero what I just foresaw.

As I go on, Nero’s limbal rings grow out of control. “When you mentioned Lilith at the castle, I was worried about this very scenario,” he grimly says when I’m done. “She gave you her blood to create a sire bond when you turned.”

A sire bond.

Of course.

How did I not think of this sooner?

Lucretia drank Gaius’s blood, and when she turned into a vampire, he was able to make her do his bidding—until we killed him, that is.

I should’ve thought about the sire thing as soon as I turned, but I was too busy saving Nero’s life and then enjoying my reward.

Numbly, I rub the back of my neck. “So Lilith has power over me. I have to do her bidding.”

“Yes, but she needs to actually speak to you in order to utilize that power,” Nero says menacingly—and I can almost picture him ripping out Lilith’s tongue to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Except he wouldn’t necessarily succeed. With all the power Lilith has acquired by being worshipped on her world, she could kill him if he tried to intercede on my behalf.

As if reading my mind, Nero growls, “Stop thinking about it. What you foresaw will not happen. I won’t let her near you. I’d sooner see Earth die.”

Earth.

I almost forgot about that.

When I asked my seer powers how to save everyone, they replied with “become Lilith’s slave.”

But why?

How could that help?

Maybe I didn’t focus on the question properly?

This warrants a second opinion. And third, if need be. And fourth.

I strain to go back into Headspace, but the focus doesn’t come. I must be too stressed.

With huge effort, I inhale a deep breath and focus again. Then again.

By the fifth attempt, I admit defeat. It’s not stress. I’m out of seer juice because I just had two visions of the targeted timeframe variety—and those are extra costly. But—

Before I can finish the thought, Nero steps back, shines with energy, and turns into his dragon form.

Wow.

Gently reaching out with his claw, he grabs me and deposits me on his giant back. Then, without so much as a “buckle your seatbelt” roar, he leaps into the sky and whooshes toward the castle.

If I were prone to heart attacks, I’d have one here and now. Dragon-back riding is stressful on a calm day, and given how freaked out I already am, my heart feels like it might jump out of my ribcage and punch me in the face.

In a blink, we pass the battlefield—which has been cleaned up, especially closer to the castle entrance where Nero lands.

Pozoj—the hawked-nosed dragon from the other day—is there to greet us. Calmly, he watches as Nero deposits me next to him and turns back into his naked self.

It’s a sign of my extreme anxiety that the sight evokes only a mild tingle of heat in me.

“This is Sasha,” Nero growls at the other dragon. “Watch her. I need to go power up.” And in a blur of motion, he disappears into the castle.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sasha,” Pozoj says. “Claudia was just telling me about you.”

“She was?” I even out my breathing. “Good things, I hope.”

“I was telling him how impressed I was,” Claudia says as she steps out of the castle, a megaton smile on her face. “I was also telling him how happy I am to know that my brother has been in good hands all this time.”

“Oh, um… he wasn’t in my hands.” I shuffle from foot to foot. “Speaking of your brother, do you know where he just went? There’s something we need to discuss and—”

“To enjoy his new hoard of treasure, I’d imagine,” Pozoj says with a note of wistfulness. “You heard him. He said he needs to power up.”

“Power up?” I look at Claudia, then back at Pozoj. “What does that mean?”

“How much do you know about dragons?” Claudia asks, and I can’t help but notice how close she’s standing to Pozoj, and how they both look like they’re itching to touch one another’s hand. Clearly, Claudia has been socializing in double time while Nero and I were away.

“I know Nero can heal major injuries by lying on top of his treasure on Earth,” I say. “And that he’d have more energy and need less sleep after doing that.”

“Right, but powering up is much more than that,” Claudia says. “Everything that makes us what we are is enhanced. Speed of movement, reaction time, stamina—”

“I really need to talk to him,” I say, but I can already guess where this is going.

“You don’t want to disturb a dragon on top of his hoard,” Pozoj says matter-of-factly, confirming my concern.

“Give my brother at least a few hours,” Claudia says. “Then I’ll take you to him myself.”

“But I’m in a rush,” I say. “I’m a seer and—”

“A seer and a vampire?” Claudia says as both she and Pozoj look at me with renewed interest.

“Yes,” I say, wondering how upset they’d be if I grabbed them by their collars and gave them a shake to impart my sense of urgency. “Can you take me to Nero now?”

“I’m sorry,” Claudia says. “I don’t want to upset him after just reuniting.”

I look at Pozoj.

“I don’t know where the imperial trove is,” he says. “And, more importantly, I’m not suicidal.”

“Fine,” I snap. “Can you at least take me to the Cognizant from Earth?”

“Gladly,” Claudia says and finally grabs Pozoj by the hand. “Follow us.”

She prances into the castle, dragging the male dragon behind her, and I hurry to keep up.

As we walk, Claudia begins flirting with Pozoj, and I learn that he’s from the richest, noblest dragon family on this world—which is probably why Nero gave him a safer post in yesterday’s conflict. After a while, I tune out their banter in another attempt to enter Headspace.

No luck.

Well, I don’t need a vision to predict the near future. I can do so based on past events.

For starters, to keep me safe, Nero is probably going to want to lock me up and throw away the key. And maybe it’s a rare case when I should let him do so. After all, if I don’t go to Earth, I can’t kill Felix and Ariel.

Assuming I killed them on Earth, that is.

Of course, there are other, much better ways to prevent that vision from happening. For example, I can avoid hospitals and other medical facilities—and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

I can’t not go to Earth. Though my seer powers are depleted, a powerful intuition tells me that if I don’t try to deal with the Tartarus problem personally, my parents are as good as dead.

Now the million-dollar question is: will Nero help me prevent the upcoming apocalypse in the first place?

He did say he’d sooner see Earth die than let Lilith have me.

Is it possible he’ll be content to rule here, on his dragon world, and let the denizens of Earth deal with the threat on their own?

“There they are,” Claudia says as we enter a large dining hall that is noisier than a night club.

At a humongous table in the middle sits almost everyone Nero had brought to help him fight those big battles. Only the giants—Colton excluded—and the centaurs are not present.

Everyone is feasting on varied delicacies except for Vlad, who is sipping a liquid that looks suspiciously like blood.

“Sasha,” Kit exclaims excitedly, turning into me. In my voice, she says, “I was wondering if Nero caught up with you.” She wiggles her/my eyebrows suggestively, and I fight two urges: to blush and to smother Kit.

“No time for gossip,” I say, imbuing my tone with as much urgency as I can. “I have information that everyone from Earth needs to be aware of.”

Vlad, Kit, Colton, Albina, the big werewolf guy, the lady who can control animals, and the maybe-elf look at me with varying degrees of curiosity.

“It’s Tartarus,” I say loudly. “He’s coming to Earth.”

The room goes dead quiet.

Now that I have everyone’s attention, I tell them what I foresaw, and—coming up with an evil idea on the fly—I end with, “Nero owes you a favor for your help here on the dragon world. If you care what happens to your home, call in that favor today and demand that he help you save it.”

There. Even if Nero didn’t plan to help before, he’s going to find it hard not to do so now.

Everyone starts asking questions at the same time, and I attempt to answer what I can, which isn’t much.

“Listen,” I say after what feels like an hour of back-and-forth. “Every minute we spend here talking is a minute less for Earth.”

Everyone falls silent, clearly waiting for me to tell them what the next step should be, and I have no clue.

“You should’ve told me your conversation with Nero is literally world-changing.” Claudia grabs my elbow. “Let’s go to the trove—to hell with his grumpiness.”

“Great,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”

Vlad, Kit, and the rest get up to join, but Claudia shakes her head. “He shouldn’t harm me or Sasha, but anyone else would be taking too much of a risk,” she explains.

The other Cognizant sit back down and start talking amongst themselves.

“Are you sure Nero holds me in the same ‘do not harm’ group as you?” I ask Claudia as we rush through a corridor and reach a spiral staircase leading down.

“I saw the way he looks at you.” Claudia runs down the stairs so fast I have trouble keeping up at my vampire best. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t harm you. Much. Probably.” A floor later, she adds, “Maybe let me do the talking just in case.”

“Great idea,” I say, my stomach squeezing with a bad feeling.

“Oh, and you should know the trove is outside the castle wards,” she says a few more floors later. “Which means he’s going to be in his dragon form.”

“Perfect,” I mumble. “Angry Nero in dragon form. What could possibly go wrong?”