Dragon Knight: A New Adult Fantasy Novel (Reclaiming the Fire Book 2) Read online

  “Kumest l’tai,” I muttered.

  The shadows darkened around me, shielding me from the probing light. Or at least it should have.

  The flashlight paused when it reached me.

  “What is it?” said a guard.

  “I … don’t know,” said the one with beam shining right on me. “I thought I saw something.”

  “Well?”

  The man shook his head. “Nothing, I guess. Just nerves.”

  The flashlight swept on. I let out a ragged breath. That was too close.

  “Can’t believe someone just barged in here,” the first guard said as the pair of them moved further up the hall.

  “Yeah,” the other grunted. “What fool would come in here?”

  They laughed, then turned a corner and were gone.

  “What fool?” I said, sticking out my jaw. “I’ll show you what fool.”

  Okay, not the coolest thing I could have said, but it was all I had at the moment. My mouth was so dry it was a wonder I could even speak, and I probably shouldn’t have been speaking anyway. I just wanted to hear my own voice to reassure myself of something—what, I didn’t know. I pushed myself off from the wall, hit a cross-hall going in the opposite direction of the guards, and took it. My fingers shook, and I could taste bile in the back of my throat.

  Little people … dolls … sneaking up on me …

  What was that noise?

  Was it a skitter, right behind me?

  I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing. I’ve really got to lay off the horror movies. It wasn’t my fault my dad had forced me to watch the entire Puppet Master series. Those were some of my best memories with him, though, sitting on the couch eating popcorn and watching bad B-movies. He would’ve loved this. Well, he would’ve loved hearing about it afterward, anyway.

  If there IS an afterward.

  I passed a doorway on my right with a sign that read TO MAIN FLOOR. I figured that must be the assembly chamber, where the employees and maybe some automation put the dolls together, dolls that were then boxed and distributed to stores. How many of those boxes contained harmless magically animated dolls and how many contained dangerous living toys that wanted to kill their new owners? And why would anyone want to enchant dolls to hurt kids, anyway? It made no sense.

  Unless I’m dealing with a psycho. Some random nut job who liked harming children. I felt my eyes narrow just thinking about it. If that’s what I’m dealing with … well, just wait till I get my hands on you, asshole.

  I was about to head toward the main floor when I saw a light on further down the hall. Was someone working this late at night? Maybe a manager called in to deal with the crisis of the break-in?

  Curious, I moved toward the lit office, leaving the entrance to the main floor behind. I slowed when I approached the office, then said two more spells, one to deepen the shadows further and another to mute any noise I was making. Reaching the office, I peered in, surprise filling me at what I saw.

  For one thing, it wasn’t really an office, not anymore. It had no desk or shelves or anything.

  A wizened old Chinese woman knelt on a straw mat in the center of the bare room, holding a smooth gray figurine in the palm of her hand. She was chanting something under her breath, probably a spell since the figurine had begun to glow. The thing was shaped like a man, but it had four arms, each one ending in a pincer. And there were horns on its head

  “What the hell?” I said.

  Her eyes snapped open, and her head jerked in my direction.

  “Oops,” I said. “Did I say that out loud?”

  I stepped past the threshold. I could take on an old woman. Creepy little dolls, no thanks. But old people, especially old people sitting down? I’d take those odds any day.

  Coolly, she watched me approach. “Who are you?” She had a way of speaking where her words came out sounding snapped and demanding, each word distinct. Who. Are. You?

  I grinned, letting the spells cloaking me collapse. “You can call me Sally. I’ll call you Babs. Babs, what the hell are you doing?”

  Grumbling furiously in what I guess was Chinese, Babs climbed to her feet. She still gripped the figurine in a tight fist. Somehow I knew the figurine must have something to do with the dolls. When she’d stood, her fist relaxed, and I said a Word. The figurine popped out of her grip and sailed through the air toward me. I caught it, then stuffed it inside one of the pouches at my belt. They were warded to prevent the same trick from being used on their contents.

  “You bitch!” Babs said, spraying spittle with the word.

  “Hey. Language. Don’t you make toys for kids? By the way, why are you trying to hurt them? Some people might take that the wrong way.”

  She glared at me for a second. Then, strangely, eerily, she smiled. When she did, the wrinkles on her face all bunched up, and her dark eyes glittered malevolently. “You’re the thief from earlier, I take it. I thought the homunculi had chased you off. Well, you’ll soon wish you had been chased off. There’s no getting out of here alive now. Not for you.”

  “Homunculi? You mean, like the little things made from clay and earth that are enchanted to have life of their own?” I knew some underworld types used them as slave labor and servants for odd jobs. They were banned by the Fae, of course, but some people won’t take a hint.

  “Clay and earth are not required,” the woman said. Between her sentences, she’d begun to mutter incoherently, at least to me. I had the bad feeling she was preparing a spell of some kind, or magically summoning aid. Suddenly, my bravado was feeling a little forced.

  “I’ve got to get going,” I said.

  I edged backward, passed through the doorway, then turned and fled. Babs didn’t pursue me, but I could hear her chuckling behind me. Somehow that freaked me out worse than the sound of little feet pattering after me would have.

  I raced down the hall, thinking that maybe I’d gotten what I’d come for and it was time to get going.

  “Ruby,” I said under my breath. “It’s time. Where are you?”

  “In position,” she said in my ear, speaking through the enchanted earbud she always used to communicate with me while on a job. “Did you fix it?”

  “Whatever ‘it’ is. And sure, maybe. I mean, I—”

  Footsteps came from ahead, sounding loud and in a hurry.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  I tried to summon my shadow-spell, but I couldn’t calm my mind enough to manage it. My pulse jackhammered in my ears.

  The two guards I’d seen early appeared from around a corner ahead. They saw me and pulled their guns.

  “Stop right there!”

  I stopped. There was no sense running into their arms, right? I started to turn around, but saw that Babs had materialized in the doorway of her “office”—really I guess it was some sort of meditation room for her spells. She was grinning like a cat.

  “Fuck this,” I said.

  The door to the MAIN FLOOR was right beside me. Cringing at the necessity of this now that I had the figurine, I ducked through the opening, then slammed the door behind me and threw the locks. That would only delay them for a moment, though. Feeling sweat sting my eyes, I whipped back around and ran—hard. I passed through one doorway, then another, closing and locking every door as I went. Soon I burst out into a huge open room: the factory floor. I was in the overseer’s office on the second floor, but a metal stairway led down.

  Darkness cloaked the huge room, but I could make out a doorway on the far side of the chamber. I jumped down the stairs, taking them three at a time, and landed on the factory floor.

  Dolls in various stages of construction surrounded me on conveyer belts. Severed heads, little arms and legs, fat bodies bloated with stuffing.

  “Ruby,” I said. “New plan. Can you hear me?”

  “I here.”

  “I’m in the factory. Come get me. Be careful. There’s pursuit.”

  “I’m on the way.”
>
  I picked my way through the darkness toward the door. Behind me I heard the banging of the guards as they blasted through a door. They would have to smash through three more to get to me.

  A noise sounded to my left. A sort of scraping, whickering noise.

  I stopped. Listened.

  Another noise, this time to my right. I spun in that direction. Dark forms on conveyer belts and some hulking pieces of machinery—that’s all I could see, even with my enhanced shifter senses. My right hand itched toward the knife in its holster. Or should I go for the crossbow? I’d replaced the one I’d lost at Hawthorne’s penthouse with a newer, better model.

  Before I could decide, a shape sprang at me. It was a little blonde with big blue eyes—or at least I imagined they would’ve been blue. Right now they blazed with an inner fire. In her tiny fist, she held an equally tiny—but very sharp—pair of scissors. The faint illumination from a skylight gleamed on the wicked point.

  “Mrs. Fun, I have no doubt,” I said. This had to be the one who attacked Ruby, and probably with that same set of scissors. I thought I could even see a dark smudge where her blood might be.

  Mrs. Fun didn’t give me time to introduce myself, but launched right at my face.

  I jerked back, hair flying, and just barely dodged in time. The doll flew right by me. It landed on the conveyer belt on the other side of me and whirled to face me. Its little face screwed up in a scowl.

  “Ha,” I said. “Didn’t go the way you thought it would, did it? Well, you’ll find that I’m not so easy to…”

  My voice trailed off as I noticed the partly assembled dolls on the belt around her were picking themselves up. These were fully formed except for the head and right arm. As one, the headless horrors swiveled to face me. The only good thing about it was that their eyes didn’t blaze with fire. And they didn’t have weapons.

  I yanked out my knife. “Who wants some?”

  The blonde leapt at my face again, scissors flashing. I batted her aside with my knife, and she flew into the shadows. The other dolls tumbled off the belt and massed at my feet. Their little hands—each had only one—grabbed at my ankles.

  “Take that!” I said, stomping one. “And that!” I stomped another.

  More grabbed me.

  Additional shapes were tumbling off the other belts. Some had eyes that blazed with fire, some didn’t. Whichever, they all clutched at my ankles. I stomped one into mush, then another.

  Mrs. Fun emerged from the pile of boxes I’d hurled her into. An actual growl escaped her mouth. It was both the cutest little growl I’d ever heard and the creepiest.

  Still uttering that weirdly cute sound, she rushed me, charging across the factory floor.

  I tried to lash out at her with my leg, to kick her back into the pile of boxes, but the damned dolls huddling around my calves weighed me down and made me clumsy. In fact, I tottered off balance and crashed into one of the conveyer belts. The blonde charged right through the place where my right leg had just been.

  “Fuck off,” I said.

  I pulled myself onto the conveyer belt. The dolls were below me, stirring and trying to figure out how to follow.

  Other shapes stirred all over the huge chamber, dolls sitting up and marshalling themselves. Turning toward me.

  Below, the headless dolls piled on top of each other, making a mound. The blonde, still cutely growling, clambered up the hill toward me. Shit.

  “Screw you guys, I’m going home,” I said, quoting one of my favorite TV shows, as I ran along the conveyer belt toward the exit. Unfortunately, it made a curve, and I quickly saw I wouldn’t be able to use it to get all the way there. Plus there were many dolls along it, ones that had roused themselves to come after me, and they were starting to sit up. Some actually assembled themselves, shoving on arms and legs, grabbing a severed head and mashing it onto a fellow doll’s shoulders. Some were male dolls, some were female, and all were deadly cute. And just plain deadly.

  Little plastic footfalls sounded behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Mrs. Fun streaking straight at my ankles.

  Use your magic, I told myself. Sometimes, I relied on my shifter strength and speed too much. But Ruby had taught me plenty of spells.

  I yanked a magically altered firecracker out of my utility belt, a Black Cat, one of those little things that make snapping noises.

  “Gixun nais!” I shouted, and half-turned to hurl it at the blonde.

  Growling, she jumped over the firecracker just as it exploded brightly, blasting the conveyer belt behind her. Sparks and flames rose up.

  “Nais!” I shouted and hurled another one.

  She jumped that one, too.

  The conveyer belt made a turn. I was so busy focusing on Little Miss Sunshine that I overflew the turn and found myself pinwheeling my arms in empty air. Real smooth, Jade. Luckily, I am a cat burglar, and I lit on the ground nimbly.

  Above, the production manager’s door burst open and a tide of security guards brandishing guns poured out and down the stairs. They couldn’t see in the dark like I could, so one flipped a switch. Lights blazed from the ceiling fixtures. I screamed and mashed my eyes against the glare.

  Dolls streamed from conveyer belts all around me, converging on me.

  Would this be the end of Jade McClaren?

  Suddenly, I heard breaking glass and looked up past the damnable overhead lights. I laughed when I saw Ruby rushing toward me on her broom. Her red hair whipped out behind her in its ponytail.

  “I’m coming, Jade!”

  A gun cracked. A bullet whined by my cheek. I crouched, coiling my legs to spring toward the broom.

  A familiar growling reached my ears. I turned to see Mrs. Fun leaping at my head. Her scissors flashed, wicked and sharp. Gasping, I dodged aside, grabbed her by the feet and spun her around … and around … and let go. She sailed into the far reaches of the room…

  …right over the heads of the dolls rushing toward me. Most of them had heads now, and their eyes all sparked with tiny inner infernos. The feeling of triumph I felt at dispatching the blonde doll evaporated.

  More guns cracked. Looking up, I saw the guards firing at Ruby. She was almost to me. Her face wearing a determined look, she leveled out the broom five feet off the floor. I shoved the knife away and sprang. My hands latched onto the broom, and I pulled myself up even as she angled the witchy vehicle at the ceiling.

  “Nooo!” Babs shouted from the platform before the manager’s office. “You can’t take it from me!”

  Then, to the guards: “Kill them, you fools!”

  The guards fired at us as Ruby flew the broom upward. I pulled myself astride the shaft and threw my arms around her.

  “Come and get us!” Ruby shouted, and I was shocked to hear her laughing as we blasted through the broken skylight she’d entered by and shot up into the night. She’d spent too much time around her big sister.

  But I laughed with her. For one bright, shining moment, everything was right, the world was back the way it was supposed to be, and my blood sang with joy even as bullets continued to whine around us.

  But then, soberly, I thought, Davril’s going to kill me.

  Chapter 7

  “Woo-hoo!” I said, shoving my feelings about Davril aside. “Thank God for your good timing, sis. I was nearly a goner in there.”

  Breathing hard, she jerked the broom to a stop in midair about half a mile above the creepy doll factory. We were way too high for bullets or anything else now. We were safe. Wind whipped around us, but my blood rushed like the flames in those little devils’ eyes and I barely felt it. My skin felt like it was glowing, and I wanted to throw back my head and laugh. I couldn’t stop grinning.

  Neither could Ruby. “So you won’t tease me about being chased off by dolls?” she said. Pink roses bloomed in her cheeks. She’d turned around to face me, and I gave her another quick hug.

  “Hell no! Those little bastards nearly did me in, too. That’s an epitaph I wouldn’t want
on my tombstone. ‘Death by dolls’. Screw that.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. She wasn’t an expert eyebrow-waggler, and she looked pretty goofy. “So? Did you get it? Whatever it is?”

  I unsnapped a pouch and withdrew the figurine, holding it up to the moonlight. Ruby’s eyes widened, and she let out an ooh sound.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She cupped it in her hands. “I don’t know. The idol of some god or devil, I think. Yes, the pincers … the four arms…” She rubbed her chin, thinking about it.

  “Well?” I pressed.

  She snapped her fingers. “It’s Nubla Kir. An ur-demon from the Ninth Abyss.”

  “Yikes. Someone get a can of Raid.”

  “He’s pretty powerful, Jade. I wouldn’t mess around with him. How was it being used?” Briefly I described what I’d seen, and she nodded. “That woman—”

  “Babs.”

  “I am not calling her Babs. She must have been using this idol to channel Nubla’s power, or he was channeling it himself with her help on this plane. She used it to bring the dolls to life.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She called them homunculi.”

  “Interesting. I guess they are—the dolls, I mean. Homunculi. They’re using the doll-making factory as a cover for creating an army of the creatures for Nubla. It was just the Jordans’ bad luck that one of the little creeps woke up too early, assuming that’s what happened.”

  “The main thing is that woman—was she, like, a priestess of Nubla?—anyway, she can’t make any more of those things, can she?”

  Ruby frowned at the idol. “Not without this. And these things are hard to come by, and imbued with a great deal of power. She can’t just go and get another one. Here, let me say a spell. I can channel the spell through the idol and render all the dolls given life by the idol inert, just reversing what the priestess did, if that’s what she was.”

  I waited while Ruby chanted some words, sprinkling some type of magical dust over the idol. The cold winds tore some of the powder away, and they were starting to make me shiver. Ruby said another spell to protect us from the winds since her original spells had expired, then started over. Eventually, the idol started to hum and shake in Ruby’s fist. Her voice grew higher … higher…