The Dragon's Horde Read online

  “Because it would announce their shifter status before we had to investigate.”

  “By investigate, you mean you would outright ask them.”

  “Yes but that’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point then?”

  “Of not asking them outright?”

  “No! What’s the point you’re trying to make!” There’s this nagging feeling under my skin. I wonder what it is, and then I realise its Mika’s evasive attitude.

  “They smelled unusual.”

  “And? What does unusual smell like?”

  She pauses for a heartbeat and I’m seconds from lunging over the table and shaking the crap out of her. Homer and Bart style.

  “Well?”

  “They smell like smoke and ashes.”

  It takes a moment for the realisation to click, and the look on my face must say more than my mouth does, because it’s absolutely devoid of all emotion, and if Mika’s reaction to my reaction is anything. It’s surprised.

  They’re dragon shifters.

  The only species I avoid at all costs.

  FUCK.

  We’re still sitting in Karma Cafe, and Mika’s talking. I mean, her lips are moving, but I’m not hearing anything that she’s saying. I’m wrapped up in my own head right now. I’m known to most of the locals as ‘the bookstore owner’, ‘the lonely woman at the bar’ or the ‘woman who lives at the edge of the village’. No one really knows me, but that’s entirely my doing. There’s only one person in the entire village that knows me, and that’s Mika. She’s the only one who knows my true nature. She knows this is a big deal. She knows what I am, who I am, what position I held, and what label I avoid.

  “Remi.”

  I’ve been in hiding for years. This village is my hiding place. My cubby hole. My security blanket. My very large book nook.

  “Remi.”

  Why are they here now? And four of them? They’re never sent in fours... I mean, it has been a few centuries since I was banished. Maybe they’re desperate. Maybe they’ve come to take me back?

  “Remi.”

  What if they’ve come to kill me? No, I doubt that, banishment serves a greater purpose. Why kill someone quickly when you can ruin their life for years?

  “Remi, come on.”

  What are they here for? Are they looking for something? What would they be looking for? My brain tweeks and all the pieces slowly fall into place.

  The Dragon’s Gold.

  The fucking Dragon’s Gold.

  “Remi! Snap out of it!”

  The bang on the table disrupts my internal idle rambling. I’m sure my gaze has been darting to and fro quicker than a cat trying to catch the red dot. Mika knows more about the red dot than I do, I’m sure.

  Before I can give Mika the death stare of the year, dear Winter comes as a welcome distraction. Victoria sponge cake has never looked so good in its entirety; the dusting on the top looks like fresh snow and the jam looks like it was made today. It glistens in the sun and is as red as ripe strawberries. It doesn’t look store bought and that instantly makes it a hundred times better when you eat it, see it, or on the odd occasion, wear it.

  Stay safe; eat cake is a motto I take very seriously.

  Winter’s giving me a look when she puts the cake and tea down in front of Mika, but I can’t decipher the look. It looks like she’s concerned. How long was I spaced out? From Mika’s expression, I’m guessing it was between the five and ten minute mark.

  I’m an idiot. Spaced-out idiot. Space cadet.

  Winter, the Fifties-inspired Goddess that she is, slides that slice of cake right under my nose, and practically shoves that cake fork in my hand. It takes great strength and determination for me not to wolf that slice of cake down in a matter of minutes. I don’t want to look like a pig in front of Winter. Poor Mika is picking at the cake, and eating that cake so slowly that years would pass before she finishes it.

  This town receiving visitors isn’t unusual by any means. But it is out of season, four males walking into a small town in the middle of nowhere, looking for something or someone, possibly. They smell of smoke. Now either, they smoke cigarettes, or, the distinct smell of smoke normally indicates a shifter that has the ability to manipulate fire. Like dragons and phoenixes. The smell of ashes, however, normally signifies that it’s dragons. Phoenixes only use their phoenix fire as a last resort, dragons however are pyromaniacs.

  Dragons are used to working in groups for better attacks, on ground or in the air. Phoenixes are used to living alone due to the fact that they are so rare. We know they exist but I haven’t seen one. Although dragons are common, I don’t expect them around these parts. The climate is colder during the off-season, and only reaches highs of twenty five degrees-celsius in the summer. So the only reason I think that they that they might be here is that they believe the rumour about the dragon’s gold is real.

  A clink of a cake fork on a plate brings me back to reality. Mika’s finished that bigger-than-normal slice of cake, and now she’s gently sipping from that tea cup. She’s a sight to behold in her all black get-up, sipping tea from her tea cup like she’s the Queen of England. At the moment she kind of looks like the grim reaper on her lunch break. Not many individuals can pull it off. Mismatched eyes find mine, and that’s when I realised that I’ve been ignoring her the whole time.

  “Sorry, Mika, I was in my head a little.”

  “It’s alright, I knew what you were thinking anyway.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Mika.”

  “Do what you always do. Many people avoid you anyway.”

  She has a point, if I’m honest. I avoid conversation, eye contact and pleasantries with anyone except Mika. I mean, I talk to Winter in the cafe and I’ll smile and wave at Mr. Gregori, but he’s an old bloke who comes in on a weekly basis. We never speak, but we have a mutual understanding.

  “I think we should have a girls night.”

  That should take my mind off of things.

  “Hm?” The tea cup lowers until Mika’s looking at me, “A girls night?”

  “Yeah, we hardly ever do those.”

  “Will there be wine?”

  “If you bring some, then yes.”

  She knows I hoard random items and alcohol, but wine especially. If I let Mika anywhere near my wine collection, it would be halved in one night. And I’ve got some expensive shit in there. Mika can bring her own damn wine.

  Mika’s personality is like a depressed teenager or a cat who got the cream. Pun intended. One minute she’s clapping for joy, the next she’s brooding like a thirteen year old going through puberty.

  “Can we invite Winter?”

  “You mean, can you invite Winter...” I’m wiggling my eyebrows at her suggestively. She’s blushing now. But I’m not surprised, I know she has a big thing for Wint, and I’m definitely not going to stop her.

  The sound of a gulp is evident in the air. I don’t think that Winter knows how much Mika likes her, but she knows she likes her all the same. I think that’s the reason why she wears all those tight pencil dresses, and those cherry red high heels.

  Those cub eyes of Mika’s are staring at the bad art on the wall that decorates the cafe. Cub eyes. Hilarious. Her response is meant to make me feel sorry for her. If she wants Winter to come, she’s asking her. Thank god there’s an opportunity. The dainty plates that the cake came on are finished, and that’s a good enough excuse for me to call Winter back over.

  Unfortunately, it seems as if Winter is in the back, but as soon as I spy that sneaky waitress, she’ll be getting an invite to our opportunistic GNI. Thats ‘Girls Night In’ as in ‘those who hate company and prefer alcoholic-beverages’. Many of my nights have been elevated simply from Mika’s presence. That girl walks into a room, and you either see the Grudge, or you see a wild child that was born in the nineties and loves everything about the early noughties. You get the angsty emo teenager and some cracking alternative bangers.

  The hoodie
s and all black colouring seem to attract Winter though. Homosexual relationships between shifters are often taboo within packs. A human and a shifter relationship? Absolutely fine if the shifter is male and the human is female. But shifter females are treasured, and the packs horde them like a magpie with shiny things.

  Winter is a precious jewel in this town. One of the few ‘normies’ who understands supernatural culture and accepts it with all its warts and boils. Winter is good for Mika. Mika’s an oddball in her pack. I say her pack lightly, as she’s distanced from the pack due to her sexuality. It sucks. We’re in the modern day with many technological advances and some small like-minded individuals still can’t accept love for the sake of love? Wasn’t there an Eminem song about acceptance and what not?

  For fuck’s sake, why does Eminem makes multiple appearances in my head? Maybe because he speaks the truth more than any other individual I know. The song also applies to the situation. Not to sound like a bloody matchmaker, but I want Winter and Mika to be together. I guess it’s gonna be a slow process though.

  The staff door swings open, and from the corner of my eye, I see Winter holding a tray laden with latte glasses, espresso and cappuccino cups. I’ve already mentioned that Winter is like the backbone of the cafe, and one of the main reasons that we, mainly Mika, visits. Going back to the cat and the red dot reference; that’s what Mika looks like. Her eyes follow Winter around the cafe as she goes about her various jobs - wiping tables, serving customers, ringing up tabs and reshuffling menus.

  If I could attempt to describe what Mika looks like, it would be a lovesick teenager focusing on their first crush or an adoring fan looking at their idol. Winter is bright and bubbly, and Mika is timid and shrouds herself in black garments from head to toe. They are the opposite of each other, the light to the dark, the day to the night. Don’t opposites attract though?

  Winter’s probably noticed our empty plates by now, so we’re waiting for her imminent arrival. It gives Mika the prime opportunity to invite Winter to our girls night in. Mika needs to up her confidence levels, and asking Winter out will help do that for her. That’s why she’s asking, not me. From previous interactions with Mika, I’m aware that she has acute anxiety, and I’m hoping that this isn’t gonna go down like a lead balloon.

  “Have you girls finished?”

  The plates and cups rattle as my knee smacks into the table. Mika’s shocked gaze swings from the plates to my face, which at this point, is screwed up and seconds away from spewing various expletives. Seeing that I am, in fact, not knee-less, she relaxes visibly. Her shoulders aren’t stiff, her eyes aren’t strained, and she’s not sitting so straight in the chair, that if a burst of wind came along, she would blow over.

  I’ve never sighed so hard in my life. I’m looking from Mika to Winter with a glimmer in my eye and a smile on my lips. Mika should know what’s coming, but I doubt she does. She should know me better by now.

  “Winter, yes we are. Also, Mika has something to ask you.”

  “I-I... u-uhhh...” Back are those frantic eyes, the nervousness is rolling off of her body, and the stuttering is fully engaged.

  Winter, the sacred deity that she is, ignores the anxiety that plagues Mika on a temporary basis. Her smile captures us, and it cuts through the proverbial cloud of Mika’s anxiousness like a knife.

  “It’s alright Mika; just ask me.”

  “R-R-Remi is hav-having a GNI, if you wanna c-come?”

  Winter looks at me, confusing settling across her features.

  “A GNI?” she pronounces it guh-nigh.

  “No, a G N I,” I sound the letters out. “You know, not a GNO Girls Night Out but a GNI Girls Night In.”

  “Huh. Alright, GNI. Sounds like fun. Sure, I’ll come.”

  She looks over at Mika, seeing the trembling mess shrouded in black, clutching an empty tea cup with her big eyes looking at Winter expectedly.

  Mika’s eyes grow wide with excitement. Guess it’s a girls and wine night then.

  Fast forward a few hours, and we’re here at my humble abode, with my emo-clad bestie and a very humble Winter in tow. This home is full of trinkets and ornaments. Some with sentimental value, and some because they’re shiny. And no, I’m no magpie. Although I have collections galore, thankfully it is by some sort of miracle that Mika has not made it into my vintage wine collection. This has been avoided simply because I have the foresight to hide such delicacies from a feline lightweight.

  The terms and conditions of GNI, is that, it is strictly a bring-your-own-booze event. Strictly. Sharing is optional, turning up alcohol-less is not. Because that ensues the stealing of other people’s booze, which is also not allowed.

  Unfortunately, Mika chose to host this event in my cottage, completely forgetting I have no modern day technology. No television, no stereo, nada. I have an old gramophone which has one vinyl on it from the sixties. So the only entertainment on the cards is some oddly psychedelic rock, sung by some stoner hippies from the swinging sixties. Funnily enough, I can’t even remember where I got that bloody vinyl from, but to be honest, it seems like something Mika would get me.

  I’m not sure if psychedelic rock is a good girls-night-in entertainment music, but it seems like Mika and Winter don’t care, because by the time I have gone to the kitchen for a bottle opener, Mika and Winter have started guzzling their wine. Bloody screw tops. Winter’s doing the white girl dance in her seat, and Mika is ten seconds away from dancing on my oak wood coffee table, which has scars from her prior antics. There’s little black marks from the soles of her boots on my coffee table forever.

  Lucius, the traitor, has hidden himself in my bedroom, in his little cave bed. I don’t think the stoner hippies version of rock is his favourite. I’m sure he prefers the solitude of the house when he’s the only individual inhabiting it. The fox likes his creature comforts, and I would be a hypocrite to judge him. Uh hello… serial hoarder?

  “Coloured shadows, always haunting.. Drifting wild and undaunting.. Distance gaze, broken glass.. Coloured days.. Kaleidoscope…”

  “KALEIDOSCOPE!” Winter shouts from the top of her lungs.

  How much have these two inhaled already?

  “You’re a collide the scope!” Mika wails out after her.

  “That’s not the song lyrics!” Winter laughs at Mika. “That’s-that’s not the song,” She’s wheezing, “collide the scope! It’s a Kaleidoscope!”

  Mika and Winter are belting out the repeating lyrics over and over again, whilst I sit in my designated armchair with my bottle of wine, which I was wishing was beer, watching those two get their crunk on and sing this really bad Tangerine Dream song. I seriously question the consumption between those two... Also, wasn’t there a study once where they said you would memorise facts quickly through repetition? I can confirm that, although this song doesn’t have many words, and though half of them are repeated, this study is definitely true. Especially in accordance with drunken individuals and bad sixties records. I heard the combine harvester song once or twice, and that’s pretty catchy when it comes on. Even though I hate it, I still sing along.

  After some hours, I’ve lost count of how many times this song has repeated. By now, my bottle is half empty, and Wint and Mika are on their second? Third? I’m not gonna lie, I lost count during my alcohol-induced rambling. The alcoholic haze over my mind has clouded my perception skills. My mind babble is ridiculous and if I’m not singing stupid Disney renditions and believing I’m The Little Mermaid, I’m considering joining the hippies and smoking the pot. Amongst other things. I’m sure that the Sixties was better than anything else that happened during the course of history. I wasn’t ever a fan of the beheadings and the multiple wives and what not. Multiple wives is so sexist. What if I wanted multiple men? You know what that is in the modern world? Equality.

  Talking about equality. Mika and Winter have gotten closer whilst I’ve been brooding about modern day issues. Modern day shifter equality issues? A big problem. Not in
my house though, cause Mika and Winter are getting on like a house on fire. Mika’s finally made it onto my coffee table like it’s an elevated dance floor at a club. The only issue is that Mika has two left feet and has the grace and fluidity of a newborn animal on ice. The hips are moving out of time with the music, and she’s doing some weird robot motion with her arms. Drunk dancing is one skill that Mika doesn’t possess and Winter isn’t looking too good either.

  Winter is a juxtaposition right now. She looks the epitome of a stay-at-home, mother-of-two trophy housewife. After work, she had especially put pin curls into her chocolate brown hair, and tied a red bandana around her neck. Swapping her denim pencil dress for some boyfriend jeans and an off the shoulder top. In her tipsy stupor, some of her pin curls have fallen out, wisps of her hair everywhere, her red lipstick is slightly smudged where she keeps rubbing the wine glass across her lips. Winter’s eyes, however? They’re looking at Mika with a sense of love, like they cherish her very being.

  It looks as though Winter doesn’t see the same imperfections that the rest of the shifter community sees in Mika. A lone cub away from the pride, after being exiled, Mika doesn’t fit in anywhere. Shifter equality between genders and races is different in different packs, but because women shifters are sometimes limited, being homosexual is frowned upon in many ambushes. Sometimes, they exile individuals from the streak to prevent them from getting a bad reputation as being weak. Sometimes the women have to hide their sexuality to avoid being alienated by the pack; other times, the women are raped and used for breeding or, occasionally they’re simply killed.

  The touchy subject makes my eyes water, and I bring the edge of the wine bottle to my lips again. The slight bitterness of the wine reminds me that life is cruel, but thankfully, in this town of misfits, Mika and I have escaped modern torture in the form of supernatural politics. My brain is a muddled place when alcohol is involved, and if I’m not ranting about politics and religion, then I’m rapping old school Eminem songs. ‘Hashtag living my best life’. Modern communication is vague, confusing… odd.