Kris Austen Radcliffe - [Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon 00.5] Read online

  Prolusio

  Three Stories of Fates, Fire, Shifters & Dragons

  by

  Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Published by Six Talon Sign Fantasy & Futuristic Romance

  Copyright 2013 Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Edited by Annetta Ribken at http://wordwebbing.com

  Copy edited by Terry Koch at Beyond Grammar

  Cover designed by Kris Austen Radcliffe for Six Talon Sign Media

  Cover Photography by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Plus a special thanks to my Proofing Crew.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are used factitiously. All representations of real locales, programs, or services are factitious accounts of the environments and services described. Any resemblances characters, places, or events have to actual people, living or dead, business, establishments, events, or locales is entirely unintended and coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any print or electronic form without the author’s permission. For requests, please e-mail: [email protected].

  Copyright 2013 by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Published by: Six Talon Sign Fantasy & Futuristic Romance

  An imprint of Six Talon Sign Media LLC

  Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  Second electronic edition, January 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-939730-01-5

  The Fate - Fire - Shifter - Dragon Series

  Fantasy and Futuristic Romance

  Trilogy One: Activation

  Games of Fate

  Flux of Skin

  Fifth of Blood

  Short Fiction:

  Prolusio

  Conpulsio

  Trilogy Two: Redemption

  Silence Summer 2014

  All But Human Coming soon

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Pop Rocks

  Welcome to the Dells

  Cinder to Dust

  Sample: Games of Fate Chapter 1

  Sample: Games of Fate Chapter 2

  The Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon Series

  About the Author

  Connect with the Author

  Beware the Devil’s teeth

  Beware the Devil’s teeth

  They spit hellfire

  Your flesh they desire

  Beware the Devil’s teeth

  --16th Century Shifter nursery rhyme

  POP ROCKS

  Texas, twenty-five years ago…

  Next to Billy, a little darling with a blue streak in her hair giggled until vodka tonic shot out her nose.

  Billy stepped aside to let her pass. His new drummer, though, thought her cute enough to warrant a deep tonguing. The two staggered by and into the night.

  Three in the morning and ninety-degree heat still filled the air with shimmering mirages. A big truck grumbled through a distortion toward the petrol station on the other side of the blacktop sea. The rig’s brakes squealed and Billy cringed—the sharp pitch scratched like claws across a chalkboard.

  The drummer hauled the girl into the heat, his hand beating out a rhythm on the guardrail.

  “You comin’?” Phil, Billy’s lead guitarist, slapped his shoulder. Phil had a wife and baby in Ohio but he could drink the entire band into unconsciousness before sunrise if it struck his fancy.

  The entire band was younger than Billy—Phil by a good decade. Babies, the lot of them. His damned drummer wasn’t even legal to drink in the States.

  But they were all good at what they did. Phil had scribbled some fine tunes into his notebook and they’d find fame. Billy was lucky to have them for the tour.

  They’d all jumped at the chance to play with him—pop “icon” that he was. Billy Bare, the wunderkind, on his comeback tour. He “returned to his punk roots”—or so his manager put on the tour posters—and his band pounded out his greatest hits out of sheer awe.

  If only America felt the same.

  Billy watched the groupies climb onto the bus. The beer and the coke and the girls were the reason he stood next to a dingy bar’s dumpster instead of playing the arenas he’d been destined for.

  Phil slapped his shoulder again. “Tell you what, why don’t you and I take a walk around the dirt? I’ll show you the sights.” He waved at the lot.

  Six tours of the States and not once had Billy stopped to smell the roses. Not that this part of Texas had roses to smell. “All I see are cactuses and ugly lizards.”

  Phil took another pull at his beer. He’d been staying away from the hard stuff, unlike the rest of the band. Probably because of that little baby he hadn’t seen in two months.

  Before their set, he’d been showing the pretty bartender in the bosom-flaunting leather vest the many pictures he carried in his wallet.

  The young woman had cooed and hugged Phil. Then she’d spent the rest of the night eyeing Billy as if he deserved a blowjob for being a good boss.

  Too bad she’d shown Phil pictures of her own little one—a curly-haired, bright-eyed child.

  Phil stepped off the concrete and into the night. “Yeah. Don’t forget the rednecks with shotguns.” He hooked a finger into his belt and his feet spread shoulder width apart. “And the bad beer.” He held up his bottle.

  “What do you know?” Billy watched the drummer and the other guitarist stagger onto the bus, herding three girls between them. A good time, surely. “You’re from, where, Daytona?”

  “Dayton, you ignorant British git. In Ohio. Seriously, dude, learn some geography.”

  “This from an American.” Billy pointed at the trucks. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Phil tossed his empty bottle at the dumpster. “You’d think they’d recycle.”

  Dust swirled around Billy’s boots as they walked toward the blacktop. “Like you could find North America on a goddamned map.” Another big truck rumbled toward the pumps and they both stopped, watching. “And when did you start saying ‘git’? You sound like an idiot.”

  “I suppose I do. In good company, I am, then. Aye?” Phil’s lips bunched up in an exaggerated smirk.

  “Oh, for the love of all things great and good, don’t ever do that again.” No one talked like that. He certainly didn’t. “I’m hungry.”

  Several parked trailers blocked their path to the sprawling truck stop, but the promise of scrambled eggs and good Texas picante beckoned from the diner.

  Phil winked. “Sure thing, barrister.”

  Billy didn’t answer. Arguing with Phil would only lead to worse cartoon accents.

  They moved between two trailers and the space narrowed, forcing Billy to drop behind his guitarist. “Seriously, man—”

  Phil stopped suddenly. His back straightened and his hands shot to his mouth.

  Something stung Billy’s eyes. Why did this happen in Texas? His last time through, kids had set fire to a car in the lot of the venue.

  A gag gurgled from Phil’s throat. Billy gripped his arm. “Hey, don’t lose your beer.”

  Then the stench hit him and he gagged, too.

  A truck battery must have ruptured. The smell burned as if they’d stepped into an acid bath. It bit hard into Billy’s eyeballs and ate away at his nose and throat.

  A haze hung in the yellow halogen of the truck stop’s lights, orange and sick like vomit.

  Or maybe his mind gave
it form. Sometimes he saw music, its reason and its waves. He locked onto it, then wove it into songs that made girls weep.

  This stench, it did something similar. It had purpose.

  Phil staggered backward, his hand over his mouth. “Lord,” he choked out. “What the—”

  The light dimmed—something fast moved into the gap at the head of the trailers. Billy’s attention locked onto the new threat. He peered into the shadows and yanked Phil back.

  A man, so fat it seemed impossible he could move that quickly, scraped his nails across the trailers’ corrugated sides.

  Grease smudged his face and his tattered plaid shirt. He wore a coat—a thick, puffy, lime green thing that should make him sweat bullets—and fingerless gloves.

  “What do we have here?” The man fanned his fingers over the painted surface of the trailers. “You two lost?”

  Phil pushed Billy, his hand jittering as it slapped Billy’s chest. “Go!”

  How could lime-green man standing at the end of the trailers, giggling like a schoolgirl and breathing the same air? They’d all need medical attention if they didn’t get into the open.

  A new shadow appeared. Billy threw out his arm to stop Phil. Another man stood at the other end of the trailers, backlit by the lot’s lights, his face dark.

  “Looks like we’ve got new recruits, huh, Professor?” The fat man in the coat behind them grunted.

  The man in the shadows nodded.

  Then he opened his mouth.

  His teeth glowed. It must have been the light hitting the reflective tape on the side of the trailer next to the Professor’s head. It had to be.

  No one’s teeth shined like that.

  “Looks like it, Stan.” He tapped the trailer and the sound crackled as it bounced, a searing fizzle adding intense notes of chaos to his finger’s thump thump thump. He tapped and little lights popped off his fingertips as if he’d glued sparklers to his hand.

  His finger glowed, and a haze curled off the side of the trailer. The paint melted. This man called the Professor actually melted paint.

  Behind them, lips smacked. “They sure look tasty.”

  The Professor’s eyes narrowed and he snorted. “Quiet, Stan.” He jutted out his jaw and clicked his teeth.

  Little flashes popped in his mouth. What were these two on? Had they been drinking gasoline?

  Phil had been shaking, his hand tight around Billy’s upper arm, but lights-in-the-mouth must have overpowered any calm he had left. He gasped.

  Billy spun and grabbed Phil’s face. “Listen to me, mate. Keep it together. You’ve been in a real fight before?”

  Phil glanced over his shoulder at their fat attacker.

  Billy’s stomach dropped. “No matter what’s happening, it’s a fight, do you understand? Wits and punches. Break more on them than they break on you, got it?”

  Know what they’ve got and don’t think about what it is, only what it does. Billy pulled the thought front and center. Phil from Dayton didn’t understand knife fights, or clubs, or hooligans with some sort of acid weapon. But Billy from Manchester did.

  “Don’t panic! Got it, Phil? Do not panic.”

  The Professor chuckled. “Can’t run. Panic’s all you got, you skinny foreign fuck.”

  Stan’s bulk shot forward. Billy curled Phil sideways, moving an arm between him and the lime green rushing toward them, but it didn’t work. A hand wrapped around his neck.

  Stan dropped Phil into the dust and a high-pitched giggle erupted from his mouth. It, like the haze—like the crackle—rolled with chaos, as if these two popped on the inside.

  The Professor’s arm snaked around Billy’s elbows and drew his arms tight behind his back. His shoulder blades slammed together hard. His chest bowed out as the Professor yanked his neck to the side.

  “You ever look someone in the eye and seen the devil lookin’ back at you? I mean the real devil, you prissy little wanker. A Burner like me.”

  Billy couldn’t answer. He couldn’t talk. The stench filled his airways and sizzled his skin. The pressure made his eyes feel like they were going to burst. Tears dropped onto the Professor’s wrist.

  Stan giggled again as he waved a hand. A glow randomly moved across his fingertips, turning on and off in a haphazard way.

  Then he laid his hand on Phil’s face. He did it gently, like a lover touching his beloved’s cheek, or a mother touching a baby. But it wasn’t gentle at all.

  Phil’s flesh cooked under Stan’s fingers. His chest rose up and down, his throat working, but like Billy, no sound pushed past the stench.

  “Have you ever known—I mean truly known—when you faced a monster? When you should put a bullet right between his eyes—right here—” The Professor tapped Billy’s forehead. “—and put that monster down? That you needed to do your duty and protect the innocent and the whole goddamned world from something so foul, so terrible, you’d forfeit your own soul to do what’s righteous and good?”

  Stan snorted.

  “Have you?” The Professor jerked on Billy’s neck again.

  Billy had never been in a good fight. He’d never seen combat or worked in the law or done security. But he’d dealt with raving loonies whipping broken bottles and he’d lived then.

  “See, no one’s fast enough to stop the devil. Not me. And certainly not you, boy.”

  The monster’s teeth latched onto the curve between Billy’s shoulder and his neck. He jerked, expecting scalding pain, but the Professor’s incisors sliced his flesh with such precision he felt nothing.

  Until the fire hit his blood.

  It should hurt. It did hurt. It burned as if someone used a scalpel with purpose, intentionally, to peel back his skin. The fire seared up his neck and down his chest, spreading through his veins. It took the path of least resistance and it filled every hollow of his body.

  Each nerve it touched transformed. Each cell swelled. Pain became something crisp and writhing, flickering like a chemical flame. A liquid ghost slithered between Billy’s skin and what it meant to be him—between his surface and all that was William Barston.

  His childhood erupted from his memory. He didn’t see it—he saw only Stan’s gleaming grin and Phil’s shocked body. Billy heard the grinding of the tractor-trailers, the slamming of metal doors, and the Professor’s random breath in his ear. Smelled something burning.

  But Billy’s childhood played through his muscles. He jerked to kick a ball. His fingers plucked his first guitar. Lips rounded for his first, precious kiss. Legs pumped as he ran for the wall behind his mother’s row house, pushing with more strength than he thought his ten-year-old body had. He’d crested the top, made it over, and landed with twelve feet of concrete between him and Bernard Jenkins’s gang.

  Little William hummed. Little William strummed. He banged out a rhythm and he threw dirt in Bernard’s face. And little William grew tall and lean and when he held a guitar in his hand, all the girls sighed.

  Now his skin floated on a thin layer of effervescence. Billy felt as if the bubbles would lift him into the air and throw him against the trailers. He’d hit high up and be stuck there, crucified on sheet metal.

  Pain he didn’t feel but hurt him anyway boiling away William. Pain that melted.

  Pain that needed to be fed.

  The one called Stan snickered. The Professor held Phil in front of Billy the way he’d hold a dead chicken by its neck.

  Billy loved chicken.

  Hungry. He sniffed the air.

  His mum cooked birds in a clay pot in the oven for hours until the meat fell from the bone. Back in the day, his whole neighborhood would sit up, sniffing at the air like Billy sniffed now. Sniffed for Mrs. Barston’s special clay pot chicken. The recipe with the peas she mixed in at the end. The peas she plucked from the vines growing along the wall behind her home.

  A
nd little William sat at the table and whined because his mum told him to wash off that punk crap he’d drawn around his eyes. She’d not have the neighbors thinking her boy a ponce.

  Then he went outside and punched the kid next door, more to prove his manhood than for any other reason, even though it all seemed stupid.

  The burning forced into his veins by the Professor circled around, meeting itself on the backside of his legs and arms. Billy was now encased under his pasty exterior, remembering what it meant to be him.

  The girls liked the eyeliner.

  On stage, he became someone new, someone handsome, someone with swagger the girls wanted and weren’t frightened of. Someone who sang instead of hit and someone who built with rhythm and voice and once had made a stadium’s worth of young women bounce as one being.

  A deep red popped through the Professor’s eyes. A red darkened by constriction, as if the sick orange haze had condensed.

  They’d poisoned him. They’d filled him with this thing that should hurt but didn’t because the pain it caused burned away all that made him Billy.

  Burned away his life and his mind. His body stopped jerking, the muscle memories vanishing. The world, its reasons and its rhythms, boiled away.

  He should remember his mum’s face. Her name. He remembered the chicken in the clay pot, the smells of a dinner well received, the hunger fulfilled. They all remained. But his mum as she dished, she was nothing but a hole.

  What invaded his body wanted. It screamed in his head, malicious and wiggling. This thing now held him up, kept him upright and moving, with hunger alone.

  A memory popped. Chicken.

  Phil tried to scream. He tried to get away, but Stan and the Professor held him with caustic fingers. His eyes were wide, pupils so big his eyes turned black.

  They cooked him. His forearm smoked. Their palms glowed and Phil became meat.

  Billy didn’t remember ripping into Phil’s shoulder. Nor did he remember the laughs of the other two. When he was done, he stared at the only thing left—Phil’s wallet.