Rivalries: Chapter Fifteen, Part One

 Notes: More Rivalries, yay! We're getting into the dueling clubs at last, and I think we're going to have some very exciting moments in the next few installments, so...hitch your wagon up and stay tuned! (How's that for mixed metaphors?) Also, omigosh, if you're in a place that's unseasonably cold right now, I wish you all the warmth and electricity you need to get by. Keeping you in my thoughts, Southern friends.

Title: Rivalries: Chapter Fifteen, Part One

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Chapter Fifteen, Part One

 

 

It was with a certain vindictive glee on Monday when Principal Cross stopped in during Charlie’s class with the seniors for her daily checkup—something she did to everyone, apparently—that Charlie mentioned to her, “By the way, ma’am, Ms. Jones and I will be running the introductory dueling club meeting for Stheno kids in the gym after school.”

Principal Cross paused on her way out of the classroom, her spine as straight as a ruler. “You will not,” she replied crisply. “Not without—”

“Our own equipment. Yes. It arrived this morning.” And hadn’t all of that been a bitch to load up and get to the school. It would have been next to impossible without Johnny’s help tying most of it to the top of the car.

Which they’d done together.

Because they spent the weekend together.

Focus, man.

Principal Cross turned to face him more fully. “Indeed? I hope you didn’t attempt to use any PTA funds or pursue a grant through one of our parents. That would be—”

“Against the school’s bylaws, I know,” Charlie said. “And no, I didn’t.”

“Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I didn’t expect you to barter with your tarnished valor, Sergeant.”

Well, that was particularly blatant, even for her. Charlie knew she didn’t like him, but he hadn’t thought her opinion was quite this low. “Nope,” he said, popping the “p” a little bit. “I wouldn’t do that.” The students were staring between them like they were watching a boxing match, waiting breathlessly to see who would land the next blow.

“Then how—"

“Technically, you can’t ask me that question without filing a written report to be discussed at the next PTA meeting,” Charlie interjected. “Which is fine. I’m happy to discuss with the parents of this school why it was necessary for me to go to the lengths that I did to get equipment for the students of their sister school, which is going through a hard time right now, rather than…borrowing yours.” Using the gear you had stuffed in the closet, you meddling bitch.

Principal Cross wasn’t done. “Your access to the gym ends when the final bell rings.”

“You signed a form allowing Ms. Jones use of the gym until five three days a week.”

“For her only, for tutoring.”

“This is tutoring,” Charlie said firmly. “And she’s allowed to bring in any co-instructors she wants. At this point the tutoring is practically remedial, since these kids are starting practical application use later than their peers.” He nodded at the Euryale students. “Or are you going to tell me that the seniors who’ve been attending the regular dueling club aren’t ahead of the game?”

He smiled at her. “It’s all in the name of equal access for our students. And as you’ve been so gracious with the transfers so far, I’m sure this won’t be a problem for you.”

Her smile was so crisp it could have burnt bread. “Not at all. Good day.” She left with a brisk click-click of her heels, and Charlie sighed internally with relief.

“Damn.” Charlie looked toward the student who’d just spoken up. It was ‘Nanda, the girl with the powerful elemental knack. “I should make her some ice for that burn.”

“She’s not going to let you keep the gym,” Willard said confidently. “Sometimes we need it, when it’s raining outside or something.”

“Then your club can work next to ours,” Charlie replied. “You could practically play a football game in that gym, it’s big enough for fewer than a dozen students at a time.”

“Do you have the equipment for handling mental knacks?” Eloise—the emotional manipulator—asked suddenly.

“Yes. Why?”

She frowned. “Because Colonel Applegate only ever wants to work on physical and elemental knacks. He doesn’t give the ornamental or mental ones any attention, and I want to test if I can interrupt someone with my knack while they’re in the middle of using theirs.”

“You should be able to learn that,” Charlie said. It was a lot harder to intercede when someone was concentrating, but he’d seen other people do it. “You should also ask for a chance to work against other mental knacks. And he should be introducing all of you to some form of meditation, if he hasn’t already.”

“We’re not Jedi,” Willard said. He sounded bored. “This is the real world, not some imaginary place where we’re going to need meditate to ‘feel the Force.’”

Charlie shrugged. “I’ll be discussing theory around mental focus as it relates to knacks a little later in the semester, but for now let me just say that in the worst moments in my life, where I was inches away from dying, it was my ability to focus—that I practiced via meditating—that saved my ass. Meditation proficiency is mandated for people with knacks in every branch of the military and the CIA, FBI, all the alphabet agencies, so if you don’t start now, you can bet you’ll be getting a lot of it later on.”

In fact…there was no time like the present. “Let’s do an intro now,” he said, standing up and grabbing one of the markers from beside the whiteboard, “and we can make this another optional topic for your mid-term research paper.”

“Yes,” one of the kids whispered behind him, and Charlie smiled…but only where he could see it.

 

“Wow,” he said an hour later as he stared at the Stheno seniors sitting on the lowest level of bleachers in the gym. “You said it would be popular, but I didn’t think it would be this popular.”

Every single senior from Stheno High was there. There were sixteen total, which far outstripped the amount of equipment Charlie had gotten from Lisa.

Debra chuckled. “Don’t get too concerned,” she consoled him. “I told them all the first meeting was mandatory, then said we’d do one day a week focusing on physical and elemental, one a week on mental and ornamental, and one a week on crossover knacks and inter-discipline tactics. I figure we’ll get half this number on the average day. Some kids will come all the time regardless, but some will only come when it really fits their knack or their interest.”

Charlie nodded, gauging the group’s enthusiasm. They all seemed pretty perky…even Roland, who was sitting off in the corner by himself. Technically he wasn’t allowed to be a member of the dueling club, since he was a sophomore, but if he was going to be here anyway… “Scoot closer,” Charlie said to him, and Roland did so with a little smile.

“Okay, everyone. I’m Mr. Verlaine, but you can call me Charlie,” he said. “Ms. Jones and I will be teaching this club together. Has she already been over the ground rules?”

“No using your knack on someone without permission, no testing something you’ve never done before on another student instead of a teacher, and no sassing us or you’re out of the club for a week,” Debra reiterated firmly, and all the kids nodded.

“Perfect. I’ll add a few more as we go, but for now, welcome.” He smiled, and was gratified when some of them smiled back. “So, let’s jump in with a quick lesson on meditation.”

Because fuck if his kids weren’t going to know how to use their ability to focus to their advantage.

Story excerpt: Dauntless (dragonrider sequel)

 Hi friends!

It's busy busy bee time here, so today I've got something different and, I think, pretty special for you. It's the beginning of the sequel to my UF novella Luckless, tentatively titled Dauntless. It's got walled cities, monsters, dragons and the people who ride them...it's got it all!

I hope you enjoy :) More Rivalries next time!

***

 

The sun hung like a ball of steaming sulphur in the sky, edged by a corona of sickly yellow and brown. The last dust storm was still making its presence felt by obscuring visibility in all directions. Evan Luck’s eyes stung from the particles, and even with the mask over the lower half of his face, his lips and tongue felt coated with residue. He wanted to spit but forced himself to swallow instead, leaning forward so he could get a better look over Ladon’s shoulder.

They were the lowest unit to the ground, circling and hovering as close as they could to the caravan from Cheyenne while maintaining just enough distance to keep the livestock from spooking. It was a slow, tedious task, but a vitally important one as well. People from all over the Rocky Mountain region had been making the dangerous voyage to Forge—the fortress city built from Denver’s remains—over the past year, ever since it had become clear that Forge was not only surviving in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, it was thriving.

The reason for that was the dragon that Evan was currently sitting astride, and Ladon—Lee Caldwell when he shifted into his human form, the rarest of dragonkind—had as strong a sense of responsibility as Evan did. One of the horses below bucked as Ladon’s shadow passed over it, and before Evan could say anything, the dragon was moving up again, letting the steady wind propel him higher into the air.

You were fine, Evan expressed to Ladon. As an empath, he was one of a select group of people who could communicate and bond with dragons. With his first dragon, Juree, it had been different—they hadn’t spoken in words so much as in feelings and impressions. When Lee was Ladon, though, words seemed to pass across their bond with ease. The rider had his mount under control again quick.

There’s no need to stress them if I don’t have to, Ladon replied. His voice was like a distant roll of thunder in Evan’s mind, booming and heavy but not overwhelming. It was completely different from how he sounded as Lee, which was good, because as much as Evan loved Ladon, his relationship with the dragon was completely different from the relationship he had with the man. Besides, we’re getting close. Only five miles to go.

Finally. Cheyenne was about a hundred miles north of Denver, and traveling by the old highway I-25—which was still the best bet despite the broken bridges and hiding spots for monsters for a party of this size—was slow going. They were on day five of escort duty, and Evan felt like he hadn’t slept for more than four hours at any one time since they’d started. He didn’t like being away from their home so long, and he hated leaving Jason under someone else’s care.

Especially right now.

Reflective worry flared across their bond from Ladon, and Evan reached out to soothe him with his mind even as he stroked a hand down the side of his neck. He’s all right, he said, almost believing it himself. You know he loves Charlie, and she’d never let anything bad happen to him. If things had gotten really rough, she’d have sent us a message. Forge now had a dragon to spare for that—its youngest bonded dragon, the slender, black-scaled beauty who had bonded with a sylph-like teenage girl named Vanessa two years ago. They weren’t built for aggression, but for speed, and had taken to their role with alacrity.

It was a blessing, a city with so many dragons, but also a burden. Dragons needed to be fed, and as monsters dried up in close proximity to the city, they had to feed on livestock instead. The cattle, sheep, and goats Forge already had wasn’t enough to sate the appetites of five adult dragons and the mated pair’s numerous hatchlings. Even with Ladon taking most of his nourishment in human form, to spare the herds, it was still a lot of meat. That was where the trade with Cheyenne came in.

They had lost their last dragon, an old, grizzled brawler named Friya, in a battle against a horde of rougarans this past winter. Without a dragon, Cheyenne was both too big and too small to survive on its own—packed with people who’d streamed in from the countryside as times got tougher, but without the massive fighting beasts or weaponry necessary to hold off the monsters who had made Earth their home and seemed to be steadily swallowing it, mile by mile.

The rifts between dimensions, the rifts that had opened out of nowhere and released Armageddon on the world, had been closed for nearly a hundred years now. Humanity had been devastated, by beasts and then by its own weapons as it turned its nukes on the biggest of the newcomers, wrecking the climate. That devastation was still going on most places, only getting harder and harder to combat.

Without the bonds that had spontaneously formed between dragons and humans, they would all have been dead long ago. As it was, the smaller outposts were still being overwhelmed, not enough dragons around to defend them, or the dragons that were there unable to find a human empath to bond with and taking off, wild and free and dangerous, for new horizons.

Ladon sent a stream of warm, soothing affection through their bond. Don’t worry, Evan. I’ll never leave you.

Evan rested his head against Ladon’s warm, scaly skin for a moment. I know. He was grateful for it every day, for the dragon who had chosen him after Evan had thought he’d lost his chance at another bond forever. He’d wanted to die, after Juree’s death. Ladon was his second chance at life, and he would do anything to keep him.

A bright red flare shot up from one of the outriders on the ground, startling Evan out of his contemplation. He looked down at the woman who’d fired it, sitting astride a steady gray mare who didn’t flinch even as Ladon’s shadow enveloped her.

“Bolters!” she shouted, and even though she was too far away for Evan to hear, he could read her lips just fine. She flung out the hand holding a pair of binoculars toward the mountains. “Bolters coming in from the west!”

Bolters. Shit.

Bolters were one of the strange, semi-historical cryptids that had flourished ever since the opening of the rifts. That some of them must have gotten through in the past was undoubtable—Rock Slide Bolters were mentioned in bestiaries from centuries ago. They had been treated like a joke back then, but they were very real and very dangerous now.

They were supposed to keep to the mountains, clinging to rocky clifftops and sliding down scree fields to catch their prey, but since so many people and their animals had abandoned the higher elevations, the monsters had followed the food. The bolters were bigger than the leeches that had attacked Forge two years ago, with four-part jaws that split open like the petals of a flower, revealing rows of teeth capable of crushing both rock and bone. They weren’t as numerous as the leeches had been, though, and their tiny limbs meant they could be outmaneuvered fairly easily.

Their tails, though—up to thirty feet long, practically impenetrable, and flexible and strong—were the real danger. If a bolter caught up to the caravan, it wouldn’t need to run into people with its immense jaws, it would just wrap them up with its tail and crush them to death, then feed itself at its leisure.

Bolters were a problem, but he and Ladon could deal with it. They had to—if the monsters made it into the caravan, it would be a massacre. A bolter’s rocky hide was too thick for fire to stop them quickly, even dragonfire. That meant they’d have to get low and crush them.

Check their numbers. Ladon swung west, and Evan peered through the dust for any signs of the big but slow-moving carnivores.

There. One, two…three…four. That seemed like an awful lot for a supposedly solitary species. Shit, this was too many for just Evan and Ladon.

You want me to signal Gorot and Grenia? he thought to his dragon. Gorot and Kisthe were the mated pair of mature dragons housed in Forge. Kisthe and her rider Jack, however, had opted to stay home, protect the city, and prepare her next pair of mature hatchlings for the upcoming Choosing while Grenia, the largest of their growing brood, flew with them.

Please do so. I’ll make the first pass. The wind is with us—a wall of flames will at least slow them down, and not inconvenience the caravan.

Got it. Evan pulled a blue flare out of his saddlebag even as Ladon went into a dive, tucking his wings back and blowing a long, white-hot line of flame across the bolters, searing the head of the one leading the way. It writhed, snapping its whiplike tail in a wide, twitching arc, but its scream was more angry than pained. Its tiny eyes, no larger than marbles, were practically vestigial—bolters followed scent, not sight. The dragonfire was nothing more than an inconvenience to it.

Pssshhhtt! Evan fired the flare as Ladon came out of the dive. In the distance, ponderous green Gorot and his strong, snakelike daughter Grenia changed direction. Their riders weren’t yet close enough for Evan to sign to, but it didn’t matter—dragons could communicate with each other the same way they could speak to their bonded empaths.

Gorot will take the one on the far left, Grenia the one on the right. Their riders will assist as they can. I will handle the middle pair. The ones that were farthest along. Ladon was half again bigger than Gorot, who was as tall as a lodgepole pine, so it made sense for him to handle the worst of it. Still…

Be careful. Tell me what I can do to help you.

He felt Ladon’s smile in his mind. Guard yourself carefully, beloved. Ladon turned again, banking hard so he could get a good approach for his landing.

Fighting on the ground was dangerous, so dangerous, even for the biggest and most powerful of dragons. Evan’s heart was in his throat as Ladon bared his claws, swooping in and coming down with a crunch right on top of the closest bolter’s head. He clenched it tightly in his forelegs, trying to rend it in two, but the bolter was too armored for the assault to break it. Its whippy tail snapped over its had, whip-crack!, striking at Ladon however it could.

Evan hunkered down against his dragon’s neck, doing his best to stay out of the path of that deadly tail. In many ways, dragons would be a more formidable force if they didn’t have to protect their human riders during a fight. Evan had already been the cause of one dragon’s death, and if his weakness brought harm to Ladon…

You aren’t weak.

Concentrate on the bolter, Evan chided him even as his chest filled with warmth at his dragon’s reassurance.

Our kind would be just as savage as the rest of these monsters without our connections to you. We need you just as much as you need us.

Right now I need you to focus. The tail had gotten dangerously close to Ladon’s eyes several times. Fifty yards away, Evan could see the next one crawling steadily, relentlessly toward them. Bolters never ran from a fight—once they had scented their prey, they would go through whatever they had to to get it.

I…almost… Ladon roared and dug his claws in deep, finally penetrating the bolter’s hide and twisting his body so hard that he wrenched its head out. A gout of foul-smelling blood erupted from the bolter’s corpse, and its tail fell to the ground with finality.

Good job. Now they could focus on the one coming at them from due west, and then—

A high-pitched dragon’s scream erupted from their right. Evan’s head snapped around and he stared in dismay at Grenia and her rider Tommy. The dragon had come down in front of the bolter instead of behind it, and before she could change position, it had clamped its immense jaws around one of her forelimbs. She screamed again and again in rage and agony, blowing her furious flames over the bolter, but it barely slowed the gnawing down. Blood poured down her limb, and as he watched in horror Evan could just make out her rider jumping from her back.

Oh, fuck. The pain must have driven their connection out of her mind, and Tommy didn’t have the training to force his way back in. Grenia had become wild, savage—she probably didn’t even remember that she had a rider right now, much less that she was endangering him with the heat of her flames and her thrashing body. If he died…if she killed him…

Rivalries: Chapter Fourteen, Part Two

 Notes: Aaand time to move the plot forward instead of just having sex! Not that the sex didn't move the plot forward, IMO, but still. Onward, to words!

Title: Rivalries: Chapter Fourteen, Part Two

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Chapter Fourteen, Part Two

 

An hour later, they were sitting in a diner forty minutes away from Johnny’s house but only a short walk from the group home where Roland was staying now. According to his caseworker, he’d requested a meeting with Johnny before he went back to school. What could Johnny do but say yes? He’d already assured Roland he’d do everything in his power to keep him out of the spotlight, and especially out of the sites of Linda Patterson, who had proven oddly difficult to shake.

Most times, if a fostering situation didn’t work out, both parties were ready to move on. The Pattersons kept inquiring about Roland, though—to the point where it had distressed him enough that his caseworker stopped mentioning it to him, but still told Johnny. He’d promised to look out for him at school, and act as a roadblock between them and Roland if necessary.

He really hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. He didn’t wat to think about the kind of knack it would take to handle that power couple at once.

“You sure the kid’s not going to mind me tagging along?” Charlie asked for the second time since sitting down. He was already on his second cup of coffee, and had ordered a huge plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast.

“I asked, and his caseworker said he was fine with it.” Still… “If he changes his mind, though—”

“I’ll go grab a seat at the counter.”

“Why are you being so cool with this?” Johnny asked, partly out of fun but partly serious too. He couldn’t think of any previous partner—for a given value of partner, ie someone who was more than a one-night stand at least—who would have been okay getting summoned out of a sexy shower to go meet with a traumatized teenager on Saturday morning.

“Eh.” Charlie took a long sip of steaming coffee and didn’t even blink at its scalding temperature. “I know how it is to have a kid in your life who needs you, whether you want it that way or not.”

“The one you were talking to before?” Johnny ventured. “Um, Ari, right?”

“Right.” Charlie’s mouth turned down at the corners, then he glanced at Johnny. “I wasn’t going to bring him up, but actually, you might be one of the only people I can think of who might be able to give me advice on this.”

Johnny was happy to help, but… “What sort of advice? Because if it’s legal advice you’re looking for, you should know I’m not allowed to—”

“No, no.” Charlie put his cup down and waved his hand. “Not at all. His mother has so many lawyers at her beck and call they could fill a law school. It’s more about the nature of his knack. It’s either unique, or so close to it that we can’t find a parallel anywhere else in record, and that’s bad because it makes it almost impossible to figure out a way to—”

“Excuse me? Mr. Gibilisco?” A figure with broad shoulders stood hunched beneath a hoodie, his chin tucked so low it almost rested on his chest, stood a few feet away. Just behind him was a small Latina woman who Johnny recognized as one of the foster parents in his new home.

“Roland!” Johnny waved to him. “Come on over, join us!” He and Charlie were on the same side of the booth, leaving one side free for Roland.

He slid in, and his foster mother said, “Thank you, Mr. Gibilisco, I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” and walked back outside.

“This is Mr. Verlaine,” Johnny said, pointing at Charlie. “He teaches at the new place.”

Roland appeared to be doing his best not to stare at the missing arm, but didn’t quite manage it. Johnny hurried on. “Would you like some breakfast? I’m buying, it’s fine—”

“No, thanks,” Roland interrupted. “Ms. Rosa already made breakfast, I’m not hungry.”

Johnny could hardly remember not being hungry as a teenage boy, but he wouldn’t push it if Roland didn’t want to go there. “Juice, then? Coffee?”

Roland hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.” They ordered him another cup and waited for him to doctor it with cream and sugar before Johnny started to speak.

“You said you had something to talk to me about?”

“Yeah. I mean, kind of?” Roland took a sip, holding onto his mug with both hands. “I know Camille has already talked to you about this, but…I wanted you to know that I really, really don’t want to see Mrs. Patterson again. Not ever, but definitely not at school.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Johnny said gently. “She has no reason to be there.”

“She’s friends with their principal,” Roland spat. “She had her over a few times. I recognized her name when I found out I had to switch to Euryale.”

Johnny went very serious and still. “Roland, did Principal Cross ever make you do anything you didn’t want to do in that house?”

He shook his head. “No, but…I don’t trust any of them. None of her friends, and definitely not her. She…” Roland looked frustrated, biting his upper lip for a moment. “I have weird dreams about her. Not—like—not really weird, not like touching dreams—but dreams where she’s sitting by my bed and talking to me while I’m asleep. I don’t remember what she’s saying, but I remember that she’s there.” He glanced up. “I also don’t remember having any dreams at all in that house while I was there. Just…the study sessions.”

“It could just be your brain processing the things that she did to you while you were awake,” Johnny offered. He was startled when Charlie spoke up.

“What’s her knack?”

“She’s a foci,” Johnny supplied. “She works for several pharmaceutical companies, if I remember right.”

“Huh.” He looked at Roland. “Do you remember which ones?”

“Um…Rayview and G&J, I think.”

Charlie nodded, looking both thoughtful and a little grim. “G&J did a test study about eighteen months ago with some of the incoming special forces. They were trying out a new drug that was supposed to allow a person to effectively process new information in their sleep. A ‘chemical foci knack,’ as it were.”

Roland seemed intrigued. “Did it work?”

“Not even close.” Charlie sighed. “We lost a whole class of newbies thanks to that drug trial. They were constantly exhausted, got no rest even while they were asleep, and none of the new skills stuck. Some of them had permanent issues with insomnia.” His jaw tightened. “One of them killed himself a few months after the trial ended. The military’s contract with G&J was called off after that.”

“Oh, wow!” Rather than being scared, Roland sounded thrilled, and a little relieved as well. “Do you think maybe she was trying that on me? Giving me the drug and testing whether or not it worked?”

“We don’t need to be jumping to any conclusions,” Johnny warned. Still, if she had been testing a drug on her foster kid…there was no limit to the amount of pain Johnny would put her through for that.

“I’ll make some inquiries,” Charlie said, sipping his own coffee. “And if you want to come hang out in my classroom and wait there for Ms. Rosa to pick you up, that’s fine with me. Nobody’s getting in there that I don’t want to.”

If Roland’s eyes got any wider, they’d fall out of his skull. “Really?”

“Sure.” Breakfast arrived, Johnny’s omelet looking downright boring next to Charlie’s extravagant spread. Across from them, Roland shifted a little.

“And what’ll this young man have?” their waitress asked cheerfully.

“Um…actually…”

“Go ahead,” Johnny said, and he was gratified—but not surprised—when Roland ordered the exact same thing Charlie was eating.

Cue the hero worship, maybe. Well, Johnny couldn’t blame him.

There were definitely worse heroes to pick than Charlie Verlaine.