It wasn’t raining. In retrospect, a lot of things would have been better if it was. I wouldn’t have gone for a walk, for instance. But the sky was clear, the night relatively warm. I wasn’t really expecting any trouble in a suburb on a Wednesday, but my expectations have a habit of being wrong.

The truth is, I’ve always had expectations that were less than reasonable. So when I heard the footsteps coming up fast behind at my side, I told myself it was just a jogger. A jogger, at two a.m., wearing heavy boots. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when the shoulder crashed into mine, slamming me into the sidewalk. I heard a soft sound that still, for some reason, made my teeth clench. The man laying on top of me jerked once, a jaw-clenched moan escaping his lips next to my ear. Then there was silence.

I writhed out from under him, expecting to have to fight my attacker—or attackers. He lay on his side where I had pushed him, trying to curl around some hurt but lacking the strength to do so. For a moment, I thought that somewhere I had hurt him. Then the street lamps glinted off of the spike jutting out of his chest. For a moment I thought it was glass, but then I saw the water trailing down its sides in the cool air. It was ice. A long, cruel spear made of ice.

Breathing fast, I looked around for whoever might have done it. There was no one else on the street—unless they were hiding behind a fence, or a tree, or one of the trashcans lining the street… Shivering on the grass of a suburban street corner, I hunched low as if it would somehow hide me, sitting in the light of a street lamp. But no one stepped from the shadows; no one broke the painful silence. Heartbeats measured themselves out in the darkness, and nothing interrupted the silence but a lone dog. The man pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, swaying. I scrambled to my own feet, ready to run. His hand was wet where it clutched his chest. When he hunched in pain, the light shone off of the other half of the spine, peeking through a ragged hole in the back of his jacket. Had it really gone through him? His hand clutched the spine close to his chest and he jerked it out, flinging it to the side. It snapped in several pieces with a grating crack. With his head hung, dark hair obscuring his face, he reached for me. I found myself frozen as he wrapped an arm around me, leaning heavily. I heard his lips work, form some unfamiliar word, then I was having to catch him as he slid halfway to the ground.

We actually manage to pick of a fair amount of first aid knowledge during our lives, from TV and the classes we take in school. Ask someone what to do for a gunshot would and they’ll tell you apply pressure, don’t move them, call for help, keep it clean—basic stuff, right? Now ask that same person what to do, only they’re staring at a terrible wound inflicted by an ice spike, and are now holding the person whose blood is swiftly soaking through their sweatshirt. Probably not so coherent. Certainly not so articulate.

Still, I did the best I could. He was too heavy for me so I lowered him to the ground. His neck lolled on his shoulders, so he was pretty out of it. Still, he managed to fight me when my hands went for his shirt, trying to lift it, do... something. Hadn’t anyone heard… something? It occurred to me to scream, then, and I filled my lungs to do so, but the hand tightened painfully on my wrist when I did. I looked down, startled, and his eyes were open, staring at me, aware, and he was saying something but I didn’t understand it, his eyes were so dark, and he said it again and I realized it was English. And the moment passed, leaving me slightly out of breath. "I’ll be fine," he repeated. But there was a tightness to his voice the belied the words, and blood was spreading across his pale t-shirt in a dark stain. Even under the streetlight color was washed out by the night, making the blood look black.

I tugged my arm out of his grip and he let go easily, arm falling limply at his side. Then I lifted his shirt. I dropped it again, feeling faint. I had no problem with blood or gore, but this… this was pain. Shaking my head, I stripped off my sweatshirt and pressed it to the wound. He grunted, and I almost let off, but at the last minute stopped myself. It would hurt, but he wouldn’t bleed to death.

I called for help then, and this seemed to upset him more than the sweatshirt, but I didn’t stop until I saw the porch light go on in the house I was in front of. The door unlocked in several places, and it seemed to take forever before a man emerged, pulling a jacket over himself. His breath was heavy on the air, and I was just wearing a short sleeved shirt, but it didn’t occur to me to be cold. Or scared, for that matter.

The man took one look at us under the streetlamp and ran back inside. It was the smartest thing to do, really, but at the time I wasn’t thinking of ambulances and it just seemed like he was abandoning me. The man under my hands moaned, and his hands came up to clench my arms. His body shifted under me, and with a start I realized he was trying to sit up. "What are you doing?" My voice was high, childlike and shaking. It startled me. "You have to stay still." The quaver was worse this time. I swallowed. This was not the time.

The man simply grunted and tried to push me away. "Let me go—don’t touch me. I have to go!" the last few words came out strangled as I pushed him back down. "No... hospitals... let me go..." of course I wasn’t about to do that. There was so much blood. Where did he think he was going?

Of course, the words weren’t near so coherent when I said them. "No.. you can’t... how-" I broke off, frustrated at my inability to speak. The night was quiet as he suddenly went still. I was suddenly aware of everything—of the dark, tall houses, the wide street, the smell of asphalt and blood and something fouler, the distant sirens it seemed I could already hear, so close to the hospital.

Then he went still under my hands—really still, like stone, and I thought for an instant he’d died. But then cool sensations were spreading up my arms, crawling up through my fingers, and the night was all fading as quickly as it had reared up. And my weight shifted forward as the man shrank. Only he wasn’t shrinking, he was melting into the concrete that rippled around him like water with a faint sigh. As his body disappeared and the poured stone framed his face, it occurred to me that he was actually handsome. And naggingly familiar... but then I had other things to think about as my hands followed him underneath the oddly behaving cement, and I realized that I was sinking with him. I gave a very undignified yelp, but then the coolness stole up over across my chest, through me to the tips of my hair, and a lot of things didn’t seem to matter—like breathing. I froze, and while a corner of my mind threw a nasty fit, the rest of me welcomed the embrace of the earth.

My heartbeat seemed somehow muted here. It occurred to me that it was far too slow, that I should need to breathe, but that part wasn’t in control right now. In fact, none of me seemed to be, and it certainly wasn’t my idea to wrap my arms around the stranger, pressing my body along his cool length. Still, I felt less vulnerable this way, and as we... fell? floated? Through the earth, I began to relax. He was as still as the stone we passed through and hardly more soft, yet—again—there was something familiar in all of this strangeness.

 
"Well, shit." There were people moving around me, and voices, and in the middle of it all a total lack of fear. It was as if the emotion had been wrung from my body, and it took a moment to recognize its absence. It occurred to me that I couldn't move, that there were voices and sounds that were totally foreign, but it all seemed so distant. Only the earth I could feel under my back and between my fingers seemed real. "Kelly, get her up. Move her to the guest room and make sure it's secure; we'll see to Aaron. Though why he had to bring her now... god, Ingram is not going to like this." Footsteps came next to my head, cloth shifted and I could feel someone's breath on my face. "You're still heavy with earth, little one," another voice said, much lighter than the one before. "No one will be able to lift you that way." Then his breath passed down my body, a faint stirring of air that made my skin tingle even under my clothes. And my body felt lighter, more my own.

I opened my eyes to a smiling face. That was my first impression of Kelly, and I have found it to be a good one. His grin widened when our eyes met. "Well, look who's awake." I looked away from him to the room. It was a basement, walls and floor bare and dry. The floor itself was bare earth where I lay. "Where's that man who... who was hurt?" I tried to sit up but he stopped me, arm going around my back as the other scooped up my legs. "None of that, now. He's all right, probably still in the earth, gathering his strength. He's a fast healer," he soothed, standing. "Your arrival is going to cause a bit of a stir, and you'll probably want to be away from the fireworks."

"Fireworks?"

"M-hmm. In a literal sense, if Zane gets involved. Which you and I are going to avoid by the simple expedient of not being there."

"What? Please…" I frowned. Away from the earth, rising into the real world that I desperately wanted to avoid, I struggled to get a question out. What should I ask first? What on earth should I ask? But I just felt tired, too tired for even fear to grant much strength. And this smiling stranger was so comforting. Then he leaned in close. I don’t remember what happened them, only a warm breath on my face, but I know now that the little bastard put me to sleep so he wouldn’t have to deal with me.

I say bastard with the greatest fondness, of course.

I woke again to sunlight. It felt like the middle of the day, and I was groggy and out of sorts. There were too many blankets, even for that time of year, and I was sweltering. I threw them off, cross. "You shouldn’t do that. Between Aaron and Kelly, your body is all confused. It takes some time for the mortals to adjust, even the Unawakened," someone whispered. I turned my head swiftly, feeling very much out of my element. The speaker was a young man sitting in an office chair, knees pulled up to his chest. He was Japanese, shaggy hair in need of a cut. I opened my mouth to ask who he was but he shushed me, and it was only then that I realized his pose of tense silence was because he was listening to an argument through the walls.

It was quite an argument, punctuated by loud thumps and quite a few curse words. One of the voices was familiar, and I realized after listening to a particularly creative stream of curse words that it was the same voice I’d heard earlier. I was trying to remember exactly what it had said when loud bang shook the house.

I say bang, but that doesn’t really encompass the volume. It rattled the windows, shook the pictures on the walls. It was followed by another bang, one I recognized as the more familiar slamming of doors. Then it was quiet, in that icy way when someone walks out on an argument. My watcher let out a slow breath, face pinched. "Ingram’s not going to be happy," he whispered, resigned. Before I could ask about his tone, he looked at me, expression calm. "I know you’re wondering what’s going on." I nodded, not wanting to interrupt. If I was finally going to learn what was going on…

Someone knocked on the door, entered without waiting. It was the man who had carried me before, Kelly, and he looked like he was hiding from someone. "Don’t mind me," he said with forced cheerfulness, leaning back against the door. "This is just the last place in the house that Ingram will look," he explained to the teen. "And I thought you might like some help." The teen snorted.

"Shall we start with introductions? I’m Hideki," He said, pointing to himself. "This is Kelly. The curse words you heard before belong to Zane—and the explosions, which I’ll explain in a minute." Kelly gave him an exasperated look, and he hurried on. "The one who saved you is Aaron—he should be about soon—and the one making the house feel like an icebox is Ingram." Something in the way he said that name troubled me, but I didn’t really ponder it, because the next thing he said was, "And we’re all dragons." Kelly made a strangled noise, but Hideki continued, oblivious to my glazed expression. "We each have an elemental affinity that gives us some control over that element: air, fire, water, earth—or metal and wood, depending on where you’re from."

Kelly sighed. "Don’t you think we should, you know, ease her into this a little?" he said, coming away from the door.

"I don’t think that’s really necessary," Hideki said, frowning. His vocabulary was strong for someone who couldn’t be more than sixteen. He looked back at me. "You’re following this, aren’t you?" I nodded. I was indeed following his words—though I’d already forgotten most of the names. It was belief I was a little slow on.

Kelly sighed. "Look, here’s how it works." He pulled out a coin and sat on the edge of the bed, holding it out on his open palm. I thought he wanted me to taking it, and I was halfway there when something started to happen on his palm. The air stirred a little. The coin shivered. Wobbling like it was floating, it rose steadily off of his palm. I jerked my hand back. I could see and feel the little whispers of air, as if a tiny tornado was raging in the palm of his hand, holding up the coin. Then it was gone, and the coin fell the inches it had raised. He closed his fingers around it to keep it from bouncing out of his palm. "We’re all dragons, yes. Restricted to human bodies when our previous incarnations started taking human form centuries ago. We’re interbred, weak blooded, but every once in a while the blood is strong enough that the dragon’s soul can take up residence. We get powers, some memories. Most of us have to work for one or both."

I just stared at his hand. The ice, the ground… now the coin, right here were I couldn’t dismiss it as a trick of my own exhausted mind. For some reason I didn’t really feel the need to question it much more than that at the time. It just didn’t make sense that this would all be some sort of elaborate hoax. What could they gain from trying to fool me with such a strange story? And there was something working on me from the inside, telling me that this was all true.

"So where do I fit in to all of this?"

They exchanged a cautious glance over my head, obviously deciding how much to tell me. It made me want to bite. But before they could tell me a whole lot more, someone else knocked on the door. Kelly shot Hideki a look; Hideki scooted closer to me. It occurred to me then that they were both using me as some sort of protection. How on earth could I protect them? More, why did I feel like I could?

The man from before—Aaron, I reminded myself—stepped into the room, surveying it cautiously before coming in. "What happened downstairs? Looks like Zane really cut loose. Did they have an argument again?" He saw me then, eyes flashing a little with something I couldn’t pin. "I’m glad to see you’re all right. It was my fault; I forced their hand by being there." He seemed fine now; the bloodstained clothes were gone, though it was hard to tell with all that black. "You’re Elise, right?"

I nodded. What else could I do? I’d just seen this guy bleeding to death on the street, and now he was up and walking. "How long was I out?" I wondered out loud.

"Not long," Kelly said from behind Aaron. With four people in it, it was getting a little cozy. Aaron settled on the bed, leaving Kelly to take the floor with a sigh.

"I was healing in the earth," He explained. "How much have they told you?"

I sighed. "Just enough to confuse me, really. That you’re all dragons—or you were. I was waiting for them to tell me more. Like why I’m here, and why someone shot an ice stake at you."

"They were shooting at you," he said. Hideki leaned forward quickly, but Aaron forestalled him. "You have the ability to unite us, make us stronger against those who want to take our territory. They obviously didn’t want us to have your help. They watch you, we watch you… it was a standoff until last night."

"You tried to make contact, didn’t you?" Kelly asked. Aaron didn’t answer. "Dammit, Aaron, and I thought I was the impulsive one!" He waved his hands in the air, which would have been a little threatening if he wasn’t on the floor. His ire evaporated quickly, though. "Well, it was bound to happen. Just a good thing you were there and not one of us. I still haven’t gotten the hang of element transportation." He shook his head. "Still, the timing couldn’t have been more off. Ingram is refusing to see her at all; he wants to kick her out of the house. He wants to withdraw our protection completely; that’s what they were arguing about."

Hideki cleared his throat conspicuously, which brought all their attention back to me. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. "Protection? Am I in serious danger here? That ice thing was aimed at me?" When each question met with uncomfortable looks, I got more upset. After all, I already knew the answers. Well, there was one I didn’t know yet. "What have you dragged me into!?"

I still feel bad for that. I did almost as soon as it left my mouth. It was their expressions that did it; they all looked so hurt, and my words were the cause. "What do I have to do with all of this? I don’t have any powers."

Aaron looked at Hideki. "You didn’t tell her?"

"Tell me what?"

Hideki huffed. "We didn’t get to that yet. Kelly had to show off," he said crossly.

"It wasn’t showing off, it was demonstrating," Kelly protested.

"Tell me what?" I asked louder. Hideki leaned forward a little.

"What you said, about having no powers? Not exactly true. See, you aren’t awakened, true. But you still have some powers." He tipped his head back, thinking. Aaron picked it up.

"It’s like this. There are all those elemental dragons we told you about? They’re all what’s called four toed dragons. But there’s a five toe, an imperial dragon, associated with all the elements and none. They have power over the elemental dragons. You’re one of them—or at least, you have the potential to be. That means you have the power to help us."

I blinked. Believing in dragons was one thing… but believing that I was one too?

Hideki saw my disbelief. "Remember what I told you about the blood being strong enough to let the dragon out? Well, it’s not like the dragon takes over or anything. It’s more like… he’s riding piggyback, and the purer your blood, the better the connection," he said. "Right now you stand right on the edge. You might awaken, you might not. You might only touch a tiny sliver of your potential. But you won’t know until you try."

Aaron seized the conversation back. "I’ll be honest with you. Thin as your blood is, you might never awaken. But you’ll be able to touch what you need to make all of us safe from the people who tried to hurt you. Without a five toe, we can’t stake a permanent claim on this area. All we need you to do is stand for the ceremony. Then they won’t even be able to get in. You’ll be able to learn how to protect yourself in a safe place."

It was beginning to make sense. That worried me. "Come on," Kelly said, standing up. "You’re probably hungry, and Ingram won’t be back for a while. Why don’t you come downstairs?"

"Are you sure that’s such a good idea?" Hideki asked, dropping his feet to the floor. The others ignored him. He tried again. "I mean, what if Ingram comes back? We should just bring her food up here."

Kelly shrugged. "She’ll have to meet him eventually."

I slung my feet out of bed, tugging at my clothes a little uncomfortably. There were a few spots of blood on my pants where my sweatshirt hadn’t covered them, and I marveled again that he didn’t seem to be hurt at all. I made for the door. "When you two are done bickering, you can show me where the restroom is," I said irritably. If they didn’t stop talking about me like I wasn’t there, I was ready to break some heads. As I closed the door behind me, I heard Aaron’s quiet voice. "Well, you wanted a five toe." There was a little shuffling, then they all emerged from the room. Aaron took my arm; the other two looked a little sheepish. "Sorry," Hideki said, glancing from side to side. "I guess we haven’t been very good about all this, have we?"

I didn’t feel the need to answer that. Aaron looked over his shoulder. "I’ll show her the bathroom; why don’t you two see what you can scare up for lunch?" he led me down the hall. The house was pretty big, and furnished nicely, but it didn’t feel very welcoming. It was a far cry from the sunny warmth of the bedroom. "Bathroom’s here," Aaron said, pointing me toward the door. "Think you can find your way downstairs?" I nodded and made for the door.

Once inside I leaned against the door. This was not normal, but it felt familiar. That was more worrying than anything else. I washed my face, scrubbed my hands, pulled my hair back into a neater ponytail. Staring at myself in the mirror, I didn’t feel at all up to facing these people. It was all too strange, and while something in me wanted to accept what they said as truth… it was too much, too fast.

Still. Whatever was going on, I couldn’t hide forever. I was as neat as I could make myself, and my stomach as much as anything else drove me back into the hall. Aaron was still there, waiting. "There is more that you should know. I’m not certain the others would want me telling you, but it’s not fair to keep you ignorant. Ingram, the man we spoke of before—he has a strong hold on power here in the house. Hideki and Zane are terrified of him, and Kelly and I came too late to break his hold. It isn’t only the other dragons you should worry about."

"So that’s why they didn’t want me to meet him," I said softly, trying to assimilate all the information. So, I didn’t have only a shadowy enemy who shot ice stakes out of the dark to worry about. I swallowed. "Why are they afraid of him?"

He shook his head. "Don’t worry about it. He knows you’re our hope as well as we do. He’ll just try to bully you, and Kelly and I, at least, aren’t cowed by him." He waved a hand downstairs. "I’m sure you’re hungry. Let’s get you something to eat." I followed him downstairs, more questions than answers. The others were clustered around the table, arguing over a bowl. Hideki seemed to think I would like something, but Kelly was unconvinced. Aaron watched in amusement for a moment before he cleared his throat, calling an end to the conversation.

"You like cereal, don’t you, Elise?" he asked, tone a little plaintive. Kelly cuffed him affectionately.

"Sure," I said, unable to quite believe that they had really been arguing about that, even though it appeared they had. Hideki grinned and poured the milk, pushing over a bowl of sugary corn. Kelly threw up his hands in disgust. "You’ll love this stuff," Hideki assured me. I poked it suspiciously with the spoon as the sugar sloughed off the cereal and turned the milk to sludge. "Eh... yeah." I frowned, took a bite. Despite the truly disturbing amount of sugar—or perhaps because of it—it was actually pretty good. I said as much, then tucked to with a will. How long had it been since I ate? Too long. I even drank the milk, sludge that it was, and accepted when Hideki offered me a second bowl.

I listened to Kelly and Aaron talk as I ate, trying to ignore Hideki staring at me like I was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. They were trying to figure out how to deal with Ingram and me. Talking about me as though I weren’t there was obviously getting to be a bad habit of theirs. Time to stop it. Finished with my second bowl, I set it down loudly. "What’s so bad about this Ingram, anyway?" I asked calmly. They talked about him as if he were some sort of Hitler. "And if he’s so bad, why do you guys stick to him?"

Both the others looked to Aaron to explain, who sighed in exasperation. "We need him to hold this territory. The only reason we haven’t totally lost our hold is we have a full circle. If we left Ingram, we wouldn’t stand a chance. And most of the territory around here is staked out. We might be stuck without a node... which would be bad. We’d eventually lose touch with our dragons, maybe permanently." He ran his hand thorugh his hair, exasperated. "Look, I’m sorry we’re bombarding you with so much information here. But we don’t have time to go slow." He walked over to the window, and it took a minute for me to realize they’d all neatly evaded the first question. I was really starting to get worried. "Look, if you guys want my help, you’re going to have to tell me what’s so dangerous about Ingram." Kelly and Aaron looked at each other, holding some sort of silent argument. I waited impatiently, looking around the large first story, with its combined dining room and living room. It was then that I noticed the state of the dinign room.

It looked like some kind of bomb had gone off. The dining room table was a heap of melted iron and glass, the floor charred down to the concrete foundations, the paintings oozing off the walls. None of the others were looking at it or really saying anything. Was this the noise I’d heard earlier? I shivered. Had a person rally done this? But even as I considered, I could feel... something, and energy, a crawling sense that someone had been here, angry and afraid. Afraid for me.

I got to my feet, crossed the room to the table. Even the cement was charred, ashy where too much heat had touched it. The smell of ash and smoke was faint, but there was something else—the taste of fire. I reached out and touched the glass. It was still warm, even a little hot. The destruction, aside from the ruin of the pictures, seemed to be confined to the table itself. I could even see a strange mark in the melted glass that looked like someone had planted a fist there. The glass had foamed around it. None of that should be possible. But least possible was the crawling sensation of power, like standing too close to power lines. What the hell was going on? Suddenly nervous, I walked out of the room. Realized then that I was breathing fast, that my heart was pounding. I sat down.

"Elise, are you all right?" It was Hideki. I just shook my head. That was a bad idea, and I ducked it between my legs as a wave of dizziness overcame me. A cool hand rested on my neck, and I felt better. My heart slowed, breathing eased, and I could feel that shivery power, different this time.

"Hideki!" Aaron’s voice was sharp.

"She wasn’t feeling good," Hideki protested as I sat dazed, humming with strangeness. It faded slowly, leaving me feeling exposed. Something in me was open, just a tiny bit. It was like an itch in my head.

"What was that?" I asked. I didn’t really want to know—not yet—but I didn’t want them arguing over me. I raised my head cautiously, finding that the dizziness, at least, had passed.

Aaron glared at Hideki. "I sent some of my power to you," he said. "you weren’t feeling good," he said defensively when Aaron glared at him again. "I thought it would help."

God, there was nothing I could say to those eyes. "I’m all right now. I just feel a little... funny." I scratched the back of my neck, where the itch seemed to reside. Aaron watched me and shot a sharp look at Kelly. "What? What did I do?" I asked, lowering my hand.

"Nothing, just..." he trailed off as the others went still, too. "Wonderful timing," he muttered, taking a step back. Hideki grabbed me by the wrist and drew me away from the window. The itch picked up to a tingle, and I could feel and edge of... wrong. It was frustrating, not even being able to describe these feelings to myself. The light coming through the window suddenly intensified, like a camera flash. The feeling of wrong spiked as a figure appeared on the floor.

I was on my knees beside him before I even knew I’d gone down. It shook me enough to make me back up, even as the other three pushed in.

"Shit. Looks like their wind got to him."

"What the hell was he thinking, going it alone? We need a source of fire."

"We can’t put him in the fire. His blood’s too thin; he’d burn up. Besides, where are we going to find a source of pure fire?"

"Let me think! And Christ, get the bleeding stopped, Hideki!"

"It wouldn’t do any good. We have to get him in the fire, its his only chance."

It all washed over me as I stared at the man on the floor. He had a ragged hole in his stomach, and I knew without having to look that the carpet would be visible. Horrible understanding surged in me. He was dying. Barely breathing, heart spilling his blood over the expensive carpet while it labored to feed his failing body. And something else was spilling out with that blood; power, energy, the taste of fire. This, then, was Zane.

It was like it was happening to someone else. I reached out and grabbed his hand, already getting cold. Someone—Kelly—tried to gently draw me away. "Let us take care of this, Elise. You shouldn’t have to see this. There’s nothing you can do."

Wrong. All my uncertainly was leaking out of me with Zane’s blood, with his power. "That’s not true." My voice was a raspy whisper. "That’s not true," I repeated, more loudly, grasping for the knowledge that made me so certain. I could almost reach it. Fumbling in more ways than one, I reached for Hideki’s hand grabbed it and pressed it to the skin above the wound. I wouldn’t let myself look at it. "Do... what you did before," I said, trying desperately to figure out why this felt right.

"It doesn’t work that way," Kelly said, his hands still tugging at my shoulders. "We can’t share power, the ley lines are too different."

"Just try," I said, eyes going unfocused. I could feel Hideki’s energy trying to heal Zane as it had touched me. There was a block there, something that Hideki couldn’t touch. I could feel the barrier.

I pushed. Hideki’s hand shivered under mine. I pulled back, thinking. There were strange, distracting thoughts floating through my head, a nameless frustration for something I couldn’t touch. Something in me was reaching for Hideki’s power even as I tried to force it into Zane.

"Try through me," I said, reaching down to reverse our hands. Hideki stopped shivering, but I started, feeling the full rush of his power. I blinked rapidly, tried again to feed the healing into Zane. The barrier was thinner, giving just a little. His breathing picked up, but it wasn’t enough. He was still dying. I blinked to clear my triple vision, clouding with the ceiling and another angle on Zane’s body. "God." Something missing, something... "Fire!" I held my free hand out, not taking my eyes off Zane, not daring to. Someone pressed a metal square into my hand—a Zippo, already lit. The barrier weakened a little more, but his heart was still slowing, fluttering like an unprimed pump...

Not enough. Biting my lip, I wrapped my fingers over the flame. I hissed as I felt the heat eat at my skin, but then there was a rush of power, and even as my eyes closed I could feel his heartbeat steady, the flesh begin to knit under our hands. Systems that had been faltering were bolstered by the flow of chi, more precious than blood. His breathing strengthened, chest rising and falling under my hands as the passage of so much power left me giddy.

And it was over. The torrent of power became a trickle, and cut off entirely, leaving Hideki and I leaning against each other. He was panting as though he’d just run a race. I felt… alive. Worn out, but like you might feel after doing something incredible. Or someone, but it felt more… innocent than that. Pure. Connected. I wrapped my arm around Hideki’s back, toying with his hair with one hand. He leaned into me, sighing. Aaron knelt and checked Zane over, giving me a strange look before bending to pick him up.

"Wait," I cautioned. "His back was badly damaged, and I don't think the bone has set up well yet. Give it a few minutes." The words seemed alien, but then so did the whole situation. Who was I to argue with knowledge that had just saved a life? Hideki snuggled closer and I reached out the grab Zane's hand, squeezing it lightly. "Hey." He needed to wake up. The healing had happened too fast; his head hadn't caught up yet, still locked in the business of dying. I reached out further, running my hand over his forehead. "Zane. Wake up." I tried to keep my voice gentle.

His eyes snapped open. "Don't move," I cautioned, not wanting to risk him sitting up quite yet. "You're fine. You're not hurt anymore." His eyes slid slowly into focus, his breathing picked up a little, healthier than the slow drags of air he'd been taking. "We healed you." We healed him. I healed him. I had to take a deep breath myself.

He looked at me. It wasn't as much of a shock as it had been, but I realized that he and I, Hideki too, would always be able to tell a little of how we were feeling. It was a strange thought. Even now I knew that Hideki was tired from the effort of healing his friend, and Zane was reeling from the phantom pain of wounds that no longer existed. "How do you feel?" A useless question, but I needed to hear it from his lips. It would break the shock of the healing.

"Tired," he said. Cautiously, as though expecting to break, he reached for Hideki's arm, squeezed it. "Hey. Thanks." But his eyes were on me, carrying those messages again. I squirmed, starting to feel uncomfortable. God, these people were all strangers. Was it right that I felt so comfortable with them, despite what had just happened? A man had materialized in the living room, dying from a terrible wound. I had saved his life. It sounded so ridiculous. Gently I pulled back from Hideki, supporting him with my arms. I looked around, found Kelly. "Help me get him to the couch." He nodded, lifting the boy with that odd strength of his, and depsited him gently on the couch.

I shivered, even though the room was warm. There was blood drying drying on my hand, smearing on Hideki’s shirt. I jerked it back, scrubbed it on the knee of my pants. Hideki squeezed my arm reassuringly. I swallowed. Now that the whole thing was over, now that the rush of power and srnage thoughts was dying away…

I didn’t know where the downstairs bathroom was. I barely made it to the sink before I was forcibly reacquainted with the sugary mess I’d eaten less than half an hour ago. There is little I hate more than the act of throwing up. Something is inherently wrong in the process.. But my aversion wasn’t enough to stop the violent reaction. It seemed to take forever for my body to finish. Teeth chattering, I fumbled for the tap, only to feel a warm hand close over my own. It started the water running and pulled my hair back as I leaned over the sink to rinse my mouth out. "Feeling a little better?" Meaning did I feel like I was going to throw up again. I was still shivering, a little dismayed at my body’s violent reaction despite the events of the last day. "Better," I managed between my teeth.

Aaron coaxed me to another well-furnished room. This one was a little less formal than the others. A family room, perhaps? How big was this place anyway? It didn’t really matter, as he wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and pushed a trashcan across the room. The blanket wasn’t very big but it eased the shivering. At least I couldn’t smell the blood. The thought was almost enough to send me back to the trashcan. I throttled down the impulse.

"I need to go home," I croaked, hating this well-manicured room. Shower. Clean clothes. My own things, my own home. I’d always been territorial. Now I knew why.

"I’m not sure that’s—"

"I need to go home," I repeated, not wanting to hear that answer. "Clothes. A shower. My clothes had the blood of two people on them. Two people who should be dead. God, I had to change.

"There are some things we need to talk about first," he said, a little uncomfortable.

I jerked my hands. "Not until I’ve showered and eaten something other than sugar cereal." My gorge rose again at the thought of food. Gritting my teeth, I ordered it to shut the hell up.

Aaron sighed. I could almost hear him mustering his logical arguments. Let it never be said that I’m above emotional appeal when I’m out of my element. "Please, Aaron. I need this." He looked at me, really looked at me. His gaze was unexpectedly intense. I couldn’t hold it for long, unable to provide the answers he was looking for.

"All right, but I’m coming with you." I was secretly relieved at that. Someone was out to kill me, after all. Besides, I didn’t have my car. The thought had a giddy edge to it.

"Can we go now?" I needed to feel safe, sane. Everything would make so much more sense, I was sure of it.

I stepped out of the shower, toweling off hurriedly. I never liked showers, and now that my stomach had calmed down I was starving. There was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some mandarin oranges with my name on them. As well as a man with all the answers who could pass through the earth to get away. Luckily for me, we were on the second story.

I pulled on the clothes I’d grabbed from the pile of laundry, struggling with the wet mass of waist-length hair I always had to deal with after washing. (Did I mention I hate showers?) I wrapped my hair in a towel and caught sight of myself in the mirror.

Black jeans, black shirt with an obscure comic book character. Tight and severe and not altogether flattering. No one ever accused me of being a snazzy dresser. Bags under my eyes but that was nothing new, legacy of a three am bedtime I didn’t always make.

I huffed, gathering myself up. All right. So things had gotten a little weird. But I could handle it. I read fantasy novels, played video games. The rules and stakes were different but the dance was the same: accept the strangeness and move on, or get washed out of the story. I was needed, wanted. It felt good. But I needed to know exactly what that meant, because someone also wanted me dead.

My stomach growled, reminding me that the sugar cereal had been rejected long ago. I dug around in the flotsam of receipts, ren faire costume bits and scraps of paper on my dresser before coming up with my pocket watch. I flipped it open, stared at the hands for a few seconds before remembering how to read them. 4:30, and I definitely needed food.

I shed the hair towel on the floor and walked up the short hallway to the kitchen. Aaron had settled in one of the kitchen chairs rather than chance the pile of pillows in the living room that may or may not have been a chair. I didn’t blame him. It was freakishly comfortable if you managed to situate yourself right, but if you sat in that thing the wrong way it might eat you. Or fall over. But the first sounded much more dramatic.

He looked as uncomfortable in the mostly undecorated kitchen as he could get, legs sprawled under the little table that was (for once) clear of everything but its own cracking varnish. I swallowed when I saw him sitting there, calm evaporating just a little. He was reading the book I’d left on the table last night, a girl’s "boylove" manga. It had a purple cover. It would have been embarrassing if he hadn’t been reading it; as it was it helped the whole intimidation factor, got me past him and into the tiny kitchen.

Lunch didn’t take long to make. Cheese, lunchmeat, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, canned fruit—you can be healthy without eating tofu. The mess barely fit on the little plate I’d balanced it on. "Would you like something?" I asked, almost an afterthought. I wasn’t used to company, not in that shoebox.

He shook his head, folded the manga carefully over his knee as if to keep his place. I snorted a little, wondering if he usually read things like "Golden Rain." Which sent my mind down dark, inappropriate fangirl paths. That many handsome men, alone in a big house… I shook myself. None of my business. None of my business.

I stared at him over my lunch. He stared back. It’s a rare person wo can meet another’s gaze without blinking. They say if you look into the same person’s eyes for three minutes, they’ll start to fall in love with out. I never had the attention span to test that.

"So. Who exactly wants to kill me again?" I asked, turning my attention back to my food. Might as well start with the big one.

He grimaced. Obviously not his choice of first questions. "We don’t actually have a name. Not yet." He fidigeted with the page corners. "We haven’t even seen her. Jus the four-toes that serve her. The only reason we know she exists is the powers the four-toes can manifest. Like ice, lava, things we can’t manage yet."

“Aaaal right,” I said, drawing it out. I took another bite of cheese, mulling it over. “So I can help you guys keep your territory from this person, and that’s why they want me dead?” He nodded hesitantly, not really wanting to acknowledge my words. Well, that was fine. Neither of us had much choice on that one. I hadn’t asked for this mess, but I was in it up to my neck now. And I’d never been one to mince words. “All right,” I said between bites. Damn I was hungry. “So I assume there’s some kind of process involved here, making sure you don’t get chased off. So what? Is it some kind of ceremony?”

 No one should be that grateful for a topic change. “It’s simple. A very old ritual. It was Hideki who remembered.” I waited for him to explain more. He was looking out the window, dim light managing to break through the inadequate mini blinds. 

 “And?” I prompted. He jumped a little, looking back at me. His eyes were somehow deeper than they had been. That look faded. 

 “What did you say?”

 “What’s the ritual?” I repeated, feeling a little irked. This was important, right?

 He flushed. “Sorry. Lost myself for a minute there.” In anyone else, I would have assumed it was a simple saying. “Um. We have this mirror—its actually been passed down in Zane’s family line. It’s supposed to help us ground ourselves, but we need a five-toe. Eh… we all bleed on it—just a little,” he amended, as if this should have bothered me. I shrugged. When didn’t weird old rituals involve some form of bloodletting? “And that’s about it. We still have to have a full circle though, and it gives you some power over us, even unawakened. Ingram is going to give you a hell of a time.”

 I pursed my lips. “You know what? I want to meet this guy. You keep telling me I don’t want to, that I want to avoid him. But I can’t avoid him forever, right?” I slapped my ahdns on either side of my decimated plate, pushing myself to my feet. “Let’s get back, make nice with him, and get this ritual done.” I had plans next weekend, after all.

 It started raining on the drive back. I could have brought my own car, I guess, but it was actually only a couple of blocks. A weird coincidence that made me feel even more creeped until Aaron explained that the node was between house and apartment. Anyone with dragon blood would be more comfortable here. So I shrugged it off. I was getting good at that. 

 We were about a block from the house when I felt a surge of panic. It took me one long, white-knuckled minute to realize it was muted, distant. Not my own. Hideki. I must have said something out loud, because we were going faster. We got to the house and the car barely stopped when I ran for the door. Don’t know what I expected to do, but he was that worried. I swung the door open, heard Aaron give a frustrated curse.
 The living room was trashed. Some kind of tropical storm had decided to make residence in the general vicinity of the coffee table, scattering furniture. The carpet was soggy. I knew because it squelched under my feet as I made my way to where Hideki was hovering over Zane, who’d been thrown from the couch. He was soaked in cold water, shivering and pale. “What happened?” Though I didn’t really have to ask. Wind, water… that’s the nice thing about arguments between elementals. They tend to be pretty obvious.