And Then There Were Dragons Read online

  This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN print 978-1-7329357-8-5

  epub – 978-1-7335994-0-5

  mobi – 978-1-7329357-9-2

  Cover design by Najla Qamber

  Edited by Squid & Ink

  Interior design layout by Rebecca Poole

  Publication date July 30, 2019

  Black Spot Books

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 1

  Back when we were kids, when I was twelve and Petty was eight or nine, we would play this game. We’d steal an old, empty box from the corner bodega—one that smelled like overripe bananas and sported brown stains on the sides from whatever had leaked (or died) in there—and we’d go sledding down the stairs in our building.

  I know. Sit in awe of our genius.

  On one specific attempt in our makeshift box-sled—one in which I guess I should have zigged rather than zagged—I ended up flying right out of the damn thing and down an entire flight of stairs. After sticking the landing (with my face), I sat up to find that out of five of the fingers on my right hand, one was pointing directly back at my face.

  Petty instantly lost her shit. She threw both of her little hands in the air and, with her mouth wailing like a fire truck, started running around in circles like the world was on fire. I opted instead to merely snap the sucker back into place and wrap it in duct tape until my mom got home.

  This is all to say I’ve never been the “get-the-shit-scared-out-of-you-so-bad-you-scream-your-head off” type. I’ve also never been the dead type, so you can imagine all of this was uncharted territory for me.

  You can’t blame me for screaming. One second, I’m bleeding out on the steps of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The next, I’m waking up in a bed that isn’t mine, in a strange room I’ve never seen before. Oh, and the cherry on top of this perfectly-served dung sundae? I’ve found myself laying a few feet from none other than Gaffrey-fucking-Palls, the man solely responsible for uprooting my sad little existence and dumping it into a gutter.

  So, yeah, the situation begged for a hefty dose of delirious panic. And boy, did I deliver.

  I screamed my fucking head off.

  When I was through, Palls grimaced and smacked his lips. “Nice to see you, too, Grey.”

  Wasting no time, I pushed the covers aside and swung my feet over just enough to make sure I didn’t touch that scum-sucker in the slightest. It quickly dawned on me that my surroundings were not the only things out of the ordinary.

  I was wearing a dress.

  I know—a dress!

  It wasn’t just any dress, either. It was a black dress with lace netting around the neck and arms. The bottom was layered with grey and black material, which billowed outward like smoke around my bare feet. I looked like I had been invited to a prom for the recently deceased—or at least the Halloween costume version of said event.

  Pushing through my current coma-induced fashion sense, I spotted a chair on the other side of the room, parked by what appeared to be a writing desk topped with a green ornate lamp. I marked this as my target and pushed away from the bed, but the moment my feet hit the carpet, my world toppled over. I saw the ceiling, the velvet-like wallpaper and empty picture frames hanging on the wall, and then nothing but plush carpet as I flopped right over onto the floor like a fat, waterlogged sponge.

  Palls sighed as he watched me slump onto the ground. “Yeah. Might need to take it easy for a bit there, Grey. You still don’t have your—”

  I slung him a tight shhh to cease and desist his bullshit. My arms and legs felt like wet noodles, but giving up was not an option and so I began inching myself across the ground, all chin and stomach and shoulders, like a grub.

  Watching me struggle, Palls decided to start talking.

  “I realize this is probably a ‘crap the bed’ moment for you.” He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand like he was trying to wipe away that particularly bothersome mental image and continued. “I’m going to try to make this all clear and simple, so let’s start from the obvious and make our way down. By now, you’ve probably figured out where we are. This is Hell and you’re stuck down here for all of the crazy stunts you pulled back in your life—the Shades, the quasi-end of the world, etcetera. That’s the bad news.”

  Palls paused. My time as a worm had come to an end. There was energy bubbling up; my limbs were waking, coming to life. Palls watched as I propped myself on my elbows and twerked my ass forward until the momentum forced me up and into the chair. I was out of breath and sweat was running in streams down my back. When I was done wriggling to a more or less upright position, he continued.

  “Now for the really bad news. Your soul, like mine, is bound to this place. That’s why you’re feeling sluggish right now. Heard them call it ‘soul entropy’ and it’s pretty common for folks who end up here. See, you don’t have a body, per se. It’s more like your soul’s been hotwired to feel extreme emotions, pain and fear especially. You’ll learn to get used to it, but that’s why you’re having such a hard time using your legs. You probably can’t move your mouth just yet either, which is good for me because I heard you typically have a problem keeping it shut. You’re used to using your muscles to feel and get around, but that’s mortality for you—that’s real life. Nothing’s ‘real’ down here. Well, other than the endless suffering. Oh, and the awful sulfur smell, but that’s either the lake of fire or the Olive Garden they opened one floor up. Can’t really be sure one way or the next. I guess making our souls run on pain makes it easier for everlasting torture and whatnot. Gives them something to screw around with.”

  Palls stopped again as I finally managed to work my way onto my feet. Each of my knees took turns wobbling as I forced myself into a standing position using the backrest of the desk chair. It felt like life was welling up inside of me again, though I was pretty sure my surroundings would beg to differ. Slowly, and with every ounce of strength I had, I started pushing the chair toward Palls.

  When I was close enough to be satisfied, I plopped myself right down onto the chair’s cushion and stared at him for a long minute. Gaffrey Palls: the man who had tried to murder me. The man who had walked into my apartment full of demonic crows I would unknowingly release out into the world.

  The man w
ho had started this whole shit show.

  My “body” (or whatever version of it this was) seemed to be waking up slowly, but there was a dull hollowness to it all. I could grab the round of my knee and lick my lips, but it felt like senses running on a separate track from my skin—like I was divorced from everything my body was trying to tell me and experiencing it all from memory. Somehow, sitting there, I felt as if I were planted in that chair and completely outside of my body at exactly the same time.

  I lifted my right hand. The last time I remember using it was right before the sword of the psychotic Seraphim, Barnem, severed it. He had been using me, manipulating all my family and friends, just so he could move the expiration date of mankind forward a few centuries—just so he could do his fucking job. That’s right. My life—and everyone’s around me—went to shit because of one guy feeling “less-than” in the job security department. Sure, I managed to stop him, but it had come with a price: not only did I lose my arm but I had also lost my younger sister, Petty—lost her twice, as a matter of fact. I had also lost the only guy who had ever been nice to me, though Donaldson was a complete dork most of the time. And, I had lost my soul, too. I had a Shade inside of me—a demon, a ticking time bomb. Maybe it had been there my entire life? I don’t know. I never got any good answers.

  Palls sighed again. “Alright, Grey. What do you have to say? Out with it.”

  I held up the hand I thought I had lost. I curled each finger, flexed each digit.

  Then I formed one mighty fist and parked that son of a bitch right on the side of Gaffrey Palls’ face, squarely between his jaw and cheekbone. I put all of my weight behind it—every bit of rage, all my hatred and fury was wrapped around my fist like barbed wire.

  For being such a big guy, the blow was surprisingly strong enough to send Palls tumbling from the bed, ass over hat, like an old sack of laundry. He landed behind the bed and slouched against the wall, his black hair flopping into the impact mark of my knuckles.

  The sensation of the punch—the feeling of flesh meeting skull—surged up from my fist and manifested itself, blowing out into every corner of the room like wildfire. The air around us shook like someone had struck a twenty-foot bell with a baseball bat. The resulting pain in my own “body” felt amplified by several degrees and spliced by at least three commas as it tore through my arm like an explosion of thorns and nearly threatened to split me apart in the process. But, even through the tears in my eyes, I breathed through it, reveled in the splash of violence. I stood there, panting, praying his face felt a hundred times worse than what was vibrating in my arm and shoulder.

  “Okay, Palls,” I said with a smile, returning to a comfy seated position. “Run all of that by me again. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Palls blinked. “Alright, Grey. I told you everything … again. You still think this is necessary?”

  I thought about it for a second. “Yup.”

  While he had been lying on the floor, dazed by my haymaker, I had looked for things to restrain him. Unfortunately, Gaffrey Palls was built like an ice cream truck and nothing in the room looked useful. Making do with what I had, I had dragged the bed over his body and slammed the frame over his torso. I also dumped whatever furniture I could manage on top of that—the desk, the chair, the dresser—to effectively pin the bastard to the ground. I even sat on the edge of the mattress and dangled my legs menacingly where his face stared up at the bottoms of my feet.

  “I feel like we need to establish a few guidelines,” I informed my ensnared victim.

  In my head, I knew this was not a good look for me. I could completely understand how someone walking into that room and spotting me sitting atop a mountain of furniture, which was, at that very moment, pinning down another human being might totally get people to thinking I was overreacting. Just a bit. Just a tad.

  Then again, this was Gaffrey Palls we are talking about. I was not taking any chances.

  Also, history proves most people don’t know shit.

  “I told you everything, Grey.” Pall’s voice sounded squeezed beneath all the furniture.

  Crossing my legs, I propped an elbow on my knee and settled my chin on my fist. “Right. But, I don’t believe anything you have to say so…”

  Even with all of the weight crushing down on his chest, Palls managed to look bored. “So, you don’t believe me when I say what this place is?”

  “Oh, no. I believe this is Hell. I mean, you’re here,” I said flexing the arm I shouldn’t have had. “And trust me. I’ve lived my life these past few months hearing what my final destination was. Plus, I think I’ve seen weirder shit than a dingy hotel room.”

  Palls rolled his eyes. “I figured you might be hardheaded, but this really takes the cake. Why would I lie to you?”

  Seething, I leaned over to look him right in the face and spit my reply. “Oh, I don’t know. How about that time you tried to kill me in my own apartment? Pretty sure attempted murder is the kind of thing that would put a strain on our relationship.”

  “But you killed me,” Palls shot back.

  “When in Rome.”

  I knew the retort didn’t make sense in context, but I was flustered and wanted the last word. Luckily, Palls let me have it.

  “I got something else to tell you,” Palls said. “Something that might help our trust issues.”

  “Wait.” I leapt down from the wreckage, grabbed another chair, tossed it on top of the rest, and re-perched myself. “Continue.”

  “Your sister is here.”

  Those four words landed like four point-blank cannon blasts to my chest. My shoulders slumped; my spine bent in on itself and forced me to slouch over. I felt like someone had filled my guts with hot mud. Then I remembered Palls had mentioned something about our bodies being in tune with pain and misery, and it all came to me. It was your typical hurt-resentment-fear-shame cocktail, only amped up so high it felt like I was the one pinned under two tons of crappy hotel furniture. The weight seemed to come at me from all directions—from every cell and bone and hair follicle.

  After calming myself, I took a breath. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not,” Palls retorted. “She’s here. In the hotel.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’ve been keeping her safe.”

  “Shut—”

  “Grey, I can take you to Petunia.”

  “Don’t you fucking say her name!” I shouted and Palls froze. Feeling as if I had to stay in control, I gave myself a few light slaps—the kind meant to wake yourself up instead of inflicting any real pain. The sting of it helped me focus enough to sit up and center myself. “I don’t know what your game is, Palls, but you almost had me there. You almost made me slip. There’s no way Petty’s here. The agreement I made with those freakish angels was supposed to take care of her.”

  Palls tossed me a look like I had tried to lecture him about the existence of the Tooth Fairy. “Not sure if you’ve been paying attention at all, Grey, but angels aren’t exactly folks you should keep on the honor system.”

  He had a point and—I had to admit—I hated him even more for it. I looked up at the door and chose my next words very carefully. “So you’re saying I’m in Hell?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “And Petty’s here?”

  Palls rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  “And your advice is that I, under no circumstances, leave this room?”

  “I wouldn’t advise you to, no.” There was a long pause and Palls sighed. “You’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? Even though I told you not to?”

  “No, Palls,” I laughed as I hopped off the bed and walked toward the doorknob. “I’m going to do it because you told me not to. Major difference.”

  Palls immediately started trying to struggle his way out from beneath all the junk I’d piled on hi
m, but before he could wrestle himself free, I flung open the door and stepped through.

  At first, the hallway looked more or less like a typical hotel hallway. The ceilings were lined with mirrors punctuated by full-bodied chandeliers that cast a reddish tint on everything. Like in the room, the walls were fashioned with empty pictures frames, some larger than my body. That’s where it started to get…strange. Also scattered in tiny nooks, outcrops, and shelves where cats, hundreds of them, quietly snoozing as if they owned the place. There were so many prowling the hallway I had to step over a few to avoid tripping. Not one of the lazy fur balls paid me any mind as I made my way past.

  Every few feet the hallway was interrupted by identical wooden doors positioned directly across from each other like mirror reflections. Each one was fastened shut but I could hear, very faintly, murmuring behind each of the wooden panels. Sometimes I heard a gurgle of music, sometimes splatters of laughter wafting around the open hallways, but never once did I see another soul—besides the cats. The entire hotel seemed completely abandoned, but only in the same sense that a haunted house advertised its vacancy.

  A few steps in and I already felt like I had been walking this hallway for hours without an end in sight. What’s more is there was a sense of dread rising in my chest. The lighting in the hallway was off somehow, casting shadows where there shouldn’t be any. Listening to the murmurs around me and with no exit in sight, I suddenly grew afraid of the doors and their stillness, of the mouths and hands and bodies creating the sounds on the other side of their closed panels. More than anything, it felt like my nerves were screaming through a bullhorn that danger was approaching. I imagined Palls would come bursting out of one of the rooms and try to strangle me—again—and this time, he wouldn’t stop. My tongue would sag out of my mouth. My eyes would burst out of my head. He’d kill me like I had killed him.

  The panic became so real I started to run. The ominous voices circling in my head were quickly swallowed up by the sounds of my breath leaving my lips, my black dress swishing around my knees, and my footsteps thudding against the gaudy carpet. I went from a run to a sprint, and then a sprint to an all out “fuck-all-this” scramble.