Ordinary Girl (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Ordinary Girl

  Ripley Harper

  Then the pure of heart shall witness the coming of a great darkness. Upon those who dwell in the light an endless night shall fall.

  For unto this world the Horror shall be born, the dark one, who was cast from Heaven.

  And lo! The curse of our destruction shall rest on its scaled shoulders, and its names shall be: Chaosbringer, Fireborn, Dreamweaver, Treasurekeeper, Worldmaker, Lifebreaker.

  The Old Words: Verse 18:11-15

  Prologue

  Trial XLVII of MMXVIII

  Transcript of the Direct Examination of the Accused in the matter of

  The Order - Representing all belonging to the Order of Keepers

  vs

  Jezebel Sarkany - Direct descendant of the Tenth and Heir to Lilith, the first to be born in Blood

  Before Chief Examiner

  AMIT DARA (The Red Lord, acting as Chief Justice)

  And Judges of the Order

  THE WHITE LADY(Sonya Orlov, Representing all the Skykeepers)

  THE RED LADY(Ananya Dara, Representing all the Bloodkeepers)

  THE GREEN LORD(Lord Phillip Shawcross, Representing all the Earthkeepers)

  THE BLUE LORD(Deron Deleon, Representing all the Seakeepers)

  Third session. Court convened pursuant to recess.

  RED LORD: In our previous session you told us that you grew up believing that you were an ordinary girl. Now I have to admit, I find that rather hard to believe.

  ACCUSED: Believe what you want.

  RED LORD: My dear girl, I do not think you truly understand the predicament you are in. Let me put it to you plainly: you are fighting for your life. A guilty verdict from this court will mean death by fire.

  ACCUSED: You told me that before.

  RED LORD: Indeed. So surely you must grasp why it’s so important for you to be completely honest with us. I know this process may seem rather intimidating, but you must remember that we are here to help.

  ACCUSED: Before or after you order my death by fire?

  GREEN LORD: Punishment is only meted out to the guilty; an innocent has no reason to fear this court.

  RED LORD: Yes, thank you for that, Phillip. But innocent people tell the truth.

  ACCUSED: I’m not lying.

  RED LORD: Maybe. Maybe not. Remember that I could simply ask the White Lady to compel Truth from you. But such spells are a dangerous and tiring business, and you seem like a sensible enough young woman. So, I’m going to put the question to you again. When did you first learn that you are a pure-blooded Ward of the Black Clan, the last trueborn daughter of the Tenth?

  ACCUSED: About two weeks ago. Saturday before last.

  RED LADY: But how can you expect us to believe you, dear child? How could such a thing be possible? Please, for your own sake, be frank with us.

  ACCUSED: I am. We’ve been through this. I told you: Ingrid and Gunn swore a blood oath to keep my history a secret from me.

  GREEN LORD: A blood oath sworn by two Black keepers? It’s intolerable! Completely unacceptable.

  RED LORD: I agree, Phillip, and their transgression will be dealt with. But let’s focus on the matter at hand. Young lady, do you solemnly swear to this court that you knew nothing about your magic until that moment? That you had no inkling, not the slightest suspicion of your power?

  ACCUSED: Yes. I swear. And even then I didn’t know anything about keepers, or bloodlines, or clans or magic or any of that stuff. I just began to suspect that I might be [silence] … different… after I put out the fire.

  RED LORD: Ah, yes. The incident at the party. What exactly do you mean when you say that you felt ‘different’ after that night?

  ACCUSED: I don’t know. I guess that I had superpowers? I mean, I killed a fire with my mind.

  RED LORD: Indeed. Yes. Perhaps you did. Perhaps you did. But what changed for you after that night?

  ACCUSED: I just felt [silence]… I don’t know. I can’t describe it.

  RED LORD: Sonya, I’m sorry to ask this of you again, but I think we might need some assistance.

  WHITE LADY [extending one hand to compel Truth]: Satya!

  RED LORD: I repeat, what exactly did you realize after that night?

  ACCUSED: That everything was a lie. My whole life. Everything. Something had gone wrong somewhere; there had been some kind of mix-up. I wasn’t who I thought I was, and nobody else was either.

  Chapter 1

  … and the Horror shall not be satisfied until the entire world is sacrificed to the fire of its living hunger.

  The Old Words: Verse 18:15

  When I wake up, I don’t immediately reach for my phone. Instead, I lie staring at the ceiling, the way I always did after my mom died.

  Am I losing it again?

  God, I hope not. I’ve built myself up from scratch once before; I’m not sure I have the strength to do it again.

  The ceiling’s pretty interesting, actually, because it’s decorated with a row of snake-like monsters all around the edges. The snakes are curled up into perfect interlocking circles, as if they’re eating their own tails, and if you stare at them long enough your eyes get confused and it begins to look as if they’re spinning in circles.

  Round and round. Just like my thoughts.

  The problem is this: either I’m losing my mind, or I’m a psychopath with superpowers. But I’m pretty sure I’m not a psychopath, and even suspecting that I might have superpowers probably means I’m crazy. Which I know for a fact I’m not. Which means I must have superpowers. Which is crazy.

  I sigh, rub my eyes, stare at the snakes.

  Here’s what happened. On Saturday night I went to this barn party. (Hey, don’t knock it till you tried it.) To be clear, this wasn’t one of those citified hipster barn parties you see on Pinterest with the fairy lights and the glass jars and the artfully distressed wooden crates. It was the real thing: an actual barn on a working farm, farm implements hidden under tarpaulin, fold-out chairs, plastic tables, store-bought snacks and several wheelbarrows full of beer.

  Our host was Cayden Hunt, a popular football player who’s also such a deep-dyed farm boy that he drives to school on a tractor. Normally our paths don’t cross much, but it was the last party of the summer and he’d invited the entire senior class. There was music, dancing, flirting, laughter, and as those wheelbarrows began emptying, there was also crying, fighting, puking, and kids sneaking off into the darkness to do things that their parents—who’d all be sitting in church on Sunday, smiling proudly at their offspring—will pretend to know nothing about.

  I was feeling kind of tired, so for most of the night I just sat in one spot with Daniel, nursing a beer and talking, which is probably why I was the first to notice that one of the hay bales stacked in the corner had caught fire. The moment I saw the smoke, I screamed out a warning, but the music was so loud nobody heard me. And then the whole thing went up like a light—whoosh!—and within minutes the place had descended into chaos: smoke and flames and screams and the kind of hysteria you only get when a barn full of drunk people suddenly realize they’re about to be burned alive.

  I was the only one who remained calm and not, I hasten to add, because I’m usually cool in a crisis. No, the reason I remained so calm was simply because I wasn’t afraid.

  I thought the fire was beautiful.

  I was hypnotized by its power. Thrilled by it.

  Elated.

  The feeling that came over me is difficult to describe. It was a bit like being in a dream, although not really, because even though my limbs felt weak and heavy, I knew I was awake. There was a deep sense of unreality
to everything that happened but at the same time my brain was totally clear and my senses strangely heightened. Colors seemed brighter, smells sharper, and I could feel the energy of the fire pulsing in the air all around me. Time seemed to stretch and then stood still completely so that everything seemed weirdly precise: I could see every face in the most minute detail, clearly make out each individual voice.

  For a while I watched the chaos around me with a delicious sense of detachment. Everyone was screaming and scrambling to get to the exit, but I sat completely still on the same rusty old fold-up chair I’d been on all evening.

  The moment was pleasing to me.

  The people around me suddenly seemed unimportant and strangely insubstantial in comparison to the raw, elemental beauty of the flames. In the light of that blazing fire, everything seemed different, simpler, more true. I watched it calmly as a slow, cold realization began to dawn on me.

  I wasn’t who I thought I was.

  I never had been.

  I was a creature born of fire, and I did not belong amongst these mewling human children.

  After a while—mere minutes probably, although time seemed frozen, still and endless—a boy in a red shirt ran toward the blaze with a fire extinguisher in his hand. He sprayed a laughably puny stream of white foam at the fire, but his efforts had hardly any effect, and after the can emptied, he threw it to one side. From where I was sitting his actions seemed almost farcical—especially when in his haste to get away, his foot caught on something and he fell, hitting his head against the very can he’d just thrown, and he blacked out immediately.

  I was the only one watching that boy as he lay on the ground, unconscious. Everyone else had their backs to him, frantically making for the exits. I was the only one who’d seen what had happened.

  I was the only one who knew he would die.

  I could see that with clear, calm certainty: the boy would be sacrificed to the glory of the flames. His life, so young and so bright, would be offered as a gift to the insatiable hunger of the fire. And oh, the fire—that magnificent blaze!—would accept his offering in the way fires do, sucking the clear, clean air from his lungs and filling them with deliciously dark smoke before feasting on his sweet young flesh—

  “Jess! What are you doing?”

  Daniel’s hand on my shoulder yanked me out of my strange trance. He grabbed my arm, tried to drag me out of my chair. “Get up! We have to go! Run!”

  I blinked, and something shifted.

  Oh God.

  My heart heaved against my chest as I realized that the figure on the ground wasn’t some nameless sacrificial lamb surrendering his inconsequential human life to the divine beauty of the flames.

  It was Cayden Hunt, a dumb, overgrown dudebro whom I’ve never liked, but who sure as hell didn’t deserve to die.

  I shook Daniel’s hand from my arm, walked toward the fire.

  And then I put it out.

  It was easy; there was nothing strange or difficult about it. I knew exactly what to do. I felt as if I’d been doing it my entire life.

  In the distant, dreamlike state I was in, I instinctively knew that the power of the fire was more than mere heat and flame—there was an energy to the blaze that charged the air, flaring out toward me in a rush, almost as if it was seeking me out. My task was simply to destroy that energy, to rob the fire of that gorgeous life-force. To smother it in the same way you’d smother a person.

  And so I killed that fire. I took away the oxygen it breathed. It wasn’t pleasant, because the fire was so beautiful.

  But I did it for the boy.

  After things had calmed down a little, some of Cayden’s friends carried him away (still unconscious), and drove him to the hospital. He soon became the hero of the night— everyone was super impressed that he’d been brave and clever enough to put out such an enormous fire with just that one small fire extinguisher.

  I didn’t correct them. What could I say?

  Afterward, I didn’t want to drink, didn’t want to talk to anyone. Everything still felt hyper-real, less like a dream than being inside a movie, or maybe a computer game. Colors seemed brighter, voices louder, and I felt as if I could follow every conversation, see everything, be everywhere. It was not an entirely unpleasant sensation, to be honest, but at the same time it was far too strange and unfamiliar to really enjoy.

  When I got back to Ingrid’s house, the silence was deafening. I fell asleep immediately and I didn’t dream a thing.

  I woke up late yesterday afternoon, feeling woozy and disorientated and so unlike myself that I didn’t want to see or speak to anybody. I sent Gunn a text to cancel our class and then spent the rest of the day in bed, watching shows on my computer and eating junk food. Mostly I just tried not to think about what had happened. It was all too raw and weird and scary.

  But now it’s Monday morning, and I’m myself again. Awake and aware.

  And more freaked out than I’ve been in a long, long time.

  Who was that person—that icy-calm, fire-loving, stone-hearted stranger—who saw Cayden Hunt’s approaching death as a fitting sacrifice to the glory of the flames? What was she? Could I be turning into some kind of sociopath? And did I really put out that fire with my mind?

  I stare at the ceiling for a long time. Then I have an idea.

  I get up and search through my desk drawers, looking for a lighter Daniel forgot here a few days back. I find it in the bottom drawer, take it to my bed. The lighter is cheap and made of red plastic. I hold it in my hand, then push down on the metal grinder until a flame appears.

  Okay. Let’s see.

  For the next half an hour I try my best to feel something of what I did on Saturday night. I stare at the lighter until my eyes hurt, trying to put out the flame.

  Nothing.

  I light the scented candle I got for my last birthday, try again.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps I should try something bigger?

  I set fire to a piece of paper in the bathroom basin, try again.

  Nothing.

  Then a bunch of papers in the shower.

  Nothing.

  Well, not nothing: there’s a lot of smoke and an awful smell and the fire alarm going off—but you know what I mean.

  I give up, reluctantly, after briefly considering setting fire to my bed. (I may be spooked by what had happened, but I’m not completely unhinged.) Then I clean up the mess in the shower and start getting ready.

  It’s the first day of my senior year and I don’t want to be late for school.

  When I get downstairs, Ingrid is sipping a Bloody Mary (her breakfast of choice) and reading the newspaper. Predictably, she’s fully made-up—false lashes, liquid eyeliner, scarlet lipstick, the works—but today she’s not wearing her usual black kimono with the red dragon on the back. Instead she’s smartly dressed in a black-and-yellow trouser suit accessorized with long golden earrings, a dozen thick gold bracelets and a small yellow hat with a netted black veil. As usual, she looks both fantastic and slightly ridiculous, but she’s certainly the most glamorous seventy-year-old I’ve ever seen.

  “Going anywhere special?” I ask as I sit down at the kitchen table to butter a piece of toast.

  “What—this old thing?” She smiles, vaguely gesturing toward the suit, the earrings, the hat. “I’m glad you like it. I’m expecting an old friend today, a wonderful man, so spiritual, and I wanted to look my best.”

  “You look great.”

  “Thank you.” She stirs her Bloody Mary with a piece of celery, takes a dainty sip. Then she frowns at me. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Oh, the fire alarm? It was nothing, I just—”

  “No. I mean there’s something wrong with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your aura. It’s… off.”

  O-o-okay. I give her a polite smile as I push away my plate, leaving my breakfast untouched. Ingrid is great, and I owe her a lot for taking me in after my mom died, but I just cannot dea
l with her kookiness this morning—my sanity is already hanging by a thread.

  “Wow, is that the time?” I say, getting up from the table. “I need to get going; I don’t want to be late for school.”

  “Sit down,” she says sharply. “You’re not leaving this house until you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

  I’m so surprised by her sharp tone that I sit back down again. On the parenting scale Ingrid usually draws the needle somewhere between gentle distraction and criminal neglect, so I find myself blabbing out the truth before I can stop it. “Do you believe in superpowers?”

  She puts down her drink with such force that it slops all over the table. “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Like… Do you think it’s possible to put out a fire with your mind?”

  “Oh, Jess.” I sense a certain tension leaving her body. “Who’s been filling your head with such nonsense?”

  I shrug, not wanting to make a fool of myself. I mean, if Ingrid thinks something is ridiculous…

  “It’s that boy, isn’t it?” She pulls her lips into a thin, disapproving line. “That ‘friend’ of yours.”

  I suppress a sigh. “His name is Daniel. And he isn’t my ‘friend’.” I do the air quotes, exaggerating the way she always sounds when she talks about him. “He’s my friend. Full stop.”

  “You know very well I’ll never approve of your association with that … person.”

  I’m considering whether it’s worth making a scene over Ingrid’s ridiculously bigoted attitude again when the back door opens and Gunn, Ingrid’s nephew, walks in.

  “Hi Jess.” He flashes that impossibly gorgeous smile.

  “Hi Gunn.” I smile back, trying not to blush.

  “I’m glad to see you’re still here Gunnar,” Ingrid says. “You need to talk some sense into Jess, please. You’re the only one she ever listens to anyway.”

  “What’s going on?” he asks distractedly as he reaches over for the milk.