Davy stood in the sub basement of ZauberCorp, Inc. It was not the world's most hospitable place. Dark, yes, but that by itself didn't disturb him in the least, since he could see as easily in the dark as most people could in broad daylight. But there was a spine-tingling sensation in the air, and a dry, dusty odor that reminded him of leaves in autumn... or...
"Smells like Gecko did last night," Davy muttered under his breath. "Smells like dragon." The un-nerving tingle grew stronger when he stepped up to the heavy steel door that led into the spare broiler room-turned-mystical-power-source-containment- room. He slipped his ID card in, and punched his password. Followed by laying his palm flat against the LCD panel installed next to the doorway. Followed by a cold precise female voice warning him that was a magically active area, his presence may prove disruptive; did he still wish to continue? Davy punched in a second password, and there was a deep shuddering series of thunks and hissing as assorted locks and seals unlocked. The door slid open, and Davy stepped inside a short hallway. The second door was easier to enter. He swiped his card again, presented his password once more, and spoke his name, and the door opened upon recognition. Davy felt a strong magic thrumming against his null field. He took a deep breath, fisted his hands, and drew it in, pulled it in deep, made it a small hard knot in his gut. He stepped out onto a metal causeway that encircled the room. Before him, and slightly below, lay the company's power source, the means by which the mages were able to work their spells without draining themselves, the means by with the security systems worked, the means by which Mark was able to perform many feats of magic during a day that would have left many a greater mage than he totally spent. And Davy was amazed by what he saw.
The Source was a ball... a great glowing ball, 30 feet in diameter maybe, thrumming softly, continually shifting between blazing white, and shimmering blue, and every color in-between, and colors that could not be named, its aura so intense he could barely look at it. Davy blinked away tears until his eyes adjusted. The colors of magic were the only colors that the faery could see with his strange silver eyes. He hungered for the magic that should have been his, and thirsted for the barely remembered colors of his childhood. The Source held both of these things, held them in an abundance that was beyond comprehension. It rested on a curving pedestal of plain dark metal, and it was beautiful. Davy slowly circled the room until he found the stairs, and then made his way down, never taking his eyes off of it.
"My gods..." he whispered. He had never seen the company power source in person. It was simple common sense. No one was certain how it would react to him, and since half of the company spells were linked to it, no one was really interested in finding out. But now that he was in its presence, David was drawn to it like a moth to a porch light. He found himself standing before it, only an arm's length away, uncertain how he had gotten there. Unwilling to turn away.
"What, what are you?" He had expected a crystal, perhaps even an intricate, ancient machine from Fairie. Not this. It was alive, it had to be - it had an aura... and it sang to him. Somewhere deep in his head, a beautiful soaring melody, something he might have known from the cradle; or perhaps something sung over a grave. "Who are you?" Davy reached out to touch, and the singing grew louder, reached a crescendo, and at the last minute, a warning buzz, but he could not resist the pull. His fingers brushed something, and then,
FREE ME!
Broken distorted images he was flying, no, falling, he was lost, hurt, blind where am I? Mark's distorted face, his wicked, triumphant grin he vanished in a scarlet flare of rage FREE ME! YOU WILL FREE ME! I WILL BE FREE!! The mage labs rendered almost unrecognizable by virtue of being seen through alien eyes pain... the world went black with pain... he couldn't see anymore, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't fly
FREE ME!!!
Davy screamed, and reflexively released his null field, as he lashed out with wings and limbs at his unseen captors. His magic-negating aura slammed into the Source with thunderous crack. The Source was contained, fixed in its place, immobile as a mountain. Davy's curse was contained in a far more fragile shell. The faery was repelled violently, hurled across the room; he was unconscious even before he cracked his skull against the cinderblock wall.
* * * * *
"Idiot!" A low, angry voice. Familiar with its hint of a melodic Sidhe accent, familiar for its utter contempt. "Chaos-damned moron! What the fuck were you thinking?"
"M-mark?" Davy managed. His head was ringing. Pounding. He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry, his throat was a desert, he could only croak his brother's name. "Mark."
"Who else would have known where you were? I was alerted from the moment you gained entry. What possessed you to come down here? Fool!"
"Gecko... her spirit. Trapped."
"Most of it, yes. The part of her that contains her magic, definitely - also, her memories of who she is. The essence of her. The child is all that remains. It was a brilliant idea, if I say so myself. A dragon's essence is pure magic. Any mage may use it, the Elementals, the Chaos mages, anyone with the talent or the learning."
"How... how does she... she live?"
"Because I must make her whole from time to time. Not for long enough that she recovers her senses and may escape me, but long enough to renew her strength."
David opened his eyes, and struggled to sit up. He was lying on a cot. His brother was sitting in steel tubing framed chair, legs crossed, and an annoyed scowl on his porcelain face. It seemed to hang in the darkness.
"And that's w-why you sent M-miss Hawth-thorne away... so that Geckoshiani may be made whole for a little while. Oh gods, my head." The blond drakthos gingerly fingered his abraded scalp. "Wh-what happened?"
"Your null field happened. It reacted with the Source. Unstoppable force meeting unmovable object and all that. Unfortunately, you proved to be far from unstoppable."
"Oh." Davy studied his surroundings, and then painfully turned his head, and winced when he caught sight of the Source again, brilliant even through the heavily tinted window. They were on the observation deck. He could see the stairs that he had taken down to... David blinked.
"Mark?"
"Yes?"
"I can, I can see her now. I couldn't before. She's fighting. She wants to be free." A great coiled dragon, blue and shadowy within that ball of ever changing light, twisting and turning. Struggling to spread her wings.
"Don't worry; there's no way for her to escape. She has no substance, no body to escape to. And without me to guide her, she'd be lost in the ether."
"If I brought Gecko here, she could "
Davy's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't move. And now he was slowly being strangled. He glanced helplessly over at Mark, who hadn't moved from his chair. His eyes were glowing.
"Oh dear. It looks like coming in contact with the Source has temporarily burned out someone's null field. Interesting."
Davy's body began to jerk convulsively as he gasped for air. "Now let me make something perfectly clear," Mark continued in an even, reasonable tone. "You bring that child down here, you reunite that dragon spirit with her body, and this entire company goes under. The Source powers the company. The Source protects this company. The Source is the reason why your ass is safe once you step through those doors in the lobby. Because with the Source, I have the power to keep you safe. Without the Source, do you know what we have? We have techmages that have to rely only on what they bring with them to the table. We have you subject to Sidhe assassination attempts 24/7. And we have one pissed off dragon wrecking New York City, looking to have a little drakthae bar-b-que. Don't think that just because you made friends with that one small part of her, that the rest of her will spare you. We are all her enemies. We're in this together, little brother. It's your neck on the block too. Kapice?"
Davy managed to nod, in spite of impending unconsciousness, and Mark released him, straightened his collar, flicked a strand a raven wing hair over his shoulder. "Be warned, you little prick. The next time I tell you that something is none of your business, I expect you to take it to heart." And with that, he vanished.
* * * * *
"Holy shit! Davy, what happened to you?" Iolanthe gave the blond faery a concerned look and jumped up out of the sofa as he stumbled in.
"I didn't mind my own business." Davy growled. "And Mark's business tried to smash my skull into little tiny bits against a cinderblock wall."
"I thought you were coming home after you called. And then you never showed up. I was getting worried."
"Sorry. I would have called, but I was busy being unconscious."
Iolanthe gently corralled him in the kitchen and parted his golden hair with her hands. "Ouch. What did this?"
"I told you. A wall."
"Are you always this cranky after a concussion?"
"Yes. Sometimes I'm even worse," Davy snarled. "Hey, don't touch it that hurts!"
"It's an ice pack. Relax, will you?"
"Where's Gecko?"
"In bed."
"Did you duct-tape her to it?"
"No, actually, the rest of the day turned out pretty well. I promised to let her go if she promised not to be a pain in the ass. Then I gave her some cast off feathers, and we played 'Avenging Angels' for a while. We got some sticks and smote the hell out of some of your pine saplings."
"Good..." Davy sighed. "Better my trees than each other."
"You're one to talk. How did this happen?"
"I met Gecko's other half. And if you think this one's a handful..."
"Oh?"
"Mark's using dragon spirit as the company's power source."
Iolanthe stepped back and looked at Davy with disgust. "Did I ever mention that I think your brother's a complete asshole?"
"Repeatedly. I agree. But there's nothing I can do. And Miss Hawthorne can't know."
"And it's going to drive you nuts."
"No, I'm okay... no really, I'm okay with it. If there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do."
"Uh huh. Right. You're going to be angsting over this for the next century."
"Io... please... not now. I'm tired."
"So why don't you let go of that death grip you have on your null field? You know it doesn't really bother me, now that I'm used to it."
"Because it's gone."
"What?" Davy chuckled at Iolanthe's wide-eyed expression.
"Don't get too excited, it's only temporary. I can feel it coming back as we speak. The Source burned it out. I got all entranced, and I must've gotten too close hard to remember, I think I might have actually touched it OW!"
"You bonehead! Why on earth would you do something like that?"
"I told you, I got all entranced - it was overwhelming, powerful, and the colorsI couldn't help myself. You didn't have to smack me. I learned my lesson, trust me. Me no touchy big shiny dragon-spirit filled ball ever again."
"So I don't understand. If she's a dragon, and her spirit is trapped in a subbasement, why do we have this little girl running around?"
"Mark separated her into easily manageable components. The spirit can't go anywhere because it has no substance; he anchored it to the company subbasement. Apparently dragons are composed of mostly magic - the child is all that was left over. And Gecko the child is only substance; she doesn't remember who or what she is."
"But the spirit remembers?"
"And she's pissed. Very, very pissed. I can't reunite them without wrecking half of New York, and possibly getting myself killed in the process. That must have been one hell of a fight, when Mark took her down. Damn shame she didn't win."
"Oh Bacchus, why does your brother do these things?"
"Because he can. And because, in theory at least, it's a damned good idea. And it worked. He doesn't give a crap about how anyone feels about it. He has no use for feelings, and he thumbs his nose at others who do. He just knows better than to let Miss Hawthorne find out. She'd flip. And I have no intention of telling her. Trust me, Mark's more than willing to kill to keep the Source."
"So what are you going to do?"
Davy rose slowly to his feet. "I'm gonna go tuck Gecko in. And I'm going to try to forget that she's anything other than a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy little girl."
Iolanthe gave him a sad look, and gently traced the line of his jaw with his fingertips. "Well, go do what you need to do, get cleaned up, and I'll help you forget."
Davy smiled wistfully as he caught her wrist and lightly kissed her fingertips. "Thank you, Io."
The vampire sighed as he stepped into his guest room. Some effort had been made to make it at least habitable. Io had replaced the pillows, and turned the mattress, which now rested on its box spring on the floor. And Gecko was curled up in a tiny ball, dead to the world. Davy watched her sleep for a moment. And remembered how magnificent she'd been, albeit lost and frightened, in her true form. And he could still hear the outraged shrieks of her spirit, after he'd touched it, her otherworldly, beautiful song when he'd first laid eyes on her, trapped and alone in a dark boiler room of ZauberCorp's subbasement. He bent down and lightly kissed her forehead.
"I don't know how, and I don't know when, but one of these days, I'm gonna see you home and free, Geckoshiani. You can count on it."
