Here’s Chapter Fourteen of my serialization of my contemporary fantasy novel A Sudden Outbreak of Magic.
I’ll be adding two chapters a week right here, or you can snag an ebook from the links at the bottom of this chapter if you don’t want to wait.
In this chapter, a windup dragon finds a life of his own, and a wild game of basketball takes place…
A Sudden Outbreak of Magic
Chapter Fourteen
The loud snap of the book closing in the quiet hotel room made Kelley jump. She felt like she’d pretty much had to force her fingers to shut the book before she could read more. If she hadn’t, she probably would’ve ended up reading until the sun went down.
She looked up from the book, blinking fast to clear her blurry vision. Tears had somehow filled her eyes as she read. She’d been hoping the person telling the story would be able to save his or her friends, somehow, in the end.
“I guess some stories don’t have happy endings,” she whispered, and then turned in her chair. “Right, Alexander?” she asked the dragon perched at her shoulder. At some point she must have moved him from the top of the lamp to the top of the chair next to her, though she’d been so engrossed in her reading that she didn’t remember doing that.
The dragon only stared back at Kelley, though she imagined his head dipping forward a tiny fraction of an inch, as if he was nodding.
To her surprise, she could actually see her own breath. At some point the heat in her hotel room had kicked off, and it had never come back on again. She felt cold, but more than that, she felt hopeless after reading that last story.
Standing up at last, she threw her blanket to the floor. As the cold air flowed over her, Kelley stared again at the dark blue symbol printed on the spine of the little white book. She wondered what it meant. Was that some sort of number or symbol known only to Sorcerers?
So much to learn, she thought once again, her head spinning. Words and blood and fire, betrayals and explosions and power. Druids and Sorcerers and power trips. A lifetime’s worth of knowledge.
She thought about paying another visit to Jeroan and Polly, the delinquents next door, but then she vaguely remembered the sound of Jeroan’s door opening and closing while she was still reading. They’d left, ignoring her advice to stay put.
Kelley sighed. She’d worry about Jeroan later. In the meantime, one more trek to Maria’s little book store wouldn’t hurt. It couldn’t be that far of a walk from here.
She scribbled a quick note and stuck it on the door to her parents’ room. Moving fast now that she’d made up her mind, she pulled on her boots and grabbed the expensive-looking black leather coat Mom had left hanging in the closet at some point yesterday or today.
Nothing the best for the Strickland kids, she thought, feeling both embarrassed of and grateful to her parents. It was a nice coat, with plenty of pockets. With the book tucked safely into an inner pocket of her new coat, Kelley checked to make sure her eGadget was fully charged and slipped it into her right-hand jeans pocket. She felt like she was getting armed for battle or something.
Just as she was about to walk out the door, a tiny whining sound filled the air, just for second. Kelley froze. The noise had come from the chair where she’d been reading.
“Alexander?” she whispered, tiptoeing closer to the lamp where the toy dragon was still perched. His black eyes glittered in the yellow lamp light. “Was that you?”
The metal windup dragon was neither metal nor wound up anymore. As Kelley crept closer, more slowly now, the dragon moved. His scaly neck dipped silently, as if he was watching her approach. Which was, of course, impossible. He hadn’t been wound in hours.
Then the black, glassy eyes of the toy dragon blinked.
“Oh my God,” Kelley said, pointing at him. “You’re moving.”
When Alexander lifted his head and let out another whine, Kelley had to grab the chair to keep from falling over.
“So, what—you’re… alive? Did you get… um… infected, too? Triggered, that was the word.”
What must have passed as a smile for a dragon crossed Alexander’s mouth. His chest moved gently in and out as he inhaled and exhaled, and then, with a soft swooshing sound, he lifted his wings and spread them wide.
Kelley watched the dragon for close to ten seconds in silence as he flapped his wings, with no clattering of gears or any other means of locomotion other than being alive. And then, covering her mouth so people outside her hotel room wouldn’t think she was nuts, she began to laugh like a kid about to unwrap the first of many birthday gifts.
“Alexander,” Kelley said after she’d caught her breath, wiping tears from her eyes. “You’re beautiful. And so awesome.”
The tiny dragon puffed out his muscular chest and gave a little squeak, shooting tiny blue sparks from his mouth.
I don’t believe it, Kelley thought. But I don’t care.
She plucked him up off the chair and, mindful of his claws, perched him carefully on her shoulder. Good thing Mom bought a thick leather jacket. She checked once last time to make sure her eGadget was safe in her jeans pocket and the book was in her coat pocket before she opened the door leading outside.
In spite of the Arctic bite to the air outside, she couldn’t stop smiling, even when Jeroan didn’t answer his door next door. Alexander’s weight on her shoulder was reassuring, and his grip was firm, though she did sort of feel like a pirate with a parrot on her shoulder.
As soon as she took five steps away from the hotel door, she heard a familiar thumping sound from nearby. She followed the sound to a small basketball court inside a chain link fence. On the court, Jeroan and Polly were playing what looked like a lazy game of Horse and talking trash to each other. A third teenager Kelley couldn’t quite recognize stood with them, slightly apart from them, waiting anxiously for his turn.
On her shoulder, Alexander shivered from the cold, so Kelley stowed him into her coat pocket. He curled into a ball and promptly went to sleep.
Walking closer to where Jeroan and Polly were passing the ball back and forth, Kelley found herself smiling, feeling good about seeing her brother for the first time in a long time. She was about to go join them when Polly snagged the ball from Jeroan and gave him a serious look.
“Now, watch closely,” Polly said to Jeroan.
She charged toward the basket, not even bothering to dribble. With a shout, she leaped into the air.
Kelley stared, open-mouthed, as skinny little Polly—barely five feet tall—rose up and up, until she was eye level with the rim. Polly floated in front of the basket for an impossibly long time, twirling the ball once around her body before dunking it with her right hand. She hung from the rim for a second after the ball fell through, savoring the impossible dunk, and then she did a back flip before returning to the ground.
Kelley’s first thought, tinged with disbelief and a surprising amount of disappointment, was: I’m not alone.
“Holy crap!” a voice shouted from less than twenty feet behind her. Kelley jumped, while out on the court, Jeroan grabbed the ball and spun around. Polly, meanwhile, had dropped to the pavement, looking like she was trying to dive under her windbreaker on the ground next to her.
“That was awesome!” the guy’s voice said again.
As she got over her surprise, Kelley recognized the kid who’d just wandered up. He looked less goofy in his normal clothes—jeans, backpack, and a black Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt that couldn’t have been warm enough out in this cold—than he did in his beige Harvey’s cap and uniform, but there was no mistaking him for any other skinny Chinese-American teenager.
And this was no coincidence, him being here, today. Couldn’t have been.
“Jimbo?” Kelley said at last, breaking the awkward silence. “Jimbo Wu, right?”
Out on the court, Jeroan and Polly still stared, as if surprised into silence now that they’d learned they had an audience. Polly was fidgeting nervously with her windbreaker, digging in one of the pockets. Both of them looked like they’d been caught shoplifting.
“You,” Jimbo began, recognizing Kelley now that she’d turned his way. “What’re—”
“What do you want?” Jeroan interrupted, giving Kelley and Jimbo a look of intimidation that quickly faded. “And… um. How much did both of you see?”
“Enough,” Jimbo said, his grin widening even more, if that was possible. Though he didn’t look it, Kelley could tell by the goofy look on his face that he was one of those guys hooked on playing and watching basketball. He gave her an apologetic look as he hurried past, headed for the court.
Kelley felt a twinge in her chest when she noticed him giving her a wide berth, as if he was afraid of her. Probably thought I was gonna zap him again, she figured. Then he was inside the fenced-in court. He dropped his backpack to the ground and motioned for the ball.
“Let’s play,” Jimbo the Harvey’s guy said.
“Wait a minute,” Jeroan said, holding tight to the ball and staring down Jimbo. “I remember you. From the hospital yesterday.”
Jimbo did another double-take, just like he’d done when he recognized Kelley.
“That was you two, um… too? No way.” He looked over at Polly and sucked in a loud breath. “You shot that guy,” he blurted out.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, dropping her windbreaker at last as she glared at Jimbo. “And you threw a bedpan at me, dude. Good thing it was empty, or I woulda shot you, too. Maybe.”
“This is too weird,” Jeroan said, rubbing his chin as he stared at Jimbo. He turned to Kelley at last. “What’s he doing here? How’d he find us?”
“You’re asking me?” Kelley said. She was still standing outside the court, kicking at the snow piled up at the bottom of the fence like a first grader who wasn’t tall enough to play with the big kids.
“It’s a long story,” Jimbo answered from the middle of the concrete court, and then added, “and the gears never fail to turn. I guess.”
Kelley felt a tiny tingle in her leg, and Alexander shifted inside her coat pocket. Meanwhile, Polly and Jeroan glared at Jimbo, one on each side of him.
“But,” Jimbo added with a grin. “I’ll bet I can dunk just as well as you guys. Maybe even better.”
“Right,” Jeroan said, and then he whipped the ball at Jimbo, hard.
That’s my brother, Kelley thought. Be a butthead first, ask questions later.
But to Kelley’s surprise, Jimbo caught the speeding ball before it crashed into his face. He must’ve had some experience with stuff like this from gym class.
“Thanks,” he said, dribbling the ball. “My name’s Jimbo, by the way. Nice to meetcha.”
Jeroan gave a distracted shrug. “So you think you can dunk,” he said. “Like us?”
“Uh-huh. Look—what kind of day have you guys had?” Jimbo was dribbling through his legs and around his scrawny body, almost like he didn’t even have to think about it. He gave Kelley another nervous look. “I mean, after yesterday, I didn’t think anything could get much stranger. But today, it seems like… well, impossible things aren’t all that impossible anymore, maybe?”
“Yeah,” Jeroan said. “Something is definitely messed up today.” He looked over at Polly, who was nodding, grudgingly. “If Polly here is able to dunk, there’s something seriously warped going on in the world.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Polly said sarcastically. “You’re just jealous I can get more air than you, Jeroan.”
Kelley walked inside the court at last as Jimbo bounce-passed the ball to her brother. Jimbo gave her a nod.
“Let me tell you about my morning,” Jimbo said. “I think you might be able to relate.”
Jimbo launched into a story about his morning, which had something to do with a big fight he’d had with his grandmother, who lived with him and his family.
After less than thirty seconds of Jimbo’s tale, though, Jeroan was already getting impatient.
“Why should we listen to you?” he said. “Why should we care?”
While Jimbo was talking, Kelley kept wondering how he was feeling after that Azure guy had tried to force all that green energy through his blood yesterday. The kid had really screamed.
The least we could do, she figured, was listen to him.
“Chill out, Jeroan,” she said. “Let him talk. Then you guys can go back to playing your all-important game of Horse. Okay?”
“Whatever,” Jeroan muttered, but he sat down on the basketball and waited for Jimbo to continue.
“So anyway, I couldn’t find anything online about all the craziness and explosions at the hospital yesterday—not a bit, I’m telling you, and I know how to do some serious searching—and I was taking a break for a snack. That’s when Gran jumped me.”
“Your Grandma took you out?” Polly said with a cackle.
“Hey, you haven’t seen how fast she is with her cane,” Jimbo said. “But yeah, she kind of went nuts on me. She was like ‘What have you been doing, little man?’”
Kelley shivered at the way Jimbo whispered his grandmother’s words, with a strong Chinese accent.
“She wouldn’t let it go, either. Kept saying I was…” Jimbo paused and scrunched up his face for a second. “Nèi Jìn. Gran accused me of being Nèi Jìn.”
“What’s—” Polly begin.
“Hush!” Kelley hissed. Polly looked over at Kelley like she was one tiny step away from sticking out her tongue, but she kept her mouth shut. Smart girl.
“Now I knew the old lady had lost it. She used to tell me stories about Nèi Jìn when I was a kid, to scare me, I think. Stuff about how these renegade Chinese monks living in the mountains, guys who could share their magic with one another with a touch, like a twisted game of Tag. How they always demanded something from you in return. Something small but vital, like a pinkie finger or a little toe. Or your nose.”
Kelley expected Jeroan to start laughing at that, but he didn’t make a sound. The missing nose bit made her shiver, as if her body was just now remembering it was winter time. She pulled her coat tighter around her and inched closer to Jimbo and the others.
“So she thinks I’ve gone over to the Dark Side of the Force, and she tells me to get out of the house. But on my way out, right after I grab my backpack with my phone in it, I see her drop her cane. She drops it so she can pick up her little music box, the ancient one with the black geese flying over purple mountains on it. Before I could stop her, Gran throws her music box at me.”
Jimbo shook his head.
“I just kept thinking, No. Gran brought that over from China fifty years ago. She can’t break it now. So I focused all my energy on the music box coming straight at me. I said it out loud: ‘No.’ And I closed my eyes.”
Kelley exhaled as quietly as she could, afraid to distract Jimbo from his story.
“Five seconds later, when I opened my eyes again, the music box was hanging in the air between me and Gran. Just stuck there, like it was sitting on an invisible shelf in the middle of our living room. Impossible. Then Gran really lost it. She picked up her cane again and started waving it at me. She chased me out of the house, telling me to take my wicked Nèi Jìn ways and get out, and to not come back until, until, until…”
“Dude,” Polly whispered. “You cryin’? Don’t cry. It’s okay, dude.”
Jimbo snuffled as loud as an engine revving and swiped at his eyes.
“No. It’s the wind, making my eyes water.” He let out a shaky sigh. “I’ve been homeless for,” he checked his tricked-out watch full of buttons and doodads, “five and a half hours now. It sucks.”
“She’ll calm down soon,” Kelley heard herself saying. She couldn’t believe what she was saying. The poor guy just looked so torn up. “She’s probably forgotten all about it by now.”
“Maybe,” Jimbo said, though he didn’t look convinced. “At least I made sure her music box back made it back to the end table where it belonged before I left home for good. I peeked in the window and made sure of that. I just said ‘Go’ and it floated back to the right spot, and Gran never noticed. The funny thing was that my cell phone kept beeping while I was looking in the window, but nobody was there when I answered. Weird.”
Kelley swallowed.
“Funny,” she said, thinking the words gadget and magic. “Weird.”
“And now I’m here,” Jimbo said, looking from Jeroan to Polly before his gaze came to rest on Kelley. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you here, doing impossible stuff of your own. Now you can all tell me I’m crazy and I’ll be okay with that. It’s just nice to tell someone else this stuff. Did I mention how much it sucks to be homeless?”
Kelley smiled at Jimbo—I am totally losing my edge, she thought—and then gave Jeroan a questioning look. Jeroan thought for a few seconds, and then nodded with a matching grin on his face.
Jeroan stood up and started dribbling the ball again aimlessly. Kelley saw a real Jeroan smile cross his face, and the sight made a hidden weight fall off her.
“I think,” Jeroan said, “we can tell you some stories of our own, Jimbo, old buddy.”
And so, ten minutes later—after they had all shared stories of getting thrown into alley walls, using a fortune-telling camera, and jumping onto far-off fire escapes—Jeroan, Polly, and Jimbo were laughing, spinning, flying, and dunking their way through what had to be the most unbelievable game of Horse taking place at that moment in Dubuque, Iowa, if not the entire world.
At the edge of the court, under the bare branches of the big oak tree outside, Kelley watched until she couldn’t take it anymore. And then, despite the fact that she totally and completely sucked at basketball, she took off her heavy leather jacket with the sleeping dragon curled up inside its front pocket and joined their game.
Before she knew it, she was laughing her head off as she soared through the air on her way to the crooked old rim.
Can’t wait for the rest of the serialization? Here’s how to get a copy now:
- Buy a PDF directly from UnWrecked Press
- Digital versions available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and DriveThruFantasy.
- Trade paperback available at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.
If you enjoyed what you read, feel free to make a donation via PayPal:
