Water to warp dred dixon.., p.1
Water to Warp (Dred Dixon Chronicles Book 3), page 1
Copyright © 2021 by N.A.Grotepas
All rights reserved.
Cover designed by Deranged Doctor Design
Version: 12.28.2021
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
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 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Note: Some events referenced in Flames to Free (Dred Dixon Chronicles book 1) as well as Stone to Bind (Dred Dixon Chronicles book 2) and Water to Warp (Dred Dixon Chronicles book 3) occur in the free prequel short story. Please download your copy here.
1
“I have to go back, Dred,” Hank said as we traipsed through the slot canyon.
My heart caught in my throat. “Oh. Back to New York? When were you going to spring that on me?”
“Now,” he said, stopping and taking a swig from one of those absurdly expensive metal water flasks that were all the rage.
“You couldn’t have done it a few days ago? Or even later, in a few more days?” I grinned. “Now struck you as ideal?”
He looked around. His obnoxiously bourbon eyes were concealed behind his sunglasses. Canyon walls rose around us like nature’s temple. Or her heart. Like we’d descended into the beating core of the earth. Directly above us, the sky was a blue strip between the towering walls. Ribbons of orange, yellow, and red moved in undulating frozen waves giving the cliffs a sense of motion. The place was breathtaking. I’d almost thought a slot canyon in Escalante could finally convert Hank into becoming a smitten transplant who never wanted to leave.
How wrong I was, apparently.
“There’s nothing else happening, so, yeah, I thought it was a good time for it as we’re hunting for some obscure flower for Oberon. It’s nice, this little field trip, but how much more can we talk about your Mormon ancestry?”
I laughed to hide the fact that this made me bristle, just a tiny bit. “You asked about it. I’d never voluntarily regale someone with those stories. You asked. I was answering your questions.”
“Teasing, Dred.”
“So you’re leaving because I bored you with stories about my heritage? Real great, Hank.”
He grinned. “My ancestors were just as tough, and probably just as boring.”
I pulled the scrunchie off my ponytail and readjusted it. The slot canyon was shady, but still hot as Hades. “I bet they were, especially if you’re any indication.”
His mirrored lenses turned toward me. “I don’t want to bore you. But I’ll tell you all about them, next time I’m drunk.”
“When you put it like that, I can’t get alcohol into you fast enough. You know, if that’s what I have to look forward to.”
He screwed the lid back onto his water flask and slipped it into his bottomless magical satchel. I’d taken to calling the satchel a purse. He flinched and flashed me a fake smile whenever I did that.
I strolled across the silty, fine sand of the canyon floor to reach him. “Can I please have my water bottle?” I asked, holding out my hand. I’d started asking him to carry things for me, to emphasize something about his satchel—that it was so feminine to carry it. That it was mother-y. That it was helpful as hell.
But the biggest reason was mostly to tease him.
He resisted smiling—though I saw it flickering at the corners of his mouth—and reached his hand into the bag. Without a word he produced my cheap plastic water bottle. I’d had it since high school, when I’d been into mountain biking. It said “Bikes are life” in lots of different sized fonts. It was a real work of art, especially because it emphasized how cheap I was.
I saved my money for important things—books and linen tank tops. I then paid big bucks to get the tank tops enchanted with armor spells. Tiny indulgences like that.
I drained the last of my water and snapped the nozzle shut with my teeth. Hank watched the whole time. I handed it back to him. “Thanks.”
Irritation still hovered around my throat. Hank was going to leave. Go back to New York. What a jerk. I should have never let him into the inner chambers of my heart. He’d never deserved it.
I knew myself enough to know that if I focused on it, I’d want to punch him.
So I moved on. “It’ll be good for you to see your beloved city again.”
“I know. I’ve missed the beast.”
“I’m sure you have.”
He arched an eyebrow, watching me closely, then turned his aviators away and said, casually, “I’ll come back, Dred.”
I blinked, then laughed. “What? Yeah, I know. I knew that.”
I sort of wanted to slug him, but I shrugged instead. I hadn’t known. In fact, nothing in the way he’d said it had led me to believe that he was only talking about going for a visit.
“I’m sure we’ve almost found this ridiculous flower,” I said, beginning to trudge through the impossible silt, which wasn’t ideal for a hike. Every step we took we lost about two inches, due to how hard it was to get purchase with our feet.
That didn’t sound like much. But over the miles, it added up.
“I sure hope so, Dred. You’re out of water. I’ll be out soon too.”
“I’ll be fine. I have chapstick.” I was sure he’d not get the reference. It was so obscure I almost didn’t get it.
“As long as you don’t fill our spare water bottle with sand, we’ll be fine.”
I glanced back at him and squinted.
He lifted his sunglasses onto his head, placing them in the downy softness of his wild black hair. He winked. “That was a Three Amigos reference, wasn’t it?”
I stilled my heart—his wink had done that, as much as it also made me want to pretend to gag. I allowed myself a small smile.
The scene came from the point in the movie when the amigos were looking for the tiny town of Santo Poco, and everyone except Dusty Bottoms was out of water. The other amigo’s bottles were either empty or full of sand. It was classic and the actors in the movie were so good, and I often quoted the best scenes with my cousin Lapriel. The fact that Hank knew the movie was, well, pretty great.
“Yeah. Well-played.”
“It was. Nice one—hilarious movie.”
“But, for the record, I do have lip-balm. If you end up needing any.”
“Good to know, princess, I’ll be sure to get some when my lips are chapped.”
I began hiking again, avoiding thoughts of his lips, avoiding even looking at his lips. Besides, I was hell-bent on finding the flower Oberon had sent us to get. It was for the elven bar manager at his club. The goal was to heal Gina of her newfound vampire lust, otherwise she’d continue to live a shadowed existence, hungry to feel the ecstasy of having her blood sucked by a vampire. Patrice Lacan had done it to her. And apparently the vamp had a long history and rivalry with Oberon.
Hank and I had been about to hunt for it to help out just after the bite had happened, but before we could leave, Hank had fallen into Hortense’s clutches.
Anyway, we were finally about to locate the damn flower. We’d gotten reports that tourists and local hikers had seen a few of them in this slot canyon in Escalante National Park.
We’d only taken around fifty more steps through the winding canyon in an exhausted, drained silence when we heard a voice echoing in the distance. At that very same moment, I saw a flower extending from a crack in the sheer walls rising above us.
Our trophy. There it was. Finally, within reach!
Although how we’d get up that high to retrieve it, I didn’t yet know.
Hank and I exchanged a glance.
“Did that voice just say, ‘Only two angels and already my power grows?’” Hank asked.
“I think so, yes,” I admitted, feeling a sense of darkness wash over me.
The owner of the voice seemed to have something else in mind for us. It was hard to determine what it had said, due to the echo, but I did think Hank had it right.
“Well, damn Dred. That doesn’t bode well now, does it.”
“I think not. And the flower is right there. We’re very close.” I nodded my chin at the crack in the canyon wall above us where the green vine-like plant protruded and red bell flowers dotted the stalk.
“Is that it? Oh, wow,” Hank said, ho
“Yes. What is it? Please be a flash-flood,” I said, steadying myself. “I’ve never hoped so powerfully to have a flash flood bearing down on me as I’m wishing right now.”
“Instead of what it might be?”
“Instead of what I think it is.” I racked my brain in search of what else it could be. It had the same feeling of an avalanche in the distance. Or a freight train rolling by. “It’s getting closer. Fingers crossed it’s a torrential river from somewhere farther up the canyon—storm runoff.”
Hank had pulled out his stylus. “I have a feeling I’ll be needing this in the next few minutes. Sorry to rain on your parade.” He laughed. “Or not rain. I don’t think that’s a flash flood. And if it is, shouldn’t we get to higher ground?”
I nodded. Ahead of us the slot canyon opened up to a broader space. There were shelves of earth covered in green weeds against the walls. “We can get to higher ground right there.”
I closed my eyes and did a quick check of my mana, sending tendrils of my conscience through my limbs, feeling for that fuel that powered my sorcery. It was kind of weird, but I’d gotten used to it.
I was charged up almost to the maximum I noted as I ran ephemeral fingers across a river of sorts, a current of blue mana that ran like an aquifer just below my skin. Finally a turn for the better.
Opening my eyes, I looked at Hank. “Let’s get there now and be ready for anything?”
He nodded. I took off at a run. Hank was close behind me. The ground slipped under my feet as I climbed up the small, earthen shelf. The rumbling got louder and more insistent as it approached. It became clear that it was footsteps, and not my weak hope—a flood, crashing against the canyon walls as it pummeled toward us.
“I don’t like the sound of this, Dred.”
“I’m expecting either a Tyrannosaurus rex, or at any minute, to hear the words ‘fe fi fo fum…’”
I laughed, then swallowed nervously. I pulled my Colt out of its holster. Hank used his stylus to write runes in the air. Brassy drops of magical dew dripped off the runes and then the golden Glock as it materialized in his hand.
There was a roar, and more pounding, insistent footsteps.
From ahead of us in the canyon, something massive and, honestly, kind of grotesque emerged.
“Oh crap-nuggets,” I said.
“Crap-nuggets is right. I see you and raise you one bitches’ brew,” Hank groaned.
2
“What is it?” Hank asked, his voice dripping with disgust.
“Some kind of giant, a terrible giant from myth, I’m guessing.”
“Not a very well-known one, if so.”
I didn’t really know. But I was going to venture to guess after I sorted through what I was seeing. It was easily as tall as the cliff walls, perhaps a head shorter.
Heads shorter, rather.
There were a lot of heads on the monster. Exact numbers eluded me. But all of them were piled into a central area around the general vicinity of where a neck might be.
Just stacked on there. Angry faces. Faces twisted with sneers. Some looking surprised, some thoughtful, as though the creature was surprised at what it was seeing. Some heads were smaller than others. Some were bulbous and hardly what might be considered a face.
From the body, hundreds of arms extended in a massive writhing display of motion. What would a monstrous creature with a lot of heads and arms be without a lot of legs?
So, of course there was a teeming nest of legs coming off the bottom half.
If I’d thought I was done seeing naked supernaturals, I should have known better. This beast, whatever it was, was totally naked from the waist—waists?—down. And there was plenty of man-meat to go around, of all different shapes and sizes, swaying and dangling from the facets of the body’s lower torsos that I could see, and universally, every one of those male-sabers was uncircumcised.
Hank moaned regretfully as though he’d noticed the same detail at the same time as me.
“I mean, if you’re going to create a monster, it does need a way to reproduce, right?”
“Oh sure, Dred. And we don’t want to miss any opportunities for the multiple genetic strains in each of those—bodies?—to be passed on, from, er, whatever that thing is.”
“Careful, Hank. It’ll hear you. Maybe. With its hundreds of ears. Don’t want to hurt its feelings.”
It lurched forward, moving in a jerky manner as though the many minds housed inside the many skulls fought for supremacy and couldn’t decide on what direction to go. It took a few lurching steps forward, then three backwards before it began moving toward us again.
“Maybe it’ll back up again and just keep going backwards to whatever dimension it crawled out of,” Hank muttered.
I laughed softly.
“What and spare us a fun battle, with this monstrosity that was likely banished to another plane of existence?”
Hank moved closer to me, careful now about how loud he spoke. “What do you think? Are we going to need to kill it?”
“I think our best bet is to use your golden Glock, lots, and send it back to the netherworld.”
“But Dred, we don’t even know if that’s where it came from. Not saying I don’t agree with you though about sending it there anyway.”
I pursed my lips. “Strikes me as an abomination from legend.”
“I agree. Who would create such a thing?” There was pity in his voice. I felt the same way—that some things should never be done.
“Guessing some immortals. Some really narcissistic immortals…”
“Bastards.”
Several of the heads swung toward us, and I caught the beady eyes buried in the fleshy faces staring out at us.
“Whoops,” Hank said.
“If only it had been a flash flood.”
“Guess we’re in for it now, Ms. Dixon. It’s been a spell since I had the pleasure of firing my golden Glock. Thor’s beard, she’s a beaut.” He held the gun up to admire it, tossed it in the air, and caught it deftly at the grip.
The monster began moving toward us across the opening, kicking up clouds of silt, and beginning to make a frothy sound like it was revving up to be angry. The sound, apparently, of fifty heads in a chorus of grunts and growls of irritation.
I began to mentally gather my quiver of spells, preparing a strategy that could work in unison with Hank’s Glock. “I’m a bit surprised it could fit through the slot canyons. Some of those are super narrow,” I observed, chewing the inside of my cheek. “I’m thinking whoever let it loose must have done it quite close to us. Intentionally.”
Hank scanned the tops of the cliffs above us. “Yeah, I was just thinking that same thing.”
“OK, so new plan—Get this beast back to his home,” I said. “Then grab that flower and get the hell out of Dodge.”
“Their home, Dred, might not be male. Or it could be a her.”
“Oh, I think it’s male alright, Hank. Those penii are unmistakably he.”
“Get with the times.” He drew a bead on the giant. “Also,” he gave me a sidelong glance, “the plural for penis is penises. Not penii.”
“This monster comes from a time when the gods didn’t care about that. They probably don’t care now. As though I’m going to let you dictate how I form plurals or induce me to call an obviously male giant a they.”
“You’ll win no points with an attitude like that.”
I shook him off and started on the spells. First up, I sent a quake spell at the monster. The ground rumbled and shook, causing the already imbalanced beast to falter and tumble to the side.
The canyon shook. A few cracks formed along the sheer cliffs of the wall directly opposite us as dust and debris rained down.
