Dragon Unleashed (Book 1 of the Dragon Mage Saga)

No Place Like Home

The portal snapped shut like a ferocious lion’s jaw the minute Darla leaped through. Somehow she knew that would happen.

            So she was stuck here-back in the world she thought she had escaped from permanently. And now Laurel was going to start the Final Fire and no one would be able to stop her. Earth was about to go up in flames.

            Darla would burn along with all of them.

            It suddenly dawned on her how stupid this whole move was. Why the hell did she believe Laurel? The woman was a psychotic sociopath and could have easily lied about sending Wreckers to terrorize her family.

            Just then, she caught the scent. There was no mistaking the pungent scent that caught in her nostrils, entwining itself like a deathly fog in the deep crevices of Darla’s guts.

            Rotting flesh. Decaying corpse. The Wreckers came here a long time ago…and left a mess. Darla, her stomach buckling, ran into the familiar, yellow-tiled kitchen. Whatever was in there couldn’t be pretty.

            And it wasn’t.

            Sprawled across the table were three bodies-a grown man, a grown woman, and a little boy who couldn’t be older than ten.

            Darla crumpled into the corner of the room and vomited, tears streaming down her face. No. Nononononono…..

            This is the price of being the Chosen One. The price of being the hero and the savior. Except I’m not. I’m evil. Like Laurel. Like me. Terrible and awful and evil and twisted and….

            “I’m so sorry,” Darla whispered. “I let this happen to you.”

            She stared down at the faces she once hated so much. They were her family and they had abandoned her to the mental hospital. Never visiting her. Never calling her. Never sending her letters or gifts. Christmases and birthdays whizzed past, and nothing. Darla hated their guts.

            But now they were dead. She’d never see them again.

            It was clear that the Wreckers didn’t kill them in their usual squeeze-into-oblivion style. Instead, they appeared to have them intoxicated by some deadly gas. Black smears covered over all of their eyes like a gruesome war paint. Black, blood-like liquid poured from their mouths, which were all gaped open in a horrified scream.

            “Nicholas,” Darla sobbed, touching a pale blonde curl on her little brother’s head. His skin was cracked like shattered china. They must have been killed at least a week ago, but Darla could only imagine what pain and torture the Wreckers’ lethal toxins must have done to them. One look at their blistered skin which was peeling off in crusty splinters could tell her just as much. Broken dolls, empty vessels.  Dead as dust.

            How nice of the Dragon Mage to show up already. It appears you have fallen for His Darkness’s schemes. I thought you to be a bit brighter than that.

            The Wreckers. The murderers. Darla didn’t even have to turn around. She could sense the darkness that emanated from them. She could almost taste the venom they reeked of, ingraining itself into the air surrounding the kitchen.

            The Final Fire will begin in minutes. This world is going down, and risen from the anguish of the dying souls of mankind will emerge a new breed of ultra-devils. Pharix will be marked for us, the servants of the Shadow Master.