Page 8 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

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Being hunted was a pain in the ass.

The single prop SeaRey plane cut through crystal blue skies. Gwen had bought it outright with a portion of the cash Delilah always provided for jobs “just in case things went sideways.” This wasn’t the first time that had come in handy.

She wasn’t sure yet what was hunting her.

Whatever it was moved in darkness. Her magical instincts had told her that much in the middle of the rain forest just south of Darwin. It could’ve been a creature that lived in those trees, but given what Gwen was carrying, that was less likely.

Transporting rare, valuable, and even dangerous items was Gwen’s job—and the rare egg definitely counted as all three. Delilah gave Gwen the tough assignments for a reason. She was good at her job. Damn good. After all, pixies were mysterious by nature, only being seen when they wanted. But disappearing…that was Gwen’s specialty.

She’d made it to the city without an encounter, and then spent several days there hiding and figuring out her next move.

Now here she was, flying over Indonesia.

The amphibian aircraft was on the older side, which meant it could set down on both water and land. It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but the previous owners had certainly taken good care of the engines and moving parts, and that’s all Gwen cared about. She glanced at the pack strapped in the seat beside her, the basilisk egg wrapped up nice and tight.

Everything under control. For now. How long that lasted was anyone’s guess.

All she had to do was make it to a small airstrip on East Nusa Tenggara, an island in Indonesia. If she could land there before dark, she was golden, thanks to a colony of jinn she was friendly with in the area. They owed her a favor. Most of the creatures that went bump in the night weren’t stupid enough to go against a whole colony of jinn.

Pretending to be human and traveling by plane, even logging a flight path, was essentially a flare she’d sent up for Delilah to send help.

“Hopefully that doesn’t bite me in the ass,” she muttered to herself.

It was possible whatever was after the egg could find that information and get to her faster. Hopefully whatever, or whoever, her boss sent would find her somewhere along the route before then. Maybe even by tomorrow.

After that…

The plane eddied with a small crosscurrent of air, and she automatically corrected. She didn’t think much of it, probably an upper coming off the summer heat of one of the islands below.

Gwen raised her gaze from the plane’s instruments across a calm sea of deep blue dotted here and there with tufts of green or sometimes black or sandy colored rock. While some parts of Indonesia were struggling with overpopulation, more of the islands that made up the nation were unsettled, with many uninhabited islands scattered across the Southeast Asian seas.

Another eddy and she corrected again.

By the fourth or fifth time the plane tried to slip sideways or drop with turbulence, Gwen frowned, scanning the skies in front of her for any sign of incoming weather. Nothing. A perfect, clear, sunny day.

Another shake hit her, harder this time, and Gwen maneuvered the controls to turn the plane in a lazy looping circle to see behind her. She’d barely started her turn when she clocked the weather hurtling toward her. The ominous line of dark, angry clouds rose thousands of feet into the air like a giant tsunami.

“Son of a bitch,” Gwen snarled.

She completed the rest of her turn, and as soon as she leveled out, she increased her speed, pushing the little plane faster than she should. The last thing she needed was to still be in the air when that struck. She was only a halfway decent pilot, mostly because she rarely traveled by anything but her own wings and moonlight. Unfortunately, she wasn’t close enough to an island to set down yet.

She centered the closest one in her line of sight, but no matter how long she flew, land didn’t seem to get much closer on the horizon. The longer she stayed in the air, the stronger the winds became, whipping at her little plane—dropping it, raising it, knocking it from side to side—until the poor thing was groaning at her in violent protest.

“We’re close. Not too much farther,” she coaxed, tempted to give it a comforting pat.

She’d only turned around one other time to check how close the storm was, but after that, she hadn’t bothered. This was clearly no ordinary storm. Her plane should be able to stay ahead of it, and yet it was bearing down on her rapidly. Best guess was a supernatural reason.

Mental note…the next plane I buy needs to come with rear view mirrors or a backward facing camera.

The daylight had gradually been dimming as the weather approached, but suddenly the sun disappeared. The clouds had to be right on top of her. She leaned forward, looking up. Sure enough, she could see the edges coming over the top of her like teeth in the mouth of a giant, like the storm was trying to swallow her.

She needed to set down. Now. She could land on the water, but she’d need a cove for protection. What she couldn’t do was fly on her own pixie steam between islands after the storm passed. It was too far, so she needed her plane intact.

Suddenly, the little plane stopped all forward momentum, as if a giant fist of storm-driven darkness had grabbed her by the tail and held on. The plane sputtered, trying hard to keep going, but the winds had shifted, coming at her from the nose. Before Gwen could do anything, shadow suddenly consumed her small aircraft.

Not the storm.

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