Dragons!

by Various

  "Any eggs," I asked.

  She shook her head. "Not eggs. Babies." She lifted a tiny beast from the pile of debris. The hatchling moved slowly, holding its red-lined mouth open toward her. I noted that it

  already had a full complement of small, but wicked-looking, teeth. "There's five of them," she said. "They all seem to be healthy."

  Thom stepped out onto the ledge. He moved with the assurance of a veteran rock climber, crossing the ledge in a few quick hops, and dropped easily into the nest. He reached for one of the babies. "See," he said, "told you it was a dragon."

  The baby he was holding not only had a pair of wings, but four legs as well. Though I was no real expert on drakes, I knew enough to recognize the one clear characteristic that separated the two families of flying reptiles: wyverns have two legs, dragons have four.

  The babies were about the size of adult cats, with droopy, wet-looking wings that were far too small to support their weight. They were emerald green, with stripes of yellow and red that looked artificial. If they hadn't been moving, I would have sworn they were the product of some toy company.

  Janey was examining the intricate markings on their bellies. "From what I can remember of juvenile dragons, these are either one of the Welsh varieties or some African species."

  "What are they doing here?" I asked.

  "Somebody probably brought in the parents as pets," said Thom.

  "We had some rich hotshot that actually smuggled in a pair of African Redeyes a few years back. Real conversation piece . . . until they ate him."

  "Well, these little fellows must have all hatched within the last couple of hours," said Janey. "Their egg teeth are still attached." She stood up and brushed rotted wood from her jeans.

  "Okay. Thom, you take one of the babies inside, get the cages set up, and come back for another. Bill and I will make some measurements out here, then bring in the rest."

  Thom gave a casual salute and stepped out onto the ledge. In seconds, he was inside with the first baby.

  Janey had me go through the nest, calling out the sizes of

  the bits of refuse used in its construction. Among the items I found were a pair of wooden bar stools, a large number of old mattress springs, and a neat stack of chrome hubcaps. When Janey had gotten this information down in her note pad, we used a tape measure to get the diameter of the roughly circular nest.

  We hadn't finished before the sun slipped behind the horizon and it was suddenly and almost completely dark. The only illumination was provided by the distant lights on the street below and by a sky that glowed with the yellow-brown reflection of those lights.

  Thom came bouncing back along the window ledge with a flashlight in hand. "The first one's tucked away," he said. "Ready for another?"

  "There's nothing else we can do here in the dark," said Janey. "Let's get the babies inside, and we can come back to finish looking at the nest in the morning."

  I was none too excited about the idea of another day spent out on the ledge, but I was awfully anxious to get back inside. I handed one hatchling to Janey, and another to Thom. The last two had crawled under a length of rotting tree, and it took me a few seconds to work one loose.

  Thom helped Janey back onto the ledge, giving her a little more assistance than I thought she needed. As Janey started her walk along the ledge, I noticed that the security guard had stuck his head through the hatch and was waving at us madly. He was shouting something, but the wind snatched his words away.

  "What's he saying?" asked Thom.

  "I think he's trying to tell us that their plan to trap the mother didn't pan out," I told him.

  "How do you know?"

  "Look." I pointed past his shoulder.

  A shadow moved across the evening sky, an inky shape that was growing larger with frightening speed.

  "Janey!" I shouted. "Run!" I turned to Thom. "Quick, get inside." Thom's eyes were fastened on the approaching shape. Not risking a glance myself, I shook him. "Come on, get moving!"

  Thom snapped out of it and jumped out onto the ledge, encumbered by the baby under his arm. He took a step, overbalanced, whirled his free arm, and barely remained upright. He took another step toward the open hatch.

  I climbed onto the ledge, the fourth baby tucked under my arm. The dragon came rushing past with a roar that made my bones vibrate. Just ahead of me, Thom took another step, but his eyes were on the dragon, not on the ledge, and his step took him into space.

  I scrambled forward, falling to my knees as I approached the spot where Thom had vanished, and peered downward at the dizzying view. At first I didn't see Thom. A shout from my right showed me that his rope had held and he was swinging only a few feet below the ledge.

  The dragon shot past again. The clawed tip of its wing struck the building above my head, gouging a path through a metal frame and showering me with chips of broken marble. The wind of its passage almost sent me down to join Thom, but I managed to crawl along the ledge to the hatch and shove the squalling baby drake into Janey's waiting hands.

  The dragon was coming. I didn't have to look to know that, I could feel it, like a pressure coming down from above. I lay on my belly, reaching blindly downward, and managed to grasp Thom's upraised hand.

  Thom came over the ledge with blood pouring from his swollen nose.

  The dragon went screaming past just below us.

  My arm was wrenched as some part of the dragon struck Thom. His face went pale, and his eyes rolled back. I heard glass shatter as the dragon hit the windows on the floor below. Another pull brought Thom's shoulders into view. Amazingly, the baby dragon was still with him, its tiny claws digging into his plaid shirt. I dropped his limp hand, grabbed his harness, and shoved him and the baby through the hatch. Then I dived through headfirst, landing between a pair of yowling baby dragons.

  The mother dragon made another pass, its head sweeping just above the ledge. With a clatter of metal and the crack of

  breaking wood, it landed heavily in the nest. It stretched its long neck toward us and made a last bellow of protest. Then the horse-sized head fell into the nest.

  For long minutes, no one moved. We sat there on the concrete floor in the dark, just breathing. I, for one, was glad to be breathing.

  Janey got up and went over to Thom. She shone her flashlight into his eyes, and gingerly lifted the cuff of his jeans. "The wing must have struck him in the shin," she said. "There's a compound fracture here. It's not bleeding badly, but it's going to hurt like hell when he comes to."

  "Uh, why don't I go call for an ambulance?" asked the security guard.

  "Why don't you?" I said.

  The guard walked away, and Janey took his flashlight over to the hatch. I followed, rubbing at the strained muscles in my left arm.

  "Look," said Janey. The white circle of her light glinted off a metal bolt that protruded from the thick tail of the dragon. As she moved the light up the body, wounds could be seen in its back, its legs, its neck.

  "Good God," I said.

  Janey nodded. "Looks like their capture plan wasn't very neat."

  I wrapped my aching arms across her shoulders, feeling her painful tension. "I'm sorry."

  She pulled away. "We've got to get the last baby." "What? Now?"

  "Yes."

  I looked out at the dark mass of the dragon. "Are you nuts? You want to go back onto a ledge, five hundred feet in the air, in the dark, and steal a baby dragon away from its mother. While the mother's there. Oh, and besides that, the dragon's hurt. Have I got it right?"

  She put her hand on my arm. `Bill, that dragon is mortally wounded. It may even be dead already. If it's dead, the baby will starve before morning. If the mother's still alive, it could easily crush the baby in its death throes." She

  moved away from me, quickly inspected her harness, and began to climb through the hatch.

  I knew that if I gave myself time to think, my knees would start shaking far too much to ever walk that slippery ledge, so I clambered th
rough the hatch right behind her. It seemed quieter now. The traffic in the streets had diminished to a trickle, and many of the buildings were dark. Night birds flew past, and I saw a larger shape that might have been some small urban drake out to catch its evening meal. Out on the river, the tugboats had turned on their searchlights, and the wide beams swept endlessly across the brown water. I reached the nest and stepped carefully into the loose mass of material.

  There were soft clanks of metal as Janey searched through the nest for the last baby. "I don't see it," she whispered. "I'm afraid the mother might have landed on

  it.

  I edged forward, my eyes on the bulky form of the inert dragon. "I'll look." I tripped over a piece of wood and almost stepped on the dragon's tail.

  "Careful!" hissed Janey.

  "Right, right. Wait a minute, I see something. Shine your light over here."

  She turned her flashlight where I pointed, and the light caught the brilliant green of the baby. It was sitting beside the foreleg of its fallen parent, its tiny claws scratching weakly at the adult dragon's scaly hide. When the light struck it, the baby turned toward us and let out a pitiful cry.

  "Come here, little guy," I said. I stepped carefully through the debris of the nest and reached down for the tiny dragon. Its side was wet with the blood of its mother.

  "Okay," said Janey. "Let's go."

  The baby dragon bit me. Its needle-sharp teeth sliced into the tender skin between my thumb and index finger. I stumbled back with the baby dangling from my hand and fell against the mother dragon.

  The big dragon surged to its feet. Its neck whipped around and the warm wash of its breath swept over me. For a moment I was staring into the fist-sized eye, then the jaws

  darted forward and yellow sparks flashed as the dragon's teeth closed on the metal rings of my harness. It lifted me from the ground and tossed me over the side.

  The baby dragon screamed as we fell. There was an abrupt jerk as we hit the end of the belay, everything swung sideways, then I was through the window that the dragon had shattered in its attack on Thom. Either the dragon's teeth or the glass of the window must have weakened the rope. It parted and I fell to the floor.

  I lay on my face in a carpeted office on the thirty-fifth floor, my hands and arms cut by broken glass. The baby dragon released its death-grip on my bleeding hand and crawled away. Behind me the mother dragon bellowed.

  I climbed to my feet and went to the broken window. "Janey! You okay?" No answer.

  There was a whistling sound from above. It started out high and distant, but the pitch went down and the volume went rapidly up. The dragon was coming. Fast. I turned, bent, grabbed the baby by its tail, and ran from the office.

  The wall of windows imploded as the dragon smashed its way into the building.

  I ran out into the hallway, trying to move and look back at the same time, stumbling against furniture, looking for some clue that would lead me toward the elevators. The dragon smashed easily through the plaster wall of the office. Wings folded, it came down the hall with rapid steps, its shoulders knocking pictures from the walls and its taloned feet tearing at the carpet. I slid around a corner as the dragon swatted aside desks and office chairs. The baby dragon clawed at the air as he swung by his tail from my hand. I started toward an open door when I spotted the white and red of an exit sign glowing in the distance. Putting everything I had into it, I sprinted toward the sign.

  The exit sign didn't mark the elevators, it marked the door to the stairs. At the moment, the idea of going down thirty-five flights of stairs didn't sound bad at all—as long as the dragon wouldn't fit. I grabbed the door and pulled.

  It was locked.

  "You can't do this!" I shouted at the door. "There's a fire code!"

  A copy machine went tumbling down the hall behind me, and I turned to see the dragon smashing its way through a series of flimsy partitions. I ran on.

  Sure that I was heading toward the center of the building, I ran past dozens of offices and hallways. Then I turned through a wide door flanked with potted trees, passed a long conference table, and came to a dead end. It was a corner office, windows on two sides, with a huge glass-top desk, sparse arrogantly modern furniture, and a pair of fancy floor lamps. Obviously, it was the lair of some big-time executive. I would have preferred a broom closet.

  The elevator bell sounded, tantalizingly near. I turned to retrace my steps.

  The dragon turned the corner, blocking my path. It had slowed to a stumbling walk. Blood poured from the wounds on its head and neck, splashing on the tasteful carpet. It made a coughing noise, and bloody froth spilled from its mouth. With a shudder that sent nearby furniture flying, the dragon collapsed. The slit-pupiled eyes closed.

  I leaned back against the glass desk, the adrenaline draining from my body and leaving me with painful fatigue. I could hear the faint sound of sirens from the street outside. By now every police car, fire truck, and ambulance in the city was probably on its way.

  The baby dragon made a plaintive cry.

  Immediately, the big dragon's head came up and it let out a hiss like a ruptured steam boiler. It pushed through the office door, widening the frame significantly. It snapped at me, its teeth coming within arm's length of my head.

  I dropped the baby and looked frantically around the office for anything that could be a weapon. Grabbing one of the tall floor lamps, I made a major league swing, smashing the base of the lamp into the jaw of the dragon.

  The dragon lifted a foreleg and slammed the lamp from my hands. A sideswipe of its head threw me against the glass wall, a fine spiderweb of cracks radiating out from my impact. The head lowered slowly, the bloody snout opening.

  Janey ran into the room and snatched up the lamp. As the dragon started to turn her way, she jammed the business end of the lamp right down its throat.

  The long neck snapped back, arching over the dragon's bleeding body. Blue fire played along its teeth, and smoke came from its dozens of wounds. The beast's eyes turned milky, then black.

  Steam curling from its nostrils, the great head swung down.

  I looked up, unable to move, as the head struck me, knocked me through the broken window, and sent me into the darkness.

  I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling, and said, "I'm not dead."

  "Well, you're obviously as brilliant as you ever were." Janey leaned into my blurry, rotating field of view. She reached down and ran a hand softly over my cheek. "You've been out for almost twenty hours," she said. "How do you feel?"

  I tried to sit up, but my stomach and head told me that lying down was a much better idea. "Terrible, but not as bad as I expected. I thought I was going to be a wet spot on Broadway."

  Janey smiled. "You would have been, if the dragon's neck hadn't fallen across your legs and pinned you down."

  I closed my eyes, hoping I could get back to sleep before the twinges of pain that I was beginning to feel became full-blown agony.

  "Oh," said Janey. "I got a phone call while you were under. Another job offer."

  "I hope it's studying butterflies," I said.

  I feel asleep to the sound of her laughter.

  Covenant with a Dragon

  by

  Susan Casper

  Susan Casper made her first fiction sale to Charles L. Grant's anthology Fears in 1983 (she sold several word search puzzles and logic problems to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine all the way back to 1977, but she doesn't count those), and has subsequently gone on to sell short work to Playboy, Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Twilight Zone Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (fiction this time!), and to many original horror anthologies such as Shadows, Whispers, and Midnights. She is co-editor, with Gardner Dozois, of the horror anthology Ripper!, and has just completed her first novel, The Red Carnival. Born in Philadelphia, she lives there still, although she has managed to move a number of blocks away from the actual hospital where she was born in the years gone
by since then.

  Here she gives us a compelling look at a child caught quite literally between two worlds, a child who has powerful enemies—but, fortunately, also has powerful friends. .. .

  * * *

  She reached for him. It was not unusual for Richard to feel her hand slipping through the covers in that hazy time between sleep and wakefulness, a gentle touch to see if he, too, was awake and wanting, and knowing this, he feigned sleep. She made no attempt to wake him, merely rested her fingers against his thigh for just a moment and then slowly moved them away. As soon as her hand was gone he was sorry that he hadn't responded. He disliked disappointing her even in small ways, but he just couldn't bring himself to make love to her this morning. Carol had not been the woman he'd been dreaming of in the sultry heat of that lonely summer.

  Too many times in the last few weeks he had given in to

  the temptation and held Carol in his arms pretending that she was Thot. It never worked very well. The textures were wrong—skin and hair—and the scent. Carol was candy sweet compared to Thot's heady musk. Besides, Carol was his wife. Even if she never guessed, and he wondered sometimes if she might not already know, it wasn't right to use her as a substitute for long-dead dreams. Thot had been too much on his mind of late. More than she had been through all the last decade. More than she had when he first returned home. He had no idea why.

  He reached up and clutched the little carving of a dragon that always hung on a leather thong around his neck. The memories came. Romantic ones at first—sweetly scented flowers, gentle heat, the laughter he shared with Thot as she gave him the carving and tried to convince him that it would help keep him safe—but he made an effort of will and slowly the reality began to penetrate. For the first time in a long time he saw the squalid house, ruined by war, invaded by insects. He could hear the baby cry and once again felt a desperate desire to go and comfort her . . . to assure her that things would be all right when he knew that there was no such assurance. The pain in his leg throbbed as he searched the debris while his world crumbled and hope collapsed within him. He grasped the dragon, holding it tightly in his fist, and allowed the pain to ease slowly away.