by J. R. Rain
A small chuckle inside my head. Something like that, Sam.
Okay, now that’s a scary thought.
Welcome to my world, he said.
And to mine, I added, grinning inwardly.
I flapped my wings and felt less like a giant dragon bat and more like a giant manta ray. My eyes felt clear and protected, and I suspected Talos sported a sort of natural shield over his eyes. A clear lid perhaps.
Indeed, Sam. Protection from water and heat.
Your own heat?
And the heat of others.
Now, I had a picture of two giant dragons battling in the skies high above, blasting each other with great gusts of streaking fire. Talos chuckled in my head.
Perhaps long ago, Sam. We are a little more evolved now.
So, you are telling me that in your history, you have had dragon wars?
Many wars, Sam. But all long, long ago. Every world has an evolutionary process. You are just emerging from the beginning of yours.
The beginning?
Humans have a ways to go.
I couldn’t argue with that, so instead, I focused on the task at hand, flapping his wings and gliding through what surely would have been impenetrable black water to anyone other than, well, us.
Yes, I thought, a good team.
The lake was big by Southern California standards. To the rest of the world, not so much. Still, at over three thousand acres, and just over six miles long and nearly two miles wide, I had plenty to explore. Thankfully, the lake wasn’t particularly deep. Rather quickly, I was skimming over the lakebed with its seemingly moving floor of flowing and waving plant life. I wasn’t expert enough in lake plants to know what the hell I was looking at, but my general impression of them was that they looked... well, icky. Slimy and alien, too.
More chuckling from Talos.
There was also enough debris down here to shame all lake-goers. Beer cans and bottles, and plastic wrappers of all sorts. I saw more than one Starbucks cup. I also saw two or three shipwrecks. Or boat wrecks. Whatever. Mostly small dinghies and rowboats. One was a damaged Jet Ski lying upside down. There was more: a toilet seat, a baby stroller, a mountain bike, car tires, a paperback novel fluttering in the current, a desk fan, men’s shoes, a lifejacket (which made no sense), and countless other tidbits that I ignored, but all of which made me sad. The lake needed a good dredging. A damn good one.
What I didn’t see was a giant, snake-like lake monster. At least, not yet. There was still more lake to cover...
I flapped and glided and banked and searched, ignoring the debris and focusing on the beauty around me. Lake Elsinore had a surprisingly large fish population. Maybe that was common knowledge to fishermen. I didn’t know, but small schools of fish scattered continuously before me. Bigger, lumbering fish patrolled the lake’s bottom, fat catfish that freaked even me out. Some were quite large, well over three or four feet, mostly hidden in the deeper regions of the lake, and looking about as alien as a creature could look. I considered one large creature in particular, bigger than any fish I’d ever seen. It moved slowly in the darkness, almost majestically, easily the biggest fish in the lake. The sensors or whiskers around its snout quivered in its search for its next big meal. I circled it, dipping a wing and flying around it, and watched as it pounced on a rotting bass hovering along the lake floor. It attacked it heartily, voraciously, and not very prettily. Fish bits floated in the water around it, and soon, it was moving again, scanning and searching, not aware that a much larger predator was presently watching it. Or maybe it did and didn’t care. Surely nothing messed with this big boy.
But was it big enough to consume a twelve-year-old boy? It might just be. And it also just might be big enough to pull free a limb or two. There was, of course, one way to find out. I could catch the fish, gut it, and see what was inside it.
Or... yes, I had another way. A way that wouldn’t kill it, although killing it and gutting it would have excited the thing within me. Except, except... I couldn’t feel her excitement. In fact, I couldn’t feel her at all. I thought about that as I continued to circle the lumbering and yet somehow graceful beast.
It is because she is not with us, Sam, came Talos’s words. In this form, you are free of her. But you gain me.
A welcomed relief, I thought.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
You should, I thought, grinning inwardly. I assume she is with my physical body?
You assume correct. She is there, waiting, and she is not happy about it.
Do I still have some of my vampiric powers, Talos?
You have your night vision, do you not?
Yes.
Then that should answer your question.
I nodded his great head and closed my eyes and projected my thoughts out around us, using a trick I had used to see through cave walls and homes, and now into a giant catfish.
My range is limited to maybe twenty feet, and it acts as a sort of sonar that returns clear images to me. How it works, I don’t know, but I could see why it would have been of great use to Elizabeth and her posse of highly evolved dark masters. To know where the enemy was at all times, to spy and watch and creep and control.
Well, it was serving a purpose now, even if it was a weird and gross purpose, for the images that came back to me now, as I circled with my eyes closed—but yet, seeing everything around me at the same time—made me want to lose my lunch. Or Talos to lose whatever lunch he’d eaten.
Now, as I projected out, I focused my attention on the meandering, powerful catfish, the obvious king of the lake. If ever there was a lake monster, he was it.
Correction... she.
Almost immediately, as I plunged through the powerful, rippling pink muscle, I saw that the creature was heavily laden with a thick cluster of blood-red eggs—within which I could see hundreds of smaller movements.
I shifted my focus to her other organs, each pulsating and quivering with the flow of life and power, all in perfect harmony and rhythm, flowing, churning, pumping. Each organ pulsed with its own inner light: bright blue for intestines, red for the heart, bluish for the liver, bright white for the brain, and a pulsating, throbbing yellow for its massive stomach, which ran along the bottom length of the fish.
I plunged into the yellow light.
***
It was later, and I was perched high above Lake Elsinore, on a rocky ledge along Highway 74. Below me, the lake was iridescent and alive, and if I looked hard enough, I could probably see the great, lumbering beast swimming in its deepest depths.
The catfish.
Color me a city girl—or a suburban girl—but I didn’t know much about catfish. Or, more accurately, anything about catfish. I knew they were bottom feeders, but that was about it. I had seen the pictures of the giants caught in lakes and rivers, and this giant was nearly as big. Certainly big enough to drag a boy below the surface and keep him below the surface... until said boy drowned.
But its stomach was the giveaway, and then, later, its teeth, which were nearly nonexistent. Its stomach had been full of reeds and smaller fish (and even a duck or two). No arms, no legs, no shoes. Just a fish that appeared opportunistic. I suppose there was the off-chance it could have gripped an arm or a leg, and sort of done a death roll, but there had been no evidence of the limbs being twisted off and, more important, there hadn’t been any evidence of limbs in the creature’s stomach.
Are we okay sitting here a while longer, Talos, I asked.
He knew my meaning, and answered from deep within me, his voice booming and comforting at the same time. You are safe in my home world, Sam. You are with me.
What are we doing there?
We are sitting on a ledge much like this one, but much, much higher up, enjoying the view, sometimes watching the flying shadows below us, and sometimes looking up at our cities.
That is so weird.
Maybe.
I never remember any of it.
But you can.
I though
t about that, and looked down at another city, a human city, and wondered again what could be in the lake, what had killed the boy, and what the hell was going on.
It was then that I sensed something high above—or perhaps Talos had sensed it. I looked up and saw something pass beneath the stars. Something massive. Something winged. It wasn’t quite as iridescent as the lights below, as the living creatures in the lake. It emitted a softer light, and I was reminded of some of the spirits I sometimes saw and their sporadic energy.
The winged shape blotted out the stars and now the moon, and banked gracefully and I could see its long neck and diamond-shaped head.
I tensed until I felt Talos’s soothing touch on my mind, reminding me I was safe with him, and that, perhaps, I was safe with this other.
The winged creature angled down, flapping glowing wings. Dust and hot wind swirled around me, rising up like a living thing to form around me, as the creature turned tighter and tighter circles, and finally alighted on the ledge next to me.
A moment later, a very naked man was squatting next to me. A man I recognized all too well.
Dracula.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Excuse me for my, ah, indecency,” said the pointy-faced man, who didn’t seem to really care that he was, in fact, squatting before me naked as the day he was born. A day which just so happened to be half a millennium ago.
Talos’s eyes were better than mine in every way; indeed, through his eyes, I could even see the vampire’s dull aura, which pulsated weakly from his body in a bluish light. With my own eyes, I could never see another immortals’ aura.
“I’m pretty sure you can understand me in this form, but I won’t be able to understand you. Try as I might, I don’t speak screeching dragon.”
I considered transforming, but I doubted Kingsley would be okay with me and the King Bad Boy Dragon himself hanging out on a rocky ledge in the buck. Dracula had come here to talk. So, he could talk, and I would listen.
Truthfully, the Count made me a little nervous. He did, after all, host the most powerful of the Dark Masters—and Elizabeth’s lover. Of course, Dracula had been nothing but a gentleman; indeed, he’d saved my hide just last year when I’d found myself in an arena full of ravenous werewolves. Dracula had proven to be scary deadly. Within minutes, the arena had been full of dead werewolves.
To his credit, Dracula wasn’t giving me the full show now. He mostly kept his hands laced over his groin, and mostly presented me his side, rather than the full monty.
Dracula was not a big man. Well under six feet, I suspected he was closer to maybe five-nine. He didn’t need to be tall, or hulking. He had an undeniable presence, even when buck naked. Magisterial, came to mind. He had been, after all, a warrior king for Romania. He had commanded thousands—and many thousands more had worshiped him. And he had, by all accounts, watched many thousands perish in gruesome deaths... and had enjoyed every minute of it.
Yes, he had been a fitting host for the worst of the worst, the most powerful of the Dark Masters.
But something seemed to happen on the way to the twenty-first century. This Dracula seemed surprisingly banal, shockingly well-mannered, and, pray tell, polite. Dracula wore his hair long, most of which was presently billowing in the hot wind. He was muscular enough, but a little scrawny for my tastes. Then again, Kingsley had something to do with that, meaning, the big oaf had somehow altered my tastes in men. More and more, I find myself attracted to bigger guys, hairier guys, hulking guys. The Liam Neeson types. The Jason Mamoas of the world. Lord help me, the son on Pawn Stars. Then again, few stacked up against Kingsley. Correction, no man did.
Dracula didn’t need to be big or hulking to command my presence. He also didn’t need much clothing, and, polite as he was, I still saw his junk more than one time.
Which led to this surreal thought: I just saw Dracula’s junk.
My life, I thought, and shook Talos’s massive, diamond-shaped head.
“I hadn’t realized just how, ah, intimidating our winged friends are, Samantha Moon. My God, you are massive. And frightening. And beautiful.”
He kept his hands clasped before him, but had taken to pacing along a very small area on the ledge next to me. I turned my head to watch him, my claws digging deep into the earth. At some point in time, someone was going to stumble across these very claw marks—and wonder what the hell had been watching them.
If they only knew, I thought.
I suspected that Prince Dracula, or whatever he referred to himself as these days, had seen plenty of dragons in his day. I suspected he had, in fact, seen it all. Tasted it all. He had five hundred years under his belt at this undead business. I had ten.
I suspect Dracula had journeyed to his dragon’s home planet, had shifted from this world into the next. I suspected he was only now trying to seem accommodating, normal, real, approachable. I also suspected he had done things and seen things that no one would ever know—or would want to know. The killer was still in him, I had to remind myself of that. I also had to remind myself of the ease with which he had dispatched the pack of werewolves that night. He had killed easily, wantonly. Yes, he had saved me, but he also hadn’t hesitated or tried to negotiate. Dracula, in short, had been a killing machine.
He moved over to the lip of the cliff and stared out over the sparkling light of Lake Elsinore. That Dracula was here, on this forgotten cliff face, facing a mostly forgotten city, at this time and place, was beyond surreal. It was unreal.
Now, he folded his arms over his chest and just let it all hang out, exposing himself to the world but, luckily, not too much to me. “It is a strange world we live in, Samantha Moon.”
He let his words hang out there. There was a lot of hanging going on at the edge of the cliff. I waited, unmoving, my leathery wings rippling in the wind. Overhead, a single-engine airplane droned on, its safety light pulsing. There had been no airplanes in Dracula’s time. Hell, there wouldn’t have been significant transportation improvements for nearly 250 years, with the advent of the steam engine. The man next to me had truly seen it all.
Now, he was just a naked guy with nice hair and a decent-enough body, although he was no Kingsley.
“I assume you have seen the other worlds? Or, at least, caught a glimpse? They are beautiful, and very evolved. They are perfect in their own ways, but they are boring. There is no room for improvement. Yes, perfection can be boring. There is little room for expansion, which is why some of them come here and connect with us. My dragon is such a creature. And so is yours. Whether they admit it or not, Samantha, they seek excitement. They seek to live. Why do you think they are always ready at our beck and call? It is because there is so little for them to do in their home world. Why? Because everything has been done. All obstacles have been removed. Nirvana is everywhere.
“It is only in the lower worlds, the lesser-evolved worlds, that monumental leaps of evolution can occur. And therein lies the excitement of living, Samantha Moon. It is in the taking of the step. Not where the step is taken.”
He squatted down and ran his surprisingly long fingers through the loose dirt at the cliff edge, his skin pale, smooth and blemish-free. Muscles rippled as he trailed his fingertips in the dirt.
“I did not ask for Gerard to join me.” Gerard, I knew, was the name of Elizabeth’s love interest, the entity who had possessed Dracula so many years ago. “But I was not surprised when he did so. I had been asking to be given the secrets of eternal life. I had been asking the sorcerers and charlatans alike. I had been praying to God, the devil, you name it. I sought to live. I sought to continue to expand, to improve, to spread, to...” He caught himself, but I knew what he was going to say next.
To kill.
“I was a wild man back in those days, Sam, reckless and full of anger and hatred. The anger and hatred is long gone. But the desire to expand, to grow, to challenge, to change, and, believe it or not, to help, never leaves. And I suspect if it did, I would die. One way or another, I woul
d die.”
He rested both elbows on his bare knees, his legs spread away from me, sitting casually, relaxed, never mind that he was naked or sitting next to an honest-to-God dragon.
“So, where does that leave us, Sam?” he asked, not bothering to look at me, his voice barely above a whisper. Turned out, Talos’s hearing was rather exceptional, and I suspected Dracula knew that, hence, the near-whisper. “Of course, there would be no we, if I hadn’t appeared suddenly in your life. Or if I hadn’t helped you. But that sounds manipulative. I have manipulated my way over this planet, and I refuse to do so now. You might have handled those werewolves fine, especially in your changeling dragon form. I cannot take full credit for your getting out alive. But perhaps I can take a little. Again, that sounds manipulative and, well, a little needy. I would like to think that I am beyond such base needs. Then again, I know what you are. I know who is in you. And I know the deeper importance of our meeting, our connection, our past and what might lie in our future. I know all of this and more, and it is bringing out, within me, a juvenile need to be accepted by you, to be held in some esteem, to be valued and appreciated. I hate that I think such things. I was a king, for Christ’s sake. A warrior. I killed with reckless abandon. I took what I wanted, when I wanted, and then I took more for no good reason at all. I killed for no good reason at all. I was terrible and I hope to never be that man again. Power is a terrible thing, especially for those with little patience and bloodlust.”
Dracula spoke crisply, enunciating perfectly. A hint of a European accent of the likes I had never heard before. Then again, I didn’t get out much. But still...
“I have been a bastard. I have been a devil. I have been a saint, too, but few know that. I have stopped advancing armies with blood in their hearts and, yes, saved all of Europe, but few remember what it was like in those years, with an enemy breathing down one’s neck. I did what I had to, and I destroyed many lives in the process. I believe many more would have been destroyed, and much of the landscape of Eastern Europe would have been changed, if not for me. But how many bloodlines have I ended? How many good people met their end, often on my silly whims? Too many. I was a true psychopath, I believe. But over time, I started to feel. I started to care, and I am haunted every hour of every day for my past transgressions.”