Let Sleeping Dragons Lie (The Modern Dragon Chronicles Book 1)

by Ty Burson

  He smiled, revealing a good set of teeth stained yellow from decades of consuming coffee, “Hey, we’re family. Mess with one fisherman and mess with us all—which is why no one messes with us. So, where are they?”

  Jeanie pointed, “Up ahead, past their car.” She turned to Anthony, “I’m worried, but I don’t think they really want to hurt Steve. Granny says the guys who have him don’t really fit the typical gangster mold. I think they’re getting their marching orders from something else.”

  “Like what?” Anthony asked.

  “A demon. Granny says it’s made of smoke and has these yellow eyes. Apparently, you have to watch out for its eyes. Anyway, she says it wants our dragon for something.”

  “A demon, huh?” Mike said, then shrugged with the self-assurance of a life-long sailor, “Ya know, I seen some weird stuff like that when we was up north, 'cept it was like this foamy thing in the water,” Mike reassured her.

  Jeanie smiled, knowing that these fishermen, with all their tall tales, could be trusted to take what she was saying seriously. More trucks and cars arrived as they discussed what to do next. Some people got out; most carried hunting rifles and shotguns.

  By now, Granny and the girls had joined the gathering crowd. “Jeanie, we can’t have all these people bringing their guns up there. They’re as likely to shoot Steve or themselves as they are to hit the kidnappers.”

  A big man with a tangled beard that dangled down to his belt buckle spoke up from a few feet away, “Yeah, Mrs. Batista, but we might need these guns, and most of these guys are crack shots. They hit what they aim at.”

  Granny gave him an icy stare, “Oh, like the time you boys shot Mr. Turner’s prize stud bull? Or when Timothy hit that well house a few years back or when George shot his brother’s dog, or…”

  The big guy surrendered. “Okay, okay, I understand. So what do you want us to do?”

  Granny looked at Jeanie, “I have an idea.”

  Chapter 33

  Trusting his captors to pull him along, Steve closed his eyes and mentally called out to his dragon. He tried talking to it, picturing it, screaming at it. Nothing. It was as if the dragon was cutting itself off—but why, Steve had no clue. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his kidnappers had made it to the opposite side of the sinkhole without getting stuck in the mud, and now had a clear line of sight across the dragon’s lair to the group of vehicles and people amassing several hundred yards away.

  They waited, without speaking; not even John had anything to say. Daylight began to creep in. Steve could see the dragon’s breath more clearly now; it looked like the steam from the dryer that vented outside his house. If he listened very closely, he could hear the dragon’s faint breathing and was slightly reassured. He couldn’t get too comfortable, however, because Mammon was still there, doing cartwheels in the sky.

  John was the first to break the tension, “Hey bro, ah, there sure are a lot of people starting to gather over there.”

  “Yeah,” was all Frank could say. He looked at the demon, which did not appear concerned. “Here, take this.” He handed John a pistol. Steve’s eyes widened.

  “Ah, come on, Frank, what am I supposed to do with this?” John asked.

  Frank pulled out his own, slid a clip into the bottom, and slid back the action, putting a bullet into the chamber. “Here, take this one, then; it’s ready to go. The safety is still on, so you can’t shoot yourself until you click it down. Hand me the other one.”

  John shook his head, “Are you crazy? You’ve been watching too many gangster rap videos. I’m not going to shoot anyone. I don’t even know how to shoot anyone! When did you even get those?”

  Frank sighed, “Pop had them for us. They were hidden in the wheel well of the trunk. I know how to use them. I started going to the shooting range after one of my former girlfriends put a brick through my windshield.”

  “You were going to shoot your girlfriend?”

  “Ex-girlfriend, and no, at least I don’t think so. I may have gotten a little paranoid—”

  “You need therapy, bro.”

  “Anyway, Pop insisted that we bring them, just in case. Look, it’s a precaution. You see the way Mammon’s acting; he looks like it’s all going the way he wants. Just keep the safety on and try not to shoot yourself, or me, or the kid. But especially me.”

  “Look,” John pointed, “they’re headed this way!”

  Steve followed where the big man indicated, and sure enough, a crowd led by his mom and grandmother was working its way around the parked Mercedes toward the dragon hole. He tried counting, but the light was weak and they were still a little ways off. He thought there must be at least twenty people. He thought he could make out a siren, and it was getting louder. He felt a little embarrassed; was all this for him?

  Frank had called him bait—but bait for what? For all these people? His family and friends? Steve wanted to warn them, but all he could do was watch. His captors looked nervous, scared even, but the demon seemed gleeful. It was drifting as lightly as a kite on a summer’s day.

  Steve struggled to loosen the tape around his wrists by sliding them back and forth, but he could barely move them, and doing so pulled at the little hairs on his wrists. He was stuck.

  “What are we going to do?” John asked.

  Frank shrugged, “Wait. See what the demon does. Keep the kid close, I guess.”

  Chapter 34

  Granny led the group forward, moving slowly, as if all her years had just jumped on her at once. Joy offered her arm to Granny for support, but she refused, “I’m old; not crippled.”

  Her plan, such as it was, was to take most of the rescuers forward and confront the kidnappers, while leaving the guns back with five or six responsible individuals she could trust not to shoot the wrong people. It wasn’t much of a plan, but without any guidance from the dragon, it was the best she could come up with. When she reached the pit across from her grandson and his captors, she stopped and motioned for Jeanie to come forward.

  Jeanie dropped Dani’s hand. Dani had refused to remain in the truck, and probably would have figured a way to follow them, anyway. She whispered to Dani, “Here, hold Joy’s hand and be still.” Then she yelled across the pit, “What do you want with my son?”

  Frank started to step forward and say something, but Mammon blocked his path, settling itself between the two groups. “What? What are we supposed to do?” Frank hissed.

  Of course, the demon didn’t answer. Instead, it wrapped itself around Frank’s head, just for a moment, before shooting off into the air. Frank muttered, “Oh, I get it. I understand.”

  The demon dove among the would-be rescuers, weaving in and out, dropping each person it touched to the ground, where they lay sobbing, even screaming. Steve saw his mother and sister on their backs, thrashing about as if they were in the middle of a nightmare. Steve wanted to scream, but all he could do was watch helplessly. He worked furiously at his bonds, sliding his wrists back and forth to try and loosen them, ignoring the pain. He also tried working his jaws to loosen the tape covering his mouth. Mammon must have sensed what he was doing, because it quickly returned. And, like every other victim, it hovered right before his face.

  Steve tried to get away, but John yanked him back and held him still. The demon stared right at Steve and its bright yellow eyes got bigger and bigger until they were all he could see.

  In a blink, Steve found himself fighting with Dani. They were arguing over who had eaten the last bowl of Cocoa-Krispies, something completely stupid, but Dani wouldn’t quit yapping, which meant Steve couldn’t back down either. Steve knew this wasn’t right; he wasn’t really arguing with his sister, he was standing out in the forest with two bad guys and a smoke demon and there was a dragon…A dragon? What dragon? Dragons weren’t real. “Why,” he wondered aloud, “am I thinking about dragons?” That’s when the ground started to shake.

  At first Justin’s brother, Larry, aka T-man, thought he had run into the whole town. T
hirty minutes ago, he and his two compadres were fast asleep when his phone had gone off. He thought it was his new surfing app, a program linked to his computer that signaled when deep ocean swells were on their way. Once alerted, he could grab one of his pre-waxed boards and be on any beach in the area within minutes. His buddies were just as committed, and would totally have dropped everything to meet up with him—assuming they weren’t already sacked out at his house anyway. But it wasn’t his surfing app; it was Anthony with some crazy story about a couple of guys who had kidnapped Steve. Larry wasn’t sure what to believe, but he roused his friends anyway. He tried to tell his folks, but they weren’t around.

  “Dude, check this out! There’s a fire truck!” Ramone pointed.

  “Man, check out this action ahead. This isn’t right, man,” the other passenger, Ace, real name Fred, exclaimed.

  Larry strained to look beyond the window of his GMC Safari van. He started to roll it down before remembering that it didn’t work. He shrugged, then cracked open the door and slowly rolled up on the fire engine, which was parked next to a ton of other vehicles that Larry recognized. The loose headliner dipped into his view, so he reached down, grabbed the stapler from under his seat, and punched another staple into it to keep it from sagging into his line of sight.

  “Check it, dude,” Ramone whined, “We should bail, or crew up, or something!”

  “Chill Ramone,” Larry stated. “We don’t know what’s up yet. You can stay here.”

  “Naw bro, I’m going with you. Should we like, take some protection or something, though?” Ramone asked.

  Larry handed him the stapler, “There, man. Come on, let’s—”

  Larry was interrupted as the ground began to heave. Weirdly enough, none of the surfers panicked. As Californians, they were used to quakes, both minor and major. This was a good one; it just kept going and going. When it finally stopped, Fred shouted, “Check it, we got to go! Come on, Larry, I mean, T-man. Quakes are bad news.”

  “No way, that wasn’t an earthquake, bro. I’m checking it out, you two coming?”

  The trio exited the rusty van and shucked their way forward through the mud alongside the other vehicles. Every once in a while, the ground gave a little lurch, knocking them into each other, or up against the parked cars. When they came up on the disabled marksmen, their guns discarded in the mud, they stopped short.

  “Hey, that’s Mr. Fratmore,” Fred pointed out. He ran over to the man curled up in the fetal position. “Hey, Mr. Fratmore, it’s me, Ace, I mean Fred.” He backed up when he saw Mr. Fratmore’s gun just a few feet away.

  “This is trippy!” Ramone announced. “Look at all these guys. It’s like they’re…Man I don’t have a clue. They’re trippin'. Hey, should we take some of these guns?”

  Larry thought for a second, “Either of you bros know how to shoot?”

  They both huffed, “Video!”

  “Leave 'em,” Larry instructed. The ground shook again, not as badly this time, just an aftershock. “Hey, check it, you hear that?” They all stopped to listen to a sort of moaning, which seemed to be coming from the earth itself. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Larry and his friends stepped over the whimpering, crying men and moved toward the growing noise. As they approached the large sinkhole, they hesitated. Fog was pouring out of the hole, and it sounded like they’d found the source of the weird noises. On the other side, Larry saw his brother’s best friend, Stevie, along with a couple of big dudes, and a yellow-eyed smoke thing that had suddenly turned toward them.

  “Busted,” Ramone announced. Before they could even take a step back, Mammon shot across the pit and surrounded them in a dozen spirals of smoke. Larry became very disoriented and almost fell down, but he managed to grab hold of Fred. Fred grabbed Ramone. Larry couldn’t see anything; he felt like he was caught in a storm. In his mind, images started to play themselves out—a series of lame memories: fights between himself and Justin, disagreements with his parents over going to college, and other, equally uncool stuff.

  Chapter 35

  The ground shook more violently, but to all those who were being bombarded with every negative memory housed in their brains, it didn’t matter. Mammon spun in slow circles above them all, basking in their anguish. The demon could sense the dragon now, writhing in its sleep, its dreams infected by these pathetic humans. The dragon’s connection to these creatures, to their pain and frustration, was its weakness. To Mammon, such emotions were simply delicious.

  Soon, Mammon thought, the cursed dragon would wake up. The demon could hardly wait to see what, in its pain and madness, the dragon would do—perhaps it might even kill these pitiful humans, if only to make the pain stop. Of course, that wouldn’t be enough; the dragon would go on terrorizing, especially if the caretaker were killed in the process. The best part was that with every crazed action, the dragon would weaken itself, would make itself vulnerable.

  That was Mammon’s goal—weaken the dragon enough so that the demon could put an end to that rotten, lousy magic that kept him stuck in his little corner of Southern California, chained to a filthy old family Bible, not to mention being controlled by a diseased old man. With the dragon gone, Mammon’s own dark magic would have room to grow. First, he would free himself, and then there would be other dragons to destroy, other humans to control. Mammon had plans.

  Larry knew nothing about any demon or its plans, and he couldn’t have known that the quakes were being caused by a thrashing dragon, or that sides of the pit were collapsing just a few feet away. All he knew was that a bunch of very bad memories, like ugly, spike-covered pinballs, were bouncing around in his head. At one point, though, he was arguing with some butt crumbs—a polite term for non-surfer types—who were messing up his ride, and something happened. One minute he was arguing, sure, but then there was the ocean. All the sudden, he could smell the brine and seaweed and feel the spray on his face. He felt himself shift his weight on a surfboard, like an expert horseman adjusting in the saddle. And, when the wave started to form a few hundred yards back, he could feel the excitement build in proportion. He waited, lowered his chest to the board and started the leisurely paddle that would pick up speed as the wave got closer and grew bigger. Only when it was about to curl up behind him would he commit. Then he’d windmill his arms as fast as he could to drop in just below the lip of the wave. With the dexterity of a supreme athlete, he’d do a quick push-up and snap to his feet—on the board, on the wave. The pure joy and adrenaline coursed through him as he whipped the front end of his board back and forth while the wave pushed him steadily toward the shore.

  No matter how powerful the demon was, Mammon’s mind warp simply wasn’t strong enough to crowd out the exquisite feeling of riding a righteous curl. Larry rose to his feet, riding that exquisite calm that comes after a seriously strenuous day of radical surfing. His friends must have latched onto their own surfing memories, because they, too, were beginning to shake off the demon’s bad juju.

  “Whoahhh, bro, what just happened?” Fred asked.

  “No idea,” Larry answered, “but look!” Coming out of the ground, just a few feet in front of them, was the largest animal any of them had ever seen—a dragon, a real, authentic, not make-believe dragon. Its head was the size of a front door and rested on a long sinewy neck that was as thick as a telephone pole. Wings, tucked in and back, twitched as it rose. It was the deepest green Larry had ever seen and it kind of had a glossy look to it, like it had a glaze coating. On its underside, down its throat toward its belly, it was a shiny gold. “Dude, it’s like, beautiful!” Ramone stated for them all.

  The thing looked messed up, though, like it was drunk or still asleep. Its eyes were closed and its head swung around, rocking and dipping this way and that. Its body listed side to side, slamming into one side of the pit, then the other, causing the sides to cave in. And, all the while, the demon wound round and round the dragon.

  Larry didn’t know what it was doing, but whatever it was,
it must have hurt the dragon, because it opened up its mouth and roared in agony. The surfers covered their ears.

  “Check it,” Ramone said, “you see those fangs?”

  Fred stuck out his arm. “Pearly whites this big!”

  The ground shook again. “Forget about his teeth,” Larry said. “What are we going to do?”

  “Man, this is so bogus!” Ramone hollered. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  But, despite the commotion, Mammon seemed to realize they were awake. The demon veered toward the surfers. Fred tried to duck under the approaching smoke while both Larry and Ramone slapped the air in useless attempts to scare the demon off. Mammon soon had them surrounded in a column of smoke.

  Mammon was able to again enter each of their heads, its bright, luminescent eyes the last thing each of them saw before the negative images threatened to overwhelm them. What Mammon was not able to do no matter how hard it tried, however—not with these humans, not with these young men who would rather ride a wave than breathe—was keep those images locked in their heads. Once Larry, Ramone, and Fred latched on to their respective perfect wave, nothing else mattered. The same single-mindedness that had caused them to skip school, get fired from summer jobs for being late, miss curfews, and get grounded was just way too powerful for Mammon to overcome. Hard-core surfers, it seemed, were immune to Mammon’s influence. And now Larry and his friends knew it.

  Of course, that didn’t mean Mammon was powerless, only that it couldn’t influence their minds. Mammon called the wind, angrily pummeling the trio with clods of dirt, mud, and pine needles, punishing them for not succumbing to its influence. Larry covered his eyes with his arm and pointlessly threw a wad of mud at the smoke demon. “Come on guys,” he said, “we got to get some help.” He grabbed Ramone to pull him along, but then noticed one of his brother’s little friends struggling on the ground. “Hey, look at this little dally; it’s my brother’s friend, Joy.”