Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  “Mom, I’ll always remember that he called me Lady Tam, but that you were the first one to call me Lady Tam Tam.”

  “Thorn is an amazing man and dragon, but I think next time you fall in love, it should be with a human boy who just calls you Tammy and doesn’t ask for your hand in marriage.”

  “After being romanced by Thorn, what fun would that be?” I replied.

  My mom hugged me tight and said, “You are still grounded for skipping school, young lady.”

  I groaned. “And, in the blink of an eye, I’m back to a child in your eyes again. Thanks, Mom,” I said, not holding back my sarcasm.

  “There have to be consequences for lying about where you were, more than once. I need to know the truth about that, every time! The freaking devil is chasing you and you almost burned down a college after almost burning down a high school. Do you even get that, Tammy? Do you?”

  I cringed. “I suppose so. Please don’t shout, Mother. I’m right here, and I’m not deaf. So, how long am I grounded for, this time?”

  “Until you like regular boys, ones who don’t turn into something magical,” Mom said with her own sarcasm dripping.

  I shook my head vigorously. “That will be never. After Thorn, I am always going to want to be with someone who has supernatural powers of some sort. I don’t even know what could compete with loving a dragon, or being kissed by a dragon and feeling it all the way down to my toes. He kissed me like the world was going to end any minute. I can’t imagine settling for less than him.”

  “I was afraid of that. If I can’t talk you out of that road to ruin—wishing for a supernatural boyfriend—then you’re grounded until I trust you again.”

  “What if I turn eighteen before that happens?” I asked.

  “Then it’s going to be a year-long grounding, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t even answer. I felt miserable again.

  “I have to ask. Are you developing feelings for Nick?” Mom asked more gently.

  My voice might have risen a bit when I said, “You’re worried about that because he has a kid?”

  “What do you think? Of course, I am!” Mom’s voice had a shrill note to it that was on the verge of panic.

  “Cool your jets, Mother. No, I don’t have the same kind of feelings for Nick that I had for Thorn, but I think Nick’s becoming my best friend.” I paused, and she let me talk. “If it becomes more than that for us, he has a lot to lose. And he knows it.”

  “How so?”

  “He has to get out of his shitty, gangbanger neighborhood and is going to try to get full custody of Charlie and move his mom out of the hood, too. He’s only eighteen, and he’s got so much—”

  “Baggage?”

  “Mom! People are not baggage. They are life! I held that baby, and I felt this immense love just oozing out of him. He was perfect and kind and not messed-up like other people are.”

  “You read a baby’s mind?” Mom looked shocked.

  “He doesn’t have much language yet. He’s pure emotion. He’s not jaded by reality TV or bullying at school or anxiety about the dark even.”

  “You sound like you are falling in love with Charlie. I hope you don’t want a kid of your own anytime soon,” Mom said.

  “No, I don’t! But I think I want to work with children. Help them. The ones who need, you know, emotional help. I want to be something like a shrink. A counselor. A psychologist. Plus, mind-reading my clients, so I can help them with their problems.”

  “I see. This doesn’t sound like the Tammy I know. Not one bit.”

  I cooled my own jets before I answered her. “I suppose I deserved that. It’s true that I’m not the Tammy you’ve known. I’m evolving every day. I just don’t want to be alone for my whole life, though. And constantly wondering if Thorn is dead or alive or if he found the Grail. He said if the wrong person drinks from the Cup of Forgiveness, it’s going to cause this major world collapse and the devil will take over.”

  “We are in trouble there, except that… I promise you, Thorn is on this situation with all that he is. You know he’ll persevere until his last breath to beat the devil to the Grail.”

  “I know he will, but it was still hard to let Thorn go away and not cave to begging to make him stay.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped him. Mortals cannot stop supernaturals from their missions.”

  “You don’t know that, Mom. We have a powerful connection, across worlds. Even dream worlds.”

  “I think Thorn is gone from your life, Tammy. Really gone. It could be years before you see him again. Or it could really be forever.”

  My heart was heavy, but I said, “Maybe my next boyfriend should be a vampire.”

  “Bite your tongue,” my mom said and gave me one of those death looks she’s famous for in our family.

  “How about a werewolf boyfriend?” I paused.

  “Are you freaking kidding me, young lady?”

  “Well, Mom, obviously, Kingsley’s good enough for you.”

  “More than good enough,” Mom said. “But it’s not like Fullerton is teeming with werewolves.” She paused. “That’s probably a good thing, by the way.”

  “Well, tell me this,” I said. “What do you and Kingsley do with each other when the moon is full?”

  Mom said, “Don’t get sassy with me, young lady. My werewolf boyfriend and I like our privacy. And stay out of our minds, too. Especially his.”

  “Sorry I tormented him by reading his mind.”

  “You should apologize to him, not me.”

  “Fine, I will. And I’ll just find a boy unicorn and we’ll fall madly in love and live happily ever after inside a candy rainbow. Just a virgin girl and her pretty magical horse.”

  “If you ever do find a unicorn, let me know.” Mom smiled faintly, and I could tell she knew I was teasing now.

  “I bet I can find one in one of Archibald Maximus’ books in the occult room of the Cal State Fullerton library.”

  “Don’t even think about trying that,” Mom warned me, shaking a finger with a long, pointy black vampire fingernail aimed at me. “He’s still cleaning up from the last time you were there.”

  “I did not know that.” I sighed, remembering the day I had let Thorn loose from his world.

  Anthony swaggered into the room, as he liked to do. “Mom, you better keep Tammy out of that occult book room at the Cal State Fullerton library.”

  “Why’s that, Anthony?”

  “Because she’s sure to find another magical boyfriend in there. But with her skills at picking boyfriends, he’ll probably turn out to be the devil’s spawn, or even the nasty guy himself.”

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Take that back!”

  “I won’t. Just you wait and see, Mom! Tammy’s still got some bad juju going on all around her.”

  “Shut up, little brother!” I said.

  “No way. You know it’s the truth! You freaky mind reader!”

  “You freaky brother with flaming jets for arms.” My eyes filled with tears. “Mommy, why does the devil want to mess with me anyway?”

  “He does it to mess with me, honey. If you were someone else’s daughter, he probably wouldn’t even notice you.”

  I didn’t understand. “So, the devil wants to hurt you by hurting me?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. It sucks big time, I know.”

  “And it bites, too,” I added.

  Mom smirked at my subtle sarcasm about her vampirism. “Come here, Tammy.”

  She finally hugged me in that inescapable mom hug she has. I usually hated it, but right now, I needed it badly and somehow, in her supermom mode, she totally knew it.

  “Don’t worry, Tammy. I will never, never let the devil have you.”

  “Thank you, Mommy.” Even though I knew we were in for a long haul, fighting evil at its very origins, I felt safe in my mom’s strong vampire arms. Me the mind reader… Mom, the vampire-slash-dragon… and even big dumb Anthony with his arms that shot flames, who was helpful
in life-or-death situations.

  We’re a trio of weirdo misfits with quirky supernatural powers and deep flaws. Despite all that, I vowed that nothing and no one would ever break us up. Not even the devil. Ever.

  Anthony shouldered his way between Mom and me and then turned it into a spine-crackling group hug. But I let him do it without punching him or reading his mind because—even though he usually smelled like a combination of B.O., bean burrito farts, and burnt marshmallows—what the heck, we’re family.

  Chapter 32

  THE DRAGON, THORN

  It seemed like a solid month since I had last kissed the lips of Lady Tam, my chaste beloved, though it could not have been more than a fortnight. It was a time of aching loneliness that seemed like forever, but I knew if I returned to her, that I could lose my resolve for this quest, and that I would, in turn, fail my Creator’s behest to save the Cup of Forgiveness.

  It was misfortune enough that I’d lost the Cup to Beowulf, twice, and now, I needed to retrieve it before evil incarnate got his hands on it. So, I stayed away from the beautiful Lady Tam, so as not to be tempted by her eyes, her lips, her lovely form, and her gentle words. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, even harder than seeking the Cup of Forgiveness, to give her up. I wondered if her heart was aching as much as mine.

  In my quest to find the Cup of Forgiveness, I flew high. I flew low. I flew fast. I flew slow.

  All to no avail. I had another problem, too. I was starving. Literally starving.

  The pickings for hunting were slim for a dragon who would not eat human flesh and abhorred the urban slaughter yards of the poor animals packed into feed lots who waited for their demise with fear and anger that tainted their very meat. I could not even bear the smell of the poor cattle, for their fear was an evil, living thing as they tried to break down fences and cried out at their offspring being yanked from their very teats. It was almost enough to put me off meat, though dragons must have meat to survive. The rabbits and tiny deer that I peeled from the scorching highways, road kill as Tam called it, and the birds plucked from the air, midflight, did little to assuage my deep hunger for meat, and for the Cup of Forgiveness.

  But as difficult as it was to starve, I swore that no matter how hard the famine, I would not fall to the sins of my ancestors and feed on innocent virgin humans, either to eat them or otherwise sully them. I was the last in the line of male dragons and by the Creator, I vowed that my name would be clean of murder and ravishment when I left this existence.

  However, I was becoming physically exhausted from the night flights that were farther and faster than anything I had ever done before. And during the days, I could not hunt, such was my exhaustion on two legs that I fed on what I could find for no coin in my pockets—in the bowels and dungeons of places of woe called soup kitchens and shelters.

  It was in these dire places of ill repute that I rubbed shoulders with the victims of evil incarnate—their lives ruined by drink, disease, drugs, poverty, or abuse, sometimes all of them. It was almost too horrific for me to see what the world was becoming—a plague of evils all stirred up in a pot of multitudes of weeping, starving humans—and I knew, without a doubt, that I must find the Cup of Forgiveness or die trying. For things could not continue in this way on this planet—it was unconscionable that evil was so strong in this world that it had nearly taken over the masses. It would not be long before its effects and its ilk reached the gentler, kinder folk. And how they would cope, I could not even begin to fathom.

  The world was truly ending, if I did not do something to save it.

  So, I kept on. But after a long time of an intense back-and-forth grid search of the vast area called Fullerton, I knew I would have to widen my search. I just didn’t know how wide to make my next search. Or what direction to take.

  With all my hearts, my dragon heart and my man heart, I was searching and searching for the Cup, truly baffled as to where it might be. It was difficult not to be despondent or to help also-despondent individuals who cried out in the night for food or drink or shelter. But I had no resources to share, only my heart as I begged for angels to help the unfortunate souls whose lives were on the edge of ending. I could scarcely help myself in this unwelcoming place, outside of the Moon household. It was so different from whence I came that I could not even find a cave to shelter myself and rooftops were covered with wires that stung me with some force I did not understand. Wires that, I realized, were meant to keep birds from roosting.

  I took my rest as I could, and in places as I could. There was a fortress type of building on a big hill in a park that had a lot of land around it, and sometimes they would open the roof and oh and ah at the stars with a large mirror device. Seeing the stars without her made me ache for the pleasure of her company.

  I could not bear to be parted from Lady Tam and one night, I decided to spread my wings over Fullerton again, just to see her family’s house. And on my way there, I heard in my mind the beseeching call of another dragon—and that dragon was Lady Samantha Moon. Perhaps she knew something useful about the Cup! I welcomed the call of my own species and felt my heart quicken that she was reaching out to me. Perhaps all was not lost.

  I followed her call and found her in her dragon form, perched on the edge of the roof of the Cal State Fullerton Library, like a gargoyle. Archibald Maximus stood at her side, looking rather anxious, as if someone might look up and see him standing there with two dragons.

  I touched down next to her, bumped a wing in greeting to the mother of my beloved, and nodded my head to Maximus, who nodded back.

  “Alas, the hour of the earth’s destruction is drawing nigh and still, I have not found the Cup of Forgiveness,” I told Samantha Moon in her head.

  “I didn’t think so, but I have an idea to help find the Grail,” said the lady dragon in my head. “Actually, two ideas, and Max is going to help us, too.”

  “What is your first idea?” I asked.

  “Do you want the easier path first or the harder path first?” she asked me.

  I laughed aloud as dragons only can, whistling purple smoke through my nostrils. “Give me leave of the roughest road and tell me how rocky it shall be. And how bloody I shall become when I scale the summit of it to the stars.”

  “Okay, funny-talking dragon, the tough idea first.” She paused. “I’m a crime investigator, as you may or may not know, and I have tracked the path of the Grail, from when it was taken from Beowulf at the psychiatric ward by an employee. An employee who ended up dead, burnt to a crisp; spontaneous combustion.”

  “He drank from it unworthily. His soul is forever damned.”

  “That’s my guess,” she said in my head.

  “Where is the Cup now?” I asked.

  “It was found, finally, and taken to the police evidence room, and I tried to get access to it, to examine it, through the help and intervention of my friend, Detective Sherbet. But the Grail was then stolen from the evidence room. By a cop, no less. A cop who died.”

  “No, no! Stolen again? How close and yet, so far!” I puffed out more purple smoke. “Where did it go from there, Samantha Moon?”

  “There was a trail of bodies, five of them in fact, with the same M.O., I mean—cause of death—and the last place that we know of where someone died like that, from spontaneous combustion, was at the Olinda Landfill in Brea. The burned body was found by a backhoe driver and it was determined that he burst into flames where he died.”

  “Then the Cup must be there. Please, Lady Moon, what is a landfill?” I asked, not understanding the term.

  “It’s where millions of tons per day of garbage is dumped and layered and watered and compacted by heavy equipment, machines that pack it down. And when it rots, then the liquid drains into tanks and is made into stinky fuels and byproducts of waste.”

  “The Cup of Forgiveness is in an offal pit?”

  “Maybe it is,” thought Samantha Moon. “Unless someone took it away from the body, it’s probably there near where t
he man was burned to a crisp after drinking from it, though the Grail may have gotten buried or moved by heavy equipment before his body was found.”

  “This is unthinkable. The holy Cup of Forgiveness, made by the Creator, could verily be buried in filth?” I was aghast.

  “I’m afraid so. We just don’t know if it’s still there, and where it is.”

  “But you know where the corpse was found?” I asked.

  “I have the GPS coordinates. The exact location.” Samantha paused. “It’s a dangerous place, filled with contaminated needles and broken glass, possible hazardous waste, though there’s not supposed to be anything like that there. But things get through the system.”

  “So, let us go there and dig until we find it.”

  “Wait a minute, you haven’t heard my other idea,” she suggested.

  “Ah, the easy road. What could the alternative possibly be, Lady Moon?” I asked.

  I looked at Maximus, too, then, and his face looked as hopeful as her heart that spoke to me.

  “Please, what must I do to find it?” I asked Samantha Moon.

  “Go into another world where the Grail is.”

  “But I thought it was in this world, brought in by Beowulf. And maybe sitting in a bottomless oubliette of trash and filth.”

  “It is here, but lost in this world, but it also exists in another world,” she said.

  “How can the Cup be in two worlds at the same time?” I asked.

  “It is newly created in that world by a poet.”

  “A duplicate?” I hedged.

  “Yes, a duplicate. We’re hoping that it can exist in two worlds simultaneously.”

  “But the Creator did not make this Cup of Forgiveness. A poet did. Can it be real and true?” I shook my head, trying to wrap my thoughts around that.

  “We’re hoping so. Maximus and I talked about it.”

  “How do you know it’s there, too? And if it is, how do you know its powers are true?”

  “We don’t know. We’re just guessing and hoping.”

  “I don’t know, dear dragon lady, if that would work.”