Dragon

by Finley Aaron

  Contents

  The books in the Dragon Eye Series:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A note from the author:

  And now, as promised, the first five chapters of Hydra:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Dragon

  Book One of the

  Dragon Eye series

  The books in the Dragon Eye Series:

  One: Dragon

  Two: Hydra

  Three: Phoenix

  Four: Vixen

  Five: Dracul

  Six: Basilisk

  This is a work of fiction. It is not meant to serve as an argument that dragons either do exist, or have existed. All references to historical events, real people, or actual events are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, events, and locations are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual places, events, dragons or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2014 by Finley Aaron and Henry Knox Press

  Cover Design by www.designbookcover.pt

  It’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.--Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Chapter One

  Prague, Czech Republic, September, 1993

  Something’s wrong.

  Ozzie’s growling—a deep, rumbling sound like she’s summoning a vast army, their boots echoing as they march their way up from the depths of her throat. She’s on the hall landing above the stairs, her doggy roar echoing down the steps toward the front door.

  Our flat is one of those typical old Prague apartments. Most of the first floor is the butcher shop storefront. Our door is off to the left, tucked out of the way where it doesn’t get much notice. Normally it’s nice because people don’t bother us. But under the circumstances, it’s the worst possible set-up, because I can’t see what’s on the other side of the door without going down there and looking through the peep hole.

  No way am I going down there, not with the way Ozzie’s growling.

  “What is it, Ozzie? What is it?” I whisper, as though talking at full volume might alert whatever’s on the other side to our presence, and maybe set off whatever is about to happen, which I’m convinced will be bad.

  Ozzie doesn’t blink, doesn’t turn my way or acknowledge me at all. She just lays her ears back flatter and growls more intently, as though impatient with the army that has not yet materialized, or the enemy that hasn’t had the sense to flee.

  I’d flee if I knew where to run.

  See, Ozzie doesn’t growl for anything. I’ve only ever heard her growl once before, when we were walking in a neighborhood of Prague that normally I didn’t think was dodgy, but that day made me nervous for reasons I can’t explain. Then Ozzie started this low growl, a commanding signal I couldn’t ignore.

  We cleared out of that neighborhood in a right hurry. I mean, we practically ran, which is saying something because Ozzie is a giant mixed breed mutt, mostly mastiff I guess, with equal parts Persian rug and trash compactor. She mostly eats and sleeps. She runs almost as rarely as she growls.

  The next day I read in the paper there was a shooting in that neighborhood. Three people died and a bunch more got injured. We might have been among them if Ozzie hadn’t known to growl.

  I don’t know how she knew. Dog instinct? Maybe she smelled something, a vaporous precursor of violence above the ubiquitous Czech scent of rye bread and brown gravy. All I know is, I trust her, and I take it bloody seriously when she growls.

  So since she’s growling right now for only the second time in the whole time I’ve known her, I know something has to be wrong. I feel called to action, to head out to battle, or flee, or something. The problem is, we’re at home, in our flat above the butcher shop. We’re not in a strange neighborhood. It’s not like we can just run away or hurry home.

  That terrifies me more than anything. I mean, where do you go when you’re already in the safest place you know? I guess I do know of a safer place, the village where I grew up, but I haven’t been there since I was a little girl, and I don’t know where it is. If I knew, I’d be there now.

  I’d be there in a heartbeat.

  Instead I’m here, in Prague, working as a butcher and waiting for my father to come back for me, and right now I’m gripping the doorframe in fear of whatever’s making Ozzie growl. I shuffle backward toward the kitchen, keeping one eye on Ozzie and one on the door. Once I’m just inside the kitchen doorway I reach for the phone and dial Ram’s number by memory.

  “Hello?” He answers on the first ring.

  “Ozzie’s growling.”

  “At what?”

  “I don’t know. At the front door? She’s at the top of the steps.”

  “Stay out of sight. I’m coming over.”

  Ram doesn’t say goodbye or anything. He’s just gone. I got the impression he leapt out of his front door as he finished speaking. The word “over” seemed to barely make it through before the click that meant he’d hung up the phone.

  I hang up, too, and crouch down low as though that might help. I can’t see the front door anymore from this angle, but I can see Ozzie: her ears flat, her short hair on end, the low growl almost constant, never fading but never escalating to a bark.

  I don’t know what Ram’s going to do, but I feel slightly better knowing he’s doing something. He was Ozzie’s owner before I came to Prague. He only lent her to me to keep me safe, and for company. I appreciate his gift on both counts. I’m also glad, because he seems to know that Ozzie’s growling means danger—mortal danger.

  Ram is this guy I work with. He lives across the street.

  When my dad picked me up from school after I graduated this past spring, he brought me to Prague and hooked me up with the job at the butcher shop. My father introduced me to Ram and told me to trust him.

  So I trust Ram. Also, he’s pretty enormous. Not fat, I don’t think, just really tall with these massive shoulders so that sometimes he has to turn a little sideways to fit through narrow doorways. It’s hard to say how big he is, really, because his beard adds bulk and covers pretty much everything from just below his goggles to halfway down his coveralls.

  Coveralls are like an insulated jumpsuit. We wear them in the back of the butcher shop because it’s refrigerated, so even in the summer its cold in there.

  And the goggles are because of the blood splatter, in case you’re wondering. The blood splatter from butchering. We both wear goggles, even though I don’t splatter so much because, let’s face it, I may be a pretty good butcher but I am nowhere near the slicing machine that is Ram.

  In fact, the thought of Ram in his giant coveralls splattered in blood with his crazy long beard makes me feel slightly less frightened of whatever it is on the other side of the door that Ozzie is growling at.

  If I was whatever is on the other side of the door, I would be scared of Ram.

  Just as I’m starting to feel slightly less terrified, Ozzie
stops growling. She perks her ears up and lumbers to her feet, heading down the stairs to the door, where she whines that little whine that means she wants to go out.

  I’m still in the kitchen doorway, crouched halfway between hiding and standing, because Ram told me to stay out of sight and this is all I’ve got.

  But Ozzie whines more insistently and lifts her paw like she’s going to swipe at the doorframe, so I have to do something because if she actually does swipe at the doorframe and scratches the wood it’s going to come out of my damage deposit. So I scramble down the stairs and open the door just a crack.

  Ozzie pokes her head out.

  “Get back inside.” Ram is crouching on the stoop looking at what looks to me like nothing, but then it’s pretty late in the evening and getting dark outside, so maybe there’s something there and I just can’t see it.

  Fortunately Ozzie listens to Ram and pulls her head back in, so I close the door. I don’t know what it was that was out there, but I know it was something, even if there’s nothing there now.

  Ozzie and I wait inside the doorway. I’m contemplating going back upstairs to stay out of sight, but Ram didn’t necessarily say I had to anymore, and anyway, Ozzie isn’t budging from by the door and I feel safest with her right beside me, so it’s not like I’m going to leave her side, not voluntarily.

  A minute or two later Ram raps on the door and I open it and he steps inside, sideways of course, in order to fit his shoulders through.

  He doesn’t look happy.

  It’s hard to say how I know this, because between the goggles and the beard, I can’t properly see much of his face. His black hair is long and kind of shaggy, and hangs down to the lenses in the front. I guess he sort of has a moustache, but it’s like one piece with his beard, so you can only see his mouth when he talks, and then just glinting white teeth.

  So most of the time, all you can see is his nose, which isn’t anything you’d ever notice if it wasn’t the only part of his face you can see. It’s a little hooked on the end, not like an eagle’s beak or anything too dramatic, just a little manly sort of tip. It’s neither large nor small, kind of medium-brown, either because he has a tan, or because he’s of a darker-skinned, floppy-haired sort of race—I can’t tell and I’ve never asked.

  It’s just a nose.

  And right now, it’s ever-so-slightly crinkled in a way that tells me Ram is not happy.

  “They fled as I opened my door,” he informs me in his ultra-deep voice that resonates from the vast recesses of his cavernous chest. “They’re gone now.”

  “Who?”

  Ram shakes his head. “You didn’t see them?”

  “I’ve been inside since we left work. Ozzie started growling. That’s when I called you.”

  “Smell this, but stay out of sight.” Ram opens the door and steps out just far enough for me to stick my head out and sniff. He stands in front of me so no one outside can see me.

  We step back inside quickly.

  “Did you smell it?”

  I nod, trying to place the smell. It reminds me a little bit of the bugs that used to land on a halogen lamp in one of the classrooms at school. The heat from the lamp would fry them and they’d stink with an obnoxious, burning sort of stink.

  It’s like that stink, but without the burning, and fainter. And sort of evil…if evil has a smell.

  The odor tugs at a memory I’ve tried to suppress, of the time when I was eight and my whole world changed.

  A time of fear.

  And hiding.

  And darkness.

  I push the memories away.

  Ram gives me an intent look, which is pretty impressive when you consider I can’t see his eyes due to his ever-present goggles. It’s basically just the angle of his head and the way his nostrils flare ever-so-slightly. “If you smell that again, let me know immediately.”

  “What if you’re not around?”

  “Get to a safe place. Keep Ozzie with you at all times. Follow her lead.”

  Ram looks up the stairs. He seems to weigh something, as though he’s trying to make a decision. Then he looks at me again, the same look that captures my attention and makes me think the danger he chased from my doorstep is still uncomfortably close. “I want you to pack a bag.”

  “Are we going somewhere?” A heady swirl of hope surges inside me—when my father left me in Prague, he said I’d stay here until he comes to get me and bring me home.

  Home.

  Leaving Prague means going home, the one thing I want more than anything.

  “We may have to,” Ram acknowledges with tangible reluctance. “For now, this is still the safest place for you. If we have to go, it may be on a moment’s notice, and you won’t have time to pack, or a chance to return. Put everything you care about and everything you need in a bag. Have it ready at hand so you can grab it and run if you have to.”

  My heart thumps with a beat that’s more excited than afraid. “How will I know if I need to run?”

  “I’ll tell you. Don’t attempt to go alone. Don’t go anywhere alone. You’ll go with me. I—” He pauses, looks around the beat-up old hallway with its flaking paint and lone light bulb. His voice drops a little, edged with an uncertainty I’ve never heard in his words. He’s always so sure of himself, except for now. “This is still the safest place for you.”

  For a few seconds I study his face, but the light is dim and he is mostly goggles and beard. To be honest, I don’t really know this man. I’m sure I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw his face clean shaven. I don’t even know how old he is. Older than me, surely, but not a whole lot older. He doesn’t have any white hairs and he doesn’t show any sign of going bald. Also, he’s pretty spry. I’d be surprised if he was over thirty.

  Not that it matters. All that matters is that my father told me to trust him, so I trust him.

  With my life.

  He turns toward the door. Pauses. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I can’t help thinking he’s better equipped to answer that question than I am, but I muster up a smile that’s supposed to be confident. “I’ll be fine.”

  Ram slips sideways through the doorway. As he pulls the door closed after him, a wave of that strange smell from the stoop hits me with a whoosh, slapping to life the memories that were awakened when I sniffed outside the first time.

  The terrified screams.

  Running in darkness.

  Hiding in caves and tunnels.

  Hungry.

  Scared, so scared.

  And I realize the answer I just gave him was probably a lie, but he’s gone now, and I’m not going outside to tell him I changed my mind.

  Ozzie heads up the stairs toward bed beside me, but even her steps seem wary.

  Chapter Two

  My dreams are filled with the kind of stomach-churning anxiety that cut my childhood short at age eight, memories screaming like the winged creatures whose breath lit the night sky as I fled in terror.

  Did I really see dragons that night?

  I have feared them ever since.

  Tonight they swoop through my nightmares, startling me awake too many times. I lie in bed panting, my thoughts swirling with theories.

  Who am I?

  What happened to my hometown?

  All I know is, when our village was attacked, I spent three days in the caves with the other women and children from the village. Then my father came and took me away to Saint Evangeline’s School for Girls on the Northumberland Coast of England, where it was foggy with dreary rain and I didn’t know anyone, but worst of all, after going barefoot nearly all my life until then, I was forced to wear shoes.

  Saint Evangeline’s is supposed to be one of the safest schools on earth. That’s their main selling point--safety. Sure, you get an education while you’re there, but everyone attends because of their claims of safety. You can get an education at a prison, too, which is what Saint Evangeline’s rather felt like.

  Not that I’ve ever been to pr
ison, but considering we had to wear uniforms and everything, and couldn’t leave, and considering it’s surrounded by high stone walls and armed security guards, I figure the only real difference between the school and a prison, are the inmates.

  The girls who go to Saint Evangeline’s come from families who are willing to pay for safety—the Daughters of Privilege, I always called them, but never out loud. They’re descended from royalty, actresses, CEOs of major corporations, pop singers, dictators, supermodels, and drug kingpins. Sometimes all in one family.

  I’ve always wondered which group my father belongs to, but he’s never let on. I never knew my real last name. When he enrolled me at Saint Evangeline’s, my dad put me down under the last name Smith, which I’m pretty sure he picked because it’s so generic. So that’s no help.

  I can only guess based on what I can remember, which isn’t much. Dad made it a point to never refer to our town by name, only as “home” or “the village.” All I know about my homeland is that it’s sunny there, with mountains and a great sea, I think to the east.

  And I know it’s too dangerous for me to return.

  It could be anywhere in the world. For a long time, based on my dark hair and brown skin, I thought perhaps Central America. Perhaps my father is a drug kingpin or dictator. But when I graduated and my father came to get me, he brought me as far as Prague and told me it wasn’t safe to go any closer to home.

  So perhaps my homeland is in the Balkans? I know Yugoslavia has been plagued by war. Bosnia, Croatia, and other regions whose names change with the pages of the calendar. Perhaps one of them is my home.

  I don’t know. But I won’t find the answers inside my flat, and from what I understand, the danger is no longer content to keep me from my home, but is now seeking me out. It’s no longer safe, not even here.

  For once, not even my aching muscles or my dread of the cold stalls my steps as I dress for work and wash down a couple of runny eggs with black coffee.

  Ozzie is reassuring (especially because she’s not growling), but I just want to see Ram. He can be properly terrifying with all his butcher’s swords strapped on, but he’s on my side. That makes all the difference.