by Pieter Lars
“You’ll regret those tattoos when you’re eighty!” Samantha called through the door. She winked at Tom.
Samantha had her own tattoos, but they were in places most people would never get to see.
Tom had seen them though. Many times.
He winked back at her. She reached over and smacked him on the butt and they both went back to work.
“Have any big plans for the weekend, young man?” Mrs. Garmin asked. She was sitting in Tom’s office looking as pleasant and as friendly as always.
Mrs. Garmin was one of Tom’s very favorite clients. Ever since he had helped her with her homeowner’s insurance and they had battled parasitic slugs in her garden.
Always impeccably dressed, today she was wearing a sage green pantsuit with light gray gloves and a matching derby hat. She had a little brooch pinned to her lapel. It looked like a diamond, stretched horizontally, with an eyeball in the center.
Probably some women’s club, like the Rotaries or Kiwanis.
“Well, I suppose it depends on how bad this Cosmic Horror business gets. I would have thought the NEA would have given us something to combat the voices, and the depression…”
“Oh, yes. Well, you can’t always count on the government,” Garmin replied.
“I guess that’s true. So, what can I help you with today, Mrs. Garmin?” Tom gave her his best smile, which she returned.
“Aren’t you going to offer me Insurance Against the Dark Arts, or some other nonsense?”
“Nope. First of all, we don’t actually offer anything like that. And second of all, it wouldn’t do you much good next week, would it?”
Garmin grinned at him and smoothed her skirt. “That is precisely why I keep asking to see you, Mr. Brown. Instead of that horrid creature, Mr. Grossman. He’s always trying to up sell me. Is that how you put it?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I detest dishonesty, and I usually detest salesman, but you are somehow different.”
“Well, I appreciate you saying that. I try my best. Grossman is.... well, he’s a bit old school, I think. He would probably do better selling used cars. In any case, he’s indisposed this week.”
“Oh? Has he taken ill?” She asked this with a bright-eyed smirk, as if she couldn’t think of anything she would like more than to hear that Grossman had taken ill.
Tom liked her more and more each time he saw her.
“He seems to have...uh...joined a cult. Or maybe he’s trying to start his own. It’s unclear.” Tom opened his mouth to say more when there was a crash from the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of Samantha screaming.
“Oh, my goodness! What was that?” Garmin asked.
Tom lept to his feet and rushed into the hallway.
The supply closet door was open, and a trail of black toner powder stretched down the hall towards reception.
He followed it, his heart thudding in his chest.
He turned the corner to see Grossman standing on the reception counter in all his supply closet glory.
His trash bag cloak was tattered and torn, his staff raised in one tattooed hand, the ritual scissors in the other.
“MY TIME HAS COME, SAMANTHA! YOU SHALL JOIN MY CAUSE, JOIN YOUR VOICE TO AZAROTH. OR. YOU. SHALL. DI-”
Samantha threw her stapler at him and it bounced off his forehead to clatter to the floor. “Shut up, you washed-up freak! Nobody wants to join your stupid cult!”
As if in response, the sky suddenly darkened, washing the lobby in that same unearthly red glow.
The Voice fell over them and they each clutched their hands to their temples (except Grossman, he raised his head and started laughing):
Lo’ Ban’dwiith plee’z konnta’kt Yoh’r Nhetwr’rk Ahd’myn’strahtr. Yhuw ‘ha’v’e reec’ht thi’ss pay’g beek’uz theh’r Iz’a prohb’lim vith Yoh’r nhetwr’rk Kohn’ek’shun
The dread settled over Tom like a crashing wave. Tears streamed down his face. He looked up to see Samantha looking back at him with that same strange expression from earlier in the week. He suddenly felt that she was looking into his past, his present, and his future, and she found it all wanting.
She was going to leave him. He knew it. He knew it just as sure as he knew that he would be stuck in this office, stuck in this job, stuck in this town for the rest of his lame life.
Then everything froze.
Tiny, quick footsteps sounded from the hallway behind him. He felt a gloved hand on his shoulder, pushing him away. He tried to turn his head to see who it was, but only his eyeballs moved.
Mrs. Garmin stepped past him and around the reception counter to stand in front of Grossman, her hands on her hips.
Grossman was frozen in mid-shout, his head raised and his mouth opened wide, black spittle hovering in the air by his lips. Samantha moved her eyes to Mrs. Garmin, then to Tom, then back to Grossman.
Mrs. Garmin opened her mouth and as she did the noise in the office faded, like the volume knob had been turned all the way down. There were black tears running down her cheeks, just like Grossman.
Not her, Tom thought. She was so nice.
Mrs. Garmin took a few steps towards Grossman and jabbed him in the chest with her pointer finger. His eyes swiveled down to watch her.
“You shall shut your lousy trap, you imbecile!” She shouted. “I mean, honestly, taking in with a half-assed Cosmic Horror that hasn’t even mastered the speech of the Elder Gods!? You’re a disgrace! Back in my day we had to learn R’yglean tongue before we could even think of joining a cult! And never mind your silly robes. You look like an idiot!”
Pain surged in Tom’s head, and the Cosmic Horror spoke from the void:
Do’naught spek tohme sarvinnd ‘nthad wa’ye yuh arghn’d my mader!
Mrs. Garmin raised her hands and spoke some strange incantation. It sounded like Portuguese, maybe? In any case, her eyes flashed with white light and she actually growled. When she did the pain receded from Tom’s head.
The Cosmic Horror seemed to gasp:
Wha’t a’re yu dhoing!?
“I’m sending you back to the Nether, you amateur. What are you speaking? Half-Gaelic, half-R’yglean? Of course you tried to possess that idiot.” She nodded to Grossman who was still frozen mid-scream. “He was the only one dumb enough to be taken in. I don’t know what I was thinking, getting all excited for Cosmic Horror week. Thought maybe I’d have an actual challenge on my hands, but of course the only Horrors coming to Phoenix are cut-rate weaklings.”
She spat. She actually spat. Right onto the ground. She waved her hands and wiggled her fingers like she was trying to make arcane shadow puppets.
The Cosmic Horror shrieked. It was loud and sharp in the back of Tom’s head. His fillings felt hot and he tasted pennies.
But then the darkness was gone, from the sky and his mind. His doubts and insecurities, the weight on his heart, lifted and disappeared. The red light receded from the sky and it once again took on its natural, smoggy hue.
Samantha gasped. “Wow, Mrs. Garmin! You’re awesome! Are you a wizard or something?”
Mrs. Garmin winked at her. “Ladies Auxiliary of the Otherworldly Defence Order. Been a dues paying member for decades.”
“How did you learn to do all that?” Tom asked.
Mrs. Garmin waved a dismissive hand. “That? That was nothing. You should have seen me back in the fifties. I went on a mission to Siberia once and we fought a real cosmic horror. Not these noobs that keep popping up nowadays.”
Samantha looked at Tom and blinked. Noobs? She mouthed.
Tom shrugged. For all he knew Mrs. Garmin played video games all weekend. She obviously had some hidden layers.
“Now, please pardon me,” Mrs. Garmin said. “I’m going to the lady’s room to freshen up a bit. I’ll see you back in your office, Tom.”
She turned and snapped her fingers. Grossman coughed. He looked down at his hands, at his trash bag cloak, and gasped.
“What did you do to me!?” he shouted.
Grossman blinked. He scratched his head, then looked down at his tattooed hands. “Oh, my God,” he muttered. “That wasn’t a dream? How am I going to get these marks off me?”
Samantha reached into a drawer and pulled out a baby wipe. “Try this,” she said, winking at Tom.
Grossman snatched it out of her hand and ran down the hall to his office.
When he was out of earshot Tom and Samantha both started cracking up.
“Oh, man,” Tom said. “I can’t wait to see what he does when he realizes it’s permanent…”
3
Dragon Swarm
“Zip me up,” Samantha said. Her voice was muffled by the helmet’s faceplate.
“You sure these are safe?” Tom said. “I thought they were made of asbestos. I’ve seen all those mesothelioma commercials. I have no interest in joining a class action lawsuit. Those people never see a dime.”
“Tom. You’ll be fine. They aren’t made of asbestos anymore. If you had read the NEA brochure you would have seen that they are made of ‘vacuum-deposited aluminized materials.’ They probably knew people like you wouldn’t want to put them on.”
“What do you mean ‘people like me’?” Tom asked.
He was fumbling with the zipper at the back of Samantha’s fire proximity suit. The gloves on his were a bit too large, and he couldn’t get a good grip.
“Nervous Nellies,” Samantha replied. “The kind of people who are afraid of going outside in a dragon swarm.”
“See, in my mind, that should be everyone…”
Tom really didn’t want to go out in the dragon swarm. So far it had been relegated to the desert outside of town, but he just knew that it was only a matter of time before they descended on the city and started burning cars and palm trees and household pets.
He hadn’t seen any in person, but there were plenty of videos online. He was content with that.
But, if he was honest, he knew that this day was coming. You can’t date an animal-lover like Samantha and not expect to get dragged out on a dragon watching expedition. She had found an online forum filled with other enthusiasts and, as it turned out, the local Catholic Church - St. George Parish - was hosting a weekend outing.
Tom consoled himself with the knowledge that there would be a potluck after. He had made his famous olive-stuffed cheese balls, which he hoped would be a hit.
“Don’t you want to bring your camera?” Tom asked.
Samantha shook her head. “No. I don’t want it getting melted. Besides, there will be way better photos online. I kind of think watching them through a camera lens takes away from the intimacy, don’t you?”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “I sure don’t. I am sure-as-hell not getting intimate with any dragons today. I will stay within binocular range, thank you very much.”
Samantha sighed. “Nervous Ninnie.”
“Nervous Nellie, you mean?”
“That too.”
Tom drove to the Painted Desert Visitor Center while Samantha pored over the NEA booklet, entitled: A Guide to Recognizing Common Varieties of Draco Majoris.
Supposedly, it had entries for every dragon subspecies that they could observe in the Southwest region.
Tom had his in his shoulder bag. He had only flipped through it once. All he needed to know was which dragons could fry him to a crisp, and he trusted that Samantha would point out all the others.
They parked in the visitor lot and joined the gathered crowd. Someone was holding a sign on a pole that read: Saint George Parish Dragon Watchers! Tom and Samantha fell in with the group. Everyone was wearing the same silver fire-retardant suits. Some, like Tom, carried binoculars. Others carried fire extinguishers and thick wool blankets. There was an air of excitement, and muffled greetings were exchanged between the many participants.
The plan was to hike to Kachina Point where, according to some of the veteran watchers, the most variety of Draco Majoris had swarmed.
Tom and Samantha followed the crowd through the parking lot and onto the trail. Their guide was a tiny woman with red hair and glasses. She must have been in her eighties, but was still spry and bright-eyed. There was a small speaker hanging from her neck and her helmet was wired with a microphone. As they hiked toward the Point she called out some of the sights along the trail, including various plants.
Or, to be more accurate, the charred remains of various plants.
“The blackened tree up on those rocks to our left was once a juniper. You can tell by the twisted shape of its branches. The natives would use the juniper for a variety of things, both medicinal and practical.”
They turned a corner on the trail.
“All of these smoldering trees around us use to be pinon pines. Some of you may know that the pinenut was an important staple in the diets of local natives.”
They turned another corner. “Normally you can see some nice stratification on those rocky hills, but all the charring seems to have obscured it.”
“Where are the dragons?” Someone shouted from the back.
The guide turned. “Don’t worry. We’ll see them soon. It’s still early and, as with most reptiles, they become more active as the day starts to warm.”
She bent and picked something up from the ground. It was a large pile of what looked like muddy rocks. “If you gather around, I have a nice example of dragon scat here. Probably from one of the McCaffreys, judging by the pebbled surface and the bits of coyote skull.”
“Isn’t scat another word for poop?” Tom asked Samantha, but she didn’t answer. She was craning her neck to see over the people in front of her.
Tom opened his NEA pamphlet and turned to the page marked Draco McCaffricus.
Commonly known as “McCaffreys”, these medium-sized, six-limbed dragons are much smaller than their cousins, the LeGuins, and just a fraction of the size of the Ancalagons. Despite their size they can still be extremely dangerous, as they prefer to hunt in packs.
While most species of Draco Majoris have evolved some sort of vocal communication, the McCaffreys are the only known species that communicate entirely non-verbally. Some theories suggest they have developed rudimentary telepathy.
Their flame-breath reaches temperatures equivalent to a charcoal fire (750-1200 degrees celsius).
Samantha had moved up through the crowd to stand next to the guide. Tom looked around for any sign of a McCaffrey swarm. They had almost reached Kachina Point. The landscape was made up of mesas and buttes and vast swathes of desert, all of it scorched and black. Smoke rose from some of the shrubs, and there was a pile of what looked to be burned animal bones.
Still though, there was no sign of the dragon swarm. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not. He had come all this way after all.
“I sure hope we haven’t missed them,” Samantha said to him. She was back at his side.
“Maybe they left the area,” he replied.
“The guide says that the scat was fresh, which is a good sign. She let me hold it.”
“That’s gross,” Tom said.
“I have gloves on…” She looked up at him. “You OK, Tom?”
He looked down at her and realized he was frowning. He forced a smile and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. “Yeah. I’m OK. Just thinking about stuff.”
“Your NEA application?” she asked. Her arm was around his waist and even through the suit he could feel it tense up.
“Yeah.”
“Will you take the job if they offer it?”
He shrugged and she pulled away, turning to look over the desert with her back to him. “Hey, Sam. Listen. I haven’t even passed the screening rounds. I’m not going anywhere for the time being, so don’t wo-”
A shadow fell across the gathered crowd and there was a collective gasp.
There was a loud roar, a flap of leathery wings. Tom looke
d up to see an enormous red serpent soar overhead toward a distant mesa. It was the size of a garbage truck, with four long, muscular limbs and a wingspan that was at least fifty yard across.
“It’s a Le Guin!” Samantha shouted. The rest of the watchers were chattering happily, some with their cameras and binoculars raised, others with fire extinguishers at the ready.
Tom flipped a page in his book, found the correct entry, but only had time to scan a couple sentences: The noblest of all the Draco Majoris, the Le Guin hunts alone, preferring to perch high where it can observe its lower-ranked brethren.
The Le Guin had a crown of black horns framing its face. Its scales were a deep crimson and its throaty roar sounded like a monster truck. It let out a long jet of orange flame, and even at a distance Tom could feel the heat.
A scrabbling sounded from the rocks below. Tom followed the other watchers to the edge of the path and looked down to see a squat green dragon emerging from a pile of dirt and rocks. This one had stubby legs, short wings, and green and black scales in a diamond pattern.
He flipped through the NEA book, excitement taking over. It was a Fafnir, known for having poison breath. Mostly harmless to humans, but excellent at taking down small game. The Fafnir pivoted its triangular head up to look at the gathered watchers, let out a puff of green gas, then trundled further down into an arroyo.
Some of the watchers were pointing and trying to shout over each other. Tom followed their gaze to see a swarm of a dozen dragons hovering over a distant butte. They circled and whirled around each other in a sort of dance, breathing gouts of orange fire. Each of them was a distinct color, ranging from a bluish-gray to an ember orange. He looked down at his book. These were the McCaffreys, he realized. Finally.
They were beautiful in a way, with their silent, synchronized flight. Their passage startled a group of three pronghorn who had been hidden away in a ravine. The deer ran across the flat desert and one of the McCaffreys swooped down, taking one in its jaws. It carried it high into the air and let it go. As it fell the others circled it, breathing their fire, cooking it until it landed in the desert ash.