by Jan Dockter
Behind him Astrid gasped as his human body stretched then twisted into wings, tail and claws. It was a fearsome sight at any time and he worried what Astrid would think.
It was one thing to be attracted to a dragon and another to face the reality of his form.
With a metallic ring Tem’s claws clutched the cable. He glanced over his shoulder. Both Astrid’s and Evan’s eyes were wide at the sight of him.
He extended a forepaw to Astrid.
Come.
And all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER NINE
Astrid
Astrid stared at Tem in his true form and gasped. He wasn’t just beautiful; he was gorgeous. Usually dragons came in different colors, from a dusty gold to rusty brown or occasionally green, but the coloring of Tem’s scales sparkled in an iridescent deep amethyst.
His wings and forepaws deepened to ebony at their tips, while his claws glittered in the emergency lighting like onyx knifes. His gold eyes blinked at her, reptilian in shape but sparkling with intelligence.
It was the first time she had seen a dragon up close and she was awed.
The dragon extended his forepaw.
Come.
It was Tem’s voice in her head and this comforted her, but still the sight of Tem as a dragon froze her feet in place. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand what he wanted. She got that she was supposed to climb on his back and help the others there too. He meant to break jail by hauling all of them onto his form and she couldn’t for the life of her see how it could be done any other way.
But when she reached for him, a gunshot whizzed past her hand, and then another. She jerked her hand back.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The shots grew more frequent, peppering the air with whizzing hot pieces of metal meant to harm.
Tem raised his beautiful triangular head and roared. It was a sound so loud and deep that the walls shook around them. The shots stopped briefly, but when Tem began the climb on the lift cable, they started again. But then whatever he had used to stop the bullets at the first rally point of the guards, he started using again. The shots glanced off him and clinked against the walls of the lift.
Evan pulled Astrid’s arm and jerked her away from the opening, which was entirely sensible even if she wanted to watch Tem. It was an unreasonable desire to keep an eye on the dragon, because logically Tem was far better equipped to deal with the threat to their lives than she was.
But she was finding that when it came to Tem, unreasonable desire was the order of the realm.
Human screams rent the air and bodies fell to the roof of the car below with a horrible thud. Tem roared again, a challenge and warning to whoever would stop them, and the walls shook with the force of thunder.
Beside her, Calvin twitched and he groaned. Astrid didn’t know what to make of this, but it seemed that each time Tem roared it drew a response from the unconscious man.
Evan slung the man off his shoulder and held him against the wall.
“Calvin!” he called. “Calvin! Wake-up!”
The older dragon opened his eyes slowly and blinked.
“Tem?” he rasped.
“I’m Evan. Evan Waters. Tem is trying to get us out.”
“Tem,” the man said as a heavy sigh. He closed his eyes again as if utterly exhausted and Astrid gripped his hands.
“Please,” she said. “Stay with us.”
Tem boomed again and rattled the cable, daring the humans to come after him.
Calvin’s eyes flew open again. “It’s not a dream?”
“No. Tem is fighting for us,” said Astrid.
“Good. At least I won’t die here.”
You aren’t dying anywhere, old man.
In a day of surprises, Astrid was shocked again. Tem spoke not just to her, but through her to Calvin.
“What?” he said, just as surprised as Astrid.
Can you shift? asked Tem.
Calvin groaned and even Astrid could see the dragon was too weak to be helpful.
That’s okay, old man. Save your strength. Get ready. I’m coming.
Tem’s claws clinked on the cable and soon his dragon head poked through the lift opening. He shook his head, like a puppy shaking off water from its fur and gave a throaty purr. Astrid could almost swear that he was grinning.
Now.
He pushed through his forepaw and shoulder, extending them into a bridge to his broad shoulders. Astrid navigated Tem’s limb first, and was astonished to find his skin, though it looked like hard scales, was smooth, silky and elastic.
Of course, darling. Hard scales would provide too much wind resistance.
After scrambling up his leg, Astrid settled on his neck where she could sit astride, and helped pull Calvin up while Evan pushed. With Calvin seated, Evan followed.
Hang on, declared Tem. Clutch my hide.
Astrid dug her hands into Tem’s skin.
I’m not hurting you?
Sweetie, you’d have to do a lot more than that to hurt me.
“He said to grab his skin,” she called over her shoulder.
“He’s talking to you?” asked a stunned Evan. “How? I don’t hear him.”
But Astrid shook her head as Tem began his climb. His powerful shoulders moved between her legs, causing her to remember their brief time in his cell.
“Steady, sweetheart. We’ve a ways to go before we can get distracted again.”
She heard Calvin curse and Tem rumbled with displeasure behind her.
Later, later, old man. Job one is getting clear of here.
Pull by pull, moving with unholy speed, Tem took them up the length of the cable. They passed several floors where Astrid spotted men laying on the floor beyond half opened lift doors, but she couldn’t tell if they were injured or dead.
But at the topmost floor the door was flung wide open and a defiant Mrs. Parks stood there, rifle in hand. She wore protective goggles but Astrid did not see the ear plugs. Behind Mrs. Parks stood the commandant, unarmed, but he had an expression on his face that declared he should be feared. Astrid had seen his picture hanging in the hall, but this man’s face was far thinner and weaselly than his official photo indicated.
Parks pointed the rifle at Tem. It wasn’t a normal rifle but was fitted with tranquilizer darts.
“Halt, you abomination!”
Tem howled, but it wasn’t in fear. It was amusement.
“You should move away, Mrs. Parks,” called Astrid. “He’s not in a mood to be generous.”
Mrs. Parks turned a contemptuous glance to Astrid.
“I knew it. Dragon lover. We’ll hunt you down, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
“There’s a problem with that,” called Astrid. “You’ll have to catch us first.”
Tem rumbled and it sounded like agreement with her words. Then, in one fluid move, he launched from the cable and straight into Parks and the commandant. They landed with a hard oomph on the floor and Tem scrambled over the keepers. Astrid could have sworn that he was chuckling.
The dragon prowled the hallway, swiveling his head, and looking for an opening to escape the building. Astrid had not been to this part of the castle yet, but it looked like the administration wing of the building. She caught glimpses of people peeking over the tops of their desks, looking fearful and awed as they moved down the hall.
They should, she thought. Tem is awesome.
Thank you, sweetheart.
Clattering on the floors alerted them to another imminent danger. Astrid gripped Tem’s skin harder when she saw the beefy men in military uniforms stretch across the corridor. One held a grenade launcher pointed at them.
“You can’t be serious,” groaned Evan.
To their left was a set of closed double doors.
Tem. To the left.
Yes!
Tem burst through the doors as a grenade shot over his tail. The incendiary hit a wall and exploded, blasting shock waves that rattled the walls and furnitu
re in the offices to the side. But Tem kept steady on his feet as they surveyed their situation. They had entered a conference room with a table that stretched its length. The far-left wall held a wide window that overlooked the peaceful valley beyond the Hawthorne Facility. The sound of the soldiers’ boots stomping on the floor told Astrid it was a matter of seconds before they had to face this new threat.
Tem studied the window and pressed a paw against the glass. He shook his head.
I need heat, he mused.
In a swift motion, he turned to face the door, just as the soldiers appeared.
“Surrender!”
Tem snarled and slashed the air with his claws. He took one threatening step toward them.
The soldier with the grenade launcher leveled it at Tem. He fired and Astrid shrieked.
But Tem moved his head and opened his jaw wide, swallowing the grenade whole.
“Oh God, no!” cried Astrid
She felt the explosion within him, and she feared the worst, that he would be harmed or killed by the explosive. But he belched like a man who had one too many pints on a Saturday afternoon and chuckled. Then he opened his mouth and spewed a scorching line of actual fire before their attackers. Absolute fright possessed their faces as these soldiers found, to their horror, that they faced a threat for which they were not prepared.
“Retreat!”
Astrid had never seen men move so fast as they poured out the door back into the hallway.
CHAPTER TEN
Tem
“Retreat!”
Tem had never seen men move so fast as they poured out the door back into the hallway, almost falling over each other to gain their escape from the fire breathing dragon.
Any other time he’d be laughing, but the after effects of the grenade rumbled in his gut. He wasn’t supposed to eat incendiaries and because the explosives in them weren’t sulphur, he was sure he’d suffer some heartburn for this. But it was a small price to pay if they could escape.
Cover your faces!
Tem not only shared this thought with Astrid but he thrummed it to Evan and Calvin as well.
Flame spewed from his mouth, pouring on and stressing the glass. It cracked, then shattered, shards flying in all directions. Glass struck his hide, but he couldn’t worry about that now. His sharp ears had caught the sounds of additional boots filling the hallways. They didn’t have long.
Hang on! Keep your faces covered.
He fervently hoped his passengers could keep their seats. He found to his relief that Astrid was burying her face into his neck. The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt.
Tem hopped to the ledge of the ruined window and looked out onto the land and airscape. It didn’t look good. Troops massed on the ground, a helicopter spilled a searchlight on the ground. But they had few options and just this one chance. They were doomed men anyway, and it was better to die in flight, than at the end of an executioner’s blow.
He pulled on his muscled hind legs and sprung and spread his wings, hoping for an updraft. If there wasn’t one, things would be grim.
Tem was a powerful dragon at anytime, but the three others weighed him down. He struggled to keep airborne, and to do this he drew his wings in powerful but exhausting sweeps, looking to gain an air current that would carry them away.
Above them, the helicopter trained the light on Tem and he knew they were in trouble.
He banked to avoid it, to keep alight, to find an airstream that would save them. All his concentration was on this task. He could not think about the dragons he bore, or the woman he had met a day before who would now play a pivotal role in his life until his end.
Gritting his teeth, he beat the air with his wings, banked left and circled but with no luck. His heart pumped furiously in his chest as he pressed his wings into the recalcitrant atmosphere that seem determined to ground him.
Astrid caught his distress and pressed her face into his shoulder.
You can do this.
How did these five simple words fill his heart with hope? Or was it her total trust that he could not betray? He pumped harder, even as his heart felt it would burst, every wing tendon and bone straining to push against the still night air.
He was greeted with a rush of slightly warmer air and climbed. Tem rose beyond the helicopter, beyond the search lights from the ground, and gained an even warmer thermal current.
A roar filled his ears and he looked over his shoulder and swore. A military jet was on their tail and gaining fast.
We’ve got a problem, thrummed Calvin. Got any more fire left in you?
Tem’s stomach rumbled emptily.
Don’t think so.
Damn. Then you know what you have to do.
Prepare the boy, signaled Tem.
Tem had to trust that Calvin would give the necessary instructions to Evan. He had to concentrate on Astrid. He and Calvin would come through this okay, and probably Evan too, but Astrid, being human, would have the roughest time.
Astrid. When I say ‘when’ you need to take the deepest breath you can, filling your lungs and hold it, no matter what. And grip me so tight that your nails pierce my skin. And pray very, very hard that I don’t bugger this up.
Tem? He felt her fear and regretted it.
I don’t have time to explain. But trust me, first chance, I will.
Do it.
He didn’t know whether she meant his ill-defined course of action or his forthcoming explanation but the jet was getting uncomfortably close. All it would take to send them tumbling to their deaths was for the jet to edge into and disturb his airstream.
‘When!’
He heard Astrid, Evan and Calvin suck in deep breaths, and he did the same. In his mind’s eye, he called up the dimension where all things, all time, all thought existed at a single endless and all-encompassing microsecond of time.
It had been a quarter of century since he did this and dicey at the best of times. Entering the place between dimensions required utmost concentration and singular strength of will. The harrowing flight from Hawthorne tired him and if it wasn’t for Astrid on his back he might not have tried. But he wanted, no needed, her safe and this was the only way he could do so.
The entry to the place dragons called “between” was brutally sharp and heartlessly cold, and he felt Astrid shiver. But it was only a microsecond. As long as she didn’t try to breath, as long as she didn’t move, she’d be okay. He prayed for that.
Tem so needed her to be okay.
Tem!
She was beginning to panic. And he had no time to steady her. The next thing he had to do required his utmost concentration or they were all dead.
He focused on a single place, the broken spires and crumbled walls of the one safe place on Earth for Tem. If there was any real magic for dragons it was this, the ability to always center on and find this spot.
Home.
The next fall jarred all of them as they fell into the atmosphere. Dawn streaked pinks and golds at the horizon as the sun rose up from below a tall mountain range. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, but soon he knew exactly where he was.
Here? thrummed Calvin. You sure that is wise? With these two in tow? She won’t like it.
Where are we? hummed Evan.
You’ll see, Tem offered unhelpfully. He was exhausted and didn’t have it in him to offer explanations.
Tem found the ruins that served as his homing beacon and circled around them. He sensed Astrid’s curiosity, but also her unease. And he didn’t blame her. Where they were going, a human hadn’t set foot for two thousand years.
Who is that? thrummed another, more strident voice.
It is I, Tem. May I enter?
There was a long pause as if the recipient of his message was considering his request.
You may enter.
He braked and descended to a large courtyard. Like the surrounding battlements, the ground was broken. Weeds grew between crumbling flagstones as if no one lived th
ere.
That was wrong.
As Astrid, Evan and Calvin descended from Tem’s back, a cloaked woman emerged from the shadows. She approached slowly as if contemplating every second she lived and walked the Earth. Eventually she stopped in front of Tem.
“Shift,” she ordered. She regarded Tem coldly as if he was an inconvenience, but he was used to that.
Tem shifted to his human body and she looked him up and down.
“The years have not been kind,” she said simply.
“Hello,” said Astrid with annoyance. “And who are you?”
“Did you have to bring your pet?” the woman said caustically.
“Yes, I did. This is Astrid. And Astrid, this is her majesty Rhea Gentrix, Queen of the Dragons—and my Aunt.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Astrid
Rhea Gentrix lowered her hood and looked over the unlikely crew that had landed in her courtyard. She was beautiful, in human terms, with bright green eyes and straight reddish brown hair that flowed around her shoulders. But her gaze was calculating, without warmth or compassion and it added a hardness to her demeanor that was unwelcoming. Astrid now understood the complaints of some humans: that dragons didn’t have hearts.
“Captain,” she purred, holding her hands out to Calvin. “Have you come to back to our service?”
Calvin bent his head. “I serve at your pleasure.”
“Excellent,” said Rhea. “When you’ve rested from your ordeal, come and speak to me.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
She eyed Evan with suspicion.
“And who are you?”
“Evan Waters, ma’am.”
“And how did you come into this company?”
“I was in the same prison as Tem and Calvin.”
Rhea sniffed as if trying to catch a scent and frowned.
“A hybrid,” she said with disapproval. “Can you even shift?”
“I didn’t even know I had dragon heritage until I was arrested.”
“This,” she said imperiously, “is what comes of sloppy breeding.” She spoke these last words with a pointed gaze at Tem, who kept an impassive face.