by Bryan Fields
I sat down next to Rose and handed her a bottle of water. Across the room, Ember was still lit up like a Hanukkah bush. I leaned over and whispered, “What was all that about?”
“I had to make sure of her. To know her mind was whole, and that her spirit was healthy. She is whole, so I set a beacon in her. You’re seeing her the way one of my people will see her. One of us will be drawn to her.” She leaned against me. “Good companions are hard to find, so when we find one, we mark them for those yet to come. That’s how I found you.”
Suddenly, a great many things made a lot more sense. “So, when did I meet the Dragon who lit me up?”
“I have no way of knowing. Probably only a few days before we met.” She yawned. “I’m sorry. That spell uses a lot of energy. Do you mind if we go home?”
“Not at all.” I made our excuses, got our gear packed back into our bow cases, and we headed out into the night. I loaded the cases into the back of the Range Rover while Rose checked the back seats. Satisfied that the car was safe, we got in and set out for home. I had just turned out of the parking lot when something like a small storm cloud materialized ahead of us, right along the double yellow line.
A woman walked out of it, taller than I am, burnished platinum hair, muscled like an Amazon warrior, wearing Daisy Duke cut-offs and a flannel shirt tied at the midriff. I hit the brakes and opened the window.
She stopped and looked in the window. He mouth opened, but only Draconic came out. She shook her head and tried again. “I felt a mark. Location you have?”
I pointed to the range. “In there. All yours.”
She inclined her head toward us. “Gratitude.” She turned and started walking toward the range entrance.
“Ember is going to love her.” Rose leaned against the glass and sighed. “I bet someone freaks out.”
I smiled. “Yeah, but that just makes it a better story.” Little did I realize the extent to which that statement would apply to our lives in the coming weeks.
Chapter Three
Battle Lines
The next day, I took Rose to the mall for an assortment of string bikinis and tan-through swimwear. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but I was hoping it would be enough to cool things down and avoid wholesale war with the neighbors.
We also met with a volunteer victim advocate from the police department. She brought over the forms Rose needed to file to request a restraining order and helped her fill them out. The advocate didn’t seem to feel comfortable around me, so I stayed in my office and worked. She did ask Rose if I was forcing her to sunbathe or not allowing her to work; it might sound strange or insulting to suggest things like that, but given the reality of people being imprisoned in basements and back yards for years at a time, her line of questioning made sense.
The Brundles’ lawyer called us the next day, asking if we would be willing to work out a settlement in exchange for a plea deal that would keep Mavis off the sex offender registry. I told him we wanted a full written apology, and to have access to their computers and cameras in order to verify that the pictures were in fact deleted. We also wanted a clause that the Brundles accepted full responsibility if the pictures ever resurfaced, from any source. I didn’t think they would accept everything, but I didn’t want to get a lawyer ourselves unless it became absolutely necessary.
After two days of peace and quiet, I thought we had everything in hand with the Mavis issue. Then the first violation notice arrived.
We have a bed of wild flowers along the front of the house, grown from the seeds we’d received at Sharon’s funeral a few months ago. It has a low brick border around it, arranged in a herringbone pattern as specified in the HOA bylaws. I also had a garden plan, signed and approved by the HOA. It even had Mavis’ signature right in the middle of it. The garden plan clearly says ‘assorted wildflowers’ and cites the section of the bylaws approving ornamental wildflowers.
Our wildflowers were now considered weeds. The brick border was also in violation because it was installed right to left instead of left to right, which is what happens when you follow the directions they provided to us. Our options were to rip everything out in twenty-four hours or face a daily fine until we complied.
I called the HOA board and asked to get on the agenda for the next meeting so I could appeal the notice. They refused, since the time allotted for new business was full. We couldn’t get an appeal heard for six weeks. I filed a four-letter protest and signed up. I had a feeling this was some kind of retaliation, but we didn’t have enough documentation to prove anything.
Another week passed without incident. We had a tentative agreement worked out for settling with Mavis, and all had been quiet on the western front. Our next-door neighbor, Kim, asked Rose to watch her kids one afternoon while she went out to take her real estate license exam. Rose has fun playing with kids (their energy gives her a catnip high), so she was happy to oblige.
I can work with a naked Dragoness outside my window, but not with three little girls rampaging through the house while wound up on pony power. I have limits. Sue me. Rose knows this, so she got out the sidewalk chalk and drew a picture of herself as a hatchling, looking something like a chubby Labrador puppy wearing clown shoes. She also drew a red male hatchie that she named Ethan. The girls drew lots of rainbows, stars, and sparkles around them before deciding they needed books, desks, and a Teacher Dragon, all so they could be in Dragon Kindergarten.
They also drew a cartoon strip along the sidewalk explaining why playing leapfrog with a unicorn is a bad idea. I would have thought that piece of information would have been self-evident, but I was wrong. Apparently, unicorns are sneaky beasts that enjoy poking humans in the butt, a pastime little girls find endlessly hilarious. When dinner rolled around, I grilled us a mess of hot dogs and we sent the kids home with pictures of all their artwork. None of it survived the lawn sprinklers running during the night.
The next day, I found a little white envelope from the HOA taped to our front door. Inside it was a citation for graffiti and unauthorized signage on our property. The ‘Dragon Kindergarten’ sign and the number of kids outside playing was cited as proof we were running an unauthorized business out of the house. They hit us for three hundred bucks in fines for each violation.
We were supposed to have a settlement meeting this afternoon to put the Mavis business behind us. I called Mavis’ lawyer and told him where to stick his settlement offer, then went out and lawyered up. Our lawyer succeeded where we failed and got us on the agenda for the next board meeting. Attending meant skipping archery practice, but this took priority.
When we got to the meeting, the only people there were an off-duty cop, two other homeowners, and the board. An hour and a half of the meeting was taken up with the reading and justifications of a load of expense reports and funding requests for various projects, all of which were rubber-stamped without any challenge. We homeowners were not allowed to even ask questions about the expenses, since all this was board business.
When our turn came, I went up to the podium, armed with a very nice prepared statement and some case law citations our lawyer had put together for us. Before I could say anything, Ralph Tennyson, the President of the HOA, killed the power to my microphone.
He said, “Mr. Fraser, your petition to the board is noted, but at this time you cannot be allowed to speak due to the existence of pending litigation against a member of this board. We must ask you to leave due to the restraining order you yourself requested.” He gestured to the cop. “Officer, would please show Mr. Fraser and his associate out?”
The cop stood up. “Sir, whatever you’re thinking right now, I’d advise you to walk it off and call your attorney. Don’t make things worse than they are.” He held the door open for us, and I walked out without saying anything.
Because, right then, the thing I most wanted to say was, “Burn them.” Thankfully, none of them said anything as we left. I was afraid that one word would have been enough for me to ask Rose to burn them
down. I could have done it. I wanted to do it. I could feel Rose’s rage and readiness as well. All she was waiting on was a single word.
As hard as it was, I walked out the door and into the night. Even at times like this, I believe intellect and romance will triumph over brute force and cynicism, no matter how much I want to hoist the Jolly Roger and start slitting throats.
Rather than just check the back seat of the car to make sure it was empty, Rose put the seats down and climbed into the expanded cargo area. She pulled a blanket over herself before starting to undress. “Can we go to Estes Park? I need to feed. I need the sky.”
I nodded and started the engine. “All right. One serving of elk tartar, coming right up.”
As we drove up, I tried not to listen to the cracking and popping noises coming from the back of the Range Rover. Resuming her true form wasn’t easy, due to the mass difference, but I admit I was anxious to see what she looked like. I patted my new cell phone as I drove. This might be my only chance to photograph a Dragon, and I wanted a trophy to show off on social media. Hell, people will think it’s CGI anyway.
I turned off Highway 36 at Lake Estes and parked in the most secluded spot I could find. I didn’t look at Rose; I just opened the liftgate and let her out. She rolled out onto the ground and inflated like a life raft. I stepped back as, for the first time, I saw the real Rose Drake.
She was around fifty feet, snout to tail-tip, lean and leggy as a cheetah. Her wing membranes expanded and contracted as she stretched, allowing her to use different amounts of wing surface for different kinds of flight. Her tail was long and thin as a whip, crowned by a gleaming, bony blade as long as my arm. Only her eyes were familiar, glowing gold, streaked with lapis blue.
I took a few pictures and got out of her way. She spread her wings and shot into the sky as though launched from a cannon. Other than the first few wing beats, she was all but silent as she flew. She swung back and passed over the lake, but stayed out of the water. No sense making a big splash for a small fish.
I watched until she vanished into the darkness. I closed the car up and went to find a late-night place where I could wait for her.
Chapter Four
Creatures of the Night
As mountain towns go, Estes Park is fairly large. Still, finding a late night place took a bit. Judging from the number of weathered pickup trucks in the parking lot, I assumed it was well-patronized by the locals, which I took as a good sign regarding the quality of the food. I could feel Rose miles away to the west, so I headed in.
You know the song about the long-haired musician walking into a bar? I’d forgotten about my hair. All of a sudden, I was that guy, with a room full of ranch hands and high-country cowboys giving me the hairy eyeball. I crossed the room to the only table where I could sit with my back to the wall and grabbed a menu. After a few seconds, everybody went back to doing what they were doing and the waitress set a hot cup of coffee in front of me. I suppose I should have realized: towns that depend on tourism to survive encourage politeness to strangers.
Still, when a dozen guys wearing shit-kickers and cowboy hats stood up and started walking toward me, my pucker factor shot up to the point where I damn near lost the seat cushion. They were going out onto the deck to smoke, but realizing that didn’t help much.
I expected to be at the diner for at least two or three hours. Just over an hour after I arrived, though, we started seeing police cars rushing toward the mouth of the Big Thompson Canyon. At first people thought it was a rockslide. Then word came over the police scanner that a body had been found.
In the middle of the commotion, Rose skipped into the diner wearing someone else’s sweatpants and flannel shirt. “I’m going to get a job,” she announced.
After the guy at the table next to us finished giving me the Heimlich and the restaurant patrons returned to their meals, I leaned closer to Rose. “I thought working for a living was unthinkable and degrading?”
Rose tossed back half of her beer. “I’m not going to be working for a living. This is for revenge. That’s totally acceptable.”
Makes sense. I said, “What are you going to do?”
Rose smiled, showing teeth that hadn’t quite reverted to Human yet. “I’m going to become a cryptid. I’ve already begun phase one. Did you know there’s a monster on the loose?”
I have a long memory for catastrophes, so I prefer not to drive through Big Thompson Canyon if I can help it. However, we hadn’t had rain for a week, so the odds of a flash flood were low. I headed that way, but let the police turn us around. I still got a decent look at Rose’s handiwork.
Three elk carcasses were scattered over someone’s yard and onto the banks of the river. The police were shining their lights up the cliff face looking for more elk scraps. They found them. It looked as though Rose had perched at the top of the cliff and dropped the elk parts like bones from a Thanksgiving turkey.
“I made lots of tracks up there, and a really nice set in the middle of the elk pasture.” Rose laughed, low and throaty. “You can’t post those pictures of me yet. You’ll get to take some more, I promise.”
The next day, Rose’s leftovers were all over the news. A spokesman for the Department of Wildlife spent a lot of time reassuring people that the killings hadn’t been done by wolves. The Estes Park police spokeswoman said it was being treated as a poaching case and possibly an elaborate prank. She even compared it to the stories of the two guys in England who claimed to have made the first crop circles. The homeowner who found the elk parts had gotten a two-second film clip of Rose in his front yard. It was nice and blurry, wasn’t focused on her, and showed one wing moving in silhouette as she took off. It was exactly the kind of bad photography that puts conspiracy theorists into overdrive.
Just as we’d hoped, the cryptozoology folks went ape-shit (Yeti-shit?) over the film and the tracks. The prints and parts Rose had left at the top of the cliff could only have been left there by an expert technical climber with a big winch, or someone in a helicopter. There was no indication of either at the site and none of the people living in the area had heard anything prior to the homeowner hearing a ribcage land on his roof.
The crypto forums we checked out were eating it all up. The leading theory for the moment revolved around a previously unknown form of winged chupacabra. For now, no one was mentioning the word ‘dragon’. The only thing that worried me was the team from C.U. Boulder making plaster casts and measurements of the claw prints in the pasture. Nothing would ruin our little hoax faster than incontrovertible proof.
The day also brought another citation from a different HOA member. Our herb garden in the back yard—which is in containers along our patio—was also classified as ‘noxious weeds.’ The HOA normally has no real say in what you do in your backyard, the major exception being, you guessed it, weed control. We were ordered to tear them out or face more daily fines.
I was still angry about the board meeting, but before we started the next phase, there was something I needed to do. Just because my code of ethics is based on a fictional character doesn’t make it any less real. I had to give them a choice. I called Mavis’ lawyer and asked him to present one final offer. Stop what they were doing, dismiss the bogus citations, and we would work with them on a plea deal. He had already been instructed to refuse any attempt to negotiate.
“Know this, and remember it,” I said. “Whatever happens now is your responsibility. When you look back, never forget one thing: you could have stopped this.” I hung up and called our lawyer.
We got a hearing for a restraining order and—amazingly—the judge found for us. He suspended the complaints already issued and ordered a neutral HOA across town to take over keeping an eye on us. Our current HOA was enjoined from issuing any further citations or acting on the ones already issued. They just didn’t listen when the judge told them that.
The next phase of Rose’s plan began with an illusion of her Draconic self, flying just above the Flatirons west of Boulde
r. One of the local news crews was in position to get a great shot of her racing through a mountain valley and disappearing over a ridge. The day after that, she sent the illusion across the outskirts of Lafayette. This time, a news helicopter was flying over doing a traffic report. The photographer got half a minute of HD footage, but thanks to a few artful visual artifacts and intentional errors in the illusion itself, the footage looked as though someone had done a bad green screen job. Illusions don’t cast shadows, for one thing. Nobody blamed the news crew, but experts universally decried the image as an elaborate visual hoax.
The world had taken the bait. Now it was time to bring the plan home. And by that, I mean Mavis’ home.
Chapter Five
The Lake Mess Monster
Our street borders on a large lake with a golf course on the far side of it. The lake isn’t big enough for power boats, but it has a nice play area and a paddle-boat rental. Ducks and geese are common, as are groups of children. One of our neighbors, Mary, does daycare in her home. She lives across the street from the playground and was happy to run into us when she brought the kids over to feed the ducks.
Nine kids hurling chunks of stale hot dog bun can attract a lot of ducks. It was only a matter of time before one of the kids pulled out a cell phone and started making a video of the feeding frenzy. As soon as the film was running, Rose introduced the little blue hatchie we called Azul.
A sky-blue snout popped out of the water, blew spray everywhere, and snapped up a piece of bread before going back under. A quick flash of blue scales and a stubby tail tip cutting through the water away from shore caused an immediate hush, followed by a cascade of questions. I reassured the kids that crocodiles aren’t blue, but Mary didn’t want to take any chances. She started pulling the kids back from the water—exactly what we didn’t want.