by J. R Fox
“Ooh, a gift shop!” Rachel squealed, already rushing towards the small store. Jamie followed behind, and Katie tugged on Chris’ arm as she kept up with them.
“Aw, check it out!” Jamie said, holding up a red and blue scarf. “It looks like their flag!”
Chris glanced around at the various objects for sale. Most of them were bright colored souvenirs, with images of Viking ships and dragons plastered somewhere on the front. It was obvious that they’d walked into a tourist trap.
“I’m going to, uh, wait outside,” Chris said, glancing at the glass doors fitted underneath the ancient stone archway.
“Sure thing,” Katie nodded without looking up at him. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Then we can go to that café on the corner!” Jamie laughed.
He took a deep breath of the cold afternoon air as he stepped outside. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but according to Mary, the bad Norwegian weather was far from over. Sticking his hands in his pockets, Chris leaned up against the rough brick wall, his thoughts on what Professor Holt was probably doing at that moment.
Chris didn’t think to go looking for Katie until he glanced at his watch and realized that thirty minutes had already passed. Kicking off of the wall, he stretched his legs for a moment and wandered back inside the warm gift shop.
Except, Katie wasn’t there.
Not her, or her two friends. Chris immediately broke out into a cold sweat, his face flushed as he realized that he’d been left. Rushing to the other door, he quickly looked out to see if he could spot his classmates, but there was only snow, black and trampled across the cobblestones.
Chris was hesitant to leave the gift shop, the last place that he’d seen the girls, and he wondered if he should try asking the clerk if he’d noticed where they went. Only, he doubted that the Norwegian spoke English, and Chris had never been good at miming things out.
“A café on the corner,” he muttered to himself. Jamie had acted like she’d seen one, and if they had gone anywhere, it’d be there. Chris glanced outside again. He could find it, probably.
He started by backtracking to the bus. It had to be near there, if Jamie had spotted it before Professor Holt had lead them straight to the castle. Not that the castle was far removed – it was next to a busy road, and just behind it was a neighborhood of red roofs and tall trees. Perhaps the café was nestled over there.
Luckily, Chris didn’t have to go very far before he spotted it. The place was small, even compared to the cafés and restaurants in his own hometown, and the only indication that it was a café at all was the small engraved sign that read, “Kaffe Bar.”
Chris glanced around, peeking through the windows as he took a hesitant seat on a cold tin chair underneath the green overhang. He didn’t see Jamie, or Katie and their friend, Rachel. Maybe he’d gone to the wrong place?
“Hallo!”
Chris jumped as an old woman suddenly appeared beside him, a small notebook in her hands and a smile on her face.
“O-oh, hello,” Chris grinned, fighting a blush.
The woman frowned slightly, and said, “Er du Engelsk?”
“Ah…” Chris only frowned back, shrugging to show that he didn’t understand. The woman just shook her head gently and pressed a small menu into his hands.
“Bilder, bilder,” she said as she tapped the pictures, as if in a chant.
“Oh,” Chris said, understanding. He quickly pointed to a picture of hot chocolate.
“Sjokolade,” she said, nodding. She took the menu, and he forced a smile until she went back inside.
“Ugh,” he muttered, burying his face in his hands. “I’m definitely the most awkward being alive.” He could already imagine the look that Mary would make if he told her the story later. But Professor Holt, would he laugh? Chris had only really heard the man chuckle, but even then it wasn’t like he’d found anything particularly funny. Actually, now that he thought about, Holt liked to laugh at awful, ironic things. Like when a student had confused the Holocaust with the sinking of the Titanic.
“Der er du,” the woman smiled, returning with a white mug topped with whipped cream and heavy chocolate syrup.
“Ah, thanks,” Chris said, reaching for it. The old woman simply navigated the drink past his hands and set it properly on the table, leaving Chris with his arms raised and a blush going all the way up to his ears. Couldn’t he get the memo on normal behavior, just once?
“Nyte,” she called as she retreated back into the building, and Chris waved goodbye to her as she went.
It was odd, being the only one outside. Sure, there really weren’t that many seats for the small café, but even the roads surrounding him were empty.
Reaching out a hand, he picked up the steaming mug of hot chocolate and took a large sip. Chris had never had a problem with hot liquids – had never burned his tongue, no matter how many warnings he’d received about something being hot or, even, very hot – and this time was no different. He gulped down the rich molten chocolate and licked his lips, a little embarrassed to find whipped cream on his upper lip.
Sighing to himself, he checked his watch again. An hour and forty minutes to go. Even if Katie never showed up, he was sure that she was with her friends and that they’d make it to the bus on time. He could do the same, and find her in the small crowd of students before Holt showed up. No one would ever know that he had been ditched and left behind.
Sipping on the drink again, he blinked slowly out at the quiet streets. His body was feeling a little sluggish, and he wondered if the cold was finally affecting him. Yawning, he leaned over in his chair, propping his arm up to hold his chin.
He closed his eyes with another blink, his eyelids just too heavy to reopen.
Chapter Five
Chris could hear water. It was a soft plop of a noise, like the dripping of a sink faucet that had been left on. He blinked his eyes open to look for it, but the surrounding darkness made it impossible to see.
“Nnh,” he groaned, his tongue an odd heaviness in his numb mouth. He tried to say something, to crack his lips and spit out the bitter taste coating the roof of his mouth, but something was stopping him. It was a metal clink against his teeth, a strap that spanned over his cheeks and bit into his skin when he tried to move.
“Ah, awake, are we?”
Chris jerked his head up, his eyes wide as he tried to find the owner of the voice.
“Can’t smell me?” the voice echoed, and Chris got the distinct feeling that the room that he was in was somewhere underground. “My, my, what an inexperienced little hatchling I’ve found.”
Chris hissed as he felt thin fingers grip his chin, and he tried to pull away.
“Uh, uh, uh,” the voice scolded, and Chris yelped at the nails suddenly digging into his jaw. “You’ll only hurt yourself if you struggle like that. I’ve tied you to this chair, you see? The rope is made of Gryphon’s tail, so you won’t be escaping it too easily.”
Chris clenched his teeth as the fingers left, doing his best to stay calm. If it was as dark outside as it was in the room, then the bus would’ve left hours ago. And if the bus had left without him, then Professor Holt would’ve noticed. And if Holt had noticed—
“Oh, what’s this?” the voice cooed. “Trying to send out your scent? Nice try, little drake, but no one is around to smell it.” A slide of feet, and then, much closer to Chris’ ear, it whispered, “And no one will ever find you.”
Chris wanted to scream back, to tell it to get away from him or ask why it was doing this, but the only sound he could make through the gag was, “Mhmnn!”
“Does that upset you?” the voice asked. “But you never asked what upsets me, your host. How rude.”
Chris heard it before he felt it. A swish through the air, and then a sudden pain that burned along his shoulder. “Nnh!”
“You’re all rude, aren’t you? You drakes.” Another swish, another slice of something stinging against his skin. The person was whipping him, a
nd Chris had no idea why.
“Ah,” the voice said as its movements stopped, and it inhaled deeply. “Your scent is spreading out again. What a nice little trick you drakes have. Makes it so easy to call upon others and outnumber a wyvern, don’t you think?”
“Mhm!” Chris screamed into his gag, his body burning up beneath the bonds tied around him, anchoring him to the chair.
“Is that why you came to my shop? You knew you weren’t welcome, and so you stayed outside. But I’ll bet you planned to come back later, hmm? To break into my nest and kill my daughters.” The voice was angry now – agitated and excited, and Chris bit back a groan as those sharp fingers fisted in his hair. “Such a bad little drake. It’s why I’m going to kill you.”
Chris shook his head, ignoring the way that the fingers yanked and cut. He screamed into the gag, his body flaring up with a heat that he’d never felt before, and he cried to be free of it.
“Gah!” Suddenly, the hand flew back, and when the voice spoke again, it was far away. “How did you—the chair. The chair,” it snarled.
Chris only had a moment to guess what that meant before he was falling backwards onto the wet cement floor, the red ropes that’d been binding him tightly now free and loose around his arms. Chris tried to stand, to move his hands and push himself up, but he flinched at the odd mounds of dust he found at his fingertips. No, wait, not dust.
Ash.
“You burned the chair!” the voice was screeching. “You—”
“What did you expect? Tying a drake to wood – and a fire drake, no less.”
Chris knew that voice. “Professor Holt?” he cried out, fumbling with the ropes as he moved to get up.
There was a pause, a sudden silence in the place, and for a moment Chris worried that he’d only imagined the professor’s voice. But then a great blue light popped into existence, illuminating the dingy room, and Chris could see the professor holding the light source in his hand – a blue crystal in the shape of a diamond.
“Professor,” Chris beamed, forcing his stiff limbs to run towards him. He only stumbled when he saw a crumpled man lying at Holt’s feet, his back to them. “Uh, professor?” Chris said it like a question, unsure.
That made Holt scowl. “You’re the fire drake? You?”
Chris frowned back, at a loss for what the professor was asking. “Professor—”
But Holt wasn’t listening. He was mumbling to himself, his eyebrows furrowed as he bounced the glowing crystal in his hand. Chris only caught bits and pieces as he stood there, his arms slack at his sides, staring at his rescuer.
“Preposterous,” Holt muttered. “Crazy. Never would’ve…Too young, doesn’t make sense. Knew he…magic, but not…”
As the professor talked to himself, Chris couldn’t help but notice that the man on the ground was stirring. “Uh, Professor Holt,” Chris tried again, taking a few steps closer.
That seemed to snap the professor out of his musings. “Stay back,” he said quickly, the harsh bite of his tone making Chris freeze in place. “He’ll kill, if he has the chance.”
“To avenge my family,” the man spat out, kicking his legs to turn over and face Chris.
The sight of him made Chris’ blood go cold. He was a man, yes, but deformed with so many scars on his face that it looked like he was wearing scales. His arms, too, were oddly shaped, with ridges along his skin that Chris could only imagine were the result of a burn.
“Remember what he looks like,” Professor Holt advised. “He’s in the middle of a transformation, but still. He’s a wyvern.” Holt kicked the man’s arm with his shoe. “A dragon with wings for arms and a hate for drakes.”
“Just kill me already,” the old man spat. “And leave my family be.”
“Very well,” Holt shrugged, and he moved to bend down, his sharp blue crystal gleaming.
“N-no!” Chris shouted, making Holt pause. “Don’t, professor. He’s—”
“He’s the enemy,” Holt said snidely. “One who is practically at my door, since I live at the university. He will not rest until we are dead, you and I.”
Chris knew that he should have taken that as a warning, as a hint to look away, but the last part of Holt’s words had struck him wrong.
“You and I?” he repeated. “He thinks—Wait, professor. Do you think you’re a dragon?”
“A drake,” Professor Holt answered without hesitation. “A dragon is the umbrella term, but I am specifically a drake, as are you.”
Chris couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Professor—”
“You don’t deserve to live,” the wyvern heaved, his shallow breaths harsh against the cold floor. “I won’t let you.”
“Oh?” Professor Holt crouched down next to him. “But you see, I’ve lived so long already,” he said. “It would only make sense to keep on going.”
“Professor,” Chris moved closer, his hands outstretched. “Please, stop. I’m fine. He didn’t do anything, really.”
That made the professor laugh, a bitter and empty sound that had Chris taking a step back. “Didn’t do anything,” he said. “Except for threaten you, and move to kill.”
“He isn’t…” Chris bit his lip. “Please, professor. He’s not thinking right. He’s just an old man.”
Professor Holt looked at Chris then, his blue eyes narrowed as the crystal spun around and around in his palm. “You don’t know,” he said finally. “You think you’re human.”
“I—of course!” Chris blurted. “We all are, so let’s just go.”
“No, Chris,” Holt shook his head. “We are not.”
Snapping his wrist, Holt threw the crystal across the room to flutter near Chris while he used both hands to seize the old man up off the floor. Dragging him up to Holt’s own full height, he moved a hand around the man’s neck and hissed in his face. “Change, wyvern. Change or die.”
“Professor!” Chris shouted, rushing forward as Holt’s finger tightened around the old man’s throat. Yet, before he could do anything, a bright light flashed and pushed him back, sending him flat on his back.
He sat up to the roar of a beast in his face and two red eyes glaring down at him.
“What do you think, Chris?” Professor Holt asked tiredly, and Chris realized, belatedly, that Holt’s crystal was now just underneath the creature’s neck, poised like a fat blade ready to strike. “Still think he’s human?”
Chris couldn’t form a reply. He was thankful that he could even remember how to breathe, what with that thing staring down at him. It was a giant creature, one with harsh lumps all over its body like the scars that he’d seen on the old man’s face. And its arms – they were long, sharp webbed things that stretched out wider than its body, standing on either side of its huge face.
It was the scariest thing that Chris had ever seen, and it was screeching like it wanted to kill him.
“This is a wyvern,” Holt nodded to it. “Ugly, isn’t it. Not like drakes—”
He stopped talking suddenly, and bent his head oddly to peer at Chris still trembling on the floor. “Chris,” Holt said slowly, his nostril’s flaring as he spoke.
“Heh,” the wyvern laughed, its voice like a thousand breaths of wind whooshing by all at once. “The little hatchling is terrified.”
Holt didn’t move, but his crystal flashed as it flew, sliding under the wyvern’s neck to push out the other side. It moved to hover next to the professor again as the creature dropped dead on the floor.
Chris felt the wyvern crash down, its body shaking the ground that he was still sprawled out on, and found that he couldn’t hold himself up anymore, either.
Chapter Six
“Chris.”
He woke up with a start, his whole body rigid as he realized that he’d passed out again.
“Chris, hey.”
He opened his eyes, recognizing the silky material at his fingertips as bedsheets at the same time that he identified just who was calling out his name.
“Professor,”
he croaked, his throat painfully dry. Immediately, a cool cup was pressed against his lips, and he felt water run into his mouth.
“Chris, how old are you?” Holt asked stiffly, his words void of their usual sarcastic bite. Rather, he sounded tentative; vulnerable.
Chris drank the water and cleared his throat, licking his cracked lips as he spoke. “Twenty-two,” he said.
The professor waited, his whole body still from where he sat on the edge of the giant bed. Chris wondered if they were in the college infirmary, but surely such a place would be stocked with twin beds rather than kings.
When Chris didn’t say anything else but merely stared back at the professor, Holt shook his head. “Not even three decades,” he muttered, placing the empty cup on the bedside table. “Chris, your parents… They never mentioned—”
“My mom died when I was born,” Chris said calmly, repeating the words that he’d been told all his life. “I never knew her.”
The professor frowned, bending his head. “Well, that might explain it,” he said with a sigh.
“That I’m a dragon?” he asked.
Holt looked up sharply. “So you do believe me?”
“After what that man turned into?” Chris asked, none of his words a stuttering mess. He blinked at the thought, proud but, mostly, uncaring. His mind was muddled right now, and his limbs felt numb. He wondered if he was simply too tired to be nervous, and if maybe he should be tired more often.
“He was a wyvern,” Holt said. “He turned into his true form.”
“And what’s your true form, then?” Chris asked, turning his head to look at the professor. “Or mine, for that matter?”
“Wyverns and drakes are very different,” he said simply. “Drakes learned to adapt, but wyverns… Well, they’re a bit slow on the uptake. They didn’t want to adopt a human form as easily, and those that refused completely were eradicated.”
“Killed,” Chris said for him.
“It was either that, or let them expose all of us,” Holt said sharply.