by Ward Parker
Oleg was here tonight only out of curiosity. He didn’t believe in the Reptilian conspiracy. He hadn’t believed in dragons, either, though Marvin’s video had been pretty convincing. Maybe the paranoid kook had used computer-generated imagery to create the dragon, though.
“Do you even know where you’re leading us?” Sol asked Bill. Sol was a scrawny, bald fellow who looked like Nosferatu in a Boston Red Sox cap.
“Of course. We’re very near where Marvin shot the Reptilian.”
“How do you know? The Everglades is freaking enormous. And it all looks the same.”
“I zoomed into the video and saw a sign in the background. Nine Mile Pond. That’s where we’re headed.”
“You know, there’s something that’s been bugging me,” Sol continued. “I did a little research, and Reptilians, when they’re not in human form, look like, well, lizard people. Kind of like taller humans on two legs with lizard features. Not like dragons.”
“Reptilians are shape-shifters,” Bill said. “They can adopt any form they want.”
“Then why would they become humans when they can become dragons? Dragons are cooler.”
“Power. Don’t you understand? They want to control the earth, and humans are the species that does. At least, for now.”
“So, what are we supposed to do, just sit here and wait for a Reptilian to show up?” Sol asked.
“We’re setting up an ambush point,” Bill said.
Oleg, having been an actual military commander, was tired of his friends’ cluelessness. He had come along to ease the monotony of his centuries-old existence. Anything to break up the boredom. But he’d had enough of passively following these clowns.
“Will you gentleman end this charade that you are human infantrymen?” Oleg said. “We are vampires, the deadliest predators on earth.”
“Some say SEAL Team Six is the deadliest,” Bill said.
“Enough!” Oleg shouted. The two other vampires snapped to attention. “Put away those infrared goggles, Bill. You’re a vampire, for pity’s sake! We will find the Reptilians using our vampire senses.”
“You don’t know how expensive these goggles were.”
“Fan out and hunt,” Oleg commanded. “Bill, continue down this road to the west. Sol, take that hiking trail toward the pond. I will follow this game trail to the south.”
“Dividing our force in the face of the enemy?” Bill asked dubiously.
“We are vampires. I hunt alone.”
As Oleg navigated a barely perceptible path made by animals through tall grasses, Sol’s voice followed.
“Um, how do I know the difference between the scent of a reptile and a Reptilian?”
“A Reptilian will smell of human mixed with reptile,” Bill said. “I thought that would be obvious.”
Oleg pushed onward, eager to be away from the clowns. His super-sensitive olfactory sense detected various creatures in the area. There were alligators, of course, in a nearby creek. Several smaller reptile species were in abundance. Far in the distance, a Florida panther prowled. There were very few mammals around, thanks to the giant Burmese pythons in the area, some of which were nearby along the creek that held the gators. The pythons were an invasive species that had multiplied unchecked and eaten most of the mammals from deer to rodents.
Speaking of predators, a cloud of mosquitos hung around Oleg’s head, like they would with any creature with blood, living or undead. They didn’t bother vampires as much as they would humans, though.
Each time a mosquito went in for an attack, it would land, stick its proboscis into Oleg’s skin and drink his blood. Yes, the irony of another creature drinking a vampire’s blood. But vampire blood wasn’t the same as a normal, living mammal’s.
Soft popping sounds went off around Oleg’s hands and neck. It was the sound of mosquitos exploding. One taste of the super-dense, hyper-potent blood of the larger bloodsucker made the tiny bloodsuckers’ organs boil and detonate.
The best thing was their bites didn’t even itch.
Oleg had hunted in the Everglades before, a century ago, before invasive pythons and invasive humans had knocked the environment off balance. After he’d been made into a vampire in his sixties, he remained in St. Petersburg, Russia, enjoying the lifestyle of his group of aristocratic vampires. But once the Russian Revolution reared its ugly head, he emigrated to America. There were plenty of humans to dine on in New York City, but his funds were tighter than they had been in the Old Country.
Then, he heard about the rampant land speculation going on in Florida. The thought of a new territory with little, if any, competition from other vampires was appealing. So, he hopped on a train and moved to Palm Beach and then Miami. He made a fortune selling residential swampland to unsuspecting buyers up north.
He couldn’t deny knowing the lots were underwater because he went hunting in the area, feeding on the blood of small mammals to supplement his diet. He knew what he was doing, but the buyers he’d defrauded were just stupid humans, so he felt no guilt. Plus, everyone else in real estate down here was involved in dubious schemes. The appetite to buy in Florida while the market was hot was so strong it overcame common sense back in those days.
The victims of a predator made it so easy, sometimes. That wasn’t the case here in the Everglades.
He’d caught the scent of recent death, and now he found it. Floating in the still, dark water of a winding creek was the strangest sight Oleg ever saw around here. A giant python, close to twenty feet long, lay against the bank, dead. It was grossly misshaped, its middle section taking on the contours of the meal it had swallowed.
A buck, one that was clearly too large for the hungry snake. The deer had also put up a fight. Both antlers had broken through the stomach and skin of the python, killing the gluttonous predator.
Humans aren’t the only stupid creatures in Florida, Oleg mused.
As if to mock his arrogance, giant jaws clamped down on his right ankle from behind.
It was a gator, hoping to dine on a vampire. It was a big one, over ten feet long.
The gator yanked on Oleg’s ankle to drag him into the water. There, it would get him into a tighter hold, pulling him underwater and performing death rolls until Oleg drowned.
Oleg would not allow that to happen. His supernatural strength helped him stand his ground as the gator tried to pull him to the water. But as strong as he was, he could not open the reptile’s jaws. No creature on earth was strong enough to do that. Oleg could shoot the creature, but that was too easy. It was what Bill would do. He could also drive the point of his cavalry saber between the gator’s eyes and kill it. But that, too, was beneath him, even though the pain in his ankle was growing agonizing.
Instead, Oleg gazed into the gator’s eyes and waved his hand slowly. Yes, even a lizard brain could be mesmerized by an experienced vampire. Oleg concentrated on a vision of the gator releasing its jaws.
A few seconds later, the gator did exactly that.
“Thank you, my friend,” Oleg said. “I wish you better hunting.”
The Everglades was a microcosm of the world at large: fragile beauty mixed with pitiless savagery. It made him feel like a superior creature again to have shown the alligator mercy.
He questioned the superiority of vampires only a few minutes later when shots rang out in the distance. So many shots it sounded like successive volleys by two armies lined up against one another on the battlefield.
Then a hand grenade exploded.
Oleg needed to reach the morons before the U.S. Park Service did.
Bill and Sol hadn’t gone their separate ways, as Oleg had ordered. But it turned out they had the right formula to find a Reptilian.
They were about a half mile further along the road the three vampires had begun on. Bill was prone on the dirt, aiming his assault rifle into a thick growth of small trees. Sol was crouched in the undergrowth, aiming in the same direction.
“Cease this undisciplined firing,” Oleg said as
he jogged up to them. “You’ll alert every human within miles.”
“We got one!” Bill said excitedly. “We got him with several rounds. Except my dunderhead friend didn’t take a video of it like I asked him to.”
“It happened so quickly,” Sol said. “I was busy shooting.”
“Where is it?” Oleg asked.
“The Reptilian? Um, it disappeared.”
“You mean it escaped?”
“When it showed up, it sort of materialized out of shimmering air,” Bill explained. “Sol and I engaged it, hitting it multiple times. It was on the ground. But it crawled backwards, wounded, and disappeared into the shimmering air again.”
“Shimmering air?”
“Yeah. In that clearing over there. The air was shimmering like water.”
“It isn’t now,” Oleg said.
“Well, it was before. I was looking at the clearing, and suddenly the air began shimmering in a big circle. The Reptilian walked out of it. After the Reptilian went back in, the shimmering disappeared. The shimmering took the Reptilian with it.”
“Shimmering.”
“It’s true,” Sol said. “It happened just like Bill said. Only it wasn’t a Reptilian we shot. It was a dragon. A dragon just like the ones in storybooks and movies.”
“It was a Reptilian,” Bill insisted. “It was returning to earth in order to transform into a human and run the U.S. government.”
“It was a dragon,” Sol said.
“You saw Marvin’s video. It clearly showed a human turning into a reptile,” Bill said.
“There are lots of types of reptiles. This one was the flying, fire-breathing type. Not a seven-foot-tall, bipedal, human-lizard hybrid.”
“Look, if it can transform from human to dragon, it can change into any darned type of reptile it wants,” Bill said petulantly.
“There might be repercussions if you guys killed a dragon,” Oleg said. “Frankly, I didn’t know dragons exist, but since they do, we need to make sure they don’t seek vengeance.”
“Oh, they’ll think twice before messing with us,” Bill said. “The purpose of tonight’s mission was to send a message that planet Earth is not going to take their crap anymore. We know what they’re doing, and we’re going to stop them. Even if we have to do it by killing one Reptilian at a time.”
“One dragon at a time,” Sol said.
“Enough already. Tomayto-tomahto. Reptilian-dragon. Whatever.”
“Get your gear together and collect any used cartridges you can find,” Oleg said. “We should get out of here. I have an uneasy feeling.”
“What do you mean? With all this firepower, we’re unstoppable.”
When they finally returned to where they had parked the SUV, they discovered that, actually, they were stoppable.
The SUV was a burned husk on the side of the road. The crumpled, charred remains smoldered on the singed grass.
“They didn’t stop us,” Bill said. “They merely delayed us.”
“Right. Try getting a taxi or a ride-hail to come out here in the middle of the Everglades,” Oleg said. “We’d better get walking before the sun comes up.”
Missy had just gone to sleep when the voice appeared in her head.
Missy, we need to talk. It was a voice she fondly remembered, the slight drawl of her dragon friend, Ronnie.
Ronnie! I’m so glad to hear from you, she thought soundlessly. I saw a video of a dragon being shot. Was that you? Are you okay?”
Yes, it was me. And yes, I’m okay. Thanks to my scale armor and our healer, my wounds were minor. But I’m freaking mad.
The video showed you shifting from human to dragon. When did you get that ability?
When I fully matured to adulthood. I inherited special powers that most dragons don’t have. It’s why I was destined to become their king.
And it’s why the vampire who shot you believed you were a Reptilian from outer space, she said.
That’s crazy.
Missy agreed. She wanted to ask him if he incinerated Marvin without sounding like she was accusing him.
The vampire who shot you is dead, she said.
And one of our dragons is dead, shot multiple times by foolish vampires in the Everglades. She had just passed through a gateway from the In Between when they shot her. She managed to crawl back through the gateway before it disappeared, but we couldn’t save her, even with magic.
I’m so sorry, she said.
Humanoids and dragons have not fought for many centuries, his voice said. Mostly because dragons were almost wiped out. We left the populated areas of Europe and Asia to find places where we could live in peace and reproduce. Often, we must take refuge in the In Between. It was working out for us. But now your vampires have ruined it.
I apologize for the vampires who killed your friend. They’re misguided old guys, crazy with conspiracy theories. I’ll tell their leader they should be punished.
It’s too late, Ronnie said sadly. The dragons, especially the older lords, want war.
Oh, my.
War against humans, vampires, and all humanoids.
That seems excessive, don’t you think?
Dragons keep grudges, Ronnie said. Centuries of being slain by human warriors and knights looking for publicity. We’ve held grudges ever since.
There must be a way to avoid war, Missy said.
I am the king of the dragons, and if I refuse what they want, I will be dethroned by the dragon lords. Some of them are hundreds of years old, and I’m just a baby in comparison. They’ve reluctantly accepted my rule because of the prophecy. And now, they insist upon war. It is beyond my control now.
Oh, my.
I will do my best to keep it as a limited war. I will try to make sure innocents like you aren’t harmed. But if your hot-headed vampires do anything reckless, the hostilities will escalate. Please give this warning to your vampire friends.
I will. I’m so sorry for your loss.
I am sorry, in advance, for those you will lose.
Her mind went silent. Ronnie’s consciousness had left it.
She reached for her phone on the bedside table and texted Agnes.
“Reign in Bill and his gun-buddies. They killed a dragon, and now the dragons are going to war.”
4
How Are Your Kidneys?
Family dramas can pop up at any time, usually inconvenient ones. Here the earth was, at the precipice of a cataclysmic war between dragons and humans, and Missy's mother called.
The mother who gave her up as an infant. The black-magic sorceress who tried to kill her on at least two occasions. The woman who shouldn't even have the chutzpah to call herself a mother.
And now she was on the phone. Missy took the call in the lobby of Squid Tower, in between two patient appointments.
“Hello, dear,” her mother said with nauseating sweetness.
“Ruth? What could you possibly want?”
Ophelia Lawthorne was her biological mother’s real name, but she changed it to Ruth Bent to avoid bill collectors and the enforcers from the Magic Guild.
“To say hello. See how you're doing. You can call me by my real name, dear. We’re family.”
“To see how I’m doing? I’m alive and breathing, no thanks to you. Ophelia. Last time we saw each other, you paralyzed me with a spell and was about to launch me through a fifth-story window.”
“Oh, the things I do sometimes.” Her mother laughed nervously. “That was business, dear. You were interfering with my spell to kill all the manatees in Florida for a client. I was contractually obligated to perform that spell.”
“You could have put me out with a sleep spell,” Missy said. “You didn't have to attempt to kill me.”
“You know me. I'm all business.”
“All psychopath is more like it.”
“I regret that I'm not always good at showing affection.”
“That has to be the biggest understatement in all of history. Your lack of affection began when
you gave me up as a baby.”
“I explained to you why I had to do that. Your father had just died. The Magic Guild had banished me from San Marcos and recommended I give you up.”
Missy didn’t believe the Magic Guild had anything to do with Ophelia giving her up for adoption. But the truth was, she had a much better childhood than she would have if she had lived with the sorceress-for-hire. She was taken in by her father’s cousin and lived a normal life in a loving home, although a home where magic was not welcome. For good reason. When the magick in Missy's genes became active, she repressed it.
She was a late bloomer as a witch, not having put effort into it until she was nearing midlife. After burning out from the stress and emotional toil of being a nurse in the intensive care unit, and having her husband leave her for a man who was a vampire. And after her ex-husband, after being turned, was staked to death by a rogue cop. That was when Missy took the job as a home health nurse for an agency that catered to vampires, werewolves, and other supernaturals who couldn't go to human doctors.
And that was when she turned inward and discovered powers she didn't know she had. She cultivated them and learned earth magick, a benign form that used the energies of the elements in its spells. Unlike the black magic of her biological mother, which leveraged the powers of demons, death, and Hell.
So, yes, she was better off not being raised by Ophelia.
“You’ve been well, then?” Ophelia asked.
“Yes. And you?” Missy asked, to be polite.
“Oh, I've been better. I’m getting quite on in years, you know.”
“Yes.” Missy knew Ophelia also chain-smoked and had an unhealthy diet.
“And how are your kidneys?” Ophelia asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your kidneys. How are they doing?”
“They’re fine.” Missy, who went to a human doctor, knew this to be a fact. “Why do you ask?”
The answer to her question sank in before her mother answered.
“Do you think you could spare a kidney? You only need one, you know. You’ll never know the other one’s gone. Because I could sure use one. Assuming we’re a match.”