by Ward Parker
“Yee-haw!” one of them yelled.
They appeared to be firing at everything. Except their own vehicles. And, for some reason, they spared the delivery van where Missy and Matt were hiding.
The militants kept firing, spent cartridges raining upon the street, empty magazines dropping randomly. The men were in an almost orgiastic glee. Shooting was an end in itself, regardless of what they hit. They were entranced in gunpowder ecstasy.
Missy called 911 and reported the gunfire. Hopefully, these yahoos would end up in jail.
The vampires in the garage remained lying on the floor in their wrestling holds. Bill must be itching to shoot so badly, Missy thought. But the vampires had to stay down to avoid being hit.
Stanley suddenly broke free from Louis and Maria. He grabbed a handgun from the floor. Louis crouched with a rebar, ready to plunge it into Stanley.
But instead of shooting at the vampires in his garage, Stanley fired at the militia, his own comrades in arms.
After all, they were shooting his home to pieces. They weren’t his comrades anymore.
Of course, his gunshots only encouraged the assailants in the street. Their rate of fire increased. And they directed it into the garage.
Someone pressed the button to lower the garage door, but it was too late. Stanley staggered backwards, hit multiple times. His wife screamed.
Missy didn’t know if the bullets would be lethal for the vampire but wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
She crawled into the cargo area to check on Matt. He was conscious and gritted his teeth in pain. The T-shirt against his wound was fully soaked in blood, but it seemed to be doing its job at slowing the bleeding.
She cast a quick spell to further slow the bleeding. It wasn’t enough, but it was the only magick she knew for this situation.
Sirens blared not far away.
“Finally, the police are coming,” she said. “An ambulance will take you to the hospital.”
She glanced at the dragon in her crate. The poor creature was terrorized.
“I can’t let the police find the dragon, but I can’t drive away until they get here and stop the shooting. But then they probably won’t allow me to leave without being questioned.”
“Sucks to be you,” Matt said.
The militia men, who just shot one of their own members, low-crawled toward the garage. Finally, they had someone to shoot at, and they weren’t about to give up this opportunity.
The garage door was taking its sweet time lowering while being peppered with bullets.
Finally, the motor took a round, and the door stopped, halfway closed.
And now, all the vampires in the garage were shooting at the humans.
The air was practically dripping with cordite, adrenaline, and testosterone.
One of the militants, a big guy with a beard, went down. This only caused his comrades to fire more enthusiastically.
Strobe lights hit them as several police cars arrived.
“Put down your weapons,” a male officer said through the loudspeaker. “Police. Put down your weapons!”
The militia ignored them.
Not to be left out from the gunfire extravaganza, the police officers, taking cover behind their opened car doors, began firing, too.
“Oh, my,” Missy said. “This is getting plain stupid.”
The Alligator Hammock retirement community was now experiencing more gunfire than many World War II battles.
The police fired at the militia and the vampires, the militia fired at the vampires, and the vampires fired at the militia. Trapped in the crossfire, half the militia got the not very bright idea to return fire at the police.
The intensity of the gun battle increased, if that was even possible at this point.
Two more militia members went down, leaving only three still fighting. They finally snapped out of their firing frenzy and dropped their weapons.
The shooting petered out, like the final detonations of microwave popcorn.
At last, Missy thought. The humans would be arrested, and the police would investigate their ties to the militia. She hoped that would drive them into hiding.
She worried about the vampires. Vampires don't do well in jail. She suspected Bill was the only one who fired directly at the police. He could go to jail for all she cared, as long as the ones on her team talked their ways out of this.
The scene appeared to be secure as the police officers fanned through the battleground.
That’s when the dragons arrived.
A troop of four flew overhead, with the absolutely worst timing. Ronnie must have probed Missy's thoughts and discovered what was going on and where his baby was. They were coming for her rescue.
Bad idea, dragons.
The dragons swooped in. The humans on the ground stared upward at them in amazement.
“Reptilians!” a disarmed militia member shouted.
Before he went up in flames.
The dragons torched all the militia members, one by one, as they glided slowly over the scene. The police ran to their cars for cover. The giant beasts had the good sense not to attack the police.
But the damage had already been done. The dragons had revealed themselves to humans and, worst of all, the police. This would escalate the human-reptile conflict into truly cataclysmic levels.
Missy sat in the cab, not sure of what to do. Should she try to drive away now that the police were distracted?
Her question was answered when the van jolted to the side, and she almost fell out of the seat. She watched the ground drop away as the van was lifted into the air.
The neighborhood battlefield grew smaller as the van, with her, Matt, and the baby dragon inside, was carried off into the night by the dragons.
The flight was surprisingly smooth. But Missy couldn't say it was relaxing. Flying in a commercial jetliner is one thing. Flying in a package-delivery van meant to have all four tires always touching the road, was terrifying.
Plus, she had a patient in the back with a bullet wound who should be in the ER right now, not 20,000 feet above Florida.
“Are we on the way to the hospital?” Matt asked.
Missy realized Matt, lying on his back on the floor of the van, didn't know they'd been picked up by dragons as if they were prey to be eaten.
“We’re taking a little detour,” she said. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“That’s what my accountant said to me at tax time. Turned out he was wrong.”
A single-engine plane flew by the left side of the truck, only slightly faster than they were going. It was so close Missy could see the pilot stare at them with his mouth open. She wondered what was strangest to him, to see the dragons or the flying delivery truck?
She waved. The pilot belatedly waved back.
The dragons really messed up today if they wanted to keep their existence secret from humans.
A horrifying thought hit her. What if the pilot reported them and a squadron of fighter jets came and intercepted them? Dragons carrying a delivery van wouldn’t stand a chance. The occupants of the van wouldn’t either.
Her stomach lurched as the van dropped in altitude. But the queasy feeling remained, along with a vertiginous anxiety.
She recognized the feeling. It was how she felt before she entered a gateway to the In Between, the alternate plane of existence between worlds. Dragons used the In Between as a haven from humans once the earth became overpopulated with us. She’d been here before for short periods of time.
She worried how it would affect Matt in his condition.
Suddenly, the sky outside the windshield shimmered like a curtain of water. Her vision went black for a few seconds. When she regained her sight, she gasped.
The van sat atop a rocky plateau in a landscape that looked like Arizona. Except it was as far from the Grand Canyon State as you could get. The sky was the featureless white that Missy remembered from before.
She went into the back to check on Matt.<
br />
“Something strange happened,” he said. “Where the heck are we?”
“Do you remember me mentioning the In Between before?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! We’re there?”
Missy nodded.
“Um, why?”
“The dragons took us here.”
“You mean picked us up and carried us here from Alligator Hammock?”
“Yeah. In front of the cops and other witnesses. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to panic while we were flying through the sky. We’re safe now. Temporarily.”
The dragons who had captured them alighted on nearby outcroppings. Ronnie’s voice appeared in Missy’s head.
Is my daughter safe? I know she’s in your van.
Yes. I’ll put her outside.
Missy carefully opened the rear doors. The plateau where they’d been placed wasn’t much bigger than the van, but there was room for the dragon. Knowing they wouldn’t be happy seeing her in the dog crate, she opened its door.
“Are you okay, little one? Would you like to see your parents?”
Elantha was no longer terrified. She knew her parents were outside. Missy reached into the crate to handle her. A small jet of flame made her jerk her hands out.
“Okay, I see you’ve had enough of humanoids. You can get out on your own.”
The dragon waddled out of the crate onto the floor of the van. She continued to the open door and looked out, eyes blinking.
“You need help getting down to the ground?”
The dragon showed her razor teeth and hissed.
Missy raised her hands. “Just asking.”
The dragon flapped her wings and jumped from the van. She landed softly on the rock floor, but you couldn’t call what she did flying.
Elantha was smaller and obviously younger than Ronnie had been when Missy saved him and nursed him while his broken wing healed. She was amazed at how fast Ronnie had grown up and become a father. It was especially striking when you consider dragons live for hundreds of years.
Dust kicked up from the rocky ground and Missy was buffeted by wind from the wings of approaching dragons. From behind the van, Ronnie appeared, flying close. He fixed Missy with one eye.
Thank you, he said.
Hovering in mid-air, he opened his giant, deadly mouth, lined with sharp teeth and hardened cartilage that could withstand jets of flame. And with that formidable weapon, he gingerly grasped his child and flew away. The van rocked from the force of the displaced air.
Missy waved goodbye.
Wait, she thought. What are we going to do now? We’re trapped atop a rock fifty feet in the air. And we need to find a gateway to get back home.
Another dragon appeared, a female. She was about to land on the rock, so Missy stepped to the side of the van to make room.
I am Ursula, the Healer. You have a wounded human in need of care?
Yes. He’s in the van. He was wounded by a gunshot. I’m pretty sure the bullet exited, and I don’t believe it hit a vital organ.
The dragon, greener in color than Ronnie, shuffled to the van and poked her head inside.
Matt squealed in fear.
“It’s okay,” Missy said. “She’s a healer.”
“But she’s a dragon and dragons don’t like me.”
“It was Ronnie who didn’t like you when I was taking care of him. It was only male jealousy.”
“That’s all it was. Now I—”
His voice cut out at the same time Missy felt the magic pouring from the dragon. Benevolent, pure healing magic. If only Missy’s magick could be as strong as that for healing, she could do much good for her supernatural patients and for humans, too.
The dragon stuck her long neck far into the van, touching Matt’s wounded side. Missy couldn’t tell what was going on, but the healing magic flowed and intensified.
About ten minutes later, the dragon backed away from the van and looked directly at Missy.
He should be fine now. Get him what you humans call antibiotics. Or the magical equivalent.
Thank you so much, Missy said as the healer soared away over the canyon.
13
A Big Disaster
Matt wouldn’t stop staring at his side where the bullet wound had disappeared, leaving no trace save for dried blood. He poked at his skin.
“It's like it never happened,” he said.
“That is some powerful healing. Someday, I’d like my magick to do that.”
“If you had put a protection spell on us, it wouldn't have happened.”
Missy felt a pang of regret. “I had no choice but to put it on Oleg and Sol. They were going into the most dangerous situation. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough power to maintain more than one protection bubble strong enough to stop a bullet.”
“It’s okay. Bill and Stanley had been disarmed. Who would have known the wife was packing heat?”
“I wish I had a spell to smack her around a bit for shooting you.”
“What do you think happened to the vampires? You say the cops showed up?”
“They sure did,” Missy said. “And Bill was shooting at them.”
“Uh-oh.”
“And the police saw the dragons.”
“Uh-oh.”
“This has escalated into a big disaster. Now that Ronnie has his daughter back, he should declare a truce.”
“And cancel whatever spell he used to make all the reptiles go nuts. A gopher tortoise broke into my bungalow and dug a burrow in my bed. And I won’t go into detail about the snake in the bathtub.”
Missy shuddered.
“We can’t stay here in the In Between. But I’m kind of dreading going back to earth with all the problems festering there.”
"I don't care about them. I just want to go back. How do we get home?"
“We need to find a gateway. They’re constantly moving and could appear anywhere. Unfortunately, we’re stuck on this plateau.”
“We'll climb down.”
“It’s a sheer cliff face. And we're Floridians. We don't know how to climb rocks. We don’t even know how to climb hills.”
“I don't care. I’ll . . . what's that?”
“It’s a gateway!” Missy said.
A vertical disc of shimmering air had entered the van’s cargo hold between Missy and Matt.
And then Matt was gone. The gateway had floated quickly toward Matt and engulfed him. Missy rushed toward the portal so she, too, could pass through. But the gateway zipped out of the rear doors. It floated past the edge of the plateau, fifty feet in the air, as if daring Missy to risk leaping after it.
It faded away.
Great, she thought. Now I’m stranded here alone. With no food or water. And the rental van needs to be returned.
In the dark of night, Matt landed softly on a lawn of thick grass. Unfortunately, the sprinkler system was running, soaking him. He scrambled to his feet and escaped into the street.
That’s when he noticed the homeowners staring at him. They stood outside their front door and looked at him as if he were a two-headed cow. Having someone materialize out of thin air onto your carefully manicured lawn has that effect.
The elderly couple had ghastly white skin and pointy ears. Vampires. Matt glanced around at the surrounding homes and realized he had returned to Alligator Hammock. Ahead, where the street went around a bend, flashing lights painted the asphalt.
He waved to the vampires and trudged toward the crime scene to scope out what was going on. His reporter instincts were stronger than his common sense which told him to get the heck out of the neighborhood.
There were dozens of police cars, several ambulances, two firetrucks, and an armored SWAT vehicle—all with strobe lights flashing. Matt hadn’t seen the SWAT vehicle before in all his reporting on crime in the city. Jellyfish Beach was where murders were exceptionally rare, and the majority of police incidents involved complaints about someone else’s dog pooping on your lawn.
&nb
sp; Uh-oh, he thought. Channel Six already had a reporter here. As he drew closer, he heard her making a live report. “Attacked by an armed militia,” caught his ears.
The street was covered in spent cartridges, as if they had fallen in a metal hailstorm. Streetlights had been shot out, mailboxes torn to shreds, and windows of the houses nearest Stanley’s all had shattered windows.
Don’t these guys know how to aim? he wondered.
Crime scene investigators climbed in and out of the two pickups and the Jeep belonging to the militants. The vehicles, of course, were riddled with bullet holes.
As he moved to a position to better see the Gardiner's home, he froze.
Six bodies covered in tarps lay on the street in front of Stanley's home. Matt's heart rate went up.
The light was still on in Stanley's garage, and the door remained frozen halfway open. Inside, numerous pairs of legs could be seen moving about, many of them in police uniforms.
A police officer guarded the front door. She moved aside, and one by one, officers led seven vampires outside in handcuffs. The Gardiners and Bill, followed by Sol, Oleg, Louis, and Maria.
None had been shot to death or staked. Stanley appeared to have recovered from the bullet wounds. Matt didn’t care much for the vampires, but he knew Missy was fond of them.
The vampires had the strength and speed, even in their elderly bodies, to escape from the police before they were handcuffed. But they weren’t stupid. They knew their survival depended on keeping their vampirism secret.
The question was, could they keep it secret while being interrogated and possibly thrown into the county jail?
Matt could keep a secret. He still had his notebook and pen in his pocket, and he used them to get quotes from the neighbors about what they had seen tonight. He would write a story about the shootout and submit it before the rapidly approaching deadline.
And he wouldn’t mention that all the neighbors he interviewed were vampires.
It seemed like hours had passed until the van rocked on its suspension as it was hit by wind. A dragon flew in and landed on the rock behind it. The dragon was Ronnie. His words filled Missy’s head.