by D M Gilmore
“Not a human,” Asher whispered, “not a drake,” Esther added.
All at once, the mana vanished as it was sucked into Smog’s mutating body. The tendrils of darkness that had been holding the man up were sucked into his form, and Asher watched the man’s body collapse into a pile of melting flesh and reshaping bones. Smog’s screams only lasted for a few more seconds, before they were inevitably replaced by the gurgling and squealing of an inhuman creature that was beyond the realm of human understanding.
Duncan Smog was gone. In his place was a bag of slimy flesh, roughly as large as a big dog, with protruding tentacles, three fang filled mouths, and eyes in a dozen different locations. The creature that had once been the most powerful mob boss in the broodtown screamed in agony, unable to look upon itself, unable to cease feeling pain as mana continued to fill its writhing shape. It attempted to slither its way across the ground, leaving a trail of shiny slime in its wake, but it cut its soft tissue on the jagged tarmac roof. From the cuts, tiny insect-like legs began to grow, and it redoubled its efforts to run away, desperately trying to carry its unbalanced weight on an odd number of limbs. The former man’s clothes hissed as the creature’s slime burned them away, leaving nothing a steaming pile of goo and rags behind.
Asher took pity on the abomination that had once been a man, who had in turn once been the most powerful drake he had ever known. With a sigh, he conjured a fireball in his hand, and stared into its depths. “This is the only mercy you deserve now,” he said, without Esther echoing him, and tossed the flames into the writhing bag of flesh.
Smog’s aberrant squealed in pain as it began to burn, falling to the floor as its legs snapped beneath its weight. New appendages and mouths formed from the shapeless mass as it writhed and screamed, before finally melting into a puddle of oily black sludge, where it remained motionless as the fire overtook it.
Asher and Esther sighed to themselves, and watched their prey burn in the night. The swirling miasma of mana slowly died down, the winds slowly silencing their roar as the pain the pair was feeling collectively vanished, leaving them with an empty, hollow feeling.
“Gods above,” a voice cried, “what have you done?!”
Chapter 26
Sangita stepped onto the rooftop, pushing past the broken remains of the door as she stared at Asher, her jaw hanging low as she took in the sight before her. Asher was standing over a puddle of burning ooze that reeked of flesh, the aura of mana he had accumulated was slowly dying down. As a drake, she could feel the mana he had been abusing, but it could not affect her. Yet Smog had been a drake, and she had seen what Asher had done to him. She could not take any chances.
“Our prey to hunt,” Asher and Esther said, their voices losing some of the reverberation they had gained within the mana storm, “our prey to kill.”
That settled it. Asher had succumbed to the Echo Chamber effect, and was no longer in control of his actions. Sangita knew this, and yet something Ruth had said to her gnawed on her conscience. It was her duty to try and save the dragon. That would mean trying to save Asher, too.
“That was not a hunt,” Sangita cried, drawing her baton and assuming a defensive posture, “Asher, you turned him into an aberrant! You stripped him of his body and mind before burning what remained!”
The laugh that came from the pair was unlike anything Sangita had ever heard. It was a haunting sound, that echoed through her ears and mind as the mana in the air began to pick up again, Esther willing it to bend to her command.
“Asher!” Sangita cried, strafing around the pair. She focused only on Asher, staring deep into his glowing yellow eyes as she stepped around him, being mindful of the wound in her leg, where the melted creature formerly known as Duncan Smog had shot her. “You have to control her! Esther’s emotions have taken over! You’re letting an infant’s temper tantrum pilot your body!”
Sangita deftly dodged to the right as Asher reached out with his hand and a bolt of lightning shot forward, crackling through the air as it split into a dozen different forks. The concrete roof hissed and boiled where it was hit, turning into molten slag that steamed in the cool night air.
“We are in control,” Asher and Esther assured her, “we have avenged the death of our brother.”
“You idiot,” Sangita screamed, deftly dodging a pair of silver missiles that lodged themselves into the ground near her feet, “Ruth is alive! I literally rescued him before coming to look for you!”
Asher paused his assault, his glowing eyes growing wide. “Ruth is alive?” he whimpered, weakly, without the chorus of his dragon reinforcing it.
Esther’s eyes glowed more furiously, and Asher fell to his knees, holding his head in his hands as he screamed in pain. Images of Ruth lying dead flooded his mind, filled his vision, as the voice of his dying brother echoed through his ears.
“Dammit Asher!” Sangita cried, running forward. “You have to fight it! Fight her! Fight her, dammit!”
Esther hissed menacingly at Sangita, snapping her fangs at the black drake that dared to touch her bound partner. Sangita ignored the angry dragon as she swatted Esther off her perch with a smack of her baton. Both Asher and Esther yelped in pain at the blow, and Esther had to pause to shake off the daze. This gave Sangita enough time to smack Asher across the face, once again stunning the dragon as the attack was mirrored between the pair.
“Ruth is alive!” Sangita shouted, grabbing Asher’s shoulder with her spare hand and shaking him as violently as she could. Behind him, Esther was throttled across the pavement as she struggled to maintain her balance against the force of Sangita’s shaking. “He is alive and well! He needs you, Asher! He needs you back!”
Asher’s wide eyes blinked as he stared vacantly into the air, his mind lost in the turmoil that Esther was sharing with him.
“Asher!” Sangita cried, smacking him again with her baton. His eyebrow split open and began to bleed down his face, and the same wound appeared on Esther, who cried out in surprise and pain. “Dammit, you idiot! You need to fight her! Gain control of the bond!”
“Let me try,” another voice said, calling from behind her.
Sangita looked over her shoulder, and saw the hulking form of Ruth limp out of the broken doorway, a broken wall stud in his hand, supporting his weight like a cane. As he stepped out fully onto the rooftop, Sangita stepped away from Asher, who had begun to scream.
“Bro,” Ruth whispered softly, as he stumbled towards the prone form of his brother, “I’m here, Asher. I’m here.” He limped as fast as he could, but his body was simply too broken to make quick progress. All the while, Asher continued to scream.
Finally, Ruth collapsed to the ground next to Asher, his swollen eye meeting the vacant stare of his screaming brother. The concrete roof ground painfully into his wounded thigh, but he ignored it as he reached out with his good hand, and rested it on Asher’s shoulder.
“I’m here, bro,” he said again, “it’s okay, it’s okay.”
He kept repeating the same lines over and over again, and Sangita raised her baton, preparing to clobber Asher in case Esther began acting up again. To her surprise, the dragon did not try to attack, and instead she curled up behind her bound partner, whimpering as she cried.
Tears rolled down Asher’s face as Ruth continued to squeeze his shoulder, until finally the grey drake blinked, the vacant stare in his eyes fading as the glow steadily died down, returning to their more familiar brightness. The screaming tapered off, and Asher looked from Ruth, to Sangita, and back to his brother.
It took Asher a moment to realize where he was, or what had happened. He looked at Ruth, looking him up and down, as if he didn’t recognize the brother for whom he had done so much. He looked at Sangita, and for a moment he considered trying to blast her with a fireball. When his spells did not respond to his command, he instead took a deep breath, and slumped forward, propping his body against the ground with his arms.
“You’re alright,” Ruth assured him, still no
t letting go, “come back to me, bro, I need you.”
“I’m here,” Asher assured him, taking a deep, gasping breath, “I’m me, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”
Ruth breathed a sigh of relief, and glared at Esther furiously.
“Don’t blame her,” Asher insisted, as he followed Ruth’s line of sight, “she couldn’t control herself. She’s just as much a victim of what happened as I am.”
Sangita nodded and crossed her arms. “This is one of the many reasons we do not bond with infant dragons,” she growled, “but I suppose I cannot argue with the results…”
Asher looked past Esther, to the still smouldering, oily puddle that had once been Duncan Smog, and barely resisted the urge to vomit. “I did that?!”
“Do not fool yourself,” Sangita scoffed, “your dragon did that.”
Asher said nothing, he simply shook his head in shame as he pulled himself up to his feet. Slowly, as if he was still unsure of his decision, he walked over to Esther’s curled up form, and bent down to pick her up, cradling her in his arms as one might a cat. He gently ran his fingers over her back, feeling every crystalline scale beneath the tips of his fingers. The small dragon whimpered softly, as if to apologize for what she had done. In his mind, the colour blue flashed for a split second. Sadness. Regret. Sorrow.
“It’s okay, baby girl,” he whispered to her, gently petting her behind the head, “it’s my fault. I let my anger into you, and you just couldn’t understand it.”
Sighing, Asher turned to face Sangita, who was helping to pull Ruth to his feet. The pair of them looked at Asher nervously, as he gently encouraged Esther to return to her favourite perch on his shoulder. Ruth looked ready to rip her off at the first sign of danger, and Sangita had a murderous gleam in her eyes as they darted between the blue dragon and grey drake. Shaking his head, Asher reached into his jacket pocket, and retrieved Nicholas’ badge, which he flipped open, scanning it for the phone number Jones had mentioned.
Sangita’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the shield, and her voice dropped to a low, menacing growl. “You work for them?”
Asher shook his head. “No,” he said, calling up his phone’s holodisplay and opening the call app.
“And yet you have their badge,” she hissed, taking a few steps backwards, towards the edge of the roof. “I escaped them once, I will not let you bring me back to them!”
“It’s not for you,” Asher growled, and jabbed a finger at the oily puddle that had finally stopped burning, “it’s for him!”
Sangita did not take her eyes off Asher as she continued to back away. “You have made a mistake, allying yourself with COMA, Asher,” she said, turning around only to pull herself up onto the stubby wall that lined the rooftop. “I cannot in good conscience stay if they are coming to deal with this.”
“Wait, Sangita, what are you doing?!” Ruth shouted, taking a limping step forward, but stopping short as he winced in pain.
“I have helped you this one time, Asher, Ruth,” she called, not bothering to turn to face them, “but if you dial that number, the next time we meet, we will be enemies.”
Before either Asher or Ruth had a chance to ask what she meant by that, Sangita leapt off the rooftop, and disappeared beyond the other side.
Ruth grumbled something about thinking she wasn’t all that bad, before wincing again and holding his arm to his chest. “I gotta get to the hospital, bro,” he grumbled, falling once more to his knees, “I’m a little beat up.”
Asher reached into his back pocket and retrieved the phone he had looted earlier from one of Smog’s men, and carefully placed it in his brother’s hand. “Are you strong enough to call an ambulance?” Ruth nodded in response. “Okay, I’ve got a call of my own to make,” he said, taking a few steps away from his brother and dialling the last few digits on the card. He tapped the floating icon to disable public audio, and then placed the call.
The phone rang a few times, before the phone clicked, and a voice answered on the other side.
Epilogue
Asher sat in the hospital room and stared at his brother’s sleeping form, idly wondering how badly he had screwed up. He hadn’t stuck around to see if the cleaning crew had actually disposed of the evidence of what had occurred at the rundown police station, instead helping his brother into the ambulance and staying with him as they travelled to a hospital located outside the border of the broodtown. That had been almost six hours prior.
Asher had been encouraged to remove his draquartz ring and assume a more human form, and he had opted to comply, not wanting to face any more discrimination than they already would from Ruth being a fuldrake. As it turns out, the plan had worked, and he had managed to convince triage that Ruth probably had a concussion of some kind, and they immediately, although reluctantly, moved him up in the queue. The doctors had seen to him maybe an hour after that, and confirmed that Ruth did, in fact, have a concussion, as well as half a dozen broken bones. They had taken him in deeper for some tests and left Asher to his own devices.
He had changed into a set of human clothes that he had bought from the hospital gift shop, a simple white t-shirt and blue track pants, and had left Esther sleeping in the backpack he had purchased along with them. In the back of his mind, he could feel her, nestled among his drake clothing, surrounded by his scent. She had been surprised when he had changed, and didn’t seem to like him in his human form. He idly wondered if maybe he could use that to his advantage while training her.
Ruth had been pumped full of painkillers and other drugs before the doctors had proceeded to properly set his arm and bandage his leg. They said his eye was heavily infected, and it was highly likely he would never see out of it properly again. They had done what they could to fix his snout, but they were unable to properly set it before carefully coating it with a plastic cast to hold the bones in place. They believed it would heal, but not without some scarring and odd shape. His ribs had been another matter, and they had needed to wrap his entire torso in a stiff plastic cast that would keep him from moving too much.
Asher just counted his brother lucky to have survived. He had truly believed that Ruth had been lost, dead and gone, so much so that his attempt at a ‘rescue’ had subconsciously been more of a vengeful rampage. He had been so ready to accept that Ruth was dead that he had gone berserk, and tried to kill anyone that stood in his way. That wasn’t normal, even by the standards of the broodtown underworld. He didn’t know how he’d ever be able to live with this, with the shame of what he had done.
Asher was suddenly pulled from his deep thoughts as a knock came on the hospital door. He said nothing, but the door opened anyway, and Nicholas Jones stepped into the room, looking no worse for wear save for a cast over his arm and a bandage over the ear Asher had blown out.
“I hope Agni isn’t with you,” Asher whispered, not wanting to wake his brother.
“No, he’s on the roof, doesn’t do well in tight spaces I’m afraid,” Nicholas chuckled, shutting the door and locking the latch.
“I guess you’re here to kill us?” Asher asked, not bothering to make eye contact with COMA’s enforcer.
“That all depends on how you answer some questions,” Nicholas said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a black leather badge holder. “COMA was impressed with the work you did, Asher. They want you on the payroll.”
“What makes them think I want anything to do with them?” Asher asked, glaring up at the man.
“You don’t have much of a choice in the matter, I’m afraid,” Nicholas said, his tone not changing even in the slightest. “This is how COMA works, Asher. You either work for us, or you die. We have to preserve the secrecy of our assets—”
“You mean dragons?” Asher interrupted, raising his voice just a little bit.
“Of. Our. Assets,” Nicholas growled. “You are being given the opportunity of a lifetime, Asher Itzcovitch. I suggest you accept, because I would rather not kill a drake asleep in a hospital bed.” Nich
olas tossed the badge holder onto the bed, right in front of Asher.
He flipped it open, and was unsurprised to find a silvery shield inside, as well as an ID card, already featuring his information and a picture of him in his drake form. Asher reached into his own pocket and retrieved Nicholas’ badge for comparison. There were some slight differences between the identification cards, but other than that they were the same. Sighing, he tossed the enforcer’s badge back, which he caught out of the air and placed back into his pocket.
“So I don’t have a choice but to do your bidding?” Asher grumbled, propping his chin up against his hands.
“We do not call on our agents very often, but yes, when we require it, you will be called upon to perform tasks that need to be done. For the most part, you will be free to operate within your jurisdiction as you see fit, handling magical crimes that the normal police cannot, since you will be working for a government agency and all. You will effectively be a magical detective,” Nicholas said, crossing his arms. “There is a salary, as well as a pension. You are not a slave, just understand that if we are displeased with your performance, your employment is not the only thing that will be terminated.”
“And Ruth?” Asher asked, lowering his voice again as he glanced at his brother. His wounded brother. His brother who would not have been wounded had Asher never taken the heist job in the first place. So many things wouldn’t have happened if Asher had just spoken to Ruth about getting fired instead of thinking he could handle it himself.
“I have spoken to my superiors on his behalf as well. They do not want him in the fold, but are willing to let him live if it means they have your cooperation. They have agreed to extend your oath of confidentiality to him,” Nicholas explained, taking a few steps towards the door. “Basically, if he talks about dragons to other people, he dies. Most likely you will be the one required to kill him, too, so that should be extra incentive to keep it secret. Since he was harmed during a COMA sanctioned mission, the higher ups have also agreed to pay for any medical costs associated with his recovery. Provided, of course, you accept our offer.”