Heart of the Dragon King

by J Boothby

  Zara had told me that there were smaug refugees in Richmond now. They were running from the war in the Elhyra and somehow managed to find a way into Earth. Border Patrol was grudgingly allowing them to settle in a few locations, despite a lot of protests. Richmond was one of them.

  But knowing there were smaug nearby, and seeing one in person, are two very different things.

  She stops to look at a tree in someone's garden—it's a bright red Japanese maple. She leans in close to one of the branches and sniffs at a leaf.

  Then I realize: she is being followed.

  The followers are clearly not friendly.

  Three large grogan guys, with dirty tusks, t-shirts from old punk bands, ripped jeans and heavy shit-kicker boots are skulking along behind her. I think I recognize one of them—a guy named Oswald who'd been in my high school, who'd gotten kicked out for hard drugs and fighting.

  They stop, whispering and grunting to each other, and then with a snort they dash up and surround her. Two of them jump around in front of her while one stays behind.

  “Hey, lizard bitch,” Oswald yells. “Why don't you go the fuck back to where you came from.”

  The smaug cocks her head at him curiously. She says something, but I can't hear what it is.

  “Yeah,” the other grogan snorts and spits. “You don't belong here.” A thick line of yellow drool dangles from his lip.

  I realize that the guy behind her is carrying something.

  It's a metal baseball bat.

  Without thinking, I drop my bag of vegetables and sprint to catch up to them. “Ozzie Franklin,” I yell. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He squints at me. He's too wiry and hasn't shaved in a few days. His eyes are bloodshot, the hair on his face is dirty and matted, and he's aged a lot in the few years since I saw him last. He looks like he's been doing meth or something worse. He's tipped his tusks with silver, but instead of looking impressive it just looks tacky.

  “Kylie?” he says, after a minute. “What are you doing here? “

  I look at the smaug, who is clearly frightened. She knows she's surrounded. Her slit-pupiled eyes flick between Oswald, the other guy, and then back at me.

  “I live here, Ozzie,” I say. “I'm escorting my friend here home.”

  “Your friend?” he says, eyes narrowing.

  “My new friend,” I say. I step up next to the smaug. “You have a problem with that?”

  Oswald looks awkwardly at the guy next to him. I'm not sure what he was expecting to happen, but it clearly wasn't this. The other guy sneezes and shrugs.

  I can hear the grogan behind the smaug snorting eagerly to himself, and smacking the bat into the thick palm of his hand.

  Oswald pulls himself up to his full height, which is not very tall, and he puffs out his chest. “I have a problem with that, Kylie. A big problem.”

  Great. Just great. My uncle made sure I took martial arts classes after school. Three times a week for years. Am I going to need to use some of that?

  “Maybe you should get over that,” I say. “Somewhere else.”

  I take out my phone and I take his picture, and then one of the guy next to him. I lean around the smaug and get the guy in back, too. “Anything happens to her, and I'm going right to the police.”

  “Hey!” Oswald yells. He tries to make a grab for my phone, and he's fast but I'm faster.

  “Get out of here, Ozzie,” I say. “Before I call someone.”

  “No one's going to come for a lizard,” he says. He spits at her feet.

  “They'll come for me,” I say. “And for her,” I say, pointing to the house next to us.

  An old woman there is looking out of her window, talking on her cell phone.

  “Come on,” the guy behind the smaug says. “Let's go, Oz.”

  Oswald's incredibly pissed off, but I think we've got him. “Go the fuck home,” he yells again at the smaug. “This is our goddamn world.”

  And then he and the other two lope across the street and duck down an alley.

  I turn to the smaug. I have to look up at her because she's so tall.

  “Are you all right? I'm sorry that happened,” I say.

  “I am fine,” she says softly. She brings the fingers of her left hand to her forehead and says “Estrashya.” Her nails are long and sharp, but painted in a cascade of reds and purples. She closes her eyes and bows her head a little as she does it, too. It looks like very regal gesture. “Thank you.” she says. “By the oldmothers, I suspect I owe you my life.”

  She has a faint lisp that part of me finds strangely reassuring.

  That's offset some by her rather large and sharp teeth. And as she speaks, it's as if there is someone else near me, whispering her words in my ear at the same time she's saying them. I'd read about that happening online, but experiencing it is very strange and eerie. No one knows why it happens.

  “I don't know if they would have actually done anything?” I say, doubtfully. “They're probably just trying to scare you.”

  “It worked,” she says, simply. “And they are not wrong. I should not be out here on my own. This is your world. We are here only with your permission.” She sits down on the steps of the house, and leans forward on her cane.

  “It didn't use to be the grogan's world either,” I say. “Though Ozzie probably missed that part of history class. They were refugees once too.”

  Inside I can see the older woman watching us nervously, still on her phone. I decide to ignore her.

  I should probably go, I tell myself. I can't get those smaug soldiers out of my mind.

  But this woman's as far from a soldier as you can get. She looks like someone's elegant grandmother who's gone for a walk and needed a short break.

  I sit down next to her. “You should be able to go anywhere you want to,” I say. “That might not be the country we have now, but it was one we used to have.”

  “Was it? Then you were very blessed, if only for a time. Freedom must always be valued, above all else.”

  I nod. “What brought you out here?”

  She looks around and gestures: the houses, the trees, the gardens. “An old woman's curiosity, if you must know. I have not been here long. I have never been somewhere that was so different from my homeland, and I confess I wanted to see more of it. I thought a walk would be harmless. I see that I was wrong. My son will be very upset with me.”

  There's an airy lilt in her voice, an accent and pacing to the carefully-chosen words that's strange and reassuring.

  And yet as she talks, I can see the flash of her teeth.

  A shiver runs down my spine, but I won't let prejudice get the better of me. “Can I walk you to wherever it is that you're staying?”

  She shakes her head. “I would not ask you to put yourself at risk due to an old woman's folly.”

  “It's no trouble,” I say. “Most of this world is actually fairly nice if you know what to look for. Give me a sec.”

  I run back and grab my stuff. There are bok choi and broccolini scattered on the pavement, but it will wash up ok. I shove it all back in the bag. I join her. I give the woman in the window a wave and a thumbs-up. She studies us, skeptically.

  “I'm Kylie, by the way. Are you far?”

  She shakes her head. “You may call me Xyr,” she says. “It is not far.”

  We walk.

  Or instead I walk and she glides—I have to move quickly to keep up.

  We're quiet for a time. I can see her studying the trees, the homes. “All of your Earth is like this?” she says, after a while. “So...green?”

  I shrug. “There are a lot of different places here. Some are green. Some are hot and dry. Some are cold and frozen. Some places have cities, and some don't.”

  “The Elhyra is not like this,” she says. “We don't have such...diversity. Or such calm, any longer. You must value it greatly.”

  I shake my head. “I wish we did,” I say. “It's all we know, so I think we probably take it for granted.”r />
  “The Elhyra was once quite beautiful, Kylie, before it was shattered.”

  “Shattered?”

  She studies my face. “Do you know nothing of our war? Of the Sundering?”

  I shake my head. “I hardly know anything about the Elhyra at all.”

  “The Elhyra was once whole, and wonderful, and ruled justly by the Narrow King. But then the Sundering came, and we were broken. The oldmothers left us. In his grief, the Narrow King grew close to the darkness, and since he is our oldfather, now all of the Elhyra follows his lead.”

  “Old father?”

  She nods. “You might say soul or spirit. He is our leader, but he is also much more to the Syldana. He is opposed by a man known as the Sparrow. The Sparrow seeks to protect us against the Narrow King, but there is no knowing how things will go in war.”

  There aren't a lot of people out walking, but we still get looks from those we do pass—they stop and stare as we approach, and then they cross over to the other side of the street to let us pass by. Cars slow down to look, too, and then speed away down the street.

  I nod like I understand what she's saying. I know 'Syldana' is how the smaug refer to themselves, at least. I hadn’t heard anything about any ‘Sparrow’ before.

  We head down into the Fan, and then turn south and cross over the highway into the Hill. The houses here were built for the families of people staying in an old nearby prison, that's not there anymore. But the houses still are: they're old, wooden, and they lean awkwardly against each other.

  She stops before a particularly ramshackle set of three houses badly needing paint. The metal roofs are dented and rusting. The front yards are weedy and overgrown. It's the start of a whole neighborhood that's been converted to housing for smaug refugees, it looks like. Elaborately woven carpets are laid out on the porches, brightly colored with patterns of stars and planets and dark branches of trees. From the open doors, a thick, cloying scent of a particular smoke, and of spices that I don't know the names of.

  It smells phenomenal and a lot like my own fire.

  It reminds me of something else, too. Something that I can't quite put my finger on. Something that seems very familiar. You know when you're trying to remember someone's name but can't?

  Like that.

  “This is us,” Xyr says, gesturing to the houses, frowning. “For a time, at least.”

  Another smaug comes out onto the porch of one of the houses. This one is equally tall and angular, but he's dressed in an emerald suit that was once elegant but now looks dirty and torn. It's woven with elaborate patterns in black and gold that seem to shift when I look at them, though the lace is dirty at the neck and the wrists, and there are stretches of grime on the jacket. His long hair is straight down his back, and his piercings are less elaborate, but his scales shimmer in the sun.

  He's stunning, actually. He has a proud look in his flashing eyes and is built like someone who goes to the gym a lot.

  He says something to Xyr, and she answers him in the same language. He says something more in a harsher tone, and Xyr answers him equally harshly.

  “My son feels I should not have brought you here. That we are at risk if we become too familiar with your kind. I feel he is wrong, but perhaps you will tell me yourself. Do we have anything to fear from you, Kylie?”

  I shake my head. “Please tell him not to worry,” I say. “I'm probably one of the least scary humans you'll meet.”

  “Perhaps, then, we might speak again sometime soon? I would enjoy the chance to understand more of your culture.”

  I don't have to think about that for very long. I nod. “That would be great. I might have more questions for you, too.”

  She says something to the other smaug. He throws up his hands, and stomps back into the house. The sounds of his stomping, I notice, don't line up directly with his feet.

  “My son,” Xyr shrugs, “is not known for his openness to new ideas.”

  She smiles at me, and reaches out her hand for me to take.

  It's a beautiful smile, but it's still unsettlingly full of very sharp teeth. And that other whisper of her voice lingers in my ears.

  I take her hand in mine and shake it a little awkwardly, not knowing quite what she expects.

  Her hand is cool, and the feathery scales of her skin slide across my own skin like silk. A little spark jumps between us—static electricity, I guess. My hand tingles.

  “We must all be open to new ideas, Kylie. Even if they are not what we expect.”

  8

  “You’re going to tell me that’s normal?” Mason says. She puts down the iPad as they pull away from the curb near the Hill. She hits the button that will upload the new video of Kylie Walker and that smaug to the Institute’s servers. “Your ‘friends’ are taken from you by smaug soldiers, and yet the minute you see one on the street, you strike up a conversation?”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Mason says.

  Devon nods. “A harbinger? I guess it’s possible.” Harbingers were rare. Smaug spies, they opened the roads between here and the Elhyra. They could do it anywhere, at any time, and let in all the armies of Fae.

  Armies which were at war with each other over there, and only too happy to bring their fight here.

  Imagine: smaug taking over a nuclear launch facility. Times Square. The White House. What happened at Burning Man could happen anywhere, and any part of Earth could become a battleground in an instant.

  Devon shivers but tries not to let it show. “You think she’s making contact? With a handler?”

  “I do.”

  “It could just be a coincidence. I think she had some fair points,” Devon says. “What would a smaug agent be doing in a small time grogan place?”

  “We’ve been over that. Laying low. Stirring up trouble. Close to DC if you wanted.”

  Devon shakes his head. “She could just be a nice person. There still are some of those out there.” If he’s honest, Devon feels a little like he’s faking this whole investigation a little. He’s not military anymore—none of them are, technically. When he was military, Special Ops, he jumped out of planes a lot. There was none of this following people around in the shadows and asking questions.

  If you’d asked him when he was a kid if he’d ever be a cop of any kind, he would have laughed. As a kid, Devon wanted to be a professional magician. Then, he’d wanted to make people disappear. Now, he was trying to keep them from disappearing.

  This irony is not lost on him.

  Mason laughs sarcastically. “Nice people don’t hang out with lizards.”

  “Do you really think that’s what they are?”

  “Don’t you? You’ve seen their teeth. You’ve seen their soldiers. Cold-blooded, mother-fucking lizards.”

  “I’m just saying, that’s pretty racist.”

  “It’s not racism when the other side wants to kill you and eat you. Plus, she’s hiding something,” Mason says. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Definitely,” Devon nods. “But what, and why? Did you register any aether on her?”

  “Her and the kid too.” She touches some things on the iPad’s screen and shows him the scan.

  “OK, that’s some. But that could have been residual, though. From the incursion? Fairly low levels.”

  Reluctantly, Mason nods. “It could be. But why would the kid have it? She’s just the babysitter, right?”

  Devon shrugs. “She probably hugs him, carries him around sometimes. It could rub off.”

  “Or, she’s an actual smaug agent. Two hours south of DC—that’s an easy drive. Drive up, take a tour of the White House, and blast open a major incursion in the main hallway. Let all the armies of smaug in.”

  He can’t say he’s surprised that Mason is so sure about Kylie Walker, based on very little actual evidence. He hasn’t known Mason for long, but she seems pretty freaking intense.

  “I’d think a smaug agent would be more...”

  “More what,” Mason says.

/>   “More bitter? More disgruntled?”

  “She’s beautiful and a little sad, and maybe a little lost, so she can’t be a spy. Is that what you’re saying? You’re such a guy.”

  Devon shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m saying. You thought she was beautiful? I didn’t actually notice,” he lies.

  “Right,” she says. “Riiiiight. You know the Russians train women to seduce important people and get their secrets and then blackmail them. It’s a classic intelligence play.”

  “I’m feeling important,” Devon says. “Do you speak Russian?”

  “Nyet, comrade,” Mason says. “Nu vorbesc rusă.” It means ‘I don’t speak Russian’ in Russian. Maybe you should get us back to the hotel before your interrogation starts.”

  She’s joking, he thinks. He looks at her sideways.

  “I’m joking,” she says. She rolls her eyes. “Don’t look so hopeful. Besides, wouldn’t your smaug-spy girlfriend be jealous?”

  Devon shakes his head. “We should watch her.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”

  “You’re the one who said she’s hiding something.”

  “She’s definitely hiding something. And you’re right. We should definitely watch her.”

  “What…” Devon says. He hesitates. “I know, we’re not supposed to speculate. But what do you think they actually do with them all? All the people they take over?”

  “The smaug?”

  Devon nods.

  Mason shrugs. “You’ve seen those teeth, right? They feed. And then they feed some more.”

  9

  If I’m going to make a life back here in Richmond, that starts with Poe’s. So I’m cleaning the bar later that night and Zara’s helping. We’re drinking PBR out of cans, and Sam is sitting up on a stool, watching cartoons off YouTube on my phone. There’s an empty bowl of mac & cheese in front of him, and an untouched bowl of salad.

  “How long has the bar been closed up?” Zara says.

  “About a year?”

  She pulls a swollen gallon container of milk out from under the bar and sets it on the counter. She wrinkles her nose. “You think this is cheese yet?” The inside looks pale green.