Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

  I left a long stretch of rope at the end of one knot, using it like a leash for the unconscious body. I dragged that monster behind me, along the stone floor of Benoch’s bunker and toward the massive metal door that led to his subterranean workshop.

  The second I stepped inside, dragging my captive bloodhound behind me, the blue flames on Benoch’s demonfire candles went black.

  Dani, Clara, and Kaylee were all sitting around the wooden table at the center of that cavernous room, sipping tea. They had their own clothes back on now, rather than the formless white gowns the guards left me in when they first took us prisoner.

  “Shouldn’t you all be asleep?” I asked.

  “Who could sleep?” Dani replied. “Benoch sat down with each of us and we had a nice talk over tea and crackers. He’s going to help us.”

  “But you’re all going to help me first,” he said. “Put that beast on the table.”

  The girls took their teacups and stepped back as I lifted the bloodhound and dumped it onto the wooden table. Benoch cut the ropes that bound its wrists and ankles, then fastened metal shackles that he affixed to the table’s four sturdy legs.

  “And on weekends this doubles as a sex dungeon,” I said.

  “I’m sure you’d like that,” Benoch said. “Pervert.”

  “I’m not the one with whips and chains,” I said.

  “You saw the whips then?” Benoch asked. “I thought I put those away. Anyhow, it’s time to begin.”

  Benoch walked back to a rack of odd medical implements and brought a few closer to his subject. He started with a needle, drawing a thick sludge of black blood from the bloodhound’s dark grey veins, then he squirted a drop of it onto a glass dish. He brought the lens of a conical magnifying glass so close to the blood it almost touched the fluid’s surface.

  “Necrotic,” he said. “The blood in their veins is post-digestion, which begs the question what and how they excrete the waste.”

  “Ew, barf,” I said.

  “Yes, perhaps they regurgitate it,” he said. “Good thinking.” He rammed a tool into the bloodhound’s mouth next that propped open its jaw. He squeezed the tool twice, each time widening the tool’s reach with a loud click. With the monster’s mouth stretched to its limit, Benoch peered inside with his pointy magnifier.

  “No signs of acidic scarring in the esophagus from excessive regurgitation,” he said. “But, moving on. It’s time for the exciting part. I hope you’re all feeling robust.”

  “I could go for some crackers,” I said, reaching for a small tray set off to the side. Noticing a smear of demonspawn blood on my thumb, I changed my mind.

  “This creature,” Benoch said, “is vampiric. It absorbs the traits of its prey, changing its fundamental nature with each meal. In a sense it is chimerical, beginning its existence as a blank slate and adding to its appearance and capabilities those traits it imbibes from its hosts.”

  “So this vaguely canine shape,” I said. “The way it runs around on all fours even though it has hands like mine. The way it growls and tries to bite people. That’s not its natural instincts at work?”

  “It appears that it was fed a steady diet of dog’s blood and not much else,” Benoch said.

  “No,” Kaylee said, “not poor little doggos.”

  “Based on everything I’ve read,” Benoch said, “I’m afraid so. My predecessors conducted what experiments they could during A’zarkin’s reign, and this was how he launched his assault the last time as well. All I have are their cold records, and their science was crude. It’s time to advance our understanding.

  “First, the control,” he continued, handing Dani a fresh bandage. “Draykin’s blood.”

  “I’m ready,” Dani said.

  “Ready for what?” I asked. “We’re not feeding Dani to this monster.”

  Benoch leaned over the prone bloodhound with a small ball of cloth in his hand. It was thin and gauzy, stuffed with something that looked like leaves. The monster began to stir, then lurched upward from the table, straining against the metal shackles that kept it flat against the wooden plank, and against the metal contraption that kept its jaw opened wide.

  “You may approach,” Benoch said.

  Dani nodded.

  “No,” I said, grabbing Dani’s upper arm in my hand. “This is absurd.”

  “Trust me,” Dani said. “I’ll be fine.”

  The way she smiled, so soft, so self-assured. It was hard not to believe that she’d be fine. I let go of her arm and glared at Benoch. “I don’t know what you told these girls while I was gone.”

  “And you won’t,” Benoch said, waving me off. “I don’t answer to you. Dani?”

  Dani held her arm over the bloodhound’s face. Like a zombie catching a whiff of fresh brains, that creature went ballistic. The table creaked beneath it, but the monster couldn’t reach Dani’s arm, and it certainly couldn’t close its mouth enough to bite her.

  Dani held her arm with her hand and pressed one long fingernail into it. Her draykin claw cut into her skin, splitting it open enough for a thin trickle of blood to drip into the monster’s mouth.

  “More,” Benoch said.

  Dani winced, but did as instructed, opening a vertical cut down her arm an inch long that allowed more blood to stream from it. The bloodhound held its head in position, allowing that sweet, fresh blood to wash down its throat.

  Benoch watched closely and waved Dani on, indicating that her contribution was not complete. Her patience wavered, and she looked away rather than watch more of her blood drain into this beast’s belly.

  “Enough,” Benoch said as the bloodhound began to thrash and throw its head back, though it couldn’t move far in any direction.

  Dani stepped away and held her bleeding arm tight, glancing at Clara for just a moment. The kobold healer turned away just as quickly, obviously eager to avoid any suggestion that she use her magic again.

  The bloodhound tremored as it lay there, and we watched as a pair of black, leathery wings burst out beneath it. One extended to each side, just as large and strong as Dani’s appeared, but they were solid black where hers were green, and where Benoch’s were a silvery gray. They looked like the wings we’d seen bloodhounds grow before, after attacking Dani and taking some of her blood for a meal.

  “Kaylee,” Benoch said, “look away for me, dear.” She turned to face the other direction as Benoch approached the bloodhound with large metal nails, the kind fit to crucify someone with. He hammered the beast’s new wings into the wooden table before it could gather full control over them.

  The monster screeched and beat against the table as hard as it could, forcing another round of creaks and groans from the wood. When it calmed again, Benoch smiled.

  “The first trial was a success,” he said. The excitement in his eyes was worrying. “This is precisely what my records indicate would happen. Now, the simki!”

  Kaylee turned to face the bloodhound again. She took a small scalpel from Benoch’s supply of tools and held her arm over the trapped creature.

  “Your arm,” I said. “Kaylee, you had a terrible gash down your arm when I left. Did Clara heal you?”

  I looked at Clara next, but she shied away.

  “No,” Kaylee said. “Those candies you gave me sent me to sleep, but when Benoch brought his little sack of waking herbs, I came to right away. My arm was fine.

  “I remember being hurt though,” she said. “I remember… wanting to hurt people. I think I did hurt someone, but I don’t remember clearly. Was that me? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a curse, dear,” Benoch said. “Nasty one too, with lots of dark energies swirling inside your soul. Takes a toll, but we’ll work it out.”

  Kaylee’s back stiffened. “You didn’t say I was cursed, Mr. Benoch. Wh- what does that mean? Am I going to be okay?”

  “It’s everyone else I’d worry about,” he said. “A little skirmish is all it takes to turn you into a maniacal maelstrom of violent rage, but I
’ve already told you. I’ll help. Later. Just cut your arm and bleed into its mouth, we don’t have all night.”

  “Hey,” I said. “You just dropped a nuclear bomb on Kaylee. Have a little compassion while she deals with the fallout.”

  “What’s a nuclear bomb?” he asked.

  I shook my head and grit my teeth.

  With a look of confusion and self-doubt on her face, Kaylee stepped forward and cut her arm down the center. It was a small wound, but large enough for another thin stream of blood to feed the monster’s face.

  This time, the monster lurched and grew a simki tail and its ears grew outward, rounding into the same half-moon shape as Kaylee’s. Now the beast was part dog, part dragon, part monkey, and completely nauseating.

  While Kaylee took a bandage for her arm, Benoch walked over and gave me a shove.

  “Don’t pick a fight with me, old man,” I said. “I’m in no mood. The second this gets messy I’m feeding you to this monster. See how much you like science then.”

  He pushed me again, watching the bloodhound carefully. Kaylee’s cheeks began to flush and her eyes glinted red. I stepped toward her and put my arms on her shoulders, turning her to face the other direction and then giving her a hug from behind to try and soothe her. The last thing we needed was for the curse to take hold.

  “Kaylee’s growing upset, but the bloodhound is still at its baseline,” Benoch said. “The curse didn’t transfer! Very nice. That’s an important finding on demonspawn and dark magic. Clara?”

  “It doesn’t want my kobold blood,” she said.

  “Of course it does,” Benoch said. “Blood is blood. You could be a gangrenous rooster and it would tear your head off and use your neck like a straw. Get in there.”

  “Then it doesn’t want my blood,” she said. “Whatever trait it stands to absorb from me does not interest the bloodhounds.”

  “Clara,” Benoch said. “You’re slowing down our understanding.”

  I stepped toward the bloodhound myself and grabbed a scalpel. “She’s not interested in being a guinea pig. I’ll go.”

  Benoch started to protest, but the second my scalpel pierced my skin, the bloodhound became ravenous. A lascivious growl trembled through its whole body. It whimpered with hunger and need. It started to salivate and drool.

  A thin rivulet of blood escaped my vein.

  The bloodhound’s thrashing became more violent, bowing the wooden surface of the work table as it tensed its muscles and tried to contract into a tight ball, stressing the metal chains and splintering the wooden legs that they wrapped around.

  “Fuck,” I said, pulling my arm back and grabbing a bandage to wrap around the cut.

  The bloodhound’s head lifted from the table and its body calmed. “Uuuuuck,” it said, straining its lips around the metal contraption Benoch had used to force its mouth open. The voice that creaked its way out of its throat was grating and harsh, the speech of a creature not accustomed to the complexities of human articulation.

  “It’s trying to communicate,” Benoch said. He leaned forward and pinched the jaw-spreading device, releasing its hinge and pulling it quickly from the monster’s mouth.

  “Guys,” I said, stepping away. “Since when can they speak?”

  It licked its lips and cleared its throat. “Guyyyys,” it said. “Guuuuuys. Since when can they ssspeak?”

  “It learns so quickly,” Benoch said. “And look!”

  As we watched the bloodhound mouthing human words and rolling its tongue around in its mouth, some of its other features morphed. Its shoulders rounded backward and its hunched spine straightened against the wooden table. Its hips, at one point oddly bent, opened outward and allowed its legs to rest flat.

  “So it’s becoming human now?” I asked.

  “Yesss,” it replied. “Human. But more.”

  Benoch practically knocked me over as he rushed to the beast’s side. “It’s not just parroting what you say anymore. It’s generating its own independent speech.”

  “Come closer,” it said in a croaking whisper. “Massster A’zarkin sends message.”

  Benoch leaned forward an inch and the bloodhound lifted its head toward him, opening its mouth in a half-smile and lunging as best it could toward his exposed neck. I grabbed Benoch by his purple robe and pulled him back just as the monster’s jaw snapped shut again, narrowly avoiding a grave injury.

  “Is that message ‘we’re going to eat you all’?” I asked. “Because he could have said that in a text.”

  “The draykin hold one of witches deep inside stronghold,” the beast said. “She livesss and waits. He wants her back.”

  “So it’s a love story?” I said. “Weak.”

  “He wants to go home!” Spittle flew from the bloodhound’s mouth as it spoke, its head whipping violently to the side as its wrists lurched against the chains that held it in place. Failing to break free, the creature relaxed again and continued speaking. “His power isss strongest at place of first incarnation. He cannot defeat Goddess and inherit throne of time until witches send back to Earth.”

  “He’s from Earth,” I said. “Perfect. Maybe I can hitch a ride.”

  “He will tear down your preciousss kingdom until reaches her,” the bloodhound said, aiming its gaze at Dani. “Brick by brick, vein by vein, and egg by egg.”

  “So he is after Queen Zolocki’s egg,” Dani said. “The queen wasn’t just being paranoid about that.”

  “Meansss to end,” the bloodhound said. “If you do not provide his witch, he will prevent you from trapping her in first place.”

  “How,” Dani said, “by bending the rules of time?”

  The bloodhound laughed and allowed its furry monkey tail to curl and uncurl to its side, draped lazily over the edge of the work table. “Time is heart of all magic, and A’zarkin honed hisss magic well. With right conduit, eradicate your entire lineage.”

  “Queen Zolocki’s egg is such a conduit?” Benoch asked. He had fetched a notepad off his tray and a long quill pen. He scribbled madly as the bloodhound spoke.

  “Egg holds promise of race’s future,” the bloodhound said. “But it alssso contains link to race’s past. Royals lead because closest link to time of dragons. Their eggs alone glisten with golden shell.

  “Combined with magic of negation?” It smiled and laughed again, arching its back as its diaphragm shook its whole body. The black, leathery wings beneath it rustled, tearing against the nails that pierced them while its monkey tail coiled up.

  “The queen will never release the witch,” Benoch said. “She cannot. The castle is built atop her tomb. She rests deep beneath the ground in a pit filled with the purest salt.”

  “Bury your problems,” I said. “How very draykin.”

  “Witchesss cannot truly die,” the bloodhound said. “A’zarkin gets witch, or remove queen from throne. And time. And memory.”

  “That kind of magic would cost his own life,” Benoch said.

  “Price he would pay, for true son to inherit hisss due.”

  “I thought you were his son,” I said. “Daughter? Oh god, are you filthy things all girls?”

  “I am born of A’zarkin’s flesh,” the beast said. “Prince Pakson is born of his loins. From Pakson’s human womb comesss army to rival Goddess’s wicked angels!”

  “You’re losing me,” I said. “Prince Pakson has a human womb?”

  “One young and robust enough to birth hundred hybrid warriors,” it replied.

  “A prince with a womb,” I said. “So you have ‘transgender’ here too. Very progressive. Now, where can we find A’zarkin? I have a little ‘killing him’ I need to do.”

  “You will find him,” the bloodhound said, “when he wishesss to be found.”

  “Well, you’ve been very helpful, you chatty little monster,” I said. “Though I have to say, this seems like an awful lot of information for… you know… a measly henchman. How do you know all this?”

  “Because I am from A’za
rkin,” he said. “He sees with my eyesss and speaks with my tongue. And now, he drinks with my teeth.”

  The bloodhound spread its wings wide and flapped them against the wooden table, yanking its balled fists toward its body and pulling the shackles taut. Its hips thrust high into the air, then bashed downward, cracking the wood down the center while the table legs bowed outward. After a few moments of manic thrashing, the table collapsed and the creature was loose, dragging metal chains and table shards through the wreckage of that mighty wooden furniture.

  CHAPTER 21

  “This is what we get for feeding it past midnight,” I said.

  The bloodhound shook its arms and legs, rattling the shackles that still clung to its wrists and the splintered remains of the work table it had been tethered to.

  “Your blood,” the creature said, staring at me with human-shaped eyes that were brilliant orbs of swirling blue energy. “It carriesss familiarity. It enlivens me.”

  Dani stepped back in front of Kaylee and spread her dark green wings, shielding the cursed simki from the fight that was erupting at the heart of Benoch’s workshop. The old man clutched his notepad and quill pen, frozen for a moment as he watched the bloodhound stretch its limbs and flex its muscles.

  “What does that mean?” Benoch asked. “You are human, are you not?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but what’s one hundred percent human plus roughly seven percent Oscar?”

  “You think this beast drank in some of Oscar’s power?” Dani asked.

  “I think Oscar would be too embarrassed to confirm or deny,” I said.

  The beast reached for the shackles that wrapped around its wrists and ankles, then dug its long nails down their metal bands. After weakening the metal, it was strong enough to snap them apart.

  The bloodhound was still getting its bearing, assessing the workshop around it while we held our position a good ten feet away. With my eyes still trained on that mangy gray beast, I reached toward Benoch’s tool tray.