Cover Art by Lugh Delaney Boyle

© 2020 DM Gilmore

All rights reserved

More books by DM Gilmore

The Lazy Scales series

Lazy Scales

Idle Claws

Dull Teeth

Broken Horns

Kindled Flame

Beating Wings

The Centre of Magical Affairs series

Drake

Trace

Poach

Prologue

The day Jeremy learned that dragons were real was the day that his best friend, Lewis, turned into one. They’d been friends since childhood. They’d grown up together. They’d been inseparable.

Lewis had practically been a brother to Jeremy until the day he suddenly wasn’t.

Jeremy looked at the glowing fire in the distance. He could see eight men gathered around it, laughing and joking. Some of them had set up a table and were playing a game of cards. Others were roasting hotdogs over the open flame and swapping stories. They had erected tents for shelter and a gasoline generator to supply them with power. Jeremy knew who these men were, even if they had never outright stated it themselves.

They were dragon slayers.

The blonde man at the table, who was calmly shuffling around a handful of poker chips, was John Lambton. Jeremy recognized him as their leader, the one who spoke for the entire group. It felt strange to see Lambton dressed in something other than black body armor, the standard uniform of the dragon-slaying troupe. It struck Jeremy as odd that these men, who hunted strange and fantastic creatures, could dress in anything remotely reasonable.

And yet, there he was, dressed in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He shuffled his hand of cards and tossed a handful of chips into the middle of the table.

They’d set up their campsite in the middle of a large grassy field just outside Barrington Hills. Behind their camp, the city was alight with evening activity. A little ways away, Jeremy could see the outline of their big, black, eighteen-wheeler truck against the night sky.

Jeremy took a deep breath. So far as he could tell, they hadn’t seen him yet. He could still turn around and walk away. He didn’t have to get involved, as much as he thought he wanted to. He could forget he’d ever come out here. If he left now, he could still forget all about this.

Except, he didn’t want to forget.

How could he forget, when it was all so painfully apparent in his mind?

Jeremy caught sight of a flash of orange and recognized Dayton’s stocky form, one of Lambton’s men. The ginger-haired man had his arm in a sling and winced slightly as he laughed, no doubt from his broken ribs. Jeremy’s heart leaped up into his throat as he remembered what had happened to that man in their last encounter. Jeremy’s resolve hardened. Dayton had nearly died in their previous meeting, an encounter that had ended with a furious dragon. Jeremy remembered why he’d wanted to come out and find the dragon slayers.

He swallowed his fear. He’d come out here with a purpose, and he couldn’t leave until it was fulfilled. He quickly pushed his glasses up his face and marched towards the camp, his head held high and his shoulders back.

As he approached, a few of the dragon slayers looked up and eyed him suspiciously. Lambton, however, never took his eyes off his game. His eyes were hard, a blue so fierce that they almost seemed to glow as they caught the firelight. Jeremy stopped beside the table and held his breath, waiting for some sign that he was allowed to be present.

Lambton picked up a can of beer from the table and took a pull off it, smacking his lips as it came away. “About time you stepped out of the shadows,” he said in a thick British accent. “I had a bet with my mates here that you’d turn around and leave. Guess I owe them some coin.”

The men around the table laughed as Lambton tossed each of them a poker chip. The older man grinned as he turned to Jeremy again. His age was indeterminate. He looked to be maybe in his early forties, but somehow Jeremy got the sense that Lambton was vastly older than he appeared. The last time they’d met, Lambton had held himself tall and proud, like a man who had seen and therefore knew far more than he let on.

“You knew I was out there?” Jeremy asked although he was mostly unsurprised. The old dragon slayer always struck him as highly intelligent.

“You don’t get to be as old as me in this profession without being vigilant, lad,” Lambton chuckled, shuffling his remaining stack of poker chips. Jeremy noticed that, despite handing each of the other players some of his chips, he still had a remarkably large pile. “Observe everything and absorb every detail. You never know when something like that might come in handy.”

Jeremy adjusted his glasses and nodded in understanding. “Right. Vigilance. Observation. Makes sense.”

Lambton smirked and flipped his cards face-up on the table. “That’s a straight, lads. Pay up.”

Two of the other players swore, while the third, who had already folded, nodded sagely.

“Do you play poker, kid? Five-card draw?” Lambton asked, giving Jeremy a pleasant grin as he raked in his chips.

“I only know how to play Texas Hold ’em,” Jeremy said, sheepishly.

“Ah, it’s basically the same thing, except you get five cards in your hand, and there’s no river. Join us, play a few hands.”

Jeremy shook his head violently. “I’m not here to play games!” He said, his fists tightening.

“Of course you’re not,” Lambton said with a smirk. “Why the hell would you ever play a game with old men like us?”

Two of his men at the table laughed again. Jeremy noticed that those who were still around the firepit had gone silent, observing the conversation.

“I know why you’re here, but since you won’t come out and say it, I’m just filling the time,” Lambton said, as he carefully stacked his chips into piles organized by color. When he was done, he had even more than when he’d paid out to his friends on their bet. “I like preamble and banter. It’s interesting. You learn more from a man by what he doesn’t say than what he does.”

Jeremy blinked slowly, not understanding what the old dragonslayer meant.

“Take your brother, for instance,” Lambton continued, tossing his hand of cards to another player as they shuffled the deck. “The last time we met, he insisted that it was coyotes that attacked your barn, even though it was obvious that he recognized the tracks. Strange, innit?”

“What makes you think he recognized the tracks?” Jeremy blurted, his face scrunched in confusion.

“Vigilance and observation,” Lambton said again, tapping his temple. “I use my eyes and ears. Anyone can learn to do it if they want to. But we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. The fact you got defensive shows me you recognized the tracks, too.”

Jeremy thought back to the first time he’d met Lambton. The older man had stopped by his farm to investigate the damage done by a beast that most certainly hadn’t been a coyote. He sputtered nervously but said nothing outright. How did he know!?

Lambton cocked an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a slight grin. “See, lad, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re not speaking, but you’re saying so much. Your body language says that you knew the creature wasn’t a coyote and that your brother knew it too. You’re saying that you know exactly what the beast was.

“I’m able to tell all that by the way you hold yourself: your facial expressions, your eyes, your posture. Your body is giving away what you don’t want to say. Everything tells a story, lad,” Lambton continued, as he tossed his blind into the pot, and the dealer handed him five new cards. He licked the corner of his lip and sorted the cards in his hand. “Everyone has their tells. Vigilance and observation. Remember that.”

“Vigilance and observation,” the other slayers echoed as they sorted their own cards.

“Take these chums,” Lambton said, snapping his fingers to draw Jeremy’s attention and pointing at the other three men at the table. “They all saw me lick my lip just now and think that’s a tell. That’d be the vigilance, they’re keeping an eye out for something that can mean more than what’s being said. The only problem is that I’m observant enough to know that they think like that, so I could have just as easily faked a tell to throw them off.”

The three other players looked up in surprise, and one of them threw his hand onto the table and crossed his arms. “Fold,” he grunted.

Lambton spared Jeremy another smile. “So, what about it, lad? Want to come out and say it, or want me to guess your intention?”

Jeremy opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. He genuinely didn’t know what to say. Lambton had called him out, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to answer. The blonde-haired dragon slayer’s smile waned for a moment, and he shook his head.

“I’ll tell you what, lad,” Lambton said, raising an eyebrow. “Let me take a crack at you. I’ll tell you what I think you’re here for. If I’m right, you join us at the table, and we play a game of poker. I’ll teach you the rules, even give you some of my chips. If I guess wrong, you can turn around and leave. No worse for wear. We ain’t thugs, we don’t hurt people if we can avoid it.”

Jeremy swallowed nervously. “All right, fine. You get one guess.”

Lambton smiled. “One? Ah, the lad’s making it challenging for me, eh? All right.”

Lambton took another quick look at his cards before tossing them onto the table in a fold. The other player who’d folded swore under his breath as the blonde-haired dragon slayer turned in his seat to meet Jeremy’s gaze.

“You are intimately familiar with the dragon on some level,” Lambton began, looking into Jeremy’s eyes. “You know him personally, and you even considered the dragon to be a friend, but now you’re unsure if that was wise.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, and he took a step back in surprise.

“Your reaction tells me I’m right on the money,” Lambton said, rising to his feet and speaking faster. “Let’s continue. The dragon destroyed your property, namely the cow, something that your family needed for dire financial reasons. How do I know you need the cows for money? Simple. Your fields have been untended for at least a couple years. They’re unturned and full of weeds. Your brother does all the hard labor around the farm, and yet you don’t plant any real crops. I suspect he used to help your father before he left or died, but now maintaining the field is too much work for him alone. You’re much too scrawny to be of any genuine help, beyond milking the cows.”

Jeremy took another step back, and Lambton advanced again.

“Right again, I see. All right, one more. Because the dragon destroyed something you needed, it drove a wedge between your friendship. Now you regret your decision to ever get close to the beast because you’re unsure if you’ll be able to do what is necessary to remove it. That is why you came here. You want my help to kill the dragon, but you don’t want me alone to do it. No, you want to be involved. You want to see the beast’s life fade from its eyes as it dies. You want to have a hand in its death.”

Lambton reached out and put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “All of that preamble leads to one thing: you wanted to ask me to train you to slay dragons.”

Jeremy swallowed and quickly adjusted his glasses.

“I’m right, aren’t I? You want to learn how to kill dragons?” Lambton asked.

Jeremy took one look into Lambton’s sharp blue eyes, and then another look at the poker table and fire pit. The other dragon slayers had gone completely still and quiet.

“I could go deeper if you’d like, lad,” Lambton offered, drawing Jeremy’s gaze again. “From the way you’re looking away from me, I feel there’s more to it than that. Wanting to slay the dragon is just the meat of it. So, tell me, boy, am I right?”

Lambton waited in the silence, his smile never wavering for an instant. He patiently waited for Jeremy to admit he was right. Jeremy, however, swallowed again before speaking. “You’re missing one detail,” he said.

Lambton cocked an intrigued eyebrow. “Really? What would that be?”

“The dragon killed my best friend.”

Lambton nodded his head slowly, as though mulling the statement over. “Interesting,” he muttered. “That’s as good a reason as any to want it dead.”

“You don’t sound surprised,” Jeremy noted.

“I’m not. There’s always something after a human tries to befriend a dragon. Dragons are slaves to their baser instincts. Eating humans comes easy to them.”

The pair stood in silence for a brief moment. The dragon slayers said nothing, as they waited to see what Lambton would do next.

“I believe you owe me a game,” the older man said, releasing his grip on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Lads, pull up another chair. Are you hungry, boy?”

Jeremy shook his head, but a bowl of stew was already poured and set at the table. One of the dragon slayers unfolded a chair and put it next to Lambton. The blonde man gave Jeremy a quick grin and tapped the seat eagerly.

“One game, lad,” Lambton said. “That was the deal.”

“The deal was I’d play if you read me right,” Jeremy noted.

Lambton shrugged. “I got it mostly right, and besides, something tells me you want to stick around, regardless of one missed detail.”

Jeremy took a deep breath and adjusted his glasses on his nose again. He didn’t have to win; he just had to play. Swallowing, he took a seat on the chair, and Lambton reviewed the rules.

“Your first lesson, lad: vigilance and observation.”

“Vigilance and observation,” Jeremy repeated.

“Be aware. Be cognizant, and above all,” Lambton started. In a flash, there was the blade of a dagger pressed against Jeremy’s throat. “Be ready to strike at all times.”

Jeremy swallowed nervously as the blade was pulled away and sheathed again at Lambton’s hip. “Now. Let’s play!

Chapter 1

The pronghorns were grazing peacefully on the grassy mountainside. There were six of the tawny mountain antelopes, in ages ranging from young juveniles to grown adults, chewing away on the dried yellow grass. They clopped along, blissfully unaware that just upwind, they were being watched.

Lewis stayed low to the ground, trying his best to blend into the mountainside as he stalked his prey. His bronze scales did little to conceal him from the pronghorns, but with the wind blowing against him and keeping his scent away, they didn’t even know he was there. The wind was blowing down the mountainside, which meant he’d have to charge uphill to catch any of them.

He took a deep breath through his nose, feeling how the scent of his prey danced across his nostrils. Any second now, he would leap out and strike, taking one of them down.

“Not yet,” came a whispered voice from over his shoulder.

Lewis risked a momentary glance up and saw the floating, translucent form of Lasthope. The ghost dragon observed the pronghorns intently, advising Lewis on the perfect moment to strike. Why he bothered to whisper was beyond Lewis’s understanding. It wasn’t like anyone else could see or hear him. Lasthope might as well have been Lewis’s imaginary friend.

“Taste the air with your tongue, what’s the flavor?” Lasthope asked.

Lewis didn’t want or need Lasthope’s nagging, but he couldn’t deny that the elder dragon’s wisdom came in handy now and again. Lewis had only been a dragon for about a week, and he still wasn’t getting any better at it. Previous attempts at hunting had ended in utter failure. As a result, Lewis had a painful gnawing in his stomach that refused to go away. He was sure he’d lost a bit of weight, too, since it had been several days since his last decently sized meal.

At Lasthope’s insistence, he stuck his forked tongue out and tasted the air. “Bitter,” he grunted.

Lasthope snorted. “They’re on alert,” he explained. “They don’t smell you, but they can feel you watching them.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Lewis grumbled, shuffling his claws to get in a better position to strike. “More importantly, how did you get that from bitter air?”

“Shush, Lewis,” Lasthope hissed. “They can still hear you.”

As if on cue, the tail of one pronghorn lifted, and it raised its head from the grass. It looked around, trying to spot the source of the noise.

“Behind the rocks, quickly,” Lasthope said, pointing a translucent talon at a rocky outcropping not too far away.

Lewis held his breath and waited for his breakfast to turn away, and then quickly scuttled on all fours towards the rocks. His tail thrashed behind him, and his furious belly dragged along the ground beneath him. The pronghorn’s ears flicked at the noise. Just as Lewis dived behind cover, the prey whirled and scanned the grass patch he’d been hiding in not seconds earlier.

“Good, good, you’re getting better at this,” Lasthope said, praising Lewis with an intangible pat on the head. “Keep patient, we’re almost done, and then you can eat.”

Lewis said nothing as he risked a peek out from behind the rocks. The pronghorns had moved a little way further up the mountain. He licked his lips, imagining how good it would taste to get his fang-filled mouth around their luscious legs.

“All right, almost time,” Lasthope whispered. “Notice the tails? They’re still on alert. Give them a bit more time to drop their guard and then you can—”

Lasthope was suddenly interrupted as a monstrous growl echoed across the field. For a moment, the ghost dragon’s brows pinched together. Had Lewis just growled at him? Then the sound rippled again.

Lewis’s eyes were wide, and his snout had gone green from embarrassment. He bit his tongue to stifle a groan and flattened himself against the ground, rubbing the sides of his belly as it gurgled angrily again.

“Lewis!” Lasthope barked. “Control your abominable abdominal audio!”

“I can do without the alliteration,” Lewis groaned as his stomach gurgled again. “Augh, so hungry…”

“If you don’t silence that noise this instant, your prey will escape!” Lasthope threatened. “The noise has them on high alert!”

Lewis blinked twice and snaked his long neck around the boulder. Sure enough, the pronghorns were frantically scanning the mountainside, trying to find the strange growling sound. Lewis eyed them, as his belly let out another furious complaint, and couldn’t help but lick his lips. He was vaguely aware that his drool was burning along his maw, a telltale sign that he was about to do something reckless and very idiotic.

“Lewis!” Lasthope roared, as his young ward dove out from behind the rocks and dashed up the mountain. “Confound it!”

All bets were off. The pronghorns bleated in terror at the monster scurrying up the mountainside. They scattered before he got anywhere close to them. Lewis roared in anger and stomped about the ground where they’d been not seconds before, looking around frantically for something he could eat.

One pronghorn had a lame leg and was running a lot slower than the others towards the foothills. Lewis bellowed again and resumed the chase, dashing like a gator as he barreled down the side of the mountain. His claws kicked up dirt and gravel, while his thrashing tail swept the dust around behind him.

He would eat today! He wouldn’t spend another night starving!

As he drew in close to the pronghorn, he lunged forward to snap it up in his jaw. To his surprise, the creature kicked as he jumped and decked him in the nose with its hind hooves. Lewis roared and staggered back a step, his snout filling with the scent of his own blood. His vision went red as he shook off the momentary confusion.

Breakfast was getting away!

“Lewis, by all of the Ancestors!” Lasthope bellowed as he was forcibly dragged along by his pupil. The range of his haunt was only twenty feet and centered on Lewis. He could only move so quickly as a phantom, and in moments like these, he was little more than a passenger. “Would you get a hold of yourself already!? I thought we had moved past this mindless rampage phase!”

Lewis ignored his spectral mentor. He had only eyes and ears for one thing: food, glorious food.

The pronghorn picked up speed as it banked right and started making its way down the mountain again. Lewis roared again, loud enough to startle a nearby flock of chickadees and send them scattering off into the air. With smoke pouring from his mouth, Lewis slowly unfurled his wings.

“Lewis, do not attempt it!” Lasthope roared, but his words fell on deaf ears.

Lewis spread his green-tipped wings as wide as he could. He felt the way the wind caught in the membrane, filling them up like sails. He felt the way the muscles in his chest and shoulders tensed as he held them out. He coiled his body like a spring and pounced into the air.

Lewis couldn’t fly yet. He’d been practicing for a few hours every day. So far, he hadn’t succeeded in doing more than gliding a few feet before inevitably falling out of the sky. Lewis’s smoking maw opened with joy as he tucked his limbs in and leaped down the mountainside.

Being airborne was an extraordinary experience, especially compared to the dreary tedium of walking. It was exhilarating. When Lewis was in the air, everything made sense. He could see the world with clarity, the sounds and smells all neatly sorted themselves in his mind.

One of the other pronghorns had stopped not too far away. If Lewis banked left, he could still catch it. But no, the one with the lame leg, the one who had kicked and insulted him; that was his target. He’d rip those legs off and feast on them!

Lewis felt the joy rising in his chest as he rapidly neared the pronghorn. He was doing it! He was going to finally catch some prey!

“Lewis! Pull up!” Lasthope roared.

Lewis blinked twice and glanced up from the animal he’d been watching intently. The foothills were rapidly approaching, and with them was a thick canopy of trees. Lewis’s eyes widened as he tried to maneuver away from the forest. He pulled his neck up and stuck out his legs like landing gear, scrabbling to touch down on the solid ground.

He made one simple mistake in his descent.

His tail continued thrashing as he dropped, and he overextended to the right. As he dumped all the air out of his wing, his elegant glide turned into a barrel roll. Lewis screamed as he was torn off course from his prey and crashed face-first into a tree. The momentum from his flight kept him going, and he tore through two more trees as he barreled through the woods. Finally, he came to a stop, face first in a puddle of mud.

For a moment, Lewis lay there, his rear end in the air and bubbles of mud forming around his snout. His vision swam, and he could have sworn the offending pronghorn pranced up to check on him, only to kick some more mud up his nose. As his breakfast’s tawny hide disappeared into the woods, Lewis’s stomach growled angrily again.

Lasthope floated down in front of Lewis’s face, shaking his head slowly. “What did you do wrong?” He asked his apprentice.

“Everything,” Lewis grumbled, rolling over onto his side. His belly roared again, and he curled up into a ball in an attempt to silence it. “So hungry…”

“You let your hunger control you again,” Lasthope pointed out. “We really need to get control of that abysmal appetite of yours…”

“Can you back off?” Lewis groaned. “I haven’t had a proper meal in days! That was the closest I’ve ever gotten to catching one of those stupid things!”

“That stupid thing outran you, even when you were in the air,” Lasthope reminded him. “You need to exercise more patience.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that when my stupid stomach keeps alerting my food!?” Lewis growled.

Lasthope sighed. “We will practice some more later,” he said, shaking his large, lumbering head. “For now, perhaps you should find some smaller prey to calm your hunger?”

Lewis grumbled under his breath about worthless ghosts as he pushed himself back up and sat on his haunches. He shook the mud off his snout and sniffed around for anything he could probably catch.

He found a trio of rabbits that had accidentally been flattened in his crash and scooped them up in disappointment. Rabbits barely had any meat on them at all, and they were hardly more than a bite for him. All the same, they were food, and they would at least get his stupid stomach to shut up for like ten seconds.

Maybe, if it stayed quiet, he’d be able to catch something more substantial...

Chapter 2

Jeremy walked into school with his bag over his shoulder and his eyes on the ground. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Lambton had told him. How the man saw things, understood them, was unnatural. Jeremy still didn’t understand exactly how he’d been able to look right through him, but  Lambton had cut to the quick of it. Jeremy wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea that he’d been so easily read.

He had been right, though. Jeremy wanted to learn how to kill dragons. He wanted to be the one to take Lewis out of the world.

It’s not Lewis, he viciously reminded himself. That thing isn’t Lewis. It’s Lazyscales. A dragon. A monster. A killer. It killed Lewis.

It had been just under a week since he’d last seen the monster his friend had become, and in the passing days, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. That a creature like that could exist in the world was unfathomable. It defied logic and reason. And yet it was up in the mountains looming over the town of Barrington Hills, watching them hungrily. If Jeremy wanted to, he could march right up there and probably find Lewis in his cave, playing on his stolen Xbox.

Stop thinking of him as Lewis! Jeremy swore to himself as his mind raced. He’s not Lewis!

Jeremy’s racing thoughts were suddenly interrupted as he bumped into someone. He apologized softly and looked up to see who it was. It didn’t take him long to recognize the black leather jacket and black skirt that belonged to Becca, one of his best friends.

She was wearing her usual black makeup and her thick, platform boots. The boots added an extra three inches to her already impressive height, giving her the appearance of an Amazonian goth princess. Becca’s girlfriend, Lucy, had her arm around Becca’s, hooking them together at the elbow. Jeremy always thought they made such an odd couple, being complete opposites. Becca wore almost only black and had a half-shaved punk rock haircut hanging over the right side of her face. At the same time, Lucy always dressed in bright pinks or yellows and had long blonde hair that twirled into ringlets at the base. They always drew some attention as they walked down the halls.

Hello, Lucy signed, in one of the few sign language gestures Jeremy recognized. Lucy was mute, and so far as Jeremy knew, she’d been that way her entire life.

“H-hey,” Jeremy squeaked, adjusting the straps of his backpack on his shoulder.

“I called out to you like three times,” Becca said, putting a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Are you okay? You seem a little spaced out today…”

“Somebody has to be the space case around here, with Lewis gone,” Lucy quickly signed, and Becca interpreted.

Jeremy shook his head. “Sorry, guys,” he said, adjusting his glasses and looking up to meet Becca’s eyes. “I have been kind of out there lately, haven’t I?”

Becca draped her free arm over Jeremy’s shoulder and pulled him in for a hug. “Look, we’ve all been through a lot the past week. It’s okay if you’re not feeling okay, you know? Just promise that you’re not going to stop talking to us, all right?”

Jeremy blinked in surprise and pulled himself out from under her arm. “What gave you the impression I wanted to stop talking to you guys?”

“I mean, for starters, you muted the group chat,” Becca pointed out.

Jeremy looked away sheepishly. That was true, but they couldn’t really blame him for that. Lately, all the others wanted to talk about was Lewis. Jeremy wanted to think as little about the dragon as possible. That was hard enough without being constantly reminded that he existed.

Or that Jeremy wanted him gone.

Lucy signed something quickly, and Becca had to sign for her to repeat it twice more before she translated. “You’ve also been avoiding us,” she said. Given the number of flourishes in Lucy’s gestures, though, Jeremy figured Becca was paraphrasing. He could have sworn he saw the signs for more than a few swear words in there, but he wasn’t as proficient at sign language as Becca.

“Sorry, I swear I haven’t,” Jeremy assured them, shaking his head. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately, and I really don’t know what to do about it.”

“You can start by talking to your friends,” Becca said, giving Jeremy a stern look. “We all went through a rough patch, okay? We have to be here for each other.”

Jeremy’s eyes dropped to the floor as he nodded in understanding. Becca was right. She was always right. Whenever Becca opened her mouth, she usually said something reassuring or helpful. Often, it was both. To anyone unfamiliar with her, they would find Becca’s personality a strange contrast to how she dressed. That was how Becca had always been, though. She didn’t care if people thought she dressed weird. She wore what she liked, and she always tried to help her friends.

“You’re such a mom friend, you know that. Right?” Jeremy muttered.

Jeremy looked up to see Lucy signing the letters M-I-L-F.

“Babe, oh my god, stop,” Becca said, snorting a laugh.

Jeremy shared a brief chuckle before shaking his head and looking away. “I’m just… going through a rough patch, I guess? Lewis was my best friend, like a brother to me for our entire lives… Now he’s gone…” Jeremy put a hand to his heart. “I feel like I got a hollow spot, right here, you know?”

Becca looked down sadly. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I can’t help but wonder if we were a bit too hasty in abandoning him…”

“Hasty!?” Jeremy blurted, loud enough that other people in the hall shot him a glance. He winced and lowered his voice again. “He threatened to eat us, Beccs.”

Becca made a face. “I’ve been thinking about that. It feels like he was just trying to drive us away, you know?”

Both Lucy and Jeremy shot Becca incredulous stares.

“What? I’m serious!”

“He threatened to eat us,” Jeremy repeated. “I’m not sure how much clearer I can make that.”

Becca rolled her eyes. With a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, she carefully led him out from the middle of the hall and into a corner. “Look, I get that he tried to push us away, but I’ve done some thinking. We should give him another chance.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened in shock, and judging from Lucy’s expression, it was news to her, too.

“You’re insane,” Jeremy said, pointedly, “or suicidal. One of the two. I haven’t figured out which yet.”

“Jeremy, look, he’s just a little different, that doesn’t mean he’s not still our friend,” Becca whispered.

“Don’t make me say it a third time,” Jeremy grumbled, looking away.

Lucy signed something quickly, her brows knit, and her mouth open in a scowl.

“I didn’t tell you my plan because I don’t have one,” Becca said, shaking her head. “I’m still trying to figure things out, and it hasn’t been easy. I just feel terrible about leaving him alone up there…”

Jeremy stared at Becca with an open jaw and raised eyebrows. “Becca… you’re not thinking of going back up there, are you?”

Becca rubbed the back of her head sheepishly and looked away. Lucy quickly tapped on her shoulder to draw her attention again and started signing at a rapid pace. Becca didn’t ask her to repeat herself even once, but she also didn’t bother trying to interpret for Jeremy. Instead, she simply replied in sign language herself. Finally, after two more sign language exchanges, Lucy took a breath and nodded.

“What? What’s she saying?” Jeremy asked.

“That I’m dumb for wanting to go see Lewis again,” Becca sighed, shaking her head.

Jeremy nodded. “You are.”

“—but she’s willing to come back up there with me,” Becca finished.

Jeremy’s jaw dropped, and he blinked rapidly in shock. “You’re both suicidal. I’m going to lose all my friends to this monster,” he said, with such an air of resignation that Becca’s jaw dropped.

“Jer! He’s still Lewis!” Becca hissed, trying to keep her voice low.

“I wish you’d stop calling him that,” Jeremy mumbled, looking away. “That thing isn’t Lewis, and we all know it. He’s Lazyscales, a man-eating, fire-breathing monster. Lewis is as good as dead.”

“How can you say that!?” Becca said, her eyes widening. “He’s your best friend! You said it yourself! You feel empty without him!”

“I feel empty without Lewis,” Jeremy growled, “and I’m not about to replace my best friend with a fire-breathing dragon.”

Becca shook her head. “Your best friend is still in there! I know we can coax Lewis back out if we just go see him! Please, let’s go up there after school and—”

“Becca, oh my god, you’re not listening to what I’m saying!” Jeremy shouted. He immediately cringed, worried that he might have unintentionally drawn attention to himself. He held his breath for a moment, waiting to see if anyone else came over to check on them before starting up again. “That thing up there isn’t Lewis, by his own admission,” Jeremy explained. “He told us before that he can’t remember being human. He told us that he sees us as food and would gladly eat us if given a chance.”

“Jer…”

“Becca, please listen,” Jeremy insisted, grabbing her by the hand. Lucy shot him a dirty look, but he kept on talking. “Lazyscales admitted these things to us himself. I’m not making stuff up here. This is literally what he told us, remember?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Becca muttered.

“So, then you have to understand why I can’t think of Lazyscales as my friend Lewis,” Jeremy said, releasing her hands. His jaw clenched as he looked away.

Jeremy remembered all the wonderful times he’d shared with his best friend: playing games together, watching TV, swapping stories, and discussing their favorite movie lore. He remembered that one summer, they’d gone camping with Jeremy’s dad and Brandon. He tried to envision the boy he remembered growing up with as the dragon he was now, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t consider that thing as his friend.

That wasn’t Lewis, a friend who’d been close like a brother. It was a monster, and it had to be destroyed before it could hurt anyone else! It had to be punished for what it had done to his best friend!

Becca shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jer,” she mumbled, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. She shot a quick glance at Lucy, who nodded back at her. “We’re going up there this afternoon. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

Jeremy shook his head and pulled himself out of Becca’s grip. Without another word, he stepped around the two girls and stomped down the hallway, his gaze never leaving the ground.

Becca watched her friend go with pain in her heart. She couldn’t believe that, just like that, Jeremy was ready to give up. He’d known Lewis longer than her or Lucy. Shouldn’t he be the one encouraging them to go see him? It struck her as odd.

As she stared off down the hallway, Lucy squeezed her hand again to get her attention. Becca blinked a couple times and met her girlfriend’s eyes.

He has a point, you know, Lucy signed, with her eyebrows raised and the corners of her lips turned down.

“No, he doesn’t,” Becca insisted, shaking her head. “He’s still Lewis, despite everything that happened. He’s still our friend, Lucy…”

But at the same time, he isn’t. And you know it, Lucy pointed out. Jeremy has a point. Maybe I don’t see it, because I haven’t known him for long, but that thing didn’t act like the Lewis I remember. It acted like a hungry monster.

Becca winced. Lucy had a point, but Becca wasn’t about to agree with it. She’d noticed it too. Lewis was acting less like a person the longer they spent together, and more like… well, like a dragon, she had to assume.

“Does that mean you’re not coming with me?” Becca asked, giving her girlfriend a mournful look.

I didn’t say that. I just said we should keep in mind how different Lewis is, Lucy signed. Remember when we met that detective at the hospital? Martha Smith?

“Yeah, what about her?” Becca asked.

She asked us if we thought Lewis was the kind of person who would kill people or blow up a hospital.

“I remember that,” Becca grumbled. She’d been trying hard not to think about it, but she definitely remembered the conversation they’d had. It had come on the day immediately after Lewis had passed out from what they’d thought was a stroke.

In reality, it had been the violent beginning of his transformation.

I know Lewis, the person, wasn’t the kind of guy who would do something like that, Lucy began, signing slowly so that Becca wouldn’t have to ask her to repeat herself. I’m not sure that Lewis, the dragon, isn’t.

Chapter 3

Lewis lay on the rocky mountain surface, enjoying the feeling of sunlight on his bronze scales. Before, when he’d been human, he’d never really taken the time to enjoy the sun. It was always just a thing that existed, rather than something to treasure. He’d never been a fan of the beach or camping. Or being outdoors at all. Lewis had always felt like his time was better spent doing literally anything else: playing video games, watching tv, or hanging out with friends.

After turning into a dragon and losing access to all of his favorite pastimes, Lewis had garnered a new appreciation for the little things in life: the way grass felt between his claws, the way the air smelled just before it was about to rain, and of course, the warmth of the sun on his massive scales.

Lewis’s eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm with his breath. He felt comfortable, arguably the most relaxed he’d been since his change. He felt like he could stay this way forever. His heart was beating a steady pace, and his mind was at ease. There was nothing he could do at that moment to improve his state of relaxation.

Except he was still being haunted by an ever-nagging ghost.

“Lewis, have you paid attention to anything I have said?” Lasthope growled as his silvery visage floated behind Lewis’s eyes. “We are trying to have a lesson.”

Lewis heaved a sigh and rubbed some sleep gunk from between his eyelids, before slowly fluttering them open. “Something something Asian dragons, something something Wyverns.”

Lasthope breathed a plume of white fog in Lewis’s direction. It didn’t hurt, he barely felt its chilly touch against his scales, but the message it sent was clear: pay attention.

“This is the history of our people, Lewis,” Lasthope reminded him, floating through the air above the living dragon’s head. The ghost could only move so far away from Lewis before his haunt tugged him back. They were functionally trapped together, whether or not either of them wanted it. “You must learn of our exploits and our culture if you are to one day revive and lead our race.”

“Hey, you never mentioned leading as part of that grand destiny thing!” Lewis barked, hopping to his feet. He shook his neck and tail, jumpstarting his circulation again. There was a slight tingle in his claws from laying on them for too long, but it faded with a quick shake.

When Lewis had first turned into a dragon, Lasthope said he’d done it to extend his own life. However, the spell had gone wrong, resulting in Lewis staying in control of his new dragon body. Lasthope, as a side effect, was bound to haunt him as a naked soul.

“Surely, you did not expect to just make more dragons and then abandon them?” Lasthope asked, twirling in mid-air until he was upside down and facing his young ward. “Just as I did not abandon you, you must not abandon them. It is your duty, Lewis, as the last living dragon.”

Lewis groaned audibly and flopped onto his side. The impact of his bulk sent a tremor through the earth, dislodging a few boulders uphill. Lewis watched idly as they rolled down the mountainside, before coming to a stop against a crag.

“Lewis,” Lasthope warned, his tone sharp. He knew what was coming.

“But that sounds like wooooooooooork,” Lewis whined, rolling onto his back. He splayed his wings out beneath him and held his legs up in the air.

It was Lewis’s favorite complaint. Whenever Lasthope tried to ask the young dragon to do anything more than the absolute bare minimum, Lewis’s response was to whine about how much work it would be. Lasthope had heard the phrase over a dozen times within the last week alone. He was coming to recognize that, usually, Lewis was only expressing displeasure ironically. If pushed, he’d often concede and do what was asked of him.

“Cease your mewling this instant,” Lasthope growled.

“Ugh, fine, whatever Ghost Dad,” Lewis grumbled, rolling back over onto his belly. He stumbled for a moment, struggling to pull his wing out from under him. For a second, he succeeded, until he realized that he’d also tugged his legs out and went crashing right back down to the ground.

Lasthope watched Lewis fumbled with a bemused glare. “Are you quite finished?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m done, I’m done,” Lewis grumbled. He carefully shuffled about on his legs before lying down on his belly, facing Lasthope again. When the ghost didn’t speak, Lewis waved a claw for him to continue. “From the top, if you would? I wasn’t paying attention.”

Lasthope took a deep breath, one that he didn’t even need since he wasn’t alive, and resumed speaking. “The Tribe Wars occurred over five thousand years ago when humanity was barely out of its cradle. Can you name the five dragon tribes?”

Lewis scrunched his eyebrows and opened his mouth. “Uh… Wyrms… Longs… Wyverns… uh…”

Lasthope rolled his claw to tell Lewis to continue. They had reviewed this information a few times since Lewis had changed and accepted the elder dragon’s teaching. Yet try as he might, Lewis could never seem to remember the two American tribes.

“I want to say… Coo Coo Clock and Pizza?” Lewis said, grinning up at his mentor. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Lasthope sighed. The ghost kept reminding himself that he was not alive and therefore had no breath with which to sigh. That had not yet stopped him. Sighing was the only way he could recover his patience when dealing with Lewis.

The young whelp was proving to be an impossible student.

“The five tribes are Wyrm, Wyvern, Long, Kukulkan, and Piasa,” Lasthope corrected, trying and failing to keep a frustrated edge out of his tone. Lasthope had never fathered whelps of his own, being the last dragon on earth before Lewis. Still, he couldn’t imagine they’d be nearly as insufferable as this brat! He prayed to the Ancestors he’d been a better student to Longsight, his own father.

“I was close!” Lewis said, wagging his tail happily.

“Close does not count,” Lasthope snapped. “Which tribe are you?”

Lewis rolled his bright green eyes and smirked up at Lasthope. “Come on, I know that, why don’t you test me with an actual question?”

“If you are so confident you know the answer, please enlighten me,” Lasthope growled. He narrowed his eyes as white, ghostly fog curled up from his nostrils. He missed being able to breathe fire. His young ward could definitely use a good blast right at that moment.

Lewis opened and closed his mouth a few times, before scrunching up his eyebrows in concentration. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to test me on hunting skills some more? I could really use another snack—”

“LEWIS!” Lasthope roared. “DID YOU FORGET AGAIN!?”

Lewis yelped and scrambled backward. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Lasthope wasn’t tangible and couldn’t physically hurt him. It was frightening to see the phantom dragon open his jaws to his full extent, showing off his enormous, terrifying teeth.

“I-I don’t know? Wyvern?!” Lewis stammered.

“WYRM! YOU ARE A WYRM! WE HAVE BEEN OVER THE TOPIC OF YOUR BREED NO LESS THAN SEVEN TIMES!” Lasthope roared, plumes of white flames spewing out of his maw and evaporating against Lewis’s scales. Slowly, he took deep, empty breaths to calm himself down. After a few seconds, he shook his head and glared down at his young pupil. “What are you?” He asked again, his voice a sharp, threatening growl.

“I’m a Wyrm!”

“That is spelled W-Y-R-M! No u or o!”

“I get it! I get it!”

“Do you, Lewis?” Lasthope growled. Slowly, he drifted closer to ground, until he was hovering nearly face to face with his young ward. He took another hollow breath before resuming his lecture. “The Tribe Wars were started because...?”

Lewis blinked several times as he racked his brain. He should know this; they’d been over the topic of the Tribe Wars a lot. It was a critical point in dragon history. Yet, try as he might, he struggled to pay attention whenever Lasthope told the story.

“Lewis?” Lasthope warned. “Why did the Tribe Wars start?”

“Uhhhhh, the Wyrms wanted more territory and tried to expand into Africa and the Americas?” Lewis offered.

Lasthope narrowed his eyes and snorted smoke. “I believe you are confusing dragon history with human history again. The Tribe Wars began when the Longs decided to teach humanity how to read and write. They passed down their knowledge, which enabled humans to develop advanced settlements in dragon territory.”

Lewis blinked slowly. He definitely didn’t remember hearing about that.

“The Wyverns blamed the Long for their shrinking territory. Humans had hunted and settled in their lands for countless generations before yet were now a force that posed a considerable danger. Then the Kukulkan sided with the Longs, having done a similar thing with the human settlers of their own territory. At the same time, we Wyrms sided with the Wyverns. The humans had long since pushed our breed from our ancestral homes. We wanted it back. The Piasa took no sides in the conflict.”

Lewis blinked sleepily and stared at his claws. This was usually when he started zoning out.

“The ultimate goal of the Tribe Wars was to determine whether humanity would be allowed to continue existing or become fodder for us to hunt. Suffice to say, there were no winners. The Long and Kukulkan gave their human allies the tools and knowledge necessary to hunt and kill dragons. They had not the numbers to best the swift Wyverns or outmatch we powerful Wyrms, and so depended on human armies to win battles for them. After killing all the Wyverns, and rendering our breed nearly extinct, the humans turned their attention to their own dragon allies. Long and Kukulkan were slain by the hundreds until none remained. However, this is but a brief summary of events and does not detail critical moments such as the Battle of—” Lasthope paused, mid-sentence, and glowered at his pupil. He cleared his throat loudly to get Lewis’s attention.

Lewis looked up and blinked sleepily at the ghost. “Go on, I promise I’m listening.”

“I very much doubt it. We have gone over the Tribe Wars at least twice in its entirety the past week and covered tangentially related topics even more so. So far, you can barely remember more than half of what I teach you!”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?!” Lewis grumbled, rolling up into a ball and tucking his head under his wings. “This is all so different from what I’m used to learning!”

“Bah,” Lasthope scoffed, “I’ve seen your memories; you barely ever dedicate yourself to learning anything that doesn’t immediately interest you!”

“Then maybe you should try to make it more interesting!” Lewis suggested, peeking out from under his wing.

The ghost opened his mouth to roar in anger, then abruptly closed it. He did this twice more, his brows furrowing deeper each time before finally, he nodded.

“I suppose I could try to make the history of our race slightly more entertaining if you actually pay attention.”

Lewis grinned, wagging his tail a bit. Lasthope glared at the gesture, having already reminded Lewis several times that dragons didn’t wag their tails when they were happy. Lewis didn’t care and continued doing it.

“So, what were you thinking? I was thinking gamification, or-or reenactment! Ooh, we could put on a play or something!” Lewis said, hopping to his feet and bouncing on his front claws.

“Gamification—? No, Lewis! I was going to—” Lasthope wheezed out an exasperated breath and put his claws to his temples. “For the future of your race, for the future of your race,” he muttered to himself before breathing out another sigh. Lewis watched as the ghost floated down to the mountain surface and partially phased into it until he was eye level with the young bronze dragon. “I am not alive. I do not know for certain what I am, but I know that I can interact with your memories. Likewise, I yet retain all of mine,” Lasthope explained, steepling his claws.

“Right, I remember how you stole my understanding of the word retardation,” Lewis said with a nod.

“Precisely. If I can interact and take your memories, would it not also stand to reason that I can do the same with my own?” Lasthope suggested.

“I’m not following, how is this supposed to teach me history?”

“I am trying to see if we can skip the frustrating part of having to learn the material, and instead give you my memories,” Lasthope explained. He scratched a quick picture using a claw into the rocky mountainside: two circles, one large and one small. “Before, I have displayed the ability to take memories from you,” he said, drawing an arrow from the small circle towards the larger one. “What I will try to do is give you my own memories, instead,” he explained, drawing another from the larger circle to the small one.

“And you think this will work?” Lewis asked, giving his mentor a stern look.

Lasthope raised his shoulders. “I see no reason it should not work. The principle is the same but in reverse.”

“All right,” Lewis said, a skeptical look on his face. “Hit me with that dank memory juice.”

Lasthope shuddered at Lewis’s peculiar vernacular and then focused. He tried to draw upon a familiar and straightforward memory, something that Lewis wouldn’t know. He envisioned the image of a Long in his mind, the thin, serpent-like dragons of eastern Asia. He imagined their long, flowing manes, their curved antlers, their crystalline wings, and even the whiskers trailing from their snouts. He focused on that image until it was so clear that he felt he could reach out and touch this ghost from the past.

Then he did.

Lasthope blinked as he gripped the wisp of memory between his claws. A small sphere of silver smoke squished within his talons. He marveled at it for a moment, before looking up and meeting Lewis’s gaze.

“Did it work?” Lewis asked, staring at the ball in Lasthope’s claws. “Is that a memory?”

“There is only one way to find out,” Lasthope whispered.

Before either dragon could say another word, Lasthope gently deposited the wisp into Lewis’s forehead and watched as the silver smoke sunk between his ward’s brow. Lewis shook his head and shivered at the strange touch before blinking his eyes a few times.

“Whoa,” he muttered, his eyes wide with wonder. “That’s a Long? It’s beautiful…”

Lasthope smiled. It worked! He’d been able to transfer a memory to Lewis! Lasthope closed his eyes and tried to envision the beauty again for himself. He opened his mouth to agree but paused. Try as he might to focus on the image of a Long, his mind could not conjure it. Strange. He tried to remember what a Long looked like… But he couldn’t. He couldn’t recall the way they looked or what they were able to do. His eyes suddenly widened in horror, and he looked down at Lewis’s wistful expression in absolute terror.

“Lasthope?” Lewis asked, cocking his head, as the phantom scrambled back to the edge of his haunt. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

“We cannot do that again, ever,” Lasthope breathed, staring at Lewis with a mixture of fear and disgust.

“Why? What happened?”

“I did not take into account that giving you my memories would steal them from me,” Lasthope whispered, looking away in shame.

Lewis looked down at his claws in shame. “I’m… sorry…” He muttered. “Do you want it back? You can take it! I’ll just think about Longs really hard and you can—”

“No, Lewis,” Lasthope said, raising his claws. “I am terrified at the prospect of losing myself by giving you my knowledge and memories, but I cannot deny the effect.”

“Lasthope?”

“Keep the memory,” the ghost said, his voice low and nervous, “but never again ask me to do that.”

“All right,” Lewis said, nodding. “Do you maybe want to continue the lesson?”

“No, I think I am done for the day,” Lasthope muttered, his eyes still downcast. “I apologize, but that was more than I think I can handle right now. If it is all the same to you, I will dissipate for a bit and rest.”

Lewis’s eyes widened. He’d never known the ghost dragon to willingly dissipate for any reason! Usually, Lewis had to blast the old fart with flames when he wanted some peace and quiet. Even then, the ghost wasn’t really gone; he just allowed his manifestation to fade.

As Lasthope faded from view, Lewis suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. The ghost dragon was the only thing he had. He’d scared off his human friends with threats of eating them. He’d told them to never come back.

Lewis shuddered, as the sudden weight of loneliness crashed down upon him.

Chapter 4

Lewis’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted as a smell drifted up to him on the wind. Without thinking about it, he took a long, hard sniff, filling his nostrils with the illustrious scent. Almost instantly, he could feel the telltale tingle of his drool lighting on fire. His stomach growled angrily, reminding him of the little snack he’d had earlier, in place of a proper breakfast.

He needed to eat something more substantial, and whatever that delicious aroma was, it would absolutely sate his hunger. Lewis licked his lips, coating them in flaming spittle, and rolled himself onto all fours. He sniffed the air, noting the direction the wind was carrying it, and set off at a light trot.

His mind danced with images of the scent—diet cola and cigarettes. It wasn’t the most appetizing smell in the world, yet his mouth watered, and his belly gurgled.

Lewis’s wings twitch in excitement, eager to carry him towards his prey. It should be so easy to leap into the air and take his dinner by surprise, and yet the earlier day’s failure at flight hung in Lewis’s mind. He wasn’t about to risk another blunder like that, that would cost him another meal.

He absolutely refused to go hungry again.

Lewis followed the scent all around the base of the mountain, to the very edge of the foothills. Lewis found a blue and white car parked on the side where foothills transitioned into the rocky mountainside. He blinked at it curiously, taking a deep whiff of it. It had trace amounts of that delicious aroma, but it wasn’t exactly the same. Definitely the source of that cigarette stink, though. He frowned, glancing around. There was nothing in the vicinity, just the car.

Lewis snorted in disgust and carefully lifted the car onto its side. His mind reeled at the thought that he could move vehicles as though they weighed little more than another person, having never had the memory of doing so before. Lewis had to remind himself that he was a dragon now and weighed more than a car.

One odd sense that came with being a dragon was a profound sense of weight. Lewis had discovered that he had a near-perfect understanding of how heavy something could be, just by holding or moving it. He didn’t quite understand how it worked, but the way he saw it was that he knew how heavy a single pound was supposed to be, and his brain was able to do the rest of the math if he let it. Lasthope had once explained that the weight sense was essential since a dragon can only carry roughly 5 percent of their weight in food before becoming dangerously over-encumbered.

However, Lewis mostly used it to size up against things he recognized, in this case, the car. He knew instinctively that he weighed somewhere in the ballpark of 9700 pounds, give or take a few hundred if his belly was full. As he tested the weight of the car, he guessed it to be around 3000 pounds. He had to laugh at how effortless it was to move. As a human, 3000 pounds was an incredible amount of weight.

As a dragon, it was laughable.

Satisfied that the car wouldn’t be getting away soon, he continued sniffing the air, trying to track down the scent again. He caught it almost immediately. A sharp gust of wind blew along the mountain, carrying with it the aroma of diet cola.

It wasn’t far.

Lewis dropped into a stalk, lowering himself down to the ground and padding slowly across the mountainside. Small pebbles rolled down the hill at his touch, but he paid them little mind as he shifted his weight and carefully walked on the balls of his claws.

The source of the scent wasn’t much farther away. A few yards from the car was a dirt road that led down the mountain and back into town. Lewis glanced from it and then up the hill. His cave home wasn’t too far away, maybe a quarter mile further up the mountain. He could see its yawning mouth from his position.

Lewis’s brows knit, and twin columns of smoke drifted up from his snout. Whatever this prey-scent was, it was much too close to his home for comfort.

This hunt had just gotten personal.

Lewis slunk into the foothills forest brush, disappearing from view as his green-dappled bronze scales blended in with the dirt and bark. The scents of the forest immediately assaulted his nose, but his smoke blocked out all but his target.

“Where are you, cola?” Lewis purred. He hadn’t had a good cola since turning into a dragon. His mouth watered excitedly. His fire glands pulsed with the beat of his heart, leaking more of their burning chemical onto his tongue. He tried to avoid licking his lips for fear of lighting them on fire again. Forests and fire didn’t really mix.

He found the source of the aroma not a minute later.

There was a human crouching, with his back turned to Lewis, on the side of the dirt road. He was cast in shadow by the thick canopy of trees, and he was looking at some muddy tire tracks with a flashlight.

Lewis recognized the heavy blue uniform the human was wearing. It was a police officer. Lewis’s memories told him that police were people who protected the populace, something he undoubtedly learned in human school. His dragon intuition, however, held those memories in contempt.

How could something so small protect anything, let alone a town? What was it going to do, flail its spaghetti noodle arms? Bare its flat, vegetable chewing teeth? Wave around its little gun?

Oh wait, don’t those kill people? Lewis thought, trying desperately not just to remember but also to understand what this human was and did. Ever since turning into a dragon, human things had made less sense to him. Once, he might have respected, even feared the sight of a gun, but now that he knew they couldn’t penetrate his scales, he thought them silly.

Lewis inched a little closer to the edge of the road and took a deep breath. The smell of the human was damn near overpowering now. It drowned out the smells of the forest, to where Lewis started holding back on his smoke. It wasn’t necessary anymore.

As he took a single, careful step closer towards the road, a branch snapped beneath his weight.

Lewis’s eyes grew wide, and he glanced briefly at his hind legs. Sure enough, there was a large stick of wood that had broken beneath his paw. He quickly turned back to the road, holding his breath and ducking closer to the ground.

The cop had stood up and was slowly scanning the forest with his flashlight. He whipped around, waving his flashlight at the edge, and passed over Lewis’s snout. The young dragon could feel his face heating up: undoubtedly, it had gone green with his blush. He thanked his embarrassing coloration for the momentary camouflage. The cop shrugged and turned back towards the track he’d been examining.

Now was the time to strike.

Lewis subconsciously coated his lips with burning drool. He slowly slunk out of the brush and onto the muddy road. The human was so close, he could almost taste that warm, succulent flesh. He could practically feel the bones crunching between his jaws. His mouth filled with more burning tingles at the idea of upending this little morsel and chugging his blood.

Lewis had a claw outstretched. All he had to do was strike it once, and lunch would be served.

Then his stomach chose an unfortunate moment to make itself heard.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGL!

Lewis’s eyes widened at the sound of his middle. The cop whipped around to look for the source of the noise. Dragon and human met gazes for a moment before both started screaming.

The cop staggered backward, dropping his flashlight in surprise. Lewis clutched his belly, wincing at the gnawing hunger pangs. Those puny rabbits he’d eaten hadn’t even held him over for a few hours! The absurdity of it!

The cop fumbled for his gun for a moment, screaming at the top of his lungs. He flicked the safety and opened fire on Lewis’s chest, emptying the clip. Every sharp POP from the pistol was met with a spark and a TINK as bullets hit their mark. The dragon roared, more in surprise than in pain, as the shots sparked against his thick chest scutes. He could feel the small metal shells digging into his scales, but they didn’t even punch through.

The cop’s gun clicked empty, and he looked up in terror at Lewis’s imposing form. The dragon winced as his stomach let out another painful growl. He couldn’t help it anymore. He was just so hungry!

“Do you taste good?” He asked the cop, flaming drool spilling down his chin as he took a step towards him. The cop didn’t move, paralyzed with fear.

Some part of Lewis’s mind reminded him that people he cared about, his friends, had begged him not to kill humans anymore. They weren’t around, though. They didn’t have to know what was about to happen. And hey, it wasn’t like they were ever coming back! What did Lewis care if he broke his promise to them? He was hungry, and this cop had made the mistake of making himself quite delicious.

The cop frantically glanced to the left and right, as though trying to decide which way would get him to safety. Lewis leaned down and took a long, hard sniff of the cop’s hair. The cop whimpered in terror.

“You smell good,” Lewis growled, reaching out with his tongue and giving the cop a quick lick on the cheek. All at once, flavor exploded onto Lewis’s tongue. His mind cheered with delight at the familiar taste of human, marinating in its own salty sweat. His stomach growled even louder.

He was so hungry.

But eating people was wrong, wasn’t it?

No, of course not! He was a dragon! Humans were just another prey species, another thing for him to hunt and eat!

And right then, Lewis desired nothing more than to eat, and eat, and eat…

The cop bolted to Lewis’s right, running down the foothills road as fast as his spaghetti noodle legs could carry him. Lewis blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that. With a growl, he turned tail and gave chase.

This wasn’t like before, where the pronghorn had kept ahead of him despite its lame leg. When pitted against a dragon, humans were poorly designed creatures. Their two legs were often too thin for their bodies, and because they lacked a tail, they had terrible balance. No creature on earth bothered to walk like that, and it really wasn’t a wonder why.

Not ten seconds after the chase had begun, Lewis’s prey lost its balance and tumbled to the ground. It bounced and rolled down the hill a few times before coming to a stop at the base of a tree. It coughed as it struggled to push itself back up and continue the chase, but Lewis was already there.

“That was fun,” Lewis chuckled, pinning the human beneath his front claw. “It’s so much more satisfying chasing prey that can’t get away.”

The human coughed and sputtered from within the mud, gibbering despite the weight on its back. It thrashed about, gasping for air and trying to wriggle out from under the dragon’s claw.

Grinning with the satisfaction of finally catching some decently sized food, Lewis wrapped his claw around the human’s torso and lifted it into the air. Lewis’s draconic sense of weight calculated it as being in the ballpark of 230 pounds, probably only 200 once the gear was stripped off. Quite a decently sized meal!

The prey began crying and screaming as Lewis hefted it off the ground. Mucus and tears streamed out of every hole in its face as it stared up at the dragon’s giant teeth. Lewis sneered in disgust down at the display.

“Come on, dude, really? That’s gross. I have to eat you looking like that?” He said, snorting smoke at his meal. “Have some dignity, man! You’re about to be my lunch!”

“Don’t eat me, please, I have a family—” the human begged, clasping his hands in front of his face like a man in prayer. “Please please please—”

Lewis rolled his eyes and ripped the man’s head off in one bite. He crunched down on the skull and let the brains squish out onto his tongue. He momentarily closed his eyes as he savored the mixture of flavors: the tang of blood, the buttery smoothness of bone marrow, and the sugary sweetness of brain matter. The moment was short-lived, though, and he had to swallow.

He could feel the lump slide effortlessly down his throat and into his eagerly awaiting belly, even as the neck stump gushed blood into his mouth. He moaned happily, pleased to wet his tongue with something other than water. His flaming drool was immediately quenched. Lewis flopped onto his back and upended the human over his mouth like a bottle.

Blood drained down his throat, and he chugged it like a frat boy with a death wish. He generously squeezed the prey, making sure every last drop made it down his gullet and belched as he lay in the mud, suckling on the neck and shoulders like a baby on a bottle.

It was at that moment that Lasthope chose to reappear. He took one look at Lewis and shook his head in disapproval.

“You have no manners,” he said, his lips pulled back in disgust.

“Who cares, I caught lunch!” Lewis grinned, waving around the body happily. Its arms and legs flopped about as he did. He whistled to himself, tucked the headless body under his wing, and rolled back over onto his feet. His back was caked with dirt, but he didn’t even care. Food, glorious food!

“At least eat it in your cave,” Lasthope reminded him. “It’s unsanitary to eat in the forest. You cannot sterilize your eating area without burning the whole thing down.”

“Pfft! Duh!” Lewis scoffed, trotting back the way he came and stepping out of the forest. He passed the tipped over car again as he ran back up the mountainside and stepped into his cave home.

The cavern was empty, void of any life at all. It had been home to a colony of bats, but they’d all fled or been killed when Lewis had moved in. Now, it was a dragon’s ideal bachelor pad. The stalagmites and stalactites had all been carved away. Then the residual moisture had been evaporated with a proper, powerful flame washing. The wall at the back of the cave was slightly open, exposing tunnels that led deeper into the mountain. Lewis hadn’t bothered to open that up, though, and vastly preferred to leave it. The wall was cooler to the touch, which made it ideal for sleeping against.

Lewis trotted over to a blackened patch of rock on the cave floor. He squeezed the muscles in his neck to activate his fire glands, and a small jet of flame shot out of his mouth. This served the purpose of both heating what Lewis considered his dining area and sterilizing it.

Humming to himself, Lewis set the corpse of the cop down on the heated rock and set about peeling away the layers of clothing. Clothes weren’t indigestible, but the police uniform was stiff and inflexible. Definitely way too much starch for Lewis’s liking. He quickly tore it to shreds and tossed it aside, before hefting the body up to his mouth and biting off an arm.

The familiar taste of human flesh exploded once more into his mouth, and Lewis couldn’t help but moan in pleasure. If someone had told him two weeks ago that humans would be the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, Lewis would have never believed it. Now, having spent a week as a dragon and eaten a couple people, he could say with absolute certainty that nothing on earth tasted as delicious as humans.

The flavor was like a mixture of pork, beef, and chicken. All the best parts of all the best cuts. All the juiciest burgers, deep-fried wings, and savory bacon strips. It damn near brought a tear to Lewis’s eyes as he slowly chewed and savored the arm. The skin and muscles were chewy and juicy. The bones were crunchy; the marrow adding a buttery flavor that accentuated the meat.

“Stop playing with your food,” Lasthope grumbled, as he floated in through the cave mouth.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you over my best impression of a restaurant commercial,” Lewis giggled. He took another bite of the arm and popped the hand into his mouth. He chewed down for a moment before pausing. He reached a delicate claw into his maw and retrieved a small, golden ring. “Oh,” he whispered, his eyes wide with delight at the sight. “Gold...”

Lasthope blinked in surprise before grinning at his young ward. “Beautiful, is it not?” Lasthope had never had much gold of his own growing up. His own hoard was a collection of tomes and treatises he’d inherited from his father. Still, he knew and understood the draconic love of gold.

Dragons were naturally greedy creatures. It was in their instincts to covet things they found beautiful or precious. Gold, primarily when shaped by delicate human hands, was lovely to behold. It did not surprise Lasthope that Lewis was enraptured by the ring.

Lewis licked the blood from his lips as he stared at the ring. A gurgle from his belly reminded him he had yet to finish eating. He carefully tucked the band behind his ear for safekeeping, wedging it firmly between a pair of scales. He’d have to figure out a way to keep better track of it later. For now, he still had an entire human to finish eating!

Lewis went at a leg next, tearing it off with ease. He took a bite of the thick, meaty thigh, chewed twice, and swallowed. As he ate, he couldn’t stop staring at the rapidly diminishing shape of the cop.

That had been a person before, but now it was just meat.

The thought felt strange in Lewis’s head. He struggled to remember that, at one point, he’d been just like this person. A human. Objectively he knew it to be accurate, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t envision it.

“Something the matter?” Lasthope asked, noticing Lewis had paused his consumption. The ghost dragon waved a claw through the dead body. It was still warm, not even twenty minutes gone, but Lewis hadn’t left behind a brain. Pity.

“I don’t feel bad about this,” Lewis muttered. “And before you say because you’re a dragon, I know. It’s just biology, right? I’m a hungry dragon, and humans are prey.”

“Correct,” Lasthope affirmed, giving Lewis a curt nod.

“Except… It’s not just biology,” he said, looking the ghost in the eyes. “I was human a week ago. I was exactly like this guy right here… And now…”

“Now, you are not.”

“I feel like I should feel bad about this,” Lewis said again. “But, I don’t…”

“So, you feel bad about not feeling bad?”

Lewis shrugged and took another bite off the leg. He crunched the thick bone between his teeth and suckled out some more marrow. “Basically. It’s kind of ridiculous, I guess,” he grunted, chewing on his meat.

“Do not talk with your mouth full, it’s rude,” Lasthope said. “For what little it matters, everything humans do is ridiculous to me. If your instincts tell you not to feel bad about this, who are you to question them?”

“That’s not what you said about dragon possessiveness last week,” Lewis noted, speaking with his mouth full of bloody giblets.

“Ugh, manners,” Lasthope hissed. “That was different. Dragon possessiveness often gets dragons killed. Draconic greed is not healthy. There is a reason it is our weakness. That gold you just fawned over? If your hoarding instincts latch onto gold, you will do anything to get more of it, to protect it.”

“So?” Lewis asked, popping the last of the leg into his mouth.

“So, be wary of it. More dragons than you know have been slain by a strategically placed pot of gold,” Lasthope growled. “Now, finish your meal.”

“Yes, Ghost Dad.”

“And stop calling me that!”

Lewis chuckled and quickly tore through the last remnants of the cop. He left the heart for last, savoring it the most out of any organ. The intestines and stomach were bitter, the lungs spongy like cake, but the heart was pure candy. It gushed like a fruit gummy in his mouth, filling it once again with fresh, tangy blood.

When his meal was finished, Lewis first licked his claws clean of any remaining blood or meat, then washed them in his flames. He made extra sure to clean his dining spot yet again, just to be positive that there would be no germs.

Lewis stepped from his cave with a full and satisfied belly and stretched out as the afternoon sun dipped towards evening. His stomach felt satisfyingly full for the first time in a week, and he set off at a happy trot down the mountain, towards the stream where he got his water.

As he passed the tipped over cop car, he didn’t even notice that a light was blinking on the dashboard camera, nor did he realize that it was pointed right at his cave...

Chapter 5

Jeremy’s nose was buried in a book. These days, it always seemed like he was reading something or other. It felt like reading was the only way he could get away from the world. The only way he could forget, just for a moment, about Lewis. His eyes narrowed as he scanned over the pages, drinking in the information, absorbing it all. He let the tide of thought distract him from the world around him. Nothing else mattered.

As he turned the page, somebody came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Jeremy yelped and leaped half a foot into the air, as his brother pulled out a seat next to him, and dropped a pair of brown paper bags onto the table.

They were sitting in the cafeteria during lunch hour. While most of the other students were fooling around with their friends, Jeremy had sequestered himself at a corner table, to keep out of the way from anyone else while he read.

Brandon was looked like an opposing reflection of his little brother. While Jeremy was small and slight, Brandon was big and built like the tractors he drove. If it wasn’t for the fact that the older brother was so busy taking care of what was left of their farm, Jeremy figured Brandon could have been the school’s star football player. He dressed in faded old blue jeans, a plain grey t-shirt, and a plaid jacket that was currently tied around his waist. Except for the pop culture icons he wore on t-shirts, Jeremy wore his brother’s hand-me-downs.

“You forgot your lunch again,” Brandon said, pushing one brown paper bag down the table towards his brother. “You need to stop doing that.”

Jeremy’s stomach growled, and he scowled down at the bag, as though it had just betrayed him. “Sorry,” he mumbled, shutting the book and setting it off to the side.

“You’ve been doing it a lot lately,” Brandon noted, opening his own bag and retrieving his meal. He had a ham and swiss sandwich, made with their mother’s home-made cheese. He unwrapped it from the cellophane and took a big bite. “It’s not healthy,” he said, spraying crumbs as he chewed.

“I know, I know,” Jeremy muttered.

“Is something bugging you?” Brandon asked.

“No.”

“Sure. Wanna talk about it?”

Jeremy snorted a laugh and pulled out his own sandwich. It was identical to Brandon’s save their mother had remembered to cut the crusts off for him. Jeremy winced, remembering that she’d only recently been discharged from the hospital, and she was already hard at work looking after her sons. “Not really,” he shrugged. “Not much to talk about.”

“Yeah, sure,” Brandon grunted. “Not like your best friend turned into a—”

Brandon was interrupted suddenly as Jeremy’s fist slammed into the table. The plastic table jumped at the impact, startling a group of other nearby students.

“I wasn’t going to say it,” Brandon mumbled.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jeremy said as he harshly enunciated every word. “I’m sick of everyone asking me if I’m okay! I’m fine, honest!”

“You don’t sound fine,” Brandon noted, raising an eyebrow as he took another big bite of his sandwich. “You sound really on edge.”

“That’s because everyone keeps asking me! It’s getting really annoying!”

Brandon raised the other eyebrow and gave his brother a flat-mouthed, skeptical look. “Mhm. Sure. Definitely what’s bothering you.”

“Look, can you just drop it, please?” Jeremy grumbled.

Brandon rolled his eyes but ultimately nodded. The pair of brothers sat in uneasy silence, the only sound between them being the chewing of food. The cafeteria chatter made it impossible for Jeremy to get any real thinking done, and he didn’t want to open the book again with Brandon right there.

It turned out he wouldn’t get a choice in the matter.

Becca strutted around the table, waving in greeting to both Jeremy and Brandon. Lucy wasn’t on her arm this time, and Jeremy idly wondered where she was until Becca snatched the book he’d been reading right off the table.

“Advanced calculus?” Becca asked, raising her eyebrow as she read the front cover, turning it over in her hands to glance at the back. “Since when were you in calculus class? I thought you couldn’t take that until next year.”

Jeremy shrugged and reached for the book, but Becca pulled it away again. “I’m just getting a head start, I have to be ready for college applications and all that.”

“Mhm, yeah, but this is a grade thirteen level book,” Becca noted, pointing to a tag at the cover’s bottom. “You know? Victory lap? One more year of high school to get those extra credits before heading to college? You wouldn’t be able to take this class next year even if you wanted to. You’re a tenth grader.”

“S-so? It’s never too early to learn new things!” Jeremy said, standing up and reaching for the book.

Becca frowned and held the book as high as she could. Thanks to her platform boots, it put the book significantly out of Jeremy’s reach.

“Becca, give it back!” Jeremy said, jumping to snatch it from her. He missed by a mile.

“Not until you tell me what’s gotten into you, lately,” Becca said, pulling the book out of Jeremy’s reach.

“If you’re talking about earlier, I’m fine,” Jeremy insisted, crossing his arms. He practically threw himself back into his seat and took a vicious bite of his sandwich. “You two are the ones acting weird.”

Brandon shook his head slowly and merely shrugged at the display.

Becca rolled her eyes and flipped through the textbook, trying to get a sense of what Jeremy had been reading. She could feel something between the pages, like a bookmark or something, and when she opened it up, she found a magazine tucked tightly between the pages.

“Hunting Monthly?” Becca asked, tugging the thin, glossy book out and setting the textbook back down on the table. Slowly, she flipped through the magazine’s pages, looking at grisly pictures of hunters and their trophies with an ever-growing look of disgust. “You’re taking up hunting again?”

Jeremy shrugged but didn’t make eye contact. “I miss doing it, even if dad isn’t around to take me anymore.”

Brandon suddenly tensed and gave his brother a hurt look. “You didn’t tell me you wanted to go hunting again…”

“I don’t have to do everything with you, Brandon!” Jeremy snapped, not daring to look at his brother. “What if I wanted to go hunting by myself?”

“I mean… I guess… You can’t drive, though,” Brandon reminded him, “and it was always something we did together… with dad…”

Becca shook her head and dropped the magazine on top of the textbook. “Do whatever you want, Jer,” she said with a sigh. “It just seems a little hypocritical of you, especially after what you said to—”

“CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT!” Jeremy shouted, interrupting Becca.

The cafeteria suddenly went silent, and several heads turned to look at them, curious about the outburst. Jeremy’s face turned crimson as he stuffed the textbook and magazine into his backpack. He tossed his half-eaten sandwich into the brown bag, crumpled it up and lobbed it like a ball at the nearest trash can. He missed his target by a couple feet.

Before Brandon or Becca could get another word in, Jeremy had pushed himself out from under the table and was stomping out of the cafeteria, not even bothering to pick up his trash. Brandon looked after him with wide, confused eyes. Becca sighed and gave the bigger boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Are you still down for Saturday?” She asked, staring after Jeremy.

Brandon nodded to Becca. “Just let me know when, and I’ll come get you.”

“All right, see you tomorrow,” Becca said, before chasing after the smaller boy.

Jeremy was already out in the hall by the time Becca caught up with him. She had to run to catch up, and when she did, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to a stop.

“Jer, I really don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but it has to stop!” Becca said. “Come on, talk to me. Please.”

Jeremy looked down at his feet, past the baggy, second-hand jeans he’d been wearing for years. He’d never really grow into them, not the same way that Brandon had.

He’d never be big or strong.

He’d never be the smartest.

He’d always just be Jeremy.

He clenched his jaw and tugged his arm out of Becca’s grip. “Leave me alone,” he growled, shaking his head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“We don’t have to talk about it, Jer,” Becca assured him, “just… don’t shut me out, okay? I want to help you. That’s my job, as your mom friend, remember?”

Jeremy’s fists tightened, and he could feel them shaking. Why was he so angry? That wasn’t like him! He was usually a calm person, but lately, he was just so angry all the time!

“Miss Moran, Mister Hansen,” came a voice from the end of the hall.

Slowly, Becca and Jeremy turned around and came face to face with a tall man in a tan suit. The principal cocked an eyebrow at the pair of them, slowly crossing his arms.

“Mister McNally,” Becca said, nodding to him. “What can we do for you?”

“I have something I need to discuss with the two of you if you could kindly follow me back to my office,” Mister McNally said, waving for them.

“Why? Did we do something wrong?” Jeremy asked with a frown.

“No, but it’s information about your missing friend, Lewis,” he answered. “Please, follow me. It’s probably best we do not discuss this publicly.”

Becca and Jeremy exchanged a nervous look, the last minute’s argument immediately fading from thought. What did their principal know about Lewis?

“Sir, I’m sorry, but Lewis is dead, isn’t he?” Becca asked as she and Jeremy jogged to keep up with the taller man’s long gait. She made a show of wringing her hands to give off the impression that was all she knew. “That was the official report, right?”

Both she and Jeremy, of course, knew better. Officially, the police had determined that Lewis died in a spontaneous explosion at a hospital. All they’d been able to find of him were blood splatters painting the walls of his room. They had asked Becca if perhaps Lewis had terroristic thoughts or tendencies, but when nothing had come from that line of thinking, they’d closed the case.

Or so Becca and Jeremy had thought.

Mister McNally led the two into his office, past the secretary desk, and offered them each a seat in the two plush chairs he kept around for visitors. Once they were both seated and comfortable, he sat behind his desk and rifled around with some papers.

Jeremy and Becca sat in stunned silence, waiting for their principal to offer any explanation for why they were there. Finally, he cleared his throat and set the papers down on his desk.

“First things first,” Mister McNally said. “The school counselor has requested sessions with each of you. We have arranged three sessions each. Becca, you are to see her Tuesdays during your free period. Jeremy will see her on Wednesdays during lunch,” he explained, handing each of them a paper. “These are not mandatory meetings; however, we take mental health seriously here at Barrington High. The counselor believes that it is of the utmost importance for you to talk things through; otherwise, this traumatic event could become a trigger for you down the road.”

Becca nodded and carefully folded her paper up before slipping it into her shoulder bag. Jeremy clenched his jaw and frowned at the paper before crumpling it up and stuffing it into his pocket.

“Sir, you said you had some information about Lewis?” Becca said, trying to keep her breathing as calm and even. “The police told us he was dead.”

Mister McNally took a long, deep breath before nodding. “This is difficult to discuss, so I’ll just be frank. They currently believe that Lewis is alive and has run away.”

Jeremy and Becca each perked up in surprise at the principal’s declaration.

“This,” he continued, holding up the third piece of paper, “is a scanned copy of a note left on the Cooper family’s fridge around one week ago. It declares that Lewis is alive and in hiding.”

The principal slid the paper across the table, and Becca snatched it with a frown. Jeremy only caught a quick glance at it, but he didn’t need to read the whole thing to know exactly what it said.

Mom & Dad

Just want you to know I’m alive.

Don’t come looking for me.

I’m okay, but I’m different, and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

Just know that I’m safe and not in any trouble. I just don’t want to be seen like this.

I’ll come to you when I’m ready.

Love Lewis

Becca’s eyes welled up with tears as she read it. She slowly shook her head before handing the page off to Jeremy. He took it, read it over briefly, just to confirm his suspicions, and tossed it back onto the desk.

“Anyone could have written that,” Jeremy said, crossing his arms.

“That’s what the police think,” Mister McNally said, shaking his head. “They believe somebody must have broken into their house while they were gone, because not only was this note left behind, but some articles were missing.”

“Articles?” Becca asked, with a frown.

Mister McNally held up a fourth and final piece of paper. “One Xbox and associated cables, two Xbox controllers, six video games, and a pen,” he said, reading off the list. “Fingerprint and DNA peg you both there, but the police don’t consider this to be usable evidence. You were both good friends of the Cooper boy and frequented his house. Your prints would be all over the place. Besides, there’s no way you would ever steal from them, especially not in this time of grief, right?”

“Of course not,” Becca said, but she wasn’t looking at the principal anymore. Her eyes were locked on Jeremy.

“So, it’s safe to assume that you also didn’t have a hand in this note?”

“I didn’t write it,” Becca blurted.

“Neither did I,” Jeremy said, passively.

You’re a terrible liar, Jer, Becca thought.

“I’m relieved to hear that,” the principal said, standing up from his desk. “I’m sorry to dredge this up to you again, but it was of the utmost importance that we get this information. It was either you talk to me or talk to the police. We felt it would be more comfortable for you to talk to me, no?”

“Thank you, sir,” Becca said, smiling and nodding to the principal. “We really appreciate it.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy grunted.

Principal McNally shook each student’s hand in turn, before ushering them back out of his office and into the hallway. Once she was sure the older man was gone, Becca turned to Jeremy and gave him a horrified look.

“How could you do that?!” She hissed, grabbing him by the arm. “How could you leave them that note?!”

“I thought it was a good idea at the time,” Jeremy muttered. “I thought Lewis would get over his bloodlust and taste for human flesh and could go home and be with the people who care about him. I didn’t expect him to go full dragon. I admit, I misjudged the situation and made a mistake.”

“Mistake!? Mistake!?” Becca squeezed his arm all the tighter. “Jeremy, Lewis is out there! And now, his parents are looking for him! We have to warn him! He has to know!”

Jeremy gritted his teeth and yanked his arm free from Becca’s grip. “We don’t have to do anything,” he hissed, glaring at her. “He is the one who pushed us away! We shouldn’t be so eager to go back! If you want to go get yourself killed by getting close to the man-eating monster, don’t expect me to go along with it.”

Before Becca could get another word in edgewise, Jeremy had turned his back on her and stomped away. He paused momentarily at the end of the hall to toss the crumpled piece of paper out in the trash and then kept on walking.

Becca stared after him, her jaw hanging open, and her eyes feeling misty. She couldn’t believe those words had come out of Jeremy’s mouth. Jeremy, who’d been so eager to help Lewis when he’d first turned into a dragon. They’d been practically stapled together since birth! They were supposed to be best friends!

She couldn’t believe he was so quick to throw Lewis away. She gave her head a slow shake before turning around and heading towards the school’s backyard. She found Lucy sitting against a wall, playing a game on her phone, and sighed loudly as she plopped herself down next to her girlfriend. Lucy immediately shut off her game and glanced up at her, momentarily slipping her arm through Becca’s.

“Are you okay skipping class?” Becca asked, smiling at Lucy and giving her hand a quick kiss.

Lucy nodded her head, slipped her hand out from Becca’s, and made a few quick gestures in the air. Just English left today. I can skip it. Is it an emergency?

Becca nodded. “We have to see Lewis. We have to do it now.”

Chapter 6

The trek up the mountain wasn’t nearly as easy as Becca remembered it. The first time they’d gone up the trail that led to Lewis’s cave, she’d been riding on his back. Being a dragon, Lewis had done all the challenging hiking uphill and let them ride on his back. In contrast, Becca and Jeremy had only needed to hike downhill to get back into town. The second time they’d gone to see Lewis, Brandon had volunteered to drive everyone up the mountain.

Now, though, to get back to Lewis’s cave? The girls had to walk uphill, through a dense mountain trail, while insects chirped loudly around them.

Fortunately, Becca had remembered to bring a good change of shoes. She replaced her ever-present platform boots with a pair of plain leather hiking boots. The brown shoes looked utterly out of place on her, clashing horribly with her entire aesthetic, but she didn’t care. There was no way she would go through the foothills in her platforms.

Lucy kept pace with Becca as they walked, swatting away bugs with her hands and signing curse words repeatedly. She had stopped actively expressing her distrust of Lewis, but Becca could tell she still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of seeing him again. Becca suspected it had a lot to do with the fact that the last time Lucy had seen Lewis, he’d gone on an angry dragon rampage and nearly killed a man.

She didn’t say it, but Becca was glad that Lucy had come. Not just because she enjoyed the company, but because it meant she was willing to give Lewis another chance. After what happened last time, Becca had expected her girlfriend to never give the dragon the time of day. Lucy wasn’t precisely what Becca would consider a forgiving person.

They were partway up the trail, nearly to the foothills’ edge, when Becca paused. There was a large patch of disturbed earth on the path ahead. It looked like enormous claws had been digging around and kicking it up. Lucy paused, noticing it too, and tapped on Becca’s shoulder to get her attention.

Think that was him? She signed before pointing at the mess.

Becca shrugged. “Probably,” she muttered. “He has to hunt for food now. I guess it makes sense that whatever he’s hunting would put up a fight, right?”

Lucy shrugged and nodded. Looks like a big fight, she noted, scowling at a patch of flattened mud that was a little over six feet long. Must have been pretty heavy.

As the forest waned and was replaced by the dry, grassy mountainside, Becca noticed a toppled police car. The vehicle was resting on its side with its nose pointed towards Lewis’s cave, just a little further up the mountain. The sight of it gave Becca pause. There were no cops around, as far as she could tell, and aside from being on its side, the car wasn’t damaged.

Think he killed a cop? Lucy asked.

Becca didn’t want to answer that. Instead, she took one look at the mouth of the cave and made a face. “Come on,” she said and started up the side of the mountain.

Lewis’s cave home was pleasant, as far as caves went. Becca really wouldn’t know, having only visited the one. It was wide enough that a young dragon could spread his wings and scarcely touch the edges, and deep enough to create enough room to move around. The mountainside tapered off into a flat plateau just before the entrance, creating a welcoming space to sit or lay down. It was dark, though. As Becca peered inside, she couldn’t make out anything near the back of the cave.

Maybe he’s not home? Lucy suggested, first tapping on Becca’s shoulder to get her attention. Come back tomorrow?

“No, Lucy, I want to talk to him today,” Becca said. She fumbled for her phone for a moment before flicking on the flashlight feature. The bright white cone of light shone from her phone’s camera flash, and she waved it around through the cave mouth, looking for any sign of her friend. There, at the back of the cave, curled up against the farthest wall, was a bronze flash.

Becca held the light on it for a moment, trying to discern which end of her draconic friend it could be, when it suddenly rolled and shifted, revealing a mouth full of long, sharp teeth. It was definitely Lewis’s head. He was snoring loudly, sleeping on his back, with his rear end lifted in the air as it rested against the cavern’s far back wall. It didn’t look all that comfortable, but then again, she was a person. Maybe he liked sleeping like that?

“Lewis!” Becca called into the cave. Her voice echoed off the walls, and the dragon’s shell-shaped ears flicked at her words. Lewis shifted his bulk some more, but only snored louder as the echo faded away.

L-E-W-I-S, Lucy signed, emphatically.

Becca cocked an eyebrow at her girlfriend, and Lucy stuck her tongue out at her.

I’m trying my best here, Lucy signed, with a smug look on her face.

“Oh my god, babe,” Becca chuckled and shook her head. Sighing, she stepped foot in the cave and marched towards the bus-sized monster at the opposite end.

The dragon’s snoring grew louder as it echoed off every wall and crevice of the cavern. As they drew in closer to the beast, Lucy covered her nose and recoiled at the smell. The dragon stank like smoke, rotting meat, and a metallic tinge that neither girl could pin. Likely a smell wholly unique to dragons.

“Lewis?” Becca asked, softer this time as she approached him. His mouth was open, with his enormous tongue lolling out of one side and drooping down his jaw. She remembered before, how he’d described her scent and taste as overpowering. If there was one way to get him to wake up, she figured that would do it.

Becca, don’t! Lucy signed, grabbing her girlfriend by the arm to slow her down. Becca was reaching out for the tongue with her bare hand.

“Don’t worry, just one little touch is all it will take to wake him up.”

She paused, mere inches away from the tongue, when she noticed that the snoring had stopped. Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned and noticed that one of the dragon’s piercing green eyes was looking right at her.

The dragon opened its jaw as wide as it could in a deep yawn, before slowly rolling over onto its belly. It shifted its weight some more, lowering itself down from the wall, watching Becca and Lucy intently as it did. The beast’s eyes narrowed as it stared at her, and it licked its lips with burning drool.

“Lucy, get the canister,” Becca ordered, as she stared in terror at the sizzling flames on the dragon’s face.

Immediately, Lucy grabbed a small black spray can from out of her purse. She sprayed herself generously, before spraying Becca in turn. The dragon sniffed the air twice more and immediately began coughing. Acrid black smoke poured out of his mouth as he coughed, smothering the flames on his face, and he snorted out sparks as he tried to clear the foul odor from his nose.

“Augh! Lucy! What are you doing?!” Lewis roared, covering his nose with his claws to protect it from the foul spray. “Do you know how long it’ll take me to get rid of that awful stench?!”

“Hi, Lewis,” Becca grinned, draping an arm over her girlfriend’s shoulder. “We thought your nose might be problematic, so we brought some body spray over, just in case.”

“You guys are mean!” Lewis coughed, turning his head to the side and spewing a quick gout of flames onto the wall. The cave was momentarily illuminated with bright orange light. When it was gone, Lewis had twin pillars of smoke billowing out of his nose. Sighing in relief, Lewis lowered himself back down to the cave floor to be somewhere closer to his friends’ eye level.

Then, it suddenly occurred to him that his friends had come to visit him, despite the things he’d said to them. His face lit up as he looked first at Becca, and then at Lucy. His expression immediately fell again, as he continued to scan the cave, but saw nobody else with them. Was Jeremy not with them?

Lewis quickly pushed that from his mind. He had other things to worry about first. His friends had come back after he’d explicitly told them not to! He wasn’t sure if this was loyalty or stupidity, but he should send them away again either way. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, but they just couldn’t understand that he was a dragon and had needs. And it wasn’t safe to be around him anymore.

That was why he’d sent them away in the first place...

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Lewis said, putting on his best attempt at a grumpy face. “I could eat you super easily now, you know? I’m a big hungry dragon, and you guys are small and tasty.”

Becca crossed her arms and gave Lewis a stern look.

“What?” Lewis asked, his eyes widening.

“I don’t believe for a second that you would try, and if you did…” Becca said, hooking a thumb at the canister in Lucy’s hand.

Lucy shook the can for emphasis and pointed the nozzle at Lewis’s nose.

“Oh please! Do you really think a little body spray could stop me if I really wanted to eat you?”

“There’s one way to find out. Lucy?”

That was all the warning Lewis got before Lucy sprayed the small black canister’s contents at the dragon’s snout. A sharp scent assaulted Lewis’s nostrils as the spray filled the air between the dragon and the humans. Particles of putrid odor stuck to Lewis’s nose, and his eyes immediately filled with stinging tears.

“AUUUUGH!” Lewis cried, rolling over onto his side while trying to cover his nose. “WHYYYYYYYYYY!?”

“Come on! Out of the cave!” Becca insisted, grabbing Lucy by the arm and running out, away from the dragon.

Lewis thrashed about violently, coughing and sputtering sparks. Acrid black smoke poured out of the cave as Lewis struggled to get back to all fours and scuttle out. When he finally did, he spewed fire into the air, before licking his snout with burning drool to clear away the last remnants of the scent on his nose.

“THAT WAS AWFUL!” Lewis cried, his green eyes going bloodshot from the tears and spray. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?”

“Do you still want to eat us?” Becca asked. For emphasis, Lucy gave the canister a quick shake and pointed it at Lewis’s face. “Or are you going to behave?”

Lewis recoiled in terror at the canister, dropping down into a submissive pose. “I yield! I yield! Don’t Axe me again!”

Becca grinned and nodded for Lucy to lower the can. Lewis coughed a few more times, before settling into the cave mouth. He lay with half his body in the cave, and the other half outside. Becca noticed a faint amount of blood on the dragon’s teeth, like he’d recently eaten a meal. She wasn’t about to question it. She had to remember that this was just how Lewis was now. The killing was part and parcel with being a dragon.

“So, is Jeremy not coming? What about Brandon?” Lewis asked, looking around.

“Depending on how you act today, Brandon might come tomorrow,” Becca explained, crossing her arms. “Jeremy is… another story.”

Lewis looked down at his claws in understanding. He couldn’t quite see things from a human perspective anymore, but he couldn’t imagine it was easy for either of them. The last time they spoke, things hadn’t ended well. Lewis had tried to turn them away, to make them never want to be friends again. He and Jeremy had grown up together. To have that suddenly ripped away… It still hurt Lewis to think about it. He could only imagine how much it hurt Jeremy.

“Are you really still Lewis?” Becca asked, drawing the dragon’s attention back to her. “Jeremy doesn’t think so.”

Lewis’s face went through several different expressions at once as he considered the question. Becca should already know the answer, shouldn’t she? Lewis still had all his memories of his human life, but he saw them all as if through a dragon’s eyes rather than a person. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember ever being human. The only reason he even still believed he’d ever been one was that he kept reminding himself it was an objective fact. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was getting harder to believe by the day.

If people were just an accumulation of their memories and experiences, and all of Lewis’s had changed when he’d become a dragon, could he really be the same person? Or was it far more likely that he was even more different than he’d first given consideration? He hadn’t really given the question much thought, but now that his friends were here, it was all he could think about.

“Lewis?” Becca asked, putting a hand on his snout.

Lewis tried not to recoil at her touch, fully expecting her overpowering scent to wash over him. Instead, he got a whiff of that repulsive body spray. He tried his best not to show how uncomfortable it made him and took a deep breath.

“I think I’m still me,” he said nodding. “I mean, I’m not sure I’d know if I was different, beyond wanting to eat people, I guess?”

“That’s pretty different,” Becca admitted, with a mournful smile, “but you take that on in about the same way you take on everything.”

“What does that mean?” Lewis asked, his brows furrowed.

“I think we would have heard if there was a monster prowling through the neighborhood, eating people,” Becca said, interpreting Lucy’s emphatic signing. “So, you’re your typical lazy self.”

“Thanks, I guess?” Lewis shrugged, jostling his wings with the motion. “Are you guys really not hung up on this dragon thing?”

Becca grimaced and shook her head. “I can’t speak for anyone else. Personally, I feel like you need more time to adjust, and once you get it, you’ll be back to your normal self. Others… not so much.”

Lewis shook his head. “I can’t go back to normal.”

Becca blinked. “What?”

Lewis took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. “Look, Becca, I get that this isn’t… ideal,” he admitted, holding a claw up next to her. It was large enough that it could effortlessly wrap around her torso. “But we have to accept that I’m not going to be normal again any time soon. It’s just not going to happen. I’ve sort of accepted that I’m a dragon, and it’ll be a lot easier if you accept it, too.”

“Don’t say that!” Becca growled, tightening her fists. “There has to be a way to change you back!”

“If there is, it’s out of our reach,” Lewis said as he shrugged. “I don’t think Lasthope was lying when he said he doesn’t know a way to change me back. Even if he wasn’t telling the truth, what could I reasonably do to change his mind?” the dragon mumbled, giving his head a quick shake. “I’ve given up on being human, at least for now. It’s just… easier that way…”

“I don’t want to give up on you!” Becca snapped, reaching out and resting a hand on Lewis’s claw. “Unlike Jeremy, I don’t think you’re a monster!”

Lewis blinked in surprise. “Jeremy thinks I’m a monster?” He asked, the hurt plain in his voice.

Lucy and Becca shared a nervous look with each other before Becca finally spoke. “He’s not handling this too well,” she explained. “He’s acting like you, the human, are dead and that you, the dragon, are responsible.”

Lewis’s eyebrows raised, and his ears drooped. “But… I’m not…”

“We know, Lewis, but he’s just…” Becca paused, trying to think of the best way to explain it to him. Lucy suddenly tapped her shoulder and signed something quickly. Becca interpreted as she gestured. “Lucy says that you and Jeremy were inseparable growing up, but this has driven a wedge between you. He feels lost and hurt, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s easier to think of you as dead than to think of you as,” Becca paused and gestured to all of Lewis, “as a monster.”

“But I’m not a monster,” Lewis said, still hurt, “I’m a dragon.”

“To Jeremy, those are one and the same,” Becca said.

The dragon opened his mouth to protest, but immediately closed it again and looked away. “Right. That makes sense,” he muttered, his ears drooping drearily. “I do eat people, I guess.”

Becca blinked in surprise. “Have you… eaten more people?” She asked softly. Truth be told, she didn’t want to know the answer. If it was yes, that meant there was blood on Lewis’s hands — claws? — and she wasn’t sure she could reconcile with it. If it was a no, that meant he’d been keeping his promise, even after sending them away.

Lewis blinked slowly. “I’m not going out looking for them,” he said, “but if they come up the mountain, and I’m hungry enough, yeah, I’ll eat them. People are stupid and easy to catch. Not to mention human tastes better than the rabbits and pronghorns I’ve been forced to snack on. Is that going to be a problem?”

Becca eyed Lucy nervously as she signed YES repeatedly. Becca took a deep breath and shook her head.

“I don’t know, Lewis,” she admitted. “It’s not an ideal situation all around. What’s your kill count up to?”

Lewis scrunched up his face. “Not much higher than last time, I’ll admit. I’ve only killed and eaten two people. I still think I should have killed that guy in black, though.”

“Lewis…”

“Look, don’t ask me to promise anything,” Lewis said, looking away somberly. “I think we’ve established that I can’t give this up, even if I wanted to. I’m a dragon now. Dragons kill to eat, and we have no issue eating humans. Ergo, no issue killing them either. It is what it is.”

“Yeah, you’ve already said that,” Becca said, shaking her head.

“I’m trying to drive the point home,” Lewis grumbled.

“I think you’re trying to drive us away.”

Lewis’s eyes momentarily widened, and he cast his eyes down at his claws. He lazily dragged his massive, clumsy talons through the mountain gravel, before looking up and meeting her gaze again. “I am,” he admitted. “It’s… not safe, Beccs. Please, you should just forget about me.”

“No,” Becca said, stomping her foot for emphasis. “We’ve tried that before, but you need us, Lewis! It was wrong for us to abandon you in your time of need!”

Lewis’s face turned green in embarrassment, and he shuffled back a few steps. “I’m fine,” he mumbled.

“Good! Then you won’t mind if we hang out around you now and again,” Becca said with a grin.

“W-wait, I didn’t say that!” Lewis protested.

Becca grinned and wagged a finger at him. “So, what can we do to make sure we’re safe around you? Aside from the body spray, I mean?”

Lewis gave Becca an incredulous look, before finally letting out a long, smoke-filled sigh. He’d forgotten how hard it was to argue with her.

“As long as I’m fed, you guys are safe,” he admitted, with a shrug of his wings, “and as much as I hate it, that stupid body spray helps. I can’t promise anything, though. The truth is, you all smell delicious. If I’m hungry enough, I might try to eat you. I won’t really know, though, until it’s too late.”

“Can you maybe warn us if you’re too hungry?” Becca asked, interpreting for Lucy.

“How? There aren’t any red flags I can wave. The best I can do is shout HEY DON’T COME UP HERE, I’M STARVING AND YOU TASTE GOOD! Will that be enough?”

Becca cast Lucy a glance.

If that’s the best he can do, Lucy signed before nodding up to the dragon.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll try to give you a vocal warning if I smell you coming, and I’m ravenous,” Lewis said quickly. “Again, no promises.”

Becca wanted to sigh in relief, but she didn’t have the heart for it. She wasn’t relieved. There was still a massive, dragon-shaped elephant in the room that had to be addressed.

Lewis was still eating people. He wasn’t going out of his way to do it, but he wasn’t turning the chance away when he had it. She didn’t know what to think of that. Part of her wanted to admonish him. Another side of her couldn’t bring herself to do it.

How could she? He was just following his nature.

Then there were the other problems...

“There’s more,” Becca said with a sigh. “We’ve come to warn you.”

“Warn me about what?”

“Two things,” Becca said, holding up as many fingers. She lowered one, so only her index finger was raised. “That guy you attacked last time you saw us was a dragon slayer.”

Lewis’s scales suddenly went a significant shade paler. “What!?”

“He and his people are here to kill you.”

Lewis’s eyes widened. He could feel Lasthope drifting nearby over his shoulder and craned his neck around to meet the elder’s gaze. “Lasthope, is that true?” He asked, uncaring if the humans thought he was crazy for speaking to something they couldn’t see.

“I am uncertain,” the ghost admitted, narrowing his eyes and looking off into the distance. “I can feel my skull nearby, but it is difficult to tell whether or not that is due to the dragon slayers. I would have to temporarily abandon this haunt to be certain. However, if they can detect me, it could only further alert them to your presence.”

Lewis swallowed, before turning his attention back to Becca. “Okay, dragon slayers are in town. That’s bad news. Please tell me you have some good news, too?”

“Sorry, it gets worse,” Becca said, shaking her head and raising her second finger. “Your parents know you’re alive.”

Lewis jumped so high in surprise that he bonked his head on the roof of his cave. He staggered for a moment, before dropping back to his belly, shaking the ground with his bulk. “What?! How?! Why?!” Lewis asked, rubbing his head in pain.

“You can thank Jeremy for that,” Becca mumbled.

What are you talking about, Becca? Lucy quickly signed, but couldn’t catch Becca’s attention.

“Remember when Jeremy stole your Xbox?” Becca said, wringing her hands.

Lewis winced as he remembered the black plastic game console. He’d destroyed it in a rage the same day he’d gotten it, along with every other gift his friends had brought. Human paraphernalia.

He didn’t need it.

Dragons don’t play with human toys.

“I remember,” he grumbled.

“Around that time, he left a note for your parents telling them you’re alive, but not to come looking for you because you’ve changed,” Becca explained. She paraphrased what she remembered from the note Principal McNally had shown her but figured she got the gist of it. “Naturally, they’re going to come looking for you, whether or not somebody tells them off.”

Lewis took a deep breath, and looked out of his cave, down at the town. There was a light afternoon mist drifting down from the mountain, as the sun began its descent towards evening. Soon, the little mountain city would be filled with fog. The idea of going to visit his parents crossed his mind. The fog would be densest around midnight. Maybe he could safely make the trip?

No, Lewis, he thought to himself, there are dragon slayers in town! Stay up here, in the mountains, where a dragon belongs! Where a dragon can be safe!

But I really should check on them… another, quieter voice in his head whispered back. They are my parents. They’re worried about me... and I miss them.

“Thank you for telling me,” Lewis mumbled. He tried to smile at his friends, but couldn’t muster the will to do so.

“You’re welcome,” Becca smiled back. “We’re going to try to visit you more often, right, Lucy?”

Lucy made a few hand gestures, and Lewis could have sworn she flipped him the bird. It was difficult to tell when her hands were so small in comparison to him.

“We should probably get going, though,” Becca said, giving Lewis a quick pat on the snout. “Our parents will wonder where we are.”

“Come again soon,” Lewis mumbled, as his friends hefted their bags over their shoulders and began making their way back down the mountain. He kept watching until they vanished through the forest trail.

When they were gone, his eyes drifted down the mountain towards the town. It bustled and moved with life, like an anthill to his dragon eyes. It would be so easy to forget that his parents were down there.

But he couldn’t. As bad of an idea as it was, he wanted to check on them, even if it meant risking exposure and discovery.

My parents are looking for me...

Chapter 7

The dragon slayer’s campsite looked different in the day than it had the previous night. Jeremy looked around, expecting to see more of the same jovial atmosphere, but was surprised instead to see that everyone seemed rather serious. The men were busy tooling their weapons, cleaning or oiling every moving part, and putting them back together again. Dayton was sitting by the empty fire pit, checking on his wounds and wincing as he touched his ribs. A couple other men that Jeremy didn’t recognize were sparring with a pair of wooden swords, their weapons clattering against each other as they went through the motions.

Lambton and three of his other men exited the truck as Jeremy stood around watching, carrying between them a massive, bleached, dragon skull. It was large enough that a fully grown man could fit comfortably inside its mouth, but the lower jawbone was missing. It lacked any horns, but upon closer examination, Jeremy could tell where they were supposed to be. There were four flat spaces on the skull, showing where the dragon’s horns had been before they were removed.

While his men were struggling to hold their sides up, Lambton made the task look effortless. Slowly, they carried it down a ramp towards the flat, grassy earth, and then kept on marching until they were a little ways away from the rest of camp.

Jeremy’s eyes widened as they set the skull down next to a massive pile of hay bales. He hadn’t noticed it before, but now that it had the skull on it, there was only one thing it could be: it was a dummy of a dragon.

The skull was oversized for the proportions of the body, no doubt because of the limits on how many hay bales they could get. The most defined parts of the dummy were the neck and shoulders, shaped from straw. Further down from that were some ropes to represent arms and legs, some wooden poles to represent wings, and a final, thicker rope for the tail. The haunches and rear were shaped from three bales propped up against the main body.

Jeremy eyed the dummy suspiciously, tossing his backpack by the firepit as Lambton strolled towards him and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Ready for your first proper day of dragon slayer training, lad?” Lambton asked, giving Jeremy’s shoulder a squeeze.

“I thought that was the poker game?”

Lambton snorted and waved a hand. “Vigilance and observation are essential skills, and poker is a fantastic way to teach them, but that wasn’t a dragon-slaying specific lesson. What I will teach you today, on the other hand, is Dragon Slaying 101. The absolute basics that every young wannabe knight errant needs to know. Are you ready, lad?”

Jeremy opened his mouth to say yes but paused. Something was bugging him. The dragon slayers had been in town for over a week. Even if Dayton had been beaten hard enough to forget his encounter with Lewis, surely they already knew where the dragon slept, right?

Lambton, sensing Jeremy’s question, squeezed his shoulder, and smiled. “You want to know why we haven’t taken the fight straight to the dragon, don’t you?”

Jeremy raised his hands and waved at all the men and equipment. “Couldn’t you just sneak up and put a bullet in his head?”

Lambton shook his head. “It’s not that simple. By now, the dragon undoubtedly knows we’re here, which means it should already be on alert. The classic downside to scouting, I’m afraid. If your scout gets caught, your enemy will know you’re there,” Lambton said, looking over his shoulder at the wounded Dayton.

The ginger man grimaced and shrugged apologetically.

Jeremy shook his head. “You have a small army of heavily armed men. He’s just one dragon. How hard could it reasonably be?”

Lambton shook his head. “The more men you have, the harder it is to hide the scent.  If it’s monitoring its environment, it will also be proactive in defending itself.”

Jeremy opened his mouth to protest again, but Lambton raised a hand to silence him one last time.

“I get that you want to help, lad, but you’re not a dragon slayer yet. I’ve been doing this a very long time, so trust me when I say that it is vastly more dangerous to confront a dragon in its lair than to try and draw it out.”

Jeremy closed his mouth and nodded slowly. The older man gave him a gentle smile and led him over to the dummy. “What are we going to learn first?” Jeremy asked.

“We’re going to start with weak points, and then give you a few test runs on weaponry,” Lambton said with a smile, drawing his knife from his hip. Jeremy eyed it with fascination. It looked like an ancient Japanese tanto dagger, with a whalebone handle, and complex kanji carved into the blade. The blade was dulled beyond use, with a few chips in the metal up the length of it, and the steel heavily reduced. Lambton twirled the knife between his fingertips, before drawing a second blade from another pouch on his hip and handing it handle-first to Jeremy.

This new blade looked like a standard hunting knife with a wooden handle and a slightly curved blade that tapered into a menacing point. Unlike Lambton’s knife, though, it was as sharp as it could get.

Jeremy wanted to ask why Lambton’s blade was so dull, but the elder dragon slayer chose that moment to speak again. “Let’s start by seeing what you already know, from your own experience with being around a dragon. Go hit it in whatever you think is the weakest point.”

Jeremy nodded and frowned at the dummy. He tried to line the dummy up with what he knew of Lewis’s body. Dragons had thick plate-like scales all over that could stop bullets. Clearly, given the skull, that didn’t mean they were invincible. There had to be a way to kill them.

Jeremy had thought back to the way Lewis had spread his wings and suspected that they would be a vulnerable point. The wing membrane was one of the few places that weren’t completely covered in scales, while the wing arms were thinner than the rest of the body. That had to be one of them, right?

Gripping his knife, Jeremy scampered up the dragon dummy’s hay bale back, until he was right behind the two wooden poles that served as its wings. He crouched down, tried to imagine where the wing membranes would be, and waved the knife through the surrounding air. He imagined he was slashing Lewis’s wings, grounding the dragon so that Lambton could strike him down.

The image didn’t fill him with the expected vengeful joy.

Jeremy quickly glanced up and noticed that Lambton’s eyebrows were raised.

“Not bad,” the old dragon slayer said, nodding in approval. “The wings are definitely a weak spot, but that’s not how you kill dragons. If you completely tear a wing membrane, you can leave them grounded and flightless for a few months while it heals, but they’ll still put up a fight. Try again.”

Jeremy frowned and crouched down on the dummy’s back, before plunging his dagger into the hay right beside the wooden pole.

“Same result, different execution,” Lambton said, shaking his head. “Wings are peripheral. Dragons don’t need them to be a threat. We call those the grounding points, because hitting either of them are suitable ways to keep dragons out of the air.”

Jeremy opened his mouth in a silent O. He looked up and down the length of the dummy, trying to think of where his dagger would pierce flesh instead of bouncing harmlessly off scales.

“All right, come on down, I’ll show you where the real weaknesses are,” Lambton said, waving his hand.

“Sorry, sir,” Jeremy mumbled, as he hopped down from the dummy.

“For what? There is no harm in not knowing something, but there is harm in not trying to learn,” Lambton grinned and twirled his knife again. “Try to keep up, all right?”

Jeremy nodded and gripped his knife tightly.

“The first weak spot you have to consider is the armpit,” Lambton said, marching up to the dummy’s rope arm. “There are very few spots on a dragon’s body where they have no scales, and this is one of them. If you stab it,” in a demonstration, Lambton stabbed his dull blade into the hay, exactly where the armpit would be on Lewis, “you can cripple that entire arm. The same goes for the groin and inner thigh area,” he continued, marching over to the rope legs and stabbing again. “Anywhere a dragon has to make regular motor movements, you can find this kind of scale-absent weak point. These points, however, are crippling only, not kill points, understand?”

Jeremy nodded, focusing on the spots and trying to imagine them on Lewis. Those would be hard to hit. He’d have to get inside the monster’s range to effectively cripple it.

“The second weak point, we call the disarming point,” Lambton continued, marching over to the skull and beckoning Jeremy to follow him over. “We call it that, because unlike the crippling points, if you hit either of these, you can permanently affect the way the dragon breathes fire.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened as Lambton pointed to a spot just behind the monstrous skull’s upper jaw. “Every dragon has a pair of glands, one on either side of their throat, that allows them to breathe fire. Due to the nature of the chemical that fills them, they don’t heal when damaged. Hit them both to permanently disable their flame breath, but taking out one ensures that they have permanently reduced destructive potential. Be careful, though, the glands tend to explode when popped. Now, if you really want to screw with their fire,” Lambton continued, marching around to the front of the skull, “hit them in the retardation gland.”

“The what!?” Jeremy asked, eyes wide at the word. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use that word…”

“The word retardation means the acting of delaying or slowing something down,” Lambton said, with a frown. “Whatever abysmal definition you’re thinking of, stop it.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir.”

Lambton cleared his throat and continued with his lecture. “The retardation gland is positioned right here, below the tongue,” Lambton said, effortlessly lifting the upper jaw of the skull. He quickly sketched out the shape of a lower jawbone with his knife, then drew a circle right where the gland would be. “It’s arguably the most important gland in their entire body because the chemical it produces protects them from their own fire. You take this out, and they will literally burn themselves alive from the inside out. The fire glands produce a constant supply of burning chemicals that comprise highly reactive phosphorus and a naturally occurring napalm-like fluid. The chemical produced in the retardation gland, however, does exactly what it sounds like. It puts out the fire. They lick and coat themselves in it, to provide some protection from their own flames. Their insides are naturally lubricated with it, thanks to it mixing with their saliva.”

“You take out the retardation gland, they blow themselves up,” Jeremy said, his eyes widening. “Without it, they can’t protect themselves from their own fire… Since the fire glands constantly produce more of that burning chemical, all it takes is a spark of hunger or a bit of fire breath, and they burn themselves from the inside-out!”

“You catch on quickly. Good,” Lambton said with a grin.

Jeremy nodded in understanding. “Can you hit it through the bottom of the jaw, or do you have to go through the mouth?”

Lambton’s face split into a grin. “That’s what I like to see! Observation! If you have a strong enough weapon, you can absolutely go through the bottom of the jaw. Knives, however, are typically not strong enough to punch through scale and hide and damage the gland enough to permanently disable it. Injure it maybe, but unlike the fire glands, this one heals over time if not destroyed. If you have a strong enough gun, you can damage it when it goes to breathe fire. No scales in the mouth makes it the most vulnerable point on a dragon’s body.”

“Are there any other kill points?” Jeremy asked, looking up and down the dragon in confusion. “I noticed that most of these weak spots are strictly for crippling, and this is the only one that kills…”

“There is one other kill point,” Lambton explained, “but aside from that, it’s all about wearing it down. Or stabbing it with this baby,” he added, holding up his dagger.

Jeremy eyed the blade in Lambton’s hand suspiciously. “The butter knife kills dragons?”

“Ouch, that’s harsh. It’s a magic weapon called Tokoyo’s Dagger,” Lambton said with a grin, twirling it between his fingers again.

“Magic?” Jeremy said with incredulity.

“Look, we’re fighting dragons, is it really that far of a stretch to believe in magic, too?”

The look on Jeremy’s face spoke volumes. Lambton sighed and rolled his eyes before muttering a quick phrase in a language that Jeremy didn’t understand. In response, the dull knife in his hand began glowing with a soft blue light.

Jeremy’s eyes widened as Lambton began expertly twirling the glowing knife between his fingers. When he finished, the brilliant tip of the blade was pointed right at the skull’s nose.

“Tokoyo’s Dagger is enchanted to kill any dragon with a single stab. I’ve killed over a dozen beasts with this weapon alone.”

“Whoa…” Jeremy whispered, looking down at his own knife in disappointment. He still found it hard to believe in such things as magic weapons, but then again, Lewis had spontaneously turned into a dragon. If that could happen, an enchanted weapon wasn’t too much farther of a stretch.

If Jeremy had that weapon, he could definitely kill the dragon…

“However, we only have one weapon like this,” Lambton said, sheathing Tokoyo’s Dagger at his hip again. As the blade vanished into its sheath, the glow disappeared with it. “It’s not exactly the most efficient thing in the world, which is why we need to train with other weapons and the like.”

Jeremy nodded. That made sense to him.

On cue, Lambton waved over another one of his dragon slayers. They ran over with a jangling mesh of ruby red scales draped over their arm. He draped the mesh over the skull’s forehead, in a spot right above the eyes. He took a moment to adjust the mesh, making sure the scales pointed in the correct direction before giving Lambton a thumbs up and hopping down.

“What is that?” Jeremy asked with a frown.

“Those are dragon scales,” Lambton answered.

“No, I got that, I mean the place he covered, what is that?”

“We call that the scramble point,” Lambton explained, rising to his full height. “Dragon bones are notoriously thick and difficult to penetrate. Most of the time, bullets just get stuck in them, and the dragon barely even notices. That spot, though, is as thin as the bones can get.”

Lambton quickly readjusted the scale mesh to make sure it was still in its place. The scales rattled together as they were nudged around.

“Dragons are sort of like alligators on crack. They’re damn near impenetrable, except in this one spot,” Lambton explained, tapping it with his knife. “Right between the eyes and right into their brain. You only have about this much space to hit, though,” he quickly added, cupping his hands together and making a small circle shape. “Even less than that on a smaller dragon.”

Jeremy took a deep breath and rose to his feet, gripping the dagger tightly between his fingers. He tried to imagine that the skull before him belonged to Lewis, that the scales were a polished bronze rather than ruby red. He wondered if the skull and scales had belonged to the ghost dragon that Lewis purported was following him around.

“Is it really this easy?” Jeremy asked, his breath shallow as he stared at the spot Lambton had indicated. “Just stab their forehead and bam, dead dragon?”

“Yes and no,” Lambton admitted. “If you can hit the target hard enough, right in the forehead, you’ll kill them. If you miss, though, your weapon will either glance uselessly off their scales or get stuck. Dragon scales are thick. If your weapon gets stuck, you’re not getting it back out again. At least, not before it kills you.”

Jeremy raised his knife, as if to strike the point for himself, but lowered it again and stared at Lambton.

“Why haven’t you done it?” Jeremy asked again, shaking his head. “Just put a bullet in his skull…”

“Lad…”

“No! Give me a real answer!” Jeremy demanded.

Lambton pursed his lips as he considered the question. “Collateral damage,” he said finally. “The dragon’s lair is too close to the forest. If we fight there, it would be impossible for us to contain a forest fire. In addition to it being dangerous for us, it would be dangerous for the town. One errant flame could light the whole place up, and then your poor little town will burn to cinders.”

Jeremy opened his mouth and closed it again. “You can’t… shoot him while he’s asleep? He’s out cold at night.”

“You want me to blindly fire into a cave? Or assume we can set up lamps?” Lambton laughed and shook his head. “All right, lad, if you won’t stop asking, I’ll humor this for a quick second and walk you through the scenario.”

Jeremy nodded.

“Let’s assume you’re right, and the dragon is out cold. Assume we’re able to climb the mountain without him smelling us coming. Now we have a dark cave to deal with. We can light it up so we can see, but that can wake the dragon. We could enter the cave without lights, using night-vision goggles, but then we’re close enough for it to fight back. Assuming he doesn’t wake up — already a stretch, I should remind you — then we have to get our weapons out, scour his body for weak points, and get into position to strike. However, doing so puts us in range of his snout, which means he will smell us and wake up, ready to fight.”

Jeremy blinked as he thought it over. They couldn’t approach the dragon during the day because he could see them coming and retaliate. They couldn’t approach at night because that would put them in too much danger.

“Our only real option is to draw it out, well away from the town, to someplace where it won’t be a danger,” Lambton continued. “We’re still working on that. We haven’t been able to observe the dragon, on account that we don’t want to tip him off more than we already have to our presence.”

“You talk like you’ve been in this exact situation before,” Jeremy said, frowning.

“Many, many times,” Lambton admitted, running his fingers down the length of the skull.

“But… aren’t dragons extinct?”

“Who do you think made them that way?”

Jeremy blinked slowly, and not for the first time, wondered how old Lambton really was. He furrowed his brows and raised his knife again, glowering at the dragon’s skull. “I could do it,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“Maybe after you’ve had a bit more training.”

With a grin, Jeremy climbed up the skull and stabbed it right in the scale mesh. His knife slipped between the scales, and he felt it punch right through the bone with a satisfying crack.

Lewis was busy giving his cave a good, thorough flame washing. The smell from Lucy’s body spray assault had been bothering him too much. He figured the best thing to do was clean it away. When Lasthope had initially taught him how to flame wash his cave, the elder dragon had explained that it only needed to be done once or twice every few years.

This was the second time in over a week that Lewis was doing it.

“Honestly, Lewis, this was hardly necessary,” Lasthope said, shaking his head as black smoke poured out of the cave mouth. “The smell would have faded by nightfall.” The ghostly dragon was floating nearby, keeping a generous distance from the burning interior of the cave, lest he accidentally get too close and dissipate from the heat.

“Yeah, but I have to live there, and I didn’t want to wait that long,” Lewis shrugged. “You should be proud of me! Remember how long it took you to get me to do this the first time?”

“It was a waste of fire for you to — AUUGH!” Lasthope was suddenly interrupted as he screamed in pain.

Lewis looked at the ghost, first in confusion, and then in horror, as Lasthope dropped to the ground, clutching his head. He partially phased through the mountainside, before gaining control of himself and holding his body steady. The ghost dragon wailed in pain as a crack formed in the middle of his forehead. White, spectral vapor drifted up into the air from the hole, before evaporating into nothing.

“Lasthope? Lasthope, are you okay?!” Lewis asked, running to his mentor’s side. He passed through the ghost’s intangible, transparent arms as he tried to get a look at the crack in his head. “What the hell was that? Lasthope, what’s happening?”

Lasthope was breathing quickly, despite not needing air in the first place. “My bones…” he groaned, trying to cover the fresh hole in his head. “Those blasted slayers are desecrating my bones again…”

“Are you going to be okay?” Lewis asked, his eyes wide with concern. “I thought you said the dragon slayers desecrated your bones before, why is it hurting you now?”

Lasthope shook his head. “I do not know,” he growled, “but this feels different. Before, they simply took my bones apart. It was procedural, without malicious intent. This feels,” Lasthope winced and rubbed the space around the crack, as though trying to treat a headache, “like somebody wanted to stab me in the head…”

Noticing a concerned look on Lewis’s face, Lasthope quickly added. “I will be all right. I very much doubt they can kill me a second time.”

Chapter 8

Night fell over the little mountain town. Just like Lewis had expected, the mist drifted down the mountainside and filled the entire city with a thick, wispy fog. From his cave, Lewis could see the streets had gone white, and cars were slowing their pace to avoid getting into accidents. The mist wreathed the lights in a glowing halo and gave Barrington Hills a ghostly aura.

If he was going to check in on his parents, now would be the best time to do it.

“I still highly advise against this,” Lasthope whispered, clutching at his aching head as Lewis crept through the forest. “I implore you not to forge too many ties with humans. They are ephemeral compared to you. It would be unwise to associate with them.”

“I’m not going to talk to them,” Lewis pointed out. He weaved around the trees, doing his best to avoid any trail typically traveled by humans. It was late at night, and the odds of encountering a human hiking up the mountain were slim, but it still paid to be careful. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for that. I’m just going to check on them, make sure they’re okay. You heard Becca, right? Mom and dad know I’m still alive. They’re looking for me.”

“That does not mean you should go looking for them…”

Lewis gave his mentor an exasperated look. He didn’t expect the old dragon to understand, but it wasn’t like Lasthope could do anything to stop him.

Unless they did more of that creepy memory stuff.

Lewis shuddered and pushed the thought from his mind. Lasthope hadn’t tried to snatch Lewis’s memories for a while, and he wasn’t about to remind the old fart that it was something he could do.

Lewis kept silent as he continued creeping towards town. He kept low as he made his way out of the woods and into the grassy hills. Just a little ways away was the town square, which would typically be full of activity and life. Now, it looked creepy, with the drifting mists illuminated by streetlights creating spirals of white in the air. Despite his distance, Lewis recognized the shops, and his heart longed to go browse through his favorite game store.

He couldn’t, of course. It was late at night, and they would be closed until at least 9 in the morning.

And you’re a giant fire breathing reptile, Lewis reminded himself. You can’t play games anymore.

Lewis forced his gaze from the haunting display and began making his way further away from the mountain. He passed the hospital, wincing as he remembered the night they brought him in, and he turned into a dragon. Of all the memories that could be left untouched, why was that the one? The more he thought about it, the stranger it became. He couldn’t remember being human, and yet he could remember, to some degree, his transformation?

Lewis scrunched up his face as he noticed the hole he’d made in his escape. It was covered with a thick plastic sheet that billowed in the wind and would do nothing to keep the fog from bleeding in. The sheet fluttered, like the ghost of Lewis’s former self watching him go by. He tried to push the thought of it and his change from his mind. He had to focus.

Lasthope’s ghostly visage appeared suddenly in the mist, giving Lewis a quick startle. “If you insist on this line of action, I would advise you not to remain out in the open too long. There are still dragon slayers about, Lewis.”

Lewis said nothing as he continued to slink about. He passed behind his old high school, trying to ignore the pang of longing in his chest. He slipped into the residential area, keeping well hidden in the shadows and avoiding the streets. Everything looked painfully familiar.

His feet carried him home, unbidden.

There it was, the house where he’d grown up. A two-story building with a triangular roof, red brick walls, and a one door garage. Lewis quickly scuttled across the street, accidentally swatting a mailbox with his tail. He winced as the metal box went flying, before coming to a crash half a block down the road. He didn’t have time to waste trying to put it back. He bit his tongue, and slipped between his old home and its neighbor, before hiding behind the backyard fence.

Now that he was close to it, his old home felt impossibly tiny. He could remember fitting inside it once, but now the idea felt preposterous. He kept himself as low to the ground as possible, to avoid being seen. If he were to stand up on his hind legs, he figured he could peek into the second-story windows without even stretching his neck.

To think he’d once been able to fit in such a thing? Impossible.

“There, we are here, has it satisfied your nostalgia?” Lasthope hissed.

“Shush,” Lewis whispered back. He took a deep breath and flicked his ears. He hadn’t actively practiced listening before, but his dragon ears were much more effective than those pitiful circles on the sides of human heads. Lewis flattened one ear against the side of his head to deafen it while spreading the other ear as wide as it would go.

From his vantage point behind the fence, Lewis could see the kitchen lights on through the back door. He took a deep breath to steady his heart and turned his head to point his ear at the light.

“—I’m just saying that how can we be certain it’s really him?” a voice asked. It was male but meek. Dad? Lewis thought. He sounded so small and frail. Had he always been like that, or was Lewis only now noticing it because he was something much larger and more dangerous?

“I can feel it, Derek,” came the female reply. Mom. Her voice was more commanding. Just hearing it made Lewis want to snap to attention.

Lewis felt a big, steaming tear well up in his eyes, and he quickly blinked it away before Lasthope noticed or commented on it. He hadn’t seen or heard from his parents in over a week. He hadn’t realized just how much he missed them. Some part of him, the scared kid hidden beneath the 5-ton dragon, wanted to barrel through the back door, scream “I’m hooooome” as loud as he could, and wrap his parents in a hug.

The dragon part was quick to stamp down on his scared, inner child. He could never go home, he reminded himself. He wasn’t their child anymore; he was something else. Different. Changed.

A dragon.

Lewis wanted to rip his head away from his old home and march right back up to his cave, but his ear twitched as fresh sounds hit him again.

“I can feel that he’s out there, Derek,” Lewis’s mom continued. “Right now.”

“Jane…”

“Don’t Jane me.”

“I’m just trying to be pragmatic. How can you feel that he’s out there?”

“Call it a mother’s intuition!”

A brief silence fell over the household before finally, they filled it again. “The handwriting looks like Jeremy’s,” his father said, accompanied by the flick of paper being moved around.

“I know, but he says he didn’t write it.”

Lewis frowned for a moment. Were they talking about the note that Lewis had supposedly left? Becca had said that Jeremy was the one who wrote it. Did that mean his parents didn’t know?

“We should ask him again, apply more pressure!” Lewis’s father suggested. “If it was just a prank, it’s not a funny one!”

“We’re not going to interrogate a boy, let alone our son’s best friend. He’s going through the same pain we are, perhaps even worse. We may have only had Lewis for fifteen years, but to Jeremy, that was his entire life.”

“I’m just… so worried,” his dad cried, his voice filling with sobs. “If he’s really out there, why won’t he talk to us? What could be so bad that he has to run away?”

Lewis felt another pang of guilt in his chest, and he flattened his ear against his head. He didn’t want to hear any more from his parents. He didn’t want to hear what they suspected was wrong with him. Lewis didn’t know for sure, but he had a feeling that the note had said nothing about dragons, let alone that Lewis was one.

He shook his head and turned away. Lasthope was floating nearby, wrapped in fog so that all that could be seen of him were his head and front talons. He looked like a specter emerging from the mist for a grim visitation. The newly formed crack in his forehead had widened, and a small globe of a white, just a pinprick of the same stuff that composed his entire form, floated in its center. It almost looked like a third eye.

Lasthope shook his head. “What were you expecting to find here, Lewis?” the elder dragon asked. He did not smile. He took no joy in his young ward’s pain. “Answers? Closure?”

“I… don’t know,” Lewis admitted, in a hushed voice. “I just… needed to hear their voices again.”

Slowly, Lewis turned his back on his home. Coming here was a mistake. Just as he was about to set off again, the lights to the backyard turned on. Instinctually, Lewis flattened himself against the ground and hid behind the fence again.

“Lewis?” A soft voice called. Lewis flicked his ears. His mother had stepped out of the house. “Lewis, are you out there?” she called again, raising her voice.

At the motherly tone, it took all of Lewis’s willpower not to answer. He’d spent his entire life learning to obey his mother’s call. When she spoke, he was supposed to answer. Dragon or not, learned behavior was difficult to overcome. All the same, he bit down on his tongue and tried to keep still and silent, hoping she wouldn’t be able to see him through the wooden fence.

There came a sound of footsteps and rustling grass on the other side of the fence, and then the wood creaked loudly as if somebody had just pushed against it.

“Sometimes, I feel like you’re so close,” his mother said out loud. Lewis blinked slowly. Was she… talking to him? “Lewis… I know you’re still out there somewhere… I don’t believe for a minute you’re dead.”

I might as well be, Lewis thought to her. He held his breath, trying his best not to make any noise. He could smell his mother now, and his nostrils twitched in anticipation. She was so close he could taste her scent on the air. She smelled like pulled pork sandwiches and vanilla frosting. It was all Lewis could do to keep from drooling, even as he felt the familiar burning tingle within his mouth. No! She’s my mother! Don’t be hungry for her! DON’T BE HUNGRY FOR HER! I DON’T WANT TO EAT HER!!

But he did want to eat her. Her scent, like Becca’s, was overpowering. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his mouth around that aroma and rip it to pieces, to fill his belly with it, to bathe in its blood. He squeezed his eyes shut and started shivering. His claws dug furrows in the dirt, his tail stiffened.

Lasthope looked at Lewis and knew immediately what he was feeling. Any minute now, Lewis’s stomach would growl, once more giving away the young dragon’s position. If he was exposed here, it would mean discovery. The dragon slayers would come, and then it would be all over.

No more Lewis.

No more Lasthope.

No more chances to revive the dragon race.

The ghost flexed his claws and narrowed his eyes. It would seem he would have to take matters into his own talons…

Lewis blinked as the ghost drifted through the fence into the backyard. Lewis was always the center point of Lasthope’s haunt, so the old dragon could only move about twenty feet away. Still, that was more than enough distance for what he had in mind.

He had to create enough of a distraction so that Lewis could make his escape. He wasn’t able to interact with living things, like plants or animals, but inorganic material? He had ample control over those.

The backyard of the house was divided into two: the half closest to Lewis was a lawn, while the half closer to the home was a patio composed of concrete tiles. There was a table, a barbeque, and a metal shed.

Those would do.

Lasthope curled his body, like he was about to pounce on prey, and rammed himself at full force into the shed. He concentrated on making himself tangible, and his spectral body slammed into the doors with enough power to bend them inward. The impact sent a loud BANG echoing through the yard and made Jane Cooper jump in surprise.

Lewis perked up, too. He heard the fence creak again, and fresh footsteps rustled the ground, moving away from him. The scent was carried away with the sound, yet it still clung to the insides of his nostrils, teasing him with its tantalizing aroma.

“Fly, you fool!” Lasthope hissed, darting once more through the fence.

Lewis didn’t need telling twice. Before his mother made it to the shed, he’d turned back towards the mountain and was running away again. He barreled across the street, accidentally smashing yet more mailboxes, and stamping on a car parked on the side of the road. Still, he didn’t stop running even as the houses disappeared behind him.

He could not afford to look back...

Chapter 9

Lewis ran as fast as his four legs could carry him. All thoughts of caution were thrown to the wind. He didn’t care who saw him, he just had to get away as quickly as possible. He tried to snort some smoke as he ran, desperate to purge his nostrils of his mother’s scent, but try as he might, his lungs were too preoccupied with breathing to be of much help.

His eyes stung, his heart raced, and his chest hurt. Why did his mother have to smell so delicious? Why did Becca make him drool the same way? He didn’t understand! He made a note to ask Lasthope once they got safely back to the cave, even as he dragged the ghost along behind him.

Lewis was near the edge of town when his stomach growled angrily. He keeled over and dropped to the ground, clutching his middle. How could he be so hungry after less than twelve hours since his last meal!? It usually took a lot longer than that for his hunger to come back in full force, and yet as he tried to stand, he felt a gnawing pain in his gut that sent him right back down to the ground.

“Hurts…” Lewis groaned, clutching at his belly as he tried to rise on shaky legs. “Augh, it hurts!”

“Lewis, move, we cannot stay here,” Lasthope hissed, nudging Lewis’s shoulder. His claw passed right through the young dragon, once more reminding the elder he was dead. “We can talk about this back home, but we cannot afford to delay! Run!”

“Why am I so hungry!?” Lewis cried, raising his voice far louder than was acceptable, given where they were. “Why did I want to eat her so badly? I don’t understand…”

“Lewis, there will be a time and place to discuss, but it cannot be here,” Lasthope urged. “Please, for your own safety, keep running!”

Lewis nodded and rose shakily to his feet. His limbs were twitching beneath his weight, as his stomach continued to churn and growl. The pain was too much for him to bear, and it was all he could to walk again, let alone run. Lasthope sighed in relief and wondered if perhaps he should take the time to deduce precisely what was happening to him when Lewis stopped again. He had scarcely made it five paces before his gaze had snapped to something on the left, and his haunches slammed to the ground.

“Lewis!” Lasthope barked.

“Food…” Lewis whimpered, his eyes wide with longing.

Lasthope followed Lewis’s gaze towards a sign shaped like a pair of golden arches. He frowned in confusion, unfamiliar with the symbol they made, but Lewis clearly recognized it. Before Lasthope had a chance to get another word in, his young ward had burst into a run again, pounding the ground as he went. Lasthope barely had a second to register what was happening before the tug of his haunt yanked him along.

“Lewis!” Lasthope shouted, trying to get the young dragon’s attention.

It was too late, though.

Lewis was on yet another hunger rampage.

Lewis plowed into the parking lot and stared up at the glowing yellow sign with a wagging tail. His eyes were wide with longing, and his stomach was growling furiously in hunger. He idly sniffed the air, feeling all sorts of aromas as they danced across his nostrils.

Burgers! Fries! Soda! Chicken! Eggs!

Burning drool dribbled down Lewis’s chin and sizzled as it splashed against the concrete ground. He took in those delicious scents, and once more, he licked his lips, wreathing them in fire. He wanted to dive in through the front door and devour all that delicious smelling food.

Then he saw the people.

The restaurant lights were on, and there were people inside. Bored teenagers in uniforms were standing idly behind a counter, wiping it down while their night owl patrons talked and ate. Lewis’s gut gurgled hungrily at the sight of all those humans.

He could eat them all. He wanted to eat them all. Was that where those smells were coming from? No, he knew this place; he knew what it smelled like.

WHY AM I SO HUNGRY?! Lewis managed to think, as his feet carried him unbidden through the parking lot.

You know why, came the response, a sinister growl of a thought. Humans are food. Eat them all.

He tried to keep to the shadows, but his eyes refused to drift away from the restaurant. More than once, he nudged a car out of the way, he hadn’t even noticed them in his path. His mind was so one-track, he couldn’t even hear Lasthope pleading with him to regain control, to go back home.

Lewis hummed a quiet tune to himself, vaguely recognizing it as the chain restaurant’s theme song. He wondered how much of their food he could eat if he were to place an order?

Lasthope, in a last-ditch effort to get Lewis’s attention, drifted in front of him and bared his fangs. “LOOK AT ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU, WHELP!” the ghost roared, concern having been replaced with fury.

Lewis blinked in surprise and met the elder dragon’s gaze. “L-Lasthope?” he grunted, wincing as his stomach tightened again. “Hungry… So hungry…”

“Lewis, please focus!” Lasthope begged. “Your instincts are in control! You are not thinking, merely acting!”

“But… hungry…” Lewis whimpered, flattening his ears against his head. “Need… food…”

“Return to the mountains, so you can hunt!” Lasthope urged. “Lewis, please, this is your safety we are talking about! The longer you are exposed, the more danger you will be in!”

Lewis’s eyes lost focus, and for a moment, he looked through the old dragon at the restaurant again. This time, however, he wasn’t looking directly at the dining area. This time, he noticed a door on the side. It was large and white, a stark contrast to the bright yellow paint on the rest of the building. Rather than a knob, it had a thick steel handle.

Lewis had never worked at this restaurant before. He’d never been behind the counter and seen what it was like. He did, however, recognize a freezer door when he saw one.

He’d seen the restaurant workers carrying freshly delivered buns in through that door before. He licked his lips in anticipation, momentarily smothering the flames before they were lit anew.

Before his mentor could protest, Lewis had slipped through the ghost and headed straight for the freezer door. There would be food on the other side. It wouldn’t be alive, or bloody, but it would be something he could consume!

Without another thought, Lewis dug his claws into the metal door. It squealed as he tore through it, trying to get a good grip. He grinned and gave it a sharp tug, and the hinges on the side snapped.

“I’m loving it,” Lewis muttered, tossing the door over his shoulder. There came a crash as it landed atop a nearby car, flattening its hood.

Lewis didn’t care.

He was so close!

Food was almost his to devour!

The doorway was too small for him to fit much more than his head, but he could see boxes stacked on top of each other, just through the threshold. Grinning to himself, he effortlessly plucked one off the stack with a single claw, testing its weight to gauge how much he’d have to take to be a decent meal. Written on the box was regular beef patty, in bright red letters. Lewis licked his lips eagerly. He hadn’t had a burger in over a week!

“Lewis!” Lasthope shouted. “Move faster, you fool! People will see you!”

“About… 40 pounds?” Lewis figured, tucking the box under his left wing, before reaching in and snatching another. The second crate joined the first, and he tucked his wing in tight around his body, to maintain his grip on them. The 80 extra pounds didn’t bother him too much. He’d still be able to run at a decent pace. His stomach gurgled hungrily, and for a second, he considered grabbing another extra box for the road.

“There, you have food, now run!” Lasthope roared.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going, I’m—” Lewis turned around to face the ghost, and was surprised to see something else.

Two teens were staring at him with wide eyes. They were dressed in thick hoodies and jeans. One of them had his phone out, the rear camera pointed directly at Lewis, while the other had his phone to his ear, and was whispering something into the receiver.

“There’s a monster attacking the McDonald’s!” Lewis had to strain his ears to hear the teen.

“Lasthope, why didn’t you warn me?!” Lewis hissed, glancing up at the ghost over the kid’s shoulder.

“I tried, you insolent whelp! Run!”

Lewis raised a front claw to take a step and paused. Those teens were right there… He shifted his weight a bit, feeling how the crates of food felt against his body. He was a little off-balance. One of those humans would make for a great counterbalance, and probably a way better meal than frozen beef patties.

Before giving it a second thought, Lewis struck. The teens barely had a chance to scream as Lewis lunged forward, snatching the one on the phone in his claw. He could just bite the head off! It would be a perfect way to ensure it couldn’t escape!

The impact was too much for the human. When Lewis raised the boy up to his snout, he was already unconscious.

Lewis stared down at the limp shape of the human in his claw, frowning. He hadn’t hit it that hard, had he? That was no fun. He gave the kid a quick shake, trying to wake them up, to no avail. They were out cold and likely wouldn’t wake up for a while.

“LEWIS!” Lasthope roared. “RUN! RUN NOW!”

Lewis shrugged and tucked the unconscious human under his right wing. Immediately, the additional weight helped correct his balance, as he hugged the teen close to his side. That would do.

He turned momentarily, noticing the teen who’d been filming him was now on the ground, his phone still raised and pointed at him. Lewis roared at them, revealing a maw full of flames and dagger-like teeth.

The teen screamed and dropped his phone. Lewis stomped a front claw on the kid’s chest and slammed them into the ground, immediately knocking the teen unconscious. Satisfied with himself, Lewis plucked him off the ground and tested his weight.

“Lewis, by the Ancestors,” Lasthope groaned. “Please, just run!”

“A hundred and forty-seven pounds,” Lewis grumbled. He hadn’t tested the first human he grabbed, but he knew that they were both roughly the same weight. He wouldn’t be able to tuck them both under the same wing, not without slowing himself down dramatically. He debated quickly scarfing down this teen there and then, but a full belly would be just as heavy as carrying the human whole. He vaguely knew that he needed to remain mobile, but he couldn’t quite remember why. His mind was focused on one thing only: food.

Shrugging, Lewis tossed the teen over his shoulder and onto his back. Better to have him there than under a wing. Satisfied that he had a substantial enough meal, Lewis turned back towards the mountain. It wasn’t too far away. The restaurant was closer to home than he’d initially realized.

The sound of wailing sirens suddenly interrupted his reverie. Lewis’s eyes widened as he looked towards the front of the restaurant, and noticed three blue and white cars rolling into the parking lot, with glowing bulbs of red and blue light on their roofs. Lewis looked frantically around, as six humans in blue uniforms leaped out of their vehicles and pointed their weapons at him.

“It is too late,” Lasthope whispered. “It is too late, they have seen you. Lewis, you cannot lead them back to your cave! If they know where you sleep, you will be in danger forever! Run! Run like your life depends on it!”

Lewis’s instincts screamed. One half of him was screaming at him to go home and feast, while the other half roared for him to fight first and then run. He shuffled on his front claws, unsure of the best one to obey, before finally bolting towards the mountain.

The hunger had won out over caution.

Immediately, the police got back into their vehicles and began the chase. As Lewis dove out of the parking lot and into the grassy field, the screaming police cars followed close behind. A few sharp pops echoed through the empty air, and Lewis felt the familiar sting of a bullet getting lodged in his scales. He just had to make it to the foothills! If he made it that far, he could lose them in the forest!

Lewis slid through the grass, slick with dew from the fog, as one of the cop cars drifted around him, pulling to a stop directly in his path. An officer leaped out and pointed a weapon at the dragon. Lewis considered lowering his head and ramming them with his horns, but something different was in this officer’s hand. Lewis’s eyes widened as a pair of wires lodged themselves in his chest.

Lewis roared in pain. It felt like his scales were on fire! That shouldn’t have been possible, he’d been tongue bathing every day for nearly a week! He was permanently coated in a thin film of his flame retardant chemical! He should be functionally fireproof!

This wasn’t fire, though. Lewis’s limbs twitched with pain, and he dropped to his belly, as his body refused to obey his commands. Two more cops swung around to his side and fired wires into his flanks. More fire surged through his body, and all semblance of control Lewis might have had over his limbs vanished in an instant.

“Martha, we got him,” one cop said, speaking into his shoulder radio. “Caught him just outside the McDonald’s! He’s got hostages!”

Lewis twitched and hissed as the wires crackled, filling him with that horrible agony. It was the worst thing he’d ever felt before! Worse even than the gnawing hunger in his belly.

“Lewis, drop the food,” Lasthope ordered, his voice cold and hard. “Hunger can wait, escape is your priority!”

Lewis obeyed. It took more effort and concentration than usual, but he was able to open his wings, swatting aside the cops and yanking out some of their wires. The human and boxes plummeted to the ground, landing with a soft thud in the damp earth.

With less weight on him, Lewis shakily rose to his feet. He craned his neck, whipping it around, and knocked the wire weapon from the cop’s hand. It dangled from his chest, and Lewis bellowed angrily as the cop bent down to scoop the weapon up again. He swiped with his claws and sent the cop flying to the ground, where it lay still and motionless.

With a swat, Lewis knocked the last human off his back, then rose to his hind legs and spread his wings as wide as they would go. Just as more humans with those stupid weapons ran over to take aim at him, Lewis leaped into the air. He flapped his wings twice, buffeting the cops as he climbed, then glided as far as he could.

His inexperience with flight once more came back to haunt him. Lewis crashed back to earth thirty feet away. Already he could see the cops rushing back into their cars to give chase.

He couldn’t let them.

Lewis wheeled on the cars and squeezed his fire glands. A powerful jet of flames erupted from his maw, instantly evaporating the surrounding fog. The grass, which had been wet, created a thick cloud of steam when it burned, as Lewis carved a semi-circular wall of fire between him and the cops.

The attack had the intended effect. The approaching cars slid to a stop before the flames, and Lewis turned tail to run. He occasionally breathed out more fire to create further barricades until he squeezed his glands, and nothing came out.

He was empty, but it didn’t matter. He could see the cop cars off in the distance as he dove into the forest. They couldn’t chase him beyond that point.

He would be safe.

Chapter 10

Martha Smith sat in her chair as she went over the report from her officers again. Once the encounter with the dragon had finished, they called paramedics to the scene to deal with the victims and talked her through the event.

Martha sighed as she looked down at her shorthand notes. The dragon had fortunately not killed anyone, but no fewer than four officers would be in the hospital with severe injuries. One might not even make it. She shook her head but didn’t jump as the phone on her desk rang loudly.

Martha didn’t even bother picking it up, she simply clicked a button to put it on speakerphone and adjusted her posture in her chair. “Detective Smith,” she said, in a usual impassive greeting.

“Martha, dear,” came the sleepy voice of a woman on the other end. “I heard the commotion all the way from my house. What happened?”

“Mayor Weatherby,” Martha said slowly, taking a deep breath. “The creature happened,” she admitted, staring at the phone.

Mayor Grace Weatherby had been informed about the creature’s presence when it had first attacked about a week ago. Still, even now, she could scarcely believe that a dragon was anywhere near her town, let alone hunting down and eating its people. After tonight, though, it would be impossible to deny.

Property damage.

Kidnapping children.

Assaulting police officers.

This creature was dangerous, and if they didn’t do something about it soon, there would be even more trouble…

Mayor Weatherby yawned loudly before she spoke again. “The creature, eh?” she said. Martha could practically hear the disbelief in the older woman’s voice. If it wasn’t for the fact that Martha had personally shown her the footage, she very much doubted that the mayor would have believed her. “This… dragon, right?”

“Correct.”

Mayor Weatherby paused again, to consider the statement. Martha suspected it was difficult for her to put into words just how frustrating this was. Martha knew that, if she were in the mayor’s position, she’d be flustered too. What are you supposed to do when a mythological monster raided your town? Who were you supposed to call?

Martha knew the answer to that, but she had yet to bring it up with the mayor. If Weatherby knew what those men were here to do, she wasn’t sure the mayor would approve.

“Report, please,” Mayor Weatherby finally said, yawning loudly for a second time. “Be quick about it, it’s two in the morning.”

“Of course, ma’am,” Martha said, as she began to detail the events of the attack on the McDonald’s. Mostly, she only had conjecture from her conscious officers to go off, but that should still be enough proof for her to build a convincing case against it.

The dragon needed to be dealt with as soon as possible, and if Mayor Weatherby wouldn’t see it done, maybe she’d have to take matters into her own hands.

When Martha’s retelling was done, there was another long pause, before finally, the mayor spoke again. “So electric weapons didn’t work, did it?”

“My reports indicate that it was temporarily stunned, but not long enough for my officers to do anything,” Martha explained. “We might be able to use stronger electrical weapons, but conventional tasers aren’t enough to slow it down for more than a few seconds.”

“I see,” Weatherby mumbled. “And the children, they’re alive?”

“Reports indicate that both victims have broken ribs and one has a fractured skull, but otherwise both are alive and on their way to the hospital.”

Weatherby let out a long sigh of relief, and Martha could practically imagine the older woman rubbing her chin in thought.

“Ma’am, if I may speak my mind?” Martha asked, clearing her throat.

“This isn’t the military, Martha. I’m your mayor and your friend, not your commanding officer.”

Martha blinked and shook her head. “Grace, we need to kill this thing, and fast,” she said hastily. “We’ve been lax in our observing it because it has kept out of town and away from people. That ended tonight. It snuck into town, raided a local business, and then tried to kidnap two children. Can you imagine the sort of damage it could do if we hadn’t been expecting it?”

Mayor Weatherby didn’t answer.

“Grace, please,” Martha whispered, her hands tightening into fists. “If ever you have trusted my judgment, you should trust it now. We can’t suffer this thing to live.”

“How would you suggest we kill it, then?”

Martha took a deep breath. She had two possible answers for this, but she wasn’t sure which one the mayor would hate more. Better to stick with the easier one, for now.

“I’ve been in contact with some of my old military friends. They’re willing to supply us with armor-piercing weapons as well as anti-tank rifles for use against the creature. If you give the order now, I can have them delivered and ready for use by six in the morning, and we could be up at the dragon’s cave by eight.”

The mayor took a deep breath, long enough that Martha was worried she might have fallen asleep again. When she did answer, though, her voice was harsh. “Are we sure that is enough to kill it?”

“No,” Martha said after a brief pause. “We’ve seen this thing take bullets like they were spitballs. I have an associate who claims they’ve dealt with creatures like this before, but even he says that these weapons might not be enough.”

“So you can hurt it, but not kill it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Martha said quickly. “I’m positive that if we pump it full of enough lead, it will die. There’s only so much damage any creature can take.”

Mayor Weatherby paused again. “You mentioned before that it’s intelligent,” she said, her voice dropping low. “Are we sure that we shouldn’t just… try to reason with it?”

It took every fiber of Martha’s will not to slam her fists onto the table. “Mayor, with all due respect, we can’t just assume that the creature is intelligent on a human level. My associate says that they’re smart and can talk, but they don’t think the same way a person does. I thought it could be reasoned with, too, but when I sent a man to scout it out he—”

Martha’s breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t planned for him to die, but the footage from the dashcam of the car didn’t lie. The dragon had eaten one of her men.

“So, you didn’t try to reason with it?”

“We couldn’t get close,” Martha growled.

Mayor Weatherby tutted quietly before she spoke again. “Place the order with your military contact. I want those weapons ready to go as soon as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Martha said, subconsciously saluting.

“But,” Weatherby said, pointedly, “do not attack unless he attacks first.”

“Ma’am?”

“I do not want to be known as the mayor who rendered an endangered species extinct,” Weatherby said slowly. “It would definitely hurt my chances at reelection. We need to handle this with tact. Let’s start by offering the dragon an ultimatum. He enters town again, he dies.”

Martha blinked slowly. How could Grace be thinking about her reelection at a time like this!? There was literally a giant fire breathing monster free to rampage through her town if left unchecked.

“I think we set up the anti-tank guns as sniper nests, and form a sort of… anti-dragon troupe?”

“Dragon slayers?” Martha offered.

“More like dragon repellent force. Again, if we can avoid it, we don’t want to kill it. Think of all the tourism we could generate, being the only town in the world with a neighboring dragon!”

“Grace, please, you’re not thinking of what’s best for the town.”

“On the contrary, Martha,” Mayor Weatherby said, sharply. “We have a very rare opportunity here. If the dragon is intelligent, perhaps we should offer it an outright partnership…”

“No! Miss Mayor, this is getting too dangerous, you cannot be seriously considering—”

“Martha,” Weatherby said, her voice low and stern, “it is your job to control the danger, and my job to see how we can use it to best serve the town. Stay in your lane, it’s what you’re good at. If the dragon cooperates, I see no reason we cannot form an amicable relationship. That being said, I want proof it can be controlled, even a little bit.”

“So, an anti-dragon troupe?” Martha said, barely controlling the need to sigh.

“And an ultimatum. If he sets foot in the town again, we will do everything in our power to kill him.”

Mayor Weatherby wanted her to be mean and scary while she got to play the good guy? Fine. That suited Martha just fine. “I’ll make arrangements,” Martha grunted, just as Weatherby hung up the call. When she was sure nobody was listening to her anymore, she let out a long, exasperated sigh.

A sharp knock on her door drew her attention again, and Martha sat up in her office seat, trying her best to recover her composure. No sooner had she brushed some hair from her eyes did a familiar, albeit frustratingly smug face open the door to greet her.

“That didn’t go too well,” Lambton grinned as he shut and locked the office door. “The old bird isn’t on our side, I take it?”

“Politicians are only ever on their own side. The mayor cares more about her position than her constituents,” Martha growled, glowering at Lambton. “You were listening?”

“To the whole bloody thing,” he beamed proudly. “Anti-dragon troupe, eh? Are you sure you don’t just want to let me and my men handle this?”

“At this point, I would love to hand you the reins,” Martha admitted, “but it’s clear that Grace isn’t on board. I can’t step outside my jurisdiction, not without landing in some very hot water.”

“Lass, the water’s already boiling, you just don’t know it yet,” Lambton said, shaking his head somberly. “At least let me stick around and advise you? It would pay to have someone more experienced to talk to.”

Martha didn’t give Lambton the satisfaction of seeing her sigh.

Chapter 11

Lewis collapsed as he crawled into his cave, his shaking legs not wanting to carry him anymore. He clawed at the ground as he dragged his still growling belly towards the back of his cave home. It took his eyes a minute to adjust, but soon Lewis could see just how far he had to go. Why had he agreed to make his cave so deep?

“Lewis…” Lasthope said, leaning in close.

“Go away,” Lewis mumbled, curling up against the far back wall. He wound himself into a tight ball and draped a wing over his head. The underside of the limb smelled like humans, and Lewis could feel his hunger tightening into a knot. He didn’t care. He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered softly to himself, begging for sleep to come and take him.

Lasthope drifted around the cavern. He knew perfectly well that, if he really wanted to, he could force Lewis to pay attention to him. This, however, didn’t seem like the right time. His young ward appeared genuinely distraught, and Lasthope was trying to figure out which aspect had him more upset.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Lasthope asked, positioning himself on the cave ceiling so that he was hovering above the younger dragon.

Lewis sniffled loudly, and a puff of smoke drifted up from beneath his wing. “Why do you care?”

Lasthope blinked slowly.

“I mean, I get that I’m the new last dragon on earth. You have to care because of that stupid great destiny crap. I’m not asking about that. I’m asking why you care about me as a person?”

Lasthope nodded. “Truth be told, at first, I didn’t. But the longer we spent together, the more I remembered that I was never able to father progeny of my own. It was my spell that changed you, was it not? Depending on how you look at it, you are my offspring.”

Lewis snorted but didn’t answer.

“You have even taken to calling me Ghost Dad, so clearly you see me as some sort of paternal figure, no?”

Lewis remained silent but shifted his weight against the back wall of the cavern.

Lasthope blew out a sigh and shook his head. “It is fine. If you do not wish to speak to me, I will dissipate for the night, and see you in the morning.”

Lasthope began to steadily dissolve his body into thin air. He started with his tail, willing it to disappear. He’d never told Lewis before, but it took no small amount of concentration to maintain a shape that can be seen, heard, and to some degree, interacted with. He was a ghost, and yet holding the form made him tired — likely a price to pay for how exhausting it could be to look after an impetuous young dragon.

As Lasthope’s tail vanished up to his thighs, Lewis withdrew his wing from his head. His eyes were red and puffy, and wet, steaming tears were rolling down his cheeks. Lasthope immediately stopped dissipating and floated closer to his young ward.

“I hate this,” Lewis mumbled, sniffling loudly, as a fat tear splashed against the cave floor. “I’m just a kid, why did this have to happen to me?”

Lasthope shook his head slowly. They both already knew that the elder dragon had no answers. He had never actually set a target for his spell. He’d simply fired it off and hoped for the best. The best, as it turned out, was Lewis.

“I want to go home,” Lewis whimpered, looking up at Lasthope. “Please change me back. I don’t want to be a dragon anymore.”

“Lewis, you know I cannot do that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I cannot do it. Lewis, had I but the claws and the knowledge to change you back, I would. I would find somebody else to be my vessel, the bearer of my great destiny. Not a day goes by where I do not regret doing this to you. As you said, you are a child. This is too much of a burden for you to bear.”

Lewis sobbed loudly and covered his face with his wing again. Lasthope drifted aimlessly through the air for a moment, his rear end almost completely gone, as he waited for Lewis to speak again. He paused, as Lewis continued to cry under his wing until finally, he pulled it back away again. Burning snot was lighting up his nostrils. He wiped his eyes with his claws.

“Are you feeling better now?” Lasthope asked.

“Of course not,” Lewis mumbled. “I just… Need to get a hold of myself.”

Lasthope nodded in agreement and waited for his young ward to reconstitute his composure. It took Lewis a few minutes of deep breathing to stop crying, and a further few minutes after that, to uncoil himself and properly lay against the wall. With continued deep breaths, Lewis reached behind his ear and extracted the gold ring he’d looted earlier from the cop.

He was surprised that he hadn’t lost it in the scuffle with the police, but then again, he had wedged it tightly between two scales. He licked the metal to a polished shine, then breathed fire on it. The lingering drool, a mixture of his saliva and flame retardant, caused the ring to glow with warmth, but not to burn. Lewis purred happily as he stared at it, all thoughts of sadness washed away by the beauty and glimmer of gold.

Lasthope watched in silence, longing for gold all his own. He’d never had much growing up. His hoard had been knowledge: books, treatises, scrolls, and ancient stone tablets. The library of accumulated dragon knowledge and history. That had been his treasure. It was all gone, now, likely destroyed by the blasted dragon slayers.

The dragon slayers who were still out there, undoubtedly looking for Lewis.

“Lewis, I think we need to talk about what happened back there,” Lasthope said, drifting down through the cave floor until he was laying, eye to eye, with the young dragon. Due to his size, he had to partially phase through the floor, but it wasn’t like he was alive to be uncomfortable with it.

Lewis slowly forced his gaze away from the ring, his expression immediately turning sour. He carefully tucked the ring back behind his ear, licking it quickly to ensure it stuck to his scales and met his mentor’s gaze. “I’m listening.”

“No, Lewis. You must do the talking.”

Lewis winced at the command but nodded. His heart had yet to fully settle from the chase, his legs were still shaky and numb from those weapons — tasers, he realized, now that he could think clearly — and there was still that knot of hunger in his stomach. What had happened back there?

It was hard to determine exactly where everything had gone wrong. He’d gone down into town with a plan: check on his parents to make sure they were all right. But everything had gone downhill once he’d caught a whiff of his mother’s scent.

“My mom happened,” Lewis said, blinking slowly. “Her scent… It was like Becca’s… It was so powerful that the only thing I could think of was ripping her apart and eating her.

On cue, Lewis’s stomach gurgled angrily. It hadn’t gotten the promised meal and was protesting. Lewis winced and put a hand to his stomach, trying to quiet the noise.

“Why do Mom and Becca smell so good?” Lewis asked, meeting his mentor’s gaze.

Lasthope raised a quizzical eyebrow and waved a claw for him to elaborate.

“The first time I met Becca as a dragon, her scent was so overpowering… It was literally all I could do to keep myself from eating her,” Lewis explained. “The same thing happened earlier tonight. Mom’s scent is just like Becca’s. Most other humans don’t set me off like that. Why? What’s so special about them?”

Lasthope’s brows furrowed, and he scratched his chin in thought. He tried to recall everything from his library, but as he had been avoiding humans all of his incredibly long life, he didn’t have any first-hand understanding of what Lewis was referring to.

“I am afraid I do not know,” Lasthope confessed, shaking his head. “I am unable to smell anything in this state. My senses are limited to sight and sound.”

Lewis grimaced. “Really? There’s nothing?”

Lasthope scratched the side of his head and narrowed his eyes in thought. “There are some things I remember from my library, however at this point, it would mostly be conjecture. I have neither the evidence nor the confidence to back it up.”

Lewis bobbed his head from side to side. “At this point, I’ll take anything I can get,” he mumbled. “I need to know what to avoid, to keep this from happening again.”

Lasthope nodded and loudly cleared his throat. Lewis sat patiently and waited for Lasthope to begin lecturing him.

“Supposedly, the fair folk had a scent that is overpowering to dragons,” Lasthope explained. He tried to recall everything he had ever learned about other magical creatures from his vast collection. His knowledge was admittedly limited, as the library’s contents had been more concerned about preserving the history and science of dragon kind, and not other beings. “They, much like we dragons, have been largely extinct for thousands of years. Their descendants, however, still exist. The fair folk and humans were known to breed now and again.”

Lewis frowned in confusion as he tried to process what Lasthope was saying. “Are you talking about fairies?” he finally asked.

Lasthope winced at the word and shook his head. “To my understanding, they do not appreciate being called fairies. The fair folk, or the fae if you want to save on syllables, are an ancient magical race. They were longer lived than even dragons but struggled to reproduce among their own kind. I do not know much of them, I will admit. I know only that which was in my library. To my understanding, the last of the fair folk died off nearly a thousand years before the Tribe Wars. Their bloodlines are still mixed with humans, though, and where it manifests the strongest, you get this overpowering scent. The few texts in my collection that spoke of these matters called these humans Fairbloods.”

Lewis blinked slowly. “So me and one of my best friends are descended from fairies. We’re both one of these Fairblood things?” He said with a skeptical look on his face.

Lasthope blinked rapidly, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Assuming the texts are true, and again I cannot validate that information without access to my library and a lineage spell, it would make sense. Given your mother has their scent, that would mean you were a descendant of the fair folk, too. And yes, your friend Becca would also be their descendant,” Lasthope confirmed, before scrunching his eyebrows in thought. “I wonder if that was how the spell determined a likely candidate? Perhaps the Fairblood manifested itself greatly in you, and that made you a suitable target to be transformed?” Lasthope scratched his chin before shrugging. “It’s an interesting thought, but regrettably not one we can quantify. Not unless you want to reproduce my spell to create more dragons so we can see who it targets next.”

“Wouldn’t that kill me?”

“Probably.”

“I would like to avoid that,” Lewis gently reminded the elder.

Lasthope’s mouth stretched into a grin. “It looks like you’re feeling a bit better now?”

Lewis shrugged, and shook himself out, before slowly rising to his feet. The knot of hunger in his stomach had all but vanished, leaving him with a dull background pain. The numbness in his claws was gone, too, and his feet could once more properly bear his weight. His eyes felt itchy and heavy, like sleep was inevitable, and he let out a long yawn. His thick forked tongue rolled out of his mouth.

“Okay, so,” Lewis said, snapping his jaw shut. He licked the roof of his mouth a few times and shook his head to ward off sleep just a little bit longer. “To summarize: fairies were real. They blended with humans. Now some humans smell like fairies, and those humans will drive me into a feeding frenzy if I catch a whiff of their scent without something masking it.”

“A gross oversimplification, but based on the information we have on hand, it is the best assumption we can make,” Lasthope confirmed. He took a deep breath and gave Lewis a wary look. “You do understand that I did not mean to talk about what drove you to hunger, yes? We need to talk about how you reacted to it.”

Lewis’s ears drooped, and he looked away sadly.

“Lewis, you cannot keep putting yourself in danger like this,” Lasthope sighed, resting an ethereal claw on the young dragon’s head. “Someday, your enemies will have more powerful weapons than those electric devices. There are people out there who want you dead.”

“I know,” Lewis mumbled.

“It is not enough to know. You need to get a handle on your hunger,” Lasthope continued. “We cannot keep doing this, Lewis. It is of the utmost urgency that you learn to hunt decently sized game. We should never descend to the town again.”

“I know,” Lewis mumbled again.

Lasthope took a slow breath. “Tomorrow, we shall hunt again. And again the day after. You must get the hang of this if you are to survive. Am I understood?”

“I know,” Lewis said again.

“Lewis, can you not say anything, but I know?”

“What? No, sorry, I tuned you out as soon as you started scolding me.”

Lasthope blinked his eyes rapidly. “Have you paid attention to anything I’ve said at all past the talk of Fairblood?”

“Nah,” Lewis shrugged, and let out another yawn. “It’s cool,” he mumbled, his eyes slowly fluttering shut. “Wait til Becca hears she’s part fairy, she’s gonna freak.”

Lasthope was about to give Lewis a verbal thrashing, but to his surprise, the young dragon was snoring in seconds. He shook his head and smiled down at his ward. Were the ghost able to feel pain, he suspected he would be sore with guilt. He truly did regret not being more specific with his spell. Lewis didn’t deserve the madness he was currently facing.

All the same, as Lasthope allowed himself to further vanish from midair, he was glad that the spell had given him a youth. Some small part of him was thrilled he was getting to play the role of a father.

Even if it was as a Ghost Dad.

Chapter 12

Lewis was awoken the next morning by the sound of engines whirring, boots stomping, and loud shouting. He scrunched his eyes tight, hoping the noise would eventually go away. Still, his ears flicked in frustration as the noises grew louder and closer. He groaned, and rolled over, facing his back to the cave entrance, and hoping that whatever had decided to bother him would soon go away.

Lasthope manifested himself again, staring at the cave entrance curiously. It was difficult to see beyond the mouth. The early morning light flooded through the yawning hole, creating a blinding halo that obscured much just beyond. Despite the light blocking his sight, Lasthope thought he could hear humans.

“Lewis, get up, I think we have a problem,” Lasthope whispered into his young ward’s ear.

Lewis groaned and rolled over again, turning himself back towards the cave mouth. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open and stared out at the cave entrance. The noise was growing louder by the second.

“Really?” Lewis growled, rubbing his crusty eyes with the heels of his front claws. “Haven’t these people ever heard of let sleeping dragons lie!?”

Lasthope chuckled lightly, as the noise beyond the cave mouth suddenly came to a stop.

“Think they’re gone?” Lewis mumbled.

“I very much doubt it.”

As if in answer, there came a crackle and squeal of a speaker from just outside the cave. The noise was quickly followed by a voice that Lewis didn’t recognize. “Attention monster!” The voice boomed through Lewis’s cavern. He yelped as it hit his ear, the combined volume and echo surprising him and knocking away the last of his sleep fugue. “This is the Barrington Hills Police! Come out with your claws and wings where we can see them!”

“The cops?” Lewis whispered, frowning. The previous night’s chase came back to him in haunting flashes. “Uh oh. Lasthope, what do I do?”

Lasthope snorted a puff of white smoke and shook his head. “You are a dragon! You are not beholden to the laws of humans!”

“So what you’re saying is I should go light them on fire?”

Lasthope nodded quickly but then tilted his head in thought. “Maybe hear them out first?” He suggested. “It sounds like there are a lot of them out there.”

Lewis winced, as the crackling voice echoed through his cave again. “We will give you until the count of five, and then we will come in with force! ONE!”

Lewis swallowed and quickly jumped to his feet. He was filling the cave mouth by the number four, his wings spread wide. He shook the earth as he sat down on his haunches and lifted his foreclaws so that the cops could see him.

There was a wall of officers just beyond the mouth of his cave. They were all pointing thick rifles at him and were dressed in heavy riot gear. Standing in front of them, wearing a blue pants suit, was a dark-skinned woman with thick, curly hair and a bad attitude on her face. She had a megaphone in one hand and a pistol in the other.

“There you are,” the woman said, shoving the megaphone into the hands of one of the cops behind her. He quickly set it down and returned to pointing his rifle at Lewis. “My, my, just look at you,” she said, “you’re an interesting creature, aren’t you?”

Lewis didn’t answer. He could feel his snout warming up, and knew his face had just turned green.

“A blusher, too? Interesting,” the woman said. She held her gun steady but didn’t point it at him. “That Lambton fellow says you’re intelligent. The fact that you came out here, with your wings and claws up, seems to have proved him right.”

Lewis’s eyes widened, and it was all he could do to stop himself from slapping his forehead. He hadn’t even realized there might be a trap!

“Ancestors, if she has been speaking to Lambton… Do not make any sudden movements,” Lasthope said, drifting above the cops. “I do not see the slayers, nor their vehicles nearby. She came only with the humans you see before you.”

Lewis swallowed. Okay, that was a good sign. That might mean she wasn’t there to kill him, right?

“So, monster, what do you have to say for yourself?” The woman asked again.

Lewis opened his mouth and was about to say that he wanted to speak to his lawyer when he remembered that he was a freaking dragon. Lasthope wasn’t joking when he’d said Lewis wasn’t beholden to their laws. He abruptly shut his mouth again without saying anything. He narrowed his eyes as smoke curled from his nose.

The woman shook her head. “My name is Martha Smith, senior detective of the BHPD. Will you at least do me the courtesy of telling me your name?”

“I would advise against it,” Lasthope said, drifting over the woman’s head and swiping a claw at her. Her clothes ruffled as though in the wind, but she didn’t move at his touch. “I’m not entirely certain their weapons can harm you. They appear to be standard ballistics, nothing more.”

Martha Smith raised an eyebrow at Lewis’s silence. “I wonder if you’re even able to talk? Clearly, you understood me enough to come out of your own free will,” she shrugged. “Oh well. If you can understand me, you can listen,” she said, holding her gun between both hands and aiming down the sights at Lewis’s eyes. “Listen closely to what I’m about to say, monster, because I will not be repeating myself. You have threatened the lives of the citizens of my city. You’ve killed at least three people and injured a dozen more. You’ve destroyed private property and nearly caused a wildfire in your escape. If you were a human, I would take you in for so much that you would never again see the world outside of a prison cell.”

Lewis’s eyebrows furrowed. Something Martha had said bugged him. Three people? Who were the three people that he’d killed? He distinctly remembered killing Jen Cravalho, a nurse at the hospital who’d been unlucky enough to be nearby when he’d transformed. Then, there was the cop the day prior, who’d been in the area at the time. He’d definitely killed both of them.

But he hadn’t killed Dayton, the human dragon slayer who had threatened his friends. Was there something he was missing? Did he maybe kill somebody accidentally? Had one of those teens died? His stomach twisted in hunger. It would have been a waste of meat if he’d accidentally killed one of those teens and not gotten to eat them.

“Who was the third human?” He asked casually. “I remember the nurse and the cop, but those are the only humans I remember eating around here.”

"So, you can talk!"

"Oops," Lewis muttered to himself, wincing.

The corner of Martha's lip perked into a sly grin. “A boy named Lewis Cooper.”

Lewis’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. They thought he’d killed himself? That would be an awkward story to explain.

“Do not tell her who you are,” Lasthope said, breathing a plume of empty, ghostly fire over the detective. “Remember, you are a dragon, and not beholden to her laws.”

“I didn’t eat Lewis Cooper,” Lewis said, his voice cracking nervously.

“That’s funny because we found a hospital room painted with his blood and no corpse of any kind. Sounds an awful lot like the work of a big, clumsy monster if you ask me.”

“Mm, yeah, I can definitely see why you would think I’d done it, but trust me, I didn't eat him.”

“Pardon me if I don’t believe you.”

“I thought the case to find him was reopened, anyways,” Lewis said, shrugging casually.

Martha suddenly froze, her eyes narrowing. “Now, how on earth do you know that?”

Lewis’s eyes widened. “Oh, I messed up again,” he whispered.

“You sure did, creature,” Martha said.

“Okay, look, I think we got off on the wrong talon here,” Lewis said, dropping to his front claws. “Do you mind if I lay down? That arms up position doesn’t really work for me, my body doesn’t like holding that pose for long. It’s not like I’ve got weapons or anything.”

Martha held up a hand to keep her riot squad from firing on him. “You are a weapon,” she reminded him, as Lewis shuffled a bit into his cave.

“I didn’t choose to be this way,” Lewis said pointedly, laying down so that his head was resting on his front claws. “I can’t change what I am more than you can change what you are. Although I guess you can choose not to be a cop, I can’t really choose not to be a dragon…” he added quietly.

“Comfortable?” Martha asked, a bite of venom in her tone.

“Oh, much more, thank you,” Lewis said. “Now, about this Cooper kid,” he quickly added, trying to steer the conversation away. “I definitely didn’t kill him. Jen and the cop? Yup, totally me. They tasted great. Ten out of ten would eat them again. Actually, if you have the rest of Jen's body, and it's not too decomposed, would you mind sending it my way? I'd love to eat the rest of her.”

“You disgust me,” Martha said, shaking her head. “Those were people! How could you show such contempt for human life!?”

Lewis blinked slowly, puzzled by the question. “I mean… I’m… not a human? I don’t really understand what you mean.”

“You killed people, and now you have the guts to act like it was no big deal!? Those people had families who loved them! The Cooper family doesn’t have a body to bury, and neither does the family of the cop you murdered!”

“H-hold on, slow down,” Lewis said, waving a claw at Martha. “It’s really not that complicated. Do you call it murder when you slaughter a pig for food?”

“Did you just call my men pigs!?”

Lewis winced. “I mean, accurate metaphor. Look, the bottom line, I’m just… above you guys in the food chain. You really can’t blame me for, you know,” Lewis quickly mimed biting into an invisible chunk of meat between his claws. “It’s just biology. Nothing personal. I’m not going around intentionally stalking and killing people who wronged me. Jen was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the cop was snooping around near my lair. It was all circumstance, nothing premeditated.”

“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” Martha grumbled. “I’m here to offer you a deal, monster—”

“Dragon. I’m a dragon. Can we stop using the M-word?”

“Fine! Here’s the deal, dragon,” Martha said, “you set foot in my town again, you die.”

Lewis cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but those little peashooters of yours don’t really work on me,” he said, pointing at the gun in Martha’s hand.

“These men back here are equipped with tungsten tipped rounds,” Martha explained, hooking a thumb at the men just behind her. “From what we’ve seen, your scales are like steel. I wonder how they’d hold up to superheated, armor-piercing bullets?”

Lewis opened his mouth to answer and abruptly closed it again. Lasthope drifted between the armed riot cops, waving his claws through their weapons. He did little more than nudge them aside. The ghost looked over his shoulder at his young ward with a worried expression.

“Normally, I would suggest killing them now, but I’m not sure you could get a flame breath out before they opened fire,” Lasthope said. “I have no experience with these weapons. I cannot say with certainty if you will survive them.”

“That’s not all,” Martha continued, oblivious to the ghost speaking just behind her. “We’ve also got three snipers, equipped with high power, anti-tank rifles, currently observing you. If you set one claw into Barrington Hills, my snipers are under orders to put a bullet through your skull.”

At that declaration, Lasthope flinched and put a claw to the crack in his forehead.

“If you want to test me, dragon, just know that I am prepared for whatever you got,” Martha said, crossing her arms and grinning at Lewis. “We don’t want to kill you, we’re just protecting our own. Nothing premeditated.”

“That’s not fair!” Lewis said, frowning as his own words were thrown back in his face. “I have to hunt to eat! You can’t just expect me to stay in my cave all the time!”

“For now, we’ll allow you to continue hunting on the mountain and in the foothills,” Martha said. “Again, if you set one single claw out of line, you will die. We won’t hesitate.”

“I’m an endangered species, you know! The last of my kind? You should be trying to make me happy!”

“I could have just as easily killed you the moment you stepped out of that cave. Be happy I’m under orders to keep you alive.”

Lewis swallowed nervously. That was true. If she wasn’t bluffing, especially about the snipers, Lewis could have already been dead, and there would have been nothing he could do to stop it.

So why was he still alive? What were they hoping to gain by keeping him around…?

“Lewis,” Lasthope said, drifting over to his young ward. “I am afraid that we have little choice but to obey her. When your wings are strong enough, we will be able to flee this Ancestors forsaken place and never have to worry about these measures again. For now, though, I am afraid we have no choice.”

Lewis met Martha’s gaze and pointed his ears at the ground. “What about your men? Are they going to stay here and watch me all the time?”

“And risk letting you kill more of them?” Martha scoffed. “We’ve got eyes on you, dragon. We don’t need more men up here. If you’re smart, we’ll never need to talk again.”

“And if I’m not?”

“It will be a very one-sided conversation,” Martha said, slowly turning her back on the dragon. The riot cops continued keeping their weapons trained on Lewis, even as they began backing away. “Corpses don’t talk.”

Chapter 13

Becca, Lucy, and Brandon observed the gathered cops from a distance. They were marching in formation, wearing heavy riot suppressing gear. The heavy weapons they carried looked like something right out of a war movie. Lucy was signing swear words over and over again, and Becca had a tight grip on her knee.

The three of them were in Brandon’s truck. Brandon was drumming on the steering wheel, staring curiously at the cops as they began loading themselves into riot vans at the base of the foothills. Others were blocking off the road that led up the mountain, to Lewis’s cave, with large, concrete barriers. There was an all too familiar woman in a bright blue suit overseeing the activity, barking orders, and pointing at a few men.

“It’s her,” Becca said, nudging Lucy to point Martha out among the cops. “The one who was investigating Lewis.”

Lucy winced. I know, she signed.

Becca’s fists tightened again, and she threw the door to the truck open. Before either Brandon or Lucy could stop her, she’d leaped out and marched up to the gathering cops. A few of the armored police officers turned to look at her. Some of them stopped what they were doing to clutch their weapons tight. Becca tried to ignore them, as she marched up to Martha and looked her in the eye.

“What are you doing?” Becca asked, crossing her arms. “We go up there all the time, we can’t use the road if you block it off.”

Martha looked Becca up and down. The younger girl was wearing shredded black jeans today, and a mesh top that looked like woven spiderwebs over a black tank top. She hadn’t bothered to apply makeup, this early on a Saturday morning. The detective frowned as she realized Becca was wearing heavy platform shoes, and it was because of them that the younger girl was currently looming over her.

“What business do you have up the mountain?” Martha asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“We have picnics up there regularly,” Becca lied, hooking a thumb at the truck. Brandon was still clutching the wheel in a death grip, and Lucy was still signing swear words at a rapid pace. “It’s a nice place to hang out, and we like this trail.”

“Well, there are other trails and other places to have picnics,” Martha said with a shrug. “This area is currently off-limits to civilians.”

“Why?” Becca asked, narrowing her eyes. Had Martha found out about Lewis?

Martha paused for a moment and met Becca’s gaze again. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”

Becca didn’t respond.

Martha blinked slowly and reached for a notepad in her back pocket. She flipped through it a few times before coming up on a page covered in shorthand scribbles. “Rebecca Moran and Lucy Mason. You two are Lewis Cooper’s pals,” she said, looking up at the truck. She flipped to a different page in her notebook. “And that looks like Brandon Hansen, in the truck. Another one of Lewis Cooper’s friends.”

Martha snapped her notebook shut and looked around the grassy field. She pushed past Becca and stepped towards the truck, calmly walking in circles around it. She paused for a moment, looking into the truck’s bed. It had a few shovels and some other gardening tools, but otherwise had no cargo worth noting. Martha raised an eyebrow and grabbed one of the shovels out of the truck.

“These don’t look like the kind of tools you bring on a picnic,” Martha said, tossing the shovel back in. “Mind telling me why you’re really here, kid?”

Becca frowned and crossed her arms defiantly. Lucy had gone still in the truck, and Brandon had moved from clutching the wheel to fingering the gearshift. He wanted to get out of there fast.

“If you don’t want to talk, I can do all the talking for you,” Martha said, crossing her arms in a mirror of Becca’s own indignant pose. “We’ve seen you and little Miss Potty Fingers — yes, I know she’s been swearing in ASL this whole time — go into the cave up at the end of the trail.”

Becca tried her best not to flinch, but she could feel her eyebrows twitch up just the tiniest little bit.

“We’ve had a squad car there for a little bit, with the camera on. We plan on getting rid of it soon, but we have over a day’s worth of footage to review. It’s motion detected, and it uploads footage to our server whenever something walks in front of it.”

Becca’s eyes widened. She remembered seeing the toppled over police car at the top of the trail. She hadn’t thought about it much, but now she wished she had. The nose of it, despite being on its side, had been pointing right at Lewis’s cave!

That meant Martha knew about Lewis.

“You’re here for the dragon, aren’t you, girl?” Martha asked, cocking an eyebrow and pursing her lips. “You’re the ones who told him he failed to finish eating Lewis Cooper.”

“Listen, lady,” Becca started, trying to laugh the accusation off, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Becca didn’t even have to try to lie to Martha. She definitely had the story all wrong. Lewis wasn’t half-eaten and crippled, he was the dragon. It was clear that Martha still didn’t know about that.

“Oh really? Would you be so kind as to enlighten me?” Martha said, crossing her arms. “We asked that principal of yours to tell you about the note because we’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, Lewis was hiding after that thing bit off an arm or something. We’d hoped that he was hiding with one of you, his friends, worried about what his parents would think about him suddenly losing a limb. We did not tell you that information so you could run to the monster who did it and tell him to finish the job.”

“We didn’t tell the dragon to go looking for Lewis so he could finish eating him,” Becca protested. “Lewis is one of my best friends, I would never do that. This whole experience has been horribly traumatic. Besides, you’ve got the story all wrong. The dragon didn’t kill Lewis.”

“Did he not? That’s interesting. Did he tell you that himself?” Martha took a few dangerous steps forward, glowering at Becca. “Maybe you and I should take a trip down to the station? I bet you know an awful lot about that beast. I wonder what interesting tidbits you can share. I warn you, kid, I may look cute and cuddly, but I’m a whole lot rougher than I look.”

“Are you threatening me?” Becca scoffed. “Of course you are. Cops overstepping their boundaries, what else is new?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Next, you’re going to tell me that the riot gear your men are in was for self-defense.”

“Oh no, they’re equipped to kill,” Martha conceded, with a smile on her face. “That monster is dangerous. We’ve tried just about every weapon we can legally carry. Normal bullets just bounce right off. Tasers can stun it, but only for a few seconds.”

“So what, you turned to illegal weapons? It wouldn’t surprise me. Cops, breaking the law on the way to upholding it,” Becca said, rolling her eyes in the opposite direction.

“Choose your next words very carefully,” Martha said, narrowing her eyes. “I could slap you in cuffs right now. You’re getting in the way of a police operation. I am choosing not to, because, like you said, you’ve been through a traumatic experience. Who needs two of those, one week apart?”

“So, you are threatening me.”

“Call it a threat, call it a promise. Call it whatever you like, little missy, but I’m only gonna give you one more chance. Turn around, and walk away. Forget about the dragon. It doesn’t concern you anymore,” Martha said, shaking her head. Her thick, curly hair bounced with the motion. “You’re better off without it, anyways. That thing is an eating machine, and you’re more likely to find yourself on the menu, the longer you spend around it.”

Becca didn’t answer, she simply turned her eyes towards the ground. That was the same point Jeremy had made, the one that Becca had refused to believe. Lewis would never eat her, right? She was his friend…

“Get back in your car. Leave now, and don’t ever let me catch you around here again,” Martha ordered.

Becca, to her own surprise, obeyed. Without another word, she yanked the truck door open and slipped inside, pushing Lucy in between her and Brandon. With a glare aimed at the detective, she slammed the door as hard as she could. It banged loud enough to make Lucy jump.

“Drive,” Becca ordered.

Brandon nodded, throwing the car into reverse and backing away from the gathering cops. As Brandon rolled out, the cops began putting the finishing touches on the concrete barricade. Becca looked back, for as long as she could, until Brandon pulled them back onto the road that led into town.

What now? Lucy asked, tapping Becca on the shoulder to get her attention.

“Brandon, where’s the next closest path up the mountain?” Becca asked.

Brandon tapped his phone, which he had set up on the dashboard with a stand. It was open to a GPS app, which was commanding him to take a route. “Going the long way,” he explained, “in case they give us a tail.”

Becca adjusted the side mirror of the truck to catch a glimpse of what was behind them. Sure enough, there was a white and blue squad car tailing them, a little way down the road.

Brandon ignored the commands of the GPS, turning onto busy streets, and then turning off again to get onto residential roads. All the while, the cop car followed close behind. He kept looking back through his rearview mirror, glancing at them in frustration. They were keeping their distance, but they were always within line of sight, no matter how many turns Brandon took, or side streets.

“Becca,” Brandon grunted, shaking his head, “got your hiking boots?”

Becca smirked and reached for a black backpack at her feet. She quickly kicked off her platform boots and swapped them out for the brown hiking boots in the bag. Brandon nodded and rattled off an address.

“That’s the road that will take you back up the mountain,” Brandon explained. “I don’t think I can lose these guys.”

Becca nodded in understanding. Are you okay to come with me? She signed quickly to Lucy.

Lucy shook her head. Go without me, she signed, and pulled out her own phone. She quickly opened a familiar text-to-speech app and typed out a few words. “Brandon will take me home,” Lucy’s phone beeped in a robotic voice.

Becca nodded. “All right. Brandon, drop me off near my house,” she ordered. “We have to make it look like we’re not going up the mountain anymore. When it’s clear, I’m going to go up there.”

Brandon nodded.

Are you sure you should be going up there alone? Lucy asked.

“I won’t be really alone, I’ll be with Lewis,” Becca assured her, momentarily grabbing her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry too much, okay babe?”

Lucy winced, and fumbled around in her purse for a moment, before pulling out a familiar, black aerosol can. She twisted it open, and gave Becca a quick spritz of its contents, filling the truck cabin with a horribly potent stench. Becca coughed as she waved away the cloud of body spray mist, before giving herself a quick sniff.

Yup, she stank.

Lucy grimaced and shoved the can into Becca’s hand. Promise you’ll use it again if Lewis looks to be getting hungry, she ordered.

“I promise,” Becca said, leaning in to give her a kiss.

A moment later, Brandon pulled to a stop on the corner of Becca’s street. Becca slung her backpack over her shoulder and leaped out of the truck. Lucy and Brandon waved goodbye to her, before taking off down the road again. Half a minute later, the cop car drove past her, without giving her a second thought.

Becca shoved the canister into her bag and punched the address Brandon had given her into her phone’s GPS. After a moment, the device beeped, with a route for her to follow.

“Hang on, Lewis, I’m coming.”

Chapter 14

Lewis didn’t feel like hunting. He didn’t care that Martha had assured him that he’d only be killed if he set claw in town. He’d just had a cop threaten his life, and he wasn’t exactly sure the best way to feel about it.

He lay, curled up in the corner of his cave, his back once more to the cooler wall at the far end. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the ever-present hunger refused to let him. His stomach gurgled in frustration.

You didn’t feed me last night! Go get me something right now, or I won’t shut up! Lewis imagined his stomach was saying in belly-speak.

Lasthope was partially phased through a wall, watching Lewis with idle concern. His young ward was, at least, not about to start crying again. If anything, Lewis looked more frustrated than sad. Lasthope couldn’t really blame him, either. To have his entire life uprooted, and then to be told he wasn’t allowed to go home on penalty of death? That would be enough to make anybody cranky, let alone a starving dragon.

“Lewis, why don’t we go practice hunting?” Lasthope suggested. “We talked about it last night, and it is as good an idea now as it was then.”

“I’m not hungry,” Lewis grumbled. His stomach gurgled loudly in protest. He frowned and put a claw to his middle, pressing down hard until the rumbling ceased.

“Then perhaps we should practice flying again?” Lasthope offered. “You are getting better. A few more days of training and your wings will be strong enough to carry you around the perimeter of the mountain a few times.”

“Don’t want to,” Lewis grunted, shuffling in his corner.

“It does not matter if you want to practice or not,” Lasthope reminded him. “Daily practice and exercise is the only way you will improve. You know this. It has already shown results.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Lewis complained, rolling over onto his back. “Last time I tried to fly—”

“You managed to ascend to a little over your own body length,” Lasthope noted.

Lewis frowned. When had that happened?

“Last night, when you were escaping from the police, you managed to fly a bit,” Lasthope explained. “Not glide. Fly. You ascended from the ground and made it a short distance. Your landing needed a bit of work, admittedly, but you are getting the hang of it. So how about it? Get off your lazy scales and go practice.”

Lewis groaned and twitched his legs in the air. “That sounds like wooooooooork,” he whined, before rolling back over onto his belly.

Lasthope didn’t even bother arguing with Lewis. When the young dragon was in one of these moods, he was incredibly frustrating to work with. The ghost rolled his spectral eyes and shot the bronze dragon a glare.

“Get up,” Lasthope ordered. “You should not be wallowing in your grief.”

“I’m not wallowing in anything,” Lewis mumbled, “I just don’t want to deal with stuff today.”

“Then go not deal with things outside, in the sun,” Lasthope commanded, pointing a translucent claw at the cave mouth. “Honestly, caves are for sleeping, not for hiding from your problems.”

Lewis let out a long groan, rolling over and over again until finally, he shoved his claws under him and stood up. “Fine, but I’m only doing this because sunbathing is great.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Lewis shielded his eyes with his wings as he stepped out of his cave, but they adjusted again quickly. The cops had vanished from the mountainside, leaving only the toppled over cop car. Lewis frowned at it for a moment. He wanted to stomp on it and smash it to pieces, just for the catharsis of destroying something. He decided against it, though, as he felt the warmth of the sun dance across his scales.

As soon as the heat sunk into his skin, he let out a peaceful sigh and dropped to the ground. He took a moment to straighten out his tail and unfold his wings to expose as much of himself as he possibly could. The more surface area he had, the more sunlight he could get.

Then, he splayed out on the mountainside and purred happily.

The sunlight felt terrific against his scales. The light and the heat washed over him, easing tension in muscles that he hadn’t even realized were tense. His wings felt light, more flexible, but stronger. He rolled his neck from side to side and felt it pop as stiffness disappeared. He didn’t bother wagging his tail, but he felt relaxed, happy, and at ease.

“There,” Lasthope said, drifting down to the mountainside and relaxing across from his young pupil, “I suspect you are already feeling better.”

“Yeah, all right, you might have had a point,” Lewis mumbled, in between the purr-like rumble from his chest. “Maybe. This one time.”

“Sunlight is important, even for dragons,” Lasthope reminded him. “You would do well to try and get ample amounts of it. You need a lot.”

“Yes, sir,” Lewis mumbled sleepily.

Lasthope chuckled softly, as Lewis drifted once more into unconsciousness.

The young dragon was awoken a few hours later by a twinge of a familiar scent. At first, Lewis’s nostrils twitched, trying to identify it. He couldn’t quite place it, but he was relieved that it didn’t cause his stomach to gurgle in hunger.

After a few seconds, the smell grew strong. So strong, in fact, that it completely filled his nostrils. Lewis coughed and sputtered, his eyes snapping open as he tried to find the source of the smell.

“Ancestors, no! Not this again!” Lewis bellowed, covering his snout with his claws to try and block out that awful stench. “Whyyyyyyyy!?” He cried.

There came a soft giggle from over by the cop car, and Lewis craned his neck down to get a good look. Becca was leaning against the toppled over cop car, with her arms crossed and a black canister in hand. She tossed it up in the air a couple times, snatching it expertly as it came back down.

“I was wondering how I was going to wake you up,” Becca said, shoving the can into her black backpack. “I had to do it without going up there, but you weren’t responding when I shouted your name.”

Lewis blinked a few times, before frowning at his friend. “Why can’t you come up here?”

Becca grimaced and smacked the side of the toppled car a couple times. “This bad boy’s got a motion-activated camera in it,” she explained, relaying to Lewis what Martha had told her. “The cops have been watching you, Lewis.”

Lewis’s brow immediately creased, and he bared his teeth angrily. They’d been watching him this whole time!? How dare they!? This was his cave! His home! This was supposed to be the one place he was supposed to be safe! If they gave that information to the dragon slayers, they could have—

Wait, Lewis reminded himself, the slayers already knew where he slept. Dayton, one of the slayers, had come around a week prior. Lewis’s frowned deepened. Why hadn’t he seen more of the dragon slayers yet?

“Lewis, can you just smash this thing, so we don’t have to keep shouting to each other?” Becca asked, crossing her arms and stepping away from the vehicle.

Lewis shrugged. He totally could smash it, but now that he knew the cops were using it to watch him, was that something he really wanted to do? What if they just brought more up to replace it? What if they already had installed more cameras when he wasn’t looking?

Becca noticed Lewis’s hesitation and looked away. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“They’re watching me, Becca,” Lewis explained, shaking his head. “I… I’m not sure how, exactly, but they’re watching me, right now even.”

Becca nodded in understanding. “That makes sense, I guess. The senior detective told me that they were planning to remove this car, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t leave you entirely unsupervised.”

“Yeah,” Lewis mumbled. “Why are you up here, anyway?”

“Coz, the cops said I wasn’t allowed to,” Becca grinned and flexed, as a show of defiance. “Screw the establishment,” she quickly added.

Lewis chuckled. He’d never been particularly anti-establishment himself, but since becoming a dragon, he rapidly saw the appeal. “You know what? You're right! Move aside, I’m gonna cause some property damage!”

Becca grinned, as Lewis pushed himself onto all fours. He quickly rolled his shoulders and shook his back legs awake, narrowing his eyes at the cop car. He pawed at the ground, then dropped his horns into a charge.

Lewis roared furiously as he rammed, headfirst, into the car. His vision swam as his skull collided with the engine block, but the hood crumpled inwards at the impact, and the vehicle bounced backward half a dozen feet.

Lewis hissed in pain, rubbing a sore spot on his forehead, before dropping back down onto all fours and swatting at the car, knocking it over onto its roof. He roared again, and stomped the vehicle repeatedly, crushing it beneath his claws and his weight. He bellowed and tore apart the vehicle’s underbelly, some ancient part of his brain imagining he was tearing apart a contender for his territory.

When he was done, there was nothing left of the car but a pancaked chassis and scrap metal. Lewis was panting heavily, his mouth alight with fire and smoke drifting from his nostrils. When he turned to grin at Becca, her eyes were wide, and her mouth hung open.

“I have a lot of undealt with anger,” Lewis admitted, rubbing his neck sheepishly. “Want to come inside?” He asked, turning back towards his cave. Idly, he kicked some dirt and gravel at the shredded vehicle, as if to tell it to bury itself.

“Is it safe? You’re not going to eat me, right?”

“Ancestors, no, you stink,” Lewis said, chuckling.

As soon as he said it, though, he knew that it wasn’t true. Beneath the smell of the body spray, he could already taste Becca’s delicious aroma. It was faint, mostly masked by that awful stench she insisted on wearing, but it was there.

Lewis idly licked his lips, vaguely aware that his drool had already burst into flames and was wreathing his mouth in fire. One bite wouldn’t hurt too much, would it? Slowly, Lewis turned back towards Becca. She was standing perfectly still, staring up at him with curious eyes.

“I’ll admit, though,” Lewis mumbled, slowly sliding up to her. She looked so small in comparison to him, but he knew that eating her would be enough to fill his belly. Carefully, he plucked her off the mountain trail, wrapping her in both of his front talons as he sat on his haunches. “I’ve always wanted to get another taste of you....”

Lewis swallowed the burning drool in his throat and took a long, hard whiff of her scent. There was that stupid body spray smell, but just beneath it was that complex aroma that made Becca so deliciously inviting.

Medium rare steak, perfectly seasoned and covered in onion chips, with a side of mashed potatoes and green beans.

While most of the people he’d smell before were either small meals or single portions, Becca was the whole dinner. Remembering what Lasthope had said about fairy blood didn’t change the fact that Lewis desperately wanted to eat her.

Lewis’s mind blanked as he gave Becca a lick, covering her in his saliva. It was warm but had yet to reignite. Becca winced at the touch of his tongue, even as her flavor exploded in his mouth.

Lewis moaned and opened his mouth wider. He wanted so desperately to eat her.

“Lewis,” Becca said softly, reaching out and putting a hand on his tongue. The back of his throat was already starting to burn again, as bright orange flames illuminated his maw.

He licked her again, wiping away the last remnants of that awful body spray. It tasted like iron and chemicals, but it burned away with his fire.

“Just one bite,” he muttered, opening his maw as wide as it would go.

Just one bite and he could taste her head. Her eyes. Her brain. He moaned at the thought.

“Just one bite…” Lewis whispered. “Just… One…”

Chapter 15

Lewis held his mouth around Becca for a full minute, breathing in her flavor, letting it fill him. Becca began sweating, as the heat at the back of Lewis’s throat grew hotter by the second. The salt in her sweat only enhanced her flavor.

Do it, a growling voice whispered in Lewis’s ear. She is offering herself to you. A human maiden, of the Fairblood no less. A fine meal for a young dragon. Bite her head off. Drink her blood.

Don’t do it, another voice whispered. Becca is your friend. An evening in the belly isn’t worth the emptiness in your heart.

Lewis’s jaw ached from holding it open, and drool dripped down his chin. Becca didn’t remove her hand from his tongue and even began to rub it a bit more, as if to tell him it was okay.

DO IT! the voice screamed now. SHE’S YOURS FOR THE TAKING! CONSUME HER!

DON’T DO IT! The other voice screamed back. THINK OF THE OTHERS! WHAT WILL THEY SAY IF YOU EAT HER?

“Lewis,” Becca’s soft voice came up, muffled by his mouth. “This isn’t you…”

Isn’t it me? Lewis asked himself, as his drool splashed against the ground below. I’m a dragon. She’s food. I’m so hungry…

“Lewis,” Becca said, her voice still soft but commanding.

Lewis reeled and dropped Becca to the ground. He coughed on his own smoke as fire flooded out of his throat and fire glands, filling his maw with heat. He sputtered, as liquid flames splashed out of his mouth and splattered the ground, immediately igniting the dry mountain grass. Lewis dropped to his belly, smothering the burning grass beneath his bulk. He spewed fire into the sky, as he tried to wash away the taste of Becca on his tongue.

DEVOUR HER!

DON’T DO IT!

DRINK HER BLOOD!

THIS ISN’T YOU!

“This isn’t you, Lewis,” Becca said again, sprawled out on the ground, staring up at the reeling dragon. “You would never really hurt me.”

“FOOD!” Lewis roared at her, then covered his head with his wings, before backing away slowly. “S-stay away, Becca! I c-can’t control myself!”

Becca shakily rose to her feet and dusted off her jeans. The spiderweb mesh top was torn, so she tugged it off and cast it aside. Slowly, she held a hand out for Lewis and approached him.

“Lewis, it’s okay, I know you would never hurt me…” She said, her voice calm and steady.

“You don’t know that!” Lewis roared. The fire was mixing with his snot and pouring out of his nose. The only holes in his head not producing heat or flames, were his ears. Thick, steaming tears were rolling down his cheek. “Becca, I want to eat you! I want to eat you so bad! Run away! Before I do something I regret!”

Becca paused, as Lewis’s stomach growled loud enough to echo off the mountainside. Her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing. “I won’t abandon you again,” Becca insisted. Her casual approach turned into a determined march, her arms outstretched. “It was a mistake to leave you alone this past week. I recognize that. You need us, Lewis.”

“But, you’re so delicious!” Lewis buried his snout into the dirt and snorted it as hard as he could. He came away with a nose full of burning moss and grass. “I c-can’t…” he tried to say, choking on the words, on the smoke pouring from his maw, and the dirt up his nose. “Becca, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Shhh. Lewis, it’s okay,” Becca whispered as she drew nearer. Lewis tried to back away even further, and tripped over his own tail, stumbling until he landed on his back. He sprawled for a moment, panting and coughing on his own fire, until finally, Becca was close enough to touch him.

Lewis winced as Becca rubbed his haunch. He rolled over onto his side, sobbing, as she continued to stroke and pat him. Fat, ugly tears rolled down his cheeks, and he hid his face again beneath his wing.

“It’s okay, Lewis,” Becca said again. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. You’re fine. It’s okay.”

Lewis took a deep breath, as Becca began slowly moving up his body. He winced as her hand left his haunch and migrated to his belly. She slowly rubbed his stomach scutes in circles, as she continued moving up his length towards his chest. At the touch, the rumbling in Lewis’s middle settled, until once again it was a faint background pain. Lewis’s breath was short and fast, his heart a rapid staccato beneath his scales. Becca held her hand to his chest for a moment, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat, before lifting Lewis’s wing and shuffling under it.

Lewis refused to look at her. He squeezed his eyes shut, flattened his ears against his head, even as he continued to sniffle and sob. Becca rubbed his neck before wrapping her arms around it. She’d never realized before just how thick it was. She’d never ridden a horse before, but she had to imagine that Lewis’s neck alone was thicker around than a horse’s entire body.

“I’m trying so hard,” Lewis whimpered. “You don’t know what it’s like…”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Becca repeated, squeezing his neck and rubbing just behind his ears.

“It would be so easy to give in,” he croaked, leaning into her touch. “It would be so easy to eat you, and I wouldn’t even feel bad about it. You’re right there, within claw reach. Just one bite, and you’re mine for the taking.”

“You won’t do that, though, will you?”

“But I want to,” came the reply so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.

Becca didn’t stop rubbing behind Lewis’s ear, pinching the tip of it and massaging it. It was long, again, reminding her of a horse’s ear in shape, but it was nearly the length of her forearm.

“How many people have you killed, Lewis?” She asked the question quietly, barely breathing it out.

“T-two, I think?” Lewis mumbled, sucking in a sharp breath.

“How many since you last saw Jeremy a week ago?”

“J-just the one. A cop.”

“And you don’t feel bad about it?”

“No,” he confirmed. “But you’re not like them… You’re my friend. I don’t want to eat you… But I also really do… And it’s so hard to hold myself back…”

“Even now?”

“Especially now,” Lewis hissed. He didn’t dare turn to face her. “Your scent is so… It’s intoxicating… It’s like a drug… It makes me so hungry, and I-I can’t stop it…”

Becca slid further up Lewis’s snout until one hand was rubbing his ear, and the other was rubbing the underside of his chin. His scales were warm with the liquid fire that had been dripping from his mouth, but they didn’t hurt to touch.

“I’m not leaving you,” Becca assured him, giving the side of his head a generous pat. “You need me now more than ever.”

“B-but, I keep trying to eat you!” Lewis sobbed. “Please leave before I do something I can’t undo!”

“I won’t,” Becca insisted, raising her voice. “I’m not afraid. I know you, Lewis. You’re careless and clumsy, but I know you’d never intentionally hurt me. You are my friend, and I refuse to leave you in your time of need!”

Lewis choked on the smoke in his mouth as he tried to take a deep breath. Becca’s scent, with the body spray, licked away, was stronger than ever before. Lewis felt dizzy, as it surrounded him, filled his nostrils until nothing else could touch them. He breathed it in, flicking his tongue out of his mouth to taste it on the air. Just a little dip into her flavor and his taste buds exploded.

MY FOOD!

MY FRIEND!

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!

His stomach growled again, and he tightened himself into a ball around Becca, hugging her close while trying to silence his gut. His snout had gone green, and his eyes were red and puffy. He hadn’t realized dragons could cry so much.

The spectral form of Lasthope drifted overhead, shaking his head slowly at the display. “Just eat her and get it over with,” Lasthope said. “You are starving, and a human is handing herself to you on a silver platter…”

Becca yelped in surprise, backing up into Lewis’s haunches as the bronze dragon’s head suddenly lifted and blasted the air above him with a gout of fire. Becca cringed back at the heat and light, but no sooner had it begun than it was already over.

“Sorry,” he grumbled, resting his head on the ground again. “Ghost Dad was being a jerk. I wanted him to go away for a bit.”

Becca looked up, expecting to see something, but as usual, there was nothing. She did, however, see some fat, grey clouds drifting slowly overhead. “Come on, Lewis,” Becca whispered, nudging his snout. “It’s going to rain any minute now.”

Lewis cast a glance up at the sky and blinked as he spotted the storm for himself. Swallowing, he nodded and slowly pushed himself back onto all fours. His legs shook, but they carried him through the mouth of the cave, where he collapsed into a pile. He sniffled loudly but did not turn around again.

Becca felt the first raindrops fall from the sky just as she was stepping into the cave for herself. In an instant, the bright day was washed away in a torrent of thunder, dark clouds, and the soft pitter-patter of rain.

Becca sat on the floor of Lewis’s cave, watching his chest rise and fall with unsteady breathing. Despite the storm outside, he’d finally stopped crying. When she put a hand on his tail, she could feel his pulse beneath the muscle, slowly returning to normal.

“You shouldn’t come around anymore,” Lewis mumbled, just loud enough that Becca could hear him. “Jeremy is right to keep away. I am a monster.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster,” Becca reminded him. “I think it’s more like extreme puberty.”

That got a smoke-filled snort of laughter from Lewis. “I don’t think I’m old enough for dragon puberty,” he said. “Lasthope and I haven’t ever really talked about it, but he mentioned once that it would be another fifty years or so before I was fully grown.”

To Lewis’s joy, that got a laugh out of Becca in turn.

“Are you okay, Lewis?” Becca asked once she’d stopped giggling. “You’re not going to try to eat me again?”

Lewis shrugged. “I dunno,” he admitted. Slowly, he rolled over, until he was once again on his side, and carefully coiled himself around, so he was lying face to face with Becca. “Lasthope told me something when I asked him why your scent drives me crazy.”

“What’s that?”

“He said you have something called… Fairy blood, I think?”

“Fairblood!” Lasthope’s voice echoed through Lewis’s mind.

“Fairblood, sorry.”

“I don’t understand, what does that mean?”

“Lasthope says the fairies, — er, fair folk, rather — went extinct like a thousand years before dragons, but their descendants live on among humans. The scent of fair folks is what drives dragons crazy. You and my mom… you both have that scent,” he mumbled.

Becca frowned and crossed her arms. “You think I’m… descended from fairies?”

Lewis shrugged his massive shoulders. “That’s what Lasthope thinks.”

“Does it come with any cool powers or anything?”

“Other than making dragons go crazy with hunger around you?”

“That’s not a power, that’s a curse,” Becca said. “Do you think there’s any truth to that? That I’m part-fairy, I mean?”

Lewis shook his head. “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted.

Becca shrugged. “If you’d told me that a week ago, I’d have thought you were insane… Now, though…”

“I turned into a dragon and am haunted by a ghost,” Lewis said.

“Yeah. My understanding of the world, how I see it… it’s changing. I’ve had to reevaluate what I thought I knew,” she mumbled.

“You think you’ve got it hard? I turned into a freaking dragon!” Lewis reminded her, opening his wings for emphasis. “Just uprooted my whole life, all my plans for my future!”

“You didn’t have any plans for the future, Lewis, you were coasting, and you know it.”

“And I was really good at it!”

Becca frowned and tapped her chin in thought. Slowly, she paced up and down the cave, passing by Lewis’s snout numerous times as she did. After a moment, she paused and looked at him. “You’re not trying to attack me,” she pointed out.

Lewis blinked slowly, tilting his head in surprise. Slowly, he took a deep sniff of the air, then of himself. “Huh,” he muttered, blinking faster. He sniffed the underside of his wing again, then his armpit, before snaking his neck around and sniffing Becca. “That’s… interesting,” he said, taking a deeper, long sniff.

“What? What is it? What’s so interesting?”

Becca didn’t get an answer, as Lewis suddenly shifted onto his haunches and picked her up off the ground. She let out a scream, worried for a moment that he would try to eat her again. Instead, she was surprised when he carefully turned her over in his claws, sniffing her. Her screams turned into laughter, as Lewis ran his snout over her, tickling her with his breath.

“What, do I not have magic fairy stink anymore?” Becca asked, her laughter dying down as he gave her a quizzical look.

“No, you still do,” he said, setting her down carefully on the ground. He gave her a careful pat on the head, that ruffled her hair. “You smell the same, but it’s just not doing anything.”

Becca blinked in surprise. “This magic fairy stink that supposedly drives dragons insane… It’s not doing anything?”

Lewis shrugged. “Lasthope, any ideas?” He called out into the empty air.

The ghost dragon rematerialized over Lewis’s shoulder, frowning at him. “That was rude, you know! It takes a lot of energy for me to reform.”

“Yeah, yeah, more important fish to fry,” Lewis reminded him, clapping his claws. “The fairy stink isn’t working.”

Lasthope frowned, looking from Becca, to Lewis, and back again. “I have never dealt with the fair folk, they were before my time,” he admitted, “but I would not be so quick to celebrate. This may be a momentary reprieve and nothing more.”

Lewis swallowed nervously and eyed Becca again. That was an excellent point.

Chapter 16

Lambton sat across from Martha Smith’s desk, his boot covered feet propped up on the corner while Martha reviewed footage from the dragon’s cave. While the dragon had been sleeping, she’d had her men erect hidden, solar-powered cameras all over the mountainside. They had no less than a dozen hidden eyes watching the dragon’s cave at any given time.

Still, it came as no surprise when the dragon smashed the leftover squad car to bits. Her men had already taken the time to scrub it clean of anything they might need. They’d even removed the dashcam. Those things were expensive, and it wouldn’t pay to lose one when they could afford to save it.

The car, however, had been left behind as a reminder. The dragon needed to know it was being watched, and that Martha wouldn’t tolerate it stepping out of line.

“I bet he didn’t appreciate your ultimatum,” Lambton offered, as Martha narrowed her eyes at her computer screen. “Dragons hate being told what to do, see,” he explained, tapping the heel of his boot on Martha’s desk to get her attention. “Penny for your thoughts, love?”

Martha pinched the bridge of her nose and drew out a sigh. “I’ve seen that thing up close. It’s unnatural. It can talk. It forms coherent sentences.”

“I did say it was intelligent,” Lambton reminded her.

“You didn’t give me details. Part of me was prepared to hear it speak but that voice… Lambton, that thing is a child,” Martha said, shaking her head.

Lambton’s face fell. “I know,” he said. “We estimate its age to be anywhere between 10 and 30 years. It hasn’t even hit its growth spurt yet.”

“You mean that thing is going to get bigger!?”

“Not likely in your lifetime, love,” Lambton chuckled. “You’re what? Late forties?” When Martha didn’t answer, Lambton shrugged. “They start growing again around their later forties and keep growing until their mid-sixties. It’s a slow process, but they’re very long-lived. When this whelp is fully grown, he’ll be squeezing to fit into that cave.”

Martha grimaced and turned her attention back to her computer screen. She wiggled her mouse and clicked the time slider at the bottom of the video feeds, scrubbing it closer to real-time. She paused, for a moment, as she saw something dressed in black pass one of her cameras.

“That stupid girl…” Martha whispered, shaking her head.

“What? What’s going on?” Lambton asked. “New development?”

“Timestamp says it’s from about ten minutes ago,” Martha mumbled, turning the screen so that the dragon slayer could see what she was talking about. Once Lambton’s full attention was on the screen, Martha hit the play button.

The cop and dragon slayer watched in horror, as a teenage girl was plucked off the mountainside and had her head shoved into the dragon’s maw.

Martha gasped as she realized who it was. “Rebecca Moran,” she mumbled, shaking her head slowly. “That’s the girl who was trying to go up the mountain earlier today.”

“You know her?” Lambton asked, frowning as the dragon stood, petrified, with the girl in its maw. He checked the timer, just to make sure it was still going and not frozen. The dragon’s breathing was fast and sharp, its mouth and nose glowing with its fire. Burning drool was running down its chin, but the girl didn’t burn. The girl’s hand was rubbing the dragon’s tongue. “Was this girl suicidal? She’s giving that beast a really good taste of her,” Lambton muttered, turning to Martha with a frown.

Martha shrugged. “Only met her a handful of times, always struck me as too stubborn for her own good.”

Lambton tensed his neck as the corners of his lips tugged down. “Best be ready to call her parents, then, we’re about to see a barbeque.”

Martha reached for the controls to shut it off. She didn’t need to see a snuff film of this monster eating another person. To her surprise, Lambton’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. He shook his head slowly, his eyes staring intently at the screen.

“It’s important we learn its feeding habits,” Lambton explained, relaxing his grip. “It could help us save a life down the road.”

Just then, to Lambton’s surprise, the dragon on the video didn’t take a bite of the girl, but instead tossed her to the ground and fell backward, covering its head with its wings. Lambton crossed his arms, frowning in confusion.

“What… just happened…” Martha asked, arching an eyebrow at Lambton.

“I am not entirely sure,” Lambton admitted, running his fingers through the rough shadow of a beard that was growing on his face. He narrowed his eyes, watching the video intently, as the dragon tried to shove itself away from the girl.

To his shock, the girl openly approached the dragon, and… started to pet it?!

Martha’s eyes were wide now. “I don’t understand. That thing is a human-eating monster. Why is she doing that?”

“She’s either fearless and taunting it,” Lambton mused, “or, much more likely thinks it’s her friend.”

“What do you mean, thinks it’s her friend?”

Lambton grimaced and shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first kid I’ve seen who thought a dragon was their friend. Sometimes dragons, especially young ones who aren’t very good at hunting, make friends with young humans. As you probably know, children are impressionable and trusting. So, a young dragon tricks a kid into becoming its friend, and then eats them.”

Martha sneered in disgust. “That’s not what’s happening here.”

“No, it most certainly isn’t,” Lambton agreed, crossing his arms.

Martha paused and tapped her chin in thought, as the video showed Becca slipping under the dragon’s wing. She pressed a few buttons, to zoom in on an angle that showed the whole picture, just to ensure the dragon didn’t change its mind about eating her.

“She isn’t the only one,” Martha noted. “She was with Lucy Mason and Brandon Hansen. All three of them tried going up the mountain, earlier, towards the dragon’s cave. I don’t see them anywhere here in the video feed…”

Martha’s eyes narrowed. That sneaky kid had lost the tail she’d sent after them.

“Hansen… Any relation to Jeremy Hansen, by any chance?” Lambton asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“That’s Brandon’s younger brother if I remember right,” Martha said. “Jeremy, Rebecca, and Lucy are all about 15 or 16 years old. Brandon is 18.”

“Interesting,” Lambton muttered, watching as the girl on the video was rubbing the dragon behind the ear. He couldn’t even imagine what it would take to convince someone to get that close to a dragon. He knew why he did it, and why his slayers did it, but anyone else? It made no sense to him. “This dragon hasn’t just tricked one lonely kid, as they normally do. He’s got a whole little social circle revolving around him…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, those four kids you mentioned? I’m willing to bet all four of them were there the day that dragon attacked one of my men.”

Martha’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What did you do?”

“Relax, love, that was before our little arrangement,” Lambton chuckled, waving away Martha’s concern. “We saw the smoke drifting up from the mountain and figured that would be where the dragon slept. I sent one of my men, Dayton, the chubby one with red hair, up the mountain to investigate. He said he saw four kids up there, and the dragon got really possessive of them.”

“What do you mean, possessive?”

Lambton scrunched up his face. “How much do you know about dragons from stories?”

“It was never a personal interest of mine,” Martha shrugged. “I was always more into mermaids.”

“Oh? Remind me to tell you about them later. Anyways, dragons always have a hoard, something they covet above all else. For the last elder we killed, he coveted knowledge. Had a library that made Alexandria jealous. Right now, an associate of mine is scouring it for information.”

“A hoard…? Something they covet…?” Martha said, giving Lambton a bemused look. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

“I’ll admit we’re treading on some new ground here, but hear me out. It’s not entirely out of the question for a dragon, particularly a young one with no family to speak of, to covet social connections. Dragons are not hyper-social creatures, like humans, but they are viciously protective of anything they deem to be theirs. If he sees his human friends as part of his hoard, he would have a greater amount of self-control when interacting with them, out of a need to protect what he deems to be his property.”

As if to prove Lambton’s point, the dragon and Becca stood up from the ground and slowly walked towards the cave. Frowning, Martha pressed a few buttons on her keyboard to cycle through the cameras, stopping on one that was pointed inside the cave mouth and hung from a shadowy corner on the roof.

“It’s fascinating, truth be told,” Lambton admitted, shaking his head. “I’ve studied these creatures for a very long time, but I can’t remember ever seeing a dragon who hoarded friends. I’ve met one who hoarded swords, I’ve met many who hoarded gold and jewels. I still think the oddest dragon I’ve ever met was the one who hoarded bricks…”

“What?” Martha asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh, long story. Basically, he destroyed a town and hoarded all the bricks to prevent them from rebuilding.”

Martha blinked a few times and shook her head. “How old are you, exactly?”

Lambton didn’t answer, he merely shot her a toothy grin.

“You’re a peculiar man. You know that, right?”

“I’m quite familiar with oddities. Truth be told, we’re not even scratching the surface.”

Martha shook her head again. “Right. Gotcha.”

Lambton started, as the dragon on the video suddenly snatched the girl off the cave floor and snuffled her curiously. He watched intently, fully expecting the beast to eat her. To his surprise, he set her down gently again, with a puzzled look upon its face.

“Aha, that would be the hoarding instincts,” Lambton said. He quickly reached across the desk to snatch Martha’s mouse, and scrubbed back a couple minutes to show it to her again. “See how he’s snuffling her, and not reacting at all to her scent? She’s officially in his cave right now. His brain basically just cataloged her scent as part of his hoard. She is probably the safest around him now, out of anything, but god help anyone who touches her.”

“Wait, what? You mean to tell me she’s never in danger of him hurting her again?”

“No, he could definitely still hurt her, but the risk of her being eaten is gone. He doesn’t perceive her as food anymore, he perceives her as property. Her scent will be comforting to him now. That doesn’t mean he won’t be overly protective of her, or that he won’t accidentally hurt her. Still, it does mean that she can be around him when he’s hungry without worrying about becoming his lunch.”

Martha’s eyebrows shot up. “Sounds like we just found ourselves a liaison between the dragon and us.” She considered immediately calling the mayor to let her know of the new development and reached preemptively towards the phone on the desk.

“Really? I was thinking bait,” Lambton said with a shrug.

Martha scrunched her brows at the dragon slayer. She paused, with her fingers nearly brushing against the phone, and gave him a stern glare.

“Come on, love, you really can’t be thinking of keeping this thing alive, can you? You saw what it did to that McDonalds, right?”

Martha crossed her arms and bit her lip. “The mayor doesn’t want to kill him unless we have no other choice,” she mumbled.

“The mayor doesn’t even have to know.”

Martha blinked slowly and lifted her gaze to meet Lambton’s eyes.

“Look, you won’t even have to do anything,” Lambton assured her, tugging out the knife at his hip and setting it down on the table in front of him. He muttered a quick phrase in another language, and Asian style characters suddenly lit up along the length of the blade in ghostly blue light.

Martha’s eyes widened in shock, and she pushed her chair back from the desk in surprise.

“Relax, love, the blade is as dull as it can get,” Lambton assured her, twirling the knife between his fingers. To prove his point, he set the blade on his palm and dragged it. There was a white line on his skin, but no blood. “This knife can only kill dragons,” he explained. “One stab and the beast will die.”

“Just like that?” Martha said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Just like that.”

“What’s stopping you from doing it now?”

Lambton grimaced. “It’s a young, impetuous dragon. We don’t want to try and fight it in its lair, for fear it will smell us coming and flee. It can’t fly yet, but it could still come barreling down the mountain towards town. Even if we were able to apprehend it, it could start a massive forest fire that swallows the town whole. We’re trying to be cautious, here, to avoid loss of human life.”

“I appreciate that,” Martha said, nodding.

“But, if we have adequate bait,” Lambton explained, tapping his chin, “we could lure him out of town, out into an open space where fire would be much easier to control. We could kill him well away from the people. Everyone could be safe, and you’d have one fewer dragon preying upon your populace.”

Martha bit her lower lip, her eyes flicking between Lambton and the paused video on her computer screen. The still image showed the bronze dragon, its colors washed out by the video feed, clutching Rebecca Moran between its talons.

How many more people had to die before she did what was necessary? As far as she knew, this monster had already killed three people, and could effortlessly kill more. If all it took to prevent that was letting Lambton’s men use one teenage girl as bait, who was she to say no? What did she care if the mayor didn’t want the dragon dead? The mayor was clearly too busy concerning herself with her reelection to think about the greater good.

Martha met Lambton’s eyes, and from the dragon slayer’s grin, she could tell he already knew what choice she’d made.

“Nobody finds out I was involved, understood?” She said, glaring at the blonde-haired man.

“I’ll take the secret to my grave, love.”

Chapter 17

Lasthope drifted about the cave, remaining formless and unseen, until after the rain had ceased falling and Becca had left. Lewis looked much better than he had before she’d arrived, but there was still an air of sadness around the young dragon as she departed. He rested his head on his front claws and stared off into the distance.

The town could be seen from the mouth of Lewis’s cave, sprawled out like a map just beyond the foothills. It would be a short trot for Lewis to get there, but for Becca, it was a hike that could take anywhere between one to two hours, depending on the route she took. Lewis watched sadly as she didn’t head down the dirt road she usually took but instead walked along the right side of the foothills until she disappeared from view.

With the human girl finally gone, Lasthope decided to make himself seen again. He drew in the energy of the world around him, and slowly manifested once more as a dragon made of mist and fog. Lewis didn’t even pay attention, as his idle tail swished through Lasthope’s spectral bulk. The elder dragon glowered at his young apprentice.

How many times before had he told Lewis to act like a dragon? That he didn’t need to feel guilty about eating humans, and that was why he never did? It must have been a dozen times by now! And yet the young dragon insisted on trying to play with these humans!

Lasthope didn’t want to be mad at Lewis, especially not after the events of the previous night and the earlier morning. His young ward was going through a lot more changes than merely turning into a dragon, and he knew he needed to be sympathetic.

His sympathy, however, did not extend that far. There were some things a young dragon just should not do. Fraternizing with humans was chief among those sins. Why could Lewis not understand the danger that came from associating with them? A human left alive was a human who could bring trouble.

“Lewis,” Lasthope barked, drifting beyond the mouth of the cave to float in front of the young dragon’s face.

Lewis jumped, having momentarily forgotten that Lasthope was there at all.

“What on earth were you thinking!?” Lasthope roared, baring his ghostly fangs and scrunching his eyebrows. White smoke poured from his mouth and nose, and were he still alive, Lewis was confident there would be heat from his flames.

“W-what!?” Lewis stammered, shuffling back a few feet.

“You let her go! She offered herself to you on a silver platter! You have been complaining about being starving for days!” Lasthope bellowed, shaking his enormous head. “What, by the Ancestors, were you thinking!?”

“I-I didn’t want to eat her!” Lewis stammered, not daring to meet his mentor’s gaze.

“I do not believe you for an instant!” Lasthope roared. “You had her in your mouth, Lewis! You had her on your tongue! She was willingly giving herself to you! Of all the things to do when you are hungry, not eating a willing prey is by far the most childish thing I have ever seen!”

Lewis wrung his front claws together and stared down at them with a somber expression. He didn’t want to argue about this with Lasthope, the elder dragon couldn’t understand.

Becca was his friend. He didn’t want to eat his friends! He loved them, wanted to treasure them! An evening in the belly was worth a lot less than a lifetime in his heart.

There was no way he could make the elder dragon understand that, though. Lasthope was too old fashioned. Dragons had to behave precisely as he understood them. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be happy. That was why, whenever Lewis was upset about finally acting like a proper dragon, the elder grew soft and caring.

The moment Lewis realized this, it was like a lightning bolt hit his brain.

He went over every interaction he’d ever had with Lasthope. When Lewis behaved in a way that the ghost wanted, Lasthope was kind and helpful. But when Lewis didn’t behave in a way he liked…

He was cruel. Loud and mean.

Abusive...

Lewis looked up and met Lasthope’s gaze. Had the elder been consciously manipulating him like that the entire time!?

“G-go away,” Lewis whispered, rising slowly to his feet. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

Lasthope bared his fangs down at the young whelp, his eyes flashing dangerously. “Do you think we have a choice!?” He growled. “I am haunting you!”

Lewis shook his head and shuffled back another few steps. “You said it before, you can haunt your bones. Go do that, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Stop being a petulant whelp,” Lasthope growled.

“I’m not!” Lewis growled back, stomping a front claw and digging his talons into the rock. He glared at the elder dragon, as smoke began to pour from his mouth. This time, his drool wasn’t burning. The flame glands at the back of his throat were itching to be used. They had partially refilled since the night before when he’d emptied them in his escape from the cops. One blast and he could make Lasthope dissipate again, if only for a few hours. “You’re the one who’s being petulant!”

“You do not even know what the word means!” Lasthope growled, raking a claw through Lewis’s head, and coming away with a wisp of white between his claws. He slurped it up like a noodle and spat it out in disgust. “No substance at all! As empty as the rest of your pitiful excuse for a head!”

“Shut up! Go away!” Lewis roared. “I hate you!”

“That is a shame because we are stuck together!” Lasthope roared.

"What is this even about!?"

"This is about your behavior! You cannot keep trying to be friends with humans! You are only setting yourself up for pain and suffering! They will use your connection to these humans to lure you into a trap!" Lasthope said as he reached out with a spectral claw to take another swipe at Lewis’s head. “Now, hold still! For your own safety, I am going to remove all memory of that stupid girl from your mind.”

Lewis’s eyes widened, and his teeth subconsciously clenched. Before Lasthope had a chance to touch him, Lewis spat a fireball right through the ghost’s hand. Lasthope screamed, more in surprise than pain, as the manifestation of his claw was obliterated by his young ward’s flames. Hissing in a fury, he drifted down the mountain as far as their connection would allow.

“How dare you!?” Lewis hissed, stomping a few paces out of his cave. His face had gone so green with rage that even his ears had changed colors. They were perked up and twitching, while his wings were half-open to make himself seem larger. “HOW DARE YOU TRY TO TAKE HER FROM ME!?”

"Oh, dear…" Lasthope’s eyes widened as he realized his mistake, and he shook his head slowly. “Lewis, I think I understand why you are no longer driven to hunger by Becca’s smell,” he said slowly.

“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK!” Lewis bellowed, spraying the air between them with his fire.

Lasthope ascended into the air to dodge the heat of the flames, yowling as they tore his tail from his spine. He winced as he watched the appendage evaporate into nothing, clenching his jaw. He was mildly thankful that he was already dead, as that sort of wound would leave a dragon crippled and flightless for centuries.

“YOU ABUSIVE, MANIPULATIVE, COWARDLY OLD JERK!” Lewis roared, spraying fire into the air in an attempt to hit Lasthope.

The ghost cursed the fact that the range of his haunt was precisely the same as Lewis’s fire as he ducked and weaved, trying to dodge the blasts. He roared as one of his wings was torn away. He didn’t need them to fly, but every shot he took felt like it should have hurt.

Lewis opened his mouth to spew more flames, but this time, nothing but a few sputtering droplets came out. He tried again, only to have nothing but smoke. He roared and stomped his feet, tearing at the rock and gravel beneath him, until finally he dropped down onto his belly, and rested his head once more on his claws. His fire glands wouldn’t be empty for long. If he rested for a few hours, they’d refill again.

Lasthope took in the damage his young pupil had done in his temper. A claw was missing, as were a wing and his tail. Lasthope could feel them, still, and knew he could likely re-manifest them if necessary. Still, the earlier dissipation had already left him tired. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to hold himself together if he had to manifest again.

To think, being a ghost meant you still got tired. Go figure, he lamented.

Lasthope swallowed empty air as he glanced down at his young ward. Lewis had his teeth clenched, and was glaring angrily up at the ghost. Lasthope didn’t really blame him.

He had made the mistake of threatening Lewis’s hoard. How he hadn’t seen it before and recognized hoarding behavior, was beyond him. Was Lasthope really so disconnected from his own kind that he ignored the signs? He’d even realized before when Lewis had sprung to the defense of his friends from the dragon slayer a week ago, that he’d been showing signs of hoarding them.

Lasthope knew better than anyone that dragons were viciously protective creatures. If somebody threatened something they considered property, any proper dragon would retaliate with fire and rage.

It was normal.

It was natural.

It was what dragons did.

Lasthope slapped his snout. It was so obvious, and he was ashamed that he hadn’t noticed it. The moment Becca’s scent hadn’t driven Lewis to hunger should have been his cue to identify the issue.

“You’re still here,” Lewis growled, noticing his mentor’s odd behavior. “Go away. I meant it. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Lewis, I realize where we went wrong here,” Lasthope admitted. “You have begun hoarding. I would be so proud if you were not hoarding people!”

Lewis’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Lasthope immediately backpedaled.

“What I mean to say, Lewis, is that you are actually exhibiting perfectly normal behavior for a young dragon,” Lasthope explained. “I am sorry that I lashed out. It is my fault. I should have recognized it sooner.”

“Go away,” Lewis repeated, tightening his jaw.

“I am trying to be sincere, Lewis.”

“I don’t care. The only time you’re nice to me is when I’m acting like a proper dragon. I don’t want to act like a proper dragon! I want to be human again!”

“Lewis, we both know that—”

“SHUT UP!” Lewis roared, leaping back up to his feet. Again, he tried to spew flames at the elder, but nothing but acrid black smoke poured from his mouth. “I think it’s time that you listened!”

Lasthope slowly shut his mouth and rolled his remaining talon for Lewis to continue.

“Every time we talk, you’re either being really mean or really nice,” Lewis growled, pacing back and forth in front of the cave mouth. “When you’re nice, it’s because I did something dragony and you’re proud, or trying to make me feel better because I’m upset that I did something dragony! When you’re a jerk, it’s because I’m not acting like the dragon you expect me to be! That’s gross!”

Lasthope frowned, and slowly blinked his eyes. “Is that… not how parents normally behave?”

Lewis opened his mouth to retort and shut it again. “SHUT UP! GO AWAY!” He roared, stomping his claws angrily. “You’re not really my dad, you’re just some jerk who turned me into a dragon!”

Lasthope sighed. “Very well, Lewis,” the ghost said, shaking his head. He concentrated on the feeling of his haunt, knowing full well that there was more than just Lewis. Like the young dragon had said, he could haunt his bones. He could feel them, too, nearby. His skull was the closest. It would be a short hop, and he’d be there. “I will go. I hope you do not hold this against me forever.”

“Don’t come back,” Lewis grumbled, curling up in the mouth of his cave.

Lasthope said nothing as he slowly vanished into thin air. Lewis glowered at the place where Lasthope had been not a moment before and squeezed his eyes shut. The ghost dragon did not float behind his vision. Did not whisper in his ears.

“Lasthope?” Lewis whispered, opening his eyes and staring off into the sky. The sun was beginning its descent, as afternoon slowly transitioned into evening. “Lasthope, are you there?”

There came no answer.

“L-Lasthope?” Lewis stammered, slowly rising to his feet.

Silence.

Lewis paced around the mouth of his cave, his heart slowly racing, faster and faster. Had he really meant it when he’d told the old ghost to go away and never come back!? There was still so much he didn’t know about being a dragon! He wasn’t ready!

“Lasthope!” Lewis called again, running out of the cave, right under where his mentor had been a moment before. “I’m sorry! I-I was just angry! I didn’t mean it!”

Still no answer.

The color drained from Lewis’s face. He hadn’t meant to, but he realized what he’d done.

For the first time since becoming a dragon, he was well and truly alone.

Chapter 18

Lasthope blinked and found himself staring eye to eye with John Lambton. The old dragon slayer looked every bit as dangerous as he had the day he’d killed the elder dragon. His piercing blue eyes were locked on Lasthope, his lips tugged into the faintest facsimile of a smile. Lasthope cringed for a moment, worried the old dragon slayer could see him. When he tried to move, though, he found that he couldn’t.

Had Lasthope a heart that could race, he swore it would have been hammering in his chest then and there. He was trapped, unable to flee, and staring down at the very creature that had ended his life! What an accursed existence.

Despite being frozen in place, Lasthope was still able to look around. He had to look up, though, to get a better view of his surroundings. So far as he could tell, Lasthope was hanging from a wall. He had been focusing on his skull while trying to move to a different haunt. Had those blasted slayers mounted his head like a prized trophy? The indignity of it!

He seemed to be inside a long, thin room. There was barely enough room for the full depth of his skull, even mounted on a wall, and Lasthope was worried for a moment that maybe those slayers had shaved his horns! The indignity!

There were seats on either side of the room, with thick belts, as well as shelves for equipment and even a radio instrument of some kind. Lasthope didn’t recognize most of the tools or weapons, they were all things that had been invented long after he’d gone into hiding. This world felt alien and unwelcoming to him, and Lasthope immediately wanted to flee back to Lewis.

He could not, however. The wretched whelp was in another of his moods.

“I can feel you in there,” Lambton whispered, reaching out and running his pale fingers over the skull.

Lasthope froze. Again, had he eyes that could widen, they would be the size of dinner plates.

“That’s the first time you’ve visited since we got here,” Lambton continued, giving the skull a quick pat. “I would have figured that stabbing your skull would have brought you running, but it didn’t. I wonder what changed?”

Did Lambton know that Lasthope was a ghost? How was that possible!?

Lambton’s smile deepened, and he gave the skull a generous pat. “Is that hazard of a whelp yours? I wonder who you mated with to bring that creature into existence. As far as I know, there are no females of your kind left. I killed the last one a couple centuries ago. Didn’t think there were any males left, either, after you, but I can admit when I’m wrong.”

Lasthope wanted to speak, but any attempts to move his jaw resulted in… nothing. So far as he could tell, he didn’t even have a jaw. He was just the upper half of his skull. He wanted to frown, but his eyebrows were just as paralyzed. It would seem that the only part of him that he could move was his eyes.

Despite Lewis’s attitude towards Lasthope, just before he left, the old dragon already missed being a naked spirit bound to the whelp.

“If you’re wondering why you’re trapped in your skull, that would be the Crone’s doing,” Lambton said, as though he and Lasthope were having a friendly chat. “That old bird knows so much, it’s scary sometimes.”

Who is the Crone? Lasthope thought.

Lasthope watched as Lambton plopped himself down in one of the seats and propped his boot covered feet upon them. The room lurched for a moment, and then Lasthope got the feeling that they were moving.

“You probably have a lot of questions, don’t you?” Lambton continued. “If only that bat had given you the ability to talk, but alas, she did not. Shame, really. You were boring the day I killed you, and you’re boring even now.”

Lambton tugged a knife from his belt, an old, dull thing that looked like it couldn’t even cut through butter. He ran his fingers along the tip, playing with it and whistling to himself.

“I thought you were the last one,” Lambton admitted, glancing up at Lasthope’s skull again. “It blows my mind that there was a whelpling hiding in plain sight, right under my bloody nose, this entire time!” The dragon slayer shook his head and sheathed his knife again. “Except, there wasn’t, was there? I still can’t figure out how you did it. The Crone has been trying to translate your spellwork for a few weeks, but so far as she could tell, it just randomly creates dragons. It seems too haphazard to be usable, and yet we’ve got that little disaster of yours running around.” Lambton tutted loudly and wagged a finger at the single. “You’ve been very naughty, making more dragons when I wasn’t looking.

Lasthope mentally frowned and tried to concentrate on his old cave home. It wasn’t among the things he could haunt, not since his bones had been stolen from it, but perhaps he could haunt his spellwork or the books in his library? He focused on them and tried to will himself to go there. He felt his mind lift from his skull for just a moment before something else stopped him.

Don’t you dare, came the creaky voice of an old woman with a vaguely European, maybe Slavic accent. I’m working here, I don’t want a curmudgeonly old ghost bothering me!

Lasthope’s will slammed back into his skull with enough force to rattle it against the wall of the room. The sound was enough to make Lambton jump up from his seat and stare at the head curiously.

“I see you’ve just met the Crone,” Lambton laughed, giving Lasthope’s skull another, generous pat. “Don’t you worry about her. She’s taking good care of your hoard. Actually, speaking of hoards, I wanted to talk to you about that whelp of yours.”

Lewis? Lasthope thought.

“You know he started hoarding people, right?” Lambton said, dropping back into his seat and crossing his arms. The room creaked for a moment and stopped moving. “He’s becoming more and more dangerous, and we have to take him out, for his own good if not the good of the town. It never ends well when a dragon befriends humans.”

If Lasthope had a heart, he knew it would have dropped. Lambton was talking about slaying Lewis. The old dragon didn’t take joy in being right. He’d known from the start that associating with humans was going to get Lewis killed, but had that impetuous whelp listened? Of course not!

“It’s not personal, you know,” Lambton continued, as the room started moving again with a loud creak. “The Crone is the one who wants your kind extinct. I’m just doing this to keep people safe.”

Lasthope frowned. Who was this Crone that Lambton kept mentioning? Lasthope had never heard of such a person before. Crone was usually a word that meant a frail, ugly, old woman, but in this context, it felt stranger. Lambton was using the term more as a title than a description. Whoever this Crone was, they had to be somebody strong enough that even Lambton had some degree of fear for them.

If the man powerful enough to kill countless dragons was afraid of her, Lasthope was terrified.

Lambton sighed and unbuckled the belt at his hip. Slowly, he tugged the sheath his knife was tucked in off and set it down on his lap. “I’m getting too old for this game,” Lambton admitted, shaking his head mournfully. “I was hoping you’d be the one to finally do me in, you know? But you didn’t. You didn’t even give me the time of day,” Lambton sighed. “At this rate, I’m gonna be the Crone’s lackey forever.”

What is he talking about now?

Lambton looked up and met Lasthope’s eyes again. “I know we only met one time, but I feel like we know each other. Do you mind if I talk openly? I can’t really discuss this with the men. They’re all shorter-lived than us.”

Us?

Lambton tugged the knife from the sheath again and turned it over in his hands. “Let no creature born of dragon blood survive this blade,” he whispered, in an ancient Japanese dialect. Lasthope’s mental eyes widened as he recognized the words and the soft blue glow that emanated from the weapon.

Tokoyo’s Dagger! Lasthope whispered to himself, staring at the weapon in horror. He’d felt its bite before when Lambton had used it to kill him. The elder dragon had assumed it lost to time when the dragon-slaying maiden for whom it was named had died. None of his texts had talked about the legendary weapon’s whereabouts. Had Lasthope known it was in Lambton’s possession, he might have tried to steal it first, to ensure it couldn’t be used against him.

“The Crone gave me this,” Lambton explained, twirling the glowing knife around his fingers. “Ordered me to kill the dragon plaguing my village. Must have been… just a little over eight hundred years ago? Around half a century before you were hatched, I think.”

Lambton is how old?! Lasthope thought in bewilderment.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Lambton chuckled. “900 years old and still looking this good? What sort of collagen cream must I be using?” The old dragon slayer’s chuckle turned into full-blown laughter at his own joke, but it abruptly stopped as the room screeched to a halt again. “I can’t die, dragon,” Lasthope admitted, his blonde brow creasing, his eyes dropping to the dagger in his lap. “That blasted Crone cursed me. I don’t remember the specifics of the curse, but nothing I do lets me die. I’m 900 years old, and I cannot even kill myself.”

Lasthope mentally frowned. He’d never heard of anything like that before.

“It’s a pretty tightly woven curse, too,” Lambton laughed, shaking his head. “I’ve gone to some pretty extreme lengths to kill myself. Took a dive right into an active volcano just to see if the heat of the earth was enough to finally do me in. Spent about three months as nothing but a charred skeleton trapped in rock before the Crone came and dug me out. Told me it was a good punishment for defying her. It was maddening, I tell you. Though, I suppose you could probably relate, right now,” Lambton added, chuckling at his joke.

Lasthope did not laugh.

“Point is. If I could recover from being almost completely destroyed, what hope do I have? Once your whelp is dead, I’m not sure what she’ll have planned for me,” Lambton met Lasthope’s empty eye sockets again, and swallowed. “But I can’t not kill him. It’s hard to explain. I can’t just let all these people die. I can’t stand around and let him kill them. Destroy their livelihoods, their families.”

Am I supposed to feel sympathetic towards you? Lasthope thought, lamenting again not having a voice.

“I suppose you wouldn’t understand,” Lambton muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t really blame you. It’s not like it’s a magical compulsion. For the first few centuries, I did this willingly, happily even. The ability to kill dragons throughout history to protect mankind from the monsters that plagued them? I took joy in it. I saw the world! I journeyed to America, to India, to China, and even the deepest jungles of Africa, all the while killing dragons as I went. Saving people. From your kind.”

The room started moving again. Lasthope remained silent and voiceless.

Lambton smiled sorrowfully at the skull hanging on the wall. “This isn’t quite the conversation I wanted to have with you, you know? I was hoping we could talk while you were still alive. I was hoping I could convince you to kill me… You were the last one, after all, right? It would have been poetic. The last dragon, and the immortal dragon slayer, dying together in each other’s arms. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending. Assuming it worked, of course.

“Now, I’m not so sure I’m even going to get an ending at all. Your child is too young to put up a real fight, and now that I know what he’s hoarding, it’ll be effortless to draw him out. After that, I’m not really sure what comes next. Probably an eternity as the Crone’s personal plaything.”

Lasthope watched Lambton curiously, unsure of exactly what to make of it. He’d never guessed that the leader of the dragon slayers hunting him for centuries was immortal. He’d always assumed it was some sort of family enterprise, passing down the duty of culling dragons from father to son. Now, he almost regretted not speaking to Lambton when he had the chance. A fellow as old as he would undoubtedly have boundless knowledge to share…

Lambton breathed in deeply through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. “You can stick around and watch if you want, but I wouldn’t blame you if you left. I have to make peace with my reality. I’m going to kill your whelp and be the Crone’s lackey for the rest of eternity. That’s the problem with immortality that they don’t tell you on the packaging: it lasts forever.”

Chapter 19

Jeremy arrived at the slayer’s campsite around twenty minutes before the black truck pulled back in. Lambton and Dayton were nowhere to be seen, while the other six slayers were occupying their time checking over their weapons. Jeremy spent the wait reviewing what Lambton had taught him the last time they’d met. He stabbed the dragon dummy over and over again, in every weak spot he remembered. He practiced attacking an imaginary dragon skull, clenching his teeth as he pictured Lewis’s jaw bursting into flames as his retardation gland was destroyed.

He paused his stabbing as the truck pulled to a stop, and the back door slid open. Lambton shuffled to the edge of the trailer and shot Jeremy a wave and a grin.

“Good afternoon, lad!” Lambton said, kicking the ramp release lever. The steel mechanism roared and slid out of the base of the truck, before crashing into the ground. He strut down the ramp and eyed the straw dragon that Jeremy had been viciously attacking. “I think you killed it, my boy,” he laughed, walking over and examining what Jeremy had done.

“Just getting some practice in before our lesson,” Jeremy said, rolling his shoulders. He’d been practicing fighting with the knife at home. He didn’t really know what he was doing, so he was mostly slashing and stabbing at old hay bales in the barn, imagining they were Lewis the day he’d turned into a dragon. As a result, his shoulders were stiff and sore, but he’d never felt better.

“Right, lesson, right,” Lambton muttered. The old man swallowed and shook his head. “Listen, lad, I think we need to call those off.”

“What? Why?”

Lambton scrunched up his face and squeezed Jeremy’s shoulder. Slowly, he led the boy around to the other side of the dragon dummy, out of earshot from the other slayers. “We’re going to be making moves to kill the dragon today, and you’re not ready to join us.”

“WHAT!?” Jeremy shouted, the knife slipping from his fingers. It plunged into the soft earth by his foot. His eyes widened, and his mouth hung open. How could Lambton do this?!

“Look, I know it would deny you your revenge, but it’s probably for the best, lad,” Lambton said, a sorrowful look on his face. “This is the last dragon. Once he’s dead, there’s none left. Knowing how to kill them isn’t going to do you much good.”

“I have to kill him!” Jeremy insisted “He—”

Lambton raised a finger, and Jeremy fell silent. “I know, lad — killed your best friend. I understand, but I cannot let you throw your life away like this. If it comes to blows, and I know it will, this dragon is going to cause some major destruction. I don’t want you around for that.”

Jeremy’s fists tightened. “H-how could you do this to me? I trusted you…”

“It’s not the blow you think it is. I’m just looking out for you, son,” Lambton said, squeezing Jeremy’s shoulder again. “If you’d like, you can help us make final preparations, but I don’t want you anywhere near the actual fight. You’re not ready for that.”

Jeremy cast his eyes down at his feet, at the knife that was dug into the soft earth beside them. He hadn’t realized how close he’d been to dropping the blade through his foot when it had slipped out of his hands. He didn’t care. That wouldn’t have been an excuse not to fight Lewis, and this most certainly wasn’t a good one either.

“I have to be involved,” Jeremy insisted. “I have to be there! Even if you don’t let me fight, I have to be present for the dragon’s demise.”

Lambton shuffled awkwardly. It was clear that he wasn’t getting through to the kid. Jeremy was as one track as they possibly came. In the dragon-slaying business, that was dangerous. If you focused too hard on a goal, it was easy to miss the dangers around you, until it was far too late.

“Remember what I told you about vigilance and observation, lad?” Lambton said, cocking an eyebrow and crossing his arms.

Jeremy shuffled from foot to foot and looked away.

“Let me tell you what I’m observing right now: I see a boy who desperately wants to make something hurt, even if that means throwing himself away. You would give up your life if it means killing something that hurt you. That is a dangerous mentality to have, lad, whether we’re talking about killing dragons or not. Let’s not even talk about how psychotic it is to hold that kind of a grudge, but that’s the kind of mentality that will lead to you getting killed.”

Jeremy’s fists tightened. “If I… don’t think like that… will you let me help?”

Lambton opened his mouth to say no, only to sigh in exasperation instead. He wondered if this was how the elder dragon felt when dealing with the whelp. Shaking his head, Lambton took another deep breath through his nose before answering. “Jeremy, why are you so adamant about this? And don’t tell me it’s because the dragon killed your best friend!”

Jeremy blinked slowly, trying to think of what exactly he could say that would get Lambton to let him fight, but he could think of nothing. He hugged himself and continued to stare down at his feet.

Lambton shook his head. “It’s fine, lad,” Lambton said, patting him on the shoulder again. “This isn’t a life you really want. Remember, he’s the last one of his kind. Once he’s gone, that’s it. No more dragons.”

Lambton turned around to walk away. He had work to do and didn’t have a lot of time to make preparations.

“I can help you lure the dragon out,” Jeremy finally said, looking up.

Lambton froze mid-stride and slowly turned around to meet Jeremy’s gaze. “Pardon?”

Jeremy swallowed nervously. “There is… something about the dragon that you don’t know.”

Lambton’s stare turned into a frown, and he slowly walked back over to Jeremy. “Talk,” he ordered.

Jeremy told Lambton everything. He told the old dragon slayer about how Lewis had been really sick one day, and a dragon the next. He told him about how Lewis had begun behaving strangely, as soon as he changed into a dragon. He stopped caring about killing things. He stopped understanding what it was like to be human. He showed no remorse for the people he’d killed.

Lambton stood in silence as Jeremy dumped everything. The words seemed to tumble freely from the boy’s mouth, unbidden, and unstoppable. Lambton listened in fascination.

That was how the old ghost had done it, Lambton realized. He hadn’t mated or created a dragon from nothing, he’d changed a living person! Lambton’s jaw tightened in anger. He wanted to march right back into the truck and destroy the skull.

“I can’t believe it,” Lambton said, shaking his head.

“You don’t believe me?” Jeremy asked, eyes widening.

“No, lad, I believe you, I just can’t believe that’s what the old dragon’s spell did. This is worse than I realized,” Lambton muttered, scratching the scraggly beard that had grown about his chin. It had been a few days since he’d last shaved. It was getting itchy. “Even after death, that elder is ruining human lives.”

“What are we going to do about this?” Jeremy asked. All throughout the entire story, he’d had his fists balled tight. Even now, it was hard for him to loosen up. He needed to make something hurt as reparations for what had happened to Lewis, but he just didn’t know what.

He just missed his best friend so much. He hadn’t been letting himself think about Lewis, beyond slaying him all week! Now that he’d let those thoughts out, though, he was struck with grief and anger.

He wanted to make Lewis understand the pain he was feeling, to hurt as much as him.

He had to be present to see the dragon’s demise.

Lambton shook his head and sighed. “We can’t do anything about this,” he muttered. “We have to kill the dragon first. That has to be a priority.”

“Even knowing that the dragon used to be human?” Jeremy asked.

“Especially knowing the dragon used to be human,” Lambton agreed, with a sigh. “I was wondering why it started hoarding people, but it makes sense now. You were his friends in his human life, it’s only natural to want to keep you as close as possible. That makes him even more dangerous than normal. He’ll be hyper-protective of anyone in his hoard. That means you, your friends, your brother, perhaps his human parents. Especially the girl, though…”

“Becca?”

“Is that her name? Yes, she’s especially important to the dragon. She’s the lynchpin in all of this. If we can get her, he’s going to come running.”

Jeremy frowned for a moment as realization set in. “You want to use Becca as bait!?” He said with a gasp, taking a step back from Lambton in horror. “You don’t need her! You have me!”

“We don’t have a choice but to use her, lad,” Lambton said, shrugging casually. “That’s what will draw him out. You might have been part of his friend circle, but she’s a part of his hoard. She’s infinitely more valuable to him than you. I don’t think you’ll be enough to bring him running. You’re certainly a good start, though.”

Before Jeremy had a chance to ask what Lambton had meant, the dragon slayer’s hand shot out and wrapped around Jeremy’s wrist. The boy shouted in surprise as he was suddenly tugged into a lock. He struggled to pull himself free, but the old dragon slayer’s strength seemed impossible to overcome. Jeremy screamed and tried to kick backward, but Lambton didn’t even budge.

“Sorry about this, lad,” Lambton said with a shrug, “but at least you’re getting your wish.”

“Hey!” Jeremy shouted.

“Come on, lad, don’t be like this. You literally just volunteered for the job,” Lambton said, pushing Jeremy out from behind the straw dragon dummy. The other dragon slayers had paused their activities at the sound of screaming and a struggle. “You’re going to be involved in the killing of the dragon, exactly as you wanted. And since you offered to be bait, I’m afraid we’re going to have to treat you like it. It’s for your benefit, you know, can’t have your other friends thinking you went along with this willingly. We’ll be sure to compensate you appropriately when this is all over.”

Jeremy started screaming and shouting again when one of the dragon slayers ran over and wrapped a gag around his mouth.

“Ugh, thank you, finally,” Lambton said, handing the struggling boy off to his men as they began to tie him with ropes. “Treat him nicely,” Lambton reminded them. “We want the bait to look as fresh and enticing as possible.”

As Jeremy was tugged towards the truck, Lambton was handed a phone by one of his other men. Lambton nodded appreciatively and quickly dialed a number that he’d already memorized.

“Hey, Martha, it’s John,” Lambton said, as soon as the line picked up on the other end. “Where is Rebecca Moran right now?”

That was the last thing Jeremy heard before he was tossed into the truck. He let out a muffled yelp as he landed on the cold metal floor. His legs were tied, so he couldn’t stand up. He wriggled and screamed, doing everything in his power to get free.

It was pointless. He was trapped.

Jeremy bit down furiously on the gag and tried to chew through it. At some point during the thrashing, his glasses had fallen off and lay in a bent heap on the ground. Jeremy shook his head at them and then tried to look around the truck.

He felt a shiver go down his spine as he turned and came face to face with the massive dragon skull at the back of the truck. Before, the head had always appeared creepy, but now there was an aura of cold surrounding it.

Jeremy swallowed nervously. He hoped that wasn’t an omen of things to come.

Chapter 20

Becca emerged from the woods and shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun. The earlier rain clouds had parted, leaving their white, fluffy brethren floating in their place. She sighed as she stared down the field of grass, towards the road that wasn’t more than a hundred yards away.

“Yay,” she mumbled, fanning herself, “more walking.”

After nearly two hours of hiking down the mountain, she was sticky, sweaty, and smelled like a combination of dragon drool and body odor. She desperately wanted to go home and take a shower to wash away the day’s peculiarities. However, home was still over an hour’s walk away.

Despite the ergonomic hiking boots she’d remembered to wear, her feet were still killing her. She supposed that is what she got. Over five hours of hiking, just to spend two hours with Lewis.

“I’m never doing this without Brandon’s truck again,” she mumbled, dropping to the ground to sit for a moment. Her legs screamed at her for daring to make them work so hard, but she didn’t regret it. Aside from being good exercise, it was nice to get some time alone with Lewis.

It definitely wasn’t worth doing all this walking again, though.

The sun was beginning its slow advance towards evening. If Becca had to guess, she figured it was around four in the afternoon. She dug her hand into the pocket of her pants to check her phone, just to confirm, and was wholly unsurprised when it didn’t turn on. She hoped the battery was just dead, and that Lewis’s slobber hadn’t shorted it out.

Either way, there was nothing to do for it now. Sighing, Becca pushed herself back to her aching feet and dusted herself off. The sooner she made her way back towards town, the sooner she could collapse into a chair and never stand again.

She idly realized, as she started walking, that at some point during the day, she’d misplaced her backpack. She swore to herself. Her platform boots were in there, along with the can of body spray she used to mask her scent from Lewis! She hoped she’d just left it in Brandon’s car, but she idly remembered having it when she’d been in Lewis’s cave. Sighing, she figured she’d have to get it later, the next time she and her friends went up the mountain to visit Lewis.

Becca was nearly back to the road when suddenly she spotted a big black eighteen-wheeler truck rolling up the street. She frowned for a moment, wondering what sort of truck would come up in this direction when suddenly it pulled to a stop.

Becca froze as she remembered something that Jeremy had told her: the dragon slayers drove a big black truck.

The back of the trick slid open, and three men stepped out, not even bothering to lower the ramp. One of them had a stocky build and bright orange hair. His arm was in a sling, and he was wincing as he walked. Becca’s fists immediately tightened as she recognized him.

“Ugh, not you again,” Becca hissed, as the dragon slayers stopped halfway between her and the pavement.

“Hello, love,” Dayton said, grinning at Becca. He snapped his fingers on his good hand and pointed at the girl. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be coming with us.”

“Don’t touch me!” Becca said, taking a step back. “If you touch me, I’ll scream!”

“Relax, love, we’re not gonna hurt you,” Dayton assured her.

“Yeah, forgive me if I don’t believe you!”

The two men flanking Dayton stepped forward, with arms outstretched. Becca’s eyes flicked between the two of them. Could she take them in a fight? The one on the left seemed scrawny, beneath the black armor he was wearing. The one on the right was stocky and thick, though not quite as heavyset as Dayton. She figured she could outfight the skinny one, but not the heavy one.

Which was ironic, because she figured she could probably outrun the heavy one, but not the skinny one.

Becca swore under her breath, and desperately wished she wasn’t alone. She considered shouting for Lewis, but she wasn’t sure the sound of her voice would carry that far. Even if it did, was there any chance he’d be able to get to her in time? She didn’t think so... Still, it was her only chance!

“STAY BACK!” Becca ordered. “If you touch me, I’ll call for the dragon! He’ll come running to protect me!”

“We know, love, that’s the whole point,” Dayton said, laughing. “You’re the bait.”

Becca’s eyes widened. They were planning to use her to draw Lewis out? She felt her whole body stiffen, and her heart raced in her chest.

She couldn’t call him, not if they already knew he’d come to protect her. This was a trap, and if she wasn’t careful, Lewis would blunder right into it!

Dayton and his crew took advantage of Becca’s dumbstruck state to grab her by the arms. Immediately, she struggled against their grip, kicking and thrashing and trying everything she could to get away.

Despite resisting as hard as she could, she didn’t dare call out. She wouldn’t let these creeps use her as a way to get to Lewis! Growling in anger, she wheeled about and decked the skinny slayer in the nose, leaving him a bloody face as she whipped around to try the same with the larger one. He caught her incoming fist and squeezed it tight, only for her to kick him in the groin with her thick boots. He doubled over in pain, releasing her fist, and she punched him in the side of the head.

“All right, love, I’ve had enough of you!” Dayton growled.

Becca froze, as Dayton leveled a pistol at her chest. In the moment of hesitation, the skinny slayer slipped a gag around her mouth, silencing her.

“You’re lucky we were told to be gentle with you,” Dayton said, as the bigger slayer shakily rose to his feet and unfurled a spool of rope from his hip.

Soon, she was tied tight, dragged to the truck and tossed through the trailer door. She yelped in pain as she landed on something sharp, and she rolled over onto her side to get a good look at what it was.

Her breath momentarily stopped as she noticed a shattered pair of glasses, right next to a very familiar boy.

Becca met Jeremy’s eyes, just as Dayton and his crew slammed the trailer door shut. They whimpered together, unable to speak with the gags in their mouths, as the truck lurched back into motion.

Jeremy shook his head violently, his eyes wide and apologetic. Becca’s breathing was fast and hard. She looked down at the shattered glasses between them. There weren’t any shards big enough that they could use to cut the ropes. They were well and truly trapped.

“And now we have the second piece of the puzzle,” came a voice from above Jeremy.

Becca rolled to get a better look at who was talking. She’d never met him before, but she recognized the man from the way Brandon had described. Lambton was sitting on one of the seats, the seat belt firmly secured across his waist. Another slayer that Becca didn’t recognize was seated next to him, a large sword resting in his lap.

“Just relax and enjoy the trip, lass,” Lambton said, nodding to her. “We’ve got a bit of a ride ahead of us.”

Lasthope watched with horror from his vantage point in his skull. He had to do something! He couldn’t just let the dragon slayers use Lewis’s friends as bait like this! If they drew Lewis out into a fight, there was no way the young dragon would survive! All of Lasthope’s efforts would have been for naught!

And yet, he knew that if he were to return to his young ward and tell him what was happening, Lewis would rush to their rescue all the same.

Which was better? Rushing to the rescue before the slayers were prepared, or waiting for the slayers to lay the trap?

Lasthope took a deep breath and focused on his haunts. It was effortless to find Lewis. One minute, the elder dragon was trapped in his skull, and the next, he was floating in the air just outside the familiar cave. Lewis was lying in the cave mouth, watching the clouds go by, blissfully unaware of the chaos that was about to be unleashed.

After the fight they had earlier, Lewis looked calm, peaceful even. Lasthope wondered, only for a brief moment, if the young dragon might actually be better off without him. The thought didn’t last long. They needed each other. Maybe Lewis didn’t realize it, but there was still much that Lasthope had to teach him.

That wasn’t even scratching the surface of reviving the lost dragon race.

Lasthope took a deep, empty breath. The last thing he wanted to do was disturb his young ward’s peace, but it had to be done. Lasthope concentrated on the image of himself and drew in all the energy he could muster to manifest as an apparition.

Lewis started in surprise as the ghostly dragon suddenly appeared in the air in front of him. “GAH!” The young dragon cried, hopping to his feet and taking a step back. “You came back?!”

“Of course, I came back!” Lasthope snapped. “Do not forget! I am haunting you!”

Lewis blushed green and smiled up at the elder dragon. “Look, Lasthope, I’m really sorry about—”

“There is no time for any of that, Lewis!” Lasthope said, talking quickly. “We have a huge problem!”

Lewis stared wide-eyed at his mentor, breathing quickly as his heart tried to settle down. “Are you still mad about earlier?”

“We will have to discuss that later, Lewis, the dragon slayers have kidnapped two of your friends!” Lasthope said, hurriedly.

Lewis’s eyes widened even further, and his mouth dropped open in shock. “What? How?”

“The how is not important either, all that matters is that the slayers are going to use Becca and Jeremy as bait to lay a trap for you,” Lasthope roared. “You have to move now before they have a chance to finish preparing!”

Lewis hopped from talon to talon, trying to find words to say. Those jerks had taken Jeremy and Becca? His friends?

His friends!

Lewis’s vision momentarily tinted red with fury. How dare they? What right did they have to take what belonged to Lewis? Those were his friends!

“Lewis, those emotions you are feeling is exactly the reason your friends were taken,” Lasthope growled. “The slayers are hoping your hoarding instincts will cause you to make a mistake. We only have one chance to do this right, so I need you to concentrate and work with me. Can you do that, Lewis?”

Lewis shook his head, trying to focus. His vision was swimming, his heart was hammering, and already he could feel the fire on his tongue. He wanted to attack something, to make them bleed, to drink their blood. This was a different kind of hunger than he was used to. This wasn’t hunger for sustenance; it was the hunger for draconic justice.

Lewis took a deep breath, trying his best to focus, even as Lasthope continued to urge him. The anger bubbling in his stomach slowly began to die down.

“We do not have a lot of time,” Lasthope said, as Lewis breathed deeply. “I can feel my skull, it’s in their vehicle, and it’s moving away from us. We don’t have time to waste, we have to move now!”

“Why do you care?” Lewis whimpered, meeting Lasthope’s gaze. “Especially after our argument earlier. Why do you care what happens to my friends?”

“I do not care what happens to humans foolish enough to associate with dragons,” Lasthope admitted. “I care about you, Lewis. The things that matter to you should also matter to me, as your Ghost Father. Right now, two of those things, two of your human companions, are being held hostage as a way to hurt you!”

Lewis took a deep breath and blew out a plume of smoke, before nodding to Lasthope. “All right. Friends are kidnapped. Slayers are moving fast. We have to save them. There’s just a few small problems with your plan,” Lewis said, holding up a claw and pinching his thumb and first talon until they were just barely touching. “The cops set up a trap for me, remember? If I set claw into town, they’re going to start shooting.”

“That is a risk we are going to have to take,” Lasthope said, shaking his massive head. “I have faith that your scales will protect you from serious harm. If there were guns able to kill dragons, surely the slayers would have used them already.”

“All right, second problem: It’s going to take me at least thirty minutes to run into town, and by the time we get there, the slayers are going to be long gone,” Lewis pointed out. “That’s if I trundle down the mountain at top speed, dodging tank-busting bullets as I go.”

“Yes, I have also recognized this issue,” Lasthope nodded. “There is nothing for it, Lewis. You are going to have to fly.”

Chapter 21

Lewis stepped out of his cave and into the waning afternoon sun. A light breeze in the air felt good as it blew against his scales. It carried with it a vast assortment of scents: plants, game, and even oil from the shattered car down below. The sunlight danced across his scales, warming them with its heat. If it wasn’t for the impending fight with the dragon slayers looming on the horizon and occupying his thoughts, Lewis figured he could really enjoy this kind of day.

His breathing was slow and steady.

He could do this. He had to do this.

He didn’t have time to get this wrong.

Shutting his eyes, Lewis spread his bat-like wings as wide as they would go, stretching them to their full extent. He held them out to their entire span and locked his wing muscles, stiffening the joints until they refused to budge, just like an airplane. Instantly, the membrane between the fingers of his wings filled with air, like the sails of a mighty ship. The muscles in his chest tightened as he felt the powerful mountain breeze try to grab his wings and rip them away.

“All right, warm up a bit,” Lasthope commanded, “this will be your first real flight. It’s going to be murder on your wings. If you survive this encounter, you will be sore tomorrow.”

Lewis nodded as he slowly flapped his wings up and down. The muscles in his chest expanded and contracted with the motion, tightening as his wings pushed the air beneath him.

“All right, good form,” Lasthope said, floating around his young pupil. “Bend at the knees, keep your neck and tail straight. Relax your shoulders, they are not going to do the heavy work. Good, just like that,” Lasthope praised, as Lewis followed his instructions to the letter. This was going better than expected. If Lasthope had known all it would take for Lewis to finally listen to him was a threat to his friends, he might have tried to hurt Jeremy and Becca sooner. “Remember, do not think too hard about the mechanics of flight. Your body knows what it has to do. Look where you want to go, and angle your head towards it. Your tail will automatically compensate.”

“Lift, thrust, gravity, debris,” Lewis muttered, as he tried to remember the four fundamental forces involved with flight. “Lift, thrust, gravity, debris.”

“Drag,” Lasthope corrected. “Whenever you’re ready, Lewis,” he said.

Lewis took a deep breath to steel his nerves. He’d practiced flying a few times before, but he’d never attempted anything like this. Aside from the small burst of flight when fleeing from the cops, or when he’d been trying to catch the pronghorns, this was the first full, long-distance flight he was about to attempt. For the vast majority of his attempts at flight, Lasthope had kept him on the ground with his wings spread wide, getting accustomed to the way the wind pushed and pulled them. Already his wings were beginning to ache, and all he was doing was giving them a quick warm-up flap!

Lewis took a deep breath and tensed at the knees. He would have preferred to start closer to the peak of the mountain, but that climb typically took thirty minutes on its own, and the winds up there were harsh and violent. They didn’t have time to waste, and Lewis wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be battered against the mountain if he’d tried to fly from up there.

No. He had to launch from his cave and go as far as his wings could carry him.

“Fly, Lewis,” Lasthope commanded. “Fly!”

Lewis flapped his wings as hard as he could as he leaped. Immediately, his wing muscles burned as they worked hard to drag him into the air. He roared with effort as he flapped three times, climbing higher and higher with each stroke of his wings. He had achieved the lift necessary to fight back against gravity, but it was not yet real flight. Lewis concentrated, as he tried to remember the next step.

“Do not think!” Lasthope reminded him. “Your body wants to do this! Let it!”

Lewis took a panting breath and tried to relax. Let my body fly. Like a swimmer propelling himself forward in a pool, Lewis instinctually changed the angle of his flap ever so slightly. Suddenly, some of the energy dedicated towards lift was turned into thrust.

Lewis yelped as he dropped a few feet out of the air, and quickly straightened himself to compensate. He spread his wings into a wide glide, stuck his tail out directly behind him, and tucked his claws in tight. Instantly, the air grabbed him and held him aloft.

For the first few seconds, his eyes were squeezed shut as the wind whistled past his face, roaring in his ears. He could feel the way air flowed through his wings, the top slicing through the sky like a blade, while the underside filled with air that was trying to push up.

Then, he risked opening his eyes ever so slightly.

A thin yellow film covered his eyeballs and tinted his vision, but kept the wind out of them. He looked around in awe at the canopy of trees just beneath him. He was doing it! He was really flying!

Lewis let out a triumphant roar as he banked slightly to the left, trying to steer himself back towards town.

“I’m flying! I’m flying!” Lewis cheered. “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Yes, good, excellent form!” Lasthope encouraged. The ghost was flying just overhead, his own wings open wide. He didn’t need to use them anymore, but he missed the exhilaration of flight. “To the right a bit, there you go! Now, angle your neck down ever so slightly, we’ll need to descend towards town if we want to catch up with the slayers.”

Lewis followed instructions, angling his neck downwards, towards the town of Barrington Hills. He always said it looked like a map from his cave, but this was an entirely different experience. From up in the sky, the town looked painted onto the landscape.

Slowly, he began to descend, as his wings dumped some of the air they were filled with, and his tail compensated for the sudden change in direction.

Lewis had never felt anything like the joy of flying before. Not even the practice they’d done on the mountain peak had been like this. The leaps and short glides he’d done before didn’t even come close.

This was true freedom, in a way that Lewis had never before experienced. With this, he felt like he could go anywhere in the world!

Sudden pain in his chest reminded him that his wings were still too weak to carry him very far. He would need more practice before he could fly for long distances, but at least he was relieved to know that his training was finally starting to pay off.

“Lasthope, this is amazing!” Lewis shouted into the whipping wind. “YEAH! HAHA! I’M ON TOP OF THE FREAKING WORLD!”

“Focus, Lewis!” Lasthope urged.

“Sorry, sorry!” Lewis blushed. “It’s just, this is so amazing! I never want to walk anywhere again!” Lewis didn’t want to admit it, but at that moment, if Lasthope asked him if he wanted to be human again, Lewis would have undoubtedly said no. Humans couldn’t fly, and Lewis didn’t want to give this up.

“That’s a shame because we have to land! Aim for that patch of grass just outside of town,” the elder said, pointing a claw down at his target.

Lewis scanned the ground down below, trying to crane his neck around to see where Lasthope was pointing. Immediately, the motion threw him off-course. Lewis screamed as he was suddenly ascending and turning upside down. Horror soon turned to delight, as Lewis completed his loop de loop and returned once more to proper flight form. He quickly corrected his angle towards his landing spot, beaming all the while.

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!” Lewis cheered, pumping a fist excitedly. “THIS IS BETTER THAN ANY ROLLER COASTER EVER!”

“Cease showing off,” Lasthope ordered, “we have not the time to delay if you want to save your friends!”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Lewis said. He took a deep breath and tucked his wings in a bit. Below him, the canopy of trees vanished, replaced by an old road and grassy field. His landing point was just ahead.

Lewis felt a sharp pain in his left wing just as he heard the loud BANG! He roared in pain as something hot sliced right through his scales and stopped beneath the flesh. The air behind him was suddenly dusty with a cloud of bright red dragon blood, and Lewis could already smell it sticking to him.

“LEWIS!” Lasthope roared, descending to check on the younger dragon.

“My wing! I’m hit!” Lewis whimpered.

Lasthope rapidly descended through his pupil, until his claws snagged on the bullet lodged in the muscle of Lewis’s wing. With a growl, he pushed it out of the hole, and it came away with a gush of thick, oily, dragon blood.

“It’s not that bad,” Lasthope assured him, just as another shot rang out around them.

Lewis tucked his wings in tighter, trying to speed up his descent. He felt a burning pain in his left ear as a bullet tore through it. He roared in agony as the tip of his wing membrane was punched through like paper.

“Snipers,” Lewis hissed, as the ground rapidly approached. “Lasthope, I need to land!”

“I agree! Be ready to run the moment you touch down!”

“No, I mean, how do I land?!”

Lasthope’s eyes widened. That was something they had never actually covered in their lessons. This was Lewis’s first real flight, and Lasthope never saw a need to teach the whelp how to land before he could fly. The ghostly dragon took one look at the rapidly approaching ground, and then another at the terrified face of his apprentice.

This was not going to be pretty.

“TUCK AND ROLL!” Lasthope ordered.

Lewis immediately did as he was told. He squeezed his eyes shut and rolled his neck and tail as tightly together as he possibly could. His descent quickly turned into freefall, and Lewis tucked his wings in as tight as he could to protect them.

The impact shook the earth and kicked up a torrent of dirt. Lewis bounced once, twice, three times, before rolling to a stop and flopping onto the ground. His chest was heaving, and he coughed up black smoke as he looked up at the sky in wonder.

Just seconds ago, he’d been flying. He could still feel the tug of the wind beneath his wings, as the muscles connecting them to his chest twitched and spasmed.

“That was awesome,” he wheezed, rolling over onto his belly.

A split second later, the earth where his head had been exploded, followed by an echoing gunshot.

“Lewis! Run! You are not safe yet!” Lasthope reminded him.

Lewis shakily rose to his feet. His right front leg was sore and hurt when he tried to put weight on it. Still, he couldn’t afford to stand around and wait for it to get better. He hopped to the side, just as another glowing bullet whizzed past his head.

Lewis looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the shots to bathe them in dragon fire. He spotted a person with the most oversized rifle he’d ever seen perched atop a nearby building.

That was when Lewis realized just how close he was to town. It was right there, a few steps away.

Martha’s ultimatum came back to him in a flash. If he set foot back in town, it would be open season on his head.

That didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Jeremy and Becca were in danger, and Ancestors dammit he was going to save them!

“Head west,” Lasthope said, floating in front of Lewis. “I will guide you to them as best as I can.”

Lewis nodded and pawed at the earth. Another bullet whizzed past his head just as he broke into a run.

Time to expose himself to all of humanity.

Chapter 22

Lewis never had the chance to learn how to drive, back when he was human. He had a vague understanding of the rules of the road but had never actually tried to put them into practice. He knew that he was supposed to drive on the right side of the street and that he was supposed to signal when he wanted to turn. He knew there was a speed limit he was supposed to obey, and that he was supposed to stop for red lights.

As Lewis bolted into town, he promptly ignored all those rules. They vaguely flashed into his mind as he ran, and the idea that he’d just failed a driving test made him chuckle, but there just wasn’t the time to try and obey them. Cars honked their horns furiously as he dodged and weaved between them. More than once, he had to slow down to swat a stubborn sedan out of the way or tackle an obstinate SUV that simply refused to give him right of way.

“MOVE!” Lewis bellowed as the cars in front of him came to a stop for a red light. Roaring, with smoke pouring from his maw, Lewis leaped over the stationary vehicles, kicking off a stopped truck for extra height. The truck crumpled beneath his weight, the tires exploding under the abrupt addition of 9000 pounds. As he landed in the middle of the intersection. The concrete shattered beneath his claws, sending a spray of stone shrapnel up into the air. Then, he was off at a run again.

A car that was in the left turn lane had the misfortune of being right under Lewis as he started running. The bronze dragon narrowly avoided flattening the vehicle, and instead shoved it out of his way, right into another. The pair of cars screeched as they crashed together, skidding across the road with enough force to send them both spinning.

“COME ON GUYS, MOVE ASIDE FOR THE GIANT DRAGON!” Lewis roared, as he followed Lasthope’s frantic direction. The ghost dragon was floating ahead of him, serving as a compass for Lewis to follow.

A funny thought popped unbidden in Lewis’s mind. This whole ordeal reminded him of playing Grand Theft Auto, and he couldn’t help but grin inwardly at the memory. He had all the makings of the game: a wide-open world to run around and destroy, frantic civilians screaming as he passed, and a compass pointing him to his next objective.

“Focus, Lewis,” Lasthope bellowed, pointing down a street with an outstretched claw. “This way!”

Lewis snapped himself back to reality.

This wasn’t Grand Theft Auto. This wasn’t any kind of video game.

This was his real life, and his friends were in danger. He couldn’t afford to keep getting distracted. Lewis shook off the memory, and focused on Lasthope, barreling down the street as he followed after the ghost.

“Where are they?” Lewis asked, dodging between a pair of motorcyclists and accidentally crashing into a parked car. The vehicle flattened beneath his bulk and was promptly shoved away as he pushed off it. Some little voice in his head was worried, hoping nobody was in there. Another part of him, however, outright didn’t care. These puny humans were getting in his way! It served them right if they got stomped on!

“They’re moving,” Lasthope growled, flying around Lewis counterclockwise, forcing the dragon to skid to a stop in the middle of the road to change directions. Lewis was idly aware that his claws were tearing the concrete apart as though it were nothing but paper, but he had other things to worry about. Property damage was the least of them. “They’re doubling back. I think they know you’re after them!”

“Dammit,” Lewis hissed as he coiled his entire body like a spring and broke into a sprint. His claws and tails slapped the ground, shaking the earth beneath his weight as the cars veered off the road to avoid him.

As he ran, he noticed several people had their phones out and were pointing them at him. He grinned at the thought of suddenly becoming internet famous. He had always imagined how much fun it would be to become a renowned video game streamer, but he supposed becoming famous for being a giant rampaging reptile would have to suffice.

Lasthope suddenly changed directions again, and Lewis had to slam on the brakes to avoid passing him. His talons slipped and tore through the pavement, and Lewis let out a yelp of shock and pain as he fell face first right through a building. His flying eyelids slipped down at the last second, protecting his sight from debris.

He coughed and sputtered as his snout filled with dust. He blinked away a cloud of powdered brick, before opening his flying film to catch a glimpse of where he was.

His snout was buried, face first, in an all you can eat Chinese food buffet. Diners and servers stared at him with stunned silence. A line of trays was nearby, and several people with plates full of food were backing away from him nervously.

“Sorry to barge in,” Lewis stammered, shaking his head to clear away the daze. “I’ll just go—is that sesame chicken?”

Lewis sniffed the air, filling his nostrils with all the aromas the buffet had to offer. His mind struggled to sort the information, he could only recognize the vast assortment as one thing: food!

Lewis coated his lips with burning drool, as he stared at the buffet table spread out just a few feet from his snout. His stomach gurgled hungrily. Surely he had enough time for a quick bite, right?

The people started screaming, as Lewis dragged himself forward and knocked over the table. Sauce covered chicken, pork, and beef splattered to the ground, filling the air with a heady, spicy aroma. Lewis moaned in excitement, ignoring the screaming people who were scrambling to get away from him, as he licked up the chunks of food and swallowed them whole. They were already so small that he didn’t even need to bother chewing.

“LEWIS!” Lasthope roared.

“Oops,” Lewis mumbled, as he realized what he’d been doing, and remembered what he should have been doing. “Hey, uh, sorry for the mess,” Lewis quickly stammered as he shimmied himself back out through the shattered entrance. He glanced quickly at a man in a black suit with a golden name tag pinned above his heart. “The food was very good! I’ll be back for more later! Can you make me like three hundred orders of sesame chicken? Thanks!”

“LEWIS!!” Lasthope’s voice shook Lewis to his core again.

“Right, right, I’m coming, I’m coming!” Lewis called back, much to the surprise of the man in the suit. “Seriously, though. Sesame chicken. Lots of it,” he added, quickly turning back to the puny man. “I’m not joking, I will be back for it.”

Lewis yanked his head free from the ruined restaurant entrance and spotted Lasthope floating nearby. The ghost dragon shook his head in disapproval and beckoned his young ward to follow. Lewis immediately started running again, chasing after Lasthope.

“They are right ahead! Just a little farther this way!” the ghost called, urging the young dragon forward.

Lewis banked to follow Lasthope as the specter peeled around another corner. He desperately hoped that the elder knew where he was going. Lewis was thankful they’d at least put some distances between themselves and the sniper nest. There wasn’t anyone shooting tank-busting bullets at him anymore!

No sooner had he thought that did he hear a familiar siren pierce through the sounds of the chaos. Lewis swore to himself, as he sped past an intersection, only for five separate cars with red and blue glowing bulbs atop their roofs to pull out of traffic and come up behind him.

The cops had just arrived.

“LASTHOPE!” Lewis roared, as one of the cop cars sped up and rammed his hind leg. He yelped, nearly tripping as it knocked his foot forward, but he opened his wings and managed to recover his balance. “WE JUST HIT A FIVE STAR WANTED LEVEL!”

“I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!” Lasthope roared back, wheeling on his apprentice. His eyes widened for a moment as he noticed the police chasing after Lewis. “KEEP RUNNING, WE ARE ALMOST THERE!”

Lewis roared in surprise as pain suddenly exploded through him. Trying his best not to stop running, he glanced over his shoulder and saw some of the cops leaning out the windows of their vehicles to pepper him with bullets. They looked like conventional, standard-issue Glocks, not the heavy-duty anti-armor guns that Martha had threatened him with earlier in the day. Still, the shots stung as they glanced off his scales.

“WE ARE GETTING CLOSE; I CAN FEEL MY SKULL NEARBY!” Lasthope bellowed, his voice being drowned out by the popping and bangs of gunfire. He turned around to find the next path they should take when he suddenly came face to face with three heavy black vans. Men in body armor were pouring out of the vehicles and were aiming large rifles at Lewis’s direction. “LEWIS IN FRONT OF YOU!” Lasthope roared.

Lewis turned away from the cops on his tail, only to slam on the brakes at the sight of the riot cops. They leveled their weapons at the advancing dragon and barked orders at him. Lewis could only vaguely hear the echo of their words. Still, the combined noise from the chaos, as well as the echoing gunshots in his ears, drowned out everything.

“DO NOT SLOW DOWN!” Lasthope ordered, his words the only clear sound in Lewis’s head. “RAM THEM!”

Lewis didn’t hesitate to obey. Immediately, he clawed at the ground and lowered his head, charging towards the barricade horns first. A few of the cops opened fire, and Lewis felt burning hot rounds tear into his neck and arms. Sticky, hot blood dripped between his scales, and he clenched his jaw to keep from screaming in pain. If he had thought gunshots were painful before, he hadn’t realized just how wrong he was. His arms felt like they were on fire, as hot pinpricks dug into his muscle and lodged themselves into his flesh. He didn’t dare slow down, though. He couldn’t afford to.

Lewis met the barricade and tore through the wall of cops like they weren’t even there. With a furious roar, he twisted his neck around, flinging the humans away as though they weighed less than nothing. He stomped on a couple as he ran past, and felt bones crunch beneath his claws. He could hear tires screeching behind him and quickly wheeled. The cop cars stopped just before the barricade of riot soldiers.

With a growl, Lewis spewed flames into a wall between him and the police. His fire glands hadn’t had enough time to refill, and the stream he sprayed was weak and short. Still, it was enough to cut them off from him. He couldn’t waste time playing with them anymore. With a wall of flames, even meager ones, in the way, the cops would either have to find another way around or give up entirely. Snorting smoke, Lewis wheeled and kept running.

“OVER HERE!” Lasthope shouted, pointing at a street just around the corner.

Lewis focused his attention on it, just as a black, eighteen-wheeler truck pulled into the intersection.

Chapter 23

“Sir, we’ve got a problem,” a voice crackled over the radio.

Lambton blinked in surprise and reached for the walkie talkie on his hip. “What’s going on, Dayton?” He asked, frowning down at the two kids who’d been sliding up and down the length of the trailer bed. It was growing a bit stuffy inside the vehicle, and he was starting to show a thin layer of sweat on his forehead.

“According to police scanners, the dragon’s in town,” Dayton said.

Lambton felt his blood go cold. The dragon was in town?

There was only one reason why the dragon would be on the move. The old dragon slayer glanced at Becca and Jeremy with wide eyes. Somehow, the dragon knew they’d been taken. Lambton narrowed his eyes and glanced up at the skull mounted on the wall. When the dragon’s ghost was inside it, Lambton could feel it as a chilly aura around the bones. The aura was gone. The old dragon must have left to warn the young one.

“Can you get us out of here?” Lambton barked into his walkie talkie, unbuckling his seat belt and rising to his feet. The truck lurched to the side as it turned left, but he didn’t even sway. He shifted his weight slightly to compensate and remained standing.

“We’re trying, sir, but we don’t have eyes on it,” Dayton explained. “Uh oh! Never mind! Found it!”

Lambton tossed the walkie talkie aside and dropped down to the floor, in between Becca and Jeremy. Before either of them knew what was happening, he grabbed them both by the ropes binding their arms and held on tight.

There was a loud BANG, and suddenly there was a massive dent in the left wall of the vehicle. The entire wall had crumpled inwards, and the trailer started listing to the right. The metal walls of the trailer groaned loudly until finally, it toppled. Becca and Jeremy screamed beneath their gags, but Lambton held tight. As the trailer dropped, he leaped, landing on his feet with a teen under each arm.

BANG! A massive weight slammed into the trailer’s side, now directly above Lambton and his prisoners. The dragon slayer’s eyes widened as four razor-sharp claws punched right through the metal and tore along the length of the side, the metal screaming as it was shredded.

“Out!” Lambton ordered, running towards the back of the trailer. The other slayer who’d been in the truck with him at the time shook off his daze before taking Jeremy from Lambton and running alongside him.

The back door to the trailer was unlocked with a kick of the latch. Lambton clenched his teeth and rolled it open just enough that he could run out with his prisoner under his arm. As he stepped out of the vehicle, his ears were met with a monstrous roar.

Lambton looked up and met the eyes of his quarry for the very first time.

The young bronze dragon was glaring at him with fierce, infuriated eyes. He had his front claws propped up on the black trailer as if he’d been trying to dig through it for the treasures inside. As soon as he caught sight of Becca and Jeremy, though, his expression changed from unbridled anger to something different. The beast was still tense, still flexing his claws and baring his fangs, but he ceased roaring. His attention was solely on the two teens that Lambton had imprisoned.

“You’re a right pain in the arse, you know that?” Lambton said, up to the dragon, as he extracted Tokoyo’s Dagger from its sheath and pressed it against Becca’s throat. He knew that the knife wouldn’t be able to hurt the girl, but the dragon didn’t. He just needed a little bit of a threat, and he could bend the dragon to his will. “I had a whole plan. I was going to make this easy on both of us! I was going to set up a nice little place right outside town, so nobody else needed to get hurt. Then you had to go and rampage,” Lambton sighed and shook his head. “Martha’s gonna kill both of us. Or, at least she’ll try. She can’t really kill me, and I’m afraid I’m going to kill you.”

“Let them go,” Lewis growled, opening his wings in a draconic battle stance. He blocked out the light of the sun and cast the dragon slayers in a shadow. Smoke poured from his mouth, and Lambton could already see flames dancing at the back of his throat.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Lewis,” Lambton said, grinning as he said the dragon’s name. “I think it’s time we had a little chat.”

Lewis froze, his eyes wide. “How did you—”

“You can thank glasses boy over here for that,” Lambton said, nodding to his fellow slayer, who was currently holding Jeremy up. The other slayer was giving Lambton a confused expression.

Jeremy was looking down at the ground and refused to meet the dragon’s eyes. Lewis took a few deep whiffs of the air through his nose. There was that familiar scent of breakfast, as well as the scent of a five-star steak dinner.

That was definitely Becca and Jeremy.

“Jeremy, is that true? Did you… tell them about me?” Lewis asked, crouching low to be eye level with his friend.

Jeremy didn’t look up. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded his head.

Lewis took frantic, rapid breaths, rising back to his full height and glaring at Lambton. He wanted to bathe the man in dragon fire, even as Lambton continued pressing the blade of his knife into Becca’s throat.

He couldn’t fight back, not while they had his friends trapped. Lewis swallowed the flames in his throat, smothering them in an instant.

“Lasthope,” he asked, not even bothering to lower his voice, “what do I do?”

The slayer holding Jeremy frowned in confusion, but Lambton was grinning from ear to ear.

“I thought that’s how you found us,” Lambton chuckled, “that old ghost was following his skull. Fascinating.”

Lewis looked up at the spectral form of his mentor. Lasthope was staring at Lambton intently, shaking his head.

“Can you save them?” Lewis asked.

Lasthope considered that for a moment. He technically could interact with inorganic materials. He could, theoretically, grab the ropes or the weapons. Could he be fast enough, though? He wasn’t sure; he didn’t trust Lewis to forgive him if he failed.

“Not without giving them a window to strike,” Lasthope lamented. “I am sorry. My abilities are too limited to be of use here.”

Lambton waited patiently until Lewis turned his head back to the dragon slayer and slowly sat down on his haunches. Behind the dragon, the streets filled with the sound of sirens, as eight police vehicles — five squad cars, and three riot vans — rolled to a stop and began to form a roadblock.

Lewis shifted uncomfortably on his concrete seat, slowly swishing his tail back and forth. He met Becca’s eyes first, staring at her longingly, before trying to meet Jeremy’s again. Once more, his oldest friend refused to even look at him.

“Jeremy,” Lewis whimpered, “I’m not mad at you, you know?”

Jeremy blinked slowly and lifted his eyes. He still didn’t dare to meet the dragon’s gaze. He tried to speak, but his mouth was still muffled beneath his gag. The slayer holding him up turned to Lambton, and the leader nodded. Jeremy’s gag was promptly tugged out of his mouth.

“We’re not friends anymore,” Jeremy said to Lewis, his voice hoarse. “I don’t want to see you ever again. You’re not the same person I grew up with.”

Lewis’s eyes widened, and he backed up in surprise at the sudden verbal assault. “W-what!?”

“I hate you!” Jeremy shouted, writhing in his ropes. “You’re a monster! A creature that needs to be put down! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let Lambton kill you and put us all out of your misery!”

Lewis blinked a few times and shook his head.

This couldn’t be happening… Jeremy would never say these sorts of things to him!

Jeremy was his best friend! They’d grown up together! They were like brothers!

Lewis’s vision blurred, and he was worried for a second that he was going to start crying again. The look on Jeremy’s face was one of pure rage. His jaw was clenched so tight that veins in his skinny neck were beginning to bulge.

“I’m not a monster,” Lewis croaked, “I’m a dragon.”

“There is no difference,” Jeremy hissed.

Those words stung harder than even the bullets that had punched through Lewis’s scales.

“Can’t say I saw that coming,” Lambton said with a shrug, adjusting his grip on Becca.

Becca had fallen still. She wasn’t even squirming anymore. She simply stared, in wide-eyed horror, at Jeremy. On a whim, Lambton tugged her gag down her face and nodded for her to speak.

“Jeremy, how could you say something so horrible!?” Becca said, making the smaller boy jump. “Lewis came down here at immense risk to himself just to save us, and you dare to throw that back in his face? Especially after you freaking outed him!?”

“He’s a monster, Becca! He has to be put down!” Jeremy said again.

“He’s our friend, and he needs our help!”

“No, he doesn’t!” Jeremy shouted back, shaking his head violently. “Becca, have you actually looked around at all?”

She hadn’t.

Taking a deep breath, Becca tried to take in the world around her. They were in the middle of an intersection, somewhere on the edge of town. She recognized a nearby restaurant whose windows had been shattered by concrete debris. Behind Lewis, she could see over a dozen armed police officers in riot gear, with weapons pointed right at the dragon’s back. There were other cops, in standard blue uniforms, trying to direct traffic away from the intersection. However, they dared not get any closer to the dragon.

Just past them, Becca could see bright red fire trucks dousing a city block as they tried to put out a fire. A couple buildings were still alight, and a third had already collapsed into a charred pile of wood. Becca sucked in a sharp breath.

Lewis didn’t even seem to notice the destruction around him. His left back foot was on a car, the hood of which was flattened into a pancake, the tires bent completely off their axles as they tried and failed to resist the dragon’s tremendous weight. He was digging nervous furrows in the concrete with his claws, turning what had once been smooth pavement into gravel bits.

“Vigilance and observation,” Lambton said, cocking an impressed eyebrow at Jeremy. “You saw all that, despite the hectic situation. Maybe I was wrong to cancel your training, after all?”

“What!?” Becca and Lewis said, simultaneously, their attention flicking between Lambton and Jeremy.

“It’s a bit late now, though,” Lambton said, sighing and shaking his head. “The dragon’s cornered.”

“I can still fight,” Lewis growled, hopping back to his feet. Smoke once again poured from his mouth as he kicked the car out from under him, sending it flying back towards the police barricade.

“No, you can’t,” Lambton said with a shrug. “I’ve got your hoard right here,” he added, pressing his knife into Becca’s throat. “All I’ve got to do is slice.”

Becca’s breath caught in her throat, and her eyes widened. She could feel the edge of the blade pressing into her skin. She could feel the cold metal as her blood hammered within her jugular vein. It would be so easy for him to slice her open and spill it all out, and there would be nothing Lewis could do to stop it.

“W-wait, hold on,” Lewis quickly said, eyeing the blade nervously. “Let’s not be too hasty here! I’m the one you want! You can let them both go!”

“It’s not that simple, dragon,” Lambton said, shaking his head. “There is no guarantee that you won’t fly away the second I let her go.”

“Both of them,” Lewis said again. “Free them both!”

Lambton’s brow creased in surprise. “Really? You still want the traitor?”

Lewis eyed Jeremy and nodded his head slowly. “He’s my best friend.”

Jeremy’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t say anything.

“I can’t just let them go, whelp,” Lambton said, shaking his head. “How about a trade? You for them.”

Lewis swallowed. He could feel Lasthope floating nearby, the ghost’s chilly form nearly phasing right into him, but he’d remained silent up until this point. “You cannot give yourself up, Lewis. You are the last dragon. If you die, there will be none left.”

Lewis breathed in through his nostrils. “Being the last dragon is a painful existence,” he said quietly, slowly lowering himself back to his haunches. “I’m so lonely…”

“Lewis, please, you are my only hope! Think of the great destiny we have planned! Of the lifetimes you will get to live! Do not surrender yourself to them! There will be other humans that you can hoard!” Lasthope pleaded, drifting in front of Lewis’s vision.

To Lasthope’s surprise, the young dragon breathed out a quick puff of flame, just enough to evaporate his manifestation.

“What do you want me to do?” Lewis asked, turning his attention back to Lambton.

Lambton cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “Let the boy go,” he ordered his companion. Jeremy’s ropes were deftly sliced from his body, and he quickly squirmed back a few paces as Becca promptly took his place in the unnamed dragon slayer’s grip. “There’s the first one, lad,” Lambton said, nodding. “After you’re dead, she’ll go free.”

Lewis nodded slowly. “Will it hurt?” He asked, swallowing nervously.

“I should imagine so,” Lambton said, apologetically. He held his dagger between both hands and muttered a phrase that Lewis couldn’t understand. “This is Tokoyo’s Dagger,” Lambton explained, as the blade became wreathed in soft blue light. “All it takes is one strike to kill any dragon.”

“So, I won’t be in pain for long, is what you’re saying?” Lewis said, eyeing the weapon nervously. He didn’t want to die. He was scared of what would happen to him, especially now that he was a dragon. He’d never really followed any religion. His parents had only really celebrated Christmas and Easter out of a desire for tradition or an excuse to get Lewis presents. At that moment, though, Lewis found himself trying to make peace with whatever god would be happy to have him.

Was there even a god who liked dragons? He wondered. Whenever Lasthope swore, he always did so by the Ancestors. Lewis had likewise picked up the habit at some point, although he wasn't sure when. He wondered if they could even hear him. It was worth a shot if only to beg for forgiveness. Ancestors, please forgive me. I wasn’t good enough.

Lambton slowly marched over to Lewis. Dragon and slayer met each other’s gaze, and the world around them fell still. In the background, Lewis could hear Becca screaming, but he couldn’t focus on her words.

“Thank you for cooperating,” Lambton said, nodding apologetically up at Lewis. He gave the dragon’s shoulder a quick, friendly pat. “I’ll make sure your bones have a place of honor in my collection.”

“Just keep your word,” Lewis whispered and squeezed his eyes shut. “Make sure my friends are safe.”

He didn’t want to watch what happened next.

Lambton took a deep breath to steel himself and plunged Tokoyo’s Dagger into Lewis’s shoulder.

Chapter 24

Lewis’s jaw tightened, but he did not resist. He squeezed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the sweet embrace of death to take him. He felt warm blood drip down the scales of his right foreleg. He could feel the dagger buried up to its hilt in his muscle. This had to be it, right? He was totally gonna die here, just like Lambton had said.

Slowly, Lewis blinked open his eyes, fully expecting to be an incorporeal ghost, just like Lasthope. To his surprise, though, he was looking down at a very confused Lambton.

The dragon slayer was scowling at the dagger and trying to pull it out from between Lewis’s scales. It was wedged between them, and despite the slayer’s best efforts, refused to come loose.

“Is there a problem?” Lewis asked, tilting his head.

Lambton’s scowl immediately turned into complete shock as he met Lewis’s gaze. “You should be dead,” he breathed, his jaw dropping.

Lewis frowned, eyeing first the dragon slayer, then the hilt lodged in his shoulder. With a shrug, he ripped the dagger out of Lambton’s grip. It was still embedded in his flesh, and it hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before, but he didn’t think it would be enough to kill him. With a grimace, he carefully gripped the dagger between two claws and tugged it free.

The wound immediately gushed blood down his arm, but Lewis didn’t mind. The damage didn’t seem to be that bad, truth be told. It was deep and dripping like a faucet, but a quick lick was enough to stymie the flow. It was just pain, and nothing more.

Lewis stared at the knife with a frown. It was still glowing faintly blue, and the characters engraved on its surface shone with a slick layer of oily dragon blood. He couldn’t make out what it said, as the glow began to quickly die down.

“This thing was supposed to kill me?” Lewis asked, cocking an eyebrow at Lambton.

The dragon slayer nodded slowly, staring slack-jawed at the ineffective weapon.

Lewis shrugged, unimpressed, and flicked the dagger off to the side of the road. It landed on the sidewalk with a TINK and skidded away. Before anyone else had a chance to get a word in, he wrapped his claws around Lambton and picked him up off the ground.

Lambton didn’t scream, didn’t even struggle, as the bronze dragon opened his mouth and bit the man’s head clean off his shoulders. Lewis moaned in pleasure as he swallowed, before upending the slain slayer over his maw and squeezing out his blood like a juice box.

“SIR!” The slayer holding Becca shouted, staring at the flopping, lifeless body of his leader in shock.

Jeremy took advantage of the shock to tackle him, taking him and Becca right down to the concrete. Jeremy grabbed the dragon slayer by the shoulders and slammed him over and over into the pavement until his head started bleeding, and he stopped moving. Breathing heavily, Jeremy grabbed the slayer’s sword and used it to cut Becca’s ropes, being wary not to cut her in the process.

Meanwhile, Lewis was having a field day. He flopped over onto his back, suckling on Lambton’s corpse for every last drop of juice it contained. When he was finally satisfied, he tugged it out and let out a smoky belch that echoed through the intersection.

“Delicious, I can’t wait to get you home and eat you,” Lewis chuckled, rolling back onto his belly and tucking Lambton under his wing. The old man was heavier than what he was used to carrying, and it caused his balance to shift as he tried to push himself back onto his feet. “Are you guys okay?” He asked, turning his attention back to Becca and Jeremy.

Becca was slowly pushing herself back to her feet, her legs shaking. She took a deep breath before noticing the wound on Lewis’s arm. Immediately, all concerns for herself vanished, as she ran over to check the cut. “Forget us! Are you okay? This looks really bad,” she said, pushing aside a splintered scale to get a better look at the injury.

“It looks worse than it actually feels, to be honest,” Lewis lied, nuzzling her head and trying to ignore the aching wound, “but I appreciate the concern.”

Becca breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed Lewis’s snout in a hug. She rubbed up and down the length of his face, as high as she could reach, trying her best to fight back the tears. She’d never seen a magic dagger before. Still, given one of her best friends had turned into a dragon, she’d fully expected it to kill him, just as advertised.

“You should be dead right now,” came a whispered voice over Lewis’s shoulder. Lasthope was slowly reconstituting himself, staring in shock at the wound. “Tokoyo’s Dagger is the same weapon that killed me. No creature born of dragon blood could survive that blade…”

Lewis shrugged and adjusted the grip on his prey. His body felt stiff and tired, and he wanted nothing more than to march straight home and eat. His belly gurgled angrily in agreement.

“I’m gonna head home, okay, Becca?” Lewis said, pulling himself away from Becca’s touch. “Promise you’ll come to visit, okay?”

“Nothing could keep me away,” Becca grinned, flexing as if to prove her strength.

Sighing, Lewis nodded and looked up to meet Jeremy’s gaze. He’d shuffled over to the other side of the truck. “Jer?”

Jeremy froze and slowly turned to meet Lewis’s gaze. “I meant what I said,” he spat. “You’re not my friend. You’re too dangerous for anyone to be around. I’ve tried to make that clear to everyone else, but they don’t want to listen to me.”

Lewis nodded his head sadly. “I’m really sorry, Jer.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jeremy snapped, his fists tightening. “We both know you don’t actually mean it! Everything you do, the lives you take, the destruction you cause? We both know you feel nothing for it! It’s just your biology!”

“Jeremy!” Becca said, her eyes widening in shock.

“Stuff it, Becca! I don’t want to see you anymore, either! Not if you keep hanging around with him! He’ll kill you soon enough, anyway!”

“Jeremy, I would never hurt Becca,” Lewis said, shaking his head. He meant it, too. As if to prove his point, he bent down and sniffed at her hair. Her scent filled his nostrils, but he didn’t start drooling. His tongue remained slick with Lambton’s blood, and fire glands relaxed. No smoke poured between his lips or through his nostrils. “She’s too important to me. So are you. You’re my friend.”

Jeremy’s teeth clenched so hard, Lewis was worried they’d break right off. Then, to his surprise, Jeremy turned around and stomped away.

Lewis raised a claw to go after him, but Becca put a hand to his chest and shook her head. “Let him go,” she muttered, staring sadly at the dragon. “He needs some time. I’m sure he’ll come around eventually.”

Lewis shook his head and sighed. He felt an ache in his heart and remembered all the good times he’d shared with Jeremy. They’d grown up together! To suddenly be told that they weren’t friends anymore…

It hurt, more than the bullet wounds stinging beneath Lewis’s scales, more than the cut in his shoulder.

Lewis took a deep breath. “Let’s go home,” he muttered.

“Wait, before you go, Lewis,” Lasthope said, manifesting in front of the young dragon and hovering over the destroyed shell of the dragon slayer’s trailer. “Please, take my skull with you! I cannot stand the idea that it remains in the hands of these monsters any longer.”

Lewis frowned at his mentor but nodded in agreement. He quickly trotted over to the truck and peeled back the layer of metal on top. It screeched and squealed as he folded it. As the metal wall was torn away, he came face to face with a skull that felt familiar to him. Frowning, he plucked it out of the trailer and held it up with both claws.

It was larger than his own head by a decent margin, and the lower jawbone was missing. The skull still had most of its massive teeth, but there were a few that were missing or broken. Its horns were gone, shaved right down to the bone. Lewis stared into the skull’s empty eye sockets, briefly noting the large crack in the center. There was also an intricate rune carved into the surface of its snout, but he couldn’t identify what it meant.

“Alas, poor Lasthope,” Lewis said, to nobody in particular, “I knew him, Becca.”

“Now is really not the time to be misquoting Hamlet,” Becca said, shaking her head. She tapped him on the side of his leg a few times, trying to get his attention. “We, uh, forgot about an important detail.”

Lewis frowned, as he struggled to find someplace where he could store Lasthope’s skull. He ultimately settled on threading his horns through its eye holes and letting the massive thing rest on his neck like a cowl. Humming happily to himself, he turned around.

And came face to face with a wall of cops.

They had their rifles pointed right at him. Becca stood between them, her arms outstretched as if to shield him with her body. Lewis’s eyes widened as he saw a familiar face step out from between the riot cops, with a megaphone in hand.

“You couldn’t even last a day without causing trouble?” Senior Detective Martha Smith asked, shaking her head in disapproval. She was still wearing the exact same suit that she’d had on when confronting Lewis earlier that morning. “It hasn’t even been 24 hours, and you’ve broken the terms of our agreement.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t just stand by and let the dragon slayers hurt my friends! Lambton and his crew were going to hurt them to draw me out.” Lewis said, lowering his head in a gesture of submission. “I want to go back to my cave now. I promise I’ll be a well-behaved dragon from now on. This won’t happen again, I swear!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s too late for that. You’ve proven that we can’t trust you to follow orders on your own,” Martha said, her voice echoing through the megaphone. “Men, ready your weapons.”

“NO!” Becca shouted, backing up until she was right next to Lewis’s head. “I WON’T LET YOU HURT HIM!”

Martha scrunched up her face and sighed in exasperation. “Somebody get her out of the way, please?”

Immediately, two riot cops ran forward. Instinctively, Lewis bared his teeth and put a protective claw in front of Becca. A deep, menacing growl emanated from his chest, and the riot cops froze in their place.

“Touch her and lose a hand,” Lewis threatened, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

Martha shook her head and wiped the sweat from her brow on the sleeve of her jacket. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! We can’t have you going around kidnapping people you like and threatening people you don’t! That’s not even touching on the amount of property damage you’ve caused today alone!”

“He didn’t kidnap me!” Becca said, crossing her arms and sneering at the cop.

“Sure, he didn’t.”

“It’s true! He’s a good dragon!” Becca insisted.

“I mean, I really wouldn’t know, I’ve never actually met another of my own kind,” Lewis muttered, looking away sheepishly. “I’m not even sure Lasthope counts, since he’s technically a ghost, not really a dragon.”

“I take offense to this,” Lasthope hissed in Lewis’s ears.

Martha didn’t find the joke so funny. “Men, take aim!”

The weapons all clicked loudly, as a dozen heavy rifles leveled their muzzles in Lewis’s direction. Becca screamed at them, trying to get them to stand down, but Lewis wasn’t paying attention anymore. He stared right into Martha’s face and knew she had every intention of killing him.

He’d escaped one dragon slayer, only to fall right into the trap of another.

“I’m gonna die here,” he whispered, quiet enough that not even Becca could hear him. “I’m gonna die here, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“No, but maybe there is something that I can do,” whispered Lasthope.

Lewis blinked as the spectral dragon floated overhead. The cops were just a little ways outside the range of his haunt. He watched as Lasthope struggled to reach for them and shuffled forward a few more feet to give him some extra coverage. The ghost nodded appreciatively over his shoulder at Lewis and then swiped at a soldier with one claw.

To Lewis, it appeared as though the ghost had grabbed the gun. To any other onlooker, it seemed like it was levitating of its own free will. The riot cop shouted in shock as his gun floated into the air and then was tossed aside. The other armored people staggered at the sight, momentarily breaking eye contact with Lewis as they turned to see what was happening.

Another cop screamed in horror as his gun was violently knocked away, ripped from his hands by an unseen force. Lasthope roared as he twisted through the air, knocking a handful of weapons away with his tail.

Martha whirled in bewilderment as her soldiers and their weapons were tossed around by an invisible force. With a slack jaw, she turned to stare at Lewis, just in time to see the bronze dragon lean down and whisper something to the girl.

“Come see me soon,” he said, giving her a quick nuzzle.

Then he was off at a run. The cops, disoriented by the unseen attacker, screamed in terror as the dragon stomped through their numbers. Lewis twisted on his claws as he neared their barricade, knocking half of the still armed cops aside with his tail before he kept running. Lasthope grinned, grabbing the nearest riot van and shoving it as hard as he could. The vehicle screeched as it crashed into its fellows, all three vans toppling onto their side like dominos.

Lewis risked a glance over his shoulder as he ran and thought he saw Martha dragging some of her men to their feet while glowering after him menacingly.

The whole ordeal couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds and felt like a blur to Becca. She stared at the carnage in shock. There was one cop on the ground, who’d had the misfortune of getting stepped on. The others were slowly rising back to their feet as Martha screamed orders and shouted at anyone who moved. Lewis was disappearing down the road, vanishing as he turned around a corner to head back towards his mountain home.

Becca allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. Lewis had gotten away. He’d still be safe.

One look at Martha’s furious gaze told Becca that she was anything but.

Chapter 25

“What was that!?” Martha screamed, storming over to Becca with a frantic look on her face. “How—!? What—!?”

“I think that was his Ghost Dad,” Becca said with a weak smile.

Martha’s anger was momentarily replaced with confusion before she did a double-take. “I’m placing you under arrest,” she growled, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of her back pocket.

“Under what charges?” Becca asked, glowering at the detective. Without her platform boots increasing her height, they were about the same size.

“Obstruction of justice, assaulting a police officer, aiding and abetting a criminal,” Martha said, listing off charges as she grabbed Becca by the wrist and slapped it in the cuff. “You have the right to remain silent.”

Becca opened her mouth to protest but abruptly closed it again as Martha clapped irons around her other wrist. She winced at the tightness of the bindings, as the fuming cop practically dragged her towards the barricade.

“You’re going to the station, and you’re going to tell me exactly how to get this thing out of my town,” Martha growled, pulling Becca in close so that only the girl could hear her. “If you don’t, you can kiss your future goodbye. I’m positive I can get you tried as an adult, given all the trouble you’ve put me through.”

Becca sneered but didn’t say anything. The collection of riot cops were hard at work, trying to right their fallen vehicles. Simultaneously, the conventional officers, who had been directing traffic away, continued to do their job. Martha marched right up to one officer in blue and shoved Becca towards her.

“Make sure this one doesn’t do anything stupid,” she growled. “I want her in a questioning room by the time I get back to the precinct.”

The cop nodded before shoving Becca towards one of the squad cars. Becca didn’t bother resisting. She didn’t doubt that they could get these charges to stick, but what would they do when Lewis came looking for her? Martha clearly hadn’t learned that lesson from Lambton.

Keeping an angry dragon away from his friends wasn’t the best idea.

Becca was considering who she would call with her one phone call when a bright white van pulled to a stop just outside the police barricade. Despite the distance and smokey haze, Becca could clearly make out the words written on the side.

RE-ELECT MAYOR WEATHERBY.

Becca frowned as the driver’s side door to the van opened, and a woman in her mid-sixties stepped out. She’d seen her before once or twice, at school assemblies, but had never personally met her. She was dressed in a white blouse and black dress pants and stalked across the pavement in flat dress shoes. She surveyed the damage with a keen eye, before pausing in front of Becca and staring up at her. Compared to Becca, Mayor Grace Weatherby was tiny.

“Are you Rebecca Moran?” She asked, in a squeaky, cheerful voice. She gave Becca another quick once over, pausing when she noticed the handcuffs.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said quietly.

“Oh, dear, who put you in those?”

Becca cocked her head down the road, where Martha was shouting further orders at her men. Some of the riot cops were clapping the remaining dragon slayers into cuffs, while hastily arriving paramedics were carting away the one that Jeremy had injured. The cop Lewis had stomped on was already gone.

The little woman sighed loudly, before putting a gentle hand on the officer that was holding Becca. “I’ll take it from here, sweety. Why don’t you go help the others direct traffic, hmm?”

The cop blinked a few times at the small woman, before nodding curtly and walking off.

“Terribly sorry about this, dear,” Mayor Weatherby said, shaking her head and flashing Becca a warm, almost grandmotherly smile. “Let’s see if we can’t get you out of those cuffs. Come along,” she added, waving for Becca to follow.

Becca followed close behind, blinking in confusion and not daring to speak more than a few syllables before Mayor Weatherby stopped right behind Martha and cleared her throat.

Martha didn’t even hear her. She was too busy discussing matters with her officers. When Weatherby cleared her throat a second time, there was a dangerous chill in it. Becca could swear she felt the world grow colder at the sound.

Martha slowly turned around and came face to face with the tiny woman. “Madam Mayor,” she said, nodding first to Weatherby and then glowering at Becca.

“If you would be so kind as to release this nice girl,” Weatherby said, clasping her hands. “I believe there are things we need to discuss.”

Martha swallowed nervously but didn’t dare disobey. Under Weatherby’s watchful eye, she uncuffed Becca’s wrists and shoved the cuffs back into her back pocket.

Becca gasped as her wrists came free, and rubbed at them, wincing in pain.

“Better, dear?” Weatherby asked, giving Becca a deceptively warm smile.

“Yeah, thanks,” she mumbled, not daring to meet the mayor’s gaze.

“Good, good,” the mayor said, before turning to Martha again. “Now, as for you… Care to explain what happened here? I thought we agreed that we would try to keep the dragon in his cave, so why was it rampaging through town?”

Becca did a double-take, surprised by how casually the mayor was able to talk about it.

Martha pursed her lips for a moment, carefully considering her words before she spoke. “It was John Lambton and his men,” she explained. “He kidnapped two children, the dragon’s friends, and used them as bait to lure the dragon into a trap.”

Becca frowned. How did Martha know that?

“Is this true, dear?” Weatherby asked, turning to Becca and putting a reassuring hand on the younger girl’s arm. “Did that man kidnap you?”

“Yes,” Becca said slowly, not looking away from Martha.

“And Martha, dear, was this Lambton character the associate you mentioned before?” Weatherby asked, turning back to the detective again.

“Yes, ma’am,” Martha said. Becca noticed, for the first time, that she was standing at attention.

“This doesn’t look good, I’m afraid,” Weatherby tutted, shaking her head. “On one hand, the dragon has done the one thing we didn’t want it to do. On the other, it seems we are partially to blame for that.”

“Ma’am?” Martha asked, scrunching her face in confusion.

“Evidently, we have provoked the beast into attacking us,” Weatherby said, shaking her head. “That doesn’t look good at all.”

“Ma’am, please, we should just kill the beast and be done with it!” Martha said, her jaw tightening. “We have weapons that it clearly fears. Let’s just rid ourselves of the creature.”

“No!” Becca blurted, startling both Weatherby and Martha. She quickly regained her composure, clearing her throat and shaking her head. “Madam Mayor, you don’t have to kill the dragon. He’s actually really nice, once you get to know him, he’s just scared and lonely.”

“That thing is a monster who eats humans! Did you not see what he did to Lambton!?” Martha snapped at Becca. “He bit the man’s head off and drank him like a juice box! We cannot take the risk! He must be eliminated.”

“You, be quiet,” Weatherby said, pointing a harsh finger at Martha, before slowly turning back to Becca. “If we offer him a deal, do you think he’ll cooperate?”

Becca nodded. “If you can cater to some of his needs, I really think he’ll be open to doing whatever you want,” she explained.

Mayor Weatherby tapped her chin in thought, before turning back to Martha. “What was the deal you originally offered him?”

“He gets to live if he doesn’t come back into town.”

Weatherby nodded slowly. “Well, we already broke the terms of that agreement, seeing as how he passed me on my way here. Clearly, he’s still alive. Call off your snipers and choose three of your best men. I would like an escort when I go up there myself.”

Martha’s eyes widened in horror, and her stance momentarily faltered. “Madam Mayor, please, it’s too dangerous for you to—”

“Martha,” Weatherby said dangerously. “I don’t want to hear another complaint out of you, am I understood?”

Martha abruptly shut her mouth.

“It’s become increasingly evident that you cannot be trusted to handle this issue diplomatically. As such, the duty must fall to me, as mayor of this fine town,” Weatherby explained, before slowly turning to Becca. “My dear, will you accompany us up to the dragon’s lair and serve as a liaison between us?”

Becca’s eyes widened in surprise, and her jaw dropped open.

“Naturally, the beast seems to favor you. It would benefit all parties if you were to serve as a bridge between us. You can even think of this as a special job for your mayor!”

Becca shut her mouth. For a moment, she considered asking if Weatherby would pay her for the special job, but she pushed the thought from her mind. This was her chance to make sure Lewis was safe. If she could help establish peace between him and the town, they wouldn’t have to worry about him killing anyone.

“Ma’am, I must protest against this,” Martha said quickly. “You’re talking about negotiating with a serial killer!”

“No, I’m talking about negotiating with an animal. A remarkably intelligent, talking animal, but an animal nonetheless,” Weatherby said. “Again, Martha dear, you’ve proven incapable of handling this issue. You are coming along as an escort, nothing more.”

Martha looked like she was about to protest further, but something in the mayor’s gaze must have shut her up. One second, she was scowling, and her mouth was open; the next, it was closed, and she’d turned away. She whipped a cell phone out of her pocket with such speed that Becca was scared she’d throw it aside.

Becca was about to say something else when Weatherby turned to her and smiled brightly again. “You, dear, can ride with me. Come along.”

Chapter 26

Lewis tossed Lasthope’s skull aside as he collapsed in front of the mouth of his cave. His heart was hammering hard in his chest, and his lungs were burning furiously from the effort of running. His right foreleg screamed in protest at having run for so long. Stupid stab wound.

Lambton’s body was still warm against his side and likely would stay that way until Lewis finally opened his wings again. He wanted nothing more than to dig into his meal with gusto, but he could scarcely bring himself to move a muscle.

His arms and legs were sore from running. He could feel the blood pumping through them as they twitched angrily. Breathing hurt, as his bullet-riddled throat swelled with air. He didn’t think any damage was permanent, but for now, it hurt a lot.

“We did it,” Lewis wheezed, rolling over onto his side and looking up at the lazily floating form of Lasthope. “We saved everyone, and we got out alive. We really did it…”

“Yes, we really did,” Lasthope breathed, panting just as much as the young dragon, despite not needing air. “To be honest, Lewis, I fully expected at least one of your friends to die. I consider it a miracle that we all survived.”

Lewis laughed, but then winced in pain. He put a claw to his neck, wincing as it came away sticky with his blood. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but his bronze scales were still stained red. He wanted to take a bath, but his aching limbs demanded he sleep for a thousand years.

He wanted to obey them, too. He wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and pass out. Not even the pang of hunger in his belly could convince him to do otherwise.

Before he could pick himself up off the ground, though, he heard the telltale sound of tires on the trail. Lewis groaned audibly, slowly lifting himself off the mountainside and shuffling to face the path. It figured that he wouldn’t be out of the oven just yet. The cops knew where he lived, of course they’d send somebody up to his cave to finish the job.

It came as a surprise to Lewis when, instead of a squad of cop cars rolling up the mountain, it was a white van with words painted on the side. It pulled to a stop just at the edge of the foothills as a riot van pulled up next to it.

“Who is Mayor Weatherby?” Lasthope asked, reading off the van.

Lewis was about to answer when the door to the van was thrown open, and three women stepped out. The first was Martha, a scowl still firmly painted on her face. The second was a tiny, older woman that Lewis thought he recognized, although he couldn’t pin from where.

The third, with the biggest smile on her face, was Becca.

Lewis’s heart fluttered happily as she bolted up the mountain and wrapped his snout in a hug. He wanted to shower her in affection, but he was just satisfied with being close to her again. He didn’t even flinch as three cops in heavy riot gear stepped out of the other van and leveled rifles in his direction.

The smaller woman, and the other people with her, stopped about twenty feet away from Lewis, watching him cautiously. She cleared her throat, just loud enough that Becca could hear her.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Becca said, pulling away from Lewis. “This is Mayor Grace Weatherby,” she said, gesturing at the smaller woman.

“The mayor?” Lewis balked, his eyes wide. “Should I bow? I feel like I should bow.”

“Bowing isn’t necessary,” Mayor Weatherby said, raising a hand before the dragon had a chance to show a display of reverence.

“She’s here to talk to you,” Becca explained. “About… well, everything.”

Lewis swallowed nervously. “Are they going to kill me?” He whispered, dropping into a submissive pose behind Becca.

“That depends on how you answer a few of my questions, dragon,” Weatherby said, calmly. “Can we talk amicably?”

Lewis swallowed nervously. He could feel Lasthope drifting nearby and wanted to ask if he’d be able to rip away the guns again. Something told him that the old ghost was too exhausted and would need a lot more time to recover his strength. If this came down to a fight again, he’d be on his own.

He didn’t get the sense that Mayor Weatherby wanted to fight, though. So far as he could tell, she was sincere. Martha was glowering menacingly, and her cops had their weapons trained on him, but there were only three of them this time. She’d left most of her army behind.

They weren’t there as a threat. They were there as protection.

“I think we can,” Lewis said, rising slightly, but still staying eye level with Becca.

“Do you have a name, dear? It’s getting quite cumbersome to call you dragon or creature all the time,” Weatherby asked, smiling warmly.

“Uuuuuuh, you can call me Lazyscales,” Lewis said. He silently wished he’d chosen a more dignified name, but it was the only one he could think of on such short notice.

“Lazyscales, excellent. Now, my dear boy — you are a boy, right?” Weatherby asked.

Lewis shook a back leg and shrugged. “Pretty sure? Four horns means male, last I checked,” he added, tapping one of his horns in demonstration.

“My dear boy,” Weatherby continued, clasping her hands. “You have caused quite a commotion in my little town. It’s becoming quite the problem.”

Lewis’s ears drooped, and he looked away sheepishly. “So you are here to kill me,” he mumbled, shuffling on his front claws.

“Good heavens, no,” Weatherby chuckled. “I think we can come to an arrangement.”

Lewis looked up in surprise. “Wait, what?”

“It’s becoming increasingly evident to most of us,” Weatherby said, shooting a glare at Martha over her shoulder, “that you are not responding positively to violence. We have tried to encourage you to stay up here and away from the town through threats of personal harm. This has proven to be ineffective, especially when your friends are concerned,” she continued, nodding towards Becca.

“I… want to keep them safe,” Lewis managed to say, putting a protective claw in front of Becca. “They’re precious to me.”

Weatherby nodded in understanding. “That’s how I feel about the whole town. Every single life down there is precious to me. I want to keep all my citizens safe. Your existence has unfortunately jeopardized that mission.”

Mayor Weatherby began pacing back and forth, clasping her hands in front of her as she gave the dragon a calm look. “I do, however, believe that we can come to a peaceful conclusion to this conflict. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were only responding to a provocation by humans when you entered the town, correct?”

Lewis nodded. “They kidnapped my friends to get to me.”

“We really cannot blame you for retaliating in kind, can we? You’re just an animal. Near-human intellect and the ability to speak does not change the fact that you are a beast, a slave to your own instincts.”

Lewis was about to protest the mayor’s words when Becca put a hand to his chest to silence him. He closed his mouth and swallowed, but ultimately said nothing.

“How dare she,” Lasthope growled, floating over to the mayor. “Had I but the claws to rip this pitiful woman in half…”

Lewis barely stopped himself from telling the old ghost off.

“I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, Lazyscales,” Weatherby continued. “The way I see it, the town needs funds to repair the damage you caused, and we currently have no way to get that. Likewise, I’ve heard that you have some needs to be met and are currently unable to do so. First things first: what would it take to get you to behave? What do you need that we can provide?”

Lewis opened his mouth to answer, but his gut responded for him. His belly unleashed a furious, painful gurgle, and he dropped to his stomach in an attempt to silence it.

“Food,” he finally said. “Give me food, and I’ll cooperate.”

Mayor Weatherby smiled. “Excellent! I think we can work with that,” she said, clapping her hands. “How much food do you need?”

Lewis used his combined draconic senses of weight and time to do some math before coming up with a number that felt right. “About 400 pounds of meat every 100 hours,” he said. That was probably more than he really needed, but he’d been starving for so long that the thought of an easy meal was already making him drool. “Preferably bloody meat. Blood is super important to my diet. It helps promote healthy scale growth. Given somebody shot me with scale melting bullets,” he quickly added, glaring daggers at Martha, “I could use all the blood I can get.”

“That sounds perfectly reasonable!” Grace beamed, clapping her hands again. “Very well, in exchange for making sure you’re properly fed, you’re going to help recoup the funds needed to repair the town.”

Lewis swallowed nervously. “Meaning?”

“I’m thinking of a zoo exhibit. I’m sure some scientists would love a chance to study you up close, not to mention tourists who would pay good money for a chance to visit your habitat.”

“Madam Mayor, I must protest!” Martha blurted, taking a step forward. “We can’t possibly trust this creature to keep his word, not after he rampaged through town after being explicitly told not to!”

To Lewis’s surprise, Weatherby wheeled on Martha and glared up at her. “Since you don’t trust him, you can be the one responsible for keeping an eye on him. Congratulations, Martha. You’re Lazyscales’s handler.”

Martha’s eyes widened, and her jaw hung open. “M-Ma’am I—”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses, Martha dear,” Weatherby said, turning back to the dragon. “Although she does raise a good point. No offense, dear, it’s one thing to enter into a deal with you, but another to say that we trust you.”

“I promise to behave, I’m a good dragon,” Lewis insisted.

Weatherby shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s just not enough. You have to realize how dangerous you are, correct?”

Lewis made a face and shrugged. Truth be told, it wasn’t until he rampaged through town to save his friends that he got a sense of just how dangerous he could really be. He’d spent most of his time since becoming a dragon out in the wild. It was hard to compare his destructive potential against the human world if he was never a part of it.

“We cannot leave you with free reign. We need to keep you here, on your mountain,” the mayor explained. “To that end, I propose a shock collar.”

Lewis’s eyes widened, and he shuffled back a few steps, lowering his head in a further sign of submission. “That’s too much, isn’t it? I promise to be a good dragon—”

“If you plan to behave, you have nothing to fear,” Weatherby said, her smile warm, deep, and treacherous. “I’m thinking of an invisible fence along the base of your mountain, with a few extra controls that can activate your collar on demand. That should be enough, no?”

Lewis whimpered quietly. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he refused.

“Now then, sweety, do we have a deal? We’ll keep you fed, and in exchange, you won’t hurt our people anymore, and you’ll help recoup funds?”

Lewis swallowed and looked from the fuming Martha to the beaming Weatherby. “I don’t have any other option, do I?” he mumbled, shuffling further backward nervously.

“I could kill you here and now,” Martha said, glaring at him.

Becca put another reassuring hand on Lewis’s chest, drawing his attention back to her. “I know it’s not ideal, but this is the best outcome we could hope for,” she said up to him, being careful not to run her fingers over any of the bullet wounds on his chest. “Take the deal.”

“I dislike it,” Lasthope admitted, floating down to be next to Lewis, “but I cannot currently think of a better outcome. Your wings are still too weak to carry you away. We could leave on foot, but it could be weeks before we find another home suitably livable for a young dragon. Even then, you would still be abysmal at hunting. Take what you can get for now, and when you are stronger, and better trained, we shall abandon this place.”

Lewis let out a long drawn-out sigh before lifting his head and meeting Weatherby’s gaze. “Can I at least eat Lambton? One last human before swearing off them?”

Martha wanted to scream no, but Weatherby beat her to it. “That seems reasonable to me,” Weatherby said, “seeing as how he was the one who provoked you into attacking the town.”

Lewis sighed and adjusted his grip on Lambton’s body. It was starting to grow cold. He wanted to eat it while it was still fresh. “Then you have a deal.”

Epilogue

Jeremy stared at the knife on his desk, running his fingers over the expertly carved Japanese letters in fascination. Despite looking ancient, and the blade being as dull as it possibly could, it was in remarkably good condition. The whalebone handle felt perfect in his grip, while the short, straight blade gleamed in the light of his lamp.

In the fuss between Lewis and the cops, nobody had seen him snatch Tokoyo’s Dagger off the sidewalk where it had been cast aside. He was currently in the process of cleaning the blade, using a soft cloth that Brandon typically used to wipe down tractor parts with oil. As the shiny dragon blood came away, the steel blade gleamed.

Jeremy was suddenly broken from his reverie by a thunderous knock on the front door. He leaped out of his desk chair, knocking it to the ground as he stumbled. Both his mother and brother were out running errands, and Jeremy was home alone. Who would be visiting at a time like this?

Frowning, Jeremy ran down the creaky old wooden steps of their farmhouse. The staircase was decorated with photos from their family’s past. One picture, in particular, caught his eye: Jeremy, Brandon, and a big burly man, sitting on a tractor and smiling for the photo.

He wondered what his dad would think if he’d seen what Jeremy had done that day?

Louder knocking on the door drew Jeremy’s attention again. “COMING!” he shouted, running down the rest of the steps and leaping when he was close to the ground floor. He stumbled the last few steps and tugged open the old wooden front door.

He was met face to face with an old woman that he didn’t recognize. She had short, curly white hair, a crooked nose, and a front tooth that stuck out from between her lips. Her face was heavily wrinkled, and she was dressed in a black dress that covered her feet. She stood with a slight hunch, that put her just above a bit taller than Jeremy. Her eyes were yellow, and Jeremy got a sensation that he shouldn’t look into them for too long.

“It’s about time you answered the door,” the old lady barked, shoving her way past Jeremy to enter the abode. She had a strange accent that Jeremy couldn’t place. It was something vaguely Slavic. Ukrainian, maybe? “Honestly, keeping an old woman waiting out in the cold? The nerve of kids your age!”

Jeremy blinked in surprise and held his arm out the door. “It’s, like, 75 degrees,” he said, frowning at the woman, “and you can’t just barge in like that!”

The old woman scoffed and promptly ignored Jeremy. Before he’d even shut the door again, she was off, shuffling about the house. She paused in front of every kitchen cupboard to throw them open, quickly scan their contents, only to scoff again and slam them shut.

“Hey! Cut that out! I’ll call the cops!”

“Bah, do you think I’m scared of cops? Heeheeheehee, that’s rich,” the old woman said with a cackle. “Where’s the dagger?”

Jeremy froze as ice flooded into his veins. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb, I know you have Tokoyo’s Dagger. I can feel it nearby!” The old woman barked, holding out a hand. “Give it to me!”

Jeremy stared at the old woman’s gnarled fingers and swallowed nervously.

“Come on, boy, I haven’t got all day!” The old woman growled, snapping her fingers. “Dagger! Now!”

“Please leave,” Jeremy said, backing up towards the stairs.

The old woman’s eyes flicked to the staircase, and again she shoved him out of the way. She squeaked as she bounced up the steps, before stopping at the landing and throwing open the first door she found.

“Hey! Get out of there! That’s my dad’s room!” Jeremy shouted, running up the stairs.

The old woman had already moved on, throwing open the door to Brandon’s room and scanning it. Jeremy swore under his breath as he slammed the door to his father’s old room without even looking in it. There were too many memories there. He didn’t want to relive them, not after what had happened with Lewis.

The old woman growled in frustration as she moved on down the hall, pausing in front of Jeremy’s room. He’d made the mistake of leaving the door open, and she grinned as she spotted the dagger resting on Jeremy’s desk.

“There you are, my pretty,” the old woman cooed, diving for the dagger and gently plucking it up between her gnarled fingers. She whispered sweet nothings to the weapon, much to Jeremy’s confusion.

“Give that back, it’s mine!”

“Hardly! I’m the one who loaned it to Lambton,” the old woman scoffed.

Jeremy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Who are you?” He asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“Did Lambton never tell you of his benefactor?” The old woman’s lips stretched into a grin, and she let out a long, high pitched cackle. “Did he tell you nothing?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Nothing at all.”

The old woman scoffed and shook her head. “You may call me the Crone,” she said.

“The Crone? Is that a name or a title?”

“Does it matter?”

Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, and abruptly closed it again. His mind briefly flashed to Doctor Who, and how the titular character always referred to himself as the Doctor. He wondered if it was something similar to that. He blinked a few times before daring to meet the old woman’s gaze for just a second.

The Crone cackled some more, gently running her fingers up and down the length of the blade. “I’m the one who gave Lambton Tokoyo’s Dagger. But my sweetness, my precious dagger, for some reason, didn’t work on that whelp. I wonder why?” She kissed the blade, lovingly, before gently setting it down on the table. “It should kill any dragon. That is what I enchanted it to do. And yet, this one survived…”

Jeremy’s fists tightened. “He should be dead,” he growled.

“I agree,” the Crone said. “I don’t want to move forward with my plans while dragons yet exist. This is unacceptable.” The Crone gently touched the tip of the dagger’s blade, as though planting a kiss on it with her fingers, and met Jeremy’s gaze. “How would you like a job, boy?”

“A little to the left,” Lasthope said, as Lewis shifted the position of the massive dragon skull around some more. “That is the right, Lewis, I said the left. Lewis! Lewis, to the left!!”

Lewis groaned as he dragged the skull over to a corner near the back of the cave and left it there.

“Lewis, what are you doing? That is a terrible spot!” Lasthope protested.

“Look, we’re not decorating the cave, okay? We’re just finding somewhere to store your skull. This is the best place,” Lewis added, waving a hand at the corner. “It’s out of the way, but still present enough that I won’t forget about it.”

“I do not want my bones to be out of the way,” Lasthope growled. “They should be stationed in a place of honor for all to see!”

Lewis rolled his eyes and reached behind his ear for the gold ring. He gave it a quick, loving lick, before carefully threading the band around the tip of one of the skull’s remaining fangs. Thanks to the addition of his saliva, the ring was effortlessly able to stick to the tooth.

“Does that make it better?” Lewis asked, grinning at the ghost. “Now, you have some treasure all your own!”

Lasthope glared at Lewis. “No, it is not better! Find a better spot for my skull, please,” he demanded, as the young dragon turned his back on the skull and snorted smoke.

“I’m not spending an hour moving your stupid skull around! My dinner’s cold!” Lewis grumbled, plucking Lambton’s leftover body out from under his wing and heating up an eating area.

Mayor Weatherby had left a little while earlier to make further arrangements for her new deal with the dragon of the Barrington Mountains. She wanted to have a whole brand ready to go, along with exhibits set up all through his habitat. Lewis could already tell that he’d come to regret making any kind of deal with Weatherby.

She had, however, left Becca and Martha behind. Becca could go whenever she wanted, and since Lewis favored her, the mayor and the cop couldn’t think of a good reason to send her away. Martha, however, needed to grow accustomed to her new role as his handler.

That meant she had to get used to the sight of him eating his meals, bloody and raw.

She was just outside his cave, observing him. With practiced talons, Lewis peeled off Lambton’s clothes and gear, tossing them aside to be burned up later. He met the cop’s eyes, as he lifted Lambton up to his mouth and bit off a foot.

Martha gagged and looked away, but didn’t say anything else.

Lambton wasn’t the best tasting human. In comparison to others he’d had the pleasure of eating, the old dragon slayer tasted like, and had the texture of shoe leather. His muscles were thin, and there was barely a hint of fat to soften the chewiness.

“That’s disgusting,” Martha commented, coughing as she struggled to keep down her vomit. “For a creature that’s near a human in intelligence, I don’t understand how you can eat a person like they were nothing!”

Lewis shrugged. “He’s not really a person anymore. He’s just meat. I eat meat. That’s how I see it, anyways. You’re human, so I don’t expect you to get it.”

“Understatement of the year,” Martha said, shaking her head and turning to Becca. She’d uncuffed the girl a little bit earlier, but she hadn’t said a whole lot since they’d returned to the cave. “You’re okay being around him, knowing he eats people?”

Becca shrugged. “It’s in his nature. I’ve sort of given up on the idea that he won’t eat people if given a chance.”

“Besides, we’ve already agreed that this was my last chance,” Lewis said, his mouth full of Lambton’s calf muscle. “It was a kill or be killed situation. I killed Lambton, so I get to eat him. Seems fair?”

Martha shook her head. “I will never see a situation where it’s okay for you to eat another person.”

Lewis shrugged. “To be fair, I’m not too thrilled by it, either.” When Martha frowned at him, he swallowed the food in his mouth and continued. “The problem with humans is that you guys are too small to be substantial meals. If I eat a human, I’m hungry again after about a day. A larger animal, like a cow or a pig, would be a lot better. Those things are big enough that they can tide me over for a few days.”

“400 pounds doesn’t seem like a lot more,” Martha paused to shudder, “meat than the average person,” she finished, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Dragon digestion is weird,” Lewis admitted with a shrug, swallowing some more of Lambton’s flesh. “The more food I consume, the more efficient it gets, essentially. A little bit of food, like a handful of rabbits, will get burned through in about an hour. A 200-pound person could last me a day or two, depending on exertion. That’s just my experience anyway.”

“What sort of prey do you have up here?” Martha asked, trying to change the subject. “Anything I should know about?”

Lewis sighed and shook his head. “The best we got is pronghorns, maybe goats if I’m lucky. Goats are sometimes meaty enough, but pronghorns are too slight. Stupid little mountain antelopes.”

Martha rubbed the back of her head and scrunched up her face in thought. “I’m beginning to regret this deal,” she mumbled. “Okay, so, to cover all the basics, to keep you up here, we need to make sure you’re stimulated, visited, and fed.”

“Stimulated?” Lewis said, biting into Lambton’s leg bone and sucking out the buttery sweet marrow.

“You need to be kept busy,” Martha reiterated. “What sort of toys do young dragons typically play with?”

“Young dragons should be busy learning vital survival skills,” Lasthope said.

“Video games and movies,” Lewis said, promptly ignoring his mentor’s words. “It would be really cool if we could set up some internet up here! I’d love to be able to go online, maybe stream some games! I could probably get super famous as the first, and only, dragon game streamer! I think that would be really cool! Oh, and maybe some books? Paper ones, I mean. My Ghost Dad gets bored easily.”

“You’re joking,” Martha and Lasthope said at the exact same time.

“Wait, what do you mean, Ghost Dad!?” Martha added, doing a double-take.

“Please don’t humor him on that,” Becca said, rubbing her eyes. “We went through the trouble of bringing video games up here for him before. I’m pretty sure he smashed it all after trying to drive us away,” she quickly added, narrowing her eyes at Lewis.

Lewis’s face turned green, and he got to work on Lambton’s arm to avoid commenting.

“For once, you give sound advice,” Martha said, nodding appreciatively at Becca before narrowing her eyes at the dragon. “No video games. Try again.”

Lewis rolled his eyes and sighed. “If you can just make sure the mountain is stocked with things for me to hunt, that’ll probably be enough, I guess. I wasn’t kidding about the books, though. My Ghost Dad hoarded knowledge when he was alive, and I think it would benefit him to get some more current things to read.”

“I vehemently disagree,” Lasthope growled, drifting into the cave mouth and batting lazily at Martha’s hair with his claws.

“Can we circle back to this Ghost Dad thing?” Martha asked, waving her hands through her hair to steady it, as though it was being rustled by the wind. “What is it?”

“Basically, I’m haunted by the spirit of the last elder dragon. He’s not actually my father, but he has been mentoring me. Hence, the term Ghost Dad,” Lewis explained. “He’s actually floating over your shoulder right now.”

Martha jumped, expecting to see a ghost, and blinked when she saw nothing. Lasthope rolled his eyes and waved at her all the same.

“You’re joking,” she said again, glaring at Lewis. “You’re pulling my leg!”

“Again, I’m a fire breathing dragon, but it’s always the ghost that people seem to have an issue with,” Lewis shrugged.

“Maybe he’ll make himself known if you ask nicely?” Becca suggested.

“I am not wasting time proving that I exist to every human who does not believe in me!” Lasthope hissed.

“Oh, don’t bother, Ghost Dad is getting cranky,” Lewis laughed, before clawing open Lambton’s belly and slurping out his intestine like a noodle.

Martha shook her head in bewilderment. “I can’t believe this. All this time, I thought you were a monster when you’re really just an overgrown child!”

“I could tell you stories,” Lasthope muttered, knowing full well that Martha couldn’t hear him.

Lewis shrugged his shoulders as he slurped up Lambton’s bicep like a bloody noodle. “I am 15. Dragons don’t reach full adulthood until their late 60s.”

Martha pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did I just get tricked into babysitting a dragon for 50 freaking years!?”

Becca grinned and clapped Martha on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Lazyscales club!”

Like this book? Want to know what happens next?

Find out in book three of the Lazy Scales series: Dull Teeth

Available now on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LCBWZ36

Free Preview available now at:

https://BookHip.com/MVZHZR