Dragon 1 Chapter 9 (Patreon)

I strolled into Bumps in the Night. The bar wasn’t quite as laid back as it had been the last time I was there. Vampires and what looked like goblins were busy bustling about on the stage, setting it up for some sort of show. The goblins climbed easily through the stage light frames, testing each one and checking the equipment. Meanwhile, the vampires did the heavy lifting of getting everything into place

Every now and then, one would pull a wrench from their tool belt and adjust something.

“Really amazing what they can all do when they work together, isn’t it?” Morgana’s voice sounded like it was right behind me, but when I turned, she was leaning against the main bar. A dark wooden affair currently lit in warm lights, but I could see the sets of black lights around the outer edge that would probably be the lighting come this evening.

“Does this happen every day?” I asked, seeing all the paranormal races working together. So far it had felt like the para world was heavily divided by species.

“Friday maintenance. Can’t have any issues for Friday and Saturday nights.” She sipped a red liquid that I assumed was some sort of processed blood.

Tonight, Morgana had traded out her corset for a tight fitting dark leather jacket. Her tight leather pants remained. I got the impression they were almost a permanent fixture given how they hugged her legs. Even as covered up as she was, Morgana still had an almost irresistible draw to her.

But completely ruining her dark allure were the pair of curved, short swords that laid on the bar beside her. Even sheathed, the things looked like they might leap up and sever a head before their target could blink. I could almost picture it after sparring with her. I wasn’t surprised that a blade was her weapon of choice, given her speed.

“What? It’s not like we use magic for everything. Mechanical things are easier with a good goblin or gnome to get into the works and fix it right up.” She misinterpreted my stare as disbelief.

I nodded, taking the out. “Still getting used to all of this.” I looked back at the blades she had on the counter. “Are we going to be needing those?”

“Decent chance. Why don’t we get moving, and I’ll tell you about it all on the way?” She took the twin blades off the counter and slipped them into loops on her hips. They were tight up against her hips, sitting at a forty-five degree angle. I could understand why she’d taken them off when she was relaxing by the counter.

Morgana led me through the maze of the bar that extended far past the building’s boundaries. The backroom led into a stairwell. From there, we entered what looked like any other parking garage, the plain concrete slabs a stark contrast to the swanky, leather-draped nightclub above.

Although the cars in front of me were far different from something you’d find in a typical parking garage. “I know nothing about cars, but I can read all those emblems well enough. Are these all yours?” I saw every famous brand name I recognized and a few I didn’t.

“Get a gun.” She ignored my question, pointing to a rack fitted with gray foam and a small arsenal. I’d completely missed it with the cars on display.

“I don’t know how to shoot.” I admitted. She looked at me incredulously. “What? I grew up raised by two lovely, but elderly, parents. My father was seventy by the time I could have been taken out to a gun range. I don’t even know if his wrists would have held up.”

Morgana shook her head, clearly disappointed. “Then stick to the 9mm.” She pulled it out of its foam padding and the several duplicates that rested nearby. “This is the safety.” She demonstrated, flipping the safety off and back on. “You need to flip that, then point and shoot. Don’t even have the safety off until you have it out and are ready to shoot someone.”

“Does it have special bullets? Something for paranormals?” I looked at the thing, not even sure I wanted it. I was growing more and more interested in what she was planning to drag me into. But if she needed the blades, I’d probably end up happy to have the gun.

Morgana was moving next to me, snagging a much larger gun that she carefully placed in a duffel and slung over her shoulder. “Not right now. You can still take down most things with enough bullets, and they can slow almost everything down.”

“You seemed to bounce back from when I snapped your neck pretty quickly.” I’d been curious on if that was something unique to her or a typical thing for para.

Morgana started strutting out to the spread of cars and didn’t look back, as she explained. “If you broke my neck a dozen times, I’d start to recover slower. But even then, fixing a broken neck is just realigning what’s broken. Try fixing missing pieces of body mass or brain, and it takes a hell of a lot more mana to work.”

“Ah.” I could understand that. “You can kill almost anything if you keep hurting it till it runs out of mana to heal?”

Now she did turn her head to give me a grin full of fangs. “Yes, which is why while guns are very useful at range, something more… destructive works better at closer range.” She wiggled her hips, making the sheathed blades slap her ass.

Trying to distract myself and get that image out of my head before I had an entirely inappropriate reaction, I focused on what we were about to do. “So, the job? Rogue vampire, mysterious killings or maybe help a kelpie get her cat out of a tree? I’m assuming as I walk around with a gun that we’re going after some sort of bad guy and not taking out a decent person.” I gave her a pointed look. I’d only met this woman a day ago, and I didn’t quite trust that her morals lined up with mine.

“Drugs. Drugs that if someone smart got their hands on, it would raise a lot of questions the council doesn’t want.” She partially answered my question, but still didn’t give me many details.

“Doesn’t the council have people they could send after this problem?” I asked, confused on why they needed Morgana to take care of it.

“It is easier if they don’t act directly, and I’m just a mercenary. It means I’m a buffer between their politics and their aggressive actions. But at the same time, everyone knows I’m just for hire.”

She pulled up to a stop at a car that made me frown, and it only deepened when she popped the trunk and threw in her duffel bag.

“You can’t be serious.” I stared at the ugly thing.

“We are going to a decommissioned coal factory. We’d stick out like a sore thumb if we came up in one of the Jags.” She put a loving hand on the beat up looking minivan that even a soccer mom would refuse to be seen in. One of the sliding panel doors was an ugly brown that might have been a better color than the sort of green that you just knew came with a discount in the car lot.

“This won’t stick out?” I had my doubts.

“Nope, just another beat up old minivan. But this one has a reinforced frame and enough enchantments that it might as well be a tank.” She grinned. “It actually cost more than that Lamborghini.”

I held back my cursing and slid into the passenger seat, feeling awkward with the gun, so I just put it in the glove box. “So you dodged the question earlier, what’s the drug?”

A frown dusted her face for just a moment before it disappeared. “V-phoria is what they are calling it. It’s a derivative of vampire secretions.”

“Stupid name.” I said.

“Better than ‘Molly’. People who come up with drug names aren’t exactly known for their brains.”

I opened my mouth to argue for a second before snapping it shut. She was right. “So vampires have something in their… fangs?”

“Saliva, and yes. It’s potent. It has a few uses, but most vamps use it to addict their favorite feed.” The engine started up with a roar that belonged to a muscle car, not a minivan.

“I thought you said this was to be inconspicuous.” I noted the noise and tried to ignore the vampire talk. I didn’t want to think about it right now. I’d seen enough addicts on my day job; part of me now wondered if any of them had been a vampire’s ‘favorite feed’ once.

“Still need to get away at times. Would suck if this was anything but a custom job.” She turned around to watch the back, and the tires squealed as she spun out of her spot, missing a Porsche by inches. Swinging the minivan around, she threw the minivan into gear and it kicked forward. It was either a display of skill or recklessness. I chose to believe skill, and that I wasn’t about to die with her driving.

She raced down the lanes of nice cars to an exit ramp and bumped us out into traffic, cutting a hard turn east and flooring it into traffic. The sun was still out, but hanging low in the sky, threatening the end of the day and the beginning of the night.

Her windshields were so heavily tented, it might as well have been midnight to me.

I changed my mind. Her driving was terrifying. She bobbed and weaved through traffic like a fish in water, but it still didn’t make it any less terrifying.

“So, who was the girl?”

“What?” I focused on her. It seemed best if I didn’t watch what was happening on the road.

“I could hear it in how you spoke on the phone earlier. I interrupted a date.” It wasn’t a question; she had a knowing smirk hanging on her lips.

I paused, not sure what I was supposed to say. I didn’t even know what the rules in the para world were around dating. Morgana seemed relaxed, but I didn’t want to say anything that would put Scarlett at risk. And it hadn’t really been a date. More of a trial run for a date. “She’s a friend, one I’m going on a real first date with on Sunday. It was just a quick bite after class.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun. You should bring them to Bumps, we do a nice dinner deal 6-8, and then the club starts pumping a little after nine.” She swerved hard enough for me to grab the oh-shit-handle and brace myself against the car. I refused to look forward at that point, feeling us bump over a curb.

“I don’t know if she’s that kind of girl.”

“Oh? What kind of girl is she?”

I hesitated. I really knew very little about her. But what I knew so far was she was a sweet sorority girl on the outside, with a tough girl packed inside. Smart too. “The whole package.”

Morgana laughed and with her driving, it came off a little crazed. “That’s so cute. You really like her. Good, I want to meet her now. After all, you are my charge, and I want to do my best to look after your best interest.”

“Why do I have the feeling I don’t want that at all? And it’s not like you’re my mother.”

“No, but I bet you I could be the best wingman you’ve ever had.” She made the statement confidently, her voice dipping back into a sultry tone.

Somehow, I instinctively knew she wasn’t just bragging. She was incredibly persuasive and had years of experience. “Well, she’s choosing the place, so at least this time it’s up to fate.”

“Well, you should go for it. I recommend having some fun while you can. It will help take your mind off of things for a while. Is she para?”

“I don’t know? Not exactly something you just up and ask. And it’s not like there’s a dating app for that.” I did a double take at Morgana’s expression. “Holy crap, there is an app for that, isn’t there?”

Morgana’s face went hard for a second, ignoring that question and staying on the earlier topic. “Relationships between normies and para rarely work out. Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but be careful, or you’ll get her and yourself killed for spilling the beans.”

“Can you ever tell them?” I asked once again, blindly poking about for the rules of this new world.

“Yes, but then, your relationship is permanent. And you are responsible for them. They leave you, and the council treats it as someone learning our secret. So you need to be absolutely sure about them.” She took her hand off the wheel and dragged her thumb across her neck.

So, it wasn’t something to take lightly. It sounded more of a commitment than marriage, telling someone a secret that then bound their life to you. At least you could get out of a marriage, this you really couldn’t. “Council sounds old school.”

“Some of them ARE old school. Elves live thousands of years. You think old people have trouble accepting something simple like civil rights, now imagine the elves on the council who grew up with slaves and servants of every race and creed.”

“At least they didn’t discriminate?” I tried to joke, but let the smile go when Morgana gave me a glare.

Wanting to change the topic, I shifted to another political question I had. “What did I do to get the duel with Simon?”

“You challenged him, at least physically. Standing up in his face like that was practically a thrown gauntlet. The council is old school, but with new rules, sort of like the casus belli system. You can’t fight someone or another clan without being provoked in some way. The elves on the council would have had to approve the duel.”

I nodded, still thinking that he’d been extra sensitive. He did insult Jadelyn, which started the whole affair.

We bumped our way out of what I’d call the city proper and into the industrial area. Gone were the tall apartment buildings and the skyline of corporate offices sprawling to the heavens. Instead, they were replaced by large squat buildings with smoke stacks, puffing away like a smoker on their too short smoke break.

It was a long quiet drive from there; the sun sinking low on the horizon.

No one was out and about walking around. People didn’t have time for leisure around there. It was all tired industrial types. They were there to work and then go home. 

As Morgana continued into the industrial area, more and more of the buildings turned into slumbering behemoths, their stacks no longer puffing out exhaust. Peeling paint became more apparent until it became the norm and broken windows became the next sign that we were heading into sketchier territory.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked as the paved road gave way to gravel. The buildings at that point were sparse, and there was only one more structure that could be the old coal plant.

The place was wrapped with a rusting chain-link fence, but there was fresh razor wire running along top. Priorities. I rolled my eyes. However, the brightly polished razor wire was the only thing about the place that looked like it had been updated in the last decade. Between the fence and the building, it was overgrown with enough weeds to make it almost seem tropical. The coal plant itself rose out of the mess, its paint long gone and replaced by the brown of rust stains.

“This is the place.” She pulled up to the gate, her minivan having enough momentum that it skidded on the gravel for a foot. “What they are doing is a threat to the secret of the para world. Killing is fully authorized. Once they realize what’s happening, I don’t think they’ll hold back. So don’t hesitate.”

“Are we just going in and killing them all?” I asked, already feeling my stomach revolt at the idea.

“No, if we can keep some alive, we should. We’ll be able to get more answers out of them and cut the head off this thing.” Morgana started checking her weapons, and I remembered to pull my gun out of the glove box. I was so not ready for this.

I fumbled with the gun, eventually holding it down with stiff arms and hunched shoulders, doing my best imitation of cops I’d seen on TV. I’m sure the poses were inaccurate and more for show, but I didn’t have anything else to go off of.

“Break the chain for me?” Morgana pointed with her chin. That’s when I noticed that she had pulled the duffel out of the back and slung the large gun over her shoulder. It hung loosely at her chest while she kept one hand on it.

I stepped up to the rusted gate, noticing the chain was still a rusted piece of junk, but the lock was brand new. Where the lock hung on the chain, the rust had been worn off. It had seen some use recently.

I focused internally. If there was ever a time I needed the beast, this battle was it. I needed its strength and instincts. And I wouldn’t mind being able to justify some of what was about to go down as the beast’s aggression and not mine.

Thankfully, the beast growled and stirred deep inside of me, and I could feel it, almost like it was coming home to nest inside me once again.

I grabbed the chain and pulled, using my back rather than just my arms to pull it. The links strained as my back ached, and I reset my grip so I was holding onto two links and I could pull the whole of my strength into the one between them.

Snapping with a small pop, the chain came loose. I did my best to uncoil it quietly. Chains were hard to keep quiet.

A small hoot sounded behind me. And I turned to Morgana, who had her hands cupped in front of her mouth. “Good job. I wasn’t sure if you’d pull that off.”

I shrugged, not feeling slighted by more testing. While we’d both come to the conclusion, I was likely a dragon. I couldn’t wait for firm proof to show it to me. I felt like I was missing that piece to accept what was happening to me.

The beast growled deep inside of me, like it was reminding me just how real it was.

“Stick close. That busted window there.” She pointed to one on the side of the building, not far from a conveyor. “Would be a great place to peek in and see what is going on.”

We crawled around to the conveyor, and I crawled up it on my hands and knees, coming away stained dark from residual dust. I smacked my hands on my pants, but that only seemed to make it worse. Morgana snickered, not missing a beat as she ran up the conveyor.

By the time I caught up to her, she was looking through the scope of her gun into the coal plant. “It certainly isn’t abandoned, but not exactly what we believed we would find.”

She handed me her gun, and I made sure to keep my hand away from the trigger as I looked down the scope.