Dragon Kin 2

04

Carmen

We were suppose to be here for a meeting with these people, not to killing them. That's what grandfather told me — in order to get me to come.

The morning was beautiful on both sides of the Curtainwall. Opa asked me to come along. He needed one more good rider. I've been on the dirt bikes since I was nine. The choice seemed obvious. Besides, I had been away at medical school in Quebec for five years. Getting on one of the bikes and running a track sounded like the perfect beginning for my return home.

Now a huge winged man attacked me.

Did he say children! What the hell did grandfather do!

He's going to kill me. This man... this man with wings! Tail? Horns‽

He kicked me square in the chest, sending me stumbling to land on my ass in the grass. He began walking up to me, malice in every twitch of his tail, and across the edge of his wings.

I yanked my helmet off and looked him in the eyes, "I didn't kill anyone!" But he looked away, and up, and then back to me. He shook his head as a bull might when decisions are demanded from him. Then he stomped and spanked the earth with his tail.

Decision made.

Dark black eyes looked at me from inside his strange helmet. "Do you want to live?" he asked, leaning over me slightly. Close enough that I had to swallow my heart twice in order to speak.

"Yes?" I meeped, sinking back a little. "Why? Are you going to kill me?"

He looked as if he could kill me. Not just the physical act, which he clearly had every advantage, but he also held that sliver of the maniacal mindset required to kill another sentient being. I could see the rage in his eyes.

Yet he checked himself.

I wasn't quite sure what he was. He had massive black leather wings. His chest and arms were covered in scale. Wide silver and dark scales. Between each of them arcs of electricity ran across the surface as if alive and breathing through him. His long blond hair, like bright sunlight crackled with power.

His voice sounded bold and commanding, and otherworldly.

"No, I'm not going to kill you, but they will," he promised, his pointing hand indicating five others up in the air, back toward the city, "and they'll be here in moments.

"I'm going to grab you, and fly you back to your world. If you hamper me in any way, you'll die," he said, and as he spoke the mettle of his voice saturated with the confidence of the anvil.

"OK," I said, peeping like a mouse short of breath, hoping it was the right answer. "Don't shock me. I don't have scales."

"OK," he said, and his eyes shown with malevolence as he took one more look to the sky with his dark blue eyes. Then I was in his arms and we were in the air. It was like we skipped past the grabbing and picking me up parts, and the lift off. We were in the air and hundreds of feet up. I squeaked and wrapped my arms around his neck. His skin smelt of warm cedar, burnt orange and ozone.

Every beat of his wings hurtled us another two or three hundred feet up. Over his shoulder I saw the group of men like him. They were gathered together, as if to follow us but another man, who didn't have wings, blocked their way.

He was talking to them.

In the air, without wings.

"This is crazy," I said, and it came out as a whimper. "Where are you taking me? Why are we so high?"

"Close your eyes," he said, and then he folded his wings and we began to fall.

No. We didn't fall. That's not what we were doing. We dove.

His wings folded into blades, and the blades cut through the air. I closed my eyes and burrowed my face into the nape of his neck, murmuring pleads and promises that I no longer remember. It was simply terror streaming out of my lips.

"Here we go, don't move," he said, and there was a note in his voice, not unkind but urgent, and I clung tighter, knowing we were about to plummet into the earth. All I could hear was wind; relentless, battering, a pummeling rush beating and batting our bodies. Slapping my clothing. Then nothing. No sound, no wind. Nothing. I opened my eyes and saw we were inside the passage.

The Curtainwall.