Dragon Conjurer, page 2
“What the fuck?” I gasped as I looked at the pale blue shape that seemed to slither like a hypodermic snake underneath my skin and up to my shoulder. The icy shadow curled up across my bicep and hid underneath my uniform’s shirt sleeve, and as the pain dissipated, I slipped the sleeve up to see what it was.
It was the dragon I’d just seen in the alleyway, but it was now etched into my skin and curled around my upper arm like the sickest tattoo I’d ever seen.
“Dammmnnnn, this is a pretty badass dream,” I chuckled nervously to myself as I traced my finger over the design of the tattoo, and I followed it from its spiky tail that wriggled toward my elbow all the way up to its curled neck and head in the center of the spiral. “Never thought I would get such a cool tattoo in a dream, though.”
I rolled my sleeve back down and headed out of the alley toward my bike. Even if I was dreaming, I still needed to get to work or I would wake up with stress about missing my shift. I was sure my dream-bosses would understand why dream-me was held up by dream-thugs who were running a mythical creature fighting ring.
“I must be studying too hard if I’m dreaming about dragons and imps and trolls and other shit,” I muttered.
As I came out of the alley and walked back to my bike, I happened to look to my left and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Only a street vendor and his customers, and there was also a busker sitting on the street with a violin under his chin and a cup in front of his crossed legs. Just the average Californian foot traffic.
But something didn’t feel right, and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I turned the other way and saw them.
There were two men walking toward me, and they were almost equal in size. One was dark-skinned with closely cropped black hair, and the other was pale and blond but still just as mean looking. Each of them wore a well-fitting black suit and shiny black shoes, and they reminded me of the Men in Black, even down to the dark-tinted sunglasses.
“What the fuck?” I whispered as I stood frozen about ten feet away from my bike. “Who are those guys?”
I made a break for my bike, but then I saw two more burly guys stalking toward me from the other side of the street, and their sunglass-covered eyes locked onto me as they picked up their paces.
Oh, fuck.
“What do I do?” I asked myself as I looked down at my arm and then back at the guys closing in on me. “Fuckkkkk, here they come.”
“Stop right where you are,” one of the Men in Black said as his partner walked over to my bike and put his hands on it. “We need you to come with us.”
“What?” I shook my head and looked around the street for any help nearby, but everyone was either too absorbed with their phones to notice or just didn’t care enough to react. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” the other man said while their two friends from across the street came to join us. “You are outnumbered, and there is no escape.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” I lifted my left arm to punch, but then I raised my right parallel to the ground and shouted. “Exokyzo!”
Might as well make use of my dream abilities.
Bright blue light emitted from my arm and beamed directly into my eyes, and then the tattoo on my shoulder seemed to burst out of my skin and grow into the dragon I’d seen in the alleyway. It landed on its feet next to me and nuzzled my stomach with its snout.
Across the street, I could hear people yelling and screaming while the Men in Black stood frozen with their jaws slack, and their hands dropped toward the ground.
“We need to get out of here fast!” I shouted and looked at the dragon as if it had a plan, but, duhhh, it was a fucking dragon. How could it have a plan?
“Stop!” one of the men yelled as the others charged toward me. “Don’t let them get away!”
“Time to go!” I shouted to my dragon as I swung wildly and somehow made contact with the closest guy’s jaw. Pain lanced up my arm from my knuckles, but I didn’t let that keep me from turning tail and running. “Come on, dragon!”
The giant lizard roared at the men before it stretched its blue, sinewy wings and shot up three feet into the air with just a single flap. The scaly beast beat its wings until its body was level with my shoulder, and then it kept pace with me by gliding through the air.
If it weren’t for the fact I was fleeing for my life, I would’ve thought this was pretty badass.
My new dragon friend and I dodged the crowds while people screamed and shouted around us. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of stiff dress shoes slapping against concrete, and I risked a glance back to see three Men in Black chasing us.
“We have to lose them!” I ducked down a clear alley entrance with my dragon not far behind. “If we lose them, we can make it back to my university dorm. Just follow me!”
We ducked and weaved our way through the alley and dodged around shit puddles and damp trash the whole way through to the other side. I could still hear the footsteps behind us, but I ignored them for now and instead focused on escaping without getting filthy.
I definitely didn’t want to find out what these guys had in store for me if I gave up.
“How can this be real?” I panted as we came out of the alley and onto a parallel street.
Imps and trolls and dragons didn’t exist. They were only legends people created to help them come to terms with their reality before we discovered science. They were a coping mechanism from a simpler time.
Or were they?
Every culture all over the world had their own version of mythology. It even went as far back as ancient Greece when the people created their own pantheon of gods to explain why the world worked the way it did. On top of that, the people spun tales of magical beasts like the Minotaur and the Pegasus, among other monsters, to help them digest the world as they saw it and enrich their own lives when nothing else could.
“Does art imitate life?” I asked myself while the dragon and I fled through a building to get even further away from the thugs in ties. “Or does life imitate art?”
The dragon next to me let out a growl, like it could understand me.
“Oh, right,” I said and chuckled past my shortness of breath. “I guess you’re the answer to my question.”
Finally, I couldn’t hear anyone running or shouting behind us, so I guessed we’d managed to evade the Men in Black for a few minutes. I stopped for a moment to lean against a nearby bench and to catch my breath while the dragon landed by my side, and I glanced up and down the empty side street around us.
“I think we made it,” I huffed and crouched down to pet the dragon on the head. “I think we’re in the clear. Come on, let’s go.”
The dragon blinked its third eyelid, and then it vanished in a flash of bright light and reappeared again on my arm.
I tried to keep the new tattoo covered while I walked back to school in the dwindling daylight. Everything I’d been through just seemed flat-out impossible, and I didn’t know if I could fully digest it before I made it back to my dorm.
“There’s my university,” I said as I pointed at the campus as the buildings became visible. “I don’t know if you can hear me when you are a tattoo, but I’m glad we made it back without getting stopped again.”
Very few people were walking around campus at this time of day, so I was able to slip by without being noticed. Not that it was any different from the average day, since I was always able to move through the crowds without being stopped. Still, after being chased for what felt like miles, I was glad to be able to take a free breath of fresh air and relax some while I walked through the college campus.
“What if this isn’t a dream?” I asked as I stuck my earbuds into my ears and held my phone up to my lips, so I could act like I was talking to someone on the other end and not just myself. “What does that mean for me?”
I walked back onto campus and nodded to a couple people as we passed by each other, but they didn’t even acknowledge me. I was fine with that, because it meant they wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy.
Was I crazy, though? The stitch in my side and the soreness in my feet made me think this was all too real to be a dream or a hallucination.
“So, if this isn’t a dream, what do I do about it?” I asked myself as I used my ID to get into my dorm, and then I pulled one earbud out as I walked to make it look like I was paying attention in case someone wasn’t watching where they were going. That was one of the problems in my dorm, but it wasn’t the worst one.
Smoking copious amounts of weed in the commons seemed like a worse offense than occasionally bumping into someone.
“I guess I can’t think about this being as serious as it is right now,” I said to myself, or the dragon, or whatever, while I opened the door to my dorm room.
I didn’t see Ethan, so I figured he was probably smoking a bowl with Brock like he said he was going to do, but I was surprised he was gone this early. I guessed they planned to go through a lot of weed tonight, because Ethan didn’t plan on being back to the cafeteria by the time they stopped serving dinner.
“Dream or no dream, I’m drained.” I closed the door, threw my backpack down onto the bed, and slipped myself under the covers. “I hope my bosses can forgive me for taking my first sick day in two years.”
I tried to keep my eyes closed, but I just couldn’t hold them shut while my mind was racing with all the questions. So, I gave up on trying to rest and instead let my eyes open while I walked myself through the evening that had just happened.
“So, I left Professor Hawkins’ class,” I murmured to myself under the sheets, “then I came back and got ready for work, then I almost got killed by thugs until a dragon saved me, then I had to run for my life from the Men in Black, and then I ended up here, under my covers, safe and sound.”
Or as safe as I could get around here.
I sighed and looked at the clock on my phone, but the screen was black, and everything I did to try to get it to come back on didn’t work.
“Fuck,” I muttered and rolled over to grab my charger. “It’s dead. I’ve probably missed a hundred calls from work. My bosses are going to kill me.”
After I plugged it in and waited for it to come back to life, I took my shirt off to get a better look at the new tattoo I had. Could I keep calling it a tattoo if I knew it was a dragon that actually lived on my arm now?
“This is trippy,” I breathed and moved my hand over the mark. “It’s like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I’m a guy, and mine is much cooler.”
Then my phone started to ring, and I lunged to answer it before I even looked at the number.
“Oh, my God, Mr. Myers,” I rambled into the phone before the other person had a chance to speak to me. “I’m so sorry about today. You’re never going to believe what happened to me. It was crazy. I was almost attacked by these crazy guys in an alleyway, and then I was chased by--”
“Mr. Cooper?” a feminine voice on the other end cut in, but it wasn’t the voice that belonged to my boss.
“This is him,” I said as I crossed my legs and stared out the window behind my bed. “Who is this?”
“We tried to speak with you earlier by sending some of our agents to collect you, Mr. Cooper.” The voice never wavered in pitch or cadence, which unnerved me. “I’m sure you have many questions.”
A chill ran down my spine. This lady was with the Men in Black?
So, this really wasn’t a dream after all?
This was reality.
This was real.
“Mr. Cooper?” the woman asked and jolted me out of my spiraling existential thoughts.
“Yeah, no shit, I have questions,” I grunted as I balanced my phone on my shoulder, and I crossed my arms as I tried to keep my cool. “Who are you and what the fuck do you want with me?”
“If you come with us, we can answer all of your questions in person.” The voice took a pause for a quiet breath. “We will have a black sedan with tinted windows waiting for you out front. We would like to speak with you for a few days, so I would recommend bringing an overnight bag. We’re giving you the choice, but we would rather you come quietly than us having to force you.”
It didn’t seem like I had much of a choice in the matter here. I’d seen enough movies to know this was a Godfather moment, and she was making me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t that the offer was so good it would be stupid to pass up, but it was an offer that spelled my doom if I turned it down.
And I liked living a little too much to turn the woman down.
“Well, at least answer me this,” I said as I tried to come to terms with what this person was saying. “Are monsters real?”
“Oh, Mr. Cooper,” the voice laughed, and it was like a fifties movie villain laugh, but still warm and comforting somehow. “Monsters are as real as you and me. If you come with us, we will be able to show you everything you need to know and more.”
I looked around my room, and I thought about how my whole life was wrapped up in this university. It had been my passion for three years, and it seemed like I was going to have to leave it behind for the foreseeable future.
But I was leaving it behind to go learn about the monsters I’d been studying, and I was going to learn about them by seeing them in person. I even had a dragon somehow linked to me, and the damn thing lived on my upper arm.
Was this really even a choice?
“Okay,” I said as I stood up off the bed and squared my shoulders. “I’m in.”
Chapter Two
“Am I making a mistake?” I asked myself as I changed out of my work clothes and into some distressed jeans and a classic black-tee and red flannel combo. “Those guys tried to grab me out in the streets. Can I trust them not to do the same when I get down there?”
My empty room didn’t have an answer for me, so I kept going.
“Maybe I can’t trust them,” I said while I dumped my backpack out and started to grab the few things I wanted to take with me. “But they didn’t try to take me by force once I got here. They at least gave me a choice. I should at least leave Ethan a note.”
I walked over to the desk and grabbed a Post-It and a Sharpie.
Ethan, leaving for a couple days. Keep an eye on my shit for me. -Dylan.
I capped the Sharpie, pulled the Post-It off the stack, and pasted it to Ethan’s bed frame. Knowing him, he wouldn’t see it until I came back, but at least he wouldn’t worry when I didn’t come home tonight.
After freshman year, I’d been allowed to move out of the shittier dorm on campus and into this slightly nicer one. Ethan had been my roommate since I moved in over here, too, and even though I didn’t smoke like he or the people he invited over for late night bong hits did, I still enjoyed his company. He didn’t ever want to study in the room, assuming he studied at all, so I always had free reign over the desk we shared. He was stinky, but he was quiet, and he kept me from losing my shit with his marijuana-induced, Tommy Chong-esque wisdom.
As I walked down the familiar halls of the dorm, I considered heading back to the room and forgetting about everything that had happened. Maybe I could sneak out of my room from another exit and head to work like a good noodle, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about these guys being on my tail.
Somehow, though, I doubted these guys were the types to give up.
So, I made it into the stairwell and took the steps quickly, since I didn’t want the people who were supposedly waiting on me to get impatient and try to rush the building. I also tried to keep my feet from pounding as hard as my heart was so anyone who was in the building wouldn’t come rushing to the stairwell to figure out what was going on. I had to keep a low profile, or at least I thought I should.
“Okay, now what?” I asked myself as I got to the bottom of the stairs and stepped outside into the world. “Is there supposed to be a car or something?”
Then a black Escalade with tinted windows pulled around from the left side and stopped right in front of me. The back door swung open, and one of the men from earlier stepped out of the car and waited beside the open door.
“Who do you have in there?” I questioned as I stepped closer to him. “The President?”
“Mr. Cooper,” a woman’s voice called out, and I recognized it from the one on the phone earlier. “Please, sit down.”
“O-Okay,” I stuttered and slid inside the car’s darker interior.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I noticed the inside of the vehicle was set up like almost every villain car in the movies. Two rows of seats faced one another, and the entire décor was black. I could see the windows were tinted from the outside, but it looked like Smaug’s lair inside, and only two small overhead lights offered any illumination as I got inside.
When I wiggled into the closest seat, I noticed another guard was sitting across from me, and beside him was a woman wearing a dark gray business suit and maroon stilettos. The wrinkles around her pale eyes and perfectly red lips reminded me of a young grandmother’s distinguished age marks, but the starkness of her platinum hair made me think of a villain from a spy novel. Her dainty hands were folded in her lap, and her mouth was quirked up into a smile. Something about her grin took away the Bond Villain look about her and warmed my heart. When she smiled, she looked like a vintage beauty pageant queen, and I didn’t feel as endangered as I’d felt when I climbed into the car.
“Good evening, Mr. Cooper,” she said, and her voice sounded like she’d been smoking for most of her life. “Thank you for joining us so swiftly.”
“I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice,” I muttered as the other man in the black suit shuffled into the car and pressed me against the opposite door. “Although, I’m glad you guys didn’t bust up into the building in SWAT style. I don’t think the RAs would’ve been happy about that.”
