Footsteps rang on the pavement. The dragon’s eyelids, smooth as shell for all their scales, drew back until the darkness filled with the silver light of its eyes. It heard the woman say, “What the hell’s that in there?” and the killer answer, “Who gives a—?”
Then he had them. No deer was ever so transfixed by the headlights’ glare. The brilliance of his gaze washed over them, a stark light to shear away everything but the truth. He gathered his breath for the flame.
And in a distant room a dreamer held a book open to its last page, falling into the silver eye of a dragon and seeing only truth.
I can’t.
The fire died in his throat. He felt the dragon’s form, the dragon’s power slip from him. The image of the rose-wreathed maiden blew away like dust. The splendor of his eyes dimmed and vanished, leaving the alley lit only by the spill of the streetlamp. Rain began to fall, mizzling, penetrating. He felt cold.
“Who’s in there? Come out!” the killer shouted. The spell was broken. Ryan crept forward because he didn’t know what else he could do. “It’s the kid from the bar!” The dark one sounded genuinely surprised.
Not too surprised to seize Ryan’s arm and squeeze it hard as he jerked him forward. “What d’you think you’re doing, following us?” The fingers drove deeper into soft flesh. “You some kinda pervert?”
“I told you what he is!” the lure cried stridently. “I can smell ’em.”
‘Yeah, maybe you can,” the killer muttered. His grip shifted to Ryan’s shirtfront. “You were right the last time.”
“Honey, let him go; he’s just a kid,” the woman pleaded.
“This kid—” he gave Ryan a shake to make his teeth clatter “—was in the bar before, trying to start something. What d’you wanna start, kid?”
“Watch out for him; he’s got a knife on him,” the lure piped up.
“Big deal.” The killer reached into the pocket of his jeans. “So do I.”
The blade snicked silver in the shadows. Ryan saw the reflection of his eyes along the shining edge. He remembered all the things that had been done to Uncle Graham, the things the police told Dad, the things Dad only hinted at to him, shaking. These two had only smashed his uncle’s skull after they had done everything else they wanted. He heard a plaintive voice inside him say, They killed me without a moment’s hesitation, Ryan. I know I was looking to die, but like that? As less than a man, less than an animal, just a toy for willful, sadistic children? They’ll kill you without a single regret. It will shatter Chessie’s heart. Why didn’t you destroy them when you had the power?
And Ryan’s heart answered, Because that would make me one of them.
“Jesus, let him go,” the woman whined. “You’re not gonna cut him, are you?
“You don’t wanna see, close your eyes,” the killer instructed her.
“Oh, shit, you’re crazy too.” With a shake of her head she tried to bolt, but the lure grabbed her and held her fast.
“You don’t wanna go running for the cops, do you?” he hissed in her ear. “Nah, I bet you don’t.” He seized her straggly hair and punched her hard in the face before she could scream. She groaned and folded to the ground.
“Hey! What’d you do to the bitch?” The killer spoke with the same heat reserved for street punks caught putting scratches on a new car.
“Ah, so what?” The lure shrugged. “Like you can’t do what you want with her now?”
The knife rose, a straight line of cold blue across Ryan’s sight. He shut his eyes. A fist slammed into his shoulder.
“Uh-uh, pervert,” the killer told him. “You gotta see it coming. I wanna see you see. Open ’em.” Another violent shake of Ryan’s shirtfront. “Open ’em!”
So Ryan opened his eyes.
Screams.
Screams not his, screams that battered his ears as the pure white light flooded the alleyway again. They jarred him free of his captive body, throwing him skywards into the rain. He gasped to feel chill droplets pattering over skin still human, then turn d in wingless mid-flight to look down at what this release had left behind.
He expected to see the two men staring up after him, mouths agape like the lowest wonderstruck peasant of the dragons’ realm. Instead he saw them crouching in the alleyway, on their knees in filth, hands trembling before their faces. He realized that they were trying not to look, trying to shield their eyes from the assault of sight. He let go his tenuous hold on the air and touched the ground behind them, beside the fallen woman.
He saw the dragon’s eyes.
It was a great beast, huge, splendid, grander by far than the youngling worm that once housed Ryan’s soul. The alley walls strained, bricks and mortar crumbling under the pressure of containing it. It lay with paws folded under its jagged chin, its gleaming eyes regarding the two men almost casually, in afterthought. There was no intent of a killing in its attitude. It only looked at them, slumbrous, steadily.
They tried to look away and could not, tried to close their eyes and found the lids frozen wide, tried to make screens of their hands and knew a strange paralysis that withheld that mercy. They had to look. They had no choice but to see.
And some destroy them because of how they see themselves in the dragon’s eyes.
In one eye’s curved and shining surface, the killer crouched in a dark place, jabbing sticks at phantoms, wailing with fear. His naked body was covered with lesions, his limbs skeletal, his face all blades of bone beneath a patchwork of bare, purple-veined scalp and pitiful tufts of hair.
In the other eye, the lure clung to the killer’s arm, pressed himself against that towering, healthy body. He let his mouth wander at will, his eyes holding all the ecstasy of long-deferred fulfillment. His hands were everywhere, touching, caressing, claiming all he desired for his own. I want this, his image mouthed in the monster’s mirrored gaze. I’ve always wanted this… I’ve always wanted you.
The dragon raised his head and bhnked once, shuttering away the vision. When he opened them again, he disappeared.
The two men turned to stare at each other, the rain running down their faces. The woman stirred and whimpered, waking. They did not hear her. Ryan stooped to murmur in her ear, “Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.” She cursed and shoved him aside.
So he ran away. He ran alone, stumbling down the rainwashed street, wondering how far he would be allowed to go before the spell of the dragon’s gaze broke, before the others came after him. He thought he could hear them behind him. coming up fast. His breath burned in his chest. He did not dare to look over his shoulder. His hunters were as certain a presence as the night. He could almost feel the icy breath of the knife on his flesh.
He ran harder, and the harder he ran, the thicker the air around him became. He needed to fight a passage through it. His feet were weights instead of wing? The wet pavement turned to tar, sucking him down, holding him back against his will, keeping him prisoner. There were more enchantments loose in this world than the magic of dragons. Dark things commanded more servants here than things of light. Ryan opened his mouth to scream for help and no sound came. Again and again he filled his lungs, again and again only black silence packed his chest and throat and mouth hke wool. The tar hardened to stone, holding his feet; he could not move at all. He gathered his breath for a last cry before the hunters had him—