Endangered Ch. 05

"That you don't know... there's no way your source doesn't know who I am, why would they identify me to you if they didn't? This is fucked up. Hey, don't I get to ask a question first? Who do you work for, what branch of the government?"

"I'm a field agent for the NSA," she answered with a sigh as the cogs of her mind whirred. His argument about their information was starting to sound disturbingly logical, she couldn't believe they hadn't considered this possibility fully. They'd been too caught up in unravelling this great secret to stop and consider why they were being let in on it.

"A real life intelligence operative? No way," Chris enthused. He'd always been into spy thrillers.

"Way," she deadpanned. "But it's in no way glamorous."

"You're hunting down Beings, I'd say that's at least a little glamorous, thrilling certainly."

She only shrugged.

"Wait, wait," Chris continued. "I've been wanting to use this joke for months. What do you think about the next-gen gaming consoles?"

"Oh, we're right onboard." She bobbed her eyebrows, sending him into a fit of throaty chuckles. She even found herself joining in briefly before getting back on task. He seemed like a nice kid, perhaps the friendly tact was working. "I didn't expect humor from you, Chris, it's nice. To be honest, I didn't expect you to be willing to talk at all. You've raised some valid issues surrounding our intelligence on you, but ultimately you're in our custody. Perhaps you're overconfident, perhaps you're bluffing. Now, out with it, Chris, what species are you?"

"I'm a dragon," Chris's said seriously, reading her brown eyes as they widened in shock before a frown broke out across her forehead and her nostrils flared very slightly. She didn't say anything so he cheekily added a little jib. "Am I still being overconfident?"

"No, but how do I know you're telling the truth?" whispered Michelle, standing up suddenly and retreating a few steps towards the door. "Are you even secure in those cuffs?"

"These?" Chris rattled his chains dramatically. "For the moment, I guess. However, I don't think you'd be comfortable with a demonstration of my abilities right now."

He downplayed his ability to escape, didn't want her freaking out and shooting him or blowing up his collar just to make sure he wasn't going to get away. Michelle returned to the desk but didn't sit down, instead pacing back and forth behind it.

"I'm not sure I believe you, Chris, it's quite outlandish. You say there's no way our source wouldn't know who and what you are?"

"Exactly, I was completely unknown until about a week ago. Now I'm apparently the big news of the day. You see dragons are rare; I'm the seventh male alive currently, it's impossible my abduction would go unnoticed. It will spark a manhunt, both from our authorities and people wishing to capture me for their own purposes. Other beings you probably aren't prepared to counter."

Michelle didn't want to, but she had to at least consider the consequences if his claims were true.

"Shit. Nathan, did you get that? Get on the phone and start organizing a new location, we should move him again."

Chris's body language and facial expression as they talked raised her hackles; he didn't seem nervous or jittery like she was, he was probably telling the truth or an expert liar. The latter was hard to believe in one so young. In the adjoining room, Nathan called their boss, setting in motion a cascade that would soon have some of the most powerful people around the world huddling in situation rooms.

"It won't make any difference," Chris said. "My bodyguard knows what you look like and has your scent. Once my mother is safe, she'll start tracking me down with the help of a very powerful elf."

"You don't have a bodyguard, it was only you and your mother on that plane."

"I'm afraid not. Lillian is a vampire so you can't see her during the day," explained Chris.

"Oh? Can all vampires do this?"

This was actually a very useful piece of information for them, very convenient for his story about a bodyguard though.

"Some. I think it's my turn again. Why did your team attack us in Scotland and how do you have Beings working with you?"

"They didn't attack you, they were watching you. Don't try that bullshit with me, you must have figured out they were following you and killed them."

Her anger over the incident flowed and Chris reeled back at the obvious disgust on her face. The incongruence confused him for just a moment.

"Michelle, I'm sorry but they tried to run us off the road. I acted to defend myself as well as Susan and Lillian. Your men shot at us and the two Beings had equipment used to kill vampires. They knew about my bodyguard and tried to capture me for whoever they work for, which by the way, isn't you."

"You killed them." Her tone was icy.

"Yes," he answered. "I wasn't about to let them abduct me."

"How? It looked like some sort of antipersonnel explosion but there wasn't any shrapnel."

"I created a magical explosive. I also... snapped the wizard's neck," he replied quietly. The brief flashes of dragon-enraged memory sobered him deeply.

She quivered almost unperceptively before regaining her composure; the wizard's neck had indeed been broken.

"That's your version of events, I'll put my own together as I get a clearer picture over the next few days. I doubt you'll be charged with their deaths given your situation; I don't think we'll release you any time soon."

Michelle's voice was steely but her composure a hair's breadth away from fracturing. What if he was telling the truth? What if the men in Scotland had actually attacked first?

Lines of thought zipped through her overactive mind as she watched him for several seconds until a final thought locked into place: he wasn't their captive, he was sitting there with her of his own free will. Feeding her information because he knew it didn't matter. A dragon, cornered in the room with her, woefully under-restrained.

She didn't know what to do as unease built inside her, so she kept up her questions, starting to feel clammy all over her body.

"Twice now you've mentioned that people want to capture you. Why is that?"

"Well, I'm a dragon. We have a direct link to the energy of whatever aspect we control... basically, we have a lot of magical power and other Beings want to use us or harvest our energy for their own magic or sustenance. Over the past centuries, we've been hunted to the verge of extinction because of it. Only relatively recently, it became illegal to hunt dragons. The survivors are protected and looked after in the hope to rebuild the species."

Chris didn't see the harm in explaining things to her; it was unfortunate but her fate was sealed as soon as she knew Beings existed.

"Shit," Michelle murmured while cursing internally. They were humped if that was true. They didn't even know anything about dragons other than that Radek had placed them right near the top with the other rare and powerful creatures. "So what class are you then? Four, Three? ...Two?"

"One," he said with a smile and an apologetic shrug.

It all made sense now; his over-easy arrest, his calm confidence. He'd let himself be captured and was just playing with her now.

"Radek," she muttered hatefully, accepting that the wizard must have known who and what Chris was. There was little point fighting now, her memories would be taken if she wasn't outright killed... "So why haven't you killed me yet, Chris?"

Chris saw defeat in her eyes, so haughty and piercing barely minutes ago. Finally accepting that she'd been manipulated into this situation, she flopped back into the cheap lawn chair opposite the dragon.

"Don't give up so easily, Michelle, I don't want to kill you or anyone else. I admit, you'll need to get your memory erased but I wouldn't kill you outside of self-defence. Besides, I'll need your help to stop whoever started this nonsense in the first place and make sure we track down all traces of our existence. Is that who Radek is? Your source?"

"Yes," Michelle confirmed before railing at her weakness. "You might be right, perhaps we were manipulated into this confrontation but whatever you do to me, you can't stop it now." Her eyes flashed angrily towards him as her back straightened and her pointed finder impacted the plastic table in frustration. "What gives you the right to keep such a huge secret? Don't you care that you treat humans like cattle?!"

His cuffed hands opened, turning automatically towards her in a gesture of supplication.

"Of course I care, I'm not exactly happy about the way some Beings treat humans. But that's the way it's been for millennia. Do you really think we could co-exist peacefully? It's been kept a secret for a reason, what would happen if the military found out about us?"

Chris tried to reason, surely she could understand that the majority of humans would take affront to their very existence. However, a triumphant twinkle in her eyes gave him pause, and he suddenly felt his own sense of fear and unease.

"You told them?" Chris was incredulous.

"Like I said, you can't stop it now. We have safeguards." She savored the shock on his face, the way he instantly deflated, more like she was used to seeing people across the table from her.

"Oh my God, those men I killed were actually British agents. You told other countries?!" Chris couldn't believe his own spoken thoughts. How the fuck had it gotten this far? He didn't even know what the Being response would be, what the Synod would do, but it couldn't be good.

"Not so confident now?" Michelle gloated in her little victory. "It's going to come out no matter what you do to me, it won't make a difference in the long run."

"I'm not going to do anything to you, Michelle! Jesus, what kind of secret agency are you? Do you even...? How many people know about us? Damn it, who else did you tell, are you trying to start a war?"

"It doesn't have to end like that, we've talked about peaceful resolutions. We have a right to know, Chris," Michelle reasoned, seeing how distressed he was at the thought of a global revelation, beginning to struggle against his restraints.

It was true. Ultimately, a peaceful co-existence was the only option which wouldn't result in massive loss of life on both sides. Beings had apparently been entrenched in humanity's existence for millenia, they couldn't just be picked off like fleas, though some would no doubt think that they could. The leaders of the informed countries realised this but agreed the Secret couldn't be allowed to remain, it was just too big.

"How else do you think it will end, huh?" Chris said. "How are you going to get all the countries in the world to agree to peace, let alone all the Beings? There would be panic and chaos everywhere. People would kill their own neighbors for sleeping in too late in case they were a vampire!"

He needed to leave; he had to get out of here right now and warn someone. The time for discretion was past. How had the humans even managed to raise this much awareness? Was the Synod that ineffectual?

Michelle was about to respond when a claxon started blaring throughout the building.

"We're under attack, the elevator guards are down and they're coming up the stairs!" Nathan's voice sounded through the intercom.

Around the building, prayers were murmured and guns were drawn. Michelle stood, surprised at her calmness, perhaps resignation. She walked around the desk to Chris, who reared away as much as his chains would allow.

"Hold still, I'm taking the collar off. There's no point in you getting your head blown off. Your people move quickly, I guess what you said about being important was true."

Chris held still, hoping she wasn't about to blow them both up. They paused as the collar come off with another little beep, in the second afterwards they barely heard a muffled scream followed by gunshots.

"I guess they're not interested in rehabilitation. Well, it was certainly interesting to meet you, Chris."

She started for the door.

"Where are you going?" Chris asked, confused; she was headed into the pointless fight.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll go down fighting rather than let someone rummage around in my head."

"It's not," he replied. His rapid transformation already starting.

Michelle watched in awe as purple spread quickly across his skin, back bulging under his shirt until huge wings burst outwards. His nose flattened, and his face became slightly leaner as the deep, regal color spread up across his hair. He opened his eyes and she saw his reptilian, vertical pupils, absolutely black but rimmed with a thin edge of gold, transitioning into the lighter, slightly mottled purple of the rest of his visible eyeball. It was a shocking demonstration of just how inhuman he really was. A real-life dragon.

The battle raging throughout the rest of the building was momentarily forgotten as a searing light in his hands burned through his restraints and forced her to look away, shielding her eyes with her forearm. When she lowered her arm, he was towering over her, barely a foot away.

"I'm not going to let you commit suicide out there."

"How did... don't try to stop me."

Michelle turned and took a powerful step towards the door before a huge, taloned hand gripped her arm. With an angry hiss she spun and delivered her best punch right into his gut. He made only a little huff as her fist collided with a very hard, toned front. Put off by his indifference, she made to hit him again but he wrapped his steely arms around her much smaller frame. In seconds, he had her back pressed to his chest with her arms pinned up at her breasts. She tried to head-butt his nose but just hit his shoulder.

"Get the fuck off me!" she screamed in frustration, struggling helplessly in his inhumanly strong grip, lashing out with her legs, her glasses clattering to the floor.

"Calm down, Michelle, I'm not going to hurt you."

His deep voice rang powerfully in her ear; she stopped struggling for a moment, panting through her face mask which was partially dislodged but still smothering and uncomfortable.

"And why not?" asked a smug male voice as the door opened. "It would be perfect. I expected you break your chains almost immediately but you took too long. I just couldn't wait."

Chris and Michelle looked up simultaneously, instantly stilling their tussle as the newcomer entered the room. The dragon tensed, squeezing the agent tightly to his chest as he sensed the powerful Being. His presence was dark, full of writhing motion and hatred; it almost gave Chris a sense of nausea but he had no idea who or what the short, greying, middle-aged man in the cheap suit was.

"Who are you?" Chris snarled, his fangs flashing as his dragon prepared for a hard fight.

This Being wasn't part of a rescue team. His stature was unthreatening but everything about him felt wrong and evil to his dragon's senses. He even smelled off, a cloying, dank sweetness that brought images of creeping mold into Chris's mind. There was also the scent of fresh blood seeping into the air from the control room.

"Oh, my manners," he tittered with a dramatic flourish of his hands. "I'm Radek, I coordinated our little gathering. It's nice to meet you, Christopher, you are indeed magnificent."

"Radek! You set this up, you piece of shit!" Michelle's shock had worn off and she screamed her betrayal at him, wriggling again to get free of the dragon.

"Yes," Radek said gleefully. "And what a setup it is! You capture this wonderful specimen for me, my minions tear your men to shreds, and the humans think he's responsible. Meanwhile, I harvest the essence of a powerful dragon, an excellent conduit, and dump his mangled corpse somewhere for the Synod to find. Before you know it, humans and Beings will be at each other's throats. I'll admit, it wasn't all according to the plan, but let it never be said that I don't take advantage of a situation when..."

"Nice monologue," Chris smiled toothily.

Shifting instantly into the Ether, he dragged Michelle forcefully with him as he faded. Radek let out a furious, inhuman shriek and loosed a ball of dark red, pulsing energy towards them with a lunge.

It was too late.

Michelle's body shuddered as she entered the Ether, and Chris felt his dragon somehow extending around her, shielding her from the drain which would have killed her in seconds otherwise. Already he was running, picking her up under the knees as they phased straight through ghostly walls and furniture in the dim light. He had to put some effort into breaking the resistance but it was next to nothing in his adrenaline-fuelled state.

Michelle couldn't make a sound; she wrapped her arms up around his neck and turned to watch them pass through concrete, wood, and steel in disbelief. Each new obstacle made her wince her eyes shut, expecting an impact, before feeling only subtle pressure as his jarring footfalls propelled them right through.

She couldn't begin to comprehend the dark, shadowy, purple and grey realm of the Ether. Her mind had been shocked into passive observation as they brushed through the external wall and out into open space.

They only plummeted briefly before she felt the tug of gravity in her stomach. It seemed odd that gravity should still exist when she'd just watched them run through solid walls. They weren't falling anymore though, the colorless street passing quickly below them. Michelle looked up across his fluttering shirt, his skin glowed faintly and his muscles heaved as his wings beat powerfully.

Neither Chris nor his dragon felt any sense of shame about running; they'd out-maneuvred Radek as he got caught up in his victory. Besides, he was obviously powerful, unknown, and had an intricate plan in motion. By the sounds of it, he'd wanted to start a war between humans and Beings.

Now the only real proof that Chris hadn't slaughtered everyone in the building was gripped tightly in his arms as they flew out across the city.

Flying. He was flying! New muscles worked on instinct to propel him above the streets, cars, and people below. He took a few seconds to revel in the amazing feeling before he brought his mind figuratively back down to earth, promising himself to take Annabel flying with him in the future.

The dragon didn't sense any pursuers, they'd escaped. Now Chris realized that his next priority was to get back to safety and warn everyone. Reyla would know what to do but she was so far away and he had no idea how to find any local Being authority.

An idea popped into his mind, one he'd only thought about last night as he and Susan had talked about finding somewhere to live. Was it even possible? The fact that Michelle was in the Ether and still alive, if shocked into a stupor, indicated that it was. . .

Calling on his dragon, Chris pulled energy from the aspect around him, his vision distorting and shimmering as the Ether rippled and he gathered as much as he thought he could safely hold. The power writhed across his skin after a few moments, building and building. He felt his ears equalizing as pressure build, so much so that he had trouble maintaining his flapping wings and began gliding downwards, devoting his mind to his intended destination.

Having an image of Reyla's courtroom in his mind's eye, he pictured himself standing there, holding Michelle in his arms. He released the magic all at once, felt it crashing up his nerves towards the image in his brain, setting his body on fire briefly before suddenly, there was nothing.

He ceased to exist.

***

Radek cursed as he felt the dragon's presence suddenly vanish with a pop. He wasn't stupid enough to follow the lad into his own aspect in his current, weakened state. He'd underestimated the young dragon for the last time, first with the team he'd sent to capture him in Scotland, and again by gloating when he should have been killing.