Jeremy Bayer, Dragon Layer Pt. 06

"Okay, there he is," Skye said, cracking her knuckles. "I grab him, you beat him."

"Skye...that is real world far right provocateur and neo-nazi shill Andy Ngo," Jeremy whispered back to his silver dragon as the two of them crouched in an alleyway in downtown Portland, Oregon, the smell of distant fires tingling in their noses.

"Yeah, and?" Skye asked.

Jeremy sighed.

And today had started off so very not even the slightest bit normal, at all. After his catgirl maid had professed to love him, Jeremy Bayer thought that he might have a few seconds to think about that. Instead, he'd been approached by the most...active of his dragon girlfriends, Skye Silver. She had dressed herself in some very advanced, high tech battle armor (for the 12^th century, which was the primary mode of reference she still had even after a week of being hatched) and had proclaimed her intention that they should fight crime.

In Bohemia.

"Bohemia doesn't exist anymore," Jeremy said.

"Yes it does, I checked on Google Maps!" Syke said, pushing the visor up on her helmet with a squeal and creak. She grinned at him. "No giant crater there, it's not like Mu, it's still above the ocean."

"No, I mean...it's not called Bohemia anymore," Jeremy said. "It's just...the...I want to say...Czech? The Czech...Republic?" He narrowed his eyes. "Somewhere around there, I think?"

"Yeah, and it's likely full of crime," Skye said. "I've been reading your illuminated texts -- Watchmen, the Authority, Phonograph, and they all seem pretty clear, we need to put on costumes and beat up crime."

"That's what you got from Phonograph!?" Morgan asked, her ears flattening back against her head.

"Kinda, I was only half paying attention," Skye said, nodding so emphatically that her helmet visor squealed and clacked down, making her voice into an echoing, ominous thing. "There's evil afoot in the world both grand and small. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, vile hateful fools are spreading their vicious lies about the queer and the alien -- all while people who stand against the finest traditions of Athens plot in open to overthrow the fundamentals of democracy and the glorious purpose of the French Revolution!" She lifted her hand in a fist. "We cannot stand aside and allow this! I'm a goddamn silver dragon, do you think I'll let some Burbonist capitalize on a few misguided years and the specter of the guillotine to turn back the works of centuries!"

Morgan and Jeremy gaped at her.

"Have you been reading history textbooks?" Morgan asked.

"I have access...TO WIKIPEDIA!" Skye's voice was triumphant.

Jeremy rubbed his hands against his face. "Okay!" he laughed, softly. "At least you want to use your absurd dragon powers for something other than getting me laid." He nodded. "Lets stick with America, though. I don't know enough about Europe to know who to kick in the face."

"...can we...still go to Bohemia?" Skye asked.

"Why?" Morgan asked.

"I had an ulterior motive."

***

Morgan clung to Jeremy and Jeremy clung to Skye as Skye winged through the air, her sleek, silvery body sailing through the clouds. The shimmering waters of the Atlantic glittered beneath them, whipping by far faster than they had any right to do. Jeremy had to admit...he was rather enjoying the feeling of the night air on his face, the coolness of it less than he'd have expected. He was enjoying the flight. And he was enjoying the warmth of a dragon between his thighs and a catgirl against his back. When he looked over the side of Skye's shoulder, he could see that they were just hitting the coast of France.

"Morgan," Jeremy said, and felt the girl stir and lift her head as they flew above the city lights of Paris, glittering brightly. "Wake up, we're almost there."

"Mmhm, wasn't sleeping..." Morgan mumbled, nuzzling against his neck.

"Oh, neat," Skye said, cheerfully. "It drifted. That means something's gone wrong -- more chance for adventure!"

"Huh?" Jeremy blinked -- then his eyes widened as he saw, hovering above what appeared to be the eastern edge of France...was a castle. It was a heavy stone structure with turrets and forlornly flapping, tattered flags, illuminated only by the silvery fullness of the moon that hung overhead in the glittering night sky. The castle had a closed up front gate and looked completely abandoned...and it was also nestled atop a cloud, which was thick and bushy like downy fluff. Skye flew down, then landed upon the cloud, tilting her head back. She bumped her snout against Jeremy's forehead, then against Morgan.

Then she shifted away from under them.

Jeremy screamed as his feet dropped towards the cloud that was, to him, entirely solid. His feet struck the cloud -- and he stumbled and fell forward into the downy fluff of it. It was like standing on solid earth, surrounded by a thin mist that tickled his nose. He pushed himself to his feet, while Morgan snorted and shook her head at him. She had changed before they had gotten onto the dragon -- replacing her maid outfit with her jeans and T-shirt combo.

Fetish was fetish, yeah, but comfort seemed to be more important for her when it came to adventures on dragonback.

"Obviously, she cast magic on us, Jere. You big goober," she said, elbowing him as he stood and looked over at Skye, who had taken her normal human form. Jeremy realized he could save, like, a paragraph of salivating description to just say 'she looked like Korra from Legend of Korra.'

...so, she had broad, muscular shoulders with strong arms that were lined with sleek muscles -- accentuating her dark brown skin. Her hair was short cropped and dark, framing a cheerful, confident looking face with a pair of glittering, silvery eyes and a wide, generous mouth. Her preferred clothes tended to show off a lot of belly muscle, and that was no different now, considering she was in a tank top that looked about half a size too small, and a pair of jean shorts. She bounced on her feet, rolling her shoulders and her head to loosen herself up.

"Alllllll right," she said. "So, this is the Castle of Cloudmourn. Well, okay, the original name is more like..." She paused. "Mrak Smrti. Or something. I dunno, language." She waved her hand. "It was my mother's home, back before she laid me. She built it with magic, and it should be chockablock full of treasure. Except it should totally also be, like, you know...over Bohemia. Not France."

"You say that like it's a good thing," Morgan said.

"Yeah!" Skye beamed. "That means something's gone wrong."

"Okay, take what I said, but repeat it slower," Morgan said.

"We get to find out and beat it up!" Skye's huge smile got even toothier. "Fun!"

Morgan nodded. "Aight," she said, flexing her fingers to get her claws to spring out. Jeremy scratched the back of his neck.

"And what am I armed with?" he asked, frowning. Morgan and Skye looked at him, then Morgan snapped her fingers, grinning wickedly.

"Heart," she said.

"There's a magic sword right in there," Skye said, pointing at the castle. "We just have to get it -- and then you'll have a magic sword. Win win!" She turned, then walked forward and then shoved her shoulder against the front doors of the castle. Since said doors were a titanic wooden edifice, banded in heavy steel wrapping-things that looked riveted straight into the wood...Jeremy wasn't entirely sure he saw the chances of that working. Of course, he had forgotten that he was dealing with draconic bullshit here, and so, the gates instead began to creak slowly open as Skye's feet sent up tiny puffs of white cloud-stuff as she walked on it, her face tight as she clenched her teeth.

Okay, the doors had to be heavy if she was working that hard.

Jeremy and Morgan stepped into the castle courtyard.

Shadows loomed about them -- the walls too high to let anything but the edge of silvery moonlight dust along the upper edges of the far walls. The resulting glow was just barely enough to indicate that they were surrounded by something...but not what. At the very least, it wasn't moving.

Jeremy pulled out his phone, tapped it on, then held it up.

Morgan hissed quietly, while Skye stepped to his side. Jeremy just pursed his lips and looked at the skeletal figures slumped against the walls, the rusted weapons gripped in their clawlike fingers -- metal turned to brown ruin and wooden stocks rotting away. The only thing that was even slightly intact was a tattered, faded red banner someone had hung up on one of the walls with a large white circle and a black swastika in it.

"Ah," he said, frowning, unaware of how prophetic his words were going to be. "Nazis. Hate these guys."

"What's a Nazi?" Skye asked as Morgan walked over to one of the dead, skeletal gray uniformed figures. She prodded the skull, which slowly clattered off, the helmet crashing to the cloud layer that the castle was built upon. The clattering noise drew both Skye and Jeremy's attention and caused Jeremy to tense and lift his hands.

"Morgan..."

"What?"

"Don't-"

The skull's eyes glowed.

"-touch-"

Across the courtyards, like fireflies, red eyes glittered.

"-Nazi-"

The first bony hand rasped along stone, dragging bone-white ribs upright, tattered uniforms swaying.

"-SKELETONS!" Jeremy spun to face the other skeletons as they lurched towards him and Morgan, each of their bodies moving with a rattling, eerie precision. Morgan screamed as the Nazi skeleton she had prodded grabbed onto her arms and the skull that had fallen off flew back up and slammed back into place, the glowing red eyes twirling madly in their sockets as the Nazi skeleton clacked its teeth.

"Ehehehehehhe!" The skeleton laughed.

Jeremy grabbed a rusted Sturmgewehr rifle off the ground by the barrel and swung the stock against a skeleton that lurched towards him. "This isn't Heavy Metal, dickhead!" he shouted as the skeleton's skull exploded into splinters. Skye grinned and brought her hands up, then brought them smashing down -- shattering another skeletons' head. Her grin became vicious -- and then she blinked as the skeleton's head reformed in an instant.

"Uhh..."

"The Working, shit!" Jeremy said, stepping back to avoid two skeletons. One of them had what looked like one of those luger pistols in his hand, and was waving it around erratically. Jeremy ducked, weaved, trying to keep his head and chest out of the barrel's line of sight. "They must be human enough to count."

"That's cheating, that's fucking cheating, these are magical creatures, this dungeon is bullshit!" Skye shouted as Morgan snatched up another Stumgewehr and shouted.

"Skye! Magic!"

Skye looked at her. "Huh?"

"Mending, you know the mending cantrip, right?"

"Well, yeah-

"Mend it then!" Morgan said as Jeremy held up his rusted rifle in two hands, using it to catch the clawlike fingers of one of the Nazi skeletons and shoving it backwards. Another clawed at him and he stumbled away, his back fetching up against the wall. Shit. No more room to back up.

"Wir werden deine Haut essen, Untermenschen!" One of the skeletons cackled, his jaw rattling as he stepped forward. He was the one with the luger, which he swung around to aim at Jeremy's head.

Morgan stepped between Jeremy and the half circle of skeletons.

"Ich bein ein Antifascista, motherfucker."

Her newly repaired Stumgewehr began to rattle and chatter as she swept the barrel in a smooth arc. Dust and bone chips exploded from each of the Nazi skeletons, their arms flailing as they threw their hands up, and collapsed into a pile of smoldering bones and tattered uniforms. The gun clicked repeatedly as Morgan finished her arc, then slowly, she released the trigger, then rested the gun against her shoulder, before turning back to grin at Jeremy and Skye, smoke rising from the barrel.

"That was for Magnus Hirschfeld," Morgan said, nodding, her ears perking up. "Also...ow. Guns are...loud."

"Jesus Christ, Morgan," Jeremy said.

"Yeah, leave some skeleton...what did you say they were again?" Skye whispered to Jeremy.

"Nazis," Jeremy whispered back. Skye nodded, gave him a thumbs up.

"Leave some skeleton Nazis for us," Skye said, jerking her thumb at her chest.

"Are they...skeleton Nazis or Nazi skeletons?" Morgan asked. Jeremy groaned.

"Does it matter?" Skye blundered right in.

"Well, yeah, cause if they were skeleton Nazis, that implies that they're skeletons who decided to adopt the tenets of National Socialism. Which, technically, would make them skeleton neo-Nazis, because the Nazi party is kaput," Morgan said, grinning so hard she was showing off her fangs. "But if they're Nazi skeletons, that implies that they were Nazis who died, then became skeletons. Then I killed them again."

Skye rubbed her chin with her finger, thinking intently. "Nazi Skeletons, then. What's a Nazi?"

"You really don't wanna know," Jeremy said. He realized he had dropped his phone and picked it up near one of the crumpled skeletons. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the screen wasn't cracked, and he could tap at it and turn on the light again. He started to shine it about himself at the smashed up skeletons, clicking his tongue. "What made these Nazis skeletons so...mobile."

"And talkative, my German's shitty, but I'm pretty sure that they wanted to eat our skin," Morgan said. Her ears twitched. "Why would they wanna eat our skin?"

"To get more skin, obviously," Skye said, huffing.

"That makes no sense, Skye!" Morgan said, throwing up one of her hands. "If they ate our skin, it'd be all chewed up!"

"Well, obviously, they'd use their eerie...skeleton powers," Skye said, her voice dropping into a mutter.

"Skeleton pow-" Morgan shook her head. "You have no idea how any of this works, do you? You're just making this up as you go along!"

"Hey, I know how some magic works," Skye said, puffing up her chest slightly. "Just, not...necromancy, you know. I'm not a necrosavant. I haven't read necrobooks. I'm not a necrophiliac or anything. Besides, you don't need to know how necromancy works, you just need to know how to smash the skeletons!"

"Yeah," Morgan said.

Then she paused.

"Skye, where's Jeremy?" Morgan frowned.

Skye and Morgan both looked around themselves.

"Ehehehe," one of the skulls cackled. "Der Narr ist unser!"

"Shut up, you!" Morgan snapped, then kicked the skull. It flew up into the air and shattered against the wall of the castle.

***

Jeremy Bayer sighed as he tested the restraints that he had been tied to by cold, unfeeling hands, and considered that a week ago, this might have been both scary and weird. The chamber he was in clearly had once been some important part of the castle -- but time and desecration both had rendered it hard to tell what exactly the room had been for. There was a central pile of rotting wood that might have once been a table, a few iron framed chairs that could have had cushions at some point but were now simply rusting away into shavings and splinters. The only illumination in the room came from several guttering torches that flickered with a pale green light, casting said light upon the ranked members of the SSS -- the Skeleton SS, which was easily, the third worst kind of SS that Jeremy could think of.

In the center of the mass of skeletons was a Nazi that had ever so slightly more flesh than the others. Desiccated and withered, his face was cadaverously thin and his eyes glowed with a baleful red light that made him look a little bit like a Halloween prop someone had spent just a tiny bit more money on than was sensible. His uniform was the kind of long coat that Nazi officers seemed like they'd wear, and as he walked towards Jeremy, Jeremy did his best to look appropriately bored. The last thing he wanted to do, even if it was the last thing in his life, was to make a Nazi feel like his cheap theatrics were working.

"Vell, vell, vell, vhat do we have here..." the Nazi creaked in a wheezy voice of dust and mildew. "An American." He looked Jeremy over, slowly, frowning. "Vhat are you wearing?"

"Uh, jeans?" Jeremy asked.

"And vhat is this?" The Nazi asked, holding up the cellphone that one of the skeletons had grabbed from Jeremy during his transition from the courtyard to here.

"An Enigma Buster 9,000," Jeremy said, dryly. "So, guys, you know you lost, right?"

The skeletons rattled ominously. The Nazi huffed, a tiny puff of moldy air bursting from his mouth. "Lost? So long as a single member of the glorious reich still lives-"

Jeremy snorted.

"Functions!" The Nazi corrected, then shook himself. "Listen here, you American whelp-"

"Oh, us modern future people call people we don't like SJWs," Jeremy said.

"SJ...vhat...vhat is this?" The Nazi asked, looking from Jeremy to one of the skeletons, who shrugged and spread his boney hands, as if to say: What are you asking me for, boss? I'm just a skeleton.

"Also, like, blue jeans are fucking ancient, dude, cowboys wore them, come on!" Jeremy said, rolling his eyes.

"Cowboy...cowboy, fine, American Cowboy, know this, you have at long last allowed my mission to be completed," the Nazi said. "I was sent here by Brigadeführer und Generalmajor Schmit to-"

"Get a magical glowy sword that will let you win the war? The...the war against the people with the tanks and the machine guns and the bombers?" Jeremy asked, his brow furrowing -- he actually did have a plan, which involved continuing to hold the Nazis' attention. He had a feeling he had to just keep doing it for...a few more seconds at least, a few more minutes at most. "So, like, I have to know something, since it's been like, years. Did you guys really think invading Russia was...a...good idea, or did you just do it because everyone else was too embarrassed to admit that the big guy had a really shitty idea. I mean, I know you all had to pretend to like his fucking shitty book, but you had to do the same for the invasion plans? Really?" Jeremy shook his head, then laughed. "Well, hey, it could have been worse. Imagine if Operation Sea-lion had gone off -- imagine trying to invade a country with like, two thirds your population from the sea while they had the biggest navy on the planet, and your best ship was already at the bottom of the English channel. Like, holy shit, did you know that we're still making fun of the Bismark? Seventy years later, and it's so fucking funny that we've made children's cartoons about how mind bogglingly stupid it is to spend that much money on a boat that gets taken out by, what, interwar era torpedo bombers?"

Jeremy chuckled, shaking his head and sighing as he did so.

The undead Nazi was literally shaking with rage. Tiny flakes of decaying skin wafted off him and his glowing red eyes were blazing brightly enough that Jeremy half wished he had sunglasses. "I hope you enjoyed zat...American..." he growled, his voice full of weighted, ominous tones. "Because all ve really need is your blood. Zee inscriptions are quite clear -- ve need but a drop. But I am going to...enjoy..." He drew a knife with a swastika emblazoned on the hilt with a slow rasp of metal on leather. "...collecting far too much."

Jeremy smiled. "About to get killed by a silver dragon says what."

"Vhat?

"Close enough," Jeremy said, moments before Skye, clinging to the ceiling, reached down and ripped the Nazi in half with a single swipe of her claws. The effect was both way more and way less gory than Jeremy had expected -- yes, the claws did tear and rip through flesh, yes, bones did crack and crunch. But the blood that was 'pumping' through what passed through the Nazi's veins hadn't flowed or moved for decades. It was less blood and more a fine grained reddish powder, and it didn't spray everywhere when he was torn in half -- making it a bit less unpleasent to watch. As the upper half smashed into the wall and the flower half toppled, Jeremy felt Morgan's hands on his and he craned his head up.