“Harris . . . Reed. From school.”
“Oh . . .”
Silence.
“So, how’s it going?” Harris looked around desperately, wanting to pass off the phone.
“It’s gone better.”
“Yeah. Kind of a bummer, what happened . . .”
Harris heard the dragon’s voice in the background. “Did you get a hold of the president, yet?”
“Hey, uh, Harris. I kinda need to talk to someone in charge over there. The dragon has some demands he needs to make to somebody.”
“Yeah, of course. Just a sec.” Harris passed the phone back to Marian.
She held up a finger to them before taking the phone over to Bill Gulley, still at the podium.
As Bill talked on the phone, Harris noticed a small entourage coming toward them. In front of the group strode a short, mustachioed man in full military dress. His dark blue uniform was decorated with a plethora of various medals. Harris assumed that he must have been a general.
The man marched up to the stage and addressed Bill Gulley.
The Dragon’s Demands
“Okay,” Silvia said to Zoth-Avarex as she hung up the phone. “We have a general in the army that is going to call us back on video chat.”
“That’s it?”
“I guess he’s been authorized to make the big decisions. But he has a direct line to the White House if he needs it, too.”
“Well, it’s a start anyway.”
“Here comes the call now.” Silvia answered the phone.
Two men appeared side by side on the screen. One of them was a decorated general with a thick mustache, the other was Project Manager Bill Gulley. Bill was only half in frame, since the shorter general directed the phone at himself.
“Silvia, correct?” the general said.
“Yep.”
“I want you to know we will do everything in our power to get you back on solid ground. But to do that, I’m going to need to speak to your captor.”
Silvia turned the phone so it faced the dragon.
“Hello, Zoth-Avarex. My name is General Morgan. I have been auth—”
“Like the pirate guy . . . with his leg up on a barrel?”
General Morgan pinched his eyebrows.
“No,” Bill Gulley said. “That guy is just a captain. General Morgan here has him way outranked.”
“Anyway!” General Morgan said, obviously upset. “I have been authorized to negotiate with you by the United States government. Bill Gulley, the Conjuring Project Manager, is here with me as a magical advisor.”
“Hey, Mr. Avarex.” Bill waved to the camera phone.
“Hey.”
“What is it, exactly, that you want?” General Morgan asked.
“I want sixty-three billion dollars’ worth of gold and treasure delivered here and piled up. I want my princess, and I want to be left alone. That’s it.”
“We respect your aptitude and raw power,” General Morgan said, “but we have an arsenal the likes of which you may have never seen. We are prepared to use force if necessary to resolve this—”
“What, like the awesome show of force a few minutes ago? That shit can’t hurt me! I’ve got protective spells that last millennia. And those missiles wouldn’t have cracked the egg I was born in. You’d better come with something better than that if you think you’re gonna intimidate me.”
“Uh . . .”
“What are you gonna do, drop a nuke on Seattle?”
“We have dis—”
“Go ahead!” The dragon put his claws out to his sides. “Or, if you want to be adults about this, just give me the gold and let me have my beautiful woman up here on my scenic perch. That’s all I ask. Is that so much, really? It’s a hell of a lot better than wiping one of your own cities off the map.”
“I—”
“And speaking of wiping a city off the map, that is well within my power. I could have, say, this one up in flames in a matter of minutes if it suited my fancy. I don’t mind being king of the ashes.”
“Your demands are unreasonable and unachievable. They are not something we could do, logistically, even if we wanted to.”
“Come on. You’re the richest country this pathetic world has to offer. You could do it if you put your mind to it.”
“This is not the way good-faith negotiations are made. We have a policy to not negotiate with terrorists, but—”
“Wait a minute, you think you’ve got the moral high ground, here? Oh, that’s rich! You rip me out from where I slept and bring me into your world against my will2. And why did you do this? So you could enslave me and use me as a weapon against your enemies. So you can shove that terrorist talk up your tiny little ass.”
“We weren’t thinking of it as enslavement, per se,” Bill Gulley chimed in sheepishly. “Sorry about that . . .”
“We brought you here to be a weapon,” General Morgan said. “That is true. But this behavior is unacceptable here in our country.”
“Maybe you’d prefer if I took my services elsewhere, then? I could go on a world tour. I’m a top-rated prospect, ya know. I could take my talents to China, or Russia, maybe somewhere in the Middle East.” The dragon shrugged.
“That won’t be necessary.” General Morgan appeared flustered for the first time.
“No, don’t do that, Mr. Avarex,” Bill said, frowning.
“Oh, so you do want me to stick around, then? Not gonna play so hard to get?”
“The bottom line is—”
The dragon cut off General Morgan again. “You are not gonna tell me what the bottom line is. And you know what? I’ve negotiated with soldiers way too many times before. I know what you’re going to say before you open your mouth. I want this Bill Gulley goofball to be my point of contact from now on. I like talking to him. It amuses me.”
“I am—” General Morgan started.
“Zip it!”
The general’s face turned a deep shade of mauve.
“I’d be happy to be your POC, Mr. Avarex,” Bill said with a smile.
“Thank you, Bill. I’m feeling better about this whole negotiation thing already.”
“So what was it that you wanted, again?”
“Well, Bill, I know the answer to life is simply to live with love. Well, actually it’s forty-two, but you humans can’t comprehend that.” The dragon paused wistfully. “I know the best things in life are free. But the birds and bees can have all of that. I need gold! Gold! And to hang here with my beautiful maiden. That’s all I want in this crazy mixed-up world.”
“Why? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Why do birds sing? Why do lovers long to hold each other? Why do billionaires want more and more? Why do ducks from an alternate version of your Earth plan to take over the multiverse?”
“Uh. . .”
“The heart wants what it wants, man.”
“And there’s no talking you out of your demands?”
“I’m afraid not, Bill. Here is the actual bottom line: I am damn-near all-powerful. You and your government cannot contain or control me. I mean, it’s not like you have the formidable binding power of the Ring of Brocél—” The dragon cut himself off this time. He looked away from the camera nervously. “It’s not like you can do anything to stop me from burning everything if I choose to.”
“What was that? The Ring of what?”
The dragon’s eyes flashed. “Nothing. This,” he put up air quotes with his massive razor-sharp claws, “negotiation is over. I had better start seeing treasure piling up here soon!”
* * *
2 Zoth’s Footnotes: I know, I know, I bent the truth a bit, here. But politics and negotiations are all about optics. You gotta play hardball with these hard-headed humans.
Management’s Plan
; Eventually, the Command Post was moved to the offices of the Conjuring Building. Harris, Ana, and Jake followed the management team there, hoping to hear more about what they were planning.
“I would strongly recommend consulting Eddie Wilson on this,” Marian told the team as they convened around a table. “But I’ll have to track him down first.” She looked past the table to the edges of the room where Harris stood with Patrick. “Harris, Patrick, can you find Eddie for me please? He’s not in his cubicle.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Patrick said. He and Harris took off to search the building. Xop flew just over Harris’s head.
“Can you believe what just happened?” Patrick said as they walked down a hall. “On our second day here?”
“No. I think my brain is still trying to process it. Doesn’t seem real, does it?”
They rounded a corner to another hallway. “Eddie!” Harris called.
“Maybe the bathroom?”
Harris nodded and hurried to the bathroom door. When he opened it, his brain had another doozy to process.
Eddie Wilson stood at the urinal, but that wasn’t the strange part. The phenomenon—which Harris would have never guessed he would see in his life—was the fact that Eddie was fast asleep. He leaned against the wall of the bathroom stall next to the urinal. His pants had fallen down around his ankles.
Harris and Patrick gawked at the man without a word. Xop suppressed a giggle behind his paws. Harris would have guessed that he was merely playing a bizarre prank on them, but the deep rhythm of his breathing all but confirmed he was truly asleep. Patrick backed out of the bathroom and Harris followed, quietly closing the door in front of him.
Part of Harris wanted to run and get Jake so he could see, but this wasn’t the time for messing around.
“What should we do?” Patrick asked.
Harris knocked on the door, cracked it open, and called, “Hey Eddie, you in there?”
“Just expelling urine from my bladder,” Eddie called back, as if he hadn’t just been in a deep vertical slumber. “I’ll be right out.”
The toilet flushed and the door swung open. “What’s up, Harris? Killjoy?” Eddie extended a hand to Patrick in an apparent gesture of peace.
Patrick looked at the outstretched hand with a vague disgust.
“So you’re a germaphobe, too? Don’t worry. I washed them with magic.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that was a thing.” Patrick shook his hand.
“It’s not,” Eddie said with a smile.
“Marian asked us to come find you,” Harris said as Patrick wiped his hand on his pants.
“They did it then, huh? And it turned out to be a total shit show.”
“Pretty much,” Harris said as they headed back to the meeting. “But why weren’t you there?”
“I’ve been hanging at the office, waiting on my retirement papers. And I’ve advised against conjuring another dragon for decades, now. I wasn’t gonna be a part of that bullshit, anyway.”
As they approached the table, Marian rushed over to them. “The dragon busted out of the Conjuring Dome and kidnapped our new girl, Silvia.” Her voice was hushed. “They’ve got Bill as the point of contact for the dragon, so you and I are gonna be the last line of common sense. Could you help? They’ve got one of ours, Eddie.”
“Shit.” He and Marian communed silently for a moment as if Harris and Patrick weren’t there. “Yeah. I can do that. Fill me in on what I missed.”
“I still can’t believe the nerve of that soldier guy,” Zoth-Avarex said to Silvia. “Trying to threaten me after seeing what I can do.” He shook his immense head. “I guess you could say he’s got balls. Not much brains, though.”
Silvia yawned, farted, and chuckled to herself.
“I mean, it’s like they don’t know who I am. They’re the ones who conjured me. They should know better than to conjure someone they don’t understand. I’m the best around. I’m tremendous and powerful and unstoppable. There’s never been a—”
“Ooooh would you shut the fuck up already?” The voice came from behind them: a man of about sixty was suddenly standing on the top of the Space Needle with them. He had crazy white hair and an unruly mustache. He wore a gaudy amulet around his neck.
“You dare to talk to me like that?” Zoth-Avarex roared. “My teeth are swords, my claws spears, my breath death.”
“Now that we can agree on.” The man waved a hand in front of his face. “Would it kill you to pop a pallet of breath mints?”
The spikes on Zoth-Avarex’s neck stood up. His throat glowed a vibrant orange just before fire spewed forth from his wide open jaws. The fire rolled over the man, consuming him in a whirling inferno.
When the fire ceased, the man stood in the same spot. Not a hair on his ‘stache had been singed.
“You really think I’d be stupid enough to get up here with you?” He held up the amulet. “I’m magically projecting myself.” As he dropped the amulet to his chest, he flickered like an imperfect hologram. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, my name is Eddie Wilson.”
“Yes. Eddie Wilson. Slayer of Va-Malix, The Feeble.”
“The Feeble? I don’t know about that.” He held up his arm, showing his burn scar. “She was a bit more impressive-looking than you are.”
“She was old, and injured. Way past her prime. If you would have caught her at my age you wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“Maybe so.” Eddie switched his gaze over to Silvia, who was hiding behind what was left of the needle. “Are you okay, Silvia?”
“I’m fine. But I’d like to. . . .” She looked up at the dragon. “I’m fine.”
Eddie scanned the area, then the dragon’s body, trying to be nonchalant.
“I see you checking for a soft spot, Eddie Wilson. What, you think you’ll find a missing scale or something? Good luck with that. My armor is impenetrable. My defense is impregnable!”
“I’m trying to negotiate with you, but I’m finding it difficult to discuss anything with such a narcissistic blowhard.”
“You’re wasting your time, just like the rest. There will be no negotiation. It’s either gold and jewels, or death and destruction. You pick. I love both options, personally.”
“That supposed ring you mentioned, that slip of the tongue, it’s total BS, right?” Eddie studied the dragon’s mannerisms as though it was an opposing poker player who had gone all-in.
“I thought I said this conversation was over?” The dragon began to turn around. “Here, let me make that more clear.” He sat down on the holographic Eddie like a dog and wagged his massive tail.
“Well that is something I’ll never be able to un-see,” Eddie said as he took off the amulet back in the office.
“What kind of intel were you able to obtain?” General Morgan said.
“Unfortunately, it looks like his armor is as-advertised. Looks pretty damn impenetrable. His protective spells seem airtight, too. As far as I can tell, nothing is getting in or out of that bubble unless he wants it to.”
“Anything else?” Bill Gulley looked hopeful.
“No. . . . Not at the moment. Silvia seems okay. We should probably figure out how to get her some food and water. Maybe a tent and a blow-up mattress or something. He isn’t going to let her go, but he’ll be willing to make her comfortable. And, thankfully, I don’t believe he would hurt her.”
“Get on that,” the general barked to a subordinate.
“What do you think about the ring?” Bill asked.
“I think it’s bullshit. For all of his braggadocious bluster, he really is an incredibly intelligent creature. I don’t think he would accidentally give us a way of defeating him.”
“Well, it’s the best we got at the moment,” General Morgan said. “His dander was up and he was ranting like a conspiracy theorist. He very well could have
let slip valuable information. We’ve got people in the Magical Texts Department looking into it as we speak.”
Eddie shrugged. “I gave my two cents.”
“Stay close, Eddie. We may need you again.” Bill Gulley’s face was serious.
“You know where I’ll be. Unless those papers come through.”
Marian pulled Eddie aside into his cubicle. “So you think it’s bullshit, huh?”
“Yeah. I wish it wasn’t.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Jake stepped forward and asked. “Silvia is my fiancée.”
“Shit, Jake. Sorry, but I don’t. My brain don’t work like it used to. My body, either. I do know one thing, though. I know you can’t leave this up to the Site management, present company excluded. They will, without a doubt, make an absolute mess of whatever they try to do.” Eddie sighed. “It used to be efficient here. Back in the day, they discovered all kinds of stuff. They would go fearlessly into other worlds and bring back all kinds of magical items and knowledge. But now they’re bound by their own red tape. It’s a hopelessly inefficient bureaucracy.” He picked up a thick, spiral bound manual from his desk. “This is a seventy-two page policy on opening a portal to another world. I can sum it up in a single sentence. You take an inter-dimensional blade, state clearly which world you want to go to, and cut the air in front of you. That’s literally it. Seventy-two pages to tell you that. There are pages about ensuring no one is front of you before the slash using a series of administrative and engineering controls. Pages about the building in which you’re opening the portal, about whether it’s up to certain codes. There are even pages, with an s, about gripping the handle as opposed to the blade. And on and on. The dumbest thing is, you’d think in seventy-two pages they might mention being prepared for the world you’re opening a portal into, but nope. You’d think it might be helpful to know a little about what you’re getting yourself into? But no, that’s in the common-sense manual, which doesn’t exist quite yet!” Eddie’s face turned red. “I’m sorry, Jake. I shouldn’t be wasting your time with one of my rants. I’m just trying to say that you are going to have to do it yourself, because they cannot be trusted to get anything right. And I think this briar patch shit is a dead end.”
The Conjuring of Zoth-Avarex Page 6
