The Stray Dragon : (A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves werewolf community center book 3)

by Abigail Smith

  “No time to look them in the mouth, we need to get moving! Hop on!” Leonardo said.

  I helped Fumnaya and the girl get onto one before attempting to get on it myself; Gavin and Silvia got onto one, and David rode behind Leonardo.

  We rushed off down the road, watching the portal swiftly get covered up by the illusion around the property.

  “What the fuck was that?” Leonardo asked, slowing his horse to get in line with Fumnaya.

  “I know, right?” she said in agreement with him. That wasn’t what he was asking though.

  “Fumnaya, did you not realize what you just did?” I asked, pulling in close to her on the horse’s back.

  “Uh, cast some spells? The grimoire of the bloodmage was on me the whole time.”

  “It was closed, and you didn’t use spells with Zambol’s power source… you used my sister’s magic!” Leonardo said.

  “I… what?” Fumnaya said, looking down at the grimoire.

  13

  Chapter 13

  “Fumnaya,” I started, once everyone had a chance to breathe, and we could stop the horses.

  “W-what?” she said, a little confused.

  “I think I understand what’s going on – you can hack magic.”

  “Hacking magic?” Leonardo said, both slightly angry and curious.

  “You were talking to me about not being able to tap into power sources, but you were able to use a grimoire that only a specific demon mage should be able to use. When you touched Valkyrie you used her runes, and you felt like crystal balls were like computers.”

  “That ability has never been witnessed by anyone we’ve ever known, that’s impossible,” Leonardo said.

  “It’d also explain why your eyes glow whenever you use magic. I was fighting that bi–” I looked down to the kid I’d already associated with the grown-up version, “her, and her eyes didn’t glow. Maybe it’s got something to do with that mutation you have that makes them purple.”

  “A magical mutation. That could be a pretty sweet band name,” David said.

  “That’d mean my mom could use magic stuff, and that’s just crazy, right?”

  “Hold on,” Leonardo said, holding out his hand, “I want to test and see if this is hacking and not some other form of magic my sister might have come up with. You may not use my magic.”

  I looked at Leonardo, and Fumnaya looked confused. “I was thinking perhaps she did something to allow those around her to use her magic. If you can hack magic, my express non-permission shouldn’t be a factor.”

  “Okay then.” Fumnaya put her hand onto Leo’s outstretched hand.

  I ran around to look at her eyes. I found that looking deep, there seemed to be some magical runes in there. They shifted around like they were a combination lock, and glowed once they appeared to have the combination.

  “Ventas servitas, galvos.”

  A strong gust of wind blew at my face, causing all the sweat to be dried off, and it cooled me down from a simmering panic to a cool panic.

  “Oh my god,” Leonardo said, clearly flabbergasted.

  “I can hack magic,” Fumnaya said, looking down at her hand.

  She remained staring at her hands, and her eyes were wide and full of wonder in the power she now knew she possessed. A small smile slowly lifted both our faces.

  “Sweet, hope that comes in handy in getting our friends back, and stopping that asshole who’s after our little dragon buddy.”

  Silvia and Leonardo shifted their gazes to me. “Our what?” they said in unison.

  Despite them saying the same thing, it was two very different feelings they elicited.

  “So wait, that guy came because of you?” Silvia asked.

  She looked to David, suspecting nothing. “Okay, in my defence Anderson told me to,” I said.

  Silvia recoiled in shock. “So the reason you were hanging out with David so much was to keep it a secret?”

  “Yes?” I admitted, a bit confused as to why she was talking about David.

  “You mean to tell me, you plucked an egg from the Earth elemental plane and brought this bastard to my home? Putting the lives of my family and many communities in danger, all for you to, what, get another pet?” Leonardo spat angrily, leaning over at me.

  “I…” I sighed. There wasn’t any getting around this, this was pretty much my fault.

  “So, we just give him the dragon and–” Gavin started.

  “No, even if we wanted the easy way out, we can’t just give him the dragon. That sets a precedent: ‘Come into our world, we give you what you want and you leave.’ That’ll lead to a lot of warlords coming over here, and claiming land, people and things,” Leonardo explained.

  “A-and the dragon is a sentient being. What kind of people would we be to hand him over to people who want to kill him and skin him? I may have made a mistake in who I took that egg from, but I’m not just going to sit around and let him do that! Like it or not, he’s part of our little community now,” I said, hoping that’d at least sway some people to my side of things.

  Everyone was looking past me and a little way down. I blinked for a moment and then turned, to see the little guy.

  He’d apparently stayed on David, until the point in which David was called back, at which point he’d dropped off.

  “How did you get here?” David asked.

  “I was nearly here when you were recalled to the battle. The question is, why are you here?” it asked.

  “Awww, he’s so cute!” Silvia said, gushing a bit.

  “We needed a tactical retreat and the manor is now enemy territory,” I moaned.

  “If you’re content on keeping me safe, I suppose I should reside with you, but if you dare say you made a mistake in picking me again, you’ll be more than envious of those special eyes the dark one has,” the dragon said, as it crawled up my leg towards my neck.

  “I… you can’t be serious,” Leonardo said, watching the dragon getting comfortable around my neck.

  “Well, if he’s part of the community, he needs a name to go by, right?” David said, looking at everyone.

  “Please tell me you’re not thinking of D-gon,” Gavin said, and Silvia nodded in agreement.

  “Ahh, come on, it was perfect!”

  “Perhaps we’ll go with a name later.” I walked forwards and put a hand on the ground for him to use to get up to around my neck.

  He was cooler than before, totally unlike the last time he was around my neck. I could also hear his little heartbeat, quicker than I’d thought it would be. Could this dragon be scared?

  “Let’s head to a nearby inn and rest up. There isn’t going to be much we can do if we’re dead tired and out here in the bush,” Leonardo said.

  He transformed his suit of armour back into his suit, and Fumnaya got out her crystal ball. “I’ll hide the dragon, and I guess… make her armour look less like armour?” Fumnaya said.

  An illusion wrapped around the dragon, and the Galvonian child, Valkyrie, was given an illusion of a dress, a frilly gothic Lolita dress. Fumnaya definitely had a problem.

  Fumnaya picked her up best she could with a crystal ball in hand and we walked towards civilization.

  “So, who are those blue guys that he summoned?” I asked Leonardo.

  The horses followed him, and he looked around for somewhere to tie them up for the night. “If I were to give it my best guess, I’d say elves,” he said, heading towards an area with a lot more trees.

  “Elves? Those badasses from ‘Lord of the Rings’, that could run up falling debris and shoot arrows with sniper precision?” Fumnaya asked.

  “The very same, only, if I had to guess, they weren’t raised in the best of environments if their skin is blue like that.”

  “What do you mean? Did he enslave them?” I asked.

  “This situation just gets worse and worse the longer it goes on,” David said, rubbing the back of his head.

  “I would think so. It makes sense if you want to start slayin
g dragons for profit, having a place to store them would be ideal. Regress dragons that have a clutch of eggs, wait for them to hatch, cripple them and age them up to their largest forms and slay the lifelong cripples for massive amounts of meat, dragonhide and whatever else.”

  “Dragon salts?” I asked.

  “What are dragon salts?” my little dragon asked.

  “Those are from burning the meat, which is obviously not that very cost-effective. Synthesizing it is though, for the minimal effect it has,” Leo explained.

  “Are those horses going to be okay there?” I asked.

  “There’s not much we can do with them. Their ranch is in England…”

  “That’s going to be a very hard thing to get back. Any ranches nearby that we can drop them off at for the time being? I mean, after this whole mess… You know what, let’s focus on the mess, I’ll let you worry about the horses. You like horses, right?” I said, trying to sort out how to do things.

  Leo sighed, patting the head of one of the horses. “Indeed I do like horses – Chaplin here was my best friend growing up. But you’re right, I can’t let an animal distract me from someone who’s taken out so many werewolves, and two other community centers. We need to come up with a plan, but he’s well-defended from firearms, he’s a master of those weapons, and even if we disarm him, he’s built like a tank,” Leonardo said, stroking his chin.

  We all felt the hit to our morale. Worse yet, we hadn’t gotten Genki out, we didn’t know where Miriam and Lorenz were, and yet again I’d forgotten about Melisa, which was quite a shame.

  “Okay, plan plan plan… How do you defeat someone vastly superior? He can see through all of Genki’s tricks, like straight though – hey, how come he can see through illusions?” I asked as Leonardo got the horses to the forest surrounding the large grassy plain.

  “My guess is, much like some of the older werewolves, they’ve seen so many that they start to disbelieve them, and when that happens, they fade away from view – except when they’re on dragon salts,” Leo explained.

  “What exactly are these salts? Why do you want them?” our dragon asked.

  “An alchemical drug, or perhaps just a regular drug with some magical residue. It makes colours more vivid in human eyes, some find it brings their mood up a tad, others find it good for the performance of their eyes,” Leo explained.

  “Bet it’s weird for you to be looking at a subordinate with a dragon around their neck, as opposed to a superior,” David said, elbowing Leo in the side.

  “She’s yet to gain its respect, he’s merely riding her for the time being. It’s nothing like looking at my father,” Leonardo said.

  With the horses at least somewhat protected from the elements, we headed towards a nearby street. I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a better place for those horses, but we were tired, and looking around for a better place required a place to sit down and the internet.

  The plain of grass and forest bordered a suburban street, which we managed to walk onto, to start our search for somewhere to stay.

  “Hold on,” David said, looking around.

  He walked a few steps in front of us and turned around, putting his fingers out like he was framing the area.

  “I think I might have a house around here we can use!” he said, pointing towards one a few hundred meters down the road.

  “Why have you been buying real estate?” Leonardo asked.

  “Well, one, it is a sound investment as it will stay on value line with the rest of the homes in this area, and two, it could be used as space for my business.”

  “Since when are you making a business? Or have you forgotten that you are a soldier fighting to defend this world?” Leo barked, metaphorically.

  “I haven’t forgotten, but that doesn’t mean I can’t manage a few humans to provide a good service and help some people I know.”

  David looked to Silvia and Gavin, and while Leonardo didn’t know of the extent of their disparity, David and I did.

  “You’ll need to be very careful not to lose too many hours that you’re needed to this venture,” Leonardo said as he walked towards the house.

  “So, like, I know it should have a fridge, but who’s gonna get food?” David said, almost ignoring what Leo was talking about.

  “You have your wallet on you, right?” I asked, hoping to god he did.

  “Uhhh….”

  “Akio, purse, Galvos,” Fumnaya said, and suddenly had a designer purse.

  “Runes for her purse. Why am I not surprised?” Leonardo said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Uh, I know going to get her was a heroic act, but is stealing from a kid a good idea in this situation?” I asked.

  David walked over and grabbed the purse from Fumnaya. “We’re not stealing from the kid, this is her purse for when she’s an adult. And this is kinda a situation where if she’s not a kid in mind, she’d have to ante up some money,” David said, pulling out the actual wallet from the purse.

  “Alright, David and I will go get some food. I’ve got my phone in my pocket, and I’ll call if there’s even a lick of trouble. Hopefully, there isn’t any expansion going on, and he’s just searching the house, and hopefully, the werewolves can get away before he turns them into kids…”

  “You’re doing that thing where you’re rolling down the rabbit hole of despair. Go get food, come back later,” Fumnaya said, trying her best to elbow me with Valkyrie on her back.

  “I-I’m going to go with them, too,” Silvia said, running up to us.

  David looked to Gavin. “I’m still kinda exhausted from the run, and we don’t need four people. You go keep your girls safe, Gav,” David said, patting him on the shoulder and walking towards the house.

  “It’s locked,” came Leonardo’s voice from afar.

  “I know,” came David’s.

  “Alright then, guess we’re going to get some smokies, bacon and sandwich meats?” I asked, looking at the two meat lovers.

  “We shouldn’t get anything frozen since we’re walking,” Gavin said as we started to walk over to where we thought we’d find a grocery store.

  “What do you mean, you’re going to lockpick it? Why didn’t you have the key?” were the parting words from the two at the door.

  14

  Chapter 14

  I’d been food shopping for a camp before, and the current feeling was like that, only with some more adrenaline flowing. It was also now just like the calm before a storm – no matter what, we needed to get rid of this guy, but an entire werewolf pack could be fended off by him alone and now he had help…

  “Hey,” Gavin put his hand on my shoulder, “it’s going to be–”

  “Watch it!” the dragon said.

  I blinked. “Ohhhh right… “

  “What do you mean, oh right?” he protested.

  “How did we miss that?” I said, looking around. Luckily this store didn’t have many people looking at us.

  “Under my shirt now,” I said, hoping no one noticed I was wearing a dragon around my neck.

  “I guess you forgot about the weight – after the illusion wore off, you didn’t notice him?” Silvia said. She quickly untied a sweater Gavin had given her and put it around my shoulders.

  “If you put that up, he should be hidden and a bit warmer,” Gavin said, also seemingly shaken about the almost exposing the magical world casually thing.

  “This thing is very soft, what kind of clothing is it?” the dragon asked.

  “Oh boy, here we go again,” I said, looking around.

  “If you’re quiet and make a mental note of your questions, you’ll get a doggy treat, I mean mass-produced bones and bacon bits.”

  “Fine,” the dragon said, thankfully missing the part where I said doggy treats.

  I sighed. With that little spike of panic, I was thoroughly exhausted with today’s events.

  “You fed him,” Silvia said, looking up at me.

  “What? I thought it’d be
good for a growing dragon, and it’s not like I had access to medical kibble.”

  “But there was medical kibble. That’s pretty much all there is in the cupboards of the house,” Silvia said, blinking.

  I stammered, unable to come up with a comeback. “Silvia, can you go see if they have some good white bread?” Gavin asked.

  Silvia nodded and walked off. Once she was out of earshot, Gavin turned to me. “While we have some money, now would be an excellent time to get her a birthday gift. Any ideas?” Gavin asked.

  “You think of this now?” I blinked, trying to remember when her birthday was. It was always hard for me to remember dates, but I felt like it was close.

  “It’s a little bit before her actual birthday, and I haven’t really had the money for it recently,” Gavin said.

  “Okay, okay… She hasn’t really done that much alchemy since I started to learn, so glassware is a last resort. She’s obviously got sweaters and hoodies under control. How’s her sock situation?”

  “I am not getting her socks – that’s for Christmas,” Gavin said. Despite how offended it should have sounded, he managed to say it softly enough to convey his care.

  “So, with her duties, she probably hasn’t had time to look into hobbies – maybe a hobby starter kit could be good? Allow her to see if she likes it?”

  “I guess that could work?” Gavin asked, shrugging.

  “That’s an option. Actually, yeah, that sounds good. I’ll get her an alcohol brewing kit and you can get her… a sewing kit?”

  “Can we switch alcohol brewing to something she can enjoy legally and have you get her the sewing kit? I don’t think she’d take it well if a guy gave her a sewing kit,” Gavin said.

  “Eh, maybe some art supplies? The community center needs some good art, and she can always watch some Bob Ross make some beautiful paintings.”

  “There isn’t really space for her to do that in, is there, though?” Gavin pointed out.

  “David’s got a house going spare. Get a drop cloth and, boom, you have space, and it won’t devalue his stuff!” I said, smiling.