by Jon Jacks
Dragonsapien
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things – The Last Train
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – Seecrets – The Wicker Slippers – The Cull
Text copyright© 2013 Jon Jacks
All rights reserved
Thank you for your support.
Chapter 1
Her mum and dad didn’t seem to mind that Jake was human.
Obviously, it could never, ever be serious – but surely a little fling wouldn’t hurt?
And when he saw her wearing this little green dress (she’d seen it in the shop window – she just had to try it on!), well, perhaps even Jake would realise it was time to take their friendship onto the next level.
Celeste admired herself in the changing cubicle’s full length mirror.
She pouted her lips.
She tipped her head slightly, letting her bob of blonde hair seductively hang over one side of her face
She posed in different positions, appreciating her good fortune in having such long, slender legs, the green dress perhaps revealing more of them than her parents would be happy with.
(They weren’t going to be happy anyway; not when they heard how she was trying on a dress in the shop. Normally, they arranged for everything to be delivered to their apartment, where it could be tried on for size in private.)
She checked herself from other angles, making sure the dress didn’t pull up as she twisted around.
It was perfect!
Jake would love it!
Would, she hoped, love her!
She slipped the dress over her head.
As she felt the cool air of the shop’s air conditioning sweep across her back, she released her wings, letting them expand. It was such a relief after keeping them furled tight within their recesses all day.
The curtain was abruptly whipped aside. A woman intently examining the dress she’d brought with her almost stepped inside before suddenly realising the cubicle was already occupied.
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t–’
She froze, her eyes wide with shock, with horror, as she took in the sight of the huge, glistening wings.
‘No, please–’
Celeste instinctively reached out to try and calm the panicking woman.
Just as instinctively, she released one of her long talons.
The talon effortlessly pierced the woman’s throat, cutting off any scream she may have been about to make.
‘Oh my God, no!’ Celeste breathed, shuddering in fear as the dead woman’s blood ran down the talon onto her hand.
*
Once again, Celeste’s instinct took control.
She now acted virtually automatically, with very little time for thought. Her instinct was there to ensure her survival, the survival of her species; she let it dictate her every action.
Despite being so much younger and at least a head smaller than the woman, Celeste effortlessly pulled the woman inside the cubicle, using the impaled talon like a meat hook. She let the woman slump to the floor, her talon slipping free of the soft flesh with a sickening plop.
As part of the same motion, Celeste’s other hand swiftly and forcibly plugged home her handkerchief in the gaping wound, stemming the blood flow.
Celeste couldn’t recall when she’d reached over to her hanging jacket to quickly root around in the pocket for the handkerchief. Just as she couldn’t remember when she’d retracted her wings to give herself more space to operate.
Her talon withdrew back into her finger, completely vanishing into her hollow, pneumatic bone structure.
She’d done as much as she could for now to contain the problem; now she needed Hincheley.
She pulled the cubicle’s curtain back a little, peering out warily to make sure no one else was around in the changing section’s corridor.
She stepped out, drawing the curtain closed behind her, then making sure the other cubicle was empty. She moved closer to the changing room’s open doorway, looking out into the shop itself.
Fortunately, it was a small shop, one that sold an exclusive range of clothes. One her parents held an account at.
That’s why she’d made the mistake of thinking she’d be safe using the cubicle. It was a Wednesday, and few people visited it at this time of day. That’s the only reason why she’d been able to persuade Hincheley that, if she were quick, and careful, no one need see her.
She’d been neither quick nor careful.
And an innocent woman had paid the price for Celeste’s stupidity.
‘Hincheley,’ she hissed quietly in their own language, their own range of sound.
As she spoke, she released a fragrance of distress, of fear.
Although he was sitting outside in the Rolls Royce he’d parked at the kerb, Hincheley would hear her call, sense and understand the meaning of the aromas; he would be here in a moment to help her.
‘Miss Volance?’
Celeste jumped.
It was the shop assistant who’d spoken. She’d moved from behind the glass desk. She was moving towards the changing rooms, no doubt wondering why Celeste was anxiously waiting by the doorway rather than moving back into the shop.
‘Do you require any assistance, Miss Volance?’
The assistant turned as the bell above the shop’s main door rang out.
Hincheley strode into the shop, his immaculate, sheer-black chauffeur’s uniform emphasising his straight-backed military bearing.
‘Oh, Richard.’ Celeste spoke as calmly, as breezily as she could. ‘Could you help me a moment please?’
She’d called him Richard, not Hincheley.
Hincheley would recognise it as another sign that’s there was something seriously amiss.
The assistant frowned.
‘I’m sorry Miss Volance, but there are absolutely no men allowed in the changing rooms!’
‘Oh, but it is important, Sarah; and there’s no one else around.’
Once again, Celeste had deliberately used a first name, in this case to remind the young assistant that the Volances were regular and prized customers.
The young woman frowned in puzzlement.
‘But didn’t I just see–’
‘I just love this design, Sarah!’ Celeste interrupted excitedly, holding up the green dress. ‘I’ll take it! And the rest of the collection by the same designer; could you have them all delivered to our apartment for a private viewing? You know; the usual arrangements?’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course Miss Volance!’
The assistant’s bewilderment had been instantly transformed into an exhilarated imagining of the high commission to be made from simply organising the Volances’ ‘usual arrangements’. They paid generously, tipped liberally.
‘Would that be for tonight?’ the assistant asked. ‘Around seven, as usual?’
She had already produced her pen and notebook. She either hadn’t noticed or could no longer care that Hincheley had disappeared into the changing rooms.
He reappeared, his hard face typically stern, unreadable.
The assistant wasn’t to know it, of course, but Hincheley had already hardened his fi
ngers in preparation for what he had to do next. His super efficient lungs had separated the components of the air, pumped oxygen under immense pressure into the hollow, perforated bones and skin of his hand.
In a swift, unexpected motion, he sharply jabbed his forefinger against the assistant’s temple. At one and the same time, two fingers of his other hand stabbed into the soft flesh of the side of her neck.
She collapsed, unconscious.
Celeste didn’t need to be told what to do next.
Once again, it was that instinct for survival that had taken control.
She was acting almost automatically as she ran to the shop’s door. She closed it, flipped the dangling sign so that ‘Closed’ faced out towards the street.
Equally silently, equally hurriedly and expertly, Hincheley effortlessly dragged the assistant’s body across the floor until it lay behind her desk, where it was out of sight of any passer-by.
‘Mop, bucket, large plastic bags,’ Hincheley said coldly to Celeste.
Celeste nodded. She dashed off towards the auxiliary room lying towards the rear of the shop.
As she was about to enter, she glanced back towards Hincheley.
He’d already taken off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves.
He stepped towards the changing rooms.
He flexed his hands.
And a long, razor-sharp talon extended from every finger.
*
Chapter 2
‘That poor woman! And her family too! God only knows how much they’ll all suffer when they find out, Celly!’
Celeste’s mum was understandably furious when she heard what had happened.
‘And all because you wanted to try on a dress, Celly! How many times have I told you we can’t risk being discovered?’
Celeste hung her head ashamedly.
What could she say?
Not only had she disobeyed her mother’s express orders – rules that she herself had accepted as being essential – but it had also resulted in the death of an innocent human.
And where was that poor woman’s body now? Burning away to nothing in the apartment block’s basement incinerator, where Hincheley had immediately taken it as soon as they had arrived home.
Even Celly’s hardened instincts hadn’t prevented her from recoiling at the sight of the large carrier bags Hincheley had carried from the shop, quickly and efficiently piling them in the back of the Rolls Royce. She had felt nauseous, even close to fainting, as she had helped him clean up the bloody mess left in the changing rooms.
As soon as the cleaning was finished, and the mops and buckets were back where they should be in the back rooms, Celly had filliped the door’s sign back to ‘Open’. Hincheley had tenderly revived the still unconscious Sarah.
‘Are you okay Sarah?’ Celly had enquired innocently as Sarah had come around. She had gently caressed the bruise on the young woman’s temple, pursed her lips as if empathising with Sarah’s pain. ‘You banged your head as you fell. You must have fainted – I hope it wasn’t because I’d ordered too many things!’ she’d added with a girlish titter.
‘We’ll have to hope you’re right, Celly,’ Celly’s mum sighed resignedly, ‘that Sarah seemed confused enough to believe your story! It may be an awful thing to wish, I know, but we’ll just have to hope that that poor woman is filed away as a missing person rather tha–’
The bell to the apartment door rang.
Celly and her mum swapped anxious glances.
‘The police?’ Celly said worriedly.
Her mum shook her head but frowned uncertainly.
‘I wouldn’t think they’d had time…’
They both cringed as they heard their housekeeper Mary answer the door.
‘Hello Jake!’ they heard Mary trill happily. ‘Celly’s in the main room; go right through, she’s expecting you.’
Celly and her mother smiled at each other.
Perhaps everything would turn out all right for the Volances after all.
‘It’s Jake,’ Celly repeated excitedly, unnecessarily
She turned.
She ran to meet Jake.
Her instinct, she realised, allowed her to once again place the horror of the last few hours to the back of her mind.
Then again, it had been her instinct for survival that had caused her to kill the poor woman in the first place.
*
After all that had happened, Celly didn’t feel like showing Jake the green dress, let alone wearing it to see if he thought it suited her.
Jake was just a few years older than her, the son of neighbours living in the apartment just below the Volances.
Celly felt almost sure that Jake was attracted to her. But was she just confusing the fact that she was attracted to him, and was hoping that he felt the same way about her?
It was all so bewildering, the way that humans could hide whether they were attracted to you or not!
‘How’s it all going, Celly?’ he asked with his familiar, welcoming grin.
‘Fine, fine; and you?’ Fine apart from the fact that I’ve just mistakenly killed a woman, she thought. ‘How’d it go with the tests?’
Jake had been running a few tests on his computer to check if the adaptions he’d made to a computer game would allow him to alter the way it worked, in particular allowing him to play from the vantage point of at least one of the villains rather than the heroes.
He shook his head sadly.
‘Uh uh; more locks on the game than I’d anticipated. More limitations, too, so it doesn’t really make it worth playing that role. I’d hoped I’d be able to combine some of the attributes of the good guys; you know, use their abilities, their capabilities.’
Celly wasn’t really interested in computer games. But as Jake couldn’t seem to get enough of them, she pretended to enjoy them too.
‘Did you want to finish playing that game we were playing yesterday?’ she asked, secretly hoping he’d say, No, let’s go out somewhere.
‘Sure,’ he said.
*
Just as Jake was good at manipulating and even building basic versions of the technology underlying computer games, he was also good at playing them.
There was no point in Celly taking on an opposing role; she would only last a few seconds before Jake obliterated either her or her virtual team. So she always took on a supporting role, backing Jake’s swift advance through the landscapes as best as she could.
‘It’s a joke, of course,’ Jake said distractedly as, with a rapid tweak of his handheld control, he narrowly avoided being sent to oblivion by a group of oncoming androids, ‘this idea that computers and robots could take over the world.’
‘Really? I’d thought you’d be the one most likely to believe in it, the way you’re always tinkering with all that software you’re constantly loading up.’
‘Yeah, including tinkering for hours with my laptop after an automatic update has just about destroyed its registry. So with these robots, right, I reckon they’d all come to a grinding halt after a clash of updates from Microsoft and Epsom.’
Jake was surprisingly callous when it came to wiping out the enemies they faced. Efficient. Brutal. Even faintly sadistic, the way he laughed as yet another opponent plummeted off a cliff, was consumed by fire, or exploded in a shower of blood and shrapnel.
‘We’re saving ourselves/ the Kingdom/ the Earth/ the Gurdian Race,’ Jake would always nonchalantly reply whenever Celly pointed this out.
There was a knock on the room’s door.
It opened, Celly’s mum entering with Dr Frobisher.
‘Sorry to interrupt Celly,’ her mum said, ‘But Dr Frobisher came straight round when I called, asking him to, er, you know; for your regular check-up?’
‘Regular check-up?’ Jake whispered curiously, turning to face Celly. ‘Since when do you call a doctor to come out for a regular check-up? You okay, Celly?’
Celly sighed inwardly.
Trust Jake to notice mum’s poor choi
ce of words!
Obviously, she didn’t want Jake to know the real reason for Dr Frobisher’s visit; he’d want to run a few checks to ensure the recent traumatic events hadn’t caused her any unseen damage.
An uncontrolled, sudden increase in her blood pressure could have caused an unwanted tautening, a permanent tensioning, in certain areas of her skin’s innumerable capillaries. Even a brief yet now forgotten spell of hyperventilation could have resulted in any number of complications in her complex system of lungs that – due to the way they were effectively linked to just about every part of her sophisticated structure – might in turn lead to problems with the rigidity of her wings, the lightening of her body as she prepared to fly.
‘Yes, Celly’s fine thank you, Jake,’ Dr Frobisher said, having heard the boy’s concern. ‘Perisa – Celly’s mother – simply meant she called asking me to make a house visit for the check-up.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Celly’s mum agreed, now realising the mistake she’d made, ‘Celly’s just being feeling a little off lately.’
Celly sighed inwardly again.
Mum! Couldn’t you have just left it with Dr Frobisher’s explanation?
‘Off?’ Jake said, his curiosity piqued again. ‘Really? Celly, you didn’t say you weren’t feeling too good?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Celly replied nonchalantly. ‘Just, you know, a headache.’
‘A headache?’
Now Celly’s father Erdwin had appeared at the doorway. Placing an arm around Celly’s mother, he gave her a kiss in greeting.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘we’ll have to get that looked at immediately, won’t we, eh?’
If Jake thought it odd that Celly’s dad had come home early from work, this time he was polite enough to hang back from saying anything.
‘Hi Jake,’ Erdwin said brightly. ‘How’s things?’
‘Fine thanks, Mr Volance.’
‘Now, if we might just leave you on your own for a moment, please Jake?’ Celly’s mum held out a hand for Celly to take. ‘While we quickly see what’s troubling Celly?’
‘Sure Mrs Volance; I’m almost finished here anyway.’
Jake nodded back towards the immense TV screen and it’s scenes of a devastated, empty city.
The apartment’s doorbell rang once more.
Celly’s mum visibly tensed.
