J.R. Rains Vampire for Hire World_Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  “All right, Ms. Moon. I’ll be in touch if anything else comes up.”

  “It won’t, if you do your job. Goodbye,” I said and hung up.

  I had just gotten off the phone with Tammy’s principal when I answered the new phone call, this one from Archibald Maximus. Again, so soon? This time, my phone display read: Evolution of the Dragon 82.

  I recognized the book title. “Hi, Max. What are you doing inside a nonfiction book instead of a novel?”

  “Research, Sam. Lots of research.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “I’ve found out some things that are helping me hone in on finding the chosen noble dragon to find and recover the Grail. Or more accurately, I’ve found out which of several dragons I visited are not the correct dragon.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they tried to barbeque me, crunch me up, even drag me into their lairs and bury me in… for lack of a better description… their litter boxes.”

  “Eww!” I couldn’t help it, I gagged a bit. And it was tough to make a vampire gag. I’d seen it all. Hell, I’d drunk the vilest blood on Earth, the blood of other vampires. Well, long ago I did. Lately, I was eating regular food, for the most part. Occasionally, my entity Elizabeth tried to tempt me into a little bit of imbibing at Fang’s Place, which was a blood bar for vampires, owned by a friend of mine.

  “Yeah. I’ve had quite the adventure, Sam, but I am almost none the worse for wear, nothing a little bit of alchemy and some Bactine can’t mend when I get back to our own world.”

  “Sheesh. Which dragons did all of that to you?” I asked.

  “The dragons that were eventually slayed by Sigmund and Siguro, that father-son team of dragon slayers, and also the dragons killed by Sigurd the Viking—also known as Snake-in-the-Eye—and dragons slayed by King Arthur, Tristan, and even Sir Lancelot. Oh, and St. George’s dragon. I thought he might have been the one because of literary irony, but he didn’t pass my litmus test—he didn’t even know what the Grail was.”

  “Good to know. Wow, you’ve been through a ton of books,” I said, impressed. “Novels.”

  “I have. And maybe, I have just one to go, if we’re lucky.”

  And then, I shuddered because his words sank in. “By the way, I hate the word ‘slayed’ when you’re talking about dragons. Those are my relatives, right?”

  “Some of them are; some of them aren’t. The sea serpent dragons—those of the venomous forked tongues and sulfurous stinky flames spewing from both ends—are akin to your hillbilly dragon step-cousins, about fifty times removed.”

  I said, “Boy, are the sea-serpent dragons ever nasty, primitive creatures, or what?”

  “Yes. And, to boot, they’re hell-bent on murder first, and asking questions later. Actually, they are capable of every language, as are all dragons, but aren’t that keen on using it. They prefer just to turn everyone into a crispy appetizer and bellow smoky laughter about it.”

  “Well, you know what they say: ‘You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives,’” I said drily.

  “So true.”

  “Sam, aren’t you almost at the library?” Max asked.

  “I was on my way, but I had to take a small detour. I’m about to pick up Anthony. He called me for a ride a little while ago, and I’m afraid he’ll have to come with me to the library after he gets done with his event of the evening. I hope that’s all right.”

  “It’s good that he’s going along on this mission. You might need him.”

  “Really?”

  “If things keep going as badly as they have been, it’s good that Anthony’s riding shotgun.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. What are you getting me into, Max?”

  “An adventure that you’ll always remember, I fear.”

  “I remember them all. Vampires have memories like elephants. How can Anthony and I help?” I asked.

  “Sam, I’m having trouble contacting the dragon in an old manuscript, the only one of this particular version of an old story that’s left in the world.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s locked in a climate-controlled glass case in my lab behind the help desk of the occult book room, and I can’t get access to it from here because it’s a special kind of glass that blocks alchemy. The glass is actually made from… well, a giant fire opal that has been treated with… holy water from the River Jordan.”

  “Woohoo! I finally get to see your inner sanctum and free an ancient, original manuscript from its fire-opal prison?”

  “Yes, but don’t touch anything else in the other sealed cases. I’m serious. And I guess this is a warning to Anthony, too.”

  “I’ll warn him. What’s the manuscript?” I asked.

  “The one that I believe contains the dragon who is worthy enough, noble enough, and humble enough to find and recover the Holy Grail.”

  “What book is he in?”

  Maximus paused for effect, as he was wont to do. “Beowulf.”

  Chapter 5

  TAMMY MOON

  After what I’d done to him with Melody, I should have expected Anthony to double-cross me. I did know better, but sometimes, I just couldn’t stop our ongoing Tammy-versus-Anthony war games. It was just too entertaining, in a malicious way that was addictive in this co-dependent way, at least that was what my school counselor had once told me when I’d cried on her shoulder. The cycle was addictive, especially when I won, which I did most of the time because of my mind-reading abilities.

  And now, after everything literally blew up in my face, it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to ditch school. But I would anyway because I’m Tammy Moon, I’m seventeen, and I can read people’s minds, including my gross brother’s dirty mind. I should have read his mind in the chem lab, but I forgot to be a bitch because he was in the middle of ‘helping’ me.

  And school was so, so boring, especially since I could read the test answers in my teachers’ minds while they were passing out the blank tests. I tried not to look, but, yeah, high school was way too easy for a mind reader. Except for chemistry class, which was more lab practice than it was test answers.

  I’m mostly an “A” student, so don’t get me started about why I have to take this night class at my high school. It’s for kids who get in trouble and they’re trying to brainwash us to be obedient robots before we graduate and unleash ourselves on the world.

  Anyway, the class is called “Responsible Teens” and it’s from 7 to 10 p.m., a couple of times a week. I have to take the class to erase this undeserved stain on my character from my permanent record, so I can get into the college of my choice.

  I could have told the principal that I wasn’t the one who blew up the chemistry lab, but it was my experiment, so I had to take the rap. I just shouldn’t have had my stupid brother helping me because technically, it was cheating. So, I left his name out of it and took my punishment. Grr, his, actually.

  Anthony laughed his butt off when I got put into “Responsible Teens” for the rest of the semester for his fiery prank. I should have seen that one coming. He was getting revenge on me for me telling some random alchemy school girl about his boxer skid marks and then, she didn’t want to go out with him. No surprise there… my brother’s hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.

  So, obviously, I didn’t learn my lessons by the constant example of my oh-so-perfect and powerful mother or my brother who could turn into a giant boy-man with arms of shooting flames.

  By the way, Anthony is Mom’s favorite kid—even though my mom would deny it if I ever said it. I just know she looks at him like he’s God’s gift to the family, and she looks at me like I’m trouble waiting to happen. I suppose I’m my father’s daughter as much as Anthony is his mother’s son. She might as well plaster a halo over Anthony because that’s the way she sees him. He gets away with pretty much everything. And I don’t have Dad here anymore to stick up for me and call me his little princess and let me wrap him around my pinkie fi
nger.

  I don’t want to complain too much about Mom. I love her madly, but she just doesn’t appreciate what I bring to the table of the family. I kind of want to be just like her, except for the immortal, blood-drinking part. Little does my mom know she’s my secret hero, well, my heroine, I mean. But she’s also my nemesis. Aye, there’s the rub, as the teacher says in my Shakespeare class, like it’s his daily joke. Yup, he says it every day in class, like a dork. Are all men dorks? In my world, they apparently are.

  Back to my mom: Like most mothers of teenagers, my vampire mom seems to have eyes in the back of her head and a sense of when one of her kids is in danger. But hey, it’s not always me in danger! Sometimes, it’s Anthony who gets kidnapped by a pack of murderous werewolves or whatever. So, after that actually happened, yes, really, it was bound to be my turn for something like that.

  Here’s the something: Recently, the devil—yes, that one—tried to possess me: mind, soul, and body. Eww, I know!

  I don’t want to think too much about what’s happening with the devil because frankly, I am skeeved out by it all and I feel like to think about the devil might jinx me by calling him up or something. I’m safe, though. At least, I think so. He wouldn’t dare try anything, right? I mean, if it’s a do-or-die situation, I know my brother always has my back. So far.

  My brother really spews fire, by the way. No, not from his butt. Well, probably that, too, but my smelly brother and my mom and sometimes, my mom’s witch friend, Allison, are all trying to protect me from going to hell and becoming the bride of You Know Who or some similar fate.

  The devil wants me for my mind-reading powers and something to do with my bloodline, but Mom is having none of it. I don’t want to see my mom mad, ever. If looks could kill… well, the devil would already be dead. But it will take more than dirty looks from my mom’s creepy vampire eyes to kill him, though. Like, Mom’s eyes are like dark holes with a flame in them. I know, right? Otherwise, she’s very pretty in this goth sort of way, pale skin and all. I don’t think she ages either. I’m already jealous of that.

  Where was I?

  Oh, yeah, my mom has this spidey sense of impending danger that are actual alarm sounds going off in her head like recess bells. But to make it worse, Mom’s a vampire—a vampire with an uncanny ability to know when one of her children is being disobedient or in dire circumstances, both of which often happen together. Anthony is too much of a butt-kissing nerd to even think of disobeying Mom. If he’s in trouble or danger, it’s because he has no common sense to see when anything evil is coming for him. He’s a big dumb lug.

  However, I learn by my mistakes that begin with a little disobedience. What’s the point of living in a safe little box of rules under the thumb of a strict parent? So, I get out there and explore stuff as much as a teenage girl from Fullerton can stretch her invisible retracting leash. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

  Okay, mental diary, that’s probably enough for now. I have to do research for my paper on Beowulf. Yeah, the joy of being in high school honors English never ends. The not-as-smart kids all have to watch a Beowulf movie and write a report. I actually have to read books in my pre-college honors classes. And provide all this plot and character analysis.

  So, tonight, I’m skipping my night class on teen responsibility at my high school and going to Cal State Fullerton to do my literature research. While I’m there, I want to see if I can find the secret occult book room that my mom and my brother are always thinking about.

  The power of reading minds is awesome. And being super-nosy is so very me…

  Chapter 6

  THE DRAGON, THORN

  It was difficult for me to stop thinking about the maiden with hair as dark and glossy as a raven’s wing, but I reminded myself that she was a girl from another world who had come to me in a dream and stolen my heart, as well as one of my crest quills. I wondered if she yet knew the power that it held. She’d seemed so innocent, and yet, she held the promise of a temptress, if not a sorceress. It was a heady froth to think of her powers, even of her skill in communicating with my thoughts.

  I tried to push the remembrance of her rose-petal lips and blossoming lush form from my mind to focus on my quest, for I doubted I would ever see the lovely young lady again, except in a dream. After all, what ever came forth from a dream? Certainly, no lips that would ever touch mine. Not in this primitive life, compared with the snatches of her strange, modern world that I remembered from the dream.

  I sighed and resigned myself to sharpening my ancestral sword and reiterating in my mind what I must do for the good of all, instead of for myself.

  Ah, yes, the quest for the Cup of Forgiveness…

  There had been peace in the land for fifty years, only because I did not retaliate when Beowulf and his ilk had killed Grendel, the ogre, and then, Grendel’s raging, grieving mother, whose name I have long since forgotten.

  I was a youngling dragon then and had not yet blown my first flame, though I wept for these ogres’ deaths because they were the last of their kind—as I am ironically now possibly the last of my kind, despite my search for a mate, or even just a friend. Like Grendel, I had also lost my mother too soon, and the thought of anyone’s mother—even an ogre’s—being murdered was just horrific, let alone a dragon’s mother.

  Poor misunderstood wayward Grendel and his furious mother—to live in dank, hand-dug burrows and never fly was the birthright and sad fate of the lowly ogres—but it is not a creature’s fault what it is, any more than it is my fault that I am a cavern-dwelling, copper-colored dragon with quills on top of my head, or in my two-legged form, a Viking-looking man with a head of flame-colored hair that sticks up every which way, and a scruffy beard that seems to resist any blade but my sword’s edge.

  Hence, since it was not their fault they were ogres, they did not deserve to die in the way they did, with Grendel’s claw torn from his shoulder and his writhing, mortally wounded body thrown into the icy lake. Only days later, his mother was summarily decapitated and with little difficulty or fanfare by a magical giant sword that appeared fortuitously in Beowulf’s hand, for no good reason, in my opinion. Who put it there for Beowulf? The nerve! It was hardly a fair fight: an aged woman-ogre against the merciless Dane with a magic, massive invincible sword and an unquenchable thirst for spilling the blood of supernatural creatures. Grendel was a more fitting opponent for Beowulf, yet, even he could not best whatever magic was imbued in the sword of his human foe.

  After Grendel was gone, as a young dragon, I had posed stock-still next to the similar-looking stone gargoyles on the high ledge of one of their cathedrals under construction.

  And from that perch where I could be invisible and perceived as a stone gargoyle, I listened to the bellows of fury and the gnashing of teeth of Grendel’s grieving mother. She found no one who would give her sympathy over the death of her odious, violent son who just didn’t know any better than not to kill humans for sport. My theory of their cruelty toward her was that if one gave leave to a grieving ogre mother, more would always come. Before she was taken and killed by Beowulf and his men who rang the bells and came with their torches of pitch and their shouted epithets against dragon shifters.

  I felt compassion for Grendel’s mother, but as an orphaned dragon-boy, I hid myself well from Grendel’s mother, in case she had a taste for tender dragon-boy meat, which ogres were reputed to do. It was possibly what had happened to my aunts, uncles, cousins, and every other dragon in the land who had mysteriously disappeared, that they were devoured by ogres whilst in their daytime human forms.

  But now, I am a grown dragon-man—a man by day and a dragon by night. I am well able to defend myself, or even be the aggressor if I so chose, although I had never done so. Until now.

  Once, fifty years ago, Beowulf came up from the bottom of the lake, puffing himself up by bringing the head and attached spine of Grendel’s mother to the surface. I learned something from that horrific day: If you want to be king, kill s
omething and bring its head to the village people to put on a pike and parade around—don’t bring treasure to your swine, for they will not recognize its worth. For material riches will not make one a king, but purported bravery will, in the eyes of easily impressionable peasants. Perhaps that was my first lesson as a grown dragon-man: Those who are self-congratulatory about killing will live to regret it.

  But now, even though Beowulf is silver-haired and possessed of a back bent with age, he or his men have finally managed to raise my ire to the point where I must take action.

  Someone in the kingdom, probably at King Beowulf’s behest, had stolen not just the treasure that he had also stolen and hidden at the bottom of the lake. And also the Cup—the Cup I was supposed to guard until the end of time. The loss of the treasure hoard I could possibly accept as collateral damage in the war between full humans and supernatural creatures, but the loss of the Cup? Never!

  After that dream I had about the girl with the raven-colored hair, I knew I must set out to retrieve the Cup of Forgiveness, even if it was the last thing I would ever do. It belonged to the Creator, and he’d charged me with its security when I got my first dragon quills, a sign that I was finally full-grown. As its guardian, it was my responsibility to see that the devil didn’t get his hands on it. And destroy it…

  If he did seize and destroy the Cup, or even drink from it, forgiveness would be gone from the world, and what would follow would be the beginning of the end of all life…

  The thought of that made me shudder as I gathered up my weapons and fortified myself with the flesh of an aged stag that had fallen on the ice of the lake and could not get up. It had finally died of exposure and I came upon it yesterday and carried it home on my back. That gift of meat from the Creator was welcome and I knelt and expressed my thanks before I fed.

  I torched the flesh with my own fiery breath for the ultimate treat in roasted deliciousness. I tore flesh from bone and did not waste any part of the stag except the antlers-in-velvet, which always gave me the runs. I dragged the antlers outside my cavern and left them for my gnaw-happy friends, the wolves, who have fed me on occasion, as I fed them this evening.