by Eve Paludan
A voice came out of the shadows. “Thorn, if you jump into the poem by my friend Nick North, you’ll be deceived by a False Grail and the world will fall to evil.”
Both Lady Moon and I turned around sharply.
“Tammy!” Samantha Moon said as her daughter stepped out of the shadows wearing all black, including a black knitted cap and carrying her black rucksack. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“I read your mind, so I could follow you and Max. I had to see what you were up to.”
Tammy ran up to me and threw her arms around my dragon neck. “Thorn!” she said aloud. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
I sent her my thoughts: “Beloved, you must go home. It is too dangerous for you to search for the Cup.”
She said aloud, “No, Thorn! I can help you find the Cup of Forgiveness.”
“Just a minute. What were you saying about the False Grail?” asked Maximus.
Tammy said, “All of this jumping into various fictional works has been a fruitless search for the Cup of Forgiveness and has only given the devil more time to take over and to divert goodness and enslave people for his purposes for the dark side. All of the Grails that have ever existed are false ones, except for the one that Beowulf had and that’s the one that is right now in the Olinda Landfill in Brea.” She looked at her mother. “Mom, please believe me, I can predict the future.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asked in her head.
“Positive. If you have Thorn jump into the rap poem that Nick wrote, it’s just another chase after another False Grail and the devil might even trap him in that world.”
Samantha Moon looked sharply at Maximus.
Tammy insisted, “Hurry, you guys! The real one, we’re going to have to go get it, and the land has shifted, with tons of garbage packed over it. Earthquakes and rain and stuff turning into methane gas.”
“But, Lady Tam, you know where it is?” I asked.
“Yes, Thorn, I saw it in my head, in the future. It’s under a bunch of nasty hospital waste. Full of dirty needles and rotting bloody bandages and crap. Literally, crap.”
Lady Tam clambered onto my neck and held on for dear life. “Time’s slipping away. Let’s go, Thorn, and get the Cup. Now.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice.
I rose into the night with her hugging my neck and telling me to have faith in her prediction, that she had never felt surer of anything.
I told her in her mind that I trusted her more than any human I had ever known. Which was true. I flapped my wings hard and flew fast and straight. These would surely be my last hours with Lady Tam because I believed she knew where the Cup of Forgiveness lay. I told her that I loved her with all my heart and that she was pure and true and beautiful. And she told me the same. She also told me that she was happy to see me again and that if things were different, she would have loved to bear my child and with me, would have raised up this babe with all the love she had in her heart.
I could not even answer because my own heart was breaking to give her what she wanted, but knowing that I must not do any such thing. She knew my thoughts and bravely held on and urged me to go faster to the landfill. Faster to get the Cup and faster for me to leave her side. She had the truest, most unselfish human heart I ever knew.
The dragon Samantha Moon caught up to me and dangled poor struggling Maximus in her talons. He’d even lost a shoe and was beside himself, even admitting that he had a fear of heights. Poor Max. He was out of his element now.
We flew over the city lights and headed toward Brea, now with Lady Moon leading the way, as she knew the lay of the vast connected cities much better than I. Tam also seemed to know which way to go and urged me left or right with the pressure of her legs. I became her faithful, obedient steed, and trusted her with all that I was.
It was not long before my passenger was coughing and gagging from the stench as we coasted downward over a massive mound of filth. With her knees, Lady Tam urged me to land on the cleared ground near a building and not on the filth pile itself. Tammy slipped off me and laid her hand on me, as if she wanted to maintain contact.
After circling around a certain spot, Samantha Moon followed us and alighted next to me. She ducked behind a building with her rucksack and came out in her woman form, dressed, though. It was night, so I had no such luxury to transform to my man form. I had to wait for dawn and it would happen whether I wanted it to, or not.
Samantha Moon pointed and said, “Tammy, the spot where the last body was found was over there.”
“But the Grail is washed down, packed down, under tons of yuck,” Lady Tam replied.
“We need shovels,” Maximus said, gagging. “And haz-mat suits.”
“No one needs to dig,” Lady Tam said.
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“I still have a wish. My third wish.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I’m not magic. I don’t have wishcraft, Max, at least not that I know of. What I do have is a dragon quill from Thorn. It’s a magic wand, and it had three wishes. I have just one more wish.” She got it out of her rucksack and held it up to show her mother and Max.
“Tammy?” Samantha Moon said. “What is this? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t need to know. It could have been dangerous for you to know.” She paused. “And it’s my wish. Mine! I know what to do with it, too. I don’t need your help to make a decision.”
Suddenly, a shadow demon came around the corner and attacked my beloved, even roared a demand: “I’ll take that dragon’s quill!”
Tam screamed and Samantha Moon, Max, and myself all leapt to save her, but the demon held the blade of an athame to her pale throat to stop us. “Come no closer!” he warned. His voice was terrifying, and his breath smelt of sulfur.
I saw Lady Tam make a quick decision. She gripped the barbed quill so hard that blood ran from her palm and when she turned in the curve of the demon’s arms to face him, she shoved the quill right into his heart and screamed, “Begone!”
Black blood ran over her hand, his blood mixing with hers.
He shrieked, which only made her jam it in further.
With a cry of victory that I would not have believed my tender, innocent damsel could utter, she then pulled the quill from the dead demon’s heart when he fell, held it up to the sky, and demanded, “Holy Cup of Forgiveness, I wish you to rise from your disgusting grave and fly to Thorn! Now!”
As the earth moved, garbage slid, and rumbles happened that released odious scents and sights of offal and filth, the Cup of Forgiveness did indeed rise up through the compacted layers of filth into the sky and came to rest in my outstretched talon. A wondrous light swirled inside of the Cup in a way that mesmerized me, and I hesitated so long that more demons came, demons that also wanted the Cup.
“Drink the light!” shouted Tammy, running toward me through the encroaching vile enemies.
“We’ll take care of the demons,” Samantha Moon said as she battled them.
Maximus warded off more of the shadow demons that tried to position themselves between me and them. Using nothing but his bare hands, he moved in a lightning-speed display of force that I had never before seen. But I had no time to admire his bare-handed fighting skills, nor Samantha’s, nor Tammy’s.
The demons were almost upon me, when, to my horror, I realized that, in my dragon form at night, I could not lift the Cup to my lips, for my talons did not reach that high and I could not bend my head that low!
She could read my mind, so Tammy realized it, too, and she used my bloody quill like a dagger to stab her way through the demons that surrounded me. When she reached me, she gently took the Cup from my talons and stood on tiptoe to lift it to my lips.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said as she touched the Cup to my dragon mouth with all its terrible sharp teeth. “You are worthy.”
In trust, I took my drink of light and waited to be burned to a crisp. But
that didn’t happen. What did happen was that the sight of my friends, and my one true love, fighting off the demons faded into a whiteness that was a peaceful softness, but one that was moving very quickly. I was now flying into white light, but not seemingly under my own power. I was being pulled… and I knew not where.
So, this was the end. Or the beginning. I did not know which.
In my heart of hearts, I hoped and prayed that Lady Tam would not overly mourn my departure from her world. She seemed like the type of gentle young woman to grieve hard. My dearheart! If I had to save all the worlds for one mortal, I would do it again for her. And she for me, for that matter. Then, I realized that she had saved me. She had!
I still wanted her with every breath and flame of me—man flame and dragon flame alike. Lord of Light help me, but I had somehow fought the passionate nature of my own body and heart to resist the appeal and trusting honesty of that breathtaking, lovely virgin, if only to do what was good and right. And save the world for her. Only, she’d saved the world for me. Imagine that. A mere damsel as heroine of the world. It boggled the mind. I felt humbled by her brave heart. And by her intelligence.
As I was pulled higher and higher, all I knew now was that my eyes were narrowed to mere slits against the force of this dizzying speed and my wings had taken a coppery sheen of sweat. Gravity felt different here. I was spewing violet and green flames that dissipated in an eye blink.
Now, I was flying over a place with infinite lights on the ground and yes, above me, too—they were not the torch fires of primitive villages, nor the glass lights of modern cities, but they were tiny bright lights of hope, drawing me inward and upward to their strange world with a hum of something mysterious and reverent that powered them. It seemed to me that I might be looking at the lights of… souls.
The Cup! Where was it? I had a moment of panic, until I looked down and realized that Tammy had somehow put the Cup back in my talons—I was gripping it so tightly that I could not feel the shape of it as my foot was tingling.
As the light became brighter and brighter, the glowing, angel-voiced Cup of Forgiveness was singing a song of welcome… and calling my brethren!
I did not know what I had done to deserve such an honor. I supposed I would be consumed by Everlasting Love and cease to exist. But that did not happen either.
I was told by a deep voice of authority in my head, and in my dragon heart, that I would fly higher than I ever had—and that all dragons would now soar on the mighty side of Light, even those who were vampires, too—those few were previously without souls, but now, they had them. I did not understand that part, or what I had to do with it, but they assured me that I would understand all, in time. Time. How long would I be here?
Forever and a day, I was told.
Under the mysterious pulling force, I was lifted higher and higher and broke through the gravity of Earth to join the floating Light Warriors who welcomed me in to their brilliant ranks. I was made aware that I still had much work to do to battle the evil one and his misguided followers, even as they pursued the innocent soul of my precious—the beloved one forever lost to me—Lady Tam.
But I took heart because I must be brave and selfless here. It could not be any other way. I knew this. The reward of such selfless honor was greater than I deserved. But for the good of the worlds, I did this. Yes, worlds. For there are many worlds. But only one Cup.
The Light Warriors had wings, too. Like me, they were dragons and they were also men. But they were angels, as well. All three.
Was I an angel, too? I did not yet know the answer to that, but one thing was certain: I was alone no more. No longer the last of my kind, near-perishing for a lack of companionship in a primitive world, they took me into their heavenly fold and lavished love on me—love such as I had never known. Beyond my wildest expectations, I became as whole and was healed and forgiven of any inadequacies. By my brothers. A mighty enclave of dragon-man brothers.
And suddenly, I saw my passed-on dragon ancestors, all my parents and grandparents and great ones before them who had never been able to depart the plane of earth before this. But now, they had!
Now, as I realized their spirits were freed, even from another world, my heart filled with new meaning and an urgent sense of duty. And now, also, after more than a thousand years of traveling through myth and legend, song and story, poem and dream, history and future, I, the dragon, Thorn, was finally, finally Home.
The End
***
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BOOKS BY EVE PALUDAN in J. R. RAIN’S VAMPIRE FOR HIRE WORLD
BROTHERHOOD OF THE BLADE series
BURNING
AFTERGLOW
RADIANCE
CRESCENT MOON MYSTERY series
DEAD AHEAD
FANG IN THE CITY series
VAMPIRES SHE WROTE
KINGSLEY FULCRUM, WEREWOLF FOR HIRE series
WOLF MOON
TAMMY MOON, DAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRE series
DRAGON LESSONS
Other Books by Eve Paludan
STANDALONE NOVELS AND NOVELLAS
COOPER’S GOLD
FULL OF STARS
HAPPILY EVER AFTERS: THREE ROMANCE NOVELS
HEARTS OF HANUKKAH
SANTA’S LITTLE HEIST
THREE CHRISTMAS WISHES
VEIN GLORIOUS
ANGEL DETECTIVES series
THE MAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY
THE MAN WHO ROSE FROM THE SEA (with Suzanne Wilson)
DEARLY DEPARTED series
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE
WHILE THE CAT’S AWAY
GHOST FILES series
GHOST FIRE
MEDIUM MYSTERIES series
HOLLYWOOD HILLS
POLICE CHIEF JACK LEE CREATURE ISLAND MYSTERY series
BIGFOOT ISLAND
RANCH LOVERS ROMANCE series
TAKING BACK TARA
TARA TAKES CHRISTMAS
WEREWOLF DETECTIVES series (with Suzanne Wilson)
WEREWOLF INTERRUPTED
WEREWOLF RISING
WEREWOLF UNLEASHED
WEREWOLF LEGACY
WEREWOLF DETECTIVES THE COMPLETE SERIES BOOKS 1, 2, 3 and 4 (Boxset)
WITCH DETECTIVES series (Books 1-3 with Stuart Sharp)
WITCHY BUSINESS
WITCH AND FAMOUS
WITCH WAY OUT
WITCH BONES
WITCH DIARIES series
WITCH POTION
NONFICTION
ROMANCE WRITER'S PINK PAGES: The Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Novel Published (1993)
ROMANCE WRITER'S PINK PAGES: The Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Novel Published (1995-1996)
ROMANCE WRITER'S PINK PAGES: The Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Romance Novel Published (1996-1997)
SCREENPLAYS
THREE CHRISTMAS WISHES Novella and Screenplay
(Novella by Eve Paludan, Screenplay by David Wyllie)
TRANSLATIONS
RECUPERANDO A TARA (Spanish version translated by Maria Riega
from TAKING BACK TARA by Eve Paludan)
ANTHOLOGIES
VAMPIRE, ZOMBIES, AND GHOSTS, OH MY! (Anthology #1) (not currently available)
About the Author
Eve Paludan is a bestselling author of dozens of books. She lives in Arizona, where she enjoys reading paranormal fiction, urban fantasy, romance and mysteries. She also enjoys taking scenic photos and swimming. Her books are available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Eve-Paludan/e/B004VXHP6O/
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