by Anna Santos
Once she was able to control her shifting, her parents taught her how to hunt, run, and use her abilities. Barbara didn’t like it, but it was a part of her. She had no choice in the matter, and she needed to keep it a secret from non-shifters.
Despite being able to change into a lion, she never embraced her abilities or used them. Her brother was another deal. When she was still a teenager, Jason had joined the Navy and then the Special Forces. His medals told the story of his successful missions. She missed him, but he was always away on some mission for the Protection Security Firm that he worked for. He hadn’t called for a few days. She wondered if he was okay.
“So, you are telling me that you go out on a date every day? I won’t believe that until I see your date.”
Barbara laughed. “You will see him someday.” She called a taxi and told the driver her address. She waved goodbye to Shawn as the cab pulled away.
Ten minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of her building After paying the driver, she departed. The building was five stories tall with lots of apartments. Her home was on the third floor.
Barbara stepped into the lobby where a security guard greeted her. “Miss Kent, a package has arrived for you. A man delivered it an hour ago.”
“Thanks, Paul,” Barbara said. “Do you know where it came from?”
“The courier didn’t say, and it doesn’t seem to have a return address.”
“It must be someone sending what they believe to be a priceless work of art that should be in a museum.”
“As always,” the guard smiled and gave her the package.
“Thank you.”
Barbara collected the package and walked up the stairs to her apartment. Once inside, she switched on the lights.
Her apartment wasn’t big, but it was cozy. It had two rooms, a bathroom, and a great living area with an open plan kitchen. Her favorite part of the day was to take off her shoes when she walked through the door, strip off her work clothes, and run a bath.
Today, before doing all that, she had to open the package because she was curious about its content. Maybe it contained a real relic for the museum. They often had donations from people all over the world, and since her address and number were listed on their website, it was not strange to receive eccentric objects and donations of works of art at her address instead of her workplace.
She sat on the sofa and read the words written on the package. It said: to Barbara Kent. Important.
The handwriting was familiar. She tore the wrapper off the package, and the first thing she saw was a letter addressed to her. It was in her brother’s handwriting, and it looked hastily written. She began to read.
Dear Barbara,
I am sorry for writing instead of calling. This was the best way to send you this message without fear that it might be intercepted. It is of the utmost importance that this package doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
I haven’t told you this before, but I work for a secret organization that looks for and protects important relics…both natural and supernatural. According to a shape-shifter of the eagle clan, this relic is a dangerous weapon. It is a dagger that can kill dragon-shifters in their human form.
You may not know this, but dragons exist. They are hidden in the far corners of the earth. They rarely venture out. However, one of them, going by the name of Sir Baldwin, lives among humans. He has many powerful allies, and he’s wealthy. He wants this weapon and will stop at nothing to get it.
I was ordered to go to Russia and transport an object to London. Yet, the scholars who had found it told me what it could do and how worried they were about it. I contacted my organization and informed them about my intention of taking this weapon to the dragon clans. My decision wasn’t made lightly, and I soon realized that I was being hunted. Sir Baldwin had spies there, and they found out about where I was so that he could steal the relic for himself. I later discovered that he plans to use it against the other dragon leaders. With their help and power, he can conquer the world.
You are one of the few people I trust. I need your help to get this to one of my buddies from the Navy. His name is Kayden. He’s a former SEAL operative, and he’ll know what to do with this weapon. He’s a dragon-shifter, and he can reach out to the other dragons and find out more about this weapon and what to do with it.
Please, you must deliver this to him. His old address is attached to the package. You’ll also find money for traveling inside an envelope. I am sorry for causing a change in your daily life, but this is important.
Once you receive this, immediately pack your bags and move. The people looking for me have a lot of resources, and they will come for you. A phone number to reach me is included. Use it only when you find Kayden, not before. Also, use a burner phone and leave your cellphone behind. They can track it.
Finally, don’t trust anyone, and I mean anyone. Not your boyfriend, not your best friend, not your boss. Don’t tell them where you are going.
Stay safe. With love,
Jason
Chapter Four
Barbara read the letter a second time. It seemed that her brother was in trouble, and he needed her help. She was surprised to know that dragon shape-shifters existed. She had always believed that dragons were mythological creatures. When in college, she and her friends joked about finding the bones of a dragon. She even did a paper on them and read that their habitats included mountains, seas, and the skies. Since there had been no physical evidence that they ever existed, she had believed them to be a myth, a figment of humanity’s imagination.
The two most well-known cultural traditions of dragons were the European dragon and the Chinese dragon. They were often described as serpents or lizards with wings. She had also read about Indo-European mythology and how the god Indra had killed a serpent named Vritra.
According to some legends, Thor slew the Midgard serpent, and Heracles slew the Lernean Hydra. The serpents were later referred to as dragons. German legends told the story about how dragon blood had the power to render skin or armor invincible if bathed in it. According to a collection of books by a man named Claudius Aelinaus, Ethiopia was inhabited by a species of dragon that hunted elephants. Those dragons grew to a length of one hundred and eighty feet and had a long lifespan.
Out of the blue, her brother was asking her to keep a dagger that could kill dragon-shifters and take it to a dragon-shifter who had been his buddy in the service. The only places she had seen dragons were in movies, games, and picture books. Facing a real dragon was frightening enough.
Barbara read the address of Kayden Carter. He lived in Barrow, Alaska, located above the Arctic Circle. It kind of made sense. If dragons could spit fire, they might need a cold place to hibernate and rest their hot bodies.
Her brother’s letter sounded urgent. She began packing after finding an airplane ticket to Alaska in the packet. Her flight would leave at 8 p.m. She checked the clock. It was a few minutes to 6 p.m., which meant she had approximately two hours to catch her plane.
Barbara had to phone the head curator and tell him she was leaving town for a while. He would have to manage the museum until she returned. She couldn’t tell him where she was going. Jason had made that very clear in the letter. And Mr. Thompson would ask lots of questions. It would be safer to call Shawn and ask him to cover for her. What if she had gone on a date with Shawn? Then, she wouldn’t have gotten the package early.
She dialed her coworker’s number. He picked up on the first ring.
“I knew you’d call. Have you changed your mind?”
“In your dreams, Shawn. Something came up, an emergency, so you will have to take charge of my job at the museum until I return,” Barbara said. “Can you do that?”
“What? Where are you going?”
Barbara wanted to say, but she knew it would only make Shawn curious. “It’s an urgent family matter. It’s time-sensitive, and I don’t know when I will return.”
“All right. Have you talked to the boss?”
“I was hoping you could warn him tomorrow. You know him, he’ll ask a lot of questions, and I’m packing in a hurry to catch a plane.”
“It sounds serious. Do you need help, Barbara?”
“I’ll be fine. I just need your help with my work.”
“Okay, call me when you are ready to come back.”
“Thank you, Shawn. You are the best.” She hung up.
Her phone rang, startling her. For a moment, she didn’t move, her mind full of questions. Maybe it was her brother calling home because he was paranoid about bugs in their cellphone calls. Her best friend was in Paris with her latest boyfriend, and she would call her on her cell.
When the phone rang again, she rushed to pick it up. “Hello.”
“Hello, Miss Kent. Two men are requesting to see you. They said they were here because of a museum-related matter.”
Barbara frowned. If they had wanted to see her for a museum-related matter, she would have been called first. “Give one of them the phone.”
“Hello, Miss Kent, my name is Brad and…”
“I am so sorry. I am not feeling well. Perhaps, I will see you at the museum tomorrow…”
“We really must see you now.” The man’s voice was cold and demanding.
“Are you a cop? Why do you have a gun?” Barbara heard the security guard ask.
“Shit. Tell us the apartment number.” Barbara heard a threatening voice.
She hung up the phone.
They are here. How did they find me so quickly?
She sprang into action. She put the package from her brother into a backpack, and barely had time to pack a few of her clothes. Before leaving, she grabbed her passport.
Exiting her apartment, she locked her door and ran down the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she saw two men with pistols rushing up. She stood, paralyzed, for a moment. As the first man tried to grab her, she kicked him in the face. He fell back against the second man, and both men tumbled down the stairs cursing all the way to the bottom.
She ran back to her apartment and locked the door. Opening the window, she squeezed out, quickly dragging the bag after her, and stabilized herself by holding on to the railing. She heard bangs on her apartment door. They were trying to come in.
Barbara crawled cautiously to the fire escape and climbed down just as she heard the men shooting their way into her home. When she reached the last rung of the fire escape ladder, she looked up and saw the face of a man. The guy shouted for her to stop. She ran, and he fired his weapon. Bullets scorched the ground around her legs. These men were trying to kill her. When did she turn from living a quiet life to being chased by gunmen?
She found a taxi and quickly waved it down. “The airport,” she gasped. “Hurry!”
“Calm down, woman, no need to rush,” the driver said.
“If you rush, I might just increase your fare.”
Hearing that, the driver stepped on the accelerator, and the car sped away.
The gunmen were too late to stop her. In the taxi, Barbara watched as police cars were heading to her apartment building.
Chapter Five
THE UNITED KINGDOM
Sir Alrekur Baldwin was having breakfast in the dining room of the operations building. With him was a beautiful woman who was also a popular model in London. Close to them was a giant TV screen that was tuned to BBC with a journalist reading the news.
“Yesterday, in a bizarre event in Moscow, there was a shootout and an explosion that caused the death of several men. Eyewitnesses’ accounts have helped the police to determine that the shootout began in a building where an unknown man was chased by unidentified men, in what has been described to be a movie-worthy car chase that ended in an explosion.”
“Security cameras in the area showed that the man jumped out of the car and ran into the nearby park before the car exploded. No identification has been given yet about this mystery man.”
Sir Baldwin looked at the pictures and video on the TV screen and shook his head. Apparently, the cameras hadn’t been able to capture the exact face of the ‘mystery’ man. He briefly wondered if he should have the man’s picture sent to the media houses. No, that would cause more problems and more questions.
Exposing the shape-shifter might expose him, too.
Who can say what the man knows about me?
He just had to be patient and hope that his useless men caught the Keeper’s operative named Jason Kent. Norton had finally come through.
The news changed to North America.
“We have breaking news. There was a shootout in New York. Two gunmen apparently tried to kidnap a young woman for unknown purposes. The security guard, who managed to escape, described the woman, Barbara Kent, as one of the curators at the Alexander Jameson Museum. The two gunmen also engaged the policemen in a thirty-minute gun battle before leaving the scene.
“Sources in the NYPD explained that the woman’s flat had been trashed as if the gunmen were looking for something. However, the woman, Barbara Kent, has not been found since the incident…”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sir Baldwin cursed suddenly as he slammed his fist against the table.
His female companion looked up in surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing important. I’m just dismayed at the shootings I hear about on the news every day,” he said.
“It’s sad, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Please, excuse me.” Sir Baldwin stood up and exited the dining room. Entering his office, he encountered Norton, waiting for him.
“What the hell was that? Why didn’t you inform me sooner? Did I have to hear about your failure on the news again?”
Norton looked at his shoes. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Didn’t I ask you to get better men this time, Norton?”
“I did,” Norton replied as he folded his hands in front of his stomach. “But…she was lucky.”
“The whole point of looking for Barbara Kent was to use her as leverage to get to her brother.”
“I know, sir.”
“Now, how are we supposed to find Kent?”
Norton looked up. “You’ll be happy to know that we’ve traced the taxi she took to the airport. I have men inquiring about the flight and its destination. I also have men tracing her phone. It’s switched off for now, but we will get her when she switches it on again. We are also tracing the last calls made to her phone. We think her brother must have tipped her off.”
“That’s all?”
“We found an empty package that she received today. I believe that it was her brother who sent it to her. She might have the dagger with her.”
“Or she might have received a new pair of shoes!” Sir Baldwin shouted as he threw his arms in the air. Folding them, he questioned, “What more did you find out about Jason Kent? What are his known associates? Who is his handler? What are his special skills?”
“From our spy at the Keepers Organization, we learned that he’s American, single, and ex-Special Forces.”
“Which of the Special Forces?”
“Navy Seals.”
“Where is he from?”
“Colorado.”
“Do we have connections in his lion pride?”
“He’s a rogue. No ties.”
“Hmm. A shape-shifter who was also part of the American Navy Special Forces. I don’t see any correlation to the dagger. Why would he want to keep it away from us?”
“We’ll find his sister and force him to come to us.”
Sir Baldwin grunted. “Good.”
Chapter Six
BARROW, ALASKA
Barbara kept watching her back for anyone who might be following her. She had become paranoid since stepping onto the plane in New York. She knew that she must not allow Sir Baldwin, or whatever the hell his name was, and his men catch her and take the dagger.
She wondered why her brother hadn’t used a fake passport for her instead of her real one. From movies, she knew that her journey could be
easily traced through her name, which put more pressure on her to get the package to Kayden Carter.
In the instructions that came with his letter, her brother asked her to find a man called Farmer, a bartender in a bar on the outskirts of Barrow. She should give him the codename Fishers, and he would direct her to Kayden’s place. The bar was called Thirst Not. It took her a while, but she found it on the Google Maps of her disposable phone. After landing in that foggy and almost abandoned place, she walked around town. Finally, she found a cab and signaled it to stop.
Peeking in the driver’s window, she questioned, “Hi, I am new here. Do you know a place called Thirst Not?”
“Of course, it’s where a lot of us wind down and drink in the evenings. Get in,” the driver said.
After the driver had told the fare, she climbed inside the cab. As they drove on, she stared at the sights. She had never been to Alaska. It was cold, and she had to use the money to purchase a parka to keep her warm. She felt out of place and alone.
“You don’t look like you’re from these parts. Where did you come from?” the driver asked. He seemed like a nice man, but she knew she couldn’t tell him anything.
“Paris.”
“Oh, I can speak French, too. Bonjour, Madame,” the driver remarked.
“Bonjour, Monsieur. Please, I would like to rest for a bit. I am suffering from a little jetlag,” Barbara said. “Do you mind waking me up when we arrive at the bar?”
“Not at all. It’s still a long drive, just rest,” the driver said, and they drove in silence.
After about an hour, the car stopped, and the driver announced, “Here we are at Thirst Not.”
Barbara clutched her backpack tighter to herself and got out of the taxi. She paid the driver, and as the cab drove off, she stood in front of the bar, looking at the building. It had a large neon sign in the shape of a cup and some bottles with the name of the bar displayed boldly.
After taking a deep breath, unsure about what she was going to find, she went inside. The place smelled of male sweat and stale beer. The clientele was mostly men having drinks around a long semicircular table, sitting alone or in groups. An old-school song played on the radio. Some of the males watched the rerun of a baseball game while sipping at their beers.
