She had a feeling that she should know him, a powerful sense of familiarity as she stared up into his penetrating eyes. “Uh, hey.” When he just stood there without speaking, Melinda started to grow nervous. Her retail experience began to kick in. “Can I help you?”
He did not reply. Instead, he gave the door a forceful shove to close it and took a step toward her.
Melinda’s heart leaped. She shot a frantic glance toward the restaurant, hoping someone would come out at that moment and hear her if she screamed for help. But no one came out, and she felt pretty certain her cries would go unnoticed by those still inside. Her hand dropped to her purse, still hanging on her shoulder.
“Seriously,” she said, backing away slowly and carefully, “what do you want?”
“You,” he said, his voice a low, deep rumble.
Melinda’s fingers closed around the pepper spray. Before she could bring it up out of her purse, however, the stranger lunged at her.
His powerful arms banded around her and Melinda let out a shriek. A bright light enveloped them, her ears popped, and the world around them disappeared in a flash of white.
Chapter Three
Melinda continued to scream when the light faded and she found herself in a large, spherical chamber with smooth metal walls and a black metallic floor.
She shoved away from the stranger, who released her. Her eyes widened as she looked around. The room appeared brightly lit but she could see no light sources. “What the – what is this place?” she demanded. “Where are we?” She looked at him. “Who the fuck are you?”
“He is Roth, son of Mion.”
Melinda whipped around, feeling lightheaded, to see another tall, powerfully built man with pale skin, black hair, and eyes the color of gold coins. Like Roth, he dressed in a form-fitting black suit that shimmered in the light, with a sleeveless vest that extended past his knees.
Melinda saw no door and she had not heard him come in – if anything, he seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I,” he replied, in a smooth voice, “am Athan, son of Taran.” He smiled. “You are safe, Melinda. No harm shall come to you.”
She frowned. “How do you know my name?”
Athan chuckled. “We know everything about you,” he said. “Right down to your genetic make-up. We have been observing you for some time. As to where you are?”
He motioned with a graceful, long-fingered hand and a panel in the wall opened to reveal a black void littered with tiny pinpoints of light. “You are aboard a ship traveling through space.”
Melinda blinked, and then she started to laugh. “Oh, please,” she said. “Is this a joke? I don’t know how you did it, but I recognize a movie studio soundstage set-up when I see one. Are you guys shooting some science fiction picture or something?”
She walked over to the window and leaned forward, peering out from side to side. “This is all just a special effects screen.”
“I assure you, Melinda,” Athan said, “you are no longer on the world you call ‘Earth’. At present, we are traveling away from your planet.”
She looked at him, one eyebrow arched in disbelief. “You’re really sticking with that story?” She snorted and shook her head. “Okay, look – I had a long day at work, I just got some bad news, and I’m not in any mood for practical jokes.”
She looked over at Roth. “And you,” she added, “are an asshole for scaring me.” She pointed to her blouse, still damp but the soda already setting in and leaving a brown stain. “You’re either getting the cleaning bill, or you’re buying me a new one.”
Roth regarded her with eyes that Melinda could now see had a strange, blue iridescent quality to them. “If I did not know better,” he told Athan while keeping his gaze fixed on Melinda, “I would say she is not the one. She talks entirely too much, and everything that comes from her mouth is steeped in ignorance.”
Melinda could not believe what she just heard. Her jaw dropped for a moment but as her temper began to flare again she pursed her lips and planted a hand on one of her wide hips.
“Oh, okay. So that’s how it is? You pop up out of nowhere as I’m about to get in my car, you scare the shit out of me, then you relocate me to God knows where – telling me I’m on a spaceship – and then you call me ignorant?”
She stabbed a finger at Roth. “Well, fuck you, mister. I’m done playing this game. You take me back to my car right fucking now, or I’m calling the LAPD to report your asses.”
“I stand corrected,” Roth said. One corner of his mouth tugged upward. “She is ignorant and vulgar.”
He turned away from Melinda and walked over to stand beside Athan. “There must be another, one better than this one. I am a Hunter – let me do my job. Take this one back and I will find someone else.”
“There is no one else,” Athan insisted, staring into Roth’s eyes. “She is the only one left.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Melinda called out to them. She waved a hand for attention and they turned to look at her. “Yeah. Hi. I’m standing right here, and if you’re talking about me I can hear every word even if none of it makes any sense.”
Athan pressed a hand to his chest and bowed his head. “Forgive me,” he said, “we did not mean to appear rude. I will endeavor to explain. Please note that everything I say to you now is truth, not a fabrication. It is no ‘joke’, as you called it – in fact, it is a matter of dire importance. I will preface this explanation with an apology for the way my friend here treated you; I am afraid he is lacking in the areas of grace and good manners.”
Melinda glanced at Roth, noting the dirty look he fired at Athan for that remark. Doesn’t look like they’re very good ‘friends’, she thought, and tried not to smirk. “Apology accepted,” she said. “Now, will you please tell me what’s going on?”
“We hail from a distant world called Volos,” Athan said. He took a step toward her as he spoke but kept his hands tucked behind his back. “Our race, which has existed since before life began on your planet, now stands on the threshold of extinction.”
“Wait,” she said, cutting him off. “Is this some kind of invasion thing? Are you planning on wiping out the whole human race so you can have Earth to yourselves?”
“Oh, no,” Athan said, holding up his hands. “I assure you, we have no intention of ruling your world. The people of Volos are not conquerors. We are scientists, historians; we travel the universe observing and cataloging information from every civilization we encounter and store that information for future reference. As I have said before, we have existed longer than some of the planets we have studied. But we now find ourselves at a time of great crisis. Our race is dying. This ship and its crew have been dispatched by our Lawmakers to search the stars for the key to our preservation.”
He stopped directly in front of Melinda and smiled down at her. “That key, my dear, is you.”
“Me?” Melinda drew back her head, the corners of her plump lips pulling downward in confusion. “I don’t understand. I don’t see how I can help you. Just ask anyone who knows me. My mother doesn’t understand me or what I want out of life. and gives more attention to my pretty, skinny sister; the two of them are identical in every way. My father gets along better and knows more about my older brother than he does about any of his other kids. His side of the family is all Mexican and they wonder why I’m twenty-five and still don’t have a husband. My mom’s side of the family just thinks I’m weird. I spent my high school years doing my best not to draw attention to myself but it’s a little hard to do when you’re almost six feet tall. I’ve always been comfortable with who I am, but I know that I am not any better than anyone else. I’m just Melinda. I am who I am. Oh, and tonight, my best friend told me that because she’s getting married and going to have a baby, I have to move out. I may wind up living out of my car because it’s better than having to move back home where everyone is going to know that I failed to achieve my dream, which they don’t understand
anyway..”
She crossed her arms under her breasts and huffed, looking up as she tried to hold back the tears. “So if you’re looking for someone ‘special,’ your buddy Roth is right – I’m not the one you want.”
“Oh, but you are,” Athan insisted.
He reached out and lightly cupped Melinda’s chin with warm, dry fingers. Urging her to lift her head, he looked into her eyes and offered a gentle smile.
“It is disquieting how you have allowed others to see you as undesirable. Among our people, women of your stature are highly regarded for their beauty.”
He looked her over in unabashed admiration. “What a pity that your kind does not value you for your worth. On Volos, men would fall at your feet for a moment of your attention.”
She pulled away from his hand. “Yeah, there are a lot of Chubby Chasers on my planet, too,” she said with a sardonic snort. “I don’t want to be objectified for my looks. I want to be appreciated for me – for who I am inside.”
“And that is why you are here,” Athan said, still smiling. “We have traveled a great distance to find you. This was not our first visit to your Earth. We had come here long ago on an extended expedition. We could have stayed but now we exist there only in the legends of your people. To some, we were symbols of good fortune, while others saw our kind as harbingers of evil.”
“Okay,” Melinda said, shaking her head. “You’ve lost me. What are you guys supposed to be, anyway?”
“It would be easier to show you, and let you come to your own conclusions.” Athan twisted to look at Roth. “If you would be so kind as to reveal yourself to the young lady.”
Roth let out a heavy sigh. Stepping away from them, he stood near the center of the domed room. He reached up and removed the ornate metal clip holding his hair and shook his head briskly to set the long, white-blond mane free to fall around his shoulders. Taking a deep breath, he spread his wings out to either side and closed his eyes.
As Melinda watched, two leathery gray wings rose up from behind his back. Luminous scales resembling inside of an abalone shell grew out along his exposed skin, traveling up his neck and around his face. His hands as they lengthened and sprouted sharp, curved talons. A tail dropped into view and slithered along the floor. Roth dropped forward and when he hit the floor on all fours, his transformation came to its conclusion. He lifted his great head on his now long neck, the tips of his pointed ears now grazing the ceiling high above. He looked down at Melinda, blue eyes like multi-faceted crystals.
Reality would never be the same as she once knew it. What had been real and not real had suddenly merged in her mind into one twisted similarity. There was no such thing as real and make-believe after what she had just seen. The very laws of the universe as she understood them and her own sanity as she had always known had just started to break down inside of her mind.
What had just happened in front of her? How could a man turn into… a dragon? Dragons weren’t even real… but there it was. The handsome man she had been talking to seconds ago was gone; in his place a large, beautiful dragon like something out of a Greeky mythological story she’d watched the movie of in high school instead of reading the book. That was always fun when the director took liberties and changed things to make people cheating on their school work like her look stupid.
“Oh my God,’’ Melinda gulped, blinking in shock. “H-he’s – he’s a dragon!” She tore her gaze away from Roth and stared at Athan. “Your people can shape-shift into dragons?”
“Some of us are adept at taking on other forms, as well,” Athan said.
He nodded to Roth. “We are, for the most part, a hybrid of Dragon and Human, able to change between the two at will, sometimes achieving partial transformation. We can even be found in Earth legends in that phase, where we are more commonly and erroneously labeled as ‘demons.’”
He smiled and turned back to Melinda. “I can assure you that we mean you and your people no harm, in whatever form we may take.”
“I still don’t understand,” Melinda said. “You’re a highly-advanced race of people. You’ve mastered intergalactic space travel, and you can shape-shift. With all the information you say you’ve collected over the years, you probably know how to cure cancer, what to do to solve the problems of global warming, and where to locate all single socks that go missing after they’ve been through the dryer. I mean…” She gestured to Roth. “Come on. How the hell am I supposed to be of any help to you?”
Roth dipped his large head down and snaked it around behind Melinda. “I told you this was pointless,” he growled, his voice deeper and more resonant in his dragon form. “She could never be the one.”
He got up close, and Melinda could see her reflection in his eye as he peered at her. She blinked, and in the time it took her to do that, Roth changed back to his human form and now stood right next to her. He continued to stare at her in a manner she found as unnerving as his physical proximity. Everything about him seemed to set off warning bells inside her – and yet, despite the danger, she could not shake the feeling that they had met before.
Athan broke the spell with a simple command. “Leave us,” he said.
Roth looked up at Athan, and for a moment Melinda could see surprise register on his face. His scowl returned just as quickly.
Looking at Melinda again, Roth set his jaw, turned on his heel, and walked away. A door opened in the otherwise seamless wall and closed again as soon as he stepped through.
Athan offered Melinda another smile. “Forgive him. While he is an efficient Hunter-Warrior, he often treads the fine line of insubordination.”
He inclined his head. “You must also forgive me. All this time, you have shown clear signs of distress and I have neglected to offer you any form of comfort. If you will permit me, I will continue to explain our plight as I escort you to less sterile chambers where you might feel more comfortable.”
Confused, tired, hungry, and feeling like the floor of a movie theater in her soda-stained clothes, Melinda found it growing harder to summon the strength to argue or resist.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Four
Instead of going in the direction of the door Roth had taken, Athan guided her to a different section of wall. Another door appeared and they passed through to a windowless corridor with soft lighting coming from behind the ivory colored walls and up through the opaque white floor panels beneath their feet.
They wound their way through a series of passages. Occasionally, they would pass other men, all of them tall and all dressed in the same attire as Athan and Roth, bringing Melinda to the conclusion that it must be some kind of crew uniform.
To her surprise, all the men looked like guys she would see on Earth, representing different races. Guess that shoots down the theory that all aliens are white Englishmen, she mused.
The Volosians would stop and turn to stare at Melinda as she passed, some of them smiling as they looked her over. Wow, she thought, feeling self-conscious. I guess Athan wasn’t kidding when he said his people liked big girls! Of course, now that I know they’re dragons, how do I know they aren’t just eyeballing me as their next meal?
“As I mentioned before, my people visited your world long ago, first arriving in the area you know as ‘Mesoamerica.’ The primitive indigenous people had been struggling, their region struck by terrible drought and famine. My colleagues and I offered solutions. We taught them forms of irrigation, and how to improve their agriculture. We lived among them and studied them. That is when we made an interesting discovery. Some of the women of that region had a curious genetic abnormality, a very rare trait that played no significant role in the development of the human race but one which we found to be compatible with Volosian physiology. These women had the same robust build as the females of our own species – much like yourself – but more importantly, they possessed the ability to assist us in the rejuvenation process which sustains and prolongs our life forces.”
“How does that work, exactly?” Melinda asked, but in her mind, she began to panic. Oh, shit, she thought, they are going to eat me!
“It is accomplished through an intimate ceremonial rite,” Athan said. “Traditionally, a Volosian woman would enter a large ceremonial room, within a circle of sacred salt. It is the salt that spilled to our world during the extinction of our last moon. Inside this circle, the woman would wait for a male to approach. He would join her, and as she proceeded to enter a trance state, she would grant him the blessing of renewed life. Only women possess this trait.”
“It all sounds kind of strange,” Melinda said with a nervous chuckle. “But I guess I shouldn’t judge. People from my planet are known to do some crazy stuff to slow the aging process, up to and including injecting themselves with small amounts of poison and undergoing surgery that often leaves them looking worse than they did before they went under the knife.”
She looked up at him. “So you’re saying I have this ‘genetic trait’ that you mentioned?”
“Yes,” he said. “It has been passed down to you through your lineage. You are descended from ancient Aztec women who had once been companions to our people – including one whom the natives came to call ‘Quetzalcoatl.’”
“The feathered serpent,” Melinda murmured.
As a child, her abuela had gifted her with a book of Mexican fairy tales. Melinda’s favorite story had been one about Quetzalcoatl, a god who sometimes appeared as a winged serpent – a dragon? – and sometimes as a white man. Quetzalcoatl had been attributed with teaching the Aztecs how to farm.
She gave a bemused snort. “Looks like all those stories about ‘ancient astronauts’ are true. We really were being visited by aliens.”
“We established a symbiotic relationship with the human women of Earth in our time there,” Athan said.
His brow became pinched. “But over time, something changed. We became hated. The people rose up against us. Those who did not flee were met with death. They also killed anyone who aligned with us, starting with the Oracles of Life. In our search for the genetic match we require, we found ourselves drawn back to Earth. We were surprised to find the trait still existed there. Apparently, someone had survived to pass along the gene.”
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