"Ils pensent qu'ils me font peur? Ahah!", LeBon yelled in a hoarse voice in front of the door. "Je ris de leur robot et leurs armes! Allez, vous les batards!"
I reached Whiskey in a hurry and put a hand on his neck.
"Okay, buddy. We have to fly like the wind".
The dragon raised his head and moved toward the house. He could hear Jean yelling at the drones and the National Guard soldiers.
"No, no, don't move".
I used one of his front legs as a step and got onto his back near the shoulders, latching onto his neck. LeBon was right. Whiskey's scales were smooth and slippery. Luckily, the circumference of his neck was small enough so that I was able to hug it all with my arms.
I interlaced my hands under the scales on his throat and tightened them as much as I could.
"Go, fly", I said.
Whiskey wasn't understanding. Even the Mustangs were looking at me as if I were crazy.
"Vola", I repeated, this time in latin. "Volate!"
The Mustangs flapped their wings and raised three feet above the ground. Then Whiskey understood what I was asking him. He turned around and with a jump that had me swallow my heart he went into the air.
Birds fly, fish swim in the sea, and dragons...well, dragons jump into the air. It was like being on a roller coaster, when the air presses against your face squashing your cheeks and you feel an emptiness in your stomach that tickles. Only in this case, instead of falling, I was going upwards. The night sky came toward me and I yelled.
Underneath us, the officers and soldiers shot several rounds. Whiskey flew up some more and turned. It was only for a moment, but I was suspended in thin air. I kept on yelling. I didn't know where I was anymore, I had lost the sense of up and down.
Then the Mustangs roared and Whiskey copied them. The air filled with hot ribbons, they buzzed around us forming long arches: bullets. The flying drones that had surrounded the farm were following us. I couldn't talk, if I tried saying anything, the wind wouldn't let me, but the Mustangs knew what had to be done. Deirdre roared and the dragons scattered into the sky, aiming at the drones. One of the rounds flew just a couple feet from Whiskey's right wing. The dragon bent forwards and knocked the drone down with a slap of his paw.
Another two popped up in front of us. Whiskey swelled his chest.
"Oh, no. Shit. Nooooooo".
My scream got lost in the wind. The dragon bent his head, his throat became piping hot, but I couldn't let go of it. I tightened my arms around his neck, risking getting burnt. The Fire Breath went up his abdomen and came out of Whiskey's open jaws, pulverizing the two drones.
Then, for a few seconds, nothing happened.
I turned around. On the right, I could see Kuna's lit streets and, ten miles north, like a patch of more intense and concentrated lights, Boise. We were flying above the Ghost Farmland.
We had broken the circle, we had made it!
About a hundred yards from us, the Mustangs and drones were still fighting, and once in a while I saw gunfire or an explosion of a robot.
In that moment we could have left, flown away, Whiskey and I.
Sure. With a bit of luck, and making up some more time, maybe a week, or a month, who knows, things would have changed. Maybe Raleigh hadn't been been able to discover the Pitahaya's secret. Maybe they hadn't even let it into the laboratory, but if I hid Whiskey a bit longer...if I stuck it out and...bla. Bla. Bla.
All bullshit.
I was running away. That's the truth. I was running away leaving behind a friend and my dragons to sacrifice themselves for me. And damn it, a man can't be called so if he does something like that.
Furthermore, another thing pissed me off. When the journalists talked about Whiskey, all they did was call him "monster". "Greenbelt Monster", "monster here, monster there". They didn't know anything about my dragon. Jean was right. If we ran away that day, Whiskey would be called that way forever. But he wasn't a monster, and I wanted to show it to everybody.
I made a huge effort to loosen my hands, my fingers seemed fused together. Running the risk of falling, I patted Whiskey on the neck. The dragon stopped flapping his wings, slid in the air planing and turned his head toward me.
"Go back!" I yelled. "Deirdre! Mustang!"
He seemed to understand. I hugged his neck again and he turned, a long and slow turn of about five hundred yards. Then, he started flapping his wings again, faster than before.
When we reached the Mustangs, the drones had surrounded them on all sides. There were at least twenty of them, and were forcing my dragons to come down. Whiskey went higher and then took a nose dive with an almost forty-five degree angle.
His throat became hot, but this time I didn't yell. The first flames swept away half of the drones.
The others scattered like a flock of ducks, but the second round of flames hit them before they could flee. Only five remained. With a series of evasive maneuvers, they withdrew before the Mustangs could take them down.
Whiskey glided toward the ground and the Mustangs followed us. They weren't doing well. They were bleeding from various wounds, some of their scales had come off, Lutezia and Nahar both had holes in their wings. When we landed, in the middle of the steppe, I jumped down and hugged all five of them.
"Damned badass dragons...", I murmured, "how could I abandon you?"
The Mustangs were thrown off by so much closeness. They hissed and grumbled their disapproval, but they still allowed themselves to be hugged. Deirdre even licked me on the face. Queens, you know, can allow themselves an extravagance, once in a while.
I picked them up and put them on Whiskey's back one by one, then I got on too, with Deirdre attached to my shoulder.
"And now, let's go back".
THIS TIME THE JUMP was softer, even if I still risked being thrown off. Riding a giant dragon isn't as fun as it seems. I know, there's a ton of novels in which people ride around on dragons as if it were something normal. But think about it: have the writers of those books ever really been on a dragon's back? No. Instead I have. I know what you're thinking: "Come on Jack, show some balls". Well, I hope you can have a ride on a dragon someday, then we'll talk about it.
Holy catfish, you risk your neck every instant. A gust of wind comes along? You fall. Your dragon starts somersaulting in the air because he wants to have fun? You fall. You lose your grasp because the scales are slippery? You fall. The times you fall from the dragon are actually more than the times you fly on the dragon.
I felt my smartphone vibrating in my pocket, but I couldn't check it.
The Mustangs sat there flattened between my chest and Whiskey's back, their eyes half-closed because of the wind. Even I had trouble keeping them open. Underneath us, a snake-like line, dug in the dry earth, crossed the Ghost Farmland: it was the Mora canal. It came from the east and then went up toward Boise, like a sort of upside down L.
Whiskey, having launched five Breaths, was staying low, feeling a bit heavier.
After getting his attention, I showed him the canal path and he followed it flying above.
We were getting close to the farm. I could almost see the garden. Nothing had changed. The journalist vans, the police and National Guard vehicles were still on the road. The journalists and about a hundred people had gathered in the field in front of the Johnsons' farm. CNN, NBC, PBS, every troupe had its own vehicle. At that moment, all the guests were speaking into the cameras. Behind each one of them, a group of curious people was letting themselves be filmed.
Twenty meters ahead, the National Guard and police tape blocked the road where the canal's banks were.
In front of the farm, the Guard had parked three Knights and two armored vehicles, right next to the flipped over Caiman. As we got closer, the soldiers on the road gathered in formation and pointed their rifles up. They had seen us coming back.
"Down there", I yelled to Whiskey.
I pointed out the field where the journalists were gathered. "Land Whiskey!"
Ju
st over a hundred yards from the farm the dragon tilted his body left. If the National Guard expected to be attacked, it was let down.
Now or never, before they get over the surprise.
Whiskey passed above the Johnsons' farm ruins and landed behind the semi-circle of journalists and rubberneckers. The Mustangs took flight a second before impact and lined up on the ground around Whiskey. First the dragon put out his back legs, using them to absorb most of the impact, then he bent forward with the rest of his body and set his front legs down.
It was a soft landing, elegant I would say.
My stomach went up to my ears.
None of the people there had seen us coming, but the landing thud made several heads turn. The journalists and other people turned to see what had happened. When they found themselves face to face with a giant dragon chaos ensued.
The rubberneckers around the journalists ran away screaming in all directions, tripping over the cables, knocking over camera equipment and lights. The NBC and CBS reporters ran to the other side of the street and threw themselves on the ground. The crowd scattered into the fields and only emptiness remained around us.
For a few seconds, the dust darkened the small space where the news station vans were parked.
"Don't run away!", I yelled.
Coughing, I got off Whiskey. My stomach was still turned over.
Shit, I feel like I've just been on a roller coaster for two hours. In my pocket, the smartphone vibrated and rang again. Leaning on the dragon so as not to fall, I took it out.
"Please, let it be Raleigh with good news".
The number was unknown, and the message only said: "5 minutes. Please, don't get killed. I love you, Raleigh".
Five minutes?, I thought. Damn you, Raleigh. It was best to start the show.
I went over to the NBC van, the closest. Nobody was left, the cameraman had thrown the videocamera on the ground, next to two big bags and a knocked over tripod.
"He's not dangerous!", I yelled.
But everyone had run away already.
"Damned pussies".
I kicked one of the bags and a moan made me turn around. Behind the van, Erin Coscarello from CNN and her cameraman were still there, frozen with fear. They wouldn't take their eyes off Whiskey, who was looking around without understanding all the commotion.
"Hey, you two", I called them.
I stood in front of them and forced them to look at me. The journalist was about to faint. I had to touch her shoulder to snap her out of it. The cameraman had stopped filming and was standing still with his back pressed against the van's door. His knees were shaking. I didn't have much more time, I had to act before the Guard reached us.
"Listen to me. You", I snapped my fingers in front of the cameraman's face, "what's your name?"
It could have been my tone, or maybe because I was giving him something else to do besides thinking about the dragon, but the cameraman finally looked at me.
"B-brian", he said blinking his eyes and looking at me.
"Good, Brian. Film, please".
Brian the cameraman lifted the camera and pointed it at me.
The moment has come.
I backed up so that Brian could frame me and the dragon, and pointed my arms toward Whiskey. A shiver ran up my spine.
Brian and Erin Coscarello weren't the only people crapping their pants out of fear. What I would say and do from there on would determine my life as well as Whiskey's, and this terrorized me.
I wanted to have a smooth voice, the talent of enchanting people with my words. But speaking to people has never been my strength, otherwise I would have been a TV host or a lawyer.
"Um, this", I said, "is the true monster, ladies and gentlemen. Look at him closely".
I went up to Whiskey's chest and put a hand on his shoulder, as he lowered his neck and listened to me with his head tilted to one side.
"He's just a dragon", I continued, "maybe...a bit too grown up, sure, but a dragon nonetheless. And dragons don't eat people. They're vegetarians, everybody knows that. Furthermore, Whiskey...yes, that's his name, is just a pup. Look".
From my pocket I took out an object that I showed Brian and the camera. The red ball. I threw it in the air and grabbed it in midair, once, twice, three times, while behind me the dragon moved his head up and down, following it. Then I threw it higher, right above Whiskey's head. The dragon turned over on his back and tried to catch the ball with his paws. The ball bounced here and there between his claws and fell a few feet to the side. Whiskey jumped on top of it, rolling on the ground. When he was able to catch it, he came back to my side.
I stretched out my hand toward his mouth and said: "Give it here".
"Muaurg?"
"Oh, you understand. Come on. Give".
Whiskey put his snout over the palm of my hand and let go of the red ball, all wet with his super-stinky drool. He had slimed me again.
"See?" I showed the camera the red ball again. "What did I tell you?"
My time was about to be up. The three Guard Knights had just gone over the banks of the Mora canal, along with about fifty soldiers.
"Miss Coscarello, come closer. Nothing will happen to you, I promise".
Erin Coscarello shook her head. She had no intention of leaving the van. She probably would have slid under it if not for the fear that, in this way, the dragon would bite her butt.
"Come on, don't be afraid", I urged her. "Don't you want to be the first one to interview the dragon?"
My words seemed to awaken her professional instinct, because Erin took a couple of deep breaths, left the van and looked at Brian. The cameraman shook his head, but Erin gathered her courage. With the microphone pressed against her chest like a protective talisman, she took a step toward us.
"Everything will be fine", I told her.
I made the Mustangs move back and stretched my hand out toward her.
"There, good. Take my hand, that's right".
"W-what do I have to do?"
"Don't move for now. Let him smell you".
Whiskey curved his shoulders and brought his snout up to the journalist's head. He sniffed her hair a couple of times, dilating his nostrils, then he puffed.
Good boy, Whiskey, be good, I thought petting his neck.
But I hadn't considered my dragon's temper. I didn't have the time to stop him. Whiskey opened his jaws and his gigantic pink tongue slid over Erin Coscarello's face. From her chin to her ears. An epic tonguing, as moist and slimy as a swamp snail.
There, awesome. She got slimed too. On live national television.
Luckily, the journalist stumbled backwards and instead of screaming, she giggled. Brian the cameraman almost fainted from the excitement.
I had done it, but my time was already up.
The National Guard soldiers surrounded us. The three Knights came between the vans, knocking one over on its side. They stopped at less than ten yards and pointed the six machine guns at us.
"Damned robots".
I opened my arms and stood in front of Whiskey's chest. The Mustangs lined up in front of me in a semi-circle, hissing against the soldiers.
Well, if it has to end this way, at least I'll be with my dragons.
"It's best you move away", I told Coscarello.
Her and Brian backed up toward the road, continuing to film the scene. For a long moment we stood there in a face-off. Six dragons and a man on one side, and an entire fucking army on the other, in the heart of the Ghost Farmland.
I really thought they would disintegrate us, pouring a storm of bullets onto us. Instead, they didn't move.
One of the Guard's soldiers said: "Yes, sir. I confirm. Stand-by".
"Stand-by", was repeated by the other soldiers.
What the heck is going on?, I asked myself looking at the line of soldiers standing still. Why aren't they shooting us?
The Knights lowered their machine gun arms. One of the soldiers crossed the front line and walked toward us a few feet.
&
nbsp; "Sir, please, step away from the dragons".
"Out of the question", I answered. "You step away. This is private property".
The soldier, who must have been the commanding officer, stared at me like someone who's about to put a hand on his head and scream. I must have been the last of a long line of hard-headed assholes with whom he had to deal with, that day.
"Please, sir", he said in an exasperated voice. "I'll ask you again. Step away from the dragons".
"Why? So you can kill them?" I motioned toward the journalists. "Go ahead, be my guest. The nation is watching you".
"Sir, I assure you we have no-"
The noise of a helicopter interrupted the officer. A Black Hawk circled above my uncle's farm and the Owens', then it got ready to land behind the line-up of soldiers. It came down vertically, showing the American and Idaho flag symbols on the side (the old symbol, not the new one). Who were these guys, more soldiers? Special units?
Oh Raleigh, tell me it's you.
The officer walked away through the line of his men and Knight armors toward the spot where the Black Hawk was coming down. Holding onto one of Whiskey's legs, I went up on my toes to see what was going on. The helicopter landed, and while the blades were still turning, lifting puffs of dust, the side door opened. About ten people came out, their backs curved forward. Some wore dark suits, others white lab coats. They were too far for me to see them well, in the dark, in the middle of the vortex of wind, but among them I thought I recognized Raleigh.
My heart started beating frantically in my chest. I latched on to Whiskey's neck, praying it was really her.
The new arrivals stopped to talk with the National Guard officer. After a few seconds, the soldiers that were surrounding us yelled some orders and backed away. Even the three Knights turned around and went back beyond the river banks. The National Guard was leaving the field.
In the middle of that retreat, a figure in a white lab coat crossed the soldiers and came toward me running.
"Jack!"
It was Raleigh.
We embraced in no man's land. I held her so tight I almost suffocated her.
"What's going on?" I asked her when we finally broke apart. "Who are those people?"
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 25
