by Sharon Green
I described my dream then while Eric sipped his coffee, and when I finished Eric shook his head slowly.
"That's really wild," he said, clearly still trying to absorb what he'd heard. "I wonder how many multiple-attack victims like you there are."
"We may have to ask around to find out," I said, already having thought about the point. "We don't want those like me to think they're going crazy, but I need to know more about the situation. As it stands, there's just not enough information."
"Hopefully you'll find things out as your dreams progress," Eric said while I sipped at my own cup. "With Mykel and Regina still so young, you have a long way to go until they're fully grown."
"Because Mykel becomes an elder," I agreed, nodding slowly as I considered the point. "Here's hoping Regina has nothing in the way of an accident that cuts her life short. If it does –"
My words broke off, but not because of anything I'd thought of. I sat in the inner chair, and just beyond the chair Eric used there was suddenly an odd mist forming in the air. The mist thickened before … settling down, and what it settled into was the form of a mastiff. The mastiff was larger than the Rottweiler I'd seen before this, and the new dog wore a big grin.
"Eric, we have company," I said, gesturing toward the dragon with my chin before continuing to our guest. "Welcome back, my friend. I hope things have gone well for you."
You and this other are linked in some way, the dragon sent, and I had the distinct impression that Eric could also hear the unspoken words.
"Yes, Eric and I are linked," I answered, trying to study the mastiff. "Does that mean something special to you?"
It has been a while since I've seen its like, the dragon replied. Many of those like you seem to have forgotten the benefits in the bond.
"Well, Eric and I have found a benefit or two in being linked," I allowed. "Are you saying you know more benefits than just one or two?"
I know many things, yet speaking of them is not my way, our visitor said with a wide smile. As you are those who protect others, I would have some knowledge of your doings before sharing what I know.
I was about to ask what the dragon was talking about, but suddenly there was a lot of mist and fog swirling around Eric and me. My perceptions of everything went … gray for a long minute, and then Eric and I were no longer in my apartment.
"Damn," Eric breathed as he looked around the way I was also doing. We were outdoors somewhere, with a large, dark cave mouth in the small mountain behind us. About thirty or forty feet away from the cave mouth was a stone … wall of some kind, three feet tall and flat on top, a dirt road running through the five-foot gap in the wall.
Facing outward from the cave, Eric sat on the lefthand side of the wall and I sat on the right. He and I were partly facing each other, with most of our bodies aimed toward the road. We also wore strange outfits, Eric's in solid gray and mine gray with odd streaks of white here and there. My gun was holstered in its usual position to the left of my waist, but instead of Eric wearing a shoulder holster the way he usually did he had the same waist holster I did.
The stone I sat on was hard, of course, but it wasn't very cold in spite of the coolness of the air around us. It was also cloudy, as though it would soon rain, but there was nothing in the way of thunder. Happily.
"We're barefoot," Eric noticed out loud just before I noticed the same. "And what are these jumpsuits made out of? I've never seen or worn anything like this."
I shook my head to show I had no idea, knowing only that the suit was skin tight all over. The material was stretchy and strange, but a moment later I forgot all about material. A short way ahead the road curved sharply to the right, and now there were a number of people walking around that curve. Toward us. And the ones in front were carrying bows, with quivers of arrows attached to their belts. One of the men also wore a sword, which was more than odd.
"The one with the sword seems to be in charge," Eric said, obviously looking at the same thing I did. "And some of those men behind him are shapeshifters."
"And they're all heading in our direction," I finished with stating the obvious. "I also get the impression that we're not supposed to let them past us."
"Yeah, I get the same impression," Eric agreed with a sigh. "I wonder what they want here."
"Looks like we'll be finding out really soon," I guessed aloud. "Unless they just try to walk past us."
But the newcomers didn't try to walk past us. In fact they stopped about eight feet away from us, and the one with the sword stepped out a short distance ahead of the rest.
"We've come to rid ourselves of the dragons who lair in that cave beyond your place of rest," the man said, speaking clearly without sounding as if he were making a speech. "Are you here to join us or oppose us?"
Eric and I exchanged a glance, not very happy to have had our question answered…
Chapter Twenty-five
"Why do you want to get rid of the dragons?" I asked, for the moment pretending I wasn't ignoring his own question. "Have they caused you harm?"
"Everyone knows that dragons cause nothing but harm," the man countered, straightening where he stood. He was fairly tall and built well, with light hair and eyes and a rugged, fairly young face. "Do you really think it would be better if we waited until people were dead before we did our duty to protect the helpless?"
"At one time everyone knew that the world was flat," I countered, shifting just a little where I sat. "But all those people were wrong, so you'll have to do better than wave hearsay at me. Have you, or any of those behind you, ever actually seen a dragon doing harm? With your own eyes, not through the eyes of someone who likes to tell tall stories."
"Very few people survive seeing dragons doing their harm," the man countered, his tone hard and bottom-line. "They kill without hesitation, then steal whatever silver and gold there is. Those who covet silver and gold rarely hesitate when it comes to killing. They do whatever they need to in order to get the wealth."
"So you and your friends expect to have wealth to share after you've killed the dragons," Eric said, sitting a bit straighter on his part of the wall. "You know, I've heard those stories about dragons collecting silver and gold and I've always ignored them for the stupidity they are. Men value silver and gold, because of what those metals can buy. Since dragons don't buy things, what would they need with useless metal?"
"And the same thing can be said for the jewels dragons are also supposed to collect," I added as the man with the sword frowned at Eric. "Pretty pieces of rock would be useless to them, so why would dragons bother?"
"I doubt if they would, so we're back to asking about all that harm you mentioned," Eric said, taking another turn before the leader of the group could respond. "You've already admitted that you don't have anyone who's seen all that harm being done, so what we have here is a bunch of treasure hunters waving a weak excuse in front of them while they try to murder innocent beings. You see things differently?"
"Yes, we see things differently!" the man almost shouted, his face dark with anger. "We're here to protect the innocent from things that would harm them, and we won't be talked out of doing that very necessary chore! Even if there isn't any treasure to claim once we're done, something I refuse to believe, we'll still have the pleasure of having done the right thing!"
"Like hell," I said with a snort, suddenly knowing he'd left out part of their intentions. "If it should happen that there's no treasure, you intend to skin the dragons you've killed and then you'll sell the skins for the silver and gold you want so badly. You've convinced those fools behind you that the skinning can be done, but that makes you an even bigger fool. Even if you were able to kill the dragons, you can't skin them because dragons fade away when they die, they don't leave behind bodies the way humans do."
"You can't know that!" the man snarled as a lot of the men behind him began to mutter in unhappiness. "It hasn't been done before because no one ever thought of it, and that's what's getting you. You didn't think of
it, so now you're trying to talk me out of getting rich. Well, it won't work and now I'm all done talking!"
And with that he raised his bow and reached for an arrow from the quiver hanging at his belt. At another time I might not have known exactly what to do, but right now the what was perfectly clear. I drew my gun and aimed for the top of the man's bow, and an instant later the bow shattered as it was thrown out of the man's grip.
The fool staggered aside as he dropped the arrow, but that doesn't mean the trouble was over. Four other men also raised their bows as they reached for arrows, but that just meant Eric was able to join me in disposing of weapons. The bows were high enough above the crowd that no one behind the bowmen was hit with a bullet, and a moment later there were five ruined bows on the ground.
"You two are demons, but that doesn't matter," the first man snarled as he cradled the hand his bow had been yanked from. "I have demons of my own to use, and now is the time I want them to step forward. Get out here and do what I ordered!"
He'd turned to look at the group of men that had been behind him, and after a second of hesitation four of the group stepped forward. It was perfectly clear that the four were shapeshifters, and even as we watched the four began to pull off their clothing. Eric and I exchanged a glance, both of us knowing perfectly well that the four men weren't going to come at us because they wanted to. The great leader of the group had a hold of some kind over them, which meant that shooting them had to be out.
So Eric and I holstered our guns before getting to our feet, watching as the four began to shift into the forms of wolves. I had no real idea how to get out of the outfit I wore, so all I could do was hope the clothing didn't get in my way too much. Because I was already turning my mind in the proper way to shift, and Eric was doing exactly the same.
And wonder of wonders, the clothing I wore didn't get in the way at all. The stretchy material contracted down a bit into wolf size, and I discovered that there was even an opening in back for my tail. The four other wolves growled and snarled at us, trying to intimidate with sound rather than with actions, trying to make us see that we were outnumbered two to one.
But that observation gave me a different idea, one that involved the link Eric and I had. I'd never even considered doing something like this before, but that didn't stop me from turning the link on the shifter at the extreme right side of their line. Eric and I touched him with the link, and suddenly the man/wolf jumped out and turned before he stood himself to my right. The man now stood with us instead of against us, and that immediately rattled the other three.
Which let me use the link against the remaining three, but in a different way. Eric and I slapped at the three remaining attackers, making them flinch and back away with sounds of pain. Not to mention with sounds of fear. And then the three turned and scrambled to where their clothes had been left before they began to change back to the shape of men. Once that happened my teammate and I released the fourth shifter, and he hurried over to his own clothes even faster than his friends had.
"No, you can't desert me!" the blond leader of the group howled, obviously completely beside himself with anger and hatred. "I'll show you what happens to those who try to desert me, I'll show you all!"
And then the man drew the sword he wore and began to run toward where the four shapeshifters were struggling to get into their clothes. My first thought had been to turn back to human form myself, but there really wasn't time for that. Instead I directed our link toward the man with the sword, but this time in a different way. The man screamed as he dropped the sword and stumbled to his knees, and then he fell over to lie unmoving on the ground.
I looked toward Eric as he looked toward me, both of us knowing that we could no longer hear the sound of the man's heart beating. Our combined touch had killed him, in a way that terrified the rest of the men who'd come there with him. There was an instant of hesitation, and then the entire group turned and raced away, desperate to escape the same fate as their former leader. Eric and I looked at each other again, and then we shifted back into human form.
"That takes care of that," Eric said, but his voice wasn't as steady as it usually was. "I'm not sure about what we did, but we definitely took care of the problem."
I was about to agree with him with the same unsteadiness, but then a mist rose around us. We were enveloped in gray for a moment, and then we found ourselves back in the chairs in my apartment.
Nicely done, my friends, the dragon in dog form sent to us with a wide grin. Thank you for protecting my people so well. Until the next time we meet…
That same mist rose up, and when it disappeared our dragon friend was gone. I stared wordlessly at the empty air for a moment, Eric doing the same, and then he turned back to me.
"I'd love to know if all that really happened," he said, the unsteadiness still in his voice. "What do you think, Taz? Was it – somehow – real?"
"I have no idea," I answered, telling the complete, unsteady, truth. "But did you notice that we weren't in the least nervous or unsure? Things happened, and we just coped with them. No questions, no thoughts about how unusual that situation was, nothing."
"Nothing but the ability to handle it all," Eric said, nodding slowly. "And speaking about ability, how in hell did we do all that? I know we were linked and we're stronger together than we are separately, but that much stronger? I'm certain we weren't able to do all that when we linked against those two in Mexico."
"No, we weren't, but we also weren't in wolf form when we linked in Mexico," I pointed out. "This time we were, and it made all the difference. And those stretchy suits… Where could they have come from?"
"I don't know, but I wish I did," Eric said, now clearly bothered. "The suits let us shift when we had to without needing to strip. They would make things so much easier in an emergency…"
"If we wanted people to know we can shift at will," I said, bothered myself on a number of different levels. "But I'm still hung up on what we did when we linked. We were able to take someone over, hurt others, and even kill someone. I had no idea all that was possible."
"Maybe it isn't, not for ordinary shapeshifters," Eric said slowly, as if thinking out loud. "I have the very strong feeling that it was you who made the difference, a difference that isn't possible without your … condition. If it was possible for ordinary shifters, those two in Mexico would have used the abilities without hesitation."
That statement was so true it wasn't possible to argue the contention, so all I did was nod some. We sat quietly for a couple of minutes, and then Eric stirred.
"That fool we killed, the blond one," he said slowly, as though thinking out loud. "I didn't notice at the time, but now that I look back I can see that the man resembled my father quite a lot. And I hate to admit it, but killing the man made me feel … satisfied in some way."
"Your father was that bad?" I asked, sensing that Eric needed to talk about the matter.
"My father was a drunk and a bully," Eric said, now looking down at his hands where they lay in his lap. "My older brother Troy left home because of him, and I never saw my brother again. When it came time for me to get out, I tried to talk my mother into taking my sister and coming with me. My mother just smiled some and said I sounded like Troy had, then refused to leave. She and my sister would be a burden I didn't need, Mom told me, and then she kissed me and wished me good luck."
"Didn't you try to go back for them once you had a good job?" I asked.
"I did, but they'd all moved and no one knew where they'd gone," he answered with a sigh. "I've tried more than once to locate them, but somehow they've completely disappeared."
"We'll have to look into the matter, maybe even getting some official help," I said, almost feeling the … emptiness inside him. "As soon as we finish up with what we're in the middle of, we can start asking some questions."
He nodded in a distant way, as if he expected our joint efforts to end in the same way his own had, and then he stood up.
"I thi
nk I'll take the rest of my coffee to my own apartment until lunch," he said, sending me something of a smile. "And another thing we need to search for is a time and place we can be completely alone. I think we've earned at least that much."
I gave him my own faint smile and nod of agreement, and then he turned and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him. I had the feeling he'd thought about kissing me before leaving, but that wouldn't have been a good idea. If he felt anything like the way I did, things wouldn't have stopped at just a kiss…
I considered that idea as I leaned back in the chair, using thoughts of Eric to push away thoughts of my own family. I'd been foolish enough to believe that my family would stand beside me no matter what, and when that hadn't happened… It came to me that there were times when having had a bad family experience was better than having a good, close one. There was pain in both instances, but at least Eric had had time to get used to the pain…
After a few minutes I got up and used the microwave to put some warmth back into my coffee, and then I got a book to read. The book was a good one, so before I knew it the clock said it was time for lunch. Having finished my coffee some time earlier let me put the book down, grab the empty mug, and head downstairs.
Most of the team was already in the dining room by the time I joined them with fresh coffee. Eric had come into the kitchen just as I was leaving, so as soon as Eric joined us Jack came out with those stuffed shells we liked so much. There were two heaping platters of the shells, and then our other landlord came out with Oldon's lunch.
"Macaroni and cheese," Oldon announced once he looked at the labels on his meal. "Along with buttered bread. I'm definitely going to enjoy this."
He took a sip of his cup of warmed blood, and then he dug in the way the rest of us were doing. The food disappeared really fast, and once it was gone we all sat back with our drinks. Oldon's smile was really wide, showing how much he had enjoyed his meal, and then his phone rang.
