Dancing with Dragons

by Lorenda Christensen

  I couldn’t even look at him, I was still trying to process the horror before me. “What’s wrong? Look at this place.” I pointed to the sink, where an open tube of toothpaste fought for space with a can of aerosol shaving cream, half its contents smeared along the side of the container. In the crevice designed to hold a bar of soap, a man’s disposable razor floated in a small pool of water and facial hair. And the sink’s faucet hadn’t been cleaned in months. I couldn’t even tell what color it was under the hard water buildup that caked the surface.

  The rest of the bathroom was just as bad. There wasn’t a shower. Instead, the bathtub, covered in the same white film as the sink, sulked in the corner near a short shelving unit loaded with frayed towels. And the toilet. I couldn’t even make myself look at it. What was I going to do when I needed to relieve my bladder?

  Daniel, once he’d figured out that I wasn’t in any real danger, released my arm and perched on the edge of the sink. “So you’re a neat freak, huh? That actually explains a lot.”

  Before I could articulate a proper response—I was neat, yes, but that did not make me a freak—he pushed past me, only to return moments later with two of the bags.

  “For your information, this isn’t my apartment. It belongs to a friend of mine who let me crash here while I was on assignment. And I was going to clean it up a bit, until you threw a royal hissy fit. So guess what?” He shoved one of the bags in my arms. “You get to help. These are cleaning supplies. And these,” he balanced the other bag on top of the first, “are some clean clothes. Get changed. I’m going to fix us a sandwich.”

  The first bag clanked a bit when moved, and when I checked, it was indeed a sack full of miscellaneous cans of cleaner, one for every type of known surface.

  I wanted to apologize, but Daniel had already left and, judging by the firmness of the click when he closed the bathroom door behind him, he wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk. Not that I blamed him.

  In this case, at least.

  I looked around, trying to find a clean surface to put the bags on. There were none. I put them both on the floor and dug around in the second. He’d bought me a pair of slacks and a white button up shirt, both plain and about a size too large. I sighed. Chanel just wasn’t in the cards for this trip.

  Before Myrna’s project, I’d been ecstatic at the size of the clothing budget we’d been given to ensure we were dressed appropriately for our meetings with the Chinese dragon lord. In retrospect, the new clothes probably weren’t needed. The dragon lord was insane and obsessed with waging war against his counterparts all over the world, and could have cared less about what we wore.

  But I cared. I loved the clothes I’d chosen. Unlike Myrna’s wardrobe—she had terrible luck with keeping things clean in her line of work—mine was still mostly intact. And according to the contract I’d signed with Relobu’s offices pre-trip, they were ours to keep. Except mine were likely sitting in the hotel’s lost and found, waiting for me to claim them. And even for all the designer labels in all the land, I wasn’t stupid enough to risk my freedom for clothes. I wouldn’t put it past the dragons to arrest me as soon as I walked through the front door.

  I fumbled with the strings of my hospital gown. Baggy slacks and a shirt were quite a step down from a closet full of designer gowns, but they were better than what I was wearing. I took a moment to silently thank Daniel for getting me a shirt that didn’t require scraping over my sore head to put on.

  I just finished brushing my teeth—careful not to touch anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary—and was slipping into the pair of gray sneakers I’d found in the bottom of the bag when Daniel knocked on the door.

  “Lunchtime.”

  “On my way.”

  I stopped by the kitchen sink on my way out to rinse my mouth more thoroughly without the danger of accidentally ingesting the grossness that was caked to the bathroom sink. When I finished, I turned to Daniel. He was seated on the futon in front of the television with a plate balanced on his knees. Another sandwich sat beside him on the cushion, and I gathered that I was to join him.

  I sat down and studied my food. He’d made us turkey sandwiches, complete with lettuce, tomato, a thin slice of cheese, and layers of both mustard and mayonnaise spread across the bread.

  “Sorry about my freak-out in there. I don’t think I’m handling my present situation very well. I’ll take care of the bathroom as soon as I’m finished eating.”

  He swallowed. “Don’t worry about it. I’d been meaning to tackle the cleaning job myself.”

  The television was tuned to a news channel, and I listened with interest to the anchorman as he bantered with his co-host.

  Hungarian wasn’t a language I was overly familiar with, but after the last few hours of staring at the screen, I was able to pick up a most of their conversation. When the anchor made a joke about the current construction on the west side of the city, I laughed.

  “You speak Hungarian?” Daniel had stopped eating and turned to watch me.

  His interest made me slightly self-conscious, and I had my right hand halfway up to my head before I remembered I didn’t have enough hair to tuck behind my ear anymore. I lowered it to my lap with an awkward chuckle.

  I risked a quick glance to his face, but Daniel hadn’t seemed to notice my gaffe, and was still waiting for a response to his question.

  I cleared my throat. “No, not really. But I like languages. You could say they’re a hobby of mine. Especially in written form. There’s something about the process of communicating thoughts on paper that appeals to me, I guess.”

  His eyes twinkled. “As a newspaper journalist, I’m glad to hear it.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the quip, and returned my attention to the news show.

  “How are you at dragonscript and Hindi?” The question was asked casually, but I could tell by the way he’d stiffened slightly beside me that the answer was important.

  My first inclination was to deny my skills with dragonscript; I’d hidden my ability for so long that it felt weird to share the information with anyone not like Myrna or Richard, who were both involved with dragons on a regular basis. But Daniel waited patiently for my answer with no signs of distrust or judgment, as if he’d simply asked me my favorite color, or what type of wine I liked to have with pasta. Besides, it’s not like my name wasn’t all over the paperwork in China as the translator on record. It wouldn’t take much digging to figure it out.

  I decided that shame over something as small as the languages in my repertoire was ridiculous, especially considering I’d just ridden across town with the guy wearing nothing but a thin and drafty hospital gown. I couldn’t be more exposed than I already was.

  “Fluent in dragonspeak, both oral and written. As for Hindi, I’m better with the written than the spoken form. I haven’t exactly had many opportunities to practice in Tulsa. I imagine I’d pick it up a little quicker if I was around someone fluent for a little while. Why?”

  “It’s what I need your help with. I need a translator for some research on a story I’m chasing.”

  “That’s it? You just want someone to read over some paperwork for you?”

  “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes. I need a reliable dragonspeaker who isn’t affiliated with DRACIM.” He smiled. “One who’s willing to travel. See? You’re the perfect woman for the job.”

  I leaned against the back of the couch and crossed my arms. “Baloney. You weren’t at that hospital looking for a translator. You were there trying to harass Richard into admitting he was the guy behind the DRACIM bombing. Which, for the record, he isn’t. I just happened to be the easier target, being in a coma and all.”

  “Isn’t a guy allowed to multitask? It’s true, my paper sent a lot of us to Budapest to follow the trial of Hian-puo. My colleague Jim had the social angle covered, so when the bomb went off, he stayed for the general public reaction stuff and let me try to run down the source. I was able to track Mr. Green to the hosp
ital, and I fully intended on trying to convince him to allow an interview.

  “But I’d also found something at the hotel that my gut told me warranted some investigation. I need a translator to help me. And for now, I need someone that I can hire without causing any flags to raise at DRACIM. If this story is what I think it is, it’ll be the biggest news since the discovery of dragons.”

  I rubbed at my eyes. The combination of medication, fatigue and a full stomach was starting to make me a bit sleepy, despite the fact that I’d been dozing on the futon for most of the afternoon. I still wasn’t completely convinced of Daniel’s explanation, but I had to admit that he hadn’t once tried to ask me about Richard or the bombing since we’d left the hospital. And maybe it was simple relief talking, but I was inclined to believe him, if only because serving as a translator sounded ten times better than being asked to rat out my friends. “So what’s the story that may be bigger than the discovery of dragons?”

  “You’re exhausted. It can wait.” He smiled and glanced down at my plate, frowning when he saw the neat pile of turkey I’d left in the center.

  “You didn’t like the meat?”

  “Vegetarian. Sorry. Again.”

  He grinned. This time, the expression was natural and without the touch of annoyance I’d seen so often. It suddenly reminded me that Daniel was drop-dead gorgeous when he wasn’t scowling.

  I stood. “Take your plate?”

  “Oh, sure, thanks.” I walked them back to the kitchen, and had just started to rummage around in the cleaning supplies bag when Daniel called me back to the television.

  “What are they saying?”

  I didn’t follow his question until the screen filled with a photo of Richard and me from the dragon council gathering. Taken during Hian-puo’s trial, it was one of the few times I’d managed to hold Richard’s attention while there, and even though we were sitting together, neither of us looked particularly happy about it.

  “I’m not sure.” The anchorman was fully animated, and speaking so quickly I had a hard time separating the words. “He’s saying something about damage to the hotel, and dragons, and...” I stopped, hoping I was wrong about the meaning of rendõrség. But when they flashed a photo of a police station on the screen, I knew I wasn’t so lucky.

  From what I could gather, they’d just announced that I was wanted in connection with the attack at the hotel, and the local police intended to cooperate fully with dragon lords Relobu and Adelaida to help take me and Richard into custody. We’d be immediately deported to Lord Relobu’s territory in North America. The brief video of the Hungarian police shaking hands with a man wearing Adelaida’s insignia before turning to the woman who must be Relobu’s representative pretty much sealed the deal.

  I was officially on the lam. Relobu and Adelaida had commissioned the entire world to help track me down.

  I looked to Daniel, wondering how much he’d managed to catch. Or how much of this he’d managed to cause.

  “Are you happy now?” When he did nothing but raise an eyebrow in question, I continued. “You’ve managed to get Richard’s name attached to this terrorism plot, and now Relobu is after him too.”

  Daniel laughed. “I didn’t have a thing to do with it. Your boy managed to do that all to himself.”

  Before I had a chance to defend Richard, Daniel dusted bread crumbs from his hands by running his palms along the surface of his jeans. He stood.

  “Well, looks like I need to run back to the store. I thought we’d have a couple more days before we had to find a way out of the country, but our timetable has been officially fast-forwarded. You’re going to need a makeover.”

  Chapter Eight

  “This is a bad, bad, bad idea,” I muttered as I clutched Daniel’s arm like it was the last rope dangling over the Grand Canyon.

  We were at the airport, and I was sweating. Shortly after we’d seen the announcement of my outlaw status, Daniel decided we needed to get out of Lady Adelaida’s territory and into the territory of a dragon who wasn’t Lord Relobu’s bosom buddy.

  Lady Adelaida and Lord Relobu, the two dragon lords most open to human interaction, were known to seek out experts for their business ventures regardless of the expert’s species. Hian-puo had been on the other end of the scale. He’d treated his human employees as slaves, and had been vocal about the fact that he thought we were a bunch of idiots. Most of the other dragon lords fell somewhere in the middle of these two points of view.

  My problem was the dragon whose territory Daniel had chosen for our escape. He’d called his office and arranged for us to travel with a couple of journalists on their way to Bangalore, India, to cover a recent earthquake that had caused significant damage to the city. Which put us in the home city of Lady Savitri, Dragon Lord of India, Pakistan, and Nepal.

  And where Lady Savitri fell on the scale of human-love was anyone’s guess. She was notoriously reclusive, preferring to remain near her home and mate. While I’d never heard a report of human abuse from her territory, I’d also never heard any glowing praise. She rarely left Bangalore, and any official territory business was conducted through dragons she sent to speak on her behalf.

  I’d voiced my opinions on the matter but Daniel had, as usual, ignored my protests and insisted this would be our best chance to get out of the country undetected. With Lady Adelaida’s police force—both human and dragon—out to find me, I’d had no choice but to agree to Daniel’s plan.

  He’d told the paper that the trip was an opportunity for his “new wife” to realize her dream of exploring the world.

  I hadn’t liked the idea at all. And it had nothing to do with having to pretend I was a blushing bride. Heck, I wasn’t even worried about being caught with the fake passport Daniel had somehow found someone to manufacture at a moment’s notice. No, my fear had everything to do with the fact that we were about to board a plane guarded by a dragon who worked directly under Lord Relobu, the very dragon who’d started this entire mess in the first place.

  In a weird twist of fate, the paper Daniel worked for was based in Tulsa, their main business office just four blocks from my apartment building. I guess it wasn’t that weird of a coincidence. Because of the dragon’s relative power in our political and economic systems, it was understandable that the population—and their newspapers—would shift toward the cities where powerful dragons resided, whether they liked dragons or not. Half of Tulsa’s economy relied directly upon Relobu’s business interests.

  And naturally, Relobu was the sole source for dragon escorts for a Tulsa-based business.

  That didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Getting on a plane was stupid all by itself. It was simply too dangerous. The same EMP issues that caused television circuits to degrade did the exact same thing to planes, and I wasn’t comfortable betting my life on whether the aircraft had been properly maintained. It was one thing to fly over here as we had on a plane owned by Lord Relobu. The dragon lord, like most dragons, had a tendency toward hoarding and financial common sense, so of course he had more money than God. The odds that his planes were equipped with the best and newest circuit boards was a given.

  But a newspaper? How did I know they kept their planes in good shape?

  Daniel insisted the Tulsa Times Chronicle used this contractor all the time for flights, and I had no real reason to doubt they were reliable. The Chronicle was one of the largest newspapers in the world, and with newsprint being the top source of information for most of the world’s population, I had to admit the publishing office likely had enough money to hire a good air transportation provider. Besides, like it or not, I’d have to get on a plane at some point to cross the Atlantic.

  If I ever got the chance.

  Homesickness hit me hard, and I found myself wishing I was settled into a chair in my boring old office at CreaTV, looking over yet another page proof for graphics errors before sending them off to the printing room. I used to feel sorry for the people who had to work with our dr
agon clients. Even with the DRACIM agent we brought in for translation purposes, there were still communication issues, and every once in a while, the dragons would get a little irritated and bare their teeth over the color of a model’s shirt that wasn’t to their taste. I used to think that was a dangerous position. Only now did I understand just how mild mannered those dragons had been.

  I wanted to go home, and slip back in to my normal life. But instead, I was about to board a plane heading in the opposite direction.

  We wove through what seemed like miles of passenger seating looking for Daniel’s colleague. Almost every chair was empty, and the built-in shops and restaurants had long since closed. The Budapest airport looked almost exactly like the one in Tulsa. Both were designed to accommodate a human capacity ten times its current volume. I wondered whether this terminal’s size was a remnant of a time when air travel had been the norm, not the exception, or whether its huge empty spaces were due to some perpetually optimistic politicians who were convinced air travel would return to their pre-war numbers “just as soon as the dragon problem was handled.”

  Did I mention the current Tulsa government was also criminally fanciful?

  “I can’t believe you want me to get on a plane surrounded by Relobu dragons.”

  “Don’t worry, now that you look like that, there’s no way anyone will recognize you.” Daniel caught himself, and turned back to look at me with guarded eyes. “But you look fantastic, really.”

  I couldn’t blame him for the reaction. After we’d seen my picture splashed on the evening news, Daniel had made his second trip to the store. When he’d returned with his purchases, I’d cried. Because this time, instead of ill-fitting clothes, his shopping bag held a pair of scissors and a box of hair color in the worst possible shade of brown. It didn’t take a genius to realize what he wanted me to do. It was the proverbial straw on the donkey’s back, and it had broken me.