by Shay Roberts
As I scramble to dig the bug spray out of my pack, I can't help feeling like I'm already getting sleeping sickness. What was I thinking, coming out here by myself? That Roman payroll cache is looking pretty good right now. New rule: I don't go anywhere where the drivers drop you off and flee for their lives.
By the time I return to camp and cook some freeze-dried lasagna, it's already late afternoon. I should hike to the top of the hill and set out another grid, but I don't have the energy. I've been tired since my night with Ayana. That must have been some really wild sex I've forgotten. If I didn't know better, I'd think she slipped me a roofie. But nothing was stolen, so what would be the point?
How should I spend the last of the afternoon? I think about trying to gather wood for a proper fire, but it's hard to come by out here, and the hyenas are probably lying in wait. I think I'll stick with the propane stove.
I hook up my electronics to the solar chargers and settle down in a folding canvas chair to read an e-book on my phone. It's a book on dragon lore I didn't have time to start before I left the States.
The book is big, so I skip to the section on African mythology. For some reason, I don't think of Africa as having dragons, but boy, am I wrong. The dragons here are like giant flying snakes. They have something called Aido-Hwedo. It's a rainbow serpent that can fly between the realms of heaven and earth. He prefers cooler places, so he stays in the water. And he eats iron bars made by red monkeys. Pretty wild stuff!
As the sun sets, I realize my bowels are moving, so I grab my rifle, toilet tissue, wet wipes, and shovel. I walk about fifty feet from the tent, where I find a good place to do my business. I dig a hole, take one last look for hyenas, and drop my pants.
I finish up quickly. As I'm cleaning my hands with a wet wipe, I see someone grab the rifle sitting on the ground beside me.
Panic hits me as I turn to face a black man wearing a rainbow-colored dragon mask. He stares at me with dead eyes but makes no aggressive moves.
Many more masked figures emerge from the cover of a ravine, a mix of men and women, all wearing scary masks with a fanged rainbow serpent. The more muscular men are wearing something that looks like brass knuckles with sharp crystal claws.
Holy shit! Please tell me I'm dreaming. I was reading that book and I fell asleep and now I'm dreaming about some crazy-assed dragon cult. It's time to wake up, Tyler. Wake up!
But I don't wake up.
One of the women approaches, speaking softly. "Don't be afraid, Tyler."
The voice sounds familiar. Is that Ayana? Her body looks right, but I can't see her face behind the mask.
She reaches out for my hand, but I take a step back.
She slides the mask to the top of her head. It's Ayana all right, wearing rainbow eye shadow. She looks crazy, but hot!
She reaches out her hand again. If this is a dream, I'm damn sure going to have some fun in it.
I take her hand, immediately regretting it when I feel a prick on my palm. As I pull my hand away I see she's wearing a ring with a tiny pair of gold dragon fangs on the underside. My palm feels numb. Did she poison me? What the fuck, Ayana? I thought you were cool.
I wake up with a pounding headache and find myself lying on a stone table in a dimly lit room. The walls are rough stone and it feels like I'm deep underground. My hands and legs are bound to the table by stone manacles. I struggle to free myself, but it's hopeless. The stone cuffs don't seem to have any hinges. I wonder how they got them on me.
In a niche on the far wall I see a stunning piece of art. It's a rainbow dragon sculpture covered with gemstones. The jewels twinkle in the flickering light of the candles all around the room. That dragon relic must be worth a fortune!
Below the gemstone dragon, on a long mantel, is a row of mummified human heads. The ones on the far left are nearly dust, and the ones on the right look newer. A scorpion crawls through the dark hair of one of the heads.
What the hell is going on? The Mursi aren't headhunters. But something tells me these dragon freaks aren't Mursi.
I hear someone enter the room. It's Ayana, who puts a gentle hand on my chest. "I'm so sorry about this, Tyler."
"Sorry! You're sorry? That doesn't even begin to fix this, you crazy bitch. What's going on? Are you cutting off heads to get your jollies?"
She winces at my harsh words. "No, Tyler, we didn't behead them. We simply preserved their heads after they died."
"Look, we can talk about this, but first you have to set me free."
She shakes her head sadly. "I cannot. The bindings have taken hold."
"Get a sledgehammer and bust them open. I don't care if you break a bone or two, just get me out of them."
She strokes my forehead. "Tyler, if you truly understood the gift we are bestowing, you would not want to leave."
"How about the gift of freedom? That's a great gift. No one ever returns it."
A man in a dragon mask enters the room carrying an old-fashioned silver syringe with a huge needle. He hands the device to Ayana, who holds it down below my eye line, just like my dentist.
"What's in the syringe, Ayana?"
She whispers the words with reverence. "Dragon blood."
I shake my head. "There's no such thing as dragons. Somebody sold you some snake oil."
She looks disappointed. "Listen to me, Tyler. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Coptic Church killed a dragon and enshrined its bones nearby, in one of their foul churches, as a warning against evil. But there's nothing evil about dragons. They are wondrous creatures. Four hundred years later, my comrades destroyed the Coptic shrine and buried those sacred bones in a place where they will never be found."
"What comrades? The crazies with the Halloween masks?"
Anger flares in her eyes. "The servants of Aido-Hwedo. And we are quite sane, I assure you."
"Hah! You're about to shoot me up with this shit you think is dragon blood. Tell you what, you take the first hit."
"I do not deserve that honor. Your mixed heritage is unique, and you can hear the call of the dragon. We have been eagerly awaiting your arrival." She looks over at the row of human heads. "Over the centuries, these people have answered the call, but did not survive the transition. We preserved their heads to honor their attempt."
I make another useless effort to slip the stone cuffs. I scrape the skin off my wrists and it hurts like hell. "Ayana, I wasn't summoned. My boss sent me. This is just a little mix-up. Let me go and we'll call him. I'm sure he'd be willing to make a generous donation to your group."
I feel a prick on my arm as she slides the needle in. My voice rises two octaves. "Wait, I have gift cards!"
Ayana pushes the plunger on the syringe, and hot lava enters my veins, burning me from the inside out. There's no word for this kind of pain. Deafening screams explode from my mouth as the raging dragon blood invades every cell in my body.
Chronomichani
ALEXANDER ARGYROS
I sit in the officer's mess, stabbing at my peas without eating them. This isn't the first time my career has been in jeopardy, but it's the most serious threat yet. If the Lord Beasley lead doesn't pan out, my future looks bleak.
I had KoR Intelligence run a check on Beasley. He's a wealthy member of the British peerage who fell into disgrace for hoarding stolen antiquities. His Highland Beach mansion in Florida has excellent security, so this mission will be far more complicated than the last. I'm not certain my pack of lackwits is up to the task.
Carnahan, a captain, breaks away from the other officers to join me at my lonely table in the corner of the mess. That's very odd. His group, a pack of insolent youngsters, has mocked my baldness in the past, so I have no wish to share a meal with them.
Carnahan eases down in the chair across from me and furrows his unibrow. "Colonel, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm not supposed to show this to anyone, but I thought you should know."
"Know what?"
He leans in and lowers his voice. "There's been a sighting."
&nbs
p; "Of what?"
"You know what."
Suddenly, the skin beneath my mustache itches. That always happens when I grow excited. I scratch my face and try to keep my voice calm. "A dragon?"
He nods, almost imperceptibly.
I refuse to get my hopes up. "There have been many sightings. None have been confirmed."
Carnahan nibbles on his thumbnail. "This one is different."
"Different? How?"
I can barely hear his reply. "There's a video. I stole a copy. None of us can believe it."
"Let me see it!"
Carnahan nervously clutches his phone. "You have to promise—"
"Yes, yes. I'll tell no one. Let me see it!"
Carnahan hesitates. "I should warn you, Colonel. It's hard to watch. The creature is eating a child. Her head is … inside its mouth."
I cross myself. "Oh, dear Lord!"
Carnahan reluctantly presses the play button and slides the phone across to me.
I hear a girl screaming.
My bowels clench.
I force myself to look at the screen.
It's a video of a child's amusement ride. A little girl screams with glee as she rides in a dragon car, her face framed by the creature's open mouth.
The whole mess hall bursts out laughing. Some of the miscreants cross themselves and shout, "Oh, dear Lord."
I leap to my feet, my cheeks hot. "One day, your souls will answer for these shenanigans!"
They laugh even harder.
I storm from the mess hall. As I leave, I hear one gasping lieutenant ask, "How did he ever make colonel?"
This isn't the first time I've been bullied by nonbelievers. It wounds my pride, yes, but beyond that, it fills me with dread. The moment we let our guard down, the moment we think we're safe, the dragons will return and we'll all perish. Why am I the only one who can see that?
I march down the hallway, headed for the janitorial console on Level Red. The room there is small, usually empty, and there are no cameras. Perfect for logging into the KoR system with stolen credentials.
The world is closing in around me, so it's time to use the chronomichani.
Before I get there, Squire Snedeker intercepts me. His monkey face looks nervous.
"Colonel Argyros, can we talk?"
I survey the hallway, wary of pranks. "What do you want?"
"I'm thinking of … changing things up."
Are the rats abandoning the ship?
"You want a new mentor? Is that it, Snedeker?"
"You're great and everything, but I heard a rumor they're closing the department."
"Snedeker, let me ask you something. Do I seem like the kind of man who would let bureaucracy endanger humanity?"
"No, sir."
"Are you that kind of man?"
He fidgets. "No, sir. It's just … I guess I'm not seeing the threat, sir."
I grab him by the lapel of his cadet's uniform. "Come with me."
I drag him into the janitorial room and have him avert his eyes while I log in to the console using the credentials of the janitor, a trusting man who never looks over his shoulder when he logs in. This is a low-level account, mostly used for ordering supplies, so I can't access classified information. But I can connect with one of my hidden virtual drives on the server and pull up a personal copy of my favorite codex.
"You can look now, Snedeker."
I open the codex and point to the screen. "What you're seeing here is the most important book in the world, next to the Bible, of course. In the Middle Ages, an Irish monk, known only as Fintan, uncovered an Arabic translation of a manuscript written in ancient Greek. He translated it into Latin, adding his own notes and observations. It's called Draco Historia, the history of dragons."
Snedeker looks properly awed as I scroll through the scanned codex. I stop at a crude illustration of a dragon, done in red and black ink.
"As you can see, young man, dragons are real."
"Hey, why is Hannibal's name in here?"
He points to a line that reads: HANNIBAL AD PORTAS.
"That means Hannibal at the gates. It's a metaphor for things going badly wrong, a way of describing the dragon threat."
As I continue to scroll through the manuscript, something else catches Snedeker's eye. He points to a set of runes…
"What are those, Colonel?"
"Those are Fae runes, found on the wall of a cave by a Roman centurion who discovered a dragon skull there. No one knows what they mean."
"The Fae, really?"
"Yes. They've been in league with the dragons since the beginning. Together, they conspired to wipe out man before we developed iron. They nearly succeeded."
I scroll to my favorite illustration, a multicolored dragon penned in gold, red, black, and blue. "This is an image of Aido-Hwedo, a rainbow dragon from the dark heart of Africa. The codex tells us to prepare for the rise of a dragon shifter sometime during this century. This is why we must be vigilant."
Snedeker whistles. "Amazing. You should show this to the team."
"I'd like to, but I can't. I've reason to believe there's a mole on the team. You're the only person I can trust." Because you're too stupid to be the mole.
His eyes widen. "A mole? Who is it? Is it Kaplan? I bet it's Kaplan."
"Could be. Keep an eye on him, will you? It's very important."
Snedeker speaks with renewed enthusiasm. "Yes, sir! You can count on me."
I clap him on the shoulder. "Very good, my boy. Now run along, before someone sees you here. We'll have a mission briefing in the operations center at fourteen hundred hours. Make sure the team is there."
"I will, sir. Thank you, sir."
He scurries away and I log off the console. Snedeker will remain at my side, for a little longer, at least. How pathetic am I for being pleased by that?
I rise from the console and step into the janitor's closet. It's time to use the chronomichani, the time travel machine that is the secret of my success.
I know the infernal device is running low on blood. The little nips from my finger keep it active, though not fully charged. But there should be enough blood left for two more jumps. After that, it will require a more sizable feeding.
I picture the chronomichani, sitting at home in my hidden safe. In my mind's eye, I see its gears turning and wheels spinning. It is bound to my soul and understands my wishes, no matter how far away from it I am.
I hold my breath, anticipating the falling sensation. It seems to get worse every time.
My stomach lurches, and the jump is over. My body feels sore as I peek out of the closet door.
Excellent, no one is here. I step out into the room, having just traveled two days into the future.
I sit at the console and log in using the janitor's credentials. Then I access the base's general news feed. I'm shocked by what I read.
I died in the upcoming operation! Shot in the back by Lord Beasley. Spero fought heroically to retrieve my body and was promoted.
What nonsense. I would never show my back to an armed Beasley. I must have been shot by someone I trusted, someone on my own team. Could Spero be the mole? No, it has to be Kaplan. Spero is too lovely.
I log out and step into the closet for the jump back to the present. Once again, the chronomichani has saved me. I still remember when Father gave it to me. He was on his deathbed, speaking in a whisper. He warned me of two things. Never use the device to change the outcome of a major world event, and never make physical contact with one of my past or future selves. I was young and, at the time, didn't see any real use for the device. But it has served me well, despite its limitations.
Forewarned is forearmed. My villainous little mole is in for an unpleasant surprise.
Temple of Doom
TYLER BUCK
I wake up in my hotel room in the Paradise Lodge. Soft candlelight flickers through the white mosquito gauze hanging over the bed. I'm in my underwear, and I've still got my waterproof travel pouch hanging around my
neck.
What the hell happened? Did I have a dream within a dream?
Ayana wakes up in the bed next to me, looking sleepy and confused. "Who is Rosemarie?"
"What? Who are you talking about?"
She shakes her head. "I had a dream about someone named Rosemarie. It is fading now."
"I had a pretty weird dream myself. You tried to turn me into a dragon."
Ayana sits up in bed, grabs a carafe and a glass from the nightstand, and pours me a glass of tej. I see her breasts move beneath her nightgown. The thin gold chain between her nose and ear glimmers in the candlelight. She looks incredibly beautiful.
If this turns out to be another dream, I'm going to be pissed.
I'm thirsty and I take a big gulp of tej, but it doesn't taste right, so I put the glass on the nightstand on my side of the bed.
Ayana pouts. "Please drink, Tyler. Sex is more enjoyable with tej."
Time for more tej! As I reach for the glass, I see scrape marks on my wrists.
It wasn't a dream! I was pinned down on a table and the stone cuffs scraped my wrists. Then Ayana put a needle into me.
I leap from the bed, become suddenly dizzy, and stumble to the hotel room door. I throw it open. There's nothing but a stone wall on the other side!
I'm not in the hotel. I'm still in Ayana's freaky dragon dungeon!
As I turn to confront her, Ayana embraces me. "Do not worry, Tyler. You are safe here. Please, you must drink the tej."
I push her away. "It tastes funny. What did you put in it?"
"Something to calm you."
"I don't want to be calm. I want to be free."
"You are not our prisoner. However, you must understand, you now carry the dragon blood. For your own safety and the safety of others, there are things you must learn before you leave us."
I start searching the room for a way out. "Why does this room look like the hotel?"
