by Bryan Davis
Joran clenched a fist. Yes! Victory! Although this Naphil survived the arrow’s plunge, he lost the battle and the ovulum. Now he would have to face his demonic father with news of his failure.
As wind whipped across the burns on Joran’s back, pain returned with a vengeance. Selah had been kind not to press close as she usually did when they flew together, but her body contact might have been less excruciating than the barrage of stinging air.
After several minutes of flying above the lush forests surrounding the Tigris River, they passed over the remains of Eden’s Garden. Below, misshapen trees bent toward the ground like crippled men bracing for a fall. Leafless bushes made up the square boundary of what Father called The Odious Orchard, and only weeds and thistles grew alongside short trees with thorny vines and shriveled produce. Then the cursed tree came into view. Still lush and heavy with red, oval fruit, it stood as an odd survivor, a plant that, being a curse itself, resisted the blight.
Finally, they passed over the holy tree, a gorgeous evergreen with hefty branches that effortlessly carried a bounteous supply of ivory fruit. An angel robed in brilliant white stood at one side brandishing a sword that emitted a beam of light. Waving the blade back and forth, he stirred the light into a semitransparent shield that covered the tree, similar to the way their rods formed a wall of sound.
As they flew past Eden’s boundary, Joran looked back at the desolation. It seemed as if it might be easy to land in that forsaken garden, but every dragon and human knew what would happen if someone tried. The guardian angel would attack with his sword of light and disintegrate the intruder. Such was Elohim’s wrath against anyone who dared to challenge his edicts.
Joran licked his dry lips. What would it be like to taste the guarded fruit? No one knew, of course, but stories abounded. No more thirst? Eternal life? Deliverance from the coming flood? If any of those legends were true, might it be possible to sneak past the angel, snatch one, and give it to Selah? Of course, stealing the fruit would probably spoil its powers, maybe even turn its flesh into poison. Such was the way of Elohim. No one was allowed to take mercy without it first being offered.
His mind drifted back to a day when he actually dared to approach. At the age of twelve, cocky in the vulgarity of his youth, he strolled up to the cherub and demanded some of the fruit. The angel sternly warned him to leave, but young Joran’s foolish stubbornness held sway, and after analyzing the sound the protective sword made, he sang a note that he thought might neutralize it. When tiny holes began appearing in the shield, the angel lowered the sword and aimed it at Joran. “Foolish boy!” the angel shouted. And Joran ran, never looking back and never returning to the tree to this day.
Foolish boy. The rebuke rang so true. Not satisfied with this transgression, that very day he went on to carry out his darkest deed, and the scars from his wickedness still remained. He hadn’t been able to sing a demon out of a lyre string ever since, no matter how many times he tried. Even now his gifts diminished at a nearly imperceptible rate, as if the evils of that day continued to strangle and squeeze life out of him.
He breathed a silent sigh. No matter. Today we live. Tomorrow we die. He needed his gifts no more.
Biting his tongue, Joran turned toward the front. His thoughts of theft both then and now were juvenile, stupid. And Selah wouldn’t touch the fruit anyway. Still, he had to rescue her from the flood somehow, and very little time remained.
READING MINDS
“Bonnie, wake up.”
The whispered call knifed into her dream, and Makaidos and his two riders dissolved and crumbled. The adventures of Joran and Selah had once again ended.
Bonnie opened her eyes. How strange. She was sitting upright against the wall with her wings spread behind her. Had she dozed off in this position, or had she sat up while sleeping?
Ashley knelt on the thin blue mat they shared during the colder months, her stare fixed on the iron bars that separated their jail cell from the hallway—a concrete corridor lit by fluorescent ceiling lamps. From a high window on the opposite side of their cramped quarters, the rays of approaching evening cast yellow beams, painting a silhouette on the linoleum floor—more dark bars, another symbol of their captivity.
Yawning, Bonnie blinked to clear her vision. After a morning of torture, an afternoon nap had been a blessing. With the Healers taking her and Ashley at seemingly random times, day and night, they grabbed a few hours of sleep whenever they could. At least the guards had let them stay together the past few years, supposedly a reward for good behavior, but in reality they had probably decided it wasn’t worth the effort to closely monitor two cells.
Ashley pushed her fingers through her shoulder-length mop of brown hair, a signal that something troubled her mind. Her thin lips and bent brow added to the effect.
Bonnie sighed. If only she had Ashley’s mind-reading abilities, Ashley wouldn’t have to verbalize her thoughts and risk the danger of being overheard. Even an errant whisper might be picked up and cost them exercise or shower privileges.
“What do you sense?”
Ashley raised a finger. “Just a minute.”
Bonnie looked at the camera mounted on the windowsill just above head height. Ashley had probably turned down its microphone range before waking her up. Her electronics expertise often came in handy. The silent battle against their captors’ spying ways never seemed to end. Of course, the guard who monitored them might eventually notice a lack of ability to hear whispers, so Ashley always turned the volume back to normal before anyone checked the camera for malfunctions. After much practice, she had become adept at avoiding the lens while drawing close to manipulate the settings.
Fortunately, the guards still allowed them to draw a curtain in front of the toilet for privacy, but either she or Ashley had to be in sight at all times, such was the guards’ fear, or perhaps hatred, of those with any trace of dragon blood in their veins.
Touching Ashley’s hand, Bonnie focused a thought in her direction. Why did you wake me up? Any news from the men’s block or the dungeon?
“Bits and pieces,” Ashley whispered. “It’s always like a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes I think Billy’s somewhere nearby, and other times I get the impression that he’s not. Stella guards her mind well, but some of her cronies let a few things spill. I woke you up, because someone’s thoughts mentioned a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Bonnie smiled. Ashley was being dramatic, waiting for the obvious question. But that didn’t matter. They didn’t have any other entertainment, so an occasional bit of drama helped them exercise their minds. What name?
Ashley turned away from the camera and mouthed, “Mardon.”
Mardon? Bonnie stared at Ashley’s newly morose expression. The name conjured so many images! Mardon, the son of King Nimrod thousands of years ago, wandered as a spirit in Hades before traveling to Second Eden. A brilliant scientist, he once tried and failed to bring Earth and Heaven together with a cross-dimensional connection. Later, with help from his mother, Semiramis, he used his prowess as a geneticist to weaken Acacia, one of the Oracles of Fire. Although he failed in the long run, he did great damage, including indirectly bringing about Acacia’s death. Since he and his mother continued to exist in a post-dead state, imprisoned in Second Eden, they could still potentially cause problems.
Bonnie cast another thought at Ashley. Any context to the mention of Mardon?
“No. I’m just piecing the puzzle together.”
Do you think Mardon is behind the recent spike in the anthrozils’ disease?
“Maybe. He’s smart enough to do it. He has the know-how.”
True. Have you heard anything new about the disease? Does my mother have it?
“No word on that at all.” Ashley rose to her feet and hugged herself, shivering. Her arms wrapped around her threadbare navy sweatshirt all the way to her back. “I just wish Walter would visit.”
Bonnie nodded. Even lacking Ashley’s mind-re
ading ability, it wasn’t hard to guess her thoughts. It had been a month since her beloved husband last came by. She had smuggled prison security passwords to him during his most recent visit, hoping he could use them to break into the facility, but since the prison administration frequently changed the codes, would they be out-of-date already? Not only that, Walter’s latest coded message included dire news about the strange disease. It had infected the original anthrozils, the humans who had once been dragons. He didn’t provide many details, only that some were getting weaker, as if constantly exposed to candlestones, though the energy-draining gems hadn’t affected them since their transformations.
As Ashley stretched, her sweatshirt rode up a notch, exposing her wasted frame. Bonnie cringed. Ashley was so thin! So pitifully thin! The radioactive tracers their captors pumped into her bloodstream brought about a nightly vomiting session. No matter how bland the food she ate in the evening, she lost it all before bedtime. Fortunately, Stella hated the odor, so she provided a toilet brush and cleanser. Thank the Lord for small favors.
Leaning forward, Bonnie extended a wing. “Come. Sit close.”
Ashley sat, scooted into the wing’s embrace, and leaned her head against Bonnie’s. They extended their jeans-covered legs and lined up their Nikes, new pairs the jailers had recently provided. Before the replacement, Ashley’s right sole was half detached, and a big toe protruded from each shoe. With a rip across a Nike logo and multiple knots splicing her laces, Bonnie’s weren’t much better, but she didn’t try to run in place as often as Ashley did, opting instead to keep her wings in shape by hovering in the room. If she had to run very far, she might be in trouble, but Ashley would have no problem. Even as sick and thin as she was, she probably could outrun any of those skirted cows patrolling the prison floor.
“So,” Ashley said, now whispering without moving her lips, “Catherine dropped some thoughts about anthrozils. I guess the other guards haven’t given her tips on how to keep me from reading her mind.”
“She’s been here, what? Three weeks?”
“Something like that. Anyway, her rookie brain leaked that—”
“Wait.” Bonnie added a thought. Do your Catherine impersonation. That is, if it’s something you can tell me out loud.
“My pleasure.” Ashley put on a dour expression and lowered her voice’s pitch. “Before I came to this God-forsaken pit of a prison, I was a patrol pig, an evil sister of the devil who hunted down children and sent them to labor camps.” She sneered at Bonnie. “Just because I like to see dragonkind suffer.”
Bonnie laughed. Your impersonation is perfect!
“It might come in handy someday, so I’ve been practicing.”
Bonnie looked at the window and imagined the patrol pigs, the Enforcers, as they called themselves. Some sat at computers using the latest spy technology, and some went door-to-door in the middle of the night, all for the purpose of tracking down her children, as well as other anthrozils, such as Thomas and Mariel, who might still roam the earth. She had already heard through the prison grapevine that Catherine had been one of the Enforcers, so Ashley’s monologue revealed nothing new. The arrival of a rookie guard, however, resurrected hope that news from the outside world lay only a careless thought away, prompting questions in Bonnie’s mind, questions she hadn’t asked in a long time.
Any news on Thomas or Mariel?
Ashley shook her head. “I suppose their mothers are still searching, assuming the disease hasn’t sapped their strength.”
“You’re probably right.” Bonnie ran her fingers across her abdomen, focusing her thoughts on the womb that once carried Charles and Karen. A mother can never forget. Kaylee and Dallas would never give up their search for their babies, no matter how sick they were. How about Tamara? I’ve been worried about her.
“Same here,” Ashley said. “How long has she been missing?”
A year, I think.
A tear sparkled in Ashley’s eye. “She’s an easy target. Too easy.”
Bonnie nodded. I know what you mean. I hope Listener is coping.
“Don’t worry. She’s as tough as nails.”
So did Catherine leak any other information?
Ashley brushed the tear away and put on her Catherine-like sneer. “I had a lead on a male anthrozil, but I’m not about to mention his name. That brilliant Ashley is bound to hear it. Since it was a dead end, and since they spent a lot of money and manpower on my ‘sure thing,’ I got busted to jail duty. Anyway, those scoundrels at headquarters won’t let me follow up on a female who has a suspicious talent. She can hear things beyond any reasonable limits. If someone else finds her and takes credit, I’ll throw a hissy fit! That’ll teach them!”
Bonnie gave the camera a furtive glance. Ashley was being less cautious than usual.
“Anyway,” Ashley said, reverting to her own voice, “Catherine created an image in her mind of a rival that made my skin crawl—a pale, winged, emo-looking freak wearing black. I suppose he’s the one who might take credit for what she learned through her snooping.”
So this female has super hearing? I have never heard of that as a dragon trait.
“Neither have I, so maybe it’s another dead end. Anyway, the girl is the right age to be Karen, but Catherine didn’t communicate any traits for the boy she was looking for, only that he’s also a teenager.”
Aren’t you concerned about saying all this out loud? You might never get any information out of Catherine again. Besides, no showers for a week makes for smelly anthrozils.
“I’m hoping to get her in trouble. Anything to bust that patrol pig down to garbage duty. You remember what those monsters do. I’ll take a month without showers if we can flush that slime out of here.”
Bonnie leaned back against the wall. The night the federal marshal stole Charles and Karen still haunted every hour. As he and a social worker hauled her babies away, they screamed. She cried. One of the marshal’s goons had already clubbed Billy, rendering him unconscious, and held a gun to his head to make sure no one tried to stop the government-authorized kidnapping. It was a dark night, indeed.
Yet, hope remained. Word came from Walter that Sir Patrick of Glastonbury, England, a former dragon who exercised great influence in foster-care circles, later managed to alter their records and hide their identities so that no one knew their origins. Apparently Patrick had a spy in government circles, but Walter never learned how the spy managed to lose Charles and Karen in the system, since they were lost to Walter as well.
As she had a thousand times before, Bonnie imagined what their faces looked like now. If Charles and Karen had dragon traits, what might they be? They wouldn’t know why they had them or how to hide them. Still, since the official persecution of anthrozils was no longer a secret, and so many had joined the insane hunt for anyone who had strange abilities, people with a trait that appeared outside the norm now tended to hide the ability, fearing the persecutors. Maybe Charles and Karen would be careful to do the same.
“Catherine also regurgitated some of the usual tripe,” Ashley added, “but I think that was intentional, kind of like a taunt.”
“The usual tripe?” Bonnie asked out loud.
“You know. If our escape attempts ended, we could get out of maximum security, get transferred to a cushy dorm, have more contact with the outside world. That sort of thing.”
Bonnie let out a huff. Escape attempts. What a laugh! Sure, someone from the outside had apparently tried to break in and set them free. One night, a note tied to a stone sailed through their window. Its laser-printed message said, “Be ready at three a.m.” But when that hour arrived, no rescuer showed up. The next morning, the guards transferred them to another cell, this one with a surveillance camera. It seemed like a manufactured reason to increase their punishment.
“Catherine is coming.” Ashley kissed Bonnie’s cheek. “I’ll pray for you.”
Bonnie unwrapped Ashley and rose to her feet. Having a mind read
er as a warning system had proved helpful hundreds of times over the years.
“How’s your neck?” Ashley asked. “I see new abrasions.”
Bonnie rubbed her throat. “Stella stretched me pretty far. If this keeps up, I’ll be a giraffe.”
“If the stress tests don’t end soon, we’ll both look like half-starved zoo animals. I think they enjoy inventing new ways to make us suffer.”
A metal-on-metal click sounded. Catherine, standing in her prim calf-length skirt, long-sleeved white shirt, and form-fitting navy blazer, pushed a key into the cell door’s lock. “It’s Bonnie’s turn to see the Healers,” she said without emotion.
As she turned the key, her brow furrowed, unusual for her, since bobby pins pulled her dyed-black hair into a forehead-stretching bun. “It’s unlocked. How did that happen?”
Bonnie glanced at Ashley and sent a thought her way. Is that the third time?
Ashley nodded but said nothing.
Catherine slid the door open and stormed inside. Stocky, muscular, and sporting a baton in a sheath on one hip and a taser on the other, she was more of a pit bull than a patrol pig. “What is the meaning of this?” she bellowed. “How did you unlock the cell?”
“We have no idea how it got unlocked,” Ashley said in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you’d think about it for half a second, maybe even you could figure out that there’s no benefit for us to unlock it and then sit here and take the punishment for the offense.”
Catherine whipped out her baton and pointed it at Ashley. “Don’t patronize me! I won’t take any guff from a vile dragon woman! You and your kind are all alike. If I had it my way, you would all be executed on sight, including that treasonous husband of yours. He might have everyone else fooled, but not me. You infected him with dragon poison, so he’ll never be pure again. As soon as I can prove he’s a double agent, I’ll make sure he joins all the other dragon sympathizers in Hell.”
“I apologize.” Ashley rose to her feet and walked up to Catherine until they stood nearly nose to nose. With her tone smooth and calm she said, “I didn’t mean to patronize you. I meant to insult that bigoted, egotistical wad of slime you call a brain. Your vomitus ramblings make a UFO conspiracy theorist sound like Einstein.”
