Esther Friesner - In the Realm of Dragons

He circled the skybowl once, his scent marking air as his hunting ground and his alone. Below, he dreamed the peasants singing for him to descend and accept the sacrifice. Later, he thought, and the power of his mind rumbled across the sky like thunder. When I have earned it.

The thunder of his thoughts rolled back to overwhelm him, knocking him sideways into a spin. When he righted himself he saw that the green land had vanished, the crude songs of the rustics thinned into the braying of traffic, the shriek of sirens. The stone forest of the city stood stark against the moon. He dipped into the canyons, following a trail of vision.

It was easy hunting; he knew the prey. He found them with his mind, not with his eyes. They were in a bar, drinking beer, laughing and talking and sometimes trying to get the attention of the women. The lure was loudest, telling the women what he’d like to do to them, telling them how grateful they’d be, telling them they were frigid, bitches, bull-dykes when they turned away. The killer with the club only smiled, and sometimes one of the women would smile back. That made the lure scowl and call her a whore.

“Hey! What you starin’ at?”

Ryan gasped with surprise as the lure’s hand shot out and closed around the collar of his shirt, yanking him forward. Stale beer stank in his nostrils and sprayed saliva dotted his cheeks as the lure shouted, “What, you see something you like, faggot?”

“Get your fucking hands off me!” Teeth like steak knives ground against each other as Ryan smacked the lure’s grip away. By chance one talon scored the skin of the lure’s forearm, a long, shallow cut. Sapphire eyes widened in childlike awe to see the blood go trickling down.

“Shit, he pulled a knife on me!” he yelled.

“What knife? Where?” the killer drawled, glancing at Ryan’s empty hands. “You’re crazy, Ted, you know that?”

“Stinking fag knifed me,” the lure insisted. “Goddamn it, this whole neighborhood’s crawling with ’em, like roaches.”

“Who are you calling a fag?” Ryan asked quietly. Being what he was, he did not need to raise his voice to make the menace heard.

The killer gave Ryan a slow and easy grin. “Don’t pay attention to him. He’s been drinking. He don’t know what he’s saying.”

“No shit.” Ryan readjusted the lay of his shirt, sounding so calm he astonished himself. He had no idea of how he had become real in this place, how these two, his quarry, had gone from being part of a dragon’s vision to tangibility. He did not know why he felt the dragon’s body on him so surely that he wanted to grab these men, shake them, and demand, Can’t you see what I am?

“What the hell are you doing, talking to this guy?” the lure cried stridently, tugging at the killer’s sleeve. “You see what he did to me?” He stuck his bloodied arm out for inspection.

“With what? ” the dark one replied. He sounded bored. “A fuckin’ fingernail? You see he don’t got a knife, so with what? Jesus, grow up. You probably did it to yourself.”

“With what?” the lure mimicked, spreading empty hands.

“Asshole,” the other muttered and turned his back.

Ryan walked out of the bar. The air was cooler than it had been all day and there was the promise of rain. He walked to the corner to check the street signs. The bar was only two blocks away from Uncle Graham’s apartment. This is where it began, he thought. He wondered which way they would walk when they finally left the bar. He hoped they would walk together at least part of the way. He needed them to be in the same place at the same time. Then, one fiery breath, one slash of his claws, one short snap of jaws that could sever the body of a full grown stag—

It is a well-known fact that dragons do not forget those they love. Their love is always loyal, sometimes blind. This is perhaps a failing.

He took to the sky again to scout his place of ambush. He was fortunate: The area was rich in alleyways. He landed lightly on the roof of the building across the street from the bar, warm tar underfoot making his paws itch, his toes curl. He set his silver eyes high, telling the hours by the slow journey of the moon.

His prey emerged when midnight was two hours gone. A woman was with them, holding fast to the arm of the killer while the lure tagged along behind, head down, shoulders hunched forward. Her hair was the color of lemon-yellow paint and just as lifeless, her face crumpled with rude laughter. She clung to the killer’s broad shoulders, her stumbling feet scraping the sidewalk. The lure stared at her, disgust very plain on his face.

The three of them wove their way across the street, tracing the pattern of the drunkards’ pavane. High on his perch, the dragon could still snuff up the reek of beer, sour wine, sweat, and old perfume. He flapped his wings once to lift himself into flight, taking care to do it so that the sound remained as muffled as possible. He wondered whether the men intended to share the woman and whether the woman wanted that. He knew that if they desired it, her wants would be nothing.

He hovered over them as they walked, a shadow on the pavement in their wake, a dark shape gliding over rooftops, safe from detection in a city whose inhabitants so seldom raised their eyes to heaven. He watched them stop at street corners to laugh; he saw them stop in the middle of the street to argue.

“What the hell you doin’, Ted?” The dark one glanced over his shoulder, the woman wrapped around him like a cape. “You still here? You wanna take a left back there on that last block if you wanna get home.”

“I know how to get home.” The lure’s chin rose, daring his companion to contradict him. “I thought maybe you could use some help with her. You know, in case she pukes all over you before you get her back to your place.”

The killer laughed. “Okay, come on.”

“I’m not gonna puke,” the woman objected. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the lure. “You’re just pissed ’cause you couldn’t find someone to go home with you.”

“Like I’d want to screw what comes into that bar,” the lure replied loftily.

“Yeah?” The woman looked canny. “What kind of bars do you like, baby?” She made it mean things.

“Shut up, bitch,” he snapped. He would have hit her if his friend were not there. The dragon knew this. As it was, the woman turned to the dark one, squawking indignantly.

“Hey, baby, it’s okay, that’s just him, he’s a little nuts, you know?” the killer said. “Don’t push his buttons, okay? And don’t go saying shit like that about my buddy.” Something in his voice tightened by an almost imperceptible degree. Drunk as she was, the woman sensed it. The dragon saw her cringe.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” she said.

“Like hell,” the lure snarled. ‘“What kind of bars?’ Like I don’t know! Stupid damn—”

“She don’t know you, Ted, that’s all,” the killer said. “If she did, she’d never even think of saying something like that about you.” He showed his teeth, and the lure returned the gesture, a look too sharp to be just a smile. The dragon saw them exchange the secret of a crime in a single glance.

The dragon came to earth. By rights, the walls of the alley it chose should have been too narrow to accommodate its wingspan, yet they did. This place was perfect, only a few yards ahead on the prey’s path, on a street whose emptiness was a gift. It waited. The argument was over. They would all continue down the street in this direction now. The dragon had decided on fire. Fire was quick and clean, if indiscriminate. It was too bad about the woman.