The Last Dragon Lord

XXI

XXI

The alarms grated against Miri’s ears. She had never heard anything louder in her life. They swelled and blared and screamed, and she wondered if they would give her temporary hearing loss.

Earl pushed open the brushed metal doors into the factory production floor, and a blast of hot air hit them as they ran inside.

Dark’s cage was busted open. The metal bars twisted upon themselves as if they had suffered an explosion. Glass was scattered all over the floor.

Their eyes went up to the glass skylight, which was broken and let in soft moonbeams that glinted off the shards of broken glass.

“We’ve got to get the alarms off,” Lucan said. He stopped at an electrical box and entered a passcode. Then the alarms quickly stopped and the area grew silent.

Even though the alarms had stopped, Miri’s ears still rang.

“Damn,” Lucan said, inspecting the damage. He dug his hands into his pockets and whistled. “How the hell did he get out?”

Miri walked around the cage, studying it. She couldn’t make sense of the aftermath.

“You tell me,” she said. “I thought you had safety measures to prevent it.”

“Alarms,” Lucan said. “I magicked the cage myself. The bars were reinforced steel. Not even a dragon could bust through them.”

Miri ran her fingers along one of smooth steel bars. It was grimed with meat grease. She smelled the fat; it was still fresh.

Lucan was on his phone. “Officer? No, there’s no need to come. One of my employees accidentally tripped the alarm. That’s all. No, no, thank you for calling. Sorry to have interrupted your night.”

He hung up and tucked the phone in his shirt pocket. “I just saved us all from some very uncomfortable questions. That’s about the only victory we can claim tonight.”

Earl cleared his throat. He had been standing near a forklift. The keys were still in the ignition.

“Sir, if the police weren’t here yet, wouldn’t that mean the dragon was nearby?” he asked. “His wings were busted, weren’t they?”

“Good point,” Lucan said. He looked above and focused on a ladder that led up to the roof.

“Are there security cameras?” Miri asked.

“Nope,” Lucan said. “They’re wirelessly connected so I was afraid of them being hacked.”

He started for the ladder but Earl grabbed his arm. “You can’t go up there. What if he’s waiting?”

“I’ve got a spell ready for him,” Lucan said, patting his pocket.

“But your arm, sir.”

Lucan clucked his tongue. “Miri, get up there.”

But she ignored him. She entered the cage and knelt. The smell of vomit assaulted her nose. Then she noticed a pile of it on the floor.

“Lucan,” she said nervously.

She reached down and picked up several vomit-stained grimoires.

“What the—” Lucan’s eyes widened. “Are you f*****g kidding me? How did he get them?”

Miri pointed to several stacks of grimoires in the distance. Sarcastically, she said “They’re everywhere. It’s a grimoire factory.”

Lucan shook his head. “The stacks were away from the cage. Gus and Orion made sure of that. He couldn’t have reached them if he tried. Plus, the cage was sealed with a magical barrier.”

“What kind of barrier?” Miri asked.

“A defensive one.”

“There’s only one way to overcome a defensive barrier,” Miri said. “And that’s to use magic that is stronger than the spell that casted it.”

“I used a grimoire from my classic collection. It’s the best magic money can buy, Miri,” Lucan said, irritated.

She pulled out her notebook again. She pointed to the strategy chart.

“That’s it. That’s what was in the chests. It was magic.”

How could she have been so ignorant? Dragons were known to hide caches of magic. She knew that. She should have suspected it.

“So when your girl opened the chest, she unleashed a bunch of magic?” Lucan asked.

Miri nodded.

“s**t. How much?”

Miri shrugged and pointed to the twisted bars on the cage.

“Enough,” she said.

Lucan knelt and inspected the grimoires.

“But I don’t get it,” he said. “If he used his magic to bust out, what did he use my grimoires for?”

“I don’t know,” Miri said. “Maybe he didn’t use them. Or used them to make a statement.” A breathy gasp escaped her as she realized the worst. “Or—“

Lucan beat his head against one of the bars. “If you’re asking me whether the grimoires have healing spells embedded into them, the answer is yes. Damn it! How hard can it be to find him? He’s a lame, busted up dragon, for heaven’s sake!”

“He doesn’t want to be found,” Miri said. “He’ll change his color. Or his shape. We’ve already underestimated him.”

“Yeah, and with all the television you let him watch, he’s probably an expert in our culture now,” Lucan said.

A knot bulged in Miri’s throat as she realized her mistake. Perhaps letting him watch the news was not a good idea.

“I screwed up,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“We all screwed up,” Lucan said. “Not just you. Now we have to figure out what the hell we’re going to do, because something tells me he’s not going to let us put him back in a cage.”

Earl’s face twisted into a frown. “Miss, I might be a little fuzzy on the details, but can you help me understand?”

“Okay,” Miri said.

Earl cleared his throat and spoke softly at first, so much that she strained to hear him.

“You’ve got a dragon who used to be a raging sociopath on the loose. He hates humans. He hates elves. I don’t rightly know for a fact, but it’s probably safe to say he’s going to hate our society’s dragons, too. He’s angry, he’s disillusioned, and he wants revenge.”

“Yes,” Miri said.

“Then your only choice, I think, is to kill him.”

“What?” Miri asked. “Earl, how could you be so cruel?”

Lucan put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Miri. I wish you had more time to study him. But he’s got to go.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but only sputters came out.

“No...I won’t let you kill him!”

“What other choice do we have?” Lucan yelled. “He’d kill you in a heartbeat. Cut the academic crap—this is life or death!”

“Our society is life and death!” Miri yelled back. “We’re going to destroy our planet before he even makes a dent in it.”

They heard footsteps behind them.

It was Gus. He was breathing heavily, and he had a dazed look on his face. His clothes were covered in sweat.

“Gus?” Lucan asked, squinting his eyes. “Where were you? What happened here?”

The man staggered toward them and fell. Earl caught him, holding him up by the arms.

Miri grabbed a chair and Earl set the man down.

“Thanks,” Gus said.

“Glad to see you’re not dead,” Lucan said.

“No. I’m not,” Gus said.

“What about Orion?” Lucan asked.

“He’s fine.”

Gus’s breathing slowed.

Miri noticed that the man’s skin was pale. His irises were almost shaking. Something about the man troubled her.

“Where is Old Dark?” she asked.

“Gone,” Gus said. “Far gone.”

“Which way?” Lucan asked. “Did he say anything about where he might have been going?”

Gus stared past Lucan’s shoulder, his gaze fixated on the wall.

“He told me to give you a message, Mr. Grimoire.”

The man paused, and then spoke as if he were reciting a message from memory.

“He told me to tell you that he has some scores to settle, and it would be best if you stayed out of his way.”

“Fat chance,” Lucan said.

“He told me to tell you that once his scores are settled, you’re next, Mr. Grimoire,” Gus said.

Lucan gulped.

“He spared my life because I understood his benevolence,” Gus said.” When he stared me in the eyes, I understood why I was wrong to work here.”

Miri tilted her head at him. She pulled on Lucan’s suit coat and whispered in his ear. She took a step back and dragged him with her.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

“He showed me what it meant to be human,” Gus said, smiling. “My Lord has redeemed me. He has unburdened me from my sins. You too can bow down and let Lord Dark redeem you. It’s not too late.”

He grabbed Lucan’s arm but Lucan swatted him back.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lucan asked.

Gus dropped to his knees. He raised his hands to the sky and sang: “Smile for me, old dragon lord, for the world will soon stop spinning. Shadow’s flame is you, old lord, and this dead world needs your kindling!”

And instantly, Gus erupted into flames. He screamed both in rapture and agony, and then he keeled over as the flames ravaged him.

Earl ran for a fire extinguisher and doused the body in white foam. As the flames subsided, Miri looked away when she saw that the man’s body had been charred beyond recognition in just a few seconds. His body crumbled into ash and char, and the smell of rotten flesh swarmed the room.

In the concrete, in the place where Gus’s body had been, a message smoldered in dying flames.

Lucan is next.

Lucan went pale. “You think we should still spare him now?” he asked quietly, throwing himself into the chair and closing his eyes.

Miri shook her head, speechless. Her legs were going to give out and it was a miracle she was still standing.

She heard a whirring sound behind her, and she turned around just in time to see a white orb flying through the skylight, into the starry sky, and away.