The next day...
I needed a plan if I wanted to survive my homecoming. In the space where my great and wonderful plan should have been? A grumble from my empty stomach. Raiding the stores of the barn for what was still good did produce a few edible items. I cooked ideas up and took something to go with me.
I need real food if I'm going to squat for any length of time. Packing up a bag, and pulling my sling close to my body, I headed outside. I had to leave behind the puppies to sleep off the daytime lethargy. Hellhounds are nocturnal but can function in the day time. I don't want to draw attention to them in case I need to go into the store and steal.
An on foot walk to the grocery store in the heat of the day. The plan dumpster dive for dinner. You would be shocked at how much normal stuff they throw out unopened, or sell off for a penny in store. The sell by date is almost done. Only have to look carefully you will probably find something.
A couple of days here won't hurt. I can stay until they bring down the shield. No one will know. Crossing the street away from The Dragon's property is the smartest course of action. He's my only neighbor left on the dead end street.
Down the street, I pass by the EAT ME gardening service trailer. I stop in my tracks. Five people in red Save Animals Now action shirts, are watching the goats eating back all the weeds, and blackberry bushes.
Are they stealing the goats?
No, they're not that stupid-
I look around for the owner of the goat service on The Dragon's property.There has to be someone to scare off the animal rights activities? I've been next door neighbors with The Dragon my whole life. The biggest rule my brother told me about living next door to The Dragon? Never bother The Dragon. If a ball flies into The Dragon's property it belongs to The Dragon now.
The Dragon lives fourteen minutes drive from the Sacramento Capitals steps. It's slightly crazy when you think about it. Rice fields, cows, and a heck of a lot of deep magic, just a few miles from downtown Sacramento. The state capital of California with wildfire alerts and The Dragon is flying run for your life public service announcements. It boggles the mind that a dragon lives in the deep magic. Elves, Werewolves, maybe a Vampire, or two but a mother fucking dragon?
Now these animal rights activists were about to break a golden rule don't fuck with The Dragon. Everyone will have to pay for their mistake. I was about a half mile away from the barn. If I wanted to turn back and run to the shield, I could sprint. I can smoke the neo-hippies in a foot race, while he makes dinner out of them.
They aren't going to steal the goat's, they aren't that stupid?
A deep throated lusty bellow, "baaaaa," wafts across the air from the ram mounting the goat. His collar with the lead rope waves in the wind near the fence that keeps the small herd on the property. The herd munches away on the weeds on, with that fresh green scent of cut greens in the air. The young man's hand reaches out to the goats dangling lead rope.
"Don't!" Like a fool, I opened my mouth.
"Don't take the goats on The Dragon's property. Steal them on someone else's property. Anyone else's property." I yelled across the street, "don't do it."
The three young women stop, but the two neo-hippy guys in dreads keep reaching for the goat anyway. I get ready to bolt fuck the hippies. The older hippy guy steps over the electric fencing, and he can't miss that magic yellowish stuff wraps around him. It traps him like a fly on sticky tape, able to flutter but not able to fly away.
He screams in this broken little boy way. He thrashes around sounding half his age. His voice cracks with the strains of his terrified shrieks. It's as if he is on an altar offered to the gods to be slaughtered for the sins of all.
Tears stream down his dirty face. Snot pools on his upper lip from his nose as the error of his altruism sinks in. In magical areas, the rules are very simple about property rights. Trust passers are punishable by magical law. Whether they have magic or not. It's part of the treaty signed during the USA's expansion more than three centuries ago.
My house isn't in the magic area it's on the border near the close McClellan Air Force Base. We get magic but not under treaty just the overflow from the containment spells. Half a mile up from my house, the dead end road is deep magic.
The beginning of the Dragons' Property is the start of deep magic, and California's world famous rice fields. In the shadow of the capital of the 8th largest economy of the world. A whole lot of fucked up goes on. Magic is unforgiving of errors.
Like some greek tragedy a chorus of shrieking, "baaaaaas," fills the air. The goats circle the electric fencing keeping them inside the property. All thoughts of sex and eating weeds forgotten by the animals. The boy hangs in mid-air as he lifts his feet off the ground struggling to get out of his trap, totally futile.
"The rules of the magical world are a friend to no one, even the ones who live under it," my brother once told me. "Never trust the goodness in magic because it has none." I remember the words like a fairy tale. The real fairy tales, the Grimm Brothers kind, where there are no happy endings.
"Magic is amoral," my brother said. The memory like a program on how to survive in the cheap area of town near the deep magic border. "Amoral isn't, bad but it ain't good either. Ala remember that it might save your life someday."
His friends make a run for it leaving him behind as the first whop, whop, of wing beats can be heard in the distance. I've never seen a dragon, and I never hope to see one for as long as I live. That's for damn sure.
I am no one's human size snack, blacken extra BBQ sauce.
I don't think about what I am about to do.
I'm in the middle of making a very stupid mistake. I cross the street quickly and I grab the hippies hand. A hard pull tugs him out. Numb tingles stick to my hand as the magic attempts to burrow into my skin. The golden yellow magic slides off in a large sticky clump on the ground.
"Run!" I yell at him before I sprint for it. The fear tears at me, as I dig my toes into the ground picking up my stride. We head in two different directions as I make my dash home. The whopping gets closer. Dust swirls through the air clogging my lungs.
You can't outrun a dragon, it just doesn't happen. Dragons fly they darken the sky. They fill our history books with the weight of their might. The nightmare that never goes away.
Each step I move quicker, quarter mile, half mile, almost, almost I can see Aurora's shield. I feel it pass over me. It's welcoming me home just like yesterday. I never understood that overwhelming sense of home feeling at the time. My hand throbs in my cast as I pull it tight to my body. My knees give out and I flop down. I know my scent is hidden behind the shield.
I have seconds to run my options.
Options are important my brother drilled that into my head. "Intel and option are the differences between life and death. When you're dead you ain't got no options."
I take a few moments to breathes. Get up, get up. I get up to drag myself down the road to get inside the barn. The sky darkens and I look up into the blocked out sun. It was a hot day that burns on my skin, but the dragon is blocking the sun turning it cooler.
[Whop]
[Whop]
Each wing beat causes a chill to spread through my body. His wing span is ten times the size of his body. He grasps the air thickly with his wings, moving the air more drastically than a helicopter ever could.
[Whop]
[Whop]
His clawed foot touches down and crunches the ground. His massive body fills up the frame of my eyes without effort.
I look up, higher, shit.
Each scale looks terrible in it's swirling browns, greens, and shining gold. The tiny amount of light getting by The Dragon, bounces off each scale likes jewels. Every scale on the dragon is a banks mint of magic and beauty. His magic moves wildly around him. Flames of gold and green power dance over his body.
He could easily dwarf a house, as I watch his wings spread out mantling his annoyance at my existence.
I always seem to have that effect on people. I've never gotten the feeling they wanted to eat me before. More beat the shit out of me than anything. How fucked up is it that I can't help but wonder if this dragon will think I taste delicious when he eats me. Shame to waste the food and wouldn't everyone want to taste good?
I can put up a sign what's cooking?
Me!
Boy, that's a pretty fucked up thought even for me.
The Dragon of Sacramento opens his large maw letting out a roar. His hot breath lifts my hair twist into the air. The fear isn't a bright spot in my belly, it's a fucking supernova I could poop myself if I had enough thought left for it.
My breath catches in my chest as I force myself to inhale and keep breathing.
I can hear all the car alarms going off. There isn't a car with an alarm near us for at least two miles. He must have set off half of Sacramento's car alarms to get them to reach the boonies.
Well, what do I have to say for myself about violating the neighborly gold rule?
Thou shalt not fuck with The Dragon.
I seem to have volunteered myself to either an ass beating or getting eaten.
"Fuck..." I honestly thought he would have gone after the neo-hippy you could smell that guy's patchouli oil a mile away. The Dragon's head tilts to the side, like a snake would right before he eats the mouse.
A/N: I love this part of the book it really opens. I am in love with dragons. They are my favorite magical creature. My favorite part of dragons is that in almost every culture around the world they have a dragon like a creature. (might have to go back and add that line some way into the book:). What do you think about the first look at The Dragon of Sacramento?
I am posting the next one in two days. Regular post coming on Thursday. thank you so much for reading. Please remember to leave a star. comment share the book! Oh, and thank you for the edits it's allowed me to fix the story so much!