Chapter 17

“She’s like you,” I say, staring at the silver dragon projecting out of the police officer and the wall.

“Ah,” Dr. Radcliffe says. “You really can see us. Interesting.”

The officer, a petite woman, carries herself with military bearing. She sniffs the air. “These two are human,” she says, her words clipped, and gestures to Haji and Dalia. “I can’t place the other one.”

“What’s going on?” Dalia demands, her gaze shifting from Dr. Radcliffe to the officer. “Of course, we’re human.”

Haji fiddles with his phone and holds it up as if he’s making a recording.

“Are you live streaming this?” I ask.

“No signal.” Haji is deadpan. He’s always like that when he’s working on a story. That must be what he’s doing now, playing at being a reporter.

“What should we do with them?” the officer asks.

“Bring them in. Allison Lee…” Dr. Radcliffe pats me on the shoulder. I wince. “…is a fascinating conundrum. I cannot tell what she is. The others, I am sure, will want to see her. Handcuff those two and come smell her.”

“Handcuff?” Haji says. “Why?”

“Are we under arrest?” Dalia asks.

“Please, let them go. I’m the only one who can see the dragons,” I say, but Dr. Radcliffe and the officer ignore me.

Dalia and Haji look desperate, like one or both might make a run for it. The officer blocks the entrance, but surely there is an emergency exit somewhere.

“On the ground, or I’ll tase you,” the officer says.

“We’re not resisting,” Dalia says.

“I’m recording. I will send this to Channel 5. Police brutality,” Haji says.

The officer gives Haji an incredulous stare that says more loudly than words that he is an idiot. In two quick, compact paces, she covers the ground between them, her draconic companion following, and snatches the phone out of his hand.

“Hey.” Haji makes a grab for the phone.

The officer moves so fast I can’t tell what she does, but it’s effective. Haji doubles over, clutching his gut, and teeters to the floor. Dalia makes a run for the exit.

“Please, don’t hurt them. Please,” I say, fearing my BFF will be tased.

Something flies through the air and entangles Dalia’s legs. With a cry, she belly flops on the floor with a loud thud and a whoosh of air. Whatever was thrown clatters to the floor and thuds against the base of a wooden bookshelf. I realize after a moment it’s the officer’s flashlight.

“Do not worry, dear, Ion did not hurt them permanently,” Dr. Radcliffe says.

Ion zip ties my friends’ hands behind their backs and warns them that any peep will earn them a savage beating. She swaggers over to me, like a gunslinger in a black-and-white cowboy movie. The shimmering silver dragon follows her. The serpent is inside the reading room, except for the tail that passes through the wall to disappear. The beast is long and lithe, not nearly as bulky and muscular as Dr. Radcliffe’s dragon.

Ion looks me up and down. Her name badge reads Davenport. She leans close to me and sniffs my neck. She leaps back several feet, a startling, inhuman feat of athleticism, and hisses like a feral cat ready to pounce.

“Skaag. I smell skaag on her.”

“Surely not,” Dr. Radcliffe says, backing away from me and walking over to stand next to Ion. Their draconic companions intermingle in a vibrant shimmer of gold and silver. “I am intimately familiar with the noisome stench of skaags.”

“You males have worthless noses.” Ion glares at me, lips curling to show teeth. My pulse gallops. She might shoot me. “There is the musk of skaag on her. It’s subtle.”

“An associate then?” Dr. Radcliffe says. “But she does not smell human.”

“I don’t know what she is. A mutt, maybe. We should kill her and her friends.”

“Video cameras are recording this,” I say.

“No one will kill anyone,” Dr. Radcliffe says. “And I disabled the security system.”

“I bet you didn’t disable the cameras we hid here earlier today,” Haji says.

“Why you—”

“Ion, control yourself,” Dr. Radcliffe says, his tone commanding. “Boy, we know you are lying.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to kill them?”

“If Allison Lee is a skaag operative, we must find out what she knows,” Dr. Radcliffe says.

Ion hauls Dalia and Haji to their feet and walks in between them, a hand gripping each by the upper arm. The doctor juts his arm out like an old-time gentleman escorting a lady.

“Do not try to run,” Dr. Radcliffe says. “If you do, I do not know what Ion will do to your friends.”

Gulping, I rest my hand in the crook of his arm. Ion leads us out of the library onto the ice-cold university campus. I hope to see someone, anyone, and call for help, but the bone-shattering chill is keeping all the night owls indoors. The freezing temperature doesn’t seem to have any impact on Dr. Radcliffe or Ion. Their astral dragons follow them, glimmering and fading away only to reappear like shades in the night. I’m amazed no one else can see the beasts.

Dalia puts up token resistance that ends when Ion shakes her like a maraca. Haji begs the officer not to hurt Dalia and pleads with our friend to stop resisting. I’m too defeated to say or do anything. All I can do is hope the night doesn’t end with the three of us dead.

Ion leads us to a Seattle PD cruiser parked beneath a streetlamp on Stevens Way. I panic. If we are locked in the back of the police cruiser, there is no way for us to escape. I make a run for it. Dr. Radcliffe’s strong fingers burrow into my forearm, preventing my escape.

“Let go of me!” I scream. “Help!”

My resistance inspires my friends to fight back. They start screaming and thrashing. Ion, though, is more than a match for them, thrusting them up against the cruiser and opening the back door. From somewhere out in the darkness, a person complains about the ruckus.

“Seattle Police. Stay back,” Ion barks.

The three of us are crammed inside the police cruiser. We are relieved of our phones and me of my camera. My friends look as sullen and frightened as I feel.

“Are you guys okay?” I whisper softly.

“I’m not hurt. My shoulders are just sore,” Haji says, shifting his weight to relieve the pressure against his shoulder joints from having his wrists bound behind him.

“My knee hurts,” Dalia says, a knife’s edge of panic and pain in her voice.

We fall silent when Ion slides into the driver’s seat, and Dr. Radcliffe sits in the passenger seat. The cruiser’s engine roars to life, and we’re off. The forelegs of their draconic companions pass through the cruiser’s roof and the dashboard. The bulk of the dragons’ torsos are literally in my face and the faces of my friends. The gold and silver scales catch every hint of light from that of passing cars to streetlights and stoplights to sparkle with blinding brilliance. I squint. Still, the luminescence is glaring. Damn prosthetics. I need to know where we’re going, not be blinded by semitranslucent dragons no one else can see.

“Are you okay?” Haji whispers. He is in the middle between Dalia and me.

“The light,” I say. “It’s giving me a headache.”

“What light?” Haji says.

“Is something wrong with her?” Dalia asks tremulously.

A strident growl comes from up front.

“Quiet now, children,” Dr. Radcliffe says. “Ion prefers silence in her vehicle.”

Just when I’m about to shut my eyes, they adjust to the light with remarkable speed. The glimmering bodies of the serpents fade to a tolerable luminosity. I sigh. My headache dissipates, and I can see. Something just happened, perhaps like in the classroom when my sight zoomed in because I couldn’t read Mrs. Higgins’s handwriting. The prosthetics responded, at least I think they did, to my conscious thoughts.

Ion drives onto WA-520, then onto I-5 southbound. Even at this late hour, the main north-south corridor through the city is busy in both directions. Ion merges into the fast lane and jams the accelerator. She runs up on vehicles and weaves through the traffic.

The cruiser exits at 163B to the Sodo District, the beating heart of industrial Seattle. Soon the streets become a maze of warehouses that have been converted into artist lofts and other trendy venues. A few cars roll down the streets, and we pass a handful of people on the sidewalks. Soon the warehouses are just warehouses. There are fewer cars and no pedestrians. Deep in the industrial zone, the warehouses are rundown, some downright ramshackle. The streets are dark. If it weren’t for my prosthetics, I don’t think I’d be seeing much. The cruiser pulls up in front of one of the warehouses, a wide low building with peeling paint, busted windows, and a rusted door large enough for a box truck to drive through.

The cruiser rolls to a halt, and Dr. Radcliffe gets out, his shimmering draconic companion looming over him, and slides the warehouse door open wide enough for the cruiser to enter the dark interior of the building.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Dalia whispers.

“Maybe they won’t kill us,” Haji says. “Why drive us all the way out here if they plan to kill us?”

“Because it’s abandoned,” Dalia says, her voice a scourge.

Haji recoils.

“Quiet,” Ion growls. “Unless you’d like me to try out my new pepper spray.”

The interior is dark except for the cruiser’s headlights and the glimmer of the dragons’ scales that don’t seem as brilliant as earlier. It’s so dim even the night vision of my prosthetics can’t penetrate the entirety of the gloomy interior. The far corners of the warehouse remain a mystery to me, but what is visible is empty, almost. The only exception is a small table with a lightbulb dangling over it by a long wire up ahead. There is something on the table, but I can’t make out what it is.

The cruiser slows to a stop in front of the table. The item on the table is a laptop. Ion gets out of the car and opens my door.

“Out,” the officer says.

I obey and stand aside so my squad can pile out. Ion pulls a razor blade from a pouch on her utility belt and cuts my friends’ cuffs. My gaze is transfixed by the silvery dragon projecting in all its immense majesty from the police officer. The beast is somewhere between the size of an elephant and some massive dinosaur, a sauropod I think they’re called. The shimmering serpent’s four feet are equipped with long white talons that appear as sharp as razor blades. Leathery wings are pressed against its sides, but extended, I suspect the wingspan is nearly as wide as the warehouse. The dragon glimmers and fades and reappears as if caught in a flux between realities like some mythical beast out of a fantasy or science fiction novel.

“What are you looking at?” Haji asks.

“A dragon,” I whisper.

“Dragon? Where?” Dalia says.

“Right there,” I say, pointing at the beast looming above Ion. “I wish you could see it. It’s beautiful.”

My friends stand on either side of me, gazing at where I point.

“I don’t see anything,” Dalia says.

“Me neither,” Haji says.

“You’re humans. Pitiful senses,” Ion says. “Your friend. She is something else.”

“Wait. You mean there really is a dragon here?” Dalia says.

The lightbulb above the table flares to life.

“Some questions, young lady, are best left unanswered,” Dr. Radcliffe says from behind us.

My friends and I turn to face him. My mouth drops open. His draconic companion is truly colossal. Its long neck stretches nearly to the ceiling. The head is huge, a cross between a T-rex and a dog. Next to the pair of nostrils positioned at the front of the muzzle hang two thick green tendrils, like a drooping mustache. The mustache is the same green as the leathery wings pressed against the dragon’s golden torso. A serpentine tail stretches out through the darkness, curling and undulating. The beast makes the warehouse seem small.

“Ah, Ion is contacting our compatriots. Come now, children, gather around the table,” Dr. Radcliffe says and strides passed us. He heads to the table where Ion has opened up the laptop and is manipulating the device with the trackpad. “Everyone will have an opinion on what to do with the three of you. Come along. Chop-chop.”