And he hadn't been frozen, nor gasping for air. The temperature around him had remained even, and he'd felt perfectly comfortable. Only twice, for just a moment, light seemed to vanish from around them. But it was such a brief moment that Edward hadn't had time to think about it. Now he wondered if some magic transfer had taken place at that moment.
Oh, Edward didn't believe in magic. But then he also didn't believe in dragons, he thought and smiled with more irony than joy while the dragon circled down to a parking lot in a street of low-to-the-ground buildings.
They landed softly on the asphalt and the huge wings that had been spread on either side of him, coruscating and sparkling in the light like living fire, closed slowly.
"Down," the dragon said. Or perhaps not said it, because Edward didn't remember sounds. Just the feeling that he should get down. He should get down immediately.
He scrambled off, sliding along scales that felt softer on the skin than they should have.
But once he stood, in the parking lot, holding his briefcase, he realized that the front of his suit had tiny cuts, as though someone had worked it over with very small blades.
He frowned at it, then looked up at the dragon who glowed with some sort of inner fire, in front of him. The beast opened its huge mouth, and all thought of complaining about damages to his clothes fled Ormson's mind.
"Find your son," the dragon said, in that voice that wasn't exactly a voice. "Make him give back what belongs to me."
And, just as suddenly as he'd appeared at Edward Ormson's office, the dragon now stretched its wings, flexed its legs, and was airborne, gaining height.
Alone in the parking lot, Edward became aware that it was raining, a boring, slow rain. Behind him, a little Chinese restaurant called Three Luck Dragon had its open sign out, but there were no cars parked. So either it catered to a local clientele, or it had none.
Did the Great Sky Dragon mean anything by dropping Edward off here? Or was it simply the first convenient place they'd come to?
Edward saw the curtain twitch on the little window, and a face peer out. The lighting and the distance didn't allow him to see features, but he thought it would be the proprietors looking to see if he intended to come in.
Well, today was their lucky day. He'd go in and order something, and get out his cell phone. He would bet now he knew where Tom had last been seen, he would be able to find the boy with half a dozen phone calls.
One way or another, he always ended up cleaning up after his son.
* * *
Western towns don't taper off. Or at least that was what Tom had seen, ever since his drifting had brought him west and south to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. You walked down a street, surrounded by five-floor brick warehouses, resounding with the noises of loading and unloading, of packing and making of things resounding within.
And then, a couple of blocks away, you were in the middle of a high prairie, with tumbleweed blowing around. Looking back, you could still see the warehouses, but they were so incongruous that they seemed to be part of another world.
Tom turned to look at the dark edge of the warehouses. He stood on what had abruptly become a country road, its asphalt cracked underfoot. Looking just beyond where he was standing, he saw nothing but an underpass, just ahead. Why there was an underpass was a question he couldn't answer, as it was just two country roads meeting. Perhaps this was what people complained about, with public projects that made no sense.
But right then Tom was grateful of the underpass. In this landscape of brown grass and blowing tumbleweeds, there wasn't much cover, otherwise. He made for the underpass and stripped quickly, shoving all his clothes and boots into the little backpack with the happy dragon on the back. The boots were a tight fit into the small space, but he got them in, and zipped the thing. Then he loosened the back straps to their outmost, and put them around his wrist.
Willing yourself to shift was like willing yourself to die. Because the process of shifting, no matter how easy, always hurt. It took desire to do it, but it needed something else. He got out from under the overpass, and stood—naked in the moonlight, willing his body to shift, willing.
A cough shook him, another, heralding the preliminary spasms that often preceded the shape-shifting. Pain twisted in his limbs, wracked his back, as his body tried to extrude wings from itself. He opened his mouth and let the scream come—something he never did within a city—the scream of pain of his human self, the scream of triumph from the ancient beast once more let forth.
A car drove by, toward the outside of town. One of the tiny SUVs in white. A Kia or a Hyundai or one of those. Tom's confused senses were aware of its turning around and then zooming past again. But no one came out. Worse comes to worst, his still rational mind thought, as his body shifted. They'll just call 911. And good luck with convincing a dispatcher they just saw a dragon.