Draw One In The Dark(90)

"She's starting to wake up," one of the men said.



"That's fine," another one answered. "With the tranq she'll be weak as a kitten for a while."



A kitten. Tom blinked, trying to focus his gaze. A kitten. The sack—some kind of rough burlap—was large enough to contain a heavy feline. She. Kitten. Kyrie. Not Kyrie.



"Oh, look, he's awake," one of the men who'd come in—and who looked far smarter than the three reverse geniuses—said and grinned. "Yes, that is your girlfriend, but don't worry. So long as you tell us where you hid the Pearl of Heaven, she'll be just fine."



Kyrie. Tom didn't want to shift. If he shifted, he was going to eat someone. But he couldn't tell them where the Pearl of Heaven was, either. Because then they'd just kill him. And Keith. And Kyrie.



He felt his heart speed up and his body spasm. And there was no turning back.

* * *



There was blood. There was blood and screams and panic. Tom's vision—the dragon's vision, was filled with people. He flamed. There was the smell of fire, and of cloth burning. People with clothes on fire ran to either side of him.



The dragon wanted to feed. To the dragon's nostrils, all flesh was food. The smell of humans, the smell of fodder so close was more than he could endure. The dragon tried to nip left, right . . .



But Tom knew once the dragon started feeding, it wouldn't stop till all humans around it were eaten. He knew from some deep instinctive feeling that having reached the depths of hunger, the dragon would now eat past satiety. And he couldn't let it happen. He couldn't.



If he ate a human, he'd never be able to live with himself. And if he ate Kyrie . . . No.



Tom—what there was of Tom in the huge scaley body with the flapping wings and the tearing claws and the flaming mouth, controlled the body and the wings and the mouth. Forcefully, he walked forward slashing with his claws at all opposition. Taken by surprise, the others ran out of the way. Tom could hear, to his side, the cough-cough-cough like laughter of a dragon shifting. He would deal with that later.



Before the dragon shifted, before he had to battle others of his kind, he would free Keith. And Kyrie.



Disciplining the dragon, he bent over Keith, and, with a sharp claw, burst the ropes that bound his friend's legs and hands. Keith was looking at Tom with huge eyes and, for a moment, Tom thought he would run away. He remembered that Keith had no idea who the dragon was. But Keith was looking intently at him and said, "Tom?"



Tom nodded, rapidly, and managed to get out, through a mouth not well adapted to speech, "Run."



Then he bent and ripped the burlap bag open. He couldn't see the feline—definitely a feline shape—inside move, though. He felt more than saw movement from it, and then he heard a stumping step from the side, and knew that a dragon had shifted shape near him.



He turned, just in time to find Crest Dragon launching himself at Tom.



Tom jumped aside, enough to avoid Crest Dragon's slashing and then turned around. Then he bent low and slashed across Crest Dragon's belly with a claw.



Bright blood spurted, and there was something like a scream that sounded all too human. The blood made the dragon's thirst worse, but Tom wouldn't let it drink, and, instead, hopped back, to slash at Two Dragons who had shifted shape also, and was trying to sneak up on Tom with all the stealth of an elephant in a very small china shop.



Tom's dragon kicked out at Crest Dragon, who was coming at him again, his back claws leaving red stripes of blood on Crest Dragon's muzzle, even as his muzzle clamped tight on Two Dragon's arm and pulled, ripping it out of its socket.



"Look out, look out, look out," Keith screamed from beside Tom. And he'd grabbed something—Tom couldn't quite see what, but it looked like an ancient and rusted tire iron. Keith was looming with it behind Other Dragon, who had, in turn been sneaking out behind Tom.



Tom clashed jaws at Other Dragon, but Keith hit Other dragon a sideways blow with whatever the thing was. It must have been a hell of an implement, and heavy enough, because Other Dragon gave a high-pitch scream and fell forward.



But there were other dragons. Too many dragons. A lot of the people who had come in had been severely burned by Tom's original flaming, and lay fallen, some in various stages of shifting shape, but seemingly out of action. But then there were others. Many others.



As a dragon, Tom wasn't particularly good at counting. There was something in the reptilian brain that tended to simplify things down to the level of one, two many. But the human inside that brain could tell there were at least eight dragons. Maybe more. And Tom was tired. And weak.



He was surrounded by dragons, on all sides, snipping and biting at him. He could feel wounds, even if he couldn't stop. If he stopped, he would die. And though that seemed—eventually—inevitable, he wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.