Tom climbed into the back. He was about to tell them he wasn't that tired, when he stretched out on the broad and comfy back eat. And then his eyes closed. And he didn't know anything more.
* * *
He woke up with a running conversation up front.
"So, why was he so hungry again?" Keith said.
"The transformation takes . . . I don't know. Strength. Power. It costs us what seem to be parts of ourselves. The muscle needs to recover."
"Would he really have . . . Would he have eaten someone or was he . . . ?"
"I don't know," Rafiel said. "I don't know Mr. Ormson that well. I don't know how many shape-shifts he'd had without replenishing himself. I guess it's . . . I mean . . . I guess it depends. I've never eaten anyone." There was a short silence, and Tom saw Keith look at Rafiel.
"Well, at least not that I remember," Rafiel said. "When you're very hungry or very tired, or scared, or in any other way pressed, the memory of when you're . . . the beast . . . changes. And we smell dead bodies a long distance away. So . . . I found a lot of corpses. Still do. I don't think I've ever eaten anyone, though. And since in my job I deal with unknown deaths and disappearances, I probably would have heard of it. Or, when I was too young to be in the force, my father would have. So . . ." He shrugged.
Tom sat up and rested his face on the front seat, between the driver and passenger sides. "I might have eaten some of that corpse in the parking lot . . ." he said, and looked at Rafiel, in the rearview mirror. "I don't know if I killed him."
Rafiel shrugged. "As to that, I can reassure you, at least. You didn't. The corpse had no tooth marks, certainly no marks of being killed by a dragon."
"The guy who died?" Keith asked. "In the parking lot?"
Rafiel nodded, at the same time Tom asked, "But you said he was killed by a Komodo."
"Oh, that's right," Rafiel said. "We never told you . . . Kyrie and I when we came back you two were high because of the beetle powder. Well, insect powder, but Kyrie says it was beetles."
"Beetles?" Tom and Keith said, at the same time.
"There was green powder all over Kyrie's back porch," Rafiel said. "And it seemed to be of insect origin and . . . well, I have the lab checking for some form of hallucinogenic properties. But the lab seemed to think that corpse at least had some traces of hallucinogenic in his blood. So, we think that the green powder caused both of you to get high and hallucinate."
"Oh," Tom said, and could say no more. Of course. It wasn't Kyrie's sugar. It was the things attacking them. He frowned as he tried to remember. He'd thought they were dragons, but looking back he wondered why. He could remember what seemed to be long, long limbs, with fangs at the end, and he remembered green wings, but they didn't in any way look like dragon wings.
"But you said something about Komodo dragons?"
"Well, yes. There have been a few deaths that seemed to be caused by Komodo dragons. Really large Komodo dragons. Because the victims were all Asian, I suspected it had to do with triad business, and now I'm almost sure of it. I suspect it's the dragon triad. Some way they punish their members. That seems to be totally unrelated to the thing going on with the beetles. You seem to be the only link, Mr. Ormson."
Tom groaned. "My father is Mr. Ormson. I'm Tom. Particularly . . ." He managed a tired smile but couldn't see if Rafiel responded because all he saw of Rafiel in the rearview mirror was his very intent eyes. "Particularly to people who've seen me wolf down two dozen over cooked convenience store hotdogs." He made a face. "They weren't even all that good."
"Oh," said Keith. "There were also two containers of cottage cheese while the man was cooking more hot dogs, and a couple of pepperoni."
"Pepperoni?" Tom asked, and felt a moan break through his lips. "I don't even like pepperoni."
"Well, if you're going to throw up," Rafiel said. "You'd best do it out the window. We're still in Raton and we have about two more hours before we get home."
"I'm not going to throw up," Tom said. "Now, if I had taken Keith's finger when he tried to pull the cold cuts away, then I might have."
"You growled," Keith said.
"Dangerous that," Rafiel said, and though Tom couldn't see his face, he was now quite sure there would be a smile twisting the policeman's lips. "Taking food from a starving dragon. Just so you know, it's not all that safe with a lion, either."
Keith made a sound that might have been a really fake whimper, then perked up and grinned at Rafiel. "Oh, well. Worth the price of admission just to have heard you explain to the cashier that Tom had an eating disorder. I don't know how they thought that related to the fact that his face was covered in blood. Why was your face covered in blood?" he asked, looking back.