Badass Dragons - Complete Set (2 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

What Cheryl was looking at right now,
was exactly what Sophie saw before she was taken. Cheryl turned from her place
in the grass and stared out into the darkness of the road.
He must have come
from there,
she thought. Her eyes then moved up to the reaches of the sky.
Nothing but black. Yet … Cheryl knew something had come from there. Something
she couldn’t explain.

Lights. From
the other direction in front of her.

A car.

Cheryl
pocketed Sophie’s phone and started walking away abruptly down the footpath.
The car lights were moving slowly. Slower still as they approached her. She was
being followed.

Just before
she was about to break into a run, a short siren was sounded, causing her to
stop in her tracks.

It was a
police car. Finally.

A young,
broad shouldered constable got out of the driver’s side. He shined his flash
light over her.

“Excuse me,
miss?”

Cheryl
nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

“Are you the
girl who reported her sister missing?”

“Yes.” She
reached into her pocket and produced the cell phone. “This was hers.”

“Where did
you find it?”

“Just on this
grass over here.”

Cheryl walked
back and pointed to it.

“I see.” The
officer scratched his forehead. “You haven’t seen her out here have you?”

“No.”

“Well, we can
have a drive round to see if she’s around here.”

Cheryl
sighed. “Alright.”

She got into
the passenger side of the car and the cop climbed back in.

“I have to be
honest with you,” he said, “a person has to be missing for at least twenty four
hours before we can do a proper investigation.”

“This is
different. Something’s happened to her. I was on the phone with her when it
happened.”

“What did you
hear exactly?” the officer asked, pulling away from the curb.

“There was a
guy following her. She sounded distressed.”

“Did you hear
him at all in the background?”

“Sort of. He
… well, I heard them talking, and she said that he referred to her by name.”

“So this was
someone she knew?”

“No,” Cheryl
said quickly. “He was a stranger to her.”

“Then how
would he know her name?”

Cheryl shook
her head. “I have no idea.”

“Okay. Then
what happened?”

Cheryl
shrugged. “She said there was something in the sky. She was like practically
screaming.”

“Did she say
what it was?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“It’s kind of
stupid. She … said it was a dragon.”

“A dragon?”

“Yeah. She
obviously meant something else. But as to what that could be…”

The officer
nodded. “A dragon…”

“What?”

He seemed
hesitant to reply. “I spoke with your mother just before. She … told me a bit
about your sister’s history.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“It’s not
uncommon for users of amphetamines to hallucinate when they’ve been using for a
long time. It’s a type of psychosis.”

“Yeah, well,
maybe she was tripping. But I can tell you that after she dropped her phone,
that guy who was chasing her, picked up the phone.”

“Did he speak
to you?”

“No. He just
laughed. It … fucking freaked me out.”

The officer
sighed. “Okay.”

He was silent
a moment. Looking out of the car, Cheryl could see they were headed towards the
highway.

“We can keep
driving round if it makes you feel better,” the officer suggested. “But we
won’t be able to do a proper search until tomorrow morning at the earliest. The
truth of it is, we don’t know what happened to your sister, and there’s still a
reasonable chance she might show up before then.”

“Based on
what is there a reasonable chance?”

“Well, maybe,
this guy who was chasing her… Didn’t catch up. She knew her phone was slowing
her down, so she flung it, and then kept running. The guy comes along, finds
the phone, but has no idea where she’s gone. She’s disappeared into the
darkness. More likely, she’s run to a friend’s house in the area. Or a taxi
bay. Or a late night bus service. She’s taken off, and hell, you mightn’t hear
from her for a full week. But she’s been okay the whole time. Do you know where
she’s staying?”

Cheryl shook
her head.

“That’s okay.
We’ll figure that out in the morning.”

They stopped
at the highway’s entrance.

It was
completely dead. Orange lights poured over the empty road.

“So do you
think my theories are sound?” the officer asked. “Or would you like to keep
searching for her?”

Something
suddenly caught Cheryl’s attention. To the far right, on the other side of the road,
she made out the shape of a figure walking.

“Someone’s
over there,” she stated. “It could be Sophie.”

“Let’s take a
look.”

The car
dipped into the centre of the road and then shifted to the left lane and followed
onward.

The dark
figure became larger and larger.

Cheryl was
disappointed to see that it was a man and not her sister.

Once they
were a few metres away, the officer sounded a short burst of the siren, and
then pulled up to the side of the road. He opened his door and got out of the
car to approach him.

CHAPTER SIX

Cheryl’s eyes focused on the man
they’d been following. He had stopped now, though was still facing forward away
from the officer and the car. Cheryl could see that he was dressed completely
in black leather – jacket, pants, boots, gloves. As the officer came within a
short distance, he turned slightly. Enough for Cheryl to see he was in his late
twenties. Around her age.

She couldn’t
hear them talking, although a conversation had commenced. The man was speaking
very quietly, almost under his breath. Cheryl could barely see his lips moving.
After about half a minute, the officer appeared satisfied and then started his
way back to the car. The man was about to turn and leave, but then something
caught his eye.

Cheryl.

She sat up, a
little alarmed that he was now staring at her. At first he made no move, or
show any sign that he was going to make a move. Then all at once, he was
running at the officer.

Almost at the
car, the officer stepped away from it in anticipation of the attack, but there
wasn’t enough time to draw his gun. Cheryl watched as the two of them collided
and dropped to the road with a loud thud. Her first instinct was to lock the
car doors, but as she heard some obscure growling amongst the struggle, it was
followed by a stronger, more urgent one.

RUN.

She grabbed
hold of the car door and pushed it open. The growling had become louder, more
angry and pronounced. It wasn’t the officer growling of course. She could hear
him crying out in pain from the weight on top of him. There was no way Cheryl
even wanted to see what was on the other side of that car.

She took off
at full pace down the in the direction they’d came, straining her eyes to see
if there were any more cars on the horizon. As before, everything was perfectly
lit here, but the road was empty. Long and silent.

Her feet were
going numb. The pain of today’s nightmare shift had somehow been absorbed out
of them, or temporarily pushed away. Even though the run was draining the
little that was left of her strength at rapid pace, she knew that if she
stopped for even the briefest second the pain would shoot back there with a
vengeance.

Now that
she’d covered some ground, she looked back over her shoulder to see if she was
being pursued. Her gaze drifted and drifted, searching for the man and the
officer. Any sign of them at all.

“What?”
Cheryl whispered out loud.

The car was
still there. But the two of them had completely vanished.

Her run had
now diminished to heavy steps backward – slower and slower. The pain
increasing. Cheryl’s lips curled in a whimper as she felt it bite into her
ankles, and she lowered herself onto the road. Tears welled in her eyes, but
her thoughts weren’t with the physical toll her body was taking. All she could
think about was Sophie and how she had let her down. Just seeing herself now,
afraid and crumbling out here, fleeing for her own life, and not thinking about
others. She felt bad. Guilty.

Slowly, she rose
till she was standing again.

“Okay,”
Cheryl said breathlessly. “I’m ready for you now. Ready, ready…”

She started
her way back to the car and there was nothing but the night air chill to keep
her company until she got there.

Outside the
driver’s side of the car, on the road where he and the man fallen…

There was a
giant patch of blood.

 
CHAPTER
SEVEN

Cheryl’s peripherals exploded with
fire, as barely inches to her left, a heavy presence fell out of nowhere and
hit the concrete with a deafening crack. Facing up, Cheryl discovered it was
the officer’s body and if he wasn’t already dead before he’d landed here, he
certainly was now.

“Hooow…?”
Cheryl whispered in a high pitched voice.

Then an even
louder noise grabbed her attention as the hood of the car was struck with
another falling object. This time, Cheryl screamed and tripped backwards over
the officer’s body. As she struggled to get her feet untangled from him, a
figured emerged from the wreckage, landing upright on the road in front of her
seemingly unharmed. Now she could see him up close she noticed his skin wasn’t
the right color. Even with it being reflected by the orange overhead lights
that lit up the road, his face was gray and thick. Almost reptilian.

“Hooly shit,”
Cheryl murmured continuing to back away.

He stepped
forward and laughed in a calm, controlled manner.

Cheryl
recognized the laugh.

“It’s you,”
she said. “What have you done with my sister?”

“Ah,” he
replied. “So you must be Cheryl.”

“Where is
she?” Cheryl demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”

The man
growled aggressively at her. His lips parted and Cheryl could see instead of
teeth he had a sharp set of salivating fangs. He made a sudden move as if he
was about to pounce on her, but stopped halfway through.

His eyes
shifted to his left, out into the recesses of the sky. He shuddered with
annoyance, and then turned back to Cheryl.

“The Dragons
have her now,” the man stated. “You and I. Everyone else. No one will ever see
her again.”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

“The Dragons?” Cheryl shouted. “What
Dragons?”

What the hell
was he talking about?

“I can’t stay
here,” the man replied. He walked around the side of the car and back onto the
footpath. Cheryl struggled to her feet and caught up with him.

“Will you
please answer my questions?”

“No,” the man
said softly. “You need to leave me alone now.”

Cheryl
swallowed. “You know shit about my sister. You’re all I’ve got. I’m not going
home until I’ve found her.”

The man
sighed. He then held his hand out in an open palm towards the sky.

“What are you
doing?”

“I’m
signaling to them that I don’t mean you any harm. We’re just talking.”

“Signaling
who?”

“Who…?” the
man scoffed. “Who do you think dragged me up to the sky?”

Cheryl stared
at him blankly.

“The Dragons
are watching out for you. Well, at least one of them is. I don’t know how many
are up there. I can only assume they’ve given your life importance because of
your relation to Sophie.”

“Just…”
Cheryl stammered. “Dragons…?”

“Well, you’re
just a stupid human, aren’t you? You think you know everything, don’t you?”

Cheryl shook
her head. “Just tell me how I can get Sophie back.”

“You
can’t
,”
the man insisted. “They’ve chosen her. They won’t let her leave. I thought
maybe I could get to her in time before they did, but it was too late.”

Cheryl
swallowed. “I need you to tell me everything. Start from the beginning. All you
know.”

“I can’t,”
the man replied. “We’re on thin ice as it is. But … if you want to meet me
somewhere…?”

“Okay. When?
Where?”

“There’s an
antique store in the next town off this highway, going east. It’s called
Zany
Finds
. It’s across the road from a night club called Fleets. I’ll be there
in the next hour. We’ll have a chance to talk alone.”

“Okay,”
Cheryl nodded. “But you better be there, I swear.”

The man
licked his lips. “Don’t worry I’ll be there.”

As they
parted ways he added to her, “My name’s Cadogan by the way. Cado for short.”

Cheryl
squinted at him, her eyes suspicious. Then she looked out into the darkness
that consumed them all.