Page 51 of Dragon's Flame
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TARIAN
Tarian turned toward Sarah in the car. “Tell me everything that happened since I last saw you.”
“After you kidnapped my friend?” she said, looking over, wincing as he took another turn. “Where are your clothes?”
“The transformation shreds them.” He’d found his keys and wallet, though; they were structurally sound enough to survive being flung away by his changing mass. “Everything,” he urged, and he saw her shake her head.
“Yeah, so—Cliff came over in a panic, wondering if I knew anything about you, and when I said I didn’t, he kidnapped me, and took me.”
“Where?” Tarian demanded.
“Some place over the hill. I was blindfolded, but I could feel us go over Highway 17, with all the twists and turns, but then we didn’t get into civilization again—we went someplace quiet that smelled like mountains.”
“And then?” he pressed.
“I was getting to that,” she said and pointed. “Turn left.”
“Why?” he was already following his bond toward Kenna—even though it would be faster if he were in flight.
“Because you need clothes, and I need to call the cops!”
Tarian growled. The “cops” seemed to have been the ones to start all of this. “No. I will handle this myself.”
Although the human did have a point. It was time to ask for backup. “Do you have a phone at your home location?”
Sarah frowned. “No, they had it back at the quarry. They took it from me after Kenna called.”
“Do you have the capability to write an email?” Tarian said, making the unfamiliar words incredibly precise.
“Uh . . . yeah?”
“That will do. Take me the fastest way to your home location. Now.”
“Believe me, I am.”
“And tell me the rest of your story.”
The human girl grunted. “Here—make a right.”
Sarah filled him in on her own captivity, someplace cold and dark, but after an initial rush of panic, she seemed to have been quite perceptive.
“Then?” she said, with a visceral shudder. “They gave me to thatthing.”
Tarian grunted with displeasure. “What was it?”
“Something out of a Lovecraft book, near as I can figure. It was—so gross. And,” she said, plucking at herself, and all the innumerable tiny pinpricks she was covered in, “like an iron maiden torture device, made out of gobs of cancer.”
“You and Kenna both used that term—what is it?”
“It’s for cells that go bad. Like, in your body,” she said, and as if sensing his confusion she went on. “It’s when you have cells that are supposed to die but don’t, and they keep on living when they’re not supposed to, slowly taking you over. Kenna and I are both pre-med,” she said, by way of explanation, which reallydidn’t help him, then she gasped. “Plus? Those weirdos called it the Immortal. They talked about it before they...fed me to it.” She flipped down some apparatus from the car’s ceiling, which had a mirror and a light, and inspected her face with a frown. “I look like I got a vampire facial.”
Tarian just decided to ignore that. “Did they say anything else potentially useful?”
“Just about needing to get guns, after meeting you. They weren’t wrong there. You’re...a dragon?”
He nodded grimly. “I am. And she is mine.”
