Discount Armageddon

she was running toward the dragon. The servitors stayed frozen where they were. I ran after Candy, but more slowly. I was, after all, covered in blood and dressed like a cultist; I wanted the dragon nicely distracted by the female of his species before I started bothering him.

Dominic and Sarah started moving when I did. We met at the center of the room. Dominic grabbed my arm, pulling me to a halt, and then—before I could protest that I was trying to get to the giant lizard—pulling me into a hug. “You frightened the life from us,” he said, without letting go.

“I’m sorry I got captured by a snake cult.” I hugged him back. It seemed like the easiest course of action, and it wasn’t an unpleasant position to be in. He hugged solidly, without crossing the line into hugging too hard.

“This is sweet and all, but dragon? Remember, dragon?” Sarah tugged on the sleeve of my borrowed robe. “It’s really big, and it’s really confused right now, so this would be the time to tell it that you come in peace.”

“How do you know?” asked Dominic, pulling back and giving her a wary look.

“Telepath, remember? Now come on.” She grabbed my arm, pulling me out of his embrace and starting toward the dragon. I didn’t put up any resistance. This was, after all, a real live dragon we were talking about. That’s not the sort of thing a cryptozoologist gets the opportunity to meet every day.

Candy beat us to the dragon by a considerable margin. She wasn’t actually saying anything when we got there; just standing with her hands pressed against her mouth, looking up at the dragon and crying silently. I shook my arm free of Sarah’s grasp and put a hand on Candy’s shoulder, looking up at the dragon.

“This wasn’t in the manual,” I murmured to Sarah, before saying, more loudly, “Um, hello, Mr. Dragon. I’m Verity Price. This is Candice. She’s a dragon, too.” Dominic and Sarah both gave me startled looks. Candy kept crying. The dragon wasn’t saying anything, and so I added, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Who are these others?” asked the dragon, lowering his head to what passed for eye level. He had an accent, faintly British, that made me think of period dramas about the American Revolution on PBS. “Who has sent you? What is going on here?”

“Um, no one sent us, and what’s going on is sort of a long story. This is my cousin, Sarah Zellaby.”

“Hi,” said Sarah.

“And this is our friend Dominic De Luca.”

Looking unsure as to whether or not he was doing the right thing, Dominic bowed to the dragon. “Sir,” he said.

Candy took her hands away from her mouth and pointed at Dominic. “He’s from the Covenant,” she announced. Catching my expression, she added, “But he came to help save you from the snake cult.”

“Is that what these noisy little people were on about?” The dragon lifted his left hand, studying it. “My fingers are quite sore.”

“The, um, ‘noisy little people’ have been trying to wake you up, and while you were still sleeping, they were taking blood and using it to turn people into servitors,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t have any bandages.”

“I am sure I will recover without them, but I appreciate the offer.” The dragon transferred his orange gaze to Dominic. “The Covenant of St. George is here? I have never seen one of your kind so poorly armored, or so alone. What do you think you can do against me, small one?”

“Nothing, sir,” said Dominic. I’d never heard him sound so respectful. “I came here to assist my friends, not to bring challenge. This is not my city to defend.” He nodded toward me. “It’s hers. I, and by extension, the Covenant, will stand by her decisions in this matter.”

I stared at him.

The dragon seemed to take this much more in stride. Maybe he was used to humans being insane. Turning back to me, he asked gravely, “And what are your decisions in this matter, Miss Price?”

“I promised the dragon princesses I’d find you for them, and I promised the cryptids of the city that I’d make the snake cult stop sacrificing virgins to you. I think both of those are pretty much done. Candy? What do you think?”

Candy nodded, still crying.

The dragon tilted his head to study her before looking to the servitors clustered at the back of the cave. A deep sadness seemed to fall over him like a burial shroud, and his voice was very soft as he said, “None of the others survived. After all that we did to flee, none of the others survived. Oh, you poor dearest one.” He placed one fingertip on Candy’s shoulder. She grabbed hold and cried even harder. “So long without us to protect you.” He looked toward me. “How long?”

“It’s been about three hundred years since you went to sleep,” I said. “There haven’t been any reports of dragons in that time. Everyone thinks you’re extinct.”

“Everyone except you.” He studied us thoughtfully. “What stops me from destroying you all, and keeping myself secret?”

“I have a family, and Dominic has the Covenant,” I said. “They’d come looking if we disappeared. Besides, we came here to help, and you’re going to need allies if you’re going to restart your species. Candy isn’t the only dragon princess left.”

The scaly ridges over the dragon’s eyes—what would have been his eyebrows, if he’d had any hair—rose. “Truly?” He turned a quizzical eye on Candy. “We always knew the females could survive without us for a little time, but everyone assumed there was a limit to the number of generations.”

“If there is, it hasn’t been reached,” I said. “There are more than a few women waiting eagerly to meet you right now.”

Candy sniffled, still holding onto the dragon’s fingertip. “We prayed and prayed that somewhere, somehow, one of the males had survived. I never thought I’d still be alive when we found you.”

“Poor dearest ones, waiting so long. I would have woken long ago, if I had realized.” The dragon tugged his fingertip gently, leading Candy closer to him. Turning his eyes back to the rest of us, he said, “I was hunted. I was hurt, and I was weak. I asked my sisters to guard me while I slept and healed. I thought I would wake … sooner than I did.”

“The local settlers found your sisters, and took them,” I said. “No one thought you might still be alive down here. I’m so sorry.”

“Perhaps it was better this way. The Covenant seems to have changed—at least enough that one dragon may be left in peace with his family.” His jack-o-lantern eyes blazed. “Is that not so?”

“Unless you directly threaten the human population of this city, I will not tell the Covenant you are here,” said Dominic. “You have my word that I will not take away your peace … as long as you do not take away ours.”

“The Covenant has changed.” The dragon sounded somewhere between amused and amazed. Looking past us to the servitors, he added, “But humanity has not. You say this ‘snake cult’ made them of its own?”

“I think they probably made them of the city’s homeless and a few mysterious tourist disappearances, but yes, it was humans that did this. One of your females—” I glanced at Candy. “One of your females sort of lost sight of what it means to keep other people’s best interests at heart, and she told them how to do it. She was trying to help them wake you up.”

The dragon narrowed his eyes. “Where is she?”

“I killed her.” Candy’s voice was very small. “She was going to shoot Verity. She was dressed like all the others. She was saying things … and she lied to us. She didn’t tell us you were here. She knew, and she wasn’t going to tell us.”

“Shhh, my little dearest one. You did nothing wrong. If you hadn’t, I would have.” The dragon bent his head, blowing gently on Candy’s cheek. Sparks danced along her cheek like firefly kisses, leaving more soot marks in their wake. “You are more beautiful in my eyes than you could ever know.”

Ryan stepped up next to us, back in his human form, with a semiconscious Istas lying sprawled in his arms like a starlet on a bad B-movie poster. Tanuki Terror, coming soon to a theater near you. At least he’d managed to coax her back into her own human shape, which was probably easier to carry. “Hey, Very.”

“Hey.”

“That’s a dragon.”

“Yup. That’s two dragons, actually. Candy, and…” I paused. “Excuse me, Mr. Dragon? What’s your name?”

“William,” replied the dragon, with immense gravity.