"Look, I was just following my sister, didn't mean to trespass, never owned a sword or lance in my life. Nice meeting you." She backed away, down the trail.
{How did you get here? The Master says you must stay with him.}
Its voice hissed in her mind, cold but curious, as the creature moved to cut her off. Scales glittered like black opals as the dragon flowed between the trees, as fast as running water, much faster than she. It looked like the slow-motion replay of a striking cobra.
She dodged away from the trail and through the forest, stumbling over roots, branches slashing across her face. The glistening ebony snake blocked her, never touching her, never hurting her, seeming everywhere at once. Once she thought she'd spotted a gap, only to run headlong up against the scaly nose itself. Jo smelled its breath, moist and acrid, and barely dodged the forked tongue. One tip was as big as her arm. The damned beast still didn't bite her.
{You must go back.}
Jo leaned back against another tree, panting, the coarse bark reassuringly solid. Sweat poured down her back, and it wasn't all fear. The forest was way too hot for her to be running around in a winter coat and sweater and insulated boots.
Sister mine, maybe I owe you this for Buddy, but I don't think I'm going to follow you into your dreams again. I thought your fantasy world was more fun than this.
She started to dump her useless jacket, then hesitated and held it like a matador's cape. The tongue flicked out, and the dragon's head lowered as if it was puzzled. Maybe dragons didn't shed their skin, the way snakes did. She shook the jacket and then trailed it on the ground, offering it as bait.
"¡Toro, aqui! ¡Toro! ¡Toro!"
The beast's head was as big as a car. She flipped her jacket over one of its eyes and ran. Cloth ripped behind her. She hoped the dragon would stop to worry its prey a little, before it realized the filling of the sandwich had run off.
Something smacked her to the ground, and the forest spun around her in a burst of green stars. She couldn't get up. A tree-trunk lay across her body--a warm tree-trunk, pulsing with life, ridged with coarse dry scales. It ended in fingers each as big as one of her hands, and those ended in claws like steel meat hooks. Eyes squeezed shut against the sudden brightness of the sun, she gently explored her ribs. Nothing was broken, and she still wasn't eaten.
{You must go back.}
It sure was a single-minded critter. Jo stared up into a single yellow cat-eye bigger than a dinner plate. Jurassic Park, that's what the scene was. The T. Rex looking through the car window. Only thing the scene needed was night and rain. Who was going to be eaten next?
T. Rex didn't say. Her brain raced. How good was she at riddles? Dragons were supposed to like the riddle game. Something she'd read said so. Win the game and she went free.
"How many Republicans does it take to change the lightbulb in the Statue of Liberty's torch?"
The eye blinked, first some kind of transparent membrane and then the charcoal-gray lid. It looked as smooth as velvet, delicate, like the shoulder-wrap for an evening dress. She felt a crazy urge to stroke it.
"None. They've turned off the power to save tax dollars."
No effect. Okay, so it was a damn poor joke. Jo tried to slither out from under the dragon's paw but found she'd have to leave her pants behind. One of those claws hooked right under the waistband, cold and hard along her belly.
"Look, you keep telling me to go back, and I'm trying to. I may be lost, but I think that's the way I came in."
{You try to deceive me. You may change your skin and disguise your smell, but I still know you. You must return to the Master's keep. These woods are dangerous. He will be angry.}
Maureen.
T. Rex thought she was Maureen. Just like the slimeball in the Quick Shop, just like dozens of people they'd spoofed since Maureen reached Jo's height and grew breasts. Maureen had come this way with the dude she was kissing.
She's at his castle. Safe. The watchdog was told to keep her safe. That's why I'm not looking at the wrong end of an after-dinner mint.
"Okay. Okay. Just get off of me, you scaly St. Bernard. I can't get to the keep lying flat on my back."
Weight lifted from her belly, and she scooted away from that golden eye. It watched her, suspicious. "Go the right way," the eye said. "Try to leave and things will get nasty. I could use a snack."
The frigging animal acted more like a prison guard than a watchdog. Something smelled fishy here.
Her hands stung. They were covered with fine lines of blood, like paper cuts--must have tangled with those scales. She found the shreds of her ski jacket and wiped the blood away, winding strips of fiber batting over the cuts like bandage gauze. The dragon still watched her like a cat with a cornered mouse.
{The trail is clear. I must not leave our territory, or the Master will be angry.}
The dragon blocked one direction. The keep must be in the other. Like T. Rex said, the trail was clear.
Our territory, it had said. There were more of them? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Jo's hands shook. Hot and sweaty or not, her teeth kept trying to chatter. She could only keep them still by clenching her jaw so hard it hurt. Funny thing was, she also had this urge to laugh like a hyena. If she gave into it,
