Heart of a Dragon (2 page)

Vasquez bellowed in rage, kicking and slashing, leaving a trail of
Escorpiones
strewn across the park, but it wasn't enough.
 
Those he left broken and sliced rose again as if nothing had touched them and launched at his throat.

About ten yards away, locked in furious combat with a young, lean Latino, Snake saw Vasquez going down.
 
He cried out, called for help from the others, but there was none to be had.
 
Snake brought his knee up suddenly, slammed it into the boy's chin and snapped back his head.
 
The
Escorpione
fell, but as Snake turned and leaped toward Vasquez, another rose from the shadows, and another.
 
Too many.

He wheeled and pistoned his fist into the jaw of the first that lunged at him and sent him skidding across the muddy field.
 
Then he reached for the second and cursed as a sharp blade raked his forearm.
 
He pulled back and kicked instead, knocking the boy's legs from beneath him.
 
Snake pounced, grabbed his opponent's long hair and yanked back hard.
 
He slid his blade in between ribs, out, and back.
 
He let the boy fall and turned. Something was wrong.
 
They were too fast.
 
When they fell, they didn't stay down.
 
It was crazy, and he had no time to figure it out.
 
He fought for his life.

The wind picked up suddenly.
 
Rain whipped into their eyes and blurred one body to the next and each face to the shadows.
 
Snake couldn't see Vasquez any longer, though there was a rolling, flailing pile of bodies a few feet to his right.
 
He spun toward them, caught a form moving up on his left and swung to grip the man's throat, only to find it was a Dragon he held.
 
They met one another's gaze for a long moment, leader and follower, and then he released and turned away.

At that moment, Vasquez roared free of the mass of flesh that held him, flinging bodies to either side and swinging his huge fists like hammers, all thought of weapons forgotten in the heat of the moment.
 
Escorpiones
fell away like dust, and still it wasn't enough.
 
As Snake cried out to the huge biker, his arm outstretched toward that wild, untamed face, the night exploded once again.

It wasn't lightning. A single gunshot and Vasquez's throat erupted.
 
Blood spurted and splashed; his huge hands gripped the hole uselessly, his eyes shocked, voice silenced.
 
The
Escorpiones
who'd swarmed over the big man only moments before scrambled back, wild eyed, not certain at first who held the gun, or who'd been shot.

"No!" Snake screamed, he leaped for his fallen brother, just failing to catch the massive body as it crashed to the ground.
 
Rain and mud and gore coated Snake's hands and his jeans as Vasquez slumped at his feet.
 
In the distance, the muted wail of sirens sounded, and Snake became aware, slowly, that it wasn't over.

He leaned in quickly to check for a pulse, but the ruined mess that had been Vasquez's throat relieved him of that hope.
 
No way was the big man alive.
 
Lightning flashed again, and Snake looked up, caught the rising, urgent whine of the sirens and shook the tears from his eyes.
 
The
Escorpiones
were scrambling back, the approaching police driving them even more urgently than the scent of Dragon blood.
 
Snake knew he had only moments to act.

He leaned down, turned Vasquez quickly, dragged the denim vest from the man's shoulders, and clutched it tightly in his hand.
 
He turned and shook it at the sky.
 
He screamed again then, in torment, and in rage, screamed to be heard above the voice of storm and sirens.
 
The sound echoed, endless and powerful.

The Dragons knew that sound.
 
It began the battle, and it ended it.
 
Already they were turning from the last remnants of their private skirmishes, dragging their tortured and injured bodies through the mud, cursing and slipping, fighting to reach their bikes and the streets before the police arrived.

Snake hesitated.
 
He didn't want to leave Vasquez like this.
 
He didn't want to abandon the remnant of his friend to the city and the police and the reporters who would swarm over the park come morning.
 
He wanted to spin back the hands of time and free himself of the pain, end the guilt and the huge, empty, gut-grinding pain of the reality at his feet.

He shook his head a final time, glanced down at Vasquez's inert form, then spun and raced to his bike.
 
It would serve no purpose to be taken in and questioned.
 
He had a greater responsibility, and though it ate at his soul, he would stand up to it; with honor.

The bikes were sluggish in the rain.
 
Some of them wouldn't start at all, and were pushed down side-streets, obscured by rain and darkness.
 
Snake kicked once, twice, and his engine ground to life.
 
He gunned it, felt the throb of the big V-Twin, and wanted to just pop the clutch and slam himself and the bike, pain and responsibility be damned, into a building.
 
He worked the throttle, revved the engine carefully to dry the distributor, and spun it in a quick skid that nearly bounced him off the curb before the tires caught.
 
He roared up the street and slid down thirty-eighth as the cops hit the main drag at Laurel
andthity
-sixth.
 
They would find what they really wanted.
 
No one moving and nothing but another mess to clean up.
  
They didn't want to cuff and question in the rain.
 
They didn't give a spit in the wind for the lives of any involved.
 
Vasquez' bike remained, canted to one side and forgotten beside those of five or six of his brothers.

Turning toward The Barrio, Snake gunned it and shot recklessly through the storm.

~ * ~

In his dreams, Salvatore Domingo Sanchez shook.
 
The wind whipped against the thin outer walls of his shed mercilessly, threatening to rip the tired old structure from its foundation and send it spinning away into the storm, which loomed like the maw of some huge, malevolent beast.
  
That is how his nightmare started.

Then he was walking down a beach, soft sand beneath his bare feet, sifting through his toes and the salt-spray of the ocean teasing his senses.
 
It was dark, no moon, and no stars.
 
There was only the beach and the roar of the waves crashing on the stones further out to guide him along the shore.

Circles of glowing light loomed through the darkness, huge and imposing.
 
They did not flicker, as torches might, or pierce the darkness in long beams, like those of flashlights, or headlights.
 
They glowed, hoarding their illumination, using it only to draw his gaze and thoughts into their depths. They were eyes.
 
Salvatore shuddered as the outlines became clearer, and though he wished with all his heart to turn and to run, he could do nothing but pad slowly down that unknown beach.

The sound of the wind beyond the walls of his shed became the breath of something large and sinuous, and the rain, crashing in heavy waves across the time-worn walls and tin roof the scrape of talons on stone and sand.
 
Salvatore clutched his dirty, tattered sheet closer about his thin frame. The glowing orbs grew in size as he approached until they filled his vision, and out beyond the crashing waves, lightning crackled against a backdrop of purest ebony.
  
Salvatore concentrated during those flashes of light and tried to make out the form of what lay beneath and around those eyes.
 
He failed. There was an amorphous shadow against the backdrop of
 
pure darkness that was the moonless sky, but no outline, no structure that he could apply to make the thing more real, or less terrifying.

Salvatore's heart thudded in his chest, seeming to miss every other beat in its hurry to skip from one moment to the next.
 
He tried to breathe slowly, but could not seem to fill his lungs at all, forced to settle for small gasps or air that served only to raise his heartbeatto a thundering pulse in his head.

The lightning flashed closer, and he tossed in his sleep, nearly slipping from his narrow cot to the dirt floor beneath.
 
Flashes of green and gold flickered from the darkness in that instant, and then faded. Salvatore blinked, hoping the strobed image would take a more defined shape in his private darkness, but it did not.
 
Again, all he saw were the huge, yellowed eyes, glaring down at him.
 
He felt the thing's hot breath, and knew its rage - its thoughts.

He stepped closer still, and the sky around him exploded in a sudden burst of light. The fury of the storm washed over the beach, drenching him; the lightning flashed so suddenly, and so bright that his sight was stolen.
 
His breath ended in the sudden wave of water, ears pounding with the twined beat of surf and storm and the roar of thunder, rippling over the sand and melting to a mind-shattering scream of rage.

Salvatore reeled under the assault.
 
He fought to close his eyes and blank the nightmare images from his thoughts.
 
He fell back, landed roughly on the damp sand, and he saw it.
 
The dragon reared over him in the strobed lightning illumination, its form and rage embedding themselves in his mind and soul.

Salvatore shook his head and whispered, "No," to the howling wind and roaring dragon, but there was nothing he could do.
 
The dragon screamed and soared into the darkness, visible now, though barely.
 
The sky melted from image to image as only dreams and nightmares can.
 
Salvatore screamed then, too.
 
He knew this Dragon, recognized the pulsing heat at the center of the creature's image.
 
He wanted to cry out, to scream a warning, but it was too late.

The Dragon wheeled once, roared its defiance into the face of the storm, and flipped to its back in mid-air.
 
It hung there for a long moment, and then plummeted toward the sand and waves.
 
Salvatore turned and crawled toward the surf.
 
He wanted to scream again, but the image of the falling dragon had robbed him of breath once more.
 
He whispered, low and soft.
 
"No."

The sudden crack of thunder too close to the shed ripped through Salvatore's dream and brought him bolt upright on the cot, shivering uncontrollably.
 
His sheet was drenched in sweat, and wind whistled through the cracks in the walls and tore at him, dragging goose bumps up to ripple over his skin.
 
His teeth chattered, and his eyes were open so suddenly, and so wide, that he was momentarily blinded.
  
He saw nothing but the final image of the dream.
 
Nothing but the dragon.

He gasped and fought to calm his heart, and his breath.
 
The dragon released his vision, but it was trapped inside him, thrashing and raging against the storm that was his mind.
 
He glanced toward the doorway, wanting to rush out into the night, and to find out what had happened.
 
The visions never came to him without cause

Slowly, Salvatore rose, pulled his tattered jacket down from its hook on the wall and wrapped it around the damp sheet.
 
He closed his eyes, but sleep was very slow to come, and not deep enough to provide rest.
 
He dreamed of the dragon until the sun reached soft orange-red fingers over the skyline to tempt him from his bed.
  
Finally he rose, dressed, and slipped out the door into the fresh morning air, where he walked to Old Martinez's steps and sat on the cool concrete to wait the "Prophet's" arrival.
  
All he could expect was a warm cup of tea and a slice of bread, but at least he would not greet the morning alone.

Donovan DeChance sat by his fire and stared into the flames, lost in thought.
 
He was a tall, striking man with long dark hair that washed back over his shoulders.
 
His eyes – at first glance - seemed black, but they flashed violet if he turned his head just the right way.
 
At that moment, he was idly stroking Cleopatra, his Egyptian Mau, and worrying over a problem that had haunted him for years.
 
It seemed no more likely to be solved in that moment than it had in any of the other thousands he's spent pondering it, but he persisted.

The main room of his home was a combination library, den, living room and office.
 
The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves so tall that there were rolling ladders attached to each to make the uppermost shelves accessible.
 
Along the base of the shelves were crates filled with more books, manuscripts, scrolls and documents.
 
The contents of those crates overflowed onto the floor and flowed out to cover every horizontal space in the room with the exceptions of the chair he was sitting in, his desk, and the altar in the corner.