The keys jangled in the hand of the man who used a false name. His other hand held a bottle of water he’d laced with Rohypnol and a powerful sedative.

When he got through the door he descended the stairs towards the cellar where he’d spent so much of his childhood hiding from his mother. He opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and looked towards the bed.

Sarah’s face was full of relief when she saw him. ‘Kevin? Oh thank God you’re here. Quick, untie me. How did you know where to find me?’

He didn’t speak. Instead he unscrewed the top from the water bottle and put it to her lips. She drained the bottle in several gulps.

‘Please, Kevin. Untie me now.’

‘I’m not Kevin. Not really. Kevin is just a name I use when dealing with my darling tributes. My real name is different, but some people have decided to call me the Dragon Master. I like that. It’s fitting.’

‘Kevin, stop dicking around and untie me. Please.’

‘I’ve told you, Sarah. I’m the Dragon Master. How do you think I knew you were here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When I met you earlier, you took a drink of water I’d laced with Rohypnol. I talked to you until it took effect and then you did exactly what I told you to do.’

‘You mean I just walked down here myself?’

‘Exactly. You stripped off when I told you to, put that gown on when I told you to and, best of all, you lay down and let me tie you to the bed. You were giggling as I tied the knots.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Sticks and stones, Sarah, sticks and stones.’

Sarah’s eyes widened with realisation and horror. ‘The water you just gave me. That was drugged too, wasn’t it?’

‘You could say that. I couldn’t possibly comment.’ He could feel the smile on his lips and hear it in his voice. In spite of himself, he was enjoying talking to her. The fear in her eyes was a wonderful thing to behold.

Sarah’s voice held incredulity and terror in equal measure. ‘Why are you doing this to me? You’re not really the Dragon Master, are you?’

‘I’m doing it to you because your name fits. That’s the only reason you’ve been chosen as a tribute. You will be given the honour of being kissed by fire. Your breath will flame bright and you’ll earn your place in history.’

‘No, Kevin, or whatever you’re called. No. This is wrong. Please don’t do this to me. We went on a date last night. Remember it? It was lovely. You don’t have to do this. I can be so much more than that to you. Let me join you, help you.’

‘Do be quiet, Sarah. I know you’re grasping at the proverbial straws, but you need to shush, to save your strength for your moment of glory. You’re going to become a darling tribute to a fearsome dragon who spurned my love so often I grew to hate her.’

Sarah flinched as he caressed her chin.

‘There’s nothing you can do or say that will change my mind. Your fate is sealed.’

When he looked at Sarah’s face there was no response other than a blank look as she fell victim to the drugs he’d put into the water bottle.

He untied her limbs one by one and told her to turn over.

She lay still as he refastened her bindings.

When he’d got what he needed from the workbench, her eyes were closed as the powerful sedative did what it was supposed to do.

He laid the plastic squares on her exposed shoulder blades and reached for a scalpel. The more he could do to prepare her for tonight’s offering, the better, as tonight would be spectacular, but risky.

It hadn’t been easy for him to learn how to perform this part of the process, but he’d managed to hone his skills by watching online tutorials and harnessing every scrap of his patience.

That he was removing skin and only a very thin layer of muscle made the actual operation simpler. At most he was cutting through a half inch of muscle before the tip of his scalpel scraped against the tribute’s shoulder blade. He always was careful and precise with his movements, so making exact cuts wasn’t something he found hard.

With the tributes drugged and compliant, their flesh was loose and malleable; it was now a matter of pride to him that the squares were as perfect as they could be.

Once the boundaries had been marked out with scalpel cuts, he’d swap the scalpel for a paring knife and remove the portion of flesh before running a bead of surgical glue along each edge of the cut to reduce the bleeding.

A pair of wings had already been removed from two of the stuffed birds he’d bought online – not from a taxidermist as there were licensing issues, but from auction sites – he’d learned from Caitlin’s tribute that surgical glue took longer to set than he was comfortable with when affixing larger wings to his tributes. He’d spent fifteen nerve-wracking minutes at Lonsdale Castle holding each of the buzzard’s wings until the surgical glue had set enough to support them.

Rather than take that risk again, he planned to use superglue on Sarah and her companion, as she had a pair of mighty wings awaiting her.

He believed his ability to adapt and evolve put him above all others. His project was growing wings of its own as he refined his methods. Petrol had been discarded in favour of gas, but he hadn’t stopped there. With Caitlin he’d tried a new method of fire-making which had worked better than expected. With a slight refinement, the new technique would take his dragons’ fire breathing to a whole new level. Getting the flames right had caused him the most trouble, but he was confident he could now deliver both a flammable substance and oxygen into the mouths and gullets of his tributes. The can of lighter fluid he’d used on Caitlin had been good, but his new idea was so much better.

He knew that if he could continue to refine his methods, he’d create a dragon far more fearsome than his mother had ever been, and that if he truly wanted to pay tribute to the woman who’d given birth to him, he’d find a way to show her that he could make something even mightier. Creating a copy of his mother was never his aim, what he wanted to do was create dragons he could have power and control over.

That two of his dragons had been male was of no consequence to him. They’d fitted the pattern and, as such, he’d selected them.

He lifted his paring knife and again bent over Sarah’s back. The more preparation he could do beforehand, the less time he would be at risk. After all, there was another tribute to be made first.

He’d attach the wings in situ, but for now, he’d done all he could to prepare Sarah.