Q took his feet off the corner of his white marble desk and turned to face the floor to ceiling glass panels that enclosed the two sides of his large office. He was up on the fifty-first floor of a ginormous building in the center of New York City. His views looked directly over Central Park and out onto an unending ocean of concrete. Apart from the park and its amazing colors especially in the fall, the view was gray, every shade of gray you could imagine.

He leaned back in his tall, red leather, presidential recliner, crossing his legs as he looked out to the sun making its way down for an early evening departure. Between his first and second finger on his right hand, he cradled a snifter glass containing a whiskey double, which he swirled delicately as his mind wandered to a year ago.

Q had come so close to having his moment in the sun. He’d been within sight of being able to deal a death blow to a clan leader. Trusting Mr. Embers to fulfill his promise and attack the dragons underwater, while it cost him his life, it had been successful. The dragon’s hideaway was destroyed, and they had been forced to flee from the mighty power of a phoenix attack.

A number of phoenix had lost their lives that day. Q had walked amongst the weeping faces of family members in the aftermath of the dragon’s destruction. He had asked them why they wept when they had been the ones to succeed in destroying their sworn enemy. Why sob at what was lost, when what they gained was far greater. Sure, some birds of battle were cremated in the days following, but they burned as heroes. Their ashes scattered to the wind forever remembered as those who battled the dragons and won. Their ultimate sacrifice caused the scaled demons to run under the might that was the phoenix.

Q was proud of the battle as a whole but wished he’d gained the head of the one called V. He wished he’d killed the female mate while he’d had the chance. If he were ever to get close enough to a female connected to one of the dragons again, he would rip their throat out before even a scream had a chance to escape. Leaving the lifeless flesh as bait for when he would have the opportunity to do the same to their dragon mate. Q had spent a lot of time thinking about the ways to cause the greatest pain and eventual death to dragons over the past year. He was eager to give strength to those thoughts and make them a reality.

The setting sun was filling his office with colors of reds and oranges. Colors that made him feel connected to the sky. Colors that matched him when in beast form. His feathers were a perfect imitation of a glorious sunset. Living in the city gave him little chance to wing up and take flight anymore. He had been so busy scanning the web and locating any tiny discrepancy which might lead to a place to find dragons.

Q lifted the amber liquid to his eye line and swirled it slowly, continuing the glasses journey to his lips. He felt the burn hit his tongue as the fluid flowed down his throat. He licked the last of the flavor from his lips and exhaled. It was only the end of a Tuesday, and he already wished for a Friday.

C.O.D.E.—Canadian Oil and Drilling Exploration—the company he’d run was now closed. After the incident in the Canadian bay, they were forced to terminate and shut down then settle some charges out of court. It never failed to surprise Q how easy humans were to manipulate. Open up a briefcase full of cash, and whatever you wanted happened without any questions.

Q still needed a name to hide his operations under. So he had pulled one of his minor companies up and made it the new headquarters. Safe Ocean Scanners, or S.O.S, was a company that offered their services to other businesses who needed to find things underwater. Drilling companies were, of course, their biggest clients. Sometimes universities trying to locate some lost artifacts, sunken cities, or a new previously undiscovered species. Of course, there was always a whack job or two who simply had too much money and a need to play pirates hunting for some ‘X marks the spot’ on a treasure map at the bottom of the ocean. Q didn’t care, money was money, and it kept the authorities from seeing behind the scenes.

The new headquarters were based in New York City but had depots all over the world, all equipped with the best technology money could buy. They had the most up to date submarines, both large and more of a personal size. Phoenix hated the water, so Q paid the most intelligent humans, and phoenix he could find who would do the job. To continuously deliver new ways for them to go deeper, darker, in the search for what and who he wanted. Q wanted to be able to say, he was the first to not leave any stone unturned under the water.

Knock. Knock.

Q turned to the sound of his door. “Enter,” he said as he placed his now empty glass on the desk and pulled his chair in, so he was only visible from the mid-chest up.

Two large men walked in, their heavy footsteps clunked on his polished wooden floor. Both men were wearing a black suit, dark glasses, and had their hair cut very short. They looked almost identical, as most of Q’s security staff did.

Q looked up at the body sized bag currently slumped over one of the men’s shoulders. “You were successful?” he asked Ben and Mike, two of his personal security staff.

“You doubted us?” Ben, the one without the bag said, his voice dangerously low, like his vocal cords were made of sharp and uneven gravel rocks.

The bag was thrown to the floor with a thump that bounced around his office.

“Better be alive.” Q raised an eyebrow. “I specifically asked for a live one.”

“Oh, he’s alive all right, he was just a little…” Mike grinned, “… resistant. So I had to knock him out.”

Q pushed the chair out from where he was sitting, grabbed a cup of water from his chiller and motioned to Ben to open the bag. Waiting to see the face of the man, he had brown hair and was wearing a torn white T-shirt. Q dumped the ice-cold water on the man’s face, which immediately sprung to life. He began gasping for air struggling at the bag which was twisted around his legs in a feeble attempt to escape.

“Hello, dragon,” Q said slowly, he let the last word roll off his tongue. Watching the man’s eyes register what he’d said, the stranger he was looking at knew what he was.

“I d-don’t…” he stuttered. “Don’t know…” he swallowed, “… what you’re talking about.” Freeing his legs from the bag, he now knelt on the cold wood of a strange office with his true identity being questioned.

“Well, that’s very interesting,” Q said as he walked over to the glass panel looking out to a now darkening sky. “So, if I tossed you out here you’d fall to your death?” Turning around he questioned his guest.

“What?” The man glanced up to the two large men standing over him, then back to the man standing at the window, who was calmly discussing his potential mortality. “Um… I…” His words were failing to process what was happening. “I guess that’s what happens, not that I’ve ever thought about being a jumper.”

Q clicked his tongue twice in a sign of disagreement. “I don’t think you would. I think…” he shrugged, “… I think you would fly.”

“Fly?” the man repeated. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he said to himself. “How can a man fly?” Fuck, he knows. Fuck. Fuck. The man’s head was catching up really fast to the danger he was presently facing. “It’s not like I have wings or anything,” the man added with a squeak in his voice which gave away his false confidence.

“That’s where we differ,” Q said calmly as he walked back toward the kneeling man. “I think you do. In fact, I know you do.” His jaw began to clench in anger at being this close to one of his sworn foes.

The man looked up, he could see clearly that his identity wasn’t in question anymore. He was a dragon of pride, a dragon that wouldn’t kneel for anyone. He stood up where his two captors grabbed him instantly by the arms. He didn’t care, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to die on his knees. “Phoenix,” he hissed through his teeth. The smell had only begun to radiate from the men next to him. Like the dragons, most creatures had cloaking abilities and when around humans especially, they wanted to remain completely invisible while totally visible.

The smug look on Q’s face as he nodded and walked closer was undeniable. “How does it feel to be face to face with a phoenix?” he asked with true curiosity to his voice.

“Stinks,” the man snorted. “You birds need to fucking wash. Maybe a dip in the ocean would help?”

Q’s hand whipped out like a snake’s bite and struck the man’s cheek, the sound like a whip crack echoed around the room. “Watch your mouth, dragon.”

The man snorted. “Just kill me and hurry up.”

“You think I’m going to kill you?” Q clicked his tongue again. “I’m not going to kill you. You have an important message from Q to deliver.”

The man tilted his head. “Message?” he said. “To who? I’m a no one to anyone.”

Q’s laugh was from the bowels of an evil pit. “Every dragon is a someone. They might not know you yet, but after I’m finished with you, they will.”

“You’re delusional if you think—”

The blow came from Mike against the dragon’s head, rendering him unconscious for the second time that day. Mike and Ben dropped the unconscious dragon to the floor. “What now, Boss?”

“Take him to the lab, remove his wings. Under no circumstances is he to be killed.” He turned away and picked up the phone. “This message needs him to be alive to deliver.” Pushing the button for a connection, he waved the men off to do as requested.

The men nodded as they picked up a hand each and dragged the man away.