14
ETHAN
I had to fight him.
I knew it the first time I heard his voice inside my head, violent and commanding. I knew it when I transformed into a gryphon, the way I flexed my talons and wished to sink them into dragon scales. And I knew it there in the restaurant, first when I felt him nearby, and again when our green eyes finally locked.
I would have to fight the Emerald Dragon. It was inevitable.
But I couldn't make myself do it today. I didn't have it in me.
Holding tightly onto Jessica's hand, I pulled her out of the kitchen and into a back alley. The left path was blocked by a dumpster, so we fled down the right, toward a street full of cars and headlights. And all the while I felt the dragon giving chase, just behind me, so close that I feared at any moment he could reach forward and grab my hair.
DO NOT RUN FROM ME, EMERALD.
The alley exited onto a main street. I picked a direction randomly, left away from the restaurant, and Jessica ran alongside me so fast I didn't need to pull her.
"What do we do?" she asked.
But I didn't know. How was I supposed to know? I still barely understood how, or why, I was turning into a goddamn gryphon.
We sprinted along the road until we came to a cross-street, and we couldn't wait for traffic to cross so instead we turned left. We jogged that way for another block, footsteps echoing off the tall buildings all around. At the next intersection we turned left again, and I recognized a crowded square up ahead. Sundance Square, which meant the parking garage with our car was only a block farther than that.
But before we could reach the square, a shape stepped out of an alley and blocked our way.
We skidded to a stop fifty feet away from the Emerald Dragon. He held his hands into fists at his side, the tattoos on his arms almost glowing as much as his eyes in the darkness.
FIGHT ME, EMERALD GRYPHON, he commanded, voice louder than before. THERE IS NO POINT IN DELAYING FURTHER.
I hesitated, panting as if I'd run a marathon. The gryphon inside me screeched in fury, demanding that we fight the dragon, that it was our purpose. But if I did, I would have to fight it as a human, because I knew the emerald on the totem was still dim. I was not yet ready to shapeshift again.
FIGHT ME, AS MY BROTHERS WILL FIGHT YOUR BROTHERS, AND THEN THIS CAN BE DONE.
And the gryphon inside me was screeching so loudly that I couldn't stop myself.
"Ethan, no!"
I strode forward and swung a haymaker with my right arm, intending to follow that with a left-jab. But the dragon was expecting the haymaker, and slid sideways away from it. The momentum threw me off balance for a split second, which was enough time for the dragon to twist and piston a powerful fist into my ribs.
I fell sideways away from him, back slamming into the brick of the building. The dragon didn't hesitate as he fell upon me, two quick punches to my gut, knocking the wind out of my lungs and folding me in half. He grabbed my hair to pull me back up, and grinned white teeth at me in an animal's smile.
"You disappoint me," he said in a human voice scarred by years of cigarettes. "This was supposed to be a challenge. The gryphons were left here to stop me and my brethren. Yet here you are, weak and sad."
With an aching diaphragm, it was all I could do to gasp for air.
"You are going to die." He put his face close to mine, and I could smell the sulfur on his breath. "I will kill you, and char your body black with fire, and devour you like the goat you are."
And just as the dragon reached back a fist, something crashed into his head with a sickening CRACK.
The dragon grunted and fell to the side, staggering against the brick building. Jessica stood behind him, a metal tire iron in her fist. She put herself between the dragon and I.
"I played softball," she said, raising the tire iron to hold with both hands. "I figure I can get another good swing on you before you get close."
The dragon's eyes glowed with fury as he rose, rubbing his head. He clenched his teeth.
"That was a mistake," he growled, the glow of fire deep within his throat.
I could feel that he was going to change. The dragon within his chest was about to rip free, a beast of green scales and fire as hot as heaven's forge. The tattoos on his arm brightened with him as he stood up straight, holding his arms out to the side.
But just before he reached the precipice of transformation, another voice called out.
"FORT WORTH POLICE! HANDS IN THE AIR WHERE I CAN SEE THEM!" Two police stood with legs spread and guns drawn, aimed down the empty street.
The dragon whirled around, and for a moment I believe he would still make his transformation, to shift into his dragon and roast the two officers where he stood. But behind the officer, in Sundance Square, a crowd of people where watching and pointing. And as I felt the gryphon inside me recoil from them, so did I feel the Emerald Dragon's hesitance.
FOOLS, I felt the dragon say, and then he sprinted away.
The officers shouted out and then gave chase, turning down another empty alley between buildings. Their footsteps echoed all around, dimmed, and then were silent as the dragon was gone.