'ROSEBLOOM!' he thought, dark images of what he'd like to do to the so called councillor rising within him. Noticeably he still had that ridiculous looking, long, dark mane of hair rolling down the back of his head, currently tied into a ponytail, but he seemed to have lost the jewel piercings and the crazy wrap around glasses since their last meeting. On noticing Peter's interest, the councillor smirked in a very superior way. And that left Manson. Only it didn't, and Peter wasn't the least bit surprised to see his former classmate lurking behind Manson's right shoulder, skulking in the shadows, trying not to be noticed.
'CASEY!' he thought, his anger almost erupting. So many things ran through his mind. Normally a calm, kind, friendly being, an overwhelming instinct to KILL bubbled up inside him, something so sinister and primal he hadn't even been aware of its existence until now. But all dragons had it, some just controlled it better than others.
As Manson slowly strode forward towards him, his heart raced, the tap, tap, tapping of his cane against the rock getting steadily louder. Mouth dry, almost frightened out of his mind, he wasn't prepared for what happened next. Ignoring Peter, Manson walked straight up to Tim, grabbed him by the chin and started tilting his head from side to side.
"So this is it?" he enquired loudly, glancing back over his shoulder.
"It is!" replied the vicious looking woman that Peter considered death on legs.
"Hmmmmm," muttered Manson. "Doesn't look much... does it?"
"It's him Sire! Apparently he's still learning to be a dragon."
Manson burst into a cackling, raucous laugh that bounced and echoed around the furthest reaches of the market place.
"Ohhhh... it's just too easy!" he yelled to no one in particular.
Turning back to the newly confirmed dragon, looking him straight in the eyes, with menace in his voice, he declared,
"Some saviour you're going to be. You'll be lucky to see out the day!"
'Oh crap!' thought Peter. 'He knows... but how is that even possible?' Of course, it was obvious now, even to him. ROSEBLOOM! Once again, dark deeds crested his thoughts as he considered how he could punish the traitorous councillor, should the opportunity arise.
A stinging pain in his face followed by the most horrendous crunching sound snapped him back to reality, quite literally. Blood and tiny fragments of bone exploded out in front of him. For a split second, it seemed as though it had happened to someone else and he was just an unwitting onlooker. But not so. Manson had caught him square on the nose with a whole-hearted punch, his nose not so much broken, as mashed.
As blood trickled down his face, running onto his lips and into his mouth, a silver metallic tang ran over his tongue. Briefly, he wondered why it tasted the way it did? And did other beings' blood taste the same, or different? Mind wavering, thinking about blacking out, what came next almost made him wish he had. A vicelike grip grabbed him around the throat, before a sinister, evil, twisted looking face with a manic grin ground across it, appeared within his vision. Manson!
"Alright me old mucker?" barked the deranged dark dragon, sounding to Peter like some awful impression of a very dubious pirate. "I've missed seeing me old friend."
Off the scale, that's how bad the pain at the front of Peter's face was now, the grip around his throat so tight that he couldn't pull in a fresh breath. He hadn't known it, but he'd started turning blue. As he looked at the face he hated so much, the edges of what he could see started to go all cloudlike and fluffy. Before he passed out, he just managed to hear words that would have made him tremble, had he stayed conscious.
"We're all going to pay your mate the king a little visit. Won't that be nice?!"
All that had happened some time ago. How long? He didn't know for sure. But hours at least. Slowing, trying to catch a decent breath, a hurtful shove by something sharp, right in the middle of his back, brought tears to his eyes.
"NO STOPPING! MOVE!"
Stumbling slightly, he regained his balance, barely able to shuffle along in the three being wide line that he found himself in the middle of, marching through a ghostly, underground, urban area. Not one hundred percent sure, he thought it was the outskirts of London somewhere. At least, that was his best guess from what little he'd seen.
Swallowing hard, something stuck in his throat. Coughing violently, he hacked up a huge mouthful of blood from somewhere inside him. Pain blossomed around what remained of his nose. It was all he could do to remain upright. Desperately he began searching within himself for the tiniest trace of magic; all he needed was a trickle. That would be enough to repair his damaged face. But try as he might, he just couldn't find any. It felt as if it were swirling and writhing just beneath the surface, but the surface of what, he just didn't know. Perhaps it had something to do with the manacles around his wrists behind his back, which felt as though they were constantly burning him.
Taking a sneaky glance over his left shoulder, he could just make out Tim, surrounded by guards, marching unhappily along with everyone else, yet looking relatively unharmed. Just then his foot clipped an uneven piece of rock jutting up from the walkway they were on. Stumbling, he barely managed to keep himself upright. Quickly he resumed his previous pace, eager not to feel the pain in his back once again, that he knew the guards weren't shy about dishing out. Keeping his eyes on the guard in front of him, all the time watching the floor for any obstacles, he found himself carried on by the self styled army, getting ever nearer to the seat of power. Deep within himself, he hoped the king was safe, and that he had some kind of plan to thwart the oncoming threat.
44
Pulled Into The Abyss
As the leader of this squad, he supposed it was his duty to go and investigate; after all, he was constantly telling the others he would chip in, do his bit, whatever the task, nothing was too menial. But with the noises coming from the other side of the door, none of the others wanted to even take a look. They were too terrified of the being in there. And rightly so, as far as he was concerned. She was a dangerous beast, of that he had no doubt. But they'd been assigned to protect her, and protect her they would. He assumed, as he opened the door to the room, that meant even from herself. Watching from the doorway, he felt uncomfortable just looking. Lying on the bed, she twisted and turned, writhing this way and that, all the time babbling, as that was the only word to describe it, babbling about dragons coming for her. Clearly asleep, for the briefest of moments he thought about waking her up, but decided against it. Knowing he wasn't brave enough for that, so closing the door back up without even a hint of a noise, he left Earth to her own accord, somewhere far off in the distant past.
On an ordinary night, mere days after the incident in which her husband had saved the shopkeeper's daughter from a head on collision with the out of control car, the couple slept soundly in their elusive, out of the way hideaway, unaware that fate was about to catch up with them.
Swarming out of the cave into the darkness, some five miles or so from their target, their human shaped bodies were entirely shrouded in black. Under normal circumstances they would have exited the dragon world nearer and not had so far to travel on foot, but this was the nearest exit, entrance, call it what you will, to their target, for some considerable distance.