outside town?”
Rann nodded, thinking things over as they walked. “Oh, do I. Here, why don’t you give me the details. I’ll take the truck for you today.”
“Really?” Fel asked, shocked at the offer.
“Yeah, why not? It’s the least I can do for you.”
Fel inclined his head toward the other shifter. “Thanks Rann, I appreciate that a lot. I’ll buy you some drinks when you get back, how’s that?”
“How about now?” he said instead. “Plenty of time for my metabolism to burn it off before I gotta go.”
“Shit, I could use them if you could,” Fel said, pointing down at his broken leg.
“Absolutely. I hate this shit,” Rann muttered as they switched directions and left the sparring room behind, entering the main cave off which every other communal Atrox service and facility could be found.
It was huge, several hundred feet across, and dotted with doors and mine shafts that led various places: the library, kitchens, sparring rooms, education rooms for the young, a swimming complex, offices and meeting areas, a huge reception hall for ceremonies big enough to hold multiple dragon clans, and more. It was all there.
Rann and Fel made a beeline for The Shaft, one of several bars located in the cave complex.
“Two beers, stat!” Rann called as they entered, still both shirtless and clad only in their shorts.
“Shhhh,” someone said, whirling on them.
Rann was about to crack a joke when he realized everyone was glued to the televisions, all of which were on the same channel, showing the local Five Peaks news.
“What the hell’s this about?” Fel muttered as they came to a slow stop, watching and listening.
“Warning,” said the voice of the news host. “What you are about to see is graphic and not suitable for children. Parents are advised to change the channel or remove kids from the room. We normally would not show something like this, but it changes everything. The world needs to see it.”
There was a long pause while they clearly waited for parents to make such arrangements.
Rann watched as the commentator returned, giving another warning of the sensitive nature of the video they were about to show of an attack that had happened the night before.
“Sonofabitch,” Rann snarled as it came on screen.
There was no mistaking what he was about to see. A woman was on her knees in a dark room that looked cold. She was leaning slightly forward, her hair pulled all to one side. She knelt with her head wrenched far to the side by the creature next to her.
The entire bar full of dragons made noises of anger as the vampire’s fangs descended into the woman’s neck. A moment later, blood began to pour forth, dripping to the floor so swiftly it pooled there.
A moment later, the woman began to scream and thrash, but the vampire held her down with ease as it drank her dry.
Eventually, the woman lay still in a pool of her own blood.
The vampire looked up, its eyes red. The video ended.
“First dragons,” the newsman said, clearly shaken. “Now this. What else is out there? Are any of them on our side? Who will stop these creatures?”
The feed cut to commercials.
Chapter Nine
Gayle
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
Gayle looked up, realizing that the question was addressed to her.
“Sure, what’s up?” she asked Claire, her ‘red-headed twin partner in crime,’ as they were called by the other volunteers they worked with.
“Is everything okay? You look…taut. I don’t really know how else to word it.”
Gayle hesitated. Although she and Claire had become closer lately, and she didn’t have a problem telling her about what had happened with Mikey and Karen, she didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it right now.
They were all busy assembling kits of essential items for the swarms of people living in the tent cities around Five Peaks, all of whom had come because of the dragons. Whether to worship or to incite hatred, they had come in droves beyond anyone’s imagination.
There were plenty of other people around, all of them working in concert to put the bags together. Filled with blankets, water, basic clothing and amenities, it was only thanks to the founders of Balance the Scales that the tent cities hadn’t descended into filth and anarchy.
Other people in other tents put together food kits or worked in giant kitchens to prepare food for the masses. The latest estimate had the twin tent cities at nearly five thousand people all together. Helping them all was a massive effort, and