Franco sprinted from the vast gymnasium, a small speck compared to the arching ceiling and thousands of elevated seats. He hated running, but he had little time to be reluctant about it. As he pumped his arms heavily at his sides, he wasn’t sure whether he should be laughing or crying. What he had done was against everything he had be raised to believe, but somehow he couldn’t let himself feel bad about it. Nothing he could do about it now that it was done. But on the flip side of the same coin, he just plain didn’t feel bad. He knew the rules, and he knew what was expected of him, but he just didn’t care.
Okay, that’s a lie. A little part of himself, deep down felt bad, but not for the reasons one would suspect.
The night enveloped him and in that same instant let him go as the light of a massive fire spilled out of the still swinging double doors leading outside. He kept running, but hunched his shoulders over and his pumping arms flew upwards to shield the back of his head and neck. This time a definitive laugh leapt out of his mouth. How could such a scene not be turned into a comedy? No one was killed (that he knew of) and the forces of evil had be squandered. He shook his head and laughed harder. He wasn’t so sure of that fact, either. But to stroke his ego, he’d just go ahead and believe the evil had been cast back into the fires from whence they came.
Miraculously, he still had a firm grip on his weapon of choice, a Smith and Wesson 38 caliber pistol. It never left his person, no matter if he was with his own kind (who frowned upon it) or with his mortal kind (who, consequently, also frowned upon it). When asked in small talk whether he had children, he’d beam and answered with a confident and loving ‘yes’ and when he reached down to his side, the unsuspecting grandmother or business man would think he’d bring out a wallet full of pictures of his kids, when he’d instead be brandishing his gun. He never tired of the plethora of reactions, all dramatic and negative, he got from his audience. A huge pet peeve of his is when his own kind would try to tight cast him into a stereotypical role, asking, “Where’s your staff? Where’s your crucifix and wand?” He’d just roll his eyes and say he also had those on his person, but who couldn’t love the raw power of a firearm?
Another loud explosion blew his long crop duster around the long gait of his running legs, tripping him up momentarily. Inside of that explosion he thought he heard a scream or two, but he merely convinced himself that the screams were coming from those devil scum he had been sent here to vanquish and didn’t allow himself to feel remorse or doubt. The local fire department would be here after he had long fled the scene and they’d never quite figure out what happened or why there were strange throbbing radiation holes all over the gleaming wooden gymnasium floor. After being perplexed for a few weeks or months, they’d sweep it under the rug, hoping the media wouldn’t get ahold of it, and it would be completely forgotten. And with that, Franco would be scott free. Leaping from a curb and into the deserted street outside of the massive building, his boots echoing off of the oak trees that lined the great parkway, he squinted his eyes shut, as if in pain. He wanted so badly to believe everything would turn out even rosier and more grand than when he stepped foot here, but his conscience knew better. He knew it couldn’t turn out good for anyone involved, even though his denial wanted badly to convince him otherwise.
He holstered his gun and for the first time since his harrowing escape looked over his shoulder. What he saw made him stop cold in his tracks. From the flames that lapped around the open doorway at the face of the building and up around the roof, Franco could see two gigantic eyelids open. Slowly, in a seductive way he could only imagine seeing his own death might feel. The pupils narrowed to slits in the increasingly bright light of the flames. Two nostrils flared and sucked in the rising smoke below the sharp, spherical orbs as Franco spun all the way around to behold the beast. It wasn’t an illusion, as his mind fleetingly tried to play it down as. Instinctively, he reached for his gun, but willed his hand to drop to his side instead. A gun would be worthless against such a formidable foe, especially one as unfathomably large as this. His jaw that hung open snapped shut and his teeth began to grind as he found his mind worked furiously. He held one of the highest titles in his order, second only to the original elders, so he should know what to do to squash the monster before it could take one step outside the fire, but his mind was frozen despite the hellish fire that spread and grew larger with each passing second.
One scale clad foot lifted itself out of the fire, up and over the collapsed roof of the shrinking building, and landed with a thundering earthquake to the parking lot sprawling before it. Franco shuttered, not from the land shaking furiously beneath his feet, but because the monster, so large it eclipsed the 25,000 seat auditorium, did indeed set one foot outside the fire and he was still standing in the same spot, his mind not moving at all, as if it were made of wax and had melted along with the steel beams of the building’s infrastructure. He had been taught at a very young age to act quickly under pressure, to go with his instincts, but it was like he had no brain at all. The only thing that moved on his person was his eyes as they darted quickly as he studied the dragon, the falling bits of flame, and how the monster’s lips seemed to curl up into a smile, revealing row upon row of pearly white, razor sharp teeth.
Franco’s mouth finally unfroze. “I guess those portals I opened didn’t close all the way.” He swallowed. “Dammit.”
Suddenly, the gears started to spin in his head again. He knew exactly how to contain the situation. He lifted both his hands up to the night sky, his head tilted back to look at the stars. His vision washed over with a blanket of light, as he turned the earth all the way around to the day side, and his eyes slowly began to illuminate a pale, oceanic blue. The blue light of his eyes washed over his face and as it intensified, the light fell over his entire body, all the way up to the stretched up finger tips. Muscles in his body began to involuntarily relax, but the light acted as a crutch that held him upright. His heavy boots were soon half an inch off the ground and his hair floated out minutely, as if he were in a sphere of antigravity or sinking in a tank of water. As if possessed, his lips moved as one word articulated itself in a voice not his own. That one word, amplified to a thunder boom to rival the monster’s foot fall was, “Besiegen!”
His hands lowered, an icy glow permeating the tips of his fingers. At the zenith of brightness, a beam shot from his hands straight at the monster, all four feet now firmly planted outside the pile of rubble that used to be an auditorium on a college campus in central Idaho. Franco’s mouth formed words again, “Besiegen! Hell Dragon!”
The dragon’s eyes darted to Franco and to the blue beam headed in its direction. Before it could retaliate, the monster was enveloped entirely in ice and as it crusted over, Franco yelled another command in a voice not his own, “Schrumpfen Sie, Devil Dragon!” With that, the dragon let out a high pitched squeal and panic tore through its large yellow eyes. In an instant, there was only a shell of ice held aloft in the parking lot, the dragon now too small to see. Franco began to lower back to solid ground, the blue glow around him and in his eyes beginning to dwindle, but not before he gave a nod towards the fire. The huge dragon shaped ice sculpture broke in half and fell atop the raging fire and instantly put it out in a hissing, smoking finale to rival the fourth of July in New York City. Fully aware of himself and his surroundings once more, Franco smiled at his handy work, but dug into a pocket on the inside of his long, black jacket. He pulled out his wand, which he both loved and despised. Once he held the small, yet impressive wooden stick up, he opened his mouth to speak one last command, but first shifted his weight from foot to foot a few times and rolled his shoulders. His lips rose into a grimace and he tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck with each movement. He mumbled to himself with a chuckle, “I forget how stiff that makes me” and concentrated once again at the scene at hand. He pointed to the smoking mountain of rubble and said in a calm voice, “Verschließen.” His hands dropped to his sides and he leaned his right ear towards the disaster area. The faint pulse that he heard the entire time faded out.
“There,” he said with a finality that felt good. “Done. Devil Dragon, gone. Why the massive thing felt like a visit to Idaho would be welcomed, I have no idea.” He chuckled. “Hell, why did I think a trip to Idaho would be necessary?”
He stuck his wand back into his coat pocket and rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands. A sigh rumbled his lungs and he stood up straight with a start. What had he been doing when the monster broke through the roof of the gymnasium and threatened to wreak havoc on the scene that he had already wreaked enough havoc for one day? Oh, yes. Running. Running away, and fast.
The sky twirled back to the night side, the stars blurring in lines for a split second before snapping back into place. The darkness took him, but not for long. Red and blue light flashed in the distance, and the sirens grew louder. He began to run again, but this time with more zest. No one would know he had been here. No one.
Who am I kidding? He thought as he ducked between buildings on the other side of the main drag. Everyone knows I was here. It was all done in broad daylight.
Copyright 2014 by Erin M. Truesdale
