Moon Dragon by J. R. Rain Page A

time, Hermes Trismegistus.
    Yes, my bloodline was desirable.
    For what, I didn’t exactly know, although some of it had to do with helping the dark masters back into this world. Directly. And not through hosts like myself.
    Directly and permanently.
    I pulled up my legs and wrapped my arms around my knees. There was a hole in my pants. My running shoes were kinda ruined, too, I saw. I didn’t think Asics had something like me in mind when they field-tested their products. I flicked a hanging piece of the rubber sole. I needed new shoes anyway.
    The wind was strong up here, and infused with a mix of desert and mountain scents. After all, one side of the mountain sloped down into Joshua Tree, one of the more epic of Southern California’s deserts, which just so happened to be the name of my favorite U2 album. Yes, I’m showing my age.
    Then again, a hundred years from now, with music coming and going and my kids long since dead, I would still have a fondness for 80s’ and 90s’ alternative rock.
    Suddenly depressed, I considered my case. Which was the reason why I’d come up here in the first place.
    That something was stalking these woods, I had no doubt. There had been no witnesses, and no evidence of foul play. The bodies had never been found. Something or someone had either consumed them completely, or had been damn good at hiding the evidence. I figured, it was probably a little bit of both.
    A gust of hot wind blasted me, whipping my hair into a frenzy. I let my hair flap and felt the wind on my neck and skin, relishing the feeling. I figured the thing inside was relishing the feeling, too. Through me. Sensing the physical world again through me.
    So, we both sat there on the rock, enjoying the night breeze, as the nocturnal creatures came out, although not as many this high up, above the treeline with little vegetation. Still, I heard the scurrying, the scratching, the vocalizing. It was late early fall and I should have been cold. I wasn’t.
    Of course, I had a good bead on who was stalking the hikers up here. Nancy wasn’t lying to me. She believed what she was telling me. Whether or not her ex-boyfriend was killing the hikers—or that he was, in fact, a werewolf—remained to be seen.
    I closed my eyes and felt the wind ripple my clothing and rock me gently. I rested my hands on my knees and let my mind slip away, far away from here. Where it went, I didn’t know, but there on the mountaintop, far from anyone and anything, I found a rare moment of peace.
    And I treasured it.
    Then, when I was back, I opened my eyes, took a deep and useless breath, and then did what any other lost girl would do on a mountaintop.
    I stripped off all my clothing and used a much-honed technique of wrapping my clothes, including my shoes, inside my shirt and tying it all together with the legs of my jeans. Just add a stick through it, and I could have been a hobo.
    Then I summoned the single flame and saw the giant creature I would soon become.
    A moment later, in a process that was painless, unlike in the movies, I was very much not just another lost girl. I was something monstrous and far too scary for this world.
    Using a clawed foot, I hooked my makeshift traveling satchel, gathered myself there on the rocky outcropping, and then launched high into the sky...
    And spread my wings wide.
    Now, I thought, as I caught a hot gust of wind and sailed out over a dark valley, Where did I park my car...?
     

 
    Chapter Fourteen
     
    We were in bed.
    It was past midnight, and the evening had been invigorating. Thanks to my little tirade last year—a tirade which involved the impaling of Kingsley’s hand with a fork—we had been forced to look for a new hangout. We had found it by way of The Cellar restaurant in downtown Fullerton. More accurately, under downtown Fullerton, as the name was indeed fitting. It was also underneath the offices of our local congressman, which, I think, might have been cooler than it really was.
    The