Page 49 of Escaping my Dragon

I rolled my eyes. “Children, can we not squabble?”

“Who are you calling a child?” Abaddon’s chest expanded.

“We don’t have time for this. The volcanoes in Antarctica have exploded. If we’re going to make a difference, we should leave now.”

“Malone,” several of them growled in unison.

“Most likely. Now, can we get into the air?”

“But it’s still daylight. We might be seen,” Percy reminded.

“Unavoidable. We can’t wait until nine o’clock tonight to leave. It might be too late.”

“Shotdragon,” Tigger yelled, flinging himself into the air to land between my shoulders. I held in a sigh.

“Ready?” I asked but didn’t wait for a reply. I bunched my hind legs and pushed upward. The mighty leap cleared the trees so that I could unfurl my wings. The other dragons followed, flapping hard to ascend.

I led the way, coasting the currents that changed in temperature as we neared the icy continent. The sunshine disappeared as we entered a haze smelling of sulfur, and the air tasted of ash. Angling upwards, we escaped most of the spreading volcanic pollution and, from our new vantage, could see the miasma spreading.

Over the thickest of it, we dove into the smog where visibility suffered, forcing us to rely on other senses. Not smell. The burn of magma overpowered our olfactory receptors. Nor could we rely on taste, for the ash coating our tongues and mouth revealed nothing. We could hear nothing but the flap of our wings and whistle of wind. That left only one other sense. The sixth one that few humans ever mastered. They called is ESP, extrasensory perception. I called it trusting my gut.

And my gut indicated something both familiar and alien. Very discomfiting.

I wasn’t alone in perceiving it.

Why does it seem like we’re not alone, Father? Tigger mentally queried.

Before I could reply, a voice, not mine, not the hatchlings, not one I’d ever heard, not one that should have been able to penetrate my mind without invitation, spoke.

About time you arrived. Be good servants and fetch me the human female called Velma.

When I managed to send back a vehement, I don’t think so, the sudden squeeze on my mind had me screaming with a pain I’d never felt before.

It soon faded replaced with a soft command. Bring me Velma.

I angled my direction of flight.

Chapter Sixteen

We made it to the Italian station without issue. The sky, while riddled with clouds, remained ash-free since the wind blew the pollution the other way. No one remained at the station, the mess left behind indicated the personnel had hastily departed. At least they’d left behind their supplies. We had food to eat. Clothes, if we wanted to change. We also got our choice of rooms.

Despite Noah’s conviction he’d have nothing to do once we got there, he immediately located the abandoned communication system and began sending and replying to messages. My satellite phone needed charging, so, while it juiced, I made a mug of coffee and stood by a window, staring at the dark plume rising in the distance. We might be over three hundred kilometers from Erebus and the other spewing volcanoes, but the miasma could still be seen, as could the ominous mountain. Every time I glanced at it, I couldn’t help but shiver.

Joslyn joined me. “What an adventure thus far. Giles is going to be in his glory putting the next episodes of the show together.”

“Sorry you didn’t have a chance to load all your equipment.” In their rush to rescue me, they’d not bothered, and now McMurdo Station couldn’t be accessed. “Guess it’s a good thing you and Vernon were uploading your footage daily to the cloud for storage.”

“You only have to lose one memory card with a week’s worth recordings to realize backups are necessary.” Joslyn grimaced. “I’m still shocked you didn’t fire me for that fuck up.”

“We all learned a lesson that day.” One, you couldn’t always trust the locals. Two, even if you did recover the equipment that had been stolen, that didn’t mean they hadn’t already wiped the storage. And three, mishaps happened, and when they occurred in interesting places, you got to vacation for longer.

“You do realize the story you’re going to be able to produce from this might get nominated for awards.”

“What story? Volcanoes explode.” I took a sip of coffee.

“Wasn’t talking about that, but the alien hiding in that mountain.”

“Don’t assume it’s real. I might have imagined it all.” Far from the pit of ice, I found it easy to convince myself I’d hallucinated.