The Scales of Justice

Prologue

She fell to the ground again, desperation twisting her fair features. She felt her head connect with the concrete below her. Yet another wound to contend with. The reason for her trip was standing, at most, two feet away from her, his hands balled into bloody fists. He seemed to be biding his time, waiting to see if she had finally gone unconscious, or if she would get back up.

He kicked her, connecting solidly with the back of her head with enough force to render a normal human unconscious, possibly to fracture a skull since he was wearing steel toed boots. Of course, she wasn't normal in any sense of the word, and she struggled to her feet again, using the brick wall she'd been thrown into several times already. She shook her head to clear it, just enough to remember to hold it together, to keep control. She had to go against her instincts now, against her nature; she couldn't afford to let go, not for some random crazy. Not here, not now; she could not let her carefully cultivated façade slip, or she would spill from the cracks, and that had to be avoided for the good of her people. They lived in secret for a reason,

The man seemed dumbfounded that she had gotten to her feet again. He couldn't understand why she just wouldn't stay down. He'd fought and killed stronger and bigger men this way before. He frowned and pulled out a weapon. He would have preferred to use his hands, the way he usually did, but she was much stronger, tougher, than he had been led to believe, and there was only so much time he could spend with her without drawing unwanted attention.

She saw the barrel of the gun gleam in a stray beam of light as it caught at just the right angle, and she sucked in a fear filled breath.

"I would have preferred to do this by hand," he said softly, "but it will take too long since you won't just die."

"What did I ever do to you?" she whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks to mix with her blood.

"It's nothing personal, nothing at all, but I don't get paid if you don't die."

She narrowed her eyes as a rivulet of blood began to slide down her face from a gash at her hairline. The fact that this was not a random encounter changed things. Survival trumped discretion now that she knew he intended to kill her and not just assault or rob or even rape her. Smiling grimly, she let her magickal shields drop, and she began to glow softly. The dark alley began to fill with the soft white light, and in the center, she stood, changing.

He watched the strange phenomenon, gun forgotten, as her skin began changing colors, flashing quickly through the rainbow, and she seemed to be growing larger. He was mesmerized at the sight before him. Her skin stopped changing, settling on an array of dark colors. A pattern of emerald, sapphire, and amethyst, shot through with trails of ruby, took the place of what had been a creamy white flesh,  squinted; it appeared that scales were forming. She dropped forward onto her hands, clothing in shreds as her bones rearranged themselves and elongated. She was the size of a small horse now and still growing. A large pair of wings sprouted on her back as her face began changing shape.

The shroud of light disappeared, leaving a bright afterimage, and he blinked it away. A hysterical scream caught in his throat. He had realized that what he was looking at shouldn't exist, certainly shouldn't be towering ten feet in front of him, and he knew that he was a dead man. He had not been prepared for what he was now facing, would not have believed it had the proof not been in front of him. It had taken less than a minute from start to finish for the change, and then the dragon bit his head off.