Slayer

Second Dragon

Abby's POV

I felt helplessness again. Like my limbs didn't work, like I couldn't do anything but sit and shiver like a piece of prey before a mountain lion.

Sit, and watch my fellow prey being chased and devoured by an unmatchable predator.

I became a slayer hoping to never feel such blind terror again. Yet here I am, shaking in fear at the sight of such a monster. Doubt seeped deep into my bones. Even if I had the full skills to defeat it, would I still be acting like this? Cowering before a dragon?

It crashed through the buildings like a scaly hurricane. Only the second dragon I've ever seen.

It rose up, neck coiling like a snake about to strike, over any single story buildings not blazing. It made me want to curl into a ball and hide. Prickly spines like gelled hair shoot out from behind its head and down it's back like porcupine quills. It was the color of dirty snow, but all Tray's lessons on classification of species have left me. It trudged on its two hind legs, sometimes shuffling across the scorched pavement on its tiny front claws and flap huge dark wings. It's tail was covered in ragged blue spines that looked like crystals. It opened its mouth, hissing to the sky and displaying the drooling hooked teeth that filled its huge head.

Most people were gone, Tray once told me that anyone who saw the beast will be told their trauma caused them to see things. If they even came forward after seeing something like that. As I had been the first time when I came forward. Pictures taken could quickly and mysteriously be erased or lost, people would be bribed if need be.

Everyone in the car was glued to the windows, orange firelight dancing on their faces.

Riot cleared his throat. "What now?" He murmured gruffly.

"We should move on," Tony whispered. His wide eyes didn't leave the dragon. It crashed through another building.

Raven looked alarmed. "And do nothing? It's destroying everything it sees," She pokes her finger at the glass. "We can't sit here."

Darwin looked unsure, he shuffled back into his seat. "Tony is right. We have a deadline, and a far bigger problem that goes unchecked if we waste time. The Office... has probably already sent another slayer to deal with this." He reasoned.

Riot stared out the window. "Dude, nobody is there."

"Someone will come." Tony tried to sound optimistic. "Someone has to come."

Or anyone left would die, I nearly finished for him.

Everything on the roads was burning, so many buildings had already collapsed in on themselves... I glanced past the dragon, where a gas station—or what remained of one—radiated waves of heat. It had blown up. My heart drummed in my chest. The dragon had gotten here a long, long time before we did. And nobody was here.

"They don't know," Fang hissed. "Somehow, the Office doesn't know." He was almost growling. Fang yanked open the glove compartment and rattled through it until it yielded a cellphone.

"Maybe they were swapped after the Meeting," Tony was covering his face, his voice muffled. "So many slayers away, no one to report attacks in the area, no one to get there soon after it happens..."

"We didn't even need a Meeting. They could have called us individually, now who knows how many places are burning because everyone's at the Society..." Fang was snarling, scowling, and then dialing on the phone.

Tony covered his face in shame. Why, I couldn't figure, but... how many people were killed before we arrived? I could feel the dragon's rage like the heat of the fires on my face.