Katie And The Reaper (A Post-Apocalyptic Romance)

Chapter 6 - Katie and the Dragon

Pain. Fire. A chorus of cruel laughter in her ears. Her skin sizzling, she closed her eyes, screaming bloody murder in one world and opened them in another. A bajillion feet in the air, cold wind blasting every bit of exposed skin, her body bucking wildly as she resisted whatever the hell was happening to her.

"Girl. Girl. Girl. S'okay. Help. Friend. S'okay. You're okay." A young voice shouted at her as the wind blew loud in her ears. And in her mind, the wolf-pup, overlying his words with, be okay, please be okay.

From one madness to another. 

She was in the freakin' air. Flying, held in claws, under the sinuous, scaly chest of a snake.  No. A dragon?

It was habit to send her mind out, sense, to find, and then, usually, dampen before she learned too much. The shape that held her was dragonish, the mind pure male fae, and she hit the closed door of it before backing away. Fae were dangerous. Unpredictable. She added two and two together and realized that she when she'd been hit in the head before becoming tossed into the Dream Lands she'd called for help.  Reghar seemed to think this was that help.

Katie tried to relax. Not looking down.

Closed her eyes. That was worse. Oh my.

This had been a cray, cray, day.

She knocked, gently, on the fae mind. "Uh. Hello? Anyone home?"

"Woman? You smell human. You look human. What is this?" The claw around her flexed. "I am in enough trouble as it is, bringing home a pretty human female and her cub. But human's do not speak in my head."

"Born this way. End times prodigy. Haven't you ever met one of us? We're amazing.  Totally worth not dropping, keeping alive, not eating or enslaving, that sort of thing. I can pay you back. Trade favors. I'm good at finding lost pups. This one, he's not mine."

"He said he was yours."

Katie did not look at the four-year-old face of the little boy. She'd noticed that he was wearing clothes. Dead mage clothes. Grateful that the fae, not known for their sensitivity to mortal weaknesses, had found something for the little guy to wear, she said. "Nope. Not mine. Found him. Thank you for coming to our rescue, though. Damn evil weasels."

The fae presence in her head felt, amused. "Indeed."

"So. I'm cold. Are we almost there yet? Where are we going? You can set us down anywhere. I had a little camp back...somewhere."

"We are almost there. You were not far. I am not pleased to find that the corruptors of magic so close to our shelter. Shawnna will not like it." The fae didn't give away his feelings, but he let his concern color his voice. Katie was very glad that she'd not mentioned the mages came to the area to bait her with the child.

"I can not land and hold you. Tell the boy I am going to let go when I am close to the ground.

"Okay." The dragon-fae had two legs on a snake-like body, undulating with easy grace as it flew. The parts of his body that she could see, his belly, the underside of his wings, were red and orangy-yellow. Not solid and flat, but crystal-like, shimmering with depth and dimension.

"Reghar, the dragon is going to have to drop us. Gently. Carefully. Okay? Be ready." She raised her voice to be heard over the rush of air.

"Kay!"

This part of the world was rocky, desert terrain. Katie thought Arizona or New Mexico. She'd found the boy this morning, and whatever time it was now, the sun was making itself felt. She was avoiding the big, old cities where groups still gathered to scavenge and survive in the remnants of humanity. After the world broke, some cities and towns looked better than others, and people, she and Marie had discovered in their early travels, took comfort in the things other people had built. From the air, she saw rocks, ravines, and thorny scrub that never reached taller than four feet high. The cactus got tall. But she wasn't seeing any in this area. As usual, her internal radar sucked beans. The landscape meant nothing to her; it was ugly one one side up the other as far as she could tell. She saw no fortified settlements, even with the good view. But she sensed a loose cluster of people, numbering in the fifties close by. Maybe hidden in the rocks.