"Heart´s Song, Chapter 3" by Jeff Burke

Slowing the car to a stop, Dana threw the shifter into park. Turning the car off, she took the key out of the ignition and took a deep, calming breath. She would be fine. No one would be here but Marius and herself.

But hadn’t she thought that last time? She shuddered, the night air seeming suddenly chilled. With a sigh, she shoved open the door and turned off the headlights. Out of habit, she pushed the lock down, but then unlocked the door again. Just in case. She turned to face the area that had haunted her nightmares for so long.

Well, time had certainly done its work here. She didn’t remember that tiny pavilion with its electrical sodium-vapor light, and that set of swings hadn’t been there either. But it was still the same place, and even with the new additions it still felt reclusive, oppressive.

"Dana?" a voice called She turned toward the pavilion and for the first time noticed the square-shouldered man sitting under it.

"I’m here," she answered, trying to keep the glumness from her voice. Even glad as she was to see him, she was not glad to be here. He stood up and walked over to her, feet scraping the new-fallen leaves. He strode right up to her, took her hands in his own, and smiled, almost guiltily, at her.

"How long have we known each other, Dana?" he asked softly. Dana’s had to bite back a groan. Was he still in that little dream land of his? What was he doing?

"That concert was in my junior year of college, so…five years?" Had it really been that long? Well, she supposed that time was confusing when it came to love. At times it felt like they’d known each other forever, while at others it felt like the time had gone past in a flash.

"Five years…" Marius breathed. He must be as awed by how fast the time had gone as she was.

"What’s this all about, Marius?" Dana asked. Was he on drugs? She hadn’t know him to do that kind of thing, but you never can tell.

He took that long, steadying breath. "Dana, I love you. I want nothing more than to marry you. But I don’t know if I have the right to ask."

Dana put her hands on her hips. So that was what this was all about. He should know that all he had to do was ask! And she was not going to let him get away that easily. "Fine, don’t." She dropped to one knee. "Marius, will you marry me?" It was a little unconventional, but as long as the end result was the same, she would break every taboo in the book.

Marius’s eyes went wide and, he waved his hands in front of him, as if to ward of the question. "No! You don’t know what you’re asking!"

"Well, then why won’t you tell me?" Dana barely managed not to shout. It still came out rather loudly. "What’s so terrible? Why are you being so secretive all of the sudden? Tell me!"

The anguished look on Marius’s face was crushing. He opened his mouth, made an obscure noise, then closed it again. He swallowed. "You don’t know what I am, you don’t know me."

Dana though she might pull her hair out. Why wouldn’t he give her a straight answer? "I would if you would just tell me! Stop talking nonsense!"

"Fine! I’ve got a genetic defect. Okay?"

Dana had never felt like slapping someone as hard as she might slap Marius then. "Is that it? You dragged me all the way here just so you could tell me you’re a little self-conscious about your sixth toe or something?" He didn’t actually have six toes, she knew. It was just the first thing that popped into her head.

He shuffled his feet in the leaves, and for some reason refused to meet her eye. "I don’t have six toes. This defect is slightly more…complicated…than that." He looked up finally. "Have you ever noticed that I only eat meat?"

Dana frowned. "Yes, but I always assumed it was some kind of allergy."

He shook his head. "Let me try this another way. You know what lycnathropy is?"

Dana shrugged. "What do were-wolves have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, really. And you know what a dragon is, I assume?"

Dana sighed. "Yeah. Big flying, fire-breathing lizard." Marius grimaced for some reason. "But I still don’t see your point."

"What if I told you they were real?"

Had she fallen in love with a lunatic? "Are you suggesting that that some people turn into big fire-breathing lizards with the full moon?"

He snorted. "Don’t be ridiculous!" Dana sighed. Well, at least she knew he wasn’t insane. He took another of those deep breaths. "We can’t breath fire. And the moon has nothing to do with it."

"What?"

"Look, I know how crazy it sounds, but I’m telling the truth." He reached into the pockets of his blue jeans. He took her hand and put a golden ring in it. "Here, I want you to hold on to this for a minute or two."

"You’re crazy." Dana whispered. Marius smiled.

"Yeah, I am," he said quietly, a sad smile on his face. "Crazy for you. Now stay here, okay? And"—he swallowed—"don’t scream."

Dana felt like weeping. Why did this always happen to her? Of all the people in the world, she’d fallen in love with the lunatic! She wasn’t sure what bothered her more: that Marius was off his rocker or that she still loved him. She must be just as crazy as he was!

Well, maybe not quite as crazy. She still couldn’t figure out what in the world he was doing, walking over to the other side of the pavilion. She could just barely see him in the nasty orange/brown light of the single sodium-vapor lamp hung from the roof of the building. He just seemed to be standing there, eyes closed. Dana blinked, then looked again. It was hard to be sure, but… She shook her head. No, that wasn’t possible. She must have been imagining-

Abruptly the single source of light blinked out, pulling a strangled gasp from Dana’s lips. She frantically looked around. Where had the light gone? What was going on?

She struggled to quell the fear threatening to strangle her. She was fine. Nothing was going on. The light had simply turned off. Come to think of it, hadn’t she heard about some new city ordinance where all the "non-essential" lights—basically everything but streetlamps—would be turned off at midnight? Something about wanting to "limit illicit and inappropriate behavior on public property." She let out a long breath. It was only politicians wanting to keep people from selling drugs or making love on park benches, that was all.

A sudden snap from the blackness caught her attention. Her head snapped around to it, but only darkness met her eyes. She couldn’t see anything. Another pop from the night made her breath catch. That sounded just like—

No! No, it couldn’t happen again. It just couldn’t. But she couldn’t shake the nagging though that those noises sounded just like someone walking in the woods. Calm down, she told herself. There was nobody out there. The woods were empty; there wasn’t anyone here except herself and Mariu-

A sharp ripping sound cut her thought off. She craned her neck toward the noise. With a start, she realized that she was feeling her shirt, just to make sure it was still there. She almost laughed at herself for her nervousness. Almost, if not for the pops, snaps, grunts, and groans coming from the night.

The car! She had to get into the car! She craned her neck in every direction, and nearly cried when she realized that her little silver sedan was right not ten feet from her. She almost kept her self from running to it.

Throwing the door open, she leapt into the seats and threw the door closed, slamming the lock down. She rolled up the window, then sat in the leather seats for a minute, just trying to breath.

She had to know what was out there. She couldn’t just leave Marius out there to die. She reached across the seat of the car and grabbed her purse. She rummaged through the papers, and the lipstick, and the money. Where was it? She pulled out a small silver can of mace. Nodding grimly to herself, she cracked open the door, mace ready.

Nothing. She listened, hardly daring to breathe. No sounds met her ears, not even the wind was blowing in the trees. Nearly quivering in terror, she opened the door fully, and stepped out of the car. Again, she held her breath, listening. After the dead silence before, the slight rustle of wind made her gasp and spin towards the front of the car. She couldn’t see anything in this bloody darkness. She needed a flashlight, a Mag-light, a glow-pen, anyth-

She clapped her hand to her forehead and laughed with relief. Of course! The bloody car has headlights! She could just turn them on! Reaching inside the open car door, she turned on her high beams and instantly, light flooded the little clearing.

Her head snapped around to face a sudden loud hiss. She froze, eyes wide and blood draining from her face. In the bright glare of the headlights was some kind of huge monster. Forest green scales seemed to cover most of it, except for those on its underside, which were not quite white. It stood on three legs, with another held up toward her, and the gleaming talons on that looked white enough. On either side of its muscular chest a huge ribbed wing spread.

From behind that raised claw a scaled head appeared. Massive, razor-toothed jaws worked up and down beneath a pair of startlingly green eyes pupils contracted in the light. Spines ran down its back—two dozen or so of them—each with some kind of membrane stretched between them; like some kind of huge sail running down its back, starting just behind its head.

Maybe it was fake, animatronic or something? Yeah that had to be it! But she’d never seen animatronics move that gracefully. And no plastic eye could have that kind of intelligence shining behind it.

That pair of eyes blinked a couple of times, then found her. Suddenly, the entire beast shrunk in size, the huge wings on either side of it gone. Not gone, she realized, just folded against the body; the huge sail had shrunken into a small ridge streaming from head to tail.

It held her gaze for a minute, then took a step toward her. She took a large step back. She swallowed, trying not to scream. Loud noise might agitate it. Strangely, Dana found herself analyzing its anatomy. Large teeth and claws, definitely carnivorous. Foreclaws resemble raptor talons, able to carry things while in flight. Triple jointed hind legs, highly muscled chest. Probably where the flight muscles were located.

The beast began to growl, harsh and rasping. But it didn’t take another step forward—it only stared at her. There was something strange about the growls, though, something familiar. Dana realized that the snarls weren’t uniform, they were constantly going higher and lower in pitch. Her jaw dropped abruptly.

The bloody thing was singing to her! But that wasn’t possible, was it? This was all wrong! That kind of animal shouldn’t even exist; no lizard ever grew that large, and there wasn’t a reptile in the world that had wings. And- it was singing!

Not just singing, she realized. It was Adagio for Strings! It was snarling her favorite song! What the hell was going on?

The animal still stood in the glare of the headlights. Dana could see the tip of its long tail twitching behind it, like some kind of huge green cat. The head was stretched out toward her, the serpentine neck keeping it low to the ground, almost submissively. But never stopping its snarling. For the first time since he said it, she remembered what Marius had said.

She blinked. No way. Not in a billion years could that happen. Not in ten billion years. Yet it had. Somehow, it had. She looked at the- the- dragon—it couldn’t be anything else with those claws, teeth, wings and tail—and really looked into the eyes. Tears dripped from them. There was no mistaking the anguish in those bright green orbs. That was what convinced her: the pain, the fear

"Marius," she whispered. Because it was him. It was the only possibility. Slowly, carefully, the dragon nodded its head. He took a small step toward her. She reflexively scrabbled backwards, away from those teeth and claws. With a pained whimper, the dragon all but collapsed into a lying position.

For the first time in several minutes, took a step foreward. She cautiously picked her way toward the nose of the car. She didn’t know why she was doing it, maybe some part of her still loved the man- Well, not really a man, anymore. She boggled at him, and he stared back at her, hardly blinking. She couldn’t do anything but stare at his slit like nostrils, the bar-like scales cascading down his throat, the long ridge running from his head to his-

"Don’t look at me like that," Marius’s voice pleaded, desperate.

"How the hell am I supposed to look at you?" Dana snapped back before she could stop herself. Those huge eyes widened, and his head shot up into the air.

"You can hear me?" Marius asked. Only, his mouth never moved, and Dana wasn’t so sure that there had ever been a sound at all. It was more like a voice in her head.

Dana could barely able to keep herself from shaking. She nodded once to the drago- Marius. She nodded once to Marius.

He frowned. She wasn’t quite sure how she first figured out it was a frown, but Marius stared at her with his eyebrows—or rather, the area where they would have been—furrowed. The human expression seemed almost funny on such a horrific face. Almost.

He stretched out his long neck toward her. She gasped and all but scampered away from his touch. He gave her an anguished look. Why are you so afraid? I love you, Dana. Haven’t I always been there for you? A fresh tear dropped from his eye.

"No. You were gone when I needed you the most!" she spat, then immediately regretted it. Why had she said that? The ridge running down his back rose a little, like the crest of a cockatoo. So that was where the huge sail she’d seen before had gone. It must fold down close to the body for protection or something.

You mean what happened when you were here last. It wasn’t a question. He took a long hissing breath.

"But I never told you what happened…that…day…" she trailed off. The image of a huge black shadow flashed in front of Dana’s eyes. A huge black shadow that had blocked out the stars. "It was you…"

He nodded again. I pulled that man off of you. He hesitated a moment before continuing. I’m sorry to drag you back here, but it’s the only place I could think of where we would be alone.

Dana shook her head. There was a long pause while he refused to meet her gaze. "Well?" she demanded.

He glanced to her, then away just as quickly. Well, what?

"How in the hell is this even possible?

He stared at her for a moment, then stretched a ribbed wing out from his side. Dana barely bit back a gasp. The thing was huge, easily as long as he was! And the membrane stretched from some kind of wing joint to near his hip. This? he asked, glancing at the wing. I told you, it a genetic defect, if defect you want to call it. Most of us call it a gift.

Dana wrenched her eyes away from the huge membrane. "Do you think it’s a gift?"

The wing drooped a little, then snapped back close to the body. Marius’s jaw worked up and down a couple of times, exposing white teeth and a long pink tongue. He took another of his steadying breaths. It doesn’t matter what I think of it. It’s what I am.

"Is there any way you could…I don’t know, not be that? Pretend that this night never happened?" Dana instantly wished she could take it back. The pain in his eyes was too much for her to bear.

Not be? You don’t know what you’re asking. He glanced up to the stars, visible in the moonless sky. You’re asking me to give up my wings, to give up the sky? You might as well ask me to stop breathing… He brought his eyes back to hers. Almost faster than she could follow, he stretched out a wing, planted a clawed foot on the membrane, and curled his neck around, teeth sinking into the wing bone where it connected with the his back. Think, corded muscles in his neck bulged beneath the scales as he strained. With a start, Dana realized that he was going to tear it off. He was going to rip out his own wings…for her.

"No!" she yelled, near tears. He spat the wing out of his mouth and actually collapsed onto the ground, where he lay quivering. Blood dripped from his wing where he’d bitten and where his claws had punctured the membrane.

Dana didn’t even try to stop the tears. "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!" she sobbed. "I didn’t mean to- I didn’t know you would- I’m sorry!". The dragon’s twitching slowly stopped, and it stood up. He glanced down to the ground, then lowered his head to it. He grabbed something from off the ground with his mouth. Dana couldn’t see what.

He raised his eyes to hers. Dana, I will never hurt you. She nodded slowly. He took a small step forward. Dana swallowed, but didn’t move. He took another, and still she managed to somehow not run away screaming. He stretched his neck out to her, his snout only a foot or so away from her. She could see the individual scales on the tip of his snout, the small wiry lips that covered his deadly teeth, could feel his heavy breath going past her face.

Hold out your hands. She almost didn’t. She wanted to run away, to flee into the safety of the car. But she stretched out her cupped hands instead. He nuzzled her hands for a moment, dropped something into them, and pulled his back, still keeping it low to the ground.

She looked down into her hands. It was that ring he’d given her earlier. She must have thrown it away when she was running for her car. She stared at it stupidly for a minute, then looked at Marius.

Dana, I love you more than anything else on this world. Even the sky itself… he shuddered a little. You asked me if I thought this ability was a gift. I used to, until I met you. I’d give it all up for you right now, if you asked me to. He shuddered again, a visible ripple from head to tail. Then he actually bowed to her, chin scraping the ground, front legs bent. Dana, will you spend the rest of your life with me? Will you be my wife?

Dana bit her lip, "Do you just expect me to say ‘yes’ without hesitation?" she asked softly. "Marius, this is too much for one night, too much for one month, one year! I just found out the man I love isn’t really a man at all! How am I supposed to deal with that?"

Dana, I’m still me… That hasn’t changed at all-

"Hasn’t changed? Look at you! Hell, Marius, I love you! Even now, I still love you, it’s just-" she hid her face in her hands. "It’s just that I don’t know if I can live with someone like you, Marius. I don’t know if I could deal with that," she said, waving at his bloody wing."

You could try, he pleaded.

Dana didn’t answer. This wasn’t right. It was crazy. She was chastising a dragon! The idea of dragons even existing was insane. As insane as-

The picture of a face, hers but not hers, reflected in the small mirror of a make-up compact brought her short. As insane as what had happened to her at that theater.

She couldn’t help but give a short, dry laugh. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy. Maybe—just maybe—they could make it work.

"Marius, I—" She shook her head, and tried again. "I haven’t been completely honest with you either…"

Dana decided to let her actions speak louder than her words. She closed her eyes and brought back memories of a night almost two and a half years gone. This time, though, when the man attacked her, she did nothing to quell the fear. It swelled and grew inside her until she thought she would burst. Yet still more came, a never-ending supply of terror. Abruptly she began to scream as every particle of her body exploded into unspeakable agony.