This was an isolated spot in the western state of Nevada, the least populated region of the United States, because it was the least habitable. Zane’s gems guided him to one of the desert areas, a barren wasteland.
This was dragon country. The scenic Hot Smoke Mountains—renamed in honor of the beasts—were riddled with the warrens of the fierce reptiles. Few plants survived, but that hardly mattered to the dragons, who were carnivorous, preying on tender virgins. Mostly the creatures ranged aloft, questing for virginal animals, but they had a gourmet appetite for the rare human variety when it could be obtained. In fact—
In fact, he now remembered that this was the locale of the Dragoons, a cult dedicated to the welfare of this exotic species. The Dragoons had lobbied vigorously to
prevent the construction of resorts, irrigated farm sites, and missile silos in the region, pleading that the Hot Smoke species of dragon had no other habitat and would, if not left free, suffer the extinction that had almost claimed them before their discovery. Fortunately, that discovery had been made by a man interested in rare life forms, who had used some elementary magic to track them down. Had the original trappers and settlers in this region discovered them, they would have been totally exterminated, and no one would have believed they had ever existed.
The Dragoons had won several legal suits, for the general public was in a phase of environmental consciousness, so the Hot Smokers remained largely unmolested. But they still needed to eat, and virgins of any type were in short supply. The Dragoons were constantly looking for new sacrifices. Human sacrifices were generally illegal, but it was difficult to keep constant watch, and the state authorities were chronically short of personnel.
Sure enough, as Zane arrived at the site for his client, he spied a lovely but terrified young woman, barely nubile, in a cage. It was afternoon here, and men were setting up a smudge pot, evidently planning to use the smoke to summon a dragon. How the Dragoons had captured this virgin, Zane did not know, but she was surely doomed. He would have to collect her soul as the dragon consumed her, twenty five minutes hence, unless he figured out a way to rescue her.
He walked to the cage and spoke to the girl. “How did they bring you here?” he inquired, suspecting that she would turn out to have been drugged.
She paused in her weeping and looked up at him, not recognizing him. That was odd, for his clients were normally attuned to his presence. “By truck, sir.”
“I mean, was it coercion? Did they kidnap you? If so—”
Her lip trembled. “No, sir. I come of my own fr-free will.”
“Do you know what they plan for you?”
“To be gobbled by the dragon,” she said, her eyes
brimming over again. “I can’t even take a mind-zonk drug, ’cause that changes the taste for the monster.”
So the dragons were sensitive even to the virginity of the mind! This was a cruel denouement indeed. “But why do you accede to your murder?”
“My—my family—in debt—” Now she broke down entirely and was unable to continue.
So it was legal after all, because it was technically voluntary. She had sold herself to abate her family’s debt. Such contracts had legal status, provided there was no deception. He understood that the Dragoons had an excellent credit rating, so there was no reason to doubt they had paid a fair price, redeeming this poor girl’s family’s debts. There was nothing he could do.
At least he could get her out of the cage; that was unnecessarily degrading. But as he started to use his power on the lock, the maiden protested. “Sir, I am confined to guarantee no one deflorates me before the—the—”
The Dragoons had everything figured! Of course, that would be a way to make her ineligible for the sacrifice, so they made quite sure no such mercy would occur at the last moment.
There was a shimmer. A cloaked figure appeared beside the cage. “I will take your place, dear,” the woman said.
Zane jumped. He knew that voice. “Luna!”
She turned to him. “Oh—I did not realize you would attend this one.”
“It’s my job!” Zane said. “To harvest the soul of this undeflowered girl when—” He cut that off. “You can’t take her place! You’re not—”
Luna turned a level gaze on him. “Not what?”
“The Hot Smoke dragons are an endangered species because they consume only virgins,” he said, somewhat lamely.
She smiled grimly. “I am a virgin, physically.”
“But—”
“The demon had his will of my mind and soiled my soul,” she explained. “I would have suffered less had he been able to ravage me physically instead, but he can not
do that until my soul enters his realm. I am damned, the victim of psychic rape, but my body is chaste.”
Zane was not comforted by this clarification. “I put in a petition to review your scheduled demise. It’s a put-up job; the Unnamed wants you out of the way. I’m sure the review board will reverse it—but it will be ten days before it meets. If you go into this now—”
Luna shook her head sadly. “My stones indicate that my time falls within this day. So I decided at least to make my passing useful to someone. I inquired at the Good Deeds Exchange, and they sent me here. This poor, innocent girl—” She glanced at the maiden in the cage, who was taking all this in in wide-eyed silence. “—who has offered her good life in sacrifice for the benefit of her family—she should be sent to Heaven, but not yet. She has too many people to make happy on Earth.”
“She is hardly assured of Heaven,” Zane said.
“Check her yourself. She’s a good girl, I’m sure.”
Zane oriented his soul-verification stones. The Sinstone remained dull, while the other glowed brightly. “She’s not burdened with sin!” he exclaimed. “But how, then, could I have been summoned to collect her soul personally?”
“Someone else must be going to die,” Luna said with a knowing quirk of her lips. “You assumed it was the caged sacrifice, but—”
He looked at her with burgeoning horror. “You are taking her place! You—”
“Don’t be silly. I’m going to Hell in my own hand-basket. It’s sheer coincidence that you’re here; my soul will not need you. In fact, I had hoped to handle this without your knowledge, quickly and cleanly.”
Zane oriented the stones on Luna. The reading was, of course, incomplete, but the Sinstone was brighter. She was right; she could not be his client. But she was going to die.
Now the Dragoons approached. “The occasion is at hand,” a well-dressed older man announced. “Our radar has located an approaching Smoker.” He produced a key and unlocked the cage, releasing the girl.
“I will substitute,” Luna said. “The Good Deeds Exchange sent me. Let this girl go, her onus abated.”
“How do we know you are eligible?” the man demanded. “The dragons get very disturbed when offered used goods.”
“Your kind can sniff a virgin from ten meters away,” Luna snapped. “You know I’m eligible.”
The man sniffed. “Why,
so you are
, physically. You have the aspect of one who has been savagely used, but—” He shook his head, perplexed at his error. “Very well. We shall release this girl as soon as the dragon is satisfied.”
“See that you do,” Luna said. “My friend will be on hand to verify it.”
The man looked at Zane as if seeing him for the first time. Zane looked back, knowing that, for this man, he was phasing into the aspect of Death.
“Ah, yes,” the man said uncomfortably. “I am certain it will be all right. The dragons don’t care how much ravishment is within a person’s mind as long as the mind is presently devoid of drugs and the body is chaste.” He turned to his companion, who carried an ornate case. He opened the case and lifted out a gleaming silver knife, which he presented to Luna. “You are permitted to defend yourself with this alone. No magic or firearms. If you can fend off the dragon fairly, you will be freed, your onus abated.”
“This apple-peeler is hardly sufficient to balk a fire-breathing monster!” Luna said.
“True. It is a token gesture, required by the Fair Employment Commission. Naturally we do not wish the dragon to be hurt. But it is theoretically possible.”
Luna shrugged. “I came here to die anyway. If the Smoker doesn’t take me, something else will.” She took the knife.
There was a speck on the horizon, over the Hot Smoke mountain range. “Hark! It comes!” the man said, wonder and awe on his face. He had surely seen many similar dragons, but he was a reptile worshiper, and these were the lords of the reptile kingdom. “Only the designated
virgin may remain, lest the dragon sheer away. They’re shy, you know, from the bad old days when sportsmen hunted them with bazookas.” He scowled at the foul memory.
“Luna—” Zane said, unable to formulate a suitable protest.
“Let me at least go in a manner of my choosing,” she told him gently. “I will not have another chance.”
“But I love you!”
“I believe you do,” she agreed. “Perhaps in time I would have returned the favor without reservation, if not distracted by grief. But it seems it was not to be. I think my father meant me to love you, but did not foresee this.” She turned toward the dragon, who was now looming larger. The other people had retreated to a shielded baffle to watch the proceedings. There was even a television camera crew, for Dragon
vs
. Maiden was popular local-color fare.
“But the termination of your life has been rigged!” Zane cried. “The Nether One cheated! You were supposed to live a full term, and to balk him politically, so he fixed the schedule to eliminate you early! You shouldn’t have to die at all!”
She turned quickly, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the lips. “It is kind of you to tell me that, Zane. You press the case; maybe if you prove it, you can get my soul freed from Hell. I could join my father in Purgatory. That would be nice.” Then she broke and walked resolutely toward the approaching form that was the dragon.
Zane watched her go, helpless to prevent the disaster that had been scheduled. She was right; Satan had won this round, by whatever means. Luna had shed her tears and accepted her fate, and now was doing a singularly generous thing. She was a good woman, no matter what the official record said! He did love her—and partly because of that, he could not interfere. She had chosen her mode.
He looked at the Deathwatch. The countdown was now at four minutes. Soon he would have to break away to attend to his true client, whoever that was—but first he
would watch what happened here, though it destroy his joy in life.
He still had time to do something to prevent what he least wanted to see. But he knew he would not. Luna had selected the manner of her termination, and it was a worthy manner. The kindest thing he could do for her, ironically, was to let her be roasted and chewed to pieces by the dragon.
The dragon loomed much larger as it circled the field, aligned itself, and swooped down for a landing. Hot Smokers were not large dragons, as this class of reptile went, but their fire-breathing made them formidable. This one was a dragoness, a female, whose scales were shades of gray. On her back, between her great leathery wings, was a single armored egg.
There was an exclamation from the baffle, and Zane saw the television cameraman mounting his zoom lens. An egg meant a potential baby dragon, perpetuating the species; of course the Dragoons were interested! They would be doing their best to track that egg, and the draglet who hatched from it. They might band it, so they could trace its migration route by radio. Of course, some illegal hunter would probably poach it long before it grew to maturity; that was another reason this was an endangered species. Zane would have had more sympathy for the plight of the Smokers, had it not been Luna this dragoness was about to feed on.
Luna came to a stop in the center of the desert valley, nervously holding her knife. Zane saw that she wore no jewelry, honoring the stricture against magic. There were surely stones in her house that could vaporize a dragon! But she was determined to fulfill her role properly. She had removed her cloak and was garbed in a flowing white dress, and her hair glowed coppery in the sunshine. She seemed like the most lovely creature imaginable. But Zane knew he was not objective; he loved her.
This was absolutely crazy! How could he watch the dragon slaughter her and not even try to rescue her? He knew why, objectively, but he could not accept it emotionally. There had to be another way.
Another way for what? If Luna did not die this way,
she would die some other way—probably a worse demise. He realized, now, that Satan would never let the ten days till the hearing go by unchallenged; he would pre-empt the matter, presenting the hearing with a
fait accompli
. What else was to be expected from the Father of Lies? Zane had never had a chance to settle this matter through channels. So the termination date had been moved up, probably because of Zane’s appeal, and it had been up to Luna to choose the manner of her demise on this designated day. At least the dragons were not sadistic; they killed and fed efficiently. They were natural creatures, not given to waste.
Zane contemplated the dragoness. She was about six meters long, with a wingspan the same amount, but her torso was serpentine rather than stout. Mass was sacrificed in the interest of flight. She had only one set of feet, and her head was small; in fact, she was birdlike in her fashion. But few birds were her size, or had teeth, or leather wings, or metallic scales. Both birds and dragons had evolved from the ancient reptiles, but the common ancestor had been perhaps a hundred million years back. Maybe seventy million years ago the birds, mammals, and dragons had squeezed the dinosaurs into extinction. For a long time, all three had prospered, but now the mammals, mainly in the form of mankind, were dominant. All too soon the dragons would be shoved into oblivion.
If the death of a single person was hard, Zane thought, what, then, of the death of an entire species? He approved of the Dragoons’ campaign to save the Smokers. He wished there were some other way to feed this dragoness.
The Smokeress rolled up her wings and folded them back against her torso. She inhaled, then puffed out a dense cloud of smoke. Zane realized that her burner was just warming up. Adventure stories depicting a dragon waking from a snooze and shooting instant flames were nonsense. It took a lot of energy to shoot flame, so it was never done carelessly. Dragons were cold-blooded, like other reptiles, and generally hibernated in winter or migrated south; their fires were strictly for fighting and feeding. The Hot Smokers were more smoky than most, but where there was dragonsmoke there was dragonfire.