Dangerous, Diabolical

When the door was knocked, Leo answered it, the lock harmlessly opening for him so he could receive the carrier bag.

“Hold on a sec,” he dug in his back pocket for his wallet. “Celandine, will you sort those out?” Obligingly, I let him hand over the paper bag, soaked with grease, carrying it to the table. Ginger and garlic wafted in its trail.

I could see they were marked by a pen at the top, and from the heat, they were indeed cooked. Not knowing what else to do with them, I took them out of the bag and placed the containers next to it.

“Why didn’t you sort them out? Are you not hungry?” He asked, coming to lift the first one. I shrugged.

“I didn’t know which was which.” He placed the tub on the table, regarding me curiously, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a notepad and pen. Scrawling something, he ripped the page off and held it towards me. It was in tiny writing and was too much effort to figure out. I glanced at it, and then looked back at him questioningly.

“What?” I asked. He visibly paled, tucking the paper into his pocket.

“Where are you from Celandine?” He sat in one of the chairs heavily, food ignored.

I pouted, stomach gurgling as I tried to remember what I’d originally put on my paperwork when I’d registered. It was proving impossible, so I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

He just nodded.

“Did you have trouble at school as a child?”

Now this was the problem. I didn’t remember being a child. One day, I just was. I was found stumbling through a forest with no recollection of anything apart from my name.

He was using the same tone of voice as Willow had when she’d noticed the same thing. So I wasn’t great at letters, no big deal. “I grew up alone.”

Leo gave a curt nod, finally opening up the containers with a pop, passing me a few. They were tiny. Nowhere near the size of a deer, or person.

Sniffing the first one open I eyeballed it curiously. “That’s duck chow mein,” Leo said, starting on his food. Ducks were fun to hunt, you could snap them out of the air, or chase them under the water. It didn’t look like any duck I knew. It was all cut up and a funny colour. I poked at it with the fork Leo had given me.

It smelt of different grass things, and there were long soft pieces of grass in it. Having trouble keeping it on the fork, with pursed lips I forgot the soggy grass and speared a chunk of duck.

It wasn’t what I expected. It was still pleasantly warm, much like if I’d caught it alive. Instead of blood gushing out, there was a whole range of other flavours instead. I pushed it around my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I liked it being more than one flavour.

Time to try the other tub. There were little curled-up pink things in it. “Prawn rice.” Leo supplied between stuffing his mouth. He’d already finished half a tub. He ate almost as fast as Grahame ran.

I’d heard of prawns, but never tried them. They always seemed so tiny, and hunting them myself seemed like too much effort when larger creatures were about. On the bright side, they fit on the fork much easier. I tasted it cautiously.

“It’s good!” I exclaimed, shovelling in more. He just smiled at me. “What do you have?” I demanded.

“Vegetable curry here, and black bean veg over there.” He pointed at the offender with his fork.

“Where’s your meat?” That didn’t sound filling at all. He shook his head.

“I’m vegan.” He offered the curry out to me, so I picked the squarish thing out of the top. The smell irritated my nose. And when I bit in, my mouth exploded, eyes watering to the foreign fire in my mouth.

“Hot!” I cried, pouring water out and gulping. He laughed. The heat became more intense.

“Curry is meant to be!” He spooned more in his mouth, without any adverse reaction at all. “So, school?” He prompted.

I shook my head. This was too much personal sharing. It was his turn. “Why do you work for the council?”

For a moment I didn’t think he was going to let me change the topic. He loosened his tie and rocked back on the chair before answering. “At first is because they were a pathway to assist me in achieving outstanding life ambitions. Before long, work became a tool that kept order, until eventually, I realised I enjoyed it. Just think of how chaotic the community would be if there were no repercussions.”

Well, I for one would have a lot more freedom. “You must have been working for them a long time then.”

His lips quirked. “Calling me old?” There was humour in his voice, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Yep, ancient.”

He returned a smile at the joke. Nearly all magical beings were ancient. Curious I asked, “So, what is this life-ambition of yours?”

He rocked back to the table, face deadly serious. “Revenge.”

Pushing down the shock on my face, it became one giant twitch, trying to keep a mask of neutrality as I waited for the punchline. Surely not.

It wasn’t a joke.

Master Leofstan Ortwin, SPCC’s head of Magical Anomalies was keeping law and order so he could get revenge.

“And the council supports that?” My tone was incredulous as I began pushing food around the tub. He must realise the irony of the situation.

“Of course, that’s where our values aligned. For the greater good, it was decreed that a species needed eradicating, and that just so happened to match my interests.” He smiled. “And skills.”

I thought back to his family, a pit in my stomach. “You mean the dragons.”

“Of course,” Leofstan answered, tone matter of fact.

The walls felt like they were closing in ever tighter. “But why does the council kill them in the first place?” I was now sitting in a building full of the very people who wanted me dead, not to mention one person with an actual vendetta sitting in the same room. Willow was right. I should’ve stayed clear from these guys from the start.

Leofstan’s reaction was unsurprising. “The whole lot of them are unstable lunatics.” His fist hit the table. “Insane, bloodthirsty criminal scourge.”

Well, that was nice to know. I gulped a lump of food awkwardly that felt like a barbed rock on its way down.

“There has never been a dragon that wasn’t magic-drunk crazy. They’ve all killed aimlessly in a bloodlust that can’t be satisfied. Combine it with endless reserves of magic and they are completely demented.”

Well, this was a bit awkward. “That so?” I ran a hand up my cheek to hide a grimace. The words ‘endless magic’ had piqued my interest, but as I was completely failing to absorb anything from outside the room, I began to question if I was the worst dragon he’d ever met.

“You couldn’t have a conversation with any of them, they’d rather concentrate on decapitating you on sight.”

That I couldn’t argue with. It did seem a bit unfair to judge all of us in the same boat however, after all, heads weren’t my favourite part to eat first.

“Well,” I argued, “maybe the less crazy ones are living among us unproblematically.” In terms of crazy meter, I wouldn’t call myself magic drunk, and I’d not been a giant dragon biting any heads - or limbs - off in a while.

“Impossible.” His voice was full of venom. “They all go unhinged eventually. Even those we may have wanted to call friends once. The sheer amount of magic warps the minds, and with their nature to kill, it is only a matter of time.”

The food turned bland in my mouth, and I pushed the rest away, gulping water. “All of them?”

He nodded. “Eventually their bodies and minds always become drunk on the power.”

Seriously? Why did I not have more water? “So why not take some of the power off of them?” I held my palm up as a prime example.

“Celandine, don’t you think we tried?” He gazed at the wall. “Those dragons that would try and establish a link and diffuse some of the magic willingly…. There wasn’t anything that could help it. There has never been a sorcerer strong enough to channel that much power. It’s always ended in disaster.”

“So then where did the rest of their magic go?” A chill was running down my spine, as I tried not to let the feeling of impending doom leak out.

Gently, he traced his notched ear with a fingertip. “You’ve seen it yourself, and that was only a blip of our human magical power. If either of us were a dragon we could have permanently destroyed the town. The power may have been anything up to tenfold.”

Was that a vase in the corner of the room? It was a nice vase. It tied the floral cacophony of decorations together with a clashing finesse. Every passing second required enormous willpower to not groan aloud as I slowly sank in the chair; daydreaming the floor might swallow me whole as my mind raced back to the second when he’d tried to take out the gem, and was inevitably launched into the Fae-realm.

Then, he managed to make it even worse.

“Too much raw energy and gates to the other dimensions start opening thick and fast, it could potentially destabilise this plane if there’s enough potency to make a permanent one. The SPCC cannot let this happen.”

Wonderful. I was going to go crazy and combust a bunch of holes in reality. “Sounds terrible.” I grated out of gritted teeth, deciding whether to laugh or cry.

“And that is why the council decreed them to be dangerous enough to kill on sight.”

“Sure, sure,” I repeated quickly.

Great.

Perfect.

Just amazing.