Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Rhaz crossed the street and rounded another corner. The sight that greeted him sent a jolt through his chest.
Smoke billowed from a house near the end of the block while orange flames flickered behind the windows.
A man stood in the front yard shouting into a small device pressed to his ear. A woman clutched a little boy against her chest. Neighbors were already beginning to gather.
“What do you mean they’re on the way?” the man shouted. “My daughter is still inside!”
Rhaz froze for half a heartbeat.
The woman let out a sob. “Lily!” she cried. “My baby is still in there!”
The little boy began crying. The man made a desperate move toward the house, only for two neighbors to grab him.
“Ryan, no! The roof could come down!”
“My daughter is in there!” he roared.
Rhaz moved without thought. A child was trapped. Nothing else mattered.
Someone shouted as he sprinted across the lawn. Another person yelled for him to stop. He ignored them all. Heat blasted against him as he reached the front porch while smoke rolled from the open doorway.
To a human, the conditions would have been unbearable.
To a dragon in human form, they were dangerous, but survivable. Rhaz lowered his head and plunged inside.
Darkness swallowed him. The air was thick with smoke. Flames crackled somewhere deeper in the house. “Lily!” he shouted.
No answer.
He moved through what appeared to be a living area, eyes stinging but still functional in conditions that would have blinded most humans.
A crash sounded overhead. Part of the ceiling gave way behind him. The fire was spreading fast. “Lily!”
A faint sound reached him. Rhaz turned toward it. The sound came from a hallway.
He followed it through the smoke and found a bedroom. The little girl crouched beside the bed, her arms wrapped around what looked like a stuffed rabbit.
Tears streaked her soot-smudged face as her eyes widened. “Mommy!?” she screamed.
“No,” Rhaz said, kneeling beside her. “But I’m here to help.”
Another crash echoed somewhere in the house. Fear filled the child’s eyes.
Rhaz scooped her against his chest. She weighed almost nothing. Tiny arms wrapped around his neck with desperate strength.
“That’s it, little one,” he said. “Hold on.” He rose and carried her back into the smoke. The return trip took longer.
Lily buried her face against his shoulder and clung to him with surprising strength for someone so small. Rhaz wrapped one arm around her and used the other to shield her from the worst of the heat as he pushed through the smoke.
The house was changing.
Fire had a way of doing that. Rooms that seemed open moments ago now felt like a maze. Smoke thickened. Heat built. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered.
“Lily,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Keep your face against my shoulder.”
She nodded and clung to him tighter.
A beam groaned overhead and Rhaz quickened his pace. The front door appeared through the haze, then vanished behind another wave of smoke. For one irritating moment, he lost sight of it completely.
He narrowed his eyes and partially shifted to see better.
The child trembled in his arms. Had she noticed the change? “It’s all right,” he said. He wasn’t entirely certain it was all right, but she didn’t need to know that.
A dragon’s duty was to remain calm when everyone else was afraid. Kings panicked. Soldiers panicked. Entire cities panicked. Dragons did not. His father had drilled that lesson into him from the time he was old enough to walk.
The memory flashed through his mind and vanished just as quickly. He didn’t have time to think about that now.
The doorway emerged again, and a hint of fresh air rushed toward him. Three strides later, he burst onto the porch.
The crowd gasped. Rhaz barely noticed. He was too intent on getting the child to safety.
“Lily!” The woman’s scream caught his attention as she tore across the lawn.
Rhaz stepped off the porch and lowered the child into her mother’s waiting arms. The woman dropped to her knees and crushed Lily against her chest. “Oh, thank God. Thank God!”
The little girl began crying in earnest. Her father reached them a second later and wrapped both in his arms. For a moment, nobody spoke, as if the entire street had paused to exhale.
Neighbors wiped their eyes. Someone muttered a prayer. Another person quietly said, “I can’t believe he got her out.”
Rhaz took a step back. His work was done. Then he heard it. A bark. Faint and desperate.
Rhaz turned toward the burning house. There it was again. The sound seemed to come from somewhere near the back of the structure.
The father looked up, his face pale. “Wilbur!” The name escaped him like a punch to the gut.
The mother looked up next. “We couldn’t find him. That must have been when Lily wandered off.”
A neighbor grabbed the father’s arm before he could move. “No, Ryan, absolutely not.”
Ryan looked ready to charge back into the flames anyway.
Rhaz glanced at the house. The fire had spread significantly while he’d been inside.
Smoke poured from the roof as flames licked along the eaves. Part of the structure groaned ominously. If his guess was right, humans would come, trained to fight such fires.
He could leave. He should leave. He’d already drawn too much attention to himself. Every instinct told him to disappear before someone started asking questions.
Then the dog barked again. This time, the sound was frightened.
Rhaz sighed and, without a word, turned toward the house.
“Wait!” someone shouted.
Ryan stared at him. “Don’t.”
Other people shouted warnings as several men tried to stop him.
He ignored every one of them. A dragon did not abandon a helpless creature. Besides, if he had to, he could shift beyond teeth, claws, and a few dragon scales, get the dog out the back, then shift back again.
Heat blasted against his face as he reached the porch. One of the front windows shattered. Orange sparks sprayed into the morning air, causing several people to gasp.
Any sensible person would have retreated. Rhaz stepped through the doorway and partially shifted again.
Smoke swallowed him as the barking grew louder and more frantic. At least the dog had enough sense to keep making noise. The sound led him toward the rear of the house.
Rhaz hurried through the kitchen and into a narrow hallway. A large golden-colored dog stood trapped behind a collapsed section of shelving.
The animal barked furiously and stopped when he saw him. To Rhaz’s surprise, its tail wagged.
He blinked. The animal looked delighted to see him. Never mind the fact he was partially shifted. Scales had appeared on his skin, claws tipped his fingers, and a pair of reptilian eyes stared back at the animal. His fangs had even descended.
“You’re an idiot,” Rhaz informed the beast in a gravelly voice.
The dog barked happily from behind a burning board that pinned part of the shelving in place.
Rhaz lifted it aside and tossed it away. The dog bounded free and, to Rhaz’s astonishment, tried to lick his hand. “Really?”
The dog’s tail wagged harder. But there was no time for pleasantries. The ceiling above them cracked, sending chunks of debris down around them.
“Let’s go.” Rhaz grabbed the dog’s collar and headed for the front of the house. Flames raced across the ceiling overhead. A section of wall collapsed.
The dog yelped in fright as Rhaz scooped the animal into his arms. The beast was heavier than Lily but more than manageable with his dragon’s strength.
“Do not tell anyone about this,” he muttered. Rhaz had no idea how dogs might communicate with their humans, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
The dog licked his chin in gratitude as the porch appeared ahead. Smoke continued to billow around them, and the heat intensified. He had to get out, but he also had to shift back before anyone saw him like this.
When fresh air struck his face and he emerged from the house carrying the dog, he hoped he appeared human. Because for a moment, silence fell over the street outside.
Rhaz froze as everyone stared at him. Thankfully, Wilbur barked, and the crowd exploded.
Cheers erupted from every direction as people clapped. Someone even started crying.
Lily’s father choked on his own laughter. “Wilbur!”
The dog squirmed in Rhaz’s arms, so he set him down. The beast raced across the lawn and launched itself into its family’s arms. Children, parents, neighbors, everyone seemed determined to pet the creature at once. Humans must really love their dogs.
Rhaz took advantage of the distraction, brushed soot from his jacket, and stepped away from the crowd. A loud wail, like an alarm or siren, sounded in the distance and grew louder. Soon red lights flashed at the far end of the street.
It must be men come to fight the fire.
Rhaz’s stomach dropped like a stone. There would be questions. Humans loved questions. He wanted no part of them.
As the first fire conveyance pulled in front of the house, Rhaz slipped between two neighboring houses and disappeared into the shadowed space between them.
Behind him, the cheers continued. Ahead of him, somewhere in this strange world, a missing dragon servant was still waiting to be found.
“Basil,” Rhaz muttered. The absurd old gnome had better be alive. Because when Rhaz found him, he intended to throttle him.
Seraphina Ironwood (Phin to her friends) finished checking the medical bag for the third time when the station tones sounded.
Every head in the room snapped up. For half a second, nobody moved.
Then the dispatcher came over the speaker. “Structure fire. Residential. Possible entrapment.”
The station exploded into motion. “Finally,” Trevor muttered, shoving away from the table.
Phin was already moving. The last actual house fire in Moon Creek Falls had been nearly two years ago. Most of their calls involved medical assists, the occasional fender bender, and helping residents out of situations they really should have known better than to get themselves into.