Chapter 1

Characters appearing in the first few chapters:

Myles Graham

Wizard, Dragon, 5’-11’’ tall, 200 pounds, 65 years old, short gray hair, violet eyes

Vivian (Viv)

Near-Dragon, 5’-2’’ tall, 112 pounds, 34D-22-34, 21 years old, long red hair, violet eyes, a very strong Talent

Uilephist

Myles’ Dragon name in Gaelic. He is a dark Green Dragon

My Name is Myles Graham, but this story isn’t about me. It’s about Vivian. A little background though is necessary to understand how all of these events came about.

I’ve studied and used Magic for most of my life. As a youngster, I found that I could do some simple Magic. Somehow, I managed to stay out of trouble until I had learned a lot more Magic and how to use it without getting caught. I had a wife for a time. She had been as poor as I had been, but after a time she wanted to climb the social ladder and not just be the wife of a custom furniture maker. I was in the handmade furniture business for a number of years and was rather successful, but eventually sold the business to one of my employees. I had found that it was easier to make money, a lot of money, with my Magic than as a woodworker, even a high end one.

I had collected quite a number of books, old books, on Magic, and with my Talent could do a lot of different kinds of Magic ... some of it wasn’t exactly legal ... but!

I had enough in stocks and the bank to retire well before I was sixty. I had always haunted used bookstores wherever I went, and shortly before I retired, I stumbled on a real find. It was a very old book of Magic printed in Gaelic. The first page stated that it was a copy and that the original had been written in a much older dialect of Gaelic that was certainly not far from the original Celtic. Fortunately, it was written in a dialect that I could read. The store’s owner, a rather young man of maybe 29 or so, saw me studying the book.

“Are you interested in that book?” he inquired in a friendly voice.

“It’s interesting. My Gaelic is a bit rusty, but I could probably work my way through it eventually,” I told him not wanting to show too much interest, as he would likely hike the price of the book if I did.

“That’s in Gaelic?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes, but it’s a fairly old dialect, which makes it a bit hard to read,” I told him, nonchalantly.

“Really! No one has more than glanced at it, as most people couldn’t read it,” he told me.

“That’s not surprising. There aren’t many outside of Ireland that speak or use Gaelic anymore. Even in Ireland, it’s used very sparingly. I learned some of it as a youth. My great grandmother was Irish and taught me some of it before she passed away. She had a heavy brogue,” I told him embroidering the facts. I had used similar scenarios previously.

“Really!” he said again, trying to determine how much he could get for the book.

“Yes, it’s almost a dead language,” I told him.

“But you can read part of it,” he said – hopefully.

“Some of it, yes. If I brush up some maybe a good part of it,” I said downplaying my interest. This was when he broke with what I expected would happen next.

“That one is the first of the six books in that group. I could let you have all six of them cheap. They have been here for a very long time, and no one has shown any interest in them. Would $25.00 for the six of them interest you?” he asked, anxious to make the sale.

“I would need to see the condition of other books before I could agree,” I told him. This could be a real find as the first book was very interesting.

“Come in the back. The others are back there, as no one has shown any interest in them in forever,” he told me leading the way.

After examining the other books, I handed him a twenty and a ten which included a couple of dollars for the tax. Following securing the books in a heavy paper bag with the store’s name on it, I hurried off to begin reading the books. My current business in this town was finished, but I was in no hurry to return home.

The books contained strong Magic spells and were printed copies of the originals, but were written in a more modern dialect than the originals had been according to the note at the beginning of book one. This happened just before I retired. Even being retired and with nothing pressing to do, it required nearly six months to go through the six books because of my other activities. Book six was the most interesting because of the way that it started.

The print on the second page was in large letters, and it was very direct:

You Are A Dragon

it read near the top center of the page. Below that, it continued in smaller print:

If you intend to continue and be a Real Dragon, you may read the rest of the

Book. If you have any doubts about being a Dragon for the rest of your life,

STOP HERE.

Only those who are Dragons have ever read this far. Not all of them wished

to continue, however. There is no going back if you read further in this Book,

DECIDE NOW!

I looked at the page for a long time. The words didn’t change, and I wondered if I should continue. Did I intend to be a Dragon? The book did say that I already was a Dragon, but not a Real Dragon. This gave me great pause, and I spent a week or more in thought before deciding to continue. What did I have to lose? I had already learned more Magic than I had ever dreamed possible. If I learned more and became a Real Dragon, it would be that much better, I finally decided.

On finishing book 6, I didn’t feel or look any different. I did know a lot more Magic spells, but felt that was all it meant to be a Real Dragon, and I left it at that. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that the difference made an appearance.

I had loaned a man that I have known for some time a sum of money. I had already given him two extensions on repaying it. I met him outside near his business when the money was due. All that I got was excuses for why he couldn’t repay me. This really pissed me off, and my anger was what initiated the ’Change’. The elevator ride this first time was very quick and before I knew what was happening, I was looking down on him from twenty feet in the air.

But this was only the first shock. The second one was that my long arms and hands were scaled and ended in claws, as did my feet, the two that I could see. The other thing that I could sense was a long tail behind me, and I believed it to be the same. Looking at the rest of my body that was visible, it was also covered in scales, and they were all a green color. I had also growled something, but needed to stop to think what it was.

Recalling the sound my ears had heard, it was Acc#?*csn in the Dragon language that I somehow knew. In Gaelic it would be peisteanach which translates as worm or pathetic person in English. There was something else that I knew, I now realized. I had a Dragon name. It is Uilephist in Gaelic and Phs?!#csn in the Dragon language.

If I had been surprised by all of this, the guy who owed me the money was in deep shock and hadn’t moved an inch. He had, however, shit in his pants, and I could detect the strong aroma even twenty feet above him. He eventually recovered and spoke.

“I’ll ... I’ll have your money here in two days,” he said in a panicked voice before moving away very carefully because of the crap sliding down his pants leg.

I now knew what had been meant by the term ’Real Dragon’, as I was now one. My problem was that I was twenty feet tall and had a long tail, as I had discovered on trying to turn around. How to return to my Human self was the question. It turned out to be easier than I had thought. As the anger faded, I returned to my normal Human self.

“Damn, I need to check on how I did that,” I said before looking around to see if anyone was watching or listening. Fortunately, I was alone.

That was some five years ago, and I have come a long way since then. I had learned to fly but with more than a few spills and rough landings but that was after I discovered that I had wings. I have also learned to use my Magic better and now keep a ward around me all of the time.

Presently, I was in Chicago on business ... business that I had concluded that afternoon. I’d had dinner out at a restaurant away from my hotel and had lingered over drinks with a woman who I met there. It hadn’t developed into anything other than a few drinks and some talk which was okay with me. She was supposed to be an expert on Magic and Witchcraft, but she had only a minor Talent and wasn’t as smart or as knowledgeable as she claimed to be. I didn’t bother to tell her how little she actually knew or could do.

The thing about Chicago is, it can get cold as a bitch in the winter, which it was now. It’s also dark, dark as hell without a moon, and their poor and broken street light system doesn’t help. I was on the way back to my hotel when I came on a group of fairly young thugs beating the crap out of someone. With my Dragon eyesight, they appeared to be members of a gang, as they all wore the same colors of clothing. There were six of them that I could see, and a seventh one that I could sense who was watching. Their prey was down on the ground, and they were still kicking or otherwise hitting it and laughing.

It wasn’t until I reached out with my Magic senses that I realized that the victim was a female and one with a very strong Talent, but she appeared to have no knowledge of Magic or how to use it.

“How the hell can that be?” I asked myself, but I couldn’t allow this to continue. Not to a female and one with a strong Talent also. Instantly, I transformed into my Dragon at the twelve-foot-tall level and roared at them.

“Stop that!” I roared in a loud Dragon voice. This startled them, and the six turned to see who had dared to interrupt their fun. Since it was dark, and they only had Human eyesight, they had trouble picking my dark green form out from the dark background. Still, they spread out to take on this threat. Several produced guns and others knives.

“Show yourself, asshole,” one of them shouted before I was among them with my Dragon speed, hitting and smashing the six of them to the ground, bleeding and broken from my fists and claws. The seventh one moved to leave, but a bit of Magic from my right center claw froze him in place before I turned to check on the victim.

Kneeling next to the victim, a young woman of about 21 years of age, it only took touching her bare arm to freeze the blood in my veins. She had all of the genes of a Dragon, or more correctly, she had the potential to become a Dragon with enough study of Magic thanks to her genes and Talent! And these bastards had done this to HER! My Dragon-self saw red, and I rose to a full twenty-five feet in height in a rage. These bastards would suffer for this, each and every damned one of them I decided and cast the heaviest pain spell that I knew on each of them before returning to the young woman to see what was needed to heal her.

Quickly returning to my Human form, I used my Magic senses to check on her condition. She was naked and covered in blood, vomit, and piss. She had also lost control of her bowels. I was enraged by what I found. She was also in terrible shape. She had a broken arm, broken wrist, broken leg and a broken nose. Several teeth had been knocked lose. She had a bruised kidney, several cracked ribs, a ruptured spleen, and probably a concussion. In addition, there were numerous bruises all over her body, and she was bleeding from a number of cuts and deep scratches. In addition to that, they had ripped off her clothing, which lay in a pile of rags near her. In the cold, she was already close to being hypothermic.