Part 19

"He's a *what*?" Nia asked as Jarred Mandrill, Ash's friend, told them the new addition to the plan.

"Dragon," Jarred said patiently. "He's got the horns and everything." Nia exchanged glances with the others. Having one dragon to deal with was hard enough. The idea, of course, was that one dragon could identify the other dragon.

"I thought these creatures were supposed to be extinct," Ross said sourly. Ash Redfern had already wormed his way into Leandra's group. So far they hadn't figured out what was going on.

"What if it turns out we're wrong and the person we think is the dragon *isn't* the dragon after all?" Enya pointed out. Nia sighed. They'd been over this and over this. Well, if Caprice *wasn't* the dragon, then this *other* dragon should be able to tell.

"Apparently not as extinct as we thought," Jarred said. He paused. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not."

"Didn't dragons try to destroy the world once?" Ross said.

"Hence why the witches put them to sleep," Zelda added. "And if more and more are waking up..."

"There'd be a serious problem," Ross said, once again, not being very helpful.

"Who's waking the dragons up?" Nia asked. She didn't think anyone from the modern Night World would be able to know such a powerful spell. They needed to know who was doing this - and stop them.

An upcoming time of darkness and a battle was bad enough. The last thing they needed was a world over run by dragons. If they didn't destroy it, Hollywood would have a field day. Who knew, dragons might like to be famous. Scary thought. "So who's this new dragon?"

"Lucifer, he said his name was," Jarred answered. "Hannah found him."

"How do we know he's really on our side?" Enya asked. "Why, if he's been put to sleep by the witches, would he want to work with Circle Daybreak."

Jarred shrugged. "Hannah says she's checked him out and he's clean."

No one said anything. It was a good point. This dragon - Lucifer - could have his own secret agenda. "We could try talking to him," Zelda suggested.

Ross snorted. "And he'd just tell you what you want to hear."

"This isn't really going anywhere," Nia said moodily. "We're just going to have to wait for either Ash or Lucifer to come back to us with some sort of conformation." There seemed to be *too* much to worry about. But it came with the turf, really. At least it gave them a challenge, something to give their lives meaning, and keep them occupied. And the good guys usually won. Usually.

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