The Dragons Of ArborChapter 5 Dragonstone and Damsels
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The Dragon’s Heart Ch. 01 free porn video
Central City’s downtown, like so many others, had seen better days. While moderately successful, it thrived only during the light of day. After sunset, perhaps even as early as four o’clock in some neighborhoods, it was a very different sort of place. The kind of environment where no deliveries were made, few cabs stopped, and even the police tended to be hesitant in passing through without a specific reason.
For Vincent D’Angelo, it was just where he lived. He had roamed the world as a younger man, but had come back to his roots several decades ago and settled back like he’d never gone anywhere. He and his little antique store had been a fixture at the corner of Mayflower and Seventh for as long as most people could recall.
Granted, to most of them, he was just Crazy Old Vinnie who ran the pawn shop on the corner…a side business that he’d begun to try an invigorate the area, but which was his prime source of goods and income these days…but they all knew him, and he liked to think that he knew them as well.
But no one could know everyone even in as small a community as Vincent’s section of Central City, and not everyone in the area is going to care how long and well established a business is if they need something from it. Or need something from elsewhere that they can’t afford without what they could take from D’Angelo’s Antiques.
It began as a typical evening. Vincent had turned the sign in the front door to ‘Closed’, and begun reconciling his register with the notes on what had been sold or redeemed that day. A rapid rattling of the barricade across his door broke his concentration. ‘Go away!’ he shouted. The shaking became a banging against the metal that made the very glass seem ready to give way.
Vincent hurriedly made his way to the front door. He peered through the glass at the two men outside. ‘What do you want? We’re closed for the day,’ he told them through the barriers. He spoke slower, exaggerating his words to me sure they could make out what he was saying. ‘Come back tomorrow, yes? I’ll be glad to help you then.’
One of the men leaned in and spoke. He seemed to be talking in a normal, conversational way, but every word came through fencing and glass without problem. ‘Just open the door, old man. Or my friend will have to open it.’
‘Yeah? You have a crowbar or something? Go ahead, I will be calling the police while you’re still prying your way inside.’
The man laughed. It was a light, condescending sort of sound. Vincent was reminded of the chuckles of the men in the pool hall when a hustler finally hooked an unsuspecting player. Turning to his companion, he motioned to the door with a nod of his head. ‘Open it,’ he said.
The other man stepped in as the first moved back, and laid one hand upon the metal lattice work between him and the door. In a rough, gravelly voice he murmured, ‘Not too bad.’ He slipped the hand through a space and touched the glass itself. ‘Tougher, but not by much,’ he remarked in the same grating way. He removed his hand, took a step back, and seemed to be concentrating.
After a moment, Vincent saw a faint blue flame suddenly spark in the man’s eyes. His own eyes opened wide as he watched an echo of the fire appear around the man’s right hand. The stranger drew back his arm and launched a short blow against the entranceway. His hand seemed to barely impact against the metal, but the security shield gave way like wet paper towels and the glow flowed through the opening to the glass.
The door resisted slightly longer, but then it rippled and broke free from its hinges and lock. The suddenly loose panel flew across the short gap to Vincent and struck him hard against his arm and side as he turned to guard himself from the blow. The door knocked him down, but rebounded and fell to the concrete floor of the shop, where it shattered. Little bits of glass flew about the place, but most of the door just cracked into a great spider web design like safety glass was supposed to.
‘What? How?’
‘It ain’t nothing personal, old man. We just can’t wait. Working on a deadline, y’know?’
‘Who are you?’
The laugh came again. ‘No one you need to concern yourself about. Think of us as special antique dealers, you have something we want. It’s as simple as that.’
Vincent looked up from the floor. ‘You’re here for antiques? Not money or other loot? What do I have that would make you do this?’ He watched as the man who’d broken the door began to wander the shop, like he was…listening…for something. The first man shrugged, and tapped his friend on the back.
‘We might take that too. What do you think? We need some spending money?’
The gravel voiced man turned and narrowed his gaze on the first invader. ‘Do you take me for a common thief? I do what is required, no more. I sense it, but it is hidden.’ He stepped around the other man to look down at Vincent.
‘Where is the Heart of the Dragon? I know it is here.’
Vincent began to stand up. He kept his eyes on the man, and shook his head. ‘It is gone. Are you a Seeker, then?’ he asked, his gaze locked with the sparks of the other’s. The man stood more erect and regarded Vincent a moment, then nodded and gave the antique dealer turned pawnbroker a slight bow. ‘You know much, it would seem. Much more than I was led to believe about you. You are no mere shop keeper.’ He turned his head towards his companion without actually letting Vincent from his sight. ‘Search the place. You know what to look for.’ The man mumbled an assent and began combing his way through the maze of stacks, displays, and well worn bookshelves that made up D’Angelo’s. ‘I am, indeed, a Seeker. And you will not oppose me, regardless of what you know.’
He assumed a martial arts pose and began to move through a series of kata. Each new pose was held briefly before it flowed into the next, faster and faster, like the flow of water through an earthen levy that had begun to erode. With each movement, the fire from his eyes intensified, and the flame that had echoed upon his fist began to spread over the rest of his body.
Suddenly, he lunged forward and made to strike at Vincent. The fiery arm extended its hand palm first, but stopped inches from the older man’s chest. The barest split second of time passed, but before Vincent could register that he’d had not actually been struck, the air between the men burst asunder and Vincent went flying backwards into a display case of assorted antique knick-knacks and personal items like snuff boxes, fans, and regal looking court daggers.
He bounced forward off the case, trying to maintain his footing and balance, only to be met by a blue flame encased boot. The assailant’s kick drove Vincent through what remained of the display, and into the wall and the shelving lining it. Again, if someone had been watching closely, they would have seen that the blow actually stopped mere centimeters from Vincent’s body.
This time, Vincent slid down and lay upon the floor amid assorted objects dislodged by the impact of his body with them. He looked up the man, his vision somewhat blurred by the power and quickness of the two blows…as well as the glow surrounding the stranger. ‘I am Kodath,’ the man said as he loomed over Vincent. ‘Dying at my hand gives you the right to know my name.’
The other man shouted from the other side of the room. ‘Found it!’ he cried to Kodath. The bigger man turned to regard his smaller companion. ‘The old man was right, it’s gone. But, I found his records. I know where we need to go next.’ While Kodath listened and watched, Vincent stretched out a hand for the hilt of a sword that had come off the wall behind him.
The moment his hand gripped the hilt, there was a flash of brilliant green light from the sword’s pommel. Kodath stepped back, his attention once more on Vincent, but his body in a defensive posture…one arm was raised as if to shield him from the light. The other man could be heard swe
aring and rushing back to his colleague, but Vincent simply stood up and brought the sword into a ready position before him.
He stood differently than he had before being hit by Kodath. Years seemed to have dropped from his body, although his face looked the same. ‘Knowing where to go will not avail thee,’ he said with a hint of an accent to his voice. ‘But, come, I will be watching for you.’ He smiled and lowered the weapon. With his left hand, Vincent made a gesture in the air that left a green trail behind it.
The light swelled into a disc that the antique dealer stepped into the middle of. The disc’s aura obscured Vincent from the view of Kodath and his fellow thief. Then disc, light, and Vincent abruptly vanished, leaving the other men alone in the shambles of D’Angelo’s Antiques. ‘What do you make of that?’ asked the smaller man.
Kodath shrugged. ‘There are always those who guard things like the Dragon’s Heart,’ he said quietly as he turned and motioned the other man to follow him out of the shop. He paused at the broken entranceway and looked back once more.
‘Even,’ he added, ‘as there are those who seek after them.’
Clover
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