breath. Then he felt something start to writhe beneath his skin.

His flesh literally crawled. And then the pain struck. Pain so

intense that he couldn’t even scream. It felt as if he were being torn

to pieces. His left leg felt as if it were being squeezed inside a giant

steel vise. The coils tightened. His leg shot out as if of its own

accord, out of control, and he was flung onto his back as it

whipsawed back and forth, lashing like a tail. He couldn’t breathe.

He bucked and thrashed like a trout thrown up on a riverbank,

flipping over onto his stomach. His back arched like a cat’s. His

skin bulged outward, rippling as the iridescent coils writhed

beneath it. And then he found his voice and screamed as the flesh

and muscle on his back started seeping blood and tearing with a

sound like ripping cloth. And his hoarse scream mingled with

another, louder sound that drowned it out as the dragon raised its

head up from his back and roared.

“Hunnnnh!” Billy Slade gasped and sat bolt upright in bed, sweat

beaded on his forehead. He was breathing heavily. For a moment

he felt disoriented, and then he recognized the familiar

surroundings of his own bedroom and exhaled heavily, running his

hands along the short hair on the sides of his head and through the

thick, luxuriant crest that rose up in the middle, combed back like a

horse’s mane and descending in a long ponytail down to the middle

of his back. ‘’Gor‘ blimey, what a bloody awful dream, “ he mumbled

in a thick cockney accent.

His hand started to reach for the cigarettes on his nightstand,

then hovered uncertainly over the pack and instead picked up the

pipe and tobacco pouch that lay next to it. Without thinking, he

started to fill the pipe, then suddenly realized what he was doing

and grimaced.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” he said, and flung the pipe and pouch away

from him.

The deeply curved, Algerian briar pipe sailed across the room, as

did the pouch, spilling tobacco, then both stopped abruptly, frozen

in midair. They started floating back toward him. He batted them

away and reached for the cigarettes.

“Forget it, ” he said, pulling a cigarette from the pack. “I need a