Tamela Rufener

Fiction Writing

Prof. Miller

Short Story #3

Yellow Dragons

“What’s this place called again?”

“The Yellow Dragon. Like the flower. It’s supposed to be the secret to eternal life.”

“Look at the line.” The short little blonde wined at the number of people standing outside the doors. “We’ll never get in with this many people waiting.”

“Relax.” Putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders, the redhead guided her around the corner toward a side door. “I heard there was a secret entrance around the back.”

The excited whispers from the two young women let her know her destination had not changed in all the years she had been away. Marlaea followed the two confused ladies around the corner of the chipped brick building to a side door only seasoned guests knew about. She inched ahead of the pair and entered through the door first to find a small foyer holding several other people. Another door faced the waiting crowd.

The paint inside was peeling from the walls in large chunks revealing poorly mixed plaster underneath. A sour garbage stench filled the tiny space making each breath gag in the back of her throat. Taking shallow quick breaths was the only way she had discovered to try and pass the smell long enough to get inside.

“Pretty flower for a pretty lady.” He raised the Yellow Dragon he had pulled from a flowerbox to her with a sly smile on his face. Politely, she raised her hand and refused with a gentle wave. “Oh, come on. It’s one little flower. What could it hurt?”

“I said no.” Slapping the flower out of his hand with the back of hers, the stinging sensation on her hand grew to overwhelming in seconds. Using all her strength to hold back a scream, a low pain-filled moan managed to slip out.

“What’s going on here?” The bouncer stepped from just inside the door.

Marlaea’s vision began to blur as the stinging changed into burning on her skin. Pulling the sleeve of her silk jacket over her hand, she tried to look at the short chubby man. Grasping quickly for the handrail lining the crumbling cement steps, she tried to retain her balance long enough to get inside the building.

“Hey man, all I tried to do was give her a flower.” The taller man put his hands up innocently. Turning his attention to the woman who was in obvious pain, he caught a flicker of lavender in her green eyes.

“What are you doing here?” He whispered to her in a language she had not heard in several years. From the confused looks on the waiting guests’ faces, she would judge that none of them were enchanted. “You need to get inside. Quickly.”

“Your guests.” A subtle toss of her head indicated the others. She made sure to stay in the secret language so no one would suspect she knew the man at the door, or anyone inside.

“Three of you for now.” He spoke in plain English. Pointing to Marlaea and the pair of young women directly behind her, he pulled the door open.

Marlaea gestured for the younger women to enter first. She watched as the women fell into a single-file line, one grabbing at the other’s hand as if they were going to die. Screams tore from both of their mouths as they jumped at the swarm of spiders crawling from within the door frame. Laughter soon overtook their screaming, and the two young women continued up the staircase to the left.

Keeping her hand on the wall for the entire length of the staircase, dizziness began to shake her ability to walk convincingly straight. Her lungs burned within her chest and she could feel the pounding of her heart’s desperate beats thumping inside her brain. She needed to find a private place. As she followed the two women through the black wooden door, she glanced around the room.

“Excuse me.” Her voice was whispered as she pushed passed the gawking ladies. A small bathroom sat in the farthest corner of the Prep Room, and she could see the shadows of the open.

Slipping inside the small room, she managed to slam the door closed behind her before crashing onto the cold tile floor. Cracking her head against the sink on her way down sent another stab of intense pain riveting through her body. The red rash on her hand from touching the petals of the flower was now boiling into blisters. Fumbling through the small leather pouch inside her coat, she dumped the contents onto the floor.

Eye liner and lipstick skittered across a small pocket mirror. A hair brush and wallet fell next to them. With one more shake the canvass case fell onto the pile. Numbness crept into her left arm stemming from the blisters on the back of her hand. Grabbing at the case through her blurred vision, Marlaea knew she had to act fast to stop the effects of the poison or she would die.

Sweat poured down her face as she struggled with the zipper. The bland colors of the room and the dim single light bulb began to fade in and out as her eyelids grew heavy. Drawing a liquid filled syringe from the holder inside the back, her consciousness failed her and she dropped limp onto the floor.

“A beautiful flower for a beautiful woman.” A tender smile curled at his lips as her handed the blossom to her.

“Xavier, you are too much a charmer.” She nearly giggled as she accepted the gift.

“Those flowers are the secret to eternal life, my sweet Marlaea.”

“Is that truth?”

“Eat the bloom and find out for yourself.”

“Just to humor a romantic.” With a smile, she bit the bloom off in her mouth and began to chew the silky yellow petals. A salty sharp taste came across her tongue instantly followed by searing pain. “What have you done to me?” She coughed up the mangled bits of flower onto the ground and grasped at her throat. Her mouth was now numbing with the pain flooding through her body. “That is poison.”

“I never said how eternal was carried out, my dear.” The joyful sneer on his face began to blur as dizziness consumed her. A simple chuckle danced from his mouth. “One bloom kills your mortal soul, two blooms kill your physical body.”

Marlaea fell to the ground coughing as her lungs began to burn. Her chest heaved in and out but no air would come to her aid. Collapsing onto the ground at his feet, her head bobbed to the side as she breathed one last labored breath.

Her eyes shot open with a deep gasping breath. Rubbing her eyes as hard as she could to chase the blurriness away, she managed to prop herself up against the wall beside the sink. Dizziness was still pulling her vision back and forth as she sat on the cold floor of the small bathroom. Grabbing the syringe off of the floor, she pulled her left arm from her jacket and shoved the needle into the first vein she could see.

Closing her eyes and leaning her head back, she was finally able to draw in a full breath of air. The dizziness cleared quickly, and the blisters from the back of her hand slowly turned back to nothing more than just an itchy red rash. Placing her weight on the corner of the sink, Marlaea pulled herself up off of the floor and stood steadily in front of the mirror. Taking a paper towel and blotting the sweat from her face, she bent down and shoved all of the clutter from the floor back into her pouch.

She pulled out the eyeliner for a quick touch-up and combed her fingers quickly through her long black hair. The deep purple highlights stood out like flames against a midnight sky. Such a tender color had not been her choice, but it fit in unnoticed next to her general company. She hoped the bouncer had not alerted Xavier to her presence. Her being at his club was a surprise she preferred to spoil herself. One final glance in the mirror had her opening the door and stepping back into the Prep Room of the club.

Racks of clothing cluttered the floor of the entry just as it always had. Shelves of shoes and wigs and cases of jewelry and makeup lined every inch of wall space around the room. Marlaea took a deep breath. The smells of cheap lipstick, fresh leather, and Lysol swirled into her nostrils. She had come in here more times than she could remember, all with the same motive, but never completing her self-given task. A slight sense of relief washed over her as she realized nothing really had changed. Perhaps his poor defenses had not changed either. She could only hope.

Scatterings of people rushed here and there around the room picking out clothing they wanted to try on and choosing what they would wear for the night inside. It had always been a tradition of the club to allow guests who were unfamiliar with the darker side of fashion to borrow proper dress for the evening. If Marlaea was still the sheltered child she had been when Xavier had pretended to court her, she would have been among them. But, she had grown hard and wise in her years since that night and had immersed herself fully in the throes of the style.

“Where did you get those boots?” The exclamation came from behind her tearing her attention away from the little blonde standing in front of the dressing room. She turned to see a stocky woman in her late thirties admiring her age-old boots. “Those boots are gorgeous.” As the woman reached out to touch the soft leather, Marlaea resigned to being nice. “Did they come from here?”

“Not here.” Marlaea propped her leg out so the woman could get a better look. “Paris.” The woman looked up at her as if she was studying an extinct dinosaur. The accent must have caught her attention. Quickly, Marlaea tried to make her accent less 18th century London and more 21st century American. “I found them a good chunk of years ago.”

Marlaea hated having to cover her own voice, but how many people of 21st century life would believe she was from the time of the great master writer Shakespeare? None. Not even the ones with their superstitions and desires for finding the way to eternal life would believe it was actually possible from eating a flower. It was too simple, and that was why there was such a large price to pay. The flower was only grown in one place anymore, and that was in the small window box of the back entrance to the Yellow Dragon.

A wooden door painted vibrant yellow was all that separated the Prep Room from the main floor of the club. Falling in line behind a group of women entering into the noise, she slipped inside the shadows and smoke clouds of the dimly lit bar. Loud music thundered against the black walls as she walked down the stairs to the dance floor. Spying her target near the back of the long room, she wove between grinding people and talking groups. The bar was always full on Friday nights which made her claustrophobic hatred of people flare up.

Pushing her way passed the crowds waiting near the bar, she aimed for a small side hallway that led to a rickety disgusting bathroom and a narrow set of spiraling stairs. Crashing against the wall finally out of the crowd, she took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself down. Her heart had started pounding again with the presence of so many living beings. She hated them all for being soulful. She hated herself for being so blind.

Grasping the railing of the staircase, she slowly worked her way up to the office of the man she had come to see. As she paused in front of the door, girlish giggly drifted through the wood. Knocking softly against the wood, she waited to hear if either of them noticed. With the continuing of the giggles, she assumed neither had. Malaea was in no mood to wait for a convenient time, so she turned the handle and barged into the room.

A pasty white skinny blonde was perched in the lap of the black-haired muscular man she remembered. Another giggle came from the girl as he traced circles on her thigh with his finger. Vinyl shorts hung on her body the entire length of her torso away from the matching bra she barely fit into. Standing in the doorway, she took stock of the scene before her.

“Still decorating with medieval weaponry, Xavier?” Marlaea glanced at the swords and axes gracing the walls of his office.

“I’ll come down for you later.” He planted a final kiss on the nose of the skinny bone-sack sitting in his lap and pushed her up. A hurt furrow dug between her brows as she pulled down her skirt and rushed out the door. “I could not imagine myself decorating with anything else.”

“I am glad for it this time.” The swords would be helpful in completing the task she would not fail to do tonight.

Gold flashed in his blue eyes as he looked her over. She was not the woman he had met so many centuries ago—that girl had been a peasant with a simple dress and big dreams. The woman standing before him now—long black hair highlighted purple the color her eyes used to be, a long fitted silk coat that flared out at her hips and drifted over her curves to her ankles, and heeled leather boots made her the woman he had always dreamed of having. As she shifted her weight, the folds of her coat parted enough for him to see the boots went up to her knee.

His mouth began to water slightly at the thought of having her beside him as he had planned. She was beautiful when he chose her for his partner, but now she was a vixen he could not deny. Xavier’s desire was obviously not cooled by the presence of a woman he knew to hate his very existence. He shifted his position enough for her to see the full extent of his arousal. Her eyes never left his.

“You always did like blondes.”

“But never for keeping.” He stood slowly from his chair and walked around the edge of his desk. Propping himself against the front of the wooden block, he ran his hand down her arm. “Blondes are meant to be toyed with and used, and then cast aside once you’ve had your fun.” Grabbing her arm forcefully, he pulled her close enough so he could smell her perfume. A garden of roses burst inside his nostrils. “Not like you. You are meant for great things.”

“Meant for great things?” She pulled her arm away with a short loud laugh. “Is that why you cursed me?”

“I cursed you to be by my side.”

“You cursed me because I was young and foolish.” Lavender flashed in her eyes as she glared at him. “Now I will kill you for being alive.”

The sword from the placket over his mantel flew into her hands and she thrust it deep into his chest. A gasping noise gargled through the blood gathering in his throat as he clutched his hands around the blade.

“You think this will kill me?” Blood spurted from his mouth.

“No, it will not kill you.” His smile flashed red-stained teeth in her direction. She pulled the other sword from the placket and raised the blade to his throat. “But this will.”

The smile faded quickly from his lips as the blade slit through the soft skin of his neck. Blood poured from the wound as she grabbed a battle axe from the suit of armor in the corner. She glared up at him and took one final swing finishing the job of beheading her foe. As his head thumped down onto his desk with a bloody splat, the axe fell from her hands sticking into the floor.

Marlaea looked at the limp corpse lying in a deep red pool of blood. The blue carpet began turning brown as it absorbed the lifeline of the dead man. Turning on her heel, she moved to the window. Pushing up on the window sill, the wood creaked and cracked but refused to budge. She shoved her elbow through the glass shattering splinters over the iron fire escape. Carefully cleaning the shards from the edge of the window, she climbed through the opening.

As her feet stepped down onto the iron platform, glass pieces crunched beneath her weight. Slow steady steps echoing softly into the night air took her down from the second story. Snapping and popping rocks underneath her boots were the only noises in the alley as she moved toward the sidewalk outside the building.