Elgin
*It’s possible. She won’t like it.*
-o-
Zeph stepped out of the solidity of the old Air-Stream into the oddly orange dusk of a surreal world of sharper edges and ghostly grass that was there and yet not, tree foliage that was there and yet not. Not far away Elgin was standing waiting. “Okay, lets get this show on the road.”
She knew that Elgin was two natured, but she’d never seen his other form, nor the transition, and now supposedly he was going to get her back to New York in a few hours? She believed and doubted at one and the same time.
Elgin waved and then he blurred, it was almost as if he were smoke and then the smoke billowed dissipated...and something started to, unfold was the only term she could use, yet it was utterly inadequate. The unfolding spread left, right and up and in a few instants she was looking at something out of ancient myth.
The body of an immense lithe cat, huge wings, not quite bird wings, certainly not bat wings, but wings that spread, as the great beast stretched, she felt the breeze of their motion, realized the wings were wider than those of some jets she’d flown on, the body, as well. A long catlike tail lashed and she looked at the head, it was not the head of an Eagle, it was rather more doglike in many ways, or perhaps, faintly, the head of a Chinese dragon. Dinner plate sized blue eyes, swung to pin her, she found herself backing away, it was huge, bigger than any animal she had ever seen, the blazing, but cold intelligence behind the blue eyes was not Elgin, but the Iffrit, the war machine protector of Earth and Humanity. She tripped and fell, could not stop herself from crawling backwards.
The Iffrit had no time or patience for human frailty at this point, an immense clawed hand reached out and scooped her up. He ignored her squeal as he brought her close to his chest with the one hand. Falling back on his haunches, his vast wings snapped out and then down as he hurled himself skyward with a surge of massive leg and wing muscles.
Beating skyward, the Iffrit’s arm-legs folded to his chest, clawed fingers interlaced over Zeph, holding her in place against the soft fur of the great chest muscles as they climbed away from the cartoonlike version of Beauty Wyoming. The wings were beating faster, thrusting them upwards ever faster and she realized the wings were changing shape as they climbed, shorter now and more pointed as well as angled back. They were climbing almost straight up now, the wings a blur, she felt an increase in acceleration. The wings stilled, now a fraction of their huge initial span, they glowed with a million miniature streaks of lightning and she could almost see the air streaming back from the surfaces.
She felt a faint oddness and the sky was black with just the faintest hint of blue and far below her the world was a mottled surface of white, brown, green, gray, and flashes of silver as the sun hit water. The added weight of acceleration faded away and they were falling, the Iffrit’s chest was warm, the fur a cushion against her back, talon-fingers held her gently but firmly. Looking down she could make out the great lakes creeping towards her and in what seemed like a few moments they were slipping past. She could make out the Finger Lakes ahead but she realized that the sky ahead was bluer than it had been, they were already beginning to arch downwards.
The Iffrit rolled so she was looking back and then he curled up. She felt weight returning, a buffet that threw her head one way and the other, then muscles flexed and moved. More tossing but gentler now as her weight built up again.
-o-
A thousand miles away a sergeant checked her radar screen and frowned, reached out and tapped a button, “Hey Gus,” her boss, another if much more senior sergeant, “Check delta black, big bogey and trail moving pretty slow and decelerating.”
“See it Chi.” The other sergeant replied after a moment, his voice calm, “A chunk of something.”
“The systems not tracking anything but a plasma trail, I don’t get any kind of solid retur....What the hell?” the track simply ended, a fading line that had been extending, curving down as it slowed, just stopped, the fading tail caught up with the head and the track was gone.
Gus grunted, “That’s a new one, maybe a piece of ice or foam?”
“That would have faded out, decelerated faster and faster as it got smaller, this just...stopped.” She muttered to herself as she logged the sighting and went back to scanning the heavens for traces of a real threat.
-o-
The Iffrit rolled back to flying attitude and spread his wings, below them in the rather vague orange daylight a city with distinctly ‘fuzzy’ edges spread from horizon to horizon. The Iffrit held a steep but controlled descent, suddenly they were among towering buildings and the great flying creature flexed his wings into a shorter, broader shape to give him room between the walls of dusty glass. Ahead of them she recognized something like the plaza outside the office building she worked in, Wings snapped out, the great feline body tipped up, and the massive clawed feet reached out to grasp the ground and bring them to an almost imperceptible, perfect, landing.
An moment later a clawed hand set her on her feet on the crumbling pavement. The Iffrit swirled into smoke and folded away, leaving Elgin standing twenty yards away. He shook himself then turned to walk to her, finger tips shoved into his pockets, arms akimbo. Blue eyes calmly surveying her as he walked up, as if he were wondering if she was going to burst out screaming again.
She realized her mouth was utterly, bone dry, it took her several moments to work up enough spit to moisten her lips, “I don’t ever want to do that again.”
He shrugged, “Wasn’t much choice Zeph.”
“I know, and it should have been amazing, but it wasn’t.”
He glanced around, “Now we have to get out of the shadow realm, in a crowd it can be difficult, even a bit dangerous.” He held out a hand and grinned at her look of fearful revulsion, “Don’t worry, we won’t end up inside someone else or in a wall, but you could end up right in front of someone coming the other way or with a bus about to run you over.” His ending “We should be fine,” wasn’t particularly reassuring.
Her hand was limp in his, he tugged her into motion, an instant later the world seemed to burst in on her, and a man, head down, reading some document was couple of steps away, Elgin’s tug, her own turn and the man’s last second realization of something wrong swung them out of harms way, the man glared at her and grumbled, “Sorreee.”
She followed Elgin up the steps, she glanced at her watch, it was ten to eleven, her chest was sore where she’d been shot last night and she was tired, hungry and thirsty but she was alive and she’d just crossed most of the country in less than an hour in the clutches of what was almost certainly the origin of most of the legends of flying monsters like dragons and griffins.
The elevator was remarkably friendly and comforting for all its stainless steel, brass and granite formality. The lobby of Petters, Petters, Faulken and Christchurch was equally settling and welcoming and she crossed it with a quick firm stride with a good humored Elgin in trail.
The situation in the conference room was near the boiling point, Dmitri Andropov was obviously beginning to throw his weight around after waiting for twenty minutes. The slender Russian’s eyebrows flew up as he saw her and Elgin, the young woman Elgin thought was a bodyguard looked almost shocked at her appearance.
Zeph smiled, “Hello all, so sorry for being late, and for all the delays, I guess we can’t plan for rock falls in the middle of Manhattan can we? She glanced at the table, at the papers in front of each leather bound conference room seat, and smiled at Barbara James, “So you should have had some time to skim over the new version of the contracts that are structured in the way we discussed the other day. Let’s get down to brass tacks shall we?” She moved towards the head of the table, Elgin slipped into his chosen chair by a credenza at the side of the room with a decent view of many of the players.