For the Thrill

(Contemporary fantasy) Your typical cat and mouse game. The officer vs the thief. But in this instance, the thief stole a valuable magical artifact, and the force sent out their best agent. How does one avoid capture when their pursuer is a dragon?

You can call me Zeni. Some call me the greatest thief in the world, but my ego's not that big. It's true that I've gotten into facilities and vaults proclaimed to be the most secure, stolen things that were supposedly in shatterproof cases or protected by unbreakable wards, but once your ego starts getting too big, Fate has a funny way of smacking you down for it. It happened to Renart, it happened to Lags, hells, it's happened to the Pieces of Eight, and they were supposed to be too careful to fail.

Most of the time, I do contract work. Sometimes it's some syndicate type, needs evidence or whatever removed from the files of the Eyes of the Realm before the trial begins. Sometimes it's a greedy aristo, who wants something their money can't buy that belongs to someone else. Sometimes it's spook work, done on behalf of some agency or corpo, needing some proprietary thingummy or other.

I don't particularly care what the job is, but I have rules and standards. I'm not an assassin, so no wet-work; I have a zero body count, and I take pride in that. I don't steal from anyone that can't properly defend or protect themselves; I won't be used by the elite to bully the smallfolk. I reserve the right to scout the job out before I commit to completing it; I don't commit to jobs that would be an obvious suicide mission. I will at least only charge a third of the final fee for the "consult," and give the would-be client what intel I got before walking away.

Every so often, though, I do a job for the thrill of it. I don't even need to get paid for those ones. Because someone has had the temerity to claim their vaults are unbreachable, and I take that as not just a challenge, but a personal affront.

This is why I currently have an orichalcum-lined case by my side as I move through airport security. Fortunately, I'm presently in Delcost, which has a rep for having holes in its hiring process big enough to ride a mastodon through. The case of course tripped their scans by being unscannable, but a discreet palming of giltcreds to the officers on duty let me pass without hassle. I still have the better part of an hour before my flight departs, so I find the bar nearest the gate to have a light drink while I wait.

There's a slight commotion from some of the other passengers sitting in the lounge as we can see the great bulk of a dragon touch down through the windows. The great beast's scaled hide was a scintillating array of colors, and as they prowled toward the gates, they were already starting to reduce in size. This was nothing I hadn't seen before. Some dragons preferred to fly themselves, but interacting with the smaller races was easier after shape-shifting into a mortal form.

I barely glanced up as a pack of what looked like functionaries or support staff swarmed the gate, surrounding a tall woman in an expensive-looking suit and robes. She serenely strolled onward as her staff gabbled and beseeched her attention, heading for the exit.

"Some dragons always like to make a dramatic entrance." The voice came from a gentleman sat nearby at the bar. I sized him up as I glanced over. He was wearing a suit the color of vanilla cream, with the occasional glint of gold thread, his hair was that shade of blond so pale that it was called 'platinum', and he reeked of powerful magic.

He gave me a faint smile as he sipped from a glass of whiskey on the rocks. "Can you guess which that was?" he asked, gesturing with his drink and a finger in the direction of the departing woman and her entourage.

I was cool as I sipped my own drink, a pseudo-mocktail. Whoever this guy was, he was only making small talk because he felt confident, but I suspected he worked for the Eyes. "Well, I saw that limo out front with the EmbeCo vanity plate on it. So, gonna say that was Emberaltrix."

He nodded with a slightly larger smile. "Well spotted. Coming in to check on EmbeCo's interests locally."

"Word is they found the wreck of the Irascible," I remarked. "Stories always were that Ember and Karel Scarred-Eye had quarreled over some treasure he had."

"Hundred percent true," he nodded. "Treasure always tends to get people ... quarrelsome."

At this point, he took another sip of his drink before setting it down. He calmly turned to face me more directly, with the confident body language of someone who knows they've sat in between you and the nearest exit. I noticed how his eyes flicked briefly to the orichalcum-lined case. "Treasure like the Black Emerald of Selenti. Fascinating piece of work, that one." His tone had the hook on the end, as if he wanted me to ask more about it. 

Instead, I blithely remarked, "Allegedly steeped in magic from the Well of Depths, from the deep-down Deep Dark. What's it called, the abyssal zone?"

"Hadal," he corrected. "You're familiar with it?"

"Read an article or two about it."

He gave a little 'hmm.' "I grow bored of the charade, madam. You have something that doesn't belong to you. The Eyes of the Realm are looking for it, they already know it was you that took it, and because you have a rather annoying-- to them-- tendency to escape their net, they reached out to outside contractors." He smiled thinly. "And you won't get away from me."

I returned his smile. "Do you know, I hear that a lot?"

And then I was falling backward off of my barstool, taking the case with me, as I dropped through a shadow-gate and emerged on the other side of the terminal, stepping out of a patch of shadow and walking straight toward an employees-only exit. No one was looking in this direction, and I waved the opener-ring on my hand at the scanner. The magic in the ring bypassed the ward and the door opened. I kept walking, but as I rounded the corner I knew would take me toward the parking garage, the gentleman was already standing there, leaning against the wall.

His expression looked more amused than anything. "I did tell you that you can't get away from me," he admonished, and then lowered his sunglasses. His eyes flickered with colors like twin fire opals. And I knew in that moment that he was telling the truth. Only one race in the world had eyes that shone like that, no matter what shape they took.

"I thought you said that dragons prefer dramatic entrances?" I grumbled, running through my mental checklist of anything I might have to help buy me time to put more distance between him and me.

He chuckled. "I said some dragons. If I'd flown in and come striding through the gate like Ember, you'd have seen me coming. And while that can be fun, it would also have brought far more attention to you, and I prefer to keep this more discreet."

He straightened up, settling his hands in front of him, fingers poised in a reverse-steeple. "Firstly, let me properly introduce myself, though forgive me for not taking my full majestic form, it would rather damage the building. I am Prismarix. And you are the master thief called Zeni, yes?" I just nodded, so he continued, "While I could easily apprehend you here and now, and return the Black Emerald to its current owners in Elandor, that would be far too simple for my interests."

I paused, tilting my head. "What are you saying?"

"My dear, I'm a dragon. We are predators, even after all this time. Most of us have refined those instincts to suit modern civility. It's boring when we catch our prey too easily." Prismarix smiled again. "So. I will allow you a better head start."

I said nothing, and he continued, "I will give you three days from now before I resume the pursuit. That should be sufficient time for you to take a flight to wherever you were going-- Eston would be my guess-- and then further from there. In the meantime, I will remain here in Delcost, enjoy its lovely weather and cuisine, perhaps even catch up with Emberaltrix, we haven't seen each other in a decade now. And after the third day, I will resume hunting you."

I scoffed. "And that's it, then I'm just forever on the run?"

"You are Zeni the Shadow-Thief," he pointed out. "You will always be on the run. But no. I will allow you ten days from the resumption of the hunt. If you have successfully eluded me after ten days, I will call off my search. The Eyes of the Realm will probably send someone else after you by then, whether or not the emerald is still in your possession, but you won't have to worry about me further."

I watched him with narrowed eyes. "Why bother hunting me at all?"

"Because I'm a dragon, and life gets dull." Prismarix scoffed. "There's only so much I can tolerate, sitting around in my hoard, listening to my servant prattling on about whatever's on their tiny little mind. I need a thrill, and hunting a canny and cunning quarry like you will give it to me."

I considered this, before smiling back. "You know, I think we have a lot in common, at the base of it."

His smile was friendly, if slightly threatening. "Quite. Now, do run along, the clock is ticking."

I turned and walked back to my gate, where my flight would be boarding by now. Stealing things was all well and good, for the thrill of it all. Outrunning guards, watchmen, and the Eyes of the Realm, deepened that. But having a dragon hunting you? Well now, that was the biggest thrill yet.