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The curator lady didn’t approach any further. She stood, surrounded by unfiled treasures and wonders, her stance relaxed and her eyes glittering under the fluorescent strip-light in her windowless domain.

Anar’s hammering heart began to slow; surely, if the lizardess wanted to do him harm, she’d have taken her chance while he was fumbling for the doorhandle?

She spoke again, conversationally, putting him at ease, “this dagger has been sitting on a shelf in this room collecting dust for a very long time, you know, and I’ve always wanted to use it. According to the ancient runes on its hilt, it can detect natural magic of a very specific kind. Dragon magic. You have a very draconish air about you, young man. What is your name?”

Anar swallowed, still flattened against the door, still keeping his vigilant gaze on the blade. He should keep his natural magic a secret. That was very important! He couldn’t go around just telling any old teacher about it. He’d have the Council of Sorcerer’s whisking him away (or worse), in a jiffy. “Dragon magic doesn’t exist,” he muttered, “so how could I possibly have it?” Answering a question with a question was the height of evasiveness, a real pro move for a student demon, his tutors would be proud.

“If it didn’t exist, how could someone create a way to detect it? There are many things in this world we do not understand, and for simplicity we simply choose not to acknowledge them. Dragons are included in that. But I believe,” she hissed, beckoning him towards her. “I’m open-minded. How can you not be, in a place like this, seeing and hearing the things we do every day? The undead, faeries, magic, spirits, ghouls and ghosts? Why did we decide to draw the line at dragons? I have my own theory, naturally, not that I’m allowed to so much as write it down in a journal without losing my job,” she added gloomily. “Even if you DO have some dragon in you, honey, there’s nothing I can do about it…”

Anar moved away from his position of retreat and approached the lizardess. She was in a low-cut blouse, and trousers, with a short-sleeved cardigan on top. Her own enchanted pendant was nestled snugly in her ample jade chest, and he quickly moved his eyes back to the blade, being the lesser of two evils!

“One drop?’ he asked, cautiously.

She nodded, her smooth scales rippling. “If you do have some dragon in you, the runes will glow.”

Anar held out his hand, palm upwards, his baggy sleeve swinging.

There was a clatter outside. His long ears flicked upright and his eyes widened.

“Cooo-eeeeeee!” Rap’s friendly, confident voice rang out.

“Cor, look at this old stuff! Hey, I found a big bone!” Rave was rifling through the exhibits. Soon, things would be damaged.

His friends had come looking for him.

The curator hesitated.

“It’s my familiars. You better be quick. If they think you’re hurting me, they might eat you,” Anar warned.

Beautiful, glittery eyes widened, “you’re the Warlock boy? How interesting…”

A sharp pinch, and a bead of precious crimson liquid sprang up onto Anar’s pale grey skin, washing the tip of the mysterious dagger.

“Well now,” the lizardess breathed as a pale glow surrounded the lines and shapes of the dagger hilt.

“I’m in here, guys!” Anar squeaked, his fight or flight response finally choosing a suitable option.

In a moment, he had a tissue thrust into his bleeding hand, and the curator was scrambling for her camera, snapping a photo of the ancient dagger, its dim glow fading already. She turned to him, smiling, “it’s faint, very faint, but undeniable. You do have a trace of dragon in you, Warlock. I don’t know how or why. I knew they were real! I knew it!”

The dinosaurs shoved the door open and ambled in, looking around. Rap grinned, toothily, “maaaaate, what you doing in here? Oooh, who’s this? Ooooh, what’s that?”

The curator flapped as Rap and Rave touched everything, nosily. She was giving Anar a look sharper than the blade she’d just used.

“Guys, knock it off, yeah? It’s just old stuff.”

There was a growl.

“Important old stuff! Don’t touch, yeah? I’m done here anyway, come on, let’s go!”

He grabbed their elbows and led them back out, giving the lizard lady one last apologetic look.

“What were you doing? Who was the girl? Have you finally got a girlfriend?”

“Rap, stop, no, she’s like the history keeper or something, and I was in there finding out what my magic thingie was. What were you doing, anyway? I thought you weren’t hanging out with me unless it was in lessons.”

Rap patted him on the shoulder, “Crowley’s out to get you, can’t be too careful. Anyway, there was nothing on telly after Murder, She Wrote.”

Anar smiled, “I see where I lie on your list of priorities.”

“What happened to your hand?” Rave asked, grabbing the aardvark’s grey appendage, turning it over to reveal a tissue splashed with red.

“You’re hurt!” Rap announced, almost a little too happily.

“I’m fine! I cut it on a broken jar!” Anar lied.

“You need some rose quartz rubbed on it! You’ll get free radicals in the wound otherwise!”

Anar sighed, “nurse Rap is on the case. I will be fine!” he repeated.

“So, what did you find out, anyway? Tell us all about it.”

“Does he have to?” Rave grumbled. “Bad enough you made us go looking for him.”

“I didn’t make you do anything, dear,” Rap snapped. He turned gently to Anar, “now, it just so happens to be a full moon tonight, so we’ll go out later and clean your hand in moonbeams.”

“Are you off your rocker?” Rave snarled, stomping up the steps to the upper levels, “the werewolves will be out.”

“In the mean time I’ll make some peppermint tea,” Rap continued, unabashed. “That will help you make more blood.”

Anar rolled his grey eyes. He’d lost about five drops at most. But Rap was the nurturing kind, and once he’d decided you needed looking after, there was nothing could be done to dissuade him.

A minty aroma filled the room, and Anar’s nostrils, as he sipped. It wasn’t really his thing, this fruity tea business. If he was honest, which he shouldn’t be, fruit tea was always disappointing. It smelled wonderful, the teabags were full of bits of plant and fruit, but the taste was lacking. He really preferred coffee. Rap got huffy if he had too many mugs of that, said it would unbalance his chakras. He still wasn’t even sure what a chakra was, never mind what would happen if they toppled over. Quite how Rap had even got into all this mystical mumbo-jumbo was a bit of a mystery; Anar certainly hadn’t showed him any of it, and Rave was borderline feral so he certainly had nothing to do with it. If he had to pin it down to something, it would be the horoscopes section of the Cosmopolitan magazines that Rap collected. Every time they went into the off-licence for Anar’s comics, Rap would grin his sweet toothy grin and come out with the latest copy.

So, now he sat with a chunky bit of pretty rock in his injured hand, sipping slightly minty, hot water, while inside he was yet again in turmoil. He had a dragon scale in his robe pocket. He had dragon magic in his blood. A tiny bit, but still, by all rights he shouldn’t have any at all. The lizard woman in the College archives knew all about it. If any trouble sprang up over this, all he could do was tell the authorities that a senior member of College staff had stabbed him in the hand, and was a batty old coot.

“Of course, if it was a jar containing dark elements, you’ll need an aura cleanse, too,” Rap babbled, merrily, sprinkling twinkly dust around Anar’s bare feet as he wriggled his clawed toes on the knitted rug.

Rave dozed.

Anar let his nice friend chat, and was grateful that he hadn’t been interrogated any further. Letting Rap wander off on a mental tangent of his own whimsy was much easier than worrying about being some kind of magical fugitive.

The sky outside the window darkened. The October nights were drawing in earlier now, and brought with them a distinctly British chill. The excitement for Hallowe’en had begun; although friendships were frowned upon, it was perfectly acceptable to have allied partnerships for the spookiest night of the year, and parties and shenanigans were in the early planning stages.

Lighting his black candles, Anar once again cursed his bravado at promising a wonderful offering to the Dark Lord. Crowley would be waiting with baited breath to see what it was, to appraise it, to sneer as it was predictably dumber than what Anar had hyped it up to be. He couldn’t offer the dragon scale; it was a link to his family’s past, and he didn’t have many of those, least of all one he could understand. He could nab a nasty little curio from the basement museum, but did he want to run into the lizardess again?

“Ready, mate?”

“Hmmm?” he pulled his gaze from the flickering flame.

Rap was bundled up in a hat and scarf by the door of their shared room. “Moonbeams, remember?”

He furrowed his brow, “you serious? Rave said there would be werewolves.”

Rap huffed, “honestly, you think I’m not prepared? You only need a bit of silver to keep one of them at bay.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so? We’ve got loads of silver, haven’t we? Being College students and all. Silver coming out of our ears…”

Rap pouted, “you don’t have to be sarcastic! Your amulet chains are silver, mate, you’ll be fine.”

“I dunno, I don’t trust a bit of flimsy necklace to save my hide.”

“Well do you want your hand to become infected?”

Anar was exasperated now, “my hand will heal! It was a tiny stab! Going into the College grounds during a full moon is far more dangerous than letting my hand go without any moonbeams.”

Rap flipped his scarf, “a little stab, huh?”

Anar’s cheeks flushed.

Rave rumbled in his usual surly manner, “I’m gonna miss Indiana Jones for this.”

“Stay here then!” Anar snapped. “I’ll get eaten by a werewolf and you’ll not get to watch.”

Rave perked up, “Really? Huh, that’s almost as good as melting Nazis.”

Rap flung open the door, muttering about negative vibes and bad influences, clearly bitter that Anar had lied to him about his hand wound.

“Look, Rap, it was mental down there, I don’t even know how to begin explaining it, honest…”

“Shhh!” Rap shushed Anar as he was trying to apologise. “Alexis is always creeping about being a nuisance. He doesn’t have anything better to do. Keep those big ears of your peeled.”

It was true. The human student lurked around, preying on anything smaller or weaker. He wasn’t stupid enough to throw magic around, but he’d quite happily drop a cursed token in your pocket, or mutter a few words of Infernal to literally trip you up in front of your peers. Anything to cause embarrassment or shame.

“I’m not scared of Lex. I’ve thumped him before, I’ll do it again.”

“Yeah, yeah, but if we jump at him from the shadows, he’ll wet himself! Best to take the blighter by surprise!” Rave rubbed his scaled hands with glee.

They almost tiptoed down the corridor on the lower level, listening out for Alexis’s annoying voice, on the hunt for trouble.

Sure enough, his perfectly enunciated threats could be heard from outside the arcade, followed by the tinkling of his evil little pixie; Anar and the two dinosaurs peered round a wall to see him swaggering around with his big wings spread, making anyone standing close to him move out of the way or get bashed. If that didn’t work, he'd do the old tried and tested shoulder barge.

The succubi that Anar had encountered before were watching the human in amusement from across the way in the communal area, sat at coffee tables painting their perfect nails. Alexis flashed them his winning smile, thinking himself the best thing since sliced bread.

“He is such a git,” Anar hissed.

“Thumpin’ time?” Rave asked.

“Thumpin’ time,” Anar agreed.

Alexis swung his amulet around on a slender finger, leaning by the fruit machines, his pockets full of coins he’d co-erced from more timid creatures, such as the Ancient Languages students. They hadn’t signed up for the Underworld, they just wanted to read old Incan sacrificial tablets in peace. As such, they had no defence from a walking horror such as Crowley.

Anar had been brushing up on his Infernal; it was true it was one of the few things he was good at, it was also true that it was a language capable of enchantment of a sort, though a little rough and clunky. He had the little pixie sprite in his sights, he squinted and flicked his finger, sending it spiralling away, wings out of control, even though he was nowhere near it physically.

It meeped with a high-pitched squeak as it was flung, enough of a distraction for Crowley, and the Succubi, to all be rather shocked to then see Anar and the raptors appear from nowhere.

Alexis took a step back, clutching his amulet in panic.

Anar shook his head, rolling back his jumper sleeve, “you won’t,” he said, firmly.

Alexis opened his mouth to say something Infernal, but Rave opened his long jaws wide with a dinosaur roar.

“Come on, Alexis!” The succubi jeered, “thought you weren’t afraid of anyone? That one lizard’s in a skirt!”

“Three against one isn’t fair!”

“You want fair? Ok, you can have fair. Just me,” Anar stepped forward, spreading his arms wide, his tail swishing and wings flexing.

“Oh, he’s kinda cute, look at him,” one of the elfin Succubi squealed.

“I’m watching you, soul-suckers!” Rap warned.

Alexis looked out of his depth. Normally, anything he couldn’t stare down or intimidate he brought into his Alliance. Anar couldn’t be bribed or threatened; he could, however, throw a mean right hook.

The pixie flitted at his shoulder, chirping crossly. Clearly, Alexis was also now expected to avenge his familiar.

With no other option open to him, Alexis did the unthinkable; he closed his eyes and used his amulet.

The blue light spread out from him like a wave, bringing shocked and appalled gasps from the girls. Using magic in a rivalry fight was extreme!

Anar clutched Sharon and planted his feet. If he drained his amulet, so be it. It was worth it to put this jumped-up snot in his place, and as Alexis had cast first, if there was any trouble from this – it was self-defence.

The shockwave as the two bolts of magical energy collided made the walls shake. Plaster drifted down from the ceiling in a graceful arc, and a vending machine dropped a Fanta.

They opened their eyes. They were still stood in front of each other. Wasting their magic had achieved nothing. One attack and one defence had cancelled each other out.

Anar’s fist swung and thudded into Crowley’s cheek with a CRUNCH. He staggered backwards, clutching his handsome face with a groan.

“Me too! Me too!” Rave cried, bounding forward.

Alexis was a pale red and black blur as he sprinted off towards his student accommodation, his pixie swooping ahead.

“No fair!”

“That was fun,” Rap smiled. “Now, moonbeams…"