Dragon Skin Read Online Free

to a deep blue sea.” Her eyes grew big; she’d never been more than a few miles from her Uncle’s home.
    “In these rivers,” I continued “lives a mighty lizard called the crocodilia. This giant lizard has no magic, doesn’t fly, nor does it breathe fire. But some say that once killed, if done properly, it looks just like a Dragon’s skin.”
    My Brianna didn’t say anything, her smile slowly matching mine. There wasn’t much to say. Sometimes the story is enough.
     
    The End

 
     
     
    A Demon's Nightmare
     
    Chapter One
     
    Landon Marshall was harder than ironwood and sharper than Damascus steel. That might be why God came to him for help.
    Head down, his hands buried in his pockets and shoulders hunched, the big man plowed through the cold wind. The weak street lamps threw everything into black and white. Casting shadows across the tight brownstone houses. The desolate road sparkled with an early mist as his boot steps echoed off the parked cars. 
    Landon Marshall was pissed, never a good thing. He spit into the gutter, trying to rid this feeling of pent up frustration. He'd just lost his job. He had forty two dollars and his last condom in his wallet, and the landlord’s final notice sitting on the kitchen table at home.
    Things couldn’t get much worse. Of course, every time he had thought that in the past, he’d been proven wrong.
    It shouldn’t have been that big a deal. Some punk had been hassling a girl, barely old enough to be in there legally. Landon being Landon had told him to back off.
    The idiot, not liking being told what to do by a mere bartender, took a swing. Not smart, as anyone with any brains could have told him. Landon had fifty pounds of solid muscle on the guy and at six four, a good five inches. So he’d laid the punk out, simple, one swing, case closed.
    That should have been the end of it. But it seemed the jerk was the nephew of some guy that Manny owed a lot of money to; the bent nose kind of money.  Case reopened and Landon was on the street.
    He pushed the hair out of his eyes and his hand back into his pocket. Oh well, it was time to be moving on anyway. I never saw a sight that didn’t look better looking back . Keep telling yourself crap like that and you might start believing it, He told himself
    A little part of him, buried deep down, had hoped it would be different here, but nope, not to be. Head down he continued home.
    An unexpected of movement, a glimpse of something not right, down the side alley caught his eye. Something big and leathery flickered beyond the green dumpsters. Landon hesitated, this wasn’t his problem, and it wasn’t his issue. Leave it alone he told himself and then proceeded to ignore his own good advice.
    Someone turned on a bathroom light on the third story bathing the alleyway in a week glow. There was enough light for Landon to see the three attackers converge on a solitary figure. Punching and kicking him relentlessly. He heard the hard crack as fists hit face and boot connected with knee.
    The man crumbled like a stack of blocks and lay on the pavement without moving. 
    “Hey, what’s going on?” Landon yelled, realizing how lame he sounded as soon as the words left his mouth. All he really wanted to do was to let them know they were being observed and that the smart thing would be to run away. He didn’t really expect it to work, but you never knew.
    All three of the attackers turned to stare at him as if he were that three headed dog Cerberus from Hell. Their faces full of surprise and hopefulness.
    Landon started down the alley. Instinctively his hands formed into fists and his shoulders straitened. The mood he was in tonight, a fight might be exactly what he needed. For the first time he caught a glimpse of the victim. The man looked to be about a hundred and twenty years old. With more wrinkles than a dried raisin and age spots the size of casino chips. He had a fine gossamer swatch of pure white hair shielding a balding