Hey, thanks all so much for reading! I wanted to show what was going on back at home, but if you don't like it I'll understand. Let me know what you think.

Chapter 6

An alarm rang violently, cutting through Emma's troubled dreams. Her arm shot out and slammed the 'off' button.

"What time is it?" she mumbled, opening one eye. She saw an ungodly seven-thirty A. M. blinking on her alarm clock, and sighed. She sat up and put on her slippers, gathered her short red hair back from her face, and looked out the window. Though the neighborhoods of Seattle were densely packed with houses, they were all pleasant and the yards were luscious and green. The oak trees in her neighbor's yard were just beginning to turn to a rusty burgundy color. Emma watched one brilliant, fiery orange leaf fall, and the memories slammed back down into her brain with a vengeance.

"Penelope...the dragon...oh, God," Emma groaned, falling back down on her bed. She jumped as the phone rang shrilly. She leapt over and snatched it, her voice trembling with hope as she answered. "Hello, who is this?"

The voice coming through the other line was crisp and business-like, and not Penelope's. "Good morning, Emma, this is Tara from the police office. I'd like you to report to the station immediately. There's a situation. We've called Penelope's parents as well, but we'd like you to come immediately."

"Is Penelope all right?" Emma asked frantically. She heard nothing but a small click. "Hello? Hello?" Slamming the phone back into the hook, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt, putting on a hat to cover her bushy hair and not bothering to change her slippers for shoes. She jumped into the car she rarely used, because of gas prices, and started it up. She reached the police station after two near misses with pedestrians and a close encounter with a telephone pole. Jumping out of the car, she ran to the door and went in.

"Hello, Emma." Tara's calm voice met her, and long, smooth fingers were held up to stop Emma from asking any of the questions tumbling around in her head. "Before you ask, we believe that Penelope is to date unharmed."

Emma took a deep, steadying breath. She saw a tall, very thin man with a grey and black beard, standing with a woman who had a friendly, open face and a brown braid that unmistakably belonged to Penelope's mother.

"You must be Emma," said the man, stepping forward. "I'm sorry - I know you've been friends with Penelope for a long time and we've never met. I'm Jake, this is my wife Ann."

"Pleased to meet you," said Emma, shaking their hands firmly. "I must admit, I reacted kind of violently yesterday to Penelope's decision. I hope she's all right."

"Penelope told me before she left to tell you that it's all okay," said Ann gently. She put an arm around Emma and they all followed Tara to the back room. Tara's office was cluttered with papers and "wanted" posters covered every inch of the walls. A dark-haired, middle aged man with pale skin and wide brown eyes was hunched intently in front of two silver laptops. His fingers were dancing and clicking across the keys, and he didn't even look up when they came in.

"This is Max, our tech man," Tara said, gesturing to the man. "Max, these are the friends and family of Penelope Eros."

"Who?" the man muttered, still tapping away.

"The subject, Max, Penelope," said Tara impatiently. "Show them the tape, Max."

"Just a second," said Max. There was a brief silence, then he nodded, still not making eye contact. "Come over here," he said, crooking a finger. Emma, Jake and Ann stepped forward eagerly until they could see the screens of the laptop. One of them was showing an image that looked like a huge, skin-colored blob. The other one had a graph, and as little sounds began to emerge from the speakers, green sound waves jumped up and down on the graph.

Don't flip up your collar, we can't see if the camera is obscured.

Tara's voice came loudly through the speakers. The image showing the pale blob shifted quickly, straightening out until it faced forward. It was a very dark image, and they could barely make the helicopter as Penelope walked towards it.

"These are the tapes we got from the cameras and mics we stashed in Penelope's jewelry," Tara explained as they watched the shaky image as it would have appeared from the height of Penelope's collar. The sounds of the helicopter drowned out any conversation, but they could see Tara's hand reach into the picture and shake with Penelope's

"Oh, her hands look cold," said Ann.

"They always do when she gets nervous," said Emma absently.

Tara gestured impatiently to Max. "It will only disturb these folks to see the dragon again. Fast forward until Derik comes in."

Wordlessly, Max complied. The image shifted forward until it showed a small, cozy living room. Penelope was obviously twisting around to give a full few of the room to the camera. There were no sounds coming from the other laptop except that of Penelope's deep, even breathing.

Abruptly the image swerved the left, and they saw a door open. In came a tall, handsome man with dark hair. He had a proud lift to his shoulders and an easy self confidence that smacked of arrogance.

"He looks like Brad Pitt in a fantasy movie," Emma whispered to Ann.

They watched the evening unfold, unsure of how it was all going to turn out. The Eroses were laughing and crying alternately as they listened to Penelope's smart remarks. Emma just shook her head. This tape was so Penelope. She could be in any situation, with anyone, at any time, and still find exactly the wrong thing to say.

Emma frowned as she saw a dawning realization come across Derik's face. He reached forward until his hand completely obscured the camera's vision. A ripping sound came from the other laptop, and Penelope's cry. A flash of the fireplace, then flames obscured the entire image of the laptop before the image flashed and went blank. All eyes went to the other laptop, where the sound of a struggle was taking place.

Penelope cried, The earrings, the earrings! and Derik said smugly, I thought so. There were crackling sounds as his fingers must have been brushing against the microphone. Then loud crackling and popping showed that the earrings had joined the brooch in the fire. Emma bit her lip and listened intently.

"We were only able to catch one last thing from this tape before it melted," Tara said through the crackling sounds. "Listen very carefully."

After a moment more of silence, they heard Derik's voice crackle through again. I come from another world where it is impossible for women to be born.

Then that laptop too went blank. Emma sat back and took a deep breath. "So...does that...did anyone else...I think..."

Jake cut her off. "Women are being taken from this world to populate that other world?"

"Yeah, that," said Emma helplessly.

Tara nodded, tapping her fingers against the table. "It's a leap, to be sure, but it seems to be the only explanation. He was about to tell her why he had captured her, and then he mentioned another world with no women. Obviously, they need some way to keep their society alive."

Ann held her head. "This is crazy. First a dragon, now another world?"

Tara patted her shoulder. "I called you all here for a very specific purpose today. Right now I just want you all to assume that everything happening is really happening, and that it's all possible. I want you to think about what Penelope would do in this situation next. We've lost contact with her, but we promised to try to keep her safe. We need to know, based on her personality, what she'd do."

Ann bit her lip, thinking. "Well, she wouldn't run away. Definitely not."

Tara frowned. "Why not?" she asked, taking out a notebook and beginning to take notes.

"Because she's doing this to save Seattle. As long as there's any danger from that dragon, she'll stay," said Emma.

"I think she'll sit it out and try to make the best of a bad situation," said Jake, grinning.

"Wait, wait," protested Ann. "I don't think she'd be so passive. She would definitely start trying to convince this Derik guy to let her go without burning Seattle. She has a great imagination."

"But after studying Derik, he really doesn't seem like the type that responds to trickery well," said Tara.

"Well, whatever she does while she's there, she'll definitely stay," said Emma firmly.

Tara nodded. "So we'll start scouring the countryside with helicopters. We believe she's in some kind of mountainous area, because of the massive size of that cave. If we're successful in finding her, we'll try to get back into contact with her so we can track what's going on and see what kind of hope there is for getting her out without getting the rest of us toasted."

"It's all you really can do," said Jake.

"Emma, would you like to come over to my house? I've just made some sweet bread I think you'd like," said Ann, smiling slightly at the redhead.

"What? It's..." Emma checked her watch. "...Eight-thirty in the morning, and you've already made sweet bread?"

"I'm an early riser," said Ann, shrugging. Tara shook hands with all of them and they turned to leave.

"Thank you for coming. I just thought you'd like to see that she was safe, and maybe you could help me at the same time."

"Thank you for letting us come," said Ann, smiling at Tara.

Emma sighed and followed the Eroses out. This was the strangest thing that ever happened to her.

***

Tara sat with her high-heels propped up on her desk, laptop cradled between her knees and her stomach. She hunched over the screen, eyes intent as she scanned the internet pages she had just opened. An open notepad sat on the chair beside her, and a pen lay at the ready in her fingers.

"Dragons...dragons...dragons..." Tara muttered. Her fingers danced over the keys as she searched Google. Scrolling through the incredibly long list of links that popped up, she clicked on the first one and started reading.

All the fairy tales she had scorned as a child, all the ancient Chinese legends, all the modern adaptations and interpretations, Tara skimmed through with a business-like eye. Her notepad rapidly filled with hurried notes about dragon's abodes, weaknesses, and other facts about dragons. It's a tangled web to sort out, Tara thought helplessly. Three hours later she had forged through two hundred and thirteen documents, and had gotten nowhere. Some of the facts had contradicted others, some were just plain ridiculous. Some tales had dragons as intelligent, some had them as just like any other animal, only hotter.

"How's it going, Tara?" Tara's secretary popped her head in through the doorway.

"Slow," said Tara, taking a long swig of lukewarm coffee. "Who knew there was so much interest in dragons in the world? It's amazing. In every century, from ancient legends to modern fairy tales, there are stories about dragons. It's almost as if this sort of thing has been going on for a long time, but everybody's just put it down to imaginative fiction."

"Perhaps that is a possibility."

"Maybe," said Tara. "But there's nothing in any of these stories about where dragons originally come from, and that's what I'm truly interested in."

"Kind of interesting that Penelope was flown to a cave, and every dragon story there is has to do with caves," remarked the secretary.

Tara nodded, her eyes lighting up. She hurriedly typed in several keywords into the internet, then set her laptop on her desk. "That reminds me. I found something really weird here...look at this." She pulled up a picture from the video they had gotten from Penelope's jewelry camera. It was a frozen, slightly cockeyed view of the cave entrance as the dragon swooped down towards it. In a document next to it were several internet illustrations of dragons' caves.

The secretary whistled and stepped forward for a closer look. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Tara nodded excitedly. "The picture we have and these illustrations match almost completely."

"But how could that be? Our cave and these ancient caves couldn't possibly be the same. They're not even in the same location!" the secretary protested.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Tara, sighing. She sat back and took another swig of coffee. "So if you'll allow me to continue..."