He groaned. “I hate being serious.”
I peeked out through the driver’s window at the smallcontrol tower in the distance and the lit-up runway. The plane started, motors roaring. Unless Carlos wanted unnecessary attention or even company from the authorities, he had to wait for the control tower to give him the green light.
“Okay,” Lothair relented. “We won’t kill him. But he’s not going anywhere.”
“Of course not.”
I tore my own zip ties and rolled my shoulders.
Lothair all but vibrated in his seat. “C’mon. It’s dark. We can shift right away. They won’t be able to see us from the tower.”
“At least wait for the plane to start moving. Remember Carlos still has a gun. And whatever happens, it has to be explainable to the police!”
“I know.” The whiny tone in his voice made me chuckle.
We shrugged off our jackets, and Lothair took off his shoes and pants, but we stayed in the car until the Cessna began rolling. Then I gave Lothair a nod, and we exited together. With the same excited grin he wore during his stunts, Lothair took off running toward the accelerating plane. He leaped and shifted mid-jump. That trick would never get old.
I waited in human form, watching the show. He didn’t need my help.
He grabbed the small aircraft by the fin, making the wheels screech on the runway. Spreading his wings, he gained momentum and moved the entire plane by its tail to the right, sending it into the field. The Cessna bobbed over the rocky desert until it came to a halt, dust rising around it. Lothair reached for the right wheel and mangled it in his hand.
Then he tore the door open and roared before shoving his clawed hand into the cockpit.
“Explainable!” I called.
He roared again in response, and I shook my head.
I could only imagine what was going on in Carlos’s mind as a giant, blurry monster broke into his aircraft. I got momentarily worried about the gun, but Carlos needed both hands to start the plane and couldn’t possibly have gotten control of the weapon during the scuffle. True enough, the next moment, I saw something small fly through the air and land in the desert. Lothair must have found it in the cockpit. Next, he pulled Carlos out by his neck and dropped him onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.
“Are you wondering if I feast on human flesh?” he asked in his rumbling dragon voice and opened his toothy muzzle over Carlos’s face.
Moaning pathetically, Carlos curled into a fetal position and covered his head. Lothair the dragon looked at me with a wide grin. He poked at Carlos with his claw, making the man squeak.
“Which limb would he miss the least?” he asked.
“That’s enough.”
“But why? We haven’t even started.”
“I won’t enjoy visiting you in jail.”
“Oh well. I bet he’d taste like shit anyway.”
Carlos didn’t look up, quietly sobbing into his arms. Lothair shifted back and walked toward me, wearing his smug smirk and nothing else.
“That wasfun. We should do this every Halloween.”
I sighed at his theatrics. “Put some clothes on. There’s a car coming here from the control tower.”
Carlos shook like a leaf, still crying inconsolably, as Iswiftly tightened his jacket around his arms. I needed to call Devon, and a few others, but my phone was somewhere on the roadside.
By the time the personnel from the tower arrived, Lothair was dressed and presentable. Since Carlos kept mumbling about claws and monsters, the worried-looking guy called an ambulance as well as the police.
“He must be in shock from the accident,” I suggested.
“Did you see what happened?” the guy asked, eyeing the plane.
“No. He tied our hands behind our backs in the car. We were busy trying to free each other when the plane started. By the time we managed to get out of the car, the plane was in the field in a cloud of dust. Carlos stumbled out waving his gun around, but Lothair tackled him and threw it away.”
