The Lazarus Gate by Mark Latham

are the dragon. You are the master of flame, and of the growing storm. His life is in your hands.’
    No. We are one.
    And as I turned back to look at my father, I realised it was true. My eyes now smouldered like embers. I tasted the sulphur fumes as acrid smoke poured from my mouth and nostrils. I spread my mighty wings that seemed to envelop the entire horizon, and with a great beat of those wings I was soaring into the air.
    I encircled the farmhouse, and revelled in anarchy as I lit its thatched roof with a gout of orange fire from my jaws. My father recoiled at the sight, and ran back and forth in his flaming prison cell. I swooped down and beat my wings to drift before him, pricking up my scaly ears to make out what he was saying. It was hard to tell at first, with the fires roaring and the wind whistling around me, but then I heard him.
    ‘A storm is coming. You must come down from there. Do not provoke the tempest!’
    I laughed with great mirth, and to my puny father it must have seemed like a ferocious roar, for he stopped in his tracks and looked at me afeared.
    ‘Do not fret for me,’ I growled. ‘I am the dragon. I fear no storm; I fear nothing!’
    My father’s expression changed. He no longer looked afraid, or even angry. He looked disappointed. He shook his head slowly and I saw that he was not in awe of me, despite my power. He pitied me. I was a failure in his eyes just as I had always been. In that moment I knew that he did not deserve my mercy, and I breathed deep before spitting out a torrent of flame that smote him where he stood. My rage was so great that I flew around in ever-increasing circles, setting to flame the whole world until all was red ruin.
    * * *
    I woke violently, crying out. I was near certain that I was in my bedroom at Mrs. Whitinger’s boarding house, but the room refused to stop spinning long enough for me to tell for sure. Light streamed in at the small sash window, though I had no idea what time it was, nor even what day. The door flew open almost immediately, and Ambrose Hanlocke rushed in, looking concerned. He mouthed some words of comfort to me, but I could not hear him, for my body pained me and my mind was confused. I was in a dreadful fug, and gripped the bedsheets tightly as I tried to compose myself.
    ‘Can you hear me, old chap?’ asked Ambrose. ‘I said you’re home, and you’re going to be all right.’
    Another man entered the room behind him. He was young but grave-looking, well-dressed and clean-shaven. He carried a Gladstone bag, which he set down on my bedside table and started rifling through.
    ‘This is McGrath, John; from the club,’ said Ambrose, although my head swam so much I could barely comprehend him. ‘He’s a medical man. He’s going to give you something for the pain.’
    The young man prepared a hypodermic syringe, and something deep in my subconscious must have alerted me to a hidden danger. My fears were confirmed as the man rolled up my sleeve and tapped on my vein.
    ‘Don’t worry, Captain Hardwick,’ he said. ‘Just a bit of morphine.’
    I snapped to immediately, and knocked the syringe violently from his hand. Ambrose made a poor job of restraining me as I lurched upright. The glare from the sunlight outside stung my eyes as surely as if pins had been thrust into them. I was vaguely aware of McGrath crying out in alarm.
    ‘Don’t put any more of that bloody stuff in me!’ I barked, in the tone of a drillmaster.
    I slipped my legs out of the bed and tried to stand, and found that I was too dizzy. The morphine fug was still upon me—that they had dosed me while I was unconscious was now certain, and I felt a disconcerting mixture of sickness and delight at the thought of it. Both men helped me return to a seated position before I did myself further injury.
    ‘Captain Hardwick,’ the young man said, ‘I only wish to help you. If opiates are not to your liking for… ahem… whatever reason, then I can give you something