A distant shot of a burned-out village came onto the screen before panning to a short street with cottages and a small church on fire, smoke billowing up into the air.
Human bodies lay strewn on the street, unmoving. Zain would bet his right arm they were actors. Even so, the blood and open, staring eyes were eerie to the point he nearly shivered.
A voiceover played as the footage continued to zoom in on the destruction. "This is a tiny village in Yorkshire, one that no one has ever heard of. In the end, not even their small numbers or relative anonymity could save them."
The shot switched to the now-smoldering interior of a cottage, a half-burned crib in the corner. The voiceover continued, "Not even the children were spared."
A tiny coffin flashed on the screen, lying next to several more rows of them, switching to what looked to be a former classroom, the chairs and desks mostly warped metal and melted plastic. "But did the dragon-shifters, who claim they treasure children, care? No. They wanted this land for their own, to steal the food and livestock from the nearby farms. Even if the villagers would've stayed away like any sane person would, the dragons wouldn't hear of it.
"And we know this because of a survivor."
The image changed to a silhouette of a woman. Distorted sniffles played before her altered voice came on. "I-I begged them to stop, to spare my baby." More sniffles. "B-But they laughed, handed her to one of them in their dragon form, and I had to sit and watch helpless as they took her into the air and dropped her not ten feet away from me. M-My poor baby."
She broke down into sobs, putting her face into her hands.
One of the tiny coffins came back onto the screen again, along with the voiceover. "This is the true nature of the dragon-shifters. The media and the DDA give you happy stories and try to convince you that the dragons won't hurt us. But they do that for only one reason—to save their jobs. Nothing else matters. And as we know, the dragons only want our land, our women, and even our lives. They're monsters."
Line after line of graves rolled by, until it stopped at one not yet filled in, a tiny coffin being lowered into the ground.
The voiceover continued, "Don't let this happen to you or your family. The dragons must be killed, every last one of them. Join our cause today and make it happen before it's too late, and we lose the war. Because if we do lose, then all of England is doomed."
The mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb appeared before a web address flashed a few times.
The video stopped, and Zain glanced at Serafina. "This is one of hundreds we managed to download from the thumb drive we retrieved."
She kept her gaze on the screen. "I need to watch all of them then. But what of the website they advertised?"
He grunted. "It's a dead end. It redirected more than a dozen times and bounced off so many servers that our specialists couldn't track it. They change the address in each video, and our best guess is that they only let it work for a short period before disabling it."
Serafina finally met his gaze, her eyes neutral, not betraying a single thought. "There's one other piece of information that would be helpful to have so I can treat the human. Do you know who the leader of the Dragon Knights is? Because if not, that's one of the things I'd like you to try to find out. Knowing about the hierarchy will make it easier for me to talk with the female."
Under the table, Zain clenched his fingers into a fist. "No, we don't know who's in charge. We're not even sure if there's a single leader or just an anonymous online persona who acts like it."
"Well, at least try to find out more while I go through the data and watch all videos."
He frowned. "So when will you talk with Ivy?"
"Soon, but not quite yet. It'll be easier if I have all the information to craft the best treatment plan, although no dragon-shifter has had to deal with a former Dragon Knight like this—at least, there's no re
cord of it—so it's going to be a sort of ad hoc approach. Anyone who talks with her needs to note any change in her behavior or even her beliefs about us, and report it to me."
Zain decided the psychologist needed to know one more thing before he left. "We have a camera in her room. The doctors turn it off when the human needs privacy, but otherwise, you can watch it any time, if that will help."
Serafina bobbed her head. "Yes, that will be quite helpful. Once I finish watching all the propaganda videos, then I'll observe her to decide the next moves. For all we know, talking with others may be all that she needs in the beginning."
He frowned. "She won't be talking with you? I thought that's why you came here, to help her?"
She raised an eyebrow. "I'll be doing plenty. Once Ivy begins to accept reality over lies like those in the video we watched, she'll struggle internally. Not to mention that according to the notes in her file you gave me, there's the grief with her brother. I need to decide when to talk with her—not too soon or too late. On top of that, her entire reality is about to be destroyed. I'd rather she not lash out at me in the early days, or she may never trust me to help her in the long run."
He resisted growling because it sounded like a whole lot of nothing to Zain.
His dragon spoke up. She has the training. We should trust her.
It all seems wishy-washy to me.
Serafina's voice prevented his beast from replying. "I know dragon-shifters prefer action over waiting in most cases. It's only natural, given our inner beasts. However, I want what's best for Ivy. Not only because she's my patient now, and it's my duty, but this is a test for me, too. I won't screw up and be sent back to Italy if I can help it."
The determination in her words made both man and beast take notice. Zain would bet everything he had that the female would rather cut off her own hand than go back to her old clan. "I'll try to be understanding, but you'll probably have to keep explaining things to me."