Author:
Anna Mantovani is an author, blogger and songwriter based in Turin, Italy. She has a degree in Media Engineering and works in the railway sector. With her sister Maria Carla, also a science-fiction writer, she manages the blog “The Mantovanis”, which focuses on independent speculative fiction and geek culture. With her husband Dario (and sometimes their two kids as guest stars) she plays in the electropop duo “Sedona”. Find out more at: www.themantovanis.blog.

The story is set in the fictional city of Europa, in Central Europe, the last city left after a nuclear war that made most of the Earth uninhabitable and woke up dragons - prehistorical creatures that caused an mass outbreak of a lethal disease that decimated the population and turned the survivors into scale-covered, violent mutants that rebel against the government.

Sophie, a young doctor working for her boss Amanda Solarin in a medical facility, accidentally meets an elderly woman, Emma, who miraculously recovered from the dragon plague, and whose blood could be the key to a vaccine. Saving Emma from government persecution, Sophie goes on the run with her.

Meanwhile, Erik Persson, a police officer, sets out to track Sophie and Emma, while suspecting that a mole might be hiding in the ranks of the police.

Sophie and Emma hide in the slums and after almost getting caught by the police several times they finally fall in the hands of the rebels; in her captivity, Sophie discovers that the plague survivors are not as irrational and violent as the press portrays them and agrees to work with them to develop a vaccine. She also discovers that some of the survivors have the ability to communicate telepathically with a dragon.

She meets the General, the leader of the rebels, whose name is Cain, and despite her fear for his terrifying looks and enigmatic personality, she is strangely attracted to him.

The Dragon Plague

 Sophie had expected to discover another subway station with battered and impersonal-looking halls, or perhaps another crowded corridor. Nothing, however, had prepared her for what she found on the other side of the door.


She was in a very large room, composed of a central nave and a  lower aisle separated by an arcade on each side.


The ceilings were very high, with pointed arches of grey stone. The walls were mostly nothing but pillars where large stained-glass windows were framed. Most of them were broken and ruined, but here and there Sophie could still recognize the drawings of human figures.


At one end of the great hall there was a large circular window with a shape that reminded Sophie of a daisy. 


We are in a cathedral, whispered Emma, who seemed just as impressed. I have never imagined that they could be so.... majestic, she added quietly to herself.


Why would anyone build a cathedral down here? Sophie asked, puzzled.


Chapter 27