The entirety of the space was filled with stuff. There were great gleaming heaps of coins, goblets, jewelry, crowns, and other expensive trinkets. There were sacks casually stacked off to the side that were spilling over with diamonds. There were rolls of silk so shiny that at first I thought it was an optical illusion. Paintings were casually stacked and leaning everywhere, and though I myself knew very little about artwork, I recognized many of these as the originals that graced the pages of Julie’s many art books. There were pristine old classic cars parked down here, with even more stuff stacked on their roofs.

I’d seen a TV show once about people with a mental problem that caused them to hoard things. This cave had that vibe, only instead of junk, stacks of old newspapers, and cats, this place was absolutely packed with valuables and items that reeked of money. I carefully stepped over what I was fairly certain was a Fabergé egg that had just been left on the floor.

The cave smelled dry, sort of old, like an antique store, or an old lady’s house where all the furniture was covered in plastic and there would be an inevitable dish of hard candies that had gradually melted into a solid, colorful block, and then the grandmother would complain that nobody ever came to visit…But beneath that antique smell there was something else, something that took me a moment to place. Back in college I’d had a roommate with a pet iguana. So the cave smelled like an old lady’s house with a pet iguana.

And judging by the thick, musky lizard smell, we’re talking a really big iguana.

“Hello?” I called.

“This way, Mr. Pitt,” came the thunderous response. The noise caused me to instinctively crouch for cover behind a taxidermied white rhino. “No need to be alarmed.” Management’s voice was terribly loud inside the cave. “Please, excuse the mess. I have been meaning to organize but I have been so very busy.”

Peeking over the rhino’s butt, I couldn’t see the source of the epic voice. Cursing myself for being an idiot, I made my way around a suit of armor that had a placard saying that it had belonged to Henry the Eighth and a figure that could only be one of the terracotta warriors. Now I could see that in the center of the cave was a gigantic stone pillar, big as a city bus flipped onto its nose. Something vast moved around the stone. Scales whispered against rock.

It was so big that it took me a second to sort out the images and categorize the horrific giant marvel with a word.

It was a dragon.