by S. W. Clarke
But I didn’t move. It took all the willpower I could muster, and then some.
He’d set a satchel down at his feet, his forearms set against the railing as he stared out at the river. Whatever was in that satchel was important; I could tell by the way he’d placed it, by his bodily attunement to it even as he pretended to be focused elsewhere.
“Good eye, Perce,” I whispered in my smallest voice. “Can you help me with something?”
“What?”
“I need to get a tracking tile into that bag by his feet.”
He paused. “You need me to misbehave again.”
“Just for thirty seconds. Long enough to slip the tile in before whoever’s coming to pick up that bag actually does. I’ll tell you when.”
Dragons didn’t smile, precisely, but I could almost feel Percy smiling. He loved participating in missions. “Got it.”
We waited a few more minutes, both of us resuming our touristy poses until the time came when a second man approached our Peter. He was also young, with dark, curly hair—and I recognized him from his family portrait. He was Mr. Gnomeling Trafficker.
The two of them started into an immediate conversation between familiars.
They may have been familiar, but there was an obvious tension between them. Peter’s body language wasn’t fearful, precisely, but stiff. Uncertain. Anxious.
The Scarred didn’t have tattoos. They didn’t have a handshake or a code word that I knew of. But they did have a look about them—each and every one.
When I saw a Scarred, I knew it as well as you’d recognize a psychopath if you studied them on a regular basis. It was in the mannerisms, in the facial micro-expressions, in the speech patterns.
I hadn’t been able to tell from the pictures in his home, but it was as obvious as peach pie in the brilliant light of day.
Mr. Gnomeling Trafficker was one of them. Scarred. He was real trouble, too.
I uncrossed my legs. “It’s time, Perce.”
↔
Percy backed away from the bench, toward the middle of the grassy area. A strange rumble emanated from his chest and out his throat, somewhere between a belch and a growl.
And without any other preamble, he dropped onto his back and started rolling. His dragon legs kicked up in the air, and he spewed happy fire like a dog-dragon.
This had the effect of making the family who’d been picnicking on the grass scramble to their feet in screaming terror. In fact, everyone in the vicinity froze, then ran or backed away.
Including me.
I leapt from the bench and backed my way against the railing, next to Peter.
He didn’t even notice me; he’d turned around and fixed his attention fully on Percy. It was one of those sights humans didn’t rightly know how to process, and so you just watched a while to assess the danger.
In the moment before I dropped the tile into the satchel, I wondered if he’d recognize me. If he were even to turn his head, would he know my face? Would he see the teenage girl beneath the past five years of grief and anger?
Probably not.
They never did.
With a carnie’s flippancy, I flicked the tile into the satchel’s opening. It dropped into the dark interior with slam-dunk confidence. Then I eased my elbows back onto the railing. “Man oh man, fellas. It isn’t every day you see a dragon sunbathing along the Mississippi.”
Peter glanced at me. Didn’t recognize me. “Is that what you’d call it? Sunbathing?”
“Sure. Perfectly harmless, but it’s best to keep your distance. Don’t want to get singed by some happy-fire.”
The two men left quickly after I said that, each of them departing a different direction down the boardwalk. Splitting up.
But Peter wasn’t the one with the satchel anymore. It was the other Scarred, Mr. Gnomeling Trafficker.
So this had been a pickup.
GoneGodDamnit. I’d expected the satchel to stay with Peter, but now he had disappeared into the crowd. I would never be able to catch up without setting off his hair-trigger alarm bells. Which meant I would have to follow Mr. Trafficker in the hope I’d get some useful intel.
I put my Bluetooth receiver in my ear, turned it on.
He could go for now. I would find him.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trafficker was still close enough that I could pick out the sounds of him walking; the tile was also a listening device. When he stopped, I held my breath. A few seconds later, I heard his voice. It was far away, but unmuffled; it seemed he’d opened up the flap to check on the contents. “I’ve got it,” he said. He must have been talking to someone on the phone now. “I’ll deliver it to Grunt at the Sunday gala to make up for last night’s loss.”
“A gala, huh?” I murmured, watching as Percy went on rolling in the grass. “And someone named ‘Grunt’ receiving gifts. Sounds like a wild time.”
That was it. The conversation was over. I could hear the sounds of Mr. Trafficker walking again.
I crossed to the bench. Percy caught a glimpse of me nearing, and he immediately rolled back onto his feet. “Ugh, I’m all grass-stained now.”
“Perce, we’re gonna follow the guy who took the bag. I want to see where he takes it. We might get a juicy lead.”
“Get on,” Percy said.
I climbed onto Percy’s back, and he took off into the air in the direction I pointed. We flew high enough that we could hop from rooftop to rooftop; the buildings in the French Quarter were set at just the right height to give us a good bird’s-eye view.
Soon enough, we found Mr. Trafficker walking toward the Ninth Ward. He was getting away from the crowds and into the neighborhoods, which wasn’t where his house was. He was going elsewhere, which was good for me.
It also meant we’d have to be stealthier; neighborhoods were quiet, and Percy’s wings and talons were not.
“Real soft now, Perce,” I whispered, leaning close to his neck. “Just take it slow and easy. We’re not going to lose him at this rate.”
“I know, Tara,” Percy whisper-snapped. “I’m going as soft as I can.”
“You took that last landing a bit fast.”
He took off, glided us to the peak of a shingled rooftop. “Would you leave me be?”
When he landed on the rooftop, one of his feet slid for a second. A shingle dislodged and went clattering down to the edge of the roof, where it unceremoniously rolled off the gutter and hit the sidewalk from about ten feet up.
Mr. Trafficker, who’d just reached the end of that block, stopped. The bag swung faintly in his hand as he turned around. His eyes lifted.
And there, sitting in plain sight on a roof, was a blue dragon and a blond woman on his back.
He promptly turned and booked it across the road.
“Box of frogs,” I whispered. “Forget tailing him, Perce. We’re doing a citizen’s arrest.”
“Finally.” Percy spread his wings, launched himself off the rooftop with such speed I barely hung on as he swooped down and around, angling after Mr. Trafficker, who’d found the opposite sidewalk.
Percy flew us so low down the center of the street, his wingtips practically touched the asphalt when he flapped. Mr. Trafficker appeared by intervals behind the cars parked alongside the street, and he kept glancing over at us.
“Stop!” I called out as we came parallel to him. “You’re under arrest.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he veered hard right at the next corner.
And then several things happened at once.
In the excitement of the chase, Percy veered right, too. He took the turn faster than I could typically handle, and though I did my best to hang on, that GoneGodDamned afterbirth was too slippery. I lost my grip and slid right off his back.
This would hurt. And when my body met asphalt, it sure as hell did.
Now imagine this sight from the perspective of the cop who was sitting in her car at this precise corner. She was probably drinking a coffee, waiting for someone to fail to yield. And then a
dragon had come roaring down the street, knocking the stop sign right over. In fact, the steel rod cracked and the thing went clattering onto the sidewalk.
So it was in the moment I hit the road, my leather jacket wearing away as I skidded over the concrete, that the cop car’s sirens turned on and that familiar wailing sound started up.
Meanwhile, I spied Percy flying unaware down the street, still chasing after Mr. Trafficker.
Chapter 5
“Percy!” I groaned after him, pressing up to a seat. “Stop, GoneGodDamn it.”
He didn’t hear me; between the rushing of his own blood and the sirens of the cop car that had just taken off after the two of them, he was as good as gone.
He probably didn’t even know I wasn’t on his back anymore.
I took quick stock of my parts. My jacket was ruined and I might have road rash waiting to peek its painful head through my adrenaline, but my arms worked. When I pushed myself to my feet, I found the bottom parts functional, too.
Hurting, but functional.
I took off after the Scarred-dragon-cop parade, limping down the road until my legs allowed me to run. I didn’t have to go far—Mr. Trafficker was only on foot, after all, and I soon found the cop car had stopped him two blocks over from where I’d been thrown.
I came panting up to the scene to find a lady cop with her sidearm out and pointed overtop her door at Percy, who was cowering on the roof of a car. The weak metal squealed as his claws dug in.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trafficker stood with his hands up and his satchel very much on the sidewalk beside him.
I hardly processed the last bit. When I saw Percy with a gun’s barrel pointed at him—no matter that a bullet that size would ping right off him—my heart barrel-rolled in my chest.
“The dragon’s no threat,” I called out, approaching slow and careful with hands up. I’d done this dance before. “We were performing a citizen’s arrest, he and I.”
The cop’s brown ponytail swung as she glanced back around at me, her gun never leaving course. “Don’t come any closer.”
She was alone. She was nervous.
I stopped where I was. “I’m that little dragon’s protector. I promise you, he will not harm anyone. Isn’t that right, Percy?”
“Right.” The metal screeched as Percy dug in harder. His wings fluttered like a nervous cat’s tail.
“Get down off the car,” the cop said. “No flying. Climb down real slow.”
And he did. Real slow, with the gun pointed at him the whole while.
Eventually—after three more cop cars had shown up and clogged the neighborhood street like an artery—I was allowed to join Percy. The lady cop patted us both down with uncommon aggressiveness, asked us a series of questions I’d grown used to over the years.
She nodded at Mr. Trafficker, who was being patted down by another officer farther down the sidewalk. “Why were you trying to arrest him?” She sounded pissed, but I couldn’t quite figure out why.
“He grabbed my—” I began, but Percy was already growling at Mr. Trafficker.
“GoneGodDamn Scarred,” Percy muttered. “We were hunting him down, and—”
I shot Percy my most scathing look. “Be quiet, Perce.”
The cop’s eyebrows rose. “What do you know about the Scarred?”
Now I was the one with raised eyebrows. “You know about the Scarred?”
“Why do you think I was on a stakeout? I’m trying to stop this fledgling mafia from being born.”
So that’s why she’s so mad. We ruined her stakeout.
I was liking this cop more and more.
“My bad, Officer,” I said. “Though it wasn’t a total bust. I’d say it was Perce’s doing that helped you get one of them in the end, wasn’t it?”
She acknowledged this with a nod. Then nodded at Percy, who’d curled into a tight ball near my feet. “Do you have a permit to fly this dragon?”
“Sure do.” I reached into my ruined jacket, pulled my wallet out from the inner breast pocket. Removed my street performer’s license and passed it to her between two fingers.
In at least one way, I was very much legit.
She examined it for a moment. Then handed it back to me. “Well, Tara and her Dragon, you two need to get off the streets.”
I replaced my license. “Unless we’re performing.”
The barest flicker of a smile touched her face. I’d charmed law enforcement again; if I hadn’t been under scrutiny, I would have brushed invisible dust off my shoulder. “Yes.”
I nodded at Mr. Trafficker, who wasn’t being cuffed. In fact, it looked like they were about to let him go…with his satchel. “No arrest, huh?”
“I’m afraid he hasn’t done anything illegal today.” But before she turned away, I could have sworn she gave me a wink. It told me all I needed to know: But that doesn’t mean he won’t do something illegal tomorrow. I suspected this cop would be keeping a close eye on him, waiting for the moment he did something patently illegal.
“You do what you have to do.” I took a step toward Percy, and as the blue and red lights reflected over the houses around us, he and I started walking back through the Ninth Ward toward the barn. Once we were outside the main part of the city, we flew.
Mr. Trafficker hadn’t been arrested and I hadn’t gotten to see inside his satchel, both of which chapped my ass, but I at least knew something he didn’t know I knew: his whereabouts two nights from now. He would be at a gala.
It was a solid lead.
“I’m sorry, Perce,” I said, leaning close to my dragon’s neck. He hadn’t said a word since the cops had appeared with a gun trained on him. “I know that was terrifying.”
He just kept flying, not speaking for a while. Then, “It was.”
I knew if he was talking to me, things would be all right.
“Everyone always thinks I’m dangerous,” he went on. “Nobody trusts me.”
“I trust you.”
“You don’t count.”
I huffed. “And why not?”
“You’re my protector and my partner. You have to trust me.”
“What would you think if I told you I’d trust you anyway?”
We began to descend toward the barn. “But you slid off my back earlier.”
“Oh, you did notice that.” I paused. “Well, I’ve got a solution. We happen to have it right here in the barn.”
He landed us in front of the barn door. “If you’re talking about the steel wool brush again, I’m going to burn this whole place down.”
I hopped off him, pulled the big sliding door open. “Let’s just try a little spot on your tail.” I raised my eyebrows at him. “And then you can have mutton for dinner.”
It didn’t take anything more than that; Percy trotted into the barn with a swinging, upright tail. Bribing a dragon’s stomach with mutton is the equivalent of offering a human a million bucks.
↔
My shredded jacket lay in the hay. I’d rebraided my hair tight to keep it out of the way. My sleeves were pulled up to my elbows.
This was a serious job.
Percy’s laughter blasted through the barn. Somewhere in the distant night, a dog started barking in return.
“You’re going to get us kicked out if you keep that up.” I paused to give him a stern, matronly eye, pointing the brush at him. “Now stop wiggling, would you?”
Percy’s slitted eyes regarded me from the end of his curved neck. “I’m sorry. It tickles like crazy. And you know I’m already ticklish anyway.”
“Yeah, your ticklish is my walloped-in-the-head.” I stepped closer, still feeling the adrenaline from when I’d had to dodge that flying tail. I shook my limbs out. “All right, we’re gonna go real gentle this time.”
As I started in with the steel wool brush on the scales at the tip of his tail, my mind dragged me back to Mr. Trafficker and his upcoming gala. A few nights from now he’d be dropping off whatever was in that satchel.
I had to ge
t into that gala. I had to get to his boss.
This was my way in. I could feel it.
Five years I’d been chasing the Scarred, ever since the night the gods left, and this was the first time I felt I’d really made any headway into their ranks.
It was always the two-bit lackeys I managed to expose. The ones at the bottom of the pyramid. Not the ex-vamp I wanted. Not the capstone at the tippy top.
That man’s name was Valdis, and I was going to kill him.
That thought had entered my mind every day since their deaths. It was a testament, a memorial to the ones I’d lost.
I was going to kill Valdis.
But for now, I would have to settle for his lieutenant, Peter Navasov.
I must have been scrubbing too vigorously at Percy’s tail, because a low, warbling rumble started in his chest. His tail began moving, and I backed right off. I was not getting concussed tonight.
“Is it working?” he asked through a giggle.
I squinted at his tail. I couldn’t see any difference. “A little.”
Maybe I just had to go at it longer. GoneGods, it was going to take a week for me to scrub every scale on his body. And I needed to rub the afterbirth off more than just his back.
Because, let’s be honest: when you’re a dragon rider and a street performer, it’s not enough to ride along like you’re on a horse. People want you dangling from his talons. They want you climbing onto his back in the most difficult way possible.
I resumed the brushing, this time with more vigor. My arm was already aching.
It occurred to me as I scrubbed how easy this would have been for his real mother. She probably had a tongue like a cat—the perfect abrasive for licking all this off. And how negligent had I been, leaving him coated in this stuff for his first five years of life?
Heck, I didn’t even know it was on there until a tiny ninja informed me.
“Tara,” Percy said.
“Hmm?”
“Tell me the story about the shooting star.”
“Sure, Perce.”
