“Our mission is to protect mankind,” Constance said.
“Protect us from who?”
She smiled. This was exactly why she didn’t want Kristen dead. She still thought of herself as a human.
“From dragons, of course.”
“Good, yes, I want peace too,” Kristen said, still dangling through the floor. It was an odd place to try to negotiate from. The dragon really was brave to leave herself in that position. She clearly understood that if she pulled herself out, Constance would have to run or shoot.
“Where are you from?” Constance asked.
“I told you. Dearborn. What about you?”
She smiled even more warmly. “No, where are you really from?”
“I don’t know. Do you?” Kristen asked.
She was so perceptive. Constance wished she knew the answer to that question, but she couldn’t be sure. Was Kristen the result of another organization growing dragons, or did she somehow get released from their own secret lab? Her steel abilities—previously unseen in dragons—were an indication that she was unique, which seemed to suggest a process that happened outside the usual dragon system of reproduction.
There was something in her thick red hair and her pleading eyes that Constance recognized—or wanted to recognize—but she couldn’t be sure. If she was from their lab, how did she escape? Had she been raised by anti-dragon sympathizers or was her foster family simply chosen to keep her out of the limelight? She needed to know the answers to these questions before she took any action against Kristen. She wasn’t so naïve as to think that if the dragon knew about the goals of their organization she would simply sign up. But she wouldn’t kill her either, not if she could help it.
“Don’t follow, okay? Our mission is done here,” Constance said.
“What mission? At least tell me your name—” Kristen tried to say, but the assassin fired once more at the wood around her and the Steel Dragon fell through the floor.
Constance sprinted down the hallway. She knew that wouldn’t stop her adversary for long. Even if she hadn’t reflexively put her steel skin on when she’d fallen, her healing ability would work quickly. She had to hurry.
When she reached the end of the hallway, she continued down another set of stairs. She paused only to shatter a window on the second floor. With luck, that would buy her a few seconds.
Already, Kristen’s footsteps pounded toward her and closed the distance between them. She was fast—impossibly fast—and Constance knew she wouldn’t tire. She knew that if not for the magic performed on her, she would already be dead. But she’d trained her entire life for the coming showdown against dragons and wouldn’t be caught while running from one in human form.
Constance Vigil ran through the hallways of the second floor. This level was mostly parlors and sitting rooms as well as a few opulent bedrooms. It was absolutely disgusting to her that one dragon could control such wealth and hoard such garish possessions and not even share them with other dragons, let alone humans. That the dragons could control such wealth so effortlessly was sickening.
Windfire had helped them in the past, but it had been nothing to him. He’d donated a few parts of his body—some shed scales, a claw, and a broken piece of tooth—while humans had done all the actual work of growing dragons and dragon parts. They’d had to live a life of secrecy, hiding behind a false form of Christianity, living humbly, and devoting their lives to training, while the dragon they’d needed to help them spent his days in secluded luxury.
These thoughts steeled her as Kristen raced down the hallway in determined pursuit.
She hid in the tiny alcove that led to a room with paintings worth more than most people would make in a lifetime. The dragon was still in her human form, not her steel skin. Constance nodded and slid her guns into their holsters. The Steel Dragon wasn’t wearing her steel. This was a chance to learn but she couldn’t mess up. Only one punch from the dragon could crack a rib.
Her pursuer raced past and Constance darted out behind her and struck her across the back of the head with an elbow. The force of the magic-augmented blow plus her own momentum was enough to hurl the dragon into an ungainly sprawl.
Before she’d even stopped moving, Kristen had her arms under her and pushed up. She was determined, a trait Constance admired. But now wasn’t the time for admiration.
She raced forward and kicked Kristen in the back of the knee. Her leg buckled and kept her on the floor. Before she could turn, Constance kicked her in the ribs—once, twice, three times.
On the fourth kick, the dragon caught her foot. She stood and hurled her attacker all in the same motion. She was impossibly strong—inhumanly strong.
The assassin pounded into a wall. Years of training made her rotate her back to the wall instinctively so she didn’t break any limbs.
Her feet landed in the same moment that Kristen struck.
Constance blocked the punch with her forearm, although the blow was so hard her own arm smacked her in the face like she was a tiny kid fighting a cousin who was years older.
“Why did you kill Windfire?” the Steel Dragon demanded.
“He was too loyal to dragon kind.”
Surprise blossomed on Kristen’s face and the assassin used the moment of surprise to rocket her knee into the dragon’s crotch.
The strike was more effective on men, but it didn’t feel great for women either. Kristen flinched, clearly unaccustomed to the blow or the ferocity with which she delivered it.
Before the Steel Dragon could recover, Constance spun and caught her across the face with an elbow. The move would have knocked a human unconscious. In fact, properly delivered, it would have killed many a person, but not a dragon.
Her adversary only stumbled back, her eyes closed tightly in pain. Constance swept her legs out from under her and ran.
“I only want to ask you some questions,” she wheezed as the assassin reached the stairs to the first floor—the same stairs she’d first led Kristen up. The Steel Dragon. She had to think of her as the Steel Dragon until—unless—she joined them.
She flung herself out the window and landed in the snow outside the mansion and ran as fast as she could toward one of Windfire’s topiary bushes. From there, she sprinted to another, leaving a trail in the snow that her pursuer would no doubt follow. She darted to one more, then doubled back and tucked herself inside the second bush.
The tinkle of glass told her that Kristen had jumped through the window. She had no time to act—less than no time. Constance looked at her footprints in the snow. They left the second bush and after maybe twenty feet doubled back again. The two trails were obvious. If Kristen made it this far without Constance getting help, she’d know exactly where she was and she would be caught.
But her team knew where she was. They knew how to help and came through for her.
The trail leading back toward the bush in which she hid began to blow away. Wind scoured the tracks and filled them with snow yet left the trail that led away from the bush.
And not a moment too soon. The Steel Dragon had already made it to the first topiary creation—a seal balancing a ball on its nose—and moved on to where Constance was hiding behind a leafy bear.
The assassin wouldn’t have been able to see a thing but fortunately, Windfire had installed motion sensors and connected them to banks of floodlights. As the Steel Dragon approached, she was able to watch her eyes in the glare of the security system that was supposed to stop intruders rather than help them.
Perhaps things might have gone differently if not for those floodlights. Constance knew the power of dragon night vision. They could pierce the darkness with their inhuman eyes like so many predators could, but they were still animals. With banks of floodlights behind her illuminating the snow into a blinding white and Constance tucked into the thick shadows of the topiary bear, Kristen had little chance to see her until it was too late. She almost felt bad for her. But then she reminded herself that—unlike a human—Kristen
would be practically impossible to kill with her bare hands.
That gave strength to her blow. When the Steel Dragon raced past, following the path in the snow past the topiary bear and on to a third bush that Constance had never actually gone to, she prepared herself to act.
As soon as Kristen’s gaze had moved beyond her hiding place, she struck without hesitation or restraint. She leapt out like a coiled snake and kicked the dragon so hard in the face that blood blossomed from her nose. A human had delivered a blow that was strong enough to make a dragon bleed. That might have been the first time it had happened in centuries.
Still, it was not enough to knock her down. And for the millionth time, Constance was reminded that a dragon was a beast far more powerful than humans could ever be on their own. It took multiple mages to augment her body, and even with all of them working in concert, she wasn’t able to overpower the Steel Dragon’s human form.
Kristen stumbled back, clutching her nose. The assassin clawed at her eyes. The dragon tried to defend herself, but this left her body open for a punch in the gut delivered with every ounce of strength she had.
The Steel Dragon wouldn’t know it, but the blow was enough to drain the magic from Constance. Immediately, a wave of exhaustion washed over her. She’d overextended herself, ignored screaming muscles, and not focused on her breathing when she should have and now, she paid the price.
Her entire body began to tremble. She had no idea how she’d get over the fence and out of there. But none of that would matter if the Steel Dragon recovered.
Kristen fell to her knees and Constance summoned a desperate effort and kicked her in the shoulder. It knocked her to the ground not because it had been a hard blow but because she had hit her so forcefully in the gut and she was still reeling.
The killer drew her gun—the revolver that both she and Kristen knew was loaded with bullets that could kill the Steel Dragon—and aimed it once more at the face framed by those red curls that seemed so familiar to her. With her other hand, she reached for not her other gun but a different tool.
It took all her strength to keep the gun steady. If she let her arm tremble, she had no doubt this dragon in human form would sense her exhaustion.
The Steel Dragon groaned and opened her eyes to once again find a gun trained on her head. “Hands up.”
“Please! Tell me why you did it.” Kristen obeyed and held her hands up.
“Because dragons treat us like rats. Because they’ve lorded over us for centuries and forced us to eat the scraps from their feasts.”
“So help me change that. Come in with me, be the first woman—the first person—dragons have feared, ever!”
Oh, how Constance wanted to believe those words, to believe that—after killing the dragon the Steel Dragon was assigned to protect—that if they cooperated, everything would be fine. “We’ve spilled blood. We both know the dragons won’t forgive that.”
The look in the Steel Dragon’s eyes said she wouldn’t either. “So, put the gun down and don’t spill any more. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you if you give yourself up.”
Constance smiled. It was such a genuine promise from such a naïve girl but it would never work. The Steel Dragon couldn’t protect them from all the dragons that would end them. She could be brought over, but not yet.
“We are only trying to level the world. Humans have lost far more than the dragons have. Thousands—millions if you consider all the warfare that could have been prevented if the dragons simply cared about us. We care about you, Kristen Hall. We don’t want you to die.”
“Good. That’s good. I’m going to stand up, now. Okay?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.” Constance took the flash grenade she had held behind her back.
She tossed it at Kristen, who immediately turned to steel. The assassin whirled and ran as the device detonated in a blinding flash.
The Steel Dragon screamed in pain. Constance strained her ears, listening for her stumbling in the snow, but all she could hear was her own pounding heart.
She reached the wrought iron fence. A rope ladder had been thrown over the top of it. She climbed it to find two of her partners on the other side. Each took an arm and they carried her to their vehicle. They scrambled inside and accelerated away as the last of Constance’s magic strength left her and she passed into unconsciousness.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Kristen’s eyesight returned, the only tracks in the snow were her own. Still, she transformed into a dragon and flew around the perimeter of the property, doing guard duty with the drones. She saw nothing—no getaway vehicles and no tracks. Those who had worked with the blonde woman were at the very least professional and prepared but given how the woman seemed to have played with the snow, they were probably mages too.
She finished her circuit, thinking even as she did so that she’d failed horribly. Windfire was dead. She had let him die and had been outmaneuvered by a team of humans with some kind of connection to the ancient dragon. But if they were allies or had been allies, why kill him now?
It was difficult to believe that she was at the center of this, that yet another atrocity committed in the Motor City had painted her hands with blood. She hadn’t even gotten to know Windfire. Earlier, she’d almost teased something out of him, something about helping people, and had looked forward to hearing more but now, he was gone. The golden dragon was survived by his guards.
Jasper! She cursed herself for forgetting about her partner. In the chase, the fight, and the eventual disappearance of the blonde woman, she had forgotten about him. Dread rose like bile in her throat. She shouldn’t have checked the perimeter but should have made sure her partner was all right.
She transformed into the steel-skinned version of her human form. While she knew the bullets from the woman could hurt her, the assassin was long gone. Besides, she hadn’t taken the opportunity to kill her and she’d had multiple opportunities. But had she been as forgiving with Jasper? Kristen feared the possibilities—that she’d come in to find him with a hole in his head, or worse. If these people used dragon parts for weapons, did that mean they’d harvest dead dragons? It was enough to make her keep her skin steel. It was a comfort no one else could relate to and yet felt completely natural to her.
Enveloped in steel, she burst into the security room of Windfire’s mansion to startle awake a still sleeping Jasper.
“You’re all right!” she said upon hearing his snort of surprise.
He shifted in his chair, straightened his posture, and rubbed his face. “Where… I…what happened?”
Kristen didn’t even begin to know how to answer that question. “I…we were drugged or a spell was cast on us or something.”
“You were out too?” The panic in Jasper’s voice was palpable and very real.
She nodded.
“Windfire?”
Rather than speak, she simply shook her head and he nodded and wiped his eyes. “Damn it.”
“I got there in time, or I thought I did. But…he knew the attacker. I… Oh, God, it’s all my fault. I was eavesdropping instead of simply going in there.”
“You were outside when it happened, then?” Jasper asked.
“No. Windfire transformed when the killer drew her gun and that was when I rushed in. We fought, but it wasn’t enough. She—the killer, the woman in black who I chased across the grounds the other day—was good, and I mean extremely good. She was fast, strong, and knew how dragons fought enough to manipulate Windfire into catching me with his tail.”
He balked at that. “Are you sure?”
Kristen scoffed. Gallows humor from her time on SWAT reared its ugly, inappropriate head again. “Yeah, his clumsy ass knocked me back hard.”
Jasper nodded. “There were knights who once fought like that. They specialized in getting dragons into tight spaces where our size would work against us, but no one’s seen them in hundreds of years.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know
about all that, only that this woman knew what she was doing.”
“How did she get away?” he asked instead of the question she deserved—how did you let her get away?
“She blinded me with a flash grenade.”
“It was a good choice considering you had steel skin.”
Kristen shook her head. “She had a weapon, bullets that could—”
A proximity alarm activated followed almost immediately by another. Drones began to buzz. Their perimeter was breached.
Jasper turned away from her and threw himself into the controls of the screens connected to the surveillance equipment. Despite his age, he worked the gear with surprising efficiency. She supposed it made sense. If he worked security, he needed to know all this. In a moment, his screens showed the familiar shapes of dragons coming to land outside the mansion.
“Stonequest,” she said. “I totally forgot about him. He called me and woke me up. It was lucky, really.”
“He was worried?”
“I didn’t think so at first but maybe he was. But if they thought something like this might happen, why did they have only the two of us on duty?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer. Stonequest was already striding through the mansion. She went to greet him and tell him what had happened.
“Kristen, it’s good to see you’re okay. Emerald, perimeter. Timeflash, I want security footage. Heartsbane, check on Windfire.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir.”
“Oh? Have you mollified the old bastard already?” He gave a little half-grin until he saw her clenched jaw.
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 9
