“Here we go,” Brian interjected.
“It’s not going so well,” Kristen admitted.
“Oh, honey,” her mom said, her voice all condolences.
“Why not? Do they have you on desk duty or something?” Frank asked with a grin.
“They did, actually. Apparently, it’s called the paper dungeon. And dragons don’t even work there. It’s filled with a group of mages,” she complained.
“Oh, poor Steel Dragon, stuck with fricking magic people instead of other dragons. It must be hard to lower thyself to such a level,” her brother said and added a third dish to the breakfast table. Sarcasm had been served.
“Every damn cop starts on the paperwork, Krissy. You know that. I think it’s a relief, actually. I didn’t want my little girl out there fighting dragons her first damn week. Learn the protocols first and make sure you don’t mess up too badly when you’re on the job. You’ll save yourself some paperwork in the long run, huh?” Her dad smiled. He’d given a version of this little speech when she had applied to the police force, but it hadn’t really had relevance. She’d skipped over regular police to SWAT and she now supposed it no longer applied to her role on Dragon SWAT either.
“Well, I kind of threw a fit and was given a different assignment,” Kristen confessed.
“Kristen Hall,” her mom said sharply.
“That’s not a great way to earn respect, Krissy. Jesus.” Her dad shook his head.
“So, what’s the problem, then?” Brian asked as he stretched for more French toast. “You got out of the paper dungeon or whatever, right?”
“Yeah. I was assigned security to some ancient dragon.”
“Let me guess, out of the city?” Frank grinned. He’d told Kristen stories about being reassigned to be kept out of the way as well.
“Yeah, but…well…” She didn’t quite know how to say it, so she simply went with blunt. “The guy I was supposed to protect is…uh, he’s dead.”
The reaction from everyone at the table was the same. Coffee or food was spat out and each member of the Hall family said in the same tone “What the hell?”
“I can’t go into the details, obviously, but Dad, you were a cop and you always told mom everything, so same trust here.”
Her parents nodded.
“No problem,” Brian said.
“Someone came in on my watch and got to him. I pursued them but they escaped. Backup showed up too late, but when they did, none of them believed me. Or maybe Stonequest does, but he acts like he thinks I might be a damn suspect.”
“He doesn’t think you’re a suspect,” her dad said patiently. “He’s doing his due diligence because he has to. He’s a professional.”
“I don’t know, Dad. He won’t let me on his team, even though it was his idea to bring me on Dragon SWAT in the first place. I guess I’m simply an intern and might be for years. On top of that, he won’t let me follow up on this case, even though I’m the only one who knows what’s going on. The rest of them think this is some dragon on dragon thing, but it’s not. I think people are involved, like actual humans. He won’t even let me say that to any of the other dragons. It’s ridiculous!”
“Would you stop and listen to yourself?” Frank said and made no effort to continue to eat. That meant he was pissed.
“What? There’s a whole slew of evidence they’re not paying attention to!” Kristen protested.
“You realize you sound like every hotshot police officer ever promoted in the history of the police, right?” her dad said.
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do. Did you tell your superior officer what you thought was happening?”
“Yes, but Dad, he didn’t listen to me.”
“And why do you say that? Because he didn’t start giving you all the evidence and put you in charge? Is that what Captain Hansen at Detroit SWAT would have done if some rookie fucked up and let the person they were guarding get killed?”
“Frank, language,” her mom chastised.
“He wasn’t a person, Dad. He was a dragon,” Kristen replied caustically.
“Oh, right. So if a dragon rips my sister’s head off, I’m supposed to shrug and forget all about it because she’s a snotty dragon instead of my snotty human sister?” Despite the tension at the table, Brian had not slowed his breakfasting.
“That’s not what I meant,” she said.
“Then what did you mean? That you already had a position in the field that you didn’t earn, and it turned out you were not qualified for it, and you now want another promotion?”
“Dad, this wasn’t a promotion and it wasn’t like that. This woman had abilities unlike anything I’ve ever seen. No dragon could have stopped her.”
“What abilities do dragons have, anyway?” Brian asked, his tone overly friendly. “And what about those mages? Did you learn all about their powers before or after you ditched them?”
Kristen glared at her brother. “You’re not helping, Brian.”
“I wasn’t trying to.” He grinned.
“I raised you better than this, Kristen. You already walked into one job without the credentials.” Her dad sounded so ashamed it almost hurt.
“I was more than competent at Detroit SWAT—”
“I won’t argue that, Kristen, but you proved yourself there. You put in time and demonstrated that you were the best person for the job and the best person for the city. Now, you need to show Dragon SWAT that you’re the best dragon.”
“Dad—”
“Cream rises to the top, Kristen. This family has no doubt that you’re the cream of the crop. Be the cream. Rise.”
“If she’s the cream of the Hall crop, what does that make me?” Brain sputtered indignantly.
“The whey,” their mom said and smiled demurely.
“Was that a fat joke, mom?” he demanded.
“Yes, dear. Sorry dear,” Marty said but didn’t sound sorry at all.
“You can do this, Krissy. We know you can. You simply have to be patient. And was I not clear? Pass the cream already.”
Kristen rolled her eyes at her dad and passed him cream for his coffee. “I guess… I guess you’re right,” she said and didn’t enjoy how little she liked admitting that her father knew things she didn’t.
“Well, of course he is, dear. He was in the police force far longer than you have been,” her mom said.
“Jesus, Mom, with the burns today!” Brian laughed.
“You’re both adults. You can take it.” She smiled.
“But how can I prove myself if I’m not allowed to be involved with this case? I get what you’re saying, Dad—I don’t like it, but I get it—but still, more dragons might be in danger. And if Stonequest is too stubborn to see that, more might be hurt.”
“You need to keep your nose down, do as you’re told, and keep your eyes and ears open. Something will turn up for you, I have no doubt about that, and when it does, all you need to do is seize the moment and let your actions speak for themselves. If you keep playing by the book, Stonequest will come to you.”
Kristen took a deep breath and nodded. She hated to admit it but swallowing her pride and doing her job made more sense than what she’d planned, which was to quit Dragon SWAT and go back to Detroit SWAT.
“When are you supposed to go in today?” her mom asked.
Kristen blushed. She hadn’t told them she was suspended. “I…uh, I’m not supposed to go in for a few days. Mental health, Stonequest said.”
“That’s good policy,” Frank said, but the grin he struggled to hide said he had much more to say about it.
Brian’s response was far less controlled. “This is unbelievable. Oh, my God, I don’t think this has ever happened before. You never even had detention in school!”
“Shut up, Brian.”
He laughed. “Why? It’s not like you can arrest me. You actually messed up so badly they grounded you?”
“A few days is only a message, Krissy. They want you on the team, b
ut you have to play by their rules,” her dad said gently.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Marty said matter of factly. “You devote so much of yourself to your work. I think it’s good that you have a few days to do otherwise. Get a massage or visit a spa. You could even take your mom, maybe.”
Kristen smiled. Her poor mom hadn’t had much luck in her children when it came to conventional preferences. She had never been one for girly stuff and of course, Brian liked nothing but food and videogames.
“Tomorrow, Mom. I promise. I’ll take you somewhere nice. But today’s Friday, right?”
Her dad nodded.
“Then I know the perfect place to, uh…relax,” She pushed out from the table and took her plate to the sink. “Thanks for breakfast, Brian, and for cleaning up.”
“Bullshit. You clean.”
“Brian, language!”
“But, Mom—”
“Until you pay rent, you do the dishes,” Frank said and his years as a cop lent resoluteness to his voice that both his children had learned to respect over the years.
“Ugh, fine.” Brian stuck his tongue out at his sister as she put her coat on and headed to the front door. “Where are you going anyway?”
“First? I’m going to take a nap.”
“I can’t believe this,” he said from the kitchen sink, his voice ripe with injustice.
Kristen laughed, transformed into a dragon, and took to the skies. For this to work, she’d have to keep a low profile. She couldn’t let Dragon SWAT see her. They’d probably chew her out for using her dragon form—hypocrites—but given where she was going, she couldn’t let humans find out about her either.
Up she flew, up and up until she was swallowed by the clouds.
Chapter Fifteen
When she woke from her nap and checked the clock, it was almost five. She had to hurry if her planned ambush had any hope of working.
Kristen ate a piece of cold pizza from her fridge—she tried and failed to remember when she’d last ordered pizza, but judging from the tang of the cheese, it had been a while. She didn’t care, though. Dragon healing powers worked on food poisoning too. It turned out bacteria couldn’t really give you the runs when your body could create caustic fluids that ignited into flame. She would’ve eaten more but she couldn’t go into this with a full stomach.
Despite it still being fairly early, it was already dark. Winters in Michigan were bleak. The nights started early and stretched late into the morning. Streetlights illuminated dirty snow and wet streets. She knew there were places where winter was beautiful—Windfire’s mansion came to mind—but the city was definitely not one of them. Cars, hundreds of thousands of people, and snow simply did not fit together to make pleasing scenery.
Luckily, she could fly above it. She transformed as a bus drove past. Shocked looks from a group of kids made her smile as she rose higher and higher until once again, she was enveloped in cloud.
She found she had a vague sense of direction. Even in cloud cover, she could tell north, south, east, and west and had a fairly good sense of distance too. Stonequest had explained it as a function of the Earth’s magnetic field, which made her think of pigeons, but he hadn’t liked being compared to flying rats any more than most people did.
It was a good thing she wouldn’t have to deal with him or any other dragons tonight.
Before long, she sensed that she was nearing her destination—or, more accurately, she sensed that she’d traveled the right amount of distance. She plunged down through the clouds to find that she’d actually overshot her mark, but that was fine. The far side of the airsoft range was a wooded area and she could approach in secrecy.
She landed in the woods, transformed into her human form, and jogged toward the course. A normal person would have called it a sprint, but with her dragon abilities, it felt easy to her.
When she checked the parking lot, she identified a few familiar vehicles. Her old SWAT team didn’t all ride together when they were off duty anymore—no one had a decommissioned SWAT van like Jonesy had—but she recognized their rides just the same. There was Drew’s truck and Washington probably rode with him. Butters—despite his size—drove a tiny hybrid, perhaps unusual for a man from the south but not to her. He was the gentlest man she’d ever met. It didn’t surprise her at all that he was concerned about emissions and the effects of excess fossil fuels. Hernandez’s motorcycle wasn’t there—no doubt because of the temperature—but Keith’s dumpy SUV was. They probably traveled together. Apparently, they’d been a thing—or banging, anyway—for far longer than she had realized.
Satisfied that they were there, she approached and searched for the familiar figures of her friends in the glaring lights that illuminated the course. She located them—already heading toward one of the farther courses—but the starting claxon hadn’t yet sounded. This was perfect.
Kristen slunk up to the desk.
“The match is about to start, ma’am. You’ll have to wait for the next one.”
She put a fifty-dollar bill on the counter. “I don’t need the change,” she whispered and held a finger to her lips. She grinned with delighted anticipation and simply couldn’t help herself.
The man working the desk nodded and quickly handed her some gear.
Once the helmet and facemask were on, she checked her gun and sneaked down a hill, across a bridge that spanned a small brook that was mostly frozen over, and into the airsoft arena.
The court they played was in a wooded area. Tall pine trees towered overhead, and sandy soil poked out underfoot between patches of snow. In the midst of this landscape, the owners had dug trenches and lined them with sandbags. She didn’t know if there were two bases, each with designated trenches, or if the pits were more random.
The soft pup-pup-pup of an airsoft gun fired at her back caught her attention and she jumped into one the ditches. The pellets hurtled overhead, illuminated by her night vision and the lights mounted on trees high in the arena.
“So you think you’re fast, huh? I have news for you, buddy. I train with the Steel Dragon!” It was Keith and she grinned broadly when she realized she couldn’t have planned this more perfectly. She moved down the trench and made sure to step in any fresh snow to lead the rookie along behind her.
“I’m not sure if you’ve played here before, buddy, but you’re coming up on a dead end. There ain’t no way you’ll make it out of here. It looks like you’re the tuna and I’m the seal.”
Kristen found that he was right. She reached the end of the tunnel where the top of the sandbags was about eight feet above the ground. Unable to resist, she crouched, then vaulted out. It would have been impossible for a human, but to her dragon-powered muscles it was as easy as hopping into a puddle.
She landed on the ground outside the trench, dropped to her belly, and crawled back a few paces through the snow. Oh, it felt good to be cold and dirty and unconcerned about work for a few minutes.
“Uh, shit,” Keith said. He’d reached the end of the tunnel.
While he looked around in confusion, she leapt down and landed about six feet behind him.
He spun and fired, and she deflected the pellets with her weapon.
“That’s impossible! Only the Steel Dragon can—”
Kristen fired and peppered his chest with pellets.
“Ow, shit! I surrender.” Keith held his gun up. “Who are you?”
Slowly, she raised the faceguard so he could see her.
“Holy shit, Kristen! What the fuck you are doing here?” Despite her having shot him seconds before, he embraced her in a hug.
“I had a night off and decided I’d ambush you bastards.”
He nodded. “That makes sense. The only way anyone could have caught me was if they had your abilities. You used your dragon reflexes and strength, right?”
She smiled. “Maybe I did.”
“Right on, yeah, totally fair. Hey, guys! Kristen’s here and looking for an ass-whooping from Detroit’s best SW
AT team.”
“What the hell was that for?”
“I leveled the playing field, is all.” Keith grinned and stuck his tongue out.
Moments later, a flurry of pellets came from the top of the trench and she ducked and cursed. She bolted back the way she had come and ran for maybe twenty paces before the trench split into two. To the right was empty but to the left—
At another barrage, Kristen fell back to Beanpole’s pleasant voice. “I hate to say it, but your time is at an end.” He sounded like he was bringing her the check at a nice restaurant instead of pursuing her through open-air tunnels.
She waited for him to round the bend in the Y, but he didn’t appear. Instead, pellets were once again fired from above. There was nothing else to do but drop to avoid being hit and even then, she had to continue into a roll until she was no longer in sight.
“It looks like we gonna have some dragon stew for dinner!” Butters laughed. She wasn’t surprised to find him and Beanpole working together, even in a free for all battle. They’d probably teamed up even before they knew she was there.
With no visible target, she aimed at his voice and fired. She missed, but only because he ducked so fast that he dislodged the sandbag he’d stood on. It caught her on the shoulder, but she barely felt the weight of it.
In the next moment, the sniper tumbled into the trench. She dodged out of the way but still managed to position her arms to stop his head from impacting with the dirt.
He landed on his back with her hands cradling his head. When he opened his eyes a moment later and saw her, he fluttered his eyelashes. “Oh, Steel Dragon, you saved me. How will I ever repay you?”
“Call for Beanpole and shoot him when he rounds the bend.”
“What? That’s traitorous! You damn dragons are all the same.” Butters reached for his gun but she snatched hers up first and shot him twice in his big belly. He grunted in pain but it quickly morphed into a hearty laugh. “What on earth are you doing here, Kristen?”
“It’s a long story. The short version is I didn’t want you guys to forget how easily I can kick all your asses at this sport I never played until I met you losers.” She grinned. It was nice to be able to tease her friends. Dragons didn’t really get it.
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 11
