But she very much doubted that would happen. She used the journey to consider what she knew about the murderer and hoped it would be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kristen set the van down about a mile out from the mansion, landed on the street, and reverted to her human form before she’d even stopped moving. She smiled with satisfaction. Apparently, transforming on the back of the speeding van with her friends inside had broken any mental barriers she’d constructed to stop herself from accomplishing it while moving. Her brother had always said her doing everything under pressure was crazy—and he was probably right—but that was who she was and who she had always been. She had to accept that if she wanted to continue to grow.
Keith stepped out as she approached the back of the van.
“That was fucking awesome. You’re already up to fifty thousand views.”
“I’m up to what?”
He blushed, his crimson color only visible because the lights of the SWAT van were on.
“Meanwhile, in reality, you totally trashed this van,” Drew said from the front seat as she reached the back and climbed in.
“Does it still drive?” she asked.
The team leader revved the engine in response. “It’s not like I can simply kill the damn thing to save gas when we might all freeze to death without the heater.”
“Fair point,” she acknowledged. “Then drive us there. It’s about a mile down the road. That whole system is designed to keep dragons out, or at least the drones and the aural sensing crystal sphere thingy were. I think if we drive in, we have a better chance of actually surprising this woman.”
“But I thought the security system belonged to Windfire,” Jim queried as Drew complied without protest and the van accelerated down the dark country road.
“It does, and yet the intruder has been the one who really enjoyed the advantage of it. She used it to cover her tracks and to destroy evidence. I think we have to assume she has control of it now—or at the very least, that she’s watching the cameras.”
“And what about the other guy?” Drew asked from the front seat. “That guy whose picture had a big black X over it?”
“We have to assume he’s still alive,” she said, knowing full well that everyone around there could feel the despair her aura radiated. Ridgespine should not have rushed in there. Her only hope was that the sergeant was more adept with his dragon body than she was. Surely he could stand against the intruder. He had to.
Because to think the intruder wasn’t there when she’d had that picture was obviously absurd.
“Are you gonna tighten that or only rock the steel skin?” Hernandez asked.
“I think this fight will have to be in my human body,” Kristen said and didn’t relish the thought. “This woman obviously knows how to fight dragons, and I’m…well, less than experienced. If she could manipulate Windfire into hitting me with his tail, I don’t doubt that she could get me to burn you all to a crisp.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jim commented drily.
“I’m only saying that if you see me transform into my dragon body, you get clear. I’m not saying I won’t. I damn well might have to, but I don’t think it would be smart.”
“And what about your skin, Steel Dragon?” Keith asked.
“When I turn to steel, my clothes turn to steel as well. That means if I’m wearing a bulletproof material, it’ll change—at least visibly. I don’t know if would still be able to stop bullets. I know steel should be able to and it does. I withstood rocket-propelled grenades, but these dragon bullets… I just can’t be sure. If my vest is transformed to steel, the bullet might simply tear through powered by whatever dragon magic is making it.”
“You have really weird concerns, you know that?” Beanpole said. Now that they were driving, he seemed to have recovered some of his color. She loved the tall, quiet gentleman he had always been to her. He hadn’t liked flying but rushing in to fight a human powered by mages or a mage who understood tech or whatever the hell this was didn’t bother him at all.
“Sorry again for tipping the van like that,” Kristen said, tightened her vest, and checked the ammunition in her pistol. She had a feeling that firearms might define this battle. The woman was a dragon warrior, after all, not a police officer. A gunfight might give her and the team the advantage.
“It’s fine, but please, don’t mention it again, especially if we’re in a van. Like ever.”
“No problem.”
“Do you have a plan?” Drew asked her. “We’ll have contact in thirty.”
“I showed you all the map and where the security room is, so that’s our goal. That will move team A past the standard security room so we can check there. Team B will come up from behind. We’ll use radios to keep in touch so we’ll all arrive at the same time. Butters and Beanpole, I want you at stairways. They should give you the longest sightlines.”
“Right, we went over that, but what about that gate?” he asked.
“Oh.” She’d flown over the gate so many times she hadn’t even thought of it as an obstacle. “Ram that fucker down.”
“You heard her, people!” Drew’s voice brimmed with excitement. There was nothing like trashing shit to get the adrenaline pumping. “Hold on tight!”
Before he had completed the warning, they bulldozed through the gate. A crisp pop and hiss indicated tires going flat. That wasn’t a surprise, of course, as anti-vehicle strips were installed under it. Not that it would matter. The barrier was down and they were through. It was time.
The team spilled from the van. Drew, Jim, and Keith had assault rifles. Hernandez carried a shotgun plus a belt of explosives. Beanpole and Butters had high powered rifles, but their normally absolutely insane scopes were replaced with something that looked more suitable for close quarters—the kind you could use to hunt a deer instead of shoot a fly’s asshole from a half-mile out. Kristen was armed with only a pair of handguns. She had no doubt that she’d need to pursue the woman at some point. Tactical retreat seemed to be one of her trademarks, and she didn’t want to be encumbered when it happened.
They raced through the yellow tape marking the mansion as a crime scene and up to the door. It was locked.
“That’s a bad sign.” She shook her head. “Last time I was here, this place was wide open.”
Hernandez stepped forward. “Do you want me to—”
Her offer came too late. Kristen kicked the door hard enough to splinter it, but instead, the wood cracked to reveal a metal one hidden inside the first.
“Holy shit. Paranoid much?” Keith said.
“The motherfucker was murdered in his own house,” Hernandez pointed out and placed charges on the hinges before Kristen could stop her. “At least he had a reason to be crazy.”
Windfire had also been alive for thousands of years and watched humanity come and go and grow from loose tribes to the globe-spanning culture it was now. That couldn’t be good for the psyche, she thought. It was insane to think that—if she didn’t die in the next twenty minutes—she would conceivably live through not only the next few centuries but the next few millennia.
Kristen, Keith, and Jim raced down the hallway, past the security center where she and Jasper had been stationed when they’d been drugged, and toward the stairway that led to the hidden room. Drew and Hernandez—team B—went up the first set of stairs they saw with the understanding that they’d rendezvous soon. The emptiness of the house did something to calm Kristen’s nerves. At least the intruder hadn’t brought her entire team with her.
They sprinted up the stairs and burst into the hallway.
To her surprise the woman stood in plain sight, her gun trained on an opening in the wall that led to the secret room. That could only mean that Ridgespine wasn’t dead.
“We have a hostage. I repeat, hostage situation,” Kristen said into her radio.
“That’s right, you have a hostage,” the woman shouted. “If anyone moves, this dinosaur gets it. And if you think I’m
not packing dragon-scale rounds…well, you’re not thinking that, are you?”
“Look, answer some questions, and no one has to get hurt,” Kristen said and took a step forward.
“Stop right there!” the woman yelled although she still didn’t move her gaze from Ridgespine. “What you’re trying to do is talk long enough so you can try to poison me with your aura. That’s what this snake in there did. But you’re better than that, Kristen. You’re the Steel Dragon, the lost dragon of Detroit. You can still join us. It’s not too late.”
“Join who?” she asked, both to keep the woman talking and because she was curious. The assassin knew something about her—she had to.
“I can’t tell you that, not with all these cops here. Take them out, Kristen, it’s the only way. You do them in, I’ll put a bullet in this fucking reptile’s brain, and we’ll go answer all the questions you have.”
“I can’t hurt these people. They’re my friends.”
“Then let them join us. Cops often don’t approve of our methods, but if you promise me that they’ll let me go once I put a bullet in this fucker’s brain, we’ll be fine.”
Ridgespine must have moved or something. Kristen had the sense that the threat wasn’t aimed at her as much as it was aimed at him.
“How about we start with some good faith questions. You know my name. What’s yours”
The woman considered this for a moment before she spoke. “Constance. You can call me Constance.”
“Okay, good, Constance. Good. Look. I can’t let you kill Ridgespine, so what are your demands?”
“How about we start with a fundamental restructuring of human and dragon society? Our demands are power for the people, not these monsters. We want to be able to kill them, the same way they can kill us. Only then can we talk. If I shoot another one, it’s the best way to accomplish that.”
“Constance, if you continue to kill dragons, it’ll only make them retaliate against you and your people.”
“There will be sacrifices, but humankind won’t bear this burden forever.”
“It’s not about us versus them. We’re all on the same team. This doesn’t have to end with violence.”
“Violence is our only recourse. We tried trusting dragon kind, but we can’t. Join us, Kristen. No more surprises, no more deception, and no more bullshit. We can tell you more about…about you.”
In that moment, Hernandez and Drew stepped around the other end of the hallway.
Constance glanced in their direction—a tiny, fractional movement, something Kristen would have disregarded as a flinch—but in that span of time, a clang echoed and the assassin cursed.
Ridgespine had moved inside the room and that clang was the door slamming shut.
“Move in,” Drew shouted. “The hostage is temporarily safe. Disable target!”
Constance fired at him and the bullet struck him in the chest. All it accomplished was to knock him down.
The woman turned toward the hole in the wall and fired a volley at the hidden Ridgespine, but Kristen could feel the dragon’s aura inside the room. He was alive.
“Give up. You’re surrounded.”
“Oh, Kristen, you don’t understand at all.” Constance took out a pair of flash grenades and rolled them down the hall toward the two teams.
The Steel Dragon closed her eyes and turned her eyelids to steel. When she did this, it really did black out her vision.
By the time she opened her eyes, the assassin was nowhere to be seen. She only knew which way she’d run because Hernandez lay on the ground with a bloody nose.
Without hesitation, she sprinted in pursuit.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kristen raced past Hernandez and her former teammate groaned weakly. “Bust her face up,” the woman muttered as she passed her.
She rounded the corner and located Constance at the end of the hall beside the doorway that led to the stairs. The assassin fired once, twice, and three times, but she aimed low. She couldn’t read the woman’s aura, only her actions, but she still had the sense that she didn’t want to kill her. None of the shots could have hit her head. As stupid as it might have been, this made her race toward the gunfire even faster.
That seemed to scare the killer enough to change her tactics. She raised her gun higher and fired again. Kristen dove into a roll, came up on one knee, and fired in return with one of her handguns.
Constance immediately ducked into the stairway. Kristen had not been able to land a shot. She raced forward and barely caught sight of her quarry as she rounded the stairs and went out into a hallway on the first floor.
The dragon vaulted over the banister, turned her body to steel in midair, and let gravity seize her and drag her down to the first floor. She pounded into the floorboards and surprised Constance, who’d aimed up the stairs.
The assassin swung her weapon but her target put on a burst of dragon speed and raced forward.
The woman fired but not before Kristen was able to throw a shoulder into her. The blow was strong enough to crack ribs. With the added mass from her steel skin, it would have been enough to send a lineman from the Detroit Lions sprawling, but Constance didn’t tumble. Instead, she twisted in midair and landed on her feet. She was as agile as any cat and had to be a mage or have mage assistance.
Kristen was beyond frustrated. There was so much she didn’t know, while her opponent seemed to know everything about her. There was a serious disadvantage to being famous.
The dragon raced forward, and Constance fired at her as she did so. A concerted volley ended with the empty click of a gun that had run out of ammo.
This was her chance.
The assassin knew it too. Quickly, she ducked into a doorway and Kristen followed.
She went through a door and into a large kitchen. Before she could so much as look around, a frying pan hurtled toward her face. She punched it out of the air but it was rapidly followed by a bowl, then a plate, another bowl, and a mug. Each projectile was easily deflected and shattered as she pushed toward her attacker.
It was a stupid attack. Dishes wouldn’t be able to hurt her. She closed the distance between her and Constance, but before she could get close enough to lay hands on her and stop her, the woman sidled around a food prep counter. Her hands dug through drawers, and she hurled anything she touched—rolling pins, a mortar and pestle, wooden spoons, and a set of knives. They bounced off her steel skin but still, the attack earned Constance an advantage because the dragon couldn’t help but flinch when confronted by the rapid barrage of kitchenware.
Kristen had to take the upper hand, so she caught hold of her edge of the counter and flipped it at the assassin as easily as a human would flip a card table.
Constance rolled out of the way, reached the end of another counter, and moved behind that one.
“You can’t hurt me,” the dragon said as she came to stand on the other side of the counter. With both hands resting on its edge, the threat was clear.
“I will if I must, but don’t make me. Why serve dragons when you could fight for freedom? Why support a toxic governmental system?”
“Because killing people in their homes is not an alternative.”
“Windfire wasn’t a person, Kristen. He was a dragon and loyal to himself and himself alone. I did what I did so he couldn’t betray us.”
“That’s not good enough.” She lifted the counter and flipped it. The woman was ready, though, dove to the left, and somehow managed to avoid being crushed.
It still worked to Kristen’s advantage as she’d put herself between her quarry and the exit. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
Constance backed against a wall and her hands continued to move but found nothing to throw except a spice rack.
“Even if those are glass, you know you can’t hurt me,” Kristen said.
In response, the assassin lobbed a tiny jar at her. She was ready for this one so she didn’t flinch and didn’t look away. She let the glass shatter on her steel
face and it did nothing to her—no scratches, no pain, and nothing to generate even the mildest discomfort.
Her smirk soon faded, however, when the cayenne powder inside the jar reached her eyes. She rubbed frantically at them in an effort to remove the burning powder. As she did so, Constance’s footsteps thumped past her. She flailed in an attempt to stop her but the woman was too fast and danced past her grasp, and Kristen banged her knee into another workspace in the kitchen.
Desperate, she felt around until she found a sink. She turned the water on, sprayed herself in the face until the burning eased, and looked up. Only one door out of the kitchen moved. It swung in and out and revealed exactly where Constance had gone.
She sprinted forward, heartily sick of this shit. As she moved, she turned her body to steel, barreled through the doors, and knocked them off their hinges.
The hallway was empty but she raced on all the same. If she knew the intruder—and after spending so much time pursuing her, she was beginning to get a sense of how she fought—she’d have to pause to reload.
Kristen hurried down the hall, looking for some sign of her adversary. She passed an open door and looked inside at a kind of sitting room lined with rare artifacts in the form of suits of armor, paintings, and swords. The room was most likely designed to impress despite the fact that Windfire never actually had company.
She was almost past it when she heard the telltale snick of a revolver’s cylinder being clicked into place. Cautiously, she entered the room.
As she stepped through the doorway, a shot fired. She fell prone and barely made it below the bullet. Before she could find her feet, something struck her in the back with enough force to hurl her down again.
Constance stood over her with her gun in one hand and some kind of medieval weapon in the other.
“We’ve done this for decades. You can’t stop us now.”
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 17
