No matter what the Steel Dragon said to these humans, Obscura didn’t understand why she valued them. After a while, though, she realized she was going about this all wrong. She didn’t need to understand the woman and her fascination with the lesser species to move against her. It was obvious that she had a weak spot for these soft, squishy, and oh so vulnerable humans. The thought was hilarious, actually, given that the Steel Dragon could literally turn her body to metal.
Her powers made her invulnerable in a way most dragons simply weren’t. A well-aimed slice of the old dragon’s tail could decapitate any dragon, but not this one. She could have been a queen if she so desired but instead, she spent time with humans.
It was like she asked to have them used against her.
If Kristen had been raised by dragons, she would have seen this as the weakness it was. Dragons were taught from a young age not to get too attached to humans or risk them being used against them. In the old days—before telegraph wires, then radiowaves, and now the Internet tied everything together—it had been an easy way to undermine benevolent dragons.
They’d sit in their castle, lord over the holdings, and teach the peasants how to think and to live with decency and respect for each other—all traits that humans didn’t naturally possess in Obscura’s opinion—in exchange for the humans providing food and comforts for their lord. It was almost too easy for another dragon to obliterate these city states. One simply flew in, incinerated everything, and waited for the dragon to emerge from the stronghold and fly into the trap.
She didn’t want to burn the city down, of course. Well, she did, but she wouldn’t as she understood the dangers of the media and of cell phones too. Now, every human had a camera in their pocket that they could use to instantly share with the world around them. And there in Detroit, almost everyone was always ready to record anything that happened to the Steel Dragon.
Obscura had even watched a video of Kristen and Dragon SWAT face a team of humans. Better yet, she’d seen what strategies worked against her.
It was a simple matter to take her own phone out and pretend to put the man’s number in it while actually taking photos of the humans Kristen was with. The faces matched those of the people she’d seen try to hunt the dragon in the video she’d watched. She could tell them apart fairly easily—the demolitions expert, the sniper, and the one who worshipped the young dragon and had posted the video online. Two of the others looked more capable and like they’d make annoying victims. The tall, quiet one didn’t seem worth targeting.
But target them she would. As her plan started to form in her mind, Obscura felt the oath she’d sworn with her son’s blood course through her veins. Oh yes, this was how to make the Steel Dragon suffer the most. Doing things to these police officers would do more damage to the human-minded dragon than a physical battle ever could. She’d weaken the girl’s mind and then strike.
These humans would be pieces of the puzzle that she had failed to fully recognize earlier. She’d already identified the human family. They made easy, obvious targets that even her foolish son had known he could use as leverage.
She had started working on them and was reasonably confident with what she’d done so far. The Steel Dragon now believed that her brother was angry with her. The old dragon didn’t know the exact particulars of their relationship but she thought it best to assume that if they were angry with each other, they wouldn’t be in contact as much. Cell phones and online communication made everything more complicated, but she was confident that she’d played the first parts of this game well enough. Now she saw that there were more pieces that needed her attention.
Although she wouldn’t move yet, much as she wanted to and the oath demanded her to. First, she’d learn more about these humans, watch them in action if possible, and discover their own weaknesses beyond the laughable fragility of their human flesh.
Then, and only then, would she enact the final part of her plan. She would use these humans to teach the Steel Dragon that she wasn’t invulnerable by striking where she was weakest.
The oath began to churn in her veins as Kristen and her team prepared to leave and it spread through her and consumed her with a need for vengeance. She turned to the young man in front of her and consented to let him escort her to her hotel.
The girl’s pathetic connection to these humans could be used against her. Then, when the Steel Dragon felt nothing but fear, Obscura would kill her and vengeance would be hers.
Chapter Thirty-Six
With her background in human SWAT, Kristen found it hard to remain quiet while Stonequest allowed his team to essentially be hired out. To her, it seemed like a gross misuse of power, but she told herself there were times when human police escorted people, so she kept her opinion to herself. The issue was that she didn’t think Dragon SWAT really needed to help someone move.
Harandhyl, an ancient black dragon, was moving his base of operations to Detroit and had requested police assistance during the transfer of his goods. Honestly, it was like she and the rest of them were nothing more than a glorified security team.
He sat across from them now in a conference room in the Dragon SWAT building. His black suit with tails seemed horribly out of date to her but it seemed to fit with his thin, pointed mustache. He carried a cane, which had to be an affectation because she hadn’t ever seen a dragon with a limp.
“The value of the convoy cannot be estimated, you understand.” Harandhyl spoke in an accent she couldn’t quite place. New England, perhaps? That had to be it, given that Harandhyl was moving to outside Detroit from Maine.
“Yes, sir. We’ll do our best to make sure nothing happens to it,” Stonequest said placatingly.
“You’ll have to do better than that.” Harandhyl wheezed and coughed. “The jewels alone are worth a fortune, but there’s much more that we simply cannot risk getting damaged. Then there’s my art collection—priceless masterpieces painted by some of the earliest American artists. It would be a tragedy to lose any of those.”
Kristen wondered if the dragon let people even see the paintings. They had probably been kept hidden from human eyes in his mansion on the east coast despite them being painted by people.
“Believe me when I say that there is nothing we want more than a smooth transfer of goods to your new residence,” Stonequest assured him.
She felt a flash of anger and glanced at Heartsbane. From the outside, the hotheaded dragon seemed calm enough, but she’d let her powerful aura slip.
Harandhyl noticed the anger too, but he didn’t seem to understand its real source. “I feel exactly the same way, young lady. The idea of some common human crooks trying to take wealth I have accumulated fair and square is a rather unpleasant idea.”
“Right,” Heartsbane said through clenched teeth.
A few days later, the team soared high above a convoy of semi-trucks. Lake Eerie was on their right, although the people driving the trucks couldn’t see it since the forest was so thick on either side of the highway. They had recently left the state of New York and now traveled through Pennsylvania. The trip had been unremarkable thus far. Kristen had enjoyed the journey up because it was the first time she’d traveled so far using only the power of her own flight. But the trip back lacked the novelty of the trip to Maine.
The only good thing was that Harandhyl wasn’t with them. He was already at his mansion in Michigan—getting things prepared, he’d said. She didn’t know if she necessarily approved of the fact that the dragon made little effort to help with his own things, but at least they could talk shit without worry.
Heartsbane exercised this particular privilege to its fullest. “Do you think he’s not helping us because he’s simply an old windbag filled with hot air?”
“We’ve been over this, Heartsbane,” Stonequest said.
“No, no, no, hear me out. At first, I thought he was merely lazy, but maybe he’s literally a windbag. Like the only way he could’ve kept up with us is if we tethered him to one o
f the semi-trucks and they pulled him along like a kite.”
“Enough, Heartsbane,” the leader said, although his voice lacked conviction. He wasn’t excited to be doing this either.
Emerald started to laugh the manic uncontrolled, hysterical laughter of the extremely bored.
“Don’t encourage her,” Lumos said. “Harandhyl is a wise old gentleman. He has given much to dragon culture.”
“Oh yeah, like what?” Emerald asked.
“I, for one, find that thinking about the conversations I’ve had with him over the centuries is an extremely efficient way to get to sleep.”
Kristen, Heartsbane, and Emerald chuckled. Only Stonequest didn’t seem amused but he remained silent for a few minutes as they flew on.
They’d already been flying for days, so the regular rules of conversation had long since stopped being applicable to their situation. It was perfectly fine to fall into silence for a few minutes before someone started a random conversation.
It was fairly pleasant to take her relationship with dragons to this level of familiarity, Kristen thought, but also problematic. She knew that while she was up there, crimes were still taking place down below. People were being shot and killed and those in power were abusing their privilege. There were real issues facing the world—as there had been forever—and they were up there making sure nothing happened to a horde of crap.
And there was the whole timing and specificity of the request. Why had Harandhyl contacted Stonequest? Why move to Detroit? Why insist that the entire team go? She didn’t like it and had difficulty with the fact that they were out there in the middle of nowhere while stuff was going down back in the Motor City.
“We have a motorcycle,” Lumos said. He was currently closest to the rear of the convoy of five semi-trucks. How anyone—dragon or otherwise—could accumulate five semis worth of belongings was beyond her, but then again, if she’d been paid by a dragon to pack and transport his entire fortune, she might have kept things rather spread out too.
“Did you ever ride one of those?” Emerald asked as the motorcycle picked up speed to pass the convoy of trucks.
“I can’t say that I have, no,” Lumos replied as he watched the motorcycle lazily. It was one of the high-speed, streamlined ones—crotch-rockets, her brother called them when he piloted them in racing games.
“It’s a trip, man. I recommend it,” Emerald said. “They can’t go faster than a dragon in flight, of course, but something about being in human form on two wheels so close to the asphalt is exhilarating.”
“That’s like riding a skateboard,” she said.
“A what?” Lumos asked.
“It’s a board with wheels,” she explained. “You can’t actually go that fast on one, but it feels way faster than a bicycle, I think because you’re closer to the ground.”
“Emerald, that motorcycle—it should be able to pass those trucks, right?” Heartsbane asked.
“Oh yeah. That’s a Kawasaki Ninja H2 R. The engine is, like, a thousand ccs.”
“Which means?” Lumos asked.
“That it’s a fast one. Crazy top speeds and kickass acceleration.”
“So why is it staying right next to the driver of the middle truck?” Heartsbane asked.
“I’m sure he’s about ready to take off. He’ll pop a wheelie or some shit,” Emerald said.
“I don’t think so.” Heartsbane pumped her wings a few times to pick up a little speed.
As she did so, the biker lifted one hand off the handlebars of the bike, reached inside his jacket, and drew a handgun.
“Do you guys see this moron?” she asked and plummeted toward him.
Before she could get close enough to scoop him up in her claws, the biker fired two shots into the window of the semi-truck. The driver swerved as soon as the gun was fired but managed to keep driving.
“Heartsbane, take him out,” Stonequest said, energy in his voice once more.
“You got it, boss.” She sounded downright excited to be doing something.
The dragon swooped in, closer and closer to the biker. When she was almost on him, he turned, pointed his handgun at her, and fired.
She screamed in pain. The sound was more akin to a hawk screaming in the sky than a human’s agonized shout. She tried to flap her wings to stay airborne but the bullet had caught her in the shoulder, precisely where her wing extended from her body. It was obvious to Kristen that her left wing was in severe pain.
“Lumos, come on,” the Steel Dragon shouted and dropped lower toward Heartsbane.
The golden dragon followed, then passed her. He was much more experienced in flight than she was so was able to reach Heartsbane before she made impact in front of the fourth truck in the convoy. He wound his tail around her chest and neck and pumped his wings to slow her fall.
“A little help, Lady Steel!” he shouted.
Kristen caught hold of Heartsbane’s tail with her talons, and not a moment too soon.
They hauled her back into the sky and out of the way of the vehicles, slowed, and finally deposited her on the grassy embankment between the forest and the highway.
“He has dragon bullets,” Kristen shouted to Stonequest and Emerald, who were both still airborne.
“And company,” Lumos yelled before he breathed a gout of flame as another biker rocketed past them. The bike was, unfortunately, as fast as Emerald had said it could be. It must have gone in excess of a hundred miles an hour, because by the time Kristen had even seen it, it was past them.
“I can’t believe that gun hurt me,” Heartsbane said as she tried to work her wing and flinched in pain. Each time she moved, the joint popped. It was a horrible sound.
“You’ll have to change into human form until we can get you to a healer,” the golden dragon said.
“After those fucking monkeys shot me? Yeah right!” Heartsbane hissed in pain and fury.
“Well then, at least stop moving your damn wings. You’ll rip a tendon.”
“I’ll be—” Something tore and Heartsbane screamed before she transformed slowly into a human. Even in this form, one of her arms didn’t work. The bullet had really done significant damage.
“These can only be the same people who killed Windfire,” Kristen said.
“Then Stonequest and Emerald will need your help,” Lumos said.
“The old man is right. Go,” Heartsbane said through clenched teeth.
Kristen nodded, raced after the vehicles on her dragon legs, and took to the air. The convoy had gained at least a mile on her in the time since she’d landed to help her wounded teammate. She flapped her wings furiously to catch up but was still a less than skillful flyer. It would be at least a minute before she reached the fight.
Ahead of her, more motorcycles had joined the ambush. Six of them now swarmed around the center truck of the convoy like a pack of wolves trying to cull a young or sick elk—although she was sure there was more to their strategy than that. If they could crash the third truck and keep the wreckage on the road, the fourth and fifth would have to stop. Between them, it would make quite a haul for the thieves.
They seemed to be more than thieves, however. The reality was that they could have already disabled or destroyed the vehicles. They could simply have shot the tires or sprayed the drivers with bullets, but they hadn’t. Instead, they seemed to be playing some kind of game of cat and mouse with the dragons.
The motorcycles were both faster and more maneuverable. The dragons had to fly in relatively straight paths to maintain their speed. They were big, bulky, and not particularly agile. When a dragon approached one of the bikers, they would simply throttle up and race away, then cut between the semi-trucks so they were on the far side and safe from the dragons.
Perhaps if the drivers of the vehicles had been trained in defensive maneuvers, they could have stopped the motorcycles, but as it was, the humans in the convoy did everything in their power to simply keep moving.
Kristen worked hard to close the gap,
but she still had a fair distance to cover.
Still too far away to do anything, she responded with helpless terror when one of the bikers darted out from behind the fourth truck, gunned his bike so hard it popped a wheelie, and aimed his weapon at Emerald.
“Watch out!” she screamed and flashed her aura to warn the other dragons of danger.
Emerald paid no attention and focused instead on the biker who was near the front of the pack and zigzagged tantalizingly close to him in what she now saw was an obvious attempt to bait him.
The other biker coming up from behind steadied his aim on the dragon despite his speed. She had no doubt the gun contained dragon bullets. Why else had the biker not yet fired?
A gunshot rang out and almost at the same time, Stonequest crashed into his teammate.
At first, she thought that the team leader had been shot. But when the two dragons tumbled to the grass with such force that they felled pine trees before they scrambled to their feet, she realized that he’d only narrowly saved Emerald from a bullet.
She passed them, the only one of her team still in flight. “Don’t worry, I’ll stop them!” she said.
“Damn it, Kristen, slow down. Slow down!” Stonequest shouted, untangled himself from Emerald, and tried to get back into the air.
The problem was that the convoy now raced down the road in a stampede and as out of control as a herd of buffalo.
Kristen was almost impressed by the drivers, but then she realized they were probably worried about being eaten by dragons if they failed. Compared to that fate, a crash might not seem so bad.
That wouldn’t happen, though, not if she could do anything about it. She pumped her wings as fast as she could to gain altitude and speed until she’d caught up to the vehicles and the motorcycles harrying them.
Once in position, she tucked her wings, plummeted, and added the acceleration of gravity to her speed. She extended her wings seconds before she struck the last truck of the convoy and the wind caught her.
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 28
