“Brockton! Brockton! If you’re done assaulting Lady Steel’s ears, get over here!” Windlock commanded. From his tone of voice, Kristen had the sense he’d called for a while and that maybe he often had to do so.
“Right, well, that’s my cue. Nice meeting you, miss!”
“Tell me about the auras, Brockton,” Windlock said.
“Yes, sir, you got it, sir.”
For a moment, she wondered if Larry Brockton’s magic came from the same place his river of words came from because as soon as he stopped talking, silvery light began to emanate from his fingertips. He took a deep breath and the gleam pushed out and away from his hands. It looked like little tendrils of silver electricity as it spread and tentatively touched the dragon corpse in the room.
“I detect his aura…remnants of it,” Brockton said. “He was…surprised. I guess that’s obvious.”
“Perhaps,” Windlock said, his face an unreadable mask.
“Oh, wait a minute…wait a minute. There is something unusual on the elder dragon’s body—or rather, in it. I pick up faint traces of his aura but also faint traces of a second dragon aura.”
Stonequest elbowed Kristen in the ribs as if to say, “See? I told you so.” She chose to not respond.
“Anything else?” the examiner asked.
“Not yet, sir, I’ll keep probing for a minute, but nothing else stands out. That other presence, though… It’s coming from the wound.”
“Understood and thank you, Brockton. Keep at it,” Windlock said, fumbled in his pocket, and took out a few small vials. He approached the dead dragon, retrieved a cotton swab from another pocket, and inserted it into the wound. Once the swab was safely stowed in a vial, he repeated the process a few more times and bottled each sample separately.
“Will that be used for magic?” Kristen asked Stonequest.
He shook his head. “They’ll run it for DNA. Human technology has its merits.”
“If you think there’s human DNA, maybe we should dust for prints,” she ventured.
Windlock cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly incredulous at the idea.
“Dragons don’t leave prints like humans do. The scales don’t lead to perfect identification. We’ll have to hope for DNA.”
“Right, but there could be human prints,” she pointed out and earned another elbow from Stonequest.
“Sure. There might be. Feel free to dust, if you wish. Brockton, are you done?”
“Yes, sir. I think that about does it. I don’t detect much else besides those two auras which I think we both know could mean any variety of—”
“That’ll be enough, Brockton.”
“Yes, sir. Do you mind if I help the Steel Dragon, sir?”
“Of course not, Brockton.”
Kristen smiled at the mage, grateful for his help. It had been a while since she’d dusted for prints, so she knew it would take time. Brockton, though, clearly had a system.
Unlike Windlock, who looked like a Hollywood detective, he was dressed like nothing she had seen before. He wore a green and silver robe and a large burlap sack dangled at his side from which dozens of jars, bundles of herbs, and various other trinkets hung. From this collection, he selected a blue jar, opened it, and mumbled an incantation over it.
A cloud of dust exploded from the jar and traveled throughout the room and into the others. It landed here and there before it resumed its hurried task through the dragon’s lair. After a few minutes of frenzied, swirling flight, it returned to Brockton, who had mumbled throughout the entire spectacle. He held a scroll up and the dust poured onto it. A moment later, over a hundred separate fingerprints were visible.
“It looks like there were people here,” Kristen said and accepted the proffered scroll from the mage.
Lumos shrugged. “A dragon elder like Titus often has many humans coming and going, even in their lair. Servants, guests, important human leaders, and even lovers could have been brought down here.”
It was disheartening to have her theory brushed off by Lumos, who she considered her strongest ally on Dragon SWAT now that Stonequest consistently refused to listen to her theories about humans killing dragons.
Still, that didn’t disprove her theory, and she said as much. “It still makes quite a list of suspects.”
Windlock raised another eyebrow at her. He was curious, obviously, but not curious enough to press her any further.
Instead, it was Heartsbane who spoke. “If you’re saying that one of these hundred people killed Titus, I’ll help you run the prints. I’ll snuff out all these fucking monkeys if it means his death will be avenged.”
Kristen wisely didn’t say anything else.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Once Windlock had completed his investigation, Dragon SWAT returned to their base in Detroit. On arrival, Stonequest sent the team to work on reports in the paper dungeon. Paperwork was a whole different activity for dragons than it was for people, especially when working with mages. The dragons didn’t fill out their own documents but instead, the mages did it for them with magic, if they could, or simply by hand. Kristen had always been impressed by the mages who could manipulate a pen on the desk in front of them but after seeing Brockton use a spell to control a pen and floating scroll from another room, it was a little underwhelming. It sometimes boggled her mind how fast one could get used to new things. Only a few months before, seeing these mages work was beyond amazing. Now, it was less than impressive.
Besides, she had other things she wanted to do rather than fill out paperwork. She left her task with Lumos and tracked down one of the few non-magic humans who worked in the paper dungeon. Trevor Williams was in charge of what human tech the dragons did use.
“Ms Hall, what can I do for you?” Despite being in his early thirties, Trevor’s voice still cracked practically anytime he spoke to Kristen. She wondered if it was nerves but if it was, working in a dragon police station didn’t seem like a job for the faint of heart.
“I have some prints I’d like you to run.” She unrolled the scroll and gave it to him.
He looked surprised when she handed it to him like he hadn’t quite expected to see it.
“Is that a problem, Trevor?” she asked, although she didn’t mean to intimidate the already nervous technician.
“No, no, ma’am, of course not. Well, yes. A little.”
“Is it a problem or not?”
“No, it’s not. Certainly, I can do it. It is a ton of prints, but I can run them.”
“Great. How long will that take you?”
“At least a week?” He sounded like he was asking a question.
“What? Why?”
“Well, we have a few other cases with prints right now, so we’re a little backlogged.”
“Make this a priority, then. It’s about the dead dragon we just investigated.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing.” Again, the poor kid sounded like he was asking a question instead of explaining himself. “See, Stonequest already asked me to work on some DNA, and he mentioned that there were prints too. He said they weren’t a priority.”
“He what?”
“I’m really sorry and I can run them, really I can, but I can’t bump them up to be run before other prints, and I can’t do them before I do the DNA. Like I said—”
“It’ll be a week.”
“Yeah?” Trevor did not sound happy to be caught between two dragons.
“Fine. But…let me know when you’re done with the other prints. Okay?”
“Of course.” He sounded relieved that there was now a path that didn’t involve conflict.
Kristen snatched the scroll up and headed to Stonequest’s office. She could hear Trevor sigh all the way down the hall.
She found the SWAT leader in his office, working with a mage to detail the location they’d been to. Leave it to dragons to still use verbal descriptions when a human could literally now record a three-dimensional model simply by walking around inside with the right kind o
f camera.
Stonequest looked up and—to his credit—recognized the fury in her eyes.
“If you’ll excuse me, Graphitus.”
“But of course, sir.” The mage bowed and saw himself out.
“What’s it now, Lady Steel? You might as well jump to the point. I can feel your aura from here.”
“Why are you stonewalling me looking into my hypothesis? We know humans have killed dragons. We have to consider that as a possibility here.”
“We don’t have to do a damn thing.” He gestured at the chair in which Graphitus had been seated.
Kristen sat, her spine rigid, and Stonequest closed the door to his office. Shit. The action didn’t bode well. A closed door at human SWAT meant that the captain wanted to yell loudly enough that the rest of the force would be able to hear the dress-down through the door.
But apparently, he had a different plan. He didn’t begin a tirade. Instead, he sat heavily, covered his face with a hand, and rubbed his temples.
She let him have a moment. In the time she’d known him, she’d never seen him so obviously frustrated and yet not giving orders, telling her off, or redirecting her. After a few seconds, he lowered his hands, folded them in his lap, and looked at her. He seemed incredibly tired.
“Look, Kristen, I understand that you want to get to the bottom of this. That’s why I wanted you on Dragon SWAT, because of that passion. I wanted you to investigate corrupt dragons—dragons like Shadowstorm, whom you stopped. Those actions brought you onto the force. Then I gave you a promotion when you beat Obscura, right?”
“Yes, sir, but this isn’t about dragons—”
“Damn it, Kristen, it has to be about dragons. Don’t you get it?”
“But Stone, we know humans have done this.”
“You might know that. And I am certainly considering the possibility, but no one else is.”
“Well, why not?” she demanded.
“Because no human has killed a dragon in hundreds of years. Most dragons simply don’t even see it as a possibility. I hate to put it this way but it’s like humans being concerned about a raccoon killing them. I guess it could happen, but it’s not a viable threat.”
“Except that it is. A raccoon that has a gun is what we’re talking about in terms of your metaphor.”
“And what happens to raccoons if that’s the case? Do people still let them raid their garbage? Are they still allowed to live in cities?” Stonequest sounded deadly serious about such an ostensibly silly question.
“Well, no. If one raccoon was a problem, it would have to be stopped. That’s what I’m talking about here,” she explained. It seemed so obvious to her. That’s what being a police officer meant to her. Stopping the dangerous elements of society and ensuring freedom for everyone else.
“No, Kristen, you’re not thinking clearly. Your kind—humankind—has eradicated countless animals from the landscape because they’ve killed a few dozen sheep or taken a child or two. You have waged a war on the predators of this planet for crimes that any animal would forgive. Do you disagree?”
“Well, no, not really.”
“Okay, what if I told you that the only reason people haven’t been exterminated is because they’re not seen as a threat?”
“Wait…exterminated? Like wiped out completely?” Kristen had trouble wrapping her head around the concept.
Stonequest rubbed his forehead again. “No…not exterminated. But certainly…uh, culled. I know you think of most dragons as anachronistic and aloof, but that’s only those who deign to go to parties or live out their lives in mansions. There are elements on the Dragon Council who have followed human development very closely. Some of them are very concerned about what you've accomplished. Drones, missiles, nukes—all kinds of things concern the Dragon Council. Some, not all—but certainly more than a few—believe that humanity has grown too powerful. They believe that humanity should be knocked back a bit. Culled, like I said.”
“Culled? Like culling the herd? What does that mean?”
“Well—and this is only some elements of the Council, right? Obviously, most dragons don’t want to kill people in these numbers.”
“What numbers?”
“The most commonly referenced number is about half. Four billion people.”
“They want to kill four billion people?” She was appalled.
“Not all of them, but some, yes. They see human advancement as an existential threat to both dragons and the planet at large. Most think we should stop your carbon-spewing technology completely, and many areas of South America should be evacuated of human life completely.”
“But…but that would be beyond genocide. That would be the greatest murder of all time.”
“You’re right. I think it needs to be prevented, which is why I need you to stop yelling about these damn bullets to everyone you meet.”
“But to kill half the earth’s people?”
“Keep in mind that a hundred years ago, your population was substantially less than it is now. To some, this is still seen as generous.”
“But why not help us?”
“Human technology has far outpaced most of our ability to understand. Take Death’s rifle as an example. It was special and customized but was still essentially a human weapon. It’s possible humans could use technology to build things that might hurt dragons specifically.”
“It’s already happened.”
“You say that and I’m inclined to agree, but so far, we’ve managed to keep the dragons focused on dragons. Death was a notorious killer, but she was a dragon. Her killing dragons isn’t an existential threat, even if she used a human tool. After all—or so the thinking goes—Death figured that out, not a person.”
“But if she could, surely humans could too.”
“That’s what I’m hoping the Council doesn’t realize. There’s considerable anti-human bias baked into dragon culture. You have to understand that we’ve seen most of your darkest and most ignorant moments. You enslaved your own kind and burned each other alive because of your beliefs. Rationality seems to be growing but…well, it’s not a foregone conclusion yet.”
“But a human did shoot Death. The same one who killed Windfire.”
“I haven’t been able to explain Windfire, and that’s been a real pain, but honestly, most dragons don’t think humans had anything at all to do with killing Death. They credit you with that.”
“What?” Kristen was shocked.
Stonequest shrugged and a tiny smile showed for the first time. “You struck the killing blow and all the injuries on Death’s body were made by a dragon whose DNA closely matched yours. She had targeted your humans. No one blames you for it.”
“But they don’t know she was shot and hurt before I met her? They think I did it all myself?”
“Well, I haven’t dissuaded them of the idea.”
“But that’ll get in the way of the investigation. The real dragon killer is still out there.”
“Yes, you’re right, and we need to stop them, definitely. But it can’t be a person who does it. End of story. If it’s the Steel Dragon, it makes dragons more accountable for hurting people. That helps your cause. If it’s a person who did it, call it what you will. Genocide, slaughter, murder, or culling.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I guess I understand that you don’t want dragons to turn on people, but it wouldn’t exactly be one-sided, would it? Whoever is murdering dragons obviously has firepower to share. I don’t think they would have put this whole campaign into action if they only had five bullets.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Plus, like you said, there are jets that fly faster than dragons armed with missiles. We have nukes and tanks and everything else. I know I withstood a grenade, but I have steel skin. Many dragons could be hurt in war with people. It wouldn’t be totally one-sided.”
“I agree. A war would be terrible for both sides. It could get worse than that too. If some dragons joine
d with people, either out of goodwill or to help topple the Dragon Council, that would be bad. It would be even worse if major human superpowers like the USA and China took different sides. Say one sided with the dragons. That wouldn’t be good.”
“So you’re saying we should simply let these people—these technomages or whatever they are—continue to kill dragons?”
Stonequest shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know, Kristen, I really don’t. We should stop them. That’s the best way to avoid this war. But if Dragon SWAT stops them, we’ll have to document the whole damn thing. Honestly, I find myself thinking that if it turns out these humans really are working on their own, the best thing to do would be to frame a dragon. At least then, the hostility would stay between dragon kind.”
“But…you’re talking about ruining an innocent’s life.”
“I didn’t say anything about an innocent dragon, Kristen. There are many dragons who walk free who have killed other dragons in duels merely because they were weaker, or who killed hundreds of people in the dark days before your video cameras and film strips could hold our kind accountable.”
“But you’re a cop. You’re supposed to find the truth, not frame people for crimes they didn’t commit.”
“My job is to keep the world safe, Kristen.”
“By any means necessary?” Kristen said the words with more venom than she’d intended, but it felt honest so she didn’t apologize.
Stonequest shrugged, dropped his head into his hands, and sat in silence. He didn’t cry but from his aura, she could tell he was torn apart inside. Without a doubt, he was conflicted, guilty, and most of all, at a loss about what to do.
She left him like that. He might not know what to do, but she did. Somehow, she would find the truth and stop the killer. That was her job.
Unfortunately, she would have to do it through other channels.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 41
