Slayers: Friends and Traitors

by C. J. Hill

  The thought made her smile. Not because she didn’t like Jesse—she did. He had spent all summer teaching her how to fly and fight in the air. It would mean something to him if she finally slew her dragon faster than he did. Half of the time during practice, Tori was the first one killed on either side, and then her team had to do their best to stay alive until Jesse beat his dragon and could come over and take care of A-team’s as well.

  Tori didn’t have time to cut through the second strap. The dragon pulled upward and swung its tail at her. She barely managed to dodge away.

  “Roll!” Dirk called to her, which meant she was supposed to attack on the left-hand side. She circled around the dragon and made the hand signal to request a distraction.

  Any of the Slayers on the ground could have shot the dragon with their rifles. That was usually enough to provoke the dragon into an attack. Dirk signaled for Kody to send another freezing shock. Maybe because the two of them had a running bet with Team Magnus as to who could knock off their dragon’s head first.

  Kody pushed his hand forward. The air shimmered in a line until the freezing shock hit the dragon’s mouth with the force of a baseball bat. Metal clanged. The dragon’s head jerked backward. A circle of frost appeared on the side of its head and then just as quickly melted. The dragon turned and plunged toward Kody.

  Tori dived at its left side, keeping one eye on the dragon’s tail. The tail was how she usually met her untimely deaths. The dragon swooped and wheeled, chasing Kody across the middle of the practice arena. Tori zoomed along beside it, slashing downward across the sensors. A second light came on. Both Kevlar straps were gone. Now she only had to blast away the chains. That was easier. She didn’t have to get as close to the dragon to do it.

  Tori swung her sling forward, putting her rifle into firing position.

  Lilly sprinted toward Kody, trying to cover him. She wasn’t fast enough. Fire erupted from the dragon’s mouth, a blaze that ballooned outward like a reaching orange hand. Kody leapt sideways, spinning around to send out a cold blast to intercept the flames. His blasts could push fire away, but this time it wasn’t soon enough and it wasn’t strong enough.

  Half of the fire stream reached him, hissing and spitting as it intersected with the freezing gust of air. Flames pummeled Kody’s chest for several seconds before Lilly managed to extinguish the fire.

  Tori’s shots at the dragon had missed the sensor. It was a small target and had to be a direct hit. Dirk shot the dragon’s neck, drawing its attention to him. While the dragon jerked its head toward Dirk, Kody rushed toward Alyssa. He held up two fingers, indicating he needed burn help. Smoke mingled with the acrid scent of charred skin.

  Tori flew over the dragon, glancing at Kody’s wounds as she did. Red, oozing spots covered his neck and the exposed part of his chest.

  Guilt twisted her stomach. Kody had distracted the dragon for her and he’d ended up burned and in pain because of it.

  The dragon twisted toward Dirk, making gusts of wind with its wings, then decided to ignore him and go after Kody again. The weak and the injured—those were a dragon’s favorite prey.

  Tori needed to hurry and blast through the chains. Once that was done, someone on the ground could kill the dragon and the round would be over. Keeping her distance so the dragon couldn’t suddenly turn and lunge at her, Tori took aim and shot. Her hand shook. She missed the sensors.

  Dirk rushed toward the dragon, firing at its head. The pellets made pointless plinking sounds. Even armor-piercing bullets wouldn’t do anything to a dragon except annoy it. The dragon turned from Kody, roared, and hurtled toward Dirk.

  Tori shot at the sensors again, quicker this time. The dragon dived after Dirk, jolting the target away from her. Her bullet fire swept down onto the ground and a light on the front of Lilly’s jacket lit up, indicating she’d been hit. Not good.

  Lilly threw her arms up in aggravation. “Really?” she yelled at Tori. “You didn’t notice me standing here? You’re so beyond worthless!”

  Lilly at her charming best.

  It didn’t do any good to argue with Dr. B that in a real fight the Slayers would wear bulletproof outfits and Tori wasn’t using armor-piercing ammunition for that reason. Rules were rules. Lilly was dead and one hundred points would be taken from A-team’s score because Tori had accidentally killed her.

  Tori flew after the dragon, trying to keep up and aim accurately while the dragon chased after Dirk. The last thing she wanted was to kill him, too. The dragon was flying low, leaning one way and then the other so the target was never still. The dragon swiped a black spinning claw at Dirk. He leapt over it and was nearly bludgeoned by the dragon’s tail. Theo knew that move and had anticipated it.

  Dirk flipped through the air, landed on the dragon’s tail, then leapt up again and took a midair shot at the dragon’s back. The sensor lit up. He’d blasted through the chain. One more chain to go, and any of them would be able to fire at the dragon’s underbelly, killing it.

  Tori smiled. Dirk was good. Her strategy should be to fly low to the ground so the dragon chased her, and let Dirk take care of the straps and chains.

  Tori zoomed in toward the dragon’s back again, making sure none of the Slayers were close before she aimed her gun. The extra two seconds of precaution cost her. Before she shot, the dragon flipped upward, coming after her.

  Down below, Dirk shot at the dragon. It ignored him this time and kept after Tori. She zipped upward, then arced across the roof. The dragon kept pace with her. She heard the fuel building up in its mouth. In another second she would be engulfed in flames and she’d already killed her team’s only fire extinguisher.

  Tori sped up, zigzagging sideways. The fire-repellent suits helped but still melted after about fifteen seconds. Protection and mobility were always at odds with each other when it came to a battle.

  Tori had run out of room. She wished she could fly over into Team Magnus air space. Bess, one of Team Magnus’ Slayers, could throw a force field up that shielded a fifteen-foot area from the dragon’s flames. Tori would lose points for that, though—bringing another dragon over to Team Magnus area before they’d killed theirs.

  Tori dived downward, completely forgetting to use her hand signals. She flipped around in midair, expecting a blast of fire to come at her. Hopefully, she could fly through it before it scorched her. She was good at making it through curtains of flames, could dive through them like they were water. She’d never gotten burned during practice—unless you counted her first day at camp, when a rogue fireball singed off a chunk of her hair. That was a burn she was still smoldering about—so to speak—because it had happened after practice ended. And, okay, Dr. B was always telling them that they couldn’t let their guard down, but still, it was her first day. Someone should have warned her that regular rules didn’t apply in this place.

  The fire came, a billowing molten stream reaching for her. Tori sliced through it, diving even closer to the dragon. Her first clue that something had changed, that the dragon was different, was the sound—the whirring of its claws stopped. Broken, she thought. That was bound to happen after two months of shooting, freezing, and whacking the thing.

  She should have learned by now never to make assumptions about dragons.

  A chain shot out of the dragon’s left front claw and hit her below her ribs—hooked into her with a pinch of pain. Immediately, it reeled her toward the claw.

  “Hey!” she yelled, pulling at the hook. “Since when do dragons have fishing poles?” She knew Theo and Dr. B could hear her. They had audio in the control room.

  Tori’s short attempt to free herself ended when she slammed into the bottom of the dragon’s claw. The impact knocked her helmet loose and dug the hook into her stomach. Her helmet tumbled to the ground and landed with a crack.

  Before Tori could draw a breath, two metal straps shot out from each end of the dragon’s claw. They curved around Tori, attached together in the back, then tightened. The hook in her stomach
dug even deeper into her skin. She let out a yelp of pain.

  The dragon zoomed upward, flying out of range of her teammates. She turned her head and saw them staring up at her, openmouthed. The dragons had never captured Slayers before, only killed them.

  Tori felt a wave of panic. She was going to be burned if she didn’t escape and her helmet had fallen off. Theo wouldn’t care about how much a blast to the face hurt or whether there would be scarring. Alyssa could cure burns and this was part of practice.

  Tori thrashed, trying to loosen the bands that clamped her arms to her sides. They didn’t budge. Dr. B always made sure his equipment counteracted the Slayers’ extra strength. Tori was up so high, that only another flyer would be able to rescue her. Across the pavilion, Jesse darted around the side of his dragon, getting in place to shoot its chain sensors.

  “Jesse!” she screamed. “Help me!”

  Jesse turned to see what was wrong. It was a mistake. The second his attention left the dragon, it twisted and lashed its tail in his direction. The swinging metal smashed into Jesse’s stomach with a sickening thwack that flung him through the air.

  Being knocked out of the practice area meant Jesse was technically dead. Tori didn’t care. She thrashed against her bands, still calling for him. Slayers had stronger skin than normal people, but at this close range, her nose and ears would probably burn right off. She didn’t know how Alyssa was at healing the charred remains of noses and didn’t want to find out.

  The sound of fuel hissing inside the dragon’s mouth meant in a few seconds it would spit out fire. “Jesse,” Tori yelled again. “Get this thing off of me!” She couldn’t see where he was, didn’t know if he could break the bands anyway.

  The dragon flew a bit lower, taunting the other Slayers. It was still too high up for any of them to reach. Dirk ran along beside it. “Bess!” he hollered to Team Magnus’ area. “Put a force field underneath me!”

  Without waiting for her reply, he leapt into the air. Dirk could jump the highest of any of the Slayers. Fifteen feet. When he’d reached that height, instead of falling back to the ground, he only sank a few inches and then stopped. He’d hit Bess’ force field. He leapt up again, this time grabbing the dragon’s left leg, right above the claw that held Tori.

  The blast of fire came, hitting Dirk’s back instead of Tori’s face. She felt the heat fingering around his body, brushing against her exposed skin. Smoke rolled through the air. Finally the flames vanished. Kody had managed to send out a cold shock to push away the fire before it could completely melt Dirk’s jacket.

  Tori gulped in relieved breaths. “Thanks.”

  Dirk smiled, took off his helmet, and placed it on Tori’s head. “You need this more than I do.” Then he climbed hand over hand up the dragon’s leg.

  Tori caught sight of Jesse. He was hovering in the air near her side of the arena, watching but not interfering. Dead Slayers were supposed to stay out of the practice area. He was staying close by, keeping an eye on the new direction the round had taken.

  Tori struggled against the bands, pushing them with all her might. They creaked, unyielding. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d already been killed twice today? Did she have to be the only Slayer that died a slow ignominious death, stuck on the dragon’s claw like something it had stepped on and hadn’t managed to scrape off its talons yet?

  Dirk sent a distract signal to Kody, and Kody happily shot a round into the dragon’s head. With flames already spurting from its mouth, the dragon plunged after Kody, swerving on its side as it turned. The turn allowed Dirk to swing up onto the dragon’s back. He pulled his gun forward to blast through the last chain.

  The dragon didn’t give him time. It immediately flipped over on its back, shaking Dirk loose. The move swung Tori around to the top of the pavilion so she faced downward. She caught a glimpse of Dirk falling. He aimed his gun upward and fired at the dragon’s back. Tori couldn’t see the shot or the sensor, but she heard the click of the fourth light as it came on. Dirk’s shot had been good.

  Dirk, Kody, and Alyssa let out yells of triumph. Good. This would be over soon. A reprieve from her ignominious death. The dragon turned upright again, and Tori had to crane her head to see the others. Dirk landed on his feet, the impact of the fall making him stumble forward before he caught himself.

  Kody raised his rifle and fired at the dragon’s underbelly. He managed to hit the heart target on his first try and didn’t kill Tori in the process. Always an added plus. The dragon went limp on the wires.

  The bands around Tori loosened, letting her fly away. The chain was still attached to her jacket, part of it embedded into her skin. She ripped out the hook, undoubtedly leaving a hole in her skin as well as the one in her jacket. No time to worry about that now. She soared across the pavilion to Team Magnus’ dragon.

  With Jesse gone and the dragon’s bulletproof plating still attached, Team Magnus hadn’t made any more progress in slaying their dragon. Mostly it was diving toward Slayers, and Bess was throwing shields up in front of it to slow down its progress. Tori zoomed along overhead. This time, she would make sure she stayed well away from its claws.

  Tori swung her rifle into position. She only had one chain to shoot through; one good shot and the Slayers on the ground would be able to take care of the rest. She aimed, angry with herself for being caught by A-team’s dragon and angry with Dr. B for throwing something new at them on the last day of practice. The anger gave her a sort of determined focus.

  She shot and hit the target. The last sensor light turned on, all of them glowing green to show that the dragon’s bulletproof plating had been cut away. Green was a beautiful color.

  The dragon turned and wheeled toward her, eyes flashing, wings pressed tight to its body. The flight was short lived. Shang, Team Magnus’ fire extinguisher, punched a round of ammunition at the dragon’s heart.

  The second dragon went limp on the wires.

  Only then did Tori unzip her jacket and feel along her stomach to see what damage the hook had caused. Her fingers came away bloody. Wonderful. That would be one more injury she would have to explain to her parents when she got home. Slayer healers cured burns, but couldn’t do anything for cuts or bruises, which was what Tori always collected during practice.

  On the ground beneath Tori, Jesse walked toward the weapons lockers. He took off his helmet with tense, deliberate motions. She flew over and paused in the air beside him. “Sorry I got you killed.”

  “Not your fault,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t save you.”

  She flew toward Dirk then. She owed him. Big-time. Tori didn’t even want to think about what that fire blast would have done to her face if Dirk hadn’t shielded her. And he had given her his helmet—put himself in harm’s way to protect her.

  Dirk was sauntering over to the weapons lockers, joining the rest of A-team. He was tall and muscular like all the Slayer guys. He had surfer-boy blond hair and the sort of face that could have been used to sell cologne—to sell anything probably. The strut in his walk said he knew exactly how impressive he was. Kody high-fived him. “Awesome shooting, man. I can’t believe you shot the target while you were falling.”

  Alyssa’s gaze went over Dirk as though checking him for a limp. “I can’t believe you didn’t break a leg.”

  Tori landed next to Dirk and gave him a quick hug. “Thanks again. You saved my life.”

  “Or at least her hair,” Alyssa put in.

  Lilly snickered. The two of them liked to bring up Tori’s first-day hair-singed-off debacle. Rather than cutting her hair to even it out, Tori had skipped out on camp, gone to a salon in the nearest town, and gotten extensions in the damaged part. Her long, honey-brown hair was restored to the point that with any luck, people wouldn’t notice the change.

  Tori ignored Lilly and Alyssa and kept walking alongside Dirk. “I can’t believe the dragon harpooned me.” She fingered the blood-rimmed hole in her shirt. That was another piece of clothing camp had ruined, bringing th
e total to—well—just about everything she’d brought. “I don’t think Theo should be allowed to work the controls anymore. He clearly doesn’t grasp the difference between a challenging practice and inflicting hideous deaths on all of us.”

  “Clearly,” Dirk repeated. “Except I’m pretty sure Dr. B was controlling our dragon this round.”

  Tori let out a disbelieving gasp. “Are you kidding me?”

  Before Dirk could answer, the door to the control room opened, and Dr. B and Theo started down the stairs that led to the practice arenas.

  Theo was a twenty-something guy who would have looked normal enough in another place. Next to the Slayer guys, he always seemed pale, gawky, and so stringy that a strong wind could blow him away.

  Dr. B looked like an ordinary middle-aged man—tall, slightly overweight, with unruly gray hair and wire-rim glasses. He often had an expression on his face that indicated he was pondering some aspect of the cosmos, which he probably was. He was a medieval history professor during the school year and acted like a concerned teacher most of the time—caring, kind, encouraging. Always, always so deceptively mild. He constantly praised them with plaque-worthy sayings. You have the power to overcome anything. You are what victory is made of. I love each and every one of you.

  And then immediately afterward he would lead a staff ambush against the Slayers while they ate dinner. Throughout camp he peppered anyone he could with paintballs and then cheerfully deducted team points for their careless deaths.

  Tori couldn’t decide whether he was a brilliant leader or a sociopath. Today, she was thinking sociopath. Definitely sociopath.

  Dr. B blew his whistle. It was his way of getting the Slayers attention to let them know he had comments about their performance.

  Dr. B frequently had comments.

  As he finished walking down the stairs, he called out, “What have you learned from this round of practice?”

  You’ve got an uncharacteristic sadistic streak, Tori thought. Although technically that wasn’t something new she learned. It had crossed her mind several times during the summer. Tori didn’t say these words. She’d been raised to be polite, and besides, Dr. B was Bess’ father. She couldn’t insult her friend’s father.