Gunnar sputtered. “What? Dragon Hunter?” He demanded.
“Oh, yeah.” I did my best to look apologetic. “At the funeral I met a guy when I was having a smoke. He told me to watch out. Said I was in danger. Apparently something big is going down soon, and him and his crew are hunting a particular dragon in town. A man. He said he was keeping tabs on the bookstores, so I’m sure we’ll run into them again.”
Gunnar opened his mouth to say more. “We’re here.” I interrupted, changing the topic as I pointed at the deserted shop doors. I pulled my car into a parking space, and we climbed out. Gunnar was staring at the store, so I studied his silhouette against a streetlamp. He looked like an ancient Valkyrie, his Norse heritage obvious. Raising my gaze, I scanned the nearby buildings, appreciating the beauty of the ancient little city. The courthouse loomed over us, powerful, resolute, and regal, her white climbing columns and vast marble façade intimidating and imposing. My gaze flicked over the top of the courthouse directly across the street from the bookstore, and I immediately tensed. “Gunnar…” I warned.
He followed my gaze in time to see a long red tail swinging gently in a gust of wind between two gargoyle statues. He slowly turned to me, eyes surprised. “Well, that was easy. Want to go have a chat with her?” An expensive car pulled up behind mine, squeezing into the last parking space on the street amidst a blare of angry honking as they cut someone off. The driver remained inside, studying a map.
I nodded to Gunnar. “Have you brushed up on any Dale Carnegie lately?”
Gunnar grunted, smiling as he brushed his tattoo subconsciously. “How to Win Friends and Influence People… Yep.”
I decided to leave my bag of tricks in the car, feeling confident in my power. Magic was fueled by emotion, and I had plenty of that. Tools helped wizards focus their powers, but I had enough power and control that I rarely needed a focus for doing things. Unless I was trying something completely new. But I wasn’t planning on experimenting tonight. Plus, I had a werewolf to back me up. Besides, Peter had killed the first dragon with a frozen liquor bottle, and he was untrained. I would rely on sheer power, because I was fast and efficient at destroying things when I needed to. The only other thing I trusted to use was the handy-dandy pistol that I had stowed in the glove compartment, but heading into a federal courthouse with a gun seemed idiotic. There was nothing discreet about the weapon. Gunnar carried a small backpack with a change of clothes inside in case he needed to shift into his werewolf form.
We crossed the street and headed inside the beautiful stonework courthouse. The five-story pillars held up the roof, reminding me of the Greek Parthenon. The moving tail was no longer visible, but I knew it was up there amidst the stone gargoyles that guarded the roof’s perimeter. Gunnar had to wave his badge several times as security questioned our entrance, but we were finally admitted. They waved us on, turning back to their duties.
We took the stairs two at a time — swift, but not fast enough to alarm anyone we might run into — feet slapping the cold marble as we continued up to the roof. We didn’t encounter anyone else at this late hour, but kept our eyes to the shadows just in case. What if the dragon was back in human form? I decided to pay very close attention to the eyes of any person who came near me. Any horizontal pupils and I would have to neutralize them. And why had she remained so close to the scene of her break-in? The emergency call from the neighbor had informed Gunnar that the owner was alive, but scared shitless. Understandably so. Perhaps the dragon was waiting on the storekeeper, seeing if he went out in search of her request. That would mean that he had offered up some information to her that had somehow spared his life. Interesting. I’d have to talk to him about it if we survived our own encounter with the dragon. We climbed to the top floor of the building, and looking both ways, chose a direction in search of a roof exit. Windows lined the wall, allowing a splendid view of the city below.
Seeing no one around, I spoke, my heels striking the marble with each step. Tap, tap, tap. “So, tell me more about this strike-force you’re putting together. I can’t imagine many freaks are in the bureau, so how much good could it do?” Freaks were how the few unenlightened individuals — like the cops — referred to us. No one had yet confirmed, officially, that we existed, but plenty civilians already knew or at least had a very good suspicion. Crimes were simply becoming too ‘unexplainable’ with the new advanced technologies revealing truths that had historically been hidden under reams of paperwork. A Kentucky Senator was even demanding that all freaks should furthermore be termed Wizards since it had to be our fault that they all existed in the first place.
Idiots.
Gunnar looked at me heavily, saying nothing.
“Wait, you said hush, hush. Do you even have any jurisdictional lines? Are they just going to put up fliers in every police station in the country, seeing if any freaks are stupid enough to move to the buckle of the Bible-Belt?”
Gunnar scoffed. “Of course there are lines. Like I told you, this is just a test run. Reinhardt knows weird stuff keeps happening, and that more often than not, we remain aloof to the criminals and their capture. This is merely a beta testing of an idea I whispered to him. He’s a regular, but a damn good agent. He has no idea what he was really allowing me to do. What I was really asking him. So for now, I basically just have a wider line than the other agents. Instead of a razorblade, I’m dancing on a steak knife.” I pondered that. Crime was getting nastier each year, and while most of it was the normal, run-of-the-muck kind of crime, some of it did need a firmer hand. Guns were fine, but sometimes not enough, and all too often, red tape plugged up said guns.
“Can’t hurt, I guess. Any recruits yet, or just consultants?” I mocked, scanning the glass walls around us for a roof exit. Gunnar said nothing, so I stopped and glanced back. Tap, tap, tap. The sound of heels striking the ground continued.
He pointed a finger at me, face ashen. “Me?” I stared back, dumbfounded. “Oh, no way. I’m not even a cop! I don’t know diddly about all the minutiae that took you years to learn. I’m a terrible recruit.” Another thought struck me. “And I don’t even want to join! I’ve got enough on my plate, thank you very much.” Gunnar continued staring, but I realized he wasn’t pointing at me. He was pointing behind me. Then he abruptly shifted into his Underdog underwear-clad werewolf form, clothes exploding to shreds. I had time to hope that it wasn’t the same pair of underwear from the night before.
Tap, tap, tap. The noise continued, and this time I realized it sounded quite different from our heels striking marble. It sounded like something tapping on glass. I turned, and found myself facing a massive grinning red dragon, snorting fog onto the cool glass from her scaly visage outside. Tap, tap, tap. A giant talon let out a staccato drumbeat. I was momentarily reminded of a sadistic child tapping on a glass, fish tank.
Then the glass exploded inwards, and a massive arm wrapped around my waist, tugging me out onto the windy rooftop. “Ack!” I yelled as the grip squeezed the air from my lungs. Muscles bunched around me as the world tossed and turned. I heard Gunnar howl — a piercing lament — but we were moving fast, and between being tossed about like the victim of a drunken operator controlling a Ferris wheel and not being able to breathe, I felt positively unpleasant. Which pissed me off. Which is when I get a tad reckless.
Everything halted, and I abruptly noticed a sad statue on the roof from inches away, his face pitying my dilemma. Then my body was hoisted out over the city streets five stories below, the grip loosening enough for me to breathe. Cars flashed by beneath me, oblivious of my predicament. “Now that we’re alone, I propose we have a little chat.” A woman’s voice spoke. I lifted my head to stare straight into the dragon’s fiery red horizontal pupils, ignoring the blood pounding in my skull. I gathered my will, ready to unleash hell.
“Ah, ah, ah.” The blood-red dragon’s voice cooed as she released one of the talons holding me up above St. Louis’ beautifully paved streets. My body dropped an inc
h and I squawked in alarm. “I just wanted to have a few words with you about a family book,” Her voice was that of a phone sex operator, full of empty promises that one couldn’t help but buy. “Oh, and also about my sister, since she never came home last night.”
Another talon let loose, dropping my upper torso entirely, leaving me to hang upside down by my knees. I laughed, fighting my panic. “Your sister won’t be coming home any time soon.”
She cocked her head quizzically. “Start talking. Now, wizard.” My pack of cigarettes fell out of my pocket, sailing down into the night.
And down, and down, and down.
I swiveled, quite composed, and pointed an angry finger at her. “That. Was. A. New. Pack. Bitch.”
More glass burst outward from atop the roof, out of my immediate sight. Her eyes swiveled towards the noise with a hiss and tongue of flame.
I am not above sucker-punches.
A rumble of power began to build at her throat as she prepared a counter-attack at the noise. I summed up my will, calling on the wind this high up, and bulldozed the sad-faced statue that had shown me a moment of compassion. A cloud of dust and rock exploded out, but a big portion of the statue sailed true, slamming straight into her wide-open mouth as she was ready to let loose her blast. Napalm fire, unable to go anywhere else, splashed all over her crenellated head, bathing her in a sick wash of flames from snout to chest. She shook her head with a roar of pain and surprise. “Eat that!” I crowed, still hanging upside down. Then the fire died out from her scales, causing no lasting harm. Blood dripped freely from her scaled lips thanks to my thrown statue, one tooth dangling by a thread of her gums before it too fell to the roof like the drops of blood.
The roof around her flared with the liquid fire. I heard a shout, but not Gunnar’s voice, and then three sizzling blue and black spears sailed through the night towards my captor. She dodged two of them, sending them off down into the nearby park, and hopefully not into a wandering pedestrian, but the third slammed home, tearing a jagged hole in one of her wings and piercing her thigh. Blue sparks sizzled up from the wound and she roared in pain.
She took one shaky step, freeing her wing, and then glared at me. “It appears that your time is up.” With a smile, she let go of my leg and I fell.
Fast.
I realized I was going to become a nuisance to the street-sweeper on the morning shift. The dragon launched off the roof with a snap of wings, sailing away into the night sky. Gunnar, in his giant white-haired werewolf form, stared down at me from the roof, jaws stretched wide as if howling. But the wind whistled in my ears as I dropped, so I couldn’t distinguish his familiar roar, and then I spotted a freaking black boomerang racing towards my face from another building across the street.
My scream was in no way similar to that of a frightened little girl.
The black boomerang unfolded into a trio of interconnected rubber balls attached to a net of rope. Apparently, Spiderman was watching over my fair city. The web slammed into me, and then the weighted balls swung around and around my torso until finally hammering into different sections of my body like a boxer working a heavy bag. One was about a hair away from permanently ruining my chances at continuing my family tree, and luckily none hit me in the face or I would have officially been Mike Tyson-ed. The force of the impact was strong enough to alter my trajectory directly into a window on the side of the building.
And then through the god damned window.
The heavy glass didn’t impede my entrance in the slightest, sending a tinkling shower of shards before me into what seemed like a plush office. I bounced off a very sturdy bookshelf, and then slid face first onto a long, wide wooden desk, my face efficiently clearing everything off the top of its surface: a stapler, a jar of pens, a book, a pile of papers, a keyboard, a monitor, and at the very end of the desk sat a steaming mug of coffee. I squinted my eyes shut in anticipation, trying to brake with my feet, but they were all tangled up in the damn web. Again, I inform you that the impending shriek sounded in no way similar to that of a frightened little girl. I slid to a halt, my nose brushing the scalding mug. But it didn’t spill. I tried to steady my breathing, and cautiously peeled open the only eye not squeezed shut from the web, staring at the room’s only occupant.
A man had wisely scooted back from the desk. He reminded me of Father Time. Older than old, but he was apparently still spry enough to dodge a sailing, web-encased, wizard who happened to burst through his fourth-floor office window. He glanced down at me, long, heavy caterpillar eyebrows frowning with disapproval. A heavy authority was contained within his stare. Then I noticed his getup. A thin black robe settled around his shoulders, and I noticed a wooden gavel on a bookshelf behind him.
I gulped. “Your Honor.” I offered. The rope web pressed my nose flat against my face, and another lifted my mouth into what would pass for a world-record hair lip.
Without a word, he reached over my face, carefully plucked up his coffee, and stepped out of the room. He had a damn good poker face, I thought to myself as I heard pounding feet racing towards me from just outside the open door. Then a swarm of security guards burst into the room, guns leveled in my general direction as if anticipating a ninja to disappear into a cloud of smoke and throwing stars. The lead guard blinked, and then suppressed a grin as he tucked his gun away. “I don’t think he’s an immediate threat.”
I squirmed angrily, hoping to unhook one of the balls on the web, but I merely succeeded in slipping off the desk to fall straight onto my back on the hard wood floor. Pain flashed in my side as the wind was knocked out of me.
“Thun of a vitch!” I wheezed through the web.
Chapter 12
I t didn’t take long for Gunnar to sort out the mess and get me out of handcuffs. That’s two times in twenty-four hours. Impressive right? Gunnar had changed into his spare clothes, and no one seemed to notice. At first, Justice Simpson hadn’t been very pleased with my interruption, but after checking my wallet for identification, he had burst out laughing so hard that I actually started to blush. His last comment still aggravated me as we stepped outside, past another set of chuckling guards. I flipped them off. “Pricks.” I muttered, rubbing at the rope burns on my neck. They laughed harder.
Gunnar glanced over at me, amused. “He did say that you could drop by any time. Quite courteous of him, given the situation.”
“I take it you’re walking back to the office?”
Gunnar grumbled back. “Thought you might like a souvenir.” He offered me one of the dragon’s teeth that I had knocked out. It was almost as long as my pinkie.
“Nifty.” I smiled back, pocketing it. A beautiful blonde woman in a tracksuit was walking across the street from us, and I swiped back my shaggy hair for a semblance of dignity. Gunnar followed my gaze, nodding his agreed approval. Her hair was cut short along her jaw so that the bangs formed wicked points near her chin, layered perfectly around her thin oval face. She grinned at my obvious interest, and I winked back. She giggled and began to change direction towards us, limping slightly as if she had sprained her ankle while running. God, girls giggling! What a delicious sound. “That’s a nice Cherry Danish.” I said for Gunnar’s ears only.
Gunnar stared at me askance. “Do you always refer to women as dessert dishes?”
I pondered that as we climbed into my vintage car. We waited for the jogger to approach us, her dazzling white teeth reeling me in as her long legs brought her closer. She leaned into the window, studying us both. “Got a pen?” She asked in a breathless voice. I silently slipped her one. Her eyes were like almonds, and the smell of clean sweat quickly kicked in my hormones, which had barely survived the Spiderman-like assault. She furiously jotted down a number on my hand. No name. Her fingers were feverish. “Whom do I ask for when I call?” I asked with a grin.
“You’ll find that out if I answer. Or if you even call.” She grinned, and then turned to walk off her twisted ankle.
“Gold
-digger.” Gunnar complained.
“But I’ve got gold, so it’s a win-win.” I answered, grinning.
“Money doesn’t make you happy…” He recited the well-known adage.
I started the car, revving the gas into a throaty growl beneath my feet. “Well it sure as shit doesn’t make you sad either, Gunnar.” He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t mask his grin as I pulled out into traffic. A few seconds later, the car parked behind us also pulled out. Was it the same car that had parked behind me before we went into the courthouse? Was this what a tail felt like? I was too intrigued to be scared. I mean, I had just survived a joint attack by a wannabe Spiderman and a red dragon. What danger was a mere regular? I answered Gunnar’s first question. “I guess I just haven’t met a girl who classifies as a dinner dish. But that’s okay. I adore dessert.” Gunnar belted out a laugh.
“So who saved your ass with that net launcher?”
“Spiderman?” I offered.
“Seriously, Nate. There are three possibilities. One, they were trying to catch the dragon, and missed horribly. Two, they were trying to catch you for some dark reason. Three, it really was our friendly neighborhood webslinger saving your pathetic life. In that case I might have my first recruit, even if he does seem to have poor character judgment.”
I grunted my displeasure at his quip. “I like number three best, but I guess you should look into the alternatives since Spiderman’s just a comic book character. So who was that other guy on the roof with you?” The car was still behind me, but further back.
Gunnar looked frustrated. “I’m not sure. He appeared out of nowhere, shot the dragon with that electric spear gun, and then he was gone. Maybe he was one of those dragon hunters…”
I nodded. “Mind looking into it for me? I have to swing by Chateau Falco.”
Gunnar arched a brow. “Need backup?”
“Pretty sure that’s one of the safest places in town right now. I’ll call you after.”
Obsidian Son (The Temple Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
