by A. Blythe
He touched the cuffs. “These aren’t real?”
“No, only a decoy,” Greer called from the sidelines. “We don’t want anyone to know.”
“The element of surprise is critical,” I said. “But I need to train with you to get my powers into fighting condition and I don’t have a lot of time.”
“What about the Winged Beauty over there?” Flynn asked. “Why can’t he help?”
“He is,” I said. “But he’s also the captain of the Protectorate with his own job to do. Not to mention that you’re the best training buddy I know. Unless you’d rather not…”
“Of course I’ll do it,” Flynn said. “Do I look like a fool to you?”
Best not to answer that.
“You can’t tell Tessa,” I said. “As far as she knows, it’s our usual sparring practice. Anyone who knows becomes a target, but I knew you could handle it.”
He straightened his shoulders. “You can count on me.” He peered at me. “Are we really going to go after the Dragon?”
“Absolutely,” I said. I’d give him the rest of the information later on. No need to say too much yet. “We’re clearing the decks in the Mid-Atlantic Colony, my boy.”
Flynn rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”
“Consider it my wedding present to you.”
He hesitated. “You’re going to buy a real present too, though, right? Tessa is very keen on this registry…We had to spend half a day in housewares.” He shuddered. “It was a nightmare.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Relax, Flynn. The registry won’t be ignored.” I relaxed and readied myself for battle. “Now let’s get back to business.”
“No holds barred?” Flynn asked hopefully.
“I’m a djinni again, Flynn,” I said. “Your wish is my command.”
17
My first order of business was to stop by Detective Thompson’s office. As much as I wanted to shift to mist and drift right into the building unescorted, I knew I couldn’t risk it. I’d already told more people than I cared to about my change in circumstances. I didn’t need to discover the hard way that the unsuspecting janitor was also under the Dragon’s thumb.
At the reception desk, I asked for Thompson. Usually I was greeted with a blank stare or directions to the office of the wrong Detective Thompson. Today, however, was a different story.
“Straight down the hall and three doors down on the left,” the old man said.
“No,” I said. “Detective Kenya Thompson.”
“That’s right,” the elderly receptionist said.
Okay, that made no sense. Thompson’s office was a closet under the stairs in the basement. She was the Harry Potter of the police force. I decided it was best to play along.
“I’ll let her know you’re on the way,” he said, friendlier than usual.
“Thank you.” I passed through security and followed his directions to an office on the main floor of the building.
Sure enough, Thompson sat behind a regular desk in a regular room.
“Have I entered an alternate universe?” I asked, poking my head in the doorway.
“I’ve leveled up,” Thompson said. “The PTF has been happy with my performance in reducing the Ghul population. A new office was the first of several rewards.”
“Really?” I closed the door behind me and plopped down in the chair opposite the desk. “That’s fantastic.”
She lowered her voice. “I’m also hearing rumblings about a promotion.”
“You’ll stop talking to me then, won’t you?” I said. “You’ll be too good for me.”
“What brings you to the office, Alyse?” she asked, closing a file and setting it aside. “It must be very official if you were willing to come into the precinct.”
“How would you like to reduce the Ghul population even more?”
She studied me. “How is that even a question? You know I’m in.”
“I figured. You got plans tonight?”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
“Great. There’s more.” I cleared my throat. “You made me promise to tell you if I ever found out the identity of the Dragon.”
Her brown eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“As Tessa in a bridal boutique.”
Thompson eyed me suspiciously. “How exactly did you uncover this information?”
“The how isn’t important. It’s the what we’re going to do about it that matters.”
She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her ample chest. “Okay then, Alyse. What are we going to do about it?”
“I have a plan,” I said.
“Of course you do. Does it involve zoo animals?”
“Not this time.”
“Who’s the Dragon?”
I hesitated. “Before I tell you, you have to promise to do things my way.”
Thompson laughed. Loudly. “Hell no. This is my turf. You have no authority to run an operation to apprehend the leader of the colony crime syndicate. You’re a civilian, remember?”
“I’m working with PAN on this one,” I said.
That tidbit of information got her attention. She bolted upright. “Since when?”
“Greer arranged it.”
“Arranged what exactly?”
I tapped my fake copper cuffs. “These. They’re fake.”
She began to choke. “Your cuffs…They’re off?”
I jumped up and whacked her on the back. “Don’t die on me, Thompson. I need you.”
“Captain Reed knows?” she croaked.
“Only out of necessity. And now you know.”
“Only out of necessity.” It was the closest I’d ever seen her come to pouting.
“Because I can’t do this without you.”
She almost smiled. “That’s more like it.”
“Do I need a drumroll?” I asked.
She glared at me. “Don’t make me take out my gun and whip your djinni behind.”
“The Dragon is Serena Edwards.”
Thompson’s expression shifted from satisfied to confused. “I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand? I just gave you the name of the Dragon.”
“Serena Edwards,” she repeated. She shook her head, trying to come to grips with the news. “Pinky’s mother. The society lady who’s on the board of every philanthropy in the city.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “The woman rescues stray animals, for crying out loud. How is she the Dragon?”
“She just is. Has been for quite a long time.”
Thompson exhaled. “Does Pinky know?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “And it needs to stay that way.”
“She’ll find out eventually,” Thompson said. “And then she’ll know that you kept it from her.”
I nodded solemnly. “And that’s a risk I have to take to keep her safe.” My jaw tightened. “Serena knows that I know. She threatened everyone I care about, including Pinky, if I revealed the truth.”
“Then why did you?”
“Serena is banking on me guarding the information to protect everyone. She’s using my fondness for Pinky to keep me in line.”
“You’re subverting her expectations.”
I shrugged. “Her New Horizons weapon changed my mind.”
“I should have known the Dragon was behind it.”
“She’s going to destroy this city if we don’t stop her. The best way to protect everyone is to trust them instead of only trusting myself.” A lesson I never would have learned if I hadn’t been cuffed.
“So you decided to go after her?”
“How can I not? This colony has been ruled by fear and corruption for long enough, don’t you think?”
Thompson smiled. “Have I ever told you how glad I am that you got dumped here with those stupid cuffs of yours?”
“No, you haven’t.”
She gave me a mischievou
s wink. “Good. Then I won’t start now.”
“Want to hear my plan?”
“I don’t have to,” she said. “I already know it’s going down at the Officers’ Gala. You think she has something big planned, don’t you?”
I nodded. “She’s going to give every cop in the city the Sight.”
Thompson stiffened. “That would be catastrophic.”
“I’m glad you see it my way.”
“You’ve got the Reed brothers helping out. Anyone else besides me?”
“It’ll be Mix and Farah. We can’t risk including anyone else and, obviously, Pinky can’t know. No one outside the immediate circle of trust, not with the Dragon’s penchant for infiltration.”
Thompson gave me a nod of approval. “Sounds like a good team.”
I gave her a pointed look. “It is now.”
Pennsbury Hospital was as creepy and neglected as my last visit. The building would have looked at home in any number of horror movies. It was convenient that I could once again use my power of invisibility to avoid Vito’s surveillance.
“Are you sure you don’t want to save your strength for the gala?” Farah asked, standing beside me on the edge of the field.
“I consider this practice,” I said. And payback.
I advanced toward the hospital, crossing the open field littered with abandoned shopping carts and even half of a toilet. A neighborhood left to rot.
And inside this hospital was garbage I’d wanted to clean up from our first meeting. Malevolent, diabolical garbage.
“We’ll wait for your signal,” Thompson said.
I gave her a backhanded wave as I breezed through the side door and sauntered down the moldy, cracked corridor as brazen as you please. He’d see me when I was good and ready to be seen and not a second before.
I thought I’d have to locate him upstairs, but there he stood in the lobby. Jackpot.
His dark hair was slightly longer than it had been during our last encounter. The ends curled up over the collar of his shirt. He was fixated on his phone, his thumb scrolling down the screen. His goons were nowhere to be found.
It really was my lucky day.
His phone rang and he tapped a button. “You have the shipment?”
“Out front,” a voice replied.
“Excellent,” Vito said. “I’ll let the boys know.”
Crap on a stick. A shipment of humans for organ trafficking? My stomach turned at the thought. I hoped my team stayed out of sight.
Vito whistled and two bulky men appeared like trained Rottweilers at the top of the stairs. More new guys. I briefly wondered what happened to the ones I’d met during my brief stay. Somehow I doubted there was much job security with a guy like Vito.
“Help Tony outside,” Vito called.
The two goons hurried down the steps and headed straight out the door. They reappeared a minute later with a line of people in tow. A line of scared, dirty people. They looked like they’d been locked in the hull of a ship for weeks. In fact, they probably had.
I watched their expressions as they drank in the appearance of the hospital. Whatever they were hoping for, this certainly wasn’t it. Nausea rolled over me. So much pain and suffering and for what?
Not on my watch. Not anymore.
I waited until Vito’s back was turned before I made myself visible.
“I could smell your bad cologne from a mile away,” I said.
Vito jerked around. “Miss Winters?”
Although his dark eyes rounded in surprise, there was no fear in them. Why would there be? He didn’t know about my recent change in status. I should have updated my Facebook page.
“I’d hoped to meet again under different circumstances,” I said. “I love it when a plan comes together.”
“What’s different?” he asked, his tone even. “As I recall, we last met in this very hospital. If you’d like to disrobe, my staff can finish what they started.”
I bristled. “I didn’t say ‘location,’ dumbass,” I told him. “I said ‘circumstances.’”
With unexpected speed, he reached behind a nearby table and produced an assault rifle. He gripped the weapon with both hands and aimed it in my direction. Bullets burst forth, spraying the air. I raised my hand and created a bubble much like Pinky’s. The bullets peppered the invisible wall and fell to the ground, useless. He gaped at me, not sure what to do next. He raised the gun to try again.
“Seriously? The wall isn't enough to put you off?"
"You can't sustain a barrier like that forever," he said.
"Newsflash. I'm not a mage," I said. "Magic doesn't drain me. It fuels me."
He made another attempt to fire at me, but with the flick of my fingers, I turned each bullet into a drop of rain. One by one they splattered on the ground leaving wet marks on the floor.
He threw the weapon to the floor in a fit of anger and raged toward me. "No weapons."
I laughed. "Oh, sure. After you've discovered yours are useless against me."
Power thrummed inside me. It was so strong that it nearly had a heartbeat of its own. Magic crackled in the air around me, exciting and electric. By the gods, I’d missed this.
Evacuate the building, I called.
No need to yell, came Reed’s reply. No one else needs to hear you.
I kept my focus on Vito as Reed and company stormed the hospital.
“You’re going to regret this,” Vito spat. “This is a declaration of war.”
“It sure as hell is,” I said. I summoned a wheelchair with restraints and placed it right behind Vito’s legs. With one hand, I forced a gust of wind toward him, blowing him backward until he fell into the seat. The restraints gripped his wrists and ankles, securing him to the chair.
“How does it feel, Vito?” I asked.
“How did you get your cuffs off?” he asked.
“A present from PAN,” I said. “They asked me to clean up the city, so I decided to start with you.”
He observed the mass exodus from the hospital with a mixture of anger and desperation.
“He doesn’t mind if we use his truck, does he?” Mix asked, ushering a line people to safety.
“He won’t be needing it anymore,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder at Farah. “Make sure there’s no one hiding.” Like Hector. “I don’t want to spill a drop of innocent blood tonight.” There’d been enough innocent blood spilled in this pit of despair.
I smiled at Vito. “Even your security team has given up. That’s the problem with an iron fist, Vito. It doesn’t instill loyalty.”
“I should have used my iron fist on you when I had the chance,” he seethed.
I shrugged. “Sorry, only a copper fist would have been effective.”
I waited until the building was cleared to make my next move. Vito remained strapped in the wheelchair, eerily calm.
Release the hounds, I commanded.
I ran for the exit as the parade of Ghuls streamed inside. They seemed confused at first, but perked up when they spotted the meals on wheels in the lobby.
Vito squirmed in his wheelchair, trying to break free of his restraints. “You’ll pay for this, you bitch.”
I didn’t bother to give him a backward glance. As far as I was concerned, Vito Nocita was a dead man rolling.
I shifted to mist and drifted past the influx of Ghuls. They seemed intent to discover what was happening in the lobby.
I reached the open field where Herb and the rest of the team awaited me.
“Your time to shine, Herb,” I said.
He stepped forward and muttered an Etruscan phrase. All the doors slammed shut. I heard the hard slap of metal against metal. The screams were louder than I anticipated. I didn’t expect to hear them all the way from the adjacent field.
“We can’t leave the Ghuls running loose around the city after this,” Thompson said. “They’ll be full of bloodlust.”
“I don’t plan to,” I said. “This part of the plan is my gift to you. For p
utting up with me.”
Thompson scrutinized me. “Your gift, huh? What are you going to do?”
“Not her. Me,” Herb said. “She thought I should have more experience in the field, so she’s giving me an opportunity to show off.”
“He’s an excellent healer,” I said, “but it turns out, he’s also handy with advanced spells.”
“Advanced spells?” Thompson echoed.
Herb nodded. “The first one is a boundary spell. No one can breach it, so everyone inside stays inside. I’m going to head over to the entrance for this one.”
“Farah, you and Mix guard the other exits and make sure no Ghuls get out in case the spell fails,” I said.
“Have a little faith, Miss Winters,” Herb said.
“Mix drove the truck to the police station,” Farah said, “but I can cover the exits by myself.”
The rest of us followed Herb to the entrance.
“You should stand behind me,” he said, with a small wave of his hand. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and closed his eyes, chanting softly.
“What’s the spell?” Thompson whispered.
“Patience, grasshopper,” I replied.
Herb’s chants grew louder and he began to levitate. I wondered how he managed to practice this one without doing real damage. It was a doozy.
He spread his arms wide and beams of white-hot light shot from his palms into the building. His head jerked back and another beam spouted from his mouth and then his eyes. The chanting had stopped but he continued to float above the ground as the light poured from his body and broke through the exterior walls of the building.
“We should probably take a few steps back,” Thompson suggested, as bricks began to fly.
“The whole building is going to collapse,” Reed said.
“This building should have been demolished years ago,” Thompson said.
“Vito greased enough palms to keep it open,” I said.
“Vito or the Dragon?” Thompson queried.
“Probably both,” I replied.
Herb’s body tensed and jerked as the light continued to burn its way into the hospital.
“If you were going to shoot magical beams in there, why send in the Ghuls?” Thompson asked. “You could have taken care of Vito another way.”
