Highfire

by Eoin Colfer

  Not exactly a noble way to go.

  Vern’s blood was up now, and he yanked the freezer door right out of its frame when he could easily have turned the handle, which caused his back to twinge. Hard to believe, but when he picked up that back injury all those years ago, he had been doing nothing more strenuous than eating a horse.

  The freezer was a big walk-in job with frosted sides of beef hanging in rows like dry-cleaning. Squib was squatted down at the back between towers of ice cream buckets with his T-shirt pulled over his knees and a candy-red pool of blood frozen around one bare foot.

  “Hey, Vern,” said the boy. “Am I dreaming you?”

  “No, son,” said Vern, “you ain’t dreaming. There’s an honest-to-God dragon come to save you.”

  Squib smiled weakly. “Not all of me. Hooke done took his gut hook to my foot.”

  Vern squatted down and breathed sulfur over Squib’s head.

  “Are you putting me to sleep, Vern? Why you wanna do that?”

  Vern popped out a claw and blew flame on it till it glowed white.

  “’Cause you don’t wanna be conscious when I seal those wounds, kid.”

  “I guess,” said Squib, one eye already closing. “We gonna fuck Hooke up, boss?”

  “That guy is already fucked,” said Vern, “all the trouble he’s brought to Ivory’s door. Hooke is super-fucked, no doubt.”

  “Super-fucked,” said Squib. “I sure do like the sound of that.”

  And then he was asleep, so Vern elevated his boy’s leg and got to work.

  Funny for a dragon, but the smell of burning friendly flesh always made Vern gag a little. He could give a shit about hostiles, but there was something about cauterizing a familiar that turned his stomach.

  Squib had lost three toes, which made his foot look like it had a Mohawk, which caused Vern to giggle and took his mind off his stomach. He quickly finished up the field surgery, then took a fist of frost from the freezer wall and ground it onto the melted flesh, rising up a fierce hiss and cloud of steam. Squib did not even moan throughout the process, though he’d feel it plenty tomorrow.

  Poor little bastard will be hopping around like a pirate for a few weeks, he thought. But he’ll live, providing I make good on my rescue boast and get us out of here.

  The human world was beginning to cotton on to the fact that something out of the ordinary was in their midst, and Vern didn’t have to test his senses to the limits to find evidence of this. Chatter from the kitchen was maybe three octaves higher and fifty decibels louder than it ought to be. A couple of heads poked around the crumpled doorframe, only to hurriedly withdraw.

  From on the street, Vern heard sirens indicating the police were approaching, drawn by a commotion which was above and beyond the usual, even for the French Quarter.

  I sure wish I could stick around to watch Hooke explain what he’s doing here, thought Vern, but his own desire to send the constable to meet his Maker would have to take a back seat. There wasn’t time for a full-scale rampage at the moment, not now that cruisers had shotguns and SWAT rode around in tanks.

  The best thing for it is a quick-style exit and back to the bayou. Still, he added to himself, guess there’s always time to fuck up a Mafia hotel.

  Vern picked up Squib with a sight more tenderness than he usually employed when laying hands on a human, wrapping his wings around him like he was a little baby dragon. He stepped out of the refrigerator and then used a technique which, once upon a time, was known as “calling the cavalry.” He blew a dense column of roiling flame which burned the living hell out of anything it touched, and scoured a series of holes straight through to the night sky. That was the thing about dragon fire: It was closer to the fourth-century-BC Greek fire than your common or garden fire: an incendiary liquid flame which ate through anything unfortunate enough to be in its path and did not give a shit about someone dumping water on it.

  Even Vern didn’t fully understand his own physiology, because that level of understanding came with a price tag, and that price tag would include anesthetic, restraints, a gurney, and a team of medical types in scrubs. Which, as prices go, was a little Wolverine, in Vern’s opinion. He had let this Italian polymath guy poke around a little in the fifteenth century, but all Vern had learned from that was that his flame was a “nonadhesive petroleum distillate”; plus the guy had done a sketch of Vern having a fight with this lion, balls out—when Vern had specifically told him his balls were in.

  Goddamn polymaths.

  So Vern sent up a blast of petroleum distillate which blew a six-foot-wide shaft right through the heart of the hotel, letting a silver dollar of Louisiana moon peep through up top.

  Voilà, thought Vern. Exit stage right. Thank you, and good night.

  And then: Please, God, no helicopters.

  HOOKE HAD TO admit that he was surprised by the actual volume of ruination Vern was visiting on the Marcello. He’d been expecting maybe SEAL-team-level destruction, but this dragon was more like a natural disaster: some kind of whirlwind–forest fire hybrid. All this and barely seven feet tall.

  Impressive.

  Looks like maybe old Vern will do me the courtesy of taking care of my pain-in-the-ass boss. So no need for plan B.

  Now all Hooke needed was to get into the vault.

  Once the elephant-sized shit hit the windmill-sized fan, cracks started running like black lightning along the penthouse walls and San Pellegrino went spraying everywhere.

  “What the fuck was that?” said Ivory, falling back against his fitness desk.

  “Well, it’s like this, boss,” said Hooke easily. “It looks like a dragon showed up after all.” He reckoned the truth was an easier sell now that the building was wobbling like a tower of boxes in the bed of a speeding pickup truck.

  “Fuck you, Hooke,” said Ivory, but a part of him believed it. Humans have race memory, after all, so consequently everyone believes in dragons in a pinch.

  Hooke thought that maybe Ivory Conti was entitled to a little self-pity, firstly on account of how he looked corresponding so perfectly with his name—viz., White Count—which no doubt accounted for his variation on a Napoleon complex. And secondly, because of the fact that ten minutes ago he was king of this little castle with a pretty solid business model, and now his best guys were dead, his authority was under threat, and there was a giant death-breathing fire lizard he might not even believe in coming to barbecue him in his very own fortress.

  Poor little fucker, thought Hooke.

  At least Ivory was finally taking the situation seriously now, even if it had taken a dead bodyguard and a shaky building to motivate the man. He unlocked the walk-in safe at the back of his office and, appropriately enough, walked in.

  “Oho,” said Hooke, actually rubbing his hands. “So Ivory Conti’s been hiding his toys. What you got in there, son?”

  He followed Ivory into the safe—and into an Aladdin’s cave of goodies. Regence Hooke was impressed, and he’d seized a fuck-load of treasure in Iraq.

  “What is this place, boss?” he asked like he didn’t know. “This ain’t no regular lockup.”

  “It’s a safe room,” said Ivory. “Take a good look ’cause you won’t ever be seeing it again, capisce?”

  “Capisce”? thought Hooke. Really?

  Ivory took a spanking-new modular combat rifle from its brackets. “Your dragon ain’t the only one with fire-power,” said Ivory. “Let’s see how he likes a gutful of this.”

  “I admire your attitude, boss,” said Hooke. “You got spunk. We come outta this and the city’s ours.”

  The safe room really was impressive, guns displayed like that, all regular-spaced and lined up. People underestimated the care and attention to detail that kind of arrangement required. It was a goddamn exhibition, is what it was. Hooke had heard that Ivory hired an art installer from a gallery over in the Warehouse District to come in here and lay out the weaponry. Took the guy a week and cost eight grand, or so he’d been told, but it was
worth the inconvenience and price tag, because he’d be willing to bet it made Ivory want to jerk off every time he came in here; plus he’d let his competitors get a glimpse from time to time just so they knew what caliber of a man they might be thinking about fucking over. Because guys in Ivory’s business thought about fucking each other over 24/7, 365.

  Hooke eeny-meenied his way along the various weapons hung on the wall, passing by the more pissanty models, until his eyes lit upon a Barrett Light Fifty.

  “And the winner is,” he said, reaching for the .50-cal and taking its weight like it was a barbell.

  It will be interesting, he thought, to see if this portable cannon can punch a hole in an actual dragon. It would also be interesting to see what Vern did when Ivory irritated him with his peashooter.

  Dragon’s gonna be pissed, and that’s when I take my shot.

  Ivory took a sniper’s stance, elbows on his fitness desk, barrel aimed toward the door.

  Maybe he expects Vern to knock.

  Meanwhile, Hooke stood back, keeping one foot inside the safe room, which he figured was called “safe” for good reason.

  They didn’t have to hold their positions long, it not being exactly the hunt for bin Laden. Within seconds a roar like someone had brought thunder indoors ripped through the building, and a good quarter of the floor was consumed by a bolt of solid flame which punched straight through the penthouse to the sky above.

  “Fuck!” said Ivory, his eyebrows crisping. “Fuck balls momma—”

  Which pretty much spoke for the room.

  As terrible as the column of flame surely was, there were a couple of positives, in Hooke’s view. One, it completely destroyed any evidence of his recent homicide, and two, it was short-lived. Nothing caught alight, as such, just glowed around the edges.

  The fire winked out like it had never been, and it was immediately obvious to Hooke what the point had been.

  Old Vern is carving himself an escape route, he thought. Which leads directly through this sorry-ass penthouse.

  He nudged Ivory’s ass with the toe of his boot. “Lock and load, boss,” he said. “Here we go. Enter the dragon.”

  Hooke snickered. Enter the dragon.

  VERN’S CLIMB THROUGH the hotel was pretty uneventful so far as journeys through the circles of hell went. Climbing was no biggie for a dragon, as historically they favored altitude. True, they usually flew down to their eyries rather than climbed up, but a fire lizard was equipped with crampon talons and could scale a sheer cliff if he had to, so a four-story New Orleans hotel shouldn’t pose a problem so long as nobody was foolhardy enough to get in the way.

  The second floor was absolute chaos, dust everywhere and embers flittering in the afterburn. The sprinklers were sputtering in a half-assed manner, and a couple of Ivory’s soldiers were stumbling around, dazed by the vapor. They were pretty shaken up and did not really compute Vern’s appearance, well, not until he burned most of them down to their bones.

  “Was that a gargoyle come to life?” the only survivor mumbled to himself.

  “Gargoyle”?

  That was twice now.

  Up Vern went, cursing Squib, even though the boy with three steaming toe stumps was in deep REM sleep.

  “Goddamn familiars,” griped the dragon. “You open your heart for five goddamn minutes, and next thing you know you’re burning escape shafts in Mafia hotels.”

  Yeah, like you’re not loving this, said his little voice.

  He went up quick, digging in the talons, pretty happy with his progress considering he hadn’t done a whole lot of climbing for a few decades.

  I’m gonna feel this tomorrow. He knew this from experience: You neglect the glutes and they will bite you in the ass.

  The climb stopped being uneventful at a definite point, and that point was when he caught a glimpse of Regence Hooke on the top floor.

  “Bonus points,” said Vern, thinking that he was going to enjoy the hell out of what he planned to do next.

  Chop toes offa my boy, will you? Dismember my drinking buddy? You are about to learn what happens when you poke a dragon, Regence.

  Vern’s arrival at the penthouse level had been met with a hail of automatic weapons fire. The bullets pinged off his forehead, but damn if it wasn’t irritating as hell, like someone was spitting ball bearings at him.

  Vern frowned, and not just because he was annoyed, but because the frown brought a thick plate of brow down over his eyes, shielding him from the assault.

  Is there no end to my talents? he thought, peeking out from under the shelf of bone to see who besides Hooke was wasting their ammunition. Little fucker in a Tony Montana outfit was screaming something about his momma and balls, which was inappropriate from any species. Guy looked hysterical in his black shirt with Bee Gee–wingspan lapels and a white waistcoat.

  Vern thought about saying it, the thing Pacino said in the movie, and he was on the verge when he caught sight of Hooke, hanging back a little.

  “There you are, motherfucker,” he growled, but instead of growling, Vern should have been sparking up because Hooke had raised up some kind of mini cannon and blasted off a shot. Two things stopped Vern from dodging the bullet: One, he wasn’t overly concerned, and two, fast as he was, Vern could never go supersonic without a run-up, so the .50-cal was always going to outpace him.

  The big bullet clipped his brow, lifting a flap of flesh and chipping the bone, inflicting a level of pain on Vern like he hadn’t felt in many a long year.

  Once the blood started flowing, Vern went all heat-of-the-moment, red-mist crazy. He dragged a roar out of prehistoric times and sent a wide-bore kill ’em all blast of flame into Hooke’s corner, somehow managing to incorporate the words “’uck you, ’ooke” into the assault, which was the best diction he could manage with an open mouth.

  When the mist cleared, Vern surveyed the devastation he had wrought and he saw that it was good.

  No way Hooke is walking out of there, he thought. Fucker is probably a tiny little diamond, considering all the heat I blasted at him.

  This was a pleasing notion, and it calmed Vern’s heart rate down somewhat. “All this inconvenience for a kid,” he said to the moon.

  Jubelus would laugh his ass off.

  The notion that a dragon would take a missile to the face for a human really would’ve had his brother cracking his scales with laughter. Vern would have laughed, too—after all, how desperate would a guy have to be before he gave a solitary sulfur fart about the fate of a specific human?

  Exactly this desperate, thought Vern, giving the torched penthouse one last squint, just in case Hooke, slippery customer that he was, had somehow managed to wriggle his way through death’s door. Then he felt the entire building exhale and sag. He clawed his way to roof level. The night air felt cool on his back, which was nice, and he stretched out his shoulders for a second before he spotted a chopper in the night sky. The spotlight slung under its chassis was scything through the darkness toward him.

  I never torched a chopper, Vern thought. Could be fun.

  Then Squib stirred in his makeshift cocoon, and the dragon thought perhaps he’d better hightail it back to the bayou.

  Vern patted his stomach. All this sparking off was costing him his reserves of fat.

  I’ll stop off at the Pearl Bar and Grill, he decided, siphon off a few gallons of cooking oil from their stores, just in case there’s any fallout from this bullshit and I need to light up an angry mob.

  You didn’t hear so much about angry mobs anymore, but they were still out there, just waiting for a burning cross to congregate around, putting in time between causes screaming at pregnant teens on TV. The losers usually went after their own kind, which was hilarious to Vern, humans hunting down humans because of skin tone, or which port they used in a storm, so to speak. That was the problem with humans: They couldn’t be reasoned with. Vern had had himself a pal, back in medieval England. Nice guy. Lived in a region called Fatfield. Smoked a lot of hashi
sh.

  Anyways, he always maintained that a mob could be reasoned with. You give them a demonstration of power, then they’ll think better of it and go back to their farms.

  The Fatfield dragon held on to this point of view right up to the day when a bunch of Norman Crusaders used crossbows to stake him down in a marsh and let the elements take care of him.

  “Reasoned with”?

  If there was one thing Vern had learned, there was no reasoning with humans.

  So why are you here, dickhead? asked his little voice.

  Vern didn’t have a good answer to that. I am here because it feels right didn’t really stand up to argument, but it was as close to true as he could get.

  Squib was a good kid doing his best in a shitty situation, so if Vern had to pick a side, he would pick the one that Waxman had been on, that being Squib Moreau’s.

  And I just burned old Regence’s team to ashes.

  “A good night’s work,” said Vern, then shook out his wings, thinking for the umpteenth time that he should Google how wings worked and learn something about himself.

  “It’s something to do with lift and drag,” he told the unconscious Squib, then grabbed the boy’s waistband and soared into the New Orleans night sky.

  “Good-bye, Constable,” he said, mentally ticking off Kill Hooke on his to-do list. “Burn in hell.”

  Chapter 17

  HOOKE WAS NOT BURNING IN HELL. IN POINT OF FACT, THE CONSTABLE had significantly more life left in him than might be expected. There was barely a scratch on Momma Hooke’s boy apart from a few blisters on his fingertips where he had been a mite slow letting go of the safe room door.

  Things that had saved him:

  1. Steel fire doors.

  2. Oxygen tank with handy face mask.

  3. Dimwit mob boss who turned his back on what he thought was the lesser of two evils.