DRAGON RESCUE

STEEL DRAGON™ BOOK EIGHT

KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN

MICHAEL ANDERLE

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

Copyright © 2020 LMBPN Publishing

Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

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Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

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LMBPN Publishing

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Version 1.00, February 2022

Previously Published as part of the megabook Steel Dragon 3

eBook ISBN: 979-8-88541-123-3

Print ISBN: 979-8-88541-124-0

THE DRAGON RESCUE TEAM

Thanks to the JIT Readers

Dave Hicks

Deb Mader

Debi Sateren

Diane L. Smith

Dorothy Lloyd

Jackey Hankard-Brodie

James Caplan

Jeff Eaton

Jeff Goode

John Ashmore

Kelly O’Donnell

Micky Cocker

Misty Roa

Paul Westman

Peter Manis

Rachel Beckford

Veronica Stephan-Miller

If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

Editor

The Skyhunter Editing Team

CHAPTER ONE

Amy Williams awoke with the kind of startled, heart-thudding response that told her immediately that something unexpected had happened. She had stayed awake until eleven thirty reading a thriller novel—fairly late for her, but she’d only collected the book from the Rangeley library that day and had been excited. They’d had to order it from one of the other Maine branches, which had meant a long wait.

She was twenty-three and back home after a fruitless search to find work in Philadelphia and Boston as neither city had offered anything that made staying there worth it. Thankfully, she had a good excuse not to stay up with her parents, who were watching their favorite show. It was basically a soap opera about dragons, but people didn’t call them soap operas when they came on during primetime on extra cable channels and had actual naked people.

It wasn’t like Amy was a virgin or her parents were prudes or anything—obviously not since they watched various dragons cheat on each other—but it was still uncomfortably weird to watch sexy shows or movies with them. The fortuitous arrival of the book at least saved an awkward discussion on this particular night.

They had retired hours before and although she’d been engrossed in her reading, she had apparently fallen asleep. The loud noise had yanked her into wakefulness and she lay for a moment with her eyes tightly closed as she tried to identify what it was.

It had sounded like someone crashed a truck into her parents’ front porch, she decided, although the idea seemed a little far-fetched. Maybe it had simply been a dream.

Still, she wouldn’t relax again until she’d at least checked, so she pulled the covers off—despite it being summer it was always chilly in Rangeley, Maine, at night— and pulled her slippers on. Then, unbelievably, a dragon tail pounded through the roof of her room.

Amy screamed and flung herself out of bed barely in time. The tail lifted again and widened the hole as it did so before it descended again in a powerful blow that converted her bed to splinters.

A bright light beamed from outside, as strong and red as sunrise, and Amy stared in shocked disbelief through the hole in the ceiling of her bedroom. She closed her eyes for a moment but when she refocused, there were definitely two dragons out there. A dark-blue beast with scales like armor plates seared its spiny green counterpart with flames. The green dragon retreated, unhurt but annoyed, until it collided with the house with a thud that could easily have been heard for miles and destroyed a chunk of the wall.

The entire building shook, and her bookshelf toppled slowly. She listened for the heavy impact with the floor—it held dozens of books—but instead, its weight simply destroyed the weakened floorboards and it plummeted into the living room. For some reason, seeing her books scattered carelessly below her upset her more than the damage to her room.

The green dragon stumbled a few feet but quickly recovered, shook itself like a wet dog, and whipped its tail behind it. The appendage created a fresh hole in the wall, but the creature paid no attention and lunged at its adversary.

The two opponents met in a flurry of claws and teeth and tails and careened into a maple tree her parents had planted when she was born. It snapped in half like kindling.

Now, smoke issued from the side of the building. The gout of flame had lit their almost hundred-year-old wood house on fire. Watching these two monsters battle was strangely hypnotic, though, and she might have stood there transfixed if not for the flames that licked up the side of the structure. The smoke seeped in and she realized for the first time that she hadn’t seen her parents. Horrified, she imagined them unconscious and in danger of asphyxiation.

Amy ran to her door, flung it wide, and dashed down the hall, then the stairs. She screamed for her parents the entire time. The effort burned her throat and she struggled against the fumes that gradually filled the rooms around her. Her parents were on the far side from where the dragons had wreaked havoc so there was a chance they were still alive. They had to still be alive, she told herself, although it worried her that they hadn’t reacted. Surely they couldn’t have slept through the noise generated by the battle and the ensuing destruction?

Their room was to the right. To the left was the kitchen which was now filled with heat and smoke as the flames had spread rapidly along the exterior wall and found a way in.

Something started to shriek—like the world’s largest tea kettle, she thought irritably—before the dark-blue dragon’s flame licked the propane tank on the side of the house. In seconds, it burst from the pressure and the gas—exposed to the flame—ignited. The resultant explosion blew away half the house.

She huddled against the internal wall and her ears rang as she clutched her face and the back of her neck to protect herself from the explosion. Somehow, by a wild and impossible miracle, all the shrapnel from the blast missed her. Her mind couldn’t even begin to calculate the odds of that happening, given that the wall to her left had been destroyed in a moment, but this wasn’t the time to question good luck.

Reality clicked in once again and she raced through the living room—now a mess of wood, broken furniture, and kitchen gadgets. Before she could take the ten steps needed to cross the room, one of the dragons smashed into the roof.

Of course, she didn’t know for a fact that it was a dragon. She couldn’t see through the ceiling of the first floor other than where the hole in her floor was, and that was way on the other side. But if it wasn’t one of the two beasts, it could only be a meteor—and honestly, how likely was that? The impact, however, brought part of the roof down on top of her.

Amy screamed and held her hands up to protect herself. She knew she would die, crushed by the roof erected by her great-great-grandfather…or was it her three greats? The brain went to funny places when faced with death.

Frozen in the certainty that this was the end, it took a long moment before she registered the fact that she was, in fact, still very much alive. She looked around, amazed that she could do so. A beam from the room had fallen but somehow come to rest about a foot above her head. Stunned, she gazed around her and realized that although the living room was practically destroyed, no significant debris had fallen in the space around her. A few kitchen gadgets and minor wreckage from when the propane tank had exploded littered the area but no shingles and no large fragments from the guest room that had collapsed into the living room. Something had saved her.

This seemed to be yet another instance of the weird string of good luck that had kept her safe thus far, but she didn’t have time to wonder about such things.

The part of her parents’ house with their room was still intact. Amy stumbled through the chaos, and as she stepped clear of the beam that had been suspended above her head, it shuddered and fell. Even from that height—maybe seven feet above the ground—it could have seriously hurt her. What was going on?

She reached her parents’ room, grasped the knob, and recoiled from the searing heat it gave off. Close to panic now, she kicked the door. The hinges snapped and the wood careened across the room. Amy barely had time to register how far the door had catapulted from her blow when a blast of flame practically exploded from her parents’ room, wound around her like a sheet of hot velvet, and engulfed her body in a quick burst of heat before it dissipated. She looked at her arms, certain she’d been horribly burned. To her surprise, there wasn’t a mark on her. The flames must have swept past too swiftly to do damage.

She screamed into the roaring conflagration that used to be her parents’ bedroom and shouted for them. “Mom! Dad!”

The far side of their room was on fire, the wall still standing but aflame although the window was broken. Amy could barely see anything through the blaze. The whole room was on fire and the bed collapsed, broken, and burning. The windows had all shattered from the heat.

A gust of wind blew through and briefly wafted the flames to one side. Charred lumps were all that remained to indicate that her parents had been in the bed. Tears streamed down her face, as much from her grief as from the smoke.

While her mind tried to assimilate the truth, her gaze drifted to the two dragons outside her parents’ broken window who now fought each other in the wreckage of her dad’s boat.

Her parents were dead.

They’d been slaughtered in their sleep by beings who couldn’t even slow their fight to check on the humans they’d recklessly killed.

Amy had never met a dragon before. Rangeley was a tiny town with less than two thousand people, notable only in summer months for the lake where tourists could fish and maybe for the quilt store during the rest of the year. A dragon had come to enjoy the lakes—once. And apparently, they’d cared so little for the area they’d never returned. Her hometown was quiet, a welcome respite from the cities she had tried to explore. Dragons weren’t supposed to be there. One of the best things about it was that it was simple and peaceful. The only dragons she knew spent their time trying to woo each other on the television.

Or kill each other.

Everyone knew dragons didn’t exactly care for human lives. In the soaps, it was often a scandal when a dragon did care for a human but obviously, that was fiction. These two didn’t care about the people they hurt or killed. They didn’t care about anything but their stupid fight. Their callousness had killed her parents.

The thought of them doing that and not even noticing—like her mom and dad were little more than a biting fly to be swatted and tossed into a lake or maybe even less than a fly—infuriated Amy Williams.

She took a step toward them and the burning wall. As she moved, a sphere radiated from her body to push aside the smoke and the flames and encapsulate her within. She took another step forward as her fury flowed through her. It was hotter than the flames engulfing her parents’ home.

Without conscious thought, she raised a hand and gestured at the wall in front of her. The flaming boards skittered into the night and struck the dragons in their path.

They stopped and turned as Amy walked through the hole she had created. While she had no idea how she had done it, she knew she had done it and not them.

She stepped from the house and her feet crunched a piece of glass from the broken window. It was only partially broken and caught her reflection mirrored in the flickering light of the blaze. Her hair was grimy with smoke and soot and her pajamas were dirty but somehow untorn after she’d negotiated the deathtrap the dragons had created from her parents’ house. Her eyes, instead of an unremarkable brown, glowed scarlet, the color of blood.

One of the dragons hissed. The other inhaled and its nostrils and throat glowed as it readied itself to incinerate this woman who’d thrown a burning plank of wood—a reminder of its recklessness—from the destruction it had caused.

Amy raised her hands. “You killed my mom and dad,” she said coldly.

The power coursed through her and transformed her fantasies of vengeance into reality.

CHAPTER TWO

Kristen Hall was still convalescing from the injuries she’d sustained from fighting the technomage assassin, Constance, and from the dragon bomb. It had been intended to kill dozens of dragons but in the end, she had been the only casualty.

Objectively, she was aware of this. She knew the incendiary device had been filled with shrapnel harvested from another dragon’s body and had thus been able to tear through her steel skin like it had been tissue paper. Again, this was a fact her rational mind accepted. She knew these dragon pieces had penetrated her body and—despite having all been removed by a surgeon—were to blame for her especially slow recovery process. This too, seemed inarguable, given that she was healing faster than a human but much slower than a dragon.

While she’d made great progress over the last couple of days—as if her powers had begun to kick in and might have speeded up her healing—the rules were clear. She had been booked off work for an extended period because no one really had any idea how the healing process might have been compromised and so wouldn’t take a chance. On a good day, she would most likely applaud their caution and concern for her wellbeing.

But knowing all this didn’t mean she wasn’t going out of her mind with boredom.

She also knew she shouldn’t go into Dragon SWAT headquarters, given her condition, but this didn’t stop her from stepping off the bus and walking into the Capital Square Building in downtown Detroit. Once there, she greeted the dragon in human form who manned the front door.

“Steel,” he groused and used her dragon namesake taken from her abilities rather than the family name she’d always used with pride. “I can see from here you’re not better yet. You’re limping slightly and your face looks like shit.”

“Oh, shut up, Grayclaw. You’re only saying that because you’ve never seen me with makeup.”

“I’m saying that because I can tell you’re using it to cover bruises. What are you doing here?”

“I’m checking in.” She shrugged. “Is that a problem?”

“Not for me.” Some would call Grayclaw lazy, but she preferred to think of him as pragmatic. No one had told him not to let her in despite her being on leave, so he wouldn’t stop her until someone did.

Kristen waltzed past him and into the elevator.

She headed to the fourth floor, but the elevator stopped at the third for someone else. The doors opened and Atramento stepped on. The mage’s robe, together with his head and hand tattoos, immediately identified him to her but honestly, she could have identified him merely from his voice—or, rather, what he seemed to prefer to talk about.

“Lady Steel, your file has you out of the office for a minimum of another seventeen days. Has there been a miscalculation with your paperwork?” He had the ability to lift multiple objects and use them to do different things in tandem. It was the magic equivalent of being able to rub your belly and pat your head at the same time, multiplied by a hundred. And yet, all he did with these abilities was fill out multiple forms at once.

“Don’t you ever get bored, Atramento?” Kristen grinned as she goaded the mage.

Atramento frowned. “The world is a dangerous, complex place. Boredom is proof that we’re doing things right. I much prefer being bored and working for dragons than the alternative.”

“What alternative?”

“The terror of true freedom,” he said with an ice-cold smile.

“What does that mean?” she asked as they reached her floor and the doors opened.

He shook his head. “Nothing, Lady Steel. Nothing at all.”

“Oh, come on, Jose. Don’t bullshit me. You know you can be honest with me.”

The technomage sighed and looked more like Jose Mendoza in that moment than his tattooed self. “I only mean I am thankful for my place here. You’re a dragon, which means you can afford to get bored. Us mages…we’re still people first. It’s merely good to have a place to work with decent healthcare.”

“You know I put people first, too,” Kristen said.

“I know.” He nodded. “That’s the only reason I said anything at all, Lady Steel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more boring paperwork to file.” He said it with such pride that she couldn’t help but smile as she walked down the hall toward the workroom her team shared.

She pushed in to find Lumos, Emerald, and Timeflash going over something, but before she could tell what it was, Erin Timeflash turned to her and frowned.

“What are you doing here?” the woman said. Her voice edged toward sweet but it sounded forced.

“I wanted to come in and check on things.” Kristen flashed the biggest smile she could.

“You’re worse than Stonequest,” Emerald said, folded his muscular arms, and shook his head.

“Oh, yeah, is he back?” she asked. Stonequest and Heartsbane, the other two dragons on her dragon SWAT team, had been severely hurt as well although he most likely only had a few days left before his return. Heartsbane would need a little longer but would probably also be back on duty before Kristen’s allotted sick leave was up.

“No,” the green dragon said flatly.

Lumos chuckled. “But he was here earlier asking to check in too.” The old dragon shook his head, a grandfather amused at the energy of children.

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” Emerald said.

“Oh, come on. You have to give me more than that!” Kristen protested. “Constance almost killed three of us and she got away. Last time I checked, we still don't know much about the mages she works with or where they acquire all the dragon pieces. Plus, I have a sibling out there. Do you know if they are helping the technomages or are held captive—hell, or even dead by now?”

“We don’t share that information with civilians,” Emerald said. His green eyes twinkled—Kristen could tell he was enjoying this—but his jaw was hard.

“Oh, it’s fine, Emerald, really,” Erin said. She’d always been the softy on the team. “We haven’t found any new information, but we haven’t been running the hardest investigation.”

“And why not?” she demanded.

“Because we’ve been focused on security,” Lumos explained. “We’ve made the rounds and checked any meeting places with more than two dragons. We think Constance and the other technomages have chosen to lie low for a while. Either they’re dumb and expended their resources on that bomb, or they’re smart and they don’t want to rush into a war when every dragon in the Midwest and most of the dragons in North America are still on edge from almost being blown up.”

“Either way, we only have one thing to tell you,” Emerald said.

“What’s that?” Kristen asked and it was clear to everyone that her week of boredom fueled her curiosity.

“Go take a vacation!” His hard jaw finally cracked, and he laughed. Lumos did too and Erin smiled warmly.

“Seriously, though, Kristen, you’ve earned a rest,” the woman said. “The Dragon Council has me positioned here until you, Stonequest, and Heartsbane are back, and between Emerald, Lumos, and I, we have centuries of security experience.”

“I know, I know—really, I do. But I’m so bored and this is my case.”

“Not right now it’s not,” Emerald said.

“Do you know what Melissa is doing?” Erin asked and used Heartsbane’s first name, no doubt to remind her that they were all off duty right now.

“What?” she asked.

“She’s at a three-day, all-inclusive spa. Maybe try that.”

“You guys, come on. I know I can’t fight yet, but I can help.”

“What we need is the Steel Dragon back on the force. The best way for you to do that is to eat and sleep. Stressing over paperwork won’t help,” Lumos said.

“You know I don’t care about paperwork,” she complained.

“So how exactly would you help us, then?” the old dragon replied smoothly.

Kristen glared at him. He’d set that trap for her and she had walked right into it. “Okay, then. I can see I won’t get anywhere with you three and that’s fine. But promise me you’ll let me know if anything happens.”

They shared a look that told her their answer was a unanimous no.

“All right… I…okay, let me know when Stonequest and Heartsbane are back.”

“That we can do,” Erin said and shooed her out the door.

It was obvious she would achieve nothing there and she worried that if she stuck around too long, Atramento and Lumos might team up to get her to file paperwork. To avoid this, she headed to the roof.

She still wasn’t a hundred percent—although her instinct said she was very close—but she felt good enough to fly and had done so for a while, although she hadn’t actually put it to the test. Maybe she’d visit her brother Brian and play videogames to take her mind off being forced to stay home.

Their concern was understandable—and it made sense given that the long-term effects of the dragon weapons were largely unknown—but it was hard for her to sit still given that Constance was still out there. There was some consolation in the fact that after the bomb at the last party almost obliterated the majority of dragon high society in North America, the dragons were on high alert. She didn’t think the assassin and her technomages would have as easy a time with any new plan they devised.

Aside from that, Stonequest and Heartsbane were also both at home while they recovered, so at least she wasn’t the only one stuck on the sidelines. Still, it didn’t help that she felt so much better than she had even three days before. Her mind was now diverted from suffering and free to rampage through all her frustrations.

She wandered out onto the roof and gazed across Detroit in late summer. The city continued its usual routines without her. That was good and she was relieved that there were no issues she needed to resolve, but it didn’t do much for her boredom.

A dragon appeared in the distance and flew closer before it descended between the skyscrapers and approached Dragon SWAT HQ. Kristen knew she should leave but her curiosity immediately demanded to be sated.

She recognized it as Windlock and was a little disappointed at the impression he made. In dragon form, he was fairly drab. His scales were slate-gray and the horns that jutted from his head and the spikes that followed his spine were only slightly darker.

He landed on the roof and assumed his human form. Despite the warmth of the day, he still wore a trench coat and a black hat. He didn’t smile when he saw her, but she couldn’t take offense. The dragon hardly ever smiled.

“Investigator,” she said, bowed respectfully, and felt goofy for doing so. “How are you?”

“I’m well, Lady Steel,” Windlock said and bowed as well despite the two having worked together. “I’m surprised to see you here. Are you back on duty yet? The last I heard, Stone was still out.”

“Yeah…er, no. That is, yes, Stonequest is still out, and no, I’m not back on duty yet.”

He studied her for a long moment and finally narrowed his eyes before the corners of his mouth twitched with the faintest of smiles. For him, it was practically a guffaw of laughter. “Are you trying to make your dragon aura seem bored for my benefit or are you having a lousy time being on rest?”

Kristen smiled. “I confess, I’m guilty of boredom.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, nothing’s happened—at least in Detroit.” Windlock raised an eyebrow and obviously waited for the inevitable questions.

“Then where have things happened?” she asked and snapped at the bait.

“Have you ever heard of Rangeley?” he asked.

“Is that in the upper peninsula or something?” she asked and tried to picture it on a map.

“Maine, actually,” he said. “I was coming here to pick Brockton up to head that way. But seeing you here…well, there might be people involved and you definitely have an eye for humans that I don’t. I could use your keen eyes and a compassionate heart, to be honest.”

“Oh, yes, anything to get back to work,” she replied immediately.

“I can have you assigned to me if you’d like, but I want to be clear—there’ll be no fighting or anything like that. That’s the only reason I’ll take you at all.”

“That’s fine,” Kristen said as her fingers traced the bruise on her face that was a constant reminder of her circumstances. Honestly, the bruises were slow to heal but they created the false impression that she was far weaker than she actually was. “I’m not a hundred percent yet anyway although I really don’t feel as bad as I still look.”

“Can you transform into your dragon form?”

She did so in a flash in the usual flurry of what looked like silver confetti.

“And you can fly?”

With a sigh, she nodded. “When the bomb detonated, I was in my human form so my wings didn’t get hurt at all, and that bulletproof vest covered my face, chest, and shoulders. Honestly, flying is no problem.” She didn’t tell him that she had erred on the sign of caution and taken the bus over there.

“Walk with me,” Windlock said and headed toward the door to the interior of the building. She changed into her human form and followed him.

“So here’s what we know. Rangeley, Maine is a summer tourist town nestled between a number of lakes and has a population of less than two thousand. It’s not exactly dragon territory.”

“Okay.”

“Two dragons were involved in a fight in the woods nearby. Apparently, they had a history.”

“Had?”

The investigator nodded, understanding her question. “A mage called the Boston Dragon SWAT team and told them they were wreaking significant destruction on the town. By the time the team from Boston arrived, both dragons were dead. So yeah, their history has come to an end.”

They exited the stairwell and moved toward Windlock’s office.

“They killed each other?” Kristen asked.

“That’s the conclusion the Boston team reached, but I don’t think so, not based on the evidence.”

“You think it was the technomages?”

“From the report I received, I think we can rule that out too. It doesn’t sound like dragon bullets or a single bomb either.”

“What do you think it was?”

Windlock did smile at that. “What kind of investigator would I be if I had an idea of what happened even before I saw the crime scene? All I know is that it sounds… What’s the human term? Fishy. The situation sounds fishy to me. It might ultimately be nothing and could be that the Boston team didn’t describe the bodies properly. But either way, I intend to investigate the scene with Brockton. Do you want to come along?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “I mean, it would be an honor, sir.”

He waved the courtesy away. “You saved my hide along with everyone else’s on that roof. You don’t have to use any of the formality on me.”

They reached the office, where Larry Brockton was obscured by a thousand floating sheets of paper.

“Windlock!” the mage stammered, and every piece of paper hastily settled into messy, haphazard stacks on various surfaces. If she hadn’t known Windlock and Brockton, she might have thought that he had thrown the dragon investigator’s room into disarray, but the chaos was no different than it always was.

“Were you trying to organize again?” the dragon asked.

“Absolutely,” Brockton said and grinned. “What would we do if we ever lost you, Windlock? You have evidence for a hundred cases in here, all buried in a thousand stacks. I see references to references and don’t know what any of it means. If we could simply put it in order, maybe we could keep it that way.”

“It is in order,” Windlock said.

“This is not order.” His assistant gestured to the leaning piles of files. “This is two steps from disaster.”

“Which is better than one,” his boss retorted and poked around in a few of them. He seemed to find what he was looking for about halfway down one, wedged his hand into the stack, and pulled out a little evidence baggy with something silver and sparkly inside.

Kristen didn’t recognize the object—some kind of jewelry, maybe?—but Brockton seemed to. The mage frowned when he saw it.

“We have a case, then?”

Windlock nodded as he shoved the item into his pocket. “We do. Nothing conclusive yet, but I thought you’d want to come.”

“Oh yeah? Do I have a choice in the matter?” his assistant asked, his characteristic jauntiness absent.

“It’s in Rangeley, Maine. Isn’t that close to where you’re from?”

“Maine! Why didn’t you say so? Let’s go!” Whatever had bothered the man evaporated and he hurried ahead of them to the roof, where the dragons transformed and took to the skies with Brockton on his boss’ back.

CHAPTER THREE

They reached Rangeley before nightfall—something only possible with the late sunsets of summer in the far north of the United States. Windlock had insisted that they’d fly slower than usual because of Kristen. Her wings didn’t hurt—as she’d explained to the investigator, they hadn’t been directly injured—but she’d definitely felt the exertion, probably due to lack of exercise.

Still, she hadn’t been exhausted and the strength she usually had in her dragon form hadn’t been noticeably affected. It might have been different if they’d flown at maximum speed, and she’d wisely chosen not to push too hard on her first time out and to rather use the air currents as much as possible. Her companion thrust through the air to forge through any resistance and she drafted in his wake like a migrating goose, a flying technique her team often used so she didn’t feel it was cheating or a sign of weakness.

It had been an enjoyable flight. Once beyond Detroit, they’d flown over Lake Erie, then Lake Ontario. They passed over Niagara Falls, a sight she had seen before as a girl but not something she’d ever thought she’d see from above. One of the world’s largest bodies of fresh water draining into another seen from that vantage point was truly memorable. From there, they’d soared over the vast tracts of forest that made up most of Vermont while Brockton had waxed philosophical about pine trees. He was able to make some kind of bubble of energy around himself to keep the wind off and it also somehow helped his voice to carry.

Kristen had thought they’d fly north of the lakes, though. She’d checked how to get to Rangeley on her phone before they left, and it was clear that a straight line would have put them over Canada. Windlock didn’t want to do this, however.

“Canada is dwarf country. We’re not supposed to go there without a reason.”

“You mean like a warrant?” she asked.

“Not exactly. Warrants only work where your laws are valid and the Dragon Council’s laws don’t hold sway there, but we have an agreement. If a dragon strays into their territory, we offer to help catch them and pay for damages. It’s better than having a hostile neighbor.”

“What he means,” Brockton said from the interior of his force bubble, which made her wonder if he’d extended it to carry the sound to her ears somehow, “is that the dwarves are tough little bastards. Strong as a dragon, and their skin is thicker than a rhino and about as flammable as rock. They’re not fun to piss off. Oh, plus auras don’t work on them.”

“A fair assessment,” Windlock agreed. “There is no reason to go there. Our target is in Rangeley, Maine, not Canada, so it’s preferable to take the extra hour.”

At some point, Kristen began to wonder if they had indeed flown into enemy airspace. They’d moved well beyond the forests of Vermont and entered Maine—not that this was at all clear from the air as forests didn’t exactly respect political boundaries. The route the investigator had chosen now took them over the system of lakes that surrounded Rangeley and made it such a popular destination for summer tourists. In contrast to the almost idyllic scene, two dragons circled toward them from the tiny town.

Beyond them, the swathe of destruction caused by the dragons blighted the landscape. At the center of it all was the burned ruin of what had been a beautiful home less than twenty-four hours before.

“This is restricted air space!” one of the dragons shouted and flexed his aura to show them he was willing to defend the area by force if he had to. He was bronze with large thick scales, more like an ankylosaurus than most dragons were. “Turn back. If you’re looking for Bangor, you have a way to go yet.”

Kristen had expected an accent something like Brockton’s, but he sounded more like he was from Boston. She filed that away under curious details.

“Who is your superior?” Windlock demanded and his aura made it clear that he thought he was the superior dragon.

“This case belongs to Garth Timbergust,” the dragon replied. There was something in the way he said the name that made her think the bronze dragon and whoever was in charge weren’t exactly old friends.

“Well, Timbergust should know to expect an investigator who is looking into this case on behalf of the North American Dragon Council. Are you telling me he didn’t tell his officers about who you’d coordinate with?”

The other dragon—blueish-green like the color of the open sea and with spines that reminded her of an iguana—called out to his bronze teammate. “Captain Emberslight said to expect Investigator Windlock, but she didn’t say there’d be two dragons and a mage.” She noticed two things about this dragon. First, he said his captain’s name as “Ember’s light,” and second, he seemed accustomed to try to cover for his more aggressive and volatile companion.

“I have brought additional help—something I would think Timbergust would recognize as prudent, given that he’s the only member of dragon SWAT tasked with this rural area. Why are you here and where are you from?” Windlock didn’t sound irritated, but he told everyone he was with his aura.

“We’re from Boston, sir. Boston Dragon SWAT. Four of us came to help at Timbergust’s request. I am officer Aquatos and this is officer Bronzeback. He is the best fighter we have on the force.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Bronzeback all but hissed.

“Well, we’re on the same side here so I don’t see the relevance,” the investigator replied dismissively. “This is Lady Kristen Steel of the Detroit SWAT—you’ve no doubt heard of her—and on my back is my personal mage, Larry Brockton.”

“Of course, sir,” Aquatos replied. “If you’ll follow me.”

Kristen noted that she’d never heard Windlock call Brockton that before. His personal mage. What did that mean, exactly?

Brockton seemed not to notice or, if he did, showed no reaction, which made her even more curious. Still, she tucked it away as something to ponder later. Aquatos and Bronzeback led them across the airspace over the tiny town and it soon became apparent that there was more than enough happening down below to keep them occupied for the evening.

They landed within a perimeter of tape that didn’t quite surround everything that had been destroyed. It was centered on the burned, almost demolished house and encircled much of the surrounding property. The cordon included a maple tree stump that had been snapped in half and apparently cleared away and a boat that had been flattened, but it didn’t surround a car that had been crushed on the street or a few blackened patches of grass, no doubt caused by dragon fire.

She didn’t approve of the sloppy perimeter, but she could understand. Besides the two dragons in the air, there were three others, but none of them investigated what had happened to the house. Instead, they attempted to hold back the huge crowd of people who had converged on the crime scene.

“I thought this town had a population of less than two thousand,” she muttered.

If that were the case, it looked like every single member of the town was there, but Kristen quickly recognized that only a few were clearly locals. A crowd of perhaps a few hundred people who wore mostly denim, plaid, and camo, held signs that basically demanded accountability for the damages wreaked by the dragons—Reparations for the Williams!, Human tourism > dragon carnage, and Dragon-Free Rangeley seemed the most popular.

Kristen thought that if this crowd wasn’t from Rangeley itself, they were likely from the surrounding area and certainly from Maine.

The remainder, she realized with both amusement and disgust, were tourists. They didn’t chant or join the protestors’ demands about taking action and instead, milled around and took photos. Instead of denim, plaid, and camo, they wore khaki shorts, polo shirts, and merchandise bespeaking the beauty of Rangeley—no doubt only recently purchased in a nearby hotel gift shop.

To her shock, she saw a tourist—wearing stylish sunglasses despite the setting sun—sneak under the police tape to take a selfie of himself with one of the dead dragons. One of the SWAT members who worked the perimeter noticed him and moved with a burst of dragon speed to remove the selfie-snapper. While she was occupied with him, another few people used the opportunity to duck under the cordon to take pictures of their own.

In a word, it was chaos.

Unsure of what else to do, Kristen moved toward the two dragon bodies in the hope that her presence might spook the people enough to dissuade them from using their smartphones. The idea had merit, but it was doomed to failure. As soon as they saw an actual dragon—and the Steel Dragon, no less—they began to take pictures of her. She barely noticed the attention, though, completely distracted when she saw the carnage. No other word could really describe the two dead dragons, and her blood ran cold.

She didn’t know exactly what Windlock had been told and she hadn’t asked. He made good points about not jumping to conclusions without examining the evidence, and if he’d told her what he’d heard, she’d have already begun to form opinions. Even with him saying little, she had assumed that Constance and her band of killer technomages must have been responsible. She now saw that this was simply not the case.

There was no way that either of these dragons was killed by a single bullet to the chest or the head. Hell, there was no way either of them was killed with ten bullets.

Both were a bloody mess. They looked like they’d been shredded by a tornado, run over by a tank, then rolled downhill in a rockslide.

“What could do this?” Kristen asked aloud. She’d never seen a human body in such a condition, let alone the body of a dragon. It was beyond unthinkable that something could do this to them.

“Officially, we call this catastrophic massive damage,” Windlock said. “That’s not what killed them, exactly, but this is what happens when a dragon suffers enough damage to overwhelm their healing abilities.”

“I thought you had to destroy a dragon’s heart or brain to kill them.”

“There are other ways. I read that in the first rebellion, a team of dwarves would sometimes drive a dragon into a castle and bring the entire structure down on top of them. That has a way of trumping healing powers,” Brockton said as he slid off Windlock’s back.

The mage raised his hands toward the dead dragons, and they began to glow. Immediately, one of the three members of Dragon SWAT who worked the perimeter strode toward them.

He was a burly man—a local dragon, given his baseball cap and bushy beard—and when he transformed, Kristen couldn’t help but think of him as a forest dragon. His body was the green of pine needles and he had moss growing on him in places. His horns were large, brown, and curled like a ram’s. He was beautiful, although the effect was diminished somewhat by the fact that he approached with evident anger, his nostrils smoking and smelling of pine.

Brockton—as intent as he was on the bodies before him—didn’t notice at first, but the crowd certainly did. The protestors grew louder but the tourists drowned them out with oohs and ahs like they thought this was a performance they could later post on social media. In the appealing twilight of the early evening, their phones all flashed to better capture images of the forest dragon who marched toward the others, one steel and the other slate-gray.

The mage realized that a dragon was moving toward him a split second after the crowd did, yelped, and promptly hid behind Windlock’s dragon body.

“Who the fuck are you?” the green dragon demanded. His aura proved that he was out of patience. Tired, exhausted, and overwhelmed were the sensations that emanated from him, the antithesis to his cool, green, mossy exterior.

“I am Investigator Windlock, here on behalf of the Dragon Council, and Garth Timbergust has been informed that I would be in attendance. Have you seen him? It doesn’t seem he’s done a good job of informing his inferiors.”

“I am Garth Timbergust and I wasn’t asking about you but about that damn mage. Did you return to finish the job, huh?” the dragon demanded. Kristen recognized the tone from when she was on Detroit’s human SWAT force. He was in way over his head but wouldn’t say so.

“I can assure you, Larry Brockton was in Detroit at the time of this incident and I have him fettered. He is no way responsible for this,” Windlock said. “Now, I suggest we all take our human forms and stop yelling about an open investigation lest we risk alerting whoever is responsible for this to exactly what we know.”

“You don’t have any right to march in here and—”

“I have every right, but our difference of opinion is not important. This place is already a zoo and the last thing we need is an experienced dragon who has been responsible for this post for centuries to make it worse by starting a fight with an ally.” Windlock didn’t yell any more than Captain Hansen at Detroit SWAT did, but his voice grew icier as he spoke until his words seemed so brittle, she could almost imagine they might break.

Kristen thought she did an admirable job of restraining her grin during the tongue-lashing. She’d been through enough of those herself when she was on Detroit SWAT and had to admit, it was much nicer to see it from the outside.

The two dragons held each other’s gaze for a moment. Timbergust’s stout, dragon jaw was set, and he revealed no fear. He was bigger than Windlock, thicker, and broader at the shoulder—a pine tree compared to a city shrub. Then again, most dragons were bigger than the investigator, so a show of size didn’t intimidate him in the slightest. He stared in response without flinching and showed neither fear nor anger in his aura, only steely, unblinking resolve.

Timbergust finally broke the impasse, not by looking away but by transforming into his human body.

Windlock immediately followed so Kristen did too.

This drew a disappointed sigh from the crowd. No doubt the tourists had hoped for a real story to tell their friends around the watercoolers when they returned to work.

“Shit, man, I’m sorry. Today’s been an absolute nightmare, you know?” Timbergust said. “I knew these guys. Shit, Jadebite was one of my buddies. Orion wasn’t a bad guy, not really. He liked a good scuffle, is all. That’s why he lived out here. Neither one of them deserved to die at the hands of some…some…” His gaze briefly found Brockton, then slid away. “Business like this,” he finished lamely.

“How about you get those two dragons out of the sky, station them on the perimeter, and tell me what you know.”

“Yeah, sure. Emberslight!” the SWAT leader shouted to a slender woman with hair as red as Kristen’s. “Go ahead and bring them down like you wanted to.” He shook his head.

Kristen had begun to understand the dynamics at work. Timbergust was obviously local, but it seemed clear that no one else was. The rest of the team had come in from somewhere else—Boston, she assumed, given what Windlock had said before they’d left Detroit—and were apparently under Emberslight’s command. Given how the forest dragon had reacted, this seemed to be the first time anything like this had ever happened in his sprawling rural jurisdiction.

“Jadebite and Orion were both small-time dragons,” he explained. “Jadebite had a coal mine close to the power plant, which proved extremely lucrative. He made his money that way and hasn’t had to work since. Given his aggressive tendencies, he liked to live in the woods. Orion didn’t have as much money and he blamed Jadebite for it. He convinced the folks to put the power plant as close as it is to Jadebite’s mine, which basically ensured the demand for coal, so he thought he should have a share. They would fight over it once or twice a decade.”

“To be clear, are you working under the assumption that these two dragons killed each other?” Windlock asked.

“Fuck no!” Timbergust sent a furious glare at Brockton before he looked away quickly. “A mage did this,” he stated coldly.

The investigator nodded.

“Anyway, they fought every ten years or so, like I said, especially when Orion was low on funds. It was never authorized but was always legal. They usually did it out in the woods and didn’t bother anything but the trees. This time, they wandered into town and damaged a human house. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s happened before.”

“Not ideal?” Kristen demanded. This was yet another example of how some dragons treated humans as expendable or as some kind of resource to be conserved when convenient and written off when lost. While she had learned that some were more sympathetic to humans, many still adhered to the old, established order.

“No, it’s not fucking ideal. This crowd is a nightmare. The last time the two of them destroyed a house was in the winter damn near fifty years ago—a summer vacation home. I was able to get a team of humans to fix the damn thing before the owners even missed it.”

“Well, that was kind of you,” she said and tried to sound professional. Windlock stared intently at her, willing her not to say anything. She understood his position. Now was not the time to dissect human and dragon politics but it didn’t mean it wasn’t frustrating. While she had seen small but positive indications here and there that fueled her belief that change was possible, she had also witnessed a fair amount of injustice that was always skewed in favor of the dragons.

Somewhat naively, she had hoped that out there in the middle of nowhere, humans might get a fair shake since this was their territory, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Still, the idea that human lives were seen as expendable even where most dragons didn’t live pissed her off. Maybe it was simply boredom and frustration, but her patience seemed far less than usual.

“What happened to Jadebite and Orion?” Windlock asked.

“That’s where things get screwy. Sometime after their duel moved onto the human property, they were killed. There were no eyewitnesses, of course, and no dragons until Boston Dragon SWAT arrived.”

“And humans?” the investigator asked.

Timbergust shrugged and shook his head. “A few of them saw the battle. It was loud, of course, and they blasted fire at each other so woke up a few locals.”

“What did they say?” Windlock asked.

Again, the other dragon shook his head. “This isn’t in my report because it's unreliable, even for human testimony, but what a few of them say is that they saw a human step out of the burning building and annihilate the dragons. Apparently, they raised their hands and created a tornado or something. I don’t know, though. Like I said, it’s screwy. The only reason I said anything is because you asked and more than one person said the same thing.”

“You don’t believe them?” Windlock frowned.

"I don’t know what to believe. It's been hundreds of years since a human killed a dragon, but all the evidence points to exactly that." Timbergust shook his head again as if physically denying the hypothesis might ensure it couldn’t come true. “Emberslight and her team found traces of magic around the bodies. It’s been a long time, but I know that in the past, there have been mages capable of that. There’s one who crashed that party in Detroit, right? Maybe she came up here or something.”

“That’s an angle we’re pursuing. Thank you for your testimony, Officer Timbergust. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’d like to take a look around. If you could make sure the perimeter is secure, that’d be great. If anyone from Boston SWAT gives you trouble, send them to me.”

“You got it.” He nodded and finally smiled. “Thanks for giving me back my beat,” he said and wandered away, not realizing that the investigator hadn’t given him his jurisdiction but had, in fact, taken it for himself.

Once he was gone, Windlock moved to look at the bodies more closely.

Kristen turned to Brockton. “It seems like a mage must have done this, right?”

Larry shrugged. “Once, that might have been the case but now, we're fettered so we can't," he replied.

“What do you mean?”

He pulled the sleeve of his robe up slightly and displayed a thin silver bracelet on his wrist. It looked familiar to her but for a moment, she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before. Irritated, she forced herself to focus and her mind finally returned to the memory of when she’d had to stay in dragon prison. The bracelet looked like it was made of the same metal as the anklet she’d had to wear that had blocked her powers.

The man leaned in and lowered his voice. “All mages are forced into servitude to a dragon. I told you when we met that when my powers manifested, they gave me a choice to either join up or be eaten.”

“Yeah, I remember, but you never explained that you had something like this on.”

“Not all mages do. But if we’re too powerful, the dragons clamp one of these onto our wrists which limits our potential. They can’t have humans running around who might actually be a threat to a dragon, right?”

“Okay… So what you’re saying is that if a mage did this, they’d have to be unfettered, right?”

He nodded. “Right, and we don’t even call them mages. I like the term rogue mage and have worked enough of these cases with Windlock that he uses it too, but the official legal jargon is ‘uncontrolled magic-user.’ Mage is a status conferred on us by dragons.”

“So what kind of uncontrolled magic-user would be unfettered?” Kristen asked.

“There are only two kinds, really. First, the people whose power has only recently manifested. That’s how I started. In those cases, dragons find out and fetter us. Then there are people like Constance who have experience and haven’t been taken under dragon control. They are truly dangerous.”

“I don’t understand. She has obviously used her powers for a long time.”

“This may be a surprise, but Constance Vigil isn’t all that strong as mages go. She has augmented speed and strength, obviously, and some control over wind—enough to make her capable of extended jumps—but that doesn’t really make her a threat. She needs guns to kill dragons. It’s impressive that she has never been caught, but with powers like that, she’s not a real danger.”

“You’re saying that if a mage did this, they’re more powerful than her?”

Brockton’s eyes narrowed. “Much more powerful. We’re talking hurricanes compared to a summer breeze. If a mage like that isn’t fettered, the same thing always happens. Sometimes, they last a year or two or maybe even five, work on their powers and hone them, and try to control the magic in their blood. Eventually, though, they all end the same way.”

“How’s that?”

"Boom," he replied and mimed an explosion with his hands.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Brockton, come take a look at this.” Windlock gestured for Larry to join him and the mage complied. “I think I have all that can be found simply by looking at the bodies. I see considerable blunt-force trauma and some lacerations. My guess would be physical combat or somehow, these two encountered a hurricane. Can you confirm?”

“You got it, boss. It’s been a while so I’m not sure what I’ll actually be able to sense but might as well show the Steel Dragon how we work.” Larry winked at Kristen and motioned for her to come closer.

He closed his eyes and extended his fingers. The faintest of breezes lifted his robe before the area fell still. The magic seemed to cast a chill over the assembled crowd as well, and she noticed that those who still lingered began to drift away. Maybe it was merely that with five dragons working the perimeter instead of three, it was far more difficult to get a selfie so there was less impetus to stay. She also noticed that many of the locals were very interested in whatever was happening at the demolished home.

Kristen banished these minor distractions and settled herself to watch the mage at work. Surprisingly, he opened his eyes again almost immediately.

“I did not expect that,” he spluttered, his eyes wide with shock.

“What?” she asked, unable to stop herself from speaking the obvious question aloud.

“There’s a ton of residual magic around this whole area. The house is practically glowing. It’s no wonder Timbergust noticed it, honestly. I had a sense of something when we came in, but I thought there must have been other mages snooping around before we arrived.”

“You saw Timbergust’s reaction to you.” Windlock nodded at him. “You’re the first mage he’s seen all day.”

The man nodded like he understood but his brow wrinkled in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Kristen asked.

“There shouldn’t be this much overt power present so long after the event. Magic doesn’t come into being from nowhere. It has to flow in and out of things. That’s why so many of us have the looped tattoos or the spirals shaved in our hair—it helps that flow. For this much to still remain in the air…I… Well, let’s say there must have been one hell of a flood of power for there to be this much left.” He closed his eyes again and looked around, still concerned. “The only way this amount is possible is that the person who cast this must have drawn on enormous reservoirs of power and hurled it willy-nilly.”

“It doesn’t sound like someone with training to me,” Kristen said.

The mage shook his head. “No way. This seems like the work of someone untrained, but if so, it’s one hell of a novice.”

Windlock nodded like he wasn’t surprised at these revelations. “Do you think you can show me anything from the event?”

“That’s why you keep me around, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly not for your charming personality.”

Brockton rolled his eyes but he smiled, obviously comfortable with the banter.

He sat perhaps ten feet away from the two dead dragons, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes. First, his fingertips began to glow, then his arms, shoulders, and soon, his entire body was enveloped in a light-blue aura.

A mist formed in the air, faint enough to see through for maybe fifty feet but after that, Kristen couldn’t see a thing. For a moment, she sighed and wondered if it would ruin his magic. She finally realized that it was the magic when the outline of a dragon barreled through the nebulous vapor, skidded through the yard, and careened into the front porch of the house that was now recreated in mist. When part of the dragon went under part of the porch, it vanished temporarily, then reappeared and swirled the faint blue trails in its wake.

Of course, the dragon wasn’t actually there and only the shape of it was outlined. All she could see was the top of it or whatever part faced up. It tucked its legs under it and they vanished completely, and the mist stopped on the ridges and spines on its back.

Another dragon outline flew in and the first vaulted up and swung its tail through the roof. The dragons fought near the house for a few seconds—it was very difficult for her to tell their insubstantial versions apart—before one of them was hurled by the other into the wall of the almost spectral home.

The hazy magic didn’t reveal much detail, but a massive crack appeared where the huge body had made impact. Suddenly, suggestions of detail were visible inside the house—a bedroom, maybe? It was hard to tell because barely a sliver of the interior could be seen, only the part exposed to the mist.

With an almost casual whip of its tail, the dragon proceeded to wreak further destruction on the already weakened structure.

A maple-tree outline broke in half as the combatants engaged once more and only a ragged stump remained

The misty façade of the house seemed to crumble, and Kristen realized it was on fire. No flames were visible, only their effects, but if the damage that slowly eroded the phantom-like veneer was any indication, the house blaze was substantial.

“We have survivors.” Windlock pointed to a window where two people emerged and vanished into the night as their forms faded into nothing as soon as they stepped beyond the misty area the mage had created.

In the next moment, the building seemed to crumple.

“What was that?” Windlock asked.

“I can’t really rewind this, you know?” Brockton said through clenched teeth.

Kristen focused on the vision and decided that a propane tank had exploded. It seemed to be what had done most of the damage to the property.

The two dragons were now locked in combat in another corner of the yard. Windlock watched them but she focused on the house and saw the roof collapse.

“What’s that?” she asked and pointed to a sphere that seemed to form at the center of the wreckage. It was hard to tell exactly what it was because there was so much debris, but something about it seemed very odd. A giant ball had somehow stopped the roof from falling? It couldn’t have been a piece of furniture because she could see the remains of the house now and there was nothing even remotely resembling that.

The mage merely grunted. He didn’t seem to be able to do anything other than to display the events as they happened. She thought she might have imagined it or that it was perhaps a problem with the magic, but the sphere reappeared and this time, emerged from the side of the house closest to the dragons.

Some of the boards whipped ahead of the orb-like shape and struck the misty forms of the combatants.

“That’s our mage,” Larry said through clenched teeth.

“Can you get through the sphere?” Windlock asked and his tone verged on demanding.

“No…no way… It’s too strong.”

“You’ve cracked shields before,” the investigator said.

“None like this.”

Kristen assumed the dragons and the mage were talking—more like yelling at each other—because after a moment, the two dragons simply stood in what might have been astonishment. It was hard to tell with only their misty outlines.

Finally, one of the dragons apparently became enraged and it attempted to incinerate whoever was inside the sphere. Again, she couldn’t see the flames, but she’d seen dragons inhale in preparation to release their fire and recognized the strike quite easily.

“Shit, here it comes.” Brockton dripped with sweat and his teeth clenched again as if to ready himself to withstand an assault.

The nebulous mage made some kind of counterattack that careened the dragons away. They tumbled but weren’t seriously injured and both found their feet almost instantly. Their battle forgotten, they reared, inflated their chests, and extended their long necks with open jaws aimed at the person inside the sphere.

She could only imagine what it must have been like for the dragons. Larry had used a shield to protect himself from the wind that was practically invisible. The massive creatures tried to incinerate the person at the same time, only for their target to shrug the flames off and remain standing. She wondered if a dragon could feel dread or if they merely took the human’s survival as an insult to their own power.

Obviously, whoever was inside the sphere didn’t like what they had tried to do and a moment after the massive jaws closed, the fire blasts expended, a bolt lanced out from the protective shield.

It struck one of the dragons and catapulted it farther than the first attack against them had. Another bolt followed and struck the second.

The two truly forgot their duel at this point and attacked in tandem with claw, tooth, and tail. They slashed and battered the orb in a combined effort to penetrate it, while blasts of energy tried to push them back.

The attacks continued until the hidden mage realized that the blasts didn’t seem to be working and resorted to using parts of her burned house as projectiles against the attackers.

This seemed equally as ineffective, but the dragons swatted at these attacks with their tails as they continued to try to crack the barrier protecting their adversary. While it sparked and flared beneath their assault, they couldn’t break it.

Instead, the mage discerned their weakness and began to bring in more objects to fight them with. Soon, trees and boulders rocketed through the mist to pummel them. For a while, they withstood this onslaught but eventually, one of the rocks connected powerfully with the skull of one of the dragons and it fell. Its misty version sprawled precisely on top of its dead body.

The other fought for a while longer with vicious attacks as it maneuvered around a growing stream of debris. The mage inside the sphere launched various objects like lethal missiles, all ripped from the landscape itself. Kristen finally understood the sheer devastation that defined the scene. Oddly, though, none of the debris littered the area and she frowned as she considered that. The scars remained but the actual weapons used seemed to have vanished.

The dragon tried once again to incinerate the mage, and this proved to be its downfall. It inhaled fiercely to gather air for its fiery blast and a tree trunk punched through its chest.

Its misty avatar fell on top of its body and lay still.

She knew enough of dragon anatomy to know that killing a dragon with a piece of wood—even a tree branch—should be basically impossible. While one could stab the membranes in their wings or maybe damage part of their tail, wood simply wasn’t strong enough to penetrate dragon scale, the ribcage, and destroy the heart. That it had worked at all only proved how much damage the mage had inflicted first. For this to have killed it, there was no doubt that it had been completely exhausted and its healing power totally expended.

When the second dragon died, the mage finally dropped their shield. In the unnatural silence that followed, a woman gasped softly when the sphere vanished to reveal a young woman within. Kristen looked around quickly and made a mental note of the spectator’s features. Could it be someone who knew the mage—perhaps her mother or an old friend? Someone had recognized her, though, which meant a possible lead.

Kristen squinted to focus on the faintest outline of a young woman, too roughly rendered by the mist to capture her features with any certainty. She looked at the destruction she had caused and screamed. There was obviously no sound but the anguish on the indistinct features of this misty version of her was clear.

As she shrieked her distress, trapped in silence, all the trees, boulders, and debris spun away from the misty area Brockton had created and presumably vanished into the woods or the lake, given that no one had reported a storm of boulders and branches in the area. The woman looked at her hands as if in shock before she collapsed to her knees and sobbed.

The mist vanished abruptly as if swallowed by an unseen vacuum.

“I’m sorry.” Brockton wiped the sweat from his brow. “I couldn’t maintain it any longer. That amount of magic…its… I can’t.”

“It’s fine, kid. You did well.” Windlock patted him on the back.

The mage smiled at the gesture, but Kristen found it haunting—like he was an obedient dog, she thought caustically, a little surprised by her reaction. Still, something within her seemed to have worked itself up into a tirade.

He had worked what a regular human would call a miracle, looked into the past, and received a pat on the back for it? What did he get when he stopped a murderer? A belly rub?

Kristen knew he spoke kindly of Windlock and that the two of them had a long-standing and very amicable working relationship. In this moment, however, with her senses and logic turned inside out by what she’d witnessed, it simply seemed like more evidence of the poorly balanced relationship people had with dragons. He shouldn't have to curry favor like a puppy, and mages shouldn't have to rely on being lucky with their dragon "owner" in order to continue a decent life.

Part of her instantly felt guilt about the inner snark while the other part protested that she was merely heartily sick of learning more and more about dragon culture, only to continuously find that it always struck the same notes. They would find this mage—she was committed to that—but the idea of doing it only so they could shackle her was too much for her to simply accept. Larry seemed to believe that it was also for the mage’s own safety and she had no reason to doubt him. But was it really possibly for one’s own power to destroy one or was it because there was no system in place to teach mages how to control and manage it?

The thought startled her into a momentary pause. Did Windlock believe that he was protecting Larry? Brockton’s fetter had come as a shock to her because she’d never heard of anything like that. The truth seemed to challenge what she’d assumed about the working relationship between him and Windlock and the sense of friendship she’d assigned to them. It was hard to accept that the dragon she thought she knew was willing to effectively enslave a human—that was what fetters were for, after all—and that both of them seemed to have fooled her so completely. She was no longer sure what to believe.

With a sigh, she dragged her focus back to the case. She wanted to find this woman before she hurt herself or anyone else, but she didn’t want to enslave her. She wanted something like equality, but if dragons could throw shackles on those who might oppose them, that could never happen. At the same time, she needed to find out more about the dangers of the power to themselves.

Wisely, she kept all this to herself. The first step was to find this mage. Once they’d done that, she would have to talk to Windlock and hopefully convince him to see things from her perspective. And she had to reconcile the investigator she thought she knew with the one she possibly did not. Dragons, she decided, could be complex—exactly like people.

CHAPTER FIVE

Kristen asked Windlock to step aside for a moment and he complied without question. Rather than start an existential argument about the place of mages, humans, and dragons in global politics, she told him about the woman who’d gasped when the figure inside the sphere had been revealed.

“You have a good eye. Do you mind following up?”

“Me? I know I used to be on a human force but that doesn’t mean I did crowd control with civilians. I was on SWAT.”

“It’s a fair point.” He nodded and his aura accentuated his agreement. “But you also have an excellent reputation with humans, something that is sorely needed at the moment. You’ll have an easier time winning the trust of a human than any other dragon would, including myself.”

“I don’t need to win anyone’s trust,” she replied. “She’s a grieving woman, probably pissed by losing someone she cares about. All you need to do to get through to her is to treat her with respect.”

His eyebrows raised in obvious surprise. Clearly, he had picked up on the slight edge to her tone—or wasn’t used to the idea of treating a human with respect for no reason other than it being the right thing to do. “I’ll admit, when I enter these situations, I normally approach humans with…let’s call it querulousness.”

“You can learn to treat them with respect until they do something to lose that, you know.”

“Of course I can, although let me remind you that I tend to respond in the same way to dragons when my focus is on a case.” She nodded reluctantly because honesty compelled her to acknowledge the truth of that. “And I would love to learn more about it, but perhaps right now isn’t the most opportune moment to address the issue of manners?” He glanced pointedly at the crowd to remind her of the need to locate the woman.

Kristen nodded. He had a point, of course. At that moment, finding answers for what had happened to the community of Rangeley, Maine, took priority. It wouldn’t do for her to pursue what might be partially skewed assumptions when she could actually do something positive.

At least she had a place to start to improve human-dragon relations. As she walked toward the crowd of locals, she also reminded herself that Windlock had some idea of the need to address the relationship between humans and dragons as well. After all, he’d asked her to come on this mission and had given her the specific task to talk to the human woman. It took wisdom to realize when one’s strengths weren’t suited to a particular purpose. Perhaps he was more perceptive than she’d realized. His ideas about how humans, dragons, and mages should interact were possibly outdated, but he recognized that they needed to be modernized, which was more than she could say for most dragons.

With that adjustment in her priority list, she scanned the group of local protestors but without success. A few people still tried to take selfies, but unsurprisingly, the grieving woman wasn’t among them either.

She almost told herself that she had gone home but as she turned, she noticed a shadowy figure beside the burned house. None of the other members of Boston Dragon SWAT had seen her, probably because she made no effort to approach the dead dragons and instead, stared longingly at the now blackened shell of a home.

Kristen could tell in the way the woman stared at the house that she used to live there. There was something about the way she looked past what was in front of her as if her focus was on something entirely different. She didn’t see a missing wall but the photos that used to hang there. It wasn’t a broken sofa but the place where she’d sat and watched television with her partner for decades.

Quietly, she walked toward the woman and considered how best to approach her. She didn’t want to intrude on her moment, but she didn’t want her to fall into despair either. She stopped beside her, but the stranger didn’t notice and seemed lost in the past and her attempt to take the last memories she could from a home that, even if rebuilt, would never be the same.

"I know it doesn't seem like enough, not after what you've been through, but they will reimburse you for the damages. The Dragon Council will make sure reparations are made," Kristen said, not sure of what else to say. She felt that as an officer representing dragons, it was best to admit there was a fault and that it belonged to her kind.

It was only when she mentioned the Dragon Council that her companion reacted. She flinched and turned to look at her. Intently, she studied her uniform and paid special attention to the stylized dragon wings framing a five-pointed star that made up the Dragon SWAT badge before she looked her in the eye.

“Your kind wouldn’t understand,” she said sharply. “This is nothing to you. We all know that. It’s hardly worth even a slap on the wrist.”

“Ma’am, I assure you, I don’t know what it’s like to lose the home you grew up in, but I do know what it’s like to grow up in a house with the people you love and I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to see all that turned to ash. I’m truly sorry, I really am, and will do everything I can to make this as right as I can.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. How could you possibly…” The woman trailed off as recognition flashed across her face. “You’re the dragon who was raised by humans, right? The…uh, the steel one?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m the Steel Dragon—not the cleverest of names, but there it is.” She flashed her skin to steel, then returned it to its regular freckled form. “I wanted to check on you.” Kristen didn’t like lying and she told herself that what she’d said wasn’t a lie or not a complete one, anyway. After all, she did need to check on her.

The woman shook her head and seemed to fight tears. “My…” She stopped and caught her breath before she began to cry. “My husband stayed in town with some friends. He had a tough time with all the smoke. It’s kind of…what’s the word? Ironic? If it wasn’t for him smoking for so many damn years, he wouldn’t be bugged by the COPD. Did he ever listen to me about that? Of course not, and yet now, he’s stuck in a bed even though he made it out the window as soon as I did.”

“So the two of you still lived here?” Kristen asked. What she really wanted to know was who the young woman was who’d stepped from her home and brutalized the two dragons. Her impulsive and often impatient nature pushed her to simply state the question, but she wasn’t naïve enough to start grilling a woman who mourned the loss of everything she had possessed.

“Yeah, for forty-six years if you can believe it. My husband, John Williams and no, not the composer”—given the burned shell of her home, the joke fell flat—“grew up here. His father built it, actually.”

“You can call me Kristen,” she said.

“I’m Pat. Short for Patricia, but everyone calls me Pat or Mrs. Williams.”

“Do you have people in the community who can help you and Mr. Williams?” she asked.

“Oh yes. Although I don’t know how accommodating any of my girlfriends will be now that my fabric is all gone. I had the biggest collection of scraps in Maine, you know. Not that it…not that it matters now.”

“I’m glad you only lost fabric,” Kristen said. “Was there anyone else who escaped with you two?”

“No… No, no one else. Only me and my husband John—oh, but I already told you his name.”

It didn’t need a master detective to see that Mrs. Williams was lying about how many people lived in the house. She didn’t push it, though. If she was trying to hide someone, she wouldn’t simply spit it out.

For a moment, she wondered if perhaps her daughter or niece or whomever the young woman had been was perhaps involved with the technomages. After all, Constance and her followers had proven time and time again that they were more than capable of killing dragons, but she dismissed the idea fairly quickly. This didn’t look like the work of the technomage assassins. While they were more than happy to attack in bold and even messy ways, the fight between the dragons had drawn too much attention. There was no way they could have planned this because the entire disaster hinged on the fact that two dragons inadvertently took their spontaneous fight beyond the uninhabited areas. No, whatever Pat attempted to hide, it was personal.

“Did you see the fire start?” Kristen asked and hated herself for the bland question, but she was enough of a cop to try to not lead a witness.

“No, but we knew it had to be those dragons, even before I saw that magical replay of the whole horrible thing. We felt the heat, first—and the smoke, of course. That’s when we went out the window. This was a few seconds after the propane tank exploded. That’s what woke us up, you know. We got out barely in time because the flames engulfed the room seconds later.”

She nodded, a little frustrated. While she wanted more information, she didn’t quite know how to get it. She’d never been trained in witness interrogation if that’s what this was. Still, she had to try. “I know you’ve had a hard day, but do you know any reason why the dragons would have destroyed your home? Perhaps you have a relative who is a mage or something?”

Pat Williams froze like a blizzard. “Of course not. You may be from Detroit or Chicago or wherever, but the people of Rangeley don’t go in for all this…tomfoolery.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to insult you. I merely want to get to the bottom of what happened here.”

“Two dragons burned my house and killed each other over nothing of consequence. What else is there? I hope you can convince the Dragon Committee or whoever it is that pulls the strings to help John and I get back on our feet, but if they decide not to, we have friends in town who will help us, thank you very much.” With that, she spun on her heel and marched away to her car.

Kristen shook her head. She was convinced Pat knew more. The woman might even know precisely who had killed the dragons, but she had failed to do exactly what Windlock had said—win her trust.

While she felt a little despondent, she also realized that perhaps it wasn’t the right time. Pat was mad, grieving, and worried about her husband. It seemed a safe bet to assume she wouldn’t try to leave town. That kind of extreme reaction was unlikely if her husband had trouble breathing and they had friends to support and take care of them.

Plus, she’d probably be more willing to talk to a dragon later, once she’d worked through the shock. She might be less than patient, given that her home had been destroyed by two of them, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t be reasoned with.

Absently, she watched the woman stride to her truck—an old Chevrolet that might have once been red—climb in, and drive away. She took note of the license plate as any cop worth their weight in donuts was trained to do, but it was the bumper sticker above the plate that was easier to remember. She couldn’t help but think there couldn’t be too many people with I quilt for moose bumper stickers on the back of their pickups.

CHAPTER SIX

Once Mrs. Williams had left, Kristen turned her attention to the blackened ruins of the house. Some of it was still standing—the only parts that had totally collapsed were where the dragons had crashed into the structure and where the propane tank had blown away a few walls, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a wreck. Everything was either burnt or stained black with smoke. The kitchen was completely destroyed, obviously Ground Zero for the propane tank explosion. She hadn’t thought they were prone to that, but dragon fire could very likely ignite them.

She worked through the living room and discovered a circle on the floor that was unburnt. It reminded her of a similar shape she’d seen during the misty recreation of the battle. The rogue mage had stood there, she decided. There wasn’t any other explanation as there very obviously weren’t any huge round pieces of unburnt or even undamaged furniture.

Cautiously, she peeked in the master bedroom, which was little more than a disaster scene. The interior of the outside wall was twisted and burnt, and she assumed it must have caught a direct blast of dragon’s fire. The flames had spread and consumed almost everything inside. A bow-tie patterned with American flags lay near the bed, its edges singed, and a romance novel was blackened by smoke but seemed to have escaped the flames. A few feet away, a pair of sensible heels were burned to a crisp. The room had very clearly been shared by Mrs. Williams and her husband so that, at least, seemed to be the truth.

Kristen left the room once she noted that the wall that had been blown out by the mage, then explored the rest of the house in search of clues. The stairs were, unfortunately, impassable as those sections that weren’t crushed were burned. Still, the second floor was mostly intact, so she stopped at the base of the stairs, crouched, and vaulted up with a surge of her dragon strength. Thankfully, she managed without even a twinge, which she took as a positive sign that her healing had definitely improved.

She landed precariously on the edge of the upstairs hallway and moved quickly to the two rooms.

One of them was a ruin, the roof collapsed and most of the floor sagging toward the ground level. There was no way Kristen could get inside without causing even more to collapse, and she didn’t want to drop the rest of this building on her head. But she didn’t think she needed to investigate this room more closely. As close as she could tell from the ruins, it seemed barely lived in like a guest room. It contained none of the knick-knacks and personal items that would fill a person’s bedroom.

The other room was interesting, however. It appeared to be where one of the dragon tails had pounded through the roof, but there was still much to be gleaned within. It was obviously a woman’s room, as the burnt bureau was filled with the remains of bras, panties, and cute socks. The chest of drawers had obviously been broken before the fire and had spilled their contents all over the bedroom. What remained of the closet contained a pile of incinerated clothes, although she managed to retrieve remnants of one or two she thought were reasonably trendy. They were certainly not the clothes of an older woman or even of someone who’d spent their entire time in Rangeley, not unless they’d been a master of online shopping.

Kristen poked around but didn’t really find anything unusual. Between the destroyed books, clothes, and shoes—both sensible and stylish, from what she could see—she found nothing that screamed “dragon slayer.” There were no odd items that might have been mage robes and no enchanted swords—Kristen still didn’t know if those existed, but she hadn’t known mages could kill dragons until quite recently either—and no guns.

From the few remaining pieces of book covers, she was able to deduce that most of what had been on the shelves were fantasy novels, not occult tomes or scrolls in dead languages. Of course, paper burned all too easily so it wasn’t impossible that they might have been incinerated beyond recognition. Her instincts, however, told her that the occupant had been an ordinary young woman and it was improbable that she’d collected anything even remotely like that.

Unfortunately, given the extent of the damage, all she could really tell from the room was that whoever had slept there had probably lived there and that she was normal. The only odd thing was that Pat Williams had made a point of saying that no one lived there, even though someone obviously had. It seemed logical to think it was the woman’s daughter, but why lie for her? Did Pat know that the girl had killed the dragons? She had seen the tableau Brockton had summoned—her reaction was what had called attention to her—but did she only guess as to the identity of the mage or did she actually know who she was?

A bit more snooping revealed the younger woman’s smartphone still plugged in next to her bed. Much could be learned from such a device but unfortunately, the fire had melted the cord and scorched the device. It wouldn’t turn on, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Still, someone clever enough and with skill in that area might get some information off it, even if it was damaged.

What it did highlight, however, was that the girl was without a phone. That meant—if she was anything like she had been before she was a dragon—she’d have a difficult time skipping town with no maps, no car services, and no simple portal to buy airplane tickets. She hoped the girl being without her phone would buy them a little time to find her. With a sigh, she took out an evidence bag and dropped the device inside.

It didn’t appear that she’d find anything else of value, so she leapt up onto the roof and dropped the two floors to land outside the house. To a human, it would have seemed an impossible feat of strength, but when she alighted beside Windlock, he barely noticed. She grinned. The jump had been another test, a way to gauge her level of healing, and while there was a small twinge or two this time, it didn’t feel like anything to be concerned about.

He stood with another dragon—not Timbergust but one from Boston in his human form. The investigator’s quick glance at her suggested that he intended to ask what she’d found, but his companion spoke first.

“Why did you waste your time in there while we dealt with the stupid humans trying to snap selfies?” he demanded. His human form was extremely muscular, so much so that he virtually had no neck. Kristen would have guessed steroids, but she wasn’t sure if dragons could use them.

“I examined the scene of the crime,” she said and tried not to sound annoyed at the beef-headed dragon, although she failed miserably.

He scoffed. “Do you think the mage who killed those two was a resident of this house?”

“It’s one possibility I wanted to follow up on,” she replied slowly as if explaining a new concept to a child.

“For fuck’s sake, the stories are true. The Steel Dragon really is no smarter than the average human. There is no way a normal human could have done this shit.”

“I never mentioned a normal—”

“Well, that little magic show your pet mage conjured was impressive, but I still think that’s all it was—a show. Mages haven’t been this powerful for centuries. Every dragon knows that.” He sneered nastily and she had to restrain the urge to punch him. “Hell, they made pixies to be able to do this kind of shit and even they can’t. It was a dragon—one with weirder powers than yours, for sure, and able to use them in human form—but a dragon.” He folded his arms and nodded as if to indicate that the case was closed in his opinion.

Kristen had heard enough. He represented everything that was wrong with dragon culture and made a mockery of the dragons who weren’t so narrow-minded. His assumptions were not only derogatory to humans and mages but were legitimately dangerous to dragons as well. She took a deep breath, ready to tell this oaf exactly what she thought of him, but Windlock cut her off.

“If you think she wasted time, I’d appreciate it if you produced some actual clues, Officer Bronzeback,” the investigator chided caustically.

“There aren’t any clues in there.” She was surprised she hadn’t recognized Bronzeback by his aggressive and arrogant tone.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I’d like to debrief my partner.”

The dragon’s eyes widened as he looked from Kristen to Windlock, then back to her. “I’m…uh, my apologies Investigator—that is, Investigators. I thought you were here on some kind of publicity tour or something. I didn’t realize you were an investigator as well.” Bronzeback bowed awkwardly—it was difficult for Kristen not to smile at his discomfort, but she managed—and he hurried away to shoo more tourists from the crime scene.

“That’s funny,” she said, looked at Windlock, and let herself smile. “I didn’t realize I was your partner either.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?” he replied. “This case is already a jurisdictional headache, what with Boston’s Dragon SWAT involved. I don’t have the patience for them to wonder what the chain of command is. I’ll call you whatever the hell I have to if it helps you to do your job and find out what happened here.”

“Well, thanks, partner.” She nodded at him.

“Don’t make too much of it either, Lady Steel. When this is all over, you’ll go back to Detroit to take care of drunk dragons with the rest of your team.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s an honor to know you’re familiar with the work of Detroit Dragon SWAT.”

Windlock laughed at her joke. “I simply don’t want delusions of grandeur to stop the investigation, but for now, let’s operate like you are my partner. At the very least, it’ll make Bronzeback shut up.”

“Going back to facing unruly dragons in Detroit is definitely worth that.” She was more than happy to work above her station. This was the first time she had partnered with a dragon who had actively—albeit temporarily—promoted her and given her authority without her having to bitch about it first. Stonequest had brought her onto dragon SWAT and for that, she was grateful, but he’d also become confused fairly quickly when she’d wanted to conduct actual investigations. It was gratifying to have someone listen to her.

“All right, Steel, get your aura under control or the crowd will start singing ‘Kumbaya.’ What did you find in there?”

“Right, sir. Sorry, sir.” Kristen clamped down on her aura. “The woman I talked to—one Pat Williams—lived in this house with her husband. He is John Williams and no, not the composer—” Kristen smiled but like her, Windlock didn’t laugh at the joke so she continued. “And at least one other person also lived here. The odd thing is that the woman said it was only her and her husband. She lied to a cop and a dragon—a brave thing to do when you think about it—and my guess is she did it to protect whoever lived in that upstairs bedroom. I believe it was her daughter. She definitely seemed younger from what I could see when I looked through what was left of her belongings—and in Brockton’s reenactment—and like I said, it takes guts to lie to either a dragon or a cop. I don’t think she would have done it for a random tenant as she didn’t seem like the lying type.”

“Do you think this younger woman was a mage?” he asked.

“Uh—not sure?” She shrugged. “Firstly, I’m not too familiar with mages. I didn’t see any robes or anything like the mages at Dragon SWAT HQ in Detroit wear, but I don’t think she was a technomage either. There was no evidence of a gun or other weapons, for starters, and although most of her clothes were burned, they didn’t seem like the all-black style Constance is so fond of. That said, I can’t imagine a rogue mage or whatever you called them going toe to toe with two dragons. Is that even possible? I know I saw what apparently happened, but I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

Windlock grimaced. “I’ve heard of that kind of power but not since the last human rebellion. In that war, there were a few mages powerful enough to tackle multiple dragons at once, but they were rare. Plus, those with that level of power took a long time to get there. They had to hone their skills, which was a good thing for dragon kind, really. Otherwise, the rebellion would have gone completely differently.”

“Yeah, what great news for us dragons,” she said and made no attempt to hide her biting sarcasm. Of course, she immediately regretted it but decided not to voice it. Bronzeback seemed to have stirred up her frustrations again.

He noticed her discomfort but was a professional, so he continued despite the growing look of disapproval on her face. “Today, any mage with something even approaching that kind of potential is cuffed.”

“Like Larry,” Kristen said bitterly.

“Yes, like Larry,” he agreed.

“And you’re okay with that?” she asked.

“It’s the way of things.”

“I don’t know if you’ve ever had your powers stripped, but I have. I went to prison and had to wear one of those cuffs. It was horrible to be denied part of what you are—to be denied part of who you are. And I was there because dragons thought that I had done something wrong. I understand that he has access to some of his powers, but how much is he being denied?”

“I can’t say for certain. Brockton has worn a cuff since I took him under my wing.”

She shook her head distastefully. “It doesn’t seem fair, is all. Dragons don’t lose their powers despite being the greatest threat to humans, mages, and each other, but mages are routinely denied their abilities despite having done no wrong.”

“I understand your frustration, but it really is for the best. You need to remain open to the fact that every situation has multiple points of view. In this instance, that symbol of slavery as you seem to think of it is what currently protects him. Brockton is fairly powerful. If he had refused to wear the dampening cuff, he’d have almost surely been executed.”

“You mean if he hadn’t agreed to submit.”

Windlock shrugged but at least he didn’t argue. Still, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. To her, it was very simple—either it was right and fair, or it wasn’t. Her patience currently didn’t seem to extend to gray areas.

“Quite frankly, I’m glad I found Brockton so early,” he continued. “I’ve had to defend him to quite a few dragons over the years because they aren’t fond of personal mages. Too many lives were lost in the wars for them to trust magic like Larry’s. I trust Larry Brockton and I have for years, and since I’m an investigator, I have some weight I can throw around to keep him safe. The reality, though, is that there are quite a few dragons out there who’d rather he simply ceased breathing.”

Kristen nodded although she felt more confused and angrier than ever before. Maybe her enforced downtime had been less beneficial than it should have as it seemed to have allowed her mind to dwell on the problems rather than work to address them. Right now, while she could understand the logic in his reasoning, his response simply felt like more hypocrisy.

It was an established fact that dragons held all the cards in the world. Somewhat hypocritically because she hated to even think of war and its cost, she wondered if mages had actually been successful in one of their wars—or at least had succeeded in stopping the dragons from systematically dampening their powers—the world might be a more balanced place.

After all, mages were human. If they could stand up to dragons, the powerful beings might have to respect regular people and no longer regard them as nothing more than collateral damage. Of course, most dragons didn’t see it that way. They didn’t want balance and wanted all the weight to be on their side of the scale.

Then again, Constance was no better. She was determined to force a war to achieve her vision, no matter what the cost. It seemed that between the dragons on one side and the technomages on the other, regular humans were completely downtrodden, disregarded, or merely expendable pawns in the various power games. So really, they were the ones who needed a protector and an advocate—together with mages like Brockton who were trapped by their own abilities.

She sighed. All this thinking and reasoning and questioning was exhausting, and she wished she could turn her mind off completely.

“Did you see any magical things in the young woman’s room?”

Work was what she needed, she decided, something positive to capture her errant thoughts and into which she could direct all the impatient energy. She seized on the question with renewed focus. “No. I don’t think so, anyway, but I honestly don’t really know what to look for. Most of it was burned, so there might have been things that are no longer recognizable.”

Windlock nodded and called Larry to join them. The mage obliged and stepped beside them.

“What’s going on, boss?” Brockton asked.

“Steel has reason to believe that the mage might have lived in this house and could be the daughter of the homeowners. Do you mind taking a peek to see if she had any idea of what she was?”

“That’s why I’m here, right?” He smiled. If the investigator mistreated him, the mage certainly did a good job of hiding his discomfort at their arrangement. Once again, the odd surge of guilt rippled through her. Was she simply affixing her own negative interpretations to their working relationship? Did they, in fact, have the strong bond she had always believed they had? It was a reminder to not jump to conclusions she might later regret.

Windlock transformed into his dragon form and Brockton scampered up his tail, onto his back, and climbed up his neck. He stepped from the dragon’s head into the second-floor bedroom. As frustrated as she was with dragon culture, she had to admit that these two treated each other almost as equals. She had never seen a dragon allow a human—mage or otherwise—to use them as a ladder.

“There is nothing overtly magical in here—or more like nothing magical at all. Of course, it’s all charred but I sense no enchanted artifacts or books about magic. Even after a fire, they would still retain some kind of magical residue. Hell, I’ve been to garage sales with more magic items than there probably were in this room. It’s about as plain-Jane as can be.”

“So she’s not the mage?” Kristen asked, a little disappointed.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He sniffed and moved his hand a little, and his fingertips glowed blue. “There’s a lingering sense of magic here. It’s not nearly as strong as that outside but it makes sense as there was a hurricane of damage out there and this room is a fair distance away.”

“It’s related?” Windlock asked.

“Oh yeah,” Larry said. “It’s definitely the same magic I felt outside in the yard around the dead dragons.”

“How sure are you it’s the same?” his boss pressed.

“Gee, I don’t know, you old windbag. How often do you confuse a dragon’s aura with another’s?”

The investigator chuckled at that before he turned to her. “We can be sure that whoever attacked those mages outside lived in this room then. Good work, Kristen. Brockton, nice work. I owe you a cup of coffee.”

“Cheap bastard. I want a latte, or I quit.”

Windlock seemed to not even register the joke and his expression remained concerned. “We need to find this girl, whoever she is. I think it’s reasonable to assume her powers have newly manifested since we didn’t find any evidence of training materials or tools of augmentation, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a threat. If she truly is an untrained rogue mage and what we’re looking at is only her raw power, we need to stop her before she loses control and kills again.”

“Do you think she might target us or the Boston team?” she asked.

“Honestly? With this kind of power, I’m more concerned about her wiping the town of Rangeley off the face of the Earth.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Uh-oh. It looks like we have company,” Kristen said and stared across the yard toward the perimeter. Two news vans had arrived, and each had an antenna towering from the back of their van. She grimaced when she identified one as an affiliate of one of the liberal news companies and the other as one of the conservative ones. It essentially meant the entire event was about to be evening news on everyone’s television.

“Most people haven’t ever seen one dead dragon, let alone two,” Brockton mumbled after he climbed down Windlock’s neck and stood beside them once more.

“They’re fairly far away,” the investigator said.

His companions shared a look. Dragons could be so oblivious.

“It’s called a zoom lens, you old windbag. They’ll be able to get a shot of this and there’s no way we can stop it,” Larry said. “We can safely say there’s about to be two dead dragons all over the evening news.”

“That means Constance Vigil will hear about it,” Kristen said and her hackles rose. This was already complicated enough. The last thing they needed was the assassin and her technomages to arrive.

“I imagine everyone will hear about this if they have this zoo-oom lens you talk about,” Windlock said and mispronounced the word, although that might have been deliberate. He didn’t sound terribly concerned, though.

“Right, but if Constance hears that two dragons died of mysterious causes and there are a number of dragons out here investigating, she’ll come knocking. She’ll assume this is either a weapon or a mage, right? If you two know about all this, she probably does as well.”

“It’s a safe bet.” Concern grew on the other dragon’s face like a wildfire.

“She’ll try to recruit the mage and use her in her war. That’s what she’s pushed to achieve with me this whole time, but it might actually work on this girl since she lost her home to dragons. We can’t let that happen, but those media crews will make that tricky.”

“Right. Cover story time,” Windlock said decisively. “We’ve concluded our investigation. The two dragons fought—play up the old grudge angle, people like that stuff—and one of them killed the other and succumbed to his own wounds before he could heal.”

“That happens?” she asked skeptically. It sounded very suspicious to her.

“It’s not unheard of,” he said. “Go with one of them having a wound on their heart that was bleeding into their lungs. There was a case about a decade ago where that happened. It made a fair number of dragons paranoid for a while about sustaining too many chest wounds. It’ll play in the dragon community, and people won’t know what to think of it.”

“Okay. Fine, I guess it makes sense. If we’re lucky, the technomages didn’t kill those dragons. Otherwise, Constance will see right through it.”

“Obviously, you won’t bring her up,” Windlock said.

“Right. Obviously I won’t—wait, me?” Kristen was incredulous. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the darling of the human media.” He gestured to the camera crews. “When you were discovered, it was global news. No doubt those reporters would kill for an interview with Detroit’s Lost Steel Dragon or whatever the headlines were. Use that to get them off the case.”

She looked at the two vans and realized she didn’t have much time. One of the camera operators was already climbing onto the roof of their van to get a better angle on the bodies. She strode toward them, not thrilled to be on media duty but not completely terrified either. When she’d first manifested her powers, she’d done a few press conferences—Captain Hansen had insisted on it—so this was uncomfortable but not alien territory.

“Ma’am, ma’am!” One of the reporters was already yelling at her and recognition slid over the woman’s face. “Kristen Hall—what brings the Steel Dragon to Rangeley?”

Kristen kept moving so that when the camera operators framed her, the background would be the pine trees of the area, not the burned home or dead dragon corpses.

“We’re here because two dragons died in a duel. We were investigating foul play to determine if another dragon was involved and catch them to make sure they pay for the destruction here.”

“And do you think you’ll catch them?” the other reporter asked, a man with a thick mustache.

“I guess you don’t watch the Detroit news.” She flashed a grin at the camera.

The tourists—drawn to the camera crews like moths to a flame—chuckled at that.

“So you think a third dragon was involved?” the female reporter asked.

She shook her head. “No, we don’t. It looks like this is a long-standing feud that turned deadly. One dragon killed the other, but his heart was punctured and bled into his lung. We’ve ruled it double homicide currently, but of course, if anything else comes up, we’d appreciate you bringing that evidence forward.”

The female reporter wilted. She’d obviously hoped for an ongoing case.

“Really, I’m relieved,” Kristen said. “This means I get to explore Rangeley.”

“What does a city girl like you think of a town like Rangely?” the mustachioed reporter asked.

“I liked it more before the dragons arrived,” she replied and earned chuckles from the news crews.

“Is there anything you want to do while you’re here?” the woman asked.

“I could do with a few restaurant recommendations. Do you know anywhere that serves entire cows?” Another laugh followed and she smiled inwardly with satisfaction. She’d given them their soundbites. Now, it was time to end this on a more somber note.

“I hate to ask you to move on, but this is still a crime scene and the dragons need to remove the dead. It’s a sad day for everyone involved. Two dragons died needlessly and they hurt the community in doing so.”

“Of course, Ms. Hall. Perhaps we could ask a few questions about your time in Detroit?”

She agreed and answered a few more questions. It was a little awkward but all in all, she felt like she did well enough. They asked her about her involvement in the bomb that had almost blown up one of Detroit’s most famous buildings and she answered as honestly as she could without saying anything about Constance. It was common knowledge, at this point, that someone had tried to obliterate the dragons. Hundreds of people had caught the event on their smartphones, but this was the first time a dragon had spoken publicly about it.

After a few minutes, the reporters changed the subject and attempted to dig further into her past, but she was able to remind them that this was a sad day for dragons and asked them once more to leave. They obliged her and left without protest, chatting to each other about which clips they’d use for their different outlets.

“Thanks for your time,” one of the reporters said. “I’m not sure if this will play nationally, but everyone in Maine will be wicked excited to have the Steel Dragon here.”

Kristen nodded and looked once more at the protestors. They were still upset at the two dragons who’d come in and trashed their town.

Very definitely, she didn’t want to talk to them. They were angry and stirred themselves into a ferment as they worked one another up to greater rage. Still, she felt a responsibility to approach them. After all, she was a dragon raised by people. She knew what it felt like to live in a world where lives could be lost at the whims of beings so much more powerful but also what dragons could do to help.

“Hello, everyone,” she said, approached the group, and raised her hand in a friendly greeting but also to show she wasn’t armed. “You may not know me, but I’m Kristen Hall. Many folks call me the Steel Dragon.”

“We know who you are. You’re the dragon raised by a human. A traitor!” someone from the back of the crowd yelled. No one else echoed the insult, though, which she counted as a good sign.

She extended her aura subtly to make this group calm a little. While she didn’t want to take their emotions away—they were valid, after all—she did want them to take a second to breathe. “I understand you may feel that way, but I assure you, I’ve always been committed to people first. Ask my mom in Dearborn, Michigan. If she caught me showing favorites to anyone because of whatever group they were born into, she’d rip me a new one.”

That drew scattered laughter which was at least a small margin of progress. Obviously, this was a much tougher crowd than the reporters had been, but that made sense. Her presence would give the reporters the evening news’ highlights. These people hadn’t gained anything from her being there.

“Ma’am, I get that you’re upstanding an’ all that, but someone’s home was destroyed. The Williams were good people.”

“And it could have been any of us,” a man wearing plaid interjected and cut off the woman who’d spoken first.

“Their home will be rebuilt, I assure you,” Kristen said. “In fact, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I want to make it clear that I will make sure the Dragon Council will make reparations to the family.”

“Haven’t you been a dragon for, like, a year? How you gonna push them around?” the plaid-wearing man asked.

“Well, it’s longer than that, but you saw that the news wanted to talk to me. If the Dragon Council won’t play ball, I’ll make a stink on every news channel that will hear me.”

That finally earned her a few nods.

“I understand that this has really struck the community.” She tried to maintain her momentum before someone stirred them up again. “But there’s no point in compounding this tragedy by bringing in even more news crews. The last thing we want is the Dragon Council to be embarrassed over all this. What’s best is if we all head home and let me contact who I can about getting this all straightened out.”

“You’re only saying that,” the woman who’d spoken first said.

“Ma’am, I promise you, if they don’t fix this, I will be on the frontlines of whatever civil disobedience you think is best. But before we do that, let me at least make the attempt. Think of this as a chance to not only build a house for the Williams family but a bridge between humans and dragons.”

That mollified the crowd enough to persuade them to disperse. Kristen was slightly concerned that she’d overstepped her bounds and not because she wouldn’t go through with it. Her reservations came from the certainty that if the Dragon Council refused to do this for these people, she’d fight them tooth and claw. It was only right when faced with such a loss.

Still, they were content enough to leave and hopefully go home and get some sleep. She watched them go, grateful that the situation was defused. Larry came up to her and slapped a hand on her shoulder.

“You did good. Were you in debate or something in high school? You’re good with a crowd.”

She shook her head, “Please don’t ever tell anyone that. I’d be fine with never having to do public speaking again—like ever!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Aknock on the door at the top of the stairs startled Amy Williams so badly that the coffee cup she’d held in shaking hands hurtled up and shattered against the ceiling.

“Amy? Can I come down?”

Of course you can come down. It’s your house. She bit the words back because she understood why Jennifer had asked. Her friend was probably terrified and not without reason, given that she’d already trashed the room with her weird powers. She was scared too.

“Yeah…” she managed, and her voice sounded ridiculously weak. She’d never been so frightened in her entire life. It was strange to be more scared of herself than she was of the dragons that had destroyed her parents’ house.

The other girl came down the stairs with a plate of food—a fried bologna sandwich with extra tomatoes, no lettuce, a pile of potato chips, and a pickle. It had been their favorite meal since they were eight-year-old best friends.

“Are you doing okay?” Jennifer asked. It was obvious from her tone of voice that she didn’t think she was doing okay. Again, she couldn’t blame her. The room was a wreck. Any time she’d been startled—which was often when one was concerned that dragons would kill you if your own powers didn’t blow you up first—she’d inadvertently flung something across the room. She had already trashed Jennifer’s dad’s collection of records, an alarm clock, a box of chipped china that her friend’s mom had kept in the basement for parties, and most of the windows.

“I don’t know, Jen. I only…I can’t get a handle on things, you know?”

“Sure,” the girl said, although her face was pale. Of course she didn’t know. Who could? How could one relate to suddenly manifesting powers strong enough to kill not one, but two dragons?

“I can’t stop thinking about my parents. They were in their room when they…that is the fire…” Amy tried to push the thoughts from her mind, but they wouldn’t leave. She’d come back to Rangeley because of her parents. Many young people left home because they didn’t have a good relationship with their folks, but that wasn’t her. She’d left to see if she could make something of herself. When she’d failed to amount to anything special, it had been a relief to return to Rangeley and move in with them. She loved them and now, they were gone.

The bed she was seated on began to shake before it rose off the floor.

“Amy, calm down,” Jennifer implored.

She focused hard because she knew she could control these powers if she did that. Finally, her fists clenched at her sides and she forced the bed down, but as soon as she relaxed, the coffee table where Jennifer had placed the sandwich launched upward and shattered against the ceiling. The pieces clattered around them, while the bologna sandwich remained stuck above.

“Amy—please listen to me. There’s something I need to tell you. Your mom is all right.”

“Please don’t lie to me, Jennifer, okay? I can’t stand to believe that and lose her again when I find out it’s not true.”

“No! I’m serious.” Her friend smiled, and she knew her well enough to recognize her most honest face. “Take a deep breath, okay? I finally managed to contact her. She just got here.”

Amy dared to feel hope again, which made all the furniture in the basement shake alarmingly.

“Girl, you have to calm down.”

She nodded and wiped her tears. “Okay. You’re right.”

Jennifer gave her a minute, then called up the stairs. “All right, Mrs. Williams. Come on down.”

The door at the top of the steps cracked open and her mom’s face was framed in the opening. A wave of relief washed over her and again, the furniture shook and shuddered. It was a good thing her friend had given her a warning. If she hadn’t had that, she might have demolished the entire room once and for all.

“Oh, sweetie,” her mom said as she rushed down the stairs, pulled her against her chest, and hugged her like she had when she was seven years old. Amy let herself cry, and when she did, she again heard things move around her, but Pat didn’t seem to notice. She merely held her daughter and whispered how much she loved her in her ear.

Amy loved Jennifer, but there was nothing like a mom’s love, even to a grown woman.

“Oh, Amy, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“You too, Mom.” She sniffed after she’d taken a few breaths and managed to stop all the stuff in the room from floating. At least she hadn’t broken anything that time. She drew another deep breath. “How are you all right?”

“Your father and I broke the window and got out. He wanted to run in again to get you despite the smoke. He yelled at me about how he smoked that pipe all these years to get ready for something like this—you know your father—but then…well, we saw you step from the building.”

She nodded. “You saw me kill those dragons.”

“I saw my little girl lose control. That’s what I saw.”

“Seriously, Amy. It’s like when you hit that ball in softball and broke my nose.” Jennifer smiled.

“And I’m still sorry about that.”

“Oh, come on. We all know it was an accident,” her mom said. “Exactly like this was. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was, Mom! I’m the only one who can do this…this stuff!” She held her hand out and pointed at a box across the room. It levitated a few feet off the ground and when she choked out a sob, the box fell.

“No sweetie, you’re not. You’re a mage. Your powers came in a moment of stress. There are others like you.”

“I’ve never heard of a mage killing a dragon,” Jennifer said.

Pat clenched her jaw and looked from one to the other. She made her mind up and turned to Jennifer. “Jenny, sweetie. I am so thankful you went to our house and brought Amy here. It was quick thinking on your part and I wasn’t able to do it, what with having to get her dad to safety. You gave us quite a fright because I didn’t know where she was, but it also gave me the time I needed. Right now, though, I need you to go upstairs.”

“What are you talking about, Mrs. Williams?”

“Jenny, please. We have to protect Amy right now. That’s what’s important. We both know she didn’t intend to do this, but there’s a team of dragons out there who probably think very differently. We need to be smart. That’s why I couldn’t try to find her last night. I was worried someone might be watching me and I’d lead them to her.”

“Are you saying I’m in danger, Mom?”

“What I’m saying is that Jennifer, you need to go upstairs so I can talk to my daughter alone. If you hear what we talk about, the dragons might try to get it out of you. Those lizards were there, sniffing around the mess they left of our home. We need to be careful.”

The other girl paled, nodded, and went upstairs without protest.

“Mom, what’s going on?”

“I want you to take three deep breaths, okay? What I’m about to say will be scary and the last thing we want is for you to trash Jennifer’s parents’ house, okay?”

Amy nodded and took three deep breaths.

“Sweetheart, I know you didn’t mean to, but to dragons, intent doesn’t really matter. To them, it looks like you killed two dragons and got away with it. They’ve brought in a whole team of cops or investigators or whatever they are. They haven’t left this to Timbergust, which means they’re taking it seriously.”

“Timbergust?”

“Our local dragon officer, sweetie. You’ll need to start paying attention to these kinds of things.”

“Are you saying they’ll send me to jail? Because maybe they should. I killed those two dragons. I thought you and dad were dead, but now that you’re okay…I messed up.”

“You didn’t mess up, Amy, you did what you could to protect us. We’re lucky to have a daughter who is so strong.” Her mom hugged her, and Amy took another couple of deep breaths—fortunately, because what her mom said next truly terrified her.

“But, Amy, you need to understand that they don’t send mages like you to jail. They take vengeance.”

“But I didn’t mean to do it.”

“I know, sweetie, I know, but they won’t see it that way. They even brought in the Steel Dragon, who they normally use to hunt other lizards. It’s obvious that they won’t let you simply walk away from this.”

She was horrified. “I didn’t even know that a human could kill a dragon. I was angry and scared, and they attacked me, so I lashed out with…these powers. I didn’t know what was happening. It was like the entire forest had attacked them.”

“I know, sweetheart. We saw the whole thing. Those dragons attacked you and you hit them with the full force of your newborn powers. You really did throw the whole forest at them—and boulders and even a car!”

“But I thought dragons could heal?”

Her mom shrugged. “They have a limit. You pushed them to it, and when it was over, you threw everything into the woods. That’s when your father took a bad turn and I had to get him to safety. You were out cold.”

“Why didn’t you go back?”

“I did, but you’d already left. I wanted to rush out and start searching but of course, the whole town was abuzz by then. We were obviously the center of attention, and you know how nosy people can be in a small town. I decided to simply tell everyone you’d gone to try your luck in the city again—maybe that you’d had a call for an interview or something—while I searched quietly. Thankfully, when Jenny put two and two together and realized you thought we were dead, she managed to find us.”

“But I can go with you now, right?”

“No, sweetheart, that’s not a good idea because your father and I will be their primary witnesses. If you stay with us, they might find you and this will all be over. They have a mage with them, and he seems to be adept at discerning magic.”

“How do you know all this?”

“When I was young…I spent some time in Canada.”

It took her a good minute to even begin to process what that was supposed to mean. “Do you mean with the dwarves?”

Her mother nodded. “That’s right, sweetie. They have a very…pragmatic view of dragons. While they don’t hate them, they don’t live in fear like we do here either. I would’ve stayed there but I met your father and well…you came along and suddenly, living in a community of humans seemed more important.”

Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place for her. “Do you think we should go to Canada?”

Pat nodded, but there were tears in her eyes. “I think you should go to Canada. Your father…he’s okay, but his lungs aren’t doing great after all that smoke. Plus, if I’m here, I might be able to buy you the time you need to get across the border.”

“You want me to be a fugitive?”

“No, Amy, that’s the last thing I want, but you already are a fugitive. If you stay here, they’ll find you. If you go to Canada, there’s a chance they won’t want to follow. And…well, like I said, dwarves are a pragmatic people. They won’t view your…powers the same way dragons will. They might be able to help you.”

“But Mom, dragons can fly. Can’t they follow me?”

“I don’t think they’ll think of Canada, at least not right away. I made some calls last night. I know someone from my time there who will protect you. His name is Alp and he’s a good guy. If you can reach him, he’ll be able to help you more than I can.”

“Alp is a dwarf?”

Her mom nodded.

Amy swallowed. This was insane—absolutely insane. She had returned to Rangeley because she had thought Philadelphia was too crazy and Boston was too mean. Suddenly, she was a mage hunted by dragons and who needed to get to Canada so dwarves could protect her? On top of all that, there was the weight on her shoulders of two dead dragons. She had already felt guilty about killing them, but now that she knew her parents had survived, the guilt was only worse.

Still, what choice did she have? She couldn’t stay there, that much was obvious. If there were dragons looking for her, she had to get away. And these dwarves could teach her something about her being a mage. The thought was still alien to her but what other explanation was there?

Finally, she wiped a few tears she hadn’t realized were running down her face and nodded at her mother. “Will I ever be able to come home again?"

For the first time since she’d come down the stairs, Pat Williams sagged. “I don’t know, sweetie. This might be… I’m so glad you came home and spent the last few months with us. It’s been wonderful having you home again. You know you’ll always be our special little girl. If everything goes okay, maybe Dad and I can visit one day, although John never did like Alp.” Pat laughed, the sound a little pained, and Amy smiled. After all these years, she had discovered there were stories her mom hadn’t told her—many stories, apparently. “But if we can’t…you know we love you, right?”

She nodded. It was the safest response as she didn’t have the strength to form words and keep herself from shaking the house.

When they embraced, her mom stuck her hand out and put the keys to her old red Chevrolet in her hands.

“Beula has a full tank, which should get you there. I have cash in the glovebox, both US and Canadian dollars. It should be enough to get you food or whatever else you need before you meet Alp in Thetford Mines.”

“Thetford Mines?”

Pat nodded. “It’s in Quebec, about two and a half hours from here. I already printed directions out and put them in Beula. Take Sixteen all the way to Lustis, then hop on twenty-seven and head north. Don’t drive so fast that you’ll wreck, but there’s no point in following the speed limits either.”

Oddly, her mom telling her to speed made all this sink home. The woman stopped at stop signs in the middle of the night when no one else was around. She didn’t think she’d ever seen her so much as jaywalk. Now, she told her daughter to flee across an international border with a fistful of cash?

“The directions will take you to the La Face De Boeuf.”

“La Face day what?”

“It’s a restaurant near the mineral and mining museum. Alp will be there. He wouldn’t shut up about it, actually. When you get there, you’ll be safe.”

Amy nodded, trying not to replace the when in her mother’s statement with an if.

“I love you, Mom. Will I have time to say goodbye to Dad?”

Her mom shook her head and wiped back tears. “He doesn’t understand any of this, sweetie. He could barely understand what happened with your magic and the dragons. He’ll know you’re safe, and that’s enough. You have to go, and you have to go now. The Steel Dragon will try to catch you, I’m sure of it, and I don’t know if anyone can stop her.”

Amy nodded. It hurt like hell, but she’d go without saying goodbye to her dad.

She walked out of the basement, slid into her mom’s car, and prepared to flee for her life.

CHAPTER NINE

It was late, and the Detroit investigators had finally left the crime scene to find food when Larry and Kristen had demanded it. Windlock had seemed like he could keep going forever—she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d snuck away in his dragon form and eaten a moose or something while she’d investigated the house—but when he ordered, she gave up the notion of a secret meal.

While they waited for their food—she had thought she was ridiculous ordering the rotisserie ribeye, but Windlock had ordered a basket of seafood and a whole chicken—she called the local human police department with the license plate number. At first, the officer who answered didn’t seem to have any idea who Kristen was talking about.

“It was on an old red, Chevrolet,” she explained. “A bumper sticker of I quilt for moose was on the back.”

Another voice said something on the other end of the line.

“Oh sure, yeah. That’s Pat Williams’ truck. You know, I would never have remembered that. The woman don’t speed—like, ever. I must’ve given every person in town a ticket at least once, but not Pat. Is she all right?”

“Is this the same Pat Williams who lived in the house that was burned down in the dragon fight?”

“Yes, Lady Steel,” the officer answered, his voice shaky. He’d done well talking to her despite the fact that she’d introduced herself as a dragon investigator, but when she’d mentioned dragons for the second time, it seemed to affect him. “I only want to do whatever I can to help, ma’am—that is, my lady. We never had no dragons cause trouble in town before. Even those two normally kept all their business in the woods. Anything you need, all you got to do is ask.”

“I want you to put out a BOLO for the car. Statewide.”

“Yes, ma’am. No problem, ma’am.” The man cleared his throat. “Uh…ma’am? What’s a BOLO?”

Kristen tried not to chuckle over the phone. At least it wasn’t only the local dragon law enforcement that was decidedly small-town in scope. The human police department seemed fairly casual as well. “Be on the lookout for that car, is all.”

“You got it, ma’am! Be on the lookout. We do that all the time. Do you want us to detain Pat if we see her?” He sounded hesitant to do this, but as far as Kristen could tell, he still seemed willing.

“No, that won’t be necessary. And actually, I have reason to believe that Pat won’t be driving. I merely want to know if anyone sees that car anywhere. If they do, you call this number right away and don’t engage. The driver might be dangerous.”

“You think a dragon stole the truck, ma’am?” He sounded horrified.

“Not exactly, Officer, but I can’t say more. This is an open investigation conducted by dragon investigators on behalf of the Dragon Council. We’d appreciate your cooperation, and please advise the state authorities of that BOLO but do not engage. The last thing we want is for a human to be hurt over this.”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything else, ma’am?”

“That’ll be it.” Kristen hung up.

Windlock nodded at her and a smile teased at the corners of his lips. “That was good detective work, talking to the mother and getting the identification number of the truck.”

“The license plate,” Brockton corrected.

The dragon waved the correction away. “I’m pleased you agreed to come along. Cases like this can be difficult and humans have entire systems that dragons simply don’t know about. The idea of every one of your vehicles having a unique code. Brilliant.”

“Thanks, Windlock,” she said and leaned back as their server brought them their food. Her ribeye looked amazing, and the mage’s bowl of pasta certainly looked ample and good enough, but her jaw dropped when Windlock began to all but inhale his food with gusto.

Kristen began to cut into her meat with her fork and knife, while the other two simply used their hands. “I only wish I could have found more,” she said after she’d taken her first mouthful and savored the tender beef. “I’m positive Mrs. Williams knew more but I wasn’t able to coax much out of her. If it really is her daughter—and my gut says it is—she’ll be our best lead.”

“Do you really think a human mother would be a good lead?” Windlock asked.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“Not anything specific. I simply mean that humans have a familial bond we dragons lack. Would your mother be a good lead in a case like this?”

“How would Mrs. Hall react to her daughter killing dragons?” Larry smiled. After all, she had killed dragons.

“My mom would do anything to protect us. She always was like that—my dad too. They were mama and papa bear, fierce to anyone who was mean to us, but my dad was also a cop. If he and my mom thought we’d broken a law? Well, I don’t know. One time, Brian stole a pack of batteries from a grocery store and my mom dragged him back there by his ear and made him personally apologize to every single teller in the whole store. I don’t know if she’d let us be fugitives.”

“Do you think most mothers are like that?”

“Most moms are the mama-bear variety,” Brockton interjected. “My mother would have lied to a cop’s face if it meant keeping us out of trouble, no questions asked. Man, this one time, I had hopped a fence and gone swimming in a pool after hours and the cops arrived. My mom had already busted me, though, and she dumped a bottle of water on my head so they wouldn’t be suspicious of my wet hair.”

In the time it took Larry to tell that story, Windlock had already finished half a chicken. “What steps do you think Pat would take, Kristen?” the investigator asked. “We obviously can’t expect her to dump water on her daughter’s head, but what do you think she will attempt specifically?”

“It’s hard to say but probably the same thing any mom would do,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“No, Kristen, you misunderstand me. My work is mostly with dragons, and our relationship with our parents is often quite different than the relationship you have with your parents. For example, it’s not uncommon to break another dragon’s eggs or steal them and raise them as one’s own. Both actions would be considered horrible to mammals but to dragons, they’re considered practical solutions. How a dragon would react in this situation is irrelevant. What I want to know is how a human mother would respond to this. Let’s assume this is her mother. She’s already demonstrated that she’s willing to lie to a police officer—a powerful police officer I might add—and that she’s hiding her daughter from an investigation into murder. What other steps might such a mother take?”

Kristen thought for a moment as she chewed. “Well, honestly, I think most moms—maybe even my mom—would try to protect their daughter, and that might mean trying to hide them. I’d guess that if anyone knows where that girl is—if she is her daughter—it’s her mother. If she doesn’t know, she’s probably working even harder to find her than we are.”

“Yeah, it makes sense to me, but the thing is that this girl is a mage,” Brockton said. “There really isn’t anywhere that can hide magic effectively.”

“Okay, I don’t mean to be rude but you haven’t found her yet,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s true enough, but that crime scene is twenty-four hours old. She’s probably still recovering. Hell, she might be unconscious somewhere for all we know. Once she uses her power, I’ll be able to locate her.”

“Really?” she asked, a little dubious.

Larry nodded and ate another shrimp. “Yeah, if she’s an untrained rogue mage—and I really do believe all the evidence points to exactly that—she’ll let more magic slip. That’s one of the reasons Constance has been so hard to find. She’s well trained and doesn’t use her magic much of the time as far as I can tell. Or she uses such a small amount that it’s below my ability to detect with this, uh…” He glanced at Windlock and jiggled the silver bracelet on his wrist.

“What does it feel like to sense someone else’s magic?” Kristen asked.

“From what I can tell, it’s like dragons sensing each other’s auras. Sometimes, I can sense dragon auras, especially those who have odd powers. That dragon—Timeflash? She lights up like a streetlamp, for example. You and Windlock not so much. I think it’s because mages and dragons are actually more closely related than most of us think.”

“Do you think mages were descended from dragons or something?” She couldn’t help how her brain seized on a potentially new and intriguing possibility.

Larry shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Magic can manifest in almost anyone, remember? I don’t have a history of magic users in my family tree, yet I have abilities. What I think—and Windlock will disagree here as soon as he stops cramming his face—is that maybe dragons are a type of mage.”

Kristen nodded vaguely—the idea was beyond anything she’d ever considered—but Brockton didn’t slow. He continued to talk, pleased to have an audience while his boss’s mouth was full. “See, there’s no evolutionary history for dragons, right? Like…they have six limbs—four legs and two wings. There’s nothing else on the planet like that. No centaurs or whatever, if you see my meaning.”

“Not really but—”

“I think that’s because dragons—or maybe the first dragon anyway—was a mage who had this transformative ability because of course, dragons are magic. There’s no other way something that big could fly without jet propulsion, no other way you could breathe endless amounts of fire, and hell, no way you could turn to steel if not for some kind of magic. I think it makes sense that dragons are merely another being on the magic spectrum—like a pixie or a dwarf or a mage but obviously way more powerful.”

“And less prone to believe baseless conspiracy theories, too,” Windlock said. He’d cleared his plate and dabbed surprisingly daintily at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “Brockton’s been over all this before. The problem is that it’s a theory that relies on a lack of evidence so it can’t be substantiated one way or the other.”

“There’s not no evidence,” the mage complained, although he grinned. He clearly enjoyed arguing. “There’s merely no fossil evidence.”

“Sure, fine.” Windlock held a hand up in a truce gesture. “But is any of this relevant to the case at hand? Do you think, for example, that this mage can turn into a dragon?”

“Well…no…”

“Then let’s focus on the matter at hand. Kristen asked about your ability to track her. If this young woman uses her powers in town, you’ll discern her, correct?”

Larry nodded. Kristen was sure he would’ve talked his theory to death, but she also knew that he was an experienced professional and the case would take precedence. They had a case to solve and they’d solve it faster if they all knew what their fellow teammates were capable of.

“So yeah,” Brockton continued, “if this mage does anything more than lift a plate, I’ll be able to detect the pulse and that’ll give me a sense of direction.”

“What if it’s another mage?” she asked.

“It’s like dragons’ auras—I’m sure I mentioned this earlier. I’m familiar enough with hers that I won’t confuse them.”

“Crazy theories aside, he’s right about that,” Windlock said.

“Well, what if she doesn’t use her powers?” Kristen asked.

The man shook his head. “Okay, that’s not gonna happen. Of course, it’s possible, I guess. But you saw the raw power she had. There’s no way she can keep it clamped for long, and if she does manage to contain it inside, well…” He once again mimed an explosion with his hands. “She’ll feel it build up in her like an antacid tablet and will be compelled to release that pressure. When she does, I’ll have my lead.”

“You seem confident,” she noted.

He gave her a half-cocked grin. “Detecting magic is kind of my thing.”

She nodded while she tried to put herself in the mother’s place. What would she do if her daughter was suddenly a powerful mage with magic seeping from her? “Maybe the mom will encourage her to run.”

“Run where?” Windlock asked although something in his tone made her think it was a rhetorical question. It seemed an odd response, but she decided now wasn’t the time to explore it too deeply.

“Well, she’d need to get away from dragons, obviously, as well as any other mages so she can avoid detection, right?” the investigator said.

“Yes, it makes sense to me.” Larry nodded.

Kristen pounded the table in frustration. “Yeah, but that doesn’t help us at all. Dragons are everywhere. Even out in Noplace, Maine, we have dragons. There’s nowhere a human could escape a dragon. They rule everything. No offense, Windlock.”

Larry looked at the other dragon and raised an eyebrow.

“Who wants dessert?” the investigator asked.

“I understand it’s need to know but doesn’t this qualify as need to know?” the mage asked.

“Okay,” she said firmly. “Now, you two have to tell me whatever the fuck you’re talking about.”

The mage grinned—this was no doubt his intention—while Windlock clenched his jaw for a moment before he nodded at Brockton.

“Dragons don’t quite rule everything,” Larry said. “There were two human rebellions, remember?”

“Yeah, sure, but the mages who led those rebellions lost both of them.” Kristen tried to quell her frustration. Everyone knew that.

“The mages lost, but there were winners too,” he continued. “After the first rebellion, the dwarves—having been created by the mages—were given Canada to rule themselves if they would stay out of dragon territory.”

“And you think she might try to make it to Canada?” she asked, suddenly very thankful she’d put the BOLO out.

“If you think she needs to run…” Windlock replied and shrugged.

“I don’t know how far she’d have to actually go.” Larry leaned forward conspiratorially. “This is all classified, of course—and for once, I actually agree with this being need to know or whatever—but…well, there’s something of an ‘underground railway’ for mages that runs into northern Canada.”

“How do you know?” Kristen asked.

“They tried to contact him, didn’t they, Brockton?” Windlock said.

The mage nodded. “That they did. They contacted me after my powers first surfaced. I have no idea how they found out. Maybe one of them saw me do something in my shop or something, but I got a call asking if I wanted to go.”

“And you said no?”

“Well, at this point, I hadn’t heard from the dragons yet, so I declined. I assumed I could simply continue to work at the store, only I wouldn’t have to hurt my back when I swept. Before too long, the dragons contacted me and said join up or be eaten. That’s when I thought it might be best to go with the dwarven railroad but of course, by then, it was much more complicated. I might’ve been caught by dragons. It was good Windlock found me and convinced me to stay. I’ve worked for him in exchange for seafood baskets and protection ever since.” He smiled at his dragon boss.

“Would it have been that bad to run?” She frowned as she considered his options and wondered what she might have decided if she’d been in his shoes. “You would have left dragon territory. What’s wrong with that?”

Windlock shook his head. “It's known the dwarves have managed to hide a few mages up in the north, where few dragons go—”

“They don’t like it because there aren’t enough humans,” Larry interjected. “They prefer to be around big human populations. It’s more interesting and provides better servant possibilities.” He winked.

“But there’s a difference between a few mages hiding up north and an underground railroad funneling potential mages away. The North American Council’s policy is to stop fleeing mages.”

“Why?” Kristen asked.

“Because dragons feel like they must control all mages or they risk another mage-dragon war,” Brockton said with a shrug. “It almost sounds altruistic until you remember that they also use us to take their notes.” He made a pen float up and sign the check for the food to prove his point.

“What happens to mages who are caught running?” she asked with real dread that she already knew the answer.

“They're killed,” Windlock said without a smile.

“That’s fucking horrible.” She was unable to keep the scowl off her face or the fury out of her aura.

“Hey now, you’re right, it’s messed up, but it’s not Windlock’s fault. I could’ve run and would probably have been caught and killed, but there were already a number of dragons who wanted to kill me even if I didn’t run,” the mage explained. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? To have a dragon appear out of nowhere and argue for your life after three other dragons threatened to take it?”

“It doesn’t sound fun,” she admitted.

“That’s the truth, right there.” Larry grinned. “But that was what Windlock did for me. He argued for my life even though the powers that be definitely wanted it taken. Even now, he’s all right. Yeah, I have to wear this bracelet, but so does every mage who can do anything more than lift a piece of paper. That’s not his fault. Plus, he pays for dinners out of his pocket.” He winked at his boss yet again, who rolled his eyes.

“You’re right, I guess,” Kristen said and nodded in understanding. That black-and-white voice within tried to protest, but she pushed it aside because she caught something of what he tried to explain.

“All our hands are tied in one way or another by centuries of dragon law and dragon rulership,” Windlock said. “Yes, I admit, dragons have the best of that deal, but it doesn’t mean we have complete freedom either—and I don’t only mean having to make reparations if humans are hurt. If I were to try to walk away from this job or send Brockton to Canada, I would have to answer for that.”

“Fair enough. I guess, when you think about it, patriarchy is like the human equivalent of dragon rule,” she said, a little surprised by the thought. “It sounds like it benefits men the most, but there are men who suffer from it, and many women reinforce it as well.”

“Yeah.” Brockton nodded. “I sometimes wonder what would happen to dragon society if all the mages stopped doing magic for them. Civil disobedience, wizard-style.”

Windlock chuckled at the idea. “Most of us don’t know how to cook our own food, let alone clean up after ourselves. If you all did that, dragon society would fall apart in three days.”

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” she asked, perhaps not completely rhetorically.

“You mean if the established social order the entire world has functioned under for centuries simply collapsed?” The investigator’s tone left her in no doubt as to what his answer to that was.

She shrugged. “I guess that, to me, it seems like this whole mess will collapse sooner or later.”

“You don’t sound particularly sorry about the idea of that,” Windlock challenged.

Kristen only shrugged again and tried to hide a devilish smirk. She did not want a war, but if dragon control of the world simply dissolved? That didn’t sound so bad.

She was pulled from her anarchic fantasy when her phone rang and picked it up quickly.

“Who is it?” Larry mouthed silently.

“Local police,” she replied and answered the call.

“Lady Steel, ma’am?” She recognized the voice as the man she’d spoken to earlier.

“What do you have, officer?”

“Someone picked that plate up.”

“That’s great! Could you give me the address for where it was seen?”

“Uh…er… Well see, the thing about that is—”

“Where was the truck seen?”

“It was crossing into Canada.”

“It was seen going into Canada?” Kristen was shocked. Yes, they’d thought that was a possibility, but none of them had expected the mage to already be on the move.

“Yes, ma’am. The driver was a twenty-something female. It crossed where twenty-seven turns into QC one-six-one.”

“Wait, she crossed? You didn’t stop her?” Kristen asked.

“Uh…yes, ma’am. I mean, no ma’am. We didn’t stop her, ma’am. You said it was a BOLO or whatever and that she was dangerous and not to apprehend.”

She dragged in a deep breath. He was right, of course, but she might have given different instructions if she’d realized the mage intended to head for the border so quickly. “Okay, thank you.” She hung up and related what she’d learned to her companions.

“That has to be the mage, don’t you think?” Brockton said.

Windlock didn’t answer and simply looked at her.

“I agree. I don’t see why the mom would leave town, and the idea of her giving the truck to someone else to send us on a wild goose chase is a little much.” Kristen pushed from the table and the other two stood and followed her out of the restaurant.

In the parking lot, much to her dismay, Timbergust and the four members of Boston SWAT walked across the asphalt toward the restaurant.

“Do you have any leads?” Emberslight—the Boston team’s leader—asked.

“A few possibilities but nothing concrete yet,” she answered before Windlock could say anything. Fortunately, the investigator didn’t contradict her and merely gave a non-committal shrug.

“Are you sure about that?” Bronzeback sneered. “I saw you move quickly after that phone call.”

“That’s enough, Bronzeback,” Emberslight snapped, and her subordinate fell quiet. Kristen noticed that Timbergust now watched her more closely than he had before. “We have the bodies bagged, and they’re being sent back to their estates,” Emberslight told them. “We have a team of human and mage guards on high alert.”

“Let us know if we can help,” Timbergust added. He still looked shaken. Obviously, the dragon had totally lost control of the situation.

“We will,” Windlock replied.

The Boston team leader led the other dragons into the restaurant.

“Why didn’t you want to tell them?” the investigator demanded as soon as the door had closed behind the dragons. He simultaneously made his aura seem disinterested so if the others tried to sense them, they wouldn’t think he was particularly agitated.

“Sorry, but I don’t really know them and wanted to know what you think they’ll do if they catch this woman—the mage.”

“She’s a fleeing mage,” he said dispassionately.

“Who already killed two dragons.” Larry’s voice throat caught in his throat. “Even Windlock couldn’t argue a mage’s life out of something like that.”

“That’s what I was worried about,” Kristen said and frowned. “Windlock, I want to try something and I’m sure you’ll say it’s not a good idea or whatever, but… Well, I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Why do I already not like the sound of this?” he asked.

“How about we don’t tell the other dragons and see if we can get her to come in peacefully with us?”

“They’d never go for that,” Brockton interjected.

“They might if we bring her back with that bracelet Windlock has in his pocket wrapped around her wrist.”

The other dragon grimaced, then reached in his pocket and removed the bracelet she had seen him put there while in his office. He tossed it and caught it a few times. “That’s a huge breach of protocol,” he said finally.

“Protocol being to hunt this woman down like a rabid dog and kill her?” She growled her obvious disapproval.

“I didn’t say I was opposed to the idea,” he retorted, “only that it’s a breach of protocol. But…well… I don’t know.”

Larry seized the opportunity to add his encouragement. “Her powers have only now manifested. She probably didn’t even mean to kill those dragons.”

Windlock nodded.

“Plus,” Kristen added hastily, “I might be able to talk to her. I know what it’s like to be a regular human and suddenly have these crazy powers and be thrust into a whole new life. I think we can do this. Larry can track her magic, you can help deal with dwarves in Canada, and I can talk to the mage. It’s worth a shot.”

The investigator remained silent for a long moment, his face drawn in thought before he finally nodded. “This might all blow up in our face, of course. Protocol exists for a reason, but…morally, I think you’re right. However—” Windlock tossed the bracelet to her and she caught it without thinking. “This won’t work unless you bring her in. We’ll back you up, of course, but I think you’re right in that you’ll have to take point on this.”

“I understand,” she agreed but with real reluctance. She didn’t like the feeling of the bracelet in her hand. It was strangely heavy, and she found she couldn’t turn the part of her hand that touched it into steel. Aside from that, it was discomforting to realize that her indignant rejection of what still seemed akin to slavery had been somehow fuzzed by reality. While part of her protested what might be considered compromising her moral high ground, the facts left her with a difficult choice. Even she was forced to acknowledge that shackling the woman was better than killing her.

“You also understand that if this goes south, we’ll have to eliminate her before she blows something up, don’t you?”

“I thought you said dwarves were tough when it came to fire?” she asked.

“There are people in Canada too. If she can’t be brought in, she could kill more than two dragons.”

Kristen nodded. She didn’t like it, but she understood what he was saying. “If it comes to that, I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Windlock held her gaze for a minute, finally saw what he liked, and nodded. “Let me check in with the other dragons and tell them we’ll follow those possible leads you mentioned.”

He entered the restaurant, exchanged a few words with Emberslight and Timbergust, and emerged moments later.

“Are we good?” Larry asked.

“They agreed but they had to, of course. I outrank them. Although there was something in Timbergust’s aura… I think he knows this is all getting away from him and he’s worried he’ll lose his post. We’ll need to be careful.”

“Sure,” Kristen agreed.

The two dragons transformed and Brockton climbed onto Windlock’s back. They took to the air, but rather than heading north over the forest toward the place at the Canadian border where the mage had crossed, the investigator led them south toward the crime scene.

“We can’t let them know we’re heading to the border,” he explained.

She nodded politely at first—although she thought he was simply being paranoid. When she glanced at the parking lot where they’d transformed, however, Bronzeback and Timbergust both stood outside and watched them.

While she didn’t know if they were suspicious, simply curious, or what, she could tell that they were less than trusting. She couldn’t decide if they didn’t trust her, Windlock, or Larry, but it was obvious now that she’d made the right call. If she didn’t reach this mage before the other dragons did, she knew it wouldn’t be pretty for anyone. They had to save this girl before anyone else was hurt.

CHAPTER TEN

The new warehouse wasn’t as good as the last one, Constance Vigil had remarked when they’d first moved in, but it had grown on her. It was near the old boatyard in Detroit and still held a few old boats that had been abandoned and left to rot decades before. They’d patched the roof when they’d arrived but not moved the boats. Nor did she intend to. For whatever reason, she rather liked them.

Once they’d checked the perimeter, they’d set to work manufacturing more dragon weapons. Their bullets had come a long way since the early versions. They’d learned that the best way to make them was to carve them out of an entire tooth, claw, or bone. It involved considerable carving, but her cell of mages was adept at the work.

What was more exciting was that they’d discovered they could use what was left from carving the bullets to make bombs. True, Kristen had ruined their attempt to blow up the Dragon Council’s party, but the bomb had struck the Steel Dragon and proven that it was effective even against dragons with unusual strengths.

There were members of her cell who were annoyed that she had “let” her bulletproof armor be taken by the Steel Dragon, who had used it to protect herself from the bomb and save her life, but she still counted the event as a victory. After all, they’d confirmed that there was a use for the leftover dragon pieces and had struck fear into the hearts of dragon kind. It wasn’t bad for a night’s work.

They’d moved twice since then and hopefully, would be there long enough to harvest their source once more before they moved on. Constance preferred to occupy new hideouts with as large a supply of raw materials on hand as possible. Idle hands were the devil’s plaything, as the expression went, and that was doubly true for mages determined to destroy dragon kind.

As it was, they had almost run out of materials to work with, and some of her team had already become restless.

“It’s almost grown back what we need,” Vindication said, one of her more trusted mages.

Constance shook her head and didn’t bother to look up from the bullet she worked on. “If we harvest early, the bullets might be too small. We’ll waste a whole week of growth.”

“I don’t see how it’s a waste. Letting it keep all its teeth seems like the waste to me.”

“I said no, Vindication. I want more high-caliber rounds. We have what we need for handguns. I want to show these dragons they’re never safe. I want to strike without being seen.”

“Fine,” he huffed. For such a big man, he really could pout. “I’ll only take some scales then. It doesn’t need those, not in the fluid we keep it suspended in.”

“We’ll harvest the scales on the regular schedule, Vindication. If we take too many, we might cause its regenerative properties to slow or even stop. Then, we’d no longer have a goose that lays golden eggs.”

He scowled. “There’s a solution for that too. Our sources say the Steel Dragon left Detroit. Now would be a good time to attack another target.”

“It’s still too close to the party. The whole city will be on high alert. Wait—wait, turn that up!” She pointed to a television playing a cable news channel.

One of the mages fetched the remote and turned up the news story.

“—making sure that the Dragon Council pays its due after a dragon duel became double murder.”

The camera cut from a peppy reporter to the corpses of two dead dragons.

“I thought we were supposed to keep a low profile,” Vindication joked. “Is that your work or is someone from one of the other cells stealing your thunder?”

“Be quiet and let me listen,” Constance said and listened as the reporter talked about a ruined house and a small town coming together and blah, blah, blah.

“So, was it you?”

“No, it wasn’t me. I’ve been here, you dolt. I don’t think it was one of the other cells either, though. We don’t have anyone in Maine.” She glanced at their map of the United States. Cities with cells were marked in red and indeed, exactly as she remembered, there was nothing at all in Maine. There weren’t any cities big enough.

“They did it to each other, though, right?” one of the other mages asked, a new recruit. Constance was glad for the extra muscle but some of them were so much less observant that she needed them to be.

“Did you see those bodies?” she demanded and fixed the man with a hard look. “Those dragons both died because their healing powers were overloaded. It looks like someone brought a building down on their heads. That wasn’t done by a dragon. They go for the heart or the neck. Something else did this.”

“Do you think we should try to get those bodies?” Vindication licked his lips in anticipation.

Constance held her hand up and barely managed to not blast him with a gust of icy wind to make him shut up.

The Steel Dragon was on the TV now. The technomage leader cursed under her breath while Kristen talked to the reporter about how the dragons had killed each other and how the Dragon Council would pay for the damages. It had been a surprise to see her there, but now that she saw the woman was at the location of another dead dragon, she wasn’t surprised. It seemed that when she wasn’t the one killing dragons like Death or Obscura, she stopped them from being killed. How could one person simultaneously serve the mage’s cause and thwart it so effectively?

“Do you think we should eliminate the Steel Dragon?” Vindication asked when the news clip ended. “She might make an easier target without the rest of Detroit SWAT around.”

She wished she had an easy answer to that question. Again and again, Kristen had stood in the way of her realizing her plans. It wasn’t a stretch to say that without her, a war between dragons and mages would have already started. Her existence was antithetical to her goals and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to order her execution. She was the only dragon who stood up to the others. She really was a champion of people. Constance still wanted her to join them, to fight for the liberation of humans from the yoke of dragon oppression. It was a pipedream, maybe, but a dream all the same.

It also didn’t help that she still felt responsible for the girl. That kind of thing tended to happen when you cradled a newborn infant in your arms.

“No, we won’t kill the Steel Dragon. We don’t have the resources for a mission like that.”

“You’re biased—”

“She knows about us in a way most dragons don’t. We won’t surprise her like we can others.”

“So you’ll simply let her waltz around up there?”

Constance shook her head. “We won’t do that either. She may one day be an ally, but you’re right, we need to treat her like a threat—for now. And that means we can’t let her secure whoever this killer of dragons is before we do.”

“You mean…” Vindication grinned.

"Pack up," she told her team. "We're going on a trip."

Smiles touched the faces of all the technomages. None of them particularly minded harvest and construction—as they called their home-base chores—but there was nothing quite like being out on the hunt.

“You two stay behind and move our golden goose in a few days,” she told two of her team. “Everyone else, I want to be out of here within the hour.”

“I understand that you think we can still sway the Steel Dragon, but that doesn’t mean we should leave dragon bullets behind, right?” Vindication said. For him, that practically counted as polite.

She clenched her jaw. While she didn’t want to kill the Steel Dragon, if she got in their way again, what choice did she have? If Kristen—she reminded herself it was better to think of her as the Steel Dragon—continued to stop them, the technomages would grow restless and begin to question their leader’s commitment to the cause. After all, she’d taught them to judge everyone’s actions and to look for those who would help or hurt them everywhere. She wasn’t above their judgment.

“Yes. Yes, bring the new rounds.”

There was no way to know whether they’d need to use them or not, but she’d be damned if the Steel Dragon ruined her plans again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Once they had covered a few miles south of town, Windlock led Kristen higher and higher to avoid detection. At what he called cruising altitude, they turned north to Canada. She pumped her wings powerfully to test their limits before she slowed to fly alongside her partner. With the long flight ahead and possibly combat—although she obviously hoped it didn’t come to that—she wanted to determine what she was capable of. While she could sense that her powers weren’t completely restored, her healing had certainly progressed noticeably over the last few days. Hopefully, that would continue.

“So what’s the plan?” Larry asked from his boss’ back. He had raised a sphere of magic to protect him from the wind and the cold.

“She’s obviously powerful and a clear threat to dragons, so I don’t think we should start a fight,” the investigator said.

“I second that,” Kristen agreed, thankful that he would let her apprehend this woman peacefully if possible.

“I think our best bet is to take her by surprise. Brockton can contain her magic—”

“Yeah, right!”

“Or at least keep it directed away from us,” Windlock continued. “Then Lady Steel can block the road with her steel skin, and I’ll scoop the car up and take her into the air. She won’t know how to levitate herself yet so hopefully, once she’s airborne, she’ll stop any attempts to attack.”

“It sounds solid,” Larry said.

“I don’t think that’s a good plan.” She made an attempt to phrase it kindly, although she believed it was a terrible plan. “I think it would be better to talk to her first instead of trying to snatch her. We should win her trust and convince her to come with us willingly. If she sees us as a threat, she’s far more likely to attack us.”

“That’s why we need to surprise her. She can’t see us as a threat if she can’t see us coming at all,” the other dragon replied.

“And if Larry can’t contain her? What if she ends up hurting herself?” she protested.

“That’s a risk we have to take.” Windlock’s tone was firm. “I understand that she’s a victim in this, but we can’t give her any chance to attack us. She killed two dragons. That’s not easy to do, not even for a dragon. The longer she’s on the run—scared and probably not thinking clearly because of human fight or flight hormones—the higher the chance she hurts innocent bystanders, be they dragon, human, or dwarf.”

“So let’s talk to her and get her calm,” she argued.

“I agree with Kristen. We should talk to her and hopefully bring her to a place where she can control her powers,” Larry said.

“Thank you,” she said but the mage continued to talk.

“But I also agree with Windlock. The longer she goes uncuffed, the more dangerous she becomes, to herself, to us, and to anyone near her. We need to bring her into custody, get her powers under control, then talk to her. Believe me, Kristen. I don’t want her to die and making sure she has a cuff on is the best way to ensure that.”

“I’m simply not sure—”

“Let’s vote on it,” the investigator said.

She glanced at Larry, who nodded, and she knew how the vote would go. It was basically a power move from Windlock to give a human a vote he knew would go his way. It was both empowering to humankind and disempowering to her. And clever, she acknowledged, which left her resentful—not only that she’d been outmaneuvered but because he’d done it so easily.

“I vote we talk to her first,” she said.

“And I vote we surprise her, cuff her, and prove we’re friends once it’s safe,” the other dragon said.

“I vote with Windlock.” Brockton’s choice came as no surprise.

“Fine,” she agreed, although she still didn’t like the plan. She tried to think of another way she could dissuade them, but the mage spoke suddenly and there was no time to argue any further.

“I sensed her!”

“Where?” Windlock asked.

“Ahead. Follow the highway.”

They’d crossed the Canadian border—not that the forest below seemed to care—and continued north for a short distance when they located her. The red Chevrolet raced along the side of a lake. The body of water looked narrow from this height, but Kristen was familiar enough with the dragon perspective to know it was actually quite wide.

“Here we go,” the investigator said and dropped from their altitude to move above the truck.

Kristen surged ahead.

She felt a pulse of something like a dragon aura and realized it was Larry’s magic. He’d cast one of his protective spheres around the truck, and the girl hadn’t seemed to notice.

This might actually work, she thought as she landed on the highway a couple of miles ahead of the vehicle.

If her companion could get it airborne, the mage might decide not to fight.

The other dragon dove suddenly and with the speed and deftness of an eagle, hooked his claws through the roof of the vehicle. A flash of light from inside the cab was probably a blast of magic from the mage, but Larry’s spell held. Windlock pumped his wings and lifted it off the road.

Kristen held her breath, unable to fully comprehend that it seemed to be working. Brockton had contained the girl and the investigator had been able to sneak close enough without her noticing.

Windlock lifted the truck five feet, then ten, and she allowed herself a smile of relief.

Another flash erupted inside the cab but this one was not contained by Larry’s shield. It blew through it and into the night sky like a bolt of lightning that seemed to be made of pure force. The dragon barely moved his head out of the way in time, but he kept his claws latched in the metal and tried to go higher.

The mage obviously didn’t know she’d disabled Larry’s shield around her, only that despite her attempt to wound the dragon above her, she was still rising. Understandably, given the circumstances, she reacted violently. Kristen gaped in equal parts terror and awe as the woman spun her hands in a circle and released a ring of force that severed the top of the truck from the bottom like it was made of Styrofoam.

Windlock continued to pump his wings to lift the vehicle and suddenly rocketed up from the unanticipated change in mass with nothing but the roof of the cab in his claws.

The vehicle fell the ten feet to the ground, bounced mightily, and landed on its wheels. It skidded and slewed wildly for a moment before it straightened and continued to race forward without a top.

Kristen realized she had a choice. She could turn her dragon body to steel and simply block the road. The mage might be able to lash out with some kind of force and strike her, but she didn’t seem to have the control yet to simply move her. Plus, when she was in her steel form, she weighed tons. If she did that, the woman would definitely collide with her. She could be hurt and perhaps killed, but she’d most likely be stopped unless Larry had totally misjudged her skill with magic.

The other alternative was to simply step aside. She could let her go, spare her life, and try to bring her in again using a different approach.

She had only seconds to decide and chose neither. Instead, she turned into her human form—but kept her steel skin because she wasn’t a complete fool—and held her hands above her head to show the woman driving the vehicle that she meant her no harm.

Come on, come on. See that I’m different than them. She pushed her aura at the girl in an effort to calm her. See that I mean you no harm and that I don’t want to hurt you. I only want you to be safe.

Unfortunately, the woman had one more trick up her sleeve. Moments before the seemingly inevitable impact, she swerved sharply. The tires skidded before she regained control and accelerated past.

It all happened so fast that Kristen instinctively flung herself to the side of the road. She landed, rolled, and pushed up as the taillights vanished around a turn.

“Come on, Lady Steel. It’s time for plan B,” Windlock said as he circled overhead and descended to alight beside her.

Kristen nodded. Both their plans had failed. They wouldn’t surprise the mage again and it didn’t seem like they had a chance to befriend her either.

Still, she had to be stopped. She only hoped the woman wouldn’t be hurt in the process.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Amy had no idea what the hell had happened. Obviously, dragons had attacked her, but it didn’t exactly encourage confidence that the simple truth of that was the only part she really understood.

Her mind tried to piece it all together and she recalled that she’d been driving fast when one of them had grasped the roof. She hadn’t tried to use whatever powers she apparently possessed. It seemed safe to assume they were magic. Her mom had said she was a mage, which meant what she’d done was magic. It had been purely instinctual, however, and not a deliberate choice. She’d wished the dragon would go away and her powers had listened.

Not at first, though, she realized and let her thoughts explore the vague memory.

Something had blocked her—a sphere of the same kind of force she had used to hurt the dragons she’d thought had killed her parents. Thankfully, her mom and dad were still alive, although this made the death of the dragons even more troubling and stirred a definite surge of guilt. The moral implications weren’t important right now, she reminded herself as she eased up on the gas pedal to take a turn.

She checked her mirror. The dragon who’d transformed into a woman in the road had made no effort to follow. Why wasn’t she chasing her? Amy knew they could catch her if they wanted to. That was obvious. She’d driven as fast as she could from the moment her mom had told her to flee and they had still caught up. There weren’t speed limits in the air, so they had nothing to hold them back.

The car tires screeched, and she jerked the wheel but overcompensated and the back of the vehicle began to slide out. Please stay on the road. The thought had barely formed when her powers obeyed her.

The same thing had happened when she’d almost collided with the woman dragon—the Steel Dragon, her mom had said. She’d lost control and tried to regain it, and something besides her driving skills had saved her. A force—her magic, she tried to tell herself—had reached out from inside her and applied pressure to the back of the vehicle to align it. Once it stopped its skid, the tires caught, and the truck surged forward.

Amy laughed. It was fucking insane, but she laughed. A dragon had ripped the roof of her truck off, a mage had tried to trap her in a bubble, she’d almost run over a dragon, and she now steered her truck with her mind. It was crazy. She knew these things existed. Everyone knew dragons and mages existed, but that it was happening to her was unbelievable.

A road sign indicated that Marsboro was coming up soon. She had checked the map before she left and remembered the city because she’d thought it sounded like a cigarette company. It was a fair distance from Thetford Mines and she cursed. She still had miles to go before she reached her destination. Once she did make it there, she’d have to find a dwarf, convince him that she was who she said she was, and accept his help to hide from a group of pissed-off dragons. It didn’t sound easy, especially given the dragons already in pursuit.

But what was their intention? Amy had assumed they’d try to kill her. She hadn’t been surprised to be lifted by the one dragon. After all, she’d proven that fire wouldn’t work on her, so they had to use other means. But why hadn’t they struck? The Steel Dragon could have transformed into her dragon body and become steel. If she’d done that, it was very unlikely that she could have survived the collision. She could use these new powers reflexively, but the idea of saving herself from a car crash sounded impossible.

Surely the Steel Dragon could have made that same assumption. It stood to reason that she was far more familiar with magic than Amy was.

And there was what she’d done. She’d held her hands up—not in front of her but above her head, the same way a cop would ask a criminal to hold their hands to show they wouldn’t try to hurt them. Had she been trying to tell her something? Could she be certain she was an enemy?

A major realization intruded to end that particular series of questions. She had bigger problems than a dragon who might not want to murder her, namely any other dragons who might. Her mom had mentioned Timbergust. Would he feel differently? If he decided to hunt her, he’d probably find her far easier than the Steel Dragon had.

After all, the roof of her truck had been ripped off. Her current pursuers had seen the vehicle when it was still intact but now that it was a makeshift convertible classic truck, it didn’t exactly blend in.

Amy drove for a few more minutes and checked her mirror repeatedly. Fortunately, it was attached to the top of the windshield. Any higher and it would be gone. Despite her caution, she didn’t see the dragons approach and she didn’t feel any of the magic bubbles try to trap her either. It seemed like she had an opportunity and she decided to take it. When she reached Marsboro, she drove through it and exited near the last gas station on the outskirts of the city. She didn’t have any idea if the dragons were still in pursuit but she felt like they were breathing down her neck.

As calmly as she could, she drove behind a little grocery store, parked beside a dumpster, and slid out.

She rifled through the glovebox for the maps and cash. “Thanks, Mom,” she mumbled, took the keys with her, and hoped she could return them to her mother one day. The bag of clothes and sundries her mom had packed for her wasn’t too heavy, thank goodness, and she slung it over her shoulder.

After another furtive look around her—including a scan of the skies above—she wandered casually to the gas station.

An eighteen-wheeler filling up caught her attention. Amy nodded as the driver clambered in and she hurried to the edge of the parking lot, where she stood and hooked her thumb toward the on-ramp.

The trucker pulled up and rolled his window down. “You looking for a ride, eh?”

“Yes, sir. I need to reach Thetford Mines,” she replied and tried to sound polite.

“Thetford Mines, eh? It’s your lucky day. I’m headed to Quebec City. Thetford Mines is on my way. Hop in.”

“Thank you, sir.” She climbed into the cab and they continued north.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“What happened to the plan?” Windlock demanded, still in dragon form. He didn’t yell but he had the voice of someone who was used to being obeyed and hadn’t been in a situation where failure seemed to be the result of the fact that someone didn’t respond as expected. It was a voice Kristen knew all too well and didn’t like.

“The plan was for me to land and force her to stop. She didn’t stop.” She tried not to sound defensive.

“The plan was for you to stay in dragon form with your steel skin activated. If she had been confronted by a steel dragon instead of a human, she’d have had to stop.” His tone was biting.

“Or she might have driven into me!”

“We both know you would have been fine. I’ve seen many regular dragons shrug off being struck by a car, even if it was one of the old heavy American ones, and you’re the Steel Dragon. You would have crumpled that vehicle like a can of soda pop,” Larry exclaimed from Windlock’s back. He wiped his nose and she realized it was bleeding.

“You’re right, the truck would have been destroyed and she would probably have died. Are you okay, by the way?” she added. She hadn’t seen him get hit but it was possible.

“Yeah, I’m fine. This happens sometimes when a mage goes head-to-head with another one. If they overpower our powers, it often sends a shock through the body. It only gave me a nosebleed because I was able to deflect most of her energy. She really is strong, though.”

Windlock shook his head and his aura radiated disappointment. “Yet another reason why we need to catch this mage,” he explained slowly. “I agree, alive is preferable, and our plan gave her two chances to come in willingly, but she’s murdered two dragons. If she won’t surrender voluntarily, we need to bring her in by force. If it has to be lethal, it has to be lethal.”

“She didn’t murder those dragons. She acted in self-defense.”

“They didn’t kill anyone, yet she still used lethal force,” he pointed out.

“That doesn’t matter. They all but obliterated her house and attempted to incinerate her. If someone tries to shoot you and you return fire and kill them, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t self-defense. Practically any lawyer could make her case into a win. I agree she needs to be brought in but if we kill her, we deny her justice, which she is entitled to.”

Brockton chose that moment to have a coughing fit and turn away from her, but not before she saw the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile. He was, apparently, stifling a laugh.

Kristen looked at him for a moment. “What is it, Larry?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.

She looked at Windlock. “What? What dragon rules am I missing now?”

The investigator at least had the decency to look uncomfortable—not exactly an easy thing in the body of a fire-breathing dragon.

“There’s no such thing as a valid killing of a dragon by a human on the basis of self-defense,” the mage said ruefully. “If a human kills a dragon, they're hunted and generally killed. Any human that powerful is a threat to all dragon kind and is treated as such. They would’ve killed me too if I’d done what Amy had done.”

“You can’t be serious.” She recoiled instinctively from the idea.

“Do you think I’d joke about this?” Larry’s voice was strained.

“We’re supposed to pursue justice, not vengeance.”

“I agree,” Windlock said.

“So this whole chase is nonsense, then? She’s killed, so when we catch her, you’ll simply kill her?” Kristen transformed into her dragon form. She couldn’t help herself. Had Windlock lied to her this whole time? She’d thought that he worked with her, but what if he had manipulated her like Shadowstorm had done? A growled protest emerged at the thought. She didn’t want to fight him, but if he told her their intention was to kill this rogue mage, she couldn’t allow that either.

“I want to bring her in alive. Really, I do,” the investigator said and his aura radiated calm. He didn’t want to fight her either. “But we have to hurry. Eventually, the other dragon SWAT team will get a lead on the mage and go after her. All they have to do is ask the local police force, and they’ll tell them exactly what they told you. I’m only frustrated because we could have captured her already. If you’d stayed in your dragon form, she might have stopped.”

“And she might have kept driving and killed herself.”

“You’re correct, and that was a risk I thought we all understood,” he said slowly. “I understand that you don’t want her to die, but we can’t play this safe and take our time. When the other dragon team realizes that she fled, they will come after her and I promise you, they won't hunt to capture.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Once in the air, they found the abandoned truck easily enough. Kristen would have probably missed it—parked as it was behind a grocery store—but Larry was able to sense it.

“There she blows,” he said, pointed toward the vehicle, and made it glow with his magic. “She’s learned a thing or two about subtlety—and by that I mean she didn’t obliterate that entire stretch of highway like she could have—but she’s still left an insane amount of magical residue behind.”

They landed and poked around but it was immediately obvious that the woman wasn’t there. Even without the roof missing, there was nowhere to hide, and the glove box was open and looked like it had been looted.

“I’ll go in and see if the grocery store has camera footage from this area,” Kristen said.

Windlock looked at Larry and the mage waved the suggestion away. “Nah, that’ll take too long. This is still fresh. I should be able to discover something about what happened.”

“Sure,” she said as the mage sat on the pavement near the dumpster, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes. Once again, a mist descended and through it, she saw the now familiar figure of the young mage wander toward the gas station.

“Follow her,” Larry said, his voice strained.

The two dragons did so and sprinted from behind the store toward a gas station. The misty wraith version of the mage looked around and moved to the access ramp to the freeway before she stepped from the misty area Brockton had created and vanished.

The mist dissipated, and a moment later, the mage joined them. He was breathless but not drenched in sweat like he had been when he’d recreated the scene of the fight that had killed two dragons. One of his nostrils had resumed bleeding, though. She realized then that there was some kind of price to using magic. Maybe it wasn’t anything more than the energy an athlete expended while exercising but still, him recreating the scene had been enough to start his nose bleeding again.

“She went that way, huh?” he asked and wiped his nose on his sleeve when he saw that she stared at him. “Sorry about that. The clot came loose.”

“I don’t understand.” Windlock had taken his human form and his eyebrows were furrowed. “She’s walking down the highway?”

This time, it was Kristen and Larry who shared a look and a grin.

“She’s probably hitching,” she said.

“It makes sense,” Larry agreed. “A young woman wouldn’t have a hard time finding a ride from someone.”

“You humans.” Windlock chuckled. “You go through the effort of registering every one of your vehicles so you know exactly who is driving each of them, but then you lend the vehicles to each other or give each other rides. What is the point of registering the vehicles in the first place?”

The mage laughed but she ignored him while she checked a map on her phone. “Do you think she’d go to Quebec City?” she asked. “It’s the biggest city in the direction she’s heading and this road goes there.”

“Maybe,” the investigator said. “But there are probably a few dragons there, so maybe not.”

“I thought this was dwarf country.” She looked at him in confusion.

“It is, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t dragons here too. Which is lucky for us, really, otherwise us flying overhead might draw a few more eyes than we’d like.”

“Is she in danger?” she asked.

“The dragons here won’t move against her or anything, but I don’t think this dwarven railroad will be stationed near them either.”

“Do you mind if I see that map?” Larry asked.

Kristen handed them the phone.

His eyes widened as soon as he saw the screen. “Thetford Mines. That’s where she’s going. I’d bet my pinky toe.”

“What makes you so sure?” Windlock asked.

“When they tried to get me out of the States, that was the destination,” he said.

“You never told me that,” his boss countered.

The mage shrugged. “When we first met and that information was still somewhat relevant, I thought you would eat me if I didn’t listen to you. What kind of a person would I be if I had revealed the whereabouts of a group of people who wanted to help people like me at the first opportunity?”

“I’m merely…impressed, is all.” Windlock muttered. “I didn’t know you had any secrets after all these years.”

“Don’t be mad, you old windbag. I trust you. I told you that’s where she’s going, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Which means you’ll need to keep the location a secret as well,” Kristen said. “We can’t have Investigator Windlock spilling the beans about these people’s only escape.”

The dragon looked perplexed. For a moment, he said nothing but he finally nodded. “That’s fair, I think. If she’s headed there, we need to intercept before she arrives. I was serious about what I said earlier. Boston SWAT and Timbergust will come after us, I have no doubt. Timbergust has something to prove and Emberslight is too competent to let us and the mage vanish without her knowing about it.”

“Are you considering a roadblock?” Larry asked.

Windlock nodded. “I have a contact in the Mounties. If we tell him we have a mage who killed two dragons, he’ll cooperate. Even though this is dwarf country, no one wants to openly harbor fugitives from the Dragon Council. It’s not good politics.”

They waited for him to talk to his Mountie. After a few minutes, they decided on a roadblock north of Saint-Joseph-de-Coleraine. It was something of a gamble as whoever was driving the rogue mage might have taken a different path, but it seemed like the most logical choice. They took to the air and followed the highway north.

The team soared over the truck Amy was in without being alerted to her presence. Now that she had been given a ride, she could relax and her magic remained dormant until she called on it again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The investigators arrived at the location outside Saint-Joseph-de-Coleraine and made their way to the roadblock. The officer who met them—the Mountie Windlock knew—had a thin, crisp, mustache and the faintest of French accents. Despite facing two dragons and a mage, he didn’t so much as flinch.

“Investigator, I would say this is a pleasure, but it never is with you,” the man said.

“Antoine.” Windlock nodded at the man in his red uniform, odd black pants, and brown hat. “Did you get us uniforms?”

“I did, and you may wear them as long as you hold yourself to a higher standard than usual.” He glanced at Brockton. “For you, I do not have a hat. You have lost the honor.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Larry grumbled. There was obviously a story there, but now wasn’t the time for it. Kristen and Windlock went into a nearby gas station to change.

She didn’t like the idea of impersonating someone from another force, but she agreed with Windlock that this was probably the best way to bring the mage in without frightening her too much. She imagined it would be a novel thing to see Mounties stop them, but two people in civilian clothing might be odd. That was the hope, anyway.

Once dressed, they returned to the roadblock. The two Mounties Antoine had selected for duty fulfilled their responsibilities professionally but waved most of the drivers through enthusiastically. They occasionally stopped someone and checked their documents, but even these were conducted with a level of cordiality that wasn’t normally present in interactions between American cops and the civilians they policed. Maybe it was that everyone in the United States carried weapons. Or possibly, it was the threat of dragons. Who knew?

Either way, all of it was a farce. Larry said he’d experienced the mage’s powers enough times that he’d be able to sense her coming unless she’d mastered the ability to dampen her powers. He assured them that was unlikely and his teammates had no reason to question it. Kristen still hadn’t mastered her aura and so knew that controlling the energy that emitted from one’s body wasn’t exactly second nature. This mage was probably still focused on not being eaten or blowing things up. Again, that was the hope.

It didn’t take long for the truck to arrive.

It was about a quarter-mile out when the mage said, “I have something. That big one—Labatt’s blue truck, I think.”

“I thought you’d give us more notice than that,” Windlock said and moved into position on the driver’s side of the truck. Kristen moved to the passenger window. They had agreed it would be best if she confronted the mage as she’d have the best chance to convince her to come willingly.

“I thought I would have had more notice,” Brockton replied. “She shouldn’t have any control yet but it’s almost like she’s learned how to clamp it down.”

“Are you sure it’s her?” she asked and tried to remain calm.

He nodded. “Again, you can’t confuse them. That’d be like you thinking Stonequest was Windlock.”

She smiled at the idea. The two dragons’ auras couldn’t feel more different.

The eighteen-wheeler rolled to a stop and the driver rolled his window down.

“License and registration, please,” Windlock said and sounded efficiently bored.

“Sure thing. What’s this about, eh?” the man asked. “We got a runaway dragon or something?”

“Nothing so dramatic,” he responded. “Merely a routine stop.” He took the driver’s documents and turned to look at them, pretending that he needed to see them better.

Kristen moved to the other window.

“I don’t see her ID here,” the investigator said languidly to the driver.

“Who her? This is Amy Williams. She’s here for a little sightseeing. You got your passport, Amy?”

So her name was Amy and she could only be Pat Williams’ daughter. Kristen smiled inwardly. She didn’t need to be able to feel auras to tell that the girl was frightened. Her gaze darted nervously as her hands fidgeted at her pockets. Finally, she dug in her bag and pulled out a passport, but she hesitated before she leaned over the driver to hand it to Windlock. Even though the man didn’t seem to have any idea that this was anything but a routine stop, the girl seemed to sense that the roadblock was there for her.

Kristen knocked gently on the window and Amy flinched, startled by the sound. She smiled when the young woman turned to her.

This was her first time seeing her face and in it, she saw a kindred spirit. Not that the fugitive looked like her. The Steel Dragon was, by most accounts, stunningly beautiful as most dragons were. Amy was pretty but in an understated way. She had straight brown hair that hung to just above her neck and big brown eyes that currently brimmed with fear. It wasn’t her appearance Kristen related to, though. It was the look in the girl’s eyes.

She recognized the same feeling she’d felt when she’d first turned to steel—fear of her own body and of a power she’d never asked for and yet didn’t want to lose. Like her, the girl had never asked to be made special and now that she had been, was afraid of what it might make her into. Without a doubt, she saw herself in Amy’s eyes and she wanted to help.

“Hey there, miss. Is everything all right?”

The young woman nodded far too quickly. Kristen wondered if she’d ever been pulled over by a cop before. If she had, she probably would have known it was better to stay calm.

“Everything’s fine,” she said curtly.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can help you with? If you have problems, the Mounties’ job is to help solve them.”

Amy nodded and her eyes welled with tears. “I…I don’t know if you can.”

“I can, really.”

In the next moment, the young mage’s eyes widened. “Not with that.” The fear in her voice was gone, replaced by rage.

Kristen turned as Timbergust and Aquatos landed on her side of the truck. On the other side, Emberslight and the other dragon from Boston touched down—Crimson, she thought they’d called him.

“We have this under control!” Windlock shouted at the newcomers.

Predictably, they ignored him. Bronzeback landed in front of the semi-truck. He was massive in his dragon form—bigger than Kristen and probably bigger than most—and his bronze scales seemed to be connected with nothing but shadow. It was terrifying to Kristen, who knew exactly who and what he was. But to poor Amy, who’d already been intimidated by a redheaded woman dressed as a Mountie, it was too much.

She began to shake.

“Hey, it’ll be okay,” she said and tried to use her aura to calm the woman, but she felt something slap it away. The girl had been learning, apparently.

“You need to back the hell off,” Windlock shouted. “We have this under control.”

“You may be willing to handle a killer with kid gloves, but that's not how Boston SWAT handles murderers around here,” Bronzeback retorted aggressively from his position in front of the truck.

“We appreciate your help, Investigator, but we’ll take it from here,” Timbergust said. “Stand aside.” He growled and used his aura to tell Kristen he would fight if they had to.

She clenched her jaw. “Miss Amy? I want you to stay calm while I get rid of these assholes, okay?”

The young woman nodded but it was very apparent that she didn’t have much time left before she lost it.

Kristen turned to Timbergust—a full-sized green forest dragon—took a step toward him, and turned to steel. She knew that if she assumed her steel dragon form, she’d be able to beat him in a minute. He was obviously out of shape and she had defeated other dragons in combat, but she didn’t want to further spook Amy. The poor girl was already frightened enough. Another dragon battle might set her off and that was the last thing they needed.

It was too late for that, though. “You’re not a Mountie,” the mage shouted. “You’re the Steel Dragon.”

What followed could only be described as an explosion but not from some kind of combustible or heat or anything like that. Magic energy simply ripped the entire vehicle apart. Pieces of steel tore free and hurtled toward the dragons who now surrounded the vehicle.

A pallet of beer pounded into Kristen before she had time to act and she sprawled flat on her ass. It landed on her chest—not landed, as that implied gravity was at work—but was forced there and pinned her arms above her head. She had the strength to lift it, but it had her in an awkward position and seemed to force her to stay down.

She looked out from where she was held immobile and realized that the big pieces of metal had rocketed into the other dragons. The engine had hammered into Bronzeback, who tried to get it off him with his tail.

The girl’s using her powers to drive these pieces into us, she realized. That seemed like her powers had increased in control, which wasn’t a good sign.

Kristen half-transformed into a dragon and grew large enough to push the pallet off her, then returned to her human form and stood slowly.

The eighteen-wheeler had been completely obliterated and all that remained were its tires and the seats. Everything else had either been thrown into the dragons who’d tried to stop Amy or used to crush the police cars that had formed the roadblock. One of the official vehicles was on fire and she assumed a piece of shrapnel must have pierced a gas line. No one moved except the driver, who gaped stupidly as if to grasp the truth that the rest of his vehicle was no more. The seat he was in lowered slowly to the ground, and he darted to his feet and raced into the woods.

The young mage stood where the truck had been, her brown hair blowing in a wind that touched nothing else. She didn’t look like she wanted to run. Not at all.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Amy didn’t understand how she’d disassembled the truck but she slowly began to understand how she’d used its pieces to stop the dragons. Since she’d lashed out with her powers and killed the first two dragons, every minute that hadn’t been spent worrying had been devoted to testing her powers. She now knew she had two main types—a kind of telekinesis that let her lift things and move them around and what she thought of as a force shield power. The telekinesis was much stronger and seemed to obey her every whim.

She reached out with this part of her abilities and found all the scraps of the eighteen-wheeler, as well as some of the damaged police cars. Everything gathered together weighed tons but it wasn’t any more difficult for her to lift than toy blocks were for a child. And, like a child, she would learn control with practice.

Her next step was to bring all the pieces together to form four floating walls around her.

“I don’t want to hurt any—” she called but before she could finish, one of the dragons breathed fire at the amalgamation of scrap metal and heated it enough to meld it into a solid piece of metal. If that had struck her, she’d be dead. How could the dragon do that to her? She hadn’t attacked anyone. All she’d done was knock them back.

She heard her assailant breathe in for another blast of fire—a sound she already knew intimately—and she decided she’d had enough. Grimly, she took the piece of metal he had fused and flung it at him. It struck him in the chest, but she sensed she could do more. Rather than simply strike him, she wound it around him like it was a piece of aluminum foil wrapping a taco. Once he was completely trapped, she lifted him and dropped him so his head now faced away from her. She didn’t want him to release another attack.

“She trapped Crimson,” an aquamarine dragon yelled.

“He’s not hurt,” Amy said.

“You don’t know that,” the dragon retorted and lunged forward. This one knew she could stop its fire, so it attacked her with its claws. Every time it struck at her, she threw a piece of metal up to block its talons. It attacked again and again, faster and faster, but she continued to deflect the attack. The dragon, driven into a frenzy, roared and snapped at her with its teeth. Didn’t it realize it could swallow her whole?

Without a doubt, she needed to make sure that didn’t happen. The most logical way to prevent it was to take the door from a police car and thrust it into the dragon’s jaws to wedge them open. It fell back and struggled to get the metal out of its mouth.

“Let me get away,” Amy said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You killed two dragons,” a dark-green dragon yelled. Amy recognized him. She’d seen Timbergust fly over Rangeley before.

“I didn’t mean to. They destroyed my parents’ house. I tried to defend myself.”

He lunged at her in response and she reacted immediately. She’d crushed the pieces together so she had three solid shields to use against the dragons and now hurled one of her walls of metal at him. The force knocked him back.

The other two dragons attacked at the same time. One was orange and more controlled in her strikes, while the other was the big mean bronze one who’d landed in front of the eighteen-wheeler. She blocked attack after attack with her metal shields. “Please, let me go,” she pleaded at intervals.

After a moment, Timbergust returned to the fight, and the orangish dragon stopped attacking. That was when Amy started to feel hot and glanced down. The asphalt below her glowed the same color as the orange dragon’s eyes and radiated heat.

She realized then that they would stop at nothing to hurt her. Calmly, with her last three pieces of metal ready, she waited for the dragons to attack. The bronze one and Timbergust moved together and she drove her shields into them. The force of impact was enough to stun them for a moment. While they were dazed, she used the metal she’d hit them with to wrap them like she’d done with her first attacker.

The orange dragon was still focused on melting the surface beneath her feet, so the mage did the same to her. Timbergust and the orange one were easy enough, but the bronze dragon almost destroyed his bindings. She picked up a cop car and rested it on top of him and that seemed to do that trick.

A moment of silence followed during which all the dragons struggled at their restraints. The blueish-green one still hadn’t removed the car door from its mouth. Amy glanced at the Mountie who’d checked the truck driver’s ID. There was something odd about him but he didn’t attack her so she ignored him.

She approached Timbergust, who struggled to free himself from the metal in which he was encased.

“I didn’t mean to hurt them. I was only defending myself and it got out of hand.”

“Murderer!” he roared and blasted her with fire.

The fire got close enough for her to feel the heat from it, then it parted, deflected from her by the magic sphere of energy she’d used to protect herself before.

She shook her head. “All I want is peace and you try to kill me.”

“You’re a killer.”

“Am I?” she demanded, furious now. “Because if that’s all I am to you, I might as well kill.” Her magic sensed her frustration and tightened on the four restrained dragons. All of them squirmed until they began to run out of air. She saw Timbergust’s dragon eyes begin to bulge and a vein ruptured in one of them to wash it with red. “I could kill you right now—all of you—without even breaking a sweat,” she said. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to be a killer?”

“No!” Amy blinked and turned to the red-headed Mountie. The Steel Dragon, she told herself. “I want to help you.”

The mage choked out a laugh and when she did, she tightened the restraints she’d created around the dragons. Timbergust attempted to suck in a ragged breath with little success.

“I wish you hadn’t lied to me,” Amy said.

“Me too,” the Steel Dragon said. “I’m Kristen, by the way.”

“Amy,” she replied. “But don’t think I’m like you. I’m not. I don’t kill for no reason. I don’t take vengeance on people simply because I can. I never wanted to hurt those dragons. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I simply tried to help my parents.”

“I know. I know you did. And if you come with me, I’ll make sure you and them both stay safe.”

“I wish I could believe you, but all I know about you right now is that you’re a liar.” She was crying now and hated the hot tears that streaked down her face.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that. But I do want to help you. I know what it’s like to gain these kinds of powers so suddenly. Please, let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help,” Amy replied, and with a flick of her wrist, her magical abilities careened Kristen into the woods.

“This is the last time I say this nicely. Don’t follow me.”

Now, all she needed was a way to escape. She looked around and realized there was nothing but the floating scrap metal from the truck she’d used to stop the dragons. At first, a rush of despondency swept over her but an idea trailed in its wake.

She ripped the hood off a cop car with her mind—it was easier than tearing paper—and brought it closer. Carefully, she stepped onto it and made it elevate a few feet.

The motion made her wobble and she fell and landed on her butt on the car hood. Now, she tried to use her powers to anchor herself to the floating piece of metal and grinned when it was successful. She felt like it was a floor now and that she wouldn’t fall.

Amy eased it forward, away from the wreckage and past the roadblock. She tried to go faster and sighed with relief when her powers understood her. They kept her firmly anchored to the piece of metal while she increased speed.

She released the dragons once she was about a quarter-mile away and pushed her power to accelerate to almost breakneck speed. Jubilant, she urged her makeshift magic carpet even faster until soon, she hurtled over the cars on the road below her. She uttered a whoop as she spun the hood upside down. Her powers kept her firmly anchored and she didn’t slow at all.

Her stress melted away as she flew toward Thetford Mines. This was amazing—a totally surreal but wonderfully satisfying outcome she’d never imagined. Not only could she lift things but she could fly. She felt strong now that she’d faced the dragons and won, but better than that, she felt in control. Without a doubt, she could have killed them, but she hadn’t. She didn’t want to kill them. Even if they treated her like a murderer, they hadn’t actually hurt her yet. And her powers hadn’t made her kill them. She was strong, in control, and she was free.

When the excitement of the battle and her flight settled, she considered her options. She could fly all night if she wanted to, maybe keep going, outpace the dragons, and fly forever until she reached…what? The north pole?

How would that work, exactly, and how would she eat? Would she turn to petty theft to feed herself? Or become a fugitive who did magic so she could eat? No, she couldn’t run forever. Even if she could, that wasn’t a decent life for her. She wanted to see her parents again—or at the very least, get them a message that she was all right.

Plans had already been made that would enable her to do that. She had to reach Thetford Mines and get help before the dragons caught up to her. While she’d slowed them, she knew there were limits to her powers—there had to be—and she didn’t want to find out what those were in a fight. No, she needed to find Alp, the dwarf her mom had told her about, and make a future for herself that didn’t involve her living on the hood of a car for the rest of her life.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kristen couldn’t believe how swift and decisive the fight had been. Amy had disabled five dragons in seconds. Honestly, to call it a fight was an understatement. It might well have been appropriately called a slaughter if anyone had been hurt or killed.

She suddenly realized that the dragons were the only ones accounted for. “Larry!” she called.

“I’m all right,” the mage replied and stepped from behind a pine tree. “I sensed her warming up and took cover but it was close. Windbag? Did someone puncture your sails?”

“I’m fine.” Windlock came out from behind a police car. “Although I think she might have sensed I was a dragon.”

“Don’t talk to your superiors that way,” Bronzeback hissed at Brockton from his metal cocoon beneath a police car.

“And to think I was about to set you free,” Kristen scolded the big dragon. “Now, I guess we’ll debrief first.”

The Detroit investigative team walked a dozen or so paces away from the other dragons who all still struggled to free themselves. Aquatos had got the car door out of his mouth, at least, and attempted to peel the metal cases off the other dragons.

“Is what she did normal?” Kristen asked. “Can most mages do that if they’re uncuffed or whatever?”

Larry threw his head back and laughed. She had the sense he was still high on adrenaline. “No way! Even without a cuff, there’s no way I could use a semi-truck to stop five damn dragons from attacking me. That was unbelievable. I would’ve tried to contain her with my force, but that would’ve been like opening an umbrella in a hurricane.”

“So she’s the strongest mage you’ve ever seen?”

He nodded enthusiastically, “Oh yeah! She’s crazy. What she did to that truck was impressive on its own, but what she did to the dragons was wild. I can’t imagine being able to do such a thing. She’s a damn inspiration—I mean…uh…” Brockton trailed off and looked at his boss.

The investigator merely grimaced.

“Windlock? She’s not the strongest you’ve seen?” Kristen asked.

He sighed. “I’ve seen that kind of power before but it’s been a long time. Not since the last mage war.”

“Mages used to be that powerful?”

“Not many, but some, yes.”

“What happened to them?”

Windlock shook his head. “They were hunted mercilessly. Those who manifested that kind of power had to be destroyed—that was the stance of the dragons, at least. It took a considerable number of dragons to defeat each one. Honestly, losing only two dragons to a mage of that power would be considered a success. When news of what she did here gets out, the Dragon Council won’t stop with the dragons we have here.”

“They still feel that way even though the last war was centuries ago?”

The investigator nodded. “Since then, anytime a mage even approaching that kind of ability appears…well, we make sure they don’t fully come into their powers.”

“Do you think the dragons would come into Canada to pursue her?”

“I can’t say.” He grimaced again, obviously alarmed. “It’s not official policy for them not to come here, exactly like there’s no official policy that dwarves will harbor mages. In the past, dragons have captured the mages who have killed dragons. A few have made it here, but none like her and no one who had already killed dragons.”

“If dragons come here, the dwarves might strike back,” Larry said.

“We can’t let that happen.” His boss assumed a grim expression.

“We can’t let any of this happen,” Kristen said. “We can’t let history repeat itself. I don’t want Amy killed, but we can’t let her be pushed into a corner either. She didn’t kill any dragons this time, which I think proves she doesn’t see herself as an enemy of dragons, but if that changes, there could be many more bodies lying cold when this is over.” She didn’t say that the body she was most worried about was Amy’s because truthfully, it didn’t matter. The girl had proven herself to be a force of true power. If the dragons killed her—and she knew they could kill her because there were hundreds of them in North America alone, after all—she had no doubt that the young mage would take more than a few with her.

That wasn’t acceptable, but given where they were now, it was totally unacceptable. If a dragon killed a mage in dwarf country—or worse, killed a dwarf—a war could be ignited. That, in turn, would provide Constance and her team of technomages with the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation and douse everything with proverbial gasoline.

They had to move, Kristen knew that, but there was something she had to do first.

She walked over to Timbergust, who was still wrapped up like a Christmas present.

“I hope you’re happy,” she said. “We had the situation under control until you and these goons arrived.”

“Under control?” He sneered. “You were talking to a killer. How the hell do you think that counts as control?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Kristen laughed. How could these dragons be so dense? There she was in her human form—with steel skin, yes—but human-shaped and walking around free. The dragons had all been thoroughly beaten like they were nothing but yapping dogs. “You can’t beat her and she demonstrated that very clearly. She knows how to block fire and she knows how to stop you from striking her. We’re in this whole goddamn situation because two dragons put her in danger. We won’t solve this with more violence.”

Kristen stepped toward him, took hold of the metal that encased him, and bent it with her bare hands enough for him to be able to squeeze out.

Timbergust—obviously not thankful—thrashed angrily as soon as he had the space to do so and shook himself free. “Well, at least you’re not a traitor to dragon kind,” he sneered. “Aquatos, help me with Bronzeback.”

“My allegiance is to peace, that’s it,” she hollered as Aquatos and Timbergust wrestled to move the car Amy had placed on top of their teammate and began to unpeel him. Their human forms weren’t as strong as hers—steel skin had many advantages—but in their dragon forms, their claws weren’t quite dexterous enough to free Bronzeback quickly. The dragon whined and complained as they struggled to release him.

Kristen shook her head—she knew full well that neither of the dragons would ask for help—and went to free Emberslight. “The point is to not pit dragons against mages. It’s for us to live as peacefully as we can. This is a world we all need to share. There’s more than enough for everyone if we’re willing to give each other a little space.”

“And you gave Obscura space?” Bronzeback roared. Timbergust and Aquatos had finally liberated him. “And Shadowstorm? Did you give them space, or did you kill them?”

“They were both threats to peace.”

“You mean they were threats to humans.” The Boston dragon’s aura was red-hot with rage.

“Both of them wanted to subvert the Dragon Council. Shadowstorm tried to throw Detroit into chaos so he could rule over the ashes. Obscura was willing to burn the whole city to get her vengeance. Both failed because they advocated violence. As long as dragons and humans fight, we won’t be successful.”

“She’s not human,” Timbergust bellowed in fury.

“Easy, Timbergust,” Emberslight said now that she was free.

“No! She can’t have it both ways.” Sparks and spittle spattered from his mouth as he spoke. “She says this is about human and dragon peace, but this mage isn’t a human. Humans can’t kill dragons. She’s an abomination, a monster, and a killer. I can respect peace with humans and I’ve maintained peace in the northeast corner of the United States for decades. This rogue mage is the threat to peace, not me. We have to stop her.”

“Treating her like that is what got us into this mess,” Kristen retorted. “We were so close to getting her to come with us willingly.” She held up the silver bracelet that Windlock had given her. “In one more minute, I could have had this on her and this would have all been over. Now, instead of us returning to Rangeley, you’ve sent her even farther north. She’s angry and won’t trust me because of you.”

“I don’t care!” Timbergust screamed. “I don’t care about her. She’s a goddamn killer. She murdered dragons in my district and she needs to die. You think you’ll put a cuff on her and those dragons will what? Come back from the dead? You’re fucking crazy. We’re out of here.” He launched skyward and headed north.

Bronzeback spat a ball of fire at Kristen’s feet that burned a hole in the pavement before he took flight and followed Timbergust.

“You told my team the Steel Dragon is an investigator and she’s not,” Emberslight said and sounded disappointed.

“Maybe not officially, but she’s more than proven herself,” Windlock replied placidly.

“All we have is officially,” the Boston team leader said. “You broke protocol by coming here without telling us. I have to follow protocol, and that says we need to apprehend her—or kill her if she won’t cooperate.”

“If that’s what you think is best.” The investigator’s expression remained inscrutable.

“It doesn’t really matter what I think. What matters is that we follow precedent, and Timbergust is right. She’s a killer. The Dragon Council’s stance on this is clear.”

He only nodded as she took to the air. She spun one circle above them as Aquatos and Crimson joined her.

“Emberslight,” Windlock called.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful, okay?”

“You too, Windlock,” she replied and swung north.

Kristen rushed over to the investigator and transformed into a dragon as she did so. It was hard to rip her gaze from the five dragons on their way to kill Amy—to kill her without even a semblance of a fair trial—but her teammate had yet to transform.

“Let’s go, Windlock. What’s the problem?”

He merely watched them vanish into the night sky.

“Windlock, come on. If they catch up to her, they won’t hold back. I know you said mages are normally taken in but they will slaughter her. She must have limits.”

“That’s a big if, though, don’t you think?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I know she was fast, but—wait, what do you mean?”

The investigator shrugged. “I’ll admit, I think I underestimated her. She’s obviously smart and knows how to handle herself. The hitchhiking move was clever.”

“Hitchhiking ain’t exactly unusual, you old windbag,” Larry joked.

“Still. She’s proven herself to be resourceful and coolheaded. Also, she’s shown a remarkable level of control over her powers. I think…I think I was wrong. I don’t believe we’ll be able to catch her.”

“We have to try,” Kristen pleaded.

Windlock shook his head. “She won’t let anyone catch her, not after what happened here. Her skills are such that she’ll be able to avoid capture. It was clever of her to use that piece of metal as a vehicle. I don’t think Dragon SWAT will catch her either.”

“You can’t know that.” Her frustration mounted. How could they let them continue the hunt?

“But let’s say…you’re right. Let’s say they catch up to her. Which side do you think will win? Five dragons or young Miss Amy Williams?” He allowed himself a small smile.

She couldn’t help but snort and return a grin. “Okay, if that was her restraining herself, then yeah, I guess my money would be on Amy.”

“Exactly. It’s not a bet I would take,” he agreed.

Larry chuckled. “But seriously, I’ll put ten to one on Amy. If one of you bets a hundred bucks and somehow, those dragons do succeed, you win a thousand bucks.”

“I won’t give you a hundred dollars.” His boss frowned.

“But still, I think we owe it to her to stop them. We need to show Amy that not all dragons are the same.” Kristen paced, eager to get back into the air but also cognizant of the fact that if she went alone, there was no way she’d be able to slow five SWAT-trained dragons, let alone stop them.

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Windlock countered. “You did a good job talking to her and I don’t want that work undone. If you arrive with those five, especially with Timbergust and Bronzeback, what’ll she think?”

“That I’m trying to stop them.”

“Is that what you’d think?” Larry asked and his tone made it clear that it was a rhetorical question. “Because I think if it was me in her position, I’d be all like, ‘oh, that nice dragon changed her mind and now, she’ll eat me like all these other dragons she’s flying around with.’ But what do I know? I’m only a mage who was in almost an identical situation.”

“So what? We’re supposed to sit around here and wait for Amy to kill them? I admit, part of me thinks that sounds fair after the bullshit they tried to pull on her, but I don’t want her to kill five dragons either.” Her tail twitched with building impatience. She wanted to go, not stand around in discussion.

Windlock, though, was as cool as she had ever seen him. He drew a slip of paper out of his pocket and held it up for her to see.

“What will you do, memo them to death?” Kristen asked.

“This is the contact I have in the dwarf underground.”

“Wait a—what?” Larry seemed shocked.

“Come on, Larry. You withheld information from me. Is it so surprising that I did the same?”

“I guess not,” the mage replied. “And call me Brockton. It’s weird when you use my first name.”

Windlock ignored him. “This is the information for a dwarf named Alp. He’s sympathetic to mages, but…well, I’d say he’s pragmatic. He’s helped me divert a few would-be fugitives into gainful employment.”

“Alp? I remember him,” Larry said.

The investigator raised an eyebrow as if that wasn’t at all surprising. “I think that Amy’s mother sent her to meet someone from the underground. It’s the only thing that makes sense. For that matter, it could be Alp himself. Even if it’s not, he’ll have heard about her by now.”

“And you didn’t tell us this before?” Kristen was shocked. They’d been on a wild goose chase when they could have simply called the guy on the phone.

“It’s not a phone number. He says he’s never trusted dragons to have his contact information.”

“Then what is it?” she asked before a gust of wind appeared to snatch the piece of paper out of Windlock’s hand. For a moment, she panicked until it landed between Larry’s fingers and she realized the mage had used his magic powers to snatch the note.

“What is this, Windlock? Gibberish? Le Face De Beouf?”

“It's French, you ignoramus.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. Larry’s pronunciation sounded nothing like French.

He surprised her, though, when he translated it. “Yeah, I know, you old dinosaur, but it means the Beef Face. Or the face of beef, I guess. It’s not exactly an address.”

“It’s the name of a restaurant in Thetford Mines. That’s where Alp and his people often hang out. He told me to go there if I ever needed him.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Brockton said with a grin. “Let’s go meet this cow-face!”

Windlock transformed and his assistant climbed onto his back. They took to the air and started north. Despite the older dragon’s cool demeanor, Kristen noticed he flew even faster than he had before. That told her clearly that she wasn’t the only one who could feel the sense of dread building. Honestly, she didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he shared the presentiment.

It certainly didn’t feel good.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Amy followed the road for about a mile, then abandoned it. It was the most obvious way to navigate from the air, so she assumed the dragons would use it to follow her. She knew she had to go roughly north, so she headed that way. Ahead, a glow above the treetops indicated a town, so she used that as a point to focus on. She didn’t think it was Thetford Mines but couldn’t be sure. Unfortunately, she’d destroyed her map when she’d dismantled the eighteen-wheeler.

The memory brought a smile. She had torn the truck to pieces rather than simply dismantling it and she was sorry—especially for the driver whose livelihood it had been—but she hadn’t hurt anyone. It was a victory for her that she hadn’t hurt any people or the dragons. Whatever these powers were, she could control them. She had to.

A blast of flame in the night sky made her glance hastily over her shoulder. The dragons were in pursuit, then. She wasn’t surprised. What mattered now was that she remained calm. If she could get to Thetford Mines without them catching up to her, maybe the dwarves could find somewhere safe for her to hide. She hadn’t actually thought that was possible until now but after escaping five—no six, or maybe seven—dragons, she thought there was a chance. If she could hold her powers and not let others see her, that was the key.

At the thought that she needed to decrease her visibility, she descended until she flew over the tops of pine trees. It wouldn’t do for the dragons to look toward her and see a glint reflected from the metal she rode on or have her block a star or something stupid and know she’d left the highway.

A few more furtive glances indicated that her pursuers hadn’t followed her away from the road. If they had, they didn’t breathe any fire again, which would at least have been a warning for her. It wasn’t much of a consolation, she realized, but it would have to do. She maintained her present route toward the city, very aware that if the dragons still followed the road, that was where they’d go.

Which meant she couldn’t continue her journey to Thetford Mines on the hood of a car. There was simply no way to disguise who she was or what she’d been doing. She needed to be discreet and to be able to blend in, if only for a few seconds. It seemed obvious that these dragons wouldn’t give up. She didn’t think even the nicer one—the Steel Dragon—would stop. Given the reality of that, she needed to find somewhere to hide.

The trees began to thin as she neared the town. A billboard announced that it was, in fact, Thetford Mines, and Amy couldn’t believe her luck. Her changed route had avoided the other town—Black Lake? Black Pond?—and brought her directly to her destination.

If she was lucky, the other dragons would search for her at the other stop along the way. While she couldn’t be sure of that, it did seem logical so she might actually reach a place of safety before they found her. But, she reminded herself, not if she careened high above the city. She needed to be less visible and so searched the streets below her for what looked like a safe place to stop. A souvenir shop tucked into a corner seemed promising and she dropped behind it and left the car hood leaned up against the back of the store. Positioned thus, it would be harder to see from the air.

She walked into the store, waved a greeting at the shopkeeper, and located the sweaters.

A quick sift through the racks provided a t-shirt with a grizzly bear on it and a grey hoodie with the Canadian maple leaf on the front in dark red. She bought both and asked the attendant to use the bathroom. Once inside, she removed her shirt, put the grizzly on, and pulled the hoodie on over it. It wasn’t the best disguise but better than wearing what her pursuers would instantly recognize.

She left the shop and returned to the street. Hitchhiking might be her best option, she thought and kicked at the dirt. A wild idea entered her head and she scooped a little of the dust and rubbed it gently into the sleeves of the hoodie. It was a small detail but if the clothes looked worn, they’d look less like a disguise. What she really needed was a hat, she realized and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it earlier. She was about to return to the shop—they had plaid ones with the ear flaps—when she noticed a BMX and skateboard shop across the street.

Amy smiled. She hadn’t ridden a skateboard in years, not since she was seventeen and still in high school, but she’d been fairly good when she had. In fact, skateboarding was the closest thing to flying she’d done before. There was nothing like dropping into a halfpipe and shooting up the other side.

She checked the wad of cash in her pocket. Sadly, there wasn’t all that much left—she’d given all the US dollars to the man who’d given her a ride, anticipating that things might not end well—but enough to get a skateboard, she was sure. She had wanted to conserve her money, but she was already where she needed to be so she deemed it worth it. Plus, this would let her cover more ground than simply walking, especially if she could use her magic to augment her speed.

Being in a skate shop was a little like being a kid again for her. The last time she’d been in one, it had been to ask her mom for a Christmas present. Pat Williams hadn’t been thrilled about the idea of her daughter squandering her future skateboarding instead of studying. Now, her future depended on having a good board—or so she told herself.

The wall of decks brought a wave of nostalgia but time was tight and she forced herself to focus. After a few minutes, she selected a board with a kickass-looking bearded dude on it, complete with glowing eyes and a battle-ax. Amy had always wanted to get a board that was so cool she wouldn’t want to do a boardslide on it and scratch it. All it had taken was manifesting magic powers, accidentally killing two dragons, and becoming a fugitive to realize that dream. She laughed and wondered if she was so tired that she was almost delirious. Now wasn’t a time to laugh and yet she couldn’t help herself.

“Good choice, my canuck,” the shopkeeper said, a young man with a beanie pulled down to his bloodshot eyes.

She almost asked what canuck meant before she remembered that, duh, she was in Canada and it must have been the guy calling her dude or whatever.

“Thanks, dude,” she responded, suddenly unsure if she should have said that but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Do you need trucks, bearings, and wheels with this?”

Amy smiled. “Yeah. Give me a pair of Thunder trucks, the smoothest bearings you have, and those yellow fire wheels.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” the guy said and hurriedly assembled her board. While he worked, she chose a baseball cap with the image of a bear skateboarding on a salmon and a pair of skateboarding shoes because why not? If she reached the dwarves and they needed money, another fifty bucks wouldn’t matter. If they threw her to the dragons, she might as well be comfortable and trendy too.

A few minutes later, the assistant had finished the board. “Cash or card?”

Amy proffered the cash and he nodded. “Very nice, my canuck.” He counted her change—enough for a burger and not much more—and she left.

In front of the store, she dropped the board and moved with it a few times to get her legs back, but it was like riding a bike. In a few minutes, she was comfortable enough to bust an ollie, then a kickflip.

A shout from inside drew her attention and the store assistant gave her a huge thumbs-up.

She grinned and decided to really show him something. When she’d gained sufficient speed, she ollied and this time, gave herself a tiny magic boost. Unfortunately, it was slightly more than she’d planned and she actually cleared a car. She landed smoothly—loving the feel of the board—and set off. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that her audience was suitably impressed.

Now, all she had to do was find Le Face de Boeuf.

As she cruised down the street, she had a momentary regret that she hadn’t bought a helmet but decided her destination now took precedence. She thought she remembered it being off 112, so if she could only find that, she could locate it easily. With at least five dragons hunting her, she wondered if a little more speed might be in order.

It seemed her powers remained poised to do her bidding. She’d barely thought about moving faster when they augmented her speed. She grinned. It was like being on one of the electric scooters that had been all over Boston and Philadelphia, except instead of paying by the minute and using electricity, it was magic-powered.

Amy also discovered she could anchor herself to the board too. The former skater in her told her that was cheating, but the person who didn’t want to wipe out was totally okay with it.

She pushed herself to greater speed around the town as she adjusted to her new form of transportation and searched for the restaurant. Her attention on her quest, she ran into a pothole and ollied reflexively. The board came with her and in a second, she was in flight. Her grin was spontaneous and jubilant, but she reminded herself to not draw too much attention and turned the flying ollie into a boardslide down the back of a park bench.

“You kids!” a short man with a huge beard yelled. His beanie looked like it had been knitted by hand out of the brightest yarn in all Canada.

“Sorry!” she said as she cruised into motion again. Before long, another man appeared and stopped to watch her. He was short, much like the other man, with a beard so long it almost touched his knees. A tie-dye hoodie and a pair of bright blue shorts seemed out of place in the chilly air. His face was unusual too, she thought as she tried not to stare and failed horribly. He had thick bushy eyebrows and a huge brow, almost like a gorilla. His nose looked like it was carved of stone and his eyes glittered like gems.

“Let’s see a trick, human!” the man said, and she realized that, duh, these were dwarves.

Amy obliged him, ollied up to the edge of a planter, and did a grind on her trucks before she hopped off again.

He whooped and she decided she liked dwarves. Thetford Mines seemed to be about half-dwarf. All of them had big, thick beards, which made her wonder if their women grew facial hair like the men. They also all seemed to wear bright clothing. While the humans dressed more or less like Americans—with more maple leaves instead of stars and stripes, obviously—they still mostly wore jeans, shirts, and jackets. The dwarves, on the other hand, appeared to be at war with the rainbow itself. They also seemed to be fans of piercings. Many of their ears, eyebrows, and noses sported bright pieces of carved rock that went in one side and came out the other.

She wondered if it was a defense mechanism against the cold, gray, winter months. Maine could be miserable in winter. The snow was pretty at first but eventually, it was plain dreary. Maybe the dwarves dressed brightly as a way to fight the grays of winter.

It was a theory she immediately realized she could soon ask the dwarves about because she finally located Le Face de Beouf.

Her first impression was rather underwhelming, she had to admit. The restaurant itself looked pleasant enough and fairly dwarf-like. The front was paneled in wood and framed by two brick pillars. Two giant cow heads made it look like something out of the medieval days. The problem was that it was located smack dab in the middle of a strip mall. This resembled any other outdoor shopping center set back from the street and behind a sprawling parking lot. She didn’t know if she was more disappointed in Canadians or dwarves for using such bland American architecture.

Still, there were no dragons overhead, which meant she had made it. This was where her mom had said to go, the place where the dwarf Alp would be able to take her under his protection and where she could finally stop running.

Amy had thought it might have been more of a fortress, but maybe that proved a lack of imagination on her part. Surely there were tunnels beneath it or a hidden magic shield or something.

She skated onto the sidewalk, hopped off her board, and kicked the tail of it so it popped into her hands before she walked inside. The gentle ding of a bell attached to the door heralded her entry. She had hoped for some kind of enchanted door knocker or something but accepted that she would simply have to get over all that.

After a deep breath—both of relief and trepidation—she looked around and realized that every person inside Le Face de Beouf was a dwarf.

Almost every table had a group of the short, bearded folk eating huge slabs of beef or entire chickens. Tankards of ale littered every table and steaming piles of vegetables as well as dark brown loaves of bread were crammed into every available space. One table in the middle was completely cleared of food, and two dwarves in skirts—kilts, maybe, although she really had no clue about dwarf gender—looked like they had danced along to a trio of musicians. The instruments themselves were appealing—a big drum made of a hollowed-out log, a flute of some kind that looked like it was made of gold, and an old violin. Only the violinist still played, however, and the other two had stopped with the dancers.

It looked like an extremely welcoming place, and Amy immediately felt like she wanted to spend the night here, eating, drinking and making merry. Her enthusiasm faded slightly when she focused on a dwarf who stood in front of her, his arms folded across his chest and an expression on his face that while not unwelcoming was also not particularly encouraging.

“Hi,” she said, not sure what else to say because it looked like he had something on his mind.

“Greetings, traveler,” the dwarf replied.

“How did you know I was a traveler?” she asked. Could this be Alp? Had he waited for her to arrive this whole time? She felt a weight begin to lift from her shoulders.

“I knew you were a traveler because this isn’t an establishment for people like you. The locals all know that already,” he said and his face colored in what might have been embarrassment.

“Like me?” Her heart dropped. Did they know she was a mage and were ready to ostracize her? If that were the case, she might as well walk out and wait for the dragons. She knew she had an incredible amount of power but she was so incredibly tired and the smell of the food reminded her she hadn’t eaten anything for hours. She hadn’t even bought a protein bar back at the convenience store. The idea of sitting there and eating steak and listening to music while Alp told her everything would be fine was a fantasy that had built in her head since she opened the door.

The dwarf cleared his throat and held a hand up to indicate height. “Not to be discourteous, you understand, but you’re a little…uh, tall.”

Before she could say anything, he smiled and took her arm to turn her toward the door. “Now, don’t get us wrong. Hospitality is very important to us, and while you’re visiting Thetford Mines, you’ll find that we love our visitors, human and dwarf alike. We merely need a space of our own, is all. The humans have one too, and I daresay their steaks are even better than ours.”

“Don’t lie to the girl, Trook,” another dwarf yelled.

Trook smiled. “Okay, so maybe the steaks here are the best. There is a lovely little venue for humans down the way, though. I’d be happy to give you directions if you want to ride or take you there myself. Now, if your heart is set on dwarf-seared steak, give us the name of your hotel and we’ll send a meal over. How’s that? Now come along, come a—”

“No,” Amy said and braced herself so he couldn’t push her out the door.

“We really don’t mean to be rude but we need a break from humans sometimes, is all. It’s nothing personal—”

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t be turned away from here. It’s my last hope—my only hope.”

“Is something wrong, sweetheart?” a dwarf with steel-blue eyes and a jade nose ring said to her.

Between him and her sat a human woman who wore all black. She watched the exchange from behind a tankard of ale.

“Please. It’s either this or dragon chow,” Amy pleaded.

“I understand that it can feel that way, but you’re in Canada now,” Trook said. “If you ask for asylum, you can stay here. Dragons don’t care about regular humans.”

“Then why does she get to be here?” she asked and pointed to the woman in black.

“She’s not exactly regular…but she’s our guest and her privacy is her own. Now, I’ll ask nicely once more—”

There didn’t seem to be anything she could say to change his mind so she decided it was time to show these dwarves rather than try to explain. She raised her skateboard, which made the dwarf fall silent, then released it.

Trook startled and obviously expected it to fall on his head but it merely floated above him instead. “I don’t know what I am.” She tried to keep her voice from cracking but didn’t do a particularly good job of it. “But I know I need help. I don’t think I’m a regular person, either.”

“No kidding, you’re not regular,” he retorted and a smile grew on his face. “You invented a damn flying hoverboard.”

That drew a chuckle from a number of the dwarves. Amy reddened with embarrassment, but she realized she didn’t need to feel that way. Their rich laughter seemed to break the tension and everyone returned to their meal, jokes, and relaxed enjoyment. The musicians struck up again and after a moment, the drummer elbowed the violinist to join them. He’d been the last to stop playing and apparently the last to realize it was time to make merry again. The dancers resumed their shuffle on the table.

The dwarf with the blue eyes and the jade nose ring approached her.

“What did you say your name was?” the dwarf asked.

“I didn’t. It’s…uh, Amy. Amy Williams.”

“Nice to meet you, uh, Amy,” he teased. “If you’d led with that, we could have brought you food way quicker. I’m Alp. You’re Patricia’s girl, right?”

“Yes, sir,” she said and her voice broke and tears came unbidden to trickle from her eyes.

“Oh, hey, it’s all right. I know I’m no looker but I’m not that bad.”

She smiled and wiped her cheeks. “No, no. But I’m so relieved to be here. There are dragons chasing me and…well, I want somewhere I can be safe. Do I need to get into a cellar or something?” Her weary brain seemed determined to offer no assistance and she hadn’t realized how exhausted she was.

Alp waved that away. “A cellar? Before you eat? Don’t be crazy. Come sit with me and we’ll talk about what to do next. I’m sure we can find you a job here somewhere, far, far away from dragons. Once everything calms, we’ll let your mom know you’re safe. It won’t be a glamorous life but it’ll be a proud one, and you’ll always be welcome here.”

“It’s a good offer,” a woman said from behind.

Amy turned and her gaze settled on the human woman in black. “Excuse me?”

“I said it’s a good offer. You should consider it. The dwarves are excellent hosts, and they know how to make mages feel welcome. If Alp says he’ll give you a proud life, that’s what you’ll have. Well, as proud as any humans’ life can be while dragons rule the world.”

“I’m sorry…who are you?” she asked.

“Constance. Constance Vigil. I’m a mage like you.”

“Oh.” She’d never met a mage before. She’d expected robes, though, and said as much.

The woman chuckled. “Robes are the uniform of the oppressed.”

“Can we get food in her before you start with the whole recruitment speech?” Alp asked.

“Of course.” Constance smiled and gestured for her to sit at her table.

Alp joined them and waved at a server for beer and food. “Like she said, this is Constance. She’s a…a freedom fighter, you could say. It’s not the kind of work I recommend, but she’s always been good to dwarves and mages alike and respects our wishes. If you want to get rid of her, say so and she’s out.” Alp raised an eyebrow at the woman.

Amy had the sense that only his sense of hospitality allowed the woman to stay. Still, there was something interesting about Constance Vigil.

“No, she doesn’t have to go. What did you mean when you said freedom fighter?” she asked.

“I fight for the only freedom that matters—the freedom to be what you are, whether it’s human, dwarf, dragon, or mage. I fight for equality and a world that’s not ruled by one group while the rest are enslaved.”

“We’re not enslaved, Constance,” Alp protested.

“As long as you stay in the frozen north, no, you’re not,” she replied smoothly. “Although, of course, the dragons don’t always respect those boundaries, do they?”

He frowned. That was true, then, although Amy already knew it given that dragons were pursuing her.

“What exactly are you proposing?” the girl asked.

“Nothing, yet. First, listen to Alp’s offer. I’m sure he can set you up as a lumberjack or an ice fisherman or something. If it sounds good, take it. But if, after hearing him, you’re still curious about what I have to offer, I’d be more than happy to tell you how with your help, we can remake the world into a better place. A world where humans don’t live in fear of dragons.”

She nodded as she listened to Alp talk about hideouts, new identities, and the communities she could live in and she tried to take it all in. The details, at this point, seemed overwhelming given her tired brain and body, and she couldn’t help real curiosity about what Constance had to say every time she glanced out the window and wondered if the dragons had arrived yet.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“So, is there anything I need to keep in mind about dwarves?” Kristen asked her two companions. They’d landed a few blocks away from La Face De Beouf and approached the restaurant.

“They’re a feisty people, make no doubt about it,” Windlock said. “That’s why I wanted us to approach on foot. If a dwarf sees a couple of dragons flying overhead, they’ll assume the worse.”

“Do you mean they’ll be scared?” She felt clarity was important as she needed to know even vaguely what to expect.

Larry chuckled. “You have never met one, huh? Dwarves don’t do scared. You have to remember that they were created by mages in the first dragon war.”

“You’re saying they have a chip on their shoulder?”

Windlock nodded. “That’s a good way to think about them. They were made for war and for all we know, they might have been able to win it, but they quit. They refused to continue fighting the dragons on behalf of the mages who made them.”

“Why?” She’d never thought about that intriguing truth before, not that she knew much about that almost forgotten history.

He shrugged. “No one knows exactly. The dwarves say it was because they realized they were committing murder, but that doesn’t exactly check out because in the centuries since, they have killed more than a few dragons who wander into their territory and make too big a scene.”

“And the Dragon Council allows that?” It seemed contrary to everything she knew.

“The Dragon Council is, first and foremost, interested in staying in power.” Windlock rubbed his chin. “They don’t really care if a few dragons die. Would your president go to war over the death of a single person?”

“I suppose not,” Kristen admitted. “Although I don’t know. I think it’s possible it could happen.”

“I suppose it would be for dragon kind too,” he agreed. “If someone from the Dragon Council was killed by dwarves, for example, it might be enough to anger the rest of them, but historically, the only dragons who tango with dwarves are those like the two killed in Rangeley. Fools with nothing to lose on a grudge mission.”

“What would happen if, say—and this is purely hypothetical here—but what if a dragon investigator were killed by dwarves while investigating a runaway mage responsible for the deaths of two said dragons?” Larry made his tone sound like it was a joke but she wanted to know the answer to the question.

“My plan is to not engage the dwarves. It seems like we beat the other dragons here so hopefully, we can all reach an agreement before they arrive.”

“And that should be possible, right?” Kristen wondered more and more about the insanity of this plan. The dragons she’d met weren’t exactly known for their ability to compromise. Far from it. In fact, she would say virtually every dragon she’d ever met—even the ones she liked—were used to having their way, period. Of course, the certainty of this was cemented by the fact that she was exactly like that. While she might have different priorities, the obstinacy—or was it arrogance?—persisted. Even she had to admit that she wanted her own way and believed it was the right way. In that, she was no different than the other dragons she so often resented.

“I think so. The dragons and dwarves came to an agreement during the first mage war, after all, and that was with mages causing everyone headaches. This is minor compared to that.”

“How did they come to an agreement, though?” she asked.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Larry waggled his eyebrows.

“Would you stop talking if we said no?” Windlock raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“Of course not.” The mage winked at her. “I think the dragons made them a better offer. It’s possible that the mages could have won that first rebellion if they’d offered the dwarves a proper continent. Hell, even Australia probably would have done it. But they didn’t—at least, the few historical records we have don’t say they did. When a cunning dragon came along and offered them the great frozen North, I think they saw it as a deal. They’re a pragmatic people, dwarves, and good eaters too. You should see the steaks they—”

“This isn’t the time for dwarven chit-chat.” Windlock gestured to the restaurant. They were close enough to identify the distinctive façade from the other shops in the strip mall—not a challenge given the two giant cow-head statues on the front. “What’s important is that their skin is incredibly tough, more like hide than skin. It takes far more than you’d think to scratch a dwarf. In fact, I’ve seen dragons chip a tooth on them before.”

Kristen couldn’t help but laugh at the idea.

“They’re not indestructible or anything like that but they are sturdy and strong too. I’d venture that one of them could beat your steel human form in a melee.”

“Is that right?” she asked. Her steel-covered, dragon-power augmented human form had the edge in any fight she’d had against a humanoid. Dwarves had to be extremely tough to be stronger than a dragon. Then again, they didn’t have any other form to switch to like dragons did if the fighting escalated.

“I’d put even money on it,” Larry said. “It depends on the dwarf but yeah, some of them are damn tough. Plus, they have a low center of gravity and all.”

“Anything else?” she asked and filed that interesting fact away. It seemed like something that might prove very useful.

“Yeah. Don’t blow fire at them. They’re extremely resistant to heat but they still hate our fire breath,” Windlock told her.

Brockton nodded emphatically. “I read that during the first mage war, dragons had been beaten to death simply for singeing a dwarf’s beard. Apparently, it’s the first part of them to be damaged by fire and the one they take the most pride in. Of course, with the lack of real historical records, it’s simply rumor. Aside from that, I feel it doesn’t make sense to take pride in your most fragile part, but I guess many men care about the size of their—”

“Enough, Larry,” the investigator said sharply.

“I’m only saying they’re sensitive, is all.” The mage laughed.

Kristen clenched her jaw. “Are we going in there to parlay or fight?”

The investigator shook his head. “It’s hard to say before we get there. Like I said, I’ve worked with Alp before. If it was only him, I think we’d be fine, but this is a whole community of dwarves.”

“That’s a ton of hard heads,” Larry said.

His boss grunted disapproval. “Brockton? Seriously?”

“Last one. Sorry. I know they don’t like that. No thick-skin jokes either on account of them not having them.”

“Are you done?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I will be entirely professional from here on out.”

As they drew closer, Kristen was able to make out individuals through the big windows of the restaurant.

They really were fascinating people with large beards, brightly colored clothes, and many unusual piercings, and everyone seemed to be having a fine evening. A few even danced on a table accompanied by a trio of musicians. It seemed unlikely that Amy could be inside. They seemed entirely focused on enjoying the food, drink, and entertainment, not like they harbored a fugitive and alleged murderer.

More than alleged, she reminded herself. Amy had killed and that truth wasn’t in question. The only real issue was whether she’d done it in self-defense or not, although to dragons, that apparently didn’t matter.

She almost felt bad for interrupting their evening but the thought vanished when she saw Amy Williams.

The young mage was seated in a booth with a blue-eyed dwarf. His legs dangled, not even close to reaching the floor. But the woman who sat opposite the girl was more shocking than any dwarf could have been.

It was Constance Vigil, the technomage who’d systematically killed dragons in Detroit.

Worse, the woman saw her. Their gazes locked and Kristen scowled instinctively in anger. Her adversary’s eyes narrowed in recognition of a threat and she moved a hand to her ear and touched something. She realized that the assassin used a radio to talk to someone.

“Down!” she yelled and in a burst of dragon speed, threw herself into Windlock and knocked him to the ground. It was a good thing she had practiced turning to steel so many times because if she hadn’t had the extra mass her steel skin granted her, he might have managed to stay on his feet. A half-second later, a bullet whistled through the space he’d occupied and passed harmlessly, unbloodied thanks to her quick and effective action.

“Move!” she snapped and half-crawled, half-dragged the investigator toward the restaurant as more gunfire erupted.

“Not today, you tricky bastards!” Larry yelled into the night and threw a shield up between the dragons and the rooftop farther down the strip mall where the gunshots seemed to come from.

She allowed herself a moment of amazement. Not that Brockton had stopped bullets—her steel skin did that all the time—but that he had made a shield to protect the two dragons instead of himself.

“Get over here, you crazy bastard!” Windlock bellowed, pushed into a crouch, and moved toward La Face De Beouf. “Get behind your shield.”

“It won’t matter much,” the mage said and clenched his teeth grimly. Sweat had already formed on his brow. “I can’t hold this long anyway. Stopping bullets isn’t really my thing. I’m more of an investigate crimes when there’s no chance of being shot at kind of guy, honestly.”

“I’m on it.” Kristen’s words turned into a roar as she transformed into her steel dragon form, lunged toward the restaurant so she could stay behind the shield, and inadvertently made the dwarves inside panic. She pumped her wings and soared over the building.

Her wide arc forced the gunmen to abandon their focus on Windlock if they wanted to track her with their weapons. She flew away from the mall and noticed immediately that she didn’t hear more shots. That told her the technomages used dragon-killing rounds. Otherwise, they would have taken potshots in an effort to keep her at bay. That they conserved their rounds meant the ammunition was dangerous.

It provided an opportunity for her. She circled the building before she angled toward the parking lot. Someone fired at her, but she tucked her wings and the shot missed. She landed running and destroyed a few light poles with her tail before she vaulted into the night sky again.

This time, she made a curved approach from darkness. One of the gunmen saw her but not soon enough. He’d expected her to stay near her dragon allies so wasn’t ready for her sudden appearance from the opposite direction.

She elevated slightly before she could fly into the back of the strip mall and immediately washed the roof with fire.

The gunmen flung themselves off, which was what she had expected. She had not expected them to slow their falls, however.

The six technomages descended as if they moved through molasses rather than air. The first to land fired at Windlock, but his shot was deflected by Larry’s shield. The other five used the covering fire to move between the dragon and the restaurant and found a position about halfway between the investigator and the dwarf stronghold.

Kristen hesitated as she considered her options hastily. These people were murderers. They’d killed dragons and had shown that they didn’t care about human casualties. If it was only them, she would have had no qualms with incinerating them. After all, they’d fired on her a few seconds before, tried to blow her up, and actually shot her more than once. The fact that they ran from her fire proved they were far more vulnerable than dwarves were, apparently, which provided enormous temptation.

But they currently stood directly in front of the big glass windows of the restaurant. What would the patrons think if a dragon engulfed five people in flame while they were having dinner? Probably nothing good if they didn’t like a dragon’s ability to breathe fire.

She still wrestled with her dilemma a few moments later when Constance stepped out of the building and raised both arms in the universal sign of truce. Amy came with her.

Her decision had been made for her. It might have been distasteful to burn a group of people who had fired sniper rifles at her but would perhaps be considered understandable. However, she couldn’t imagine any good coming from her breathing fire on a woman who had been having dinner with the dwarves. She landed on top of the restaurant so the two cow heads were beneath her and looked at the assassin.

“What do you want?” the Steel Dragon demanded of the woman who had both tried to kill her and had claimed to think of herself as her mother.

“The same thing we’ve always wanted,” Constance responded, her voice loud enough for all the parties to hear—the dwarves inside, the technomages guarding her with their weapons, Kristen and her team, and most importantly, Amy Williams. “We want equality between humans, mages, and dragons. We don’t want this young woman to be hunted for defending herself.”

“Neither do we,” Kristen told her coldly from her perch atop the building.

“Says the dragon hunting her.” The woman scoffed. “We were in the middle of making Amy an offer if you must know—an offer to be treated with the respect someone of her talents deserves. If you have a problem with that…well, we made sure to bring a good supply of dragon bullets this time.”

One of the technomages cocked his assault rifle. It was a pointless action given that the weapons could fire multiple rounds automatically, but they made their point—fuck with us and we’ll shoot.

“And you’re not holding a gun to Amy’s head like you are to the dragons?” she demanded.

“Constance has been nothing but kind,” the girl said tremulously.

“Of course we have,” the woman all but purred. “My team could have killed your mage but none of them did so. Speaking of which, Mr. Brockton, that shield spell you’re casting could be very useful in our organization. If you tire of serving as the lapdog of a lapdog, you are welcome to join us. We’re always looking for people with your experience.”

“Oh, it sounds wonderful!” the mage retorted and barely restrained his anger. “So, do I drink the Kool-Aid and start dressing like a goth before or after you turn me against the man I owe my life to? I’ve worked with dragons for years to bring dragons to justice. What the hell are you doing? Taking potshots at the way the world works? You disgust me. I’d never work with you. Not even if you did win your stupid rebellion.”

“Not if, when,” Constance corrected. “We will triumph, of this, we have no doubt. Victory always comes to those on the side of justice. Your refusal is noted but we will not hold that against you when the war finally does come. As long as you don’t turn your powers against us and use them to defend the dragons who have enslaved this world, you will be spared, even if you refuse to join the right side.”

“Mother fucking Teresa over here,” Larry muttered.

“Constance, you can forget about all this. We’re not here to hurt Amy but that doesn’t mean we’ll let you use her like a weapon either,” Kristen stated with grim determination.

“What is she talking about?” the girl asked her apparent benefactor. “You didn’t say anything about me using my powers.”

“You might as well give her the whole pitch,” she said, turned into her steel-skinned human form, and vaulted calmly off the building. The weight damaged the pavement where she landed beside the two women. The technomages all aimed their guns at her, but she didn’t flinch. While she knew their dragon rounds could pierce her steel skin as easily as they could tissue paper, the situation demanded that she show no fear in front of these terrorists.

“I have no intention of using you,” Constance told Amy. “You’d be a valuable ally in our group—a full member. And you'll be safe from dragons there. The Steel Dragon might try to tell you stories about us, but even she’ll admit that they can’t find us. I live in the same city as her and yet she’s never been able to track me. If you come with us, we’ll teach you how to use your powers in such a way that you stay safe from the dragons. The dwarves can keep you safe from the fire-breathing lizards too, but only by locating you far, far away from them.”

“What she means, Amy,” Kristen said quietly and addressed the rogue mage directly, “is that she’ll keep you safe until it’s time to assassinate random dragons.”

“Wait. Assassinate? You didn’t say anything about that.” The girl frowned. “Is that true?”

The assassin’s smile remained firmly in place. “Not the statement about random dragons, no. We only kill dragons who have hurt humans. It only seems random to other dragons because they don’t care about the people whose lives they’ve destroyed. They regard people as ants. The idea of us claiming justice for their murders simply doesn’t mean anything to them.”

“That’s not true,” the Steel Dragon said.

“But is it true that you kill dragons?” Amy pressed.

Constance nodded. She didn’t seem at all uncomfortable admitting it. “Yes. We do kill dragons. As often as we can, I might add. We are preparing for a war against dragon kind and would, in fact, have already started that war if not for the interference of the Steel Dragon herself. If you join us—and again, Amy, it’s your choice—we would ask you to stand in the front lines of that war. You could help lead our members in battles that would forever free mankind from the oppressive yoke—no, the claws and teeth—of dragon kind. Join us and be a hero.”

“Heroes don’t assassinate,” Kristen said.

“We don’t assassinate.” The technomage hissed annoyance, her rigid calm ruffled for the first time. “It’s not assassination if it delivers justice.”

“Delivers justice? Is that what you call it when you place a bomb made of dead dragons inside a cake and set it to explode at a party?” She glared at Constance.

“That party was filled with the most privileged, hedonistic, and cruel dragons in North America. We did our research. The only dragon there who didn’t deserve to have their crimes repaid was you,” the woman replied sharply.

“And what about the human police officer you kidnapped? Was he somehow responsible for the deaths of innocent lives? Is that why you strapped a bomb to his leg and tried to make me choose between blowing either my friend up or a group of partygoers?”

“You never chose to save Washington,” the assassin said petulantly, “and no one died.”

“Yeah, because I saved them and not because you grew a conscience. You do know, don’t you, that if the bomb on the rooftop had exploded, the mages would have died too?”

“Again, do your research.” Her adversary made no attempt to hide her disgust. “All the mages at that party were dragon sycophants—the kind of people who are more than willing to hide the crimes of the masters simply to keep their place and beg near the table.”

“You’ll notice that she didn’t deny trying to blow up a party or kidnapping a cop?” Kristen said to Amy.

“Is…is that true?” Amy asked.

Constance nodded gently as if to reassure a child after a nightmare. “It is but we have been desperate. You saw what dragons can do. They burned your house without even noticing and they do things exactly like that to people. Every. Single. Day. They are ruthless leaders and slave owners who hide behind their abilities. We have to end their reign of terror—we must. I can admit that a bomb was crass, but if you join us and stand against them, we won’t have to resort to such methods.”

“I can’t believe you’d make me do things like blow people up.” The girl was horrified. She’d turned pale and now regarded the other woman with open disdain.

“Then come with me.” Kristen extended a hand to her. “I won’t make you do anything.”

Amy shook her head and didn’t reply but it was clear what she was thinking. It was plain on her face. She couldn’t get past the fact that Kristen was a dragon and that dragons were what got her into this mess in the first place.

“I know what it’s like to feel what you’re feeling,” she said.

The girl’s expression evidenced disbelief.

“Really, I do.” She dropped her steel skin. “I thought I was a normal person until one day, I unlocked hidden powers that suddenly changed everything for me.”

“What, you woke up one day and saw you were special?” the rogue mage asked. “Did you think your parents were dead and that you would die?”

She shook her head. “No, I never feared for my parents’ life until a dragon tried to kill them. My powers woke when I tried to protect my friend Jonesy. He was simply a regular cop—hell, he was a shitty cop and kind of racist, and he had a horrible mouth on him. Every other word was fuck, you know? He swore so much I still think of him every time I hear the F-bomb.”

“What—what happened to him?”

“I saved him from a rocket. Can you believe that? I thought I would explode but somehow, I saved Jonesy from that, only for him to get shot and die in my arms. It was…it was the worst day of my life, and not only because I lost a friend. It was the worst day of my life because that was when I realized what I was and that all the dreams I ever had no longer mattered, you know?”

Amy nodded and wiped a tear.

“I wanted to be a beat cop, like my dad, and to spend the next thirty years walking the streets of a neighborhood in Detroit. I didn’t even care which neighborhood as long as I could get to know the people, lock some up, and get others out of trouble. I wanted to help the world by making little differences in people’s lives, exactly like my dad.”

The girl snorted a laugh and wiped tears away. “Are you saying I can’t be a magazine editor anymore?”

“No.” Kristen shook her head. “No, you can’t. A dragon can’t be a beat cop and a mage can’t be a magazine editor. We’ve been given too much and can’t squander it.”

“So don’t,” Constance interjected. “Don’t squander your gift. With your power, we could remake the world into a truly just place. We could make a world where dragons are afraid to kill people because they’ll be forced to fear justice. Together, we can forge a world where someone who defends herself doesn’t have to go on the run to keep her life.”

“All you have to do is become a killer,” Kristen finished for the assassin, determined that the girl should hear the full reality. She gestured around her. “What they did here is the perfect example. She claims they made no effort to hurt Brockton, but if not for his shield, he’d probably have died when they fired at Windlock. Look, I don’t have all the answers and I don’t have plans for you like Constance does, but I promise that I can help you discover your place in the world and keep you safe while we do it.”

Amy nodded, looked from her to Constance, then back at her. She wiped her face and looked at the dwarves as well. It wasn’t an easy decision—a life of solitude, a soldier, or a dragon cop, none of which sounded remotely like what the girl had wanted to do. Kristen had joined SWAT barely out of the academy and before she’d been ready and then dragon SWAT, but at least those were still more or less police work. This young woman was forced to choose something completely different.

But it looked like she had reached a conclusion. She drew a deep breath and glanced at Constance as if to speak. The words remained unspoken as flames lit the sky and the five dragons who had pursued her arrived.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Timbergust and his companions landed and immediately surrounded everyone else. Kristen wasn’t even slightly surprised that none of them transformed into their human shapes. They weren’t there to make peace, after all, but to enforce dragon justice on a scared girl.

She was about to tell them to back off when Constance laughed. It wasn’t a gentle chuckle or quick guffaw either but a full-throated, deep-bellied sound. She threw her head back and laughed for a long moment before she finally stopped and wiped tears from her eyes. “It looks like we have a three-way tug of war now,” she said and motioned to her technomages. They turned their guns on the newcomers.

The dragons didn’t flinch, which made the woman’s grin wider. Kristen stifled a grimace. Boston SWAT doesn’t know about the dragon rounds, she realized. Or if they did, they didn’t realize that the people who now aimed guns at them used bullets that could kill dragons as easily as any normal bullet killed a human.

She swallowed. This wouldn’t end well if it came to violence, and she knew the assassin enough to know that she’d love the opportunity to kill a few members of a dragon SWAT force. After all, she’d sent a bomb to Detroit SWAT.

Quickly, she appraised her opponents and acknowledged that this would be tough. She, Larry, and Windlock—not exactly a battle mage or a battle dragon—stood against two formidable adversaries. On one hand, the team of technomages was trained to fight dragons and armed with weapons that could kill them. On the other, a team of five pissed-off dragons showed little inclination for diplomacy and were all both skilled and battle-hardened. She wouldn’t put her money on her group, that was for sure.

Things became even more complicated when the doors to Le Face De Beouf swung open and a dozen dwarves marched out into the parking lot and stood behind Amy.

“Ye needs to learn to count, eh?” one of the dwarves said to Constance. “The ways I see it, this here’s a four-way tug of war.” He had a curious accent like something out of the Middle Ages mixed with the polite speech of a Canadian.

Another dwarf cleared his throat. “My name’s Alp, just so you know the name of the dwarf who’s about to kick all yer teeth down yer throats. This young woman came to us for help and we offered her our hospitality. Now I know that might not mean much to a group of dragons or your black-clad friends with their fancy pea-shooters, Constance, but it means a great deal to us.”

He glared at those assembled and rested his hand on an ax that had apparently been hidden in the restaurant. All the dwarves had weapons—broadswords, axes, and long pikes with odd tips. All the blades looked unusual and not like steel. She had a feeling these weapons might very well puncture dragon skin as well as a bullet made of dragon could.

Alp continued in his calm but very deliberate tone. “Amy, I understand our offer might not be the one ye wish. There are better lives than ice-fishing, eh? But it’s yours to choose. You tell us what you want to do and we’ll make that happen, even if it’s not with us. But no one—and I mean no one—will take you anywhere against your will. You got that, you fire-spitting lizards and wannabe wizards?” His steel-blue eyes settled on Kristen. “And I don’t know what the hell you are either, other than that a minute ago you were shinier than an uncut diamond.”

“I’m here to help,” she said and tried to sound calm.

“Maybe ye is, maybe ye isn’t. I’ll leave that for Amy to determine, but I ain’t letting you take her as you’re standing with another dragon and the only shackled mage I can see.”

A moment passed where no one seemed to breathe.

While she felt she should do something, she was uncertain as to what that should be. She was still in human form so she didn’t want to start a fight, not yet and not when there was still a chance to resolve this peacefully. She looked into Amy’s eyes and hoped she could win the woman’s trust. Her dragon reflexes demanded that she flex her aura and use it to bring the girl to her side, but the human part of her—the part she’d always been—told her this was not an option.

Her aura might well be her greatest weakness in this situation. Even if it worked on the mage—and it might—it would forever undermine Amy’s faith in her. She couldn’t allow that and wanted her to see that she was a dragon with a human heart, a cop who believed in justice for all. If she won her over, it would have to be the human way.

“Amy,” she said at last and broke the silence. “I know that what you did was in self-defense. Any human court would respect that and as crazy as it sounds, I think I’m actually the most human person here.”

Amy smiled and responded with a tentative and uncertain nod. She obviously didn’t know what to think about dwarves, technomages, or dragons either.

“I know you didn’t murder anyone, and I know that when these dragons attacked, you didn’t kill them even though you could have.”

The girl nodded again, which made her smile because it proved she had been right. She could have killed Timbergust and Boston Dragon SWAT, but she hadn’t. Despite barely learning how to control the unimaginably powerful magic at her fingertips, she had shown restraint.

“You’re a good person, Amy. If you weren’t, you would have killed them.” She pointed at the other dragons. “Come with me. I’ll get you to safety and together, we can find the best way for you to use your powers for the good of everyone—humans, dragons, mages, dwarves, everyone. If that’s the future you want, it can be yours.”

Constance snorted and didn’t give the young mage a chance to reply. She pointed at Dragon SWAT. “Do you think they will let you go unpunished for killing one of their kind?”

Kristen honestly wanted to eat Constance in that moment. Windlock stood in front of Timbergust, still in human form, and glared at the dragons to will them not to attack. At the same time, the assassin tried to goad them into a fight. “Trust me, Amy,” she said and made an effort to not yell the words even though she was seriously pissed-off.

“Who should you trust—another dragon?” The technomage pointed at the Steel Dragon. “Or a group of mages like you—people who are fighting the very dragons who have hunted you?”

“I’m not merely any dragon, Amy. I’m the Steel Dragon. Have you heard of me?”

The girl nodded. “Yeah, I…uh, I saw a made-for-TV movie about you, actually.”

Great, she thought, now people were making crappy movies about her without her knowing, but that was neither here nor there. “Then I hope you know that I’ve always fought for humans and dragons alike. I’ve killed dragons because they threatened my city and I’ve stopped…people.” She could have said Constance and her sycophants but thought it maybe wasn’t the best time to land a barb like that. “I’ve stopped people who have threatened dragons and other people too. I care about justice—actual justice, as crazy as that may sound. I want to make the world better for everyone, not only people, not only mages, and definitely not only dragons. If all I cared about was dragons, Constance would have killed me already. I can promise you that.”

Amy looked quickly at the technomage, who nodded, although begrudgingly. “That much is so. I won’t lie about our work or hers. The Steel Dragon doesn’t only fight for dragon kind. In fact, I’ve offered her a position with us fighting for true equality. A position that’s still available, Kristen.”

“I didn’t take it then and I won’t take it now,” she replied. “We’re too different, Constance. You think human lives are part of an equation and I’m not willing to sacrifice them.”

“Fair enough,” the woman agreed. “If you joined my organization, Steel Dragon, I would not give you control. The same goes for you, Amy. Despite your power, I would expect you to argue for any decisions you want made, as I do all my members. But, Kristen, if you’re not willing to join me because you wouldn’t be in command, how can you serve the dragons when you’re so obviously not the one in charge, now are you?” While that was not at all what her opponent had claimed—and Kristen almost protested the inaccuracy—the last words were directed at Timbergust. She was also familiar enough with Constance’s magic to recognize that the gust of wind that blew in the forest dragon’s face had come from her.

“No, she’s not,” Timbergust said and stepped past Windlock’s human form. Apparently, he’d waited long enough. He’d probably only needed time to decide who he would attack first, Kristen or the technomages.

“I’m in charge of this investigation by the authority of the Dragon Council,” Windlock said and sounded exasperated.

“When you broke protocol, you messed that up,” Emberslight said. She didn’t sound too happy about it, though.

“All that is clear is that you—a rogue mage—killed two dragons in my jurisdiction,” Timbergust said and his voice became significantly louder.

“We’re no longer in your jurisdiction,” Kristen pointed out.

“The law is clear!” the green dragon bellowed and his voice rose to a full-blown roar, complete with smoking dragon nostrils. “She killed in my turf. It is my duty to bring her in, dead or alive, before she kills anyone else. And I suggest you come willingly, you sick little mage, or we’ll be forced to investigate the source of your power and how you knew to come here. I reckon your mother may know a thing or two.”

“Don’t threaten her,” Constance said coolly.

“Or what? You’ll shoot me and hope you get me in the eyes so I can’t incinerate you? I have no qualms with you dwarves. Step back, give us the murderer, and we’ll be on our way. Any damages to your restaurant will be repaid, you have my word.”

Alp hefted his ax. “You can go fuck yourself, eh?”

Perhaps there could have been something more politic to say, and if there was, it might have bought them a few minutes. Unfortunately, the dwarf had gone for shocking and thus forced everyone’s hand.

Timbergust—none too keen on the insult—shrieked a challenge. Windlock transformed and the dwarves moved forward to attack.

In other words, all hell broke loose.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Flames welled in Timbergust’s throat, but before they could erupt from his mouth and engulf Amy, Kristen, Constance, and the dwarves, the technomages opened fire on the forest dragon. Apparently, the time for conserving bullets was past and at least ten shots caught the dragon in the chest. They were obviously all dragon rounds. In a moment, his torso was transformed from a rich moss-green to a mess of blood and bone.

He was dead, that much was obvious.

His four dragon teammates recognized the threat and took to the air. Windlock followed at their heels and commanded them to stop their attack before they ruined everything.

It was too late for that, unfortunately. The dwarves formed up around Amy, who looked terrified. More gunshots followed when the technomages fired at the approaching dragons. Three of them pulled off their attack, but Bronzeback—probably more accustomed to being impervious to bullets than anyone else—continued to fly toward his quarry. He opened his mouth wide enough that his throat was visible and there was little doubt that he intended to burn them all. The aggressive dragon had apparently lost all patience and didn’t care who was caught in his attack.

Kristen transformed into her dragon shape, complete with steel skin to protect her from the flames. Bronzeback, however, wasn’t aiming at her. Despite the disagreements, he was a dragon loyalist. He wouldn’t attack her, not when there were mages to kill.

Instead, he flew over Kristen, held his fire while he did so, and unleashed his breath at Amy.

It didn’t do a damn thing. The dwarves had surrounded her and stacked themselves into some kind of gymnastics pyramid. The flames struck their leathery hides and bounced off as if they were made of stone.

They grinned at each other as the fire-breathing dragon exhausted his reserve of flame and took to the sky. Kristen wondered if they’d expected to be more burned. They probably didn’t know the girl could block flames with her powers.

Not that she looked like she had much left in her. She held her hands up in an attempt to protect the dwarves but she shook visibly, probably on the verge of complete exhaustion.

Bronzeback circled above and prepared to swoop into another assault. If he was smart—and he was at least smart enough to know how to fight—he wouldn’t try fire again but would instead knock the dwarves into Amy and maybe crush her in the process. They were strong, obviously, but they couldn’t be strong enough to stop a dragon that size with metal scales. It seemed he knew what he was doing and didn’t advance at the same angle but from the side, which forced them to rebuild their pyramid—a task it appeared they didn’t have time for.

Constance cursed at the dragon and ran from the dwarves. She must have reached the same conclusion as Kristen. Her technomages fired at Bronzeback, but either they missed or his bronze plates were stronger than anticipated as he merely hurtled closer, apparently unscathed.

The large dragon spread his wings seconds before two light poles ripped out of the parking lot. Each was close to twenty feet tall with a decorative lamp at their tip. The first floated in place while the second rocketed toward him, punctured his wing, and whipped him violently to alter his trajectory. It pinned him to the side of one of the shops in the strip mall like a bug struck by the windshield of a moving car. The other pole followed and speared his other wing.

He flapped his wings but the membranes tore and he screamed in pain. His effort hadn’t brought liberty and he remained stuck there like a bug. He had no time to suffer, though, as Constance’s technomages saw an opportunity and took it.

Apparently, Bronzeback’s movement had been all that prevented the shooters from killing him. Now that he was trapped, a hail of bullets struck him in the face and chest to end his life as quickly as they had Timbergust’s.

Of course, that was enough to drive the other dragons into a rage. The three of them separated and swooped in a coordinated assault to strafe the technomages, who fired at them as they raced into cover. One of the mages had already made it inside a building, though, Kristen realized when the asphalt at her feet exploded. The idiot used the opportunity to fire at her.

She sprinted behind an SUV in the far corner of the parking lot. While it seemed unnatural to hunker there, she knew from experience that steel skin wouldn’t protect her against dragon bullets.

What followed could only be described as chaos. The dragons seemed to simply want to burn everyone to ashes. They attacked the technomages, the dwarves, and even Windlock with reckless enthusiasm. The technomages were more focused in their rebuttal, but they made no effort to spare the investigator despite him not attacking any of them.

The dwarves focused on little more than defending Amy, but that kept them busy. Emberslight picked a car up and dropped it on them. Four of them darted beneath it and amazingly, caught the vehicle by its wheels and flung it at the dragon. They didn’t have anything like the accuracy she did but they made it clear that they would not be crushed.

Kristen only had eyes for Amy, though. The young mage rubbed her face and one of her nostrils was bleeding. She’d clearly over-extended herself and wouldn’t last much longer out there. In the current battle, she was probably already more of a liability than an asset.

The dwarves must have known this as six of them ushered her inside while the others remained to guard the door against the chaos in the parking lot outside Le Face De Beouf.

She had to follow them indoors. This fight was about Amy and would end when the girl was no longer a threat. To the dragons, this meant she had to die. To the technomages, she would have to join them, but that wouldn’t happen as long as there were dragons to kill. She didn’t know what that meant to the dwarves, but she did know that if they tried to take her to safety, the fighting in the parking lot wouldn’t stop until either all the dragons or all the mages were dead. Kristen—as little as she cared for either side—didn’t want a slaughter.

Despite the obstacles, then, she had to get to Amy. Grimly, she considered those obstacles—heavily armed assassins, a trio of enraged dragons, and a half-dozen dwarves. The odds weren’t good, but she reminded herself that she’d faced worse.

Kristen took a deep breath and waited for a pause in the madness. She quickly realized that there were simply too many players for that to happen and instead, simply made a break for it.

She darted out from behind the SUV and lunged toward the restaurant. It seemed logical that if she took to the air, the technomages would have an easier time shooting at her.

What seemed like a good plan lasted only until a dragon dive-bombed and raked her steel back with their claws. Thankfully, her protection blocked the hot-fire pain that should have come from the attack and she glanced up as Emberslight flew away.

“You’re not serving the Dragon Council’s interests,” she shouted and her talons glowed hot. Kristen had never seen that before and realized that her adversary must have used her powers to super-heat her claws.

In response, she ripped the wheel off a truck and hurled it like a frisbee. The other dragon incinerated it long before it could reach her, but it bought her a few seconds and another leap forward, and that was what she needed for the moment.

She sprinted toward the wall of six dwarves who guarded the entrance to the restaurant. After she saw them fling a car like it was an oversized pillow, she didn’t exactly think she could simply knock them out of the way. She needed to think about how she could get past them, but that wasn’t her biggest priority.

It was the six assault rifles aimed at her face.

Kristen had faced death many times. Hell, she’d literally killed a dragon assassin named Death, so she wasn’t exactly one to fear her own demise. In that moment, however, she saw no way to survive. The six weapons were spread out enough that she couldn’t eliminate them with a single sweep of fire, nor could any other dragon. She thought her life would flash before her eyes, given that this was most likely her final moment.

Instead, she thought of her mother, father, and brother at her funeral, standing in front of a gravestone engraved with Died in Canada. It was a stupid, bizarre picture, and hardly fitting for her last thought on earth, yet it was surprisingly vivid. She even wondered what kind of flowers her mom would bring and decided she’d probably choose blooms from the garden.

The moment faded into reality once again and she startled when all six technomages lifted their guns a few inches so none of them were trained on her any longer.

“Move!” Larry shouted, his voice strained. Somehow, he had forced them to aim their weapons elsewhere when she needed it most.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Without hesitation, she barreled forward and drew a little closer to the dwarves who guarded the door.

Foolishly, she chose to look at the field of battle to confirm that no other surprises might hinder her progress.

Windlock was high above and fought tooth and claw with Aquatos. Both dragons snapped and scratched at one another’s wings in relentless attempts to knock their opponent from their great height.

The other two dragons had separated. Emberslight seemed to make one of the technomage’s guns glow red-hot, which forced him to drop it. This, however, left her open to Constance, who used a magically powered gust of wind to rocket herself toward her target and whip her across the jaw with some kind of glove. It drew blood where it struck the dragon, but not enough to slow her. She swung her tail and catapulted her attacker through the front window of an automotive store. The woman launched from impact directly into motion and yelled orders to her mages to try to eliminate her opponent.

Crimson—the third surviving member of Boston’s Dragon SWAT division—attempted to attack Larry. It was rather like watching a lion try to eat a mouse and the dragon obviously had the advantage. If he landed on his target—even by accident—it would all be over.

The mage moved deftly around the parking lot and remained in constant motion as he slid over and under cars, darted behind them, and occasionally flicked license plates or pieces of trash in the dragon’s face. He seemed fine and she had to assume he would continue to be. He knew his limits. The best way she could help her teammates was to talk to Amy and end this fight.

The delay had cost her, though, and she turned to the dwarves too late. Aquatos had curtailed his battle with Windlock and reached them first. The investigator was now engaged with Crimson, apparently less sure of his mage’s fighting prowess than she had been.

Aquatos lunged at the dwarves, who scattered like bowling pins when the massive dragon drove into them. But, also like bowling pins, they didn’t stay down long. Instead, they rolled and tumbled toward their assailant. The dragon tried to shatter the door with his jaws but one of the dwarves caught him in the chin with a hammer and he shook his head as if to clear the ringing in his head from the blow.

He snapped at the dwarf but came up short. Two others had him by the tail and he simply couldn’t move forward. He whirled to attack them and another took hold of one of his front legs. Furious, he managed to shake this one free and hurled him over the parking lot to connect with the front of a red sedan. The car alarm shrieked for a second and promptly died.

A fourth dwarf tried to climb the dragon’s back but he wasn’t fast enough. Crimson knocked him loose with his wings and snatched him in his claw. When he proceeded to pound his captive into the asphalt again and again, Kristen decided she’d had enough.

She lunged and was able to thrust the dragon off-balance. Aquatos fell and before he could right himself, the dwarves who had him by the tail yanked as one and swung him about one hundred and eighty degrees before they released him. He careened across the parking lot while he flailed in an attempt to find purchase on the asphalt.

Gunshots rang out and the dragon hissed and took to the sky. He had evidently grasped the fact that although the dwarves were tougher, the mages were the more lethal opponents.

“Thanks, eh?” one of the dwarves said to Kristen.

“I need to get inside,” she replied.

“Yeah, we realized that, what with the running over here,” another said.

“You won’t wreck our place, will ya?” a third asked.

“No, sir…er, ma’am?” She noticed this dwarf had very long eyelashes and—despite having an impressive mustache and a short beard—also wore lipstick. “I only want to talk to Amy. If she’ll make a decision, we can end this fighting. That’s all I want.”

“Aye, all right then,” the first dwarf said.

She gave him a grateful smile and entered Le Face De Beouf.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Amy!” Kristen called as soon as she was inside.

The mage was in the back of the restaurant near a door to the kitchen. She turned to face her, although reluctance seemed to define the movement. Her hair was a mess and one of her nostrils was ringed with blood. She looked so incredibly tired.

Between the two women stood six dwarves who looked as fresh as daisies. Or maybe cactus was a better comparison, she thought as they looked tough.

“Look, I don’t want to fight,” she said and changed to her regular human form. She’d already shifted from dragon to steel human, but she understood that a shining silver person didn’t exactly make the best conversation partner. “I want to help.”

The girl simply stared at her. She was in shock, obviously, was wrung out and tired, and had probably never been in a fight before. Kristen glanced out the window to where the battle still raged. How bizarre it was to see it muffled behind the glass like it was wrap-around film instead of a battle she had been in only a few minutes before.

“How will ye do that?” a dwarf asked. His jade nose ring and blue eyes identified him as Alp.

“Come with me,” Kristen said.

He shook his head. “Constance is right in that regard. Those dragons outside will never let a mage this strong live. She's a threat to the dragon paradigm. They'll do whatever they have to do to eliminate her. We’ve never had to hide a mage of this power before.”

“But you can?” Amy asked. She took deep breaths and some of the color had returned to her face. Smart girl, Kristen thought. She had probably recognized that she was going into shock.

“Aye. We can send ye someplace where you can be free of the dragons. It’ll be far from here but ye’ll be safe. Ye may have to move a time or two over the next two years, but I gave ye my word. We’ll keep ye safe.”

“But at what cost, Amy?” she asked. “If you go with them—and you can—you’ll never see your home again and you’ll never see your family. You’ll be alone.”

“Not alone,” Alp admonished. “We ain’t going to send ye to some igloo in the middle of the tundra. There’ll be dwarves there and maybe a human or two as well, but the dragon’s right about the rest. If ye come with us, it’ll be goodbye to your family, your home, and your country. You’ll be a Canadian from here on out.”

“Is that the life you want, always running?” Kristen asked.

The girl looked at the dwarves as if to confirm this.

“Aye, there’s a chance ye’ll always be running. Two more dragons are dead out there. I know ye didn’t kill either but…well, dragons don’t always like to parse the details in these kinds of fights,” Alp said. “If ye come with us, ye’ll always be a rogue mage. Always. They might not always hunt ye, but ye’ll have to live like they are. It’s the only way. If they come for ye, we’ll help you fight them—although we might not need to, not with powers like you have.” He chuckled darkly and his expression conveyed that the dwarves were more than capable of holding their own.

“Do you think it’s better to fight like Constance said?” Amy asked.

“No. Absolutely not,” Kristen replied quickly. “I think it would be better to run than to join Constance. She wants a war that will devastate the world. I know dragons have too much power, but her path is not the way forward.”

“I don’t know,” one of the dwarves muttered. “It seems like she may know a thing or two about killing dragons.”

“Humans have enough tech now to be truly deadly to dragons,” she admitted. “If it came to war, the dragons would massacre billions, of that I have no doubt, but the humans would fight back. And with Constance’s weapons, they might truly be able to slay every last dragon or at least enough to drive the remaining few into hiding. But at what cost? The entire world would be devastated by a war of that magnitude. Nuclear weapons might be used. Whole cities would burn. It's a nightmare scenario that we cannot let happen.”

Amy nodded. “I don’t want vengeance. Those dragons who destroyed my home…they didn’t actually kill my parents, although I didn’t know it at the time. And I didn’t want to kill them. I only wanted… I wanted them to take responsibility.”

Kristen nodded. “I know. I really do. We live in an unjust world but it’s better than it was a century ago. We don’t need to tear the entire thing down to start again. I think we can bring change to the system and continue to improve things for most people.”

“Maybe for you, but you’re a dragon,” the girl pointed out.

“What do you suggest?” Alp asked.

The Steel Dragon had given this considerable thought. She’d pondered it from every angle as they’d flown to the town and considered what it was like to realize one’s incredible powers and not have anyone to help. Her thoughts had included Larry and Windlock’s relationship as well as Atramento, the mage and glorified paper-pusher who managed all the paperwork at Dragon SWAT. She tried to take all this into account while she searched for a solution that would keep the mage safe yet also allow her to change the world. And, while her conscience had protested volubly and she’d needed to consider the implications very carefully, she thought she had a solution.

Those gathered regarded her with varying degrees of curiosity and suspicion, and she realized that they waited for her to respond. After a deep breath, she slid her hand into her pocket, withdrew the silver bracelet Windlock had given her, and held it out.

“Wear this and become my personal mage. Dragon law is weird. Yes, much of it is corrupt, but there is still law. If you become my mage, other dragons will have to respect you or risk dueling with me, something most of them don’t like to do.” She flashed her steel skin briefly to make her point.

“I don’t know,” Amy said and regarded the bracelet dubiously.

“You could still be attacked. No one can offer you a future where that’s not a possibility but this way, you’d have the law on your side. You could return to the US, visit your family, and live a—well, not a normal life, but something more normal than being an ice fisherman. If you become my mage, you could use your powers for good.”

“And all she’s asking you to do is wear that slave chain,” the mustachioed dwarf said.

The girl frowned. “Is that true?”

“It’s true that the mages who wear these are treated as possessions by dragons,” she admitted and clenched her teeth to display her disapproval. “But if the other dragons see it, they’ll know they’re safe. They won’t attack and if they do, I’ll stop them.”

“They’ll know they’re safe because that bracelet will take away most of your power.” Alp’s voice was like ice. “You’ll still be able to use some, of course. Like a bird with clipped wings, you’ll still be able to flutter around but that’ll be it. And don’t try to attack a dragon again, not even in self-defense. Those bracelets won’t allow that. You’ll be a slave, Amy—a pampered one, maybe, but a slave all the same.”

“How dare you,” Kristen retorted hotly.

“Here we go with the dragon arrogance,” the dwarf replied.

“Nonsense,” she snapped. “You know who I am, yes? The Steel Dragon.”

“Aye, we get the news,” he admitted.

“Then can you explain how anything you’ve heard makes you think I’ll treat anyone like a slave?”

He frowned but made no effort to answer the question.

“Do you know what my mom would do to me if I ever became that pigheaded? She wouldn’t care that I’m a dragon. She would murder me!”

“I thought ye didn’t have a mom.”

“My human mom, the woman you’ll have to meet if you want to come with me,” she said to Amy.

The dwarf finally smiled. “You give us her number and tell her to call us if she ever needs helping spanking you, and I’ll agree you can be trusted,” the dwarf said and nodded at Amy.

Kristen didn’t even hesitate. She wrote her parents’ phone number down on a napkin and gave it to him. “There. Insurance. Now, Amy, come on. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I…I mean, these powers are frightening but they’re mine. I don’t want to lose them.”

She nodded. This had occurred to her as a likely response, which made what she did next all the easier.

Without hesitation, she turned her hands to steel and ripped the silver bracelet into pieces. A spark of blue energy flared briefly before the dampening power of the bracelet vanished.

The dwarves gasped.

The young mage smiled. “Do you promise me that I’ll actually meet your mom?”

Kristen groaned. “Yes, sure, but you’ll have to meet my brother and dad too.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Oh yeah.” She nodded.

“Speaking of problems,” Alp said. “there’s still the issue of the dragons outside.”

She turned to them. Beyond the window, the parking lot now resembled a war zone. The cars that remained were either charred by fire or crushed and battered from being struck by a dragon’s body. Most had already been hurled away.

Yet the dragons continued to fight the dwarves and technomages, who retaliated with equal resolution.

“I’ll take care of them if this is really what you want,” she said to the girl. “If you really want to go, don’t let me force you to stay. I’m sure these dwarves have a way out. You can take it while I run interference.”

Amy furrowed her brow in thought and Kristen strode to the door. Every step was heavier than the last. She wanted the mage to join her. Hell, she’d even take her to her folks, but Amy had to choose. She had to want this. Otherwise, it would never work. It was okay and even inevitable if she was scared, but she had to choose all the same.

She raised her hand to open the glass door. Her heart hammered in her throat, a physical response to the tension, when Amy finally agreed.

“Okay. I’ll be the Steel Dragon’s mage.”

Kristen turned and grinned at her. “No, you’ll be the Steel Dragon’s friend.” She held her hand out and the girl approached and shook it. The two women smiled as the battle raged on the other side of the panes of glass.

“But first, I need to stop them from burning this place down.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was crazy, but Kristen was ready to take on the dragons and the technomages by herself if that was what it took to prove to Amy she was serious about protecting her. She hoped the dwarves who had stayed outside would help her and that Windlock might come to her aid, but even if they didn’t, she was ready. By this point, she was heartily fed up with the handful of dragons who acted like they ruled the world. In Canada—a country not beholden to them but governed by a completely different species of people, she had hoped they might display a little more political sensitivity, but that didn’t seem very likely to happen.

They left her with little choice but to force the issue.

She faced the door, turned her skin to steel, and prepared herself to transform into a dragon when a skateboard rolled in front of her.

Amy grinned. “I can’t let a friend go out there alone.”

“Are you sure about that?” She raised an eyebrow.

“What’s the worst thing they can do—eat me?”

Kristen snorted a laugh. “If you’re really lucky, they’ll cook you first.”

Ah, gallows humor. How she loved it. That the girl could joke about her own demise boded well for their friendship.

“You convinced me to work with you without fighting so maybe we can convince them of that if we go out there together.”

“It’s worth a try,” she agreed.

The two young women who were anything but human stepped outside.

The battle showed no signs of slowing. The dragons kept to the air and took turns to attempt to incinerate the technomages or the dwarves. The latter were too flame-resistant and the former were too good with their weapons.

Aquatos swooped in for an attack on the mages but one of them shot him in the wing joint and the dragon tumbled.

If Emberslight hadn’t begun to heat the ground the technomages stood on, they would have killed the wounded dragon then and there. He moved away hastily to take cover, now denied his ability to fly.

Kristen used the temporary retreat to transform into a dragon and deliver her loudest roar. All eyes turned to her and the fighting ceased temporarily. She knew she had to speak quickly and persuasively, though. It would only take one bullet from the technomages to end her speech before it began.

“It’s done,” she said decisively. “Amy Williams is no longer a fugitive. She has agreed to work with me as a mage, which means she’s under my protection. If anyone wants to hurt her, they have to come through the Steel Dragon first.” She thought that about summed it up but to make her point to both the technomages and the dragons, she exhaled a massive inferno of flame at the sky. The dragons would hopefully see she was fresh and ready for a fight, while the mages would know she knew her way around guns and had the fire to melt their weapons.

“Damn it, Kristen, we almost had them,” Constance shouted. “Two more of their damn strafes and they’d be done, but you had to come and ruin us again. Amy, come with us.”

“I don’t want to kill these dragons,” the mage replied quietly.

“The world will burn. Can’t you fucking see that?” The assassin was livid. “If you would only join us, we could at least decide which way the fires would spread.”

“I don’t want to fan any flames,” she said.

“This is naïve. You’re being a fucking child right now.” Kristen didn’t think she’d ever heard the woman so angry. The leader of the technomages continued with something close to desperation in her tone. “Lady Steel—Kristen—I implore you to rethink this. With you and Amy working with us, there wouldn’t have to be a war.”

“I won’t kill dragons,” she replied. “And I don’t want to kill you either. But if you target me again or fire any more of those bullets at those dragons, I might not have a choice.”

“Goddammit!” Constance screamed, but she gestured for her technomages to retreat. They obeyed, although one of them—a man with broad shoulders and a five o’clock shadow, didn’t look too happy about the order. Still, they complied and the technomages vanished into the woods behind the strip mall.

The Steel Dragon shook her head. She wouldn’t join Constance, not on her vendetta to destroy dragon lives to start a war, but damn, she really did wish there was some way they could work together. The assassin was right in that the idea of a revolution that put humans, mages, and dragons on an equal footing was a beautiful dream. While she could applaud the notion, she didn’t believe that her and Amy joining technomages who were willing to harvest dragon body parts was the way to achieve that goal.

Still, it was a small victory that the woman had agreed this fight was over. She had thought she could outmaneuver the shooters, but a single well-placed bullet could have killed her. It would have been a damn hard fight too but with Constance gone, the battle was over.

Unfortunately, the other dragons didn’t agree.

“Four dragons are dead because of that mage,” Emberslight screamed as she landed violently and proceeded to shred the asphalt of the parking lot with her talons.

“The evidence suggests that the first two died when she defended herself. However, I assure you I will look into their deaths and make sure that Amy didn’t act maliciously and that she won’t do it again.”

“I really didn’t mean to, ma’am. If there’s anything I can do—” Amy tried to say but the dragon roared in fury to silence her.

“Four dragons are dead. Not two. Timbergust was a fool, but he only tried to do his job—a job you have forsaken, Steel Dragon.”

Kristen had no idea why she was so enraged. Yes, two dragons had died, but Timbergust had fallen into the madness of vengeance and Bronzeback… Well, honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised to find that he was the kind of dragon who enjoyed killing people. Not that it was a reason for him to die, but he’d essentially brought it on himself.

“Bronzeback attacked Amy. He didn’t deserve to die, but he intended to incinerate her.” Kristen tried to keep her voice calm in the hope that it would extend to her opponent.

Emberslight seemed beyond even the desire to control herself. “So he wasn’t perfect. So what? You should have seen what he was like before he met me. He’d come so far. Yes, he killed people—many people.” She uttered a ragged laugh that seemed to indicate that the dragon had become unhinged, although there seemed to be no apparent reason for this. “But he was getting better. And he was so sweet when he wanted to be. He didn’t deserve this.”

The truth clicked in. They’d been lovers. She cursed inwardly as she had hoped to reason with Emberslight. The leader of Boston’s Dragon SWAT had seemed like a person who took her job and her duty seriously but now, it appeared that any chance of discussion was gone.

She had never been in love, so she could only imagine what Emberslight felt, but she knew it must be hard for a dragon. They’d probably thought they had decades ahead of them or even centuries

“Emberslight, I’m sorry, I really am, but more death is not the solution here. None of this would have happened if human beings had actual rights when it comes to dragons. Of course Amy fled for her life. She had no other choice.”

“And what about the humans who did this to my wing?” Aquatos hissed and shook the appendage to show her that it was in tatters. The bullet had struck a joint and when he had fallen from the sky, the wind had shredded it. The dragon bullets stopped a dragon’s healing ability, but this also meant that its wings became more fragile as a dragon’s inherent magic was needed to make the wings work at all. “You let them go like this was nothing.”

“They killed Timbergust and Bronzeback,” Crimson said. The rookie officer’s voice was shakier, but he seemed no less furious than the other two.

“Killing Amy won’t change any of that,” Kristen said.

“It’ll be a start,” Emberslight said. “But if we must go through you, fine. So be it. You killed one of us—one of our team.”

“I did not,” she retorted.

“She did.” Emberlight raised a claw and pointed it at Amy. “And if she did, you did. That’s how it works in dragon law. And since you took one of ours, we challenge you to a duel.”

“We?” Kristen asked. “You mean the three of you? Fine.”

Crimson and Aquatos approached to stand beside their leader. Aquatos nodded. “You’ve wronged us, Steel Dragon. We will make this right.”

“Can you believe this, Windlock?” She turned to the other dragon and fully expected to see him grin and join her, or better yet, reprimand the three dragons for attacking a fellow officer. Instead, he looked nervous. “Windlock?”

“Kristen, I’m sorry, but this is their right. No dragon in the world would believe Bronzeback would have died without Amy performing magic against him.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” she shouted. “Those mages could’ve shot him. They would have.”

“They only did because she pinned him to the wall,” Emberslight said. “We heard about your little technomages in Detroit. Everyone’s heard about them. Don’t you think we practiced fighting bullets? Bronzeback only died when she intervened. His death is as much on her hands as it is theirs.”

“And the three of you intend to fight me?” Kristen demanded, incredulous.

“You fought us with a mage, dwarves, and those technomages. One on three is far fairer than that,” Crimson said.

“You mean two on three,” Kristen said and nodded at Windlock.

The investigator shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kristen. I cannot join you in this battle. Blood feuds are old rules. They date back long before jurisdiction or even the role of an investigator. They have a right to a duel to avenge their fallen brother.”

“But you said I was an investigator. Doesn’t that mean you can fight with me?” she asked and tried not to let fear creep into her voice or her aura. One on three would not be an easy fight.

“Investigators don’t get to call on kin in duels. We’re given great power and leeway from the Dragon Council, and that’s the downside. I’m sorry. I can’t help you with this.”

“Are you ready?” Emberslight growled.

“How am I supposed to beat the three of them while you watch?”

“You never should have agreed to this.”

“I didn’t.”

“You said ‘fine.’ That’s enough. This fight is yours, Lady Steel.” Windlock looked disappointed and Kristen had to admit that the feeling was mutual. She was supposed to face three dragons while he simply sat there? While she was strong, she wasn’t this strong and aside from that, had never fought three at the same time before. She’d battled two once, and it hadn’t been easy. These three were trained in tactics and combat so it wouldn’t simply be a free-for-all. She knew full well they’d use their strengths against her. Thankfully, she seemed to have regained most of her powers, although she couldn’t be sure of that. Even at full strength, the multi-opponent combat would test her to the limit of her abilities and powers. What would happen if some or all of them failed her under extreme circumstances?

“You’re a coward, Windlock,” she grumbled.

“I’m tired of this dithering!” Emberslight’s claws began to glow but she didn’t attack. It must have been one of the rules that she didn’t know.

Windlock blanched, not at Emberslight’s words but at Kristen’s. She hadn’t meant for him to hear her but now that he had, she couldn’t simply leave it at that. “You uphold a system you know is unjust. You support dragon laws you know aren’t good for people.”

“Not all of them,” he said and held his dragon claws up. Between his thumb and forefinger dangled a tiny silver chain. For a moment, she didn’t know what the hell the chain was supposed to represent and was too furious at him to think straight. He continued to stare at her, a message in his gaze, and she finally recognized it as one of the bands that were used to control a mage’s power.

She turned when Larry strode up, a grim smile of determination on his face. The sleeves of his robe were rolled up and she saw that indeed, his wrist was free of the chain. “I owe you for that, Kristen, really I do. You convinced the old Windbag that I don’t need to be cuffed anymore and I’m grateful. But if you don’t mind not letting me die in the next five minutes, that would be great.”

“Doesn’t dragon law prevent you from helping me in a duel?” Kristen asked. She was thankful—beyond thankful, actually. She was impressed and amazed that he was willing to face dragons with her, but she was also a realist. The last thing she wanted was to somehow manage to defeat these dragons with his help, only for the Dragon Council to rule that he’d acted out of order and sentence him to death or some other nonsensical punishment reserved only for humans.

“Are you kidding? These rules are too old to even mention humans. In fact, back in the day—and by day I mean centuries ago—dragon duels would consist of two dragons throwing entire armies of people at each other. Only when the armies had done some damage would the dragons come in. I can help you as much as I damn well want.”

“Another freed mage. How fitting.” Aquatos growled disdainfully.

“If he can, so can I, right?” Amy said and rolled forward on her skateboard.

It was odd to see her stand so straight and roll like something out of a movie. She realized that if the girl stuck around, she’d have to get used to things like that.

“If you insist, but Amy, I know you’re tired. You don’t have to do this,” Kristen said.

“The best thing about these powers is that I can do something about bullies like them,” the girl retorted. “I won’t waste my first opportunity to stand up to dragons just because I had a little nosebleed. I’ll have time to recover, even if it is only a little.”

“All right, then.” She nodded decisively. “Three against three.”

“Then we begin.” Emberslight’s eyes began to glow even brighter.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” Larry threw his arms up to stop the dragons from attacking. “The challenged claims the right to choose the location.”

“A mage can claim no such thing!” Aquatos roared in protest. The three dragons were clearly impatient. It was a good thing they’d formally challenged her because if they hadn’t, they’d be fighting already. Then again, if they hadn’t, Windlock would be a part of this fight too. The pros and cons seemed equally matched but what was more important was the fact that since they had, they were apparently constrained to follow a few rules.

“The challenged claims the right to choose the location,” she said with a smile.

Emberslight roared in frustration. “Fine. That is your right, but it must be within ten minutes’ flight from here—or were you not familiar with that particular rule? Choose where you wish to die.”

“If I may suggest a place?” one of the dwarves said and stepped forward. “Take this to the old asbestos mine and don’t burn our city.”

“That’s where we fight,” Kristen said.

“Fine,” Emberslight agreed before she and Crimson lifted Aquatos between them and the three dragons took to the air. “Ten minutes. If you three aren’t there in that time, we burn this city down.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As soon as the dragons were at a safe range, the dwarves rushed forward and to Kristen’s shock, began to remove their clothes.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as they surrounded the two human mages.

“We ain’t got much time, so hold still and put this on,” one of them said, removed his breastplate, and gave it to Larry.

“No way will this fit,” he protested but the dwarf ignored him and strapped it on. Strangely, it did fit, and it took a moment before she realized the dwarf’s torso was about the same size as a human’s. It was their arms and legs that made them shorter.

“It’s gonna take you five minutes to get there,” the dwarf explained as he tightened the breastplate around the mage. “And you can’t be late. We can’t have them burning our town down now, can we? We’ll get ya outfitted and sent over quick-like.”

Three minutes later, the two mages looked like poorly dressed renaissance fair attendees in thick boots as well as gloves and odd hats. Both garments were knit and brightly colored, but the dwarves explained that they were fire-resistant and together, the armor created an aura of magic that should protect them from fire.

In addition to his boots, gloves, and hat, Brockton wore a breastplate with the face of a cow chiseled into it, while Amy had a leather vest on that looked even harder than the shiny piece of metal over her colleague’s chest. Each mage had also been given a staff. Larry’s had a tangle of silver wire at its tip while Amy’s had a huge red gemstone.

“Not so bad, eh?” one of the dwarves said. “Those’ll help ye defend yourselves. And augment your power too but be damn careful about that as they don’t increase power, only let you use more at once. It’ll drain ya faster than a bathtub, it will.”

“What about me?” Kristen asked.

The dwarves all looked at each other and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“We ain’t got nothing that can protect the Steel Dragon better than her own powers.”

Kristen supposed that was a comfort but she was still jealous of the two mage’s brightly colored hats.

“What can you tell us about this mine?” Windlock asked.

“You’ll see it when ya get there,” one of the dwarves said and sounded apologetic. “I didn’t mention it because it’ll give you some advantage but because we can’t have you wrecking our town.”

“Still,” another said, “there are a few tunnels. I reckon the mages could use those for cover if they needed to.”

She nodded. They were out of time. Both mages climbed onto her back—she insisted that Amy conserve her strength for the battle—and Windlock flew behind them to watch the proceedings.

Her mind raced throughout the short journey. A dragon battle between her, Windlock, and the mages would have been better, but this would have to do. It meant much to her that he had freed Larry. She still wished he could join her in this fight, but if doing so meant it would cost him his place as a dragon investigator, she didn’t know if that was worth it.

He was a kind, sensible dragon in a position of extreme power and she regretted how easily she’d jumped to conclusions and written him off as simply another self-centered dragon, even if it hadn’t been whole-hearted. Not only that but if he were to be ousted, the chances of someone more reasonable and friendly to humankind taking his position were basically nonexistent. If her aim was justice delivered over the entire world, she had to admit that Windlock was probably a greater force for good than she was.

After all, she was merely a Detroit SWAT dragon. She busted heads and stopped assholes from being assholes, which was exactly what she intended to do at this mine. Windlock had arranged this entire investigation. If he hadn’t done so, she had little doubt that Amy would already be dead.

She swallowed as she realized the implications. In the same way that her beliefs pitted her constantly against the technomages who treated people with so little regard, this fight wasn’t only about her, Bronzeback, or even Amy. It was about standing up to the dragon establishment by confronting the people who defended laws and rules that were unjust. In this situation, the people were dragons. With the bomb, the people had been the technomages, but the principle remained exactly the same. The responsibility felt a little daunting when she realized she couldn’t lose. To do so would be to give the dragon law establishment a huge victory. They’d march over her body, claim Amy’s life, and force the status quo back to where it was.

Which might have been okay if only a lack of bloodshed mattered and if she subscribed to the dangerous belief that the ends justified the means. But as long as the status quo remained, Constance would continue to agitate to start a war. In standing against the three dragons, she could actually defeat the technomage as well, at least in part. This was her first major step in a fight for justice and to prevent a world war from happening. She’d lost sight of that in Rangeley when her frustrations had driven logic and clear thinking from her mind. Her fight was against injustice, not dragons or mages themselves.

Fortunately, she didn’t have time to dwell on the fact or its repercussions as they arrived at the mine.

Kristen immediately understood why the dwarves had sent them there. There was nothing to destroy. The mine—or what was left of it—was little more than a giant pit. Huge steps were cut into the sides of it, each large enough for a dump truck to drive on. Presumably, they’d been carved almost a century before when the mine had still been active.

Here and there, scrubby trees and wind-battered plants grew. Dark holes were visible in random places, probably the entrances to tunnels that wound who knew how deep into the earth below this open part of the mine. At the center of this giant, desolate, abandoned amphitheater was a pool of water that she could tell was ice-cold merely by looking at it.

Above the mine, turning slow circles in the air, were Crimson and Emberslight.

She had no opportunity to look for Aquatos as the two dragons attacked as soon as the new arrivals entered the airspace above the mine.

Crimson exhaled a massive blast of fire that she might have been able to bat away with her steel wings if not for the two humans on her back. To avoid it, she dove toward the shelves of earth below her.

“We can take a little heat,” Larry reminded her and raised his voice over the wind.

“There’s no point in them knowing that yet,” she replied and accelerated the descent. They’d all agreed that their best strategy would be to split up. As long as the mages were on her back, they presented a single target. They needed to get off and defend themselves as best they could. She hoped their armor would help, but she didn’t see how it could possibly stand against the onslaught of three dragons.

Where is Aquatos? One of the shafts, perhaps? That would be bad as it was where Amy and Larry planned to go.

Kristen swooped low and her companions jumped not a second too soon. Claws raked her back and if not for her steel skin, she had no doubt she’d be out of the fight.

She swooped up and used the ax-blade at the end of her tail to strike her attacker’s face. He pursued her and released dragon flame as he flew. She wondered if there was perhaps more to the dragon’s name than his color. He seemed to have an endless supply of fire.

Thankfully, an unexpected distraction drew him from his focused attack. He veered away as a cloud of dust whipped from the ground to create a cloud between the Steel Dragon and her pursuer. Apparently, there were flecks of something inflammatory the dust as it ignited in a blinding flash that forced him to pull off.

“All right!” Larry shouted. “It feels good to be free again.”

It seemed Emberslight didn’t like the idea of a free mage any more than Kristen liked the idea of a cuffed one. In response to Brockton’s jubilation, she turned to surge toward the mage. Her eyes began to glow, brighter and brighter and laser-focused on his breastplate.

She’s trying to melt it, she realized but the dragon’s attempt proved futile. Whatever the dwarves had done to the armor seemed to work particularly well against her powers and Larry didn’t even seem to notice. He constantly hurled small stones at Crimson’s face in an effort to keep the dragon distracted. It was admirably brave but also dangerous. Brockton wasn’t a battle mage and had done nothing more than forensics for the last decade. This fight wouldn’t end well for him if it lasted for any length of time.

Kristen turned and swooped low over the lake in the middle of the mine. Both dragons were distracted. If she could get behind one of them, she might be able to strike one hard enough to knock them unconscious.

Amy must have had the same idea as a boulder seemed to rip itself out of the ground and hurtled toward Emberslight. The dragon saw the attack and tried to change direction but apparently, a dragon had far more momentum than a magically levitating boulder. The young mage was able to adjust and drive the boulder into her target’s face.

Kristen suppressed a whoop of triumph as the dragon—temporarily stunned—plummeted. If they could get her inside one of the tunnels and collapse it, she’d be out of the fight. She didn’t want to kill the dragons—after all, their job was to stop murderers. While she understood that they were furious about the death of Bronzeback, if she could defeat them and restrain them so they couldn’t fight back, Windlock had assured her that it would fulfill the terms of a duel and she would be victorious by dragon law. Not only would Emberslight have to admit defeat, but none of them would be able to challenge her in the future.

All she had to do now was reach Emberslight, she thought as she pumped her wings to gain more speed over the lake. If she stopped the leader, the other dragon might be reluctant to continue.

In her excitement, she’d forgotten there were actually two other dragons.

She was reminded of this when Aquatos surged from the water and grasped her with all four of his legs. Although she tried to break free, his long, sinuous, snakelike tail wound around her neck and together, they plunged into the frigid lake.

Obviously, anyone who was still alive didn’t know what death felt like but being forced into the water felt as close to having the life sucked from her as anything ever had. It wasn’t freezing but that only made things worse. If it had been ice, she wouldn’t have been surprised because her enemy would not have been able to ambush her.

Instinct clicked in and she clawed at her attacker in the crystal-clear water while the aquatic dragon kicked and scratched at her. Nothing in her experience could have prepared her for this encounter and the dilemma she faced. While she remained steel, Aquatos’s claws couldn’t hurt her, but if she didn’t transform to skin, she’d continue to sink.

For a brief, desperate moment, she thought she might somehow outlast the other dragon, but his gills and webbed claws brought sudden clarity to the relevance of his name and she immediately understood that he intended to drown her.

Kristen thrashed in the cold water and attempted to strike the injured dragon with her tail, but she wasn’t able to reach him. He was too fast and too accustomed to fighting underwater. Rather than retaliate, he simply remained above her and blocked any attempt at escape by using his claws and teeth to force her to stay in her steel form.

Her lungs—massive though they were in her dragon form—began to burn. She couldn’t last much longer and briefly considered turning into a human. The idea didn’t last as she realized Aquatos would simply devour her. The only way to avoid that would be to remain in her steel skin, which wouldn’t stop her from sinking.

Frantic, she dropped her steel skin. Immediately, she felt more buoyant and kicked toward the surface as she pumped her tail furiously. Unfortunately, this was what Aquatos had waited for.

He attacked and savaged her neck with his teeth. When she flung him away with her tail, he kicked at her gut with his hindlegs and drew blood that clouded the clear, cold water. Kristen tried to fight back, but she simply couldn’t land a strike. She wasn’t used to fighting underwater—hell, compared to Aquatos, she wasn’t used to fighting as a dragon. Not only that, it seemed her resilience and staying power weren’t at peak either and she realized that perhaps her healing wasn’t as complete as she’d thought. Her blows were weak and ineffective and her vision began to collapse when she ran out of air.

Again, the primitive urge for survival pushed through and she thrust through the water with her adversary’s jaws locked onto her neck. The two of them burst from the frigid lake and floated in midair above the water, dripping wet. She thrashed and tried to free herself from his claws. Now that she had air, she was able to do so and before he could lunge to take hold of her again, she used her tail to strike him across the back of the head, which effectively curtailed his strike.

No sooner did she do so than both dragons rocketed into the air.

Kristen glanced down at Amy, who pointed the staff the dwarves had given her at them, her eyes glowing red, before they were so high that the action on the ground was blurred and indistinct. Abruptly, the young mage’s powers withdrew and the two combatants plunged immediately when gravity took hold.

Thankfully, as a dragon, she didn’t fall and was able to glide. Aquatos, however, had no such advantage as his wing was in tatters. He plummeted and flapped the appendages desperately, but the broken one caught no air and the other only sent him into a spin.

He landed head-first and lay unmoving.

The Steel Dragon dove and sliced her tail into the wall of earth above him, loosened the soil into an avalanche, and buried everything but his head.

One was down but there wasn’t time to celebrate. Kristen scowled when she noticed that Larry stood with his arms outstretched and a glowing shield of energy between him and Crimson. Amy was behind him and the girl held her head and wiped the blood from her nose. Whatever energy fueled her magic was almost gone. That she’d managed thus far was a testimony to the incredible power she possessed but she couldn’t push herself any further or she’d risk…blowing up? That was what Larry had said would happen if she recalled correctly. It was something Kristen couldn’t allow, not after everything the two mages had done to help her.

“Get into one of the tunnels!” she roared as she pumped her wings and hurled herself into Crimson.

She struck with the force of a bomb detonating and bulldozed the dragon into one of the sides of the mine.

Larry reacted quickly and used his powers to lift Amy off her feet and float her toward a tunnel. Emberslight moved to intervene, obviously determined not to let them reach safety. Kristen hadn’t noticed her—she’d been distracted by Crimson’s attempt to incinerate her friends—but the Boston leader had been close and had waited for a moment exactly like this. She swooped behind the two mages, which drew a curse from the Steel Dragon. She might have been able to trap Crimson if she had another few seconds, but she couldn’t let Emberslight hurt her allies.

With a roar of fury, she spun after the threat to her friends. The dragon seemed to make a similar calculation—either attack her enemy’s ally or play defense—and she made the same choice. She turned in midair and brought her claws up for a vicious strike.

Pain blossomed in her chest. She hadn’t put her steel skin up, not because she hadn’t thought to but because it made her too slow. Now, she paid for it with her blood.

Emberslight grinned at the wound and redoubled her efforts.

Kristen tried to hang on but her opponent was obviously a strong fighter. Her blows were quick and powerful and her defense impenetrable. When she realized she couldn’t defend herself from the onslaught of attacks and keep herself aloft, she landed. Fortunately, this meant she could put her steel skin in place, which she did a moment before Crimson barreled into her back.

Now that she was wrapped in steel once more, she was better able to withstand the combined onslaught. Her confidence increased as well as she was certain the two dragons would have difficulty penetrating her metal shell without the explosive force of a high-caliber bullet behind their dragon claws.

Emberslight struck her with her red-hot claws and unbelievably, they split her steel like a hot knife through butter. Their heat was so intense that they seared the flesh beneath as well.

The pain was indescribable and dragged a reflexive scream from her throat.

“I offer you a surrender,” her adversary bellowed. “It would be a shame to lose a dragon such as yourself over a mage. Surrender the two to us and we’ll call this duel a draw.”

“I would never give my friends to murderers,” she retorted.

“But you would give your life for humans?” Crimson said from behind her as he lunged.

Kristen turned to parry the attack but she immediately realized she shouldn’t have done so. He could knock her over but he couldn’t do much else. By turning, she had exposed her flank to Emberslight, who happily took advantage of the opening.

Once more, hot fire ripped into her as the dragon raked her side.

“They will die no matter what you do,” she said. “You fight against the inevitable.”

“I fight for justice,” she roared and whipped her tail into Emberslight’s face.

The blow caught the dragon low on her forehead and the ax-blade sliced her scales and blood poured into one eye.

The Boston SWAT leader backed away and tried to stem the blood. Rather than pursue her, Kristen targeted Crimson.

She turned her full power on the dragon. He was smaller and while he was aggressive, he hadn’t demonstrated the discipline and combat skills that came with advanced training. His lack of experience proved crucial and she was able to pummel him with her steel body and batter him significantly to bruise bones and pulverize muscle.

He was winded, she could tell. While she had to finish him, she wouldn’t kill him. She was better than that and besides, he hadn’t killed anyone. It wouldn’t be fair to hold him responsible for trying to do his job, even if he obeyed corrupt laws, but that didn’t mean she would let him go free either.

“Now, Amy!” she yelled and looked over Crimson’s shoulder.

The dragon followed her gaze and lunged toward the hole into which she had looked. He inhaled to fill it with flame and in that moment, she bulldozed into the back of him and forced him into the hole.

The earth rumbled and the tunnel collapsed on top of him.

Two had been effectively trapped, which would make things a little easier.

Kristen turned to where Amy stood at the entrance of another tunnel. Her concern for the young mage wasn’t misplaced as it seemed causing an earthquake large enough to trap a dragon had drained the last of her strength. She collapsed into Larry’s arms and he dragged her into the tunnel, then threw a shield up to protect the opening. He checked her pulse and nodded. Both mages were out of the fight, but they were all right.

“This ends with your death, do you understand that?” Emberslight said. She’d taken to the air, having wiped the blood from her eye and apparently cauterized the wound with one of her glowing claws.

“Why? Why can’t mages have some of the dignity that dragons have so much of?” she demanded as she took flight as well.

“Because they’re less than us! Why should a wolf spare the deer? Why should the spider spare the fly?” Emberslight roared and released a blast of fire.

She retaliated with one of her own and the two flames met above the center of the mine to push and jostle each other as the two dragons struggled for dominance.

Kristen lasted longer, but only barely. It wasn’t much of a win, not with Emberslight’s powers.

The other dragon understood this as well. She didn’t seem perturbed that she’d lost the power struggle and instead, focused on using her own unique powers to bring her the advantage.

When one of her wings began to burn, Kristen realized that Emberslight used her ability to heat objects from afar on her.

She tried to flap away, to get clear and stop the pain, but it seemed impossible. Every time she moved, her adversary simply moved her gaze to follow her. When she thought of eyes, an odd idea crept in. One of them had been covered in blood, which she’d wiped somewhat messily, but despite the fact that she flew above a pool of water, she hadn’t cleaned it. Did that mean something or was it merely a dumb coincidence?

It wasn’t much to risk an attack on, but she was out of options. She couldn’t fight Emberslight in her steel form. The dragon was too fast and her powers seemed almost tailored to work against hers. She couldn’t fight her in her regular dragon body either, though. The Bostonian was too fast, too powerful, and too experienced.

But she’d remained dry throughout. If she couldn’t use her strengths to beat this dragon, maybe she could use her opponent’s weaknesses. Every dragon had to have at least one weakness. Her steel skin made her impervious to bullets and resistant to dragon claws and bites, but she was particularly vulnerable to electricity, magnets, and of course—as heavy as she was—drowning. What kind of weakness would a dragon have if their power enabled them to heat things?

Kristen couldn’t think of a better idea to try than a frigid lake. Maybe, if she submerged her attacker in the water, it would drain her powers enough for her to disable her. It was a crazy idea and all the more dangerous since she could barely swim as a dragon, but what choice did she have?

The fact was that she had to try something so she surged toward Emberslight and tried to ignore the burning pain in her wing.

The other dragon simply flew higher. She was faster, at least when they traveled vertically. The problem was that the Steel Dragon was too heavy. No matter how hard she pumped her wings, her foe was able to outpace her. The red dragon flew higher and higher and easily remained focused on her wing, which grew hotter and hotter.

Eventually, Kristen could no longer endure it. She dropped her steel skin to gain speed and—hopefully—stop the burning. Her decision worked on the first point and failed horribly on the second. Immediately, she moved much faster as her wings continued to pump and needed to do less work to carry her mass. Unfortunately, the pain intensified. While the steel was conductive, her flesh was more vulnerable to heat and she felt it like a thousand ant bites in the joint.

She cried out in pain and exhaled a massive flame, not because she’d wanted to but because she hadn’t been able to do anything else.

By some stroke of luck, it worked. The fire broke Emberslight’s focus and the pain began to dissipate like a finger burned on a frying pan and dunked in a cup of orange juice.

Encouraged, she streaked forward and maintained the flames as long as she could. When she ran out, she blew smoke. As she raced toward her adversary, she twisted, twirled, and spun through the smoky screen to get closer to the other dragon and her bizarre power.

Emberslight let her come. She knew that because when she impacted into the Bostonian, she’d already heated her claws. The red dragon dug them into her attacker’s dragon hide and they rent the scales and skin to tear the muscle like it was nothing more than chicken breast.

Kristen resisted the urge to kick her opponent away and instead, bit her neck and turned her skin to steel. She’d hoped that when she did so, the steel would have forced Emberslight’s claws out. Perversely, the dragon clung even more tightly to the wounds she’d already inflicted. She didn’t withdraw her claws but forced them in deeper, although the hardened skin didn’t tear so easily. Instead of the burning hot claws ripping free, they remained dug deep into her flesh.

She clawed at Emberslight as well but didn’t have the right angle. All she could do was hold on. Thankfully, that was all she needed to do because gravity took hold and their meteoric rise slowed until they reversed direction.

Despite the somewhat unnerving sense of plunging to her doom, she didn’t try to fight it. This was her plan, after all, suicidal though it might be. She had hoped to fall and had achieved what she’d set out to do. She tucked her wings and tried to point her nose to the pool of frigid water at the center of the exposed mine. It wasn’t an easy task, given that the two dragons spun head over heels, locked in a deadly embrace.

Emberslight wasn’t as comfortable with their rapidly accelerating descent. She tried to flap her wings and stop them, but the Steel Dragon was simply too heavy. The red dragon could lift cars but with her steel skin, Kristen weighed closer to a train’s diesel freight engine than a sedan.

Their velocity increased with each passing second. The red dragon’s aura shifted from rage to panic. She did not want to hit the ground, although she’d most likely be fine if she fell from this height. Dragons were strong, resilient creatures with healing abilities, but that didn’t mean she could withstand something as massive as the heavy steel form that might well crush her on impact. Kristen knew she wouldn’t die, while her adversary struggled to avoid being crushed.

Good, she thought as Emberslight tried to yank herself free. Let her fear being crushed instead of the water. Of course, it could also indicate that the Bostonian simply wasn’t concerned about the lake, which was a troubling thought.

The ground rushed closer and Emberslight finally withdrew her claws and released the Steel Dragon. She spread her wings and tried to flee but she’d miscalculated. Kristen still had her jaws sunk into the back of her neck and when she tried to fly away, she wouldn’t release her. She maintained her hold on the dragon’s neck and was rewarded when one of the Bostonian’s wings snapped from the weight of trying to carry both of them.

She tried to flash her aura at the other dragon to tell her to calm and surrender. With only one wing, there was no way she could defeat the Steel Dragon, but she seemed beyond reason. She flapped with the other one and inch by inch, she pulled them away from the water.

The two dragons collided into the side of the mine with a thump that would register on Richter scales all over Canada. One of Kristen’s wrists snapped like kindling and something echoed it in her chest. She hoped it was only a broken or cracked rib.

Emberslight didn’t fare much better. She’d landed on the damaged wing and now writhed in pain. Still, she looked at her foe and her eyes glowed. Once again, heat blossomed, this time in her face, and it became hard to breathe.

She lunged forward and barreled into her opponent, hoping to thrust her into the water, but the other dragon held her ground, even against her massive bulk.

“We can stop,” she said, not sure if a draw was a possible outcome, although she certainly hoped it was.

“I’ll stop when you’re dead!” Emberslight roared, then stood on her hind legs and inhaled to release a blast of fire. Kristen put her wings in front of her to protect herself, but she feared this might be the end. Already, the heat from the red dragon was excruciating. Her fire would doubtlessly be hotter, which meant her steel skin would likely melt.

The irate dragon flapped her one good wing and pulled herself higher. Her chest was full and ready to release searing hot dragon flame.

Incongruously, given the heightened tension that came with looking death in the face, a skateboard rolled out of one of the mine tunnels and raced down the hill toward Emberslight.

Kristen would have ignored it—after all, a skateboard compared to a dragon was hardly worth noticing—but something about it demanded her attention. It struck a rock and gained height, spun in a complex maneuver, and landed smoothly to roll directly toward the red dragon. She understood then that Amy was controlling it and also that she would only have one opportunity.

She stepped forward and stationed herself squarely in the middle of Emberslight’s blast. The dragon responded by taking the smallest of steps backward. It had no advantage except to position her better for a blast, but the action meant that the skateboard rolled neatly beneath her foot as it settled.

The weight snapped the wood easily, but the metal trucks and wheels proved more durable. When the dragon put more weight on them, she slipped. Instinctively, she flapped her wings to steady herself but of course, one of her wings no longer worked. Her efforts served only to unbalance her even more and she toppled into the frigid water.

Immediately, a great blast of steam rocketed from the lake. It rose dramatically as the surface bubbled and it climbed further until it was high enough to slow and spread into a mushroom cloud of steam.

The water boiled but as the dragon thrashed and kicked, she mixed and churned the deeper layers until the simmering ceased. Emberslight only had so much thermal mass. As hot as she was, she couldn’t compare to a frigid Canadian lake.

While she struggled, the water she threw into the air from her heat condensed into a cloud and it began to rain.

Still, the dragon didn’t cease her frantic efforts, even though she made no progress at all. She didn’t move toward the shore and in fact, did nothing except sink.

Emberslight gulped air before she screamed, “Help!” and sank beneath the surface.

“It’s over!” Windlock shouted.

Kristen—despite fighting this dragon seconds before and the fact that she’d been told this was a fight to the death—didn’t hesitate for a second. By the time the investigator had finished his statement, she had transformed into her human body and dove into the lake.

She had been prepared for the water to be freezing cold and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much closer to a warm bath. To think that Emberslight had possessed that much energy was almost unimaginable.

But she had more important priorities than astonishment at another dragon’s powers. Quickly, she paddled to where she’d last seen her opponent, took a breath, and dove below the warm water.

Emberslight was barely below the surface and sinking slowly. Her eyes were still open but her movements had become jerky and lethargic. She was running out of air and probably hadn’t even known to take a proper breath before she went under. Obviously, this was one dragon who never messed with water. And why should she? With a dragon like Aquatos on her team, she would have been able to leave any aquatic activities to him.

Kristen swam toward her and flexed her aura at the dragon. Be calm, I’m here to help. She tried to broadcast what was a fairly familiar emotion for her to create as it was often necessary when working with humans. She swam closer and closer to Emberslight, whose struggles had almost completely stopped.

Cautiously—because there was no way to be sure that her erstwhile adversary had understood her aura and believed her—she swam into position beside her head and caught hold of one of her horns and her chin. She looked into her eyes and willed her to understand that Kristen would save her, but not like this—not wouldn’t but couldn’t save her like this.

Finally, Emberslight nodded in comprehension. She transformed into her human body in a cloud of sparks that were immediately extinguished by the water.

Kristen moved behind her and took her in a rescue hold—one arm wrapped under both of the other woman’s with her head on her shoulder—and swam powerfully to the surface.

She burst into the air—the Canadian summer night now felt chilly after the warm water—and gasped for breath. Emberslight proved she was alive but less dramatically. She sputtered, coughed water, and tried to pull herself up on her rescuer.

Fortunately, she was familiar enough with handling people to be able to deal with the terrified dragon. She pulled her to shore, where Larry waited for her. He caught Emberslight by her lapels and she popped out of the water. For a moment, Kristen thought he possessed some measure of strength she wasn’t aware of before she realized that he’d simply used magic to haul her out.

Wearily, she climbed out of the pool, sat beside Emberslight, and tried to catch her breath.

Windlock circled in his dragon form, landed, and transformed into a human.

“You did it, Kristen. You won this duel. Legally, Amy is under your protection.”

“Great,” she managed to respond between gasps of air. “Does this mean I can take a nap?”

She remained conscious long enough for him to nod before she passed out beside the dragon who’d tried to kill her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kristen opened her eyes in Le Face De Beouf. She would only ever be able to describe it as a Snow-White moment because she woke on a table with dwarves all around her.

“Huzzah! The Steel Dragon ends her slumber,” Alp called and the restaurant roared with whoops and cheers.

A dwarf helped her from a table and asked if she’d like to sit at a booth. It was another surreal moment. These seemed to be more and more common in her life, though, so she took this one stride and nodded.

He grinned and led her to one in the back of the restaurant where Windlock, Larry, and Amy were seated around half-finished plates of food.

“Lady Steel, you’re awake.” Brockton grinned and stood quickly. He was in his regular robes with no more dwarf boots, breastplate, or gloves, although it looked like he had argued to keep the staff with its twining silver wire and the brightly colored hat. She liked the pom-pom on top.

“Nice to see you up, Kristen.” Windlock smiled warmly and stood so she could sit in the middle rather than at the end. She appreciated the gesture as it let her see the entire restaurant and also out into the desolate parking lot. It was far preferable to have eyes on everything given how she’d been on the receiving end of more than one surprise attack.

“Hi, Kristen,” Amy said and smiled broadly.

Kristen smiled in response. The girl had kept her leather vest but returned the rest of her borrowed armor. She wore a baseball cap with the image of a grizzly bear skateboarding on a salmon. Not only that, but she’d also left her staff resting near the edge of the booth. Apparently, the mages liked the devices.

“Thanks for saving me back there. The skateboard was a stroke of genius,” she said.

“Oh, that wasn’t me,” Amy said and laughed. “I’ve never had a board that nice. I wouldn’t have thought to send it out there and let it get crushed. Plus, I was completely unconscious at that point.”

“Then who?”

“Guilty!” Larry beamed.

“I didn’t know you had that kind of range,” she said.

“That’s because I didn’t. But now…” He raised his wrist. No bracelet adorned it so he was still unfettered. “There are some real perks to being a free mage.”

“And to working with one,” she said warmly.

“And to acquiring one of your own to protect,” Windlock added and lifted his glass. “Or was it two?” The investigator darted a look at Brockton and looked both guilty and nervous.

Larry looked abashed. “Aw, don’t be that way, you old bag of wind. In a fight, I’ll always want to side with the Steel Dragon, especially if it’s against bullshit dragons who lost their minds like those from Boston SWAT. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna ditch you.”

Kristen hadn’t thought she’d ever compare a dragon to a sad puppy, but Windlock’s expression reminded her of nothing more in that moment.

“I’ve kind of grown fond of you over the years,” the mage added.

“I feel the same way,” the investigator said.

“Plus there’s the fact that you would be absolutely lost without me. Can you even imagine old Windlock here bumbling about a crime scene on his own? Amy could have made it all the way to Nova Scotia without you catching her. You wouldn’t last a day without me.”

“I don’t know about all that,” his boss harrumphed but his smile was broad.

“If it comes down to it, I’d appreciate being freed again for a fight like this, but if we gotta do this in the meantime, I’m happy to be your mage.” Brockton held his wrist out for the dragon to put the dampening cuff on it.

Windlock nodded, retrieved the cuff, and held it between two fingers while he stared at the light from the restaurant reflected on its silver surface. He moved it toward the mage, then apparently thought better of it. His fingers changed to dragon scales and he crushed it in his hand. It emitted a tiny burst of magic as if to protest its destruction before it became nothing but a sliver of silver.

“Did you get the shakes or something, old man?” Larry asked although he grinned from ear to ear.

“There’s been enough of that,” the investigator said, almost as if he spoke only to himself. “Brockton—no, Larry—I’ve known you for years. You’ve never been anything but the best partner a dragon could ask for. I trust you with my life, and after watching what you did to help Kristen, I’d be a fool to leave you cuffed. You could help me far more if you are free than if you’re not.”

“I thought mages had to be shackled?” Brockton said.

“To hell with the rules on this one.” Windlock smiled. “That is if Kristen and Amy can keep the secret?”

The girl laughed.

Kristen smiled. “You know I won’t put one of those things on Amy. Of course I’ll keep your secret. Personally, I’m glad to see more dragons finally coming around to seeing humans as beings worthy of respect and friendship.”

“The friendship one I think I knew, but you’re right about the respect. Larry, I should have shown you far more of it much sooner.”

The mage waved the apology away. “You always pay for my lunch. I know that’s because you’re barely worthy of my magnanimous friendship and that you’re only trying to prove yourself deserving of the greatness that is Larry Brockton, world-class mage.”

“Whatever you say, Larry.” Windlock smiled.

After that, the conversation was mostly about the battle and Kristen’s victory. The dwarves were all impressed that a dragon and two mages had defeated three dragons, and all thought her broken wrist and bruised ribs were fair prices given the magnitude of the triumph. She disagreed at first, but as the hearty dwarf food filled her belly and her dragon powers used the nourishment to mend her bones, she thought maybe they were right. It occurred to her that while her healing had increased in pace, her body hadn’t fully overcome the debilitating effects of the dragon-based bomb. Thankfully, it had progressed to the point where she had fought three dragons and won but it had been a close call. She had sensed that she hadn’t battled at peak so maybe a little more time off was called for. The unexpected combat, although necessary, might have set her back and it would be foolish to comprise the progress she had made.

More importantly, though, the battle meant she had struck a blow for not only Amy’s freedom but for humankind as a whole. The young mage—whether Kristen liked it or not—had killed two dragons in self-defense and would now walk free. Windlock had assured her of that. Although many dragons might—hell, would most definitely—hold a grudge, they couldn’t do anything about it, not if they wanted to respect the rules of their own kind. She still wanted to tear those rules down and build a more equitable system, but it felt extremely satisfying in the short term to use the rules that had been designed to protect dragons to protect a mage—one who deserved protection, unlike Constance.

She asked what had happened to the two buried dragons and the investigator explained that while the dwarves had transported Amy and Kristen to the restaurant, he and Brockton had excavated them, woken them, explained in simple terms that they’d lost, and sent them on their way. They hadn’t been in any condition to protest and even if they had legally been allowed to fight, they weren’t able to physically. Neither Aquatos nor Emberslight had healed enough to fly, so they left in their human forms on Crimson’s back, their auras reeking of disgrace.

Once their meal was finished, they thanked the dwarves and headed into the parking lot. Kristen had asked the dwarves if she should try to send Timeflash to fix everything and restore it to the way it had been, but they wouldn’t have any of it. Apparently, they rather liked working with stone and laying asphalt counted as stonework to them.

There was the issue of the wrecked cars, but Windlock assured them that the Dragon Council would cover the damages, and this seemed to mollify the community. They said they’d rather have the cash for the humans and dwarves in their community to get new vehicles than magic repairs that probably wouldn’t work on internal combustion engines anyway.

Once that was settled, the two dragons transformed.

Windlock cleared his throat as Larry climbed onto his back. “I’ll head to the Dragon Council. No doubt the Boston Team will report this whole escapade—as is their right and their duty—but I want to make sure all facets of these events are correctly reported.”

Kristen nodded. “Do you think it’ll be all right? I mean, you didn’t tell them that we intended to pursue our target to Canada. Didn’t that break protocol?”

He shrugged. “It did, but I’ll take the blame for that decision. I asked you to come in on this investigation because I respect your insights. In fact, without those insights, there’s no way we would have brought this to a close with so few casualties. I’ll make it clear that the intel was yours but the decision was mine. You have nothing to worry about.”

She was momentarily stunned into silence. Had he really said that there hadn’t been many casualties on this mission despite the fact that four dragons were killed? Detroit had gone into a frenzy of paranoia when dragons were assassinated one by one. She couldn’t imagine what losing four within forty-eight hours would have done to the community of dragons in the Motor City. Windlock saying there hadn’t been many casualties could only mean he referenced the fact that no human, mage, or dwarf lives were lost. It was a welcome viewpoint, in her perspective.

“Do you think I need to come?” she asked.

Windlock shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. I’ll handle this. The Dragon Council will already be…let’s say upset at what happened here. If you arrived with your…er, bombastic style of arguing, I’m not sure it’d be helpful.”

“What he’s trying to say is that he needs you far enough away to let this blow over,” Larry translated.

“And that’s fine with me,” she replied.

The investigator nodded and leapt into the air. He pumped his wings to gain height, made a few circles above the parking lot, and headed south toward the United States and out of dwarf country.

“Where will we go?” Amy asked.

“Well, for starters, I don’t want you to think you have to do what I say. I want us to be equals, Amy, and I’m not saying that because I know you can rip a forest up and pummel me,” Kristen said.

“Hey, it’s no problem. I’m your mage and you’re my dragon. You saved me from those dragons. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the boss.”

Kristen smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. In that case, if it’s all right with you, I thought we’d go past Rangeley first and check on your folks. Your mom was worried about you—worried enough to lie to a dragon, which can’t be easy.”

“She didn’t!” the girl exclaimed in horror.

“She did. Not that I blame her. Dragons are scary and she did what she had to do to protect you from them.”

“I suppose so.” The young mage took a deep breath and climbed onto her back.

It took a moment for her to settle with her legs astride in a secure position directly in front of her wings. “Are you ready?”

“Sure. If I slip, I’ll use my powers to hold on tight.”

“Right, of course.” She took flight with extra care to make the transition as smooth as possible. Some pushing resulted when Amy needed to keep herself anchored firmly on her back, but after a few miles of flight, the girl relaxed and the sensation faded.

“So what happens after Rangeley?” her passenger asked. “For some reason, I can’t imagine the Steel Dragon staying around for the quilting group and foregoing her job in Detroit.”

“No, not really. Actually, I hoped you’d come to the Motor City with me. You have to see it. I grew up there, of course, and know all the best places. Have you ever had Detroit-style pizza?”

The girl laughed at her enthusiasm. “Is that deep dish or something?”

“Ew. Of course not. Detroit pizza has cheese in the crust and is cooked on top of a steel pan so it's crispy. Cut into squares…ugh, I can’t begin to describe it. You’ll have to taste it for yourself. My team will want to meet you too.”

Amy was quiet for a moment before she said, “Since I’ll be working for a dragon, does that mean some of my expenses will be covered? I don’t want to be rude but I had just bought that skateboard.”

She laughed. “Yeah, we can get it replaced. Oh, shit. I guess if you come to work for me, you’ll need a salary too.”

“Uh…yeah, that is normally how these things work.”

“Don’t worry. I know the perfect mage to resolve all this. The man loves paperwork. He has tattoos to help him do it faster.”

“You’re the boss,” the girl quipped as they soared over the forest in a southerly direction toward home.

Kristen couldn’t help but think that her world had become a little larger. Amy represented the first member of a coalition of people who might undo the mess human-dragon relations had become. And with the young mage at her side, she felt they might be able to show the world that they were a force worth respecting.

THE STORY CONTINUES

The story continues with book nine: Destruction Imminent, coming soon to Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

BOOKS BY KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN

Steel Dragon

(with Michael Anderle)

Genesis Draconis (Book 1)

Scales of Justice (Book 2)

Dragon Rising (Book 3)

Dragon Swat (Book 4)

Terror Obscura (Book 5)

Never Cage a Dragon (Book 6)

Dragon's Party (Book 7)

Dragon Rescue (Book 8)

Destruction Imminent (coming soon)

Dragon’s Daughter

(with Michael Anderle)

Never A Dragon (Book 1)

Dead Dragon New tricks (Book 2)

Thicker Than Blood (Book 3)

Dragon Fire and Pixie Dust (Book 4)

The Cult of Tiamat (Book 5)

The Sum of All Magic (Book 6)

Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

Book 3 - Deep Waters

Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

Book 5 - Liberty

Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

Book 7 - Ashes of War

Book 8 - Embers of War

Book 9 - Dust and Iron

Book 10 - Clad in Steel

Book 11 - Brave New Worlds (2019)

Book 12 - Warrior’s Marque (2020)

The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)

Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

Book 1 - Accord of Honor

Book 2 - Accord of Mars

Book 3 - Accord of Valor

Book 4 - Ghost Wing

Book 5 - Ghost Squadron

Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2019)

Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)

Book 1 - Valhalla Online

Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury

Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

Book 3 - Dead In Winter

Book 4 - Claws That Catch

Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

By A Whisker (short story)

The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

Dead Brittania Series:

Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

Book 1 - King of the Dead

Book 2 - Queen of Demons

Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

Book 1 - Stolen Light

Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

Other Titles:

Over the Moon (SF romance)

Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

BOOKS BY MICHAEL ANDERLE

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