DRAGON SWAT

STEEL DRAGON™ BOOK FOUR

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 © 2021 LMBPN Publishing

Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

http://jcalebdesign.com / jcalebdesign@gmail.com

Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

A Michael Anderle Production

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LMBPN Publishing

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Version 1.00, December 2021

Previously Published as part of the megabook Steel Dragon 2

eBook ISBN: 979-8-88541-028-1

Print ISBN: 979-8-88541-029-8

THE DRAGON SWAT TEAM

Thanks to the JIT Readers

Dave Hicks

Deb Mader

Diane L. Smith

Dorothy Lloyd

Jackey Hankard-Brodie

Jeff Eaton

Jeff Goode

John Ashmore

Larry Omans

Micky Cocker

Misty Roa

Paul Westman

Peter Manis

Rachel Beckford

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

Editor

The Skyhunter Editing Team

CHAPTER ONE

Kristen Hall had always found the city of Detroit to be breathtakingly beautiful, but it was stunningly so when seen from half a mile up in the sky. She pumped her dragon wings and pushed herself higher and higher. Having gained sufficient altitude, she tucked them in, spun, and plunged toward the earth below while she twirled in circles.

She uttered a whoop of joy—an odd sound for a silvery dragon with a mane of white hair, perhaps—and extended her wings, caught the cold winter air, and slowed her descent. Not too long before, she had thought that achieving her dragon form and flying would be the hardest thing to learn, but that hadn’t proven to be the case. Her dragon self knew how to fly. She merely had to think up or faster or chase that pigeon and her body instinctively obeyed.

Holding luggage with her claws proved to be less instinctual.

Her overstuffed duffel bag plummeted to the slushy streets of Detroit below her and she cursed with irritation. Get it, she thought, and her wings obeyed, but she understood instantly that this would be an extremely close catch. If she encountered the wrong pocket of air, she might very well make impact herself.

Her mind made up, however, she clenched her dragon jaw and continued her dive. It was better to practice on her clothes, a few books, and some toiletries than with a human. Still, she really didn’t want her clothes to actually land. The streets had already been treated with salt, and a few days of light snow in downtown Detroit meant the snow was no longer white and powdery but grayish-black masses of sludge. She really didn’t want the duffle she’d be living out of for the foreseeable future to splash into a salty, oily slushy accumulation of ice.

With no hesitation, her body obeyed her desire to retrieve the bag. Despite already falling at the speed of gravity, her wings pumped and forced her streamlined shape to descend even faster toward the rapidly approaching pavement.

Already, her luggage had passed the tallest skyscrapers. With another beat of her wings, Kristen was beyond the buildings as well. Now, the cars below multiplied rapidly in size. Whereas before, they had seemed like slow-moving ants, they now seemed like what they really were—fast-moving steel boxes that would be even less capable of stopping quickly on the wet wintry roads than she would be able to in the air. She considered turning to steel—that way, if a car collided with her, she at least wouldn’t be too badly injured—but the subconscious part of her brain that controlled her flight told her it was a bad idea. Her increased mass would make it much more difficult to stop.

But she was close to her bag—halfway down past the tallest buildings…two-thirds…three-quarters. Her brain screamed at her to pull up, but she was so close.

Finally, when it seemed she couldn’t wait any longer, she spread her dragon wings and caught the breeze. The air resistance almost jerked her body to a stop and she had to remind herself there was more to a dragon body than simple physics. It took magic to keep her aloft, but that magic had limits. It didn’t stop her completely but changed her direction.

Still, she had unfortunately pulled up too soon. Despite her proximity to her duffle, it fell past her claws as she tried and failed to snatch it. She lashed out with the talons on her feet as well, but those too missed.

“Come on!” she roared and willed every part of her body but her wings to catch the bag.

Her tail responded.

Kristen had been so preoccupied with her wings and the feeling of her silvery mane in the wind that for the last half-hour, she’d forgotten she had a tail. She remembered now as the long, elegant silver-scaled appendage whipped out and snagged its barbed tip through the strap of the bag.

She whooped in pride as she pumped her wings furiously and gained altitude again.

Unfortunately, the ax blade positioned immediately below the spear-like point at the end of her tail sliced through the strap and the bag careened into a downward spiral once again.

This time, the part of her brain that controlled her flight was quite concise in its answer to her desire to catch the duffel. No, her dragon reflexes told her in virtually the same moment that the bag splashed into a puddle. Had it landed only a foot to the side, it would have been on the sidewalk, but a little luck was simply too much to ask, of course.

With a regretful sigh, she released a great gout of steam and perhaps smoke—she had yet to use her fire breath—and landed on the sidewalk. She knew some dragons could transform from their dragon body to their human one as they landed, but she hadn’t learned that yet. As a result, a massive silver-scaled dragon landed on the streets of Detroit.

It spoke to the long history of dragons presiding over human culture that no one really said anything. A woman with a stroller walked faster. A panhandler who had decided to stay in the frozen city rather than migrate south for the winter with most of the beggars flashed a cardboard sign at her that said, will work for gold. A couple, holding hands and obviously still in the early stages of a relationship, slowed and decided to admire the architecture of the building across the street instead of moving any closer to a grumpy looking dragon.

A little boy noticed her, though. At first, Kristen couldn’t see where he was, but as he continued to shout, she realized he was in the third story of a nearby apartment. “Mom! Mom, look—it’s the Steel Dragon. It’s Kristen Hall. Hiiii, Steel Dragon!” the boy shouted. He must have been about eight or nine. “Can I have your autograph? I read all about your battle with that shadow dragon guy. You’re the best! Mommy look.”

The only adult response was the sound of the mother trying to get the boy to close the window to keep the cold out. Her child squawked in disappointment, indignant that his mom didn’t want her young child associating with a dragon. “But Mo-om, we were going to be friends!”

The window closed, and Kristen picked her duffle up. It wasn’t soaked through completely. Maybe by the time she reached the base, the stuff inside would be dry.

That, of course, proved to be wishful thinking.

She leapt upward, caught herself with her wings, and was airborne once more. This time, though, she held her bag a little more carefully.

As she flew the rest of the way to the location Stonequest had shown her a few days before, she let her mind wander instead of indulging in more flying tricks.

Even though she hadn’t even started her new assignment yet, she already badly missed her old team. Still, she knew that she wasn’t leaving them behind forever. She might be a dragon but she would always think of herself as human, and humans needed human friends. Besides, at the very least, she’d want to vent to all her friends about the dragons. She had no doubt she would inevitably make serious gaffs when it came to dragon culture. Most dragons were centuries old. That gave them more than enough time to learn etiquette and all things dragon-related. Most of them still found riding in an automobile to be a real novelty. She had no doubt that she’d manage to offend them in ways she never could with her human friends.

Still, even if she already missed them, Kristen was excited to work for Dragon SWAT. She had loved being part of the Detroit Police Department’s most elite force, but once she’d activated her steel skin, it had become quite obvious that she was in a different league than her teammates. Even without her dragon form, she was faster, stronger, and had keener senses. Added to this was aura, which allowed her to not only make humans feel what she wanted them to feel but could also give her a window into the emotional state of those around her, although she was still learning how to do all that.

With this promotion—or reassignment or whatever you called it when you left humans behind to join dragons—she’d go from being the big fish in a small pond to merely another dragon. Kristen was certain there would be struggles, but she was excited by the potential to learn from other dragons in a way she simply couldn’t from other people. Hopefully, there’d be far less bureaucracy. Captain Hansen had been a little obsessive when it came to paperwork.

She finally saw the base. It was located in the Capital Square Building, which was actually quite close to her old police station. The six-story structure was built of red brick on a corner where Griswold, Shelby, and Grand River all crossed. She must have driven past it a hundred times but had never known until a few days before that it housed a force of dragons tasked with keeping much of the Midwest free of dragon-caused conflict.

Her journey at an end, she landed on the sidewalk in front—and wondered briefly if most dragons landed on the roof instead—and transformed.

Changing bodies was still a new experience for her, and she found the process intoxicating. Unlike putting on her steel skin, transforming from dragon to human took a few moments, and she reveled in them.

First, her wings faded and shattered into a thousand tiny shards of silver that seemed to blow away in a gust of winter wind. Her tail followed and her long neck and arms simply seemed to combust into a shower of sparkling motes. Kristen knew it was actually more complicated than this. She didn’t shed mass each time she transformed—instead, magic tucked her dragon body away into some other pocket of space—but in doing so, it made the world around her look like she’d dropped a glitter bomb on it.

Other dragons could control their transformations, but she had yet to learn that particular skill, not that she was sure she wanted to. The storm of silver sparkles that filled the space around her human body raced abruptly toward her and vanished, leaving her on the sidewalk, fully clothed in winter gear and smiling like a fool. It was something she didn’t think would ever get old.

It turned out those inside the Capital Square Building felt quite differently.

“You know, we try to keep a low profile here,” the dragon working the front desk said. He was in his human form and wore a slate-gray, checkered suit and a hat that might’ve gone out of fashion eighty years before. Kristen could tell he was a dragon because she could sense his aura. It was tinged with impatience and annoyance but mostly boredom. She could relate to the first feeling, but she didn’t understand how any dragon could feel bored when one could simply walk outside and take to the sky.

“Sorry. It’s my first day. I’m Kristen Hall, the Steel Dr—”

“I know who you are. If you’ll kindly fill out this paperwork while you wait, that’d be fine,” he replied in a nasal voice. She stifled a laugh. For some reason, a dragon having a nasal voice was simply too funny.

“I’m glad paperwork amuses you.” The dragon thrust the clipboard closer to her. “Now, if you please.”

“Sorry. It’s only that I didn’t expect paperwork. It seems like something that’s so human.”

“Contrary to popular belief, dragons don’t exist outside of human culture. We see the value in various human endeavors. Many dragons love human music, for example, and structures like this human-constructed building have always fascinated us. Paper and all its uses are merely other things dragons recognize the utility of. Will there be anything else?”

Kristen shook her head, took the clipboard, and tried not to feel embarrassed. Hiding one’s laughter wasn’t enough for dragons. They could read emotions as easily as humans could read faces. She would have to make more of an effort to control her feelings. Already, she could see why so many of the dragons she’d met had seemed so distant. It would be stressful to always have to guard oneself against strong feelings to avoid the risk of betraying your thoughts.

She sat in the lobby, which was hopelessly pedestrian. Uncomfortable chairs, a bland coffee table, and two ailing potted plants—already looking like they felt the cold—filled the room. She sighed and poured over the paperwork.

There were the usual questions like address, emergency contacts—although, oddly, no spaces for email—work history, and that kind of thing. Some parts of the form made her giggle. Instead of a section asking for a doctor’s contact information, there was a space about contacting a mage. Rather than a phone number, she was supposed to draw the mage’s sigil and made a note to ask Stonequest about that. She was also supposed to list any holdings she had. That too was kind of weird. Kristen didn’t even own her apartment, let alone an estate. She wondered if she was the least wealthy dragon inside the entire building.

When she reached the section for family history, she simply skipped it. She would forever think of her parents as Frank and Martha Hall, but she knew the dragons would find that confusing or worse. She did note, however, that the section on family history was long. Apparently, it was rather important to dragon kind.

Finally, she reached a part of the form that was actually interesting and grimaced when the dragon in the checkered gray suit spoke. “They’re ready for you. Second floor.” At his words, an elevator dinged at the end of the hall. Kristen stole one more glance at the form. It provided a list of maybe twenty dragon abilities and she was supposed to put a check beside each one she had. Before she could commit any of these to memory, the dragon coughed rather loudly and she gave him the paperwork.

“Did you finish it?” he asked.

“Almost. I didn’t see a place on the form for steel skin, though.”

“I’ll mark it under ‘other’ for you. Now, move along. It’s not polite to keep dragons waiting.”

Kristen smiled a sickeningly sweet smile and went on her way, neglecting to point out that he’d actually kept a dragon waiting.

She rode the elevator up one floor, where it stopped automatically. As she waited for the doors to open, she tried to compose herself. Despite the disappointingly bureaucratic introduction to Dragon SWAT, she was still excited. She could feel anticipatory energy pouring off her, no doubt alerting the room of dragons she was about to meet about her rookie response. To settle her emotions, she took a few deep breaths and reminded herself that she needed to stay calm.

That proved to not be a problem.

The doors opened to reveal an office space before her that was exactly that—an office. There were no suits of armor lining the walls and no swords hung at the sides of the officers. In fact, she didn’t think she saw any officers at all. Instead, the room was filled with people shuffling paperwork, fixing coffee, and talking in the bored voices that suggested they wished they could be somewhere else.

“Ah, Lady Hall, welcome to the inner workings of Dragon SWAT.” A man in a red robe bowed. He’d darted out of an office as if he’d waited for the ding of the elevator. Kristen couldn’t sense any aura emanating from him, which made her think he wasn’t a dragon but a mage. The tattoos on his hands and head further confirmed this suspicion. Stonequest had told her once that dragons could not take tattoos because of their healing abilities.

“The inner workings?”

The man grinned, but Kristen could read his emotions enough to know that it wasn’t genuine. “Indeed,” he said. “This is where it all happens. We interpret the Dragon Council’s will here, compare it to local human law, and redraft appropriate language that appeases both parties. Everything from land rights to centuries-old cold cases pass through this office, and you’ll be able to get a glimpse of all of it, sometimes multiple times as we send it to other offices across the country. I am the head mage of this office. You may refer to me as Atramento, although if that name does not suit you, feel free to call me another, your dragonship. As our newest intern, you’ll no doubt have many questions—”

“Wait, what did you say?”

The mage smiled, this time a little more genuinely. “Atramento. Latin for ink. I chose it both because of my tattoos and my love for the power of ink on paper.”

“No, not that, Atramento,” she said, feeling the word out. It felt clunky in her mouth. “Did you say I was your newest intern?”

“But of course, and may I say it is an honor for you to join us here. We’ve had dragons in the office before, although not in decades, but I’ve never had a dragon intern under me before.”

“And you’re not about to get one now. I’m a cop. I defeated Shadowstorm and I didn’t take this job so I could be stuck in an office filling out someone else’s paperwork.”

Atramento tittered awkwardly at the mention of Shadowstorm’s name. “Yes, your defeat of Lord Shadowstorm caused quite the flurry of activity in this office. No doubt you’ll see some of the splashes you caused on many of the appropriate forms. The requisition of resources to repair the machines alone has proved to be quite a headache. Humans and their independent contractors are truly masters of paperwork in a way this office is not.” He sounded equal parts disgusted and impressed at what regular people did with paperwork.

“I didn’t join Dragon SWAT to learn about independent contractors. And what do you mean, their contractors? You’re human too, right?”

That drained the color from Atramento’s face. “I was born of a woman, yes, but…uh, well, dragons often speak of humans in disparaging terms.”

Kristen’s face hardened which only frightened the man further. “That doesn’t mean you’re not human, and that doesn’t mean they should talk about people that way.”

“I apologize, Lady Hall. The dragons in this office often insult humans. Their culture is an old one, you see, and it can be difficult to…let’s say update their language. It’s merely the way they speak, but not to worry. They don’t mean it against mages.”

“Oh, so you’re better than regular people?”

“These are their words, not mine. I was born of regular people. My brother is a regular person.” His cultured accent had begun to slip.

That made her feel bad. Fear was obviously one of the poor guy’s motivators to do his job, which had to suck. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to insult you or make you defend someone else’s belief system. I merely didn’t understand all that.”

Atramento relaxed visibly. “Very good, Lady Hall. If there’s nothing else, I can show you to your desk.”

“There is one other thing. Can you tell me where Stonequest’s office is?”

“Lord Samuel Stonequest’s office is on the sixth floor with the other senior officers, but he is currently occupied, so the elevator won’t service that floor.” His answer was smooth as silk.

“That’s fine, I’ll take the stairs,” Kristen turned and left him there, sputtering and somehow turning even grayer than he had before.

She would make sure to tell Stonequest—Sam? How had she not known his first name this entire time?—that Atramento had done a good job of trying to keep her busy. Too bad Dragon SWAT’s newest member didn’t go for busywork.

CHAPTER TWO

Her expression disapproving, Kristen took the steps two at a time and repeated the litany that she wasn’t angry. She kept telling herself this despite the pit of rage that began to boil in her gut. If she allowed herself to be angry, she would definitely lose control of her aura. She was in a building filled with dragons who would undoubtedly judge her every move, so now was not the time to get pissed. That time would come if Stonequest tried to send her back to do more bullshit paperwork.

When she reached the sixth floor, she scowled at the doors that were unexpectedly locked. For a brief moment, she considered kicking them open. In her steel body, she’d done that very effectively countless times, but she decided it probably wasn’t the best way to start her new job. Regretfully, she retreated to the fifth floor and, finding the door unlocked, pushed it open.

She paused on the threshold and stared into a spacious gym complete with weight equipment, treadmills, punching bags, and an area with mats on the floor for sparring.

While she didn’t know exactly how she would find Stonequest, she assumed someone there might know. But what was the etiquette for approaching a dragon in the gym? It was awkward enough in human gyms, so who knew the rules here? It didn’t help that she wasn’t dressed to work out. She’d shed her winter gear and now wore a skirt and a yellow blouse, of all things. Her assumption had been that training would be mostly in dragon form and that they’d provide her with a uniform if they went on any runs. And yet, there she was in a skirt like a damn intern.

Luckily for her, she didn’t have to make the first contact.

A woman with platinum blonde hair done in long French braids who was spotting for a man at the bar press noticed her and took immediate issue with her. Kristen could feel her annoyance from her aura as plain as the scowl on her face. She realized that she made absolutely no attempt to hide the emotion. The woman wanted her to know she was annoyed. Which was, she had to admit, damn annoying.

“What are you doing here?” the dragon half-yelled across the gym.

Kristen smiled. This was her in. “Heartsbane, right?” she asked as she recalled the women’s cheekbones and French braids and that she had worked with Stonequest.

“Yeah, and you’re the Steel Dragon.” Heartsbane stopped spotting and walked toward the newcomer.

“Melissa! A little help here!” the man at the bar press grunted.

Heartsbane—Melissa, which was kind of interesting, actually—ignored him. Instead, she marched across the gym and stopped deliberately mere inches from Kristen’s face, a challenge if ever there was one.

“Kristen’s fine,” she said and plastered a smile on her face.

“I thought you only started today.”

“That’s right.”

“Then shouldn’t you be down there at your desk, cutting your egg teeth?”

“Melissa!” the man at the bar press grunted. It rested on his chest and Kristen noticed for the first time that the weights on the bar must have totaled close to four hundred pounds.

“Dammit, Heartsbane,” another woman said. Her aura made it obvious that she was also a dragon. She had dark, wavy hair and was also very beautiful. The shade of her purple workout gear was quite familiar, too. She strode over toward the man who struggled with the weights, murmured something, and the weight lifted off his chest and settled on the rack.

“Thanks, Timeflash.” The man gasped, stretched for a nearby towel, and wiped his dark skin.

The name triggered the memory of where Kristen had seen the woman’s aura before. This was the dragon who had turned back time—no, not turned back time, actually. As Timeflash had explained, it was more like putting things back where they’d been. She was also Stonequest’s teammate.

“It’s nice to see you again, Lady Steel,” she said. Her tone of voice said it wasn’t at all nice to see her, but at least she wasn’t openly hostile like Heartsbane was.

“Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but there’s been some kind of a mistake. I’m merely looking for Stonequest so we can sort all this out,” she said to Timeflash.

“And what’s the fucking mistake?” Heartsbane demanded.

“Someone seems to think I joined SWAT to be an intern,” she replied.

The belligerent dragon snorted derisively. Obviously, the newcomer being an intern was exactly what she expected. Kristen glanced at Timeflash for support but she too looked annoyed.

“Can you believe this shit, Arin?” Heartsbane said to Timeflash. Her first name was appealing, and it seemed to fit better than Timeflash did.

“Believe what?” The man from the bench press came to stand beside them. His dreadlocks stopped short of his shoulders and he looked like he’d rather be anywhere than right there having this conversation.

“Can you believe that they haven’t promoted Lady Steel here to captain of Dragon SWAT yet? Seriously, she’s already worked here for, like, twenty minutes.” There was undisguised venom in Heartsbane’s words.

“Ah. You’re the intern then. My name’s John Emeraldeyes. Most people call me Emerald.”

Kristen shook his hand and noticed that indeed his eyes were a sparkling green. She also noticed that he seemed to be intent on crushing her hand into a fine powder. Instinctively, she squeezed his in return, but the shirtless human-formed dragon was much stronger than her. She flared her dragon strength, but Emerald simply continued to crush her hand. Finally, she turned it to steel to prevent any real damage to the bones. Once she did so, she of course squeezed his hand even harder.

He snorted. “No dragon powers in the gym, and why would you turn your hand to steel? Are you trying to show off because you have extra powers?”

“You were crushing my hand.”

“And you reciprocated. It was a test of strength. You could have simply stopped squeezing instead of trying to win by cheating.”

She was beyond confused. “How is using my dragon powers cheating? You were bench pressing, like, four hundred pounds.”

“Not with my powers. There ain’t no point in using your powers to train. You have to grow the actual muscles in your human body if you want gains. Wait, wait, wait—are you serious right now? Are you really asking me basic anatomy questions?” Emerald shook his head and clenched his jaw.

“What’s wrong with wanting to know more?” she asked.

“The problem is,” Heartsbane cut in, “that if you had been amongst dragon kind for more than a half-hour you might have actually learned some of this already. Instead, you’re here, wasting our time, trying to waste Sam’s time, and hell, probably wasting your own time. There are mages who would be happy to answer this crap for you. This is all some of them do—talk about dragons and pretend they might be as strong as us one day.”

“Don’t talk about them that way,” Arin said to Heartsbane.

“I didn’t say anything,” the other woman countered.

“Oh, here we go.” Emerald rubbed his face irritably. It seemed an old argument was about to resurface.

“Your tone was enough. I don’t care what you think about mages, but you’ll treat them with respect,” Arin said firmly.

“So I can’t use certain tones when I talk about them? There aren’t even any here right now! How the hell am I supposed to think of them as equals if they’re weaker than us?” Heartsbane looked to be both baffled and repulsed.

“Simply because they’re weaker doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be treated with respect,” Kristen said and immediately came to the defense of the mages she’d met.

“You shouldn’t have said that.” Emerald shook his head and moved to a rack of free weights. He glared at all three dragon women as he did curls.

“You really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Heartsbane said dismissively.

“I know that mages are people too, exactly like my family and exactly like you and me.”

“That’s bullshit.” The woman’s aura made it quite clear that she truly detested mages and those who defended them. “Mages have tried to overthrow dragon kind not once, but twice. They bred entire races of beings into existence to try to destroy us. Because some of them play nice doesn’t mean we should stop watching them.”

“You do know you sound insane, right?” Arin said. “You say mages are weaker than us but that they’re also dangerous. Choose one—weak or strong.”

“How the fuck is that crazy?” Heartsbane snapped in response. “It’s the same thing as the Steel Dragon here. An odd steel skin quirk makes her perhaps more powerful than us but she’s still greener than Emerald’s eyes.”

“I heard that,” he grunted.

“I served on SWAT for months. I defeated Shadowstorm in hand to hand combat,” she protested.

“Sweetie, we’ve all defeated dragons in hand to hand. That’s part of the job description,” Arin pointed out. “Don’t think that because I disagree with Melissa on mages it means I think you should be anywhere but at your desk in the paper dungeon right now.”

“The paper dungeon?” Kristen was appalled. “Why the hell would you stuff me somewhere you call the paper dungeon?”

“Because that’s where we all started.” Emerald grunted and dropped his dumbbells with a clang. They landed on the mats at his feet and the sound echoed through the gym. “You weren’t even down there long enough to realize that everyone calls it the paper dungeon. How does that make sense to you? Do you want to guess how long I worked in there?”

She really didn’t. There was no way it was shorter than the five minutes she’d been in the room, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “I don’t know—three months?”

The other three dragons all laughed, Emerald so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes. “More like three years.”

“You were all interns for three years?”

“I was in the paper dungeon for five,” Heartsbane fumed. “Arin was only down there for one year, but that’s because her powers are unique. She’s perfect for a security force trying to keep dragons from interfering with humanity as she can make things look as good as new. A charmer like myself and a common like Emerald don’t count for much.”

“But—”

Before Kristen could speak, he cut her off. “So you have steel skin? Big deal. Sam can turn to rock. Fair enough, I get that steel’s stronger, but do you think that means you get to cut in line and be immediately placed on the force? Why? Because you can stop bullets? I have news for you, honey. We can all stop bullets.”

She was about to say something about Death and the woman who’d hurt her so badly with nothing but a regular pistol, but Stonequest and his team had been on that job. Emerald no doubt knew about it already. Instead, she asked, “What’s a common?”

He shook his head and walked to his weights, mumbling as he went. “I can’t believe this shit.”

“A common is a dragon without any unique abilities,” Arin explained. She tried to sound patient but didn’t quite achieve it. “They have increased speed, strength, and healing abilities, plus an aura. They can transform and breathe fire, but that’s it. There aren’t many of them on Dragon SWAT. Emerald had to bust his ass to make the cut.”

“Unlike the Steel Dragon,” Heartsbane sneered.

The other woman continued. “You and I are sometimes called specials because of our abilities. Stonequest is a special too because he can turn to stone. Shadowstorm was also a special, although he had more than one power, which made him especially unusual.”

“Are you a special?” Kristen asked Heartsbane.

The woman recoiled. “You don’t simply ask that.”

“What? Why not?”

“I can’t believe we’re dealing with this greenhorn baby shit right now,” Emerald said.

Arin grimaced “It’s uncouth. It’s the human equivalent of…how did my mages put it? It’s like asking how much money someone makes or their dress size.”

“So, what you’re saying is there’s no good reason not to talk about it.” She had always thought not talking about your income was stupid too. That only benefited the more powerful.

“We will not break down millennia of social norms right now in the gym, for fuck’s sake,” Heartsbane snapped. “Look, just listen, okay? You already sound like an ignorant little bitch to us, but maybe if you actually listen you won’t embarrass yourself with everyone who works here. I’m called a charmer because my aura is especially strong. I can make humans feel things and forget things easier than most dragons. Still, if we’re in a powers contest, that counts for hardly better than commons.”

“I thought you said it was hard for commons to make Dragon SWAT.”

“Damn it, that’s enough,” Heartsbane said. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Most dragons learn all this in the creche—hell, most dragons don’t have to learn this shit at all. It’s simply how we’re brought up. I don’t want to talk about it at work to some upshot special who thinks she’s hot shit because she can turn to steel.”

“Why do you get to call me special if I can’t call Emerald common? And besides, I don’t think I’m hot shit—”

“Bullshit you don’t! If you didn’t think you were hot shit you wouldn’t have name-dropped Shadowstorm and how you beat him. You wouldn’t have marched up here like you own the damn place.” The woman’s aura literally pounded against Kristen now. She could feel her anger, her rage…and her pain? There was more to Melissa Heartsbane than only fury, then.

Arin spoke quickly. “She has a point, you know. I know you have a different background and everything, but we all know who you are. We’ve all briefed ourselves on your past and your history on Detroit SWAT. Plus, I was there to clean up the mess you and Shadowstorm left behind if you don’t remember. Did you do any reading on us? Maybe ask Atramento about the library or your new partners? You coming up here is totally unprofessional. And poor Atramento. You know he’ll have to take the heat for all this, right?”

That gave Kristen pause. She hadn’t meant to get him in trouble but that might have explained his discomfort. He hadn’t wanted to be caught between two dragons. If he agreed with one, he had to disagree with the other. It wouldn’t be an easy position to be in.

“I can cover for him—”

“You don’t know how to cover shit,” Emerald said and dropped a weight on the mats. “You don’t even know who your boss is yet.”

“Yeah, I know, because I was dumped in the—what did you call it?—the paper dungeon.”

“That’s why you were dumped in there. That’s the whole damn point of it. It’s to give you the opportunity to get your bearings before you make a fool of yourself.” Heartsbane was yelling now, any restraint she might have had long gone.

“Been there, done that,” Emerald said. Kristen had a feeling he wasn’t talking about himself.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

The door to the gym flew open and Stonequest strode in. He looked distinctly out of place. Everyone but Kristen was dressed in sweat-stained workout gear while he wore a tan suit with a white-and-blue striped tie. She realized once again that in her blouse and skirt, she was also quite out of place.

Stonequest smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, there’s something I never thought I’d hear. The Steel Dragon apologized.”

“Stonequest, I was looking for you—” she began but he cut her off.

“Heartsbane, we can feel your damn aura all the way in the conference room. There were two car crashes out front because of that shit. They need to forget about it. Timeflash, I want both cars fixed. And Emerald, stop dropping weights, man. That shit shakes the damn floor. If you break any more of them it’ll come out of your damn pay.”

“Man, whatever,” Emerald said, but Kristen noticed that he picked his weights up and racked them carefully.

“Hall. Let’s take a walk.”

She grimaced and nodded. Suddenly, she wasn’t in such a hurry to talk to Stonequest.

CHAPTER THREE

“Ithought you were doing orientation with Atramento,” Stonequest said as soon as they’d left the gym.

“You mean killing time in the paper dungeon?” Kristen snapped. She immediately regretted the outburst, but there it was.

He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “First off, you need to get your aura under control. Heartsbane already has hers under wraps and if people realize that shit’s coming from you, don’t expect to make any friends.”

“I’m not here to make friends.”

“Yeah, obviously. I thought you were here to work a job, not chase after me like you need me to hold your hand.” The words stung even though he had said them kindly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sure what else to say so.

“Look, it’s my fault. After everything I’ve seen from you, what else could I have expected?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not very good at going by the book. You didn’t ask for human or dragon backup with Shadowstorm, so I guess spending your first month learning the bureaucracy wouldn’t ever work.”

“The first month?” Kristen was aghast.

Stonequest chuckled. “That’s nothing. You know Emerald worked under Atramento for—”

“Three years. Yeah, I heard.”

“Well, look at that. I guess you are making friends.”

“I only know that because Emerald practically spat it in my face.”

“That’s good for him. He doesn’t talk to people he doesn’t like.”

That calmed her somewhat. At least he’d been comfortable enough to be rude to her. That reminded her a little of Hernandez on Detroit SWAT, which sent a pang of homesickness through her chest. “Look, I appreciate the opportunity and all that, but this isn’t really what I signed up for. My team on SWAT respected me. I had a future there.”

“You have a future here. Don’t look at this as a demotion. It’s not like you’ve been bumped from human SWAT down to dragon go-fer. You’ve been bumped up from human police to entry-level on dragon police. That’s an improvement, not to mention the first time in history that it’s ever happened.”

“It doesn’t feel like an improvement.”

“Kristen, I can’t simply promote you to officer right away. Think about the optics. Some dragons wait years for their promotions. In other industries, it can be decades. Look at it as an opportunity to prove yourself to the dragon community before you’re promoted.”

“And is that all that’s going on?” she asked. He flinched when she lost control of her aura for a moment and she knew that he felt her anger. “There are obviously dragons who don’t like having the Steel Dragon on the team. How do I know I’m not merely being put somewhere to rot and stay out of everyone’s hair?”

“Because I recommended you for this job, and I promise that’s not my intent.”

“Well, your team seems to feel differently.”

“Was your human team any different? Did you all always agree on everything?”

Kristen snorted but didn’t reply. Stonequest had met her team—hell, he’d played airsoft with them—so he knew they all had different minds. “If you always shared the same opinions, you’d all be weaker of mind for it.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But I’m merely wondering if maybe it’s better if I go back to human SWAT. You guys obviously have it under wraps here. It might be better if I work from a different perspective.”

Stonequest paled. “Hey, you’ve been here for what, like an hour? Don’t quit yet.”

“I’m not quitting anything. I’m dedicated to being a cop but I’m not sure about this assignment.”

“Kristen, I understand you’re uncomfortable, I really do, but you have to understand there’s never been a case like yours before. Dragons don’t get lost. They don’t get discovered. Even a few centuries ago when the world was less connected, we didn’t simply lose eggs and find that they’d hatched and become full-grown women decades later.”

“You make me sound like a science experiment.” She hated sounding so whiny but she couldn’t unsay it. Thinking of it that way actually made her like Heartsbane, Arin, and Emerald more. At least they hadn’t kept her at arm’s length. They’d told her exactly how they felt about her.

“Look, I hate to be this way, but can’t you see it from some of the dragons’ perspective? We’re all very curious about your origin and want to learn more about you. Even if you quit Dragon SWAT, the world of dragons—even the Dragon Council themselves—will continue to be interested in your life.”

“So, you’re saying I can quit,” Kristen said, knowing she’d make her brother proud with the snark she now laid on Stonequest.

He shrugged placatingly but the half-hearted gesture looked as awkward as hell. “Well, yeah. Your unique origin makes you a special case, but dragons are essentially allowed to do what they want in human society, as long as they don’t challenge dragons outside of the established rituals or break any human laws in really flagrant ways.”

“Like trying to blow up a city?” she countered.

“Even Shadowstorm used intermediaries to protect himself, and once we knew it was him, we stopped him.”

“You mean I stopped him.”

Stonequest grinned. “Yes, exactly. Which is why I don’t want you to leave our force before you’ve even started.”

“But I could.”

“Yes, technically, you could go back to work with the human SWAT again if you really wanted to. Dragons have worked in human industry for centuries. Some are CEOs of major companies or philanthropists and such, so there’s precedent. It would be a jurisdictional nightmare, though.”

“For you. It would be a nightmare for you.”

“You continuing to serve on human SWAT would create scenarios the likes of which dragon and human culture have never dealt with. I don’t think I could legally stop you from going back. That’s something dragons don’t really do to each other, but I might be forced to stop you through the Dragon Council the moment you tried to challenge another dragon.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Human forces don’t have the right to police dragons. But with you alongside them, especially with you, uh…taking their opinions into account, they could technically police us. It creates scenarios like the one with you and Shadowstorm, where humans were allowed to impose their will on dragons.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be an especially bad thing,” Kristen replied.

That proved to be too much for Stonequest. He laughed it off. “There are few dragons who believe in human rights more than I do. You’re more, um…progressive, obviously, and Arin is also, and that’s about it. But I think even you agree that dragons not taking a direct hand in human affairs is for the best.”

“Oh, so they can simply direct us from the shadows instead?”

“For starters, you’re one of us, not one of them. And yes, that’s how dragons see it. If humans ever grew powerful enough to control dragons, we would have to assert ourselves. Humans vastly outnumber us and are creative in ways we’re not.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Napalm? Assault weapons? Nukes? Dragons didn’t come up with any of that. If humans started policing dragons, we’d have no choice but to rebel.”

“You act like you’re the oppressed instead of the oppressors.”

Stonequest shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t want to oppress anyone. You’re right, some dragons see people that way, but that’s why I want you on the team. I think you could be the bridge between human and dragon societies, but that’ll never happen if you’re on human SWAT working with humans to eliminate dragons.”

“It’s not like Shadowstorm was innocent.”

“Of course he wasn’t, and many dragons obviously agree with you, given that you’re now working in this building. But if he hadn’t hired Death to kill you, this would be a different story. What I mean is that if you hadn’t snapped his neck and one of your friends had finished him off instead, there might have been repercussions.”

“I don’t accept that humans can’t defend themselves against dragons.”

“I’m not asking you to, not permanently anyway.” Kristen had never seen such a wheedling smile on his or any other dragon’s face. “But, Kristen, if you want to change things, do so from the inside.”

She sighed. While she didn’t exactly agree with his arguments, she could see the wisdom of them. He read her acquiescence in her aura.

“Good. I’m glad you can see things my way,” he continued. “Stay the course for a little while. Jump through a few hoops, prove that you’re as good as I already know you are, and I’m confident you’ll advance rapidly.”

“Okay. Okay, fine. I’ve had to prove myself to people who questioned my skills more than once before. I can do it again.”

“Good girl.”

It took all her self-restraint not to sock him in the face. She wasn’t particularly proud of controlling herself either.

CHAPTER FOUR

Kristen was ready to work in the paper dungeon and try to glean more information from Atramento while she…made coffee? It sounded miserable but she could do it for a few days. However, by the time Stonequest guided her out of the elevator, another dragon was waiting for them.

He was a mote of stillness in the chaotic mess of busy interns and paperwork that was the paper dungeon. Behind him, mages bustled across the space, filled out paperwork, talked to each other in hushed voices, and darted about like dragonflies, while the dragon stood implacably. He wore a green uniform that looked like it belonged on the battlefield in World War One. His skin was pale and pockmarked, his hair close-cropped, and his eyes hard and cold.

“Kristen, this is Sergeant Ridgespine.” Stonequest gestured at the dragon before them. “He’s your boss.”

She didn’t think his dragon form could have worn the name better. His spine did indeed look as straight and hard as a piece of rebar.

“And you’re Kristen Hall,” he stated in almost a growl. He did not seem pleased to meet her. Not even vaguely.

“Yes, sir.”

“I haven’t had someone abandon their post in a hundred and twenty-six years. And then it was because we faced the first machine gun any dragon had ever seen in battle. It turned out he didn’t actually abandon his post, as he ended up strafing the gun and ending that fight. What was so damn important that you thought you needed to abandon yours?” Ridgespine said the last part of his little speech like it was a question, but she had a feeling he didn’t actually want her to answer. She was right.

“Because unless we’re under attack by a rebellious band of humans or dragons who don’t respect the Council, I expect you to stay at your post. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir. You make yourself very clear, Sergeant Ridgespine, sir.” She swallowed and tried to keep her instinctive response bottled in, but that proved to be about as much ass-kissing as she could handle. “I’m merely curious as to how many of the other dragons condemned to serve in this paper dungeon of yours have defeated a special with not one but two unique abilities?”

“No other dragon would be so arrogant as to work outside of established channels!” Ridgespine had begun to turn bright red and the color matched the heat that emanated from his aura. She guessed that no one had spoken back to him in decades—centuries if his story was any clue.

“I was hired because I worked outside of established channels. I’ll work in here for now, but you need to understand that the moment something threatens my city, I will move to protect it and abandon this pathetic little post if you can even call it that.”

At that moment, Atramento appeared. The tattooed fingers of each hand tapped against each other in a flurry of movement and the placating smile on his face vanished the moment he saw Kristen and Ridgespine posturing opposite one another. The mage vanished so quickly, she thought he might have used magic to turn invisible.

“Do you know what you need, you arrogant little dragonling?” the sergeant began and puffed himself up as he spoke. “You need—”

“A different assignment, perhaps,” Stonequest interjected and deflated Ridgespine before he could start his tirade.

“Detective?” He looked at Stonequest in obvious surprise but he deferred, at least momentarily. That was interesting. Kristen couldn’t tell who ranked higher, but it seemed that Ridgespine at least listened to him although Stonequest didn’t exactly boss the sergeant around either. His tone had been polite rather than authoritative.

“I’ve worked with Lady Steel and I know she can be brash, especially when she doesn’t understand the importance of her work. She’s always one to find a higher priority,” Stonequest said. Kristen wanted it to be a compliment but she wasn’t quite sure that it was.

“That’s not how things are done around here.” Ridgespine’s words were filled with menace.

“Everything about the Steel Dragon is not how things are done around here,” the other man responded.

The sergeant nodded at that but said nothing.

Stonequest continued. “Given her experience as a field officer—”

That proved to be too much for Ridgespine. “A human field officer,” he sputtered.

“Still, given her familiarity with working a beat, I think she might better serve you on a simple assignment outside the office. Call it an extended field trip for the new intern. Plus, if she’s out there, learning from a senior officer and working to protect dragons and keep human culture stable, she won’t abandon her post—right, Kristen?”

She nodded and looked at Ridgespine.

He didn’t lose his scowl, but the intensity of his expression flickered. “There may be something to that, I suppose. Personally, I think you’ve already spent far too much time with people. You already behave…human.” She had never heard the word used as such a scathing insult before.

“And that means I’m not a dragon?” Kristen asked, unable to help herself.

“Physically, you’re a dragon. I can sense your aura and there’s no way a human could have defeated Shadowstorm, but you still read too much like a human for my taste. It might be best to keep you out of this office with Atramento and his mages.” He sneered at the mention of the non-dragons who worked in the building.

“Do you have an assignment in mind?” Stonequest asked, obviously in an attempt to keep the conversation on track.

The sergeant nodded again. “I have a job that might work. And by might, I mean that if you abandon this post, I’ll shackle your ankles to your desk in the paper dungeon, Atramento’s influence be damned.”

“What’s the assignment, sir?” she asked politely and didn’t bother to mention that she could snap any chains as easily as any dragon could.

“An old-timer—one of the ancients, in fact—has asked for security. There shouldn’t be any real problems. He lives in a quiet neighborhood outside the city and we have no reason to believe his suspicions, but he’s given a tremendous amount to dragon culture over the years, so we won’t simply dismiss him, either.”

“Who’s the officer on duty?” Stonequest asked.

“Officer Jasper. I brought him in from Colorado, actually. He’s a good man, Jasper is. He has asked for company, though. Lady Steel, you can go out there and back him up.”

“It sounds like a cakewalk security job,” Kristen commented.

Ridgespine squared his shoulders and faced her, his eyes like laser sights. His expression brokered no argument. “Is that a problem?”

She thought about the ridiculousness of her—the Steel Dragon—tasked with defending a decrepit old reptile. Didn’t Ridgespine realize she’d defeated one of those old dragons exactly because he believed that humans weren’t anything more than cattle to him? But she couldn’t simply dismiss it. Stonequest had gone out on a limb for her. He’d told her to prove herself, and—as boring as it sounded—this was an opportunity to do exactly that. She had defeated a senior dragon—one apparently with powers beyond those of most—so she could handle a security detail. All she needed to do was prove it, and it was far better to do so on security duty than by making copies and delivering coffee.

“No problem, sir. I love cake.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The next day, when Kristen arrived at the manor where she was supposed to meet Officer Jasper, she was immediately struck by two things. The first was the beauty of the estate.

As the gate opened and the SWAT mage drove her up to the front door of the house—house not really being as accurate a term as mansion—she admired the grounds.

Beautifully manicured topiary bushes dotted the landscape and she glimpsed one in the shape of a giraffe, another of a dragon unfurling its wings, and another two were humans locked in an eternal dance. The snow that dusted the tops of all the bushes only added to the effect. She had no idea how the plants could all look so healthy considering winter was upon them. Splashes of red, yellow, and orange were offset by a hundred shades of green that supported the blossoms despite the snow that was already accumulating. Even the snow looked manicured. The walking paths were all clear, and the spaces between the paths were completely devoid of tracks. Perfectly smooth whiteness was broken only by plants, a fountain, or other landscaping features. If the estate looked this beautiful in the winter, she could only imagine what it would look like in the spring.

The other thing she noticed—and that she almost didn’t notice at all was a testimony to how beautiful the grounds really were—was the security.

She first identified the system when she heard the telltale whir of a motor as she stepped from the car and sent the driver away. Rather than diminishing, the buzzing continued, so she glanced up and located a drone hovering above her. A quick glance at the sky revealed there was more than one. They monitored the perimeter of the grounds and darted across the interior as well. More than one was undoubtedly watching her. She had never seen so many in one place before.

There were cameras too, she realized now that she consciously looked for them. The mansion was absolutely covered in them. She hadn’t noticed them at first because they were tucked away beneath gargoyles or in crevices, but now that she saw them, they were unmistakable. Electronic eyes watched everywhere. There were motion sensors too, but what they interfaced with was anyone’s guess. Lights, undoubtedly, but who knew what kind of security features any unverified motion released in the bowels of the mansion? If not for the freshness of the snow, she would not have been surprised if this was the kind of place that used greyhounds for security.

Not that it seemed like the system had been tested. The snow was still fresh without tracks marring it, another level of security the owner probably appreciated.

Kristen approached the door of the mansion and was about to knock when she noticed something moving on the roof. She stepped back, ready to transform and fight, when she realized that it was only a machine. It looked like a satellite dish, except it rotated. She realized it wasn’t for satellite TV but was an actual radar dish. What, does he expect to be bombed by the military? She thought the idea was ridiculous, but then she realized that radar would no doubt detect dragons as well.

Whoever designed the security for the estate was serious about making sure no one gained access. The radar would detect incoming flying dragons, while the motion sensors and cameras should locate anyone who attempted to breach on foot. She was sure there were hidden defenses she hadn’t seen yet and some of them were no doubt magic. She wondered if the location was networked with invisible laser beams and possibly pressure plates. With a wealthy, paranoid dragon, the sky was the limit.

The cop in her briefly tried to pick the security system apart. If someone understood the camera zones, perhaps did something about the backup generator that was undoubtedly hidden somewhere on the grounds, and came in on foot, it might still be possible to get through. The owner of the mansion no doubt understood this, given how he’d requested a security detail despite all his high-tech defenses. The attention to detail implied someone who was competent, though, which made her wonder if he had actual reason to worry or whether his paranoia was completely unfounded.

Her dissection of the security system would have to wait, however, as the front door opened and a dragon strode down the steps of the mansion.

He had gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes, and if she had not felt his aura, she might have doubted that he was a dragon at all. He wore a dark-blue suit, was a little soft around the middle, and had a kind smile on his face. “You must be Lady Kristen Hall, the Steel Dragon.”

“Yes, sir,” Kristen replied and assumed that this was the other officer because it seemed unlikely that the owner of the estate who’d installed all the security measures would have answered the door himself.

“I’m Jasper—oh, Officer Jasper these days.” He winked, then said in a lower voice, “Damn bureaucrats.”

She smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Officer Jasper.”

“Oh, Jasper’s fine, Lady Steel. Really, it is.”

“You can call me Kristen.”

“Of course, Kristen. Do you mind taking a tour in the cold before we go inside?”

“It makes sense to me.”

“Right this way,” Jasper actually offered his arm like he was a gentleman from the Victorian era. She realized that he probably was and more besides that. Most dragons were at least a couple of centuries old, and with his age showing so clearly on his face, she imagined he was even older. He might have been a gentleman in countless ages, his manners and etiquette older than most living things.

As they made a circuit around the manor, he pointed out cameras and motion sensing devices that she had failed to notice and chatted amicably. “I’ve done this for quite a while, you know. It’s funny. They add all this technology, vats of burning oil, crossbows, machine guns, and even drones, and they still need living beings to manage it all. I guess I’m lucky, really. It’s good to still have a job.” He chuckled.

She tilted her head and studied him curiously. “Wait, you’re a dragon who actually needs a job?” Kristen knew that Stonequest worked, but he seemed to do so because he wanted to. She had never seen a dragon who was anything but excessively wealthy.

Jasper chuckled again. Every time he did so, it made her smile. He was the least dragon-like dragon she had ever met. “Technically, I’m an ancient.”

“Which means?” she asked, unable to help herself.

“Which means I’ve been around a long time.”

“How long?”

“In human terms? It becomes somewhat tricky to keep track after a while. You try to remember all the centuries, plus all the people still around, and it can be too much. But well, in human terms, let’s see… Do you remember Julius Caesar?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“I worked security for him.”

“Wasn’t he murdered?”

“Yes, ma’am, but not on my watch. The history books were right about that much anyway. His own kind got him in the end, not dragons.”

“So, dragons do intervene in human history,” she said and although she meant it as a question, it came out as a statement of fact.

Jasper raised an eyebrow, the gentleman’s version of a shrug. “I suppose so. We share a planet, after all, but the Dragon Council’s had a non-intervention policy for a long time. There was a time when we ruled as gods on this earth, but we fought amongst ourselves far more in those days. That, of course, wasn’t good for the humans we ruled. I was proud when the Council adjusted its intentions. Since then, most dragons are only interested in accumulating power and wealth in both dragon and human society. It’s a better game than war between flying, fire-breathing gods.” For a moment, he seemed to lose touch with the present like he was lost in a memory of a battle that had taken place long before humans had recorded history.

Kristen gave him a moment before she asked gently, “A game?”

“That’s how I see it, yes.”

“I don’t think controlling most of the wealth on the planet and wielding power in every circle or group that matters is a game. That dragons can even think about it in those terms speaks to the privilege they’ve enjoyed over humanity for eons.”

“True enough, true enough.” Jasper’s disarming chuckle followed. “I guess I simply meant that it seems like a fool’s game to me. I never bothered to try to make my fortune. I have a two-bedroom apartment in Denver—I like the mountains—but it’s not crammed full of gold or treasure or anything. I don’t own any estates or pieces of companies like so many of the ancients do. I guess in that way, we’re the same. You live out of an apartment, right?”

“Sure, in Detroit.”

“What’s that like?”

Kristen regarded him quizzically. “Didn’t you say you had an apartment in Denver?”

“Yes, I do, but I paid for it when the apartment complex was built about forty years ago. You weren’t even born, and then you grew up with human parents.”

“You’re not asking me about my apartment, are you?” Kristen stated.

“No. No, I suppose I’m not. I haven’t heard a story like yours for a very long time. Dragons getting lost simply doesn’t happen anymore.”

She nodded. Stonequest had said the same thing. Her family and friends had finally adjusted to what she was and it was sometimes difficult to remember that the rest of the world had not yet caught up. “When was the last time it did?” she asked.

“Centuries ago. Before the new world and old world were connected like they are now. Dragons knew about the Americas then, of course. Some of us lived there, but there was still so much wilderness in the world.”

“And dragons would come out of it?”

“Even then, no, not really. Sometimes, dragons would rebel against the political establishment of the time.”

“Like they’d fight against human kings for democracy?” she suggested.

“Ha! No, Lady Hall, quite the opposite, in fact. But if they tried to interfere and other dragons stopped them, communities would sometimes leave, vanish from the cities and trade routes, and go so far into the jungle or the desert or wherever that no one could sense their aura. Sometimes, they’d have dragonlings and sometimes, those dragonlings would return to society with the rest of us. But even then, we all understood where they came from. You’re…”

“Different. I know. Look, I can tell you what I’ve told everyone. Someone came to my parent’s house one night, pounded on the door, left me on the doorstep, and vanished. My parents moved to another city with me for about a year. When they returned, they pretended I was my mom’s and that they’d moved because it had been a difficult pregnancy. I didn’t even know I was adopted until my powers started to manifest themselves.”

“And you don’t know who the woman was?”

She wanted to tell Jasper the truth that she knew exactly who the woman was—her Aunt Christina, her dad’s sister. After dropping baby Kristen off at her brother’s house, she had been murdered that same night in a sloppy car accident that was later covered up. She wanted to tell him that her Aunt Christina probably wasn’t her mom either and that she had worked at some kind of bioresearch lab that had been funded by dragons, but she’d only just met him. It was a secret she’d kept close to her breast since she’d discovered it, and she wouldn’t betray the origins her parents had worked so hard to obscure for so long.

“I don’t know who my mother was,” she said honestly.

“It’s quite the mystery, isn’t it? A dragon from nowhere, with no contacts or relations to speak of.”

“Well, that kind of sounds like you,” she said, hoping to move the conversation back to him and his past rather than hers.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You said you didn’t have any political connections, but here you are, working guard duty at the nicest mansion I’ve ever seen. Do you mean to tell me you got this job because you let Julius Caesar get stabbed?”

Jasper smiled. “My resume’s a part of it, and like I said, it didn’t happen on my watch. I’ve done security for other dragons for a long time. One thing most agree on is that we shouldn’t kill each other except in ritual combat, and even then, it’s better to defeat your opponent than kill, obviously.”

Kristen nodded. She’d defeated a dragon in combat, but she hadn’t spared his life.

“Anyway, people know that about me. I have an honest reputation, you could say, and I’ve made some friends over the years. Windfire and I—he’s the dragon who owns this place—go way back.”

“Is that right?”

“Oh yes. We both came to this continent around the same time and managed to keep in touch despite following different paths. Windfire’s a real ancient, mind you, not like me. He has the connections and the wealth but has been a recluse for decades. It was something of a surprise when he reached out to me.”

“Why do you think he contacted you?”

“You know, at first, I thought that maybe he was merely throwing me a bone. We hadn’t talked in years, and out of the blue, one of his servants contacted me about a security contract. I accepted it and looked forward to talking to the old windbag—don’t call him that, by the way—but when I got here, well…”

“He’s obviously not simply doing you a favor, not with the security cameras and the drones.”

“That’s exactly right. I thought this gig would mostly be me drinking tea with an old friend, but I hardly see Windfire. He doesn’t like to come outside anymore and always goes on about telescopic lenses, real-time satellite feeds, and drone technology. He says they can see him and that they’re watching. Especially on sunny days, he’s a wreck.”

“He sounds paranoid.”

“He is. Which is odd for a dragon. When you’re a fire-breathing creature capable of flight with a healing ability unlike any other species on the planet, there’s not much that can harm you.”

Kristen knew that there were undoubtedly still things that could. She’d been hunted until quite recently by a dragon assassin who knew how to hurt dragons. “Do you think his paranoia is justified?”

Jasper shrugged and tried to smile but the wrinkles around his eyes failed to crease. “Between you and me, dragons don’t become paranoid. It’s not part of our nature, but then again, neither is Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Do you think he’s losing control of his mind?”

“Honestly, I’ve been here a week and haven’t seen a damn thing. Birds don’t even land on the grounds, not with the drones buzzing about. I think that…well, it pains me to say it but we’re partners so I might as well tell you. I’m worried that Windfire might’ve lost his marbles.”

She sighed and thought about the paper dungeon. It had been busywork, but it had also been in the heart of the Dragon SWAT security building. She could have pumped Atramento for information about mages and maybe fit some training time in with the other members of Stonequest’s team. The reality was that she could’ve proven herself to a whole building full of powerful dragons but instead, she’d lost control, taken the established way of doing things personally, and ended up out there, tending the concerns of an ailing dragon so old that—despite living for thousands of years—he was finally sinking into senility.

She liked Jasper but hanging out with a kindly old security dragon was not enough of a reason to leave her human friends on SWAT.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “I can see something’s troubling your aura.”

“I’m fine. I had simply hoped for a little more than…well, a dragon who’d lost his marbles.”

“Ah. Don’t think of it like that. Think of it as an opportunity to get away from the office.”

“I’ve been at the office for one day.”

“Ah, well—”

Kristen didn’t hear the rest of what he said. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen movement. Something had vanished into one of the topiary hedges.

“Did you see that?”

“Maybe it was one of the drones. They sometimes go down. You know, we used to use crows for security. They were much better except, of course, they did like to steal the keys.”

“No! There—look.” A figure dressed in black sprinted from one bush to the next. They had used the path so hadn’t even left tracks in the snow.

“I didn’t see—”

“Watch my back.” She raced after the black-clad intruder. “You—this is private property. Stop now and no one gets hurt.”

The person dashed from cover. Whoever they were, they were fast. She turned her speed on to pursue the person across the grounds and left a startled Jasper behind her.

CHAPTER SIX

With her dragon speed activated, Kristen cut through the freshly fallen snow toward the last hedge she’d seen the figure vanish into.

“Come on out with your hands up, kid. This is private property but I’m sure you didn’t know that.” She had found that people often clung to lies when they could. This was obviously private property, what with the eight-foot-tall wrought iron fence, but sometimes, if a hostile thought there was an easy way out they’d take it. In their panic, if you could manage to say the same flawed things they were thinking, it would derail them.

Not this one, though.

The person burst from the side of the hedge—like a face-hugger from Aliens exploding out of a hippopotamus bush—and raced away from her.

“You’re making a mistake!” She sprinted after the fugitive and closed the gap quickly. The person turned and she tried to as well, but she slipped and sprawled in the snow. She pushed herself up and dusted the powdery substance from her face, but the intruder was no longer visible.

A quick scan of the area revealed the tracks in the snow. They led to a bush cut into the shape of a horse, except one of the legs was way too thick. Before she could even give chase, a snowball flew from the greenery and caught her squarely in the face.

“Hey!” she yelled and wiped the snow from her eyes. By the time her face was clear, the trespasser was already gone. The snowball had been clever. They’d blinded her and used the opportunity to get out of her line of sight.

Kristen ran after them again, only to slip once more on the slick ground. “Oh, forget this,” she muttered and transformed into a dragon.

She still didn’t know how to transform while she was moving, so she had to burn a few precious seconds to change forms. Steel confetti enveloped her and obscured her from the material world while magic retrieved her dragon body from wherever it had been.

“Ah, much better,” she said, flexed her wings, and cracked her tail in her fully transformed body.

She bounded in the direction of the trespasser but misjudged her dragon bulk and slid with her back legs instead of using them to launch her into flight. She thumped into the snow and crushed the topiary horse without meaning to.

This time, before taking flight, she dug her claws through the snow and into the dirt. When her wings pumped, she tore huge gashes in the earth but at least she didn’t slip.

Now airborne, she could see the path the intruder was taking. The figure ran from bush to bush, using them for cover but doing something else as well. Disabling the cameras inside, maybe?

Kristen pumped her wings and approached the tiny human.

“Come out of the bush or I’ll light it on fire,” she roared, bluffing shamelessly. She had no intention to incinerate a human for trespassing, even if they were damaging equipment. Still, she had to look like she was, so she tucked her wings and dove at the bush—this one in the shape of a gazelle.

The person heeded her warning and bolted, leaving cover moments before Kristen reached them. The human really was fast. She tried to adjust in mid-flight, but she miscalculated, crashed through the gazelle, and snapped it off at the roots.

Grimly, she realized she really would need to practice more evasive maneuvers. She had used her flight to travel great distances, but it turned out that she was about as effective a hunter as a pigeon. She recalled dropping the duffle bag and acknowledged that she probably should have practiced more with it.

Still, she could follow the person’s tracks through the snow. Or could she? Gusts of wind seemed to erase them and fill them with more snow. It could have merely been a coincidence—she was kicking up a fair amount of snow herself, after all—but she didn’t think so. She had a feeling that if she went back to the bush where she’d first seen the person, the tracks leading from the estate would be gone.

Did that mean she was hunting a dragon right now? The thought startled her, but she dismissed it quickly. She would have sensed an aura.

The intruder broke cover and raced toward the mansion itself.

Kristen had her quarry now. There was nowhere to hide on those brick walls, not unless they made it to the roof and there, the dragon would undoubtedly have the advantage.

She approached rapidly, her claws ready to snatch the hostile up, when the figure spun with a handgun aimed at her. They wore a black ski mask with a slit for the eyes, so she couldn’t tell much, but she saw white skin and pale eyes, and something in the line of the nose made her think the hostile was a woman. A fairly ignorant woman by the looks of things.

Her mental smile was a little smug. This definitely wasn’t a dragon, then. They knew pistols couldn’t harm dragons.

The trespasser fired three times and she felt none of the shots. Either the woman had missed or the projectiles had simply bounced off her. She didn’t like to turn her entire dragon body into steel—that made her too heavy—but after fighting Shadowstorm, she was in the habit of turning her chest, neck, and the skin on her head into steel to protect her vitals. So it was that a silvery dragon that appeared to wear a breastplate, chainmail on its neck, and a helm attacked the person foolish enough to shoot at such a being with a handgun.

The intruder fired a fourth time. Poor, simple, human. They should have known that the Steel Dragon had survived machine gun fire, cars impacting her, and even a rocket-propelled grenade. A bullet wouldn’t—

She felt sudden pain in her wing—sharp, blinding, indescribably real pain. Instinctively, she flapped it to right herself, but the joint felt like fire. Was it broken or perhaps torn? Her dragon body reacted instinctively by using its wings to regain her equilibrium, which only hurt more.

Kristen screamed in agony and a great gout of flame erupted from her throat along with it. She managed to point the jet of flame away from the mansion and thus only burned a topiary bush in the shape of a weightlifter before she crash-landed.

Her spiny body rent the earth below her. It didn’t hurt, not really, except for her wing, which felt like it was being torn to pieces.

She concentrated as she tumbled and changed into her steel-skinned human form as she rolled through the snow. When she pushed herself to her feet and looked behind her, a giant gash in the earth—a swath of destruction—lay between her and the mansion. She’d caused a substantial amount of damage, and the person she’d confronted was gone. Or worse, they were inside.

With a muttered curse, she sprinted toward the building and scanned for some sign of the interloper. Instead, she saw a copper dragon atop the roof. It flapped its wings and breathed fire into the air in a tight line, more like a laser-focused threat of flame than the huge ball of fire she had belched when she’d been wounded by the bullet.

“Do you see her?” she yelled to Jasper. It was obvious the copper dragon was the old man. She could sense his aura like an emotional fingerprint.

“There’s no sign of her. She didn’t get inside, though. I’m sure of that.” Jasper sounded confident, so she decided to trust him. That was something she’d learned on SWAT—trust your teammates.

“Did you call for backup?” Kristen asked.

He nodded. “That line of fire will alert the rest of dragon security. I flashed an aura too so even if they weren’t watching, they’ll have felt it.”

She nodded and knew what to do now. Secure the scene, try not to mess up the already vanishing evidence, and wait for backup.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“All right, let’s go through your version of events one more time,” Sergeant Ridgespine said. He’d arrived a few minutes before with more officers from Dragon SWAT. Kristen supposed she should have been relieved but the dismissive way he spoke had begun to really piss Kristen off.

“I pursued the intruder on foot.”

“The intruder that’s not on any of the cameras.” Skeptical didn’t even begin to describe his tone of voice.

“She appeared to know where the cameras were, sir.”

“Uh-huh. And that’s how he completely avoided every single one of them. And then there are the footprints in the snow. Those that don’t exist.”

“Like I already told you, some kind of wind came through and cleared the tracks away. Plus, I think it was a woman, not a man.”

“And this wind happened to ignore all the tracks you left behind, not to mention the vast amounts of property damage you caused. None of that was affected by this wind.”

Kristen clenched her jaw. “Yes. I assumed it was magic. Maybe she was a mage.”

“Right. So which spell would that have been, then? The one that cleans away the tracks of an intruder but not the ones of the pursuer?”

“I don’t know! Timeflash can put things back the way they were. There has to be some kind of spell that can do that but for tracks.” She tried not to get frustrated, a near impossibility.

“Does there? This is your second day on Dragon SWAT, Steel. You didn’t spend any time with Atramento learning about magic, so what makes you think you’re an expert on it now?”

“What else could have allowed them to get so far in? Or it could have been a dragon using some kind of magic ability.”

“A dragon whose aura you didn’t sense.” Ridgespine didn’t roll his eyes but his look was so dismissive he might as well have.

“I told you, I’m not the best at auras. Shadowstorm obviously pretended to teach me far more than he actually did, and Stonequest and I only trained a few times together.”

“Can you read my aura now?”

She gritted her teeth. His aura was as plain as day—disbelief, disinterest, and a dollop of disgust for good measure. “Yes, I can read your aura.”

“Good. Do you know what else can read my aura?” Ridgespine gestured to a cluster of human-shaped dragons. One of them saw him and came over with a glass sphere in their hands.

“I’ve seen one of those before,” Kristen mumbled. There had been one on the roof where she’d found Death’s body.

“Then you know that this device detects and records dragon auras. It's far more sensitive than even the most adept dragon. Do you know what auras we’ve found on it?”

“No, sir.”

“We’ve found Windfire’s. Do you think he snuck in and tried to assassinate himself?”

“No, sir, of course not.”

“We found Jasper’s. Shocking, I know, and we found yours. That’s it, Steel. There was nothing more than that to be found at all. Not a speck of evidence to support either a dragon or this lady mage of yours.”

“Well, if that device exists, couldn’t another device exist that could block that one?” Even saying it, she knew she was grasping at straws.

“The aural sensor has existed for centuries. In that time, dozens of dragons have tried to improve it or block it and not one of them has been able to. I think if someone had cracked that nut, they might have done more with it than trick a security guard into destroying one of the most finely landscaped gardens in the Americas.”

“They planned on doing more. It was lucky that I stopped them.”

“By getting shot.”

“Yes, Sergeant. And I’m telling you, this handgun hurt.” Kristen had already shown both Ridgespine and a mage trained in the healing arts her damaged wing. Except, of course, it was no longer damaged. The bullet had penetrated her wing near the joint, which caused her to crash, but it had exited as well. By the time the other dragons had arrived and she transformed into her dragon form to show them, the wound was healed. There wasn’t even a scar to mark the bullet’s passage. “I think the gun, the possible magic effects to cover their trail, and their obvious knowledge of the camera positions means we’re dealing with a professional.”

“A professional you scared off.” Ridgespine probably used a more respectful tone before squashing an insect.

“A professional who probably wasn’t prepared for two dragons to be here. Think about it. I was the only unknown factor. If I hadn’t been here, think of what might have happened.”

“My guess would be nothing.”

“Someone could have died!”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Steel. Maybe you think you would have died of boredom, but you made sure that didn’t happen either. Here’s what I think. You made up the whole damn thing. We know a dragon didn’t come out here. Of that, I have no doubt. Which means, for your little hypothesis to be correct, some kind of human assassin with a magic gun and wind powers infiltrated the best damn security I’ve ever seen and the only person who stopped it was the same person who wrecked the damn landscaping.”

“Sir, it wasn’t a magic gun. I’ve seen this kind of tech before. The bullets could have been made from pieces of dragon.”

“Enough!” Ridgespine snapped. “That’s macabre and disgusting.” He shook his head, appalled at the suggestion. Okay, so obviously Stonequest hadn’t told the sergeant about the bullets that had killed Death. Before she could speak, he continued and talked with such fury that the words came out of his mouth punctuated with spittle. “Here’s my hypothesis. The Steel Dragon arrived here, promptly got bored—like she seems to no matter where she is—and rather than talking to Jasper and learning a few damn things about our world, she went on a little joyride.”

Kristen shook her head. “No, sir. That’s not it at all. Why would I have crashed?”

“It’s common knowledge you can transform into steel in both your human and dragon forms. My guess is something spooked you in flight—one of these fool drones, probably—and you failed to compensate for the extra weight and crashed.”

“No, sir. I’m telling you it was a human.”

“Do you have any idea how fucking insane you sound?” Ridgespine roared. She hadn’t heard him swear before. He used the word with vitriol that would have impressed Hernandez and made Kristen’s mom suffer a stroke. “Humans are not threats to us. There hasn’t been a rebellion in centuries. And even in those rebellions, it wasn’t the humans who did a damn thing to dragon kind. They had to make dwarves and pixies to even pretend that they could stand against us.”

“But—”

“And then, on top of this ridiculous claim that a human with never seen before magic powers led this attack—an attack which there’s exactly zero evidence for, other than the damage you caused, of course—you claim that they hurt you with a pistol? It’s fucking ridiculous and an insult to everything Dragon SWAT aspires to be.”

“Stonequest will corroborate my story. He took in Death, the dragon assassin who was hunting me with—”

“I don’t think so, Kristen.” It was Stonequest. She was so worked up talking to Ridgespine that she hadn’t even seen him arrive. His team had accompanied him and they paced along the tracks she had left through the snow.

“You don’t think so? Tell Ridgespine what we saw—”

He shook his head and frowned at her, draining away the confidence she’d worked so hard to maintain.

“Come talk to me, Lady Steel. In private.”

She nodded, beyond confused that she was being led away from the investigation. They tromped through the snow until they reached a water fountain that was beginning to ice over.

Finally, they stopped. She could sense Stonequest’s aura pounding against her own, urging her to calm, to lower her voice, to breathe deeply, and most of all, to be quiet.

But she had trained enough with her aura to throw off any effect another dragon could put on her.

“Don’t you try to dismiss this, too,” she warned him.

“I’m not!” he protested.

“Your aura says otherwise.”

“No, Kristen, listen to me. I merely want you to calm down. I have a few questions.”

“Question one. Steel Dragon, how does it feel to lose your damn mind?” Kristen said sarcastically.

“No! damn it. I believe you. At least, I want to. You’ve practiced turning into steel while you’re in flight?”

“Yes! That’s all I’ve practiced. It makes me heavier, so I need to know what to do about that. I already told Ridgespine that my chest, neck, and head were steel, but not my wing.”

“And you don’t think you would’ve turned your wing to steel to defend yourself from the handgun?”

“No. Absolutely not. The first three shots either caught me in places that I had turned to steel or missed completely so I didn’t feel them. I thought the fourth would do the same so I didn’t bother to further transform—wait, you believe me that there was a shooter?”

“I don’t think you trashed this place for fun,” Stonequest said slowly.

“So tell the rest of them that you think someone else was here. Maybe then they’ll stop looking at me like I’m crazy.”

He shook his head and for once, actually looked nervous. “If I start corroborating your story, many more questions will be asked.”

“I know. That’s basically the point of an investigation.”

“The point of an investigation is to maintain security.”

“The point of an investigation is to catch criminals!” Kristen shouted in response. She hadn’t meant to raise her voice but didn’t regret it either.

“Sure, yes, you’re right, at least mostly. But there’s a reason that open investigations aren’t public knowledge, even in the human world, correct?”

“What are you getting at?”

“Can we please rewind to you getting shot again?” Stonequest asked and tried and failed to placate her with his cop voice.

“Sure. What’s the question?”

“Have you been shot before?”

“Yes, over a hundred times. You can watch some of the videos on YouTube. What is this shit? You know I’ve been shot. You arrived directly after I shrugged off a rocket-propelled grenade, fifty assault rifles, and a damn mini-gun.” She was now quite sure every dragon in a five-mile radius could sense her aura and how pissed off she was.

“Yes, I know you’ve been shot in places that were steel. But have you been shot by a handgun before in human form or dragon form?”

“Yes! I was shot by Death. You know that.”

Stonequest lowered his voice even more. “Have you ever been shot by a regular bullet?”

“I…no… No, I guess not.”

He clenched his jaw and it seemed obvious that the answer displeased him.

“Why?”

“I was merely hoping for some data points. I’ll assume you were shot in the wing.”

“Good, because I was shot in the fucking wing.”

Stonequest held a hand up. “Would you please listen? I’ll assume you were shot in the wing, which can be painful, especially if it caught you right on the joint. There’s an unbelievable number of forces working on that joint, so the pain would have been bad.”

“It was bad. As bad as being shot by Death.”

“Are you sure? You don’t think it could have been a regular bullet?”

Kristen gasped. She couldn’t believe she’d failed to put the pieces together to understand his reaction better. “You think the bullet in the handgun was made from a dragon.”

“Shush! Wait, how do you know about that?”

Technically, she wasn’t supposed to. She’d been shot by a bullet made of dragon scale that one of her old teammates had lifted from the evidence room. Currently, it was buried deep beneath Detroit. When she’d seen Death’s corpse—killed by tiny bullet wounds—she’d assumed it was the same tech. Jim had confirmed the suspicion. He had quite an anti-dragon bias and had gone so far as to dig fairly deeply into the anti-dragon corners of the Internet. That’s where he’d found out about the bullets. They were insanely expensive and insanely secret. But she had to tell Stonequest something, and it was damn hard to lie to a dragon since they could read auras.

“Jim knows about them. He’s…that is, he used to really hate dragons and told me that’s what he thought shot me. He said that’s what probably injured Death.”

He nodded. “Those bullets are still confidential. I can’t believe humans know about them.”

“Only some humans.”

“Death is gone because someone shot her with bullets made of dragon. That won’t stay secret forever.”

“And you think the same thing was used here.”

“I don’t know what I think,” he replied. “But I know there’s no evidence here to corroborate my theory and that if knowledge of those bullets got out, it could cause a real panic.”

“So…you want me to lie?” Kristen couldn’t believe it.

“No. You don’t have to lie. You already made your statement. It would look weird if you changed it now. But stop…stop being so insistent. Let this blow over so I can keep digging. I don’t want you to spook anyone. Not Windfire and not whoever has targeted him.”

She sighed. At least she could understand the logic of what he asked her to do, even if it was moronic. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, there were bullets out there that could hurt dragons.

Now that she thought about it, one of them had probably been used to hurt her. She could be dead if the shooter had been more accurate. Her honest opinion was that it would be better to tell the entire force, but she understood confidentiality and would respect Stonequest…for now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kristen managed to actually keep a low profile for about a minute. That was how long it took before Ridgespine began to insult her again. “Crashing over ghosts. What did the Steel Dragon see, a spark from her own tail?”

“At least I saw something in the last eighty years. You look like you came out of a history book. Did you know these things flying around aren’t birds, but robots? Do you know what a robot is, Sergeant?”

The color on his face bloomed into a shade of red normally only seen on flowers in the spring. It was almost worth it to see him so furious. “You impetuous, bull-headed brat. Do you think that because the rags they call newspapers in Detroit write about you catching a few humans, you have what it takes to be on Dragon SWAT?”

“I don’t think, I know I have what it takes,” she retorted swiftly.

“I have news for you. Right now, I am Dragon SWAT. If I pull a few strings, you’ll be out of the service faster than you can transform into a dragon.” Ridgespine’s color hadn’t abated at all.

“Are you threatening me?”

“That you even question if being ostracized from the dragon community is a threat proves you’re not one of us. You have backward priorities and no patience. Actually, firing you would probably give you too damn much satisfaction. You want to leave? Then quit. But you probably don’t even have the stones for that.”

Kristen clenched her jaw and bit off her acerbic words. Moments before, when talking to Stonequest, quitting had seemed like a logical move. Now, when Ridgespine said it, she was offended by the idea. “I won’t quit. Not after what happened here today.”

He nodded and she cursed silently when she realized that was what he’d wanted her to say. Damn it, she hated being played. He knew he’d won too. She could sense it in his aura.

“If you don’t quit, you keep working for me. Apparently, guard duty was too much. You couldn’t handle any time in the paper dungeon. That means I’ll have to get creative with your assignments from here on out. You know there’s a team working on cleaning up the trash around that incinerator you and your team destroyed. Maybe you can join them. A little manual labor might do you good and give you an opportunity to see the damage that rushing in without a damn thought in your head causes.”

“If I hadn’t rushed in, Shadowstorm would still be out there.”

“Shadowstorm’s in the past, Lady Steel. What you need to worry about is your future. I have enough assignments to keep you from seeing daylight for the next five years. I hope you’re ready for that.”

Something shifted in the air. Kristen felt it like the breeze changing direction or the sun coming out from behind a cloud. She turned to see an old dragon exit the mansion in human form. All the officers paused to look at him and in that moment, he transformed.

A whirlwind kicked up around him and enveloped him in snow, but as quickly as the wind appeared, the whirlwind ignited. Instead of a man, there was now a flaming tornado in the middle of the courtyard. It expanded beyond human size, then a horse, a moose, and even a small elephant. Finally, the wind dissipated, and a dragon stood in the place of the old man.

He had tarnished golden scales that changed color as he walked and shifted between the oranges and yellows of a fire. The membrane of his wings was more wrinkled than she could believe, and an extremely long mustache flipped despite their not being much of a breeze.

An aura poured off the golden dragon too. It was powerful and thick, with notes of ancient pride but also paranoia and something like being impressed. He raised a claw and gestured for Ridgespine to approach him. Kristen could feel the desire come from the dragon as much as she saw the gesture. His aura was incredibly strong. She wondered if he could use it to affect her despite being a dragon.

The sergeant swallowed hard when he was singled out by the dragon. He straightened his already ramrod posture and sent Kristen a glare. “Whatever flack I get, the shit rolls downhill to you.” With that, he strode toward the ancient dragon.

No one approached while he spoke to the dragon, so she didn’t know what to do except watch. From the aura, the conversation seemed to be going all right. She didn’t sense the paranoid part of it grow—which she thought was a good thing—and she didn’t sense any anger, which was a huge comfort. She tried to feel Ridgespine’s aura, but all she sensed was fear, which she didn’t think could be right. Aside from that, she couldn’t sense much else as the golden dragon’s aura was simply too strong. The effort was like trying to look at the planet Mercury during the day. It was too close to the sun to make it out.

After a minute, the golden dragon looked directly at Kristen, and slowly, almost glacially, a smile spread on his face. She felt a stab of joy at the smile. The way his golden, slitted eyes sparkled was enchanting. She wondered if the feeling came from his aura, but even if it did, that was a good sign, right? If he tried to make her feel good, that meant he wasn’t as furious as her boss had been. At least, that’s what she told herself.

Ridgespine nodded once more to the dragon before he returned to her. He looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Lady Steel,” he said between clenched teeth.

“Yes, sir?” she said sweetly.

“It appears that Sir Windfire is quite pleased with your diligence.”

“That’s Windfire, the dragon who owns this place?”

Rage flashed across the sergeant’s face, no doubt directed at her arrogance, but it vanished in a moment like a school of fish swallowed by a whale. “Yes. That is Windfire. He wanted me to tell you that he doesn’t care that his grounds are completely ruined and will have all that repaired.”

“Yeah. Can’t Timeflash do something about that with her mages?”

Ridgespine ground his teeth, looked away, then looked at her again. “Timeflash’s abilities only work on objects. Plants are not objects.”

“Oh.” Kristen smiled, happy to play the oblivious new recruit given how furious it seemed to make him. “So he has magic plant growers or something?”

“These grounds are maintained by pedestrian means and have been for over a century, so no, there are no magic plant growers. Windfire has been—let’s say unforgiving in the past about his grounds. His enthusiasm to have you working security here should be taken as quite an honor.” Ridgespine ground the last words out with the same level of effort she imagined it would take to crush granite with one’s teeth.

“He wants me to keep working the job?” Kristen was equal parts incredulous and delighted. Everyone had seemed so angry. Even Stonequest hadn’t been happy about what happened and now, Windfire himself wanted her to stay. She grinned. This was like getting promoted over one’s boss.

“Yes, he wants you here. So this will be your detail for the time being. And Lady Steel, don’t mess this up. I have no idea why he’s not angry about this, but he’s not, so I see no reason to punish you.”

“You mean because you’re not being punished?”

The growl came unbidden from Ridgespine’s throat before he spoke. “It’s good that you recognize our fates are now linked. If you screw this up, it reflects on me. That will make me sad, so I will make you sad. Is that clear?”

“Crystal, sir, and if I protect Windfire, it was your brilliant idea to keep me here.”

“Something like that.” He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “But don’t wreck the grounds chasing any more ghosts, do you understand?”

“Sir, it wasn’t a ghost. There was an intruder here.”

“Fine, keep your hypothesis, but don’t get Windfire all worked up about it. We’re stretched thin enough as it is. I can’t afford to send a dragon out here with actual experience.”

Kristen decided not to mention Jasper. He’d said he’d come out as a favor to Windfire anyway, so he probably wasn’t under Ridgespine’s thumb like she was. Honestly, she didn’t want to anger the sergeant any further. The dragon obviously had a short fuse, and she wanted to keep this post until she discovered who had attacked.

She was absolutely certain that someone had. Someone had infiltrated these grounds, made it past one hell of a security system, and fired on her with a weapon that could have undoubtedly killed her. The other dragons didn’t think it was possible that a dragon could have done this because of the lack of aura, but they also didn’t think a human was capable of such a thing. When confronted with two impossibilities, the dragons behaved much the same as human beings. They made up a third option that was easier to digest. The rookie messed up. Weird powers and all that. Nothing to see here. Get back to work and keep your head down.

But she knew she’d seen someone. She hadn’t imagined being shot through the wing. Hell, Stonequest wanting her to keep quiet was merely more evidence that something larger was afoot. And with this assignment, she stood at its epicenter.

“Steel. Damn it, Steel, are you listening?” Ridgespine was yelling at her again.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Kristen said and snapped out of her train of thought. Apparently, to dragons, she would be known as Steel. She needed to get used to that.

“Then why are you still standing here?”

“Sir? I thought you said I had the job.”

“Yes, you do, but you’re also a damn mess. Why you transformed into your uniform before rolling through the snow and dirt is beyond me. If you had stayed in dragon form, you might still be presentable.”

“Sir, I told you, I was shot—”

“I don’t want to hear it. What I want you to do is get a fresh uniform and a shower and return to duty.”

“I don’t think it’s wise to abandon this post, sir.”

“For the sake of dragon’s breath—despite me thinking it quite obvious that you made this whole mess up to cover your inexperienced little flying session—the higher-ups still want us to do our due diligence. We’ll be here for a while yet. So, unless you plan on shopping and visiting the spa, you have more than enough time.”

“How long do I have?”

“Enough time to clean up, get a fresh uniform, and come back. Was the order unclear?”

“No, sir. That is, you were quite clear. I merely wanted to make sure the estate isn’t left with only Jasper. Whoever broke in here obviously anticipated his actions. They came in from the opposite side of the mansion.”

“Just. Go. Get. Changed. I will be damned if one of my officers tracks mud across that mansion. There are rugs in there from countries that aren’t countries anymore. Don’t ruin them.”

Kristen nodded. It was frustrating that Ridgespine still didn’t believe her, but she knew how dragons valued appearance. Besides, Stonequest was still there. If she hurried, she could be back within a few hours.

Lady Steel, as she was beginning to think of herself when in dragon company, transformed into her dragon form and took flight.

CHAPTER NINE

It was a shock to find that Dragon SWAT had already left the scene, even though Kristen had returned as quickly as she could. She approached a quiet mansion at dusk, the estate illuminated by bright, halogen bulbs that flicked on and off as animals approached the well-secured perimeter and wisely decided there was easier foraging available elsewhere.

She soared over the defenses and noted that the drones came up to meet her and kept pace with her in flight before they settled again. It seemed logical that they’d run some kind of recognition software. Obviously, Windfire would have to be concerned about dragons as well as people, and yet she found it kind of amazing that the drones seemed to have recognized her in dragon form.

Still mulling over this oddity, she landed at the front of the mansion. As soon as her wings had stopped kicking up snow, Officer Jasper came down the steps, a smile on his face and relief in his aura. “Nice of you to come back, Lady Hall.”

“Where is everyone else?”

He shook his head. “I tried to persuade some of them to stay. I knew you’d be back soon, but they wouldn’t listen. Most of them think you made it all up.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No, ma’am. I saw the intruder. I only wish I had seen them sooner.”

Kristen nodded. At least her partner believed her.

“Windfire asked me to invite you inside for tea.”

“Tea? Shouldn’t we maintain the perimeter?”

Jasper shrugged. “The security system is supposed to do that. Plus, I don’t think anyone will be able to attack again so soon, not without a plan to do something about the Steel Dragon. Also, our job is to protect Windfire, not his estate. That’s probably done best if you’re in the same room as him instead of half a mile away chasing raccoons that activated the motion sensors.”

“Fair point.” She transformed into her human form and ascended the steps to the mansion with Jasper and went inside.

They found the ancient waiting in an amazing library. Leather-bound books stood on shelves with trinkets that Kristen quickly realized weren’t trinkets at all but honest to God treasure. Between the books were crowns, globes that looked ancient yet were strangely accurate—informed by dragons rather than human explorers, she realized—plus scepters, candles, and pieces of bone here and there. In the center of it all, in a plush red chair, sat Windfire.

He wore a gold smoking jacket that on anyone else would have been ridiculous but looked quite appropriate on him. His thin hair was swept back. He had a mustache, Kristen realized, but it was far better tamed than the long trails he wore as a dragon. On the table at his side sat a small pot of tea. He gestured for the SWAT members to approach, and when they did, he poured her a cup.

“Thank you, Jasper,” Windfire said.

Jasper bowed. “It’s an honor to keep you company, old friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a perimeter to maintain.”

Kristen shot him daggers with her eyes, furious that he abandoned her with their charge. The old man seemed nice enough, but she seemed to have made a habit of offending dragons. Her partner only chuckled, left the library, and clicked the door shut as he left.

“I wanted to thank you for your diligence,” Windfire said cordially.

“You’re very welcome, sir. I was merely doing my job,” Kristen replied, the response automatic from dealing with stressed civilians after months and months of duty on SWAT.

“Mm… I wish all your teammates saw it the way you did. Most of them seemed to think I made the entire narrative of someone pursuing me up as if I could pluck something so fantastic from thin air.”

“I believe you, sir,” she said. It was true and would calm him, so why shouldn’t she say it?

“Thank you, but I must ask, did you believe me before you saw the intruder?”

“We hadn’t even met yet so I had no reason to disbelieve you.”

“But the intruder convinced you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

It was an odd question. Of course she would be convinced by the intruder. Their very existence proved that something was amiss. But she didn’t want to say something so obvious to Windfire, especially if his mind was starting to go like Jasper had said.

“Well, sir, it was their movements, I guess.”

“You say their because you suspect it was more than one?”

“No, sir. I don’t want to assume it’s a male. I had a look at their eyes and if I had to guess, I’d say it was a female. Plus, the last time I saw something like this…well, let’s say I don’t want to be sexist to anyone, not even criminals.” She reminded herself about Death being female and her instinct told her that whoever had shot the dragon might well be a woman as well. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the intruder and sniper were one and the same person.

“So, it was only one?”

“Yes, sir. Although I think, based on their movements, that there’s a group of people studying your security system. The infiltration was efficient and optimized to avoid your cameras and security devices.”

“And how was the intruder able to outrun you and your abilities? If the newspapers are to be believed, you’re quite adept at using your dragon abilities when in human form.”

“I don’t know, sir. Do you have any enemies? My guess is that the intruder isn’t a dragon, so maybe a mage, then? Do you know if there are mages who can use their powers to augment their speed?”

“Who doesn’t covet what I’ve amassed and what I’ve done?” Windfire said ponderously.

“I think there are groups we can rule out if that’s what you mean.” She frowned in thought. “I believe a regular team of humans would avoid your estate on principle. We’ve already ruled dragons out, which means something in between. A group who knows dragon culture but is not part of it. Are there any organizations like that?” She kept her gaze on her host. He hadn’t answered her previous question. Would he answer this one?

“Throughout the ages, humans and dragons have collaborated on various projects. It’s not unthinkable to imagine they’ve come together yet again, at least in some capacity. Or perhaps those humans who once worked for dragons have grown to resent their shared past.”

“Is that what you think? That these are former dragon operatives who have gone rogue?” Kristen hoped to nail down exactly what Windfire thought. She was already beginning to suspect there was indeed more to this ancient dragon than senility and paranoia. The way he constantly avoided her questions indicated that he wasn’t merely building grand, unfounded conspiracies in his head. It also became quite frustrating.

“I don’t wish to color your hypothesis, Lady Steel,” he said enigmatically. “I believe you are correct, though. Whoever is behind this assault knows dragon kind far more intimately than the average human.”

Kristen took a deep breath and tried to change tactics. She found it more and more obvious that Windfire knew something about his attacker. Usually, those under attack were far more willing to divulge their ideas about their assailants, but Windfire obviously didn’t want to bounce ideas off her. “Are you involved with any politically contentious projects?”

He paused at that and the faintest of smiles appeared beneath his mustache. “Politically contentious, how?”

“Well, you’ve been around for a long time. I’m sure you’ve seen all kinds of political factions. Different members rise and fall on the Dragon Council and that can’t always go smoothly. You must have lived through the two rebellions as well.”

“Indeed.”

“So do you think this could be politically motivated? Is it possible someone resents the power you wield or opposes the networks you are a part of?”

“I believe everything is politically motivated,” Windfire said.

It was another crap answer, but she decided to count that as a, “Yes, Lady Steel, I do indeed believe that this attack was about power and not wealth.” She decided to press the point. “What are your political beliefs?”

“We’ve only just met! I’ve known dragons for centuries and never discussed political beliefs with them. What next—will you ask me my net worth?” He chuckled. It was a human joke, based on human social cues. Quite obviously, he was trying to lead her astray again.

Kristen wouldn’t have it. “Still, neither one of us believe that someone got through all this security simply to stuff their pockets”—she gestured around the room—“with all this. If it is a politically motivated assault, it would be helpful if I knew your political beliefs as it might assist me to determine the motives of the attacker. The thought is that we can assume they feel differently than you do.”

“I suppose there’s a certain logic to that. Where shall I begin? Would you like to discuss gun rights, or shall we dive into the electoral college’s effect on the vote in America?” The twinkle in Windfire’s eye said he could do this all night.

It was definitely time to cut to the chase. “I was thinking more about human-dragon relations.”

That caught him off guard, but only for a moment. There was an uncomfortable blink and a shift in his aura before the façade returned, the aura confident and calm once more. “What about them?”

“Well, how do you feel about people?”

“They are useful beings and deserve to have a place on this earth.”

Kristen nodded. “That’s fairly basic, though, right? Even Shadowstorm believed humans were useful and had a place—as slaves serving dragon kind.”

Windfire shook his head. He didn’t look displeased—he was far too controlled for that—but she had a feeling she’d struck some kind of nerve.

“You are brash like them, aren’t you?” he said with a smile.

“Like who?” she asked.

“Humans, of course.” He said as if it were obvious.

“So you admit there are differences between human and dragon culture.”

“Of course there are differences. I have lived for thousands of years. No human will have such a privilege.”

“Should they?”

“Should they what?”

“If you could,” Kristen began slowly, not sure how best to ask this question, “would you help humans with your abilities?”

“I think I already have, many times, and in many ways,” Windfire said a little huffily. “I have wielded my power to protect mankind from dragons many times throughout the centuries, with varying levels of success. If you are asking if I see human beings as cattle, the answer is no, I do not. But I don’t see them as vultures either, waiting to swoop in and attack at our moment of weakness.”

“What do you see them as?”

“Some dragons see them as predators or parasites, hungry masses waiting to attack us as soon as an opportunity presents itself.” Once again, he attempted to change the subject.

She had won a tiny but honest response. Maybe she could win another. “I don’t care what other dragons think, I want to know how you see humans. If one did this, your viewpoint of us might be vitally important.”

“My viewpoint of them, Lady Kristen Steel. You are one of us, a member of the family as it were, and a human no longer.”

Kristen shrugged. That viewpoint certainly didn’t come as a surprise. “Sure. Of them. How do you view them?”

“I think similarly to how some of you humans view the chimpanzees. There is potential in humanity—great potential, in fact. You must only stop hurling feces at each other to realize it.”

She stared hard at Windfire as she tried to parse exactly what that meant when she realized that the elderly dragon actually giggled quietly, presumably because he’d made a poop joke.

“Sir, if there’s anything else you can tell me,” she said but already understood that the conversation was over. She’d seen enough interrogations to know when to quit.

Indeed, she was right. Windfire swallowed the last gulp of his tea and stood from his chair. “I’m afraid not, Lady Steel. I would be more than willing to answer more of your questions in the morning, but after all my millennia, I can’t stay up like I once could. If you’ll excuse me.”

Kristen nodded. She could feel the fatigue in his aura as it pulled up over his other emotions like a warm blanket on a cold bed. Without speaking, she stood as well, walked him to the door of the library, and when he insisted that he didn’t need her help, she went to find Jasper and acquaint herself with the nerve center of the security system.

Windfire knew more. In fact, she thought he knew far more, but she’d have to unravel it in the morning. She hadn’t learned much in their conversation, but she felt quite convinced that the danger to him was very likely far more real than she’d first thought.

The old dragon walked up the stairs, careful to keep his aura up to mask his true emotions. He couldn’t believe the conversation he’d had. He had centuries of experience guiding conversations in the direction he wanted, and yet Kristen had still found a way to strike a nerve and almost made him reveal more than he wanted to. In truth, he hadn’t wanted to reveal that he believed humans were worth helping. Even the idea would be considered dangerous in the wrong circles of dragons. And Kristen, as sharp as she was, might use the knowledge as a blade. Steel Dragon indeed. Still, there was no way she would be able to untangle Windfire’s…involvement. She didn’t get the answers she was looking for and she hadn’t yet asked the right questions. And why should she?

She didn’t know that he was her father and that he was being targeted by the very forces that had made the Steel Dragon’s existence possible.

It had been a mistake. He had known that as soon as he’d made it, and yet he’d gone on with it because he felt guilty—indebted, perhaps, like he could do something for the poor humans who for centuries had accomplished little beyond killing each other.

At the time, he had thought that if new dragons—and indeed, new kinds of dragons—came into the world, perhaps the old structures might begin to change.

Based on that hope, he’d given them what they’d ask for. It wasn’t much, all told–a trimmed claw, shed scales, hairs from his mustache, and a sample of blood. He hadn’t understood what DNA meant—in fact, the concept of his abilities being coded into each and every tiny piece of him still seemed a little grandiose—but he saw what the humans had been able to do with them.

They’d taken those pieces of him that he might have cast off without thought and turned them into something beautiful. They’d used Windfire’s DNA to grow a dragon of their own.

Instead of an egg, she’d been in something they’d called an incubator. Instead of a mother, she’d had a dozen. Instead of a father, she’d had him, absent her entire life and yet responsible for what she was if not who she was—a dragon.

And now, after the life he’d helped the humans bring into the world, after they’d lost her and he had thrown himself into seclusion—shocked at how much losing the daughter he’d never known had hurt him—now, after all their history of mistakes and missteps, the very same humans he’d helped decades before were trying to kill him.

And Windfire had little doubt about who was targeting him. Already, they’d played their hand with a handgun that could hurt the Steel Dragon. Nothing else but the abominable weapons they’d created from his DNA without his permission could have done such a thing.

They’d come to him, years before, asking for more samples and he’d refused them. After all, they’d lost his daughter. They hadn’t taken his refusal very well.

Those humans were why he had gone into seclusion and also why he’d built a security system around him that was designed to stop beings besides only dragons. Windfire had inadvertently given a group of humans who were hostile to the dragon-controlled status quo the power to do something about it.

They had asked him for his help to create life and now, they would use that same power to kill him.

Or try to, anyway.

Windfire believed that the Steel Dragon could protect him. He hadn’t wanted her involved because he hadn’t wanted her to become a target, but fate had stepped in. Either they were destined to work together and help change the world of dragons and humans, or they would die.

CHAPTER TEN

Kristen didn’t want to swim across the pool. Why swim when she could fly? She transformed but instead of a dragon, she became a Pegasus. Her brother looked at her from the other side. He was doing a handstand and eating French fries.

“Your alarm is going off.” Brian crammed some fries into his mouth.

“What?”

When he opened his mouth, the gentle tinkling of her ringtone came from his lips.

She snapped awake and fumbled for her phone. There was a missed call, but she’d get back to that. She looked around and remembered that she was in the security room with Jasper. Television screens displayed empty hallways. A few showed the aerial views of drones, strange, high-contrast black-and-white images of snow glaring under halogen bulbs while the night swallowed everything else with blackness. Near the screens, diodes blinked on and off, alerting her to animals moving past motion sensors.

Jasper was asleep in his chair, exactly like she had been, his coffee cup empty and balanced on his round belly.

The last thing she remembered was feeling sleepy. It was her first overnight assignment at Windfire’s residence, and it had been slow and tedious. She and Jasper had made a circuit of the cold, silent grounds and almost froze their fingers off. They’d returned to check the cameras and warm up. She had yawned. Jasper, being the gentleman he was, ordered coffee from one of the few staff Windfire still kept on in the manor. They’d sat, gone over the cameras, and the coffee had been delivered. The next thing she recalled was the dream about the pool.

How was it possible that she fell asleep while drinking a cup of coffee? She’d been tired but not that tired, at least she hadn’t thought so. And her partner fell asleep too. That seemed like more than a coincidence.

Her phone rang again. Kristen was already so wound up that at the sound of her ringtone, she turned her skin to steel. She was relieved that turning to steel was her reflex when confronted with stress. If she’d become a dragon, she would have trashed the entire room.

She checked the caller ID. It was Stonequest calling and she answered quickly. “Stonequest?”

“Lady Steel! Hey, you don’t even sound sleepy. Good for you!”

“I think something’s up,” she replied.

“Yeah, you are. I remember my first overnight doing private security. These wee hours of the morning are the hardest.” He chuckled.

“I think someone decided it’s the best time to try something.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?”

“I just woke up. Jasper’s still out cold. I think maybe something was in our coffee.” Kristen picked her coffee cup up and sniffed it. She couldn’t smell anything besides dark coffee, but she didn’t know what she smelling for, nor did she normally smell for anything. Her faint hope that her dragon abilities would have clued her into something brought no luck.

“Wait, you were both asleep?”

“Yes. Jasper still is.” She took hold of her partner’s arm and shook him.

His eyelids fluttered. “You may be the queen of England, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get you a sandwich.” He chuckled and sagged in his chair, unconscious. Kristen shook him again. This time, he didn’t stir at all.

“Okay, Kristen, I’m on my way. This is insane. I was only calling to see if you’d fallen asleep. I didn’t expect—never mind. Stay put for now. Don’t go looking for trouble by yourself. If someone already managed to knock you both out, they probably have a plan for dragon security. I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

“Their plan was to knock us out so they would have the run of the mansion. I can’t stay here. That’s exactly what they want.”

“Damn it, Kristen, stay where you are! That’s an order.”

Movement on one of the screens caught her eye. “I see someone moving on the cameras. A figure dressed in black is headed toward the library. This has to be the same person as last time.”

“And they’re on the cameras that they completely avoided last time? Think about it. This is a trap. Stay where you are.”

Kristen rolled her eyes. They couldn’t keep talking on the phone forever. “Yes, sir,” she said and tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice but not terribly hard. Stonequest knew who she was when he hired her, and she was not the kind of person to sit on the sidelines or hide behind a locked door while someone was in danger.

She left the security room and closed the door as quietly as she could.

The halls of the mansion were as quiet as ever. Nothing was out of place. There were no furtive footsteps and no people lurking in the shadows. She knew that none of that meant a damn thing. If this person, this woman—she felt increasingly sure that it was a woman—had the goal of infiltration, she wouldn’t put anything out of place. Hell, she probably knew the security system better than Kristen did, considering she hadn’t activated any of it.

As she hurried forward, she turned her body from steel to flesh. The floors were old and she didn’t want them to creak under the increased mass of her steel form.

Furtively, she moved toward the library and remained as quiet as possible. She was almost there when she heard hushed voices coming from Windfire’s grand hall.

Jasper had explained that nearly every dragon mansion had a room like it—a place to throw parties, to dance, and where dozens of dragons in human form could congregate. Windfire had built one in his mansion but he’d never once used it. It was another example of dragon opulence. But now wasn’t the time for political commentary, she told herself sternly. She crept down the hallway, straining her ears to make out the voices.

The door to the massive room was cracked open and light poured out, painting a wall with a single strip of illumination. Voices drifted through the gap. One of them was Windfire’s, which was a huge relief. Knowing that the old dragon was alive meant she hadn’t failed him. Furthermore, the other voice was hushed as well, so it didn’t exactly sound like an assassin who was there to execute him.

Kristen crept forward. She wanted one peek into the room before she burst in. As she moved closer, she could make out more and more of what was being said. Although Windfire spoke quietly, he sounded strained.

“I’d never betray your people. I’ve made that very clear.”

“How can we believe that?” It was a woman’s voice. She had been right about that much.

“I haven’t said a word in nearly three decades. I live peacefully out here and avoid attention. You must understand that I don’t want to be found out any more than you do. If I revealed what you and your people have done, I would be in a perilous position as well.”

The woman snorted derisively, obviously not swayed by Windfire’s argument. Kristen scooted forward, past the band of light and to the other side of the door.

“You mean your position as one of the most powerful beings on the planet might be imperiled?” The visitor sounded scornful.

Kristen didn’t think she’d check the door while she berated Windfire, so she stole a glance. His back was to her and the intruder was beyond him. Yes, it definitely was a woman with white skin, short, dirty-blonde hair that didn’t quite come to her shoulders, and hard eyes. She was tempted to study her face but she couldn’t stare, so she tucked back into the shadows and avoided the band of light.

“What you’ve done—what we’ve done—is beyond the pale of dragon law. I don’t wish anyone to know of it any more than you do.” Windfire sounded nervous and perhaps even afraid but not terrified. The woman hadn’t held a gun. Kristen assumed she’d hear it in his voice if she became openly threatening. This was how she justified her continued eavesdropping.

“But if the world does find out, you recognize that my people will be eradicated? We’ll be burned to a crisp and our friends and families dug out and slaughtered as surely as we are.”

“And what do you think will happen to me?”

“I have no doubt you’ll lose some of your connections, maybe have to give up some of your property, and be ostracized perhaps, but killed? Burned to death and possibly eaten? We both know that none of that would happen. Instead, you’ll lay low for a century—which we both know is nothing to your kind—and everything will blow over.”

She knew she should burst in. The woman sounded more and more irate. She should move before the intruder did, but it was also increasingly clear that this wasn’t an assassin simply there to eliminate Windfire for political reasons. The intruder knew him and furthermore, they’d worked together on something that would apparently be seen as an abomination by dragon kind.

The woman was concerned about being incinerated by dragon fire, and Windfire hadn’t corrected her. Dragons didn’t burn people to death anymore, not since motion cameras had caught it happening once on film and it had been televised. The public outrage had been so extreme that the Dragon Council had publicly apologized for the dragon’s action and made it illegal to do it again except in self-defense, a concept that at the time had been laughable. That Windfire seemed to take the idea of this woman and her and organization being incinerated seriously meant that they had done something extreme.

Kristen wanted to know what.

“But nothing has changed! I haven’t left this mansion in years. Please, there’s no need to worry. Tell me why you’re here and we can work something out. Do you need money? Connections? Samples? I…I don’t want to give any more samples, not with what you’ve done with them, but if you can offer me assurances that leadership has changed, perhaps we can make something work.” Windfire sounded pleading. It wasn’t a good tone for an ancient, supposedly all-powerful dragon.

She peeked in cautiously. There was still no gun raised but now, the woman’s posture was more overtly aggressive. She knew she should act and she would as soon as the intruder stopped talking and attacked.

“Everything has changed,” his visitor said, her voice as hard as granite.

“Not because of my actions,” Windfire responded. The pleading tone was gone. Now, the dragon sounded defensive like a guilty teenager.

“No, because of the Steel Dragon. And now, she’s here.”

The words struck Kristen like a blow to the head. She was there because of her? What could that possibly mean? She had never met Windfire before and had only been assigned there because she’d gotten in trouble in the paper dungeon.

“She knows nothing. I made sure of that,” he said.

Kristen knew he’d been hiding something from her but now, it was too late to find out what.

“That’s what I needed to know. It’s good you haven’t betrayed any secrets, but we don’t know how much longer you can last without being compromised. I’m here to tie up the loose end you represent. Now that I know you’re the end of that line, let’s get on with it.”

“That’s the euphemism you employ to attempt to murder a being such as myself?” Windfire laughed. “You’ll find I’m not as easy to kill as all that.”

Kristen swung the door open, hoping to draw the woman’s attention, but wind roared down the hall, past her, and toward Windfire. She pushed into it and stepped into the doorway to find him already enveloped in a tornado. It ignited and scorched the ballroom floor beneath his feet.

The woman drew her gun and aimed it at the blazing twister. She really did know what she was doing. Hitting a dragon’s vitals during mid-transformation was practically impossible. This woman knew enough to know that. She waited for him to finish.

Unfortunately for her, her delay gave Kristen more than enough time to transform to steel and draw her own handgun. “Hey. That’s my job you’re trying to kill.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In mere moments, Windfire had assumed his dragon body. He was massive and filled almost a third of the ballroom, despite it being large enough to comfortably fit at least fifty people.

But he wasn’t what held Kristen’s attention. She was now focused on the intruder, who regarded her with a cold, implacable expression. The gun she aimed at her was no doubt the same one she’d used to wound her earlier, a gun that had been loaded with bullets made of dragon.

She moved toward the assassin in steel form. The woman clenched her jaw—there was hesitation in her gesture, but the stubbornness of a resolution made long ago as well—before she fired.

Kristen reacted as she did every time she faced a single gunman. She moved toward the weapon and held her arms up to block the bullets. There was something about actively blocking bullets that seemed to scare the hell out of criminals, even though it didn’t matter where on her body one struck. The steel was the same throughout.

She hoped that was the case now as well. The assailant’s bullets were made of dragon parts, but that didn’t mean they would affect steel, right?

Pain erupted on her forearm and she instinctively flung herself behind one of the many pillars that separated the main dance floor from the perimeter of the room. Windfire seized the opportunity to attack the distracted woman. He struck at her with a claw that was big enough to eviscerate a horse, but his quarry was fast. She rolled under the swipe and came up on her feet.

Kristen looked at her arm, knowing that she needed to help Windfire but also knowing that she needed to assess her own wounds if she wanted to be effective. It felt strange. Wounds from anything but dragons were not something she’d had to deal with for a long time.

The pain from the slash of red on her steel arm was a reminder of this. Nothing had ever penetrated her steel skin before. Nothing. Shadowstorm had beaten her senseless and bruised her bones, but he’d never cut her, and yet the bullet from this weapon had. It had left a gash on her skin like she was nothing but fresh-cooked ham.

That meant the bullets could kill her, even if she wore her steel skin. Windfire too.

Terrified but accepting of this new knowledge, she leapt out from behind the column and rejoined the fray.

Windfire struck at the attacker with his claws and tail. Each blow forced the woman to jump above it, dodge below, or move one way or the other and out of the dragon’s range.

She did so effortlessly. It reminded Kristen of the time her brother Brian had tried to catch a dragonfly with a bug net. No matter how fast he moved, the insect was faster.

It was the same now. The woman’s reflexes were as fast as anything she had ever seen. She didn’t simply dodge Windfire’s attacks but almost seemed to guide them. Her deft movements around the massive dragon forced him to pivot in the small space until she was on the other side of one of the rows of pillars.

Now, if the old dragon wanted to reach her, he had to punch through the openings rather than swipe across in front of him. It was a good way to limit his size.

Too bad it wouldn’t work on another human-sized fighter.

Kristen raced into battle, past Windfire’s whipping tail, and into the same narrow space between the pillars and the wall that the woman occupied. “Stop now and I won’t shoot.”

In response, the woman fired once more at her. The bullet didn’t hit but she rolled into cover all the same. The idea of being wounded by one of those again was not a nice thought. If it did anything more than graze her, the pain would basically debilitate her. At least it had when Death had shot her with a bullet made of dragon.

But that only meant she had all the more reason to protect Windfire.

She stepped out but her adversary had closed the space between them. Taking advantage of her lack of steel skin, the woman struck her with a karate chop to the neck.

Kristen gasped and tried to suck in air. Her healing powers obeyed and made the wound from the pedestrian blow vanish as quickly as it came.

But already, the woman raced across the open space of the ballroom and past Windfire, who’d stuck his head between two of the pillars to try to bite her.

Immediately, Kristen pursued, turned on her dragon speed, and drew level with her quarry. At least she had been until Windfire got his head clear and tried to swing at the attacker with his tail.

He was in a corner, so the first part of his strike impacted a pillar. In that moment, the assassin shot him once in the shoulder.

The golden dragon screamed. Kristen had no idea that the pain of a dragon could be so powerful until she felt the pain as her own, his aura radiating the effect to her and probably the woman who’d injured him as well. Windfire used his dragon speed to get his tail free, but in his blind rage, he lashed out with it and hurled his protector across the ballroom floor to collide with a wall.

A part of her mind understood that this was exactly what the attacker had planned. She really did know too much about dragons.

“Lady Steel!” Windfire called, embarrassed by his own mistake.

The woman had dodged his tail effortlessly.

He roared and again, flicked his tail at her. She avoided it easily and went into a roll.

“Enough,” he said and inhaled a huge breath. The light of the dragon’s flame illuminated in his throat as the woman came out of her evasive maneuver and onto one knee. Both hands held her gun aimed at Windfire’s chest.

“No!” Kristen yelled from across the ballroom as she pushed herself to her feet and raced toward the combatants.

She was fast, but she wasn’t as fast as gunfire. No dragon was.

The pistol bucked three times and bullets struck the golden dragon in the chest.

Each bullet shattered the scales that covered his torso and turned his protective armor into shrapnel that shredded through his lungs and heart. The fire died in his throat. Brief licks of flame escaped from the holes in his body before he stumbled and fell, mortally wounded.

The woman looked once more at Kristen and shook her head as if trying to dissuade her from following before she fled.

Kristen ran to Windfire. She wasn’t a medic and only knew basic first aid, but it wouldn’t have taken a doctor to know that he was gone. The carnage where his chest was supposed to be was too much and his body too still.

She cursed when she confronted the reality that she’d failed. It seemed impossible that she’d been on this job for less than a week and she’d failed.

Determination settled in and she gave chase as she transformed her body into steel by reflex, even though the pain in her forearm told her that steel skin wouldn’t do a damn thing to protect her against this woman.

As she pushed through the doors the killer had used, she stopped abruptly and stared at her adversary waiting at the end of a hallway. The assassin raised her gun—a revolver, Kristen realized, like she thought she was a sheriff or something—and fired. She’d obviously used the moment to reload, no doubt with more dragon-killing bullets.

Kristen cursed and took cover. Footsteps from the end of the hallway told her the woman was making an attempt to escape.

She wasn’t about to let that happen and raced down the hallway, furious at herself for letting Windfire die but more determined than ever to stop the killer.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Constance Vigil tried to focus on her breathing. She had put enough dream tincture in the Steel Dragon’s coffee to knock a horse out, and yet there she was, pursuing her down the hallway. She’d shot her in the arm—and not injured her too much, thank God—and made her bleed. Still, Kristen hadn’t given up. Her determination was both terrifying and inspirational.

She focused on her breathing because she didn’t actually have increased speed the way dragons did. What she had was a mage in her organization who could increase her metabolism so she didn’t tire. The trick was to make sure her body got enough oxygen. As long as she didn’t cramp up, she could get out of there.

“Stop and no one gets hurt!”

Part of her believed the statement. Kristen Hall had demonstrated her commitment to humankind again and again. She truly was different from any other dragon in the world. If she said she wouldn’t hurt her, she wouldn’t.

But that didn’t mean she would surrender. The dragon had no doubt already called for backup—or would if she apprehended her. If that happened, decades of hard work would be burned away as dragon kind descended on Constance’s allies. That was unacceptable. They’d fought so hard for so long to be in the position they were currently in, as tenuous as it was.

Driven by necessity, she ran on down a hallway and toward a staircase.

Her pursuer followed doggedly in steel form. Constance had already shot her—and proved that her bullets could damage her even through her steel skin—and yet she still wore the protective layer. She would have to get her to drop that armor if she wanted any chance of getting out of there. Fortunately, she and her allies had talked through a few possible scenarios of how to deal with the Steel Dragon if she attacked in her steel-skinned human form. Hopefully, one would work. At the time, she hadn’t realized how pivotal those conversations would prove to be.

She took a deep breath, waited for her adversary to make it part of the way down the hallway, and sprinted up the stairs. On the landing halfway between the second and third floors, she drew another pistol. This one had regular bullets instead of the expensive and difficult to make dragon ones that were in the revolver. She unloaded the entire clip into the landing and tried to keep the bullets spread out enough that it wouldn’t be obvious there was a hole but all still in the Steel Dragon’s path.

“If you hurt someone, I won’t be able to help you!” Kristen shouted.

Constance felt pride swell in her chest for this human woman with a dragon body. She knew that the Steel Dragon wasn’t only referring to other dragons. She genuinely cared about people—human people. She counted that as a huge success.

At the third floor, she waited and focused on her breathing. She hadn’t experienced any cramps yet, but she could tell her body was beginning to experience fatigue. The spell cast on her could only last so long and she couldn’t drag this out forever.

The dragon moved incredibly fast. She was up the stairs practically as soon as she was in the stairway. But Constance had planned for her steel skin, and Kristen didn’t disappoint. As soon as she put a foot down on the landing, the weakened boards collapsed, unable to support her heavy body.

She barely managed to catch herself on the broken boards and turned back to skin as she tried to pull herself up.

“Stop,” Constance said and leveled the revolver with the dragon bullets at her pursuer’s face. “I did what I was sent to do. I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else.”

“I’m a person like you. There’s no reason to kill me. My name’s Kristen Hall. I’m from Dearborn. You don’t have to do any of this.”

Constance knew the Steel Dragon’s name. The whole world knew her name but hearing it from her own mouth changed something in her. It was simply that Kristen seemed so genuine. She looked at her with eyes that seemed pleading. She wanted this to end and she wanted answers.

“I’m sorry, but I do.”

“Why?” Kristen demanded and made no effort to haul herself up. The poor thing understood that she knew something, but she couldn’t possibly realize how much that really was.

In that moment, she wanted to tell her a thousand things. That she worked with a group of people who might very well have made her. That they had made other dragons in a lab, and that she most likely came from that same lab—not that Constance was completely certain. She wanted to tell Kristen that if she joined them, they could overthrow the tyrannical rule of the dragons together. That soon, so very soon, they could arm her with weapons that would slaughter dragons as easily as dragons did humans. But—as much as she wanted too—she didn’t know if she could trust her. She had worked her entire life to get humans to the pinnacle of society. Kristen might help them, but she was still a dragon. She might push back against the dragons they’d grown in the lab and harvested to make their weapons.

“Our mission is to protect mankind,” Constance said.

“Protect us from who?”

She smiled. This was exactly why she didn’t want Kristen dead. She still thought of herself as a human.

“From dragons, of course.”

“Good, yes, I want peace too,” Kristen said, still dangling through the floor. It was an odd place to try to negotiate from. The dragon really was brave to leave herself in that position. She clearly understood that if she pulled herself out, Constance would have to run or shoot.

“Where are you from?” Constance asked.

“I told you. Dearborn. What about you?”

She smiled even more warmly. “No, where are you really from?”

“I don’t know. Do you?” Kristen asked.

She was so perceptive. Constance wished she knew the answer to that question, but she couldn’t be sure. Was Kristen the result of another organization growing dragons, or did she somehow get released from their own secret lab? Her steel abilities—previously unseen in dragons—were an indication that she was unique, which seemed to suggest a process that happened outside the usual dragon system of reproduction.

There was something in her thick red hair and her pleading eyes that Constance recognized—or wanted to recognize—but she couldn’t be sure. If she was from their lab, how did she escape? Had she been raised by anti-dragon sympathizers or was her foster family simply chosen to keep her out of the limelight? She needed to know the answers to these questions before she took any action against Kristen. She wasn’t so naïve as to think that if the dragon knew about the goals of their organization she would simply sign up. But she wouldn’t kill her either, not if she could help it.

“Don’t follow, okay? Our mission is done here,” Constance said.

“What mission? At least tell me your name—” Kristen tried to say, but the assassin fired once more at the wood around her and the Steel Dragon fell through the floor.

Constance sprinted down the hallway. She knew that wouldn’t stop her adversary for long. Even if she hadn’t reflexively put her steel skin on when she’d fallen, her healing ability would work quickly. She had to hurry.

When she reached the end of the hallway, she continued down another set of stairs. She paused only to shatter a window on the second floor. With luck, that would buy her a few seconds.

Already, Kristen’s footsteps pounded toward her and closed the distance between them. She was fast—impossibly fast—and Constance knew she wouldn’t tire. She knew that if not for the magic performed on her, she would already be dead. But she’d trained her entire life for the coming showdown against dragons and wouldn’t be caught while running from one in human form.

Constance Vigil ran through the hallways of the second floor. This level was mostly parlors and sitting rooms as well as a few opulent bedrooms. It was absolutely disgusting to her that one dragon could control such wealth and hoard such garish possessions and not even share them with other dragons, let alone humans. That the dragons could control such wealth so effortlessly was sickening.

Windfire had helped them in the past, but it had been nothing to him. He’d donated a few parts of his body—some shed scales, a claw, and a broken piece of tooth—while humans had done all the actual work of growing dragons and dragon parts. They’d had to live a life of secrecy, hiding behind a false form of Christianity, living humbly, and devoting their lives to training, while the dragon they’d needed to help them spent his days in secluded luxury.

These thoughts steeled her as Kristen raced down the hallway in determined pursuit.

She hid in the tiny alcove that led to a room with paintings worth more than most people would make in a lifetime. The dragon was still in her human form, not her steel skin. Constance nodded and slid her guns into their holsters. The Steel Dragon wasn’t wearing her steel. This was a chance to learn but she couldn’t mess up. Only one punch from the dragon could crack a rib.

Her pursuer raced past and Constance darted out behind her and struck her across the back of the head with an elbow. The force of the magic-augmented blow plus her own momentum was enough to hurl the dragon into an ungainly sprawl.

Before she’d even stopped moving, Kristen had her arms under her and pushed up. She was determined, a trait Constance admired. But now wasn’t the time for admiration.

She raced forward and kicked Kristen in the back of the knee. Her leg buckled and kept her on the floor. Before she could turn, Constance kicked her in the ribs—once, twice, three times.

On the fourth kick, the dragon caught her foot. She stood and hurled her attacker all in the same motion. She was impossibly strong—inhumanly strong.

The assassin pounded into a wall. Years of training made her rotate her back to the wall instinctively so she didn’t break any limbs.

Her feet landed in the same moment that Kristen struck.

Constance blocked the punch with her forearm, although the blow was so hard her own arm smacked her in the face like she was a tiny kid fighting a cousin who was years older.

“Why did you kill Windfire?” the Steel Dragon demanded.

“He was too loyal to dragon kind.”

Surprise blossomed on Kristen’s face and the assassin used the moment of surprise to rocket her knee into the dragon’s crotch.

The strike was more effective on men, but it didn’t feel great for women either. Kristen flinched, clearly unaccustomed to the blow or the ferocity with which she delivered it.

Before the Steel Dragon could recover, Constance spun and caught her across the face with an elbow. The move would have knocked a human unconscious. In fact, properly delivered, it would have killed many a person, but not a dragon.

Her adversary only stumbled back, her eyes closed tightly in pain. Constance swept her legs out from under her and ran.

“I only want to ask you some questions,” she wheezed as the assassin reached the stairs to the first floor—the same stairs she’d first led Kristen up. The Steel Dragon. She had to think of her as the Steel Dragon until—unless—she joined them.

She flung herself out the window and landed in the snow outside the mansion and ran as fast as she could toward one of Windfire’s topiary bushes. From there, she sprinted to another, leaving a trail in the snow that her pursuer would no doubt follow. She darted to one more, then doubled back and tucked herself inside the second bush.

The tinkle of glass told her that Kristen had jumped through the window. She had no time to act—less than no time. Constance looked at her footprints in the snow. They left the second bush and after maybe twenty feet doubled back again. The two trails were obvious. If Kristen made it this far without Constance getting help, she’d know exactly where she was and she would be caught.

But her team knew where she was. They knew how to help and came through for her.

The trail leading back toward the bush in which she hid began to blow away. Wind scoured the tracks and filled them with snow yet left the trail that led away from the bush.

And not a moment too soon. The Steel Dragon had already made it to the first topiary creation—a seal balancing a ball on its nose—and moved on to where Constance was hiding behind a leafy bear.

The assassin wouldn’t have been able to see a thing but fortunately, Windfire had installed motion sensors and connected them to banks of floodlights. As the Steel Dragon approached, she was able to watch her eyes in the glare of the security system that was supposed to stop intruders rather than help them.

Perhaps things might have gone differently if not for those floodlights. Constance knew the power of dragon night vision. They could pierce the darkness with their inhuman eyes like so many predators could, but they were still animals. With banks of floodlights behind her illuminating the snow into a blinding white and Constance tucked into the thick shadows of the topiary bear, Kristen had little chance to see her until it was too late. She almost felt bad for her. But then she reminded herself that—unlike a human—Kristen would be practically impossible to kill with her bare hands.

That gave strength to her blow. When the Steel Dragon raced past, following the path in the snow past the topiary bear and on to a third bush that Constance had never actually gone to, she prepared herself to act.

As soon as Kristen’s gaze had moved beyond her hiding place, she struck without hesitation or restraint. She leapt out like a coiled snake and kicked the dragon so hard in the face that blood blossomed from her nose. A human had delivered a blow that was strong enough to make a dragon bleed. That might have been the first time it had happened in centuries.

Still, it was not enough to knock her down. And for the millionth time, Constance was reminded that a dragon was a beast far more powerful than humans could ever be on their own. It took multiple mages to augment her body, and even with all of them working in concert, she wasn’t able to overpower the Steel Dragon’s human form.

Kristen stumbled back, clutching her nose. The assassin clawed at her eyes. The dragon tried to defend herself, but this left her body open for a punch in the gut delivered with every ounce of strength she had.

The Steel Dragon wouldn’t know it, but the blow was enough to drain the magic from Constance. Immediately, a wave of exhaustion washed over her. She’d overextended herself, ignored screaming muscles, and not focused on her breathing when she should have and now, she paid the price.

Her entire body began to tremble. She had no idea how she’d get over the fence and out of there. But none of that would matter if the Steel Dragon recovered.

Kristen fell to her knees and Constance summoned a desperate effort and kicked her in the shoulder. It knocked her to the ground not because it had been a hard blow but because she had hit her so forcefully in the gut and she was still reeling.

The killer drew her gun—the revolver that both she and Kristen knew was loaded with bullets that could kill the Steel Dragon—and aimed it once more at the face framed by those red curls that seemed so familiar to her. With her other hand, she reached for not her other gun but a different tool.

It took all her strength to keep the gun steady. If she let her arm tremble, she had no doubt this dragon in human form would sense her exhaustion.

The Steel Dragon groaned and opened her eyes to once again find a gun trained on her head. “Hands up.”

“Please! Tell me why you did it.” Kristen obeyed and held her hands up.

“Because dragons treat us like rats. Because they’ve lorded over us for centuries and forced us to eat the scraps from their feasts.”

“So help me change that. Come in with me, be the first woman—the first person—dragons have feared, ever!”

Oh, how Constance wanted to believe those words, to believe that—after killing the dragon the Steel Dragon was assigned to protect—that if they cooperated, everything would be fine. “We’ve spilled blood. We both know the dragons won’t forgive that.”

The look in the Steel Dragon’s eyes said she wouldn’t either. “So, put the gun down and don’t spill any more. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you if you give yourself up.”

Constance smiled. It was such a genuine promise from such a naïve girl but it would never work. The Steel Dragon couldn’t protect them from all the dragons that would end them. She could be brought over, but not yet.

“We are only trying to level the world. Humans have lost far more than the dragons have. Thousands—millions if you consider all the warfare that could have been prevented if the dragons simply cared about us. We care about you, Kristen Hall. We don’t want you to die.”

“Good. That’s good. I’m going to stand up, now. Okay?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.” Constance took the flash grenade she had held behind her back.

She tossed it at Kristen, who immediately turned to steel. The assassin whirled and ran as the device detonated in a blinding flash.

The Steel Dragon screamed in pain. Constance strained her ears, listening for her stumbling in the snow, but all she could hear was her own pounding heart.

She reached the wrought iron fence. A rope ladder had been thrown over the top of it. She climbed it to find two of her partners on the other side. Each took an arm and they carried her to their vehicle. They scrambled inside and accelerated away as the last of Constance’s magic strength left her and she passed into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By the time Kristen’s eyesight returned, the only tracks in the snow were her own. Still, she transformed into a dragon and flew around the perimeter of the property, doing guard duty with the drones. She saw nothing—no getaway vehicles and no tracks. Those who had worked with the blonde woman were at the very least professional and prepared but given how the woman seemed to have played with the snow, they were probably mages too.

She finished her circuit, thinking even as she did so that she’d failed horribly. Windfire was dead. She had let him die and had been outmaneuvered by a team of humans with some kind of connection to the ancient dragon. But if they were allies or had been allies, why kill him now?

It was difficult to believe that she was at the center of this, that yet another atrocity committed in the Motor City had painted her hands with blood. She hadn’t even gotten to know Windfire. Earlier, she’d almost teased something out of him, something about helping people, and had looked forward to hearing more but now, he was gone. The golden dragon was survived by his guards.

Jasper! She cursed herself for forgetting about her partner. In the chase, the fight, and the eventual disappearance of the blonde woman, she had forgotten about him. Dread rose like bile in her throat. She shouldn’t have checked the perimeter but should have made sure her partner was all right.

She transformed into the steel-skinned version of her human form. While she knew the bullets from the woman could hurt her, the assassin was long gone. Besides, she hadn’t taken the opportunity to kill her and she’d had multiple opportunities. But had she been as forgiving with Jasper? Kristen feared the possibilities—that she’d come in to find him with a hole in his head, or worse. If these people used dragon parts for weapons, did that mean they’d harvest dead dragons? It was enough to make her keep her skin steel. It was a comfort no one else could relate to and yet felt completely natural to her.

Enveloped in steel, she burst into the security room of Windfire’s mansion to startle awake a still sleeping Jasper.

“You’re all right!” she said upon hearing his snort of surprise.

He shifted in his chair, straightened his posture, and rubbed his face. “Where… I…what happened?”

Kristen didn’t even begin to know how to answer that question. “I…we were drugged or a spell was cast on us or something.”

“You were out too?” The panic in Jasper’s voice was palpable and very real.

She nodded.

“Windfire?”

Rather than speak, she simply shook her head and he nodded and wiped his eyes. “Damn it.”

“I got there in time, or I thought I did. But…he knew the attacker. I… Oh, God, it’s all my fault. I was eavesdropping instead of simply going in there.”

“You were outside when it happened, then?” Jasper asked.

“No. Windfire transformed when the killer drew her gun and that was when I rushed in. We fought, but it wasn’t enough. She—the killer, the woman in black who I chased across the grounds the other day—was good, and I mean extremely good. She was fast, strong, and knew how dragons fought enough to manipulate Windfire into catching me with his tail.”

He balked at that. “Are you sure?”

Kristen scoffed. Gallows humor from her time on SWAT reared its ugly, inappropriate head again. “Yeah, his clumsy ass knocked me back hard.”

Jasper nodded. “There were knights who once fought like that. They specialized in getting dragons into tight spaces where our size would work against us, but no one’s seen them in hundreds of years.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know about all that, only that this woman knew what she was doing.”

“How did she get away?” he asked instead of the question she deserved—how did you let her get away?

“She blinded me with a flash grenade.”

“It was a good choice considering you had steel skin.”

Kristen shook her head. “She had a weapon, bullets that could—”

A proximity alarm activated followed almost immediately by another. Drones began to buzz. Their perimeter was breached.

Jasper turned away from her and threw himself into the controls of the screens connected to the surveillance equipment. Despite his age, he worked the gear with surprising efficiency. She supposed it made sense. If he worked security, he needed to know all this. In a moment, his screens showed the familiar shapes of dragons coming to land outside the mansion.

“Stonequest,” she said. “I totally forgot about him. He called me and woke me up. It was lucky, really.”

“He was worried?”

“I didn’t think so at first but maybe he was. But if they thought something like this might happen, why did they have only the two of us on duty?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer. Stonequest was already striding through the mansion. She went to greet him and tell him what had happened.

“Kristen, it’s good to see you’re okay. Emerald, perimeter. Timeflash, I want security footage. Heartsbane, check on Windfire.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir.”

“Oh? Have you mollified the old bastard already?” He gave a little half-grin until he saw her clenched jaw.

“He’s…he’s dead, sir.”

It was a testimony to Stonequest’s professionalism that he did nothing but blink a few times and take a long, deep breath before saying simply, “Shit.”

“Orders sir?” Emerald said.

“Shit,” Stonequest said more emphatically and paced for a moment. “Heartsbane, check Windfire. I’ll be right there. Emerald, the orders stand. Look for tracks in the snow. Maybe we can count how many toes this dragon has and get some clues on its composition.”

“You won’t find them, sir. She used the same magic she did before to clear her tracks. Also, she’s not a dragon.”

He gave Kristen a patronizing smile. “You said Windfire is dead. Let’s be realistic—"

“She’s telling the truth,” Jasper said and held up a crystal sphere. “No dragons were here. You can’t fool one of these.”

Stonequest looked at him, disbelief obvious on his face. “Timeflash, security footage?”

“It’s not here, sir. Everything starting about an hour before was cleared. The whole damn place was wiped clean. They didn’t even do us the favor of only cleaning the cameras that caught them. We might’ve been able to at least plot their course and find some clues that way, but they were thorough.”

“Where were you two?” Stonequest asked, his tone not quite accusatory but not kind either.

“Asleep, sir,” Jasper said with heavy resignation. “We ordered coffee from one of Windfire’s servants. It knocked us both out—and gave me weird damn dreams too.”

“But how?” Timeflash said. “We don’t have the same chemistry as humans. They’d have to use something enhanced with magic to affect dragons.”

“Nobody touch those coffee cups,” Stonequest said and gestured at Kristen’s half-drunk one and Jasper’s empty cup. “We’ll…we’ll get to the bottom of this. But first, I need to see the victim. Lady Steel, are you ready?”

Kristen nodded. She had known this moment would come.

As they walked, he talked, although she couldn’t really tell if he was talking to himself or to her. “It’s hard to believe that a human would try something like this, you know?”

“Yes, sir, but I think—”

“And to be successful. We haven’t heard of such a thing since…well, since you did it. But you’re not even human. Before that, it had been centuries. I simply don’t see how a person could pull it off. Are you sure…” Stonequest’s words died when they reached the grand hall.

Heartsbane was there, her anger gone and replaced by tears. Kristen could tell that indeed the other dragon’s aura was stronger than most because when she entered the room, she too felt a wave of sorrow wash over her.

Windfire’s corpse lay in the center of the room. His golden scales no longer caught the light now that they weren’t moving. Instead of oranges, reds, and golds, they were a flat yellow like the wrapper of a cheap piece of chocolate. His mustache, once animated by an invisible wind, lay limply. His wings were crumpled and broken as if they’d collapsed on themselves once the life and magic left his body. Worst of all, though, was the wound. The bullets had shattered his scales and left a bloody maw where once had been the gleaming golden armor of a truly ancient dragon.

“Talk to me, Heartsbane, what happened here?”

Kristen respected Stonequest’s professionalism in that moment. She wanted to puke. He wanted an incident report. That was what it took to be a cop, human or dragon.

“I… It looks like there was a fight. I think the attacker led him by the nose for part of it. There’s some damage that shows they fought behind those pillars, which is not a good place for a dragon to stick its nose. If she was a dragon, she never used her dragon body. It’s all kind of strange. Also, it looks like the woman was strong. I think she was thrown across the room and broke the floor.”

“That was me,” Kristen said.

“Windfire hit you?” Heartsbane—thankfully—didn’t sound accusatory.

She nodded. “The woman who did this knew how to fight a dragon.”

“You saw her kill him?”

“Yes, ma’am. She did it with a handgun and three shots to the chest. He didn’t stand a chance.”

The other dragon snorted. “A handgun? If you had a fight with Windfire, you’d better come up with a more believable alibi than a handgun. Every damn dragon there is knows a handgun can’t do this kind of damage.”

Kristen couldn’t tell if she actually thought that she had been the one to hurt Windfire.

“Heartsbane, go help Timeflash with the security footage,” Stonequest ordered and his tone brooked no argument.

“Sir?”

“Now, Heartsbane.”

“Yes, sir.”

She left and her aura confirmed her anger at the order.

“I thought I told you not to talk about that,” Stonequest said once the two of them were left alone in the room with Windfire’s corpse.

Kristen couldn’t help but gesture at the body, even though it seemed a macabre way to make a point. “I only brought it up because that’s how she killed him. Look at the wounds, Stonequest. What else could rip a hole in a dragon’s chest like that?”

“A dragon,” he said, his voice like ice.

She clenched her jaw and tried to clamp down on her aura. How dare he accuse her of such a thing!

In the next moment, he held his hands up in a gesture of apology. “Look, I know you didn’t, or if you did, we’re all screwed because you’re manipulating your aura at a level beyond anything we’ve ever seen. I can tell you’re being honest and that you’re scared.”

Kristen was not amused. “And what do you think is more likely? That I’m a member of a secret sleeper-cell, living amongst humans and hiding my abilities, or that possibly the same woman who wounded Death also killed Windfire? Shit, Stonequest, she probably used the same gun.”

“Are you sure it was the same woman?” he asked.

“Yes! I mean…well, no, not quite but I think so. The bullets used had virtually the same effect, although these seem more powerful. I’m fairly sure this attacker is the same woman.”

“But you didn’t actually see her at the scene of Death’s murder?” Stonequest demanded.

“No. She had already left by the time I found where Death had set up her sniper nest. I was dealing with Death and I didn’t have much attention for other things like noticing assassins escaping the scene of their crime.”

“There’s been progress on Death’s murder,” he said and caught her off guard.

“Oh yeah?” She knew it sounded weird even as she said it. Was he hiding the truth? Why change the subject?

“We investigated her body and her supplies and found that she used rounds that were designed to penetrate dragon hide. After searching her, we discovered that she embedded a tiny splinter of her own talons inside each bullet. It turns out that can punch through dragon scale.”

“Yeah, Stonequest, I know. She was killed by those same bullets. I told you Jim told me about all this. It’s the same thing here.”

“I think…I think you might be right. But to think that a human did this…”

Then, Kristen understood. Stonequest had harbored the idea that these bullets were made by Death. After all, she had apparently manufactured them. She’d been attacked by someone wielding them, but he must have assumed her attacker had somehow taken the weapon from Death herself and turned it on her. Now, he had to confront the far more dangerous idea that these weapons were in the hands of humans.

Kristen—having been shot by one of Death’s rounds—had also assumed that the bullets were being made by dragons. Obviously, she wasn’t grappling with Stonequest’s disbelief in humans trying to murder dragons but still, this was big. “The implications of humans making these bullets is huge,” she said, trying to draw Stonequest out of his own head.

“We were concerned about dragons having this ability. If they can shoot each other from long distances the way that Death could…well, it would change things—the rules of engagements, how duels work, that kind of thing. But I thought we had time. There simply are not many dragons who know how to use firearms. They hardly work against dragons and aren’t quite as reliable as fire breath, but this—the idea that humans have these things is…” He actually shuddered as his words trailed off.

“This is a genie that won’t go back in the bottle,” Kristen said. “Humans have these things. We’ve seen this twice now. And it’s become clear that people are targeting dragons deliberately. This isn’t some kind of self-defense or revenge. We need to solve this quickly.” She hoped Stoneqeust would say something about revenge. He had to know more about Windfire’s past than she did.

He shook his head. “I still can’t believe that humans are behind this, though. I think it makes much more sense that a dragon is in control here, telling these humans what to do and, uh—”

“And arming them? Do you really think a dragon is harvesting parts of their own body and giving them to humans? Come on, Stonequest, what’s harder to believe? Dragons look down on people. All of you do. There’s not a dragon out there who would ally with people, let alone give part of their own body to a human.” Not anymore anyway, Kristen thought and looked at Windfire. Had he worked with the very same humans who had killed him? She had to find out.

“But that implies a whole slew of impossibilities,” Stonequest argued. “If humans are in control here, that means they—they what? Captured a dragon and have it chained somewhere and harvest claws and scales as they see fit? I don’t care how professional these people are, that would be impossible.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes, it would. Think about it. First, you need an enclosure that can hold both a full-grown, fire-breathing dragon and also a human. That means no neck-chains or handcuffs or the dragon in human form could simply slip out. Then, there’s the aura to think about. A dragon could wear down even the most stalwart of guards. Even if they couldn’t, if any dragon flew within a mile of this prisoner, they’d feel their aura, which would no doubt disclose the suffering the dragon was going through. No, it’s not possible. People have never kept a dragon imprisoned. They never will.”

“Okay. So, if these humans haven’t captured a dragon and aren’t working for one—”

“I still don’t think we can rule that out.” It was like arguing with a rock. Stonequest couldn’t see past his own anti-human biases. How could they work this case if he wouldn’t even consider the basic possibilities?

“But there’s a third possibility,” Kristen said.

“Being?” He was doing a lousy job of suppressing his aura. She could feel his doubt even though she couldn’t see it on his face.

“What if there’s a dragon sympathetic to the humans? Maybe a dragon gave them this tech or their DNA or whatever and they turned on him.”

He shook his head. “You’re grasping at straws here, Kristen, and blaming the victim. Windfire’s been a part of the dragon community for millennia. He didn’t turn on us.”

“I’m not so sure. I heard him and the killer talking. I think she knew him. I think if we can find her and bring her in alive, she’ll be the key to all this.” The key to who I am, she wanted to say but didn’t. “Look, bring me in on the case to give you a fresh perspective.”

Kristen promised herself that once she found the answers she needed, she’d share them with everyone else, but she didn’t want dragons digging up her past without her knowledge. She needed to know more about this woman, whoever she was working with, and Windfire too.

“Dragon SWAT is handling the case, now. We can’t take interns on murder cases. Sorry, that policy is set in stone.” Stonequest’s aura made it clear that he wasn’t sorry at all.

“You’re making a mistake. This isn’t some dragon on dragon crime,” she said.

“That’s enough, Lady Steel. You’ve been through trauma so I’ll let it pass. We’ll do our best to determine what happened with the security and see if we can corroborate any details and maybe find some leads on this. I want you to take a few days off. We have a psychiatrist, trained at a human school. Talk to her. Make sure your head is on straight.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m not a cop. I’ve seen death before. I’ve been in situations like this.”

“The rules of Dragon SWAT are clear. We can’t bring an intern on. I’ll talk to you in three days.”

“Whose rules, Stonequest? You know you’re making a mistake. I can sense the doubt in your aura.”

“Four days.”

Kristen glared at him but she said nothing more. Instead, she walked from the mansion, past Jasper and Timeflash in the security room, past Heartsbane who paced outside in the snow, and past Emerald, whose dragon body flew the perimeter of the estate, a shadow eclipsing the stars.

She transformed as well and took to the sky. Initially, she started to head for home, but there was nothing for her there except an empty apartment, which was the last thing she wanted. On a whim, she decided to go to her parents’ house instead.

If Stonequest wanted her to keep her distance from dragons for a few days, she could think of no better place than her parents’ house to be reminded that she wasn’t one of them and never fully wanted to be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kristen finally reached her destination at the ungodly hour of four in the morning, so she did what any self-respecting person would do after a long day at work and passed out on the couch.

She woke five and half blessed hours later to the sound of bacon sizzling and the smell of fresh coffee. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that Brian wasn’t crowded on the couch with her. She had expected to wake to her brother playing video games but instead, her mom sat in one of the chairs across from her in a knitted sweater and a floor-length skirt. Her parents had always believed in wearing warm clothes in winter, even inside. She hadn’t realized the house was chilly because her mom had covered her with a blanket. The caring gesture brought a smile. Dragons might have immense power and live for centuries, but none of them knew the simple pleasures of waking up to a family who cared about you.

“Morning, Mom,” she said, rubbed her eyes, and scooted to a seated position. She made sure that no part of her poked out of the blankets into the chill of the early morning.

“Morning, Krissy. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, it’s, uh…” She didn’t even know where to begin. “What’s for breakfast?”

Marty noticed the deflection and change of topic but didn’t say anything. Kristen hoped all moms were as great as hers. Instead, the woman raised an eyebrow and spoke a little louder. “Ask your brother.”

“I am so glad you asked, dear dragon sister, for what I am preparing should feed even the biggest of appetites,” Brian boasted from the kitchen, his voice raised over the sizzle from the pans he manipulated.

“Oh, so you mean yourself?” she retorted, unable to help herself. Trash-talking with Brian was how they interacted. She didn’t know what their relationship would be without it.

“Seeing as how I’m slaving away here and you’re sleeping in, you might be right. I’m not sure if I did make enough for you,” he retorted with mock offense.

“Well, if there was—hypothetically—enough food to feed your sister who saved your life from a dragon assassin, what would you be cooking?” she asked.

“Okay, for the record, you saved us from a dragon because we were in trouble because you were a dragon. That doesn’t really count.”

“Your sister fought off many human bullies before she knew what she was,” their mom said.

“This is true. She also can’t cook to save her life and the thought of her stinking up the kitchen while murdering a couple of eggs sounds god-awful. Kristen, I’ve had a change of heart and decided to share with you.”

“How generous.”

“Now come to the table. It’s ready!”

Kristen pushed up and out from under the blanket and—as she had expected—immediately felt a chill. “Mom, it's freezing.”

“Have a sweater,” her mother responded and tossed her one.

Hastily, she pulled it on and sat down to breakfast. She knew she wasn’t a Hall—not biologically, at least. Aside from the fact that she looked different and always had, she obviously possessed dragon powers, but sometimes, the starkest difference felt like it was the way the rest of her family cooked.

She liked to joke that Brian wasn’t a functional adult—more like a nine-year-old in a grown man’s overweight body—and yet he could cook. Before her, one of his scrambles was mounded high on her plate—onions and green peppers sautéed in bacon grease, plus chopped bacon and enough eggs to hold it all together. On top of this, he had put a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives. She had never used the little green oniony things in her own kitchen ever. Next to the scramble was French toast that—to her, anyway—was absolutely perfect. Instead of powdered sugar, he coated it with a scraping of jam and sprinkled crushed walnuts over it. All in all, it was the taste of heaven.

“Brian, have I told you that I love you?” she said between mouthfuls.

“Mom, I think Kristen must have brain damage and is about to die because she’s talking nonsense.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Brian. I’m sure Kristen will tell us why she’s here when she’s good and ready.” That was Marty Hall for “as soon as your father joins us at the table and you’d better believe you won’t leave this house until you tell us how and why you’ve risked your life, young lady.”

As if sensing the subtext of the statement, Frank Hall emerged from his bedroom. What little of his hair still grew from his head was wet, as was his hairy chest. “Damn it, Marty, it’s freezing in here!”

“It’s January in Michigan, Frank. Put a shirt on.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled as he vanished into the bedroom and reappeared with a faded Detroit Tigers hoodie on. “Please pass the scramble, Brian. Kristen! Tell us about work. How is being on Dragon SWAT?”

“It’s, uh…”

“Here we go,” Brian interjected.

“It’s not going so well,” Kristen admitted.

“Oh, honey,” her mom said, her voice all condolences.

“Why not? Do they have you on desk duty or something?” Frank asked with a grin.

“They did, actually. Apparently, it’s called the paper dungeon. And dragons don’t even work there. It’s filled with a group of mages,” she complained.

“Oh, poor Steel Dragon, stuck with fricking magic people instead of other dragons. It must be hard to lower thyself to such a level,” her brother said and added a third dish to the breakfast table. Sarcasm had been served.

“Every damn cop starts on the paperwork, Krissy. You know that. I think it’s a relief, actually. I didn’t want my little girl out there fighting dragons her first damn week. Learn the protocols first and make sure you don’t mess up too badly when you’re on the job. You’ll save yourself some paperwork in the long run, huh?” Her dad smiled. He’d given a version of this little speech when she had applied to the police force, but it hadn’t really had relevance. She’d skipped over regular police to SWAT and she now supposed it no longer applied to her role on Dragon SWAT either.

“Well, I kind of threw a fit and was given a different assignment,” Kristen confessed.

“Kristen Hall,” her mom said sharply.

“That’s not a great way to earn respect, Krissy. Jesus.” Her dad shook his head.

“So, what’s the problem, then?” Brian asked as he stretched for more French toast. “You got out of the paper dungeon or whatever, right?”

“Yeah. I was assigned security to some ancient dragon.”

“Let me guess, out of the city?” Frank grinned. He’d told Kristen stories about being reassigned to be kept out of the way as well.

“Yeah, but…well…” She didn’t quite know how to say it, so she simply went with blunt. “The guy I was supposed to protect is…uh, he’s dead.”

The reaction from everyone at the table was the same. Coffee or food was spat out and each member of the Hall family said in the same tone “What the hell?”

“I can’t go into the details, obviously, but Dad, you were a cop and you always told mom everything, so same trust here.”

Her parents nodded.

“No problem,” Brian said.

“Someone came in on my watch and got to him. I pursued them but they escaped. Backup showed up too late, but when they did, none of them believed me. Or maybe Stonequest does, but he acts like he thinks I might be a damn suspect.”

“He doesn’t think you’re a suspect,” her dad said patiently. “He’s doing his due diligence because he has to. He’s a professional.”

“I don’t know, Dad. He won’t let me on his team, even though it was his idea to bring me on Dragon SWAT in the first place. I guess I’m simply an intern and might be for years. On top of that, he won’t let me follow up on this case, even though I’m the only one who knows what’s going on. The rest of them think this is some dragon on dragon thing, but it’s not. I think people are involved, like actual humans. He won’t even let me say that to any of the other dragons. It’s ridiculous!”

“Would you stop and listen to yourself?” Frank said and made no effort to continue to eat. That meant he was pissed.

“What? There’s a whole slew of evidence they’re not paying attention to!” Kristen protested.

“You realize you sound like every hotshot police officer ever promoted in the history of the police, right?” her dad said.

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. Did you tell your superior officer what you thought was happening?”

“Yes, but Dad, he didn’t listen to me.”

“And why do you say that? Because he didn’t start giving you all the evidence and put you in charge? Is that what Captain Hansen at Detroit SWAT would have done if some rookie fucked up and let the person they were guarding get killed?”

“Frank, language,” her mom chastised.

“He wasn’t a person, Dad. He was a dragon,” Kristen replied caustically.

“Oh, right. So if a dragon rips my sister’s head off, I’m supposed to shrug and forget all about it because she’s a snotty dragon instead of my snotty human sister?” Despite the tension at the table, Brian had not slowed his breakfasting.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“Then what did you mean? That you already had a position in the field that you didn’t earn, and it turned out you were not qualified for it, and you now want another promotion?”

“Dad, this wasn’t a promotion and it wasn’t like that. This woman had abilities unlike anything I’ve ever seen. No dragon could have stopped her.”

“What abilities do dragons have, anyway?” Brian asked, his tone overly friendly. “And what about those mages? Did you learn all about their powers before or after you ditched them?”

Kristen glared at her brother. “You’re not helping, Brian.”

“I wasn’t trying to.” He grinned.

“I raised you better than this, Kristen. You already walked into one job without the credentials.” Her dad sounded so ashamed it almost hurt.

“I was more than competent at Detroit SWAT—”

“I won’t argue that, Kristen, but you proved yourself there. You put in time and demonstrated that you were the best person for the job and the best person for the city. Now, you need to show Dragon SWAT that you’re the best dragon.”

“Dad—”

“Cream rises to the top, Kristen. This family has no doubt that you’re the cream of the crop. Be the cream. Rise.”

“If she’s the cream of the Hall crop, what does that make me?” Brian sputtered indignantly.

“The whey,” their mom said and smiled demurely.

“Was that a fat joke, mom?” he demanded.

“Yes, dear. Sorry dear,” Marty said but didn’t sound sorry at all.

“You can do this, Krissy. We know you can. You simply have to be patient. And was I not clear? Pass the cream already.”

Kristen rolled her eyes at her dad and passed him cream for his coffee. “I guess… I guess you’re right,” she said and didn’t enjoy how little she liked admitting that her father knew things she didn’t.

“Well, of course he is, dear. He was in the police force far longer than you have been,” her mom said.

“Jesus, Mom, with the burns today!” Brian laughed.

“You’re both adults. You can take it.” She smiled.

“But how can I prove myself if I’m not allowed to be involved with this case? I get what you’re saying, Dad—I don’t like it, but I get it—but still, more dragons might be in danger. And if Stonequest is too stubborn to see that, more might be hurt.”

“You need to keep your nose down, do as you’re told, and keep your eyes and ears open. Something will turn up for you, I have no doubt about that, and when it does, all you need to do is seize the moment and let your actions speak for themselves. If you keep playing by the book, Stonequest will come to you.”

Kristen took a deep breath and nodded. She hated to admit it but swallowing her pride and doing her job made more sense than what she’d planned, which was to quit Dragon SWAT and go back to Detroit SWAT.

“When are you supposed to go in today?” her mom asked.

Kristen blushed. She hadn’t told them she was suspended. “I…uh, I’m not supposed to go in for a few days. Mental health, Stonequest said.”

“That’s good policy,” Frank said, but the grin he struggled to hide said he had much more to say about it.

Brian’s response was far less controlled. “This is unbelievable. Oh, my God, I don’t think this has ever happened before. You never even had detention in school!”

“Shut up, Brian.”

He laughed. “Why? It’s not like you can arrest me. You actually messed up so badly they grounded you?”

“A few days is only a message, Krissy. They want you on the team, but you have to play by their rules,” her dad said gently.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Marty said matter of factly. “You devote so much of yourself to your work. I think it’s good that you have a few days to do otherwise. Get a massage or visit a spa. You could even take your mom, maybe.”

Kristen smiled. Her poor mom hadn’t had much luck in her children when it came to conventional preferences. She had never been one for girly stuff and of course, Brian liked nothing but food and videogames.

“Tomorrow, Mom. I promise. I’ll take you somewhere nice. But today’s Friday, right?”

Her dad nodded.

“Then I know the perfect place to, uh…relax,” She pushed out from the table and took her plate to the sink. “Thanks for breakfast, Brian, and for cleaning up.”

“Bullshit. You clean.”

“Brian, language!”

“But, Mom—”

“Until you pay rent, you do the dishes,” Frank said and his years as a cop lent resoluteness to his voice that both his children had learned to respect over the years.

“Ugh, fine.” Brian stuck his tongue out at his sister as she put her coat on and headed to the front door. “Where are you going anyway?”

“First? I’m going to take a nap.”

“I can’t believe this,” he said from the kitchen sink, his voice ripe with injustice.

Kristen laughed, transformed into a dragon, and took to the skies. For this to work, she’d have to keep a low profile. She couldn’t let Dragon SWAT see her. They’d probably chew her out for using her dragon form—hypocrites—but given where she was going, she couldn’t let humans find out about her either.

Up she flew, up and up until she was swallowed by the clouds.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When she woke from her nap and checked the clock, it was almost five. She had to hurry if her planned ambush had any hope of working.

Kristen ate a piece of cold pizza from her fridge—she tried and failed to remember when she’d last ordered pizza, but judging from the tang of the cheese, it had been a while. She didn’t care, though. Dragon healing powers worked on food poisoning too. It turned out bacteria couldn’t really give you the runs when your body could create caustic fluids that ignited into flame. She would’ve eaten more but she couldn’t go into this with a full stomach.

Despite it still being fairly early, it was already dark. Winters in Michigan were bleak. The nights started early and stretched late into the morning. Streetlights illuminated dirty snow and wet streets. She knew there were places where winter was beautiful—Windfire’s mansion came to mind—but the city was definitely not one of them. Cars, hundreds of thousands of people, and snow simply did not fit together to make pleasing scenery.

Luckily, she could fly above it. She transformed as a bus drove past. Shocked looks from a group of kids made her smile as she rose higher and higher until once again, she was enveloped in cloud.

She found she had a vague sense of direction. Even in cloud cover, she could tell north, south, east, and west and had a fairly good sense of distance too. Stonequest had explained it as a function of the Earth’s magnetic field, which made her think of pigeons, but he hadn’t liked being compared to flying rats any more than most people did.

It was a good thing she wouldn’t have to deal with him or any other dragons tonight.

Before long, she sensed that she was nearing her destination—or, more accurately, she sensed that she’d traveled the right amount of distance. She plunged down through the clouds to find that she’d actually overshot her mark, but that was fine. The far side of the airsoft range was a wooded area and she could approach in secrecy.

She landed in the woods, transformed into her human form, and jogged toward the course. A normal person would have called it a sprint, but with her dragon abilities, it felt easy to her.

When she checked the parking lot, she identified a few familiar vehicles. Her old SWAT team didn’t all ride together when they were off duty anymore—no one had a decommissioned SWAT van like Jonesy had—but she recognized their rides just the same. There was Drew’s truck and Washington probably rode with him. Butters—despite his size—drove a tiny hybrid, perhaps unusual for a man from the south but not to her. He was the gentlest man she’d ever met. It didn’t surprise her at all that he was concerned about emissions and the effects of excess fossil fuels. Hernandez’s motorcycle wasn’t there—no doubt because of the temperature—but Keith’s dumpy SUV was. They probably traveled together. Apparently, they’d been a thing—or banging, anyway—for far longer than she had realized.

Satisfied that they were there, she approached and searched for the familiar figures of her friends in the glaring lights that illuminated the course. She located them—already heading toward one of the farther courses—but the starting claxon hadn’t yet sounded. This was perfect.

Kristen slunk up to the desk.

“The match is about to start, ma’am. You’ll have to wait for the next one.”

She put a fifty-dollar bill on the counter. “I don’t need the change,” she whispered and held a finger to her lips. She grinned with delighted anticipation and simply couldn’t help herself.

The man working the desk nodded and quickly handed her some gear.

Once the helmet and facemask were on, she checked her gun and sneaked down a hill, across a bridge that spanned a small brook that was mostly frozen over, and into the airsoft arena.

The court they played was in a wooded area. Tall pine trees towered overhead, and sandy soil poked out underfoot between patches of snow. In the midst of this landscape, the owners had dug trenches and lined them with sandbags. She didn’t know if there were two bases, each with designated trenches, or if the pits were more random.

The soft pup-pup-pup of an airsoft gun fired at her back caught her attention and she jumped into one the ditches. The pellets hurtled overhead, illuminated by her night vision and the lights mounted on trees high in the arena.

“So you think you’re fast, huh? I have news for you, buddy. I train with the Steel Dragon!” It was Keith and she grinned broadly when she realized she couldn’t have planned this more perfectly. She moved down the trench and made sure to step in any fresh snow to lead the rookie along behind her.

“I’m not sure if you’ve played here before, buddy, but you’re coming up on a dead end. There ain’t no way you’ll make it out of here. It looks like you’re the tuna and I’m the seal.”

Kristen found that he was right. She reached the end of the tunnel where the top of the sandbags was about eight feet above the ground. Unable to resist, she crouched, then vaulted out. It would have been impossible for a human, but to her dragon-powered muscles it was as easy as hopping into a puddle.

She landed on the ground outside the trench, dropped to her belly, and crawled back a few paces through the snow. Oh, it felt good to be cold and dirty and unconcerned about work for a few minutes.

“Uh, shit,” Keith said. He’d reached the end of the tunnel.

While he looked around in confusion, she leapt down and landed about six feet behind him.

He spun and fired, and she deflected the pellets with her weapon.

“That’s impossible! Only the Steel Dragon can—”

Kristen fired and peppered his chest with pellets.

“Ow, shit! I surrender.” Keith held his gun up. “Who are you?”

Slowly, she raised the faceguard so he could see her.

“Holy shit, Kristen! What the fuck are you doing here?” Despite her having shot him seconds before, he embraced her in a hug.

“I had a night off and decided I’d ambush you bastards.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. The only way anyone could have caught me was if they had your abilities. You used your dragon reflexes and strength, right?”

She smiled. “Maybe I did.”

“Right on, yeah, totally fair. Hey, guys! Kristen’s here and looking for an ass-whooping from Detroit’s best SWAT team.”

“What the hell was that for?”

“I leveled the playing field, is all.” Keith grinned and stuck his tongue out.

Moments later, a flurry of pellets came from the top of the trench and she ducked and cursed. She bolted back the way she had come and ran for maybe twenty paces before the trench split into two. To the right was empty but to the left—

At another barrage, Kristen fell back to Beanpole’s pleasant voice. “I hate to say it, but your time is at an end.” He sounded like he was bringing her the check at a nice restaurant instead of pursuing her through open-air tunnels.

She waited for him to round the bend in the Y, but he didn’t appear. Instead, pellets were once again fired from above. There was nothing else to do but drop to avoid being hit and even then, she had to continue into a roll until she was no longer in sight.

“It looks like we gonna have some dragon stew for dinner!” Butters laughed. She wasn’t surprised to find him and Beanpole working together, even in a free for all battle. They’d probably teamed up even before they knew she was there.

With no visible target, she aimed at his voice and fired. She missed, but only because he ducked so fast that he dislodged the sandbag he’d stood on. It caught her on the shoulder, but she barely felt the weight of it.

In the next moment, the sniper tumbled into the trench. She dodged out of the way but still managed to position her arms to stop his head from impacting with the dirt.

He landed on his back with her hands cradling his head. When he opened his eyes a moment later and saw her, he fluttered his eyelashes. “Oh, Steel Dragon, you saved me. How will I ever repay you?”

“Call for Beanpole and shoot him when he rounds the bend.”

“What? That’s traitorous! You damn dragons are all the same.” Butters reached for his gun but she snatched hers up first and shot him twice in his big belly. He grunted in pain but it quickly morphed into a hearty laugh. “What on earth are you doing here, Kristen?”

“It’s a long story. The short version is I didn’t want you guys to forget how easily I can kick all your asses at this sport I never played until I met you losers.” She grinned. It was nice to be able to tease her friends. Dragons didn’t really get it.

“Fair enough.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You beat me. Now, give me a hug.”

“In the middle of a round?” Keith asked.

Kristen should have had the same thought. Once Butters wound his arms around her, he didn’t let go.

“I got her! I got the Steel Dragon—trapped by her own human emotions.”

Beanpole chose that opportunity to step beyond the corner and fire his airsoft.

She almost felt bad using her dragon strength, but this was the game. Her previous team would join together and try to defeat her—all they needed to do was land a single shot—and she’d use her bevy of powers to stop them. It was good training for everyone involved. Plus, it was far more fun this way.

So, as Butters hugged her tighter, she hugged in response, grasped him around the belly, and lifted him to rotate him so his big butt took all the pellets Beanpole had fired. She didn’t even have to drop her weapon to accomplish it and simply squeezed him in her arms.

“Oh! Ouch! Damn it—ow!” Butters said between guffaws of laughter. “No way did I think you’d use a hug against me. You’re a monster.”

“Says the dude who tried to catch me with a hug.” She released him and aimed at Beanpole. Truthfully it was like shooting fish in a barrel. On the SWAT team, he was a look-out most of the time. Sharp eyes and a sense for people’s movements made him absolutely essential when trying to determine where a group of hostiles might retreat to, but he wasn’t particularly adept at airsoft. He simply didn’t quite understand that there were different rules.

This was highlighted when Kristen fired a line of pellets past him while she moved toward him. He didn’t have the foresight to see he was being guided into the stream of fast-moving plastic because it wasn’t something anyone would do in an actual fight.

But Beanpole did it now. She approached and he retreated—directly into her pellets.

“Ouch! Okay, okay,” he exclaimed, shook his head, and smiled. He and Kristen had never been particularly close, but they were happy to see each other all the same and shared a hug.

“All right, where are the rest of your insolent human friends?” she asked in a Russian accent for no good reason.

“If you think we’ll betray our folks to the Steel Dragon, you’ve got another think coming,” Butters said.

Keith was more forward with his approach to eliminating her. “Guys, Kristen’s here. She already took out Butters, Beanpole, and me and she’s coming for you next,” he yelled.

“You’re dead. You’re not supposed to do that,” she protested.

He shrugged. “If you can use leap out of pits dragon powers, I get to use airsoft necromancer powers.”

“Cheaters,” Kristen said and vaulted out of the eight-foot-deep trench onto the ground above them.

“Don’t let her get away!” Butters shouted.

“You’re out. You’re supposed to go to the sidelines,” she reminded him.

“Right. That’s, uh…that’s what we’re doing. Sitting on the sidelines. Yup,” he said, looked down the trench, and ran off.

“We won’t shoot you anymore,” Beanpole said.

She took that as a small comfort because it simply meant they’d do everything they could to distract her and let the rest of the team gain the victory.

At least she knew what to expect, more or less. She pushed deeper into the piney woods but hadn’t gone far before she heard the snap of a branch behind her. When she turned, no one was there. She continued until another branch broke. Again, she peered behind her and saw nothing. Something about the sound had been off, though. It hadn’t come from the ground, she realized.

“Look out below!”

Instinctively, she looked up as Jim Washington plummeted out of the trees toward her. She dropped her gun and caught him as easily as a mother catching a three-year-old.

“You could’ve been hurt, falling like that!” she exclaimed.

“Not with the Steel Dragon to catch me,” he said and altered his voice to sound like a saccharine-sweet princess. It did not match the ex-marine and almost overly professional police officer demeanor that was his normal personality.

Kristen couldn’t help herself. She threw her head back and laughed.

He smiled, still in her arms like a baby, and shouted, “Now!”

An airsoft gun came to life and she spun Jim toward the sound. She was rewarded with a string of obscenities the likes of which she’d never heard from the Wonderkid. It ended with “Damn it, Drew. You shot me, not her!”

She dropped him like a sack of potatoes, retrieved her gun, and raced into the woods. It was dark and shadows from the stark, overheard lights crisscrossed the snow and sand. Even with her dragon vision piercing the darkness, it was hard to see what was going on because her eyes constantly had to adjust to the brighter and darker patches.

The sound of an airsoft gun alerted her a few paces later. Instinctively, she darted behind a tree.

When she stepped out and looked to where the pellets had come from, she saw nothing and smiled. This could only be Drew.

She started forward and was almost immediately forced to duck behind a tree again to protect herself from another salvo of pellets. She might have been using her dragon powers, but that didn’t mean she’d cheat. If she was hit, it was all over.

“Drew, I know you’re back there. Why not simply give yourself up and let the Steel Dragon swallow you whole?” she joked in a sing-song voice.

In response, a snowball caught her squarely in the faceguard. Kristen stumbled, startled by the blow, and was actually impressed when the powder missile was immediately followed by more shots. She flung herself down and rolled behind a tree. Her attempt to wipe her faceguard failed as it was too wet, so she lifted it up.

“Nice trick, Drew!” Kristen yelled. “I can’t hear snowballs.” She darted to another tree and took cover. As soon as she poked her head out, another snowball landed with unerring accuracy in her now unprotected face. The cold took her breath away. It demanded all her control to not fall down laughing right then, but she managed to shelter behind a tree again.

Unfortunately, she realized too late that she’d fallen on her gun and snapped it in half.

She could yell to Drew and tell him she was unarmed. He’d no doubt call for a pause and make one of her ex-teammates give her a gun to even the playing field. He was like that. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to know his position and ruin the fun. Better still, she wanted to take his weapon from him, watch his grim face laugh as she shot him with it, then find Hernandez and win this battle.

Thinking quickly, she made a few snowballs and cradled them in her left arm while her right hand held one ready to throw. She stepped out from behind the tree.

Drew was waiting for her and immediately, airsoft pellets chattered. She continued to move toward the sound, dodged the string of projectiles, and lobbed snowballs toward the source as she did so.

But Drew didn’t make it easy for her. Every step forward she made was heavily contested. Either a snowball struck her, or pellets were fired that she continually had to dodge. Somehow, he did an excellent job of alternating between the two and kept her on the alert.

Still, she had closed the gap as she was simply too fast for human opponents. She was only a single tree away and almost had him in her grasp when a snowball struck her in the back of the head.

“Damn it, Hernandez!” Kristen flung herself against a tree and looked behind her. It wasn’t Hernandez, but Butters. He had his own armful of snowballs and a wicked grin on his face.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said.

“Consider me the ghost of SWAT past then,” he said and chucked a snowball at her face.

She dodged, landed in the snow, and had to roll when Drew fired on her from behind. With no other choice, she army-crawled across the sand and snow, dodged snowballs and airsoft pellets, and laughed like a fool the entire time.

“This is cheating!” she yelled as she crawled from tree to tree and still attempted to close on Drew.

“That’s what you’ve been doing on us since you went to Dragon SWAT,” Keith yelled.

Drew laughed at that.

Kristen seized the opportunity. She pushed herself up, raced forward to where he was hiding, scooped up a giant pile of snow, and dumped it down the back of his shirt.

“Ah!” he screamed and sounded much like she had as a little girl and Brian had done the same thing to her.

She used his moment of shock to snatch his gun and shove him back with her shoulder. He fell but didn’t release his weapon. He was SWAT, after all. His weapon—even when it was only an airsoft gun—was a part of him.

But she wanted it, so the two wrestled wildly in the snow and each tried to yank the weapon from the other’s hands. Drew laughed and grunted as much as she did. It was a difficult challenge to wrest the gun from the other because both combatants were strong enough to crack the thing in half if they weren’t careful.

The tussle continued and hurled flurries of snow and sand everywhere until she managed to get on her feet and stand over him. All four of their hands were still on the gun and he didn’t show any sign of letting go, so it came as a real surprise when she yanked and he simply released it.

Kristen stumbled back, tripped on a root, and landed on her butt.

She laughed and waited for Hernandez to finish her off. They’d defeated the Steel Dragon using snowballs, of all things.

But the finishing blow didn’t come.

“What was the point of all that?” she asked as she pushed herself up and shot Drew in the chest a couple of times. She could have offered a surrender, but hardly anyone ever beat him. He deserved a few welts in the morning, exactly like the rest of them.

He grimaced as the pellets struck him but didn’t complain. He would have done the same to her.

“The point of that was to buy time for Hernandez. She’s a necromancer, you know.”

“What’s the deal with necromancers? Is that the word of the day or something?” she asked. The word sounded beyond bizarre coming from him. She only knew that it meant a wizard who raised the dead because of Brian’s endless video games.

Drew shrugged. “I heard Keith say it. It means she can bring the dead back, right?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?”

Airsoft rifles began to fire at her from all sides.

“This is bullshit!” she shouted, but she honestly loved every second of it. She managed to get behind a tree without getting shot, not an easy task now that there were three people against her. Drew made another snowball.

“If you guys shoot me. It doesn’t count,” she said. “It has to be Hernandez.”

“Gotcha,” Butters shouted in response. “Ours don’t count, which means we can shoot you with as many as we like and not feel bad about it.”

A stream of pellets prevented her retort and she dodged—directly into another barrage.

“Got her!” Beanpole shouted.

That meant she was still technically playing.

She darted away from her old team, dodged left and right, and zigzagged to avoid them. After a short distance, she found a trench and dropped into it. Pellets and snowballs whistled overhead.

“Now to find Hernandez,” Kristen said quietly. It was quite a surprise when someone answered.

“Oh, you found me.”

The sandy wall of the trench directly in front of her exploded.

Dirt and grit erupted everywhere. She regretted not putting her face shield down because she could hardly see.

But she could still hear and there was no mistaking the sound of Hernandez firing at her from up ahead.

She stumbled forward and fired as she went. Luckily, she didn’t feel any pellets.

Her luck ran out when another of the demolitions expert’s little explosives detonated and the tunnel she was in collapsed to bury her in sand and snow.

It would have been a masterful stroke—albeit a dangerous one—if it had been used against a regular human. But the Steel Dragon was not a human. She pushed herself up and out of the mound—one arm free, then another, then her head, her back, and her legs until she rose from the tiny avalanche like a monster.

Somehow, her hand found her airsoft rifle. She must have tossed it up instinctively, which meant she could still win this.

Kristen looked up and located Hernandez, who immediately fired. She held her airsoft gun up and blocked the pellets.

“I don’t think so,” Butters said, and a massive weight settled on top of her. Her brain told her that he didn’t weigh that much. She did a push-up and lifted him with her. No sooner did she do so than she felt more weight on her back.

“Suck it, Steel Dragon.” Keith had added himself to the effort to subdue her.

“Indeed!” Beanpole was skinny, but when added to Keith and Butters, she found he weighed more than he appeared to.

“Dogpile!” Jim shouted and practically dove onto the rest of them.

She wheezed, the air almost squished from her lungs. Still, she tried to push them all off. She might have too—she had no idea how much stronger she’d become—but Drew joined the dogpile, and her muscles, already tired from flying, running, and laughing like an idiot, said that was enough.

As she collapsed under the combined weight of her former team, she looked at Hernandez, who approached with a grin on her face.

“I seem to recall you beating me and thinking you were hot shit, Red.”

“It’s good to know you can beat me if we even the odds,” Kristen said. She tried to sound snide but mostly sounded out of breath.

“Do you surrender?”

“Ha!” She laughed. “Never.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Hernandez shot her on the shoulder with a single pellet, dropped her gun, and approached her old teammate.

“Is that it?” Kristen asked, shocked that the woman hadn’t unloaded the entire reserve of pellets. “I didn’t think you’d be one to show mercy.”

“Do you know what a noogie is?”

“A what?”

The demolitions expert plopped down beside her, took her phone out, and gave it to Butters, who promptly started recording video.

Hernandez pulled Kristen’s helmet off, then put her in a headlock—an unnecessary move considering she was pinned beneath so many bodies. With her other hand, she made a fist and rubbed her knuckles across her scalp.

“Noogie, noogie, noogie, noogie, noogie!” the woman said like she was talking to a dog. “I’m giving the fucking Steel Dragon a noogie on the Internet! I rule!”

Kristen yowled as she suffered this abuse but before long, she began to laugh again. The idea of the rest of dragon kind seeing her get a noogie from beneath a dogpile was simply too funny.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

By the time Kristen and her old teammates left the arena, the brisk air had caught up with them. She didn’t really mind, of course. Being a dragon meant being cold didn’t pose any kind of danger for her, but when Beanpole shivered and wiped frozen sweat from the tips of his hair, she suggested they head inside for beers. Hernandez wanted to play another game, but when Drew pointed out that if they stopped now, she’d have bragging rights until the next time they played, she acquiesced fairly quickly to going to get beer and food.

No one knew where to go, so she suggested Buddy’s Pizza, and that’s where they went. The hostess must have recognized her—either from the news or from all the times she’d been there with her family—because she led them to a private back room. With the doors closed and pitchers of beer ordered, the team stripped off their coats, gloves, scarves, and hats and let themselves thaw. Everyone had been warm enough after the match. Even Beanpole hadn’t minded despite his hair freezing, but after the car ride, their cheeks were pink with the cold.

For a minute, she lost herself in the minutiae of the conversation. Hernandez bragged and Keith argued in response and gave her a hard time when no one else would. Butters studied the menu with a cop’s intensity and bounced ideas for pizza off Beanpole, who named the advantages and disadvantages of each one like it was an investment portfolio instead of dinner.

Drew and the Wonderkid talked shop, of course. They argued about the benefits of forcing a door compared to picking a lock. She could tell by their tone that they’d had this argument all week. Kristen let the normalcy of it wash over her. It was a lovely reminder of what it was like to be a human and what it had been like to be her until less than a year before. It was pleasant to not have to think about dragons or mages for a few minutes.

The beers arrived, and with the addition of alcohol to the conversation, any hesitancy to ask their old friend about her new life melted away like the crystals of ice on the ends of their scarves.

“So, be honest, how badly do you miss us?” Butters waggled an eyebrow at her.

She snorted and followed it with a sigh.

“That much, huh?” Jim quipped before she had a chance to say anything.

“It must be tough, working with other folks with dragon powers. You’re not the captain’s little darling anymore, I bet,” Hernandez said.

“No. Definitely not.” She shook her head. “Actually, my boss is a dragon called Sergeant Ridgespine. I think he would happily eat me to spare embarrassment to dragon kind.”

“What did you do that was so embarrassing?” Drew asked. Ah, Drew. She really hadn’t missed how her former boss could cut directly to the heart of the matter.

“Well, I…uh, abandoned my post doing paperwork before I even started it,” Kristen said sheepishly.

“Hell yeah, Steel Dragon for the win!” Hernandez whooped. Keith, Jim, and Beanpole laughed.

“Kristen…” Drew said and sounded equally as disappointed as her parents.

“You know you’re always welcome to come back and join us,” Butters said. “Captain Hansen’s already complained about the lack of our mascot. It’s not good for publicity, losing you.”

She glanced at her old team leader, who only shrugged. That meant Butters was telling the truth, then. Still… “Thanks, you guys, really, that means a lot to me.”

“Hey, not all of us want you back.” Hernandez stuck her tongue out and Keith elbowed her in the ribs.

“I don’t think it’s that simple, though. I might have…uh, mentioned that I could simply peace out, but Stonequest didn’t like that at all.”

“No surprise there. He recruited you, right? Dragons must get gold doubloons or something for a referral bonus.” Jim grinned.

“It’s more than that,” she continued. “Stonequest said that us operating together would give all of you—humans, that is—more legal freedom than the dragons are strictly comfortable with.”

“That’s bullshit,” the Wonderkid cut in. “Dragons use humans to help them all the time. Shit, I know mages are a step above people or whatever, but they’re still people. How come they’ve singled you out for working with us?”

“I think because I actually listen to you guys. When I told Stonequest about our engagement with Shadowstorm, he was so relieved—like, unbelievably relieved—that it was my idea. Dragons sneaking into each other’s homes and killing each other is frowned upon, but humans doing the same thing is basically unthinkable.”

“You know…” Keith drawled. He’d finished his second beer and she could hear it in his voice. “You might not be able to work with us every day, but we could still help you out occasionally. If you asked us for help, of course, or better yet, simply bossed us around. You wouldn’t get in trouble then, right? That’d be no different than Stonequest using human SWAT to help his investigations, which he totally does.”

“He has a point,” Beanpole said. Everyone turned to listen. He didn’t talk often, so when he did, everyone paid attention. “If you enlisted our help, Captain Hansen couldn’t really get us in trouble. Humans working under dragon orders have a fair degree of legal latitude.”

“Oh, man, legal latitude. That’s something I’d like to have in a back alley with a dragon threatening to eat me.” Hernandez chuckled.

“What would you do?” Keith asked her.

“Shit, what wouldn’t I do? As it stands, if I was cornered by one of them, I’d be all like, please sir, eat this arm and let me go peacefully. If it was up to me and the same rules of self-defense applied as they do to people? I’d tell him to fuck himself and toss a firecracker down his throat.”

Everyone laughed at the absurdity of it.

“I hear that,” Jim said. “You guys know I served overseas, right? It’s not talked about much, but we saw dragons in combat over there. It was the most unbelievably fucked up thing you can imagine. At least when our military drops bombs, we have to consider the cost of it—civilian damage, if it’s good intel, political backlash, shit, even the cost of the damn bombs. Dragons merely get to burn shit with no consequences. With a little legal latitude, I’d post that shit all over the media.”

Everyone nodded and looked somber.

“Way to bring the fucking mood down, Jim,” Hernandez said. Everyone at least attempted a chuckle as gallows humor raised its head once again. “What about the rest of you?”

“I’d try to get my hands on whoever made the food at that rooftop party Kristen took us to. An official requisition of resources, I’m sure that’s how the dragons think of it. Hey, food!” Butters cheered as their waitress brought in four pizzas. If it was anyone but this team, Kristen would have thought it an absurd amount of food, but she knew there’d be no leftovers.

“What about y’all?” the sniper said, pizza stuffed into his cheeks, once everyone took a slice.

“I’d go treasure-hunting,” Keith said as if it was the obvious answer. Everyone laughed but he yelled over the din. “No, no, hear me out. Look, there’s a whole stash of treasure that’s been taken, right? Sarcophaguses from Egypt, jewels from Africa—shit, Nazi gold is still out there. Who do you think controls all that?”

“I have definitely seen priceless artifacts in dragon homes,” Kristen said.

“See? I’d go treasure hunting and return it to the rightful owners, namely the people who actually made it. We all know the dragons didn’t.” Laughter and nods responded to that statement. Kristen was actually impressed. It was yet another example of dragons’ oversized control on human culture.

“Beanpole?” she asked.

He swallowed his pizza, took a swig of beer, and cleared his throat. “This isn’t as clever as the rest of yours, but I’d want to read more about dragons and learn about their powers, their strengths, and their weaknesses. That kind of thing.”

The team absolutely died laughing. Jim laughed so hard he cried. Butters almost choked.

“What? Why is that so funny?” Beanpole asked.

The Wonderkid wiped his eyes and answered with a grin. “Because there would have to be a fucking infiltration unit of the utmost skill to pry that kind of knowledge from their talons. There ain’t no way dragons will part with that level of intel. Not in a thousand years, not unless we—what did you say Kristen? Snuck into their houses or whatever. We’d need a damn mercenary team to accomplish that shit. What about you, Kristen? What would you do with more freedom from dragon rule?”

“Take myself off administrative leave, for one,” she said before she could stop herself.

Her friends’ response was identical to what a group of children would do if one of their own had been put in timeout by a teacher. They groaned in unison and cursed her superiors, telling her that administrative leave was a part of the job. Only Drew remained silent.

Once the protests died down, she turned to her old team leader. “Drew?” she asked.

“Actually, I wondered about something you said earlier.”

“Oh yeah, what?”

“You said something about dragons sneaking into each other’s homes and killing each other?”

Kristen blushed and clenched her jaw. She hadn’t really wanted to talk about the case.

“Oh shit, did y’all feel that?” Hernandez caught the edges of the table like she was holding on during an earthquake.

Nods all around the table answered the question.

“Did something make you embarrassed there, Miss Steel Dragon?” Jim asked, and looked embarrassed himself.

“No, why would you say that?” she lied.

“Because we felt your emotions like a damn tidal wave.” Butters laughed, although he also looked like he’d been caught raiding the cookie jar.

She sighed and allowed herself a laugh. “I guess beer and dragon powers don’t go that well together.”

“It’s more like keeping secrets and your old team don’t go well together. Now, what’s the deal?” Drew sounded concerned.

“Yeah, I know, Drew.” She took a mouthful of beer. “This is police business, right? If any of this gets out, I might be forced to eat the leak.”

Her team nodded. Jim said, “Spill it.”

Kristen told them about the attacker no one else had seen, the late-night infiltration that hadn’t shown on the cameras because the system had been wiped, the dragon she’d been powerless to save, and the human woman who had somehow bested the Steel Dragon.

At the end of it all, she expected to be berated by her team for her failure or to be chastised for acting outside the boundaries of her job—or even jokes about the dead dragon. She didn’t expect what actually happened.

Keith put a hand on her shoulder. “They might not think that you’re qualified to work with them yet, but we know you are. You’ve had a ton of excellent training from some of the best people I know. You had less experience than me, but compared to you, I’ll always be the rookie. They should respect that.”

Everyone nodded except Hernandez who made gagging sounds at the kind words.

“So…you’re not mad?” She was shocked.

The other woman shrugged. “Okay, you abandoning paperwork in a tantrum is fairly embarrassing, but I’m not surprised. And it’s not like any of us think you made this attacker up.”

“Of course I didn’t.”

“We know,” Butters said, and the others nodded.

“Maybe you can use your human training to help the investigation,” Jim said and sounded like he was thinking out loud. “That time you tracked me, you noticed all kinds of things about the situation I didn’t. I bet there are clues dragons would miss, especially if it’s a human attacker.”

Kristen looked at her friends’ faces. All of them looked eager to help like they believed in her and knew she could do this—except for Drew, who looked concerned.

“What are you thinking?” she asked her old boss.

“I think that Jim and Keith are right. You do have good instincts and an eye for this kind of investigation. It makes sense for you to go back to the crime with your sergeant to get to the bottom of this.”

She held his gaze and fought the urge to use her aura on him. As always, she didn’t want to manipulate her friends and besides, he adhered to protocol with the fervor of a religious man. She doubted she could sway him much with her abilities, so she didn’t try.

Although she wouldn’t lie either. “I’ll…consider that. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. It’s nice to have friends like you.”

“Then why the hell are you standing up?” Keith asked.

Kristen smiled and pushed her chair in. “I have an early morning.”

“Bullshit!” Hernandez said. “You said you were on administrative leave.”

She shrugged. “Call it a late night, then. I’m going to pretend I can beat my brother in videogames.”

More groans followed. No one on the team was a gamer and they simply didn’t get it.

But the excuse suited her purpose. She said her goodbyes, paid the tab despite her team’s protests, took to the sky, and headed home. Brian had been only an excuse and she definitely wouldn’t see him tonight. She’d need her rest if she intended to go through with the plan already forming in her head.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The next morning, Kristen found Windfire’s mansion much as she’d left it. Cameras still pointed at her, although she noticed the sky was empty of drones. The window that had been broken in her pursuit of the woman who’d killed Windfire was taped up with black plastic but had yet to be repaired. She landed, noted that her tracks were still in the snow, and approached the mansion.

It was taped off with good old-fashioned yellow police tape. A quick look confirmed that the front gate was taped off too. There were warning signs not to enter under penalty of law, the usual protocols that a secure scene necessitated, except there was no security.

She had spent her flight over there concentrating on her aura in an attempt to perfect a balance of professional interest and concern for Windfire. It was important that no one thought she was taking this personally. She wanted other dragons to see her as professional, the newest member of the community who wished to contribute to those who’d built it up. She’d prepared arguments, questions, and a series of things she might look for.

It turned out she didn’t need any of that. The estate was empty. She stepped past the tape and waited for an alarm to go off. When one didn’t, she proceeded up the steps to the mansion and, finding that it wasn’t even locked, she slipped inside.

The interior of Windfire’s home was eerily quiet. Kristen hadn’t realized how much noise the ever-present security cameras had actually made. There had been an electrical hum to the hallways that was now absent. No motors whirred to track her movements as she made her way down the hall.

The first place she wanted to see was the surveillance center. She knew dragons understood tech, but she also knew there were vast gaps in their knowledge of it. They simply didn’t see the need for things until well after their adoption. She hoped they’d overlooked something there.

As she booted the system up, she thought it a little odd she had to boot it up at all. If they didn’t have guards to man the crime scene, why not leave the security system online so at least they’d know if there were any intruders?

The system went through its boot sequence and she was reminded again how extensive the security system was. There were well over a hundred cameras on the property, both inside and outside, so virtually every inch of the mansion and grounds were covered. Motion sensors were plugged into spreadsheets that logged any activation, plus the drone network. It must have cost a fortune to build and maintain and yet it hadn’t been able to save its patron in the end.

Kristen looked through the footage, but—like Timeflash had said—there was nothing. The recordings had been deleted.

That made her pause. She hadn’t actually asked Timeflash if the data had never been recorded or if it had been deleted. If deleted, it meant that it had existed, which meant maybe it still did. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that this couldn’t be the only place where Windfire stored data. He had backup generators, so why neglect a backup hard drive?

She stood from the chair and checked the time, shocked to see an hour had already passed. It really was easy to lose oneself in computers. If Windfire had a backup, where would it be? She pondered this as she patrolled the house.

After twenty minutes of lackluster searching, she had nothing. She’d punched a hole in one wall, only to find it led to a dumbwaiter. Soon after, she’d found a safe behind a painting, but her steel grip revealed that it was filled with hundred-dollar bills and a small pile of gold but no hard drive. She photographed the contents before she slammed the door shut hard enough to jam it closed.

This would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Kristen couldn’t tear the entire mansion apart. Even if she brought in dragon SWAT to help—something Drew would no doubt have advised—she couldn’t simply say, “I think there might be a hard drive hidden somewhere because Windfire had a backup generator and probably knows more about security than the rest of you dinosaurs.” No, if she wanted to make any progress, she had to be smarter.

While she still didn’t know much about the attacker, she did know Windfire—at least to some degree. He was paranoid and seemed to be something of an expert on security. Where would he hide something?

The answer struck her like a lightning bolt.

Where no one would look of course, or where no one could see.

She ran back to the security room and began to flip through the cameras that showed the interior of the house—hallways, kitchen, dining room, hallway, bedroom. Windfire certainly was thorough and yet he’d missed a hallway.

With a frown, she checked the diagram of the mansion and went through the cameras once more. Yup, she was sure of it. In one of the hallways on the second floor, there was dead area that no camera could see. Based on the diagram, it wasn’t much of an issue. There weren’t any doors to rooms there or anything, so if someone tried to hide from the cameras, they’d be stuck in the middle of a hallway where a guard would see them easily. That aside, there was definitely a security hole she hadn’t noticed before.

Kristen left the room and climbed the stairs to the second floor and the dead area. She noted that although it looked like the cameras pointed to it, they in fact faced slightly toward the floor, which effectively made this small location invisible to the security system.

Not sure what else to do, she turned to steel and punched a hole in the wall. It went straight through. She muttered a quiet imprecation. This was nothing but a wild goose chase. Disgruntled, she peered into the hole and saw that the other wall was perhaps four feet away. That seemed like an awfully large space to put between walls, even for the architect of an extravagant dragon mansion.

Intrigued now, she moved a few feet along and punched through the wall again. This time, her fist found metal and she realized that a steel wall had been built behind it. She poked through the wall in a few places with her finger until she found the edge of the steel. It really was a large amount of metal—like a walk-in safe or something.

She was sorely tempted to simply break through the wall, but she thought about paperwork in the paper dungeon and decided against it. Instead, she probed carefully until she found what she was looking for.

A piece of the baseboard gave under pressure from her toe and an entire panel of sheetrock rotated inwards to reveal Windfire’s secret room.

Cautiously, she stepped into the void between the walls and confirmed that there was a metal door inside. It had an electronic lock she didn’t think she could break, but it turned out she didn’t need to. When Dragon SWAT had shut the security system down, they’d disabled the lock as well.

Silently, she thanked Windfire for not wiring the room to lock in the case of a power outage, turned her body to steel, and entered the tiny space.

Room was, in all honesty, a generous word. It was more like a closet—an incredibly secure closet. The walls formed a faraday cage around it, and there was only a single hard line going in.

Inside was a second computer system that could only be what she’d searched so hard for. She couldn’t think what else Windfire would keep there except a backup. When she turned the computer on, she was shocked to find it didn’t even have password protection. Did this mean the dragon knew he might be killed? The more she puzzled over this locked room that seemed to open for her at the slightest touch, the more it seemed to indicate that he might have left this there as a kind of failsafe. He would have known that his death would be investigated by Dragon SWAT. Maybe the system had opened this room for them so they could actually find it. Too bad no one had actually looked.

But would this system be deleted as well? Kristen felt certain that the intruder wouldn’t have had time to. It didn’t seem likely that this system could be hacked from afar, but what if someone had returned while Dragon SWAT had left the estate unguarded?

The only way to find out was to try the computer.

When she accessed it, she found that the logs were intact. Either the intruder hadn’t known about this backup, or her interruption had forced her to skip this last necessary piece of cover-up.

Either way, she would take the satisfying result. This was exactly what she needed. There was footage of the attacker infiltrating the building and slipping something into the coffeepot the servants had served Jasper and Kristen from. It included a recording of the intruder confronting Windfire and Kristen’s fight against the human woman and the assassin’s flight. There was even footage of the woman hopping the fence and two shadowy figures helping her into the woods.

This changed everything. She copied all the video that showed the intruder onto her phone and shut the computer down.

Feeling proud of herself, she sealed the room again and went so far as to move a painting from down the hall to cover the hole she’d punched and the smaller ones she’d poked in the wall.

With her evidence in hand, she left the abandoned mansion, transformed into a dragon, and headed toward Dragon police headquarters. She didn’t know if she was more excited about making Stonequest proud or making Ridgespine swallow his words and admit he had a fair amount to learn from their newest intern.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kristen transformed into her human form in a park a few blocks down from Dragon SWAT headquarters and walked the rest of the way to the Capital Square Building. The dragon working the door in human glamor glanced at her and immediately returned his attention to his newspaper. “I thought you weren’t due back for a couple more days. Did you leave something here or something?”

“I think I might have cracked this case wide open. Do you know where Ridgespine is right now?”

“Right here,” the sergeant said and entered from the hallway with the elevator. “I sensed your aura. What are you doing here?”

“There’s been a breakthrough. I have something to show you. I think we might know more about Windfire’s—”

“That’s enough, Steel.”

“Sir?”

“This isn’t the place to have this conversation. Any human could simply walk in.”

“You can say that again,” said the dragon tasked with watching the entrance. She found that to be an odd stance from the man whose job it was to make sure that didn’t happen, but she nodded all the same. They were right. Someone could walk in off the street.

She followed Ridgespine to the elevator. He pressed the button for the fourth floor and as soon as the doors slid shut, she pulled her phone out and brought up the footage.

“Sir, if you’ll take a look, I think you’ll be surprised to find that in fact—”

“Now’s not the time. I thought I made that clear.” He didn’t even turn to glance at Kristen.

“Sir…am I supposed to believe that there are spies in the elevator?”

“Watch your tone. Dragons were once ostracized for being disrespectful. I have little doubt I could bring the practice back where you are concerned.”

“But Sergeant, I have vital information that—”

“I’m sure you do. And we can review your little hypothesis once we get to my office. I’ve lived for centuries, Steel. Telling me whatever nonsense theory you’ve thrown together can wait thirty seconds.”

“Yes, sir.” She gritted her teeth. For the rest of the ride in the elevator and the walk to his office, she focused on two things. The first was to clench her jaw as tightly as possible to keep her mouth shut, and the second was to keep her aura from spilling rage into the entire building. If anything, doing so made her respect Heartsbane even more. She found it difficult to control her aura, and hers wasn’t even particularly powerful. The other dragon must have really struggled to achieve her position and be treated with respect given how hard she must have to work to suppress the effects of her powers. Maybe. Then again, Heartsbane hadn’t been raised as a human and therefore had probably not been treated as a pariah by dragon kind since she’d been discovered.

They made it down the hallway without Ridgespine insulting her further or her saying anything else—a victory for both parties. They stepped inside the office and he closed the door and gestured for her to sit.

She did so in a hard-backed wooden chair that was probably older than most cities in the United States. While the sergeant walked around his desk to sit, she scanned the office.

There was a painting of Ridgespine on the wall behind him that was no doubt older than the invention of photography. He wore a military uniform that she thought might have been British. She couldn’t really tell, but it did make her wonder about his accent, which was American, and she wondered how many times he’d changed it. That had to be something all dragons did to continue to fit in with human culture. She’d never noticed Stonequest’s accent, which for a being who was centuries old, was kind of strange when she thought about it.

A few medals hung on the walls of the office, all big, gaudy, and gold, along with a pair of slender curved swords with golden hilts. There were no photos or paintings of family and nothing to indicate that the stern dragon did anything but work on Dragon SWAT in every available moment of his time.

“Now, what seems to be so urgent that you needed to come into headquarters despite being on leave? Remember, you’re a dragon. Your life’s not ticking away like it does for humans. It’s time to learn patience. There’s no reason to fear the—what do the humans call it? The grim reaper. There’s no reason to fear the grim reaper anymore.”

“Actually, sir, that’s kind of why I’m here.” Kristen took her phone out and brought up the sequence she’d constructed of the intruder breaking into the house, drugging her and Jasper, confronting Windfire, and fighting her before eventually escaping.

Ridgespine watched the footage for about six seconds before he realized what it was. “Is this Windfire’s mansion?” he asked, a little stupidly in her opinion.

“Yes, sir. It was all on a backup system. If you move the slider at the bottom, you can fast forward.”

The sergeant nodded and clumsily sped the footage up until the battle between Kristen and the assassin. He flinched when the attacker fired the gun into Windfire’s chest, despite the gunshot sounding quiet and tinny over her phone’s speakers. “My God. The bitch really did it with a handgun.”

She wasn’t sure if he said bitch because the attacker was a human or woman, but she didn’t like it either way. Still, this wasn’t the time to say anything. There was a murder that needed to be solved. “Yes, sir,” she said, confident that her aura told Ridgespine what she thought of his language.

He watched her try to catch the attacker until the chase moved outside. The footage was harder to make out there—the harsh glare of the lights on the snow made the shadows almost impenetrable—but even with the low quality, it was obvious that she had told the truth. He even rubbed his chin when something blew the snow back into place and erased the woman’s last set of tracks to give her the advantage over her pursuer.

“I’ll be damned,” the sergeant said once the video ended. “How the hell did you find this? Don’t tell me it’s on the Web.”

“The Web? Oh, the Internet?” How Ridgespine had latched onto slang that was twenty years out of date was a mystery for another day. “No, sir, it wasn’t online. I went back to the crime scene and went through the cameras. I found a dead area in the security system and assumed that given Windfire’s paranoia, it didn’t seem likely that he had accidentally left a place in his mansion that wasn’t on camera. I was right. He was hiding a secret room with a backup hard drive.”

“And you went into this room?”

“Yes, sir, that’s where I got the video. I made a backup on my phone—you know that entire crime scene is completely abandoned?—and came straight here to show you, sir.”

“And you can make me a copy?” Ridgespine gestured at his computer the way a vegetarian might gesture at a slab of raw beef with equal parts fear and confusion.

“Yes, sir. If you’ll give me a moment.” She connected her phone to the computer and transferred the files. An awkward few minutes followed while the videos copied. Ridgespine said nothing and watched the progress bar with the same strange, anxious fascination that her brother devoted to his console when he was downloading new games. Finally, the files finished copying. The computer dinged and—despite it saying so right on the screen—he looked at her for confirmation.

“We’re all done, sir.” She disconnected her phone.

“Very good then, Lady Steel.”

Kristen sighed with relief. “Thank you, sir.” When she’d first come into Dragon SWAT HQ, she had hated being called Lady Steel. Now, she was pleased to hear the anachronistic honorific.

“This will probably prove to be er…useful. I think that, in time, the uh…organization will see the value of what you’ve done here.” Obviously, Ridgespine was unaccustomed to giving compliments, yet she had the sense that there might have been something more to what he was trying to say because of his aura. It vacillated between being impressed and disdain. He liked what she had done but he also really, really didn’t.

“Sergeant…with all due respect, what will we do from here? We need to take this to Stonequest or whoever is in charge of this investigation. I have some ideas on how to cross-reference some of the video here with—”

“That will be enough, Lady Steel.” Ridgespine’s aura was all professional once more.

“Sir?”

“We appreciate what you did here, and I’ll do my best to get you a civilian reward for assisting us. It’s been a few decades but I’m sure there are still a few gold coins lying around in the coffers. I’ll make sure that your help as an outside informant is noted and will do my best to protect you.”

“Do your best to protect me? Sir, again, with respect, what the hell are you talking about?”

That earned her a harsh glare from him. “You broke the rules by going to a crime scene solo. There is a whole slew of reasons not to do that, not least of which being that you could have contaminated the evidence and hurt the investigation.”

“Contaminated the investigation? There wasn’t anyone there. I simply walked right in. What’s to stop anyone else from doing that and contaminating the whole damn place?” Kristen knew she shouldn’t raise her voice, but she simply couldn’t help herself. This was ridiculous.

“We have an aural sensor on the premises and will know if a dragon moves in. You showing up will make that harder to discern.”

“Oh, for the love of Christ, a dragon did not do this. You saw the video. What kind of a dragon would fight Windfire in their human form?”

“This video lends some credence to that theory—or at least supports the idea that a dragon manipulated humans against Windfire, which is outside the rules of engagement. When we wrap this all up, I’ll reference that you found this video. Get yourself under control and when this is all over, you might actually have the beginnings of some kind of a reputation.”

“This is absurd. I did what needed to be done to solve the crime. I brought back the evidence you need to get a handle on this and all you talk about is what rules I broke? Those are some fucked up priorities.”

“If you had theories—”

“You would have ignored them. Admit it. There’s no way you would have listened to me if I didn’t have evidence.”

“And now we have the evidence. Thank you for that. Now that it’s off your phone, you can go.”

“Off my phone? What are you—” Kristen cut the question off before she revealed anything further to the archaic dragon. Of course, he didn’t know how copying files worked. She didn’t need to inform him that it worked quite differently from moving a stack of papers from one drawer to another. There was no need to correct this misconception, not with his present attitude. “There’s a map in that file as well that shows the location of the hidden room if you want me to show it to you when I’m back from suspension or whatever.”

“That won’t be necessary, Lady Steel. You’re suspended for this infraction—”

“But I didn’t even know—”

“You were on leave and you’re a former human cop. Don’t give me any of this nonsense about not knowing any better. Besides, those are the consequences for skipping out on training sessions. You’d know good and well that you’re not supposed to operate by yourself at a crime scene if you’d stayed in the paper dungeon for more than a few seconds. You were supposed to learn that you can’t simply go haring off by yourself any time you please. There are reasons for procedures. Reasons that have been around much longer than you have.”

Kristen gritted her teeth but failed miserably to control her aura. She knew that Ridgespine could feel every spark of her white-hot fury. “How long will my suspension be extended, sir?” she asked when she managed to speak without yelling.

“Until we finish the investigation, at least. That could take a week or longer.”

“How much longer?”

“Months, depending on the track Stonequest wants to pursue.”

“Months? Come on.”

“Until then, you need to take a step back and stop throwing everything into disarray. I understand this world’s new to you, so take time to say goodbye to the old one. I think that…well, I shouldn’t say this, but I think that this evidence will impress some people, but you need to learn patience.”

“I’m supposed to wait months while a killer of dragons is on the loose?”

“During the last human rebellion, some of us held our positions for years. Consider yourself lucky that you live in a time as frenetic as the current one. You never would have survived in times past.”

“Right, sir. Whatever you say.” Kristen wanted to say that Ridgespine was barely surviving now—that he didn’t understand computers, or people, or the city outside the walls of the building, but she held her tongue. She was sure he could read her aura anyway. Disdain was such a strong emotion and she made no effort to contain it in the least.

“That will be all, Lady Steel.”

She nodded, stood, and saw herself out of his office. The asshole even went so far as to watch her enter the elevator like he thought she might trash the place or something. It was appalling and pathetic. He didn’t understand what was happening, so he focused on her and acted like that attention would help instead of hinder.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She wouldn’t let this woman hurt any more dragons, and she wouldn’t let the team supporting her continue to operate from the shadows. If Dragon SWAT didn’t want her on the investigation, fine, but that didn’t mean she would simply give up and stand on the sidelines while yet another secret enemy threatened to choke her city.

And luckily for her, she happened to know people who would feel exactly the same way she did.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Once she stormed out of the building, Kristen texted her friends and asked if they wanted to meet at a brewery after work. She was pissed and didn’t think there was time to waste, but also knew Captain Hansen well enough to understand that if she marched into SWAT headquarters in Detroit and demanded her old team come to talk to her, the woman would either yell at her until she backed off—despite her being only human she was still quite intimidating—or she’d simply tell Stonequest.

She didn’t want either of those things to happen, so she ordered a dark beer—she always preferred porters, stouts, and the likes in cold weather—and waited at the bar for her friends to finish work.

They came in one by one and she told them what had happened. Hernandez—for once—was wildly supportive of her and went so far as to suggest that they burn down the dragon patriarchy, something she couldn’t quite wrap her head around the logistics of.

Jim was also very supportive of her operating outside of Dragon SWAT, but that didn’t surprise her either. He didn’t like dragons so probably wanted to buck their rules merely for spite, although he did show an interest in the group that had killed Windfire that she should have anticipated. It did make sense, after all. He didn’t like dragons and they attempted to kill dragons, so it seemed like a match.

Keith had Kristen’s back, but he always did. Butters also supported her and seemed appalled at the lousy perimeter that Dragon SWAT had maintained. Beanpole went along with everyone else, although the furrow of his brow seemed to suggest that he was less than happy to do so.

It was Drew who had the biggest issue with what she had done, so she considered it quite fortuitous that he was the last of them to arrive. By the time he was able to voice his opposition, she had a cheering squad.

“You know, when you worked with me and my team, you had to follow rules too. I had issues with you rushing into buildings even though you had steel skin, and you had to learn to respect that,” he said over an untouched beer.

“This is different, though. She used her experience to investigate a case, not put herself in jeopardy,” Keith said in support of her.

“We can’t know that, though. You’ve said yourself that you missed out on the magic training part of your job. Maybe there are curses or hexes or some shit you don’t know about,” the team leader pointed out.

“If there are, none of them activated,” she replied.

He shrugged and nodded half-heartedly, which meant he still wasn’t convinced. “I’m only saying that if you had gone to one of my crime scenes without my permission, I might have tried to bench you too.”

“But would you have willfully ignored what I was saying because you worried about the political ramifications?”

Drew grinned. “You, me, and Captain Hansen all know that the answer to that is an enthusiastic fuck no.”

Kristen smiled. She thought she had him. “I’m not asking for us to put ourselves in danger, only run some discreet intel. I have this woman’s face, right? There has to be something we can do with that.”

“But isn’t this dragon business?” Butters protested.

“I don’t think so. It might be, and if it is, I have no doubt that Stonequest will catch the dragon with his crystal spheres or whatever. But if this is a human breaking and entering and murdering in Detroit, this is a human concern. The dragons can’t keep this to themselves in the same way that they couldn’t when Shadowstorm terrorized the city. Shit, busting him got me on dragon SWAT. At the end of this, either I’ll be wrong—in which case, maybe I can come back and work here—or I’ll be right and all of you will be the first human heroes to dragon kind.”

No one could say no to that. Even Drew—who was less than enthusiastic about doing anything in any way that wasn’t according to protocol—had to admit this could help break down barriers between humans and dragons.

Hastily, they finished their beers and got to work.

They drove to her old job, Detroit SWAT Headquarters. It was after hours, so Captain Hansen wouldn’t be there. There would no doubt be hell to pay in the morning when she found out she had come into her office without permission, but in the meantime, they had the office to themselves.

As they made their way to one of the computer systems, some of her old coworkers waved hello. She’d been closest to her own team, of course, but it was nice to see there was still goodwill toward her.

“So, any idea what this bitch’s name is?” Hernandez asked and peered over Keith’s shoulder as he settled at a terminal.

“I haven’t a clue. I have footage of her face, though, and hoped we could do something with that.”

“No problem.” The Rookie took her proffered phone, plugged it into the system, and found the footage before she could even point it out to him. He isolated an image of the assassin’s face and ran it through the facial recognition software.

After a few minutes, they found absolutely nothing.

“Did it come as a surprise to anyone that this team of anti-dragon freedom fighters is smart enough to avoid having their mugshots taken?” Hernandez asked rhetorically.

Kristen tried to hide her disappointment. She supposed it made sense that the woman had never revealed herself to law authorities, but that would definitely make their job that much more difficult.

“What’s the plan, then?” Drew asked.

“Can you get into the closed-circuit security cameras we have around the city?” Hernandez asked Keith. “Because if you can’t, get out of the pilot’s seat.”

“Is that legal?” Butters asked.

Keith shrugged. “We are operating well outside of human law right now. Technically, it’s not illegal to kill a dragon either.”

“But spying on the whole city?” the sniper protested.

“Every company that installed these cameras and connected them to the Internet could have done a better job securing their systems. It’s like we don’t investigate car robberies if the driver says the door was unlocked, you know?” His fingers flew over the keys and only paused when Hernandez told him he’d made a mistake.

“I’m not worried about the rights of the people who own the cameras but the people whose faces are on these systems,” Butters persisted.

“We live in a surveillance state, Butters. Have you never heard of Homeland security? Besides, every single one of us has a phone in our pocket. Most of those damn things are voice-activated.” Jim held up his own phone to illustrate his point.

Kristen didn’t really care about any of that. She wanted to stop a murderer. “Is it working?”

“Yeah.” The Rookie pushed his chair back. “But it’ll take a while and even then, it might not work. Cameras would have to have caught her face, and the system needs to find that piece of footage.”

“How long?” she asked.

He shrugged. “An hour? A day?”

“Tell us more about this case, Kristen. How the hell did this dragon get killed anyway?” Drew asked.

“Because she killed Windfire with a handgun.”

Jim nodded—he was well versed in dragon culture since he was one of its harshest critics—but the rest of her team looked confused.

Hernandez summed it up for the rest of them. “People get shot by handguns every damn day in this country and no one gives a shit. What’s the big deal about a dragon getting popped?”

“Because it shouldn’t be possible,” she stated. “Dragon scale should deflect bullets from a handgun with no problem. That means these bullets are made of dragon.”

Jim sucked his teeth in concern. “But you were shot by a dragon bullet by Death. How’s this different?”

“Because I don’t think a dragon is behind this. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if Death got her bullets from this organization or one like it. If dragons made these weapons, it would cause a shift in power in their society, but if people are making them, then—”

“This could start a war,” the Wonderkid said.

“How’s that?” Butters asked.

“Think about it,” Drew interjected. “Humans have been allowed to remain free and largely not interfered with by dragons precisely because the dragons feel impervious to harm from humans.”

“They look down on us.” Jim scowled. “Worse than that. They don’t even bother looking at us. We’re like cattle to the mean ones and like pets to the good ones.”

“That’s right. What a good boy,” Kristen said and patted him on his shaved head.

“Not you, Kristen. You hardly count as a dragon,” he responded.

She smiled. That meant a lot coming from him. When she’d first met him, she was fairly certain he was trying to kill her and now, he was one of her staunchest supporters.

Drew continued without even a small smile at the banter. “If this gets out to dragon kind at large—and if there’s another murder, I don’t see how it wouldn’t—the entire dragon attitude toward humanity might change. During the two rebellions, dragons wiped out large numbers of innocent humans while they hunted for the would-be rebels among them. They might well do so again. Or worse.” He shuddered.

“Then we have to stop this woman before she starts a crisis the likes of which human and dragon kind have never seen,” Butters said. The gravity of the situation had finally struck him.

“Do you think that’s her intention, Kristen?” Beanpole asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think she killed Windfire to start a war, and I don’t know if she’d want to start one at all. If dragons in general know that a group of people has targeted them, that’s the group of people they’ll try to stop, right? This woman and her people have been able to hide, but no one’s actually looked for them. I don’t know if she wants to disrupt that.”

“Then why do any of this?” Beanpole asked.

“I’ve been trying to make sense of it, and I’m simply not sure. I will say that she could have killed me—multiple times, in fact—and I think if she actually tried to strike fear into the hearts of the dragons or start a war, she would have killed me.”

“Do you really think the dragons would have come to your defense?” Hernandez asked derisively. She obviously didn’t think such a thing would happen.

In response, Kristen turned to steel. “Special powers, remember? If a human can kill me, most dragons would really be in trouble. The steel ability is…weird.” She thought back to the intruder and what she’d said to Windfire. “And the assassin seemed to know about me, too.”

Keith turned from the screen to laugh. “Yeah, Kristen, every damn person in the world knows about you.”

“No, it was more than that.” She rubbed her chin and tried to think how she could explain it. “It was like she knew me—or wanted to, anyway. I think she didn’t kill me because she wanted something from me.”

“Maybe a dragon on their side,” Jim said.

Everyone looked incredulously at him.

“What? Don’t look at me like that. I hated dragons for years—I still do, except Kristen, of course—and there were many times I fantasized about a dragon joining the freaks and crackpots in the corners of the Internet.”

“You fantasized about dragons while you were on the Internet?” Hernandez asked. “I didn’t know there was that kind of porn out there.”

Everyone laughed at that.

“So, what is your theory?” Drew asked.

Kristen couldn’t even begin to answer. “I don’t have one—no wait, that’s not true. Honestly, I have too many. That’s why I want to catch this woman. I want to ask her a few questions.”

Everyone grinned at that. Cop reflexes never went away.

“Hey, dingus, check your search.” Hernandez slapped Keith on the arm.

“Oh, shit!” he said and turned quickly to the computer. “We have a match.”

The woman had left a fast food joint a few hours before, climbed into a vehicle, and driven away.

“Why can’t we make the license plate out?” Drew asked.

“It’s probably treated with some kind of reflective shit so the camera can’t make out the number. You can buy that shit on the Internet,” Hernandez said. When everyone turned to her and stared, she raised an eyebrow and snorted. “What? I’m the only one of us who runs red lights?”

“Not everyone drives a hatchback like that, though. I might be able to follow it,” Keith’s fingers flew over the keys. The vantage point switched from the burger place to a traffic light camera and from there, to the security camera outside a dollar store. At that point, they almost lost her, but he found her at a red light a few blocks away. It was a lucky thing, otherwise, she might have been lost to the city. Her face had never been visible in any of this camera footage of her car.

She drove another block, then—blessedly—pulled into the parking garage beneath a high-rise hotel.

The Rookie hacked into the cameras in the parking garage and saw her go inside the hotel.

“We have her,” Kristen said, hardly believing the words.

“Almost.” Keith sounded frustrated. “I know this place has cameras in the hallways, but I can’t get in. They might not even be online.”

“Then we do this old school,” Butters said.

“How’s that?” Kristen asked.

“We got to the front desk and ask for help,” Drew said.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was strangely nostalgic for Kristen to be once more riding in the back of a Detroit SWAT van. It hadn’t been that long since she’d actually been in the back of one—a couple of weeks—and yet it felt like a lifetime ago. Already, the guns seemed like toys and the seatbelts part of an amusement park ride. Dragon SWAT didn’t need vans. Why drive when one could fly?

But she had an answer for that. There was something about being squished together when they took hard turns, about the nervous chatter, and about the way everyone’s gazes sometimes fell to the guns on the rack on the back of the vehicle. It built comradery in a way that flight didn’t. Flying was an independent action, a time to get lost in one’s own head, whereas riding along in the back of a van was inherently human. Flying definitely wasn’t human.

They arrived at the hotel.

“All right,” Drew said and strode from the driver’s seat to the back of the van. “Butters and Beanpole, I want you on the rear entrance. Make yourselves invisible but I need to know if our girl or anyone else goes in or out. I don’t care what they look like, I need to know about it. We’ll determine who is a suspect later.”

“Yes, sir,” the sniper said, and his spotter nodded.

“Hernandez, Rookie, you’re on the front. I want you to go in ahead of us and get a drink at the bar, then keep your eyes on the situation. I don’t think our target will get a drink, but I don’t want anyone to see a police presence in the lobby. Not yet.”

“Are you saying you want me to get a drink and flirt with the Rookie?” Hernandez smiled.

“Is that a problem?” Drew asked.

“No, sir!” the Rookie said quickly, and everyone laughed. They’d run hundreds of missions together, and yet nerves were still high at the start of a mission.

Kristen was relieved that it wasn’t only her, although she did feel palpably afraid in a way she normally didn’t. Since she’d discovered what she was, her steel skin had been armor not only against guns but against fear, doubt, and hesitation. It allowed her to act when others had to think. Now, she would go into a situation where turning to steel might very well endanger her further.

“That means the Wonderkid and the Steel Dragon are with me,” Drew said.

“You always get the best picks!” Keith complained and sounded like the kid chosen last for kickball.

“Do you want one of them instead of me?” Hernandez raised an eyebrow.

“No, ma’am.”

No chuckles followed this time. They were too close to the action.

“Kristen, I don’t want you on point. That honor goes to Jim.”

“What? This is my case, and I’m a damn dragon. Why shouldn’t I lead this?”

“Three reasons. One, because she might recognize you. If she has a camera or some kind of magic shit, it makes sense to put one of us first. Two, we don’t have any bulletproof armor for you. Three, your reflexes are antithetical to every damn person I’ve ever met.”

“They are not—” she protested before he cut her off.

“Yes, they damn well are. You run toward bullets. People don’t do that.”

“I thought about that, sir,” Jim said and loosened his bulletproof vest. “We might not have brought enough vests, but she can wear mine.”

Drew shook his head but Kristen spoke first, “No fucking way, Jim! That’s out of the damn question.”

“You could die,” he said and continued to loosen the armor.

“Without that vest, you will die. I’ll be fine unless she hits me with a dragon bullet, which she doesn’t have an unlimited supply of, obviously. You’ll be dead if she hits you with any bullet.”

“I’ll be fine—”

“I can heal from wounds in minutes, Jim—minutes. You’re not giving me that vest.”

“You’re the target, Kristen. This is basics. We protect you.”

“I won’t take anyone’s damn vest and that’s final. If you don’t stop unbuckling it, I will flex my aura and make you put it back on.”

“I thought you didn’t like doing that to your friends,” he responded.

“I don’t. That’s why I’m threatening you with it before I do it.”

Jim sighed but he began to buckle his armor on again. Once he’d finished, Drew nodded and they went in a few minutes after Keith and Hernandez.

“Hey, I got this, all right?” the Wonderkid said.

Drew and Kristen shrugged and let him approach the desk. He plastered a big phony smile on his face.

“Well, hi there,” he said and sounded as friendly as he did when he spoke to the press. “My friend is staying here but didn’t give me her room number.” He flashed a photo of the woman taken from the surveillance footage.

“That’s nice,” the woman said. “If you’d like to wait at the bar, she should be down soon.”

“Really?” Jim said.

“She’s lying,” Kristen said. She could sense the woman’s emotional state enough to know that she wouldn’t give anything in response to Jim’s phony act.

Drew stepped forward and flashed a badge. “I’m with Detroit PD. SWAT. We have reason to believe this woman is a terrorist.”

“Oh…uh, yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir. She checked in a few days ago.”

“Is she here right now?” Drew asked.

“I can’t say, sir. We don’t keep track of all of our guests.”

“Can we have a key to her room, please?” Kristen asked.

“No, ma’am! That’s against policy. I can’t simply…” The receptionist trailed off as the dragon flexed her aura. This woman needed to be a little afraid and to understand that the team was there to help her. She didn’t like manipulating people, but it was an ability she had and without a doubt, if the woman who’d killed Windfire had any such ability, she’d have used it without conscience.

“What were you saying about giving us that key?” she asked again.

“Its…um, right here, I think.” The woman stood and retrieved a key card, ran it through a scanner, and handed it to her.

“Thank you. Room number?”

“Fourteen-oh-nine. Fourteenth floor. Take the elevator, go left, and follow the signs. Are we in some kind of danger? Does the hotel need to be evacuated?”

Kristen was about to answer, “Hell yes, it should,” but Drew caught her arm and shook his head. “Everything should be fine, ma’am. We’re only here to ask her a few questions. Nothing too major. Your cooperation should make this go smoothly.”

The woman nodded, noticeably relieved.

“But,” Kristen said, not wanting to scare her but feeling like she had no choice, “if you feel a flash of fear like you need to get out of here and you see that other people seem scared too, sound the alarm and go, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The three left the desk without further discussion.

“What was that about?” Jim asked as they moved to the elevator.

“How else can we communicate that the hotel is in danger besides my aura? If it seems like we’re all at risk, I can make everyone in this place feel like they need to get out.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Drew said as the elevator doors opened.

They stepped inside and rode to the fourteenth floor. In silence, they strode through quiet hallways and passed only a man in a robe and a swimsuit, no doubt headed to the rooftop pool despite the cold. A few minutes later, they found the room.

“I’ll open the door. Jim, you go in, Kristen right, and I’ll take left. If you see hostiles, disable them. I don’t know what mages can do but I’m sure it’s far less if they have a bullet in the leg.”

The other two nodded.

Drew opened the door.

Jim rushed in. Kristen moved quickly behind him, checked the bathroom, and found it empty. “Clear!” she shouted.

“Clear!” shouted Jim as well.

“There’s no one here,” said Drew.

She stepped from the bathroom into an empty hotel room. It was a fairly simple place to secure, merely a standard hotel room with a bathroom. There were no places to hide.

“I’ll keep an eye on the door,” the team leader said. “You two see what’s here.”

Kristen nodded. Although the room was empty, it wasn’t totally deserted. There were some signs that a person had stayed here. Beside the bed, she found a duffel bag with a few changes of clothes, some of them pedestrian and some of them all black. It wasn’t exactly a smoking gun but was better than finding nothing at all.

“This just in—she brushes her teeth,” Jim called from the bathroom.

She nodded absently as she hadn’t seen anything in the bathroom when she’d cleared it.

There was one more thing, though. Three photographs were on the desk at the window. The one on top was of Windfire with a big black X over his face drawn in marker. The meaning was obvious. In the photograph, he was in a hallway in his mansion. Kristen recognized the painting as the one she’d moved to cover the hole she’d punched in the wall when looking for the secret room. The overhead angle of the photograph suggested that this was an image taken from his own security system, which made sense. The intruder had wiped the system, so taking a photo from it before clearing it would have been child’s play to her.

“Hey, I have something,” she said, absorbed in the pictures.

The next photo showed Kristen herself. She was in the same location, moving down the hallway toward the secret room. Her eyebrows were furrowed like she was concentrating, and indeed she had been. Around her face was a circle with a question mark inside. This sent her heart racing. Not only had this photo been taken after the murderer’s last known entry to the house, but it clearly demonstrated that the assassin knew the ins and out of the security system.

“Who’s this?” Jim asked, holding the picture of Windfire and pulling her attention away from the third photo before she could study the face hidden behind the X.

“That’s the dead dragon about to enter his hidden security center. Whoever these people are, they’re more than mere killers. They had enough access to know where that room was.”

“It looks like they’re fans of yours,” Jim said and gestured to the picture of her with the question mark across her face.

“Why do you think that?”

“Well, the other two have X’s. That tends to mean something very specific in the psychopathic murderer circles. You didn’t say that another dragon had been killed.”

“One hasn’t.”

“Then who’s he?”

Kristen couldn’t make out the face at first. But the ridged posture, the ancient uniform, and the crew cut left her with no doubt. It was Sergeant Ridgespine.

“But I only told him about this room a little earlier. He must have gone there in the last few hours.”

“Let me see that.” Jim held his hand out for the photo and she gave it to him. “See those numbers on the bottom? That’s a timestamp. This photo is an hour old.”

“The goddamn stubborn dragon must have followed up on the lead after all. Never mind all that shit he gave me about not going anywhere by yourself.”

“Easy, Kristen,” Drew said from the door. “I can feel your aura from here. You don’t need to be scared or pissed.”

“Then how am I supposed to feel? This photo proves that the murderer knew Ridgespine was investigating her and might mean he’s already dead.”

“It sounds like we need to go, then,” Jim said.

“Let’s do this.” She spun toward the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As they hurried to the elevator, Drew issued orders and Kristen smiled. He simply couldn’t help himself despite this being her case.

“Jim, call Keith and tell him and Hernandez to be ready to roll by the time we’re down there. I’ll get Butters and Beanpole headed toward the van. Kristen—”

“I’m already calling the Dragon headquarters.”

“Right, of course,” he said and looked sheepish for a brief moment. He’d no doubt realized he’d actually tried to command the dragon who’d put this mission together. But Butters must have picked up on the other end of the call as Drew started talking while the elevator doors closed.

Jim’s call also went through, but her phone refused to work in the elevator. She was forced to waste more precious time as they rode down. It was a suffocating feeling knowing that the woman could be moving against Ridgespine while she waited—or worse, that she already had—but there was nothing to be done until they opened the doors to the lobby.

Hernandez was there, leaning against the wall with Keith. Both looked a little drunk until they recognized their team and snapped to attention.

Kristen called Stonequest but there was no answer. She called the number for Dragon SWAT and the mage Atramento picked up.

“Bureau of dragon affairs,” he said crisply.

“Atramento, it’s Lady Steel.” She had to scowl at Hernandez, who snickered at her and mouthed the title while she frowned, closed her eyes, and raised her eyebrows, the world’s worst impression of the upper class.

She ignored the woman as they left the hotel and jogged to their van.

“Whatever can I do for you, Lady Steel?” Atramento replied cautiously. “I’m afraid I don’t have any current assignments for you. I was under the impression that you were under some kind of suspension.”

Kristen had spent enough time around Atramento to know that for him, that was basically, “Why the hell are you calling? You’re still in trouble for majorly fucking up and besides its as late as hell.”

“I need to know where Sergeant Ridgespine is,” she said, thankful that auras didn’t travel over telephones. She had little doubt that the mage would have some kind of resistance—or at the very least an awareness—of what to do about auras and right now, hers was far from controlled.

“Lady Steel, I would love to be of assistance to you in this matter, but alas, the sergeant is conducting police business, which means that…um, that is…due to your suspension, I cannot divulge the nature of his current whereabouts.”

“Cut the horseshit, Atramento. I only need to know if he’s in the building or not.”

“That information is only relevant to the police who are on shift and currently not…ah…extended leave.”

“I gave Ridgespine some information about Windfire’s murder.”

“Lady Steel, I don’t know any details about open cases, and furthermore, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to discuss such details—”

“Damn it, Atramento, Ridgespine’s life might be in danger. We both know you see every piece of paperwork that comes through there. He must have said where he was going. I’m sure you at least saw the footage of the mansion. Is he there?”

“I can’t be certain—”

“Cut it out, Atramento, his fucking life is on the line. I know you know where he is. You told me as much when I first got there, and we both know Ridgespine didn’t go anywhere without filing the paperwork to do so. He doesn’t have an independent bone in his body. So, tell me if he filed a damn request or whatever the hell it takes to go the mansion.”

There was a long pause—painfully long to her—before he finally answered. The accent he normally spoke with slipped slightly and he sounded more like a regular human now. He had a hint of a Detroit accent touched with a faint trace of something Hispanic. “After you left, he filed a request to acquisition more evidence from Windfire’s manor.”

“And he went there?” Kristen demanded.

“I’m a mage, not a GPS system.”

“He left headquarters?”

“Yes, Lady Steel.”

“Shit. We’re headed to the mansion then.”

“Shall I tell Sir Stonequest, Lady Steel?”

“For fuck’s sake, Atramento, of course you should tell Stonequest. This isn’t some bullshit political dragon maneuver. There are lives on the line. Yes, tell Stonequest and get him and the whole damn team to the mansion.”

“But of course, Lady Steel. However, it may take some time, so please be careful.”

“Take some time? Where the hell are they?”

“Playing a human sport—airsoft, I believe it’s called.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Kristen said. Butters and Beanpole had reached the van and it was time to go. “Keep calling him. Shit, keep calling his whole damn team. Maybe one of them will get out early and actually answer. Tell them to go to Windfire’s mansion immediately.”

“It’s generally not considered proper to give orders to one’s superiors, Lady Steel.”

“Then tell them the Steel Dragon has gone rogue and intends to burn the mansion down unless they stop her. I don’t care how you do it but get them to the mansion.”

“Yes, Lady Steel,” Atramento said but didn’t sound entirely sure if he believed that she had only been making a point about burning the mansion down. Good, she decided. Ridgespine might very well be dead already and she needed Stonequest and the other dragons there. Hell, she’d prefer it if they got there before her but of course, she very much doubted that would happen.

She hung up. “Let’s go.”

They scrambled into the vehicle and drove away. A few minutes later, the van screeched to a stop.

“Where are we?” Kristen demanded from the back.

“Quick stop.” Drew slid out and ran toward a humble little house. Kristen realized this was his home. She could tell by the way he shouldered the door open and didn’t bother to turn the lights on as he rummaged around inside. In moments, he was back out and told Kristen to get in the back like she had been the one wasting time instead of him.

“What was that about?”

“We were a vest short. I keep extras at home.” He tossed her a bulletproof vest.

She was about to say she didn’t need one and that she was a dragon who could turn to steel, but then she remembered the huge bloody hole in Windfire’s chest. How short-lived her dragon abilities had really been, she thought. Only a few months and already, she could be killed by guns once again. She put the vest on as Drew hurtled around corners and eased onto the interstate.

It didn’t take her long to realize that this wouldn’t work. The van was too slow and Windfire had built his mansion as far away from the state freeway system as he could. Drew would be able to go ninety miles an hour for a time but soon, he’d be reduced to less than half that when they would be forced to take twisting back roads.

“Is anyone afraid of heights?” Kristen asked everyone in the back.

The Rookie’s eyes lit up immediately. He knew what she was thinking.

“I ain’t afraid of shit.” Hernandez puffed her chest out. “Well, except public speaking. I have these fucking dreams where I’m only in my underwear.”

“I have those dreams where you’re only in your underwear too.” Keith smiled.

“I have no problem with heights,” Jim said and pounded on the window toward the front of the van. “Are you guys good with a ride on the back of a flying dragon?”

“Hell yes,” Drew said.

“If she can support my, uh…dinner choices of the last twenty years, then sure.” Butters sounded enthusiastic but a little dubious.

Kristen turned to Beanpole. He was the only one who hadn’t responded. He didn’t need to. His face had paled, his normally calm smile replaced by a quivering frown.

“Exactly what are you intending?” he asked weakly.

“Move away from the door, buckle up, and close your eyes. Got it?”

He looked like he wanted to scream a protest but he merely nodded, moved from his position near the back door, and traded places with Keith. Quickly, he buckled up, caught hold of the van’s frame, and nodded curtly.

“Here we go,” she said.

“Do you want me to pull over?” Drew yelled from the front.

“We’re going, like, eighty, right?” she hollered in response.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Keep us cruising.” He complied as she flung the back doors to the van open and turned her hands to steel.

She told herself she’d pay for the damages later—or better yet make Dragon SWAT foot the bill—so she felt absolved of guilt when she dug her steel fingers through the roof of the van.

“Holy shit, do you guys see this?” Jim shouted from inside the vehicle. “Are those your fingers, Kristen?”

Kristen didn’t answer and merely pulled herself farther onto the roof until her legs and feet were also atop the speeding vehicle.

“Smile for the camera,” Keith yelled.

When she turned her head, he had poked his head out of the back of the van with his phone in one hand, shooting video of her.

“Keith, you’ll slip.”

“Hernandez has my belt. I’ll be fine,” he said calmly as if they weren’t barreling down the highway at eighty miles an hour with the doors open.

“I thought she mostly took off your belt,” Butters shouted from the front. “She might decide she’s done that one time too many and let you go.”

“Oh, please.” Hernandez snorted. “If I wanted to kill him, he’d be dead already.”

“Speaking of killing us, what the hell you doing, Steel Dragon?” Jim asked.

“Learning new skills.”

“Now? With us in the car?”

“Why not?” Kristen focused on her body.

She knew other dragons could transform while running, flying, swimming, or doing other things and reminded herself that she wasn’t doing anything as complex. Basically, she simply stood on solid metal. Admittedly, it raced along a highway and the slightest slip might injure her and all her friends, but she had always done well under pressure.

The first thing she needed to do was transform her feet into talons. If she could do that, she had little doubt that she could do the rest.

Calmly, she set every other thought aside and focused on her feet. She thought about her toes extending and her purple-painted toenails transforming into steel claws. After a moment, however, nothing had changed.

“Whenever you’re ready, Steel,” Hernandez shouted.

“For this to go viral we really need it to be less than ninety seconds,” Keith said matter of factly. He seemed unconcerned that he hung out the back of a speeding van and was more interested in getting views, apparently.

“I need to make talons,” she said and felt as impotent as a nervous teenager.

“Well…pretend we’re sheep or something,” Jim suggested.

“Or tuna fish,” Keith interjected. “I once saw a dragon documentary where dragons would hunt tuna fish from the top of the ocean.”

“You’re not tuna fish,” she yelled in response. The suggestions seriously weren’t helping.

“Maybe focus on that bridge about a half-mile up,” Drew yelled.

That did the trick. Kristen transformed her feet into talons and dug them through the roof of the van, crumpling the metal like it was aluminum foil.

“Good job, dragon lady,” Herandez said sarcastically. “But you missed the roll cage. If you fly now, you won’t take us with you.”

“Right.” She repositioned her dragon-sized steel feet and sliced through the roof of the vehicle once more.

“Better,” Butters said from the front.

“Not better,” Beanpole retorted. He was directly below her talons and was tall enough that he had to duck beneath them.

“All right, here we go,” she said and extended her arms.

She knew she couldn’t simply grow wings as the force would rip her apart—or more likely rip her from the roof of the van. Her legs extended first, then her torso. Scales rippled through her clothes and verified the magical nature of a dragon’s transformation. Her arms lengthened and she was now large enough that if she hit the bridge, she’d be struck in the chest instead of decapitated. Neither were pleasant thoughts.

Now that her dragon body was there, she thought of her wings and they erupted from her back, drawing a cheer from Keith. He sounded like a kid watching a fireworks show. “You’ll ruin the audio!” Hernandez bellowed at him. “This isn’t a damn dragon unboxing video.”

Kristen tried to ignore them and not giggle but it wasn’t easy.

The bony arm-like parts of her wings appeared first and stretched to their full length, merely bones and flesh in the shape of a Pteranodon fossil from a natural history museum. A leathery membrane spread over the bones, and in the next moment, she caught the wind and was in flight.

The speed of the vehicle gave her amazing lift, so they cleared the bridge easily and were airborne in seconds.

Everyone inside cheered except for Beanpole, who threw up when the van tipped backward.

“Keith!” Hernandez yelled.

Kristen glanced back and her long dragon neck gave her flexibility she didn’t have in her human form. The Rookie—held aloft by nothing but Hernandez’s grasp on his belt—whooped with glee.

“I have all this on video, baby. It’ll go viral for sure.”

“Get inside, you idiot!” Drew yelled and he thankfully complied.

She curled her tail back and into the cab of the van, pressed it up against the ceiling, and coiled it as she did so. With three points of contact, she found she could better control the tilting vehicle than she could with only her back talons. She was less maneuverable without her tail to help her steer but considering what she was carrying, she definitely didn’t intend to do anything but fly as fast and as straight as she could.

“This is amazing!” Butters had rolled his window down and whooped in the front seat. “How can you support all this weight?”

“I can fly when my entire dragon body is steel. This isn’t that bad. It would be easier without your butterball inside, of course.”

He laughed, never one to shy away from a fat joke.

“Are you gonna tell us your plan, Lady Steel, or did you intend to simply break into song?” Drew asked from the driver’s seat.

“A whole new world,” Hernandez and Keith sang together, which made her want to barf and actually made Beanpole throw up again.

“Right now, my plan is to not drop you and let you plummet to your deaths.”

“Good plan,” the team leader said.

Kristen pumped her wings and raced faster through the chilly night air. She hoped this was all in vain, that Stonequest was already on his way and that she’d arrive with her can of humans and be laughed off the premises. Hell, if that was the case, she promised herself she wouldn’t complain about being suspended.

But she very much doubted that would happen. She used the journey to consider what she knew about the murderer and hoped it would be enough.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kristen set the van down about a mile out from the mansion, landed on the street, and reverted to her human form before she’d even stopped moving. She smiled with satisfaction. Apparently, transforming on the back of the speeding van with her friends inside had broken any mental barriers she’d constructed to stop herself from accomplishing it while moving. Her brother had always said her doing everything under pressure was crazy—and he was probably right—but that was who she was and who she had always been. She had to accept that if she wanted to continue to grow.

Keith stepped out as she approached the back of the van.

“That was fucking awesome. You’re already up to fifty thousand views.”

“I’m up to what?”

He blushed, his crimson color only visible because the lights of the SWAT van were on.

“Meanwhile, in reality, you totally trashed this van,” Drew said from the front seat as she reached the back and climbed in.

“Does it still drive?” she asked.

The team leader revved the engine in response. “It’s not like I can simply kill the damn thing to save gas when we might all freeze to death without the heater.”

“Fair point,” she acknowledged. “Then drive us there. It’s about a mile down the road. That whole system is designed to keep dragons out, or at least the drones and the aural sensing crystal sphere thingy were. I think if we drive in, we have a better chance of actually surprising this woman.”

“But I thought the security system belonged to Windfire,” Jim queried as Drew complied without protest and the van accelerated down the dark country road.

“It does, and yet the intruder has been the one who really enjoyed the advantage of it. She used it to cover her tracks and to destroy evidence. I think we have to assume she has control of it now—or at the very least, that she’s watching the cameras.”

“And what about the other guy?” Drew asked from the front seat. “That guy whose picture had a big black X over it?”

“We have to assume he’s still alive,” she said, knowing full well that everyone around there could feel the despair her aura radiated. Ridgespine should not have rushed in there. Her only hope was that the sergeant was more adept with his dragon body than she was. Surely he could stand against the intruder. He had to.

Because to think the intruder wasn’t there when she’d had that picture was obviously absurd.

“Are you gonna tighten that or only rock the steel skin?” Hernandez asked.

“I think this fight will have to be in my human body,” Kristen said and didn’t relish the thought. “This woman obviously knows how to fight dragons, and I’m…well, less than experienced. If she could manipulate Windfire into hitting me with his tail, I don’t doubt that she could get me to burn you all to a crisp.”

“Gee, thanks,” Jim commented drily.

“I’m only saying that if you see me transform into my dragon body, you get clear. I’m not saying I won’t. I damn well might have to, but I don’t think it would be smart.”

“And what about your skin, Steel Dragon?” Keith asked.

“When I turn to steel, my clothes turn to steel as well. That means if I’m wearing a bulletproof material, it’ll change—at least visibly. I don’t know if would still be able to stop bullets. I know steel should be able to and it does. I withstood rocket-propelled grenades, but these dragon bullets… I just can’t be sure. If my vest is transformed to steel, the bullet might simply tear through powered by whatever dragon magic is making it.”

“You have really weird concerns, you know that?” Beanpole said. Now that they were driving, he seemed to have recovered some of his color. She loved the tall, quiet gentleman he had always been to her. He hadn’t liked flying but rushing in to fight a human powered by mages or a mage who understood tech or whatever the hell this was didn’t bother him at all.

“Sorry again for tipping the van like that,” Kristen said, tightened her vest, and checked the ammunition in her pistol. She had a feeling that firearms might define this battle. The woman was a dragon warrior, after all, not a police officer. A gunfight might give her and the team the advantage.

“It’s fine, but please, don’t mention it again, especially if we’re in a van. Like ever.”

“No problem.”

“Do you have a plan?” Drew asked her. “We’ll have contact in thirty.”

“I showed you all the map and where the security room is, so that’s our goal. That will move team A past the standard security room so we can check there. Team B will come up from behind. We’ll use radios to keep in touch so we’ll all arrive at the same time. Butters and Beanpole, I want you at stairways. They should give you the longest sightlines.”

“Right, we went over that, but what about that gate?” he asked.

“Oh.” She’d flown over the gate so many times she hadn’t even thought of it as an obstacle. “Ram that fucker down.”

“You heard her, people!” Drew’s voice brimmed with excitement. There was nothing like trashing shit to get the adrenaline pumping. “Hold on tight!”

Before he had completed the warning, they bulldozed through the gate. A crisp pop and hiss indicated tires going flat. That wasn’t a surprise, of course, as anti-vehicle strips were installed under it. Not that it would matter. The barrier was down and they were through. It was time.

The team spilled from the van. Drew, Jim, and Keith had assault rifles. Hernandez carried a shotgun plus a belt of explosives. Beanpole and Butters had high powered rifles, but their normally absolutely insane scopes were replaced with something that looked more suitable for close quarters—the kind you could use to hunt a deer instead of shoot a fly’s asshole from a half-mile out. Kristen was armed with only a pair of handguns. She had no doubt that she’d need to pursue the woman at some point. Tactical retreat seemed to be one of her trademarks, and she didn’t want to be encumbered when it happened.

They raced through the yellow tape marking the mansion as a crime scene and up to the door. It was locked.

“That’s a bad sign.” She shook her head. “Last time I was here, this place was wide open.”

Hernandez stepped forward. “Do you want me to—”

Her offer came too late. Kristen kicked the door hard enough to splinter it, but instead, the wood cracked to reveal a metal one hidden inside the first.

“Holy shit. Paranoid much?” Keith said.

“The motherfucker was murdered in his own house,” Hernandez pointed out and placed charges on the hinges before Kristen could stop her. “At least he had a reason to be crazy.”

Windfire had also been alive for thousands of years and watched humanity come and go and grow from loose tribes to the globe-spanning culture it was now. That couldn’t be good for the psyche, she thought. It was insane to think that—if she didn’t die in the next twenty minutes—she would conceivably live through not only the next few centuries but the next few millennia.

Kristen, Keith, and Jim raced down the hallway, past the security center where she and Jasper had been stationed when they’d been drugged, and toward the stairway that led to the hidden room. Drew and Hernandez—team B—went up the first set of stairs they saw with the understanding that they’d rendezvous soon. The emptiness of the house did something to calm Kristen’s nerves. At least the intruder hadn’t brought her entire team with her.

They sprinted up the stairs and burst into the hallway.

To her surprise the woman stood in plain sight, her gun trained on an opening in the wall that led to the secret room. That could only mean that Ridgespine wasn’t dead.

“We have a hostage. I repeat, hostage situation,” Kristen said into her radio.

“That’s right, you have a hostage,” the woman shouted. “If anyone moves, this dinosaur gets it. And if you think I’m not packing dragon-scale rounds…well, you’re not thinking that, are you?”

“Look, answer some questions, and no one has to get hurt,” Kristen said and took a step forward.

“Stop right there!” the woman yelled although she still didn’t move her gaze from Ridgespine. “What you’re trying to do is talk long enough so you can try to poison me with your aura. That’s what this snake in there did. But you’re better than that, Kristen. You’re the Steel Dragon, the lost dragon of Detroit. You can still join us. It’s not too late.”

“Join who?” she asked, both to keep the woman talking and because she was curious. The assassin knew something about her—she had to.

“I can’t tell you that, not with all these cops here. Take them out, Kristen, it’s the only way. You do them in, I’ll put a bullet in this fucking reptile’s brain, and we’ll go answer all the questions you have.”

“I can’t hurt these people. They’re my friends.”

“Then let them join us. Cops often don’t approve of our methods, but if you promise me that they’ll let me go once I put a bullet in this fucker’s brain, we’ll be fine.”

Ridgespine must have moved or something. Kristen had the sense that the threat wasn’t aimed at her as much as it was aimed at him.

“How about we start with some good faith questions. You know my name. What’s yours”

The woman considered this for a moment before she spoke. “Constance. You can call me Constance.”

“Okay, good, Constance. Good. Look. I can’t let you kill Ridgespine, so what are your demands?”

“How about we start with a fundamental restructuring of human and dragon society? Our demands are power for the people, not these monsters. We want to be able to kill them, the same way they can kill us. Only then can we talk. If I shoot another one, it’s the best way to accomplish that.”

“Constance, if you continue to kill dragons, it’ll only make them retaliate against you and your people.”

“There will be sacrifices, but humankind won’t bear this burden forever.”

“It’s not about us versus them. We’re all on the same team. This doesn’t have to end with violence.”

“Violence is our only recourse. We tried trusting dragon kind, but we can’t. Join us, Kristen. No more surprises, no more deception, and no more bullshit. We can tell you more about…about you.”

In that moment, Hernandez and Drew stepped around the other end of the hallway.

Constance glanced in their direction—a tiny, fractional movement, something Kristen would have disregarded as a flinch—but in that span of time, a clang echoed and the assassin cursed.

Ridgespine had moved inside the room and that clang was the door slamming shut.

“Move in,” Drew shouted. “The hostage is temporarily safe. Disable target!”

Constance fired at him and the bullet struck him in the chest. All it accomplished was to knock him down.

The woman turned toward the hole in the wall and fired a volley at the hidden Ridgespine, but Kristen could feel the dragon’s aura inside the room. He was alive.

“Give up. You’re surrounded.”

“Oh, Kristen, you don’t understand at all.” Constance took out a pair of flash grenades and rolled them down the hall toward the two teams.

The Steel Dragon closed her eyes and turned her eyelids to steel. When she did this, it really did black out her vision.

By the time she opened her eyes, the assassin was nowhere to be seen. She only knew which way she’d run because Hernandez lay on the ground with a bloody nose.

Without hesitation, she sprinted in pursuit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Kristen raced past Hernandez and her former teammate groaned weakly. “Bust her face up,” the woman muttered as she passed her.

She rounded the corner and located Constance at the end of the hall beside the doorway that led to the stairs. The assassin fired once, twice, and three times, but she aimed low. She couldn’t read the woman’s aura, only her actions, but she still had the sense that she didn’t want to kill her. None of the shots could have hit her head. As stupid as it might have been, this made her race toward the gunfire even faster.

That seemed to scare the killer enough to change her tactics. She raised her gun higher and fired again. Kristen dove into a roll, came up on one knee, and fired in return with one of her handguns.

Constance immediately ducked into the stairway. Kristen had not been able to land a shot. She raced forward and barely caught sight of her quarry as she rounded the stairs and went out into a hallway on the first floor.

The dragon vaulted over the banister, turned her body to steel in midair, and let gravity seize her and drag her down to the first floor. She pounded into the floorboards and surprised Constance, who’d aimed up the stairs.

The assassin swung her weapon but her target put on a burst of dragon speed and raced forward.

The woman fired but not before Kristen was able to throw a shoulder into her. The blow was strong enough to crack ribs. With the added mass from her steel skin, it would have been enough to send a lineman from the Detroit Lions sprawling, but Constance didn’t tumble. Instead, she twisted in midair and landed on her feet. She was as agile as any cat and had to be a mage or have mage assistance.

Kristen was beyond frustrated. There was so much she didn’t know, while her opponent seemed to know everything about her. There was a serious disadvantage to being famous.

The dragon raced forward, and Constance fired at her as she did so. A concerted volley ended with the empty click of a gun that had run out of ammo.

This was her chance.

The assassin knew it too. Quickly, she ducked into a doorway and Kristen followed.

She went through a door and into a large kitchen. Before she could so much as look around, a frying pan hurtled toward her face. She punched it out of the air but it was rapidly followed by a bowl, then a plate, another bowl, and a mug. Each projectile was easily deflected and shattered as she pushed toward her attacker.

It was a stupid attack. Dishes wouldn’t be able to hurt her. She closed the distance between her and Constance, but before she could get close enough to lay hands on her and stop her, the woman sidled around a food prep counter. Her hands dug through drawers, and she hurled anything she touched—rolling pins, a mortar and pestle, wooden spoons, and a set of knives. They bounced off her steel skin but still, the attack earned Constance an advantage because the dragon couldn’t help but flinch when confronted by the rapid barrage of kitchenware.

Kristen had to take the upper hand, so she caught hold of her edge of the counter and flipped it at the assassin as easily as a human would flip a card table.

Constance rolled out of the way, reached the end of another counter, and moved behind that one.

“You can’t hurt me,” the dragon said as she came to stand on the other side of the counter. With both hands resting on its edge, the threat was clear.

“I will if I must, but don’t make me. Why serve dragons when you could fight for freedom? Why support a toxic governmental system?”

“Because killing people in their homes is not an alternative.”

“Windfire wasn’t a person, Kristen. He was a dragon and loyal to himself and himself alone. I did what I did so he couldn’t betray us.”

“That’s not good enough.” She lifted the counter and flipped it. The woman was ready, though, dove to the left, and somehow managed to avoid being crushed.

It still worked to Kristen’s advantage as she’d put herself between her quarry and the exit. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

Constance backed against a wall and her hands continued to move but found nothing to throw except a spice rack.

“Even if those are glass, you know you can’t hurt me,” Kristen said.

In response, the assassin lobbed a tiny jar at her. She was ready for this one so she didn’t flinch and didn’t look away. She let the glass shatter on her steel face and it did nothing to her—no scratches, no pain, and nothing to generate even the mildest discomfort.

Her smirk soon faded, however, when the cayenne powder inside the jar reached her eyes. She rubbed frantically at them in an effort to remove the burning powder. As she did so, Constance’s footsteps thumped past her. She flailed in an attempt to stop her but the woman was too fast and danced past her grasp, and Kristen banged her knee into another workspace in the kitchen.

Desperate, she felt around until she found a sink. She turned the water on, sprayed herself in the face until the burning eased, and looked up. Only one door out of the kitchen moved. It swung in and out and revealed exactly where Constance had gone.

She sprinted forward, heartily sick of this shit. As she moved, she turned her body to steel, barreled through the doors, and knocked them off their hinges.

The hallway was empty but she raced on all the same. If she knew the intruder—and after spending so much time pursuing her, she was beginning to get a sense of how she fought—she’d have to pause to reload.

Kristen hurried down the hall, looking for some sign of her adversary. She passed an open door and looked inside at a kind of sitting room lined with rare artifacts in the form of suits of armor, paintings, and swords. The room was most likely designed to impress despite the fact that Windfire never actually had company.

She was almost past it when she heard the telltale snick of a revolver’s cylinder being clicked into place. Cautiously, she entered the room.

As she stepped through the doorway, a shot fired. She fell prone and barely made it below the bullet. Before she could find her feet, something struck her in the back with enough force to hurl her down again.

Constance stood over her with her gun in one hand and some kind of medieval weapon in the other.

“We’ve done this for decades. You can’t stop us now.”

It wasn’t merely a medieval weapon, Kristen realized. She’d played quite a few fantasy games with her brother—enough to recognize a morning star when she saw one. Basically a spiked metal ball at the end of a wooden club, it made a cruel weapon.

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s my job to stop you,” she said and pushed herself up. The assassin swung the morning star against the back of her head with enough force to once more tumble her into a hard landing. She didn’t think the weapon could actually puncture her steel skin, but it definitely could rattle her brain around inside. If her adversary struck her temple or throat, it might cause real problems.

With that in mind, she pivoted her hips and spun her legs in a sweeping kick designed to sweep Constance off of her feet.

Unfortunately, the woman was too fast and leapt aside, but that gave Kristen the space she needed to stand.

The assassin obviously recognized that she’d lose any attempt at a melee and hurled the morning star at her, but she knocked it aside.

Kristen surged toward Constance, who danced away and shoved a suit of armor between them.

It crunched under the Steel Dragon’s weight when she stepped on it. The woman yanked a painting off the wall and threw that, but Kristen shredded it like it was a paper banner for a high school football team to run through instead of a priceless oil painting belonging to a wealthy rich dragon.

Constance darted across the room and behind a low table that Kristen simply kicked at her. The woman managed to dodge and it careened past her with inches to spare and shattered when it impacted the wall behind her.

A lamp, a vase, and a chair became puny missiles that the Steel Dragon simply demolished with ease. Something in Constance’s eye seemed to indicate that the woman didn’t know what to make of her foe, who did not care at all about any of these priceless artifacts. Apparently, she had hoped she would.

She threw a small sculpture and made her escape by diving through a window and into the snow. Kristen muttered a string of curses and simply pounded through the wall to resume the pursuit outside.

Constance sprinted through the snow, her tracks already being blown away by whatever magical wind her allies could summon. She was incredibly fast and for a moment, the dragon wasn’t sure if she’d be able to catch her. Before the thought could be put to the test, however, a shot rang out.

The assassin stopped running toward the gate and turned.

Another shot puffed the snow directly in front of her.

“Try to run and see what happens!” Butters whooped from one of the upper windows of the mansion.

She pressed her luck and tried to reach the fence once more, but another perfectly placed shot stopped her dead in her tracks.

“If I give the order, you’re dead,” Kristen said. “I don’t want that. You don’t want that. Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

In response, a flurry of snow kicked up and obscured her quarry briefly. Butters, being nobody’s fool, fired at the cloud and this time, more gunshots joined the barrage. Kristen’s team had taken care of Hernandez, then, and had joined the fight.

No one seemed to be able to shoot Constance, however. She moved constantly, ducking and dodging the bullets with an agility that was inhuman. Kristen realized that her team wasn’t aiming to kill but to control. Most of the shots went long and peppered the snow beyond the fugitive, effectively herding her away from the gate.

“You won’t make it out of here,” Kristen shouted.

The assassin seemed to see the truth of this. She fired once at her and darted toward a topiary bush in the shape of some kind of long-necked dinosaur.

“Don’t let her reach the gate,” the dragon shouted. “But give me a shot at this. I want to take her in alive.”

“Roger!” Butters yelled in response.

Constance seemed to think her chances were better against the Steel Dragon because she stopped her attempt to reach freedom. Instead, she darted from one topiary bush to another, dodging gunfire and trying to put some distance between her and Kristen.

The situation didn’t provide much to work with. She was forced to take cover while her adversary simply had to race forward. The dragon gained and the chase was almost over. Kristen could taste it.

There was only one place Constance could hide—an outbuilding of some kind that Jasper had said she needn’t concern herself with because it was winter.

The assassin made the desperate dash toward this building, slid inside despite a barrage of gunfire, and slammed the door shut behind her. She even went so far as to lock it.

Kristen grinned at the unnecessary gesture. She was the Steel Dragon and locks were no more effective in stopping her than doors were. When she was sure her entire body was steel, she surged forward and bulldozed through the door.

She immediately realized the seriousness of her mistake. On the other side of the door was an inky body of water, black in the unlit room. The indoor pool had only begun to ice around the edges. She tried to stop but in her steel body, her momentum was too great.

Her trajectory took her headlong into the pool and a gunshot rang out as she splashed into the water. Being steel, she sank and the pool engulfed her in its icy blackness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The cold of the water was unlike anything Kristen had ever experienced. It was painful but also so much more—debilitating, blinding, and numbing. It told her to surrender, to stop, and to let her heat be leached away by this energy that was truly a lack of energy, this presence that was the antithesis to life.

Her brain—confronted with cold in a way it had never been before—fired off synapses in an attempt to make sense of the intense situation. She remembered her brother falling through a frozen pond when he was little as vividly as if it had happened the day before.

They had been ice-skating, and—no surprise—her brother had been terrible at it. He slipped, crashed into a cone that had been put out as a warning of thin ice, and in an instant, he was through the ice and into the water.

Her father had reacted before she could even process that anything was wrong. He stripped his skates off and slid across the ice and into the water, which made young Kristen think of a seal hunting a penguin.

He came out in seconds with Brian in his arms. The water in the pond wasn’t all that deep, thank goodness, and they drove home with the heater on high. Frank Hall cursed everything and nothing with every breath of air, telling Brian to slap his arms and move his legs and for the love of Christ to not fall asleep.

Kristen had thought that a really dumb thing to tell her brother. How could he fall asleep? He’d splashed into frozen water, after all.

But now, at the bottom of this pool, she understood. There was something about the cold that demanded she give up, stop fighting, and surrender to its grasping clutches. Every time she moved her arms, they did nothing. No swimming strokes pulled her closer to the surface. The cold worked itself into her incredibly quickly—perhaps because of her steel skin or perhaps because she was sweaty from her chase. It stole her fingers and toes, then her hands and feet, then her legs until she could only feel her head and body. Even her mind told her to sleep, to give up, and to succumb.

But her heart refused. It was a boiling pot of water, a wood-burning stove, a bonfire, a bomb, and a rocket’s thruster. Her heart was the furnace strong enough to make a dragon fly and to empower her to face bullets. When threatened with its own end, it made her think of her mother and father, her brother, her friends, and the people who wanted to hurt them.

Kristen turned to flesh from steel, kicked off the bottom of the pool, and stroked hard toward the air. She breached the surface of the pool, gasped a breath, and found the edge of the pool. Her hands slipped on the ice lining the edge but on the second attempt to get out, she used her dragon strength to crush the ice and some of the tile surround to give herself better traction.

She hauled herself out and her clothes clung to her with icy water. There was no movement inside the pool house but she heard gunshots.

Despite her all but frozen limbs, she forced herself to move outside and waved at the mansion.

“Inside,” Butters called from the roof and fired to create a little plume of snow that puffed up close to the mansion as a trail.

Kristen ran forward and transformed into a dragon in the blink of an eye. Immediately, gunshots erupted from a door to the house, obviously from Constance.

She changed back to her steel human form and landed outside the door. Her dragon form had been blessedly warm. She’d absorbed her clothing—or displaced it or whatever it was dragons did with their clothes when they changed—but now, it was back and still as cold and clinging as before.

Hardly believing what she was doing, she stripped her pants, her soaking wet boots, and her shirt off until she wore nothing but her still icy underwear. She put her bulletproof vest on again and started down the stairway, her human flesh pimply with goosebumps but much warmer than she had been with the wet clothes.

It seemed that the furnace of her dragon abilities was enough to warm her now that she’d discarded the freezing wet clothes and her naked arms and legs steamed as she descended the steps that Constance had fled down.

Kristen fumbled for a light switch and found one, but it was totally destroyed. No doubt the assassin’s work. She scowled and focused to pierce the darkness of the basement with her dragon night vision.

Innumerable crates were stacked down there alongside boxes and shelves of what, in a human’s house, would no doubt be old junk. On a dragon estate, they might very well be powerful artifacts spanning centuries.

Movement in the back caught her attention. She descended the rest of the stairs slowly until she reached the bottom.

As she stepped forward into the space, a shot rang out and pain bloomed in her shoulder. Despite her steel skin, she’d been hit. Her left arm went limp so either a nerve had been damaged or the dragon bullet itself was enough to paralyze the appendage. Either way, her arm was useless. Worse, she realized her guns were at the bottom of the freezing pool.

Constance stepped from the shadows, two hands holding a steady gun that was aimed at Kristen’s chest.

She grimaced and turned her skin from steel to flesh once more and held her one working arm up in a gesture of peace.

In response to this gesture of goodwill, the woman raised her weapon from pointing at her bulletproof vest to her face.

Kristen sighed. This was not going well. “Why don’t you do it then?” she said. “You have the damn shot, why not take it?”

The fury that flashed across Constance’s face told Kristen that she was asking herself the same question. That meant she didn’t want her to die.

“Who are you?” she asked and took a step forward.

Her adversary took two steps back and kept the gun trained on her face for a moment. Then, her jaw began to tremble and a single tear trickled down her cheek, an unbidden sign of her humanity. “I’m…your mother, I think.”

“I already have a mom, thanks, and she’s not a murderer with a gun pointed at my face right now.”

“You don’t understand—you can’t understand!”

“Then tell me.” She grew more frustrated by the minute.

“I…I remember that red hair but I could be wrong. Many of us think I’m wrong but I…I remember.”

“Everyone remembers my hair, Constance. If a male anchor covers any of my busts, it’s essentially guaranteed that they mention I have sexy red hair and tits.”

“No, no. I remember that first little tuft. It was almost like a cartoon character. All bald except for this tuft of red hair at the top. It’s…it has to be you.”

A chill tremored through her very core. Her mom had said the same thing about her a hundred times—hell, she’d seen the baby pictures. She’d very definitely had a little tuft of hair on her head when she was a baby. “How do you know that about me?” she demanded.

“We all had our role to play, but I never imagined our experiments could be as successful as…as you have been.”

Did you actually call me an experiment? She wanted to say it out loud but found that her mouth was dry and her mind spinning. An experiment? What did that mean? What did that imply? She knew her aunt had worked as some kind of a biologist at a dragon’s lab and that she’d left Kristen with her brother Frank. She had always more or less assumed that she was her Aunt Christina’s baby, even though Frank had never been sure. Could she be…could she be something else? Could she be something so far removed from the spectrum of human and even dragon existence? She knew she was a dragon, which by its nature made her not human, but an experiment?

“You’ve done more to break the divide between human and dragon kind than anyone in history.” Constance was really babbling now. “Your very existence is controversial. Yet you haven’t hidden from the limelight but embraced it. You’re everything we hoped for and more. You can bring it all down.”

She had so many questions—a hundred questions, maybe even a thousand—but at that moment, so much had become clear. Her first instinct was to ask Constance what she had meant by an experiment or how she could think of herself as a mother to her and yet abandon her. But the woman had revealed her true self, and Kristen no longer had time for selfish questions.

“I don’t want to break anything. Humans and dragons need a bridge built between their cultures, not a larger divide.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Dragons can never come around to seeing things our way. That’s like asking humans not to eat meat.”

“Have you ever heard of a vegetarian?” She took another step forward.

“Dragons are different than people. They can’t be reasoned with. That’s why we had to kill Windfire. Even if he stayed loyal to me and our current leaders, he would have betrayed us eventually. If not this decade, then the next, and if not this century, he’d betray our children.”

“So you killed him? You killed the man who gave you what you needed to conduct dragon experiments—to make these damn bullets?” It was a stab in the dark, a bluff and a well-informed guess, and it totally paid off.

“Do you think I felt good about killing a man with bullets made from his own body?” Constance choked out. “Do you think it’s easy talking to you right now, knowing that I killed your father?”

That was enough for her. She rushed forward as she flashed her aura to try to make her adversary feel hesitation and doubt in her beliefs. It worked—or if it didn’t, she already felt that way. The woman lowered her gun, possibly with the intention of firing at her other arm, but Kristen had anticipated as much and used her dragon speed to get out of the way of the shot.

“My father’s name is Frank,” she said and threw her injured shoulder into the assassin to launch her back and into a crate. It splintered and spilled gold coins across the floor.

The pain in her shoulder was insane. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat, gave her tunnel vision, and screamed at her to pass out rather than feel anything more, but it was worth it to see the look on her adversary’s face.

The woman was furious that she still referred to Frank as her father, despite the fact that both of them knew full well that was not the case at all.

Constance—sentimentality seemingly forgotten—raised her weapon again but Kristen had finally run out of patience. She surged forward and changed to steel as her knee drove into the hand holding the gun. The assassin chose to drop the weapon rather than break her fingers, and it clattered away and was swallowed by the shadows of the basement.

Kristen raised her steel fist and was about to bring it down onto Constance’s solar plexus when her feet were swept out from under her. She sprawled into the pile of gold coins as her opponent scrambled away.

She followed closely and kept herself between her quarry and the exit. Her left arm still hung loosely and barely responded to her commands, acknowledging them with screams of pain whenever she tried to use it.

The killer understood the situation well. Despite her speed, she couldn’t make it past the Steel Dragon. Rather than make the futile attempt, she raised her hands. Instead of fists, she held them like knife blades. Kristen was very much convinced that this killer of dragons would have some kind of plan to attack her, even in her steel form.

Constance didn’t disappoint. She launched herself into an assault, her arms a whirlwind of blows. The dragon defended herself as best as she could with her right arm, but many of the strikes found their target. The assassin hit hard—no doubt about that—but she had faced dragons while wearing her steel skin and a human simply didn’t compare to the power she had struggled against.

She swung a right and missed, so she kicked instead. That single blow was enough to catapult her attacker across the room. She might have had an injured arm, but she still possessed a font of dragon strength, and her legs—wrapped in steel—carried far more power than the woman could hope to deliver or even stand against.

Kristen decided that three blows should end the fight. Constance would be defeated, and she could finally get some damn answers.

The assassin seemed to disagree, however. She was back on her feet and glared at Kristen through the dark of the basement before she raced toward her and enveloped her in a whirlwind of broken wood and shards from the damaged crates.

She pounded into the dragon’s defensive stance and hammered blows on her steel arms. The attack was relentless and unstoppable, as fast as any dragon she had ever sparred with and possibly faster. Her blows didn’t hurt but they didn’t leave an opening to attack either.

Kristen ventured a kick, only to have her leg kicked down again. She tried with the other leg and Constance again swept her legs out from under her.

She landed with another solid thump and immediately pushed herself up into another whirlwind of blows and scattered treasure.

“How many of you are there?” Kristen demanded as she dodged and squinted through the flying debris. Technically, they shouldn’t be able to hurt me, she thought. She’d looked in the mirror enough times to know that even her eyeballs turned to steel—or the whites did, anyway—but it was hard to fight against a lifetime of human instincts.

Constance didn’t answer, though. She was done talking. In fact, she seemed to be done with the fight. She tried to bound over her adversary and reach the stairs out of the basement, but Kristen spun, caught one of her legs, and used her momentum to swing her forward and drive her into the concrete floor.

The woman grunted in pain but was back on her feet before the dragon was.

Still, she was up before the assassin could flee again.

There was no way she would let her lead the attack again. Although it hadn’t done much damage, she had the sense that Constance was testing her. For what, she didn’t know, nor did she particularly want to find out.

With that in mind, she pushed her opponent this time despite the woman’s blinding speed and ferocious attempts to fight back.

She tried to stay close, jabbed with her right arm, and kicked with her legs, but her target constantly managed to move toward her injured left and continued to force Kristen to keep her injured arm away from her. Even on the defensive, she controlled the fight. It was frustrating—no, it was downright infuriating.

“Just stop already,” she screamed and threw her full aura at Constance. It had no effect. In fact, she almost had the sense that her dragon abilities simply washed over the woman and like a boulder resisting high tide, it would take millennia to move her even a finger’s length. How badly she wanted to know if those powers were from human will or magic augmentation. She had no doubt that some of the assassin’s powers were granted by magic. Almost certainly, they were from mages, given the woman’s political feelings toward dragons. But that merely begged the question of which powers and how, and if she was magical at all. The implications of being able to confer magical abilities to regular humans were huge. Could dragons do it as well as mages? Was technology of some kind involved? Only Constance could say, and she seemed quite committed to not saying a damn thing.

“I can’t stop, Lady Steel. Not now, not ever—not until the power in this world flows down instead of up.”

“I can help you!” Kristen said and hesitated in her relentless approach toward her that had achieved absolutely nothing.

“Help me by letting me go,” Constance said.

She almost respected her resolve. The woman had the diehard belief of the devout, yet with a political mentality instead of a religious one. The hardest part of this battle was that she did believe some of what she seemed to be saying. Dragons did have too much power. They should be held accountable.

But murder wasn’t the way to achieve those goals.

“You killed Windfire in his own home. I can’t simply let that go. It’s as bad as killing a person.”

Something changed in Constance’s expression. Before, there was a trace of hesitancy, some kind of misplaced belief or trust that Kristen had hoped to ferret out but now, that belief was gone—or, if not the belief itself, the hesitancy that controlled her actions. In simple terms, she no longer held back.

The blows were ferocious and her hands held like knives pinged against the dragon’s steel skin with enough force to send shudders down her forearms. Between these karate chops of death, the killer threw in rocket-like kicks that alternated between trying to knock her adversary to the ground with another sweep of her legs and striking her hard enough in the crotch to cause some kind of stutter.

Kristen gritted her teeth and withstood it all, defended herself, and tried to attack. The woman would tire and she only had to hit her once more. She’d already hit her twice and was sure the final blow would do it. After all, she’d seen her almost collapse from effort before on the security footage. The woman was fast—obviously—and augmented with some kind of power, but it wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t.

All she needed to do was to land one more blow.

Constance clearly had the same thought, and unfortunately, she was faster.

The dragon deflected what seemed to be an obvious elbow thrown at her temple, only to be struck in the throat with such a forceful karate chop that she couldn’t breathe.

She stumbled back and grasped her throat as she tried to drag in a breath. Constance vaulted past her and up the stairs. Her instinctive response was to pursue, but she didn’t have enough oxygen for her already exhausted body. She landed hard and her quarry vanished up the stairs.

Kristen felt her neck to find it was dented. The woman had hit her so hard that it had actually imprinted the steel that encased her when she used her powers. She hadn’t known this was possible. Her steel skin allowed her a full range of motion and she’d never encountered a situation in which it had inhibited her in any way. And yet, somehow, Constance seemed to have found a weakness in her defenses,

Unable to breathe, she transformed into her regular skin and immediately felt her lungs fill with air. It seemed that in regular form, her skin was as elastic as any human’s.

She took a deep breath and sprinted up the stairs in pursuit.

Constance couldn’t believe how powerful the Steel Dragon was. If she hadn’t hit her with that bullet, she had little doubt that she would not have survived that battle. She wouldn’t have said anything about her compatriots, obviously—which was what Kristen had wanted so badly—but she might have been forced to forfeit her life, a possibility she recognized the necessity of but nevertheless did not embrace.

Besides, death wasn’t quite off the table yet. She raced up the stairs from the basement, through the open door, and out through the snow. One of her allies immediately gusted wind to cover her tracks and sweep snow down the hall into the basement to further distract the Steel Dragon. The slivers of ice and snow stung her as she ran.

Within moments, the gunshots began.

The first one was obviously a warning. It came from the top of Windfire’s mansion and exploded a meter in front of her. Exhausted and unable to stop the reflex, she screamed and changed direction. She wouldn’t be able to take a direct path—which was necessary considering a dragon might resume the pursuit at any moment—but she couldn’t provide the shooters with an easy target.

Unfortunately, whoever else was in the building wasn’t so economical with their ammunition. Assault rifle fire rang out, and the snow all around her began to puff as a hailstorm of bullets stopped her every turn. She realized then that they were trying to trap her, no doubt on the orders of the Steel Dragon.

Constance couldn’t let them. The same mages who augmented her strength and speed and covered her with wind powers had the ability to end her life. She’d told them to do as much if she were captured, but she couldn’t let that happen. No one could balance other mages’ powers like she could. If she died, her movement would lose a mighty warrior. This was not arrogance, but fact. Still, they would not hesitate if they had no other choice.

The assassin decided to risk the fusillade of bullets and attempt to reach the fence. She was quickly reminded that one of these people was a better marksman than most when another shot landed directly in her path.

She changed course continually yet moved steadily closer to the fence behind which her people waited for her.

The next shot proved that the sniper was done with warnings. It caught her in the calf.

Hot pain flared through her body and crimson blood painted the brightly illuminated snow. Wind could no longer cover her tracks, but she had known that. She needed a good old-fashioned gas-powered car if she wanted to escape. Even then, the dangers posed by the Steel Dragon were real and she might have already called for backup. That was a chilling thought.

The Steel Dragon emerged from the basement and Constance’s heart dropped. She won’t kill me, she told herself again and again, even though it was antithetical to what most dragons did to most people. They were beasts who saw themselves as predators and humans as cattle. They had slaughtered countless people who’d wanted nothing more than their basic human rights. She had been raised to believe this—hell, confronted by the evidence, it was hard not to come to these conclusions. To now be hunted by one of the very beasts she’d been warned about since she was a child was truly something out of a nightmare.

Still, she couldn’t believe that Kristen would kill her. She wouldn’t because she was still mostly human, biology aside.

These thoughts did nothing to calm her as she ran as fast as she could while she dodged bullets and felt her lifeblood course out of the hole in her calf. She was lucky the bullet hadn’t shattered bone and luckier still that the powers that gave her extra strength allowed her to run with the wound at all.

An ominous whoosh from behind her told her clearly that Kristen was airborne as the Steel Dragon. She turned, knowing full well that a human—even an augmented one like her—could never hope to outrun a dragon in flight. The only thing to do was fight.

Her focus on the dragon, she reached for her gun.

It was gone. The Steel Dragon had knocked it from her hands during their struggle in the basement.

For a moment, Constance stared at the massive, silvery specter of wings and teeth and claws that soared toward her, but a gunshot rang out and her brain resumed functioning.

There had to be a way out. There was always a way out for those who were attacked. Predators weren’t one hundred percent effective and prey often escaped when all seemed lost. She simply had to find a chink in Kristen’s armor and somehow exploit it before someone put a bullet in her brain.

As if on cue, the realization struck.

“Her wing!” Constance screamed into the night and hoped and prayed that someone heard her.

The response was immediate.

Great gusts of wind kicked up and slowed her escape until they were redirected into the sky. It blew faster and faster and she scrambled ever closer to the fence as the Steel Dragon fought against what had quickly become a gale.

She was so incredibly close, but none of it would matter unless they stopped the Steel Dragon. A car might be able to outrace a dragon, but not on the roads surrounding the mansion and not at night. If her team didn’t see what she had seen, they were all doomed. No, beyond doomed. They would be dead.

The wind velocity continued to increase and bent the pine trees that surrounded the estate more and more until branches began to break free and join it. Still, Kristen flapped through it and seemed to soar as easily as a hawk or an eagle.

A wet, sickening snap filled the night air. It was even louder than the distant gunfire and a moment later, the Steel Dragon plummeted with a roar of pain.

The assassin stole a glance behind her to see that the shoulder socket that supported Kristen’s wing had become dislocated. The appendage flapped uselessly at her side and every pump of the thin bones increased the injury. A dragon with more experience would have already become human again, but the pain probably made it hard to think.

It never would have happened—not in a thousand years—if Constance had not shot her in that same shoulder. The interaction between the human and dragon forms was a complex, poorly understood relationship, but some things were known. Injuries in one body roughly transferred to the other and kept their anatomical position.

If one chopped a hand off in the human form, the dragon body would also be missing it. They could regrow some of these missing parts because they were dragons, but in the short term, these injuries transferred with the bodies.

This was especially true of the special bullets. Dragons seemed to be able to absorb their clothes into their dragon bodies so when they became people again, they didn’t have to get dressed, but the same ability to magically hide certain items didn’t apply to dragon bullets.

She had shot Kristen’s human body in the left shoulder, so it would be roughly in the same place in the dragon body. It had still been a huge gamble, but that had been the only play she had possessed. Dragons had four shoulders joints—two for their wings and two for their front legs—so it could have been that a bullet there would have done nothing to the Steel Dragon’s flight and indeed, it hadn’t done much. She’d still been able to fly, after all, until the joint had been overtaxed.

Fortunately, seeing their mascot—or friend or however the Steel Dragon’s human entourage thought of her—wounded was enough to stop the gunfire.

Constance finally reached the fence where two of her allies waited, one already on her side and hidden in a topiary bush. He lifted her up and she cursed reflexively when he touched her injured leg as he pushed her over.

The man on the other side caught her and as soon as the first man had followed her over, the three of them ran through the woods.

“The gun—where’s the gun?” one of them demanded.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll see…it doesn’t matter at all.”

And once again drained of the magic that had empowered her in battle, she passed into unconsciousness.

“Where’s the gun?” Kristen asked as soon as Jim was within earshot.

“How about we worry about you first? I don’t know much about dragons, but I know your wings aren’t supposed to go like that.”

Kristen grimaced. She was back in human form, her dragon body too injured for her to inhabit. “They aren’t. She shot me with another dragon bullet earlier and fucked my left arm up. That’s why their wind gusts were able to hurt me.”

“Is that what it was? Magic wind gusts?”

“Yes! Obviously. Do you think that was a coincidence? We’re obviously facing real professionals here—professionals who have mages working with them, not to mention engineers who can make weapons out of dragon parts. Which brings me back to the damn gun!”

“I have it!” Keith yelled as he emerged from the basement. “But you won’t like it.”

He tossed the gun to the Wonderkid with a cavalier grin on his face.

“For fuck’s sake, man, who taught you how to handle a firearm?” His teammate caught it but he looked damn pissed.

“The same guy who taught me guns don’t hurt people, bullets do.”

“What are you trying to say?” Jim examined the weapon for half a second before he realized what had happened. His face said it all.

“It’s empty,” Kristen said and laughed.

“What the hell’s so funny?” he asked.

“Seriously, Kristen, we could have run ballistics or something on the ammunition.”

“What’s so funny is that Constance had that gun trained on me for more than a minute, even though there wasn’t a damn thing in it.”

Keith laughed and Jim smiled. Drew came up and immediately took his coat off.

“You’d better stop laughing about all that,” he said and gave his coat to Kristen, who only now realized she still wore nothing but underwear and a bulletproof vest. She wasn’t cold, though. In fact, all the snow had melted around her, so she sat in a circle of steam.

“Why’s that?” She took his coat all the same because she was still human and her mother had taught her modesty.

“Because Stonequest is here and he won’t think any of this shit is funny.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Drew ushered his three teammates indoors. The team leader had called ahead on the radio so by the time they reached the door, Hernandez had located a pair of pants that more or less fit Kristen.

It was a good thing too, as by the time she pulled them on and made it upstairs to rejoin the sergeant and the rest of the team, Stonequest had arrived. His eyebrows were raised in amusement but his jaw was set in frustration. This definitely would not be a fun conversation.

“What the hell happened here? Actually, more specifically, what the hell happened to your arm?” he demanded as if that counted as a greeting.

“Lady Steel saved my life,” Sergeant Ridgespine said. “I came here to investigate a hunch. It was luck—extraordinary luck—that she arrived when she did.”

“Uh-huh.” The other dragon didn’t sound convinced. “And the arm?”

“I was shot by a bullet made from a dragon,” she yelled and raised an eyebrow at him.

“A what?” The sergeant had obviously not been privy to this intel.

“Now is not the time, Kristen,” Stonequest warned.

“Really? And when is? Because this fucking thing hurts badly right now.”

Hernandez had found a shirt and they’d tied it into a sling for her arm but that, of course, did nothing to stop the pain caused by the bullet still in her body.

“Not now.” Stonequest looked at the wound and grimaced. He knew what these weapons had done to Windfire and he knew—as did she—how lucky she had been. “Timeflash!” He shouted and a moment later, the purple bedecked dragon in human form was there with two human mages in tow.

“Yes, sir?”

“I need Lady Steel healed. It appears to possibly be one of the new munitions I told you about.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to be clearer,” one of the mages said in a thick Kentucky accent. “Removing a bullet made of lead or a bullet made of dragon requires an entirely different form of magic.”

Stonequest scowled at the man but apparently, magic healers were as impervious to professional criticism from those who didn’t know the trade as human doctors were. He merely glared in response.

“It’s dragon,” Kristen said.

“Are you sure?” the mage asked.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure. It feels like someone poured gasoline inside me and is about to fire it up.”

The mage nodded, took her into one of Windfire’s many bedrooms, and went to work. First, he had her remove the bulletproof vest, then he cleaned the wound with alcohol—a practice she was familiar with. At that point, his treatment diverged from the norm. He stuffed the wound with some kind of dried flower petals that were incredibly soothing. That done, he took a snail, of all things, from one of his pockets.

At first, she thought it was only a shell but a moment later, a bright orange body emerged followed by four little stalks, two long and two short. The mage put the creature on her wound and it immediately began to suck at the hole the bullet had inflicted in her shoulder.

The pain receded up her arm as easily as the tide flowed back into the ocean. Little by little, it faded until nothing hurt except for the wound itself.

“That should heal before too long, dragon powers and all that.”

“Well, that didn’t seem so bad,” Kristen said.

The mage shrugged. “We know how to heal such wounds, but these snails are incredibly rare. I’ve had this one for years, but the dose he took from you…well, this will be his last time to help anyone.”

“Do you mean that it will kill him?”

“Yes, Lady Steel.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He bowed. “It is an honor to serve you, my lady.”

She nodded, once again both impressed and confused at the strange formal obedience the mages showed dragons and led the man out of the room.

In the hallway, Jasper had joined the conversation. Stonequest didn’t seem any happier about this than he was with anything else. “Are you saying that you called them in?”

“Yes, sir. I saw there was a break-in, but as there were no dragons here… Well, it didn’t seem to be a dragon matter, so I called the humans.” Jasper grinned widely at the absurdity of the lie. She was too tired and exhausted to read his aura—reading for lies wasn’t a strength she’d developed yet, anyway—but Stonequest had to know something was up.

“And what exactly were you doing here? You were dismissed from this case.”

“Windfire paid me in advance, sir, and more than he should have. Plus, he was a good friend. I couldn’t simply pack up and leave.”

“Right,” the other dragon said, disbelief heavy in his voice.

“And then you folks—”

“Answered the call, sir,” Keith responded and sounded like the eager kid he so often seemed to be.

“So it was you who called Kristen?” Stonequest asked him.

“Yes, sir. There’s nothing wrong with her doing what she wants, right? She was suspended from dragon SWAT.” The Rookie grinned as broadly as Jasper.

“To be clear, Stonequest, this is a human matter,” Drew said. “We were called by someone presenting themselves as human to solve a human matter, namely breaking and entering. There are no dragon laws against that.”

“And you came fully loaded to do that?”

“You’ve met us.” Hernandez stuck her tongue out. “Do you think we do anything less than fully loaded?”

“Fair point,” Stonequest said. “But it seems like you didn’t really listen to me about not mixing human and dragon affairs, Kristen.”

“Was I supposed to let them rush in here and get slaughtered?” Kristen asked.

He finally cracked a smile again. “No, of course not. That’s not why I brought you on. But all of you need to understand that this is top secret. Every aspect of these weapons is classified until the Dragon Council can determine what to do about them.”

Stonequest turned to the humans assembled. “That goes double for you too.” He flexed his aura, and she felt it as surely as her team did. He was deadly serious.

Drew straightened. “Sir, the last thing we want would be for news of this kind to get out and endanger the security and stability of our city, state, or country. Rest assured, your secret is safe with us and that if anything else like this does crop up, Dragon SWAT will be the first to know.”

“That brings me to another point,” the dragon said. “This whole situation is a jurisdictional mess. Honestly, even thinking about the headquarters lawyers is a nightmare.”

“But sir,” Kristen interjected. “I answered a human call. What’s the problem?”

“That’s the damn problem. Humans do not tell us what to do.”

“And they didn’t,” Jasper said, clinging to his story. “They answered a dragon, which means Kristen did too.”

Stonequest shook his head. He clearly wasn’t convinced in the slightest. “Maybe we can get this to blow over this one time, but that doesn’t mean it won’t keep happening. The fact is, I need to find somewhere to keep you out of trouble.”

Her heart dropped into her shoes. There must be some kind of curse that could entrap her in the paper dungeon. Ah, well, freedom had been nice while it lasted.

“You’ve proven that I need to keep my eye on you, and I can think of only one place where I can really do that.”

“Where’s that, sir?” She couldn’t even pretend to keep the dread out of her voice.

“On Dragon SWAT, serving with me.”

Kristen—for a rare moment—was speechless. Finally, she managed, “But I thought I had to earn my place there?” It came out sarcastic and a little bitter, which wasn’t what she had really intended but was how she felt.

Stonequest shrugged and pointed to the trashed mansion. “I think this proves you have what it takes. You single-handedly pursued one hell of a killer not once or twice, but three times, and you uncovered a treasure trove of evidence.”

“I told you that it was me who—”

He waved his hand at Sergeant Ridgespine and the other dragon stopped talking. “It might not have looked like we were watching, but we were. And that only proves my point. You convinced all these folks—human and dragon alike—to work together, and that woman still escaped. If we want to catch her and the people she works with, I have no doubt that I’ll need your help.”

“But I failed,” she said, still dumbfounded. She’d let the murderer escape and he wanted to promote her? Maybe dragons really were different.

“Hall, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Drew snapped in the voice of her old superior officer.

“Or the throat of a dragon,” Jim quipped and earned a glare from Ridgespine.

“All right…” Kristen said hesitantly.

“Excellent. I’m glad we’re in agreement on something, for once.” Stonequest smiled.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Drew said and immediately wiped the smile off the dragon leader’s face. “Kristen, if they don’t treat you like the excellent cop you are, you are always welcome with us.”

The rest of her team nodded, and her heart swelled.

“Oh, shit, Drew. You’ll make her cry.” Hernandez grimaced.

“And hug.” Kristen caught the other woman in a bear hug. When she tried to fight, she whined that her arm still hurt so Hernandez relented and let the Steel Dragon hug her while everyone else made stupid cutesy noises.

It was nice to be able to torture a friend with something so simple. It was even better than shooting Drew in paintball.

“We will endeavor to make sure you don’t leave us, Lady Steel,” Stonequest said and sounded quite formal. “We want you on the team so you can help us and so we can learn from you. I can’t promise that we’ll change thousands of years of culture and methods overnight, but I’m willing to try to get started. Besides, it would seem that if we don’t, someone will try to hold a gun to our head to force us. What do you say? Are you here for this?”

She nodded and took his hand. They shook and their auras pressed against each other, feeling for any degree of hesitancy or disagreement, any hidden resentment, or feelings that had gone unspoken.

Kristen found none in him, only an earnest desire to do better, do right by her, and try to help people who didn’t always know they needed help.

With that simple exchange, she accepted the promotion. She didn’t know what was more exciting—the idea of being an actual officer on Dragon SWAT, tasked with investigating a new kind of weapon and the cabal of criminals who had invented it, or the prospect of bragging about it to her brother.

Luckily for her, she didn’t have to decide. She would be able to do both.

THE STORY CONTINUES

The story continues with book five: Terror Obscura, available now at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

Claim your copy today!

KEVIN’S AUTHOR NOTES

NOVEMBER 24, 2019

Wow.

OK, before I say anything else, I was to say thank you, for reading and loving the Steel Dragon story so darned much. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Readers like you are what keeps me at the keyboard writing new stories. The first Steel Dragon book was an enormous success thanks to folks like you sitting down to read and enjoy the world Michael and I created.

I mean, I had a pretty good idea the book would work from the beginning. Michael and I are both decent writers and we both have a lot of experience at this gig, so I went into the project with confidence. But the reception you've offered for our story has far outstripped my expectations.

You rock. I appreciate every comment, every review, every good word folks have left for these books.

Getting these stories done and finished RIGHT has been a challenge. It's a lot of plotting, a ton of writing, and bunches of editing to get each story honed to where it should be. You've made every bit of it more than worthwhile.

Here we are at the end of yet another big chunk of Kristen Hall's tale. Don't worry, though; there's plenty more coming. The world will continue unfolding for Kristen as she delves deeper into the mysteries of what it means to be a dragon, and more, what it means to be a dragon raised by humans. There's still Constance out there with her strange crew, too. What are they after? What's their endgame? A lot of questions remain unanswered, but we'll learn more about these things in the books to come.

It's been ages since I did anything in urban fantasy. Some of my first books were in this genre, but I moved from there to mostly writing science fiction for a long time. Skipping back over to UF for Steel Dragon has reignited some of those old fires, though. I've got other UF ideas I'm playing with now. Just had a cool idea for one book that's going to end up wrapped into a future Steel Dragon story, actually, but if there's one thing I don't have a shortage of, it's story ideas! There are so many things a writer can do with UF that we can't do in science fiction, and I'd forgotten how much fun this particular sandbox could be.

For me, learning new things is one of the best parts of this work. If I ever stopped learning with each new book I wrote, I don't think I'd keep doing this. Every time I sit down to write, I want to make something better than I have before, or learn some new bit of the craft or business of writing. I figure if I can keep showing up to the keyboard with an empty cup, the work itself will keep filling it for me. So far this has worked out really well across all my work, and this series is no exception.

Working with other people continues to be an eye-opening experience. I'm one of those writers who's used to doing it all myself. For my solo work I do everything I possibly can. It's possible I might grip the proverbial reins a little TOO tightly, sometimes. But Michael and LMBPN are the absolute inverse of that experience. He has a team of beta readers who rock, editors who do just an amazing job, and cover artists who - well, you don't need to be told. You've seen the covers on these books. They rock! LMBPN is a big collective of creative folks all working together like a well-oiled machine.

Learning to 'play well with others' in the writing game has changed how I operate quite a bit. I mean, I have deadlines now. Real ones, not ones I set myself. If I don't get things done on time I'm not just letting myself down, I'm throwing the whole team into disarray. That's been a powerful learning experience, and I'm grateful for it.

I can't wait to see how this series ends.

Oh, sure, Michael and I have a rough idea what we want to happen, but so much discovery goes on as we write these things that it's not set in stone. I figure we've got two or three more books this size to go after this. That's a lot of story left to go, and Kristen is going to have to do a lot of growing up and into herself if she's going to become the person she'll be at the end. I think she'll prove up to the task, how about you?

Oh, a little tidbit about me: I am a tech geek. I'm typing this on a brand new, bought-it-today Chromebook, the new Pixelbook Go. I've got a MacBook I generally use for my writing, but... The Pixelbook Go was just SO SHINY! I had to check it out. If I don't like it, the computer will go back to Best Buy, but so far I'm really enjoying the typing experience. Chrome is limited, which in many ways makes it perfect for writing. So long as I don't load any games on the thing, and lock myself out of Facebook, this laptop is a serious writing machine of doom! Yeah, I love trying out all of the newest tech toys. I even told Michael about the new 16" MacBook Pro while we were at the 20Books Vegas conference together, last week. Because he's just as into trying out new toys as I am... So of course, he had to have one! It's one of the fun things we share, that love of what tech can do to change the world and our lives.

Thank you again SO MUCH for reading all this! If you've got any questions, shoot them my way at kevins.studio@gmail.com. I'm always glad to hear from a reader. It's been awesome to create this work for you, and I look forward to continuing the journey as we explore Kristen's past and what lies ahead in her future!

MICHAEL’S AUTHOR NOTES

NOVEMBER 25, 2019

Thank you so much for reading our story, and these Author Notes hidden way in the back!

I appreciate Kevin speaking to the fact that he is used to doing everything on his stories. Not that I didn’t know that, but I didn’t KNOW that (which usually means I failed to realize the impact on a person.)

As a writer / publisher, I have worked with many others to produce projects for the last few years. Ever since LMBPN’s fifth book (which was my fifth book), I have had help getting the stories out into the universe, and the hands in the pie grew from there.

Like Kevin, I love to play with technology. Unlike Kevin, every time I have delved into Google products (hardware, not software), I have left unsatisfied.

For most of my professional life, I have worked with software programming and then computers and servers. While the programming side was fun (until I had to deal with pennies on reports), the hardware side frustrated me. Why? There was usually one way to fix the damned hardware, and for me, it meant a puzzle I just couldn’t create a new path around to fix.

With programming, it was my choice what I placed inside the open and close remarks. With hardware, you had to figure out if the physical piece was bad. Were the drivers in the computer bad? Did we have conflicts between the drivers? Did something you installed in your computer mess up some other part that was already in your computer?

In short, it was frustrating. Since my family and I were rarely more than a paycheck ahead (on payday) I had more home-built computers to play with than purchased computers. Over the decades, I’ve grown to dislike frustration with hardware (and eventually software) more and more, leading me to finally test Apple computers in 2009.

I fell in love.

Not that Apple computers are wonderful at everything (the keyboard I am typing on, for example, is a technological marvel but a practical pain in my a$$...or fingers, to be precise. I hate it.)

However, now when I try out substantially different computers (like a Google Chromebook), I am back to learning and feeling frustrated in just a few seconds, and I put it down.

Dammit, that means I am officially old, right? Which means Kevin is a young whippersnapper. You know, that is probably right on the technology front. I wish him well with his Google Chromebook experience, but my sixteen-inch Apple MacBook should be waiting for me when I get back from this trip to California I’m on.

However, when it comes to publishing, Kevin is the old man, and I am the young whippersnapper. Kevin’s family (parents, Mom?) has been in the publishing/printing/bookselling world since he was young, and he grew up around the traditional model. He published his first book about a gazillion years ago.

I mean, eight for indies is a gazillion, right?

Either way, I think he has knowledge going back to the twentieth century, and all I did during that time was purchase books at Half-Price bookstore in Houston, TX.

I’m presently typing these Author Notes in our home near Los Angeles. By this time in February, this house should be sold, and should I type new Author Notes while here in California, they will come from my mom’s or brother’s house or some hotel we are staying in during a visit.

It will be a new era for the Steel Dragon series and one I look forward to chatting with you about.

Like Kevin said, THANK YOU so much for everything you have done to support these stories. We appreciate you reading them, reviewing them, and taking time out of your day to come to our worlds.

Without readers like you, we wouldn’t be blessed to create the stories we do.

Thank you!

Ad Aeternitatem,

Michael Anderle

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)

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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For a complete list of books by Michael Anderle, please visit:

www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/

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