The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  The little bitch had made friends with the dragons as well.

  Once she realized this, she redefined her plan. Slaying the humans wouldn’t be enough. She’d still try to catch them in the blast, but she knew that even if she somehow caught them all—which was unlikely given the human female’s interest in explosives—there’d still be people left who the Steel Dragon cared about.

  Those were the pathetic dragons who allowed her to share the same breath as them. Any plan of true vengeance couldn’t ignore the dragons. Vengeance had to be complete and total. Obscura had to take everything from Kristen—everything. Her brother, her human friends, her dragon allies, and her parents.

  But it didn’t have to happen right away, she told herself—and thus the oath—again and again.

  When most dragons would have withered at the loss of power, she used it as a reminder. She had to exercise patience and caution and bide her time until the moment was right.

  Then, and only then, would she take the world away from Kristen Hall, the Steel Dragon, and justice would be hers.

  Yes… The oath echoed her thoughts, still hungry to be fulfilled and for what was promised. Yes…

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  When Kristen Hall had worked at the Detroit Police Department on the Special Weapons and Tactics team, she had served in a one-story building. When emergencies had presented themselves, she’d raced outside or to the parking garage, never down a set of stairs. Because of this, she didn’t quite understand why running upstairs for an emergency felt unnatural, but she couldn’t shake the feeling.

  Maybe it was that the Capital Square Building in downtown Detroit was six stories high so she had to climb multiple sets of stairs. Maybe it was because the stairs took her past offices with mages filling forms out with levitating pens, a gym filled with what appeared to be people lifting ungodly amounts of weight, and a top floor where her bosses appeared in ceremonial robes as often as they did in business attire.

  She burst through the door and onto the roof of the Capital Square Building. Six stories below, the city of Detroit went about its business. Umbrellas kept some dry from the late spring rain and cars splashed through puddles and soaked the unobservant. Coffee shops and restaurants beckoned them inside as otherworldly creatures sprang into action above them.

  Stonequest—Kristen’s boss—stood at the edge of the building and looked down onto the slick street below. “Good time,” he said without turning to her. “But remember, you don’t always have to use the stairs.”

  “I’m first, aren’t I? It looks like the stairs worked well.”

  “First to the roof is not first into the air.” Heartsbane climbed over the wall next to him.

  With a curse, she realized that she’d hesitated and retained her human form—a rookie mistake.

  Heartsbane sneered at her, then transformed. In a moment, the woman with steel-blue eyes and platinum-blonde hair tied in tight French braids became a dragon covered in scales as white as ivory. Although Kristen had seen her teammates transform hundreds of times, it was still impressive.

  “Still, second,” she said to Stonequest with a grin.

  “Hardly,” He pointed to the air. Two other dragons already circled above the Capital Square Building like hawks rising higher and higher on thermals despite the rainy weather.

  She sent him a crooked grin. “Race ya!” she challenged as she shed her human form and became the Steel Dragon. First, a cloud of silvery glitter materialized all around her. She still didn’t know if the steel particles came from her or the air or what but had decided it didn’t matter. The transformation was magical in nature, so maybe it was irrelevant where the metallic shards came from. What did matter was that they enveloped her to surround her in a shimmering cloud that coalesced on her body.

  Within this, her arms, legs, and neck extended, her body thickened, and her hands became claws. A ridge of steel spines appeared along her back and her spine elongated into a long tail with a pointed tip and a wedge like an ax blade immediately below it. Finally, wings grew from her shoulders. She pumped them once, scattered the silvery flecks that had hidden her transformation to send them back to wherever they’d come from, and became airborne.

  “How’s that, Stonequest?” Kristen boasted from the air, only to realize that he had already transformed. In his dragon form, he appeared to be made of whitish marble with veins of pink and green running through the stone. He had a similar power to her in that his skin was as hard as stone when in his dragon form, but that was a fairly common power, at least compared to her steel skin. Other dragons in history had been made of stone but no dragon had ever possessed steel skin. The rest of her team made sure not to let this go to her head.

  “Good job, Steel,” Heartsbane said, using the name dragon society had given her despite her not ever really asking for it. “If your plan was to make a sparkly firework and cost us a half-minute, you did extremely well.”

  Despite her harsh words, Kristen knew she was joking. All dragons had emotional auras they could use to communicate and influence what they thought of as lesser species like birds, dogs, and—unfortunately in Kristen’s view—people. Heartsbane was a normal dragon but had an especially powerful aura. While Kristen could influence a small crowd with broad strokes of emotions—things like make a group angry or calm them—Heartsbane could influence much greater numbers of people and could even make multiple people feel different things at the same time. Currently, she let her teammate know that she felt like she’d done fairly well but could do better.

  She would take it. For Heartsbane, that was practically awarding her a trophy. For someone who had their pulse on the emotions of others, her default was pissed.

  Then Stonequest and his second in command vanished into the clouds.

  For a moment, Kristen panicked. She didn’t know where she was going or even what the emergency had been. Dragons didn’t use GPS or anything like that. When something came in, one of them got the location and they flew there. If she lost track of the convoy of flying dragons, she wouldn’t be able to make it to their destination as she didn’t even know where it was.

  Before she could truly panic, she felt the aura of John Emeraldeyes—Emerald, to the other dragons, although she liked to think of him as John. He was young for a dragon—only a century—and he was a true common. While he could transform from his dark-skinned, dreadlocked and buff as hell human form into a fire-breathing green dragon, that was about all. He had dragon strength, speed, and heightened senses in his human form, plus an emotional aura, but beyond that, he was normal. Well, as normal as a shapeshifting dragon could ever be. Kristen might have actually used his human name, but whenever she did, the rest of the dragons gave him endless shit for it. John had a real chip on his shoulder for being young, a common, and having been given a human name from birth. Really, he was mostly chips on the shoulder, but she still liked him.

  She pumped her wings to follow him and entered a cloud and her sightlines dropped to nonexistent. Although she couldn’t see a thing, she could still feel Emerald’s aura and flew toward it like a lighthouse through the clouds.

  When she caught up to him—flapping her wings like a pigeon—he coasted effortlessly like an eagle riding high. She was getting better but still had much to learn about flight.

  “What’s up, Steel?” he asked and nodded for her to get into position behind him. Dragons often flew in formation to reduce air resistance and make for an easier flight. She settled in to fly at his right wing and a little behind him.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she replied.

  “An alarm went off at a mansion in the burbs,” he said.

  “A dragon’s place?”

  “We wouldn’t be here otherwise, Steel. You know that,” Emerald said.

  Kristen wanted to press for more detail but Heartsbane emerged from the clouds and fell into formation behind the tip of Emerald’s left wing. “Not bad, Steel. I fully expected you to crash into that cell towe
r back there.”

  “You knew where I was the whole time?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, of course. Confusion and nerves are fairly easy emotions to track, plus…well, feel free to be offended by this, but you still feel like a human.”

  The dragon had probably meant that as an insult, but Kristen didn’t take it as one. She’d been raised by humans—Frank and Marty Hall—and had a human brother. The official story was that they’d found her on their doorstep when she was a baby and had raised her like their own. She would always think of herself as human first—at least she hoped she would. Living for centuries would undoubtedly change one’s perspective.

  “Wait, there was a cell tower? You know I’m made of steel, right? I could have been electrocuted.” She hadn’t seen any obstructions in the sky and had no idea how close she’d come to disaster.

  “Naw, they cut off fairly quickly when you collide with them.” They punched from the cloud cover obscuring Detroit and Erin Timeflash came to fly with them. She fell into formation behind Kristen and then, noticing that she was still kind of shaky when it came to drafting, coasted over to fly behind Heartsbane instead. “Besides, if you had crashed into it, I could’ve fixed it before it hit the ground. Those cell towers look huge but they’re mostly empty space. Steel beams in regularly repeating patterns are easy to put back together, way easier than a house filled with odds and ends.”

  “Or steel dragons,” Heartsbane quipped.

  Kristen rolled her eyes at her. She knew full well that Erin’s powers couldn’t fix living things. Still, her powers were amazing. Timeflash couldn’t control time, but it sure as hell looked like she could. She could restore broken things to their pre-broken shape, assuming the things hadn’t been destroyed for too long and that they weren’t complex. She’d never be able to reconstruct ruins, for example, or even a house that had been wrecked by a storm a week before, but the extent of her powers was always impressive. She liked it when Kristen called her Erin, which Kristen was grateful for although she didn’t really mind Emerald insisting that she not call him John. Timeflash’s powers were incredibly rare and she’d always been treated well because of them.

  Still, it was nice that growing up as a pampered purple dragon hadn’t turned her into someone spoiled and disconnected.

  “Good to have you back, Erin,” she shouted over the wind and flexed her aura so the other dragon could feel she was serious. “This means I can wreck more stuff without Stonequest getting mad.”

  “I heard you all had quite the battle in a warehouse when I was gone. Pity. I might have been able to put it back together and determine how much Obscura had done herself.”

  “Who cares how much the ancient bitch did? Steel beat her and she’s locked up in dragon prison. End of story.” Emerald said.

  “I didn’t beat her on my own,” Kristen explained. “Human SWAT helped, plus Lumos. Speaking of which, where is Old Gold?” She had tried and failed to give Lumos a nickname.

  “I’m here, Steel Baby,” Lumos said. From a human, it might have seemed sexist, but he was simply too nice and too old for her to think of him as anything but a kindly old-timer. He was an ancient gold dragon and should have owned a ridiculous estate somewhere but instead, was still part of Dragon SWAT. He was her best friend on the team. Although she’d known Stonequest longer, Lumos was more relatable, and—being lower ranked than Stonequest—didn’t hurl bureaucratic bullshit at her the way their leader could.

  He fell into formation behind her and didn’t complain about her less than perfect drafting skills.

  Finally, with the team assembled, Stonequest emerged from a cloud and took point. Emerald shifted to the left, making Heartsbane and Erin fall farther back. Kristen adjusted to drafting off Stonequest instead of Emerald—an operation the rest of the dragons made look effortless. For the second time in the flight, she felt like a pigeon, flapping and flapping until she finally found the sweet spot.

  “So, what’s the deal, boss?” Emerald asked. “I know you said there was an alarm. Is that all we have?”

  “Basically,” Stonequest replied.

  “Then why is the whole team going out there?” Heartsbane sounded annoyed.

  “Troubling times, Heartsbane, troubling times,” he replied solemnly but said nothing further as they flew from Detroit and out into the suburbs. They gradually left the clouds behind them and soared over an idyllic springtime countryside below them.

  Their route took them over a few subdivisions, past hotels, and followed a road to a private residence. Like all the dragon estates Kristen had seen, it was absolutely sprawling. Massive manicured grounds surrounded an impressive mansion. Visitors could get lost in a hedge maze made of rose bushes or perhaps visit one of several small outer buildings all built of stone.

  They made two laps around the estate from the air, looking for movement, signs of a break-in, bloodshed, or anything at all, but nothing seemed out of place. It appeared to be a quiet mansion, although with far less security than Windfire’s property had possessed.

  She hoped this case was different than that one. Windfire had been obsessively paranoid and with good reason—he’d been murdered by a team of techno-mages with a grudge against dragons. Dragon SWAT still refused to admit this, but she didn’t see any other option. At this mansion, at least, it seemed possible that someone else could have snuck in besides an elite infiltration team equipped with magic. Then, there was the fact that Windfire had been shot in the chest and killed while she watched. She very much hoped to avoid anything like that again.

  Stonequest signaled for them to land so the dragons all banked their wings and spiraled lower and lower, surrounding the mansion like giant vultures.

  The team settled in front of the building. Kristen transformed into her human form—although she activated her steel skin—and approached the front door.

  “Hold up, Steel.” Stonequest shook his head.

  “Oh, sorry. Do you want to take point or something?” she asked, confused why no one else had transformed yet.

  “That’s where the elder dragon entertained guests.” The leader nodded toward the mansion. “The alarm that went off was from his private residence below. This way.”

  He led them around the mansion toward a massive garage. Sports cars were parked out front despite the intermittent rainy weather of spring in Michigan. That seemed like an odd thing to her, especially considering the size of the garage behind the vehicles. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could fill such a large place with anything, let alone cars.

  Stonequest—still in dragon form—approached the garage, entered a code on a keypad, and the doors opened.

  The interior was completely empty. There were no sports cars, no weird old hotrods, and no limousines. Instead of concrete, the floor was all steel—a weird affectation, she thought until all the dragons moved inside and Stonequest operated another control panel.

  He entered and the team joined him in the middle of the garage as the floor began to descend.

  Kristen couldn’t believe how large the platform they were on was. Five dragons currently stood on it, and there was definitely room for her to transform as well.

  She struggled to accept the scale of it, and as the elevator sank deeper and deeper into the earth, she couldn’t help but feel that they were being swallowed by something far larger.

  The team seemed to feel the same and no one joked or talked shit as they continued into the abyss. Instead, they stood poised and ready to strike, even in their dragon form, as if their very lives might be at stake.

  It wasn’t a pleasant ride.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Dragon form, Steel,” Stonequest ordered, which sent a chill down Kristen’s spine as she transformed. “We don’t know what’s going to be down there,” he continued. It could be a couple of dragons with a grudge they have already resolved or it could be a pissed-off elder dragon who accidentally set his own alarm off and doesn’t even know that we’re on our way.”<
br />
  She didn’t mention that it might be a team of mages armed with dragon-slaying bullets because she knew it would irritate her teammates and Stonequest especially if she did, but she hoped they all at least considered that as an option.

  The doors to the lift opened and Dragon SWAT sprang into action. There was no immediate threat, so their priority was to secure the area. Stonequest led Heartsbane and Erin to the left and Kristen followed Emerald to the right with Lumos on her heels.

  While she was trained to look for movement or any other sign of hostiles, she’d never had to search for them in such a grand setting.

  The elevator had opened into a cavern large enough to let the six dragons all fly simultaneously if they wished to do so, but the size of it wasn’t the most important part. The entire surface—every inch of the walls, ceiling, and even part of the floor was adorned with elaborate carvings.

  On one wall, two dragons carved in stone fought for all eternity. One breathed fire on the other, the flames highlighted with gold inlaid into the stone. Both had gemstones for eyes that were almost comically large. Another wall had a landscape carved into it. A stream anchored the foreground in front of a forest which, in turn, sprawled before a mountain range with a castle perched high atop it. Animals rendered so beautifully that she thought they might come off the wall were hidden in the trees as well. Their eyes were also gemstones.

  The landscape gave way to a carving of a small town of villagers who, again, were all beautifully carved. They watched the dragon battle above them with equal parts fear and awe, frozen forever. The humans didn’t have gems for eyes, she noticed, but their clothes were worked with silver and gold filaments. Each of the walls flowed into the one beside it, so rather than feel like she looked at pieces of art, she had the sense that she was immersed in this stony tableau. It was breathtakingly beautiful, the workmanship both realistic and evocative. Added to this was the sheer magnitude of gold and precious gems scattered about. She imagined that this cavern alone was worth more than many of the buildings in downtown Detroit.