Firedrake - Volume Two

by T. Mike McCurley

  “Give up?” Onslaught grunted, still holding fast to the thick neck. He drew back his left hand for another swing. As it landed, Drake saw more images.

  Monster playing with his booster action figures.

  “Getting…” Drake said, slamming his head backward. It struck Onslaught on the bridge of the nose with a sick squelching sound. The grip around Drake’s neck relaxed a bit. Drake repeated the attack, again feeling the satisfying crunch of bone on bone.

  Monster wrapping his arms around Drake in greeting, his moon-shaped eyes wide with delight.

  “Tired…” Drake continued. He drove his left elbow back into Onslaught‘s abdomen, landing the blow directly atop the dusty footprint the had left on the man‘s BDU shirt with his earlier kick. Onslaught slid his body further to the right to avoid a repeat of the assault and Drake grinned .Lowering his right hand, he reached behind him and gripped the leg that Onslaught was trying unsuccessfully to wrap around the enormous frame of the dragon.

  Monster sitting in his chair, the remnants of a brownie smeared on his face, liter-sized cup of milk raised to his chocolate-stained lips.

  “Of…” Yellowed claws dug deep into the meat of Onslaught’s lower leg and Drake pulled forward, exerting his prodigious strength in the move. The leg stretched out ahead of him on his right side.

  Monster sitting down to watch cartoons, cookie in one hand.

  “This…” Drake gripped the extended ankle with his left hand and continued to pull up and forward. Still stunned, Onslaught was trying to maintain his grip on the neck.

  Monster laughing at his brother trying to dance.

  “Shit!” Drake finished, throwing himself down as he brought the leg up and under his own right arm. The weight of the pair falling hyperextended the knee joint and the sound of ligaments tearing and bone cracking was clearly audible. Onslaught shrieked in sudden agony, both hands releasing their hold and scrabbling to reach the injured limb.

  Rolling off him, Drake turned and leered down at the man, crimson traces running from his mouth as a string of bloody drool dripped slowly toward the floor. A hissing sound combined with the growl that erupted from his throat and he snapped his head forward in a rapid motion, teeth flashing in the spotlight as the giant mouth opened wide and slammed shut on either side of the executioner’s hood worn by Onslaught.

  “Now,” Drake said, his voice muffled and speech impeded by the state in which he currently held his mouth. “Give up or I eat you.”

  Onslaught released his leg with his right hand and waved frantically. “I give!” he called, his own words nearly as muffled as had been Drake’s due to his head being inside a mouth.

  Drake instantly relaxed his grip and pulled his head away, his need to end the fight sated. “Get a medic over here!” he shouted. He knelt beside the injured Onslaught, slipping an arm beneath the man’s right shoulder and hoisting him to his feet. Drake lifted slowly, keeping the mangled leg from contacting the ground at all as the paramedics he had seen earlier jumped to action.

  “You beat me,” Onslaught said, his voice little more than a whisper. His body was limp weight in Drake’s grasp.

  “Wasn’t easy,” Drake replied. “That power-punch thing you’ve got going? Pretty damned effective.”

  “Still wasn’t enough.”

  “Shut up, slick. You’re going into shock,” Drake said. He could feel his own blood running freely as he spoke, dripping from his chin onto the floor.

  “Why’d you quit? You had me done,” Onslaught said as Drake lowered him onto the gurney. One of the medics struggled to immobilize the thick leg of his patient, shears sparkling as they slit through the material of the trousers. The knee hove into view, a reddened and rapidly-swelling mass of tissue that Drake could imagine was incredibly painful. At the top of the gurney, the second medic was sliding a bright needle into the meat of Onslaught’s arm.

  “I told you. I didn’t come here to kill you. Didn’t really want to fight you at all, but truth be told, I wanted to shut you up and that seemed like my only option,” Drake said with a chuckle that came out as a hideous bubbling sound as blood was pushed past his teeth.

  “I’ll get better and I’ll be back,” Onslaught promised. His neck arched suddenly, forcing his head back against the pillow on the cot, as the medic made some adjustment to the injured knee.

  “Yeah? Next time, how about we throw a round of darts or something? Rock-paper-scissors maybe? Shit, I’ll take a quick game of chess over missing teeth any day.”

  “I’m gonna be the best. One day, every…body‘s gonna know…who I am,” Onslaught said in a voice that was quickly losing strength. Drake looked up in alarm, but the medic just pointed to the empty syringe he was dropping into a red plastic box.

  “Gunsmoke! Better get over here if you wanna talk to this monkey!”

  The grey-clad booster was at Drake’s side before the shout even finished. The omnipresent dust boiled up from around his boots as he arrived. He leaned down and whispered into Onslaught’s ear - or at least where the hood made it seem an ear would be found. Onslaught mumbled out an answer, to which Gunsmoke listened with an intent expression. He nodded after a moment and stepped clear of the gurney.

  “Got what I needed,” he said, turning on one heel and heading for the doorway.

  “Yo! Hold up, slick!” Drake called, placing a comforting hand on Onslaught’s shoulder. He leaned down to whisper a word of encouragement before turning and following Gunsmoke. His progress was slow, at best, as the attacks by Onslaught still had him seeing multiple images and hearing very little.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded. The answering drawl was calmly delivered.

  “You know where I’m headed, Drake. Gonna go find me these assholes what put that bug in Spud. Then I’m gonna get me some payback.”

  “Well, I hate to shoot down your stunningly well-thought-out plan,” Drake said with a snort, “but did it occur to you that maybe this ain’t the best way to go about solving this little problem?”

  “I know what you’re saying, Drake, but it don’t help none.” Gunsmoke handed him a slip of paper with a series of scrawled numbers on it. “That’s the GPS set for where Spud’s staying. If your buddy Splicer can help him, I’d be obliged. As for me, I know who I’m looking for now.”

  “Who?”

  “Think I’ll spill to you just for the asking? Then you and your super-idiots go rolling in there and get ‘em before I can get a shot in.”

  Smiling a little under the brim of his hat, Gunsmoke handed over Drake’s pistol. “I reckon you’ll be needing that sometime real soon.”

  A voice in Drake’s head screamed for him to place the booster under arrest, but he knew it was a futile line of thought. Even when he had been at his best, Gunsmoke had taken him. Now, after the devastating fight with Onslaught, he was in no shape to attempt such a feat. He could also see the look in Gunsmoke’s eyes that said clearly that the same thoughts had run through his mind.

  “I’ll get word to you, Drake. Tell you where to pick up the bodies.”

  “You keep killing folk and Hart’s gonna make good on her promise to put you on the Top Ten list,” Drake said, once again tucking the massive slab-sided pistol into his waistband.

  “Yeah? If they do, make sure they get a decent picture, would you? Most of them jackasses they put up there look like a baboon with a stick up its ass.”

  Tipping his hat, Gunsmoke stepped back into the rear of the transport van that had brought them to the warehouse. “Jimmy sent a message to your people; told ‘em where to find you. Reckon they’ll be here in a few to pick you up.”

  He banged on the wall behind the cab, and a second later the truck lurched and the tires chirped as Jimmy accelerated sharply away from the curb. The last thing Drake saw of Gunsmoke was two images of the booster waving merrily from the open back of the truck, and then it vanished around a curve.

  Sighing, Drake returned to the interior of the warehouse. After the
minute spent outside, the smells hit him with a new strength. Blood, burned metal and stone, smoke and sulfur. Around the warehouse, people were scrambling to recover their equipment. Laptops were closing at an alarming rate. Drake marched into the center of the room and raised his arms, whistling sharply to gain the attention of those remaining in the room.

  “All right, listen up!” he yelled. As the people paused in their actions and looked at him, he continued. “First off, I’ve got a couple of busted teeth, so I ain’t real happy. Whistling at y’all like that makes my face hurt. Who’s got the camera feeds?”

  A half-dozen hands rose, all pointing at a slender, pale-faced man with wire-rimmed glasses. He swallowed in response to how quickly his associates had given him up, and then timidly raised a hand. “I do,” he said.

  “Put me on live. Right now, and on the same channels you had the fight.”

  A few seconds later and the man raised a thumb to indicate that the camera he had only moments before been dismantling was now transmitting Drake’s image. Drake nodded and faced the unblinking eye of the video pickup.

  “My name is Francis Drake. I am a Federal Agent. Most of you know this already, seeing as how you tuned in to see me fight with Onslaught. Anyway, what I’m getting at is this: The reward he posted for me? It’s been paid. It ain’t a valid thing no more. So the first one of you dumb enough to try and jump me on the streets is gonna wind up in a hospital or worse. I ain’t gonna figure on no little catch-and-release program going on, so I’ll just bet you’re tryin’ to kill me and I’ll react accordingly. I hope this much is clear.”

  He jerked a thumb across his throat to indicate that the statement was over and the camera could be turned off, then walked with as much dignity as his battered frame would allow back to the doors. Stepping once more into the cooler air outside, he casually closed the portal behind him and leaned his massive frame against it, sliding slowly down until he was seated on the ground outside.

  “Sure could use a beer about now,” he said aloud. He spat a crimson stream onto the pavement and leaned his head back against the door, ignoring the cries and pounding from inside as the crews attempted to leave. Those who arrived to transport him out could take them into custody. He grinned again as the thought occurred to him that he may have set a new record for the most people arrested by a single Agent at one time, simply by sealing them inside the warehouse.

  He probed at a loose tooth with one of his claws, groaning as the sharp bit fell out to clatter off his scales and continue on to the ground. Sighing, he removed his hand from his mouth and scratched at the top of his skull for a moment. He could hear sirens approaching, and the thought that he could soon be out of the area entirely made the mischievous grin fold back into a genuine smile.

  “Taking a couple weeks off,” he promised himself. “I’m going to go hang with Monster, and I don’t care what kind of crisis pops up. Let somebody else handle it for a change.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The battle with Onslaught had been a tremendous success for the Department, according to the Public Information officers that spoke with Drake. “Incredible ratings”, they had raved as they stood beside his bed in the infirmary. The doctors, too, had been amazed - not at the fight that most of them had witnessed, but at the unearthly healing rate Drake was exhibiting. He had simply smiled and popped another of the pills given to him by Gunsmoke’s medical contact. Apparently, whatever was in them had kicked his already accelerated healing rate into overdrive.

  When Hart finally arrived to check up on him, Drake handed her a piece of paper. On it, in large block letters, were the words, “I’M TAKING A VACATION. DON’T BUG ME FOR TWO WEEKS OR I’LL EAT SOMEONE IMPORTANT.”

  With a knowing smile, Hart handed him a plane ticket to Colorado that was already prepared in his name, along with the numbers of a dozen psychotherapists and counselors.

  Once the Department van had delivered him to the safehouse, Drake stepped through the narrow gate of the white picket fence, closing it carefully behind him. It squeaked mightily, and he made a mental note to oil it while he was at the house. The front door opened before he had even mounted the steps, and the enormous frame of his brother flew out in a rush, hair flying as gigantic feet slapped on the ground. A thrilled shout erupted from the wide mouth and he slammed into Drake with all his usual force, nearly bowling over the reptilian booster.

  “I told him you were coming,” said the woman in the doorway of the home. Still wearing the blue jumpsuit that was some sort of standard issue for her employer, Sala had apparently remained on as Monster’s security detail. She, too, was the owner of a happy smile at the sight of the massive scaled booster.

  “I could tell,” Drake said as he enveloped Monster in a tight embrace. His wings wrapped forward and around the pair, cocooning them both for a brief moment before folding back into place against Drake’s back.

  “Good to see you, monkey-man,” Drake told his brother, ruffling his hair as he always did in greeting. Monster reached up, placing a hand nearly as large as Drake’s atop the emerald scales of his brother’s head and rubbing in a similar manner.

  “Ain’t quite the same, is it?” Drake teased, patting Monster on the shoulder. “You been good while I was gone?”

  “Yes,” Monster said, nodding emphatically. He stole a glance over his shoulder at Sala, who was suppressing a grin.

  “I see,” Drake said, not missing the obvious visual clue. “What’d he do?”

  “He’s the perfect angel!” Sala protested, pasting on a look of shock at Drake’s words. “Aren’t you, Monster?”

  “Yes, I am!”

  “Well, all right, then,” Drake said. “Since no one wants to tell me, I guess it can’t be that bad.”

  “It wasn’t. I mean it,” Monster said, instantly biting his lip as the words tumbled from his mouth. He looked down at the ground, shuffling his feet and wiggling his fingers.

  “What did you break?” Drake asked, struggling to keep from grinning.

  “He didn’t break anything, Drake,” Sala said, waving her finger back and forth in front of his face. Out of view of Monster, she winked at Drake and he nodded.

  “Okay. Let’s go on inside,” he said, flapping a hand to show that he was waving away the entire issue. The trio stepped into the safehouse, Sala closing and locking the door behind them. Drake followed the eagerly bouncing form of his brother into the living room, taking a step to the side and slumping bodily into a reinforced chair. His wings were in a bit of a bind, and the house was cold enough to make him uncomfortable, but he did not seem to care. Sala kept walking past the others, smiling as she left the two brothers alone and continued into the kitchen.

  “I saw you on TV,” Monster said as he dropped to the floor and sat with his tree-trunk legs crossed in front of him. “I saw you beat up that bad man.”

  “Yeah, well, he wasn’t all that bad,” Drake said. “Just thought he could take on your big bro and win.”

  “You showed him!”

  “Sure did,” Drake answered with a nod. “Then I helped him get better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he was hurt. You don’t like being hurt, and neither did he, so I got the doctors to take care of him.”

  “And then he goes to jail?” Monster asked.

  “Him and a whole mess of other folks do,” Drake said. He waved his hand again. “So what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”

  “My picture!” Monster shouted, jumping from the floor and running for his room. His feet pounded the floor, sending vibrations through the chair in which Drake sat.

  “Didn’t see that one coming,” Drake laughed. He leaned forward in the chair, freeing up his wings and tail and flexing them a bit to restore circulation. Already he could feel the tension of the past weeks draining from him. It never failed to amaze him how a few minutes with his brother could be so therapeutic for him. Days, not to mention weeks spent away from him built Drake’s stress
level to unbelievable heights as he worried about how well Monster was doing, if he was behaving himself, and how his treatments were proceeding. Just getting to be close to him again was relieving. Being in the same home, with its kitschy accessories and movie posters on seemingly every wall, was like a magic pill that ripped away at the depression and anger that had been threatening to tear him apart.

  “Hey,” Sala’s voice intruded on his private thoughts and he opened his eyes to see the tall brunette standing beside the chair, a steaming mug in one hand. She extended it to him. “Thought you might like a cup.”

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the cup in one paw. He waved the other at a nearby couch. “Take a load off.”

  “Nah. Got stuff to do. Besides, figured you two might like some time alone.”

  “Thinking I might take him out later, let him get some air. What do your bosses say about things like that?”

  “Official word is don’t. Strange thing, though: I don’t usually follow the party line,” she said with a sly grin.

  “Yeah? Knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  “That, and I look really smooth in the outfit,” she teased back as she ran a hand down her flank to emphasize her statement.

  “Too smooth. Throw in a few scales and you‘ll be a show-stopper,” Drake said, continuing the game. He looked past her to make certain that Monster was still in his room. “So, what exactly did he do that you guys are hiding so wonderfully?”