Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 1)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  She smiled and changed her body from steel dragon to only dragon.

  Instantly, she felt lighter and when she pumped her wings this time, the force was enough to lift her higher. She flapped through the flames and made a quick, tight circle before she glided through the hole in the ceiling that had once been where the incinerator stood.

  They cleared the roof not a moment too soon as the flames inside reached a cache of propane or perhaps a tank of methane. She would never know the exact mechanism, only that something exploded in the heart of the facility, and that was enough to destabilize one of the walls. Once one wall on the decades-old building went down, two others followed.

  The force of that much brick collapsing on a network of tunnels was enough to avalanche the entire building, industrial equipment and all, into the pit where the two dragons had begun their battle and that Hernandez had further weakened with her explosives.

  In a moment, all that was left of the garbage sorting and burning portion of the facility was a blazing pit and a single brick wall. The upper half of galvanized steel had melted away into nothing.

  “Thanks for saving us, Red, but I’m not dressed for this shit,” Hernandez shouted over the wind.

  “Can you take us out for coffee?” Jim asked.

  Kristen smiled. Below them, Shadowstorm’s body burned in a grave he’d dug for himself, but all around them, snow was falling. This high, there hardly seemed to be any sense to the movements of the flakes. They drifted this way and that, pushed about by her wingbeats as much as by the wind itself.

  She didn’t feel cold, though. Inside her chest, a fire roared, a furnace of power that fueled her abilities. She realized she knew that feeling. It was the same sensation that had made her stand up for her brother when he’d been bullied. This was her dragon heart, and it had always been a part of her.

  It was an easy choice to share the warmth she felt and she nudged it into the hearts and minds of the humans on her back. She felt them all relax. Despite being high above Detroit, they all now understood that they wouldn’t die. They understood that they were safe and that she cared for them and would do anything in her power to protect them.

  “Kristen, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we appreciate the warm-and-fuzzies you’re giving us right now,” Butters shouted over the wind, “but if you don’t land and let us put goddamn hats and scarves on, we’re all gonna freeze to death up here.”

  “Right, sorry.” She swooped into a slow descent toward the city. Her dragon’s heart might keep her warm, but the humans on her back were still regular people. She found that comforting but also knew that they’d all prefer to be comforted with a glass of something steaming.

  She flew them carefully into the city they all called home.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  In her dragon body, Kristen found she could sense auras far more easily than she could when she’d been stuck as a human. It was as if her gleaming silvery scales were conductors for the ability. When she landed outside the Detroit Renewable Power facility, she could tell that Stonequest and six other dragons were already headed toward them.

  It was almost a surprise when Drew cleared his throat and asked about them. “Let’s call the station and get backup. This place needs to be cordoned off. The fire and steam in the snow are screaming special news bulletin.”

  “It’s out of our jurisdiction,” she said, a little startled that as a dragon, she spoke slightly slower than she did with a human mouth. It was still her voice, but it was slightly lower and more melodic.

  “What do you mean? This place is definitely in Detroit.” Keith folded his arms.

  She pointed a claw at Dragon SWAT. The seven dragon forms were close enough now she could easily make out their silhouettes against the clouds glowing with light from the city.

  No one else seemed to be able to see them, though, until they landed one by one and there were so many around them that the snow ceased to fall on them. The seven dragons were so hot that together, they created a bubble of heat against the cold.

  “Kristen Hall, the Steel Dragon,” Stonequest said by way of greeting. Normally, he transformed into his human form, but now he remained in his dragon body and circled around her silvery body. She still hadn’t turned to steel, but she did so now. In the blink of an eye, she went from silvery dragon with whitish, slightly leathery skin between her scales, a mane of white hair, and horns the color and texture of ivory to completely steel.

  He didn’t answer verbally but he did flash his aura at her. It seemed he was pleased and impressed that she could transform and completely unsurprised. The feeling he gave her reminded her of how her dad had felt when she finally rode her bike down the block without training wheels.

  “We defeated Shadowstorm,” she began to explain but Stonequest and the other dragons’ auras told her that they knew this already. But of course they did. They were undoubtedly there because they’d sensed the battle. In the end, Sebastian hadn’t controlled his aura at all. Every dragon within fifty miles might have felt his rage.

  “He’s over there?” Stonequest gestured with his long neck toward the burning pit that spewed smoke and steam into the snowy night.

  Kristen nodded.

  “How did you finish him?” There was something in his aura that made her worry she’d done the wrong thing.

  “We fought, then brought the incinerator down on him. Even though he was defeated, he tried to burn my friends, so I snapped his neck in my jaws.” She expected to be reprimanded. In the heat of battle, it had seemed the natural thing to do, but saying it now seemed grisly.

  He nodded. “It’s good to know he’s finished.”

  “You thought he wasn’t?”

  “Shadowstorm is a master of his aura. We could all sense it from miles away—yours too—during the battle, then it snuffed out at the same moment that yours burned hottest. I assumed he was dead but needed to be sure you delivered a finishing blow.”

  “You mean he could have survived?” She was incredulous.

  “Not if you crushed his neck. A dragon’s bite is a powerful thing, and we need our heads connected to our bodies as much as any other creature. To defeat him, you either needed to pierce his brain or his heart or sever his jugular.”

  She knew the power in the bodies of dragons. The bullet that had been made from one had worked as effectively as a taser on a human body.

  “All right, team. I want this mess put away and I want it done yesterday.”

  “That will not be an easy thing to do, Stonequest,” a purple dragon replied. Her aura was strange to Kristen. It lacked the straightforwardness of Stonequest’s or the layers of Shadowstorm’s. It felt…smoky, maybe?

  “Even with the mages helping?”

  “I won’t tell you how to do the job without using the tools,” the purple dragon snapped in response.

  Ah, that was what she had sensed in this dragon’s aura. She was a particularly adept magic-user. She realized that there were also three mages on her back. From her aura, she could tell that the dragon thought of these humans as hers. To harm them would be a personal insult to her, to which she would retaliate. She found it comforting that this dragon made it known that to hurt these people would result in a dragon battle, but it was weird that she thought of them as hers.

  Kristen sighed. She supposed this was how she thought of her friends too.

  “Can you clean it up or not?”

  The purple dragon smiled. “We might not fix the machines, but bricks and beams are not a problem.”

  “Fine, Timeflash, do it.”

  Stonequest followed Timeflash toward the burning pit.

  The dragon and her three mages each stood near a corner of the demolished building. A purple light erupted from Timeflash’s eyes, mouth, and hands and a moment later, it was mirrored by her three assistants. Kristen could sense from the dragon’s aura that the mages were augmenting her power.

  After that, though, she wasn’t able to do anything bu
t gawk. Her dragon jaw dropped open when the purple dragon and her people repaired the building she and Shadowstorm had so completely demolished.

  The fire withered and steam began to seep back into the hole.

  Unbelievably, the incinerator repaired itself with a roar like an avalanche as the bricks sorted themselves and stacked themselves into the tower. At first, she could only hear this happening, but in a moment, they cleared the roof of the red-and-white building and continued higher. Smoke and steam continued to pour past them as they returned to the tower from which they’d come and which—until a moment before—had been destroyed.

  Once the tower was done, the metal walls of the building pulled themselves into place, straightened the bends and kinks caused by the heat and explosions that had occurred in the building, and resumed functioning as the walls as if nothing had happened.

  A glass window repaired itself and it was if the facility hadn’t been damaged at all, at least from the outside.

  Timeflash sagged when it was finished and the purple light left her and her mages. The three humans raced toward her and magic flared from their fingers. The spell they wove turned into a massive net of energy which caught her before she fell. She looked paler than before. The effort of fixing the building had obviously wearied her.

  “Wait, some dragons can turn time back?” Kristen was incredulous.

  Stonequest chuckled. “It looks like that and it’s why she named herself that, but no. It’s as impossible to turn time back as it is to bring someone back from the dead. So don’t worry. Shadowstorm’s body is still in there.”

  “But then how—”

  “She can sense how objects touched by humans fit together. If she can act quickly enough, she can repair things that were destroyed. Tests have proven its not time magic, more like following instructions with a type of telepathy.”

  Her mind spun. Shadowstorm had seemed to possess powers the likes of which she couldn’t understand—not least of which being the snowstorm that now blanketed the city. She didn’t know if he had called it into existence or simply hastened its development and now, she assumed she’d never know.

  “But then, she could repair bombed cities and fix car crashes.” The possibilities seemed endless to her.

  Stonequest shook his head. “Not really, no. Her powers are limited. Even to do that building, she needed those mages to assist her, and they didn’t fix the machines inside. Regular mechanics will need to do that. But don’t worry. You’ll learn about all this kind of stuff once you’re on dragon SWAT.”

  “Yeah, right, whenever that is.”

  “Now, Kristen. That was an invitation.”

  She laughed until she saw that he merely smiled gently. He wasn’t joking? “You’re joking,” she stammered. It was all she articulate.

  “No, I’m not. You’re one of us now. You activated your dragon form and I don’t think anyone on the Dragon Council would dispute your powers. I knew you’d be powerful, but this? Defeating Shadowstorm in a lair of his own devising would have been a mighty challenge, even for me. You’ve done incredibly well. I have the right to recruit the dragons I choose to, and right now, I’m recruiting you.”

  “But my team—”

  “Were fine before you arrived and will continue to do their excellent work after you’ve moved on,” he said. He looked at the human team leader. “Am I correct?”

  Drew nodded. His eyes looked a little sad but he smiled. “We knew this day would come, Hall.”

  “I’m more than only a dragon, though,” Kristen said. She felt disagreement from Stonequest’s aura and smiled. “Okay, yes, I am a dragon, but that’s not all I am. I’m still human. I was raised by humans and I grew up as a human. That will always be a part of me, and even if I could pretend like I wasn’t, I don’t want to. Being human…being human rules.”

  “Hell yeah!” Keith said from behind her.

  Stonequest nodded. “I won’t argue. After all, you may be the first dragon in history who has spent decades more time in her human form than her dragon form. But still, there is training that must be done. Things that you must learn about being a dragon. Your time working with people in this capacity is done.”

  Kristen glanced at Drew again, seeking permission, guidance…something. He nodded, still grinning. That gave her courage enough to take the next step. “When do we leave?”

  “I assume you’ll want to see your family again.”

  “And that they’ll throw a barbecue before you go,” Butters suggested.

  “Tomorrow then,” Stonequest said.

  She nodded and he dismissed her and her team. Quickly, she transformed into her human form and entered the van. Together with her team for perhaps the last time, they drove back to the station.

  The barbecue started out so normally it was almost surreal. Despite the snow that had fallen the night before, Kristen’s dad still wore shorts. The snow hadn’t stuck to the ground—because Shadowstorm had died? she wondered—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t cold. Still, Frank’s pale, knobby knees would not be hidden on barbecue day.

  “Frank, are you sure that’ll be enough pulled pork?” her mom asked for what had to be the fortieth time.

  “For Christ’s sake, Marty, it’s twenty goddamn pounds of pig and another six chickens.”

  “Yeah, but Dad, dragons might be here. Dragons,” Brian said cryptically. He’d done nothing to help the entire day, which was entirely normal for him. Instead, he’d spent his time playing videogames and begging his sister to transform.

  She’d done so once, which had made her dad release such a stream of profanities that she’d actually been proud until she’d realized he wasn’t swearing in amazement but at what she’d done to his front lawn. Her mom had only been able to cry. When she had reverted to her human form, Marty had crushed her in a hug so tight she thought it might have been capable of asphyxiating dragons.

  “Brian, we’re out of pickles,” the woman now said. “Run to the store. You can take the car.”

  “Moooom! Seriously? Kristen can fly there. I’ve almost beat the boss.”

  “I’m not using my dragon abilities to get pickles,” she snapped at her brother. She’d sat down with him and told him she’d be away for a while training, but he had only shrugged.

  “And Kristen’s friends are showing up,” her mom added.

  At that, she rolled her eyes. Leave it to her mother to ignore magic dragon powers but be concerned about proper hosting etiquette.

  “Ugh, fine!” Brian scowled. “But mark my words, Steel Dragon, if you eat any pickles, you answer to me.”

  Her parents shared a look that said what went wrong? Then, Marty opened the door. Jim Washington stood there with a bouquet of flowers.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hall. I brought some flowers for your lovely home.”

  “Oh, you must be the Wonderful kid,” she said and managed to embarrass a steel dragon of unimaginable power for possibly the ninetieth time that day.

  “They call me the Wonderkid, ma’am,” he said as she took the flowers.

  Kristen showed him through the house and out to the backyard, the opposite path to the one they’d taken the last time he had been here.

  “Nice to see you, sir,” Jim said to Frank, who currently removed chunks of pork shoulder from his smoker.

  “Yeah, likewise. It’s nice to have Kristen bring cops over when it’s not a kidnapping.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you two will excuse me,” her dad said and took his pork inside.

  For a moment, the two said nothing and simply watched their breath steaming in the crisp winter air. Then, he cleared his throat and spoke. “You know, I learned a lot from you.”

  “Jim, we don’t have to do this,” she protested.

  “No, we do. When I met you, I hated you simply because of what you were, and I didn’t even know what you were. I thought all dragons were cruel, callous beings and believed you were the same. I’m proud to say that you changed that
in me. And now, you can transform.” Jim shook his head. “I want you to know I’ll always appreciate that—”

  “What the fuck’s going on back here?” She turned when Hernandez appeared at the side gate with Keith in tow.

  “Are you two having a heart to heart?” The Rookie grinned.

  “No—” she tried to say but Hernandez noticed Jim’s watery eyes and grinned.

  “Holy shit, this is pathetic. You’re not even drunk yet, Jim. Grow a pair.” The woman laughed and Keith joined her.

  “Thanks for coming out, Hernandez,” Kristen said.

  The demolitions expert shrugged. “Eh, I wasn’t doing anything important and who can say no to free barbecue?”

  “Nothing important?” Keith’s eyebrows almost raised completely off his head before he turned bright red.

  “Wait a minute…” Kristen looked from his embarrassed face to Hernandez’s wicked grin. “Are you two—”

  “Banging? Yeah, obviously,” the woman said. He only blushed more fiercely.

  Jim frowned. “I thought you were…uh…”

  “A dyke? You can go fuck yourself, for starters. No, I’m not a dyke. I’ll bang anything. Bombs, boys, and bimbos.”

  “Class act, Hernandez,” Drew said as he descended the steps from the house. “It’s good to know your work ethic goes all the way down.”

  She shrugged and actually looked proud of herself.

  “Drew! You made it,” Kristen said.

  “I almost decided to stay home so you’d feel guilty and come visit us.” He smiled.

  “Nothing like that Steel Dragon guilt,” Keith added.

  “I’ll visit as much as I can, but I’m still glad you made it.”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. Your dad has the best stories about the old-timers on the force.”

  She smiled. Drew, even off-shift, was still one hundred percent obsessed with being a cop.

  “Wow. Here for the Steel Dragon’s fat dad. That’s a new one,” Hernandez said.

  Kristen might have balked at someone calling her dad fat once—even though it was true—but she was so damn pleased that the people who’d seen her transform and fight a dragon to the death were there and still thought of her parents as her parents.