by Sean Grigsby
“Come on and get in,” Brannigan said from behind the wheel.
“Do you see this, Chief?”
He rolled his window down and craned his head to see what was storming toward us.
There were at least thirty of them, all dressed in black turtlenecks, carrying long laser light torches and holosigns that read “PC First” and “Throw Them Out!” At the front of the group was the mean-looking white dude I’d seen on the Feed. His fat nose and hair slicked to one side made him look like some smug, 1920s gangster son of a bitch.
Duncan Sharp. Yeah, that was the asshole’s name. I remembered because I had imagined dunking him into a tub of sharp objects.
“What do these bungholes want?” Brannigan said.
“Out protesting it looks like,” I got into the truck and shut the door. “They want to rid the city of all the new arrivals.”
“Nazi wannabes like that won’t stop at one group,” Brannigan said. “They’ll keep lengthening the list until we’re all on it. Where does it end?”
“I’d like to not even see it start.”
“Leaping lizard shit.” Brannigan shook his head as we drove off. “I guess Ted was right. It’s not just the dragons losing their minds.”
CHAPTER 20
The wraiths had always looked menacing and creepy floating inside the aquarium-like walls of the enclosures, but when Brannigan and I got out of the truck and stood there outside the eastern dragon pen, the ghosts were going ape shit.
They flew from one end of their encasement to the other in the blink of an eye, wailing and shattering to bits if they smashed into another wraith. Then they’d reform and go back to acting a fool, scratching against the glass and even trying to bite the wall with their electric teeth.
The enclosure was over fifty feet tall, so it was like standing outside an office building watching a shark feeding frenzy take place in every window.
I stepped closer to the section of glass directly in front of me. One of the wraiths floated down and shrieked, flexing its clawed hands and glaring at me with eyes that sparked like a busted electrical outlet. Its jaw spread so wide that it split the ethereal gray skin hanging loosely from its skull. The jaw fell off and was absorbed by the shredded bottom of the ghost’s torso before it reappeared in place.
The wraith slammed its face against the glass.
“Goddamn ghosts.” I ran over to join Brannigan at the entrance.
Ted Sevier opened the door and with a relieved sigh said, “Thanks for coming. Follow me.”
The entryway we stepped into was meager – walls and ceiling with a polished metal shine as if we were walking through a tube of aluminum foil. A guard was posted by the wraith port, which was where smoke eaters dumped wraiths caught on dragon calls – where I should have already dumped Mr Wilkins. It was black and shaped like a robotic baby bottle. At least, that’s what always came to my mind. All we had to do was stick in the pointy end of the wraith remote and press a button. Job done. The wraiths could then float around and be weird and dead amongst their peers.
That was another thing. If I had deposited the wraith here, and the Wilkins family won their suit, it would be damn near impossible to find the right ghost in the enclosure and get them out of the walls. Sure, the wraiths held a slight likeness to what they looked like in life, but it was a saggy, musty version only those with a keen eye would be able to see.
At the end of the hall we passed through another door that Ted had to unlock with a hand scan. This brought us into the dimly lit dragon observation hall, which was like being at a zoo with only one big paddock you could see into through glass that surrounded the entire dragon area.
I’d never been in here before. My crew usually left after we dropped off sleeping dragons. I hadn’t known whether to imagine the scalies packed together like sardines in a can or a wide expanse of ashy terrain where dragons walked around confused.
On the other side of the glass, though, it looked like a scene from some fantasy novel. Fake sunlight poured through hologram trees as a giant, blue drake thudded through the woods, galloping on its four clawed feet like a horse trying to buck off its rider.
The drake reared on the nearest hologram tree and blasted a stream of fire into the branches. Of course, after some wobbly static, the tree went right back to being tall and serene. This just pissed the dragon off and it galloped past a group of poppers who were taking turns burrowing and then launching out of the ground to land on the back of an orange-scaled lindworm, which only had two hind claws, but a nasty tail with a tip that looked like a spiked wrecking ball. This lindworm couldn’t fly away as it hadn’t sprouted wings out of its side plates yet, so it was at the mercy of the poppers who continued to assault it by biting its back a few times before dropping to the ground and burrowing away to start again.
When the next popper launched out of the ground, the lindworm was ready and snatched the smaller dragon in its teeth. The lindworm’s whiskers caught fire and seared the popper as the lindworm shook it from side to side in sweeping jerks.
An electric, purple scaly glided from above on short wings and slammed into the glass in front of me. I flinched and stepped away. When the dragon realized it had met resistance, it extended its neck frill and sent sparks shooting out of its thin membrane.
“What the hell is going on with these things?” I asked.
“That’s why I wanted you to come see it for yourself,” Ted said. “They’ve been acting like this since last week and its only getting worse. I’m guessing you already saw what the wraiths are doing.”
Chief Brannigan made shooing moves with his arms, trying to make the electric dragon go away, even though he knew the scaly couldn’t see him. “Last week, you say?”
Ted nodded. “We tranquilized one of the dragons and brought it back to the lab. Do you want to come see?”
We followed Ted into another room with a couple of propellerheads standing around a sheet-covered mound on a slab, talking about the recent droid football game. They jumped to attention when we entered.
“Let’s show them your findings,” Ted said.
The propellerheads each grabbed a side of the sheet and pulled it off. Lying there on a slab was a golden fafnir, about the size of a baby elephant. Its chest rose and fell steadily, heavily, and they’d placed a titanium muzzle on it as an extra precaution.
“We’ve had to hit this one with a Sandman more than a few times,” Ted said. “Whatever has gotten into these scalies is also making it hard to keep them asleep.”
One of the propellerheads took a long instrument and walked to the fafnir’s back end. Raising its tail, the propeller head shoved the metal stick into, what I could only guess, was the dragon’s butthole.
“Goddamn,” I whispered, and clinched my own cheeks in sympathy.
The propellerhead removed the stick and said, “It just crested nine hundred Fahrenheit.”
Brannigan had been reaching out a hand to touch the scaly’s chest, but jerked his hand back and said, “Holy fuck. They usually stay around four hundred, right?”
“Its temperature has been on the rise for days now,” Ted said. “I never knew dragons could get fevers.”
Brannigan and I turned our heads to each other, staring with worry and understanding. It didn’t have to be said out loud. We were thinking the same thing: Patrice.
As we were leaving, I said, “Chief, this phoenix is doing something to the dragons, the wraiths. It fucked with Patrice when she swallowed that ash. And these arsons… there is no cult, like the police want to believe. It’s the phoenix. I don’t know what, but if we don’t find that ugly-ass bird soon, something even worse is going to happen.”
“My thoughts exactly. That’s why I want to put you in charge of a special team.”
The last time my position was changed, the world went to shit. But if this meant we could put an end to the fiery psychosis taking form in every ghost, person and scaly, I was down for it.
“Okay,” I said.
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br /> “Good,” Brannigan said. “Your focus will be on finding the phoenix and taking it out for good. Yolanda says she has some fun new toys specifically for that purpose. Also, the fire and police chiefs have asked if we could spare some folks to assist in nailing this cult they keep talking about.” He raised his hand before I could object again. “We both know it has something to do with the phoenix, so that makes it your problem to solve as well.”
Getting involved in some stupid investigation wasn’t really on my radar. Nor was educating the folks in blue on what was really going on. But someone had to do it. “As long as I don’t have to do any extra paperwork.”
“No, you guys will aid in gathering information for the cops and going into any situation others can’t. Flames and shit like that.”
“My specialty,” I said.
Brannigan clapped his hands, making it final. “I believe in you, Tamerica. Let’s make sure this squawking bastard never hurts anyone else again. Tomorrow, you’ll start training everyone to fight a phoenix specifically.”
He started out of the door, but I stopped him.
“I do have a few conditions.”
Brannigan turned, raising his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I get to pick everyone on this team.”
“Done. Send me the list and I’ll make it official that you’re in charge of the Ash Kickers unit.”
‘Ash Kickers.’
I guess it did have a ring to it.
CHAPTER 21
The Smoke Eater headquarters lay in piles of rubble and ash a hundred or so feet away from us, but that didn’t mean that our training field had taken any of the damage. I guess it’s one of the benefits of having fullycustomizable metal puzzle pieces stored underground. We could program it to form any type of structure: house, skyscraper, even the maze we made the rookies run through, with a mechanical dragon that was a bit slower than it used to be. Brannigan had blown it up when we were in trainee school, and the poor robot scaly had never fully-recovered.
But today was going to be all about trying out Yolanda’s new gadgets and turning up the heat to see if this new shit would actually work against a phoenix.
I stood in front of Afu, Renfro, Naveena and her two smokies. Harribow still looked like a scared lamb who knew he was being prepared for slaughter but could do nothing about it. The other guy introduced himself as Calvinson, a red-haired kid who looked a lot like a guy I used to know when I first joined the smoke eaters. Hopefully he wouldn’t be as cocky and get himself killed like the last dude.
“Thanks for asking me to be a part of the team,” he said, shaking my hand.
Him and Harribow were only here because I wanted Naveena by my side and didn’t think it right to split up a crew. And it wasn’t like any other smokies were jumping at the chance to go after an elusive and seemingly-invincible monster.
“Thank you,” I told Calvinson.
He smiled like I’d just given him a commendation and walked over to listen to Afu tell old war stories.
I pulled Naveena away from the others and said, “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I appreciate you agreeing to do this with me. I know Brannigan put me in charge, but believe me when I say I’ll be relying on your expertise a lot.”
Naveena playfully punched me in my armored shoulder. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything. It’ll be good to nail that bastard for what it did to Patrice.”
A big wad of guilt filled my throat and I looked away.
“And hey,” Naveena tapped her power suit’s gloves against my chest so I’d look at her, “when you’ve been a captain as long as me, you’ll appreciate any opportunity to let someone else have the reins. You ask me, anybody who wants to be in charge all the time is the exact person who shouldn’t be leading things. We’re a team. Let’s get in the game and pull off a win.”
“Have you ever considered coaching little league?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I hate sports.”
We walked back over to the others, Naveena’s hand at my back. All of the smoke eaters I’d gathered were waiting for me to say something, to lead them.
I didn’t even know where to start, but Brannigan had always told me that sometimes you have to leap off the cliff and build your parachute on the way down.
I always thought that was stupid advice, because you never knew how short the drop was. But I tried.
“Okay,” I said. “Welcome to the… Ash Kickers.”
Afu snorted, because he knew I hated that name. He’d suggested “phoenix fuckers” but that sounded way worse.
I glared at Afu until he stood straight and shut up.
“This phoenix isn’t like the dragons we’ve been fighting before. None of our weapons seem to do jack shit in putting out its flames. We can’t even tranquilize it. All of you will have seen the video from the day we trapped it in a chain net, so you should know that it can blow itself up and come back later. So, our goal is to end it before it can end itself, and maybe that will mean it won’t come back to life. That’s right. None of the no-kill rules on this mission. We’re back to slaying.”
Renfro raised his hand. I was going to tell him he didn’t need to do that, but I also didn’t want the more green smokies to think they could tactlessly shout questions. I pointed to my engineer.
“You and Afu never got a chance to use your laser weapons. Maybe they’d work if we tried?”
“You’d have to get close enough to use a sword,” Afu said. “Those flames stuck to Captain Williams’ power suit and wouldn’t go out. Have you ever seen dragonfire do that?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Plus,” I said, “the Sandman didn’t do anything, so it’s probably safe to say that the regular lasers or even a haymo wouldn’t work. I’m not against trying those, but I’d at least like to find some way to take out its main weapon before we get laser-happy.”
Harribow threw his hand up. “And how do we do that?”
A hover-van flew over the ashes, headed right for us.
I pointed to the van as it came to a stop. “Let’s hope she’s come up with a way.”
Yolanda hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened the back hatch.
I told Afu and Calvinson to go help Yolanda bring over the new toys. Since Harribow had been promoted, Afu and the new guy were the lowest smokies on the ladder, which meant they had to do more of the grunt work. Hefting cases as wide as Afu was tall, they waddled over and set them down carefully in the ash at our feet.
Yolanda smiled as we huddled around her. “This should be fun.”
I was glad to see her back to herself.
Turning to the flat, metal training field, Yolanda poked at her holoreader until several sheets of metal rose from the ground and formed a small city block. Another second later, fire ignited from the top of one of the buildings and a hologram appeared over the flames in the shape of a giant hummingbird.
“Um, what the fuck is that?” I asked.
Yolanda frowned, like we were supposed to be impressed. “What do you mean? It’s a phoenix.”
Afu shook his head, his cheeks jiggling. “That doesn’t look like a phoenix.”
“Well…” Yolanda sighed. “It was the best I could do. It’s just for visual aid. The main point is the fire.” She turned back to the flames and the buzzing, toocute-to-kill hummingbird. “Those flames aren’t hot enough yet.”
She tapped on her holoreader and the fire grew bigger. Now, the flames hovered over our tiny, pop-up city like a blanket of fabricated hell. A greater warmth pelted my face. That was more like it.
Yolanda squatted in front of one of the cases. Two satisfying clicks sounded from the latches and the lid swung open by itself. We all bent over to see what was in it, but by that time Yolanda had pulled out what had lay inside.
“This is an Impulse shotgun,” she said. “I took the same style design firefighters had been using a few years ago, but gave it a few nifty upgrades.”
She cocked it and the s
ound made us all instinctively flinch.
“This sucker packs a wallop when it comes to extinguishing fire. It uses the same technology as your foam guns, but the foam fires in one big wad at a hundred and twenty miles per hour. Added to the foam is a sound wave emitter, and there’s a concussive blast that would kill any normal fire for extra extinguishment.”
Yolanda looked pretty badass hefting that large shotgun on her hip. The weapon looked like a model bazooka my daddy made back when I was eight years old, except this one was metallic gray and way too futuristic compared to the PVC pipe Daddy had used.
“So,” Yolanda said, “who wants this one?”
All of our hands shot up.
“Captain Williams,” Yolanda held the gun out to me with two hands, looking eager for me to take the heavy thing from her. “Since you’re in charge, I’ll let you have first pick. Plus, you’re used to shooting foam, so it won’t be too much of a learning curve for you.”
Afu groaned, the big baby.
The next case opened and Yolanda pulled out a long metal pole, as black as a dragon claw.
“Is that so Renfro can practice his stripper moves?” Naveena said.
Everyone busted a gut. The rookies, however, looked guilty about it.
Renfro laughed, too. “Y’all ain’t shit.”
Yolanda didn’t seem to get the joke. She frowned and said, “No, but it does do this.”
She pressed a button and a crescent-shaped laser blade extended from the top.
“Holy shit!” I said.
“This is a laser axe.” Yolanda swung it around a few times. The blade sliced through the air, leaving behind warbles of heat, making a phrumm, phrumm with each pass.
“That’s mine,” Afu said, before anyone else could claim it.
“Well you’re all getting one of these,” said Yolanda. “I only had time to make one shotgun, but the axes are pretty simple to put together. And they’re magnetic, so you can attach them to your power suit.”
We each took a turn sticking the axes to our backs.