Dragons Are People, Too

by Sarah Nicolas

  “There’s no indication this is a more likely place than all the others.”

  “But how do we know for sure?” I ask, mischief in my voice. “Until we burn it to the ground and check?”

  With a hard, slow blink and a jerky turn of his head, Sani joins us again. His shining eyes turn to me. “Not now, Kitty. We need to focus on getting Jacob back.” Then, so, so quietly: “We’ll deal with the rest later.”

  The swinging doors to the kitchen clang against the wall and Unjolly Giant lumbers out. He examines my face like a kid trying to memorize the periodic table.

  A hush follows him through the dining room as he walks to our table. Dominic gives him a quick smile. “Oh good! We haven’t had the chance to order yet.”

  I don’t know if the guy is just oblivious or if he’s really good at pretending he doesn’t know something’s up.

  The giant looks at me and nods like he’s confirming something with himself. His sigh rattles the silverware on our table. He motions at the kitchen with his shiny shaved head. “Come with me.”

  My body kicks into ready mode. I feel the heat of Sani’s dragon flare in response to a potential threat. I have no idea why this guy wants us to go to the back of the restaurant with him, and I’m not really planning on finding out.

  “That’s kind of you, sir,” Dominic says, “but we really don’t have time for a tour of the kitchen tonight.”

  “Wasn’t even talking to you, son. And even if I was, that sound like a request?”

  I’m ready to make a break for it, run as fast as I can out the door and down the street until I can’t run any more—which, by the way, is a really long time. I stand up, and Sani’s right behind me.

  And so is everyone else in the room. I don’t have to look at them. I hear the screech of chair legs against the linoleum floor, the rustle of clothing, and the less subtle sound of guns being drawn from waistbands. Safeties are clicked off in a gentle symphony. What the hell kind of restaurant is this?

  Chef Giant turns around and makes his way—very slowly—back to the kitchen. He doesn’t look back to make sure we’re following him. It probably doesn’t even cross his mind that we might not obey. I can’t say I blame him with the amount of hardware in this place.

  I shrug at Dominic, knowing I’m about to piss him off and follow the big man. Sani is so silent that I only know he’s following me because I can still feel his dragon straining to be released and calling out to mine in collusion. Dominic, on the other hand, could be detected by a deaf man.

  “Give me my gun,” Dominic whispers.

  I shake my head.

  “What if I need it?”

  “What if Gesina—the kitsune, whoever she is—is back there?” I say.

  I can tell by his breathing that he wants to object, but there’s nothing left to say after that. I have a feeling he’s flashing back to those lost moments from this morning, knowing I’m right.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” Sani promises.

  In a better mood, I would laugh. There’s no way Dominic believes Sani, but he really does mean it.

  Sani and I are both ready for action as soon as we enter the kitchen, but we’re left disappointed on that front. The chef’s the only one in the room, and he simply looks at a grease-coated TV balanced on top of an industrial fridge. The rest of the room is filled with flat grills, ovens, deep fryers, another fridge, and a soda machine. Down to the yellow-that-used-to-be-white walls, it looks like a normal grease bucket kitchen.

  I’m staring at the chef, waiting for his next move. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  “Shit!” Dominic says.

  I don’t look at him, determined to watch the giant chef as closely as possible. “What did I tell you about using that kind of language around children?” Yeah, I’m not letting that one go anytime soon.

  “Um, Kitty…” Sani says. He’s looking at the television. I’m the only one not looking at it now.

  I turn reluctantly. “What is so—”

  My yearbook photo. Words scrolling across the bottom: Wanted: Armed and dangerous. Exercise extreme caution. Do not approach. A phone number.

  “Oh,” I say. “OH!” So eloquent.

  After the first wave of surprise, rage floods over me. We have a term for this in the clandestine trade: I’ve been burned. I will never be able to work undercover—if at all—again. I’m going nuts trying to save the president’s son from an unknown enemy and the bastard’s government burns me? Sixteen years old and my spy career is over.

  Then I realize something else: it doesn’t identify me as a dragon. They still don’t want anyone to know one of us is free. I don’t blame them. Dragons have always inspired strong reactions in humans. When I was young, my grandfather told me stories about villages who discovered a dragon hiding near them. Without fail, one of two scenarios always unfolded: either the humans decided to destroy the hideous beast or declared it a God and devoted themselves to worshiping the creature. Rumors of dragon-worshiping cults still take a turn on the rumor mill every year or so.

  Sani, of course, recovers first. He strides to stand inches in front of the big man. “Did you call?”

  He shakes his boulder-sized head. “Not a big fan of the fuzz and don’t want them in my joint. You wouldn’t be the first wanted fool I helped.”

  We probably shouldn’t tell him what we all do for a living.

  “And I figure a girl who orders chocolate milk can’t really be all that dangerous.” He takes one yard-long step to the grill and flips two burgers and three sandwiches over.

  I don’t correct him. I try to match his tough-guy devil-may-care attitude, but I’m afraid the shakiness in my voice will give me away. “So how’s this play out?”

  “You leave out the back door.” He motions to a sticky-looking door to our left. “‘Fore any of my other clients get the notion of reward money dancing in their heads.”

  He called them clients, not customers. Odd.

  “Why are you helping us?” I can’t figure out his angle—and I’m well-practiced in that little piece of applied psychology.

  “Hey, gift horse,” Dominic mutters. “Need a dental exam?”

  Giant Chef gives him a look. I know that look. It’s the exact one I’m giving Dominic at this moment. I choke down a smirk; Gods help me, I think I might like this guy.

  “I jus’ want you outta here before any feds catch on to your location.” He speaks slowly, using heavy words. “My location. I don’t want them in this building. You got me?”

  “No problem,” I say. “We owe you one.”

  I make my first step toward the door when my stomach growls. I can’t help it; those burgers smell so good. Sani’s head tilts slightly, and I know he’s heard it.

  “Any chance we owe you two and you give us those sandwiches?” he asks the big guy.

  Giant Chef frowns.

  “We’re good people to have indebted to you,” Sani hints. In a blur of motion, he snatches the three sandwiches off the grill, tosses them in a takeout bag and stands before the chef again before the giant can formulate a reply. Sani winks. It’s not even aimed at me, and my heart clenches.

  I shoo Sani and Dominic out the door ahead of me. Just before I shut the door, I turn to the giant chef, whose name I still don’t know. He’s already back at the grill, replacing the sandwiches. “Thank you.”

  He shrugs.

  “Really,” I say. “You have no idea how important this is.” I can’t tell him he’s probably freed the last of an entire species. I can’t tell him about Jacob. I’m not even sure he would care.

  “Stop looking at me like I’m a hero, kid. I’m just try’na do what’s best for mine. I’m not on your side.”

  “Got it.”

  My side? I’m not sure what side I’m on or who, besides Sani, is there with me. Heck, I don’t even know how many sides there are and how they intersect. All I want is everyone I care about safe and free. It shouldn’t be so complicated.

  Chapter Ele
ven

  As soon as I shut the door behind me, the phone in my pocket rings. We’re near the dumpster and the passed out junkie. My hearts pound out a salsa rhythm. I fake a smirk. “Who could be calling at this time of night?”

  The guys don’t respond, so I flick the screen to answer the “unlisted” call. “I promise I’m working on it.” I don’t see any reason for polite hellos.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t work too hard,” an unexpected voice says. Even though the voice is familiar, I take a few sputtering seconds to connect the dots. My body reflexively stands straighter, and my nerves sing like a violin string plucked by an untrained finger.

  “Director Bean!” I finally manage to cry out.

  Sani spins and stares at me, mouth open. I know my eyes are as wide as his, and I give him a tense shrug.

  “You’re not supposed to know this number,” I say.

  A weighted sigh answers me. “Do you honestly think I got where I am without knowing a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to?”

  “How did you get it?” I ask.

  “Not important, Lung,” Bean says. “I hear the president has asked you to rescue Jacob from his captors.”

  My shock overrides a decade of discipline. “How the hell did you hear that?”

  He ignores my question and my disrespect. “Don’t do it.”

  “I…but…you…Jacob…” I can’t seem to form a complete phrase, much less a sentence. Fluency in four languages and I’m tripping over my tongue like a two-year-old.

  “You can consider it a direct order, if it makes you feel better.”

  An order? “Is DIC even…a thing anymore?” I ask, instead of what I want to, which is why he thinks he’s in a position to give me orders. All of the dragons are imprisoned, and he’s obviously running free with a network of informants just as strong as ever. The word “traitor” dances on my tongue, but I’m still terrified of incurring his wrath.

  “Are you saying you’re going to disobey an order?” Director Bean completely ignores my question about the status of DIC. This doesn’t escape my attention. Should I even keep calling him “Director”?

  Sani’s eyes are drilling into mine and, for once, it doesn’t send thrills through my stomach because it’s already tied into a thousand knots. Bean, the man who’s essentially controlled my entire life, is telling me to defy the president, to desert my friend. I wish my mother were here. She’d know the right thing to do. Sani reaches for my hand, and his words from earlier sprint across my thoughts. Right is still right.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t just abandon Jacob.”

  Bean snorts. “You’re not assigned to him anymore. The Secret Service has terminated your contract and cut all ties with dragons. Besides, you can’t take on his captors alone.”

  I let the chaos that is my brain digest this information and toss it around for a few seconds. Director Bean is getting sloppy, and I only notice because it’s something he’s never been before. He has let me know three things: One, as much as he does know, he doesn’t know everything—like I’m working with Sani or a Secret Service agent. Two, he doesn’t want Jacob rescued. And he must believe I’m able to pull it off or he wouldn’t make all this effort to dissuade me. Three, he knows at least something about the kidnappers to be able to say I can’t handle them on my own.

  I’ve never completely trusted Bean, but now I’m completely sure there’s something more going on. Fishy doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  I know he sees me as a dumb, impulsive teenage girl so I decide to play that role like I’m going for an Oscar. I tend to play it pretty convincingly. I’m not sure what I base my decision on, but it’s made. “He’s not just my assignment…” I let the statement hang for a good five seconds and make sure to lock eyes with Sani. It’s important he knows what I’m about to say is a total lie—not to mention looking at Sani will make what I’m about to say that much more convincing. He’s still holding my hand and I squeeze it once. “I—I love him.”

  Sani continues to hold my gaze and my knees go weak at the duplicity of fallacy and truth in my words.

  “Oh, Lord have mercy. Teenagers!” Director Bean roars. “That playboy? Do you honestly think he feels the same way? And what will happen if you pull it off? They’ll lock you up and you’ll never see him again.”

  And if I don’t pull it off, I may never see another dragon ever again.

  “Either way.” I try to work the steel of my father’s voice into my words. “I can’t leave him to the mercy of that kit—” Sani stops me with a snap of his head. Holy crap, I almost gave away everything. Does Bean know about the kitsune? “Kidnapper.” I hate this game. Every time I’ve lied before, it’s been a script. I was playing a role. This is all me now, and I am no screenwriter.

  “You shouldn’t worry about him. The Secret Service will rescue him and everything will be fine.”

  They’re strange words but they sound even stranger spoken like this. Forced, desperate.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No—” I hear a murmured voice in the background, but can’t make out anything that’s said.

  “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” Director Bean scolds the interrupter. “Where’s Mar—” He stops. I hear the slight squish squish of his mouth forming two syllables. My hearts are racing each other.

  The person says something in a hushed, terrified whisper. I still can’t make out any words.

  “Do I look like a babysitter? Take care of it!”

  “Marcy?” I say.

  “What?” Director Bean asks. But I can tell he heard me. It’s Interrogation 101. The suspect only says things like “what?” when they need to stall to come up with a cover story. Bean knows better, so he must be fumbling, rash and a little wild.

  “Why were you just asking your crony about Marcy?” If he escaped DIC before it was locked down, how and why did his assistant come with him?

  A beat of silence lets me know he’s about to lie to me. “I wasn’t. I asked where Mark, the night guard, was.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” I yell. Both Sani and Dominic look up and down the alley to make sure nobody heard me. The drunks passed out on the ground don’t flinch. “Tell me what’s going on. Why don’t you want me to rescue Jacob? Why is Marcy with you? Where are you?”

  “It’s complicated,” he says in the classic adult you’re-too-young-to-understand voice. “Just lay low and I’ll contact you when I’ve made it safe for you to come out of hiding.”

  “When you’ve made it safe for me? Like you’ve made it safe for my mother and father? The hell I will.”

  “Katherine.”

  He doesn’t know it, but this is the worst thing he could say at this moment. Only my parents call me Katherine. My mother, who has trusted him with her life and ended up in captivity because of it. My father, who has served him unflinchingly for years and paid for it with his body, his freedom.

  No.

  “Katherine” doesn’t belong to him.

  No.

  I don’t belong to him.

  No.

  “No!” I yell into the phone. The dragon inside me hammers against the constraints of my self-control like a death row prisoner pleading for release. Every sliver of rage I’ve suppressed today comes back at once, weaving the strands together to form a cord of anger that wraps itself around my hearts and squeezes.

  Dominic takes a shaky step away from me, but Sani is directly in front of me before either of my hearts can pound again. Just like in the tea shop, he places a hand on each side of my face. He’s smarter than to speak so Bean can hear him, but his eyes are saying, Come back to me. Stay with me.

  He’s right. I’m closer to an involuntary change than I’ve been in a very long time. When we change voluntarily—when our human side is in control of it—it’s a beautiful thing. A voluntary change is majesty and strength incarnate. But when it’s involuntary? When we lose control and let the dragon take over? BOOM. Like a tornado let loose in a Tiffany museum. Like
a bomb in a busy subway station. No one, nothing survives. This is where the legends of dragons as evil, angry creatures come from. It takes several dragons to subdue the crazed dragon and serious internal control to reverse the change. It’s like trying to push the force of an atomic explosion back into the uranium. Many dragons never make it back.

  Thinking of this only makes me angrier. Centuries of being forced into the shadows by a world that we’ve helped save hundreds of times. They should be bowing at our feet! Not hunting us like vermin.

  I can’t hear anything besides the roar in my head, the dragon’s promise that it can take care of every problem I have—the kitsune, Dominic, Director Bean, the CIA. I have never wanted to let it run free more than I do in this instant.

  Sani moves; I sense it more than see it. I realize the phone’s not in my clenched fist anymore. “Kitty,” he says. Just my name, over and over again, soft as lotus blossoms on his lips. It creates a tiny crack in my rage.

  I call on every meditative technique I’ve studied since I was two years old. I close my eyes, try to picture an empty void. Nothing exists but my breath, moving in and out of my lungs. Except my rage seems to be hitching a ride on my breath, and my lungs pump it through the rest of my body. My eyes are on fire, and I snap them open.

  Then I see Sani’s worried face staring back at me. His hands are still on my face. They slide down to my shoulders, down my arms. His touch is ice sliding across my skin. He takes my hands in his own and shakes them slightly. The green of his eyes is a soothing balm slowly massaged into my soul. Even my dragon responds to his touch. I’m finally aware again of my deep ragged breaths, my clobbering hearts, every clenched muscle.

  He pulls my hands behind him to wrap my arms around his waist and buries me in his arms. To be this close to a dragon who changes involuntarily is disaster. He’s trusting me to control myself, to not destroy him. This, more than anything, brings me back to myself. I feel the fast, but regular, rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek and focus on matching it with my own breaths. I have no idea how long we stay like this, the rhythm of his breath and the gentle pressure of his arms the only things that exist in my world.