Dragons Are People, Too

by Sarah Nicolas

  At the last second before crashing into the pavement, I pull up and speed down the sidewalk, knocking stunned Yakuza guards over with my thrashing tail. When I reach the end of the building, I spin in a barely controlled U-turn and make a second pass. The guards who survived the first run-through now have guns in their hands.

  The sting of a bullet rips through muscle in my midsection. I roar as I knock the shooter to the ground with a swipe of my head. Blood trickles from his forehead. He doesn’t move again.

  The bullet went in at an angle, but takes the shortest possible path out of my muscle, tearing another gash through my side. I grit my teeth as a few drops of my blood splatter on the yellow dividing line on the street, followed by the ding of a spent bullet on the pavement.

  Dominic has recovered from his feigned drunken stupor. He’s just to the side of the open cargo door, knocking out the occasional man who runs out of it with a rusty pipe he must have found on the street. I still wasn’t comfortable with him having a gun, even though having one more offensive ally would have made things easier. But if the kitsune shows up, he would swiftly turn from ally to one more obstacle. And, as much as I hate to admit it, he’s not a weak enemy.

  One last guard remains standing on the street. I know more can’t be far away; I’ve made one hell of a racket. I fly full speed at him. Bullets zip past my head. One nicks my foot, but the injury will heal in seconds. I swerve just before I crash into him and whip my tail around, sending him flying into the wall of the building across the street. His gun clatters to the sidewalk. Dominic stares at it, contemplating. My dragon rages, more in control of me than I’ve allowed in a very long time. I roar at him and he backs away.

  “Gotcha,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender.

  I shake my head, trying to wrestle control from the dragon. She’s stronger and faster than me, but she’s even more unpredictable than I am. I need control to pull this off.

  Asphalt explodes just to my left. And then closer, on my right. I had almost forgotten about the guards on the roof. Bullets rain down on the street. Dominic ducks into the relative safety of the Yakuza warehouse, and I am seconds behind him. You know it’s an interesting day when you consider leaping into a mob warehouse “safety.”

  The room we enter spans the entire footprint of the building with a polished concrete floor. Four metal staircases climb at random intervals along the exterior walls, leading to upper levels hidden from view. The dragon we sensed earlier is on another floor, a few stories up.

  The left half of the room is occupied by vehicles of all shapes and sizes: Hummers, sports cars, ghetto jalopies, SUVs, delivery trucks, even motorcycles. I’m sure they all have proper paperwork. The right wall is lined by huge mysteriously unlabeled wooden crates and endless rows of metal cabinets. Hmm, I wonder what those could hold. I doubt it’s cleaning supplies.

  The rest of the room is home to a jumbled assortment of furniture. Picnic tables, couches, folding chairs, and cafeteria tables with mismatched chairs lie empty and quiet. Bottles, cans, and decks of playing cards litter the tables. I picture dozens of Yakuza thugs and hopefuls lounging here later in the day, waiting for action. Yeah, striking in the morning was definitely a good call. Though I didn’t expect the first floor to be quite this empty. There’s not a soul in sight.

  Including Sani.

  He was supposed to wait for me in here, keeping an eye out for any major danger. It’s way too early for him to be deviating from the plan already. Something has to have pulled him away. Could it have been the dragon? The kitsune? Gods, I hope it’s just a human with a big gun. Maybe he found a way to draw away any guards from this floor to give me more time.

  The cars are a welcome sight, though.

  I nod at Dominic and point at the collection with the tip of my tail. “Can you hotwire a car?”

  “Of course,” he says, sounding hurt.

  “Start up that Hummer and keep it warm for us, just in case. Stay low. You can keep a better eye on the door from inside there than you can out in the open.”

  He nods once, scanning the room. “Where’s Sani?”

  “Upstairs,” I say.

  His brows crease as he glances at the ceiling. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” My stomach tightens. “But I can sense him. He’s alive and not afraid, at the very least. If we’re not back in fifteen, you get out of here.”

  I fly up the closest staircase, but have to switch back to human form to open and fit through the door at the top. My backpack rematerializes on my back along with my clothes. I reach back and slip out a pistol. The wound on my stomach hurts a hell of a lot more in this form, but it’s nothing I haven’t worked through before. The bullet’s already been rejected and the tissue is trying to knit together—if I would just stop moving long enough for it to heal, I’d be golden.

  I place my left hand on the doorknob and pause a second to listen. I don’t hear a thing on the other side of the metal door, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s empty. Who knows what kind of setup the mob has here. There’s got to be at least one safe room. I crouch low, making myself a very small target, and inch the door open.

  I scooch through the door, my pistol leading the way.

  I enter a room that looks exactly like any other cubicle farm at any business in the country. No signs of life appear, but I make my way through the room, clearing it one cubicle at a time. At the end of the fourth and final row, there is a manager’s office. The door is shut, but I can see slices of a desk and chair through the partially closed blinds. I need to clear this room too, just in case Jacob is inside, mouth taped shut and tied to a chair or something. I wouldn’t put it past the Yakuza to be so cliché.

  I place my back against the wall next to the door and slowly turn the knob. Pushing the door open with my elbow, I sweep into the room, gun at the ready.

  Nothing. Silence. Breath stored for too long whooshes out of my lungs.

  A desk with papers scattered across it, a dusty monitor, a dirty coffee cup. No Jacob, though. And no Yakuza. I’m just about to run back to the warehouse’s main entrance when a bright pink square of paper catches my eye.

  KL is written in big bold letters. Underneath, my Secret Service phone number is written in perfect, feminine handwriting. Something about the way the six curls in on itself scratches at my brain.

  I rush to the desk and crumple the paper in my hand. I’ll make sure to tell my Secret Service contact about this massive security breach—if I make it out of this building alive. I scan the other papers on the desk.

  The rest of them are written in neat Japanese script, which I can’t read. I do recognize a drawing, though. It’s the layout of the Academy and surrounding streets. I unsnap the straps of my backpack and shrug it off. I don’t have time to figure out what this means now, but I scoop all the papers into my hands and shove them in the pack. It’s too full so I choose a pistol to sacrifice to make room for the papers and leave it on the desk. I figure the Yakuza have enough guns; one more isn’t going to make a difference.

  I run back to the warehouse, strapping on the backpack. As soon as I burst out of the door at the top of the staircase, I leap into the air and snap to my dragon form before I lose any altitude. I sense the steely calm that comes over Sani when he’s in a fight. He’s close and he’s not alone. I fly to the next staircase over and change back to the five-foot-four version of Kitty Lung. I don’t have to stop and listen this time to hear the chaos on the other side of this door. Grunts, curses, and the undeniable sound of bodies crashing into hard things.

  I throw the door open and tuck into a ball at the same time. I roll into the room and stop in a squat, my gun pointing forward. I have no idea what this room used to be used for, but now it looks like a doctor’s exam room that’s recently housed a tornado. Metal trays and instruments scatter across the floor.

  Sani, in his sleek black dragon form, circles across from a creature that resembles a humanized cartoonish fox, like from the animat
ed Robin Hood series. They take swipes at each other so quickly my eyes can’t follow the movement, but I don’t hear bodily contact.

  I aim my gun at the fox thing. I can only assume it’s the kitsune after losing all control over her glamor. Unarmed Japanese men lie scattered around the room in various states of injury and consciousness. Who knows how long Sani’s been fighting this creature and her lackeys? I can’t figure out why she doesn’t put him in a haze like she did with me. Maybe it’s not just her glamor she loses control of when she’s flustered. Or maybe she hasn’t been able to lay a hand on him yet.

  She’s perfectly in my line of fire. I squeeze the trigger. In the same instant, she lunges toward Sani and he spins to avoid her attack. The bullet whizzes by, inches away from his black catlike head. Okay, so I won’t try that again.

  “Kitty!” Sani huffs out between breaths, blows, and blocks. “Find Jacob. Meet…you at…rendezvous.”

  I know I should do as he says. As in, right away. But I hesitate. The two seem evenly matched—and she has help. Dark red blood sprays out from several wounds along the length of his salamander-like body with every move. Dark, wet spots on the kitsune’s fur give me a smidgeon of comfort. Though they may simply keep on giving each other paper cuts until they both fall into tiny pieces.

  Even as I consider staying to help him, I know this is why partners aren’t supposed to be involved. Wanting to stay goes against every second of training I’ve ever had. But leaving him goes against every fiber of my being. The memory of his green eyes, staring into mine like he never wanted to look at anything else, flashes through my head. I take half a step toward the swirling melee.

  “Go!” Sani yells. “Now!”

  Before I have time to decide against it, I turn and dive out of the door. I hop once on the top of the stairs and back into the air, shifting mid-leap. Only two staircases left.

  The third door is quiet, so I sneak in in human form, gun poised for action. What I see reminds me of our dorm hallways at DIC, long and featureless with many identical and symmetrical doors. Except there are three heavily armed Yakuza guards standing in front of one of the doors at the end of the hallway.

  Bingo.

  They spot me. This hallway is just wide enough for my dragon form, so I shift. Then roar. And promptly disappear.

  A confused enemy is an easily defeated enemy. That’s the idea, anyway. My dragon urges me to rush them and swallow them whole, but I hold on enough to my humanity to realize how terrible an idea that would be.

  However, these three guards seem to be ready for my bag of tricks. In synch, they drop down to one knee and begin firing at my last known location. I press myself against the left wall, but a bullet rips through my right rear leg. Then another finds a home in my tail.

  Crap. I am too big of a fish in too small of a barrel. Soon I’ll look like Swiss cheese. I drop the invisibility, then shift. A bullet lodges into the wall right where my dragon-head just was.

  Now I’m a much smaller target. A weaker, slower target, but smaller.

  The gun is still in my right hand. I kick in the door to my left and put a little concrete and steel between me and the armed guards. Two spent, blood-coated bullets clang to the ground. There’s a generous tear in my right calf muscle from the first, closing up even as I examine it. A burning sensation in my right butt cheek lets me know the location of the second.

  I try to stand straight, but my right leg protests in agony. I won’t be rushing these guys in human form, that’s for sure. I fire blind around the corner into the hallway. Seven shots. I hear the satisfying thunk of a bullet burying in human flesh in between shots.

  Two guns continue to fire. One doesn’t. I like these odds a little better. But I’ll never hit both of them, firing blind. I’m fully in the room now, but they continue to fire down the hallway. They know my invisibility trick and aren’t ready to risk an ambush.

  I take a quick look around the room. My first impression was correct. These are definitely dorms for the troops. But these guys have to share a room with bunk beds—and cheaply-constructed ones at that. Suckers.

  Then I realize something else. The room is big enough for me to shift. I can’t rush the hallway invisible and risk they’ll hit one of my hearts—because then none of us would escape this place alive. But I just need a look so I know where to aim.

  I sigh. All this shifting is going to make me feel like crap tonight. I will actually have to eat a whole cow. Maybe two.

  I shift again, go invisible, and poke as little of my dragon head as possible into the hall. I keep it high against the ceiling, where they’re not concentrating their fire right now.

  I memorize their locations, pull my head back in and snap back to human form. The quick changes are getting to me. I’m a little dizzy this time around, and my vision blurs.

  As soon as I can see straight again, I fire four quick shots down the hall, two at each location. Another thunk and a thud. One gun’s still firing, though.

  Holy crap, how many rounds does this guy have? I knew I should have spent more time learning about guns. I’ll apologize to Simon as soon as I get out of this, I promise. Then I’ll study until I know all of it—not just enough to pass the examinations. It’s funny the prayers and promises you make in situations like this.

  I see a small puddle of blood below me; maybe the dizziness isn’t completely due to the shifts.

  I take deep breaths, steadying my spinning head. Two more shifts and I’ll have him. Two more, I can totally do this.

  Dragon form. I feel so much stronger like this, not dizzy at all. But I can’t fire a gun with my giant claws. And I really can’t risk this Yakuza firing crazily and randomly down the hallway, hitting one of my hearts. We have to fly out of here. I peek out into the hallway.

  The bastard’s using his two fallen comrades as a shield. He’s lying down on the ground behind them, using the second’s shoulder to steady his shots.

  His head is completely in the open, though. I linger in the doorway, memorizing his location, visualizing my next shot firing true into the middle of his forehead. Gods forgive me, I hate using guns. They’re hands-down the worst human invention, next to the nuclear bomb. And maybe reality television. But it’s Jacob or these guys, and that’s not a difficult decision to make.

  I pull my head back in and snap to human form. The dorm room spins around me. I sway and lean against the wall. I give myself three slow, strong breaths. One. Two. Three.

  My hand snakes around the corner and fires a single shot. The semiautomatic gunfire ceases. I force two quick breaths and peek quickly around the corner—in human form; I’m not sure I can change again. The image of that man’s face, with a red dot in the middle of his forehead, a trickle of blood dripping on his fallen colleague, will haunt me for years.

  Yeah, I know he was a mob guy. I know he was destined for a violent death. I just didn’t want to be the one to deliver it.

  I’m leaning heavily against the wall. Bullet wounds, though healing, still bleed on my stomach, right calf, and butt. I stare at the lower bunk bed for a few seconds, wishing more than anything I could lie down on it—just for a few minutes.

  But I know I can’t. I know it. If I lie down, I may never get back up. I just have to convince myself of it. Funny how that works, huh?

  I drop the gun on the floor. I never want to see it again. But I’m not an idiot: I have more in my pack if I need them. I limp down the hallway, leaning against the left wall for support. A calf muscle is one of those you never really think about until it doesn’t work anymore. It shortens my stride by half and sends shooting pains through my lower leg if I stretch too far. I finally reach the door the three Yakuza were guarding and turn the handle.

  Well, I try to turn the handle. But it doesn’t budge. Have I forgotten how to turn a door handle? I stare at it for a few seconds until the explanation slogs its way through my muddled brain: locked. Tired and weary, my dragon roars inside my head.

  “Are you freaking k
idding me?” I shout at no one in particular.

  “Kitty?” a small, familiar voice sounds on the other side of the door.

  “Jacob?” I call. “Jacob!” I bang against the door. Just hearing his voice renews my strength. My dragon, programmed to the max to protect this boy, urges to the surface. We are so close. So close.

  “Can you move in the room?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It locks from the outside, with a key.”

  I glance at the fallen Yakuza. Their blood seeps to the ground and swirls together in a shallow pool of crimson against the stark white of the linoleum floor. I really don’t want to search all of them for a key they may not have.

  “Get as far from the door as you can, to the side,” I say. “Put some furniture between you and it if you can.” I pick up the last Yakuza’s gun, which has fallen to the floor a few feet away from him and mercifully doesn’t have any blood on it.

  “Okay,” he says, sounding more distant. “I’m ready.”

  I squeeze the trigger once and three fast shots make scrap metal out of the door lock. Hell, no wonder these guys were tearing me up. Why don’t I have guns like this? My dad and I are going to have a little chat about his armory once he’s free. I throw my shoulder against the door, and it swings open, banging against the wall. This room looks exactly the same as the other one. Jacob is crouching behind a wooden dresser, looking more terrified than I’ve ever seen him.

  “Kitty! You’re hurt!” Jacob rushes to my side and slides under my shoulder to support some of my weight. He leads me to the lower bunk and helps me to sit down. Without another word, he tears strips of fabric from the bedsheets and gently wraps my calf. His fingers shake, but he’s careful to avoid touching my injury. He bites his lip as he focuses on the task.