Dragon Eruption

by Amelia Jade

  “So, let’s start from the top. Who was that in there?”

  The man shook his head. Hector tightened his grip on the man’s throat, pulled his arm back, and smashed him into the brick again. A whimper of pain escaped his prisoner, and blood began to trickle down the back of his head.

  “I’ll repeat myself, in case you’re having hearing problems from the brain trauma you’re taking right now. Who was that?”

  “D-Don’t know,” the man said.

  Hector hauled back, but the man lifted his hands in front of his face in a plea for him to stop.

  “I need a name,” he growled, letting his animal slip into his words, the echo of his anger filling the alleyway with the low rumble of an avalanche just getting underway.

  “I don’t have one, okay? He never gave me his name.”

  Hector frowned. The man seemed to be telling the truth. He was an amateur as far as Hector could tell, not used to this sort of thing. That unfortunately didn’t help Hector out in the least, since he needed a name to be able to identify him.

  “Tell me everything,” he snapped.

  “Listen, the guy came to me one night, bribed me and this girl. Said we had to have a fake fight outside your embassy. When someone came out, I was to hit her and then run. That’s it. Okay? He gave me a thousand bucks to do it.”

  “What was tonight about?”

  “Collecting my money,” he said, speaking freely now. “Well, the other half of it. I got half up front.”

  “And the woman?” he asked, though he figured he already knew the answer.

  “No idea. Never met her before that night. Haven’t seen her since.”

  “You’re not being overly useful,” he told the man, tightening his grip and looming over him threateningly.

  “What more do you want me to tell you?” he yelped.

  “Well, a name would be helpful.”

  “I told you, I don’t know it!”

  Hector idly lifted the man from his feet until he could look him in the eye. The human just sort of dangled there, both his hands around Hector’s wrist as he tried to claw himself free. “Are you positive?” he asked icily. “Someone died because of what you did, so be very, very careful about how you answer.”

  “I swear it. He never gave me a name. Hell, I never even saw his face!”

  Damn. There went his next question. Hector was getting mad now. Whoever this person was, they were covering their tracks thoroughly, and doing a good job of setting everyone against each other. They had framed Hector, alienated him from Gray and Andrew, set him at odds with Martin, and were threatening to rip apart all the hard work that had been done to establish a peaceful shifter presence in Cloud Lake.

  Whoever they were, they were thorough.

  “What can you tell me about him? Other than it was a him,” Hector rumbled, setting the man back down on the ground.

  The human tried to pry Hector’s fingers loose from around his neck, but it was like trying to bend solid steel. He didn’t have a hope.

  “Not much. Um, he’s big. Like you, I guess.”

  “Are you saying he’s a shifter?” Hector asked, snarling angrily at the accusation that one of his own could be behind it all.

  “No!” he cried out. “Just that he’s built like one of you, that’s all. Could be a human bodybuilder.”

  He’d been assuming a human all along. Someone with a vendetta against shifters perhaps. He knew they existed in Cloud Lake. So far they’d all been peaceful, doing little more than protesting their human government, leaving the shifters themselves alone. It was only time before they escalated however, but this made no real sense. It wasn’t going accomplish anything. Still, that hadn’t stopped people from trying things like that before.

  Except that it didn’t make sense. There was a key piece he was missing here. His mysterious attacker earlier hadn’t been human. No human could have done that to Hector. It had to be a shifter then, someone who…who…Hector couldn’t come up with a reason for it all. Why light the fire? And how did Corvin figure into all of it?

  “Too many questions,” he said angrily. “Not enough answers.”

  He let the human go with a warning. “Don’t ever fuck with us again. I know who you are now, got it?”

  “G-G-Got it!” the man yelped and took off into the darkness, never once looking back.

  Hector let him go. He wasn’t the problem, never had been. The man was just another idiot who would do anything for money without thinking it through. Wrong place, wrong time and all. It irked Hector that he couldn’t get any more answers from him, but the man had told him all he could.

  One important thing had come out of it though. The covers had been torn away from everything, revealing that someone was out to get him. The argument and thus the fire weren’t just an unhappy coincidence. It also seemed more and more likely that Rachel had been right, that maybe Corvin hadn’t succumbed to the fire, but perhaps to something else entirely. It galled Hector that someone, no, that a shifter would go to such lengths to hide a murder, but he could no longer confidently say it had all been unhappy coincidence. Something was going on.

  All he needed to do now was figure out what. To do that he was going to need some help. Help that he wouldn’t find on the streets of Cloud Lake. Testing his left arm, he winced at the twinge of pain that accompanied his movement of it. It was healing fast, just not fast enough for his comfort. Judging by the pain he still felt, it was going to be longer than normal for it to recover fully. It must have been a worse break than he’d thought. Hector couldn’t waste time on pain though. So he walled it off, ignoring the sensations from his arm and started walking.

  It was time to head back to the embassy. He needed to tell Andrew and Gray. They would need to know all about what he’d discovered. Then maybe they could put an end to it.

  Perhaps they could even figure out a way for him to stay.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rachel

  It was the same cab driver who had driven her home that took her back to the embassy.

  “You…want me to stick around?” he asked as she paid him.

  Rachel gave him a look.

  “You know, until you’re finished?” he asked. “Then I’ll take you back?”

  She shook her head, confused as all hell about what he was talking about. “No, I’m good, thanks. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”

  The cab driver nodded. “Ah, got it. Well, here’s my card. I work nights, so you can call me direct, instead of the operator.”

  Rachel frowned, but took the card and nodded, exiting the vehicle. The driver didn’t stick around, pulling away once the door was closed and she was clear. Only then did her brain catch up with the rest of her as she realized what he’d been insinuating about her “being finished.”

  “Rude,” she muttered, tossing his card into the garbage near the door as she went up the stairs and entered the lobby. “I’m not a prostitute. Dick.”

  “Hi Rachel,” Gray greeted her from where he stood,

  “Hey Gray, what ya doing?” she asked, coming to a casual halt next to him.

  “Painting.”

  “I can see that,” she said as he took a brush and drew strokes against the wall. “I was just, um, wondering if you knew that you were painting in white. On a white wall.”

  “You’ve never worked a night shift before, have you?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the wall as he splashed more paint on here and there.

  “Ah, no, that I have not.”

  “If you ever do, you’ll understand.” He paused, and then looked pointedly at her stomach. “Actually, I suspect you’ll understand before then.”

  “What, a pregnancy thing?”

  Gray shook his head. “No, a newborn baby thing.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever be so bored that I’ll want to paint on a white wall with white paint,” she said slowly.

  “Bored? No. Sleepless…” he trailed off and flashed her a grin. “Got any nam
es picked out yet?”

  “No, not yet,” she said. “Still need to find out what it’s going to be first.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Nope.”

  “I see.” He applied some more paint liberally to a section that obviously had too little.

  “Well this has been interesting, but have you seen Hector?”

  Gray turned to look at her. “It’s just primer, you know. We’re not putting tile up on this section. It’s going to have shelves on it or something. I dunno, Andrew decided.”

  “If you say so,” she replied.

  “Hector was in the bar last I saw,” he answered. “Drinking away sorrows about this mess he’s in.”

  “Oh, great. Well, maybe I can sober him up.” Rachel wasn’t sure. But she was going to try. If Hector only had two days left in town, he certainly wasn’t allowed to spend them drunk while she dealt with her loneliness.

  “I hope you have better luck than I did,” Gray replied.

  “Me too.”

  She headed back into the embassy, taking a left at the rear wall of the lobby and following one of the hallways down there, until she got to the makeshift lounge. Hector had shown her around one day, proud of the repairs and renovations that were being undertaken at the embassy. The lights in the lounge were off.

  “Hello?” she called. “Hector?”

  There was no response. Rachel felt around the wall for a light switch, but couldn’t find anything. Then, in a flash of brilliance, she tried higher up. Almost immediately her hand encountered a panel of switches.

  “Shifter height,” she muttered, flicking them on.

  The bar was empty.

  Obviously Hector had decided to move on from there. Perhaps he’d decided that drinking himself into a slumber wasn’t the way to deal with anything? Or solve it even. It was possible, and she desperately hoped it was true, but that didn’t stop her from peeking behind the little fake bar that had been set up to ensure that he wasn’t passed out on the ground out of sight. He wasn’t there either.

  Rachel wandered out of the room and reached up to her head height to kill the lights on the way. Pausing in the hallway, she thought things over for a moment, and then headed back to the lobby and up the stairs. Gray was hard at work on the wall painting…whatever he was painting.

  She went up one of the dual curved stairways to the second floor and up to his assigned bedroom. Though they’d stayed at her place most nights, she’d visited him twice during their brief time together, so she knew where he was. After knocking on the door, she crossed her arms and waited for him to answer.

  He didn’t.

  After knocking twice more Rachel banged the palm of her hand on the door and twisted the handle with the other, more out of spite than expectation. To her surprise the door swung inward, having been left unlocked. She looked inside, but the lights were off. Once again she reached up to head height, searching for the switch. It wasn’t there.

  Right. No renovations here. Try normal height.

  The room was bathed in light as she found the switch, but still no Hector. The bed was made and everywhere was empty, confirmed by a quick walk around. She reached the door and paused, looking back inside before closing it.

  “Where the hell is he?” she asked the vacant room, hoping it could point her in the right direction.

  “Where’s who?”

  She spun at the voice, her heart leaping into her throat. “Holy shit!” she exclaimed.

  “Sorry,” the shifter said, holding his hands up in apology. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I thought I walked up loudly enough to be heard.”

  Rachel waved it off. “No, it’s okay. I was lost in thought. You could have been a train and I probably wouldn’t have heard you.”

  She didn’t recognize the newcomer, but that didn’t mean much. She knew Hector, Gray, and Andrew, that was about it.

  “I’m looking for Hector,” she replied.

  The shifter frowned. “I think I saw him out back a few hours ago, but other than that, I haven’t seen him. Sorry.”

  She nodded. “That’s more information than I had before. Thanks.”

  The shifter just moved his head in a tilt toward her and then ambled off down the hallway. Rachel went the other way, back down the stairs, past the still-painting Gray and out the nearest door marked Exit at the back. This one had lost its sign, but someone had painted the word in red on the door itself. She pushed it open, only belatedly wondering if she was going to set off the fire alarm. Cringing, she paused half out the door and waited, but no clangs sounded.

  Sighing in relief, she walked into the back loading area of the former motel. It was mostly empty. Two loading bays were set off to her left. It was just a flat paved area. A storage shed with a huge dent in the side was located at the rear of the lot, just before the fence. The roadway entrance was off on the right-hand side. She took all of that in as her gaze swept from left to right. Plenty of objects to note, but no sign of Hector.

  Not that she’d really truly expected one. It would have been odd for him to just be standing around outside after all. It was likely he had been headed somewhere when he’d left. The only question she had now was where? Where had he gone, and why wasn’t he back yet? Unless of course he’d decided to go drinking out in Cloud Lake.

  “Hector?” she called, walking out into the middle of the loading area. “Are you out here?”

  She turned in a slow circle, her eyes looking everywhere. Had he gone onto the roof, to watch the sky as he thought things over perhaps? It was feasible, but she doubted he was interested in deep contemplation after drinking. The more she tracked him down, the more it looked like he’d gone out into Cloud Lake itself. While the town wasn’t huge by any stretch, little more than ten or twelve thousand in the entire county including the countryside, there were plenty of places he could lose himself.

  “Waste of time,” she muttered to herself, upset that she’d allowed herself to hope that he would still be there, that she could come back and they would work everything out. Perhaps a happy ending wasn’t in store for her after all.

  Check the storage shed, then call a cab and head home.

  She allowed herself a little laugh at the realization she was likely to get the same damn cab driver. Considering how little time she’d spent at the embassy, it was only going to reinforce his suspicion that she was, um, servicing the shifters. Rachel poked her head in the open door.

  “Hector?”

  Pulling out her cell phone, she turned the flashlight function on and lifted it up to get a view of the interior.

  “Hel—”

  Something wrapped around the phone, blocking the light off at the same time a nauseating stench hit her like a wave.

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” a voice hissed at her as something rose up out of the shadows.

  A single thought raced through her brain.

  I know that voice…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hector

  He stormed up the front stairs, clearing them in a single bound, careful to restrain himself as he went through the doors so that they didn’t break under his impact.

  “Where’s Andrew?” he barked.

  Gray turned from the wall he was standing in front of, paintbrush and paint can in hand.

  “Pardon?”

  “I need to see Andrew immediately,” he said.

  “I imagine he’s either in his office or asleep,” Gray replied, setting his instruments aside for the moment. “Why, what’s up?”

  “Better come with me,” Hector said, striding forward without slowing down. He reached Andrew’s office but the door was closed. A quick turn indicated it was locked, and a peek under showed the lights off.

  Gray was waiting for him in the lobby. “No dice?”

  “None.”

  “Can I find out what’s going on yet?”

  “Treason,” Hector growled as his legs flexed twice, hurling him up the stairs in a double leap.
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  He turned to the right and headed down the hallway. Andrew had the closest room to the stairs. Hector rapped his knuckles on the door three times, then paused, then another three times. He waited ten seconds, then repeated it, but nobody answered.

  “Where is he?” The question was a half-bellow as he returned to the stairs and vaulted over the railing, landing easily on the ground below.

  “What is going on?” Gray asked, stepping up in front of him.

  “Somebody did this on purpose,” he growled, gesturing around the embassy. “All of it. It was a setup.”

  “Hector, you need to explain to me exactly what is going on,” Gray said, his voice deathly serious.

  “I was out moping around earlier,” he said, pacing back and forth impatiently as he spoke. “And I happened to randomly come across a scent that I recognized. One I’d smelled before. So I tracked it down.”

  “Who was it?”

  Hector smiled. “It belonged to the same man who was half of the arguing couple out in front of the embassy the day of the fire.”

  Gray nodded for him to continue.

  “Turns out, there was no couple. There wasn’t even a real fight. They were paid to stage it. He was supposed to wait until I came outside, hit her, and then run.”

  “How did you find this out?” Gray asked.

  “I questioned him,” Hector replied icily. “But that was after I stormed the building he was in, and after the person who had hired him fled.”

  “Who do we think it was?”

  “A shifter.”

  Gray went still. “That’s a hell of an accusation to level at someone.”

  “When they fled, they dropped a stinkbomb, Gray. Think that one over for a moment.”

  Hector watched his friend process that and come to the same conclusion. Only a shifter would think to cover his tracks, and only someone expecting other shifters would carry such an implement on them.

  “Did this human identify who it was?”

  “No,” he spat. “He never saw his face. Always met in darkness. But he said he was big, like me.”