Steel Dragon

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “I don’t know, Dad. Like I said, they didn’t answer most of my questions, and it’s not like the one at the concert transformed and took the time to show me his powers. They merely took more notes on what I asked. Honestly, I think that was one of the tests too.”

  Brian—having devoured a fifth slice of pizza—rejoined the conversation. “Why would you be a mage, though? Doesn’t that run in families or whatever? Unless mom and dad are holding out on us, the Halls are basically normal.”

  “You’re definitely not normal, Brian,” she retorted and drew a look of mock indignation from him.

  “Halls aren’t magic,” their dad stated in a tone as frustratingly opaque as the dragons had been.

  Kristen nodded. “That’s what the dragon said too.”

  “So, then what happened? They popped you off the diodes and you felt compelled to join the police academy?” Brian gestured at the ridiculousness of his sister being selected instead of him. “They do that, right? I’ve read about it on the Internet. Compulsion or whatever.”

  “No. No, not at all. They took a few minutes to look at the results, then told me I’d be a great fit for police work. It wasn’t like they forced me or whatever. Dragons aside, you guys know I’ve always wanted to be a cop like Dad.”

  “Which is still not okay,” her mother said, but her voice lacked the fervor it had possessed when Kristen first applied to the academy. Marty Hall might not be happy her daughter was following her father into the force, but she’d accepted it.

  Her dad reached for another slice of pizza. If they waited, Brian would eat it all. “It’ll be fine, honey. With a pretty face like that? They’ll put her on meter maid duty for a few years before they promote her to detective. Before long, she’ll run the force without so much as a scratch on her.”

  As they usually did, her parents fell into their familiar patter about the job. Since she’d joined the police academy, dinner often devolved into the two of them debating her choice. She might have had second thoughts about her decision—she had always loved her parents and wanted to make them proud—but since they weren’t in agreement, she knew she couldn’t please them both. The choice was ultimately hers to make.

  She’d always been athletic and wanted to help people, so being a police officer made sense. Still, she hoped her mom didn’t continue to stress eat.

  Kristen’s phone buzzed in her purse and she glanced at it. Brian had already tuned out of reality and now played a game on his phone, so she knew her parents wouldn’t say anything.

  “Oh, my God—Dad, it’s an email from the force. They’ve given me my first assignment,” she blurted before she’d even read the whole thing.

  “That’s great, honey!” Her mom obviously tried to be enthusiastic but sounded like she didn’t think it was great at all.

  “Now, Krissy, remember, the force is still a man’s world,” her dad began. She’d heard this speech before too, but beer often made him repeat himself. “I’m sure that once they see what you’re capable of, they’ll get you into more action, but there’s nothing wrong with starting out as a meter reader or a traffic cop. The force has to make money.”

  She almost couldn’t hear him. Not because of the noise of the restaurant or because his words were slightly slurred, but because of the four capital letters that glared at her from the screen of her phone.

  “I’ve been assigned to SWAT.”

  For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He merely blinked at her like she’d short-circuited him. “SWAT?” He looked like he’d found a rat in his beer after he’d already consumed half.

  “Is that good?” her mother asked. Despite being married to a cop for more than thirty years, she still knew next to nothing about the police force and its many different departments. She’d always maintained that discussing such things at dinner was uncouth.

  “Special Weapons and Tactics.” Brian didn’t look up from his game. “Nice job, Krissy.”

  “No, no, Kristen. That can’t be right. It must be a mistake. I know you did great at the academy, but you don’t have the training for the SWAT team, not yet. Shit, I never even made it to SWAT.”

  “Frank! Language!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Marty. If Kristen’s really going to be on SWAT, it merits a few choice words.”

  “I am, Dad. Look.” She passed her dad the phone and leaned back while he stared at the screen.

  For a moment, he merely read in silence, obviously confused. Kristen could see his lips moving to mouth the same words she’d already read twice. He stopped reading and sat in silence for a moment as if utterly devoid of words.

  “Holy crap,” he finally managed, which essentially summed up exactly how she felt.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and bellowed, “Check, please!” over the din of the restaurant.

  “Frank!” Her mom put a hand on her husband’s shoulder and looked around the restaurant, obviously embarrassed.

  Frank shrugged. “Krissy’s supposed to be at work tomorrow morning.” He turned to her and looked her dead in the eye. “And you’ll need some rest. They say SWAT makes the academy look like kindergarten. And that’s without dragons watching.”

  Chapter Two

  A little nervously, Kristen stepped from her car into the parking garage of the Detroit Police Department. She walked past police vehicles and massive slate-black SWAT vans and paused only once to check her uniform in the reflective rear windows of one of the cars. Her red hair was in a tight bun and her uniform still crisp from being starched. When she glanced at her shoes, her face reflected in the shiny leather.

  She took a deep breath in an effort to silence the flutter of nerves and pressed the button for the elevator.

  Her head held high, she emerged from the garage and crossed the small breezeway to the station. The Detroit river shone blue in the early morning light, and out in the water between the USA and Canada, picnickers already flocked to Bell Isle. One of the auto company’s headquarters towered nearby. To her, it looked like a giant pair of batteries held together with enormous bolts.

  Despite the fact that she was right there in the flesh, a part of her couldn’t believe this was happening. Not only was she a police officer like her father, but she was also stationed there in the newly thriving downtown of her city? Her heart swelled with pride and when she entered the station, she grinned from ear to ear.

  She approached a woman seated at a large antique wooden desk and introduced herself.

  “Kristen Hall, reporting for duty.”

  “Let’s see your orders,” the officer said and held a hand out without looking up from her computer.

  In silence, she passed the woman the printed orders.

  While she marveled at the desk, the officer examined her printed out email. The furniture had to be a hundred years old and was so well polished that the dark wood shone. There were a few bullet holes here and there, but they looked like they had been added decades before in a harder time. Maybe being on SWAT wouldn’t be so bad. She’d had moments when she’d questioned whether it was the right place for her, but now that she was actually there, the doubts seemed foolish.

  “You’re with Sergeant Jones.” The woman finally looked at her. “Good fucking luck with that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She smirked. “You’ll see. He and Butters—that’s Sergeant Goodman—are in the lounge.” She directed her past the front desk and through the innards of the station to where she would find the squad.

  Kristen had thought—based on the state of the vehicles in the parking lot and the well-maintained antique in the entryway to the station—that she had been assigned to one of the more prestigious units. As she made her way through the building, however, she could see the assumption had been mistaken.

  Most of the desks were piled high with paperwork—an obvious indication that the force was understaffed—and the few officers she did see barely gave her crisp uniform a second glance.

  Holding cells against one wal
l looked almost comically out of place in the office setting. The bars were brightly polished at about chest level, no doubt from decades of prisoners’ taking hold of them while they complained to police officers about their incarceration. The sight of the cells made her realize that in the grand scheme of things, the desks and paperwork were the temporary fixtures of this space. The cells were the real reason why the building had been built there.

  Beyond these and near two bathrooms that smelled like they were in need of a good scrub, she found the lounge.

  She entered the dingy room and made a quick survey. The floor suggested it was long overdue for replacement and the walls faded from white to yellow as they approached the ceiling. It smelled of stale coffee and fresh donuts—which, she had to admit, wasn’t the worst smell in the world.

  Sprawled on a tiny sofa was an overweight man who sucked powdered sugar from his plump, brown fingers. His uniform stretched tightly across his middle, although he didn’t look sloppy, merely round. Still, she found herself thinking back to her training. How had this man made it through all that? He had her father’s physique and Frank Hall hadn’t worked out once since he’d retired.

  Another man paced near the coffee maker, his back still to her. He was skinny, but she could tell from the way he held himself that he had hidden muscles and could probably handle himself in a fight.

  “Do you think this freshmen bitch is ever gonna show up?” the thin man shouted over the gurgling sounds of the coffeemaker as it transformed the last traces of fresh water into drinkable caffeine.

  “That all depends, Sergeant Jones,” the larger man replied and raised his eyebrows at her in obvious embarrassment. He had a southern accent she immediately found endearing. “Did we get two new recruits or only this one?”

  Sergeant Jones poured himself a cup of coffee. “Jesus, Butters, do you do anything around here besides eat this damn breakroom junk? Only one. Some woman, they said. Like I have time to put the fucking toilet seat down.”

  “Jonesy!” the larger man snapped. So there really was a man named Butters? That couldn’t be right. He pushed himself to his feet and approached her with his hand extended. “I presume you are Kristen Hall. I am Sergeant Hank Goodman. Welcome.”

  Jonesy startled and spilled his coffee. “She’s here? Shit, Butters why didn’t you warn me? Were you too busy stuffing that fat mouth?”

  Kristen took the sergeant’s hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Goodman.” Fortunately, he had eaten the donut with his left hand so her fingers stayed dry and she escaped having to transfer sticky sugar to her pristine uniform. She didn’t think he’d appreciate it if she’d asked for a cloth to wipe her hand.

  “Butters is fine. Everyone else can’t help but use the name so I don’t expect you to call me Goodman for long anyway. This is Sergeant Jones. He prefers Jonesy.”

  Kristen could tell from the way Butters raised an eyebrow that Jones did not prefer the moniker.

  The other man turned and revealed no surprise at all when his gaze settled on her, despite having insulted her not once, but twice. In fact, he glared at her, sniffed twice, and flared the nostrils of his freckled nose. “Do you smell that Butters? Starched sheets and group showers. When did you leave the academy, Miss Hall? Twenty damn minutes ago?”

  “Jonesy. Be proper. Clearly, Miss Hall is in the right place.”

  Jonesy snorted. “I didn’t realize we was in a butcher shop. This is no place for fresh meat, sister. Get out now while your hair’s still in a nice little bun. We’ll tell them you never showed and we can all forget all about this.”

  Fury immediately kindled inside her chest and she fought the urge to clench her fists. How dare he talk to her this way. She wanted to slap him across the face with her orders but knew that wouldn’t win someone like this over. And that was what she wanted—to win.

  “Why should I leave? Did you suddenly realize that no one will want a rancid piece of flank steak or a record-setting turkey if I’m here?”

  For a moment, neither man said a thing. They simply stared at her and both their mouths hung open in shock at her retort. Then, making it clear that the two had worked together for some time, they reacted almost in unison and began to talk. Well, Jonesy did. Butters merely laughed—a deep, hearty laugh that made her think of a Baptist church with a charismatic preacher instead of a cop who licked powdered sugar off his fingers.

  Jonesy, though, was less than amused. He yelled over his companion’s laughter. “A piece of flank steak? If I was a piece of meat, I’d be a T-bone.”

  Kristen had never heard such a bizarre rejoinder before. But before she could say anything about the strangeness of a man comparing himself to a piece of meat, Butters cut in, “Boney is right.”

  “And what the fuck do you mean by rancid?” the skinny man continued. “It’s not like you can smell anything over those flowers you soaked in rubbing alcohol that you’re trying to pass off as perfume.”

  “Thank God one of us remembered to bathe last night.” She smiled. “And it’s not perfume, actually. It’s called soap. You might want to try it sometime. They make it for uniforms too. It helps with the map of stains you’re working on.” She waggled her fingers at his chest.

  He looked down and found the coffee stain she pointed at. The scowl on his face was worth everything she might have to endure as a result.

  Butters threw back his head and laughed so hard that he almost plopped on the couch once again. “Miss Hall, you’ll fit in here just fine, I think.”

  “Bullshit she will,” Jonesy said, still fuming. “This is SWAT, not a fucking playground. So you can throw a few fucking insults around, so what? This isn’t grade school.”

  “Yeah, obviously, otherwise you’d have dropped out.” Kristen could see she wouldn’t win the man over, but she couldn’t help herself. She had been raised not to take shit from anyone and could hear her dad now, telling her not to start fights but damn well make sure she finished them. That particular maxim had been one she’d always applied to verbal sparring as well as physical confrontations.

  “She has more spine than you, Butters, I’ll give her that.” He sneered at her. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not qualified to be here.”

  “I was assigned—”

  “Bullshit. Someone made a mistake.” He stared at her with hard, unrelenting eyes as he continued to speak. “When I heard we were getting a grad fresh from the academy, I assumed it was an ex-military type, maybe one of them survivalist freaks. Someone with experience, not some pretty little fawn hoping to make the world a better place.”

  “You know what? I hope you’re right. I hope this is some kind of mistake.” Kristen felt another wave of emotion rise within her. This time, it was fear mixed with rage. The problem was that she didn’t feel qualified either, so everything he said struck home. Still, she couldn’t let him win. “Because at least if there’s been a mistake, I won’t have to worry about my sense of dignity slowly burning away from being forced to share airspace with you.”

  There was a heavy moment of silence. She could tell she’d struck a nerve but she wasn’t sorry. The man had behaved horribly and didn’t deserve her respect. He stared belligerently at her and she returned it without flinching. She wouldn’t let him see that he’d gotten to her.

  “Do you have your orders?” Butters asked. His question broke the moment but didn’t ease the tension in the room at all.

  “Of course I do.” She pulled out a printed copy of her orders and handed it to him.

  He read it for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, then looked at her. “Well, I must admit this is quite a surprise. Congratulations on high marks in the academy and…and, well, I guess we’ll be working together soon.” He nodded cordially at her. Although much more polite than his colleague, he didn’t look openly excited about her being there. She could understand that. Even her own father had said she was underqualified.

  “Let me see that fucking piece of paper.” Jonesy
snatched it from his teammate’s fingers.

  “The little marks are called letters. Together, they form words,” Kristen all but purred. She’d traded insults with her brother for years. This idiot simply didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know what a fucking word is. Try these ones—shut the fuck up for a goddamn second and let me read.” With that, he stopped glaring at her and actually read the document in front of him.

  It took some measure of control from her not to comment on how his lips moved as he read the words.

  For a moment, she thought the orders might actually work and he might calm somewhat, but this proved to be wishful thinking.

  “And what, you expect me to believe this shit because it’s printed on a piece of paper?” Jonesy waved the offending document around like it was hazardous to his health. “This doesn’t change a damn thing. Some bureaucrat who doesn’t know what the day in the life of an actual cop is like saw your fancy little resume and put you on SWAT. It doesn’t change the fact that a new academy grad will put the whole damn team at risk. I already have to manage Butterball’s snack breaks. Now, they want to add another liability?”

  “Just because I can eat and still snipe better than anyone in the force doesn’t mean you need to take it out on Miss Hall,” the other man said.

  “No more devil’s advocate, Butterball!” The skinny man practically spat the words. “Let’s go talk to the captain and get this damn mess straightened out.”

  Kristen folded her arms and shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

  “Right this way, my lady.” Jonesy left the break room and she followed.

  As they walked through the police station and past mountains of paperwork, framed photos of dead police officers, and the few tiny holding cells, her mind raced. She honestly didn’t like Jonesy—Sergeant Jones? She already thought of him as Jonesy, as his demeanor hadn’t exactly earned him any respect from her. He was rude and sexist and yet, part of her—not a small part either—worried that he was probably right.