The stranger was handsome in a roguish kind of way with short, almost white, gelled hair. He had keen eyes and what she would later describe as a pointy smile. Surprisingly, he wore a blue seersucker suit, complete with the vest but no tie—a screen-printed t-shirt hid under the shirt—and his dress shoes looked like they’d been polished moments before he’d stepped into the bar.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
Kristen wanted to tell him to buzz off, but something about him made her think he was something more than a creep trying to pick up a drunk woman. The suit, for starters. Creeps tended to wear clothes that were less…conspicuous. Also, she was something of a sucker for a British accent, even though he tried to hide his.
“Sure, have a seat, but if you think you’ll get me drunk, it absolutely won’t happen.”
“I saw you down that whiskey. You hardly flinched. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could breathe fire.”
She didn’t know what to make of that. It was a figure of speech, obviously—dragons were a regular touchpoint when it came to idioms as they’d shepherded human culture since the beginning, after all—but the comment coming so soon after her conversation with her dad was…well, eerie.
“Get this man two whiskeys and a Labatt’s. My tab,” she said.
“No, please—really, I insist.”
“You can get the next round if you can make it through that.”
He nodded politely and took a seat, downed the two whiskeys back to back, and sipped the Labatt’s blue. It must have been a trick of the light, but she could almost see smoke pouring out his nose as he put his beer down.
“I’m Chadwick, by the way—Chadwick Kensington.”
“Chadwick Kensington? You must be joking.”
“I’m afraid not. It can be a bit much in this day and age and indeed, this country, but there was a time where it was as a common a name as…”
Kristen looked at him. He smiled with an eyebrow raised at her. Oh, right, duh. “Kristen Hall.” She raised her beer and he did the same. “My friends call me Kristen.”
“I’ve been trying to get my friends to call me Ken.”
“Ken, I like that. But it’s not working?”
“No.” The man’s expression soured. “They insist on Chadwick, despite it being decidedly unusual.”
“Well, I’ll call you Ken, Ken.” She grinned and realized that the whiskey had set in.
“Much appreciated, Kristen. So, what brings you to a sports bar after the game is over?”
She pointed to the wall of whiskey.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Point taken. Tony, can we trouble you for another round? My tab this time.”
“Of course, Mr. Kensington.” The bartender retrieved a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet and poured them each a drink in a crystal tumbler. She had no idea the bar actually had crystal, but at least she now knew that Ken had been there before. If he turned out to be a creep, the bartender would be able to corroborate his description to the police. She paused when it occurred to her that she was the police now.
They sipped their whiskey and Kristen tried not to let her face show how good it was. It was amazing that the same ingredients—in this case, grain alcohol, treated barrels, and time—could produce products of such different quality. The whiskey she had first drunk tasted like gasoline, the next like smoke, and this one tasted of fine tobacco, chocolate, and hazelnuts, with a heat that dried the mouth and left her with the taste of oatmeal smothered with brown sugar. She was happy he had put this round on his tab. That one drink of whiskey probably cost more than all she had ever drunk in her whole life in total.
“So, what brings you here?” she asked him.
“I love the feeling of bars once people have left. You can still feel the people and sense their presence, but it’s not as loud.” He chuckled.
She decided she really didn’t know what to make of this guy but thought perhaps his appearance began to make more and more sense. The kind of guy who snubbed his nose at cheap whiskey, wore seersucker suits, and complained about noisy bars seemed like the kind who would have his ass kicked on a fairly regular basis. She was certain of one thing though—she didn’t feel threatened by him. Something about him was simply…calming.
“Feel their presence, I get that.” She took another sip of her whiskey.
“How do you mean?”
“Have you ever thought you know someone, only to find out you really don’t and that they’ve lied to you for all the time you’ve known them?”
“I must admit, I know the sensation. Tell me, is it friends or family bothering you?”
Kristen scoffed at that. “Neither? Both? I don’t know anymore, honestly. My family situation suddenly became more…complicated. Okay, I love my dad, but it turns out he’s not… Well, let’s say he’s not the man I thought he was.”
“Fathers rarely are. They’re only human, after all…mostly.”
She nodded. “You have a point, I guess. He’s not a monster.”
“Then consider yourself lucky. My father is—by virtually every definition of the word—as monstrous as they come, but at least he made me who I am.”
After a moment’s thought, she shook her head. She didn’t like it, but what he said struck home. She was who she was because of Frank, and she liked who she was—well, mostly. For one thing, she didn’t like how hard her first week of SWAT had been. Things were supposed to be easy for her but her last week had definitely not been that.
“What do you do for work, Ken?” she asked, hoping to change the subject. She could already see she’d have to apologize to Frank, and she’d have to talk to her mom too.
“Ah, Americans…never one to bandy about with simple conversation when we could talk personal economics.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Ken waved her apology away. “Please, it’s fine. I’ve grown up with means. My father made very savvy investments a long time ago, so I’ve never had to work. It’s a defense mechanism of the wealthy to avoid talking about wealth. If you like, I could regale you with tales of me sailing my yacht around the horn of Africa or of parties with prestigious English playwrights.”
“I doubt I’d know who the hell you were talking about. I don’t know any playwrights.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of one or two of Bill’s plays, but that’s fine, I’d rather hear about what you do for a living.”
“I’m on SWAT.”
“SWAT?” Kristen couldn’t tell if he was impressed or was asking for clarification.
“Special Weapons and Tactics. You know, the police in the armored vans with the big guns.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the television programs. Is it really like it seems? Seizing caches of weapons and stopping robberies?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’ve only been on the team for a week.”
“Ah.” He sounded slightly disappointed. “So only paperwork, then?”
Her smirk crept in unbidden. “Well, earlier today…”
For some reason, she trusted him and told him all about her last week of work. The tale covered her hostile team members, her gives-no-shits boss, the headache-inducing training sessions, and taking a bullet at the end of it all. Putting it all together in one half-drunk explanation made her realize exactly how crazy it all was. She’d been there a week—a week—and so much had already happened. It made her feel like she’d slept through the police academy and indeed, most of her life.
“I honestly don’t know why it’s so hard,” she finished. “I’ve always been a star athlete. I did well in school, and for whatever reason, SWAT is somehow way harder than all that put together.”
Ken chuckled. It was a pleasant, polite kind of chuckle that mostly came through his nose. “One thing I’ve learned from my…er, position is the value of patience. Maybe you’ll need more than one week to be as good as the people who have been there for years.”
“Yeah, well, when you put it lik
e that, it sounds obvious. I guess I need to keep training.”
“Sometimes, it’s hard to see what’s obvious in one’s own life.” He shrugged. “We often need a different perspective—a dragon’s eye view, as it were.”
“Yeah…the view from above,” she said and lost herself for a moment while she stared at the bottom of her glass and the amber liquor therein before she downed it. “Tony?” she raised her glass for a refill.
“Is that wise, Kristen?” her companion asked.
“I thought you were trying to get me drunk. Alcohol is a necessary ingredient in that formula.”
“I thought you’d decided you need to keep training. A bar isn’t exactly the best place to hone your skills.”
“My dad was a cop for thirty years and he knew how to drink.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but isn’t this the man you say has lied to you? Are you sure you wish to follow his advice on drinking, of all things?”
“He’s still my dad.”
“But, unless you left out a crucial detail, he was never on SWAT.”
“What’s your point?”
“Me? I have no point. I merely wonder if your father found his job easy.”
“Of course he didn’t find it easy. He was a cop. In Detroit. He used to say if he was only shot at once, it was a good day.”
“And yet you expect to master SWAT—a level of intensity your own father never made it to—in a week and with the help of whiskey?” He looked tactfully into his own glass of whiskey before he finished it quickly. “Because if you are, the least I can do is get you another round.”
“No. You know what? You’re right. Tony, let me close my tab and call me a cab while you’re at it.”
The bartender nodded.
“You know what, Chadwick Kensington? Thank you.”
Ken smiled. “For what, pray tell?”
“For reminding me that this is what I’ve looked for my whole life. I’ve never backed down from anything before and there’s no point in starting now. I’ve been there a week and already took a bullet for my partner. That’s not so bad.”
“Indeed not.”
“I’ll head to my parents’ house, hope to hell my mom and dad are asleep, and pass out on the couch. Tomorrow morning, I’ll run the four miles here to get the car and burn off the hangover I’m sure will come.”
“An admirable plan. I believe that I—having a job far less demanding than yours—will have another whiskey and wish you the very best of luck.”
Kristen nodded and left the bar. Somehow, his statement made her goals that much clearer. There were people in this world who had an easy life—she’d had evidence of one such entitled person seated beside her—but she didn’t want to be one of them. She’d worked hard to be successful for her entire life and had no intention to quit now that she finally found something that was an actual challenge.
Her taxi pulled up and she gave the man directions and returned to her parents’ house. She found her dad passed out on the couch with a dozen beer bottles on the coffee table in front of him.
It reminded her that she could do better than that. For Frank’s sake, she had to.
At about the same time that Kristen fell asleep in her old bedroom, Chadwick Kensington finished his second whiskey, tipped the bartender handsomely for continuing to care for the bottle after all these decades, and stepped out of the bar.
The night was cool and absolutely perfect, with a clear sky and tendrils of mist that hugged the street despite there not being any grates spewing vapor from Detroit’s steam tunnels nearby. He considered calling a cab himself. Even after all these years of the vehicles being around, he still found it exhilarating to race along the streets like a mouse with wheels. But the night was far too beautiful to not take to the air.
He stepped into an alley, looked at the sky, and discarded his glamor. First, his head changed. His white hair grew into white horns and his skin filled with pockmarks that separated into blue scales. Then, his fingers elongated, knuckle by knuckle, and black claws grew where nails had been. His clothing changed at the same time as his skin, fissured into scales. and expanded as his body grew from the size of a man to something that could eat a man. Finally, at his full size, he spread his wings and leapt into the night sky.
Briefly, he considered flying past the Hall girl’s house to ensure that she was sleeping in preparation for another day of training but decided against it. If she saw a dragon flying through the night it might change her immediate priorities, something he didn’t want to do and especially not after how well his manipulations had gone.
After speaking to the girl, he thought the others were right. If they were, her priorities—and indeed, her entire life—would change soon enough.
Chapter Ten
The door flew open and thunked against the inside wall. Kristen wasted no time, rushed in, and scanned to her left and then right using the light mounted on her gun to pierce the darkness.
“Clear!”
She moved to the next room. “This is SWAT. Open the door.”
When she received no answer, she kicked the door open.
“Clear!”
In the next room, a hostile held a woman hostage with a gun to her head.
Without hesitation, she shot him between the eyes.
“Now just a fucking second.”
The voice had come from her radio and she almost jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t expected it as she knew it was after hours and she was alone in one of SWAT’s training buildings.
After a quick, deep breath, she pressed the talk button on her radio. “Who’s there?”
“Who the fuck do you think is there? It’s me, Jones.”
“Jonesy?”
“Yeah, Red, fucking Jonesy.”
Kristen scanned the room, moved quickly to the kitchen, and checked there but couldn’t locate him. She’d cleared the house, after all, so should have seen him. “Where are you?”
“I’m outside. Do you think I’m hiding in the kitchen cabinets or some shit? Come on. I’m not an idiot, especially not after the way you’ve put down cardboard cutouts.”
“How can you see me?”
“For fuck’s sake. They’re called binoculars. Have you heard of them?”
Her face flushed and no doubt turned as red as her hair. She made her way out of the house to where Jonesy walked toward her from somewhere out in the parking lot. Exactly as he’d said, he had a pair of binoculars around his neck.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Drew and Captain Hansen are right. I’m inexperienced and I don’t have a right to be here like the rest of you. I don’t know why I have this opportunity, but I don’t intend to waste it. I’ll run these drills until its muscle memory. What about you?”
He shrugged and managed a half-grin. “Sometimes, I like to come out here and shoot the windows out.” He gestured at the empty apartment block that loomed in the dark.
“But that’s police property.”
“I know. That’s what makes it perfect. They always think it’s some stupid kids taking potshots.” He laughed. “Speaking of which, you can’t take a shot like that.”
“At a building in the dark?” She had lost what he was talking about.
“No, that last shot you took inside. Someone had a hostage with a gun to their head. You can’t pop ʼem between the eyes.”
“Protocol says if you have a shot, you take it.” She was quite sure of that because she’d read the manual anytime she’d stopped her evening of training for a break.
“Yeah. You’re right—technically. But you still can’t take that shot. For starters, a hostile will see you kick the door in and all he’s gonna have to do is pull that trigger to end it.”
“Which is why I need to be faster.”
“I admire your resolve, really. I totally fucking do, but you still can’t take that shot. Even
if you get to be as good a shot as Butters, you still can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because even if you make it every goddamn time, you’ll still get a hostage covered in some asshole’s brains, which is a fucking nightmare of paperwork if there ever was one.”
Kristen laughed at that. “Are you saying I should let a man go because of paperwork?”
“I mean you should think about it. If your choices are to take a shot and possibly kill some poor woman or make the shot and cover her in brains, you have to try some other options.”
“Like what?”
“SWAT’s not about one person doing the right thing. It’s about a team effort. You can’t ever take a building by yourself. That’s like a wolf running solo. That shit doesn’t happen.”
She shook her head. “I know. I know you’re right, but I don’t know what to do. I need to be better, but I can’t ask people to stay after work and help me train. I’ll simply have to continue to run the drills on my own until I’m decent.”
“That’s a fucking waste of time and we both know it.”
Finally, she sighed and nodded. He was right. This wouldn’t really work.
“Give me a second to get a vest on and we’ll run some drills together.”
Kristen looked quickly at him. He merely shrugged and cocked an eyebrow. “Jonesy, that would mean so much to me.”
“Just shut the fuck up, okay? I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for that lady who you’ll cover in brains.”
“That’s still kind of noble.”
“Ah, fuck you,” he retorted. “I told you it was a mountain of paperwork. Besides, if I can teach you to not fuck up so much, you won’t make me look bad by taking more goddamn bullets to the chest that you have no right to take.”
“Thanks, Jonesy.”
The man waved her gratitude away with a dismissive gesture. “Seriously, don’t mention it. I… Look, you have talent, okay? It’s obvious to Drew and it’s obvious to me. The way you’ve approached all this makes it damn obvious you want to graduate with honors or whatever.”
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