Steel Dragon

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “I didn’t know that,” she responded. She’d been so focused on avoiding the media herself she hadn’t really thought about her team.

  “Yeah, well, no fucking shit you didn’t notice,” Hernandez snapped.

  “That’s not what’s important, though,” Keith said.

  “The Rookie’s right,” Butters interjected and his southern accent immediately cooled the heated conversation.

  “I am?” The other man looked startled.

  “I’m as surprised about it as anyone else, but indeed you are.” Butters chuckled. “I had that shot, Kristen. And Keith knows how to disable a hostile better than any Rookie. You can’t continue to act like you’re alone out there.”

  She sighed. “I understand where you’re coming from, I really do, but how can I let you take a bullet when they simply bounce off me?”

  “But what if they don’t?” Beanpole inquired. “What if there’s a limit to your power and you merely haven’t found it yet?”

  That gave her pause because she knew there were limits to her power. She was faster and stronger, of course, but not fast enough to dodge bullets or strong enough to lift a van. Still, turning her skin to steel and back didn’t seem to take any effort.

  “I guess I hadn’t thought of that…” she began tentatively while she tried to think of what could possibly hurt her considering she’d already withstood being shot with both a rocket launcher and a mounted machine gun. “I guess someone might try to crash a couple of busses into me.”

  Butters and Keith laughed at that, and Drew and Beanpole smiled. Hernandez shook her head but that was positive coming from her. She didn’t laugh out loud unless someone was insulted with gratuitous curses.

  A rich peal of laughter joined the voices of her team and Kristen turned to face the intruder. Her skin became steel in an instant, readying her to protect her friends from a new threat.

  “Oh, beg your pardon.” The man bowed. He had blonde hair that fell to his shoulders, tanned skin, and a golden suit.

  “Hey, buddy, maybe you’re new here, but once we go to the fucking van it means we’re involved with police business. Kindly go back to whatever pawnshop you came from. They’re paying good money for eighteen-carat these days.” Hernandez flashed her ‘go-fuck-yourself’ smile.

  “Ah, you’ve misinterpreted my intention. I’m not a reporter you see, but a—”

  “Dragon,” Kristen said hastily. She could sense his aura, although he tried to keep it neutral so as to not affect the humans around them, namely her team.

  “Yes, Lady Hall, a dragon. And I come bearing tidings.”

  “Will you talk like that soon?” Keith laughed.

  When she felt the man’s aura surge with anger for only a moment, she had a sense of what he really was—a dragon with golden scales who was incomprehensibly old and immeasurably powerful. She wondered if he could sense her dragon form even though she’d yet to actually transform. While she didn’t want to piss him off, he’d also intruded and interrupted them.

  “What are the tidings, good sir, and who—may I ask—the hell are you?” she asked with a wink at Keith in the hope that humor would defuse the situation.

  Goldenrod looked at her team. His upper lip twitched with the faintest hint of disdain but he immediately became all smiles again. “I did not mean to interrupt official…ah, police duty, Lady Hall. Perhaps we can talk for a moment in private. I am Vincent Goldenrod, ambassador of the dragon council.” He bowed with a flourish worthy of his name.

  “I’m on the job. Anything you want to say to me you need to say to my team,” she said, a little affronted by the way he looked at them.

  “Very well.” The dragon nodded and turned so he faced the entire team instead of only her. “I wished to invite you to a party held in honor of all of your recent successes. It is a private affair arranged by some of the dragons who would wish to personally thank you for what you’ve done for our city. It will be held on the rooftop of the Detroit Marriot in the Renaissance Center tomorrow night, just before sunset.”

  Hernandez laughed. “Do you expect us to fly up there?”

  “I have arranged transport for Lady Hall.”

  An extremely awkward moment followed, in which Goldenrod shot Kristen a glance so pointed it could have stabbed her. Obviously, the invitation had been intended for her, and her only. The venue itself screamed dragon. Part of her wondered if being up that high and surrounded by a number of dragons might help activate her ability to transform into her dragon body. But that really wasn’t the issue here. If the dragons of Detroit wanted to thank her for work, they needed to thank her team as well.

  “We’d love to come!” she said and spread her arms in a wide gesture that encompassed her teammates.

  Keith grinned and nodded like a fool and Butters seemed to already imagine the spread. Beanpole and Drew looked indifferent, while Hernandez couldn’t hide her shock.

  “Ah, yes, excellent. We’ll have to adjust some of the festivities to account for your…ah, friends. But that is well within our power.”

  “Sorry, Butters, that probably means no whole cow roasted by dragon’s breath,” Keith said and waggled his eyebrows.

  “Dragon’s fire is not used for cooking,” the dragon reprimanded in a tone that was more a snarl than human.

  When Kristen narrowed her eyes at him, he blinked, clearly unsure of what he had done to offend her.

  “That is unless we wish to eat fresh meat.” Goldenrod laughed, a prim and proper sound that did little to assuage her or her team’s visions of dragons roasting human beings alive throughout history. Things weren’t like that anymore, though, or so she believed. She’d find out soon enough. If anyone could decide what to say to make sure they were burned alive, it was Lyn Hernandez.

  Anyone living, obviously. Jonesy could probably have already made this dragon mad enough to roast all of them.

  “We’ll see you there, then,” she responded and hoped it was the right thing to say.

  Vincent Goldenrod bowed once more. He took a few steps into the parking lot and transformed into an absolutely gorgeous golden dragon—complete with a lion’s mane and a tuft at the end of his tail—and took to the skies.

  The reporters pointed their cameras upward and recorded the dragon’s exit before they returned their attention to Kristen. They probably wanted her and the gold dragon in the same shot.

  She sighed. At least she could be reasonably certain there’d be no paparazzi at a dragon party.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Unfortunately for Kristen, she had over twenty-four hours to agonize about what to wear and how to behave at a dragon party. Fortunately, she already had dinner plans for that evening.

  She parked her car in front of her parents’ house in Dearborn—a suburb of Detroit—and plodded inside, careful to avoid stepping on her dad’s freshly mowed lawn.

  Part of her told her that Frank Hall wasn’t her father—not her biological one anyway. She had no clue, of course, whether dragons actually had parents or anything about their reproductive cycle for that matter. But whoever her dragon…uh, sire had been, he certainly hadn’t come forward or even made his identity known. On the other hand, Frank Hall remained the loving dad who still demanded his little Krissy come home for dinner once a week.

  With her new schedule, she didn’t make it home every week, though. She often put extra hours in when someone from her team was called out on assignment—a habit her captain had yet to complain about—but she had to be home tonight.

  Her mom was making lasagna. No Hall would miss that.

  She walked up the front steps, removed her shoes, and stepped through the doorway.

  Immediately, she was struck in the chest with a two-by-four. She turned to steel on reflex and the piece of wood cracked in half.

  “Brian Justin Hall, you apologize to your sister this instant!” their mom roared. “You could have hurt her.”

  Brian was already running out the back door and shrieked
with laughter.

  “No, he couldn’t, Mom.”

  Marty groaned in a tone that clearly said, “You may think you’re tough because you’re all grown up but I remember when I had to kiss every boo-boo and ouchie for you to stop crying and I’ll be damned if anyone hurts you now.”

  Kristen had heard that groan more frequently since she joined the police academy, but it was the number-one sound now that she was the so-called Lost Dragon.

  “You know I can catch you, right? Super-speed, remember?” she hollered out the kitchen window.

  “You’re a dragon, not a superhero. And I’m not afraid of you until you have fire breath instead of halitosis. I can smell your breath from here, by the way.” Her brother stuck his tongue out from the security of the very back of the yard. Despite legally being an adult, he had a long way to go before anyone actually thought of him as one.

  “Mom, make him apologize. I do not have bad breath.”

  Marty didn’t even glance at her as she took the lasagna out of the oven and carried it to the table. “Oh, so he can attack you with a board but if he says mean things you still need your mommy?”

  “Uh…yeah? Obviously.” She held her hands up at the injustice of having a younger brother.

  Her mom laughed and set the lasagna on the table.

  “How about this. You can have a corner piece since he called you mean names.”

  “Mom, there are four corner pieces. We can all have one.”

  She pinched her cheek. “Look at my little clever girl. That used to work, you know, before you were all grown up. Now, set the table.” At least Kristen knew where Brian got his sarcasm from. Before she could protest that he should set the table because he still lived there, her mom cupped her hand to her mouth and bellowed, “Fraaaank! Dinner!”

  Petty revenge would have to suffice. She busied herself with setting the table and made sure to give Brian a salad fork instead of a regular one because he hated it when his was too small. Her mother added the finishing touches—salad with feta cheese and olives and a Hall family classic, pesto garlic bread.

  It was a recipe that was said to be fool-proof, yet Kristen had burnt it every single time she’d ever attempted to make it.

  “Frank, put a shirt on,” Marty chided.

  “I will honey. Give me a minute.” Kristen’s dad waltzed into the kitchen in running shorts that he’d obviously not actually used for their intended purpose, given the size of his gut. He planted a fat kiss on his wife’s cheek and vanished into his bedroom after he snatched a piece of pesto garlic bread.

  Kristen reached for one only to have her mom slap her hand. “It is not dinner time yet. Oh… Kristen, I’m… Did I hurt you?”

  “What? No, of course not.” She glanced hastily at her hand and realized she’d turned it into steel. “No, it’s only a reflex. I’ve worked on it to hone it so if anything hits me, I turn to steel automatically. It’s safer that way.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have a boyfriend to surprise you.” She hadn’t noticed Brian come inside but she wasn’t at all surprised by his timing. “Can you imagine? He sneaks up behind you with a bouquet of flowers for his beloved, and you turn to steel and roundhouse kick him into the Detroit River.”

  “You’re hardly one to talk about romance, Brian. When was the last time you asked out a girl? Fifth grade?” she retorted waspishly.

  “Ninth grade, for your information. I asked a foreign exchange student out during my freshmen year,” he said rather snootily as if that did anything other than prove her point.

  “It’s so great to know that your parents’ marriage has inspired a sense of romance in both of you,” Marty said sarcastically.

  Her children both laughed. Neither had ever been very romantically inclined. She was too competitive and he wasn’t competitive enough.

  “Frank!” their mom yelled once more before she sat at the table and proceeded to serve herself salad and bread.

  Kristen helped herself to the lasagna so Brian stabbed her with a fork, which made her skin turn to steel.

  “Brian, damn it. Stop that!” Marty snapped.

  “Mom, it’s fine,” Kristen said, shocked at her mom’s outburst. Martha Hall did not swear.

  “No, it is not! It is disrespectful and dangerous, and I won’t allow it in my house and especially not at my table.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He sniffed and acted as if he wasn’t the one who’d tried to stab his sister.

  Fortunately, their dad appeared and the tension in the room evaporated. “Krissy! How nice of the Lost Dragon to grace us with her presence,” Frank said cheerfully as he settled at the head of the table. “So, tell us about who you busted this week.”

  “Come on, Frank, at the table?” Marty wheedled.

  “What do you want me to talk about? Edging the damn front lawn? I’m retired, your part-time job at the grocery store is hardly nail-biting excitement material, and Brian, well—”

  “I’ll have you know I teamed up with a band of barbarians to storm the Necromancer’s Gate. We defeated over four hundred skeletons and I came away with the Golden Blade of Avalon. That gives a charisma boost to any allies within range and looks fricking sweet with my armor.”

  “Right, see? That’s my point. I didn’t understand a word of that besides skeleton.” Frank rubbed his temples. He’d confided to his daughter more than once that he really, really wanted Brian to move out and get his own place.

  “Well, earlier today there was this raid at a pawnshop—” she began but Brian cut her off.

  “Yeah, that’s all over the Internet You wrapped that dude’s arms in those bars? That was legit Kristen.” Brian took his phone out and showed their dad the picture of the hostile, his arms trapped in steel while his legs dangled above the floor. The photographer had caught the guy in mid-curse so he looked pissed rather than pitiful.

  “Why did you have to do that? Did your handcuffs break or something?” Frank asked.

  “No. I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

  “Did you take any shots at that one?” her brother asked eagerly.

  She shrugged. “A couple. Maybe ten or so. That guy shot me six times from three feet away. You should have seen his face when it all bounced off.”

  Her mother almost choked “Ten or so? Kristen, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, Mom, of course.”

  “Is your team okay?” her dad asked, concern obvious in his voice even though he spoke around a mouthful of lasagna.

  “Yeah, they’re fine. I moved in so none of them got hurt.”

  “That is killer-bad. The Lost Dragon saves the day.” Brian pumped his fist in the air. “What else did you do? Any car chases?”

  “Only one. The guys almost lost us too. They took an entrance to the highway and we missed it. Drew was going to turn, but I jumped and turned to steel. I crashed through the back of the car. I think maybe more than only my skin turns to steel because I get way heavier.”

  “Cool, a cop with transmutation,” he enthused.

  “Did Drew tell you to do that?” Frank asked.

  Kristen shook her head. “No. He was on the radio, calling for backup. They would’ve gotten away if I hadn’t—”

  “Risked your life?” Marty cut in.

  “No, Mom, I didn’t risk my life. I can turn to steel whenever I want.” To prove her point, she made her entire body—clothes and hair included—transform before she reverted to her normal form. “What’s there to worry about?”

  “Your team getting sick of your shit, for one,” her dad said.

  “Frank! Language!” The woman corrected foul language—her words—on reflex. She was probably faster at it than her daughter was at activating her steel.

  “Marty, I’m serious. Back when I was on the force, that was a huge issue.”

  “Gee, Dad, I somehow don’t see you as the super-soldier.” Brian waggled his eyebrows and stared pointedly at Frank’s round belly.

  “Ha-ha-ha, Brian, because you’re
the spitting image of health.”

  “Mom, Dad’s calling his son fat,” he whined.

  “We all know your mom’s cooking is better than any of our willpower against seconds.”

  “True that,” Kristen said and served herself another slab of lasagna. She saw the injustice of it because she’d probably be overweight too if she didn’t have a dragon metabolism.

  “But I wasn’t talking about me,” Frank continued. Over the years, the couple had become adept at remaining on point despite their children’s constant interruptions. “I was a good cop, don’t get me wrong, but I was nothing like Raymond.”

  “Oh, Raymond,” Marty said wistfully.

  “Yeah, see? My point exactly,” Frank grumbled.

  “Who is Raymond?” his daughter asked.

  “He was the goddamn closest thing I ever saw to a super-soldier—well, present company excluded. He never lost a perp in a footrace, never lost his temper—not with the public and not with the captain—he was in shape, and he knew the drills. He was everything you wanted in a cop.”

  “So, what was the problem?” she pressed. “He sounds like an inspiration.”

  “The problem was he thought he was the whole damn force. He didn’t work with a partner, not the way we were supposed to. Any time there was a bust or a traffic problem or anything at all, he took lead. He always had to be the first inside and always the first to jump into danger.”

  “And let me guess, he got shot,” Brian said with a nod.

  “No, actually. He never did.”

  “Again, Dad, I don’t see the problem,” Kristen said.

  “He’s dead. That’s the damn problem.”

  “I thought you said he didn’t get shot”

  “He didn’t. They pulled a truck over on the interstate. Despite being in the driver’s seat, he hopped out before his partner could and was run over by a truck. That was it for Raymond.”

  For a moment, no one said anything, and only the sound of silverware clinking on ceramic plates could be heard.