No one laughed.
“That was a joke!” she said.
That still didn’t make anyone laugh.
“Look, whatever happens, happens.” She shrugged. “All I know is that I want a beer.”
“I know a wings place,” Butters added quickly.
“The first round’s on me,” she said.
“Rookie mistake,” Keith said. “Butters will buy out every damn wing in the place as soon as a waitress looks at him.”
They laughed and fell into companionable silence after the sniper told Drew the name of the place.
Tomorrow was another day, but for now, she had her friends and a cloud that loomed over her city had blown away. For that, she was thankful.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Kristen hadn’t thought she was too badly hungover. That theory was sorely tested when the captain bellowed for her to get in her office.
She pushed herself from her desk, hurried down the hallway, and wished she wasn’t hungover at all. This meeting with the captain was inevitable, but she’d have preferred it to be after lunch. A fool’s dream, obviously.
When she passed the water fountain and had an irresistible urge to drink water, she succumbed and no doubt drew the ire of the captain even more. When she drank, the hangover simply vanished. One second, she had a headache and felt like a sheet hung between her eyes and her brain and the next, her world was clear and her headache gone.
It was her healing power at work, a skill she learned from that traitor Mr Black. She was simultaneously thankful and furious at the idea that her dragon powers would always feel like they’d come from him. While she really had learned from the dragon, there was obviously much he hadn’t shown her either.
The captain’s door was closed so she knocked. It sounded gentler than she’d intended—like she was scared, which was way too close to the truth. She didn’t want to lose her job but couldn’t exactly fault the woman. Their escapade had involved an officer dragging a SWAT van and a team out on an illegal bust, after all.
When she entered the office, it wasn’t Captain Hansen who made her heart pound in her throat.
Stonequest was the first person she saw. The captain of Dragon SWAT nodded at her, his orange eyes with their black slits unblinking.
“Hall. Thanks for finally joining us. You’ve met Stonequest, correct? I believe he was the one who laid into you the last time you acted completely outside protocol.” Captain Hansen glowered from behind her desk.
“That’s putting it strongly, Captain,” Stonequest said mildly.
The woman calmed immediately.
“Don’t use your aura on her,” Kristen snapped and flexed her own aura—anger and surprise and a trace of indignation. It struck the woman like a slap in the face and she immediately scowled.
“Whatever you two are doing to me, cut it out.” Hansen shook her head and tried to push the residual effect from her head.
“Yes, sir,” she said and let the aura drop. She’d wanted the captain to be free from outside influence but had used her aura to enable her to do so. It was deliciously ironic that her superior officer was only able to get angry because she had intervened and removed Stonequest’s aura, and that the captain had taken it out on her as well.
“I’m sure you want to know why I’m here,” Stonequest said and his orange gaze leveled on her. It felt like being watched by an anaconda.
“More like how long until you haul me off to dragon jail,” she replied. She had meant it as a joke—one of those that are only funny because they have a ring of truth to them.
He cracked a smile at that. “Dragon jail?” He snorted. “There are no little boxes that can hold our kind. The penalty for those who won’t heed the dragon council is death.”
She swallowed and glanced at Captain Hansen, who also looked nervous.
“Which is what we’ll do if we ever catch Shadowstorm.”
Relieved, she released the breath of air she’d held. Okay…so at least she wouldn’t die today. That was nice. “You’re…not mad?” she asked.
Stonequest frowned a little. She thought he might have looked curious but it was damn hard to read his eyes with his slitted pupils. “I’m a little upset that you abandoned Shadowstorm’s home before Dragon SWAT and I arrived and shared that stream on the inter-network—which isn’t exactly the best for publicity—but my displeasure isn’t why I’m here.”
Oh…well, that was good. He smiled when her aura of relief reached him. “So then… I’m not in trouble?”
His smile broadened. “You’re a dragon and didn’t do anything wrong. You felt Shadowstorm had wronged you, so you challenged him. That’s been legal for dragons for millennia.”
Another relief, she thought. “So you believe Shadowstorm’s confession then?”
Stonequest smiled even more broadly and this time, it even reached and softened the weirdness of his eyes. “I’ve felt your aura. It’s powerful, but Shadowstorm was a master of subtlety. No one who has met him believes that he could be coerced by anyone. I believe the confession was his own.”
“And my team?” She asked the question of him but it was really for Captain Hansen.
He shrugged and dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. The subtext was clear. The concern was beneath him. “The humans acted under your orders. You had a legal challenge against a dragon so, by obeying you, they did not act outside the law. In fact, technically, humans who swear fealty to a dragon must obey. At least that’s how it works in dragon law. I understand there are different rules amongst your kind.” He nodded at Captain Hansen as if he were giving her permission for something.
“So they won’t be punished, Captain?” Kristen asked and hoped she understood the gesture.
The woman only shrugged. “Hazy legal grounds are better than breaking the law. I’m with Sir Stonequest here about the live streaming, though. That was unprofessional.”
Again, the dragon shrugged. “It was…embarrassing, but it might ultimately be for the best. My kind often ignore technological developments. There have been big ones, recently, of course—electricity, the photograph, automobiles, and whatnot—but most dragons have failed to see the difference between television and the Internet. Television is easy enough for us to control. The hierarchical power structure of the major companies allows us to…filter that which we believe to be too disruptive, but the Internet is a different beast. A decentralized network of uncensored content creators is dangerous in a way television was not.”
Stonequest chuckled. “Ugh, sorry, you got me monologuing. Let’s forget about it. That kind of talk is for the Dragon Council,” he added with a gesture toward the captain. Kristen felt his aura like a surgeon’s blade. A knife of forgetfulness sliced into the captain’s consciousness and she shook her head.
She was awed and once again realized that there were many things Shadowstorm hadn’t shown her. Still, she didn’t like that he’d manipulated the woman and wanted to protest but before she could, he stood.
“To make things very clear, Dragon SWAT is thankful for the help of your officers, Captain,” Stonequest said to Captain Hansen.
“You’ll go after him then?” she asked, oblivious to the little trick that he had played on her mind.
“Oh yes. We haven’t caught him yet, but we will. Now that his slight against the Steel Dragon is public knowledge, quite a few dragons have come out against him as well. Enough have taken offense that we’ll investigate him. There will be a list of grievances brought to the council, of this I am certain.”
“Wait…a list of grievances?” Kristen was dumbfounded. “Are you saying the only reason you’ll pursue him is because other dragons have filed complaints?”
Stonequest looked surprised and his orange gaze bored into her. “That is how dragon law works. I take it Shadowstorm told you nothing of our ways?”
“No, not really. But am I really supposed to believe that him riling up a horde of gang members into trying to blow Detroit up and hiring mercenaries to litera
lly blow it up is fine?” She felt anger curdling in her gut like hot bile.
“No, of course not. Damos and Lyra—the two dragons in charge of this region—have taken offense with him for those very reasons. The people in this part of the world are theirs to protect and punish. Shadowstorm can’t usurp a city for no good reason.”
Her fury began to escalate and it took considerable concentration to not become steel. “But there’s no law against slaughtering people?”
“No. No, of course not.” Stonequest seemed amused “Dragon laws don’t apply to people. We operate on another level of power. That would be like your kind making laws to protect the birds or the fish.”
“We do have laws to protect the birds and the fish.”
The dragon chuckled. “Do you really? How curious. I really am looking forward to you coming into your powers, Lady Hall. There is much the dragons can learn from one who grew up amongst humans. Do humans actually respect these laws of fish and birds?”
“No…not always, but that’s not important right now. Shadowstorm killed dozens of people. He could have killed hundreds.”
“And do your politicians go on trial when they go to war? There was a time when dragon kind had killed more humans than you had each other, but as we’ve moved into the background—of our own accord, I might add—humans have been more than willing to take up the mantle of committing atrocities on each other. The atomic bomb, the world wars, firearms, and swords are all things your kind have perpetrated on itself.”
Her skin rippled to steel and quickly reverted. This was…this was disgusting. Dragons thought of people as little more than fish? Except there were dragons like Shadowstorm who manipulated people from behind the scenes, and Stonequest thought these manipulative ones had simply decided to sit out the entirety of human conflict? That was like absolving a politician for a war they’d called for simply because he hadn’t been the one to fire the guns. It was absurd.
“So, because I complained, Shadowstorm’s in trouble? If I hadn’t, he would have walked free.”
“The information you shared is more than enough to infuriate quite a few dragons,” Stonequest said. He still seemed rather oblivious as to how angry she was at his thoughtless carelessness. “Lyra and Damos want his head, obviously. Many of the other North American dragons had sworn not to harbor him as well. As I said, his shadow is a long one.” He chuckled at the pun as if they were discussing some celebrity’s gaff instead of the potential slaughter of innocent human lives.
“So, to be clear, if Damos and Lyra decided to simply burn Detroit to the ground, that wouldn’t be doing anything wrong?”
He frowned at her and looked genuinely appalled at the thought. “Of course that would be wrong. There would be no reason for such slaughter. So many of us would call their ability to rule into question and besides, it would represent a huge loss of resources. If Damos and Lyra burned the city, many of the dragons in North America would turn against them.”
“Because of a loss of resources?” She sneered.
“This is how it’s done, Hall,” Stonequest stated and his voice lacked emotion. “We have no laws about humans because we don’t wish to interfere in every decision their kind makes. With autonomy comes the freedom to hurt each other.”
“This is unacceptable,” Kristen retorted. “You know there are dragons interfering with human affairs. There are dragons paying off politicians and piloting corporations from behind the scenes. You turn a blind eye to the fact that because of the power you wield, you’ve influenced mankind from the beginning.”
“Maybe that’s true but we’ve taken steps back,” he snapped. Apparently, she had struck a nerve. “No one agrees with you more than I—although it is perhaps not wise for me to admit that—but it can be difficult to change minds that are literally hundreds of years old.”
“So why bother?” She couldn’t help herself. By now, she was furious.
“We struck a blow today. Shadowstorm is lying low. Already, many of the leaders on this continent have sworn not to harbor him, and as the news spreads, others will probably do the same. He will pay for his actions—for what he did to you and yours.” He paused, his expression inscrutable, but she sensed a slight softening, a hesitation that suggested he might not entirely be the uncaring, emotionless dragon she assumed him to be. “There are dragons—not many, I concede, but a couple—who believe that humans have…unexplored potential. It may be that more and more will respond to that idea. And yes, it will take time, but I think progress can be made. What we’ve done with ousting Shadowstorm proves that.”
“And what do you want me to do in the meantime? Sit on my hands while I wait for justice?”
“Honestly, we’d like you to stick to human issues for a while.” Stonequest smiled. It seemed genuine because his aura matched the expression, but it was still hard to read him with those eyes.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to interfere with human affairs,” she said and wished it had sounded less petulant than it had.
“That’s been the arrangement for a long time, but our ways are not set in stone.” He smiled at the pun on his own name.
Kristen wondered for how long and in how many languages he’d made inappropriate plays on words.
Stonequest continued. “Your situation is unique, and the world is beginning to watch the Steel Dragon from the Motor City. You are aware of human issues in a way no other dragon is, simply because of your upbringing. Even the most…liberal of us often have difficulty empathizing with your kind. For example, I’m in law enforcement and had no idea that you actually made laws for the fish.
“On top of that, you are an adult by human standards, and a sheriff, as most of my kin still calls the police. By dragon standards, you’re a whelp, but you are certainly old enough to make judgments on humankind.”
“Make judgments?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen what you’ve done to some of the humans who threatened your city. The thief you left hanging in the bars he tried to hide behind was especially poignant.”
“And especially outside what SWAT is supposed to do, Hall,” Captain Hansen added. She sat at her desk, her arms folded, and Kristen had almost forgotten about her.
“Of course, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”
Stonequest smiled. “And you defer to human judgment. That alone makes many of us think that you continuing to work on human affairs while you wait to come into your powers fully will give you a wisdom most of us lack.”
“Fine. It’s not like I have a dragon teacher right now anyway. I’ll keep working on making this city safer. But you need to understand that if I hear about a dragon hurting people, I won’t send in a complaint and wait for some kind of consensus. I’ll protect the people in my city. If that’s a problem, take it up with me. You’re not as big as Mr Black was and you saw the video.” It was more of a threat than she had intended, but now that she’d said it, she didn’t regret it.
He sighed although he didn’t sound particularly upset. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Steel Dragon, and I’ve told Damos and Lyra as much. You’ve proven yourself capable of causing headaches on a scale I thought impossible.”
“You call injustice a headache?”
Stonequest chuckled. “No, but invading a dragon’s home rather than coming to me was problematic.”
“If I’d come without the confession, would you have raised a finger against Shadowstorm?”
“Perhaps. As I said, many have already sworn not to shelter him. That doesn’t happen unless there was already resentment there. However, you’re correct in that coming to us would have taken longer. Shadowstorm is tricky. If his network had obtained the information, he could have taken action we’d have been unable to stop.”
He rubbed his head. She had seen the gesture from every superior she’d ever frustrated—which, when she thought about it, was virtually every boss she’d ever had.
“You should do what you feel you must. I’m sure yo
u will anyway. But please, let us know before you blow another dragon’s house up next time.”
She left the meeting feeling strangely vindicated. That aside, she’d learned something of dragon culture and how unjust it was toward humanity, but she couldn’t do anything about that…yet. She could, however, continue to protect her city, and that was exactly what she intended to do.
Chapter Fifty
A few days later, there was enough normalcy in the air for Hernandez to bug everyone about airsoft again. “Come on, you punk-ass chumps. We haven’t gone since Jonesy died. If we don’t go soon, we’ll never go.”
Kristen sighed. She hated to admit it, but him not being there made airsoft simply sound less fun and she said as much to the other woman.
“That’s fucking bullshit, Red. Jonesy loved airsoft. Shooting us, watching us complain about our welts, shooting Keith first, again and again.” The demolitions expert sighed wistfully. “We owe it to him to keep playing. Every time we shoot the Rookie, Jonesy laughs about it, wherever he is.”
“I’m in,” Keith said. “But only so I can shoot your ass, Hernandez. You never win either.”
She laughed. “Right, we’ll see about that. Although I’m not sure if that’s the best plan.” She winked and Kristen felt the beginnings of a conspiracy start to stir.
“I’m in.” Butters sauntered into the lounge. “Those wings gave me heartburn.”
Beanpole looked up from his coffee. “I’m there too.”
“Washington?” Hernandez asked the Wonderkid.
“Absolutely. I’d love to try some new tactical maneuvers.”
Kristen shook her head. “Leave it to the Wonderkid to make a game sound like work.”
“Are you guys talking airsoft?” Drew entered the lounge—or tried to although Butters still blocked the doorway.
“Yes, sir,” Hernandez said quite formally. “Would you care to join us, sir, or are you still a fucking pussy?”
Everyone laughed but Drew. He turned a shade redder and gritted his teeth. “I’ll meet you all there. I’ll bring someone else too—is that cool? I’d like to even the odds. I heard about what happened last time. It sounded like a massacre,” he added with a pointed stare at Kristen. Oh, so he wanted to team up against her too?
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