Damian was waiting in the foyer for Austin to come down. Mills had announced another set of targets for them and it was a large enough group she’d invited Stella to come, especially since Zach was indisposed.
Damian had spent most of the afternoon in his office trying, and failing, to write a letter to Andi. All he wanted to do was tell her how he felt. To somehow promise her a future. He didn’t trust himself to text her—especially when there’d been no sign she was getting his texts anyhow.
But he couldn’t make the words flow either. He’d waited too long and didn’t know where to begin anymore. Anytime he opened up the door to thoughts of her inside his heart, his emotions poured out and drowned him, and then his dragon started in. It was through talking to him, disgusted with what it viewed as his inaction and spent its days inside him committing violence. The only thing that quieted it was training to the point of exhaustion, and that only bought him a slim window for sleep.
He’d wound up throwing the pieces of paper into the brazier of Forgetting Fire on his desk, wishing that he could forget his own futility as well.
“You ready?” Austin asked at the top of the stair. He was kitted out in the military things he enjoyed, dressed in black, with a mask pulled down around his neck like a scarf for later.
“As ever.”
Austin came down and clapped his shoulders, giving him a wicked grin. “The interstate offer still stands, you know.”
Damian snorted. “No, thank you. And I don’t think Stella would appreciate the detour.”
Austin laughed. “We could always leave her in the trunk.”
“I don’t think so,” Zach said, coming up to see them off. Mills had already done her magicks on him, making him look like an older version of Damian for an international business call. There was no way for Mills to do it and not make Zach look like Damian’s father, because they’d shared so many traits.
“Oh, come on, brother, I was joking. I would never put a member of Starry Sky in a trunk—unless I was sure that trunk had air holes,” Austin went on.
“Don’t make me aerate you,” Zach jokingly threatened.
It was always strange for Damian to see Zach’s performance, but no more so than when he smiled. It wasn’t an expression he could remember his father making from his childhood, no matter how hard he tried.
“Wait for me!” Ryana announced, from the top of the stair. She had her wings tucked away, and was also wearing black. It gave her a curvy silhouette against the white wall behind her and made the red bird sitting on her shoulder all the more striking.
“Ryana?” Damian asked. There’d been no mention of his sister when they’d been planning this raid. “Mills didn’t tell you to come, did she?” If she had, he was going to have some words with the witch.
“She didn’t have to,” Ryana told him simply, descending the stairs with a look of triumph. “I’m coming.”
“You’re not,” he growled. He could barely keep himself together outside his castle’s walls. He couldn’t kill Hunters, manage his dragon, and be worrying about her, too. “You’re staying here.”
Ryana rolled her eyes. “Damian, I am my own person. Not to mention that I’ve been trained in fighting and statescraft since I was five.”
“Statescraft? I’ll take you,” Zach said, turning toward her for the first time.
Ryana saw him and gasped. “F-father?” she asked, her voice going high, as Lyka shot up, to caw and fling herself at Zach’s eyes.
“Whoa!” Damian said, swatting the bird aside gently as Zach ducked.
“It’s Zach, it’s Zach!” The werewolf waved his hands. “Sorry!”
Ryana regained her footing and snarled. “What is the meaning of this?”
Damian put himself in her path. “Zach pretends to be a person who doesn’t exist to run my company. I’m too ageless to do it myself and also too busy. Not all fights require him, but most require me.”
“But it looks exactly like him,” Ryana said, her voice a whisper, peeking around Damian’s shoulders to see again.
“I know. It’s because I’ve been on Earth for twenty years. It has to be believable.”
Her eyes narrowed on Damian. “So he has two jobs, and I can’t even have one?”
Damian blew out air roughly. “Ryana, perhaps we should have this conversation in private.”
“No, because I know what your answer will be.” Her green-leather wings snapped out of her back to arch in defiance and Damian heard Austin gasp beside him. “You want to keep me in a box, like the Heart.”
“It’s different, Ry,” he tried.
“You’re not the only person Max taught how to fight!”
“Yes, but…the outside world is dangerous, wings,” Austin said, taking Damian’s side.
“So?” Ryana told him. “I have watched all of your suggested movies and then some. And what I have learned is that if I don’t like my current situation here, I should probably beat someone up to get my way. Which means that the Earth and the Realms are not all that different.”
Damian looked over to Austin. He was vaguely aware that after finding out they’d watched Die Hard, Austin had given her a list of other movies to catch up on. “And just what movies did he tell you to watch, Ryana?” he asked his sister while watching the werewolf tense.
“I have seen many Alien, Terminator, Rambo, and Rocky films. Highly variable in quality, but the message seemed to be the same.”
Damian put a hand to his head. This was all his fault for not keeping a closer eye on her, yes, but….
Austin grimaced. “I should go check out the SUV, make sure it’s all geared up,” he said, angling for the door.
“Yes, you should,” Damian said flatly.
“Nice knowing you, brother,” Zach said, low.
Austin made to leave, and then stopped on the threshold and looked back, as they all heard Stella’s motorcycle pulling up behind him. “The wings are why you can’t come.”
Ryana gave a dancing shiver and both wings disappeared. “There. They’re gone now. Happy?” She crossed her arms.
“No. I wish you could be you all the time,” the werewolf told her. “But we’ve already got enough Hunters on this fool’s ass,” he said, jerking his chin at Damian. “I don’t think we could handle any more heat right now, honestly. And if they found out about you, they’d be twice as relentless.”
“Why?” she asked warily, through half-lidded eyes.
“Because you’re a lot better looking than he is,” Austin said. He leaned against the doorjamb and surveyed Ryana appreciatively. “Also, if you go into business with my brother, you should watch Working Girl tonight.”
“You should not do that,” Zach said, shoving Austin out and closing the door behind him. “But the offer still stands, otherwise,” he said, turning to find Ryana giving him a horrified glare. “Yes…well…I’ll remind you tomorrow. Good luck, in any case,” he said, waving to Damian, before making his own escape.
Ryana sat down on the stairs with a huff. “You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
“I’m sorry, Ry,” Damian said, sitting down beside her. He could hear the SUV idling right outside and scent a wisp of its exhaust.
His sister held up her hand to tick off fingers. “So far on Earth I’ve learned that we’re hunted by cannibals, that your purported mate is a traitor, and that someone else has to pretend to be our dead father. I’m not sure that I like it here.”
He pulled her in for a hug. “Andi’s not a traitor,” he reminded her.
“No…now she’s not a traitor for the hunters…she’s a traitor to you,” Ryana said, pushing him away. “She’s hurting you. I see it, even if they do not.” She rolled her eyes in the direction of outdoors.
“They probably do. There’s just nothing for it right now. What is there to say?” he asked her.
One of her eyebrows rose. “I am a fighter. You know it.”
He snorted. “Yes. I remember our childhood. Vividly.”
“I’d apologize, but as I recall, most the time you deserved it.” She smirked for a moment, then became serious. “So remember I’m part-dragon, too. Even if there’s not a beast inside of me, our father’s blood runs through my veins, same as it does yours. We are creatures of action, Damian. I’m happy to be living, yes, but just breathing’s not enough.”
“I feel that. Deeper than you know.”
“Good,” she told him, then shoved him lightly. “Now go.”
“We’ll make a place for you tomorrow,” he promised her, standing.
“Or else I’ll make a place,” she threatened, with a dangerous smile that showed all her teeth. He knew she meant it as he went out the door, getting into the SUV.
“What were you thinking?” he asked Austin, the second his seat belt was buckled.
“That it might be a good idea for your sister to be familiar with some of the best films from the twentieth century?”
“Nothing useful? Or kind?”
“Hey, now, Rocky’s plenty useful,” Austin started, as they drove off.
“Wait!” Stella shouted. “Where’s Zach?” She twisted in the back seat to see the castle dwindling behind them, showing her blonde hair in two low ponytails.
“He’s got a business meeting,” Damian said.
“He passed up a fight…for business?” Stella asked, like Zach might have grown a second head.
“Business is much like fighting when you do it at his level,” Austin said, defending his brother’s honor, looking back in the rearview. “You in or you out, Starry Sky?”
“I’m in,” she said, crossing her arms. Her well-lined eyes narrowed. “Someone has to keep an eye on you two.”
“You’re not wrong,” Austin said. He looped an arm around Damian’s headrest and looked back at her after the next turn. “And when we’re finished, how do you feel about detours?”
Jamison’s coordinates were taking them to the mansion he’d shown them photos of earlier. According to Mills, this was tonight’s best bet—Hunters in an isolated cluster outside of town—and if they worked cleanly enough, no one would know they’d been wiped off the board till morning.
Damian opened the glove box in front of him and pulled out earpieces for all of them, offering one to Austin and then one to Stella.
“You shouldn’t have!” she breathily exclaimed like he was giving her a gift. “No, really, you shouldn’t have,” she said more normally, and didn’t touch it. “I don’t like being tracked.”
“There’s only three of us. We might get separated, we need to know if you get into trouble.”
“Mmm, I’m more worried about what happens if you get into trouble,” she said. “Does this have magic dragon-turning-offing powers?”
“No.” His crew had been keeping a short leash on him after his first night. It’d been frustrating, although he supposed he couldn’t blame them. “You’ll just have to trust me for that.”
She squinted up at him. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I have trust issues.”
“Oh, we’d noticed,” Austin told her, putting his own earpiece in.
“You’re wearing the earpiece or we’re dropping you off,” Damian said, tossing it up in midair.
“Fine,” she said dramatically and caught it, plugging it into her ear same as Damian did with his. He watched her find gum from somewhere on her person and put it in her mouth, before looking out the window.
“You never did tell me what you told her,” he said. Stella was one of the last people he knew who’d seen Andi in person, and in hindsight, maybe he’d missed an opportunity that night to just run after Andi, chase her down, take her home, and keep her hog-tied in his closet.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Just the truth. That her uncle would do anything to get hold of a dragon.” Stella’s head swiveled toward him. “Why do you care so much anyhow? I mean, she’s a nice girl, but that shit’s a dime a dozen.”
“She is not,” he said, with a low growl.
“Okay, okay, maybe not that common,” Stella said, waving him down. “Especially being that she managed to rescue my ass by the power of being bratty. But really, dragon-man, why on earth would you choose to associate with a human that has so much baggage?”
Damian paused, trying to formulate an answer that would explain how much Andi meant to him and was met with the same problems that blocked his earlier letter. It was all too much, too strong. What metaphors were there to use? True north and magnets, the moon and tides? The way that thinking of her made him feel like he was beneath warm rain on a cool night?
“They’re mates,” Austin answered for him when he took too long, and Damian had to stop himself from punching the werewolf’s arm.
Stella winced. “Ooof. That’s…quaint. I mean, I would rather shoot myself with my Ruger here than be mated to anyone. Fucking’s fun and all, but….”
“This isn’t a topic we need to discuss,” Damian said, turning back around.
Stella waited five seconds before saying, “Shoulda thought of that before you gave me this fancy earpiece,” in a whisper, as his own earpiece echoed her words into his ear.
They decided to take the first “targets” after a brief stakeout just after nightfall. The Hunters had attempted to turn the mansion into a safe house, but while there were guards on all the entrances, no one was watching the skylight on the roof. Jamison cut off all external communications as they started and blipped the security cameras sequentially, as the three of them climbed up. After that, it was nothing for Damian to wrench off the skylight and them to all drop inside. Between the element of surprise, the wolves’ ability to scent and hear and Damian’s skill at sensing traces of heat, they cleared the house of all its occupants and guards in under ten minutes.
“Nice work,” Jamison said in all their ears.
“Training does pay off,” Austin said, pleased.
“Which is why I do so much of it,” Damian muttered. His dragon had been happy to help while they’d been fighting, but had now gone back to writhing inside of him, expressing its displeasure. He’d have to train for hours more tonight to get it to quiet unless Mills had other plans for them.
“And we didn’t even need earpieces,” Stella said on their line, before disappearing to shake down corpses for talismans like she always did.
“Grab some gear while you’re at it,” Jamison suggested. “I want to crack it later, see what exactly they know.”
“Sure,” Austin said, chucking a tablet with a bloody palm print on it into his rucksack, before moving into Damian’s path. “I’ve been meaning to say something, Damian. I’ve seen the gym logs. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for you to slow down for a night and watch a movie, too.”
“And I’m sure you could suggest something,” Damian said. “Rocky twelve?”
“Hey, no friendly fire.” Austin held his hands up in surrender. “I just don’t know how long you can keep this up.” He gave Damian a concerned look. “Do you?”
“As long as it takes,” Damian said without hesitation, as they all heard Stella gasp in their ears as one. They looked at one another, then ran for the hallway they’d last seen her go down.
Damian let his dragon’s senses flare. They were alone in the building now—he was sure of it—but as he raced into the room where Stella was, he realized that wasn’t why she’d inhaled.
“That guy seemed like he was going somewhere,” Stella said, pointing at a corpse back out in the hall. “So, I thought, let’s find out what he was running for, and….” she said, then stopped speaking to gesture helplessly at the room and the crates she’d already broken into.
The room they were in wouldn’t have been out of place on a modern whaling vessel. Stella had used a crowbar to pry her way into several boxes, some of which had nets made of metal rope as thick as Damian’s wrists. The last box she’d gotten into had what Damian knew was an explosive harpoon. He was sure its launcher was in another box nearby.
“What?” Jamison asked, sounding panicked as they all went silent. “What’re you seeing?”
“My phone’s live,” Austin announced, pulling it out to swing around so Jamison could get a view.
“Fuck me,” Jamison muttered.
“No, actually, I think they’re aiming for me,” Damian corrected with a snort. Box after box, and it was a massive room.
“D,” Austin began. “This gear represents some serious intent.”
“When money’s no object,” Stella said, kicking a box’s wooden edge.
“Serial numbers. I need serial numbers,” Jamison demanded. Austin stepped up with his phone and waved it around each of the parcels like a magic wand.
Stella looked to Damian. “And here I thought I was wanted.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Damian told her, then glanced around. “We need to take all these out of commission.”
“There’s incendiaries in the bus,” Jamison said.
Damian saw Stella’s eyes go wide with delight. “Get on it,” he allowed, and she ran for the SUV, with Austin hot on her heels. He walked up to the contraption the Hunters had purchased to use on him. Dragons and whales weren’t interchangeable, given that magic was involved, but healing wasn’t instantaneous. All they needed was one lucky shot through a wing to bring him down to where they could use the net.
“I’ll call in the arson once I’m done fucking their bank accounts sideways,” Jamison said.
“How does that work?” Damian mused, touching the harpoon’s point gently, before picking it up, and spooling the rope for it around one of his shoulders.
“Easy. Take out all their liquid assets, run them through a few fairly transparent cycles of the wash, and notify the authorities right after you invest it all in a bulk purchase of South Miami condos. You don’t need brute force when you can implicate them in an international money laundering scheme,” Jamison said.
Damian chuckled darkly.
“You’re taking this rather well, considering,” Jamison went on.
“I’m surprisingly used to people wanting to kill me.” But if he and Andi were still together, and she’d seen all these….
“This is crazy,” Stella said, returning, her arms full of explosives. Her face was lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “I like it!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Austin told her, as he started putting timed bombs on piles of munitions. “When this is through, we’re still taking you back to the pound.”
The explosions behind them started as they got into the car. The fact that the house was full of weapons was helping, Damian knew, listening to the firework-like sound of casings full of gunpowder go off.
“Souvenir?” Stella asked, as Damian carefully put the harpoon into the back seat of the SUV beside her. He tossed the nylon cord down, too, and pulled himself into the car’s front passenger seat.
“No.”
“Toothpick for your dragon?”
“No.”
“Sex toy? Piercing needle? Both?” Stella pressed, with extreme sarcasm. Damian didn’t deign to answer her.
“Don’t be dense. It’s for Andi’s brother,” Austin said. Stella looked pissed, and then horrified. “I mean, I assume and all,” he amended, giving Damian a glance.
Damian hadn’t wanted to say as much out loud. Some part of him worried that saying the words might somehow make it so. They hadn’t seen another dragon-soldier since that first night, and none of them knew if that was a good or bad thing. “He is a dragon. And if for some reason I’m not around….”
An uncomfortable silence descended over all of them.
“And here I was worried you wanted us to call you Ishmael,” Jamison muttered in all of their ears, breaking it. Damian would’ve glared at him if he was nearby—and the man must’ve known it. “Come on, Damian. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make that joke for the past twenty minutes.”
Damian groaned as Austin laughed. “Why’d you have to do it the smart way, Jamison? You’ve seen him naked at least forty times. The obvious Moby Dick joke is already right there.”
Stella snickered and hid from the rearview mirror in the back seat.
Andi let Eumie talk her through preparing the poisonous cao wu, wearing gloves the entire time. Eumie’d told them to turn it into a soup, so she’d added it to a can of chicken noodle that’d probably been in their apartment since they’d moved in. Her mother had made her plenty of medicinal soups from scratch when she was sick as a kid—it’s what Chinese moms did—so she knew if she concentrated hard enough, she’d be able to feel the earthquake from her mother rolling over in her grave over her using Campbells.
Together, the girls helped hold Eumie’s head up enough for them to take small sips of the woody scented broth, and right afterward Eumie’d passed out.
“Is that it? Is it going to work?” Sammy asked her. Eumie had stopped bleeding but Andi didn’t know if that was because the baker was healing or because they’d simply run out of blood.
“I don’t know,” Andi said, squatting down on her heels at Eumie’s side. She peeked under the sheet they’d put on top of them. Their wounds did seem…better? Maybe.
Eumie took a big inhale and then sighed contentedly, fluttering one eye open to look at Sammy. “Have we reached the adventure portion of the evening yet?”
“What?” Sammy asked.
“Earlier on in the evening. You said adventure was misery fondly remembered. Have we been miserable enough yet for that?”
Sammy went to shove Eumie but then stopped herself in time. “I know you’re feeling better, if you’re getting mouthy.”
Eumie grinned. “I am. But if it’s all the same to you two, I think I’m going to spend the night on your couch.”
“I think that’s wise,” Andi said, squeezing Eumie’s hand hard, as Sammy gasped loudly. “What?” Andi asked, looking at her roommate. What horrible new thing could possibly happen tonight?
“You’re going to be late for work!” Sammy said.
“Oh, fuck,” Andi groaned. She looked down at herself. She needed a shower. She was covered in Eumie’s blood. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Andi said, dancing down the hall, tearing off her clothes. “Grab my phone! Call into my floor for me! Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can!”
“What excuse should I give?” Sammy called after her.
“Think of something!” Andi shouted back, running for her bathroom.
Andi blitzed through scrubbing Eumie’s blood off and washing her hair and got out, hauled on scrubs, and ran back into the living room in record time. “What’d you tell them?” she asked Sammy, shoving her feet into her work shoes, praying she could catch the next bus.
Sammy winced. “That you’d just gotten broken up with.”
“What?” Andi asked, frozen and blinking, as she pulled on her coat.
“I panicked, okay? This night…it’s been a lot!”
Andi closed her eyes and shook her head. It had been a lot, and she still needed to go to work for the next eight hours. “I’m sorry, I know. And we’ll talk about Danny when I get back, swear,” she said, holding her hand out for her phone.
“We’d better,” Sammy said, tossing it over as she rocked to standing. “Want a ride?”
Andi glanced past Sammy for Eumie, who was breathing unlaboredly and whose color had much improved. “No, stay here with them just in case. If I’m fast, I can catch the bus. Love you both!” she said, and darted for the door.
Andi ran down the stairs for the bus stop at full speed where the bus was idling, but in the dark the bus driver didn’t even see her coming. It did a California stop and kept rolling.
“Hey!” Andi shouted after it, waving both her hands. “Come back!” She ran clumsily in her Danskos, feeling Damian’s necklace thump against her neck. She reached for it to keep it still beneath her coat. She hadn’t thought about him in, what, twenty minutes? A new record.
A loud engine started up beside her, startling her, as she heard a wolf whistle in her direction. She turned, ready to give whoever a piece of her mind, when she saw Danny lolling halfway out of the driver side window of his El Camino. “Need a ride, pretty lady?”
Andi stomped over to him with her arms crossed, the thick soles of her shoes clonking on the asphalt. “Have you just been waiting outside for me this whole time?”
Danny grinned up at her. “So what if I have?”
“Or were you waiting for my ‘friend’?” she asked with air quotes.
“Nah. Scouts honor.”
Andi eyed him. “As your twin, I know you were never in scouts.”
He laughed. “Why’re you always so paranoid, Andi-bear?”
“Maybe because I recently found out my entire childhood was a lie?”
“Fair point,” he allowed. “But I just wanted to talk to you alone. And I knew you’d come out eventually. So, you want a ride to work or what?”
Andi knew she was never going to make it to work on time if she caught the next bus. “Fine,” she sighed, and circled the car to get in. She looked around as she buckled her seat belt. The car was twice as old as they were—and was clearly in the middle of a restoration. Certain parts were shiny and chrome, but the seats had fluff sticking out and she was pretty sure she was sitting on a sprung spring.
“How’d you like my Elky?” Danny asked, patting the dashboard.
“Depends. Is it stolen?”
“Oh my God, Andi,” Danny groaned. “I’m sitting on my balls, so stop trying to kick them.”
“Sorry. Habit.” She watched her apartment complex fade in the rearview. “Does everyone know where I live? By which I mean all of your murderer friends.”
“Nah. And Uncle Lee meant it, he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. And neither would I.”
“Wow, I’m so glad that the two people in my family who kill other people are on my side.” Andi pinched the bridge of her nose. “What about the other people in my life? Do I have to worry about weirdos coming after Sammy because she’s my roommate, thinking she’s a dragon?”
“What?” Danny asked, following her train of thought. “Oh, fuck no,” he exclaimed. “I’ll make sure she’s on the safe list too. She doesn’t need that nonsense. I already put that girl through the wringer.”
“How nice of you to admit it.”
He snorted. “I’m a jerk, not an idiot.”
Andi pulled her phone out quickly. “Say that again, so I can record it for her?”
Danny laughed, swatted her phone away, and pulled them onto the highway.
“Based on the current movement patterns of the Hunters we’re tracking, I think you all should come in,” Jamison told everyone at the same time. They were driving back to town on an open stretch of road.
Damian frowned. “We don’t need to stop for my sake.” He’d done his best to behave after that first rough night—not because he didn’t still hurt, but because his friends depended on him. But given the option, he’d much, much, rather fight Hunters than his dragon.
“We were just getting started. Do we have to?” Stella asked.
“Yeah, Dad, do we?” Austin asked Jamison, clearly making fun of Stella.
“Don’t make me turn this car around,” Jamison teased back in all of their ears.
Stella laughed, as did Austin, and even Damian snorted. Going out tonight had been good for him. It’d distracted him, if only for a time. He listened to Austin and Stella bicker in the background about who’d killed the most Hunters, trying to get Jamison to break their tie, as Damian attempted to ignore the defeated sensation beginning to ripple through him.
He didn’t want to go home and sleep in an empty bed again without her. If he couldn’t wake up beside her, what was the point of waking up at all?
“Guys,” Jamison said sharply.
“I’m a better shot,” Stella protested, patting the speed loaders she had holstered on her belt.
“The Judge begs to differ,” Austin said, patting the Taurus Judge revolver at his hip with affection.
“That’s Zach’s gun, not yours,” Stella sniffed.
“Incoming!” Jamison said, even louder.
Damian tensed. “Which direction?”
“Two in a bus behind you, just pulled on. Could be coincidence but—”
The bus barreled by out of nowhere, passing them at a high rate of speed only to arc to a stop in front of them, blocking all three lanes, and then another bus blocked behind them just the same, back half a block. Austin threw the SUV into reverse, then paused.
“They’ve made the SUV,” Damian announced.
“Shit,” Jamison cursed. “I’ve been wiping cameras right and left—”
“They probably got an eyewitness report,” Stella said, crouching down.
Austin looked to him for answers. “Any ideas, D?”
Damian put his hand on the door, but didn’t open it. The obvious action would be to change into a dragon, pick up the SUV, and fly it safely home. But there weren’t men running out of the buses that’d stopped to circle them….
“They’re here for me.” He pulled his balaclava back on, even though he knew they couldn’t see him through the SUV’s deeply tinted windows. “They want to lure my dragon out.”
“And shoot it with what, diesel fumes?” Austin mocked. Then they heard it. The distant sound of a Sikorsky helicopter dropping in, as they felt the beat of its blades start to rock the SUV. “Fuuuuuck,” Austin drawled.
Damian’s dragon was instantly thrilled. I want to fight a mechanical bird!
So now you speak? Damian told it, before looking at Austin and Stella. “When you get free, go and don’t look back. I’ll meet you back at home.” His dragon seethed inside him in excitement.
“Wait!” Stella shouted as she reached forward to ineffectually try to pull him back. “Why are you doing exactly what they want?”
“Because as a dragon, I can burn that thing out of the sky—or pick up a bus to bat it down—to save you,” Damian growled.
“Yes, but they don’t know who the dragon is! Not with the masks we’ve been wearing! So send him out instead! Without any magic!” Stella said, pointing at Austin.
“What?” Austin asked, wheeling on her.
“They want you as a dragon, right? You don’t do any good to them as man-meat! Why would they want a single serving when they could have a whole buffet?” She looked between the two of them. “They don’t want you until you’re a dragon, and they won’t kill you until you’re a dragon, so whoever the hell goes out now gets to live for sure—especially if they can’t actually turn into a dragon!”
Damian’s hand fractionally released the door. We cannot fight in the sky? his dragon complained.
No. The girl has a point.
“She’s right,” Jamison chimed in. “He’ll draw fire, while you two can move the bus with spheres on.”
“Double fuck,” Austin groaned, and put his hand on the door handle. “Don’t make me regret this, Starry Sky,” he said, using Stella’s werewolf pack’s name.
“You’re a Wind Racer, you should be great at running!” Stella said with snark.
Austin growled, and Damian told Jamison, “Get ready to take the wheel.”
The werewolf revved the SUV’s engine, drove it in a tight circle, and then bailed out of it after aiming it at the bus in front of them. They heard gunfire behind them but ignored it as the SUV lurched to a stop right in front of the bus’s doors. Stella and Damian ran out of it with the protective magic of the spheres around them, making them essentially invisible except to one another. Stella ran up to the bus with an empty bag slapping across her back. “You clear it, I’ll move it,” Damian shouted at her, and she nodded, running up the bus’s stairs to wrench the doors open with both hands.
Damian ran to the front of the vehicle, crouching down and putting his back to the bus’s grill. He grabbed hold of the metal and then lifted, listening to the bus’s structure groan, as gunshots went off from inside the bus, and the helicopter aimed at Austin more distantly, while the werewolf ran back and forth. He was faster than they could track as humans, even with their talismans on, but he couldn’t run forever. The SUV whirled around, still under Jamison’s control, providing him with a piece of cover, as the helicopter circled to find him again. Behind them, men started pouring out of the other bus and began advancing.
“We’re gonna need this to work real soon, D,” Austin panted over the earpiece, as Jamison wound the SUV around him like a protective cat, shielding him with it as best it could.
“I. Know,” Damian said. His dragon was as near to breaching as he could let it be. He felt the creature tensing just underneath every piece of flesh he had—wrapped around every muscle, straining bone, so close to changing that it burned. He let loose a roar that was not his own and felt the vehicle behind him shift.
“I put it in neutral!” Stella shouted, returning to his side, kneeling down to take potshots at the advancing men as Jamison ran the SUV straight for the line of Hunters, sending them running like ants.
Now, dragon! Damian let loose the beast inside him, and he felt himself flare with unimaginable power. For the briefest of moments he and his beast were one, in a way that they had never been before. It was nothing to pick the bus up and send it spinning out of the way—even in his human form. Stella whooped and the SUV came racing their direction, with Austin already aboard, the helicopter racing close behind, gunshots ringing out.
“Get in!” Austin shouted at them from the passenger side, kicking the other door open. Damian picked Stella up and threw her into the driver’s seat before diving for the back door, yanking it open to leap inside.
“Go, go, go!” he shouted and they all felt the SUV lunge forward as Jamison hit the gas. The whole SUV rocked with the force of the blows it was taking, but that wasn’t the problem. It was all reinforced with military grade armor, and the tires could run flat if they had to.
The problem was that it was going to be practically impossible to lose the helicopter now that it was on top of them. There was nothing between them and the city to use for cover.
“Damian,” Jamison warned, likely thinking the same thing.
“On it,” Damian announced, leaning forward into the wheel well. “Open up the sunroof.”
“Excuse me?” Austin asked, looking back, his eyes widening as he saw what Damian was doing. “Oh, shit,” he said, then his hands lunged for the console to make the sunroof open. “Duck, girl,” he snapped at Stella, as she squirmed over the front seats to be in the safer back seat by Damian.
She figured out what Damian was doing too, just as he finished tying the nylon rope he’d taken from their first target that night to the harpoon. “Wait!” she pleaded, and rummaged around in her bag, pulling out some bones on leather tethers. She wound and tied them to the shaft of the harpoon. “From us to them and back again,” she prayed quickly, before letting them go and nodding at Damian. “They deserve a chance at vengeance too.”
Damian grunted. “Jamison, get their hopes up.”
“Everyone hold on,” the man warned, before veering the SUV across all the lanes, like it was fighting a blown tire. Damian heard the helicopter getting closer, could feel the gusts from its blades, and the shots from above became less frantic and more precise—straight through to where a driver would be if the car currently had one, leather splitting open and upholstery stuffing popping out.
“Speed up, and then stop!” Damian demanded.
Jamison did as he was told, and as he stopped, the helicopter kept flying low overhead, unable to maneuver as quickly as the car. Damian quickly took the harpoon up on one shoulder and stood, bracing himself between the seats of the car, half his body outside of it. He threw the spooled rope out behind himself on the SUV’s back hood, took careful aim, and threw the harpoon like a javelin.
It sailed over the helicopter, the nylon rope streaking behind it like a comet’s tail.
“You missed it!” Stella exclaimed, having dared to look.
“Not at all,” Damian said, as the rope fell from the sky to land atop the helicopter’s blades. Their rotation wrapped it up instantly, the helicopter began to drift and then fall, as the weight of the harpoon at the rope’s far end swung nearer and nearer like the end of a flail, until it reached the falling body of the helicopter itself and an explosion lit overhead as the harpoon made heavy contact with the helicopter’s side.
“Kaboom!” Austin whooped. Damian sat back down inside the SUV as Stella cheered.
It would’ve been more fun my way, his dragon complained, watching the flaming helicopter drop from the sky.
“Jamison, keep driving, please,” he said aloud, sinking back to fasten his seat belt. Stella saw him do that and laughed but did the same, as Austin closed the sunroof overhead.
“Are you all right?” Stella asked.
Damian didn’t know. People in the Realms had wanted to kill him because of who he was, not what he was. Now, between the harpoon and the helicopter, it was obvious that the Hunters would never stop.
Andi was right.
“I’ll be fine,” Austin answered Stella, and Damian realized that’s who she’d been talking to all along, and he got out of his own head enough to scent Austin’s blood. “Just a flesh wound,” the wolf went on, one hand clamped to his opposite arm’s bicep.
“Are you sure?” Damian said.
“Yeah, yeah, go,” Austin said, blowing off his concern, before catching Stella’s eyes in the rear view. “How many did you kill?”
“Twenty, I think. I reloaded three times and took two out by hand.”
“Twenty with the rest of the night? Or twenty more?” Austin pressed.
“Twenty on the bus,” Stella said, with a roll of her eyes.
“I knew Starry Sky was a bunch of liars, but I had hopes for you, Stella,” Austin tsked.
“Shove your hopes, Wind Racer,” Stella taunted, before hoisting the bag she’d taken with her on the bus up to empty it. Talismans poured out, bits of bones and skins and feathers, and the dusty scent of assorted dead unearthly beings flowed out with them.
“Hmmph,” Austin complained.
“Too bad you had to be a decoy,” Stella said, sounding entirely sincere, even as Damian saw her eyes flash.
“Too bad they didn’t shoot your tongue,” Austin muttered, then settled back in his seat with his eyes closed for the rest of the ride home.