Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Dragon

Exhaustion would kill me before my bullet wounds did.

Mostly because the wounds weren’t that deep. They were merely grazes, skimming across my skin in a comet of heat and lead and deliverance. Painful, but tolerable. When I hit the icy waters of Lake Michigan, my heart stuttered like the engine of a spent hayburner. It began beating again, but sluggishly, fighting against the intense shock to my system.

Trails of blood twirled off me and streaked toward the surface of the water. I held my breath, knowing that if any sign of life came to the surface that I’d have to worry about the henchmen turning their tommy guns to the lake.

As I let my body drift, gathering strength, fighting the cold, letting the boat chug past me, I replayed Eris’s look of horror as I shoved her onto the deck and threw myself over the side.

I’d left her. Abandoned her.

The only thing that kept me fighting against the freezing temperature and the knee-jerk reaction to inhale as my lungs screamed was the promise I’d made to her. I’ll find you.

And I would.

When the ship was far enough away, I kicked to the surface and my head broke free. I inhaled with four sharp gasps before my shriveled lungs reduced to coughing and hacking out a small dose of lake water. Blinking droplets out of my eyes, I watched the boat continue onward just in time to catch the gold letters plated on the side.

Cassiopeia, and then, BKH.

Son of a bitch.

The frustration and anger and despair burned my chest, literal flames scorching the back of my throat as I watched the yacht sail far out of my reach.

They had her, but not for long.

Glancing up at the sky, I was able to tell directions thanks to the position of the sun. Because of the distance already traveled from Chicago, going south was my best bet rather than turning around. Unfortunately, thanks to the sluggish October currents, there was hardly any to speak of in the western side of the lake. I’d have to do most of the work myself.

I wrestled out of my clothes so I was left in only my boxer shorts. Everything would only weigh me down, offering no warmth whatsoever.

Luckily, I could produce my own heat.

One of the few benefits to being a dragon was that the cold was merely a minor inconvenience. Giving in to my emotions, the heat in my chest built and built, burning through my body like a spark on dry leaves. I blew into the water, steam rising to the sky as the two extreme temperatures clashed.

But I was careful not to expend too much of my fire breath too quickly. I had a long way to go.

I swam for what felt like days. My muscles groaned and protested with each kick and stroke. Eventually, my toes and fingers grew numb and exhaustion threatened to pull me under.

Just float. Rest your eyes a bit. Would it be so bad?

Each time the traitorous thoughts bit into my mind, I would picture Eris’s face, and hidden strength would flow back into my limbs. I had to find her again. I would find her again. I jumped over that side so I could live to fight another day. I was no good to her at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

But as the day wore on and the sun dipped behind the horizon, there were brief moments of darkness that I actually wished for my wings back. Maybe I could’ve flown to shore. Flown to Eris. Gotten us both out of there.

Then I’d remember some of the thoughts that had gone through my head with those wings attached to my back. Truly monstrous thoughts.

Human flesh…what does it taste like?

Burn everything. Destroy. Destroy.

Hunger, hunger, hunger.

I hadn’t thought of what those wings had made me think, feel, and yearn for, for a long time. Even as a thirteen-year-old, I’d managed to somehow keep them at bay, but there was that small voice that whispered to me, testing my strength.

Someone was always testing me.

Teeth chattering, I summoned more fire in my chest, but what came out was just a pathetic cloud of steam.

Twilight descended. Stars peeked through the vast, vast sky. Endless. Beautiful. Horrible.

My hands sliced through the full moon beams reflected on the placid surface. I played a game with myself. I picked a star’s reflection and tried to catch up to it.

I was swimming, swimming…until I wasn’t.

A shrill cry pierced the air and I jerked upward in response. I gasped, hacking up water and mucus, and tried to fight against the sensation of my muscles seizing. Dimly, I blinked the water from my eyes and a bird circling overhead came into focus.

Clarity cut through my mind like a hot knife and I twisted around, the waters thrashing around me.

And there it was. Land. A line of evergreen trees decorated the shore—nature’s perfect skyline. The break of dawn made it just visible. Merely a shadow against the lightening sky.

With a surge of strength, I kicked and pulled and swam. The shore didn’t seem to get any closer, but then it came up on me fast. To avoid the current pulling me into the sharp rocks, I dove down into the depths, dodging the undertow, and managed to grab hold of an outcrop.

Using what little strength I had left, I climbed up onto the rocky shore, and once I was out of the icy waters, showered occasionally by spray from the wind’s restlessness, I passed out.

When I woke again the sun was higher in the sky. My whole body was sore and aching and the bullet grazes itched and burned. I exhaled and the heat of my steam breath warmed the rock.

My fire breath wasn’t completely gone yet.

Pulling up my bare limbs, I folded into a ball as tightly as I could. Then I took deep breaths, letting the fire in my chest build and build. I focused my mind on Eris and how I’d been separated from her yet again. Was it Sister Adaline who had betrayed us? After all her work on discovering the virus and helping us, it seemed highly unlikely. It could’ve been Father Clarence—I was never one to trust a priest. Or perhaps Gin had found the man with the dingy who took us to St. Agnes. There were a dozen different ways we could’ve been tracked, but in all the scenarios, one thing was bound to be the same—the real Captain Leroy lay at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

Finally, I looked around, seeing nothing but trees and boulders and thick woods stretched out before me.

Swell. I couldn’t wait to walk through the wilds in nothing but my boxer shorts. I ran a hand through my wet hair and carefully picked my way across the slippery, rocky shore. With a heavy sigh, I stepped from the rocks to the soft ground covered in dirt, grass, and fallen pine needles and began my trek through the forests.

It was late in the day, nearly sundown, when I saw the smoke. Hope rose inside my chest, following its cloudy gray trajectory. The smoke could mean a lot of things—a hunter starting his campfire for the night, maybe a cabin, or even the outskirts of a small town.

Picking up my pace, I jogged through the woods, desperate not to lose the smoke to the encroaching night sky. By the time I got close enough to see light through the thick trees, I was out of breath and my skin was covered in cold sweat. The perspiration seemed to freeze as it rolled between my shoulder blades and down the ridges of my abdomen.

As I drew nearer, I could make out the shape of a cabin and smell cooking meat. A clothesline bordered the edge of the homestead along with a small stable and shed. Counting my lucky stars, I yanked off a shirt and pants and quickly dressed in the shadows. I’d never dreamed I’d need to pull a gooseberry lay but I also never dreamed I’d fall for the lost siren and follow her all across the Midwest.

After stealing a pair of boots from the shed, I slipped into the stable and was relieved to find a gorgeous steed. I saddled up the horse and set off on the obvious trail leading to a promise of further civilization, the moonlight guiding our way.

…

Two days later, I sat in a nondescript speakeasy in Cleveland, Ohio. Outside, I looked almost like my old self, except with darker circles under my eyes. It was quite possible I hadn’t slept since I left Eris on that goddamn boat owned by BKH.

She was probably in her creator’s hands by now. I hated to think what he was doing with her, and yet I couldn’t chase away all the nightmarish, wild thoughts.

If he touches her, I swear to God and all his angels that I’ll take him to Hell with me.

As much as I wanted to go after her now, to storm whatever corporate palace in Manhattan he was holding her hostage, I had absolutely nothing in my arsenal. No money. No guns. No ammo. And no backup.

After finding a small town a few miles south of the cabin, I’d left the horse at the post office. They’d promised to return it and, with that, I had hitched a ride on the back of a farmer’s truck all the way to Cleveland.

In the middle of the bustling streets of the Midwestern metropolis, I placed a call to Gus Murdeena, requesting a loan of a nice suit, and met up with a tailor friend of his. Then I waited until dark.

Like most growing cities between Chicago and the east coast, Cleveland had boomed. Steam car and electric car companies, all pioneers in the biz, had accelerated the growth of the city, and when prohibition took hold, organized crime sank its fangs in as well. Literally.

I remembered one time with McCarney when I’d joined him on a stakeout to watch Little Italy’s Mayfield Road Mob undergo a major bootlegging operation in smuggling cases of hooch all the way from Canada. We hadn’t made a move that night. Instead, we’d been hoping to catch bigger fish. Maybe even Joe Lonardo himself—but then a minotaur showed up and ruined our plans, nearly taking out an agent’s eye in the process.

Needless to say, the BOI was no stranger to Cleveland. So I knew that if I went to enough speakeasies tonight, I’d find at least one agent. One of them watching, waiting…hunting.

Ah, the good ole days.

The jazz band in the little speakeasy started up again. It was a song I recognized. A song that had been on the set sheet that Eris had dropped that night in The Blind Dragon. I watched a black woman in a slinky red dress croon into the microphone. It was a song by Victoria Spivey, “How Do They Do It That Way?”

She was good. Real good. Rich and deep and bluesy. She could’ve been the famous canary herself.

“I’m no chump but I would jump if I could find someone that’s not unlike me, too.”

I drummed my fingers in time with the piano keys as the cup of orange pekoe I’d ordered grew cold. For a moment, I pictured Eris next to me on the barstool. Pictured her tilting her head and giving me a smile, all teeth this time, showing a small dimple in her left cheek.

I ached to know how she was doing. Her well-being, more than anything, had occupied my thoughts the past two days, but occasionally I would think of the envelope that I slipped into the pocket of her dress before I jumped ship.

It would’ve been lost once I went overboard. At least with her, there was a chance the blood vial could get to Dr. Durwich. Albeit a very, very small one.

“Oh when the river runs, flowers are bloomin’ in May.”

A small circle of metal pressed into my lower back. The muzzle of a gun.

“Move your assss an inch, and I’ll blow your head off.”

For just a split second, I froze at the familiar voice. Then I chuckled.

“Jimmy Sawyer. Always a pleasure.”

“I really can’t say the same, Clemmonssss.”

“And if you get good business, how do you do it that way?”