Authors: C. J. Hill
Slayers (34 page)
“Speak for your own parents,” Bess said. “Mine are more than willing to shove me in front of huge, flying carnivores. Did my dad even make sure I was okay before he took off with Jesse?”
“Yes,” Lilly and Alyssa said at the same time, apparently used to this sort of complaint.
Rosa reached over and patted Bess’s arm soothingly. “You were the first person he hugged after we killed the dragon. He wouldn’t have known who you were unless he kept track of you the entire time you were fighting.”
“And not only that,” Theo put in, struggling to keep pace with everyone else. “When you were stuck at the enclosure your dad was getting ready to go after you himself. He was about to go into plan thirty-six mode.”
“Okay, he worries.” Bess sniffed, still sounding affronted. “But not enough to keep me away from danger like the rest of your parents would.”
“Oh come on.” Kody playfully swatted her on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t let him keep you away if he tried.” He sent her a wide grin. “So don’t go into Bess thirty-six mode now. We just had our first fight and our first victory. We killed the dragon with Overdrake’s own chain. So much for invincibility.”
“We still have an informant to worry about,” Shang pointed out.
“And we will worry about that,” Kody said. “But right now it’s time to gloat.”
Then some of the Slayers talked about strategies for fighting the next dragon, while some talked about the possibility of government help, and the rest talked about ways to trap the informant. Their enthusiasm should have been contagious. But Tori didn’t catch it.
She walked beside Dirk at the back and neither one of them spoke. Now that their powers had gone, she felt everything more keenly. The cold humid air, the strain of running around all night, and especially the ache in her hip where the dragon had hit her. It made her limp a little. The heartbeat of the embryonic dragons, she noticed, had returned to the back of her mind.
“I can hear the heartbeats again,” she told Dirk.
He only nodded.
“Why weren’t you and I tuned into the adult dragon all along? Why did we only connect with it when it attacked?”
He shrugged, unbothered by this fact. “Maybe because it was the signal from the eggs that triggered our DNA in the first place.”
She walked silently for a few more steps, not sure she wanted to voice her feelings, but then figured Dirk would understand, even if he didn’t know the answer to her next question. “Why did I feel so sick when Shang shot the dragon?”
“He was still alive until then, and you’d made a connection with him. You were inside his mind in order to hear what he heard. That affects you whether you want it to or not.”
She knew the connection had affected him, too, and wondered how long it would last and why no one had mentioned it would happen. She wished she’d been better prepared. She could still see, in a way that twisted her insides, the dragon’s eyes staring blankly at her, their glow fading.
About an hour later, Booker’s van pulled up to the group. Dr. B and Jesse were already inside. Tori hadn’t meant to leave Dirk and go sit by Jesse. It happened because she had trouble climbing into the van. Stepping up sent a sharp pain through her injured hip. As Dirk helped her up, Jesse reached down and half pulled, half lifted her inside. He guided her to the seat next to his.
Once they were all inside, Booker headed down the road, still driving toward the dragon instead of turning around. Tori stared past Jesse to the window. “Why are we going in this direction?”
“To take pictures of the dragon,” Jesse said.
Tori blinked at him. “What?”
“Booker was far enough away that the EMP didn’t affect his equipment,” Jesse explained as though that’s where her confusion came from. “His camera still works.”
Tori watched the trees flash into and out of the van’s headlights. Everything else was dark. “Why do we need pictures of a dead dragon?” Her voice came out high-pitched, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get as far away from this place as possible. “We already know what it looks like.”
Jesse leaned back against his seat, and rubbed his hand across his forehead tiredly. “The pictures aren’t for us. They’re to send to the news outlets and the government.”
Rosa twisted around in her seat so she could join the conversation. “Once everyone sees proof that dragons exist and people realize they’re connected to the power outage, the government will have to do something. They’ll form some sort of task force to fight them.”
Tori had supposed that somebody else had already gotten pictures. So many people had cell phones with cameras, and who wouldn’t take a picture if they saw a dragon flying overhead? But then again, it was in the middle of the night in a remote place. The dragon had flown over quickly and in the dark. Only cameras that were set up for low light and distant action shots would have been able to capture a picture of the dragon—and even if someone had been outside with one of those cameras, poised and ready, chances were the EMP would have destroyed the camera anyway.
In other words, there probably weren’t any pictures of the dragon.
Tori leaned her head back and stifled a groan. A person should
only be required to be brave for so long and she’d reached her limit. She wanted to go somewhere safe and curl up and sleep. “I thought you didn’t want to tell the government about the dragons,” she said.
only be required to be brave for so long and she’d reached her limit. She wanted to go somewhere safe and curl up and sleep. “I thought you didn’t want to tell the government about the dragons,” she said.
“We want the government to know about the dragons,” Jesse said. “We just don’t want them to know about
us
. There wasn’t a way to do one without the other before. But now we can submit the pictures anonymously. That way, the government will work on ways to fight the dragons without endangering us in the process.”
us
. There wasn’t a way to do one without the other before. But now we can submit the pictures anonymously. That way, the government will work on ways to fight the dragons without endangering us in the process.”
He and Rosa seemed so happy about this that Tori couldn’t complain anymore about their return trip, but she watched the passing trees with a growing dread. Hadn’t anyone else in this van ever watched a horror film? You always thought the monster was dead and then somehow it managed to get back up one last time to tear someone’s head off.
And okay, those were just movies, but still. The sanest thing would be to drive as fast as they could back to camp.
When the van got close to the area where they’d fought the dragon, Booker slowed down and cut the headlights. Since the traffic lights had been destroyed by the EMP, the van was plunged into darkness. Booker put his infrared glasses on and kept driving. He may have been able to see, but no one else could, and Tori found herself gripping the edge of her seat. It was no use telling herself that the dragon obviously wasn’t alive or she would have her powers back. It wasn’t the dragon she was worrying about now. It was Overdrake. He wouldn’t leave the dragon sitting there for people to find. He would come back for it. In all likelihood he was already there. And they were driving right to him.
D
irk’s head was throbbing even before Booker stopped the van and threw it into reverse. No one asked why. They didn’t need infrared glasses to see what Booker had seen. Down the road, a truck was stopped and shining its headlights on the lifeless form of the dragon. Two large cranes and a flatbed semi completed the semicircle in the road.
irk’s head was throbbing even before Booker stopped the van and threw it into reverse. No one asked why. They didn’t need infrared glasses to see what Booker had seen. Down the road, a truck was stopped and shining its headlights on the lifeless form of the dragon. Two large cranes and a flatbed semi completed the semicircle in the road.
Some of his father’s men were getting the cranes in position to lift the dragon onto the flatbed.
“I don’t think anyone saw us,” Booker said as he guided the van backward, out of sight of any headlights.
“Pull off on the side of the road.” Dr. B twisted in his seat, checking the windows. “We don’t want to be hit from behind.”
Dirk knew what Dr. B would say next. He and Jesse were the fastest runners of the group and Jesse was already worn out. That meant the job would fall to him.
Sure enough, Dr. B handed Dirk Booker’s night-vision goggles and the camera. The long telephoto lens was already attached. “Get as close as you can without being seen.”
Dirk nodded. As he made his way to the door, he thought about handing the equipment to Kody and asking him to do it instead. But that sort of request would raise questions, and Dirk wanted to answer questions even less than he wanted to take pictures. So he said nothing and got out for the third time that night.
He jogged into the cover of the trees until he was hidden from sight of the van, then took off the infrared glasses and let them hang around his neck. He stepped into the air and glided, flying just a few inches off the ground, so his footsteps wouldn’t make noises that his father’s men might hear.
Dragon lords could fly longer than Slayers, and his powers hadn’t worn off yet.
He’d always kept his ability to fly a secret. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by having two powers, and he didn’t want people wondering why he could fly and yet wasn’t Jesse’s counterpart. But now that Tori knew she could fly, would she put the pieces together? She must have wondered how he got on the roof so quickly.
He shook his head. He was still trying to figure out just what her power of flight meant.
He would have thought that she came from a dragon lord line and wasn’t a Slayer at all—the dragon lords’ powers were close enough to the Slayers’ that Dirk had been able to masquerade as one for years.
But that didn’t make sense, either. Women hardly ever inherited the gene that allowed them access to a dragon lord’s powers. His own sister hadn’t inherited it. His aunts hadn’t either. You had to look a long ways back in the records to find any women dragon lords. And besides, Tori was the same age as the Slayers, and her powers faded at the same time. If they’d remained longer, she certainly would have mentioned it.
He didn’t think about the mystery for long. The dragon came into view. His dragon. Tamerlane. Named for the medieval conqueror of Western, South, and Central Asia.
Dirk’s stomach lurched, clenching with anger and sadness all over again.
His father had undoubtedly thought it was a fitting punishment to attack the Slayers with Tamerlane—the dragon Dirk took care of, connected with, and rode. Dirk had had to choose whether to help kill his own dragon or see it destroy his friends.
Once a dragon lord established a mind link with a dragon, it was nearly impossible to sever, even by another dragon lord. Dirk had only managed it one time tonight—when Tamerlane chased Tori into the foliage. The dragon would have killed her if Dirk hadn’t turned it away. And Dirk had probably only managed to do it then because the dragon had been his, because he’d slipped into Tamerlane’s mind so many times before.
Dirk focused the camera lens on the limp form sprawled across the road. The car headlights spotlighted the dragon’s neck and back so that his face was half-hidden in shadows. Dirk didn’t need the light to see Tamerlane clearly, though. Every line and curve had been etched into his memory long ago.
Dirk would never experience the raw power of Tamerlane’s mind again, the feeling that he had bridled a lightning bolt. Dirk already felt the emptiness of that fact.
He took several pictures, then moved farther down the tree line and took some more. It was ironic, because he had wanted to take pictures of the dragons since he was old enough to know what a camera did, but his father had never allowed it. Now Dirk was being forced to do it when he didn’t want to.
Dirk switched the camera to video and slowly moved farther along the road. If he didn’t bring back good footage, Dr. B would probably come out here himself, making enough noise in the process that he’d end up getting shot.
As hard as this was, Dirk had chosen his side tonight. He had to see it through.
The men had finished attaching chains to the dragon. One of the men signaled to the cranes and the machines let out a grinding protest. Thirty tons fought against the chains, but slowly the dragon was dragged, lifted upward toward the semi’s open bed. Tamerlane’s head flopped. The lifeless eyes seemed to stare in Dirk’s direction.
Dirk looked away and turned off the camera.
It didn’t matter that, had his father commanded it, Tamerlane would have attacked and killed Dirk without a second thought. It didn’t matter that loyalty between a dragon lord and dragon could only be one-sided. Dragons didn’t form attachments for other dragons, let alone people. Still, Dirk wished he could have connected to Tamerlane one last time, to try to explain, to apologize.
It was a stupid thought. He might as well try to explain the years of intrigue and divided loyalty to his horse. Animals couldn’t understand because only people did this sort of thing to themselves.
Dirk hoped the video was long enough to satisfy Dr. B. He turned away from his father’s men and headed to the van.
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