Dragon Deception (10 page)

The rest of the area had been turned into an impromptu campsite. Someone had built a fire in a clear spot to ward off any autumn chill as the sun set. Three men and one woman were standing close by, the flickering light illuminating their faces. Mercury recognized three of them from the bomb scene that morning and he knew he was looking at crime scene techs and at least one police officer. Mercury memorized their faces to tell Valerie later now that he had tangible proof that the bombing case was connected to the missing dragon.

Another gust of wind blew through the trees and another large handful of dragon's bane vanished. The people by the fire edged closer to it, as if they sensed that the wind could become dangerously cold in a mere moment. They didn't notice that it was Dane's magic effecting them and luckily also weren't alert enough to notice Mercury.

Mercury wasn't as allergic as most dragons to dragon's bane, but even he couldn't go near that much without having a reaction. Instead of trying to help Dane with the dragon, he slowly crept closer to the man snarling into his phone.

"Yes, I have the authority to requisition a Black Hawk helicopter should the need warrant it!" the man was yelling. "Tell them of course they haven't heard about an elephant escaping the zoo! It was kept quiet to reduce panic. No, I don't have any idea how an elephant would get from the zoo all the way out here. Make something up!"

Mercury's magic fizzled between his fingers. He didn't know what magical defenses the guy must have put in place with his tainted dragon magic, so Mercury would have to be careful.

Suddenly, the man spun and stared out into the forest as if he sensed someone watching him. Mercury froze in place, unwilling to move and give away his position. Another gust of wind blew, distracting the man from the forest. He looked towards the fire as if he wanted to join his comrades, but the phone call was more important. The fire lit up the side of his face, making him look particularly evil with the flickering red light contrasted against the shadowed half of his head. It also gave Mercury a glimpse of his features and Mercury had to stifle a gasp of recognition when he saw O'Simmons' familiar face. Mercury should have known that bastard O'Simmons was neck-deep in the entire thing. He wasn't just corrupt or a bad cop. He wasn't just in someone's pocket. He was running the entire operation!

After the enemy lost their foothold with the SupFeds, they must have wanted to solidify their ties with some sort of law enforcement. Who better to recruit than a racist police captain? O'Simmons was probably highly interested in the idea that magic-less humans could become stronger than their supernatural counterparts. He hadn't smelled like tainted magic at the crime scene—Mercury would have noticed that smell immediately and tracked it down—which meant he hadn't used the magic since his last shower and change of clothing. That was far more devious than Mercury would have attributed to O'Simmons, but then he also hadn't expected to run into the man in the middle of the forest.

"Fine!" O'Simmons snapped into his phone before pulling it away from his ear and hitting the button to end the call. With the face to match the voice to, Mercury didn't understand how he had missed recognizing O'Simmons earlier. Although Mercury did have to admit he had been more concerned with Dane and the captured mother dragon than with specifically who he was about to fight against. O'Simmons abandoned his search of the surrounding forest, probably brushing off his feelings of being watched as that of an overactive imagination. "I need to go to the hangar directly. They won't take my credentials over the phone," he explained to the other four people.

The woman nodded, apparently in charge while O'Simmons was away. There was a swell of tainted magic and O'Simmons vanished. Mercury frowned as the magic slowly dissipated through the air. Elemental dragons couldn't form a transportation spell like that. Their magic was restricted to their respective elements of fire, water, air, and earth. Only precious dragons like Mercury could use spells outside of those parameters, which meant that somewhere the enemy was siphoning off the powers of a precious dragon for use in their magical cocktail.

But that was a problem for another moment. Dane's eyes flashed open briefly again and Mercury knew he was checking that Mercury would be ready to act at the same moment Dane did.

The wind roared through the trees. Colorful leaves were ripped from their stems and blown up off the ground, circling like a terrible, obscuring cyclone. The fire went out with a puff of acrid smoke and the four humans began to shout at each other over the noise of the wind. Tainted magic swelled from them, but Dane batted it aside effortlessly. Mercury had little doubt that Dane had been gathering as much magic as he could hold while pretending to be unconscious.

Mercury shifted forms, his dragon scales shoving trees out of the way to make room for his girth. He roared, adding his own magic to Dane's, and was echoed a moment later as the fire dragon shook off her chains and lifted her own voice into the wind. Dane wouldn't let the enemy transport away, holding them in place while their magic fought against Dane's and Mercury's combined forces. He felt Dane weaving something extra into the magic and recognized the anti-death spell he was adding to the wind. Jacobson had died before he could be questioned thanks to an extra touch of evil added to his concoction of stolen magic; Dane wasn't about to allow that to happen here.

It took a while before their struggles diminished as one-by-one their borrowed magic ran out. If the concoction ever made it to the black market, Mercury knew it would be as bad as any addictive drug. Powerful one moment, helpless human the next. Addicts would do anything to get their hands on more magic. Mercury didn't doubt the four who were sitting on the ground gaping at their hands as they tried and failed to call up a spell were experiencing the desolation of withdrawal.

The wind slowly died away. Mercury pulled his magic from the air as Dane's powers dissipated with the breeze. The woods were silent except for the soft rustle of leaves settling back down to the ground. Mercury shifted forms, smoothly losing his claws and scales for his human shape as he strode across the clearing.

"They had the same death spell on the end of their magic?" he asked Dane.

Dane grunted. "Bitch of a spell, but I got rid of it this time."

"Where is it?" the woman moaned, flinging her hands out as if she were casting some sort of spell. "Where did it go?"

"They didn't tell you it was a finite supply when they doped you?" Dane asked scathingly. He knelt down in front of the woman to try to catch her gaze, but she wouldn't look away from her hands as she tried spell after spell to no effect. Mercury had once heard Dane compare the stolen magic to a spool of string. It was strong and felt infinite, but it wasn't renewable. Eventually the users reached the end of the spool and suddenly there wasn't any magic left at all. It was apparently a shocking absence, given the way the woman was babbling.

"What should we do with them?" Dane asked, frowning down at the group. The men were in just as bad shape as the woman, although they weren't being as vocal about it.

"We can't stay here. O'Simmons will be back," Mercury replied.

"And I need to run after my kits before they get hurt in the woods," the red dragon rumbled. She didn't look particularly steady on her four legs. She was probably still suffering the effects of dragon's bane poisoning, plus she had thrown her magic in with Dane's to stop the enemy from escaping.

"Can we take them to the SupFeds?" Dane asked Mercury thoughtfully before turning soothingly towards the worried mother. "We found your kits earlier today. They're safe with your mate. If you wait a moment, I'll bring you to them."

Mercury dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed the number Valerie had left him. It rang twice before she answered.

"Hello?" she gasped, sounding winded.

"Hey, what's the protocol for bringing criminals to the FBSI building for interrogation?" Mercury asked, pushing aside his worry over why she sounded so out of breath.

"Have you formally arrested them?" she asked, suddenly sounding very businesslike.

"Not yet. I don't want to do it wrong. They're not exactly coherent enough to understand Miranda."

"Okay," Valerie interjected before Mercury's worries took over their phone call. When all this was over, he was going to take a class on being a field agent. He didn't want to be caught floundering again. He needed to take whatever classes the SupFeds offered if he was going to continue working with Valerie so this situation was never repeated. "I've got Stockton's home number. I'll give him a call and you bring your criminals to the office since we can't send cars to the middle of the woods to pick them up. Have the guards at the front door security desk help you bring them down to interrogation. One person per interrogation room. Then come and get me and I'll make the formal arrests and read them their rights. See you in a bit." She hung up.

"I'll get our mama dragon settled and then head home," Dane said when Mercury pocketed his phone. He had apparently been listening in to the conversation. "I'll watch the kits for tonight, so take as much time as you need."

Mercury began gathering his magic. He needed more in order to weave a spell that would transport everyone to his office.

"I'm going to try to convince them to go after O'Simmons too. I have a feeling he's hiding a dragon lab in his precinct and I want to use the SupFed's resources to find it before O'Simmons is tipped off that we're on to him."

"Call when you have word," Dane agreed with a small smile. He gently took the mother dragon's arm and they vanished. Mercury let his own magic loose, pulling all four captives along with him as they headed to the SupFeds office.

*~*~*

Valerie should be one of the top field agents the SupFeds had ever trained. Mercury had no doubt about that fact, and he really hoped that after their case came to a successful end she would finally get the recognition she deserved. By the time he arrived outside his office building, she had already informed Stockton that something important was up, had alerted the appropriate people that Mercury was bringing criminals in for questioning, and had begun planning their next move. All Mercury needed to do was hand over all four criminals, turn around to get Valerie, and then be present as Valerie's partner when she outlined their investigation to Stockton and the other bigwigs that had been called in.

The bigwigs all seemed to be familiar with the case in question. Mercury didn't doubt that they all had to be, given they were probably investigated along with Jacobson, their previous boss, when Jacobson's connection to kidnapping and cruel experimenting on dragons came to light.

"So, what do we have on this Captain O'Simmons?" Stockton asked when Valerie finished her explanation about why everyone's evening had been interrupted.

"Just what the FBI's been able to find so far," Valerie replied immediately, digging in the stack of papers she had brought to the meeting and pulling out a woefully thin manila folder. "They've run a background check on him as a civilian and as an officer of the law, and they're not impressed. His bank account has quite a number of unexplained deposits of exactly nine thousand dollars." Which was just under the ten-thousand-dollar minimum amount that had to be reported to the IRS for tax purposes and a clear sign that he was doing something shady. "He has two vacation homes, one in Florida and the other in Hawaii, which he shouldn't be able to afford even on a captain's salary. His wife is unemployed, he hasn't won the lottery, and he didn't inherit any money or property. As captain, he has been diverting police funds to a warehouse that's billed as an evidence warehouse, but there aren't enough cases in his relatively small precinct to actually warrant the space."

"A warehouse?" Mercury asked curiously, leaning forward to read the papers over Valerie's shoulder. "The last place they were holding dragons captive was a warehouse on the Chesapeake Bay."

"Where the magical earthquake attack hit five years ago?" a woman asked. Mercury hadn't caught her name. She didn't work for the SupFeds and Stockton had acted very differentially towards her when she had walked into the room. Maybe she was from the State Department?

"That's correct, Madame Secretary," Valerie replied. Or she was the Secretary of Defense and Mercury had better damn well learn her name if he wanted to keep his job. "O'Simmons was recorded trying to requisition a Black Hawk helicopter from the local air base to return an elephant that had wandered out of a local zoo. When no proof could be found that an elephant had actually escaped the zoo, his request was denied. He must have realized by now that Agent Mercury has interrupted his planned capture of a fire dragon and apprehended his coconspirators." Mercury wasn't officially an agent yet, just an analyst, but he appreciated the promotion since he was doing an agent's job with Valerie at the moment. He also appreciated the fact that she hadn't used his last name. "We need to move on that warehouse immediately before O'Simmons has the chance to shut everything down."

"He'll most likely kill whatever dragons he's holding captive if he doesn't think there's time to move them," Mercury added to emphasize that time was of the essence.

Madame Secretary stood up and tapped the table sharply. "Get it done," she informed them. She nodded to the room before striding out.

"What do you need?" Stockton asked Valerie the second the door had closed behind the Secretary.

"O'Simmons is using stolen dragon magic, so I'll need as many witches we have on staff as well as SWAT to move in. It would be nice if we could hire the Supernatural Consultant as well—"

"But he'll need a babysitter first. And he'll bring Nickel, which I'm not sure the FBSI would agree with," Mercury interrupted.

"Nickel's only thirteen!" Valerie gasped, turning to glare at Mercury for suggesting they bring a minor along.

"He's the Assistant Supernatural Consultant," Mercury explained to Valerie and the rest of the room. "And he can hold his own in a fight."