Dragon's Fire (5 page)

It only took me a few minutes to spot the manhole cover and realize that the wendigo had gone into the sewers. I swore under my breath. I hated tracking into the sewers. It always took forever to get the stench out of my hair and clothes. But, that's what they paid me for and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't well compensated. At least I didn't have to try to lift that stupid cover by myself. I may have been stronger than the average girl of my age and size thanks to a lifetime of training, but I was still human.

The two agents standing behind the sewer entrance gave me doubtful looks as I lowered myself into the darkness. I took a couple of deep, steady breaths as I waited for my eyes and nose to adjust. Once I was certain I could proceed without gagging or tripping over anything, I turned on the dim flashlight I'd clipped to my belt and started to move. The wendigo was almost as good a hunter as I, so I wanted as little light as possible to warn it I was coming. The best thing about wendigoes is that they all followed the same sort of pattern no matter where they were living. They may venture into populated areas to feed, but they would still choose the area with the least amount of people to make their home. That meant I was headed south, out of the city.

One of the things I hated the most about being in the sewers while hunting was the loss of time. I couldn't tell if I'd been down here for hours or days. Common sense told me that it couldn't have been later than late afternoon, but the darkness around me suggested that I'd been here for years, wandering, lost. I shook my head. Thinking like that got people killed. I slowly shuffled through the inch-deep dreck and allowed my mind to fall into its hyper-focused state where everything else faded away and all that was left was the hunt. I'd been training since I could walk and my muscles knew each part of the process as much as my brain did. That was why, even at nineteen, I was so much better than late-in-life hunters. For me, it wasn't second nature. It was first.

Suddenly, I heard it coming from around the bend in the pipe, the strange chittering sound that only a wendigo made. They were said to have been human once, twisted and perverted by generations of cannibalism and violence, but they no longer had the power of human speech. No one was entirely sure if they bred or just turned because no one could get close enough to study them.

I flattened myself against the wall and shuffled forward. I'd been being cautious, but I hadn't really expected to catch the creature in the sewer. I'd assumed I'd track it to its nest. There was no way I could catch up with a wendigo with such a huge head-start. But as I peeked around the bend, I could see the shadowy outline, almost humanoid in appearance. I watched for a moment, trying to determine if it was injured or if there was some other reason for it still being here. The creature was standing at a fork in the pipes, the left one veering back towards the heart of the city, the other one leading towards the outskirts. It clearly wanted to go to the right, but every time it took a step, it would sniff the air and step back, making that strange chittering sound, like a cat watching birds from a window.

While its behavior was puzzling, that wasn't the reason I'd gone into the sewers. I clicked off the safety to the flame-thrower and placed my finger on the trigger. After taking a deep breath to keep my nerves steady, I stepped around the corner and took two large strides towards the wendigo before pulling the trigger. I wasn't about to give it a warning. Its reflexes were a little slow and it managed to only get halfway around before the flames reached it. Three steps towards me and its entire body was engulfed in flames. Since I wasn't exactly in a very flammable area, I kept the fire going until the creature stopped moving and dropped to its knees. The burning skin sizzled as it came in contact with the thin layer of water, but wendigoes are highly combustable and it continued to burn even as it reached for me. Within a matter of minutes, all that was left was a smoldering pile of ash. Wendigoes may be extremely dangerous and only susceptible to fire, but once they start burning, they don't stop. My father once theorized that wendigoes secreted some sort of accelerant, but no one had been able to prove it because no one had ever caught a wendigo alive and, once they were dead, there wasn't enough left to do any sort of testing.

My musings about the body chemistry of a people-eating killing machine was interrupted when a sound I could only describe as a roar echoed through the pipes. It sounded like it was coming from the right tunnel. Was there something so big and bad in there that a wendigo wouldn't approach? That didn't bode well for the capitol. I shrugged off the flame-thrower and set it against the side of the tunnel. I wanted to be as light on my feet as possible. While I enjoyed getting paid for what I did, for me, it was still my family's business to protect people from dangerous creatures. I would probably try to get the FBI to hire me to kill whatever that was, but even if they didn't, I wouldn't let something that could scare a wendigo remain lurking beneath Washington, DC.

I cupped my hand over the light and started forward. Every cell in my body was telling me that this was a bad idea, that whatever was down here was worse than anything I'd ever seen, but I hadn't survived this long by being afraid. Another roar reverberated around me, much louder this time. It wasn't like any creature I'd heard before. Not enough growl to be a werewolf, too much to be one of the were-cats, and there was no way that sound was coming from a human's voice box.

Suddenly, the pipe opened up into a large room and I just barely managed to keep from tumbling down to the water below. I could see about a half dozen pipes all emptying into the same place, and under each one was a metal wheel that apparently could be used to close and open the pipes. My brain only registered these things as peripheral and unimportant. The thing perched on top of the giant pump in the center of the room captured all of my attention.

Almost seven feet tall. Shining green-gold scales. Wings folded onto its back. A tail nearly twice as long as its body. Razor sharp claws and a lizard-like face.

I blinked. I had to be dreaming. This wasn't possible. When it didn't disappear, instead opening its mouth to let out another deafening roar, I stumbled. I felt myself falling, felt the pain in my head as it struck the edge of the pipe, but all I could think was one single word.

Dragon.

Chapter Five

I'd been knocked out enough times to be able to assess my surroundings fairly quickly as I regain consciousness. The sense of smell always came back first for me, followed quickly by sound. One breath was enough for me to know that I wasn't in the sewer anymore. Dust, machinery, oil. My hearing kicked in. Creaks and echoes indicated an old, large building. Between the two senses, I was going to guess I was in an abandoned factory. The sixth sense that I'd relied on my entire life told me that I wasn't alone, though whoever was with me wasn't close enough for me to gather any information about them. Whoever it was had saved me from being eaten or roasted by a dragon – or both, I guess – so I was pretty sure they were friendly. I wasn't stupid enough, however, to be complacent. A monster could have saved me as easily as a human. Or it could have been a human monster. Those still existed.

Before I opened my eyes, I did a quick inventory to make sure I didn't have any injuries. My head throbbed, but that wasn't a shock. I remembered hitting the edge of the pipe. I couldn't feel any blood on my face, dried or otherwise, but that didn't mean I hadn't been bleeding. If I'd fallen into the water, any blood could have been washed away. I didn't want to think about what else could have been in that water. My clothes seemed dry, but I could have been unconscious long enough for them to have dried on their own. Based on the absence of stench, I didn't think that was the case, but that could have just been wishful thinking. All in all, I was hoping for a short period of blackout time and no immersion in sewage. Aside from my head, nothing else was hurting, so I took that as a good sign. When you do what I do, you learn to find the positive in the small things, like only having a concussion after having come face-to-face with a dragon.

Slowly, I raised my eyelids. Without moving, I looked around as much as I could. My guess of an abandoned factory appeared to be accurate. I waited until I was sure that I'd be able to react to any attack and then I sat up. My head swum a bit, but nothing I couldn't manage. This was far from the worst knock to the head I'd taken. A piece of advice: never wake a sleeping selkie. They may look like cute little seals, but they can be pretty strong when they're pissed.

A shadow behind a giant, dust-covered machine caught my eye and I tensed, readying myself for an attack. I reached for the knife in my boot sheath, suddenly sure that it was gone. The moment my fingers closed around the handle, a wave of relief washed over me. I didn't pull it out, but prepared myself to do so if the shadow turned out to be hostile. Adrenaline raced through me, sharpening my senses.

“Hello?” I pitched my voice low. I didn't know where the dragon was and I wasn't about to risk attracting its attention.

“You don't need to be afraid.”

The voice was male, anywhere from early twenties to late forties.

“Where's the dragon?” I didn't bother to tell him that I wasn't afraid of him. I was confident that, concussion or no, I could more than hold my own against a solitary man, no matter what else he was. A dragon on the loose, however, did nothing to relax me.

“It's...gone,” the shadow shifted.

“Where did it go?” I didn't like the way he'd said gone.

“Don't worry, it won't be back for a while.”

I pulled myself up in to crouch, unsheathing my knife. I kept it gripped tightly, but the blade down. No need to seem hostile. “Why don't you come out here where I can see you?”

“All right,” the man's voice was soft as he stepped out into the light.

It was the hot journalist from the crime scene. I'll admit it, that surprised me, but, it didn't surprise me as much as the next thing I realized. He had a dusty blanket pulled around his shoulders and I was pretty sure he wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Had I fallen into the water and he'd pulled me out? It was possible, I supposed, and was a reasonable explanation as to why he wasn't wearing clothes. I could have been wrong before when I'd thought I hadn't gone into the water.

“You were the reporter at the bakery.” All right, so not exactly erudite, but what was I supposed to say? 'Hey, why don't you take off that blanket and show me what you've got to offer?' Though, I'll admit, the thought did cross my mind.

“Judah Mills,” he came closer and I could see dark circles under his eyes. He glanced around before leaning back against some machine that looked like it had been made for torturing giants.

“I'm Sio...”

“I know who you are,” his voice had a weary note that I hadn't noticed before. “I've been following your career. You're quite the hunter.”

“You knew about the vampire in Colorado,” I suddenly remembered his question.

He nodded. “Like I said, I follow your career. I have really good sources.”

“Look, if you're the one who saved me from the dragon, I'm grateful,” I stood. My muscles weren't as stiff as I'd feared. “But that thing can't be allowed to roam free, especially not in DC, not if we want to keep a working government.”

“I know,” he agreed. “That's why I went into the sewer after you.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. There was something that this guy wasn't telling me. “You followed me?”

“I wanted to see how you handled yourself with that wendigo, to see if you would be able to slay a dragon.” Judah leaned forward. The blanket slipped off of one shoulder, revealing one muscled shoulder.

“Why haven't you informed the local police or the FBI? They have specialty divisions for Paranormal...Beings,” I hesitated on the last word. I wasn't entirely sure if a dragon was a Being or a creature. Everything else that I hunted had some sort of human-like intelligence. A dragon wasn't like that. Unless...I shivered at the thought that popped into my head. Was it possible that a shape-shifter had figured out how to shift into a dragon? That would be very bad.