Slayers (23 page)

Read Slayers Online

Authors: C. J. Hill

BOOK: Slayers
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She looked at the broken window and sighed heavily. She was never going to figure out this whole Slayer business.
T
ori stood outside the building while Dr. B regarded her, pressing his lips together in a tight, unhappy line. He folded his hands neatly in front of his camp polo shirt. “Perhaps no one thoroughly explained the rules of the drill to you, but while fighting the dragon, you’re not allowed to break into the control room or threaten the tech support.”
“I thought Kody was really hurt.” She had already explained this, but perhaps Theo’s wailing in the background had distracted Dr. B from hearing it. Or perhaps he’d forgotten it while settling Lilly and Bess’s argument over who had won the last round. Lilly maintained the points should go to the A-team since she had been the one to stab the dragon—or rather, push the button that represented the dragon’s heart with her sword. Bess said Tori had stopped the dragon when she’d taken out Theo, so the points should go to Team Magnus. And then Lilly said that anything Tori had done didn’t count since she’d technically been dead at the time. People weren’t allowed to come back from the grave to help out team members.
In the end, the A-team had gotten the points.
Now Dr. B stared at Tori patiently. “I’m glad you were worried over Kody’s well-being. That shows loyalty and compassion. However, you must learn to destroy the dragon even if one of your team members falls. When the dragon attacks, we won’t be able to stop it from charging every time we need to help one of our own. You have to learn how to deal with these kinds of situations in practice drills so you’ll be able to deal with them when they happen in real life.”
Tori nodded, even though she didn’t imagine she would be much use in a real battle. Being able to hear what the dragon heard wasn’t going to help her fight it. She’d probably get killed quickly, like in practice.
And worse still, her parents would never understand why their daughter had died fighting a dragon.
Dr. B must have seen her discouragement. He added, “You managed to leap all the way to the control booth. That was quite well done. None of the others could have managed that height after only a couple days of practice. I dare say you’re the only girl who could make that height now.”
“It’s the ice skating,” Tori said. “I’ve got strong legs.”
“And the other girls have practiced jumping for years.” He smiled, not letting her brush off the compliment. Then his gaze traveled back to the door. “Well, seeing as Theo needs to fix the control board before you can practice again, and judging by the way he was weeping over it, I imagine it won’t be ready today. So I think it’s time for an early dinner. I’ll ask the cafeteria to bring things down.”
He left, taking his cell phone out of his pocket while he walked away. Tori didn’t want to go back inside and face the others. She’d messed up again, and this time had ended up breaking the mechanical dragon.
But she couldn’t stay out here forever. She trudged back into the Dragon Hall. The Slayers were below the control room, leaping up like supersonic jumping beans. Dr. B was right; none of the girls could get
the height she had. Jesse could do it—although Bess kept yelling that he was cheating and flying. Dirk could do it, and Kody and Shang could jump high enough to see in the window, but not high enough to land inside. And Tori had done it three times in row.
“Would you cut it out!” Theo yelled at Dirk as he popped up even with him. “That’s getting on my nerves!” When neither Dirk nor Jesse stopped, Theo picked up chunks from the plastic window and pelted the Slayers with them. Kody turned the thing into field goal practice. He jumped up, caught a chunk, then landed and drop-kicked the plastic piece back through the window. After a couple times doing this, Dirk ran interference. He sprang up and caught a football-size plastic chunk before it could go back in the window.
“Interception!” Dirk yelled.
This seemed to be an invitation for every other Slayer to run after him. They tore around the building, laughing while they bounded into and off the walls. Dirk finally passed the plastic chunk to Kody, and instantly the teams formed. The A-team against Team Magnus.
When Shang and Jesse were about to tackle Kody, he tossed the chunk toward Lilly. Before it reached her, Bess threw up a shield in front of her, and the chunk bounced off the forcefield and flew toward Bess. She caught it, then dodged around Alyssa, hurdled over Lilly’s head, and sprinted back the way she’d come. Kody sent a shock that flung the plastic out of her hands. Jesse lunged into the air, caught it, and the race was on again.
Tori stood back and watched. It was nice seeing them laughing this way, like they were high school kids instead of commandos preparing for a life-and-death battle. For the first time, she felt the urge to be a part of them and was sad she’d missed all those years when the rest of them had bonded.
Jesse tossed the chunk to Shang, who leapt up and flung it back into the control room.
Theo let out a stream of curses.
“We should stop,” Rosa said, slowing to a walk. “We’re going to make him cry again.”
The group sauntered away from the control room area. Some of them went to the drinking fountains. Dirk looked at Tori, letting his eyes run over her in an appraising manner. She stood there, caught in his gaze, suddenly feeling awkward and expectant.
She hadn’t spoken to Dirk since he’d left her cabin the night before, and she had no idea how the whole counterpart thing worked. She ought to ask him for advice on fighting the dragon without much of a usable talent. He obviously didn’t get killed first in every battle, or he wouldn’t be a team captain.
For a moment, she thought Dirk would come over, but Jesse and Kody walked up beside her and Dirk strolled over to the drinking fountain instead. Kody held up his hand and gave her a high-five. “Hey, thanks for beating up Theo on my behalf. Someday I hope I can return the favor.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Jesse said. “As her team captain, I’m supposed to impress upon her the seriousness of her actions.” He turned to Tori and nearly suppressed the smile from his lips. “If you ever do that again, I’m going to make you write ‘I will not terrify the tech support guy’ a hundred times.”
“Sorry,” she said.
Jesse nudged one of the broken window chunks with his foot, then looked up at the jagged hole. “How did you manage to jump that high?”
“Adrenaline, I guess. I thought Theo would burn everyone.”
Jesse considered the window. “Hmm,” he said, as though piecing something together in his mind. “Try it now.”
She, Jesse, and Kody walked back over to the corner of the floor underneath the control room. The room grew quiet and she knew the others had stopped chatting and were watching her, too. Tori took a running step and leapt up. It felt like she’d taken a giant jump on a
trampoline, all inertia and air. Her head bobbed even with Theo. He was bent over the desk full of knobs and levers, but he glanced up and glared at her when she came into view.
Gravity took effect, and she landed again, but without any of the jarring thunks she’d had two days ago. It was controlled now, as graceful as one of her skating routines.
Jesse didn’t speak, just kept watching her.
Theo leaned out of the window. “Tori is not allowed in the control room again. She is hereby
banned
from even jumping up to look inside.
Banned!
” He gave her another glare before spinning around and disappearing from view.
Tori stared back at the window. “He’s sort of touchy, isn’t he?”
Jesse laughed. Maybe that line sounded funny coming from someone who’d made such a big deal about her hair getting charred off.
But Kody nodded in agreement. “Computer nerds. They’re nothing but a bunch of prima donnas.”
Jesse hadn’t taken his eyes from her. She liked being the center of his attention in a good way. He might have said something about her jump, and it might have even been a compliment, but then the door to the Dragon Hall opened, and Dr. B called out, “Dinner!”
 
 
The Slayers sat down at the table, Team Magnus on one side, the A-team on the other. Jesse and Dirk sat at the seats closest to Dr. B, at the head of the table. While everyone ate chicken casserole, Dr. B hooked up a projector to his laptop and focused the image from his screen on a nearby whiteboard.
Finally, he stood in front of them, gathering their gazes. “As you know, this morning I went to investigate places Overdrake might be hiding the eggs. Now we need to discuss the results.”
He clicked a remote, and an image came up on the whiteboard—a large, gray building and two smaller buildings surrounded by cow
pasture. Several cows grazed in the foreground. “The residence is listed to ‘John Smith.’”
The Slayers snickered. “Lame alias,” Kody said.
Dr. B advanced the screen to show a closer picture of the property. The building had a huge door on one end. “I’m sure John Smith is an alias,” Dr. B agreed. “I’m also sure it’s the right place. Armed guards patrol the grounds, and Dirk got a strong connection to the dragons.”
Now the group leaned toward the image, their dinner forgotten, several people speaking at once.
“You know where it is?”
“When are we going?”
“Why are we sitting here, then?”
Dr. B held up a hand. “This is an unexpected turn of events—locating the eggs before they’ve hatched. They’ll be easy to destroy if we can get through Overdrake’s protections. However, you haven’t been trained to get around alarm systems or break into buildings. To be successful, I feel I’m going to have to study this for a while; perhaps bring in professionals—”
The group didn’t let him finish. Kody said, “We
are
the professionals. Who are you gonna get who can throw up forcefields or fly?”
Lilly said, “If we wait, Overdrake could move.”
“We’ll have surprise on our side,” Bess added.
Shang said, “We could stop the attack on D.C. before it ever happens. Think of the lives we’d save.”
Dr. B raised his hand again. “We’ve planned on killing the dragons after they attack, but this—” He gestured toward the picture on the wall. “This isn’t stopping a twenty-ton carnivore from ripping people apart. This would be breaking, entering, and destroying private property. If we aren’t careful, Overdrake could kill you, and the law would count it as self-defense. You would die as criminals. And even if we succeed in our mission, we might be caught, arrested, and sent to jail
where we’ll spend the remainder of our days reading hate mail from
Eragon
fans.”
The group fell silent. Tori pushed some casserole around her plate and wondered how her parents would react to her being hauled off to jail. Probably not very well. Especially since her dad would be campaigning soon. And how would she explain jailtime to her friends?
She tried to read Jesse’s expression, to see whether he was for or against the idea, but he stared grim-faced at the projection on the wall. Dirk looked down at his plate, his jaw clenched.
Kody folded his arms. “We’ll wear ski masks so they can’t identify us and gloves so we don’t leave fingerprints.”
“What if they capture some of us?” Tori asked.
Lilly waved a dismissive hand at her. “What are you worried about? If you get caught, your daddy will just pull some strings to spring you out of jail. You won’t rot in prison like the rest of us.”
Shang’s gaze flickered to Tori and then back to Dr. B. His voice was almost apologetic. “Tori shouldn’t go. She’s only had her powers for two days. She doesn’t know how to use them, let alone how to work with the group.”
Tori bristled. It felt like Shang was saying the same thing Jesse had told her yesterday—that she was undependable, that she wouldn’t be there for the group when they needed her.
Bess picked up a carrot stick from her plate and bit into it. “I don’t know about that. Theo’s afraid of her.”
Lilly rolled her eyes. “So Tori will do really well if the eggs are being guarded by defenseless computer nerds.”
Dr. B said, “We haven’t even decided if we’re going, and you’re debating who to allow on the teams. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, don’t you think?”

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