Page 43 of Riding My Dragons

”What is this?” demanded the first Gorgonite.

”How am I supposed to know?” I answered.“I’m just the courier.I’m not a tech guy; I don’t know anything about these things.”

The one holding the reader tapped a few more buttons.The words in the hologram said, DEVICE NOT READABLE.

I rolled my eyes, still hiding my nerves, as the Gorgonite trying to scan the box took it out of the nook and looked more closely at it, turning it around and back and forth in his hand.Then, in a shocked voice, he growled, “This thing isn’t even for real!This isn’t any data box!It’s not even that old!Someone made a fake and doctored it up to look like an antique!”They both glared evilly at me.“What do you think you’re doing, kid?Where did you get this fake?Where’s the real data box?”

My scales started to break out and I could feel my horns, tail, and wings sprouting.Holding up my hands, which were starting to become claws, I took nervous steps back from the two black-suited Scalers.“Listen, guys,” I said, “like I said, I’m just the courier.”

The one without the scanner pulled a gun from the waist of his suit bottom and aimed it at me.“Tell us where the real data box is.Tell us now.What did you do with it?”

Forcing a smile and faking a laugh, I answered, “What makes you think I did something with it?This is the thing they told me to get and bring you.Is it my fault the thing is defective?”

“You little worm!” shouted the Gorgonite with the gun.“Give us the real box or you’re as good as skinned!”

Both of them went full dragon and the armed one charged forward.Forgetting everything else but the danger running right at me with gun aimed and fangs glinting in hisopen jaws, I let go of my own human shape, facing him as a dragon and baring my own fangs.

And that was when it all broke loose.Before the dragon attacking me could fire a shot, bursting energy bullets rained down onto the roof.My attacker whipped his neck upward and caught sight of Fergus, Jade, and another Scaler belonging to the Intercross, all of them in dragon bodies, all of them with guns of their own.They had leaped out of the trees where they’d been hiding, waiting for my two Gorgonite contacts to find out the scam we’d just pulled on them.They came in screeching and shooting, and the fight was on.

I took advantage of the distraction from my Intercross friends attacking and whipped my tail around and forward.It slashed and stung against the gun-holding hand of my attacker.He gave a furious hiss and lost his grip on the weapon, which clattered onto the rooftop.He roared at me, I answered his roar with a hiss of my own, and we both dove down to fight for the gun.Meanwhile, the other Gorgonite took out his own gun with his free hand and started firing at the Intercross guys as they came swooping in.He missed them, and they fired back, hitting the data box reader and shattering it.Before he could squeeze off another shot, Fergus and another Intercross guy were on him.Fergus grabbed him by the arm with the gun and the two of them started to struggle over it, while the other guy tackled him across his chest and the two of them slammed down hard onto the rooftop.

The dragon who’d held the data box screeched and roared and pounded his tail while he thrashed with Fergus and his buddy, who had him pinned.He snapped his jaws at them, and they hissed back.He wasn’t going anywhere; they had him good.At the same time, I rolled around with my own attacker, the two of us raking claws against each other’s scales.Jadelunged down and grabbed my opponent’s gun.“Stop!Don’t move!” she shouted, pointing the weapon at the two of us.

Reacting to Jade’s shout, my opponent reared up while pinning me to the roof.He showed Jade his fangs and curled his tail at her, but she stood her ground and kept his gun pointed at him.He should have given up then and there, but he took her by surprise and slashed out at her with his tail the way I’d done, aiming not for her hand but catching her legs and knocking her off her feet and down onto her wings.Jade fired a shot that made a trail of light in the air, hitting nothing—while the dragon who had me pinned whirled back around, grabbed me around the shoulders and the waist, and launched himself with me in his grip off the roof.

The bastard thought he was clever, grabbing me and flying off with me, thinking no one would fire at him because they might hit me.But he couldn’t fly straight with me squirming in his grip, hitting at him with my tail and raking my claws along his neck.What was he going to do about it?Drop me and give me a chance to tackle him in mid-air and crash both of us?He quickly realized his poor planning when we both went careening over the street and the treetops, flying wildly, filling the air with the sound of our roars and shrieks.With every swoop and crazy turn, we ran the risk of slamming into a house or crashing into a tree.And in the middle of it all came the loud, throbbing sounds of Constable horns, closing in from the far end of the street.

He started swatting against my snout, trying to knock me off him.But I answered that by playing even dirtier.I opened my jaws wide, lunged forward, and buried the daggers of my teeth right in his throat.He let out a dragon scream that must have been heard up and down the street and onto the next block.Now everything became a blur as we spun and plummeted downward, thrashing every bit of the way, untilwe hit hard into the boughs of a tree, cracking the limbs and sending big branches flying everywhere in a storm of falling leaves.We dropped from the tree boughs right onto someone’s lawn.Dragon folks watched out the front window of a house as the Gorgonite and I lay stunned in the litter of fallen, broken tree limbs—and two Constable cars came sliding over the street and came to a hovering stop.

Four officers charged out of the vehicles with long guns drawn and cuffs ready to bind us.The Intercross’s plan to stop the Gorgonites from getting the data box had worked.But I was caught.

Fergus, Jade, and their friend brought the other Gorgonite down from the roof of the inn and let the Constables have him.The law enforcers got my two playmates and me back into human form, and the Intercross guys also went human while the Gorgonites and I were cuffed and read our rights.Meanwhile, up and down the street, dragons came out of houses and stared at the drama unfolding in their neighborhood.

Someone else who’d seen the whole thing also came swooping in for a landing.Byron, more of a diplomat and a lover than a fighter, had been watching from another tree.When my opponent tried to fly off with me, Byron had taken off, ready to separate us and give me a chance to get away, but I’d made my move before he could make his.Now Byron landed where the Constables had me cuffed near one of their hovering cars.He went human and showed them his mirror with his ID displayed.“Byron Ledger,” he introduced himself.“I represent the Ledger family.I’d like to ride along with Mr. Taisce to booking and make arrangements for legal representation.”

Byron being who he was and his family having that kind of influence, the Constables agreed, but they were going to want all of us to go with them for questioning.While they got on theirown mirrors and called in a preliminary report, Byron stayed close to me.“Well,” he said, “this part of the plan worked.”

”Yeah,” I said.“This part.But Elliot went off with Mr. Callaway and some others to find Jenna.What’s happening with them?”

”Keep good thoughts,” Byron said.

And he was right.Keeping good thoughts was the best either of us could do right now until we heard something from Elliot.But it would take more than good thoughts to get Jenna back.

CHAPTER 21

Jenna

The questions turning around and around in my mind were, what if Nidaag and his people go back on their part of the deal?What if they don’t let me go when they get what they want?And what if they decided I was no longer useful enough to let live?

That was very possible, I knew.

I kept going back to something that Nidaag said during our little chat.One phrase kept ringing in my memory.Even…where you come from.It was such a “knowing” thing for him to say.It wasn’t something that he’d mentioned at random, just throwing it out there in the middle of a conversation.There was a very specific sort of feeling about that choice of words; I could feel that Nidaag knew I wasn’t from any place he’d ever heard of.And more, he knew something else about me.

He knew where my father was.Perhaps he’d even seen my father.And to him, I was proof, just by the fact that I existed, of what he saw as a threat to everything he believed, even a threat to his power.Or the power that he wanted.

Nidaag had promised that nothing would happen to me.But promises are fragile.Accidents can happen.A promise from Nidaag might only be words.And words and reality can be two different things.

As my “host” had promised, I’d been served food and water.Someone had brought it in on a tray with wooden utensils and a plastic bottle, nothing that might make a weapon that would be of any danger to a Scaler.They’d been careful about that.And it had very much the feeling of a “last meal” fora condemned person.It wasn’t drugged or poisoned, but I still had the sense of my last hours closing in on me.How did I want to face them?

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