Page 75 of The Accidental Dragon Baby

“Because that’s the easy way out.” Ace took a threatening step forward. “The hard way, and the way I prefer, is to grind you into dust, until there’s nothing left of you. I’m just giving you a choice out of courtesy.”

“Oooh. How terrifying,” Watsonator said. But he had the good sense to look a little wary.

Ace gestured at the back rooms. “I hear your victims in there. You have performed procedures on people without their consent.”

“Why would you think that?” Watsonator asked imperiously. “I merely have a menagerie of animals.”

Both dragons growled. Ace spat a stream of flames at Watsonator; the man dove out of the way and threw himself through a door.

Ace and Raptor gave chase. Ivo clutched at the insides of the basket, pressing his good eye to the eye hole in case he could help.

Watsonator yelled for his men to provide backup. He grabbed a large plastic can and stabbed a knife into its side; clear liquid began to spill out.

Its scent exploded through the air—gasoline.

Ivo squeaked loudly in warning.

Watsonator eyed the animals in the cages around them. “Make another move, and they’re all dead.”

Before Ace and Raptor could get to him, Watsonator swung the can in a wide arc, splashing fuel onto the trapped animals.

Ace and Raptor swore. The creatures made loud sounds of distress.

“Duke,” Ace said urgently. “Fire suppression for the main building.”

“Can’t you suppress it?” came Duke’s voice faintly over the wire.

“Too much too fast. We can’t risk the victims.”

“We’re on the way,” Duke said.

Watsonator turned and fled, sloshing fuel everywhere he went. It was cruelly brilliant; the dragons could not breathe fire without risking everyone else.

They chased him out of the building. The doctor flung himself onto a waiting tiger. Ace barreled after Watsonator, only to have some guards cluster around their boss—amongst them a mage who threw up a defensive spell.

Ace’s flames bounced off the invisible shield. “Damn it!”

“We’re setting up a shield around the buildings,” Duke said on the comms. “Eliminate the threat.”

“On it,” Ace and Raptor replied.

They took to the air with powerful flaps of their wings, except Watsonator’s group ducked through a gate into the surrounding forest, taking cover under the leaves.

The dragons couldn’t burn down the forest just to capture them. When Ace breathed a plume of fire over the trees, the canopy caught the light and hid the escapees.

Bright white bolts shot out from between the trees. Ace and Raptor barrel-rolled out of the way; Ivo clung to the basket’s inner walls and tried to hold on.

“Here, I’ve got something,” Raptor said. “Spot me.”

He launched himself at Ace; Ivo braced himself for a collision.

Except it never came.

Raptor shifted in midair into a man, his momentum carrying him onto Ace’s foot.

Ivo craned his neck to watch. From a pouch around his waist, Raptor pulled out a small sheet of paper. Then he pricked his thumb with a half-shifted claw and smeared blood across the runes, facing the spell sheet outward.

Light flashed out of the spell. Below, Watsonator’s men shouted. The tiger roared.

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