Page 49 of Cast By Flames (Dragon's Breath)
“No problem,” the other slayer said, quickly moving down the dim corridor.
The shops had been raided of anything valuable years ago, and most had been left in a state of disrepair. There wasn’t electricity to power anything on this side of the border yet, but we’d brought flashlights to assist us. Freya and I began our sweep with the nearest stores, each taking opposite ends. She had a great nose, but until she knew the specific scent, shecouldn’t single a bomb out from anything else. This place didn’t have that new product smell anymore that I missed.
Instead, the still air was filled with a mixture of death, decay, urine, and numerous other odors I didn’t want to think about.The mall had been a dangerous place to visit in those early months after the dragons arrived.
We found several storage areas for the war with food and weapons supplies. None of those contained materials for fertilizer bombs. Clearing each space as fast as possible, we reached the central part of the mall where the different corridors intersected. Rayna was a couple of shops down from finishing her side. I was about to suggest going over to help her when Freya stiffened.
“There is a suspicious scent coming from over there,” she said, pointing at a store I knew used to sell lotions, body washes, and candles.
It had been boarded up after all the exterior windows were broken out soon after dragons arrived. For a while, a group of teenagers had chosen to use it as their hideout before it became too dangerous due to roving gangs claiming the whole place. Would the fragrance of the merchandise continue to linger after all this time, triggering her, or was it something else?
“Good or bad smell?” I asked.
“Bad—very bad.”
Hopefully, eucalyptus wasn’t a trigger for dragons. I still had so much to learn.
I nodded. “Let’s check it out.”
We pried open the main door that hung off-center, scraping it across the tile. It was inky black inside. I pointedmy flashlight and ran the beam across the room, spotting stacks of crates that shouldn’t have been there. This place wasn’t designated to store supplies because it didn’t have easy access to our chosen loading points, and the space wasn’t ample enough to use.
I wrinkled my nose as I took a step into the room. “You’re right. The scent is terrible.”
We worked our way through the room, and Rayna joined us. I began examining the crates while Freya sniffed at various ones. Caution kept me from opening them, but the shifter commented that they had strange chemical scents within them. The other slayer walked toward the old sales counter and moved behind it.
“Over here,” she said.
We joined her and found a large metal box on the floor. It was about two feet by two feet with wires coming out. Under the counter, we spotted stacks of C4 where the wires were attached. The plan came together in my head that the initial explosion would trigger the other elements in the crates. While it would be destructive, it probably wouldn’t finish the entire mall since it sprawled out too far, and we didn’t keep all our supplies in one place for that reason.
I shook my head. “This isn’t the only one.”
“Should we keep searching or destroy this one now?” she asked, then pulled a watch from her pocket to glance at it. “We have just over an hour.”
My mind raced. “They might notice if they lose signal on this one, which could make them activate any others prematurely. This isn’t exactly our area of expertise.”
“You mean they didn’t teach bomb disposal at Dragon Slayer School?” Rayna teased.
“Oddly, no.”
Pretty much all I knew about explosives was from movies I’d watched long ago, and those weren’t exceptionally reliable. It was best not to take any chances.
Freya’s brows knitted. “I know the scent now, and I can find any others much faster.”
“The trouble is that we’re gonna need you to burn this box with one burst of flame and nothing else in the room.” Without the triggering device, everything else could wait for someone who knew what they were doing. I knew from watching dragons disintegrate missiles that their fire destroyed objects fast without resulting in explosions. “If there are more, you can’t be in the other places simultaneously, and we could give away what we’re doing.”
She nodded. “I will call for assistance from the nearest Taugud guards.”
“They’ll need to shift and appear human. Tell them to act casually as they approach,” I warned.
It was risky calling for reinforcements, but I didn’t see a way around it.
We left Rayna to keep an eye on the store while we let the human security guards know there would be a couple more arrivals soon. They stood right inside the entrance doors, appearing anxious.
We’d barely finished giving them an update when we spotted two males walking across the parking lot. They strolled casually while talking and laughing as if they didn’t have a carein the world. I noted they kept their heads down enough no one could spot their yellow eyes from a distance.
“That’s more casual than I expected from shifters,” I said, thinking I usually didn’t see that sort of behavior aside from when they’d been consuming alcoholic beverages. Their kind tended to behave stiffly in public. For that matter, most people could spot a shifter by their bearing and stride alone.
“Those two are best friends. They interact with humans often and have learned to adapt,” Freya explained.
