“Oh, yes,” he murmured as the lid fell back. A long, long black barrel lay gleaming in the cutout foam padding, much larger than a standard rifle barrel and three times as thick. It was obviously meant to be fired from a stand or tripod, as it would be far too heavy for a single person to lift, much less aim. The rest of the weapon had been disassembled and lay in pieces in various foam cutouts, but Tristan stroked the length of the barrel with an almost maniacal glint in his eye. “Hello, beautiful,” he purred. “Would you like to come home with me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Hey, Romeo, ask it to dinner later. We gotta move.”
Almost at the same time, a bang came from the door at the far end of the car, and angry voices echoed through the barrier. More guards were on their way.
“Shit.” Tristan closed the case with a snap, then hauled it off the table. It was almost too big for a single person to carry, but he set his jaw and started for the door. “Let’s go.”
We left the car, hurried to the ladder and together managed to drag the prototype case onto the roof. Wind buffeted us, cold and savage, and the tops of the empty train cars stretched on in either direction.
“All right,” Tristan panted, holding tightly to the case as he scanned the sky. “Where the hell are those lizards? We’re sort of sitting ducks out here.”
“They’ll be here—”
“Freeze!”
I looked up. Three soldiers had ascended the roof of the car from the other side, and a pair of M16s were now pointed in our direction. One of the men, the one out front, looked to be a captain or sergeant, for he was dressed differently than the near-identical soldiers behind him. I raised my hands as he approached, the two guards flanking him, to give me a hard smile.
“Well, well. End of the line, it seems.” His voice had a trace of a Southern accent, breathy and somewhat smug. “I guess I’ll have to give you props for this ballsy little heist. Though, for the life of me, I don’t know where you thought you were going to go, unless your plan was to sprout wings and fly away.”
Tristan snorted, managing to turn a laugh into a rather painful-sounding cough that didn’t fool anyone. The officer’s eyes narrowed, and pointed a black handgun at my face. “Put down the case and step away, now,” he demanded. “Nice and slow, and keep your hands where I can see them.” When neither of us moved, his voice turned hard. “Boy, don’t make me shoot you,” he said as the soldiers behind him took aim. “It’s over. There’s nowhere to go. Your choices are either death by jumping or death by lead poisoning. Or you can surrender now and live awhile longer. Personally, I’d take the last option.”
There was a ripple of shadow over the trees, and I smiled. “One more,” I said, making the officer frown. “There is one more choice.”
“Yep,” Tristan agreed, the smirk on his face indicating that he’d seen it, too. He kept a tight hold of the case as he nodded to the soldiers. “Time to go. Sorry, boys, but we’re doing you a favor, trust me.”
The officer’s frown turned to a scowl. “All right, that’s enough of that. Shoot—”
A roar boomed overhead. The two soldiers whirled, and managed to prostrate themselves on the roof as the two dragons came swooping in. The officer screamed, raising his gun to fire, but was hit by a passing wing and knocked to his back, barely stopping himself from going off the edge. Cobalt didn’t slow; I heard Tristan’s yelp of surprise as the blue dragon grabbed both him and the weapon case and flapped away over the trees. A half second later, talons closed around my arms, my feet left the roof and I watched the train fall away beneath me as Ember rose into the air, beating her wings furiously, and we soared over the tree line and disappeared into the night.
EMBER
“You should have had them destroyed!”
That was the first thing we heard upon returning to Order headquarters, a loud, angry voice echoing down the hall to the command room. I paused, as did Garret, Riley and Tristan, listening as the indignant, hate-filled words carried through the corridor.
“What has gotten into you, Lieutenant? Speaking to dragons? Letting them into our ranks? Promising to help them? Can you be any more blasphemous?” The voice turned into a sneer. “You might as well sacrifice a goat and try to summon the devil himself.”
I sighed and, beside me, felt Garret tense. We did not need this right now. We’d just gotten to the point where at least some in the Order didn’t view us as soul-sucking demons. For the first time, dragons and the Order had worked together on something that wasn’t a life-or-death situation. The last thing we needed was someone trying to destroy the very shaky truce we’d established.
I shot a glance at the others, all of whom looked as grim as I felt. Garret and Tristan were tense and had that look of wondering if they should go forward or not. Riley’s mouth was twisted into a smirk, but it was one of his dangerous ones, and his eyes were hard.
“That’s Lieutenant Ward,” Tristan mused, sounding like he’d just stepped in something nasty on the sidewalk. “I didn’t know he survived. He must’ve just gotten here.” He and Garret shared a somber glance, and Tristan blew out a breath. “Well, this is going to be interesting.”
“Who is this bastard?” Riley wanted to know.
“He’s the lieutenant of the Eastern Chapterhouse,” Garret answered. “He can be very…verbose in his beliefs.”
Tristan snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. When you graduate the Academy, the Eastern Chapterhouse is where you’re sent if your teachers didn’t like you.” A particularly loud portion of the rant echoed though the hallway, and he winced. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to announce we just robbed the military,” he suggested in a wry voice. “I say we do a tactical retreat and come back when Ward has cooled off a bit.”
The officer’s voice rang through the corridor again, berating Martin for not shooting us all in the back of the head as he should have done, and I narrowed my eyes. “No,” I said. “If we let this continue, word could spread. The other soldiers might start to listen, and then everything we’ve accomplished so far will be for nothing. We’ll be back to square one.” I gazed down the hallway and set my jaw. “Besides, I want to talk to him. I want to look him in the eye and have him say those things to my face.”
“He will, Ember,” Garret warned softly. “Ward’s hatred for dragons is something even the Order takes note of, and he doesn’t mince words. It’s probably going to be very ugly, if he doesn’t try to shoot us on the spot. Not that Martin will allow that to happen, but I do want to warn you.”
“I know.” I nodded at him. “And I’m not expecting to change his mind. I just want him to see us. Even if it’s just to hurl insults, he’ll be talking to us instead of trying to slaughter us on sight. I want him to know that there’s actually a person on the other end of his bullets, not a mindless animal.”
“Oh, good.” Riley sighed as we started down the hall again. “That’s what I wanted to do today. Get screamed at by a dragon-hating fanatic. This is going to be all kinds of fun.”
“For you and us both, dragon,” Tristan muttered. “Being known as a dragonlover around here is almost as bad as being a lizard. Just ask Garret. He knows, isn’t that right, partner?” Garret shrugged, but Tristan continued to watch Riley, the corner of his lip curling in a smirk. “The trick is not to stare directly at them when they’re screaming in your face, and think happy thoughts.”
Riley snorted. “Like melting their face off with fire?”
“Well, I think of girls, but whatever floats your boat.”
As they were talking, Garret reached down and took my hand, strong fingers curving around mine. He squeezed once, gently, before letting go—a quiet reassurance that he was still there, that he had my back. I smiled at him, and we entered the command room.