Dragon Conjurer, page 15
“I’m fine.” I reached out, placed my hands on her biceps, and rubbed them gently. “I’m probably going to freeze a little, but I’ll be fine. Just not used to the cold.”
“I know how you feel.” She smiled wider and tilted her head to the right. “I’ve lived in SoCal my whole life. I was a bit of a beach bum before I was brought to AIMM, so I’m really used to the heat. Will you help keep me warm if it gets too cold?”
“I-I can try,” I managed to say before Silva came back and lowered the ramp for us. “I think it’s time to go.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.” Steffi started to step away from me, but then she darted back in and kissed my cheek, and I felt myself getting hot and red all over like a lovestruck cartoon character.
“Well, I’m not going to be left out of this!” Nala teased as she bumped her hip against mine, stood on her tiptoes, and gave me a kiss on the other cheek.
“Thanks!” I cleared my throat and tried to play the whole “two super sexy women kissing me as a reward” thing cool.
As Nala and Steffi walked down the ramp first, Nick slid over to me and elbowed my side.
“Score,” he snickered. “Damn, dude, you’ve got a way with the ladies.”
“That’s not the norm for me,” I whispered back and walked with him down the ramp. “I’m usually pretty awkward.”
“I doubt that. You’re pretty good looking and seem to be pretty suave, my guy.” The blond dude shivered a little and pulled his shemagh over his mouth as we stepped out of the jet and into the Alaskan cold.
“Holy fuck!” I gasped and hugged my arms around myself.
It was snow as far as I could see, and the pristine white stretched out across the rolling horizon and reflected the sunlight in a million little sparkles. My feet and ankles were engulfed by a drift, and I could already feel the cold seeping into my skin. I didn’t like the feeling of the cold in my body, but I had to admit the snow was beautiful.
“O-Okay,” Steffi chattered as she rubbed her hands up and down her shoulders. “It’s not too bad, but I think I’m going to get a coat now.”
“You do that,” Nick said as the fairy girl darted up the ramp and disappeared. “Shit, Steffi’s going to be grounded now. What’re we supposed to do?”
“We can make up for it,” I assured him and pulled the faux fur lined hood of my parka over my head. “If she needs to fly, she can drop the coat.”
“I guess that’s true,” Nala said and looked around us. “Not quite like home, but still nice.”
“Where are you from originally?” I asked and crossed my arms.
“Michigan.” Our smallest teammate shrugged and gazed at the snowdrifts piling up in the cool breeze. “I was a freshman at Michigan State when I was recruited, which wasn’t really very long ago now that I think about it. It’s only been six months…”
“I never went to college,” Nick murmured and looked down at the snow burying his feet. “I was taken when I was a senior in high school. I was this close to graduating, too, with honors.”
“Do you wish it was different?” I asked and tilted my head at them. “Any regrets?”
“What, you kidding?” the nymph dude snorted and shook his head. “Hell to the no, man. I get to be a superhero every day, and that’s pretty damn awesome. If I’d stayed in Oregon, I wouldn’t have gone far. I had good grades, but all I wanted to do was have fun and use my powers to fuck with people. The only place my powers would’ve done me any good would’ve been some sort of clandestine military operation, and we all know I’m way too much of a joker to be a soldier.”
“When could I have used my powers?” Nala asked and held out her hands. “I can make the earth shake. I would’ve been turned into a weapon if anyone ever found out. I’d have to live with a secret for the rest of my life, and it would’ve eaten me alive.”
“I don’t regret my choice, either,” Steffi announced as she came back down the ramp in her parka, and even though it wasn’t as tight as her tank top, it was still a sexy look on her. “Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been a Southern California girl my entire life, so it wasn’t as hard for me to leave my old life behind. If the tattoos ever manifested without AIMM teaching and training me, I would’ve had to hide them constantly, and you know how hard it would be to hide fairy wings in the Californian summer?”
“Hard?” I chuckled and rubbed my right arm. “I’m in the same boat now. I’m so not the kind of guy to get tattoos, so people would’ve been suspicious right away.”
“Like your family?” Nala asked as she blinked her large dark eyes at me. “Your friends?”
“Well…” I looked down at the snow and chewed on my lip. “I don’t really have family. My dad ran out on my teenage mom when she was pregnant with me, and my grandparents raised me since my mom was still a kid in some ways. My grandparents died just a couple months before I went to UC, and my mom and I aren’t on speaking terms, so leaving the Midwest was a good choice. My grandparents were the ones who helped me get into UC Berkeley in the first place, and if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have met you guys. You’ve pretty much been my only friends, so… I’m glad things happened this way.”
“I’m sorry about your family, though,” Steffi murmured as she rubbed my arm. “It must have been hard.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at her and jerked my head toward the snowy horizon. “Hey, why don’t we get a start on this mission instead of standing around and freezing our soft parts off?”
“You’re right,” Steffi agreed and linked her arm with mine. “Where should we start?”
“I guess we should head toward Nome,” Nick said and pointed at a forty-five-degree angle toward the east. “I think it’s that way.”
“It is,” Silva called out from the top of the ramp. “The cave the yetis may be taking up residence in is about a mile to the south of Nome. You’re headed northeast, so you’ll see the cave first.”
“Do we have trackers in case we get lost?” I asked. “I don’t want to turn into a Dylan-sicle.”
“Tracker’s in the radio,” the pilot said and pointed to Nick’s backpack, “and the radio is in there. When you finish the mission, call in, and I’ll come get you.”
“Thanks, Captain.” I squared my shoulders and looked out to the direction Nick had pointed. “Alright, team. Once more unto the breach?”
“You got it, Willie Shakes,” Nick snickered and started to march in the lead.
“I can officially say I’ve never heard someone call Shakespeare ‘Willie Shakes’, before,” Steffi giggled and let go of my arm. “Are you ready, fearless leader?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I took a deep breath and exhaled frosty mist before I turned to our smaller teammate. “Nala, how are you feeling? Do you need some help?
“Don’t worry about me,” the dark beauty said from her spot bringing up the rear. “I’m just going to walk behind all of you so I can manage the snowdrifts. They’re a little tall on me, and I don’t want to expend myself.”
“Next time,” Steffi huffed as she shuffled through the snow next to me, “we should have Silva land us about a hundred yards away from the town instead of a couple miles.”
“You know they do that for our protection,” Nick called back to us. “If they landed close enough for us to see the towns, the people might get suspicious. Remember what Burkhard said about having to cover up the UFO stories?”
“Wait,” I gasped, “did you say UFOs? Are you telling me AIMM is responsible for that?”
“Yep,” the nymph boy ahead of us said. “Aliens aren’t real, as far as we know anyway, but the technology AIMM had back in the day was way more advanced than the American military tech. Well, AIMM got a little too close when they were testing their new flying machines, and average people saw them and flipped their shit.”
“It was a messy coverup,” Nala added as she trudged slightly behind me, “and it took a long time to get the public off their backs. Although, they did have to create Area 51 as a scapegoat.”
“Area 51 is AIMM?” I shook my head and felt my brains rattle around a little bit. “You’re fucking with me.”
“Nope.” The fairy girl at my side elbowed me in the ribs. “It was easier for people to believe a secret government facility existed in the Nevada desert than for them to believe AIMM was located just behind a mountain in Northern California.”
“It’s also easier for them to believe the mountain is real and not actually part of AIMM’s facilities,” Nick added. “Cool, huh?”
“I’m learning more and more about AIMM than I thought was possible,” I murmured and looked down at my feet. “What else is there to know?”
“That’s all for now,” Steffi said as I glanced up at her instead of my snow-covered feet. “Look.”
“What?” I followed her gaze and saw a tall outcropping of dark gray rock dusted with fresh snow.
“You think that’s it?” the fairy girl asked me as she stopped walking and grabbed onto my arm.
“Probably worth looking into,” Nick said, and he cast his gaze from side to side. “But there’s no foliage up here for me to hide in! I’m practically useless!”
“You aren’t useless,” I argued as I pulled Steffi to the front of our line with me. “Stay with Nala. Steffi and I will check it out first. If it’s nothing, we’ll come back and tell you.”
“And if it’s something?” The nymph dude laid a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful, man.”
“Don’t worry,” Steffi said and smiled at Nick. “We will be.”
With that, the fairy girl and I trudged our way through the snow toward the cave. The snow and uneven terrain made it difficult, but we held onto one another as we made our way through the deeper parts.
“Two caves in one day,” I chuckled. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”
“I hope so,” Steffi sighed and held onto my arm as we got closer. “Do yetis have super-good hearing?”
“It’s possible.” I started to tread more carefully to avoid making more noise than necessary. “They’ve managed to avoid detection all of these years.”
“That’s not necessarily true.” The fairy girl slowly unzipped her coat and started to slide it off her arms. “AIMM and the other Academies have been doing cover-ups for years.”
“Right.” I pursed my lips and unzipped my own coat as she dropped hers behind her. “Still getting used to the fact that monsters are and always have been real.”
“It gets easier, I promise,” she chuckled as we came to the mouth of the cave. “Shall we?”
“Hold on,” I whispered and pulled my arm out of my sleeve. “Exokyzo.”
Ky appeared in a flash of light and landed in the snow beside me. He snaked his head around from left to right, and then he looked down at the snow beneath him and purred quietly.
“I think he’s happier here,” Steffi giggled and patted the dragon’s side.
“Alright, bud,” I said and knelt down in front of him. “We’ve got to capture these creatures. Don’t kill them, although I think your ice breath wouldn’t hurt them too much.”
Ky bobbed his head and seemed to flash me a dragon’s version of a toothy grin. It was adorable, and I caught myself smiling back.
My dragon friend was hilarious.
Then I walked to the entrance and peeked around to try to see what was going on inside, but it was so dark, I couldn’t see.
“Steffi,” I whispered and looked over my shoulder at her. “Do you think we can risk a blast of fairy dust?”
“I think so,” she said as she walked up behind me and readied a ball in her hands. “Either nothing will be in here, or we’ll draw them out into the open.”
Then she launched the ball into the cave, and the light went straight into the dark expanse in front of us.
And it smacked into the chest of one of the two yetis we were hunting.
These creatures were the biggest brutes I’d ever seen, and I didn’t want to think about how hard they’d be to take down. They were at least ten feet tall and six feet wide. Their lanky arms reached down to their knees, and the limbs were covered in dirty white hair. The exposed skin on their faces and hands was dark gray and leathery, and their beady black eyes squinted at us with a menacing fire.
“Fuck!” I shouted as Ky took into the air next to me. “Steffi, get back!”
“Dylan!” she cried out as she stumbled back and nearly tripped in the deep snow. “They’re coming!”
A thundering roar echoed out of the cave, and a furry white arm reached out of the cave and grabbed toward Steffi, but the yeti missed her leg by mere inches.
Oh, fuck, no.
“Get away!” I screamed and rushed forward with Ky flying next to my head. “Don’t you touch her!”
I didn’t care if Ky was there to back me up, I wasn’t about to leave these yetis alive after they tried to hurt Steffi.
My dragon zipped through the air past my head and blasted the first yeti in its wrinkly gray face. Then Ky batted the attacked yeti in the head with one of his wings as he came around the other side for another attack.
Meanwhile, my adrenaline was pumping, and I raced forward, grabbed Steffi under her arms, and yanked her away from the fight.
“I’m okay,” she gasped as I pulled her back even further. “I can fight.”
“No,” I ordered and let her rest next to her discarded coat. “Ky and I have this. We can kill these guys--”
“We can’t kill them.” She grabbed my arm as I started to turn away. “AIMM wants them alive.”
“Why?” I growled. “Why does AIMM want them alive?”
“Because, Dylan,” she said while she held my gaze with her golden eyes. “AIMM keeps a basement full of monsters.”
Chapter Ten
Monsters in the basement? AIMM sent us on this mission to capture monsters and put them in the basement? That just seemed counterintuitive.
“Okay, we can unpack that later,” I muttered and switched my gaze over to the monster brawl happening not too far away. “We’ve got some yetis to kill… errr… I mean capture. Whatever.”
“Dylan!” Nala yelled, and I looked away from the monster brawl going on just a few yards away. “Dylan! What happened to Steffi?”
“She’s okay,” I said and whistled for Ky. “She was attacked by the yetis, but I didn’t let them touch her. I’m going to finish this fight. Nick!”
“Yeah, man?” he asked as he jogged up with Nala. “What do you need?”
“Call Silva and tell him to get his ass over here,” I ordered. “I don’t know how we’re going to contain these fuckers, but you stay with Steffi. Ky and I can handle this.”
“I can fight!” Steffi argued as she formed an energy ball in her hand. Then she shot the blast at the yetis, and it connected with one’s chest.
The two white, hairy monsters roared and turned their attention toward us. They stood up to their full size, but their hands almost dragged on the ground even at their height. Their exposed skin was gray and wrinkled, and their beady black eyes were full of hatred for us.
“They’re not sentient, are they?” Nala asked as she dropped to a crouch next to Steffi.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “but I still don’t want to face their wrath.”
“Mayday, mayday!” Nick shouted into the radio as he went to his knees behind Steffi. “Captain Silva, can you read, over?”
“Read you, Nick,” Silva said over the staticky radio. “What’s the problem, over?”
I motioned for Nick to keep talking to Silva, but then I turned my attention back to Steffi.
“Hey, just take it easy,” I said as I looked back over my shoulder to make sure my dragon was holding the yetis at bay. “Ky and I’ve got this.”
“But we’re a team,” the pink-haired woman whispered and grabbed the end of my coat to pull me down. “Why won’t you let me fight?”
“Because you’re stunned.” I pressed my gloved hand to her cheek. “I can handle this, don’t worry about me. Ky and I will be fine.”
The fairy pressed her face into my hand and closed her eyes. “Please be careful.”
“I will--” I started to say, but then Steffi cut me off with the best damn kiss of my life.
Her perfect lips were so soft and warm even though it was cold, and I could almost feel her pulse against my own mouth.
“I wish I could stay longer,” I said as I pulled away, “but I have to finish this. Stay here with Nala and Nick, and they’ll take care of you. I’ll be back soon.”
Before Steffi could answer me, I got up and ran to join Ky in the fray.
The memory of the fairy girl’s lips against mine kept me going as I charged into the fight, and I had all the motivation I needed to charge into battle and kill these motherfuckers.
Or capture them. Whatever.
“Ky!” I called to my dragon as he was circling around the yetis’ heads. “Try to freeze their hands and feet in place! AIMM wants them alive!”
The dragon looked down at me and almost seemed to ask me, “Why the fuck are we keeping them alive?”
“Listen, I don’t like it, either.” I looked down at the yetis and jumped out of the way of one of their hands. “But that’s what they want. I don’t want to leave them alive, but I also don’t want Burkhard and the other bigwigs at AIMM on my ass about it.”
Ky seemed to understand what I said, and my dragon pal flapped his wings harder and lifted higher into the skies for another attack.
“I’ll just keep them distracted,” I told myself as I ducked underneath another yeti attack. “Keep them from looking up so they won’t stop and see what Ky is doing.”
I looked around me to see if I could find a better vantage point, and I saw some short rocks that led up to the outcropping the yetis came from.
“Alright,” I muttered and took off toward the rocks, “let’s see how well you climb.”
They were yetis, so I assumed they could climb really well, but I had to take that chance if I wanted to make it out of this alive.
The fugly monsters chased after me as we scrambled up the rocks, and their nasty, long fingernails dug into the snowy rocks and scraped across the gritty surface with a noise that sent a shiver down my spine.
