Predatory

SASHA POV

“All right, ladies, our target’s cave is in that mountain,” Zoe announces, pointing out her window. “I’m going to put us down in that cute little runway-shaped valley the next mountain over. Make sure you’re properly strapped in and you’re wearing your parachutes.”

I groan and curl more tightly into my seat, tucking my head to prevent view of the windows. I can’t bear to watch when Zoe makes daredevil landings like this.

“Zoe, you know I trust you with my life, but is there any chance we could land somewhere less…scary looking?” Rika inquires. From the sound of her voice, she’s more anxious than I am.

“Nope. This place is perfect. Just make sure you’ve got our stealth cloaking mechanism ready to go, and keep tabs on our lycan friends.”

“They haven’t done anything remotely exciting for a couple of hours. It’s like 2am there. Even Drake put his phone up and went to bed.”

I flinch at the mention of Drake and hope that my teammates are too preoccupied with our descent into the valley to notice. I’ve texted with him a bit since we left, mostly just to make sure that Rika’s virus is picking up texts as well as calls. Of course it is. She’s the best in the world at what she does, as far as I know, and shouldn’t have been worried about her quality of work in the first place.

So with her wiretap virus, she got the messages Drake and I sent back and forth tonight, which revealed that he’s insanely worried about me making this trip to Montana. According to Rika’s simulation, if we were driving like I told him we are, we’d be somewhere in Illinois right now. I told him a couple hours ago I wouldn’t be able to text for a while; it was my turn to drive and then I’d need to sleep for a while in order to be useful for my next driving shift. Of course, in reality I needed to sleep so that I could be ready to take on this dragon.

Svartheron. About 215 years old, fire-breather. Five meter wingspan, and about the same length from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, according to WASP’s data. Weighs a little over seven tons. Red-gold scales. No known weak spots from past injuries. He hasn’t been in many fights, which I’m considering to be a point in my favor. It won’t be an easy fight, by any means, but taking a nap hasn’t cooled my rage at Anselm, which should combine nicely with the experience gap between Svartheron and me to assure me victory.

I hope.

I’d never admit it aloud, especially not as Zoe executes complicated aerial maneuvers to bring us closer to the ground, but I’m kind of nervous about this. I’ve only sparred with a dragon a couple of times. They’re huge and smart and powerful, and any one mistake in a fight with one could be my permanent undoing.

At least if I die here I won’t have to break Drake’s heart.

That’s the coward’s way out and you know it, and it would leave your main life objective unfulfilled. Cut the crap, Sukoshku.

As if to punctuate my internal lecture, the plane’s wheels jolt against the rocky ground, bouncing me around the confines of my seat. Zoe whoops and Rika shrieks as we continue to rumble down our improvised runway, brakes straining against inertia to bring us, at long last, to a safe and complete stop.

“There we go! Another perfect landing,” Zoe exults. “Rika, please deploy the stealth cloaking mechanism."

“Yes, Captain,” Rika groans. She looks like she would be puking right now, if vampires were capable of such a thing, but she presses a button on one of her devices that’s tapped into the plane’s electrical system and a familiar whirring whoosh sweeps through our small craft.

“Solid. All right, Sasha. How do you wanna do this?”

“I’d prefer to just get it over with, wouldn’t you?” I answer grimly.

“The sooner the better. It’s around two degrees Celsius outside,” Rika informs us, “and if it snows while we’re here, we are absolutely fucked.”

“Don’t say that. I’ve worked miracles before,” Zoe chides gently. Her steely grey eyes are bright with worry. “Still, I think we’re all in agreement that we should get moving. What’s your strategy, Sasha?”

“I want the two of you to go in first. Present yourselves as noncombatants. We plant a stock of metal for Zoe to use as projectiles just outside the cave, and Rika carries her disruption kit. The two of you try to talk it out with him while I sneak into the cave, feline form—”

“I’ll douse you in the scent blocker once you shift,” Rika mutters.

“Perfect. You two should wear the fireproofing gear, also. I’m expecting this to get ugly, and I want as many opportunities to surprise him as possible once it does. Leave the main combat to me, though, once it starts.”

“At that point, I hide and set off the disruptions, and Zoe intervenes only as a last resort?”

“That’s it exactly. Everyone on board?”

“You got it,” Zoe agrees, and Rika nods.

“Right, then. I’m going outside to shift.”

The cold night air hits me like a slap in the face, but I don’t mind; it’s likely to be far too warm for my liking in Svartheron’s cave. Once I’m under the plane, I lie down in the chilly dry grass and let my transformation begin. It’s been way too long since I’ve been able to shift completely. Black fur sweeps over my whole body; clothes tear off as my bones and muscles change. The teeth are always the most painful, but it only lasts for a few seconds, and then I crawl out from under the plane on four paws, testing the earth with my long sharp claws and surveying the mountains looming overhead with keen eyes.

“Gods, but you’re such a pretty cat,” Zoe remarks as she climbs out of the plane. I huff; ‘cat’ seems demeaning for my 130 pounds of raw power in this form. “Oh, stop it. I really do mean it as a compliment, you know. Rika, you coming?”

“Yeah, I’m coming. Just wanted to make sure everything’s taken care of,” Rika grumbles, hopping out of the plane and tossing Zoe what looks like a small black backpack. “Stealth jetpack. Put it on. We’ll use them so we can keep pace with Sasha while she’s like that.”

“Good call. I was too busy getting my projectile kit together to even think of that. You have the coordinates pulled up?”

“You know it. Here, Sasha.” While dousing me with her scent-blocking serum, Rika shows me the map on her tablet in Google Earth view. She’s done some calibrating with the screen to make it more agreeable for my eyes in this form. “You got it?” I dip my head in acknowledgement and start making my way up the mountain. The cave mouth is in the next mountain over, angled somewhat away from this valley; Zoe chose our placement well. I have no doubt that our target heard our plane, but with any luck he didn’t see its landing trajectory or realize that it landed in his territory.

Zoe’s and Rika’s jetpacks hum behind me as I pick out the path of least resistance over the mountain. There’s evidence that a few mountain goats or bighorn sheep have been in the area recently, but right now everything is quiet, as if the world is holding its breath, except for us. Svartheron must be on the hunt. Change strategy. Stay low to the ground, hide in the underbrush whenever I can, stop to listen frequently. Rika and Zoe immediately pick up on my change in behavior and change their flight patterns to optimize stealth.

Just as I poke my head over a ridge to peek into the next valley, the massive dark bat-winged silhouette of a dragon rounds the next mountain over and dives into the yawning maw of a cave. Faint bleats of a distressed sheep reach my ears. If we’re quick and quiet, we’ll catch him right after he finishes his dinner. Maybe he’ll be in a food coma. Maybe the bones can be used as a tool. I’m still trying to sort out how I’ll deal with his scales, but that doesn’t stop me from bounding noiselessly across the next valley, unworried about being seen now that our quarry is in his den with a meal.

“This is it then, yeah?” Zoe breathes behind me as I creep up on the entrance of the cave, careful to stay downwind of it. I nod. Rika fearlessly raps on the stones outside the opening in the rock.

“Representatives from WASP!” she calls using her best customer service voice. “Here to check in with one Svartheron. May we come in?”

A disgruntled rumble emanates from within, rattling the pebbles on his doorstep. I start to pull myself silently into the cave, keeping my body pressed against the wall and the floor so as to be hidden from as many angles as possible.

“We just want to talk,” Zoe adds sweetly. “You know, see how you’re doing and stuff. We’ve heard there’s been a bit of trouble in the area—”

“THERE WOULD BE NO TROUBLE IF YOU LOT WOULD MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS,” the dragon retorts, kindly projecting his deafening thought-speech in English rather than Draconic. “CAN’T A DRAGON EAT HIS MEAL IN PEACE?!”

“Well, see, that’s where some of the trouble’s at, from what we’ve heard,” Rika continues. She and Zoe are slowly making their way inside, and I’ve spotted a ledge overlooking the dragon’s den, a deep open cavern several meters into the mountain from the cave mouth. That’ll be a perfect launching point, if I can get there unnoticed.

“Local farmers have been complaining about their livestock disappearing. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Zoe adds.

“IT IS NO CONCERN OF MINE IF THE PUNY MORTALS CANNOT KEEP TRACK OF THEIR LIVESTOCK,” Svartheron growls. “MANY PREDATORS CALL THESE MOUNTAINS THEIR HOME.”

“But not all predators leave evidence of fire behind, do they?” Rika answers, starting to get a little testy.

“Svartheron, we just want to help,” Zoe jumps in, ever the ‘good cop’ when the two of them negotiate together. “The humans are starting to get suspicious, and they have a long history of hunting dragons in Europe. You’d probably prevail against a few of them, but eventually their forces would overwhelm you. We want to help keep you safe, but in order for us to do that, you’re going to have to stop hunting their animals.”

“I CAN DEFEND MYSELF AGAINST THE HUMANS. I DO NOT ANSWER TO WASP. YOU WILL LEAVE MY TERRITORY OR BECOME MY NEXT MEAL.”

Fortunately, at this point I’ve just made it onto the ledge I’d pinpointed earlier. As predicted, it gives me a clear path directly onto Svartheron’s back, as long as he doesn’t move. I glance back at Rika and gather my haunches under me, signaling my intent to strike.

“Perhaps a third option can be negotiated?” Rika inquires ironically as she sets off part of her disruption kit, creating the effect of a strobe light accompanied by erratic firecracker sounds. She and Zoe both dive behind scorched boulders for cover as I launch myself noiselessly through the air, claws extended and teeth bared. The dragon looks back and forth, disoriented by Rika’s disruption, but doesn’t venture a glance upward.

THUMP! I hit Svartheron’s back right between his wings, startling him into belching an errant fireball towards his ceiling. Rika’s disruption device continues, keeping him at least mildly confused as I jump up his right wing and dig my teeth and claws into it, tearing long gashes into it as gravity pulls me back down. Svartheron roars in pain and unleashes a torrent of flame in the general direction of my friends. I land on his back again and immediately treat his left wing to the same treatment as the right. He swivels his head on his serpentine neck and catches sight of me for the first time.

“YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT,” he threatens, following it up with another burst of fire-breath, which I dodge by sprinting off his back and under his belly. Dart between the legs, quickly scale his side and bite the joint where his wing meets his back hard. Svartheron makes a noise between a roar and a scream and swipes at me with massive claws. Dart out of reach, pursued by another sweeping arc of fire.

“HOLD STILL, NUISANCE!” Svartheron rages. He’s stomping with all four clawed feet, trying to crush me under them as I zigzag through his den, dodging talons and tail strikes and fireballs alike while sneaking in bites to his wing joints and paw strikes to one particular scale on his left flank. It’s starting to bend, just a bit. A little more and I’ll be able to get a paw under it and dig claws in.

As Svartheron stomps and flails his wings ineffectually, a few of the stalactites above start swaying dangerously. A few pebbles clatter to the cave floor. Let’s get some more of that. I’m starting to get tired, but I redouble my efforts to annoy him, sitting just out of his reach and taunting him, striking the thin leathery bits of his wings whenever I can, and dodging his attacks more and more narrowly. I also continue battering the scale I’ve targeted. There’s the opening I’ve been waiting for. I slip my left paw under the scale I’ve popped up and sink my claws in deep. Svartheron roars again, and then the fur on my left shoulder ignites. Shit. I do a barrel roll through a pile of discarded animal bones to try to put it out. Svartheron is making so much noise, and there’s so much smoke in here, that I can’t tell if Rika’s disruption kit is still running or not. It’s getting harder to breathe.

The rumbling under my feet changes, and I glance up to see that a large chunk of the ceiling is quaking, sending showers of pebbles down on us with every bellow and stomp. Time to go. I launch myself towards the cave wall. One of Svartheron’s feet pursues me, and I leap off the wall as soon as I hit it just in time to evade his deadly talons. The impact of his claws on the wall, however, is enough to simultaneously chip a claw, making Svartheron bellow in pain, and dislodge the loose chunk of ceiling directly over his head. I land on a narrow ledge about a meter off the ground on the wall leading up to where Rika and Zoe are hiding and scrabble up the rest of the way as the ceiling chunk hits Svartheron’s head and back. Another fiery roar escapes his throat, and I skid behind a boulder just as the flames whoosh by.

“Goddamn, Sasha,” Zoe hisses, smacking my tail with a nearby rock. I growl in protest until I realize that my tail was on fire and that she’s trying to help me. “Did you calculate all that?”

The noise of the partial cave-in subsides, and a moment later the firecracker explosions from Rika’s disruption device abruptly cut out.

“Svartheron? Are you all right down there?” Rika calls.

“WHAT…HAPPENED?” he replies, sounding somewhat the worse for wear. I should hope so. I’m about spent.

“It seems this cavern was a less than ideal fighting arena. Perhaps we can revisit the question of your cooperation with WASP? We can have some operatives help you clean up this mess, if you agree to our terms.”

“DOES…THE CAT…LIVE?”

I strut out from behind cover, trying to look as though I’m more than ready for a second round of combat. I am completely bluffing, but judging by the dazed expression on Svartheron’s face as he peers up at me through the smoke from under a fairly large chunk of rock, I’ve convinced him that I’m fine, and that’s all that really matters.

“WHAT ARE YOUR TERMS, THEN, SMALL ONES?”