Bruised Ego

Jack and I have spent most of the last few weeks job hunting together at the various hospitals and emergency services in the Austin area.  If we can manage it, we want to be a team again. Job hunting has got to be the most humiliating and soul crushing thing you can do. Place after place, you put in applications, trying to sell yourself, and nobody’s buying. Jack could have gotten a job half a dozen places, but folks didn’t really want to hire me. I’ve got a history of absenteeism that’s all over my previous work record. I’m still working part time with the Protectors, so anyone with half a brain knows that’s not going to change. Plus, I’m just not that good at selling myself. I’m better at sarcasm than charm.

On top of that, some folks just don’t care to work with supes. With the glove on my hand and constant need for dark glasses, I couldn’t pretend I was a normal human anymore. I never have blended all that well, but at least everyone used to think I was human; socially awkward, scatter-brained and irritating, maybe, but human.

At the end of another day of job hunting failure, with not just one, but two, that’s right, two spectacularly blown job interviews, I dropped Jack off at home and went to train at Protectors headquarters.

After getting my butt well and truly kicked by Bobcat, Liberty had very tactfully suggested that I get some hand-to-hand training. She showed me a few basics herself, but said she was not the best teacher for it. Apparently, when you can toss tanks, you don’t get many opponents who want to slug it out with you toe-to-toe.

So, Liberty told me she was bringing in a real martial arts master. This was someone she said whose skills really impressed her. I was half expecting to meet Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid. I wore my spiffy new super-suit. I could have just showed up to Protectors headquarters in sweats, but the suit made me feel more like a superhero and less like a broke, out-of-work paramedic.

Jupiter Joe arrived about the same time I did and held the door for me like gentlemen used to when I was younger. “Your new outfit suits you, Miss Dee.” His eyes raked over the curves the uniform accented. He gave me an appreciative smile and wink.

Nothing boosts a girl’s ego after a tough day like a friendly, non-creepy ogling. I added a little extra swing to my walk in gratitude. “What brings you to Protectors territory? Isn’t that a bit like crossing the iron curtain?”

Joe chuckled as he took off his black leather hat just inside the door. “I’ve always been a bit of a double agent in that particular cold war, maam. I was a Protector before the Alliance recruited me.”

“What made you decide to cross over to the dark side?” I teased him. “Did N-Rage toss you off a building?”

“Nothing like that. No hard feelings against my old teammates.” Joe got a wistful half smile. “It was the usual enticement. Money.”

Somehow, the southern gentleman in the steampunk sunglasses didn’t strike me as being the type to do his heroing for greed and glory. “I hear the Protectors pay a good salary and generous health and retirement benefits.”

“The government provides a good living, Miss Dee, for one person or a small family. But I’ve got four kids and my youngest is autistic.” Joe shrugged broad shoulders under the long black duster.  “My wife has to stay home with my son, so she can’t work. Special tutors and such, they don’t come cheap. There’s no way I was going to send my son off to some special school and only see him on holidays. So I had to make it work.”

“I suppose doing the occasional car parts or luggage commercial is a pretty cheap price to pay to get to keep your son.”

“There is no price too high.” His voice was low and soft. The gentle smile on his face wasn’t there for me.

“He’s a lucky kid.”

He shrugged and winked. “I’m a lucky daddy.”

Liberty came out of one of the offices as we passed. “Joe!” I hadn’t heard her squeal like that before. She flung herself into Jupiter Joe’s arms and squeezed hard enough that ordinary ribs would have snapped like dry twigs.

Joe grinned, lifted the strongest woman in the world off her feet, and swung her around in a circle, his sudden shift in density making his footfalls vibrate the concrete floor like the T-rex in Jurrasic park.  “It’s good to see you, Katie.”

Katie? Jupiter Joe calls Liberty Katie?

“I’m glad you took me up on my offer. I wanted the chance to see you under better circumstances.” The light faded from Liberty’s face.

Joe set her back on her feet. “Bad business that highway bomber. You and your boys have got yourself a very nasty opponent, I’d say, Katie girl.”

Liberty (who makes me call her Catherine) nodded. “It looks like a new player from what my techs can deduce. None of our known adversaries were responsible, despite the Free Earth symbols painted everywhere.”

“While I’m in town, I’m at your service.” Joe made a move with his hand like tipping the hat he was no longer wearing, since it’s bad hat etiquette to wear one indoors. Most folks don’t even seem to remember that rule, much less follow it. “Just give me a holler if you need me.”

“Thanks, Joe. We never have enough qualified people, it seems, but with White Knight off on a soul searching sabbatical, we’re even more short-handed than usual.” She smiled at me. “Dee’s unique abilities have been a huge help.”

I looked at my toes, embarrassed. I bit my tongue before I actually said something goofy like, Aw shucks.

“And that’s why I’m here,” Joe said. “When Ashley came back and told the Alliance higher ups that you had a new hero with both healing and combat abilities. They sent me here to steal her away from you.”

Liberty slugged him in the arm, a friendly gesture that would have broken my humerus bone. “Don’t you dare. We need a healer as much as the Triple A does. Especially now.”

“Oh?”

“Remedy’s gone independent. He partnered up with Iron Angel and tendered his resignation.”

“Ouch,” Joe said. “That leaves a big hole in your lineup.”

“Yeah. So, you can’t have Dee.”

I was beginning to feel like a bone between two dogs.

Joe held up a hand in mock surrender. “We’ll just have to leave it up to Dee to decide which team she wants to pitch for, won’t we?”

It’s weird having folks talk about you like you’re not there. “I’ve never been much of a team player, honestly. I just want a regular job to pay my bills. Helping people for a living, especially getting rich from it, just doesn’t feel right.”

Liberty and Joe both laughed at me.

“What?”

“You’re an EMT, I hear,” Joe pointed out. “You don’t call that helping people for a living?”

Er… I guess he had me there. I looked at my wrist, even though I didn’t have a watch. “I think I’m supposed to be somewhere about now. I’ll just go ahead and learn a little kung phooey from the Jedi master Liberty’s been raving about, and catch up with you guys later.”

Joe said, “I’m headed the same way you are. The Triple-A doesn’t really understand how essential good training is. With my power constantly shifting my mass, hand-to-hand fighting is a tricky art to master. Katie said it would be all right for me to use the Protectors’ training facilities while I’m in town, and recommended I spend some time with her new trainer.”

We stepped into the massive Protectors’ gym with thick padded floors and all manner of arcane exercise equipment. I’ve never seen a set of barbells that went up to 5000 pounds. I guess if you needed something heavier, you could bench press pickup trucks.

The only other person in there when we arrived was a familiar short stocky Hispanic woman with an electric blue streak in her short dark hair. Tamara was my favorite firefighter. Just don’t tell Novak. “Hey Tam, did Liberty invite you to come learn from her new fighting guru, too?”

She chuckled. “Not exactly, no.”

“I wonder what he’ll look like. My mind keeps conjuring up images of Mr. Miyagi or Quai Chang Kane, or Yoda. I doubt he’ll be 900 years old and three feet tall, though.”

Tamara laughed again. “Nope. He’s me, actually.”

“You?”

“My mom’s Israeli. I’ve been studying Krav Maga since I was old enough to walk. I’m pretty good at it.”

Pretty good wasn’t anywhere close to what Liberty said and Liberty wasn’t easily impressed. There was a lot I didn’t know about Tamara. She talked to Jack more than she did me, if I thought about it.

She shook hands with Joe. “I’m Tamara Perez.”

Yes, I have the manners of a slug. I was too blown away by her being there to remember to introduce Tamara to Jupiter Joe. Ma would have been mortified.

“They call me Jupiter Joe, Miss Perez. Pleasure to meet you, maam.”

“Tamara is fine, Joe. I understand you have some issues with balance?”

“Well, if you mean that I fall on my keister a lot while trying to fight and shift my density at the same time, then, yes, maam. I have some issues.”

“Show me. Come at me as if I were a supervillain and you were trying to restrain me.”

I got really nervous. I’d seen Joe move a freeway. One normal 5’5” woman wasn’t even going to slow him down.  “Um, Tamara, you do know that Joe’s a supe, right?”

Tamara grinned. “The goggles and the duster were a clue.”

“But …”

Tamara ignored me and gestured Joe forward, crooking her hands at him like Neo in the Matrix.

Joe charged, feet sinking to the concrete under the floor pads with every step, so I knew he had the density cranked up.

Tamara stepped in and under Joe’s arm which currently had the mass of a telephone pole, brought her own slender ordinary human arm upward, a slight pressure on Joe’s shoulder that shouldn’t have had any effect.  Sure enough, Joe’s keister met the floor with a thud that rattled the mirrors hanging on one wall.

Tamara nodded. “I see your problem. I think we can work on some ways to help you adapt to your constantly shifting center of balance.”

“That would be greatly appreciated, maam. When that sort of thing happens in a real battle, I could end up with a lot worse than a bruised … ego.” He grinned and rubbed the sore spot.

“All right, let’s see where you are, Dee.  I’m a bad guy. Take me down.”

“Uh…” I couldn’t hit Tamara. I liked Tamara. One thing I really liked about Tamara was having all of her body parts still attached to her body. My punches could go through two layers of sheet steel on a car. What the same punch could do to a normal human body would be … messy.

“It’s all right, Dee. Just take a non-lethal swing or two. Think of me as one of the bank robbers you subdued.”

“Okay. Um. I’m really sorry about this.” Then I threw a punch at my friend, a gentle, carefully calculated punch, which swished through air, and somehow resulted in me lying on my face with my right arm bent at a painful angle, completely unable to move.

Tamara, the tiny normal human, let me, the badass dragon superhero, up off the floor after a few seconds. I wasn’t sure my ego could survive many more blows like that in one day. “Throw something with a little more authority this time,” Tamara said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

I tried to hit her with a solid, go through steel kind of punch, but open-handed to dissipate the power of it, just in case it actually landed. At this point, I didn’t really expect it to.

Tamara’s small wrist impacted the inner surface of my wrist obliquely, dissipating all the power of my strike, and getting her in under my guard. She punched me in the gut while she was in tight and close. I whoofed out air and stared in amazement. Armored abs or not, I felt that tiny woman’s punch more than I’d felt a shotgun blast or big, musclebound Scythe kicking me in the belly with his combat boot. “Wow. Remind me not to piss you off.”

Tamara grinned but it looked pained. “Your problem is you have lots of strength, but no clue how to focus it. I shouldn’t be able to block you. Your punches don’t have half the power they will have once you improve your technique.”

I rubbed my sore belly, confused. “Do you have super-strength?”

Tamara shook her head. “Nope. I’m just really good at making the most of what I have. ” She cradled her hand. Her knuckles were bleeding and her hand was swelling noticeably. She probably fractured something with swelling that rapid. “My reflexes sometimes get me in trouble, though. I forgot how well you were armored.”

I cringed. “I’m sorry, Tam.”

“My own fault.  I should have put on gloves before I took a swing at you. I’ll have to go get this looked at, though. The rest of the lesson will have to wait. I’ve gained a good understanding of what you both need help with the most, at least.”

She’d be in a cast for weeks, and it was my fault, no matter what she said about it. “Come talk to me in the bathroom for a sec, Tam.”

I knew Protectors headquarters was covered with security cameras. I hoped that at least the bathroom stalls weren’t being watched. That would be kind of nasty.

I pulled Tam into one of the bathroom stalls with me and shut the door.

She had a bemused look on her face. “You going to kiss it and make it better, Dee?” she teased.

“Something like that, yeah.” I leaned down to her injured wrist, popped out fangs, and bit.

She hissed a breath in through her teeth in surprised pain, then sighed it out. “Oh. That’s … nice.”

“Better?”

She licked her lips, eyes half closed. “Much.” She looked down at her hand. The bloody knuckles were healed smooth. The swelling went down quickly. Tamara wiggled her fingers experimentally.

“You probably broke something,” I told her. “Even with the venom, it will be a week or so before the bones fully heal.”

“Right, so no hitting armored dragons without gloves for a while?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t recommend it.”

She stood there looking at me funny. I felt really awkward, squished into a bathroom stall with someone else. This was usually not a place for company. “We’d better get back. Jupiter Joe might think we fell in.”

“Or that we’re making out,” she said with a wink as she opened the stall door and made her escape.

I stood there for a second, confused. Why would he think that?

We went ahead with the lesson. Tamara favored her left hand a little, but it didn’t stop her from using my own momentum against me a few times, resulting in my face and the wall getting very closely acquainted.  Then she showed me how to do the same thing to an opponent stronger than me, using Jupiter Joe as the demo dummy. His turn to kiss concrete.

By the end of the class, I was regretting healing her hand so she could continue the lesson. I’ve felt less beat up after fights with supervillains.

Joe groaned right next to me. “I may be getting too old for this sort of thing.”

After all three of us made use of the showers, I asked Tam if she’d like to go grab a bite. My stomach was rumbling loud enough to vibrate the building like Jupiter Joe’s footsteps.

She looked uncomfortable. “I’d love to, Dee, but I have plans.”

“You got a hot date?” I asked. Tamara was such a cool person. It would be great to see her find someone nice.

She looked uncomfortable. I think she actually blushed a little. Yup, hot date. “I promised to take Jack to that vegetarian Indian buffet place, Madras. He’s been listening to me rave about it long enough, I wanted to ... you know.” Wait a second, she had a date with Jack? I wanted Tamara to find someone, but not MY someone. “You’re welcome to come with, of course.” It sounded like what it was, a lame attempt to not make me feel left out.

Dragons are pure carnivores. Sure, I could go … as a third wheel on a date I hadn’t been invited to, to a restaurant with an entire buffet full of wide varieties of colorful, wonderful smelling food that I couldn’t eat without getting sick, and couldn’t afford to pay for.  Or not. “That’s okay. Um.” He’s mine, I wanted to say, but it made me feel like a caveman just thinking it. “Give Jack a hug for me,” was the politest way I could think of to remind her Jack was mine.

“Will do.” She waved cheerfully as she left.

Jupiter Joe offered me his arm. “May I offer to buy you dinner, maam. Living in Chicago has made me miss decent barbecue something fierce. Do you like the Iron Works?”

I almost drooled on his jacket. Iron Works Barbecue had arguably the best beef ribs in town. In this town, that could be a very heated argument, but it was hands down my favorite.  I hadn’t been able to afford to eat there in ages.

“I’m buying, of course,” Joe said as I hesitated. “I can charge it back to the Alliance as a business expense, wining and dining a prospective team member.”

“I definitely approve of your recruiting tactics. Good barbecue is a bribe that’s hard to ignore.”

Joe’s flattery and Iron Works’ amazing barbecue were just the balm my battered self-image needed.

Dee Dragon

Birthday Dragon

I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday. Ma, apparently, told everyone.

I had a surprise party waiting for me when I got back from the Texas Workforce Commission today. I’ve had to adjust my schedule to daytime people hours. Gah.

Donovan bought a turkey. Sounds like a weird birthday present, I know, but I absolutely love turkey. Ma cooked it up with all the fixings for everyone else. My birthday dinner looked like Thanksgiving. I had a lot to be thankful for, too.

Brad got a job. He was real cagey about the details, wouldn’t tell us what it was, but apparently it paid well. He volunteered to start paying rent. In fact, he offered to start out with six months back rent that he felt he owed us. Jack, Ma and I all told him that was silly. Brad had lived with us long enough that he was practically family.

With him putting a few hundred bucks in the household kitty every month, it would make it a lot easier for Ma to buy groceries to feed this herd. And, I could put gas in my Jeep again. We wouldn’t let him put in much, but it eased up the pressure. Now, if I could just get the hospital I used to work for to stop hassling me about paying the copayments for my two recent stints as a patient. Hmph. If they hadn’t fired me, I wouldn’t be struggling to make the payments.

Jack got me a necklace, rainbow obsidian, hand made. It’s possibly the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever owned. Did I mention that I have the most awesome boyfriend ever? I gave him shit about spending the money on me, though. I knew he didn’t have it to spare.

Tamara said that she chipped in on it some, too. She had a friend at the Abzu Emporium who cut them a deal on it. Once Jack put it on my neck and I saw how gorgeous it looked, I’m not sure I could have let it go anyway.

Liberty got the prize for most amazing present, though. She showed up as Ma had me blowing out candles on a cake everyone else was going to eat. (I got the turkey liver in mushroom gravy, yum!)

Liberty brought me a badge.

The badge was an official Protectors thing. I’d been training and working with them for a while now. They’d voted me into the club, I suppose. Once I let them know about my various identities, I passed the government security checks and such. Lots of folks can’t be a superhero full time, or they’re support crew, not front liners, so the Protectors have the Adjunct role. It doesn’t pay, not for part-timers, but you’re considered part of the team. You get an official Protectors badge which grants you access to the Protectors facilities and authority in the field.

My status with the local police department just got upgraded.

I thought that was a pretty cool thing Liberty did for me, a way to give me some of the prestige and respect of a Protector without putting me in the spotlight, or dragging me away from home when they got sent on assignments.

"Thanks, Catherine." That’s her real name. Not Cathy or Cat, Catherine. She’s very picky about that.

She grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"What?"

"The badge isn’t your present. As an official Protectors adjunct, you’re not on the payroll, but you do get certain perks. Like access to and the services of … the lab techs." She handed me a small suitcase. I thought she’d brought it because she was planning to sleep over, maybe join us in a marathon D & D session. But no. It was my present.

I opened the little black shiny metal suitcase, not sure what to expect.

It was purple. That was my first impression, deep, vivid, awesome royal purple, my favorite color, with shiny silver accents.

I picked it up. The fabric had an odd feel, sort of like a fireman’s coat, sort of like TakeDown’s body armor. Most of it was just fabric, but chunks of it were actually solid, shiny metal armor. It was really light, though, some kind of super-alloy. There was a thin, flexible helmet and mask with it, too, with built in sunglasses to protect my eyes, open over the ears so it wouldn’t block my hearing.

"It’s fireproof and stab resistant," Liberty said. "The heavier parts are also bullet resistant, although they won’t stop armor piercing rounds. The lab techs will make any necessary repairs if it becomes damaged. I’ll have them make you a spare, once I get your feedback on any design changes you’d like." She thought a second, then said, "Oh, and its machine washable."

"It’s a real superhero costume." I didn’t quite believe it. There were boots with it, too, and a belt with special handcuffs and compartments to put stuff in. It had a big D on the belt buckle in silver. "Wow." I just looked at it for a few seconds, stunned.

Jack grinned at me. "I can’t wait to see you in it."

I had to try it on, of course. The fabric was stretchy, form fitting, but thick enough that I looked smooth. There was no sign of scales showing through, and it covered me completely, neck to toe. The heavier armor parts were all on my right side, over the parts of me that weren’t naturally armored. The asymmetrical armor had a sort of Mad Max look to it that I liked.

The upper body section was held on with Velcro strips that ran all along both sides, and under my arms. If I had to pop out my wings in an emergency, the only thing that would get ripped would be the strips. If I had time, I could un-velcro the strips and fly without messing up the suit at all.

I put on the little helmet mask combo. That girl in the mirror looked like a real superhero.

I showed everybody. They all said I looked great. Jack practically drooled on me.

Ma was the only one who didn’t say much.

While everyone dove into the cake, I went and helped Ma in the kitchen a little. Seemed odd to rinse dishes in my new supersuit, but I could. The built in gloves were thicker than surgical gloves, but about as easy to work in. They were a huge improvement over the clumsy leather glove I had before. I punched holes in the left one when I popped out my claws experimentally, but the weave of the tough cloth made the holes inconsequential.

"You okay, Ma?" I rinsed the big pan she cooked the turkey in, and passed it to her.

She nodded. She placed the pan in the dishwasher without saying anything.

"I should be less recognizable as me now. No one will know me in this getup."

She nodded again, still loading pans and utensils.

"What is it, Ma? What’s bugging you?"

She straightened up, sighed, put her hands on her hips and faced me. "Damson, I know this is what you want. It’s what you always wanted, to help people. I just worry that you don’t realize the potential cost."

"Liberty said the outfit was a perk of helping the Protectors. No charge."

"The cost to you, Damson, of pursuing the life of a superhero. The outfit makes it seem that much more real to me."

"It’s real, Ma. I love helping people and making them safer."

Ma sighed again. "I know you do, dear. It’s just that this has already cost you your job. I’ve spent a lot of my life keeping you safe from Georgians, but they’re not the only threat in the world. Next time, the cost could be your life, or someone you love."

"I can’t spend my whole life hiding, Ma. I’m a dragon, not a mouse."

She chuckled, and the tension went out of her shoulders. She resigned herself a little more to my new career path. She hugged me hard. "Your father would be so proud of you."

Having spent some time inside my dad’s head when he was a young man, I know she was right about that.

D Dragon

Jupiter Joe

It’s been a while since I had time to write in my diary. You’d think that with no job, I’d have more time on my hands, but no. With job hunting, applying for unemployment benefits, nearly full time superhero training with Liberty, not to mention actual superhero assignments, I wish I had a regular job so I could have some time off occasionally. The paychecks would be nice, too.

My birthday is this week. I’ll be sixty-four, if you don’t count the chunk of years Domina Death stole. I’ve been keeping it mum. Jack and Brad are both looking for work, too.  Everyone’s short right now. It kind of brings home just how tightly we’re squeaking by when I’m afraid to tell my boyfriend it’s my birthday for fear he’ll spend some of what’s left of his savings on a present.

Donovan keeps showing up with groceries, claiming he had a sudden urge for Ma’s cooking. He’s not fooling anyone.

I’ve been flying more. I try to only do it when no one will see, but with gas pushing four dollars a gallon, my old Jeep just isn’t the best option for getting around.

I’ve been thinking pretty hard about what I’m going to do. Liberty hasn’t been pushing, but the option to be a full time Protector is there. I’d have to go where they go, follow orders, play with the team. Ra, ra. Plus, I’d have to do the public relations aspect of being a government superhero, emphasis on the ‘public.’ Ma really, really hates that idea. I’m not so keen on it myself, but the decent paycheck and full health benefits are hard to turn down right now.

There’s another option. In some ways it’s worse. Ma would have conniptions. But it would pay, not just a reasonable living, but a fortune. I’d go from living in someone else’s borrowed mansion to being able to buy a mansion of my own if what Jupiter Joe said is on the level.

Oh, right, Jupiter Joe. I skipped some stuff. Some really major stuff.

A couple weeks ago, someone blew up a section of the upper deck of I35, right in the middle of downtown, right in front of the police station. That’s what Liberty was calling me about on the night I got fired. It was a terrible mess. Cars crashed everywhere. There were people underneath there, too, when all that concrete and rebar collapsed. It’s a fairly popular place to park for access to downtown. It’s also a bit of a street festival gathering point.

The casualties were brutal.

When I got there, Liberty was in the thick of it. She was hauling half ton chunks of concrete off of cars, hoping to find someone alive inside them. There were police and ambulances and firefighters everywhere.

Liberty looked up as I got there. The latest car she’d uncovered had people in it. But they were way past saving.

The heroine in the diamondite crown wiped tears from her eyes and left smears of grease on her perfect cheek.

I gave her a quick hug before I dove in to help. She needed it.

Liberty is all heart. If she had been born with no powers at all, she’d have probably spent her life working for some cancer charity, fighting for civil rights, or raising orphaned kids. I’m honored that she considers me a friend.

I looked around at the devastation and had no idea how best to help. I saw Detective Long kneeling next to a half crushed car. He held the hand of someone still inside it.

“Can I help?” I asked him.

Long wasn’t crying like Liberty, but I could tell that it was only because anger was ahead of grief for the moment. “Can you do anything for him?”

I looked into the car at the person whose hand he was holding. A boy, maybe seventeen, barely old enough to drive, had his head resting back against the seat, face gory from a head wound, and part of the steering wheel embedded in his side. There was a girl in the passenger seat, but she wasn’t going to make it home. Only her head and part of one arm was visible. The rest was crushed under the roof of the car. A two or three ton chunk of highway sat on top of the car.

I gently moved Long to the side, got a careful grip on the car door and ripped it off its warped hinges. “Hang on, kid. I’m going to get you out of there, okay?”

The boy nodded weakly. Tears mixed with the blood on his face. “What about Sherry?”

Sherry. I wished I hadn’t known her name. “We’ll get her out later. Promise.”

The steering wheel assembly, the kid, and the car seat had pretty much merged. I did something I probably wouldn’t have considered before the time I accidentally bent a shotgun in half. I used my stronger left hand on the steering column. I ripped away wiring and plastic, and deliberately bent the metal back and forth at the narrowest point I could see. The metal was already weakened. In a few seconds, I was able to work it until it snapped. I used my right hand to hold the wheel steady, so it didn’t wiggle and hurt the kid.

Once I had the steering assembly separated from the car, I popped the bolts that held the seat to the car. I pulled kid, seat, and steering wheel, all out of the car at once, with Long helping me hold it all as steady as possible.

The kid groaned as we got him free.

Long knew what I was, but he’d never seen me pop out fangs and bite someone. “Hey, um, can you check his pupils, see if they’re dilating together?”

While he looked into the kid’s eyes, distracting them both, I bit the boy’s wrist.

“Ow.”

“It was just a piece of glass. I got it.” I squeezed his hand, squeezed Long’s shoulder, and went to get them a paramedic. One that was on duty that is, and who had proper equipment to use to separate boy from steering wheel.

I saw Novak, the White Knight in his civilian firefighter persona, putting fire suppressant down on some of the cars that were burning. I nodded to him, but kept going.

I glimpsed the bright red and black of TakeDown’s uniform at the far end of the mess, doing his part.

There was so much devastation, so many people hurt. Everywhere I looked there were people with blood and concrete dust mixing on their skin, eyes dazed with shock.

I headed for the center of it, the gigantic mound of concrete, asphalt twisted cars and steel girders where the highway had fallen in on the parking lot. I did whatever I could as I went.

I stopped for a moment, again wondering where I could help the most. I heard something, under the sound of weeping and shouting all around me. A groan, and a tiny, muffled voice, “Help! Somebody, help me!” My hearing is about as good as your average dog these days. No one else heard the voice.

I tilted my head from side to side to pinpoint the location of that faint voice. “Oh, no.” Someone was under there. Somehow, someone was under that massive section of highway. Someone alive.

Liberty was a half block down, moving a twisted semi trailer.

I was afraid if I walked away, I wouldn’t be able to find that voice again.

I worked my way under one end of the chunk of mostly intact street, chunking boulders aside to make a path. There was a half dozen crushed cars under there at least. The voice wasn’t coming from the cars I could get to. I worked my way to the other end of the big chunk of road, but I couldn’t get in that way either.

The only way I could see to get to the cars underneath that section of highway was to move it. Once, I’d managed, with a whole lot of help, to flip a twelve ton semi over. This chunk of highway was built to support a dozen multi-ton trucks at once. I was looking at trying to move half a city block.

Yeah. In my dreams maybe.

Then this guy fell out of the sky. Literally.

He was wearing a long black coat, an Australian style black leather hat, and fancy sunglasses that merged into an ear piece. The look had a sort of steampunk feel to it, although I couldn’t put my fingers on exactly why. When he landed, it made a Whump! sound like something a lot bigger than a man hitting the ground. His booted feet left small craters in the concrete where he landed. He looked around, saw me, and sauntered across the rubble with a smile on his face.

“Just the lady I’m looking for. Jupiter Joe, at your service, maam.” He tipped the hat like I hadn’t seen anyone do since I was a kid. He was a good-looking man, late thirties, maybe early forties, long brown hair tied back. His accent was a little more East Texas than central, but he was definitely a native. I’d seen him on TV a few times, but I couldn’t remember what he’d been advertising. He was one of the Alliance heroes. They all had corporate sponsors.

“Why are you looking for me?”

“My organization would like to offer you employment.” He gestured at the devastation around us. “I believe that discussion can wait until after we’ve dealt with the current situation, though. How can I help?”

It was the same question I asked when I arrived. I liked him for it.

I sighed, looking without hope at the vast section of highway that I needed to get through in order to save a life. “I don’t suppose you can move that? There’s someone trapped in one of the cars under it.”

He gave the chunk of displaced road an assessing look, and nodded. “Can do. Make sure no one is in the way.”

He worked his way under one end like I had. Then lifted his hands up to the steel under supports, focused for a second, and just walked forward, one heavy step at a time. And I do mean heavy, I swear he left tracks in the asphalt under him, as if he walked in mud.

The highway moved.

I’d already made sure no one else was going to get crushed by hundreds of tons of road. I quickly got out of the way myself, as the highway twisted and tilted.

Jupiter Joe worked his way slowly down the length of the structure. It groaned and shrieked in protest as he moved what was never meant to move. Ponderously, it rolled over on its back, like a lazy whale. It crashed down in a cloud of dust and grinding, horrible noise, a localized avalanche.

That pretty much got everyone’s attention.

One minute, a hundred rescue workers, cops, superheroes and random volunteers were all doing their own bits to try to save lives. The next, everyone was staring at me and Jupiter Joe.

Liberty, Detective Long, and Novak all came over to see what the hell I thought I was doing. Strange that they all blamed me, even though it was Joe who did the street demolition. They all tried to talk to me at once. “What the hell do you … “ “Did you make sure no one was under … “ “What if that had …”

“SHUT UP!” I shouted. “I can’t hear.”

Liberty got the, “Ah, I see,” face. She knew I had super-hearing.

She raised an eyebrow at me, but put her finger to her lips at Novak and Det. Long. They shut their mouths grudgingly.

The cars that had been underneath that chunk of highway were flattened down to their wheel wells. Blessedly, most of them had been parked and empty. But I knew one of them wasn’t empty. “Maam, say something,” I shouted at the line of crushed cars.

“Hello?” came the small voice. “Can you hear me?”

There. “I hear you! We’re going to get you out. It’s going to be okay.”

The others all gave me blank, confused looks as I talked to a bunch of crushed cars.

Three cars had sort of been crunched together into a single mound of tangled car. The car in the center was slightly less smushed than the others. “In there. There’s someone in there alive.”

The others gave me dubious looks. It just didn’t seem possible that anyone could survive in there.

I got on top of one car to reach the one in the middle. Big tangled mess. We had to get it apart, but I couldn’t tell where a person might fit in there. If we moved the wrong chunk of steel the wrong way, we might kill her.

“Joe, can you help?”

“No, maam. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I can only control my body’s density. If I stand on top of a car and get dense enough to rip steel, I’ll crush the car I’m standing on.”

Density control. Well, that’s different. “Liberty? Novak?”

They each got on different sides of the car mound, and carefully peeled away pieces of car.

Liberty had more strength than Novak and I did, so she made the fastest progress. She peeled away a chunk of sheet steel, and there was a person’s leg. It was a tiny, slender leg in ripped hose. When Liberty touched it, it moved, and this time we could all hear the little muffled voice. “Help me!”

We got the lady out pretty fast after that. She was young, mid twenties, pretty and petite, like a ballet dancer, maybe ninety pounds soaking wet. She was dressed in a nice tailored business suit. She was also almost completely unhurt. One arm was broken where the seat had twisted and taken her arm with it. We got her free. I splinted her arm with some seat belt straps and a piece of the bucket seat she’d been leaned back in when the sky fell on her.

“I had to work today, but my friend Jenna wanted to go out tonight. I thought if I slept in my car for a couple hours, …” She pushed stylishly cut thick brown hair out of her eyes with a shaky hand. “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea after all.”

Liberty shook her head in disbelief that I’d managed to find the lady under all of that and get her out safely. “If not for Dee, you might have been stuck in there for days. I’d say you’re actually pretty lucky.”

The lady squeezed my shoulder as I finished splinting her arm. “Thank you … Dee? That’s an odd sort of superhero name.”

I was wearing a black cloth mask. My favorite denim jacket was long gone, shredded by Bobcat. I’d ended up wearing an old leather biker jacket I found at Goodwill and jeans. My budget for superhero outfits was pretty much nill.

“Yeah, well, I’m an odd sort of superhero, I guess.”

That made her smile and I did feel like a hero for a moment at least.

Novak walked the nice lady back toward an ambulance, or someone with a phone who could call her a ride since the ambulances were all pretty full.

I looked around for someone else to help, and spotted Detective Long. He was staring at the end of the chunk of road Jupiter Joe had flipped over. As I watched, he picked up something tiny in the rubble, then walked over to one of the blown highway supports.

A blue globe with wings was spray painted onto the remaining vertical section of concrete pillar.

“You think the Free Earth people did this?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “They’ve been known to blow bridges or highways, but they usually do it when they’re deserted, or even set up phony detours to clear them first. They wouldn’t have blown the bridge right on seventh street in the middle of Saturday night. They want sympathy for their cause. They only use deadly force when they’re desperate.”

“Well, someone planted bombs right here under the noses of the Austin cops and hundreds of other people. Did anyone call in, claim responsibility? Do you think it was Lord Vile’s people?”

He shook his head again. “This isn’t Vile’s style.” He held up the bit of twisted blackened steel in his hand. “This isn’t one of his devices either. And no. No one else has claimed responsibility. I think someone wants us to think it was Free Earth, but it wasn’t.” His jaw muscles worked and his eyes got cold and hard. “Whoever did this, did it deliberately at the worst moment to maximize loss of life.”

I looked around at the devastation. “Why? Why would anyone do this?”

Det. Long looked around, too. “Every superhero and emergency worker in town in one place. That doesn’t happen often.”

I felt a cold shiver up my spine. “Maybe that was the goal.”

I searched up under the bridge supports that were remaining, and the raggedy edges of shredded highway dangling above me. Hidden in the corners where human eyes would have a very hard time spotting them, I saw several shiny black eyes. “Cameras.”

Det. Long looked, but he couldn’t see them. It didn’t matter. He trusted that I saw them. He nodded. “Someone wanted to see Austin’s finest at work, see what we could do.”

I’d bitten the boy’s wrist, and given a couple of other folks a furtive dose of healing venom when I thought no one was looking. Whoever was behind those black camera eyes now knew one of my secrets.

I’d flown here. I landed a few blocks away on a roof where I was less obvious, but I wondered how far those cameras extended. I wondered just how much our mysterious new enemy now knew about me.

I wondered if finding out my secrets was the point of all this horror. Most of the rest of Austin’s heroes were known quantities. I was the new kid.

Or, maybe I was just being paranoid.

Det. Long saw me biting my lip and looking nervous. “Do you think this could be the people who are after you?”

Georgians? No way. “They’re ruthless. They’ll kill anyone in their way. But, they wouldn’t do something like this … this random slaughter and pointless destruction. This might have been done to find out about us, but it’s also like whoever did it, just did it for …” I couldn’t say it.

“Fun.” Long’s jaw muscles jumped.

“Yeah.” I looked up at the many soulless black eyes.

I could almost hear someone laughing at all of us.

D Dragon

The Price of Heroism

A couple days after I got out of the hospital, after generous amounts of Ma’s special chicken soup with bones ground up in the broth, and enough cayenne to make a normal cry, I felt about like myself. The claw scars on my belly, arm, and face were still visible, but not quite as Halloween scary-looking. It was time for me to get back to work.

Jack and I rode in to work together in his stalwartly dependable Toyota Matrix.  My old Jeep CJ 7 had 20 years on his car, and while it kept chugging along for the most part, I had to admit, Jack’s car was a lot more comfortable. One of the advantages of Jack living with me, and with his furry alarm clock of a cat, was that we BOTH made it to work on time every night. That is, when I made it to work.

Between stakeouts, and other crime fighting, Protectors training, and recovering from periodic injuries, I’d used up all my sick time, all my vacation time, and then some. If Jack and I didn’t have the best survival statistics of any ambulance team in town, I’d have been fired ages ago.

“You’re fired,” the boss said as we walked past his desk.

I looked at him, claw marks still raw on my face. “I was in the hospital.”

“I don’t care. If you can’t show up to work, I can’t afford to keep paying you.”

“I’m hourly. If I don’t show up, you don’t pay me.”

He shifted the toothpick in his mouth to the other side. “I can’t keep shifts covered if you don’t show up half the time. This isn’t a part time job, girl. If you’re going to spend all your time chasing criminals, get the Protectors to pay you.”

The Protectors don’t pay part-timers like me. You have to become a full team member to get a salary.

He was serious. I was really fired. My savings were gone. I had a place to live, but …

Jack said, “If you fire Dee, you’re going to have to fire me, too. I won’t work with anyone else.”

My hero. Have I mentioned lately how awesome Jack is?

The boss wrinkled his nose and nodded. “I expected that. Fine, you’re fired too. I’ve already hired a replacement team. Get your stuff and get out. I’ll mail you your last checks.”

He turned his back on us.

Jack walked in to the locker room, and started clearing out his stuff.

“Wait, Jack.” I put a hand on his arm. “It doesn’t make any sense for us both to be out of work. The boss would give you back your job, if you asked.”

Jack shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, Dee. We’ll land on our feet. I’d rather work somewhere else with you.” Jack’s an optimist, but that’s a bit like saying water is wet. Jack makes Polyanna seem like a depressive.

“Both of us out of work at once, though. How are we going to live?” I tend to see things a little less positively.

“Free rent helps, and Brad’s got a good job, still. He’ll be okay with keeping us going for a few weeks until we find something. He owes me.”

True. Brad was on his way to a drunk and disorderly charge, with no place to live and a broken heart, when Jack offered to let Brad live with him. He didn’t know Brad. He just knew he needed a place to stay. That’s my Jack.

When Jack’s apartment building burned down, Brad, Jack, and Jack’s cat, Cam, and dog, Rocky, all moved in with me and Ma in our little two-bedroom apartment. When my friend, Vlad, the multi-millionaire, decided to leave town, he gave us his mansion, rent free. And his chief of security, Floyd Donovan, salary pre-paid.

So, we had a place to live, and a protector, whether we needed one or not, but little things like food and gas might be a bit hard to come by with no jobs, not to mention the hefty hospital bills I'd just racked up.

Plus, I really like my job. Sure, I feel like I’m helping out with the Protectors, taking some really bad people off the streets, but as a paramedic, I save lives directly. I see people who would die or be crippled for life every single day, and I know they’re better off because I was there to help them. Jack gets us there first, and covers for me. Jack and I save lives together. That’s what we do.

Jack suggested we use our unexpected day off to go listen to some of SXSW, the big music festival going on in Austin. Counting Crows was in town. Jack and I don’t always agree on music, (he likes that dub step stuff that makes my ears ache) but we both like Counting Crows.

I mentally calculated the nearly zero level of my bank account, and wondered if I could afford to go to a “free” concert where I’d have to pay to park, eat, etc.

We opted to go home first and break the news to Ma.

Brad and Donovan were both at the kitchen table, with Ma piling roast beef with potatoes and carrots on a plate for him.

Jack and I grabbed plates and joined in. With our reversed night shift schedules, we were more in the mindset of bacon and eggs, but Ma’s roast fills the house with a scent that would make vegetarians rethink their choices.

“What are you two doing home?” Ma asked.

I stuffed my face with roast to try for extra time. I really didn’t want to tell Ma that Jack and I were both suddenly unemployed.

Jack bailed me out. “We got fired, maam.”

Ma blinked. “Both of you?”

I swallowed roast. “Just me, at first, but Jack stuck up for me. Then the boss fired him, too.”

“Oh, dear.” Ma sat down and drank some tea. I expected a lecture. I got absolute silence from everyone at the table.

Something was off. “What did I miss?”

Brad, the four hundred pound, six-four giant steel-worker with super strength and invulnerability at the level of a Protector, twisted a paper towel in his hand until it shredded. “I got laid off today. The plant’s closing down.”

My stomach lurched a little. Jack and I were counting on Brad to help us get through the lean time. “Are you saying that no one in the whole house has a job now? We have no income at all?”

“I still have a job,” Donovan pointed out. “I could help out some.”

I cringed. “You’re supposed to be working for me. It doesn’t seem right for you to give us money.”

Donovan shrugged. “Mr. Tchovsky pays me well, and I don’t have a family to support. I can help out.”

I saved Donovan’s life once. He seemed to feel like he owed me for that. But he didn’t owe me anything. Not really. He was already essentially working for me for free. “Donovan, I …” My phone rang, interrupting. It was Liberty’s number.

“This is Dee,” I said, grateful for the interruption of what looked to be a very uncomfortable conversation.

“Liberty. I’m sorry to interrupt you at work, but we’ve already got injuries, and it’s probably going to get worse. We need you.”

“No work to interrupt anymore.” She gave me a location. “I’ll be there.”

D Dragon

Blood Kin

I stood at the top of a tall stone building with long steep stairs leading down into a land so green it practically glowed with life. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people walked on the ground and the lower steps of the building. They brought flowers, jade jewelry, and little wooden cages with brilliantly colored butterflies fluttering inside. They laid these gifts at the feet of the man who stood beside me.

He was nearly as tall as Fafnir, pale-skinned and blond, with a thick beard. He wore a shimmering iridescent green and red cloak of feathers, a tall leopard spotted hat, a brightly beaded leather loincloth, and lots of jade jewelry.

The tall man looked nothing like all the other people. They were shorter than my mother, dark-skinned with dark hair. They wore simple loincloths, paint, beads, and some feathers, but nothing like the magnificent feather cloak of the man beside me.

The man raised his arms and all around me, the people fell silent. Many knelt reverently. Others put their hands over their foreheads and bowed their heads.

The tall white man smiled down at them. He waved a hand. All the people with butterflies in cages, opened the doors of the little cages at once.

As hundreds of butterflies filled the air, the white man shifted, growing larger and larger, until he was as big as Fafnir in battle form.  Royal purple scales as brilliantly iridescent as the butterfly wings and the feathers flowed over the man’s flesh like a flower blooming. The dragon spread wings to catch the morning sunlight, the feathery cloak still draped around his great shoulders.

Brilliant purple scales the same color as my own were marked with tiger stripes of red and accents of black and gold. He was the most beautiful dragon I’d ever seen.

I stood beside him and all the people looked up at us. Their faces were beautific with reverent joy. Tears flowed down some of their faces. Love. They loved him, this magnificent purple dragon.

He looked down at them with the same joy. He loved them back. He looked over at me, standing beside him and held out one giant golden-clawed hand. “Fly with me, child of another time,” he said, and smiled into my eyes.

He could see me.

Hundreds of people stared up at us, and I realized I was stark naked.

Yikes!

I woke up with a start. Weird dream. I’ve had enough dreams of the past now to recognize one when I had it. But that was the first time I’d ever had a dream where anyone could see me, as me. I wasn’t just riding along in someone else’s head. I wondered if it was a true dream of the past, or just the result of the drugs they’d given me in the hospital.

They told me later I’d been asleep for two days. Didn’t seem that long. I felt reasonably okay when I woke up, just thirsty, and I had to pee like a racehorse.

Jack slept in a chair next to my bed. He looked adorable, black hair fallen across one eye.

I reached over to brush it away, but my arm came up short. There was a bag of red fluid dripping through an IV tube into my arm.

Liberty must have found someone to donate.

I peeled back the covers to look at my torso. Tape and a big gauze pad covered the unarmored spot on my flank where Bobcat got the worst digs in.

I dragged the IV stand as quietly as possible, so as not to wake Jack, over to the bathroom and took care of things. While I was in there, I peeled off the gauze and looked underneath. The wounds were closed. Bright pink welts showed where they had been.

I peeled more gauze off the left half of my face, and found something similar. It could be a very cool scar, except I generally didn’t scar. It would fade away in a few weeks. I peeled another gauze patch off my right shoulder. I didn’t even remember getting clawed there.

I heard voices outside, arguing. I didn’t want them to wake up Jack. I quietly wheeled my IV as far as it would go. The beepy heart rate and blood oxygen, etc. monitors were plugged into the wall, so I had to extend my arm out behind me to get enough slack to reach the door of the tiny hospital room. I opened the door a crack, and leaned out.  Floyd “Tex” Donovan was arguing with Mark “White Knight” Novak. Everyone I know seems to have at least two sets of names.

“… I can’t even believe you have the guts to show your face here,” Donovan whispered really loudly. Like he wanted to shout, but was trying to remember he was in a hospital. Some of Novak’s friends murdered a bunch of Donovan’s friends. Needless to say, there was no love lost there.

“You don’t have the right to keep me out,” Novak said. “I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine,” I whispered. “But her boyfriend is asleep, so she would appreciate it if you two could argue somewhere else.”

“Vlad the Black is here?” Novak asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Vlad is not my boyfriend. Jack is my boyfriend.”

“But I thought … Who is Jack?”

“Is there something you want, Novak, or are you just here to quiz me about my love life?”

His cheeks shaded a little pink, and he ducked his head. It reminded me of the way he acted when the Georgians dressed him down. Beaten. Ashamed. “I just … it doesn’t matter.” He turned and started to walk away.

Donovan nodded in satisfaction and sat back down on the chair by my door. He’d been doing the bodyguard thing, watching over me while I was out cold and defenseless. Which made sense, since, technically, he was my bodyguard.

“Novak, wait!” I whispered loudly. I leaned as far out the door as my tether would allow.

He stopped, hesitated for a moment, then turned around slowly, like he expected me to say something nasty.

“Did you donate blood for me?”

He nodded, and waited stoically for my snarky retort.

“Thanks,” I told him. “That’s the second time you saved my life. I was kind of a jerk about it the first time.”

He crooked one side of his mouth a little in something sort of like a smile. “I think you’re still ahead of me by one.”

“Well, stop sticking your butt in cracks you can’t get out of then,” I told him with a smile to let him know I was just giving him crap.

He smiled back a little. “Same to you.”

“Liberty’s been looking for you. The Protectors are short-handed.”

The smile disappeared. He shrugged. “They don’t need me.”

I sighed, and decided to get pissy with him again. He seemed to respond better to that. “Guess my grandmother was wrong about you. She thought you were a hero.”

He winced a little. That was a low blow, I admit. I was hoping it would get him fighting back, but it seemed more like I’d just confirmed what he already believed. “She was wrong. I’m just a freak.”

“Welcome to the club.” I sighed. I felt a little woozy and the breeze on my back end from the useless tie-in-the-back hospital gown was getting annoying. “At least, let Liberty know I didn’t kill you before you vanish back into your self-pity hole.”

“Why would she think …?”

“You’ll have to ask her that. I need to go lie down.”

Donovan stood up and supported my scaly, non IV connected arm. “I think you’ve outstayed your welcome, hero.” He spat the last word like a curse.

Novak nodded, and walked away.

I felt sorry for the guy. He’d found out that everything he believed in, lived his life by, sweated and bled for was a lie. But I was kind of pissed off at him at the same time. My grandmother was famous for not letting just any old schmo wield her sword. Excalibur was not a sword for people who couldn’t take a bad blow and get back up again.

There were a lot of people out there who needed a White Knight to save them. My grandmother, Lady Nyneve, the Lady of the Lake, believed that Mark Novak was that Knight.  From what I’d seen, she generally knew what she was doing. I’d just have to trust her.

Jack was awake when I looked back over my shoulder.

He winked at me, and wiggled his eyebrows.

Apparently, he’d gotten a really good view of the gap in the back of my hospital gown while I’d been leaned out the door.

If I could blush, my cheeks would have glowed like Rudolph’s nose.

D Dragon

Truth Among Friends

As it so happened, the way Liberty looked at me like some king of demon was the least of my problems. Once the fighting rage died away a little, I got really dizzy. I’d wrapped the lady’s off white linen curtains around me to cover my scales, but they rapidly stained dark red. Someone was losing a lot of blood. I should do something about that. I wondered vaguely what I’d done with my kit.

Liberty caught me as I staggered. She carried me out as the world went all swirly. I had a bad feeling I was going to see the inside of a hospital room again.

Bobcat tried to use Liberty’s distraction to limp quietly away.

She stuck a foot out and hooked his good ankle, tripping him onto his furry face. The cop cars caught up with us about then, pulling to sudden stops all around us.  One cop pulled right up onto the lady’s lawn and jumped out.

“Hi, Flynn,” I waved with my non-scaly arm, the rest of me thoroughly covered, in increasingly blood-soaked curtains. Bobcat’s claws must have nicked a good sized vein somewhere in my belly. Or, he could have damaged my liver considering the location of the claw slashes. I’m not sure my internal organs are in the same place as a normal’s but that’s where a liver would normally be. “Can you call Jack for me? I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“Same thing happened last time I worked with you, supe girl,” Flynn commented.

“This time I got the bad guy, though.”

“Looks like he got you worse.”

“I need transport to the nearest hospital, right now,” Liberty said, all field commander again. “Special teams has the perpetrator in custody.” She nodded over where the supe squad SWAT guys had put a metal muzzle on Bobcat. Metal bowling ball looking things went over his hands. They put them on his feet, too, and loaded him on something that looked like a motorized wheelchair had a love child with a moving dolly. Yeah, Bobcat was bagged and tagged.

Liberty got in the back of Flynn’s squad car, still carrying me. She held me like a big baby, wrapped in red-soaked swaddling. Flynn ran the siren and the flashy lights and drove damn near as crazy as Jack. The siren sounded different, though. Police, fire, and ambulance sirens each have their own song.

“Dee, I need you to answer the question.” Liberty shook me a little.

I didn’t remember her asking me a question. “What question?”

“What are you, Dee?”

“I’m just me, okay?” The hurt I felt when Liberty saw me all scary-looking came back. I turned my head away so she wouldn’t see me trying not to cry. “No matter what I look like, I’m still me.”

“I know you are, Dee. I’m a Protector. I’ve worked with Platinum Princess, Stone Golem, and the Human Shark.”

“That guy is freaky-looking, with all those huge teeth.”

“He knows the genus and species of every butterfly and wildflower in Central Texas. His gardens are beautiful.” Liberty shook me a little again, like I’d started to doze off. Did I? Not sure. That ride is all a little fuzzy. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. I need to know if there’s anyone who might be able to donate for you.”

I chuckled a little. Some days it sucks to be an endangered species. I stopped because chuckling really hurt. My belly felt like it was stuck in the Human Shark’s mouth. My face itched, too. I touched my cheek and felt bone, though, so didn’t think scratching was a good move. “Maybe Vlad or Fafnir, but they’re the wrong clans. Knight would be my closest match, probably, but he’s gone, too.”

“White Knight could donate blood for you?” Liberty sounded surprised. “He’s like you?”

“We’re like 6^th cousins or something, same species and clan in any case.”

“Dee, I’ve got one more question.”

“Shoot. I’m not going anywhere.” My whole body felt like it was made of lead. It was an amazing effort to wave one hand in a “whatever” kind of gesture.

“Did you kill White Knight?”

I blinked. That was a weird thing to ask. It woke me up a little. “Kill him? You have no idea how much trouble I went to to SAVE his sorry ass.” Some vague part of my mind realized that Liberty was using my woozy condition to pump me for information, but I couldn’t muster the energy to care.

“Is that what happened at Vlad Tchovsky’s house two months ago? You saved White Knight?”

“Vlad would have shishkabobbed him. Never go after Vlad with a sword. He’ll feed it to you.”

Liberty smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She nodded to herself as if I’d confirmed her suspicions. “I was afraid Knight might go after Tchovsky after that confrontation on Mansfield Dam. Knight seemed to think it was his duty to kill him because Mr. Tchovsky called himself a dragon.”

I nodded. “Because he’s like me.”

Liberty blinked. “You’re a dragon! Of course. That explains a lot.” Then a tiny wrinkle appeared between her perfect golden eyebrows. “But you said Knight was …”

“Yeah. Knight’s a dragon, too. He just didn’t know it before. He does now, unless he’s a complete idiot, which I wouldn’t rule out.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Knight’s alive, then.”

“Why did you think I killed him?” I wondered vaguely. I shivered under the curtains. “And why would you work with me if you thought that?” And why didn’t Flynn turn on the heat? It was freezing in that car. The siren kept going far away and coming back in some weird Doppler effect. He needed to get that looked at.

“Knight’s never taken more than a day or two off in the 40 years that the Protectors have existed. I asked Eye in the Sky to find him. Nothing. He’s completely off the grid. When I got the report about the disturbance at Tchovsky’s place the same night he ‘went on sabbatical’ I thought you and Tchovsky had probably killed him together.” she shrugged. “I worked with you because I wasn’t going to treat you like you were guilty until I had proof. And, I just didn’t think you were the kind of person to do something like that, unless Knight forced you to, in self-defense or to protect your friend.”

“Innocent until proven guilty.” Of course, Liberty would be the one person to live that to the letter. I huddled against her warmth. And she could deal with my weirdness. As friends go, she was okay.

Too bad she couldn’t pull several units of Silver or Green clan dragon blood out of thin air.

I fell asleep, knowing I wouldn’t wake up. Even Liberty couldn’t save me.

D Dragon

Freak Like Me

I ran to the car that one of the world’s most famous and powerful superheroes had crashed into from 7 stories up.

Liberty had a nose bleed. She sat up on one elbow on the ruined metal roof with an imprint of her whole body in it, wiped her nose on her hand, and looked at it quizzically for a moment. “I didn’t know you could fly,” she said after a moment, like she was irritated with me.

“Yeah, I don’t advertise,” I said, relieved beyond words that she wasn’t badly hurt.

“I need to know things like that if we’re going to work together." She shoved her crown back into place. "I wouldn’t have made that risky a move if I’d known you weren’t about to be killed.”

“Oh.” I looked up at the tall building above me. Bobcat jumped across the little sliver of parking to the adjacent building. “Crap.” I blew it, and the bad guy was getting away.

Liberty held up a hand for a second, listened intently, then sighed. “He’s gotten past our perimeter. I wish I had a flyer who could follow him.” She blinked, and looked at me. “He’s headed northeast. That way!” she snapped, pointing.

I hesitated. She wanted me to take off in the middle of town in early evening when hundreds of people were out.

“If we don’t catch him tonight, more women will die," Liberty said.

That was the essence of it. It didn’t matter if someone saw me in the sky and realized I was a dragon. It didn’t matter if someone posted pics of me on the internet and the Georgians hunted me down later. What mattered was pretty young women with their whole lives ahead of them getting ripped to pieces by a psycho because I messed up.

My jacket and shirt were toast, so I tossed them aside. I leapt as hard as I could using my wings to get higher, grabbed onto a third story window ledge on the other communication building, the one that’s only four stories tall. I leapt again to the edge of the building, pulled myself up to the roof, and used it as a launching point to leap as high as I could into the air. With that much altitude to start with I was headed in the right direction with good speed in seconds.

The mic in my ear crackled with static, then I heard Liberty’s voice. “Do you see him yet?”

“No sign,” I said. I scanned like a hawk hunting a mouse, widening my search in desperation, and saw a flash of movement far ahead. “I see him! He’s already up to 30^th and Speedway. He’s heading into a neighborhood. Damn, that guy is fast!”

“I’m right behind you, Dee. Don’t lose him.” I could hear her breathing hard and realized she was running, following me as fast as her super-strong legs could carry her.

I flapped like a maniac until I felt like my arms were going to fall off, then dove again trading my altitude for more speed.

I saw him, jumping from roof to roof in a small neighborhood.

I saw him, but he didn’t see me. My wings were quiet as a whisper as I let the momentum I’d already built up be enough, and glided.

He sensed me somehow, at the very last second. He stood on the peak of a suburban house, about to jump to the next one, hesitated and turned around.

I hit him doing maybe thirty miles an hour.

“Mine!” I shouted in triumph. I flying tackled him off the roof of the unfortunately only one story house, riding the weight that was more than my wings could hold to the concrete of the street.

“Dee, no!” Liberty shouted in my ear. “Don’t engage him until I can get there to back you up!”

Too late, I thought, as I rolled in the street with a snarling, spitting, clawing demonic blond monster thing.

Those claws flew and slashed so fast that I couldn’t keep them off me. I raised my left arm up to cover my defenseless face. Without my jacket to conceal my vulnerabilities, the places that weren’t armored were all too obvious.

Bobcat found the bare section of my torso, just over my right hip. His claws ripped deep into flesh instead of scraping over scales.

He laughed as I screamed and bled.

I do not like being laughed at.

I growled in his face, overwhelmed with rage even more intense than the pain.

I got bigger. I didn’t exactly stop and analyze it right then. I was a bit busy fighting for my life, but I felt the shift in my body. My fangs popped out of their own accord, and I’d swear I had more and sharper teeth in my mouth, and it felt distorted, too. I have no doubt my eyes were as bright red as flashlights. My feet ripped through my shoes, the claws on them growing longer and sharper. I stopped trying to defend myself and returned the mad frenzy of claws.

I curled up, protecting my vulnerable torso with armored legs. I dug my feet into his belly and shoved, ripping flesh and fur as I launched him through someone’s rose trellis and into their living room window.

Without even stopping to think, I launched myself right after him.

Bloody gashes marred his furry belly where my foot claws had gotten him. He had a dozen small cuts from the window glass. The flickering light of a television set showed him snarling insane rage at me, bloody saliva dripping from his fangs.

I snarled my own rage right back and dove on him.

He rolled out of the way, and clawed at my armored back.

I twisted, grabbing for him, but he evaded.

He slashed my face, opening my cheek to the bone in three long gashes. My blood splattered onto some normal’s flower print couch.

Bobcat got to his feet, jumped, landed in the middle of my chest, and used me as a launching pad to hurl himself out the window again.

I tried to grab for him while I gasped for air, but only managed to scratch his ankle with the venomous claws of my left hand.

It was enough.

I saw him land in the large tree branch he’d been aiming for in the front yard, saw his foot, give under him, and saw him fall.

He tried to escape in a stumbling run, but Liberty tackled him. His claws didn’t do him any good against the queen of invulnerability.

She got super-cuffs on him in less than three seconds.

Then she looked up at me.

I stood in the darkness of the living room, the light of the television flickering over me, my wings half extended, wearing just my slashed blue jeans. Blood streamed from my ripped belly and my face and dripped from my clawed left hand.

I heard a noise behind me, footsteps.

I whirled to face the new threat. I snarled defiance.

A lady in pink bunny slippers and a blue velour robe dropped her cup of coffee on the floor and fainted.

I caught her before she hit the ground, laid her down gently, outside the spreading circle of the scalding hot spilled coffee. That was going to stain her rug, no doubt.

Liberty frog-marched Bobcat to the window. His right leg dragged like a dead thing. He looked woozy. Liberty’s hand might have been the only thing keeping him vertical.

Sirens closed on us from three sides.

Liberty looked at me crouched like a gargoyle over the lady in the bunny slippers. “What are you?”

I felt a flush of … I’m not sure what to call it. Embarrassment? Sort of. Shame? Not exactly.

The way Liberty, who I’d begun to think of as a friend, looked at me… It hurt. It hurt worse than the raw open wounds in my face and side.

I felt my body shrink back to its normal size and shape. I grabbed the bunny-slippered lady’s living room curtains to wrap myself up in. I covered myself, not out of fear of discovery, but because I didn’t want anyone looking at me like that.

Bobcat looked at me, too, but all I saw in his dazed yellow eyes was a perfectly normal hate. In that moment, I had more kinship with Bobcat than with Liberty.

“Like I told Bob, I’m a freak like him.”

D Dragon