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Dori hadn’t expected to see a dragon today, but there he was in the middle of Wal-Mart, big as day and ugly as sin. He was in his human form, of course, since a dragon’s natural state would send even the most jaded discount shoppers screaming in mindless terror. This creature looked rather unremarkable from a human’s standpoint. He’d shaped himself some brown hair in a crew cut, squinty, dark brown eyes, tanned skin, and thirty extra pounds. He’d even added a little yellow to his teeth for effect. His eyes bore into her as if he knew who she was. And he might. She’d sniffed distastefully before she realized what it was she smelled. Dori had only zipped in to buy some toothpaste and shampoo, so this turn of events had taken her quite by surprise. “Hey, baby,” he said with a leer. Oh, God. He’d spoken to her. “Where’s your Warrior today? Don’t you feel rather…alone?” Just keep on walking, Dori told herself. Just keep on walking. And, no, Jiji wasn’t with her right now. She also realized too late that neither did she have a weapon. How unprofessional. Dori might not have a weapon, but she did have a camera. She could at least be a major pain in his ass. Dori reached into her bag as she passed him and grabbed the digital camera by feel. She yanked it out, snapped her shot quickly, and turned to dash down the aisle. She stumbled. Damn. A baby stroller. She recovered and stepped around it, only slightly jarring the sleeping tot. Dori felt the dragon’s hand glance down her back during the half-second delay. “Slow down, you jerks,” the young mother yelled as Dori twisted away. She was halfway down the personal hygiene aisle before Dori heard the high-pitched scream of the child being rudely jostled awake. If the mother only knew. Dori risked a glimpse behind her. The dragon wasn’t as close as before, but he was still there. She turned to find herself almost at the prescription counter. She broke the line in front of a middle aged, business-suited man. “Help me,” she gasped as she slowed to cross in front of him. “That’s my ex and he’s going to beat me.” “Not today,” he said. “Run.” As she fled he stepped up to close the gap and turned to face the oncoming dragon. Dori took a relieved breath when she heard the scuffle behind her. She knew the dragon couldn’t eat someone while in human form, so she didn’t waste precious time worrying about the man. Dori rushed through the exit doors and across the parking lot to her car. She tried to breathe normally and stop her hands from shaking on the drive home. Jiji, her partner in the Guard, and also Warrior extraordinaire, would know what to do.  Dori was grateful to have drawn Jiji as her partner last spring when she turned eighteen and finished her training as a Seeker. Central was the administrative branch of the Guard, and they could’ve paired her with any number of unpleasant, old coots. Jiji was only twenty, and she’d had two years’ experience killing dragons for the Guard. Now, Jiji scowled at Dori when she heard the Wal-Mart story. “You didn’t have a weapon of any sort? Nothing to stab him or hit him in the head with?” Dori slowly turned her head from side to side. “Do you know how dangerous that was?” Jiji asked. Her dark green eyes flashed. Dori looked up. “He wasn’t going to eat me in the middle of Wal-Mart.” Jiji paced the kitchen. “You know to always have a weapon when I’m not with you.” “I have a picture. Central should be happy.” “Maybe.” Jiji said. “But the dragon will look like someone else tomorrow.” “Which means that a person will die today,” Dori replied quietly. Dragons could shift back to their natural state easily, but they needed the extra energy before adopting a human form again. Jiji grimaced. “You know their agenda. Kill as many of us as possible.” Dori sighed as she tried to push the guilty feeling away. She couldn’t help but envision the creature’s demonic masters laughing at her defeat. Being Hellborn, dragons were specific constructs meant to give the demons access to the world Above. Jiji snatched the camera and headed to their office. “Let’s upload the photo. We’ll e-mail the picture to Central for distribution. If we run it through that new image database, we might find the beast before he shifts to himself.” Dori took over the task. It wouldn’t take her as long to retrieve the image, and she didn’t see the harm in worrying aloud while she worked. “Do you think the Guard will blame me for today?” “Why?” Jiji asked. “What are you afraid of?” “Well, the Legion might not want to back me anymore. The dragon did get away.” Jiji touched Dori’s shoulder. “The Legion understands we’re not like them, not angels and therefore not perfect. They’ve backed the Guard for centuries, and you’re not the first Guardian to make a mistake.” Jiji touched the raised scar that marred her delicate, Asian face. It ran from her left temple to her ear, and it was a constant reminder of her own dragon that got away in his natural hide. “Remember,” Jiji continued, “the Legion is the warrior faction of angels. They respect our record. We’ve killed a lot of dragons in the last few months.” Dori sighed. “I guess so,” she said. She was done with the upload, and the e-mail was ready to send. She hit the button and sat back to wait. Central’s new population database housed millions of human images. Most of the faces weren’t identified, but that was okay. Jiji and Dori only needed to know if this dragon’s human face had been captured by any of the private security cameras that were secretly monitored by the Guard. The response e-mail arrived with a ding of the computer. Dori and Jiji eagerly read the list of businesses where the dragon had recently been spotted. In the last month, he’d been recorded almost daily by a camera in the lobby of Creekside Apartments, a low rent complex in the north part of Jacksonville. Dori tapped the monitor screen. “This must be where he’s living right now.” “But he can’t change in the apartment,” Jiji said. “It’s too small. He’ll probably wait for dark, when there’s more cover.” She jumped up and motioned for Dori to follow. “Chances are he’ll run home to hide until dark and then leave. They don’t know yet that we can track them by image, so he won’t be expecting us there.” At the apartment house, they sat across the street from the front entrance in Dori’s brown Ford Escort. It was a ’92 and quite invisible amongst the other crappy cars. They waited for a couple of hours with Dori getting antsy as time went by. “Maybe he’s not coming,” Dori said. Jiji grunted, too focused to reply at first. She then shook her head and said, “Maybe not, but it’s our best bet for finding him. The other places listed were just places he goes sometimes. He’s been imaged here every day.” “I guess.” Dori pulled out a couple of soft Baby Ruth candy bars from the glove compartment and handed one to Jiji. “Might as well power up now.” In the late afternoon, the dragon turned up on foot. He came sauntering around the corner half a block away. Dori and Jiji both saw him and slunk down in their seats. His arm was draped around a teenage girl. She was a slip of a thing, and her dirty blond hair hung to her shoulders in disarray. Her black skirt and t-shirt lay without form against her sallow skin. Her Gothic make-up job stood out like a badly painted corpse. “Is that a virgin?” Dori asked. “Who knows?” Dori grabbed the door handle and pushed, but Jiji beat her out of the car. Jiji’s speed never failed to impress Dori. It was as if the small Warrior had wings. They both rushed in front of a dump truck heavy with red, Georgia clay, angering the driver who expressed his feeling with an earsplitting blow of the horn. Dori saw the dragon look their way, his eyes widening with recognition. He grabbed the girl by both shoulders, pushed her into a compartment of the spinning, entrance door, and then dragged her out on the other side. He raced toward the darkened stairwell, the girl in tow, as if the extra paunch in his gut wasn’t even there. Jiji was close behind. Dori knew Jiji badly wanted to kill him before he reached his place. She’d never be able to get to him inside the apartment without attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Dori raced to check the building’s back door in case the dragon decided to escape that way. She stood for a few silent seconds, trying to decide how to best block the glass door. Dori found a garden hose attached to the building, so she ran it through the handles and knotted it. She returned to the front of the building as Jiji stepped onto the front sidewalk. They hurried to the car. “What happened?” Dori asked. “They beat me to the apartment. I couldn’t get a clear shot, and I didn’t want to hurt the girl. We’ll have to catch him on the way out. You barred the back doors?” Dori nodded. They didn’t have long to wait. Dori had just recovered her breath and pulse rate when they caught sight of the pair again. The dragon and his prey were coming from behind the building and heading toward the side parking lot. Blood dripped down the dragon’s left arm and left a red trail. Dori’s stomach tightened as she started her car. They had come through the glass of the door, not out the doorway. “I should’ve known he’d do that,” Dori said. Jiji gave her a hard look. “Live and learn, Dori. Live and learn.” The escaping pair hurried into the cab of a battered, white pick-up truck. The dragon started the engine before the doors were closed and then screeched into the street. Dori raced out behind them. They knew she was there. The dragon drove like a crazy person, or rather a crazy dragon. He passed any cars he could get around. He blared his horn, adding it to the cacophony of other horns blaring at him. He cut drivers off and ran them into the ditches and shoulders. Dori kept up with him well though. She’d also been trained as a driver since the Warrior should always be available to fight. They soon hit the outskirts of the city where there were open and empty spaces. “Stay steady,” Jiji shouted as she leaned out of her window. She pulled out her 9mm Glock semi-automatic and aimed a quick shot at the truck’s tires. One of them blew and sent the vehicle careening off the road and into a field next to a ballpark. Dori could hear the cheering and clapping as a pigtailed girl rounded third base, but she never got to see whether or not the runner scored. Dori slammed the brakes, bringing them to a hard halt next to the truck. It lay on its side after flipping off of the ditch. Jiji jumped out and ran to where the girl lie still a few feet away. The dragon had already bailed and was now hightailing it through the field. The girl was unconscious and looked so pathetic, Dori thought, with her smeared, black lipstick and eye-shadow. She wondered if the girl had a family to call. Dori stepped up next to Jiji but then stumbled back a few steps. “Oh, no,” she said. “What?” “She’s a dragon.” Dori took another deep breath through her nose as the wicked odor weaved its way through her olfactory receptors. Evil did have its own scent, but many years of training were required to recognize it. She lost a few precious seconds remembering the uncountable hours she’d spent on this task. “Are you sure?” Jiji asked, keeping an eye on the dragon running across the empty field. He’d soon reach the far line of trees where he could hide. Dori nodded. “Yep. She’s one of them.” “Kill her then,” Jiji said. “I’ve got to get the other one.” Dori jerked her head around. She was certain her honey brown eyes betrayed her surprise. “You’re the Warrior. You kill her.” “No. You’re going to have to kill one sooner or later. We might as well break you in on an easy one.” Jiji turned and took off at a full run, arms and legs instantly falling into the rhythm of the motion. Crap. Dori reached up under her pants leg and unfastened the small harness that was secured around her ankle. She pulled out the handgun and checked the clip for the golden gleam of the rounds. She stared at them, wondering what would happen if she killed this girl and then turned out to be wrong. Was one human life worth the possibility of missing a dragon? No, Dori decided with a shake of her head, she wouldn’t doubt her judgment. This success was exactly what every Guardian was working toward. Just because she was now the one to do the killing shouldn’t change anything. Even if she didn’t trust herself, she should trust the Guard. And she was now a Seeker of the Guard. Voices spoke behind her. Dori guessed they were folks from the ballpark coming to check on what looked like a simple car wreck. “Oh, God, is she okay?” “What’s she doing with a gun?” “Hey, lady, don’t shoot her!” Dori turned to face the crowd and frowned. “Back up, people,” she ordered curtly as she waved the gun in their direction. They backed up. “Stay there.” As Dori turned back around to view the limp dragon-girl, Dori knew what she had to do. She didn’t know if this creature was a mate or a child of the other one, but it didn’t matter either way. The little one would only live to cause suffering, no matter what she looked like. A phrase in the background conversation behind her caught Dori’s attention. “Yes, the police, please. There’s a woman with a gun here.” Dori grunted. Someone had called 911 on their cell phone. She’d better do this thing already. Dori aimed the pistol, determined to be fast about it. The dragon-girl stirred. Her eyelids popped open, and Dori jumped. Instead of eyes, shades of black and gray oozed within the hateful orbs, reflecting the disgust these creatures felt for the One’s creations. Dori’s first reaction was to shoot the offending creature twice in the face. Screams and shouts erupted from the people behind her. Dori heard footsteps as some of them ran. The remaining people fell silent when they saw the unnatural hole open up. It began in the middle of the dragon-girl’s torso and spread to the edges of her bloody body. Dori heard a deafening static, much like that of a white noise turned up to full volume. When Dori couldn’t hear anything else, the dragon-girl popped away, a smoldering poof into eternity. The noise stopped abruptly, and a small tendril of smoke rose from where she had lain. Dori expected the disappearance as she’d seen it half a dozen times in the last few months. These people, however, didn’t know what to make of it. Dori took the opportunity of their shocked inaction to turn and run after Jiji. As she crossed the field, Dori could see shapes ahead, not too far from the line of trees. One shape was actually taller than the trees and was brightening the faint twilight with a focused fire. Dori groaned. Jiji hadn’t reached the dragon before he was able to shift. At least she’d gotten to him while he was still on the ground. Dori heard more shots from the Glock, and ran faster. As she neared the chaos, she saw Jiji running circles around the dragon, emptying her gun with well-placed shots. Compared to the dragon’s own personal flamethrower, the firefly-sized sparks from the Glock seemed small indeed. Jiji was hitting the dragon and causing it some pain, as evidenced by its enraged roars. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be enough to kill the beast in its own skin. Dori’s heart sank. Jiji would probably be forced to use her Fuser, and no Warrior in her right mind employed that weapon lightly. It was a powerful thing, and, if used incorrectly, it could blow a hole from this world to who-knows-where. Dori found herself biting her lip just thinking about the terrifying possibility. She stopped abruptly as she arrived at the edge of the conflict. The dragon’s unique stench was pounding its way through her sensitive nose. Combined with the burning tang of his fire, it overwhelmed Dori’s sense of smell, and she felt slightly nauseous. She opened her mouth and tried to breath through it. The dragon was indeed a killing machine. His snout was long and narrow and positioned above serrated, pinpoint teeth. Sharp and deadly spines jutted from the center of his back. His red and black flint-like body scales matched the smaller and lighter ones covering his wings. Finally, his talons showed themselves to be wicked weapons as they raked the air behind Jiji, always barely missing her. Jiji was bouncing around the beast, fast and unpredictable. She’d pulled a snub-nosed pistol from somewhere and was using it now. Dori knew that Jiji was trying to wear the dragon down so his reflexes would be slower for that one all-important shot that was coming. Dori fired the last of her own bullets into the dragon’s mouth, hoping to zing one into the soft tissues of his throat. Each bullet popped loudly as it reached the heat of his breath and exploded. She groaned when she realized she’d caused him no harm. Dori had however caught his attention. The creature cast his demonic, red-on-red eyes her way, the fiery reflections of his hot breath shining bright against his darker, blood-red corneas. Time seemed to stop the instant he made eye contact with her. Even though Dori had just glimpsed Hell through the dragon-girl’s eyes, this was a new level of experience. She almost went limp as she felt her muscles loosen and long for release. 
She never knew such suffering could exist, not only to those trapped in a world of unholy existence Below, but also to those chained by immortal command Above. Mixed with the hate and disgust, Dori also saw envy in the dragon’s eyes, the envy of not being created and loved by the One. She could only imagine the pain involved in belonging to Below. “Dear God,” she said. Her almost prayerful words were lost among the beast’s pained roars, the beating sound of his injured wings, and Jiji’s relentless battery of gunshots. She desperately hoped her words would find their way to the One and His Legion through the commotion. Then the fire came. A burst of hot air hit her face with force, but the fire never touched her. Jiji had taken a flying leap and knocked Dori into a side patch of dirt. They rolled behind some small scrub bushes. “Stay down,” Jiji said. She hopped back up with the Fuser in her hand, drawn by instinct to a true bead on the dragon’s left eye. Jiji fired quickly. Dori’s breath stopped for an instant. She didn’t know if the dragon knew what was coming, but she and Jiji knew. She peered through the bushes to see if the shot was successful or not. The mechanics seemed to have worked well. A tiny pellet of compressed hydrogen flew straight for the dragon’s eye as Jiji cried with joy, “Back to Hell, beast!” Dori felt the change in the air as the heavens opened, clearing a channel for action. She watched with her mouth agape as a bolt of lightning struck the hydrogen pellet inches from the dragon’s eye. A silver sheen glistened from within the bolt, revealing the Archangel Michael’s true strength as he wielded his mighty sword on the Guard’s behalf. Dori closed her eyes to protect them, but she didn’t need to see to know what was happening. When the pure and condensed energy hit the pellet, the resulting explosion created a miniature star. Light blossomed outward as it released more heat and radiation within that few inches than is possessed by Earth’s own star, the sun. No dragon, and especially not this ordinary, demonic construct, stood a chance. His component atoms were viciously ripped into subatomic particles. As this minuscule star reached the end of its life cycle, it collapsed to create a black hole. Even at its pinprick size, this phenomenon possessed enough pull to yank the dragon’s ashes and essence into the world beyond. The event horizon then rapidly contracted, sealing the Guard’s victory. Dori stayed hunched down behind the bushes for a few seconds as she tried to control her breathing. She carefully opened her eyes, making sure it was now safe. She looked around to see that the surrounding damage wasn’t bad. Some bushes were still smoldering, but they were too far from the trees to pose a serious threat. Jiji turned to face Dori, her face red, sweaty, and scratched. “Are you okay?” “I guess,” Dori said. “You look like the one who got her butt kicked today.” Jiji grinned. “Looks aren’t everything, I’ve heard.” Dori saw Jiji’s smile die as she looked beyond Dori to the opposite edge of the field. Dori heard sirens and followed her gaze to see lights from the emergency vehicles coming across the field. People from the ballpark were approaching now that they had back-up. She couldn’t blame them for not venturing too close to the fray, but Dori still smiled with amusement. “Let’s go,” Jiji said as she grabbed Dori’s sleeve and pulled her forward. Dori took a deep breath and jogged even with Jiji. They ran side by side toward the trees where they could probably lose everyone if they ran fast enough and used the cover well. “I’m starved,” Jiji said as they reached the trees and thankfully disappeared into the shadows. “Let’s call for take-out when we get home.” Dori smiled again, her trust in herself, Jiji and the Guard strengthened by their success. “How about Chinese? Dragon soup sounds good.” “I don’t think so,” Jiji said through her grimace. “Pizza’s good.” “Fine then.” And Dori knew that it was fine now. All of it.
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