Mandy knew that the majority of her coworkers hated her right now, but that didn’t stop her from happily skipping into the office the next morning. What did she care if everyone thought she was betraying Commander Hawkins? He was the one screwing over everyone in the Dragon Recovery Division. He’d brought this on himself. And, besides, Mandy refused to be anything but happy. She had a dinner date with Russ Porter tonight. Life didn’t get much better than that.
She’d been up half the night texting back and forth with him. She was paying for that this morning. Despite trying to hide her exhaustion with undereye concealor and copious amounts of coffee, she was still dragging. She figured it didn’t matter much if she was tired at work today, though. No one was going to go out of their way to work with her on any assignments while Commander Hawkins was still technically in charge. He’d been stripped of much of his power, true, but he still held his position as head of the Dragon Recovery Division. Mandy supposed she couldn’t blame anyone for being careful not to piss him off.
Mandy went into her office and shut the door behind her, thinking how much better things were this morning than they had been twenty-four hours ago. She could hardly believe that it had been less than a full day since she’d stood in the office in her dress robes, sure that she was about to be soundly defeated in the hearing against the High Council. Not only had she not lost, but she also had set things right with Russ. Life didn’t exactly suck at the moment.
Mandy hit the start button on her computer, and the old machine slowly whirred to life. While she was waiting for it to finish booting up, Mandy reached into her purse for her phone, hoping to see a good morning text from Russ. To her disappointment, she had no new messages. She set the phone down with a sigh and started tapping her fingers absentmindedly on her desk. She glanced at the small desk clock in front of her, which read 8:37. With a frown she picked up the phone again, as though she might have magically received a text in the last few seconds without realizing it. It wasn’t possible that Russ was still sleeping, was it? They’d had a late night, thanks to their extended text conversation last night. But he should have been at training by eight this morning. If he hadn’t shown up, Jake or one of the other trainers would have been calling him, telling him to haul his ass out of bed.
Mandy’s frown deepened. She had an odd feeling that something was wrong. She wasn’t a needy girl, and it wasn’t her style to be upset over the lack of a good morning text. But she wasn’t sure how a man could be up texting half the night, and then in the morning neglect to send even a good morning text. Russ had been so eager to talk to her. The fact that he had gone so unnaturally silent worried her.
Mandy told herself that it was nothing to be worried about, and forced herself to set her phone down. Russ had probably just woken up late, and been too busy racing to work to send a text. Mandy took a deep breath, and turned back toward her computer. She would get done what little work she had, and do her best to keep her thoughts off Russ for the time being. But no sooner had she turned away from her phone than she heard it buzz. She let out a surprised squeak and whirled around to grab it from her desk, her fingers trembling as she swiped to unlock the screen and read the text that had just come in. But to her great disappointment, the text wasn’t from Russ. It was Jake’s name displayed across the screen. Mandy’s heart dropped even further as she read the message.
Hey, Mandy. Russ asked me to text you and say goodbye for him. He was unexpectedly sent off on his dark monster elimination mission this morning. No cell phones are allowed in the supply packs for these missions, and he wasn’t given time to send any messages before leaving. We all expected him to be in training for another several weeks, so the sudden departure took us all by surprise, including him. Normally, he would have been given time to send some texts or emails before heading out, but his mission had been classified as urgent and he wasn’t allowed that.
The message ended abruptly just like that, almost as though Jake had stopped typing and hit “send” mid-thought. Mandy felt her blood go cold. Something wasn’t right here, and she was determined to find out what it was. She stood, and reached for her keys and phone. She would go pay Jake a little in-person visit.
Mandy avoided all the questioning eyes as best she could while she made her way out of the dragon recovery building. People whispered and pointed at her, not even trying to hide the fact that they were talking about her behind her back. She held her head high, and walked as quickly as she could without flat-out running. Her heart pounded in time with every step. Russ was in trouble. She could feel it in her bones.
The employees milling about the Dragon Utilization office building where Jake worked were much less interested in Mandy than her own coworkers had been. A few people glanced at her, furrowing their brow as if trying to remember if they had ever seen her before, or knew who she was. She smiled politely and kept walking until she reached the office door with a nameplate reading “Jake Palmer.”
Mandy took a deep breath and rapped a few times on the door, hoping Jake was in there. She should have thought to text and ask if he was in his office, but she’d been too overcome with fear for Russ’s wellbeing to think clearly.
Thankfully, a few seconds later the door swung open and Jake was standing there in front of her, holding his phone in his hand.
“Mandy! I was just about to send you another text. Sorry the last one got cut off so strangely, I got interrupted and had to send it while pretending to be interested in what one of my trainers was telling me. Get in here before anyone sees you.”
Mandy stepped inside, and Jake quickly slammed the door behind Mandy, causing her to jump. “I hate to break it to you, but I think a lot of people have already seen me.”
“Well, hopefully none of them go tell Commander Hawkins where you’ve been. If he finds out you’ve been all the way over here, he’ll know that you know.”
“Uh, know what, exactly?”
“That something fishy is going on with Russ’s mission.”
Jake had piles of paper stacked everywhere on his desk, and he pushed them all unceremoniously aside as Mandy sat down in his visitor chair.
“Jake, sit still for two minutes and stop giving me these short, fragmented pieces of information. What’s going on with Russ?”
Jake sighed, and sunk down into his office chair. He rested his elbows on his desk and put his head in his hands for a moment before finally looking up at Mandy.
“Commander Hawkins is still the highest ranking officer in charge of Russ’s case.”
“Okay,” Mandy said slowly, still not sure exactly where all of this was going.
“Remember the High Council’s order yesterday? They said he couldn’t take on any new jobs, but they did allow him to continue working on his current jobs, provided he got outside approval of any new orders.”
Mandy felt the dread in her belly growing. “So he gave Russ new orders, which, of course, he had no trouble getting all of his little cronies to approve.”
“Exactly. And those orders were for Russ to immediately terminate training and head out on his dark monster elimination job.”
“Is that safe? He hasn’t been in training very long. Isn’t the training program usually a few months.”
“Well, yes. But it doesn’t have to be. The dark monsters are actually fairly easy for dragons to kill. As long as the dragon isn’t taken completely by surprise by one of the dark monsters, dragon fire will do the trick nicely.”
“Then why the long training?”
Jake gave Mandy a long look, as though deciding whether to trust her. Finally, he shrugged. “The main reason we bring the dragons here isn’t to kill the dark monsters.”
Mandy looked up at him in surprise. “That doesn’t make sense. Why all the dragon recovery agents, and the millions paid out to get dragons here, if the High Council isn’t that worried about the dark monsters.”
“The dark monsters are a problem, admittedly, but we have enough dragons here to take care of them. The reason I’m here training instead of out hunting for monsters is that the High Council isn’t just interested in getting dragons here. They’re interested in keeping them here.”
“I’m still not following.” Mandy was growing impatient. She was worried about Russ, and Jake wouldn’t quit talking in riddles.
“The High Council worries a lot about the possibility of another great war. I’m sure you know that.”
Mandy nodded.
“Well,” Jake continued, “The High Council thinks that one of the best ways to keep up a strong defense against forces of evil is to have a strong presence of dragons in Torch Lake. Dragons are among the strongest of shifters, and are known for being difficult to corrupt. Unfortunately, after the last war, many of the dragons, especially the youngest, strongest ones, don’t want anything to do with clan life. You already know that, of course, from your work in the Dragon Recovery Division.”
“Right. I know one of the reasons the High Council likes to get dragons here is for the chance to convince the dragons to stay. None of this is news to me.”
“No, of course not. But what is news is that the training program for the incoming dragons is completely pointless when it comes to killing dark monsters. Its sole purpose is to keep the dragons in Torch Lake long enough that they hopefully fall in love with the place and decide to stay.”
Mandy blinked. “You mean all these drills and training exercises you do aren’t actually to help the dragons learn how to kill a dark monster?”
Jake shrugged. “We sort of let everyone assume that, but it’s not true. Think about it, Mandy. Dark monsters are killed by dragon fire. You don’t need to train a dragon how to use fire. He already knows. The training is just for show. There’s not even a specific timeline of how long training should be. It’s different for each dragon. The High Council’s official stance on it is that training should continue ‘as long as necessary to integrate the dragon into the city of Torch Lake.’ That’s code for ‘as long as necessary to see how awesome Torch Lake is and decide they want to move here permanently.’”
Mandy smiled. “But Torch Lake is awesome.”
“You and I both think so. But most of these dragons take time to see it. That’s why their training is usually several months long. In Russ’s case, I’m not sure any amount of time would have been long enough. He’s a great guy, but he seems pretty set on returning back to Chicago.”
Mandy’s heart fell. She knew what Jake was saying was true, but she didn’t want to think about it. Why would Russ ask her on a date if he wasn’t rethinking his decision to move back to Chicago at the first available opportunity. Surely, he knew that Mandy wasn’t going to leave Torch Lake? For one thing, her career wasn’t exactly transferable to the human world. And for another thing, she hated living in constant fear of accidentally giving herself away as a wizard. Her life was here now. Maybe agreeing to go to dinner with Russ had been a mistake. Not that it mattered now. There would be no dinner date tonight, since he’d been sent off to hunt dark monsters.
“In any case,” Jake said, interrupting Mandy’s thoughts. “Commander Hawkins has the authority to send a dragon in training out at any time if he thinks that dragon is ready. Usually, he ignores the dragons in training and leaves it up to the trainers to decide when a dragon is ready. He doesn’t like to be bothered with work that actually makes him think, you know?”
Mandy snorted. “Typical.”
“But in this case, he decided to interfere. I would bet he’s doing this as payback for Russ’s testifying at the hearing. He wants to get Russ out of the way, and this is the best way to do it. Once Russ kills a dark monster and comes back, Russ’s job here is done. He’s free to go back to Chicago, and Commander Hawkins probably knows that that’s exactly what is going to happen. Dragons who are only here a few weeks usually haven’t developed strong enough ties to Torch Lake to stay.”
Mandy turned this information over in her head. Commander Hawkins had found a way to hit back at them. Still, why would the Commander care that much whether Russ was still here or not? The hearing was already done. Whatever damaging testimony Russ was going to give had already been given. Was Commander Hawkins really so petty as to send Russ out on a mission just to make a point that he still had some power?
Mandy frowned and sat back in her chair, thinking. Commander Hawkins could indeed be petty. Mandy had seen that herself. But the man also hated work, and all the paperwork necessary to end Russ’s training early would have been a lot of work. Why would Commander Hawkins have gone to all that trouble just to annoy Mandy and the rest of the dragons?
Mandy had the feeling that something deeper was going on here. But what?
“You alright?” Jake asked. “You’ve gone a little pale.”
Mandy shook her head. She wasn’t alright. The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, which had started when Russ didn’t text her this morning, was slowly growing. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew in her gut that something wasn’t right. Russ was in trouble.
“Do you know where Russ was supposed to go to hunt dark monsters?” Mandy asked. Her heart had started to pound with fear. She hoped she wasn’t too late.
“Uh, yes,” Jake said, shuffling through some of the papers on his desk until he found one that must have been Russ’s orders. “He’s supposed to be going to the Gray Oasis Forest, a bit north of here. There were dark monsters spotted there several times last month.”
“I’m going to him,” Mandy said, jumping to her feet.
Jake looked startled. “Mandy, don’t be foolish. The Gray Oasis Forest is huge. He’ll be nearly impossible to find, and you’ll be in danger. Dark monsters are difficult to kill if you don’t have dragon fire. You could be killed yourself. Russ will be fine. All he has to do is breathe fire on the monsters and they’ll be dead.”
But Mandy shook her head. “I have to go. I have to find him. It’s not the dark monsters I’m worried about. It’s Commander Hawkins.”
“Commander Hawkins?” Jake asked, confusion etched into his face.
“Yes, Commander Hawkins. This is no ordinary mission, Jake. Commander Hawkins is intending to murder Russ.”