Chapter Forty-Three – Kris Cole

 

Three days, nearly, of travel. Bundled up in heavy, fur-lined parkas as they fought back against the biting wind and the stinging cold. The land was snow-covered and bare around them, stretching off to the mountains to the east. A stand of trees rose to both the south and north, but here they didn’t have ground cover other than the powdery white.

They’d decided against just flying in on their own wings. The Air Force and Navy layered the whole state in radar, and any object the size of a dragon was liable to draw their attention.

Instead, they’d booked a bush plane up from the lower part of the state, puddle-jumping up the coast before cutting in to the interior. Landed on pontoons on the coast, then hiked inland through the snow. The whole time, the pilot had looked at them like they were insane, but that still hadn’t stopped him from accepting their money.

And, finally, here they were at the GPS coordinates Col. Harrington had hidden throughout his ciphers.

“You know,” Hunter shouted over the wind, his voice muffled by the mask over his face, “we could’ve waited till the summer for this!”

“Pansy!”

“Well, maybe we’d be able to find whatever it is we’re supposed to find!”

Kris grimaced. He was right. What had possessed her to come out here on the tail end of winter?

But then she smiled and pulled back her hood, stripping her mask from her face.

“Kris?” he asked, a wary note to his voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Clearing some of this ice!”

She could tell, even behind the mask, that his jaw just dropped.

“Don’t worry,” she said as she unzipped her parka, “I’m not going to fly.” No matter how much she wanted to, she mentally added as she began to strip off her underlayers. The freezing air bit into her skin, into the light sweat her layers and layers of clothing had generated.

He stared in open disbelief at her as she took off another layer.

“Well, turn around,” she said, her fingers hooked under the bottom hem of her long johns.

Hunter turned, the parts of his cheeks she could see bright red from the wind. Or embarrassment. She couldn’t exactly tell.

Soon she was completely naked, ankle deep with her bare feet in the snow, arms outstretched beside her.

Seconds later, Coal, the last remaining warden of her line, stood in the snow. Thirty feet long from snout to tail, her dark, forest green scales clashed violently with the white snow all around her as her large talons dug into the packed powder beneath her.

“You may want to step back,” she said, her words coming out as a deep growl.

Hunter gathered up her clothes and turned back around, giving her a little wave like he’d just forgotten, but that this was nothing unusual. That was the nice thing about being with another dragon, no matter how annoying she could find him. At least he didn’t get surprised.

“You going to burn it?” he shouted from about fifty feet away.

“If there’s a door, I may damage it with my breath. Steam, I thought.”

He nodded, stepping back about fifteen more.

She righted herself, cracked her great, scaled neck by twisting her head from one side to the other, then beat her wings twice. Just to warm them up.

She sucked in a giant breath, filling her lungs till they were near to bursting, and breathed out a powerful gout of steam over the area. She swept her head from side to side, the condensed heat traveling over the plain of snow like an industrial blow dryer, melting it all for an instant. The snow on the ground converted, rose into the air with her own gout, and joined it in a small cloud for the barest of moments, before turning right back into minute ice crystals that rained back down to the ground like miniature hail.

But none of that mattered. Because she’d found her prize. A solid metal hatch nearly ten feet across, lodged into the ground. A bunker door, with an oversized handle fit for only a dragon-sized creature.

“Nicely done,” Hunter said, tramping out to where the snow had just been disposed of, his heavy boots crunching on the newly formed field of tiny bits of ice. “Think you can get the door, too?”

“Of course,” Coal said, slipping forward with grace and speed that belied her size. She locked her hands on the giant metal handle, scraping her claws along it in a test strike. The metal had a familiar sound to it. And, if Coal knew anything, it was a precious metal. “Tungsten.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Went all out, didn’t they?”

“Seems so. Ready?”

He nodded.

Kris twisted the handle hard, straining with all her might to break the seal. Finally, it began to turn, began to open. Groaning, she lifted the giant door on its hinge and opened it all the way.

“Ladder there,” Hunter said, pointing down into the concrete shaft, which descended deep into the earth. The air was warmish and dank, but darkness reigned at the bottom of the pit.

“See those?” Coal asked, gesturing with a claw to the runes etched into the surface.

“Yeah. They look distinct.”

“PRB runes,” the great dragon replied. “At least, the ones Colonel Harrington taught me.”

“Maybe he learned them from someone else?”

“Maybe.”

“Ready?”

“Give me a moment to change,” she said, snuffling loudly.

“Guess I should grab the packs, then.”

Ten minutes later, Kris had returned to her human form, and they’d descended into the earth. Flashlights in hand, they headed down the cavernous hallway, a passage so large that both of them could have comfortably fit into it.

“What do you think this place even is?” Hunter asked, playing the beam of light over the surface as they continued down the path. He’d stripped his face mask off and unzipped the front of his jacket now that they were out of the biting cold.

“Not sure,” Kris admitted, her eyes following after the beam. “Nuclear bunker, maybe? Something that would have protected people from fallout?”

“That implies there’s people to protect, though. No one around here for miles.”

“True. What else could it be, though?”

“Know as well as I do, those were sealing wards. They’re there to keep something in.”

An uneasy feeling crept into Kris’s stomach. She’d thought the same thing on seeing them, but had been trying to deny it to herself. What else would explain all that?

Hunter shined his light ahead, dancing it from one wall to the next. As he moved it from left to right, though, the edge seemed to disappear as the long hall opened up into another chamber.

“What?” he asked as Kris stopped him with an arm across his chest.

“We’re here. Ready?”

He nodded solemnly, an uneasy look in his eyes. Together, they stepped down to the end of the hall. Off in the distance somewhere, a drop of water dripped against the concrete at a steady pace.

The room felt cavernous, and the quality of the noise and the feel of the air seemed to change as they walked out into it. A great, empty volume surrounded them in all directions.

Hunter raised his light from the floor, running it forward over the ground till he stopped.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, his breath heavy.

Blood pounding in her temples, Kris took a step forward, watching as the light trailed up a giant chicken leg. “Jesus,” she breathed, a feeling of sickness rising in her stomach.

“So it is, then?” he asked as he illuminated the bottom of an old, Russian-looking mud hut at the very top of a pair of chicken legs. “Baba Yaga.”

“I thought she was just a myth,” Kris said, her breath coming faster.

Off in the distance, back down the path they’d taken, a great creak of metal groaning on metal.

“What’s that?” Hunter asked, spinning around, his light bobbing wildly.

“The door!” Kris roared just as it shut, clanging with finality. “The fucking door!” She sprinted into the dark, not waiting for Hunter. He came running behind her, his light bouncing crazily as he tried to catch up.

“Stand down, soldier!” called a familiar, masculine voice from ahead. “Everything’s okay.”

Kris came to a screeching halt, so quickly that Hunter bumped right into her back, nearly bowling her over with his surprising mass. He caught her by the shoulder in his strong grip, though, and kept her upright.

“Did you hear that?” he said in a harsh whisper.

Footsteps sounded far off in the darkness, echoing throughout the concrete chamber. “Of course she heard it, Hunter,” the voice said as its owner approached the light. “I was talking to her, wasn’t I?”

“Sir?” Kris asked, her voice trembling a little. “Is that you?”

A few steps later, old, weathered combat boots stepped into the light. “Of course it’s me, soldier.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Hunter said. “Colonel Harrington.”

“Kris, Hunter. I apologize in advance.”

“Apologize?” Kris shook her head. “For what?”

“For this. Men? Disarm them.”

Light came from nowhere, then, blinding them both with its suddenness. Seemingly out of the walls, but actually out of small hatches in the sides, troops came flooding in, guns trained on them. A dozen men, all wearing dark fatigues and face masks, automatic weapons pressed to their shoulders. Within seconds, both Hunter and Kris were surrounded by a squad of brandished rifles.

“Colonel?” Kris asked, her voice dropping as she reached back, clinging to Hunter for support.

Hunter squeezed her right back, his breath hot and loud in her ear.

“I apologized in advance, didn’t I? And, for your own safety, don’t make any sudden movements. Believe me, these men know how to kill dragons.”