Henchgirl (Dakota Kekoa Book 1) (3 page)

It was hard to explain really, even now I had a hell of a time explaining it to my grandfather who immediately saw the practical application for my abnormal ‘aspect.’

What I told him was that I saw a second body made of light—though that was not exactly it, more like colored mist— wreathing the person. Human’s souls were a little smaller, less dense than those who were born with or infected by dragon blood. The more magic a person had in their blood, the denser, larger, and, often times, overpowering their soul was.

"Who pissed in your corn flakes?” Bobby said to me, chuckling. “I thought you'd be happy to see me." His massive bulk easily took up two thirds of the bench seat even after he scooted over.

Looking at Bobby you automatically thought ‘biker,’ he had it all: the girth, sloppily greased back hair and a concealed weapon bulge on his back, all he was missing was his usual leather jacket, his big gleaming motorcycle and one of his biker mamas to ride off into the sunset with.

Him- in the minivan- it just wasn’t right.

"I am happy to see you," I said, yawning. "I need coffee. Lots of coffee."

I did not sleep last night. Even after releasing all the emotions that I had drained into my grandfather’s ring, I still had that vampire’s emotional-memories stuck in my head. They slimed their way through my thoughts, foreign and wrong. What really kept me up was when I remembered feeling what gave that waste-of-space joy-energy, and that the residue of those acts had passed through me.

The thought that I could somehow still have tiny remnants of that creep in me gave me shudders now, or it could be Glacier’s sub-zero air-conditioning.

"Can you turn down the freezer?" I asked.

Bobby squeezed my arm and gave me a warning look.

I glanced forward to my other uncle. And, not for the first time, I realized I was completely oblivious to Glacier.

Bobby's presence was just so... big, sometimes it over-shadowed everyone else around. But just glancing Glacier’s way, I knew that he was pissed off.

His appearance, as always, was impeccable; his black hair was glued back into little dark comb lines leading from his temple to the perfect line at his nape. His dark blue suit was pressed to the point that it looked unnatural and I knew that poor suit lived under constant threat of being burned if it dared to snag or brush against a fleck of dirt.

You could never tell from my uncle Glacier’s expression or tone what he felt yet my uncle Glacier was an emotional-broadcaster. I could read his feelings like he wrote them out for me in a live journal. He was actually one of the only broadcaster’s I had ever come across.

"He is not happy." Glacier said. He did not need to clarify who he was talking about; by 'he' Glacier meant the big 'he', the 'he’ of all of our lives, my grandfather.

"What did I do now?" I asked, a little defensively.

"If I have to tell you, you don't deserve to be on my team." Glacier's voice did not ever change, not in pace or cadence, not from the happiest statements to the bleakest. However, it was chill from his soul, not the air conditioner that gave me shivers.

"I’m sorry, Glacier. I'll never do it again."

"What is the fourth rule?"

I shifted, uncomfortable that after five years of working for my grandfather under Glacier's lead, he was again reviewing basics. Swallowing any retort, I said, "If any change that has not been taken into consideration while preparing for the job occurs then immediately abort and regroup."

Bobby sighed and squeezed my shoulder, "She reported, I told her to keep going."

If possible, Glacier's temperature lowered.

"Bobby," Glacier said in the exact voice I would use to tell a very irritating person to ‘shut up’. "The only thing you're proving is you're incompetent back-up. Dakota knows her orders."

"Bobby told me to—”

Bobby pinched my arm really hard.

“Friggin’ hells,” I hissed under my breath, I slugged Bobby back, but because of the angle it did not have much power behind it.

Glacier stared at us in the rearview mirror for longer than I thought was really safe while driving. "Dakota, you're doing reconnaissance and back up for Deagan only—“

“You’re demoting me to a grunt?” I said, shocked.

“It is a temporary demotion; you will only be a collector for three months."

"Three months!" I want to cry. "Grunt work and back up for Deagan? That’s what? Like five hundred a job? And why Deagan?”

“He’s your brother,” Glacier said.

“
Half
-brother and he's a no-talent ass clown," I said.

Bobby chuckled. “Yeah he is.”

I can’t keep the pleading out of my voice this time. "Why can’t I work with you, or Bobby? I’m a soldier, I’ve earned it."

My half-brother Deagan was a grunt through and through—the official term was ‘collector;’ basically, the job of a glorified bill collector, and Deagan
loved
his work.

"Bobby is suspended and I need someone reliable at my back, not a
soldier
who decides to follow the rules at her convenience.”

I gave Bobby an apologetic look. I got him suspended? And what would have happened if he had admitted he told me to ‘abort’? I would be much more than re-assigned. I turned to Glacier and said, "I'm sorry, okay?"

I knew I had very little time before we arrived at my school and I wanted to make my case. The real reason I did not abort wouldn't melt his heart—pun not intended— but my unique aspects and ability to talk myself out of trouble was why I was the first girl in the history of our family allowed to be a soldier. Well, I might also be the only girl who ever wanted to be a soldier- also lovingly referred to as a henchman.

Hey, it was better than being a grunt or worse yet, a wife.

I spouted off the first lie I could come up with, "I know I broke the fourth rule, but I was doing it hoping to put in practice your recent lesson on quick thinking and improvisation in evasion in hostile situations. Rustom had already spotted me--"

Glacier did not even let me finish. "Three months shadowing someone who follows the rules to the letter will be good for you."

"And by ‘good,’ he means boring as all the human hells." Bobby said, mussing up my hair.

Glacier chose to ignore the comment and threw back a bag.

Opening the bag I stared in at the real reason I did not abort.

Bobby reached in and grabbed a stack of bills. "Give me some of that," he said.

Grabbing the bills back and smacking his head, I zipped closed the bag.

Glacier sighed and his soul lost some of its chill. "Do you want me to deposit your money into your college account?"

I glanced at Bobby, and without me needing to ask, he said, "I'm going to the bank, I'll do it." He took the money, and leaned down as if he was setting it down, but stuffed it into my backpack instead.

"I'll pick you up at three thirty today;
he
wants to take you to the shooting range," Glacier said.

"Today?" I said, swallowing down the nervousness and excitement that flashed through me every time my grandfather took time out of his schedule to spend time with me. This presented a little bit of a problem since I had an essential errand to run. "Wait, doesn’t grandfather have a
very important
guest coming tonight?"

I knew exactly who was coming tonight. That was what the whole family had been preparing for for weeks. I knew way more than I wanted to about the famous half-dragon Braiden McCormick, Celti in origin, but now lived in New Anglo. He was leader of the Celti-New Anglo Dracon Union, the inheritor of the VDWFH insurance corporation and all the riches of— one of those Mainland New Anglo states. And he was buying a vacation mansion on the base of the Volcano, and coming with a full entourage.

There was also a lot of talk of him having connections to two of the four high dragon Rexes, the high dragon kings, which I guess was a big deal. Braiden McCormick had been just about all my family talked about. I was already a little tired of Braiden, and the poor dracon had not arrived yet.

"Braiden and his entourage arrived Wednesday," Bobby said.

Even with the meaningful stare Bobby was leveling on me it still took me a minute to catch up.

"Not…that Celti-punk band?”

“Yep,” Bobby said, giving me a sympathetic pat on my shoulder.

“By all the dragons," I said, throwing my head back. "No wonder grandfather is pissed at me! Why in all the kingdoms would they go to the Midnight Club to perform?"

I had not even considered it could be my grandfather’s very important guest on the stage. What was wrong with me? I saw their ridiculous shoes and the way Rustom kicked that techno vampire DJ they usually featured off stage for them, a random Celti werewolf punk band that showed up and felt like playing. And Rustom obeyed that fiddle-player-guy without a twitch of his eye.

But that guy wasn’t Braiden, he spoke with a New Anglo accent, he must be just one of Braiden’s entourage.

It all made perfect sense now, why the dracons had so much power, that Celti-sounding lead singer must be Braiden, the only living son of one of the dragon lesser-kings. He was the son of
the
wolf dragon, Ferris, who started the werewolf infection with a single bite. Actually, as far as humans were concerned, Ferris was one of the most famous dragons in the world.

Braiden Mc-freaking-Cormick.

“I'm a freaking idiot,” I said as the minivan’s tires bumped over the cobblestone drive that led up to my school.

"Not an idiot, but not displaying the cognitive ability I expect from you when on assignment," Glacier said. He parked in his usual spot, a long distance away from the front of my school, to avoid drawing attention.

"Translation," Bobby said, "you're an idiot."

"Thanks a lot." I said. I leaned into him, "What is that scent you're wearing? Ode de old man?"

Bobby just turned forty, he was having aging issues; stupid in my opinion, because he looked younger than some of the seniors in my school. "Get out of here," he said, good naturedly pushing me toward the van door.

"Have a good day at school Dakota," Glacier said and, as he did every morning, he added, "don't forget your dampener."

Before I exited the van, I again extinguished my powers by wrapping the bracelet around my wrist. And as I did every day, I wondered if wearing it was worth the emptiness, the void I endured daily, just to attend an all-human school.

The hill Mabi Academy perched on had long ago been a golf course which had been forgotten and allowed to overgrow. But the gulf course had one feature that the board of trusties found too attractive to resist when choosing a location for their all-human academy: it was surrounded on all sides with moving water. A natural source of moving water encircling an area was about as strong a ward against creatures with fire in their blood as you get.

It wasn’t moving water alone that hurt the infected and dracons; we could remain in moving water for about twenty minutes without feeling any serious effect, otherwise we would be a rather stinky bunch. There was something about an unbroken circle, a moat, of moving water around a small enough space, known as a ‘water ward’ that kept us out better than any wall could.

We were all pleasantly surprised—if not shocked—when the charm my father had bought from an east-side island witch had allowed me to cross water wards. My father had been living as a human for years with it, crossing water wards, but it had not worked for any other dracon than my father, until me.

When it worked for me, my uncle Bobby tested to see if the charm had changed after my father’s death; he braved the nausea, held the charm in his hand and tried to cross the water ward at Mabi Academy at night. The moment he stepped onto the bridge, he was knocked back and knocked out and an electronic ear piercing alarm sounded throughout the school. Glacier and I had to throw him into the van and we fled the scene as if an angry mob was chasing us.

My dampener was some sort of water charm, I knew that, and for an unknown reason only I, my younger sisters and my mother could touch the dampener without immediately feeling nauseous. My older sister Clara, who had the same mother, but not the same father as the rest of us, could lift my dampener, however, after holding it for thirty seconds she was so nauseous she had to drop it.

When I neared the front of the parking lot of my school, I heard someone call out, “Morning, sleepy-head.”

I turned to see Mele Alana kicking off from her poor little sedan, the car shuddered, forced to play rap music this early in the morning. Mele dropped her cigarette and stomped the cherry out with her patent-leather shoe.

Missy, who had been, what looked like, talking without taking breaths at Mele paused to look at me. “Oh, hi, Dakota,” she said, ever peppy.

“Missy here is telling me all about how Todd Anderson cheated on Kerry Morgan with two co-eds at a college party last night, at once,” Mele said dryly, raising her eyebrows.

“If you don’t quit smoking, I’m going to kill you.” I said. “I’m not kidding; who do you think will end up having to pay for your emphysema?”

“You’re in a good mood. Love you, too.” Mele said. She wore the same uniform Missy and I did; burgundy and white plaid knee-length skirt and a white polo, but her big chest made the outfit look ‘sexy-school-girl’. Whereas my uniform made my close to pre-pubescent body just looked even more childish.

Missy nervously giggled, sounding unsure.

I looked back to make sure that Glacier left. “Wanna jump ship?” I asked as we walked toward the bridge that crossed the water ward into the Academy.

“You’re serious? School hasn’t even started. And, I think Cotton-Head already spotted me.” Nile said, referring to our vice-principal.

I looked to see Cotton-Head herself standing in front of our fortress like school; her expression always reminded me of the vultures from the Mabiian Zoo. Her cotton-ball hair caught the light as her gaze combed the lot.

Mabi Academy was an uncomfortable mix between resort and fortress. The tall wall that encircled the campus was clear as glass, not impeding the view, however, it wasn’t glass; glass wasn’t tank-proof. Once a stoned senior drove right through the small river water ward and crashed into the wall in his SUV, or so the story went, and the SUV bounced off, literally.