CHAPTER 15

Jake

As an old song might have put it, the gang was all there.

Alex had called Ross, but Ross told the others, and they all came.So, Uncle Robert's apartment was now hosting all the Firewings.All of Alex's old friends, who were in town for their reunion.And I was impressed.

The Firewings were never a gang of dangerous thugs.Breaking the law and doing all the things you think about when you think of a "gang" was never what they were all about.They were punks and they were toughs, but they never set out to hurt anyone.They were more like a band of brothers.The Firewings were to each other as kids what Alex and I were to each other now:ferociously loyal and close-knit.They hadn't grown up the same way as I did, with comfortable upper-middle-class privilege and comfort.Their neighborhood was "the other side of the tracks," where people had little if they had anything at all.Being Firewings was their badge of honor, their pride, their only status in a life where no one had any real status.

And they were protective of that status because it was their identity in the eyes of the world.Being that they were a bunch of punk Drakes hanging out and flying together in a neighborhood that most of the city ignored — except the police — no one paid any attention to their identity anyway.But it mattered to them, and they were totally "one for all and all for one" about it.That is, until Mark Reinhardt mauled a human boy for hitting on his girlfriend.Mark made himself a threat to their identity.From the way Alex told it, and the others backed him up, there was no malicious intent in what the Firewings did.They were protecting themselves and each other when they testified against Mark.But they cut him off and he went to prison, and Mark swore to get them one day.

In the note that Mark had his goons leave when they took Lily was an implied threat against Alex, which the Firewings took as a threat against all of them, just like the threat he made that last day in court when he was sentenced.They took it seriously.And that was why Alex and nine other guys from his old neighborhood were now in my uncle's apartment, watching Ross on his laptop go hacking through Websites and databases, looking for the location of one house in the forests bordering Haventon.

The rest of the Firewings all huddled around Ross, a handsome-looking guy with a mop of black hair and a goatee, as he sat on the couch, his fingers flying over his keyboard, digging for the information that we needed.Across the room, I stood and watched them, sensing the bond they shared, the feeling from back in their old neighborhood that they would always have each other, and when one of them called, the others would always be there.I admired that about them.The world seems to do everything to pit men against each other, to make men competitors and rivals.Not these guys, though.Watching these guys together, I could feel the bond that they'd always had, and always would.They watched Ross work, and their whole world narrowed down to what he was doing.My friendship with Alex had been a miniature version of the friendship of the Firewings, a little slice of what they had.Seeing Alex with them made me appreciate him even more.

Alex looked up and over at me from where he was standing behind the couch and over Ross's shoulder, and cracked a little smile.He stepped away and came over to me.Putting a hand on my shoulder, he softly said, "We've got this.Ross is on it."

"I know," I softly said back."It's just cool to see you guys together."Glancing past him at the rest of the gang, I said, "I keep picturing how you all must have been, back on Flint Street, hanging out, looking tough.Today we're all actually going to have to be tough, for real.Tougher than I ever was, that's for sure."

"What are you talking about?" Alex said."I remember you at the Jousts, man.You were tough as hell."

"If I was, it was because I was trying to fit in, trying to convince them that I belonged there.You were more of a natural at it than I was.You had the attitude down.You learned it from being with them."

Alex chuckled."I remember how your family reacted when you brought me around the house for the first time.I overheard your mother talking to you about me.‘Jake, how much time do you really spend with him?He seems to be a bit of a ruffian.'I love that word — ‘ruffian.'I think your Mom is the only person who ever called me that."

I winced at that.Through clenched teeth, I said, "I hoped you didn't hear Mom saying that.You know, it's not that my family are snobs or anything.It's just that you weren't what they were used to."

He chuckled a little harder."Yeah.You used to hang out with such nice boys.What ever made you hang out with a ruffian like me?"

All I could do was shake my head.Alex, this ‘ruffian,' was the best friend I'd ever had.Something about the difference in our backgrounds had brought us together and made us as much brothers, in our own way, as the Firewings.We were brothers in everything, indivisible and solid, a team — in friendship and in sex.When one of us wanted a woman, we both had her.And that brought me back to what everything was now all about.

"That bastard has hurt her, I know it," I said."He's got her, and he's taken out his anger on her the way he always did; probably punished her for running away from him.She's out there somewhere, hurting again because of him.When we find him, I swear…"

Alex squeezed my shoulder, sharing the feelings that were churning inside me."I know, buddy," he said."Just wait.You want to take your fangs to his throat and rip it out; I know.Hold onto that thought."

From across the room, as if on cue, Ross called, "Bingo!Got it!"

"You've got it?" Jake responded, the two of us peering anxiously over at the other guys huddled together.

"We've got it," said Ross confidently."52 Rider Road.Out of the way, not much out there besides trees and really private homes.None of us have ever been out that way, have we?"He looked at the other guys, who shook their heads, confirming what Ross said.

"Rider Road…Rider Road," I murmured with eyes narrowed, calling up old memories.I opened my eyes wide again, focusing first on Alex, then the gang."Rider Road — I know that area.One summer I worked for my father out there, cleaning up some property he was selling.I wasn't exactly there, but I know where that is."

"And the cops are probably already there now," said Alex.

"Yeah, and Lily may be in God knows what kind of trouble."

"Firewings," said Alex to his old friends, "let's fly.Jake's leading the way."

Everyone stripped off their shirts and headed for the terrace.

_______________

I flew faster than I'd ever flown in my life.Alex kept pace with me and the rest of the Firewings flew in formation behind us.From the ground we might have looked like an Air Force squadron made up of Drakes.I matched the roadways below us to the route that I remembered taking with my father, years ago, and soon we were soaring past the city limits of Haventon and out over the countryside.City buildings and suburban shops and houses gave way to a sea of trees threaded with country roads.

The sound of dragon screeches and roars mixed with gunfire ahead of us told us where we needed to go even without my memory of being out here before.With hard beats of my wings and slashes of my tail in the air, I put on more speed in the direction of those sounds.

Gunfire — in a place where Lily was.My heart pumped as fast as I shot through the air.I couldn't bear the thought of such danger surrounding Lily, the idea of her being in a place with so much violence around her.She was so gentle, and she'd had so much violence in her life.My blood burned at the thought of what she might be facing.

If we could just get Lily out of this, I swore, I'd see to it that she never knew another harsh, cruel moment in her life.

We came over an open place at the end of where one road turned off through the forest.In a circular area surrounded by trees, with a wide lawn out in front, stood a house of stained wood with big plate glass windows in front and a big stone chimney, and a skylight in the roof.Four police cars were parked on the inlet road and the lawn.There were a few bodies lying in the grass.In our dragon form we had eyesight as sharp as an eagle.What was going on around that house was incredible.

Drakes in police gear were fighting with guns, truncheons, and Tasers as if they were raiding a Joust.But the ones they were up against were like nothing I'd ever seen before.The other Drakes were huge — more massively built than any normal dragon male.Their arms and shoulders actually had spikes, and running down the upper length of their tails were what looked like razor-sharp blades.And they were fast — so fast that when the cops shot at them, it looked as if they were actually dodging the bullets.I would never have thought anything like that was possible.Even remembering what Garrity told us about the effects of the black-market steroids, it was hard to believe the kind of effect that they had.A couple of the figures unmoving on the lawn were of the steroid-juiced Drakes, but more of them were of the police.For a second, I flashed on the image of Drakes like that in a Joust, bashing their opponents to a bloody pulp.Or worse, dragon guys under the influence of that stuff, prowling the streets.What kind of monster was Reinhardt to want to turn something like this loose on the world, to make some insane profit under the table?Who is that reckless, that irresponsible, to put a thing like that out into the world?Who cares so little about other people?

Someone who uses his Drake body and strength to beat defenseless women, I answered myself.And my God, somewhere in that mess below us was poor Lily.What shape must she be in?

I snapped out of the awful thoughts I was thinking when Alex slashed his tail, beat his wings and aimed himself down into a fast, sharp dive.Before I could call after him, he was shooting like an arrow towards that house.And from his snout ripped the screeching sound of him calling out a name: "REINHARDT!"

Taking a deep breath, slashing from my mind the possibility that none of us might come out of this alive, I dove down after Alex, and the others followed me.In a blur, we swooped down over the house, where uniformed dragons were rolling around, thrashing and sparring with drug-induced monsters.The sounds of gunshots and the snapping of Tasers — these nightmares could actually shrug off Tasers! — came to a stop, and I heard a voice that I thought must have been Garrity's calling, "Cease fire!Cease fire!Where are those reinforcements?"

We landed on the front lawn, facing one dragon brute on the front landing of the house, with an unconscious Drake cop crumpled at his feet.This bruiser had holes shot through his wings, bullet marks on his tail, and nicks taken off the razor spines running down the tail.He didn't look wounded.He looked mean.

Garrity, in his dragon shape next to one of the squad cars, called, "Civilians, clear the area NOW!You can't be here!Move out!"

Alex ignored him.He marched right up in the direction of the front landing, where the mean-looking bruiser glared evilly at him.And Alex hissed at him, "Where…is…Lily?"

"So, you've come right to me," said Mark Reinhardt."Think you're going to take what's mine again?I'm sorry to tell you, she's a bit indisposed right now."

With a roar of maddened fury unlike anything else I'd ever heard in my life, Alex launched himself like a missile at Mark.Roaring loudly enough to shake the limbs of the trees, Mark spread his wings and held up his enormous, clawed hands to meet Alex's attack.

And without another thought, I leapt after Mark.It would be Alex and me against Reinhardt — winner take all.