Chapter One

Andre grinned

in the way that beasts do when they try to imitate humans.

Tonight, he was feeling delightfully cruel. And as it often followed, the blonde-haired boy who sat in his office was being spared no ounce of the usual torment.

"Tell me," said Andre, "how's that rent coming along?"

There was a pause in the darkened room. The chair across from Andre creaked, bearing the ire of its sitter.

"Splendid," returned the boy coldly. "Last week I received a birthday card on my door signed by some guy named E. Viction."

“Oh come now, Vingarde,” chuckled Andre. “Think of that little notice as nothing more than a friendly prod to increase your work ethic.” He spat into a dusty clay pot at the corner of his work desk.

“At most it'll increase my blood pressure, sir,” the boy sighed.

Petra hadn’t come to his employer’s office in the dead of night to be reminded that the world was full of Dragons. Some good, some bad—some good for nothing and worse for the esophagus. The two beings were seated with an oil lamp between them, in a space no bigger than a cow pen. Its faint glow revealed little more than the whites of Andre’s pointed teeth.

“Well, shall we get started? said Andre. “Unless of course, you believe you have something better to be doing.”

“Resting after an eleven hour patrol?” Petra yawned. Andre took a sip of something murky from his over-sized flagon.

“Mmm, yes, well then, it’s a good thing I saved you from such an—”

His lips curled,

“—uneventful evening.”

Petra sunk back in his chair. What little fight he had left in him had quickly vanished.

“Just tell me what I’m doing wrong then so I can go home.”

“Wrong? The contrary, Mr. Vingarde. You’re doing such a superlative job that I’ve called you in for a special proposition.”

“Must be pretty special if it couldn’t have waited until morning,” Petra said with the zeal of a dried-up petunia. Andre said nothing as he pulled out a journal from his shelf. A faint smile lingered on his face as he began flipping through the pages.

“Your silence tells me it’s something illegal.” The dragon’s eyes shifted to meet Petra’s.

“Nothing out of the ordinary—for you," he purred.

Andre cleared his throat when he found the page he was looking for.

“Brass Hellsing, Crimson Crowne, Inglebert Mason—or Ironsnout Mason as he insists to be called.” He traced his claw over a line in the journal titled: Priority Targets. “You’re acquainted with our resident 'terrorist clowns' are you not, Vingarde?”

Petra folded his arms.

“The Mortal Masons? Yeah, we’ve crossed paths a time or two.”

“Then I trust you’ve witnessed their crimes first-hand?”

Petra thought back to the prior month when he had caught Mason scribbling rude gestures on the governor’s horse. And another time when Brass had illegally used his fire breath to warm up a turkey leg.

“They get up to their antics, but far as I know they haven’t harmed anyone.”

“Hmph, rubbish,” sneered Andre. “If I lost a scale for every harm they’ve caused, I’d pull trousers over my bare buttocks and call myself a human!”

“Well now that’s a sight surely no one wants to see.”

“Watch your tread, boy,” Andre growled. “I get ten letters a day from dracians complaining about those hooligans! No more citations. I want them out.”

Petra gave his tussle of golden hair a shake as if he feared sitting too long might cause the dust to turn his locks the color of Andre’s skin.

“And my end in this? Let me guess—you’ve found some way to have them dumped into that new jail in Coldirge?” The dragon raised his cup to Petra.

“You’re sharp as an unfiled claw.”

[—of which Andre had a total of five. Times four paws, that was twenty counts of violation of the “Human Endangerment Clause.”] “Go on—” Andre coaxed.

“You’re implying you want me to take them to the jail in Coldirge?” sighed Petra knowingly.

“What better patrol officer for the job?”

“I dunno—maybe one that isn’t already being run into the ground.”

“True, but you should know I’d intend to make this little errand worth your while.”

The dragon snatched a document from out of his desk drawer and proceeded to rummage for an ink pen. After failing to find one, he growled and borrowed Petra’s.

“Here. Name your price, Vingarde. I’m willing to be generous since Coldirge is a good ways off. If you take the Lindrail to Blackmoss Towne Station, I can arrange for one of my contacts to escort the Masons from there. Sound good?”

Petra traced a smiley face onto the dusty chair arm in disinterest.

“It sounds like you want to push your luck. Just because I haven't been caught outside the border yet, doesn't mean that one day it won't happen." Andre closed his eyes and nodded. "In this case," Petra went on, "I can't see how it’d be wise to have three criminals held against their will for an hour on public transportation.”

“Pah, that’s what we have cargo wagons for,” said Andre.

“Oh well I guess I should tie little bells around their necks and write ‘cattle’ on the freight car too, shouldn’t I?” Petra waited for his sardony to go over Andre’s head.

“Excellent idea! Tact always was your special spark, if I do say. And I have been saying—'get it together you sorry sots! Shape up and have a little tact like Petra!’”

He could only assume Andre was referring to the other members of the day patrol team. At eighteen, Petra was the youngest officer among them, yet due to his social skills, he’d quickly taken on a supervisory role.

Andre clicked his pen repeatedly.

“Sir, all jokes aside, you can’t expect me to be serious about something like this.”

“No?” The clicking stopped. “Mr. Vingarde, whether you enjoy my proposition or not, its still in line with your contract to do what’s required to protect this town, rummy-shacked as it may be.”

“Ramshackled, sir.” Andre grimaced and rested his chin on one paw.

“I’m pleased to remind you, your asylum is safe here in Cresswoven. The town maintains its pleasures thanks to the tasks we send you out to achieve. You in particular, Vingarde, are the most capable of succeeding at missions like this."

Gee, I wonder why—

"I think we both know why." Andre echoed aloud, as if violating Petra’s thoughts. “And for their own sakes, the Masons' time in Coldirge would give them a chance to reflect on their insensible behavior, would it not?” Petra bit his tongue.

This was the game the dragon played. After four years of playing it with him, Petra was convinced that his arrival in Cresswoven had been nothing more than a carefully crafted scam to exploit his circumstances. In every sense, he was tethered to the town like an old dog. But Petra believed he was something more—a young dog who had stayed to learn some old tricks. He’d learned well enough to sniff out Andre’s—it turned out a string of gambling debts was the real motivator in all this.

Dangerous secrets like these were what dracians referred to as “gutterings,” which Petra had acquired from the guttering capital of the world: the Red Kettle Tavern. It was Petra’s second job. And between every passed plate and polished glass, he grew more enlightened to the corruption that Andre couldn’t help from stewing in.

Petra had heard it himself amidst the drunken howling of Mr. Hellsing and Mr. Crowne. Andre was on a deadly poker losing streak, and Mason intended to soon collect that debt in, as they’d put it: “the most violent ways imaginable.”

“Tell you what—” he tapped a clawed finger upon a mess of grimy documents he hadn’t bothered to read. “Let’s just focus on Inglebert Mason. He’s the ringleader after all. Apart from him, the other two will likely simmer down and behave.” He leaned in closer towards Petra. “I know you can handle one whole dragon on your own—with your abilities. After that, maybe we can work a bit of magic to have those debts of yours canceled.”

Petra clenched the arm of his chair. What would kill him faster? The heat of the room, or the insufferable irony? Andre wasn't aware that Petra knew as much as he did, and he needed to keep it that way. But the more the soot goblin talked, the harder it was to restrain himself.

“This seems desperate, boss, even for you." Andre’s tail thrashed.

“Bletchny, boy! What do you me—”

“A risk now and then, I can take, but this 295 stuff? It’s like you’re begging for me to be deported.”

“What!”

“Article 295. Detainment protocol?”

Petra snapped his fingers and pointed to Andre’s shelf before the dragon had a chance to react. "Pass me that green book on the top shelf, would you?” Andre made the guttural noise in his throat that dragons used to express agitation. He pawed the book out and tossed it at Petra, who managed to locate the page in just a few breaths. “Right here:

‘HUMAN OFFICERS OF PATROL MUST OPERATE UNDER A “DETAIN ONLY” PROTOCOL. AT THE POINT OF DETAINMENT, A WHITEFLAME OFFICER MUST BE PRESENT TO PROCEED WITH THE TRANSPORTATION OF THE DETAINEE TO A LOCAL DESIGNATED HOLDING CELL. FAILURE TO ADHERE TO DETAINMENT PROCEDURE MAY RESULT IN A FINE OF FIVE SCOR-FERRO AND SUSPENSION OF PATROL LICENSE FOR UP TO 12 MONTHS.’”

He closed the book.

“Forget the fine,” said Petra. “You know that once I step outside Cresswoven I lose my protection. If I’m caught, that record goes straight to the commissioner’s office. And once they kick me out of here, what other one-in-a-million, "special case" humans will you call on to save your hide?”

Andre wrinkled his nose in a snarl.

“Blast! Of all the lily-livered, two-timing, turncoat, things! Two years ago you were carving up hides for a sack of scoria. Now you care so much about legality?”

“A lot’s changed in those two years,” said Petra. “I’m not the dumb kid I used to be. Considering who got me mixed up in all that stuff in the first place, well—pots and kettles, they all look the same in this goblin cave, am I right?” Andre laughed aloud, but his quivering tail told Petra that he was trying to restrain his temper. He wasn’t getting his way.

“I seem to recall that sniveling uncle of yours was half to blame for our little arrangements back in the day,” Andre muttered.

“I'd blame Erräs for more than that,” Petra said bitterly. “If you asked me to send him off to Coldirge instead, I might just think about your offer.” Andre grunted and used Petra’s ink pen to pick at his tooth.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to settle that score. Your uncle can wreak fresh hell wherever he likes for all I care, long as he’s not doing it here.”

How responsible of you, Petra thought.

He pressed his clasped hands to his bottom lip in contemplation. The dragon had proceeded to drone on about “gratitude” and “duty.” Of course Andre needed someone like him to take out the trash. The ratty old drake couldn’t win a fight with a bubblebath, much less a back-alley brawler like Ironsnout Mason.

To make matters worse, the Mortal Masons actually respected Petra. No other human had earned such a title. Not that he had consented to it. Or was particularly thrilled with having the town delinquents as members of his fan club.

It was on thankless nights like tonight, when sleeplessness and hunger mingled with the hot breath of his tormentor that the temptation tugged at Petra’s conscience. If he really wanted to, he could put an end to this all—and walk the long road home eating an ice cream cone.

“Are you listening to me you ungrateful little fleshling?” Petra’s eyes flicked back to the unsightly dragon across from him.

He wasn’t listening.

He was thinking about ice cream cones.

And whether or not the change in his pocket would be enough for one.

Andre opened his mouth to hiss another string of profanities from across his desk, but was quickly silenced when Petra stood up.

“Where the bleeding bletchny do you think you’re going?”

“Out.”

Andre bristled.

“Out where?”

Petra finished counting the coins in his hand and aggrievedly shuffled them back into his pocket.

“Out of this room cause it’s skivving hot in here.”

Andre’s brain began to race for an excuse to get his two-legged scapegoat to stay.

“Uh—patrol records! You’re not going anywhere until you hand me last week’s patrol records!” he roared. Petra blinked in disbelief.

“You’re kidding me. I dropped those off this morning. They’ve been on your desk the whole time!”

Andre glared at him. He turned to squint at the disheveled papers crying for air under his giant paws. He inhaled and gave a long puff to clear the layer of soot that was resting upon them. For a moment, he looked relieved when the paperwork seemed to appear before his eyes.

Regrettably for the both of them, the cloud of soot rose and waft through the air, circling its way back into the nose of whom had disturbed it.

Andre sneezed.

The rest was history.

Petra stood at the door watching one sleepless night of work and a balsa wood desk kindle in a steady flame. He said nothing as he slipped his way outside.