Keeper

I. Her Problem

Morgan Black would have been the first to admit that being locked in a janitor's closet with a dragon was not a position one might call 'tactically sound'. Sometimes you just have to lean into the weird, she told herself as she adjusted her grip on her pistol. Dayang was glaring at the back of her head. He straightened his shimmering, crimson silk tie. He didn't look like a dragon at the moment, of course. A powerful, iridescent red Chinese dragon in the middle of Dulles International Airport would have been a bit too alarming. As a grudging concession to her employer's wishes, he had agreed to settle for middle-aged, Chinese businessman chic. Even the irritated Dayang knew that dragons in broad daylight could only end badly.

The female keeper was tense, narrow jaw tight with apprehension. She was the kind of woman who wouldn't stand out on any street, though her hazel eyes were fierce at the moment. Her brown hair was back in a messy bun. She wore comfortable shoes that were easy to run in, charcoal slacks, and a dove grey oxford shirt. The only thing that might have struck an observer as odd was the iron choker around her neck, like a collar, engraved with strange cuneiform markings. Her boss's instructions had been explicit: Mr. Dayang gets on board his flight back to Hong Kong with no one the wiser. The dragon had been an excellent, if cantankerous witness and now people undoubtedly wanted him dead. If the report from her partner was true, there was also a possibility that those people now knew they were here.

Ergo, janitor's closet. She saw it as a controlled point of access, out of sight and easily secured, with only a mild risk of getting high on solvent fumes. The knob rattled and she sucked in a sharp breath. Behind her, Dayang tensed. "Morgan, it's me. We're unlocking the door. All clear," a voice came through the door. The voice was muffled, but it definitely sounded like Q.

She didn't relax until she could tell it was just Q accompanied by a bemused looking janitor. The others were still covering exits and entrances, keeping their eyes peeled. Then she holstered her weapon and slipped on her jacket to cover it, and let the tension ebb out of her shoulders for a moment.

"What was it?" she asked, sweeping a loose few strands of hair back out of her face.

Q was a slightly overweight, young swarthy man who appeared to be of Middle Eastern extraction. His eyes were dark and inquisitive and he had a short, wiry beard. His suit was in a perpetual state of unkemptness, though more rumpled than actually dirty. It was his way of blending in with the locals, he insisted. She would have found it insulting, but this was Q. It would have been like taking offense at a puppy knocking a plant over. "Some random guy looking for a different Mr. Liu," Q reported.

"Typical," Dayang sneered. "You might have chosen a less common surname for your cover."

"It wasn't my ide—" Q started to protest.

"Look, does it matter?" Morgan said irritably. Four hours in a closet with a particularly arrogant dragon would do anyone's patience in and she was no saint. "Tell me you booked a new flight."

"Leaving in thirty," Q confirmed, eyeing the disguised dragon apprehensively. Dayang was glaring with his golden eyes narrowed dangerously at the idea of yet another delay. Morgan glanced at him meaningfully and the dragon's face settled back into its normal haughty impassivity. She knew she wasn't anything more than an annoyance to Dayang, not even enough for him to really get angry at, but they had a certain understanding.

"Right," Morgan said. "Thanks, Q. You did good." He was still brand new and learning the ropes, so she felt like she should reassure him, as his training officer. 

It didn't take long to put Dayang on his plane, transferring him to that blessed state she referred to as SEP—Someone Else's Problem. She was glad it had been nothing, for the obvious reasons and also because she might have had to discharge her firearm, which would have meant a mammoth amount of paperwork waiting for her back at the office. This whole thing had been a quagmire from the moment it started.