The Vigilante & The Dragon - Book 1 of the Guardians Saga [COMPLETED]

The Dragon Awakens Ch. 2.1

A/N The above picture is of beignets, that delectable New Orleans fried pastry dusted in powdered sugar.

*****

In a gray brick lab off Tulane Avenue, Dr. Hermann paced back and forth, wearing a path in the stained, concrete floor.One of his hired riflemen sat at the largest lab table, running an oil cloth up and down his rifle. The other rifleman held an ice pack to his black eye. His sullen expression was heightened by his split lip and bruised cheek.

"You let your target escape, Perrault," he accused.

"You didn't warn us a super-powered girl would attack us," the sleek man cleaning his rifle answered.

"Any idea who she was?" Dr. Hermann asked.

"None, Professor," Perrault answered.

"She has strange, showy powers, she obviously is a skilled fighter, and easily bested both of you. And you tell me you've never seen her before with all your surveillance?" the professor demanded. Again.

The professor glared at the men, awaiting a response, but found none.

"Well?"

"No sir, if she had running around before in the same area as the creatures, we would have seen her."

The professor snorted in disgust. "Very well. We'll destroy any allies these creatures acquire. Bring me the CCTV recorder."

Perrault elbowed his battered partner, who stood up, retrieved a thin silver box with his free hand, and handed it to Dr. Hermann. The professor hooked it to his laptop.

"These creatures will search for their friend. You've seen three of them? Let's have something for them to watch." Dr. Hermann typed and clicked away on his laptop.

Perrault rolled his eyes as the professor droned on and then said, "We'll be ready for them."

"If you cannot capture one, I doubt you can capture more." Hermann's fingers either flew over the keyboard or moved the mouse in a dizzy array on the mouse pad.

Curious, Perrault and his partner watched over Hermann's shoulder. On the computer, the professor created a streaming video of the attack from the footage from the CCTV. The recording from the tiny dome camera was grainy, so, with skillful editing, the new video showed the woman attacking the creature.

"Leave the camera in the alleyway attached to a laptop. If these things have any intelligence, they'll take it and watch it. If not, we may find and capture this female. I'll find a market for her." Dr. Hermann shoved the devices into Perrault's hands.

***

The cramped alley's garbage of cardboard, beer cans, and booze bottles had been swept erratically against the walls by the fight between Alex, Gabe, and the mercenaries. Two figures surveyed the scene. They projected human appearances, but in reality they had the same draconic faces as Gabe's.

Rile, the larger of the two figures, held up a broadsword, almost three feet long, with two honed cutting edges that tapered to a point. The grip was leather wrapped and the hand-guard was composed of leaf-shaped iron bars. "Look at this, Cale."

"Gabe's blade and . . ."

Rile and Cale's faces grew grim as they noticed the blood which glinted off the blade.

"Look." Cale picked up a rifle. "It's a tranquilizer gun. They use them in zoos. I saw it on the human device called TV." He turned it over in his hands.

"The Sierra Club from Hell has Gabe?" Rile watched more TV than his brother.

"Maybe not." Cale set down the rifle and then held up a small object. "Look at this little white name-tag. I can't read the whole thing, but this word definitely is 'laboratory'."