The demons at rainbow br.., p.2
Dragon Conjurer 5, page 2
“Perfect,” I said with a nod. “Knock them out.”
Nick pulled out another set of darts from a pouch on his belt, and he headed over to get the Grunch subdued for us.
Then the intense beating of the helicopter blades drummed in my ears, and as the reeds and vines began to sway drastically in the wind, I craned my neck to see Silva’s helicopter flying in.
“Well done, kids,” Silva’s voice crackled through the radio. “Jefferson, do you think you can make me a landing platform?”
“Nala?” I asked over the noise of the chopper’s engine.
“On it,” the curly-haired beauty shouted, and she lifted her hands to solidify a large platform of slick mud into solid dirt for Silva’s helicopter to land on.
We all stood back as Silva landed, and once he cut the engine, and all the ruckus of the helicopter finally quieted down as the rotors stopped spinning, Ky glared at me slightly.
“Alright, buddy, I know,” I said soothingly to the huge blue beast and patted his hide. He was larger than an elephant now. “Come on, Epistrophi.”
The blue dragon disappeared in a flash of cold light as he slithered back under my skin and curled up on my bicep.
“Come on, you, too.” I smiled at Beyblade, Goldie, and Thor as they all seemed to frown at me. “I know, it wasn’t that interesting for you guys. I promise I’ll let you guys run around soon. Fanhui, Moduro, Komme Tilbake.”
A pleasant tingle ran through my body as Beyblade’s heat settled on my chest, Goldie slithered onto my other arm, and Thor’s electricity rippled along my spine.
They were all getting so large, I had begun to wonder how many dragons I could possibly summon before I simply ran out of skin for them all to live in.
“Alright, we haven’t got all day, let’s load ‘em up,” Silva called out as he pushed two large cages out of the cargo hold.
“Here, let me make a path,” Nala said, and she created a sort of sidewalk made out of solid earth from the landing platform over to the hole where the monsters waited.
It only took us a few minutes to load up both of the Rougarou and the three Grunch into their solid steel cages and into the helicopter. Then the five of us strapped into our seats, and after Silva lifted us into the darkening sky, Nala collapsed the earthen platform back into an inconspicuous bayou once more.
“Alright, cadets,” Silva’s voice rang out over our headsets. “Strap in, we’ve got a short flight back to AIMM’s base outside Houston where we’ll leave this lumbering monster and pick up my girl to get back home. As always, I’m Captain Silva and…”
“We can go fuck ourselves,” the five of us chuckled in unison.
“Exactly right,” Silva quipped back, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“That was so easy, it was almost relaxing.” Steffi smiled and leaned her cotton-candy pink hair back against the headrest.
“Almost,” Nala giggled, and her dark curls bounced around her shoulders. “Turns out the earth is harder to manipulate when there’s that much water in it.”
“I feel like I didn’t even do anything,” Elisabeth said with a little pout. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I placed a kiss on her coppery hair.
“That’s not true,” I countered.
“Dylan’s right,” Steffi said. “You knew there was more than just the Rougarou down there.”
“We’re a team, no matter what, and we all play an important part.” Nala smiled.
“Anybody else want one?” Nick asked as he tore into a granola bar.
“No thanks,” Nala chuckled.
“I do,” Steffi said as she held out her hands.
“Here ya go.” The blond dude tossed a granola bar over to my pixie dream girl, and then we settled into a comfortable silence for the rest of the short chopper ride.
“Hang on, Cadets,” Captain Silva said a little while later. “We’re coming in for a landing. We’ll do a quick change over to my jet and then head back to AIMM.”
My stomach bottomed out for a second as we landed, and then we all unbuckled our seatbelts and gathered up our equipment to head over to the jet. Several AIMM crew members made quick work of transferring the two large cages from the helicopter into the cargo hold of Silva’s jet, and apparently the tranquilizers had worn off, because the monsters inside banged angrily on the steel walls.
“Come on, let’s get home,” Nick stifled a huge yawn. “I need a good dinner or--”
“Yeah, we know.” Nala rolled her eyes as she settled into a seat.
“Your blood sugar,” I chuckled and sat beside Nala.
Elisabeth took the seat on the dark-haired beauty’s other side, and Steffi strapped herself into the open seat on my left side.
“I can see you wasting away with every second,” Steffi teased the nymph.
“Go ahead and joke.” Nick glared at us with good-natured humor. “One day, I’ll pass out on you guys, and then where will you be?”
“Whatever will we do without all your geeky references!” Nala gasped and held a hand up to clutch her pretend pearls in mock horror.
“This is Captain Silva,” the pilot’s voice rang out through our headsets. “Strap in, we've got a ways to go before we get home.”
My stomach lurched as we took off down the runway and into the air, but it settled quickly as we leveled out at cruising altitude.
“Okay, kids,” Silva said. “You’re free to roam about the cabin, we’ve got a few hours of flight time ahead of us.”
“Are you going to sleep?” Steffi asked as Nala and Elisabeth settled into quiet conversation beside me.
“Yeah.” I nodded at my pink-haired lover. “I think so.”
“Okay.” Steffi smiled at me and settled back in her seat.
I took a deep breath and did the same, and I did my best to embrace the calm while I had a chance.
So much had happened in such a short time that I constantly felt like I was trying to catch up to my life lately.
Just a matter of months ago, I was a regular college student working as a busboy at the local cafe. Since then, my entire world has been flipped upside-down in the best way. Now, I got paid an excessive amount of money to stop monsters from destroying the world, and every day, I was reminded how lucky I was to have been paired up with such an amazing group of magical users.
Lately, we’d been working our way toward becoming the best team AIMM had had in a long time, and we’d been unofficially designated as the Academy’s special ops team to deal with the increasing number of multi-monster and displaced monster attacks that were causing havoc all across the planet.
Things at the Academy had been relatively manageable in the two weeks since my team had defeated a Hydra in Oregon. We hadn’t come across any more displaced monsters within our own jurisdiction, but the multi-monster attacks just kept coming, and catching up on sleep was becoming a hobby of mine.
It wasn’t always easy to manage, though.
Thor wriggled restlessly across my back while I tried to drift off to sleep, and his electricity sizzled up my spine uncomfortably. The heat from Beyblade on my chest was almost too hot today, and itchy like a mild sunburn, and the chill from Ky on my right arm actually made my fingers cold. Goldie was the only one not acting up right now, and I let out a heavy sigh while I tried once again to get comfortable.
My dragons had been getting stronger with every battle and training session, and I had a suspicion this was why my tattoos felt noticeably more active. Over the last week, though, I noticed it took my dragons a while to calm down after I summoned them back, and today was no different.
It must have been an hour before I finally drifted off to sleep, and it felt like only a minute had passed when I was pulled from my pastel dreamscape of satin pillows and silky skin.
“Come on, cutie.” Steffi’s soft voice cooed. “Rise and shine.”
“Mmm,” I hummed and stretched as I opened my eyes. “Back already?”
“Yep, and it’s still daylight,” Nala said with a smile.
“Time zones, man,” Nick laughed, and he looked far more awake than he had when we left Louisiana.
“You seem all perky again.” I smirked at the blond nymph as I stood from my seat and stretched the sleep from my muscles.
“You know me, dude,” Nick chuckled. “Up with the sun. I’m still starving, though. Need dinner.”
“Yeah, I know,” I laughed. “Let’s go debrief quickly, and then we can head over and get something to eat.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Nick gave me a left-handed salute and walked off the jet.
“I’m the only captain around here,” Silva said to the thin blond guy and gave us all a smirk. “Good job, kids, go get some grub.”
“Thanks, Silva.” Steffi smiled at our pilot and bounced away.
I nodded at the captain and followed my team out of the hanger and back toward the main building of AIMM’s compound.
We strode together to the elevator and rode it up to Burkhard’s office.
“Well done, team,” the kingpin look-alike greeted us from behind his desk. “I see you’ve successfully brought back two Rougarous and even a few bonus monsters for the Academy.”
“Just doing our job.” Nick smirked as he sat down in a chair.
“Yeah, there was a small population of Grunch in the bayou,” I explained. “We figured we’d capture three to bring back.”
“We’d never heard of the Grunch until Dylan explained about them,” Steffi added.
“Indeed.” The headmaster smiled. “We’ve never had a Grunch in our facilities before. Well done, Mr. Cooper.”
“Thanks,” I said. “They seemed to have some sentience about them.”
“They were using blowguns,” Nala explained. “They shot darts at Steffi.”
“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Foster.” Burkhard grimaced at my pink-haired girlfriend. “Quite unharmed, I see?”
“Yes, headmaster.” Steffi nodded and pulled a plastic bag that held a small dart capped with the fluffy down of a goose from her pocket. “I managed to grab one for the lab. I expect they may be poisonous.”
“Excellent,” the headmaster said and reached out to take the dart from my teammate. “Dr. Hastings will be excited to study this.”
“Mm.” I cleared my throat and grimaced slightly as Ky and Goldie twitched with irritation under my skin.
Nala glanced over with a questioning look, but I shook my head so she’d know everything was fine.
“Anything else of note to report, Mr. Cooper?” The bald headmaster steepled his thick fingers.
“No, business as usual today,” I answered and readjusted in my seat.
“Very well, then.” Burkhard nodded. “Once again, well done. Go ahead and get yourselves some dinner and enjoy the rest of your evening, cadets.”
“Thank you, sir.” Steffi smiled and pulled the door open for us as we filed out of the headmaster’s office and back down the hall toward the elevator.
“I’m starving,” Nick grumbled as we rode the elevator up to the sixth floor.
“We know.” Nala rolled her eyes and then turned to me. “Let’s go feed this bottomless pit of a teammate.”
Our new suite had its own personal kitchen, and we’d recently decided this was the swiftest and best way to manage our nymph teammate’s hunger. Nick beelined for our suite door the second we got off the elevator, and by the time we all joined him inside, he was already in the kitchen.
“What do you guys want?” Steffi asked as she walked across our common room to the kitchen area.
“You know it’s Taco Tuesday,” Nick declared as he rummaged through the stainless-steel fridge.
“I’ll chop some onions,” Nala offered and looked at Elisabeth. “If you grate the cheese.”
“I can do that.” The French girl smiled.
My team worked together as efficiently in the kitchen as we did on the battlefield, and before too long, we sat down at our table together and chatted comfortably as we dug into a delicious lunch of garden salads and beef tacos.
The suite was gorgeous and a pleasant setting to unwind in after a long day. The common room had gleaming, hardwood floors from end to end, and a large Asian-feeling rug in vivid red and orange colors padded the space under the leather sectional and recliners. All along the wall near the couch were at least a dozen house plants of varying shades of green, and our dining table sat on the white marbled floor of the kitchen near a window. The view from here displayed the expansive grounds of AIMM, and it definitely beat watching cadets stand in a cafeteria line while we ate.
“I’ve never heard of those Grunch things before,” Nala said as she stabbed at her salad.
“Neither have I.” Steffi bit daintily into her meal. “I don’t think they’re part of the SEEKR database.”
“Well, thanks to us, AIMM can add them into the database now,” Nick said smugly through huge mouthfuls of the six tacos on his plate.
“I’d like to take a shower when we are done eating,” Elisabeth said as she dabbed at the corner of her full lips with a napkin. “I have bayou mud in places it should not be.”
“That’s a good idea,” I murmured, and the image of the French beauty’s smooth strawberries-and-cream skin all slippery with soapy bubbles rose in my mind.
Then Ky wriggled on my bicep, and my spine tingled from Thor’s electricity. Beyblade seemed restless on my chest, too, and I knew my dragons wouldn’t be patient enough to allow me more than a quick shower before taking them out somewhere to let them stretch their legs.
“Oooh, me, too,” Nala sighed as she finished her meal.
“Yeah,” Steffi agreed. “I’d like to get the smell of swamp out of my hair before we do anything else.”
“Alright,” I said and got up to bring my empty plate to the sink. “I’m gonna go wash up and change into fresh clothes.”
“Same!” my three girls all said in unison.
We all unloaded our plates into the sink, but Nick picked off every scrap of food from his own plate first.
“Have a good shower,” Nala chuckled and blew me a kiss as she headed over to her private room.
“See you in a bit,” Steffi kissed me on the cheek before she danced into her own room and closed the door behind her.
“The hot water is going to feel amazing,” Elisabeth said with a little wink at me before she, too, disappeared into her room.
“Alright, dude,” Nick said with a smirk. “Shower time.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” I smiled and walked into my own private space.
The room was even larger than the one Nick and I had shared in our old dorm, the floor was covered in a thick carpet in a pleasant shade of tan and the walls were painted to match. My X-Files and Twin Peaks posters hung above the king-sized bed that sat against one wall, and a soft blue duvet and matching pillows made up the large bed. On either side of the bed were solid mahogany end tables and modern steel-frame lamps with rectangular shades.
I kicked off my mud-caked boots, stripped off my filthy cargo pants, pulled the buttons open on my plaid shirt, and dropped them all into the laundry chute before I went through the door to my private bathroom.
The bathroom was just as luxurious as the rest of the suite and tiled in expensive white marble. There was a walk-in shower and a huge soaking tub. The mirror above the sink was polished to perfection, and the sight of my mud-caked hair and face in the mirror really ruined the whole HGTV vibe the bathroom gave off.
The hot water felt wonderful after the chilled mud of the Louisiana bayou, and Beyblade wriggled happily under my skin for a moment as I stood under the streaming water for a moment.
The comfort of the hot water soon seemed to wear off, though, and Beyblade and my other dragons burrowed with frustration in my skin again. I gritted my teeth and sucked in a sharp breath as Thor gave off a jolt of electricity, and it felt like he was scratching his talons along the notches in my spine.
“Easy, guys,” I sighed, but my magical companions were restless and irritated. I could tell they needed to get out and run, and they needed it soon. There was no way I’d get a good night sleep until I allowed my beasts to get in some good exercise.
I quickly scrubbed the crusting mud from my hair and took a moment to shave before I shut off the shower and stepped out into the steamy air of my bathroom. I wrapped a thick towel around my waist and used another to quickly dry my hair. Then I walked back into my bedroom and pulled a clean uniform from my drawers.
A few minutes later I walked back into our common room to find Elisabeth had already finished her shower. She sat back on the couch, and her fingers nimbly twisted her still damp red hair into a single long braid as she waited for the rest of us.
The French girl was gorgeous in her new AIMM uniform.
The material hugged her in all the right places, and the double yellow stripes complimented her red hair nicely. Since El would be staying with us indefinitely, Burkhard and Dr. Hastings had agreed she should be ranked with the rest of us, and I was so proud of my girl for starting as a yellow two.
I knew she would be an orange rank in no time, and I honestly felt a little smug about it. If I had my way, my entire team would be ranked up to red within months.
“Hey there, sexy,” I murmured as I walked over to the couch.
“Bonjour,” Elisabeth teased lightly. She stood and stepped comfortably into my arms, and I squeezed her tight against my body and looked down into her upturned face.
“Have I told you how good you look in that uniform?” I asked.
“Non.” The redheaded beauty smiled playfully. “At least, not today.”
“Well, you look fucking gorgeous,” I sighed and lowered my head to kiss her sweet lips.
“Mmm,” El hummed and leaned harder against me.
“Leave some for me,” Nala purred as she entered the common room.
“There’s plenty to go around, babe.” I leaned over and gave my dark-haired lover a passionate kiss.
Ky wriggled impatiently under my skin while I tried to enjoy Nala’s kisses, and Thor’s electricity rippled down my spine again. The sensation made my knees lock up, but Goldie and Beyblade twitched in a way that made me feel jittery right along with them.
