Jonathan Maberry - The Dragon Factory

Conrad Veder’s insect coldness had fled and he stood smiling as a fat European dragon waddled by. It looked like a brontosaur with bat wings and was the size of a dachshund.

Paris smiled at him. “That’s a prototype. Arthurian dragon. So far we’ve been able to make them in miniature. George here is the oldest of six that we have. He’s four.”

George the dragon trundled over to Paris and bumped his head against Paris’s leg until he fished a treat out of his pocket and let the dragon eat it from his palm. “It’s a granola snack. High protein and vitamins but with sugar, sesame, and nuts. He loves them, which is why he’s so fat. C’mon, shoo, off with you…”

The dragon ambled off, munching his treat.

A larger shape clopped past them on heavy hooves. The lower half was a powerful Clydesdale, but the upper half was a bull-chested man. He shot a frightened glance at the strangers and moved quickly away.

“You have human-animal hybrids?” Otto asked.

“A few,” Paris said. “The centaur was one of our first, but he hasn’t made the psychological adjustment. He’s not a true specimen. There was a lot of surgery involved and extensive pre and postoperative gene therapy. We’ve sunk a lot of money into that line, but I think it might be a dead end. There are too many problems with genes that code in unexpected ways.”

“Have you had any successes with animal-human transgenics? Besides the Berserkers, I mean.”

“A few,” Hecate said but didn’t elaborate. “And quite frankly, they kind of freak out the buyers. People seem to want the animal exotics. Unicorns, miniature griffins, dragons, that sort of thing. The elves and kobolds are popular, though. Now that we’re getting word of mouth we’ve been getting requests for a lot of exotics that we never thought of.”

“Such as?” asked Cyrus.

“Oh… we’ve had a dozen requests for Cerberus. We haven’t successfully made one, though. We did make a samjoko , a three-legged bird, for a Korean buyer. We made a Jersey Devil last year, and we have an order for a chupacabra . Gargoyles, too. We get a lot of requests for those.”

“This is…,” began Veder; then he suddenly remembered where he was and why and left whatever he was going to say unsaid.

Paris smiled at him. “A lot of people are speechless. You should have seen the looks on the faces of a group of buyers from China when we trotted out an actual flying Chinese dragon. It was small, of course, but the buyers were entranced.”

Cyrus walked a few steps away from the group and bent down to pat the head of a swan-sized sea serpent that had raised its head from a koi pond. The animal shied back at first, but Cyrus cooed at it until the animal came closer.

“That’s our Nessie prototype. Pretty easy design. We want to get them to the size of a horse before we sell them.”

“Wonderful,” murmured Cyrus. “Absolutely wonderful…”

Hecate beamed. Paris smiled.

Otto and Veder exchanged meaningful looks.

“Your clients are worldwide?” asked Cyrus as he tickled the sea serpent under the chin.

“Yes.”

“How unfortunate.”

“Sorry…?” asked Hecate.

Cyrus smiled and without turning said, “It’s unfortunate because in less than two days you’re going to help me kill most of them.”

“What?” said Paris.

“Our clients?” asked Hecate.

Cyrus turned his head and the smile he wore was no longer the vapid grin of a father pleased with the antics of his clever children. It was a death’s-head grin of such naked malice that the Twins actually took a step backward from him.

“No, my young gods,” Cyrus said softly, “at noon tomorrow-you and I-will launch the Extinction Wave. By this time next year I’m afraid most of your clients will be dead.”

His hand darted out and caught the sea serpent by its slender throat, and with a vicious twist of his wrist he broke its neck.

“And the dead don’t need fucking toys .”

The Atlantic Ocean-two miles east of Dogfish Cay

One hour ago

They moved silently through the night black waters of the North Atlantic. Nine figures in wet suits and tanks, each crouched over the cowling of a K-101 Hydrospeeder that plowed through the water at almost 10 miles an hour. The speeders were not the catalog versions-these new prototypes were being tested by Marine and Navy units in oceans and lakes around the world. Mr. Church had made a call and had a dozen of them flown in and lowered down to the deck of the USS New Mexico . Grace was sure that nobody else but Church could have made that happen this fast. The remaining three speeders were left behind on the submarine in case Joe and his team needed them.

Alpha Team set out from the sub thirty minutes after sunset. Divers from the New Mexico wanted to go with them and the boat’s captain wanted to send them, but Grace made it clear that this was a less-is-more situation.

“But Captain,” she added confidentially, “have your lads keep their suits on, because this will probably go from quiet to quite loud sometime this evening. At which point I’d like as much backup as you can send.”

“You’ll have it,” the captain promised. He was an ex-SEAL himself who had gone back to subs when he got too old for special ops. The gleam was there in his eye, and Grace left the sub feeling confident that he wouldn’t let her down.

Before she slipped into the water she made two last calls. The first was to Church for an update on the main wave of close support.

“Major, be advised that there is a lot of boat activity in your vicinity. Watercraft of all kind. We’re checking now to see if there’s an unusual run of sport fish.”

“No problem,” she said. “We’ll go in under them, but we’ll be careful of nets and hooks. How’s my backup coming along?”

“Every DMS agent in the continental United States is closing on your twenty, Major,” said Church. “In one hour we’ll have forty-six field operatives on the island. SEAL teams Five and Six are also inbound and we have twenty operators from Delta if we need them, but they’re an hour and ten out. Joe and Echo Team will get there first, but he’s still forty minutes behind you. He told me to ask you to save him something to do.”

“Bloody Yank,” she said, then added, “can I get a secure channel to him before we dive?”

Church hesitated. “How secure a channel?”

From the question, Grace knew for sure that Church was aware of the affair between his two most senior field commanders. She was glad Church wasn’t there to read her face. Sod it , she thought. “Very,” she said.

“I’ll arrange it.”

“Mr. Church… I don’t want another pair of boots on this island until I have that trigger device. We can’t risk showing our hand too soon, not when doomsday’s a button push away.”

“Roger that. But understand this, Major; if we don’t get that signal from you within thirty minutes of you making landfall we’re going to drop an E-bomb over the island. Your electronics will be fried along with everyone else’s.”

“So I’ll send up a flare. Blue if I have the device, red if I don’t.”

“I’d rather see that blue flare,” Church said, then added, “Grace… we can’t let Cyrus send that code. If he’s on that island and I don’t see a blue flare at the agreed time, then the EMP may not be the only bomb I’ll be forced to drop.”

“I understand. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ ”

He laughed. “Good hunting, Major.”

He disconnected, and Bug contacted her a minute later to say that she had a secure line to Joe Ledger.

“Go for Cowboy,” Ledger said.