12:00 PM September 13th 12026

Industrial Park District Near the Port of New York

“I can see a claw from over here.” Specialist Jones called out, and Kyle jogged carefully over the disrupted ground to him.

“Oh. Good. Good.” Kyle murmured as he held up the notebook to the claw over twenty feet away as if he were taking a photo. “But still need more to narrow it down.”

“Just ask about dragons.” Gleipnir cried out from where Sam was poking at one of the large cylinders of flesh poking out the side of the truck. “Eastern dragons.” He grumbled with clear frustration that Kyle hadn’t listened to him the first time. His sister glared at him in solidarity with Gleipnir but said nothing as she literally poked the huge, scaled hide with a stick she’d picked up somewhere.

“WTF Sam.?” Kyle scolded “Get back. It’s dangerous.” before crossing his arms and doing as he’d been asked. “Archive query.” Kyle stated again in exasperation. “Compare scale patterns and claw shape to dragons.” The young warlock gave his sister a ‘so-there-are-you-happy look. “Will you back away from the dangerous source of magical radiation now?”

“Yep!” Jones stated quietly from much further back than either of the Wattkins siblings. “I’mma gonna die.” Alex looked over at him dubiously.

“It’s not that bad.” Then she looked back at Sam and Gleipnir quietly arguing over whose turn it was to poke it with a stick and whether or not it was cheating for her to be using a stick instead of him. Eventually, they agreed that if Gleipnir could use the stick also, then it was not warlock infidelity of the pact item.

“Yeah, it is.” Jones confirmed. “When the Harbinger finds out I let two of her kids get within stick-poking distance of a possible dragon corpse, she’s going to kill me.” He gestured at the two Wattkins, but mostly Sam, for emphasis. Alex snorted and covered her laugh.

“Oh yeah. You’re going to die. But it’s not all bad.” She offered the soldier a ray of hope before dashing it to smithereens. “It’s my job to just follow where Sam and Gleipnir lead, so she won’t have any reason to kill me.” It was Alex’s turn to receive a flat betrayed look from Jones.

“Ha. Ha. I’m so comforted.” He replied drily.

“Alright,” Kyle shouted to get the attention of his three companions. “The archive confirms it. Gleipnir was fucking right.” Then he added in an aggrieved aside “For once.”

“What’s that whipper snapper?” Gleipnir called out surprising Alex and Jones that he’d been able to hear something that quiet. “You got something to say, say it to my face.”

“You don’t have a face!” Kyle shot back petulantly.

“You speciest little pric – ” The magical item had unwound his whip end from Sam’s waist and made as if to come after Kyle. “Hold me back, Sam.” He ordered his warlock. “Otherwise, I’m gonna lay the hurt down on your brother.” Rolling her eyes and smiling fondly at Gleipnir, she gave Kyle a sardonic shake of her head.

“You just had to?” Her question made Kyle look down at his feet in shame. He and Gleipnir had…issues.

“Let’s head back to safety. We’ve only got a few more minute on our collector shields.” The four made the slow arduous way back to the waiting agent in charge and Sam and Kyle gave their reports.

“Frank,” Sam began. “I won’t be able to determine if there was any magi-tech involved until after we’ve gotten the vehicle to a secure lab site and properly quarantined.” She felt her phone vibrating and looked down at it. That person shouldn’t have been calling her right now, so it was probably important. Gesturing to Kyle she explained “Kyle can tell you why that is. I have to take this.” Then she peeled away to answer her call in semi-privacy.

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“We are looking at the corpse of an Eastern Serpent Form Dragon with shapeshifting abilities. We won’t be able to see if there is anything else in the truck until the dragon is removed.” Frank’s eyes bulged momentarily before he rubbed an eyebrow in thought.

“When will the AMD level go back down to safe levels?” He questioned distractedly, already lost in the political quagmire this was going to be. The dragons did not like it when other species had access to their remains.

There were people who still hunted dragons for their magical properties. And yes, every nation in the world ‘officially’ recognized dragons as people, but that didn’t mean that they were treated as people. Not did it mean that dragon hunters were actually prosecuted in every country where it was ‘illegal’ in the nod and a wink kind of way. The number of magical artifacts and potions that could be created from one corpse was staggering. BIG bucks! This was going to be an incident, that was for sure.

“They won’t. Not until the remains are contained. And there is possibly another live magical creature or the corpse of one in that building over there.” Kyle pointed in the direction of the damaged wall with the hole in it. “Seeing as how whatever it is smashed a hole in the wall, I didn’t want to go check it out in case it was still alive.”

“Ho-ly sheeit!” Frank rubbed more furiously at his eyebrow. “Two sources?” Kyle nodded.

“You need the largest containment vehicles you can get, and a refrigerated warehouse with not just magical shielding but with exchangeable magic collectors that can be replaced when they near capacity.” Kyle was explaining while he spoke, much in the same way he did while giving a lecture to museum visitors. Using engaging facial expressions and gesturing larger than was strictly necessary.

“Dragon corpses continuously give off arcanes as they decompose. Dragon bones and hides will retain magic for centuries. Millenia even. If we leave this carcass here, New York would be a purple zone for at least a hundred years. Maybe longer.” He was just getting into the swing of his lecture when the senior agent interrupted.

“And there might be a living one, possibly injured, and needing help, in the warehouse?” That brought Kyle up short. He hadn’t thought of the magical source in the warehouse as being anything other than a dangerous threat. But perhaps, it could be a wounded sentient being in need of help.

“Err, um. Maybe.” He gulped down a squeaked reply. “I can’t say for sure what it is. Only that he put a hole in that warehouse and has a similar magical strength to the deceased dragon in the Mountain King Movers van.

“Oh. This day just gets better and better.” Groaning, Frank waved over to one of the agents who was holding their communications scroll. They were reading the lines of messages as they formed keeping them updated about recovery and patrol efforts all over town.

“Get on the scroll, Embry. We might have an injured magical creature on our hands, possibly an Eastern Dragon. So, we need a containment team and healers. We’ll also need more forensic specialists; this is possibly an assassination or a murder. Maybe dragon hunters. And ask them again where the hell our defensive combat specialists are.”

“Someone killed a dragon?” Embry exclaimed in disbelief before unrolling the communications scroll to the clean spot under all the previous communications.

That wasn’t good news. The combat specialist mages not showing up yet. Kyle had only passed quite a few places where first responders had needed to help people. A magical overload destroyed a lot of electronics and a lot of people had found out that morning why it was important to use the appropriate magically safe equipment. None of those cheap knockoffs from questionable factories. The emergency lanes down the center of every street had been empty for him, but he wondered if it had been so orderly everywhere else.

“Hey, Frank.” Kyle grabbed the senior agent’s attention when he’d finished shouting. “Why do you have so few agents? This…” He gestured around at everything. “…this is huge. This is the biggest magical disaster to happen in America in hundreds of years.” Frank shook his head at Kyle, a look of clear confusion on his sweaty face.

“I don’t know.”

“What?!” Sam’s screamed cry of outrage reached them, and both turned to her in surprise. “What do you mean he never showed up? I’m coming to get you. I’ll be right – fuck!” She stopped in her panicked flight back to her car. “Hold tight Anna, Kyle’s with me. I’m sending him to get you now.”

“Anna?” Fear gripped Kyle when he heard his little sister’s name. She would have been at school. She would have been at school when magic collectors blew. Their mom was out of town. But dad would have gotten her surely! He thought frantically.

“Kyle.” Sam was wide-eyed and white faced with terror. It was a stark awful look, and a pit of horror began to open in Kyle’s stomach as he thought of all the things that could have gone wrong.

“Sam,” The warlock forced the words out calmly, through gritted teeth as he clenched his hands until his short, trimmed nails cut his palms and made him bleed. “What’s happened to Anna?”