It’s time for our first look at the fifth book in the Of Cinder and Bone series, Of Claws and Inferno! Below the synopsis is a sneak peek at the action. Enjoy!
In a modern day world teeming with marauding dragons, there is only one solution: The Wild Hunt.
Dr. Rhett “Jack” Jackson and Dr. Kamala Anjali have worked for the Knight Division capturing wild dragons for years, but now the government has decided to hold a tournament called The Wild Hunt. Jack, Kamala, and their teammates Calloway, Libby, Agent Shannon, and Yousef, must capture five of the deadliest dragons alive before the opposing team or they lose their jobs at the Knight Division. Jack and Kamala are also chasing after Kazuma Okegawa, the yakuza lieutenant who has been trying to kill them. Okegawa is planning a hostile takeover of the worldwide illegal dragon trade and if he succeeds, everyone will be in grave danger. Between the Wild Hunt and Okegawa’s plot to destroy everything in his path, Jack and Kamala have to rely on each other to stay alive in the middle of an inferno.
Of Claws and Inferno is the fifth book in the Of Cinder and Bone science fiction/contemporary fantasy series. It follows Of Cinder and Bone, Of Blood and Ashes, Of Dawn and Embers, and Of Fury and Fangs.
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CHAPTER ONE
THE MAD HARVESTERS
The abyss gazed back.
That was what Dr. Rhett “Jack” Jackson, MIT scientist and Knight Division dragon hunter, had learned over the last year.
Jack wiped the sweat from his brow, brushing his dark brown hair away from his sticky forehead, and then concentrated on the high-powered binoculars in his hands again. He winced as a bit of reflection off the water seared his retinas for a brief moment and then did another careful sweep of the area before him. Nothing yet.
He sat back on his haunches and popped open his canteen of cold water, the ice cubes inside it rattling around as he took a sip. He set it down beside him and then checked the digital screen built into the forearm of his gunmetal grey armored suit. The screen showed him numerous dots indicating the massive flock of flamingos several yards away, feasting on the spirulina algae that made Lake Natron its unique reddish-orange color. He adjusted the dragon tracker to expand the area and studied it. Still no sign of their mystery guest who had been gobbling up flamingo eggs and leaving behind torn up bird corpses as of the last two weeks. However, the lake’s natives had been kind enough to give him detailed information about the sightings of the unidentified dragon interfering with the local ecosystem. They’d said it usually fed around this time, so he just needed to be patient. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t exactly Jack’s strong suit, but the more retrieval missions he went on, the more he learned to be patient.
Besides, he had a two-year-old daughter back home. Parenting a two-year-old meant he’d had to acquire oodles of patience lately.
“How’s it coming, boss?” a male voice said through the link in his ear.
“Somehow both boring and weird?” Jack said. “I’m not sure how that works.”
“Life’s funnier that way,” Yousef al-Badri mused. “I take it our party guest is being shy, then?”
“I can’t imagine he or she can smell me, not with what’s going on in the lake. Maybe they just want me to get a tan.”
“You are pretty pale sometimes, cowboy.”
Jack pretended to scowl and deepened his voice into indignation. “That’s racist.”
Yousef laughed. “My bad. I need work sensitivity training.”
“Clearly.” Jack’s forearm beeped. “Oh, wait a sec. We might be on.”
He picked up the binoculars again and focused on the muddy bank roughly forty yards out where he spotted several nests clustered together. A few of the pink birds had nestled on top to nap in the afternoon sun, but some had been left bare as the flamingoes had gone into the caustic waters to feed. The beeping had indicated that the dragon tracker picked up on a reading consistent with a dragon. He swept the area twice and didn’t confirm a visual, frowning as he glanced down at the screen again to see a blob quite a bit larger than the dots that represented the flamingos. “I don’t know if I should have Faye take a look at my equipment or if I’m going blind. No visual, but I’m getting a reading on the tracker.”
“You sure the sun hasn’t cooked your brains?”
“Not yet, I don’t think.” Jack rubbed his sinuses, then his eyes, and checked the area again.
And this time, he spotted something unusual.
Lake Natron resided in northern Tanzania near an active volcano known as Ol Doinyo Lengai. It was part of the reason the lake had such unique characteristics. The mud had a curious dark grey color over where he’d been set up for observation, and he noted that there was now an odd-looking mound of it to the right of one of the flamingo’s nests. He zoomed in further and further, peering at it, and then realized what he was actually seeing.
The dragon had crouched down beside the nests and blended into the mud. From snout to tail, Jack calculated it had to be twelve to fourteen feet long. Its wings were folded against its back, which had small spines running down the length to a spiky tail. It had a fin with three prongs along the base of the skull and webbed feet tipped with sharp black talons. He estimated the dragon was about the size of a large hyena. It peered up at its prey with beady red eyes, its black forked tongue darting out every few seconds. Its shoulder muscles bunched and its hind legs tensed.
Then it pounced.
The dark grey dragon leapt onto one of flamingoes atop its nest and seized it by the throat. The bird squawked in distress and immediately beat its wings, trying to free itself. The others around them took to the skies in panic. The dragon slammed it into the mud and closed its jaws around the animal’s throat, blood spilling everywhere. The flamingo yelped out its last breaths and then finally stilled. The dragon dropped the limp carcass and sniffed the eggs before beginning to swallow them whole one at a time.
“Holy shit,” Jack muttered.
“Have we got a visual?”
“Oh, yeah. Based on the size, the natives and the conservationists were right to be concerned. It can probably wipe out a serious number of wildlife in a short amount of time based on what I’m seeing. There’s only a handful of fauna that can survive in these conditions and it could make mincemeat out of them.”
“Alright, so what’s the plan?”
“They told me it’s very agile, which is why their attempts to capture it haven’t worked. I’m going to see if it responds to any of the usual stimuli. So far, they said it doesn’t appear to be aggressive.”
“Copy that. Be careful, cowboy.”
“Ten-four.” Jack glanced down at his utility belt and opened the pocket on his left side, withdrawing a thin silver whistle. He put it to his lips and blew for several seconds. Much like a dog whistle, Jack couldn’t hear anything.
But the dragon’s head creaked around and those beady red eyes locked onto him.
Jack lowered the whistle and licked his dry lips. “If I were in a movie, this would be the part where I said, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’”
The dragon roared, its grey wings extending out from its body, and then flew straight at him.
“Shit!” Jack leapt to his feet and slid down the muddy hill in a hurry. At the bottom of the hill, there was a miniature camp with his supplies and weaponry awaiting him. He scooped up the net launcher—an over-the-shoulder device similar in size and build to a grenade launcher—and then his helmet. He slapped on the helmet and hailed Yousef as he sprinted towards the shallow outskirts of the lake. “We’re on, Yousef! Fire up the engines!”
“I’m on it, cowboy.”
As he ran, a shadow swept across his 6’2’’ form. Jack ducked and the dragon flew over his head, missing with its sharp talons by mere inches. The dragon wheeled around in mid-air and swiped at him again. Jack threw himself into a roll. The dragon missed a second time. Jack knelt in the shallow, muddy water and peered through the net launcher’s scope, sighting down the barrel for a shot. “Non-aggressive, my ass.”
He fired. The diamond wire net shot from out of the barrel end and opened as it flew through the air towards the dragon. It flapped its wings once, hard, and the net missed it by a few inches. Jack cursed under his breath and slid it around on its strap to his back as the dragon dove at him again. He waited until the last possible second, then rolled to one side. The dragon hadn’t compensated for flying that low and lost its trajectory. It splashed into the shallow, salty waters and rolled a few feet away, hissing in annoyance. The reptile struggled onto its feet and faced him again, shaking the water off its scales as it crept forward.
“Alright, so we know you don’t like the whistle,” Jack said, keeping an eye on the agitated dragon as he hit a few things on his armor’s display. “Let’s see if maybe we need to change the tunes.”
Once more, the dragon’s muscular shoulders bunched in attack position and its hind legs tensed to propel it forward at him.
Until Kitty Kallen’s soothing voice filled the air.
The dragon’s hissing lowered in volume. Instead of pouncing, it remained in the same spot of shallow water, now focused on the sound of “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” playing from the speakers in Jack’s forearm. To the average person, it wouldn’t sound like anything more than a great song from 1945. However, to a dragon, there were subtle notes that the Knight Division had picked up that seemed to sooth the powerful creatures into a far less aggressive state.
“That’s it,” Jack said. “I’m not here to hurt you. Take it easy.”
As the song continued playing, Jack eased closer to the creature. It eyed him, snorting uneasily, but remained standing still. He cautiously held out a hand and the dragon barked at him, displeased. He rethought the gesture and instead checked the water where they stood, which was up to his ankles. He spotted one of the only fish who could survive in Lake Natron’s waters—the alkaline tilapia—and managed to snatch one up. He held the wriggling fish out to the dragon. It continued watching him warily, but snapped up the fish when he offered it. The dragon swallowed the fish whole.
Jack held his hands out in supplication. “We good?”
The dragon continued eying him.
Then it tackled him right off his feet.
Jack landed in the shallow water with a pained groan, winded, his shoulders pinned by the dragon’s legs. “I guess that was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
He unholstered his tranquilizer gun, but to his surprise, the dragon didn’t try to bite or scratch him. Rather, it peered down at his helmet as if simply curious, the tip of its tongue lightly touching the visor. Jack decided to follow his instincts and kept perfectly still beneath the reptile. After a moment, the dragon folded its wings, indicating a change in mood from aggression to docility.
“Talk to me, Jack,” Yousef said.
“I think we’ve reached an understanding,” he said, though strained. “The frequency seems to be working. I’m up close and personal. Looks to be a female, so we need to sweep the area for a nest in case she’s already migrated and laid hers.”
“Got it. Do you have a clear shot?”
“Not sure. Scales appear to be incredibly thick. I’ll try to find a soft spot.”
“Alright, I’m inbound for pick up. Be careful.”
Jack cleared his throat. “No offense, madam, but I’ve got two girlfriends who are very jealous women. You wanna get off the goods now?”
He reached up to push the dragon off of him, but it hissed and shoved down on his shoulders again to keep him flat. The salt deposits in the water dug into his back painfully. He could hear the distant sound of the rotors on Yousef’s helicopter as it approached. In general, dragons didn’t like any flying vehicles. He didn’t want to scare her off, so he’d have to gamble on what he knew about dragons around her size.
Jack drew his penlight from another pocket of the utility belt and set it to strobe. The dragon focused on the flashing light and sniffed at it curiously. Carefully, Jack angled the barrel of the tranq gun at the creature’s belly, which had white scales from its chest to its hindquarters. He could see spaces in between the scales where its flesh would be and took a deep breath, praying before he pulled the trigger.
The dart hit a spot below the dragon’s sternum. The prick of the needle made the dragon roar and snap at his head. Jack dodged and brought up his right forearm to block the next bite. The dragon worried him like a dog with a bone, trying to chomp through the armor, and he fired a second dart near the first one. The dragon still didn’t drop, so he shoved a foot against its midsection to get from under it. He struggled onto his knees as the dragon’s jaws closed even harder over his arm, trying to keep him from getting loose.
“Okay, now you’re just being a bitch!” Jack rolled and then jerked his arm hard in the opposite direction. His arm yanked free and he reached for the net launcher on his back as the dragon charged him again. He fired just as it reached an arm’s length away. Too late, the dragon tried to launch itself into the air. The net wrapped around its upper torso and pinned its wings to its sides. It flopped into the shallow water with a yelp a scant foot from Jack’s legs.
He heaved a sigh of relief. “Jesus Christ. No wonder you’ve been giving the locals so much trouble, girlie.”
Jack withdrew a nylon band from his belt and carefully straddled the wriggling creature, slipping it onto her jaws once he’d pinned them closed. He tied her hind legs with a tether and then carefully hauled her back onto the muddy banks of the lake just as he spotted Yousef’s helicopter on its way over. As it approached, the dragon’s movements slowed. He checked her pulse and it was steady. Depending on the dragon, the sedatives in the tranquilizer gun didn’t always take effect immediately. He’d have to consult with Libby about the animal’s initial resistance.
Yousef landed the helicopter in the shallow end of the lake. He was a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a bright smile and a goatee, dressed in a Kevlar vest, black t-shirt, and cargo shorts. He helped Jack load the unconscious dragon inside. A cage with shatterproof glass, air holes, and food and water awaited her. They shut her safely inside and then swept the area for signs of a nest. After half an hour’s search, they found her nest away from where the flamingos collected, closer towards the volcano. Like many reptiles, it had buried the eggs most of the way. They were oval-shaped and had a faint greyish tone, about the size of an alligator’s eggs. Jack and Yousef collected them all and put them safely inside a basket to be transported back with their mother.
Once they finished loading them up, they called in the capture to the Knight Division headquarters.
“We’ve got our troublemaker in custody,” Jack said as he snapped photos on his cell phone. “I’m sending over proof as we speak. We’ve got twenty eggs we’re bringing with her too.”
“Good work,” Agent John Shannon’s gravelly voice said without much inflection.
“What, did I catch you before coffee, old man?” Jack snorted. “You sound like that stick up your ass got even bigger while I’ve been gone.”
“You don’t know the half of it, smartass,” Shannon said.
Jack frowned. “Wait, I was just trying to annoy you. What’s up?”
Shannon sighed. “You’ll find out when you get here. I need you back on the first thing smoking. We’ve got trouble.”
Jack and Yousef met eyes, both men worried. “How bad?”
“I’m not a fan of irony, fellas, but the Knight Division might be going extinct.”
TO BE CONTINUED
Excited yet? Of Claws and Inferno is available for pre-order for a special release price of only .99 cents. The price WILL increase to $4.99 on April 23rd, so grab a copy now. Don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads To Be Read shelves as well! You can also enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card.