How to Lose Your Dragon (The Immortality Curse Book 1), Peter Glenn [e book reader for pc .txt] 📗

“Agreed.” It was a lie, but he didn’t have to know that.

Whatever I’d inadvertently dragged him into by giving him that purplish cloth earlier wasn’t going to go away on its own. He’d need my protection until it was gone. But there was no sense in scaring him too much. At least not yet.

Besides, he still had a job to finish for me. Not that I had the money to pay him, but he’d agreed, and I wasn’t about to let him back down with the fate of the world at stake.

I took the offered hand and started running, dragging Rick along behind me. He groaned, and his sweat-tinged wrist almost slipped out of my grip. I clamped down harder and kept going, hoping my grip would hold. Rick grumbled a bit more, but off we went.

Behind me, the sirens grow louder. It seemed like Rick had finally noticed them, too, now, since his eyes went wild again, and he stopped protesting so much. He may not have been fond of me yet, but no one liked being questioned by the police for a murder. Especially if they were innocent like Rick. Seattle police weren’t known for going easy on people.

A police van screeched to a halt at the mouth of the alley, and my heart leapt out of my chest as a few officers piled out of it and into the alleyway.

I pulled Rick harder, and together we tumbled around a corner and out of sight. That had been a little too close for comfort.

“Stop in the name of the law!” an officer yelled down the alleyway. His voice really carried well. I was impressed.

I’d always kinda wondered why the police shouted that phrase. In all the movies and TV shows I’d watched, no one ever stopped when the police said that. They always picked up the pace.

It was the same for Rick and I. My abdomen ached in protest, and I felt a trickle of fresh blood drip from my wound, but I could deal with it later. We were only a few blocks from relative safety, if I played my cards right.

“Where are… we going?” Rick said through halting breaths.

“Somewhere safe.” I glanced back at him and flashed him a grin. “I told you.”

“Ugh.”

He didn’t seem like he believed me, but he didn’t have to. I kept going.

A knot of shoppers blocked the sidewalk ahead of us, but I plowed into them headfirst anyway, shouting obscenities and flailing like mad.

The shoppers dispersed before anything bad happened. I’m not sure if it was my antics or my general appearance, what with blood dripping from my abdomen and two swords strapped to my person, but either way, it did the trick.

One of the women dropped a bag in her haste, and several small packages spilled out onto the still-wet ground.

“Sorry!” I yelled back at her. I gave her a quick salute then kept running, Rick in tow.

We crossed the street quickly. The lights were behaving for me at the moment, so we didn’t even almost get run over in the process. It was a welcome change.

Almost there now, I kept telling myself. Just a couple more streets to get down, and we’d be safe.

Two officers spilled out onto the street behind us, looking a little bewildered. Even from this distance, I could tell that they’d come armed with top of the line tasers. I don’t know if you’ve ever been hit with a taser, but let me tell you, it’s not pretty. I’d tried it once in the nineties when the tech was really hitting the scene. Me and a couple of buddies were curious to see what would happen. Wow. Those things are no joke. I was down on the ground mumbling like a little baby in under a second. And the current models were much improved. Now they were wireless, could fire multiple shots, and could activate at up to twenty feet.

Not good news for us.

The cops came up to the women shoppers, and they pointed the two in our direction.

My expression soured. I should have helped her pick up those packages. Maybe she wouldn’t have blown our cover that way.

People these days, am I right? Won’t even keep the police from chasing you when you run them over, dripping blood on their purchases. Whatever happened to common decency?

Rick and I kept moving.

We made it across another street before my luck with the lights went awry, so I chanced crossing it anyway. A few horns blared their worst at me, but we were almost to safety, and the police had our tails again.

Rick and I raced across the street in record time, then I grazed past another group of shoppers in front of a cell phone store and dashed down the nearby alleyway. Only about a block and a half left to go now.

Behind me, the police were shouting louder and starting to catch up to us. Once more, I was reminded of the fact that I really needed to do more cardio one of these days. But in fairness, I was dragging another person along with me and had used up a lot of energy in the previous combat, and the cops were fresh.

We made it down the alley, and I sped around the corner, almost crashing headlong into a bemused homeless person, his white-knuckled hands clutching a small cardboard sign like his life depended on it.

Can you spare a dime for the world’s worst conversation? it said.

I snickered a little. The sign was funny, and he deserved to be rewarded for his creativity. I fished around in my pocket with my free, bloody hand and pulled out a crumpled fiver, tossing it at the homeless guy as we raced past him.

“There’s more where that came from if you tell the police we weren’t here!” I promised, flashing him a smile.

Homeless Guy waved at me and winked. We kept running down the street, racing