Jestin Kase and the Masters of Dragon Metal Read online

  He felt the car swerve and nearly tumbled from the backseat. The cat used its paws to grab hold of Jestin’s shirt for balance—Jestin felt the feline’s claws prickle his skin like tiny needles.

  “How did you . . .?” he started to ask the cat, then kicked himself mentally because cats can’t speak.

  Air blew in from the broken rear window, shuffling the boy’s hair.

  Jestin sat up, slowly, gripping his head. Oh my God, this is what death feels like.

  He looked outside, and he froze with panic when he saw the scorpion men dash within meters of the speeding car.

  “Okay, I definitely missed something.”

  “Stay down!” Father Caleb shouted from the driver seat.

  The priest turned the car hard and knocked Jestin over, nearly bashing his head against the interior of the vehicle. Vertigo washed through him again, and he noticed he still gripped the medallion and could not let it go.

  “I . . .” His mind swirled.

  Growly McHissy-Face hopped onto the boy’s shoulder and mrrow-ed with concern.

  Gideon fired his last bullet.

  A trio of scorpions bashed into a crackling force field. Another force field swatted a duo of scorpions away from the car’s roof. The car swerved. Tires screeched. Seven scorpions pursued.

  Gideon ducked into the passenger seat, gripping his head. Sweat dripped down his brow, and his veins flickered beneath his skin.

  “Gideon . . .” Jestin started to lean toward the man, but dizziness held him back, and his vision swirled. Can’t . . .

  Growly McHissy-Face pawed the boy’s head as if concerned. The feline perked his ears and glanced at Gideon, then at Father Caleb.

  “Gideon, you’re spent,” Father Caleb said.

  Gideon shook his head. “Give me a second.”

  Father Caleb cut a corner and throttled ahead, gaining some distance from the scorpions, but not much. The monsters turned the same corner and shot after the car.

  Jestin leaned his head back and groaned; pain stabbed through his arm and chest.

  Growly McHissy-Face looked out the broken rear window. The feline seemed to pause, as if hesitant. And then the cat jumped from the car.

  “Wha—!” Jestin shouted and immediately regretted it, his own voice like a drum in his inner ears.

  The cat dropped onto the street. He looked ridiculous, standing on his tiny paws, his teddy-bear face staring ahead at the wave of monstrous scorpion creatures. He sniffed a breath, almost like a sigh. And then he dashed toward the monsters.

  The cat’s eyes glowed with pale yellow light. His fur rippled like a coat of mist. And his body started to elongate.

  Jestin glanced out the back window. His eyes opened wide. Son of a mother . . .

  His cat roared.

  Growly McHissy-Face had turned into a freaking panther.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mandatory Flashback

  The panther pounced with strength and agility, clawing and biting through the scorpions of Tiamat. He moved with supernatural strength and speed, a flurry of feline fury.

  A scorpion swung its stinger at the cat. The panther bit the stinger and whipped the monster off its feet; the scorpion crashed through a storefront. The beast turned its attention to the next scorpion and pounced, claws slashing through exoskeleton, teeth biting through flesh, splattering ichor.

  A pincer grabbed the panther by the neck and lifted him off the street. The massive cat growled and spat. He used his front paws to grab the creature’s arm and lashed out with his rear paws, rabbit-kicking the limb and slashing it off the monster.

  The panther landed, pounced, and used his teeth to rip the neck out from the armless scorpion.

  One of the scorpions broke away from the fight and dashed after Father Caleb’s speeding car.

  The panther’s muscles rippled beneath his black fur. He pounced several meters through the air and tackled the scorpion off its feet; the combatants tumbled over each other. The panther ripped into his opponent, tearing the monster to scrap.

  Two scorpions remained.

  The panther’s eyes flashed with yellow light. The beast surged, becoming a blur of motion, like smoke, that punctured through the two monsters, blasting through their bodies with the force of a cannonball. The last of the scorpions exploded into splatters of flesh, scrap, and ichor.

  With a streak of smoke, the panther dashed through the air and landed on the roof of Father Caleb’s car. The beast couched low, eyes and ears alert.

  Father Caleb tensed and glanced up at the roof of his car. “So, he could do that the whole time?”

  Gideon shrugged, slightly. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  ***

  Abilsin sat in the middle of the street in front of the burning church. He hummed to himself quietly as fire engines came into view down the street. He enjoyed the blare of the sirens and flash of the lights. But they seemed too orderly, a predictable pattern.

  He twisted his hands. The fire trucks flipped onto their sides and skidded across the pavement.

  The boy giggled. He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the smoke that clouded the night sky. He took a deep breath and reached out with his mind. He felt the echoes of Jestin’s thoughts and emotions, confusion and frustration.

  “Jestin Kase,” he whispered, his voice like a song. “What a silly name. I think this will be fun.”

  ***

  The car jostled Jestin back and forth. He felt another wave of vertigo twirl within his head. His vision dotted with patterns of color and started to spin. He still gripped the medallion—he couldn’t let go—and felt its power writhe within his body like barbed wire slithering through his veins.

  He started to whisper something—words came out, but he couldn’t hear his own voice.

  Wait, did that cat seriously turn into a freaking panther? This is all . . . Did I feed the dog? Wait, no, that was with, yeah, and the priest had a muscle car, so the scorpions and everything, can’t think straight. He’d said no chosen ones, no special destinies. I’m nothing special, am I? Evil Mary Poppins, and I . . . I’m out.

  Metal tugged at his mind as if searching for something.

  Darkness enfolded him as he slipped from consciousness and fell into dreams of memory.

  ***

  Jestin saw a younger version of himself. Weird, he typically didn’t see himself when he dreamed, but he did this time, little twelve-year-old Jestin at the kitchen table of his fourth foster home that year. The three-story house sat wedged within a crammed subdivision of mismatched homes, all in various states of disrepair.

  He remembered the place all too clearly. But why the heck was he dreaming about it after a battle with a strange maybe-a-demon boy and scorpion monsters? Weird. Just weird.

  The kitchen looked like a remnant of the 1970s. Faded yellow paint, torn wallpaper with flowery patterns, scratched kitchen appliances colored with shades of green, and cracked floor tiles with spotted patterns and scuff marks.

  It looks like a page from a zombie kitchen catalogue, Jestin thought as he watched the scene play out like a movie. He tried to speak, to interact, but couldn’t—no words came to his mouth, and no movement came to his body. He didn’t even have a body, technically, just a presence in his memory.

  The foster “parent” stood near the kitchen table with a folder in hand. She had that old no-nonsense grandma look about her with curly, graying hair and lines of wrinkles along a stern face that never smiled. She wore brown-framed glasses that she adjusted while she looked through the folder.

  “So,” she said, “I understand you ran away from your last home. We won’t have any of that here; the bedroom doors and windows lock from the outside. You’ll be in your room by eight every night. If you have to go to the bathroom, or need a glass of water, there’s a bell on your nightstand. Ring it, and I’ll let you out. No more than one break a night, though, so make sure you need it.”

  Young Jestin smirked at the horrible woman. “I’m surprised you don’t just give me a jar. Actually, can I have a jar? That sounds easier.”

  “I don’t put up with sassing in this house.”

  Jestin winced. “Then you are really going to hate me. I’m four-and-a-half feet of sass.”

  “Running your mouth won’t do you any good here, just get you into trouble,” the woman said—Jestin never learned her name. Why bother? “And you’ve gotten into plenty of trouble already this year. Fighting. Stealing. This is your last chance before someone locks you up in juvenile detention. Once there, you’re a lost cause.”

  “I am overwhelmed by your motherly love and affection,” Jestin said. “You’re the Mary Poppins of the Midwest.”

  “I already told you—”

  “Shall we sing?”

  “Stop it.” Her wrinkled hands tightened around the folder. “The children I see here need discipline, not songs from a fairy godmother.”

  “Um, Mary Poppins wasn’t a fairy godmother, so that’s just a weird thing to say.”

  “Jestin Kase.” She scoffed. “Even your name is a ridiculous joke. Jestin, listen to me. Just because I am not here to be your friend does not make me your enemy. Stay here. Listen to me. Follow the rules. And you may be able to get your life on track. Maybe even get adopted into a real family.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me I have potential and blah-blah, et cetera, et cetera?”

  “No,” she said. “You’re not special. You’re just a damaged child like everyone else here. The question is whether you’ll brush it off and actually try to make something out of yourself.”

  “Lady, I’m twelve.”

  She tossed the folder onto the table. “So you are.” She nodded toward the d
oor. “So, it’s almost eight o’clock, twelve year old. Best get into your room and get settled.”

  The images shifted. It felt strange, to say the least, like staying in a single point in space while the world spun beneath your feet. Metal picked and probed at Jestin’s brain while he dreamed. But why?

  Darkness settled across images of young Jestin climbing into bed. “‘Get settled,’” he grumbled to himself. “That batty old . . . ugh.” He had a small garbage bag filled with all his belongings: an extra pair of clothes—that was it. He set the bag down by the bed. “Done. All settled.”

  Jestin dropped onto the bed and rested his hands behind his head. He looked up—another unfamiliar ceiling. The boy shuffled; the sheets felt stiff and itchy.

  Light occasionally splashed across the room as cars drove by outside, their headlights casting through the window.

  Evil Mary Poppins’s words stuck in his head: a damaged child who fought and stole. A joke.

  Had he stolen? A few times. After he ran away from his last foster home, having grown tired of getting smacked across the face by an abusive foster father, he lived on the streets. He’d stayed in an abandoned apartment building with a few clusters of homeless men, women, and children. During that time, he stole food—although most of the time he gave that food to children who were younger than him.

  Had he gotten into fights? Once or twice . . . maybe a dozen . . . or two dozen times. All the time, basically. He never looked for trouble, but when he saw someone get picked on, someone get hurt, he stepped in, almost by reflex.

  “Try to make something out of yourself,” Evil Poppins had said.

  “Right,” Jestin whispered. “I’ll get right on that.”

  And suddenly, the memory tore away.

  ***

  Jestin’s vision blurred in and out of focus. He couldn’t move or speak; he rested in that place between consciousness and unconsciousness, where dreams and reality bled together. This wasn’t a memory. This was now.

  Where . . . ? He looked up. Slabs of wood, dim light. Another unfamiliar ceiling.

  He heard a woman speak, her voice strong and commanding.

  “Set him on the table,” she said. “What the hell did you do to this kid, Gideon?”

  “Saved his life,” Gideon said. “More or less.”

  Jestin caught a blurred glimpse of her, rich black skin and light brown eyes and black, curly hair tied behind her head. She leaned over him. Jestin heard Gideon call her Gale, short for Dr. Nightingale. She kept speaking, but Jestin only heard every other word.

  “. . . Metal . . . out of him . . . burning up . . .”

  Her words trailed off, and Jestin slipped further into dreams, like falling through a tunnel. The boy tumbled back into unconsciousness, dragged by the Metal that was apparently killing him.

  ***

  Another vision of memory. A presence in his own mind, watching a movie out of his past. Why, though?

  Twelve-year-old Jestin sat on the stone steps that led to the back door of Evil Mary Poppins’s house. Three days had passed since he moved into the home. The days blurred together, though, and every day felt the same. “Earlier this week,” he muttered to himself. “That feels like it was forty days ago, on the fifty-sixth Tuesday of the seventh month of March.”

  He stared out across the small backyard surrounded by a chain-link fence. Patches of dirt dotted the yard, dead grass, shaded with yellows and browns. “Evil Mary Poppins does not believe in landscaping.”

  A young boy sat along the fence while reading a book. He looked no older than eight, with a black-and-blue plaid shirt, several sizes too big, over a gray T-shirt tucked into faded blue jeans. He wore thick black glasses and had dark, shaggy hair that looked as though it hadn’t been combed in days. The boy, Izzy, came from a biracial family; he was half white on his dad’s side and half Latino on his mom’s side. Jestin didn’t know much about the kid other than the fact that he ended up in foster homes a few days at a time whenever his dad beat his mom so badly she called the police.

  A couple of other foster kids mulled about aimlessly. Evil Poppins let them outside a few times a day as she would with a pack of dogs.

  One of the older kids, Marcus, sneered as he walked toward Izzy. About fifteen years old, Marcus wore a plain black jacket that fit tightly around his bulky frame. He wore his black hair buzzed short and had a pale, pudgy face.

  “Whatcha readin’?”

  Jestin saw Izzy tense. The younger boy did not look up.

  Marcus snatched the book from Izzy’s hands. “The Ship of Dreams? The Titanic? Ha! Oh man, you are so lame. Isn’t that the one where he paints the girl naked? No one’s painting you naked, freak.”

  Izzy cleared his throat; he kept his gaze low. “It’s,” he whispered, “it’s not about the movie.”

  Marcus leaned down. “What was that? Speak up, you little freak.”

  Izzy cleared his throat again, still avoiding eye contact. “It’s about the real ship,” he said, voice soft. “Not the movie.”

  “Oh!” Marcus shouted. “Oh, my mistake!” He tossed the book over the fence. “Doesn’t look like it’s about anything anymore. Now stand up. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  Jestin was on his feet without thinking.

  “Leave him alone, Marcus.”

  Marcus snorted a laugh. “Was I talking to you, little Jessie? Don’t make me kick your ass.”

  “Can you lift your fat leg high enough for that?” Jestin asked, once again without thinking. Okay, I have no sense of self-preservation.

  Marcus snarled like a big, dumb animal. He charged over to Jestin and grabbed the smaller boy by the shirt. “Say that again, you little freak.”

  Jestin smiled. “I called your leg fat. Just the one leg. And implied you couldn’t lift it. Because of the fat—”

  Marcus punched Jestin to the ground. The blow struck below Jestin’s left eye; it felt like getting hit in the face with a frozen ham. The pain throbbed and swelled. But he didn’t give Marcus the satisfaction of showing it. Instead, he bit back the pain with a smile and climbed back to his feet.

  “That’s your punch? That’s just sad.”

  Marcus grabbed Jestin by the shoulders and kneed his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs. Jestin collapsed to his side, and Marcus kicked his ribs, repeatedly.

  Jestin laughed with each kick.

  And with that, the backyard slid away, his mind flipping from memory to memory like a slide show, Metal dragging Jestin through his past into the moments that changed his life forever.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Juvenile Detained

  The whirlwind of memory settled on an image of prison. No, not prison. Jail? No. Worse. Juvenile detention.

  The system wasted no time tossing Jestin into JD after the fight. An overweight officer led Jestin—twelve years old, handcuffed—into the back of the processing center, a depressingly plain area with gray walls and a gray desk.

  Five cells lined the rear wall, each no larger than a walk-in closet and sealed with a metal slab door.

  Anxiety tightened Jestin’s throat. Was he going to get tossed into one of those cells? For how long? Initially, he didn’t think juvenile detention would be much different than a random foster home. But something about this place . . .

  “This is prison,” he whispered. “How is this any different than prison?”

  The officer led him by the arm to the third cell from the right. The man’s grip wasn’t too hard or too soft—it was casual. He had clearly done this before many, many times. Jestin stepped into the cell, which had a viewing slit on the door, just above his head.

  Officer Friendly opened a gray sack. “Take off your shirt.”

  Jestin shifted awkwardly. “Um . . . aren’t you going to buy me flowers first?”

  The guard reached for his baton. “Take off your shirt. Then your shoes and socks.”

  The orphan felt tension swell in his throat. His instincts screamed at him to run, but he was frozen in place.

  The cop shifted his baton. “Come on.”

  Jestin’s pulse surged with panic. But he did as he was told. He pulled off his shirt. He felt vulnerable, embarrassed, and disarmed. His shoes and socks went next, then his pants. Underwear. Until he stood completely naked. The officer inspected the orphan’s body, checking for contraband, as tears welled in Jestin’s eyes.