Running The Gauntlet: Dragonsigns, #1

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

Dragonsigns – Book One

Ken Hughes

Windward Road Press

LOS ANGELES, CA

Copyright © 2021 by Ken Hughes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Windward Road Press

11923 NE Sumner St Ste 879426

Portland, OR 97250-9601

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

Cover © 2020 by Sleepy Fox Studio

ISBN paperback: 978-1-7350002-3-7

ISBN ebook: 978-1-7350002-4-4

Running the Gauntlet/ Ken Hughes—1st ed.

To Darklighter

— your town of Taylorville still has me in stitches

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: THE FACELESS MAN

CHAPTER TWO: KNOCK ON WOOD

CHAPTER THREE: SPIKING THE PUNCH

CHAPTER FOUR: WE ALL FALL DOWN

CHAPTER FIVE: UP THE SLEEVE

CHAPTER SIX: ONE WRONG STEP

CHAPTER SEVEN: ALLEYS

CHAPTER EIGHT: ALLIES

CHAPTER NINE: LIES

CHAPTER TEN: THE SHORT VIEW

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WORDS

CHAPTER TWELVE: HIDEAWAY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SHELTER

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FIGHTING MONSTERS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: BLOODLINES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: POUND OF FLESH

PREVIEW from WEIGHING THE SCALES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE: THE FACELESS MAN

The intruder leaned around the corner, peering on up the stairway. Colin stood frozen—beyond those shoulders, the man had no head.

Then the moment passed, the figure stepped on around the corner, and Colin blinked and glimpsed a head in a ski mask after all as the burglar moved on upstairs. Still missing how Colin had walked in behind him.

And leaving the inspector slumped on the floor.

Blood spattered the victim’s bald head. The footsteps faded up the stairs into the building’s stillness, and Colin crept forward to the motionless man—Mike, why was he blanking on his last name?—to probe for a pulse. Weak but there.

He glanced up at the stairs. His fists clenched, and he wished he could hear the bastard descending from the library floor above. To have someone attacked, right here...

Mike’s head lolled sideways. He croaked someone... following me... and the words slurred. A patch on the back of his skull looked sunken, the source of the blood.

Bashed from behind. Did that thief think someone he’d hit would just wake up unhurt in an hour, or did he not care? Just half an hour ago Colin had been showing Mike where to start the inspection here.

He grabbed for his phone. His finger slid so easily into 911.

What is your emergency? chirped the voice.

I’m Colin da Costa, at the Vargas House. We have a burglar, and a man down—I don’t want to move him.

Understood. Can you get to a safe place?

Sure. But I’m Security here... my mother and I asked Mike to do his quake inspection after hours, that’s why we’re alone... No, don’t start thinking it’s my fault again... And that missing head must have been a trick of the shadows.

Thunk.

The sound came from upstairs, a muted crunch like something slamming into wood. Colin was on his feet stuffing the phone away and heading for the stair, quiet as he could move and straining his ears for another blow, another footstep, filtering in through the street noises outside.

He crept up the stairs. The lights above were off, since Mike turned them off when each section was done. With each step up the wide boards wrapped the building tighter around him, all the turns and creakings he’d grown up with, and left a stranger’s footsteps at night simply alien against it all. And this intruder was chopping into the place itself—

The footsteps above shifted. Colin froze. If the burglar heard him now, if he caught him on the stairway and had a gun... Too late, too many steps up or down to get clear. And I’m still unarmed.

But the feet above only moved around the library. Colin edged to the top and stepped into the dimness, pausing at the side of its doorway.

A good position. If the burglar came past him he could grab him right there, keep him from getting at Mike or using any weapon he had.

For one moment Colin wondered, would I even be trying this if we hadn’t asked Mike to come here at night, or if it wasn’t an earthquake inspection that this attacked?

Another thunk rang out. He peeked through the doorway.

By the moonlight through the tall windows, he saw the figure crouching at one end of the library. Right at the base of one of the columns, a stocky shape in dark clothes and that ski mask. Nothing strange about his head now.

A shape protruded from one of his gloved fingers, what looked like a pencil-thick blade. A useless thing that should snap itself or the single finger it attached to. But the intruder was drawing it back, sliding it out of the base of the column. Where he’d stabbed it into the wood.

The impossible how burned away from Colin’s mind in a rage of what he saw: this man was slowly tearing, breaking, the House’s support columns, enough of that and this place could come down too like the quake buried my sister—

A croak tore from his throat. A faint, helpless sound.

The masked man shifted in his crouch.

Colin ducked back behind the doorway. How loud had he been? If the intruder stepped too far out to check, he’d come within reach. Colin’s heart hammered in his throat, his fists readied.

The burglar’s footsteps walked deeper in.

No skein here, he muttered.

Skayn, the word sounded like? What?

Colin peeked around again. The masked man stepped toward the wall, to the roped-off side, where he walked past the shelves of books and animal sculptures to stop at one of the paintings. The pale shape of Matt Vargas’s painting of the library itself.

"There’s the dragon."

The burglar’s tone was a guttural sound, so low and thick with smugness it seemed like no voice Colin had ever heard. But he was walking deeper into the library, past one column after another in the row. The blade on his finger was gone.

Colin pulled back, listening. Whatever the masked man was up to, confronting him was still a risk, and the police would be on their way. The one who really needed him was Mike downstairs. But...

Is he sabotaging, searching? I don’t even know how.

The pillars stretched in a row down the library, with the intruder walking toward the far end. Colin slipped into the room to crouch behind the nearest, with the whole line of supports to hide him. The old-paper smell of the room thickened around him.

Thunk.

From the far pillar—he was stabbing into that column too? Colin could just see him crouching by it, but his back and the row of pillars hid everything else.

Colin crouched down at his own pillar. In the moonlight, the hole in the wood might have been a gray stain, but the masked man had punched something right into it. Two joined holes.

He slid his finger in. The gap felt wider inside, and he wiggled around.

Instead of splinters, he touched a plastic smoothness. A bomb—but the shock was gone in an instant: even if the masked man had stuffed plastique in there, he couldn’t have gotten a detonator in yet. Colin hooked his finger in the stuff, and drew it out.

With a softly sucking whisper, a dollop, a whole stream of some kind of putty slid out of the pillar. It looked colorless in the shadows, and it flowed like syrup—why would so much of it hold together and slide out? He caught it, and it pooled out and filled his cupped palm.

Police! Anyone there?

The sharp voice came from down by the House’s front door, and the rapid footsteps showed they weren’t wasting time before closing in. We got you now!

"Damn you—" The masked man’s growl was pure viciousness, and he dashed down for the doorway.

Going after Mike. The thought crashed through Colin in one heartbeat, and in the next he was up and charging at the intruder’s back as he passed. He had one instant to shuck the goo off his hand. Then he slammed into his target to shove him at the side of the doorway.

The stuff was still stuck to his hand, and his grip twisted. The thief wrenched away. Clothes shifted under his grasp as the thief wrenched free and shoved back.

Colin rocked back, ready. The thief stood just out of reach, bracing for one grand, telegraphed punch—

Something squirmed over that fist—

Colin blocked but the punch slammed against his deflecting arm, and burst against the wall with a savage crack. Colin stumbled away. The smell of sawdust bit at his nose.

The thief whirled and ran.

He bolted after him, the move bringing a surge of pain through his arm. The man was too fast—already down the steps? Police still closing in in front, where can he go? Colin ran for the steps. The putty was still stuck to his hand.

He reached the bottom of the stairs. Mike lay just the same as he’d left him, bringing a wash of relief to the part of Colin that wasn’t staring around, looking one way and another for their enemy.

Two police burst into the room, staring around.

Back exit! he shouted. He spun, dashed through a door that had been closed, on into the kitchen, and raced through it with the two cops at his heels. The stove and the oversized fridge sprawled around him and gave him one moment to think the man might be lurking behind something to spring an ambush, but slowing down was unthinkable.

He hit the back door, and it wasn’t even locked anymore. Instead it flew open, and he rushed into the back alley to find... nothing.

Only the back street, only the cars and birds of the summer night, not a glimpse or whisper of the thief. He stared up and down it, searching for cover, for anything. Nothing moved except the flicker of birds by the roof.

Hands up! Don’t you move!

The two police closed in behind him. Both had their weapons ready—not trained on him, though. Yet.

He kept his body still, and his voice clear. I’m Colin da Costa, Security and Assistant Director here. I’m the one who called you. The man in the mask ran this way.

The older cop raced down the back street. His younger, plumper partner eyed Colin, then trotted up to look in the other direction.

The stuff from the pillar still wobbled on his hand. Weird, weird... He shoved his hand in his pocket, and this time it scraped off and left his fingers clean.

The two cops marched back toward him.

Nobody there, big surprise, the younger one said. You should’ve run when you had the chance. A scowl began digging into his face.

His partner cut in "No, he did make the call. Anyway, first thing should be the injured man in there."

Mike... The three of them rushed back inside. Colin kept himself in the cops’ view and just a few steps clear of them, forcing himself to simply let them work. The younger man glared at him and spat demands at his radio about the slow-running ambulance. The older one squeezed CPR compressions onto Mike’s chest, and his motions grew more and more frantic in spite of the rigid rhythm.

Some endless minutes later, the cop came to a halt. He’s gone.

Colin slammed a fist against the wall. The impact made the cops jump, but it barely reached through the mire of guilt and regret. If I’d heard the sounds one minute sooner...

Someone cracked his skull, the older cop said. And you saw him?

That’s right. Colin pushed out the clear, necessary words. Ski mask and dark clothes, bulky, medium height. Vandalism or theft or something, I can show you.

And your friend here?

Mike... Shane, I think. He was inspecting the place for signs of earthquake compliance.

At least he could leave it at that—they gave the same nods that anyone in Rayo Hill would, even years later. Not the same as what it meant to him, though, losing Terri.

Then the younger cop muttered They always check that at night?

"No. We asked him to, to miss all the community meetings we have here. I’m Security, so I let him in. Don’t know what it means that this happened on the same night. He said he was being followed... I guess that’s the last thing he said," he added.

So he caught the thief in the act?

The tight, suspicious looks hung on their faces, and they aimed them both at Colin and Mike—as if the dead man might have let the masked man in. At least they kept those thoughts to themselves now.

In the end, they took his statement and barely glanced at the holes in the pillars. Colin doubted they even wrote down what he mentioned about the stuff inside one, the putty that was still bulking his pocket. There had to be a better time to hand that in.

He knew better than to mention the moment the intruder had no head.

When the ambulance and the crime scene teams arrived, they showed him out. And he was free to call his mother and try to tell her the House wouldn’t be opening tomorrow.

She didn’t answer. She must think she had a busy night.

CHAPTER TWO: KNOCK ON WOOD

Pounding, pounding. Hammering, punching into wood, heaving to stir the dead man’s ribs, pounding until the earth wobbled and swayed underneath. Someone he spoke to, saying the church was solid. Her running inside in the quake, and the arching shape thundering down to swallow her.

Terri’s face. Mike’s face.

Colin woke to feel his knuckles slap against the wall—the same fist he’d bruised when Mike slipped away. His other arm hurt worse, sore and stiff just from deflecting the masked man’s punch, that punch...

He steadied his breathing; just a dream. Why would my opinion on the building have anything to do with Terri going in? That’s the dream speaking, when I wasn’t even there. His sister’s death shouldn’t be his fault, and neither was Mike’s.

But his arm ached. He’d felt the power in that intruder shoving him back and cracking wood even after he turned the strike away. And cracking Mike’s skull... the inspector was already dying before Colin found him.

I’m supposed to be Vargas House’s security, and a thief got in.

Colin rolled over on the bed to sit up. He glanced over in the dark, at the shelf where his father’s picture would be, in full dress uniform. At least that was one death he couldn’t put on himself.

He muttered My first real fight, not just clearing drunks out. And the only thing I won was not ending up beside Mike.

Faint shapes stood out in the room’s dimness, just clear enough to remind him where the boxes stood in their rows. The night hid how many things had begun to spill out from them, thanks to all that work for the House and community, faster than he could pack them away. He was twenty-one now, he was ready to enlist and make a difference and find himself, but there was always more work here, and even more without Terri.

And now a man had been struck down at the site he was watching, and he’d missed it. The ranks of boxes seemed to glare his failure back at him.

He tried to focus on the problem. How could the thief hit like that? More important, why had he been there?

For something to smash, or plant, or steal? And the inspector being there when it happened, was that just his brutally bad luck, or some connection... connected to Mike’s inspection, or that the killer came to get Mike, or Mike let him in, or something... No, he said the killer had been following him...

Colin jumped to his feet. All he really knew was that the thief, the killer, might hit them again. The Vargas House would need new locks, better alarms, ways to keep everyone safe. After the police cleared the crime scene, so for now it would be planning and trying to keep the House going with what functions they could hold around the police search. So much regular work to adapt.

Skein, the thief had said. To rhyme with gain.

Maybe he had been a thief, looking for a skein of something. Threads, yarn, the word meant. Not this.

Colin clicked on the light and found the coffee flask he’d sealed the material up in. Carefully, he poured it out onto a cleaning cloth... the greenish-silver stuff felt syrupy-thick again.

He poked it with a corner of the cloth. Not sticky at all now.

He clicked on his phone and spent a few minutes on military sites, clearing away the last suspicion that it might still be some kind of plastic explosive. Sometimes it had stuck to his hand, sometimes it clung to itself so well that he’d dragged the whole handful out of the pillar.

Wrapping his finger in a corner of the cloth, he poked it again. His finger sunk into it, and this time it clung around that finger, sticking to the fabric. He cupped his left hand under the cloth to pull it off him. It slid free of the one finger, but the bulk of it sagged down around the edges of his hand underneath, and settled there.

It held there, thicker than it had been, sticking to the folds of the cloth and the rim of his hand. He tried working his hand free of the fabric, and shaking the whole mess free, but the stuff was stuck on.

He scraped it against the edge of the table. It caught there.

What? How fast did this stuff set, like some kind of fast-hardening clay? He rapped it against the edge.

The wood dented.

When the thief had wound up for his punch, something had flowed along his hand... And now it’s stuck on mine?

He felt his heartbeat rising, as he shook his hand harder, scraped it on the table—

The stuff slid off as easily as a glove.

He let a breath sigh out. His finger reached gingerly for it again, but he pulled back. Instead he used the cloth to pour the stuff back into the flask, never touching it... and it peeled neatly off the cloth and settled back inside.

So, the thief had been looking for this skein? And he knew it was in the Vargas House?

The phone buzzed. The screen said simply Zara—the name everyone had for his mother.

Her voice was as warm and quick as ever. I thought you’d be up. Sorry I didn’t check my messages earlier. You’re alright?

Sure, like I said. She knew he’d be awake? He grinned.

Of course you are. And you gave the bastard a taste of what he deserved. The inspector’s dead? Do you have any ideas why?

The police are looking into it. I guess, he had to add.

We’ll see if Mike had any family. And we’ll see if we can move the Summer Breakfast outside while the police are in there—or away from the House if it isn’t safe. Whatever we need to.

Right. I’ve been thinking about some security ideas for when they let us back in.

I bet you have. I’ll see you soon.

Colin looked at the screen—still 4:30, but no chance he’d be able to sleep now. He opened a notes file and tapped out a few thoughts about where they could add alarms, if they could afford them.

When his first ideas were down, he dropped to the floor and began working on his pushups. The pain in his arm made him switch to sit-ups.

Again and again, he glanced over at the table with the... skein.

*   *   *

The Vargas House looked the same as ever—the round-edged manor near the top of the Hillside, the terrace in front setting it off from the smaller homes—except for the crime scene tape by the door, like the first grave marker Mike would ever have. A couple of police still moved in and out of that door.

The other sign of change was two regular House visitors, as well as several neighbors, all standing out on the terrace watching. At least the police hadn’t left a coroner’s truck in view.

The short distance here had made Colin leave his car behind. He had walked close enough to the door for the police to give him a warning glare, before the people closed around him.

What happened? You all alright? old Clarence began.

Zara’s fine, she wasn’t even there. No need to mention the murder until they had a plan for talking about it. We think it was some kind of burglar.

Sandy caught at her child that was trying to squirm away from her hand. Do you know how long it’ll be closed? Do you need any help? I can help out with the breakfast setup, if there is one.

Right. Their Foundation was offering the space for neighbors to bring in their cooking this morning, part charity and more community...

By ones and twos, more people began gathering out front. Each one added more volume, more momentum, to the forming crowd. Again and again, he told them they’d be ready when they were ready.

So why police? After those kids robbed me last month? Sandy said.

It’s not related, I’m sure, Colin had to say.

I hope not. My place would still be in pieces if you hadn’t run that cleanup-fest for us.

There was that worry starting to spread. He looked around at the faces stealing glances at the taped-off section—how many of them were still feeling the effects from the quake, years later? And now they had a death at the House too?

What did they take? How is this going to change things for you?

It’s too soon to say... was the best he could answer.

"And why are the cops here now? When our place was hit it took them all day to show up!"

Um...

He scrambled to settle their questions for a moment, while the deeper problem kept pressing at the back of his mind: what had the thief really been doing there, and would he be back? The skein felt heavy on his belt, even sealed up in the flask.

A hand caught at his arm—Tom looked scruffier than usual today. There’s going to be a fundraiser after this, isn’t there? You’ll need me to play for it.

Mmm. If there is, we may want the music for a larger group, Colin tried. Where we won’t notice you.

Then a new voice swept in: If there is one, the schedule isn’t set yet. You can talk to me later. Sandy! Now that we’ve got the police’s attention we have a chance to press them for better protection for the whole Hillside... and Zara surged past them.

Colin followed a flash of the necklace his mother wore, the dark dress that stood out in the morning sun, as she slid through the growing crowd with himself falling