Bad Habit's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Bad Habit climbed out of the drain with wet boots and no head to show for it. The crocodile boss had slipped into water too deep to follow. Every minute the reptile swam free, he swam toward the other bosses with news of Bad Habit's tricks. Bad Habit could not chase him blind through the tunnels. He needed someone who knew the low places. He pulled out his phone and called the one person who owned them. "Bingo," he said. "I need your ground." The east end trenches were cut deep and lined with cold mud. Bad Habit had played in these ditches as a boy. Bingo waited for him there, hands in his hoodie pockets, small and still, red-black hair over dark eyes. To strangers he looked like a bored kid. Bad Habit knew better. The air around Bingo shimmered with heat, and a low growl slid under his human voice. He was a fire-breathing dragon who ruled these trenches, and he only wore the boy's shape for people he trusted. "You come back after all this time asking for favors," Bingo said. He kicked a stone into the water. Then he grinned, and smoke curled from his lip. "Good. I was getting bored. Who's running?" "A crocodile boss. He took the flooded tunnels. He's warning the crews I'm coming." Bingo's grin dropped. "The water lines all drain out through my trenches. Everything down there flows to me." He tilted his head, listening to something Bad Habit could not hear. "Something big is swimming this way right now." Bad Habit sent his gremlins ahead. They scuttled to the mouths of the drain pipes and clung to the edges, watching. Bingo went invisible. The air just bent where he had stood, a wall of heat sliding down toward the largest pipe. Bad Habit crouched behind a mud bank and waited. The crocodile burst from the pipe in a rush of black water. He was fast, already turning to bolt down the trench. Then the water in front of him boiled. Bingo breathed fire across the surface, and steam walled the reptile in. The crocodile roared and thrashed, cut off from the deeper channels. "He won't look at your eyes," Bingo called from the steam. "So don't give him a choice." Bad Habit teleported onto the crocodile's back. He grabbed the scaled snout with both hands and wrenched it up. For one second the red eyes met the yellow ones. The crocodile went stiff, then still. Smoke rose from his jacket. Bad Habit let the body slide into the water. He stood in the steam, breathing hard. The warning would never reach the other bosses. Bingo shimmered back into his boy shape beside him, arms crossed. "One down," Bingo said. "But that thing came here to talk. Somebody was waiting to hear him." He looked up the trench. "And now they'll wonder why he never showed."