Dragon Unleashed excerpt

This is a brand new, and maybe my favorite, character! This is his introductory section from Chapter 1 of Dragon Unleashed: Blades of Grass Book 2. Enjoy!

Los Angeles, California

Many of the boxcars on the freight train rumbling into Los Angeles County were empty or only partially loaded. The port of Long Beach had become a nightmare of activity since that giant tsunami wiped out half of America’s west coast ports two months earlier. Coupled with the loss of dozens of cargo ships, hundreds of trucks, and hundreds of thousands of shipping containers, the impact to trade was having ripple effects in the world economy. One unknown side-effect had been the resurgence of “the Hobo Express,” especially in the weeks since Operation Venom Spear had started.
The police and military, under President Jeremiah Allen’s cooperation with Congress, had enacted a nationwide curfew as part of their efforts to battle the cartels that had started infiltrating multiple layers of society and government in the American West. The borderline tyranny had only fueled the already growing dissention between government and the populace—and driven people who wanted to travel discreetly back onto the train tracks.
“That guy in Colorado was right,” the odd Hungarian man said in his native tongue to his teenage traveling companion. “Switching to the Burlington-Northern Line probably shaved a day off the trip.”
“Ez igaz,” the young American said. “That is true.”
Both of them had become accustomed to the rail travel, though neither were particularly fond of it. One always needed to stay awake, not that one could sleep well anyhow. And the other hobos weren’t shy about dropping their trousers and taking care of business in the open. The one saving grace for the pair had been that the man’s strange appearance and accent made even those who were off their meds want to keep themselves at the other end of the boxcar.
Forty-year-old Dacso Sarkany was no stranger to pain and suffering, and he had a one-of-a-kind personal style that reflected his equally unique life story. He tucked his loose tan pants into his mid-shin brown leather boots, not unlike a motorcycle cop or someone from a space opera. Under his identically tan trench coat was an old-school black turtleneck sweater. His left hand was mangled, the thumb but a simple half-inch stump, not even a full knuckle. It was a constant reminder of his time in Kosovo, part of a U.N. peace-keeping force who was ambushed with an IED. But the icing on the Dacso cake was the mohawk haircut over the plump, strange face. Dacso wasn’t a pretty man, his puffy bottom lip always extending out too far for the normal symmetry associated with being handsome. Dacso kept his face and the sides of his head shaved, part of the image he’d built for himself after joining his relatives in America.
The pair were traveling with only a small backpack each, plus one bulky, heavy duty duffel bag they guarded very closely. Though an experienced, low-level henchman in various low-level crime syndicates in New York, Dacso and his fifteen-year-old nephew weren’t on a criminal mission—at least, not completely.
“How long do you think it will take to find them?” Antal Kover asked his uncle. The American lad had grown up in a unique circumstance, part of the tight nit but very poor neighborhood of Kiryas Joel, New York. It was one of the poorest zip codes in the entire country, but still boasted a particularly low crime rate. It was also home to two unique and independent ethnic groups. In addition to a large Orthodox Jewish community, Kiryas Joel also boasted America’s largest Hungarian settlement. The two groups respected and ignored each other—and both were notorious for handling crime “in house.” Men like Dacso went to the Big Apple for their work. Antal had been sent along on this family mission to both watch his uncle’s back and act as his translator.
“Depends on how long it takes to hitchhike,” Dacso answered. “Eet is well,” he said with his signature wave. Whenever he felt like ending a line of talk, he would say those words in very broken English—his only style of English—and look off to the side as he did a small Jedi-esque hand wave before looking back to the other party with a small head nod. Conversation over. Back in Hungarian, he ordered, “Let’s jump at this next inside curve.”
The train had been only traveling about ten miles-per-hour since starting to parallel highway I-15 near the town of Las Colinas. The train was slowing, and he definitely wanted to be off long before any other hobos near the terminus.
Dacso hefted the large duffel by both handles, ready to toss it just ahead of his own jump. “Remember to absorb with your knees and roll like a stone,” he instructed his nephew.
“I know, Uncle,” Antal said. “I’ve watched plenty of free-runners on YouTube.”
Dacso shot him an odd look. When Antal didn’t know a Hungarian word, he would use the English word in its place. “Why would a man pay money to run?” Dacso asked with confusion before turning his attention back to the coming stunt. “Be ready,” he warned as he started to plant his feet and spring his knees and hips for the duffel toss. With a giant twist, he heaved the fifty-pound bag onto the grassy, sandy slope below. With one last cinch on his backpack’s straps, he ran out the open boxcar door at a forward angle to try for some forward momentum with his roll.
Dacso hit the ground and collapsed his knees, rolling onto his shoulder. The speed and slope made him do two complete rolls before he was able to get to a stop and position himself on his knees. He oriented himself uphill and reacquired the car which was now almost two hundred feet farther west. Antal had wisely descended down the three welded rungs below the car’s opening, reducing his jump to a mere two feet. He sprang hard to clear the large gravel stones near the tracks and performed a much-less-violent impact and roll.
“Huh,” Dacso mumbled, feeling both foolish and impressed.
He collected himself and the bag full of contraband that belonged to one of his bosses—along with a few of his own special possessions too big to carry. The Hungarian had one unique experience that most of his younger American family did not. He, like the others his age, had lived his earliest years in the former U.S.S.R. His mother and sister—Antal’s mother— had come to the United States in the 1990s. His own uncle in Los Angeles had managed to get to the U.S. in the early 1980s. Dacso had stayed behind to be with his father and perform his required military service after the fall of the Soviet Union. After his father passed away of a heart attack, Dacso finally caught up with his Americanized family. And though he made his living in a way most frowned upon, at heart he was still a family man. Knowing he’d never settle down for an equally unattractive mate and spawn ugly, poor kids, Dacso considered his various nephews and nieces as his own. He liked Antal in particular, and he wanted the lad on this road-trip to try and educate him about the things in store for the United States.
He plopped the heavy bag down when he reached Antal. The pair would trek through the grass and bushes down to the highway to attempt hitch-hiking, making their way toward a small Hungarian community in the La Brea area of North Los Angeles. And while the “contraband” was related to his “employment,” he had no delusions about the reality of things—life in this city had taken a drastic turn for the worse since the federal government had started trying to round up or kill the cartel members. He had no qualms whatsoever about selling off said items for his family’s benefit if it came down to it. But he and Antal had only one primary purpose—find his mother’s brother and bring him back to New York.