by Aaron Crash
Steven triggered SerpentGrace, charged his muscles with speed, and went rolling across the ground. Fingers of electricity turned the sand under him into glass, but none touched him.
He was up in seconds, casting a second shield to guard against Exhalants and Impetim spells.
Dark blue bolts of energy hit the force field and dissipated.
After a Magica Cura charm, his hand immediately felt better. While he could fix the damaged flesh, he couldn’t regenerate the missing finger. Well, could’ve been worse.
He had to be careful. This wasn’t like any fight he’d ever been in. It was him alone against the Texarkana Prime, and there were no minions he could kill to refill his Animus. He’d have to conserve his energy. But how was he going to know if Zoey was alive or not?
He shredded his own clothes to achieve his partial form. He raised Samael’s Lash.
Carlo Bart chuckled. “You said my life ain’t worth shit. Question is, what’s this Zoey’s life worth to you?”
“Magica Divinatio!” Steven called out.
Carlo countered. “Magica Incanto!”
Steven’s magical vision was wiped away as the spell failed.
Carlo Bart laughed more. The stink of him was like a bonfire of cotton candy, a sickeningly sweet odor coupled with nasty smoke. His body doubled in size, then tripled. At the same time, the turquoise-and-silver rings on his fingers started to pop, one by one. Dark metal flowed across his blue scaled body, up his arms, across his back, and it hardened into segmented armor, fans of steel, hinged to give him optimal movement. Every part of him was covered: a sallet on his head, pauldrons on his shoulder, vambraces covering his forearms, a cuirass across his chest, greaves protecting his legs, and even sabatons on his feet. Dragon script formed on every piece of the armor, multiple words, covering every piece of metal. The runes flashed with a dark blue light.
Steven couldn’t read them all. But on the helmet was the word “victory.”
The revolver he had grew along with him, more metal being added, until a huge gun filled his dragon-sized fist. Each of those rounds would hit like a shell fired from a howitzer. Extra ammunition fell to the ground around him.
The six-shot cannon filled his right hand. Along his left arm, rising out of the armor, appeared a relatively normal-sized machine gun, belt fed. A trigger grip appeared in the metal that covered Carlo Bart’s hands like fingerless gloves. Spikes rose along his knuckles. His claws were deadly, and now his knuckles were as well. Steven made out the word “power” on the left half-gauntlet and “glory” on his right.
“Magica Impetim!” Steven sent black stars of spinning light into the armored dragon in front of him. The runes flashed. His missile spells weren’t going to help him.
Carlo Bart pulled back the hammer with a thunder of the mechanism clicking. “Took me a bit to find the right caliber for my little toy here. I went with the 950 JDJ. That’s .95 inches in diameter, and just the gunpowder in the bullet weighs a half pound.”
Gunsmithing lesson over, he pulled the trigger.
Steven got his first shield up, but when the shell hit it, the explosion destroyed his force field in a flash of shadows. He was knocked on his ass. Samael’s Lash whirled through the air and sank tip first into the sand about a dozen yards from him.
Steven glanced up
“Oh, did I also mention that I Incanto’d them to explode? Oh, my bad. Now, say hello to Ma Deuce!” The Dragonsoul juggernaut raised his left arm and the machine gun there rattled off rounds. The empty shells fell into the dirt. If that was anything like an M60, it could fire six hundred rounds a minute. That was ten bullets a second.
Steven Drokharis’s shield was gone. He would have to think up something quick or find himself dead on the dry expanse of the Thar Desert in India.
TWENTY-SIX
Chazzie came hurtling down out of the sky with five of Carlo Bart’s wives coming after her. She didn’t know all their names, exactly. He had over thirty. Besides, she and Pru weren’t exactly friendly to what could only be considered competition. Best not to get too chummy with anyone you might eventually have to destroy.
The moon was bright, while dawn was only a smudge on the horizon. The fight would be over by sunrise, so, yeah, not exactly pistols at dawn.
Only the showdown was happening a world away, over in India.
Once they’d sprung from Zoey from her prison, Chazzie, Pru, and the Morphling had to split up. Events had become volatile.
Chazzie dodged a blast of ArcticWind, a cloud of Toxicity, and fingers of ElectroArc that threatened to fry her pink scales. ShadowFlame warmed her but didn’t burn, due to the fancy flying on her part.
She was approaching their homemade castle on the Texan plain.
With a ton of help from Steven’s Escort, they’d created a fortress of pillboxes, traps, and ramparts around the shack. They’d used every last bit of metal from the Blowtorch, a few oil pumps nearby, and some of the leftover trucks that hadn’t been completely destroyed from the previous battles in that unlucky parking lot. The bar itself was left a skeletal structure, mostly just wooden floors, pool tables, and some shelves. Kind of sad, really.
Tessa had made jokes about MacGyver and The A-Team. Chazzie barely got her pop cultural references and none of Aria’s.
First order of business was to let Steven know they had Zoey. Second? Defend the portal so Carlo Bart’s forces couldn’t help their Prime.
In the distance, a dozen trucks and Humvees kicked up dirt, coming in fast. Those would be the Sounders driving like their boots were on fire and their asses were catching. Of course, Wyatt Gunn and Maria Diablo would’ve told Juice Juice everything—Zoey kidnapped, Carlo Bart gone, and Steven Drokharis to blame.
Chazzie came zooming down, coaxing the five wives to chase her. That’s when Sabina on the ground hit a lever. A big section of a false wall fell forward, bringing up strings of razor wire. The first wife hit that magically reinforced steel line in a bad way. Sabina had given it a little of the Incanto to make it extra tough. The velocity of the dragon and the tensile strength of the razor wire led to a whole lot of blood and screaming, not just for the first wife, but for the second and even the third, who shredded a leg but managed to avoid most of it, until she was introduced to Chazzie’s lightning. The third wife took a blast of ElectroArc right in the face. That ended her.
The Animus from the kill filled Chazzie. It made her feel giddy.
Aria came shooting off the ground with Mouse on her back. The petite blonde leapt from Aria. The fire on the Slayer Blade glowed green as she came down onto the fourth wife. Mouse hacked into the back of the dragon, nearly severing her head. The blonde then went True Form, catching her sword in her amber-colored claws while soaring away on almond-scented wings.
Aria ended the fifth wife in a blizzard of claws and teeth. The Indian woman rode her across the ground even as the dead wife’s body turned human. Only a smear in the dirt was left.
As for Chazzie, she whirled to her roost on top of the shack. She and Pru had set their machine-gun nest up together. Metal walls would protect them, but they left plenty of openings to work the guns either mounted or leaning against homemade racks. They’d designed it for the two of them to work it together, but damn, her sister was late in coming.
And where was the bear girl?
Chazzie shifted into her partial form. She scooped up an RPG, making sure the exhaust would blast outside the improvised pillbox. She aimed at the lights of a Humvee coming in. She fired, and it was a direct hit, of course. The SUV exploded. Another truck hit a landmine they’d put out in the desert for just such an occasion. Those mines started going off as bears, boars, and wolves hit them. That would make the Sounders rethink their life choices.
More Animus buzzed Chazzie from the kills.
Aria zoomed in on cinnamon wings. She hovered there for a moment. In a thunderous growl, she asked, “Did you let Steven know Zoey is safe?”
“Is she, though?” Chazzie asked.
Getting Zoey out had been a shitstorm, though the girl finally turned human. Big difference between absconding with a hundred and sixty pounds versus two thousand. However, they hadn’t called Steven or sent a text. It’s kind of hard to work your phone when people are trying to give you an Inferno enema.
They’d carried Zoey most of the way until the sky started raining dragons. Then they got split up.
Chazzie said, “Pru will be here with Zoey. We just have to give them some time.”
“Time is running out.” Aria scowled in a very dragonly way. “And we can’t reach Steven. Sabina thinks his phone was destroyed.”
“Well, ain’t this fun now?” Chazzie let out an exasperated sigh. “The minute Pru and Zoey show up, we all need to get through the portal.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Tessa is down there, keeping it open, but this is taking a toll on her.” Then Aria was pulled away as more dragons drifted down toward them. Moonlight glowed off their wings.
Those made for some good targets. They only had one surface-to-air missile, and Chazzie snapped it up. She was in her Homo Draconis form, so strength wasn’t an issue. She whirled it around with practiced ease, again making sure the exhaust was clear so she didn’t frag herself, and fired.
The missile whooshed up and struck the lead dragon. There was a small flash, and a ring of shrapnel blew out of the missile’s warhead in a ring, ripping one wing off and shredding most of the dragon’s face and chest. Grisly debris rained down. Eating up the mystical energy, Chazzie spun and grabbed their baby, the only child Chazzie or Pru had ever wanted. It was a customized M2 .50 caliber machine gun with a full-motion mount, squeeze triggers on the hand grips, and a box of enchanted ammo.
Chazzie felt her mouth go dry, and yeah, she got a little horny as she brought the gun around. If only Pru were there to join her. Dammit, where was her sister? And why didn’t they have that telepathic connection twins had in the movies?
“Oh, well. Let there be rock!” she said, going trigger down as AC/DC played in her head.
The M2 thundered as pink and blue rounds flashed upward and broke through the wings and tore through the bodies of the incoming dragons. Big bullets, at a high velocity, sure did damage organic tissue. For real. And she got more Animus in the process, though she was pretty well topped off at that point.
The night went quiet as one of the elder wives—was that Betty? yeah, probably Betty—breathed down a pressure cooker of ChromaticFury. The sky seemed to groan as the energy gushed from her throat. Of course, she was aiming at Chazzie’s machine-gun nest.
Sabina’s green shield caught it, but it would only last for so long against the ultimate Exhalant. Mouse, though, sailed down again, going from dragon to girl with her sword burning with a bright green fire. She landed on Betty’s back and rammed that sword through her heart, ending her. The ChromaticFury faded off.
Mouse leapt from the dropping dragon.
Aria played cleanup, protecting Mouse as she shifted once again into her amber-colored True Form to go skimming across the ground. Mouse breathed out a line of ice and took out a Humvee, freezing all the bastards in the vehicle. She then soared up even as Magicians cast Impetim spells, which she outran.
Aria came from behind them to breathe fire into other Humvees until the gas tanks exploded, taking out more of the bad guys.
Chazzie kept the M2 working, sweeping it left and right across the ranks of Warlings and Sounders, while admiring the Escort’s work out of the corner of her eye. Damn, but these girls could fight!
Aria and Mouse flew back into the tangle of metal, dodging gunfire, magic missiles, and more Exhalants. It was chaos. How on Earth would Pru and Zoey ever make it through the lines? Pru knew where the landmines were; they’d planted them together. But if she and the bear girl were separated? That would be some bad news indeed.
Sabina hurled green sparklers into armored boars charging in. Their runes protected them from her magic, but then Chazzie shifted her baby’s barrel, and the sheer impact of the .50 caliber bullets knocked the overburdened pigs down for a second.
The Latina Magician’s face turned green, her nose lengthened, and she bulked out. She was trying to use her Skinling transformation powers, but she wasn’t there yet. Might never be by her apparent failure. That would be a shame.
Having failed to shift, the Latina Magician plucked two old-timey looking revolvers from the holsters strapped to her thighs. Chazzie had heard about those strange guns. They’d come from Rhaegen Mulk’s hoard, but now the Peacekeepers belonged to Tessa.
And Sabina had borrowed them. She fired them, one in each hand, into the Warlings as they advanced. The muzzle fire and bullets were tinged pink because of Tessa’s Incanto magic. Sabina’s eyes were glowing green, and the Warlings might have SerpentGrace, but she could hit them because she could magically anticipate where they would be. And when they returned fire, she ducked and dodged, dancing through the rounds.
While using divination magic to fight would be awesome, Chazzie couldn’t imagine ever sitting still long enough to learn that higher-level magical shit.
There were too many fun guns to play with.
Two dragons came in behind her. Chazzie ducked as the first tried to snatch her from the pillbox with her claws. The other landed on the tower itself, gripping the edges with her feet and claws. The enemy dragon craned its neck down and opened her jaws. A dark fire filled her throat.
Chazzie had no choice. She activated her own super speed from off the Pugna skill branch. She rolled, snatched up a grenade, and hurled it into the mouth of the dragon.
She then bailed from the tower. The resulting explosion and shrapnel tore out the throat of the unfortunate wife. The first Dragonsoul, though, turned around in midair, becoming a Homo Draconis, and dove toward Chazzie. That was Margie. Fucking Margie.
Chazzie was on her hands and knees, a little hurt from her leap from the tower, a little dazed.
Margie used her wings to hover over Chazzie and opened her mouth to breathe fire. It would cook Chazzie right where she lay.
Sabina pulled another lever. The wall fell, slamming down onto the dragon, crushing her completely. They had a breach in their defenses now, but their fortress was only going to last so long anyway.
“Thanks for that,” Chazzie said.
“Si, senorita,” Sabina said with a grim, sweaty smile. “I saw that happen. I knew where to be.”
“Well, remind me to take you with me to Vegas. Seeing into the future certainly has benefits.”
“Yes and no,” the Latina Magician answered. “I know what’s going to happen. And it’s not pretty.”
“Don’t tell me, sweetie. I don’t wanna know!” Chazzie and Pru had stashed some guns near the entrance to the shack. Chazzie plucked an M60E6 from its hiding place. She then brought out her wings. She ran, got some wind, and sailed up to a platform they’d welded onto another section of wall.
And there was a werebear, running across the wreckage of the battlefield. By that golden-brown hair, and the sheer size of her, well, that was Zoey all right. A grizzly can run fifty yards in three seconds, or up to forty miles per hour. That’s faster than a racehorse and faster than any human.
Zoey was in full sprint mode. Pru was above her for a second, until two dragons careened down on top of her. Both were blackish, a green male and an orange female. Wyatt Gunn and Maria Diablo had joined the fray.
And they were hurting her sister.
Chazzie flew off the wall in her partial form. She triggered her machine gun and went to pepper Wyatt with bullets. But a yellow shield flashed to protect him. One of Carlo Bart’s Magicians was guarding him.
Pru struck the ground, one wing terribly damaged. Wyatt and Maria were still on her, clawing, kicking, and biting.
Chazzie dropped her gun, shifted into a full dragon, and slammed into Maria, driving her off. She then bathed the dark orange dragon with ShadowFlame. Maria let out a shriek, wounded, burned badly, but still ali
ve.
Wyatt jumped on Chazzie, driving her back, and they went rolling across the dirt. Chazzie reached her feet just in time to get a tail in the face. Wyatt whipped her again, and then he let loose a torrent of flames. Chazzie fell, hurt and smoking.
Pru had switched into her Homo Draconis form. But she couldn’t get her wings folded. They stuck out from her body at bad angles. She bent and snatched up the M60E6 that Chazzie had dropped.
Pru triggered the weapon, sending bullets streaking into Wyatt’s leg and arm. He fell back, but his wounds were healing. They couldn’t hear it above the battle, but damn, some fucking Magician was healing him. And Maria, for that matter. Chazzie and Pru were never going to take the two down as long as they had magical support.
Juice thundered toward Pru. He was going to gore her again, and this time, she wouldn’t be walking away. More Sounders had come.
Pru turned her machine gun on the newcomers, but she was out of ammunition.
Two werebears jumped onto Chazzie, followed by a third, and she was pinned to the ground. At the last minute, she thickened her scales with DarkArmor, two rounds since she had a ton of Animus in her. Regardless, their claws, damn, their claws weren’t being too kind to her poor pink scales.
Worse yet, their weight, magnified by the armor, pressed her down against the ground. Even when she accessed DragonStrength, they were too heavy for her to throw off.
The pain felt distant. She looked up. Juice careened toward Prudence. With her wings damaged, she couldn’t fly away.
Chazzie was going to have to watch her sister die. Where were Aria, Mouse, Sabina? Hell, where was the werebear they’d saved?
Maybe they didn’t care about the Wayne twins. Chazzie couldn’t blame them.
And then a lone figure appeared out of nowhere between the galloping boar and Prudence. It was a woman with long black hair flowing in the breeze. Emerald green sparks lit up her eyes. Sabina. She’d left the safety of the walls. She seemed like such a gaunt, fragile figure, that Juice would merely trample her into the ground. Her spells wouldn’t hurt the wereboar in his armor. Nor would the Peacekeepers she’d holstered. What was that woman thinking?
