Texas Showdown

by Aaron Crash

  His father nodded at him. Those eyes. He had his father’s gray eyes, almost a stormy blue, with that same intense gleam in them. He was about to say something when Steven was back in his body, in India, Zoey rolling in slow motion across the desert dirt.

  Carlo Bart had a leer on his face. He’d broken open the action of his revolver and was shoving in fresh shells. Time was catching up to him here.

  Zoey looked at him, her face a bloody mess. Her blue-green eyes were full of fear and pain. It was his vision, coming true. He’d thought it would be an American desert, but that wasn’t the case.

  And then he was thrown back in time to his talk with Liam Strider outside BB’s tattoo parlor in Lewellen, Nebraska. This was before they’d battled Rhaegen Mulk and his Terror Trio in Cheyenne.

  Aria, Tess, and Mouse were getting the hurricane circles inked onto their skin. Steven and the Yellow Ronin were talking at a picnic table used by the smokers behind the liquor store there.

  Liam’s words fell like pistol shots. Your father was the best of us, and not just with his skill at sorcery. There was a goodness to him, a noble goodness, fearless. He, too, wasn’t frightened of the Zothoric. And his portal magic was unparalleled. Yet, I never understood why he would take such risks, opening the doors he did. He had a secret agenda that he kept from everyone. Even from me.

  And then moments later Liam had made a request. If you see him again in a vision, if you get another question to ask him, ask about the secrets he kept from me. I long to know.

  And then he was thrown through time and space back to India.

  Was this how Sabina saw? Was she constantly being flung about? Or had she learned to further control what she saw? Maybe it was like squinting or really focusing on something.

  Steven hardened his mind. He stayed with the fight in India only going forward in time a few minutes.

  He watched as Carlo Bart hit Zoey, reloaded his pistol, and fired. Steven would know to duck. Zoey had given him this moment, and he had taken advantage of it. He would fly across the sand as a dragon, grab Samael’s Lash as a Homo Draconis, and then he would turn human.

  And with a flick of the chain-whip sword he would strike the lynchpin rune, half hidden on the upper part of the cuirass nearly covered by the pauldron on Carlo’s left shoulder. In dragon script, it was the word “truth.” If he slashed a mark through that word, the armor wouldn’t fall off Carlo Bart, but it wouldn’t be impenetrable anymore.

  And then Steven forced the magic to send him back to the wasteland east of Denver, where his father stood on the highway.

  He knew Stefan had been there, in real life, before he’d been killed. He’d traveled to other worlds, and yet he’d done it without the Zothoric noticing him. Or maybe they had, and he’d killed them.

  Steven had to know. He was back on the asphalt in the highway that had been cut through the trash lining the road.

  “Dad,” Steven said. “Liam Strider wanted to know why you kept secrets from him. What’s going on?”

  His father motioned about him. “This is our future. This is our escape. This is our battlefield. We need to change things, Steven, because we were not meant to live in fear, and I will not let our kind die because the humans might destroy their planet. I didn’t want to tell anyone until I was sure. And I encrypted the third volume, that was me, because I too used divination magic. It’s not yet time. Wait for the next torch. Then you will open one eye.”

  Stefan smiled knowingly and vanished.

  His father was behind the last piece of encryption in the third volume? How was that even possible? And yet, it made sense now that he thought of the journal entries he’d read in that section of the grimoire.

  Steven blinked the shadows from his eyes. He stood on the dry plain in India. The sun had set behind him. A cold wind blew across the Thar Desert.

  Zoey was trying to get to her feet, naked, bleeding, and weeping from the beating she’d received from the invulnerable armored dragon.

  Carlo Bart had finished loading. He raised his six-shot cannon. Of course he did.

  Steven knew exactly what the villain was going to do and exactly how to undo him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Chastity Wayne sighed. Kerosene lamps lit the Americos Chamber now that the glowing portal was gone. Chazzie checked on Sabina. She was out cold.

  Well, the Latina Magician had saved Prudence, so she could take five.

  Aria was using the last of her Animus to cure Mouse and Pru a little. But they were all pretty fucking gashed up. And this wasn’t going to get any prettier. Voices murmured above them. It was only a matter of time before they started rolling down bombs and filling the chamber with poison gas. Hell, if Chazzie and Pru had been up there, that would’ve been a done deal by now. No need to fight when you could nuke the site from orbit.

  Chazzie ran to Tessa. “Come on, girl. I need you now. Please, come around.”

  Pru moved over and crouched next to her. Both were naked.

  Tessa blinked her eyes open. It took a minute, but then the Magician focused on Chazzie’s and Pru’s bare titties.

  Tessa grinned. “Is this heaven? Am I in heaven?”

  Chazzie rolled her eyes. “No, sweets, sorry. Pru and I are as straight as US-54 West.”

  Tessa closed her eyes. “Welcome to my own personal hell. Okay, Chazzie, what do you need me to do?”

  Chazzie bent and whispered her plan into Tessa’s ear.

  The Magician raised a hand. “Gun please.”

  Pru raced back to Sabina and got her gun belt and holsters. They helped Tessa to her feet.

  Aria and Mouse both knew the score. The five of them were going up in the most desperate gambit ever devised by a Wayne in the history of Texan Waynes.

  Chazzie went to the entrance. “Wyatt! Maria! Juice! You got us! We’re coming up. Please, don’t kill us before you hear us out!”

  Wyatt called down. “Yeah? Why should we talk? Carlo Bart is just gonna kill you. We’ll just save him the trouble.”

  “Us?” Chazzie laughed. “Sure, we’re dead. You can kill us for sure. But Pru and I are coming up with four of the toughest chicks this side of the Mississippi. You think Carlo Bart wants you to massacre women who helped topple legends? I wouldn’t think so. Aria Khat, Tessa Ross, Mouse Craygore, and Sabina Gonzales are quite the prizes.”

  More whispering up top.

  “Kiss me, Aria,” Tessa whispered. “I need a shot of Animus and all these straight girls aren’t helping me.”

  Mouse rolled her eyes.

  The pair kissed while Chazzie waited on pins and needles. If she were Wyatt, she’d either burn them out or starve them out. Another good move? Order the Wayne twins up top and then put a bullet in their skulls while offering the other four clemency.

  But Wyatt wasn’t much of a strategist, Maria usually deferred to him, and Juice was a fucking animal.

  “Come on up, then,” Wyatt called down.

  Chazzie let out a sigh of relief. Thank God for stupid.

  The five of them emerged from the shack. The sun colored the horizon. Wyatt and Maria were in their Homo Draconis bodies while Juice was human for a minute. Big and ugly, he grinned, but the way he held his neck, he was still hurting from Sabina throwing him ass over teakettle. Served the bastard right.

  Carlo Bart’s forces had gotten tired of the mines, traps, and trip wires and had dismantled their fortress. The ground was bare but blackened and bloodied, clear for about a hundred yards from the door of the shack.

  Aria stood in her partial form because she had to carry Sabina and Tessa. The gunslinger was still too weak to walk, and Sabina had crumpled to the ground, unable to stay conscious.

  Wyatt snatched the Slayer Blade out of Mouse’s grip. She was just a naked human girl with a pissed-off look on her face.

  Maria Diablo took Tessa’s pistols, gun belt, holster, and all.

  An army surrounded them: hundreds of Warlings, Morphlings, and Magicians with dragons scattered about. Only about
half of Carlo Bart’s wives, though. They’d annihilated the other half. Not bad.

  Big dragons rose over armored Morphlings. Warlings held rifles to their shoulders, all aiming their laser sights at Chazzie and the girls. Red dots painted them. Magicians readied spells. Some had glowing eyes, trying to peer through the veil to figure out what might happen next. Ha, none of them fuckers had the kind of mojo Sabina had.

  Corpses littered the landscape. Most were dead Sounders that hadn’t fared well against the grenade launchers and land mines. Chazzie had to grin at them. Nothing like vanquished enemies to give a girl a little goose in her giddy-up.

  Juice saw the smile and punched it off her face.

  Pru started forward but then had a shotgun shoved into her face. It was that Warling, the bald girl with the tattoos.

  Chazzie rubbed at her jaw and touched her nose. Came away bloody. Dammit, this guy had made her bleed. Well, he’d pay for that in a second.

  Juice shifted into an armored pig, glaring at her while spit dripped from his tusks. Disgusting.

  Tessa looked a little better after her kissing with Aria, but she was a long way from happy. Her skin was still so gray. Casting another spell just might kill her. Too bad that’s what needed to happen.

  The ruby ring on Wyatt’s finger continued to pulse with Carlo Bart’s heartbeat.

  Chazzie pointed at it. “Look at that thing go, Wyatt. That’s the kind of heart rate a guy has when the proverbial shit has hit the fan. Your Prime is probably getting his ass handed to him by Steven, now that he knows Zoey is alive. Ah, shit. It just sped up a little.”

  “Magica Incanto,” Tessa whispered. She sagged against Aria and began to cry. She was beyond tired, an emotional wreck, and nearly done for.

  Chazzie felt bad for her, though even if that last spell killed her, it would’ve been worth it. Sad to say, but sometimes you had to sacrifice players to win.

  The ruby ring on Wyatt’s finger winked out.

  He frowned.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Chazzie couldn’t help but smile wide. “Looks like Carlo Bart done bit the dust.”

  “That is connected to him, right?” Pru asked. “It certainly appears he’s dead. Shame. But can you really be surprised? Steven Drokharis is the future. He’s done more in nine months than most dragons do their entire miserable lives.”

  Chazzie agreed with a, “Mm-hmm, preach it, sister. Killing Carlo Bart was like swatting a fly for our Stevie.”

  Wyatt raised his hand. He glanced at Maria. Who smiled. “Well, Juice, looks like you’re working for us now.”

  The blackish-orange dragon lady turned and let out a big yell of victory. “Looks like you all are working for me and Wyatt now! Right, Wyatt?”

  The blackish-green dragon man fired up the Slayer Blade. Green flames licked up the sword as the emerald in the pommel gleamed. “Yeah. Steven Drokharis might’ve killed the Texarkana Prime over in India, but where is he now? Not here. So I call dibs. You’re looking at the new Dragonlord of the Texarkana Primacy. Wyatt motherfuckin’ Gunn! Fuck Carlo Bart Baxter. He was a punk-ass bitch. Maria and I were planning on ending him anyway. Sumbitch was livin’ on borrowed time as it was.”

  A cheer rose up from the troops. Most of Carlo Bart’s wives nodded, an evil glint in their eyes. Maria Diablo stared at Wyatt with adoration in her eyes. Tessa’s gun belt hung off her shoulder.

  “Plot twist!” Chazzie laughed. And she couldn’t stop laughing. They’d encouraged Steven to get Carlo Bart to get all his forces in one place because of the rules of the game—when a Prime killed a Prime, the victor got all the spoils, every single one of them. Damn. She was hooting and hollering and stamping and giggling until tears ran down her face.

  “Uh, Chastity, this isn’t helping us,” Pru said. Her sister was all cool and shit, but they’d lost and lost big-time.

  Chazzie was gonna laugh herself to death. Better that than having her pieces cut off by Wyatt Gunn and the Slayer Blade. She fell to her knees, holding her chest, enjoying the last laughing fit of her life.

  “Hey, Chazzie,” Tessa said in a hushed voice that sounded like death itself. “Did you forget about Plan B?”

  What was this now? A Plan B? From the Magician who’d almost magicked herself to death?

  Chazzie turned. And saw the Magician smile. Who was this girl?

  “Yes, Plan B,” Aria said. And then that beautiful woman let a smile shine on her face.

  The Indian woman blurred with speed—SerpentGrace, without a doubt. She snatched up one of the Peacekeepers hanging in its holster on Maria Diablo’s shoulder. She tossed it to Tessa, who plucked it out of the air and fired into the forehead of a Magician standing there with a Defensio spell on his lips. He’d never speak it. Not ever.

  The echo of that gunshot was the signal. Those who could of the Drokharis Escort went True Form, and they all hit the fuckers around them with Exhalants—from Chazzie’s ShadowFlame, to Pru’s ArcticWind, to Mouse’s Toxicity, to Aria’s good ol’-fashioned Inferno.

  Tessa whirled and shot Maria Diablo in the shoulder, enough to send her stumbling back. The bloodstained gun belt fell to the dirt.

  Chazzie swung her tail and batted Maria Diablo back.

  Meanwhile, Tessa emptied her one pistol, moving toward her belt. Then she scooped up her other gun, taking down target after target, filling up her bucket of Animus.

  Plan B? That B stood for one tough bitch. Because Tessa had to have known there was only one spell she could cast once her tank was full. And it was the one spell that had nearly killed her.

  The instant Tessa was out of ammo, she ducked back into the shack, and Mouse shifted into her partial form. Mouse grabbed both her sword and Sabina before fleeing down the steps and back into the Americos Chamber below.

  “Go!” Aria roared. She’d cast a shield spell. Bullets peppered the air in front of her, reddening the air. But magical orange arrows struck her in the chest. She answered back with her ElectroArc. Lightning sizzled in the ground in front of her and wreathed the Magician who had attacked her, literally blowing him off his feet. His stumped legs kicked and jerked.

  She kicked a leg forward and smashed the head of an incoming monster pig. Speaking of which, Juice galloped toward them on pounding hooves.

  “You first!” Chazzie roared back, sweeping out Warlings with her tail and casting her own shield spell.

  “What?” Pru asked in disbelief. “Chazzie, we don’t do the hero stuff. We leave that for the stupid people.” She breathed out enough ice to form a wall that kept six werebears back.

  “Yeah, channeling my inner stupid, sweetie,” Chazzie shot back and wished she could go down with a gun in her hand. She’d watched enough Westerns with Daddy that she knew that was how real heroes went out—shooting. Instead, she breathed out her next to last batch of ShadowFlame. Juice took a face full, and he squealed like the swine he was. Wyatt and Maria had taken off but were coming back around, claws outstretched, mouths open to dish out a fresh helping of ChromaticFury.

  Aria ducked away, then Pru followed, leaving Chazzie alone for a minute. She’d created her shield to protect against magical attacks, so the bullets hit her. She’d thickened her scales with DarkArmor, but the larger calibers drove her back.

  And then she too was running down the steps. She breathed hard, taking the stairs two at a time, felt the power inside her, and just had to grin. This fighting against all odds stuff was kinda fun, now. Yeah, she’d lost it before, but hell, they’d rescued Zoey and gotten her to Steven, and Pru was still alive thanks to Sabina’s Dragonskin maneuver.

  Chazzie exhaled ShadowFlame even as her blood pattered on the floor under her. The rock walls melted in an instant, becoming molten rock. The ceiling dripped down, and the lava hardened to block the entrance. That wouldn’t completely stop Bart’s army above, but it would slow them down.

  Wyatt’s ruby ring would show Carlo’s heart rate again. It would if Steven hadn’t killed the Texarkana Prime. So Wyatt and M
aria Diablo had no reason to keep them alive. In fact, if Carlo Bart found out his two lieutenants were plotting against him, he’d murder them right away and twice on Sunday. Funny, the whole army had heard Wyatt talking shit, and they’d jumped right in. Chazzie and Pru had miscalculated.

  That was an old story though. A Primacy gets too big, and the vassals start plotting the destruction of the Dragonlord, especially if he wasn’t very popular, which Carlo Bart wasn’t. And Wyatt Gunn had a way about him.

  Chazzie turned back and faced the women in the chamber.

  Sabina had come around, though she looked terrible, pale, sucked in, and spent.

  Tessa didn’t look much better. She had her eyes shut, trying to get the gumption up to cast another Magica Porta spell.

  Chazzie hooked an arm through Sabina’s. “If you can manage it, you’ll want to lizard out. Easier to swim with a tail. Pretend you’re an alligator, and you’ll do just fine.”

  Pru saw her with the Latina Magician. She raised an eyebrow. “Getting along with the locals?”

  “You betcha,” Chazzie shot back. She’d been mostly sure before, but now she’d made her mind up. She was going to play this one differently. No, scratch that. She was done playing any kind of game with the lives of women in her Prime’s Escort. She was going to join them for real, even if her sister had other ideas.

  “You’re hurt,” Sabina whispered.

  “Just scratches, mi amiga,” Chazzie replied.

  Tessa raised her hands. “Oh, fuck me. This is not going to be pleasant. I need someone to swim me through. Not sure how this is going to work. But let’s get ’er done.”

  “Now that’s what I like to hear,” Pru said. “You’re in Texas now.”

  “Not for long,” the gunslinging Magician whispered. “If we’re lucky. If not, we’ll wind up stranded… uh… somewhere. Hopefully there’ll be oxygen and ground there. Magica Porta!”

  Black water swirled up into the pool, and the place was flooded with light.

  Explosions. Grenades. The smell of poisonous gas seeped through Chazzie’s improvised barrier. Wyatt and Maria were getting serious now.