Just as it occurred to me that he was on the ground, so I might be able to reach him with Chopper, Zav burst out of the bricks.
Dob was so close to him that he didn’t have time to spring away. Zav hit him with the speed of a maglev train.
They tumbled across the grass, mowing down another house. Wood splintered as the roof collapsed atop them. Shingles flew as the dragons bit and clawed and flung power. A woman in a bathrobe shrieked, ran out the back door, and sprinted down the street barefoot without looking back.
Fire shot out of the end of the structure where the dragons were fighting and hit the house next door. It burst into flames as if it had been doused with gasoline.
Another wall crashed down, and the wild dragon battle rolled into the back yard.
I ran for a tree, not wanting to risk giving up all cover, but I had to see what was going on. Out of ammo, I holstered Fezzik and pulled out Chopper. If Dob rolled close to me, I was going to pulverize him like a meat grinder.
I darted for a closer tree, the flames burning the top branches not deterring me. To my left, the river flowed past, reflecting the fires of the neighborhood. From my new spot, I could see the dragons wrestling and biting in the back yard.
Before I could lunge in to stab at Dob’s silver hide, Zav launched him into the air with an attack that looked almost as much physical as mental. Dob somersaulted as he sailed over my burning tree, knocking the top off on his way past.
Burning branches fell toward me, and I leaped out of the way. Dob splashed down into the river, water spraying me from twenty feet away.
I expected Zav to press his advantage, to rush after Dob and finish him, but he slumped down, one of his wings appearing broken. Blood ran from dozens of deep gashes in his black scales, gashes that left the pink of the muscle visible.
In the river, Dob lay on his back, his belly exposed. This was the time to attack.
His head lolled to the side, his furious gaze pinning me. And then his mind was in my mind, commanding me to take Chopper and rush toward Zav, to drive it into his chest. Into his heart.
The image of it making a killing blow filled my thoughts with such vividness that for a second, I believed it had already happened. I’d killed Zav, and now I would revel in his death, feel the power of being the greatest warrior in the world, the only one to kill a dragon.
Horror flooded me as my legs started to carry me toward the wounded Zav.
“No,” I snarled, my hands shaking on Chopper’s hilt. “No!”
I was so tired of being used by that dragon—by all dragons. Fury boiled over in me, and I channeled all of my mental strength into my legs and into Chopper.
Jerking around so hard it gave me whiplash, I sprinted toward Dob. He had to be gravely injured, because he still lay there in the water on his back, his head barely turned to stare at me, to try to manipulate me.
“Not this time!” I roared and sprinted to the edge of the bank and leaped out onto him.
I sensed his surprise—he couldn’t believe his mind control hadn’t worked—and he tried to raise his magical defenses, but I landed on his chest with Chopper leading. The blade plunged down into scale and flesh, snapping a rib and driving deeper.
The dragon stiffened under me. Magical mental claws tore at my mind. A fiery jolt raced up my arm, and the sword flared such a brilliant blue that it brought tears to my eyes. Pain hammered every nerve of my body, but I didn’t let go—refused to let go. I plunged Chopper all the way to the hilt.
Dob convulsed, water splashing all around him. I thought he would rise and attack me again. But then he grew still. Completely still. Slowly, his aura faded, and the magical power he’d always radiated disappeared.
I crouched there for a long moment, my muscles shaking, my hands still wrapped around Chopper’s hilt. Finally, I summoned the strength to stand and pull out the long blade. Dob was dead.
As I crawled out of the river and dragged myself up onto the bank, my entire body throbbed with pain. I had to pause to throw up. It felt like all of my energy had gone into that killing blow. It had been worth it.
The Pardus house was flattened and five of the neighboring homes had suffered similar fates. Four others were on fire. Countless trees burned.
Dimitri rushed out of the rubble and headed for me, but he paused and looked back. Zav, still in his black dragon form, limped across the wreckage of the house toward me.
What did you do? his telepathic voice rang in my mind, full of disbelief and rage.
“Uh?” I glanced at the dead silver dragon and then back to him as he halted in front of me.
Even injured, his huge muscled form radiated power. Blood ran from deep gouges in his scales, but the wounds did nothing to diminish his gravitas. His eyes flared violet as they bored into me.
I shifted uneasily, Chopper held loosely in my grip. “Maybe you didn’t see it, but I defended myself and took care of the guy harassing you.”
Took care of him! Zav shifted into human form, his eyes still glowing, as if fueled by anger. “You killed a dragon. I only sought to defeat him. It was my duty to take him back for punishment and rehabilitation.” His voice rang with just as much power when he was in human form. Maybe more, since everybody heard it now.
Dimitri had been on the way over, but he hung back. The dwarf had climbed out of the hole and was watching.
The heat of embarrassment scorched my cheeks. It was bad enough Zav was yelling at me when I’d helped him, but he didn’t need to do it in front of other people.
“You said yourself that his family would get him out of that if you brought him in,” I said.
“That’s not a reason to circumvent the law and murder a dragon.” Zav stalked past me and toward the river where the lifeless Dob lay, too large to be fully submerged in the water.
I would have to call someone at Willard’s office to come out and get the body, especially if dead dragons were no longer hidden from those without magical power. I imagined that couple with the stroller, walking the path on the opposite side of the river in the morning and coming around the bend to see Dob belly-up in the water.
“As we’ve discussed before,” I called, refusing to trail after him like a whipped hound, “your laws are not the laws here on Earth. That bastard killed all the workers in that water plant. The government paid me to kill him.”
“How wonderful that you’ll be paid for your assassination job,” Zav shot over his shoulder before leaping out onto Dob’s belly.
I clenched my hand so tightly around Chopper that my knuckles ached.
Zav reached the spot where I’d driven the blade into Dob’s heart. I had no delusions that I’d ever be able to kill another dragon. Only Dob’s grievous injuries and being depleted from his battle with Zav had allowed me to get past his magical defenses and strike a fatal blow.
Zav laid a hand on the wound.
“You’re not going to bring him back to life, are you?” I blurted.
Was that possible? I didn’t know, but the last thing I wanted was that asshole and his vendetta against me to be alive so he could retaliate.
“Even a dragon cannot bring others back to life,” Zav said scornfully without looking at me.
“Then what—” I stopped when Sindari bumped my hip.
He’d come to stand next to me. Let it go, Val. He is angry and might lash out if you continue to pester him.
I’m not pestering him. I’m verbally defending myself.
Yes, but it offends people when you do that.
Well, screw those people. “And screw him.” I thrust my sword in Zav’s direction.
He was twenty feet away, but he leveled a warning glare in my direction. I stubbornly kept my sword up until he looked back down at what he was doing. Whatever that was. Then I wiped Chopper’s blade and sheathed it.
I didn’t sense any shifters still around—Zav and Belohk were the only full-blooded magical beings within my range—and I didn’t truly want to pick a fight with Zav. Even if he
was being an ass. Sindari was right. I shouldn’t assume that Zav wouldn’t lash out at me if he was angry… and a dragon having a tantrum could kill someone by accident.
“What’s he doing?” I could sense Zav using his magic, applying it to Dob’s corpse.
Maybe he will create a portal to take the dragon’s body back to his realm, Sindari suggested.
I’d seen Zav make a portal before, and it hadn’t looked like this. The wound on Dob’s chest closed up.
“Uh, is it possible to heal a dead body?” I glanced at Sindari. “And why would you want to?”
It will not make the dragon less dead, but since he’s so recently deceased, perhaps it is possible. Or maybe he is filling in the hole by some superficial means.
“Are you all right, Val?” Dimitri came up beside us.
“Yes. Thank you for your help tonight.”
At least somebody here could be courteous and grateful for assistance.
“Did you see the exploding barrel I made? It took out the front door and that window.” Dimitri pointed toward the utterly smashed house. “Which was more impressive before Zav showed up and just flattened everything.”
“You did well. I’m glad you were distracting the shifters in the house, because Sindari and I had our hands full with the ones under the house.”
Reluctantly, I admitted that I’d be dead now if Zav hadn’t shown up. Of course, if Zav had never come to this world, then Dob never would have, either, and I wouldn’t have been threatened by any dragons.
I nodded, convinced this meant that I did not owe Zav an expression of gratitude, and I certainly wasn’t going to apologize for killing the dragon who’d been trying to use me again. After trying to kill me.
For whatever reason, Zav didn’t fix any of dead Dob’s other wounds. There were talon marks all over. Once my sword puncture had been repaired, Zav hopped back to the bank, leaping twenty feet as if he were a cat instead of a human.
He stopped in front of me, not acknowledging Dimitri at all. Judging by the uneasy way Dimitri shifted away from him, he was probably fine with that.
“If the Dragon Justice Court learns that you killed a dragon, they will send someone to collect you for punishment and rehabilitation.”
“Rehabilitation? Rehabilitation for what? All I did was defend myself. I don’t know if you noticed, but he was trying to put me in your way again. No, he was trying to get me to kill you.”
“I noticed.” Zav looked toward the stars and clouds above. “I must consider how I will answer questions on this matter. I will not implicate you.” He walked away and waved an arm to form a shimmering silver portal in the air.
That was it? He was leaving? Would he be back?
“I would prefer not to be the one sent to collect you and turn you over to the court,” he added.
A chill went through me at the idea of being dragged before this court of dragons. What kind of punishment and rehabilitation went on there, anyway? From what I’d heard, most of the magical beings who’d fled to Earth had considered it better to risk death here than to be brought in for that.
“Wait,” I called as he turned into his dragon form and started toward the portal. “Will you take Belohk?” I pointed to where the white-haired dwarf had been quietly watching, a gnarled hand pressed to his injured side. “He was kidnapped and brought here against his wishes. Will you take him back to his home?”
Zav looked at me, then at the dwarf, and several long moments passed as they seemed to communicate telepathically. The dwarf walked toward him and the portal, but paused to come to me first. He gripped my hand, and I quickly activated my translation charm.
“Thank you for helping me. If ever you come to my world, I shall assist you in researching your sword.”
I didn’t see how that would ever happen—it wasn’t as if Zav was inviting me through his portal—but I thanked him and patted him on the shoulder before he walked away. Zav leaped through the portal, and Belohk followed. A second later, the shimmering gateway disappeared, leaving me alone with Dimitri and Sindari and a huge mess.
You have put him in a difficult situation, Sindari observed.
Who? Zav?
They will ask him how Dob died. The death of a dragon is not a thing that can go unreported. He will either have to take the blame—and the punishment inherent in that—or tell the truth and risk being sent back to collect you for punishment. If not him, then it would be another. For a human—or even an elf—to kill a dragon is not a small thing, and it would not be forgiven by other dragons.
What would you have had me do, Sindari? Let Dob take control of me again? He was going to kill me if I didn’t kill him first.
I acknowledge that, and I do not know if there was a better solution.
Besides, he was trying to kill Zav. Don’t tell me he wasn’t. If he’d succeeded, wouldn’t he have been brought before their justice court?
Likely, but with a story rehearsed to tell. Since he loathed you, he might have put the blame on you.
Great.
I do not believe Zavryd is someone who likes to besmirch his honor by lying.
Which he was now going to have to do to protect me. Fantastic. Why’d I have to cross paths with an honorable dragon?
“Is anybody else completely tired of dragons and shifters and ready to get out of here?” I asked.
Dimitri raised his hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Police sirens wailed in the distance. If Zav had been casting some magic to keep anyone outside of the area from noticing the carnage going on… it was gone now. It was cowardly, but I didn’t want to deal with explaining any of this.
I’d leave a message at Willard’s office and explain everything. That would have to be enough. I was done. So very done.
Epilogue
I was cleaning my apartment when someone knocked on the door. Technically, I was lying on the floor, staring desolately at the ceiling and thinking about cleaning the apartment. Earlier, I’d picked up the books and clothes strewn around the living room, but I’d lost motivation.
Even though the last thing I wanted was to give Zav free rent in my mind, I kept playing the night before over in my mind and wondering if I had done the wrong thing or if he was an uptight over-reacting huge pain in the ass.
“It’s Willard,” came the muffled call when I didn’t get up to open the door.
Thus ended my afternoon of deep reflection, also known as brooding.
“Come in.”
Willard walked in and peered around before spotting me on the floor. “Are you injured? You didn’t mention being hurt last night when you were asking for a corpse removal team to come out to Bothell with a very large stretcher.” Judging from the twitch of her eyebrows, that hadn’t been the proper way to inform the office that they had to figure out how to bag and tag the massive dragon clogging up the Sammamish River.
“My injuries are minor. They’re healing.”
Maybe not minor, but they were healing. In a couple of days, I shouldn’t have even a bruise. Someday, I would figure out why my half-elven blood could tackle broken bones, bullet wounds, and claw slashes, but not elevated inflammatory markers. Something didn’t seem right there.
“So,” Willard said, “you’re just lying on the floor because it’s comfortable?”
“This happened to be where I was when I got tired of cleaning and was overcome with weariness and ennui. The couch was too far away.” I waved at the three-seater all the way on the other side of the coffee table.
“Ennui? Shit, did you call your therapist?”
“I will on Monday. She may give up on me. I almost got her favorite yoga studio blown up.”
“The almost in that sentence gives it a significantly different meaning than if the word hadn’t been there.”
“And yet she sent me a link to some online yoga videos and suggested that might be better for me. Or those around me.”
Willard closed the door and sat on the couch. She was in her army
uniform, her hat in hand, her wiry gray-shot hair recently cut. She had gained a couple of pounds since leaving the hospital but didn’t yet look like her usual tough-as-nails self.
“Some people stand up and salute me when I walk into a room,” she pointed out, waving an envelope.
“Yes, Colonel. Right away, Colonel.” I waved two fingers at my temple.
“Every time we work together, I’m amazed you made it ten years in the army.”
“It was nine, and I got assigned extra duties a lot.”
“I’m shocked.”
The roar of rush-hour traffic and honking of horns penetrated my windows, meaning I’d spent more time on the floor with my ennui than I’d realized. “You on the way home for the day?”
“Yup. I’ve got a long drive back to Fort Lewis, and I thought I’d wait for the traffic to die down. And come pay you. I think that’s the quickest you’ve closed an impossible assignment.”
I couldn’t manage a smile. I hadn’t even been trying to kill Dob, just help Nin.
It occurred to me that I should be a decent hostess and get up and offer Willard something from the fridge. My dark-elf intruder hadn’t molested the bottles of hard cider or cans of La Croix.
Instead of moving, I announced, “I hate dragons.”
“All of them? You’ve only met two.”
“All of them.”
“Even the one that makes you tingle?”
I shot her a dirty look. “Yes.”
The memory of the heated kiss-and-rub session in the water-treatment plant crashed into my mind, and my cheeks flushed red. That hadn’t been Zav’s fault, but…
“I hate anyone with that much power over me.”
“Most people,” Willard said, “who don’t have magical swords and magical elven blood have to deal every day with people having power over them. That’s life. The problem is when that power is misused.”
“Yeah, yeah. But it’s always misused. Even if it’s not, there’s your perception and knowledge that it could be at any time. That’s why it’s better to work for yourself and learn how to effectively knee people in the balls. Or boobs, should your tormentor be female.”
Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2) Page 27
