He drew a ragged breath, his body sagging to the floor. "Shut it down. That is my command."
The white dragon reared back, ready to flame Metz out of the air. A bright blue nimbus shot around the sprite, aimed from Saba's outstretched fingers. Malcolm batted Metz, enclosed in the blue sphere, down the tunnel toward the database room.
Metz screamed and cursed. "I'm not a bleeding billiard ball!"
The white dragon's flame missed him. Saba, on the . other hand, was vulnerable, and the white dragon swung around to aim at her. Malcolm flung his body between them, absorbing the flames that were hardly more agonizing than what went on inside him. The white dragon sang his name, but Malcolm belonged to Saba, and he'd defend her to the death.
* * *
Chapter 21
Saba screamed as the flames engulfed Malcolm's body. She had no time for circles and chants; she simply threw whatever magic came into her head at the white dragon and prayed for the Goddess's help.
A puff of air exploded beside her, and Axel became the Baku, complete with wings like Metz's, on which he rose. Axel's magic was made for devouring nightmares, not battling huge enemies, but he darted around the white dragon, taunting him, drawing his fire.
Suddenly the cavern went dark. Not just the cavern, every tunnel that opened like stars in the roof dimmed and went out. The two dragons, Saba, and Axel were plunged into darkness. Metz had shut down the database.
Here we go, Saba thought, her heart thumping hard. Here's where we find out, the hard way, whether I'm right.
Saba scuttled behind Malcolm. The white dragon flamed once, thankfully not hitting any of them, then his flame disappeared.
She had no idea where Axel had gone. The darkness was so heavy that she could not see her fingers in front of her face. Next to her Malcolm bulked, the warm smoothness of his scales comforting. She touched him with the music of his name, flowing in past the pain the white dragon had caused, trying to soothe him.
I am here, she whispered on the music. I am yours. She paused. Even if you did skip out without telling me. But we'll talk about that later.
He responded without words, black and silver threads of his thoughts winding around her, and this time, she did not resist his mark. Being bound to him again was nearly as heady as when they climaxed together. Saba sighed and leaned her forehead against him, letting herself be one with him.
This is love, she thought. And magic. This is the truth of it.
She felt a shift in the darkness, something tangible sliding past her legs. She flattened herself against Malcolm, clinging to the thought threads, feeling his love.
The fingers of darkness retreated and went to look for easier prey.
"Come on," Axel said from on high, an edge to his voice. "I'm hungry."
The white dragon screamed. He flamed once, and in the light of the flames, Saba saw the darkness crawling over him, seeking something to devour. She shuddered as he screamed and fought, but the darkness, at last released to do as it pleased, was going for the most vulnerable creature in the place.
"Axel," she shouted. "Help him!"
"I'm going in," he yelled back. The Baku was small against the nightmare darkness, but he swept through it like a streak, laughing all the way. "Release Malcolm," he said to the white dragon. "Don't be an idiot, he can help you."
"No," the white dragon shrieked. "He will kill me."
"You'd rather be eaten by this stuff?"
The white dragon raged and fought, and Saba felt his hold slip the slightest bit from Malcolm's mind. Malcolm felt it, too. He raised his head, his strength returning.
"Release me," he said, voice rumbling to the far end of the cavern.
"You will die with me," the white dragon ranted. "You and your witch-bitch."
The darkness fell over him in a clump, damping his flames. The hold on Malcolm's mind loosened as the negative energy began to devour the white dragon's sanity. Malcolm rose on his haunches, black wings beating for balance. Saba's pull to him grew even stronger, and for a moment she saw through his eyes.
The world looked different to a dragon. They saw more colors, more shapes, and more textures than a human could. Malcolm watched, by the light of his own flames, the white dragon be pulled down into the dust, his bright green eyes eaten through with black. The horror he'd produced now devoured him, while Axel flew back and forth in it, trying to keep it at bay.
The white dragon suddenly rose and focused on Saba. A dragon didn't need to see; it could smell with pinpoint accuracy. The white dragon drew a breath to focus his flame on her, intent on her death.
Malcolm, finally freed, reared up, knocking the white dragon aside, and the two dragons began to fight.
Saba sprinted up a side tunnel, huddling away from the great beasts that screamed, clawed, and bit at one another. No movie special effect could be as frightening as two dragons battling each other. Every swipe of a barbed tail, every stray flame could send a bystander to his death.
The rising dust choked her, and flames heated the air until sweat poured down her face. The fires incinerated the thick dust in the air, creating small explosions that added to the smoke and confusion.
Still linked with Malcolm, Saba felt him taste blood and triumph as he lifted the white dragon by the neck and slammed him down again. The white dragon tried to wrap a wing around Malcolm's neck, then there was a loud snap, and finally stillness.
Saba scrubbed dust and soot from her eyes and ran in a half crouch to the end of the passage. The cavern was still pitch-black, lit only by dying sparks from burning dust. Saba saw, in the last second of light, Malcolm falling onto the white dragon and the darkness closing in on him.
"Malcolm," she whispered, then she turned around and shouted, "Metz! Start the database. Fire it up!"
She heard Metz yelling a response and trailing off into swearing. "Hurry," she urged.
Snatches of Metz's words came to her. "Easy for you… completely dead… virus wiped… sequence…"
"Damn it," Saba muttered. She calculated the distance to the tunnel that led to the database, took a deep breath, and dashed out into the cavern.
The darkness turned and rushed at her, looking for a new victim. Her connection with Malcolm's dying mind was weak, and darkness already blanketed him. She struck out with her blue magic light, for whatever good it would do. The darkness receded a little then pressed to her again as though liking the energy that flowed around her.
She felt herself snatched up by the shoulders, then Axel grunted as he propelled her into the correct tunnel. "Help him," he shouted. "Go!"
"You can't possibly fight it all. It's killing Malcolm."
"No kidding. Which is why you and Metz need to get that thing going." Without another word, Axel turned and flew back into the cavern.
In the database room, lit by a single mundane candle, Metz had resorted to kicking the crystalline columns that held the database.
"That won't help," she said, although she wanted to do the same thing.
"No, but it makes me feel better."
Saba ran her fingers over the dark crystals, wishing she understood how they worked. Metz had left the monitor and keyboard he'd hooked up for her before, but without knowing how to power up the database, the keys would click on nothing.
"We're screwed," she said, her voice strangely quiet.
"That we are, lass. Good idea, though." His tone held grudging respect.
"I have a better one." She stood up.
Saba had grown up surrounded by love, and even when she'd eked out a living working freelance from a cheap apartment, she'd known she had friends and family to help her at the other end of a phone call.
Then Malcolm had scooped her up and taught her about the magic she had inside her, not to mention the incredible pull of desire, and she'd met Lisa and Caleb, who had showed her plainer than anything the power of love. She'd met Ming Ue and Lumi and learned about friendship that crossed racial barriers.
She'd learned much from the
people she cared for, and she also learned all about sacrifice. Making sacrifices to protect the one you cared for was the most powerful love of all.
Only one being was strong enough to finish off the darkness and save Malcolm, Metz, Axel, and the dragon archive—and perhaps all of Dragonspace and the human world, too—and there was only one way to call her.
Saba pressed a shaking hand to the nearest block of crystals and cleared her throat. "Get out of the way, Metz. I'm going to create a door."
Metz said, "But…" even as he scuttled aside.
"I know. The last time I did this it almost killed me." In fact her heart had stopped, and only Malcolm had brought her back to life. Now Malcolm lay weak and dying in the cavern and couldn't help her. She didn't even have his powerful magic from which to draw energy to create the door, and the archive was effectively dead, so no help there either. The magic had to come from her.
"I can open it enough for you to call Lisa," she said. "After that it doesn't matter what happens to me."
Metz gave her a narrow look. "You mean it doesn't matter if you die?"
She ignored his statement. "Once Lisa gets in, she'll destroy the darkness and help Malcolm. Whether I make it or not is a secondary concern."
Silence. Saba couldn't see Metz clearly in the light of the one candle, but she felt the weight of his stare. "His nibs will kill me if I let something happen to you."
"I could knock you out first, if it will help," she suggested. "You can tell him I overpowered you."
"Cheers all the same. What do you want me to do?"
Saba drew a breath. "Fetch me some crystals and then get out of the way. If this spell backfires, I am not certain what it will do to you."
Dimly through pain and darkness, Malcolm saw a glow in the tunnel leading to the database. Not the normal glow of the cave's lights, but the feeble flicker of candlelight bouncing from quartz crystals heaped in preparation for witch magic.
Strong witch magic that would drag every ounce of strength out of the being that attempted it. He heard her begin to chant and knew.
Saba was going to open a door.
No! his mind screamed. Too dangerous. Stop her!
The blackness pinned him down, worming its way into his mind where the tendrils of his true name had linked him to the white dragon. He still felt the bond between himself and Saba, and the blackness attempted to access it as well, to get at her and the power she raised in the other room.
"Saba." The word came out a croak.
She sensed his pull, he felt that, but she ignored him. She centered herself, closing her eyes, trying to shut out the world and focus on opening a way out of Dragonspace.
"Axel," he called. "Make her stop."
Axel flitted in front of Malcolm's face. "I'm the only one who can do this dark stuff any damage. I need to stay out here."
Malcolm growled, a faint echo of black dragon rage. "She'll die. Take her out of here, to safety."
Axel stared at him, his black eyes and very sharp teeth gleaming in the darkness. "What about you? And the archive?"
"Saba first. Archive later."
Axel stared some more, then closed his mouth. "Huh," he said. "All right."
He dove to the floor, landing on his feet and morphing into his human self as he sprinted up the tunnel. From the end of the passage came a burst of light, and Malcolm knew that Axel would be too late.
The crystals Saba had laid around her cast harsh white and blue light into the gloom. She'd drawn the circle and charged it, and now the dome of magic rose over her head, the other half of the sphere sinking into the rocks beneath her feet. The magic touched the crystals of the database, but it didn't answer.
Metz cowered behind a rock, peeking around it. She heard running footsteps and Axel skidded to a halt in the cave, breathing hard. "Saba," he began.
"Ain't no use talking to her," Metz said. "She's already drawing the energy."
"Take some from me," she heard Axel through the rushing in her ears. "There's not enough power in this cave for you to do it alone…"
She could no longer hear him as throbbing filled her ears, a small amount of energy in the archive that the darkness had missed touched by her magic. Triumphant, the white energy poured into her, filling her from bottom to top until her skin felt stretched and her head ached. The positive energy of the archive was trying to escape, trying to help her banish the darkness.
Saba, she heard Malcolm's voice in her head, the smooth velvet of it comforting.
The power was splitting her in two. Desperately she grabbed the black and silver tendril Malcolm held out to her, the last of his strength. She felt him falter, then flicker out and her heartbreak nearly killed her.
No.
Through her grief, she pulled herself together. She had to do this, if only to avenge him.
She brought her hands together and sliced open the air, crying, "By Isis and Hecate, by Horus and Inanna, open to me."
Nothing. Saba drew a breath, willing herself to focus the magic that filled her to bursting. She'd never handled magic like this before, had never truly known what it was to wield power. It was like trying to keep all the moving parts of a faulty engine going at the same time, by hand. Or juggling twenty balls, all of which were on fire.
She pointed again. "By Isis and Hecate, by Horus and Inanna, by Diana and Aradia, I command that this door be opened." ,
Sudden power spiked within her, more than she'd ever felt in her life, drawing a reserve of strength she didn't know she had. Malcolm had known—he'd told her he sensed something inside her, but she'd never known it would be like this.
The air in front of her grew incandescent. A blast of hot wind struck her, sending her hair dancing, and there was a sharp, tearing sound.
Saba fell to her knees, power ripping out of her, its fibers unmaking her body. Dimly she heard Axel swearing something in Japanese, Metz screaming things she didn't understand. And over all that, the sound of Caleb shouting at Lisa to get back.
Beyond the circle, the darkness pounced.
Saba felt it smothering her, gleefully eating power it had craved and wanted to devour. She couldn't breathe any more, and blackness covered her eyes. She desperately reached for the comfort of the goddesses, but the darkness blotted them out.
. It pressed the air out of her, and she knew she was dying. She felt regret that she'd never explain to Malcolm, staring him down and making him listen, exactly what she felt for him. That no, she hadn't done all those things for him last year because he'd compelled her to obey. She'd done it for him, for the dark man with sinful eyes who made her feel like lightning in his arms.
She would never have the chance to hold his child and feel a love flow from deep inside her. She wanted to hug that child and then look up to see Malcolm watching her, warmth in his eyes. To wake up in the night with Malcolm stretched beside her in bed, hers for always.
The darkness closed in on her, until the joy of even those thoughts slid away.
Then came the music of the silver dragon as Lisa slid through the crack Saba had opened, her laughter like the soft ringing of wind chimes. "Saba," she whispered sadly in passing, then Saba sensed her plunge into the floor of crystals that made up the archive's database.
Suddenly the crystals burst into life, light skittering into the cave as Saba dropped, exhausted and numb. Through half-closed eyes, she saw the light grow into unbearable magnitude, and heard the crystals in the outer cavern and all over the archive answer.
She heard Metz shouting in glee, Axel's laughter, Lisa's answering voice. The darkness hissed, and then Lisa said clearly, "I am very put out with you."
Saba heard nothing from Malcolm. She tried to reach him through their thought threads and found emptiness. Her aching heart was the last thing she felt.
Malcolm opened one eye as Lisa flitted by in the form of air and colors. The cavern radiated light, every tunnel lit and glowing. The darkness was dispersing fast, sparking and dying, Lisa's magic destroying it
like fire destroying paper.
"I see you are still with us," Lisa said. She morphed into her silver dragon form, her scales too bright in the brilliance of the cavern. "I worried I was too late."
Malcolm lay utterly drained. The darkness had weakened his body already half-destroyed by the white dragon, and giving his magic to Saba had completed the process. Lisa, as usual, was smiling at him, irritatingly cheerful.
The silver dragon touched his nose with hers, and immediately a spark of strength flowed through him. Black dragons were healers, but their healing powers were nothing compared to those of the silver dragon.
He lay still a moment, basking in the strength that flowed like water through his empty limbs. His heart beat stronger, his wings lifted, and life and energy seeped into him.
He remembered the last flicker of Saba's thoughts on the other end of the silver and black tether, the love and need, then nothing. He lifted his head. "Is Saba all right?"
He saw a somber light enter Lisa's eye and he froze. "I said, is she all right? Why didn't you help her first?"
"Because she needs you," Lisa said. "Go to her, Malcolm. Not as a dragon, as a man."
He stared at her. "We are in Dragonspace. I have no choice but to be a dragon here."
"That is true," Lisa said thoughtfully. "In that case, I will give you a gift."
She sent out a small silver and white tendril that expanded to become a flame. Malcolm flinched as it touched him, but it did not burn. Instead, transparent silver fire engulfed him from head to tail, tingling instead of scorching, wafting the odor of cinnamon and spice over him.
He felt a familiar pull on his skin and suddenly he was Malcolm the man, standing on the floor. He looked up at the ceiling of the cavern he'd never realized was so vast, seeing the sparkle and glow of gemstones from very far away.
"From now on you'll be able to change at will within the archive," Lisa explained. "Go to her now. She needs you."
The Black Dragon Page 25
