by Tricia Owens
I looped around and flew at him again.
I made a promise to hurt you. I know you hurt. I know you suffer. I know you fear. I also know you don't regret, and that's why there can be no other fate for you.
Vagasso, ugly and demented, flung up his mutilated pincer hands. But that was no defense against dragon of doom, dragon of destruction—dragon of retribution.
I opened my jaws wide. For Christian's father.
I bit down and wrenched. As I rose up into the air, I turned my neck and spat Vagasso's head out.
Blech.
I roared with triumph, though, because my enemy had been vanquished.
My dragon nature overwhelmed me at that point, my ancestral blood seizing control as ancient bloodlusts were appeased. I sort of lost myself for a while, crashing into buildings and burning palm trees.
When my human consciousness began to seep back into my dragon brain, I found myself flying at great speed toward Fremont Street. Pain seared my entire body. I had never hurt so much that I felt I was going blind from it. Venom burned through my veins. My dragon form was definitely dying. When I began to slow, thinking of landing and curling around my agony, I realized with shock that I held three human bodies in my tiger paws: my own, Vale's, and Christian's.
I nearly crashed to the ground. At the last second I remembered to keep flying for fear of doing my precious cargo any damage. I feared both men were dead—I remembered how they'd each been stung by Vagasso's stinger—but within my grasp they felt warm.
Heart-broken, suffering, unsure what I was doing, I flew by instinct alone, and my instinct called me to the Keyhole. I kept picturing the list that Uncle James had written, and the asterisks beside three of the businesses. The Shark Reef had been one, home of the capstone. What was the Keyhole home to?
The Rift had split Fremont Street and wrecked the overhead LED light display. Live wires sparked dangerously all over the ground and had cleared out whoever hadn't been driven away by the crack full of glowing, Hellish light. O' Malley's Casino, whose seal sat upon the million-dollar cash display, had been blasted with sorcery and now belched fire and smoke. Worse, there appeared to be fifteen or more demonic wolves skulking around it, guarding it for Vagasso. They'd be waiting a long time.
I landed carefully so as not to hurt the fragile human bodies in my grasp. I lay my body, Vale's, and Christian's down as gently as I could while the ground shook violently and the casinos fell apart around us.
Then I pulled out of my dragon.
I screamed when I did it. It felt as though I'd been doused in acid and my skin was ripping off. And yet, once I managed the shift out of the dragon body, coming back to my body was like diving beneath a waterfall in Hawaii. All of the injuries I'd sustained in my dragon form disappeared, though had I been killed as the dragon, my consciousness would have fled into the ether and my human body would have fallen into a coma from which it would never recover.
I didn't have to worry about that, though. I shakily climbed to my feet, shakily because the ground was rocking and rolling beneath me. I staggered to Vale first and checked him. He was breathing, a line wedged between his eyebrows as though he were in pain even while unconscious. I gently turned him on his side and checked his back.
"Oh, Jesus," I moaned in dismay.
Besides the horrible bruising from his broken ribs, an ugly balloon of venom had risen between his shoulder blades. Blackness radiated outwards from the blister in insidious tendrils. I didn't know jack about demonic half-scorpions, but I knew this blister of venom would mean Vale's death once it was fully absorbed into his body.
Looking around, it was easy to find a jagged piece of wood that had splintered off a sign for 2 for 1 margaritas. I snagged it and then placed the sharp tip carefully against the blister on Vale's back. I applied pressure until the wooden point pierced the thin skin of the bubble. Yellow, stinking liquid streamed out of it. I quickly positioned Vale so none of the venom would touch him as it poured out of the wound. Gently, I milked the blister until the skin deflated and lay flat against his back. I could only cross my fingers that I'd spared him a fatal dose as I carefully propped him against a wall.
Christian was likewise unconscious. I had to tear through his shirt to reach the blister that had risen in the middle of his chest. Terrified about the position of this scorpion strike—so close to Christian's heart—I quickly pierced the blister so the venom could drain out. When the blister lay flat, I moved him beside Vale against the wall.
Maybe what I had done for them was too late. I couldn't wait around to find out. The Rift was about to disgorge demons, so I needed to form this Geminix thing, pronto. I looked at the busted sign for Elemental Entities. My dragon had decided to come here. I had to trust its instincts because I certainly couldn't trust my own. After double-checking that Vale and Christian were in a protected spot that would keep them out of harm's way, I dashed inside the bar.
The place was trashed, with overturned tables, chairs, and glasses clogging the floor. It was also deserted, so it was easy to sprint to the alcove and input the code into the out of order video poker machine. As soon as it opened, I jumped through the secret doorway and into the shifter speakeasy.
To my surprise, there were shifters here, hiding beneath booth tables.
"What's going on?" a young man asked me.
"Are we being attacked by Russia?" asked the girl who was with him.
"Get out of here!" I yelled at them. "Get away from the crack in the ground. Demons are going to come out of it!"
Normally, such a ridiculous-sounding statement would have been met with jeers. But the world had gone crazy enough that thankfully these shifters believed me. After a hesitation, they crawled out from beneath the tables and dashed to the entrance while parts of the ceiling fell in.
I looked around frantically after they'd gone. The place didn't offer any suggestions on how to make this Geminix thing. It was a bar. That was it. The paintings on the wall had been shaken off onto the floor. The pale blue and purple lighting flickered as if wires had come loose. Tables were overturned, chairs scattered. The cloying smell of alcohol and sweet fruit juice made me think that a Victoria's Secret body spray factory had exploded.
The only thing not completely wrecked was the physical bar, which continued to glow like a turquoise sliver of glacier ice. Was it a coincidence that it was the strongest built piece of furniture in the room? I dashed behind it and searched the doghouse where the bottles of liquor were kept. Nothing looked unusual or felt infused with magick. There was nothing. Nothing.
Why had my dragon brought me here?
I called up Lucky and ordered him to smash the bar top. The acrylic cracked. Strangely, it split in half width-wise. The two halves tumbled to the floor as though breaking apart to allow a tall ship to sail between them. Separating the two halves also revealed a wooden center support pole. A shallow metal cup the size of a Dixie cup sat atop the support. Bewildered, I reached inside it…and pulled out a small, red gemstone.
It wasn't plastic or paste. I knew in my gut that it was a genuine ruby. What could the significance be? It was obviously important since it was hidden beneath the bar, but what if it had nothing to do with the Rift? Were any of the other seals made of gemstones?
A memory shot through my head.
"Oh, my god." Understanding burst bright like a newborn star.
Breathless with excitement and that most dangerous of emotions—hope—I sprinted outside. I ran to Vale, but he and Christian remained unconscious where they lay. Knowing I didn't have the luxury of waiting for them to awake, I ordered Lucky to take hold of them both and zoom ahead while I ran after them up Fremont Street.
It was a madhouse, like running through an amusement park that sat in the path of an erupting volcano. So much fell from the roof and from the buildings that I had to run beneath Lucky's belly for protection. Tourists and casino workers, hiding beneath gaming tables and outdoor benches, saw us and gaped, but I couldn't bring myself to
care. The Rift running up the middle of Fremont Street was now as wide across as a pool and was not only emitting orange light, but disgorging black smoke that occasionally took on menacing shapes. They were wraiths, struggling to find form in a new world. Soon, more powerful entities would emerge as the seals continued to weaken and fail. Time was not our friend.
We broke off of Fremont Street and entered my relatively quieter neighborhood. My lungs burned and maybe some of Vagasso's venom affected me even in this form, but I would have run on a pair of stumps before I gave up. At the depressing stone exterior of the Gallery of Veritatis, I had Lucky carefully set down his charges while I barreled inside. Echinacious, the goblin proprietor, appeared in the white room immediately, as if he'd been waiting for me.
"Anne, the end times are nigh," he told me with concern.
"No, they're not," I gasped. "This place is part of the key to sealing the Rift again. My uncle marked this place as special. Why?"
"You know what the gallery can do. That's the extent." Echinacious looked genuinely mystified. "I have no idea why your uncle would direct you here under these circumstances."
I held up the red stone. "You recognize this?"
The goblin narrowed his already beady eyes at it. "I do not."
"Well, I do, and apparently that's what's going to matter. Maybe. Hell, I don't know. I need to make a memory stain," I told him. "I'll pay you whatever you want."
He clucked his tongue as he touched the ceramic bust of Blackbeard. "Save the world and we'll call it even."
I jumped through the doorway as soon as the darkened room opened for me. As Echinacious set up a blank canvas, I quickly placed myself beside the gazing ball thing and set my hand on it.
"Hurry," I urged him.
He obligingly moved out of the way. "You have the memory in mind? One memory only, a moment in time."
"Yes! Yes!"
"Send only your sorcery, Anne. Now."
The ground shifted violently. I heard the foundation crack and saw the angles of the room began to warp.
"Do it, Anne!" he shouted.
I concentrated as if it were an Olympic sport. I focused my awareness on that one second in time as though I were Buddha himself. I shut out the shaking walls. I shut out the floor that bucked beneath my feet. I shut out the screams of horror I began to hear from outside as demons rose from the depths of the Earth.
On the canvas before me, a scene began to form in delicate-looking watercolors. Despite the urgency, I didn't panic, just let the scene paint out in invisible brushstrokes: the last thing I'd seen before I shot my dragon fire at the capstone.
"It's done!" I heard Echinacious cry out as part of the ceiling began to cave in.
I ran toward the canvas. I fell to my knees when the ground rocked. I crawled the rest of the way forward, gritting my teeth so I wouldn't accidentally bite my tongue off. I dragged the completed memory stain off the easel and to the floor with me. Then I took the ruby I'd found in the Keyhole and placed it against the perfectly painted copy of the capstone. I pressed the stone down, directly over the dragon's painted ruby eye.
The world exploded.
chapter 11
It was as though a gambling god had tossed the planet Earth down the length of a galactic craps table. My feet actually left the floor at one point and I nearly vomited as my stomach likewise went airborne. Then I crashed to the ground again and went hurtling, end over end, until I slid to a stop. Flat on my back, with the painting of the capstone tossed to the other end of the room, I clenched my eyes shut and braced for the ceiling to collapse on me.
There was the sound of a tremendous bang! that made me scream and sent me sliding six feet across the floor and into the nearest cracked wall. Another bang! and a teeth-rattling shake of the ground.
Then all went still.
The lack of motion actually stunned me. I couldn't believe it or trust it. I lay with all ten fingers pressed to the floor in anticipation of another violent shake-up. Going on ten minutes later, however, nothing happened.
I rose warily to my elbows and looked for Echinacious. He had likewise been thrown against a wall. The goblin climbed to his feet and dusted off his suit. He looked around him and then at me, on the floor.
"Anne, I do believe you've succeeded."
I wasn't prepared to believe anything of the sort. No way, no how. But I climbed to my feet also, keeping a wide base in case the Earth decided to begin twerking again. The memory stain of the capstone was at the other end of the room. I ran to it and quickly snatched it up off the floor—
—at least, I tried to. I nearly broke my fingers because the canvas was fused to the floor.
"What in the…" I bent for a closer look and could only stare in amazement.
"It seems you have elevated the importance of my gallery," Echinacious commented as he peered around my hip. "That could be seen as both good and bad."
I totally got where he was coming from. The memory stain I'd made of the capstone had, through some great sorcery, transformed into an actual, physical capstone. I yanked up more firmly on the canvas and the fabric tore up off the floor with a ripping sound, leaving the capstone firmly embedded in the floor. The ruby that I'd pressed against the memory stain's dragon now glinted in this newly made capstone.
Though it was needlessly risky, I bent down and touched the surface of it. It felt like polished stone and nothing more. The ruby wouldn't come up despite my picking at it with a fingernail.
I whirled on Echinacious. "Do you think this means the Rift is sealed again?"
"I would make that assumption, yes. The world seems to have settled."
I had to be certain. I ran out of the gallery and pushed through the front door. The sight of Vale and Christian lying on the ground like tossed trash derailed me from my plans, though.
"Oh, god," I gasped as I ran to their sprawled bodies and gently turned them both onto their backs. Both were pale and sweat beaded on their faces, but when I checked their wounds where Vagasso had stung them, it seemed to me that they hadn't gotten worse. The black tendrils around the stings hadn't spread any further through their skin.
Echinacious had followed me outside. I begged him, "Will you watch them for me? I need to grab my friends and bring them over here."
"You might consider taking them to Tomes," the goblin suggested. "The young proprietor knows a thing or two about demonic injuries."
Chastising myself for being an idiot and thinking some Neosporin would be enough to treat Vale and Christian, I summoned Lucky and again had him carry my friends as I ran to Tomes. Echinacious remained behind at his gallery, but I didn't blame him; he had his own concerns now that the Infernus Rift capstone had reformed inside his gallery.
I pounded on the front door of Tomes. It opened beneath my barrage, Orlaton not bothering with the sliding window as if he knew this was an emergency.
"Please help them!" I cried out to him as soon as the door swung open.
He took one look at Lucky hovering behind me, clutching the bodies of Vale and Christian, gaped at the sight for a few seconds, but then swiftly recovered and said crisply, "Wait here while I fetch two gurneys."
I wanted to yell at him, but he was right; Lucky wouldn't fit through the doorway while holding the men. So I ran after Orlaton and helped him push the gurneys back through the shop to the front door. We laid Vale and Christian on them and then rushed them back through the shop.
"Why do you have these?" I panted as we raced between the bookcases.
"You might be surprised to hear how often people faint or are injured during occult rituals," Orlaton replied. "I have played nursemaid many times."
"What about occult medicine? Can you do that?"
"We shall see."
"Vagasso turned into a demonic scorpion," I told him. "He stung them. I milked the venom out, but I don't know if I did enough."
"We'll see," he repeated.
He led us into the windowed room where he'd confessed that he didn't
trust me. I watched, feeling helpless and useless, as he collected various stoppered jars and vials and arranged them in a line along the metal table that I'd first guessed was an autopsy table.
"Get out, Miss Moody," he said, frowning with concentration as he began selecting strange implements from a drawer. "Your presence will only confuse the energies."
"Please, can't I help?"
"You will help by leaving me to work without interruption."
I laced my fingers behind my neck but eventually nodded. "Okay. Fine. I'll just—I'll be right outside. Right here."
He frowned at my babbling. "Go."
I turned to leave, but he said, "Did you stop it? The Rift?"
I had to answer honestly. "I don't know."
His shoulders rose and fell as with a deep sigh. "Time will tell. Now go."
I went.
Standing around doing nothing while Vale and Christian's lives were on the line was maddening. I couldn't take it. I opened my mouth to ask Orlaton if his phone was lying around and as if summoned by my thoughts, I spied an old fashioned land line sitting on an end table. I snatched up the receiver and quickly dialed Melanie.
I ran outside to meet her.
Smoke rose in the near distance, in the direction of the Strip. Helicopters continued to circle the area and sirens seemed to blare from every direction along with automobile alarms. It was noisy, sure, but the ground no longer moved. It felt as though the worst had passed. The worst when it came to demons, anyway. I couldn't bring myself to consider what the fallout of all this sorcery might be.
Melanie and her Prius took longer than I expected to reach me. When she finally parked and jumped out, she blurted, "I had to drive all over the place to get here! Dios mio, the roads are completely trashed!"
"Melanie," I said and couldn't say more. My throat closed up.
Horror crossed her face. She ran to me and flung her arms around me. "What's wrong?"
"Vale and Christian," I choked out. "Vagasso tried to kill them."
