Montana Firestorm

by Aaron Crash

  But the battle wasn’t over yet.

  The leader blazed in hard and fast, lashing out with his flail. The bastard was quick—too quick for a regular Dragonskin—which meant he’d probably unlocked the SerpentGrace ability from the Pugna section of the skill tree. His electrically charged flail smashed into Steven’s shoulder like a wrecking ball, driving a railroad spike of pain through his body. A surge of raw power followed, and he lost control of his wings. It was like getting Tased by an actual lightning bolt. For a long beat, all he could do was spasm from the attack. He plummeted toward the unforgiving rooftops of the buildings and streets below.

  Finally, the initial shock of the blast wore off, and his limbs started obeying him again—and not a moment too soon, since the ground was quickly rushing up to meet him. He’d practiced coming out of such falls, though it was always touch and go. He flipped over, arched his neck, and spread his wings. He reinforced his limbs with DragonStrength as he caught an errant gust of wind. And just like that, he leveled out, zipping across the church courtyard, close enough to the paving stones that he could reach out a claw and touch them. A damned close call.

  He lurched back into the air, pumping his wings to gain altitude. Above, the priestly leader waited for him, his flail whirling. The priest shot toward Steven like an arrow, and his flail sliced through the air once more—this time aimed at Steven’s head. But Steven still had the flaming poleax clutched in one oversized hand, and he used it to block the incoming attack. The weapons smashed together with a clatter, tongues of blue and orange flaring as deadly magic met deadly magic.

  Steven swept his wings around, like he was flying away, but at the last moment, he whirled. Gripping the poleax with both hands, he cut through the wrist of the priest. The Dragonskin roared in shock and pain, his flail falling away, gripped by a scale-covered hand that was no longer attached to his arm.

  The priest shrieked and went all in, using his remaining clawed hand to clutch at Steven’s chest. He sank the talons on his feet into Steven’s thighs to stabilize himself.

  The fool had brought himself into striking distance. Steven didn’t hesitate. He snapped his jaws forward. The leader’s scales were no match for Steven’s powerful jaws. Blood gushed into his mouth, followed in short order by a flood of delicious, life-giving Animus.

  With a grimace, Steven spat the dead leader out of his mouth. The Dragonskin’s corpse turned human and went tumbling from the sky, smacking into the ocean below. The body quickly sank underneath the waters, swallowed by rolling blue and white froth. Steven dropped the flaming polearm, letting it join the priest in the watery depths.

  He banked hard left and swooped down, beelining for the courtyard. He touched down, surveying the beautiful medieval monastery turned gory battlefield. Sabina and Tessa had taken care of the last remaining Magician. Corpses of naked men covered the blood-spattered cobblestones.

  Steven turned into his human form. He gripped his wounded shoulder. The gashes on his thighs made walking hard.

  “Magica Cura,” Sabina whispered. She hit him with a powerful healing spell, and it fixed him right up. His new Magician certainly was powerful, no denying that.

  Aria and Mouse touched down but stayed in their dragon forms. Streaks of blood covered the scales on Mouse’s chest. Aria might be bloody, but her scales were already so red that it was hard to tell. He thought of the old Deadpool joke. No wonder the monks had worn brown robes to the fight.

  They stood silent, waiting for another attack. Gulls called in the distance, accompanied by the steady churn of the ocean against the rocky shore. Far below, on the streets, vendors were setting up their stalls and getting their wares out. Other than that, it was silent up by the church. It seemed the priest and the monks had been the only guards. Which was strange because they hadn’t been that tough.

  Tessa toed a dead man. “Well, we might have gotten all of the guards. Uh, we should probably clean up. Nothing says sneak attack like a bunch of dead bodies.”

  Steven took charge. “Tessa, Sabina, drag the bodies to the edge. Mouse and Aria can dispose of them in the ocean. I’ll see what I can do about all the gore. We might have gotten all of the Dragonskins, but we’ll still want to hide the evidence from everyone else.”

  The two Magicians gripped a body and dragged it to the edge of the courtyard.

  “I’m having a very Hitman moment,” Tessa quipped.

  “Movie?” Steven asked. “Video game?”

  “Both,” Aria responded. She picked up a naked corpse in her talons and launched herself off the courtyard in a flurry of wingbeats and the scent of cinnamon oil.

  “How did she know that?” Steven wondered.

  “Our little Aria is growing up,” Tessa replied. “But I like her Indian pop culture references better.”

  Once the courtyard was empty of the dead, Steven turned into his partial form and breathed out a big batch of flames. Soot covering the stones was better than blood.

  He was joined by his Escort, and they headed over to the iron gate. The stairs leading up were steep and narrow.

  Mouse shifted human, collected the Slayer Blade and sheath, and caught up with them. “I saw those steps. It’s some Winchester Mystery House bullshit. They don’t go anywhere.”

  Steven nodded. “Yeah, but when I fly above the church, I feel something in the air. And remember Sabina’s vision? She said something about a library hanging between the sky and the Earth. Just humor me.”

  “I live to humor you, my Prime, and to love on you.” Mouse grinned and blushed. “Oh, got myself a little excited saying that. We might need to take a moment together if we find this library. Books get me so wet.”

  Tessa blinked and then laughed. “Oh, my. You saying that gets me wet. I get Steven after you, Mouse.”

  Sabina slid up behind the barista and put her arms around her. The blind woman kissed her ear. Tessa moaned a bit.

  “I’m third,” Aria murmured.

  “I would get sloppy fourths,” Sabina said. “I think that’s what you would say in English—if you were in high school, and if you were being vulgar.”

  Steven grinned, then sighed. As appealing as the idea of sex was, they had other things that needed to be done first. “Okay, okay, we have to focus. Fight now, sex later.” He went to open the gate, but it was firmly shut. Even though he was bulked out in his Homo Draconis form, the gate held.

  “Magica Divinatio,” Sabina murmured. Again, her eyes filled with an emerald light. She stepped away from Tessa and cautiously approached the iron gate. “There is a powerful enchantment here. Ancient magic. Let me see if I can open the door. Magica Incanto.”

  Sabina let out a gasp and fell to her knees and then onto her hands. Her eyes were pinched shut, but even closed her eyelids gleamed green.

  The lock on the iron gate clicked open.

  Steven glanced up. He was left breathless. Above them appeared another stone structure, another church, the inverse of the abbey at the top of Mont-Saint-Michel but even bigger—almost as large as the entire island of Mont-Saint-Michel. The upside-down church and the real church shared the steeple. The stone steps went up into the sky castle above them. Stained glass windows reflected the dawn’s light.

  No wonder Steven had felt something when he flew over the island. He’d been flying through an impossible structure that defied physics.

  Steven and Tessa helped Sabina stand. She was blind again, weak, and a little wobbly on her feet. Clearly, casting the Incanto spell had taken a toll on her.

  “A library, hanging between the sky and the Earth, buried in secrets and death,” the blind woman quoted her own prophecy. “But how can this be? How can such a place even exist?”

  Tessa jumped on the question like a dog on a bone. “If the Dragonsouls can do portal magic, maybe they can create pocket dimensions. It’s powerful stuff, sure. And I’m thinking this might be third-volume shit. Maybe Rahaab did a little extra studying one night.”

  Aria took off and flew up,
wings beating. When she hit the upside-down church she passed right through it and then spun around to come drifting back down. She landed. She kept her great voice soft. “So Sabina’s spell allowed us to see it, but how can we enter it?”

  “Let’s try the steps.” Steven hooked a thumb toward the strange staircase. He wondered at the power they were dealing with. This was beyond anything they’d seen before. Rahaab certainly wasn’t a normal Dragonsoul. Not by a long shot.

  The iron gate swung open. Untouched. As though ushering them forward.

  “Well, that’s an invitation to a horror movie,” Tessa whispered.

  No one disagreed with her.

  TEN

  Steven led the way up the stairs that wound around the church … the one sitting on the island, not the one floating in the sky. The closer they got, the more the stone above seemed to grow sharper and more distinct.

  The ocean around the island was still bright in the morning sunlight, and the air was cool. Of the five of them, only Tessa and Sabina had clothes. Steven, Aria, and Mouse were naked. The stone was smooth against the soles of his feet. The smell of the water and the stink of exposed mud rose up to them on a gentle breeze. Clouds gathered in the distance. It seemed like rain was on the agenda for the day.

  The tide was going out. When it did, the bodies would be exposed on the long stretch of murky land, so they had to hurry. It wouldn’t be long before someone found a corpse and called the police. That would most likely alert Rahaab that his guards had been killed … that was if the legendary beast wasn’t already home and waiting to ambush them.

  And it wasn’t just the bodies being found. In less than forty-five minutes, Liam would open the portal again, and they had to get through it or be trapped halfway across the world from their Wyoming base of operations.

  Steven and his Escort reached the landing near the steeple that joined the two churches. He stopped. The spiraling staircase rose up without any kind of structure holding it up. To make matters worse, the rock was transparent, hazy, as though it were a thing of air and dreams.

  Steven squared his shoulders, steeled himself for whatever might happen, and stepped onto the first step, ready for his foot to go right through. But it became solid rock under his bare foot. Cautiously, he put more and more weight onto the step. All good. He walked up the impossible stairs. Above was an entryway into the sloping roof of the upside-down church. There weren’t shingles there, since obviously, no rain was going to splash down.

  “Well, this is all kinds of Dr. Seuss,” Tessa said from behind him.

  “I got that reference,” Aria murmured. “I read those books as a child. Those staircases didn’t have any real architectural support.”

  Tessa snorted.

  “Yeah, I so wanted more architecture in my Dr. Seuss,” Mouse said sarcastically. “This is a strut, you nut, and this is a blueprint, you stupid prince.” Before anyone could say anything, Mouse laughed at herself. “Okay, worst rhyme ever.”

  Steven climbed the spiral staircase until he was high enough to touch the bottom—or was it the top—of the upside-down church. The stairs corkscrewed up through a passageway cut through the stone.

  Steven had to press himself against the smooth walls as he continued the upward climb. He walked up and into an antechamber covered in a thick carpet, ten feet by ten feet. Topping the stairs, he touched the half-circle iron railing that topped the steps. Tapestries hung from the walls. Images were sewn into the fabric.

  One tapestry displayed three dragons: one silver, one gold, one white platinum. They descended from the stars to rest upon a green garden of thick foliage. Humans, naked except for well-placed leaves, gazed at the dragons in wonder. In another tapestry, several naked women surrounded the three dragons, and in the next panel there were Homo Draconis, part human, part dragon.

  Steven’s Escort pressed into the small room. Tessa gasped as she put together the story around them. “Guys, do you know what this is? It’s the freaking history of Dragonsouls! Look.” She waved a hand at the first tapestry. “So the three brothers flew down onto the Earth and intermarried with the humans—well, at least mated—and produced the Dragonsouls. The white platinum one must be Mathaal. I’m guessing Rahaab is the silver one, and the last brother was gold. What was his name again?”

  “Icharaam,” Steven said. “Mathaal killed him. Maybe Rahaab helped. Not sure.”

  “So the three brothers were space dragons?” Mouse asked. “Is that a thing?”

  “Seems so.” Steven drew back a tapestry. “There’s a door here.”

  Aria found another covered door across the way. “One here as well.”

  Two doors led out of the room. Which one should they go through?

  “Wait,” Tessa said. “Let’s go back to space dragons. On the skill tree, there’s nothing about flying through space. Maybe there’s a Defensio spell to create a suit to protect you.”

  Mouse grumbled. “Oh, great. We can all take a trip to the moon. Do you guys see anything odd in the tapestry?”

  Sabina pointed. “Sí, there, under the trees. What did I say before when I had my vision? Sí, ‘until the very shadows come alive to destroy us.’”

  Steven shivered. Nearly imperceptible, eyes, teeth, and claws were woven into the dark material. “The Zothoric,” he whispered. Those were the demons that the three brothers fled. And from what Mathaal had said, the demons had massacred nearly all the original Dragonsouls. It was why the dragons remained hidden from the humans and feared using portal magic. It was why Icharaam had been murdered millennia before. It was why, in the end, the secret cabal, led by Rahaab, had killed Steven’s father. Both Stefan Drokharis and Icharaam were powerful and didn’t fear the Zothoric.

  The upside-down cathedral wasn’t a doorway but simply a building that shifted between dimensions. Rahaab would’ve made sure his Mont-Saint-Michel Aerie wouldn’t have caused the Zothoric to notice it.

  Steven tried the handle of the door he was by, and it opened with a click. Stairs led up into a massive space—the inside of the church. But it was more library than church. Bookshelves lined every single wall that stretched upward. He recalled Old Matchstick’s prison pit; it had basically been a circular abyss of bookshelves. This place was similar.

  He walked up the stairs to stand on a landing where the steps split. The place had a very M.C. Escher feel to it. A tangle of staircases led to platforms where lamps glowed over rich sofas and overstuffed easy chairs. Multicolored light from the stained-glass windows splashed across every kind of book and scroll. Stairs met ledges on the sides of the vast room where rolling ladders could be moved across tracks to gain access to at least ten stories of books. It was a reader’s paradise and an architect’s nightmare. Without magic, the place simply couldn’t exist.

  Everything about it was impossible. The huge library made Steven grin. It was amazing, strange, and beautiful.

  “Wow,” Tessa said. “Lots of books but no Xboxes and not a PlayStation in sight. So what’s the point?

  Aria hissed. “Really?”

  “No one else was going to make the required video game joke,” Tessa explained. “I take my duty very seriously.” She pulled a Peacekeeper out of her holster. “And this time, if we get attacked, I’m thinking it won’t be Dragonskin underlings. It’ll be the real deal, so we don’t have to be quiet.”

  ‘It doesn’t feel like a trap, and we haven’t been ambushed yet,” Steven said. “Maybe Cassius Pine told us the truth.”

  “You can give him a big ol’ hug right after you pull my Slayer Blade out of his ass,” Mouse snapped.

  Steven made his way up to a platform covered in rich red carpet and then to another one. At the very top was a balcony that led to rooms. He wanted to make sure they were alone in Rahaab’s Aerie before they started to search for the third volume. And something was odd about the bookcases. They seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

  His Escort followed him up ten flights of stairs. At one turn, he glanced over
his shoulder to see Tessa had pulled the topaz pen out of her leather satchel. Rainbow didn’t spill from the magical pen. That was how they’d found the second volume of the Drokharis Grimoire, by following the pen.

  At the top of the room, on the balcony, he and the four women looked down at the library. They had a bird’s-eye view. The sides of the huge space grew narrower until they ended at the antechamber far below. That made the sense. The island fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel had a wide base and rose to a point. The impossible library above started at a point and widened.

  Steven noticed something. The walls of bookcases disappeared, and blank yellow stone took their place. Yet, slowly fading into view, another set of books appeared.

  “Did you just see that?” Mouse asked. “Or am I tripping hard from that time I drank the bad absinthe?”

  “No,” Tessa whispered in awe. “The bookcases are shifting in and out of reality. Kinda the ultimate bookcase. Potentially, you could have an infinite amount of shelf space.”

  “What magic could do this?” Sabina cast another Divinatio spell. “I see him. Rahaab, the silver dragon of myth. When Samael fell to him, he made this place. I see him raise the Lash.” The blind woman shivered.

  “We’ve got to get this bitch a tarot deck.” Mouse rolled her eyes. “Who the fuck is Samael?”

  Sabina went on. “There are two spells that Rahaab used, Enchantrix and Magica Defensio, to hide the library, so it’s safe from the shadows. This isn’t portal magic per se, but ancient spell work from a vanished time. His fear makes him hoard his knowledge. But I see two heads on the dragon, and there, AnimusChain, HeartStrike …”