by Livia Quinn
He jumped back as a roar of outrage, or at least rage, rent the formerly snow-muffled afternoon, followed by the sound of snow-laden limbs each dumping their soggy load as the vibrations went through the trees. Before the sound died, the dragon, outlined in sparkles like sunlight on water, disappeared.
“What—” Jack spun around and found Conor standing within arm’s reach. Flambé had transformed from a flying twenty-ton bird with claws, teeth and fire into his Knight form, complete with armor and swords.
“How do you do that?” Jack asked incredulously. Then kicked himself, but if anyone had ever told him he’d meet Godzilla… yeah, forget that. He hoped there were no bigger, scarier, more dangerous creatures than this out there, but somehow he figured there were. Hell, why would there be a need for a good POP this big, unless there were bad ones working for the enemy. It made sense.
“A leash?” Flambé glared at Jack, his eyes doing a weird swirly thing. “This is not How to Train your Dragon.”
“Right, okay, I’m duly impressed. Actually, I’m glad to find you here, Flambé. I see you’ve been… resting. Out here in the open,” he hinted, pointing to the large area where the grass was torn up and mixed with snow and mud. “Were you by any chance at a certain household on the South side of town Saturday morning, the scene of a domestic abuse call?”
Conor looked at Montana who shrugged. Jack said, “That’s what I thought.”
Sword in hand now, Montana said, “Jack, Conor was just showing me a few moves. You might consider letting him work with you as well.” Jack’s gaze shifted to Conor. The Knight nodded but his expression didn’t change.
Jack blurted, “You could have at least shown me a little fire,” not believing he was standing there whining to a dragon that he wanted him to breathe fire. He had seriously flipped, but his eyes widened, and he figured he had a stupid grin on his face when Conor’s nostrils drizzled fire briefly and those pupils flared like someone had stoked the fire behind a grate. “Yeah, uh, thanks.” He rubbed his hands together, “So, Montana, I got a text from you—something about a confrontation with Tempe. Why didn’t you mention it this morning?”
“When Tempe was here, I didn’t want to bring it up in front of her. She doesn’t have as much control as older Paramortals do. And then I got distracted…” they both knew by whom. “The important thing is that it shouldn’t have happened. Paramortals shouldn’t be able to go off on each other, even if the bond goes away, there’s still the Oath. I thought we might ask Aurora about it.” She tilted her head, and looked at Conor, “Do you know?”
“I’ve seen my share of Para-moons. What you are experiencing is the nullifying of the Oath when the Paramortal power is lost. I’m afraid there are many aspects to this event. There will be some who lose not only their power, but their will to stand for good. Defenders will refuse to defend and turn into predators, brother against brother, not just enemies, but good beings will act out of character, those who are simply moon-sick, for lack of a better term.”
“Which is why it’s called Chaos,” Jack muttered. “And why Tempe and Aurora look so ill.”
“I will be here, Lang. I have been—what did you call it, Branislava—tweaking her fighting standards, since she will’nae have her Dinnshencha power. You are a warrior, Lang. I would train you as well, tonight.”
“I’ve never picked up a sword—”
Conor merely laughed, “Ach, nae. Merely how to use your hands and whatever you have to hand in fatal combat. Tonight.”
“What about Dylan?” Jack asked.
Conor said, “Dylan’s not going to be as much help as we’d like, eh?”
Montana said, “Dylan’s personality is in retrograde.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Jack.
“It’s all part of Chaos, little dragon. Every aspect of a being’s life can be affected—personality, power, morality, physicality, and each being differently. There’s no guarantee everyone will make it.”
Jack ran his hands through his hair. “I’ll be in touch, after I see how Tempe’s faring.” He hesitated, then turned back to Conor thinking about how Tempe and Aurora had looked when he’d seen them last. “A person can’t just go retrograde like that and die, can they? You know… with moon-sickness?”
Montana looked at Conor worriedly. Conor didn’t answer right away, but his empathetic expression told Jack all he needed to know. “Let’s not worry about the wagon’s path before the ox is tethered.”
Montana muttered, “You mean, get the cart before the horse.”
“He understands,” said Conor.
Jack nodded gravely and hurried to his car, a sense of urgency gripping him.
Chapter 26
After Jordie and Shy drove away Tempe looked at the house. She should go in, get some warmer clothes on, but she didn’t want to go inside. Out here she felt closer to the elements—air, water, and wind—though they were normally inside her. That’s probably why she felt so… tired.
She scanned the dark sky, held her hand out to allow some of her Precipitaerie cousins, the snow skyers to land on her hand. She listened to their laughter and delighted in their bright reflections as they floated to earth. They were water elementals, the same little guys she’d seen sliding down Jack’s pecs the morning they’d met. There were gazillions of them, so tiny as to be invisible until they latched onto each other and flowed as moisture or did their little sky-flying thing, competing against each other to create the largest and most intricate snowflakes. It’s why you never found too alike.
She glanced at the Forge. The swamp was the reason Paramortals stayed so close to Destiny. The super pulse of power that ran through the bayou had a health spa like effect on them. Maybe the Forge, with its special rejuvenating qualities, would boost her energy. It was worth a try.
She strolled quickly to the bank. A short woman walked toward her, dressed in black pants and a lightweight cotton vest. She was from some South American indigenous tribe, with dark eyes, her hair a thick black braid, her body wide but spare. Her vest appeared to be designed merely for modesty as most of her chest, torso and arms were bare and painted with bright tattoos like the drawings of a first grader. As she got closer Tempe saw they were all different shapes, designs, and colors of snakes, some showing fang, some with wide circular yellow eyes, some outlined in bolder red or black. A few might have been just worms.
The woman’s mouth widened in a smile displaying large straight teeth. Her flat cheeks didn’t change shape, and her eyes never caught on to the greeting. Tempe nodded back. The woman had just come even with Tempe when the same eerie screeching roar she’d heard that morning with Dylan went up from the swamp. Tempe and the woman jumped. She gripped Tempe’s hands, but both of them jerked back when a sharp prick like the shock of static electricity connected their fingers briefly.
The woman said, “Me disculpo”. I apologize. Tempe looked the woman over. She backed away muttering and nodding, then her eyes went wide and she pointed over Tempe’s shoulder.
Tempe spun around and watched as a figure crawled to the edge of the swamp and straightened on the bank, smoothing her hair, Tempe thought, primping. She was naked to the waist, her hair a bright yellow gold, and had eyes of blazing chartreuse green, like cheap stones from Party City. Those eyes seemed to be searching for something in particular, evidently not Tempe or the Indian woman, probably a man to entice. Her feet weren’t visible so Tempe wondered if she might be Fae. She wasn’t human; she was much too odd looking, and besides Fae loved running around in the nude, even in frigid weather. She turned to speak to the snake woman, to ask what she knew, why she was here, but she was gone.
Tempe’s fingertip, the one with her deremelei, burned where she and the woman had touched. She held it up in the meager light of the snowy sky and spotted two tiny marks in the center of her living tattoo. She rubbed it with her fingers and licked it to take the sting away.
Her mind was fuzzy. “Lass, what’s the matter?”
Tempe bl
inked, still rubbing at the sting on her fingertip. She’d intended to walk back to the house but had gotten only halfway up the hill when she’d stopped to admire the drifting snow.
“Tempe.” Marty’s voice. She blinked. Yes, sweet little Marty.
“I saw you with the demon, Tempest. Did she touch you? Attack you?”
Tempe looked down at her fingertip, then held it out to Marty. His head tilted as he studied the marks. “I’ve heard of them. The Naga. I think she’s infected you. Let’s go inside.”
Tempe saw Jack’s cruiser drive onto the grass by the house and said softly, “Jack.”
“I’ll find out what I can, Tempe,” Marty said quickly and disappeared.
Tempe no longer felt the cold ground beneath her. She looked wide-eyed at her first Para-moon. The huge transparent lavender disk was minutes from eclipsing Luna, with its pale white face edging closer to the great orb of Cache.
The stars were brilliant against an impossibly midnight blue sky on a windless, soundless night. Soundless, but for the joyous screams of the Precipitaerie, as they were expelled from the few remaining clouds.
As she bathed in the moons’ rays, she listened to their chatter while they floated to earth, some in clusters, hanging on to each other like tandem parachutists, others solitary, all of them sparkling. They laughed, sighed, and screamed with delighted terror on their roller coaster ride to the earth below. They did ice like no one else.
She held her hand palm up, allowing the mini tandem teams to bulls-eye on her lifeline. “Tempe, you’re cool, lass.” She laughed. The air felt warm against her skin, as it became a frigid landing zone for hundreds of snow skyers.
The little tandem captain did a back flip on her palm bumping into other skyers as thousands more landed, then jumped or dived from her hands to catch air currents to the ground. She looked up and saw spindrifts, spirals, and a blast of snow zephyrs racing the others, riding star-lighted threads of crystal and silver rays.
In that moment, every atom of her Tempestaerie heritage longed to jump into the fray. Precipitaerie continued to drift down landing on her arms, shoulders, and hair, reaching for their friends as they hooked up and created a layer of white crystals.
But as the sky filled with Cache’s larger skyprint, her cousins quieted, drifting silently, floating at first, then… dropping from the sky like tiny white bowling balls. Straight to their deaths. A few called out to her for help, but she wasn’t able to save them. She had nothing. Menori was gone.
As tears froze on her cheeks, their cries for help became less and less frequent. Finally, they went silent. Having neither the bulk nor the more intricate structure to withstand their loss of power, they’d simply died, coming to rest on Tempe’s skin like a frozen wasteland, a snowflake graveyard.
As Jack turned down the street to Harmony, Jordie called to tell him she and Jarell had seen Tempe. His daughter was safely ensconced in the Lang mansion with Beffie stalking the halls while she watched the basketball games on TV with Jarell. She confirmed what Jack already knew—Tempe looked ill.
He saw Tempe as soon as he topped the hill. She was sitting on the ground looking up at that huge trouble-maker of an eclipse. He ran toward her, at first wondering if he should disturb her, if she was in some kind of Paramortal trance. But she looked so… lost. Her hair was nearly black, and she was covered in a light layer of frost.
Her palm was lifted to the sky, and on it was a layer of snow that had melted and frozen into a hard pack. Her gaze turned up toward Jack and his heart stumbled. On her cheeks he saw two ice crusted tear tracks. A shiver racked her. That jolted him into action. Her body temperature must be past critical because the snow was clinging to her skin, having formed a half inch deep layer on her shoulders.
Tempe had talked about her inner weather system and the fact that she was never cold. Ever. So this was no Paramortal trance. Her power was completely gone, and Tempe was freezing to death.
More tears leaked from her eyes but they froze on her lower lids as she held her hand out toward Jack. “They’re all dead.”
Who’s dead? He was suddenly terrified. He quickly shrugged out of his coat. “Here, Sweetheart, let’s get you warmed up and get inside.” He draped it around her, gave up trying to get her to stand and lifted her into his arms.
Before he’d seen her storms and witnessed her power, he’d thought her the feistiest woman he’d ever known. None of that was in evidence now. Any second, he feared, she’d be no more than an illusive dream, a memory, a ghost. “Hang in there for me, baby, please.” He brushed her cold skin with his lips and closed his eyes, praying.
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice raw.
Her eyes turned soft and she smiled up at him. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you, Jack.” Then her head fell against his shoulder, and he realized he couldn’t see her breath.
Jack was gripped with a new urgency. Before long, it was going to be like a National Conference for bad guys, without many of the Paramortals to help contain it. Jack would be the Commander of an odd assortment of merry men and women.
Destiny had turned out to be more like Middle Earth than the Mayberry he’d hoped for. And his new friends were probably hoping he’d turn out to be less like an ex-Navy pilot and more like Aragorn.
Conor had said it would be friend against friend, brother against brother, some with power, others without; some evil and some just plain sick. How would he tell the difference? All he knew was that for the woman in his arms, he would fight; and for the people in Destiny and beyond. By God or Zeus, or whoever was controlling the Para-moon, his side was going to win.
A large cloud must have passed in front of the moon and Jack looked up. But there against the backdrop of the giant lavender disc was the silhouette of the dragon, and on his back stood a woman riding him like some kind of mythological barrel racer, her sword lifted to the sky.
He experienced a flash of hope, accepted the enemy’s challenge and shouted, “Hooyah!”
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Read an excerpt of Blame it on the Moon
Jack
Don’t stand in front of a dragon. This is not rocket science.
The gravel surface crunched under the cruiser’s tires as I pulled up next to Ryan’s vehicle. At first I didn’t see my friend and deputy. Then silhouetted against the moon a rifle barrel, dark and steady, stuck out from behind the roof of the deputy’s car.
I followed the direction of the rifle. I hadn’t noticed because the lake had been eerily silent, as if it was just another calm winter night, the quiet not preparing me for the sight in front of me.
Surrounded by water five hundred yards from the bank was a bass boat, one of those fancy high end models the pros outfitted themselves with. And circling above him like buzzards waiting for their prey to die, were hundreds of… well, the fisherman had told Ryan they looked like pterodactyls and I had to agree. He’d lowered himself into the boat as one by one the gangly looking things dove down to snap at him, as if toying with him before going in for the kill. The only thing visible against the moonlit water was the motor and the man’s head, which occasionally popped up above the side. He was flattened onto the raised platform of the boat in a effort to minimize what they could snatch.
When Ryan spoke, low and serious, I knew his days of escape or denial were over. “What the hell are those things? Is it… too late to pretend I’m not in Kansas?”
Ryan’s word
s may have been light but his body language said he wasn’t fooled. He expected the whole truth. It was hard to tell how big the things were but there was no trouble grasping their deadliness.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. What you’re seeing is real. I estimated there were over two hundred ‘birds’ in the sky, silently circling the bass fisherman like carrion sniffing impending death. But they so obviously weren’t birds; they didn’t squawk or make any other bird sounds which would alert their prey.
The flap of wings overhead preceded one of the creatures landing on the ground between us. It wasn’t moving. When it hit the ground I realized how much the distance distorted the size and weight of the things. This one was well over three hundred pounds and probably could have eaten me and Ryan both. Ryan jumped back and shot it several times, though the bullets didn’t seem to penetrate far into the tough hide.
I said, “Just don’t shoot the biggest one. He’s on our side.”
One of the flock dove toward the man in the boat and was within striking distance when light on the water dimmed like a cloud obscuring the moon. The great body of the black dragon, wings expanded, glided into the center of the flock, releasing short bursts of fire, immediately searing the devils into clunky carcasses with gravity doing the rest.
They fell out of the sky making loud splashes around the boat as they cannonballed into the water. Like an F18 doing a flyby of the control tower, Conor’s giant wings tucked. He performed two perfect barrel rolls and hurtled toward us. The sight of his brilliant blazing eyes and flared nostrils, not to mention the wide mouth filled with thousands of sharp teeth produced a strangled warble from Ryan before he hit the gravel. Overkill, Conor. I thought he’d fainted until I heard him holler, “Duck.”
“No, that’s a dragon, my man.” A chuckle rose from my chest as I stood my ground.
