by Isa Hunt
CHAPTER 16 – KELLY
As soon as I had heard the strange voice on the chopper's radio, I had somehow known it had been Artemis. I don't know how; perhaps he and I were linked in some way. But now that Li-wun had confirmed that it was indeed him, a strange mix of emotions raced through me. There was an intense fear; on some level, I understood how powerful Artemis was. Also, however, there was a violent rage, an intense wrath of the kind I didn't think I'd ever experienced before. Who the hell did this guy think he was?
“Sergei,” said Benoit, “what weapons do we have in this thing? Please, please say that it has a rocket launcher somewhere. If we can blow them out of the sky, all of our problems could be solved with one pull of the trigger.”
Sergei spoke in rapid-fire Russian to the pilot, who grinned and jabbered excitedly.
“We have a rocket launcher,” said Sergei to Benoit, “and a light anti-aircraft gun. But we only have one rocket, and both are for close range only. It'll be dangerous to engage with them, because they surely have superior weaponry on their chopper, and they'll be able to shoot us down long before they get into range of our weapons. They'll open up on us and light this chopper up like a Christmas tree.”
“Why the hell was your pilot smiling about this then?” asked Benoit.
Sergei laughed darkly.
“He just likes a good fight, all the better when the odds are stacked against him.”
Now panic started to pump its icy chill through my blood.
“Oh no, what are we gonna do?” I gasped.
“Do not panic,” said Li-wun calmly. “They will not shoot this helicopter down.”
“Why wouldn't they?” I asked.
“Because Artemis wants you alive, child. He has realized that he needs your blood to get stronger – mine too if he can get it – and blowing you up with a rocket or missile will deny him the opportunity to obtain the blood he desires.”
“And what about the rest of us?” asked Benoit. “He doesn't need us alive.”
“No, he doesn't,” agreed Li-wun, “and he will certainly kill you after he has taken our blood. I am simply saying that we may have a chance to take his aircraft down, as he will not likely shoot us down, not unless his life is in direct danger.”
“So what do we do?” asked Sergei. “Let him get close enough to fire a rocket at him, and hope to hell it hits? If it misses or doesn't take the chopper out immediately, we're all dead, sooner or later.”
“You have forgotten that we have another weapon on this helicopter that we can use against him,” said Li-wun with a smile.
Sergei raised an eyebrow, puzzled, but I knew exactly what she meant. I bit my lip.
“I can't take on a combat helicopter,” I said. “I don't know if I can even hold my dragon form long enough to get close enough to them to give them a dose of flamethrower breath, and—”
Li-wun shook her head and held up a hand to silence me.
“Not you, child . . . Me.”
“Empress,” said Benoit, “with all due respect, that will surely be a suicide mission. There's no way that you could survive against both the chopper and Artemis if he flies out in his dragon form.”
“I understand this,” said Li-wun calmly. “And I will do it.”
Sergei leaned out of the door to peer out at our pursuers.
“Oh shit,” he muttered. “Now we really do have serious trouble . . . ”
“What's happening?” I asked, feeling fear and anxiety pulsing through me.
“Artemis is already in his dragon form, and he's flying ahead of his chopper,” said Sergei grimly. “But there's a fire drake with him too!”
“Oh crap,” muttered Benoit. “Two damn dragons, and an attack chopper!”
“Now you can see that I have no option to fly out and meet them,” said Li-wun. “If I do not sacrifice myself, all will be lost. Kelly is the great hope for all shifter kind on this continent,” she said, looking directly into my eyes with a look of deep compassion and love burning brightly in her eyes. “And I am dying anyway. I have lived a long, wonderful life, and what better way to end my life than doing what I can to save our future from this vile tyrant? Plus, I have a few personal scores to settle with him. I may not be able to win this fight, but I can surely bloody his nose, so to speak, and hold him and his friends off long enough for you to escape.”
“Li-wun,” I said, feeling a great sadness coming over me, with tears stinging my eyes, “are you sure that this is the only way? Isn't there—”
“Hush child,” she said softly. “It is, I'm afraid. There is no other way. You must survive. You must grow stronger . . . and one day, you must do what I am about to do, and face this tyrant head on. When you finally do this, however, I know that you will defeat him. Promise me that you will.”
Tears started to run down my cheeks, and a sob rose up in my throat.
“I . . . I promise you that I will,” I stammered, struggling not to break down as sadness and grief started to overwhelm me.
“When you get to the mountain cabin, there is something you must do. Below the fireplace, you will find a loose stone. Remove it, and take the object hidden there. I was going to give it to you myself, but now, obviously, I cannot, and you must find it yourself. This is very important! You must do this.”
“I will Li-wun. I will.”
“They're getting closer!” yelled Sergei.
“Then it is time for me to go,” said Li-wun solemnly. “Farewell, my friends. Take care of our young queen, and do everything you can to prepare her for the battle that she must one day fight.”
Sergei unbuckled his safety belt and knelt down in the cramped space before her.
“I salute you, Empress Li-Wun, last empress of the great Chen dynasty! The Vasenkov Tiger Clan will honor your legacy for a thousand years.”
Benoit too got up and then knelt before her.
“As will my wolf pack,” he said. “What is left of us, anyway. Farewell, mighty Empress.”
I got up too but did not kneel. Instead, I hugged her close and tight as tears ran down my face.
“Goodbye Li-wun,” I said. “I'm going to miss you. I'm really going to miss you.”
“Farewell young queen,” she said. “Make me proud one day!”
With that she disengaged from the embrace, slipped out of her magnificent silk robe so that she stood naked by the open door of the chopper, and then, closing her eyes, she fell backward out of it, disappearing silently into the night.
And then a few seconds later we all gasped as we saw the magnificent sight of a gleaming white wind dragon, her scales and wings glowing with a silvery effulgence under the light of the full moon, flying gracefully across the night sky to meet the two dragons behind us.
Sergei's pilot accelerated hard, and veered off into a bank of clouds . . . and that was the last I ever saw of Empress Li-Wun, last of her kind.
CHAPTER 17 – LI-WUN
I soared through the chilly night air, relishing the feeling of flight, celebrating the joy of the wind as it rushed through my body. I suppose I felt everything about the freedom of flying a little more intensely, knowing that this would surely be my final flight ever, that this would be my last night on earth.
One hundred and twenty-four years was long enough for one person to be alive, and I took pleasure and pride in knowing that my final flight would entail doing battle against the tyrant Artemis. Even though it was a battle I was sure to lose, it would at least mean that I could die with honor and pride instead of fading away in a bed. It surely was better to “go out with a bang,” as the saying went.
I saw Artemis, in his mighty blue dragon form rushing toward me, perhaps two miles distant, with a smaller red dragon by his side. The red dragon was certainly male, from its small size. I probably could have defeated him – the newcomer, whoever he may be – in a one-on-one fight, even though red dragons, like blue dragons, are built for fighting and we white dragons are not. But Artemis, I knew as soon as I saw him that th
ere would be no hope of defeating him. He was far larger than any male dragon I had ever seen, and, in fact, had grown larger and stronger than most female dragons. He was certainly much larger and stronger than Kelly was, and if he got hold of her blood, he would become so powerful as to be unstoppable.
I knew that I would have to do as much damage as I could to him before I died.
Artemis's eyes shone as he saw me coming; he was eager for a fight. He roared out, the sound blasting in a wave of power over the black ocean beneath us.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling up the powers of the wind. I knew that to try to attack him first would be futile; the strongest hurricane winds I could call up would not harm a dragon of his size or power – but that did not go for his much smaller companion, whoever that may be. I figured that if I took him out of the equation first, even temporarily, I would be able to focus my powers on Artemis alone.
I called up a whirling waterspout, a tornado that sucked water up from the surface of the ocean as it rose up into the sky, and directed it right at the smaller dragon. He seemed to be a skilled flier, as he ducked and swooped to try to avoid the spout, but he was young and inexperienced, and I had well over a century of experience in the art of moving the air. With a bit of weaving and twisting, I managed to suck him into the madly-whirling tower of air and water.
He shrieked as he was sucked in and trapped, unable to fight the power of the wind, and then the tornado carried him off, sucking him up into the clouds.
Calling up this waterspout took a lot of power out of me, and I felt my chi being depleted as weariness and a sense of weakness came over me.
It did not matter, though; I knew that I was going to die this night, and I was prepared to expend every last ounce of my chi in the battle against Artemis.
He and I were now less than a mile apart, and we were bearing down on one another rapidly. Behind him, perhaps another two or three miles away was his attack chopper. I knew that I had to protect Kelly at all costs, so with another surge in the depletion of my chi, I called up yet another water spout, this one directed at the chopper.
The attack chopper could not maneuver nearly as gracefully or swiftly as a dragon, so it was easy enough to catch the vehicle in my water tornado and sent it spinning away into the blackness of the gathering storm clouds above. That was one less threat to deal with – and now, to face the final threat.
Artemis bore down on me, his eyes shining with savage delight, his focus intent. Neither of us could speak, but I knew what he had to be thinking: “I have waited a long time for this, Empress Li-wun, a very long time. And now . . . now I will finally destroy you.”
Well, not before I hurt you, Artemis the Usurper. Not until I do everything in my power to hurt you.
He was expecting me to call up another tornado to attack him – so of course, I didn't do that. I did not have the strength to fight him in physical combat – but I did have very sharp claws, and I could fly and maneuver myself with pinpoint accuracy.
As I got closer to him, I swooped up, flying vertically up into the sky, climbing as high as I could.
I cannot defeat you, Artemis – but I can leave you with an injury that will be with you for the rest of your days.
I knew that he would also be swooping upwards, pursuing me . . . and that was exactly what I wanted him to do. I climbed higher and higher. I glanced briefly over my shoulder and saw that he was indeed following me. I was breaking away from him though; us white dragons were better fliers, and we could fly higher and faster than blue dragons or red dragons. I flew ever higher, glancing over my shoulder to check on my enemy.
He was growing smaller and smaller as I ascended, and if I kept going, I probably could have escaped him altogether.
I was not, however, trying to escape.
When he was all but a tiny dot in the distance, I turned around. It was time. I started to dive now, speeding back in the opposite direction, toward the ocean now, gathering tremendous speed and momentum as I tore through the air. With the last of my chi, I called up a whirlwind to entrap him, to hold him in an invisible cage of spinning air. It would only hold him for a few seconds, but a few seconds were all I needed.
He roared and thrashed his wings and limbs madly as the air enclosed him, trapping him, and I bore down on him at an incredible speed. He saw me coming and realized that I was planning on a head-on collision, a kamikaze dive.
I felt the lightning brewing in the depth of his belly before I saw it, with static electricity seeming to crackle suddenly in the air all around me, and knew that I would dive headlong into an electrical storm – but I had to do this.
He blasted out a hundred foot streak of lightning, blindingly bright against the dark sky, leaving a deafening clap of thunder in its wake as I screamed down through the air. The gigantic, jagged bolt of electricity hit me like a speeding freight train, but the momentum of my dive propelled me on, and I continued to aim straight for Artemis, even though the pain of the lightning, with its tremendous heat, melting my scales and dissolving my flesh was unspeakable. But in these last few moments of my life, I held my focus, my claws ready and aimed, and as he blasted out yet another deadly root of lightning, I dived directly into the blinding, annihilating light of it. With my last ounce of strength, I took aim with my claws at his one vulnerable spot: his eyes.
Everything happened in a split second.
I smashed into his face, burned and electrocuted almost to death by the lightning, but with the weight and power of my supersonic dive behind me, my claws slashed across his face. I missed his right eye, sadly, but with one last blaze of triumph, my claw hooked his left eyeball out of its socket.
I heard the snap of breaking bones too – his and mine – from the force of the impact, and then I was tumbling, falling toward the ocean, my wings and body broke, my chi all gone – but with Artemis's mangled eyeball impaled on one of the claws of my right hand.
I smiled as the ocean rushed to meet me, and as I plunged into its black waters, I found that the water was, contrary to my expectations, warm instead of ice cold.
In fact, a delightful warmth was spreading through my whole body, and bright white light, warm and gentle, unlike the lighting that had just seared my body, was blazing through the water, burning everything away. And I could hear it . . . after all these years, after all this sadness and grief . . . the voices of my children, joyful and laughing, calling me to join them.
And as the white light swallowed me completely, I saw their faces, and all was well.
CHAPTER 18 – KELLY
I couldn't stop myself from breaking down and crying. I felt it – I felt the exact moment that Li-wun died, like a sharp pain inside me. We were flying over land, after having just come back from flying over the ocean when it happened.
“She's gone,” I murmured. “She's gone . . . ”
And then the tears came, pouring out of me as I sobbed and wept. Benoit sat next to me and hugged me close, and Sergei came and sat next to me too, stroking my hair and holding my hand. Neither said anything, and in their eyes tears glistened as well.
We flew in silence for a while – well, if the continuous roar of the chopper blades above could be called silence. Eventually, I had gotten the worst of the immediate grief out of me, and although I knew that I would be saddened for a long time by Li-wun's loss, I was ready to go on.
“How long until we arrive at the mountain cabin?” I asked.
Sergei asked the pilot, and the pilot said that we'd be there in another hour or so.
“Who do you think that red dragon was, flying with Artemis?” asked Benoit.
Sergei shrugged. “I don't know, but whoever it is, it's bad news.”
“Don't you think Li-wun might have killed them?” I asked, hopeful.
Both men shook their heads.
“It's not possible, I'm afraid,” answered Benoit. “I just don't think that she was strong enough. Not to fight and win against two drakes, especially with Artemis being a
s powerful as he now is.”
“But the Empress's mission did succeed,” said Sergei. “She delayed them enough that we were able to escape. There is no way they can find us now, not after the winds she called up blew them so far off course.”
“How do you think they were able to find us over and over again before, though?” asked Benoit. “It's a question that's been on my mind. Surely they couldn't have learned everything about our locations just from following us from Florida. It's as if they were able to pinpoint our exact location, and stay ahead of us before we even made a move.”
While the two men were talking, my phone started to ring. I knew right away that it had to be my brother, so I scrambled to get the phone out of my bag. As soon as I got it out, I recognized the number, since I had seen it a few times now. It was indeed Jason.
As I moved to press the “answer” button on the screen, though, Benoit suddenly lunged forward and snatched the phone out of my hands.
“Benoit!” I yelled. “What are you doing? It's my brother, I have to talk to him.”
He held the phone away from me so that I couldn't get my hands on it, and shook his head.
“I'm sorry Kelly, but I can't let you answer that call. This is it, don't you see now?”
“This is what? Give me the damn phone before it stops ringing!”
A knowing look came across Sergei's face, and he nodded slowly, then shook his head.
“Of course,” he murmured. “Of course, how could we not have seen this before? I'm sorry, but Benoit is right, you cannot answer that call!”
“What the hell are the two of you talking about?” I snapped. “Give me the phone! As your queen, I'm . . . I'm ordering you to give me the phone! Now!”
“This is how they've been tracking us,” said Benoit quietly. “Every time you answered those calls, they were able to pinpoint our location.”
I paused and gasped.
“But . . . but Jason is my brother! He would . . . he wouldn't help them! He wouldn't help Artemis!”
