by Chloe Neill
PAIN.
It dove toward us. Ethan and I dodged, rolled, and came up with katanas lifted, scraping swords against the dark, wide scales on its abdomen. It sounded like we’d slid metal against metal, the friction throwing sparks into the air.
I didn’t think we’d done any damage, but the dragon shrieked again as it flew forward, arcing toward the sky to get space enough to make the turn. But it misjudged.
Its wings brushed the building, and it lost its balance and pitched to the right, throwing Sorcha to the ground. Ethan held out a hand, holding me back as she climbed groggily to her feet.
She’d changed her ensemble today, exchanging the jumpsuit for an emerald dress with flowing silk sleeves, her hair loose again. I imagined she’d tried to pick an outfit appropriate for the Busy Dragon Rider on the Go. Bummer she hadn’t added a pointed hat.
“You are mine!” Sorcha said. “Under my control and within my sole power. You will bow to me and do my bidding.”
“Girl takes her role as DM a little too seriously,” Catcher murmured. “Details at eleven.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the rise and fall of its wings, the rainbow of color that spilled across its scales with each rhythmic movement. It was graceful in its way.
The dragon lifted into the air.
YOU DID NOT CREATE ME.
Sorcha’s smile was immense, her pleasure obvious. Her arrogance now physical. “Oh, I created you,” she said. “I brought together the disparate consciousness of all touched by my magic, and I created you.”
YOU DID NOT CREATE, it said. I EXISTED. PAIN AND RAGE EXISTED. YOU BROUGHT ME INTO THIS FORM.
“You’re here now!” Sorcha yelled impatiently, lifting her hands to the sky. “And I am in control. Come to me,” she ordered, and pointed at the street in front of her, like a human might order a stubborn dog to sit.
There was magic behind the order—the buzz of magic that pulsed through the air, the stain of the darkness that surrounded it.
The dragon swooped in front of her.
Tremulously, just as a girl might have taken her first cautious step toward a quarter horse, Sorcha took a step forward, green silk undulating around her body with each flap of the dragon’s wings. It settled on the ground, heat and moisture rising from its wide nostrils.
The dragon lowered its nose, its body only feet from hers, as if waiting for her command, her signal to move.
The dragon opened its eyes . . . chartreuse and angry . . .
And bit Sorcha in half.
And then, with a gulp and chomp, it finished her off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MIDNIGHT RUN
We stared in shock and silence for a full ten seconds, gazing at the spot where Sorcha, our feared enemy, had stood. Now our enemy was being crushed and crunched with horrible liquidy sounds while the dragon mawed on her remaining bits like a cow chewing its cud.
“She was our enemy,” Mallory said. “But . . .”
“But we would have incarcerated her,” Catcher said. “Not made her dragon kibble.”
We all looked at Catcher. “I won’t apologize for wishing her dead, although I’m guessing ‘chewed up’ isn’t a very pleasant way to go.”
We all looked back at the dragon, which coughed, then spat out one of Sorcha’s heels.
“Why do I want to laugh?” Mallory asked.
“Because this is horrible and uncomfortable and the best dark comedy ever written,” Catcher said.
“Yeah,” Mallory said.
But the comedy ended. Done with its snack, the dragon lifted its head, narrowed its reptilian eyes at us.
It had been born of pain and anger and fear—of those bitter, cast-off emotions of human and supernatural Chicagoans. And it had no love for those who’d filled it with agony.
ENEMIES, it said. PAIN. And then it lunged.
• • •
“Lead it back to the guns!” Ethan ordered, and we ran together down Pearson, then turned back to Michigan, leading the dragon back to the Guard units.
The world began to bounce as the dragon found its feet, began hauling down Michigan Avenue after us. And then the shuddering stopped, replaced by the whipping wind of the dragon’s wings.
It was airborne, with plenty of room to spread its wings on Michigan. And we made for a nice, wide target.
“Split off!” Ethan yelled, when we were in sight of the barricade. “Take Mallory and head for the river. We’ll head toward the lake, try to draw him away from you. Get back to the House.”
I nearly stopped running, nearly pulled Ethan to a stop to tell him not to be ridiculous, that I was his Sentinel and I’d guard him, and not the other way around.
I love you, I told him.
Forever, he said, a gleam in his eyes. Take care, Sentinel.
I nodded, grabbed Mallory’s hand, and dragged her off Michigan, the dragon’s hot breath literally on our heels. We ran down a side street, pressed ourselves against the wall of a building while the sound of gunshots ricocheted off skyscrapers.
But then I glanced at Mallory. Ethan, Catcher, and I were trained in combat. Mallory wasn’t, and she was still fighting exhaustion—and had just used magic to help Taylor. She was lagging behind me, so outrunning the dragon didn’t seem like a realistic option.
I pulled her into an alley and behind a Dumpster. It could fly faster than we could run, so a foot chase wasn’t going to do either of us any good. But I didn’t think it was small enough to fly into an alley.
We crouched on the ground behind the steel garbage box. The ground shuddered as the dragon moved, sending liquid sloshing and lifting a foul scent into the air.
“This is not how I thought things would end,” Mallory said, her fingers digging into my knee. “Crouching in garbage on the run from a lizard.”
“We’ll make it,” I whispered. We had to make it. I wasn’t going down like Sorcha, literally or figuratively. “We’ll wait it out, then find a way back to the House. Maybe you could conjure us up some wings.”
“No problem,” she said, but covered her mouth with a hand as the dragon moved past the alley, its heavy movements sending showers of dirt and grime and brick dust raining over us.
The footsteps grew quieter, but we waited until silence had fallen again. “I’m going to check,” I said, and stood up, pulling her clawed fingers off my leg, and peeked past the Dumpster.
The world was dark and silent, the dust from the dragon’s footsteps still settling on the street.
“That was close,” I whispered. “But I think we’re okay.”
“Merit!” She screamed and I looked back. The dragon’s claw—four armored black toes with two-foot-long black talons—speared into the alley, inches from my face, the talons curled and grasping.
Trying to find us, it slammed against the wall, sending the sound of brick shattering over Mallory’s scream. It found the Dumpster, pushed it backward.
Mallory scrambled to her feet to avoid being crushed, and jumped out of the way, into the middle of the alley, where it clawed again, trying to reach us with the tips of its gleaming red-black nails. The plating was different, I realized—the armor different on its toes than on the rest of its body. Slimmer, smaller, probably because flexibility was needed. And maybe, just maybe, vulnerable to a sword . . .
I WILL DESTROY.
“You most certainly will not destroy,” I said, and raised my katana, sliced down. Blood welled, the scent of it as foul as the garbage in the alley.
The dragon screamed, reared back and pulled up its injured foot, stumbled backward and fell against an SUV parked behind it, crushing the vehicle.
I knew a chance when I saw it. I grabbed Mallory’s hand and dragged her out of the alley.
“Bridge!” I said, scanning the neighborhoods on the other side, and spotting the stairs that led down to the E
l platform. There was no way it could fit down the concrete stairs into the tunnel. We’d be free of it. And with luck, we could make it back to Cadogan House.
PAIN.
We tore across the street, were steps onto the bridge, when the dragon found its footing again. It reached the tower at the end of the bridge, long nails gripping the stonework as its wings flapped, sending brick and gravel flying.
Fear speared through me, regret at the possibility I’d led Mallory the wrong way, made the wrong decision. But there was a dragon behind us, and water beneath us. We had to keep running. We had to get to the stairwell.
“Run!” I told Mallory, and we pounded pavement across the bridge.
And then the lights began flashing ahead of us, and the entire roadway began to vibrate. I glanced back at the river, where an icebreaker—one of the ships sent out by the city to keep the river flowing—was heading out to the lake.
It took me a moment to realize what was happening.
This was a bascule bridge, a roadway that could actually be opened in the middle to let tall ships through, each side lifting into the air, weighted by huge blocks on the shore.
They were raising the bridge.
The ship couldn’t stop without ramming the bridge. Which meant, between us and the bridge, the bridge won, even though we were still on it.
I looked ahead at the growing gap between the decks, and the rising incline of pavement above the water. I didn’t know how wide the river was here—a hundred feet? more?—but the gap in the road between the bridge’s decks would soon be nearly that wide, and the decks nearly vertical.
The dragon’s scream cut through indecision. It pushed off the tower, its claws throwing off stones as it lifted into the air. The stones fell like meteorites onto the asphalt.
We couldn’t help them, or we’d put the dragon’s attention right on them. Jumping into near-freezing water didn’t sound much better. That left only one option.
“Mallory, we need to haul ass right now.”
“Oh shit!” she said, pumping her arms as we took off, and she settled in beside me, breath huffing.
But with each step the incline grew, the deck slowly rising, so that we had to run with bodies angled forward, nearly on our toes. And all the while, the gap widened.
“Oh, this is gonna be close.”
“I can do it,” I told her. “Just stick by me.” I grabbed her hand. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”
Vampires and gravity are friends, I told myself, heart racing, feet pounding pavement. Vampires and gravity are friends.
Forty feet.
The dragon’s wings beat ferociously behind us, so dust and rocks beat at our backs like tiny bullets. It was drawing closer, the heat of its magically manifested body bearing down on us like a cruel sun, the chemical smell burning in the backs of our throats.
We were beating the rise, making progress toward the gap. I could feel Mallory slowing—she didn’t have my biological advantage—but I kept my grip firm around her wrist, tugging her along as I stared determinedly at the finish line, and the empty space that was growing in front of it.
We were going to have to jump.
If we got that far.
“Shit!” Mallory cursed, her weight dropping. I lost my grip, turned around; she’d hit a patch of wet pavement, was on her knees trying to regain her traction, trying to find purchase with the toe of a sneakered foot.
“Mallory!” I reached out my hand, but she waved me off.
“I’m getting up!” she said. “Keep going!”
I turned my head back to the rising bridge—to check the incline I was fighting against—for only a second. And then she was moving past me, screaming. The dragon had caught up to us and snatched at her; she’d evaded its teeth, but the tip of one wing snagged Mallory’s shirt and was pulling her forward.
“Mallory!” I screamed, reaching out a hand as ice chilled my blood.
And then she disappeared over the edge.
Panic ate at me, cold fear its own dragon in my belly, but I pushed it down, focused on inching my way up the incline, now nearly vertical.
I was sweating when I reached the edge of the roadway. I slung an elbow over the end, and spied her rainbow-painted fingernails. She hung by her hands from one of the bridge’s structural beams.
“Mallory!” I screamed, and stretched out my hand as the dragon reached the other end of the bridge, banked hard to avoid the buildings on Wacker, and turned to take another shot at us. We were going to have to be fast. “Give me your hand.”
Mallory shook her head, staring at her fingers, as if she could strengthen them by sheer force of will. “I’m slipping.”
“I won’t let you fall.” But she was a good two feet beneath me. I had to get closer, and that meant climbing toward her.
I made the mistake of looking down, watching light shimmer across the water so, so far below us. I could make a planned fall from a pretty tall height—at least onto land. The river’s eddied surface was something else entirely.
Eyes gleaming in the darkness, the dragon bulleted toward me.
I forced myself to ignore the void, ducking under the roadway just in time to hear the creature’s nails screech against asphalt, the thunder of its wings as it lifted again.
“You ever wonder why they call it a death grip?” Mallory asked, as I moved down among the steel beams.
At least the bridge gave us some protection from the dragon, which screamed somewhere above us, furious that we’d spoiled its fun.
“I mean, you hold on because you’re gripping life, right?” She blew bangs from her eyes. “Shouldn’t it be a life grip?”
“Anyone ever tell you that you get a little loopy when you’re in mortal danger?”
“I’m gonna be honest,” she said in a hysterical tone. “This isn’t the first time.”
My foot slipped on wet steel, but I caught myself, squeezed my hands so hard the knuckles were white against the railing.
“Merit, oh Jesus, Merit, I’m slipping.”
“I’m nearly there, Mallory. You’re doing great.”
“Hurry, Merit. Please.”
Her fingers disappeared as I pitched forward—and just managed to wrap fingers around her wrist.
She managed to bite back the scream, but I could see the terror in her eyes.
“Oh God, Merit.” Her feet dangled above the river. “Oh God.”
“You’re going to be just fine. Remember how strong I am,” I said, keeping a pleasant smile on my face. But strength wasn’t the issue. Water was the issue. The slip of my boots on steel wet from melting snow, the slip of her skin in mine from the resulting humidity.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“I’m going to pull you up on three,” I said. “One, two . . .”
I didn’t wait for three. I dug my heels into the frame and dug my nails into her skin, convinced that if I managed to get us out of this, she’d forgive me for the pain. I yanked her up with every ounce of strength I could muster, pulling until she was beside me.
She rested her head against mine. “I thought that was it. I thought that was the end of me.”
“You think I’m going to just let you go? No, thank you.”
She kissed the side of my head, then spat out grit. “You need a shower.”
“You don’t look so good yourself, friend.”
“Rude.”
“It’s going to get ruder.” I gestured up. “We have to climb back to the roadway.”
“And then what?”
The dragon roared, and the bridge shook with it.
“And then we get the hell underground.”
• • •
We waited until the dragon banked again, then scrambled back onto the road, where we sat for a moment with legs dangling over the asphalt. The lights were stil
l flashing at the end of the bridge, but the ship had passed through. They’d be closing the bridge again soon.
“Suggestions?” Mallory said.
“Yes,” I said as the creature turned back toward us. “I’m not going to be taken out by a lizard.” I put her arm around my neck, put a hand around her waist. “We’re going down the easy way.”
“The easy way?” She looked over the rail to the Riverwalk that lined the bank of the river some hundred feet below. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
The dragon was pissed that we’d survived, its wings beating angrily against the sky, its scream a symphony of fury.
“Hold on,” I said. “And you might want to close your eyes.”
She huffed out three hard breaths like a woman in labor. “Go. Just go and do it before I change my mind.”
I held on to her, took a breath, and took the leap.
Time passed weirdly in midair, so it felt less like we were jumping than like we were simply stepping down. Except for the screaming in my ear.
When we landed with a soft bounce, Mallory slitted open one eye, glanced down at her legs.
“Completely intact,” I said. “Unlike my eardrums.”
Mallory opened both eyes and looked at me. “Merit,” she said a little breathlessly. “You’re kind of a badass.”
“About damn time you figured that out,” I said, and I didn’t wait for her retort.
The dragon flew along the river and tried to snap at us, but couldn’t get close enough. We ran up the steps and flew across Wacker, where I dragged her into the stairwell as the dragon crashed behind us, teeth snapping as it tried to push its way underground, breaking off concrete and tile with every movement.
We kept running until the stairway was out of sight, stood huddled together until the dragon stopped screaming. The earth above us shook as it searched us out.
“I hate lizards,” Mallory said, wiping brick dust and grime and tears from her face.
“Yeah,” I said, glancing up at the blocked stairway. “I do, too.”
• • •
We were bloody, dirty, and torn by the time we walked back toward Cadogan House. And unlike the last time, a Guard vehicle was parked outside the House, and soldiers with very large guns stood beside the humans we’d hired to guard the gate.
