Everything started to go dark within Dawn’s head as she swore that she felt the dragon sliding out of her and into the rebellious, undead keeper.
And, before she could be sure, she went black for the second time that night.
TEN
The Moment of Truth
Dawn startled awake as someone gently shook her.
She sat up, cracked open her eyes, catching a glimpse of the open cage door and a robed Mertoliage wearing one of those gold masks. The person took out a second mask—this one totally white with eyeholes and a slit mouth—then put it over Dawn’s face, partially obscuring her vision.
Dawn didn’t protest—not even as her heartbeat robbed her of breath and words. Through the eyeholes of her mask, she saw another gold-faced Meratoliage appear, but this one had the broader shoulders of a man. He raised up a length of chain, then wrapped it around Dawn’s wrists. Both of them led Dawn out of the cage and onto the ground, walking her toward the bonfire.
All the while, Dawn’s pulse skittered.
She didn’t feel the dragon in her. Had Lilly gotten it out?
How?
Mentally pressing down on her rising panic, Dawn thought about how the dragon would sometimes play possum, as if biding his time, knowing that it drove Dawn a little crazy. Was that what he was doing to her now? Or was bitter, betrayed Lilly running around with the world’s most dangerous weapon in her?
Dawn didn’t want to think about what that could mean, because based on what Kiko had said earlier and what Amber had revealed, Lilly had evidently been retired with a lot of anger in her—a darkness that might even compete with Dawn’s soul stain—and it would feed him. Feed him real good. Lilly probably wouldn’t even need an extraction ritual for her to become the dragon—a possible catastrophe Dawn had been fighting for years now. The big master might just take over a willing host, and that was one thing Dawn had never been.
The Mertoliage couple escorted her to the other side of the bonfire as her mind kept tumbling with latent explanations. Now that she wasn’t passed out, she realized that Lilly probably hadn’t sucked the dragon out of her earlier because she hadn’t been able to get close enough to Dawn. Plus Dawn had been armed.
As her captors brought her to a cushioned pallet, she calculated the odds of getting caught if she just ran, heading for the nearby trees. But as she took in all the Meratoliages near the pallet, she was sure she wouldn’t gain two steps without getting tackled.
They laid her down, positioning her bound wrists over her head and connecting the chain to the pallet. Then they clamped her ankles, too.
Should she tell them that the dragon might not be in her anymore? Would it save her ass?
Doubtful. She only wished she could see her face to know whether the dragon’s blood marks were still there....
Amber, with her silver mask, stood above her now, the flames from the bonfire a backdrop of seething light.
“Where is Lilly?” she asked Dawn’s captors.
Should she tell them about Lilly and the dragon now?
The male gold-face spoke. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
Amber’s voice took on a perturbed clip. “Perhaps you would like to find her? She’s still rather valuable to us.”
The man grunted in acquiescence, and Dawn couldn’t help sliding a smart remark in. Nerves—and the possibility of dying—were making her reckless.
“You worried about Lilly?” she asked, her mask making her mumble.
Amber seemed to comprehend her all the same, and she fixed that anonymous gaze on her. “She bears watching. But, don’t fret—she won’t interfere with your purpose in being here.”
You don’t say?
Dawn tested Amber further. “What if I told you that the dragon wasn’t in me anymore?”
When Amber laughed, just as if she’d expected some fast talking from tonight’s victim, Dawn turned her face back toward the sky. It was the faintest bit lighter, but still dark enough.
So this is how it ends, she thought. Going out as a weenie. Never in a million years had she believed she would take death literally lying down.
As Amber gathered the robed and masked Meratoliage women around her, Dawn’s mind raced. She could still get out of this. Without the soul stain, anything seemed possible.
There had to be a way.
The women began to chant in some kind of dark-arts language. Were they beginning to summon the dragon out of Dawn? Or maybe they were inviting that Lord of the Otherworld to collect Dawn’s and Costin’s souls just like garbage left over from a party.
It was only when all the women stopped and glanced toward the trees that Dawn decided they were checking to see if the Lord of the Otherworld had appeared yet.
One of the women only confirmed her guess. “Where is he?” she whispered to her neighbor.
“Don’t know,” she said, an old woman’s voice.
Amber shushed them, keeping her composure. “This is a busy night for Gwyn ap Nudd. He’s sure to be along, especially with the caliber of souls we’re offering him.”
Another woman said, “We’ve been summoning him for hours.”
“Patience,” Amber said, her words biting.
So biting that Dawn wondered if the leader was beginning to get anxious about her lord guy showing up.
Would Dawn get that lucky? The Meratoliages had already proven they knew what they were doing over the centuries while keeping the dragon safe, plus tracking down the person who’d been internalizing the dragon these last few years. But still...
Hope running through her chest, Dawn slyly tested the restraints at her ankles, but they were firm.
There was a loud clapping sound from the trees, and the women turned toward it.
Was it the lord and his hunters from the Otherworld?
Dawn’s team?
Or was it Lilly?
Dawn took advantage of the distraction to tug at her wrist chain but it held fast, too.
Amber directed some of the women slightly away from the pallet. “Keep summoning the lord.”
From about ten feet away, they chanted anew while Amber and the rest of the women surrounded Dawn. But, this time, Dawn could see through the spaces between their bodies, and it was obvious that all of the other Meratoliages—men?—were waiting around the bonfire for the Lord of the Otherworld.
Amber reached into her robes, pulling out a big, gleaming knife.
It took everything Dawn had not to scream and plead. Dammit, she was going to go down like a hunter.
As Amber lifted Dawn’s shirt, then started to slice through the material from the bottom up, she took up a different chant—the same type of strange language the other women to the side of the pallet were using, but with different words.
The dragon’s summoning?
Dawn braced herself. Are you still there, Dracul?
She never spoke nicely to the monster in her, but this was a good time to start. Unfortunately, she got no answer.
Lilly does have him, she thought.
Amber spread apart Dawn’s shirt, as if peeling her open, and when she rested the rough, cool edge of the knife against Dawn’s stomach, Dawn did something she rarely ever did.
She began to pray. Not for herself, but for Costin.
For everyone in this world.
“Dracul,” Amber said, and the rest of her women spoke the name while the females who were summoning the Lord of the Otherworld provided a counter-chant.
“Dracul...Dracul...Dracul...”
Amber slid the knife up Dawn’s body, over her neck, then to the bottom of the mask, flipping it off of her face.
The plastic clomped to the ground, and Dawn had a clear view of Amber’s expression as the woman focused on Dawn’s right side, where the dragon’s blood marks should be.
Were they still there for Amber to slice off?
The woman’s silver-masked expression never changed as another sound came from the trees.
A gunshot?
Whatever
it was, another one came right on its tail.
The team? Were they here?
Or did the Lord of the Otherworld carry some major side arms with him?
By the bonfire, the men began to scramble. Amber raised her voice to her women as she pressed her knife against Dawn’s cheek.
“Keep summoning!”
The chanting for the lord recommenced, louder than ever as the men yelled in the background and more gunshots followed.
Amber began to cut into Dawn’s cheek, and just as Dawn realized what this meant for the dragon blood marks, one of the men screamed, “Get her!”
Another gunshot banged.
The woman next to Amber jerked and fell to the ground as Amber ducked down. There were screams of other types, too—pained noises, death throes.
“Stop her!” Amber was yelling.
That’s when Dawn put a sure-shot, mental bet on what was happening—Lilly, who still had some brainpower left, had chosen this magically powerful night to get her revenge while she could.
The female Otherworld chanters stopped their summoning and ran toward the men, pulling blades out of their robes. Amber stood and brandished her knife, getting another one out of her robes, too, as she joined the others in the rush toward the bonfire.
No time to waste for Dawn. She faced the sky, which had turned a lighter shade. Sunrise, the end of Samhain and the Meratoliages’ window for more powerful magic, was almost here.
But she couldn’t depend on that to save her.
Dawn pulled with all her might at the chain above her head, yet it’d been fastened on but good. She thought of breaking her thumbs—would that help? No, the chain was too tight, damn the Meratoliages.
As chaos roared around her, she turned her head to the side. Lilly was all over the place, using her family members as human shields as they tried to shoot her. She was also breaking arms and legs, quick-as-lightning killing them as they descended on her.
Amber was yelling at Lilly in that strange language, no doubt commanding her to stop. But was her magic already losing its power with the coming of sunrise?
Dawn could feel the seconds ticking by with every frantic heartbeat. Even the sky had seemed to suspend its journey toward the break of first light.
Then, there was a thud in the center of her. Faint, but definitely there.
The sensation was both familiar and heartbreaking, because Dawn knew what it was. Her soul stain, coming back with the ending of Samhain.
But even as she wanted to cry, she knew what she had to do.
She thought about everything that had ever made her feel angry and betrayed—growing up with Frank as an alcoholic father, being rejected not once but twice by a selfish, egotistical mother, seeing Lilly open that box to capture Costin...
The last thought was the freshest of all, and the rage burned around the edges of her returning soul stain.
But something else was heating up in Dawn, too.
On her right side, she felt him. The dragon stretching awake, as if he’d been playing some great joke on her.
And he was ready to get to the anger that’d been nearly erased since midnight.
Just as she felt him gearing up to move, she opened her mouth and screamed with every frustrated, ugly piece of fury she possessed—her happiness, going. Lightness, going.
A better life...almost gone.
Her mind joined in with the anger, just as it used to, waking up with just as much force as the dragon.
Expanding inside her.
Flaring like a ball that was unraveling.
Psychokinetic energy, they used to call it when she got like this—anger, hurt, frustration, all coming out at once.
Now, as her soul stain grew, she tried to balance the good from the bad, fighting the dragon inside her while giving into the energy that just might save her.
She pushed with everything she had, nearly exploding as she lashed out at the world around her.
As her scream reached a peak, she pulled at her restraints, and they blasted off of the pallet, links and parts flying. At the same time, a flame like Dawn had never felt before roared up in her, taking her over, reaching across the inside of her body to grab her awakening soul stain.
She felt the dragon clawing, abrading her inside as she tried to push him back down.
Everything seemed to slow to a warped stretch then as she held the monster back. Her gaze had gone cloudy, but she could still see Amber and Lilly as they faced off to the side of the bonfire. Lilly was on her last legs, stumbling, but still fighting as Amber shouted more commands at her. Revolvers and weapons were on the ground, along with the dead, but the remaining live Meratoliages surrounded Lilly.
Dawn could hear herself breathing, could feel herself straining as she internally kept the dragon at bay, shaking, praying she would win.
Then everything went into fast motion.
The Meratoliages ran at Lilly like a pack of crazed dogs, piling over her, then lifting her up, finally heaving her into the bonfire as one group.
But Lilly wasn’t done. She rose up from the center of the flames, her cry nearly cracking the air apart.
Inside Dawn, the dragon laughed, pulling her every which way, breaking her down as she watched Lilly die.
Their gazes met during that last moment, and the keeper’s eyes actually rolled down into their normal place. She was back to being human but, worst of all, she seemed to know it was over as she was consumed by the fire, yelling all the while until...
Until there was no more yelling from Lilly.
Amber didn’t waste any time when she caught sight of Dawn standing on the pallet, the restraints dangling from her hands and ankles. She ran toward Dawn as she cast off her mask and smiled. The others did the same.
“Is it you?” she asked in that dark-magic foreign tongue.
The words were Dawn’s downfall, and the dragon crashed through, pushing her essence toward the growing soul stain, allowing the blackness to creep over her like dark, liquid fingers that folded around her.
Then the dragon sucked at the darkness, feeding until Dawn felt her actual body—the dragon’s body now—smiling at Amber, nodding.
The sky got even lighter, and the soul stain expanded even more, threatening to enfold her essence altogether. At the same time, Dawn could feel the stain rising, traveling toward the blood on the body’s face, intending to join the dragon in holy black matrimony.
But Dawn wasn’t dead yet. She still had a little time left before the soul stain got as dark as it’d been before...
With everything she had, she somehow tore the soul stain off of her and took control while she still could, forcing her body to step off the pallet, toward Amber.
The dragon stopped smiling with her body. It hadn’t expected this.
Amber, along with what was left of the Meratoliages, bent a knee and lowered her head to the person she thought was her dragon.
“Master,” she said, and the rest of the family repeated after her. Then she added, “We expected to have you out of this body, but she will do for now.”
The sky turned even lighter.
Dawn kept pushing at her body, forcing it into greater motion.
She felt it running at Amber now, and before the woman’s expression could change from worshipful to puzzled, Dawn bowled her over.
She’d seen where Amber had stored Costin’s box, and she reached into the woman’s robes, pulling it out, opening it.
“Costin—” she said with what she feared was her final breath as Dawn.
Wasting no time, he whooshed into her, exactly like he’d done at the beginning of every day for years now. As she spazzed to the ground, Costin crashed into the dragon’s blood, a flood of sparks nicking every cell, making them shudder and shake.
He kept ramming against the blood, weakening the dragon, who moaned with each attack. Quickly, before the dragon could recover, Costin tore through the nearby soul stain, too, banishing it back to the left side of Dawn’s body.
With a quaking pop, Dawn was fully back in the driver’s seat, gasping for air as Costin stayed inside her, a buffer between the two dark forces.
“Run!” His voice echoed through her.
The sun was rising as she pushed to her feet, stumbling away from the Mertoliages, finding her stride, running.
But she didn’t hear anyone behind her, and when she got to the trees, she took a quick glance over her shoulder to see why.
Something charred and awful had come out of the fire.
Lilly?
Dawn never knew what happened to the never-say-die keeper and Amber and the rest of the Meratolaiges after that. She just hauled ass into the woods, adrenaline keeping her going as her soul stain got darker with every unbalanced step.
Yes, the stain was back with the coming of the sun. Maybe she would cry later, when Costin was out of her, when she went back to the same dimmed life she had before. But maybe she wouldn’t cry, because, for one beautiful night, she’d felt alive again, and maybe there’d be another day like this in the future.
Maybe.
As peeks of light filtered through the trees, she fell forward with each step, losing the ability to run.
It was only a totally unexpected sight that made her skid and tumble to the ground, her fingers clutching dried leaves.
Off toward the edge of the tree line, she thought she saw a group of misty figures, all on horseback and led by a man with a blackened face. Some of them carried spears and blades. Other horses held bodies slumped over them.
Both the soul stain and the dragon wanted to go toward the surreal image, pulling inside Dawn to get to it, and Costin started clashing with the dragon again as Dawn dug her fingers in the ground.
If this was the Lord of the Otherworld finally showing up to get her and Costin, she wouldn’t oblige him. Fuck him, fuck the Meratoliages—they weren’t going to win after all...
The man with the frighteningly obscured face nudged his horse forward just as Dawn lost her grip on the ground, finding herself crawling toward him—
As sunlight blared through the trees, the image in front of her faded into the air, lord, horses, bodies, and all.
Without a sound.
Undead for a Day Page 9
