Laurence perked up. “So I’ve got a long time?”
“Well,” Violet said, “Asher said the tooth fueled his anger, and that it got worse as time went by. We can’t risk waiting too long. For all we know, Andrei may decide to take his anger out on an entire city, or attack civilians to force Metin out.”
“Damn,” Laurence said. “I was hoping to get down and dirty with this dusty-ass scroll.”
“And you lecture me about being boring,” Violet said.
He rolled open the scroll and got out his notepad. “All right,” he said. “I’m going to do a rough-ass translation as fast as I can. You check all the references and compile everything. There’s some obscure-looking stuff in here, and a big chunk of the information’s going to be in references that are already translated.”
They worked long into the night. The scroll referenced all kinds of old books, some of which were available in English in online databases, but others needed to be translated as well, so Violet had to bring those to Laurence, adding to his workload.
They took a short coffee break around two in the morning. Violet’s legs felt restless and rubbery, and Laurence looked exhausted but didn’t seem tired.
“How are things with David?” she asked.
He smiled immediately, which was all the answer she needed.
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah,” Laurence said. “I keep thinking about it too, about how it happened. I got on your case, and I ended up being at that bar the one night David was there too. He said he never really went out much either, except when his writing friends forced him to go out. So if I hadn’t said what I said to you right when I said it, and if Lina hadn’t pushed me, then I may never have run across him, and my life would be that much worse because of it.”
Violet smiled. “You’re right. It’s all thanks to me.”
They laughed and finished off the rest of their coffee. Violet yawned. “How much longer can you work?”
“All night if I have to,” Laurence said.
His confidence gave her an extra shot of energy, and she said, “Me too. Let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER 27
ASHER
“So Metin’s actually going to go along with this?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” Asher said. “I’m not sure I believe it myself, but that’s what he said. I’ve never liked him, but I get the feeling that there’s a good man buried very, very deeply in him. All the things he’s done and justifications he’s made over the years are piling up and catching up with him.”
“Good,” Alex said. “This makes things much easier for us.”
Asher nodded. Metin would be part of a convoy that would travel between his current location and another military base. They chose a route that took them along sparsely populated areas. They had to hope that Andrei was still focused enough to gather intel and track Metin’s movements, but Asher knew that plotting and tracking was second nature to Andrei, even as a bloodthirsty dragon.
“Now all we have to do is wait and hope that Violet and Laurence can find something useful in that scroll.”
“You mind if I ask you something personal?” Alex said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I was thinking about how you and Violet knew each other from way back, and I started thinking about when I was in school here before I moved back to Romania.”
“You had a girl?” Asher asked.
“Well,” Alex said, “I mean, maybe. I had kind of written it off, because it was just a crush and we were both so young. I’d thought that since it was so long ago and since we were so young, it was just nostalgia and not worth taking seriously. Then I saw you and Violet.”
“Yeah,” Asher said. “I guess taste doesn’t change so much from when you’re young, even if you go through a lot like we have.”
“So,” Alex said, “I found her on Facebook.”
“Alex the badass dragon is browsing Facebook?” Asher said, laughing. “And asking me for dating advice?”
Alex grinned. “I’m glad you think of me as ‘Alex the badass dragon,’ but when it comes to this dating stuff, I’m hopeless.”
“Let me see her,” Asher said.
Alex turned his laptop toward Asher, and he looked at the picture. It was a woman named Lana. “I see that we have similar tastes.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “She looks good, but I have no idea what she’s like.”
“Talk to her then and find out.”
“She lives far away,” Alex said.
“Good thing you can fly.”
CHAPTER 28
VIOLET
“Shit!” Laurence said.
Violet jolted awake. She heard birds chirping, and faint light was pouring in through the windows. She hadn’t totally passed out, but she was catching some microsleep as she pulled references.
“What?” Violet avoided the urge to yawn.
“I just connected the last reference you gave me, and it’s bad news.”
“The fairy tale book?” Violet asked. “Are you sure we can trust that?”
“If I had told you about a magic dragon’s tooth and shapeshifting bear and tiger dudes last week, would you have thought it was real or a fairy tale?”
Violet winced. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”
“So, you know how you said Asher and Andrei were bigger than normal?”
“Yeah,” Violet said.
“It’s not just a one-time thing. The longer the tooth is bound to you, and the further it takes hold of your inner animal, the bigger and more powerful you get.”
“So,” Violet said, “whatever plan SHIFT and Metin are making, they need to get it going now.”
“Right,” Laurence says, “before you have fucking Godzilla stomping through the city looking for General Dickface.”
“I don’t think Godzilla could actually fly,” Violet said.
“You research that,” Laurence said, “while I go home and sleep for fifteen hours.”
CHAPTER 29
ASHER
The convoy rolled out at dawn. There were over thirty Humvees and another two dozen cargo trucks. The cargo trucks were loaded with armed soldiers ready to fight, and SHIFT rode in one of the Humvees. Metin was hidden in one of the cargo trucks with his SEAL team. The idea was to make a big show of the movement, and to do it in broad daylight so that they could see Andrei coming well in advance.
Violet and Laurence’s research had determined that Andrei would only grow stronger with time, so they had to do this now.
After a few hours, they drove into the border of western Kansas, avoiding the small towns there, and soon the radio crackled on. A dragon was spotted nearby. It had evaded detection until now and would be on them within a few minutes.
Plan A had been for fighter jets to intercept Andrei and shoot him down, but now that Andrei was on top of them, that wasn’t going to happen. Plan B was much messier.
“Execute whale formation!” Metin’s voice shouted over the radio.
Demian turned their Humvee off the road, and all the other vehicles did the same. The cargo trucks scattered and parked while the Humvees drove out and formed a large circle, like a wagon circle out on the old Oregon Trail, but spread out much wider.
The soldiers must have been nervous. They’d debated if Metin should come out and reveal himself but had decided against it. The risk was too great that Andrei would simply pick him off and fly away again before they could take him down. Spreading the cargo trucks out meant that Andrei had to destroy all of the vehicles and pick through the bodies to be sure Metin was down. It was a solid plan to slow Andrei down, unless you were in one of the vehicles that got picked off first.
The Humvees were all outfitted with harpoons. This was Asher’s idea, and the reason they called it whale formation. SHIFT would go into the middle of the Humvee circle and let loose with everything they had. If they were lucky, Andrei would fly right into the center of the Humvees, and hopefully enough harpoons could penetrate his
scales to ground him.
Asher sighed. Plans on paper were usually quite different once messy reality got in the way.
Over the hilly and rocky terrain to the west, Asher caught sight of Andrei. Even from this distance, Asher saw that he was huge.
He radioed it in. “Hold fire. Save rockets until he’s overhead.”
They were almost like a medieval army holding their spears until the cavalry was right on top of them.
Asher tightened his vest. The minigun vest. The minigun weighed heavy on his back, and the gun itself was so large that the base of it nearly touched the ground. It was incredibly unwieldy in human form, but he needed to stay in human form to operate the massive sniper rifle in his hands. He stabilized the gun’s bipod over the trunk of the Humvee and pointed it at Andrei. When Andrei got into range, hundreds of bullets would be let loose on Alex’s signal, and if they were lucky, it would drop him from the sky straight away. No harpoons needed.
I don’t want to use the gun vest, his bear said.
“Hopefully we don’t have to,” Asher whispered.
Andrei was getting larger over the horizon, his giant wings flapping only every ten or so seconds.
“He’s at least four times larger than me now,” Alex said.
And then Alex shifted. He jumped up and flew up directly over the center of the Humvee circle. He shot a burst of fire into the air and then began circling overhead, baiting Andrei in.
Andrei neared the first of the convoy trucks, and suddenly he dove, trading height for speed. His claws sank into a convoy truck, and he flew up into the air with it.
Asher saw muzzle flashes erupt from the green tarp, shredding it. Men who looked like toy soldiers from this distance fell to the ground with their hands waving. Andrei dove again and slammed the truck into the ground. It caught fire after he climbed back into the air.
“Hold fire!” Metin’s voice growled over the radio.
They couldn’t hold fire forever, or Andrei would pick the trucks off one by one.
Alex must have made the same realization, as he flew toward Andrei.
Andrei shot a concentrated blast of fire, and it flew through the air in a burning ball. Alex banked hard left, barely dodging.
“Dismount!” Metin shouted.
From each of the convoys soldiers spilled out. They spread out to avoid dying by the dozen by a single blast of fire.
Andrei flew closer toward Alex to get a better shot, and Alex moved back toward the center of the circle.
“Hold!” Metin shouted.
Andrei was almost directly overhead now.
“Hold!”
Asher adjusted his scope to minimum zoom. Then he put Andrei in the crosshairs.
“Fire!”
Explosions rocked the field, muzzle fire, rockets flying, and harpoons sailing through the sky.
Asher fired, re-aimed from the recoil, and fired again. Through his scope he saw hundreds of impacts peppering Andrei’s scales, but Andrei still flew.
Then the first of the harpoons bit into him. Some hit shallow, slid off, and then sank to the ground like cast fishing lines. Others penetrated, and soon the ropes tightened.
Asher’s own shots seem to have little effect.
Andrei was fast, and he dodged all of the rockets.
“Hold rocket fire!” Metin said. “You’ll break off the harpoons if you hit. Save it for when we ground him!”
Asher counted at least ten harpoons lodged into Andrei’s scales. The Humvees attached to him had heavy boulders anchored to the bottom, and the combined weight began to limit Andrei’s mobility. He flew in shallow circles but could no longer break free.
Alex hit him directly with blasts of hot fire, but Andrei counterattacked from near point-blank range, and Alex took a shot of hellfire straight to the face. He staggered mid-flight and then began to plummet to the ground. He crashed down into the field and didn’t get back up.
Gun vest! Asher’s bear roared.
Asher shifted. He bit down on the button strap in his mouth to activate the gun. He looked through a reticle over his eye, and the gun aimed at whatever he looked at. He locked his vision on Andrei and bit down hard.
He heard the gun whirring above him, and then he felt it shake and vibrate. He saw the flashing yellow lines flying up into the air, meeting Andrei.
When the bullets connected, Andrei roared and banked wildly to try to avoid them. The harpoons were doing their job, and the Humvees who missed their first shots had rolled in their lines and fired again.
Andre tried to dodge high, but he finally ran out of power, and he turned toward the ground and fell.
The last of the ammo belt passed through the minigun, and Asher heard the barrel spinning empty. Whirrrrr.
He shifted and tore the vest off as Andrei crashed to the ground. Andrei tore at the ropes, and several Humvees flipped over and dragged across the ground.
Demian and Haller fired rockets into Andrei, and rockets from farther away sailed through the air and into him.
Soon explosions erupted across Andrei’s red scales, and Asher held his breath as the fire died down.
Andrei lay still. Was he dead?
Metin called over the radio, “He’s down. Secure the tooth. Approach with caution.”
Dozens of soldiers approached with guns raised from all directions.
Asher went prone and aimed his sniper rifle at Andrei. He zoomed in and looked at Andrei’s head.
Suddenly Andrei’s eyes opened, revealing burning red.
“He’s up!” Asher shouted, but it was too late.
Andrei flung his wing, grabbing hold of all the cables harpooned into him. Quickly he spun, and the harpoons, which were taut and going out in all directions from him like bicycle spokes, began to spin.
The wires, with the heavy counterweights of anchored-down Humvees, sliced apart every soldier who didn’t think to fall prone like Asher had. Asher heard wires whip and slice above his head. He took a shot at Andrei, but it did nothing.
The Humvees flew through the air until they eventually crashed together and exploded, fusing into a molten heap. Andrei began swinging the cables and piling together Humvees like a giant ball and chain, crushing soldiers and decimating cargo trucks full of weapons.
Asher looked up and saw Metin running across the field. He had a bandolier of hand grenades strapped to his chest, but he was holding no weapon.
The Humvee ball and chain flung toward him, but he ducked and rolled under the wire. Andrei roared.
“You want to kill me?” Metin shouted. “Let’s fight then as men! Or are you too afraid to shift back?”
Crazy fucker. Though what other choice did they have? If Metin could convince Andrei to shift back, they might just be able to talk him down, and if not, his human skin would go down with one shot from Asher’s sniper rifle.
He sighted and waited for the opportunity.
Andrei stopped flailing the Humvees and locked his molten-red eyes on Metin.
Andrei convulsed, much as Asher had done when Violet had tried to talk him down.
Asher had been able to shift back for love. Could Andrei shift back for hate and revenge? If anyone could make that happen, it was Metin.
Metin was just feet away from Andrei now. From this distance, Asher thought of no less than five ways that Andrei could kill Metin within an instant.
“Come on!” Metin said. “How good would it feel to choke me with your fingers, Squeeze the life right out of me?”
Andrei shook more and more violently.
He opened his mouth and roared, and Asher saw Metin pull one of the grenades from his bandolier.
Was he going to throw it into—
No. Metin dove headfirst into Andrei’s mouth.
“Shit!” Asher yelled.
Seconds later, Andrei squealed and rolled onto his back, clutching his stomach with his claws. Another moment passed, and his stomach exploded open.
Asher shielded his eyes from the explosion, and when h
e looked back up, there was nothing left of Andrei but pieces scattered across the field.
This time, two monsters had cancelled each other out.
Asher, Haller, and Demian shifted and ran toward Alex. When they reached him, they found him in human form. He was charred and blackened but still breathing.
“You hear us, man?” Demian said.
Alex’s eyes opened, just barely, and he asked in a wheezing voice, “Did we win?”
“Yeah, man,” Haller said, “we won.”
CHAPTER 30
VIOLET
Asher had called Violet the moment it was all over and told her he was safe. The next morning he returned to her, and she hugged him tighter than she’d ever thought possible.
She knew that Andrei and Metin were dead but that all the other SHIFT members had survived. She knew little beyond that.
She waited at his place to meet him. She’d wanted to wait at the base and to see him the moment he arrived back. She’d had to wait hours though for official debriefings, and they wouldn’t even let her through the fence at the gate. Finally—after what felt like an eternity—he was at the door.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I am now,” he said.
He gripped her tightly, and as his warmth pressed against her, she realized for the first time that it was really all over. Feeling him there against her was the final confirmation she needed for the wonderful reality to set in, to really feel it.
They decided to go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate. She got to wear a beautiful and tight green dress that made her look twice as hot as she had any right to look, and Asher wore a full suit and tie. She wanted to tear her dress and his suit off when she saw him. She realized it was the first time she’d seen him dressed like that, and he looked absolutely to die for.
“Jesus,” she said. “Can you wear that every day? Like when we are binge watching a new series on Netflix, you can just wear that suit and tie? Or when we’re too lazy to cook real food, you can just have that suit and tie on while you microwave some mac and cheese?”
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