Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2)

by Morgan Blayde

  I stood and turned. The mud sloughed off, leaving an under layer that took on the qualities of cloth. The fallen mud crept up my toes, my foot, and formed boots to protect me. No sword hung at my side, but the land was my weapon, my partner, my lover, and would wither after a time without me. I was now a lord in two worlds. And very pissed.

  “All right, bitch, you want a piece of me?” I yelled. “Come get some.”

  A fey warrior stepped out from behind the bear. Her brother-in-law, the Autumn Court fey. His deadening magic kept me from sensing him.

  “That’s what we’re here for.” He stepped out past the bear, and made a throw. Silver glittered between us.

  I moved the staff I held. The knife thunked into it. I pulled the knife out of my staff, and dropped the stick. Knife in hand, I examined the blade. Good workmanship. Expensive. Also expensive was the Zombie Apocalypse suit the bastard was wearing, the one he’d stolen from my basement workroom in Malibu. The suit was covered with guns, knives, grenades, and a small, round mirror over the chest protector. I hoped he didn’t know its purpose.

  A sleepy, surfacing part of my soul cried, Mine! It was like ice had melted over hidden depths. I could feel a second nature deep within. An entity that both was and wasn’t me. Awakening, it wanted out to stretch, to live, to grow, to fight, and kill!

  What the hell!

  The fey marched to meet me.

  The bear tried to stop him, but her paw was intercepted by tree limbs coming to life, coiling around her with rubbery resilience, crushing, choking, as green flames ate into them. The bear thrashed, her scream of fury a blow to the ears, but she’d have to wait. I had a fey warrior to kill.

  My left hand brushed debris away and I found what I wanted, what I needed: a foot-long mirror, a silver glass showing my smiling face. The frame was rope-patterned, gold, with antiquing in the cracks. “Thanks,” I whispered, grateful for the land’s gift.

  I plunged my knife into the mirror. I wanted this mirror to act like the charmed ones I had at home, and so it did. My hand and the knife sank into the glass as if it were water, but without a ripple or splash. I looked up at the fey. He was five steps from me, and I saw from the bunching of his muscles that he was about to spring across that distance in hope of crushing me with surprise.

  He skidded to a stop as his knife and my hand poked out of the mirror on his chest.

  Steal my Zombie Apocalypse suit will ya?

  I bent my spatially displaced elbow and rammed the knife through his eye, into his brain. He died on his feet, and slumped forward to lie at my feet, face down, as I reeled back, my hand and the knife coming back out the mirror on the ground. The fey warrior rotted to bones, flesh blackening to a kind of ash that fed the fury of the wind. Lords of corruption, they were its final victim. Soon, even the bones would be gone.

  The earth sank under the mirror, pulling its flatness into a bowl shape. The reflective glass turned liquid, expanding to fill the depression to its rope-patterned brim. The odd little pool would make an interesting curiosity for anyone who finds it after this.

  I stood in the howling winds that echoed the bear’s grief.

  The trees shed gold-brown leaves that fluttered against me, plastering to my body. The leaves fused, layer upon layer, hardening until a rough kind of armor encased me, flexible at the joints, hard as iron elsewhere. The land—my land—was reacting to the lingering threat of the bear.

  She’d stilled in shock, then all her fire burst out, blasting her free of the tree branches that caged her. Bigger than sin, she ambled straight for me, unbelievably fast. I’d just raised an earthen wall against her—when she burst through, her jaws snapping shut on my shoulder, her massive arms hugging my armor, clawing at its protective shell.

  Why the hell isn’t my protective shield working?

  I heard the material creak from strain. Then there were a few small pops like firecrackers, as cracks began to spread. Her fangs went through the shoulder’s armor, piercing flesh, and we were falling. She slammed me to the ground. The knife bounced away from my hand. My armor caved in a little, making it hard to breathe.

  It might have been just in my poor, abused head, but I could swear I heard the woman inside the bear laughing manically at me.

  I felt like an M&M being crunched in teeth. Bear teeth. Not a good thing. In a moment, my armor shell would burst around me and my tender flesh would be thoroughly mauled. The bear was done with slow lingering death. She now wanted my death anyway she could inflict it. The land—think of a name for her—tried to save me, becoming a bog. Muck engulfed my legs. The bear’s too, I think for she grunted in surprise, easing off on her bite. That was good. My shoulder felt like it was close to tearing off.

  The bear ignited green flames all around me, searing the earth, baking it hard.

  I stopped sinking.

  My armor fractured and flew off in pieces.

  The bear pulled back, cranked her jaws wide, about to bite my head off.

  Time to die.

  That buried deep part of me, that was anything but human, disagreed. No. It rose from my inner depths, a crushing wave, an exploding darkness that wrapped up my senses, sending me off to dream as it took over.

  FORTY

  “Some things even I never see coming.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Born naked into fury as the sky raged, as a beast sought my life, my blood burned. My heart pounded. All that was human drained from my thoughts. I screamed, a shrill savage spike that pierced the bear’s own scream, silencing her.

  She blinked, mouth gaping.

  I shoved her back. Her paws left the ground. She flew across the small clearing, landing spine-first against one of the massive trees. I took a step after her, and staggered, stumbling. Walking on four feet was a new experience, strangely difficult, until I stopped trying to control the process and let my body work it out.

  The bear had hit and slid to the ground. She took her time getting up, shaking off the toss. It seemed she was also dwindling in size. I looked down at myself. My skin was now a gold-scaled mesh. My hands looked mostly human, but were scaled as well, with black nails. Further down, my torso and stomach had lengthened. My feet were much larger than the human prints I’d left behind. Actually, my feet were now bigger than the prints I’d made struggling with the bear, and I’d acquired a bone spur coming out of my heels which gave my feet better grasping.

  I looked back at the bear. She was smaller yet.

  No, I’m getting bigger, stronger. So hungry.

  Pain doubled me over. My back muscles writhed, shifting, as bone spurs pierced my skin, branching off of shoulder blades. The new bones dripped blood, waving tatters of skin and muscle. Studying my backside so easily drew my attention to a neck that had grown quite a few more vertebras.

  The bear charged, smelling my blood. Assuming distraction, if not outright debilitation on my part, she flung herself at me, but I’d grown at least twice her size. And my speed was still climbing. I rolled the fingers of my right paw into a fist, swinging it across her face like a club. She shook her head, by which time my hand returned, palm open, claws raking her face.

  I kicked out, catching her in the midsection.

  She tumbled away.

  New pain tore a scream from me. My ass was on fire, my tailbone throbbed, growing heavier, and heavier. My long neck shot back over my shoulder, taking my head along. I saw a tail, long, gold-scaled, stretching well away from me, and ending in a scimitar made of bone. I also noticed that I was seeing my lower face which had lengthened into a snout. I swung my head around and found a bowl in the forest floor that was filled with water. I studied my reflection, opening and closing my mouth. I had a pointy snout, a mouth with a lot of sharp teeth, and eyes that showed no whites because the black-rimmed, gold-flake irises were very large. I knew in that moment what I was.

  Dragon.

  Protruding from my back, the ribs of bone grew muscles to work them. Wrapped in new, gold-scaled skin, the win
gs were fed blood through new-grown arteries. Scaled membranes filled in between the ribbing, anchoring in strips down my back. Somehow, I knew I was not as other dragons that lacked the flaps attached to the back. They would have less than five fingers, and my color—gold—that was special too, though I didn’t know why.

  But I did know I was hungrier than ever.

  I looked for the bear. Once more, she was picking herself up off the ground, slower this time with the acrid stink of fear thick around her. Terror darkened the green smolder of her eyes as she looked my way.

  I tried to say: I’m going to eat you.

  What came out instead was a metallic, squeaky hinge kind of sound that trailed off into a sibilant tea kettle hiss.

  The bear turned and bolted around a tree, intending to lose me in the forest.

  After a few steps, my new wings found their beat and I was hopping into the air, taking long glides between bounces. I followed the smell of fear. My eyes focused so that the seamless flow of images, became a rapid-fire barrage of stills across my mind’s eye, one image replacing the other as if I were not watching a film, but rolling frame by frame past my gaze as time nearly stood still. After a moment, the heightened way of seeing became natural and I stopped being concerned.

  Several images passed, bear’s foot print. Dozens of stills showed unmarked ground, then more images of the next print. I heard the beating of her great heart, the sound of snapping twigs, and breaking branches getting further and fainter. Terror was lending her speed.

  My stomach growled, then so did I. My dinner was not going to escape.

  I winged and hoped along, passing the boles of massive trees, wishing them taller, thicker, and more widely spaced so I could truly fly.

  The land rippled and reconceived itself. What I wanted became true. And I was flying up into low branches well above my height. My hind claws caught bough after bough. I jounced them as I landed and sprang, pumping for greater heights. The wind tore past my face, bringing the rich scents of the forests, its creatures, the presence of water—and the bear.

  I soared, banking around tree trunks, gliding, dipping to study the bear’s tracks, and I noticed something; the tracks were growing smaller. I thought at first I was growing still bigger, but realized that the tracks were getting smaller in scale to themselves. The bear was unmaking herself, afraid to face me.

  I growled in irritation. There will be a lot less meat now.

  A flash of white skin caught my attention. I soared around for another look. On the backside of a tree, crouching between roots, she tried to hide. Small, squat, she trembled, a black mane of hair covering her back.

  Well, a tiny bite is better than no bite at all.

  Something in the clouds of my past memories surfaced. This woman had hurt me, had taunted me: Death won’t come fast enough … you’re going to be a crippled worm, begging for death…

  I am a wyrm, a dragon, so it is you who will beg.

  I circled the tree, losing sight of her, bleeding speed and diving lower. Coming around the great tree, I flew at her.

  She thrust her hands out, stabbing the air, and a pair of green-fire lances shot at me. One went past. Another spear of flame burnt a hole in a wing membrane. I shrieked with rage, trailing smoke as I spiraled to earth.

  The ground welled up to cradle me in a soothing black, wet loam that put out the flame. I hissed at the woman as she ran, ducking behind another trunk. I folded my wings, wincing at the motion of the damaged one, and ambled after her.

  Clear a path, I demanded.

  The land knifed up, a backbone of rock. It divided the forest, then separated in two great arcs that formed a bowl of forest rimmed by mountain rock. And in the middle of the new valley, there was a long strip of grassland, tawny, waving in the wind. And dead center, with no cover in sight, ran the woman that was my dinner. I saw her cast a hasty glance to all sides, her face a study of panic when she saw me smiling a dragon’s smile.

  Yeah, bitch, time to beg. Time to die.

  Odd, that voice in my head didn’t seem to be quite mine. I shook of the distraction, launching myself with a gait that carried me swiftly.

  She stood there, firing streams of green fire, igniting the grass.

  Hurting the land. Don’t let her hurt the land.

  I don’t know why it mattered, but I listened to that voice. I willed the grass to change. The stalks became metal, bright, beautiful golden blades. A glinting sea that did not burn in the green fire, but it melted, becoming a bubbling, seething mass flowing back toward the human as if to smother her.

  No, I thought, she is mine to take!

  The golden slag pulled away from her. She gave up trying to flame the ground, seeing the danger to herself, and threw bolts of green fire straight at me once more.

  I fanned my wings, the good one and the stiff, painful one. My heart called out for the blessing of wind, and it came; strong, unrelenting as my vengeance. I was pulled over the green fire. The lances tracked me, rising. I banked, angling between the green-fire. Her catch-me-in-the-air trick wasn’t going to work a second time. I inverted and came upright once more, now under her fire streams. She cut them off, waiting for me as if death was welcome at last, but I wasn’t deceived. Her hands still pointed my way. She was saving all her fire for one in-your-face, final effort.

  Approaching rapidly, my jaws gaped wide, baring razor-sharp teeth.

  She exploded in a pyre of green fire, ready to embrace me.

  I screamed, and golden lightening spilled past my jaws, a web of it that forked out and curled back in like clutching fingers, gathering her flame, absorbing it, scattering it, making it nothing.

  And then I hit her, jaws closing, crunching her skull, lifting her off her bare feet. Wet blood and slick brains wiggled down my throat along with shards of cranium. I threw the rest of her up in the air and gobbled some more. Bones snapped like twigs, crunching rather pleasantly in my jaws. The entrails were delightfully slithery. I landed to finish her off.

  Taking form, a green haze hung in the air. It divided into two separate souls, bear and woman. They ignored me, staring at each other, drifting further and further apart. Fading, the bear lifted a paw in farewell, going wherever a dead Spirit Bear is supposed to go. The woman repeated the gesture with hesitation, free, but still somehow bound to the other creature. And then both souls were gone.

  I craned my neck, poring over the glassy slag. Ah, there. I knew I dropped something. I saw a foot and bit of ankle left, and…

  …noticed I was no longer alone. Men and women had formed a half-circle behind me. I turned to see what they were doing and counted a dozen people, with faces shadowed by hooded cloaks of black silk. The men wore bright colors under their cloaks. The woman wore multi-layered gowns, jeweled necklaces and rings. The jewels held my attention.

  A gray-haired man, with hard eyes, moved closer.

  I snatched up the severed foot and chomped on it. That’s mine.

  The old one made sounds that had no meaning to me, turning his head toward those of his kind. As one, they knelt to me, lowering heads, placing fists over their hearts.

  I swallowed the last of my meal, lashing my tail so the bone blade scraped the slag. That’s when I caught their smell. They weren’t human. They smelled like me. Dragon. And deep inside the clouds of my memory, where another me hid, a single word emerged to fill my mind.

  Family.

  I awoke, and looked at my tattooed flesh, feeling like this wasn’t really me. But it was. I stood and looked over a golden slag. Golden grass grew beyond that. Forests lay left and right, and the whole valley was ringed in purple-black mountains. The sky was at twilight, tangerine and mauve to the west. The higher sky was midnight blue. I had the heavy, refreshed feeling you get when you sleep a very long time.

  I had the vague recollection of crazy dreams, but as I tried to pull them into view, they wisped away, lost. Still, I had a sense of closure, as if important things had been done.

  And that’s
how they found me, buck naked and in need of a shave. I turned, hearing hooves. Izumi, and Vivian rode up to me on a road that faded in from nowhere. A woman was with them, dressed like a queen, the dream stone in her hands. I took a wild guess and assumed that Izumi had completed the mission without me. Josh was not with them. Had he been forced to return home?

  How long have I been asleep anyway?

  Well, as long as I still got paid, that didn’t matter too much. After all, life is all about treasure, and he dies with the most can buy his way into hell.

  FORTY-ONE

  “It’s good to be king. Pays well, too.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  I returned to Sacramento, victorious and clothed, but late. Apparently, I’d been lost for a couple weeks in Fairy before my friends found me. The land had shielded me, not letting anyone get close until I’d awakened. We were settling things now, officially, though no one had said no when Josh started organizing a search for vamps in the city. We’d found two. I’d had a lot of fun torturing them with UV lights, bitch slapping them with strings of garlic. I’m not sure why, but we ended up in the backroom of a Koko’s Restaurant as neutral territory.

  Josh and Kat were at the far end of the table from me, leaving room at the sides for our guests. The woman who spoke for the water fey entered the room, wearing a pearlescent gown, bracketed by two of her minions. They went behind me and sat so their backs weren’t toward the door. Young dhampyrs had come out of the city woodwork, a new coalition replacing the top echelon that had been killed off. Three of them came in next. Weak as they were now, fearing vamps returning to the city, I was sure they’d support Josh, after a shove or two. The dhampyr sat close to Josh, near one corner. Entering last, five shape-shifters walked to the table, taking the last open chairs. They represented the five dominant clans of shifters. They ignored fey and dhampyr, nodding respectfully to Josh and Kat. She smiled back pleasantly.

  I leaned toward the fey, catching the woman with a cold stare. “You got the gold?”