by Aaron Crash
Ugly Ellis crackled out lightning that Steven blocked with a shield. The Inferno Dogs topped the hill and opened fire on Tessa, who stood there, unprotected.
She’d be riddled with bullets in seconds.
Mouse saved her. She came flying in, breathing out a devastating cloud of dark fire right in front of Tessa, who stood behind the flames. Some of the Warlings fired, but they were shooting into a wall of fire. Black and orange trails followed every bullet. Even with their obvious enchantment, those rounds melted in the heat of Mouse’s ShadowFire Exhalant. Tombstones turned to molten rock in her conflagration. The wet ground hissed.
On Mouse’s back clung a terrified Zoey—she was dumped onto the ground as Mouse shifted human to stand in front of Tessa. The blonde didn’t want to be a big target for the Warlings. She held the Slayer Blade, green flames racing up and down the sword. Face somber and focused, Mouse cast a shield spell to stop the next round of bullets.
Mouse could only protect against gunfire and other physical attacks. Exhalants and spells would go right through her force field.
Zoey, a huge bear, charged the Gris-Gris. If she couldn’t get her hooks into the Magicians, at least she could draw their spellfire. The problem was, if all those wizards hit the bear girl with Impetim spells, it would kill her.
And if she survived the Magicians, she had Juice Juice and his Sounders to deal with. The cult of Morphlings threatened to overwhelm them all.
Tessa pulled her guns. And grinned.
“Yahoo!” Glancing up, Steven watched as Chazzie and Pru descended toward the tank on very pink wings awash in rain. The tank didn’t just have its main cannon; there was a machine-gun turret on top as well.
The twins landed on the war machine, first as dragons, then as Homo Draconi. Pru turned into a very busy, very human woman. She pulled open the top hatch. Chazzie in her partial form jumped in headfirst, which meant teeth first, which meant the Warlings in that M1 were about to be ripped to pieces. Oh boy, the Texas machine-gun twins had won themselves a couple of really big guns.
Good. They would need them against Mordred, Lancelot, and their undead friend.
Aria landed in front of Dragonknights. The Indian woman’s Animus daggers sparkled with energy. “I am the thirteenth knight. You have betrayed Arthur and his vision. You are Dragonknights no longer!”
All three of the Dragonknights attacked, breathing out various energies: ShadowFlame, ArcticWind, and ChromaticFury.
Steven sank a force field in front of Aria, saving her life, but only for a second. The ChromaticFury blew his force field to pieces. However, it gave Aria the break she needed. She took to the air and flew over the Warlings at the top of the hill. She covered two in fire before flying away.
Lancelot took after Aria. Bedivere took three running steps, shifted into his True Form, and grabbed wind with his long wings. Only for a second. Paanga came in and drove his claws into Bedivere’s back. The two went bouncing across the landscape, scratching the shit out of each other and breaking through tombstones and statues.
Meanwhile, Mordred rode a gust of wind up only to dive down toward Steven, who was ready with another shield spell and Incanto spell magic. There was no way he would leave the entrance to Icharaam’s tomb. He would not let these bastards in, not after what they’d done to Arthur and Merlin.
Chapter Thirty-One
TESSA PULLED THE ANIMUS out of a Magician, one of Lancelot’s Gris-Gris, and she shot three more. It was a tiny victory, since Zoey and Mouse were in a bad way. Zoey had tried to get to the line of Magicians, but unlike her previous heroic charge on the Thousand Step Beach, this one had failed. She lay in a heap of hurt bear, parts of her fur smoking, other parts of her fur blasted bald. Mouse was protecting them from the Inferno Dogs and their guns. But they weren’t the problem.
Juice and his Sounders were racing in from the west, and the Magicians were hurling Impetim spells at Tessa and Mouse, constantly. Some threw fireballs, others blasted them with long lines of blue light like Star Wars blasters, and still others tossed sparkling green energy that exploded on impact.
Mouse had a new trick. Imbued with SerpentGrace, she deflected the Impetim attacks with the Slayer Blade like the Jedi boss bitch she was.
Tessa had to duck the energy bolts. Every time she tried a spell off the Veneficium limb of the skill tree, someone would dispel her magic. At least they couldn’t stop her bullets. And they were focusing on her, leaving Mouse alone.
Thank heavens they’d shut down that portal when they had. Only a few dozen of each of their enemies had made it through. Tessa ducked, and she ended two of the Magicians with a single Inferno bullet. They screamed as the flames ate them.
Then Tessa got smart. She fired two ArcticWind bullets into the ground. Huge blocks of ice rose from the wet mud and took moisture from the wind to make them even bigger. She’d wasted two powerful bullets, yet now she had ten-foot-tall icebergs for cover. It would put a dent in the Magicians and their spells.
A roar filled the air. “Bitch!” The green-and-blue male flew off the top of Duchain Hill and soared down with his claws outstretched. He opened his mouth and hellfire filled his throat.
This was Ugly Ellis—with his scar and scraggly beard, no one was going to call him pretty anytime soon.
Tessa had one bullet left in her right Peacekeeper. This Dragonlord was going to taste so good. She IonGunned up her revolver, and it supernova’d as she sent a blinding white light of pure pain into Ugly Ellis’s chest. When she took his Animus, her eyes fluttered. So good. He was a big old thing, and his energy filled her up in places she didn’t even know she had.
Something reached into her core, and she felt half of her energy sucked from her. A black flash swept by them. Mouse barely caught the glowing orange tip of Umbra’s staff with her sword before the blonde had her skull split. Mouse fell to one knee, but she kept her force field up. Amber-colored explosions sparked her shield from the Warlings firing on them.
The black blur went running off, the light trails of her staff glowing in the storm. Rain continued to pound down, but at least it was really fucking windy, and oh yeah, the hail was a nice touch.
“I hate that bitch,” Mouse complained.
Zoey moaned from her pain. Her paws kicked and her eyes fluttered.
Tessa tried a Cura spell, and it fizzled. She could use AnimusChain, so she reached out for Umbra’s core, but she was going too fast. She was coming around for another attack. Tessa chose another Magician and pulled out her energy, and she was at full strength.
“We have incoming, Mouse,” Tessa said casually. It was only war after all, and Ugly Ellis had tasted so good.
A fireball exploded into Tessa’s wall. A crack appeared in one wall while the other melted. More missiles struck it, breaking the ice and splashing them with melt.
“The Magicians?” Mouse asked weakly.
“Worse,” Tessa replied. “Demon pigs.”
Juice, with his armor clanking, galloped toward them with two other boars, huge beasts the sizes of Kia Fortes, flanking him.
“I just don’t dig on swine,” Mouse quoted, but she didn’t look too confident. For a second, Tessa only saw a tiny naked blonde woman holding a huge sword glowing bright with green flames racing up and down its blade. “I love Pulp Fiction. I hate this Juice Juice douche.”
At the sound of the name, Zoey let out a shriek. She turned human; getting to her feet was easier as a woman than as a bear since there was simply less bulk. No matter what form she took, her wounds looked just as painful. Some of her burns were bleeding.
She staggered forward. “Juice is mine! He’s mine.”
She was going to go after him with her bare hands.
“Now is not the time for revenge rage!” Tessa tried to grab Zoey’s shoulder, but the bear girl ducked out of her reach.
Mouse cackled laughter. At what, Tessa wasn’t sure, but this was the insanity of battle and not much made sense. At least she was keeping her shield spell up
so the Warlings couldn’t get to them.
How to stop Zoey? There was only one thing to do. FleshForge. Tessa tackled the bear girl, which normally would’ve been impossible. But the Morphling was human, dead on her feet, and dizzy.
Tessa hooked an AnimusChain spell into one of the Magicians and channeled his energy into Zoey using FleshForge. Sure, the Gris-Gris Magicians might’ve been able to disrupt normal magic. Whatever. Tessa was casting next-level Alpherian shit.
Zoey’s burned skin healed over in seconds. It wasn’t really meant to be used as a heal spell, so it was like putting a jet engine in a Ford Focus. Zoey threw Tessa off and grew into her huge bear form. She roared, turned, and met Juice right there in the mud. Mouse whirled and turned into her Partial Form. Gripping the Slayer Blade, she chopped off the head of the monster boar on Juice’s left. Which meant Tessa had to handle Porky on the right.
That was going to be a problem without her spells. And she’d dropped her pistols during the whole FleshForge bear girl maneuver. She was going to be gored by the boar and then trampled underfoot.
A chain tangled the charging battle pig’s hooves. It went down, tusks first, and crashed through a tombstone, flinging stone fragments. A slender figure in a form-fitting black motorcycle onesie had leapt on top of the boar. Uchiko brought her sickle down into the skull of the pig, and it wasn’t just her own strength, she was channeling a Pugna ability. Definitely. Her hook went through the pig’s skull and into the brain underneath.
While all that madness was going on, Zoey went low on the charging Juice. She got her massive claws underneath his chin, and she raised him up onto his hind legs. His hooves whirred uselessly. Zoey held his head up while she found a chink in his armor. She ripped down with her claws and opened a gash in Juice’s belly.
The armored pig threw himself back and rolled over a few times, his armor clanking. He came up, legs whirring as he came in for another run. Zoey wasn’t thinking. She went for him without a plan. Juice feinted to the right, Zoey fell for it, and he rammed a tusk into her belly.
“I just fixed her, you asshole!” Tessa shouted. She’d taken cover behind her crumbling ice walls.
Juice shook Zoey off his tusks. This shit was bad.
At least the Gris-Gris weren’t charging forward. No, they were following orders: keep Tessa’s magic turned off and try and kill her with Impetim spells. Well, that plan just might work after all.
Mouse couldn’t help her with the Magicians. She had another task at hand. The blonde leapt over the boar she’d killed and turned into her True From, to snap wolves in half with her teeth, bathe enemy bears in fire, and breathe lightning into pigs, crackling the skin off their bones.
Fried pork skins. Sabina would’ve appreciated that, since she was fond of chicharrones. Where was she?
Uchiko fought with Mouse. The ninja swung her kusarigama overhead, to smack Morphlings with her sickle or pound their bones into jelly with the heavy weight on the other end. A werewolf went low, and Uchiko easily dodged him using her super speed. For a second, she blurred, like Umbra. Could it be fixing her core had improved her skills? Maybe. And how could Umbra move so fast?
Tessa didn’t know, and she had more pressing questions at the moment. How was she going to survive a charging boar who had not one but two stupid names? Juice fucking Juice. Tessa was low on Animus. That FleshForge had cost a lot.
Tessa saw a revolver in the mud in front of her. Impetim spells filled the air, and another chunk of her ice wall exploded.
That gun was her only chance. She just hoped it was loaded. She hurled herself forward and grabbed it.
Juice was almost on top of her. She hit him with a glancing blow from an ArcticWind bullet. His entire head froze over, but he kept on driving his hooves toward her.
Tessa leaned back, aimed, and fired. This was a normal bullet. It flashed pink over his head. She missed.
Before Juice could trample her, Zoey hit him from the side. She held him down with one giant arm while she slashed into the same wound she’d caused before. She must’ve gotten a hooked claw into a seam because she peeled back a metal plate like she was opening a can of sardines. Her next attack flung gore behind her and splattered her fur with blood.
Zoey was roaring something, over and over. It was almost the Sounder’s motto, but she altered it in a very significant way. “The me is not the we! The me is not the we! The me is not the we!”
The Sounders probably needed a new motto. They definitely needed a new leader. Zoey had ripped out Juice Juice’s guts. He died with his head encased in ice.
Sabina, in her dragon form, landed hard and shifted human. She fell to her knees as a fireball sailed over them and exploded. The Latina Magician had been gashed up badly, and she was clinging to consciousness. Her eyes winked off.
“Chica, I’m out of Animus and hurt.”
Tessa reached out a hand. “Magica Cura!” And her spell fizzled. “Dammit!”
The barista was tired of getting her butt Incanto’d over and over. She felt like one of those football players who was intentionally double-teamed because she was so tough. Thank God Rob Gronkowski was retiring.
Rain spattered Tessa as she pulled Sabina down before she got hit with Impetim spells. They crouched behind the ice wall, out of hope.
Until Paanga came through with a ChromaticFury that swept through the Gris-Gris like a nuclear blast. It was Alamogordo, and Paanga had just dropped an atom bomb on their asses.
Tessa felt the Incanto spells loosen their grip. She hit Sabina with a Magica Cura. And it worked! Now the barista had to get to Zoey and fix the hole that Juice had ripped into her.
Too bad the Warlings known as Inferno Dogs hadn’t scattered just because Tessa had IonGunned out their leader’s heart. They charged down the cemetery hill.
A green spell caught their gunfire.
Sabina grinned up at her. “Okay, maybe I had a little Animus left.”
“I love you.” And Tessa kissed her right on the lips.
The creaking and squealing of tractor treads filled the air as the tank rolled forward, crushing tombstones in its path, its machine gun thwocking. On top of the tank was a living fantasy: a naked heavy-breasted woman with flaming red hair and adorable freckles working a badass big gun, rocking and rolling. Pru had to be human because in her partial form she wouldn’t fit in the gunner’s seat.
The rounds cut down the first wave of Warlings. Then, the chunk of the cannon firing, and another batch of Inferno Dogs was torn to ribbons by an explosive shell. Chazzie and Pru might’ve known the names of the guns, and shells, and bombs, and all that, but Tessa had zero idea about how all that worked.
All she knew was that the Texas twins had rolled right in at the exact right minute. And when they got done blasting the Warlings, they turned the war machine onto the last of the Sounders. Watching a tank take apart werewolves, boars, and bears was kinda fun. It just was.
Tessa went to heal Zoey. They had to go help Steven. He was fighting the Dragonknights and he would need help.
A Gris-Gris charged forward, a purple shield spell in front of her, and her other hand glowed like she was clutching a lavender-colored length of neon light. She went to hurl that purple light.
The Magician went down, a black arrow sticking out of her leg. She tried to rise, and another arrow pierced her throat.
Who on their side had a bow and arrow?
For a second, Tessa had no idea, and then a name came to her. The Shadow Archer.
Chapter Thirty-Two
STEVEN, A THIRTY-FOOT-long black dragon, stood over the entrance of Icharaam’s tomb. Mordred, a purple and white worm, faced him on the slope of the hill. It was just the two of them for the moment. Around them, the battle raged, mostly to the north, where Mordred’s people were concentrating on taking Tessa out. Cold rain covered them.
Mordred reached for his Animus core; Steven was barely able to stop him with a combination Defensio and Incanto spell.
Both grunted an
d struggled, two dragons in battle, hands and talons outstretched, feet and claws gripping the wet ground.
Mordred tried to rip out his Animus, and Steven stopped him by shifting into his Homo Draconis form, moving his core. Samael’s Lash lay on the ground. Steven snatched it up, and with an “Excrucior,” he sliced into Mordred’s chest. Blood flowed.
Mordred spit a long stream of black acid at him, but it splashed against his shield spell. The viscous fluid dripped to the ground, smoking in the dirt. It ate through tombstones as if they were made of sugar.
Steven hurled his black Impetim stars. They flashed harmlessly off Mordred’s shield spell.
Flicking his right hand, Mordred used FleshForge to change his fingers into long tentacles, each tipped with a sharp claw. Steven wasn’t ready for that kind of an attack. The coils plucked Samael’s Lash out of his hand and seized his arm. The chain-whip sword snicked back together and fell to the ground.
Steven tried his True Form. Those tentacles didn’t relax their iron grip. Mordred’s left hand reached out, and more serpentine fingers shot out. The tentacles circled Steven’s mighty throat and slithered around until Steven couldn’t breathe. He didn’t dare shape change. His partial and his human form didn’t have the muscle structure to stop the coils from squeezing out his guts.
He reached to try and get at Mordred’s Animus, but the Dragonknight had set up some kind of shield spell. There was no accessing it.
Steven reached and grabbed the coils to try and free himself. He wasn’t strong enough.
Darkness creeped into the edges of his vision. He felt panic wanting him to flail and struggle but that would only get him killed.
He couldn’t breathe. The cartilaginous rings in his throat creaked as his spine cracked; he was seconds away from having his throat crushed.
What would Tessa do if he died at the hands of Mordred? Nothing good. He could picture her taking the Slayer Blade from Mouse and using it to butcher every dragon on Earth. Tessa had a dark side, definitely, but then he saw another possible future.
