by Romi Hart
People rushed from nearby homes screaming and shrieking. Others attacked the soldiers, only to be driven off by more armed troops. Not far away, Victor spotted Isaac and Malia Weaver fighting back to back. A ring of armed soldiers surrounded a puma and a Manx hissing and yowling. The two cats whirled one way and then the other trying to drive their enemies back.
Victor didn’t wait to see any more. He plunged in roaring to shake the Earth. He pounced on the soldiers and swept them aside to clear the street. He took aim at the rocket launcher and pounded his tail on top of it. He smashed it flat and trapped two of those bastards underneath.
He didn’t care who he killed. He would kill the whole world for this. How dare those fuckers in Washington come after innocent people trying to live a decent life? How dare they invade his territory with their filthy weapons?
He spotted Riley up to her eyeballs in soldiers, too. They fought their way down the street helping anyone they could, but the troops just kept springing out of the ground itself. There seemed no end to them.
He turned his back on Riley. He didn’t have to worry about her taking care of herself and he needed to clear these vermin from his city. He stalked down the block slashing and burning everywhere. He came to the intersection and turned onto Saratoga Street. He spotted Van McMurry Playground in the distance.
He narrowed his eyes at the grassy lawn and the bleachers beyond. A few tents and trailers lined up on the grass. Men in fatigues moved around them, put their heads together, and parted. So that’s where they set up their headquarters.
Victor lowered his head to attack when, with no warning, something hit him across the back of the head. He spun around ready to rip somebody apart….and stopped.
There, a few yards away, another dragon faced him. Its blue-green scales glimmered in the sun and it narrowed its eyes at him. A low growl sounded in its throat.
Victor stared for a minute at his brother Bryce. He did his best to put two and two together, but the scene looked so fantastic and unrealistic he couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Before he could decide what to do, Bryce strutted toward him and spat a jet of fire at Victor. It barely touched Victor’s leg, but the message couldn’t be clearer. Could Bryce, his own brother, be using this invasion as an opportunity to remove a challenger to the Prometheus Crest? Could Bryce really stoop so low?
Victor never would have believed it of his own brother, but he couldn’t deny the evidence of his senses. Bryce circled to Victor’s right and screeched high and long. He pumped his wings. He was challenging Victor to a showdown right here. Bryce stepped over the bodies of his fellow New Breed in bald-faced defiance.
Victor shrank back a step. He didn’t worry about defeating Bryce. He just didn’t want to fight him under the circumstances. He wanted to get back to destroying the military invaders. How could Bryce, of all people, be the one to interfere with that? How could he turn against any fellow New Breed, even his own brother, even if it meant the Crest?
Victor’s foot bumped the curb. He didn’t want to retreat and he didn’t want to fight. He wanted Bryce to leave him alone. Instead, Bryce coiled in his neck, bobbed for a second, and then darted out to snap his jaws in Victor’s face.
Victor dove out of the way in time. His heart skipped a beat. He really was going to have to fight his brother. Once they engaged, the challenge wouldn’t end until one of them killed the other.
Victor grieved that any New Breed could fall today at the hands of another of their own kind. He didn’t want to do this, but by God, if someone was going to fall, it would be Bryce and not him.
He swelled out his chest and hopped back on his hind legs. He spread his wings and screamed his rage and disappointment. Bryce reared, too, but before they could engage, a telltale whine howled out of the distant horizon. It burned low over the city and five fighter jets thundered over the two dragons’ heads.
In an instant, the lead jet released a rocket. It corkscrewed toward the ground and plowed into Bryce’s head. It glanced off and detonated into a nearby house. Bryce spun around shrieking in surprise.
At that moment, another dragon launched out of nowhere. It zoomed skyward and caught the jet in its massive jaws. It was Riley. She snapped the jet in half and rounded on the other four. Before Victor could move, the planes surrounded her.
She wheeled and pulverized one of them with her tail. She pivoted the other way and flamed another to an exploding mass of rubble. Two jets remained. She pumped her wings and climbed to draw them away from the city.
Victor crouched to spring after her, but before he could leave the ground. Bryce lunged for him. Bryce caught his teeth in a glancing slice across Victor’s neck. Victor wheeled to confront him, but before they could close, another deafening screech startled them both into looking up. Ten more dragons fluttered in formation and descended into the battle. The biggest one, a gargantuan black brute twice Victor’s size, landed right next to him and charged Bryce. It was Cameron.
He dove between his sons snapping and roaring to drive Bryce back. He pounded his younger son with his wings and bowled Bryce over. He looped his neck in before hammering his snout into Bryce’s face.
Victor stared at his father in amazement. Of all the possible outcomes, he never could have dreamed of this. His father was intervening on his behalf. He was siding with Victor to ensure Bryce didn’t challenge the Crest. Cameron threw his weight behind Victor to mark him as his successor.
Bryce sprawled on his back. His wings splayed sideways and he gaped up at his enraged father. Cameron towered over him thundering and fuming. Then he raised himself to his full height and bellowed to the open sky.
A distant boom echoed over the city. Something somewhere screamed in its death throes. At that instant, a hurtling missile dropped out of nowhere. Before Victor could fully comprehend what happened, a fighter plane plummeted to Earth. The second before impact, it hit its engines at full power and blasted into Cameron’s head. It struck him in the mouth and exploded. Cameron’s long neck whipped back and the titanic dragon collapsed with a colossal concussion.
Victor’s vision cleared and he saw Riley. She hovered a thousand feet above the ground staring down at the scene in shock. Bryce didn’t move. Victor’s eyes slid to the deflated form of what used to be the most powerful dragon shifter in Anarock.
While he watched, the great body imploded in on itself. In the first pang of anguish, Victor wondered if it would just vanish into nothing then and there. It didn’t. It shrank into the form of a man lying on the ground. A starburst of blood and gore disfigured his face. His hair dangled to the pavement behind his ears.
He moved his head from side to side without seeing anything. “Son…..son….”
Victor sank onto his knees next to his father. He didn’t sense the moment when he shifted to his human form. He only wanted to be close to this man, the pole star of his life.
He bowed over his father’s face, but Cameron didn’t notice him. He kept rotating his shattered head right and left. “Son…..son….”
“I’m here, Pop,” Victor whispered. “I’m right here.”
Cameron aimed his blind eyes at Victor. Blood ran out of his nose and Victor couldn’t see any teeth in his mouth. “Get rid of him, son. Don’t let him stay to poison you behind your back.”
“Lie still, Pop.” Victor swallowed hard. He couldn’t be watching this man die, not now. “Just wait here. I’ll get Levi to take care of you.”
Cameron pawed the air trying to touch his son. Victor caught his hand and gripped it with everything he had. “Get rid of him, son. Show no mercy. Do you understand? A true leader has to strike while the iron is hot. Don’t wait around for him to stab you in the back again. Do you hear me?”
Victor choked out the words. Now he knew he was hearing his father’s last words. Even if he somehow managed to find Levi in this mayhem, it was too late. “I hear you, Pop.”
“Promise me….” Cameron gagged and blood boiled out of his mou
th. “Promise me you’ll get rid of him.”
Victor’s voice cracked. “I promise, Pop.”
“Say it,” Cameron rasped. “Let me hear you say it.”
Even knowing he would never get another chance to do the right thing, Victor still cast a wary glance toward Bryce. Did Bryce hear his own father talking like this?
“Say it, son.” Cameron only whispered, but Victor couldn’t ignore the order. “Let me hear you say the words.”
Victor summoned all his strength to do what he had to do. “I promise, Pop. I promise I’ll get rid of him.”
Cameron wilted back and his hand went slack in Victor’s grasp. His head lolled the other way and the last breath of air hissed between his cheeks. The eyes went blank and he didn’t move again.
Victor grabbed his head and shook him with both hands. “Pop! Pop!”
He received no answer. He would never get an answer from his father again. He swallowed down a sob, but the pain wouldn’t go away. He flung his elbow over his eyes and winced in pain, but he refused to let it out.
He had a job to do. He was leader of the Prometheus Crest now. He crammed all that suffering and despair way down deep in the darkest corners of his soul. He would never look at it or dignify it with his attention again.
He cast one last glance at the body. Then he got to his feet. He turned his back on his brother in the ultimate act of dismissal. He faced the playground and obliterated all his grief under a mountain of storming fury.
24
Riley and Victor faced each other under the Peristyle Pavilion in City Park. Victor wore a pristine tux with a flawless black bow tie. Riley wore a full-length white lace gown decked with pearls that his mother Tessa wore at her wedding.
Malachai took Riley’s hand and placed it in Victor’s, but she didn’t see Malachai or anything else. Victor occupied her whole awareness. Was she really going to marry this man? Her heart and soul cried, Yes! She wanted nothing more than to join with him, to never be parted from him.
Instead of a long speech, Malachai simply draped a length of embroidered silk over their wrists. He looped it around to form a loose knot. “Life for a life. Blood for blood against all others.”
“Against all others,” Victor intoned.
He prepared Riley for this moment, but she still had to gulp to give voice to those momentous words. “Against all others.”
A cheer went up from the throng of New Breed gathered on the lawn. Thousands of them packed the park to witness this moment. Victor had to get married in order to take his father’s place as leader of the Prometheus Crest, but Riley would have married him anyway. She would have married him in a heartbeat.
The ceremony didn’t end with a kiss the way a traditional wedding would. According to Victor, these sparse words completed the whole transaction. Riley kept waiting for something to happen. He didn’t even kiss her.
Malachai unwound the wrap. Victor took her hand and turned her to face the crowd. The whole park erupted in cheers that rang far and wide. Riley’s eyes blurred. That was it. She was married now. She was married to the leader of these forgotten people.
The New Breed all gazed up at her with rapt attention. Were they waiting for her to do something or say something? Were they waiting for her to save them from their plight?
She knew better than that. No one could save them. They were a hunted people, a doomed people. Not even driving the military out of Anarock could save them. The human world would always keep trying to get rid of them.
All Anarock lived on borrowed time. She and Victor could only ever hope to forestall that. They could only do their best to give these hounded people a tiny corner of breathing space before the next cataclysm struck.
Riley would do her part in war and in peace. She made that promise. Against all others. She could have said against all humans, but the vow meant more than that. It meant she would defend Anarock against the humans, but it also meant she would defend it from enemies within.
Alexa Weeks stood off to one side, but she didn’t gaze up at Riley and Victor with captivated adoration. That would be asking too much. She leaned her shoulder against a tree and folded her arms over her chest. She crossed her legs at the ankle and sneered at the ceremony. When Victor and Riley faced the crowd, she huffed to herself, shoved off her perch, and strutted away.
Riley dared not hope that Alexa would just disappear out of her personal landscape. Oh, no. Alexa would continue to lurk around the fringes until she found another time to sabotage Victor and Riley’s bond. Riley never doubted that for an instant.
Victor warned Riley it would happen this way. She didn’t really understand the full gravity of what he said until right this minute. All those worshipful faces, all those tear-streaked cheeks—she couldn’t trust a single one of them. She had to watch every facial expression, every whispered conversation. She had to constantly protect herself and her loved ones from attack.
Malachai walked around the pair. When he came to stand before them, he went down on one knee and bowed his head. Victor offered his hand and Malachai took it, but he didn’t look up. He lowered his eyes before Victor and repeated the same injunction, “Against all others.”
A long train of people followed. Beginning with Colonel Weeks, they offered their fealty to their new leader by taking the oath over Victor’s hand. Lincoln, Isaac, Levi, Malia—all the New Breed Riley knew and dozens of others came forward. They took turns pledging themselves to Victor against all others.
An hour passed and still they came. Riley went into a trance waiting for it to end when, to her astonishment, no more people approached. They stood back watching and left the area clear. She didn’t know what to expect next, but no one moved.
A prickling sensation ran up her spine when Bryce strode into the ring and stopped. He confronted Victor, but he didn’t bow. The two brothers regarded each other for a moment. No one breathed.
Victor broke the silence. “Well?”
Bryce shrugged. “I suppose it’s asking too much for you to take me back.”
Victor pursed his lips and his eyes blazed. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I would have to keep you under guard night and day. I would never be able to trust you not to sucker punch me when I should be counting on you to hold my corner against all others.”
Bryce shot a glance to one side. He kept hitching his shoulder back and forth in all directions. “So…what? Do you want me to beg? I won’t. I won’t beg for what’s rightfully mine.”
“What’s rightfully yours is death,” Victor boomed. “With his dying breath, Pop made me promise to get rid of you. I can only assume he meant to kill you. He said I couldn’t trust you, that you take any opportunity to turn against me and poison my rule.”
Bryce flinched, but he didn’t answer.
“So you tell me what,” Victor barked. “You tell me what I should do. What would you do in my place? You would have me put to death in front of all these people as a warning to anyone who betrayed me. That’s what Pop would do.”
He waited. When Bryce still didn’t reply, Victor spun around and accosted Malachai. “What would you do, Malachai? If Pop left you in charge of the Prometheus Crest, what would you do with a brother who attacked you in open battle? What would you do with a someone who used an invasion as a pretext to murder another New Breed? What punishment does that traitor deserve?”
“Death,” Malachai rumbled. “No question. I’d put him to death in front of everybody. I wouldn’t even discuss it with him.”
Victor rounded on Bryce. “So?
Bryce shuffled his feet and squinted into the distance. “So what do you want me to do? You want to kill me right now? Go ahead and do it.”
Their mother Tessa gave a muffled sob to one side. She slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.
Victor’s voice dropped a register into his chest. He muttered in a threatening grumble. “Never let me set eyes on you again. If I see you or even hear that you returned to Anarock, every hand
will be against you. From this day forth, you’ll wander homeless. Any New Breed mutant can kill you with impunity. You’re a dead man walking. You’re a ghost.”
Bryce closed his eyes and bowed his head. He wavered there for a second. When he brought his head up, he searched the crowd and the park, but he didn’t see anything in front of him.
He shot a sidelong glance at Victor and murmured, “Thanks.” Then he walked away.
Victor waited a long time, but the crowd didn’t blink. They all stood there in glacial silence waiting for his word.
He swept the sea of faces with an unflinching glare. He drew in a lungful of air and bellowed over the park. “If anyone here wishes to challenge my rule, let him step forward now. Anyone who does not step forward now and betrays me after this moment will be branded a traitor and executed with extreme prejudice.”
Riley sensed those words reverberating to the ends of the Earth. They changed the course of Time itself. They laid the foundation for everything Victor would do afterward.
No one challenged him. No one dared. Only Bryce made that mistake. Victor spared him out of kindness to his mother. He wouldn’t do it again.
At last, Victor waved his hand. “All right. Let’s get this party started.”
The park burst into shouts. Laughter bubbled out of the crowd and the assembly swirled away. A band startled playing fast Zydeco dance music. Fiddles sang and a washtub bass thumped. Couples paired off and danced. Tables materialized out of nowhere and people loaded them with dishes of food.
Victor took Riley’s hand and led her out of the Pavilion. He greeted people at every turn. His terrible scowl evaporated and a glorious smile took its place, but Riley couldn’t get into the celebration.
