A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  But even the happy haze of good fortune couldn’t hide the fact that the ground was shaking worse than ever. Scarier still, the magic was moving with it, trembling like a wire about to snap. The absolute worst part, though, was that Julius would have sworn he could smell Marci on it.

  That was impossible, of course. The magical craziness going on here was new, and Marci was dead. It was probably just confusion caused by the fact that her scent and the DFZ’s magic were so closely linked in Julius’s mind. Unfortunately, knowing it was an illusion didn’t make it go away. Every time he breathed in, there she was, faint but unmistakable.

  Each breath left a little crack in the wall he’d built to keep the pain of her death from washing him under. It had already worn down the happiness of the Qilin’s good fortune, leaving him scrambling to get his family moving before he broke down again. But just when he’d finally managed to get the dragons to their feet, a horrible screech sent them all right back down.

  It sounded like an entire steel factory going through a shredder, but angrier. The sort of fury you felt to your bones, even when it wasn’t yours. Julius was still trying to get his body to unclench when the unnatural scream hit him again. This time, though, the rage formed a word.

  “ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”

  It came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating from the cracked pavement and the toppled buildings and the broken edges of the collapsed Skyway overhead. It came from the water and the dirt, from the air itself. Even the Qilin was knocked out of his thankful, serene haze, looking around in alarm for the source of the sound. “What was that?”

  Before Julius could say he didn’t know, the voice blasted them again.

  “SLAVE MAKER.”

  “That’s our signal to go,” Chelsie growled, tucking her daughter against her side as she turned to her son. “Fredrick.”

  The F was way ahead of her. But as he lifted his Fang to cut them all back to Heartstriker Mountain, a third scream exploded through the air.

  “DIE!”

  The word went off like a bomb. The whole city lurched, throwing them all sideways, along with what was left of the tilted Skyway ramp. If the miracle of the Qilin’s luck hadn’t still been flowing through them, the ramp that had been their shelter against the flood would have landed on their heads. But as impossible as it seemed, the broken slab of Skyway didn’t fall. It actually lifted up, hurtling into the dark sky as though it had been plucked out of the ground by some giant, invisible hand.

  It wasn’t the only one. Through the hole in the broken Skyways, Julius could see the air was full of flying objects. Vans, cars, hunks of cement, dumpsters—whatever wasn’t nailed down was hurtling over the city to bombard Lake St. Clair.

  Or, at least, that was what Julius assumed. From where they were on the river’s southern bend with all of downtown between them and Algonquin’s lake, he couldn’t see a thing. A few seconds later, though, he realized he didn’t need to. The explosion of water when the attack landed was so big, he could see it over the tops of the superscrapers. And that—watching the white water shoot up so high it cleared the skyline—was how he saw the two figures standing on top of one of the Financial District’s tallest buildings.

  They were so far away, a human wouldn’t have seen them as more than specks in the night. Now that he was unsealed, though, Julius’s eyes were back to their usual dragon sharpness, which meant he could clearly make out the woman standing nonchalantly on the superscraper’s peak.

  A young woman with short dark hair, standing beside a tall man wearing a Roman centurion’s helmet.

  “Julius?”

  Chelsie’s voice was sharp in his ear, but Julius barely heard it. He was too busy rubbing his eyes, grinding his palms into them until he saw spots. When he looked again, though, the woman was still there. She’d actually turned toward him now, her face tilted down to look at the city below. The beloved face he’d know anywhere, but never dreamed he’d see again.

  Marci.

  “Julius!” Chelsie yelled, grabbing his shoulder. “What are you—”

  He tore out of her grasp, throwing his Fang away to ditch the extra weight as he charged forward. He ran so fast, his feet barely touched the ground, and then they didn’t touch at all. He didn’t even realize he’d changed shape until he was in the air, flying through the broken Skyways faster than he’d known he could go.

  But still not fast enough.

  Like the world had gone crazy in slow motion, he saw the building Marci was standing on rise up just as the skyway had done earlier, as though it were being picked up by an invisible hand. A hand that then tossed the entire hundred-floor building like a spear straight at Algonquin’s tower, and sent Marci flying off in the other direction.

  She sailed through the empty air, helicoptering her arms as she tried desperately to slow her fall, and Julius’s heart clenched in the terrible realization that he wasn’t going to make it. No matter how fast he flew, there was no way he could get to her in time before she hit the ground. He was desperately trying anyway when the Qilin’s magic rang through him like a golden bell.

  When the emperor had thanked him, his luck had been a hammer, a blunt, overwhelming presence that had no aim except to bring happiness. This was different. This time the luck was as sharp as his own claws, eager to slice the world to ribbons to give Julius what he wanted. What he desired most.

  Marci, Julius thought frantically. Marci. Marci. Marci.

  He was still repeating her name when a violent wave of magic—the same magic that had tossed the buildings around—shot up from below. Julius folded his wings instinctively, letting the explosive force slam into him.

  In any reasonable universe, that should have smashed him flat. But the Qilin’s golden luck was singing in him now, twisting his body in just the right way that the magic threw him instead, launching him faster than he could ever have gone on his own. Faster than Marci could fall. Fast enough that, when she hurtled through the broken hole in the Skyways toward the ground beneath, Julius was already there, his wings spread to catch them both as she slammed into him.

  Chapter 15

  Marci was falling through the night sky.

  It had happened so quickly. One second she was clinging to the building, watching the city come alive. The next she’d been flung into the chaos, her body spinning wildly. Then she’d started to drop, plummeting toward the ground faster and faster and faster. And then, just as the words terminal velocity were repeating like a chant in her mind, she crashed into a yielding mass of soft, royal-blue feathers.

  “Marci!”

  The familiar voice was frantic in her ears. Bigger and deeper than she remembered, but no less recognizable as she looked around in shock to see she was clinging to a dragon’s back. A blue-feathered dragon with wide wings and beautiful, frantic green eyes.

  “Julius.”

  The name slipped out of her, which was a miracle in itself, because the rest of Marci seemed to be shutting down. After everything that had happened—of which falling off a superscraper had been just another turn in the road—to have him suddenly there, right here under her fingers…It was too much. She’d fought her way back to life for a lot of reasons, including saving the world, but her deepest, most selfish desire had always been to get back to him. To her dragon.

  And he was right here.

  There was no playing it cool after that. Marci grabbed Julius with all her strength, hugging him so hard she almost spoiled their landing as he set them down on the broken street. The moment he touched down, Julius grabbed her back, coiling his long body around hers like a snake as he hugged her with everything he had.

  “It’s really you,” he whispered, squeezing her tight. “You’re alive.” He pressed his broad forehead against hers with the happiest gleam in his green eyes she’d ever seen. “Marci, you’re alive!”

  Marci nodded against him, too happy to speak. Too happy to think. Too happy to do anything except cling to him for dear life, which was fitting since
he had, in fact, just saved hers.

  I would have caught you, Ghost grumbled.

  “Don’t ruin this for me,” Marci hissed, shooting a warning look at her spirit over Julius’s wings. When she turned back to her dragon, though, his giddy happiness was quickly giving way to confusion.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said, pulling back a fraction to look her up and down. “I’m so happy, but how…How is this possible?”

  Marci bit her lip. “It’s kind of complicated.”

  “Complicated?” He stared at her in disbelief. “Marci, you died. I saw it. Chelsie buried you.”

  That would explain the dirt she’d had to dig through. But as much as Julius deserved an explanation, there simply wasn’t time.

  “I promise there’s a perfectly reasonable story behind this,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “But I can’t get into it now. Algonquin’s trying to destroy the DFZ. If I don’t stop her, the two of them will bring this whole city down.”

  As if to prove her point, an echoing crash sounded in the distance, followed by an equally enormous splash. When Marci tried to turn to see what new bit of the city had just gone into the drink, though, Julius grabbed her shoulders with his forefeet.

  “Why do you have to stop her?” he asked, sheathing his curved talons before they could touch her. “You just came back from the dead! I’m not going to let you die again fighting Algonquin. I’ve already got a way out. Just come with me and—”

  “No,” she said firmly, staring straight into his green eyes. “I can’t run from this, Julius. This mess is partially my fault. I’m the one who cut the spirit of the DFZ loose.”

  Now he looked even more confused. “Since when does the DFZ have a spirit?”

  “Since about six hours ago,” she said with a helpless smile. “Again, no time to explain, but the short version is that if I don’t fix this, we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble on a lot of different levels.”

  That was a ridiculous cop-out even by Marci’s standards. To her surprise, though, Julius didn’t launch into a barrage of questions. He just sighed and reluctantly uncoiled his body from hers. “What do we have to do?”

  She blinked in surprise. “We?”

  “Yes, we,” he said, incredulous. “I just got you back from the dead. That’s a miracle, Marci. I don’t care if you’re marching straight down Algonquin’s throat. I’m not leaving your side. Whatever you have to do, we’re doing it together, so hop on and tell me where we’re going.”

  He lay down on the ground after that, lowering his wings so she could climb into the space between them, but Marci could only gape. “You want me to ride you?”

  “It’s the fastest way to get around, and it lets me stay by you,” he said stubbornly. “And I did promise you a flight.”

  That he had. “It’s going to be nuts,” she warned as she climbed onto the ridge of his feathered back.

  “All the more reason to stay close,” he said, swiveling his head to look at her with an intense expression. “I lost you once, and it was the worst experience of my life. I am never losing you again.”

  He sounded so serious, Marci almost cried again. It was a ridiculous way to react, but she couldn’t help it, because he was always like this. No matter what happened, Julius had always stayed by her side. He’d always helped her, always had her back. Even now, when he had no idea what they were up against and the whole city was coming apart, he didn’t hesitate. He was right there with her, ready to jump into the fire feet first, and as she had since the very beginning, Marci loved him for it.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick.

  He pressed his head against her shoulder, breathing her in deep, and then he jumped them into the air, forcing Marci to hold on tight as his wings pumped on either side, lifting them into the cloudy night with astonishing speed. Or not so astonishing. For all his claims that he was a mediocre dragon, Julius had always been fast, and now was no exception. Even Ghost had to scramble to keep up as they shot through the gaping holes in the collapsed Skyways and back into the shaking city.

  Or what was left of it.

  “What the…”

  All her life, the DFZ had been the city of the future. A famously huge, neon-lit, double-layered wonder of human magic, commerce, and ingenuity in all its forms. Now, though, it looked like an active war zone.

  Every bit of construction was damaged. Buildings were cratered or collapsing or on fire, filling the sky with plumes of black smoke. Most of the elevated Skyway bridges were down, and those that hadn’t collapsed outright were cracked and sagging. Without their support, the city’s famous superscrapers were leaning like poles in quicksand, but the damage wasn’t limited to the upper city.

  Down in what had been the Underground, fires were raging as gas lines snapped and electrical boxes exploded. Other blocks were still flooded, the streets washed under several feet of dirty water. But as horrible as all of this was to see, what made everything a thousand times worse was the fact that the destruction was moving.

  The city wasn’t just broken. It was undulating, the buildings and roads twitching and shifting and curling in on themselves like cornered animals. Across the smoking skyline, out in the middle of the shallow green waters of Lake St. Clair, Algonquin’s white tower was in ruins. Since she’d been falling at the time, Marci hadn’t seen what had happened, but the uprooted superscraper must have struck true, because the entire top of the Lady of the Lakes’ famous stronghold had been knocked clean off.

  From Julius’s back, Marci could actually see the tower’s elegantly swirled peak—and all the speared dragon head trophies that’d been stacked on top of it—lodged in the dirt several hundred feet inland on the lake’s Canadian side. But crazy as it was to see Algonquin’s Tower, the icon of the city, decapitated, that was nothing compared to the spirit beside it.

  Marci had seen Algonquin many times now, and in many guises, but never like this. This was no Lady of the Lakes, no personification or humanizing element. This was Algonquin as she must have appeared that very first night magic came back: a skyscraper-sized spout of furiously spinning water.

  The only thing bigger was the shadow of the Leviathan behind her. At first, Marci thought he was just hovering, but then she saw his tentacles down in the lake, sweeping water into Algonquin as her swirling pillar rose higher and higher, bigger and bigger, until, without warning, she burst, collapsing on the writhing city in a crushing, skyscraper-sized wave.

  “Julius!”

  He was moving before she’d even opened her mouth. Wings pounding, he flew them to a safe height moments before the tsunami of lake water crashed into the buildings. The city screamed when it hit, an inhuman cry of pain and rage Marci felt to her bones. Even Ghost trembled, his fear shooting up their connection like a spear of ice.

  We have to stop this! he cried in her mind. At this rate, Algonquin will drown the city before we even make contact.

  “I know!” Marci yelled back, leaning recklessly off Julius’s back to scan the city below. “We have to figure out a way to talk to her, convince her to stop fighting.”

  She’s not going to stop fighting while Algonquin’s trying to destroy her.

  “Then we’d better get to her before Algonquin throws another wave,” Marci said desperately. “She can’t keep this up. The DFZ’s the bigger spirit, but she doesn’t have Myron feeding her magic anymore, and she’s burning through it fast. Look.”

  She pointed down at the buildings, which were all waving frantically like water plants in a storm. “I don’t know how much power it takes to make cement move like a snake, but I’m guessing a lot. With the seal still in place and no Merlin to pump extra magic into her, the DFZ’s bound to be out of gas soon. Once that happens, Algonquin can pound her into grit at her leisure.”

  So what do we do?

  “Stick to the plan,” Marci ordered. “We find the DFZ, defuse the situation, bring in Myron, and move on with Raven’s ploy while there’s sti
ll some city left to save.”

  Or we could let them fight, the Empty Wind suggested, his glowing eyes eager. The DFZ has no Merlin, but as of right now, she’s still bigger than Algonquin. If we fought with her, we wouldn’t have to depend on Raven’s ruse. We could defeat Algonquin the old-fashioned way, smashing her power and draining her magic before she has a chance to call out to her Leviathan.

  “Or we could drive her right into his slimy tentacles,” Marci pointed out. “We can’t take that risk. For all we know, her watery finger is already on the trigger.” She looked down at the flooded city, her face grim. “We stay the course.”

  If you say so, the Empty Wind said bitterly, moving directly in front of Julius, who gave no sign he saw anything. I’ll go search for her, but be careful, Merlin. Algonquin’s back is to the wall, and the dragon’s not as fast as I am.

  “That’s why you’re the one doing the looking,” she said with a smile. “I’ll be fine. Just be fast.”

  Ghost’s sigh whispered through her head one last time, and then he was gone, vanishing into the rumbling night.

  “So I only heard half of that conversation,” Julius said nervously, darting behind a huge building to hide them from Algonquin’s water spout, which was already rising again. “But I take it we’re staying up here while Ghost goes to look for…what again?”

  “The spirit of the DFZ, soul of the city.”

  “Right,” he said, landing on the side of the superscraper with his claws like a lizard on a tree. “And how do we find something like that?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” Marci admitted. “But I’m hoping Ghost will—”

  An earsplitting boom cut her off. It was so close, Marci’s first thought was that something had hit them. The fact that they were still in one piece proved that wasn’t the case, thankfully, but reality wasn’t much better.

  Unsatisfied with merely flooding her enemy, Algonquin was now catapulting water directly into the city, flinging truck-sized shots of water at high speed directly into the DFZ skyline. One of these shots, the boom they’d heard, had scored a direct hit on the building they were hiding behind. As a result, the entire superscraper was now falling like a toppled tree, and Julius and Marci were on the wrong side.