Zav opened the second hatch, and I swore when I realized he hadn’t thought to close the first. Water gushed into the tunnel, passing the parked submarine and flowing toward us.
“Hold your breath,” I told the girl and rushed forward. We would have to swim to the surface.
Or not. The submarine lid lifted as I brushed against it. The water hadn’t yet risen high enough to flood the interior.
“In.” I lifted the girl inside, pushing her behind the single seat. “Unless you know how to drive this thing, Shoreline, you get to ride in the back.”
Where will I ride? Sindari asked me dryly.
Uhm, on my lap? Like a house cat?
I believe I shall swim.
He bounded out, and I was positive he would have no trouble meeting us above. I also would have opted for swimming if I hadn’t had the girl with me, but I didn’t know how well she could swim.
Fortunately, the labels on the console were in English, not dark elven, and I spotted the big hatch button right away. I hit it, but it came down with ponderous slowness.
The water kept rushing in, rising even as it spread into the tunnel. A distant clang sounded, and I had a feeling one of those hatches had shut itself as part of some emergency system to prevent flooding. As if that mattered when half the complex had collapsed.
Finally, the lid was down all the way, sealing with a satisfying sucking sound. The water kept rising, and the sub bobbed, rising with it. The current pushed us farther back into the tunnel instead of out into the lake. I cussed like a drunken sailor, worried some of the dark elves would catch up with us, especially if we couldn’t get out.
Zav was long gone. Not only that, but I could sense that he’d changed from man to dragon, flying up out of the lake with his recovered artifact. He would probably open a portal any second and whisk it and himself back to his home world.
We were on our own.
I found the controls for the engine and fired up the submarine. It hummed to life, and I did my best to turn it against the current. Thankfully, whatever thrusters powered it were strong. We pushed our way out into the lake, and the first hint of light reached us, city lights filtering down from above.
My first instinct was to try to find the kayak, but it only seated one, and the submarine was faster now that we were out in the lake. Besides, the east side of Lake Union would probably be chaotic, if cars truly had fallen through what would seem to be a huge sinkhole to the rest of the city. I sped toward the north. I could have Dimitri pick us up at Gas Works Park.
We brushed against something on the bottom, a jolt going through the craft. One of the submerged wrecks.
I found the sub’s headlights and turned them on, their beams illuminating thousands of fish and the humongous kraken. The girl shrieked. I almost did the same.
I pulled us to the left, hoping we wouldn’t run into the giant bulbous squid, its long tentacles flexing and shifting behind it like seaweed in a current. It and the fish were still feeding on the bait. Whatever it was had been dropped into a hole in the hull of a hundred-year-old steamboat tipped sideways on the bottom of the lake. I imagined those big blocks of compressed corn one could set out in the woods for deer.
“It’s busy eating, Shoreline,” I said, hoping that was correct as we sailed past, far closer to those tentacles than I would have liked. “We’ll be fine.”
“Jennifer,” she mumbled numbly.
“Your name?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The kraken didn’t seem to notice us. Finally, something was going my way tonight.
I brought the submarine to the surface, saw the dark bank of the park, and took us in that direction.
You think you will escape after your heinous crimes, mongrel human? a voice thundered in my head.
At first, I thought it was Zav and that he was angrier with me than I thought, but this was someone new. One of the dark elves. It had to be.
You will not escape, Ruin Bringer. You will suffer for all the carnage you left in your wake.
I decided it would be wiser not to give a snarky retort. We were almost to the park, but who knew what the dark elves could do with their magic? Even from afar.
Half-expecting a tidal wave to come roaring after us, I twisted to look behind us. The surface of the water stirred, not with a wave but with a huge dark shape. The kraken. It was chasing us.
Sindari? I asked silently as I pushed the acceleration to maximum, envisioning those long tentacles grabbing the little submarine and dragging it down to the bottom. Are you nearby? We may need a little help.
The submarine was faster than I expected. We roared toward the dark bank like an out-of-control semi barreling down from a mountain pass. The headlamps flashed over something—a rock? We slammed into it, and the impact sent me into the domed lid. My head hit hard, and pain blasted through my skull. Jennifer cried out in fear.
I forced bleary eyes to focus. We were almost to the shore.
“Where’s the— there.” I was practically sitting on the console, so it was easy to slam my elbow against the button to raise the top.
It only went up halfway. That would have to do.
As I grabbed my passenger and squirmed out through the gap, a monstrous tentacle slapped down on the lid. Another one wrapped around the base of the submarine. The hull ground against rock as the kraken pulled it away from the shore.
The girl and I tumbled out. I reached for the ground with my boot, hoping we were close enough to touch. Yes. The water was at waist-level. Low enough to run, albeit tediously slowly.
The kraken drew the submarine out into the depths and lifted it into the air. I heard shouts from across the lake, from the houseboats, and wondered how many reports of a Loch Ness monster there would be tomorrow. The kraken hurled the submarine twenty feet before it smashed down into the water.
“Better it than us.” I had my arm around Jennifer, helping her slog to shore, and kept Chopper in my other hand. I didn’t think the kraken would be able to reach us once we were on land, but I wasn’t positive. And we weren’t there yet.
My new friend is coming for you, the voice taunted in my mind.
I glanced back as we plowed the last few feet to the bank. Yes, there was the dark shape of the kraken, and two tentacles reared up into the sky, silhouetted against the Space Needle and the lit cityscape to the south.
The tendrils came down toward us like axes.
“Go, go.” I pushed the girl toward the shoreline as I stood in the shallows, waiting with Chopper poised.
I scrambled to the side, the water slowing me down, as the first tentacle hammered toward me. I sliced upward, cutting into it with the magical blade. But the thing was massive. Even as I sliced through it, the force of the rest of it striking the water created a wave that hurled me to the side. I stumbled, struggling to get my feet under me and my blade up again as a second tentacle whipped toward me from the right.
I ducked, and it whizzed over my head, pouring a waterfall on me. The one that had crashed into the water, its tip now missing, rose up and slapped at me. I pierced it with the tip of my blade, but it still clubbed me in the stomach.
Out in the lake, more tentacles rose. If they all came at me at once, there was no way I could parry every one.
Orange light flared on the shoreline behind me, and I glanced back in horror, imagining a dark elf hurling a fireball at the girl I’d worked so hard to save.
But Zav stood there in his full dragon form, his jaws open wide as fire flared from his mouth like a blowtorch. A ball of spinning flame sped toward the kraken, quadrupling in size as it flew. It slammed into the giant squid, and all of the tentacles reared back, jerking away from the shoreline.
I sensed tremendous power as a wave of magic crashed into the kraken. The massive creature was lifted from the water and thrown even farther than it had thrown the submarine. It struck down on the other side of the lake with a splash that had people in their houseboats shou
ting and pointing.
The kraken soon slunk below the surface, disappearing from sight. As silly as it was, I hoped it wasn’t dead. The dark elves had been using it all along. All it had wanted was some food.
By the time I slogged to land—land that I wanted to collapse on and kiss repeatedly, but wouldn’t because of my dragon witness—Zav had changed back into human form. The artifact was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’d already opened a portal and thrust it through.
“Where’s Jennifer?” I looked around but didn’t see the girl.
“What?” Zav looked at the bank—the shoreline—behind me.
“The girl,” I said.
“Ah.” He pointed to the massive tanks of the park’s old gasification plant and the chain-link fence around them.
I could barely make her out, but she was there. I sagged with relief, then focused on Zav.
“Thanks for the help,” I said. It didn’t come out as grudgingly as I’d intended. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but I was relieved he’d shown up. Both times. I was exhausted.
“You found the entrance to the dark-elf lair.”
“I did. There are probably a lot more entrances now though.” I pulled out my phone, relieved the baggie had kept it dry, and texted my location to Dimitri.
Hopefully, Jennifer would recover enough to tell us her address, so we could drop her off at home. That would be better than the police station, given my dubious criminal status these days.
“This is true,” Zav said. “Whether you wish it or not, you draw the magical to you, including those who have committed crimes. I will continue to use you as bait.”
I glared at him. Just when I’d been hating him a little less…
“You will save yourself pain and might live longer if you agree to come with me to serve this purpose.” Zav gazed at me with his cool violet eyes.
“To be dangled as bait at your convenience? And do your bidding? I haven’t forgotten that spell you cast on me.” I prodded my temple with a finger. “It almost compelled me to get myself killed. I hate to break it to you, but I’d die before being some dragon’s slave. Before being anyone’s slave.”
Without any hint of apology in his voice, he said, “You can atone for your many sins by assisting the Dragon Justice Court in apprehending criminals for rehabilitation. I was unable to find Yemeli-lor and Baklinor-ten before the collapsed tunnels forced me to leave.”
“Atone for my sins? Killing bad guys is not a sin.”
“Bad guys, as you call them, should be rehabilitated, not executed by some mongrel with a stolen sword.” His gaze flicked toward my shoulder, where Chopper’s hilt once again poked up.
“It’s not stolen,” I snapped.
Admittedly, I’d killed the brain-munching zombie lord who’d been carrying it and then claimed it for myself, but that had been more than ten years ago. I’d made sure the undead guy was truly dead, dismembered and beheaded with bits of him scattered in the woods all along the highway back to town. Someone had once told me that since zombies were already rotten, they decomposed quickly and made excellent fertilizer.
“It is an ancient dwarven blade of great power. I doubt you even know how to call forth its magic.”
I scowled at him. “I know it does a good job of beheading monsters. That’s all I need.”
I wouldn’t admit that his comments were stirring my curiosity. It wasn’t as if the zombie lord had given me a user manual for the sword after I killed him. Could this arrogant dragon know more about my sword than I did? And was it true that it had been stolen?
Zav sneered. “It does not belong in this vermin-infested world.”
“You’re like a broken record. What do you even know of Earth? Is this your first time here? We have amazing stuff. You should go to the theater or to a symphony. Or a wine-tasting. Do dragons drink?”
“I will leave now, but if you refuse to work for me and continue to roam free, know that I will not save your life again.”
“You didn’t save my life this time. I had everything under control. And I’m the one who helped you. You didn’t even know how to get down there, did you? You waited until I figured it out and then followed me, like the crazy purple-eyed stalker you are.”
“I knew where the dark elves were located.”
“But not how to get down there.”
“It would have been a simple matter to break through the streets and jump down on them.”
“But you didn’t, because…” Because why? He thought humans were vermin, so why would he care if he wrecked our city? “It’s against the rules, isn’t it?” I asked, enlightenment brightening my mind. “The rules of your little court. They don’t want you killing people or wreaking havoc on the civilizations of the natives.”
“It is against my rules.” Zav pressed his palm to his chest. “I am not a criminal. I enforce the law; I don’t flout it. I do not wantonly destroy things or take lives unnecessarily.”
He squinted at me and stepped closer, his chest only inches from mine, his powerful aura crackling in the air and making my skin tingle with electricity. I probably should have sprinted away as fast as possible, but my feet were rooted, and I wasn’t even sure it was because he was holding me with a spell. I felt mesmerized by his eyes, his presence—trapped even without a cage.
“But if you keep killing the criminals I’m sent to arrest, I will make an exception. They should be punished and rehabilitated so they can be useful members of society, not slain by some vigilante executioner.” He thrust an arm in the direction of the tunnels and the chamber—the chamber now filled with rubble and cars. “You’re an anarchist, and your methods are unacceptable.” His eyes blazed, boring into mine.
I had thought he’d given up on wanting to kill me, but now, I wasn’t so sure. A shiver of fear went through me, but I made myself lift my chin and glare back at him. “My methods are legal here on Earth, and you have zero jurisdiction here, so butt out, Dragon.”
Ah, Val? Sindari had found his way to shore and was sitting by the fence and watching over the girl. Remember what I said about goading dragons?
No.
Don’t.
Oh, was that it? You’d think I could remember something so short and simple.
Yes, I would.
“The Dragon Justice Court has jurisdiction everywhere. Just because your ignorant people don’t know it, does not mean it’s not true. Be afraid of the day when they decide to make their rule known here.” Zav looked at the cloudy night sky and his voice grew softer. “Or destroy the infestation on this world so that someone besides criminals and law enforcers will be comfortable visiting again.”
I swallowed. He didn’t mean humans, did he? Even these dragons couldn’t truly have the power to wipe out all of humanity. I sure hoped that wasn’t something being discussed among his arrogant kind.
Zav reached for me, and this time a spell did hold me. I tried to spring back, but I couldn’t move. My boots turned into hundred-pound weights. His hand slipped into my duster, knuckles brushing my side through my wet shirt.
“What are you doing?” I blurted, horrified and shocked at the thought that I might get felt up by a dragon. Well, maybe not entirely horrified. He made a handsome human, and all that tingling and electricity could make sex interesting.
I scowled fiercely at him and at the thoughts. Was he putting that in my mind?
His hand went to my inside zip pocket, not anything more personal, and he drew out the sample case that Zoltan had given me, where I’d carefully tucked my painfully acquired vials of blood. If he took the case as some punishment, I’d clobber him. Some way or another, I’d clobber him.
Zav flipped it open, drew an empty vial and syringe, then closed the case and returned it to my pocket. He studied the syringe, his brow furrowing slightly. I doubted he’d ever seen one before. But he must have gotten the gist, for he pushed up his sleeve, then jabbed the needle into one of the veins snaking down the top of his forearm.
“That’s not
the vein people usually use.”
Zav operated the syringe one-handed, filling it without trouble. A few seconds later, he pulled out the needle, ignoring the blood streaming down his arm, and gave me the syringe. “I assume you can handle pouring it from one container to the other.”
“Yes. I can dress and feed myself on my own too.”
He eyed me coolly.
Shit, I hadn’t meant to be sarcastic. “Thank you,” I made myself say. Why was it so hard to force those words out?
Leaving me with the syringe and vial, Zav stepped back and turned away.
“Think about my offer,” he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the parking lot.
“Your offer of slavery?” I was thankful he’d given me the blood, but that didn’t mean I was going to become his faithful minion.
“To work on the side of the law and atone for your sins.”
“As a slave.”
“As bait.” He kept walking, the shadows swallowing his dark hair and dark robe.
“So much better. Thank you for this gracious offer. I’ll definitely think about it, probably while I’m throwing axes at a picture of a black dragon stapled to the wall.”
He looked back over his shoulder, those glowing violet eyes gleaming out of the darkness. I will have a picture of myself delivered to your domicile so that you needn’t use anything inferior for the purpose.
“I can’t wait,” I muttered.
Even before he’d said that, I’d been positive I would see him again. It might be a good idea to find out what powers Chopper had that I didn’t know about. If only for self-defense purposes.
As Zav shifted into his dragon shape, I realized that the gouge in my side from the dark-elf crossbow quarrel was gone. Completely healed. Had he done that when he touched me?
Before I could think of thanking Zav, he sprang into the air, flying over the empty parking lot and heading out toward Puget Sound. Or maybe flying to the local print shop to have a huge poster of himself made for me.
Sinister Magic: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 1) Page 24