Vixen

by Finley Aaron

  A ratcheting noise echoes through the room.

  The chain is tightening. Something on the ceiling is winding up the chain like a spool of thread.

  With every click of the crank above, Ion has less chain to play with. In order to have enough length to whip, he’ll have to move closer to the yagi.

  Dangerously close.

  I’d drop down there and help him, but what can I do? He’s chained to the wall. Unless I think I actually have a shot at unlocking the shackles, I won’t be any use to him. Even if I somehow broke the chain, the shackles are obviously the magnetized kind that bind the iron in his body, preventing him from taking on his dragon form.

  As long as that shackle is on his ankle, he can’t turn into a dragon to escape.

  Ion must have realized, as I did, that the shortened chain is growing increasingly useless. In an attempt to make the most of what he has before the whole length of it is ratcheted away, Ion shuffles forward, whipping the chain more frantically.

  I’ve lost count of the fallen yagi. Seven, eight, maybe nine? Fewer than half are down. Something like two-thirds still remain.

  Even as I’m trying to count the fallen yagi among their staggering comrades, Hans sucks in a breath and turns to Eudora. “I know why this dragon looks familiar. It’s the neighbor boy from Siberia, isn’t it? All grown up? Didn’t I kill him once before?”

  “Almost.” Eudora laughs her cackling laugh. “I wondered if you’d recognize him.”

  “But his parents—” Hans clamps his mouth shut, but he looks behind him, at the door.

  Ion glances back, his attention distracted when Hans said “his parents.”

  What about Ion’s parents? If I understood Ion’s stories correctly, they died the night the Romonovs were executed.

  Didn’t they?

  Ion was never able to give a clear account of what happened that night, because he spent so much of it unconscious. He didn’t even know how he escaped until Eudora told him.

  The chain is shrinking ever shorter.

  Ion leaps up and grabs the chain, climbing up until he’s a good ten feet off the ground, straight above the heads of the yagi. From that position, he’s able to dangle the drooping chain below him, close to the heads of the yagi.

  He loops the chain around one mutant’s shoulders. He jerks the chain up, tightening the noose, popping off the yagi’s head. That neck joint is their weakest point—we’ve always known that. Good of Ion to use it to his advantage.

  One more down. He’s not going to have time to kill very many this way, but you’ve got to give him points for trying.

  “You’re doing better than I thought you’d do,” Hans admits, but he doesn’t sound impressed. He sound furious.

  “Maybe you need to come up here and stop me?”

  “No, no, I don’t believe that would be wise.” Hans is purposely staying close to the wall, out of the way of the yagi staggering about.

  Eudora asks him a question. Her voice is softer, difficult to hear over the ratcheting chain and ambient thunder, but I think she may have asked something about the yagi, whether he programs them to leave him alone.

  If that’s what she asked, then his answer makes sense. “Always, but not until they’re dry.”

  If I understood correctly, Hans has just revealed a possible weakness. If the cyborg yagi don’t get programmed to avoid him until after they’re dry, then this dripping fresh batch could conceivably attack him—if they weren’t distracted with Ion.

  While Ion flicks the chain and decapitates his next victim, Hans makes a disgruntled sound in this throat and picks up a second shackle.

  This one, for whatever reason, is locked shut.

  Hans pulls a key from his pocket and uses it to unlock the shackle, opening it wide.

  In an instant, I realize what’s possible.

  Hans has a vulnerability—he can’t get too close to the yagi.

  And he has a key to the shackles. He also has swords at his back and his hips, and probably various other weapons on his person, just as I do.

  He’s not exactly a safe guy to approach.

  But neither is he invincible. If I can get close enough to him to steal the key, I could free Ion and he could fly out of here with me. Hans would have to stay out of the way of the yagi, possibly giving me enough time to reach Ion and undo his shackle.

  Ion will have to bust out the skylight to fit through in dragon form, but he could make it.

  It’s a slim chance, but it’s still a chance.

  And if it’s going to work, I’ll have to act quickly. The only advantage I have is that no one realizes I’m here. Once I act, that advantage will be gone, so I have to make the most of it.

  An especially loud boom of thunder echoes all around. Knowing it might distract those below, I take the opening—the best I’ll get.

  I clutch the sill of the skylight and swing down, aiming my feet at a couple of staggering yagi before letting go. I’m wearing my yagi-kicking boots, so I might as well make use of them.

  Another sharp blast of lightning zings from the rods above, crackling the centrifuge and sending it spinning ever faster.

  At the same instant, my boots hit the yagi, knocking them over, sending them sprawling flat, skidding across the wet floor toward Hans, who, by the look on his face, is sincerely surprised.

  I’m sort of surfing on the backs of the skidding yagi, only not very gracefully. Still, I’m upright. I have enough control over my body to draw a sword from the double-baldric at my back.

  The floor is wetter than I’d realized. Either that, or fresh yagi exoskeletons function like a well-waxed surfboard, because I slam into Wexler with way more force than I’d intended. My sword is flat, sandwiched between us (yeah, maybe I could have had it turned the other way, but I’d have been just as likely to cut myself then—too risky).

  The room is still crazy crackling with lightning, since my entire skidding routine took all of about half a second and that was a particularly enormous blast. Hans Wexler looks equal parts stunned and furious, but he may have head a head start on the furious.

  With my right hand holding the sword tight between us, I reach with my left for the key.

  Wexler grips it tightly, like he knows that’s what I’m after.

  I lean back from him, pushing off with my sword arm, effectively ramming the blade against his suit front.

  The eye-stinging yagi-stench is even worse down here, and I can barely see what I’m doing. Also, that lightning crackling thing is making the air spark like static electricity. I’m not even going to imagine what my hair must be doing right now.

  Whether it’s his concern over the blade at his chest, or something about the crackle of electricity between us (my sword might be conducting energy from the air into Wexler’s chest, much like a defibrillator, but I’m not entirely sure. I still have my leather gloves on.). His fingers sort of spasm and flinch. He’s trying to hold tight to the keys, but he can’t keep me from pulling them out of his hand.

  The moment I have hold of them I whip around, blink away the yagi sting from my eyes, and spot Ion ratcheting ever closer to a giant cogged wheel on the ceiling.

  Is it just me, or is he on his way to getting caught in the cogs and crunched like road kill? I don’t have time to try to reach him with the keys, not at the rate that chain is tightening.

  Knowing I’ve only got one shot at this, I take careful aim, weigh the keys in my hand, and toss them to Ion.

  He’s been staring at me, pale-faced and gape-mouthed, so he sees the keys coming and aligns himself to catch them.

  They’re almost to his hand, his fingers poised to close around them.

  It’s at this exact moment I realize I’ve been paying too much attention to the keys and Ion, and not enough attention to the mega villain mad scientist behind me.

  Priorities.

  The lightning has died down and Wexler’s stopped twitching. He grabs my neck with one hand, choking me so hard my eyes squeeze shut.<
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  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  For an instant, I feel cold metal under my chin, and I’m afraid he’s going to put that other, open shackle around my neck.

  But wouldn’t that kill me?

  Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here, but I was under the impression he wanted female dragons…alive. And since my eyes still glow, he’s surely pegged me as a dragon, little knowing I’m not able to use my powers. For all I know, he doesn’t even need me to be able to change.

  Probably wants me for my DNA.

  Typical mad scientist.

  At least he’s smart enough to realize killing me now out of anger will not serve his long term goals. His hold on my neck loosens just as the shackle closes round my wrist.

  So now what? Now I can’t turn into a dragon?

  What else is new?

  Okay, yeah, I’m also trapped in this freakish laboratory and might get sucked into the cogs above, but I still have my swords and knives. I’m still wearing protective leather.

  I shake my head, flinging off tears from the yagi vapor (it’s a bit like how onions bring tears to your eyes—only a hundred times worse). Once my vision is clear, I spot Ion. He appears to be free of the shackles (Yes! He got free! I did something right!), but is still clinging to the chain above, probably to keep him away from the seething yagi below.

  Speaking of, I’ve been wanting to kill yagi ever since they cut me back in Siberia. A couple of them are already struggling over their fallen fellows toward me. Now’s my chance.

  I pull out my other sword and decapitate the two closest yagi, while glancing around to take stock of those that remain.

  Looks like maybe a dozen left?

  Easy peasy.

  But even as I slice off two more heads, and I’m starting to think maybe I’ve got a shot, two things catch my attention. One is Eudora, standing by the levers Hans used to send Ion’s chain cranking toward the cogs on the ceiling. She pulls one down hard, cackling a particularly vengeful-sounding cackle. The chain attached to the shackle on my wrist starts to pull.

  At the same time, Hans has snuck out of the way of the yagi to the giant levers that control the yagi tanks.

  What’s he up to?

  I decapitate two more yagi, then glance at Hans. He’s leaning into that big lever again, the one that forced two-dozen yagi from their tanks. But the yagi that are in those tanks now, came from the tanks in the row behind them. They’re not really done yet. Are they?

  I slice heads off two—three—four more, while the hydraulic lifts hoist another wall of dripping soldiers from their coffin-like tanks.

  One thing’s for sure: the floor is getting slimy.

  And the chain that holds my shackle is getting shorter.

  Also, the thunder and lightning are getting fiercer, rattling the skylights overhead, and crackling like shooting sparks from the centrifuge to the various tanks.

  It occurs to me that maybe I don’t want to be standing on the wet floor if the lightning’s going to be coursing through the room.

  Also, all that lightning must accelerate the rate of corpse-to-yagi transformation, because the creatures that are staggering forward in a dripping wall look pretty much like yagi, maybe a little more human. A little more agile.

  With the chain pulling me ever closer to their mass, and electricity shooting through all the wet things in the room, and the floor wet enough I’ll probably slip and fall on my sword before too long if I’m not careful, I sheathe my swords and take a short, running leap, grabbing a length of my chain high in front of me, far closer to where it’s getting sucked into the cog above.

  Speaking of which, Ion’s chain has been sucked away, and now he’s clinging to a pipe along the ceiling. For a second I wonder why he doesn’t just change into a dragon and fly away.

  Then I see the glint of metal between his lips.

  The key.

  He’s got the key, and the look in his eyes says he has every intention of using it to free me. Of course, he can’t manipulate the key once he’s in dragon form—his hands would be too big, and his talons, too long. He’d most likely drop it. We’re in no position to risk that.

  I’m swinging from my chain below him, and Hans and Eudora are laughing their maniacal mad-scientist laughs (do they not know how cliché that is?) and lightning is sparking everywhere, and I’m looking up at Ion, and he’s crying.

  Okay, maybe weeping is a better word for it. I don’t know if it’s just the effect of the yagi vapor (hey, my eyes are watering like faucets), or if he’s feeling emotional over the fact that I came to help out, or if he’s just pretty sure we’re both going to die (sadly, that last one is still the more-than-likely scenario), but tears are pouring from his eyes and splashing down all over me, mostly on my face as I’m looking up at him.

  The ratchets pull me closer to him.

  Down below, Hans has another shackle. I’m not sure if it’s the first one that held Ion earlier, or a third one. Doesn’t matter. He’s swinging it around again like he’s going to catch Ion.

  “Turn into a dragon and fly away!” I shout at Ion.

  He’s got the key in his mouth so he can’t speak, but he shakes his head, flinging tears down at me.

  I’m getting drenched here.

  His face says no way is he leaving without me.

  I admire his dedication. The only problem is, if he doesn’t leave without me, he might never leave at all. But I don’t have time to argue with him. I need to stop Hans.

  Hooking one leg around the dangling chain, I somehow manage to catch the heel of my boot in a link. This gives me a more secure grip on the chain, so I can let go with my right hand and grab a sword.

  I know, I know. If the bear taught me anything, it’s that I’m no good at throwing swords. I have knives inside my boots, strapped to my ankles, but no way can I reach them right now.

  Hans is swinging the shackle chain like a lasso, way back next to the wall, out of the way of the staggering yagi, who are clearly disoriented about being evicted from their tanks too soon. They seem to be trying to track him down, but then he just shuffles away, and they bump into each other and fall down and get up and try again.

  I grasp my sword and let it fly toward him, taking into account the swirling chain so my weapon doesn’t get deflected.

  Maybe it’s because I failed when I threw the sword at the bear, so I’m taking extra care now. Or maybe it’s all that training I did while Dad and Ion were in Siberia. Or maybe it’s just a lucky throw, but the tip of my sword goes speeding straight toward Wexler’s chest.

  Hans has to stop twirling the chain. He darts to the side to avoid being hit by the sword, but his cape furls out behind him, and the sword pierces it, pinning him to the wall.

  Encouraged, I quickly grab another sword from my hip and fling it after the first.

  Hans spins around, grabbing the first sword by the hilt, attempting to yank it from the wall. The other side of his cape flutters behind him…and is pinned to the wall by the second sword.

  Yup, I totally meant to do that. On purpose.

  I reach for the sword at my other hip, just as I feel something touch my other hand.

  It’s Ion. He’s dangling from the pipe above by his knees, unlocking my shackle. His tears splash me in the face.

  I fling the other sword at Hans. It reaches him just as he pulls the first sword free of his cape and the wall. He uses the first sword to bat the third sword away.

  “Let’s go.” Ion says, holding tight to my arm and dropping the shackle. “We need to get through the skylight before I change—”

  “One second.” I’m digging in my boot with my free hand, and pull out a knife triumphantly.

  I’ll only have one chance to get this right—Hans is tugging at the sword that holds him to the wall. Any second he’ll be free.

  I take aim at the spinning centrifuge just as a particularly fierce blast of thunder shakes the air around us.

  Sound waves that strong could throw my knife
off course. I wait for the rumbling to ease up.

  “Hurry.” Ion sounds slightly terrified. “Eudora’s coming.”

  Right. I’d almost forgotten about Eudora.

  I take aim and let the knife fly, but I don’t have time to watch to see if it hits its target.

  “Come on!” Ion’s pulling me up onto the pipe after him. When I’ve got both arms around it and one leg hooked over the top, he pulls himself up to standing and grabs the edge of the skylight, leaping up and through before clutching the roof and offering an arm to pull me up.

  Except, I don’t know, maybe I’m not as agile as he is, or maybe my clothes are slowing me down, but I’m having trouble pulling myself up atop the pipe. I struggle for a second and I’ve almost got it—seriously, one more second and I’d be through—but Eudora’s swiftly climbing up a chain and her hand clamps around my ankle.

  She pulls my leg down from the pipe.

  At the same time, serious sparks and fire are shooting out of the centrifuge, which I apparently hit. And half a second after I realize that, lightning streaks across the sky, sizzling through a lightning rod to the damaged centrifuge.

  It explodes in a blast of red and yellow flame, and all the lights in the room go dark.

  The space below is now lit only by the light from the glowing tanks. I can’t see Hans, but I can hear him attempting to fight yagi in the darkness.

  I suppose they’re harder to run away from when he can’t see them.

  The thought might give me some satisfaction, if I wasn’t otherwise wholly absorbed in trying to free my leg from Eudora’s grasp.

  Suddenly there’s someone next to me on the pipe.

  Ion.

  He came back for me.

  Ion grabs the pipe and swings downward, kicking Eudora’s arms and wrists until she releases her hold on my leg. “We’ve got to get out of here—this place might explode!”

  “You go first.”

  “No.” Ion pulls me up and shoves me out ahead of him. “You go! Go!”

  I’m not quite sure how he does it without losing his balance—he may have sprouted his wings there for a second—but he shoves me up through the skylight. The whole time as he’s shoving me, he’s screaming. “Flee! Get out of here! I’m right behind you, I’ll be fine—go!”