But Kaylee had stopped listening. Her attention was fixed on the still-shrinking portal. The Herald hadn’t moved from it. Couldn’t move from it. Which was why his gross little pony was stomping its feet in place rather than stomping on her.
A weakness.
Shouts of pain made the Herald turn. Alastair and his group had returned to the Grand Hall, drawing more combatants from both sides in to the fight. Zaria and her small group had circled around to close some of the fleeing Slayers in. Kaylee’s eyes traveled above them all. Just below her storm hung more replicas of ancient birds tethered to the ceiling.
Leverage. She could attack the Herald from the sky. But how? How could she get high enough? She still couldn’t shift her dragon wings. And the only exhibit she’d seen so far that could reach up there was the…
The T. rex exploded through the wall behind Kaylee, its gaping jaws closing around her.
Kaylee couldn’t even scream. She pulled her limbs in as tight as she could as the skeleton’s teeth closed around her like a trap. Her body was wedged in its bottom jaw, and through its bones she could see the ground now far, far below.
The T. rex’s momentum smashed it into the opposite wall. Kaylee saw stars as her head hit the roof of its mouth. Its jaws opened and closed again, nearly skewering her again. Her claws scratched where his throat would have been, but the stupid thing didn’t feel pain.
There! An opening!
The back of its jaw un-hinged every time it bit, just wide enough to latch onto if she could…only…just…
Kaylee twisted her body around, shifted her feet, and kicked up with all her might. The top of the skeleton splintered. The jaws cracked open just enough that she was falling, her claws latching onto the neck vertebra, then sliding down the rib cage before dropping to the ground.
Her legs gave. Her head slammed into the tile. But the pain was secondary to the pounding fear coursing through her as she stood. Above her the T. rex stumbled, its bottom jaw flopping about uselessly.
But it was slowing.
And it was near the Herald.
And it was leverage.
MOVE. Kaylee’s mind screamed as she began running. Faster.
The wind picked up behind her, carrying her in a way her wrecked bones and muscles couldn’t. The air chilled her skin as she leapt for the T. rex’s whipping tail, grasping it tightly. Kaylee ladder-crawled end over end, up the spine, her body no longer hers to control but on autopilot. Magic burned fierce and hot as she collected it from the storm above. Lightning crackled and snarled.
Now the Herald was below her. She was high enough now that she knew this fall would hurt. A lot.
Kaylee jumped.
A final burst of air carried her the rest of the way. She drew her lightning-filled claw higher as she plummeted towards the Herald.
The Herald looked up. And smiled.
He caught her by the throat, closing off her gasps of surprise. His other hand clamped down on her hand until her lightning dissipated. Until she heard her fingers snap. Hot tears of pain rolled soundlessly down her cheeks.
“Admirable,” the Herald said. “But not enough.”
“Then…try…this…” Kaylee wheezed.
Kaylee called on the storm and it obeyed. She felt the lightning descend, felt the prickle at her back and the white-hot bliss as it struck the top of her head and coursed through her body.
The Herald’s eyes widened. His mouth opened in a silent scream of rage.
There was a burst of light.
“Impressive.”
Kaylee didn’t know where the man had come from, only that he was there. Wherever there was. She didn’t know. She expected her body to hurt, but it didn’t. She expected to remember a struggle—a battle—magic—but that was all strangely distant now.
She was just…here.
The man stood facing away from her in front of a great stone fireplace. The room was heavy with warmth. It resembled Alastair’s study, and although Kaylee wished to relax, maybe curl up by the fire, the man kept her on edge. She wasn’t quite sure why.
“I haven’t seen this much resistance from a magical being since the days my King’s sister reigned,” the man added.
“Who are you?” Kaylee asked, glad her voice still worked.
The half of his face Kaylee could see gave a bemused smile to the fireplace. “You’ll know soon enough.”
“Where am I? Am I dead?”
“Oh no, my dear, not yet. You are in between. And where you think you are I can’t say. It is different for everyone, and I have never completed the journey myself.”
The man took a long draught from a mug clutched in one hand.
“I will not try to reason with a being such as yourself, because I know in my heart it will be futile. I have sacrificed much towards the destruction of your kind, yet now my beloved followers see fit to allow you to spread like roaches. Alas.” Another sip. “But I shall fix that soon enough.”
Kaylee found herself reaching for a heavy, iron-bonded candlestick on the desk. She hadn’t intended to attack this man, but the guy was freaking her out. Plus, she wasn’t exactly a fan of getting called a roach.
The man chuckled as she raised it.
“You seek violence as your means. Typical. Though I suppose I do the same, do I not? You might as well put it down, girl. Neither of us can harm one another in this place. But…” He set his mug down and faced her. There was a dull thump as Kaylee dropped her candlestick on the carpet.
The man could have been Lesuvius. He was not, she could see that now, but the resemblance was uncanny. His black hair was longer and swept back, his face haunting and beautiful and terrifying all at once. His eyes were hot embers, and they pierced her as easily as a Slayer’s spear.
“Yes,” the man said, taking a step towards her. The back of Kaylee’s knees hit the table and they crumpled as she tried to get away. “Yes, remember your will to destroy me and remember it well, for when I rise—and I will rise—you will have to strike me down with all your anger and all your hatred, or I will wreak destruction on your kind greater than I have ever managed before.”
Those eyes were burning hotter, simmering the air. He reached one hand towards her.
A jolt thudded through Kaylee’s chest.
“Ah…” The man’s hand faltered in mid-air. “They call you back to the fight. Flee, little dragon-kin. Flee, and grow and thrive, but know that I am coming, and I will be your end.”
Kaylee gasped and clutched her chest as another jolt punched through her. Then another. With each hit the room faded a bit more. Bright white spots danced in her eyes.
Her last vision was the man’s fiery eyes, burning her in the dark.
Air seared Kaylee’s throat and lungs and she reeled it in desperately. She was suddenly aware of the ceiling. The ceiling of what? The museum. Right? Right. She’d forgotten. But how had she gotten on the floor? And why did she hurt so much?
Randy’s face appeared above her. He held up one electrified hand. He looked ready to plunge it into her chest again.
“I’m awake,” Kaylee croaked.
Randy sagged with relief, scooping her closer to him. His face was scratched and soot-covered. His arms wrapped around her tighter as he rocked her, tears sticking on his chin. Slowly his rocking turned less desperate and his sobs tapered off.
“You’re a real jerk to pretend to die on me like that,” he said.
“Whoops. Sorry.”
Her muscles were on fire when she moved, rolling over and sitting up on her knees. The Grand Hall didn’t seem real. A fine coating of what might have been dust or ash trickled from the ceiling. The Herald, Lesuvius and most of the Slayers were gone.
“How long was I out?”
“A few minutes. The second Lesuvius saw you’d stopped the Herald he and the rest of his followers took the book and ran. I’m sure Alastair, your brother, and that rogue dragon girl are after them right now.”
It was then that Kaylee realized the por
tal—or what was left of it—was nothing more than a puddle of rippling magic, draining away like water at the bottom of a drain.
Randy tugged on her arm and helped her stand.
“We need to get clear. You knocked the Herald back to whatever hellhole he came from for now, but that portal is still unstable.”
As if to prove his point there was a sharp snap! A fissure appeared in the tile beneath Kaylee’s feet. They looked at one another.
“Run,” Randy said.
The portal pulsed outward. Magic tendrils seeped forth and grasped for anything nearby to suck in. The entire Hall shook, the noise like a stampede of elephants. Kaylee and Randy leapt over the tail of the downed T. rex skeleton and bolted for the stairs. The noise grew while they ran, a deluge of sound as the portal snapped and snarled its gasping final breaths.
Kaylee’s legs crumpled when they hit the bottom floor.
“Come on!” Randy tried to pull her up, but her muscles had seized. Her magic was all but gone. Striking the Herald must have depleted her more than anything she’d ever done and now her body was forcing her to stop.
Randy’s head snapped up. A large chunk of the ceiling shook free and toppled the giant sloth.
“We need to move, Kaylee!”
“I’m trying!” She gritted her teeth and forced her legs to bend.
But they wouldn’t be fast enough. The entire place was crumbling now. Any second, they’d be crushed by—
Reese broke through the curtain of debris and grabbed her other side. The combined effort was the boost Kaylee needed and they started running again.
“The Convocation has a retreat perimeter around the eastern exit,” Reese yelled over the noise.
Randy nodded and pulled them that way. The exit door was ahead.
A creak and groan came from above them. The cables holding a model of the solar system snapped free one by one. Jupiter began tipping towards them. Randy’s grip grew tighter on Kaylee’s arm.
“Hold on!” He yelled.
There was a flap of wings. Kaylee’s vision went into warp drive. The falling solar system plummeted ahead of them, then above them, then hit the floor behind with a tremendous crash, and they were stumbling up and out the exit.
The Slayers who had managed to escape the fight inside were beating a hasty retreat across the museum’s back lawn, pursued by a collection of Merlins and Protectors. Some attempted to engage the Convocation but large vines burst from the ground and wrapped them up. The trees of the garden leaned over and plucked or knocked the rest away. Alastair charged after the rest. Zaria led her small group just behind him.
“This way,” Randy said. “Keep to the outside and we’ll get clear.”
They stepped into the museum’s sculpture garden just as three Slayers stumbled through the bushes. Both parties froze. The closest Slayer scrambled to raise his crossbow. Randy swore and shoved Kaylee behind him but before he could attack a jet of water burst from behind the nearest sculpture and slammed into the Slayers, knocking them senseless.
Kaylee, Randy, and Reese all gaped at Dani.
“Well come on!” She said. “There’s more of them out here.”
“Did you see that attack?” Randy said as they followed. “She makes all the progress you’ve made look like a joke.”
“Remind me to punch you for that when I’m not half dead,” Kaylee said.
Dani and the Convocation scouts led them out of the garden and across the front lawn. The entire time Kaylee felt a prickling growing at her back. The air around the museum was stirring. Then Reese yelled, “Get down!”
Randy grabbed Dani while Reese pushed Kaylee to the ground. An intense blast of heat seared her skin. All she could see was white, and then a beam of light erupted out of the roof of the museum, burning a hole through the cloud layer before vanishing.
Kaylee’s muscles trembled. Sparks drifted from the sky and settled in the grass around the museum grounds. Kaylee felt as if she’d exited a long tunnel full of noise to nothing but perpetual silence. Randy was tugging her arm for her to get up and Kaylee forced her grudging body to obey. She latched onto Reese and together the four of them left the museum and the threat of the Herald behind.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kaylee could hear the screech of voices clear across the safe house living room. Jade, a bandage wrapped across the gash on her forehead, held the phone at arm’s length as her parents on the other end let loose. She gave Kaylee a pleading look.
“You want to deal with them?”
Kaylee shook her head as fast as her muscles would allow. “I already paid my price. You’d think Alastair had never given the OK for us to come along with the way my parents acted.”
“Parental law overrides Convocation any day,” Maddox said.
Edwin snorted. “You’re one to talk. Your parents thought what we did was—what did they say? Gnarly?”
Maddox just grunted.
Jade eventually walked into one of the bedrooms to try to continue reasoning with Mr. and Mrs. Azuma. Kaylee could hear her calmly describing the dangers they’d faced (“Really, Mom, their swords weren’t that sharp.”) and playing down the severity of her injuries (“It only bled for, like, twenty minutes.”).
She was actually right about the last part. Once Maddox had arrived at the safe house, a Merlin healer had set about stitching Jade up. Besides the gash and a minor concussion, nothing else was too bad.
“Slayer got a lucky shot,” Jade had told Kaylee when she’d returned and squeezed her friend to near suffocation. “Five on one, plus they had magic. Then they started bringing the Viking mannequins to life. I think it was Erik the Red who finally got me.”
Kaylee hadn’t been spared from her own form of parental interrogation. She’d awakened in the morning with an I-got-hit-by-a-dump-truck feeling in her bones, muscles and brain, and a very startled-looking Stephanie holding a cell phone out to her.
“Your parents. They’ve called ten times and refuse to stop. I’m not even sure how they got this number.”
Kaylee had fielded their questions for the better part of an hour. At one point, they’d asked if Reese was with her. Kaylee hadn’t known how to answer that. According to Randy he’d returned to the safe house to make sure she’d been taken care of, then vanished in the ensuing confusion as the rest of the Convocation trickled in and the Slayers fled Rothsberg.
She hadn’t heard from him since.
Her parents had persisted in pestering Kaylee with questions until a large hand plucked the phone from her ear.
“She’s been with me, Brianna,” Randy said. “Yeah. Of course. Of course I’ve taken good care of her.”
Kaylee pointed to the numerous scrapes and bumps on her legs, arms, and face. Randy rolled his eyes. “Mostly.”
But he had taken care of her, Kaylee had to admit.
Now, as she looked around the living room at the others, she realized they all had gotten off with a lucky break, considering what they’d faced. Maddox didn’t look any worse for wear save for a few scrapes of his own. Jade and Kaylee’s injuries would heal with a solid week of rest. Dani had been in such high spirits after she’d saved them in the garden that she’d already headed back to Scarsdale with some of the Protectors she’d been assigned with.
And Edwin…
He glanced up and gave her a soft smile. Just that sent Kaylee’s pulse racing. She thought of those smiling lips close to her own, kissing hers. And now with the heat of the battle over…
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Jade emerged from the other room, tossed the phone on the table and slumped on the couch. “You know, for parents who want their kid to take part in the dangerous Tamer test next year, they’re sure making this a waaaay bigger deal than it needs to be.”
“Parents will be parents,” Maddox said sagely. “Trained fighter or not.”
Jade grumbled. She picked at the wrapping around her head.
“Don’t,” Maddox said, grabbing her hand. “It’s only been a day. Let
it heal.”
“My hero…” Jade fluttered her lashes at him and Maddox crossed two beefy arms in a pout. Edwin grinned. His eyes flickered to Kaylee one more time and she got the impression he wanted to say something to her, but didn’t want to say it here.
“Did anyone get the chance to talk to Dani before she left?” Jade said.
“I did,” Maddox said. “You would never guess that girl hadn’t been in a major fight before. Even the Merlins were impressed.”
Kaylee couldn’t help feel a small swell of pride for Dani. She was doing better than any of them could ever have hoped.
“What now?” Kaylee said.
“Not sure,” Edwin said. “I think we’re heading back to Scarsdale this afternoon.”
“Back to the mundane,” Maddox lamented.
“Back to relative safety,” Edwin added.
Maddox swatted him playfully across Jade’s shoulders. “All relative, Edwin my man.”
“You know the Slayers will be launching a new plan soon enough.”
Jade clenched her hands beneath her knees. “Then we’ll be ready. Kaylee? Have you…heard anything about…you know?”
All three of them turned to Kaylee, and she could tell Jade instantly regretted asking her here, where Convocation members still moved about and everybody expected her to come up with an answer she didn’t have.
Reese was gone, but Kaylee didn’t know if he’d returned to the Slayers or not. She didn’t see how he could after changing sides, but if there was one thing she knew about the Slayers, it was that their logic didn’t always match up with anyone else’s.
“No. I haven’t heard. I thought I’d ask Alastair whether he knew.”
“Or Randy,” Edwin said.
“Randy’s gone too.”
“Already?” Jade said.
“I think so. I haven’t seen him since he talked to my parents.”
Jade still seemed shocked. “But to just show up out of nowhere and leave without saying anything?”
Just like Reese.
Dragon's Curse (Heir of Dragons: Book 2) Page 23