by Tricia Owens
I heard a noise from the hills.
Something rolled down the hill to my left. It started out the approximate size of a tennis ball. I thought it was a kid's toy that a family of tourists had left behind. However the ball wasn't just rolling, it was compelled. And as it rolled toward us it grew larger, like a snowball accumulating more snow. In fact, that was exactly what it was doing. Just as Stevie had done in the tunnels.
By the time the golem unrolled itself seconds later it was the size of an average man and roughly shaped like one if you could see past the tumbleweeds, pieces of cacti, and jutting rocks that comprised its body. It made me think of a frosted gingerbread man that had been dragged through the desert by a negligent child.
A second ball of dirt rolled down the hill from the right. Then two more rolled down from the left again. Four more on the right. More and more desert snowballs picked up momentum until eventually two dozen golems stalked toward me dripping dirt, bits of scrub brush, and crushed wildflowers.
A part of me was filled with wonder. When did you ever see life spring from the earth like that? But of course life was even cooler when it wasn't out to hurt you.
"Your golems won't save you, Dearborn."
"Let's see," he said, almost gleefully.
As he backed up down the road, the golems lumbered toward me. They were ungainly and slow, but their footsteps pounded the ground and I had no doubt their fists of stone and cacti would hurt like hell if they made contact with me.
Heat built in my chest. I let it out through Lucky, ordering him to blast the golem that was nearest to me. He spat a long streamer of red and gold flames, fully engulfing the golem. Tumbleweeds and cacti on the golem's body flared up as they caught fire, then spewed ribbons of smoke. The smoking creature kept walking.
I bared my teeth, letting a little more of my dragon nature push through. Lucky's jaws yawned wide. We snapped them around the smoking golem's dirt mound head and wrenched.
Nothing, I decided then, quite compared to the sensation of ripping something's head off. Ozzy Osbourne might have been on to something. Lucky and I spat the head away, which hit the ground as a heap of inanimate dirt. However, the rest of the golem kept coming, and now it was raising its hands above where its head used to be and forming a double mallet to bring down on my head.
Lucky circled the golem and then smashed headfirst through the creature's chest. My dragon's teeth closed around the bone heart within the creature's chest and crushed it.
There was no mournful wail this time. The golem collapsed silently in mid-step, resembling nothing more than a mound of dirt dug up from a grave.
I laughed because it had been fun, like smashing a vase with a baseball bat. It was cathartic. It was satisfying. I felt my head lower and my shoulders rise up as though I were ramming the golems right alongside Lucky. We smashed through the next closest one and pulverized its heart. Then the next was just as quickly turned to dirt and debris. And another. Smash, bite, crush. Another. The golems didn't stand a chance against Lucky and me. We were tearing through a ceramics shop with no mercy.
More balls rolled into golems. Dozens upon dozens of them. They formed faster than we could destroy them. Lucky and I began to struggle to destroy them before they reached the road. I gave him more energy, more of me, so we could whip our tail and smack golems with it while we bashed them with our head.
We tried to target them in a sort of order, nearest to farthest, but there were so many that eventually we just crashed into everything, bashing and biting and crushing everything within reach. Our reactions degenerated into pure instinct. We couldn't think, could only act. As the piles of desert debris grew, I found myself closer to Lucky than ever. I began to see through his eyes because it was easier to focus on the golems that way.
It was more natural.
Smash. Bite. Crunch. Smack. I was a whirlwind of gold, all gnashing teeth and snapping tail. I was a dragon possessed, no—obsessed with taking down every last golem. They came at me in a seemingly never-ending wave, as though their numbers wouldn't deplete until the desert ran out of dirt. I attacked them with increasing frenzy, going a little mad...
Finally, what seemed hours later, there were more piles of dirt than advancing golems. When the last golem was finally reduced to a pile of desert debris I shot up with a roar into a victory loop in the sky, my front tiger claws scratching at the stars. At last I'd been able to let loose my predator nature! Out here I was free to do what I wanted, to be who I wanted. I was Dragon of Doom, Dragon of Destruction. I was Dragon, Dragon, Dragon.
Something zipped past my head.
I whirled excitedly, the predator in me salivating for more to chase.
It was a bat. But not an ordinary bat. One made of dirt. Now there were a dozen of them. Now three dozen. They swarmed around me and blocked the sight of the moon with clouds of leaking dirt.
Their bone hearts were too small to zero in on so I simply gobbled the bats whole and crushed them in my jaws. Catching them became a game. They were as quick and agile as I was. But they weren't faster than I and it was a thrill to finally catch up to them. The predator in me thrummed with joy to be free to do what I was made to do.
My body curled and twisted, swooping and diving and hurtling up through the dust toward the moon because this was who I was, this was who my blood demanded me to be. The chase made me grow wilder. It was so much fun! So fun to be a dragon. There were so many bat golems to catch and crush and munch and munch.
"Is that all you've got, Dearborn?!" I shouted, but it was a dragon's roar, deep and rumbly. The sound made my heart sing with joy.
I heard him say with a strange note of triumph, "No, Anne, I have just a little bit more."
I wheeled to face him, hoping for more golems to crush and crunch, more prey to tear apart because I was the alpha predator and I would prove it! Send me more! Send them all!
Figures began to appear on the hilltops. Maybe two dozen. Maybe a few more. Their ragged, rotting clothing streamed dust and weeds. Dirt rained down their bodies with each ungainly step they took. Some stumbled and fell. Others limped. Still they kept coming. I bared my fangs, ready to destroy them also.
I zoomed toward them and struck the first figure head on. I heard the rattle of what sounded like sticks before the figure flew backward to skid across the ground.
But it hadn't exploded. And I hadn't sensed the tang of dragon bone inside the creature.
I watched, uncomprehending, as the figure struggled upright and then regained its feet. It stumbled forward, still dumbly determined to reach the dark-haired young woman standing in the road.
These weren't golems. My dragon brain struggled to make sense of what they were but my brain was small and it was too focused, too intent on crushing and biting and diving and twisting and roaring and—
"You should have done your homework, Anne," Dearborn said, laughing his wheezy laugh. "This used to be a real Wild West town back in the 1800s. They struck gold and silver in the mines here. The lust for it was sky high. Made men greedy. Suspicious. Desperate. The nearest law man was a week's ride away. That made it easy to avoid punishment for whatever crime a man out here felt like committing. To kill a man and take his gold held as much weight as shooting a dog. It became a regular thing here, the murdering and killing. So much so that regular people learned to steer clear of Eldorado Canyon. It was a lawless slaughter house. So many killings...Where were all those people buried, do you think?"
I dive bombed another figure. It hit the ground hard but didn't explode like the desert golems had. The arm bone separated from the shoulder and a leg came off, but the figure simply rolled onto its stomach and dragged itself forward with its remaining limbs.
"They were buried here," Dearborn said, as if from far away. "Indians and white men alike. Stuffed into these hills and all throughout the canyon. Now they're alive again. Thanks to me."
Dearborn was holding something cupped in his hands. I couldn't see what it was but the glow it e
mitted cast Dearborn's features in neon blue. He grinned with his small mouth. Grinned, as if his perfect plan had come together.
I crashed into more of the resurrected men, sometimes scattering bones, sometimes merely knocking them off their feet. I bit off heads and limbs, but it made no difference. These men were already dead. They couldn't be killed again.
I roared with frustration. This wasn't satisfying. This wasn't fun. I circled faster and faster, ramming into two, three corpses at a time, sending them spinning into their fellows. I broke them apart. They became headless or legless. But they kept coming.
"Oh, try harder, why don't you?" Dearborn chided me. "I thought you were a ferocious dragon. More like Puff the Magic Dragon, if you ask me."
I roared with fury and blasted the entire hillside, sparking up tumbleweeds and scrub brush, lighting up the sky in orange and gold, burning more corpses that were clawing their way up from their shallow graves. They crawled across the desert, still burning.
"They won't rest until they bring living flesh into their graves, Anne. The only way to stop them is by destroying the amulet I have here," Dearborn said casually. "You're only a dumb dragon, of course. I truly didn't expect you to figure that out on your own."
I spun, tail snapping, and zeroed in on the glowing thing in Dearborn's cupped hands. I was a dragon. There was no stopping to think. I hurtled straight for him.
And was smacked on the snout by a gargoyle.
Startled, shocked, it took me a few seconds to whip around and confront my attacker. I snarled at the puny gargoyle that flapped its wings to keep it aloft.
Don't do this, Moody. You're stronger than this.
The voice in my head buzzed and itched like a pesky bug. I didn't know where it came from but I wanted it out. I blasted the gargoyle with a streamer of fire, but it deftly dodged the flames and continued hovering between me and Dearborn.
Fight this, Moody. You know who you are. You're not a dragon. You're mine!
Mine. The word echoed in my head. Who had once told me that "Moody" was his?
And Moody. What was Moody?
Yes, that's it. Remember, Moody. Come back to me so we can end this guy. He killed your parents.
Parents.
I had parents. I wasn't supposed to be alone. I was supposed to be a human daughter in a human family. But...something had happened. They were gone. Why were they gone?
Looking at this gargoyle, understanding finally struck. My parents had been killed by a gargoyle just like this one.
Maybe it was this one.
I surged forward, jaws wide. The gargoyle just barely managed to dodge my attack but not without me hooking a tooth in a wing and slicing through the leathery membrane. The gargoyle's blood tasted sweet and complex, like a fine wine that had been aged—
What is wine?
Moody, I'm not your enemy. It's Dearborn! Dearborn created the golem that killed your par—
I tried to burn the annoying creature. It was too fast, like a flying insect. But I was strong. I could chase it all night, run it down, snap my fangs over its hide and crunch, crunch, crunch. I roared with pleasure as I chased it through the sky, winding knots and loops in the air, getting closer and closer—
My teeth closed over its hind leg.
Moody, please... I'm your boyfriend.
Boyfriend. The word pierced my brain so sharply that my jaw fell open. The gargoyle slipped free of my loosened grasp, but I didn't care to chase it any longer.
Boyfriend. The word inspired warmth in my chest, but not the heat of a fire that I needed to expel. This was a softer warmth, a comfortable warmth that I wanted to hug close.
The gargoyle resumed hovering in front of me, blood dripping from its torn wing. Its topaz eyes were as bright as any flame that I could produce.
We're together, Moody. I need you to come back to me. Please.
I shook my head, both to deny the request and because strange thoughts were creeping into my head, thoughts of another life, another me.
You're not sixteen years old. This time you will fight it.
Sixteen? What happened at—
I remembered.
I remembered fear and failure and the promise to never allow that to happen again. I remembered horror over what I had become. I felt that horror now.
My long, sinuous body shuddered with shock. This wasn't me. I needed to come back to myself. I knew who I was. I wasn't a dragon. I was Anne Moody! But I was so far into the headspace...My ancestral blood sang with delight in my ears. It believed it had won.
But it was wrong.
I shrieked and writhed in the air as I tried to pull back from the dragon and distance myself from the sorcery. But it was like I was mired in fishing line. The more I struggled, the more I was ensnared. My ancient blood demanded to be expressed.
"This is not all of me," I tried to say, but it came out as a monster's roar, horrible and alien, and it was the final kick in the pants that I needed.
I crashed to the ground and rolled down a hill into a gulch. Rocks dug into my back and crushed my spine fins. I welcomed the pain. I wanted to feel it on my arms and legs, not on this serpentine dragon body. I thrashed and thrashed, kicking up dust, shredding weeds and wildflowers as I struggled up from the morass of dragon-thought.
I am Anne Moody. I am a woman. I have friends. I have a boyfriend. I have parents who died. That's why I am here in this desert.
For vengeance.
I screamed and at last my voice sounded like a woman's. A woman giving birth to a hippo but that was better than any sound I'd made previously. I clawed my way up and out of Lucky, until he was he and I was I. As I gasped, at the end of my strength, I gave one final jerk against the bonds which sought to enslave me to my heritage.
My knees buckled and hit the dirt. I looked up. I wasn't in the ditch. I was on the road with Dearborn who was staring down at me in shock and disbelief, the blue glow in his hands making him look sickly. I was back in my body and in my own head. Hallelujah.
"I've had enough of you," I said hoarsely. I reached into the pocket of my jeans and hurled what I had in there at Dearborn's face.
He flung his hands up to block what I had thrown. They were only the cameo pendants that I'd brought from Moonlight, harmless, but he wouldn't know that. In defending himself, he dropped what he'd been holding. The glowing blue object that rolled to a stop against his foot was the size of a plum. Black tendrils of a curse reached out from its surface like the fingers of an anemone.
I didn't know what it was, but any idiot could figure out that it was bad. If I, in my dragon form, had bitten into that as Dearborn had nearly tricked me into doing, I probably would have been poisoned. Maybe the sorcery would have preserved my body somehow. For harvesting of my precious dragon bones.
My mouth filled with saliva, but I managed not to throw up.
Something landed on the road behind me with the click of claws. I smiled darkly, well familiar with that sound. Dearborn's eyes darted nervously between me and the gargoyle behind me. Dead miners were still crawling toward us, but the majority of them had been torn apart during my mania. They were little more than torsos with heads, wiggling fruitlessly in the scrub.
"Where is the artifact that you used to raise these people from the grave?" I demanded, taking a threatening step forward on a leg that trembled. It was all about attitude, though, and right then I had a ton of it. "Tell me, Dearborn, or I will personally cram that cursed thing down your throat and watch you choke on it."
"I only wanted your bones," Dearborn whimpered, backing away from us. "Vagasso said I could have them."
"Never believe a guy who hides his baldness by tattooing demonic rituals on his head." I snapped my fingers, just because I knew it would make Dearborn twitch like a mouse. He did. It was as amusing as I'd hoped. "Come on, Dearborn! Give me the artifact. You've done enough damage."
Slowly, making a big production out of it like it was all he could do not to roll into a fetal ball and bawl his
eyes out, Dearborn reached beneath the collar of his shirt and hooked his fingers in a leather cord. He pulled it up, revealing something that looked like a crooked finger hanging from it.
"The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife, so they took great pains to keep their bodies preserved for the journey," Dearborn said as he pulled the necklace off over his head. "To them, there was no such thing as death."
Hell, it was a finger. A mummy finger. That thing was going straight into the glove compartment for the drive back to Vegas.
Suddenly, Dearborn raised his hand with the finger lying atop it like a pickle on a platter. He began shouting in a language I assumed was as old and dead as the miners still wriggling in the dirt. Probably older.
"What's he doing?" I asked nervously.
Nothing good. Gargoyle claws wrapped around my upper arms from behind, preparing to carry me away.
Before Vale could, a small, dark figure leaped up from behind a cactus and delicately plucked the necromancy artifact off of Dearborn's palm. He gasped and lowered his hand to stare dumbly at his empty palm. On the other side of the road, a monkey with blue hair waved the finger at him tauntingly.
"Melanie, you didn't stay in the car!" I yelled angrily.
Well, maybe not as angrily as I could have, because she was now using the mummy finger to pretend to pick her nose and it was pretty damn funny after all the tension I'd just experienced. I shook my head and looked between her and the gargoyle.
"Remind me never to ask either of you to help me put IKEA furniture together. You're both terrible at following directions."
Melanie chittered a monkey laugh and swung the mummy finger on the cord. The gargoyle just settled on its haunches and stared at me with its glimmering eyes that I could have sworn held a hint of smugness. I owed a lot to these two, but business first.
Cautiously, with my nerves stretched as tight as guitar strings, I pulled up Lucky. Feeling him again was like licking the top of a cupcake that I'd vowed not to eat. There was a tremendous temptation to become the dragon again. I still recalled the joy of those moments, the rush of endorphins as they coursed through my blood. But I hadn't forgotten that I'd nearly lost myself forever. In a sense, I'd nearly died. I was terrified of walking that close to the edge again.