The Other Side

by Joshua McCune

  Two choices. Give into my fear and hope he doesn’t eat me . . . fuck that.

  I stand straighter, clench my fists, and glare right back at him. He snorts a cloud of black smoke into my face. My eyes mist. I choke back the coughs, blink the sweat from my eyes, and smile. He bares teeth that make a shark’s look playful.

  Baekjul boolgool. I open my mouth and roar. It’s a mouse squeaking at a lion, but as I’d hoped, this lion tries to roar back. He gets electrocuted into a drunken stumble. I laugh. He ejects more smoke in my face, thicker this time, warmer. Adds in a growl and some teeth gnashing.

  I suppress my coughs, chomp back at him. “You gotta do better than that, Praxi.”

  He flicks me with a talon, and I’m suddenly flying. I smash into the cage wall. The air rushes from my lungs. Black spots swarm my vision. O.J.’s laughter fills my ears, along with dragon trilling.

  Once I’m sure I have my balance and breath, I push myself to my feet and stand tall. Praxus raises a claw so that his scimitarlike talons dangle around my head.

  I cross my arms. “All talk, no fire.”

  More trilling. But it’s not from Praxus. He swivels about, glow throbbing, and glares at Klyv. Klyv bobs his head in a wobbly pattern as he stumbles back and forth with pronounced exaggeration. He’s mocking him. He stops every few seconds to make that strange trilling noise.

  Praxus looses a stream of black smoke at the other dragon, but it comes up a few feet short. Klyv trills louder. Praxus growls a low rumble, spreads his jaws. I see a mass of fire forming in the back of his throat. The moment it reaches his tongue, lightning courses through him. He slumps to the ground but is back on his feet in a blink. This time he pushes the fire out faster, the flames licking out from his lips, before the collar delivers another blast of electricity.

  Praxus collapses once more, eyes fluttering shut.

  Klyv’s trills end. He flaps his wings once, twice, and takes off at a steep angle. Embedded in the stone above each cage is a hatch. Klyv scratches at his, talons shrieking against the metal. The dragons in the rear cages launch themselves at their hatches. Klyv growls at them. They growl back, add in snarls and snaps. The heat in the cavern reaches a full swelter, the light a terrifying shine.

  “He wants to play,” O.J. says. I peek over my shoulder. He’s got a phone out, which he uses to open the hatch over Klyv’s cell. I see the beginnings of an expansive stone chute.

  Klyv narrows his wings and zips into it. The other two Greens scream at O.J., who shakes his head. The one on the left attacks its hatch, using its head as a battering ram; the right attempts to unleash its fire on O.J. Both get electrocuted and plummet.

  I brace for impact but am still knocked off my feet by the resulting tremor. The gunfire from the other side of the wall quiets as aftershocks ripple through the cavern.

  “What in the living name of . . . ,” that instructor guy says, bounding up the stairwell. James and the others are a step behind.

  “Dragon games,” O.J. says, gesturing at Praxus and me as if he’s an entertainer introducing the next performance.

  James looks from me to Klyv’s empty cage. His features slacken. “Get her out of there. Get her out of there!”

  “He’s been surfing again,” the diminutive girl beside James says. She’s vampire pale and got a dozen piercings strewn across her face.

  “Incorrect. You are all ignorant dandelions.” O.J. waves a dismissive hand at me, then glowers at James. “You bring this girl to us, this known friend of the Grunts—”

  “So was I,” James says. “Her heart glows just like ours.”

  “Her heart glows Red and Silver. She killed one of our own,” O.J. snarls, and I realize he never intended for me to survive past today.

  “You set him up,” James says. “You knew Double T was weak.”

  “And so is she,” O.J. says. “Good riddance to both of them!”

  James lifts his gun at him. “Let her—”

  He spasms, his knees buckle, and he falls to the ground.

  “Much appreciated, Vincent,” O.J. says to the instructor, who’s pulled out his own phone.

  “You wanna play cowboy, do it somewhere else,” Vincent says, helping James to his feet. He turns to O.J. “I do not approve of this, John. We don’t need to lose any more dragons, and we have orders about the girl.”

  Orders?

  “I’m in charge of this operation, Vinnie boy, not you,” O.J. snaps, jabbing his phone at the instructor. “They’re getting antsy-pantsy in there. Doesn’t hurt to let them blow off some steam, so it’s not one of us getting their wrath—”

  There’s a screech overhead from the other side of the hatch that opens into Praxus’s cage. My cage.

  I backpedal to the corner farthest from Praxus.

  “Don’t do it, John,” Vincent says. “This is—”

  O.J. taps his phone. The hatch opens. Klyv plunges through.

  Praxus startles to life with surprising speed, jumps out of the way of Klyv’s talons, and whips his tail around in a vicious blur. It smashes into the larger Green’s chest. Snarl-screaming, Klyv responds with his own tail strike. It misses Praxus, comes my way.

  I drop to my stomach. A blast of warm wind tugs at my clothes; a pulse of intense adrenaline focuses me. As the dragons clash midair, all talons and teeth and rage, I low-scuttle it to the opposite side of the cage.

  I draw the railshot, flip on the plasma effect, take aim—

  A short jolt from my CENSIR staggers me. My hand spasms. The gun clatters to the stone. I start toward it, get another jolt that drops me hard to my knees.

  “Desist!” O.J. says.

  I crawl for the gun.

  Another shock.

  I keep crawling.

  “Dammit, Vincent, stay out of it,” O.J. says. “I will berserk you, you damn dandeli—” He grunts in pain.

  I glance back.

  O.J.’s doubled over. Vincent’s ripped the phone away.

  “Stop her!” O.J. bellows. “She could kill your dragon.”

  As I grab the railshot, half the people watching draw their weapons. Some are pointed at me, but most at each other. Praxus’s Posse vs. Klyv’s Klan, I assume.

  “Stand down,” Vincent shouts, but only a couple listen. A dragon screech draws my attention toward the ceiling. Praxus and Klyv are chasing circles, a viridescent whirl of claws and fangs and smoke.

  I get to my feet.

  “I don’t want to kill you, girl!” someone says. I look away from the dragons. A guy with a shaved head has his gun trained on my forehead.

  “Stay out of it, Joto,” says that pierced vampire girl, her railshot pointed at him.

  Joto flicks his gun toward the corner of the cage. “Let them fight it out.”

  I sneer. “Do whatever you gotta—”

  The brightness and heat surge. I jump away from the steel mesh as a dragon crashes into it fifty feet overhead. The sizzle of electricity pulls at my hair.

  The dragon falls head over tail. The other one pounces from above, talons and teeth extended. I’m about to become a pancake stain. . . . I grab the railshot and leap into a dive, somersault, roll, roll, roll—

  The world thunders behind me; the floor quakes. I lift into the air, fall hard on my side. Pain erupts through my half-healed ribs. My vision tunnels on one Green straddling the other, wings spread, head lifted toward the ceiling, mouth open in a silent roar of victory.

  Klyv.

  He’s forgotten about me.

  Perhaps he never knew I was here.

  “Stay out of it,” James says, from what sounds like a mile away. I hear other voices, arguing, yelling, but it’s all a blur of useless noise. Everything’s on the periphery except Klyv.

  I lift the railshot and roar at him. He cocks his head around halfway. I just get one eye, but that’s all I need. For a moment, I am a speck of annoyance to him. In the next, his eye widens with comprehension. And in the next, it implodes in a mess of gore.

  With a weak p
uff of smoke, Klyv tumbles off Praxus and slumps to the ground, his glow fading out.

  The cavern goes graveyard silent momentarily, then I hear a couple of seething whispers and somebody’s muffled cries.

  Praxus stirs with a low grumble. His eyes push open, pass over Klyv, and find me.

  That was my fight, human—

  A retching noise interrupts him. Praxus jumps into the air as Klyv’s body expands . . . and expands . . . as if a bomb went off inside him. With an eruption of bloody vomit, the dead dragon deflates into something withered and mushy.

  And the stench. Makes me long for roses.

  O.J. rushes into the cage, tears streaming down his cheeks. He hugs Klyv’s nearly unrecognizable head.

  I can’t help myself. “Told you I could kill.”

  O.J. wheels on me, his smirk somehow back, though twitchy. “Think you’ve made yourself a friend, do you? How about we leave you in here all night with your friend?”

  I look at Praxus, who’s still watching me. No, not my friend. Not sure what we are, but I don’t think he knows either, and I consider that a victory. I look back to O.J. “There’s worse company to have.”

  “Think you’re a clever dandelion, do you? I’ll show you clever, I’ll—”

  “I don’t think so,” Vincent says. He and the pale girl grab O.J. from behind. That guy with the shaved head darts me a super-pissed expression as he applies handcuffs.

  “What are you doing, Joto?” O.J. says to him. “Klyv was our dragon.”

  Joto gives me another glare, then looks away. The girl winks at me as she grabs Joto’s hand to console him, like she wasn’t pointing a gun at him ten seconds ago.

  “We checked your CENSIR,” Vincent says. “You’ve been surfing the scales again.”

  “I’m doing fine. I’m in charge!”

  Vincent waves at Klyv’s carcass. “That is not fine.”

  “I wasn’t going to let anything happen. It was just a test,” he sputters.

  “Like you didn’t let anything happen to Double T.” Vincent grabs O.J. by the scruff of his shirt, jerks him close. “Be lucky I don’t report you.”

  O.J.’s eyes bulge. “No, don’t. I’ll get right—”

  “Get him out of here,” Vincent says. “Lock him in with Double T. Should help with his detox.”

  “What do you want us to tell HQ about Klyv?” she asks Vincent.

  “We were running a check on the collar’s telemetry control. That’s what you’ll tell them. But only if they ask. Got it?”

  “Oren won’t be happy.”

  “Dammit, T-Clef, just do it. I’ll deal with Oren.”

  As she and that Joto guy drag O.J. from the cage, Vincent looks to me. “You ready?”

  “Ready?”

  He nods. “We still need to see how you fly.”

  “What about Praxus?”

  With a snort, the dragon gets to his feet. He lowers his wings so that they scrape the ground.

  Come, human, you have already wasted enough of my time. Death beckons.

  30

  Oxygen mask and goggles in place, I scrabble up his wing, hop over a saddlebag, and reach the saddle, a two-rider version. The gunner’s seat has a rear-facing tripod mounted with a large-bore machine gun. I climb in the front seat, grab hold of the reins, and thrust my feet into the stirrups, which are farther apart than on a Red. I’m adjusting them back so I’ve got a better lean into Praxus’s neck when he launches.

  I buck hard into the cantle; a jolt shoots up my back. His laughter rings through my head. I triple wrap the reins around my hands and tug myself close. As we approach the open hatch, he pulls in his wings and pumps them in rapid bursts. We accelerate into the chimney. Wind blasts my face, stone rushes by; adrenaline shivers through me.

  I focus on the green-tinted darkness overhead, take long, controlled breaths. My body stops trembling. I settle into his flap rhythm, learn his tail-swish frequency. I’m just growing comfortable when a ledge appears ahead of us. He doesn’t seem to notice it. It’s coming fast, will decapitate him. Us.

  “Praxus?” I say, my voice muffled by the oxygen mask.

  No response.

  “Praxus!”

  No response.

  “Prax—”

  He ducks right before impact, laughs as my heart remembers to work.

  He jets sideways into a secondary chute, twists into a tight spiral, spins faster and faster. I close my eyes, but too late, the nausea’s got me. I bite hard into my lip, clench down hard, but no, no, no . . . I vomit and vomit until I’m empty, and he laughs and laughs and never stops.

  More twists and turns and spirals. I keep expecting to erupt into the sky, but there’s only stone and darkness. We are a green comet shooting through an asteroid that seems without end.

  He corkscrews left, makes a sharp upturn into another tunnel. The stone presses in all around. He dives up and down, barely avoiding outcroppings and jagged edges. He hits a stalactite with his tail. It explodes; a cascade of thunder escorts us forward. The only thing louder is his laughter.

  I duck and swerve with him, huddle close. But I do not call his name again, I do not close my eyes, though my stomach begs me to. And I do not scream, because I know that’s what he wants most. My body may fail me, but I will not give him my terror.

  To distract myself, I start humming. The only thing I can think of . . . something I know far too well. I don’t know if Praxus knows it, but it seems to annoy him, because his laughter ends.

  Stop it.

  I ignore him.

  He barrel rolls three times. Once I finish retching, I resume humming.

  “Are you delusional?” The voice in my head startles me into silence.

  “James? How? How are you . . . can you . . .”

  “If you want to talk to me, you have to say ‘Radio on,’” he says over me. “These CENSIRs have built-in transceivers.”

  I resume humming.

  “The KD theme song? Seriously?”

  “Radio on. Is there a way to turn you off?” I ask.

  Praxus enters a cavern littered with stalagmite and stalactite remnants. He changes course, sweeps along the perimeter toward a pair of intact stalactites that hang like vampire’s teeth. He smashes through them. Pebbles bounce off my goggles, pelt my oxygen mask. One slashes my forehead. Stings like hell.

  I bite hard into my lip, start humming again.

  “Know the difference between bravery and stupidity?” James asks.

  I keep humming.

  “You don’t need to impress anybody, Melissa. You just need to survive.”

  Yeah. “Well, you’re distracting me. So get off my line so I can concentrate. Radio off.”

  Praxus shoots into another tunnel that banks into an angled ascent. I hum louder, so loud I can hear my echo through the rush of wind and the rumble of clattering stone.

  Ahead, the tunnel becomes a wall. Praxus accelerates. Ramming speed.

  He opens his mouth and roars. Flames burst forth. Not red, but that strange azure color. The fire blasts the rock, turning it bright orange.

  We plow into the melting stone. Plow through it. Rock churns around us. Debris bombards me, warm and angry. Pain slices my arms, my face.

  And then we are out, into a world so open and wide. I push the goggles onto my head for a better view. Stars glimmer, the moon shines. The shadows of frosted mountains surround us. Everything seems so pristine. Except for us. I stop humming. Praxus roars once more, plaintive almost, then goes quiet and damps his glow.

  I do not like you, he says as he maneuvers into a calm glide. But at least now your scent is manageable.

  I pull off my oxygen mask. The roses are gone, replaced by the odor of earth and char. I agree. A marked improvement.

  My face and arms bristle with each gust of wintry wind, but there doesn’t seem to be much blood. My jacket’s torn in several places, my cloak’s perforated and singed, but besides an array of scrapes and bruises, I’m all right.

  W
e drop to the valley floor. Praxus’s glow reveals a wasteland of craters, broken evergreens, and exploded stone. We skim low toward a wooded area untouched by war. He opens fire.

  The flames dwindle. Deer are bolting in every direction. Praxus smashes through trees in chase. I get a few more scratches from stray twigs, a mouthful of pine needles. In a matter of seconds, he’s got four bucks gathered up, one cradled in each claw. He dumps his kills on the ground, lands beside them.

  Off.

  I unloop the rope twined about the saddle horn and use it to rappel down his body. I want to stay close for the warmth of his scales, but the sounds of his feasting call up a jumble of memories. I plod through ankle-high snow into a copse, lean against a tree, and close my eyes. The sounds of sinew rending and bones crunching come and go. So do the dragon sirens and car horns and screams.

  Not real. Too real.

  “Radio on. James?” I say.

  “Yeah,” he responds right away.

  I smile before catching myself. I don’t know if he’s looking at my CENSIR feedback, but I can’t let him see that he affects me. “Just checking to see if you were still there.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “They’re okay,” he says.

  “Huh?”

  “Colin and Preston.”

  Keith? “Oh.”

  “Thought you’d like to know.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not monitoring you,” he says.

  I want to believe him. “Did I pass the flying test?”

  “You survived,” he says. Sounds like he’s smiling. “Still have to make it back, of course, but now that Praxus has some food in his—”

  “How do you know that? Thought you said you weren’t monitoring . . .”

  “There’s a camera in his collar.” He pauses. “You know, I don’t remember you being this crazy.”

  “Yeah, people—”

  I gasp as snow splatters me. A hunk of deer leg is wedged in the ground a few feet away. Through the trees, I see Praxus watching me.

  “Is that what I think it is?” James laughs. “Must like you.”

  “Yeah. Tons.” I blanch at the raw meat. An olive branch? A test?