Dragons & Demigods: A Montague & Strong Detective Novel (Montague & Strong Case Files Book 6)

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  “Thanks,” I said, catching the bottle, still semi-dazed. “C’mon, Frank. It was just a small collision.”

  Frank held my head still and flashed a light in my eyes. “Small collision?” He growled, pointing down the street at the destruction left in our wake. “Judging from the Pontiac-sized crater over there, you collided with the street, from about thirty feet up, rolled, and then totaled those three cars over there.”

  I followed his hand and saw the mangled cars parked on the street. I turned to look at the Dark Goat, expecting to see more of the same damage. The Dark Goat was untouched. I silently thanked Cecil and refocused on Frank, who grabbed my face and turned my head slowly.

  Frank defined grizzled. Older, mid-sixties, built like a wall and probably as tough. He was the oldest EMTe still in the field and was affectionately known as the OG. I thought it meant “old gangsta,” but one of the other EMTe told me it meant “original geezer.”

  “Damn car doesn’t even have a scratch on it,” Frank muttered giving me a once-over. “What the hell happened?”

  “Check Monty. He’s injured.”

  “I’m fine,” Monty groaned from inside the Dark Goat. The EMTe backed away from an especially cranky Monty exiting the car. “I said I’m fine.”

  “Take off, I got this,” Frank barked at the rookie. I heard some of the other workers laugh under their breath as they jumped in the other ambulance and raced off.

  “EMTe” stood for EMT elite. The NYTF used these paramedics whenever they encountered some kind of supernatural disaster, or when Monty was allowed to run rampant, which was pretty much the same thing. They all wore dark red uniforms and drove around in blue, extra-large, rune-covered ambulances.

  They were the Navy Seals of the paramedics. Tough as two-day-old steak, and willing to risk their lives no matter the situation. Some of them had magical healing ability, and they all possessed certain ‘sensitivities’ to supernatural phenomena.

  Monty and I had become a widely discussed topic among the EMTe community, given my body’s allergic reaction to dying. Most of them took it in stride, giving me space and time to let my body heal itself. Others, the rookies, always tried to help me, only to be shocked when I recuperated before their eyes from something that should have killed me.

  It was a small group, and I knew most of them. They always let the rookies try to treat Monty or me as some kind of initiation. It usually ended with either Monty yelling at them or the poor rookie backing away from me in fear.

  I looked around. Only Frank’s ambulance was on the scene. Not that there was much of a scene. A few totaled cars didn’t generate much attention. A squadron of emergency vehicles and EMTe out in force meant something truly Montyesque had happened in the park.

  “How did you get here so fast?” I asked. “We just left the park.”

  “Fast? What time do you think it is?”

  I did a mental calculation. We met George at 0600. By the time we were racing down 86th Street and away from Monty’s sphere of destruction, only a little more than an hour had passed. We must have been out for some time since Frank was pounding on the Dark Goat after we crash-landed. I added another ten to fifteen minutes just to be safe side.

  “Eight a.m.?”

  “That was two hours ago, kid.” Frank looked away from my shocked expression and down 86th Street. “From 88th to 90th Street, Carl Schurz looks like it’s been nuked. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that now, would you?”

  “The mansion?” I asked, glancing over at Monty. “Is Gracie Mansion still there?”

  “Sure,” Frank said. “It’s still there.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Good. At least it’s still in one—”

  “It’s there and in the East River.” He nodded. “I think some of it landed on Roosevelt Island, and one of the first responders swore he saw a part of it in Queens.”

  “Shit.”

  “What happened? Or do I not want to know?”

  “It’s complicated,” Monty said.

  “It always is with you two. How bad is it?”

  Monty and I both remained silent.

  “Well, fuck me,” Frank said quietly, still looking at the park. “I should’ve known the quiet wouldn’t last. You two had better go do whatever it is you do. I have an emergency to deal with.”

  He packed up his bag, and I extended my hand. “Thanks, Frank.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said, extending a rough callused hand and grabbing mine. “Stop blowing up my city and go fix whatever it is that needs fixing.”

  He jumped in the ambulance and sped toward the park.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “WE NEED TO get to Fordey.” Monty began gesturing. “We’ve lost hours.”

  “And Gracie Mansion. You remember—the building we were supposed to not explode all over the city?”

  “Do you have a special attachment to this Gracie Mansion?” Monty peered at me over the flowing runes. “I’m sure it can be rebuilt.”

  “I have a special attachment to not being blamed for your slight miscalculations that always seem to contain extenuating circumstances.”

  “There were extenuating circumstances. The aura of—”

  “No.” I held up a hand. “Not discussing it. I’m sure Ramirez will call me later, chewing me out for destroying Carl Schurz Park. Thanks.”

  “I’ll make sure to take it up with him,” Monty suggested. “I’ll even make sure we contribute to the cleanup and rebuilding. Right now, we need to get to Fordey, or there won’t be a reason to rebuild.”

  “Point taken.” I nodded. “What about the Dark Goat? We can’t leave it in the middle of 86th Street. Remember—no valet parking.”

  “Park it.” He turned to the sidewalk and shifted the gesturing. Two cars tumbled onto the sidewalk, creating a large parking spot. “There. I’m opening a rift.”

  I parked and locked the Dark Goat. White runes drifted from Monty’s fingers as he opened a rift.

  “I have a feeling this is going to suck.”

  I stepped into the rift behind Monty, with Peaches by my side. We arrived on the other side and stepped into a cloud of smoke. Small fires blazed around us.

  “Are your runes working?” I asked through coughs, covering my face. “Where are we?”

  “This is the Hall of the Ten.”

  We stood in the dim reception area the size of a large hotel lobby. All the white marble benches situated along the wall were in pieces.

  I looked around at the craters and missing chunks of wall. Most of the statues were gone or broken. It was a burned-out war zone. I barely recognized it, and even then only because I had seen it prior to it being used as a battleground.

  A crater, still smoldering, made up half of what used to be the large gleaming golden X, which dominated the center of the black marble floor. The domed window set in the ceiling was shattered.

  “Do you think LD expanded the Danger Room?” I asked, looking around at the destruction. “Maybe an artifact exploded?”

  “I think Fordey was visited by Salao, George, and many drakes.” Monty looked around and gestured. “Someone is here but the energy signature is faint. That way.”

  “What about the neutralizer?”

  “I don’t sense it. Which means it’s either been moved or taken. Our best chance of finding out lies with whoever is still here.”

  Monty ran down the nearest corridor and stopped short after a few feet, causing me to skid to a stop behind him.

  “What happened? Did you forget something?”

  “We can’t go this way.” Monty stepped to the side and let me look down the corridor. “It must be part of the defenses.”

  Three feet in front of us the corridor shifted left, and a few moments later, it twisted and turned right. It was like looking at Escher’s stairs on psychotropic drugs. The corridors defied logic or the laws of physics, twisting and rotating in every direction every couple of seconds.

  “What the hell?” I s
aid, looking away before my brain seized. “Now I know why they’re called Corridors of Chaos. There’s no way we can walk through that.”

  “Indeed, we’d be lost in seconds, but we have a way to travel the corridors without becoming irrevocably lost.”

  “Great,” I said. “You have some kind of locator spell that can give us fast travel to this person?”

  “I don’t. You do.”

  “You want me to use my Incantation of Light down these corridors?”

  “Don’t be daft. I want you to use your creature to locate the energy signature of whoever is still here and take us to that person.” He looked at me, shaking his head. “Did you seriously suggest your Incantation of Light?”

  “Well, you said I had the spell.” I crouched down next to Peaches.

  “I meant your creature possessed the ability to transport us through these corridors,” Monty replied, examining the residue around some of the craters. “When I said you, I was using the royal you. Not you specifically.”

  “Oh, that’s clear as dirt now. Let me see if he can sense this person.”

 

 

 

  Peaches padded down the corridor a few feet and rumbled before looking back at me.

 

 

 

 

  I had no idea if he would remember. It was my experience that most dogs operated in the eternal now. Peaches, though, wasn’t like most dogs.

 

 

 

  “He said he can do it. Sounds like it may be TK.”

  “Let’s find out why TK would still be here.”

  Peaches chuffed and stepped back to the edge of the Corridors of Chaos. Monty and I grabbed his collar. The runes around his neck became a bright red, and the corridors disappeared.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WE REAPPEARED IN a narrow corridor leading to a large open vault door, easily three feet deep, covered with dark violet runes. The last time I was in this corridor, the runes pulsed in time with the throbbing in my head. This time, they were dormant. Something had shifted.

  Behind the door lay a small, empty, steel room. In a shallow depression in the center of the floor, surrounded by ancient symbols I didn’t understand, sat a dark stone vibrating with power. I was simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by the stone. As I looked closer at the heart-sized gem, I noticed that it shimmered in and out of sight as it pulsed.

  Monty stepped close to the depression and narrowed his eyes. “The Black Heart is still here. But the neutralizer is gone.” He looked around the room. “I thought your creature sensed an energy signature? Is it possible he sensed the Black Heart?”

  “No, he said the ‘scary lady.’ The Black Heart isn’t a scary lady.” I looked around the room. “He also said she was being quiet. Sounded like he meant camouflaged.”

  Monty narrowed his eyes and scanned the room. He walked quickly to one side of the room and started gesturing.

  “Not camouflaged, trapped.” He finished gesturing and opened a rift. TK stepped into the room, covered in black energy. “It must have been the aura of misfortune.”

  “Danger Room. Now,” she said and opened another rift. “They took the neutralizer and shunted Fordey sideways. They’re leaving through the Danger Room.” She stepped through the rift and vanished.

  We followed her and arrived at a drake-filled Danger Room. They turned almost as one and snarled at us. I counted at least thirty dragon-men.

  “How long ago did they take the neutralizer?” Monty asked, looking around at the angry, snarling faces.

  These drakes weren’t excited to shred us. I noticed they kept their distance from us…from her.

  “I have no way of telling,” TK answered under her breath. “When I cast a temporal trap it backfired and caught me. I never miscast. I don’t know how you found me, but it’s too dangerous to travel the Boutique at the moment. All the defenses are active.”

  “The aura of misfortune must have affected your cast, trapping you,” Monty said. “Why didn’t they take the Black Heart?”

  “They tried. When I cast the temporal shunt it must have moved Fordey slightly out of their plane.”

  “Enough to trap you and let them escape.”

  “You’ve faced these men before?”

  I nodded. “Two of them? One with crazy eyes and one an older, military type carrying an arsenal and a glowing yellow pendant?”

  “Yes, and a multitude of drakes,” TK added, taking in the room. “Enough to make me consider a Kragzimik is involved, but I didn’t see or sense one.”

  “It appears they left you the multitude of drakes to make sure you didn’t follow them,” Monty said and flexed his fingers. “We’re here to assist.”

  “Tristan, do you recall the sphere of protection LD taught you? After the Reckoning?”

  “Yes, I recently—”

  “Cast it, now.”

  TK stepped forward as Monty pulled me to a corner of the Danger Room. Her eyes must have been awful in a truly old testament sort of way, judging by the way the drakes skittered away.

  She gestured with one hand and made a fist with the other. Monty looked at the symbols she was creating.

  “Bloody hell.” He looked around at the Danger Room. “We don’t have enough room. She’s going to cast that thing and kill us all. She’s insane.”

  “What is it? What is she doing?”

  “Simon, once I create the sphere, pull up your shield...and pray it’s enough.”

  “Why? Isn’t your imploding sphere of miscalculation enough?”

  He shot me a glare and began gesturing.

  “Do you remember Nana’s phoenix fist?”

  I nodded, remembering how Dex and I barely made it out alive after Nana unleashed one of those. I made sure I had access to my mala bracelet. “Are you serious? Is the sphere going to be enough?”

  “I don’t know,” Monty said, crouching down to the floor. “She’s doing something worse.”

  “Worse? What’s worse than a phoenix fist?” I turned to see him tracing runes fast and placing his hands on different sections of the floor in front of him. Every time he lifted a hand, the faint impression of a rune lingered.

  “There’s a variation on the spell that makes it exponentially more powerful and almost impossible to control.”

  “TK is casting that? Why would she do that?”

  He glanced at me for a second in between the gesturing.

  “Because she can.”

  “What is she casting? What is this variation?”

  The drakes seemed to overcome their initial fear of TK and advanced on her. She leaped into the air. Monty slammed both hands on the floor, creating the orange sphere around us. I pressed my mala bead and materialized my shield. Peaches whined and growled next to me.

  TK floated for what seemed an eternity, slowly doing a pirouette. The black energy that covered her body seconds earlier had concentrated around her fist, making it appear like she held a black hole in her hand.

  “That”—Monty kept his hands on the floor, and I could see the sweat forming on his face—“is a dark phoenix.”

  TK’s eyes were closed. When she reached her zenith, she turned her body like an Olympic diver, extended her arm, and with an open hand, descended. The drakes turned to face her, opened their mouths, and unleashed a wave of flame orbs.

  Black energy blasted out of TK’s hand, engulfing the orbs and swallowing them. A beam of black and violet energy punched into the floor. The beam vaporized the drakes closest to TK
when she touched the Danger Room floor. A five-foot radius of wood and debris floated lazily up from the floor with TK at its center.

  She stood and turned in a slow circle. Green energy arced all over her body to blend with the black and violet. I saw death and pain in her eyes. The outer circle of drakes that survived the initial impact realized the impending destruction in that gaze and scrambled to get away.

  It was too late.

  TK lowered her head for the span of one heartbeat, and time seemed to stop. She closed her hand into a fist with a blinding violet flash. The floating debris shot out in every direction as the shockwave chewed up the floor, racing outward from the epicenter that was TK.

  I looked over the shield at the drakes. The shockwave finished any that weren’t caught in the initial blast. It was the same as London when Nana executed the phoenix fist, except this time we were too close to the blast.

  The runic shockwave sped across the floor, colliding into Monty’s sphere, slowly disintegrating it.

  “Monty, your sphere isn’t holding up,” I said, reinforcing my arm against the wave of energy trying to erase us.

  “I’m aware the sphere is failing. Keep that shield up!”

  Peaches pulled away from me, increasing in size with each step. His collar glowed white, partially blinding me.

 

 

  “Peaches, no!”

  “What is he doing, Simon? That wave…is too powerful. Even for him.”

  “I tried telling him that, but he won’t listen.”

 

 

  Peaches confirmed what I had thought. Monty had been dragging ever since the Reckoning. Dealing with Salao’s drakes, and now this, meant his defenses were nearly gone.

  The collar around Peaches’ neck shifted hue and changed from white to dark blue. He stepped out from the sphere. He was about SUV-size but hadn’t quite reached Peaches XL-size.