Dragon Bites

by Allyson James

  “Not if I can’t fight without magic.” I clenched my teeth so they wouldn’t chatter with the energy surging through my body. “I couldn’t arm wrestle one of these guys.”

  Titus put his head on one side, studying me with very dragon-like assessment. “Individual restrictions are set for individual combatants, according to their abilities. Each fight is different.”

  His lack of panic irritated me. “Well, right now, these combatants want to take out their hostility on you, so you might want to make a run for it.”

  Titus shook his head, to my surprise. “I’m as bound here as they are. I can’t run.”

  What? “Great. So what do we do?”

  “We see what you and your sister can accomplish.”

  He spoke as though he had no stake in the outcome of this fight. I tamped down my anger and concentrated on keeping the barrier steady against the demons trying to figure out how to break it.

  Mick was busy attempting to tame Gabrielle. He had his arm around her, but she ignored him, enjoying herself blasting holes in the walls. If she burned her way up through the hotel, a whole lot of people would die.

  But she was on the other side of my barrier, out of my reach. I had to leave it to Mick to talk her down.

  Most of the creatures released simply tried to escape, but the ones just beyond my barrier had murder in their eyes, the need for vengeance.

  Some of these creatures came from the hells of Beneath—which was the remnant of the world before this one, from which the first humans had emerged. Those beings might be able to best me. Already power crackled as they prepared to raise their magic against mine.

  Then there were hells that contained Earth-magic creatures, like the dragons—the demons that emerged from those were different, but just as dangerous.

  At the moment, the Beneath demons and the Earth-magic demons had a common cause—breaking through the barrier and killing me and Titus.

  The ceiling imploded in a cloud of dust. Instead of falling in and crushing us to death, it peeled slowly open, Gabrielle holding it up with her power. She did it easily, Mick’s efforts not stopping her at all. Her laughter drifted among the chaos.

  I was sweating, my legs shaking with the effort of keeping my shield up and the demons away from us. The acid-flinging one tried again, and this time, my barrier wavered the slightest bit. My heart sped in panic. Not the way I wanted to die.

  A demon escaped through the hole in the ceiling. And another, and another. The creatures facing me caught on, and they began to turn away and fling themselves upward, slithering, climbing, flying out through the upward tunnel Gabrielle had created.

  Gabrielle shouted in unholy joy, Mick growling at her. The beast they rode lunged for the hole, Gabrielle clinging to its back, Mick hanging on to Gabrielle.

  After a few turbulent moments, Titus and I stood alone in the corridor, dust filling the air and making me cough.

  I closed my hand to disperse my barrier and sagged heavily, catching myself on the wall. My nerves buzzed, and I felt sick, as I always did after I wielded too much magic. I needed Mick to ground me, but at the moment, Mick was busy trying to keep my little sister from destroying Las Vegas.

  My legs buckled, and I started to slide downward. A pair of strong hands caught me. I felt a bite of fire, smelled a whiff of ash, and found myself landing against the soft cashmere of Titus’s suit.

  “What are you?” he asked me, his eyes changing from blue to silver to black as he stared down at me in dragon curiosity.

  “I’m a Stormwalker.” One weak as a kitten at the moment. “Usually,” I amended.

  “Interesting. Mick didn’t catalog all your abilities.”

  I wanted to stand up and give Titus an indignant look, telling him my abilities were none of his business, but my body wouldn’t obey. I had to lean on Mick’s enemy and soak up the Earth magic within him, drawing on it to stabilize me.

  “Probably because he was too busy trying to stay alive,” I croaked.

  Titus put his hand under my elbow. “You all right? You’re taking magic from me.”

  I nodded, my long hair falling into my face. “Sorry. Can’t help it. Your Earth magic is bolstering mine so I can calm down the other side of me. Mick usually takes the edge off.”

  “Hmm,” Titus said again, studying me with eyes that remained dragon-black.

  I drew a ragged breath. “You and I need to have a long talk. But right now, we need to go upstairs and stop demons from every imaginable hell from killing all the people in the casino.”

  Titus raised his brows. “Yes, I think you’re right. On both counts. Shall we?”

  He turned me around, his grip on my elbow inflexible, and led me down the corridor in the opposite direction of the hole, where the ceiling was still intact, and to the elevator, which amazingly still functioned. The arena was quiet now, the audience having fled.

  I heard the screaming as soon as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor. Titus had helped me regain some of my equilibrium, and I ran, if shakily, down the maintenance halls to the main part of the hotel. Titus moved ahead of me in a graceful sprint, running lightly even in his elegant suit.

  The casino was like a scene from a creature feature. Demons swooped and swirled or slithered across the floor—three were busily ripping down chandeliers, while others knocked over slot machines, nearly crushing people beneath them. Still others plowed through the card tables, scattering chips, cards, chairs, and people.

  Fleeing humans streamed out the doors, meeting with a crush of those outside struggling to see what was going on. The sun was hours away, but in the heart of Las Vegas, the lights were bright as day.

  Gabrielle rode the demon, who flung its body every which way, its giant tail causing havoc. Mick hung on grimly behind her.

  I caught up to Titus and grabbed on to him for strength as I gathered my power once again to stop the demons. Titus’s eyes widened as he felt me drag his magic out of him, but he caught on quickly and let me take it, at the same time building dragon fire in his hands.

  I’d have to strike at all the demons at once, and I’d have to kill them. I knew most of them didn’t want to be here, were as trapped as Mick, but if I didn’t stop them, this hotel and likely most of the city would become a bloodbath.

  I shakily gathered my force, Titus flinching as I pulled hard on him. At the same moment, Maya pushed her way in from the street through one of the casino’s revolving doors.

  Behind her strode a man with buzzed black hair and gray eyes, a Taser in his hands. This man halted in front of the demon Gabrielle rode, aimed the Taser at her, and shouted, “Stop!”

  Chapter Five

  The man was Nash Jones, Sheriff of Hopi County. What he was doing in Las Vegas, a long way out of his jurisdiction, and what he thought he could do with a single stun gun against a horde of demons, I had no idea.

  Gabrielle’s face lit up in welcome. “Nashie!” She waved. “Come and join my party!”

  The demon under her eyed Nash in trepidation. It didn’t care about the Taser, or the puny human holding it, but it sensed about Nash what I knew—that he ate demon magic for breakfast.

  While the demon halted in worry, one of the acid flinging creatures ceased knocking over slot machines and leapt at Nash’s back, black fluid spewing. Where the liquid hit the carpet, the carpet dissolved into a hissing, stinking mess.

  Where the liquid hit Nash, it did … nothing. I held my breath. The acid was a physical manifestation and so should burn him without hindrance, but the liquid disappeared as soon as it touched him. Nash turned his head and fixed the demon with a gray-eyed stare.

  The beast squealed in terror. The others caught its fear, turned to find the source of danger, and recoiled.

  Now they only wanted to get away, demons flying or running like animals in terror, but they didn’t know where to go, and the destruction increased as they panicked.

  “Janet!” Mick shouted at me. “Open a way!”

  I
knew what he meant, but what he was asking was onerous. Easy for him to throw out the command, but such a thing would take all my strength, and might be beyond my ability.

  I grabbed Titus, dragging him after me as I stumbled toward the hole Gabrielle had blasted up from the basement.

  “Help me,” I said, jerking at his finely tailored sleeve. “We have to give them a way to escape.”

  “We do that, I die,” Titus said, far too calm for my liking.

  “If you don’t, they’ll attack you, and I don’t know if I can hold them off. And you die.”

  Titus took his time answering, as though he had to weigh my argument. “All right,” he said finally. “What do we do?”

  “You hold on to me so I don’t implode.” I turned my back on him and positioned his hands on my waist. “That would be messy. Ruin your suit.”

  Titus rumbled a dragony noise that sounded almost amused. He threaded his fingers through my belt loops, holding me steady while I leaned over the hole in the floor.

  I looked straight down several floors, through pipes, wiring, and broken cement, to the basement where the cells were.

  Had anyone else working in the hotel known what kind of arena was down there? Or that cell blocks had held creatures from every hell imaginable? Or had Titus managed to keep it a secret except to those in the know? Humans would have to believe in demons, or simply not care, to watch and bet on combat like that.

  I drew a long breath and gathered my magic.

  I felt a second wave of Beneath magic forming with mine and jerked around to see Gabrielle slide from the demon’s back and approach me.

  She joined me at the precipice. “Let’s send these poor guys home, Janet,” she said, her voice serious.

  “Thank you,” I answered cautiously. “You know how to open a way?” I didn’t think she could—opening a vortex to Beneath took a combined power of Earth magic and Beneath magic, and Gabrielle had been unsuccessful at attempts to open one before, which had upset her very much.

  She gave me a look of confidence. “Not really, but you can show me.”

  I shuddered at the implications of teaching Gabrielle how to open a gate to Beneath, but at the moment, I didn’t have time to be choosy. I gathered my will, focused on the crack in the floors below and sent my magic there.

  Gabrielle’s power joined mine a second later, flowing down to encourage the Earth to part and open. Not simply to make a hole, but to open a way to another dimension, to Beneath.

  Beneath wasn’t all one place—nothing so simple. There were pockets of different hells, each populated with its own brand of demons. The space my mother dominated wasn’t the same as the one under Area 51 or those reached via other vortexes throughout the world.

  At the moment, we couldn’t worry about who went where. We just needed these demons out of here before people died.

  The trouble with opening a gate to Beneath was that we couldn’t be certain what would come out of it—demons of all shapes and forms, skinwalkers, and things no one had a name for.

  I’d just have to hope that me and Gabrielle, with an assist from Mick, Titus, and Nash, could keep them at bay. I grabbed Gabrielle’s hand.

  The jolt of joining with her lifted me a few inches off the floor. My magic was a blend of the frightening mindlessness of Beneath mixed with the solid, dark, almost homey Earth magic, but Gabrielle was pure power.

  I’d had no idea how much spun through her, but it was incredible. How she held all that inside her and still lived amazed me. I’d be out of my mind, blithering in a straightjacket, with people having to feed me through a grate in the wall with a very long spoon. My respect for my little sister rose.

  Gabrielle was giving me a wide-eyed stare, as though what was inside me astonished her as much.

  Then she clenched my hand, grabbed my energy, mixed it with hers, and sent the combined might into the basement.

  Concrete and stone exploded in a fiery wash. Wiring sparked, and then came a flash so bright it obliterated all other light. It died into darkness the same time all the electricity went out.

  To hear a casino silent was a strange thing. The machines ceased whirring, bells no longer rang, and the flashing, glittering lights sputtered out. Even the artificial Las Vegas noon outside the windows went dark. A few moments later, a backup generator clicked on, and dim light tried to leak through the lobby.

  Another white-hot light flashed upward, one so fierce Gabrielle and I scrambled a few steps backward. Then the Earth parted with a groan.

  Underneath Las Vegas is high desert floor, and under that is water—aquifers that feed the city. The entire downtown area is sinking, apparently, from the constant drain on these aquifers.

  We hit one. Water geysered through the hole, drenching all those in a circle of a dozen feet, but Gabrielle and I didn’t stop, our magic continuing to drill through heavy water to the bedrock far, far below. After a minute or two, the precious water ceased flowing and began to drain into the realms of Beneath.

  A vortex opened. It rotated, slowly at first, then spun faster. Most of the demons dove for it in glee. Others tried to hang back but were pulled toward it whether they liked it or not.

  The beast Gabrielle had ridden slithered past us, making for the hole. “Bye-bye,” Gabrielle called after it. “You take care of your kids, now.”

  The creature turned its great head, its gleaming eyes resting on Gabrielle. I saw gratitude in its expression before the creature turned away and slid into the depths.

  Others quickly followed, the vortex sucking them down into the Earth.

  Gabrielle whooped. The beasts flowed past us, faster and faster, until the last of them vanished in a rush, like grains of sand draining down an hourglass.

  I glanced at Gabrielle, and she nodded. Our magic in sync, we reached down and began to pull the vortex closed.

  The Earth resisted, rocks and dirt digging in stubbornly. The magic that came from Earth—the magic that enabled dragons and Changers, witches and Stormwalkers to exist—didn’t get along with Beneath magic, as I was made aware every day of my life.

  The Earth magic we’d touched to open the way to Beneath was old and strong, and I had the sense that it wanted to dive into the Beneath world after the demons and destroy all there.

  A strange thread wound up into my mind, a whisper to become one with the Earth, to let that magical part of myself take over. To dive into the hole and surround myself with dirt and rock and the solid magic they contained. To burrow in and stay, to release my Beneath magic forever.

  It was enticing, that whisper. The thought of giving up the madness that lurked inside me was tempting. I could curl up in a cocoon while my Stormwalker magic kept me alive, and melded me with the Earth, my father.

  I started to fall forward, anticipating the coolness and calm of being surrounded by soothing soil, while the Earth lured me into sleep without dreams.

  Something hot flashed through my arm and a terrible strength jerked me backward.

  I blinked open my eyes and realized I’d been leaning far, far over the edge of the hole. Gabrielle, her fingers wound tightly through mine, hauled me back, her Beneath magic like hot, stinging needles.

  I saw her worried face, her mouth shaping the word, “Janet?” but I couldn’t hear her.

  The Earth was crying out to me, begging for me to come to it. To heal it or release it—I wasn’t sure which.

  I wanted to. Everything in me wanted to throw off Gabrielle’s hold, jump down into the warm depths, and release all my sorrows.

  My hand seared as Gabrielle’s Beneath magic tore into me. I screamed, or thought I did, but I couldn’t hear that either.

  Then Mick was beside me, at the edge, and the Earth reached up to embrace him. I yelled at him to get back—or tried to. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound.

  The Earth is awakening, I heard distinctly in my brain, and sensed a joy on top of that.

  I wanted to laugh, to welcome the voice, to open
my arms for it.

  Gabrielle’s mouth was moving again, and so was Mick’s. The ground sucked at Mick’s feet—it would take him. We’d join hands and fall into the vortex, be swallowed by it, together forever. The thought elated me as much as it terrified me.

  Mick called out over the crowd, though his voice was silent to me, and I sensed someone rush up behind me.

  Gabrielle’s shriek bore into my brain, and then her touch was gone. A pair of strong arms closed on me from behind, and sound abruptly returned.

  I heard shouting, screaming, the babbling of the patrons in the casino, and the crack and roar of rocks and concrete slamming together at my feet.

  The enticing whisper of the Earth cut off, as did the flow of Gabrielle’s magic. My own magic streamed backward out of me into the man who’d grabbed me—Nash, the magic null.

  I yelled as the magic left me, Nash and I outlined in an eerie glow. Then, with a low whump, my power hit the spell that made Nash a magical drain, and the light flickered out.

  He didn’t have to squeeze my ribs so hard, I thought irritably. I struggled to breathe, but I couldn’t break his hold. My friends—Mick, Gabrielle, and Maya, with Titus behind them—stood still and watched Nash calm down crazy Janet.

  Nash finally eased away from me, his gaze on me sharp. But I’d be all right now. No more whispers from the Earth, no more double dose of power from myself and Gabrielle, no more demons, no more vortex. All gone.

  I turned to tell Nash that a simple touch would have done, but my leg bent, the floor rushed at me, and I never remembered hitting it.

  * * *

  I woke in a soft bed in a sumptuous hotel room with too many people in it.

  Mick, dressed in a pair of jeans and nothing else, sat on the bed next to me, his back against the headboard. His arms and chest were deeply scratched from his battle in the arena, though he’d washed off most of the blood.

  My head rested against his hip, a comfortable place to be. The warmth of Mick cut through my fatigue, the tingle of his healing magic stealing through my body.

  Nash stood in the middle of the room, arms folded over his gray polo shirt. Maya slumped on a sofa behind him, her legs dangling elegantly over its arm. Titus the dragon sat in a chair near the window, silhouetted by the bright lights outside, one pristine trousered leg crossed over the other. Gabrielle …