“But he wouldn’t,” Gary said. “A vampire feeds off of humans.”
“I agree that you and Riley need to get out of here as fast as possible,” Jubal said. “We should find the others and get them moving out of the rain forest and back to civilization as fast as possible.”
“Has anyone considered how we’re going to get out of here?” Ben ventured.
Riley felt their eyes on her. If the vampire couldn’t get in, she might just consider staying for a very long time. She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m not even sure that it’s safe to go out yet. The ground is still shaking, and when I put my hands into the soil, I feel heat.”
As she spoke, she thrust her hands deep into the soil. As before, her body reacted to the energy coiling around her palms and fingers. That soothing warmth seeped into her pores. She stayed very still and listened. The ground creaked and moaned—whispered softly. She caught the sound of her mother’s voice, just a faint echo as if she was laughing and the merry notes traveled through rock and soil to find her. Tears clogged her throat.
She closed her eyes, inhaling. At first she could hear the men breathing. An occasional jarring crash resounded on the roof above her head. She forced herself to block out the distractions and pushed her awareness deep, searching for a connection, a way to tap into that vein of information that seemed to be just out of reach. She could hear rumblings and knew if she just tuned in, she would understand what was happening in the world around her.
She had a message center willing to impart information to her, she just hadn’t learned how to use it yet, but each time she pushed her hands into the rich soil, she found she unlocked more of the mysteries surrounding her mother. Whatever gift exchanged from mother to daughter was locked here in the ground waiting for her to discover the legacy that had been left to her. She just needed to find the right words to draw the secrets to her. With others depending on her, she needed to figure it out.
She took another breath and let it out, pushing away the need for action or hurry. The men disappeared, taking with them the sounds of their presence. The walls of the cavern melted away. Fear and grief left her until there was only the sound of her lungs moving in and out rhythmically. For a few minutes she breathed, allowing the mechanics of that simple process to clear and open her mind completely.
She became aware of a pulse beating—an eternal thrum, coming from the very center of the earth’s core. Through the pads of her fingers she felt an expanding cloud of extremely hot gas, and felt an intimate connection with that older star exploding violently, yet giving birth to new stars, to the sun and moon and planet Earth. She actually could see the creation in her mind, the nebula collapsing and cooling into a flattened, slowly spinning disk. Earth’s surface covered by the pulsating ocean of molten rock.
Riley felt the bubbling magma beneath the surface, the shifting of plates and pushing up of mountains and the roots spreading out, like great chains and vines, deep beneath the sea, under every continent, connecting every part of the planet together—connecting it all with her. The first soft whispers came to her, murmurs filling her mind, voices of women long past, welcoming her to their sisterhood.
Her heart sang when she recognized the familiar, comforting feel of her mother and grandmother.
8
Dax stared into the hate-filled, triumphant eyes of the vampire. Just as the volcano had changed Dax, Mitro, too, had evolved into something else. He had spent hundreds of years inside that super-heated environment, and to withstand the pressure, gases and heat, Mitro had shifted into a form that was better suited. Over the centuries, his body had taken on the shell of a mutated lizard.
Heavy ridges dissected Mitro’s skull, drawing his skin tight over heavy bones. Singed hair stood straight up in spiked razor-sharp rows. Eyelids had grown heavier and the eyes themselves, windows to the soul, reflected back a pure black, no white showing at all, no soul within. Scars from the magma formed deep pits over most of his exposed skin. Slime-covered skin had yellowed and gave off a faint scent of rotten eggs. The chamber began to spin. Poisonous gas infused in the vampire’s thick, mottled skin induced lethargy and clouded the mind.
Dax forced his brain to work. The withered heart of the vampire had been incinerated, yet he still lived. How? And how could any hunter possibly kill the undead if he didn’t die when he should have? In all the endless years of destroying the undead, he’d never encountered such a thing, nor heard of it.
The mountain shook. A boom reverberated through the chamber. Maniacal laughter grated, slicing through his head. Staring straight into his eyes, Mitro drove his clawing fist deeper into Dax’s chest. Agony, bright and hot, robbed Dax of breath. The talons ripped and tore, shredding sinew and muscle, digging a hole, tunneling deep in an effort to reach the Carpathian’s beating heart.
That dark parody of a grin widened, jagged, stained teeth in receding gums rushing toward his neck even as the greedy talons grasped at his heart. In that moment everything changed. Dax didn’t have the luxury of dying, leaving Mitro loose on the world. Dax had to live no matter what.
He drew back, ignoring the agony ripping through him, took a breath and unleashed a torrent of fire straight into Mitro’s malevolent face. The vampire howled, jerking back, twisting his arm viciously as he withdrew his empty fist. Mitro threw himself to one side to avoid the steady stream of flames pouring from the hunter’s throat, his scream filling the chamber.
Bright red blood sprayed into the air from Dax’s torn chest. Great globs of burning blackened blood, a poisonous acid, from Mitro’s open chest splattered through the chamber and burned into ashes, raining down over him. Gases exploded into fiery balls, hurtling through the enclosed space, pitting deep craters into the walls. Vents burst below them, more noxious gas rising along with bright orange-red sprays of molten rock.
Mitro hammered at the thin barrier, slamming into it over and over like a battering ram, dodging the fiery bombs blasting upward from the lower pools of roiling magma. Dax leapt after the vampire, reaching with the tips of his fingers to hook an ankle and yank the undead backward. A thousand tiny needles punctured his palm, burning on contact. His first instinct was to let go, but he forced himself to hold on, dragging the vampire back down toward the bubbling pool of heated rock.
Mitro drove his foot into the hole in Dax’s chest. Pain exploded through the hunter. For a moment everything went black. His body shut down, his hand slipping off the ankle. He tumbled through the air before he caught himself. Mitro was at the barrier, ramming his ridged skull over and over into the same spot. Dax streaked upward to try to intercept him again.
The mountain rumbled ominously—held its breath for one still second—and then heaved. The concussion sent both combatants reeling. Dax slammed hard into the wall before he could catch himself. Heat seared his body. Blood dripped from his ears. His vision blurred. The chamber filled with gaseous vapor, and the sudden increase in pressure nearly tore him apart.
In that instant, he felt the Old One rise to protect him. His body had grown accustomed to the conditions of the volcano over the centuries, but neither he nor Mitro would fare well when the volcano erupted and the dragon knew it.
The Old One took possession fast, his soul rising, spreading out to encompass Dax. Crimson and orange scales first engulfed Dax’s body, sliding smoothly and efficiently from his head to his toes. The hard shell covered the gaping hole in his chest, but his blood continued to seep out between the scales, staining his chest scarlet.
Dax was used to shapeshifting, but this felt different. When Carpathians shifted, there was no sense of the body completely remaking itself, but this time, there was. He could feel his mass increase, his bones lengthen and reshape. He could feel the wings sprouting from his back, the supple, scaled hide stretching out like vast sails catching an ocean wind. He could feel his nails lengthen, become razor-tipped diam
ond talons. Strength, agility and raw, primal emotion coursed through his veins. He wasn’t a hunter who’d assumed the shape of a dragon: he was a dragon. Mighty. Powerful. Master of fire. King of the sky. And though his consciousness was still there, the Old One was there, too, ancient and powerful and just as deadly.
His wings spread, and his dragon body spun in midair. The long, ridged tail splashed into the magma pool, slinging red-hot rock against the sides of the cavern. But instead of pain, the heat invigorated him, strengthened him. He screamed in triumph and challenge and spewed another jet of hot flame toward the vampire.
But just before the boiling clouds of flame enveloped him, Mitro shifted into a large, scaly black dragon and rammed hard against the barrier, breaching it at last. He bellowed his triumph as the mountain belched, geysers of vapor and fiery material venting through thin spots. There was another short breath and the mountain erupted. Huge, violent plumes of gas, ash and molten rock spewed forth, ripping through the mountaintop and into the sky above. Both dragons went hurtling sideways, driven through the side of the mountain by the force of the blast.
The fiery red dragon tumbled end over end through the sky, disoriented, nearly blind, inside the cloud of fiery ash and gas spreading over the forest. Lightning cracked across the sky. Bright streaks of red and orange fountained into the air. Ash and white-hot mud rained down. Fiery cannonballs of molten rock shot through the air. A river of lava poured out of the gaping wound in the side of the mountain, looking like long ribbons of thick, glowing taffy, twisted and bright, dropping to the forest below. Trees exploded, fiery bombs bursting into flames.
Glowing eyes pierced the veil of the dark cloud and ash to spot the struggling black dragon. Red wings swept down in powerful strokes, propelling him high into the air. The experience was unlike any Dax had ever shared before. He was Dax with the Old One, watching, feeling and thinking with him, yet at the same time he was separate. It felt almost as if his consciousness was a visitor in the dragon’s body. The body wasn’t his own, and yet it was. The duality left him feeling dazed and a little disconnected.
Yet despite the alienness of his current situation, Dax remained keenly aware of the blood dripping through the scales covering the dragon’s chest. Mitro had wounded Dax badly, and that wound had carried over through the transformation. Dax knew he needed to stop the blood loss, and soon. The dragon, however, cared little for the fluid leaking from his chest. Rage and dominance consumed the Old One’s mind as he raced toward the floundering vampire that wore the appearance rather than the true form of a black dragon. Banking left and using the ash cloud for cover, the Old One rode the volcano’s superheated updrafts to rise above Mitro. When he was positioned above the black dragon, the Old One tucked his wings tight and dove, rocketing downward, plummeting through smoke and ash at deadly speed.
Mitro glanced up just as the red dragon extended its wings and brought its fore and hind legs around, talons extended for a strike. At first Dax thought Mitro would run, but when the black dragon only screamed a challenge and launched toward him, Dax realized Mitro had no idea he was confronting a true dragon rather than the weaker shapeshifted form of a dragon that Carpathians could assume at will.
Mitro thought he had the upper hand.
The Old One was confident that he had the greater size, greater skill, stronger position and momentum on his side. The kill seemed virtually assured.
Inside the dragon, Dax struggled to come to grips with a storm of fierce emotions. Dax had always fought, always killed, with emotionless efficiency. The dragon did not. To the dragon, the fight was life, full of wildness, rawness and pulse-pounding emotions so vivid he could almost taste, touch, see and smell each one. Elation, pure and white, whirled with flames of fiery red aggression, and streaming banners of golden-bright pride. Dax’s mind and senses whirled with the overload.
The red dragon slammed into the smaller black one, and they locked together, both falling out of the sky. Wings fluttered wildly, each dragon seeking balance and superior attack position. Long necks writhed. Fangs snapped and tore at scaly hides, seeking a killing bite. The talons of their back legs clutched each other with grim determination, while their forelegs tangled and ripped at vulnerable bellies.
The Old One was stronger and bigger, driving his claws deep into Mitro’s belly ripping and tearing through the armored hide to the soft, vulnerable organs beneath. His claws penetrated with each stroke, removing scales and chunks of bleeding flesh.
Within his black dragon form, Mitro screamed in shock and pain and insane rage. He’d been certain of his victory—certain of his physical superiority over Danutdaxton—but each of Dax’s blows struck deep, while each of Mitro’s own were turned away by diamond-hard scales and a seemingly impenetrable red hide. Mitro didn’t understand. How was this possible?
He writhed wildly but could not break free of the red dragon’s fierce grip. Locked in a death battle he suddenly realized he might not win, Mitro began a desperate, brutal assault on Dax’s one possible weak spot: the scales over his heart where, even in dragon form, blood was seeping from the terrible wound Mitro had dealt him. With vicious determination and demonic speed, Mitro landed a series of punishing blows on the bloody spot. The chest plate bent, but before it could break, Dax’s fangs sank deep in Mitro’s shoulder, ripping out a massive chunk of flesh and tendon.
Writhing, screaming, ripping, biting, the two giant beasts plummeted toward the burning ground. Seconds before impact, the two dragons ripped apart, wings spread wide to catch the wind and send them soaring in opposite directions.
Mitro pushed hard, pumping his wings with desperate speed to climb back up into the air. The red dragon pursued him with single-minded determination. The calm, relentless, determined hunter who never surrendered the chase.
He couldn’t outrun Dax and, though it still made no sense, clearly couldn’t best him with strength alone. Mitro needed an edge, an advantage. His eyes narrowed to obsidian slits, focused on the ash cloud billowing from the erupting volcano. Putting on a burst of speed, he flew straight into the boiling black heart of the plume.
Through the Old One’s eyes, Dax watched Mitro dive into the superheated ash cloud. As he disappeared from view, the wind shifted, beginning to spiral around the cloud.
What was he doing? The circling winds gathered the particles of hot ash in an ever-tightening vortex around the wounded vampire. Did he think he could hide in the cloud?
The Old One let out another roar of challenge and dove straight toward the vampire, eager to end the threat.
The concentrated debris in the air dropped visibility to zero, but the dragon’s vision saw more than even Carpathian eyes. He could see the changes in the density of air, the solid form at the heart of the whirling black ash cloud. The black vampire was motionless, wings outstretched, letting the unnatural cyclonic winds keep him aloft. Dax could almost feel the vampire healing his wounds from the inside. Closing tears in vital organs and stopping blood loss where the dragon had sliced and torn.
The red dragon was practically on top of Mitro when all the rock and debris in the air solidified into a packed wall that completely blocked the vampire from view. Fearless, certain of his dominance, the red dragon brought his hind legs and forelegs into position for another strike, and plowed through the relatively thin barrier, shattering it on impact.
But instead of finding a vulnerable, wounded opponent on the other side of the ash wall, they slammed full force into the hard point of the black dragon’s tail—a point Mitro had transformed from simple flesh, scale and bone into a razor-sharp trident of silver spikes, each two feet long and glinting with evil, serrated at the tips.
Screaming in surprise and pain, the red dragon impaled itself on Mitro’s spiked tail. Dax gasped in agony, feeling the spikes as if they were tearing through his own flesh.
Luckily, instead of taking the s
peared tail through the heart, the spike embedded deep in his stomach. The serrated edges were making quick work of the Old One’s insides, but because they’d missed the heart, it bought Dax and the dragon a few precious minutes.
Once more, the two dragons were locked in a death battle as they plummeted from the sky. Mitro stuck fast to the other dragon, claws and tail spike digging deep. The Old One continued to claw and shred at Mitro’s belly and limbs, teeth snapping at Mitro’s neck and head. The black dragon rammed his tail spike up under the red dragon’s ribs, seeking the elusive heart, but just as before, Mitro’s shapeshifted dragon form was no match for the might of the Old One. Mitro reeled back in pain.
That flinch gave the Old One the opening he’d been waiting for. His teeth bore down lightning fast just above the shoulder, wrapping around the smaller neck, powerful jaws snapping shut with extreme force. The black dragon returned a bite on the other’s face, his fangs sinking deep beside the Old One’s left eye.
The dragons crashed into the mountainside, rolling down the steep sides, crushing trees in their path. A hard jolt broke them apart. Mitro came to a stop first, while the larger, heavier Old One continued to roll almost to the base of the volcano. Wounded, one wing torn and bloody, the red dragon struggled to its feet and screamed its defiance, eyes still locked on its combatant, refusing to lose sight of his goal.
Inside the body of the dragon, the Old One’s rage and pain buffeted Dax with a maelstrom of emotion. The Old One was determined to win despite its injuries. Dax wasn’t sure how much more their shared body could take, but the Old One fought off his attempts to control the red dragon. All around them, ash and burning chunks of pumice continued to rain down from the erupting volcano.
The red dragon tucked its weakened wing tight against its back and began to climb up the mountain toward Mitro. Still reeling from the brutal fight and equally brutal landing, the black dragon righted himself with shaky, labored motions. Black wings extended and flapped as Mitro tried to gather his strength and take to the air.
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