Valentines Heat I

by Ally Shields, Nessie Strange, Keith Melton, CL Bledsoe

  “What is that?” My voice only sounded mildly curious to me, but I was certain the arrival of a flying monster was a very bad development. The serpent dragon reached our building, swerving past a city bus and then continuing its spiraling flight straight up the side of the skyscraper. We had a minute, maybe more before it reached us. “Are those…is that thing built out of crap from the freaky antique store?”

  “Looks like it,” Jake said. “All those independent objects with magical fields, all forced to hold one collective shape. We’re dealing with class one psychic power.”

  “In other words, we’re in trouble. Nothing new there.” I turned to my team and began spitting orders. “Sarge, I need bind-traps, fast as you can. Powerful enough to hold a flyer. Start at this window.”

  Sarge knelt down, set aside his machine gun, and began to draw glyphs on the carpet, his hand glowing as he burned the symbols into the weave. He glanced at me. “What are we looking at, Captain?”

  “At our twelve o’clock, a flying, ten-meter serpent dragon made out of random crap from that antique shop. And it looks pissed.”

  “A killer junk dragon,” Gavin grumbled as he cruised past again on the battery-powered assault Segway, the electric motor whining. “Now I’ve heard it all.”

  I ignored him and raised my voice into command-shout mode. “We got company, Zero Dogs! I want a center of defense, in all three-sixty degrees. Give us clear fields of fire and give us cover.”

  “Cover incoming!” Rafe ran to the nearest table and flipped it on its side, sending plates, food, and glasses flying before he hurled it toward the center of the room.

  “Damn it, Rafe, we have to pay for everything we break.” I hesitated because reimbursing damages assumed we survived the giant knickknack monster. “On second thought, wreck away and do it fast!”

  A cheer went up, and the Zero Dogs set to it with a vengeance.

  I took up position next to Jake behind the barricade of overturned tables, while experiencing the most disheartening déjà vu ever. “Any idea on the best way to take this thing down?”

  “This is old power, and it’s strong,” Jake replied. “A psychic force level I haven’t seen before. We shouldn’t underestimate it.”

  “Can you keep it out with barriers?”

  “Too many windows, even for me.”

  “Nobody brought high explosives. Small arms fire won’t do much if it doesn’t have internal organs. Melee’s gonna be negligible.” That meant our berserker, werewolf, vampire, and ninja-medic weren’t going to be factors either. Tiffany’s succubus powers would be useless against something without a sex drive. “Hey, Mai!” I called. “What do your creepy bat-monsters do?”

  “Ultra-high frequency sonic screech attacks, Captain!”

  “Does that…actually do anything?”

  “They can break glass. And six percent of them might be rabid.”

  “We’re so screwed,” I muttered.

  Jake slapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring squeeze. “Not even close. Barriers and fire. I’ll keep it off us; you burn it down.”

  His confidence boosted mine. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was nearly tapped out and black on power after all I’d spent fighting hagworms. Even melting that lock on the elevator had taken a serious bite out of me. I wasn’t sure how much sustained fire I could bring to bear against this thing.

  A glass-shaking screech blasted through the restaurant right before a huge, roughly triangular head appeared in the broken window. The monster seemed to recognize me, glaring with an eye built of an old railroad brakeman’s lantern, while the other eye was an antique searchlight that dazzled me. The serpent dragon roared again. Impossible, since the thing was created of haphazardly interlocked items, but whatever magic or psychic force fueled it also allowed it to blast sound with the force of a foghorn.

  Up close the creature was even crazier to behold. Its serpentine body was built of the most random junk I’d ever seen, all melded together by some invisible power I could feel vibrating in my back teeth. Ceramic dolls, crocodile skulls, gumball machines, barber poles, wicker chairs, decorative tables, ornamental fans, animatronic fish, collector’s plates, grandfather clocks, wrought-iron chairs, phonographs playing strange atonal music—too many things to name. The odd items, many of them damaged, comprised the irregular frame of the bric-a-brac monster, grinding and scraping against each other as the creature twisted through the air.

  “Open fire,” I shouted and cut loose with a stream of white-yellow flames at the dragon’s head. Sarge’s M249 began spitting bullets, underscored by the erratic reports of Tiffany’s pistols, and stuttering fire from the coaxial gun on Gavin’s Segway.

  The junk dragon exploded outward, parts and pieces flying in every direction around my firestream. The flames shot harmlessly out the window, never having touched any of the items that orbited the column of fire. I no longer had the endurance to walk the flames onto target, so my firestream died after only one ineffective burst.

  The floating antiques and curios and damaged knickknacks immediately collapsed inward and reformed into the serpent dragon. It undulated into the restaurant, sweeping its searchlight over our position and roaring again.

  Bullets shredded through the individual pieces that made up its body, but the damaged antiques and the splinters and shards were immediately. One fusillade managed to shatter the searchlight blazing from the eye socket in the side of its massive head. The serpent dragon bellowed its rage and came for us.

  I waited for it to hit the bind-traps Sarge had set so I could use the final blast of fire I still had the strength summon. At the last moment, it seemed to see or sense the closest bind-trap and swerved to avoid it. It circled around to strike at us from another angle.

  “Pop smoke!” I ordered. “Reposition!”

  Gavin raced his Segway scooter from the cover of our barricades and zipped in front of the serpent dragon. A rapid series of tok, tok, tok sounds filled the air as he shot off smoke rounds from the Segway’s launcher. The smoke rounds ricocheted from the ceiling and bounced off the floor, choking the air with thick white clouds.

  We moved under the cover of the smoke screen, abandoning the closest section of overturned tables mere seconds before the serpent dragon swept out of the cloud and smashed through them. It veered after Gavin as he sped off on the Segway. Huge snapping jaws lined with old-fashioned scissors and shards of mirror and mismatched cutlery barely missed taking him off at the neck.

  Gavin bailed from the Segway and hurled himself over the bar top. The serpent dragon’s jaws clamped shut on the Segway’s handlebar, and it hurled the two-wheeled vehicle through a window with a convulsive jerk of its body. Then it spiraled upward along the ceiling and went after Gavin again as he cowered behind the bar.

  I felt Jake’s power flow out from him, and the dragon slammed into an invisible barrier that shunted it to the side, breaking pieces of its head. It shrieked its rage at being thwarted and came at us again.

  Rafe and Stefan counterattacked, raking its Frankenstein, flea market body with claws. It convulsed and sent both of them flying. Erik swung his axe, shearing through its tail. An instant later, the severed part rejoined the whole, and the damage didn’t seem to matter. Mai’s bat squadron swooped in, attacking with high-powered ultrasonic shrieks. The junk dragon shrugged them off, not bothering to strike back.

  We ducked behind cover as the serpent dragon spiraled in for another attack. Jake alone faced off with the monster. His barrier magic deflected it again, sending it careening to the side. Every time it came at us, he checked its progress so it couldn’t reach us. Every time it slammed off the invisible barriers, its rage and frustration seemed to grow.

  “How long can you hold it off?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he answered through gritted teeth. “It’s strong.”

  “I only have one good blast of flames left. We’re running out of options.”

  He didn’t look at me and didn�
�t reply, only continued to track the circling serpent dragon, driving it back with a barrier any time it swerved toward our position.

  Today had been a disaster from operation one. Thing was, I’d earned my share of the blame for it. Now here we were, locked in a standoff and not even getting paid to risk our asses. I had to end this.

  “Cover me,” I said. “I’m going to do something crazy.”

  Now Jake looked at me. Only a quick glance, but he seemed to catch all he needed in that one brief look. I could tell he wasn’t happy, but all he said was, “I’ve got you.”

  I turned to the Zero Dogs and yelled, “Everyone! Hold fire! No attacks!” Then I hopped over the barricade to face off with the serpent dragon alone.

  When it spotted me with its remaining lantern eye it rage-roared and spiraled straight for me.

  I stood my ground. Very still. No attempt at cover. My breath rattling in and out of my mouth. My heart hammering. Jake would raise a barrier between us, but it was still alarming to have a ten-meter flying monster constructed of everything from a stuffed armadillo to an antique credenza bearing down on me at uncanny speed.

  “I’m sorry we destroyed your shop,” I said, addressing the power creating and controlling the serpent dragon. “You weren’t our enemy. We didn’t know. And I’m sorry.”

  The junk dragon stopped hard a meter short of me, twisting and veering back on itself in a loop to halt its momentum. It hovered in midair, its head motionless and very near mine, the one remaining lantern light burning an angry red as the invisible force of its psychic will pushed against me. I didn’t flinch. Never looked away.

  The dull red railroad lantern eye pulsed as the serpent dragon floated there, its body twisting and writhing in midair, its head utterly still and only a meter from mine. Around me, the Zero Dogs remained motionless, watching in silence. Waiting.

  “Please,” I said. “Let’s end this. No more destruction. No more hurting.”

  I hoped I could reach the creature that Quill had described as happy and effervescent. The one who smiled at Jake the way I smiled at Jake. No jealousy. No vengeance. Only an agreement to walk away before we injured each other in ways that couldn’t be repaired or forgiven.

  The serpent dragon lunged forward, jaw gaping wide, biting at my head. I flinched backward, but Jake’s barrier held. The dragon’s head crashed against the barrier hard enough to break half its teeth, and it rebounded to the side. For me, time didn’t so much slow as break into a hundred connected parts, and I seemed to be aware of each of them. My friends shouting. Distant police and fire engine sirens. The grinding, clicking, crunching sound of the dragon moving all its wildly different, ill-fitting parts. A hole inside me, knowing it had come to this.

  “Jake,” I said, my voice deceptively soft. “Drop it.”

  “Clear,” he replied.

  I opened the floodgates, poured everything into one final surge of fire. The serpent dragon was too close to react. Incredible heat washed against me as the stream of flames enveloped its head, shot along most of its body, scorching, melting, blistering. Whatever psychic force held it together couldn’t maintain control through the firestorm. Burning pieces of antiques and damaged, bullet-riddled junk flew in all directions. The serpent dragon loosed one final roar that rattled the windows and rang in my ears before it came undone and collapsed in a snaking pile of flaming wreckage.

  I sank to one knee, breathing hard, a steady, pounding pain inside my head. I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking, and I couldn’t remember ever being this exhausted. Jake was right beside me at once, wrapping his arms around me. I stared at the burning debris. All those strange, quirky things from the antique shop, all so worthless now. I tried hard to believe we’d won. My mouth tasted like ashes.

  Slowly, I pushed myself back to my feet as he hovered protectively, though he did let me go. Jake understood that a leader had to stand on her own two feet.

  I turned to look my team over. “Anyone hurt?”

  A chorus of negatives. If I could’ve bottled the pure relief I felt, I’d have made a million, easy.

  The first police and firefighters arrived. They gaped at us and gawked at the wreckage. I ignored them.

  “Not over yet,” I said to Jake.

  “I know.”

  He wasn’t happy. Then again, neither was I.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We headed straight to Dead Cat Antiques from the restaurant despite our exhaustion, trapped in a day that would not end.

  The police cordoned off the entire block surrounding the shop. SWAT was deployed to back us up. The street and buildings on Southwest 3rd still bore the scars from our earlier fight with the hagworms, and the area was unnerving in its utter quiet following the police evacuation. We executed a standard dynamic assault, deploying and charging our way into the curio shop from multiple entry points with maximum force.

  Dead Cat Antiques was empty.

  None of the strange antiques or disturbing curios remained. The damaged bookshelves and tables we’d used as barricades were gone. No blood on the floorboards. No bullet holes and burn marks. Only dust remained, layering the floor and windows and billowing up from beneath our boots when we moved. Dust, and a single faded, hand-lettered sign that read: We’ve Moved! Please join us at our new, bigger location! All New Inventory!

  “Damn creepy shops,” Gavin said and spat on the floor. “Never around when you want a refund.”

  I looked at Jake. “Where do you think it went?” My voice sounded calmer than I really felt, staring at the disconcerting emptiness. I couldn’t help but feel as though I were trapped in a room hiding a pit viper, and the light bulb had begun to flicker.

  “Something as powerful as that? It could be anywhere. Other cities. Dimensions. Spacetime pockets. There’s this one world that’s simply a huge never-ending bazaar, night and day, every possible shop and vendor. That’s classified, by the way.”

  Not the answers I wanted to hear. “Think it will come after us again?”

  “Hard to say.” He shook his head. “She—it—didn’t seem to be the usual raging, foaming-mad evil. I mean, it had a sense of humor and was friendly enough…right up until it tried to kill us. Wounded animal, though. Hard to blame.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” I elbowed him in the side. “It had a crush on you.”

  He gave me a sidelong frown. “It was only toying with us.”

  I grinned. “Methinks the soldier doth protest too much. Besides, who could blame it? A smoking-hot Special Forces tough guy who is loyal and funny and has great taste in suits and restaurants and women? What’s not to love?”

  “You know what? My ego adores you.”

  “That better not be the only part that does.”

  He laughed. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

  Even knowing that with my luck this wouldn’t be the last time the sentient curio shop would mess with me, I was too exhausted to care. I only wanted the day to be over. But I couldn’t seem to make my legs obey. The traitorous things only kept me standing there inside a shop that looked as though it had last been open for commerce in 1949. Jake stood with me, never leaving my side. I turned and slipped into his arms, and he hugged me tight. He felt wonderful and warm.

  “Back at the restaurant,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning into his embrace. “How did you know it was me? When you first saw the real me. How did you know?”

  “Who else would charge into a five-star restaurant covered in blood, wearing combat boots and a leather jacket? It had to be you.” He shrugged and smiled.

  I grabbed the front of his suit coat and looked him right in the eyes. “Me,” I said. Then I pulled him down to a kiss. It was the best Valentine’s Day kiss I’d ever had.

  As we drew apart, I finally remembered the card I’d handcrafted for him about six thousand hours earlier. My cheeks were hot as I pulled the crumpled card out of my pocket and handed it over.

  “I made this for you. It’s no big deal.” I cleared my throat.
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  He scanned the poem I’d scrawled across the back of the torn-off lid from a box of ammunition. I remembered the way it went well enough.

  Bullets are red,

  Tracers are blue,

  Fire is hot

  And so are you.

  Not exactly Yeats, but I figured it got the point across. Aside from the fact that bullets weren’t red and tracers weren’t really blue, meaning fifty percent of my great artistic work was a lie. Jake didn’t seem to mind. A smile spread across his face, and when he looked at me, his gaze was so warm my chocolate center melted a little.

  “I wrote that myself,” I said quickly, to cover the surge of emotion that threatened to have me looking all big-eyed lovey-dovey. “I had a couple free minutes between slime-o-pede attacks.”

  “It’s perfect,” he said, slipping his arms around me again.

  “Careful. I stink and I’m covered in blood.”

  “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

  I cocked my head and arched an eyebrow at him.

  “All right, I’m lying,” he said. “You’re filthy. I need to get you home right away and hose you down.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. He grinned back with a thoroughly wicked look in his eye. “But after that…”

  He kissed me.

  After that and a shower, our Valentine’s Day turned out to be everything I’d dreamed and everything I deserved.

  END

  ~ About Keith Melton ~

  Keith Melton is a fantasy author and part time were-sloth.

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