“What a pity,” the dragon continued, climbing until he could see me again, “a fine warrior like you. The spell the old woman cast was potent but corrosive. While it empowers your body, it steals from your mind. Tit for tat, as you Americans like to say. Even had you survived our encounter this night, within days you would have gone stark, raving mad.”
The dragon dove toward me, his throat convulsing in deep grunts.
13
I darted from one hut to the next as the dragon’s icy blast stormed past me, crystallizing the ground and freezing pigs and chickens in place. Frost billowed around in a disorienting white storm. Not realizing I had reached the end of the village, I stumbled from behind the last hut and into open pasture.
Behind me, the dragon laughed as his ice blast tapered off.
“Trust me, Texan, I’m sparing you from a fate worse than hell.”
I felt him eyeing me through the dissipating frost, gauging the effects of his words on me. The words had registered, but I had filtered out their meaning and influence. All that mattered right now was figuring out how to get my jaw back around his throat.
But the dragon wasn’t going to give me that chance. Remaining high overhead, his throat convulsed again. He meant to freeze me.
With animal quickness, I began cycling through my options. My best short-term bet was another run through the village, though I wasn’t sure how much longer my stamina would hold out. I needed to get to higher ground, up to the ridge maybe, and make a leap for him.
But before I could launch into my first step, a fiery whoosh sounded from the dry river valley. I watched in amazement as a pair of Hellfire missiles streaked overhead and struck the dragon in twin eruptions of flames. The dragon shrieked and reared back.
A deafening burst of cannon fire followed, throwing scales and sparks from the dragon’s hide. The great beast began to flap backwards, his tail flipping side to side like a beached fish’s.
The next burst of cannon fire ripped a tattering hole through the dragon’s right wing, the force spinning him around. He began to flap drunkenly back toward the mountains. Two Apache’s thundered overhead, chasing the dragon with more missiles and now a relentless stream of cannon fire.
On the far side of the river, the white dragon climbed toward the high peaks from where he had first appeared. The Apaches ripped off final attacks, then circled back.
“Thought you were going to a fight without us?” Segundo called from behind me.
I turned to find him and the rest of Team 5 standing at the top of the collapsed section of valley. As they jogged down the slope toward me, I dug into my pockets for the balaclava and pulled it over my head.
“Oh, c’mon,” Segundo said when he arrived in front of me. “I want to see if your face is as ugly as Mauli says it is.”
I glared over at my senior medic. “Is that right?”
“I wasn’t going to mention anything,” Mauli explained quickly, “but when we heard shooting and Segundo started moving the team out, I figured I needed to warn everyone. I told them what happened.”
“I helped a little,” Parker confessed.
“What was all that shooting about?” Segundo asked. “And what the hell was that thing that flew away.”
I sighed. “I think we’ve stepped into the middle of a battle between ancient enemies. And that flying thing was … a dragon.” I felt foolish saying the word, even as my men looked over my massive lupine form in awe and fear—everyone except Segundo, who made a show of taking it in stride.
“Bet he never tangled with a pair of Apaches,” he snorted. “Listen, we finally got through to Pete, and he delivered. Man, did he deliver.” I followed his glance toward the Apaches that were setting down in the pasture about a hundred yards away. With my animal vision, I could make out Pete through one of the windows. My fellow Texan managed both a look of amazement at having just engaged a dragon and satisfaction at having been right to believe they existed in the first place. “There’s two more birds coming in,” Segundo continued. “Enough to lift us all out of here. Plus we’ve got an F-18 escort overhead. I’ve already arranged for your transfer to a hospital to get you checked out.”
“You did good,” I said, “but I’m not going with you.”
“What? Why the hell not?”
I took off the balaclava. “I don’t think this is something medicine can fix.”
My men stared at me, whispered cusses escaping a few of them. Segundo swallowed visibly but kept his macho composure. It was part of what I loved about the guy. “Well, Mauli was right about your face,” he said, eyeing it warily. “But c’mon, man. You really think that old woman cursed you?”
With the symbol still burning inside the flesh of my right cheek, I thought about what Nafid had said about some entity called the Great Wolf naming me the Principal Protector. My thoughts then flashed to Daniela and my need to get home to her as Jason Wolfe—not Blue Wolf.
“Yeah, I do. And I’m not leaving here until she changes me back. Nafid has a sat phone, and I also have a radio in my pack. I’ll call for a lift when everything’s back to normal.”
“We can’t leave you here alone,” Segundo said. “You know that.”
“I’ve already had this conversation with Parker and Mauli, so unless you’re taking me by force, it’s a moot point. You’re getting on those helos without me. And when you’re back at base, I want you to have Colonel Stanick’s deputy file a formal complaint against Baine. I’ll follow up when I get back, make sure it’s moving up the chain and not getting buried.”
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to tell them about you?” Segundo said.
“The situation that happened yesterday with the bombing, over fifty villagers killed, requires persistent engagement with the population to ensure we don’t lose them to the enemy. I’m taking it upon myself to be that engagement. It doesn’t require the whole team.”
“And that’s your story, and you’re sticking to it,” Segundo muttered.
“It’s the truth. I’m just choosing to leave out certain details. I hope you will too.” I was most concerned about those details finding their way back to Daniela. This was my problem, not hers.
I looked at each member of Team 5. They were good men. Men I had trusted with my life in too many firefights to count, and men who had trusted me to lead them into those firefights. So when they nodded, I knew that what had happened to me would not leave our circle.
“Only a couple of problems that I can see, though,” Segundo said. “First, you’re not carrying any weapons.” He thrust the stock end of his M4 toward me, then handed me his SIG pistol. He stepped aside so the weapons sergeants could place two large cases at my feet. “I had the helos bring in a heavy machine gun to replace what that little shithead stole. There’s a fifty cal in that case and ammo belts in the other. You should be good if that dragon thing comes back.”
Heavy fire power. That was what I had been missing. “Thanks.”
“And how are you fixed for food?” Mauli interjected.
Now that he mentioned it, I was ravenous. I had four MREs left in my pack, but I could see myself going through the fifteen-hundred calorie meals in one sitting. The rest of the team must have noticed my hesitation because they began pulling MREs from their own packs and handing them to me. As I stowed them away, Segundo cleared his throat.
“The second problem is that we’re not leaving you out here alone.” He held up a hand before I could reaffirm my decision. “I’m not talking about the whole team anymore. Protocol dictates that at least one other team member stay with you. The buddy system, remember? Plus it will seem less suspicious.”
“I can’t ask anyone to do this with me. It’s outside the mission parameters.”
“The situation that happened yesterday, over fifty killed, requires persistent engagement to ensure we don’t lose the population to the enemy,” he recited back to me. “So with all due respect, sir, fuck your ‘outside the mission parameters.’ As the cultur
al affairs officer and interpreter, Parker staying makes the most sense. I’ll take the rest back to base.”
He was right. My condition aside, we still had an obligation to rebuild and recompense the village and ensure they would allow us use of the corridor as a supply route. If anyone could help facilitate that, it was Parker.
I turned to him. “It’s your choice.”
“I’m staying with you, sir,” he said resolutely.
“Then the rest of you better get going,” I said. “I’ll see everyone soon.”
My team members said their farewells and began moving toward the Apaches as two more helos arrived. Lingering behind, Segundo gave me an admonishing look. “You might look like a giant flea bag, but you’re still our captain. You get into trouble, you give us a call.”
“I will. Take care of them. You’re the primero now.”
Segundo smirked at the joke, then trotted to catch up to what was now effectively his unit. As I watched them leave, I had the visceral sense I wouldn’t see them again, at least as a team. I slung the M4 over a shoulder and hefted the giant cases that seemed to weigh little more than gym bags with my newfound strength. I turned from my departing team and toward the compound.
“You ready?” I asked Parker.
“Yes sir.”
I returned to a familiar scene: Kabadi villagers cleaning up. The attack had been more destructive than I’d realized. In addition to the ruined buildings, several structures had suffered damage from wings and talons, and great fissures showed where the ice had rent apart cracks in the stone and dried mud. A dozen frozen bodies lay in the piece of courtyard recently occupied by the young men killed in yesterday’s bombing.
“Did the dragon do all of this?” Parker asked.
“Dragons plural,” I said. “There were three of them.”
“Holy crap.”
“Yeah, I’ve been saying that a lot lately. You’re about to see one of them up close.”
As we entered the large courtyard, I expected to find the dragon who had choked on a high-explosive grenade. I’d been wondering how the villagers planned to move the enormous creature—cutting it up seemed out, given its nearly indestructible hide—but the dragon was no longer laid out in the courtyard. When I looked around, I couldn’t even see a blood trail.
“They were shifters,” Nafid said. I turned to find her striding up behind us, her staff pinned beneath an arm as she wiped her hands with a scarf. “With their death their dragon bodies return to the Great Dragon.”
“What are shifters?” I asked.
Unable to help himself, Parker jumped in. “In various myths and folklore, shifters are people who possess the ability to change into other forms—often accomplished through some kind of divine intervention or powerful magic. There are stories of them in many cultures.”
“Your friend is correct,” Nafid said. “In this case, they change into dragons. They are known here as dhin-dhins. Dragon shifters.”
When I looked again at the spot where the junior dragon had eaten a grenade, I saw the covered body of what I had assumed to be one of the Kabadi. But when the wind lifted a side of the cover, I glimpsed a naked leg. The part of the cover over the head was dark with blood.
“The big dragon,” I said. “Will he be back?”
“Not tonight,” Nafid replied ominously. “Orzu must first recover.”
I set down the cases with the machine gun and ammo. It didn’t sound like we would need them right now. “Parker and I have medical training. What can we do to help the injured?”
“Thank you, but we have healers in the village.”
“What about the man whose leg was frozen? He was on that rooftop.”
“They will cure him.”
After having witnessed Nafid’s light show, I didn’t doubt their skill. I noticed her watching me with the same intensity as before the dragon attack, but her green eyes were no longer hostile. I was reminded of a pair of soldiers who had come to Team 5 a few years back. They refused to speak to one another, something about a girl they’d met on leave. But following their first extended firefight, you couldn’t pry them apart. Battle had a way of doing that.
“Then let us help you rebuild,” I said.
“That is not why you came back. You want Buzurg to change you.”
I thought of Daniela, who was expecting me home in a few days. “Yes.”
She nodded and tucked the scarf into a fold in her gown. “Let us speak to him, then.”
As she strode toward the bombed building with her wooden staff in hand, Parker and I looked at one another—was it really going to be this easy?—and then hustled to catch up to her.
I could only hope so.
14
Parker and I followed Nafid into the building and up the staircase. The lanterns were still down, but Nafid’s staff illuminated the way. When we reached the top of the stairs, she asked us to wait outside, swirling her staff to send up a glowing green ball of light that hovered above Parker’s head. She then entered her great-grandmother’s shrine, closing the door behind her.
Parker looked from the light to me in confusion. I held up a finger to preempt his questions and pointed to the door for him to listen and translate. The two women had already begun to speak, Nafid’s voice sharp and hard, the old woman’s high and wavering, almost like singing.
After a moment Parker shook his head and whispered, “They’re still talking in that dialect I can’t understand.”
But it didn’t matter; my animal hearing was picking up nuances in their tones. Nafid seemed to be arguing, possibly on my behalf, while her great-grandmother was brushing her off. That went on for several minutes until Nafid said something in an especially sharp voice that rendered the old woman silent. When at last she replied, a sigh carried her words—and then she added something that sounded like a warning. Now it was Nafid’s turn to go quiet.
The door opened, surprising both Parker and me. I hadn’t heard Nafid’s approach from the other side.
“Baba has agreed to a da’vat,” she said.
“A da’vat?” I repeated. “What’s that?”
“A ceremony for you to express your desires to Buzurg. But it will be your one chance, and she warns that Buzurg may be greatly insulted. Out of many, many warriors, he has chosen you.”
“And if my wishes greatly insult him?”
The green light above us flickered, dimming Nafid’s face. “The Great Wolf can be merciless.”
Parker cleared his throat. “Sir, I’m not sure you should…”
“Show me what to do,” I said to Nafid.
“You must remove everything and enter alone.”
I looked down at my camo pants. “Everything?”
Nafid nodded, grave lines etching her brow.
“When in Rome…” I muttered, handing off my weapons and vest to Parker and then stripping off my shirt. I undid my camos last but peeked inside before dropping them. I had no idea what I looked like down there, but a long sweep of a hair appeared to cover my personal effects. I pushed the camos down and stepped out of them, which felt oddly freeing.
Nafid opened the door and moved to one side.
“Be careful,” Parker called from behind me as I entered.
The door shut, and a darkness that my wolf vision couldn’t penetrate closed around me. I sniffed the air, but the smells were too dense and conflicting. My ears pricked up as I listened.
“Baba?” I called.
Disoriented, I began walking toward what I thought were the old woman’s breaths. But then her muttering voice sounded off to my right, and I turned to find her sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing a pit of embers that hadn’t been there a moment before. The glow colored her white hair a dark orange, while the heat bent her wrinkled features like a mirage.
For an instant, my rational mind rebelled. Nothing about this made sense. I should have joined my team and been taken to a hospital. I looked behind me for the door. But something was still telling me the on
ly way back to normalcy was forward, through this dark corner of the world, as Pete had called it, through the insanity. The old Jason Wolfe was waiting on the other side, as well as the love of my life, the very soon-to-be Daniela Wolfe.
I couldn’t falter now.
With a steadying breath, I stepped forward. The old woman’s face canted upward, her fleshy sockets meeting my eyes. With the same gnarled hand she’d used to carve the symbol into my cheek she pointed to a rug on the floor across the pit, then angled her face back down toward the embers.
As I sat, the rest of the room remained pitch black. It felt like we were floating in a giant void without walls or a ceiling. I could sense the mounted wolf’s head somewhere above us, its sunken yellow eyes watching me. The Great Wolf can be merciless, I heard Nafid saying.
“Sab zarat!”
My eyes jerked back to the old woman as she threw a handful of what sounded like seed husks over the embers. The clinking shells snuffed out the orange light, but soon a deep blue glow replaced it, pulsing up through the smoke. It was accompanied by a strong animal smell.
The old woman grunted in apparent satisfaction and started into a repetitive chant. Each round came faster, all of them ending on a hard note, as though she were trying to create enough momentum to move something. Her dark lips worked and twisted until she looked certifiably insane. But before long something did begin to move: our space. I felt it turning slowly around.
She’s opening a doorway, I thought, the idea coming unbidden.
I placed a hand against the ground to steady myself, my breaths picking up, my heart beating louder. Outside, the beasts behind the locked door began to bark, the savage sounds clambering over one another. The animal smell in the room grew stronger, more feral.
The woman ended the chant suddenly, and the movement stopped. The barking fell off into yelps and whimpers. My eyes shot around, senses on high alert. Something else was in the room.
The witch growled in a voice that no longer sounded human. When she lifted her face from the embers, large yellow eyes glared into mine. But they weren’t her eyes, I realized. A giant shadow with a hunched back and peaked ears was taking form around her.
Blue Curse (Blue Wolf Book 1) Page 10