by Tricia Owens
As I'd feared, his moon face took on a dreamy expression. "Why wouldn't I chase her? Your mother was so powerful. So regal. So magnificent. When I began going down the list of Chinese dragons in Las Vegas, I knew as soon as I saw her photo that she would be my first."
"Your first what?" I cringed, waiting for his answer.
"My first set of bones in this city, of course."
I shook my head. A fly whizzed past, wings flapping noisily. "What are you talking about?"
"You met my troll," Dearborn reminded me. He gave a wheezing sort of laugh and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "You held its breath of life in your hands. You gave it to the Magnificent Rob."
"The bone chips," I said slowly, with a dawning sense of horror. "Zach said that they were dragon bones."
"There's extraordinary power to be found in the bones of dragons, Anne. Add an aleph and you have the ability to breathe life into dirt. Into the garbage of humanity. Into anything."
"And you wanted to use my mom's bones for…" I shuddered violently. I was highly conscious of the fact that no one had said what had happened to my parents after they went over the cliff. "Did you..?" I couldn't bring myself to say it.
Dearborn's moue of disappointment was real, I was grateful to see. "After all the work I'd done to entice her to go after my golem…when the final moment came, I was prevented from reaching her. I couldn't do what I'd planned all along to do. To harvest her."
Harvest her.
I wanted to punch Dearborn in the face because it would hurt but it wouldn't kill him. I wanted that more than his death: I wanted his pain. It was the only way to make him feel a fraction of what I felt at learning that my parents had been killed so that my mom's skeleton could be stolen and used for golem-making.
"I thought that was my last chance," Dearborn went on, shaking his head sadly. "The other dragons in town are all male dragons. Their bones aren't as suited for my work. Like much in nature, the females of a species hold the true power. I knew of you, of course, but you're only a hybrid dragon. I thought I needed pureblood for my golems…until Vagasso told me something quite interesting."
The utterance of that dark spirit stiffened my spine. I'd had only one encounter with Vagasso, and I'd been on the losing end of it when he used his magick to punch me into a pool. He'd been toying with me then, unaware of the danger I presented to him. I had no desire to face him when he was legitimately trying to kill me.
"How do you know Vagasso?" I asked Dearborn.
From the corners of my eyes I noted that the shadows seemed darker, the hills seemed to loom. I imagined a hundred rattlesnakes slithering toward me, compelled by Vagasso's dark magick.
"Years ago, before I came to this city, I led an excavation outside of Cairo, Egypt."
"Merimde Beni Salame," I cut in, startling him.
"Why, yes. Very good, Anne. Did you know that Egypt is a country that harbors so many artifacts that their largest and most important museum can't hold everything that is discovered? They have to excavate their own collection from the floors of their basement because the sheer mass begins to bury itself again."
"That's super interesting, really. What has this got to do with Vagasso?"
"I found something during my excavations, Anne. Something life-changing. An idol made of bone!"
Dearborn's apparent glee went over my head. "What's the big deal about that?"
His joy dimmed. I sensed a hint of resentment from him for being ignorant. In the tone of an exasperated teacher, he said, "Egypt is older than academicians have been able to prove. It's not only the cradle of life, it's the cradle of morality. They say the bones of the Devil himself lie in Egypt and I agree. I believe I found one of those bones that day."
Holy Toledo. "You don't honestly believe that."
"The proof was evident. The day after I took possession of it, Vagasso appeared in Cairo. He is no ordinary man, as you are aware. His presence in Egypt was…significant."
Interesting that Dearborn thought Vagasso was human. The wards around Orlaton's bookshop were designed to repel dark spirits, and they had held off Vagasso. Did that make Vagasso half-human? A former human?
"He presented me with a proposal: he would arrange an audience for me with an ancient god who would grant me the knowledge to suspend and create life. In exchange, I would give Vagasso the Devil's bone idol." Dearborn spread his arms in a what can you do gesture. "It was an offer I couldn't refuse."
If that were true, and that was a big if—bones of the Devil, say what?—it might explain where some of Vagasso's power came from. Maybe.
"After his run-in with you," Dearborn went on, "he told me about you. He assured me that even though you're a half-breed, incredible power runs in your bones." Dearborn's eyes swept over me and he actually licked his lips, as though imagining what a rack of my ribs tasted like. "He gifted you to me. Again, I couldn't refuse. I had to have you after I was cruelly denied your mother."
"That's a referral I could have done without," I muttered of Vagasso.
"I sent you a message, you know. It wasn't polite of you to ignore it."
I blinked. "What message?"
Dearborn turned coy. "Don't tell you didn't see it. They all saw it."
I racked my brain until it hit me. "The dragon on the Fourth of July? That was you?"
Dearborn clapped excitedly. "It was! Did you like it? I made it out of matches so it would burn. A bit of tongue in cheek that I thought you might appreciate." His excitement dimmed. "It burned up far too fast, however. Didn't last long enough to intrigue you, apparently."
That explained why the Oddsmakers hadn't called me to task over the incident. They'd been aware all along that the dragon flying that night had been a golem. Damn, I'd felt all that stress for nothing. The list of reasons to make Dearborn rue the day he was born was growing longer.
"So I tried another tactic, Anne. I thought perhaps you like to chase. You are, after all, a predator and I apologize for momentarily forgetting that." Dearborn grinned. "I was so clever. I fed a bit of info to the street, directing you to Stevie. The only way that could have worked out more perfectly was if he had managed to subdue you. But you're too strong for that, aren't you?"
Dearborn was getting a real kick out of sharing his machinations with me. I should have just had Lucky bite his head off and put an end to the sickening revelations. But curiosity had a funny way of rearranging your priorities. I still wanted to know every last detail of Dearborn's devious plan. It was fascinating in a car crash sort of way. Unbelievable and awful.
"When you made your way to the Magnificent Stabber-of-Backs Rob, who pointed you in my direction, the trap snapped shut." Dearborn's beady eyes narrowed. "Here you are."
"You didn't have to kill them," I bit out.
"No, but the curse I'd put on his leprechaun boytoy was taking too long. Lingering deaths are boring. Just ask Jeremiah. He couldn't wait to die."
The pressure behind my breast bone was growing. Lucky wanted to do damage and I wanted to let him.
"Blowing up your friends was far more satisfying and dramatic. For me, at least."
The smugness that leaked from his pores would have greased a Slip 'n Slide ride around the globe. I couldn't wait to shoot this asshole down.
"I don't know," I said airily. "An explosion is sloppy and inelegant if you ask me. Like smashing an ant with a frying pan. But whatever. The Oddsmakers sent me after you for the necromancy artifact. Whatever else you're doing is just playing in the mud as far as I'm concerned. It's just a lot of noise."
A bald face lie now that I knew he powered his golems with magicked dragon bones, but I refused to feed into the guy's ego.
It was my turn to feel satisfaction when his expression darkened. The Texas-shaped stain on his head turned bright red as it filled with blood.
"You're nothing but a child," he said, spit flecking his lips. "You think I'm giving you anything? You're going to give me what I want, Anne, and be more useful to me than yo
ur bitch of a mother was."
"Yeah, you probably shouldn't have said that." I called up Lucky in full strength.
The explosion of his golden form in the sky above us made Dearborn cry out and throw his hands in front of his eyes as he staggered backward. He was vulnerable in that moment. Easy pickings. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't have my dragon bite him in half or incinerate him. I needed Dearborn alive to tell me where the artifact was. I needed the Oddsmakers off my back.
"Tell me where the artifact is," I demanded. I felt the sensation of scales rippling across my skin but I did my best to ignore it. I could afford to give in to my dragon nature just a little bit. Just enough to put the scare into Dearborn. "Tell me, or you're going to end up with a sunburn that goes all the way to your bones."
But Dearborn laughed like a proper villain would. He lowered his hands from his eyes only to raise them at his sides, clawed and tensed like a conductor urging his orchestra on at the crescendo of a performance.
I heard a noise from the hills.
Something rolled down the hill to my left. It started out the approximate size of a tennis ball. I thought it was a kid's toy that a family of tourists had left behind. However the ball wasn't just rolling, it was compelled. And as it rolled toward us it grew larger, like a snowball accumulating more snow. In fact, that was exactly what it was doing. Just as Stevie had done in the tunnels.
By the time the golem unrolled itself seconds later it was the size of an average man and roughly shaped like one if you could see past the tumbleweeds, pieces of cacti, and jutting rocks that comprised its body. It made me think of a frosted gingerbread man that had been dragged through the desert by a negligent child.
A second ball of dirt rolled down the hill from the right. Then two more rolled down from the left again. Four more on the right. More and more desert snowballs picked up momentum until eventually two dozen golems stalked toward me dripping dirt, bits of scrub brush, and crushed wildflowers.
A part of me was filled with wonder. When did you ever see life spring from the earth like that? But of course life was even cooler when it wasn't out to hurt you.
"Your golems won't save you, Dearborn."
"Let's see," he said, almost gleefully.
As he backed up down the road, the golems lumbered toward me. They were ungainly and slow, but their footsteps pounded the ground and I had no doubt their fists of stone and cacti would hurt like hell if they made contact with me.
Heat built in my chest. I let it out through Lucky, ordering him to blast the golem that was nearest to me. He spat a long streamer of red and gold flames, fully engulfing the golem. Tumbleweeds and cacti on the golem's body flared up as they caught fire, then spewed ribbons of smoke. The smoking creature kept walking.
I bared my teeth, letting a little more of my dragon nature push through. Lucky's jaws yawned wide. We snapped them around the smoking golem's dirt mound head and wrenched.
Nothing, I decided then, quite compared to the sensation of ripping something's head off. Ozzy Osbourne might have been on to something. Lucky and I spat the head away, which hit the ground as a heap of inanimate dirt. However, the rest of the golem kept coming, and now it was raising its hands above where its head used to be and forming a double mallet to bring down on my head.
Lucky circled the golem and then smashed headfirst through the creature's chest. My dragon's teeth closed around the bone heart within the creature's chest and crushed it.
There was no mournful wail this time. The golem collapsed silently in mid-step, resembling nothing more than a mound of dirt dug up from a grave.
I laughed because it had been fun, like smashing a vase with a baseball bat. It was cathartic. It was satisfying. I felt my head lower and my shoulders rise up as though I were ramming the golems right alongside Lucky. We smashed through the next closest one and pulverized its heart. Then the next was just as quickly turned to dirt and debris. And another. Smash, bite, crush. Another. The golems didn't stand a chance against Lucky and me. We were tearing through a ceramics shop with no mercy.
More balls rolled into golems. Dozens upon dozens of them. They formed faster than we could destroy them. Lucky and I began to struggle to destroy them before they reached the road. I gave him more energy, more of me, so we could whip our tail and smack golems with it while we bashed them with our head.
We tried to target them in a sort of order, nearest to farthest, but there were so many that eventually we just crashed into everything, bashing and biting and crushing everything within reach. Our reactions degenerated into pure instinct. We couldn't think, could only act. As the piles of desert debris grew, I found myself closer to Lucky than ever. I began to see through his eyes because it was easier to focus on the golems that way.
It was more natural.
Smash. Bite. Crunch. Smack. I was a whirlwind of gold, all gnashing teeth and snapping tail. I was a dragon possessed, no—obsessed with taking down every last golem. They came at me in a seemingly never-ending wave, as though their numbers wouldn't deplete until the desert ran out of dirt. I attacked them with increasing frenzy, going a little mad…
Finally, what seemed hours later, there were more piles of dirt than advancing golems. When the last golem was finally reduced to a pile of desert debris I shot up with a roar into a victory loop in the sky, my front tiger claws scratching at the stars. At last I'd been able to let loose my predator nature! Out here I was free to do what I wanted, to be who I wanted. I was Dragon of Doom, Dragon of Destruction. I was Dragon, Dragon, Dragon.
Something zipped past my head.
I whirled excitedly, the predator in me salivating for more to chase.
It was a bat. But not an ordinary bat. One made of dirt. Now there were a dozen of them. Now three dozen. They swarmed around me and blocked the sight of the moon with clouds of leaking dirt.
Their bone hearts were too small to zero in on so I simply gobbled the bats whole and crushed them in my jaws. Catching them became a game. They were as quick and agile as I was. But they weren't faster than I and it was a thrill to finally catch up to them. The predator in me thrummed with joy to be free to do what I was made to do.
My body curled and twisted, swooping and diving and hurtling up through the dust toward the moon because this was who I was, this was who my blood demanded me to be. The chase made me grow wilder. It was so much fun! So fun to be a dragon. There were so many bat golems to catch and crush and munch and munch.
"Is that all you've got, Dearborn?!" I shouted, but it was a dragon's roar, deep and rumbly. The sound made my heart sing with joy.
I heard him say with a strange note of triumph, "No, Anne, I have just a little bit more."
I wheeled to face him, hoping for more golems to crush and crunch, more prey to tear apart because I was the alpha predator and I would prove it! Send me more! Send them all!
Figures began to appear on the hilltops. Maybe two dozen. Maybe a few more. Their ragged, rotting clothing streamed dust and weeds. Dirt rained down their bodies with each ungainly step they took. Some stumbled and fell. Others limped. Still they kept coming. I bared my fangs, ready to destroy them also.
I zoomed toward them and struck the first figure head on. I heard the rattle of what sounded like sticks before the figure flew backward to skid across the ground.
But it hadn't exploded. And I hadn't sensed the tang of dragon bone inside the creature.
I watched, uncomprehending, as the figure struggled upright and then regained its feet. It stumbled forward, still dumbly determined to reach the dark-haired young woman standing in the road.
These weren't golems. My dragon brain struggled to make sense of what they were but my brain was small and it was too focused, too intent on crushing and biting and diving and twisting and roaring and—
"You should have done your homework, Anne," Dearborn said, laughing his wheezy laugh. "This used to be a real Wild West town back in the 1800s. They struck gold and silver in the mines here. The lust for
it was sky high. Made men greedy. Suspicious. Desperate. The nearest law man was a week's ride away. That made it easy to avoid punishment for whatever crime a man out here felt like committing. To kill a man and take his gold held as much weight as shooting a dog. It became a regular thing here, the murdering and killing. So much so that regular people learned to steer clear of Eldorado Canyon. It was a lawless slaughter house. So many killings...Where were all those people buried, do you think?"
I dive bombed another figure. It hit the ground hard but didn't explode like the desert golems had. The arm bone separated from the shoulder and a leg came off, but the figure simply rolled onto its stomach and dragged itself forward with its remaining limbs.
"They were buried here," Dearborn said, as if from far away. "Indians and white men alike. Stuffed into these hills and all throughout the canyon. Now they're alive again. Thanks to me."
Dearborn was holding something cupped in his hands. I couldn't see what it was but the glow it emitted cast Dearborn's features in neon blue. He grinned with his small mouth. Grinned, as if his perfect plan had come together.
I crashed into more of the resurrected men, sometimes scattering bones, sometimes merely knocking them off their feet. I bit off heads and limbs, but it made no difference. These men were already dead. They couldn't be killed again.
I roared with frustration. This wasn't satisfying. This wasn't fun. I circled faster and faster, ramming into two, three corpses at a time, sending them spinning into their fellows. I broke them apart. They became headless or legless. But they kept coming.
"Oh, try harder, why don't you?" Dearborn chided me. "I thought you were a ferocious dragon. More like Puff the Magic Dragon, if you ask me."
I roared with fury and blasted the entire hillside, sparking up tumbleweeds and scrub brush, lighting up the sky in orange and gold, burning more corpses that were clawing their way up from their shallow graves. They crawled across the desert, still burning.
"They won't rest until they bring living flesh into their graves, Anne. The only way to stop them is by destroying the amulet I have here," Dearborn said casually. "You're only a dumb dragon, of course. I truly didn't expect you to figure that out on your own."