Dragon Horn

by J. P. Rice

  Dragon Horn

  Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series, Book 4

  J.P. Rice

  Copyright 2018 by Jason Paul Rice (J.P. Rice)

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All names are made up and used fictionally. Any resemblance to real people is completely coincidental. Any resemblance to real events is only part of the author’s imagination.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12 | Warden of the East

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29 | Warden of the East

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  You have a great power that you might not know about.

  DELETED SCENES FROM DRAGON HORN. | FAIR WARNING: THESE HAVEN’T BEEN EDITED.

  Blood Goblet | Bloodline Awakened Supernatural Thriller Series: Book 5 | J.P. Rice | Copyright 2018

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 1

  My colleague Gretchen jammed her foot down on the gas and my head slammed into the back of the passenger seat. We drove toward the commotion in the city at seventy-five miles an hour. Straight ahead, plumes of thick smoke rose above the skyscrapers, billowing high into the overcast sky. With my window halfway down, I felt a warm breeze whistling through my blond hair, much too warm for winter in Pittsburgh. Newspaper pages floated through the air, several smacking the windshield right in front of me.

  Most people would run away from a doomsday vision like this. Not I said the wizard guy. I was Micheal (pronounced like the classic Michael) Merlino, the magical guardian of Pittsburgh. Appointed by the Celtic Gods. Cancer survivor. Descendant of Merlin the wizard. When I swam in the ocean, the sharks needed a cage. Not the other way around. At least that was how I felt when using my magic.

  Gretchen sped up and flicked on the windshield wipers to get rid of a stubborn sports section plastered against the glass. As we barreled down Route 28 in her police squad car through the eerie dark stillness that builds before a great storm, I asked, “Who unleashed the dragons on us?”

  “Sewer dragons,” clarified Lieutenant Gretchen Meyer of the Pittsburgh Police. Short and squat, Gretchen filled out her black uniform. Her sandy, shoulder-length hair bristled in the wind rushing in through the window. She ran the Division of the Occult, and over the past two years, she’d often called me in for special missions.

  On top of that, she just happened to be my girlfriend’s mother and one hell of a ball buster. She loved to drive fast, evidenced by the back of my cranium pressed into the headrest and my foot nervously pressing invisible brakes more often than not.

  “Who brought the sewer dragons to Pittsburgh?” I asked as I allowed my magic to come out of the reservoir.

  She spoke in her cranky, matter of fact tone, “We don’t know. That’s why I picked you up. This is your specialty.”

  Out of nowhere, a black object slammed into the windshield, causing me to jump back in reaction. A black bird had cracked the glass and left a burgundy stain.

  Gretchen swerved into the right lane momentarily and slowly retook control of the car, moving back into our original lane. “What the hell was that?”

  I answered, “Must have been a big black bird.” A thick smear of blood slid slowly down the windshield until Gretchen flicked on the washer fluid and the steady stream worked with the moving wipers to wash away the red stain.

  I’d forgotten my window was down, allowing a lazy spray of chilly moisture to hit the side of my face. Nasty. Using the inside collar of my long sleeve shirt, I wiped the washer fluid and blood out of the thick dirty blond stubble on my cheek and noticed the bird had only left a small crack in the reinforced police windshield. A bird of death near the city made me want to get down there even faster.

  Traffic leaving the city and heading north was backed up for miles, but we appeared to have smooth sailing ahead. We hit the Fort Pitt Bridge and jumped on the North Shore exit. As soon as we merged onto Reedsdale Street, the white tailgate of an eighteen-wheeler appeared about twenty feet in front of us. Oh shit.

  Brakes squealed. Tires skidded. The back of the squad car fishtailed out of control, flailing back and forth.

  I gritted my teeth, my calf muscles tightened as I jammed my toes into the black mat covering the floor pan, and I held on tightly to the oh shit bar. Bracing for impact, I squinted and cringed.

  The vehicle slid perilously toward danger and came to a screeching halt with our front bumper about two inches short of crushing the huge truck’s metal undercarriage. Classic Gretchen. My bitter beer face returned to normal but my heart was still racing.

  I took some deep, cleansing breaths. Glad to be alive and uninjured, I tried to analyze the situation.

  I opened the door and stood on the doorframe for a better look. Traffic jam from hell. Vehicles had clogged up the streets entering the heart of the city. I noticed a blinding glare of flashing red and blue lights in the distance, straight ahead.

  Only one option.

  Gretchen and I turned to one another. I shrugged my shoulders and replicated a walking motion with my index and middle finger. Nodding reluctantly and probably pissed she couldn’t turn on the siren or just plow through everyone, my impatient partner pulled the car onto the emergency lane on the side of the highway, put the vehicle in park, and turned it off. I took out my wallet and phone, put them in the glove box, jumped out of the car, and looked up.

  The skies were dark, with puffy storm clouds merging into one another, creating denser storm clouds. Normally clouds flowed in one direction with the wind current. Something wasn’t right.

  The air pressure felt unnatural, pushing down on my shoulders. Heavy. Suffocating. Squeezing me. Making it hard to breathe.

  The storm winds still hadn’t arrived at ground level, yet light pieces of debris floated in the thick air. Flashes of lightning threatened from a distance with just the slightest grumbling of thunder. The brewing storm made me uneasy as we fought against a frenetic exodus of citizens.

  We dodged cars and authorities, stepping between two police SUVs to get closer to the scene. Gretchen flipped her wallet open to expose her badge. I had no fancy badge to flash and looked out of place wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt.

  Most of the officers knew me by now and understood I could be useful with these types of problems. The officers made an opening, and several slapped me on the back as I moved toward the front.

  We worked our way up to the intersection of 6th and Grant, a focal point of the evacuation, where an unorganized group of officers were trying to direct the fleeing citizens to safety but failing badly. I wondered how many other scenes around
the perimeter of the city looked exactly like this. Twenty probably?

  As I stared into the madness dead ahead, the desperate sounds attacked me first. A colonnade of service vehicles was perched behind me, resting on the cusp of the action as their sirens moaned helplessly.

  From ahead, primal screaming pinballed off the buildings and funneled into an invisible megaphone. The resulting symphony of human sorrow raced down 6th Avenue and attacked my ears while clawing at my soul. They were the kinds of sounds that made you want to grab an icepick and poke out your eardrums just to make it stop.

  The enemy had attacked on a Wednesday morning, ensuring that the city would be full of employees. My innocent people needed help.

  Fast.

  It hurt my soul to know that the citizens I’d been tasked with protecting were in trouble. A continuous stream of terrified people flooded out of the city. I’d seen evacuations like this in the movies, but to see the looks on the people’s faces as they sprinted by made it oh so real.

  Desperate expressions. Wide-eyed. Jaws dropped. Lips trembling. Streaming tears. Flushed cheeks and foreheads. Sweat building on brows. Terrified faces. It was pure chaos.

  From the evacuation straight ahead, a large silver object flew through the air and over my head. I ducked naturally and watched as it headed toward the service vehicles behind me, leaving a trail of red and yellow liquid in its path. The rectangular object with wheels sailed about twelve feet over my head and wrecked into the windshield of an ambulance.

  I assumed it was a hotdog cart from the hundreds of red and white checkerboard wax papers floating lazily through the air and the trail of condiments scattered like a Jackson Pollock painting on the pavement. The scent of ketchup, relish, mustard and the sweet yeast of hotdog buns lingered momentarily until something else hit my nostrils.

  The stink of meaty death hung heavy in the stale, choking air. Not in my fucking city. I woke up my inner beast with a forceful noogie. Time for some action. I was more than ready to battle two sewer dragons now.

  Gretchen patted an officer on the shoulder and said, “Riggins. I’ve got someone who can help. Do we know where the two sewer dragons are right now?”

  Officer Riggins turned his entire body around as if he had a stiff neck and his eyes landed on Gretchen. “Two? It’s a lot more than two.”

  That was all right. I could handle more than two. The officer continued, “Swanson said he saw two over on Liberty and 7th.”

  Four. I could handle four. The cop’s lips kept moving. “And Rodriguez said she had three of them over near the Point.”

  Seven. Fuck it. I could handle seven. Officer Riggins continued, “All told, it’s at least twenty by now. And these ones are apparently much bigger than the original two. All we’re trying to do now is get everyone out of the city alive. And it’s not going too well.”

  I couldn’t fight twenty of those beasts. Could I? Another rush of terrified citizens sprinted out of the city limits and toward us. Behind the wave of citizenry, a purple sewer dragon, blood dripping from its mouth, chased after the people. The massive yet lean creature lowered its head and snatched up a man wearing a suit.

  Fuck that. I drew my magic to the surface, took a few steps forward and thought about what techniques to use against these things.

  The dragon looked like a massive, scaly snake with a dragon-shaped head and gave off an odor of paint thinner. No arms, no legs, but it slithered around the pavement trying to maintain balance. The reflective amethyst shine of the scales glowed despite the overcast sky. The dragon’s glossy black eyes with horizontal white slashes focused on the man in its mouth. The beast rose up, its massive head about ten feet above the pavement.

  “That’s the mayor,” one of the cops yelled. “Save the mayor. Shoot that son of a bitch.”

  “No,” I screamed. Luckily, nobody had fired. “The scales covering its body are like steel. The bullets are going to ricochet and hurt more people than help.”

  I weaved through the frightened crowd of authorities, finally emerging out of the pack. Most people ran away from these types of situations. I was the crazy wizard who headed straight into the fire. After the initial rush of people being chased out by the sewer dragon bounced off me in a desperate attempt to escape the beast, I stood alone.

  The mayor fought valiantly, attempting to escape the sewer dragon’s mighty maw. The dragon had hold of the mayor by his suit jacket and kept trying to pull him all the way into its mouth. As the dragon struggled with this attempt, I prepared to save the mayor.

  Calling on two fireballs, I held out each palm. Within moments, two globules of blue fire appeared and grew into the size of a softball. Searching for a compromised spot, I found a little opening at the bottom of the dragon’s mouth. I stared at the spot of fleshy skin, taking careful aim with the mayor’s body only inches away.

  Was I crazy?

  If I were to miss, the people would run me out of Pittsburgh for killing the mayor. But he was about to be eaten by a sewer dragon. I had to take my chances.

  Internally, I recited a quick spell to make the fire ball undetectable. Take away the vision with precision to create a mighty collision.

  I reached back with my right arm. My wrist and forearm snapped forward and I released the now cannonball-sized spheroid of energy. The invisible ball that I could still see with my adjusted vision hurtled toward its target. The mayor thrashed around, causing his body to move in front of the compromised spot.

  No.

  No.

  I wanted to close my eyes as it cruised straight for the mayor’s chest. The outcome seemed inevitable. My fireball was going to kill the mayor. Biting my lip, I watched with trepidation.

  The sewer dragon jerked its neck to the side, whipping the mayor in the other direction. The invisible force (I could see the prism-like colors dancing around inside it) picked up speed toward the end and crashed into the tiny compromised spot of soft flesh, barely missing the mayor, but setting his red tie on fire.

  A shriek of pain reverberated off the city buildings, busting out the windows of the Omni William Penn Hotel and showering glass onto the frightened people exiting the city. It was like a heavy downpour of diamonds, twinkling despite the lack of sun rays, the deadly shards hidden among the shimmering beauty.

  The dragon let go of the mayor, who fell ten feet to the ground and immediately clutched his knee. The injured dragon slunk away, leaving a trail of black blood as thick as dirty motor oil in its path. I dissolved the other fire ball and sprinted over to the mayor, putting out his smoking tie.

  Mayor Raymond Crenshaw writhed around on the pavement. He was probably in shock and in a great deal of pain, his suit jacket shredded, but he hadn’t been devoured by a dragon. He rubbed his left knee and looked up at me, wincing in pain. He spoke in short bursts, “Thank you. I thought. I was. A dead man. How did...you do that?”

  Before I could answer, a herd of medical professionals closed in on the mayor, pulling me away. Gretchen approached me. “Nice work, Merlino. Way to save the mayor.” She gave me a silent clap.

  With the odds stacked against me as usual, I went with my modus operandi. Total recklessness with absolutely no regard for my own safety. I liked action and loved protecting my fellow citizens. It gave me a fatherly feeling to watch over everyone.

  “What are you doing, Merlino? You have that crazy look in your eyes again. You can’t defeat all those sewer dragons.”

  “Can’t I? Only one way to find out. Hold my beer.” I cracked my neck and stretched out my arms. Crouching down, I loosened up my hamstrings.

  “What beer?” She looked around on the ground.

  “Never mind. It’s just a saying.” I ran against the flow of people and fought my way up 6th Avenue, bumping shoulders and knocking knees with other people along the way. Ping-ponging off my fellow citizens, I weaved around an overturned Cadillac Escalade in the middle of the road, smoke pouring from its engine.

  I spotted the injured sewer dragon. It hooke
d a right onto Montour Way, so I quickened my pace. As I broke out of my pack, my arm hooked on something and a woman headbutted my shoulder unintentionally. My arm had hooked through her loose purse strap and we worked together so that I could get loose. The terrified, bawling woman didn’t want to wait any longer and sprinted toward safety.

  I threw the purse down and went after the sewer dragon. I made the right into a nice alley to follow it and immediately saw that there were no people on the street. I called on a fire ball and launched it at the back of its head. The compact globe of energy clanged off the back of the sewer dragon’s head, but it did get the monster’s attention.

  I prepared another ball of flames, waited for it to coalesce fully, and drew my arm back. The angered beast turned around and I zeroed in on its weak spot. With a flick of my wrist, the fire ball jumped off my hand and raced toward the target. The sewer dragon tried to dodge to the left, but it was an instant too late.

  Splat, not a metal clang, was the sound I heard. The fireball ripped into the soft flesh of the beast and I watched its spooky eyes fight against the inevitable before going dead. The snake-like dragon slumped forward and slowly collapsed to the street, releasing a strong ammonia smell. Satisfied with my first kill, I plunged deeper down the deserted road, mystified that nobody was using it to escape.

  Two sewer dragons appeared ahead, slithering down the street toward me. Perhaps that was why nobody was using the alley.

  Time for some target practice. I needed to work on my fireball aim anyway. I formed two more fireballs and decided to test my ambidexterity. These two dragons had smaller areas of soft flesh right below their faces. Challenge accepted.

  An abandoned Ford Focus parked sideways in the middle of the one-lane alley looked like it could serve as a barrier and give me the chance to fire at will until I hit the target. It didn’t appear that they could slither over the small car. I waited for the dragons to get closer before unleashing the two-for-one special.

  The sewer dragons approached the car and stopped. Perfect. Confusion appeared to be getting the best of the beasts until one of them leaned its head down, widened its jaw and sank its fangs into the trunk of the Ford Focus. The leviathan creature lifted the car from the ground like a crane and shook its head from side to side.