by Sean Grigsby
“Get us a little closer!” I shouted.
Afu stuck his head out of the window. “Huh?”
I pumped my arm toward the dragon. “Closer, closer!”
Afu swerved around an over-turned city bus, but the rest of the block stretched ahead without a single obstacle. I squeezed tighter against the roof as the little-hover-car-that-could launched into overdrive. We passed under the dragon’s tail, keeping pace under the part where some icy testicles could have hung. The scaly’s claws were only a few feet ahead of the car, and a casual back kick of either leg would rip through the metal and kill all three of us.
Naveena tapped me on the shoulder and yelled through the wind. “Let’s power jump! Get on top of it.”
“Why are you always wanting to ride these things?” I asked.
“On three!” Naveena climbed into a squatting position and held out three fingers. By the time I got to my own feet, Naveena had folded down one finger, leaving two to go.
The ice dragon breathed its fury down the street as smatterings of people screamed and ran. Sheets of frost formed on windows. A few unfortunate souls had gotten blasted by the dragon’s ice beam, turning into macabre snow people after the light passed over them.
When Naveena lowered her final finger and the ice dragon’s tail swooped over our heads to the left, she shouted, “Now!”
Both of us hit our jump buttons and sailed into the air. Our trajectory should have put us dead center on the back of the scaly’s neck. But its tail swung back as we flew through the air, slamming into me first, then Naveena. We soared together in a tangled girl ball of smoke eaters. I managed to grab onto her, unsure which part it even was. I just wanted something to hang onto. The world spun out of my control as I tumbled into the unknown.
Something hit me… or I hit something. We’d definitely connected with a window. I remember the initial smack of a smooth surface, followed by the cymbal crash of glass that sliced my cheek. After a few rolls of my helmeted head smacking against the floor, I crawled, aching, to my feet. We’d been whacked through a window and now stood inside a darkened office filled with cubicles.
“You okay?” I asked Naveena, who groaned from the ground, still flat on her face.
“Yeah. How ’bout you?”
“I’m sore as hell, but never mind that. We have to stop that dragon.”
Naveena sighed. “There’ll just be another dragon after that. They never stop.”
I helped her to stand. “Yeah, but that’s our job, remember? Plus, the others aren’t that big or icy.”
“That frosty fuck is halfway to Canada by now.”
A crash and a roar came from the nearest window.
“No, it’s not,” I said.
Afu broke in through my helmet radio. “I got ahead of it. But it’s turned around and it’s chasing me now.”
Outside, the ice dragon was making a circle around the building. The top of its ice-clustered head crested the lowest part of the window. If it kept circling around…
“Come on.” I slapped Naveena’s armored chest and ran for the wall.
“How are you going to–”
My lasers bit into the bare wall, chewing through the sheetrock like a dragon through wet toilet paper. With an elbow raised in front of my face, I went through the wall and out the other side, stumbling a bit, but quickly regained my footing and picked up speed.
“You’re crazy as fuck.” Naveena laughed and zoomed past me.
Skinny girls piss me off.
She broke through the next wall without even having to slash it with her sword. I zipped through the hole she’d made, and entered a corner office. Its window looked onto the next street over, where the convention center stood a few blocks away, glistening with bright yellow lights like a beacon to all scalies great and small.
“This it,” Naveena said. “Now or never. What are we gonna do?”
The ice dragon’s roar grew closer, even the beat of its wings shook the window in front of me.
I removed my laser axe and smashed out the closest pane. The night air blew in, but it did nothing to cool me off or calm me down. Keeping my eyes on the broken window, I said, “Remember when we were training and you pulled that stupid stunt with Mecha Scaly?”
“Hey, wait–” was all I heard Naveena say.
I backed up a few feet, ran, and leapt from the window. The ice dragon was nowhere close. In fact, I’d jumped the gun, hoping my power suit would notice the shift in gravity and engage its thrusters to slow my fall. On the street, Afu sped below me, but I only caught a glimpse. The ice dragon’s head filled my vision.
I landed with an oof that knocked the air from my lungs. My body began to slip, but, flailing my arms, I grabbed the ice dragon by the horns – which is difficult with an axe in one hand. Fucking scaly was frigid to the touch. Its scales freezer-burned my face, where the window glass had already sliced. It was like riding an angry popsicle. The cold sucks ass. I would have taken the phoenix any day over this wintery bastard.
Knowing something was wrong, the ice dragon flicked its wings backward, heaving to a stop midair. I squeezed the dragon horns tighter. One slip and I’d fall toward a squishy death.
Say what you will about dragons, but they’re great at multitasking. The ice dragon hovered there above the street, beating its wings while it wriggled its head to and fro, trying to catch me in its teeth or knock me off.
Dragon horns still in one hand, I took a swing with my axe. Missed. I was better at shooting, but with my laser arm committed to holding on for dear life, I really didn’t have a choice.
My next swing found dragon flesh and lobbed off a big hunk. The frozen mass fell and smashed against the asphalt like a block of ice. Instead of blood, frosty blue water flowed from the wound. I raised my arm for another whack.
Behind me, the dragon’s body heaved. Naveena landed just behind its wings, and with a scared but wild smile, she began clumsily slashing.
“How did you get here?” I dug in, hacking and swinging my axe in a frenzy. Slaying a dragon by yourself is scary shit. When you have someone at your side, especially someone like Naveena, it dulls the fear a little, knowing that if you go down fighting, you at least won’t be alone.
The dragon, unable to keep itself aloft any longer, dropped to the side, plummeting toward the street and tossing both Naveena and I off with a heavy dusting of shaved ice.
The ground shook as the dragon crushed a couple cars and the awning of bus stop that had been advertising flame-resistant clothing for the fashionconscious.
When I hit the ground, I rolled and forced myself to keep rolling to stay out of the path of the collapsing dragon. I covered my head and waited for the sounds of destruction to fade. When they had, I turned over and looked up to Naveena’s outstretched hand.
“Now, that,” she said, “is slaying a dragon.” What was left of the ice dragon melted instantly into puddles of yellow, glowing goo.
“And that,” I said, “is just nasty.”
Afu and the tiny car whipped around the end of the street and pulled up in front of us. He squeezed out of the driver’s seat and said, “If we keep doing this kind of stuff, we’re never going to make it to the convention center.”
There were no clouds in the sky, but a yellow streak of lightning flickered overhead. It was made of fire and death. Instead of thunder, an avian shriek ripped over the city. The phoenix had been called, whether the people inside the convention center knew or cared, and it had reached its destination.
CHAPTER 35
While all the people who’d come out to the convention center could be called dumb, at least a handful of them weren’t dumb enough to stay inside while the city crumbled around them. The phoenix dropping onto the roof must have been the final motivation for the smart ones to flee, because when we pulled up in the hover car, they were rushing onto the street, like stuffed trash-bags in their gowns and tuxes.
Other smokies had arrived in a big, black and purple Slayer truck,
and were doing their part to take down dragons that were running around, ruining these slightly-less-dumb people’s evening.
A small electro scaly cornered three civilians against the building – two men and a woman in a flowing, offpink dress. The woman stood out front, spreading her arms against the men in an attempt to protect them, clutching her glittery hand purse as if it was a magical dagger. But it wouldn’t protect them from the dragon or the sparks of electricity shooting from its extended frill, striking the ground, closer and closer like whips of lightning as the scaly moved in for the kill.
The dragon rasped, building up a ball of current inside its throat – its attack call. I launched myself between the trio of people and the dragon, and put a few rounds of lasers into Sparky’s face. Its head exploded with a shower of gore and electricity. When I turned around the three who’d been cornered had run off without so much as a “thank you for your service.”
The ground shook behind me, bringing with it an intense wave of heat. With wings spread, the phoenix looked at all of the smoke eaters. It cocked its head to the side, curious, and I wondered if it remembered us, remembered we were a threat.
“Let’s get inside,” I said, low.
The phoenix blasted us with a screech that could have easily taken my helmet off.
“Everyone inside!” I turned and ran.
There were plenty of doors for us to go through, but all of them were blocked with people shoved against the other side. I shoved all my weight against the door but only budged it a crack. The idiots pressed against the door stared at me with wide eyes and red faces. How many of them had dragon blood running through their veins? I wondered. How many had just received a fiery death sentence?
The sight of the phoenix caused the mass of people to back away from the doors. The smoke eaters charged in… but so did the phoenix.
Fire filled the building, glass showering us, heat bursting against my face. The doors weren’t there anymore. As the flames depleted, a screech sliced through the smoke. Human screams responded. The bird had shrunk in the blast. While still big enough to swallow me, now it could dive into the convention center.
And, of course, the fucker did.
The phoenix snapped its beak toward me. I backed into the crowd, knocking them over like bowling pins. Kicking feet and screams covered me as everyone tried to scramble away from the phoenix’s enormous head. One of the other smoke eaters attempted to douse the phoenix with her foam gun. That got the bird distracted enough for me to get upright and help those still on the ground to their feet.
“Get to the back exits,” I told them.
They rushed to do as I said, but it was like wading through a river of molasses. A few of them began to moan, and that’s when the chain reaction of human combustibles started.
The first ones to burn were those closest to the phoenix. They didn’t get time to go crazy first. The ones nearest to me, further in to the convention center’s foyer, howled and started what looked like an aristocratic mosh pit.
Women removed their high heels and beat them against smoke eater helmets and armor. Afu had to hoist a man, smoking from his nostrils, over his head and toss him out of the way. Men I’d just helped to stand swung fists at my face. More and more of the crowd began to explode like fireworks, filling the crammed space with smoke. The phoenix thrashed, breaking away chunks of metal as it forced its way in to the building.
There was nothing we could do for these people. Not while the phoenix was still around. Not while the wraith we needed waited behind the doors on the other side of this horde of flaming assholes.
“We’ve got to get to the wraith,” I said.
Naveena punched a fiery man in the face, sending him flopping backwards into a group of crazies. “I thought that’s what we were trying to do.”
“Afu!” I shouted. “Clear us a path!”
He turned away from the group he’d been trying to keep off him and bulldozed his way through the crowd. Naveena and I followed, punching and shoving as we went. The other smoke eaters followed behind us until we’d made it inside the banquet hall. The last smoke eater shut the door and leaned against it.
“Calm down,” Duncan Sharp said through a microphone. “Everyone, please. We’re very safe in here and the dragon blood infusions will help us survive this.”
Fat chance.
The people still in the banquet hall were doing everything but calming down. They were hiding under tables, pulling at windows on the other side of the room. When a dragon flew by outside, they backed off and ran to find another means of escape.
On the stage, Duncan Sharp stood next to the Wilkins family, while the dead man’s wraith flew in crazy, orange circles inside a containment cylinder. The room, filled with tables and chairs and a big, holographic banner reading, ‘Parthenon City First!’ had enough room for a couple thousand people, but only a third of them remained.
“Shut it down!” I ran for the stage.
Men and women who were dressed more militarily ran toward me with outstretched arms.
“If you think a bunch of dragons can’t stop us,” I said, “do you think you really have a shot?”
They backed off as I climbed my way up to the stage.
“I need that wraith right now. Otherwise everyone here is going to die.”
Sharp was fuming, but he somehow forced a grin to his face. “You’re the only reason all of this is happening. If you’d just done your job–”
“I’m trying to do my job!” I snapped. “The phoenix is here because that orange wraith attracted it. And it brought a shit ton of dragons in tow. Everyone here with dragon blood in their system is in danger of going crazy and bursting into flames.”
“Please help us,” Mrs Wilkins said. Her eyes filled with tears. She wanted off the Duncan Sharp train and saw me as the only landing pad passing by.
The doors to the foyer rattled violently enough that the hinges almost came off.
“We can’t hold them back for much longer.” Afu strained with the other smoke eaters to keep the doors closed.
Duncan Sharp shook his head. “They can’t do anything for us.”
I got in his face. “You seem to know a lot about rats. Well, if you don’t stand down, you’re all going to be stuck in here, frying like rats in an oven. We’re the only ones who can do anything. So step out of the way and let me work.”
A tinny clink came from behind Sharp.
Mrs Wilkins stood next to the wraith cylinder which had been given a hefty whack. She hefted a microphone stand over her shoulder like a club. “If my Jimmy can save us, then I’m letting him out. He’d have wanted it.”
She swung again.
“No!” Sharp shouted, leaping for her.
But he wasn’t fast enough. Little old woman had a hell of swing. The microphone stand connected against the cylinder’s glass and the whole thing shattered. Sharp tried to peddle backward but ended up on his ass instead.
The orange wraith clawed past what remained of the cylinder and flew straight for Sharp. I could have let the wraith have him, tear him apart while the rest of us got the hell out of there. But smoke eaters are sworn to protect everyone, even assholes like him.
I ejected my wraith remote and sucked up the ghost just as its tangerine claw swiped for Sharp’s face. He lay there for a second, still in shock. With trembling lips, he stared at me. All I gave him was a nod.
The doors to the foyer burst open. Smoke eaters ran for cover as fiery civilians and a couple of confused but excited dragons broke through.
“Afu! Naveena!” I said. “Break those windows. We have to get everyone out. The rest of you slay the dragons.”
They moved quickly, breaking open the windows and helping folks who’d already gathered around them out of the window. The rest of the smoke eaters began dousing the pyromaniacs with foam or slicing off dragon heads.
Duncan Sharp decided he wanted to do things his way and ran for the foyer doors.
“Sharp!” I call
ed out. “Stop!”
A group of crazies that hadn’t yet combusted grabbed him in the middle of the banquet hall. As he screamed and I began running to help, the phoenix burst in, fashionably late to the big hoorah.
“You want this, you ugly bitch?” I patted the pocket in my power suit where I’d returned the wraith remote.
The phoenix couldn’t have cared less. No longer drawn by the wraith, it was now looking for an escape like everyone else. It began flapping its wings.
The pile of crazies on top of Sharp had gotten taller. He managed to squeeze his face out and grit his teeth. The side of his face, where he’d recently grown new skin, ignited and turned the whole stack of bodies into a pyre of flames.
The phoenix broke through the ceiling. Huge pieces of concrete pulverized the fiery mass of people below, along with Duncan Sharp trapped beneath them.
The smoke eaters who’d been taking care of the dragons rushed for the windows and everyone who’d had enough sense to do what I’d told them made it out of the convention center with only a few scrapes and burns. More Slayer trucks arrived, as did the fire department. Above us, the phoenix broke free of the building and sailed high to the top of a nearby skyscraper. There it stayed. I could see its flames flickering from the street.
“I’m so tired.” Afu dropped to a knee, heaving gulps of breath. “Please tell me we’re done.”
“Come on, big boy,” Naveena said, even though I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. “For Patrice and Harribow and every damn person in this city.”
I was wiped out, too. Adrenaline helps a lot, but there’s a threshold you cross, where no amount of chemicals in your system can help you keep going.
But we had a job to do.
Afu groaned and got to his feet. “Why can’t this fucking thing fly to Arkansas or something?”
“When did you become such a sack of whiny balls?” I asked.
He laughed. Naveena did, too. I was too tired and worried to laugh, but I did grin and help Afu stand.
Kiesling ran by. I stopped him with a weak wave of my hand. “Cap, hold up a minute.”