Trampolining with Dragons

by S. W. Clarke

  On my right, Seleema in her silks. She had lowered her stance to a half-crouch; I knew her fighting style well enough to know she was preparing to pounce.

  “You dare to interrupt my mistress’s sacred ritual,” Seleema said, true malice in her voice. “Now I will interrupt the flow of your lifeblood.”

  “GoneGods,” I muttered, regripping my whips. “When did you get so good at one-liners, Seleema?”

  “Tara,” Percy called from the side of the stage, pulling against his chains, “I can’t get free.”

  “I’m coming.” I started Thelma and Louise in figure-eights at either side of me. “But we’re gonna need more fire, Perce.”

  Chapter 13

  I skipped backward as Seleema lunged through the air like a panther. My whips slashed her twice as they completed their figure-eights, and blood sprayed from her forehead and chest. She didn’t even flinch.

  I kept backpedaling, and she hit on the stage where I’d just stood. She landed with deceptive grace; her sharpened fingernails had put holes in the wood.

  I’d evaded one lethal predator. Now I just had to do it again, and again, and again.

  With a whisper of wings, the angel rose fifteen feet into the air in a second flat. Tucking his wings, he arrowed down toward my head, his blade whistling.

  I launched myself forward, whips swinging, on a direct course for Lust. I had to get to her before she transferred her essence into Ariadne’s body. It was all that mattered. “Now, Perce!”

  A blast of dragonfire rocketed through the air and hit the angel, knocking him off course. That was some impressive precision targeting, even for Percy.

  I ducked to avoid the angel’s wings, fell into a side-roll and got back to my feet, still in motion. My whips sang out toward Lust, who raised a hand to catch Louise.

  And she did, in fact, catch it.

  No one had ever caught one of my whips while it was in motion.

  Her white-haired head rose, eyes dark with fury, and she gave Louise a yank so hard I was pulled straight off my feet. I hit the stage on my chest directly in front of Lust, who sucked in a deep, revitalizing breath.

  Around her, cheers erupted. People whistled, roared her name.

  More adoration. More power.

  Her white hair changed before my eyes. It darkened at her scalp, rushing down toward her shoulders as she stepped on my back with one bare foot.

  I tried to shove her off, to roll over, but she had an inhuman strength. She was simultaneously burning time and absorbing it from the crowd, and it made her impossibly strong.

  She stepped right over me, her fingers snapping as she passed toward the prone Ariadne just a few feet away. “Hold the dragon rider. She will be useful to me.”

  I rolled over in time to find Seleema and the angel above me. She grabbed me by one arm, hauled me up.

  I tried to strike out with the whip in my free hand, but the angel grabbed my hand, squeezing my fingers so hard it dropped to the stage.

  “Tara!” His chains clinked as Percy tried every way he could to free himself. Tugging, burning them with fire, gnawing. Nothing could break them.

  “Don’t worry, Perce.” But I couldn’t lift my wrist to call Erik, and the ninjas were nowhere to be found. I struggled, but Seleema and the angel held me in place as well as a straitjacket.

  Then a voice sounded in my head.

  “Let her do it,” Mariana said. “Let her possess Ariadne.”

  “Don’t you understand?” I snapped. “If she gets inside your child, it’s all over, sister. Finished. Finito. The fat lady has—”

  Mariana cut me off with a steel I hadn’t heard before. “Have faith, and let her do it.”

  Faith. She wanted me to have faith in what? The gods were gone. Any safety I’d believed existed in the world had died with my parents. For five years, all I’d ever had faith in was …

  Myself. My own two hands and the whips at my belt.

  And that was what Mariana was asking for. She was asking me to have faith in her—the half of my soul that was the best, most reliable part of me. She’d been hinting at this, that when the moment came I should trust her enough to let her do what needed to be done.

  But I hadn’t known if I could give over so much control. Not with the stakes this high.

  Should I trust her? I didn’t have much other choice. I went still, staring with tears in my eyes.

  This was it.

  Lust came to stand over Ariadne, one foot at either side of her, and crouched down to her knees. That glow reappeared, and it grew and grew until it enveloped Lust’s whole body. The crowd hushed in awe, fully brainwashed into believing this—and all the other chaos—were part of the show.

  It didn’t matter what Lust did now. These people were hers.

  The glow became as blinding as the sun, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut against it. And with a great, eerie sucking sound, I sensed the glow subside.

  When I opened my eyes, Lust’s body had aged once more. She slumped over Ariadne, white-haired and shriveled, and dropped to one side.

  That body was dead. A husk.

  Ariadne, on the other hand, blinked her ocean-blue eyes up at the sky. Her fingers worked together, feeling the stage beneath her, and when her head lifted, I knew I was staring into the face of the most powerful being I’d ever encountered.

  She sat up, golden hair trailing over her shoulders, her face aglow under the lights, and when she made to stand, Seleema and the angel let go of me and rushed to her side.

  They helped her up like she was their grandmother. Their very young, exquisitely beautiful and terrible grandmother.

  For the first time in hundreds of years, a mortal sin had inhabited a mortal.

  We were all supremely screwed.

  Last night, Ferris had told me the exact consequences of Lust entering Ariadne’s body. And now, watching Ariadne—with Lust swirling around inside her—find her feet, his words came back to me.

  “Should any of the sins ever possess a proper human vessel,” he’d said, “they can enter a godlike state.”

  Godlike.

  There was no way I could get to her now. Not with Percy chained, that angel and Seleema at Lust’s side—and where the hell were my reinforcements?

  Probably they’d been thwarted. Captured. Maybe they’d given up.

  Whatever had happened, we’d failed.

  Lust stepped forward, hair like spun gold as the angel and Seleema each escorted her. She surveyed the crowd, who stood in a stunned state of awe, as though they’d just witnessed a TV show in real life.

  “My children,” Lust called out, her voice infinitely more beautiful than it had ever been. She sounded like Emma Stone and Scarlett Johanssen rolled into one perfect package. “The gods have heard us.”

  Raucous cheering rose, pressing out all other sounds. Even the sound of a familiar voice speaking my name.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Lust. Before, she’d been appealing. Now she was irresistible. All I wanted was to hear her voice again.

  Lust gestured for the crowd to be silent, and they obeyed. “In a moment, the clock will strike midnight. One year will end, and another will begin. But before it does, I will relay to you the words of the gods, for they have spoken into my ear.”

  I stared at Lust, enraptured.

  A voice was calling me, small and desperate. Still saying my name. Tara, Tara, Tara. I loved that voice, but not as much, not as much as—

  “Mom!” the voice finally said.

  And that was when I snapped to attention.

  It was Percy. Percy was calling me.

  If Lust was going to enspell the world with the words of the gods, then I wanted to be at my dragon’s side when it happened. It was the only thing I wanted.

  I started toward him, but someone stepped in my path.

  Seleema.

  Before I could get around her, she gripped my arm, turned me back around toward Lust. “You will watch,” she murmured from behind me, her body touc
hing mine, “and you will understand the miracle our mistress is about to impart.”

  I struggled against her. Behind me, I could hear Percy pulling on his chains, trying to get to me.

  “Seleema, please,” I said up to her. “Just let me go to him.”

  She ignored me, her eyes dancing with the sight of Lust, who was now stepping to the edge of the stage for her greatest moment of glory. Times Square was watching, and she would ensure every set of eyes on her remained on her for as long as their corporeal bodies could keep their eyes open to stare.

  “Percy,” I called back to him, leaning past Seleema’s arm. “I just want you to know—”

  “Tara,” he said. “I hear it.”

  “What do you hear?”

  From my angle, I could see his wide golden eyes staring into the sky. “I hear her.”

  My face lifted. I didn’t hear anything, but my hearing was pathetic compared to Percy’s. We’d joked about how he could hear a fart in a typhoon, and—

  A roar sounded across the sky.

  It was unmistakable.

  It was her.

  And following it was a crack like a whip, resounding against the buildings around us.

  Thousands of faces lifted, their concentration broken as a shadow appeared at the edge of a tall building, the enormous form silvered by the moon. A long, curving neck, head like an arrow’s point, a well of blackness with two golden eyes piercing the night.

  On her back, six swords rose, moonlight glinting off them, and one came to point straight down at us. The shiva sat on her spine, and no doubt the wolpertinger, too.

  With that, the dragon’s wings extended, and she leapt off, divebombing straight down toward us.

  Yaroz had come.

  The sight of a full-grown dragon lancing her way straight down the side of a skyscraper is like nothing else. She moved like water, racing and unstoppable, her form mirrored in the glass as she came into the bold lights of Times Square.

  When I could see the ebony of Yaroz’s scales under the harsh spotlights, the lethal curve of her talons, a shiver passed through my body. I had forgotten the terrible majesty of a matriarch.

  Lust’s face lifted just in time to see Yaroz’s wings tent over the crowd, a great gust of wind plowing over all of us as the dragon stopped her descent some thirty feet in the air.

  She was fast. Faster than I remembered.

  And atop her, I could have sworn I saw several small figures. It must have been the guru and the shiva. But before I could squint to see them properly, she was on the move.

  In the next moment, her wings cracked again. Her jaw opened, flame burning in the back, and she arrowed toward the stage.

  Seleema sensed what was about to happen. She let go of me and rushed to protect Lust.

  “Seleema, no!” I yelled.

  It was too late.

  “Tara,” Percy called, “get under my wing. Hurry!”

  I didn’t have any choice. I spun, booked it toward Percy and his waiting wings. As soon as I’d gotten near him, he wrapped one around me, enfolding me so tightly against his body I thought I might suffocate.

  But that would be better than dying by fire.

  Yaroz roared again, a shrill noise as dragonfire poured over the stage around us. I could feel it searing Percy’s body, lighting up the almost transparent webbing of his wing.

  Thank the GoneGods he was impervious to it.

  When the roar stopped, Percy’s hold loosened. “Tara?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He shifted, and as his wing came down, the chains fell away from his legs and neck. They were red-hot and losing their shape as they hit the stage.

  Yaroz had melted them. Well, it seemed Samson’s unbreakable chains had never encountered a matriarch’s fire.

  “I’m free.” Percy flashed me a delighted look. “I’m free, Tara.”

  “But we’re not out of the woods.” I stroked his neck, staring ahead. Amidst the burning and smoke, I spotted a golden glow. As the smoke drifted, I caught a glimpse of Lust.

  She knelt in the center of the glow, clutching Seleema to her.

  Both of them were unharmed.

  She had truly entered a godlike state. And now …

  At that moment, Mariana’s voice came into my head. “It’s time, Patience.” The tone of her voice brooked no argument. And I knew if Lust couldn’t be killed by dragonfire, this was our best hope.

  I nodded. It was time.

  “Perce,” I said, “can you fly me over to Lust?”

  “But Tara, we can escape. We’re free.”

  “No, Percy.” I reached into my jacket, found the thread Orion had given me back in that underground bar. “If we don’t stop Lust here, we’ll never be free of her.”

  Chapter 14

  I climbed onto Percy’s back, unsheathing the crystalline dagger from my boot. Valdis had made this for Mariana and me to use—together. With it, we were supposed to save Ariadne.

  Inside me, I sensed Mariana tensed. Ready.

  I leaned down toward Percy. “Can you drop us off in front of Ariadne?”

  “Ariadne? But …”

  I stroked his neck. “Something’s happened to Ariadne, Perce. She isn’t herself anymore, and we have to save her.”

  I knew he didn’t fully understand what was going on, but he also trusted me. His wings extended, and we took off from the flaming stage, circling up and around.

  Seleema and Lust were rising to their feet together.

  “Bring me around,” I said to Percy. “I’ll take care of this alone.”

  “But Tara—”

  “This is one thing I have to do alone, Percy.”

  He started his arc back toward Lust. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  And then, unexpectedly, Mariana’s voice sounded in my head. “He won’t. Take us to her.”

  “Trust me,” I said, “you won’t lose me. Not ever.”

  As we swooped past Lust, I dropped off Percy’s back, landing on the stage behind her. Around me, the crowd and even the security guards watched the whole thing like it was part of her show.

  Well, they watched her.

  None of them moved to run. To come closer. To do anything at all but stare, captivated, at the godlike being before them. To wait in wild anticipation of her next words.

  I straightened, gripping the dagger. As I did, Typhon’s words came back to me. “When a creation crystal is in a human hand,” he’d said, “your beliefs reign supreme. What you believe, human, you can manifest.”

  But it wasn’t me thinking of Typhon. It was Mariana.

  The moment I’d risen, she and I had found a new equilibrium. We were separate, but we were together. We were two, but we were one.

  We were the same soul. And because I was Mariana and Mariana was me, I knew what she believed.

  It was our belief that would save Ariadne.

  Together, we started toward Lust. From behind, I could only see Ariadne’s blond hair. I could only see the shape of her, the outline of the young woman who had, in another life, been my daughter.

  Seleema sensed me coming. She turned, face darkening. She stepped forward, blocking the way between me and Lust. “You—”

  Two of Percy’s siblings came swooping low over the stage, ridden by ninjas, each dragon grabbing one of her arms in a set of talons. The dragons flew upward, Seleema still gripped tight. I could have sworn I heard one of the ninjas whoop as the smaller dragons swung back up toward the sky.

  We couldn’t stop. Not now.

  We stalked forward, Mariana and me, and fell into a run toward Lust. When we raised the dagger, the metal of a sword sang from our left.

  The angel.

  He burst through the flames, sword gripped in both hands and lifted to cleave us in half.

  With a roar, Yaroz swept back down toward the stage, great wings flapping. Her terrific jaws opened, closed over the angel, and then he was gone.

  Yaroz had eaten him. GoneGo
dDamn dragons—truly the most terrifying creatures I’d ever encountered.

  By now Lust had begun to turn. She glanced over her shoulder, just barely catching a glimpse of us before we reached her. Her arm went up, that glow appearing around her, and I knew she was burning time to protect herself.

  But she didn’t know about Orion’s thread. She couldn’t stop—

  Her lips parted, and a word came out of Ariadne’s mouth. The only word that could freeze me like marble. “Mariana.”

  We went still, the two of us, though not by my consent.

  Mariana had taken control. Hearing your own name on your child’s lips had that effect.

  “It’s not Ariadne,” I said to Mariana, now captive in my own body. “It’s Lust. Don’t be fooled.”

  Mariana heard me, but she didn’t process it. I felt her aching toward Ariadne, wanting so badly for her to be real. To be her daughter.

  Lust’s arm lowered, and she turned toward us in full. “Mariana, live your greatest desire. Be with me, your child. I have missed you so very much, Mother.”

  That spark in her blue eyes wasn’t Ariadne. It was devious. Wanting. Craving. Nefarious.

  Even so, Mariana’s memories came back to me in rapid-fire, all the years of watching her daughter grow up like a flipping picture book. The golden-haired baby in her arms, the miracle child born to a vampire and a human. The sweet little girl crouching low, touching a frog. The dimples, the little milk teeth gleaming as she ran, grinning, through a summer field. The twelve-year-old with fine fingers on the strings of a harp, her eyes closed in concentration. The sixteen-year-old hugging her father, her cheek pressed to his chest, and the look of peace on both their faces.

  Finally, I understood.

  I understood why Mariana had married Valdis.

  It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t even love for him—at least, not to start.

  It was Mariana’s love of humanity. She had given herself over to a murderous creature to curb his worst impulses, to stanch the bleed of what remained of his morality. She had tried to spare as many humans as she could, stopping him when they would have otherwise died by his hands and teeth.