by Helen Adams
Light exploded from her fingertips. It screamed up through the air; our taufrkyn shot out of the way, wings blurring as they fled. When the light hit the roof molten metal and flaming insulation sparked away from the impact site like burning rain. What the fuck?
Mina closed her hand into a fist. The light died and as it went I wriggled again. The golem squeezed harder. Just what I was looking for – rather than popping me like an over-ripe grape, I slipped through those slick arms and thumped down into a crouch. I grabbed Baby in both hands and rose with a howl, slashing my blade through the golem’s body.
The revolting thing had human eyes and a dog’s muzzle. It screamed. Baby cut through it as if that was her sole purpose in life. I grimaced – when you got right down to it, this was her sole purpose in life, to cut and slash and maim. And Baby was hot for her job. She tore through flesh, organs, blood, and came out the other side eager for more.
The golem took one tottering step, discovered that the rest of its body wasn’t coming with it, and collapsed.
I let out a feral yell of triumph and kicked the fucking thing. Blood splattered across my trainers. My stomach felt loose and watery. As I turned back for Alice I heard a throaty roar drawing near, followed by another. Then a third. Fourth. Fifth. Too many to count.
“Ah, shit!” I could have howled again, this time with despair. “You called in the cavalry?”
I ran for Alice but the remaining golem stood in my path. Raz’s shamshirs flashed; the golem gurgled a scream, long arms flailing to defend itself. I heard wet splashes as chunks of gore splattered across the concrete floor.
I yelled my best friend’s name, desperate for a response – any response – other than stark, wide-eyed terror. Ten feet became five, which became three, so close that my fingers were already curling around her arm –
Rough claws dug into my duffel and hauled me away, dumping me over the back of a motorbike that roared and snarled in my ears. Headlights splintered the night from dozens of other fat hogs. We were doing donuts in the part-built warehouse.
I screamed my rage but the fucking bike was moving away from Alice. I almost choked on the thick, rancid reek of pig-shit sprayed over a farmer’s field, the stench of a bull troll. I was boiling inside, furious and already blowing; without any conscious thought my knife was in my hand and I stabbed the biker in one meaty thigh. I sank the blade deep, taking vicious, vindictive pleasure in his shout of pain.
A heavy fist slammed into my jaw. My brain rattled around in my skull as colours exploded across my vision. The bike swayed but straightened.
Using the knife still buried in the troll as leverage I hooked my leg over the back of the saddle. I hauled the Mark Two out of his thigh, buried my grasping fingers in his snarled, tangled hair, and cut his throat.
He twitched and bucked, hot, rancid blood soaking my hand and arm. Being covered in someone else’s blood had never felt so fucking good. I didn’t bother to think what that said about me.
I gave the bull troll a hard sideways shove and grabbed the handlebars as he fell, using one hand to steer the bike back on course. Another push and he was gone, rolling behind me, quickly lost in the roar of the other bikes.
I was in the middle of a troll gang who’d just realised that I’d killed one of their own and taken his chopper. Where was Raz? Lee? Was Mina watching this, getting her jollies? Making Alice watch?
I had two options. I could run, just let the throttle out and gun it away from all this madness. The second option – jumping off and preparing to fight – amounted to suicide. It was stupid, crazy, out of the question.
But I was a berserker. We didn’t run from battles. I was going to rescue my best friend or die trying.
I pulled the bike into the centre of the spinning circle of chrome and steel. I hopped onto the saddle, leg muscles bunching. My ribs gave a savage protest. I leaned the bike into a slide and jumped off at the last second, jarring my ribs again as I landed. Light-headed with pain, I watched as the hog skidded across the concrete in a shower of sparks.
The circling trolls couldn’t get out of the way in time. The bike careened into them like a ball into skittles. Startled shouts mixed with the squeal and crunch of metal.
“Bowling for trolls, bitches!” I yelled, punching the air. The bull troll’s blood dripped down my arm, soaking my clothes, cooling and clotting. It felt like a trophy.
The hole I’d made closed and I was in the middle of a roaring, baying circle. Baby was gone, lost somewhere in the warehouse. All I had left was a knife and a bad attitude.
And then Raz was there, battering through the ring of trolls with – another troll? What the hell?
The two shamshirs were sheathed and he was holding a runty little biker by his collar and belt, swinging him around like a battering ram. The troll was still conscious and, by the look on his piggy face, terrified. But Raz kept on swinging. He knocked bikes and other trolls asunder like Moses parting the Red Sea. It was fucking glorious. He was my avenging angel when he should have been running for his life.
“You brought your ‘plus one’!” I said with a manic grin.
“This old thing?” He hefted the runt, now unconscious or dead. Either way he wasn’t fighting back. “The invite said to bring a bottle. And we all know that bottles,” he swung the troll, muscles bulging under his T-shirt, “get broken!”
He hurled the unmoving body through the air and set another couple of bikes spinning, then drew his blades. They glowed in Mina’s witch-light.
A couple of trolls lunged at us. Raz rolled out of the way with a move any gymnast would have envied, straightened with a flourish, and still had time to carve a bloody smile on the bikers’ throats. This was a seasoned berserker at work. I never tired of watching him fight.
“You’re covered in blood,” he panted as he moved to cover my back.
“Not mine,” I assured him.
“Need to borrow a sword?”
“You’d lend me one of yours?”
The blades were light and thin – a lot lighter than I was used to – but they moved like greased lightning.
“Lend,” he stressed. As if we were going to make it out of this alive.
“Sure,” I chuckled, the sound rusty and harsh. “Baby gets jealous.”
He offered me the hilt and I took it, feeling her almost insubstantial weight. Her blade reflected light in milky, shimmering waves. A girl could fall in love with a weapon like her. I switched the blood-stained Bowie to my off-hand.
“Seen Lee?” I asked. I didn’t know whether I was hoping for a yes or a no.
“You want to waste time talking about him?”
I wanted to say it’s not that bad. I wanted to say we’ll get out of this, we always do. Trolls were a pain in the arse; we’d fought them before… but never so many.
“When you’re about to bite the big one, aren’t you supposed to reflect on your past mistakes?”
They said your life flashed before your eyes when you were about to die. If that was the case then it had better get a move on – I’d had a pretty fucking eventful life, and time was running short. The bikers were drawing nearer, tightening the circle.
“I’d prefer to go thinking about my greatest achievements,” he said, finally acknowledging that we were fucked. “My children. The grandchildren.”
Raz’s family was big and sprawling. I regretted that I’d never met his wife. She’d known her husband was a berserker and, according to him, she’d fully supported him. She must have been quite a woman.
“Saifa would be proud of you.”
I heard a choked sound – as if a strong, manly man was trying to hold back tears – and reached a hand behind me. I tangled my fingers with his and squeezed. He squeezed back.
I was busy wishing that I’d been a better person when we heard a challenging roar outside. It boomed over the throaty growl of the motorbike engines and even shook the warehouse frame; if the neighbours hadn’t woken before, they certainly would now. I wonde
red – in the brief, icy moment of terror after the roar ended – how long it would be before the police arrived. The troll gang would take off the second they saw those flashing blue lights.
The trolls panicked, the circle losing its shape. The stench they gave off thickened further.
“Dragon!” one of them yelled, jabbing a clawed finger into the sky.
The only vaengrjarl who might have a reason to be here – right now, when I was about to die – was Lukas. Had my knight in scaly armour come to rescue me? Fuck it, I’d take help from a bloody necromancer if I thought he’d get us out of this.
The trolls scattered. If I was going to get Alice back it was now or never, while the bikers were running. But as I lunged forward Raz grabbed the back of my bloodied T-shirt; my arms flailed, the shamshir and combat knife flashing out. My mentor swayed out of the way.
“Wait!” he commanded, grip tightening.
“Let go!” Alice was out there, I had to reach her…
“Use your head!” He gave me a shake. “What d’you think Lukas is going to do to those trolls?”
I heard a sound that, if you didn’t know better, could be mistaken for the flapping of sails. The dragon prince was close and getting closer.
“But Alice is out there!” I started to tremble. “Our taufrkyn…”
“You know they’ll be long gone.” Raz gave me another shake. “Think! Mina doesn’t have the power to fight a vaengrjarl. She’ll take Alice and run.”
The flap of wings was louder. My hair, all over the place and streaked with blood, fluttered and wavered. My nose filled with the now-familiar smell of a shifted dragon – that old, cold smell.
Lukas roared again. It was so loud that I dropped both blades and clapped my hands to my ears, but it was still powerful enough to make my brain throb.
And then, wings spread majestically wide for balance – his body stretched and poised like a dancer – Lukas landed.
NINETEEN
I’d seen his parents from a distance and been awe-struck, but they were nothing compared to their eldest son. His scales were golden, giving off their own hard, bright light. Lukas in dragon form was immense; at a guess – a short, panicked guess – his body was around sixty feet long. As he landed his serpentine neck was fully extended. That alone had to be a hundred feet. Thin spines lined his spine, pulsing with scarlet light.
Like the lights on a plane, I thought, stifling a hysterical giggle.
There were construction vehicles in his way. He kicked out with a powerful back leg; one clawed foot slammed against a digger and the machine slid. He kicked again and the digger went over. A third kick sent it flying into a cement truck, knocking both out of the way. He let out a satisfied rumble.
The trolls were still running, scattered and panicking. Those who got in the way of the vehicles became instant troll-paste.
Lukas folded immense wings, delicate membranes threaded with bronze and copper, against his back. Only then did he lower his neck; in the confined space it made an arch, but his enormous head was finally on a level with the ground. For a second our eyes met – blue against vast gilded orbs, whirling around a black pupil – and then all I saw was teeth as big as me. Was that a smile?
Lukas opened his mouth and drew in a breath. He turned his head and… exhaled.
Flame erupted from his maw. Whatever was caught in that white-hot gout was incinerated – trolls, motorbikes, support girders. Burning debris rained down from above, scraps of metal and wood that set anything they touched alight.
The heat was intense. I lifted my hands to shield my face, but I could still feel my skin tightening; if I was any closer I’d have burned. I didn’t need Raz yanking my T-shirt again to tell me to move. As I snatched up the dropped weaponry we backed away and he finally let me go.
Lukas yawned fire. It spread in front of us. I saw dark shapes in the flames, screaming, humanoid shapes running and flailing until one by one the screams stopped. Smoke billowed over us, thick and choking; I covered my mouth, nauseous at the thought of inhaling troll-ash. The stench of barbequed pork filled my nose. I was never going to eat bacon again.
Where was Mina? Alice? If I believed Raz they’d be gone by now; Mina realised that she couldn’t beat a vaengrjarl –
Lee! Lee was out in that. If he was smart he’d have run before Lukas landed.
Raz pulled me back again as a gout of flame washed an inch too close. Why the fuck did I care about Lee? I hoped he burned.
“Tell Lukas to stop!” Raz yelled in my ear. I struggled to hear him over the fierce roar. “The crazy’s bastard’s going to cook us alive!”
That wasn’t going to happen. He wanted me, therefore he had to keep me alive. And I trusted a vaengrjarl to have perfect control of his flame. Even if I was already sweating and half-baked –
A wide beam of purple light pulsed from the far side of the inferno. It struck Lukas in the chest. He blinked, membranous lids closing over those beautiful argent eyes, and blinked again. His tongue – long, plum and forked – flicked out, licking his muzzle.
He reared up on his hind legs and let out a tremendous roar, a violent noise of outrage and fury. He spread his wings, threw his long neck into the air, and bellowed.
He toppled back, crashing into another part-built warehouse, smashing more construction machines as he fell. The air around his body shimmered, thick and impossible to penetrate. When it cleared the dragon was gone.
Lukas was human, naked, unmoving – and vulnerable.
This was impossible. Vaengrjarl didn’t lose control of their skins. They were born knowing how to change, and in some extreme cases even popped out of the womb with wings (another excellent reason not to have Lukas’s kid). They were the strongest, toughest race in the world. Nobody messed with them.
But now the dragon was gone and the human wasn’t moving. This was wrong.
“…Daphne! Snap out of it!”
I realised that I’d been staring when Raz’s voice penetrated the haze around my brain.
“I have to help him,” I said, numb. “Whatever’s happened to Lukas, it’s because he helped us. If we leave him and his parents find out, what do you think will happen?”
“Open season on berserkers.”
I sheathed the Mark Two and handed the shamshir back to Raz, then ran, dodging twisted piles of metal and bone that had once been machines and living creatures. The flames were still burning as I approached the fallen vaengrjarl, but I gritted my teeth and ignored the pain as I ignored the million other hurts – my ribs, still shouting but finding no audience; my back, hands, legs, arms, feet. Every part of me. I’d picked up cuts and scrapes and bruises. None of it mattered.
I leapt over fallen girders and shattered chunks of roofing material, then dropped to my knees. I was moving too fast to stop. I skidded across the pitted concrete, feeling first the denim of my jeans – and then my skin – shred and tear. I hissed and tried to push the pain away, pressing my fingers to Lukas’s neck, feeling for a pulse.
“What the fuck am I doing?” I said. “You could have two bloody hearts for all I know!”
Up close he was a mess. The hand that had been bandaged – bloodied and bandaged – was now uncovered and ruined. Something had taken his ring and little finger, leaving behind nothing but blackened, oozing stumps. He either hadn’t had time or – this thought frightened me even more – hadn’t been able to heal these open wounds. The price he’d paid for the information that I needed was a maiming.
Guilt surged through me, hard and hot. What a nightmare. He’d hurt himself for me, damaged himself, and I still hadn’t got Alice back.
I rolled him over as carefully as I could, blanching as I saw the massive burn on his chest. From shoulder to shoulder his skin was black and crispy. Pinkish fluid oozed from tears in his flesh. He hadn’t just been burned – he’d been cooked.
“Is he dead?”
I turned and there was Lee. His eyebrows were gone and the skin on his face – the skin that
wasn’t bruised and swollen – was shiny and pink, but he was alive. His clothes were torn, as singed and burned as the rest of him, and there were dark stains across his T-shirt. Blood. His or a troll’s? I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care.
“Don’t think so. I must have been ill when they taught vaengrjarl biology at school, but I’m pretty sure they burn up when they die. Did you see what did this?”
“Mina. She pulled out this wand thing and pointed it at him.”
The wand, oh fuck. I bowed my head, jaw clenched, fresh guilt making my chest burn. If I’d mentioned the wand to Lukas, even in passing…
…he still would have come. Nothing frightened a vaengrjarl.
It all made horrible, bitter sense. Kristjan, a warlock of the Midnight Council, had taught Mina how to make golems. She’d become his weapon. He must have given her the wand and the grimoire. When her golems failed to persuade Lukas to keep his nose out of her business, she’d got nervous. Then, when he’d ripped Kristjan into itty-bitty pieces and set his house on fire, she’d taken anti-vaengrjarl precautions.
And I’d seen those precautions. The wand – that fucking wand! – on her desk. I could have prevented this.
Well. I could have tried.
“Daphne! Incoming!”
I looked around at the warning in Raz’s voice. Galloping over and through the still-burning wreckage of the warehouse – the air around her already shimmering – was a familiar shape: - a white fox.
“It’s alright. She’s a…” I hesitated. “Friend. I think.”
The air around her thickened to impenetrability, then cleared. The kitsune turned into Mel, sprinting over the rubble without looking where she was putting her still-bare feet.
“I said round his edges!” she howled as she skidded to a stop. “Not get him killed!” Behind me I felt Raz and Lee tense.
“Relax. I told you she’s a friend.” More or less.
“I’ll be your worst enemy if he dies!” She looked furious, dark eyes snapping with anger.