by Lindsey Duga
In the elevator, I tried to pry Brocker’s iron grip from my arm, but my hands were weak.
He shook me so hard my teeth knocked together and then he tightened his hold, like he was trying to grind my bones to dust. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he seethed.
“Hopefully stopped you,” I bit back.
With his other hand, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked, causing me to fall to my knees with a cry of pain.
“No,” he hissed in my ear, bending low, “you have no idea.”
The elevator stopped at his office floor and he wrenched open the iron grating. He shoved me out of the lift and I fell on my back. Fighting tides of fear, I scrabbled backward like a crab on the ocean blue carpet, staring up at the enraged man before me.
He advanced on me. One step, and then two, his eyes burning gold in the gloom of his office. Gold?
“My army would’ve been the start of a new age, Eris.” He let loose a laugh that had a mad edge to it. “But now…” He stopped, towering above me in his black tuxedo, and everything seemed to hold its breath. Then he crouched, hooking his hand around the back of my neck and squeezing it so tightly that I gasped.
“You hurt me, Eris. Deeply. And now I wish to return the favor. I wasn’t going to show this to you because, truly, I never wanted to hurt you. But now…” His gold eyes roamed across my face. “Now…an eye for an eye.”
I flinched, but no strike came. Instead, he stood and heaved me to my feet. Terror had me stumbling after him through a side door and up a short flight of stairs. Terror had me back to my feeble self. Gone was the bold girl who disobeyed the man who had the power to take away everything—and did.
Up on the roof, the October wind threatened to knock me down. My dress rippled against my legs and locks of hair escaped the delicate pins, blowing curls around my cheeks and sticking to my rouged lips. Brocker dropped my wrist, strode across the rooftop, and stopped a foot away from a hulking silhouette that had chains scattered around it. Iron manacles bound its wrists and ankles.
Good God.
It was a human.
Or it had been.
The creature lifted itself off the ground using its boxer-like arms with barrel-sized biceps covered in scales and hands that ended with sharp metal claws. Horns attached to its temples shone under the light of the moon. Great leathery…wings…flapped on its back.
And then its face…
“Do you see him, Eris? Isn’t he beautiful?” Brocker called over the night wind. “The world’s first real human chimera. Scales of a basilisk, claws of a werewolf, horns of a minotaur, wings of a dragon…took me a long time to get my hands on those.”
Brocker’s voice faded into the roaring wind as I traced the lines of a face I knew so well. The face of a man who took me to a Red Sox game, who taught me how to mix an old-fashioned, who crafted me my own little stage made of whiskey crates…
“Stan?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Dragon
I barreled past the throng of people, their shouts of confusion and panic filling the air while firemen unrolled their hoses and coordinated teams to go after the giant explosion above. What had caused it? A bomb? Nitroglycerin? A gas main?
No, a madman.
I was just about to charge back through the doors when a hand gripped my arm. Twisting around, I found myself staring into a familiar face. It was a woman with raven hair and high, sharp cheekbones. The image of her in a maid’s uniform came back to me, and I knew then that she’d been the one who’d found us in Boston. She had to work for Brocker.
Instinctually, my hand went to her throat, slamming her against the side of the building. “You,” I rasped, smoke pouring from my mouth as I fought to keep my anger in check.
She tried to pry my hands away. “E-Eris,” she squeaked.
Instantly, I let go and she leaned her head back, coughing, rubbing her throat.
“Did Brocker take her?” I asked, but already knowing the answer.
“Yes, you have to stop him. What he’s created…it’s an abomination. Not even Eris knows—”
“Where is she?”
The woman ripped off her headband and a cyclops eye stared up at me. It glowed blue in the darkness of the chaotic street. “The roof.”
I tore through the entrance and into the stairwell. My leg muscles pumped as I propelled myself up the steps, taking them two—sometimes three—at a time. Thoughts like I never should have left without her and if she’s dead I’ll never feel alive again spiraled through my head.
My breath was shallow and the only thing I could hear besides my endless footsteps as I climbed higher and higher.
The sixth floor…the twenty-first floor…the forty-fourth floor. Hold on, Eris. Hold on.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Siren
“Stanley?” My voice cracked as I stepped toward the creature.
No, not creature, my best friend in the whole world.
The man who’d made me laugh till tears rolled down my face when he stuck straws under his lips and pretended to be a walrus. Who would play checkers with me until the bar opened. Who never ever begged me to talk to him because he knew how badly I wanted to.
My fierce protector for seven years.
My Stanley.
A monster. Because of me.
I fell to my hands and knees, unable to remain standing. “No, no, no, please.” Heaving sobs racked my chest as Brocker went around the creature, unlocking manacles.
“Yes, yes, boo-hoo. The man came looking for Helena and I thought it would be a good opportunity. Gin is not the only one who likes to experiment. Unfortunately, the children I’d tried this on—their bodies weren’t strong enough to maintain multiple monster parts. Sometimes you just can’t beat strong, able-bodied soldiers.”
My stomach heaved at the knowledge that Brocker had attempted this horror on children, too. And he failed. Oh God.
The clinking of chains traveled across the vacant rooftop, and I could hear Stanley’s labored breathing, growls from deep within his massive chest.
“You’ve set me back, Eris. Many years. And I will not forgive this. But there will be other pearls. Other sirens.” One more manacle dropped, hitting the concrete with a kind of echoing finality. “Get her.”
With a flap of wings and a growl, self-preservation kicked in.
I scrambled upward and ran across the rooftop and down the stairs. A presence chased after me—large and inhuman and impossibly powerful. Claws swiped with a metallic scrape as I dodged away and into the office. Slamming the door on scaly fingers, I locked it and kicked off my heels, sprinting across the stretch of carpet toward the elevator.
Like a nitro bomb going off on a safe, fire, sparks, and intense pressure exploded the door open and burst through the window in great billows of flames and smoke. I turned, unable to look away as dragon breath came out of the lungs of the creature who was once my bartender.
Now free from the roof stairwell, Stanley swung his head toward me and snarled, smoke still curling from his nostrils like he’d just taken a long drag on a gasper.
How ironic. My Stanley had never smoked in his life.
“Dear God,” I breathed as the chimera stepped over the charred remains of Brocker’s desk and his kingly chair. The leather wings twitched. “What has he done to you, Stan?”
“Given him powers that no human could ever dream of.”
Brocker stood in the smoldering ruins of the doorway to the roof. He clasped his hands behind his back, surveying the destruction of his office and looking…satisfied?
At the vibrations of Stanley’s footsteps, I tore my attention away from Brocker to watch the monster trudging toward me. Like every inch of movement hurt him.
Seeing him advance, slowly and painfully, half his face in shadow and the other half lit by t
he flicker of flames growing across the carpet, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere.
I would not leave Stan. He came here looking for me. Looking for Madame. I wasn’t going to turn my back on him. Because he would never turn his back on me.
This is what strength is, Eris. It’s never turning away from someone who needs you.
“Stanley? Stan, it’s me, Eris,” I said, forgetting about the magic in my voice and my own emotions of desperation and despair. I just wanted to reach him. However I could.
The monster continued to move toward me, each of his steps shaking the floor. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Brocker’s laugh echoed through his office. “Even your voice can’t reach him. His mind was lost a few days ago.”
I ignored Brocker. I had to or I’d lose my best, oldest friend. “I know this isn’t you, Stan. You’re in pain. But…” I took a breath. “We can take it all away, if you just let me help you.”
Stanley stopped and blinked blearily in confusion, but then his wings twitched and he recoiled, wincing as he groped at his shoulders with his massive clawed hand.
Those wings…they’re really driving him mad…
How had Colt survived with them? Even just a week?
Stanley fell to his knees as his wings unfolded and stretched, giving me the full breadth of his agony. They were tipped with sharp claws and were so red that the edges faded to black.
Swallowing, I took a few tentative steps toward him. When he didn’t move, I summoned the final bit of my courage and crossed all the way to him, stepping over to cup his unshaved cheeks in my small hands. My thumb swept over the remnants of a black eye he’d gotten at an underground boxing match a few weeks ago. It had taken longer than usual to heal. I remembered icing it when he came home.
His eyes were glazed over with pain and hopelessness. I smoothed my hand along his jaw and there was some kind of flicker there. Maybe of recognition. Maybe of more pain.
“Don’t just stand there! Kill her!”
With a thick sob, I threw my arms around Stan’s neck. I was scared. I was so, so scared, but I was even more scared of losing him. I had to be strong.
Colt was right. This was what strength was.
Stanley was like a marble statue under my arms, but at least he wasn’t trying to bite me or claw me, or burn me to death. My Stanley was still in there somewhere.
Feeling his pain like it were my own, I skimmed fingers across the scales on his arm. Freshly attached. I took a deep trembling breath. “Don’t worry, Stan. I’m not leaving you. I saved you once, I’ll do it again.”
“Oh, for the love of…”
The sound of a gun clicking and firing ripped through the silence of the office.
In that same second, the massive leathery wings swept across the carpet to surround me in a cocoon. I fell on my back as their force knocked me down. The spray of lead hit the wings, but did not pierce them. Stanley roared in agony as more bullets struck and he staggered to his knees, blood dripping down his arms and legs. The wings unfurled around me, sweeping to the side as they spasmed with what must’ve been blinding pain from the storm of shells.
“I should’ve known that Beauty would tame the Beast,” Brocker’s voice boomed. As the fire spread across the carpet and up the walls, I could see his silhouette standing over the burnt pieces of his desk. “Ah, well…”
He lifted his tommy gun.
Before my brain caught up to what was happening, another gunshot pierced the air. But this time, it came from the stairwell. Brocker cried out and twisted to the side as a bullet caught him in his left arm. Another figure emerged from the charred doorway holding a pistol.
Colt.
His hair shone like liquid gold in the firelight as shadows danced across his face and the black slacks and white shirt of his waiter uniform. “Eris!” He called over the growing crackle of flames, his gaze never wavering from Brocker.
My heart soared at seeing him.
“Colt! I’m here!” I yelled back.
Brocker whirled around, but instead of aiming the tommy gun at Colt, he fired another round at Stan. The Chicago lightning was far worse this time, and even the strength of four monsters was not enough. Stanley thrashed on the floor, roaring and swiping with his claws. Before I could roll away, they raked across my stomach and pain exploded through me. I screamed, hunching over as warm liquid blossomed through my dress.
“ERIS!”
Colt raced for me and I reached out to him, my vision now bleary, threatening to blacken. Beside me, Stan continued to writhe in pain from so many bullet wounds.
No more fighting. Please. No more.
Colt dropped to his knees next to me, placing pressure on my open wounds with large, strong hands. “They’re shallow,” he panted. “It’ll be all right.”
“No,” Brocker growled, hefting his tommy gun for yet a third time. “No, it won’t.”
“Stay back,” Colt breathed, guiding my hands to maintain pressure on my own stomach. He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding to hold the full brunt of his dragon breath.
Brilliant, blinding columns of fire burst out of Colt’s mouth, rolling toward Brocker in a volcanic tidal wave. When the flames cleared, catching on the walls and ceiling, Brocker still remained standing.
Completely untouched.
How…was that possible?
Much of Brocker’s clothes began to crumble to ash as he walked toward us, backlit by the fire. “You know,” he said. “I’d always lamented not having many powers. And yet, I do have to admit, when you’re fighting a dragon…it helps to be a phoenix.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Dragon
A phoenix.
The legendary monster bird of fire. A bird known to be immortal, reborn in flames.
I’d heard of such creatures existing, but never being fused with a human.
But then again, who knew how Brocker had come to be. Erickson had said the man had damn near manifested into existence twenty-five years ago only through tax records. Clearly, the man held more mysteries than just a few background checks could uncover.
The more pressing issue, of course, was that my fire breath hadn’t worked on him. And yet…my gaze jumped to his left shoulder soaked with blood from the bullet I’d managed to sink in him. The man could bleed. Just because he didn’t seem to age didn’t mean that he couldn’t be destroyed…somehow, some way.
Pulling out my own gun from my jacket pocket, I watched while Brocker slid open a door to the left and pulled out another box of bullets. He fed the shells into his tommy, quickly and expertly. Like he’d done it a thousand times.
When Eris squeezed my arm, I glanced back at her, terrified that her wounds had worsened. But instead of watching me or Brocker, her gaze was glued to the creature at our feet.
Brocker was indeed a demented soul. He’d created an actual live chimera, out of Eris’s bartender no less. Not to mention…he had my wings on him. I’d never thought I’d have to see them again, and yet, here they were. Perhaps to end me because they hadn’t been able to the last time.
Human, phoenix, monster…Brocker was none of those things. He was a true demon.
In the near distance, I heard him feed the last of his ammunition.
Standing up to a phoenix with a submachine gun…I didn’t like my odds…and I wasn’t a gambling man, but I’d bet on her. On us.
Brocker swung his freshly loaded gun toward us.
“Eris,” I said, pushing myself to stand over her as I pointed my own pistol at Brocker, “you’ve gotta run, doll.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Siren
One revolver against a tommy. Impossible. Colt would be dead before he even let fly a single round. Like that night a lifetime ago, in The Blind Dragon, with the Harvard boy pulling out his pistol, I pictured the next few seconds in my head.
Flashes of light going off every half second as a whole slew of bullets exploded from Brocker’s tommy gun. Shells ripping through Colt’s body as it danced above me like some macabre puppet.
Another future I wouldn’t let happen. Somehow, I’d stopped the bullet in midair that night. I’d stopped everything.
I am the most powerful monster in the world.
Speak, Eris.
“JAM.”
If one word could cast visible shockwaves through the air, then mine did. Everything seemed to slow. The flickering flames moved more like blades of grass in a lazy summer breeze. Smoke drifted through the air, caught in a current of a lake in the winter—nowhere to go and nowhere fast.
The tommy gun clicked and clicked but no bullets came out—jammed, just like I’d commanded.
As Brocker cursed and shook his gun, trying in vain to fire his rounds, I staggered to my feet, blood from the claw wounds seeping through my fingers as I clutched my stomach.
I glared at Brocker through the slow-moving smoke and embers drifting in the breeze. The man who’d lived so long as this legendary fire bird, consuming everything. Destroying lives. Hurting innocent children.
I wouldn’t let him spread his hell anywhere else.
Wrapping one arm around Colt’s middle, I rested my head against his shoulder and asked, “Do you have any bullets left?”
“Just one,” Colt rasped.
My grip tightened on his arm. “You won’t miss.”
Colt’s body stiffened against me and his arm moved a centimeter to the left. His chest rose and fell in one deep, relaxing breath, then he pulled the trigger. The flint sparked, the bullet left the chamber, and Brocker’s neck jerked back.
His body fell to the floor with a clean, perfect bullseye right in the middle of his forehead. Like his very own cyclops eye.