Thick ropes bound their ankles. Their flaccid arms dangled toward me, as if reaching down in hopeless supplication. But their death throe pleas were illusion. The six had died long before they were dragged in, stripped of their clothing and skin, and hung like a side of beef in a slaughterhouse. If they’d died here, I would have felt an imprint of their trauma on the room. Instead, all I sensed was their ripe stench drifting with the breeze as it blew in through the rotted holes in the ceiling.
“Looks like a full hunt,” I said, glancing up with a frown as moisture landed on my head. The color got lost in the red of my hair as the blood slid down into the curls. “And you’re fresh. Dammit…” I muttered, stepping to the left to avoid another drop escaping the corpse above me. I waited then, to see if it would be enough, if one little bead would trigger a flood inside me; ambushing me with the images and emotions of the victim’s last moments.
Not now, I thought. The last thing I needed was an unsolicited, untimely death-glimpse. Experiencing the terror of being skinned alive would definitely lower my guard.
Trying to stave it off, I busied my mind. I studied the dilapidated building, the architecture, and the faded peeling murals that graced the wide walls. I thought back to when it had all looked fresh and new. Opening day, the ticket counters had been bustling, handing out adventure and opportunity with every ticket. So many lives had passed through the front door. All that came through now were the rats.
And the monsters.
Sensing no extraneous rush of emotions, I went back to rooting out my prey. “Guess that means you’re ready to pack up and head home.” I raised my voice higher. “Except you can’t yet, can you? You’re stuck for now. You’re ineffective. Vulnerable.”
Just the way I like it.
Moving farther into the vacant building, swarms of buzzing flies scattered at my intrusion. My low-heeled boots clicked softly on the wooden planks covering a broken section of floor. My steps were leisurely. It was a nice change, not having to run. The creature was in no shape for such dexterous moves. It wouldn’t be for hours. Hiding was another matter. Sentinel City’s original depot had been vacated long ago in favor of a bright, shiny new building on the other end of the train yard. Here, amid the debris of a forgotten time, were cracks and crevices, and lots of shadows.
“You can’t leave this world until you digest,” I said, keeping my voice loud. “Until your pathetically slow stomach consumes all that delicious human skin you’ve been gorging on.”
Getting no response, I pushed the crimson scales out over more of my body. They ran like water beneath my black halter, affording extra protection to my upper half. As they reached my face, I shifted my eyes. Sockets enlarged. Pupils widened and elongated. Their reddish hazel-brown color deepened to warm amber, and my vision amplified. Sweeping the room, I peered into nooks and crannies, studying the fallen beams, broken signs, piles of busted chairs and rows of dusty benches; fallen light fixtures and detached stair railings barely hanging on by a thread.
“You should’ve added some brains to your diet,” I said, scanning for movement as I walked. “Maybe they would have made you smarter. Because I’ve already warned you once—this isn’t a buffet,” I said with force. “There are no free refills here. No all you can eat. The human world is off limits to the del-yun. It’s off limits to everyone.”
His voice came out of the dark. “You have no right,” he blustered, scratchy and dry like sandpaper on a chalkboard. “No authority to enforce the elders’ rules. You no longer hold position in the dragon ranks, pretty shifter. The Guild tossed you out so very, very long ago.”
“Ninety-seven years, two months, and three days. But who’s counting?” Bristling, I tossed back my hair. “And they didn’t fire me. I quit.”
“You ran…like those cowardly small ones with the perfect skin…so soft and supple.”
Understanding him, I frowned. “Children?”
“Yes, you fled like a child.” His laugh was stilted and wobbly. “And now you’re a maid.”
“I prefer the term ‘contract cleaner’. Scrubbing away those stubborn off-world assholes is my specialty.” I lifted a hand. Fire dribbled down the side. “How about I give you a free demo?”
Belligerent, he spat, “You can’t blame me. This world is so beautifully curious, so dangerous. It’s why all the other worlds are drawn here. It’s why we watch. Why we learn to speak their sounds.”
“Why you eat them?”
“No. We eat them because they’re tasty. And their skin comes in so many varieties. It’s not our fault they can’t live without it. It’s a…structural flaw.”
“You’re not a del-yun,” I scoffed, keeping him talking. “You’re a pig. A fat, greedy, gluttonous pig who doesn’t know when to quit.”
“Oh, pretty shifter,” he cooed. “So noble. So brave. So…insulting. I’ve never tasted the skin of a lyrriken before. I imagine it would be tough.”
“I hear it tastes like chicken. Not that you’ll have a chance to know.”
“You assume I can’t kill you,” he chuckled, low and gravely. I followed the sound as his threats continued. “You think I won’t feast on your scales and sell your parts? Everyone wants the dragon pieces, the power they gather. Everyone wants a taste.”
“I’m only part dragon, del-yun. Your buyers might notice the difference.”
“Half…full…you all have worth. And,” the delight in his voice was unmistakable, “smaller bones make such a wonderful snap. You’ll see. I’ll show you soon. Nothing compares to the exquisite sound of peeling flesh from a shattered bone.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Movement streaked behind the rusted bars of the ticket counter.
Gotcha.
Drawing out more of my fire, it seeped between the scales on the palm of my left hand. I lifted my arm and it merged into a single blaze. With a push, the flame burst out over the distance. It lit the darkness of the depot, silhouetting the gray rocky form bolting out from behind the graffiti-splattered counter—seconds before it burst apart. In the resulting spew of fire and wood, I spied the del-yun scampering across the floor.
Standing well over my own six foot frame, the coarse-skinned creature’s body was humanoid in shape, but it was all harsh edges and corners, like a Picasso painting come to life. His wrinkled forehead was heavy and sloped. His boxlike jaw was narrow and long. Sharp-angled, fibrous wings lay pressed in tight against his back.
A del-yun’s wingspan was much larger than mine. He’d need a lot more room than he had inside the depot to take flight. But if he got out…
The front door behind me was wide open. If he made it past me, the four days I’d spent searching for the creature would be for nothing. And when he was done digesting, he’d hunt again.
Adjusting my aim, I added more force, and my fire exploded the concrete in front of him. A hiss of alarm fled the del-yun’s thick-toothed maw, and he changed directions.
I cut him off again.
Stopping, he faced me. With a better view, it was clear he’d grown since our previous run-in. His stone gray arms and legs were bursting with sinew and muscle. His glossy black eyes, wide as my fists, bulged in anger. But I was more interested in his stomach. It wasn’t as distended as I’d expected, or counted on.
Capable of expanding to accommodate a week’s worth of meals at a time, a del-yun’s fully enlarged stomach sac didn’t just look ridiculous, it slowed the creature down to a crawl. More importantly, the normally hard outer layer of skin (a natural shell of armor) would stretch and thin like an overfilled balloon; offering me a nice, large, weak target.
Not tonight, though. My timing was off. He’d stripped the skin from his victims, but I must have interrupted before he could burrow in somewhere and gorge. Meaning, I was going to have to work harder than I’d planned. Unless compromised by a recent feed, a del-yun’s stone-like flesh was as resistant to fire as a lyrriken’s scales. Underneath their skin, though, was another matter.
I just had to get close enough to cut him.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” I said. “You know the rules against travel here.”
“The dragon’s rules are not ours,” he argued. “Not anymore. Not when we are starving.”
“Can the drama, del-yun. It’s Friday night. This is the last place I want to be. And your kind are always starving.”
“You think I lie? Drimera-born such as you merely open their mouths and lies rain out. I speak only truth.”
“You speak bullshit. I was on your world once. I couldn’t go five feet without stepping on one four-legged thing or another.”
“That was long ago, shifter girl. Lands wither. Skin…dries.” He screwed up his face, extending his jaw impossibly far and sticking out his long, gray tongue in disgust. He wagged the organ and saliva slid off the end. One green, sticky drop touched down on the floor with a hiss and a sizzle.
“Gross.”
Insulted, the del-yun pushed out an angry high-pitched screech. Holding position, his black eyes regarded me with malice. “You, Nite, make a mockery of all dragon-kind. Parading around in the human’s wrappings, eating their food, living in their shelters. If only they knew what you were, where you come from.”
“That’s what myths and legends are for. As long as humans continue to believe dragons never existed, then they don’t. We don’t.”
“You fool yourself, believing stories can hide us much longer. This world is ripe for an awakening.”
“You’re right. The blinders slide out of place a little more every year—which is why you can’t come here and eat their skin! You have any idea how quickly something like this will go viral? How fast the human armies would invade your world? And once you’re defeated, the other worlds wouldn’t be far behind. Unless…you want to be dissected.” Ten feet away, I reached to the small of my back and pulled the hunting knife from the sheath on my belt. “Because I’m happy to make that dream come true right now.”
His roar blew the hair back from my face. His oddly pliable jaw opened with a wet crack of cartilage. Dropping, extending past throat, then chest, the square edge of his jaw came to rest even with the center of his abdomen. Outlined by fleshy lips, the dark maw within held an inner ring of uneven teeth, all stained with a deep red grime. Pushing out from their center, the del-yun’s gray tongue ejected like a whip. A heavy discharge of green followed. Hitting the floor in front of me with a moist splat, the glop of saliva gurgled and smoked as it devoured the concrete. A smaller rivulet of smoke curled up from the front of my left boot, where tiny beads of the creature’s spit were eating through the laces.
“Come on,” I groaned, “not the boots…” Bending, I slid my knife in behind the black crisscross. In the corner of my eye, I saw his tongue emerging again.
I broke the lace with a quick yank.
Flinging off the still-bubbling piece as I straightened, I flung the knife next. My throw was directed at his tongue, hoping to sever the bit wagging down over his teeth. But at the last second, he moved. My weapon sailed past his tongue, in through his wide mouth, and impaled his left cheek. The tip of the blade pushed out with a spill of yellowish blood and sliced tissue.
I raised a finger. Fire trickled from my nail. It slid off the side of my hand and onto the floor. Watching its journey, the del-yun knew: one little touch was all it would take. His blood would catch like kindling, and my fire would follow it down inside him like a flame on a fuse.
Panting, the creature eyed me in defiance. With another, lengthy crack, he widened his jaw three more inches. Reaching a chunky hand inside, he gripped the handle, and ripped the blade from his cheek. Pulling the knife back out through his cavernous mouth, he dropped it with a shaky hand. Copious amounts of yellow blood fled the hole in his face. It brightened his drab skin and dripped like a leaky faucet from the del-yun’s mouth as his stony face contorted in a pain.
Mindful of his caustic drool, I moved closer. I inched up and reached a slow hand toward his face. Surprisingly, he held still. “No more fight, del-yun?”
Fluid sputtered out with his words. “Go ahead. Burn me. I would rather die in a world that’s alive…than live in one that’s dead.”
The startling wistfulness in his tone struck me, stirring something deep in my chest. It was no more than a hiccup of a moment, a half-second, internal jolt of warning.
I was about to feel something I didn’t want to feel.
Experiencing the del-yun’s pain wouldn’t stop me from killing him. But my momentary distraction would give him a chance to flee. I couldn’t let it get that far.
Before my empathy could interfere, I placed my finger against the wound on his cheek.
Resigned, he didn’t flinch. “You should know, pretty shifter…you were wrong.” Grimacing as his wound ignited, the del-yun’s large eyes held mine. He choked on a wet, anguished laugh. “I wasn’t hunting for one.”
His revelation was like a switch, as the planks covering the floor suddenly fractured and burst. Fragmented wood splintered and soared, colliding with the six bodies hanging above. As the skinless corpses swung back and forth on their ropes, another five male del-yun sprung up from a newly exposed ditch in the ground. Hay clung to their coarse skin. Eerie sounds of rage left their throats. Finding no room to extend their wings, the previously nesting creatures landed on the depot floor with jaws wagging and a unanimous, severely pissed off gleam in their black eyes.
My brow scrunched, watching them posture and hiss. Del-yun males were known to journey alone or with a single mate. I’d never seen so many travel together before.
I stepped away from their friend—burning beside me from the inside out—and brought my fire to bear. Raising a hand above my head, flames fled my scales in a wide, high, left to right arc; cutting through the ropes and dropping all six bodies down on top of the del-yun’s blocky heads.
As the startled creatures stumbled to right themselves, I rushed them.
Pushing nails out, sharpening, widening, and strengthening them as I ran, flecks of black polish chipped off and fluttered down. I picked a target, and jumped on him. Scaling his angled form, crawling up over his shoulder, as I landed behind him, I pulled his body over my head and slammed it down. As his back hit the floor, I dropped to one knee and punched my claws into his thick throat. Three points broke off. Two stabbed in.
I bent my submerged clawtips, yanked, and ripped off a patch of skin. Awash in the creature’s fluids, I set him aflame as I stood.
As I bent for my knife, sticky gray tongues shot out and curled around my ankles.
“Shit.”
The word had barely left my mouth when the del-yun heaved. A searing pain shot through my skull as it smacked the floor. Smoke rose with a whisper and the scent of burning leather.
In a handful of seconds the del-yun’s saliva would eat through my boots. It would take even less to devour my skin.
Buying time, I swapped the human flesh on my legs for scales. As the seams on my jeans strained and ripped to accommodate, I sat up and seized the acid tongues around my ankles. Gritting teeth against the discomfort, I forced all the heat I had through my scaled hands. My flame billowed violently. The fleshy ropes in my grip caught and carried the fire back along their lengths, melting lips and searing off the bottom half of the creatures’ lengthy jaws.
Kicking off my ruined boots, I hopped up and thrust one hand each into the charred flapping cavities that remained. Jaw and teeth smoldering, it stunk like burned plastic. Wrinkling my nose, I shoved fists of fire through the backs of their heads. Charred skull, fluid and ash spewed out in a wet cloud.
Withdrawing my hands, I kicked their wavering bodies down. As I brushed the pieces of their skin from my shirt, the last moved in to flank me. Throwing a scaled fist into the angled face of one, I pivoted and struck the other in the chest. It was like punching stone. There was a good chance I’d brok
en something, but I didn’t have time to find out. Grabbing a neck, I threw one down and stomped on his groin—such as it was. Until mating season, Del-yun kept their parts inside behind a thick membrane. My stomp forced an early, unplanned ejection, giving me a better target for my second kick.
Turning from the resulting whimper, I caught the movement of unfolding wings. As they moved to embrace me from behind, I spun, put my hands flat against their wide surface, and drove a stream of fire straight through. The del-yun squawked out an uncanny wail as his wings blackened and burned.
Stronger than a human in either form, I’d given the del-yun more pain than any of their victims could have managed. It still wasn’t enough. Not to deter them, and certainly not to kill them. And I had to. For so many to have come through at once, this wasn’t a joy ride. It wasn’t a daring hunt for forbidden fruit. If the del-yun were truly looking for a new food source, I had to make them understand: it wasn’t going to be here.
Snatching up a broken piece of railing, I stepped and swung. Metal cracked across their drooped jaws. It bounced off one. The other shattered in a rain of bone and green saliva. As the splatters singed the ends of my hair, I exploded his broken face with a hail of fire.
Pivoting, ducking the spit of the last one, I bashed the railing into his thick-kneed legs. Heavier than the others, the del-yun merely worked his hard-lined jaw into an alarming smile, and punched me. My vision went white, then black. I dropped in a pile of del-yun ash and skinless human corpses.
Blinking to correct my sight, I found my piece of railing. I dragged it up with me as I pushed to my knees. My jeans had enough holes in them to be designer. The scales on my face were torn and bleeding. My knuckles were worse. I straightened with a groan, and a deep twinge swept my lower back. None of it would last long. Blessed with the rapid healing of my dragon blood, my body was already repairing itself. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the pain.
Breathing through it, I studied my opponent. The del-yun was looking confident and annoyingly eager, and I steeled myself for a fight.
Nite Fire: Flash Point Page 2