Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers)

by Rachel Aaron

  Like the other lampreys, its mouth opened to form a flat, round circle. But where the other lampreys had three or four rows of jagged teeth, this thing had endless interlocking rings of arm-length points descending all the way down its throat. Julius could see them all, too, because the monster’s mouth was the source of that sickly blue light.

  The glow emanated from deep in its throat, almost like dragon fire. But where dragons breathed flame in a continuous stream, this thing launched it like a shot. Their only warning was a slight hiss and the sight of the huge, slimy neck puffing up like a bullfrog before a car-sized lump of blue, luminous, deathly feeling magic exploded out of the thing’s throat straight at them.

  As the blast left the monster’s mouth, Julius felt Marci pull in magic for a counter shot. But even though she was sucking down power so fast the air was crackling, it wasn’t enough. The magic in her circle felt like a raindrop compared to the tidal wave hurtling down at them, but there was no time to gather more. There was no time to dodge, no time to flee, no time for anything. Already, the blue glow filled his vision, and Julius knew this was it. He was going to die. But even as his mind accepted this fact, he realized it didn’t mean Marci had to die with him.

  After that, the choice was simple. It was barely a decision at all to step in front of Marci and reach, not with hands, but with his power. The mental muscles he hadn’t exercised in nearly a decade screamed as he forced them into action, giving him an instant pounding headache. Julius ignored it, digging deep into his own magic—not the physical shape his mother had cut off, but his actual power, the spark of internal magic that made him a dragon trapped in a human body instead of just human.

  He reached as hard and as far as he could. And then, when he felt the burning pain that meant he was at his absolute limit, Julius yanked up, pulling his magic over them like a shield as the creature’s magic crashed down.

  ***

  Years ago, when he’d been a hatchling too young to even assume a human form, Julius had developed a knack for using his magic as a wall. His mother, not yet realizing what a failure of a son she’d hatched, had declared him “exceptionally gifted” for figuring out such a unique way of using their inborn power. For Julius, however, it was a simple matter of self-defense. As a small dragon already at the bottom of his clutch, learning how to make a shield to protect himself had been a vital survival skill.

  Unlike humans, who drew their magic from the outside, a dragon’s magic was inborn. This difference was the reason his kind had been able to scrape by when magic had vanished for the last thousand years while human mages and spirits had completely shut down. Unfortunately, it also meant that when Julius used his magic as a shield, anything that struck the barrier also hit him, and right now, he felt like he’d just hit the ground after jumping off the Grand Canyon.

  The giant lamprey’s magic slammed into his own so hard, he felt it in places he hadn’t realized he’d had. Just when he thought for sure he was going to be pounded under completely, the lamprey’s blast struck something heavy, dense, and immovable deep inside him, and the surging magic stopped.

  For a terrible moment, that was actually worse. The impact raced through Julius’s body, shaking him nearly to pieces. But then, like a tennis ball bouncing off a wall, the lamprey’s spell rebounded, shooting back across the water to strike the monstrous sea snake square in the throat.

  By this point, Julius was more magical than physical. He could still see, still feel, but all of his normal senses were secondary to the horrible shaking going on inside him. So when the glowing blue blast he’d sent back at the lamprey exploded in its face so hard the monster was blown back, he saw it only vaguely. It wasn’t until Marci grabbed him around the chest and dragged him to the wall, away from the waves caused by the giant’s frantic thrashing, that Julius realized what he’d done. He’d bounced the monster’s magic. He was still wondering at the miracle of that when he saw something jump out of the water and began scaling the giant lamprey’s body. Something that looked remarkably like his brother.

  He sat up so fast Marci yelped. Sure enough, Justin, still human and seemingly uninjured, was climbing up the writhing monster’s back, stabbing his sword into the thing to keep his hold whenever it dropped under water. But while Justin was clearly doing damage, the lamprey wasn’t going down. Worse, it seemed to be recovering from the blow Julius had accidentally landed on its head.

  That thought had barely finished when tentacles began flying out of the water to yank Justin off. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but with his sword stabbed into the thing’s back like a climbing hook, Justin couldn’t fight them all off. If Julius hadn’t been sealed, he could flown over and cut his brother free, but he couldn’t fly. He could barely sit up after all that magic. But he had to do something. Justin could be a royal pain, but he’d come to help him tonight, and he was his brother. Julius was trying to figure out what that something could possibly be when the tentacle wrapped around Justin’s waist suddenly let go.

  The creature shrieked at the same time, and he looked up in alarm to see Marci standing at the center of her circle with two lampreys, one of which was still alive and wriggling, piled in front of her. He was working up the strength to help her knock them away when Marci shoved her hand out, and the two oversized black sea creatures at her feet seized up like they’d been electrocuted. At the same time, a wave of super-heated air shot out to strike the monster’s face.

  It screamed in pain when her spell hit, but Marci wasn’t even looking. She was already yanking another snapping, terrified lamprey into her circle, kicking out the old ones to make room. It wasn’t until she fired another shot, though, that Julius realized what she was doing. She was using the lampreys like batteries, sucking power out of them like she’d done with the chimera tusk back at the house.

  Fresh lampreys must have been much more powerful than preserved chimera parts, because now that the shock of bouncing the creature’s attack was fading, Marci’s magic was all Julius could feel. Power rolled off her in waves as she launched shot after shot of her repurposed microwave spell at the monster in the water, leaving long, blistering burns across its pitch-black skin as she screamed for Justin to just kill it already.

  Julius didn’t know if his brother could hear her, but Justin obeyed all the same. With a speed and strength that would never pass for human, he tore himself out of the web of grasping tentacles that had gone stiff from the pain of Marci’s attacks. Using his sword like a pick, he scaled the lamprey’s slick side until he was right behind the monster’s head. Then, grabbing the Fang of the Heartstriker with both hands, Justin slammed his sword into the creature’s skull.

  As always, the Fang of the Heartstriker cut clean. With a roar of rage and victory, Justin sliced sideways. The moment the sword cleared the last of the creature’s inky flesh, its horrible bellowing cut off like a switch, and then it toppled so fast Justin was forced to dive back into the water before the enormous body crushed him like a falling redwood.

  The lamprey landed with a crash that sent a wave washing all the way over Julius and Marci’s heads. They were still sputtering when Justin hauled himself up onto the cement platform beside them. He shook his body like a dog, spraying blood and black water everywhere, and then he rolled his shoulders beneath the soaked remains of his shirt and turned to survey the now-quiet lake.

  “See?” he said. “I had it in the bag the whole time.”

  Julius had no comeback for that, especially since his ears chose that moment to start ringing. He was trying to figure out how to get them to stop when Marci bent down and plucked his miraculously still-functional phone out his jeans pocket, the actual source of the ringing.

  He expected her to hand it to him, but Marci didn’t. Instead, she looked at the caller’s name on the screen, lifted the receiver to her ear, and said, “Hello?”

  It was like watching a horror movie. Punch drunk on magic, flat on his back, muscles useless, Julius couldn’t do anything
but lie there and feel his blood go cold as Marci said, in her cheerful, clearly human voice, “Oh, I’m sorry, Bethesda. Julius isn’t available right now. Can he call you ba—”

  Justin snatched the phone out of her hand mid-word. “It’s me,” he said gruffly, shoving the phone between his soaked shoulder and his dripping ear. “No, she’s Julius’s and he hasn’t trained her properly. You know how he is. No, I’m not going to kill her. Calm down.”

  Marci’s eyes went wide, and she turned back to Julius with a questioning look. He didn’t have time to answer, though. He was too busy forgiving Justin for every childhood insult and thoughtless word. That idiot dragon had just saved Marci’s life, and he was probably the only one who could have. Mother adored Justin. Things that would have gotten another Heartstriker gutted were deemed “cute” when he said them. Normally, the double standard annoyed Julius. Right now, though, Justin was his favorite sibling.

  “Here.”

  He jerked as Justin’s voice sounded suddenly right beside him, and then again when his phone appeared in the air above his face. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Julius raised a shaking hand and took the phone, pressing it against his ear, which he’d just realized was bleeding. He moved the phone back a bit with a grimace and tried again. “Hello?”

  “Julius Heartstriker,” Bethesda roared. “What are you doing?”

  “Currently? Lying on my back.”

  “Don’t get smart with me,” his mother snarled. “What has gotten into you?”

  Way too much magic, Julius thought, but even that had an odd detachment. Normally, the sound of his mother’s angry voice was enough to send him into instant cowering obedience. After the giant lamprey, though, Bethesda’s rage didn’t seem so bad. Clearly, he must be in shock.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, more out of habit than any real sincerity since he still didn’t know why she was angry.

  “You should be,” Bethesda said. “What you thinking, using my magic like that? I felt that blast all the way down here. If I wasn’t so shocked to discover you possessed the presence of mind to come up with such a clever trick, I’d fly to the DFZ and skin you for your presumption.”

  Julius closed his eyes with a trembling sigh. So that was what had happened. The lamprey’s attack hadn’t bounced off something unknown inside of him—it had bounced off Bethesda’s seal. His mother’s punishment had just saved his life and Marci’s, and the irony was so beautiful it actually struck him dumb for several seconds. Fortunately, his mother was too busy chewing him out to notice.

  “Well,” she said when she’d finished, her voice scalding. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Historically, those words were the cue for him to clam up in terror. Woozy as he was from the blast and everything else, though, Julius rolled with the first thing that came to him. “Only that I’m very sorry. I never dreamed you’d be able to feel such weak magic from so far away, but I should have known better than to underestimate your incredible powers of perception. I’m grateful for your mercy in allowing me to survive and learn from the experience so that I may never make such a stupid mistake ever again.”

  That was the biggest line he’d ever fed his mother. Even Justin looked taken aback. Bethesda’s voice, on the other hand, sweetened noticeably.

  “My my,” she said. “It seems this fiasco has finally taught you how to grovel. That’s a step forward, but don’t you ever do anything of this sort to me again. Children exist to help their parents, not hinder them. And if you must keep a human, teach it some manners before it gets itself killed. Now put Justin back on.”

  Julius dutifully handed his phone back to his brother before reaching his hands out for Marci to help sit him up. She did so without looking, eyes glued to Justin’s back as he walked away.

  “What was that about?” she whispered. “And what did you do earlier? What’s going on?”

  Julius didn’t know how to answer any of that safely. He didn’t know much of anything, actually. The world had started spinning as soon as Marci had pulled him up, and as he tried and failed to focus on a single point, he wondered vaguely if this was what being drunk felt like. Dragon metabolism was so fast that actually getting sloshed took way more effort than he was willing to invest, but he’d always been curious. If this was what it was like, though, Julius was glad he’d never bothered. Not knowing whether you were going to hurl or pass out was hardly his idea of fun.

  In the end, passing out won. He dropped Marci’s hands and fell straight back, mercifully blacking out before his skull hit the concrete.

  ***

  When Julius woke up again, his head was much clearer. It also hurt like hell. Groaning deep in his throat, he opened his eyes to see he was still on the platform by the lake, though he was no longer lying directly on the floor. Someone had put a folded sweater down to cushion his head, and since he was pretty sure Justin didn’t wear bright purple, he could only assume it was Marci’s.

  “Hey, you’re up!”

  He looked over just in time to see her boots come to a stop right beside his head before her face filled his vision. “How are you feeling?”

  He considered the question for a moment. “I’ve been better,” he said at last. “How long was I out?”

  “About ten minutes. I’m actually amazed you’re conscious. That was the nastiest case of backlash I’ve ever seen, especially in someone who isn’t supposed to be a mage.”

  “For the last time,” Justin’s voice echoed from somewhere beyond Julius’s feet. “He’s not a mage! Julius is terrible at magic.”

  “If you can use magic, you’re a mage,” Marci called back with the sullen tone of someone who’s already said this numerous times, though she didn’t take her eyes off Julius. “I’ve never seen someone just shove magic out of themselves like that. How did you do it? Can you show me? Your brother won’t tell me anything.”

  “Because he asked me not to,” Justin growled, finally stepping into Julius’s line of sight. “So stop asking questions already.”

  Marci shot his brother a deadly glare, and Julius closed his eyes with a sigh. Not that he didn’t appreciate Justin actually keeping his mouth shut for once, but would it be too much to ask that he do it in a way that didn’t make it sound like Julius was hiding things?

  “It’s complicated,” he said at last, pulling Marci’s attention back to him. “I’ll be happy to explain everything later”—never—“but this isn’t really a good place or time. We’re still on a deadline, and we need to find those mages.”

  Marci and Justin shared a look Julius couldn’t make out. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

  Before Julius could ask what she meant by that, his brother grabbed his arm and heaved him to his feet, putting him face to face with the crowd waiting at the other end of the cement platform.

  Even seeing it with his own eyes, Julius couldn’t quite believe it. The landing beside black lake was packed with human men and women in clothes ranging from fashionably distressed to straight-out bizarre. Still more humans were on the water in boats, fishing bits of lamprey out of the bloody lake with large nets. All of them were clearly mages, a fact made obvious both by the hum of human magic that had replaced the deathly aura of the giant lamprey pool and by the bright glow of the light spells hanging from the spillway’s roof like the world’s most elaborate chandeliers.

  “Turns out my Kosmolabe was right,” Marci said smugly, patting the bag at her side. “They were under the water. Their base is in an old bomb shelter that goes under the lake. That was why we couldn’t reach them from the pipes. They were never actually part of the water system! The storm drain we saw is a fake they use to disguise their entrance. They actually cut a door into this spillway so they’d have a back exit, but they had to stop using it when the lampreys moved in.”

  Happy as Julius was that Marci had solved the mystery of their missing mages, he was only listening with half an ear. The rest of his attention was on his nos
e as he breathed deeply, sorting through the various horrid sewer stenches for any sign of their prey. But while he did catch a trace of a cold, wintry sea scent that reminded him of Svena, it was old. Katya wasn’t here.

  “Justin,” he said softly.

  “I know,” his brother whispered back. “I smell it, too. But don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

  That made Julius more worried than ever, but before they could discuss it, his brother yanked him to his feet and half helped, half carried him over to the edge of the platform, as far from the humans as possible. When Marci tried to follow, Justin shot her a full-on “I am predator, you are prey” glare that stopped her in her tracks. Only when she’d turned and scurried back to the mages did he finally return his attention to Julius.

  “We need to work quickly,” he said, his voice low and urgent as he propped Julius against the wall. “Our target’s gone, but from the scent, she was with these people up until at least an hour ago, so she can’t have gotten too far. Now, the dragon smell is strongest on the guy who’s acting like their leader, so here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll grab him and be bad cop since you couldn’t pull it off if you tried. You be good cop and tell your mage to run interference on the others. I don’t think they’ll fight since they’re all impressed we killed big-and-slimy, but if they do, we’ll smoke ‘em. Ready?”

  “No,” Julius said, resting his weight against the wet cement. “Justin, the only reason I’m even standing right now is because of the wall.”

  “Well, how much longer are you going to be?” his brother said. “Because we’re in kind of a hurry.”