by Rachel Aaron
“Hey!” Justin said, stomping back over. “Are you deaf? I said let’s go.”
“Not without Marci.”
His brother stared at him for a second like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, and this his face got scary. “This isn’t the time to be stupid,” he growled, shifting Katya’s body higher on his shoulder. “We got what we came for. Dragon secure, clan war averted, mission accomplished, now let’s scram before we lose it.”
Julius held his ground. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Oh, come on!” Justin yelled. “She’s a mortal!”
“She’s my friend!” Julius yelled back.
“We don’t have friends!” his brother bellowed. “You want to play nice, you do it on your own time, but this is family business, Julius.”
He stopped, waiting for a response, but Julius had already turned away, and Justin cursed loudly. “Is this really the story you want me to bring back to Mother? That you had a clean escape with the Three Sisters’ girl in your hands, and you threw it away to save a human? There are nine billion of the bastards running around! I’ll get you another one. Now let’s go.”
“No!”
The word came out so loud, even Julius jumped. He didn’t regret it, though. He’d already made up his mind, and he’d had about enough of this. “It doesn’t matter what she is,” he said, staring Justin down. “Human or dragon or anything else. She’s my friend and my teammate, and I will not leave her behind.” He dropped his hand to his sword and turned back to face Bixby. “You don’t have to help me,” he said softly. “You don’t even have to stay if you don’t want, but don’t get in my way.”
Justin snarled in frustration and reached out to grab him, but Julius was already gone, racing across the gym with his hand wrapped tight around Tyrfing’s worn grip.
The sprint wasn’t his fastest. Even though he’d thrown everything he had at it, after the magic eater’s attack and this whole crazy day, there just wasn’t enough left to go around. He was still faster than the human Bixby, though, and that was what mattered.
The mobster swore as Julius appeared right in front of him. This close, he could see the panic in Bixby’s eyes, the absolute, up-against-the-wall, survival-at-all-costs battle going on inside him as he dropped Marci to turn his gun on the new threat. Another time, when he wasn’t so injured or out of practice, Julius could have dodged. Now, though, he didn’t have a prayer, so he ignored the gun and stayed on target, fixing his eyes not on the detonator clutched in Bixby’s hand, but on the hairy stretch of wrist between the mobster’s suit cuff and his gold-plated watch as he yanked Tyrfing out of its sheath.
Like it had been waiting for this moment, the short sword leaped into his hand. It flew up so fast, Julius wasn’t even sure it was flying in the right direction, but he didn’t try to correct its momentum. He simply kept his eyes on the mark, swinging his arm as hard as he could and trusting the cursed blade to do the rest.
A well-placed trust, it turned out. The moment the short blade was free of its sheath, it flashed and turned in Julius’s palm, jerking his swing up and sideways to land a perfect strike on Bixby’s exposed wrist. The ancient sword cut through bone and flesh without a whisper of resistance, slicing Bixby’s hand—and the detonator clutched in it—clean off.
The strike was barely finished before Julius lunged forward, catching the trigger as it tumbled from Bixby’s now lifeless hand just like he’d caught the falling water this morning. The moment his fingers made contact, he stabbed his own thumb down on the detonator button, pressing it back into place before the bomb could go off. It was such a marvelous save, such a perfect catch, he didn’t even realize he’d been shot until he heard the bang.
Julius dropped like a stone. His chest, already ripped to ribbons by the magic eater, was on fire all over again, though this time the pain was focused just below his left lung. He supposed he should be grateful that the shot hadn’t gone through his lung, but he was in too much pain to think about anything except holding on to the detonator. That he clung to for dear life. He was trying to roll over and curl himself into a protective ball around it when someone grabbed him unmercifully by the shoulders and laid him flat again with a snap.
“Of all the—” Justin growled, snatching Tyrfing out of Julius’s hand before the exposed blade could stab anyone. “It was one bullet, Julius!”
His brother’s bedside manner left much to be desired, but at least Justin’s scathing appraisal helped to remind Julius’s panicked body that it wasn’t actually dying. He was, however, in a great deal of pain, not to mention bleeding like a hose. But neither of these things would kill a dragon, even an awful one, and he was certainly doing much better than Bixby.
The mobster had collapsed after Julius sliced his hand off. He was now lying on the floor, gripping the stump at the end of his arm and screaming at the top of his lungs. Marci was down right beside him, coughing on her hands and knees. Any other time, that would have been a sorry sight. Right now, though, the relief of seeing her alive and whole was almost enough to make Julius forget the horrible pain in his chest, especially when she looked over at him and asked, “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine,” Justin snapped before Julius could open his mouth. “He’s just being a baby.” He kicked what was left of Bixby’s severed hand away with practical ambivalence before kneeling down to glare right into Julius’s face. “Honestly, who ever heard of a dragon going down to one bullet? All that big talk about not leaving anyone behind, and then you go down like a leaf at the first shot. You should be ashamed. I’m ashamed for you.”
“If anyone should be ashamed around here, it’s you!” Marci cried, yanking herself up on pure indignation. “What were you thinking, letting your injured brother get shot like that?”
“How was I supposed to know he’d be stupid enough to try and save you?” Justin roared.
Marci sucked in a furious breath, but Julius cut her off. “Can we talk about this later?”
Both of them snapped their heads down toward him, and Julius nodded at the ceiling, which was now crawling with magic eaters. A fact he had an excellent view of, being on his back.
The visual reminder worked as intended. Justin and Marci gave each other a final glare, and then they put their argument on hold as they burst into action. But while Justin leaned down to get Julius, Marci went for Bixby. The mobster made a few feeble attempts to keep her away, but he was too busy going into shock to run any real interference as she plunged her hand into the bag on his belt and pulled out the Kosmolabe.
“Really?” Justin said as he hauled Julius to his feet.
“Waste not, want not,” Marci said, shoving the golden orb into her bag. “Besides, the Kosmolabe is the whole reason Estella did this. I’m not just going to leave it here for her to scoop up.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “Well, if you’re done collecting, can we go?”
“One last thing,” she said, reaching down to pick up the gun Bixby had dropped. Before Julius could ask what she meant to do with it, Marci turned the barrel on Bixby and shot him in the heart.
There was no warning, no hesitation. Even Justin jumped when the crack of the shot filled the room. The bang was still echoing when Bixby’s thrashing stopped, and he let out a last, gargling breath before falling still forever.
Marci let out a breath as well, bending over to set the gun back down on the now very bloody gym floor. “There, now we can go.”
Everyone was staring at her when she looked up again. “What?” she cried. “He killed my dad! He tried to kill Julius, and he was going to put me in a coma. He deserved that.”
“No argument here,” Justin said, hoisting Katya’s still-unconscious body back onto his shoulder from where he’d put her down to tend to Julius. “You’re a better dragon than he is.”
Marci didn’t seem to know quite how to take that. Julius wasn’t sure either, but he was very, very glad when she stepped in to support his other side. “Thank you,” he whis
pered, leaning on her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“That’s my line,” she grumbled, sliding her arm around his waist to support his back. “You’re the one who got shot.”
“It was just one bullet.”
Marci shook her head and leaned closer, supporting more of his weight as the four of them—Justin carrying Katya on one shoulder and supporting Julius with the other—half ran, half hobbled to the gym’s main doors.
“All right,” Justin said when they got close. “This whole situation is FUBAR, and if you don’t want it getting more so, do exactly what I say. The magic eaters are predators. They’ll go for the wounded first, so we’re going to stay close and move fast. Marci, you keep Julius up. I’ll get everything else.”
“Right,” Marci said, pulling Tyrfing back out of the sheath on Julius’s belt.
Justin arched an eyebrow. “Can you even use a sword?”
“Nope,” she replied. “But that’s kind of the point of a sword that never misses, and it’s not like I can use magic at the moment.”
Now that she’d mentioned it, Julius realized he couldn’t feel any magic in the air at all. The dark, heavy aura of the Pit had vanished completely, leaving only a void that was somehow worse. No wonder his family complained so much about the days before the magic returned. The unnatural emptiness felt terrible. It also brought to mind a pertinent question.
“How many magic eaters do you think are here?” he asked as Justin lifted his foot to kick the press bar that opened the gym door.
“Not enough to take me,” his brother said confidently, smashing the exit open. “Just stay close and there won’t be any troub—”
He stopped short, causing Marci to bump into him. This, in turn, bumped Julius between them, jostling his wound hard enough to make him see spots. He was still blinking them away when Justin said, “Okay, this is a bit more than I anticipated.”
‘A bit’ didn’t begin to describe it. Back in the gym, Julius had assumed the magic eaters who’d come in through the ceiling had been the boldest, or at least the hungriest. Now, he was starting to wonder if they hadn’t just been pushed in by the rest. The area outside the gym was a solid carpet of magic eaters. The ground was literally black with their crawling bodies, and the beat of their wings in the air above was so constant, it actually raised a wind. Everywhere Julius looked, the darkness was moving, and he didn’t need his brother’s unusually serious scowl to know that they were in very real trouble.
Marci swallowed. “Should we—”
“No.” Justin swung Katya’s unconscious weight into a fireman’s carry across his shoulders to free his right arm to draw his own sword. “We’re going to do this quick, so keep that kitchen knife up. Julius, you hold tight to that detonator until we can tie it down. And try to stop bleeding so much. You’re only drawing more.”
Julius sighed. “I can’t just stop—”
“I’ll carry the girl and go offense,” Justin went on, rolling over him. “Ready?”
Julius started to say no, but Justin was already out the door. Marci dragged Julius after him a second later, sticking to Justin like glue as he raised his sword to cut a path.
Cut turned out to be the wrong word. Justin’s Fang of the Heartstriker never actually made contact. Apparently, he’d been right about the magic eater’s unwillingness to attack. Despite their exponentially superior numbers, they were clearly not eager to take on an uninjured dragon like Justin. They scrambled to avoid his blade whenever he swung, filling the dark with their horrible screeching as they flew out of reach, but not away. They would always land again a few moments later to rejoin the circling mass, their spider eyes glinting in the dark.
Despite Justin’s orders, it was slow going. Even with Marci’s support, Julius could barely walk. By the time they’d made it to the end of the sidewalk, he was ready to lie down and never get up. The only reason he didn’t was the magic eaters. He could almost feel their eagerness as they watched him limp past, and the memory of those sharp, cold claws digging into his chest was awful enough to overcome his exhaustion. Fortunately, they didn’t have much farther to go. They were already crossing the street to the parking lot where Bob was waiting for them, and none of these overgrown scavengers would dare mess with a dragon like Brohomir.
Holding that promise in his mind like a beacon, Julius made himself keep moving. One step at a time, he forced his feet up and down, ignoring the pain in his chest, ignoring the monsters snapping their teeth right behind him, ignoring how they seemed to be walking forever. He put all of it out of his head and pushed forward, keeping his eyes firmly on the dirty, broken ground in front of him, which was how he almost ran into his brother when Justin suddenly stopped.
“What?” he panted, slumping into Marci.
Justin shook his head. “He’s not here.”
Julius blinked, uncomprehending. “Who’s not here?”
“Bob!” Justin snarled, swinging his sword at the circle of magic eaters around them. “We’ve walked over the whole damn the lot now, and the car isn’t here.” He bared his teeth. “Bastard left us.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t do that,” Marci began, but she went quiet again when Julius and Justin shot her matching looks of disbelief.
“You had to stop and save the human, didn’t you?” Justin muttered, adjusting Katya on his shoulder. “Fine. Doesn’t matter. We can get out on our own, it’ll just be a walk.”
Julius couldn’t stop his grimace at the idea of more walking. “Isn’t there another—oof!”
His surprised gasp turned into a pained one as Justin was thrust into him, nearly sending them both to the ground. His brother recovered instantly, whirling around with his sword up, but the magic eater who’d shoved him had already scurried away. But one success leads to others, and a few seconds later, another magic eater worked up the courage to take a snap at Katya, actually cutting off some of her hair before Justin drove it back.
“We have to keep moving,” he growled. “The longer we stop, the bolder they’ll get. Now go.”
“Go where?” Marci said, bracing against Julius’s weight. “We can’t walk ten blocks like this.”
“We have to,” Justin said. “Just—”
His words transformed into a roar as a long, barbed claw shot out of the dark to hook his leg and yank it out from under him. Justin went down with a crash, taking Marci and Julius with him. For a second, he lay prone on the cracked asphalt, and then he came up swinging, lopping off the barbed claw—and the leg it was attached to—in one smooth strike. But the damage was already done.
The monster had barely scratched him, but the small stain of blood on Justin’s jeans sent the magic eaters into a frenzy. It didn’t help that the fall had reopened Julius’s wound, either. The double dose of fresh scent combined with the fact that all the dragons were now injured drove the creatures insane. Within seconds, their screeching had gotten so loud it was physically painful, and then, as though a signal had been given, the whole mass attacked.
Justin attacked back, dumping Katya on Julius as he swung his sword in a huge arc in front of them. The Fang of the Heartstriker sang through the air, cutting the magic eaters like paper wherever it touched them, and it wasn’t alone. In the confusion, Marci had thrown up Tyrfing with a squeak, closing her eyes as she waved the enchanted sword wildly.
The blade took things from there. Lighting up like a flare in the dark, Tyrfing turned expertly in Marci’s clumsy grip, slicing straight through a magic eater above her to cut it in two. It took out the one on her left next, sending that half of the attacking mob skittering back in terror, and Julius felt a rush of relief. Finally, something was going right.
“It’s not even dulled,” Marci said breathlessly, examining Tyrfing’s glowing edge. “They must not be able to consume imbued magic locked in through the enchanting process! I wonder if we could—”
A roar cut her off. While Marci had been fighting, a second rush of magic eaters had tried to swarm Justin. He
’d broken free immediately, but not without cost. His shirt, already full of holes from the bullets, was now gone completely, and his bare chest was riddled with tiny cuts. He was breathing heavily, blowing out puffs of smoke with every pant, and Julius felt a fresh surge of dread rise up to join the ocean already roiling in his stomach.
“Justin,” he said softly, trying to go to his brother only to realize he couldn’t. He was still on the ground from his first fall with Katya in his lap where Justin had dumped her. He couldn’t even grab her to roll her over because his right hand was still wrapped around Bixby’s stupid detonator and he needed his left to keep his wound together. The situation was so ridiculous, he would have laughed if it hadn’t been happening to him. But it was, and if he didn’t want things to get even worse, he had to calm his brother down. Right now.
“Justin,” he said again, biting the name out with a snarl. The challenge got his brother’s attention at last, and he whirled around, eyes flashing dangerously. Julius dropped his own in reply, lowering his head in an attempt to look as meek and nonthreatening as possible, but that didn’t stop him from reminding his brother, “You can’t change here. This is the DFZ.”
Justin wiped the blood off his neck, flinging it away in a savage gesture. “I don’t give a—”
The rest of his words were drowned out by a scream Julius would never be able to forget for the rest of his immortal life. He didn’t know what had caused it, his own show of submission or Justin’s careless blood-flinging, but all at once, the magic eaters rose up with a high-pitched wail that echoed to the skyways and attacked as one.
In the space of a second, the whole world became a confusion of snapping teeth and clawing fangs. Julius didn’t even try to defend himself. It was all he could do to keep a hold on both Katya and the detonator trigger as the magic eaters began sucking his magic right out of him. The only good part was that the magic eaters didn’t seem to care about Marci. Julius was trying to figure out how he could get to her and his sword when the ground began to shake.