by Amy Star
Clyde stepped behind Jaxon and took his claws to the ropes binding his wrists. The severed ropes thus fell away to the floor, and Jaxon stood up, looking Norris in his dragon eyes with a wrath to match that of the dragons. Norris and Ross stepped back. Clyde took the chair and carried it away to one side of the gym.
Jaxon looked over to the bleachers to where Sherry was bound and now gagged. Helplessly, she rocked in place, tears streaming from her eyes. The worst of it, he knew, was that in the next few minutes, a piece of her would die with him. And with that, he faced Norris with a look of hate that if it could be turned to fire would have burned the scales right off the big weredragon’s bones.
Keeping that look on Norris, Jaxon went first for his shirt, then his shoes and socks, then his slacks, until they were all heaped on the floor. Naked, Jaxon kicked his clothes away and released his human body into his other shape. In a moment, the young human was gone, his features and form disappearing, yielding to a bear’s fur, a bear’s limbs, a bear’s claws and head and snout. Standing on two legs like the dragons, Jaxon roared at them, challenging them to do their worst.
The three dragons parted their reptilian snouts and let their fangs glint in the lantern light. They raised their talons and curled their tails. Their worst was exactly what they were ready to bring upon the lone, hopelessly outnumbered werebear.
Sherry had no tears or sobs left, only a horror that burned in her blood and quickened her breath—knowing that as she watched, Jaxon was about to breathe his last. She would never even have the chance to tell him that she loved him.
Chapter13
By the light of the lanterns in the gym, the horrible thing began.
Everything before Sherry’s eyes became snapping jaws full of fangs, wings flapping and fluttering, tails thrashing, claws raking the air, and the sounds of a bear roaring and dragons shrieking madly. With every move the combatants took, Sherry imagined fanged jaws sinking into Jaxon’s fur and finding his flesh or raking dragon talons penetrating his fur and rending his skin to bleeding redness. Somewhere under that ursine hide was the one who had given her the greatest joy she had ever known, and she was about to watch him be flayed alive. And every cruel bite and vicious tearing that she saw would seem as if it were happening to her.
On this night that was meant to be the eve of bliss, Sherry would, in a few dreadful, awful minutes, see Jaxon slaughtered.
Jaxon made his choice to go right for the alpha dragon, the one whose insane vengeance had brought him and Sherry to this. His mouth gaping, he charged right at Norris and tackled him, slamming Norris hard down onto the floor and bringing himself down on top of him. Pinning Norris there, he brought his bear jaws to the reptile scutes of the underside of Norris’s neck and prepared to sink in his fangs. Norris flailed his dragon arms and legs and thrashed his tail, beating at Jaxon’s back. He shrieked a dragon shriek, commanding his sons to come to his aid. As one, Clyde and Ross converged on Jaxon. They pounded and slashed at his back with the scaly bludgeons of their tails. Jaxon got Norris’s neck in the grip of his fangs and prepared to bite down hard with all his bear strength. But the younger dragons persisted in their attack. Ross lunged forward, and his own jaws found Jaxon’s shoulder, and the daggers of his fangs bit with the same force that Jaxon intended for Norris. On the other side of him, Clyde leapt to an attack of his own. The talons of one hand raked cruelly all along Jaxon’s unprotected side.
The combined pain of one dragon’s bite and the other dragon’s slashing claws seared its way into Jaxon. Bellowing, he reared back and off of Norris, spilling himself onto the gym floor behind him. Across the gym, Sherry screamed a muffled scream through the handkerchief gagging her. The dragons had drawn first blood. Sherry was wracked with the vicarious agony of what they were doing to her Jaxon. She tossed and pitched hopelessly in her bonds, kicking at the bleachers, unable to bear what she was seeing and feeling, yet unable to look away.
Sherry’s mind, a mass of terror beyond imagining, churned agonizingly with the words, Stop! Stop! Make it stop! Please make it stop…
The dragons, in their wrath and cruelty, decided to have their sport with their wounded victim. As Norris found his footing again, his two sons set upon Jaxon where he lay bleeding from shoulder and side. They stepped within striking distance of him and raised their tails, then struck at him with blows whose sharp slams and thuds rang through the gym and right into Sherry. They slashed and pummeled at Jaxon, and he writhed and tossed on the floor with every impact, roaring and bellowing out his pain and rage, until he somehow managed to roll onto his one side that was not torn, where the shoulder was bitten, and dragged himself shaking to his feet. Bloodied but still defiant, he held up his bear claws, refusing to yield, roaring for the dragons to have at him again.
Norris was next. He charged forward with his own tail at the ready and whipped it hard across Jaxon’s snout, making a horrible cracking sound that reverberated across the space. Jaxon staggered to one side. He nearly toppled. But, growling, he kept himself upright and teetered back in the direction of Norris. In return, the alpha dragon brought forth the talons of one hand and raked them hard and deep across Jaxon’s chest as Clyde had done Jaxon’s side. Now with a roar of searing pain as much as rage, Jaxon staggered again in the other direction, and this time toppled and crashed to the floor.
Sherry trembled all over. This time, she could not help but shut her eyes for a moment. She was watching Jaxon die in unendurable pain, a little at a time. No matter how he fought back, no matter how many times he forced himself back up, he was one and they were three, and with their blows and bites and slashes, their attacks would wear him down to the point where he would never rise again.
When she opened her eyes again, it was to see Norris and his two sons standing over Jaxon at three points, like a triangle. In another deadly second, the three of them would converge on him, snapping and tearing, and finish him off. She screamed another muffled scream that dissolved into muffled sobs. Just as the two sons were set to lunge forward, Norris made a rasping, clicking sound and motioned for them to step back. Clyde and Ross issued other noises at their father, sounding like gigantic, chattering ravens. Norris repeated his sharp, loud, rasping click, and shook his head at them. The two younger dragons lowered their heads and their talons and backed away. Now, Norris alone stood over Jaxon and raised his talons and opened his dragon mouth, showing his fangs.
Sherry’s heart drowned in utter despair. This was it. This was the moment. Norris by himself was about to do the final work of all three of Jaxon’s attackers. As Fiona’s older brother, he had demanded for himself the right to finish Jaxon off. His would be the final snaps and rips that would tear the life from the fallen young Ursan. At Norris’s hand would come the lethal strikes that would end Jaxon’s life and shatter Sherry’s heart.
Jaxon lay still on the gym floor. Only the heavy rising and falling of his midsection betrayed that he was alive at all. These were his final seconds. Sherry could only guess that his last thoughts would be of her.
Mouth of fangs gaping wide, Norris reared back and began to dive for Jaxon’s throat. He prepared to hurl himself forward and down onto the doomed bear…
…when from one side of the gym came the metallic sound of a door handle lowering and a door swinging open on its hinges. Twin flashlight beams stabbed into the lantern-lit gloom. Two figures strode in and a strong, commanding voice called, “Stand back! Stand away now!”
In through the open door at the side of the gym strode Sheriff Glen Bradley and Deputy Denny Slade, each one carrying a flashlight in one hand and a service revolver in the other. Clyde and Ross spun around, tails curling and wings fluttering in alarm at the sight of the lawmen. Norris reared back again and shrieked at the Sheriff and Deputy. The uniformed men strode into the space, flashlights swerving to take in the entire scene. Denny’s light fell on Jaxon, who showed faint signs of beginning to stir. At one point, the Sheriff’s beam came to rest on Sherry. Jumping on the bleachers
as much as the ropes would allow, she gave a muted call to them: “Help! Help Jaxon! Save him, please!”
Clyde and Ross started to back away from the aimed guns of the lawmen. They looked nervously at their father. Norris stood his ground, spread his wings, and roared out a dragon’s bellowing cry at them.
The Sheriff kept his gun aimed at Norris while Denny kept the two younger ones covered. “I said back up. Get away from him.”
Hissing, Norris complied with the Sheriff’s orders. Bradley, keeping his gun raised and ready, crouched down beside Jaxon, and touched the knuckles of his hand holding the flashlight lightly to Jaxon’s shoulder, near the bleeding bite wound that Norris had inflicted. Jaxon raised his head and uttered a bearish moan. Lowering his head again, he began to transform, releasing his bear body back to human. His fur receded and disappeared; his head and torso and limbs returned to human shape. The injury on his shoulder appeared as a torn redness, raw and open but no longer bleeding, and slowly started to seal itself. The act of shifting, when wounded, always acted to heal any physical injuries to the body. Jaxon, human and naked, lay on his other side where the brothers had slashed him. His blood had pooled on the gym floor, but these other wounds were also starting to knit. In gradually subsiding pain, he rolled over just enough to look up at Bradley.
“They’ve got Sherry tied up over there,” he grunted. “Get her loose…”
Bradley touched him reassuringly on the shoulder. “We’ll cut her away from there. You just keep still while we take care of these three.” He looked up at the dragons, his gun still aimed at Norris while Denny kept his own aim on the brothers. “I don’t know what you folks think you’re about, but you’re under arrest for kidnapping and assault. Just stay where you are and go back to human.”
The Sheriff stood up and began to lower his flashlight, meaning to reach for his handcuffs. “I said go back to human,” he repeated to Norris.
Standing his ground, the elder dragon swiveled his neck in the direction of his sons. He made a sharp, rasping sound and jerked his head in the direction of the bleachers. He made the sound again.
The Deputy and the Sheriff traded curious looks for a second. And in just that moment’s distraction came another burst of movement.
Shrieking suddenly, Clyde Jones jumped into the air, his powerful lunge taking him in a blur over the heads of the lawmen, his hard-beating wings carrying him aloft and propelling him across the gym. Shocked, but not too shocked to act, Denny opened fire after the flying dragon. One shot tore through the air and hit the far wall. He pivoted to follow the dragon’s flight in the direction of the bleachers. His next shot ricocheted metallically off the aluminum structure, even as the young dragon touched down on the metal tiers next to a terrified Sherry. “Go after him! Help the girl!” Bradley ordered, and Denny took off after Clyde.
Everything happened at once. Taking advantage of the surprise, Norris and Ross both rushed at Bradley. Ross grabbed the Sheriff around the chest and the arm with the flashlight. The Sheriff’s hand spasmed; he dropped the flashlight, and it clattered to the hardwood floor. At the same time, Norris clamped one scaly hand around the wrist of the hand holding Bradley’s gun. Bradley lurched and struggled in the grip of the two dragons and began to morph. His shirt and jacket bulged with the transformation of his upper body. His head, neck, and shoulders went to bear form, and he roared and snapped at the creatures holding him. He squeezed off a shot that hit the ceiling. With his bear strength, he staggered against the combined strength of the two-winged reptile men. His hand jerked in Norris’s grip, and it became a fearsome arm-wrestling match with the Sheriff trying to take a dead aim at Norris while the alpha dragon struggled to force Bradley’s aim away. Bear roars mixed with dragon shrieks.
Denny reached the bleachers, where Clyde was hunched over a struggling Sherry. The Deputy raised his weapon, and faster than he could react, a dragon wing swiped out like lightning and swatted his hand. The gun went flying from his grasp and spun and clattered onto the floor. Denny lunged for the gun, and in another blinding-fast movement, the reptile man leapt from the bleachers onto him. The Deputy felt something hard and bony connect with his upper back, right below the neck, and he crumpled to the floor at the blow of Clyde’s elbow striking him there. With the deputy thus immobilized, Clyde Jones spun back around to Sherry. He leapt back onto the bleachers next to her and raised the reptile talons of one hand.
Sherry’s eyes bulged at the dragon claws lifted over her. She shut them tight, not wanting to see them descend onto her to slash her flesh and spill her blood and her life out onto the cold metal to which she’d been tied. With a fright, she felt something come down behind her instead, down to where her wrists were bound. In another second, her wrists were free, and she opened her eyes again just in time to see Clyde’s dragon arms encircle her and feel herself being lifted from the floor amid the whooshing of air from his wing beats. Still gagged, she could not scream as he bore her up from the bleachers and into the air. Looking down to the floor, she saw Denny recovering, scrambling to his feet at the same time as his head morphed to bear form, and he roared up at the dragon carrying Sherry aloft.
With Sherry in his arms, too scared to struggle lest he drop her onto the hard floor of the gym from the height they were reaching, the younger Jones brother climbed up to the glass windows of the announcer’s box. Sherry knew what he was about to do and shut her eyes. Clyde made a spin in the air, swinging out hard with his tail. The dragon’s tail connected with the middle window of the announcer’s box. Sherry flinched at the crash of the shattering glass, which could not cut Clyde’s scales. A second later, another gunshot thundered into the air, and Sherry heard the bullet bounce off the metal beams of the ceiling right above them. From the corner of her eyes she could just catch a glimpse of the partially transformed Denny Slade taking another aim, then drawing back his gun for fear of making Clyde drop Sherry. That was all the opportunity that Clyde needed to get himself and Sherry through the broken window. He leapt into the announcer’s box, walked the few steps across the interior to the door, and with a vicious thrust of his dragon foot, he kicked it open, carrying Sherry onto the upper floor of the school.
On the gym floor, Sheriff Bradley was still locked in his struggle with Norris and Ross. Hissing with menace, Norris drew back his neck and brought his head into striking position. Bradley grunted at the evil gleam in the alpha dragon’s eyes, sensing that Norris meant to break their deadlock by sinking his fangs into Bradley’s arms, forcing him to give up the gun. Behind the Sheriff, Ross still had Norris around the chest and his other arm, holding him fast, keeping him in position for Norris’s strike. Bradley roared in the grasp of the reptile men. And then, everything changed.
Suddenly, Ross went flying back, releasing Bradley. He threw his head toward the ceiling and gave out the most horrid, nerve-shattering, ear-splitting scream that a dragon could ever make. He staggered to one side and dropped to his knees, thrashing his wings and beating his tail—and feeling at the row of deep gashes ripped all the way down the back of his serpentine neck. His talons were at once covered with the free flow of his own blood. His agonized shrieks carried on, while above him stood Jaxon in bear form again, with the long claws of one hand soaked with the blood he’d drawn from Ross.
Shocked, Norris pulled back and away from the Sheriff, releasing him, gazing down in a mix of shock and fury at his son’s injury. He raised his head back up to the glaring bear eyes of Jaxon and hissed deeply and hotly, a sound that said, I’ll gut you for that…
Norris advanced on Jaxon. Another sound followed the hiss, a sound of cracking thunder that reverberated on the walls. In mid-stride, Norris lurched back and halted. He was stunned, seemingly puzzled and perplexed. He looked down at a place above his collar, where a red hole oozed blood down his chest. At the sight of it, he wobbled. Then, his body went limp, and he sank first to his knees, then crumpled, hissing into a heap of scales and leathern wings.
Bradley called to hi
s Deputy, “Denny, get over here!”
At once, Denny returned his head and upper body to human form as Bradley did the same. Fighting their pain, the dragon father and son likewise resumed their human shapes to stop the bleeding and start their wounds knitting. When Norris transformed, his bleeding ceased, but the hole in his shoulder remained. The Sheriff and Deputy got the two Englishmen into handcuffs and had them sitting up, restrained, on the floor while Jaxon went quickly across the gym to where his clothes lay. He grabbed just his trousers and ran back to the lawmen, who were finishing reading the weredragons their rights.
Jaxon crouched down in front of Norris and fixed him with a look that told the alpha dragon he was ready to morph again and rip Norris’s throat out. “You sick son of a bitch!” he growled. “What the hell did you tell Clyde? What the hell is he doing with Sherry?”
Evilly, devoid of pity, Norris answered, “We had to have a backup plan, didn’t we? Clyde’s taking your little bride-to-be to a place that he can drop her from. Your wedding’s going to be a funeral, mate.”