by Lan Chan
A dragon roared outside the cave and in my head. Flames spouted from the holes in the roof to heat the room once more. The ceiling began to break apart.
Andrei groaned and fell unconscious again. This time so did Max. Up on the ledge, Chanelle fainted. Her body went limp. She slid out of the hole in the wall. At that height and angle, she would break her neck. Just before she hit the ground, a figure shot out and caught her. Kai had given himself away to save her.
The para-humans who had been dazed by the dragon’s psychic stun now startled. The Fae mage screamed. “Kill them! The Council have sent them with this creature to take what’s mine!”
My spine creaked at the constricting grip of the clay golem. It turned its back to the room, stealing my last glimpse of Kai with a spear in one hand and Chanelle held to his side. He had a bloody nose. There was also blood crusted to the side of his head. I shouldn’t have cared, but the image of Kai bleeding had terror shooting through me.
Just before I thought every bone in my body was going to break, a flash of fire bloomed behind the golem’s back. It bathed him in heat and singed my face. The golem made a deep, gurgling sound. Pretty impressive for something without a throat.
As the baby dragon hurled fire at it, the clay started to harden. Its grip turned brittle. The golem tried to turn and run. When it took a step, its leg shattered. Inertia had it falling over. I braced myself for the fall. We hit the ground. The golem broke into a million pieces.
Andrei was dead to the world. I dragged him against the wall to keep him from being trampled. Seeing its companion disintegrate, the silver giant that was trying to bash Bradley against the floor stopped and turned my way.
I couldn’t take on a metallic giant without my powers. The only thing to do was to cut off the source of the golem’s strength.
Unfortunately, that meant somehow defeating the Fae mage. Andrei groaned. I remembered the elemental orbs he’d chosen.
“Hey!” he protested when I mugged him.
Ignoring his weak attempt to overpower me, I grabbed the orbs and rifled through them for the ice element.
The dragon outside rammed the mountain. My feet slid out from underneath me. Several of the para-humans dropped to the ground and covered their heads while the Fae mage worked his magic to keep the cave intact. The cave trolls replaced the blue-tipped arrows with purple-tipped ones. The problem with dragon fire was that it created light. It made it possible for the trolls to see what they were shooting at, and they were dangerously accurate.
As soon as there was a hint of scales through the openings, the trolls opened fire. They reloaded with frightening speed. It was a game of volume and they were winning. I sucked in a breath as a purple-tipped arrow embedded into the juncture between the dragon’s shoulder and wing. It howled and retreated. I winced in sympathetic pain. The baby dragon whined.
The Fae mage directed his furious attention to it. “See what you’ve done?”
The same purple magic that tipped the arrows curled around his fists. He closed one eye as though taking aim.
Something brushed up against Michael’s seal. A sorrow so deep, it almost brought me to my knees. One of the kobolds who fell near my feet had a double-edged blade strapped to his back. “Can I borrow this?” I asked, before I kicked him in the head. His eyes rolled back. I yanked the sword from him and weaved through the minefield of cowering para-humans.
I wasn’t sure how the orb worked but it was solid like a big marble. You tossed marbles, right? That’s what I did anyway.
At the same time the Fae mage unleashed his magic, I threw the ice orb at his feet. His head snapped up in my direction just as a crack reverberated through the cavern. The orb exploded into a crystalline bomb that collided with the purple fireball. Shards of solid ice sliced through the air.
Too late I realised I was directly in the firing line. Hundreds of icy shards came hurtling towards me. It would have sliced right through my neck if a body hadn’t collected me and pushed me out of the way.
Even through the charred smoke and ozone that permeated the air, I breathed in Kai’s pine-and-sunshine scent. He rolled with me in his arms and caged me against the wall. Blue-white light flashed. It burned my corneas. I screamed and buried my face in his neck. I felt his body shudder around me before his muscles corded.
The flash only remained for a second. In its wake, the cavern became my worst nightmare. A frosty part of hell. Only this one was full of pissed-off para-humans. Kai shoved his palms against the wall, pushing himself up. His expression was stony. I immediately let go of his T-shirt. My heart twisted at the smudge of blood on his shoulder.
He turned away abruptly, pretending like none of this had happened.
The para-humans that could still function descended on us. So did the ceiling. I picked up the blade I’d dropped and met them head-on. Kai blasted through them with a rage that I knew came from a source close to fear.
I cut a path through them with surprising ease. I’d learned to fight demons and they certainly weren’t up to that calibre. Two goblins jumped into my path. One of them held a pickaxe, the other a spear.
“Really?” I asked. “He’s flat on his back.” I nodded to where the Fae mage’s crumpled form now lay. “Do you really want to be here doing this forever?”
The one on the left gnashed his teeth. Behind me, Max was rousing. Without the Fae mage’s magic, the golems had turned to dust. A warning growl rumbled in Max’s chest.
“Please,” I said. The word seemed to stump them for a second. I didn’t particularly want to hurt them. They didn’t particularly want to die either because they dropped their weapons a minute later and ran past me. The cave trolls were another matter.
But it was the ceiling that was the biggest problem. Without the Fae mage to keep it intact, it was going to come down on us at any second. “Lex!” Max shouted at me. I was at the edge of the dragon glass pit.
Up close, I could see that the chains weren’t just metallic. Their enchantment continued to glow. A not-so-distant crack had me startling. I jumped to the left just as a boulder the size of a basketball broke the ground where I had been standing. It seemed to be the catalyst that turned the whole place into chaos. The para-humans abandoned their posts and fled. Conversely, the dragon outside resumed its charge, completely without reason. If this kept up, the dragon would bury its baby along with us. In my mind, I felt the deranged edge of its thoughts. That purple arrow must have contained poison.
The baby dragon chortled. I tugged futilely at the chains.
Somebody grabbed my shoulder. “Let’s go!” Andrei shouted in my face above the noise of the world crumbling around us. He had a broadsword in his hands. Behind him I saw the others scrambling in and out of the armoury. When they achieved their goal, they ran out of the cave following the para-humans. For goodness sake!
I tossed Andrei aside. “I’m not leaving without her.”
He wouldn’t let go. “The ceiling is about to come down!”
“Then you better stop standing there and start helping me!”
There just wasn’t much we could do. Even Andrei wasn’t strong enough to break enchanted chains.
The baby dragon reared as a boulder hit its back. Panic gripped my heart. “He’s not dead,” Kai’s cold voice said from behind me.
I whipped around to see him standing there holding the spear. Chanelle stood beside him, her eyes still glassy. A crossbow dangled uselessly from her hand.
I glanced towards the Fae mage. Something locked in my throat. I swallowed helplessly. “Bloody hell!” Andrei snarled. He marched over to the Fae mage, and in one quick, thoughtless swing, he cut the mage’s head clean off.
The chains stopped glowing. Max came out of nowhere, slid into the hole, and started yanking the chains from the dragon glass. Chanelle clutched at Kai’s arm but she wasn’t strong enough to hold him as he joined Max. Together, they managed to free the dragon.
Then we had another problem on our hands. The hole was t
oo small for the dragon to take flight.
Andrei gave me the dirtiest look ever, shoved the broadsword into my hands and slid into the crater. Between the three of them, they managed to lift the baby dragon up high enough that she could flap her wings. With a bit of lift, she hovered and clawed her way out. They came scrambling up afterwards. Precisely a second before the ceiling came down on us.
48
The baby dragon gave a shrill whistle. I lifted my head to the sky. There was something not quite right about closing my eyes and waiting for death. The shadow that blocked out the moon had me reconsidering my stance. The adult dragon’s wing swept the tumbling boulders from the air. A clawed arm came right at me. I screamed as it grabbed me. This time I did shut my eyes.
My equilibrium was shot to hell. The world somersaulted. Hot and cold air alternately lashed around me. It was the worst fairground ride ever.
My eyes were still pressed tight when I suddenly felt solid ground beneath my feet. A groaning sound of rocks sliding against each other filled my ears. I blinked and caught the last of the mountain crumbling in on itself.
A quick glance around showed me we were in a glade separated from the mountain by a belt of trees. There were people around me, but I couldn’t quite register who they were because there was a cathedral-sized dragon looming over me.
I thought I knew fear, but the reptilian head that bent down to cast slitted, green eyes at me made everything else disappear. The dragon had a crest of skin around the back of her neck. It looked like a crown of bone and scales.
I was still dazed when somebody grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. Andrei’s rage-filled red eyes glared at me. “What the hell was that?”
I just stared at him. I’d never seen him angry before. It was weird. The thought must have shown on my face because his eyes widened for a second before his face reshaped into its usual sly nonchalance.
A soft thud beside me stole my attention. The baby dragon ambled forward. It nudged its head against the big dragon’s side. The bigger dragon’s nostrils flared. I saw the poisoned arrow was still embedded in its wing.
I approached it gingerly, but Max blocked my way. “Are you crazy?” he said. “It’s not right in the head. It could tear you in two.”
Inside my mind, I felt the dragon’s indignation. Stupid lion, a distinctly feminine voice said.
My jaw dropped. The dragon’s brow moved, and I knew it was a challenge. Why was I so surprised? Doctor Thorne could speak. Why couldn’t a dragon?
“Help me with the arrow,” I said to Max.
“Lex!”
I stomped my foot. Even though he looked like he’d gone a couple of rounds with death, Max grated his teeth and came up beside me. “Hold still,” I told the dragon. Max and I wedged the arrow out. A splash of rotting flesh oozing green blood covered our hands.
“Just great,” Max muttered.
“Why hasn’t the trial ended?” Chanelle asked. The sound of her voice made me want to hurl the arrow at her.
Andrei almost threw a fit. “You didn’t get a weapon,” he said to me. He was still slightly affected by the dragon’s telepathic roar. There was a cut on his cheek that wasn’t healing and his shirt was torn. If ever there was a time he looked like a homicidal vampire, it was now.
I glanced around helplessly. “I guess this arrow isn’t going to cut it?” I asked the air. Nothing happened. Dammit. The thought of marching back to the mountain and wading through all that rubble made me want to quit there and then.
“That’s what you get for taking your eye off the prize,” Andrei said.
“It would have been nice if you weren’t unconscious half the time!” I shot back.
When he balled his fists, the dragon moved its leg to block him from my view. She turned her head towards her breastplate. With a groaning twist, she yanked off one of her scales, bit into it, and spat it at my feet.
On her it was just another scale. Measured next to me, it would cover my entire chest and halfway down my thigh. I picked it up thinking it would be heavy, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t throw it around easily, but I could carry it. With a bit of ingenuity, it could be turned into a shield.
“Is this enough?” I asked.
In response, the glade disappeared before my very eyes. The dragon’s thought pattern pressed down on my mind. The world reshaped. A house that looked like it belonged in a lifestyle magazine rose up before us. It was all red cedar, triangular roof, and glass windows. The Lodge. The resting place of the contestants during the games.
I hung back as the others approached the house. One of these days I would learn not to run headlong into things. At the time, all I’d been able to focus on was winning Gabriel’s Key. It never occurred to me that in order to win, I would have to spend two nights under the same roof with Kai and Chanelle.
Once the games were over for the day, the magic that kept us monitored would lay dormant so the whole supernatural world couldn’t watch us in our sleep. It was little comfort. Andrei had waited for me.
“Problem?” he asked in his fake concerned voice.
“Not at all.” I picked up the dragon scale and started for the door.
This was surely someone’s idea of a joke. The living area was sunken with a rectangular couch setup. The seats faced a mirror that was twice as high as I was tall. To the right there was a roaring fire inside a hearth that could fit an industrial-sized cauldron. Right now, Max was face planted on the rug in front of the fire.
The kitchen and dining area were open-plan and sat to the left of the big room. A wooden staircase led to the upper-floor railing. Kai stood there like a watchdog. His attention was fixed to something in the horizon. His eyes flicked in our direction when we entered. Turning away, he disappeared into the hallway that must have led to the bedrooms.
I tried to ignore the smirk on Andrei’s face.
“Should we settle in?” Andrei asked loudly.
“Laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?” I whispered.
“When am I ever going to get another opportunity like this?” We ascended the stairs. Just as we stepped onto the mezzanine floor, Chanelle walked out of the front bedroom in a fluffy jade-green bathrobe.
Andrei tracked her languid movements. “Look your fill,” Barbara sneered at him. She trailed after Chanelle like a lame puppy. “That’s all you’re ever going to get.”
Andrei gave a deep-throated cackle that was so full of disdain it drew the attention of the whole room. “Been there, done that,” Andrei said. “Forgot it before it was over.”
For some unknown reason, he planted himself in front of me so I couldn’t see past his wide shoulders and steered me into the hallway.
“So, roomie,” he said. “I’m taking the top bunk.”
The implication stopped me mid-step. I bit back a groan. As partners, we would be sharing a room. I had completely forgotten. Through some feat of vampiric hearing or sense of smell, Andrei knew which rooms were unoccupied. He opened the door closest to the end of the corridor and gestured for me to enter. The universe conspired with him to compound my mortification. At that precise moment, Kai stepped around the corner. This side of the corridor must have led to another lookout spot.
For a fraction of a second, he stilled. He took in Andrei half-bowed like some nineteenth-century English butler and me gaping like a dead fish. Outwardly, there was no change to his demeanour. He simply stood waiting for us to finish our exchange. But I knew him well enough to see the barely contained rage in his unblinking eyes. Andrei would have spent an eternity wading in his own smugness if I hadn’t pushed past him.
“Get in here!” I hissed.
He did so only because he knew it would get under Kai’s skin. I held my breath. After a long pause, Kai moved past the doorway. “I don’t think he’s over you,” Andrei said with a shit-eating grin.
I closed the door. Probably not the best idea considering I was now essentially in a closed wooden box with a vampire. “When are you going to
get over him?” I asked.
Andrei raised a brow at me. There were no bunks in here. Just two beds on either side of the room. I picked the one on the right closest to the window and laid the dragon scale near the base. “Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”
“I’ll never let it go.”
“Then who really has the upper hand in this scenario?”
He leaned his shoulder against the closet by the base of his bed. “Seems to me Captain Nephilim is taking this a lot worse than I am.”
We were all blind to our own faults. “You think so? At least he has somewhere to focus his rage. You’re floundering. As far as I can tell, you’re just throwing shit in every direction and most of it hit Kai because he happened to be in close proximity.”
I really couldn’t help running my mouth sometimes. It was a Lucifer thing. I was surer of that than ever. Michael was the warrior. Raphael the healer. Lucifer was the prince of lies. Everything he said was to manipulate. He’d done it so well, the heavenly realm had fallen. I’d gotten a perverse version of Lucifer’s talent. The inability to keep my mouth shut.
Red specks appeared in Andrei’s irises. Oh well, in for a penny.
“If we do win these games, you’re going to ask the Council to remove your family from the Book of Beasts, aren’t you?”
It must have been a real shock because it jerked him out of his almost rage-fit. His top lip curled. “They never should have been there in the first place.”
Disputing it would be suicide right now. Instead I pivoted.
“And what comes after they’re removed?” I’d thought about this a lot during my time in Ravenhall. Not Andrei’s situation specifically but my own. What happened now? “What are you going to do with the rest of your very long, immortal life?”