But then, as I stood frozen to the spot, helplessly watching that foul shadow scuttle towards us, I began to realize that this wasn’t a monster out of a nightmare.
No. It wasn’t a monster at all.
Oh sweet Jesus.
It was one of the Pendragon women!
The insight hit me like a blow. I watched the shadow coming closer, and I finally allowed myself to understand what I’d refused to believe until that moment. That thing was one of the Pendragon women—and yet, at the same time, it wasn’t a woman at all.
It wasn’t even human.
It was a creature of evil, and its outline was unmistakably that of a dragon.
As the horror approached, I could hear the clicking sounds of its claws scratching against the floor, and yet I did nothing. I couldn’t. By then I’d been in terrible situations before, not least when a disturbed boy pointed a gun at me with death in his eyes. But this was a different kind of evil. There was no broken humanity here, no misguided motives, no pitiful posturing. This was not an evil born out of human flaws or human weakness. It was older. And colder. Merciless and absolute.
I was powerless in the face of it.
What I remember most clearly is the fear I felt. By then it was so intense that it almost became a kind of calm, and I looked at the approaching shadow with a peculiar fatalism, accepting that what would be, would be. In retrospect, I realize that I must’ve been in a state of shock because I couldn’t breathe and my teeth chattered loudly. But at the time I felt almost peaceful.
My fate was lurching towards me and I could do nothing to stop it.
The thing took a long time to reach us. Not because it was moving slowly but because the distance between us seemed to grow with every second. At first I thought I was imagining it, that it was part of this weird, dream-like reality I’d been swallowed by. But then I caught a glimpse of Ingrid, who stood beside me with her arms outstretched, and I realized that she was the one making the distance grow so strangely. By then she was fully wrapped in her magic; it came off her like pulsing, electric waves, and with every breath, I realized, she was physically pushing the monster away.
I felt a flash of hope, praying that she’d be able to keep that awful dragon-shaped shadow from ever reaching us. But then there was a terrible rustling sound as the thing leaped into the air and flew towards us.
I will never forget that sight for as long as I live. The dread of it. The disgust and the fear. In the dim, flickering light, most of it seemingly coming from Ingrid, I could see that the creature was oddly shaped, and yet its silhouette was unmistakable. It had wings, and a tail, and the thick body and long neck of a dragon from a fairytale. As it came closer, I saw that the thing was essentially featureless, apart from a large mouth with sharp, uneven fangs. It bared those stained fangs at us, snarling and screeching with all the rage that evil feels in the presence of light.
The shambling flight of that dreadful creature finally managed to jolt me out of my shocked state, especially once I realized that other, similar horrors were following the first. I tried to get away, only to find that it was almost impossible; with every step the ground beneath me wobbled unsteadily, throwing me off balance. I tried to get up, tried to find my bearings, but everything around me kept changing shape in the way of nightmares.
There is no other way to describe what happened next other than to say that reality itself seemed to bend, to become part of the fear that sat like a suffocating, living weight on my chest. In the slow seconds of dread that followed, I realized that everything I had experienced earlier—the library, the people, the arguments between families and generations—had been nothing but an illusion.
There was no polished wooden floor beneath my feet, no walls around me, no roof above my head, no books or tables or chairs, or anything made by human hands. Instead, I stood on something dank and moist and moving in a place where evil lived, surrounded by crawling, formless, featureless things that kept changing shape under my horrified gaze.
In a hot rush of unreasoning panic, I reached out to Ingrid. But she, too, wasn’t Ingrid anymore. The woman who stood next to me was magnificent and strange and I did not know her: a being of stone and ice, as hard and immovable as a statue.
I pulled my hand away from her and I prayed.
When the creature finally crossed the unnaturally long distance to strike at her, there was a sickening crunch as its soft, misshapen, shambling body crashed into her hard, unbending, upright form. In the murky light I could see just enough to realize that she made no attempt to fight back, but simply stood there, immovable and terrible, as the unclean thing clawed and bit and scratched at her.
I remember the overwhelming respect I felt for her then. The gratitude.
This woman was larger than life; the only thing between me and an evil that terrified me to the point of despair. She stood there, tall and unflinching and glorious, as if she was not made from flesh and blood but carved from marble and could feel no pain.
I realize now that she must’ve felt a great deal of pain. She must have been in the most excruciating agony, especially after that first horrible creature was joined by another, and then another, and another. Later that night, after saving Ingrid from the flames, I would put my hands on her and realize that the injuries she’d sustained during that attack had been fatal. She would’ve died from them, eventually, if I hadn’t found enough power to heal her.
But while the attack lasted, I fully believed the image she was projecting, and I did not fear for her. Instead, I’m ashamed to admit, I feared only for myself. I looked at the Pendragon women, finally seeing them in their true form, and I knew them as my sisters.
Oh God, oh God.
The horror of it.
As the strangely one-sided fight between Ingrid and the monsters continued, I found myself becoming more and more detached from it all. Partly this was because I did not quite know what was going on; by then my sense of reality had been twisted into the dark unlogic of nightmare and I was unraveled by fear, by shock, by confusion. I knew that the monsters swarmed over Ingrid like maggots on a dead thing and that she did not flinch. I knew they made a great deal of noise—a cacophony of high screeches and terrible, hissing moans—while Ingrid remained utterly silent. I knew they remained unhurt even as she was brutally assaulted: the air was filled with the sounds of slurping and biting and cracking bones as they attacked her with claws and beaks and fangs.
But in spite of what I knew, I did nothing to help her. I couldn’t.
The place I was in was not a real place, the world not a real world. When I reached out to something it disappeared or lurched away or changed into something else. When I took a step, the ground gave way beneath my feet. When I cried out my words were swallowed by the air around me.
I had lost all sense of who I was, all belief in my own power to fight back and protect myself. I felt like a small child lost in a dark wood, helpless and scared and pitiful. All I really wanted was for it to stop. All of it.
All I wanted was for this never to have happened.
The sound of Jack Pendragon’s voice in that nightmarish place was unexpected, almost absurd. He was part of the world of money and power and business and bullying— how could he have a voice here, in this place, where none of those mundane things made sense anymore?
But then I heard how scared he sounded, and I knew the voice was real. Another terrified child in the dark, desperately crying out. “Father! I need you to stand with me! Amber is turning.”
“I cannot help you now, boy.”
“You must! She’ll devour me!”
“I warned you this would happen.”
“Please, father!”
“I’ll not break Amber for your sake, Jack.”
I couldn’t make out anything in the darkness, but the raw fear in Jack Pendragon’s voice chilled my blood.
“No! She’s coming! She’s coming!”
At that point there was a flickering of light, just enough for me t
o see that the monsters had stopped their attack on Ingrid. They were moving away from us, but I couldn’t see what they were doing or where they were going.
“They’re all turning! They’re following her lead!”
The terrible hissing and clicking became less pronounced as the monsters moved further and further away.
“I can’t control them! Somebody help me!” Jack Pendragon’s voice was filled with the complete despair of someone who sees his own death waiting, all too soon and all too suddenly.
“Is the boy strong enough to take the role of Alpha if he dies?” The voice that spoke those calm words was so deep it had to belong to Zig’s grandfather.
“Unlikely.”
“Then we’ll need to step in. Can you handle this, Siegfried?”
“I will do what I must.” I clearly recognized Zig’s voice. “It was my chain she broke. It is my responsibility.”
A few seconds later the darkness was broken by a thin strip of light. In the dusky gloom it created, I could see that Zig held the strip of light in his hand as he advanced upon the monsters, handling it almost like a sword.
No. It was a sword.
He was approaching the monsters with a sword of light in his hand, his stride confident, his movements controlled, his manner poised and self-assured.
“Do not kill it if you can help it.” That deep voice again. “Remember it was Amber once, and this mess is not of her doing.”
In the dim glow, I could see that the monsters scurried away from Zig like cockroaches fleeing a sudden burst of light. Only one remained, horribly wrapped around Jack Pendragon’s lifeless body.
“Get thee forth!” Zig cried, his voice echoing in the darkness. Through the gloom, he too seemed different from the brooding, sinister young man I knew: larger than life and pure as a flame. Almost… heroic.
The thing did not move.
“I command thee—cease and depart!”
Nothing.
While he cried out his orders to the monster, Zig sounded strong and resolute. But as he lifted his sword, I sensed a wavering. The slightest hesitation. A hint of regret, maybe.
When he spoke again his voice had changed. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said he sounded pleading. He left the archaic language behind too, so it almost sounded as if he was addressing an old friend. “Amber. If you’re still in there somewhere, leave now. Please. Let go.”
Still, no movement.
The body hidden beneath the monster began to kick wildly, legs flailing the way they do when someone is deprived of oxygen for too long.
Zig raised his sword above his head, drew in his breath, and struck.
I could not tell if his harsh cry was one of pain or victory.
Chapter 29
Thus the great dragon was cast out, that Horror which deceiveth the whole world: it was cast out onto the earth to mingle its blood with the blood of humankind.
And the ten kings of the earth committed fornication with the great dragon, and from their loins, the begetters of the Horror sprung forth.
And, lo, the centuries slew those begetters one-by-one, until only the Great Whore remained, the one who sitteth upon many waters, a scarlet colored beast, filled with the names of blasphemy, upon whose forehead is written: MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATION OF THE EARTH.
For when the Horror is made flesh, it shall drink the blood of saints and martyrs even as it feasts on the flesh of babes and innocents, destroying all that is pure and holy and leaving only death and desolation in its wake.
The Old Words: Verse 1:12.
When the darkness lifted, we were back in the library.
The only evidence that something strange had happened was an overturned table, a few broken chairs, a toppled bookshelf and a couple dozen books lying in heaps on the floor. For the rest everything looked almost absurdly normal.
Ingrid was still standing next to me. Her face was a dull gray color and she was shivering lightly, but she had no visible wounds. At the time I was fooled into thinking that she’d escaped the attack largely unscathed. It is only now that I realize what stupendous effort it must have been, to appear so normal. What courage it must have taken.
Jack Pendragon was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and his face as white as a sheet. Zig’s father and grandfather weren’t far from where I’d seen them last, holding five of the Pendragon women on chains.
The women were still standing in a loose circle, beautiful and passive, staring at nothing. None of them had so much as a hair out of place: their make-up was perfect, their clothes impeccable, their faces spookily serene. If it hadn’t been for the blood seeping down from under their iron collars and their manacles, staining their breasts, their hands and their feet, I might have been able to tell myself that they had never changed into monsters after all. That it had only been my imagination running wild.
But their open wounds told a different story.
Zig and Jonathan were both kneeling over a body slumped on the ground. Jonathan looked devastated; Zig’s face was perfectly expressionless. I took a step closer, trying to see what was going on, but Ingrid put out a gentle hand to hold me back.
Still, I’d seen enough.
The woman lying on the floor was Amber, Jonathan’s beautiful blonde sister. She was lying in a pool of blood, completely lifeless, and there was something odd sticking out from her chest. I craned my neck, trying to get a better look.
It was Zig’s sword.
But now, under the warm glow of the library’s lamps, this was no blade of light any longer. The weapon that stuck from her chest was twisted and ugly, made of bone and hair and what looked like the horn of some animal.
I looked at it and I shuddered.
George Pendragon was standing at the far side of the room, staring out the window at the darkness of the night outside. I couldn’t see his face, but I got the peculiar impression that he might’ve been crying.
“Is she dead?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
I watched, horrified, as they removed that horrible sword from Amber’s body, Jonathan pressing his jacket down on her chest while Zig pulled it out in one smooth motion. After that, Jonathan carried her from the room, his face a grim mask of pain and anger.
All this happened in complete silence.
As soon as the girl was gone, I expected Ingrid to demand once again that they let us go, but she was still standing in the exact same spot as earlier, silently waiting. In retrospect, I realize that she must’ve been too weak to move—too weak to even speak—but at the time I simply assumed she was waiting for something else to happen. Some kind of deal to be struck, perhaps.
The truth was that I wasn’t thinking straight. I was still reeling with the shock of what had happened: my brain seemed incapable of processing the things I’d seen, the knowledge I’d finally gained. Yes, things were falling into place in my mind, very slowly, but I was still unwilling to accept the conclusions I was coming to. Everything inside me was trying to reject what I’d just learned.
And so I just stood there silently, waiting.
Once Amber was taken away, I thought Jack Pendragon would get medical help immediately. But he suddenly seemed perfectly fine: he was standing on his feet and his color had returned to normal.
I wasn’t the only one surprised by his speedy recovery. When George Pendragon finally turned away from the window, he looked more than merely disappointed in his son. He looked disgusted. Sickened. “You used their power to heal yourself?”
“The Alpha must always remain in control.”
“You are not worthy of that name.”
“Then claim it back from me, old man.”
George Pendragon started coughing as he walked away. “The least you can do is get their wounds seen to,” he said, slamming the door behind him.
With his father and son gone from the room, Jack Pendragon immediately became the picture of smooth urbanity again.
“Look,” he said to Ingrid,
“I admit tonight did not quite go as planned. But we still need to talk about the kitten’s future, now that she doesn’t have any magic of her own anymore. Would you wait for me downstairs? I have a few matters to attend to.” He waved a hand at the remaining Pendragon women, who were standing around vacantly, chained and bleeding.
Ingrid nodded, then turned towards the door. It was opened before she even touched the handle, and the woman in the black-and-white uniform led us back to the room with the bison head and the huge fire.
Even then I didn’t question Ingrid’s stiff movements or her complete silence. It was just another strange part of the strangest night of my life. Of course, now I realize she could barely walk, and that it must’ve taken all her strength just to pretend she had the power to leave if she wanted.
When we were finally alone in that overheated room downstairs, Ingrid sank onto the sofa and let out her breath in a deep, ragged shudder. But I was too caught up in my own thoughts to realize how close she was to collapsing. It is only now, and with shame, that I recall that little detail so clearly. At the time I was far too focused my own pain to notice hers.
“Is it true?” I asked. “And no more clever arguments about words and labels, please. Just give it to me straight. What’s going on? Am I really a… dragon?”
She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.
Then she nodded.
That subtle little movement shook my world to its foundation.
Dear God.
I thought of the nightmarish, fanged, featureless dragon-shaped creatures the Pendragon women had turned into, and I felt my sense of self dissolving like salt in water.
“But… What does that mean? Will I change into one of those things one day?”
Ingrid opened her eyes for a second, surprised. She searched my face for something—I don’t know what—before she leaned her head back against the sofa again. “Tell me what you saw. Be very specific. Don’t assume that we saw the same things.”
Fireborn (The Dark Dragon Chronicles Book 2) Page 30