by Dima Zales
“So it wasn’t you,” Nero mutters. He must’ve come to the same conclusion as I did—and he has truth-detection abilities. “In that case, I will give you one last chance to live.”
“I’m much more powerful than you remember.” Cass puffs up his chest, increasing his resemblance to a cock. “I bet you haven’t battled another dragon during your exile. And you’re already bleeding. How hard would you be to slay?”
“Some of these are unfortunately valid points,” I say in English and loudly enough so that Nero could hopefully overhear. “Let’s take a chance and just run for another gate.”
If Nero heard me, he shows no sign of it. Instead, he blurs into motion as he growls, “So be it. You will die.”
Cass springs into action, his movements just as blurry as Nero’s.
It’s hard to tell what’s happening at that speed, but I’m pretty sure Nero’s uninjured left hand turns claw-like and slices at Cass’s low brow. Cass ducks in time to avoid losing his face, and both of his hands also turn claw-like, slicing at Nero’s face and torso. Nero dodges both strikes and throws a low kick that Cass sidesteps. He then claws at Nero’s neck and right shoulder—but misses.
“Put Itzel down and let’s go help him,” I tell Ariel as the two men turn into an even faster blur of deadly claws and naked skin.
Ariel places the gnome on the ground and takes a step forward.
“Stay back,” Nero orders in English as he dodges a series of attacks. “Don’t move another inch.”
“Then kill him already,” I shout. I can’t bear to watch Nero in danger.
“It’s not that easy. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Rasputin points at the bloody streak that leads to Nero.
“I think Nero can take him still,” Ariel says confidently, and as though to confirm her words, Nero succeeds at slicing a bloody gash in his opponent’s cheek.
Now they’re both bleeding—though Nero’s injury is much worse than Cass’s.
Growling, Cass headbutts Nero, causing him to fly back a few feet.
The vision in which Lilith sliced off Nero’s head flits through my mind.
I can’t risk him losing.
I can’t risk losing him.
“This is bullshit,” I grit through clenched teeth and press the button that activates the plasma blade on the sword in my hand. “I’m going to—”
Nero glances at me over his shoulder, and a bright shimmer surrounds his body as he turns into a dragon again.
“That’s more like it,” Cass growls and turns also. Then they both leap into the air and roar at each other like two bears fighting over a mate.
They then circle one another in the air, each studying his opponent with narrowed eyes.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Felix mutters. “I think Nero turned into his dragon form so you couldn’t interfere—”
“Why?” I clutch the sword hilt tighter and wonder if I can throw it at Cass. I decide against it, worried that I might hit Nero instead.
“Notice how much more blood seeps from that claw wound compared to a human hand,” Felix says. “He’s bound to weaken faster this way.”
“Shouldn’t it all even out in the end?” I ask in desperation. “When he’s big, he has more blood, right?”
“Sure,” Felix says sarcastically. “Magical transformations like that always follow logic—”
Tired of circling, Nero zooms forward and swipes at Cass with his tail—landing a blow into the other dragon’s chest.
Cass’s tail wraps around Nero’s damaged claw in return—and squeezes.
With a pained roar, Nero claws at the guy’s tail, but Cass pulls it back just in time to avoid getting hurt.
Nero swats Cass with his undamaged claw, but the other dragon dodges and tries to sink his teeth into the claw—which Nero jerks back just in time.
Damn it.
Why hasn’t Nero killed him already? With every moment, he’s losing more and more blood.
“Can we wake Itzel somehow?” I poke at the still-unconscious gnome with the tip of my space boot. “One of her balls would be—”
Nero spews fire at Cass, and my breath stops in my chest as Cass spews fire back at Nero. In the blink of an eye, each dragon is enveloped in a thick stream of fire.
To my surprise, Nero looks as calm as if he were bathing in warm sunrays.
His opponent, on the other hand, roars in pain.
“Yes!” I pump my fist. “Burn him.”
Cass looks at Nero in panic; then his eyes hone in on me, and he turns his fiery breath at me and my friends.
With an angry roar, Nero dives, blocking the fire’s path with his body—which gives Cass a chance to dive at Nero’s back with his claws.
Nero spins in the air—but not fast enough.
A claw slashes through Nero’s right shoulder.
Dread and anger color my vision red.
“Ariel, throw me at that dragon,” I order in English as Nero roars in pain and spins around to slice at Cass’s chest, his claws leaving a shallow gash in the other dragon’s hide.
“Are you insane?” Felix shouts as Ariel grabs me. “Those are dragons!”
“Do it,” I insist.
She complies, and her suit-boosted super-strength doesn’t disappoint.
Heart hammering, I launch into the air like a superhero.
“What did you do?” Rasputin shouts in Russian.
My fingers spasm over the sword hilt, and my heart pounds against my ribcage as I fly in a wide arc.
Cass’s giant eyes widen as he spots me, and he extends his claw, ready to squash me like a fly.
Nero roars and chomps at the extended appendage.
Cass yanks the claw away—which is when I fly by him and slice his wing with my blade, cleaving it off.
Then, I begin to fall.
Chapter Fifty-Six
With a roar, Nero snatches me from the air with his claws.
Cass crash-lands on the ground, roaring in pain.
Nero swoops down and deposits me in Ariel’s arms before zooming back into the sky.
Cass’s body lights up, and he turns into a humanoid again.
Leaving a blood trail behind himself, he rushes at us.
I clutch my sword and try not to think of all the times I trained with Nero without landing a single punch. At least until I cheated using my powers—something Itzel is preventing me from doing now.
In the corner of my eye, I see Nero do a loop in the sky and dive at Cass, his undamaged claw extended.
Trying to leverage his currently smaller size, Cass tries to dodge, but Nero’s talons tear into the man’s midsection.
There’s a gurgling sound, followed by a crunch. Nero rips his claw out and raises it for the ultimate blow.
“Wait!” Cass chokes out, spitting up blood. “I can lead you to Claudia.”
Nero lights up and shifts back into a man—with a smaller claw still ready to strike.
The wound on his shoulder is gushing blood, and I don’t need Ariel’s background to know that it needs urgent medical attention.
“She’s dead,” Nero growls. “I saw—”
“You saw her badly wounded, but unlike the others, she survived.” Cass coughs up a bloody chunk of mucus. “My uncle plans to marry her so that—”
With blurring speed, Nero’s claw enters Cass’s chest. Ripping out the man’s still-beating heart, he tosses it on the ground and stomps on it with the heel of his foot, over and over, for a whole minute.
Then he starts stomping on Cass’s face, crushing it with each blow.
At my side, Felix lifts his visor and starts puking his guts out.
A distant roar shakes the ground, sounding like it’s coming from at least a dozen dragons.
Nero stops his grisly task and looks into the distance, his expression terrifyingly bloodthirsty. I’m pretty sure he wants to fight these newcomers; something about what Cass just said about this Claudia is fueling Nero’s bloodlust.
“Nero,
” I say soothingly and lift my visor so he can see the pleading look on my face. “We have to go. You’re bleeding.”
He glances at the sword in my hand, then meets my gaze.
“Please.” I touch his uninjured shoulder. “I need you to walk into that green gate with me.”
His fists clench as he glances at the sword once more, looks up into the distance, then returns his gaze to my face.
Jaw tight, he turns on his heel and strides for the gate.
Ariel grabs Itzel and rushes after him, with the rest of us hurriedly following.
We enter the gate and end up in some cavern.
Nero looks at Rasputin. “Which gate is next?”
“There.” My father points at a purple gate a few feet away.
“We need to stop your bleeding,” I tell Nero.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “No time. They might come after us.”
“And your blood trail will show them which gates we’re taking.” I unscrew my helmet and slip out of the suit to get at my shirt underneath it.
I rip off a sleeve as Nero stares, his expression peculiarly hungry. Ignoring it, I say, “Get over here, so I can do this and we can go.”
He walks over, and despite our dire situation, my face heats at his nudity.
Ariel makes some inappropriate sound.
“Shut up and help,” I tell her as I rise on tiptoe to get a good look at the wound.
Ariel joins me, and we do our best to bandage the shoulder.
Unfortunately, our work only slightly dampens the blood flow. Cursing under my breath, I rip off another sleeve, and Ariel wraps it over his hand. This works marginally better than with the shoulder.
“Now we go.” Nero turns and strides for the purple gate.
I put the suit back on and follow, my eyes never leaving Nero’s perfectly sculpted behind.
How bad can hooking up with a dragon actually be? Especially one who looks like that?
I mean, hypothetically, of course.
After the purple gate, we end up at an empty forest meadow in a world with stars that look much too bright—and illuminate Nero’s body so that—
“We’re going there,” Rasputin says, pointing at the red gate nearest to us.
Nero walks where my father suggested, and I do my best to smear any blood droplets Nero leaves behind with my boot.
In the next world, the gates are standing in a crystal-clear shallow water that spans from horizon to horizon.
The water makes Nero’s shapely calves glisten with—
“This is good,” Felix says, kicking at the water with his booted foot. “Even if our pursuers are as good as dogs when it comes to tracking, they’ll still lose our trail at this point.”
Nero looks over his shoulder at Felix with a look that seems to say, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just compare dragons to dogs.”
We go through the gate Rasputin points out and end up in a frozen wasteland, surrounded by what looks a lot like penguins—only they’re solid white in color.
I close my visor in order not to lose my nose to frostbite and glance worriedly at Nero’s naked feet.
He seems oblivious to the cold—with not a single goosepimple on that naked body… and I’ve checked thoroughly. When he stops to look at Rasputin for direction, I realize that even Nero’s private parts didn’t shrivel up in the cold—something I noticed purely by accident, of course.
The accident being that I’m a peeping perv.
“That way,” Rasputin says, and without so much as a shiver, Nero strides to the gate in question.
I overturn the snow where I spot droplets of Nero’s blood and follow everyone into the next world.
This world looks like a forest, but I don’t get a chance to take in the details because of a naked Nero getting right in my face… with his face.
“You will never risk your life like that again,” he growls, his expression furious.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, his lack of clothing messing with my concentration. “I’ve been walking safely, like everyone else.”
“I think he means the stunt with the sword,” Felix whispers.
“You stay out of it,” I hiss at Felix, then unlock my visor and give Nero a narrow-eyed stare. “He had his claw in your shoulder. Did you want me to let him kill you?”
“I had him.” Nero’s limbal rings grow dangerously wide. “But even if I didn’t, you are not to risk yourself on my behalf.”
“Right,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster. “So you can come rescue me from a goddess and get your head chopped off with this sword”—I lift the hilt—“but I’m not allowed—”
A gnome scream interrupts my righteous tirade.
Turning on my heel, I see Ariel setting a kicking-and-screaming Itzel on the ground.
“What happened?” the gnome demands after she realizes she’s not in danger. “Where is Lilith? Where are we?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Felix says to her. “But first, can you walk or do you want Ariel to carry you?”
Instead of answering, Itzel takes a few shuffling steps. “I’ll walk, and you talk,” she says, lifting her visor.
“This way.” Rasputin points at a pink gate, and we enter it as Felix tells Itzel about recent events.
In the time it takes Felix to finish, we walk through a dusty world with too many moons, and through a place that looks like the surface of Mars—but with oxygen.
To his credit, Felix doesn’t bring up the part where Ariel tossed me at a dragon. No doubt he doesn’t want Nero to start yelling at me again, and for that, I’m grateful.
For the next couple of worlds, Itzel fumes about the fact that there was a path that didn’t need her or the suits, concluding with how she isn’t getting paid enough for any of the events that transpired—particularly the part where she rode a dragon while unconscious.
“I’ll add some zeroes to Felix’s payment,” Nero tells Itzel when she’s done. “You were extremely helpful back there, and I want to make sure you’re properly compensated.”
“Oh.” Itzel looks Nero up and down. I’m not sure if she realizes that he’s naked or not, but I’d put my money on yes. “That’s very generous—”
Nero waves his hand, cutting her off. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get your payment.”
“You’re sure?” She looks him up and down again.
“Positive,” Nero says. “I may need your particular skills in the future.”
She nods, and her gaze stops around his crotch region. “I can’t believe you’re a dragon,” she says without lifting her eyes. “I’ve never met one before.”
“As far as everyone outside this group is concerned, you still haven’t,” Nero says silkily and looks at each of us. “Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Felix replies instantly.
“Who would I tell?” Ariel asks rhetorically.
Itzel bobs her head, and Rasputin mumbles something in Russian before pointing at the next gate.
Nero is first to enter, and the rest of us follow.
“Are we there?” I ask when I exit and look around. The hub looks almost identical to the one at JFK.
“Not yet,” Rasputin says. “Unfortunately, the next gate is in another hub, elsewhere on this world.”
“We have to trek through an Otherland?” Felix looks worried.
“That’s the only safe way,” Rasputin says. “We could go through these gates to more dangerous worlds, but—”
“I’m okay with this,” Itzel says. “I’d rather hike than see giant insects ever again.”
“Or cannibal gnomes,” Felix mutters. “Or—”
“Just lead,” Nero growls at Rasputin. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there.”
“You might find this a rather depressing world,” Rasputin says over his shoulder as he starts walking toward a regular door. “Just want you to be ready when you see all the bodies.”
“Great,” Felix mumbles. “Can’t
wait to see the bodies. Plural.”
The mirrored floors of the hub reflect Nero’s nakedness in an interesting way, keeping me occupied all the way to the corridors—which also seem to be clones of the ones at JFK.
Following the pattern, the door we reach also looks like a dead ringer for the one at JFK.
“This isn’t warded,” Itzel says, looking at the door. “Hidden hubs like this are usually warded.”
“You can see wards?” Ariel asks, sounding impressed.
“Of course,” Itzel says. “I didn’t realize others can’t.”
“What are wards?” I ask.
“A spell that keeps humans from even thinking about going into the hub,” Felix explains. “There are witches who—”
“Spells? Witches?” Itzel’s voice drips with disdain. “Did you grow up on a medieval world like the one Lilith took over?”
“Pedantic much?” Felix grumbles. “It’s faster to say ‘witches’ than ‘Cognizant with the power to make wards.’”
“It’s unscientific,” Itzel says. “We call them warders on Gomorrah.”
“Sure,” Felix says sarcastically. “That sounds so much better than witches.”
“It’s more specific.” Itzel walks over to the door and opens it. “If you call mind manipulators, power removers, power boosters, and so on ‘witches,’ it makes it sound like they all have the same set of powers, which they don’t. As to the term ‘spell,’ that’s even worse. A ward is a perfectly good term for what a warder does; you just used it yourself. I personally prefer the term ‘persistent psychological—”
She doesn’t finish her thought because she sees the view outside the door.
Walking out in shocked silence, we stare at the bodies Rasputin warned us about.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
If you could turn a human into a raisin, then suck some moisture out of that mummified corpse, it would approximate the dried husks of the people sprawled all over this very JFK-like airport.
Many of them have their suitcases lying right by them—as if whatever happened to them came without warning just as they were going through security or checking in their luggage.