“Everything,” Billy said. It was all real. Deadly, totally, utterly real.
Terry laughed. “I doubt it matters, anyway.” He sniffed. “Handing a rocket launcher to a bunch of Neanderthals and telling them to save the world doesn’t work.” He sniffed again.
But someone had to try, right? Someone always had to try.
Terry continued his diatribe. “You need to understand your tools. Someone should have figured out how to target correctly. Understood the telemetry. The reports were specific.” He let go of Billy’s neck. “We are not firing in only three dimensions, you know. Trajectories must line up.”
Trajectories. Causal loops. Radio chatter.
Magic.
He had to try.
His friends started again: Sentinel Five, we are go for test eight.
Copy that, Intrepid. We are go for test eight.
Billy stepped into Terry. He took up whatever alignment he needed and stopped being adjacent. He became one with the same space as his Progenitor.
Terry startled and tried to pull away, but Billy knew how he turned and where he would go. He felt more than understood, and allowed his body to do what it needed to stay with its new passenger—to follow the whipping cyclones in new-space that Terry made.
Their random fireworks chaos filled Billy’s eyes, and he blinked as if real sparks burned his corneas. Their smothering lava burped onto his tongue. Terry’s random dance burned his muscles. But he held on.
“I don’t think so, Sohn,” Terry hissed.
“Shut up, murderer.” He could do this for Ismene. He could do this for Rysa. He would bring this fiend back to The States and he would stop the thing called the Incursion.
Billy Bare, the Burner who’d been given back a part of his soul by a woman who loved a dragon; Billy, the ex-man, ex-rock star, ex-everything important—that Billy slammed Poke crosswise through the meat along the side of his abdomen.
He could walk, with Terry pinned to him there. Poke also would hold his Progenitor better in his gut than slicing up his arm.
“Come, Terry Schmidt,” Billy said. “Let’s go to America.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The cave…
“Turn it off!” Ladon yelled. They’d seen enough of Trajan’s bullshit.
Sister-Dragon stopped the video and set her tablet computer against the outer kitchen wall. Sister stared at the now-dead screen as if Trajan was about to break through and kill them all. Derek looked between his wife and Sandro, who paced near the door.
Rysa backed against Dragon’s chest. She stared into space. Her seers lunged toward the cave’s entrance area like three snapping, antagonized guard dogs.
Which meant Trajan’s outing of the breeds—and his insinuation that Dragon and his sister were somehow evil—was just the beginning of their troubles.
“I am Legion,” Rysa whispered. She threw her arms out and arched her back. “I protect my own.”
She wasn’t standing as if she felt she could protect her own. She stood as if she was about to offer herself as a sacrifice.
“Love?” Ladon touched her cheek. “The Legio will protect you.”
“We are all Legion. We protect this world!” Rysa yelled. Her seers yelled right along with her, and grated over everyone’s minds, so much so that Derek cringed.
“Rysa?” Derek said.
The last time a pallor overran her skin as it did now, she’d been in an activation fever and her temperature had spiked dangerously.
Ladon touched her neck and her forehead at the same time Dragon curled one of his giant hands around her waist.
No fever, Human, Dragon pushed. But a vision has her.
Also the last time a vision had her, Ladon’s melancholy and vigilance triggered behaviors he was not proud of—behaviors he would never again put Rysa through. Yet…
Not again, Ladon thought. Please. “Sandro!” he yelled.
She needed to be okay.
Human. Dragon placed his other great hand on Ladon’s shoulder. A wave of calm followed, but the beast said no more.
Thank you, Ladon pushed. He was no longer that man. There would be no rampage. No destruction or threats. No head shaving.
Someone outside in the tunnel leading to the cave banged on the massive brass vault door. The tunnel extended from the antechamber entrance on the face of the mountain to the cave living area, and was well protected.
A second round of just-as-loud, just-as-intense banging followed closely on the heels of the first.
Whoever was at their door had enough strength to rattle the entire structure.
Derek pulled away from Rysa. “I sense a Shifter and a Fate.”
A thundering, musical seer blasted through the vault and into the cave.
“Mira?” Sandro said.
Sister looked over her shoulder at Derek and Ladon. She nodded once.
I sense Andreas and Mira Torres, Sister-Dragon pushed.
Andreas. Thank the gods. Ladon touched Rysa’s cheek again. “Love, Andreas and your mother have returned.”
Rysa’s past-seer snapped tight around… something not in the cave—something tangential to the space they inhabited—and pulled Ladon sideways into a vision place.
A place he recognized.
Sometimes, this place looked like the Dragon’s Rock. Sometimes, it reminded him of Vesuvius before the explosion that took Pompeii. But mostly, shades slithered here, and his pit of melancholy dropped away from a too big, too cold sun.
But that sun was gone. Clouds filled the sky. Lightning flashed. Thunder echoed off mountains neither Ladon nor Dragon could see.
Rysa hung in the acid-drenched clouds above, chained somehow to the wisps and fog. She floated, and the shades that gnawed at Ladon’s boots also spun around her body.
His ghosts lived here. All his hauntings. All his despair. Rysa hung above as if gripped by death itself.
“Rysa!” he yelled. Can we get her? he pushed.
Dragon ground his talons onto the slithering shades. He danced toward the edge, then back, before rising up on his hindquarters.
Yet the beast next to Ladon—the beast inches from his vision body, the thing sniffing his skin and watching his movements—was not his Dragon.
And this new beast, this monster, reached out.
Not Dragon screamed through Ladon’s mind as new cathedrals of meaning touched his connection to his beast. New colors and new patterns. New constructs, new language, new anger.
New concepts. New ways of understanding. The monster looming over Ladon did not feel individual the way Dragon and Sister-Dragon did; it felt like a union, as if Ladon faced a personification of a nation.
As if, right here on the not-Dragon’s Rock, Ladon and his beast came face-to-face with a living, breathing cathedral of meaning. As if this beast was the manifestation of an entire group’s understanding of what it meant to be that group—that Nest.
Nothing Dragon-like flowed from this beast. He was dragon, yes, but not Brother or Sister. And he seemed as surprised by Ladon and Dragon as they were by him.
He was another Nest’s deity come to “life.”
The new beast slammed a giant claw-hand into the slithering shades. He tore at the ground of this place, and he fed himself a dragon mouthful.
He was significantly larger than Dragon, at least twice as long nose to tip of tail and twice as tall at the shoulder. This beast would not fit inside the van. This beast would rip the van into scrap metal.
And all Ladon could think was Fee Fi Fo Fan, I smell the blood of a little Human.
“Ladon!” Rysa screamed.
What if this monster sensed Rysa? What if he tried to rip her to shreds?
I can’t reach her, Ladon pushed. She’s too far away. Too far up in the clouds.
He received no answer.
Where was Dragon?
The monster slammed his massive claw-hand into the slithering shades. His hide shimmered and flashed with colors and patterns, but faster and with more
grammar than Dragon’s or Sister-Dragon’s hides. A low rumble rolled from his throat.
Each talon extended: shink, shink, shink, shink, shink, shink.
The giant swiped his claw-hand toward Ladon’s head but the vision shifted. The entire plateau flickered like a movie missing frames, and distance opened between Ladon and the monster. Space that was not there before suddenly was, and he was out of harm’s way.
But Rysa now stood between him and the monster. She’d come down from the clouds—how, when? During the flicker? Time was different here. She raised her energy-bladed, now energy-shielded arm.
The monster’s talons hit her fire and the sky burst open. Light as hot as sunshine and as bright as the sun enveloped both her and the monster.
The clouds roiled and Ladon saw: Cities burned.
“Rysa!” She was right there, right in front of him, but he couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t reach his wife.
But she was there again, a warrior standing in the slithering shades, a goddess between him and an unknown demon.
The monster reared up on his hind legs. The cathedrals of meaning blasting from his hide clearly screamed one thing: We will take what we are owed.
All this is righteously ours. All this, I say, is for our taking.
The sky split. Fire rained down. Cities were about to burn.
The monster sniffed the air. You are traitors to the Nest!
Whole cities burn.
Traitors must die. Traitors will die.
“No!” Rysa yelled.
Human! Down!
His beast, his friend, his brother, sunk his talons deep into the monster’s shoulders. The monster rose up yet again, rose high over the humans, and he grabbed Ladon’s beast, his brother and his friend.
And the monster twisted Dragon’s neck in a way it was not meant to twist.
“Dragon!” Rysa screamed.
The vision broke. Ladon snapped from the phantom plateau to the cave’s living area in one bright, boiling microsecond.
He was home, but he wasn’t right. He couldn’t think.
The electrical fires in his brain sizzled. The same snapping jolts he had when he thought he was some kid named Nate. The same sense of displacement and uncoupling.
Ladon dropped to his knees on the hard rock of the cave’s floor.
Dragon? he pushed. “Dragon?” he said. Where was his dragon? He was one half of a whole. They’d been locked in each other’s orbit since…
Brother convulses!
He heard the other dragon. The other one whose orbit was close enough that their streams crossed. The…
Human?
Rysa curled her arms around Dragon’s neck. Sandro placed his hands on Ladon’s temples. Rysa’s seers pumped against and around Ladon’s connection to Dragon, first her past-seer as it called up exactly what she did when she reknit them in that parking lot in Cheyenne. Then her present-seer, a bright light and tone augmented by a second present-seer, one just as musical and just as strong. They worked together to guide Sandro Torres’s healing touch.
And her future-seer, because she refused any future without her husband and his beast.
Human, Dragon whispered.
“Damn it, what did that monster do to you?” Rysa yelled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
My mate, Ladon thought. The core of his Nest. His love. His wife. Her human name: Rysa Lucinda Torres Drake. Her dragon name: Beloved. My love. Mine.
She shimmered all colors and all patterns, and the cathedral embodying all that was Rysa spun around Ladon like the facets of a multidimensional crystal. All the healings she’d offered his spirit. All the touches and the intimacy. All the happiness that this one human person, this one woman, gave to him mind, body, and soul.
In the history of his long life, she was a bright morning. The sun at the end of a very long tunnel. His new beginning… his reason for beginning again.
Before Rysa, there had been wars. Fights. Long forgotten and forgettable weeks and years and a lot of vodka. There had been Ladon and Dragon biding time until she appeared to them, their angel.
She understood. In the deepest part of the night, when he admitted his vulnerability, she pulled him closer instead of pushing him away.
He would have understood if she pushed away, but she didn’t. And now, all that was his and the beast’s world, all that was their memories and thoughts and emotions of her, all that was their comprehension of Rysa Torres Drake, the packet of information augmented not only by Sister and Sister-Dragon, but also by Derek and Andreas and Daisy and Gavin Bower, the plumbing and the electrical in past-perfect and future-probable, locked down onto Ladon like armor.
All of the trust Ladon and Dragon gave Rysa, all their willingness to sacrifice and their need to protect, all their love and life, shifted from a cathedral to a lighthouse. And Ladon and Dragon, human and dragon, found their way home.
The cave erupted into Ladon’s perception: The rock under his boots. The subtle call of the many wild birds and the clucks of the domesticated chickens. The scent of fresh kale. His sister’s fear and the yelling of his brother-in-law.
The calling scents of a man he called brother.
The vault door between them and the winter outside hung open.
“Andreas!” Ladon yelled. He rolled to a crouch.
Mira Torres leaned close to Sister. They spoke in hushed, quick words.
Andreas had flooded the kitchen area with the blend of ‘calm’ and ‘ignore’ he used when he wanted to move through a group unnoticed and unmolested. Ladon also picked out several different versions of ‘heal.’
So Andreas was fully conscious of Ladon and Dragon’s distress, yet he walked by and into the cave.
Sandro Torres backed away, his hands in the air and his eyes wide. “Are you okay now?” he asked.
Rysa’s father had zapped Ladon with a bolt of healing. Rysa had zapped Dragon. The Torreses saved their bodies and minds.
And Andreas Sisto walked by.
“Where’s Andreas?” Ladon asked.
Dragon stood and shook like a dog releasing water. He flashed dragon language at his sister, and she flashed back, then he sat on the stone floor, shocked and quiet.
“What happened?” Mira asked.
Rysa returned her hand to Dragon’s head, but stared into the cave.
Sister walked over. “It’s fine,” she said, then blinked, obviously more affected by Andreas’s calling scents than she should be.
He must have made a Sister-specific blend on top of the other calling scents Ladon picked out. “Where’s Derek?” His brother-in-law wasn’t in the kitchen area.
Sister frowned. “He’s here.”
Do not worry, Brother-Human, Sister-Dragon pushed.
Do not worry? Are you okay? Ladon pushed to Dragon. They were just attacked by a god-monster. Dragon just had his neck snapped inside the vision. What would have happened if they’d been without the healers?
A sense of rattled flowed from the beast. I am fine, Dragon pushed. He wagged his head. No physical damage.
Only psychological. What was that? Ladon asked.
Rysa moved closer to Dragon. “We just met the enemy.” She blinked and her mouth opened and closed, but she said no more.
Because enthralling calling scents still hung in the air. Because Andreas enthralled his family without permission.
Indignation wanted to surface. It wanted to coil Ladon’s muscles and sharpen his vision for a fight. Punching Andreas wouldn’t solve the many layers of issues they dealt with right now, but it would free up some of the potential energy tensing his back and neck.
Andreas never enthralls without permission, Dragon pushed.
“Who gave Andreas permission to enthrall all of you?” Ladon yelled. “Sister?” She was less likely to allow an enthralling than him. “Mira?” If anyone had a hidden reason, it would be the Prime Fate.
Unless Andreas was forced to enthrall them. Ladon inhaled deeply. The only calling scents he picked up
were Andreas-generated.
Rysa continued to stare into the cave. “Ladon,” she said. “We just met the enemy.”
An enemy—enemies, if he’d read the monster correctly—that looked, acted, and felt like a dragon. Or an amalgamation of dragon-ness.
Dragon snorted but he did not sign or push. Ladon knew why—he was trying to hide his terror, as was his sister.
Real, palpable terror rolled underneath Andreas’s ‘calm’ and off both dragons.
Sister pointed into the cave, toward the staircase up to the storage areas and the armory. “It’s fine,” she said again.
Andreas stepped onto the spiral staircase, followed closely by Derek, who gestured first at the now wide-open armory door, then down at the kitchen area.
Andreas ignored him and adjusted the scabbard he now carried on his back.
“He’s stealing weapons?” Ladon pointed. “Mira! What the hell is going on?”
Mira scratched at her temple the same way a little kid who hadn’t quite understood a question would. “She sent us for the swords.”
Dunn, Ladon thought. Andreas was enthralled by the only person on Earth capable of enthralling him at this level—his mother.
Ladon whipped around. “You could have asked!” he yelled. “You know we would have helped! Damn it, Andreas, we just met the—”
A massive dose of ‘silence’ washed ahead of Andreas. He tucked his new-killing gun into its huge holster as he walked through the gardens. The damned thing was more a cannon than a handgun, and Rysa said it looked more like something out of a video game than any real weapon. The specs indicated that it kicked out its indestructible bullets at faster than the speed of sound.
That gun accurately fired ballistic new-killing death at sonic speed.
Andreas hadn’t had it set at Mach One when he killed Aiden Blake. He hadn’t needed to, and at the time he thought it best to save everyone’s hearing.
He walked into the center of the chaos now, the gun in its holster under his arm, the scabbard carrying Stab on his back, and the two daggers, George and Ringo, in their sheathes and strapped to his belt.
“I told you not to enthrall them,” Derek growled. “Pull it back. Now.”
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