A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  Algonquin clenched her water tight. But before she could tell him she would never go down, not so long as she had a drop left in her, the circle of spellwork she’d been keeping closed through sheer brute force finally burst open, sending what was left of her water flying into the dark as the spirit she’d been desperately holding back exploded into the world.

  “ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”

  The name was a hateful cacophony, an ugly combination of car horns and gunshots and every other terrible sound the hideous city could make. The Lady of the Lakes roared back, slamming the thing trying to crawl out of the broken circle back down under a wave of pounding water, river silt, and raw determination.

  “Not yet!” she screamed, hammering it again and again. “I’m not dead yet!”

  She wasn’t even sure whom she was screaming at: the city trying to claw its way through her, or the shadow waiting like a vulture behind her. Either way, the words were true. Even like this, even now, she was still Algonquin, Lady of the Lakes. The only spirit who’d ever stood up to humanity and survived. Her fury had already drowned Detroit once. If the DFZ pushed her now, she’d gladly do it again, and this time, the city would never be rebuilt.

  “I’m not dead yet,” she whispered, the words bitter as old runoff as she looked up at the dark. “The pact still stands! I gave you your name, Leviathan! I called you here. I let you in. Until I die, you are mine, and I order you to help me!”

  A sigh rattled through the giant shadow, and then black tentacles began landing around her like falling bombs, crushing the screaming Mortal Spirit back down into the black, fetid mud.

  “And keep her there this time,” Algonquin snapped, sinking back into the flood. “I’m going to get more water.”

  I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be long. Until you let me in, I’m only a shadow, and shadows can’t fight gods.

  She knew that, but a shadow was what she had, so a shadow was what she would use. It wasn’t as though she had a choice now, anyway, so Algonquin left him to it, rushing off through the flooded landscape to ready her lakes for war.

  And behind her, hidden by the dark, the Leviathan held on just long enough. The moment he’d honored the letter of the deal that had bought him a name and a crack in this plane, he faded into the dark, releasing the screaming spirit of the DFZ into the ruins that had been her city.

  ***

  Marci was still in the dark when Raven let her go.

  “Wait,” she cried, grabbing his talons before he could escape. “You can’t leave me here!”

  “Why not?” he croaked, curious. Or, at least, he sounded curious. She couldn’t tell for sure since she couldn’t see anything but black.

  “You said you’d take me back to the world of the living,” she said angrily. “This is just back where I started.”

  She’d know this particular dark anywhere. It was the same empty blackness she’d seen right after she’d died, before she’d figured out how to open her eyes. Or maybe someone had taught her? Marci couldn’t remember, and she didn’t have time to worry about it now. Even Ghost wasn’t with her anymore, which was cause enough for panic.

  “This is no time for tricks, Raven,” she said, trying not to sound scared. “Take me back to my body now.”

  “Silly child,” the spirit replied, his mocking voice soft as a feather in her ear. “Where do you think you are?”

  His talons vanished from her hand as he finished, and the darkness became heavy in a way Marci had never felt before. Heavy and cold and solid, like a cement blanket pressing down on top of her. She was still trying to figure out what had happened when she realized she couldn’t breathe.

  Terror shot through her. Marci began to panic in earnest after that, fighting and clawing and kicking at the black weight that was holding her down. Dirt, she realized as her fingers dug in. She was buried under dirt. Buried alive.

  “Marci!”

  Ghost’s shout was a real sound in her ears, not a sensation in her head. It was also muffled, coming from somewhere above her. When she tried to yell back, though, all she got was a mouth full of soil. In the end, she had to settle for digging, pawing frantically at the dirt with her hands until, at last, she broke through, plunging her arm up out of the shallow grave someone had built over her body.

  The moment her hand punched free, deathly cold swallowed it. A second later, Ghost yanked her up, plucking her body out of the dirt and into the too-bright light of the world. The real world, filled with real air that she sucked deep into her lungs before collapsing back to the torn-up ground, coughing and spitting the dirt out of her mouth as she fought to catch her breath.

  “Are you okay?” Ghost asked, slapping his hand down hard on her back to help clear her lungs.

  Marci coughed again, raising a shaking hand to brush the dirt off her face. “I’m alive,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse. “I’m alive.”

  It felt too good to be true, and since things that were too good to be true usually were, Marci began frantically checking her body. Other than being filthy and numb with cold, though, she was fine.

  Her limbs were all there, whole and unbroken. Her head was good, and her lungs were working great now that she’d coughed out all the dirt. Even the hole General Jackson had shot through her chest was healed, though you’d never know it from her T-shirt, which still had a giant bloody hole in the front. Below the filthy fabric, though, her skin, muscles, organs, and bones all felt perfectly fine. Too fine.

  “How is this possible?” she asked shakily, pressing her dirty hands to her face. “I didn’t even rot.”

  “You can thank me for that.”

  Marci whirled around to see Raven directly behind her, perched on top of what looked like the blackened remains of a gigantic bonfire. The fine ash and charred bits didn’t smell like fire, though. They didn’t smell like anything. After all the weirdness of her recent life, that seemed like a minor detail. At least until Marci realized where they were.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, leaning into Ghost as she looked up at the picturesque valley surrounded by forest and crowned with a mountain that she knew way too well. “You brought me to Reclamation Land?”

  “Technically, you never left,” Raven said. “This is where you died, if you’ll recall.”

  It wasn’t something Marci could forget. Now that she knew where she was, though, the giant burn pile Raven was sitting on had a new, far more sinister edge.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yes,” Raven said, shaking the fine ash off his feathers. “This is all the remains of the dragons Algonquin bled for power in her first attempt to raise the DFZ. There wasn’t enough magic left in them for another try after you and the Empty Wind wrecked things, so Algonquin just abandoned them here when she moved on to Myron’s plan. But I’m a thriftier bird. I hate seeing anything go to waste, especially something as rare and valuable as a dragon corpse. So, since I had an inside tip that you and your kitten might not actually be out of the game, I decided to put them to use.”

  He pointed his beak at a shallow ditch that someone had dug from the base of the ash pile to Marci’s grave. Fittingly, it was lined with chicken-scratch spellwork, though Marci supposed it was technically Raven-scratch. She couldn’t read it either way, but she didn’t really need to. The bloodstained channel that ran from the pile of dead dragons to her grave made it pretty obvious what had happened here.

  “Ugh,” Marci said, putting a hand over her mouth. “You used dragon blood to bring me back to life?!”

  “No,” Raven said. “I brought you back to life with my own fantastic powers. The dragon blood was just to make sure your physical vessel was back in working order when the time came to return you to it.” He puffed out his chest. “Pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself, and quite fitting. Everyone’s always accusing you of being a dragon’s pawn, so it’s only fair that you actually get to enjoy a bit of their power for once.”

  Marci supposed that made sense, but she w
as too busy dry heaving to appreciate his cleverness. “I can’t believe you used blood magic on me.”

  “That’s a fine thank-you for a miracle,” Raven said, turning up his beak. “And for the record, it’s only blood magic if all parties involved are human. If I’d been a mortal mage like you, then it would be necromancy, but seeing as I’m a spirit using dragons he didn’t even kill, it’s all aboveboard.”

  Technically, but… “You used corpses!”

  “I’m a scavenger!” Raven cried. “I’m not going to leave perfectly good power lying on the ground when I can use it, and I didn’t hear you griping over the details when I was bringing you back to life!”

  “Okay, okay,” Marci said, reaching up to brush the dirt out of her short hair. “I don’t mean to complain. It’s just…I personally knew at least one of those dragons, and the idea that you healed me using the magic left in dead bodies is really freaking creepy.”

  “Says the woman who just crawled out of her own grave and keeps an aspect of death as a pet.”

  Marci winced. “Touché,” she said, looking down again at the smooth skin of her healed stomach through the hole in her shirt. “And, um, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Raven said, hopping into the air. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we both have pressing business to attend to. I have to collect an old friend, and you, I believe, have a city to save.”

  “Right,” Marci said, getting her head back in the game. Now that the initial shock was fading, it was finally starting to sink in that she was alive again. Actually alive, breathing and everything. She had a body, a real one, with no hole in her stomach. Which reminded her…

  “Wait!” she cried at Raven as he flew into the sky. “So am I a hundred percent human again?”

  “What else would you be?” he cawed, circling over her head. “You’re as human as you ever were, and on a related note, you should probably try to avoid dying again. I was able to bring you back this time due to an extremely fortunate series of events. We won’t be so lucky again, so you might want to think twice before you jump in front of any more bullets.”

  Marci had no intention of ever going through anything like this again. In fact, when this was over, she was going to corner Shiro and make him teach her everything the ancient Merlins had known about life extension, because she’d heard stories of mages living for centuries, and she wanted in on that. She had a dragon to keep up with, after all. A dragon she was going to find as soon as things stopped being on fire.

  “Come on,” she said, reaching out for Ghost to help her up. “We’ve got a lot to do and no time to do it. First, though, we need to get back into the city. I say we break into one of the Algonquin Corp garages, steal a car, and—”

  “We can do a lot better than that,” the Empty Wind said, grabbing her hands and lifting her, not to her feet, but into his arms. Before Marci could ask what he was doing, a freezing wind whipped up from the ground, lifting them both smoothly into the air. It was just like when he’d flown her through the Sea of Magic, but much shakier and way scarier now that Marci could actually see the ground shrinking under her feet.

  “Whoa,” she said, wrapping herself around his body like a koala clinging to a tree. “Since when can you fly on this side?”

  “Since you became Merlin,” Ghost replied, his deep voice rich with pride. “Our bond has always been strong. Now that you’ve seen my true face, though, we are unbreakable, and you have a physical body again in a place that’s brimming with magic. Both of these give me leverage to do things I never could before. Not on this side, anyway.”

  Now that he’d mentioned it, Marci knew exactly what he meant. The air was tense with magic, but not the usual sort. The wild, heavy Reclamation Land magic that normally dominated here was completely overpowered by a sharp power that smelled of grease and wet asphalt. It was the same magic she’d felt in the endless city where she’d confronted the DFZ. What really caught Marci’s attention, though, was the way the magic clung to her skin, seeping into her body like water that then flowed in a torrent straight down her connection to Ghost.

  “Are you drinking magic through me?” she cried. “Without my permission?”

  “We’re connected,” he said innocently as they picked up speed. “And I needed power. I haven’t gotten anything new to eat since before you died.”

  That was true. But still. “I am not your sponge,” she growled, though it was hard to be mad at him for taking what he needed, and it wasn’t as though Marci had to worry about him getting the upper hand on her anymore. After what they’d been through, she trusted the Empty Wind with her life and death, and she could get used to traveling like this.

  Ghost was flying them through the air the same way he’d moved through the Sea of Magic. Other than the occasional wobble and the ground whooshing past below, there was no sensation of movement, which was crazy seeing how they’d already cleared the forest at the edge of Algonquin’s Reclamation Land. By the time they were over the tumbledown old neighborhood where Marci had first settled into her hoarded cat house, she was a hundred percent on board with this new and improved mode of transportation.

  “This is awesome!” she cried, turning around to get a better look at the rapidly approaching city. “You’re better than a helicopter!”

  “I am a wind,” he reminded her, but his voice sounded nervous. “Careful. We’re close now.”

  Marci nodded, looking down to check her bracelets, which were thankfully still on her wrists. A quick search also turned up a miraculously unbroken piece of casting chalk in her pocket. Given how wet everything looked, her markers would have been more useful, but though Marci had gotten her body back, her bag seemed to be a total loss.

  It was probably in the hands of some sellout Algonquin corp mage, along with her Kosmolabe, the loss of which upset her even more than her two-hundred-dollar marker set. Still, after her miraculous rise from the dead, complaining about losing a Kosmolabe was like criticizing the color scheme of your winning lottery ticket, so Marci shoved her disappointment to the back burner. She was looking up to ask Ghost about their next step when a blast of magic shot up from the ground below.

  For a terrifying second, the impact sent them reeling. Even after Ghost regained control, wild power was whipping through the air around them in waves, forcing him to weave and dodge to avoid being socked again. After several sickening drops, he gave up and went for cover, setting Marci down on the pointed roof of one of the superscrapers that hadn’t started leaning yet.

  “What was that?” she cried, clinging to the building.

  The Empty Wind hovered, his glowing eyes worried in the void of his face. “Not sure, but I think Algonquin just lost control of the situation.”

  He hadn’t even finished speaking when a second wave of magic even bigger than the first ripped through the city like a cannon blast. Just like before, the magic was a physical presence, a moving wall of power that shattered windows and set Marci’s ears ringing. This time, though, there was a voice inside the blast. A screaming wail of rage and loss that rose from the city itself.

  “ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”

  “Oh boy,” Marci whispered, tightening her grip on the roof. “That can’t be good.”

  “At least she’s not mad at us,” Ghost whispered back, crouching down beside her. “A common enemy works in our favor.”

  “Not if she runs us over on her way to battle.” Marci peeked over the building’s edge to get a better look at the city below. “We have to calm her down, convince her that blindly lashing out at Algonquin will hurt more than it helps. Shouldn’t be too hard. Her city’s already broken all to—”

  The building groaned beneath them, and it wasn’t alone. All throughout the DFZ, the ground was swelling. It rose up like a building wave, sending the broken Skyways and toppled buildings sliding in all directions for a terrifying heartbeat before they suddenly jerked back together, the cement foundations and support beams twisting together like wires as the ground open
ed up below them, gaping up at the night like an enormous mouth.

  “SLAVE MAKER.”

  The roar came from the city’s foundation, echoing from the sewers and the storm drains and the forgotten warrens of the Undercity in a cacophony of bending metal and breaking glass. Even with so much noise and distortion, though, Marci recognized the voice. It was the same one she’d heard after Ghost ate her in the Sea of Magic. The voice of the city itself, rumbling like an earthquake.

  “DIE!”

  At the word die, a volley of debris shot out of the city’s gaping maw. Cars, buses, chunks of buildings, entire intersections broken off during the chaos were sent flying over Marci and Ghost’s heads and into the water of Lake St. Clair. Each missile landed with a tremendous splash, sending water flying hundreds of feet into the air. But this was just the start, an opening ruse to cause confusion. Before the water finished falling, the DFZ roared again, and the superscraper Marci and Ghost were clinging to began to lurch violently. A second later, the whole thing tipped sideways as the gigantic building tore itself out of the ground and launched like a missile straight at Algonquin’s Tower.

  That was the last thing Marci saw before she was flung off the side and sent spinning into the empty air beyond.

  ***

  “Come on,” Julius said, tugging at his sister’s arm. “We need to go.”

  He never thought he’d have to say that to Chelsie, but between the Qilin’s unexpected thanks and the incredible rush of magic that had come after, everyone had just sort of…stopped.

  Not that Julius could blame them. After years of anxiety, worry, and misfortune, the power of the Qilin’s luck going full bore was like a drug. Everything felt right, perfect, as though nothing could ever be wrong in the world again.