Breathing Fire (Heretic Daughters) (41 page)

I nodded at her.
 
“Thank you.
 
This is
not
going to be pretty.”

We split up, and I made it to the car carrying Lynn.
 

We took Sloan’s car.
 
I laid Lynn in the backseat, and took shotgun.
 
I shot a glance at the guys, who were casually jacking a sports car from the parking lot.
 
Damned miscreants.
 
But hell, what else could they do?

Sloan pealed out of the stadium’s lot with speed and skill.
 

If anyone was after us, they would undoubtedly follow Lynn and I.
 
Which gave Christian the opportunity to finish the death spell, no matter what.
 

Sloan made it quickly out of the stadium parking and onto a small dirt road, speeding like the demons of hell were behind us.
 
It was a good possibility that they were.
 

Her ridiculously fast driving didn’t make me the least bit nervous.
 
There was nothing Sloan didn’t excel at, I recalled.

We hadn’t made it five miles before I saw the black SUV following us, and I knew, just absolutely knew, that it was my relatives.
 
Every hair on the back of my neck raised, and I gasped.
 
How many of them were in that car?
 
As if the thought had manifested it, another, identical car turned onto the small road behind them.
 
“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“What’s going on?
 
Try not to distract the driver here, please.
 
Especially if you’re not being particularly informative,” Sloan snapped.

“It’s them,” I said, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of despair.
 
How could we outrun them with no head start at all?
 

Sloan had spotted the cars in the rearview mirror.
 
“How do you know?
 
Those cars could be druids sent to help us.”

Lynn spoke for the first time from the backseat, her arm flung over the spot where her eyes should have been.
 
“It’s them.
 
I can feel it.
 
And if it was druids, I bet you would be able to feel
that
.
 
Can you see how many there are?
 
We know there were at least three other Norse dragons in town with Villi.
 
At least.
 
And the Chinese dragons had at least three.”

“The windows are tinted too dark.
 
That’s gotta be an illegal tint,” I muttered.

Lynn laughed, albeit weakly.
 
“Yeah, I’m sure they’re real worried about it.”

Shit, shit, shit.
 
“Guns.
 
Everybody give me guns.
 
I’m gonna blow out some tires, buy us some time.”

 
I rolled down my window.
 
Not surprisingly, Lynn was unarmed.
 
Sloan had two small pistols.
 
I only had one small handgun from my usual ankle sheath.
 
Neither of us had extra clips on hand.
 
Guns hadn’t been the order of the day.
 
There was an arsenal in the trunk, but it didn’t do us any good back there now.
 

At the back of my mind was always Torst, chanting about stopping and facing them, to drink all of their blood.
 
As always, the axe had a very high opinion of his own abilities.
 

I started with my own gun, the most familiar weapon.
 
I leaned out of the window, facing our tails, and took careful aim.
 
Bang
.
 
My first bullet took out a front tire of the closest car.
 
It careened sideways wildly.
 
I shot twice more, taking the two tires facing me fast.
 
I shot the car five more times, aiming for the fuel tank, but had no luck with a big explosion, like in the movies.
 
Dammit, but that would have been convenient.
 
And I’d always wanted to do it.
 
If only we hadn’t gone through all of the explosive rounds in the necro fight.
 
But the first car was in a ditch now, out of commission.
 
I immediately took aim at the second car.
 
It was careening back and forth, trying to avoid the same treatment.
 
Oddly, no one was firing back at us, not even one shot.
 
Why weren’t they?
 
It’s not like they could possibly care if we were injured.

They had underestimated my aim.
 
I took out the tires of the careening vehicle nearly as quickly as I had the one before.
 

“Well, that bought us at least a five minute lead.”
 

“Five minutes is better than what we had before,” Sloan reassured me.

She was right.
 
Anything was better than having them right on our ass.

I was feeling marginally safer as we made it a good twenty miles farther out of town, unmolested by any further pursuit.
 

A sick feeling entered my stomach as a huge shadow fell over the car.
 
It was a stiflingly hot and sunny Vegas day, without a cloud in sight.
 
And then I sensed it’s presence.
 
I could even smell it.
 
The old, familiar, stench of dementia that tainted my family.
 
The shadow got bigger and bigger as the dragon lowered over us ominously.

“Fuck.
 
Is that what I think it is?” Sloan asked.
 
I would have had to stick my head out the window to see it.
 
I did not want to do that.
 
Seeing it would only make the panicky feeling more acute.

“Yes.
 
Just keep driving, fast.”

“Dom is gonna kill me if I let you get killed,” Sloan muttered.

I snorted.
 
“If either of us survives this, it is Cam that will be killing
me
.”

She grimaced.
 
“Overbearing son of a bitch.”

We barely made it into the unpopulated part of the desert before a huge weight crushed the front of the car.
 
The back end of our car shot straight up in the air, and we were rolling.

We all just lay there, stunned, when the car stopped rolling.
 
It was turned wheels up.
 
My chest hurt where the seatbelt had abused it.
 
Lynn was lying below me, unmoving, so I knew she’d felt the collision even worse.
 
I looked over at Sloan, and she met my eyes calmly.
 
Damn, I thought, yet again, but she was a good fighter to have at your back.

As though we had choreographed it, Sloan and I released our seat belts, dropping to the ground.

I dragged Lynn’s still form with me out of the burning car.
 
Sloan rolled out of the shattered back window like she did it ever day, casually brushing off her dusty black clothes.

I looked around frantically, but saw no sign of the dragon, no sign of any of them.
 
Lynn began to stir as I took off running, Sloan close on my heels.
 
“What’s happening?
 
I can’t see.”

I glanced down at her bloody eyes, and cursed.
 
That’s when I felt them behind me.
 
“They’re catching us, Lynn.
 
We’re going to have to fight them.”

She was still dazed as I set her on her feet.
 
“I can’t see anything.”
 
Her voice was weak.
 
She wouldn’t be much help in a fight in this shape.

“Don’t let them take you without a fight.”
 
I turned, saw them, and cursed again.
 
“There are seven of them.”
 
I hesitated.
 
“Three are Chinese.
 
One of those is Drake.
 
And one of the Scandinavian ones is in dragon form.
 
He’s a pale blue dragon.
 
I’ve no idea who it is.”
 
I put a gun in her hands.
 
She was badly wounded, and we were badly outnumbered.
 
“Give em hell, sister,” I told her, cocking the weapon and pointing it.
 

The men were naturally fanned out as they approached us, as though they planned to flank us.
 
The dragon stalked behind them, a slight distance back, it’s wings outstretched.
 
It was colossal in size, far larger than Villi had been.
 
But then again, I didn’t suppose this dragon had been beaten with a god’s lightning hammer before it shifted.
 

I shot Sloan a look.
 
She was a silent presence beside and just behind me.
 
“You should run.”
 
I pointed toward the highway, out of sight now.
 
“They might not chase you.
 
It’s us they want.”

She just curled her lip.
 
“Fuck that.
 
I have
never
run from a fight.
 
Dragon-kin don’t scare me.”

I sighed, selfishly relieved.
 
She was such a reassuring presence at my back.
 
And now it was almost certainly going to get her killed.
 
But I knew better than to waste time arguing with someone as immovable as Sloan at a time like this.

I turned my attention back to the task at hand.

Seeing the Chinese there had surprised me enough that at first I didn’t see our brother, Sven, among the three viking draak.
 
Of all the people they could have sent after us, he seemed the unlikeliest choice.
 
He was flanked by two of our nastier cousins.
 
Those two I had expected, but seeing Sven felt like yet another betrayal.

Sven was a strong telepath, the only dragon-kin that I knew of with that particular skill.
 
He was not much older than I, born sometime between Lynn and I.
 
Growing up, he’d always been a kind brother, a stark contrast to the treatment I received from the other men of the clan.
 
He was the only one, besides my be-spelled mother, who I had regretted leaving behind.
 
And he had even helped us escape, in his own way.
 

He had known our plans.
 
I’d seen it in his eyes, the night we planned to leave.
 
He had picked them cleanly from my mind.
 
I had been trembling in terror that he would be our undoing as I gazed at him across the long trestle table where the family was sharing the nightly feast.
 

The feasting hall had been as loud and boisterous as always, with both laughter and casual violence.
 
If one of the human serving girls committed the grave offense of dropping a tankard or tray, she was almost certainly raped and beaten.
 
If the offended party was in a particularly foul mood, one of the always present axes or swords the men carried would thoughtlessly hack her to pieces.
 
It would usually draw a round of laughter from the bloodthirsty men.
 

But Sven’s look at that dinner so long ago had been quiet and intense.
 
It had confused me enough to abate my terror through that never-ending feast.
 
When I’d been excused from the table, I had walked quickly from the hall.
 
Sven had caught up to me as I left the hall.
 
Silently, he had hugged me, and given me a soft kiss on the forehead.
 
He was much taller than I at the time, though still not fully grown.
 
He’d had to bend down far to whisper in my ear, “Be careful, little sister.
 
Godspeed,” and walked away.
 

I had treasured that memory over the years.
 
Whenever I had felt betrayed, as I had many times, I’d thought back to Sven and thought,
See, there is someone out there who loves me and wishes me well
.
 
It had hovered in my consciousness like some kind of beacon of hope, when there was little.
 
Now, it only made this latest betrayal all the more acute.
 
This was the bitter pill of immortality.
 
Living long enough to see every happy memory you’ve ever had turn to ashes.

He gave me a tentative smile when our eyes met.
 
I glared back.
 
“What are you doing here, brother?”
 
I asked him bluntly.

He raised his hands, palm up, saying, “They thought I was the one most likely to get you to come with us peaceably.
 
Any chance of that?”

“Any chance you’re all gonna turn around and leave us alone?”
 

He shook his head, that kind smile still on his face.
 
“Afraid not, little sister.
 
But we have no wish to harm you.
 
And you have to see that fighting us at this point is futile.”

“Come a little closer and say that to me,” I told him, drawing the axe, and bringing it to front of my body in a defensive stance.

“You would raise a weapon against me, sister?” he asked sadly, his irises so pale, and his pupils so small, that his eyes looked almost completely white.

Before I could answer, a gunshot went off from behind me.
 
It didn’t hit anyone, but it wasn’t a bad shot for someone who couldn’t see a thing.
 
“Does that answer your question, brother?” Lynn called out unsteadily.
 
“If you were wondering, I was aiming at you.”
 
I smiled in spite of myself.