Death Drop (63 page)

Her legs carried her faster than ever before. Dezmara’s right arm stretched behind her and her entire upper body tilted back as she reached for every ounce of energy her muscles could give, then reached further, fueling sinew and fibers with rage and hurt over her lost companions. Her arm whipped forward like a drawn bow set loose, and the blade hurtled through the air toward Rilek’s back. WHEW-WHEW-WHEW-WHEW-SLICE!

Rilek tumbled to the ground in a torrent of cut fabric, wood, and sand as the blade carved through everything in its path. As much as she longed to see the mastermind behind Simon and Diodojo’s abduction severed in two, she didn’t stop to witness the carnage. Dezmara charged on. The flames of the fire curled around her outstretched body as she flew through the air and buried her shoulder into the whiskered pirate on the other side. The little thief hadn’t looked like much when she sized him up from on top of the dune, but as soon as she struck his solid frame, Dezmara knew she was in for a fight.

The knave brought his feet up and plunged them into Dezmara’s stomach, and she was launched, head over heels behind him. She tucked into a ball and somersaulted through the air, rolling on the ground and turning to face her enemy. Dezmara rounded in time to see the pirate’s lips curled in a savage grimace as the gun in his hands spewed his contempt in the shape of forged metal; but, unlike so many times before in the face of certain death, she didn’t think. She just moved.

CRACK! Dezmara skirted left. CRACK! She dodged right. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! She spun nimbly through the air as gunfire streamed by. All of a sudden, reason sounded in her head.
“You’re dodging bullets!”
the surprised voice said.
“You’re not guessing or getting lucky, you can see them coming and you’re getting out of the way!”
CRACK! A burning pain in her arm told her that she was losing her mysterious powers as a slug grazed her shoulder. Then another voice, the voice that told her she had been dead before when she thought she was going to buy it back in space, the voice hidden somewhere in her mind with the memories of her life before all this, went off.
“It’s nothing you haven’t done a thousand times before,”
was all it said, and Dezmara felt the animal surge through her veins again.

CRACK-CRACK! Dezmara ducked beneath one shot and sidestepped another. Before she realized what was happening, the blade in her left hand was sweeping across her body to lop off the pirate’s outstretched arms. Something sapped her energy in mid-blow and she felt the weapon slow down.
“You were moving forward the whole time, advancing on the little bastard while he was shooting at you—wow!”
Dezmara was getting tired of her rational side—it was going to get her killed.

The blade sang its high-pitched ode to butchery as it sliced through everything that fell under its sinister edge. Fortunately for the pirate, his arms were spared. Dezmara’s slowed attack gave him just enough time to pull back, and the only savagery the scythe could perform was on the barrel of his gun. The nicked and faded tube of the revolver fell to the sand with a dull plop, and the rattled pirate quickly glanced down to make sure none of his limbs were included in the destruction. Dezmara noticed his distraction and leaned in for her deathblow. She was bringing the outside edge of her blade up in a vicious backhand strike that would decapitate him, when the curse of reasoning struck yet again.
“Hey, where’d the other guy go?”

The blade swept toward the brown, fur-covered skull of the pirate standing in front of her, but it didn’t move as fast as it would have if she hadn’t been distracted, and Dezmara’s opponent ducked at the last moment. Despite missing its intended target, the metal tasted blood as it clipped the tops of the rover’s small ears. Dezmara followed through with a brutal spinning back kick that landed squarely in his chest and sent him tumbling across the desert in a flurry of sand. Dezmara sheathed her blade, snatched her autos from their holsters on her thighs, and aimed them at the body, now lying crumpled and lifeless several feet away. As her arms extended and prepared to absorb the kick of her guns pounding their coffin nails into the hijacker scum, she was wrenched from her bloodthirsty trance by the most gruesome, haunting cries she had ever heard.

Her guns swung away from the pirate and pointed to the other side of the fire. Somewhere just outside the soft, orange glow, something was moving. Loud snaps, like thick branches breaking, ripped across the night. The sound of fabric tearing told her that the man she had knocked from the fireside was being ripped to shreds by some wild animal. Sickening howls of pain rolled from the darkness and with them came a gut-turning noise—like meat being pulled apart. Violent wet chugs and glugs were laced with moaning wails that droned out, boring into her helmet and threatening to drive Dezmara insane. She wanted to tap the kranos and block out the horrid sounds, but then the noises changed.

The wailing became a high-pitched yelp. Dezmara had no idea what the hell was going on. She wanted to see what was out there, and as she stepped closer to the fire, the yelping descended into a ground-shaking rumble that froze her solid where she stood. Two gold-ringed eyes flashed beyond the ingle and then slowly floated into the air. Dezmara stood as still as a statue and stared, her guns still pointed straight in front of her and her neck craned toward the sky.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! ROOOAAAEEER! A giant, clawed hand sent embers twisting into the air like hundreds of red-hot refugees fleeing for the cover of night from the crushing talons now smothering their haven of wood and flames. Dezmara was still holding her autos in front of her, and she brought them cackling to life as she stepped backward out of sheer terror. “Holy shit!” she screamed as her bullets sparked and bounced from the golden scales covering the beast’s chest.

The creature extended its long neck into the air and let out a roar that left Dezmara dizzy. If the crew aboard the
Lodestar
hadn’t been alerted by the sound of gunfire, they would certainly be on their way now. The beast came at her with amazing quickness. She leapt from the ground, flipping backwards as the monster launched its head forward like a striking serpent and sent a jet of flames roaring from between its dagger-lined jaws. She landed off balance and rolled over backward, spinning up from the ground to her feet again.

The brute charged forward, and as it came at her, Dezmara dropped her guns and pulled her blade. She fell to one knee as a huge hand with steely black claws cut the air above the kranos with a swish! Her vision darkened as the animal’s other hand hammered down from above to crush every bone in her body. Out of pure reflex, Dezmara jammed the tip of her scythe upward and the wet popping sound of pierced flesh told her she had hit the mark.

The blade was torn from her hands as the creature reared on its hind legs, towering several stories above her, and let out a skirling howl. It grunted as it plucked the curved piece of Zanzabane steel from its palm like a child removing a splinter. The devil flung the weapon into the darkness; its lips curled back and a malicious rumble seeped between its serrated teeth. It lowered its massive head and fixed Dezmara with its eyes. It cocked its head back for another burst of flame, and Dezmara made a terrible mistake. As the beast prepared its attack, she showed her play too early—bending slightly at the knees and leaning to her left. The fiend snapped its head forward, and Dezmara jumped into the air, cartwheeling to the left, but to her surprise, she didn’t see a ball of fire blast the sand beside her. Instead of spitting fire, the creature whipped its powerful tail around and caught Dezmara square across the ribs as she touched down.

She let out a sickly gasp as the thick band of scale-clad muscle smashed into her. She had never been hit so hard by anything in her life—that she knew of, anyway—and she was sure the blow would kill her as ribs cracked and soft tissue was bashed into pulp. The hit sent the kranos flying from her head, and as she sailed backward, the dark, skull-like eyes of the helmet stared solemnly back—a brief glimpse into her coming doom—before crashing into the emerald grains and tumbling away.

Everything from her waist up was burning. She had no idea how many ribs were broken now, maybe all of them, as she wheezed for air. Dezmara lie in the cold embrace of the barren, green wasteland for only a second, but it was enough to wish she had died. Now she was defenseless—no blades, no guns—and the demon would be on her at any moment. Tears streamed down her face, not because she was afraid to die—although she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d be incinerated, eaten alive, or crushed—but because she couldn’t save Simon or Diodojo. “You fucker!” she wheezed.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

Dezmara screamed in agony as the monster locked her in its claws and snatched her from the desert floor. Her arms were pinned at her sides—not that it mattered as far as causing damage to the seemingly impenetrable brute, but she would have loved to give the bastard the finger before she died. Dezmara couldn’t breathe as the beast crushed the life out of her, and she’d pass out soon, which was a comforting thought. But in a cruel twist, the monster changed tack. It raised her to within a foot of its enormous teeth and slowly opened its mouth. Dezmara could feel intense heat rise in its throat, and she found enough strength to put up a last fight—being torched was her least favorite option. She twisted her shoulders and scraped at the creature’s palm with her boot heels, but it was no use, his grip was unbreakable.

The fire-breathing devil opened wide and the back of its throat glowed orange-white. Dezmara closed her eyes to the heat and turned her head.
“Somebody finally managed to kill you again, huh? Don’t worry, you’ll be back,”
were her last thoughts.

***

“NO, WAIT!” called a voice from below her. The beastie halted its pyromaniacal attack, and its eye swiveled in its huge socket before narrowing on the little pirate Dezmara had tangled with before ending up in her current, dreadful situation. The man was clutching the kranos between two webbed hands and staring intently up at Dezmara. A group of ten individuals that looked exactly the same, all aiming serious-looking machine guns, skidded into a semi-circle around him. The beast grunted in contempt and opened its jaws again. “R-R-Rilek, if that
is
you,” the little pirate stammered, “Please, listen to me! We have done nothing but chase our tails this entire mission. One of my best men is dead—murdered—and another is completely out of his mind. There was a goddam mystery ship that almost blew us to hell, and now this woman attacked us! I can’t get answers from the Mewlatai, or the captain of that rogue ship, or even Malo. But while she’s still alive, there’s a chance she’ll tell us what she’s doing here, and I want to know!”

The brute dismissed the pirate’s plea with a terrible roar and opened his mouth to bite Dezmara in half. “You’re Rilek, huh?” Dezmara said. “Well, I’ll tell you why I tried to kill you! Because you attacked me in the middle of a run, you goddam sonsofbitches. You shot my ship to hell, stole my cargo and kidnapped my friends. So you can all go straight to hell!” Dezmara spat at the monster and the rage coursing through her green eyes outmatched even the animal intensity flickering through the dark, gold-ringed orbs staring back at her.

The animal dropped her and she fell to the ground with a jarring thump! Dezmara howled in pain, but her cries were swallowed by the sounds of a much greater suffering. She bit her lip and looked at the creature that had crushed her chest, almost burned her twice, and very nearly eaten her alive and tried not to have pity, but the spectacle was even more gruesome than she had imagined. The transmogrification was running in reverse, and Dezmara could tell by the look of awe and terror on the little pirate’s face that he was seeing it for the first time too. But there was the smallest trace of knowing in his eyes, as if this twisted revelation solved a mystery and soothed suspicions that had been building in his mind for some time.

The monster lowered itself to the ground without taking its eyes off Dezmara. Its diamond-shaped head snaked back and forth in a disturbing sway inches from the soles of her boots, and she could feel blasts of heat on her legs as two large nostrils pulsed in time with its heaving torso. A small tremor shook the length of its body, starting at its nose and growing in strength as it moved toward its haunches. By the time the tremors reached its tail, the creature was jolting violently. It howled, and Dezmara clamped her hands over her ears, but she didn’t turn away, she couldn’t. Morbid curiosity kept her staring straight ahead.

Taloned hands flew up from the beast’s side, and Dezmara lurched backward as its fingers stretched toward her face and then mashed closed. Animal howls erupted from its mouth as the hands opened and each of the thick fingers flexed unnaturally backward against its joints, breaking with sickening crunches and snaps before shriveling away. The bigger arm and leg bones followed suit, and the crisp, wet cracking of each was like something biting into a giant, ripe apple. The sound, coupled with the deep grumbling howls of the fiercest creature she’d ever seen, laced with the rising, almost intelligible cries of something less feral, was enough to make Dezmara want to roll on her side and retch. Its ribcage snapped and collapsed, the skin pulling taut across the smaller, reconfigured bones like the midsection of a starving beggar, and revealed the grotesque throbbing of ripping tissue beneath.

The final stages of the metamorphosis were the worst. The beast’s long neck twisted at sharp angles, jerking viciously to one side and then the other as it pulled in on itself. The surreal transformation only lasted a few seconds, but its brutality made it seem like an entire lifetime lived in horror. Finally, the sharp bones in its face softened and its snout withered; and what lay in front of her in the sand was no longer a monster, but a man.

All traces of the scaly brute were gone except for the dark, gold-ringed eyes that failed to blink as he rose to his feet. The man didn’t have a stitch of clothing, but it didn’t matter much. While he didn’t have any hair or fur, every inch of him—right down to his palms, ears, nose, and lips—was covered in brilliantly colored designs. As she studied his body in wonder, something familiar caught her attention. Dezmara could clearly see the remarkable likeness of the fire-breathing monster curling from the tips of his toes, up his leg and disappearing around his back, only to reappear over his right shoulder. The detail was mesmerizing and, having just had a good, up-close look at the beast, she couldn’t find a single thing overlooked.