Exsanguinate (34 page)

“Okay super. ‘Cause I figured out a way to have them fly in tandem. Torchy to lure and Briggs to carry.”

* * *

T
orchy had found
a pile of half-inch-thick mattress pads with blue plastic backing. “Will this work?” he asked. “Maybe we could soak a few of these and use them as the flags. That’ll get her attention.”

“That’ll be perfect, Torch. We can combine several of these. With your tight maneuvers, you’ll be able to draw her down to where Briggs will be carrying the blood.”

“Dog’s Bollocks – I’m liking the sound of that.” Khaldon clapped his hands. “What if we secure one of the big water tumblers with blood in it – maybe with a straw?”

“I’m not sure if that’s stable enough, we need to find a stronger container. Maybe a plastic tote or something.” I looked around at the pile of accumulated possibilities, hoping something would catch my eye. “Maybe we could use …”

“I’ve got something better.” Sheridan grinned her big cheesy teeth grin at me. She held up an empty beer pony keg. “I found this in the lunch room. Thought maybe we could attach this to the harness and fill it with the blood she needs.”

“That’s perfect, Sher. A great find.” I hugged her shoulder. Everyone was busy brainstorming on what could work with what. In my mind, I was beginning to think our makeshift demon catcher plan just might work. MacGyver’s writers would be proud of us.

“Ludovic, what kind of mouth does she have? Can she drink from that pony keg?” Khaldon asked.

Ludovic grimaced and rubbed at his neck. “She has a long tongue. It’s pretty creepy. It’s strong, and you don’t want to get near it. Her mouth is still shaped like a human’s, but she has this insanely long tongue. I would say she could lap up the blood from that hole in the keg.”

I swallowed hard trying to envision this monster as my sister. I puffed out my lips on an exhale.

Stay focused, Chey.

“Briggs, once you have Dakota on your back, do you have some kind of tractor beam built into you?” I asked.

“What the hell, Chey Chey? You think I’m the Enterprise or something? The closest thing I can do is emit a gluey substance. If she gets her legs wrapped around me, she’ll stick until I release her.” Briggs roared with a thunderous laugh.

“Sounds kinda kinky to me,” Sheridan said. She looked over at Torchy and asked, “Can you do that?”

Torchy didn’t say a word. He simply smiled at her.

Sheridan’s cheeks blushed a rosy pink.

“Where do you imagine all the dragon and the fair maiden stories come from?” Briggs’ silky seduction voice flowed. “Do you honestly believe they just stood there and took it? I had to glue their asses down.”

“Great fellas, another visual. I will forever be warped with visions of Edric getting his jollies off on the defenseless comatose, and now fair maidens seduced because they were caught in a sticky tangle of spider web goo,” I said.

“No. No. Not spider webs – Dragon Essence.” He held the beat on the “s” in essence while arching his eyebrows up and down in quick succession. It must be the male seduction dance to the female. We think it’s cornball. They think it’s an amorous tease.

Combining the team’s efforts, we had the complete makings for a makeshift dragon Kevlar riding harness, a flying bed pad flag system, and a blood demon snare. It was a ridiculous enough plan, it just might work. Or at least I prayed it would.

T
he sun was
due to set that night at 5:55 p.m., so we didn’t have a lot of time to get Briggs and Torchy outfitted and, to make final adjustments. We moved into the larger loading dock area of the breeding facility where we were able to open up the bay doors similar to an airport hangar. Even though the facility was still under the Wiccan enchantments for privacy, the doors and parking lot faced the lake where the cattails and Bermuda grass stood tall, helping provide additional cover from would be onlookers. It’s not every day people saw two towering dragons walking out of a building. From this viewpoint, I could see why Dakota had given us the clue for GC 89 because it was exactly how she had described. Boat loading dock, cattails, and fishing nets.

Even though Briggs and Torchy had told me they were dragons, I of course had not seen them decked out in all their glory. We laid out the rigging for each dragon. Torchy’s rigging was going to hold the blood soaked mattress pads, and the rigging for Briggs contained a harness to secure the pony keg of blood. It was time for the fellas to morph into their dragon forms.

Nervously, I stood next to Sheridan and realized she was shaking as much as I was. “Cheyenne, I want you to know no matter what happens tonight, I’m sure in our hearts that we’re doing best by Dakota. Thank you so much for saving me and for coordinating this rescue for her.”

I looked at her with tears in my eyes and tried to speak, but the emotions welled up deep in my chest, and all I could do was hug her. I finally choked out, “Nothing can ever break the power of the mighty sister pinkie swear!”

“When are we going to tell Daddy about all this?” Sheridan asked.

“I was hoping we could tell him after we were successful in getting Dakota back tonight. Regardless of what happens, we’ll need to tell him soon because my little niece or nephew isn’t going to wait very long to make their arrival.”

Sheridan looked at me with uncertainty all over her face.

I hugged her. “We’ll get it figured out, I promise. No matter what.”

She gave me a half-way smile and hugged me back.

About that time, the hangar clouded over – it was as if someone had turned on a powerful fog machine. The air was so thick I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. It was then I realized it was coming from two of the largest fog machines ever known. Both Briggs and Torchy had transformed into the most magnificent creatures I’d ever laid eyes upon.

Torchy chose a smaller dragon form than Briggs in order to maneuver in tighter formation around Dakota, but his scales were a brilliant crimson. They shimmered in luminescence as if they were peacock feathers when he breathed. His eyes were frightening to look at. They glowed a fiery orange lava quartz, his pupils vertical slits. He had sharp, angular, interlocking scales on his legs and body. His back was ridged with razor-sharp barbs on protruding spikes which matched his wings. I’d be afraid something could easily impale itself on his defensive armor. At the very end of his tail, he had a vicious blade to easily chop his prey in half.

Briggs was simply … epic. He was just as beautiful in dragon form as he was in human form. His scales were so glossy black they were almost purple. He unfolded his wings to span over thirty feet revealing a phosphorescence glowing under them. His legs were muscular in order to hold up the long, colossal serpentine body. His eyes shined like azure, opalescent moonstones, which could easily seduce me into a dreamlike state if I stared at them long enough. They were alluring. His eyes beckoned me to gaze deeper into his abyss and get lost. His tail wrapped around his body aligning his scales to form a stair step up onto his back. I wondered how many fair maidens had fallen for those eyes and made that perilous climb.

As I stood there in awe of these two magnificent beasts, I thought about their personalities and how much they either emulated who they were in their human forms or were the antithesis of that embodiment. Sheridan stood rooted to the ground, her eyes wide. Torchy blew steam towards her and pulled his head in towards his chest beckoning her to come closer. I watched as she took one tentative step in his direction. He opened up his wing and called her to him. Within moments, she had reached out to touch his chest. He curled his wing around her and scooped her closer to him.

I checked around us to make sure Ludovic was close by. Harris had found some rope and had made a makeshift body lasso around Ludovic so he couldn’t get away. I was going to have to praise him for his ingenuity later. Our captive could have escaped during foggy dragon transitioning.

We found a pile of clothes on the ground under Briggs and put them aside. The same for Torchy. “Ah that makes sense. Now I see why they put up the smoke screen, so they can change in privacy,” I said to Khaldon as we strapped the Kevlar to Briggs’ underbelly and around the front of his chest.

“Yeah, it’s a real hip trick. It also comes in handy whenever you need a diversion,” Khaldon said. “How’s everything going over there for Torch? Are the straps long enough to hold up those mattress pads?”

“It looks as if we might need to get a come-along to tighten a few of these into place,” Harris answered. “But yes, we’re looking good over here. How about you two?”

“We should be good. If Dakota tries to bite him anywhere on the backside, she would most likely lose a tooth against the glass scales.” Khaldon answered. “Hopefully her claws won’t be able to get through them. The Kevlar will help protect him underneath just in case she tries to attack him from below.”

“The Kevlar isn’t a hundred percent protection,” I said. “But it’s better than nothing since we honestly have no idea the extent of what we’re up against.”

We soaked the bed pads in the lunar blood and then folded them onto Torchy’s wings. Then we secured the pony keg mixture of one quarter lunar blood and three quarters solar blood onto Briggs. Since the solar blood didn’t have any smell, I thought perhaps if Dakota consumed it, it might weaken her, or at the very least, calm her down. Dakota would either gain more vicious strength from the lunar blood or she might lose some of the strength she gained from drinking the solar blood. We wouldn’t know until we tried.

I grabbed my smartphone and snapped a picture of the dragons while Briggs was fussing with a strap under his wing.

A voice filled my head as if another person were inside with me. Shocked at the telepathy, I needed a second to figure out how the voice was in my head. I looked around to see where it was coming from. Then the voice changed its rhythm and pitch. Briggs’ chocolatey smoothness flowed into my mind.

“Hey, Chey Chey, that shit better not make it onto Facebook.”

I pointed at myself. “Moi?”

Briggs smiled, baring his teeth and winked his opal eye.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

“Wouldn’t dream of what, Cheyenne?” Khaldon stood beside me admiring the dragons.

“Briggs – I just found out that he can talk in my head. Look, it’s getting close to time. We need to get final checks in and get them up in the air.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool when they talk in your head – and sometimes annoying. Let’s ask them to move outside. You’re right, it’s time for Ludovic to contact Dakota.” Khaldon put his hand in the small of my back as we walked out of the open hangar doors.

Harris followed with Ludovic in tow. The dragons walked outside, and they took the opportunity to fully stretch up on their back legs and extend their wings. I couldn’t believe how majestic they were.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” Sheridan said as she put her arm inside mine. I was simply mesmerized.

“I feel like the actress from
Jurassic Park,
when they see the living dinosaurs for the first time. Remember? They were speechless trying to take in their massive size and magnificent beauty.”

Sheridan nodded at me as we continued to gawk at the dragons standing in front of us.

Khaldon untied Ludovic from Harris. “All right, Lug nut, have you been able to communicate with Dakota?”

Ludovic stretched. “She isn’t responding to my requests.”

I glared at him.

“She did, however, move her energy when I mentioned you and Sheridan. So she’s still cognizant of you both.”

I scratched my head. The sun was getting lower in the sky. “Khaldon, I should go with Briggs. I know Dakota will respond better if she sees me holding the blood out to her.”

“There’s no way in hell you would survive something like that, Cheyenne. She might know who you are, but until she’s blood satisfied, you are just another meal. And her human side would hate herself the next day for killing her sister.”

I ignored his warnings. “Ludovic, let her know I have the blood she needs. We’re sending her an escort to fly her back.”

Briggs snorted and sarcastically threw out thoughts in my head. “Oh great, now I’m a freaking escort service. What will it be next? The demon welcome wagon? Meals on Wings?”