Moon Dragon (15 page)

Chapter Forty

A hot wind blasted over me as I focused on the single flame.

Last year, Talos had taught me that even I could go to the moon, using the single flame as a portal. After all, if I could summon him from another dimension, and summon me out of this world and into his, then why I couldn’t I summon myself elsewhere? And so I had, and I had frolicked on the moon, no doubt giving one or two unlucky astronomers a heart attack.

Later, I had tested teleporting on earth, and teleported my giant bat self to a snow-covered peak far, far away from here, high in the Alaskan mountains. In fact, I had gone there a few more times, sitting there on an unknown ledge, unseen by human eyes, unexplored, too, no doubt, as I could not imagine any man making his way up there.

But this...this was different. I had never tried to teleport in my human form. In fact, I had never even considered it possible. That is, until I’d seen Dracula himself do it...and he seemed to indicate that I could do it, too.

We’ll see,
I thought.

The flame was empty for now, flickering there in the forefront of my thoughts...waiting for me to give it a command. Waiting and flickering.

The growling from below intensified. The poor girl had been reduced to whimpering. Why shouldn’t she? Here be monsters. Eight of them, in fact. Nine, if you counted me.

Within the flame, I imagined my landing spot, a spot just before the woman chained to the pole. I saw the spot clearly in the flame...and felt myself rush toward it.

When I opened my eyes again, I looked up into the startled face of a weeping woman. Her mouth opened into a scream, and then she did just that: Screamed bloody murder over and over again.

I stood and turned and pointed my weapon at the first creature charging toward me.

Chapter Forty-one

My plan wasn’t to fight all of them.

Not now, not here. Not like this. And not with only six silver bullets. With eight circling werewolves, the odds weren’t in my favor.

No, the plan was to grab her and get the hell of Dodge.

Or out of this valley of death.

The sun, I knew, was just a few seconds from setting. I knew this as I always knew this, just as the creatures before me knew this, too. We were all slaves to the sun, who was the enemy of the darkness within us. As such, I was always, always aware of its movement through the sky, whether I could see it or not.

All of them were damn close to changing. Most seemed like they were in excruciating pain.

Except for the one charging me now. Although not fully transformed, he seemed to have the most wits about him. Lucky for me, he’d spotted me almost as soon as I’d appeared.

I had hoped that the precious few seconds I had left of the sunlight could be used to untie the girl and teleport our asses out of here.

Instead, I found myself drawing a bead on the creature charging, the half-man, half were-beast, who ran at me with surprising speed. I could only imagine just how fast they would be once fully transformed.

But these thoughts were fleeting and mostly drowned out by the creature’s growl and the woman screaming behind me, as I leveled the gun and aimed for his heart.

And pulled the trigger.

* * *

The shot was true.

The racing man clutched his chest and lurched forward. His momentum sent him tumbling over the ground. He gasped once, twice, and then lay still. Then, before our very eyes, he transformed back into a naked, middle-aged man. I couldn’t see his face, and that was just as well. A very dark and oily shadow rose up from him, swirling, and then the wind seem to catch hold of it, and dispersed it into oblivion. But I knew it wasn’t gone. Not entirely. It would wait for another victim, and start its accursed life all over again. It was the way of the dark masters.

I wondered what they thought of a fellow dark master killing their own. That is, until I didn’t care what they thought.

I moved around the still-screaming girl and told her to stop screaming. In fact, I quickly reached into her mind to calm her down. Her screaming was
making it hard for me to think, and attracting more of the semi-werewolves.

Not that it matter. Just as I reached out with a pointed index finger, I felt it happen. From one second to the next, I was a different person...and so were the creatures now bounding toward me. They were very, very much different.

The sun had set.

Just like that.

I swiped clean through her ropes and had just reached for her hand, when something powerful hit me from the side...and sent me hurtling head over ass into the grass.

* * *

I spun to my back and lifted the gun, just as the creature was in mid-leap, its massive, clawed hands reaching for me, its oversized mouth gaping open. The creature was nearly as big as the creature Kingsley had turned into. Nearly, but not quite.

As it flew through the air, I had a clear shot at its chest, and I took it, simultaneously firing and rolling to my right.

The ground shook with the thudding weight of the beast, who gasped and clawed the earth, and then lay still. As he transformed back into a naked man, I was already up and moving, scrambling back to the now-freed woman.

Chapter Forty-two

Six werewolves, all of different sizes and shapes.

Which one had been Gunther, I didn’t know, nor did it matter. Not any more.

Six werewolves, four bullets.

The problem was: I couldn’t seem to focus long enough on the single flame. I needed a sense of peace around me. Some quiet. The ability to focus.

I could do none of that now as I held the girl’s hand and pointed at the circling, hulking, massive creatures that could have just as easily been giant apes or Sasquatches.

For the first time in a long time, I knew I was in a bad situation. There was a chance I could outrun them, although I doubted that. There might even be a chance I could scale this sheer rock wall, or climb the massive gate. But I suspected the werewolves were faster than me.

All of those scenarios involved leaving Elise behind.

And I wasn’t going to do that, not now.

I needed to focus to bring forth the single flame, and I couldn’t. Not at this moment, and not with these creatures coming closer and closer. They were fearsome, even to me. Each standing well over seven feet tall, some as tall as eight feet. Their heads were huge, as big as a lion’s. Their shoulders and arms were thick enough to drag a car behind them. Thick tufts of hair covered each, especially over their chests.

“What’s happening?” the girl asked, and just as she asked it, another werewolf charged, one of the smaller ones. I fired and hit him in the neck, and still, he came. I fired again, and hit him just below the heart. Not a direct hit. I fired again and again, until I finally got the fucker in the heart.

He pitched forward, skidding on his face, and when he transformed back to human, I saw that it was Gunther.

Except now, I was out of bullets and we were out of time. To make matters worse, the remaining five werewolves charged at once.

* * *

They moved fast.

Faster than I could probably run, and certainly faster than I could pull Elise along. There was going to be blood, and it wasn’t looking good for either of us.

I had just decided to target the werewolves’ eyes—they might be immortal, but they needed to see—when I heard the familiar popping sound.

The man I knew to be Dracula—a man who wasn’t really a man, but something else entirely, the first vampire, in fact—appeared before me, brandishing a silver dagger.

Before the closest werewolf could react, Vlad Tepes plunged the blade deep into its chest. As the werewolf pitched forward, Dracula disappeared again with a pop.

The remaining four werewolves appeared confused, although hard to tell through all the fur and the general rage in their eyes. They did, however, pause, and I used that chance to pull Elise away, deeper into the valley.

Behind me, I heard another pop, and turned in time to see Dracula appear behind another werewolf, and drive the silver dagger into its heart from behind.

As it dropped dead, Dracula disappeared again.

Three left, and one of them was gaining on us rapidly, its long stride covering the ground much faster than I could pull Elise along. So, I stopped and did the only rational thing a five-foot, three-inch mother of two would do.

I ran at it as fast as I could, my legs whooshing the air as I built up speed.

Somewhere behind me, I heard another pop as another werewolf howled and thudded to the ground, courtesy of Dracula’s blade. Three were left, but I only saw the shaggy beast directly before me. I leaped off my feet, just as it did the same.

Chapter Forty-three

Its huge, fur-covered hand caught my fist in mid-strike.

Never had I encountered something so powerful...and this werewolf wasn’t even close to being as big as Kingsley was. Its grip was unreal, and its sheer force brought immediate tears to my eyes. It crushed down on my hand, and I felt the bones breaking. It lifted me off the ground and studied me curiously.

Meanwhile, I heard more popping sounds, and another death growl. Two left, including the one currently holding me up by my broken hand.

I whimpered through the pain and fought his grip to no avail. It brought me closer and I thought that it might look at me more closely, or even smell me, but its mouth opened instead. It was going to take the mother of all bites out of me.

His jaws came at me quickly, rushing at me—and I reverted back to my original plan.

I drove my two fingers deep into his eyes. Hell, I drove them all the way through his eyes and to the back of his skull. The creature howled in pain and tossed me to the side and as it dug its palms into its face, turning in circles, Dracula appeared before him...and drove his dagger deep into his chest. The creature dropped his hands, then dropped to his knees, and pitched forward. A moment later, it reverted back to a middle-aged man with love handles.

This time Vlad didn’t disappear, and for good reason. The werewolves were dead, as evidenced by the eight naked men with wounds to their chests. Apparently, Dracula had killed another while I had been dangling like a fish on a line.

“Are you okay, Samantha Moon?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I think.”

He wiped the blade in the tall grass, then sheathed it and came over to me, examining my hand. “Nothing that won’t heal itself in a few hours. Did he bite you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good. Werewolf bites are nasty. They take months to heal, and leave a mark.” He pushed up the sleeve of his blood-splattered bowling shirt. Numerous half-moon bite scars criss-crossed his flesh. Apparently, this wasn’t Vlad’s first rodeo.

We were silent, and I digested what I had just witnessed, had been a part of. Behind me, Elise wept quietly but steadily. The smell of blood was strong in the air. The demoness within me had broken out of my mental cell block, especially at the sight of the Count. I let her be, not wanting to deal with her for now.

She had not approved of the fight. I could tell that immediately. She had not approved of me saving the girl or taking on the werewolves. She had been legitimately concerned for my safety, if only because she didn’t want to lose such a valuable host.

Gee, thanks,
I thought.
Now keep quiet.

The blood did not appeal to me. It smelled...tainted somehow. Strange, undesirable.

Vlad must have seen me sniffing and wrinkling my nose. He shook his head. “Stay away from werewolf blood. Their blood, like ours, is mixed with alchemical magic. Some would say dark magic. It would do more harm than good.”

Good to know,
I thought. Which ruled out me sucking on Kingsley’s neck any time soon.

“You killed them,” I said.

“You killed them, too, Samantha.”

“But I thought...I thought they were your, I dunno, allies.”

“Low-level entities tend to favor werewolves, Sam.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, not all are as highly evolved as the entities within us. It means, some of these werewolves were barely journeymen in the dark arts. In fact, it’s safe to say that any werewolf who prefers feeding from the living is not very evolved, and they are often a problem. Your werewolf friend, on the other hand, is one of the oldest and most evolved of the lycans.”

“He prefers to feed on the dead,” I said.

“And so it is with others like him.”

“Other evolved werewolves?”

“Right. But there is another reason why I came to your aid, Samantha Moon.”

“Because you enjoy killing?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe I fancy you.”

“Did Dracula just say he fancies me?”

“He did,” said Vlad Tepes. “And now, apparently, he speaks in the third person.”

For some reason, I laughed. I never knew Dracula would have a sense of humor...or be heroic. Although his heroism wasn’t for altruistic reasons. There was a reason for his noble act...and it was because, well, he
fancied
me.

Unbelievable.

“And, of course, the entity within me more than fancies the entity within you. They were great lovers once, Samantha. They have been lost without each other, until now.”

“Well, that’s not my problem, and I know where you’re going with this...and it’s never going to happen.
Ever
.”

Dracula smiled and nodded once. “Nor would I push you to do something that you don’t want to do. But perhaps, someday, I can convince you otherwise.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” I said, although that took on a completely different meaning to creatures who didn’t breathe.

The Impaler surveyed the surroundings and spied the weeping woman. “You did all of this to save her?”

“Yes.”

“You would have died, Samantha Moon.”

“Maybe,” I said.

He shrugged once and looked again at the woman. I saw a brief flicker of hunger appear in his eyes.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” I said.

“I would never take your spoils—”

“She’s not my spoils. She’s a living, breathing woman that I have every intention of returning safely to her husband.”

“Very well, Samantha Moon. Then perhaps this is where I should leave you—”

“Wait!” I said.

He looked at me, tilting his head slightly. He waited.

I said, “How do you keep finding me?”

“Don’t you know, Sam?”

“Know what?”

“The entity within me is deeply connected to the entity within you. I can always find you. Always. Just as you can always find me.”

“So that was you,” I said. “In the sky...the dragon.”

He winked...and disappeared.

With a pop.