Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) (50 page)

His surprised gasp turned into a pained one as Justin was thrust into him, nearly sending them both to the ground. His brother recovered instantly, whirling around with his sword up, but the magic eater who’d shoved him had already scurried away. But one success leads to others, and a few seconds later, another magic eater worked up the courage to take a snap at Katya, actually cutting off some of her hair before Justin drove it back.

“We have to keep moving,” he growled. “The longer we stop, the bolder they’ll get. Now go.”

“Go where?” Marci said, bracing against Julius’s weight. “We can’t walk ten blocks like this.”

“We have to,” Justin said. “Just—”

His words transformed into a roar as a long, barbed claw shot out of the dark to hook his leg and yank it out from under him. Justin went down with a crash, taking Marci and Julius with him. For a second, he lay prone on the cracked asphalt, and then he came up swinging, lopping off the barbed claw—and the leg it was attached to—in one smooth strike. But the damage was already done.

The monster had barely scratched him, but the small stain of blood on Justin’s jeans sent the magic eaters into a frenzy. It didn’t help that the fall had reopened Julius’s wound, either. The double dose of fresh scent combined with the fact that all the dragons were now injured drove the creatures insane. Within seconds, their screeching had gotten so loud it was physically painful, and then, as though a signal had been given, the whole mass attacked.

Justin attacked back, dumping Katya on Julius as he swung his sword in a huge arc in front of them. The Fang of the Heartstriker sang through the air, cutting the magic eaters like paper wherever it touched them, and it wasn’t alone. In the confusion, Marci had thrown up Tyrfing with a squeak, closing her eyes as she waved the enchanted sword wildly.

The blade took things from there. Lighting up like a flare in the dark, Tyrfing turned expertly in Marci’s clumsy grip, slicing straight through a magic eater above her to cut it in two. It took out the one on her left next, sending that half of the attacking mob skittering back in terror, and Julius felt a rush of relief.
Finally,
something was going right.

“It’s not even dulled,” Marci said breathlessly, examining Tyrfing’s glowing edge. “They must not be able to consume imbued magic locked in through the enchanting process! I wonder if we could—”

A roar cut her off. While Marci had been fighting, a second rush of magic eaters had tried to swarm Justin. He’d broken free immediately, but not without cost. His shirt, already full of holes from the bullets, was now gone completely, and his bare chest was riddled with tiny cuts. He was breathing heavily, blowing out puffs of smoke with every pant, and Julius felt a fresh surge of dread rise up to join the ocean already roiling in his stomach.

“Justin,” he said softly, trying to go to his brother only to realize he couldn’t. He was still on the ground from his first fall with Katya in his lap where Justin had dumped her. He couldn’t even grab her to roll her over because his right hand was still wrapped around Bixby’s stupid detonator and he needed his left to keep his wound together. The situation was so ridiculous, he would have laughed if it hadn’t been happening to him. But it was, and if he didn’t want things to get even worse, he had to calm his brother down. Right now.

“Justin,”
he said again, biting the name out with a snarl. The challenge got his brother’s attention at last, and he whirled around, eyes flashing dangerously. Julius dropped his own in reply, lowering his head in an attempt to look as meek and nonthreatening as possible, but that didn’t stop him from reminding his brother, “You can’t change here. This is the DFZ.”

Justin wiped the blood off his neck, flinging it away in a savage gesture. “I don’t give a—”

The rest of his words were drowned out by a scream Julius would never be able to forget for the rest of his immortal life. He didn’t know what had caused it, his own show of submission or Justin’s careless blood-flinging, but all at once, the magic eaters rose up with a high-pitched wail that echoed to the skyways and attacked as one.

In the space of a second, the whole world became a confusion of snapping teeth and clawing fangs. Julius didn’t even try to defend himself. It was all he could do to keep a hold on both Katya and the detonator trigger as the magic eaters began sucking his magic right out of him. The only good part was that the magic eaters didn’t seem to care about Marci. Julius was trying to figure out how he could get to her and his sword when the ground began to shake.

His first thought was an earthquake, followed by an explosion, and then a foolish hope that it was Bob coming to help them at last. The truth, however, was none of these. It was much worse, because by the time Julius realized the shaking was connected to his brother’s deep, bellowing roar, it was too late to do anything about it.

Flames burst through the darkness, and the magic eaters screamed, scrambling over each other in their panic. But there was no escape. Fire was everywhere, clearing a ring around them as Justin rose from the ashes that had been a pile of magic eaters.

He raised the Fang of the Heartstrikers at the same time, bringing the bloody edge of his sword to his mouth and biting down with a bone-chilling
clang
. The flash that followed was so bright that even Julius, who knew what to expect, had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, the human Justin was gone, and in his place stood an enormous, and enormously pissed off, dragon.

Something sharp dug into his shoulder, and Julius jumped before he realized it was Marci’s fingers. She’d scrambled to his side during the fire and was now gripping his arm like she meant to rip it off, staring at Justin with eyes so wide, they looked ready to fall out of her head. Julius didn’t blame her. If Justin had been his first dragon, he probably would have had the same reaction.

The Heartstriker clan was known for its beauty, not its size. Justin, however, was the exception to the rule. Even at twenty-four, he was already nearly forty feet from nose to tail, a heavy, winding snake of a dragon with a viper’s head crowned by a feathered crest. A pair of enormous, gloriously colored wings in blue, green, and gold extended from his feathered back, and his tail was a long whip of trailing plumage. All of this was supported by four thin, scaly, but enormously strong legs that ended in raptor-like feet tipped with curving talons, which were currently digging into the scorched parking lot like the asphalt was freshly turned dirt. But while his claws were definitely not to be messed with, it was his brother’s fangs that made Julius shiver.

Now that Justin had cast all illusions aside, his sword had followed suit. The Fang of the Heartstriker was a blade no longer, but a bone-like shell encasing Justin’s front fangs. Magic poured off them, filling the empty air with the sharp, biting fury of the Heartstriker’s power. Any wounds Justin inflicted with those teeth would never fully heal, and when the fire spewing out of his mouth passed them, the blaze changed from yellow to the brilliant green flame that had once made their grandfather the most feared dragon in the Americas.

By this point, the magic coming off Justin was so intense it was almost dizzying. But when he turned that green fire on the magic eaters, they did not feast as they had on Julius’s blood. They fled, surging into the air with a chorus of terrified wails.

Justin followed with a roar that cracked the blacktop, launching off the ground with a flap that nearly blew Julius over. By the time he’d righted himself again, Justin was high overhead, burning the magic eaters out of the air with gouts of green flame until the ashes fell like snow over the three remaining figures huddled together in the now-empty parking lot.

“Julius,” Marci whispered, her face lit up by fire and wonder. “He’s a
dragon.
”

“Yes,” Justin said, looking down to check on Katya, who was still somehow asleep. “We’ve established this.”

“A
real
dragon,” Marci clarified. “With
fire
.”

“He’s a dragon flying around and breathing fire inside the Lady of the Lake’s city,” Julius said heatedly, bracing against the pain as he tried and failed to pick Katya up. He tried again anyway, growling in fear and hurt and frustration and a thousand other things. Chelsie was going to kill them all for this. “We have to find some way to wake Katya. There’s no way we can move fast enough with her like this. Can you see if she’s under a spell? That’s the only thing I know of that could keep a dragon unconscious this long.” He paused, listening for a reply. When he heard nothing, he looked over to find her still staring at the sky. “Marci,” he snapped. “This is kind of important.”

She nodded absently, eyes never leaving Justin. “Do you have feathers like that?”

Julius sighed. Clearly, she was going to be no help at all until her curiosity was satisfied. “Yes,” he said quickly. “All Heartstrikers have feathers. It’s why we’re called feathered serpents. I look like Justin, but much smaller and with a different coloration and no green fire. Now, can you
please
check to see what’s making Katya sleep?”

Marci blinked like she was hearing him for the first time, and then, to his relief, she dropped down to examine Katya. A few seconds later, she pulled up the dragoness’s sleeve to reveal a silver chain wrapped around her bicep. “Here, there’s a spell on this.”

Julius wanted to slap himself. Of
course
Estella would know about the chain. For all Julius knew, this was the reason Svena had given it to him in the first place. The only question was what kind of a moron was he for not figuring it out earlier? When he grabbed the chain to yank it off, however, a wave of drowsiness swept over him, nearly taking him under as well before he snatched his fingers back. Apparently, the spell was now activated. He was about to ask Marci to give it a try when he heard the squeal of tires in the distance.

He froze, listening. Considering the show Justin was putting on, his guesses were evenly split between bounty hunters, a news crew, or, if they were
really
unlucky, one of Algonquin’s anti-dragon task forces. When he didn’t hear any shots, sirens, or excited screaming, however, Julius dragged himself up on his knees to try and see what was actually coming, and was subsequently nearly run over when Bob power-slid his Crown Victoria around the corner and into the parking lot.

“Bob!”
Julius cried, clutching his chest, which felt in danger of collapsing under the combined weight of injury and shock. “What are you doing?”

“Helping,” Bob said cheerfully, hopping out of his car. “Or didn’t you want help? Because I can go.”

That was enough to nip Julius’s anger in the bud. “I’m always happy to receive any help,” he said humbly. “Yours most of all. Thank you.”

Bob sighed. “So beautifully said, but why isn’t Katya awake yet? She’s supposed to be awake. We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Working on it,” Marci grumbled, ripping off the duct tape Bixby had used to secure the chain to Katya’s arm.

“We need to get the vest off her, too,” Julius said, showing Bob the detonator he was still clutching in his hand. He’d been holding it so tight for so long now, his fingers had started cramping. Before he could explain the bomb to his oldest brother, though, Bob leaned down and yanked out one of the wires seemingly at random.

Julius felt like he was having a heart attack. “What did you just
do
?” he cried. “That could have—you would have—how did you know that was the right one?!”

“I don’t know!” Bob cried back, slapping his hands to his face in an exaggerated expression of horror. “It’s almost as though I can
see the future!
”

“Oh,” Julius said quietly, shoulders slumping as he looking down at the detonator in his hand. “Right. So I guess I can let go of this, then?”

“Only if you want to,” Bob said, scooping Katya up and stripping off the bomb vest before tossing her into the Crown Vic’s back seat like a sack of potatoes. “Right, then! Let’s get going, because between you and me, this place is about to get very crowded.”

He looked pointedly at Justin, still flaming in the sky, but Julius didn’t need the hint. He was already turning to tell Marci to get into the car…and found only empty space.

At this point, Julius would have thought it impossible to panic any more than he already was, but the sudden lack of Marci sent his brain into overdrive. “Marci!” he shouted, whirling around.
“Marci!”