Scorched

Chapter 26

What in Hades? The smell was the first thing Alessandro noticed. A stink like melting rubber, cloying to the nose and bitter as it reached the back of the tongue.

He crept down the hall, the dark arch of the stonework growing inky with shadow as he navigated the curve of the corridor. It took him a moment to place what was wrong.

The ever-burning torches were dead. That can’t be good.

Without light, the stench seemed thicker. Or maybe the smell was simply growing worse. He approached the darkness step by step, using his ears and the feel of the air against his face to navigate. His right sleeve brushed against the stones of the wall, giving him one boundary of the corridor. If he kept the wall within reach, he could reverse his path if needed. The black, lightless space ahead seemed to pulse against his skin. Nerves prickled across his shoulders, down the backs of his arms.

If the torches are extinguished, then the Castle’s magic is dead here. Or else there is something so powerful that it has overwhelmed the light.

He froze, reacting to a noise before he realized he’d heard it. The echo of his boots faded to silence. Faint as a whispered oath, something scraped, a long, slow drag over the stones. Statue-still, he listened, waiting. It was a full minute before he heard it again.

Alessandro tried to put an image to what his senses were telling him, but failed. The impenetrable blackness ahead gave no clues. The foul smell gusted on a waft of hot air that felt unpleasantly like an exhaled breath.

Whatever waits ahead is far too close.

He heard another noise, this time behind him. Trapped! Alessandro pressed his back to the stone wall, his sword raised. To his right was the unseen menace; to his left was a thin wash of light from where the torches still burned, barely enough for even his predator’s eyes. The bend in the corridor obscured whatever lay beyond the curve. He was caught between two unknowns.

Wonderful.

An indistinct shape detached itself from the mottled shadows, sliding like oil into the middle of the corridor. He recognized the silhouette by the size and posture. Ashe. Is she taking advantage of the confusion to finish her execution job? He saw her pause, felt her scrutiny.

There was no way he would make this easy for her. He shifted his hands on the sword hilt and waited, letting her come to him. His flexed his knees, his weight ready to lend force to a quick sweep of the blade. It was a technique he’d used time and again as the queen’s executioner. A swift blow to separate the head from the body—merciful and final.

At the same time, he heard the scrape from the darkness to his right. Tension crawled up his skin, a live current. The stink clogged the corridor, nearly making him gag.

Ashe ghosted forward. She moved nearly as silently as he did, making it almost accidental that he heard her. Stopping outside the reach of his blade, she reached out, her hand bracing against the wall, her shoulders oddly hunched. She’s still in pain from her battle with the sorcerer.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered, taking a quick glance toward the darkness.

“There’s something down there,” she said. “Something big.”

“I know. It’s blocking the way out.”

“The hounds are trapped back there?” she asked.

“They’re females and children.”

“I know. Kids. Puppies. Whatever.”

“What are you doing here, Ashe?”

“I’ve been scouting for Lore. I came down this way because I thought it would be safer. There’re guardsmen galore due west of here. I can’t get past.”

She took a few steps forward. His sword twitched, and she froze.

“Relax, I’m not here for you, fang-boy.” She coughed, trying to stifle the noise. “Sonofabitch, that stinks.”

“Get out of here. I’m willing to bet that’s some kind of noxious gas, and I don’t know what it’ll do to living lung tissue.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t need to breathe.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not poisonous to you.”

As the dragging sound started again, he saw her body curl into itself, a spring coiling for action.

“What the hell is that?” She drifted closer again.

This time, he let her, slowly lowering the sword. It wasn’t that he trusted her, but right then there were other threats—and more interesting game for her to hunt. She coughed again, burying her face in the crook of her elbow.

Then, there was light in all that darkness, a flash of orange bleeding to crimson. It was so vivid, Alessandro felt it like a blow. It disappeared, the afterimage burning in his mind.

“Was that fire?” Ashe whispered.

Before he could answer, another glow appeared, dark like smoldering embers. Two smoldering embers, about shoulder height. And then the dragging sound again, like shells or scales hitting the stone floor. Maybe a tail? Claws?

Eyes.

Scales against stone.

Long and low, like a big lizard.

Flame.

Merda! Instincts screamed a warning.

Ashe grabbed his arm in a panicked death-grip. “Oh, fuck!” she croaked, the words robbed of air. She’d drawn the same conclusion.

Dragon.

The collapse of the Castle was bringing the creatures from its deepest levels.

“Run,” he said, sounding weirdly calm despite a jitter of panic. “A mortal won’t stand a chance in this fight.”

He half expected the creature to rush them, but it stayed put, eyes lit with an inconstant, shifting, bloody light. It had to be a good hundred feet away, but he could feel the heat radiating off its body. Dragons lived in fire. Lived with it inside them. He’d heard even their skin burned bare flesh.

“I’m the only backup you’ve got. Live with it.” Ashe released his arm and raised the light machine gun slung across her body. “What do you think? Underbelly?”

Alessandro shrugged. She was right. There was no one else to help, and Ashe Carver was a fighter. “Throat or eyes usually works with anything.”

Ashe squared her shoulders. “We’ll have those kids out of here by lunchtime.”

The dragon’s eyes shifted, the scraping sound matching the movement. It was scales making that noise, the swish of its tail on the stone.

It was inching forward. If Alessandro had to guess, he would have said it was curious. He backed away, dragging Ashe with him. This was his first dragon. He wanted a moment to plan.

“We have to separate. Find cover. We’re too good a target standing together.” Fire loomed large in his mind. Vampires burned all too well, and toast didn’t rise to walk the night. “Find a recessed hiding place. Stone shelters from the heat.”

“Got it.” Ashe pulled away from him and slid into the shadows, her form melting into the dark on the other side of the corridor.

Alessandro felt grudgingly glad to have her there. A family that slays together stays together? He slid back along the corridor until he found the entrance to a side passage where he could let it pass. They weren’t going to win by strength, so he wanted to attack from the dragon’s blind side, away from its flame.

As it closed in, the creature’s outline became visible, lit by the radiance of its eyes. No one Alessandro knew had ever seen one of the great beasts, though legends were plentiful. Unlike the weres or the vampires, dragons were truly wild creatures. They killed, ate, and laid their eggs as they had since the age of their dinosaur cousins. Human settlements were a convenient snack bar. This was the type of creature the Castle had to be meant for—one for which there was no suitable place in the outside world.

The creature’s savage beauty struck him first: the delicate bones of the head, the almost feline face surrounded by a flaring fan of skin and bone. The hide was smooth, brick-red with points of cream.

As it came closer, Alessandro could see the short legs were covered in hard, opalescent scales, the claws curved hooks of solid black. It was shorter than a man, but the body was a good twenty feet long.

Just beyond his hiding place, it stopped, round eyes blinking like the flash of rubies, the blast of heat from its flesh like a furnace door opening. Alessandro had willed his lungs to stop, protecting himself from the dragon’s breath, but he could hear Ashe coughing convulsively.

The noise was why the beast had stopped. It sniffed, its nostrils flaring to reveal the hot, steaming red of its inner flesh. It looked far too interested in what it smelled. Alessandro had to act fast.

How smart were dragons? Smarter than Holly’s cat? He pulled some loose change from his pocket and tossed it as hard as he could down the corridor in front of the creature. The coin landed with a clatter.

It jerked its head around with eerie speed, glowering down the Castle hallway, ready to pounce. Silent as the dead, Alessandro threw a second coin. The dragon took off with a strange side-to-side shuffle, its long body weaving as it ran, the belly scraping over the hard stone floor.

Ashe sprang from her hiding place. Alessandro followed barely a beat later. They raced after it, lagging behind almost at once. For a big creature, the dragon moved like lightning, the lashing, muscular tail ready to crush everything in its wake. Alessandro had to leap more than once to avoid its whip.

It reached the point where the coins had fallen, sniffing the ground like a hound searching for scent. Disappointed, it snorted out a gust of steam and smoke that curled over its head like a question mark. It hunted a moment more, the big head swinging from side to side.

Alessandro felt a glimmer of hope. They were behind the dragon, safe from its flames, and it had stopped. So far everything was going according to Alessandro’s hastily sketched plan. The next step was to attack it from both flanks at once.

He communicated the plan with a gesture while they ran. Ashe seemed to understand.

But the dragon started forward again, catching a stray scent. Not good. If it reached the end of the corridor, the hellhound families were as good as dead.

Alessandro leaped into the air, using flight to close the gap before the dragon could take aim with its jaws or its fire. He slashed with his sword, trying to catch its throat, but it twisted away. Alessandro dodged, and it snapped the air where he had been a second before.

Ashe fired into the creature’s side, making it flinch. The short hail of bullets didn’t penetrate its scales, but they must have hurt. The dragon, with a sinuous, writhing movement, turned, jaws open like a trapful of knives. It loosed a blast of flame, fire flowing over the stonework with lascivious tongues.

Ashe!

She hit the ground as the flame roared over her head, the gun clattering as it hit the stone.

Alessandro dropped from the air, his sword driving into the side of the creature’s neck in a two-handed thrust. He wanted to aim for a more vulnerable spot, but there had been no time for strategy. Immediately, the flame stopped, scraps of it breaking loose and flying into the air before vanishing to nothing. In its place, a roar ripped the dark passageway, jagged with fury and pain.

A jerk on the sword told Alessandro it was stuck fast. In his desperate attempt to save Ashe, he had pierced the scales, bit into muscle, but had done no real harm. He’d just made it mad. Merda!

The dragon convulsed, a shudder passing over its snakelike body down to its thrashing tail. The force of it threw Alessandro off, leaving the sword stuck fast in the beast’s neck.

He hit the ground hard, feeling as if his spine connected with his back teeth. A wave of shock short-circuited his muscles. The dragon wheeled, shaking its head against the lopsided weight of the sword. One paw landed on Alessandro’s chest, the long, black claws puncturing leather, cloth, and flesh.

Pain of several colors sang through Alessandro’s body. He could smell burning flesh and knew it was his own, and felt his dark, sluggish blood sliding down his ribs. He heaved, but the beast was too heavy.

Movement caught his eye. Far to his left, Ashe peeled herself off the floor and rolled to her knees. She was coughing convulsively, barely able to sit up, but she was aiming her weapon.

The dragon looked down at him with the fixed, intense stare of a hunting cat. The tables were turned. After centuries as a predator, Alessandro was at last the prey. Wild denial gave him one last burst of strength, but it was useless.

Gunfire lit up the corridor. A sudden tearing sensation stole Alessandro’s wits as the dragon lifted its foot, the claws hooking and shredding as it pushed away. Ashe fell back on her heels, firing again and again, but the tough armor protected the beast.

Alessandro’s round of curses matched the gunfire. Anger alone was going to get him off the unforgiving stones and back into the fight. He staggered to his feet, refusing to acknowledge the shifting, crunching feelings in his chest. He was a vampire. He would heal.

Once up, instinct took over. He launched into the air, grabbing the sword again. With the strength of desperation, he tore it out of the dragon’s sinewy neck. It hadn’t penetrated much past the scales. It had probably felt like a bug bite. The creature roared its annoyance, its mouth stretching wide. The teeth framed its jaws in wicked symmetry, each canine as long as Alessandro’s forearm.

He swung for the eyes. The dragon snapped, rearing up as high as the ceiling would allow. Alessandro flew up, but had to dodge as the dragon’s tail snaked around. Injured, he wasn’t fast enough. It caught him in the side, tossing him against the wall.

The dragon fell back on all four feet, but not before Ashe grabbed the sword from Alessandro. As the dragon opened wide for another blast of flame, Ashe went for the throat. From the inside. Right for the soft flesh above the tongue.

The dragon gnashed down before Ashe’s lunge was complete. She jerked aside, barely saving her arm. The sword was not so lucky. The dragon spit it out like a munched-up stir stick, then shook its head like a wet cat.

Ashe raised her automatic again, spreading her feet in a belligerent stance. “Get outta here!” she screamed. “Shoo!”

Shoo?

The automatic spattered bullets right at the dragon’s feet, spraying up chips of stone. It inched back, the ruff around its head flattening with distaste. It reared up again, the short front legs pawing the air, and turned its long body away from the annoying stings. Between fits of coughing, Ashe fired again, striking sparks off the stone right where the creature was trying to put its feet.

It hopped and scampered away from them for a dozen yards, its tail slithering in a long, snaking arc behind it. It stopped, back hunched. Only the tip of the tail moved, swishing back and forth in short, irritated jerks.

It’s working! Alessandro stared in amazement. Subtlety was accomplishing what brute force could not. He picked himself up again, feeling like a marionette missing his strings.

Even more miraculous was the source of the solution. He wouldn’t have expected subtlety from Ashe. She fired again, right at the dragon’s heels. With a mighty, frustrated roar, it ran, the waddling, side-to-side gait taking it quickly out of sight.

The torches sputtered and came alive again, almost as if a stagehand had flipped a switch. The dragon had gone far enough away that the magical field surrounding it had dissipated.

“Ugh.” Ashe sagged, the automatic hanging loose from its neck strap. Then she coughed again, a wet, wracking sound that told Alessandro she’d inhaled too much of the dragon’s fumes. She clutched her ribs like the cough hurt.

Alessandro looked at her, finally noticing her condition. Her long hair was singed away, her jacket blackened from the dragon’s flame. It looked like the skin on her hands and one cheek was starting to blister. Her eyes and nose were red and dripping. She was a mess.

“You’re injured,” he said.

“Could be worse.” She shrugged. “You took the brunt of it.”

He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, cautious in case she would revert to killing vampires now that the dragon was gone. He didn’t feel like a rematch right then. Or ever.

She didn’t flinch at his touch, but she didn’t reciprocate, either. “I’m glad we didn’t have to kill it. In a weird way, it was kind of pretty.”

He couldn’t stop a chuckle that was mostly relief. “Ashe Carver, dragon tamer.”

She suddenly gave a laugh that was, for once, real. “Wait till I tell that to my daughter. You okay to walk? We still have work to do.”