Chapter 28 Shyanne
SHYANNE
Stumbling backward, I fell on my ass, the wrench banging against my shin, but that pain was distant and muted by the horror in front of me.
He should be dead.
I’d read the myths and stories. Jackson himself had said that shifters were incredibly strong and usually only another shifter could kill them using their claws or teeth. I’d buried those two teeth deep in his fucking skull. Why wasn’t he dead?
Jackson rushed to my side, putting a protective arm around me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Joseph.
Rather than rising up to attack, he’d transformed and fallen over immediately, claws thrashing at the ground, head snapping back and forth, and his jaws opening and closing so manically it made a steady clack-clack-clack sound.
Along with that, he made strange gasping wheezes as if he was suffocating.
“What’s wrong with him?” I said, brow furrowed in horror.
“Those weren’t his teeth. They’re lodged inside him now. Usually when we bite or claw, they don’t stay in the body that long,” Jackson explained, tugging me toward the door, away from Joseph.
His words, along with Joseph’s behavior, gave me an idea about what was going on.
The teeth must not have actually gone into the brain, at least not far enough to kill.
Now they were sealed within his skull. A magical foreign object lodged within the body of a magical creature.
Whatever I was seeing was the shifter version of an allergic reaction or rapid sepsis.
“What do we do?” I asked.
Joseph rolled onto his stomach, eyes bulging wildly and clawing at the ground. One massive paw reached out, slashing at the air. Jackson shoved me away and leaped in the opposite direction.
Barely managing to keep hold of my wrench, breath burst from my lungs as I rolled away.
Scrambling to my hands and knees, I looked up and watched Jackson shift again, attempting to fight off Joseph, but the other man was in such a frenzy that he couldn’t seem to anticipate anything.
His claws, feet, teeth, and tail flailed around like mad.
His claws dug furrows in the stone of the floors and walls as he went through a seizure of violence and rage.
They fought and battled right by the door, still blocking my exit.
I ran to the back of the room, where treasures lined the walls and floor.
A blast of heat washed across my back as a gout of fire burst forth from one of them.
When I finally turned, I saw Jackson on his back, talons pushing Joseph’s head up while the other dragon blasted fire toward the stone ceiling rather than into Jackson’s face.
I was by no means an expert in dragon expressions, but the look on Joseph’s face was one of madness.
His eyes bulged out, and strange red veins crept along his face from where I’d hit the teeth into his head.
Joseph wasn’t going to survive, that much was obvious, but it wouldn’t matter if he ended up killing us both in his death throes.
I needed to help, but all I had was this damn wrench. I needed a real weapon.
Casting my gaze around the room, I inspected the items. One of these had to do something. That weird bird nest thing had been some sort of magical grenade or whatever. Something here had to help.
I scoured the things, trying to judge them both by what they appeared to be, and with any of the dozens of weird things I read. God only knew what was fantasy and fiction. What was legend, and what might be a real item I could use?
A chunk of stone flew over my head, whizzing past only three feet above me, and exploded into fragments against the far wall.
Jackson screeched as Joseph snapped and bit at his wing, trying to rip it free of Jackson’s body.
Joseph looked like a mad dog now and actually threw his mouth open to belt out a weird dragon bark or cough.
That action allowed Jackson to pull away and regroup.
Memories of websites, book quotes, and old fantasy novels coalesced in my mind along with what I’d gleaned from Jackson.
Whatever tool or weapon I found would need to be able to hurt Joseph through his scales.
There was one thing every single story had in common, and it was that the belly and the soft spots around the scales near the back and around each limb were least protected. But how the fuck could I hurt him?
“Think, Shyanne. Think,” I hissed to myself as another blast of fire roared across the ceiling.
I leaned out behind a cabinet and watched in horror as Joseph kept slashing with his claws, moving like a madman.
The left eye—the one that had been pure red—had burst, leaving an empty socket.
From that hole, a tiny wisp of smoke drifted out, as if the inside of his skull was actually on fire.
Even when Jackson slashed at him or bit a chunk of flesh from his shoulder, he didn’t seem to notice.
That was dangerous. One of the ways a person could win a fight was by doling out enough pain so their adversary began to slow or give in.
If that person didn’t feel pain or didn’t care about it, they became ten times as dangerous.
Again, that strange blue orb caught my eye. The object emanated a weird and eerie glow that both confused and intrigued me, but I couldn’t think of how something like that could be used to hurt Joseph. Even then, I found myself crawling toward it, inexplicably drawn toward it.
A small, engraved plaque sat below the orb, attached to the marble plinth. Leaning close, I squinted to read it, but had to jump out of the way when both Jackson and Joseph came tumbling through in a whirlwind of tearing teeth and claws.
Rolling to a stop by a large trunk, I watched the two dragons fight.
They moved against each other in a way that made it hard to see who was doing what.
I’d watched a couple of alley cats fight behind the garage a few years before, and that’s what this looked like, just more deadly.
Joseph’s massive head was swollen, and the empty socket now dripped some viscous white liquid.
The more he reacted to the dragon teeth embedded in his head, the more psychotic he became.
To my horror, he clamped his teeth around Jackson’s throat.
I nearly screamed, terrified that I was about to watch him tear away a vital piece of Jackson, leaving nothing but a slumped and bleeding body.
Thankfully, before he could lock his jaws in place, Jackson kicked out with his rear legs and talons, slicing a gaping, bloody wound.
Joseph opened his jaws to scream, and Jackson skittered away, righting himself and rejoining the fight.
Both men were absolutely covered in open weeping wounds.
I got to my feet and sent furtive glances toward the fighting dragons as I approached the orb. I needed to figure out what the hell it was before continuing to find a weapon. I scanned the orb plaque.
Moonstone Reliquary DO NOT TOUCH
“Reliquary?” I whispered. “What?”
The warning echoed hollowly against what I felt in my mind.
I had an overwhelming need to feel the thing before me, to run my hand across the cool surface.
It was too much to fight against, and deep in the recesses of my mind, I understood that this was magic working on me, but I couldn’t push back.
Going against my better judgment—and my common sense—I did the opposite of what the plaque said.
I brushed my finger across the smooth glowing stone.
The moment my skin touched the item, a surge of power shot up my arm, forcing my body to tense up as if I’d shoved my finger in a light socket.
Pulsing waves of…what? What was it that washed over my mind?
Chaos. That was the only thing I could sense at first. A rising storm of sound, a cacophony of madness flooded through me, threatening to send me over the edge of an abyss.
It was only after a few seconds that I realized what it was I was hearing.
Voices. Dozens of clamoring voices, begging and screaming for release.
With a force of will I didn’t even know I possessed, I tore my hand away, gasping in shock and terror, body shaking. My eyes locked on the stone, and I thought I could see swirling shapes with amorphic wings.
“Holy fucking shit,” I cried, turning to look at Joseph again.
He reared on his back legs and thrashed his front feet, shredding at the air with razor-sharp claws while Jackson backed away.
In a flash, I remembered what Joseph had said earlier: “Fucking lock your ass away like all the rest.”
I’d assumed that meant he wanted us chained up like some of his past victims to torture or something, but the truth was far worse than that.
It was so awful that I almost couldn’t fathom it.
It made me want to vomit, but I kept my composure.
Instead, I kicked at the plinth, sending the orb to the floor to shatter.
Instead of breaking, it only bounced an inch or two and rolled to a stop a foot away.
Undaunted, I shoved my wrench into my belt and grabbed a jewel-encrusted battle axe from a rack.
I swung it over my head, then brought it down on the orb with all my might.
The resulting impact rattled the axe out of my hand and sent a painful shockwave through my arms that damn near loosened my teeth.
In addition to that, a blast of fire shot through to my left, singeing the hair on my arm. I screamed in fright as I jumped aside.
Jackson roared, and both dragons swept through, clawing and fighting while knocking magical items and treasures all over the room.
Joseph kicked a chest, which sent the orb rolling across the room to the far corner.
I scrambled to my feet and ran after it, desperate to break the damn thing.
How, though? Nothing seemed to work. Nothing…
As if remembering a dream, a flash of an article came screaming back into my mind.
When brought together, obsidian and moonstone counteract one another, and in most cases, one item or the other will be destroyed in a rather breathtaking fashion.
Frozen, I stared at the stone for a moment before picking up my wrench with trembling fingers.
Dad had put ground-up volcanic stone into this when he’d had it forged.
Volcanic obsidian stone. It wasn’t one hundred percent made from it, but that stone was woven through the entire thing.
Would that work? I was out of options, so it was worth a shot.
Raising the tool high, I let out a whispered prayer. A litany Dad used to pray with me at night before bed. It helped me feel like he was right there with me.
“Holy Mary, pray for us. Holy mother of God, pray for us.” My arms flexed, and I stared at the orb, aiming for all I was worth. “Holy virgin of virgins, pray for us. Mother of Christ, pray for us.” I swung forward, arcing the wrench over my head and down. “Holy mother of divine grace, pray for—’
The wrench struck the orb, and all of time and space froze for a single instant.
Looking down, I actually saw the moment the wrench and orb connected.
A single bright pinprick of light shone where the two came into contact, shimmering and shining like a star in the sky.
Expanding, the light became too bright to look at, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
The tiny speck of light grew and brightened until I felt as if I was looking at a nuclear bomb blast.
After what was only half a second but felt like minutes, time sped back up, and the world was washed away in concussive force.
My ears rang as the stone exploded, sending me tumbling away.
I rolled over and over, slamming my elbow, tailbone, and right knee on the floor.
Crashing into the wall on the far side of the room, I gasped in pain, squinting as a painfully bright light glowed through the room, and a steady, rumbling roar like a freight train or thunder reverberated through the room.
Through it all, the sound of Joseph roaring in shocked rage mixed with the cacophony of noise.
I cupped my hands around my eyes and looked out at the noise.
A mini sun seemed to be sitting in the room where the orb had been, sending waves and rays of blue light radiating around the room.
Within those rays, I thought I could see twisting and writhing serpentine shapes undulating within.
My attention was torn away from those when Jackson leaped onto Joseph’s back, his claws digging into the other dragon’s flesh.
Joseph, still mad from whatever reaction he was having to the teeth and his shock at the destruction of the orb, didn’t even acknowledge Jackson’s presence until the other man sank his teeth into the back of his neck.
Joseph bucked, his remaining eye rolling wildly as Jackson shook his head like a dog on a bone.
Even through the rattling sound of the orb releasing its magic, I could hear the gruesome sound of tearing flesh and tissue.
Joseph did his best to reach behind him and claw at Jackson, but all he could manage were feeble pawing motions.
With all four of Jackson’s legs and his wings pressed hard against the floor, Joseph didn’t have the ability to roll over.
Blood pooled down his throat, and Jackson sank his teeth deeper into Joseph’s neck.
With one last throat-rending cry, Joseph threw his head back and unleashed a stream of impotent fire at the ceiling.
A moment later, Jackson shook his great dragon head once more, ripping a massive hunk of flesh and bone free of Joseph’s body.
The other dragon went limp immediately, falling to the ground as the last of the bright blue light faded, his lone eye open and sightless.
Climbing unsteadily to my feet, I looked on in horror as the body slowly shifted back of its own accord, until Joseph Anitoli lay there with a wound so severe it looked like his head had almost been bitten off.
Jackson looked at me with exhausted and pained eyes, smoke trickling up from his nostrils.
“It’s over,” I said, barely believing it. From the moment we’d placed Bryn in the trunk, it was like time had both sped up and slowed down. How had all this happened in one night? It was crazy to think about, but it was all over now.
Jackson shifted, and I cried out when I saw the wounds covering his body. He looked like he’d been doused in red paint. He took one unsteady step toward me, lifting a hand.
“Shyanne?”
With that he fell to the floor, his head thumping hard against the stone floor. A scream of terror erupted from my throat as I rushed to his side.