Chapter Twenty-one
Mark’s transformation is horrific to behold.
Bones twist and stretch beneath his skin.
His spine arches, cracking like gunfire, limbs lengthening as muscles knot and bulge.
Flesh splits to make way for dense, armored hide.
His fingers splay and burst into clawed talons.
His reptilian eyes lock onto mine, filled with something smug, ancient, and furious.
His clothes shred into confetti as his frame surges upward, doubling, then tripling in mass. Scales bloom across him in a wave of green-gray, creeping like a fast-spreading infection. His jaw unhinges, lengthening outward while rows of serrated teeth punch through gum and bone.
In seconds, the man is gone.
What remains is thirty feet of primeval rage, a full-grown Tyrannosaurus Rex.
He tests his new body with one casual snap of massive jaws, then whips his tail sideways. A boulder the size of a compact car sails off the canyon ledge and plummets into the abyss with a fading, distant crash.
All of it is enough to distract me from the single flame I’d summoned again. It flares back into existence inside my mind. Talos waits within it, back in his fourth-dimensional realm where shape and logic give up. His eyes glow when he sees me. He knew I’d call. We’re connected like that.
We rush toward each other, and then I’m him. Or rather, my mind is in him. My body is elsewhere, safe with him in his world, while here, in the Grand Canyon, an echo of Talos takes shape. I slide into it seamlessly, settling behind his eyes and into his strength.
It’s strange. It’s instantaneous. But it works as it always has. For more than a decade now, we’ve understood each other perfectly. I get him; he gets me. And together we kick ass. I am Samantha Moon, yes, but I am also Talos, the fire-breathing dragon from a distant world.
The T-Rex turns, confused for a moment, then charges at me along the ledge, has massive clawed feet slipping and sliding.
The ground quakes with each thundering step.
I lift off, pumping Talos’s mighty wings, just as Mark the T-Rex lunges at me.
Teeth snap where I stood. I circle above him, wings beating hard, heat swirling in my wake.
Mark bellows and leaps up at me, trying to bite, to catch, to destroy.
But he’s too slow. And I’m already too high.
I twist midair and dive down, flame gathering in my chest. When it’s ready, I open my mouth... and roar fire. It rains down on him like the sun itself: molten, pure, and white-hot. Heat and fury scorch his back, and sends him writhing in pain. His tail flails, jaws snapping at nothing.
The fire weakens him but doesn’t end him.
The dark magic has sealed his fate. Not even dragon-fire can burn out the darkness rooted in his soul.
I land hard, wings folding behind me, claws gouging stone.
As I do, he barrels toward me, eyes crazed, steam rising from his scales. I do the same, rushing toward him.
We collide...
***
Mark
This was supposed to be my moment.
I’m the apex predator. The king reborn. The bloodline of Nimrod given new flesh, new purpose. I should be feared. Instead, the witch flies as a dragon. What the hell kind of game is this?
I rush her, bellowing, my tail lashing boulders from their perches. My taloned feet pulverize the softer dirt and stone. She rises up on massive wings, hovers just out of my reach. Her wings generate hurricane-level gusts.
Then the witch dives at me.
A streak of red flames gush from her mouth. The bitch!
I leap as high as I can, my jaws snapping shut an inch from her belly. Fire hits my neck and sears deep. I roar uncontrollably, the pain unbearable, unlike anything I’ve ever known.
She spins, coming at me again...
***
Samantha
Mark ducks the next blast, tail whipping into my flank with the force of a wrecking ball. I spin sideways and tumble through the canyon air. Rocks and strata flash past me.
Talos briefly takes over control, pivoting, righting us. He is, after all, much better at this flying business than I am.
He uses our momentum to swoop wide and comes back around.
Once done, he relinquishes control back to me.
Meanwhile, Mark is already moving, leaping down an incline one giant step at a time, bounding toward the river far below.
I see the burnt flesh on his back: blistered, sizzling.
Good. The man was too willing to kill, too willing to destroy those in his way. I can’t have that. Let him suffer.
At the bottom of the canyon, he pivots fast, faces me.
His jaws snap toward my right wing. I roll upward at the last second, but his teeth catch the edge of Talos’s leathery flap.
Pain rips through me, even as the wing itself tears.
A ragged, guttural howl escapes my throat, followed by a fireball straight into his chest. It knocks him backward into a canyon wall.
Stone cracks under his weight as dust plumes up...
***
Mark
Dragons are supposed to be myths.
Not flying over the goddamn Grand Canyon like a divine executioner, strafing fire. Am I not a god? Am I not made of fire, blood, and spells older than mankind. A bloodline that stretches all the way down the chain into hell itself?
I am, dammit.
I explode forward from the rock, ignoring the burns across my back. I leap higher than gravity should allow. My jaws crash down, and I catch her wing. Victory!
My teeth sink in, destroying the pathetic leathery membrane in an instant. That should do it. That should ground the bitch. And in a fight between a T-Rex and a dragon, I will put my money on a T-Rex every time.
But as she spins, she roars, slashing with talons. Then fire blasts my chest. Blinding, agonizing.
I growl and release her.
***
Samantha
The tear in Talos’s wing is utterly debilitating.
I hit the ground, rolling and tucking in my injured wing, and do my best to control the other. It will heal soon, but it can’t heal if I’m trying to fly. I’ve been grounded for the time being, at least the next few minutes.
I suck in a breath, filling Talos’s massive lungs.
Once inside me, I feel the air heating up.
Might as well be a furnace in there. For all I know, it is.
Or some version of one. When the air is ready, when it threatens to burn through Talos’s lungs, his ribs, and his flesh, I turn toward the T-Rex.
If he thought he had it bad just a few minutes ago, well. ..
The eruption of fire is white-hot. It’s also laser focused. A beam of heat and light straight from my mouth. It hits him square in the chest.
And I pour it on, hot and furious.
***
Mark
Pain; it’s all I know.
My vision is nothing but smoke and fire.
My skin is melting. My chest is splitting open.
No, it can’t end like this. I was born for more than this.
I’ve barely begun infecting humanity. And all that glorious money is waiting for me.
Money, mansions, private planes. Women. It’s all in the cards for me.
I roar, surging toward her like a burning house with legs. I use my size, my weight. My rage.
I slam into her, and together we tumble down a steep slope, and land in a raging river. We sink to the bottom, with me on top of her. The fire that had erupted in my flesh has been snuffed out, thank god. Now it’s a fair fight.
I rear back, jaws wide...
***
Samantha
Switch with me, Sam, says Talos in my head, and I immediately see the logic of his words.
I do just that, summoning the single flame and seeing my little human self inside it.
She rushes toward me, as I rush toward her, and soon, my human self is pinned underwater, under the weight of a freakin’ T-Rex.
Its massive jaws snap shut where Talos’s own massive head had just been.
Now, there’s only water. And yeah, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have survived such a bite, but luckily, I’m far, far below the dinosaur.
Also, I can’t drown, so I just gather my wits and teleport back up the slope, to the ledge I had first landed on as Talos.
Down below, moving in the shallows of the river is an honest-to-God Tyrannosaurus Rex, a fossil come to life.
I’m not sure what Mark’s endgame is here, or why he was so hellbent on completing the ritual.
Max had said something about fulfilling his destiny or some such crap.
But whatever it is, one thing is glaringly obvious: as a shifter, there’s only one way to kill him: silver to the heart.
I don’t usually go around killing things that annoy me, but I will have to make an exception with Mark.
He’s too big, too angry, and too powerful. Pretty much nothing can stop him.
Heck, Talos barely can, and look what he got for the effort: a ruined wing and pinned at the bottom of a river.
***
Years ago, I toured Europe with the gang; specifically, a castle in Ireland.
There, I had seen a wall of weapons, where I had been repulsed by one such weapon: it had been a lance made of silver. Wooden handle, but silver-tipped. I had logged it in the memory bank for possible future use.
Well, the future is now.
As I watch the T-Rex scrabble its way from the river depths and onto the bank, where it drops and hunches over, gasping, I make the decision and summon the single flame once more. In it, I see the wall of weapons and make the leap...
Instantly, I’m in front of a stone wall, confronted with dozens of swords, maces, lances, and spears. I hear voices coming from a side corridor, tourists likely.
Which spear is the silver-tipped spear? I let my repulsion to the metal direct me to it, which it does rather quickly.
There, resting atop two iron spikes, is the spear in question, tarnished but sharp.
Little did its maker know when forging the thing all those centuries ago that it would be used to kill a real dragon, though technically, Talos is closer to a dragon than Mark is, but close enough.
I sprout my dark angel wings, fly up the wall, and take hold of the spear by its wooden shaft even as a wave of nauseating energy sweeps over me.
Wow, there’s a lot of silver in this thing, though I suspect its made of an allow, as silver is too soft to keep much of an edge during combat.
Once done, I wave to a little girl who’d just rounded a nearby corner and is staring up at me, mouth open. Then I summon the single flame and see within it the cliff’s edge in the Grand Canyon.
And away I go...
***
Mark
There’s that bitch now. Oh, wait, does she have black wings now, or am I seeing things? No way, no way. What the hell is she?
And what’s that in her hands? A frickin’ spear?
I nearly laugh, except that the T-Rex’s can’t laugh, and how weird would it be if they could?
Well, it can’t, and so all I can do is watch as she tucks those black wings in, and dives down at me from high above, spear held out before her like she’s a jousting knight.
***
Samantha
Wind thunders over my ears.
I feel the dark wings shuddering behind me, as does my trailing hair. I hold the spear before me, my hands evenly spaced along the shaft. I position it in such a way that I can make the necessary adjustments to ensure it lands home.
I almost feel bad for Mark. This is going to hurt. A lot.
I hear Anthony’s voice in my head: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes...
Well, big guy here is about to win a stupid prize.
I pour on the speed, slicing down through the hot canyon air. The river surges below. The sun shines high above. It’s easier to hunt a beast. Not so sure I could have driven the spear home into a man.
I cut through the sulfur-hazed sky like a shadow on a mission.
Below me, Mark, no longer a man but a monster reborn, thrashes, tail carving trenches into the muddy river shore.
His tiny arms swat uselessly at the sky, trying to keep me at bay.
He roars up at me, jaws wide enough to swallow a car, serrated teeth dripping with hot saliva.
He’s too slow; I dive.
Wind screams past me, feathers snapping. His jaws lunge upward as a living guillotine, but I veer to the side, avoiding them. I circle back in a loop, and reappear between those ridiculous, flailing little arms.
In my hands: the spear. Silver laced with something else, perhaps steel, a weapon hammered during the Crusades (if I recall the speech of our tour guide from all those years ago) by an alchemist who believed dragons were still real. Its tip shines like winter frost.
Mark sees it too late.
Heart cold and resolve absolute, I steel myself and drive the spear down with everything I have.
The alloyed silver point splits scales like wet parchment, punching through hide, bone, muscle, and the monstrous power beneath.
It sinks deep... all the way to the hilt, then bursts out his back in a spray of steaming blood.
For a moment, time seems to hold its breath. His eyes, once ancient and furious, widen with recognition: silver, heart, death.
The T-Rex convulses, and the roar dies in his throat. Mark’s massive form stiffens, then collapses sideways, shaking the canyon like thunder. Dust plumes. Echoes bounce for miles.
The king has fallen.
I land on top of him, wings spread wide, spear buried to the haft, a dark angel over a slain god.
Minutes later, a big pile of ash takes the creature’s place. That’s a good thing. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the body of a T-Rex...