Chapter 7 #2
“I don't need to stand,” I said. “I just need to be inconvenient.”
And with that, I let my magic completely off its leash.
The world exploded into pure, undiluted insanity.
Every piece of furniture from the house burst into action and chose violence, of course.
Always violence. The disco ball—had it been following us the entire time?
—started playing “Ride of the Valkyries” at volumes so loud, it almost made my ears bleed.
And the house?
The house stood up.
Not metaphorically. It literally pulled itself out of its foundation, grew legs made of compressed floorboards and righteous fury, and started stomping toward the dragons.
“Your house is mobile?” Gary shrieked.
“Apparently!”
The dragons had stopped advancing, staring at the walking house with expressions of complete bewilderment.
“What the fuck?” the lead dragon said.
“Welcome to Assjacket,” everyone said in unison.
Okay, that time was the one time that creepy thing they did was actually perfect.
The lead dragon recovered first, shifting into his full form with a roar that would have shattered the windows of a lesser house. “Enough of this nonsense! You're coming with us, one way or another!”
“Counteroffer,” I said, my magic crackling around me like demented fireworks. “You leave, and I don't turn you into something embarrassing.”
He laughed, and breathed fire directly at me.
The house caught it. Just stepped in front of the flames and absorbed them like a particularly spicy snack. Then it burped fire right back at him, adding what looked like highlighter fluorescent pink fun foam.
The dragon's perfect scales were now bedazzled. And quite a vivid shade of neon pink.
“WHAT DID YOU DO?”
“I honestly have no idea! I'm just going with it!”
The other dragons attacked simultaneously. Fire, claws, and magic came from every direction. The townspeople scattered, but not in retreat. They spread out, using guerrilla tactics in their shifted forms. It was like a jailbreak at a zoo, with all the animals converging in one spot.
Dee Dee was a deer?
Who knew?
Randy and Martha were mid-shift. Somehow, their synchronized crossbow shooting was still weirdly effective.
I guess that restraining order was, at least temporarily, put on hold.
But we were still outmatched. One of the dragons grabbed Tom the mailman, lifting him into the air. Another had cornered a group of teenagers who'd been stupid enough to sneak over to see what all the fuss was about.
The curse chose that moment to remind me it existed, sending pain so intense, I dropped to my knees. The lead dragon saw his chance and dove for me.
Baz intercepted him.
Not as a bear. As something…else.
He was massive. Bigger than any bear should be, covered in fur that seemed to absorb light. His claws were like swords, his teeth like daggers, and his eyes burned with golden fire. When he roared, reality itself seemed to flinch.
This is Baz in Berserker mode? This is what had once hunted dragons?
The lead dragon tried to pull back, but Baz was already on him, claws finding the weak points between scales, teeth tearing at wing membranes. They rolled across the ground in a fury of violence that made everyone, shifter and dragon, stop to stare in a mix of awe and horror.
But the distraction cost us. One of the other dragons grabbed me while everyone was watching Baz fight. Claws closed around my torso, lifting me into the air.
“Got her!” he shouted triumphantly.
My magic apparently didn’t like being manhandled. It responded with its typical chaos. The dragon holding me suddenly sprouted flowers. Everywhere. His scales, his wings, his teeth, were all covered in daisies.
“What the…” he started, then started sneezing. Violently. Dragons, it turned out, could have hay fever.
He dropped me. Right onto the walking house's roof.
The house caught me gently, which was sweet, then formed a protective dome around me, which was even sweeter. Through the translucent walls, I saw the battle raging.
We were losing.
Despite all our crazy, despite Baz's Berserker form, despite the town's creative violence, we were losing. There were too many dragons, and they were too strong.
* * *
I woke up screaming, racked with pain, and Baz shaking me with a look of fear in his eyes. The only time I’d ever seen my unshakeable bear ever truly shaken.
I was alive, in bed. Safe.
Goddess, I fucking hate nightmares. Why do they always feel so real?
We were all still alive. The town was still standing, and I was now wide awake from my very shitty dream.
If I don’t see, or think, about another dragon for the rest of my life, it will be too soon.
“What's going to happen now?” I asked no one in particular. That was a future Tansy problem. Present Tansy was right here where she belonged. Warm, fuzzy feelings washed over me in a rare moment of peace.
The curse flared at the first sign of happiness, but I didn't react. I didn't even flinch. I was getting used to it, this constant ache. It was becoming a part of me.
“You okay?” Baz asked with concern in his eyes. Concern was a downgrade from fear. That was a very good thing.
“No,” I said honestly. “But I'm getting better at not being okay.” I shuddered, the dream-dragons still much too fresh. “That felt so real. Four dragons, the house growing legs…” I paused, suddenly uncertain. “Wait. The house didn’t grow legs today, did it? During training? I’m having trouble sorting out what actually happened and what was a nightmare. ”
“The house stayed firmly planted during training,” Baz assured me. “Though you did make it rain molasses and turned Zelda's hair into snakes.”
“Right. The reverse-aiming. That was real.” I rubbed my temples. “But no actual dragons?”
“No actual dragons. Just scarecrows and very patient townspeople.”
“We should talk when you’re feeling better,” Gary mumbled. “About what’s happened. About what's coming.”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Tonight, we rest.”
“Tonight, we celebrate,” Gary corrected. “We deserve…”
“A fancy-dance party!” I screamed like a teenage girl. Baz was so startled he blinked rapidly for a full two seconds. It was almost as if his brain was trying to compute what was going on.
* * *
“Who wants to get turnt tonight?” I yelled at the top of my lungs, opening a bottle of champagne I’d shaken within an inch of its life.
The cork shot into the frigging stratosphere.
About a nanosecond later, I was covered in foam.
My white dress was really gonna show off the goods, wet T-shirt style. Thankfully, I was born without shame.
The crowd cheered, and someone started pulling out bottles of something that glowed faintly green.
“Is that safe to drink?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” Dee Dee said cheerfully, pouring shots.
As the celebration began, I found myself standing apart, watching.
The curse was a constant ache, but it couldn't touch this.
Nothing could compare to the warmth of seeing a community come together, the pride in having protected each other, the absurd joy of having a sentient house dancing to a beat only it could hear.
Either that or it was having a seizure, because “Pony,” by Ginuwine, did not require that much hip action from a load-bearing wall.
“Regrets?” Baz asked, appearing beside me with two cups of the glowing green alcohol I now knew was colloquially referred to as ogre piss.
Mmmm, how appealing. This was soooo named by a barely pubescent frat boy.
“Thousands,” I said, taking one. “But not about this.”
I thought about all the wounds he'd taken for me, at the steady certainty in his eyes, at the way he stood close enough to offer comfort but far enough to minimize the curse's reaction.
“Especially knowing that,” I said as I brought the cup to my lips. The alcohol tasted like brown sugar and poor impulse control. Like it was made just for me!
My magic immediately responded by turning my hair rainbow-colored and making tiny fireworks appear around us.
“Your magic seems happy,” Baz observed.
“My magic’s drunk.”
He chuckled and took a sip of his drink.
The celebration continued around us. At some point, the house figured out how to play music through its walls and had some kind of musical war with the disco ball. People were dancing themselves into a frenzy.
“This is so cray cray,” I said, watching Mrs. Henderson grinding on her potted rose. The rose was raining dollar bills down on her. “Does she take that thing everywhere she goes?”
“This is Assjacket,” Baz replied. “We specialize in crazy.”
“Good,” I said, leaning slightly against him despite the curse's protests. “Because I don't think I can do normal anymore.”
“Normal’s vastly overrated.”
“Says the secret Berserker dragon hunter.”
Baz chuckled and held out his glass. We tinked them, as much as one can tink together two red plastic cups, and stood there, watching our weird little town celebrate an impossible victory, and for just that moment, the curse felt less like a death sentence and more like…
a problem to solve. A big problem, sure, but I'd faced big problems since the day I was born.
And…
I guess I’d never really had backup before.
Well, not since my high school best friend, but we’d lost touch ages ago. Disappearing in the middle of the night and not talking to people kind of did that to relationships.
“Tomorrow, we start looking for ways to break the curse,” Baz said quietly.
“Tomorrow, we probably get attacked by more damnable dragons or I’ll have another dragon-themed nightmare.”
“Also, true,” he said with a chuckle.
“But tonight?”
“Tonight, we're alive. And that's enough.”
It wasn't enough. Not really. But he was right about one thing. We were alive.
And I wasn’t going down without a very unpredictable fight.
The party continued until dawn. By the time the sun rose, half the town was passed out in various locations in or around the house.
I stood on the porch with Gary in his travel terrarium, watching the sunrise paint the town in gold and pink.
“Ready for a brand-new dragon-free day in Assjacket?” Baz asked, joining me with two steaming mugs of coffee that smelled like liquid salvation.
“No,” I said honestly. “But that's never stopped me before.”
He laughed.
“You know this is probably going to end badly,” I said.
“Most things do.”
I looked out over Assjacket, what I now knew was my weird, chaotic, beautiful disaster of a town, and made a decision.
“Just shut up and kiss me.”
“But the—” I put a finger to his lips and didn’t flinch when I looked him dead in the eye.
His breath hitched against my fingertip, then again when my lips found his.
Heat flared, not the searing ache of the curse, but something deeper, cleaner.
Like it had burned straight through the pain and found the parts of me that still believed in wanting.
The world narrowed to the press of his mouth, the faint, lingering taste of whatever questionable swamp drink we’d shared a few short hours ago, and the ridiculous fact that I was gleefully happy.
Maybe the curse couldn’t be broken. Maybe I’d always carry it. But right then, I gave zero fucks.
This girl had a much bigger priority.
And that priority was massive. I could feel it straining through the fabric of Baz’s jeans as it pressed against my upper thigh.
“Well,” Gary said from his terrarium, “shitballs.”
END OF BOOK ONE