Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
After I left Davina, I ran into trouble trying to find the doctor.
It didn’t help that every single one of Tiamat’s minions hunted me.
A fatal error, since they all died. Dispatching them proved easy, given my ire at the situation, but time-consuming.
Each moment I spent away from Davina increased the chance she’d come to harm.
Forget being selfish and escaping on my own. I had to save her. Somehow, this woman had found a way to make me care. Made me want. Made me worry about someone other than myself. Was this love? If yes, I could see why it rattled so many, as I didn’t feel entirely in control.
My worry for her almost had me ignoring Fiona’s warning.
I wanted nothing more than to spirit Davina away from this deadly place.
However, Fiona had seen something. Something so horrible it rattled the selkie.
So while I wanted to flee with Davina, I couldn’t.
Whatever threat this Malone posed needed to be handled now.
Where was the damned doctor? It would have helped if I had a scent to follow, and yet I’d not gotten a proper whiff, even when he stood mere feet from me, which, in retrospect, seemed odd.
I’d managed to smell and identify everything else in that chamber.
Davina’s fear. The Red Caps—of whom one smelled quite strongly of garlic.
The Blue Men and their saltwater stench.
Even Tiamat oozed an odor that reminded me of catfish.
But I couldn’t recall anything for the doctor.
That had to be by design. The man had been studying dragons for a while. Conspiring with Tiamat. Likely he knew about our very sensitive olfactory senses. I’d wager he’d doused himself in something that skewed his natural odor. Smart of him, annoying for me.
The palace Nessie had dug out over the centuries, with the help of dwarves and gnome artisans, was impressive.
Also large. I kept coming across new halls.
New chambers. Many of them built of a size that could hold Nessie.
One room had the walls painted to look like the outdoors, the ceiling a bright blue sky replete with clouds and a sun.
The floor surrounding the pool of water where she could enter the room had been artfully designed to look like the ground as seen from high above, the tufts of treetops, the specks of people and animals.
Poor Nessie, she’d obviously wanted to capture the feeling of flying.
As I raced around getting more and more desperate, I killed an unseemly number of monsters but found no sign of the doctor.
It might be time to give up, especially since I’d been gone from Davina longer than I liked.
I headed back in the direction of Nessie’s throne room when a familiar scent hit me.
Davina. She’d passed through here, and the realization had me roaring. Had the idiot left to look for me? Had she been taken hostage? Harmed?
In good news, no sign of blood and I now had a scent trail to follow. It led me to Nessie’s treasure room, a massive cavern containing a hoard almost as impressive as mine. So many valuable things, but none tempted because the only thing I wanted was Davina.
Upon exiting, a deep sniff had me moving back the way I came.
On four furry feet, I raced, tracking Davina’s scent, and ended up in a docking chamber.
The empty room baffled. Where had Davina gone?
Had a kelpie taken her to the surface? A faint whiff of oil and machine exhaust had me recalling Nessie’s excitement—before she became the evil Tiamat—where she’d told me about her purchase of a submersible to transport goods and people.
The mini sub must have just left with Davina on board!
The realization led to me lunging for the barrier that kept the palace from flooding.
I hit it in my tiger shape, but soon as I passed through, and ended up in the loch, I shifted to my dragon.
Perhaps not the best form, but my aquatic choices of freshwater animals I’d ingested were limited.
Somehow a thirty-pound salmon didn’t seem the brightest choice, given the situation.
A killer whale or great white would have been more ideal; however, they were salty ocean fish that would struggle to breathe in fresh water.
I’d save them for a last resort. At least as a dragon, I could cast out my senses, seeking movement since I could no longer smell.
There. Ahead and slightly right. A disturbance in the water.
I began swimming, which, for the curious, involved me using my wings to stroke and pull me through the liquid, angling upward.
While I could hold my breath a long time, I couldn’t breathe underwater.
When I felt my lungs getting tight, I headed for the surface, my head popping into the cool evening air.
I took a second to suck in a lungful before diving back down and following a faint trail of bubbles.
Alas, I wasn’t the one who found the submersible first. That would be Tiamat, who latched onto the nose and bit down hard.
The burst of air as she broke its seal had me swimming hard, especially since I saw a body emerge from the sinking sub and stroking for the surface.
But before I could help Davina, Tiamat noticed me.
Rather than rescue my human, I had to defend myself.
Not easy, since the water had never been an element I’d mastered.
Still, I wasn’t without defense, and when my lungs grew tight, I switched shapes.
A great white might not thrive in fresh water, but I didn’t plan to hold the shape for long.
I just needed to scare Tiamat away so I could rescue Davina from a watery grave.
It worked. Tiamat realized I’d become the more agile predator—with great big teeth!—and she chose to flee, pivoting and swimming away. I could have ended her then and there, but Davina needed me more than I needed revenge.
I kept the shark shape and dove for her sinking body, managing to get under her just as the last bubbles of air slipped past her lips. I propelled myself upward, as quick as I could, panicking since I couldn’t tell if she lived.
Once she broke the surface, I transformed into a dragon, one that could grab her in a paw, not ideal, as my shape and size made treading water tricky. I had to extend my wings to give me some buoyancy. Luckily, I could see the shore and soon walked the pebbled bottom of the loch.
I sloshed through the shallows and lay Davina on the beach before turning into my man shape. I rolled Davina onto her side and pounded her on the back. Tried to remember movies I’d seen that showed how to revive someone who’d drowned. Didn’t I have to breathe air into her lungs?
I put my mouth on hers and blew.
Nothing.
“Move aside, I know what to do.” Fiona tapped me on the shoulder and knelt by Davina. She immediately began compressing her chest.
I paced, waiting for some sign Davina survived, only to be distracted when Tiamat surfaced with an enraged bugling cry.
“Why must you always foil my plans?” she screeched, her head waving along her long stalk of a neck.
“Because you’re evil.” I crossed my arms.
“Just because you can’t grasp my vison and greatness—”
“Greatness?” I snorted. “You were killed by a human.”
“Which is why, once I’ve devoured all the dragons and taken all their abilities, all of mankind shall perish!”
“I won’t let you do that.”
“And how will you stop me?”
“By killing you.”
“You’d have to catch me first!” spat Tiamat before sinking out of sight. I readied myself to follow when Davina uttered a raspy, “Don’t.”
I whirled. “You’re alive.”
My bedraggled professor staggered for me. “You can’t kill Nessie.”
“I don’t want to, but if I don’t, Tiamat will cause great harm.”
“Then get rid of Tiamat.” Fiona approached, her long hair strategically covering her body.
“I just said I was going to kill her.”
Fiona shook her head. “You don’t have to murder Nessie to end Tiamat. You simply need to separate the talisman holding her spirit from the vessel she’s possessing.”
I frowned, and Davina blurted out. “Get rid of the amulet with her stone heart inside.”
It seemed too simple. “Surely it’s more complicated than that.”
“Oh, it won’t be easy. Tiamat won’t let you remove it without a fight.”
I glanced at the loch, empty of the water dragon. Probably off plotting, she had to be stopped.
And I was the only one who could do it.
But before I did…
I dragged Davina close and gave her kiss, one that promised more passion later once I returned victorious.
As I ran for the water and launched myself, I shifted. Not into the shark, that was a killing machine, but into something more ancient, an ocean beast that almost ended my life eons ago.
I hit the loch with a splash and went on the hunt.