However, his attack was a mere inconvenience to the dragon, not enough to put her down. The pearl dragon clambered to her claw-tipped feet, whirled around, and launched herself at Steven once more.

  By that time, the brown dragon unleashed another firestorm onto him. He thrust his left hand forward and quickly angled the shield, diverting those deadly flames toward the Warling. Aria had showed him a handful of jujitsu techniques, and one of the things she’d emphasized was that using an enemy’s own force against them was always the smartest way to fight if you could manage it. It would wear your opponent out quickly, while allowing you to remain fresh and ready.

  The fire struck a red force field. The shield spell saved Kai Charon’s life, but revealed that the Magician, Gideon Scaramanga, was somewhere, skulking around. Was Karlos Butcher there as well? Most likely.

  Steven didn’t know where Aria and Tessa were, or if they were cooking inside the Bronco, bathed in flame by the burning Conoco. He desperately wanted to check on them, but there was no way. He had to deal with dragons and humans trying to kill him. He was their main target, after all.

  Steven triggered SerpentGrace—burning through a sliver of his available Animus—and raced across the empty street, diving under the talons of the pearl dragon. He rolled and came up holding the fallen tailgate from the decimated pickup truck. With a roar, he sent it whirling through the air like an oversized Frisbee. The metal rectangle struck the brown dragon, breaking a wing with a vicious crack and sending her crashing to the pavement.

  Now that he had some breathing room, Steven transformed into a full dragon. Still imbued with both SerpentGrace and two doses of DarkArmor, he stood a fighting chance. Steven dug his claws into the ruined truck and lifted it with a heave, using it as a club. He slugged the gray dragon like he was Babe Ruth aiming for the fences. The gray dragon went soaring through the rain and wind and into the glass front of the Aces ’N Spades Dollar Store. Glass shattered, and plastic junk vomited out onto the street.

  Civilians were fleeing, dashing into the fields, running for their lives as they screamed.

  The pearl dragon—obviously using SerpentGrace—blurred toward him. An instant later, she dug her talons into Steven’s arm, pinning it down. The brown dragon, wing bent, whipped her tail into his jaw. A burst of white stars exploded across his vision as she drove him into the restaurant. The spines on his back crushed the wood, and his feet slipped on the tables and chairs inside. The greasy odor of the kitchen mixed with the fire and rain outside. Suddenly, he caught the scent of mint. That was the smell of the pearl dragon.

  The brown dragon, by contrast, stank of burning rubber.

  Red, whirling scimitars—courtesy of Mulk’s gangly human Magician—slashed into Steven, dazing him with bright jags of pain. Thanks to his DarkArmor, they didn’t spike his innards, but they left him bleeding and weak.

  Kai Charon raced forward and leapt into the air with preternatural dexterity. His katana arced toward Steven, slicing through the air. Most of the truck had simply fallen apart after bashing the holy living crap out of the gray dragon, but Steven still had the mangled remains of a truck door gripped in his left hand. He raised the door like a shield, but the Warling was fast as hell and as nimble as a fucking ninja. The purple-suit-wearing son of a bitch ran up the side of the door, flipped ass over teakettle like some sort of Olympic acrobat, and threatened to drive his blade into Steven’s throat.

  At the same time, the gray dragon raced from the ruins of the dollar store, streaking through the rain to land a killing blow if Kai Charon failed to skewer Steven.

  Steven needed to free himself from the pearl dragon, but her talons were dug deep into his right arm.

  And he couldn’t forget about Gideon. The Magician stood on the main street, a pale, dirty man. He raised his hands to cast another spell.

  Steven had done well to live thirty seconds against the Terror Trio and three of Mulk’s Escort, but it seemed he was done for. He was about to die—

  Gunshots thundered through the rain and chaos. Pink flashes of light struck the pearl dragon, sending her reeling away from Steven. Bullet after bullet pocked her chest, parting scales and meat as though they were made of tissue paper. Red gored painted her pale scales. She fought to keep her feet—blood oozing down from half a dozen wounds or more—but finally pitched over onto her side. Alive, but out of the game. At least until someone healed her.

  Meanwhile, a sleek scarlet dragon swooped in, lashing out with her tail in passing, flicking Kai Charon away from Steven like a bothersome gnat. Both the Warling and his sword were sent spiraling to the ground. The powerful scent of cinnamon washed over the scene as Aria pressed forward, slamming into the gray dragon. Then it was a midair bitch fight, the female dragons tearing at each other without mercy.

  Yes! Aria and Tessa had survived the Conoco explosion!

  “Magica Cura!” Gideon screamed. The pearl dragon’s bullet wounds closed. Hunks of metal plunked to the ground.

  The brown dragon opened her mouth to breathe fire on Steven. His shield spell had protected him from the gas station fire, but he didn’t trust it against dragon’s fire. So instead, he went with good ol’ physical retribution. He hurled the truck door right into the brown dragon’s yawning maw. The door smashed into her muzzle, and she tumbled backward—right into the gas station inferno. The brown dragon must’ve rolled through gasoline at some point during the fight, because she went up like a torch.

  Tessa zipped right, guns out and level, looking for a clear shot on the pearl dragon, but she never had the chance. A snake—or make that an anaconda—slithered out of the antique store. Karlos Butcher caught her in his scales, and her mouth fell open in a gasp. The Morphling would turn Tessa into jelly if Steven didn’t do something and quick, but that shithead Kai Charon had regained his feet and was angling to intercept Steven.

  Charon advanced, slashing at Steven, who batted the blade away. Tessa screamed, struggling frantically against the crushing coils of Karlos the Butcher. Steven knew he needed to do something—and do it now. He shrank himself down, back to Homo Draconis, just as the pearl dragon lunged to snap off his head. Eyes wide, he turned and dropped to the deck, avoiding yet another potential death sentence, but in doing so, he offered his back to that douche Charon. The Warling brought his enchanted katana down across Steven’s back, slicing him deeply and adding to his collection of wounds. Steven spun on instinct and drove his claws into Charon, shoving him back and shredding his purple suit at the same time. Blood poured down the man’s chest as he fell to his knees.

  His face had gone pale … he was near death …

  Until Gideon cast another heal spell.

  Steven gained his feet in a blink and charged the Magician like a linebacker trying to sack the QB. At the same time, Steven inhaled. He needed to breathe fire of his own, and he needed to wipe that goddamn sorcerer off the face of the Earth. Steven triggered the Inferno Exhalant, but like before, only black smoke leaked out of his mouth.

  That was okay. If he couldn’t burn Gideon Scaramanga, he could smoke that motherfucker like a pig in a pit. He got his jaws close enough to the Magician to temporarily blind the man with the plume of acrid smoke. Gideon shrieked in pain, clutching at his face. Guy was a pain in the ass, but clearly, he wasn’t too tough. At least not physically.

  Charon got back to his feet, but Steven lashed out with his tail. Boom. Direct hit to the face. The Warling made a strangling sound, reached for his ruined face, and fell back down. The way was open to get to the snake-bound Tessa. Steven returned to his True Form, a thirty-foot-long black dragon.

  The brown dragon stumbled out of the fire. Her wings were smoking, enflamed, and there was a good portion of her scales that looked like charcoal. Especially around her neck. It was the perfect place to strike.

  Not fucking around, Steven shot forward like a jet and tore out her throat with his fangs. Hot blood gushed into his mouth, accompanied by a wave of fresh Animus. He spit out a gob of flesh and scale, shouldered his way past the dying dragon, and beelined toward the snake freak. The anaconda dropped Tessa, who fell unconscious to the pavement. The anaconda, at least twenty feet long and weighing several tons, slithered around Steven’s neck. That thing was slippery, fast, and deadly.

  Steven felt this windpipe closing. The Animus from the dragon-kill coalesced in his chest. He managed to gasp out, “Magica Cura.” It was enough to heal Tessa, who staggered to her feet. She fished her Colts from the street, where they’d fallen, and took aim to blast the anaconda choking Steven. Naturally, the pearl dragon got in the way, blocking Tessa’s shot.

  A fresh gout of fire lit up the darkness of the stormy day. Steven didn’t know if Tessa was able to dodge the pearl dragon’s fire or not.

  Black was closing in on Steven’s vision, and he knew it wouldn’t be long until he passed out. But then a brilliant idea hit him. Steven returned to his Homo Draconis form suddenly. So suddenly, in fact, the anaconda couldn’t adjust. Steven simply slipped right through the coils, got to his feet, and found himself facing a gigantic tusked boar, the snake gone. Boar-Butcher charged, huge hooves scrabbling at the asphalt.

  From out of nowhere, a glowing green sword blade hacked into the monster boar’s back leg. Butcher went rolling across the ground in a spray of blood. Steven recognized the broadsword—it was the Slayer Blade, and it was in the hands of a very pale, very small looking Mouse.

  She’d come to save the day, or at least a portion of it.

  Hail pounded down from the sky. But no wind. The wind had dropped.

  The pearl dragon took off, flying in an uncertain spiral as the hail hammered them all. Tessa was scorched, but she’d survived the fire blast. Charon was still on the ground, unmoving. Gideon limped off toward the dollar store, his face blackened where it wasn’t pink with the burns. One eye was sealed closed. Snot dripped down his dirty face.

  Steven grinned. They’d either dropped their opponents or made them flee. Not too bad, considering how badly outnumbered they’d been to start with. Steven’s feeling of victory was short lived, however. He breathed in and found himself choking. A miasma of green mist boiled through the town, adding a fog to the clouds and the ice chunks plummeting from the heavens.

  The green mist brought Steven, Tessa, and Mouse to their knees.

  What kind of hellish fog could do that to them? Tessa grasped at her throat, coughing up blood. Mouse followed suit, eyes bulging, the Slayer Blade dropped and forgotten as she clasped her slender neck. Steven turned and puked. He couldn’t breathe.

  A single word floated through his head. Toxicity. It was farther down on the Exhalant skill tree, and he was feeling the effects of the poisonous cloud.

  A massive dragon stood at the other end of the town, exhaling out the putrid fog from its huge mouth.

  Mouse had come to save them, but she hadn’t come alone. It seemed she’d been followed …

  FOURTEEN

  Tessa had used most of her Animus on forging the bullets, which had worked well against the pearl dragon. If she had better aim and a tad more speed, she would’ve killed that bitch dead. Oh well. She’d just have to practice more. She still didn’t like the fact that her magic was pink. There had to be a way to change that shit.

  But Tessa figured she might not get the chance. She was dying, suffocating in the cloud of green gas enveloping the town of Ash Hollow. She’d already coughed up blood and was worried that her lungs were next. That would suck. Her brother had studied World War I and told her about the effects of chlorine, phosgene, and diphosgene gases: soldiers literally coughed out their own lungs, piece by piece. If that happened to them, she would die, as would Steven and Mouse.

  If only she could cast a spell, heal Steven, or summon a shield spell that could surround them completely and block out that noxious fog.

  And who was the dragon at the end of town? It was bigger than a female but hard to see in the hail and mist, which was an odd combination. Ice pummeled her even as the fog thickened. The hail left streams of lines through the green mist, and Tessa thought of The Matrix movies, where the code for the Matrix descended down screens.

  Was the dark green dragon Mulk? That was the best explanation. If Mulk had come, well, she had to put on her big-girl panties and heal Steven before she dropped dead. One last effort for the team, and then he could kick the ever-lovin’ shit out of that asshole.

  But she was coughing and choking too hard to cast a spell. Even if she could utter the words, her Animus levels were dangerously low. Another spell just might kill her.

  Another few seconds and she’d be unconscious … then dead.

  A woman fell from the sky, her naked skin shredded and bleeding. Her body slammed next to Tessa with a meaty thud. It was so surreal, so unexpected, that Tessa found herself not coughing for a second. What was going on?

  Then, from behind her, a hot wind swept through. A scarlet dragon, Aria, beat her wings in mighty sweeps, clearing the poisonous fog. Aria roared, “Tessa, kill the woman. Take her Animus and heal Steven.”

  That was brutal. How could Tessa murder anyone in cold blood like that?

  But the woman shifted into her half-dragon form, scales gray. It wasn’t a civilian, but the gray dragon Aria had been fighting. The Indian Dragonsoul had gotten the best of her but hadn’t slain her. Clever.

  Tessa whipped out her left Peacekeeper and put a pink-tinged bullet in the gray dragon’s skull. Aria had taken most of the Animus during the fight, but landing the killing blow gave Tessa a heady rush of raw power. The Animus exploded out of the dead Dragonsoul and rushed into Tessa, who accepted it gratefully. Greedily. Like a starving prisoner getting a steak dinner.

  The storm wind returned, blowing out the remnants of the poisonous mist.

  Though her body was still wracked with damage, Tessa was able to mutter, “Magica Cura” as she lifted a hand and waved at Steven, who lay a few feet off. She hit Steven with the healing spell and then turned her formidable arcane power on Mouse.

  Steven blinked awake and propped himself up on his elbows, then returned the favor, whisking away the majority of her wounds with a simple word. And just like that, they were back in the fight.

  The huge dragon, though, thundered toward them. It was a dark green color, and the scent of eucalyptus leaves became stifling. Her wings were outstretched, and the claw tips smashed through windows on buildings on both sides.

  No beard, so it was a full-grown female, but how did she get that big?

  “Judith!” Mouse shrieked. “It’s Judith!”

  Yeah, that name meant nothing to Tessa.

  And Aria didn’t seem to care either. The scarlet dragon flew over them to meet this Judith behemoth head-on. She never had the chance.

  A wave of freezing cold blasted Aria out of the sky, sending her through the roof of the Aces ’N Spades Dollar Store. Before she disappeared from view, Tessa saw that ice caked her wings and parts of her were frozen solid. There was an ArcticWind Exhalant on the Dragonsoul Skill Tree, and this Judith seemed to have access to it. To all of the Exhalants, as a matter of fact, and clearly she wasn’t afraid to use them.

  With Aria half-frozen and inside the dollar store, Judith turned her next breath attack on Tessa and her friends standing on the pavement. She exhaled lightning, which struck the wet street, arcing and filling the gloomy day with a brilliant wave of blue-white sparks. She was going for an AOE attack rather than singling one of them out.

  Mouse thrust the Slayer Blade into Tessa’s hands, then transformed into an amber-colored dragon smelling like almonds roasting in the oven. She snatched up the barista in her claws. In a heartbeat, Tessa found herself swooping over the buildings, a sword in her left hand and one of her big gnarly pistols in the other.

  Steven had also leapt from the ground to avoid being electrocuted. His black dragon body was barely visible against the storm clouds. But Gideon Scaramanga could see him. The Magician had crawled out of whatever hole he’d found during the gas attack to send his crimson scimitars screaming into Steven’s wings. The conjured blades mercilessly ripped through leathery flesh, and Steven fell from the sky. Somehow, he managed to scurry into the dollar store with Judith’s flames licking at his tail.

  “Mouse, let’s regroup in the dollar store,” Tessa called out. “Take us over there.”

  The hail had stopped, but the rain continued to fall. Even over the loud patter, Tessa heard the clatter of hooves. She watched as a giant boar sped across the roof of the antique store. Butcher leapt at Mouse, trying to gore her with his long tusks. Underneath him glowed a red platform—a force field thanks to Gideon no doubt.

  Shit. How much Animus did the Magician have? He was still healing people left and right, casting magic missile spells and shield spells like they were nothing.

  Instead of shooting the boar, Tessa shifted, raised her pistol and shot the Magician. This time, her aim was true, and the Magician winced as the bullet clipped him. His spell failed and Butcher the boar went smacking into the pavement.

  Mouse ducked the pearl dragon only to crash-land in the dollar store, which had already been hit hard. The shelves were scattered. Plastic plates, knives, and spoons littered the place as did rolls of paper towels, key rings, water guns, underwear, hoodies, and rain ponchos. The place was a mess all right.

  They found Steven holding Aria, both human. Both were conscious, but pale, and Aria couldn’t stop shivering.

  “I healed her,” Steven said, “but she can’t get warm.”

  “That’s from the ArcticWind,” Mouse growled, still a dragon. “It’s part of the effect. You take physical as well as more spiritual damage.”

  Tessa put it in gaming terms. “I see. There’s the initial attack and then the aftereffects, so you keep taking damage.”

  Aria’s teeth chattered. “I … I … hate … hate … being cold! I’m from India!”

  They didn’t have time to chat. Their enemies were most likely already surrounding them. Tessa could only hope she’d killed the Magician—that at least would give them an edge. “Do we fight or do we run?” she asked, checking her chambers. She had three bullets left.