Discount Armageddon

Twenty-four

Some distance beneath the streets of Manhattan, being held captive by a snake cult

TOOTH FAIRY DUST IS MEANT TO BE administered to sleeping children to make sure they stay asleep while the Tooth Fairy feeds. (The specific dietary needs of Tooth Fairies are irrelevant and a little bit disgusting, so I’m not going to talk about them. Even I have limits.) The standard dose, according to Grandpa Thomas’ Field Guide to Pixies, Sprites, and Other Household Pests, is a small pinch. A small pinch, as measured against the hand of something a little bit bigger than a Barbie doll. Dave had blown two full handfuls on me and Istas. At that kind of dosage, it was no wonder that when I finally stumbled back toward consciousness, I felt like I’d been shot full of curare, chloroform, and cockatrice venom.

I groaned, trying to lift a hand and wipe the residual grittiness from my eyes. My arm wouldn’t move. I couldn’t actually feel my arm. That realization snapped me the rest of the way out of my fugue damn quick, and I opened my eyes to find myself staring up at a distant ceiling that looked like poured concrete shot through with massive brass pipes. The sewers. I was somewhere in the sewers, only this time, I was either paralyzed or tied down. This definitely wasn’t an improvement over my earlier descents.

I tried moving various parts of my body. Nothing responded, but at least I was able to feel my hands and feet when I really focused on it. All my bits were still attached; they just weren’t speaking to me at the moment. I started hurriedly reviewing everything I knew about Tooth Fairy dust, trying to remember whether it had a known overdose point.

“I see one of our guests is awake,” said a jovial voice. I turned my head toward it—or tried to, anyway. All I was able to manage was the faintest twitch of the muscles in my neck. That was better than I’d been able to accomplish a few seconds before. I’d take it. “I’m sorry about the way you had to be brought here, dear. It was unnecessarily violent, and I apologize.”

I made a strangled squeaking noise in the back of my throat. Not the most effective comeback I’d ever managed. This paralysis thing was getting old fast.

“Oh, I’m sorry again—I didn’t think. Here.” Meaty hands grasped the sides of my head, turning it to face the speaker: a big, ruddy-faced man with thinning hair and a Brooks Brothers suit that definitely didn’t come off the rack. Whoever my apologetic kidnapper was, he came from money. “Is that better?”

I made the strangled squeaking noise again.

He nodded like I’d just said something brilliant. “I thought it might be. I do apologize that we had to meet under these circumstances, Miss Price. I’ve been a big fan of your work. Oh, don’t look so surprised—we’ve been keeping an eye on you since your arrival on the East Coast. It’s admirable, the way your family has pursued an accord with the unnatural races that battle humanity for rulership of our fair planet. Idiotic, but still admirable.”

If I could look surprised, I could also glare. I did, wishing looks could actually kill as I stared at the asshole who was apparently responsible for my current situation. The asshole who was, unless my instincts had gone totally haywire, part of the snake cult that killed Piyusha.

Chuckling, he leaned over and ruffled my hair. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re adorable when you’re angry? The sedative our operative administered should be wearing off soon, and then we can begin. I’m afraid you can’t be anesthetized during the ritual. It might disrupt things, and we’re dealing with too many variables as it is. As a scientist of sorts, I’m sure you understand why we can’t risk such contamination.”

I kept glaring at him. There are only two good reasons for a villain to monologue: either they’re stalling for time, or they’re sure there’s no possible way for you to escape. This asshole was apparently combining the two. He needed to stall until I was no longer a danger to his dragon’s delicate constitution, and he clearly wasn’t worried about me getting away any time soon.

The tingling in my hands and feet was getting stronger. If he’d just continue his monologue for a little while longer, there was a good chance I could surprise him. His easy dismissal of the city’s cryptid community meant that, while he might work with them, he probably wasn’t inclined to listen to them. That was too bad for him, because if there was one thing they could all have agreed on, it was that you never mess with a Price girl. Not unless we’re already gut-shot and bleeding out … and frankly, not always then.

“There’s nothing to be worried about. You’re doing a great favor for the human race. Your service will be remembered long after the actions of your traitorous family have been stricken from the record of history.”

I squeaked again, glaring. If I hadn’t already known that he couldn’t be working alone, his speech would have confirmed it; no one who couldn’t say “sacrifice” would be capable of performing one.

“I am sorry that it will hurt. I wish there were another way. Sadly, the situation is delicate…” My captor continued rambling for another few minutes, using vague and bloodless euphemisms for what he and the rest of his freaky snake cult friends were planning to do with me. I kept squeaking. Eventually, my responses stopped amusing him, and he returned my head to its original position with a jovial, “Well, I’ll just give you a little time to get your head in order,” before walking briskly away.

I listened closely to the way his footsteps echoed. I hadn’t heard any other voices while he was talking to me, and nothing interrupted the clack-clack-clack of his expensive dress shoes against the concrete. Another sign that he had to be working with a full cult: no one who had a clue what they were doing would be stupid enough to go into the sewer wearing shoes like that. They’d give him no traction at all if the place flooded.

I counted to ten, waiting for the sound of footsteps coming back in my direction. When that didn’t happen, I started trying to flex my fingers and toes, feeling very much like I’d just been cast in an unnecessary remake of Kill Bill. The tingling was getting stronger. It didn’t take long before my toes twitched in answer to my command, followed by my fingers, and then my hands. Sensation began rushing back into my skin so rapidly that it bordered on painful. I gritted my teeth, just glad that I could grit my teeth, and kept trying to get my body to respond.

The return of physical connection brought a host of information in its wake. I was definitely strapped down, not tied, since whatever was holding me in place was leathery-smooth (and given the suit my captor had been wearing, possibly real leather). I was also naked, or close enough as to make no difference, because the leather straps were pressing down directly against my skin. Three straps for my legs, one for my waist, one for my torso, and another for my shoulders. I had to give the snake cult this much, if nothing else; whoever was in charge of securing the sacrifices definitely did a bang-up job.

Someone groaned to my right. I turned toward the sound—abstractly pleased to realize that I could turn toward the sound—and saw Istas. She was strapped to a metal gurney, naked, with arcane symbols drawn in Sharpie all up and down the length of her body. The same symbols I’d found on Piyusha. Her hair was back in its sleek little girl pigtails, making the sight of her even more surreal.

She groaned again before licking her lips and whispering, eyes still closed, “Did we lose because of improper tactical behavior?”

“No.” I was trying to speak softly, but my voice came out as a whisper even fainter than Istas’. Lingering paralysis of the vocal cords, most likely. “We lost because that asshole we work for decided to sell us out.”

“Oh, good.” Istas’ shoulders tensed as she tried to move. The tension passed quickly, with no real visible effect. “I will enjoy removing his insides and displaying them to him as a part of his outsides.” She paused, considering, before she added, “I believe I will wear his liver as a hat.”

“Okay, well, good, that’s a goal,” I agreed slowly. “First we need to get loose. Then we can think about internal organ haberdashery. Can you change shapes?”

“I do not know.” Istas tensed again, the muscles in her neck visibly bulging as they twisted into a new formation. Then the skin smoothed out again as she sagged, chest moving in rapid, if shallow, heaves. “… no. I cannot.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for trying.” I could feel my shoulders again. I pulled them upward, feeling the drag as the leather straps caught my wrists. I was still feeling weak and disconnected from my body, but I could move it, and that was enough.

Growing up in my family meant ambushes on your birthday, crossbows for Christmas, and games of dodge ball where the balls were occasionally rigged to explode. It also meant learning how to work your way out of a wide variety of death traps. Failure to get loose on your own could lead to missing dinner, or worse, being forced to admit that you missed dinner because your baby sister had tied you to the couch. Again.

The leather straps were probably intended to keep us from bruising ourselves. Maybe sacrifices are like apples—they go bad when they’re bruised. Whatever the reason, leather was better than rope, since it wasn’t as likely to rip my skin off when I started squirming. I went as limp as I could, letting the remains of the Tooth Fairy dust do the majority of the work for me. By breathing out until my lungs ached, I was able to get almost a half an inch of give between myself and the leather. With this accomplished, I pointed my toes and began to pull.

I had to stop twice to breathe. The second time, I caught Istas with her head canted to the side, watching me intently. I offered her a wan smile and kept working.

Ballroom dancing teaches strength, stamina, and above all, flexibility. I gave my left leg one last firm tug and pulled my calf free of the two lower leather straps. After a pause to take a deeper breath I repeated the trick, this time pulling my right calf free. Most of me was still pinned, but now that I’d managed to get things started—

“Well, aren’t you the industrious one?” A hand slapped down on my shoulder. I tilted my head back, unsurprised to see that the well-dressed snake cultist was back. He beamed at me like a demented Santa Claus, giving a small shake of his head as he said, “My dear, you really are astonishing. It’s a pity someone with your training and potential has to … well, you can stop fighting now. It was a lovely try, but it simply wasn’t lovely enough. Boys!”

The hissing that greeted his call told me what was coming even before the first servitor came into view. It was limping, and the look it was directing toward me seemed to have more than the usual dose of reptilian menace. “I think we’ve met,” I said.

“Oh, you’ve met several of the boys,” said evil Santa, pulling his hand away from my shoulder. “It’s good to have the family together like this, isn’t it? Boys, take them to the Chamber of the Dragon.”

The servitors made sure to strap my legs down tight before they moved the gurney. The muscles in Istas’ neck bulged again when they began pushing her toward the door. That was the only visible change in her anatomy, and it passed quickly. Tooth Fairy dust must have a more incapacitating effect on waheela physiology, because I felt almost back to normal. Still a little shaky, and doubly naked without my weapons, but still, almost back to normal.

The servitors pushed our gurneys down a sewer tunnel that looked like it had been constructed and abandoned sometime in the early 1800s. The clacking of their claws and the rattle of the gurney wheels echoed off the rounded walls until it was impossible to estimate how many servitors there were. It could have been the six I’d managed to count; it could have been sixty. Not that it really mattered with Istas and me both strapped down, but miracles have happened before, and as Mom always says, no miracle has ever come off without assistance.

The room at the end of the tunnel made the chamber we’d woken up in seem small. The walls were natural stone, carved out of the rock by time and erosion, rather than by human intervention. People in long brown robes stood in a loose cluster up ahead of us, clearly waiting for our arrival. And behind them, with his massive head resting on his crossed forelimbs, slept the last of the male dragons.

My breath caught in my throat, all thoughts of captivity and impending sacrifice replaced by awe. Since the dragons supposedly went extinct before photography was a factor, none of the books or field guides came with anything other than drawings of dragons, and half the time those drawings couldn’t agree with each other, much less present a reliable picture of what dragons were really like. The number of limbs, the number of wings, even the number of heads was a subject for debate. At least one early Covenant bestiary showed the dragon as some sort of super-sized naga, with the dragon princess being nothing but a lure growing out of its tail. So it’s not a surprise that I was unprepared for the reality of what was in front of me. There was no way I could have been prepared.

The dragon’s head was shaped like a raptor-type dinosaur’s, assuming you like your Velociraptors super-sized; it was easily the size of a small car, covered in pearly green scales that managed to look delicate, despite being the size of dinner plates. His eyes were closed, but judging by the size of his eyelids, they were each somewhat larger than a bowling ball. He had hands—huge hands, covered in scales and ending in talons, but hands all the same—and a long, serpentine neck that led to the immense bulk of his body. His wings were furled like broken umbrellas along the length of his spine. There was no possible way they could have supported him … but maybe that was part of what got the dragons killed. Maybe the males were only mobile when they were young, before they outgrew the potential span of their own wings. They couldn’t start off too big, or the dragon princesses would never have been able to bear them.

His breath was slow and easy. Whatever the snake cult had been doing to try to wake him up, it clearly wasn’t working. That was almost a pity. I might not be able to sweet-talk my way around snake cultists, but I was pretty sure “I know where you can get some girls” would have been a bargaining chip worth having.

One of the servitors pushing Istas suddenly snarled and jumped away from her gurney. I looked over, and smirked as I saw the blood running down her chin. “Get a little close, did you?” I called. He turned and hissed at me.

“Now, now,” said evil Santa. “There’s no call for that sort of behavior. You’re both about to assist us with a great undertaking.”

“Um, not so much, really. Snake cults are pretty passé. Couldn’t you have joined a swing dance club or something? Not to get overly personal or anything, but you could stand to lose a few pounds, and it would be a way to meet women that doesn’t involve stripping them naked and drawing on them.”

Santa scowled. “I see that you’re not going to be reasonable. Well, I suppose we can take care of that by letting you be the first one to leave us today. Marcus! Claude! Prepare the ritual circle.”

Me and my big mouth. Two of the men in brown ropes stepped forward to my gurney and wheeled me away from Istas, toward the slumbering dragon.

I estimated the ritual circle as about twelve feet in diameter when they wheeled me into it. It was drawn onto the rough stone floor with Sharpie, and looked like it had been retraced at least once in blood; the lines were rust-brown and irregular around the edges, like they’d been working with an uncooperative medium. It smelled like a half-dozen different kinds of blood—the sharp copper-iron of human, the slightly acidic bite of harpy, and the maple-sugar sweetness of Madhura. A bubble of fury rose in my chest, making me buck involuntarily against my restraints. I wanted to kill these people. I wanted to kill them all.

All I had to do was break through a bunch of institutional-strength leather straps and kick all their asses, naked, without a weapon. Somehow, I didn’t think this was going to be as easy as it sounded—a thought that was only reinforced when one of the figures in brown stepped forward, holding a bowl of deep ruby blood between her outstretched hands. I gaped at her.

“Betty?”

The dragon princess matriarch smiled her smug little Mae West smile as she asked, “You were expecting someone else?”

“But—”

“If I helped them, they left my girls alone. I’m sure you understand the importance of family in matters like this one.” She leaned over me, setting her bowl down on my stomach and dipping her fingers into the liquid. “Besides, I have a—shall we say, vested—interest in their success. Once that beautiful boy in there wakes up, everything will change.”

“Even if he’s being controlled by a snake cult?” I spat. “I thought we were on the same side here.”

“I’m on the side of whatever wakes the male,” she said, and began using her fingertips to trace over the symbols on my body in what was now indisputably blood. Leaning closer, she whispered, “Why else would I have given you the gold? You just had to go and tell Candice that this lovely buck was down here, and she told the Nest, because she didn’t know any better. I had to do something to show them I was serious about finding him—and giving you the gold meant you couldn’t be changed, only killed. You aren’t worthy of such a transmutation. What the Covenant stole from us will be restored, and you won’t have any part in it.”

I bit back the urge to scream. There it was again: the belief that we were still Covenant, that nothing my family had done since leaving could change the fact that once upon a time, we stayed. “You bitch.”

“Yes, dear, and I’ve had a very long time to practice.” She stroked bloody fingertips along my cheeks before moving down to work on my stomach and legs. Voice back to a normal conversational volume, she said, “This one will be ready in a moment.”

“Good,” declared another of the cultists. “We’ve never had a double sacrifice before, and I need to get up early tomorrow.”

“So sorry my death is going to inconvenience you, asshole,” I said.

He glared at me. “We’ve never had a human sacrifice before, either. Are we sure this won’t set us back?”

“Oh, no,” said evil Santa, while Betty painted arcane symbols along my thighs. “Her family was instrumental in the slaughter of the great dragons back when they still ruled the skies. Her death will be a signal that we truly mean our assurances of renewed dominion—that even as the dragon serves our interests, we shall serve the dragon’s.”

“Killing me won’t wake him up!” I snarled. “Dragons don’t run on the human sacrifice alarm clock model!”

Evil Santa cast a glance at Betty, who shook her head. “She’s lying,” she said.

“Even if it would wake him, do you people have, like, no concept of how mass works?” I asked. “How are you planning to get the dragon out from under the city? A forklift? Dig a really big pit in midtown and hope nobody notices the super-mega-size lizard before you’re ready? In case you’ve never seen a Godzilla movie, let me remind you that one fire-breathing monster versus a major metropolitan area never ends well for anybody.”

“We have more than ‘one fire-breathing monster,’” said evil Santa, and waved a hand to indicate the servitors. “We have an army of the blessed.”

“Stop arguing with the little bitch and kill her already,” snapped Betty, picking up her bowl of blood and stepping back from the gurney. “I’m going to develop a migraine if I have to listen to her much longer.”

“Know your place, you unnatural whore,” said Santa, in a mild, almost reasonable tone. Betty took another step backward, expression furious—but not, I realized, particularly surprised. When she got into bed with these people, she knew what she was doing.

“My apologies, master,” she said, her Mae West voice dripping with loathing.

“Don’t forget again.” Evil Santa stepped back, gesturing for the others to come closer. “The virgin is prepared to make her glorious journey into the abyss, to carry news of our faith and earnest plea for the dragon’s support! Soon, she—”

“Wait, wait,” I interrupted, involuntarily straining against the straps as I attempted to sit up. “You think I’m a what?”

The snake cultists turned to stare at me with expressions ranging from sheer bafflement to anger. Several of them produced long, wicked-looking knives from inside their robes. The combination was just too much. Sagging back against the gurney, I burst out laughing.

The snake cultists had apparently never tried to deal with a sacrifice who laughed at them before, because my hysterical laughter threw them into utter chaos. Cultists swarmed around me, demanding to know what I was laughing about, demanding to know what I knew that they didn’t, and most of all, demanding I cut that out right now. Evil Santa seemed to get the picture, because he wheeled on Betty, cheeks going red with fury as he shouted, “You said she’d be a virgin! You assured us that she was a viable offering!”

“Just look at her!” said Betty, pointing a finger in my direction as she backpedaled rapidly away from him. “She looks just like her grandmother, and I know this family! There’s no way she’s not eligible!”

“Grandma did have sex eventually, or I wouldn’t be here,” I said, between gusts of laughter. “That’s what ‘grandparents’ means!”

Verity, are you there?

Sarah’s query came half a second before the static hiss of “telepath in range” kicked in at the back of my mind. I was startled enough to stop laughing for half a second before resuming, even more loudly than before. The cultists kept arguing. Only one of them seemed to have the presence of mind to realize that a laughing sacrifice would probably stop laughing if you killed her. The man with an early morning ahead of him started toward me, knife held in front of him at chest level. If I wasn’t going to be a cooperative sacrifice, I could at least be a cooperative corpse.

Istas’ front paws slammed into his chest when he was still four feet from me, carrying him to the stone floor. The sound of her snarls was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of tearing flesh, although nothing could have blocked his shrieks. The rest of the cultists stopped arguing, and there was a moment of stunned silence before most of them started screaming and ran for the exit. The servitors reacted better, maybe because the servitors were created, on some level, to fight; they produced weapons from inside their tattered clothing and fell into a defensive formation around evil Santa, all hissing viciously. If Istas was intimidated, she wasn’t intimidated enough to make her stop shredding the fallen cultist.

Betty backed up until her hip hit the gurney. It rocked a few inches to the side, wheels screeching, and she jumped with a small shriek. Whirling on me, she grabbed the top strap and demanded, “If I release you, will you protect me? For old times’ sake?” Her attempt at a smile looked more like a grimace of sheer terror. I couldn’t say that it was a bad look for her. “For everything I’ve been to your family?”

The man Istas knocked down wasn’t screaming anymore, although the sounds of tearing flesh continued. I wondered how long it would take her to realize that he was dead and go for a more interesting target.

“If you’d made that offer five minutes ago, I might have been a hell of a lot more interested,” I said. “How about this offer: you let me go, and I don’t call Istas over to rip your face off? She may do it anyway, but you’ll stand a better chance of running if she isn’t directly after you.”

Betty stared at me, face contorted with rage. “Why you little—”

“Offer’s not forever, Betty. Take it now, or run like hell, and hope I don’t send her after you.” Istas’ massive, shaggy head appeared behind her, almost level with Betty’s shoulder. A deep rumble started in the waheela’s throat. “Looks like the offer’s just about expired. Let me go, or Istas eats you.”

Istas kept growling, voice taking on a lilt I could only interpret as agreement.

“All right—all right. Just don’t kill me.” Betty moved her shaking hands toward the buckle on the first strap. Then she spun away, producing a pistol from inside her brown cultist robe and emptying the clip into Istas’ chest. Istas howled, and fell. Betty turned back to me, snapping a new clip into place. “You stupid little bitch,” she snarled, leveling the muzzle on my forehead. “I’ve been waiting to kill a member of your family for fifty years. And after you’re dead, every cryptid in this city is going to know that it was you who sold us out, you who told the cultists where to find us. Be proud. You’ve finally killed your family name.” She cocked back the hammer. A gun went off.

It just wasn’t the gun in her hand.

Betty wobbled, raising her hand to the bullet hole in her throat. The shot had gone clean through, missing the major arteries … but really, when you shoot someone in the throat, the major arteries are sort of extra credit. With blood running through her fingers and an expression of utter perplexity on her aging Mae West face, Betty fell, revealing her shooter. Candy stood behind her with soot marks on her face and throat, wearing nothing but a cheap cotton slip, the kind that doesn’t really need to fit to render you decent. She had both hands wrapped around the pistol grip, and their shaking was visible, even from a distance.

“I didn’t know you could shoot,” I said inanely. Candy forced a wavering smile, which fled as several of the servitors went for her, blocking her—and that entire side of the cavern—from my view.

I tried bucking against the straps holding me down, to no avail. The telepathic static was still there, and getting louder. “Sarah?” I shouted, trying to think it as hard as I could at the same time. “A little help?”

We’re on our way, Sarah replied. Candy ran ahead. Are you hurt?

“Not yet!”

We’re almost there. Try not to die.

“Wait, ‘we’?” I bucked against the straps again, trying to get a look at Istas, who hadn’t moved since Betty shot her. “Sarah, what do you mean ‘we’?”

There was no response from my cuckoo cousin. Whatever was standing between us, it was distracting enough that she wasn’t bothering to talk to me anymore. Cultists were running everywhere, and Candy was shouting in the sibilant language of the dragons. It was impossible from my position to tell whether it was doing her any good—but since she was still shouting, rather than screaming while they ripped her to pieces, I was willing to say that it wasn’t doing her any harm.

Shouts rang down the corridor connecting the dragon’s chamber to the room where Istas and I had been brought first, and several of the cultists that fled in that direction came running back like their robes were on fire. I bucked against my straps … and actually slipped upward about an inch. All the blood Betty poured on me before Candy shot her was working like a lubricant, making my skin slippery and making it easier to move against the leather. No one seemed to be coming after me for the moment; I guess with Candy shooting at people and a couple of corpses on the floor, I seemed like the least of their worries. Flexing my feet as hard as I could, I began pulling my legs free.

Working my legs out of the straps was surprisingly easy, now that I was covered in gore and no longer actively worried about being sliced up and offered to a sleeping dragon. I yanked them loose, paused to take a breath, and dug my heels into the base of the gurney, starting to pull myself downward. The blood-slick metal beneath me offered little resistance to the movement. “Amateurs,” I muttered, and twisted my head to the side, slipping it under the strap that had been fastened originally across my shoulders.

With my head free, things got much easier. The band across my chest was loose enough to let me get my hands unpinned, and then it was just a matter of fighting the blood-soaked buckles on the sides of the straps until they came loose. Any inmate in an eighteenth-century asylum would have been able to do it easily. I had a bit more trouble, but compared to what I’d already done, it was a cakewalk.

I slid off the gurney, almost stepping on Betty before I managed to get my balance back. The fight was still staying mostly on the other side of the cavern, so I paused to do the sensible thing: looting the dead. Between Betty’s unfashionable brown robe, the gun she’d been carrying, and the knife originally held by the cultist Istas took down, I was slightly better prepared to fight my way out of the sewers.

Betty’s gun still had three bullets. If I needed them, that would have to be enough.

Istas was sprawled where she’d fallen, still in her hulking canine shape. I crouched next to her, feeling the side of her neck for a pulse. It was steady. I slid my hand down to her chest, where the bullets had hit her; there was very little blood. She might be in shock, but thanks to her physiology, she wasn’t in danger of dying. “I am so asking you to let me give you a physical when we both get out of here alive,” I said. Istas didn’t answer.

I stood, scanning the room for an idea of the direction we’d need to flee in. There were several tunnels leading in and out; presumably, at least one of them would lead to the surface. The servitors were focusing their attentions on Candy. Wiping the worst of the blood from the soles of my feet onto the dead cultist’s robe, I took off running in her direction.

“Verity! On the left!”

I spun without hesitating, shooting the cultist who’d been charging me squarely in the chest. Two bullets left. His eyes widened in surprise, and he fell, momentum carrying him past me to land in a crumpled heap on the floor. It wasn’t until after he’d stopped moving that I realized who’d warned me—Sarah—and that the warning had been verbal, not telepathic. Eyes wide, I turned.

Dominic De Luca was standing at the entrance to the room, flinging knives at cultists with clinical precision. Those he wasn’t impaling had problems of their own, in the form of Ryan, who’d abandoned his human shape for something a hell of a lot more intimidating: a seven-foot-tall raccoon-man with talons longer than most kitchen knives, really sharp teeth, and the ability to block attacks by turning parts of his body into stone. Those were some cultists who were having a seriously lousy day.

Sarah was standing behind Dominic, her eyes so white that at this distance they seemed to glow. One of the servitors charged at the pair while Dominic was throwing a knife in the opposite direction, and she raised her hand, palm-out. The servitor promptly froze.

“What the—”

He can’t remember how his muscles work. I can’t hold him for long. Now go help Candy!

“On it,” I said, and took off running, slowing only to shoot a servitor before he could smash a lead pipe into the side of Ryan’s head. Candy was still shouting, her commands starting to take on a pleading, terrified note. I kept running toward her, elbowing a cultist in the throat and vaulting over two bodies before plunging into the knot of servitors surrounding her. Several of them were on the ground, bleeding from a variety of inexpertly placed bullet wounds. Three had moved to stand between Candy and the others, hissing and clicking furiously. Those had to be the ones she’d talked around to her side. Four others were trying to claw past them to get to her.

“I am so fucking tired of fighting with Sleestaks,” I grumbled. I only had one bullet left. I aimed at the nearest servitor, fired, threw the gun aside, and charged.

We were making a lot of noise. Between the screaming, the shooting, the rending, and the tearing, we were getting close to loud enough to wake the dead. Since that isn’t actually possible without some very complicated ritual magic, we managed to achieve the next best thing. One of the servitors went down with a final, ear-splitting shriek after I stabbed it in the neck, and then the Voice of God—or at least the Voice of James Earl Jones as God—came rumbling out of the darkness, so deep it seemed to shake the ground beneath our feet:

“What is going on here?”

The servitor that had been attacking me hissed and cringed back, posture turning subservient. Candy stopped shouting, the gun slipping from her hand to clatter to the ground as she stared with wide eyes into the space behind me. I turned.

The dragon looked at me.

“Oh,” I said faintly. “Hey, Candy, guess what? I found the dragon, and he speaks English.”

Candy whimpered.