The compulsion to continue moving lifted so abruptly that I staggered. I brushed the tears and mud from my face and turned.
Robby circled to the dragon’s right, drawing its attention away from me. He moved with tight, controlled steps. Energy flowed out of him, a shimmering radiation that cloaked his body in power. He extended his arms, a glittering nebula spinning around each hand. No longer pretty sparkles, the lights burned with an incandescent fire. He raised those power-wreathed arms skyward, tilted back his head, and bellowed an invocation.
Moments before, the sky had been a late afternoon blue strewn with cumulus cotton balls but abruptly the heavens darkened. The temperature plummeted twenty degrees in seconds. Shielding my eyes against the spray, I stared upward. The soft puffs ripped into gray shreds, racing in from every corner of a tortured sky, spinning counterclockwise into a flat, boiling vortex centered on the two combatants. Lightning strobed inside its darkness and skittered across the belly of the clouds in forking shafts of brilliance. A fountain of fire spun around Robby, wrapping him in golden light. The clawing winds didn’t reach either him or the dragon. Locked in the stillness of a hurricane’s eye, they confronted each other.
A squall slammed into me, nearly knocking me from my feet. Driven by the force of the wind, sawgrass flattened against the surface of the pond. The palms bent and swayed, fronds snapped off, and tumbled away. Shreds of foliage hammered my face in a storm of needles. I had to lean into the wind to keep my feet. They must be approaching tropical storm level velocity. This powerful of a disturbance couldn’t be spawned in a matter of seconds. It was impossible.
No, it was magic.
As one last, terrible word of power ripped from Robby’s throat, the whirlwind answered. A bolt of fire speared from the vortex’s center and slammed into Shakagwa Dun. The violence of the blast painted purple afterimages on my retina. The creature’s scream rip-sawed through my mind, and then the dragon collapsed in a fountain of mud.
The wind chopped off with the suddenness of a thrown switch, and the clouds pulled apart to allow shafts of sunlight to stab through. More impossibilities. No more unreal than the fact that I’d stood in water fifty feet from a lightning strike and felt absolutely nothing.
Magic.
I blinked away the dazzling afterimages. Robby stood in a circle of blasted vegetation, bent over with his hands on knees, his chest heaving like he’d just finished a marathon. I ran to his side.
He started as my arms went around his shoulders. “I…forced…you…to…leave, Laura.” Panting breaths punctuated his words, but he straightened, pulled me into his arms, and nestled my head beneath his chin. A chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You never would do what I told you,” he whispered into my hair.
“No, not when it means leaving you to face danger for me.” I shook my head and laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical. He looked exhausted, his green eyes dull and sunken. Dark circles beneath them stood out against the pallor of his skin.
“We have to hurry,” he rasped. “Before Shakagwa Dun awakes.”
Panic squeezed my chest. “But you killed it…”
“Nay, it takes more than a single blast of power to slay a Marzinian marsh dragon, and right now, my magical reserves are too low to attempt dispatching the creature, not while I still have to protect you. We had best be far away when the beast awakes.”
He began to move, his steps as stiff and clumsy as an arthritic grandfather. I braced my shoulder under his to support his weight. A couple hundred feet away, the land rose, crowned with the row of cabbage palms and palmettos that marked the path back to the Jeep. Robby swayed, fell to his knees, and pulled me down with him.
“Will we be able to make it back to town before that thing awakens?” I staggered up, and dragged him to his feet.
Robbie shook his head, fatigue turning the motion into a shudder. “No, but I think I have enough energy for one more spell to cloak us. Once we’re back in Naples I don’t think it will be able to track us, but I fear I’ve only made matters worse. Injured and maddened over the loss of its brood, the bloody great worm will attack anything it sees.”
It seemed like a scene from a campy, Japanese, monster movie—a crazed dragon rampaging through the center of Naples’ shopping district, snapping up tourists from the bistro tables in front of Starbucks. “We have to warn someone…”
“Oh, aye. And what would your local constable say when you tell him a dragon is going to attack?” He snorted. “A terrible guardian I have been. Perhaps Procyon Bey was correct, and I am nothing but a fool. Part of my task is to prevent anyone in this world leaning of the creatures from the other side, and in that I have failed miserably.”
“No, this was my fault. If I hadn’t insisted on coming after you, then you wouldn’t have needed to protect me…” I glanced back at the bulk of the dragon sprawled in the pond. Had it twitched? Or was it just my imagination? I urged Robby into motion again. “We’d better hurry.”
We scrambled to the sandy ridge, pushed through the bushes, and onto the path. In the distance, the Jeep waited in the stand of trees, the last rays of the sun glinting from the windshield in a promise of safety.
A long, undulating shriek rolled across the swamplands.
I grabbed Robby’s hand and we ran, driven on by the sound of great, shambling footfalls in the muck of the pond. Shakagwa Dun exploded out of the undergrowth, ripping palmettos out of the ground, its tail smashing the trunks of palms aside as if they were twigs. The membrane of one wing hung shredded and blackened from the lightning’s fury. It favored that forelimb as it lurched into a gallop after us.
We wouldn’t make it to the Jeep, not with Robby’s staggering steps. The hopelessness in his eyes told me he knew, too. He clutched at me, to pull me against him for one hard kiss.
“Run, Laura. If you ever thought to do anything I told you, it must be now. I will hold the beast as long as I can, so you might escape.” He stepped away from me before I could protest.
“No, we can figure out another way…” I started, but he was no longer there.
At first I thought he’d collapsed, perhaps from exhaustion, but his body seemed to fall in on itself, shifting and flowing downward until it took on the familiar, piebald shape of Bodacious Bob. But this cat was larger than any domestic feline I’d ever seen. And still growing.
A pinwheel of energy and matter spun around the cat, flowing into him, fueling that incredible growth. He’d reached the size of a mastiff. His chest broadened, shoulders thickening with muscle that rippled under the skin. Paws as broad as catcher’s mitts and tipped with razors clawed at the sand. His back sloped down to powerful hindquarters, still topped with the now incongruous puff-ball of fur.
His head grew flatter, broader, the muzzle thrusting forward and elongating. Teeth stabbed downward like scimitars, hanging far below his lower jaw. An ancient fear awoke in the primitive part of my mind as I recognized an ancestral nightmare:
Smilodon fatalis
. The ancient terror of my Paleolithic forbearers’ nights. The death that came in the darkness to devour you.
The great head—now level with my own—swung toward me, fixing me with Robby’s pale green eyes. Words formed inside my mind.
“I have always loved you, Laura. Never forget that.”
The great predator leaped away, broad paws throwing up fountains of sand as he roared his challenge to Shakagwa Dun. The dragon slid to a halt, and settled back on its hind legs, holding its injured arm to its chest. As the cat circled, searching for an opening, the dragon’s gaze followed. It lurched around, tail lashing out like a whip, but the blow lacked power. The cat dodged clear, circled, and leaped on the beast’s back. His claws sparked as he scrambled along the dragon’s armored spine, but he was unable to pierce the hard scales.
Shakagwa Dun swung its head around and hissed. Green vapor engulfed the saber-toothed cat’s side. His fur crisped, burning away, leaving the skin an angry, weeping red. He howled, but sprang at the membranous skin of his foe’s uninjured wing. Without the hard scales’ protection, the flesh parted, the cat’s claws slashing through it with a sound like ripping canvas. The dragon’s shriek rose past the level of human hearing, until it was only a ragged pain inside my skull.
Suddenly, I realized Robby’s strategy. He sought to cripple the dragon, maiming its other wing so it couldn’t fly. On foot, it wouldn’t be able to keep up with the Jeep. He’d given me a chance to escape, but I couldn’t force my feet to move. I couldn’t look away. I was frozen, a captive observer of the deadly game of cat and dragon.
Shakagwa Dun reared back, and then toppled over in an attempt to crush its tormentor beneath its bulk. The cat sprang free and rushed in as the dragon struggled to rise. He seized the beast by the throat, and drove his scimitar teeth into the soft, unprotected flesh beneath its jaw. Powerful rear legs pumped and dug bloody furrows in the dragon’s neck. The beast thrashed. Its head whipped back and forth, and it tried to drag its tormenter from its throat with its front legs. Green clouds belched out of its mouth with each scream, settling on both combatants. More patches of red appeared on the cat’s side and shoulders, but as the venom settled on the dragon’s open wounds, its thrashing grew more frantic. The cat’s incisors tore out of the dragon’s throat, and he scrambled to regain purchase. His claws raked across the dragon’s face and slashed through a yellow eye. Maddened by the pain of its own venom turned against it, the dragon seized the cat and hurled him away.
The black-and-white body somersaulted through the air and slammed down. He hissed, struggling to his feet, moving stiffly. The burns on his sides cracked and bled as he limped, keeping out of the reach of the restless tail. Their circling brought the cat around to catch sight of me. Even at a distance, I saw fear bloom in his eyes.
“Run, Laura, run.”
I tasted panic in the mind voice.
Distracted for that second, he didn’t see the tail slash around at him.
“Robby!”
My warning came too late.
Shakagwa Dun hit him with the force of its spinning body behind the muscular tail. The cat flew through the air, plowed into ground, and cartwheeled in a spray of sand. He thudded into a palm trunk and dropped to the ground. Robby struggled to rise, but collapsed and went still.
The great, reptilian head reared back, and it roared its victory into the gathering dusk. The price of its triumph was visible as it hobbled toward the cat’s body. Dark ichor oozed from its ravaged wings. One eye was a bloody ruin, but it would not be denied its trophy. The toothy maw opened to bolt down its prize.
“No,” I screamed. “Leave him alone.”
The dragon swung its bloody snout toward me. It dragged its bulk around, its head tilted to fix me with its remaining eye. Even in the battle-scarred face, that menacing orb froze the air in my lungs. Beneath the baleful gaze, just placing one foot behind the other felt nearly impossible, but I managed to creep backward until the downed tree brought me up short.
I risked a glance toward my Jeep, hoping the tree would slow the wounded monster long enough for me to reach it and escape. But what about Robby? I couldn’t leave his body for the dragon to… My stomach lurched, preventing me from finishing that thought.
Could I lead the beast away? As long as it couldn’t fly, I should be able to stay ahead of it in the Jeep. Then I could double back and pick up Robby. I dug into my pocket for my keys.
The dragon hissed, chuffing out another spray of vapor. I twisted around, and threw up an arm to protect my face. The sleeve of my shirt smoked as droplets of venom burned pin-sized holes in it. The spray scalded the back of my hand, raising blisters. Pain raced up my arm and rattled around inside my skull. My fingers spasmed, sending my keys spinning away to land in the grass. I screamed, cradling my raw hand against my stomach.
And felt the hard, smooth plastic of the flare gun’s handle protruding from the top of my jeans.
The dragon roared. Its mouth gaped as it hissed another cloud of burning mist. I pulled the gun and fired, the flare burning an actinic line through the dark. It plowed through the aerosolized venom and exploded. The force of the blast picked me up and flipped me over the fallen tree, dumping me on my hands and knees on the other side. Flaming bits of debris rained down around me.
Grimacing, I shook charred bits of dragon flesh and bone out of my hair and peered over the log. Shakagwa Dun’s headless body reared back, thrashing, not yet aware it was dead. Muscles rippled beneath its mottled scales, and then it toppled with the force of a felled redwood.
I bolted from behind my cover and raced toward the spot where Robby had fallen, skittering wide around the dragon. The tail twitched, and I skidded to a stop. I swallowed my breath, my heart hammering for several eternities, and had to remind myself to breathe, but the creature didn’t move again. For all I knew, the beast could grow another head and rise up like an extra from a George Romero movie, but the great, scaled sides heaved one last time and did not move again.
I raced to find Robby.
Even in the twilight, it would be hard to miss a black and white cat the size of a minivan, but I couldn’t find the body. Screaming his name, I searched through the undergrowth. I came across the still form lying in a tangle of vines and dead leaves. My saber-toothed champion was once again only a small, battle-scarred kitty. Angry red burns covered his flanks, the skin oozing where the fur had been seared away. His sides rose and fell sluggishly. When I slid my fingers between his front legs to grasp his chest, his heartbeat was rapid and thready. I stripped off my shirt, spread it on the ground, and eased his body onto it. With him bundled against my chest, I raced for the Jeep.
I put Robby on the passenger’s seat and clambered behind the wheel, reaching into my pocket for the keys before I remembered them spinning out of my hand. The enormous carcass of the dragon would attract scavengers that I didn’t want to face in the dark. Neither did I want to hike back to civilization carrying the cat.