11
SAM
I inhaled sharply as the chaos dimmed behind us.
I WILL FIND YOU, the strange man boomed in my head. Somehow, I knew it was him. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE DRAGONS.
I rounded another corner in the car, and then the voice was gone. But I could still feel him behind us, a pulsing beacon of hate that slowly began to fade.
Ezra put her hand on mine. "Hey. Relax."
I'd been gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I forced myself to loosen the grip, and Ezra smiled.
"That was... something."
"Yeah, something," I muttered. I could still feel the razor-like intensity of the adrenaline rush, all of my senses heightened. Nerves frayed like electrical wire.
And underneath it all, a vibration in my chest. The gryphon inside me raging to be let free, to fight the man behind us.
Dragons. A gang name, or something else?
"Are we going back to your place?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Then turn here. I know a safer route, away from the main roads."
I obeyed, following her instructions as we wound through back alleys and apartment parking lots. Driving slower also meant less wind blowing into the missing windshield.
"I thought you said you just got to Denver."
"I did. But I always study a city before visiting, so I know my way around." She gave a nervous grin. "You know. In case we get chased by goth madmen."
I took a deep breath. "This happen to you often?"
"I wasn't joking when I said I'm a thief, not a soldier. That's actually the first time I've ever fired a gun." She shivered, which I suspected had nothing to do with the frigid air blowing through the open car.
"Could have fooled me. You looked natural with it."
She shrugged one shoulder and said, "Well, yeah. I've handled guns all my life. But I've never needed to actually use one. I prefer to avoid ever getting to that point in the first place."
Ezra glanced over, and flinched. "You're trembling!" she said, squeezing her hand on mine.
I tried to force myself to relax by sheer willpower, but that's not how these things worked. "I'm, uhh, not used to so much excitement."
"Pull over. There, by the dumpster."
"We're almost to my place..."
"Just do it."
We were in an outdoor parking lot next to a block of rich apartments. I ignored the "PARKING PERMIT REQUIRED" sign and pulled into a spot.
After I put it in park, Ezra reached over to turn off the engine.
"Give yourself a minute to relax," she said. "An adrenaline rush can have an even worse adrenaline crash. I'm feeling my own right now."
I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes, but couldn't make myself calm down. It was like every muscle in my body had contracted, and refused to loosen.
"Moving around helps."
Ezra got out of the car, and I followed.
She paced back and forth, and I tried to do the same. My legs felt numb and stiff. I sucked in the cold Colorado air and tried to steady my breathing.
I thought about her background. A thief, she called herself. I never thought of criminals as being so cute.
Just my luck, I guess.
"So what's his deal?" she said. "Mohawk-bro. Is he after this?"
She pulled the totem out long enough to show me, then hid it away again.
"I think he's after me."
"What do you mean you think? You knew who he was up in Terrance's apartment."
"Well..." I hesitated. "I don't actually know him. But like I said, I could feel him coming. Somehow."
I reached out for that sensation again, probing it the way you probe a sore in your mouth with your tongue. And I flinched, because I could feel him even stronger now. And growing fast.
"He's coming!" I said, just as a shadow blocked the sun.
If I'd thought the day was already crazy, this blew everything out of the water. The beast soaring a hundred feet above the ground was made of scales, a shade of blue so dark it was almost black. Thick legs of muscle and claw hung limp beneath his body, which was held in the air by wings so thin I could see the light of the sun through them. And a long neck like a snake's, ridged and covered with spiky horns, craned down at the ground.
Searching.
"Dragon," I whispered.
"What the fuck!" Ezra moaned. "WHAT THE FUCK!"
The gryphon within me screamed with rage, begging to be let free from its cage. It was painful, and I knew that if I didn't shapeshift I would die, torn apart from the inside-out.
"Do it!" I yelled, and Ezra knew exactly what I meant.
I felt her thumb press on the totem sapphire like it was jabbing into my neck. A sensation like relieved pressure came over me, and a whirlwind of air forced my eyes shut. And then my gryphon form settled against my bones, mirroring my human body for an instant. Then it was ripping free, shredding my skin painfully and tearing apart my muscles. I could feel every bone in my body break, my skull shattering in a hundred places as the oversized eagle's skull replaced it. My vision warped, and sharpened. Wings burst from my back, pleasure mixing with the pain, and I screamed out loud and heard my voice with two different sets of ears.
Despite the pain, it was significantly easier than it had been the first time, on the roof of the garage.
YOU ARE HIDEOUS, the dragon roared in my brain. IT WILL BE A KINDNESS TO REMOVE YOU FROM THIS WORLD.
I yearned to soar into the air, but before I could Ezra was grabbing my feathers and climbing onto my back. Logically I wanted her to stay away, to let me battle alone, but instinctively it felt better to have her with me. A comforting presence, another heart beating alongside my own.
"Go!" she yelled, and I took to the sky.
The dragon arced down toward us, too late by several seconds. He opened his jaw and fire spilled from the maw like water, splashing across the parking lot and igniting several cars where we had just been standing. He segued the dive into a curve, surging back into the air toward us.
Ezra gripped something around my neck, and buried her face in my feathers.
The threat of fire terrified me, but my gryphon instincts took over. I glided in a circle, coming around the back of the dragon before it could round on me. I dove with deadly speed, extending my four legs toward my foe. My talons struck the leathery flesh of the dragon's wing, and I screeched with ecstasy as I tore great gashes into him.
The attack only lasted a moment, a quick rending while flying past, and it was a good thing because by then the dragon had brought his long neck around to snap at me with his jaws, missing by mere feet.
"Woah!"
I beat my wings, my wonderful incredible wings, to gain altitude. As I leveled out and flew around I saw men and women standing on an apartment rooftop, pointing at the sky. Then I was focused on the dragon again, who had flown away from us to buy himself time as he turned back around, one wing bent more than the other. I flew directly at him, and he did the same, and with him inside my mind I could feel his rage in hot waves.
He was wounded. I needed to land the killing blow while I had an advantage.
We soared toward one another like two trains on the same track. The moment his jaw opened to reveal the glow of supernatural fire deep within, I dove straight down at the ground.
Even though the fire hissed through the air high above us, I felt the heat on my face and feathers as if I were inside a furnace. Ezra cried out as we dove, and I turned sideways to get as far from the painful heat as I could. I maneuvered in the air blindly for a moment, sensing the dragon's massive body above us but not knowing where he was turning next, and then another gush of fire split the air.
This time I heard screams come with it, human and frantic.
Twisting my eagle's head around, I saw that the fireball had rolled across the rooftop with the spectators. The smoke faded and then smaller orange flames flickered, deck chairs and tall plants burning with new life. One woman used her jacket to put out a fire on a man's leg, while he scrambled and squirmed on the ground.
We couldn't do this. Not here, where people could get hurt.
The gryphon inside me screeched in anger as I brought us around and flew directly away from our foe. The dragon roared, a bone-trembling sound that was a cross between an elephant's trumpet and a leopard's wail, but I forced myself to ignore it. He was wounded, and I was faster. I didn't have to fight him.
We flew north, and I felt the pulsing beacon of the dragon diminish behind.